I'm sure many of the participants and DARPA officials were expecting (not just hoping) for much better.
If I may make the observation, it is very unlikely any of the groups involved could have developed anything capable of winning this challenge in ONE YEAR. Many of the robots failed on simple problems that would have been found during testing - like mishandling bushes, not increasing the engine revs for steep hills, not including adequate dust covering, etc. The failures, to me, are indicative of rushed design, production and testing - as I say, one year isn't enough time to answer a challenge as big as this one.
If I was taking part in this competition, I would have aimed for the second (or even the third) year and treated any events between then and now as 'bonus' testing oppertunities. I suspect this is what most of the groups involved chose to do.
How will it be enforced? When I get hit with spam that violates this law, who do I complain to? Who will investigate my complaint and then pursue and punish the spammers?
Why not automate it, a bit like spamcop? You could forward your spams to a central body (who could use filters and human review to confirm the mail was spam) who could automatically determine the sender's ISP and, at the push of a button, print and send a subpoena for the sender's address. If it's in an area affected by appropriate laws, the spam and sender's address could be forwarded to law enforcement authorities, or form letter court summons sent out.
Where will all the money and resources come from to enforce this law (see point #2 above) -- to actually enforce this law will take FAR more money and resources than anyone realizes or will admit.
Remember, we're talking about $1,000 per spam here. You wouldn't expect it to take more than a day to prosecute for one spam and you'd think you could get a mediocre lawyer (which is all you'd really need) for $250 per day - leaving you with $750. Ker-ching.
Ah, but without middle letters, how can you tell claustrophobia from czechoslovakia? or controvertible from counterbalance or counterexample? or circumlocution from classification or committeewoman? Or inapproachable from incommensurate, incommunicable, incompressible, inconsiderable, incontrollable, indestructible, indiscriminate, insuppressible, insurmountable, irreconcilable, irreproachable and irreproducible?
The only disadvantage I see is that they aren't out yet
Plus that is a terrible name. It sounds like a recycling project for electronics or a failed dot com era bike with internet access. And no-one really wants to buy from some generic no-name manufacturer.
And 180Mpg is only a 'target performance specification'... it sounds like they're a long way from a marketable product.
As the cliche goes, the cell phone was invented in 1954, and yet putting a camera on a cellphone, two existing inventions together is called 'innovation'
In several posts on this article, and to an extent yours (Based on my personal interpretation of the line "Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue!"), there seems to be an undertone of "invention good, innovation not". I disagree with this sentiment.
I don't expect I have to remind you that cell phones were not as common in 1954 as they are now. That's because in those days, they fucking sucked. They were large, heavy, expensive, offered poor audio quality and poor service coverage. Nowerdays, all these problems have been fixed (Admittedly, cell phones aren't perfect, but they are a lot better than they were).
The improvement in cell phone quality has been evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Each small step - such as smaller batteries, better processors, better microphones and better methods of signal encoding - has been 'innovation' rather than 'invention'. But in the end, invention followed by innovation produced a far better product than invention alone.
Admittedly the situation is different in the modern IT industry, where first edition products are sometimes - often, even - quite good. But that "invention is good and innovation isn't" simply doesn't seem true to me.
Maybe you can spice it up with an introductory text that gives the impression that when you're saying "most inept" you actually mean "dumb as a door-knob"
You could have a comparitive scale down the side, comparing the most inept to 'brick', ranging through 'hammer' and 'cabbage' with the cleverest compared to, say, '$10 digital watch'. You could have little iconic pictures on the scale to give it some colour.
In order to be bound to a contract, the parties must be competent to enter into such a legal arrangement. Underage persons, persons who are mentally ill, and intoxicated persons are usually not held to the contracts they enter. However, a minor may have the option of enforcing a contract.
To be honest I don't think that changing light bulbs is a major household time sink.
Apparently you don't have to use high output lightbulbs.
