Even if we stipulate that the majority was racist (it doesn't follow logically from the fact the government passed racist laws - think about it), there were undoubtedly non-racist individuals in the minority, and some of these owned businesses. Were the government prevented from impeding _those_ business owner's rights, they could have exploited the economic advantage in attracting black customers and/or employees. Perhaps this could have convinced the "borderline" or "go along to get along" racists to open their doors as well. This is the dynamic that was shunted by Jim Crow.

If government is reduced to its proper role of protecting individual rights (none of which include a job or counter service provided by someone else), the rational actors in a society are empowered, and rationality will eventually win out.

Figure 6 predicts a 0.45 degrees Celsius rise from 1979 to 2012, which matches well with the Wood For Trees global temperature index. However, Figure 6 does not predict that all of that rise will occur prior to 1998, with a flat-to-falling trend since then. Indeed, since the model has an exponential behavior (due to feedback/"sensitivity", I'm guessing), it actually shows quite the opposite behavior, with very little rise early in the period, followed by a much greater (linearly-approximated) slope in the last decade. The conclusion is that this model got very lucky this year, and does not well reflect the underlying physics.

The greenhouse effect is real, the earth has warmed over the past 30 years (though not much, if at all, over the last 13), and human behavior may be contributing to this warming by contributing slightly to the greenhouse effect. However the model presented in this paper is not a good explanation for the details of this process, and therefore cannot be relied on to estimate the magnitude of AGW. It therefore has no value as a policy tool, never mind that it has nothing to say about the economic costs of proposed policy solutions (or even its hypothesized environmental impacts).

Yes, and if you attach real probability estimates to the various events in question, you will still come out with the expected bad outcomes per KwH from nuclear energy being lower than those for any other power source. Just because the bad outcomes are per-occurrence less severe and less news worthy for the dilute energy sources does not change the math.

So your point reduces to the contention that we should ignore reality in favor of perception.

Was the Declaration of "Independents" written by Ross Perot?

OK, I'll forgive your typo. I agree that the Declaration of Independence is an essential document; it in fact establishes the philosophical framework for the Constitution. Can you point out to me the clause that grants us all a right to a job? Or, a right to not be asked questions we find insulting?

That's right, they protect our non-existent "right" to a job (provided by someone else), or privacy (in a public setting in which we have voluntarily engaged), or some other such made up rights. Meanwhile, they violate the business owner's _actual_ rights to freedom of association, contract, and speech. You obviously think these made up rights are more important than the actual ones, which are clearly delineated in the U.S. Constitution. To you, a privately owned business is sort of like a public utility and we all get to vote on how they behave.

You also seem to believe that coercively circumscribing the questions which a business owner may ask a job applicant will actually cause that business owner to approach the world differently; that preventing a bigot from asking about these forbidden classifications will somehow make them a good person to work for. I prefer unfettered voluntary relationships among consenting adults, so that the idiots will be more easily identifiable. With modern communication technology, voluntary boycotts of such idiots will be far more effective at punishing them for their erroneous ideas.

Absolutely!

"The U.S. Constitution may not be perfect, but it's better than what we have now."

- Sandy Shaw

You are confusing synthesis with recognition.

Siri and Evi both use Nuance's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. This technology can support both US and UK English (among many others), depending on which models are used. Presumably, this can be configured by the application software, based on the location of the device and/or user setup (I do not have a smart phone, so I'm not sure if the latter is supported). The Nuance technology also adapts to the user's acoustics and word usage over time, so, in theory, a UK-accented speaker could start with the US English model and it (their speaker-dependent model) would eventually have "moved over" into their space. Not optimal, but it can certainly work, with patience on the user's part. With the correct model and/or adaptation, the vast majority of adult speakers will be able to get their "words recognized" by the ASR technology.

You are correct that the localization issues impact the ability to then respond intelligently to map queries, etc. But that's not all.

The "natural language understanding" (NLU) layer - which includes more general query processing - is also extremely location/domain dependent, and the adaptation technology here is much less advanced than with ASR. So, the main value-added by the Evi application (relative to Siri) is very likely to be an NLU framework that is regionalized. I'm sure Apple has the capability to make their NLU domain-specific; it's mainly a matter of data collection and training.

Not true!
I think a "robocall" uses robots.

"raise the perception of safety"

Except, if you think about it. Then, you realize that, in a world of finite resources, allocating scarce resources to this security theater means that fewer are available for useful security. For example, you could spend, say, 12% of the $8billion TSA budget to hire and train 10,000 educated, intelligent people to perform the background intelligence gathering and on-premise observation (surreptitious) and verbal screening (ala Israel) that actually identifies legitimate threats. The diminishing returns you cite are real, but that does not mean we could not be doing much better than we are with the travesty that is the current TSA.

the result will be fewer opportunities for the already oppressed (by their government) people of China. If forced to pay more more (in either salary or working conditions) than people are voluntarily willing to accept for their labor, Foxconn will not eat the cost, but will reduce the supply of jobs (or will have it reduced when their contracts become limited by increased costs). As such, the more than 500 million people in rural China living on less than $1/day will be more likely to remain that way.

To the whiners who profess: "but we don't want _that_ outcome, we want just as many more expensive jobs": too bad, the world does not work according to your fantasies. To those that instead say: "I'd rather they not have any job, than these horrible jobs", you can wish that, but you can't escape the consequences of what it really means for these people to not have any job. And, to both of these groups, I will love to see their reaction when the cost of their electronic devices goes up (or doesn't go down as fast as it would have). Somehow, I doubt they will be lauding Apple for this inevitable consequence of a reduced/more-expensive labor supply.

I knew it: my inability to have that Maserati (or Picasso, or Springsteen ticket, or whatever) at a price I am willing and able to pay is a failure of the *market*! So, it behooves the government to change the laws so that I can have them at my price. What, a movie, piece of music, book is different because it's "information"? So are the blueprints for that Maserati, the ideas in Picasso's head, and the sound waves traveling between Bruce's guitar and my ears.

Admit it - you people: you want stuff made by others for free. You are thieves. Be proud of it. The rationalizations are unbecoming.

To slashdot-dom (and much of government-school-brain-addled America) any corporation which achieves success through voluntary trade is deemed "evil". The claim has been made about Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM, Oracle ... the list goes on. The whines range from: "They didn't really invent that technology, they just packaged/marketed it" to "That UI is not to my liking" to "It's not fair that they can exclude my favorite browser from their default offering". There are many variants.

Rationally, these contentions discount individual choice. Emotionally, they represent naked envy. And somehow, the remedies offered always involve government force. Then, when the principle of government force they espoused comes back to bite them in the ass, they conveniently forget about their own complicity in its unleashing.

Yes. congratulations are due to all involved in this righteous endeavor. And, to those who say "the U.S. would consider this an act of war ...". Well, of course. It is an act of war. So what? In this case, it is self-defense (and, no, I won't argue that point here), and self-defense is entirely justified.