It's sort of cool, I guess, but I don't see the benefit of actually building physical robots rather than running a simulation. What has been achieved in the real world doesn't seem to have any practical application, even as an advertising gimmick or a work of sculpture.

I can't imagine sending out 100,000 of these gadget to do the half-time show at a football game, for example.

I didn't sense that this was just the beginning and that the same devices that self-assemble predetermined shapes could, with more advance software, harvest wheat or perform laser surgery.

When they reach the point where the simulated behavior actually has some real-world utility, THEN it makes sense to build them.

The one I built out of several dozen 12 volt DPDT relays I bought on Cortland Street? To be honest, it had no memory and no stored program, all it could do was multiply 5 bits by 5 bits... but I called it a "computer." I had the devil of a time powering it because my 12V DC HO-gauge train transformer couldn't supply enough current. Thank heaven for #6 ignition cells.

It's a real problem, because Wikipedia's trustworthiness depends on its verifiability policy. Everything in Wikipedia is supposed to be traceable to a reliable source. Unfortunately, Wikipedia itself has become so trustworthy that supposedly trustworthy sources are becoming too uncritical about trusting Wikipedia.

Back circa 2004-2005 a respected editor added a statement to an article saying that Rutgers had been originally been invited to join the Ivy League but had declined. This interesting, plausible, and credible statement was in the article for a while, but was eventually challenged.

The editor originally had trouble providing a good source, but eventually came up with a newspaper article in a New Jersey newspaper, one that would usually be considered a reliable source. Other editors were inclined to accept, this, until one of them realized it was a fairly recent article, contacted the reporter, and asked for the reporter's source.

The reporter replied that he had read it in Wikipedia and used it (without attribution).

Now, it's not clear whether or not the statement is true. The last I knew, the editor said he had gotten it from an old issue of the "Targum," the Rutgers University newspaper, which would probably have qualified as a reliable source, but since he was unable to provide volume, issue, date, or page numbers, the statement was not verifiable at that time and was removed.

But it is an clear example of circular reference--an unverifiable statement almost being kept in Wikipedia, based on support from a "reliable" source that had gotten it from Wikipedia.

Bodies vary. No two surgical procedures are the same.

People are always saying something like "a hernia repair is nothing," when what they mean is "MY hernia repair was nothing."

Even if YOUR LASIK went well... ...even if MOST LASIKs so well... ...even if ALMOST ALL LASIKs go well... ...you have to multiply the probability by the consequences.

First, start thinking about what a 1% chance means. For example, I've had blood drawn literally hundreds of times, and donated blood dozens of times. The phlebotomists always tell me I have "beautiful veins." It's nothing. Nothing at all. Then one day, for absolutely no reason I could tell, I was having a blood draw for some tests, didn't hurt, didn't feel clumsy... and ten minutes later there was a big black and blue lump that didn't go away for days and hurt enough to be annoying. That was probably an example of a "less than 1% chance" where the risk showed up.

The thing is, a 1% chance of getting an annoying bruise is no big deal. But a 1% chance of lousing up one of your eyes is.

Given a refractive error that can be completely corrected a) without surgery (i.e. a lens) or b) with surgery, one should be cautious about choosing surgery. It is, after all, UNNECESSARY surgery.

Oh, if we're going to joke about a typo... obviously iamacat worked at IBM. (Good age test). (Yes, they really truly actually had little signs that said simply "THINK.")

Indeed. I worked in a Fortune 500 company--I arrived in the middle of a new CEO's "three-year turnaround plan," and shortly thereafter he was replaced by another CEO and shortly thereafter the company collapsed with stunning speed.

One of the things that was interesting was seeing the effect of a layoff from inside. It isn't just morale, although since layoffs were done on the "night and fog" principle--they didn't post lists of those laid off--for about two days after each layoff, all worked stopped as everyone else in the company spent their time telephoning everyone they knew to see if they were OK.

But there was also an immediate, precipitous problem with any kind of customer support or service. The air was full of overheard conversations. "Let me put you on hold. Uh, Marie, this customer wants to order a license for a vestibulator spracket. Who handles that?" "It used to be Bob, but he was laid off yesterday. Uh, Lewis, do you know?" "No idea, maybe his manager would know. Let me see, his manager was Kelly Sundstrom." "Oh, she's no longer with the company..."

