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User: thereitis

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  1. Take your argument and instead:
    • apply it to manually-driven cars
    • pretend cars aren't mainstream yet and that we're trying to save horse-and-buggy jobs

    You could argue that the invention of the wheel has killed more jobs than any other single thing. Ban the wheel! How far back in time do you want your country to travel? The same logic can take you there.

  2. Re:Elon is right. on Elon Musk Says Mark Zuckerberg's Understanding of AI Is Limited (ndtv.com) · · Score: 1

    I agree. However, from what I've seen of human nature we like to wait until there is irrefutable proof and then go "oh, I guess it _is_ possible". This is a decent gamble in many cases, but when you don't get a second chance to course correct then at best it's irresponsible. When AI has reached a point where we can't turn back then it's too late. So yeah, why not use "an ounce of prevention" as the saying goes. It's not like Musk is saying don't do AI - just do it responsibly.

  3. Re:Elon is right. on Elon Musk Says Mark Zuckerberg's Understanding of AI Is Limited (ndtv.com) · · Score: 1

    Musk: We have to take precautions against the dangers of AI.
    Zuck: We can make a lot of money and solve a lot of problems with AI.

    They're both right. And Zuck saying Musk is being "negative" is really a non-argument. Talking about how many people knives kill is being negative, too, but it's true.

  4. Re: It a ppears we, (the US of A) are kinda behind on The US And Australia Are Testing Hypersonic Missiles (engadget.com) · · Score: 1

    That must have been impressive. I remember as a kid a jet fighter flew pretty low overhead - one second it's a tiny speck in the sky, the next it's just *voom!* crossed overhead and gone in a fraction of a second. And I don't think it was even supersonic, let alone hypersonic.

  5. Re:$50k on Norway, the Country Where No Salaries Are Secret (bbc.com) · · Score: 2

    A mechanical engineer, eh. Not exactly rocket science.

  6. Re:No it won't on Facial Recognition Could Be Coming To Police Body Cameras (defenseone.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm not at all saying that most officers are trigger-happy (although it is apparent that some are). The way I see it, the camera is as much for the officer's protection as the public's. If someone does get harmed/killed and the officer is doing their job appropriately then everyone will see that. Not to mention the training benefits - "hey this situation went really badly, what can we learn from this" Why take chances - leave it on all the time. (ps - thank you for your service)

  7. Re:No it won't on Facial Recognition Could Be Coming To Police Body Cameras (defenseone.com) · · Score: 2

    Better feature than face recognition: remove the on/off switch.

  8. Re:Newer Linux, tablets, Win 10 on VMWare, OSX on Ask Slashdot: What Software (Or Hardware) Glitch Makes You Angry? · · Score: 1

    Detaching OS X from Mac hardware might even drive more sales in other areas. Exactly - they've got you by the balls with the iTunes and app ecosystem (both of which they take a cut of) so I'm surprised they aren't spreading the OS around to whatever the fuck you want to run it on by now.

  9. Re:Purposeful Glitches on Ask Slashdot: What Software (Or Hardware) Glitch Makes You Angry? · · Score: 1

    I disable auto-update on my Android phone because it seems to happen at inopportune times. eg. the app I'm using gets updated underneath me and helpfully restarts itself. Come on guys, it's Linux underneath, restart when I'm done with the friggen app. It's not like there's locked files.

  10. Re:That computers do what I say.... on Ask Slashdot: What Software (Or Hardware) Glitch Makes You Angry? · · Score: 1

    I use the backward/forward technique to double check long codes like shipment tacking numbers if I've copied them down. I've found that I'm mildly dyslexic so that's an extra guard against making a transposition error.

  11. Re:Auto Update, Jumping webpages, autoplay on Ask Slashdot: What Software (Or Hardware) Glitch Makes You Angry? · · Score: 1

    Okay, here's another one: Internet Explorer, the way it takes forever to initialize but lets you type in the address bar before it's ready. Most power users can type the address before IE is ready but when IE _does_ become ready, it wipes out the address you typed in and brings you to the home page. That one bug alone is a major reason I've never ever like IE.

  12. Re:I also have given up hoarding my ideas on Afraid Someone Will Steal Your Game Design Idea? · · Score: 1

    One of my favorite ideas lately is expanding upon minecraft to allow for bots.

    I've thought for awhile that Minecraft would be a great sandbox for writing AI routines. I agree - there's lots of potential for supporting bots in minecraft.

  13. The dual purpose of common people on Lord Blair Calls for Laws To Stop 'Principled' Leaking of State Secrets · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1) Criminals or potential criminals. People not to be entrusted with information regarding important dangers the country faces.

    2) Brave men and women who fight in wars and give their lives for their country.

    1 and 2 are the same people, viewed at different angles for different purposes. I find it sad that people who are expected to give their lives for their country if need be are not deemed worthy of knowing more about the inner workings of their country. Instead they are spied upon and, under a magnifying glass, treated as insignificant. We should all have the right to understand the inner workings of our country and take part in shaping its security and its future.

