I hope it doesn't get edited. I enjoy the tangents and showing off of research (though I'll agree that the baroque cycle overdid it a bit). That's what makes his writing unique compared to other authors in those genres.

In my opinion the tangents were what made the books awesome. I particularly loved Tourings bike chain timing in Cryptonomicon, followed closely by relating the crew served machine gun to sawmill machinery. The bit where they come up with a complex algorithm to divvy up inherited goods on a 2d graph and use time on a supercomputer to calculate who gets what was also pretty good, though not technically a tangent.

If you liked snow crash and diamond age, you'll probably like anathem.

I've been listening to anathem on audible and enjoying it greatly. I've actually started leaving for work during rush hour, since it means I get to listen for an extra 30 minutes in order to arrive at work 5 minutes sooner. win-win.

I've been listening to anathem on audible during my commute. I'm about halfway through and so far I'd put it up there with Snow Crash and Diamond Age (though I don't recommend it if you're not the sort of person who can intuitively guess the approximate meaning of a new word).

I loved those parts when he goes off on a long nerdy tangent like that.

252mph in a straight line. Unless they're drag racing or on a course with lots of long straightways where that speed is actually obtainable, I'd imagine the low end torque from the electric car will probably help keep the average speeds pretty close.

You missed the point I was making. Yes there's a loss in one field (e.g. automotive assembly lines). But as a result of automated assembly lines, there are gains in other fields (e.g. Anything having to do with supporting the infrastructure that makes cars and car manufacturing possible).

Yes, that's a good distinction and actually what I had meant to say. I had assembly lines and factory work in mind while I was typing the comment.

I think you need to work on your comprehension skills and/or re-read the thread again. You're awfully hostile over what probably amounts to a misunderstanding. If you're not advocating buying a needlessly expensive watch just to tell the time, then there's no disagreement here.

When I was getting my degree, I had to take an "ethics" class geared towards CS students. Towards the end of the semester, we started discussing AI and how morality may or may not apply to it. The half of the class who had actually done some machine learning and had backgrounds in AI got really annoyed with it because 100% of the hand wringing in the assigned reading was done by philosophers and "futurists" with horrible track records.

The worst part about it is that to someone who's actually worked with this kind of stuff, the doomsday people look about as silly as that one senator who was afraid an island might tip over if they landed too many marines on one side of it. It's just so stupid that it tends to put one at a loss for words on how to even begin refuting it.

I don't really see this as being a problem. It might temporarily displace some people when some new kind of automation replaces something (and change can be scary), generally the same advancing technology that caused the displacement opens up opportunities elsewhere.

The easiest kinds of jobs to automate are usually the most menial. Generally the automation of those kinds of jobs will cause the market to open up new job opportunities elsewhere. e.g. automating an automotive assembly line will initially displace those workers, but it also makes cars a lot cheaper, meaning more cars and more demand for the infrastructure to support them (roads and road maintenance, fuel, mechanics).

If you're getting a $350 smartwatch with a battery that barely lasts a day "just to know the time", then I really don't know what to tell you.

If they just wanted the time (and maybe some useful stopwatch and timer functions), they'd get a $12 casio.

It's profit based in a system where there's no incentive to lower price, and lots of incentive for people to rack up huge bills with no immediate consequences. Someone could run crying to the doctor because they have a cold, demand every test and scan in the book be run, and it's less than $100 in co-pays with insurance. It's easy for them to rationalize it becuse "this is what I pay all this money every month for and I want to get the most out of it". The insurance buracracy doesn't really care as long as all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed, but the accountants notice rising costs and make it harder for people with legitimate issues to get tests run next year.