"Students with self-discipline and an interest in academic success perform better than students without self-discipline!"
The article is mainly pointing out that laptops are a major form of distraction. So while your statement is quite obvious, the article point out that for those students (and more, very likely), laptops are a bad thing.
When I went back to do my Masters, I didn't use any technology in the classroom. Instead, I printed out a copy of all of the lecture notes (the lecturers made them all available to download) and brought them with me with a pencil. I was then able to follow the notes along with the lecturer and make any additional notes I needed in the margins, highlight passages, etc.
I found this worked very well for me. I knew any sort of tech in my hand would lead me to being distracted (as it always the case when sent on courses for work), so I kept it simple and old school.
Sometimes these ways are the best. Technology is great it many many areas of life, but there are some areas where the lack of it can be more beneficial - lectures being one.
(One lecturer would actually tell anyone with a laptop or tablet out to put it away in their bags!)
Even if apple were to give me the next iPhone for free, or pay me $1,200 to take it, I wouldn't. I never really liked the iPhone. I never really liked apple products. Well, mainly apple OSs - their choice of hardware is normally pretty good, even if it if overpriced.
That said, I'd have to seriously consider paying out that amount of money for an Android phone. In the past I've paid around $800, and that was also a fairly serious consideration. Having paid out that amount, I expect the phone to last me many years before I need to upgrade. The hardware is still good and I've no issues there -- however, if I want Android O then I'll need a new phone. If I had to pay $1,200 or more, I would expect it to last several more years, and for the OS to be upgraded for many more years. And that's probably not likely for either OS.
apple do have a better track record for updating old devices, so apple people may be more likely to pay out that amount. Plus, historically, apple people have been more inclined to pay bigger bucks for the devices -- even to the point of selling a kidney to get one. So I'd almost wager that they could set any price on it and the majority would pay it to upgrade -- even if this year's model was only a minor improvement over last year's. The iPhone could end up being a textbook case of a Giffen good (where demand rises with price).
I'm reminded of a story, but I can't find it online, where a shop owner asked the assistant to mark down several ugly statues from $15 to $10 in order to sell them out. The assistant made a mistake and priced them all at $100, and they all sold out that day. Many people will associate higher prices with a better product, and will see identical products differently depending on the price.
Starting price in USD. Local pricing will be announced in 2017. Production begins mid 2017. Delivery estimate for new reservations is mid 2018 or later.
Elon's tweets say: Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule. Expecting to complete SN1 on Friday Handover party for first 30 customer Model 3's on the 28th! Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500. Looks like we can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in Dec
The UK uses miles and mph still, but use kilograms for weights.
Ireland, on the other hand, used kilometres and mph for many years, until we finished switched to km/h a few years ago. Over a (long) period of time (like, since 1970 or so -- around the time we entered the EU), all road distance signs were switched from miles to kilometres, with all new signs being in kilometres. Speed limits (and car speedometers) were in mph, so we all got really good a calculating five-eights in our heads so convert km to miles so we'd know how long it would take to get somewhere. On occasion you might come across an old signpost in miles somewhere - you know them 'cos they are white with black writing -- all new signs are dark green with white writing.
Eventually, and overnight, we switched all speed limit signs to km/h, in January 2005. Since then, all cars sold in Ireland have km/h speedometers, whereas the UK cars have mpg with km/h in smaller numbers inset.
Indeed - 10cm x 10cm x 10cm = 1 litre. Fill this with 'standardised water' at 4C (the maximum density of water) and you get the original definition of the kilogram. But again this would vary depending on the water you used and the percentage of it that was heavy (hence the 'standardised'). For normal day-to-day usage, 1l of water from the tap is a kilogram. For science, 1l of water is _approximately_ a kilogram, and approximately isn't good enough.
So they switched to the current reference, the International Prototype Kilogram (and the various copies.) But over time these have changed. Hence the need to find a better way to define it.
What's interesting is that Google themselves say that this is for Americans (they don't say US, just Americans, so one assumes Canadians too, maybe?), and the articles that picked it up dropped that fact. A fact that's important on an international tech news site, like Slashdot!
