Until silent electric cars are commonplace enough that the public is aware that the normal sensitivity of audition may be insufficient to navigate as a pedestrian, adding sound would seem to be a good idea on the whole.
No, it wouldn't seem that way. Why? Because if you add artificial noise people will never become aware of it. It just perpetuates the problem.
Adding noise is exactly the wrong answer. Quiet cars are a nice step forward for those of us who can hear. How about instead we come up with some protocol for a blind person to signal his intent to cross the street? Say, hold out your arm and point to the other side for 10 seconds before crossing. Then train drivers to actually stop for that signal? That would have other benefits as well. Sighted people could use the same signal, making it easier for them to cross busy streets too. And it would protect the blind from those oh-so-silent bicyclists whizzing down the street. (Or maybe bicyclists should adopt some sort of artificial vroom-vroom noise just like cars?)
Simple, free, and peaceful. What more could you want?
Well, it's not like the media companies can claim child porn when they want to shut down a pirate site. "Hey, cut off their DNS! They're pirating our CHILD PORN!"
I notice that the FAQ omits the two questions I would expect to be most frequently asked: "What will it cost?" and "When can I buy one?" Call me when those two are answered. Until then it's just another concept vehicle that will never advance beyond the one-off prototype stage.
Our current system is not 100% safe. A replacement system does not have to be 100% safe, just better.
I completely agree with this, but I wonder if society will in general. It's all fine and dandy to say that human drivers result in X fatalities per year, and robot drivers result in half that. You can have statistics and charts and 8x10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows drawn on them and a paragraph on the back of each explaining what it shows to back you up. That's not going to stop someone from bringing a now-quadriplegic kid who was crippled by a johnny-cab into court and suing the manufacturer into oblivion. The jury won't care that statistically the robot drivers are safer. They'll just care that in this instance the robot car caused grievous bodily injury. Never underestimate the power of an injured child in a courtroom.
Yes. The fact that a lot of people have absolutely no idea what the scientific method is, or believe that adherence to it is just another form of faith-based "religion". You can't convince someone like that. Presenting logic and evidence doesn't work. They've already decided to reject it because it's someone else's faith and it conflicts with theirs. They simply don't believe in science.
That problem cuts both ways, of course. They argue from the basis of their faith, their scriptures. We reject it because science requires there to be a way to prove that it's wrong, and the scriptures cannot be falsified. The book is right because it's right, end of sentence.
See the problem? Neither side can convince the other, because both sides reject the foundational principles of the other. We reject faith because it can't be falsified. They reject the need for falsification because they have faith.
(Then there's the third side, who believe that because science and faith are completely orthogonal to each other that there's no conflict between them. Science is real. So is god. These people tend not to take the scriptures literally, but seen them as a set of analogies that were intended to be understood by the uneducated common people way back in the day. Or in Slashdot terms, "In the beginning, God created the chassis, and it was good. On the second day God created the engine and powertrain, and did install them unto the chassis...")
That doesn't mean Congress has carte-blanche power to do anything or everything it wants in the name of "the general Welfare". That's as absurd as those who would argue action needs to be done "for the children".
You're right, of course. Or as absurd as regulating anything and everything in the name of "interstate commerce".
As to the complaining parent, maybe the bitch should just stick to Dr Suess? Oh, she'll probably think Cat in the Hat is porno, too.
While in high school in the early 80s I had a job in the public library. One day a lady came in with a stack of Dr. Seuss books. She dropped them on the counter and said, "My husband told me to return these books because they're INAPPROPRIATE for our children." Now, there's a whole lot of WTF packed into that one sentence. But yes, there are people who think The Cat in the Hat is bad for kids.
Although I do wonder about Green Eggs and Ham. "Could you, would you, with a goat?" Ahem!
We get more pictures when they get more funding. It's obviously very incomplete as it is. Just look: No cupholders! What kind of American is going to go into space without a place to put their 64oz truck stop mug of delicious fountain beverage?
Why? That's just as arbitrary a distinction as t-shirt vs. suit. Torn jeans, artificially "old" looking t-shirts, and the like are definitely hip among certain demographics. Why are you discriminating against them?
