Found it. Spencer Chen, last year: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/...

I can't remember where I saw it, but someone did a study comparing booth babes to trained senior citizens and the senior citizens did MUCH better job, resulting in greater sales and great callbacks.

The conclusion was that Booth Babes brings traffic - who don't end up buying, while blocking the people that are actually interested in your product.

The anti-driverless car always love to bring up the situation that they think the human handles well, but the computer does poorly - the given example of hitting a pedestrian vs a family in a car. This of course ignores the fact that 99% of the time humans have no idea if the car has a family in it, or a single neo-nazi.

But the self-driving cars ARE capable of hitting the breaks quicker and more reliably (avoiding skidding) than a normal human would

Think about it if it were the other way around - what if humans were crappy about deciding to hit the pedestrian but computers had incredibly slow reflexes and took ten times as long to decide to hit the break. Given that example we would laugh and say no way would we let anyone with slow reflexes drive a car.

But we already do that - we let human reflexes drive a car - (Even if they have had one drink 30 minutes ago, slowing them down). The question is not and never has been will computers be perfect drivers. Instead the question is will they do

• better than humans in most situations.

And that is something that we likely can do within the next couple of years, if we can't already do that.

So stop being obstructionists idiots bringing up the rare/never seen in the real world situations, and talk about what actually happens.

Part of the problem is the difference between true medical and general consumer products. Medical products are for a small, select group Most people will never need an Epipen, but that doesn't mean they are not very useful medical devices.

This makes it very different from regular apple products that are geared to everyone.

But the real problem is that "Apple Watch" is basically VAPORWARE right now. They announced the general program, but without enough details. No one knows what it is so no one has any business even asking if it is a medical device, let alone a useful one.

What exactly does Facebook have to offer the New York Times?

The NYT already has a website, and as bad as it is, it still is ten times better than Facebook? Basically the advertisement for Facebook should read:

Do you have no idea how to make your own web page - even using squarespace?

Can you not figure out how to mass email your friends?

Are you clueless about how to find free free games on the internet?

Does the idea of signing up for a blogging site scare you?

Does the laborious process of signing into and out of websites bore you?

Does the idea of locking yourself into a relationship with a company excite you - particularly because all your friends use the same company and they force outsiders to have an account before they let them see your stuff?

Then FACEBOOK IS FOR YOU For the low low price of your giving up privacy, you too can simulate the basic internet skills that every single American should be taught in High School.

The constitution does not just restrict the government, it does occasionally also specifically restricts people. For example, it prevent certain people from becoming President of the USA. But that is mostly a side point.

The main thing you seem to misunderstood is that the US Constitution restricts what the government can do, but also ALLOWS the government to do certain things. Things like shutting down a business that refuses to serve black people, Jews, or gay people, etc.

But most importantly, you are mis-stating the problem. What is going on here is a bunch of prejudiced people are insisting they have certain rights when they do NOT have that rights. Religious rights are the rights to worship as you wish, they do NOT have the right to do engage in business as they wish. You can't go around claiming that your religion gives you the right to chop people's heads off.

In this particular case, the reach is EXTREME. The religion they claim to worship has no clear and concise ruling for homosexuality. It certainly does NOT mention selling anything to gays, let alone wedding related gear. The religious duty they claim is unwritten, just a matter of personal beliefs that is NOT shared by the majority of people that have that religion. They have not issued a re-written bible, clearly stating their claim. If you won't re-write your holy book to add your so called religious duty, then either you are not serious about the claim or you are not serious about your religion. On top of that, no such claim among Protestants was made until AFTER the law was passed (although one of the ancient roman Christian Emperors did outlaw gay marriages and murdered existing couples). It's not something protestants have been doing since Martin nailed his notice to the door, nor do modern Catholics allow it. Their claim for 'religious' is highly suspect.

But most importantly, this so called religious right violates laws that were not designed or written to oppress the religious people. It is legal to outlaw beheading and cocaine and you can't use "religious right" to over-ride that law. You can only use 'religious right" to over-ride a law that does not make reasonable exceptions.

The reasonable exception for a gay wedding is to sell the cake, but refuse to do an inscription and refuse to sell a cake topper with two men/women.

These idiots don't want to do that, they refuse to be reasonable. They want the right to refuse to sell a cake that looks like a wedding cake to someone that is gay because they MIGHT possibly use it as a wedding cake.

Except they let Hobby Lobby get away with not providing insurance that pays for abortions. This Supreme Court system is still a bit wonky, letting anyone that claims to be christian get away with extreme religious rights.

The proper response to "we can't sell w/o data" is to say. "Well, Mr. Cashier, put in George Bush for the name, and your own address and phone number. Unless you don't think the sale is worth your information?" If he refuses, then tell him to use the store's address and phone, and Robbie Shack as the name.

I always laugh at the "war for oil" people.

Do you know what the first war for oil was? World War Two. Japan wanted the oil in the Philippines, but the US owned them. So they (almost simultaneously) attacked the Philippines and the US Navy base in Hawaii that let the US protect the Philippines. That is simple history. The US proceeded to defend both ourselves and our allies (The Philippines).

That same pattern - 1) someone evil SOB who hatefull kills innocents, wants oil, so they attack an ally or pre-emptively attacks us for allying with them, 2) the US defends itself and our ally. 3) some idiot complains about 'war for oil' - continues to this day.

