Holy crap the video is impressive. It clearly parses phrased and dependent logical statements like " what is the population of the capitol of the country in which the space needle is located. " It alos parsed paragraph long multi-part questions. I was floored.

As for homophones, how do you (human) recognize them. Well you parse the logical context. If you are doing single word dictation homophones will always be a problem but for queries there's context. And the demo shows this thing can handle some staggering conditional contexts and long phrases. So I would guess that if your query is not ambiguous in the use of the word Waze, then this thing is approachi8ng a level where it will indeed get the right homophone.

Here's how it *really* works:

First, realize that the largest two companies who hoover up H1-B visas are... companies HQ'd in India. Infosys and Tata, to be specific, who combined swallow the vast majority of the visas. They in turn offer their 'consultants' to companies like Disney on a contract basis. This in turn means that Disney actually pays way less per head... here's why:

* The contractor status of each H1-B means that Disney no longer has to pay the 401k/insurance/regulatory/etc costs that they would have to pay an employee, thus cutting their base cost per head by roughly half.

* To comply with your assertion (which is correct, BTW), Disney pays Tata/Infosys something like 110% of the typical posted (not actual, but "posted") salary for the job per head, thus fulfilling your requirement, but still saving Disney roughly half the cost per head or more, depending on what they were paying the guy that the H1-B replaced.

* Tata/Infosys in turn pay their 'consultants' a pittance - say 50-70% of what they get - which generates profit for them.

Now you may be thinking that the consultants are victims, but in reality they're not: In return, the H1-B 'consultant' comes here, busts his ass, and tries like Hell to find a means to stay here permanently. He doesn't mind the pittance, because he's after the opportunity to stay on after the contract is up. Failing that, he is still infinitely more marketable job-wise back in India once he returns, so it's all upside for him, in exchange for busting ass here.

2.3M isn't much for even one supersonic research project. 2.3M for 8 is 300K. That's less than the cost of 2-engineer years at most companies. If they need an actual lab forget it.

The voltage curve for most Alkaline batteries hits 1.3 volts after about 20 to 30% of it's usefully extracable energy. then the curve flattens out dropping the next 0.3 volts to 1 volt after about 70 to 80% of the energy after which is drops like a rock.

So if you could reclaim that 80% energy that might seem like 4x more or a total of 5x energy recovery. But the boost to 1.5v takes the energy out faster so in terms of time rather than energy recovery the lifetime is not increased so much.

let's make some guesses and see where that gets us. Assume that there is a 0.2 volt diode drop somewhere in the system--- this seems pretty likely for any active circuit. So that means it's effectively boosting to 1.7 volts then the diode takes a cut. I can't do the integral in my brain so lets assume that the mean voltage it is boosting from is 1.1volts. So going from 1.1v to 1.7 volts means it is extracting about 33% more current than is actually in use. Thus it seems like this thing is going to suck down the battery pretty fast.

So yeah it recovers all the energy which might be 5x a normal 1.3 volts cut out. But it wont last 5x longer cause it takes a big cut.

And damage rechargeable batteries by draining them below their safe discharge threshold.

Also why would anyone make a bluetooth keyboard without a proper boost converter that can run down to the alkalines minimum voltage!!!

Because the device can't tell whether you're using an alkaline battery or not, and if you run a rechargeable battery down to an alkaline battery's minimal voltage, you'll permanently damage the battery.

I doubt they could charge him with a sexual offense, given the statute of limitations.

Note that there is a difference between the actions of an individual that the rest of the party had no clue about, and the actions of an individual that the rest of the party comes rushing to the defense of.

Hastert is most certainly the former - dude does something criminal/stupid long ago, but the rest of the party has no clue that it happened. Note that no one credible in his party is defending his actions, pre or post.

There are however plenty of examples of politicians in a certain other party that have committed outright crimes, yet are hotly defended by their party at large.

It's a pretty big difference.

They didn't charge him with the sexual crime most likely because the statute of limitations ran out on that a very, very long time ago. So... they'll settle for nailing him with this.

I get that, but why target the money when you can instead target the illegal activity, and point to the money-laundering activity as evidence thereof?

IIRC, the original 1980's-era laws were only interested in transactions $10k or greater. The Patriot Act addiction/enhancements were to use semi-regular transactions of under $10k as 'structuring' (that is, to try and close the workaround of, say, withdrawing or depositing substantial amounts under $10k on a semi-regular or regular basis.)

The overall effect is to make you a felon if you cannot fully account for (and prove!) where you got or spent the money. The mortgage payment? Yeah - easy to account for, so you're not a felon. Taking money out on a regular basis to support a pricey hobby where you don't keep all the receipts? Now you're a felon if the Feds decide they want you to be one. This is why it's a bullshit law - it can be very easily abused by the first federal prosecutor who has a hate-on for you, and by the way, happens to know that you throw around a lot of money that you don't have all the receipts for.

This - especially in Western Oregon, where doing that indoors without adequate ventilation is just begging to be plagued with black mold, dry rot, and worse.

OT: I'd lay in a shitload of 3/4" conduit from room to room, and from a central closet/location to all rooms (in case I wanted to put in some sort of server). Terminate each with a blank wall-plate until/unless I needed one for something. That way I could always upgrade any wiring. The rest is simply fungible at this point.

Err, not really. Some of us have dogs (makes dealing with dog crap easier, and gives them an open area to play on). Others of us have kids (which are usually happy to have something relatively soft to play on). A few others of us use grass as actual pasture for small livestock such as goats and sheep (at least out in rural areas). And, as you pointed out, grass clippings make great compost.

Agreed with the rest, though a funny thing: the house I live in was built in 1905, yet the porches are perfect for shading out summer sun but letting in winter sun... and unless you're a septuagenerian or older, the porches are the same age as the house - older than the two of us combined. It also has a central HVAC setup built in where the fireplace/chimney used to be, making heating and cooling highly efficient throughout the house. The only thing we really had to do was insulate the crap out of it, and replace a couple of old single-pane windows still in-place with triple-paned ones.

No it shouldn't. If gender is a predictor of ability then the probability distributions are BY DEFINITION not independent. If therefore you use the knowledge of gender after evaluating ability then you are treating them as independent variables when you combine them. This is mathematically bogus.

Actually, that's just mathematically simplistic. Here's what your reasoning does not account for: There are leanings, abilities and competencies that do not exist in isolation from other influences. Gender can be one of those. Therefore, to the extent that affect is possible, it is a valid consideration.

It could be a positive for either sex.

For instance, the air force has definitively determined that females are significantly better at maintaining more comprehensive situational awareness in complex aerial situations. This is because of a real world gender-based difference in information processing.

On the other hand, if one was hiring a bouncer, the competencies lean strongly the other way.

There will be outliers, of course, but that's why we need to think about these things rather than operate by rote. The law, unfortunately, but needfully (due to blind prejudice), specifies decision by rote. This is why many parts of the decision making process have gone missing from public view.

See here