Comment Skynet anyone? (Score 1) 78
I, for one Welcome our new self replicating, Skynet overlords
Comment Re:Good. (Score 0) 265
So is your suggestion that he flies commercial? And when the airport is cordoned off for security and 20 other flights are delayed, does your argument still hold? Oh wait, is your suggestion that he flies without any of the security detail and precautions and subject the entire country to the risks associated with that? And subsequently, he has to sit for 4 hours on the tarmac discussing the weather with the schmuck sitting next to him on the plane while his flight is delayed.. Causing him to miss the defense chief meeting while there's a national security threat, or a budgetary meeting that eventually pays your salary?
And all that just so you can feel important about yourself? The "impact" of his time is far more important than yours. Live with it..
Comment Re:While I don't believe in the Metaverse... (Score 1) 48
This.. AR/VR does have uses, and does have the potential to catch on, but not in its current form, and the only way to make it work is to dogfood it, which will force the evolution and refinement, until it reaches a form that has potential. I liken it to the concept of mobile web browsing in the days of feature/flip phones and before the original iPhone. Tech companies kept pushing various implementations implementations of browsing experiences on feature phones, consumers kept rejecting them, and pundits kept saying "it would never work, because the screens were too small and ergonomics were too cumbersome to use". Then the iPhone came along and changed everything with a screen and a super responsive touch interface that "did" work.
AR/VR needs a similar large interface change rather than incremental improvements to hardware/software to create killer apps and mass adoption. The only way to drive that larger change is by forcing more usage from people with the capacity to actually implement the change - Dogfooding
Comment Re:My 2 cents (Score 1) 185
Person of Interest is a great show. The first couple of seasons, builds the characters, but most of the episodes are standalone, and don't add to the story. Somewhere around the middle of season 2, it started getting into story mode, and by the third season, it really started coming into its own, and only got better from that point on. Great show, great acting, and one of the best portrayals of all the pros and cons of the AI and Big Brother world we are heading into
Comment Re:Better Off Ted (Score 1) 278
Awesome show.. Up there with Arrested Development
Comment Way to drive away your most loyal customers (Score 3, Insightful) 58
Oh AT&T, you could've had me as a life long customer. I only use a reasonable amount of data, but the allure of my unlimited plan would have kept me bound to you for life. Instead you are pricing out your most loyal customers. Once the limited data plans becomes more price competitive than than the grandfathered unlimited plan for the amount of data I typically use, I will certainly be evaluating all options open to me.. And I may choose Verizon for better service or TMobile for better international roaming and more/unlimited data.
Comment Re:Reasons why I don't like Musk's hyper loop (Score 1) 124
Imagine a series of cameras on the outer tubes. As the capsule passes the tube the image on the LCD shows a frame from the camera directly outside the capsule. At the capsules cruising speed, you could space the camera's appropriately to produce a very smooth video of the outside.
Comment Re: Oblig. XKCD (Score 2) 716
It's more complicated than that. There is lot of inertia for existing users and applications to move to a new standard. Sometimes there are very good practical reasons why this is the case. If there is a critical mass of users/applications that are on the old standard, it will remain a standard and continue to develop, even if the new one is better/more complete. This very often explains how you got to 14 competing standards to begin with..
Comment Re:Uber is the problem! Let's ban it! (Score 1) 91
This.. People often miss the ground realities when proposing "simple" solutions.
So, a little bit of reality here...
In India, what we take for granted as a "background check" is actually not possible. While here in the US we have a massive database called NCIC (which is really the name of the organization that runs it, but everyone calls it NCIC anyways) there's not really such a clearinghouse in India. The individual municipalities keep their own records...often on paper...about past crimes, but there's no centralized source where you can go and check. As a result, "background checks" basically don't exist, because they are exercises in futility unless you're looking to check on a specific event related to a person.
