kosmic_k

I don't believe that humans can really sense it on their own. But there was/is a group of "body hackers" who would implant a small shard of a magnet into their finger tip to allow them to feel electromagnetic fields.

Of course Chinese entrepreneurs can innovate. That being said, the CCP has been making it more difficult. As of this month every single mobile game needs government approval at cost to the developer.

Yes the statistics suggest that older, less educated voted more for Leave.

But aren't those also the ones who have been hit hardest by Globalization? Isn't that the big divide we're seeing here: the fact that high skilled and well educated have greatly benefited from the EU. Meanwhile the working class have faced stagnation.

Leaving the EU gives up power, economic might, and so on, but I don't find it so surprising that so many would risk such a decision in hopes of breaking away from the status quo.

That's unfair, it wasn't 2% but 52% of the voting population.

It is still an issue on a practical level. Last year of the 160K asylum seekers in Sweden less than 500 found a job. That's of a country which has a population of less than 10M. How is Sweden's benefit system supposed to cope?

How? The UK didn't leave NATO. It didn't go back on any ideas of collective defense.

I haven't read too much into the topic until a week or two ago but I've seen those exact arguments coming up time and time again. Given how close it was I think remain shot themselves in the foot by not articulating their points.

Right, but let's imagine there is a vote to abolish congress and it goes through. Wouldn't it be logical for many people who understand congress and how it works try to figure out all of the nuances of the decision?

I think the WaPost is really trying to hammer hard the narrative that:

Searched = Evidence of ignorance = Leave won thanks to ignorance.

There has been a mood that the EU has benefited many of those who were more educated and better off while many blue color working class members of British society were left very much behind.

Sure there's the immediate market shock of a decision the market didn't expect, but we can't say for sure that end result in one, two, or five years will be more negative than positive for those Britons.

Passive, maybe, but active? I'm skeptical that there's any submarine in the world which can avoid active sonar. Further more the difference between a nuclear and diesel electric submarine's noise level would likely quickly be overcome by the resulting low frequency noises produced by the propeller at high speeds.

For example the Russian Alfas class were so loud when they were going top speed that US listening posts across the atlantic could hear them.

They may say that, but I cannot fathom building a fully functioning carrier to be cheap by any measure. Chinese planners cannot possible expect for their artificial islands to last long in a conflict. They would be very vulnerable targets for cruise missile strikes from the Philippines, or Vietnam. So long as air power will play a significant part in warfare platforms to bring airpower where ever needed too will play a part.

The problem is that the same massive range of area denial weapons and cruise missiles also puts fixed assets such as airstrips and bases as far as Guam in jeopardy of attack. Thus there is the problem of how do you get platforms capable of delivering payloads onto your adversary.

Carrier's are efficient at that. Unlike fixed bases, they're far more difficult to track and hit. They can launch a large number of aircraft which can hit a larger number of targets with stand off munitions. Drones can be used to delivery, although it is worth noting that most modern cruise missiles effectively are drones themselves with a several hundred pound warhead.

The author completely ignores China's increasingly sophisticated anti-submarine underwater listening network. Just how stealthy are our submarines in comparison to the detection capability of a potential adversary? Furthermore how long with a submarine stay hidden after launching a cruise missile attack? If we're to assume that the range places it within the sphere of A2/AD then it would be just as vulnerable as a surface ship after attacking.

Which then begs the question of how do you deliver payloads? You could opt to instead rely on munitions which can be launched for farther away, but such munitions certainly would be more costly. I would think that the optimal solution in respect to limited resources would be some mix of long range munitions to counter area denial capability followed by the deployment of shorter ranged assets.

But that's just my 5cent as an enthusiast who doesn't actually have any professional experience in the matter. Although from what I read about the author, it appears we're on similar footing in that regard.

Airfields are the quintessential sitting ducks: high value targets with have a fixed position that could have coordinates recorded long in advance of any action.

An carrier on the other hand is a thousand foot runway that can move at 56 km/hr.

