I wonder how these self-driving systems are going to deal with wildlife or even domestic pets running wild. It's fairly common on my commute to see deer grazing along the roadside just a few feet from the pavement. I typically slow way, way down and creep by as they'll walk right onto the road if the mood strikes them. Getting enough test-cases for the software could be difficult.
Let me get this straight. He claims his system has correctly called every presidential election since 1984. But he predicted a win for Gore in 2000. He says that was correct since Gore won the popular vote. In 2016, he called the election for Trump. And that too is correct even though Clinton won the popular vote. Okay... Sounds like someone is "moving the goalposts" to suit their model...
What I found most interesting was that it was right in the middle of London. You'd think that his bunker would be out in the countryside far way from the attacks of the blitz. But then again, I guess he needed to be close to the politicians and the decision-makers. To me, it looked like after the war was over, they all just got up and walked away...
Yeah, there's no way to prove these claims. But since The George is near the Globe and was active in Shakespeare's day, it's fun to think he might have had a pint or two right where you're sitting!
"Question to landlords: does rent control hurt your bottom line?" Of course. If rent remains constant and every year the cost of other factors such as insurance, upkeep, salaries of employees, etc. go up, eventually, the bottom line will be negative.
I'm a big believer in index funds and have been putting my money into them for a long time. But... you have to wonder where this is all ending up as more and more people move to passive index funds. The power of the market is based on millions of individual opinions on the price of a company's stock. On average, over time, these collective opinions will be correct. But say in the extreme case, it got to the point where all funds were invested passively, we'd lose this pricing mechanism. Individual stock prices would not reflect the true value of a company. Instead, the price of each company's stock, healthy and sick alike, would just rise and fall in synch with the market as a whole. But then perhaps this would be self-correcting as sophisticated investors would notice the pricing errors, create managed funds and the cycle would start anew...
"What's wrong with native apps?" Can you even imagine having a native app for everything we do today in browsers? An app for each Credit Card I hold. A native app for each news site I read. A native app for every social media site. A native app for all the map searches, directions, etc. we all use. Security updates? Nightmare. Multi-OS support? forget about it. We'd all be back to a Windows monopoly. No thanks.
"Higher wages were necessary, Ford realized, to retain workers who could handle the pressure and the monotony of his assembly line."
So in Ford's case, he was simply paying the going rate. Supply and demand. The lower wage wasn't enough to keep the workers he needed in his revolutionary assembly line. People spin this all the time to say things like: "He increased the wage so his workers could afford to buy his cars" But if it were as simple as that, he could have tripled or quadrupled their wages so they would buy even more or at a quicker rate.
Agreed - These are even worse than the dual-taps. It looks like you can get warm water out, but as you said, when you put your hands under the tap you're getting independent streams of very hot and very cold water. Strange (and painful) sensation!
This dual-system is one of the things that drives me crazy when in the UK. Oftentimes you get a sink with two separate taps, one hot one cold. So if you want to rinse your hands with warm water, you turn them both on and quickly move your hands between the two. If you're too slow, you get scalded!
Regarding federal payroll taxes, i.e. Social Security and Medicare, it's not accurate to lump these in with other taxes as they are basically forced-savings. And due to their progressive nature, low-income individuals will get more out then they ever put in.
Cough. According to Wikipedia[1] - "Nominations for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize closed just 11 days after Obama took office." That must have been a busy 11 days doing diplomacy...
I'm really, really impressed with the amount of work that goes into making these tubes and can understand why he's selling them for around $150, but what I don't get is how he can compete with the nixie tubes that go for under $10 on eBay. Are his better or more reliable?
Agreed - The arrogance in the article really turned me off to what might have been some valid points. I read it as: "You simpletons don't have a clue. I know the answer to all the problems". This guy is probably a real "joy" at cocktail parties.
It's not that easy. What if the MPAA, Playboy, etc. send file filenames to Google and say "It's illegal to link to this file and if you do so, you are willingly and intentionally violating our copyright" Is that really what we want? It's a slippery slope when courts make these rulings without really understanding the impacts.
Techdirt has a good writeup on the new ruling. One of the good points made on Techdirt, is regarding search engines which are obviously for-profit. How in the world would Google keep from linking to material which is violating someone's copyright?
Does anyone else remember using a hard-copy terminal? It's hard to even think about how I would edit, compile, debug and run programs where everything you typed or was echoed back, including passwords, was printed out on a paper roll. Want to look at your command-history? just grab the paper and look. Of course there was no fancy vi screen-oriented editor. We had ed and liked it!
Strangely enough, I live in the Willow Creek neighborhood you selected. For me, living on the opposite side, it would be just over a two mile walk. And for the most part, it's a very pleasant walk through a park-like development of mature trees, creeks, playgrounds, a school, etc. The last section is not too bad either with cross-walks, lights, etc. And the Google map is a bit out of date. There's a new condo development just a block or so away from the station. But for me, it's a moot-point as my commute is in the opposite direction...
If you're in Kansas City, the wreck museum is a great place to visit. The amount of goods retrieved from the wreck of the Great White Arabia is just astounding and serves as a window into the trading goods of the early American frontier. It's a true time-capsule of the 1850's.
One blurb from the book that stuck with me was the notion that in theory, accessing an external hard drive half-way across the world via a pure fiber connection could be quicker than accessing an external hard drive on your desk via copper. True? I don't know, but he thought so at the time.
Yep. That's the first thing I though of when I started reading this article. Twenty years ago? Wow. Time flies. And while I enjoyed this Arstechnica article, I quickly came to the conclusion that Stephenson is a better writer. Dormon didn't even mention the sharks that plague the undersea cables! If I recall, for some reason, they like to chew on the cables.
I used Field Trip for a while and really liked it when walking around in an unfamiliar city. As you say, as you went along, it would point out interesting facts, landmarks, etc. Then I noticed that its focus seem to change to "You're near Hardees! Here's a two for one coupon!" I deleted the app and never tried it again.
The equation is pretty direct. When the cost of an employee is greater than the value the employee brings to the organization, something has to change or else the organization goes out of business. I'm not familiar with Sheetz and Wawa, but maybe these companies felt that the novelty or accuracy of Kiosks brought additional customers in, justifying their expense even with a low labor cost. Other companies may not have felt so. But now that minimum wages are being pushed higher, these companies are going to re-evaluate the cost vs. value equation. When the local Dairy Queen in Fresno, is forced to pay a High School kid a rate of $31,000 a year to hand out soft-serve ice-cream cones, you can bet that the owner is looking at self-serve options...
I recently saw these at several fast-food outlets in New Zealand and Australia. Worked fine and there was less chance of a screwed up order. As the article says, this is a direct consequence of raising the minimum wage higher than the market rate. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction...