Be careful when you say "everyone". I'm certainly not, and given the OP's position perhaps he isn't either. Surely people who are ignorant of the pirvacy implications are okay with it, but I think once you start to fill these people in about what Google knows about them, they would not be left with a good feeling.
From some of the examples I've seen online, it seems like siri is good at certain classes of natural language processing but isn't generally good. Like it's good and figuring out that you want it to check the weather or schedule an appointment, but for most anything else it just shoots your query to Wolfram Alpha or spits back nonsense.
So what you're saying is the non-existent Siri TV control is better than the currently working and implemented Xbox Kinect. Apple must really be on their game if even the products they haven't produced are better than the competition!
What he's saying is that he would prefer an app that would contact the individual service instead of contacting apple's server that then polls the service. Essentially eliminate the middle man. Google is just as bad in that sense.
Clever idea but not sure it works, since I've seen cars with multiple tickets. Although those were cars that have obviously been parked for a while (covered in leaves, snow etc). I wonder how much trouble you could get in for that kind of thing if discovered.
There's a brand new BMW Z4 (starting at $48k) I see parked outside my building every day, and every day there is a new ticket. It really pisses me off. I'm hoping one day to see a boot on it.
Sure but that still doesn't mimic the human ankle. If you want a robot with the same mobility as a human, you need to engineer it to meet or exceed our capability. A simple ankle will never do for a general purpose bipedal robot in our environment. Demonstrate for me a passive robot walking down a rocky incline instead of a smooth treadmill and I'll be more impressed. As it stands the machine is simply built to fit its controlled environment, but it can't fit in our environment.
Of course, I won't deny them the credit they deserve. Their system looks well engineered. And in their defense obviously the writer of the article is using the term "groundbreaking"
But at the same time I don't see a paper anywhere and I don't see any citations on prior work so this sort of thing should really be noted. This is especially true in an area like robotics (my field) where terms like innovative and groundbreaking get thrown around a lot. When really, it's just a rehash of an idea used in another discipline applied to robotics.
Thing is, this thing only seems to be efficient in a very narrow scenario. When we stand up, we're in a very unstable equilibrium. It's like leaning back in your chair; you can balance it nicely for a bit but it will always fall one way or the other. Our muscles, eyes, inner ear, etc work constantly to make sure we stand up straight. We use the same concept to make robots that can balance on a single wheel (see Inverse Pendulum). It's a great exercise in feedback control.
Now this robot is in the same unstable equilibrium, but it's designed such that if it falls a certain way it can move. This is accomplished by removing some degrees of freedom from the robot. Notice it really only bends at the hip and knee. To accommodate all the variety of our environment, we've evolved many degrees of freedom in our foot, ankle, pelvis, etc. So, if we want a robot that can do the same degrees of tasks as us, we need to add back those degrees of freedom to this robot, which in turn will make it fall over, thus defeating its purpose.
Here, there are several types of loans. Basically you fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to see what kind of federal aid you qualify for. You put in all your sources of wealth and income here, along with your parents, and they tell you how much federal aid you get. The way most loans work is that interest is deferred (paid by the government) while you are enrolled in college. Then you have a 6-9 month grace period after you graduate. Then you have to start paying them back, job or no job. You cannot dismiss them through bankruptcy or most any other means aside from death or life debilitating situation. Interest rates can be fixed or variable. On my loans for example they are anywhere from 1.7% to 6.8%. Although, you can go back to graduate school and the loans return to a deferment status, which is an option many people take.
It is important to differentiate the abstract programming (creating a set of formal instructions for a computer to execute) from the occupation programming. The latter is what this thread is about.
I thoroughly disagree. I don't think I mentioned anything about implementation details and hardware. Why do you insist moving, storing, and processing numbers has to be hardware and language dependent? Pretty much every algorithm I've studied has to do with one or some combination of the three. Sorting, searching, data structures, graph theory, networking... all very core CS topics and all deal with the manipulation of information and can studied abstractly.
I'm curious... if you don't believe computer science is about how we move, store, and process numbers, then what is its purpose?
Understanding how we move, store, and process numbers is pretty much the purpose of computer science. CS has many branches and sub-fields and applications. I'm arguing that programming/software development is more like an application of computer science rather than its essence, as the grandparent argued.
