You clearly don't understand how this works, so let me help explain this to you. I'll use small words. I do physics. That's my job. I do physics every day, in fact I'm doing physics right now. That means that I'm superior to you, which means that I'm right, ergo you are wrong. Good day sir!
Because the known laws of physics clearly dictate that chemical propellant is the only way to do this. That's why we've been doing it since the 50s, because in the 50s we already knew all of the known laws of physics (which don't change), so we already knew that the only way to do this was chemical propellant, therefore that's what we used. If it was possible to use a railgun then we would have done that in the 50s, because we already knew everything and technology and our understanding of physics has not progressed since then. I can't even have a conversation with some kind of luddite nutter who doesn't even understand that what we know about physics is as immutable as the fact that chemical propellant is the pinnacle of space launch technology.
At least, known laws of physics have been immutable since Newton finally figured everything out and gave us all the answers. And if you don't know that then there's nothing I can do to convince you that things never change.
That's nonsense! Everyone knows that the known laws of physics mean that chemical propellant are the pinnacle of engine technology and will never be replaced, ever. The known laws of physics say so, and if there's one thing I know it's that the known laws of physics have never changed.
Mobile doesn't really have a hover event either, at least not until phones can detect the presence of your finger pointing at something before you touch the screen. There's not really a way to enable that for mobile at all (status bar or no) other than showing the URL you just clicked on and requiring a confirmation to go there, which isn't something that people would accept. In addition to doubling the number of clicks that browsing requires, it's again going to lead to the situation where people blindly click on Confirm or OK buttons without reading anything.
That UI bar can be, and is often turned off on some browsers.
That's actually an option I don't see in my browser, I don't see a way to disable that. A quick search doesn't show results for recent versions of Chrome or Firefox, and IE/Edge aren't even in the top results.
What "nefarious protocol" are you referring to? And, for that matter, why the hell are browser vendors adding support for things that are clearly nefarious?
Scammers use HTTP/HTTPS, why do they need to even use another protocol?
Audio should default to off with a per-site permission required, and no audio from 3rd party sources. Javascript should have features like pop-up dialogues and on-click removed, or at least limited to trusted sites. Redirects should require confirmation from the user. Cookies should default to blocked.
If all of those suggestions were implemented then the very first thing that people would want to do when they start a browser on a new computer is to go enable everything so that websites work again. The #1 search terms would all involve "how do I change my browser so websites work", and then we're right back to the start.
I'm sorry if you're personally annoyed that web pages are able to play audio, but it was added in HTML 5 for a reason. I don't think that audio is an inherent security threat.
Hardly any sites use pop-up dialogs in Javascript at this point. If you're talking about something other than the standard alert, prompt, confirm, etc, then you're suggesting that Javascript shouldn't be able to modify the DOM at all, which is not a step in the right direction. Now we're back to the days of static web pages. We moved on for a reason. Requiring users to click a confirm button every time their browser is asked to redirect would only result in people clicking confirm buttons on their browser as fast as possible without reading what the browser is asking them to confirm. We've seen that before. Blocking cookies by default means people can't log in to sites. So, again, the #1 search term is now how to configure the web browser so that sites work, and none of the problems have actually been addressed.
if the major browser vendors (so, Google) started making these the default settings
If Google made those the default settings then people can't use Maps or Gmail any more. Here's something to think about, I'm not sure if you've fully considered this. There was a time when Firefox was initially fighting against IE6, and it looked like Firefox was destined to become to most popular browser. All of a sudden Google releases Chrome, and they were talking about things like tab process separation, a much faster Javascript engine, etc. Over the next couple years they poured development effort into improving their Javascript engine, and it forced all of the other vendors to do the same because they were getting absolutely destroyed in the Javascript benchmarks. Javascript performance in the days of IE6 vs. Firefox is completely pathetic to the state of the art today, and that's because Google made Javascript their priority so that they could do things on the internet that weren't possible with the older browsers and their slow and buggy implementations.
