Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Comment: Re:Dang, Canada... (Score 0) 455

by lgw (#43796885) Attached to: The Canadian Government's War On Science

I can understand a fiscal conservative's opinion that government has no business funding scientific research - and considering this horseshit, I would think that a liberal might side with that just for the reason of science getting politicized even more.

But when a government starts meddling with science and research because it pisses off their backers - industry - then we are headed for some serious trouble. The Bible thumpers don't scare me because, although a pain in the ass, they are easily defeated.

Government money always goes to friends of those in power. All we're seeing in Canada is researchers discovering they need to be friendly with the new power group (until it changes back).

As soon as any research can support or attack any political position, the ruling party is going to ensure that only research that supports their positions gets funded. How could you expect it to be any other way? Perhaps those in power used to support positions you agreed with, so the steering of research seemed unbiased, and now that's changed so suddenly it seems biased?

Comment: Re:Dang, Canada... (Score 1) 455

by lgw (#43796791) Attached to: The Canadian Government's War On Science

Pravda may be the best paper going, now that the Weekly World News has sadly folded. Since they're all basically fiction these days, the least they could do is try to be more entertaining! Pravda is brave enough to publish bigfoot stories, but only the Weekly World news had photos from the secret marriage between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and the follow up on their cute chimpanzee baby. Sadly, only News that Fits the Narrative is printed these days (though I doubt there will be a single large paper in 20 years, as the only generation who still reads them dies off).

Comment: Re:One word: cables (Score 1) 135

by lgw (#43796667) Attached to: Will Robots Take Over the Data Center?

Doesn't seem any more difficult than picking a tape from a rack. You can get in the ballpark by dead reckoning, but to actually grab a tape/cable/whatever you need a camera, appropriately-shaped fingers, and some clever control logic. It's a fun engineering problem to solve, but one that has been solved many times.

Comment: Re:Let's hope the company makes things robots buy (Score 1) 135

by lgw (#43796605) Attached to: Will Robots Take Over the Data Center?

"Jobs" will never be obsolete. What an odd idea - people have a deep need to work for what they have, or they don't value what they have and act quite destructively.

Low skill jobs will become obsolete. Repetitive mindless tasks, which for a long time were the source of almost all employment, will eventually be the source of almost no employment. And that's a good thing! There will still be plenty of jobs providing services for one another, which we'll perform to get the money to pay for services (and a small percentage for all the food and manufactured goods we need, which will be taken for granted).

Fewer of the world's richest people will own manufacturing and transport companies, more will own fashion companies (already a significant portion).

Comment: Re:That's a whole... (Score 3, Informative) 382

by lgw (#43795179) Attached to: Xbox One: No Always-Online Requirement, But Needs To Phone Home

GoG is by far the best and easiest way to get old PC games, because they work out the emulation and such for you. There are still people who sell boxed copies of old games for more than GoG prices, but that's mostly the collectors aspect, I suspect.

Given a good online service to buy old console games cheap - like GoG (and to a limited extent Steam) provides on the PC - why would a second-hand store be needed?

Comment: Re: Read the blog post (Score 1) 166

by lgw (#43795069) Attached to: Some Scientists Question Whether Quantum Computer Really Is Quantum

Surely there is still value in advancing the technology, $10m seems a small price to pay considering.

I believe that's exactly the scam here. D-Wave is selling something, something which solves problems, but is much less interesting than claimed.

Paying millions for really impressive PowerPoint slides only leads to scams. Actual proof of technological advancement if worth paying for, but unproven claims of such are worthless.

Comment: Re:Done right, a nutritional plus. (Score 1) 241

by lgw (#43794969) Attached to: 3-D Printable Food Gets Funding From NASA

Yeah, 10 minutes of preparations, 30 minutes of heating, and 10 minutes of cleanup is totally the same as 2 minutes in the microwave. And when cooking for one, it's hard to make appropriate portions from fresh ingredients without a lot of waste. Needing 1/3rd of a tomato for something is just annoying (not that I should have even that much sugar in a meal).

Your body is literally made out of what you eat.

Only after what you eat had been soaked in a pit of acid, then specific parts of the result selected by enzymes for later use. It's amazing the crazy stuff people convince themselves of regarding "processed" food.

Comment: Re:rather have money (Score 1) 518

by lgw (#43794857) Attached to: Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive?

No, you're missing the larger point - that was a time in your life when you needed charity. If you had a totally separate state charity, which you could have gone to for money to pay health insurance premiums, you would had had health insurance to cover your hand.

Bundling "charity" and "health care" is a poor choice (among ways to organize society) that comes from not making a better choice elsewhere.

I'd argue that the-state-as-charity is a morally bad choice (for reasons that would take a long time to explain) that we choose because we prefer charity to be impersonal.

Comment: Re:rather have money (Score 1) 518

by lgw (#43788941) Attached to: Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive?

So there was a time in your life when you needed charity? Happens to most of us. Sorry there wasn't a family member, church, or other charity there for you. We should be better at charity - which has nothing at all to do with the quality of health care available in the US.

Billing and cost-transfer is a huge problem with the US system, and one that we oddly don't have anywhere where people directly pay for the services they consume. Funny how that works.

Thufir's a Harkonnen now.

Working...