I just grinned at the juxtaposition of your comment and sig. Rather than "Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them" shouldn't it be "Scientists point out problems, engineers implement them"?

That said, I more than agree with what you said. It seems they no longer test anything for real-world use. In today's world, the old design axioms "KISS" and "form follows function" seem to have gone straight into the dumpster.

So then why didn't the Dvorak keyboard take hold? QWERTY was designed to keep keys on mechanical typewriters from jamming, Dvorak should be much faster.

What the corporate (and yes, some open source) dumbasses don't understand is that if you change my interface there's going to be a learning curve. For someone who has touch-typed for years, it would take years to get up to speed with Dvorak; TFA was right on the money IMO.

Unity, Windows 8, Lenovo and other keyboards... just stop already! Jesus, if they were designing cars you'd have a joystick instead of a wheel and the brake and gas pedals would be reversed (and have a hand-operated clutch).

I only want new if old is broken or new is demonstrably superior. Change for the sake of change is stupid and counterproductive.

So you are saying that, somehow, the FDA would force Google to keep selling the product?

Of course not. Whoever owns CrystaLens now (Bausch&Lomb sold them, I don't remember to whom) could discontinue sales today and nobody could have one implanted until the patent runs out in nine years and anyone can manufacture them. The same goes for Google contacts.

Hmmm...blood sugar a little low? Suddenly all your adwords beside your google searches are for candy bars.

Illegal.

And, as I mentioned in my first post, if it turns out not to be as profitable as Google desires, away it will go.

This isn't a web service like gMail, it's a physical device. They can no more take it away than Amazon can take your hardcover copy of 1984.

A co-op has the same advantages as city-owned; you're both customer and shareholder.

And you wonder why your karma's in the toilet. The hypocritical irony... you gaily stalk j_r's journal to call him a gay troll stalker.

Dude, if you'd learn to troll PROPERLY...

From wikipedia:
Biology
Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following characteristics or traits:[32][34][35]

1.Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2.Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells â" the basic units of life.
3.Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4.Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
5.Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
6.Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
7.Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.
These complex processes, called physiological functions, have underlying physical and chemical bases, as well as signaling and control mechanisms that are essential to maintaining life.

Alternatives
To reflect the minimum phenomena required, other biological definitions of life have been proposed,[36] many of these are based upon chemical systems. Biophysicists have commented that living things function on negative entropy.[37][38] In other words, living processes can be viewed as a delay of the spontaneous diffusion or dispersion of the internal energy of biological molecules towards more potential microstates.[39] In more detail, according to physicists such as John Bernal, Erwin SchrÃdinger, Eugene Wigner, and John Avery, life is a member of the class of phenomena that are open or continuous systems able to decrease their internal entropy at the expense of substances or free energy taken in from the environment and subsequently rejected in a degraded form.[40][41][42] At a higher level, living beings are thermodynamic systems that have an organized molecular structure.[39] That is, life is matter that can reproduce itself and evolve as survival dictates.[43][44] Hence, life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.[45]

Others take a systemic viewpoint that does not necessarily depend on molecular chemistry. One systemic definition of life is that living things are self-organizing and autopoietic (self-producing). Variations of this definition include Stuart Kauffman's definition as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle.[46] Life can be modeled as a network of inferior negative feedbacks of regulatory mechanisms subordinated to a superior positive feedback formed by the potential of expansion and reproduction.[47] Alternatively, life can be said to consist of things with the capacity for metabolism and motion,[32] or that life is self-reproduction "with variations"[48][49] or "with an error rate below the sustainability threshold."[49]

Viruses
Electron micrograph of adenovirus with a cartoon to demonstrate its icosahedral structureViruses are most often considered replicators rather than forms of life. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life,"[50] since they possess genes, evolve by natural selection,[51][52] and replicate by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. However, viruses do not metabolize and they require a host cell to make new products. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it may support the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.[53][54][55]

Ever heard of a supercomputer? You know, those computers that cost millions of dollars and are the fastest computers in the world? Well, the fastest ten all run Linux. Guess who can afford a computer like that?

Guess what OS routers are running. Yep, Linux. Guess what Pixar and the other CGI houses use? Linux. Do you think the automakers are using Windows to run simulations??

The only Windows computers are the little ones sitting on office drones' desks. The big iron mostly runs Linux these days, where it used to be UNIX.

On top of that, who the hell pays with cash anymore?

Me, for one. I only use my credit card when I'm short of cash and the bank's closed (Sundays) or it's the most convenient way to pay, like when buying online. There are a lot of places that are cash-only; JD's on laurel accepts no checks or cards, only cash although most restaurants will take cards. Most bars don't take cards but most will take a paper check.

Why would I use a card when I have cash in my pocket? All it does is add a fee the seller has to pay, which raises prices.

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"

Guys, these are medical devices. They won't be able to sell them in the US without FDA approval and in other countries with their governments' medical regulatory agencies' approval. And with these, unlike gMail or search, you are the customer, not the product.

For those of you who missed the significance of the first sentence, google it (although you shouldn't have to, you should already know).

I think you need more coffee.

Monopolies are bad. Government makes a monopoly. Results are bad.

Utilities are natural monopolies, governments don't create those. Do you have a choice of who you can buy your natural gas, water, or electricity from? Look, if the city runs the utility and the utility is badly run, the mayor will lose his or her job, as has happened here in Springfield more than once. Know what happens when the next administration gets into office? Rates go down and service improves. Springfield owns CWLP and we have the lowest electric rates and best service in the state, simply because Amerin customer's can't vote Amerin's CEO out of office, but we CWLP customers can.

I'll take my democracy over your "free" market any day.

I'm having a Sheldon moment; I thought you were serious. Mr. Poe is bitch-slapping me again, I guess, since there are so many here that actually believe that bullshit (or troll effectively). So I'm going to pretend you're serious even though I know you're not.

We'll be the first to tell you that "past performance is no guarantee of future success."

True, but past lack of performance is a solid indication of future failure.

The GP said "Utilities should be public, and not operated for profit." I half agree with that, based on my own experience of living in Springfield (yes, we have an Alderman named Gail Simpson). CWLP is owned and operated by the city. We have the lowest rates, the best uptime, and the best customer service in the state. And yes, CWLP turns a profit which helps keep taxes down (they sell power to other power companies as well as residents and businesses).

In 2006 two almost EF3 tornadoes tore through springfield, completely destroying much of the south end and east side's infrastructure. There wasn't a single utility pole left standing in my neighborhood. You could still see the scars the tornado left years later. A couple of months after our tornadoes, one hit the St Louis area. I visited my friend who lived on the east side of the river, who had been without power for a month. His lack of electricity was the only indication that there had ever been a tornado.

If you're on Amerin or other private company and your rates are high and customer service sucks and the power goes out every time it rains, tough shit, buddy. It's not like you can go down the street to the competitor. You have no power over its CEO whatever; he's beholden to the stockholders, not you. OTOH if my service degrades or my prices go up, the Mayor will lose the next election -- it's happened several times before.

Besides food and oxygen, every object we use to determine wealth is kind of bs

How about clean, fresh water? How about fuel for heat? It would be impossible to stay alive here right now without it. How about the building materials to make something to hold that heat?

Yes, those are all required for survival. But I wouldn't call mere survival "living".