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Comment Re:It's fashion (Score 1) 81

Even their models wearing it for the photos look like they fear the ridicule.

To be fair, literally every model wearing literally anything looks like this.

Gawd, I remember a time when a model was attractive. Then came heroin chic, when every female model looked like she was strung out. Now I think they are going for "non human".

Comment Re:Short AAPL (Score 1) 64

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

The thing I wonder about is who is the target audience?maybe the people Jaguar was trying to influence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?....

I know a lot of iPhone users. I don't know any who would want that weird thing. I suppose they will sell a few, but not too many.

Comment Re: Short AAPL (Score 1) 64

It's not a dumb idea by itself, only overpriced.

It is a dumb idea. You store the phone at a location where it's easy to lose, but hard to get when you need it. Indeed, movement of the ankle while walking will slowly push the phone out of the pocket. And when you need your phone (for texting, or for accessing the internet), you need to kneel all the way down to get it.

This. It is easy to steal as well. Apple is doing one of their occasional farts. They even have the pumpkin spice iPhone. Fortunately they still have tasteful iPhones. I'm an Apple products guy, but if all they had was that orange abomination, I'd wait until they regained their sanity before buying my next phone

Comment Re:Short AAPL (Score 1) 64

On the one hand, this tempts me to short Apple stock.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that my sentiments are not widely shared and they'll make money off of this.

They've had failed products before this. And this one will definitely fail Even their models look embarrassed in the pictures.

Comment Re:Shark (Score 1) 64

Borat did this long before Apple thought of it

https://people.com/thmb/4qnlqIrjdWZ9D_WJgTGQA5uwsVQ=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(678x19:680x21)/Bethenny-Frankel-Feels-Like-Borat-In-Plunging-Pink-One-Piece-Swimsuit-051223-3-5e40037d18fa4f8b8ae52c3bedffedca.jpg

Comment Re:Project Kessler. (Score 1) 28

These satellites are hundreds of miles from each other. Furthermore they are in LEO which means the orbit decays in under 5 years if they don't have regular thrust correction. We've already had satellite collisions in space and last I checked space is still fine. The only way for Kessler to be real (and that too temporary) is if someone put hundreds or thousands of tons of ball bearings above a certain size up there.

Well, Kessler's orbital mechanics work out. Objects travelling over 28,200 kpm have incredible kinetic energy. A space shuttle window was very damaged by a paint fleck. There results of larger object collisions will be all that much more impactful - pun intended. That transfer of energy will send some of the debris higher., some lower.

Just recently, the Shenzhou-20 was damaged by space junk. https://www.scientificamerican...

An Intelsat broke up in orbit recently. They are still investigating the cause. They are now tracking an increasing number of objects from the explosion. https://www.space.com/intelsat...

And since it is becoming pretty difficult to insure satellites now, a lot of sats are launched without insurance, and the companies are making them as cheap as possible. They aren't as robust, since losses will be uncompensated. https://www.space.com/space-ex...

Finally, if you want to see destruction, a country that can achieve orbit could place a bag of sand or ball bearings in a retrograde orbit, and bring the whole house of cards down as the exchange of energy and subsequent destruction occur.

Even that best case scenario of 5 years for the carnage to de-orbit, I'm not sure that people will want to wait that long to get their internet.

Comment Re: So why are they renaming it? (Score 2) 28

They are low enough that even if they did cause major pollution, it should mostly clear itself inside a decade.

The bigger worry is pollution. Burning up so many satellites in the upper atmosphere is something that hasn't been studied enough, but the work that has been done suggests that it's bad for greenhouse effect and for general air quality.

If you believe that making low earth orbit impassible for a decade is good news, I have some bad news for you.

Regardless, the nature of the energy transfer from colliding objects in space means that some of the debris will end up in a higher orbit.

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 60

The same growing season extension has happened in Canada. I looked at it some years ago. It is the yearly frost free interval dates. Even a few days can make a difference.