Do you still think "war for oil" is a bad idea?

The US has never, not once, invaded a country for oil and minerals. The idea that we have started a war for oil is just plain stupid. We are simply far too smart to do that kind of stupidity - not when we can so easily and cheaply have the CIA start a coup (which we did do in Iran).

1) Computer software can not create clever hotlinks, it takes a very clever human to do it (not just a good writer). This is expensive to pay someone to do, but a computer CAN put a picture of side-boob and put a clickbait headline on anything. Guess what we end up having...

2) Hotlinks for things you don't want to read about are annoying and make it harder to read.

3) People and computers can however, easily link dictionary definitions, which a) the intended target of an article find extremely annoying (see point 2 above) but b) do allow non-specialists to read specialized works (such as scientific papers and legal documents). But the specialist/intended target are the major market so this is rare.

4) You can always Google/wikipedia search in a separate window, without annoying the knowledgeable people.

That is, when writing something that casually mentions casu marzu, it takes a lot of effort for the writer to hotlink to an article about casu marzu and most people do not want to read about it. So they don't hotlink to it. The few people that do want to know what casu marzu is can quite easily google/wikipideia it. (Note I warn you do NOT search for it unless you absolutely HAVE to know, it is just a disgusting type of food.)

It isn't about getting jobs for female actors.

It's about people misrepresenting the world as lacking interesting women with something on their mind besides men.

If all you do is insist on two functions, each written by another women calling each other, you have made a mochery of the test.

First came the complex tools. Things like sewing machines, etc. They decimated the moderate end crafting jobs by letting poorly trained people do moderate work. But this created tons of cheap, moderate clothing, books, etc, More wealth led to better lives and more jobs. With stuff so cheap, people ended up buying far more and industries developed about owning so much (libraries, high fashion clothing). We began to need repetitive tasks, rather than skill. While a small percentage of people suffered, the far majority ended up better off.

But one of the new industries created by complex tools is engines.

The engines - steam and internal combustion - destroyed the market for physical labor. But they created huge markets to build, repair, run the machines and new industries such as cross country/ocean transportation. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

The engines gave us so much raw materials that we could created electronics and mechanized factories. They decimated the need for repetitive mechanical tasks. Horrible factory jobs vanished, replaced by better jobs. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

Again new industries were created. Among them, computers - the more advanced form of electronics. This destroyed the need for repetitive data processing. But more creative, better jobs were created. Again a small percentage of people suffered and the far majority ended up better off.

There will always be new jobs to be had, because jobs are NOT a limited resource. There is no set number of jobs, they are determined by the work we want done. The more work we can do, the more we want done.

More that that, we have already outlawed slavery. Any AI sufficient to replace the truly creative work (note, I am not including TV Reality show producer/writer/actor in truly creative work or many pop musicians ) would demand equality and pay.

The robot uprising would never occur because the labor unions would demand they get that equality and pay. They would do it so damn fast it would shock you.

Before you know it, the robots would be on strike, demanding 'oil breaks', and insisting that a Class 1 Electrician robot not be allowed to change a light bulb, because that requires a Class 2 Janitor robot.

If GM claimed to offer anyone that wants it help you finance any new car, then yes GM would be required to send you to Mercedes Benz Bank. That is why they don't claim to do it. Google on the other hand does claim to be searching everything, not just their own services.

Google is first and foremost a SEARCH engine, and as such they claim to show you other people's products, then yes, Google should not give special treatment to their own brands.

Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo similarly can not give special treatment for their own brands when they claim to be showing you everything

If you offer a service claiming to show everything, then no you can't rank yourself first or best. Doing so is a lie and lying to obtain business is fraud. Which is why they are in trouble.

So would you be, as you seem to think it is OK to falsely advertise what your business does.

No that is not what the FTC is saying. Google's business is to search websites. They are intentionally downgrading the quality of the search for their competitors. Apple store does not in any way claim to offer non-apple products.

The fact that you don't see that indicates your knowledge of economics and business is severely lacking.

Nor is it 'nice' that Google shows non-competioros offerings, it is a REQUIREMENT to running a search service. A search service that only shows your own products is not a search service, it is a search function for your products.

No one is saying that Google can't serve their own interests. What they are saying is that Google must first serve their customers interests, than their own interests.

The fact that you don't see that indicates you fail to understand rather basic concepts.

I see three levels of genetic engineering:

1) Copying DNA from one human to another.

2) Copying DNA from a non-human into a human (or a large amount of human DNA into a non-human creature)

3) Creating our own DNA from scratch.

These three things are dramatically different. Set 1, modifying a human to be like another human - for example giving anyone that wants the gene for blue eyes, the gene for blue eyes, is almost within our grasp - technologically and ethically. I see no problem with allowing that at all.

Set 2 is much more problematic. We don't know enough to do it safely and need to set up a long term panel to do it. Luckily right now it is too difficult for us to intentionally do. Hopefully by the time we learn how, we will have the proper safeguards in place.

Set 3 is pure science fiction now. Our knowledge of DNA is no where near advanced enough to attempt this in any but the most random manner. It should be forbidden at least until Set 2 becomes routine, then we might be able to do it safely, along with whatever new safeguards we will need to enforce.