Maybe I made a mistake by conflating "programming" and "programming languages" in my previous post, but I was responding to the assertion that "Programming is a huge part of Computer Science." Programming languages can all be reduced to mathematics and logic, which is the basis practically all science. But the act of programming is very different, and a lot of computer science, is done without it.
I went through several algorithms courses without touching a computer. Yes of course we used a formal language, but it's a language of mathematics and logic. Automata theory, complexity, and the limits of computation... these were all studied before there was such a thing as a "programmer." Alan Turing introduced the Turing Machine in 1936! AI and Robotics is my field, and for some of my research the only computers involved were a calculator and the computer to write the paper.
Understanding how the chips inside work, and how the numbers are moved, stored, and processed is neat
No that's not just "neat" it's the essence of computer science. Algorithms, information theory, theory of computation, computer architecture, AI, robotics, etc... all these aspects of computer science I can study and research without touching a programming language. I'd say programming is necessary most applied computer science, but CS is a very rich field without it.
I think his point might be that if Android launched before iPhone, it would have looked like a Blackberry or Windows Mobile instead of iOS. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong that this happened; it's pretty much expected that a product will follow its competitions success. And in fact it's good that Android is successful along with the iPhone, because that forces each to innovate. We've certainly seen iOS adopt Android-like features as well.
But I can see how Jobs would find it annoying how his competition made a complete 180 change in design after he released his iPhone.
that will be 1 trillion dollars NOT invested in starter homes, better cars.
So? That's the choice I made going in to college. Do I want to spend my money on a fancy new car and a house, or do I want to spend it on an education. We certainly shouldn't encourage people not to go to college because then they won't be able to afford a car. The problem is people who go to college and still buy a new car or new computers using loan money.
Either way, it's not like that money is going into the college and never being seen again. Colleges turn around and spend that money buying supplies, upgrading equipment, and of course employing faculty and staff, who then go on to buy cars and houses.
Are you seriously advocating this? That's not a solution at all, and on top of it is outright theft of tens of thousands of dollars.
Here's a quote from your article, emphasis mine
Chris (who doesn't want his last name used) graduated with about $160,000 in student loan debt with a master's degree in music.
Da fuck? $160,000 for a masters in music? Maybe the system is a little at fault for giving him that much money for such a stupid thing, but he is certainly to blame for spending so much money on something with almost no money making potential
What I'm saying is that the software cycle isn't the culprit for the breadth of Android version out there. ICS will launch some time in December 2011. That's almost a full year between major releases for phones. So it's not like the upgrades are coming so fast carriers and manufacturers can't keep up. And yet there are still phones out there that won't see Gingerbread, let alone ICS. Contrast this with Windows Phone, where 100% of windows phones are eligible to upgrade to Mango.
I'd like to echo a little of what you said. I've spent the better part of the last decade in university, first as an undergraduate and then on to graduate school. I've been to many universities across the country, both public and private, prestigious and ordinary. It never ceases to amaze me the kind of conspicuous consumption I see on college campuses. Everyone has a brand new macbook pro, brand new high end smartphone, and the student parking lots are filled with BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and cars from at least 2008. Not to mention dining out for every meal (that's pretty much what a meal plan is). Pretty much everyone at my school is in a Frat or Sorority, which on top of outrageous rent for small rooms, costs an extra $700 per semester in dues and fees. Oh and of course going out drinking 5 days a week is not cheap.
Now, I don't know how many of these kids are receiving financial aid, but since at least my school grants aid to over 75% I'd wager a good deal.
So when you get down to it, the cost of tuition is almost dwarfed by the cost of living on a college campus. If these kids simplified their lives a little, they would save tens of thousands of dollars.
If done right you can go to a top tier university, finish in 4 years, get two degrees, have tons of job and grad school offers when you graduate, and leave with maybe $20k in debt. But to do this you need to treat your education seriously, network and study instead of party, and spend only what you need to. Maybe even god forbid get a part time job!
Slashdot Mirror
Be careful when you say "everyone". I'm certainly not, and given the OP's position perhaps he isn't either. Surely people who are ignorant of the pirvacy implications are okay with it, but I think once you start to fill these people in about what Google knows about them, they would not be left with a good feeling.
He's using speech recognition now.
From some of the examples I've seen online, it seems like siri is good at certain classes of natural language processing but isn't generally good. Like it's good and figuring out that you want it to check the weather or schedule an appointment, but for most anything else it just shoots your query to Wolfram Alpha or spits back nonsense.
So what you're saying is the non-existent Siri TV control is better than the currently working and implemented Xbox Kinect. Apple must really be on their game if even the products they haven't produced are better than the competition!
What he's saying is that he would prefer an app that would contact the individual service instead of contacting apple's server that then polls the service. Essentially eliminate the middle man. Google is just as bad in that sense.
Libreoffice takes forever to load... at least compared to Office, which opens instantly.
Clever idea but not sure it works, since I've seen cars with multiple tickets. Although those were cars that have obviously been parked for a while (covered in leaves, snow etc). I wonder how much trouble you could get in for that kind of thing if discovered.
I suggest: * the death penalty...
Is that you Rick Perry? Dear Lord....
There's a brand new BMW Z4 (starting at $48k) I see parked outside my building every day, and every day there is a new ticket. It really pisses me off. I'm hoping one day to see a boot on it.
Sure but that still doesn't mimic the human ankle. If you want a robot with the same mobility as a human, you need to engineer it to meet or exceed our capability. A simple ankle will never do for a general purpose bipedal robot in our environment. Demonstrate for me a passive robot walking down a rocky incline instead of a smooth treadmill and I'll be more impressed. As it stands the machine is simply built to fit its controlled environment, but it can't fit in our environment.
Of course, I won't deny them the credit they deserve. Their system looks well engineered. And in their defense obviously the writer of the article is using the term "groundbreaking"
But at the same time I don't see a paper anywhere and I don't see any citations on prior work so this sort of thing should really be noted. This is especially true in an area like robotics (my field) where terms like innovative and groundbreaking get thrown around a lot. When really, it's just a rehash of an idea used in another discipline applied to robotics.
Thing is, this thing only seems to be efficient in a very narrow scenario. When we stand up, we're in a very unstable equilibrium. It's like leaning back in your chair; you can balance it nicely for a bit but it will always fall one way or the other. Our muscles, eyes, inner ear, etc work constantly to make sure we stand up straight. We use the same concept to make robots that can balance on a single wheel (see Inverse Pendulum). It's a great exercise in feedback control.
Now this robot is in the same unstable equilibrium, but it's designed such that if it falls a certain way it can move. This is accomplished by removing some degrees of freedom from the robot. Notice it really only bends at the hip and knee. To accommodate all the variety of our environment, we've evolved many degrees of freedom in our foot, ankle, pelvis, etc. So, if we want a robot that can do the same degrees of tasks as us, we need to add back those degrees of freedom to this robot, which in turn will make it fall over, thus defeating its purpose.
I've seen this kind of design before. In fact, you can make it yourself: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-A-Walking-Robot---Passive-Walker/
Some other prior art: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/shc17/Passive_Robot/PassiveRobot_photos.htm
Obviously this is probably much better in certain ways but it's tough to call this thing groundbreaking
Here, there are several types of loans. Basically you fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to see what kind of federal aid you qualify for. You put in all your sources of wealth and income here, along with your parents, and they tell you how much federal aid you get. The way most loans work is that interest is deferred (paid by the government) while you are enrolled in college. Then you have a 6-9 month grace period after you graduate. Then you have to start paying them back, job or no job. You cannot dismiss them through bankruptcy or most any other means aside from death or life debilitating situation. Interest rates can be fixed or variable. On my loans for example they are anywhere from 1.7% to 6.8%. Although, you can go back to graduate school and the loans return to a deferment status, which is an option many people take.
It is important to differentiate the abstract programming (creating a set of formal instructions for a computer to execute) from the occupation programming. The latter is what this thread is about.
I thoroughly disagree. I don't think I mentioned anything about implementation details and hardware. Why do you insist moving, storing, and processing numbers has to be hardware and language dependent? Pretty much every algorithm I've studied has to do with one or some combination of the three. Sorting, searching, data structures, graph theory, networking... all very core CS topics and all deal with the manipulation of information and can studied abstractly.
I'm curious... if you don't believe computer science is about how we move, store, and process numbers, then what is its purpose?