My house has pretty big rooms (1930s architecture); 100W light bulbs don't put out enough power to light the big rooms properly, so we use 150W bulbs. Oh, and all light bulb changing has to be done at the top of a tall ladder... and since you need two hands to change bulbs (One to turn the bulb and one to hold the bulb holder in place - they're suspended by thier own cables), you have to stand at the top of a tall ladder without holding on.
For those of you who don't know how bulbs are usually connected (at least where I am), there are two metal contacts pressed against the bulb by powerful springs. The bulb itself is pressed in against these sprung contacts, then rotated to hook two pins into little hooks.
As well as putting out more light, 150W bulbs also put out more heat. This softens the contacts on the bulb, which the sprung contacts press against. The powerful springs press against the softened metal, creating pits a few millimeters deep. These pits are deep enough to make turning the bulb virtually impossible. You have to disconnect the light at the ceiling rose and dismantle the bulb holder assembly.
Why anyone would sell bulbs with parts that would melt at normal operating temperature is beyond me. To prevent this problem, I pre-melt the contacts with a soldering iron and solder little copper plates to them. These plates distribute the pressure more evenly, preventing the pitting.
The second problem is with the bulb holders themselves. Most bulb holders are made of thermoset plastic. After all, they have to be made of something non-conductive. These tend to work well at normal temperatures, but with the heat given off by my 150W bulbs, they become brittle very quickly. I had several fail through breakage because the powerful (metal) springs were pushing against the (brittle) plastic, which couldn't take the stress and snapped.
I thought I had found a way around it with a metal lightbulb holder. The center was made of ceramic (it couldn't be metal since it had to be an insulator to stop the two contacts shorting). The temperature made the ceramic become seriously brittle, and at some point it must have been tapped by something (Possibly a stress ball I was throwing through the air) because the next time I had to change the bulb, a bunch of charred black ceramic powder fell out and my trip switch tripped.
I havn't seen another metal lightbulb holder since I had that one, so I'm using a new plastic one. I'm hoping it will be some sort of new, modern material that will perform better than the old plastic bulb holders that failed. And touch wood, it hasn't broken yet. But if I could replace my 150W bulbs with LED assemblies (Or something) that offered all the light but none of the heat, I'd be a happy man.
They're basically saying "following the court decision in our favor in the case of SCO vs IBM that went to court in 2005, you owe us money".
What they don't know is following the Kronos Space attack of 2027, the World Government (Established after the vi-faithful coilition countries liberated the world from the tyranny of emacs in Great War of 2018) made all IP public property, a measure designed to allow our glorious armies of robot space ninjas to be built more easily. Following timewasting lawsuits from unpatriotic IP holders, The People's IP Publication Act of 2028 allowed execution without trial of traitors partaking in an IP lawsuit.
On this basis, I am applying to the court for permission to kill the entire staff of SCO in thier sleep.
This is a great idea if you've decided to do your PhD already, but it can't really compare to real experience.
Or, more precisely, it gives you experience of coding, but not experience in buisness. You don't go to meetings, meet co-workers face to face, talk to clients, wear a suit or do any of that other shit. So open source experience probably isn't a perfect replacement.
There's a reason why police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right are all strong forces: they have a complete package of beliefs
Of course, there are also fairly strong political bodies that focus on one belief. Bodies like the NRA give 'marks out of ten' to different candidates. The same is done by pro/anti abortion groups, gun safety groups, etc.
We could do the same. The EFF could give ratings to major political candidates and send them out in press releases to the major newspapers. Other geek-oriented groups could do the same. The benefit of this is techies just have to read one page on a website and let it influence thier vote - far easier than, say, crafting well-written letters on all the important issues.
Funny you should say that. The company I work for has a number of SCO servers, and we are now looking to replace them with Linux boxes because of all this nonsense.
May I suggest selling them cheap on ebay, and sending a press release about it to the major news wire services?
You get publicity (helping you sell them for a fair price), SCO gets undercut (ha!) and the 'Fortune 500 company licenses SCO' story is countered, helping balanced assesments of SCO's stock's value.
Configuring X is the worst thing with Linux PERIOD.
