IIRC SpaceX is in fact planning 30 launches next year. I can't find a clear citation at the moment, but I think Gwynne Shotwell said as much in a recent speech somewhere.
And among those 30-odd missions there will be some significant milestones: 1. First Falcon Heavy flight; 2. First Dragon-2 flight; 3. First crewed flight; and (possibly) a tourist fly-by around the moon. They will probably also refly some "flight-proven" boosters for the third or fourth time next year, as well as demonstrating fast turnaround (say, within 48hrs) of a reflown booster.
It'll be a lot of fun to watch all that happening.
It's done on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as a lot of content that isn't political at all. The only difference I've noticed is that a slightly higher proportion of right-wing YouTubers seem to think it's only happening to them, and blame it on "left wing media bias," whereas the lefties call it "corporate media bias."
True. Indeed, I'd say a lot of car owners here in Taipei already see it largely as a status symbol, but I didn't get into that because my post was already getting long. However, I think there's a generational change underway.
Thirty years ago, Taiwan was still riding the "Asian Tiger" economic high, and getting a car was a huge marker for success. But a lot has happened since then, such as the internet... but more importantly Taipei made some important investments in public transit and city planning. They now have one of the best subway systems in the world (also one of the most expensive), and with dedicated lanes and GPS tracking, the bus system has become even more convenient and reliable. For people who came of age in the last 10 or 15 years, I think the idea of car ownership has moved down a few rungs on the ladder of priorities.
I could be wrong of course, but even in the West, with the advent of self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps, the rate of car ownership is already starting to decline.
Hardly anyone will notice, since they only have 12~14 cars per 100 people in Singapore (different sources give slightly different numbers) and they have a world-class public transit system which makes car ownership more of a hassle than it's worth.
Here in Taipei it's similar, but less so... Overall car ownership in Taiwan is about twice that of Singapore, but that includes a ton of rural area, which Singapore lacks. In a big city with excellent public transit, there's really no need for a car. Hell, I even gave away my scooter a few years ago.
I'd say the bulk of the traffic in Taipei is: a) local "fleet" vehicles like taxis, buses, delivery vans; b) commuters to and from the surrounding 'burbs; c) scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, etc.. Commuters in the 'burbs tend to have a designated parking space at their apartment block, and another designated space at their employer in the city. Commuters who live in the city are far less likely to have a designated parking spot at home*, so they may spend half an hour looking for one when they get home from work. Major PITA.
OTOH, with public transit you can get all the way across town in under 45 minutes for $1~2 USD, or you can cut that time in half (depending on traffic) by taking a taxi for about $8~12 USD.
I do enjoy driving -- growing up in Iowa, I drove all the time, from age 14 -- but living in a city like Taipei, I'm quite happy NOT owning a car, or any motor vehicle, for that matter.
* Due to land availability, a higher percentage of residential housing in Taipei is "old construction" from the days when common folk didn't own cars. Newer construction (say, the last 30 years) tends to always include parking, but there's been more new construction in the open lands outside the city, and since the rent tends to be cheaper, a lot of people live there.
I would bet that they can design a LIDAR to function at a wavelength that delivers some kind of "fog-vision". Even if it's not as good as human vision, it would still be useful. And when you couple that with on-board cameras, and all the other sensors, you'd ultimately get a better situational awareness than most humans could achieve. Fog wreaks havoc with cameras too, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.
Apparently I chose the wrong example from a quick google search. But there has been a lot of talk in the press about how the new LiDAR chips will revolutionize self-driving cars. It's definitely on the way, it's just not here yet.
As for fog, humans can't see through it either. I think the point is to have a broad spectrum of inputs -- LiDAR, radar, ultrasound, cameras -- to get the best possible "picture" in the given weather conditions.
I was thinking more along the lines of the $10 LiDAR-on-a-chip, but I guess they aren't quite ready for mass production yet. But whenever they do become available, it would seem like a no-brainer to include them in the sensor suite.
