roc

Fair enough. Yet the question remains: can you meaningfully lower arrests/convictions that resulted from stop-and-frisk, by changing the laws regarding the particular charges that are brought? If it's about a 'fishing expedition', then decriminalizing marijuana might dramatically drop drug charges, but not move net arrests much, as officers simply find something else.

What I wonder is how many people were originally detained/investigated because of the WoD, but arrested/prosecuted for the non-drug offenses. (i.e. resisting, gambling, tax evasion, etc.)

Unless you know why these people were in front of the cops to begin with, you can't speak to whether any given policy change will or won't affect arrest or imprisonment rates.

e.g. Stop-and-Frisk is a War on Terror policy, but regularly results in weapons and drug charges. Are the people ultimately sentenced for those offenses in prison because of weapon or drug laws, or anti-terror laws?

Recirculating cabin air is plenty for skunk. Even economy American cars -- that no-one would confuse with exceptional engineering -- do just fine keeping the stink out.

I know exactly what you're saying; that stuff would drive me crazy in his podcasts.

I figured out he was just very much biased toward things that are exciting. Things like the moon landing being fake, or bigfoot being real, etc. And while he gave that stuff probably too much benefit of the doubt, he isn't immune to evidence or rationality.

For instance, Bigfoot and the moon landing conspiracy stuff are now dealt with in a politic "I personally can't disprove it, but it seems pretty unlikely, and all the evidence tends to come from people who are thoroughly full of shit".

And since the SyFy show, he seems to take a much more skeptical view on new assertions.

Except when it comes to Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, et al. They still get a lot of slack. But even then, he tries to steer it toward the tangible archaeological/geological data and away from the woo-woo conclusions.

The problem of "more capability" is that everyone has a smartphone in their pocket. Any interaction that lasts more than 2-3 taps, or 2 seconds, is a failure because the user would have been better served by retrieving their phone. (niche "phone not accessible" situations notwithstanding)

The right answer to wearable tech is less interaction. The value has to be in the device presenting you the right 1-second functionality at the right time. (ala notification triage, Apple Pay, and the laundry list of Home Kit integration that's still TBD)

> Any reason they can't be installed trivially?

Capsule size. The last I saw the pod designs, passengers are all reclined cockpit seats that aren't going to have a whole lot of elbow-room, let alone any chance to stand. "Holding it" is an option, but it caps trip time at an hour or so. Past that you're going to be hosing down an awful lot of capsules.

Lobbying is like any other organization of man: government, organized religion, corporations, unions, non-profits, etc. Once they get to a certain size, once people are supported solely by the organization and thus put their need for it to exist and grow and flourish above even its stated purpose, it can (and seemingly inevitably does) become corrupt.

Lobbying on Net Neutrality, done by a bunch of technology workers passionate about the issue is fine. Lobbying on Net Neutrality by professional lobbyists (selling their rolodex) and corporate lawyers, who donate, wine/dine, hire nephews, host fundraisers, etc is not.

It's pretty clear which version people are talking about when they complain about lobbying. (Hint: less to do with reddit, more to do with K Street) And professional lobbying is pretty much inherently corrupt.

I think a lot of the social stigma will go away as smartwatches proliferate. And the wondering of "what are these things for?" will get easier to answer as the Internet of Things builds out.

(To say nothing of weirdness like required phones, maybe-a-day battery life and not-always-on-screens -- those will be gone in a generation or three.)

But at the end of the day, all wearables will be primarily about fashion, for most people. Just as every other thing people wear is chosen, primarily, for fashion.

Not really. The problem is that "we're far" is ambiguous as to what we're far from.

Are we really far from our origin? Or are we really far from the destination?

In the absence of a complete statement, people tend to insert their own bias, which can lead to confusion.

I would like to be able to query device status and issue commands from across the internet. So some other device in my home will be acting as a 'hub'. So direct access sounds redundant at best, and more likely just a nightmare to configure and maintain.

