Hanging was the official method of legal execution in at least one state until very recently.
Honestly, I'm not so sure about all this "humanity" debate. Do-gooders want to make it as painless and smooth as possible, and in the process have instead managed to make it more laden with red tape and bureaucracy, probably even more stressful, including the fact that it just plain takes longer. If you want to make things less emotionally stressful for the victim, how does making it take longer accomplish that?
Frankly I think getting shot in the heart might be overall more humane. The problem there is that again because of legal regulations, firing squads are required to be amateurs who might not hit the heart anyway.
I am reminded of the true story (I don't remember the details) about the time that the professional executioner for a public execution was not available for some reason. Someone from the audience volunteered, and it took 23 whacks to do the job.
Nobody said it was simple. But you're being dense.
Where the FUD comes about is these absurd scenarios from ignorant commenters like this
If you want to have an "ignorance" contest, you probably picked the wrong person to insult.
The issue is that most of the "problems" that luddites like JQP throw out are already solved (better than human drivers) and they are just too dumb, ignorant or lazy to consider them.
There you go. You just lost the ignorance contest. I am about the farthest thing from a "Luddite" you are likely to find. I want to solve these real problems so that such technology can exist and be used in the real world.
The scenario was an EXAMPLE of the kind of situations that can and do arise. It doesn't matter if they're "unlikely". Getting hit by lightning is unlikely, too, but it happens an average of 51 times every year in the U.S. The scenario was deliberately made to be an edge-case in order to illustrate a point. Several points, actually. But one of them is that when you're a programmer, like I am, you can't just leave such edge-cases alone and say "That will never happen." Because they do.
It is people who are ignorant of how it actually works who think "it will never happen" is a real-world scenario.
Re:Never used this keystroke
on
Goodbye, Ctrl-S
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· Score: 1
This is ok, but the really bad part is they got rid of save as - you know, you make some changes but decide you want to keep the original so you make this file v2 or whatever?
I agree. I am a long Mac user too, but that was by no means the smartest thing Apple has ever done. It changes the whole workflow.
Many applications, for a long time, have divided this into "save" for saving and "export" for saving a new file in a different format. But Apple left out the export capability, which is a HUGE omission.
One workaround is to create a new file, copy and paste the contents of the old file into it, then pick a different format when you save for the first time. But it's a major PITA to do that.
While there are so many things that can kill a human, I find it hard to believe that they are having a hard time killing humans!
It isn't the killing that is difficult. It is the bureaucracy surrounding them that makes everything difficult.
Veterinarians have to euthanize animals comfortably all the time. Why not use the same drug?
Not so fast. This is very debatable. One of the more popular methods of "euthanasia" (the term is often used improperly) for animals is the deep barbiturate injection, which can cause a great deal of fear and stress (which means it's not technically "euthanasia" at all). IV barbiturates are far more humane, but even that can cause stress because of the administration of IV by unfamiliar people.
Another popular method today is CO2, but there is actually a lot of evidence that it is anything but humane. It is at its root a fancy means of suffocation. Same with the vacuum chambers that have been used in a similar way.
If you want to know what "humane" actually is, I would look at how most doctors commit suicide: an overdose of oral barbiturates.
IV infustion of barbiturates is probably second best but now we are back to the same problem: the emotional distress that causes, and the physical pain and distress that cheap substitutes can cause.
More likely scenario: It would cease acceleration and break at a speed and accuracy you could only dream of and pull into the pocket behind the truck or family and match the speed of the truck exactly enough to slowly pull away from its bumper.
It might be a more likely scenario, but it isn't the scenario I was talking about. The car is in traffic and it's typical big-city traffic; the car is blocked in on both sides. That was part of the whole point of the scenario.
You've made an excellent case for why you, personally, should not be designing a driverless car.
Glad I wasn't proposing to then. Instead, I plan to make the policies about who is liable when a driverless car makes a seriously fucked-up mistake. Which will happen.
A computer controlled car can't do worse than a human in that sort of situation. Most drivers would probably just reflexively swerve somewhere before even seeing what is going on in adjacent lanes.
You say that now, but what if it were your family members that got killed in that car on the right when it could have gone left and hit the truck instead?
Yes, there will be lawsuits. Yes, somebody human will be found liable.