Were carriers truly obsolete then why is china rapidly building it's own? It already has been building forward operating bases in the South China sea. Why invest in building a new class of ship which they have only recently operated if it was already obsolete.

4 out of 6 complaints here all help reduce the size of an electronics product.

In fact some of those decisions led me to chose an Apple product over a non apple one.

Locked down software ended up being a business decision for Apple's App store. As for the screws, I have no idea, but you can easily find appropriate screwdrivers online so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me.

But I think it's very important to note that Elon surrounds himself with the very best domain experts he can find. He also has a reputation of deeply engrossing himself in a topic to learn as much as he can. While he may not be a domain expert when we starts, I believe he does eventually becomes one.

Theranos shouldn't be an excuse to discount domain experience because fundamentally the impeding failure of Theranos isn't due to lack of domain knowledge. It was pushing their product before it was ready and misleading doctors and the public as to the accuracy of that product.

Elon would be "pulling a Theranos" if he obscured failed launches and solicited launches without being transparent on SpaceX's capabilities.

I think its also worth to keeping in mind that SpaceX nearly went bankrupt in the process. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the rational behind Theranos's actions were caused by financial pressure. But that's just my speculation.

If you could manage a ratio of 5 big losses for one massive hit you'd be quite a successful investor indeed :)

Microfludics itself was still a young science at the time Holmes founded Theranos. It still is. I'm not sure if she could have really done due diligence that would have provided an insight how Theranos turned out at the time. I believe this was one of those try it and see if you can make it work science problems.

Having built a microfludics chip as a student, I do still think that there is plenty of promise the technology. I hope life science investors don't shy away from it. Just perhaps ask for more supporting evidence of claims. And extraordinarily evidence for extraordinarily claims.

I think the phenomena that you're seeing is a result of the kind of personally cargo cult that surrounds leaders like Holmes. As everyone sees the shadow of Icarus pass over them they marvel at his brilliance. Try to soak in every detail less they too can figure out how to soar just as high. And then when Icarus falls suddenly everyone who held him in such high esteem feel foolish. "I'm no fool, of course he was going to fall."

At least that's my theory.

I do empathize. I've been working on a product which started with very ambitious goals. It's been painful cutting out capability. I'm going to ship a product tomorrow that is less advanced than the designs and prototypes I have from a year ago. But it works consistently and I can use it as a the foundation from which to build upon. And if anything, I think the lesson from Theranos is that in healthcare the path to MT. Olympus must be a slow and steady climb. Skip a step or try to move forward before you have good footing where you are now and you'll fall.

I am not familiar with the actual laws involved in this kind of case. If it were proven that a Theranos tests harmed a patient and that Theranos willingly obscured the accuracy data to regulars could Holmes be held criminally liable?

I don't see an issue at hand of not investing in big ideas. In fact it has become clear that what has been invested in was ideas alone with insufficient substance.

But for healthcare there is a simple golden rule: Primum non nocere - First do no harm.

Theranos has broken this rule in an absolutely egregious way. I would hold no issue if they failed and that was that. It would be upsetting if someone got hurt because of some failures which were not picked up by regulatory adherence, but sometimes things happen and I wouldn't hold it against them. But to willfully hide the inaccuracy and poor performance of your healthcare product? To allow it to be marketed to doctors and the public as just as effective and accurate as existing tests?

I'm not certain if it is criminal, but I believe it at the very least should be. The individuals who have caused this to happen should be held responsible.

As for the uBeam & Theranos comparison, I don't believe it to be completely fair to Theranos. Had they had more time and not horribly cut corners as they had, then perhaps Theranos would have become the billion dollar world changing company it was hyped to be. There is still plenty of research and science that needs to be conducted in microfluidics before we can conclusively declare weather or not it can work.

But uBeam was dead on arrival. The core assumptions could be challenged with a basic understanding of physics. There's a big difference between, we don't know how to do something because the science is still being collected vs we know this won't work. Investors fell in love with a cavalier founder that had rebuffed the experts.