(Change your wifi network or password? Have fun updating a dozen devices. Get a new phone or watch? Have fun pairing to a dozen devices.)

Beyond that, from a security standpoint, I'd rather smart devices didn't all have direct IP access. There are enough security concerns with the Internet-of-Things. Mitigating large swaths of those concerns appeals to me.

It's also worth remembering that proven reserves are thought of in the context of current and projected global population and consumption. The thought experiment begins with a "post-global calamity/collapse" situation, in which the total population is much, much smaller.

So even what we currently think of as "small" or "negligible" deposits might be more than enough for productive use within the now-smaller population.

Markdown is primarily for writerly writers with workflows. That's where all the benefits accrue.

That's where it matters whether mark-up is done inline with content creation, or whether it's a post-pass process of fiddly buttons and menu options. That's where it matters whether the mark-up is lightweight, or overbearing. That's where it matters whether formatting is treated consistently from one piece of software to the next, or a constant surprise. That's where it matters whether the resulting file is locked away in a proprietary binary format, or not. Etcetera.

If you're building a proprietary end-to-end service -- for editing a little bit of text, storing that text, and then displaying that text -- whether your solution incorporates markdown is, at best, probably irrelevant.

Designing a 2015 smartwatch to fit the expectations of dumb-watches feels more and more to me like designing a 2007 smartphone to fit the expectations of the blackberry crowd (physical keyboard, removable battery).

The digital crown looks like one such mistake. Swipe-to-scroll is so natural, particularly at this point, that moving back to an indirect method of scrolling seems just wrong. And doing so on a device that's already touch, and already using swipe-to-scroll, feels twice and wrong and unnecessarily confusing.

I understand the intent and the goal, but the inconsistent use of the crown -- if it's so great, why can I still swipe to scroll at all? -- is a tell. It would have been better to simply detect swipe-to-scroll along the right edge of the bezel (if not along the right side of the frame itself) to effect "scrolling without obscuring".

Four-ways-to-click (crown-click vs tap vs force tap vs tap-and-hold) is an eyebrow-raise-er all its own.

Also: displays should be wider. At fifty- to one-hundred-percent wider the display would be far better for notifications and would make the selection of A/B buttons more clear and precise.

The next time you get a notification on your phone, rest your phone on your wrist, so the notification is displayed roughly where a smartwatch would sit. Ask yourself whether that notification would still "work", if it were crammed into an Apple Watch-sized screen. Some certainly do. More can be made to work alright, if font size were reduced. IME, most simply don't work.

There just isn't enough room to get enough meaningful information onto a screen that size, in a comfortable font size, for me to make good decisions about what can be ignored and what should be addressed.

You can mitigate this problem if you can ignore all messages of a given type (e.g. don't even bother getting email alerts on your wrist). But even if you could do this, it would be better if you didn't have to. A screen that enables better decisions would make for a more useful object.

I don't "get" the "Watches save you from distractions" pitch at all. It only works if you're willing to ruthlessly pare down the notifications that you receive. (else your wrist buzz as much as your phone) And, further, you have to be ready to admit that most of the notifications that remain usually don't require immediate response from you. (else you'll just be wasting time trying to respond via watch, or pulling out your phone for a proper response)

If you're in a place where these things can be, or are, true, you can change the settings on your phone and be done with it.

I'm surprised at everyone's insistence that smartwatches ape the physical sizes and shapes of traditional watches. It strikes me not unlike past insistence that smartphones needed to have physical keyboards and removable batteries.

Every declared and hypothetical use for a smartwatch would be better-served with a larger screen. Something this side of a pip-boy, to be sure, but at least twice as wide as the display on the Apple Watch. (Increased internal volume for battery would more than make up for increased screen size.)

If everyone was still wearing watches, trying to slide in on familiarity might make some sense. But watches have been on the decline since even basic cell phones began to spread. I understand you have to make something people are willing to wear. But making it familiar, at a cost to its ability to do everything people might want it for, is a short-sighted mistake.

