The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I find this to be the greater work in the Philosophy of Science since Karl Popper's "the Logic of Scientific Discovery"
I couldn't get past the first chapter or two before I threw it down in disgust due to what I considered to be an author who wandered all over the place without actually saying much. IMHO he needed a much better editor.
That plus the fact I grew up knowing that Swans were back.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It can help you to look at life in a different way...
Read it once.. read it twice.. then read The Tao Of Poo and realized that this small book managed to capture and impart all of the same concepts in something that could be easily read in an afternoon.
It's a good way to express your mood without personally attacking the audience.
1. If your audience is going to be offended by calling people "fucking morons" then I would posit that they will also be offended by calling people "f*cking morons".
2. If you have to resort to calling people "fucking" anything then you have undermined your argument by letting your emotions get in the way of the facts.
This is the internet, not TV, so we can say fuck and crap and shit etc when we want to.
In the very least saying f*ck and cr*p and sh*t is disingenuous as you are trying to hide that you are actually saying fuck and crap and shit, yet everyone knows that is exactly what you are saying.
So either say it, or if you think the words are unpalatable then think of some other words to use in their place.
Before yesterday I would have nominated "PETA Condemns Pokemon For Promoting Animal Abuse" as the batshit crazy story of the year. Now I think it has competition.
Verizon has been targeted many times. They would steal network equipment, then call Cisco to get an advance replacement RMA, which would take their stolen equipment and double it. Then they would sell the gear on the 'Grey Market' for Cisco hardware.
How the hell does Cisco not noticed that RMA'ed equipment never seems to show up? At $100k+ a card someone at Cisco should have gotten reemed for not doing their job.
In the book "Surely your joking, Mr Feynman", Richard Feynman talks about how he decided that he didn't want to waste time deciding on what to eat for desert - so he standardized on chocolate pudding.
Given that humans can't really multi-task there is a lot to be said for eliminating mundane decisions.
Sure they peddle reports as part of their business. But there is a difference between advertising that you can buy reports from them, and them cold-calling you and trying to pressure you into buying a report. It is not the report that is scummy (although I have no idea if you actually get you monies worth) but the methodology used to sell it to you. Just google "Dun and Bradstreet scam" and see what you get
Not unhealthy for you.. unhealthy for AMD. Those fancy 6 month old CPUs don't design and build themselves - well at least not until after the singularity.
This the computer equivalent of biometrics and has all of the same security issues as biometrics for people.
Sure the graphics card can't be cloned just like you can't clone a finger or retinal print. However if the authenticating system is compromised then it becomes really really hard to establish your credentials again - although replacing a graphics card is easier than replacing a finger or eyeball.
Why does it have to be a Raspberry? Why do you have to control it in C? Is it because people don't teach or know how to do it the old school way anymore?
Do you want to explain how to make a tunable PID loop out of transistors? Yes it can be done, but the commercial loop controllers I used 30 years ago certainly had their foibles. And there is a hell of a lot of useful fundamental old school control theory that can be learned in doing it the way they have. Proper manual loop tuning is just as much an education as building a circuit out of individual parts.
For something like a fridge that has a lot of thermal mass I'd be tempted to ditch a PID approach and go for a PD controller. Using the PD configuration I've achieved great results with ovens heating large steel canisters and having them closely follow ramping and soaking profiles.
Why have you taken steps to immigrate to Australia, rather than Canada?
Hmm.. let me take a swing at this
Nice climate - the only large city with snow in winter is Hobart. Canada.. nope, its snow central The beach is only an hour or so away from most living areas. Canada.. nope Good food from all the multiculturalism. Canada.. probably yes as well Nice population. Canada.. yep as well. Bitchin' exotic wildlife that would kill you as soon as look at you. Canada.. nope Crazy arsed politics . Hmm.. hard to find a country without political issues of one sort or another.
Oh yeah.. and something about the internet that Canada doesn't have.
I should say that in general I enjoy Weber's writing style as I love a good space opera.. but.. sometimes I get frustrated by the huge amount of tangential background material that he includes in his books.. to the point that I can find myself skimming over things until he gets to the point where the characters are actually speaking.
I also know about his other books. I loved "The apocalypse troll" and wish that he would have done an "alternate universe" sequel when humanity first meets the Kanga's. Also liked "In Fury Born" (I didn't read the previous version of this story) - but again.. too much background info at times.
Of course, there are some violations of physics in B5 too: Shots make noise in space, and you can hear the engine noise of passing ships.
If you think of the sounds of things in space as being enhanced reality injected into your cabin environment by computers that are trying to map electronic sensors into something that human senses can cope with - then it starts to make some sense.
