Comment Re:WHY WHY WHY GO TO WEST AFRICA???? (Score 1) 475
No good deed goes unpunished. How can you help people who mob hospitals and loot things like bloody mattresses and other infected waste?
No good deed goes unpunished. How can you help people who mob hospitals and loot things like bloody mattresses and other infected waste?
First, it has nothing to do with Alibaba's IPO and everything to do with Apple's new one touch payment.
How so?
ChromeCast isn't exactly setting the world on fire.
It's the #1 best-selling electronics device on Amazon, and I believe it has held that spot continuously ever since it was released. It's also one of Best Buy's top sellers. Every non-geek I know who has one loves it. I don't know if that equates to "setting the world on fire", but it's been pretty darned successful.
While I'm a big fan of open source, that approach has real and obvious problems.
The problems show themselves just as much in software as anywhere else. e.g. People would much prefer to create new code than do code reviews or write tests, so defects in open source software linger around for a decade or two.
Exactly. The approach does have a lot of benefits, but there are some negatives as well.
Both Windows (7) and Linux (Ubuntu 14 and Crunchbang). The problem with the UI isn't with window managers or other technical parts; it's the design of the UI. The way an excessive amount of buttons are seemingly randomly slapped together in a toolbar.
Meh. I don't think it's that random and in any case I have no trouble whatsoever with finding the buttons I need on any platform.
The way dialogs and popups don't follow platform styling.
Who cares? Okay, so it's prettier if it follows the platform styling, but the style has no impact on usability.
The way it defaults to a multi-window environment.
This is only a problem if you lack a good window manager with proper focus-follows-mouse behavior. On Linux, I prefer the multi-window environment. It's much more flexible, especially if your workflow includes needing to interact frequently with other apps.
"no" is the answer, if you use legal definitions of 'free will' (or concepts similar to in practice)
Cite?
ook, we're just going to have to agree to disagree about how actually feasable what you describe really is...it's just so far out there...it really is, from an engineering and psychology perspective, about as likely as humans being able to travel across the whole universe and through time
Nonsense. There is a fundamental difference between something that is barred by the laws of physics and something that is perfectly possible, but just beyond our current ability. Oh, it's possible that we'll discover new physics that make supralight and time travel possible (it's even possible that the same discovery will enable both), but it's more likely, I think, that both are simply disallowed by the laws of nature.
Construction of brains, however, is incontrovertibly not barred by any physical laws... because it's done many times every day.
if what you describe ever really is even on the horizon and we see that it may be done, then, IMHO, we can have a reason to have this debate for real
I don't think it's far off at all. I suspect that we'll understand and be able to construct artificial intelligence before we can replicate a human brain, but I don't think either is more than 100 years away.
idk if humans would even still be 'human' in an evolutionary sense by the time we could do what you describe
It's perfectly conceivable that we'll have achieved sufficient mastery of genetic engineering to begin modifying ourselves in non-trivial ways by then, so you may be right. But this, also, is not so far away.
This is why soccer (European football) is so much better to watch. No commercials. The game plays until the time runs out.
Instead of a 1 hour game of football (American), it runs to well over twice that amount, not including the pre and post pontifications.
Here's the way pro football works. Flip the coin to decide who kicks off. Go to commercial. Come back from commercial and have kick off. Four seconds elapse then play is ended. Go to commercial.
Have first three plays of game. Go to commercial. Punt ball away or get second series. Rinse and repeat.
If I can't otherwise have sewage treatment -- yes, definitely.
And the 10,000 other, similar, issues? There are lots of things that need to be done but no one really wants to do. If the solution is that everyone must do those things themselves then we lose much of the advantages of specialization.
Yeah, but... only odd numbered versions don't suck...
This sounds needlessly complicated. Let's just each do what we can for others in, say, seven hours on four days of every week, and leave the rest to our leisure.
So... you're suggesting that we apply the open source notion of "everyone works on what interests them" to all productive labor? While I'm a big fan of open source, that approach has real and obvious problems. Are you going to volunteer to maintain the sewage treatment plants?
Because in civilization no one would dare think to use a knife, steel pipe, baseball bat, wrench, box cutter, hammer, screwdriver, ice pick, awl, straight razor or any number of commonly found items to use in a robbery.
It's only guns you have to worry about.
I can just about manage to get things done in GIMP, but it's not a pleasure; the UI is an utter mess.
On what platform?
I find that GIMP's UI is just fine with a proper window manager. On OS X it's very painful, though, and I would expect the same on Windows (dunno, I haven't used Windows in about 15 years).
So this is in effect, a way of bypassing the carriers? If not, then would we need to have Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile branded LTE-Direct spots?
I sure see this as a way for warehouse-like stores like Ikea and Costco to offer cell services and have a captive portal for web users (and potentially voice users as well - ugh).
But what is preventing a rogue actor from setting up their own LTE direct hotspots and MITM-ing a large group's entire communications? Especially if said actor were doing so with tacit approval from the carriers?
Actually, they made it COVERT. They have other ways of finding your real name. Like, say, automatically parsing your emails. Or buying your name from the telco which provides your phone service.
You're assuming that getting your real name for their own use was ever Google's goal. I see no justification for that assumption. Even if you assume that Google cares to know your real name, those other options aren't new.
Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way. -- Henry Spencer
