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I would assume the AI would apply maximum brakes and that's it. A human (especially an experienced driver) could take more extreme action, like going off the side of the road to avoid a head-on collision.

Seriously? "You assume"

Your whole rant smacks of Dunning-Kruger effect.

What makes you think that you are a better driver than a computer? Do you think you are an above average driver? Did you realise that the majority of drivers think they are above average?

Wrong. Much as I dislike Abbott, the title Minister for Industry also covers Science, though there is a bit of confusion: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-17/dennis-jensen-hits-out-at-science-confusion-in-new-ministry/4962898

The power over preferences should be returned to the voters.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-11/green-hand-the-power-of-preferences-back-to-the-people/4951020
He suggests that optional preferential voting should be made possible both "above the line" and "below the line", an either/or option in the Senate ballot that made the situation, as originally posted, possible.
Being able to mark one or more preferences, either as to parties, or as to individual candidates, would wipe out the "preference swap" vote rigging.

The instructions say you must fill in every square, but the savings provision of the act require that only 90% of the squares be filled in, and will allow a maximum of three sequencing errors. A sequencing error is any doubling up of numbers and any break in the number sequence.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2013/08/voting-below-the-line-in-the-senate.html

I don't know what lots translates to in the US, but here in Australian it translates to a ballot paper 1.0 meter wide. The polling booths are 0.6ms wide, so you can lay the thing flat. The number of candidates exceeded our printing technology (or maybe the ballot paper had to fit into the ballot box - I don't know), but its put a maximum size on the ballot paper. The only option to fit every candidate on was to reduce the point size of the print. The had to reduce it to 6 point to make it fit.

Humans can't read 6 point. So the had to issue magnifying glasses so we could read the damned things.

Still, that isn't the problem. We have two more complications. We have preferential voting. This means you have to number every box from 1 to the number of candidates. It works wonderfully well the number of candidates is sane - far better than the US system of first past the post.

Only in the senate the number of candidates isn't sane. It is literally near impossible to mark 100 candidates without duplication or missing a number. To have a hope you have to spend ages double checking and triple checking, and if you make a mistake you can't correct it. Corrections on a ballot paper invalid it. You have to ask for a new ballot sheet and start again, and pray you don't make a different bloody mistake.

Are you getting the idea now? It is clear it is near impossible for a human to make a valid full senate vote? Good. Because what happens next leads us to the current situation, where a man who had a video of him & his mates flinging kangaroo poo at each other up on YouTube during the election got elected to the current Australian federal senate.

Because it is impossible to fill in, they had to simplify it. What they did seems fair enough. They introduced "above the line" voting. To vote above the line you effectively delegate your vote a 1 party. In other words you mark one box. The party has submitted a full senate vote to the Electoral Commission earlier, and that is used as your full preferential senate vote. You can still do a full preferential vote by filling in every square below the line, but you would have to be completely anal.

So, think about it. How do you game this system? If you are a big party it isn't easy, but if you aren't so tied down by ethics you create lots of little parties with confusingly similar names. The Electoral Commission helpfully colludes with you by randomising those names on the ballot sheet. So the voter is confronted to 20 to 30 names of parties most of which he has never heard of before, on a piece of paper so wide he can't lay it flat in the ballot box so he can read them in a single pass. Naturally lots of mistakes are made. The preferential system means if a small party doesn't get in, their votes (which remember they control now) flow to another party of their choice. It doesn't take much imagination to how they might make their choices.

There is one final twist. For the senate, you aren't electing 1 person. You are electing 6. The 1st 5 winners have almost certainly gobbled up more than 90% of the votes, so the last one is determined by tiny fraction.

The really sad part of all of this is while the extra complexity of preferential voting is more than worth it when electing one candidate, it is a complete waste of time when electing 6.

Anyway, don't lecture us Aussie's on how to completely fuck up a voting system. We have all of you beat by a large margin.

Two of them bought their seats
One is a rev head
One is a religious nutter
One is a gun nutter
One is a sports nutter

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-09/senate-balance-of-power---who27s-who/4945390

Well, if you think that it's far right wing, you are probably just a greens voter, where anything that isn't your position, is right wing. Most of australia is relatively speaking, right wing. It's just the highly urbanised and inner city areas which are populated by wealthy professionals who don't produce anything where the left wing ideologies are popular. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/vote-compass-left-right-electorates/4929064

So-called "Fair Work Australia" the Australian Labor government's workplace commission declare that using your employer's facilities during work hours to distribute pornography to fellow employees is not a sackable offence.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/sending-porn-emails-at-work-no-longer-a-sackable-offence-fair-work-commission-rules/story-fni0fit3-1226710444957
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/porn-emails-at-work-not-automatic-sacking-offence/4933426
http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/porn-not-an-automatic-sacking-offence-tribunal-20130903-2t3ki.html

Three Victorian postal workers were dismissed after using the Australia Post email system to distribute sexually explicit material in their Dandenong workplace. They appealed, and the full bench of the Fair Work Commission - in a non-unanimous judgement - found the terminations were harsh and the workers could be reinstated. Two of the three commissioners said in a statement: "There is an emerging trend... regarding the accessing, sending or receiving and storing pornography by an employee as a form of serious misconduct that invariably merits termination of employment."