Microsoft had nearly killed IE development when Firefox was released, future upgrades were only going to be part of new Windows versions. They had defeated Netscape, the browser war was over, they won. Firefox was already out for 4 years by the time they released IE7, and it was nearly a cosmetic upgrade, it had all of the same shit performance as IE6. IE8 was hardly any better, but it did actually have better Javascript performance and fixed a few rendering bugs and added support for some newer technologies, and that's because a year before it was released Google came out with Chrome and changed the web browser game. Everyone else had to try to match Chrome's performance or answer questions like why Gmail runs like shit in their browser. Now Microsoft is fully committed to their browser again, Firefox has respectable Javascript performance, and all of that is thanks to Google because they wanted to write web applications that were complex enough to require a high-performance Javascript implementation.
Now you're suggesting that they should disable it by default. Sorry, but it's not going to happen.
There's nothing about a URL that I 'don't need to see'.
I completely understand that, I often find myself browsing web pages and wondering "wait a second, is this web page being served to me over the gopher protocol, or NNTP?" And then, because I understand that I can actually change settings in my browser, I go to the settings page and check the box to show the full URL and think to myself "oh wow! It turns out that this web page is actually served using the hyper text transfer protocol, I totally wasn't expecting that!"
Show me fancy highlighting and crap and as an attacker the first thing I'm going to do is figure out how to highlight things
OK, then I guess the world is waiting for your exploit where you cause the browser to highlight arbitrary parts of the URL. I'm sure that something like that would create a pretty nice payday for you, so since that's the first thing you're going to do then you should get right on it.
There are too many idiots using dangerous things they don't understand.
Right, and your solution is to throw more information which they also don't understand at them.
Yeah you're exactly right, the half of the population who click on anything would totally not do that if only they could see the protocol. Because that's what was keeping everyone safe for so many years back in the halcyon days of innocence when everyone used IE6 and malware was non-existent.
I don't think the URL field has been dumbed down at all, it hides things that you don't generally need to see (there's still an indicator if the page is secured or not, instead of expecting random people to know the difference between "http://" and "https://"), and it emphasizes things that are more important, like making the root domain stand out and writing the rest in a lighter shade. That actually helps people who got sent to facebook.com.pwned.net figure out which site they're actually on, it doesn't make anyone stupider. I can look at the URL and obviously tell that I'm on a subdomain of slashdot.org, because the root domain is written darker.
And the status bar? Really, grandma? Can you name a single browser that does not show the URL of a link that you're pointing to when you point at it? Why have an area of the UI dedicated to showing that, which isn't being used if you're not hovering over a link? If you're thinking of some other purpose of the status bar that we've lost without a replacement, just what sage advice do you think it was dispensing that we need to bring back?
"Dream big" only works if you also "work hard" and are realistic about what is possible given the KNOWN LAWS of Physics. Just because you read Ringworld doesn't mean one can be built.
Well, it doesn't mean it can't, either. And you're exposing a flaw in your logic very well by capitalizing "KNOWN LAWS". Are you trying to assert that we know all of the laws of physics that there are to know? There's nothing left to learn there? Why can't we have a breakthrough in 10 years, or 100 years, or 1000 years that ONCE AGAIN completely rewrites everything that we once held to be sacred? That's a problem that scientists can be prone to - assuming that everything they know is right and not to question it. Where would the state of physics be today if Einstein decided that everything that Newton discovered was correct and accurate, explained everything, and that it shouldn't be questioned? The theory of General Relativity is only 101 years old, and in order to prove his claims Einstein needed (then) high-precision telescopes and cameras placed in the path of a solar eclipse to verify that gravitational lensing was real. What do you think Einstein would say if someone went back and told him that in less than 100 years people would be bouncing signals off a fleet of tens of thousands of orbiting machines in order to communicate with each other in real time across the world, that we would have telescopes outside of Earth's atmosphere, and that anyone can pull a machine out of their pocket and instantly pull up hundreds or thousands of clear pictures showing obvious gravitational lensing in deep space? Do you think he would try to argue that such a thing is impossible? Do you think he would just dismiss you as a "space nutter"? How is it that you know what the state of science and technology is going to be centuries or millenia into the future? What happens when General Relativity gets replaced with a better theory? Are people going to look back on attitudes like yours and think "wow, they really had it figured out"?
I wish I could just get a secret court to issue a ruling to the customer that they have to buy a new piece of equipment.
Oh man, that would solve so many problems that I don't want to spend the time to troubleshoot. I think I need to write a new canned reply for the help desk system.