Closely followed by reconfiguring it.
If you change monitors on Windows, it detects the change and takes care of the horizontal/vertical refresh frequencies. Change monitors on RH Linux 9.0 and the graphical logon messes up. You can only get past it with a boot disk or an intuitive key combination like 'ctrl + alt + F1'. And guess what? The graphical setup program takes it's settings from the same - incorrect - config file. So you have to use a text editor to change the configuration file.
Hardly new user friedly, hmm?
Re:Another "thing" they are working on
on
Building a Better Bomb
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
A few months back, I saw a tech article about another type of bomb they are working on, that is very related - Small bombs!
Reminds me of a British invention, inert bombs - laser-guided 1,000lb blocks of concrete.
And, of course, Q wouldn't spend $350 to get a cheap-looking black plastic case when you could get a nice respectable leather one for a fraction of the price.
By far, hunting down layer after layer of dependency while trying to install software, only to meet conflicts is my biggest problem.
Not to mention trying to download something otherwise good like XMMS-Crossfade and findingdozens of near-identically labeled files, offering 'src', 'yellowdog', 'ppc', 'i386', 'i586', '1mdk', 'fr1'... and the same for about 3 older versions.
With windows, there's usually a vendor website with one clearly marked binary or zip.
Imagine Massively Multiplayer Games where you can actually cash out your loot in the real world.
God, people would never quit whining. Every bug or server rollback would be accompanied by loads and loads of people whining about losing money.
At the same time, they'd need a new way of giving stuff out. If someone picked up more than thier fair share of the treasure drops, everyone would throw a big hissy fit. And every time a group achieved a goal, they couldn't give out a big bit of treasure; it'd have to be a pile of small bits.
There also wouldn't be as much good treasure, unless people who didn't play much would be subsidising people who throw away hours a day on it.
Am I the only one who answered "Absolutely; gas is gas"?
Re:Check out Internet Mail 2000
on
Replacing SMTP?
·
· Score: 1
Hey,
But if everyone were to use Bayesian I swear we wouldn't even have to propose a new protocol, talk about new legislation, etc.
Why not put filtering on the outgoing SMTP servers? Sender authentication could be turned on to tell ISP customers apart, and people could be allowed to send, say, 3 e-mails that set off the filters per day. After that, thier SMTP server bounces thier e-mails for rewriting.
As we're putting sender authentication on, we could mark message headers with an abuse address and a message number. The ISP could keep a table equating message number with username (could throw away/recycle message numbers after 48 hours). Mail readers could have a 'report spam' button which forwarded the message and headers to the abuse address. The ISP could confirm it is spam, and automatically penalise the sender.
To be honest, I think very, very few octors would entertain the idea of letting you die so your organs could be transplanted. Even if a tiny percentage have thought this without being repulsed by the clear violation of medical ethics, the chances of a doctor acting on those thoughts is even more miniscule. I suspect the chances of your wife being unavailiable are markedly higher than the chances of you being killed for your organs. If I were you, I'd just carry an organ donor card - let them get 'em while they're fresh.
Part of the problem is caused by dead people whose families don't allow the deceased's organs to be harvested, even if that person had given full legal consent for doctors to do so when they died.
The op-ed article does say:
At an Orlando conference this year, donor experts agreed to promote ''donor authorization,'' which would allow organs to be harvested if the deceased had signed donor cards, even if their families disapprove. If widely adopted, that would modestly alleviate the crisis -- but still leave us with needless deaths among potential organ recipients.
I know in the UK (where I live), doctors can take organs from register members even if thier family disapproves.. but they usually don't, because it would be so upsetting for the family.
The suggested solution is for the donor to discuss thier wishes with thier families.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure many of the participants and DARPA officials were expecting (not just hoping) for much better.
If I may make the observation, it is very unlikely any of the groups involved could have developed anything capable of winning this challenge in ONE YEAR. Many of the robots failed on simple problems that would have been found during testing - like mishandling bushes, not increasing the engine revs for steep hills, not including adequate dust covering, etc. The failures, to me, are indicative of rushed design, production and testing - as I say, one year isn't enough time to answer a challenge as big as this one.
