I agree. Let's have that conversation when that starts happening.

Actually, I don't want to slam drones. I think they can be used responsibly and economically. But *responsible* isn't a given.

As for my playing semantic "games", that's a richly ironic accusation.

The man's life was saved by a policeman using an infrared camera which happened to be mounted on a drone.

It's important to get the gist of the story right here, because the decision to use drones domestically is a matter of trade offs. So it makes a difference whether you draw the spurious lesson "drones save lives", or the correct lesson, "infrared cameras save lives, drones save money in deploying such cameras in comparison to conventional helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft." One might reasonably choose to risk civil liberties because of certain life-or-death situation, but not choose to do so if its a matter of another ten or twenty bucks a year on your state or provincial taxes.

That was my thought when I read the summary, but then I read the article.

The glitch wasn't one that caused the machine to lose; it was one that allowed the player to manipulate the machine into paying out the same jackpot *twice*. Compounding that, it could be made to pay out that jackpot at odds higher than the player actually faced the first time around.

Let's look at this by analogy. Suppose there was a real card game offered by the casino, and this game had a flaw in it; that flaw consists of a no-lose strategy. There'd be nothing immoral about a player noticing that strategy and exploiting it to win. That's the impression of the software glitch the summary gives. In fact the glitch works more like this: suppose the player notices that when the employee hands out winning chips, he leaves a drawer full of chips open where anyone coming along could grab them. The player then plays until he wins, pockets his winnings, then walks around to the other side of the table and stuffs a bunch of chips that don't belong to him into his pocket.

I dunno. Some years ago I had a successful business doing field data collection software on Windows CE, later Windows Mobile devices, and for the most part those devices were sold as semi-useless executive toys.

In an ideal world, form follows function; in the real world vendors create form factors and user try to figure out what the can use those form factors for. Many developers tried to shoehorn desktop style apps onto PDA with limited success, but it turned out that besides looking up phone numbers and appointments, the PDA form factor was ideally suited for the kind of app where your field workers hop out of a truck, note some exotic invasive plant, and record spraying it with Roundup. A laptop, or even a tablet is too bulky; you want something you can carry in your pocket. On the other hand, it was painful to type more than couple of words on a PDA using a stylus (things have got somewhat better with predictive text entry).

When you say "there aren't many places I'd recommend them [tablets] for business," you obviously have a set of applications in mind, and of course if they're typical desktop apps you wouldn't recommend tablets. Tablets are poor choices for content creation. The lack of keyboard means they're not very good for text-centric content creation, and the tradeoffs of performance, I/O capabilities, and storage needed to achieve good hand-holdability and battery life mean that other kinds of content creation aren't going to be their forte, either. What tablets are good for are the very task we saw them used for in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 or in Star Trek TNG: information retrieval, presentation and playback. There's plenty of business applications that fit that bill. Furthermore the middle ground tablets occupy between notebooks and PDA means that while they aren't pocketable like a PDA, they have potential data entry applications where the screen size of a PDA is an important limitation, on one hand, but the bulk of a notebook is inconvenient. For example apps where you retrieve and configure things and then hand around the result (e.g. high end point of sale).

Personally, I like the idea of a tablet with a detachable hardware keyboard. But keep in mind most product developers are unimaginative. They don't redesign their product to take advantage of a form factor, they simply bring their old apps up on the new form factor and expect magic to happen. It doesn't. You have conceive an app around a form factor's potential, and design the app around it's strengths and limitations.

The study was double-blind with a placebo control.

You wasted the time spent on your response; time you will never get back.. Nobody's going to want to associate with you, either, because they'll look silly by reflection.

You might need a couple of Tylenol.

I have my doubts about both these assertions.

The persuasion game works like state lottery commissions claim their games work: you can't win if you don't play. In the Internet age it's impossible to drive a stake through the heart of a crackpot theory; people assemble into self-reinforcing communities which preserve and spread fringe ideas until they're no longer so fringe. Take scientific racism; it was a museum-piece article of crankery when I went to school in the 80s, but all those sloppy, half-baked papers from the 1930s have gained a new life on sites like Stormfront. It's the whole epistemic bubble thing; people take comfort in the company of like-minded people, and crackpots are not excluded from that. They'll keep their ideas alive, and if scientific consensus absents itself from the debate platform for long enough they'll take the opportunity to create a new generation of true believers.

Now as for the whole round number milestone thing, it's a occasion to stay in the persuasion game. It's an opportunity to inform the people who have other things to think about in their lives that the problem hasn't gone away just because the media attention has died down somewhat. Yes, there's certain arbitrariness to the round number chosen. If we had eight, or eleven fingers, we'd be observing a somewhat different milestone, but the exact number doesn't really matter. What matters is that the issue is periodically brought up before the public so that the debate can be aired again.

LBT -- Listen Before Talk.

I have always found it best to understand users' problems first before trying to teach them what they need to know. Part of that is to learn their language. I spent a number of years working with environmental scientists, and after a few years it was quite common for scientists to assume I was a biologist who happened to do information technology, because I learned to speak the language of biology fluently. In an earlier job I worked with accountants, and learned their language too, all the way down to the in-jokes accountants tell.

I'll give you two really good reasons why you want.to do it this way, rather than try to teach management to be IT experts. First, success in this approach depends entirely upon you: your patience, your motivation, your thoroughness. It doesn't hinge on the eagerness of management to learn about software architecture. The second reason is that you don't want management to think they've become IT experts and mess around with stuff that's over their head. Understand the asymmetry in your relationship with your management: your boss can stop you from acting like you're an expert in his job, but you can't.stop him from acting like he's an expert in your job.