The fact of the matter is, if you want to get along in business you have to look like you fit the role. You have to wear the uniform. In sales or financial situations the uniform is a coat and tie. Subconsciously it's a test: Are you going to play by the unwritten rules of the game? Are you going to adhere to the established social conventions? You're going to make people nervous if you fail to wear the proper uniform. You're part of the wrong tribe, you're a loose cannon.
Should the world work like that? Maybe not. But it does. Deal with it.
Lectures are extremely inefficient. Just use the same textbooks as 30+ years ago. Pre-university mathematics hasn't changed that much.
Actually, it has. A couple years ago my high-school aged son was stuck on a math problem: Plot a linear approximation through a set of points. I didn't remember the exact technique so I looked it up in his textbook. "Step 1: Enter the points into a graphing calculator. Step 2: Press the 'linear regression' button."
For better or worse, computers and powerful calculators are part of the curriculum. My younger son's Algebra 1 book has frequent "Spreadsheet Activity" and "Graphing Calculator Activity" sidebars.
Insert generic "In my day..." rant here. You could borrow the one used by my parents when my generation got to use 4-function calculators, or the one used by their parents when they got to use slide rules.
I feel your pain. I'm 45 and an Eagle Scout. It's one of my proudest achievements. My time in Scouts was invaluable. But, my time predated the BSA declaring itself to be a religious organization. I was (and am) agnostic, but my troop's leaders helped me define what "reverent" and "duty to God" can mean in that context. How I could uphold the spirit of those values if not the letter.
Jump-cut to my own son in Scouts. In his troop you could be any religion you wanted -- so long as it was of Judeo-Christian origin. Lip service was given to other religions, but "none" was simply not an option. He quit when he was 13, primarily because he couldn't work within the strict letter-of-the-law policies. I couldn't even argue with his decision. He's right, it's not the place for him. It's a shame because he enjoyed the rest of it.
I still think that overall, Boy Scouts is a great program. But the BSA is being spoiled by a few really backwards social policies.
Forget copy protection. I know it's hard to sit there and see someone using your work without paying for it, but you're not going to coerce anyone into paying. You're only going to inconvenience your legitimate customers. The pirates aren't going to be inconvenienced at all. Someone will inevitably crack it and post it. Now the pirates have a better product than you have -- all the features, none of the inconvenience. Remember, you're not losing money because someone pirates your product. Even if they're using it to gain money, you're not losing it. If they're willing to pirate your stuff now, they'll be willing to no matter what you do. No one's going to buy your stuff because it's too hard to copy. The pirates outnumber you and they're undoubtedly more devious than you. They will find a way to crack your software if it's at all useful to them. If you're going to spend time and effort fighting them, do it in court.
Whether you release a "non-commercial-use" version of your product is completely orthogonal to the piracy question. If it fits your business plan, do it. If it doesn't, don't. The pirates aren't your customers. They're not even potentially your customers. Don't let them dictate how you run your business.
For the most part, people are honest. Most (most) companies will pay for software, or find alternatives if the software is too expensive (or if the licensing terms are too onerous). Those are your customers and potential customers. Treat them right and they'll treat you right.
That will lead to even more problems, though. Don't need to go through the approval process? Then anyone, including malware authors can sign their apps. No gain. Oh, they're checking a revocation list when the app is run? Does that mean I have to be connected to the net every time I run a signed app? That could be problematic, especially considering that all of Apple's own apps will presumably be signed. (Or will those keys be irrevocable?) Or will my computer download and cache the revocation lists periodically? In that case, can't malware bypass security (at least for a few days) by blocking the revocation list download?
Makes it harder for people to accidentally click-open malware apps that somehow get downloaded by them clicking on the wrong thing.
Does this ever really happen? Does malware ever get run by someone accidentally clicking on it? In my experience, the most common vector is to trick the user into wanting to run the software, not hoping that he'll click the program accidentally. This is usually done by offering porn or warez, or by pretending to be an anti-virus program. Any user dumb enough to run those things in the first place is dumb enough to disable the security system first. "What? It's not letting me run 'Natalie Portman Naked With Hot Grits.app'!? Damned cheesy 'security', of course I'm sure I want to run it!" One "disable" dialog later and they've been rooted.