While I agree with your assessment, I'm still curious why Elon is so insistent on only using cameras and radar (and ultrasound?)... I mean, lidar is getting pretty compact and inexpensive these days. It would almost certainly make the resulting self-driving capability even better and more reliable. Why not use it?
Unless the Trump administration is seeking increased NASA funding for this fiscal year, you can just ignore anything they say about space.
Normally I'd agree, but in this case I'm cautiously optimistic, if only because VP Pence seems to be a genuine NASA fanboi... he was nine years old for Apollo 11, and asked for a seat on the space sub-committee when he was elected to Congress. Pence was apparently the driving force behind Trump's decision to reconstitute the National Space Council which met yesterday for the first time.
Given the amount of disruptive innovation in the space industry lately (led by but not limited to SpaceX), now is a particularly opportune time to "innovate" on the policy side as well. Will the new NSC ever amount to anything more than a few high-profile meetings? Hard to say... As you rightly point out: No bucks, no Buck Rogers. But when a handful of billionaires like Musk, Bezos, and Bigelow are investing their own cash to bring new capabilities to the market, you really couldn't ask for a better time for government to get on the bandwagon too.
Well, donuts would certainly qualify as "energy-dense" as described in the summary, but this is all a very recent aberration in our evolutionary development. Obviously, donuts don't grow on trees. In fact, such pure sources of carbohydrate are extremely rare in nature, which is why we are not well adapted to them. (Carbs have no nutritional value; you could eliminate them completely from your diet, and get along just fine.) The fruits that do grow on trees are rich in carbs, but they are only available in season. Our bodies are optimized for a low-carb diet.
In fact, in pre-historic times, we probably spent most of the time fasting, and "breakfast" was simply whatever meal you were lucky enough to get a few times a week.
Whatever the reason, I've never been able to figure out the attraction of Twitter. I opened an account, followed some people, and every time I check, it just looks like a random mess of information. I can't remember the last time I actually found something useful on Twitter. What am I doing wrong? How do others make Twitter useful?
True, but ultimately you're swapping one set of problems for another, bird-strikes and weather instead of jaywalkers and deer, and mishaps in the air result in falling debris instead of traffic jams (or perhaps both).
I'll grant you that both "self-driving" capabilities (air and surface) are just around the corner in terms of technological readiness. But I still think that the surface version will become prevalent first, if only because the price per vehicle is so much lower. Also, so much of our urban living space is designed without flight in mind. If you're going to land and take off between the skyscrapers of Manhattan or the houses and trees Des Moines, you'll need a very specialized vehicle, which is probably going to be very expensive.
Meanwhile, Tesla is churning out tens of thousands of self-driving cars every year... soon to be hundreds of thousands. Sure, they're not "fully" autonomous yet, but in theory all they need is a software update to enable it, which should be available in a couple of years. Eventually, you'll be able to Uber-call a driverless taxi to cover your last-mile issues, and leave the rest to public transit (less so in rural areas, obviously). At that point, why bother with a flight?
In some markets (like LA County) it could be a real time saver, but I think in a lot of places surface vehicles will ultimately win.
Traditionally it also meant something that you could drive on the road as well as fly, and it should be small enough to fit into a single-car garage. But as the many previous attempts have shown, you tend to end up with a crappy car and a crappy plane that happen to be the same thing. Nowadays they have jumbo drones big enough to carry a person.
The technology for "personal air transportation" is already available (though still rather expensive), but the technology to control that much air traffic safely is definitely not ready for prime time yet. People are working on it, though, so eventually it will probably happen. But I think self-driving cars are going to revolutionize personal transportation long before that... which will reduce the demand for flying cars.
The desire to fly above traffic is greatly reduced when you don't have to do the driving yourself.
Yes, the 2016 Dem primaries were rigged, to a degree. The question is, what to do now? Bernie is using his energy to push reform on the Dems, to stop the rigging and allow a wave of fresh blood into the party. Others in his camp are trying to recruit him to form a third party. And there are those who are trying to elect grassrootscandidates at the state and local level, nationwide.