I'm not saying to keep your management in the dark, or not to teach them what they need to know. But first *understand what they need to know*; they've got their own work to do. What they need to know is what they need from you (or your successor), how to get it, and what is reasonable to expect. If you've got the balls to do it, teach them how to hold you responsible -- that's the most important thing they need to know and it shows you're confident in your competence.

The fact that you're contemplating this means your employer is not in some kind of IT field. That means you, as IT guy, are in a support position, not a "line" position. Your job is to take care of other people's needs, just like the janitor is, only you're much, much better paid and so a higher level of professionalism is expected. I know this, because I've been in that position. Take it from me, if you want to be happy in that position, embrace your role as support for the main show. You wan't be happy otherwise. If you want to run your own business, then start an IT business, but if you're doing IT *in* a business, your job is to help the organization do its thing. Your job viz the management is to get them out of trouble, steer them away from trouble, and provide them with the tools they need to succeed.

If you're smart, one of the most things you'll teach them is how to recognize what an amazingly good job you're doing. But teaching them to do your job? It's a waste of their time and asking for trouble.

A human brain is best utilized for critical thinking, not data storage. Google Glass opens the door for obtaining data when you need it without committing it to longterm memory.

We should however keep Google on a tight leash. If they start to go a little evil over this technology, we should fight to jailbreak it so that it can be used for good.

Actually I share your concern with Supermax prisons. I think for some prisoners they're necessary for the protection of the public and the people who guard them, but I get the nagging feeling that some places use detention in Supermax as a kind of unconstitutionally enhanced punishment.

If Tsarnaev's sent to the kind of facility you're talking about, it'll be the federal facility in Florence Colorado -- which is an antiseptic hell-hole.

I didn't think Massachusetts had its own facility that meets Supermax security standards, but it turns out I was wrong. There's Souza-Baranowski in Shirley Mass, which some have called the most technologically advanced prison in the world. I kid you not, it runs entirely on renewable energy sources. Go ahead and laugh at liberal Massachusetts, because it *is* funny that our version of Devil's Island is solar powered.

According to the Mass DOC, Souza-Baranowski "offers a full range of educational, vocational and substance abuse programming," which sets it apart from the kind of Supermax prisons you're talking about, where prisoners rot away in solitary confinement.

Well, I've been on two Massachusetts juries, one of which found "guilty" the other of which found "not guilty". The "not guilty" verdict was in a case that involved a fairly heinous crime. Given the seriousness of the crime it took us a long time to come to the "not guilty" conclusion -- I was the last juror to make up his mind in fact. While I believe all of us thought the preponderance of evidence was that the guy did it, we took the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard seriously. We worked, very, very hard to come up with the right verdict, especially because in this case it ran counter to our feelings about the man.

That doesn't mean it'll be easy to get a jury like that in this case. I have a niece who is on social media right now calling for this guy to be tortured and left to bleed to death. I don't think she'd get on the jury, and if she did, I'd speak up. I think *I* could give this guy a fair hearing, and I'm not really that unusual in understanding the importance of a juror's duty to be open-minded.

I happen think there's a very good chance, given the prominence of this case, that some big time lawyers and law professors will take up this guy's defense.

Nope. We have Romneycare, the model for Obamacare nationwide (although to give credit where credit is due it should probably be called BobDoleCare). Massachusetts hasthe lowest rate of uninsured in the country, so he's probably covered.

Not here in Massachusetts. He will be taken to a world-class hospital and his wounds treated. Once he is well, he will await trial in a comfortable jail, with access to his lawyer so he can prepare his defense. If he can't afford a lawyer we'll hire one for him. In such a high profile case, he may even get a top drawer lawyer working pro-bono to ensure his defense doesn't get steamrollered by public opinion. If he chooses to plead not guilty he will have the fairest trial we can possibly contrive, and the burden of proof will be on the prosecutor. If the prosecutor proves he is guilty, and he escapes the Federal death penalty (we don't have a state death penalty), he will be housed for the rest of his life in a correctional facility that is humanely operated to the maximum extent consistent with ensuring public safety.

And I'm proud that's we do things. It's civilized. Some people may kill, maim or hurt people because they're feeling angry, but we as a people don't do things like that. That's what makes us better than they are.

We got the job done, there's no reason to spike the ball. In fact there's plenty reason *not* to. We give the state power to kill people, to inflict pain, to deprive them of their freedom, but those powers ought to be limited to their proper application by strict rules. They should not be used at the whim of an individual government official or group of officials.

Had Tsarnaev continued resisting arrest and got himself shot, I'd shake the hand of the officer who shot him. But now that he's given up, I'd call for the prosecution of any official who uses excessive force on him.

Well ... I don't know if what's driving it is *usability*; I think it's more that they've decided that touch interfaces are the way things will go.

The whole dual interface thing in Windows 8 reminds me of Windows 3; you had a new interface (a GUI), with only a few apps written for it, and you had your DOS shell which could run your important apps Like Lotus 1-2-3 and Wordperfect.

Well, maybe you're onto something. Gun legislation would force somebody to switch from using a powerful, highly lethal, high capacity firearm to some kind of hare-brained improved explosive -- as was used here.

The result is that only two people are killed and a couple of dozen injured, instead of the carnage that would have been inflicted if the persons responsible had pulled out an AR-15 with a couple of 30 round clips taped together "jungle style". If we're lucky, a lot of the people responsible for this sort of thing will save us the trouble of hunting them down by blowing themselves up.