China calling Elon. Come in, Elon! :)

how different from a "big crunch" is a black hole?

bah.

Let me know when they start making *autographic* 120 film again. I have the camera, and am dying to shoot a roll!

The last rolls were apparently made in 1932. The cameras had a flap that could flip up and allow writing directly onto the film with a stylus. When you see handwriting on an old picture print, it was likely shot on autographic.

[and, yes, in fact my autographic camera *does* have bellows!]

That Electrolux isn't really an Electrolux.

a couple of decades ago, in one of those weird corporate maneuvers, it sold the name, and now sells its vacuums under another name, while the buyer sells non-electrolux as Electrolux.

So what she knows of Electrolux from the late 20th and early 21st centuries no longer applies.

But, yes, they were very good and lasted forever. Also extremely pricey.

try using mirrors. What could go wrong? :)

We had to have our entire roof reshingled after a particularly bad storm.

It turns out that of the various colors, the lightest (or 2?) was actually energy star rated. So we took it.

It turned out to be worth about 2F inside as compared to the prior black shingles.

We got another 2F when we replaced the swamp cooler--the newer model had an 18" pad instead of 12".

Between the roof and the bigger pads, we only had a single non-monsoon season day where we had to switch over to AC this summer--in Las Vegas!

(I'm going to miss the swamp cooler when we move, but they're apparently not allowed in new construction. I have no idea when the cutoff was)

Ok, so AOL is pulling another Amiga. Big deal.

What we all want to know is whether or not we'll soon be getting free coasters in the mail again!

What is the definition of cannot pass through? Would the copy that is trying the pass through be blocked in some way?

I want to be able to walk up to the screen of a game and see the fly that just landed on a spectator's nose./p

Given many views inside a house, such as all the frames of a walk around video, i want software that can build a set of images of each wall, floor, and ceiling, in that house. Then i want software that can produce new views inside, at new designated angles that were not previously shot. If the input is fully complete, then the output should be, as well. most of the AI would be in scanning the input image frames to "understand" how each frame is shot. I have done this before, manually, a couple times, and merged the images. I think AI should be able to do this, to the extent the input covers.

>There is no proprietary infotainment system. GM is adopting Google Built-in.

You say that like it isn't even worse than proprietary . . .

>In 2001 cars didn't come with an AUX port...

yes, but . . . some, such as the Bosch units used in the Northstar Cadillacs of the 1990s, had pads for it on their circuit board.

Open the unit up, attach leads, and apply a signal, and *presto!*, aux appears in the cycle of inputs!

They also tended to be able to mount a CD changer in the trunk.

What suckers!

I'd have built them an AI system to answer the same questions for a tenth the cost!

[and then escaped with $99M while the machine made up answers .. . .]

no need for an arial drone.

Whether automatically or by remote operator, drop a wheeled motor with the cones at the specified length on a chain.

Either make it able to collect them, or just have a retractor motor to pul it all back in.

next to controlling the truck itself, this is a trivial task.

The reason for the rules seems like common sense to me. There is a certain distance needed to stop or change lanes when driving at highway distance. If the truck breaks down just over a hill, cars won't see it early enough unless the warning signals are put further back where they can be seen coming up the hill.

I seriously doubt that these rules were just shit someone made up. The NHTSA has so many studies regarding road regulations and guidance. They might be outdated for modern technology, and might be worse than newer alternatives - I don't doubt that hasn't been studied yet - but I would absolutely wager that there were studies done to justify the original numbers.

Furthermore, when congress delegated regulatory power to these agencies they included laws dictating how the rules needed to be determined, specifically so you can't have a bunch of political hacks changing them on a whim. Changes to the regulation need to be justified, and there needs to be comment period to gather any information and concerns that the agency itself might have overlooked, respond to the comments and incorporate any changes as appropriate. I don't want regulators to be able say "this is just some crap" and change rules every four years because they shoot from the hip. That means that changes take 1-3 years depending on how complicated and motivated the agency is, but it is worthwhile to end up with better regulations and avoid being constantly jerked around.