Once upon a time, your mechanical write-from-spec person was referred to as a "programmer", whereas taking fuzzy requirements and designing the logic was the job of the "analyst", a role roughly equivalent to today's "software architect". Someone who was proficient at both roles was an "analyst programmer".
Interestingly, it's not usually 'nerds' who push the idea that software development is something that everyone is even capable of, much less that it's something that most people should try and learn. It generally seems to be people who have grasped the basic idea that "programming means giving the computer instructions" and got excited about it, but never went beyond writing a few loops and some if() statements.
Anyone who's taught programming at a university level will know that even among intelligent students who want to learn, there are a large minority who (while they have many other valuable skills) are just not mentally wired to think in the way needed to develop software. It's a huge waste to try and push these people into doing something that they're not equipped for, instead of focusing on talents that they do have.
In this case your lawnmower shouldn't have anything more electrically complicated than a magnet and a coil for the spark plug. Maybe if you want to get really fancy, an EFI computer or brushless DC motor controller. But once your lawnmower is doing laps of your back yard automatically, and you want to connect to it from work via your house WiFi to check whether you left the pool cover on or not, it's gonna have an operating system.
Given the people involved, it's more like when you walk out of a pub and there's a group of people standing out the front waving signs saying "Drunks Are Abusers", "All Drinking Is Bad", etc.
IoT 'things' have specs competitive with desktop computers of 20 years ago. While current embedded systems will never catch up with current desktops, in a few years they'll easily be powerful enough to run standard Linux installs.
You raise an important difference between computing teachers and other school teachers. Your friend can legitimately teach the same course every year, because the (say) mathematics syllabus only marginally changes from year to year. A computer teacher teaching the same course for 10 years would be teaching far out-of-date software, languages etc.
Yeah, they would like to remind you how they were killed by some tribal faction trying to make the U.S. look bad.
Seriously, that whole region is a mess of different factions who all want to fuck each other up and take over. The U.S. just upset the current top dog when they went in in 2001, and now are copping the blame for what's been happening since the Jews ran away from Pharaoh.
That's a good way to look at it. You might even achieve these goals by having all autonomous vehicles be part of a 'union'. You pay fees to the union to own an autonomous vehicle, the union provides insurance in case of accidents where the vehicle is at-fault, and provides software updates for the vehicle.
But they don't! Look at pretty much every electric vehicle not made by Tesla. They're all fugly car-cancers that nobody in their right mind would be seen dead in. It's like they're trying so hard to differentiate themselves from conventional cars that they've jumped off a cosmetic cliff. And no-one buys them. Not, primarily, for any reason involving performance or range, but because owning one immediately disqualifies you from ever having sex again.
The Australian radio-astronomer John O'Sullivan developed a key patent used in Wi-Fi as a by-product in a CSIRO research project, "a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle".
So a researcher at CSIRO developed some patentable technology during a research project, patented it, and then enforced their own patent?
My mixture of natural herbs recommended by a Madagascan witch-shaman will not only reverse aging completely but it lets me use ad-hominem as a legitimate logical argument.
Hairdresser Aubrey Spetsnatz is dismayed that, at a critical developmental age, her 4-year-old son wants to be an astronaut, not a stylist or makeup artist...
Exactly. My little girl can be anything she wants to be. If she wants to be an engineer or an astronaut, I will encourage her to work towards it. If she wants to be a princess then she can be a goddamn princess.
It's not inconceivable that fuel cell cars will be a success, but fundamental physics dictates that if this happens it will be due to human stupidity rather than technical superiority.
Hydrogen is a terrible energy storage medium compared to modern battery technology. The only possible advantages it has are (a) you can generate it from fossil fuels, and (b) it lends itself far more in today's rooftop-solar-filled world to central control and taxation.
Seems to me that the problem is people wanting to complain over nothing. So what if an album (and it's not like it's something offensive) gets added to your iTunes account as a 'purchased' product?
Maybe Apple could have added a new category with a separate list of "Free Media" or something, but seriously? I'm no fan of Apple but this is a storm in a molehill.
In addition to the other suggestions made here, one use case for machine lip reading is tracking multiple simultaneous conversations in a crowd. You could theoretically have searchable index of anything anyone said in view of a particular camera (whereas once more than 2-3 people are talking at once, it becomes almost impossible to separate out their individual speech.)
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Once upon a time, your mechanical write-from-spec person was referred to as a "programmer", whereas taking fuzzy requirements and designing the logic was the job of the "analyst", a role roughly equivalent to today's "software architect". Someone who was proficient at both roles was an "analyst programmer".
Interestingly, it's not usually 'nerds' who push the idea that software development is something that everyone is even capable of, much less that it's something that most people should try and learn. It generally seems to be people who have grasped the basic idea that "programming means giving the computer instructions" and got excited about it, but never went beyond writing a few loops and some if() statements.