This is the correct answer if you live in the US. Tokenization is massively more secure than stripe and signature. As long as the phone isn't notably less convenient than your card, you should want this.

The size certainly makes sense, if driverless technology turns cars into mobile living rooms.

If you're not driving, the entire "sporty" side of the styling and image are out the window. Limos aren't "sporty" and no-one cares. They care that the limo is comfortable and luxurious.

Once you've accepted the conceit that Facebook will say and do whatever has the best return, it's hardly incongruous for Facebook to hitch a ride on a free, positive PR train.

The only incongruity is on the part of people who believed Zuck when they have plenty of data that they shouldn't.

> "in politics and journalism, plagiarism remains a serious, even career-killing charge. So why is it any different when it comes to jokes online"

This is just a bad comparison.

The difference between the two cases is that the people stealing jokes online aren't professional comedians. The correct comparison to the average person stealing a joke online is to a professional politician who ... steals a joke online. Telling jokes isn't in their job description so it's considered something they do in their spare time. And unless your hobby crosses a line and reflects poorly on your profession, no-one cares about your hobby.

However, if you're a comedian stealing jokes (online or off), the charge remains a very serious and career-damaging charge. True, no-one particularly cared about a random twitter parody account stealing jokes but that's because it's also not a professional comedian's work. (Or at least not identifiable as such.) If that account were unmasked as the work of a professional comedian, we'd see a much different reaction.

As to the content mills and people reposting content without attribution -- that's its own problem, larger than jokes.

> "The justification for having them doesn't really apply to self-driving cars anyway."

Because self-driving cars will be in constant contact with some central digital infrastructure that will be tracking everything ("for quality control purposes") and the authorities can far more easily and effectively tap into that data than place license plate readers along the roadside. Tying the "session" together between purchasing information (that's already centralized and freely accessible), car route, and user history, is a piece of cake.

> "it's as though they are posting not to show people stuff but to get people's approval for what they are posting"

Which is generally how the average westerner has behaved for generations. They don't acquire and desire clothes, music, books, movies, ideas, hair-styles and gadgets solely based on best personal fit. They acquire and desire based -- very heavily -- on the opinions of those tribes they admire.

(And while teenagers and young-adults are far more susceptible to this sort of "fashion", older folks are far from immune to it.)

> "The hackers have released at least nine batches of data and promised a larger quantity on Christmas."

That's why it doesn't make sense as North Korea. Their accepted motive goes as far as THE INTERVIEW, which was dodgy-enough to begin with, but which has already been shelved. Why would North Korea be threatening to release more information if their goals were already met?

Ignoring the rhetoric, the actions here looks much more like garden-variety data-ransom. If "their demands" were "x-million USD, don't contact the feds", then everything makes sense. Wiping the data. Only mentioning THE INTERVIEW after the press seized on it (misdirection and increased pressure on Sony). Actively promoting the tastiest bits of leaked data to the press. Releasing more as further deadlines pass without some unnamed capitulation (that's larger/different than simply shelving THE INTERVIEW). Having The Big Bad Deadline for a large future release.

That the US Government is publicly on-board with the DPRK theory also doesn't fit an actual "hack by North Korea" situation. The US Government gains nothing by naming perps, which is why they almost never do it, not even after the consensus opinion of third-party researchers makes an inescapable conclusion. If the perpetrators actually were North Korea, the US government would stand to lose more than most times, as we're currently trying to lure the DPRK back to the six-party talks. (A subject much larger than Sony Entertainment.)

That attribution would make perfect sense if the government is coordinating with Sony, but has to try to convince the hackers they aren't involved/competent/two-hops-away, etc. Given how cozy the US press is with the US government, I wouldn't be surprised if they were knowingly pushing the "it's totally North Korea" angle in the service of the investigation.