Understanding how we move, store, and process numbers is pretty much the purpose of computer science. CS has many branches and sub-fields and applications. I'm arguing that programming/software development is more like an application of computer science rather than its essence, as the grandparent argued.
Maybe I made a mistake by conflating "programming" and "programming languages" in my previous post, but I was responding to the assertion that "Programming is a huge part of Computer Science." Programming languages can all be reduced to mathematics and logic, which is the basis practically all science. But the act of programming is very different, and a lot of computer science, is done without it.
I went through several algorithms courses without touching a computer. Yes of course we used a formal language, but it's a language of mathematics and logic. Automata theory, complexity, and the limits of computation... these were all studied before there was such a thing as a "programmer." Alan Turing introduced the Turing Machine in 1936! AI and Robotics is my field, and for some of my research the only computers involved were a calculator and the computer to write the paper.
Understanding how the chips inside work, and how the numbers are moved, stored, and processed is neat
No that's not just "neat" it's the essence of computer science. Algorithms, information theory, theory of computation, computer architecture, AI, robotics, etc... all these aspects of computer science I can study and research without touching a programming language. I'd say programming is necessary most applied computer science, but CS is a very rich field without it.
Also that programmer != computer scientist
I think his point might be that if Android launched before iPhone, it would have looked like a Blackberry or Windows Mobile instead of iOS. Now, I'm not saying it's wrong that this happened; it's pretty much expected that a product will follow its competitions success. And in fact it's good that Android is successful along with the iPhone, because that forces each to innovate. We've certainly seen iOS adopt Android-like features as well.
But I can see how Jobs would find it annoying how his competition made a complete 180 change in design after he released his iPhone.
that will be 1 trillion dollars NOT invested in starter homes, better cars.
So? That's the choice I made going in to college. Do I want to spend my money on a fancy new car and a house, or do I want to spend it on an education. We certainly shouldn't encourage people not to go to college because then they won't be able to afford a car. The problem is people who go to college and still buy a new car or new computers using loan money.
Either way, it's not like that money is going into the college and never being seen again. Colleges turn around and spend that money buying supplies, upgrading equipment, and of course employing faculty and staff, who then go on to buy cars and houses.
Are you seriously advocating this? That's not a solution at all, and on top of it is outright theft of tens of thousands of dollars.
Here's a quote from your article, emphasis mine
Chris (who doesn't want his last name used) graduated with about $160,000 in student loan debt with a master's degree in music.
Da fuck? $160,000 for a masters in music? Maybe the system is a little at fault for giving him that much money for such a stupid thing, but he is certainly to blame for spending so much money on something with almost no money making potential
What I'm saying is that the software cycle isn't the culprit for the breadth of Android version out there. ICS will launch some time in December 2011. That's almost a full year between major releases for phones. So it's not like the upgrades are coming so fast carriers and manufacturers can't keep up. And yet there are still phones out there that won't see Gingerbread, let alone ICS. Contrast this with Windows Phone, where 100% of windows phones are eligible to upgrade to Mango.
I'd like to echo a little of what you said. I've spent the better part of the last decade in university, first as an undergraduate and then on to graduate school. I've been to many universities across the country, both public and private, prestigious and ordinary. It never ceases to amaze me the kind of conspicuous consumption I see on college campuses. Everyone has a brand new macbook pro, brand new high end smartphone, and the student parking lots are filled with BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and cars from at least 2008. Not to mention dining out for every meal (that's pretty much what a meal plan is). Pretty much everyone at my school is in a Frat or Sorority, which on top of outrageous rent for small rooms, costs an extra $700 per semester in dues and fees. Oh and of course going out drinking 5 days a week is not cheap.
Now, I don't know how many of these kids are receiving financial aid, but since at least my school grants aid to over 75% I'd wager a good deal.
So when you get down to it, the cost of tuition is almost dwarfed by the cost of living on a college campus. If these kids simplified their lives a little, they would save tens of thousands of dollars.
If done right you can go to a top tier university, finish in 4 years, get two degrees, have tons of job and grad school offers when you graduate, and leave with maybe $20k in debt. But to do this you need to treat your education seriously, network and study instead of party, and spend only what you need to. Maybe even god forbid get a part time job!