Making policy based on bizarre edge cases is silly.
Not when those polices have to be made. You missed the biggest point of my example.
This isn't just a simple human scenario of jerking the wheel in reflex. The program has to be given instructions about what to do in such scenarios. And when it is: who is responsible if the outcome is less than ideal? The manufacturer? The programmer(s)? Who?
This is not something that can be just left to chance. Somebody is liable. Policy must be made.
the space orb may be the other controller you're thinking of: although it has 6 buttons at least, can't remember if there are more than that.
What I remember most about the one I remember -- not sure if it was spaceOrb -- was that you had to hold it in both hands, making the button operation more difficult than with the Cyberman.
Consider unplugging the machines. That's no way to live. Not for her, not for anybody around her. I know it's a terrible prospect, but euthanasia is often the dignified way out.
Who said anything about the condition being permanent? You're awfully quick to suggest somebody kill off their relatives.
That isn't any sort of a problem for LIDAR at sufficient resolution.
Yes, it is. People keep insisting on thinking of just one small part of the issue as being the whole problem.
What happens when it sees a vehicle coming the wrong way down the highway and there are cars in the adjacent lanes? How does it choose whether to smash into the car on the right, which has kids in it, or the one on the left, which is a big truck, or take the head-on?
Just for example.
This is probably what is going to happen, just like it happened to computer-controlled engines, antilock brakes, and other such things:
One of these is going to kill somebody. There will be an uproar and lawsuits. The whole idea will be killed off for a while, then the tech will improve and it will come back. Except the same thing will happen again. And people will avoid them again. And they will come back.
It's just that this is so vastly complex a problem, compared to leaning the fuel mixture and running your digital display, that it will go through many more of these cycles than things like antilock brakes did.
And let's not forget: if the car "decides" to hit that car on the right, killing those kids, who is at fault? The programmer? The automobile manufacturer? Both?
This is far from simply a "better hardware" problem.
Kids today are running around with 7" tablets. Sure, they're infotainment, but they do everything on those tablets. Web, Skype, Netflix, they type up homework, and of course, play games. It is a major strategic mistake to ignore the 7" tablet market.
Which means you have missed the whole point of OP.
Eventually, the tablet will be the PC. It still has a few transformations to go, like better ways to interface to external devices and so on for when you are at your desk, but those will happen as tablets get more power. The latter is happening now and it will all happen pretty fast. New Macbook Airs are much more powerful in many ways than my desktop machine in 2007.
I have used bluetooth keyboard and trackpad with my primary desktop machine for 6.5 years. If a tablet had enough power (CPU & video), I could just plug it into a larger monitor and external drives and I'd be working on a desktop machine again. And again, the power is coming, fast. But that will only work if the OS could also handle it.
That means a serious tablet must get a desktop-style-and-capable operating system. Which Microsoft has set their sights on.
We can disagree about how well they're doing it, but at least they are trying. While at least at this time, it appears most others are concentrating on making tablet OSes better tablet OSes, and missing the bigger picture. The time for that is about over.
I expect Apple will be bringing more OS X - like features to its tablets. But it better hurry. And one thing they DON'T need to do, but have been doing to some degree, is make their desktops work more like tablets. This should be primarily a one-way push. Desktops OSes are mature technologies by now.
I'm all out of mod points... but I gotta prop this up! Hell YES! I loved this game, and I loved playing with dual joysticks! I'd buy it in a heartbeat... or half a heartbeat if it was on Steam.
I got the world's best game controller, in my opinion -- the Logitech Cyberman II -- for playing this game.
And think I still have it... somewhere. But I think it was made to plug into the old game controller ports that don't exist anymore. Or maybe it was the old serial ports... that don't exist anymore.
It might look funky. But the one side is a 6-degrees-of-freedom controller, with 8 buttons on the other. Beat the heck out of a joystick, because you could do all your 3D navigating with a single control... up, down, left, right, roll, pitch, yaw. It was designed just for something like Descent. In fact it was used as a 3D controller on the Space Shuttle.
I think the only other true 6DF controller out there was some sphere something. You had to use both hands to move it around so it only had a couple of buttons.
If you want to not be tracked use some anonymizing technologies.
The problem with Do Not Track all along is that it has been voluntary. People who don't want to honor it just don't honor it.