  14. Re:Can't wait to enroll in Musk University on Elon Musk's New Hologram Project Invites 'Iron Man' Comparisons · · Score: 1

    If Musk waited around for everyone else to "get it" he'd probably need at least 2 lifetimes to accomplish his dreams. Jobs' style sounds like a good choice.

  15. Re:Seriously? on The Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever · · Score: 1

    We can only talk about something for about 2 days here, and then container story gets buried no matter how important the topic.

    I've thought of this as a problem as well. Slashdot also disables comments on a story after some time. One thought I had was the ability to post stories under a set of tags, and people could view all the stories under a set of tags and view all the comments under a set of tags. Hopefully the tags wouldn't dilute the conversation too much - I'm not sure it's a good idea, actually, but might spark someone's imagination.

  16. pdf-epub on Calibre Version 1.0 Released After 7 Years of Development · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My main use case is converting PDF -> EPUB. I haven't found the output the greatest, at least on my Kobo. Will have to check the new version out.

  17. Re:Well... we knew it was comming. on US States Banned From Exporting Trash To China Are Drowning In Plastic · · Score: 1

    A video explaining plastic to oil conversion. I noticed in the video that all the plastics were perfectly clean. Recycle bins are a lot dirtier. How much water would have to be used in this process to clean the plastics? Can the poisonous gases generated be burned off safely? Interesting tech, anyway.

  18. Re:Notch beaten to the punch on Notch Shelves Space Game 0x10c, Cites Pressure, Desire To Work On Small Projects · · Score: 1

    Procedural-generated space game - nice. I was thinking a couple days ago about whether there's a Tradewars 2002 type of game with procedurally generated warps, resources, etc. Yeah, retro. :)

  19. Re:Fix Minecraft x 1.6.x sucks donkey balls on Notch Shelves Space Game 0x10c, Cites Pressure, Desire To Work On Small Projects · · Score: 1

    It makes no sense that horse armour can't be crafted. I hope they change it. The new launcher is a step in the right direction - upgrades were a killer for bukkit servers since you couldn't play them after a client game (until the server also upgraded). Now at least you have a fairly straight-forward way to play on servers running older software. I wish horses could be summoned like on World of Warcraft. In their current form your horse is basically locked to a continent unless you want to build a massive bridge to get somewhere else. Horses also wander off too quickly. Can't even cut down a tree without having to go and chase it down. I also find the constant need to get XP to repair items is makes minecraft "grindy". I use my tools/weapons to gather resources and the XP I get is enough to keep them repaired, but more often not enough left to enchant new tools.

  20. Re:Cause on Google Outage: Internet Traffic Plunges 40% · · Score: 2

    I was wondering the same thing. A large percentage of sites point at at least one of google-analytics.com, googleadservices.com, *.googleapis.com (and likely others). An addon like RequestPolicy for Firefox lets you limit connections to 3rd party websites (and can be educational as well).

  21. Re:Take a breath, get some perspective. on NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds · · Score: 1

    You're right, it isn't an either/or proposition, and yet some people are clamoring for the NSA to be shut down (the "flying blind" choice). But imagine a continuum between "flying blind" and "sacrificing privacy of X thousand citizens" where greater intelligence gathering correlates with greater privacy invasion. Somewhere along the line there will be a point around which the majority of people say "yeah, this is the right balance", don't you think? Is it possible to avoid *any* collateral damage while retaining an effective level of intelligence?

  22. Re:Take a breath, get some perspective. on NSA Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds · · Score: 0

    I've come to think that any person or organization with an important enough purpose can get away with most things. Some examples: Even a convicted murderer can get off the hook if they help bust a giant racketeering ring; a failing multi-billion dollar company will get bailed out by the government if it is a big enough backbone for the country's economy. In this case, an agency as important to the security of the USA as the NSA will be allowed to continue operating as-is despite a relatively small number of infractions. If the choice was between "flying blind" and "having massive intelligence but sacrificing privacy of X thousand citizens" I think the choice is pretty clear.

  23. To be taken seriously on Obama on Surveillance: "We Can and Must Be More Transparent" · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To be taken seriously, he'd have to put Snowden in charge of this new transparency initiative. Obviously that's not going to happen.

  24. All at once on Encrypted Email Provider Lavabit Shuts Down, Blames US Gov't · · Score: 2

    If you can't smother the shitstorm in the media, you might as well get all your dirty work done in short order so this rash of privacy and human rights abuses can becomes last week's news as soon as possible.

  25. Re:No on Should the Next 'Doctor Who' Be a Woman? · · Score: 0
    Genius! Actually... I probably would watch that. :)

    I'm actually not a Doctor Who fan (nothing against it... i'm too impatient to watch it) so I may be misunderstanding how "regeneration" works, but imagine for a second a Doctor who's been a man for over 10 generations who wakes up to realize he's now a woman! It might be interesting if they scripted it as if the woman still had the mind of the original male Doctor. "man realizes how some people treat women" angle. "man can't wait to be a man again" "man spends too long in the shower washing his privates" I dunno. :)