Or you could live in Australia where there are Fire Tondados!

Apparently the land down under was actually meant to be a direct reference to Hell itself — Australia: occasionally strange and subtly bad-ass.

Or you could live in Australia where there are Fire Tondados!

I think people have a similar visceral reaction to autonomous vehicles, but once they experience not having to deal with the stress of everyday driving, will change their opinion.

Without proper testing, automation may cause you to change to such an amount that you won't have any opinion after (if a major manufacturer can't get their gearbox and engine control right, what would you expect from a driving AI?).

People that avoid this fate: Bali bombing remembered 10 years on

to back up my above statement there is a good short scientific article regarding sugar that can be found here

You may very well be on the right path, but this is by no means a scientific article. Nature or Science contain scientific articles, they're called research papers.

The problem we have is that we want someone to translate those articles into stuff that's lighthearted and easy to read. Scientific language is dense, precise, and written to guard against the natural human ability to over apply to misfitting situations. Most of the population can't read it without some effort, but when you offload that effort onto a third party that obtains a lot of its revenue from advertising channels, it is a perfect setting for slanted reporting on scientific findings. If it is not slanted in the reporting, it can be slanted in the selective reporting.

In this case, it isn't even translated into a news piece. It's translated into a short film.

Again, I tend to agree with the presented information; but, it is a good idea to remember how we came to believe what was accepted knowledge (that sugar was somehow the new "good" energy source), to recognize the flaws in the delivery system (that our science is translated into news by people with agendas), and to hopefully protect against similar decade-long mistakes.

to back up my above statement there is a good short scientific article regarding sugar that can be found here

That didn't take long, did it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-21/wikileaks-senate-candidate-leslie-cannold-quits/4903084

The first thing you should have asked is: What kind of radiation from what type of source?

"While it had been treated to reduce radioactive caesium, tests of the leaked water found it was still highly contaminated with beta-ray emitting substances including strontium, which has a half-life of about 30 years and can cause bone cancers."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-20/toxic-puddles-discovered-at-fukushima-nuclear-plant/4899844

Enjoy your fish and osteosarcomas.

I know that the original target speed was 4000 mph but even at 800-1000 mph how safe will this be when a fast deceleration occurs. In a plane during a crash it skids, hopefully, in a empty field or ocean and then comes to a stop. In a car there are crumple zones to absorb the impact to slow down the deceleration. It doesn't seem like there would be the enough padding to make it stop reasonably. This idea seems to be great but only if it had it's own separate rail section to handle emergencies. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/09/13/1459026.htm

We are absolute, miserable failures at buying software.

True, but give some bureaucracies credit - they are at least trying to work around that problem. The NSW police for example have trialled stealing it instead of buying it.

Lets do the math:
FTTN will need power and optical rolled out into suburbia.
Each node will be ejecting fancy new vectoring or better tech into existing final very old copper runs of 200~2000m.
Australia will have have to look hard at each adsl user. That long run of existing adsl copper from the 500m-4 km exchange/rim (~digital loop carrier) will have fight with the new nodes.
What will a new 300m-2km run of vectoring copper do to existing adel 1/2 users?
Hint - every user will have to get a node connection for internet if vectoring is used near existing adsl connections:)
Thats a lot of nodes to build out in suburbia per 500-2000m suburban copper loops.
The short runs of copper are corroded, crushed or have a few too many joins and will need ongoing care.
Australia did over provision copper, but that was a long time ago ~100% redundancy (~2.5 pairs per home) is now very low.
What is left is over used or of unknown quality re low number of working pairs.
http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2012/11/27/3642266.htm
Our solder joints are old, oxidisation is ongoing, alien crosstalk (ATX)....copper diameter (in Australia 0.4mm is common)... the list of copper issues in the ground is Australia is not like some 'new' lab network.
http://www.ti.com/sc/docs/products/network/vdslwp.pdf has some numbers over longer runs on page 32.
http://delimiter.com.au/2012/04/30/fttn-a-huge-mistake-says-ex-bt-cto/

Your great reference sounds like the Craig Thomson fan club from the comments. The linked article states that it is 173 charges relating to $28,000 of Health Services Union funds. The mere fact that it is called "Jacksonville" suggests a smear campaign against Kathy Jackson who first raised the allegations of corruption in HSU by Craig Thomson and colleague Michael Williamson.