I'm coming to the conclusion that that David Weber is actually a pseudonym for a group of hack writers that are simply rehashing C.S.Forester books about naval warfare. That and the fact that he has at least 3 different concepts in publication at the moment:
1) World War 1 & 2 in space (Honorverse) 2) 18th century naval warfare (Safehold) 3) Vampires In Space (Out of the Dark.. reads and ends like it will be a series, but no second book yet)
If I was 'driving' the car and came accross a steep drop - I would take control.
As someone mentioned below.. if your "driverless car" experience is to sit there waiting to take control of the device when you sense that it is about to get into trouble, then that is going to be a stressful and shitty experience. You might as well have been driving yourself all of the time.
I have been thinking about driverless cars and I'd love to ask the people at Google (or where ever) how they cope with several real life issues
* Emergency vehicles in general * Vehicles on the side of the road. In general you move over to the other side (road,next lane etc) to give them some room. But where I am (VA) its an offense if you fail to move over when passing a cop car on the side of the road. * Temporary speed limits posted during road works * School zones * Really bad weather where you can't even see 20 feet ahed of you * Looking down the road and predicting that there will be an issue and doing your best to avoid it (ie slowing down/lane changing to avoid the person on the phone who is weaving from side to side) * Crap lying all over the road (saw lots of rocks on a mountain road yesterday)
I'm sure there are lots of other "interesting" situations that human drivers have to deal with day to day that would be difficult to encode into hueristics for the self driving cars.
If the US was interested in following the spirit (if not the letter) of the law, then you wouldn't have things like "Special Rendition". That the US use drone attacks in a country where it doesn't even have a "police action" going on is not surprising. This is just an example of the "Same ol' same ol'..Ends justifies the means" that has been used for decades (if not since the beginning of the 20th century).
And yes.. I know.. anti-american foreigner and all that. Been there, heard the criticism and got the free T-shirt. But if you won't listen when your friends say "Woooo dude.. that's way out of line there", then pretty soon you aren't going to have any friends left.
Slashdot Mirror
The Bible.
Nah .. forget the Bible .. Read The X-rated Bible instead. It cuts out all the boring bits, plus has some great factual analysis on the original verses.
Most of Heinlein's work
Job was one of my fav works by Heinlein .. but his obsession with sex in his latter works tended to put me off him.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I find this to be the greater work in the Philosophy of Science since Karl Popper's "the Logic of Scientific Discovery"
I couldn't get past the first chapter or two before I threw it down in disgust due to what I considered to be an author who wandered all over the place without actually saying much. IMHO he needed a much better editor.
That plus the fact I grew up knowing that Swans were back.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It can help you to look at life in a different way...
Read it once .. read it twice .. then read The Tao Of Poo and realized that this small book managed to capture and impart all of the same concepts in something that could be easily read in an afternoon.
It's a good way to express your mood without personally attacking the audience.
1. If your audience is going to be offended by calling people "fucking morons" then I would posit that they will also be offended by calling people "f*cking morons".
2. If you have to resort to calling people "fucking" anything then you have undermined your argument by letting your emotions get in the way of the facts.
This is the internet, not TV, so we can say fuck and crap and shit etc when we want to.
In the very least saying f*ck and cr*p and sh*t is disingenuous as you are trying to hide that you are actually saying fuck and crap and shit, yet everyone knows that is exactly what you are saying.
So either say it, or if you think the words are unpalatable then think of some other words to use in their place.
Before yesterday I would have nominated "PETA Condemns Pokemon For Promoting Animal Abuse" as the batshit crazy story of the year. Now I think it has competition.
Is it worthwhile buying for any reason other than "Oh look .. cool shit!"???
Verizon has been targeted many times. They would steal network equipment, then call Cisco to get an advance replacement RMA, which would take their stolen equipment and double it. Then they would sell the gear on the 'Grey Market' for Cisco hardware.
How the hell does Cisco not noticed that RMA'ed equipment never seems to show up? At $100k+ a card someone at Cisco should have gotten reemed for not doing their job.
Get enough scratch and live in a 3rd-world country that doesn't do extradition
Hmm I think Gottfrid Svartholm tried that approach and you can see where it got him.
In the book "Surely your joking, Mr Feynman", Richard Feynman talks about how he decided that he didn't want to waste time deciding on what to eat for desert - so he standardized on chocolate pudding.
Given that humans can't really multi-task there is a lot to be said for eliminating mundane decisions.
They pedal reports because that's their business
Sure they peddle reports as part of their business. But there is a difference between advertising that you can buy reports from them, and them cold-calling you and trying to pressure you into buying a report. It is not the report that is scummy (although I have no idea if you actually get you monies worth) but the methodology used to sell it to you. Just google "Dun and Bradstreet scam" and see what you get
... Dun & Bradstreet ..
