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Comment Longevity = the answer (Score 1) 481

Some egg laying related chemical change causes the female octopus to die after the breeding cycle is complete.
I have never heard of any of the many assorted species of octopi to be long lived - please correct me if another know differently?

If this process can be halted, there seem to be a number of species of octopus that might develop intellectually to rival man, since they already seem as capable as many lesser species like crows and monkeys - to a degree, as the life media differs so.

I wonder if there have been any training trials with octopi? I suspect there have been. some links
http://bit.ly/1yFZ4Vk

I think there is a need for some research into the life cycle to see what can be done?

Comment Re:Know who to sue (Score 1) 167

Yes, the facts should be checked and once the truth is known, the proper action taken. This can range from full re-instatement of the job offer to confirmation of academic fraud. As it sits, it appears that someone who lost out on that $350,000 job decided to poison the waters, and it worked. Be a good idea to inspect those on that short list...

Comment A giant sucking sound - will be the last thing (Score 1) 126

many companies all over the world hear as their business goes down the drain.

Traders in the distant past found good far far away, in distant lands and imported them to USA/Europe etc and often made huge profits. By control over sources by distance or contractual right or a royal decree, these traders became the huge mercantile traders of the olden days, when stuff went by camel or sailing ship etc.

Fast forward to the era of the container ship, computerized customs clearing and full information via the web. You can now order a 10 pound amount from Alibaba for $10 a pound, delivered to your door by UPS for $100 plus local freight and the small duty (under 5%). The local guy who used to buy 10,000 pounds and import it, store it and break it down to 10 and 25 and 50 pound lots to buyers is totally screwed. He can no longer ask for $30 per pound - or more. repeat this with the 5000 differnt products he imports to his warehouses and sells and hie reason to exist vanishes, along with his employees, his warehouses etc.
All that remains is a container yard and each container holds hundreds of pre-sealed and addressed boxes, with all import papers done online, with each imported earning the complete trust of US customs by never making an error in prior inspections of random boxes = very low cost and delay in the process.
This is part of the great commercial leveling that is underway (and has been underway for the past 50 years, with electronic communications and container freight and relaxed trade barriers).

So stuff gets cheaper, jobs here go away, and jobs in other places happen. The only way to fix this it we all get the same wages for the same work all over the world - which is slowly happening. After all, why should guys in China work for less than we do? we are all men and women of equality?

Comment Specialization wins (Score 1) 392

Tech jobs want specialists in the product, be it hard or software. We live in the age of specialties, since few people can master all tech knowledge. Management should be equipped for critical thinking, by nature or by hiring the needed skill. If a specialist and his friends start a high-tech venture, surely they will hire lawyers, accountants and other non tech specialists? The markets will require a prospectus, which begets lawyers and financials, which begets accountants, and as the company grows a hired cadre of people will emerge with all the needed skills because market feedback will ask questions that rewuire those specialists to answer them.

Comment What is needed to make flying cars viable. (Score 1) 107

1 The ability to park a car, high in the air, and not have it move a millimeter until desired and to consume no energy in that state.
2 the ability to fly at zero speed and maintain position and consume no energy
3 the ability to control the position and velocity of any flying car with precision, so you could have them fly in rows in different directions in the equivalent of lanes in the sky - OR, the ability to control the exact position and speed of a car, all the way down to parked in the air.
4 power used = function of speed, as it is with road cars.

Until we can do this, the idea of a huge flock of cars, all dependant on wings with lift to stay in the air or helicopter/gyrocopter blades to stay in the air is impossible. No self flying car could do it.
The ability to 'park' in the air and use zero power.

I recall the pulp magazines of the 30's and 40's with cities surrounded by enormous flocks of flying cars as a joke until we have full spatial control of position and velocity and zero energy lift to keep them up there

Comment Automakers = conflicted (Score 1) 120

Every stolen car, and every damaged car = $$ for the automakers for a new car, as the cost of parts is so high that a small amount of true damage = writeoff. or for the repair network for damaged parts.

Better security has been easy to implement for decades, but has not been implemented due to this conflict of interest.

Secure handshake key fobs are the way. Hard wired into the computer so they can not be bypassed or copied.

Comment Re:Finally! (Score 1) 502

What if a third party, of the other country, who has a contract that they will only release evidence if so ordered by a court of competent domain. A US court will not be a competent athority to order a non resident alien corporation to cough up the data. They could also have the data encrypted by a third party, with the decryption key not under Microsoft's control, who will not release the key if Microsoft reveals they have been ordered to reveal it - in which case once microsoft has revealed the court orders existence, the third party can cite that as a duress and not reveal the key.

Comment Re:What a fatuous, nebulous piece of crap??? (Score 1) 161

Horrible? No they worked quite well, in fact so well that they caused the over priced Apples to lose share to the same systems made by others with lower cost parts.

What apple did was fail to make sure a profit came back to Apple from each clone sold, via that hard wired dongle I spoke of. That way only a true OS buyer could use it = Apple gets its profit.
Look at Microsoft, built on sales of the original OS and the descendants.

Apple is lucky it came out with the series of products it did. It is still a very small player in computers over-all, 2-3% share of that market, but it has 100% of the Apple market, but the X86 market has hundreds of players, most small, so the Apple stand alone % looks higher than many.
A good measure would be measure x86 sales from AMD and Intel and deduct the Apple portion.

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