Human minds just aren't made to react to something so abstract, so distant, so far away. Look at the crisis building up with the US economy, national debt, and so on - something that could cause a whole generation to undergo a great depression yet nary a thought is given to it.

For example, on the economic situation, this guy was made the US's top accountant for over a decade, and appointed to posts by both R and D presidents and yet he makes videos that can barely garner 2k views about the situation (since September):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I guess if there was a girl twerking in it, it might work.

Anyway, that's how it is. We react, many don't think too far ahead. Both situations are basically simple concepts in theory (global warming is built on the green house effect which is simple to demonstrate, the economy on interest and other high school math), but so many interests go in and muddle issues, that the average guy doesn't know what to believe, so even those with a modicum of forethought are stymied by special interests.

And the special interests want status quo. Nothing will happen. That's the tragedy of democracy and why it never really lasts long. Power and money is like water, it always gathers and concentrates.

Do they always jump in feet first with these new teaching methods or something? Don't they test it on a small control group or a dozen to make sure it's not the latest new-age garbage?

It always surprises me how often I hear parents complain about a new way of learning something in school. Latest was my neighbors talking about a new way to teach math, they tried helping their kids but the methodology was so alien to them that they were stumped.

And that's where a lot of the new, marginally improved (if at all) methods fail, because parents have to be able to act as back up teachers, and if it's completely different than how they learned it. Fail.

The confidence levels in the data are 99%, not in the conclusion.

PS - I believe in man driven global warming, I just hate sensationalized headlines.

3D has been met between a variation of "MEH!" and "meh" after the initial oohs and ahs wore off for theaters and consoles and TVs. It's a feature people take but don't care about.

What will help Amazon get into the game is if it's divorced from carriers and does better pricing on that front. Kinda like how a kindle can get (slow) internet connectivity elsewhere. If it can get people a smartphone for $30~ish a month voice and data. Then it will be cool and a game changer. Otherwise it's just another phone in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

This reminds me of all types of mining, where first people discover the big nuggets, then the small nuggets, then pan for specks, then go after good high grade ore, then the 30...20...10..1% ore. Until we're blowing up mountains chasing 0.001% stuff like they are doing for gold. Getting an ounce for every one of those humoungous trucks. I think when the Alaska gold rush started, accounts said miners were literally scooping out $2,000 a shovelful.

Same goes with oil. Super rich easy to get to oil just blasting out of the ground.... and as time goes on, we have to drill, needle and prod to get the stuff.

It's all EROEI. Energy returned on energy invested. Makes absolute sense for science as well.

I would say the scientific future isn't dim though, just that with current tech, there isn't much to discover in, say, theoretical physics, until we seriously start space exploring, because are limited on experiment we can run on earth. Just like we can't really take off on nanomedicine until reliable nanorobots are in place for scientists to test out their theories on. To put it another way, ships were of a limited design until steam engines came into place. Then ship designers could go crazy again. And then the nuclear engine came into play and military ship designers could go crazy again. Sometime until the pieces fall into place, the rest cannot go forward.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/...

I am a fast reader (>400words per minute), and when i skim a screenful of information or code I exceed this significantly.

I'm always skeptical of people clamining superhigh reading speeds. I mean, yeah I can skim easy text to and just "float" above it, but what about when comprehension and understanding are required; like when you read a biology or math text and other such material you haven't encountered before? What good does reading speed help there if it goes in one eye and out the other, so to speak??

Corps throw their "IP" wads of shit against the USPTO dartboard and sees what sticks.

Some shit ALWAYS sticks.

What is speech? I think that's making any argument you'd like for or against something, the establishment, other ideas, the man, etc.

I think requiring the sign-off of all parties for pornographic videos (or any any other really where privacy is a reasonable expectation) might not be a bad idea.

But maybe it can be generalized. Say video of a person is captured in a changing room at some dept. store, the security guard takes it to try to sell it to a magazine because he thinks it's a famous person, it gets printed/put on the web. Should that be allowed? Now, think, that perhaps even if it was a celeb, they should be afforded the same protection as well?

I think perhaps it can be generalized to situations where the person expects privacy, video should not be released unless it's in the public interest (you catch the President discussing how the NSA can break into private homes to get documents) or for other criminal matters (politician taking bribes, adult trying to lure kids in a van, whatever).

Isn't there a line that protects both free speech and human dignity?

