Silly and arrogant oversimplification gets modded up sky-high. . . . Ah, Slashdot. . . the OTHER bitter, brown substance I put inside myself every morning. . .

That's aIoT.

He explicitly addresses this, saying that US employers are significantly more likely to award reserved stock or stock options to employees than Japanese employers (where it is almost unheard of). Accordingly, if Japan did not have special laws to protect individual inventors, the impact would be completely different in Japan than the U.S. (a point complete lost on PM Abe, whose only strategies are to devalue the yen and copy the U.S. wherever possible, even when it makes no sense. . .)

There isn't an app for telling you what there isn't an app for. . .

That is just as meaningless a statement about Chromebooks as it is about Android phones. . . What specific company hardware are you talking about (e.g. I have had a very good experience with Samsung and HP Chromebooks)?

Regarding your "featureless" statement, have you heard of Crouton? Also, were you aware that an increasing number of Android apps are coming to Chromebooks? Your post seems to represent the segment of /. that has not bothered to really look into chromebooks before hating them. . .

I only hope my final moments can be so bold. . .

I agree if you had only said "level of consumption" but "quality of life?" For instance, I believe the fastest growth of quality of life in the area of "lighting" is coming from the explosion of cheap solar powered LED lights. I would argue that such quality of life improvements have negligible ecological impact while significantly improving quality of life. I would also argue that it makes more sense to take such decentralized approaches at this point of human technological progress than the old and proven "dumb" way of centralized consumption.

My experience has been contrary . . . I believe everyone I have met, irregardless of their job, has had their own unique since of creativity and ingenuity. However, making money from such things in today's economy also requires a set of very specialized skills and the scope of the type of creativity that can be useful to a given application can be quite limited. It seems like a more sophisticated economy should be able to support a wider range of creative thinking, but it would require a significant change from today's world of overspecialization. I suppose if everyone had access to their own AI that could fill in the gaps in their own capabilities while leveraging their strengths . . .

A healthy balance is important.

We could all complain here about the optimists, but the true pessimists would not be able to participate because they have all already killed themselves.

This is absolutely right, and I would go further to say that this kind of technology cannot be perfected without mass adoption. For instance, there is priceless value to the smart phone industry of having billions of "testers," an expansive variety of users that drives a healthy community of app developers, and a high enough density of adoption to justify wireless infrastructure investment. In the end, the economic value of the combined smart-phone user base is probably many times more than whatever resources the 1%ers could pool together to invent a technology that only they would use.

Now, consider the fact that medical treatment carries significantly more intrinsic risk to the user than smart-phone usage (though user born risk varies. . .), and it is hard to see why 1%ers would try to monopolize this technology. On the contrary, I think any rational person with significant wealth and interest would invest in ways to bring this technology to a large enough population in order to ensure related treatments could be confirmed safe at a statistical level.

Get Perpendicular!

Interesting. A language with less redundancy must be more efficient.

So flat coal consumption is misleading - this would imply coal is growing as a percentage of energy mix given the economic situation.

Actually, I think it is more complicated than that. For instance, a small decrease in electricity demand would not prompt Germany to start dismantling plants. Some plants can easily be used less, while other may not. Older coal plants designed only for base load face significant challenges when trying to operate to accommodate turbulent demand. Accordingly, a downturn in demand could result in a higher mix of coal vs gas, but only because the gas generators are more flexible than the coal plants.

Another point worth mentioning is that improved efficiency is also the cause of decreasing demand. Unfortunately I am not able to find an actual percentage breakout, but I would guess that it is not insignificant due to recent trends like LED lighting. Accordingly, I think it would be unfair to exclude the efficiency improvement portion from the mix and then say that Germany was getting less green because of an increased coal mix. We should be comparing the work accomplished by electricity, not just raw electricity production.

"Schmoozing is part of sales"
Exactly and when the regulated schmoozes the regulator, what else could the regulated be trying to sell other than various flavors of corruption? That is why, in this case, the schmoozing can only come at the detriment of society as a whole, and it is a significant example of how rampant regulatory capture is in our society.

"I've been invited to boxes by vendors before"
If I were a stock holder of your company then I would take issue with that because part of the price your company is being charged by that vendor covers such activities (which either reduces dividends or intrinsic value of the company). It is simply a form of wealth transfer to the corrupt and a textbook example of the principle-agent dilemma (unless you are both in this example).

I see, so because the poster (who could be supporting the agenda of either side) exaggerated, Comcast's invitation is now completely kosher (how many regulator have you schmoozed lately, regardless of the venue?), and the U.S. no longer has a regulatory capture problem that needs to be addressed. . .

You know, for awhile I thought it was the overwhelming power of the wealthy that prevented change, but now I get the sense that it is the underwhelming intellectual capability of people like yourself that are dragging us down. Happy 4th. . .