A lot of mails out there is benign also, doesn't mean we shouldn't use envelopes whenever we can.

If only sensitive stuff is encrypted, it helps NSA to locate where are the sensitive stuff.

If this were true, we would be seeing a big market for trading-in old lithium batteries. Where can I sell/trade-in my old notebook batteries?

It is time to take your money and walk away for some time. Let's those fresh-outs burn themselves out, then you can either come back or work as consultants fixing their messes.

Note to self: don't use Google on mobile devices, change their default search engine to DuckDuckGo.

I search Google for sites with the best content relevant to what I am looking for, I don't give a flying f**k whether the site have a "mobile friendly" version or not. I can read any webpage on my phone just fine, I can zoom in/out when needed.

Pearson is basically selling electronic textbooks that use iPad as the device. You can't "just write an app" for it. Or, sure, you can "just write an app" like you can just write a Kindle App yourself, good luck getting any content on it though.

I have seen Pearson's stuff on iPads (though it may not be what this contract is about), and the real value (if any) is in the contents. The iPad and the app is just the medium.

If the schools signed the contract without going through ALL of the contents first, then they are no different from ordering a ton of textbooks without reading any of it first, and then complain about it "not meeting their needs" when the distributor sent truckloads of the books to them. The fault lies entirely upon the buyer. It would have been the same if those are Kindles instead of iPads.

The role Apple plays is to be the click-bait to get you to click on the article and watch the ads. It worked perfectly.

Is that a joke? The series followed the book (thankfully) close enough that anyone can know what's coming by RTFB.

It is the same on stories about autonomous cars. 90%+ comments talk about how *they* prefer to be in control of the vehicle, while the most economically beneficial application is for trucks.

IF, and that's a big pessimistic if, eventually autonomous car is deemed unable to navigate local city streets, then what you will see are large parking lots springing up around highway exits, where robo-cars will park itself when it leaves the highway.

There, either the human driver takes over immediately and go away, or more likely, the car alert the sleeping driver to wake up. The driver, after sleeping all the way since he got on the highway, gets off and have a meal and refresh himself, then drove off.

OR, the passengers don't even know how to drive. Some other driver drove to the lot next the highway, get off, the car take over to get on the highway, reach the lot near destination, and some other driver came and drive the car to the destination. Think kids of divorced parent, or kids going to visit grandparents.

Same approach applies much more easily to trucks. Now truck drivers only need to go round and round between the last leg on both sides, letting the truck drive itself over the long haul. That means cheap transport, no need for long tiring trips away from home, and fewer accidents.

JUST automating the highway portion is going to give huge benefits, there is no need over worry about the last 1% of the trip.

Data is nothing if you do not have any way to interpret it. Models and theories provide the context for interpreting the data.

It is like saying "bits are bits, assumptions are the stuff of encoding and decoding". Problem is, without any assumption to decode your bits, it would be as useful as any random noise. The fact that we can have a conversation here is because I (or rather, my browser) made the assumption that the bits are encoded with a certain pattern, and so did you.

Without any assumptions, models, or theories, the signals we received from Hubble would be no different from random noise.

Without the assumption that the photons came from a distant galaxy, we cannot form the image we can see.
Without the assumption of what they saw were the result of the collision of two galaxies, it would just be a bunch of stars in a strange shape.
Without the assumption of the current model of our universe, we cannot guess what would be the most probably original form of the two galaxies.
Without the assumption of the Theory of Gravity, no one can make sense of what could have happened when two galaxies collide, and thus compare with this observation.
Without the assumption of the model of gases and stars, we cannot reach the conclusion that gases should interact and slow down, while stars would not.

The problem is, with our currently best assumptions, models and theories, those that are able to explain most of our observable universe, we found that it would require the present of some undetectable matter in all the galaxies to make everything consistent -- hence "dark matter".

Yeah, you can claim that is too many levels of assumptions. Feel free to build up your own that could consistently match all the known data even better than the one commonly used.

The answer to this is simple: Pay more to qualified STEM people.

But of course, we all know that the real questions is actually:

That, would require artificially flooding the market with oversupply, but luring qualified people with false promises through continuous propaganda of "STEM shortages".

But why would you think someone with not-as-good academic credentials will fare any better?

In my experience when I was in school, the best teachers I have encountered were always passionate about the subject they teach. You rarely get people passionate about a subject they are bad at.

Yes, they may not be very well equipped to deal with kids who don't want to learn, but on the balance, it would be better to let down kids who don't want to learn by a teacher good at the subject but at handling rough kids, than to let down kids who DO want to learn by a teacher good at handling rough kids but bad at the subject.

Unfortunately, that exacting system of thought is beyond the capability of most of the general populace (including most students still in school). So we are all doomed.

For all the ridicule /.ers like to heap on Apple fans, at least those Apple fans are usually willing to pay for stuff.

The amount of money I spend on iTunes for content is comparable to the money I paid for Apple hardware, and is already way more than what I had ever spent on CD/DVD/etc combined.

Obviously, logical thinking is unacceptable when one's income is threatened by it.