What I see is evidence of Unions / Labor being more interested in internal politics than helping members / running the country.

The Craig Thomson case is far from over and it is more than likely that he will prevail in court. Craig Thomson was arrested in NSW by Victorian Police on credit card fraud charges. These charges total a little over $900 AUD and Craig was authorized for up to $50,000 per annum in work-related and incidentals.

The ABC reports that Police have Craig Thomson with 150 fraud charges. I'd be surprised if after a lengthy investigation by multiple parties. Mr McArdle (his lawyer) states that "That allegation [use of prostitutes] in the Fair Work matter is $7,000 - false as it is - out of a case that's $300,000." so I'm not sure where your figure of $900 comes from.

HSU's form national president Michael Williamson (a former colleague of Thomson) has been charged with misuse of $500,000 of union funds.

Sure, but that only changes the binary choice into a somewhat finer-grained choice of which of the two coalitions you want to vote for. The next PM is exceedingly likely to come from either the Labor or the Liberal party

I agree that the choice of government is binary - Liberal or Labor. By voting for minor parties, we can achieve a few things. Firstly, we can signal to the other parties that we, the voters, are not completely happy with them. Secondly, we could again force a minority government which will help prevent a further shift to the right. Lastly, your first preference vote will help fund the campaign for that minor party*.

That is right. Each First Preference vote is worth $2.49* .

* = If that minor party achieves 4% or more of votes in any division.

Ideally, college students would be negatively affected by more student government stuff and would learn the price of apathy in democratic systems.

One could suggest that we shouldn't encourage student politicians. Instead they should be shipped off somewhere that they can no longer cause harm.

A big issue I see with politics is that the career path appears to be:
1. Law degree combined with student politics at Uni
2. Political staffer (or union leader in Labor party)
3. Nomination to a safe seat
Fortunately in Australia profit (corruption) doesn't figure, except in NSW Labor. However it does mean that many politicians have very little real world experience.

You missed the Labor Federal MP Craig Thomson HSU corruption scandal. The current Labor Government and in particular former prime minister Julia Gillard protected Thomson, to preserve her government, when he should have been brought to justice much more speedily. The worst part of this affair is that HSU members are mostly lowly paid cleaners and other associated support staff in hospitals. The people who unions are supposed to protect, not spend their union dues on expensive meals, prostitutes and holidays interstate.

We also have the NSW Labor corruption which has resulted in the expulsion of two former Labor Ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid.

Which is why you don't put either of the major parties first. You wouldn't want either to get your public funding.

Several hundred million computers doing pretty much the same thing is not nearly as complicated as a million species each doing their own thing. The internet is more like a single giant organism.

AC wrote:

"PV is a hippie pipe dream. ...and taking money from person A to buy votes from person B is bullshit.

ehhhh... energy companies or so evil... never mind that many municipalities own their own power generation infrastructure.

please show us a PV cell factory that itself runs entirely off the grid."

This is a troll. OK. But so too does it present a position and value set that's common among Libertarians, so someone ought to respond. Because underneath the derision is a point worth debating. And that's, can a governmental body invest in infrastructure to the benefit of a common good? Peru (and many other nations) are buying PV infrastructure because they believe it the best option to electrify outlying areas. Those of the Libertarian persuasion view this as wasted money, for reasons that the AC listed above in quotes.

In Germany, peak production of electricity by solar has hit 50% at times. This is causing the unintended consequence that the centralized power plant model is failing, because peak hours of consumption coincide with peak production by solar. That is, at the very time when central power plants have long expected to extract the highest price per kilowatt - during business hours in daylight - is also the time when privately installed PV offsets those costs. Thus disrupting an old centralized energy production and distribution model.

The same has happened in Australia. (I'm currently living in Australia for a short time, so I see this first hand). Last year, government subsidies for solar PV and hot water installation were scrapped early, because too many people took advantage of the opportunity, thus - just like in Germany - affecting income and profit projections across the power industry. Just like in the United States, industry players lobbied to remove the subsidies and won.

Yet this hasn't stopped solar installation. People still rush to buy. It's a long-term price lock-in, because even in the U.S. PV is already close to grid parityopportunity for those of the Libertarian persuasion?

