120 years passed between the start of the first industrial revolution and the start of the second. Only 90 years passed between the start of the second and the start of the third. I think the gap has now shrunk to the point where the start of the fourth (widespread use of robotics, digital manufacturing, dramatic extension of human lifespan) is actually overlapping the tail end of the third.

I find it interesting that the ordering of judges on the "Most human humans" list is the exact opposite of those on the "Best human judges" list. So the more robotic a judge appeared to others, the better they were able to recognize the true bots in the games. A great example of "it takes one to know one".

180 out of 212 is ~89.1%

The report says that devices in Japan have a 0.04% chance of being infected. If China and Russia are "10,000 times more likely" to be infected then that would give them infection rates of 400%, which seems unlikely.

In fact the report states that the rate for Russia is 41.6% making it "only" about 1,000 times more likely than Japan.

The title of this article claims that being a blogger in Vietnam could cost you your life. But the only person to lose their life was a non-blogger who set herself on fire in protest at the new law. So a more accurate title would be, "In Vietnam: Being a Blogger Could Land You In Jail. Setting Yourself On Fire Could Cost You Your Life".

Apparently you have led either a very short or very sheltered life.

"Juliet Marine Systems [...] says it is the world's fastest underwater vehicle"

Except that it's not an underwater vehicle. It's a surface boat riding on two underwater pontoons. Not much different from a hydrofoil in structure. So they've built a surface boat that is faster than any underwater vehicle, something which is true for thousands of boats already in existence.

A couple of teachers who have run into students on the street ended up in improper relationships with them, so the New York City Department of Education is preparing to ban teachers from using any sidewalks which are also used by students.

At my place of employ the IT department's mouths are firmly glued to Microsoft's teats. It doesn't matter how slow or inadequate the product is to our needs, if it comes from Microsoft it's gotta be the best, right?

If for some reason MS doesn't make a product that we need then we go with the most monolithic, unresponsive corporate behemoth which does.

There's been a lot of pressure lately to support Macs, which must have scared the bejeezus out of IT. But now that Apple is acting more and more like Microsoft, I think they're starting to come around.

I expect that a very large percentage of drivers are infringing on other companies' patents. Make the driver open source means exposing yourself to IP litigation. Only the larger hardware companies are going to be willing to spend the $$ necessary to audit their drivers and expunge all foreign IP.

IMO we need to get rid of software patents before this will take off in a big way.

This seems to be a fairly common mistake in reporting on the NIF. "Ignition" is the term NIF uses for having the resulting fusion generate more energy than the beamlines deliver to the target. However, much more energy goes into generating the beamlines than ends up getting delivered to the target. So even after they have achieved ignition, they'll still be a long way away from true break-even.

Is the submitter a time-traveler, or was zie just expecting the /. editors to take a week longer than they did in posting the submission?

From way back in April.

The article argues that IT is destroying more jobs than it creates and does so by pointing to total job growth in the United States, which was positive in each decade from 1940 through to the end of 1999, but negative in the first decade of this century. I don't know if this is an accurate portrayal of the argument put forward by the authors of the book, but if so it's flawed to the point of uselessness.

First, it assumes that all job gains and job losses are due to IT, which is clearly not true. Teasing out the effects of IT on total employment is extremely difficult, but essential for establishing any sort of causal relationship.

Second, up until 2008, US job growth in the previous decade *was* positive, to the tune of about 4%. While not a stellar performance, it does still represent growth in jobs, not decline. It is only the massive job losses since the recession started which leaves the decade as a whole with a small decline in total employment.

All that the article has shown is that recessions cost jobs and that big recessions cost lots of jobs, which isn't exactly news. It says nothing at all about the effects of IT on employment. Unless you think that IT causes recessions.

It can be useful to look at the situation the other way around.

Let's say that the company you work for is worth $10 million. In other words, someone would have to offer the owners $10m to buy it from them. Let's further assume that the 7k increase that the new job offers you is 10% of your current salary.

Here's the question: If a potential buyer offered to pay the owners of your company an additional $1 million (10% more) if they cut some staff, including you, would they take it or would they reject it out of loyalty to you?

If they'd take the $1m and dump you then they have no loyalty to you so you owe no loyalty to them in return.