Who are well known for high pressure sales techniques trying to get you to buy "reports" fro them.
Whats unhealthy about that?
Not unhealthy for you .. unhealthy for AMD. Those fancy 6 month old CPUs don't design and build themselves - well at least not until after the singularity.
This the computer equivalent of biometrics and has all of the same security issues as biometrics for people.
Sure the graphics card can't be cloned just like you can't clone a finger or retinal print. However if the authenticating system is compromised then it becomes really really hard to establish your credentials again - although replacing a graphics card is easier than replacing a finger or eyeball.
See The issues with biometric systems (the first thing that popped up on google for me)
Why does it have to be a Raspberry? Why do you have to control it in C? Is it because people don't teach or know how to do it the old school way anymore?
Do you want to explain how to make a tunable PID loop out of transistors? Yes it can be done, but the commercial loop controllers I used 30 years ago certainly had their foibles. And there is a hell of a lot of useful fundamental old school control theory that can be learned in doing it the way they have. Proper manual loop tuning is just as much an education as building a circuit out of individual parts.
For something like a fridge that has a lot of thermal mass I'd be tempted to ditch a PID approach and go for a PD controller. Using the PD configuration I've achieved great results with ovens heating large steel canisters and having them closely follow ramping and soaking profiles.
You obviously have never been to Vancouver.
And the other 95% of the country is like what?
Why have you taken steps to immigrate to Australia, rather than Canada?
Hmm .. let me take a swing at this
.. nope, its snow central .. nope .. probably yes as well .. yep as well. .. nope .. hard to find a country without political issues of one sort or another.
.. and something about the internet that Canada doesn't have.
Nice climate - the only large city with snow in winter is Hobart. Canada
The beach is only an hour or so away from most living areas. Canada
Good food from all the multiculturalism. Canada
Nice population. Canada
Bitchin' exotic wildlife that would kill you as soon as look at you. Canada
Crazy arsed politics . Hmm
Oh yeah
I should say that in general I enjoy Weber's writing style as I love a good space opera .. but .. sometimes I get frustrated by the huge amount of tangential background material that he includes in his books .. to the point that I can find myself skimming over things until he gets to the point where the characters are actually speaking.
.. too much background info at times.
I also know about his other books. I loved "The apocalypse troll" and wish that he would have done an "alternate universe" sequel when humanity first meets the Kanga's. Also liked "In Fury Born" (I didn't read the previous version of this story) - but again
Of course, there are some violations of physics in B5 too: Shots make noise in space, and you can hear the engine noise of passing ships.
If you think of the sounds of things in space as being enhanced reality injected into your cabin environment by computers that are trying to map electronic sensors into something that human senses can cope with - then it starts to make some sense.
Modest props to David Weber..
I'm coming to the conclusion that that David Weber is actually a pseudonym for a group of hack writers that are simply rehashing C.S.Forester books about naval warfare. That and the fact that he has at least 3 different concepts in publication at the moment:
.. reads and ends like it will be a series, but no second book yet)
1) World War 1 & 2 in space (Honorverse)
2) 18th century naval warfare (Safehold)
3) Vampires In Space (Out of the Dark
If I was 'driving' the car and came accross a steep drop - I would take control.
As someone mentioned below .. if your "driverless car" experience is to sit there waiting to take control of the device when you sense that it is about to get into trouble, then that is going to be a stressful and shitty experience. You might as well have been driving yourself all of the time.
I have been thinking about driverless cars and I'd love to ask the people at Google (or where ever) how they cope with several real life issues
* Emergency vehicles in general
* Vehicles on the side of the road. In general you move over to the other side (road,next lane etc) to give them some room. But where I am (VA) its an offense if you fail to move over when passing a cop car on the side of the road.
* Temporary speed limits posted during road works
* School zones
* Really bad weather where you can't even see 20 feet ahed of you
* Looking down the road and predicting that there will be an issue and doing your best to avoid it (ie slowing down/lane changing to avoid the person on the phone who is weaving from side to side)
* Crap lying all over the road (saw lots of rocks on a mountain road yesterday)
I'm sure there are lots of other "interesting" situations that human drivers have to deal with day to day that would be difficult to encode into hueristics for the self driving cars.
If the US was interested in following the spirit (if not the letter) of the law, then you wouldn't have things like "Special Rendition". That the US use drone attacks in a country where it doesn't even have a "police action" going on is not surprising. This is just an example of the "Same ol' same ol' ..Ends justifies the means" that has been used for decades (if not since the beginning of the 20th century).
.. I know .. anti-american foreigner and all that. Been there, heard the criticism and got the free T-shirt. But if you won't listen when your friends say "Woooo dude .. that's way out of line there", then pretty soon you aren't going to have any friends left.
And yes