Unfortunately they make no mention of when this might roll out to the rest of the world. Or even _if_ it will roll out to the rest of the world.
The original measurement was that 0C was the freezing point of water at sea level. This has since been changed so that 0.01C is the triple point of water, exactly -- or more specifically, 273.16K . (The triple point of water is the temperature and pressure at which water can exist in all 3 states simultaneously, which is 273.16 K (0.01 C) at 0.611657 kPa (0.00603659 atm)).
This was chosen because the triple point is at an exact temperature AND pressure. If either the temperate or the pressure are changed then water cannot exist in all 3 states. There's no "at sea level" here, as that can be somewhat arbitrary, thus leading to a fluctuating 0C.
The vast majority of SI units are specified so that they can be measured in a lab -- the kilogram being an obvious exception to this, but that is something that should be resolved soon. The definitions of all of the SI units is actually fairly fascinating, and I recommend reading at least the Wikipedia article about them.
This lists the original measurements (such as the metre being 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator (through Paris, for some reason)), and how the definition changed until the current definition was reached (a metre is the distance light travels through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds).
It gives reason to all of the measurements, and shows how they are all (mostly) interlinked, again with the obvious exception of the kilogram.
Incidentally, the inch, which is the basis for all imperial units of measuring, is 25.4mm exactly. So all measurements in the US are actually based on SI units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Agreed. Has they said it was a month in then maybe it could be believed. But onlyâ day one you're only getting down around, here's your PC, here's your password, Joe will show you around the product later and explain what we do, the toilets are that way...
On day one, there'd be no production access. Nor access to source code. And if he did have that of the was access, and changes would be scrutinised. So, yeah, it's a fake.
An interesting hypothetical scenario, though -- if it did happen, given the info available, then who's to blame?
The new dev? No: first day, fresh out of college, mistakes should be expected. He shouldn't have had that level of access, and his immediate superiors should have been keeping a close eye.
His immediate superiors? Possibly. How did they let someone new make such a big error? Why did they allow him to do anything at all?
The DBAs? No working backups on a production database? No transaction logs that could be rolled back? No DR solution in place? Basic stuff here that were all missed. So definitely some blame sits her.
CTO? Hard to say. Certainly policies should be in place to ensure this shouldn't happen, so why did it under their watch? Were the staff too overworked that they didn't have time to get the basics right?
To properly sign any blame, more information is needed. We don't have all the facts. To many questions remain unanswered.
There is a general human flaw that this story highlights, though, which is that the majority will sign blame based on too few facts. This comes up time and time again, both here and elsewhere. Take, for example, "Making A Murderer" -- how many petitioned to have Stephen released based on 10 hours of a TV show that really only showed one side of the story? There were more than 200 hours' of testimony to try to show all of the available facts for the jury to make a decision.
This is a similar case -- one reddit post describing things from the point of view of developer who was on his first day ever working. There's tonnes of missing information here.
Still, and interesting scenario to ponder as a thought experiment.
So you demand that they keep the screen of your phone in your sight at all times. It's like bring a diamond ring into a jeweller to get the stones re-set - you don't let the diamonds out of your sight. Same for you phone.
There should really be laws (or at least guidelines) in place to ensure that 2 or more officers are present when someone's phone is taken from them. I'm guessing there aren't, though...!?
Enda Kenny is An Taoiseach (pronounced very similarly to "On Tee-Shock"). That's his official title, and not Prime Minister, which is the official title in the UK.
I've a question - how many mobile phone/cell phone companies in the US charge their customers for checking their voicemail?
I believe (and I'm not sure about this) that I can dial 171 on my phone and check my voice mail for free (but I need to check - I don't use voice mail and never configured it on my account).
If there is a cost to the receiver of the message, is that enough to stop this from happening?
Outside of the North Americas we use the word "trousers", with "pants" refers to underwear. So seeing a phrase like "radioactive material was found on his pants" tends to raise some eyebrows...
