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User: Karmashock

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Comments · 10,236

  1. Re:Why does Peer Review cost that much? on Paywalled Science Journals Under Fire Again · · Score: 1

    I didn't claim fraud. I don't mind scientists getting paid to do peer reviews or universities getting paid to do them.

    Fraud might happen if the person submitting the paper had any control over who reviewed it. My understanding is that the reviewers are generally kept secret by the journal so its hard to see how it would be biased by payments.

    In any case, you can't explain the numbers either.

    We agree on the mystery. ;-)

  2. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    According to Roomba's own marketing information they suggest having one for every room.

    That's fucking stupid. And it is only needed because the robot is fucking stupid.

    The LG robot they were talking about elsewehre in the thread appears to be smarter. It maps the house and knows where it is. That's nifty. But the roomba doesn't and that's crap. Unless you live in a studio apartment... do not recommend.

  3. And if you believe this... on Evidence That H-1B Holders Don't Replace US Workers · · Score: 1

    ... I've got a bridge you might want to buy.

    1. Over ten years? The whole H1B visa thing has been an accelerating situation. I'd like to see a study that focused on the last couple years.

    2. If you read the report they refer a lot to what politicians are saying which is a bad sign in a study. It sounds like a political argument.

    3. The correlation versus causation in this "study" is ridiculous... they say "company X hires more stem people than company Y and company X also hires more people period"... and they conflation US hires with foreign hires... it literally says in here "every 1 H1B visa hire correlates with 2 native hires"... as if they wouldn't hire the two native guys if they didn't get the H1B?

    4. Then they talk about patients and really really highly skilled H1B visa holders which no one is complaining about. No one has a problem with companies importing geniuses. Its when they pull any yahoo into the country into entry level positions of which there are f'ing zillions of americans to fill that same position.

    The study... looks like garbage. I've also never heard of this organization before. They say they're libertarians and are a splinter of the CATO institute... we'll see what happens.

  4. Re:This just underscores the fallacy of demand sid on Stopping Universities From Hoarding Money · · Score: 2

    The government already throws massive sums at the education system. I am suggesting shifting the subsidies... not totally... that would be disruptive... but gradually and incrementally to subsidize construction and expansion of universities to increase supply.

    So I would slowly be scaling back demand while scaling up supply.

    As to why they aren't expanding already, they are... sorta.

    As to the upshift in demand from government loans, that's actually mostly what I'm talking about. Those loans are probably a bad idea in practice.

    Its good politics... it sounds good... give money for poor kids to go to college. Great optics. But the problem is that the universities just jack up their tuitions whenever that happens by pretty much exactly whatever they can get away with... so kids that previously might have been able to get themselves through college by working a job and taking classes... can't anymore. And families that could have put their kid through college or had college savings... now need subsidies. And the university will take all the money the family or student can provide PLUS whatever the government will give them... and that's just how it works.

    That's the problem with demand side subsidies. You create a feed back loop where all you do sometimes is just make things more expensive for no reason.

    Demand side subsidies CAN be good sometimes. It depends. But when the subsidies start getting big, that's a warning sign that a feedback loop is in operation. And there isn't enough money in the universe to overwhelm it... Throw any amount of money at it and they'll just ram their prices to the new plateau.

    You could set a price and then demand that schools that wish to be eligible for the scholarships and loans not increase tuition faster than inflation. That would stop the feedback loop... probably. But maybe not... it might just suck up supply from participating schools thus increasing demand in the market in general... thus... non-participating schools would jack up their prices and at some point that might create serious problems with a two tier market... schools that were charging more maybe could pay professors more which would do things to competition for professors which would have impacts on the prestige of one school versus another which might drive students to go to a non-participating school...

    Its complicated. Demand side subsidies are dangerous and you have to be careful with them. You CAN use them effectively and safely and sustainably. BUT... you have to not be a jackass about it and realize there are serious dangers of it getting out of control.

  5. This just underscores the fallacy of demand side.. on Stopping Universities From Hoarding Money · · Score: 2, Interesting

    .. economics... aka "throw money at stuff to make the problem go away"...

    Look, you want education to be cheaper? You need to increase the competition for education. Yale and Harvard are always going to be expensive because they're Yale and Harvard and they can get away with that. Forget them.

    Focus on the schools that educate the majority of college graduates. And if you look at them you'll see they basically increase their tuition whenever you increase the subsidies. government ear marks more money for education... and tuitions go up. why wouldn't they?

