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Comment Re:Copepods, gotta catch 'em all with folded cloth (Score 1) 201

Some of these areas are so poor that if you show *any* signs of attempting to improve yourself, or get up in the world you will be beaten, or killed for attempting to upset the current powers that be. And since powers that be are the local strongman, warlord or government you keep your head down and avoid drawing the attention of the guys with guns.
That's an awfully nice garden you have there, mind if I take all the fruit off of it? And sometimes not even that, just having to defend your improvements from the locals who want your improvements for yourself.

Comment Re:How is Burying Africa Under PCs Going to Help? (Score 2) 201

Problems: No food, no water, no money, no electricity. Anything not nailed down is stolen, anybody who has a claw hammer steals everything else.
If you want to help these people, you get them something from the following list:
More of the straws that filter out the guinea worm. Google the guinea worm yourself, it is a horrid way to die.
Clean drinking water
Food
A permanent shelter to live in
And if you have any of those three things, expect to have to defend it with tooth and claw because someone with a gun will shoot you for it.

Comment Completely Pointless (Score 2) 201

This is a solution in need a problem. Until the people in impoverished countries have some other things first, a USB stick that can reboot dead computers is kind of insulting.

How about we provide (in this order):
1. Food, shelter, sleep, and sex.
2. Security, employment, health, morality.
3. Friendship and family
4. Self-Esteem
5. Self-actualization

Until all of items in group 1 and most of the items in group 2 are secured, self booting: internet USB sticks is like trying to teach dog to play banjo.
And this is assuming that the local infrastructure can support USB booted computers for internet access.

Comment Re:Google Lawsuit (Score 2) 45

I agree. I expect to see a news item in the next six months that reads "German activitst company goes out of business after prank goes wrong" after Google's legal team sues the company into insolvency.
And if that doesn't work, don't expect to be able to have any useful google results on that company for a long long time.

Comment Winter is a bitch (Score 2) 94

It the paint works as advertised (lots of companies are working to develop similar products) it will have a significant effect on the automotive, transport, flight, rail and other industries that move things and people around:
This coating prevents the build up of corrosive materials and as a result slows the corrosion process, extending the life of vehicles, trains, planes etc. Getting road salt off of a car in the winter is a big thing because road salt eats cars alive. If a coating can prevent it from sticking to the car in the first place vehicles are going to last a lot longer.
I can see the plane industry leaping at this the moment it is commercially viable: A coating that prevents wings from icing up? Yup, put that on every plane that comes out of the factory and retrofit it onto every plane in the fleet.
The moment a coating like this can be made crystal clear automotive manufacturers will put it on windshields and bug strikes sticking to the windshield will be a thing of the past.

Comment Prgramming/compiling vs Engineering/construction (Score 5, Insightful) 716

Very simple difference:

In construction the design is cheap (5-10% of the building cost) and the compiling is expensive. In construction you only get to compile once. In addition anything that leaves an engineers or architect's office that has been stamped and signed is certified to provide a working structure, building or system; assuming the builder follows the plans correctly. Everything must be installed in the correct order and location. Deviations from the plan (we are assuming the plans and specs are good) involves and expensive reworking, redesign and law suits.

In programming, the expense is in the design of the system, compiling is cheap. In computer programming you compile as often as you need. One can test run sections of the code as needed to see what works and how it interacts.

The labor requirements are flipped between the two industries. Trying to compare the two can lead to some poor analogies quickly.

Comment Quality burger and qualtiy music (Score 2) 617

People can tell the difference between the $1 burger and the $15 burger. Can that person tell the difference between the $5 burger, $10 burger and $15 burger, and is the improvement in taste/texture worth the cost increase? I will bet that most people cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger.

That is the issue the music industry is facing: while a lot of people can tell the $1 burger from everything else they cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger. Because of that they are not willing to pay the difference for something they do not appreciate.

Comment Re:In general (Score 1) 74

I can see this type of technology being used for foundation work first. I expect that there will be some trial and error (like the toy building being designed above). The moment someone has a working system where you can feed concrete into an auto printed an it spits out a complete foundation in less time than it takes to lay out the forms and pour concrete and strip the forms then you have a winner. I expect some fierce competition from the pre-insulated forms companies where the form becomes the insulation for the foundation.

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