"Pursuant to 50 U.S.C. section 1881a(c), you are going to be billed the cost of a new dedicated server and the time to configure and install the hardware and software. Additionally, we have determined that the behavior you have described is a feature, not a bug. This ticket will be closed."
In other news, the director of the Burgler's Association says that prolific door locks are hurting their business efforts. He was joined by the director of the Peeping Tom's Union announcing that prolific window coverings are hurting their ability to stay competitive.
Wow, that's weird that a technology designed specifically to protect against eavesdropping and unauthorized access makes a spy's job more difficult. You know what I want? I want a bunch of laws to get passed specifically to allow me to do my job with less effort and fewer skills, because my feelings get hurt when I have to actually work and use what I know. When I have an issue on a server that I'm having a hard time figuring out, I want someone to just call my phone with the solution. That would be fantastic, let's get right on that. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to continue to do my damn job and get paid for the work that I actually do.
Our betters also try to tell me that the northern hemisphere has over twice as much land area as the southern hemisphere, but my gut tells me that's a government conspiracy and that land and weather are equally distributed around the globe. Our betters also try to suggest that they've found evidence for warming in North America and the US during the medieval warm period, but the reason I know they're full of shit is because we didn't have satellites then, and even if we did they would have just fudged the data anyway. I don't trust thermometers anyway, I go outside today and it feels cooler than yesterday, so I know that today is colder than average. That's how facts work.
I also saw this climate map once, they were trying to show how things are warmer on average. But, check this out - one little part of the map was actually colder than average. That's how I know that they make everything up, because I understand that the entire planet always warms and cools at the same rate, and that local variation doesn't exist. That's how they try to convince you to send them all of your oil money, but the guy they hired to photoshop that map fucked up and left part of it cold and completely blew their cover.
And remember a couple decades ago when you couldn't even turn on the TV without seeing Sally Struthers whining about some starving African kid? You want to know why you don't see those any more? Because there aren't any starving people in the world anymore. I know this is a fact because I can drive down the street and there's a grocery store. That's how facts work.
According to that article, we are currently in a "very deep solar minimum", the "quietest sun we've seen in almost a century". The last grand maximum ended in 2007. So how come that no one younger than 31 has ever experienced a month which is colder than average? Why are we not currently cooling?
Why do I bother? I already know exactly how you're going to respond. Let's all say it together.
"The data is bad"
The data on solar cycles is apparently good data, but the other data that doesn't suit your ideas is bad. Right?
I'm quoting the article. He said that the address of his building and the location where the actual door are are "wildly different" addresses. I assume he means a different number and different street.
if I walk out the side door I'm on the wrong street from what my address says.
That's what TFA describes. I'm suggesting that he should be able to give an address for the particular door. And yes, I'm using address and location more or less interchangeably.
How do you fix the "coordinate" problem of having ten different coordinate systems in use just in one place?
You use the correct one. If you take a sphere and stick a pin in it, there's only one correct way to refer to where that pin is (assuming every system is using the same units, anyway, like degrees, and that they agree on the origin). The fact that we have multiple competing systems is a symptom of the problem. As a planet we've more or less decided on the origin, off West Africa. If we're all using the same origin and we're all measuring in degrees then each point on the planet is only referenced by a single set of coordinates. If there are 8 sets of coordinates all trying to refer to a single point then at least 7 of those sets are wrong. Maybe all 8 are.
Were you aware that there is a separate datum for Cape Canaveral?
You're still only describing symptoms of the problem. I understand there's a problem. I'm suggesting that we stop using the system that has so many symptoms of a problem and switch to one that makes logical sense.
I know about this problem because I deal with search and rescue, and I've seen the result of telling someone a coordinate for something and they wind up in the wrong place. I've had people tell me that there is a "target" at certain coordinates and there isn't anything there -- but there is when I change the datum on my GPS to what they are using.
And, according to your argument in the other thread, the solution is to change how the devices deal with coordinates to use "the human way" of doing things instead of coming up with a single coordinate system which makes sense.
It's easy to say "just fix it", but actually fixing it isn't that simple, and it may break other things.
I'm well aware of that. The question then becomes whether it is worth waiting until we have more things relying on these flawed systems before we try to change them, or if we rip the bandaid off now.
Building a system that depends on humans doing things the machine way is building a system designed to fail.