I can't see this doing anything useful. Maybe it'll keep kids from running stuff they downloaded to their parents' computers (assuming the kids don't already have the admin password) but it's not going to stop the majority of users. Just like the "ZOMG! This was downloaded from the big, bad Interwebs! You're not really going to run it, are you?" warning doesn't actually stop anyone from running malware.
It sounds like even the university students can't be bothered to generate more than a tepid response to this matter. What if... instead of there being a conspiracy of silence on the matter... What if maybe, just maybe, it's not really all that outrageous?
Wow. First you say there's nothing wrong with being trapped on earth, then you suggest we're going to run out of food in a decade. You don't think that's a good enough reason to find more space to live?
Personally, I don't agree that we're anywhere near that close to running out of food. Or living space, for that matter. But world population is doubling about every fifty years, and at some point we're going to be in trouble. Or by "if you take care of the place" did you mean that we should adhere to a strict zero-population-growth regime and abandon medical research that can extend our lifespans?
Then there's climate change (the earth is warming, regardless of whether or not the change is anthropogenic), killer asteroids, and a multitude of different natural and man-made disasters that could knock us back a few thousand years technologically (if they didn't wipe us out entirely).
We're all eggs, and at the moment we only have one basket. If the human race is to have any hope of surviving we have to get off this rock and spread out.
And soon, just as in Civ IV, we're going to start seeing Canadian cities near the border changing allegiance to the USA. Pretty soon their whole country will fall to our cultural dominance, leaving just the capital city left as easy pickings for our Stealth Bombers, Modern Armor, Navy SEALs, and a few Axemen we never got around to upgrading. Once the entire continent is under our control we'll be well on our way to a Domination Victory!
But really, we'd better hurry, we only have another 38 years before the game ends.
My wife would never let me have the password to her email account. Yet the idea of me having the root password on the email server doesn't bother her. People are funny. Especially the ones who don't know what "root" means.
Given that the grandparent wrote about a guy who lost 10 years of work because he didn't know to make backups, I'd say Apple pretty much nailed that one.
If you look at the text, you'll note that it is actually in direct violation. People are not secure in their persons, and there is no warrants being issued, with our without probable cause, let alone sworn.
Nonsense. The 4th amendment only talks about unreasonable search. Random searches and checkpoints are a perfectly reasonable response to a faceless enemy who could be literally anybody. Now submit, citizen, or you'll find out what "violated" really means.
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No, of course not. You're a scumbag and should be ashamed of yourself because you're male.
No, it wouldn't seem that way. Why? Because if you add artificial noise people will never become aware of it. It just perpetuates the problem.
Adding noise is exactly the wrong answer. Quiet cars are a nice step forward for those of us who can hear. How about instead we come up with some protocol for a blind person to signal his intent to cross the street? Say, hold out your arm and point to the other side for 10 seconds before crossing. Then train drivers to actually stop for that signal? That would have other benefits as well. Sighted people could use the same signal, making it easier for them to cross busy streets too. And it would protect the blind from those oh-so-silent bicyclists whizzing down the street. (Or maybe bicyclists should adopt some sort of artificial vroom-vroom noise just like cars?)
Simple, free, and peaceful. What more could you want?
Well, it's not like the media companies can claim child porn when they want to shut down a pirate site. "Hey, cut off their DNS! They're pirating our CHILD PORN!"
I notice that the FAQ omits the two questions I would expect to be most frequently asked: "What will it cost?" and "When can I buy one?" Call me when those two are answered. Until then it's just another concept vehicle that will never advance beyond the one-off prototype stage.
I completely agree with this, but I wonder if society will in general. It's all fine and dandy to say that human drivers result in X fatalities per year, and robot drivers result in half that. You can have statistics and charts and 8x10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows drawn on them and a paragraph on the back of each explaining what it shows to back you up. That's not going to stop someone from bringing a now-quadriplegic kid who was crippled by a johnny-cab into court and suing the manufacturer into oblivion. The jury won't care that statistically the robot drivers are safer. They'll just care that in this instance the robot car caused grievous bodily injury. Never underestimate the power of an injured child in a courtroom.