OP's argument that "stakeholders" (a very misleading term here) can't agree on what it means is just plain BS. Everybody knows what it means. They just can't agree on which deliberately distorted interpretation of it best fits their business.
This is what I recall as well. That is why I stated that AFAIK it hasn't been tested by the higher courts yet.
But to repeat: it HAS been tested for just about every other kind of product under the sun, from books to tools, and the courts have firmly and consistently rejected EULAs.
So you wouldn't like to know that the temperature inside your freezer went too high and your food defrosted because your flatmate left the door open while you were away for the weekend?
I didn't say it might not be useful. I said it doesn't need one.
The NEST thermostat had an internet connection before Google bought them. What's changed exactly, apart from who plans to gather consumer data?
What's changed is that NEST wasn't gathering user data. The internet connection was for folks to check the condition of their house via the internet. But now not just them, but also Google will be collecting and storing the condition of their house via the internet. Pretty big difference, if you ask me. (And yes, they publicly stated they plan to do that.)
I thought it was a great idea at first. But now that Google has hold of it, I don't want one.
You might want to take the blinders off. The EFF does a number of really great things, but they are not always the Robin Hood everyone makes them out to be.
Are you nuts?
Hey, man, I didn't claim they're perfect. But if I am faced with the choice of believing EFF vs AT&T and some known-to-be-overzealous Federal prosecutors, I'm going to believe EFF.
I clearly stated it wasn't proof of anything. But all other things being equal, EFF has the greater credibility.
Slashdot Mirror
Whacks with the axe, that it. My typing has been a bit off today.
Hanging was the official method of legal execution in at least one state until very recently.
Honestly, I'm not so sure about all this "humanity" debate. Do-gooders want to make it as painless and smooth as possible, and in the process have instead managed to make it more laden with red tape and bureaucracy, probably even more stressful, including the fact that it just plain takes longer. If you want to make things less emotionally stressful for the victim, how does making it take longer accomplish that?
Frankly I think getting shot in the heart might be overall more humane. The problem there is that again because of legal regulations, firing squads are required to be amateurs who might not hit the heart anyway.
I am reminded of the true story (I don't remember the details) about the time that the professional executioner for a public execution was not available for some reason. Someone from the audience volunteered, and it took 23 whacks to do the job.
Really, it's that simple?
Nobody said it was simple. But you're being dense.
Where the FUD comes about is these absurd scenarios from ignorant commenters like this
If you want to have an "ignorance" contest, you probably picked the wrong person to insult.
The issue is that most of the "problems" that luddites like JQP throw out are already solved (better than human drivers) and they are just too dumb, ignorant or lazy to consider them.
There you go. You just lost the ignorance contest. I am about the farthest thing from a "Luddite" you are likely to find. I want to solve these real problems so that such technology can exist and be used in the real world.
The scenario was an EXAMPLE of the kind of situations that can and do arise. It doesn't matter if they're "unlikely". Getting hit by lightning is unlikely, too, but it happens an average of 51 times every year in the U.S. The scenario was deliberately made to be an edge-case in order to illustrate a point. Several points, actually. But one of them is that when you're a programmer, like I am, you can't just leave such edge-cases alone and say "That will never happen." Because they do.
It is people who are ignorant of how it actually works who think "it will never happen" is a real-world scenario.
This is ok, but the really bad part is they got rid of save as - you know, you make some changes but decide you want to keep the original so you make this file v2 or whatever?
I agree. I am a long Mac user too, but that was by no means the smartest thing Apple has ever done. It changes the whole workflow.
Many applications, for a long time, have divided this into "save" for saving and "export" for saving a new file in a different format. But Apple left out the export capability, which is a HUGE omission.
One workaround is to create a new file, copy and paste the contents of the old file into it, then pick a different format when you save for the first time. But it's a major PITA to do that.
And I don't think "infustion" is a word. s/infustion/infusion
Technical correction: "how most doctors commit suicide" should be "the way most MDs who commit suicide do it".
While there are so many things that can kill a human, I find it hard to believe that they are having a hard time killing humans!
It isn't the killing that is difficult. It is the bureaucracy surrounding them that makes everything difficult.
Veterinarians have to euthanize animals comfortably all the time. Why not use the same drug?