I'm not suggesting that we do things "the machine way", I'm suggesting that we do things "the logical way". What does it say about us that "the human way" and "the logical way" are 2 different things? Why can't they be the same thing? That's not something worth trying to correct? In 20,000 years from now are we still going to be converting between pounds and kilograms, and miles and kilometers, when we're calculating how much thrust we need to escape gravity? Are we still going to have to give turn-by-turn directions to get to a specific location on the planet or in a city? If not, then when exactly is the point that we should seek to change the systems that we're using? Why should we rely on a system that worked fine for people walking and riding horses when our needs are now completely different? Just because some of us are lazy and don't want to have to change anything? Is there any other valid reason?
The biggest, as far as I can determine, is that "I hate to drive". Period.
You think that Americans are a people known for their hatred of driving cars, huh? That's an interesting observation. It's wrong, but interesting. The major force against AVs is that people like to drive.
The other one is an unfounded and as-yet unsupported belief that autonomous vehicles will eliminate traffic deaths and accidents.
I haven't seen anyone use an absolute like that. I've seen claims that roads will be safer, and that traffic deaths and accidents will decline, but I don't think I've seen anyone claim that they will simply become eliminated.
Lots of unicorns and pixie dust from AV proponents, but not much factual proof.
I suppose unicorns and pixie dust would be required to eliminate traffic deaths and accidents, but thankfully I haven't seen that claim being made by anyone not trying to set up a strawman.
Let's face it. Many, if not most, of those involuntary participants will see no benefit to changing.
Sure they will. We can even make the addresses 2 different formats so that you can tell just by looking at it whether it's a "new" or "old" address. The first time someone gives an AV their old address and the vehicle responds by dropping them off where they don't want to be, or by telling them that it can't find a route there, they'll see the benefit of the new address. When someone tries to place a delivery order online and it won't accept an old address format at all, they'll see the benefit. When someone uses the new address to tell them where to go, and they immediately know how to get to that point without turn-by-turn directions, they'll see the benefit.
Heck, the fastest computer can barely beat people at chess
Not anymore, there are programs written for smart phones that compete at grandmaster level. Algorithms that can search 20,000 moves per second can win tournaments, let alone the supercomputers searching 200 million moves per second. And that was 7 years ago.
That's not exactly the point of the article. Like he says in the very article:
For the moment, it’s a pretty minor issue - the easiest solution is just for the drivers to call the rider, and it works itself out.
And then in the very next sentences he points out that this solution isn't possible for autonomous cars.
Technology is not the solution to human incompetence. Better humans are.
In a sense, you're right. The solution to this problem isn't necessarily better mapping, it's better addressing that is less arbitrary and error-prone. If you want to go to a certain door then that door should have an address that makes sense based on its location on the street.
These uber-smart cars need to understand how humans do things
There's a problem with that. Often the way that humans do things is completely arbitrary and prone to errors. That doesn't translate well to a machine. The more logical choice is in fact to reduce errors and make the things we do less arbitrary. It will make sense for more than just the machines that we build to help us.
Let's face it, a major reason why people want autonomous cars is because the way that humans do things doesn't always work that well. It would be kind of pointless to try to program the machines to act just like us. They should be better or there's no point. It's not nonsense to change the way that we do things in order to make it easier for the machines, and us, to perform better.
Maybe the problem is that we've designed cities that have a rate of errors which is fine for humans but doesn't work very well for machines. Maybe the solution is to just fix the addresses. If the address of your door is a "wildly different address", then why isn't that just your actual address?
I'm also tired of paying for "4G" that Sprint never bothered to install in my area
I experienced the same thing from Sprint. When I bought a 4G phone in June of 2010, they told me that they would have 4G service in Phoenix within a few months. By the time I got a HTC One in 2013 4G was no closer to being in Phoenix, I only got to use it when I traveled to a place like Vegas. I wouldn't go back to Sprint, their coverage map claims that Phoenix is covered but other maps with actual results show spotty coverage where I live and work and very bad speeds.
Slashdot Mirror
I SAID GOOD DAY!
You clearly don't understand how this works, so let me help explain this to you. I'll use small words. I do physics. That's my job. I do physics every day, in fact I'm doing physics right now. That means that I'm superior to you, which means that I'm right, ergo you are wrong. Good day sir!