Though you won't hear about it much on NPR or MSNBC, the progressive left is woke now, after last year's election. Just look at how many senators jumped on Bernie's Medicare-for-All bill, and how many of them are 'contenders' for 2020. When a parade forms, politicians love to jump in front of it and call themselves leaders.
Yes, they tried to screw you out of your vote last year... and yet you persisted. You won't have another chance to vote (at least not like that) until next fall. But in the meantime, you can get active at the local and state level.
They have the power, for the moment, but we have the numbers.
I would mod you up +1 Insightful, but I've already commented in this discussion.
Personally, I feel the same way about washing machines, and many other major household appliances. I would pay a premium price for a new washing machine that has the old-fashioned mechanical timer dial instead of membrane switches and an LCD.
You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs. Seriously... unless they're displaying a test pattern to highlight the sharpness, it's all the same to me.
Leaving aside "validatebinoitnwith" issues for the moment, I think it entirely depends on how the AI is structured, and how well it's trained. Surely a STOP sign with a Post-It note on it should still be recognized as a STOP sign and not a speed limit sign. If the objective is to mimic human intelligence well enough to be practical, then it ought to recognize a Post-It note at least as well as a human can. If it doesn't, you've got a LOT of work to do yet before calling it a "useful" product.
No shit. Why would you want a right-hand-drive car in Canada? Why would dealers even bother shipping them to Canada for resale when there are plenty of other markets in the world where they also drive on the left side of the road? If this were a story out of Australia or the UK, that's one thing... but Canada? Weird.
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IIRC SpaceX is in fact planning 30 launches next year. I can't find a clear citation at the moment, but I think Gwynne Shotwell said as much in a recent speech somewhere.
And among those 30-odd missions there will be some significant milestones: 1. First Falcon Heavy flight; 2. First Dragon-2 flight; 3. First crewed flight; and (possibly) a tourist fly-by around the moon. They will probably also refly some "flight-proven" boosters for the third or fourth time next year, as well as demonstrating fast turnaround (say, within 48hrs) of a reflown booster.
It'll be a lot of fun to watch all that happening.
It's done on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as a lot of content that isn't political at all. The only difference I've noticed is that a slightly higher proportion of right-wing YouTubers seem to think it's only happening to them, and blame it on "left wing media bias," whereas the lefties call it "corporate media bias."
True. Indeed, I'd say a lot of car owners here in Taipei already see it largely as a status symbol, but I didn't get into that because my post was already getting long. However, I think there's a generational change underway.
Thirty years ago, Taiwan was still riding the "Asian Tiger" economic high, and getting a car was a huge marker for success. But a lot has happened since then, such as the internet... but more importantly Taipei made some important investments in public transit and city planning. They now have one of the best subway systems in the world (also one of the most expensive), and with dedicated lanes and GPS tracking, the bus system has become even more convenient and reliable. For people who came of age in the last 10 or 15 years, I think the idea of car ownership has moved down a few rungs on the ladder of priorities.
I could be wrong of course, but even in the West, with the advent of self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps, the rate of car ownership is already starting to decline.
Hardly anyone will notice, since they only have 12~14 cars per 100 people in Singapore (different sources give slightly different numbers) and they have a world-class public transit system which makes car ownership more of a hassle than it's worth.
Here in Taipei it's similar, but less so... Overall car ownership in Taiwan is about twice that of Singapore, but that includes a ton of rural area, which Singapore lacks. In a big city with excellent public transit, there's really no need for a car. Hell, I even gave away my scooter a few years ago.
I'd say the bulk of the traffic in Taipei is: a) local "fleet" vehicles like taxis, buses, delivery vans; b) commuters to and from the surrounding 'burbs; c) scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, etc.. Commuters in the 'burbs tend to have a designated parking space at their apartment block, and another designated space at their employer in the city. Commuters who live in the city are far less likely to have a designated parking spot at home*, so they may spend half an hour looking for one when they get home from work. Major PITA.
