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I don't understand this "I don't want to be recorded" that people always go on about with this. Seriously, what is so special about you that a stranger would want to record you?
That depends.
You could be a teenaged girl in Cleveland.
Apple has been running a handsomely produced series of adds showing the iPhone being used as a traditional hand-held camera, a later-day Kodak. Each set piece a thousand light years removed from the creepy open mouthed geek in the shower who went viral as the defining image of Google Glass.
-- The Segway. The Bluetooth headset. The pocket protector.
What do these three technologies have in common? They all pretty much work as promised. They all seem like good ideas on paper. And they're all too dorky to live.
Now, far be it from me to claim that nerdiness equals lack of popularity potential. But I contend that dorkiness and nerdiness are two different qualities. While nerdiness implies a certain social awkwardness that's ultimately endearing, dorkiness connotes social obliviousness that opens you to deserved ridicule.
Will these guys make Google Glass uncool?
Larry Page on Robert Scoble's Google Glass stunt: 'I really didn't appreciate the shower photo'
Or just as likely, they just faked the data.
The geek is remarkably quick to accuse others of bribery or fraud. Bonus points for the instant mod-up to +4.
Or how about a class action lawsuit?
US federal courts are hostile to class actions.
Show a judge clear evidence of great many similar and lethal asbestos related cancers in an industry that knew what was happening and did nothing to stop it and he will least be willing to hear you out.
There is a terrible urgency to such cases and the stakes are high.
The division of add revenues from a gamer's YouTube video ---- a clearly derivative work based on Nintendo's IP? The chances that any individual plaintiff will have been damaged enough to meet the legal threshold for a lawsuit are dim. The chances that he would win on the merits are dim.
Internet was in many households long before Microsoft implemented it on the "commodized PC platform".
The numbers aren't there to support such a claim. In fact, they prove just the opposite. The US Census figures are particularly striking and persuasive.
Households With a Computer and Internet Access 1984 to 2003
In 1990 the Internet had existed for only 7 years; just 3 million people had access to it worldwide. 73% of these people were living in the United States, 15% were in Western Europe.
LibreOffice comes pre-packed in most Linux distributions. If you want OpenOffice you have to download it from Apache.
You aren't suggesting all those 50 million downloads were to the Windows PC and the Mac?
There's no more Carl Sagan, no more Bill Nye on television, nothing except Mythbusters to inspire future generations of engineers and scientific thinkers.
PBS is the obvious response.
But there are others and there is more to science and to scientific thinking than engineering.
The Discovery Channel --- in its many incarnations --- has a lot to offer if you are willing to poke around a bit.
So instead of drawing a cartoon face yourself, which is something everyone can do...
Not everyone can draw a plausible caricature of themselves. Try it sometime.
Long time back, Microsoft Research China released an IM client for low bandwidth video chat at dial-up speeds. (less than a 15K modem)
It's just like the horror that is Microsoft Song Smith, where Microsoft wanted to automate the "tedious chore of composing music" by letting a computer generate tunes instead.
Not stupid at all.
The most obvious practical application would be in video games, where synching art, animation, music, audio and visual effects to the player's actions without odd incongruities and obvious repetition is a major problem and expense.
only allow individual human beings to donate to campaigns, and then only in campaigns they can vote in. Bam, money out of politics instantly.
There are the minor constitutional problems of freedom of speech and freedom of association. "In union there is strength." A concept foreign to the geek. Which is why he is on the outside looking in. Organization and a common purpose wins elections.
Enormous sums of money can raised and spent outside the campaign itself. The NRA has this down to a science.
I'm not sure this is the best example, because congresspeople would have another incentive to support the measure: all of their home town local shops will have also been calling them up (and directing their customers to do so as well) in support of it,
Not to mention their employees, suppliers and supporting B2B services.
The electrician. The truck driver. The guy who mows the grass. Everyone who doesn't want to see another storefront boarded up. But when the geek hears the word "bribery," rational thought and plain common sense goes out the window.
Senators who voted last week for the bill allowing states to directly collect taxes on sales via the Internet, AKA The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, received 40 times as much campaign donation money (yes, that's four-oh, not just four) from businesses in favor of the bill as those who voted against it received from businesses that were against Internet sales taxes. Was this bribery? Of course not!
How many businesses in your state have significant out of state sales?
How many people do online retailers employ in your state, how much revenues do these retailers generate for state and local government?
Monsanto has a policy...that prohibits farmers from saving or reusing the seeds once the crop is grown. Farmers must buy new seeds every year.
That's a very harsh policy and they probably charge a premium for their seed, it must be tough to be a farmer nowadays.
Get a grip.
Farming here has been commercial not subsistence since the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. In the next generation, half the population of the U,S, would be urban. Think about how that impacts the expense and recruitment of agricultural labor.
Harvesting seed has a cost, Everything has a cost. What matters is the return on your investment.
You need to set the price as high as possible to sell otherwise unsellable stuff. Caviar, escargots, oysters....
Oysters were the universal snack food in nineteenth century America.
Upmarket you'd find handsomely decorated and now very collectable plates and utensils. The Art of Oyster Plate Collecting
Unlike in Europe, oyster consumption in North America after colonization by Europeans was never confined to class, and oysters were commonly served in taverns. During the early 1800s, express wagons filled with oysters crossed the Allegheny Mountains to reach the American Midwest. The oldest oyster bar in the United States is Union Oyster House in Boston, which opened in 1826. It features oyster shucking in front of the customer, and patrons may make their own oyster sauces from condiments on the tables. It has served as a model for many oyster bars in the United States.
By 1850, nearly every major town in North America had oyster bar, oyster cellar, oyster parlor, or oyster saloon --- almost always located in the basement of the establishment (where keeping ice was easier). Oysters and bars often went hand-in-hand in the United States, because oysters were seen as a cheap food to serve alongside beer and liquor.
By the late 1880s, an "oyster craze" had swept the United States, and oyster bars were prominent gathering places in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Lousiville, New York City, and St. Louis. An 1881 U.S. government fisheries study counted 379 oyster houses in the Philadelphia city directory alone...
It is a streetable car, and it does fly.
The Maverick --- designed for medical missionary work and similar applications --- is an ATV that can take to the air with a reasonable payload when needed. Top speed in flight is a modest 40 mph. It was never intended for use in high winds or other extreme conditions.
When it's time to fly, the Maverick's central telescopic mast raises and acts as a wing spar for its chute, properly known as a ram-air wing. The flip of a switch diverts engine power from the rear wheels to the rear-mounted five-blade propeller, which propels the car across the ground, up to its take-off speed of 40mph (64km/h). Thanks to its ram-air wing design, the Maverick can take flight in only 300 feet (91 meters).
Once in the air, the vehicle's electronic fly-by-wire system allows the pilot to steer it with the steering wheel, just like they would on the ground. According to I-TEC, existing sport pilots can learn to fly the Maverick within 12 hours. A dash-mounted Garmin GPS allows for both aerial and ground-based navigation. In flight mode, it has a maximum payload of 330 pounds (150 kg).
the nanny-state mentality that is gripping government first world countries will soon forbid the growing of beef-life tissue because of its increasing the risk of arterial clogging, etc.
When the state is paying the medical bills for tens or hundreds of millions of people why shouldn't it have a say in the sale and marketing of products which increase its costs?
The light of a hundred stars does not equal the light of the moon.