Because the known laws of physics clearly dictate that chemical propellant is the only way to do this. That's why we've been doing it since the 50s, because in the 50s we already knew all of the known laws of physics (which don't change), so we already knew that the only way to do this was chemical propellant, therefore that's what we used. If it was possible to use a railgun then we would have done that in the 50s, because we already knew everything and technology and our understanding of physics has not progressed since then. I can't even have a conversation with some kind of luddite nutter who doesn't even understand that what we know about physics is as immutable as the fact that chemical propellant is the pinnacle of space launch technology.
At least, known laws of physics have been immutable since Newton finally figured everything out and gave us all the answers. And if you don't know that then there's nothing I can do to convince you that things never change.
That's nonsense! Everyone knows that the known laws of physics mean that chemical propellant are the pinnacle of engine technology and will never be replaced, ever. The known laws of physics say so, and if there's one thing I know it's that the known laws of physics have never changed.
Mobile doesn't really have a hover event either, at least not until phones can detect the presence of your finger pointing at something before you touch the screen. There's not really a way to enable that for mobile at all (status bar or no) other than showing the URL you just clicked on and requiring a confirmation to go there, which isn't something that people would accept. In addition to doubling the number of clicks that browsing requires, it's again going to lead to the situation where people blindly click on Confirm or OK buttons without reading anything.
That UI bar can be, and is often turned off on some browsers.
That's actually an option I don't see in my browser, I don't see a way to disable that. A quick search doesn't show results for recent versions of Chrome or Firefox, and IE/Edge aren't even in the top results.
Amicus be nice.
But sarcasm is how I show love.
What "nefarious protocol" are you referring to? And, for that matter, why the hell are browser vendors adding support for things that are clearly nefarious?
Scammers use HTTP/HTTPS, why do they need to even use another protocol?
Audio should default to off with a per-site permission required, and no audio from 3rd party sources. Javascript should have features like pop-up dialogues and on-click removed, or at least limited to trusted sites. Redirects should require confirmation from the user. Cookies should default to blocked.
If all of those suggestions were implemented then the very first thing that people would want to do when they start a browser on a new computer is to go enable everything so that websites work again. The #1 search terms would all involve "how do I change my browser so websites work", and then we're right back to the start.
I'm sorry if you're personally annoyed that web pages are able to play audio, but it was added in HTML 5 for a reason. I don't think that audio is an inherent security threat.
Hardly any sites use pop-up dialogs in Javascript at this point. If you're talking about something other than the standard alert, prompt, confirm, etc, then you're suggesting that Javascript shouldn't be able to modify the DOM at all, which is not a step in the right direction. Now we're back to the days of static web pages. We moved on for a reason. Requiring users to click a confirm button every time their browser is asked to redirect would only result in people clicking confirm buttons on their browser as fast as possible without reading what the browser is asking them to confirm. We've seen that before. Blocking cookies by default means people can't log in to sites. So, again, the #1 search term is now how to configure the web browser so that sites work, and none of the problems have actually been addressed.
if the major browser vendors (so, Google) started making these the default settings
If Google made those the default settings then people can't use Maps or Gmail any more. Here's something to think about, I'm not sure if you've fully considered this. There was a time when Firefox was initially fighting against IE6, and it looked like Firefox was destined to become to most popular browser. All of a sudden Google releases Chrome, and they were talking about things like tab process separation, a much faster Javascript engine, etc. Over the next couple years they poured development effort into improving their Javascript engine, and it forced all of the other vendors to do the same because they were getting absolutely destroyed in the Javascript benchmarks. Javascript performance in the days of IE6 vs. Firefox is completely pathetic to the state of the art today, and that's because Google made Javascript their priority so that they could do things on the internet that weren't possible with the older browsers and their slow and buggy implementations.
Microsoft had nearly killed IE development when Firefox was released, future upgrades were only going to be part of new Windows versions. They had defeated Netscape, the browser war was over, they won. Firefox was already out for 4 years by the time they released IE7, and it was nearly a cosmetic upgrade, it had all of the same shit performance as IE6. IE8 was hardly any better, but it did actually have better Javascript performance and fixed a few rendering bugs and added support for some newer technologies, and that's because a year before it was released Google came out with Chrome and changed the web browser game. Everyone else had to try to match Chrome's performance or answer questions like why Gmail runs like shit in their browser. Now Microsoft is fully committed to their browser again, Firefox has respectable Javascript performance, and all of that is thanks to Google because they wanted to write web applications that were complex enough to require a high-performance Javascript implementation.
Now you're suggesting that they should disable it by default. Sorry, but it's not going to happen.
There's nothing about a URL that I 'don't need to see'.
I completely understand that, I often find myself browsing web pages and wondering "wait a second, is this web page being served to me over the gopher protocol, or NNTP?" And then, because I understand that I can actually change settings in my browser, I go to the settings page and check the box to show the full URL and think to myself "oh wow! It turns out that this web page is actually served using the hyper text transfer protocol, I totally wasn't expecting that!"
Show me fancy highlighting and crap and as an attacker the first thing I'm going to do is figure out how to highlight things
OK, then I guess the world is waiting for your exploit where you cause the browser to highlight arbitrary parts of the URL. I'm sure that something like that would create a pretty nice payday for you, so since that's the first thing you're going to do then you should get right on it.
There are too many idiots using dangerous things they don't understand.
Right, and your solution is to throw more information which they also don't understand at them.
Yeah you're exactly right, the half of the population who click on anything would totally not do that if only they could see the protocol. Because that's what was keeping everyone safe for so many years back in the halcyon days of innocence when everyone used IE6 and malware was non-existent.
I don't think the URL field has been dumbed down at all, it hides things that you don't generally need to see (there's still an indicator if the page is secured or not, instead of expecting random people to know the difference between "http://" and "https://"), and it emphasizes things that are more important, like making the root domain stand out and writing the rest in a lighter shade. That actually helps people who got sent to facebook.com.pwned.net figure out which site they're actually on, it doesn't make anyone stupider. I can look at the URL and obviously tell that I'm on a subdomain of slashdot.org, because the root domain is written darker.
And the status bar? Really, grandma? Can you name a single browser that does not show the URL of a link that you're pointing to when you point at it? Why have an area of the UI dedicated to showing that, which isn't being used if you're not hovering over a link? If you're thinking of some other purpose of the status bar that we've lost without a replacement, just what sage advice do you think it was dispensing that we need to bring back?
"Dream big" only works if you also "work hard" and are realistic about what is possible given the KNOWN LAWS of Physics. Just because you read Ringworld doesn't mean one can be built.
Well, it doesn't mean it can't, either. And you're exposing a flaw in your logic very well by capitalizing "KNOWN LAWS". Are you trying to assert that we know all of the laws of physics that there are to know? There's nothing left to learn there? Why can't we have a breakthrough in 10 years, or 100 years, or 1000 years that ONCE AGAIN completely rewrites everything that we once held to be sacred? That's a problem that scientists can be prone to - assuming that everything they know is right and not to question it. Where would the state of physics be today if Einstein decided that everything that Newton discovered was correct and accurate, explained everything, and that it shouldn't be questioned? The theory of General Relativity is only 101 years old, and in order to prove his claims Einstein needed (then) high-precision telescopes and cameras placed in the path of a solar eclipse to verify that gravitational lensing was real. What do you think Einstein would say if someone went back and told him that in less than 100 years people would be bouncing signals off a fleet of tens of thousands of orbiting machines in order to communicate with each other in real time across the world, that we would have telescopes outside of Earth's atmosphere, and that anyone can pull a machine out of their pocket and instantly pull up hundreds or thousands of clear pictures showing obvious gravitational lensing in deep space? Do you think he would try to argue that such a thing is impossible? Do you think he would just dismiss you as a "space nutter"? How is it that you know what the state of science and technology is going to be centuries or millenia into the future? What happens when General Relativity gets replaced with a better theory? Are people going to look back on attitudes like yours and think "wow, they really had it figured out"?
I wish I could just get a secret court to issue a ruling to the customer that they have to buy a new piece of equipment.
Oh man, that would solve so many problems that I don't want to spend the time to troubleshoot. I think I need to write a new canned reply for the help desk system.
"Pursuant to 50 U.S.C. section 1881a(c), you are going to be billed the cost of a new dedicated server and the time to configure and install the hardware and software. Additionally, we have determined that the behavior you have described is a feature, not a bug. This ticket will be closed."