Likely these customers are paying the same amount every bill, precalculated based on past usage and payments. If the estimates were wrong, typically the company will adjust the monthly payments downwards for the next year. If that is the case, the customer's account would be in credit due to overpayment, and they should be able to request this money back again.
Certainly electricity companies here (in Ireland, just next door to UK) do that. And if you switch supplier, the old supplier will refund any overpayment automatically (or bill you for underpayments).
It's designed with autonomous vehicles in mind. They tested it with a non-autonomous because they didn't have (couldn't afford) any autonomous ones, but it's designed for them. Says so right there in the article, so it does.
Yep. The work well on roads with equal priority, but at busy times there are always people waiting to get onto the roundabout. On roads with non-equal priority, cars on the lesser road tend to have to wait a long time. And then you have people who won't jump out into a gap...
Unless, of course, you live in France. There, people _entering_ the roundabout have priority over people already on it. This makes for some great traffic watching around the Arc de Triomphe, which is a roundabout with 12 roads entering and exiting. I find the best place to stand to watch this is between Avenue Marceau and Avenue d'Iéna, to the South of the roundabout.
My understanding is that most car insurance companies will not insure your car on that roundabout -- maybe someone in Paris can confirm?
With complete autonomy of the vehicles, yes, it should work anywhere. The controllers will all need to be interlinked and work together.
One nice thing about complete autonomy is that the car can communicate it's intended route to the controller network too, so that it can adjust traffic to allow the car to proceed in it's required direction without having to stop.
We've all marvelled at the amazing choreography in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl-3Kx7jr4g), but with full autonomy this could be every junction all the time... well, within reason - we've no autonomous pedestrians. But it would be possible to get somewhat close.
That said, with full autonomy, it would be possible to have a public transport system that would pick you up at point A (your front door) and drop you directly to point B (work, your parents', that restaurant where you are meeting your friends) just by inputting the time you need to be at point B, and the requested time of collection at point A. Having an autonomous bus network that could work through this information, the system would tell you the time the bus will arrive at your door (as close to your requested time as possible), you board (within a specified amount of time or the bus leaves and you have to book another one), and arrive at your designated time. The 'expressness' of your booking would be a factor of the cost of the journey - if you only want to spend 20 minutes on the bus, you'd pay more than if you are happy to spend 30 minutes (thus allowing the bus to pick up x extra passengers) - as well as how much time before your booking and your pickup (if you book a bus for 5 minutes time you pay more than if you book it for a hour, or 2 hours time - more time allows for better calculation of routes). The bus (or central controller) will decide the route to take in order to collect other passengers at their pickup points, and drop people at their destinations. Bus routes would cease to exist, with any bus going to any pickup or dropoff point, depending on how a central controller calculated the most efficient use for every bus over a period of time. You might always get a bus at around 08:25 and arrive at work at 08:55 every day, but could take a complete different route to get there.
Basically, complete autonomy could completely do away with the need for private car ownership by a majority. Even if you want to go from New York to LA by road with your family, a car-bus could pull up outside your house and be exclusively yours to get ye there, or even for the 2 weeks you are spending there. On return to New York, the car goes back for a quick service and the next day is driving another family to Chicago, while you are hopping on a city bus to work, and you spouse on a separate inter-city bus to get to New Jersey, and the kids onto the school bus, or whatever.
Anyway, just a thought. Elon, should you wish to do this, give me a call and we can talk through it!
Slashdot Mirror
"Students with self-discipline and an interest in academic success perform better than students without self-discipline!"
The article is mainly pointing out that laptops are a major form of distraction. So while your statement is quite obvious, the article point out that for those students (and more, very likely), laptops are a bad thing.
When I went back to do my Masters, I didn't use any technology in the classroom. Instead, I printed out a copy of all of the lecture notes (the lecturers made them all available to download) and brought them with me with a pencil. I was then able to follow the notes along with the lecturer and make any additional notes I needed in the margins, highlight passages, etc.