No joke. Customers wanted to buy stuff and couldn't. Customers with service contracts couldn't get gear fixed. The stock price went up because at that time Wall Street seemed to love layoffs, but there were, actually, reports in the IT press about customers being disgruntled at bad service, and Wall Street never seemed to connect THAT with the layoffs.

here.. Satya Nadella said that he would "reduce time it takes to get things done by having fewer people involved in each decision" and this poster translated it:

"reduce time it takes to get things done by having fewer people involved in each decision = layoffs"

Science-fiction comes true. Sort of. Jack London (better known for "The Call of the Wild") published a story in 1903 entitled "The Shadow and the Flash," online here. The plot in part turns on the concept of a perfectly black pigment. It is a good story--much better than you'd guess from a summary. As to the optics London was either confused or exercising creative license:

"'Color is a sensation," he was saying.... 'Without light, we can see neither colors nor objects themselves. All objects are black in the dark, and in the dark it is impossible to see them. If no light strikes upon them, then no light is flung back from them to the eye, and so we have no vision-evidence of their being.' "But we see black objects in daylight," I objected. 'Very true,' he went on warmly. 'And that is because they are not perfectly black. Were they perfectly black, absolutely black, as it were, we could not see them ... with the right pigments, properly compounded, an absolutely black paint could be produced which would render invisible whatever it was applied to.'"

Uh, no. But it sounds plausible. Wonderful descriptive touches: "When you are near me I have feelings similar to those produced by dank warehouses, gloomy crypts, and deep mines. And as sailors feel the loom of the land on dark nights, so I think I feel the loom of your body."

Two brothers who feel sibling rivalry to a homicidal degree, are both amateur scientists with private laboratories. (Well, OF COURSE they are, who isn't?) They decide to seek the secret of invisibility, one by developing a perfectly black pigment, the other by becoming perfectly transparent. Both methods are flawed. The title refers to the flaws. The brother who paints himself with perfectly black paint, unfortunately, still casts a shadow. The brother who becomes transparent, apparently does not refract light but does disperse it (???), so intermittently evokes bright rainbow-colored flashes.

It is a much better story than it sounds from that description.

I'd much rather hear him say:

"I use Windows 8.1 on a desktop and it sucks. Windows 9 is going to be good on desktops and we are not going to release it until it is.

AND, we are going to play fair with users and make sure that every security patch we develop for Windows Embedded Industry is also SQAed on and made available to all Windows XP users. It may not make us the most money but it's the right thing to do."

Corporate culture? I am an end-user, I don't care what Microsoft's corporate culture is, I care about its products.

For example, H. G. Wells' novel, "Tono-Bungay," published in 1909, about the marketing of a patent medicine.

"The child made no end out of the [wood] shavin's. So might you. Powder 'em. They might be anything. Soak 'em in jipper,â"Xylo-tobacco! Powder'em and get a little tar and turpentinous smell in,â"wood-packing for hot bathsâ"a Certain Cure for the scourge of Influenza! There's all these patent grain foods,â"what Americans call cereals. I believe I'm right, sir, in saying they're sawdust."

"No!" said my uncle, removing his cigar; "as far as I can find out it's really grain,â"spoilt grain.... I've been going into that."

"Well, there you are!" said Ewart. "Say it's spoilt grain. It carried out my case just as well. Your modern commerce is no more buying and selling than sculpture. It's mercyâ"it's salvation. It's rescue work! It takes all sorts of fallen commodities by the hand and raises them. Cana isn't in it. You turn waterâ"into Tono-Bungay."

...they said it was because, they said, hydrogen fuel-cell technology was better and all but ready. Remember the Hy-Wire? Demonstrated in 2002, and promised for showrooms by 2010.

What? You DON'T remember the Hy-Wire? Funny about that.

I just don't get it. We're not even close to having good nationwide ubiquitous infrastructure support for pure electric cars yet, and we're going to get that a long time before I can pull up into the corner Mobil and fill 'er up with hydrogen.

...never experience cost increases, schedule slippages, or fail to meet performance goals?

Big data projects fail all the time. They just don't get as much publicity when they are private.

It's not unprecedented. I don't know the legal details but anyone who's ever been an in amateur production of a musical will tell you that Music Theatre, International will not sell you a script or a score. I believe the statement is that you have rented them. You are warned to make any markings lightly and in pencil and to erase them completely before returning them.

It's nice to hear about UI research, but at the moment _nobody seems to be making use of the UI research that's already been done._

Consider, for example, the current fad for "mystery meat" UIs (affordances that can't be seen and thus can't be found unless you already know where they are). What's with that? Haven't designers read "The Design of Everyday Things?" Heck, haven't they read the 1983 edition of "Inside Macintosh?"