In other news, the director of the Burgler's Association says that prolific door locks are hurting their business efforts. He was joined by the director of the Peeping Tom's Union announcing that prolific window coverings are hurting their ability to stay competitive.
Wow, that's weird that a technology designed specifically to protect against eavesdropping and unauthorized access makes a spy's job more difficult. You know what I want? I want a bunch of laws to get passed specifically to allow me to do my job with less effort and fewer skills, because my feelings get hurt when I have to actually work and use what I know. When I have an issue on a server that I'm having a hard time figuring out, I want someone to just call my phone with the solution. That would be fantastic, let's get right on that. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to continue to do my damn job and get paid for the work that I actually do.
So what you're saying is that the person that I responded to suggesting that a solar minimum will drive global cooling is not correct.
Our betters also try to tell me that the northern hemisphere has over twice as much land area as the southern hemisphere, but my gut tells me that's a government conspiracy and that land and weather are equally distributed around the globe. Our betters also try to suggest that they've found evidence for warming in North America and the US during the medieval warm period, but the reason I know they're full of shit is because we didn't have satellites then, and even if we did they would have just fudged the data anyway. I don't trust thermometers anyway, I go outside today and it feels cooler than yesterday, so I know that today is colder than average. That's how facts work.
I also saw this climate map once, they were trying to show how things are warmer on average. But, check this out - one little part of the map was actually colder than average. That's how I know that they make everything up, because I understand that the entire planet always warms and cools at the same rate, and that local variation doesn't exist. That's how they try to convince you to send them all of your oil money, but the guy they hired to photoshop that map fucked up and left part of it cold and completely blew their cover.
And remember a couple decades ago when you couldn't even turn on the TV without seeing Sally Struthers whining about some starving African kid? You want to know why you don't see those any more? Because there aren't any starving people in the world anymore. I know this is a fact because I can drive down the street and there's a grocery store. That's how facts work.
According to that article, we are currently in a "very deep solar minimum", the "quietest sun we've seen in almost a century". The last grand maximum ended in 2007. So how come that no one younger than 31 has ever experienced a month which is colder than average? Why are we not currently cooling?
Why do I bother? I already know exactly how you're going to respond. Let's all say it together.
"The data is bad"
The data on solar cycles is apparently good data, but the other data that doesn't suit your ideas is bad. Right?
I'm grateful for anyone who chooses not to have children and add more people to this planet.
Wildly different than what?
I'm quoting the article. He said that the address of his building and the location where the actual door are are "wildly different" addresses. I assume he means a different number and different street.
if I walk out the side door I'm on the wrong street from what my address says.
That's what TFA describes. I'm suggesting that he should be able to give an address for the particular door. And yes, I'm using address and location more or less interchangeably.
How do you fix the "coordinate" problem of having ten different coordinate systems in use just in one place?
You use the correct one. If you take a sphere and stick a pin in it, there's only one correct way to refer to where that pin is (assuming every system is using the same units, anyway, like degrees, and that they agree on the origin). The fact that we have multiple competing systems is a symptom of the problem. As a planet we've more or less decided on the origin, off West Africa. If we're all using the same origin and we're all measuring in degrees then each point on the planet is only referenced by a single set of coordinates. If there are 8 sets of coordinates all trying to refer to a single point then at least 7 of those sets are wrong. Maybe all 8 are.
Were you aware that there is a separate datum for Cape Canaveral?
You're still only describing symptoms of the problem. I understand there's a problem. I'm suggesting that we stop using the system that has so many symptoms of a problem and switch to one that makes logical sense.
I know about this problem because I deal with search and rescue, and I've seen the result of telling someone a coordinate for something and they wind up in the wrong place. I've had people tell me that there is a "target" at certain coordinates and there isn't anything there -- but there is when I change the datum on my GPS to what they are using.
And, according to your argument in the other thread, the solution is to change how the devices deal with coordinates to use "the human way" of doing things instead of coming up with a single coordinate system which makes sense.
It's easy to say "just fix it", but actually fixing it isn't that simple, and it may break other things.
I'm well aware of that. The question then becomes whether it is worth waiting until we have more things relying on these flawed systems before we try to change them, or if we rip the bandaid off now.
Building a system that depends on humans doing things the machine way is building a system designed to fail.