    The same thing happened with housing. Government ear marked a lot of money to under right loans for poor people that otherwise couldn't afford homes because they're terrible credit risks... because they're poor. Well, what happened? Housing prices went up. Because people selling homes could charge more because people were showing up with these government loans. And beyond that, supply went down which also drove prices up.

    now if you kept this going long enough... eventually... you get more housing. But you've got some time to wait for that AND in teh mean time prices are going up and they're going to stay up... they'll never go down... they just go up and up and up and up.

    Now if you want prices to go down... you increase supply. Which means building more universities, expanding universities... what you want is EMPTY seats. A glut of supply. And that will drive prices DOWN. Making things MORE affordable instead of less affordable.

    I know I know... I said "supply side" and I've made some idiots unhappy for reasons they don't even understand. But this is basic economics, kids.

    You want the universities to charge less? Increase competition so they know that if they don't lower costs they lose your butt in their seats.

    And while you're at it, consider making it harder for them to give subsidized educations to people that aren't even citizens. I know I know... I'm a bad guy. But consider that if they can't put those butts in their seats it also opens room up in the university for you and your kids etc.

    What you want to do is get the university talking about "how are we going to get more people in our university"... and one of the things they're going to do right off the bat is NOT raise tuition costs if they're worried about attendance. With inflation alone that will cause tuition to fall back into equilibrium in about 20 years.

    But don't stop there... we have the whole online education thing which some people think is shit because there are a lot of diploma mills that like to do it that way. But these education systems are entirely viable if taken seriously.

    Especially for undergraduate classes that are mostly about people sitting in a lecture, writing down notes, and turning in some stuff that is graded by a teacher's aid. All of that stuff you can encourage into online classes. Possibly do it through the community college programs but push it really hard. Make federal funding for public universities/colleges contingent on their participation. Don't specify which software they have to use. By all means give them something they can use for free provided by the feds if you want. But whatever the feds come up with is going to be inferior to what some university either independently develops or contracts. Its theoretically possible that it won't work out that way but its historically unlikely.

    The point here is drop costs. Just jack the supply up to hard that the universities have to cut fees to keep the crickets from taking over.

  6. Re:I dern't believe it! on F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters · · Score: 1

    The comment I was making applies to any F15 used by any nation.

    The Israelis for example have quite a few F15s and have used them. There are quite a few Israeli aces... and their F15s have taken zero combat losses. I think we were selling them a cut down version of the F15... it was stripped of our optics and sensors. They literally had to have eye balls on the enemy to shoot them.

    The US did not get to personally use its F15s until gulf war 1 I think... and according to the US pilots they killed the first wave of Iraqi fighters so quickly and so effortlessly that Saddam grounded the rest of his fighters and the rest of his planes were mostly killed on the ground.

    The F15 is fast, highly maneuverable, and with American sensors/targeting, and AA missiles... it can hit you before you even know its there.

    ideally when we go to war, we like to give our opposition no chance at all. So we like to hit them in the dark, from beyond their detection range, from stealth... and ideally from directions they weren't even looking in.

    Some countries like the full frontal assault. We find it inefficient.

  7. Re:I dern't believe it! on F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters · · Score: 1

    Actual evidence? I provided as much as you did if not more. So where you get your pretensions there is a mystery.

    As to England holding against a 3rd world power... congrats? If England is actually proud of that, then the bar has really been lowered. England went from a global super power to apparently being giddy that they were able to stand against a third world banana republic with 1960s french hand-me-down tech.

    And no, they are not well trained. You can listen to the reports from the British pilots in that war and the Argentinians were making nothing but errors. They had no real tactical doctrine and they were highly reactive which allowed the british to set the pace of battle. That's rookie shit.

    As to one sided dogfights... I'll point out again that the US was able to out dogfight migs in Korea with WW2 era ground attack bombers. Training is pretty fucking key. Let me see if I can pull up a documentary about it... I'm sure there is something kicking around the interwebs: ... lolz... it was Vietnam, not Korea... even better:
    https://youtu.be/fdYMPqgTfpI?t...

    You want to see what difference skill makes... Boom. Fucking propeller Sky Raiders vs Mig 17s in the 1960s. Nom Nom Nom.

    This is what happens when professional militaries engage newbies.

    As to worrying about equal training, not a problem the US has to worry about. Sounds like an arrogant thing to say but its justified.