> "Apple and Google already solved the UI problem"

Have you seen any demos of these systems? Because I thought this as well until the video evidence began to mount. Both CarPlay and Android Auto are slow, laggy and overly complicated solutions. And that's before we account for both systems' odd reliance on cloud-driven voice navigation. And that's without trying to account for the frankly-unlikely notion that people will fish their device out of their pocket/bag, and physically plug it into their car, with any regularity.

Both Apple and Google's efforts are attempts to cram their existing platforms into a use-case where it isn't needed and it just doesn't fit. It's akin to Microsoft trying to cram kbm windows onto a tablet. That is not the way forward for car manufacturers. That's not the way forward for anyone.

The primary desired integrations by the user are: being able to listen to the audio that's on their device and exchanging voice with contacts on their device.

Even turn-by-turn is a thing that most people, most of the time, don't need. And when they do need it, the odds of having their own car, or a car in which they had any choice on the underlying in-dash technology, are low. Niche groups might select a car/radio and regularly plug their device in to attain these features -- just as niche people suffered various iterations of Windows Tablets over the last decade. But there will be no widespread adoption or use.

What's needed is an update to bluetooth [1] and dash designs that acknowledge mobile devices by providing a universal mount and some signalling method that can shift those devices, themselves, into a "car mode". So 80% of the time, 80% of people aren't mounting anything and are having a better experience.

And when they do want some device feature, they don't need to hunt through the purchase process for various possible mounts, suffer fiddly installs and then live with obscured dash controls.

So I see every reason in the world why Ford would need a competent in-dash solution above and beyond simply supporting CarPlay and Android Auto.

As to why Ford would want a QNX solution with wi-fi, for-pay turn-by-turn, etc? Fleet sales / rental services.

[1] improve the audio handling. improve the pairing situation. voice command pass through.

> "assuming it can emerge from bankruptcy and state management"

Assuming? http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/05/detroit...

Edit: I'm downvoted for pointing out that the exit is all but finalized and thus "assuming" is an unnecessary qualifier?

Though you were joking, it's worth noting they're certainly not discriminating against robots. They're discriminating against your robots.

Which is to say: they're perfectly willing to let your crawl-able content and internet use help train their robots, they just don't want their crawl-able content and internet use to train your robots.

> "That was Microsoft coming late to the party."

Late? They threw the party. Damn near a decade ago.

Somewhat of an aside, but:

If you're a self-directed learner passionate about a subject nothing about a classroom holds you back. [1] It sets a minimum pace for acquiring new information, it sets a minimum domain of concepts and to some degree it will influence the order of the first few concepts you'll have to tackle, if you concede to only tackle the subject when the class begins.

I'm endlessly bemused by the repeated assertions of self-identified "passionate", "self-directed" learners that an organized class is some sort of jail cell from which their (self-identified) considerable curiosity and talents cannot break free.

If you are actually passionate, if you are actually self-directed, it may put a crimp in your process for about a week or two until you're so far ahead of the syllabus that keeping up with the topics as-covered in class is no more an obstacle than setting your learning aside to cook or do laundry.

Sure, it can still be an annoying distraction. But it's not a particularly notable one. It's certainly not a pen or a leash.

[1] Slower learners can certainly be harmed by classroom schedules. But one would expect the self-directed and passionate ones would have recognized their predicament long before they entered college and thus realized they need to tackle subjects before they sign up for credit-hours.

If the ISPs were on-board with an acceptable compromise, they'd presumably not lobby strongly against it. The decision would likely stay in the land of wonks and be largely ignored.

So why would Obama turn that -- getting what he wants (or nearly so) -- into a highly-politicized position, essentially guaranteeing that it's strongly fought, blocked and/or legislated away in the next session?

There's no up-side for him or the hypothetical acceptable compromise and a huge down-side risk.

And given how many years the FCC has avoided this issue, and insisted on preserving the farcical distinction between "communications" and "information" networks, I see no reason to be optimistic about the terms or lifespan of any compromise short of Title II, regardless of what has leaked.

