Comment Re:Nonsense. Again. (Score 1) 432
Or should that be, "Hay! it worked for Sigfried and Roy!"?
Out on the motorway it gave ample warning of a police car approaching on the opposite carriageway. The LEDs slowly went from green to yellow to red. In theory this gave plenty of time to check the speedometer or stash any mobile phones that shouldn’t be in use.
Last time I was pulled over, the speed limit dropped from 65 MPH to 45 MPH in a couple-hundred feet, and the officer was parked 100 feet past the 45MPH sign. Relying on an approximate range to the officer wouldn't have helped in those circumstances.
Because Canada is apparently filled with horny adolescent fantasies.
La Femme Nikita
LEXX
Andromeda
Can confirm.
"First they came for the Tea Party, but I did not speak out because I wasn't a fiscal conservative."
Hint, neither are they.
Flynn, an ardent libertarian, thought that as early as the turn of the millennium, private industry would be ready to offer all kinds of spaceflight services that the general public would rush to buy, such as FedEx delivery anywhere on Earth in 90 minutes.
Right now, there's simply no market for that kind of delivery, and launches are not able to be set-up and made in that short of a duration either.
There's literally almost nothing on this world that is both so unique as to exist singularly and so instantly-needed potentially anywhere to justify the expense of launching that one thing into a suborbital flight on a rocket for delivery. Between warehousing of goods and relatively rapid transport of things by-air, just about anything the size and mass of a car can be transported to anywhere in the world in about a day.
If there were a market for delivery faster than that, I would expect surplus military supersonic jets would take up that market. Get something the size of a human being anywhere in the world in under twelve hours.
Unfortunately we can see how supersonic really isn't in demand; the Concorde never saw its fleet expand beyond its initial, tiny order, and when it was retired from age and design flaws rearing their ugly heads there was nothing to replace it. If anything would justify instant transportation it would be passengers, not cargo, and if there simply aren't enough passengers to keep a fleet of fourteen flying, then I don't see how Flynn's dreams were in any way close to reality.
He also stresses that Microsoft will continue to invest in and value "fundamental research".
That's a load of bull. Just about every company that's had significant research institutions and has closed them down has suffered long-term from that choice. Xerox, Bell, IBM, and several others in telecom/computing alone have done this and suffered the consequences.
Fundamental research is what drives long-term profit. Sure, it costs money. But it also produces patentable products that can revolutionize the market and allow the company to profit from patent licensing even when they aren't interested in the market that the patent would apply to. Get rid of the research and the company's products go stale over time, no new ideas, rehashing of existing ones to the point that someone with new innovation comes along and steals away all of the customers. Short-term it might make more profit, but long term it's like selling one's investments for cash.
This is a terrible mistake for Microsoft.
Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation?