No. The problem is that it's socially undesirable (whether as a provider or customer), even in places where it is legal. This allows the hooker to simply extort when times are hard.
The same cultural memes which make such extortion viable also lower the bar to simply murdering the extorting prostitute. It relies on the idea that sex is sinful and diminishes those practicing it.
What do you propose? That we change all societies in existence so that they don't consider prostitution negatively?
And so does your unstated premise that a prostitute is any more likely to be criminally inclined than any other professional who might learn embarassing secrets about you.
Actually, that wasn't a premise of mine, unstated or otherwise. It says more about you than about me that you need to make up something I might mean when you yourself acknowledge I said no such thing
Regardless, someone willing to break the law as a career choice just might not be as careful with your secrets as other professionals are. After all, while your doctor has his livelihood for a career lasting 40+ years to consider, the prostitute will be out of the game in ten years or so. I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt when there is no practical legal avenues to pursue them should they misuse your info.
My doctor, lawyer and other professionals can be legally pursued with no detriment to myself should they misuse my information.
After all, normal honest people aren't going to extort someone just because an opportunity arises.
The downside of blackmail is that you may make a lot of money from one mug. But if word gets out your business is essentially destroyed instantly.
How long do you think a prostitute intends to stay in the game for? How long do you think before the average prostitute "retires"? I've never even seen a prostitute over 30. You're essentially betting that when she can't make as much as she did due to aging, she'll still want her business "reputation"?
Now I'm not saying that's how it actually works in practice. I'm just wary of saying blackmail is the automatic outcome. Because discretion might ultimately be the most profitable policy for the prostitution providers. Most especially the expensive ones.
They may care only while they're in business; upon retirement they may suddenly realise "Hey, I've got proof of sleeping with thousands of wall street bankers who may want to keep it a secret!" Only a very very naive person would exhibit the level of trust needed to verify their name and employment details with a prostitute.
I can't imagine any john stupid enough to give a hooker their real name
What is so difficult to grasp that the story is not about "hookers" but about high professional sex workers?
I fail to see the distinction. You never heard the term "High-class hooker"?
Oh, probably the problem in your mind is that in your state "hooking" is illegal?
No. The problem is that it's socially undesirable (whether as a provider or customer), even in places where it is legal. This allows the hooker to simply extort when times are hard.
Fortunately all the "hooker" related crime goes away as soon as "sex work" is legal, as in Europe e.g.
You can be assured that a Lady that charges $1000 per day keeps here customers a secret and has no intention to "black mail" former (and potential future) customers: because that would be damn bad for her business!
So, she encrypts that info, right? And she trusts "Rita" to encrypt the info too? And she'll never accidentally lose the database? Or her machine will never ever get pwned?
Face it, no one in their right mind would want a traceable record of their visit to a prostitute.
Also: not everyone is married or has a girl friend...
However: you are right that the story is not very believable, regarding employer etc.
Why wouldn't you? I give personal information to all sorts of people for business reasons. I see no evidence that sex workers are more or less untrustworthy than any other trade. Maybe some are controlled by criminal gangs that would then exploit the details, but that's true of some garages, used car dealerships, nightclubs and restaurants, too.
Blackmail? The garage isn't going to threaten to rat you out to your wife unless you pay more. The restaurant is not going to make money by threatening to tell details of your meal to your children. The garage can't extort money out of you by revealing that you had your car fixed by them.
I can't imagine any john stupid enough to give a hooker their real name, much less verify their employer!
Yes, but only a fraction of people could use those on their PCs, as MS-DOS didn't come with an actual development system. Most people had to get Turbo Pascal or something separately.
Don't forget debug.exe:-)
As a student a completed a fairly lengthy (6-month fulltime) programming assignment using only DOS debug.exe on a 386. As I remember it, by the time I was done I had much of a proper OS completed within the program: rudimentary scheduler, index for files (floppies were very very slow), primitives for text-based widgets (writing directly to the frame-buffer) and even a working mouse cursor and left button.
I will seriously consider suicide if I'm ever again forced to use a crippled assembler like that...
If the accident was preventable, the driver should of prevented it. They should be paying attention to the road and be in a position to respond. If it wasn't preventable by the driver, then the system is working at least as well as the driver in that situation. Either way, the system isn't responsible.
How the hell does this point of view get upmodded? You're basically saying that if the driver fails and causes an accident, it's the drivers fault. If the system fails and causes an accident, it's still the drivers fault?
You're saying that, no matter what happens, it can never be the system's fault.
Prior to the collision, Autosteer was in use periodically throughout the approximately 50-minute trip.
The most recent such use ended when, approximately 40 seconds prior to the collision, the vehicle did not detect the driverâ(TM)s hands on the wheel and began a rapidly escalating set of visual and audible alerts to ensure the driver took proper control.
When the driver failed to respond to 15 seconds of visual warnings and audible tones, Autosteer began a graceful abort procedure in which the music is muted, the vehicle begins to slow and the driver is instructed both visually and audibly to place their hands on the wheel.
Approximately 11 seconds prior to the collision, the driver responded and regained control by holding the steering wheel, applying leftward torque to turn it, and pressing the accelerator pedal to 42%. Over 10 seconds and approximately 300m later and while under manual steering control, the driver drifted out of the lane, collided with a barrier, overcorrected, crossed both lanes of the highway, struck a median barrier, and rolled the vehicle.
Now, you can believe this or not, but it doesn't match up with your hypothesis.
It perfectly matches up with what I (and others) have been saying about partial autonomous driving: if the car drives perfectly for 50 minutes, and then requires the human to take over, the human may not be in a position to do so.
Driving should be fully autonomous or not at all - partial autonomy is no good. We'll have fully autonomous cars when we have perfect general purpose AI.
Pull out, full stop. Show the world what happens to a country that cannibalizes itself through jingoist nationalism. Please, before it spreads across the pond.
The value provided by the Amazons and Googles of the world to the UK is... what, exactly? A few thousand (or less) jobs, maybe. That's it. The value they get is far in excess of that due to not paying their share of taxes.
I'm not talking about in a mathematical context. If you hadn't just ignored my
Cf. less-than-lethal weapons vs. nonlethal weapons.
you would have realized I was talking about how some people object to the term "nonlethal weapons" in reference to beanbag shotguns and teargas, etc., because if you try hard enough it's still possible to accidentally kill people with them. Hence "less-than-lethal weapons."
That's just as meaningless as before, and I don't mean just the inclusion of both "try" (meaning intentionally) and "accidentally" (meaning unintentionally) in the same sentence, I mean the sentence "If you try hard enough it's possible to accidentally kill people with $FOO". Using that bar (if you try hard enough), then almost everything that exists will meet that criteria, including cushions, ice-cream, etc. If it doesn't kill anyone then just try harder until it does.
Regardless....
And I'm still wondering whether there was a reason GP used "less-than-toxic" instead of "nontoxic," which your post did nothing to help.
I dunno, hey... I kinda see what you mean if I reason it like this:
When $FOO is an easily measurable criteria that must be met, such as toxic or lethal, then less-than-$FOO means that the criteria was not met. Therefore, in the context of meeting a criteria, the assertion less-than-$FOO can only be true if the assertion not-$FOO is also true (although the reverse may not always be true - it's generally not possible to exceed a criteria such as lethal, only to meet it - I would expect people to understand that with a criteria such as this the reverse has to be true as well, thus making both statements equivalent).
However, in GP's case, "toxicity" is not a discrete criteria to meet. There are, after all, various levels of toxicity as opposed to only one level for "lethal". In that case, saying "less-than-toxic" would mean something different to saying "nontoxic". Toxicity is often determined by the amount (it's not the product that is toxic, but the quantity. Even water is toxic in high quantities, while cyanide is not in trace amounts), so "less-than-toxic" actually has meaning: the amount of product has not breached the bar to be considered toxic, while "nontoxic" has a different meaning: The product has no practical toxic levels (like weed).
So, to me, those two phrases have slightly different meanings. Air, in standard atmospheric conditions, is non-toxic. Half a litre of scotch is less-than-toxic. A full gallon of scotch is toxic.
(Yeah, well I'm bored, and navel-gazing over formal-logic in spoken language is a great way to pass the time, cheers:-)
The stuff dissolves in air to a less-than-toxic (LC0) dose, and is known-harmless.
if it's less-than-toxic, that means it's still more-than-nontoxic?
"If it's less-than-zero that means it's still greater-than-nonzero"... your statement makes no logical sense when evaluated as an expression. Less-than-p in no way implies greater-than-non-p.
In code, this
x < y does not make this true:
x > !y
Spinning rust had a great run . . . but we're already well into the era of storage on chips.
Wait, what? While SSD tech is getting better, the advantages are in niche applications compared to the application for spinning rust, mostly because spinning rust can easily keep up with 95% of what is required from storage (playing movies, etc).
Due to the (last I checked) 4x cost factor of SSD storage, I do not expect spinning rust to be toppled from the #1 spot anytime soon. Other than some fairly narrow use-cases, most people won't notice the difference in performance between platters and SSD, and even those that do notice may not want to pay 4x the price just to shave 30 seconds of bootup time.
Yeah. I built a new 'gaming rig' late last year and it took me all of 2 hours to screw everything together and have an OS installed. Oh boy.
This year's hobby has been turning a Mark 3 VW Golf VR6 into an endurance race car. We just got done cutting out and replacing the floor pans in order to have something solid to weld the roll cage to (lots of rust discovered). Bitching about nine little screws is hilarious when you're working with grinders, welders, cut-off wheels, seam sealant, etc.
I hear you - I'm starting a sevenesque build in September (no kit, just metal tubing and a pinto drivetrain). The article's author comes across like a self-entitled prick with an agenda. You *can* fuck around personally putting your [gaming rig/racecar] together, or you can pay someone to do it for you, or you can buy one from a retailer, or even just scour the classifieds for a used one that matches your needs.
I don't understand why someone would fuck around personally putting a [gaming rig/racecar] together when they don't get any joy out of it. If all you want to do is [game/race] then you're got a alternatives to "build-it-myself".
That idiot couldn't even spell IRQ, let alone configure interrupts.
Or pulling out the ISA cards one by one to check the jumper settings for the interrupts. That was in the days before plug-and-pray USB became more widely available.
Not just for daughter-cards; jumpers were required on hard drives to set master/slave.
As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our commission of duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.
Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to your employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of "cut and paste" as it is explained to you for the hundredth time.
You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.
You wander around the building all day, shiftlessly seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.
Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however, I have a few parting thoughts:
When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation as I have consistently performed my duties and even more. The most you can say to hurt me is, "I prefer not to comment." To keep you honest, I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.
I have all the passwords to every account on the system and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I will publish your "Favorites," which I conveniently saved when you made me "back up" your useless files. I do believe that terms like "Lolita" are not viewed favorably by the university administrations.
When you borrowed the digital camera to "take pictures of your mother's b-day," you neglected to mention that you were going to take nude pictures of yourself in the mirror. Then, like the techno-moron you are, you forgot to erase them. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a ketchup bottle. I assure you that those photos are being kept in safe places pending your authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (And, for once, would you please try to use spellcheck? I hate correcting your mistakes.)
I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody and all of your twisted little repugnant obsessions will become public knowledge. Never f*ck with your systems administrator, Mr. Baker! They know what you do with all that free time!
Not that I'm defending the shooting, but by now everyone knows what the police officer will want when they pull you over. Get your license out of your wallet and registration/insurance out of the glove compartment, and have them ready in your hands while the officer is walking towards your car. If it's night, turn your dome light on so he can see inside the car.
What country is this? I'm in South Africa, I get pulled over perhaps twice a month, sometimes four times a month (happened just yesterday), so in my lifetime I've been pulled over well over a hundred times.
Sometimes I get out the car, a few times I got into an argument with the cop simply out of boredom. At night I don't turn the dome light on. I don't bother with keeping my hands on the wheel, I'm normally outside the car digging in my pockets (looking for my license) before the cop approaches. A few times I had to open the boot (before the cop even arrived at the car) to find my license in my luggage.
I do all this in a country with perhaps 4-5 times the homicide rate of the US, we are well-used to violence, and yet not once did any of the 100+ cops who stopped me think that I was a danger to them. They did not draw, they did not fire.
Maybe it's just me. Any other South Africans here want to comment on your experiences?
Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Perhaps I should blame the driver training then, which is a complete joke in the United States anyway...
Perhaps you should; maybe it should be updated to reflect what "autopilot" means.
If we treated driving as an earned privileged rather than a right, and had REAL training on how to drive, perhaps we'd have fewer problems...
True, but until that has happened, perhaps car manufacturers should take into account what words mean to the target market when they are doing their marketing. There is absolutely no doubt that the overwhelming target market for automobiles believes "autopilot" to mean "self-piloted".
FWIW, I usually agree with you on most things, however with this particular issue the lingo matters. Hacker meant something very different from Cracker, but now it doesn't. The same thing happens with lots of words - when the overwhelming majority agrees on a certain definition then you can't very well wait for the first death to say "Well, we meant the original definition".
Hell, even if everyone understood the word "autopilot" to mean "be ready to take control", you'd still get deaths because after 2 hours of not having to take control no driver is going to be in a position to take control of the vehicle fast enough to avoid an obstacle the car did not register.
Either way, even ignoring the definition of "autopilot", this is still a dangerous system. Cars should be fully autonomous or not at all. Partially autonomous will lead to the driver not being ready to take over when the system fails to register a danger. Obstacle detection needs to be at least as good as human behaviour, and that requires true AI (which we also aren't going to see for quite a while).
But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Do you think that operation of a Tesla is restricted to a highly trained and certified pilot?. Airplane manufacturers can call their system whatever they want to because:
The operator is trained, and certified with the lingo (including "autopilot").
There is a redundant operator.
Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Why would he suspend trials - the current version is already safer than a human. The US average death rate when driving on a freeway is 1.08 deaths per 100,000,000 miles. Tesla autopilot's current death rate is 0.769 per 100,000,000 miles.
Wrong comparison: the US death rate on a freeway[1] in human-driven cars is 1.08/1m miles. The Tesla's death rate on a freeway in ideal weather conditions and while being given continuous assistance and corrections by a human driver is 0.769.
It's like saying that your AI software can solve any problem if you type in the solution in C++.
I did read the article, it clearly says that there was a small but significant gender bias that was reversed when the voice modulation was introduced. Of course the drop out issue is the greater one, but we were talking about the voice modulation bit. Hope that clarifies.
It sure didn't sound like you were talking about a bias that the article called statistically insignificant when you said:
It's troubling because we actually know what is happening here. This is just some weird start up company that apparently didn't bother to read any of the academic work in this area.
This exactly. Men are more used to competing from an early age, and at promoting themselves with confidence. It's the same issue that results in the gender gap with salary negotiation.
We can do a lot to encourage girls as they are growing up, and to remove some of the gendered put-downs like describing them as "bossy" when we say boys who do the exact same thing are leaders. And most importantly, let's kill the stupid meme about girls just not being interested in or good at engineering and computers.
This is the unintended consequences of "sheltering" one half of the population. Good luck on your next social engineering exercise, 'cos this one is showing all the signs of backfiring horribly.
Slashdot Mirror
The same cultural memes which make such extortion viable also lower the bar to simply murdering the extorting prostitute. It relies on the idea that sex is sinful and diminishes those practicing it.
What do you propose? That we change all societies in existence so that they don't consider prostitution negatively?
And so does your unstated premise that a prostitute is any more likely to be criminally inclined than any other professional who might learn embarassing secrets about you.
Actually, that wasn't a premise of mine, unstated or otherwise. It says more about you than about me that you need to make up something I might mean when you yourself acknowledge I said no such thing
Regardless, someone willing to break the law as a career choice just might not be as careful with your secrets as other professionals are. After all, while your doctor has his livelihood for a career lasting 40+ years to consider, the prostitute will be out of the game in ten years or so. I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt when there is no practical legal avenues to pursue them should they misuse your info.
My doctor, lawyer and other professionals can be legally pursued with no detriment to myself should they misuse my information.
After all, normal honest people aren't going to extort someone just because an opportunity arises.
A career criminal isn't a normal honest person.
The downside of blackmail is that you may make a lot of money from one mug. But if word gets out your business is essentially destroyed instantly.
How long do you think a prostitute intends to stay in the game for? How long do you think before the average prostitute "retires"? I've never even seen a prostitute over 30. You're essentially betting that when she can't make as much as she did due to aging, she'll still want her business "reputation"?
Now I'm not saying that's how it actually works in practice. I'm just wary of saying blackmail is the automatic outcome. Because discretion might ultimately be the most profitable policy for the prostitution providers. Most especially the expensive ones.
They may care only while they're in business; upon retirement they may suddenly realise "Hey, I've got proof of sleeping with thousands of wall street bankers who may want to keep it a secret!" Only a very very naive person would exhibit the level of trust needed to verify their name and employment details with a prostitute.
Stop interrupting. We're trying to have our Two Minutes Hate against Muslims here. No fair bringing up our own Right Wing Conservative Theocrats.
You seriously can't see the difference between "legislated madness" and "religious belief"?
I can't imagine any john stupid enough to give a hooker their real name
What is so difficult to grasp that the story is not about "hookers" but about high professional sex workers?
I fail to see the distinction. You never heard the term "High-class hooker"?
Oh, probably the problem in your mind is that in your state "hooking" is illegal?
No. The problem is that it's socially undesirable (whether as a provider or customer), even in places where it is legal. This allows the hooker to simply extort when times are hard.
Fortunately all the "hooker" related crime goes away as soon as "sex work" is legal, as in Europe e.g.
You can be assured that a Lady that charges $1000 per day keeps here customers a secret and has no intention to "black mail" former (and potential future) customers: because that would be damn bad for her business!
So, she encrypts that info, right? And she trusts "Rita" to encrypt the info too? And she'll never accidentally lose the database? Or her machine will never ever get pwned?
Face it, no one in their right mind would want a traceable record of their visit to a prostitute.
Also: not everyone is married or has a girl friend ...
However: you are right that the story is not very believable, regarding employer etc.
Why wouldn't you? I give personal information to all sorts of people for business reasons. I see no evidence that sex workers are more or less untrustworthy than any other trade. Maybe some are controlled by criminal gangs that would then exploit the details, but that's true of some garages, used car dealerships, nightclubs and restaurants, too.
Blackmail? The garage isn't going to threaten to rat you out to your wife unless you pay more. The restaurant is not going to make money by threatening to tell details of your meal to your children. The garage can't extort money out of you by revealing that you had your car fixed by them.
I can't imagine any john stupid enough to give a hooker their real name, much less verify their employer!
justin bieber nuff said
Not nearly enough. Did you forget Celine Dion?
"Software interprets lawyers as damage, and routes around them" - Larry Wall
Yes, but only a fraction of people could use those on their PCs, as MS-DOS didn't come with an actual development system. Most people had to get Turbo Pascal or something separately.
Don't forget debug.exe :-)
As a student a completed a fairly lengthy (6-month fulltime) programming assignment using only DOS debug.exe on a 386. As I remember it, by the time I was done I had much of a proper OS completed within the program: rudimentary scheduler, index for files (floppies were very very slow), primitives for text-based widgets (writing directly to the frame-buffer) and even a working mouse cursor and left button.
I will seriously consider suicide if I'm ever again forced to use a crippled assembler like that...
while normally selling the excess power very cheaply
I think you misunderstand how monopolies work.
He also misunderstand how smelting works. You cannot just stop smelting an start up again without spoiling all the product.
If the accident was preventable, the driver should of prevented it. They should be paying attention to the road and be in a position to respond. If it wasn't preventable by the driver, then the system is working at least as well as the driver in that situation. Either way, the system isn't responsible.
How the hell does this point of view get upmodded? You're basically saying that if the driver fails and causes an accident, it's the drivers fault. If the system fails and causes an accident, it's still the drivers fault?
You're saying that, no matter what happens, it can never be the system's fault.
The Tesla logs were reported as saying:
Now, you can believe this or not, but it doesn't match up with your hypothesis.
It perfectly matches up with what I (and others) have been saying about partial autonomous driving: if the car drives perfectly for 50 minutes, and then requires the human to take over, the human may not be in a position to do so.
Driving should be fully autonomous or not at all - partial autonomy is no good. We'll have fully autonomous cars when we have perfect general purpose AI.
This, and she is not the PM yet. Hillary will be the first woman to break the glass ceiling.
Thatcher?
Pull out, full stop. Show the world what happens to a country that cannibalizes itself through jingoist nationalism. Please, before it spreads across the pond.
The value provided by the Amazons and Googles of the world to the UK is... what, exactly? A few thousand (or less) jobs, maybe. That's it. The value they get is far in excess of that due to not paying their share of taxes.
I'm not talking about in a mathematical context. If you hadn't just ignored my
Cf. less-than-lethal weapons vs. nonlethal weapons.
you would have realized I was talking about how some people object to the term "nonlethal weapons" in reference to beanbag shotguns and teargas, etc., because if you try hard enough it's still possible to accidentally kill people with them. Hence "less-than-lethal weapons."
That's just as meaningless as before, and I don't mean just the inclusion of both "try" (meaning intentionally) and "accidentally" (meaning unintentionally) in the same sentence, I mean the sentence "If you try hard enough it's possible to accidentally kill people with $FOO". Using that bar (if you try hard enough), then almost everything that exists will meet that criteria, including cushions, ice-cream, etc. If it doesn't kill anyone then just try harder until it does.
Regardless....
And I'm still wondering whether there was a reason GP used "less-than-toxic" instead of "nontoxic," which your post did nothing to help.
I dunno, hey... I kinda see what you mean if I reason it like this:
When $FOO is an easily measurable criteria that must be met, such as toxic or lethal, then less-than-$FOO means that the criteria was not met. Therefore, in the context of meeting a criteria, the assertion less-than-$FOO can only be true if the assertion not-$FOO is also true (although the reverse may not always be true - it's generally not possible to exceed a criteria such as lethal, only to meet it - I would expect people to understand that with a criteria such as this the reverse has to be true as well, thus making both statements equivalent).
However, in GP's case, "toxicity" is not a discrete criteria to meet. There are, after all, various levels of toxicity as opposed to only one level for "lethal". In that case, saying "less-than-toxic" would mean something different to saying "nontoxic". Toxicity is often determined by the amount (it's not the product that is toxic, but the quantity. Even water is toxic in high quantities, while cyanide is not in trace amounts), so "less-than-toxic" actually has meaning: the amount of product has not breached the bar to be considered toxic, while "nontoxic" has a different meaning: The product has no practical toxic levels (like weed).
So, to me, those two phrases have slightly different meanings. Air, in standard atmospheric conditions, is non-toxic. Half a litre of scotch is less-than-toxic. A full gallon of scotch is toxic.
(Yeah, well I'm bored, and navel-gazing over formal-logic in spoken language is a great way to pass the time, cheers :-)
The stuff dissolves in air to a less-than-toxic (LC0) dose, and is known-harmless.
if it's less-than-toxic, that means it's still more-than-nontoxic?
"If it's less-than-zero that means it's still greater-than-nonzero"... your statement makes no logical sense when evaluated as an expression. Less-than-p in no way implies greater-than-non-p.
In code, this
x < y
does not make this true:
x > !y
Spinning rust had a great run . . . but we're already well into the era of storage on chips.
Wait, what? While SSD tech is getting better, the advantages are in niche applications compared to the application for spinning rust, mostly because spinning rust can easily keep up with 95% of what is required from storage (playing movies, etc).
Due to the (last I checked) 4x cost factor of SSD storage, I do not expect spinning rust to be toppled from the #1 spot anytime soon. Other than some fairly narrow use-cases, most people won't notice the difference in performance between platters and SSD, and even those that do notice may not want to pay 4x the price just to shave 30 seconds of bootup time.
Yeah. I built a new 'gaming rig' late last year and it took me all of 2 hours to screw everything together and have an OS installed. Oh boy.
This year's hobby has been turning a Mark 3 VW Golf VR6 into an endurance race car. We just got done cutting out and replacing the floor pans in order to have something solid to weld the roll cage to (lots of rust discovered). Bitching about nine little screws is hilarious when you're working with grinders, welders, cut-off wheels, seam sealant, etc.
I hear you - I'm starting a sevenesque build in September (no kit, just metal tubing and a pinto drivetrain). The article's author comes across like a self-entitled prick with an agenda. You *can* fuck around personally putting your [gaming rig/racecar] together, or you can pay someone to do it for you, or you can buy one from a retailer, or even just scour the classifieds for a used one that matches your needs.
I don't understand why someone would fuck around personally putting a [gaming rig/racecar] together when they don't get any joy out of it. If all you want to do is [game/race] then you're got a alternatives to "build-it-myself".
That idiot couldn't even spell IRQ, let alone configure interrupts.
Or pulling out the ISA cards one by one to check the jumper settings for the interrupts. That was in the days before plug-and-pray USB became more widely available.
Not just for daughter-cards; jumpers were required on hard drives to set master/slave.
Dear Mr. Baker,
As an employee of an institution of higher education, I have few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my direct superiors have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of my co-workers and me during our commission of duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of our time.
Asking me, a network administrator, to explain every nuance of everything I do each time you happen to stroll into my office is not only a waste of time, but also a waste of precious oxygen. I was hired because I know how to network computer systems, and you were apparently hired to provide amusement to your employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of "cut and paste" as it is explained to you for the hundredth time.
You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options. You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. Your shiny new iMac has more personality than you ever will.
You wander around the building all day, shiftlessly seeking fault in others. You have a sharp dressed, useless look about you that may have worked for your interview, but now that you actually have responsibility, you pawn it off on overworked staff, hoping their talent will cover for your glaring ineptitude. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.
Seeing as this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced to tender my resignation; however, I have a few parting thoughts:
When someone calls you in reference to employment, it is illegal for you to give me a bad recommendation as I have consistently performed my duties and even more. The most you can say to hurt me is, "I prefer not to comment." To keep you honest, I will have friends randomly call you over the next couple of years, because I know you would be unable to do it on your own.
I have all the passwords to every account on the system and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I will publish your "Favorites," which I conveniently saved when you made me "back up" your useless files. I do believe that terms like "Lolita" are not viewed favorably by the university administrations.
When you borrowed the digital camera to "take pictures of your mother's b-day," you neglected to mention that you were going to take nude pictures of yourself in the mirror. Then, like the techno-moron you are, you forgot to erase them. Suffice it to say, I have never seen such odd acts with a ketchup bottle. I assure you that those photos are being kept in safe places pending your authoring of a glowing letter of recommendation. (And, for once, would you please try to use spellcheck? I hate correcting your mistakes.)
I expect the letter of recommendation on my desk by 8:00 am tomorrow. One word of this to anybody and all of your twisted little repugnant obsessions will become public knowledge. Never f*ck with your systems administrator, Mr. Baker! They know what you do with all that free time!
Sincerely
David Blocker
Network Administrator
Not that I'm defending the shooting, but by now everyone knows what the police officer will want when they pull you over. Get your license out of your wallet and registration/insurance out of the glove compartment, and have them ready in your hands while the officer is walking towards your car. If it's night, turn your dome light on so he can see inside the car.