Even if something workable were agreed upon, it wouldn't be likely to last any longer than previous compromises -- such as the FCC's last stab at Net Neutrality, or the short-lived DSL open-access rules.

> "My question to Obama is: why now?"

My guess? The FCC is probably close to deciding and Obama knows which way they're leaning. So he wants to build some distance between the DNC and the FCC, before the FCC inevitably announces they're going to let the ISPs do what they will.

If Obama says nothing, Net Neutrality will continue to be a sub-headline issue even if/after the FCC allows it to die. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the DNC in 2016.

If he says something now, the reactionary portion of the GOP will take the opposite position as a knee-jerk response. It will become a larger news item and the GOP will have inherited the fallout. Inasmuch as anyone notices, it will reflect poorly on the GOP in 2016.

That he didn't say anything prior is probably either because the FCC only recently notified him of their position, or he wanted to avoid any blowback on those democrats who were already running tough mid-term re-election races in conservative districts.

It's popular to suggest this is a symptom of the paltry entry-level storage -- but I think that's naive. People's storage use expands to the capacity of their device. Even if the entry level was 64GB, Apple would see this effect. [1]

As these devices are increasingly sold to people who have never plugged them into a PC running iTunes, the storage problem is exacerbated: without being able to dump everything to a (cheap) external drive, users agonize over which memories to delete and many simply balk at the entire process. And this isn't just a problem with updates: people struggle with this during regular use.

So what we have is really two problems: no space to update and no way to simply/effectively/cheaply archive device data. So what is needed are two solutions:

1. Apple needs to reserve storage space for updates. [2]

2. Mobile devices, in general, need a PC-free way to bulk-archive data. Cloud services are great and all, but people are far more likely to walk into a Best Buy and pick up an external drive, than they are to find/vet/pay for Flickr. And even if they're willing to pay for the service, most are not willing to pay the hosting fees for the quantity of digital memories they're creating. And if you can't save everything, you're just back at the same problem of asking people to explicitly cast memories into the void, and they just won't do it. Not happily. Not willingly. And they'll resent every instance where they feel forced.

We're well past the point where the value in this arrangement was obvious.

Why iOS devices, in particular, can't talk directly to Time Capsules (for device backup and a local media archive) is beyond me. It's particularly curious that Apple is ignoring the situation, given that they don't seek to profit from being a cloud provider, and would stand to make a decent chunk of change from putting a Time Capsule (or three) into every iOS home. They could even leverage the AppleTV as yet-another-viewer of this home-archived media and sell a few more of those.

I know it's popular to assume this is all inevitably going "to the cloud". But there's simply too much data being collected. People marvel at how much data is being uploaded to Youtube/Facebook/Instagram/etc. But for every picture or video uploaded to those services, how much data did that one user capture that they didn't upload? And then consider how many users are capturing similar amounts of data but never upload anything.

The growth rate of data capture is far exceeding the growth rate of bandwidth and the affordability of "enough" cloud storage. It's going to be years and years until cloud storage is "there". There's a huge opportunity in the interim.

Beyond iOS, I don't know how every storage vendor doesn't have their own android solution to the problem. Solving this problem can sell an awful lot of hard drives. That you're explicitly selling the safe archive of precious memories is going to mean you can sell a higher number of RAID solutions as well. And the growth rate of captured data means you've got a huge market for selling additional/newer storage devices to your installed base.

[1] Desktop users don't fill multi-terabyte hard drives as often, only inasmuch as they don't connect high quality data capture devices. Hand a person a DSLR or a GoPro and they'll fill every drive they buy. Mobile devices fill more-quickly, more-regularly, largely because they all have high quality cameras built in.

[2] The updates themselves probably should be smaller at this point, but you'd always need room for a full restore anyway. So shrinking the update sizes is really only a bandwidth concern and can't lead to a reduction in the reserved space.