I'm not suggesting that we do things "the machine way", I'm suggesting that we do things "the logical way". What does it say about us that "the human way" and "the logical way" are 2 different things? Why can't they be the same thing? That's not something worth trying to correct? In 20,000 years from now are we still going to be converting between pounds and kilograms, and miles and kilometers, when we're calculating how much thrust we need to escape gravity? Are we still going to have to give turn-by-turn directions to get to a specific location on the planet or in a city? If not, then when exactly is the point that we should seek to change the systems that we're using? Why should we rely on a system that worked fine for people walking and riding horses when our needs are now completely different? Just because some of us are lazy and don't want to have to change anything? Is there any other valid reason?
The biggest, as far as I can determine, is that "I hate to drive". Period.
You think that Americans are a people known for their hatred of driving cars, huh? That's an interesting observation. It's wrong, but interesting. The major force against AVs is that people like to drive.
The other one is an unfounded and as-yet unsupported belief that autonomous vehicles will eliminate traffic deaths and accidents.
I haven't seen anyone use an absolute like that. I've seen claims that roads will be safer, and that traffic deaths and accidents will decline, but I don't think I've seen anyone claim that they will simply become eliminated.
Lots of unicorns and pixie dust from AV proponents, but not much factual proof.
I suppose unicorns and pixie dust would be required to eliminate traffic deaths and accidents, but thankfully I haven't seen that claim being made by anyone not trying to set up a strawman.
Let's face it. Many, if not most, of those involuntary participants will see no benefit to changing.
Sure they will. We can even make the addresses 2 different formats so that you can tell just by looking at it whether it's a "new" or "old" address. The first time someone gives an AV their old address and the vehicle responds by dropping them off where they don't want to be, or by telling them that it can't find a route there, they'll see the benefit of the new address. When someone tries to place a delivery order online and it won't accept an old address format at all, they'll see the benefit. When someone uses the new address to tell them where to go, and they immediately know how to get to that point without turn-by-turn directions, they'll see the benefit.
Airships are marvellous, nearly perfect aircraft for applications where speed is not vital and severe weather is not an issue.
So, never?
Heck, the fastest computer can barely beat people at chess
Not anymore, there are programs written for smart phones that compete at grandmaster level. Algorithms that can search 20,000 moves per second can win tournaments, let alone the supercomputers searching 200 million moves per second. And that was 7 years ago.
It means the cab company has incompetent drivers.
That's not exactly the point of the article. Like he says in the very article:
For the moment, it’s a pretty minor issue - the easiest solution is just for the drivers to call the rider, and it works itself out.
And then in the very next sentences he points out that this solution isn't possible for autonomous cars.
Technology is not the solution to human incompetence. Better humans are.
In a sense, you're right. The solution to this problem isn't necessarily better mapping, it's better addressing that is less arbitrary and error-prone. If you want to go to a certain door then that door should have an address that makes sense based on its location on the street.
These uber-smart cars need to understand how humans do things
There's a problem with that. Often the way that humans do things is completely arbitrary and prone to errors. That doesn't translate well to a machine. The more logical choice is in fact to reduce errors and make the things we do less arbitrary. It will make sense for more than just the machines that we build to help us.
Let's face it, a major reason why people want autonomous cars is because the way that humans do things doesn't always work that well. It would be kind of pointless to try to program the machines to act just like us. They should be better or there's no point. It's not nonsense to change the way that we do things in order to make it easier for the machines, and us, to perform better.
Maybe the problem is that we've designed cities that have a rate of errors which is fine for humans but doesn't work very well for machines. Maybe the solution is to just fix the addresses. If the address of your door is a "wildly different address", then why isn't that just your actual address?
There would only be 2 sunsets at most. One of the suns would not set, or even move in the sky unless you travel across the planet.
I'm also tired of paying for "4G" that Sprint never bothered to install in my area
I experienced the same thing from Sprint. When I bought a 4G phone in June of 2010, they told me that they would have 4G service in Phoenix within a few months. By the time I got a HTC One in 2013 4G was no closer to being in Phoenix, I only got to use it when I traveled to a place like Vegas. I wouldn't go back to Sprint, their coverage map claims that Phoenix is covered but other maps with actual results show spotty coverage where I live and work and very bad speeds.