Yes. The fact that a lot of people have absolutely no idea what the scientific method is, or believe that adherence to it is just another form of faith-based "religion". You can't convince someone like that. Presenting logic and evidence doesn't work. They've already decided to reject it because it's someone else's faith and it conflicts with theirs. They simply don't believe in science.
That problem cuts both ways, of course. They argue from the basis of their faith, their scriptures. We reject it because science requires there to be a way to prove that it's wrong, and the scriptures cannot be falsified. The book is right because it's right, end of sentence.
See the problem? Neither side can convince the other, because both sides reject the foundational principles of the other. We reject faith because it can't be falsified. They reject the need for falsification because they have faith.
(Then there's the third side, who believe that because science and faith are completely orthogonal to each other that there's no conflict between them. Science is real. So is god. These people tend not to take the scriptures literally, but seen them as a set of analogies that were intended to be understood by the uneducated common people way back in the day. Or in Slashdot terms, "In the beginning, God created the chassis, and it was good. On the second day God created the engine and powertrain, and did install them unto the chassis...")
You're right, of course. Or as absurd as regulating anything and everything in the name of "interstate commerce".
While in high school in the early 80s I had a job in the public library. One day a lady came in with a stack of Dr. Seuss books. She dropped them on the counter and said, "My husband told me to return these books because they're INAPPROPRIATE for our children." Now, there's a whole lot of WTF packed into that one sentence. But yes, there are people who think The Cat in the Hat is bad for kids.
Although I do wonder about Green Eggs and Ham. "Could you, would you, with a goat?" Ahem!
We get more pictures when they get more funding. It's obviously very incomplete as it is. Just look: No cupholders! What kind of American is going to go into space without a place to put their 64oz truck stop mug of delicious fountain beverage?
Huh. I would have expected "eskimo" to be the number one highlighted word.
Then you just have to designate people to memorize specific books word-for-word, and to recite them to others. Simple.
Why? That's just as arbitrary a distinction as t-shirt vs. suit. Torn jeans, artificially "old" looking t-shirts, and the like are definitely hip among certain demographics. Why are you discriminating against them?
The fact of the matter is, if you want to get along in business you have to look like you fit the role. You have to wear the uniform. In sales or financial situations the uniform is a coat and tie. Subconsciously it's a test: Are you going to play by the unwritten rules of the game? Are you going to adhere to the established social conventions? You're going to make people nervous if you fail to wear the proper uniform. You're part of the wrong tribe, you're a loose cannon.
Should the world work like that? Maybe not. But it does. Deal with it.
A-yup. But I'm betting that "riding a train" tested better with the focus group than "being shot out of a really long cannon".
And two more letters right back at you:
VM
Actually, it has. A couple years ago my high-school aged son was stuck on a math problem: Plot a linear approximation through a set of points. I didn't remember the exact technique so I looked it up in his textbook. "Step 1: Enter the points into a graphing calculator. Step 2: Press the 'linear regression' button."
For better or worse, computers and powerful calculators are part of the curriculum. My younger son's Algebra 1 book has frequent "Spreadsheet Activity" and "Graphing Calculator Activity" sidebars.
Insert generic "In my day..." rant here. You could borrow the one used by my parents when my generation got to use 4-function calculators, or the one used by their parents when they got to use slide rules.
I feel your pain. I'm 45 and an Eagle Scout. It's one of my proudest achievements. My time in Scouts was invaluable. But, my time predated the BSA declaring itself to be a religious organization. I was (and am) agnostic, but my troop's leaders helped me define what "reverent" and "duty to God" can mean in that context. How I could uphold the spirit of those values if not the letter.
Jump-cut to my own son in Scouts. In his troop you could be any religion you wanted -- so long as it was of Judeo-Christian origin. Lip service was given to other religions, but "none" was simply not an option. He quit when he was 13, primarily because he couldn't work within the strict letter-of-the-law policies. I couldn't even argue with his decision. He's right, it's not the place for him. It's a shame because he enjoyed the rest of it.
I still think that overall, Boy Scouts is a great program. But the BSA is being spoiled by a few really backwards social policies.