OTOH, with public transit you can get all the way across town in under 45 minutes for $1~2 USD, or you can cut that time in half (depending on traffic) by taking a taxi for about $8~12 USD.
I do enjoy driving -- growing up in Iowa, I drove all the time, from age 14 -- but living in a city like Taipei, I'm quite happy NOT owning a car, or any motor vehicle, for that matter.
* Due to land availability, a higher percentage of residential housing in Taipei is "old construction" from the days when common folk didn't own cars. Newer construction (say, the last 30 years) tends to always include parking, but there's been more new construction in the open lands outside the city, and since the rent tends to be cheaper, a lot of people live there.
It's been so long since I read the book... were they called "Bladerunners" in the book too?
I would bet that they can design a LIDAR to function at a wavelength that delivers some kind of "fog-vision". Even if it's not as good as human vision, it would still be useful. And when you couple that with on-board cameras, and all the other sensors, you'd ultimately get a better situational awareness than most humans could achieve. Fog wreaks havoc with cameras too, that doesn't mean you shouldn't use them.
Apparently I chose the wrong example from a quick google search. But there has been a lot of talk in the press about how the new LiDAR chips will revolutionize self-driving cars. It's definitely on the way, it's just not here yet.
As for fog, humans can't see through it either. I think the point is to have a broad spectrum of inputs -- LiDAR, radar, ultrasound, cameras -- to get the best possible "picture" in the given weather conditions.
Forgot to include a link to the LiDAR chip: https://www.spar3d.com/news/lidar/mits-10-lidar-chip-will-change-3d-scanning-know/
I was thinking more along the lines of the $10 LiDAR-on-a-chip, but I guess they aren't quite ready for mass production yet. But whenever they do become available, it would seem like a no-brainer to include them in the sensor suite.
While I agree with your assessment, I'm still curious why Elon is so insistent on only using cameras and radar (and ultrasound?)... I mean, lidar is getting pretty compact and inexpensive these days. It would almost certainly make the resulting self-driving capability even better and more reliable. Why not use it?
Unless the Trump administration is seeking increased NASA funding for this fiscal year, you can just ignore anything they say about space.
Normally I'd agree, but in this case I'm cautiously optimistic, if only because VP Pence seems to be a genuine NASA fanboi... he was nine years old for Apollo 11, and asked for a seat on the space sub-committee when he was elected to Congress. Pence was apparently the driving force behind Trump's decision to reconstitute the National Space Council which met yesterday for the first time.
Given the amount of disruptive innovation in the space industry lately (led by but not limited to SpaceX), now is a particularly opportune time to "innovate" on the policy side as well. Will the new NSC ever amount to anything more than a few high-profile meetings? Hard to say... As you rightly point out: No bucks, no Buck Rogers. But when a handful of billionaires like Musk, Bezos, and Bigelow are investing their own cash to bring new capabilities to the market, you really couldn't ask for a better time for government to get on the bandwagon too.
Carbs are an important energy source for your body. Yes, if you cut them out completely your body will get energy from proteins and such
No, fats are an important energy source for your body. Carbs are just empty calories.
Well, donuts would certainly qualify as "energy-dense" as described in the summary, but this is all a very recent aberration in our evolutionary development. Obviously, donuts don't grow on trees. In fact, such pure sources of carbohydrate are extremely rare in nature, which is why we are not well adapted to them. (Carbs have no nutritional value; you could eliminate them completely from your diet, and get along just fine.) The fruits that do grow on trees are rich in carbs, but they are only available in season. Our bodies are optimized for a low-carb diet.
In fact, in pre-historic times, we probably spent most of the time fasting, and "breakfast" was simply whatever meal you were lucky enough to get a few times a week.
That's funny. When Twitter was first launched, I read that the 140 character limit was defined by SMS Text messages for mobile phones.
Whatever the reason, I've never been able to figure out the attraction of Twitter. I opened an account, followed some people, and every time I check, it just looks like a random mess of information. I can't remember the last time I actually found something useful on Twitter. What am I doing wrong? How do others make Twitter useful?
