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Comment Re:So basically... (Score -1) 459

language never stands still, it constantly evolves, there is no standard

what is idiot to you is normal to someone else, and what is intelligent to you is musty and stale "don't wear white after labor day" anachronism to another

the world changes. deal with it

just take solace in the fact that those writing "LOL WTF ;-P" to you in emails will be equally crusty and shocked at the younguns someday

Power

US Electrical Grid On the Edge of Failure 293

ananyo writes "Facebook can lose a few users and remain a perfectly stable network, but where the national grid is concerned, simple geography dictates that it is always just a few transmission lines from collapse, according to a mathematical study of spatial networks. The upshot of the study is that spatial networks are necessarily dependent on any number of critical nodes whose failure can lead to abrupt — and unpredictable — collapse. The warning comes ten years after a blackout that crippled parts of the midwest and northeastern United States and parts of Canada. In that case, a series of errors resulted in the loss of three transmission lines in Ohio over the course of about an hour. Once the third line went down, the outage cascaded towards the coast, cutting power to some 50 million people. The authors say that this outage is an example of the inherent instability the study describes. But others question whether the team's conclusions can really be extrapolated to the real world. 'The problem is that this doesn't reflect the physics of how the power grid operates,' says Jeff Dagle, an electrical engineer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, who served on the government task force that investigated the 2003 outage."
AI

Death of the Car Salesman? BMW Makes AI App To Sell Electric Cars 168

cartechboy writes "You thought Willy Loman had it bad. BMW is launching an artificial intelligence app allowing consumers to ask questions about its new BMW i3 electric car without the hassle of having to pick up the phone or go into a dealership. Potential customers can text a simple question about the i3 and the system builds an appropriate response in real-time using AI — interpreting words, sentiment, and context. The futuristic robo-car salesman was developed by 19-year-old entrepreneur Dmitry Aksenov and operates around the clock. No word on whether the app says, 'Wait here — I'll check with my sales manager,' like human car dealers often do."

Comment vaccination should be mandatory, legally (Score 5, Insightful) 622

of course the morons will then WHARGARBBBL about fascism and tyranny, as if the only threat to life and liberty comes from the government, and not from the morons living around you

no one should have the "freedom" to kill children, whether theirs or their neighbor's. they might not realize that their beliefs are doing that. and you're certainly entitled to your beliefs, but you're not entitled to your own facts

when the issue is life and death, it's time to force the morons to stop killing children. if they can't be reasoned with, they need to be forced

scientific fact is not tyranny

Transportation

Dispatch From the Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google 282

First time accepted submitter Dave Jurgensen writes "Uber has said it will be purchasing 2,500 of Google's self driving GX3200 cars to be used around America. They are hoping to have their first set of driverless cars on the road by the end of the year. From the article: 'Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S. The deal marks the largest single capital investment that Uber has made to date, and is also the first enterprise deal that Google has struck for its new line of driverless vehicles.'" Update: Yes, this is a piece of speculative fiction.

Comment the short answer is: telemedicine (Score 5, Insightful) 211

it's basically an upgraded version of traditional Chinese physicians smelling the emperor's feces as a diagnostic tool

chemical assays of one's urine and feces can test for many health concerns, monitor your diet, and if your medicines need to have their doses adjusted

you'd sit on your toilet in the morning, and then get a message from your doctor saying there's elevated levels of marker in your urine and he wants you to come in the office to check something out

that's the utopian vision anyways

for the dystopian vision, check out all the other comments here

Comment Re:We are living in interesting times (Score 2) 583

They don't do this when people download copies of evidence of other crimes on the internet. Despite the fact that people suffer at least as much in those other crimes, and people also get enjoyment from those things. And get no punishment for that.

you don't validate a point by going "yes, it's wrong, but someone else is doing something wrong"

your point is actually correct in the opposite way: child porn photos should no longer be traded AND crime scene victim photos should no longer be traded. crime scene victim photos aren't punished as badly as child porn photos? correct. so start punishing them as well

the concept of justice is what it is. you can't rationalize it away by saying injustice exists somewhere else

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