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Comment Re:Are they making a profit yet??? (Score 3, Insightful) 49

It's doesn't sound like a successful business venture if you're having to increase operation expenses at this rate and not be raking in the revenue.

Yes, Google is profitable now. Tremendously so. But they're at risk of losing revenue and ceasing to be profitable as people cease using Google search and switch to asking questions of their AIs. So to retain their position as the place people go first for information, they have to stay ahead of the AI race. Well, they could also just sit back and wait to see if their competitors are overwhelmed by the query volume, but that risks losing traffic and then having to win it back. It's much better to keep it. And Google is better-positioned to win this race than its competitors both because of its existing infrastructure and expertise and because it already has the eyeballs.

In addition, you seem to be assuming that doubling serving capacity means doubling cost. Clearly Google is not planning to increase their annual operating expenses by 1000X. As the summary actually says in the third paragraph, Google is also going to have to improve efficiency to achieve the growth rate, with better models and better hardware. This is what the AI chief is challenging the employees to do; he's not challenging them to write bigger OPEX checks, that's his job.

Comment Re:Second-generation homeschooling (Score 1) 210

I'm not in the homeschooling universe, but I have yet to meet a second-generation homeschooler. Like, anyone I know who was homeschooled sends -their- kids to school (public, private, parochial, boarding, single-sex, co-ed) - anything but homeschool. Thoughts?

I know a few. I don't know what it may or may not mean. It may be relevant that the ones I know used a community-based approach, where groups of homeschooling families worked together to create something akin to a school, with different parents teaching different subjects. This meant that while the kids socialization groups were small, they did hang out with and learn with other kids, not just their siblings.

Comment Re:Well, if we're going to consider that... (Score 1) 305

That there is no evidence to support it does not mean it cannot be true. But it should inform your assessment of probabilities.

It's more than that. Research into the possibility of a link between vaccination and autism has been done, and no correlation found. This is evidence that there is no connection and it's entirely different from a case where no research has been done. One is evidence of absence, the other is absence of evidence. The GP is equating them, but they're not remotely the same thing.

Comment Re:Well, if we're going to consider that... (Score 1) 305

...I want a statement that autism is created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. For reasons only He understands, He sometimes reaches out with his noodley appendage and gives kids autism.

Is that true? We don't know, we haven't rigorously investigated it, have we now? Since there's exactly as much evidence to support the FSM as vaccines causing autism, the CDC has a duty to mention both possibilities.

Show me all of the studies that have evaluated the correlation between FSM action and autism. There has been a lot of research on the possibility of a correlation between vaccination and autism, and no evidence of correlation has been found. There is an enormous difference between "We've looked hard and found no connection" (evidence of a negative) and "We haven't looked at all" (lack of evidence).

In addition, there's no need for the CDC to debunk a claims that are not being made, or non-harmful claims. To pick a less-ludicrous example, there's no significant population claiming that eating grapes causes autism, so there's no need for the CDC to address it. Further, if there were an anti-grape lobby touting a connection with autism, the CDC probably still wouldn't need to address it because some people avoiding grapes doesn't create significant health risks to others.

But there is a significant population claiming -- against strong scientific evidence -- that vaccines cause autism, and that claim is causing them to reject vaccines, which does create significant health risks for others. So, the CDC absolutely does need to address it, since public health is their job.

Your analogy is terrible, in every way.

Comment Re:More IBM vaporware (Score 2) 19

OS/2 had no security features needed for multiuser support. It might as well have been classic MacOS. Citrix had a multiuser version of OS/2 with security tacked on, but it wasn't a realistic solution and was never popular. Building an OS without security was the moronic decision that killed it. Plus IBM never did anything meaningful to promote it so nobody cared. That it was used anywhere (especially in ATMs) was a horrible decision itself because of the lack of security features and has created untold woes. Maybe nobody ever got fired because they bought IBM, but they should have.

Comment Re: Good products (Score 4, Insightful) 104

It is neither right or wrong

It's wrong. The processor has a feature. People will reasonably assume they can use that feature. Then they find out it's disabled.

assuming the features or lack thereof is declared upfront.

If that declaration is not in the largest font size used in the materials then it's hidden.

Comment Re:Sad (Score 1) 305

So I'm all for evidence-based medicine as a starting point, but when you realize it isn't behaving normally, you should adjust accordingly.

The thing about adopting evidence-based policy is that you also need to review and if necessary change policy when more evidence becomes available. The kind of situation you're describing would surely qualify.

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