Anyone who's taught programming at a university level will know that even among intelligent students who want to learn, there are a large minority who (while they have many other valuable skills) are just not mentally wired to think in the way needed to develop software. It's a huge waste to try and push these people into doing something that they're not equipped for, instead of focusing on talents that they do have.
Hint: Don't put your p-
I thought this post was going somewhere much more worrying than "et hamster".
"All we'd have to do is program it to say 'Um' and 'What?' and 'Where's the lobbyists?'"
In this case your lawnmower shouldn't have anything more electrically complicated than a magnet and a coil for the spark plug. Maybe if you want to get really fancy, an EFI computer or brushless DC motor controller. But once your lawnmower is doing laps of your back yard automatically, and you want to connect to it from work via your house WiFi to check whether you left the pool cover on or not, it's gonna have an operating system.
Given the people involved, it's more like when you walk out of a pub and there's a group of people standing out the front waving signs saying "Drunks Are Abusers", "All Drinking Is Bad", etc.
IoT 'things' have specs competitive with desktop computers of 20 years ago. While current embedded systems will never catch up with current desktops, in a few years they'll easily be powerful enough to run standard Linux installs.
Gotta have gaps for that God to fill.
Nor, to be fair, is it often called upon to do so.
You raise an important difference between computing teachers and other school teachers. Your friend can legitimately teach the same course every year, because the (say) mathematics syllabus only marginally changes from year to year. A computer teacher teaching the same course for 10 years would be teaching far out-of-date software, languages etc.
There's a big difference between saying "most cancers are caused by random chance" and saying "there aren't specific substances that cause cancer."
Yeah, they would like to remind you how they were killed by some tribal faction trying to make the U.S. look bad.
Seriously, that whole region is a mess of different factions who all want to fuck each other up and take over. The U.S. just upset the current top dog when they went in in 2001, and now are copping the blame for what's been happening since the Jews ran away from Pharaoh.
That's a good way to look at it. You might even achieve these goals by having all autonomous vehicles be part of a 'union'. You pay fees to the union to own an autonomous vehicle, the union provides insurance in case of accidents where the vehicle is at-fault, and provides software updates for the vehicle.
Remember that the F40 and the CCX are both designed as much with down-force and high speed stability in mind as they are for low drag.
But they don't! Look at pretty much every electric vehicle not made by Tesla. They're all fugly car-cancers that nobody in their right mind would be seen dead in. It's like they're trying so hard to differentiate themselves from conventional cars that they've jumped off a cosmetic cliff. And no-one buys them. Not, primarily, for any reason involving performance or range, but because owning one immediately disqualifies you from ever having sex again.
The Australian radio-astronomer John O'Sullivan developed a key patent used in Wi-Fi as a by-product in a CSIRO research project, "a failed experiment to detect exploding mini black holes the size of an atomic particle".
So a researcher at CSIRO developed some patentable technology during a research project, patented it, and then enforced their own patent?
That's how patents are meant to work.
Skin-care professionals do hate them. Learn their one simple trick!
My mixture of natural herbs recommended by a Madagascan witch-shaman will not only reverse aging completely but it lets me use ad-hominem as a legitimate logical argument.
Beat THAT.
Well, not exclusively. Not quite.
Hairdresser Aubrey Spetsnatz is dismayed that, at a critical developmental age, her 4-year-old son wants to be an astronaut, not a stylist or makeup artist...
Exactly. My little girl can be anything she wants to be. If she wants to be an engineer or an astronaut, I will encourage her to work towards it. If she wants to be a princess then she can be a goddamn princess.
True that. Fuel cells can't compete realistically with batteries as a vehicle power source, but damn if I don't want Mr Fusion in my car.
It's not inconceivable that fuel cell cars will be a success, but fundamental physics dictates that if this happens it will be due to human stupidity rather than technical superiority.
Hydrogen is a terrible energy storage medium compared to modern battery technology. The only possible advantages it has are (a) you can generate it from fossil fuels, and (b) it lends itself far more in today's rooftop-solar-filled world to central control and taxation.
Seems to me that the problem is people wanting to complain over nothing. So what if an album (and it's not like it's something offensive) gets added to your iTunes account as a 'purchased' product?
Maybe Apple could have added a new category with a separate list of "Free Media" or something, but seriously? I'm no fan of Apple but this is a storm in a molehill.
In addition to the other suggestions made here, one use case for machine lip reading is tracking multiple simultaneous conversations in a crowd. You could theoretically have searchable index of anything anyone said in view of a particular camera (whereas once more than 2-3 people are talking at once, it becomes almost impossible to separate out their individual speech.)