I found this worked very well for me. I knew any sort of tech in my hand would lead me to being distracted (as it always the case when sent on courses for work), so I kept it simple and old school.
Sometimes these ways are the best. Technology is great it many many areas of life, but there are some areas where the lack of it can be more beneficial - lectures being one.
(One lecturer would actually tell anyone with a laptop or tablet out to put it away in their bags!)
You mean like this?
Even if apple were to give me the next iPhone for free, or pay me $1,200 to take it, I wouldn't. I never really liked the iPhone. I never really liked apple products. Well, mainly apple OSs - their choice of hardware is normally pretty good, even if it if overpriced.
That said, I'd have to seriously consider paying out that amount of money for an Android phone. In the past I've paid around $800, and that was also a fairly serious consideration. Having paid out that amount, I expect the phone to last me many years before I need to upgrade. The hardware is still good and I've no issues there -- however, if I want Android O then I'll need a new phone. If I had to pay $1,200 or more, I would expect it to last several more years, and for the OS to be upgraded for many more years. And that's probably not likely for either OS.
apple do have a better track record for updating old devices, so apple people may be more likely to pay out that amount. Plus, historically, apple people have been more inclined to pay bigger bucks for the devices -- even to the point of selling a kidney to get one. So I'd almost wager that they could set any price on it and the majority would pay it to upgrade -- even if this year's model was only a minor improvement over last year's. The iPhone could end up being a textbook case of a Giffen good (where demand rises with price).
I'm reminded of a story, but I can't find it online, where a shop owner asked the assistant to mark down several ugly statues from $15 to $10 in order to sell them out. The assistant made a mistake and priced them all at $100, and they all sold out that day. Many people will associate higher prices with a better product, and will see identical products differently depending on the price.
From the website:
Starting price in USD. Local pricing will be announced in 2017.
Production begins mid 2017.
Delivery estimate for new reservations is mid 2018 or later.
Elon's tweets say:
Model 3 passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule. Expecting to complete SN1 on Friday
Handover party for first 30 customer Model 3's on the 28th! Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500.
Looks like we can reach 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in Dec
In the US, Tylenol has become synonymous with aceominophen (or paracetamol) -- the vast majority won't recognise the name "aceominophen".
For the non-North-Americans, it's referring to Paracetamol.
Strangely, ibuprofen and aspirin have the same names, but aceominophen/paracetamol doesn't.
@editor, please fix the typos in that summary. "Cortex" is spelt 3 different ways... (wrong twice in the last sentence: Cotext and Cotex)
tnx
The UK uses miles and mph still, but use kilograms for weights.
Ireland, on the other hand, used kilometres and mph for many years, until we finished switched to km/h a few years ago. Over a (long) period of time (like, since 1970 or so -- around the time we entered the EU), all road distance signs were switched from miles to kilometres, with all new signs being in kilometres. Speed limits (and car speedometers) were in mph, so we all got really good a calculating five-eights in our heads so convert km to miles so we'd know how long it would take to get somewhere. On occasion you might come across an old signpost in miles somewhere - you know them 'cos they are white with black writing -- all new signs are dark green with white writing.
Eventually, and overnight, we switched all speed limit signs to km/h, in January 2005. Since then, all cars sold in Ireland have km/h speedometers, whereas the UK cars have mpg with km/h in smaller numbers inset.
Indeed - 10cm x 10cm x 10cm = 1 litre. Fill this with 'standardised water' at 4C (the maximum density of water) and you get the original definition of the kilogram. But again this would vary depending on the water you used and the percentage of it that was heavy (hence the 'standardised'). For normal day-to-day usage, 1l of water from the tap is a kilogram. For science, 1l of water is _approximately_ a kilogram, and approximately isn't good enough.
So they switched to the current reference, the International Prototype Kilogram (and the various copies.) But over time these have changed. Hence the need to find a better way to define it.
There's a full wikipedia article based just around the kilogram: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://blog.google/products/s...