Forget copy protection. I know it's hard to sit there and see someone using your work without paying for it, but you're not going to coerce anyone into paying. You're only going to inconvenience your legitimate customers. The pirates aren't going to be inconvenienced at all. Someone will inevitably crack it and post it. Now the pirates have a better product than you have -- all the features, none of the inconvenience. Remember, you're not losing money because someone pirates your product. Even if they're using it to gain money, you're not losing it. If they're willing to pirate your stuff now, they'll be willing to no matter what you do. No one's going to buy your stuff because it's too hard to copy. The pirates outnumber you and they're undoubtedly more devious than you. They will find a way to crack your software if it's at all useful to them. If you're going to spend time and effort fighting them, do it in court.
Whether you release a "non-commercial-use" version of your product is completely orthogonal to the piracy question. If it fits your business plan, do it. If it doesn't, don't. The pirates aren't your customers. They're not even potentially your customers. Don't let them dictate how you run your business.
For the most part, people are honest. Most (most) companies will pay for software, or find alternatives if the software is too expensive (or if the licensing terms are too onerous). Those are your customers and potential customers. Treat them right and they'll treat you right.
That will lead to even more problems, though. Don't need to go through the approval process? Then anyone, including malware authors can sign their apps. No gain. Oh, they're checking a revocation list when the app is run? Does that mean I have to be connected to the net every time I run a signed app? That could be problematic, especially considering that all of Apple's own apps will presumably be signed. (Or will those keys be irrevocable?) Or will my computer download and cache the revocation lists periodically? In that case, can't malware bypass security (at least for a few days) by blocking the revocation list download?
Does this ever really happen? Does malware ever get run by someone accidentally clicking on it? In my experience, the most common vector is to trick the user into wanting to run the software, not hoping that he'll click the program accidentally. This is usually done by offering porn or warez, or by pretending to be an anti-virus program. Any user dumb enough to run those things in the first place is dumb enough to disable the security system first. "What? It's not letting me run 'Natalie Portman Naked With Hot Grits.app'!? Damned cheesy 'security', of course I'm sure I want to run it!" One "disable" dialog later and they've been rooted.
I can't see this doing anything useful. Maybe it'll keep kids from running stuff they downloaded to their parents' computers (assuming the kids don't already have the admin password) but it's not going to stop the majority of users. Just like the "ZOMG! This was downloaded from the big, bad Interwebs! You're not really going to run it, are you?" warning doesn't actually stop anyone from running malware.
It sounds like even the university students can't be bothered to generate more than a tepid response to this matter. What if... instead of there being a conspiracy of silence on the matter... What if maybe, just maybe, it's not really all that outrageous?
Wow. First you say there's nothing wrong with being trapped on earth, then you suggest we're going to run out of food in a decade. You don't think that's a good enough reason to find more space to live?
Personally, I don't agree that we're anywhere near that close to running out of food. Or living space, for that matter. But world population is doubling about every fifty years, and at some point we're going to be in trouble. Or by "if you take care of the place" did you mean that we should adhere to a strict zero-population-growth regime and abandon medical research that can extend our lifespans?
Then there's climate change (the earth is warming, regardless of whether or not the change is anthropogenic), killer asteroids, and a multitude of different natural and man-made disasters that could knock us back a few thousand years technologically (if they didn't wipe us out entirely).
We're all eggs, and at the moment we only have one basket. If the human race is to have any hope of surviving we have to get off this rock and spread out.
And soon, just as in Civ IV, we're going to start seeing Canadian cities near the border changing allegiance to the USA. Pretty soon their whole country will fall to our cultural dominance, leaving just the capital city left as easy pickings for our Stealth Bombers, Modern Armor, Navy SEALs, and a few Axemen we never got around to upgrading. Once the entire continent is under our control we'll be well on our way to a Domination Victory!
But really, we'd better hurry, we only have another 38 years before the game ends.
My wife would never let me have the password to her email account. Yet the idea of me having the root password on the email server doesn't bother her. People are funny. Especially the ones who don't know what "root" means.
Given that the grandparent wrote about a guy who lost 10 years of work because he didn't know to make backups, I'd say Apple pretty much nailed that one.
Nonsense. The 4th amendment only talks about unreasonable search. Random searches and checkpoints are a perfectly reasonable response to a faceless enemy who could be literally anybody. Now submit, citizen, or you'll find out what "violated" really means.