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Comment Re:Fuck those guys (Score 1) 569

They could always try a telephone or bullhorn and ask some questions including permission to enter.

So let me get this straight. I have been kidnapped in my home by a lunatic who threatens to kill me if I try to call the police or escape. I manage to call 911 for help, and your suggestion is that the police call me back or ask permission to enter so that the kidnapper can make good on their threat to kill me.

Or... none of that happened and it's just a swatter dickbag!

OTOH, if the police response to your call is to flatten the whole place with a bazooka, you wouldn't fare very well either.

Comment Re:Buggy whip makers said automobiles aren't... (Score 1) 451

One question in my mind is not only what the computer recognizes, but when it recognizes it. If a kid and/or dog runs out in the street without warning, there's no doubt that a computer can react faster than I could. But I might notice that there are a bunch of dogs and/or kids playing on the sidewalk and adjust my speed and alertness accordingly. Can the computer do so? If not, it's not ready.

Comment Re:Buggy whip makers said automobiles aren't... (Score 1) 451

I expect it'll become mandatory after a couple of people who set their car to "manual" kill pedestrians or other drivers. People are far too unreliable to have behind the wheel if we have a better option.

Until the self-driving car kills people. Even if it really is a better option, it's going to be hard to make it mandatory in the face of "Killer Car Kills Family" stories on the news.

Comment Re:Vice Versa (Score 1) 274

That's really my problem. As an American, the only languages I'm even exposed to are English and Spanish. And I don't know many people who speak Spanish, and the ones that do also speak English. So, my only incentive to learn Spanish is to overhear what the people in the grocery store are saying to each other.

Comment Re:My experience with bilingual people (Score 1) 274

A country the size of America where everyone speaks the same language? What a huge advantage. There are hundreds of millions of Chinese people who don't speak the official language. How many wars did Europe have because they couldn't communicate with each other?

Actually, I suspect several wars started BECAUSE the people understood each other.

Comment Re:Co'on (Score 1) 667

If that's true, how the hell are people in America going to communicate with the rest of the world who speak English?

What I mean is, while Germans and Chinese are communicating effectively in English, because their brains can parse accents and different grammatical patterns, if an American can't even understand what a Londoner is saying, how do they have any hope to communicate with anyone other than an American? They'll have to start teaching "Understanding Global English" as a foreign language class.

Based on some TV from the other side of the ocean, learning German might be easier than understanding British!

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