RainFlutter

"SL5 until 2021" really means "bugfixes and security updates only," of course. The future of the technology is stagnation.

5% would mean that for every 20 pages viewed on the Internet, advertising is leading someone to make a purchase. I can't imagine that ever happening no matter how fantastic the ads are. Don't think of it as a percentage hit rate; think about how that number fits into the way we use the Internet and live our lives.

But this is exactly his point. Only in mobile devices is 3 years considered old to the point of irrelevance, and Android is far worse, closer to 3 months.

It can be justified on technological or economic grounds, but either way, environmental sustainability considerations clearly don't enter into the equation.

A general system expansion slot would make a lot more sense. Think the RAM expansion on the N64. It'd be silly for each new game to have to provide its own extra processors or RAM in its own (expensive) cartridge, and console piracy is close enough to dead already.

The dude thinks neutron stars and black holes are unfindable pseudoscience. You could legitimately claim that there are better ways to interpret the evidence for those phenomena, but claiming that there is no evidence only demonstrates how confused he is about the field.

This site doesn't get past a first-pass bullshit filter, which is why nobody's investing any more of their time on it.

Do you understand how many people come up with "theories" out of left field in exactly this fashion?

Well of course it's the best selling phone. Apple bets the entire platform on a single phone; Android has a panoply of options competing against each other. If the iPhone were being consistently outsold by any one of the various Android models, that would be a sign that something was going seriously wrong for Apple.

That article merely demonstrates that statistics will tell you anything.

Oh, I see.

That would be interesting if it were possible. I'm not sure how you would manage it, though. Scientists already have an implicit incentive not to throw their careers away on unimportant research, and one of the major problems leading to the whole "publish or perish" trend is that it's really just impossibly hard for anyone who isn't directly involved in a narrow slice of research to evaluate that slice effectively, while anyone who IS involved in that narrow slice of research probably can't evaluate it objectively.

But some kind of prediction market or 'kickstarter' type model might do a better job than the grant model in figuring out how to dispense limited funds...? I'm not sure how you'd get it up and running with credibility and authority, but it's interesting to think about.

The fundamental point underlying science and basic research is that it's generally not possible to know the value of knowledge before you, well, know it. Your perspective is extremely shortsighted.

If humanity only invested in projects of "measurable value," there would be no computer programmers, because there would be no computers, because we would not understand physics, because physics requires esoteric mathematics, and what good did fiddling with numbers ever do for anyone? No measurable value whatsoever!

You're basically paraphrasing the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.

"A good historian will use the fact that he can't divorce himself from his own viewpoint as a reminder to be extremely cautious. A bad one will use it as an excuse to indulge his particular biases."

I'd say this is also true in the broader sense of how a person chooses to live in an inherently muddled world. You can take obstacles and confusion as a call to action and vigilant reflection, or you can use them as an excuse for giving up and accepting mediocrity.

The point is that there are wonderful parts of life other than cottages on lakes, and while you're working harder for those 10 years you are to some extent missing out on those parts of life, because there are only 24 hours in a day.

While you're focusing on that one month at the cottage, those people on their death beds are reflecting on the other 11.

Physics is so unbearably sexy. It's a cave and an office and a research facility and they're shooting signal beams of particles through the earth with giant tunnels bored through the planet and filled with pipes and lights and equipment. Nobody else does these things! Well, except maybe high reliability data centers.

To me it sounds incredibly petulant and defensive, especially considering that it basically contradicts the "always connected" header which it's footnoting.

~Always connected! ~PS OBVIOUSLY this computer will not ACTUALLY be always connected in the REAL WORLD, what were you expecting

Really weird of them.

I don't know how you reconcile your opinion with our obvious and painful dependency on oil and all the conflict that results. Do you really think that matters "very little"? Where do you think the good infrastructure comes from?

Yes, education and infrastructure determine the heights an economy can reach, but without raw materials you have no economy. That's why it's worth fighting over.

"Raw resources are no longer the main basis for our economy"

It's fashionable to talk about information- and service-based economies, but that's not evolving beyond raw resources; it's merely taking them for granted. We consume ridiculous amounts of raw resources. Just look at what happens every time the price of oil rises.

I suspect that much of the trouble with this is twofold; a) 'very rare cases' has this habit of becoming commonplace in practice, and b) who other than the accused could reasonably determine whether he is being defended to his satisfaction? You could posit "defense" attorneys whose interests lie in subverting the process.

In short, you say you don't see any huge problems, but that sounds a little like Fermat saying he can't fit a proof in the margin. I suspect that if you look further you'll start seeing problems :p

You have to keep in mind that "nanotechnology" as a concept is not that useful in outlining applications and how they're engineered. You could equally well define refrigerators, wheels, motor vehicles and chairs as "macrotechnology," right? But that's not giving you any insight into the problems that are being solved.

There will be some areas of research where Intel's photolithography improvements are relevant and others where they're completely orthogonal, like repairing human tissue. That's just how these things go. :)

This is huge. Maybe their implementation will take off and maybe it won't, but either way this is a tacit admission by the WSJ that the WikiLeaks model will be a serious part of what it means to commit journalism going forward.

All of the lawyerly caveats have to be taken in context of that you have a major US media organization now following in the footsteps of a widely disparaged and isolated vigilante organization. This is just standard CYA protocol.

These are wonderful and thank you for showing them. The images speak more powerfully than simply saying "yeah LSD helped me out."