If I was taking part in this competition, I would have aimed for the second (or even the third) year and treated any events between then and now as 'bonus' testing oppertunities. I suspect this is what most of the groups involved chose to do.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
How will it be enforced? When I get hit with spam that violates this law, who do I complain to? Who will investigate my complaint and then pursue and punish the spammers?
Why not automate it, a bit like spamcop? You could forward your spams to a central body (who could use filters and human review to confirm the mail was spam) who could automatically determine the sender's ISP and, at the push of a button, print and send a subpoena for the sender's address. If it's in an area affected by appropriate laws, the spam and sender's address could be forwarded to law enforcement authorities, or form letter court summons sent out.
Where will all the money and resources come from to enforce this law (see point #2 above) -- to actually enforce this law will take FAR more money and resources than anyone realizes or will admit.
Remember, we're talking about $1,000 per spam here. You wouldn't expect it to take more than a day to prosecute for one spam and you'd think you could get a mediocre lawyer (which is all you'd really need) for $250 per day - leaving you with $750. Ker-ching.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Look on the bright side - at least we'd have a properly funded moon program.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Under this idiotic interpretation, Linux would clearly infringe on Unix simply because it works like it.
But on the plus side, Microsoft Word would be infringed upon by Vi.
Ah, but without middle letters, how can you tell claustrophobia from czechoslovakia? or controvertible from counterbalance or counterexample? or circumlocution from classification or committeewoman? Or inapproachable from incommensurate, incommunicable, incompressible, inconsiderable, incontrollable, indestructible, indiscriminate, insuppressible, insurmountable, irreconcilable, irreproachable and irreproducible?
Just my $0.02,
M_____l
The only disadvantage I see is that they aren't out yet
Plus that is a terrible name. It sounds like a recycling project for electronics or a failed dot com era bike with internet access. And no-one really wants to buy from some generic no-name manufacturer.
And 180Mpg is only a 'target performance specification'... it sounds like they're a long way from a marketable product.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
As the cliche goes, the cell phone was invented in 1954, and yet putting a camera on a cellphone, two existing inventions together is called 'innovation'
In several posts on this article, and to an extent yours (Based on my personal interpretation of the line "Yeah, a cell phone with a camera was something new, but so was the first zipper painted blue!"), there seems to be an undertone of "invention good, innovation not". I disagree with this sentiment.
I don't expect I have to remind you that cell phones were not as common in 1954 as they are now. That's because in those days, they fucking sucked. They were large, heavy, expensive, offered poor audio quality and poor service coverage. Nowerdays, all these problems have been fixed (Admittedly, cell phones aren't perfect, but they are a lot better than they were).
The improvement in cell phone quality has been evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Each small step - such as smaller batteries, better processors, better microphones and better methods of signal encoding - has been 'innovation' rather than 'invention'. But in the end, invention followed by innovation produced a far better product than invention alone.
Admittedly the situation is different in the modern IT industry, where first edition products are sometimes - often, even - quite good. But that "invention is good and innovation isn't" simply doesn't seem true to me.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Maybe you can spice it up with an introductory text that gives the impression that when you're saying "most inept" you actually mean "dumb as a door-knob"
You could have a comparitive scale down the side, comparing the most inept to 'brick', ranging through 'hammer' and 'cabbage' with the cleverest compared to, say, '$10 digital watch'. You could have little iconic pictures on the scale to give it some colour.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
In order to be bound to a contract, the parties must be competent to enter into such a legal arrangement. Underage persons, persons who are mentally ill, and intoxicated persons are usually not held to the contracts they enter. However, a minor may have the option of enforcing a contract.
Aha!
To be honest I don't think that changing light bulbs is a major household time sink.
Apparently you don't have to use high output lightbulbs.