True, but ultimately you're swapping one set of problems for another, bird-strikes and weather instead of jaywalkers and deer, and mishaps in the air result in falling debris instead of traffic jams (or perhaps both).
I'll grant you that both "self-driving" capabilities (air and surface) are just around the corner in terms of technological readiness. But I still think that the surface version will become prevalent first, if only because the price per vehicle is so much lower. Also, so much of our urban living space is designed without flight in mind. If you're going to land and take off between the skyscrapers of Manhattan or the houses and trees Des Moines, you'll need a very specialized vehicle, which is probably going to be very expensive.
Meanwhile, Tesla is churning out tens of thousands of self-driving cars every year... soon to be hundreds of thousands. Sure, they're not "fully" autonomous yet, but in theory all they need is a software update to enable it, which should be available in a couple of years. Eventually, you'll be able to Uber-call a driverless taxi to cover your last-mile issues, and leave the rest to public transit (less so in rural areas, obviously). At that point, why bother with a flight?
In some markets (like LA County) it could be a real time saver, but I think in a lot of places surface vehicles will ultimately win.
Traditionally it also meant something that you could drive on the road as well as fly, and it should be small enough to fit into a single-car garage. But as the many previous attempts have shown, you tend to end up with a crappy car and a crappy plane that happen to be the same thing. Nowadays they have jumbo drones big enough to carry a person.
The technology for "personal air transportation" is already available (though still rather expensive), but the technology to control that much air traffic safely is definitely not ready for prime time yet. People are working on it, though, so eventually it will probably happen. But I think self-driving cars are going to revolutionize personal transportation long before that... which will reduce the demand for flying cars.
The desire to fly above traffic is greatly reduced when you don't have to do the driving yourself.
Yes, the 2016 Dem primaries were rigged, to a degree. The question is, what to do now? Bernie is using his energy to push reform on the Dems, to stop the rigging and allow a wave of fresh blood into the party. Others in his camp are trying to recruit him to form a third party. And there are those who are trying to elect grassroots candidates at the state and local level, nationwide.
Though you won't hear about it much on NPR or MSNBC, the progressive left is woke now, after last year's election. Just look at how many senators jumped on Bernie's Medicare-for-All bill, and how many of them are 'contenders' for 2020. When a parade forms, politicians love to jump in front of it and call themselves leaders.
Yes, they tried to screw you out of your vote last year... and yet you persisted. You won't have another chance to vote (at least not like that) until next fall. But in the meantime, you can get active at the local and state level.
They have the power, for the moment, but we have the numbers.
Yeah, like China did recently, on top of the investments they've been making already for the last decade at least.
Here's the video webcast, in case you missed it. (22min) Does not include 2nd stage coverage, since it's classified.
I was going to mod you up, but then I found out my mod points expired last night. Anyway, good point.
I would mod you up +1 Insightful, but I've already commented in this discussion.
Personally, I feel the same way about washing machines, and many other major household appliances. I would pay a premium price for a new washing machine that has the old-fashioned mechanical timer dial instead of membrane switches and an LCD.
On the bright side, though, it might make those "obsolete" 4k TVs cheaper in the not-too-distant future...
You have to wonder what percentage of the population can even detect the difference between 4k and 8k TVs. Seriously... unless they're displaying a test pattern to highlight the sharpness, it's all the same to me.
Leaving aside "validatebinoitnwith" issues for the moment, I think it entirely depends on how the AI is structured, and how well it's trained. Surely a STOP sign with a Post-It note on it should still be recognized as a STOP sign and not a speed limit sign. If the objective is to mimic human intelligence well enough to be practical, then it ought to recognize a Post-It note at least as well as a human can. If it doesn't, you've got a LOT of work to do yet before calling it a "useful" product.
No shit. Why would you want a right-hand-drive car in Canada? Why would dealers even bother shipping them to Canada for resale when there are plenty of other markets in the world where they also drive on the left side of the road? If this were a story out of Australia or the UK, that's one thing... but Canada? Weird.