  8. Re: Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    Yep. I kept finding mine under my bed or something with half a sock in its maw.

  9. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    As to adding intelligence to it, actually my suggestion here is to give it a wifi uplink so that your existing computers in your house can do the thinking for it. I have a few machines that are always on. One is a media server for my TV and the other is a home work station and the others do other stuff. But the point is that any of them has free cycles it could donate to the vacuum bot... as well as more storage space than the fucking thing could ever want.

    The raspberry pi comment was a reference to the computing power needed to actually help the thing could be supplied by a Pi plugged into the router. It wouldn't even be on the vacuum.

    I want an API for this thing and I want to offload the brainpower from the shitty computer in the vacuum to the more substantial processing engines available pretty much anywhere else.

  10. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 2

    1. As to floor mapping being a bad idea because furniture moves. The general goal here is to permit the unit to navigate the house. The Hom Bot seems to negate your furniture issue by mapping the ceiling instead.

    Though frankly, I think you could let the thing roam around your house and map it... then import the map into you computer... and explain to the software what is and is not furniture.

    And regardless, just because it maps it, it doesn't mean that it won't still be keeping its eyes open. it will try to get from point A to point B first assuming things haven't moved. But if they have it will orient around the obstacle and note that something moved. This could permit dynamic flagging of furniture in that the 3d map of the area will be compared to successive maps of the same area. Then you do object recognition on those things and if you see the same object somewhere else at a different orientation then it gets flagged furniture.

    Then you can either basically ignore it for purposes of general navigation knowing that you'll just orient around it when you encounter it where ever it might be this time. Or you might have probability clouds because given pieces of furniture tend to be in predictable places.

    2. As to "you need to do all of it regardless"... lets not pretend that you want it to do an equally heavy cleaning everywhere. The corner of the room that nothing ever happens in doesn't need a serious a cleaning as the front door area or something. You want to argue shag or mop... I'm not saying you don't clean parts of the room... unless you actually don't want to... in which case that's the owners decision. But what I am saying is that to be effective you need to have areas where you seriously scrub the shit out of them on a regular basis. There are a few spots in my house that are dirty pretty much after four days. There are other parts of my house that take weeks to get dirty... and the dirt they get is dust that just falls out of the air.

    3. Most vacuuming doesn't actually bother with the literal middle of couches and stuff. At least not every time. Generally what people do is they angle the vacuum to get everything you might see under the couch and then leave the proper under the couch cleaning to some quarterly cleaning... the once every 3 month thing that involves actually cleaning the stuff that you were too lazy to clean before.

    A robot in this case could simply extend a cleaning head under the couch or whatever that it detected as being something that had to be cleaned this way... and just get everything it could reach. Is this ideal for everyone? Its fine for pretty much everyone and the benefit remember is having a much more robust and powerful machine that can be bigger and thus doesn't suffer from the problems that all ultra compact devices suffer from.

    4. As to 2d vs 3d... I get what you're talking about but the sensors need to ultimately be 3d. The map might not need to be 3d but sensors are going to need to be 3d.

    And really the 2d map is going to need to be 2d+ because you're going to want a map of the carpet, overhang for couches, and any ledges or stairs. That isn't really a 3d map. You're not quantifying how high or low anything is in the same way you are with the 2d map. But you are specifying specifically where notable features in the 2d map that are nonetheless traversable... or seemingly so until you go crashing down the stairs into a shattered mess of fucking electronics.

    So if you want to quibble about the 2D versus 3D... Fine... Quibble accepted *puts on quibbling war paint* (its hot pink and has glitter in it).

    I retort... 2D+ *RAWR*

    *Flexes to be intimidating* :-D

    5. As to barriers that might be there not... just because shit moves around that does not mean there shouldn't be a map.

    And before I continue, I was talking about the doors to the exterior... which the stupid thing shouldn't go through anyway unless you want to vacuum the side walk or something.

    So inside, if we're talking

  11. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    The LG thing looks viable. I'd prefer if it were bigger and had the ability to deal with... lets say an entire melting scoop of rocky road ice cream... just to be polite. But the LG thing looks nearly like what I want.

    I want it to interface with my computer. I want those room maps uploaded to the computer so there is no question of storage.

    One thing that did worry me a bit with the hom bot was... I suspect its full of plastic garbage parts in its guts. That needs to stop. Steel plate is not expensive. You have a press... you put in a sheet of steel... it presses it into the right form... and we're done.