Not so fast. This is very debatable. One of the more popular methods of "euthanasia" (the term is often used improperly) for animals is the deep barbiturate injection, which can cause a great deal of fear and stress (which means it's not technically "euthanasia" at all). IV barbiturates are far more humane, but even that can cause stress because of the administration of IV by unfamiliar people.
Another popular method today is CO2, but there is actually a lot of evidence that it is anything but humane. It is at its root a fancy means of suffocation. Same with the vacuum chambers that have been used in a similar way.
If you want to know what "humane" actually is, I would look at how most doctors commit suicide: an overdose of oral barbiturates.
IV infustion of barbiturates is probably second best but now we are back to the same problem: the emotional distress that causes, and the physical pain and distress that cheap substitutes can cause.
This.
Which makes me wonder why Dianne Feinstein, who was a victim of the NSA, still thinks surveillance is just fine for OTHER PEOPLE.
On second thought, no I don't wonder why.
More likely scenario: It would cease acceleration and break at a speed and accuracy you could only dream of and pull into the pocket behind the truck or family and match the speed of the truck exactly enough to slowly pull away from its bumper.
It might be a more likely scenario, but it isn't the scenario I was talking about. The car is in traffic and it's typical big-city traffic; the car is blocked in on both sides. That was part of the whole point of the scenario.
You've made an excellent case for why you, personally, should not be designing a driverless car.
Glad I wasn't proposing to then. Instead, I plan to make the policies about who is liable when a driverless car makes a seriously fucked-up mistake. Which will happen.
A computer controlled car can't do worse than a human in that sort of situation. Most drivers would probably just reflexively swerve somewhere before even seeing what is going on in adjacent lanes.
You say that now, but what if it were your family members that got killed in that car on the right when it could have gone left and hit the truck instead?
Yes, there will be lawsuits. Yes, somebody human will be found liable.
Making policy based on bizarre edge cases is silly.
Not when those polices have to be made. You missed the biggest point of my example.
This isn't just a simple human scenario of jerking the wheel in reflex. The program has to be given instructions about what to do in such scenarios. And when it is: who is responsible if the outcome is less than ideal? The manufacturer? The programmer(s)? Who?
This is not something that can be just left to chance. Somebody is liable. Policy must be made.
the space orb may be the other controller you're thinking of: although it has 6 buttons at least, can't remember if there are more than that.
What I remember most about the one I remember -- not sure if it was spaceOrb -- was that you had to hold it in both hands, making the button operation more difficult than with the Cyberman.
Even coal is a finite resource and it will run out in the future.
Your arguments fall under the category of "moving the goalposts", which is not a valid means of argument.
You made a comment that was simply false. Now you're making arguments that things LIKE your original comment, but not quite the same, are true.
That's all great, and some (or even all) of them might be true, but I repeat: it still doesn't make your original comment more true.
Consider unplugging the machines. That's no way to live. Not for her, not for anybody around her. I know it's a terrible prospect, but euthanasia is often the dignified way out.
Who said anything about the condition being permanent? You're awfully quick to suggest somebody kill off their relatives.
That's the slow clap. It's sarcastic applause.
Yes, and well-deserved. They weasel-worded it out of any teeth. Or many, anyway.
How did our Congress become such a bunch of administration brown-noses? Seriously. What is wrong with them?
That isn't any sort of a problem for LIDAR at sufficient resolution.
Yes, it is. People keep insisting on thinking of just one small part of the issue as being the whole problem.
What happens when it sees a vehicle coming the wrong way down the highway and there are cars in the adjacent lanes? How does it choose whether to smash into the car on the right, which has kids in it, or the one on the left, which is a big truck, or take the head-on?
Just for example.
This is probably what is going to happen, just like it happened to computer-controlled engines, antilock brakes, and other such things:
One of these is going to kill somebody. There will be an uproar and lawsuits. The whole idea will be killed off for a while, then the tech will improve and it will come back. Except the same thing will happen again. And people will avoid them again. And they will come back.
It's just that this is so vastly complex a problem, compared to leaning the fuel mixture and running your digital display, that it will go through many more of these cycles than things like antilock brakes did.
And let's not forget: if the car "decides" to hit that car on the right, killing those kids, who is at fault? The programmer? The automobile manufacturer? Both?