What's interesting is that Google themselves say that this is for Americans (they don't say US, just Americans, so one assumes Canadians too, maybe?), and the articles that picked it up dropped that fact. A fact that's important on an international tech news site, like Slashdot!
Unfortunately they make no mention of when this might roll out to the rest of the world. Or even _if_ it will roll out to the rest of the world.
The original measurement was that 0C was the freezing point of water at sea level. This has since been changed so that 0.01C is the triple point of water, exactly -- or more specifically, 273.16K . (The triple point of water is the temperature and pressure at which water can exist in all 3 states simultaneously, which is 273.16 K (0.01 C) at 0.611657 kPa (0.00603659 atm)).
This was chosen because the triple point is at an exact temperature AND pressure. If either the temperate or the pressure are changed then water cannot exist in all 3 states. There's no "at sea level" here, as that can be somewhat arbitrary, thus leading to a fluctuating 0C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., if you want to read more.
The vast majority of SI units are specified so that they can be measured in a lab -- the kilogram being an obvious exception to this, but that is something that should be resolved soon. The definitions of all of the SI units is actually fairly fascinating, and I recommend reading at least the Wikipedia article about them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This lists the original measurements (such as the metre being 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator (through Paris, for some reason)), and how the definition changed until the current definition was reached (a metre is the distance light travels through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds).
It gives reason to all of the measurements, and shows how they are all (mostly) interlinked, again with the obvious exception of the kilogram.
Incidentally, the inch, which is the basis for all imperial units of measuring, is 25.4mm exactly. So all measurements in the US are actually based on SI units. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
All weights are also based on SI units: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Agreed. Has they said it was a month in then maybe it could be believed. But onlyâ day one you're only getting down around, here's your PC, here's your password, Joe will show you around the product later and explain what we do, the toilets are that way...
On day one, there'd be no production access. Nor access to source code. And if he did have that of the was access, and changes would be scrutinised.
So, yeah, it's a fake.
An interesting hypothetical scenario, though -- if it did happen, given the info available, then who's to blame?
The new dev? No: first day, fresh out of college, mistakes should be expected. He shouldn't have had that level of access, and his immediate superiors should have been keeping a close eye.
His immediate superiors? Possibly. How did they let someone new make such a big error? Why did they allow him to do anything at all?
The DBAs? No working backups on a production database? No transaction logs that could be rolled back? No DR solution in place? Basic stuff here that were all missed. So definitely some blame sits her.
CTO? Hard to say. Certainly policies should be in place to ensure this shouldn't happen, so why did it under their watch? Were the staff too overworked that they didn't have time to get the basics right?
To properly sign any blame, more information is needed. We don't have all the facts. To many questions remain unanswered.
There is a general human flaw that this story highlights, though, which is that the majority will sign blame based on too few facts. This comes up time and time again, both here and elsewhere. Take, for example, "Making A Murderer" -- how many petitioned to have Stephen released based on 10 hours of a TV show that really only showed one side of the story? There were more than 200 hours' of testimony to try to show all of the available facts for the jury to make a decision.
This is a similar case -- one reddit post describing things from the point of view of developer who was on his first day ever working. There's tonnes of missing information here.
Still, and interesting scenario to ponder as a thought experiment.
It's it just me, or does it look like it'll snap in two in the middle-wing section between the 2 fuselages.
Strange design. It'll be interesting to see it fly...
It could be done with some biometrics - is your pulse or blood pressure higher than normal, eye dialation, etc. Could be done with current tech...
So you demand that they keep the screen of your phone in your sight at all times. It's like bring a diamond ring into a jeweller to get the stones re-set - you don't let the diamonds out of your sight. Same for you phone.
There should really be laws (or at least guidelines) in place to ensure that 2 or more officers are present when someone's phone is taken from them. I'm guessing there aren't, though...!?
...is likely one of these:
#include
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
for (int i=0; i10000; i++) {
printf ("%04d\n", i);
}
}
Can I go free now?
Enda Kenny is An Taoiseach (pronounced very similarly to "On Tee-Shock"). That's his official title, and not Prime Minister, which is the official title in the UK.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Even the original article uses his actual title.