As long as HIPAA rules are followed I don't see an issue. Further more I would argue that the doctors in this case have a moral imperative to inform the public just how harmful these faulty test results have been. It is becoming clear that Theranos has harmed patients and public knowledge of this is crucial to discover more cases and inform those whom may have had medical decisions made on faulty testing.

Thanks for the explanation! I haven't been following fab process news for some time so I've been very much out of the loop.

Does anyone know why video cards have stayed on a 28nm process for so long? It's appears that a significant factor in this incredible leap of performance is the process change, but I'm puzzled as to why 22nm was skipped.

That is astoundingly horrifying, especially the Class 1's which were distributed for over five years.

I never realized just how lucky I was to have been born when I was. I can't imagine building embed devices which aren't running a very simply super loop or an ARM RTOS.

I originally thought the bioweapon mode was a gimmick. Now that I think about China, India, and the air quality common there I feel that Tesla really is onto something very clever here.

Monsanto is doing what would traditionally take farming communities hundreds of years in the span of decades. There is value in incentivizing research and product development in that. Furthermore the patents expire in a timeframe of two decade so the greater community still is able to have superior harvests within a timespan of decades instead of centuries.

Monsanto existing is a net positive given how long traditional techniques would take. It is being closed and made for profit because it takes millions of dollars worth of investment to make these improvements. There should be incentive to do this.

Facebook's stance on vulnerability research is incredibly admirable. I can only home more companies hold themselves to the same high standard.

Is that really a realistic solution for maximizing profits for a PMC? Constant conflict? In the first place the suggestion that human conflict will somehow extinguish and contractors would need to generate demand seems to fly right in the face of 3,400 year of history of which a mere 268 had peace. Security spending isn't just for active demand - wouldn't it be more profitable to be contracted to guard something when nothing happens then to be actively engaged in a conflict?

Also contractors didn't make Iraq and Afghanistan a travesty, that was on state actors.

Why? Its not like PMC's have ever done anything that is exceptionally more cruel than any state armed force. It's not like they're going to be much worse at preventing civilian casualties.

When the United States left Iraq it left a huge security void which has allowed ISIS to thrive. Why would it be immoral for Baghdad to have hired a PMC to help defend against ISIS? It's not like Iraqi troops were somehow magically killing less civilians. When these cases happen they are written off as casualties and no one is ever punished.

The utter cowardice and incompetence of the Iraqi army has helped for 8 Million to live under the control of ISIS. Do you think these people would care if it was an Iraqi or Syrian who may accidentally kill them instead of a well paid mercenary? Do you think that it is more moral to allow these people to live under the constant threat of rampant murder or rape than it would be to allow for private militarizes to exist?

It seems to me that western soldiers aren't really supposed to die anymore. Every single lost American solider somehow matters 1000x more than some Iraqi, Syrian, or Ukrainian. Despite the US easily having the ability to eliminate the ISIS threat it does not. There just isn't the political will to send Americans into harms way. Meanwhile many security forces lack the capability of actually handling the threats they are encountering.

PMC's could possibly solve this. No one cares if a mercenary dies. I don't see a well paid mercenary abandoning their post, tanks, equipment, along with a city of a million without having fired a shot. You can't say the same about the Iraqi army. Even should PMC's have somehow a double or triple civilian casualty rate it would still be more moral for those civilians to die than allow millions of people to fall into the murderous regime of ISIS. Of course it will always be preferable for state forces to be able to handle the threats they encounter. But given the reality that many cannot and will not receive the boots on the ground assistance to win their respective conflicts and protect their citizenry, would it really be immoral for a private force to pick up the slack?

It's not like this man was trying to see fighter to ISIS or North Korea. He was trying to create services that would assist state actors against terrorists. Given that no one else is wiling to provide assistance with this, I cannot help but feel that the ends justify the means here.

Derek Smart has had a long standing and documented vendetta against Chris Roberts. He's most certainly not a neutral party and his actions have been malicious at the least.