I'll believe Musk is interested in stopping AI development when he announces Telsa has paused FSD and offers proof.

> That's why switch hitters generally bat left when a lefty is on the mound.

It's the other way round. A right-handed pitcher's curve/breaking ball will break away from a right handed batter, and towards a left handed batter. And vice-versa.

It's much easier to see and hit a ball curving towards you than away from you. A switch hitter will always line up on the opposite side of a pitcher's hand -- i.e. the batter will bat lefty against a right-hander, and righty against a left-hander.

Also worth noting: batting left-handed puts you a step closer to first base than batting right handed. Also: it's much easier to bunt opposite side than same side. If you bat lefty, opposite side is down the third base line -- meaning it's much easier to bunt for a hit as a lefty than as a righty.

Dads take note: teach your kids to bat lefty. They'll have to go a long way in the sport before they face a left-handed curve-ball. In the meantime, there's a non-negligible number of times they'll be safe on an infield hit where they wouldn't be safe batting right-handed.

I completely agree.

Automakers, why waste time, effort and money re-engineering around Android and other OSs? With regards to navigation and other functionality (listening to podcasts, streaming music), my Nexus 4 gives me all I need. What I need, is a car that supports the needed Bluetooth profiles, a screen mirror and a good "car mode" app or launcher.

It couldn't help the crew of the Planet Express ship but, I wonder if they rubbed cheetah blood on it?

That the music industry was evil.
http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

I use to do some consulting work with Retail Navigator (http://www.retailnavigator.com/) back in '00. They had a handheld sytsem running Linux. I don't know if they still do.

I don't know who makes it but BCF uses Linux on their POS systems. ARTS (http://www.nrf-arts.org/) maybe of some help.

It isn't 1995 any more, and these tactics are not going to work today. Ten or fifteen years ago, MS had the ability to bend the market to its will. But they don't any more. That is, if they try to make corporate mail incompatible with non-Win phones, it won't make people buy Win phones; it will make them dump MS mail systems.

All you have to do is look at the stories MS plants in the press. They're never about the current products, which have invariably failed to live up to expectations, but always about the next generation, which will be the coolest, most awesomest thing ever.

Just look through the comments here. Nobody is even trying to claim that WP7 comes close to iOS or Android (although before lauch there were plenty of such claims). Instead they're all claiming that the next iteration will be the killer.

This is the same song MS has been singing since the '80s, and it's really not a surprise that people have finally quit listening.

The've got a staggeringly large R&D budget, but they've also got shockingly little to show for it. The fact is that Microsoft isn't, and has never been, particularly good at innovation. They're always trying to solve yesterday's problems, and have no real concept or imagination about what comes next.

I tried to allude to the Zune with the 'Plays for Sure' comment -- I think it's important not just to point out MS' failures, but also what happens to people who get in bed with Microsoft.

And the potential list of world-changing developments that completely failed to change anything would just be too long.

E.g. The ribbon, tablets, WinCE, WebTV, MSN, Windows ME, Vista, the list goes on and on and on.

Anybody remember their Smart Watch?

Accountant: We're losing money on every unit we sell.

PHB: That's okay, we'll make up for it in volume.

But that certainly does appear to be the case, even though the Kinnect is sold with a healthy margin -- I recall seeing a hardware breakdown that suggested a build cost of around $55 to $60.

A bit odd, considering Apple has been so successful at it. Microsoft's MO has always been to copy others' successes, particularly Apple's. Maybe they've just failed at this more spectacularly than they've failed at their other attempts to copy. (Hows that 'Plays For Sure' thing working out?)

Which is to say that despite years of effort and tens of billions in R&D, they're no more than marginal players in most of the 'spaces' they try to enter. It's all OSs, office suites, and business backends, and the clock is ticking in each of these areas.

I'll give you game consoles, although it will take several more generations of Xbox before the billions in development are paid off. Anyone other than MS, however, would have considered the Xbox project a failure years ago.

They're not interested in you buying their hardware without their software any more than you buying a white-box PC without a Windows license. I'm not sure their tactics from the '90s will work again.

Sure, but not in an off-the-shelf package that costs $200.

Hee hee. I'll never get tired of Microsoft shills harping on the supposedly great stuff we'll see in the next edition of whatever. I don't know of any company ever that has so consistently over-promised and under-delivered -- and that behavior goes back to MS-DOS 1.0.

Remember how Longhorn was going to, like, totally change everything? Remember how WinFS was going to be revolutionary? Heck, remember how in the early '90s we were all going to be controlling our computers with voice commands?

It's coming in the next version of Windows, and it'll be, like, the most totally mind-blowing thing you've ever seen! Really soon now! Promise!

You should be happy with how many people hate Microsoft. Nobody will hate them when they are no longer relevant, and I don't reckon that's more than about five to ten years away.

Maybe you don't have a jet-powered lawn mower, but maybe you're just not that serious about your yard work.