Next, government subsidies given to central utility producers. There are massive costs involved in grid infrastructure that have to be amortized across its life, plus profit. This is then shifted out to customers, either through utility rates or by taxation if it's government run. As the AC notes, "many municipalities own their own power generation infrastructure." Doesn't that mean they're "taking money from person A to buy votes from person B"? That is, you can't have the argument both ways. If solar subsidies violate gains from a free market, then so does central power production and grid distribution.

Which is a red herring. Actually, the entire society benefits from grid infrastructure. The only question here is whether private interests can sustain investment to transition to new generation technologies like PV, or whether government subsidies are necessary to sustain this path. PV is already shown to be price competitive. If market forces work as Libertarians claim, then because prices are at parity and continuing to drop, grid upgrades and maintenance to support this new technology will occur whether they like it or not. And if the Libertarian 'free market' model fails, we'll know that by how well central producers throttle deployment of PV technology.

Finally, another red herring: Why must PV factories use self-produced electricity to manufacture PV cells and panels? Should aluminum factories be required to use aluminum in their production process?

This has zip to do with respecting his decision. He is quite simply a perfect example that despite being 100% committed to his diet and lifestyle, he *still* got cancer, and afterwards did *not* cure him. This flies in the face of those who claim a certain diet or lifestyle choices is far more effective at protecting you from diseases. Most undoubtedly help improve your chances, but take it to extremes (like refusing any modern medical treatment or drugs) at your own peril... or at your dependents' peril).

This also has nothing to do with modern medicine being 100% effective. Of course it's not, and no one claims that.

Moderation in anything is key.

How about this story by Annabel Crabb (which appears on the ABC website ... the most conservative of media outlets as it's funded by taxes):

Divided Liberals limp to day of reckoning

1) "Don't wear budgie smugglers"
So male politicians must wear board shorts, not briefs. It seems Annabel objects to the shape of the male politician's penis and testicles showing underneath.
Stick with me, Macgrrl. Can you imagine a male author for the ABC writing that female politicians should pad their bikini tops so that their nipples don't show through ... in case the water's cold?

2) "If you have an extremely hairy back, for God's sake keep your shirt on"
Macgrrl, can you also imagine a male author suggesting to female parliamentarians that they must shave their legs before going out in public?

Females cop sexist abuse. Of course I'll admit that.

But if you answered "no" to either of my 2 questions above, you've also admitted that males cop sexist abuse.

I'm just sick of feminists who believe in their heart that only women cop sexist abuse; those women are completely (and willfully) blind to the daily abuse copped by the other 50% of the population.

Russia's Interfax news agency is reporting a source at Aeroflot airline says there is a ticket in Snowden's name for a flight from Moscow to Cuba.

ar matey in australia they can take you without a warrant and they don't have to tell family or let you speak to a lawyer. police even have shoot to kill rights when they pick you up. all legit & no shit. how often has it happened? no one knows because the law say newspapers and tv cant report it when it does. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/action-on-inept-antiterror-laws-must-get-priority-20130520-2jwuk.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Terrorism_Act_2005 http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4691190.html

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm

Even without eating, it took him over a year. And as mentioned in the article, fasting like that can easily become life threatening, and you also need to make sure you get all the stuff your body actually needs daily, which you usually get from your food.

um... no.

I am unsure to which of my two statements that is referring to as neither was a question

Last time there were tweets of this nature, Wall Street had a flash crash.

um... no.

So are you saying that this event didn't take place? [citation needed]

I wonder if the 1.4% drop in the S&P500 today is related in any way.

um... no.

So are you saying I am NOT wondering if the drop is related

While I am somewhat confused, I do have one very strong argument to put across - and it goes a little something like this:
um... whatever.

do not cite unsubstantiated claims by interested parties as absolute evidence.

Australia otherwise has good relationships with Japan these days, they have a security pact and were even exploring an alliance, I doubt they'd make such territorial complaints without any basis, serves little purpose but to damage the relationship especially over something like whales.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-01/government-orders-japanese-whalers-out/4495166

Maybe the correct answer would be "Let's secure our shit". Highly likely to be a lot cheaper.

Or is it a great test of disinformation?

It may well be so. However, the target of disinformation may be the Australian tax payer... it really strikes me as unusual that this comes a short time after the Ozzie spooks cried for more money and in the conditions of serious budget blowouts for the ASIO's new building.
Maybe that's about another project budget overblow and this is an arranged cover-up? Nah, that's paranoia... the Ozzie spies are fairdinkum blokes and highly professional.

Maybe the correct answer would be "Let's secure our shit". Highly likely to be a lot cheaper.

Or is it a great test of disinformation?

