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Comment Re:Reasons (Score 2) 155

They did a ton of ergonomics research in the 1990s, and built their UI design based on that. At some point around Vista, they abandoned that, and started chasing whatever new fad had come along. The strange idea that people would want to use Windows on a Tablet gave us the atrocity that is the Windows 8 Start Screen.

I do think that AI integrations are worth exploring in a desktop UI, but I also think they need to dust off that ergonomics research, and focus on making the best possible desktop operating system, instead of pivoting from one fad delivery system to the next.

Comment Re:Stasi-like? (Score 2) 55

The real issue is Corruption. Any time you see both Republicans and Democrats coming together on something, such as this, if you dig around enough, you'll find some industry that's going to rake in a ton of money because of it. Pay attention to the few who dissent, though. Some subset of them aren't yet corrupt, and they're trying to fix things.

Comment Re:Don't give idiots a platform (Score 1) 53

Loeb isn't claiming that aliens reached here. The reporting on this whole thing has been a disaster. It's the journalists that are hung up on the aliens part. Loeb believes the meteor came from outside of our solar system, and wants to see if the metals within occur naturally, or if they're artificially made alloys that humans aren't making. If he finds metals that occur naturally, then it was just a meteor. If he finds metals that humans are currently making, then maybe what he obtained from the ocean floor didn't come from deep space. If he finds that it's some weird alloy that definitely doesn't occur on accident, which people aren't making, then that's a strong implication that the meteor was some (now destroyed) construct that got away from some aliens. The entire reason it's a candidate, is because the US Military told him it likely didn't come from our solar system.

The whole thing is rational, if you look passed the sensationalist reporting. The only thing that upsets me is that there's the question hanging out there about what the bits of metal that he did find, turned out to be. No one is reporting on that. It's the biggest question of the whole damned thing, and it's just hanging over the story, unanswered. This article seems to imply that Loeb was unsatisfied with the results, which could mean that they were mundane bits of metal, or it could mean that the sample size was too small to render a conclusion. Again, we're not being informed, because it's much more fun to shout, "Aliens!" and "Look at the dumb Harvard Professor who believes in aliens!"

Comment Re:Why is it worth anything at all ? (Score 1) 68

There are people who accept it as payment. That's what gives any currency value. In the case of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, value is founded on Ransomware gangs accepting it as payment. People are motivated to obtain it, because they need it to pay ransom. It's not a coincidence that Bitcoin took off in 2017, at the same time that Ransomware really started getting notice.

Comment Re:The problem isn't technology, it's people (Score 2) 202

The cycle you discuss only happens when Capitalism isn't regulated to prevent monopolies and ensure competition. If monopolies are allowed to emerge, the system eventually becomes Oligarchy, which isn't the worst way to live as the prices can be quite low (you don't need a high profit margin if you have an industry's entire profit), however, with no competition to incentivize improvement, everything stagnates and no progress is made. We don't like that.
Capitalism (on the condition that it is regulated to ensure competition in the market) is the only economic system we have, which incentivizes removing human labor from the process of making the things we need. If you look at the last 150 years, Capitalism has reduced the labor that goes into everything by a great deal. Advancements in Manufacturing lead to reducing to a 5 Day / 40 Hour work week about 100 years ago, and with advancements in Information Technology, it seems like a 4 Day / 32 Hour, or maybe even a 3 Day work week should be reasonable, if not ideal, now. We might even be more productive, this way. AI looks like the next break through that's going to substantially reduce the need for human labor. Eventually, so little human labor will go into the things you need, that it will stop making sense to charge money for it. At that point, we've obtained Post-Scarcity, and we'll have to figure out a new economic system, because Capitalism will be broken. With outcomes separated from quality and quantity of a person's work, something that looks like Socialism will probably be fine. You just need to understand that Socialism can never get us there.

Comment Re:This is the narrative we want. (Score 1) 57

Your view of the issue is rather skewed. They actually profit more from the shorter work week, and you and I both know that there's plenty of evidence for this. The problem is that the people making decisions have been doing it since a time when we didn't get so much done in so short a time. They're accustomed to the longer work week, and don't trust the idea that a person can be more productive in fewer hours. It's the same line of reasoning that requires a person who's more productive at home, to return to the office. It's not the Profit that's the issue here, it's the perception of control.

Comment Re:the world is ending!! (Score 1) 276

As a California resident... I got tired of my garage and the trunk of my car being covered in plastic bags at all times, and when I realized that paying $1.20 for 12 bags to put my $300 worth of groceries into was trivial and not worth caring about, I stopped keeping the plastic bags. Evidently, I'm not the only Californian who worked this out. Paper bags are an option, and sometimes we have to use them because our supermarket ran out of plastic bags. They suck. They hold less, and they break easily. It's for good reason that we prefer plastic.

Comment Re:Lab meat is the future (Score 1) 110

I enjoy food quite a bit, and I've got the belly to prove it. You just don't grind your best cuts into ground beef. Ground beef is the best use for the tough meat, and the worst use for the tender meat. The whole point of the grinding process is that the meat is effectively pre-chewed for you, so whether the meat was tough or tender, you end up with about the same consistency. Flavor may vary a bit from cow to cow, but at the end of the day, beef is beef.

Comment Re:Lab meat is the future (Score 2) 110

Nobody is going to be replicating the exact flavor of Coca-Cola until other companies are also permitted to import the Coca plant to flavor it. They may not get to keep the cocaine from their import (that goes to a pharmaceutical company), but it's still that exotic ingredient that's literally impossible for anyone else to obtain. It would be just as difficult to replicate the flavor of a cow's meat, if a ranch's industry secret was raising it on cocaine, even if you had the same breed and similar conditions.

Cultivated meat will do fine when used as ground beef; that style of beef is ideal for any cut of beef that may not be naturally preferred, due to its quality. Doesn't matter if you put Angus or dairy cow through there, it comes out more or less the same. The thing is though, that cultivators will, in time, have very precise control over the conditions and development of the meat. It may not be there yet, but in time, it may come to pass that the tenderest, juiciest Prime Rib you've ever had came from a cultivating plant. Granted, we may still be 100 years away from that, but that's the direction of it.

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