And, in the best professional decision of my life, I converted myself into a tech columnist in 1991. As a result, I got to bear witness to a historic parade of exciting, revolutionary innovation — from slow, clumsy, ancient PCs to sleek, speedy smartphones; from CompuServe and early AOL to the mobile web, apps, and social media.
Walt should be revered for his foresight, and/or, his willingness to bet it all on the fledgling computer revolution. Nice.
Though it is disappointing some of our more favored platforms are data-pimps too, it shouldn't catch you completely by surprise. The marketing model for "free" internet services is more and more data-mining, and less advertising.
Perhaps the EU restrictions on unfettered data collection will trickle down if the big players are made to comply. We can hope.
Good on you, EU. One of the good things to come out of a multinational corporation is that it is subject to the scrutiny of more administrations; and that appears to help US citizens in the case of our present, privacy-unfriendly, leadership.
I wonder if they remembered overhead phone, and cable service lines, and assuming they did, why this software didn't recognize clothes lines as an obstacle.
It seems unlikely researchers will be able to anticipate every obstacle an unmanned delivery vehicle would encounter in a simulated model.
Ultimately, it will come down to an equation: additional loss of packages and UAVs + UAV cost and maintenance is less than or equal to conventional human delivery services.
This will be an interesting test of the power of State versus Federal authority, but anything that slows the rapid repeal of privacy rights is welcome news.
A strong federal government is important in a lot of ways, but the State's right to redress grievances in court is another important check & balance.
As long as it's the victim that's at fault it makes sense.
Of course, the thing about cellular phones is that their use by either the driver or the pedestrian can lead to an unfortunate vehicular altercation.
Mobile personal computers aside, there are many forms of distraction... the person in the four thousand pound machine would seem to have the burden of attention placed upon him, fairly or otherwise.
It's mostly fair, since many drivers eventually become pedestrians.
Congresscritter: "How in the hell am I going to get this pork through committee?"
Lobbyist: "Hmmm... we have the committee members in our vest pocket. What buzzword can we insert into the media releases to quell the hoopleheads' objections?"
Congresscritter: "Can we tie it to 9/11, somehow?"
I'm not sure the take-away from this incident should be whether or not the secretive recording of the Planned Parenthood imbroglio was lawful, so much as I question the implications of editing the recording. citation
There's a theory that homo sapiens proliferate today, rather than Neanderthals and Denisovians, partly because of their propensity for violent eradication of those who are different.
When you think you're having a bad day, imagine what daily life must've been like for our mammalian ancestors in this age of giant dinos.
Perhaps even more amazing, consider the catastrophic bad luck that befell the planet's dominant life form, and allowed our kind a window in which to proliferate.
Occasionally, you see a news story where they still catch a vehicle with a clever smuggling scheme at the border. With the help of a olfactory-gifted canine or an x-ray machine, large seizures are made with the contraband secreted within the body of the auto or in the tank of diesel.
The authorities catch a few even though they had a good plan and execution, and you're correct; some of these are probably coordinated arrests to satisfy some other aspect of the competition.
It still seems likely a significantly higher portion of the arrests are culling out the folks unsuited to the task.
Indeed. Like during some of the roadside interviews on the show Cops. When I find myself yelling, "Nope, this line of work isn't suited for you", at the people on the television, like a Senorita watching "Telenovelas"... when the drug runners get pulled over on the highway with a tail light out, pot smoke in the cab, and kilos of cocaine in the trunk.
You owe it to yourself to resist the temptation at the water cooler to share what you did with the bodies last night.
FTW (From the Wiki) Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub. Its standings include: the most "technology-ready" nation (WEF), top International-meetings city (UIA), city with "best investment potential" (BERI), second-most competitive country, third-largest foreign exchange market, third-largest financial centre, third-largest oil refining and trading centre, and the second-busiest container port. The country has also been identified as a tax haven.
Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index, and 3rd highest per capita income. It is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied. 38% of Singapore's 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four official languages on the island: Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English. English is its common language; most Singaporeans are bilingual.
Not exactly backwoods, and if you've been paying attention, many of the powerful Western nations are busy with political and religious infighting. It may indeed be an Asian-dominated 22nd Century.
The shear stupidity is mind-boggling. In the very same sentence she acknowledges that there are many other similar apps. Surely she must be aware that they are not all under UK jurisdiction...
It has occurred to me that these folks willing to die to get in the headlines might not use a site for their last words if they believed it to be openly compromised by the State.
Some of us already believe the State is listening to whatever it can, for our safety and all that, so I suppose it's possible Amber Rudd and her counterparts already have a way into the mainstream social platforms... yet are forced to plead otherwise in public.
I understand your sentiment. If you lost someone close to you in such an accident, it would horrible knowing it was possible a human driver might have affected a different outcome.
But. If we concede that any human life = any other human life, and the widespread use of driver-less vehicles saves X accidents and Y highway fatalities over the same number of driven miles, it has saved more accidents and human lives than it lost.
If we set the bar at ZERO accidents a human could've avoided, well, that is an impossibly high standard; and self-driving vehicles should be shelved right now.
The human made a mistake yes, but the self-driving car crashed into him. So now the question is whether a human would have done better in that situation.
It's a given there will be some instances where a human driver might have done better than a self driving auto. In the same vein, the possibility also exists that the human driver may have done worse in the identical situation.
If driver-less autos can perform appreciably better than humans do over a large enough sample size, they should then be considered a safe alternative... the only question is how much better they need to perform.
I'm glad we seem to be on track to tackling frailty with age... however, we're nowhere when it comes to tackling our resource problems...
A cynical though: Will we stay healthy and strong longer just so we can send the 50 year olds to war over water instead of just the 20 to 30 year olds?