It may well be so. However, the target of disinformation may be the Australian tax payer... it really strikes me as unusual that this comes a short time after the Ozzie spooks cried for more money and in the conditions of serious budget blowouts for the ASIO's new building.
Maybe that's about another project budget overblow and this is an arranged cover-up? Nah, that's paranoia... the Ozzie spies are fairdinkum blokes and highly professional.

Is it the same agency that wants more money?

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

No.

But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 (click on Transcript):

Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

That's assuming the open wound doesn't become septic and you die from the infection, of course.

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

No.

But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 (click on Transcript):

Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

You can still get a lot of the old varieties as seed - taste good but useless commercially due to short shelf life and too soft to ship. I'm trying out some "Rouge de Marmande".
Harry Klee at the University of Florida is working on the problem:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/putting-the-flavour-back-into-tomatoes/4576086

>Added to this technically speaking, when it comes to free speech rights they are unlimited under the constitution, as there is no law limiting the extent of those rights as such any perceived infringement of those rights can be publicly challenged in the Australian High Court. The same goes for all other citizens rights.
That just doesn't make sense. You can only publicly challenge new laws in the High Court if they break existing constitutional laws. Americans have constitutional laws forbidding new laws that limit free speech. Australians don't so Conroy new laws although immoral are entirely legal.

Australia needs a bill of rights, but politicians don't want to give them one. Ever wonder why?
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2442550.htm
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/bill-of-rights-is-the-wrong-call/story-e6frg6z6-1225710664130
http://www.thenewcityjournal.net/carr_bill_rights.htm

It isn't thought crime that is the concern, but rather "ball bearing" crime.

This is what happens when you catch them before they attack.

Bomb plot: Life sentence for Irfan Naseer, ringleader of Birmingham men planning wave of UK suicide attacks

This is what happens when you don't.

Madrid Train Station Blasts Kill 190
Bali bombing remembered 10 years on
London Attacks
Investigation of Boston Marathon bombings continues

I would think this is easy to understand.

There’s an interesting discussion of all this here:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/the-junk-dna-controversy/4635168

One thing it talks about is the difference between trash, which you throw away, and junk, which keep in the garage in case you ever need it again (or aren’t motivated enough to throw away).

[but nobody noticed or cared enough, so you don't know which one] The AFP confirmed it was not a Federal Government website. [are the afraid we'll laugh if they mention the site?]

Somebody mentioned it because the ABC is reporting:

The LulzSec group allegedly broke into Australian Government departments, universities and schools in 2011. Some of the targets included AusAid, Victorian Government departments and local councils in Victoria and New South Wales.

... and jails are a second good place.

Seems you and the Australian authorities are on the same wavelength (or perhaps not): Phone jamming trial to start in Lithgow.

hey... I steal all my submissions from http://abc.net.au/, there are websites outside of the US 'ya know! :p

Australian ABC TV looked into the history of US private space contracting: "The High Frontier"
Shows the historic example to the "requirements" and selling question.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1358430.htm
In the past you saw US contractors getting into the right place at the right time with the right contacts ending up as:
"makes $100,000,000 a year, buying and selling airtime on communication satellites. And in a post-September 11 world, with a new focus on national security, that business is highly competitive."
From "A former beauty queen and mother at 15, she now knows more about satellite communications than most people on the planet."
In the USA it seems bringing teams together, a security clearance and been able to fill in the gov contracts can ensure 'winning' by private groups.

Please read the opposition policy on national broadband access and get back to us. That's likely what we will get come the September election.

Here it is.

But it's junk. The Lib/Nat coalition are talking about improving the copper system, maybe going from ADSL2+ to VDSL, so from 20Mbps to 40Mbps.

The Lib/Nat coalition are idiots sometimes. Tony Abbott refused to believe NBNCo when they changed their maximum available data rate from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. But even that is nothing. 100Gbps optical Ethernet is commercially available, and researchers have managed 26 terabits per second with a single laser, and 100 terabits per second with multiple lasers. And that research limit is not in the fibre itself, but in the endpoints. So they are talking about spending $6B over six years on a twofold data rate increase. And pooh-poohing a $40B plan to increase the data rate by 5,000,000. Oh and how often does the national data rate double? About every two years! So they get two years of data growth out of a $6B investment over six years, instead of about 45 years of data growth from a $40B investment.

Read Nick Ross's take.

The desperately poor drank water, they didn't have any choice, but anyone who didn't want to be shitting their pants or puking in the street paid the penny or two per day to drink something safe.

Utter nonsense. And here comes the science: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/28/3441707.htm

Bullshit, and here comes the science: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/02/28/3441707.htm