Now, to be 100% accurate, I will say that India did just recently create a centralized database, a year ago I believe. But the database is barely getting any input at all at this point. And on top of that, fake documentation is really easy to obtain in India, there's a lot of corruption...there's a larger systemic issue with just being able to take someone's unique identifying information and do a "background check" to make sure they haven't been convicted of raping a whole school or something in the past.
I've run into this before, with regard to situations where certain kinds of business processes and information handling couldn't be outsourced because of regulatory requirements for background checks, but I also found an interesting analysis that is in the context of this situation with Uber: http://qz.com/308888/the-secre...
Comment Re:Uber is the problem! Let's ban it! (Score 1) 91
Lol
Comment Re: No way! (Score 1) 514
Not disputing the exploitation in individual cases, or even as an aggregate. But that isn't what the OP is claiming. Since he mentioned "bill cheaper to your customers" he implied that it is common place for companies to price out their services based on immigration status of the workers, rather than skill or experience level. ie. By his logic invoices would be provided as follows.. "We can provide xx services for a) $20 - US citizen, b) $15 Green card holders c) $10 H1B from India or d) $0 Slave labor
Comment Re:No way! (Score 1) 514
It's obvious to pretty much everyone that a fleet of off-shore or H1B programmers bill cheaper to your customer than supplying them with actual citizens who can do the same job.
That's common sense.
Why? Unless discrimination is in some way common sense, I don't get it. The actual country of citizenship shouldn't effect how much someone gets paid/billed? How does this "common sense" logic apply to legal residents (green card holders) who are neither US citizens, nor H1B's?
Since you expect to have wage discrimination purely based on country of citizenship, I wonder what you think is the right price is for a labor force from a certain continent below Europe? hmm.. I wonder if you think it should be zero - That would surely explain the rest of your "common sense" logic.
Comment Re:Whats the problem? (Score 1) 147
WABC7 loses negotiating power with existing cable companies. The big barrier to entry in the cable industry is distribution. You either need cables - usually most neighborhoods are wired for a single cable, or you needs satellites/dishes. This lowers the barrier to entry to just about anyone - not just Aerero.
Currently if WABC7 disagrees with Comcast over some negotiation, and it withholds distribution to ABC, or ESPN, Comcast will end up with a lot of very angry customers - which gives WABC7 tremendous power during negotiations.
Conversely - competition will drive down prices across the board, reducing Comcast's ability to pay WABC7's rates.
Ultimately there will be room for both, since the cable companies own the pipes, and there are advantages to having TV be independent of internet, but this will level the playing field significantly - Think of what the low cost airline industry did to aviation.
The Comcast - NBC - TWC merger is a strategic play to get ahead of precisely this scenario.
Conversely - competition will drive down prices across the board, reducing Comcast's ability to pay WABC7's rates.
Ultimately there will be room for both, since the cable companies own the pipes, and there are advantages to having TV be independent of internet, but this will level the playing field significantly - Think of what the low cost airline industry did to aviation.
The Comcast - NBC - TWC merger is a strategic play to get ahead of precisely this scenario.
Comment Re:Fresh Direct (Score 1) 193
Manhattan real estate is crazy. While a doorman does have a premium, in general the neighborhood and address matters much more to the price/wealth of the residents than amenities like a doorman. A an apartment in a crappy 5th floor walk-up building in the west village will be worth far more than a doorman building on the far upper east side. On the flip side, since doormen buildings in the West Village are scarce, they do have a huge premium over non doorman buildings in the same neighborhood.
Also being a doorman building is usually the result of decisions usually made 30-50-100 years ago, and these are not easily reversible regardless how rich/poor the current residents are.
Also being a doorman building is usually the result of decisions usually made 30-50-100 years ago, and these are not easily reversible regardless how rich/poor the current residents are.
Comment Re:pen and paper (Score 1) 217
Lernstift looks interesting. No mention of audio though. I wonder if the motion sensor would be as precise as Livescribe's.