    I'm literally looking for about as much love and care as went into the old grease guns... which was a gun the US made during WW2 because it was the cheapest way they could think of to make a sub machine gun. I'm not looking for anything fancy... I want robust. I want something that isn't going to shit and die in a year. If I don't get a good solid four years of service out of it, then it can go fuck itself.

  12. Re:Well, the thing is the robots... on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    Amusing but you're making the mistake steven hawking, Musk, and some other people made when they basically presumed an AI would be like a cartoon disney character... everything animated has feelings... and a face and personality and self awareness.

    None of those things are required. When I say "self awareness" I don't mean ability to recognize yourself in a mirror. I mean it in the more philosophical sense of self awareness... as in understanding yourself in a larger picture and understanding the relationships in a dynamic sense and understanding your own interests and goals etc.

    Robots aren't going to have any of those things. Why would I create AI like that? I want a mechanical slave... not a philosopher.

    I get that you're making a joke. I just think too many people have seriously made that mistake in the media lately. The robots we're talking about building are not going to think like that if you could even call what they do thinking. Its all going to be about achieving preprogrammed goals. The ability to tell the difference between a clean plate, a dirty plate, and plate of food does not confer upon one an understanding of self.

  13. Re:I dern't believe it! on F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters · · Score: 1

    No, they used it with great effect against Argentinian fucktwits.

    Pilot training is very very very important.

    In the Korean war, the US once had WW2 era propeller planes it was using for ground support because they had very powerful 20mm cannons... I think they had six on each plane. Anyway, they were attacked by Russian made Migs.

    Who do you think won? Slow as shit WW2 era ground attack planes took ZERO losses from the migs and I think they were able to drop a couple mids because if the migs got line with these old WW2 planes for a second... they'd get evaporated. The old planes could take a beating because they were designed to take ground fire. They also didn't have dog fighting sights because they were designed for ground attack. It was all dead reckoning.

    But do you know what those old planes had going for them? WW2 era veteran pilots that had been flying planes very similar to the ones they were currently flying for decades.

    So lets not pretend that it was all the VTOL that made that work. The Argentinians were mostly machismo, bravado, and other words that end with vowels that mean bullshit.

    You want to know what would happen with a harrier vs F15? The same thing that would happen with an F15 versus a helicopter.

    Do you think helicopters are the best dog fighters? Cus' no.

    The F15 has never taken a combat loss. Think about that. Not one in any service that has them has there ever been a combat loss of an F15. If you want a winning dog fighter... you go with something "like" an F15.

    Am I saying the harrier is shit? No. It needs its VTOL to take off those British carriers. But lets not pretend they're not paying a price for that. Because they are... a big one. The F15 can't take off from those carriers. But if you don't have that issue with the bad British carriers, then you don't need VTOL in your Navy.

    Riddle me this... if the British had carriers more like the Nimitz, would they have harriers as their primary workhorse aircraft? Yes or no?

    If the answer is no... and you know it is... then why would they not have harriers if they are so good?

    The answer is because the other planes are better. Every air force and navy knows it.

    What is more, there was a substantial technological difference between the Argentinian forces and the British forces. The Argentinians were using French fighters from the 1960s that hadn't been much upgraded since. All respect due to the british, but if they couldn't hold their territory against a banana republic then that's on them.

  14. Re:People have to be careful on Can Cuba Skip Cell Phone Connectivity? · · Score: 1

    capitalism and detroit... it had problems when the American socialists used it as a guinea pig to test their urban planning project on. The 'great cities' program which was an expansion of the great society program. Neither of which were great and both of which fucked over everything they touched.

    Capitalism made the city rich and prosperous... socialism destroyed it.

    I like that you cite "american" as if there aren't american socialists or communists. We've had them since always.

    Are you familiar with Jamestown? Early pre revolution American settlement in the Virgina colony. They basically wanted to run the town/village on communistic principles. This was pre marxist communism... but the general gist of it was the same.

    They wanted a communal community with no ownership. Everyone would just work as much as they wanted, work whenever they wanted, and everyone would share equally in the property of the community.

    Guess what happened? They basically almost starved to death because communism is stupid. Few people would work because there was no personal incentive to work. You could work your ass off and you'd get no more than the guy that just jerked off all day. All the issues with communism... the fundamental problems that are pointed out every time some child suggests it played out like clockwork.