My house has pretty big rooms (1930s architecture); 100W light bulbs don't put out enough power to light the big rooms properly, so we use 150W bulbs. Oh, and all light bulb changing has to be done at the top of a tall ladder... and since you need two hands to change bulbs (One to turn the bulb and one to hold the bulb holder in place - they're suspended by thier own cables), you have to stand at the top of a tall ladder without holding on.
For those of you who don't know how bulbs are usually connected (at least where I am), there are two metal contacts pressed against the bulb by powerful springs. The bulb itself is pressed in against these sprung contacts, then rotated to hook two pins into little hooks.
As well as putting out more light, 150W bulbs also put out more heat. This softens the contacts on the bulb, which the sprung contacts press against. The powerful springs press against the softened metal, creating pits a few millimeters deep. These pits are deep enough to make turning the bulb virtually impossible. You have to disconnect the light at the ceiling rose and dismantle the bulb holder assembly.
Why anyone would sell bulbs with parts that would melt at normal operating temperature is beyond me. To prevent this problem, I pre-melt the contacts with a soldering iron and solder little copper plates to them. These plates distribute the pressure more evenly, preventing the pitting.
The second problem is with the bulb holders themselves. Most bulb holders are made of thermoset plastic. After all, they have to be made of something non-conductive. These tend to work well at normal temperatures, but with the heat given off by my 150W bulbs, they become brittle very quickly. I had several fail through breakage because the powerful (metal) springs were pushing against the (brittle) plastic, which couldn't take the stress and snapped.
I thought I had found a way around it with a metal lightbulb holder. The center was made of ceramic (it couldn't be metal since it had to be an insulator to stop the two contacts shorting). The temperature made the ceramic become seriously brittle, and at some point it must have been tapped by something (Possibly a stress ball I was throwing through the air) because the next time I had to change the bulb, a bunch of charred black ceramic powder fell out and my trip switch tripped.
I havn't seen another metal lightbulb holder since I had that one, so I'm using a new plastic one. I'm hoping it will be some sort of new, modern material that will perform better than the old plastic bulb holders that failed. And touch wood, it hasn't broken yet. But if I could replace my 150W bulbs with LED assemblies (Or something) that offered all the light but none of the heat, I'd be a happy man.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
They're basically saying "following the court decision in our favor in the case of SCO vs IBM that went to court in 2005, you owe us money".
What they don't know is following the Kronos Space attack of 2027, the World Government (Established after the vi-faithful coilition countries liberated the world from the tyranny of emacs in Great War of 2018) made all IP public property, a measure designed to allow our glorious armies of robot space ninjas to be built more easily. Following timewasting lawsuits from unpatriotic IP holders, The People's IP Publication Act of 2028 allowed execution without trial of traitors partaking in an IP lawsuit.
On this basis, I am applying to the court for permission to kill the entire staff of SCO in thier sleep.
Just FYI.
Michael
This is a great idea if you've decided to do your PhD already, but it can't really compare to real experience.
Or, more precisely, it gives you experience of coding, but not experience in buisness. You don't go to meetings, meet co-workers face to face, talk to clients, wear a suit or do any of that other shit. So open source experience probably isn't a perfect replacement.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
There's a reason why police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right are all strong forces: they have a complete package of beliefs
Of course, there are also fairly strong political bodies that focus on one belief. Bodies like the NRA give 'marks out of ten' to different candidates. The same is done by pro/anti abortion groups, gun safety groups, etc.
We could do the same. The EFF could give ratings to major political candidates and send them out in press releases to the major newspapers. Other geek-oriented groups could do the same. The benefit of this is techies just have to read one page on a website and let it influence thier vote - far easier than, say, crafting well-written letters on all the important issues.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
Scientists and Engineers live the longest next to pre-med. Sweet.
What's more, lawyers and liberal arts types die first.
Maybe there is justice in the world after all.
TWAJS
Michael
Hey,
Funny you should say that. The company I work for has a number of SCO servers, and we are now looking to replace them with Linux boxes because of all this nonsense.
May I suggest selling them cheap on ebay, and sending a press release about it to the major news wire services?