Let's hope the current doesn't collapse. I always thought Iceland was a cool place. (no pun intended)

I forgot to add - I nuked my back, a muscle tweaking hard and am on some really powerful muscle relaxants. So my writing style is a bit different. Wife says I'm a lot nicer today, Maybe I need to work on that! 8^)

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 60

It's hard to overstate how bad it would be. Iceland doesn't just get glaciated in ice ages, it gets catastrophically glaciated. As in "mass kills almost all of our plant species". That's why there's currently no native conifers even though there used to be, for example - virtually the whole island ends up under an extremely thick sheet of ice.

Of course, a shorter localized ice age, in an otherwise warming world, isn't as bad as a Milankovitch Cycle ice age. But it'd be pretty awful for us. Right now, we're benefiting from a warming world (though losing our glaciers and regularly getting annoying new insect species which previously couldn't survive here :P). Our growing reason is so short, and the difference between our winter and summer temperatures so small, that even a small amount of warming drastically lengthens our growing season, and makes a vast difference to how well things can grow in it.

The same growing season extension has happened in Canada. I looked at it some years ago. It is the yearly frost free interval dates. Even a few days can make a difference.

Let's hope the current doesn't collapse. I always thought Iceland was a cool place. (no pun intended)

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 60

It would drastically affect most of Northern Europe, also the Eastern US. But Iceland would probably be the most seriously affected. Greenland might refreeze, I believe that the "little ice age" was responsible for the failure of the Norse Colony on the shores of Greenland.

It did make for the failure. The reconstructed stories paint a terrible picture. Families living in tight quarters with their animals, slowly heading toward the end of their existence as a colony

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 60

If only Iceland had a form of Geothermal energy to keep them warm....

Oh that's a help, but doesn't sound like all that great a living to have to remain inside to keep warm. And Grindavik was evacuated earlier this year because the volcano nearby had erupted, https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... Lots of earthquakes, and heaven help any planes if they are in the wrong area.

The latest eruptions are slowing fortunately, but the risk assessment hasn't been lessened yet. Iceland is a real anomaly. A cool one, but it's a bit dangerous living there, and Gulf Stream current problems is one more worry for the good folk.

Comment Re:Indeed (Score 1) 60

Palms also grow in Cornwall.

https://www.cornwalls.co.uk/ph...

I did not know that! Here in the US, they are slowly moving upwards. In the Outer Banks we're getting them. I've seen a few on the New Jersey shore. I think those in New Jersey need protection when it gets its coldest there.

But they are all pretty far south compared to the British isles. Let's hope the Gulfstream doesn't collapse.

Comment Re: Why do we intentionally design shit? (Score 1) 109

Pretty good guess. Any cold blooded read of technology shows that human psychology drives design and adoption. I have a saying: if you can't punch it or fuck it, people won't understand it. We already have robots with guns for heads, so sex bots can't be far behind.

And sex sells. VHS and Beta were largely driven by pR0n, And so was the internet. And as physical males and females are entering an era of sexual apartheid, we all still have a sex drive. For women, they are freed from the cause of all their problems. For males, even if they spend 100K for a sex doll, it is a cheap alternative to marriage, raising a child, and the subsequent divorce.

That sounds a bit doom and gloomist, sometimes the truth do be that way.

Comment Indeed (Score 5, Informative) 60

Iceland, and the British Isles are going to be in a bad way if the gulf stream collapses. They are far enough north that reverting to weather more natural for that latitude will make it pretty darn chilly.

AGW will not necessarily make every place on earth warmer - it's way to complex a system for that. As an example, (in the British Isles) palm trees grow in a few places in Ireland. Pretty impressive for a place around the same latitude as Newfoundland. https://www.smithsonianmag.com...

So yeah, a gulf stream collapse would be a threat to Iceland's very existence. And not a whole lot they can do about it.

Comment Re:Why do we intentionally design shit? (Score 1) 109

We are able to build robots. Real robots. Purpose built able to be ideal for the task robots that are better in every way than humans. Why would we intentionally limit them by forcing a bipedal design combined with shitty AI?

Trying to avoid the uncanny valley? Which leads naturally to having sex with a robot. So for most people who want to bang a robot, they need to looks like a person.

A guess anyhow.

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