Given how small cameras and microphones have come, our freedom of speech has slammed into our rights to be safe and secure in our own homes, and lastly our own persons, our bodies.

Just like disallowing someone to yell fire in a theater, you are not actually imposing on free speech in a significant way, (I can still argue that it can be allowed, or that fires in theaters are a problem, etc), I don't see how allowing for human dignity will impose on free speech here.

I can see how a law will do that, but only if we try to be staunch and try to resist at all costs. This debate has been long in coming. We should participate and be instrumental in crafting something reasonable instead of letting a draconian law pass that merely uses a legitimate issue for the legislators' and their handlers' own ends.

What do we have to lose out on? A quick laugh at Star Wars kid where we got a few seconds of enjoyment at the cost of years of this kid's life and psyche, and other misfortunates like him? Where's the free speech in that?

From what I have seen on the cheaper android stuff, it's like Microsoft vs Apple all over again from the 90s.

Just from the POV of cheaper hardware but at the tradeoff of bloatware/computer monitoring/antivirus and the like vs a walled garden.

I would say it's a variety of factors. I got relatives this $99 Aldi tablet because they are almost completely computer illiterate so anything beyond email was a bonus. I'm not that near and dear to them as to afford them ipads.

I expected the hardware to be completely half-assed, but for the price it was surprisingly good, to the point that I could put Netflix on it and it would play videos. The problem was not the hardware. Granted, the screen was anything close to beautiful unlike recent iPads (or even old ones), the battery wasn't huge, but sufficient for 90 minutes of netflix. The CPU was okay.

The problem was the experience was abysmal. Had some anti-virus preinstalled that slowed shit down. Skype kept forgetting it's password. A ton of apps listed in searches in the Google Play store weren't compatible with my device despite being for a tablet (don't know why). My relative came back to me with their tablets nearly unusuable, one had a browser with over 50 tabs open. It became no longer a matter of just closing the app, or closing tabs (more and more would spawn, wasn't malware or bad websites, just previous tabs and the close button became unresponsive on them). A lot of the built-in apps were always on and sucking the life out of its battery. Apple got a lot of bitching for it's limitations but they got a lot of it right. (Still, I think some limitations should only be defaults able to be turned off by the power user).

I didn't give them a Google Store name/password simply out of their own protection. So they can never buy an app and have to come to me, but they honestly are just happy with what they have so it's unlikely.

So it's not just a money factor. I think anyone can afford .99 apps and the like. When you have people who don't know what computers do, they are likely to hunt down the cheapest options (or be given the cheapest options by others) and buy them and never go past that.

I'm from an era when computers cost $3k for a POS that got obsolete within 18 months.

Anyway, I was talking relatively.

The historical reason to max ram within 18 month of purchase is that's when it's easiest and cheapest to do, at least retail. A few years back, was looking for ram for a 6 year old system (not that I bought a cpu/motherboard type that just came out either, mind you, so add 2 years to that for model age) and it was pretty much impossible. Places that had it charged way more per/gb than ram for recent systems. Could either waste time on craigslist salvaging old computers or take chances on buying used on the shitbay.

Though I agree, now max ram on many systems are passing actual need. Something that started around mid-00s for some low-end users and is spreading upward.

Unless you're rendering or the like, the bottleneck now is internet connection.

1TB for $500? Remember when the 16gb ones were expensive as hell just a few years back?

I guess they're bound to replace platter based drives even for storage by the end of the decade, since that just really budged in capacity significantly in years.

Right now doing fine with a 256gb one. 128gb ended up cramped far too often with os/apps and normal downloads.

Back when the aptera was a possibility, they removed the mirrors in favor of camera for the aerodynamic gains. (Aptera was a very aerodynamic car so the gains were real). Unfortunately, state laws didn't allow it everywhere, so they had to put them back on.

Also, mirrors aren't that simple. Even in many low end cars, they have electronics to move them around in the meantime for the driver and I'm it can break. Mirror themselves often are poorly made and lose their finish (see this on vans and the like).

So I think a nonmoveable camera might actually work better if it has a wide angle.

Right now, someone designed a mirror without blindspots that wouldn't cost much to implement, but current law doesn't allow for that either.

https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/...

So I would be pleased if the law does change to allow both/more flexibility.

Sounds a bit like Enterprise's In a Mirror, Darkly eps (and yeah, that TOS ep with goateed spock which I forgot the name of too). Excellent eps by the way.