You get publicity (helping you sell them for a fair price), SCO gets undercut (ha!) and the 'Fortune 500 company licenses SCO' story is countered, helping balanced assesments of SCO's stock's value.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Configuring X is the worst thing with Linux PERIOD.
Closely followed by reconfiguring it.
If you change monitors on Windows, it detects the change and takes care of the horizontal/vertical refresh frequencies. Change monitors on RH Linux 9.0 and the graphical logon messes up. You can only get past it with a boot disk or an intuitive key combination like 'ctrl + alt + F1'. And guess what? The graphical setup program takes it's settings from the same - incorrect - config file. So you have to use a text editor to change the configuration file.
Hardly new user friedly, hmm?
A few months back, I saw a tech article about another type of bomb they are working on, that is very related - Small bombs!
Reminds me of a British invention, inert bombs - laser-guided 1,000lb blocks of concrete.
No word yet on if they'll be anvil-shaped.
Michael
Ah, I assume you refer to the famous Strom Bomb.
And, of course, Q wouldn't spend $350 to get a cheap-looking black plastic case when you could get a nice respectable leather one for a fraction of the price.
By far, hunting down layer after layer of dependency while trying to install software, only to meet conflicts is my biggest problem.
Not to mention trying to download something otherwise good like XMMS-Crossfade and findingdozens of near-identically labeled files, offering 'src', 'yellowdog', 'ppc', 'i386', 'i586', '1mdk', 'fr1'... and the same for about 3 older versions.
With windows, there's usually a vendor website with one clearly marked binary or zip.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Imagine Massively Multiplayer Games where you can actually cash out your loot in the real world.
God, people would never quit whining. Every bug or server rollback would be accompanied by loads and loads of people whining about losing money.
At the same time, they'd need a new way of giving stuff out. If someone picked up more than thier fair share of the treasure drops, everyone would throw a big hissy fit. And every time a group achieved a goal, they couldn't give out a big bit of treasure; it'd have to be a pile of small bits.
There also wouldn't be as much good treasure, unless people who didn't play much would be subsidising people who throw away hours a day on it.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
From the article:
Would you dare put cheap gas in a Porsche?
Am I the only one who answered "Absolutely; gas is gas"?
Hey,
But if everyone were to use Bayesian I swear we wouldn't even have to propose a new protocol, talk about new legislation, etc.
Why not put filtering on the outgoing SMTP servers? Sender authentication could be turned on to tell ISP customers apart, and people could be allowed to send, say, 3 e-mails that set off the filters per day. After that, thier SMTP server bounces thier e-mails for rewriting.
As we're putting sender authentication on, we could mark message headers with an abuse address and a message number. The ISP could keep a table equating message number with username (could throw away/recycle message numbers after 48 hours). Mail readers could have a 'report spam' button which forwarded the message and headers to the abuse address. The ISP could confirm it is spam, and automatically penalise the sender.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
If it makes you feel any better, that's not official policy.
To be honest, I think very, very few octors would entertain the idea of letting you die so your organs could be transplanted. Even if a tiny percentage have thought this without being repulsed by the clear violation of medical ethics, the chances of a doctor acting on those thoughts is even more miniscule. I suspect the chances of your wife being unavailiable are markedly higher than the chances of you being killed for your organs. If I were you, I'd just carry an organ donor card - let them get 'em while they're fresh.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Hey,
Part of the problem is caused by dead people whose families don't allow the deceased's organs to be harvested, even if that person had given full legal consent for doctors to do so when they died.
The op-ed article does say:
At an Orlando conference this year, donor experts agreed to promote ''donor authorization,'' which would allow organs to be harvested if the deceased had signed donor cards, even if their families disapprove. If widely adopted, that would modestly alleviate the crisis -- but still leave us with needless deaths among potential organ recipients.
I know in the UK (where I live), doctors can take organs from register members even if thier family disapproves.. but they usually don't, because it would be so upsetting for the family.
The suggested solution is for the donor to discuss thier wishes with thier families.
Just my $0.02,
Michael