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Comment Absolutely pointless (Score 2) 31

There's only 2 reasons to have a new piece of hardware rather than make this an app on your phone:

1)It adds new sensors that your phone doesn't have (yet) that will enable new functionality. This won't be the case, as there's no usecase for it
2)It adds a new IO methods that aren't possible on the phone. AR goggles might do this. An AI assistant doesn't, it's all audio and voice.

This is basically just going to be replacable with a bluetooth microphone paired to an app on your phone. Which means nobody is going to buy it- even if they can actually find a usecase people want AI for (doubtful).

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 1) 84

Those exist, but divide the view count by number of comments. It will show for the most part thousands of views per comment. That means most people aren't using the social part. I've yet to ever write a youtube comment, but I use it daily. So if you asked me if I use YouTube you'd get a yes, but it's not social media for me. If you limit it to those who read/write comments it would be fair, but I'm not sure they did that.

Comment Re:WhatsApp? (Score 3, Interesting) 84

I'd say the same for YouTube. It's used to watch videos. The number of people who comment on them is minimal compared to the userbase. I'd be very curious to the exact definition of "social media" they use is. I don't think it's what most people consider to be social media.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 1) 74

Not anything. Especially when dealing with nuclear. There are some parts that once degraded cannot be safely replaced. For example, the containment unit. And others where making a new one makes more economic sense than replacing even when technically possible. What state this plant is in I have no idea, and am not qualified to have an opinion on. I just hope experts are making the decision based on economics and power requirements and not politics.

Comment Re:Good use. (Score 4, Interesting) 74

The main question is if the plant is still safe. It hasn't been used in years. Is it still in good maintenance? Was the design meant to be idled for years? What are the risks of restarting that particular design of reactor after all those years? Is the land there safe for workers of the plant after reactor 2's accident all those years ago? And what plans are in place to prevent what happened at reactor 2 from happening at reactor 1?

I actually don't know the answer to any of those questions. But I hope experts are actively asking those.

Comment Re: It a guidebook... (Score 1) 245

Really isn't. I haven't seen cursive anywhere but on documents in a museum at any point in my life. That includes signatures, which are more likely to be a squiggle than anything resembling actual cursive. There is zero point to mandatory instruction on it anymore (if there ever was- the idea that it was a faster way of writing is backed by 0 proof. And even if it was, the ease of reading script more than cancels out those speed gains).

Comment Working as intended? (Score 2) 42

So profits go to developers not the market operator (or consumers). That's a greater distribution of the wealth generated, which sounds like a good thing to me. I'd imagine the total number of people employed by app developers far exceeds the number of Apple employees, so in some sense the money is (in theory at least) going to more consumers, just not necessarily consumers of iOS apps.

Comment Re:Possibly valid (Score 5, Informative) 53

Not just possibly, but absolutely valid. This is exactly the kind of thing trademarks exist to prevent. They aren't claiming the word "automatic", they're claiming that naming a framework that's meant to work with their product (WordPress) a name that differs from their own by only 1 letter, particularly such a non-obvious difference (many people won't notice the existence of an extra 't') is meant to cause confusion an think it's an official part of their offerings. Because it is. If the other company doesn't change the name they will be destroyed in court. And frankly they'll deserve it. Whoever chose that name was either a total idiot with no concept of the law, or a scammer who meant to prey on Autmattic's good name.

Comment Re:My takes on this presentation (Score 1) 6

The idea is that it's always on your face and hands free, and due to the location of the display you don't need to look down- it overlays your normal field of vision with additional information (that's the entire point of AR). But yes, other than overlaying your actual field of vision there's nothing it could do that a phone couldn't.

Comment Re:My takes on this presentation (Score 1) 6

I'm more curious how the display works. I had Google Goggles. The display was nearly impossible to see and gave me a headache going crosseyed trying. If the hardware can overlay well, and be easy to see, someone will write the software for it eventually. If it can't, then no amount of software will work.

Really the glasses itself should be dumb. Put all the smarts in a smartphone app with a plugin architecture. Have it voice controlled where you say a keyword then parse your next sentence for a command. Send the video to the phone for processing via BT, and let the app do whatever it needs to do, and individual plugins send overlays up. That's enough to get a lot of useful stuff out of it.

Comment Children are hard (Score 1) 176

I suspect people perceive raising children is hard and scary and expensive and stressful, the rewards being less tangible and easily dismissed as parental delusion.

I also think there has been an increasing infantilisation of adulthood since Gen X (people playing video games and watching Marvel movies in their forties) which makes people less willing to give up personal pastimes to take on the responsibilities of family.

Contraception, abortion, and now online porn and an apparently decreasing interest in actual sex amongst the newer generations would also all lead to fewer unplanned babies.

In other words you can offer me all the money and support you want, but if I just don't see myself as wanting to, or being able to, look after another human being and be a role model, it's not going to work.

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