This is far from simply a "better hardware" problem.
Kids today are running around with 7" tablets. Sure, they're infotainment, but they do everything on those tablets. Web, Skype, Netflix, they type up homework, and of course, play games. It is a major strategic mistake to ignore the 7" tablet market.
Which means you have missed the whole point of OP.
Eventually, the tablet will be the PC. It still has a few transformations to go, like better ways to interface to external devices and so on for when you are at your desk, but those will happen as tablets get more power. The latter is happening now and it will all happen pretty fast. New Macbook Airs are much more powerful in many ways than my desktop machine in 2007.
I have used bluetooth keyboard and trackpad with my primary desktop machine for 6.5 years. If a tablet had enough power (CPU & video), I could just plug it into a larger monitor and external drives and I'd be working on a desktop machine again. And again, the power is coming, fast. But that will only work if the OS could also handle it.
That means a serious tablet must get a desktop-style-and-capable operating system. Which Microsoft has set their sights on.
We can disagree about how well they're doing it, but at least they are trying. While at least at this time, it appears most others are concentrating on making tablet OSes better tablet OSes, and missing the bigger picture. The time for that is about over.
I expect Apple will be bringing more OS X - like features to its tablets. But it better hurry. And one thing they DON'T need to do, but have been doing to some degree, is make their desktops work more like tablets. This should be primarily a one-way push. Desktops OSes are mature technologies by now.
That requires energy, which fossil fuels will be incapable of providing in the future no matter the cost.
Those other things don't make that comment less false.
I'm all out of mod points... but I gotta prop this up! Hell YES! I loved this game, and I loved playing with dual joysticks! I'd buy it in a heartbeat... or half a heartbeat if it was on Steam.
I got the world's best game controller, in my opinion -- the Logitech Cyberman II -- for playing this game.
And think I still have it... somewhere. But I think it was made to plug into the old game controller ports that don't exist anymore. Or maybe it was the old serial ports... that don't exist anymore.
It might look funky. But the one side is a 6-degrees-of-freedom controller, with 8 buttons on the other. Beat the heck out of a joystick, because you could do all your 3D navigating with a single control... up, down, left, right, roll, pitch, yaw. It was designed just for something like Descent. In fact it was used as a 3D controller on the Space Shuttle.
I think the only other true 6DF controller out there was some sphere something. You had to use both hands to move it around so it only had a couple of buttons.
If you want to not be tracked use some anonymizing technologies.
The problem with Do Not Track all along is that it has been voluntary. People who don't want to honor it just don't honor it.
OP's argument that "stakeholders" (a very misleading term here) can't agree on what it means is just plain BS. Everybody knows what it means. They just can't agree on which deliberately distorted interpretation of it best fits their business.
That requires energy, which fossil fuels will be incapable of providing in the future no matter the cost.
We have enough existing coal reserves to produce the current US annual energy consumption for several hundred years, all by themselves.
Regardless of whether you like coal -- it does have its down side -- statements like "we're running out of energy" are simply false.
This is what I recall as well. That is why I stated that AFAIK it hasn't been tested by the higher courts yet.
But to repeat: it HAS been tested for just about every other kind of product under the sun, from books to tools, and the courts have firmly and consistently rejected EULAs.
So you wouldn't like to know that the temperature inside your freezer went too high and your food defrosted because your flatmate left the door open while you were away for the weekend?
I didn't say it might not be useful. I said it doesn't need one.
The NEST thermostat had an internet connection before Google bought them. What's changed exactly, apart from who plans to gather consumer data?
What's changed is that NEST wasn't gathering user data. The internet connection was for folks to check the condition of their house via the internet. But now not just them, but also Google will be collecting and storing the condition of their house via the internet. Pretty big difference, if you ask me. (And yes, they publicly stated they plan to do that.)
I thought it was a great idea at first. But now that Google has hold of it, I don't want one.
You might want to take the blinders off. The EFF does a number of really great things, but they are not always the Robin Hood everyone makes them out to be.
Are you nuts?
Hey, man, I didn't claim they're perfect. But if I am faced with the choice of believing EFF vs AT&T and some known-to-be-overzealous Federal prosecutors, I'm going to believe EFF.
I clearly stated it wasn't proof of anything. But all other things being equal, EFF has the greater credibility.