What country is this? I'm in South Africa, I get pulled over perhaps twice a month, sometimes four times a month (happened just yesterday), so in my lifetime I've been pulled over well over a hundred times.
Sometimes I get out the car, a few times I got into an argument with the cop simply out of boredom. At night I don't turn the dome light on. I don't bother with keeping my hands on the wheel, I'm normally outside the car digging in my pockets (looking for my license) before the cop approaches. A few times I had to open the boot (before the cop even arrived at the car) to find my license in my luggage.
I do all this in a country with perhaps 4-5 times the homicide rate of the US, we are well-used to violence, and yet not once did any of the 100+ cops who stopped me think that I was a danger to them. They did not draw, they did not fire.
Maybe it's just me. Any other South Africans here want to comment on your experiences?
Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Perhaps I should blame the driver training then, which is a complete joke in the United States anyway...
Perhaps you should; maybe it should be updated to reflect what "autopilot" means.
If we treated driving as an earned privileged rather than a right, and had REAL training on how to drive, perhaps we'd have fewer problems...
True, but until that has happened, perhaps car manufacturers should take into account what words mean to the target market when they are doing their marketing. There is absolutely no doubt that the overwhelming target market for automobiles believes "autopilot" to mean "self-piloted".
FWIW, I usually agree with you on most things, however with this particular issue the lingo matters. Hacker meant something very different from Cracker, but now it doesn't. The same thing happens with lots of words - when the overwhelming majority agrees on a certain definition then you can't very well wait for the first death to say "Well, we meant the original definition".
Hell, even if everyone understood the word "autopilot" to mean "be ready to take control", you'd still get deaths because after 2 hours of not having to take control no driver is going to be in a position to take control of the vehicle fast enough to avoid an obstacle the car did not register.
Either way, even ignoring the definition of "autopilot", this is still a dangerous system. Cars should be fully autonomous or not at all. Partially autonomous will lead to the driver not being ready to take over when the system fails to register a danger. Obstacle detection needs to be at least as good as human behaviour, and that requires true AI (which we also aren't going to see for quite a while).
But I hope they get hit hard for calling their adaptive cruise control feature "autopilot".
Do you think airplane pilots who are using the autopilot are allowed to just ignore what is going on and watch a movie?
Do you think that operation of a Tesla is restricted to a highly trained and certified pilot?. Airplane manufacturers can call their system whatever they want to because:
The operator is trained, and certified with the lingo (including "autopilot").
There is a redundant operator.
Pilots' training includes the definition of autopilot. Driver training does not. Don't blame the driver.
Why would he suspend trials - the current version is already safer than a human. The US average death rate when driving on a freeway is 1.08 deaths per 100,000,000 miles. Tesla autopilot's current death rate is 0.769 per 100,000,000 miles.
Wrong comparison: the US death rate on a freeway[1] in human-driven cars is 1.08/1m miles. The Tesla's death rate on a freeway in ideal weather conditions and while being given continuous assistance and corrections by a human driver is 0.769.
It's like saying that your AI software can solve any problem if you type in the solution in C++.
[1] I'm using *your* stats
I did read the article, it clearly says that there was a small but significant gender bias that was reversed when the voice modulation was introduced. Of course the drop out issue is the greater one, but we were talking about the voice modulation bit. Hope that clarifies.
It sure didn't sound like you were talking about a bias that the article called statistically insignificant when you said:
It's troubling because we actually know what is happening here. This is just some weird start up company that apparently didn't bother to read any of the academic work in this area.
This exactly. Men are more used to competing from an early age, and at promoting themselves with confidence. It's the same issue that results in the gender gap with salary negotiation.
We can do a lot to encourage girls as they are growing up, and to remove some of the gendered put-downs like describing them as "bossy" when we say boys who do the exact same thing are leaders. And most importantly, let's kill the stupid meme about girls just not being interested in or good at engineering and computers.
This is the unintended consequences of "sheltering" one half of the population. Good luck on your next social engineering exercise, 'cos this one is showing all the signs of backfiring horribly.