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Comment Re: Unsurprising if you think about it (Score 3, Insightful) 338

Here is a list of reasons why many Europeans won't come. You are not one of those socialist European countries with a public healthcare system. You have 12 times more people shot per year and per inhabitant then any EU country. There is a lot of racism in the US. Your immigration procedures and your fear of terrorism.
All in all your image sucks. You are no t the country of the free and brave. You are quite the opposite. There is also a lot if violence in your country. All causes not to come. And for EU citizens the lack of a welfare state shocks us even more than the high rate of gun possessions.

Comment Re:Bad idea (Score 1) 293

A fuel cell + hydrogen tank have a much higher energy density (even when measured in fuel cell output) as any battery in the next couple of years will have. Therefore, there could be a market. Especially, as with renewable energy sources the production of hydrogen could be triggered just then when there is an overproduction of electricity and store it.

But, true cars (electric or otherwise) are not the best solution for all our transportation problems. Therefore, we must move away from them where they are a sub optimal solution.

Comment Re: AI researcher here (Score 1) 455

AI are more or less reasoning machines which is not the same as intelligence. There is no awareness or understanding which are necessary to call it intelligence. Most likely your definition of intelligence and that of other scientists differ tremendously. To understand the professor you must obviously use the definition from his field and not yours.

Comment Outsource (Score 1) 176

When you setup up accountancy and have a lawyer, you can create a development team. Depending on your domains, expertise, and scale you want to enlist people for domain analysis, requirements engineering, software design, programming, UI design, etc. As it is too expensive to hire so many people, it might be best to outsource that to freelancers. Therefore, you need an appointment with your lawyer to draft the necessary contracts.

Comment Re:Indians screw Indians for a change (Score 1) 53

The Indians or Chinese did not screw the US tech. industry. The management in the US did. Nobody was forced to outsource to India or China. However, someone (and I am not pointing fingers ... well ok, I am) lowered import duties to establish a global market for products and services resulting in direct competition of First World (FW) workers with all their benefits with Third World (TW) workers without any benefits, resulting in more profits for the companies and either less benefits for FW workers or no jobs for FW workers.

If you want to change that policies then you have to vote in the US for erm. I don't know the commies or the Green party, as Democrats and Republicans both love globalization of markets. In the EU you might vote for the so called far left. Do not vote for social democrats as they also love globalization just like their conservative friends. And don't tax the rich.

Comment Yeah, lets play Zauberlehrling! (Score 1) 367

We do not know in detail how the climate system works. True, we have some understanding and we know what happens when we release CO2, methane, CFCs to the atmosphere. However, our models are never good enough to predict the outcome of specific effects we introduce to fix the other problems. Normally such things only work in Star Trek and you can run away in your ship if you fail (however they never fail in the series).

But who cares? Lets play Zauberlehrling (engl. sorcerer's apprentice) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... (poem from J.W.v.Goethe) and f*** up the climate. They are from Harvard, therefore that is a really brilliant idea. Well, after reading the original article, they (he) is more into lets address this research topic. Therefore, we need funding. Hello? We need funding for this very important thing otherwise we are all doomed or must stop driven SUVs which means we are all doomed. Thanks.

Comment Women and STEM Topics (Score 1) 155

There have been a lot of talk and even initiatives to improve the number of women in the STEM field. While I myself participated in assessments for young women to encourage them to choose STEM topics, I am less and less convinced that these initiatives are working. The main problem is that we do not really know why women choose other topics. True they have been asked what they want and why they have chosen this instead of STEM. However, this does not give us the root cause which pushed them in that particular direction.
The lack of female "nerds" cannot be the root cause, as they tend to study pharmacy or accounting. Therefore, it must be something else and we should start resarching to uncover the truth. However, I doubt that this will ever been done, because getting to the bottom of things is much more pain then fooling around and starting ineffective programs.

Comment Re: 510kph is airliner speed? (Score 3, Informative) 419

This might have something to do with the fact that the two Hokkaido and Tokyo are on two different islands.

In addition you can fly in Germany from Hamburg to Berlin and Munich. But still most people use the train. For two reasons. Hamburg Berlin is 1.5 hours by train you cannot reach the plane in that time and definitely not fly. Munich req. 6 hours by train so a plane might be faster, but you can jump on a train every hour without planning for a specific hour. You cannot do that with a plane.

Comment Maglev is expensive (Score 1) 419

Germany developed similar technology, but was unable to sell it to the public for two reasons. First, it is expensive compared to normal tracks. This includes maintenance and construction. Second, it must run on a bridge like thing. A ground based solution is still 2 m above the ground.

The Chinese tried out that German solution. They built a small line but skipped the extension.

The French TGV can go 500 km/h but normally runs 300 or 350 km/h.

In Germany the next generation of trains will be even slower which makes perfect sense, as Germany is densly populated and there are many stops. So hhigh speed would not result in a big time savings
.

Comment Cameron is ruining Britain (Score 3, Insightful) 316

He almost lost the Scotland gamble. And of course there will be a second Referendum in a couple of years which will end in a divorce. He leads the UK out of the EU sinking the British finance sector. He also wants to cancel the European human rights treaty. And he censors the internet and spies on everyone.

He mostly acts like a child. He is angry or has tears in his eyes. And then he lies to the British and then the EU is the cause of all problems according to Cameron. He is an upper class classisist with a big ego and no intellect. And I am very sorry for the UK, but he will ruin it for most of them.

Comment Re:Japan tried this with the 5th Generation Comput (Score 1) 67

The problem is that we know what syntax is. And we know what semantic is. However, we do not know what real pragmatics are. All we do in modeling of information is inserting human "knowledge" and understanding into a computer system. Then the system is able to reason about that, but it cannot go beyond it.

Comment What an election (Score 1) 551

Primarily it is an "election" between a right wing party and a horde of crazy people (at least form an EU perspective). And there will be no real difference in things like CO2 reduction, healthcare, immigration or any other field where there is a progressive and a reactionary position. The US will got for the latter. True our governments suck too, but that is no excuse to suck as well.

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