No sir. Even if we can stop them from physically aging, their brains reach a point where they're not malleable enough to blindly follow orders.
Slashdot Mirror
And, in the best professional decision of my life, I converted myself into a tech columnist in 1991. As a result, I got to bear witness to a historic parade of exciting, revolutionary innovation — from slow, clumsy, ancient PCs to sleek, speedy smartphones; from CompuServe and early AOL to the mobile web, apps, and social media.
Walt should be revered for his foresight, and/or, his willingness to bet it all on the fledgling computer revolution. Nice.
Thank goodness the news channels will all be busy today reporting the special delivery of some missiles to Syria.
Perhaps the EU restrictions on unfettered data collection will trickle down if the big players are made to comply. We can hope.
Good on you, EU. One of the good things to come out of a multinational corporation is that it is subject to the scrutiny of more administrations; and that appears to help US citizens in the case of our present, privacy-unfriendly, leadership.
It seems unlikely researchers will be able to anticipate every obstacle an unmanned delivery vehicle would encounter in a simulated model.
Ultimately, it will come down to an equation: additional loss of packages and UAVs + UAV cost and maintenance is less than or equal to conventional human delivery services.
"Maybe nothing can go faster than the speed of light because that's the tick-rate of the server our simulation is running in."
A strong federal government is important in a lot of ways, but the State's right to redress grievances in court is another important check & balance.
As long as it's the victim that's at fault it makes sense.
Of course, the thing about cellular phones is that their use by either the driver or the pedestrian can lead to an unfortunate vehicular altercation.
Mobile personal computers aside, there are many forms of distraction... the person in the four thousand pound machine would seem to have the burden of attention placed upon him, fairly or otherwise.
It's mostly fair, since many drivers eventually become pedestrians.
Damn, I've had some boys worthy of the title of wingman in my day, capable of throwing themselves onto an AMC Pacer but you sir, take the cake!
Lobbyist: "Hmmm... we have the committee members in our vest pocket. What buzzword can we insert into the media releases to quell the hoopleheads' objections?"
Congresscritter: "Can we tie it to 9/11, somehow?"
Slashdot's a bit different than Reddit. Upvotes aren't given away like participation trophies. Log in. Get some Karma. Be somebody.
I'm not sure the take-away from this incident should be whether or not the secretive recording of the Planned Parenthood imbroglio was lawful, so much as I question the implications of editing the recording. citation
There's a theory that homo sapiens proliferate today, rather than Neanderthals and Denisovians, partly because of their propensity for violent eradication of those who are different.
Perhaps even more amazing, consider the catastrophic bad luck that befell the planet's dominant life form, and allowed our kind a window in which to proliferate.
The authorities catch a few even though they had a good plan and execution, and you're correct; some of these are probably coordinated arrests to satisfy some other aspect of the competition.
It still seems likely a significantly higher portion of the arrests are culling out the folks unsuited to the task.
You owe it to yourself to resist the temptation at the water cooler to share what you did with the bodies last night.
I mean, I was guessing bondage something sadomasochism, but I had to look it up. Am I getting my Cool Card pulled? Again?
FTW (From the Wiki) Singapore is a global commerce, finance and transport hub. Its standings include: the most "technology-ready" nation (WEF), top International-meetings city (UIA), city with "best investment potential" (BERI), second-most competitive country, third-largest foreign exchange market, third-largest financial centre, third-largest oil refining and trading centre, and the second-busiest container port. The country has also been identified as a tax haven. Singapore ranks 5th internationally and first in Asia on the UN Human Development Index, and 3rd highest per capita income. It is ranked highly in education, healthcare, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety, and housing, but does not fare well on the Democracy index. Although income inequality is high, 90% of homes are owner-occupied. 38% of Singapore's 5.6 million residents are permanent residents and other foreign nationals. There are four official languages on the island: Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English. English is its common language; most Singaporeans are bilingual.
Not exactly backwoods, and if you've been paying attention, many of the powerful Western nations are busy with political and religious infighting. It may indeed be an Asian-dominated 22nd Century.
Even bell bottom jeans keep coming back into fashion.
The shear stupidity is mind-boggling. In the very same sentence she acknowledges that there are many other similar apps. Surely she must be aware that they are not all under UK jurisdiction...
It has occurred to me that these folks willing to die to get in the headlines might not use a site for their last words if they believed it to be openly compromised by the State.
Some of us already believe the State is listening to whatever it can, for our safety and all that, so I suppose it's possible Amber Rudd and her counterparts already have a way into the mainstream social platforms... yet are forced to plead otherwise in public.
But. If we concede that any human life = any other human life, and the widespread use of driver-less vehicles saves X accidents and Y highway fatalities over the same number of driven miles, it has saved more accidents and human lives than it lost.
If we set the bar at ZERO accidents a human could've avoided, well, that is an impossibly high standard; and self-driving vehicles should be shelved right now.
The human made a mistake yes, but the self-driving car crashed into him. So now the question is whether a human would have done better in that situation.
It's a given there will be some instances where a human driver might have done better than a self driving auto. In the same vein, the possibility also exists that the human driver may have done worse in the identical situation.
If driver-less autos can perform appreciably better than humans do over a large enough sample size, they should then be considered a safe alternative... the only question is how much better they need to perform.
Let's not leave out North Texas, which sucks so prolifically that all the trees in Oklahoma lean south...
Marshall is in East Texas... thank you very much.
I'm glad we seem to be on track to tackling frailty with age... however, we're nowhere when it comes to tackling our resource problems...
A cynical though: Will we stay healthy and strong longer just so we can send the 50 year olds to war over water instead of just the 20 to 30 year olds?
No sir. Even if we can stop them from physically aging, their brains reach a point where they're not malleable enough to blindly follow orders.