I've a question - how many mobile phone/cell phone companies in the US charge their customers for checking their voicemail?
I believe (and I'm not sure about this) that I can dial 171 on my phone and check my voice mail for free (but I need to check - I don't use voice mail and never configured it on my account).
If there is a cost to the receiver of the message, is that enough to stop this from happening?
Outside of the North Americas we use the word "trousers", with "pants" refers to underwear. So seeing a phrase like "radioactive material was found on his pants" tends to raise some eyebrows...
Likely these customers are paying the same amount every bill, precalculated based on past usage and payments. If the estimates were wrong, typically the company will adjust the monthly payments downwards for the next year. If that is the case, the customer's account would be in credit due to overpayment, and they should be able to request this money back again.
Certainly electricity companies here (in Ireland, just next door to UK) do that. And if you switch supplier, the old supplier will refund any overpayment automatically (or bill you for underpayments).
It's designed with autonomous vehicles in mind. They tested it with a non-autonomous because they didn't have (couldn't afford) any autonomous ones, but it's designed for them. Says so right there in the article, so it does.
Or right turns in countries where we drive on the other side..! :p
Yep. The work well on roads with equal priority, but at busy times there are always people waiting to get onto the roundabout. On roads with non-equal priority, cars on the lesser road tend to have to wait a long time. And then you have people who won't jump out into a gap...
Unless, of course, you live in France. There, people _entering_ the roundabout have priority over people already on it. This makes for some great traffic watching around the Arc de Triomphe, which is a roundabout with 12 roads entering and exiting. I find the best place to stand to watch this is between Avenue Marceau and Avenue d'Iéna, to the South of the roundabout.
My understanding is that most car insurance companies will not insure your car on that roundabout -- maybe someone in Paris can confirm?
With complete autonomy of the vehicles, yes, it should work anywhere. The controllers will all need to be interlinked and work together.
One nice thing about complete autonomy is that the car can communicate it's intended route to the controller network too, so that it can adjust traffic to allow the car to proceed in it's required direction without having to stop.
We've all marvelled at the amazing choreography in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl-3Kx7jr4g), but with full autonomy this could be every junction all the time... well, within reason - we've no autonomous pedestrians. But it would be possible to get somewhat close.
That said, with full autonomy, it would be possible to have a public transport system that would pick you up at point A (your front door) and drop you directly to point B (work, your parents', that restaurant where you are meeting your friends) just by inputting the time you need to be at point B, and the requested time of collection at point A. Having an autonomous bus network that could work through this information, the system would tell you the time the bus will arrive at your door (as close to your requested time as possible), you board (within a specified amount of time or the bus leaves and you have to book another one), and arrive at your designated time. The 'expressness' of your booking would be a factor of the cost of the journey - if you only want to spend 20 minutes on the bus, you'd pay more than if you are happy to spend 30 minutes (thus allowing the bus to pick up x extra passengers) - as well as how much time before your booking and your pickup (if you book a bus for 5 minutes time you pay more than if you book it for a hour, or 2 hours time - more time allows for better calculation of routes). The bus (or central controller) will decide the route to take in order to collect other passengers at their pickup points, and drop people at their destinations. Bus routes would cease to exist, with any bus going to any pickup or dropoff point, depending on how a central controller calculated the most efficient use for every bus over a period of time. You might always get a bus at around 08:25 and arrive at work at 08:55 every day, but could take a complete different route to get there.
Basically, complete autonomy could completely do away with the need for private car ownership by a majority. Even if you want to go from New York to LA by road with your family, a car-bus could pull up outside your house and be exclusively yours to get ye there, or even for the 2 weeks you are spending there. On return to New York, the car goes back for a quick service and the next day is driving another family to Chicago, while you are hopping on a city bus to work, and you spouse on a separate inter-city bus to get to New Jersey, and the kids onto the school bus, or whatever.
Anyway, just a thought. Elon, should you wish to do this, give me a call and we can talk through it!