    And it got so bad that they had a town meeting and it was declared "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."

    Now... imagine if the socialists got told that? Today in modern America. Don't work? No welfare. Here you'll say "but there is no work"... Oh, I'll find you something to do. You might not like doing it but I'll fucking find you something. It might be picking trash up off the side of the road or digging ditches or cleaning bathrooms or sitting at a desk licking envelopes for six~eight hours a day but I'll find you something.

    This is not a new argument. Its an ancient one. That thing spoken in Jamestown... it was quoted from the Bible... that's at least how old this fucking argument is. its just the same old shit with a new coat of paint and new dopy followers to argue cross eyed "why should I work, dur hur"... well there shall be an answer to that in time, sir.

    And while you dream of your silly revolution where you'll throw down all the people competent enough to keep this shit show going... and replace them with your crew of asshats... I know what happens when people like you win.

    You get places like Venezuela. Where the socialists/communists in charge are so fucking incompetent that they've some how figured out how to have a water shortage... in the middle of a jungle, a money shortage when they have one of the richest oil countries in the world, and a toilet paper shortage which I cite merely because that is actually funny.

    You don't like me because I shit on your beliefs.

    I shit on your beliefs because they're idiotic, contemptible, hurt everyone that is dumb enough to apply them, and ultimately harms anyone too powerless to escape the endless procession of evil clowns that tend to push these things into policy.

    So if you're upset that I'm shitting on your beliefs... tough fucking shit. They should be shat on after a long night of binge eating spicy food with tremendous force and gusto. It is only fitting and proper that I and everyone else with a clue do so.

    Good day, sir.

  15. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They have no memory of the room even though they routinely operate in the same room.

    They do not know where doors are, where given activities happen, etc and thus cannot know where the focus of any cleaning should be.

    Their programming is too limited to allow for a larger more effective robot because they're too stupid to clean under things properly the way a human would.

    As someone else in the thread said, they don't understand that some things they're touching actually should be left alone. One guy was talking about how his roomba just spread cat vomit all over the place because his cat will throw up... as cats do... and then the roomba will roll over it and wipe cat vomit all over the place.

    There are an enourmous number or problems with the brain of the thing. And I appreciate that it isn't economical to put that kind of brain power into the roomba... so don't. Most of the robots you see coming out of DARPA these days have most of the brains outside of the robot itself. Its all software running on a laptop or something. And if required for the brain to be in the machine for some competition they just make a cradle for the laptop ON the robot and just put the laptop on the robot.

    So there you go... Roombas don't have the brain power they should. They should have a detailed 3d map of the area they operate in, they should know where things get dirty both from logging done by the roomba itself and by what a human would program into it by saying "here are doors".

    A bigger robot could do a better job cleaning. Anyone that uses a roomba knows that it takes it DAYS to clean a room and it only keeps rooms clean at all because the fucking thing is scurrying around every day doing about as much cleaning in a week as I would in 30 minutes once a week. That limitation limits how much the roomba can clean. It should be able to clean an entire house. My vacuum cleaner... the one I as a human use... can clean the entire house. But the Roomba can't do that. It can't navigate the house and say "clean this room today" and "that room tomorrow"... and its so inefficient in the way it clean any room that it has to clean the same room several times to actually clean it at all.

    And as the man said... cat vomit... or anything gross... gets spread around everywhere.

    I could go on... but if you tell me it is as smart as it needs to be, I disagree. The thing it doesn't do which really pisses me off is it can't navigate and doesn't have a map of the house. That's the dumbest.

  16. Re:I dern't believe it! on F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters · · Score: 1

    You're presuming an ability to get really close to the tanks which I reject.

    Your scenario presumes the most ideal circomstance for infantry and the least ideal for the tanks. In practice neither really happens. You get something that is ideal for neither with some bias one way or the other but rarely is it so one sided.

    And beyond that I'm not saying tanks should operate without infantry. I'm saying a proper combined arms operation is ideal. There's no question about that.

    As to your notion that infantry can fight without tanks or air cover or all the other elements of combined arms... I categorically disagree.

    You used the qualifier "well equip" that means we are to assume modern well funded supplied units? That means said well equip infantry force is facing off against something similarly well equip? The tanks can shell at over 2 miles away. The airplanes can bomb and strafe...

    No... infantry needs air cover and they need armor particularly when facing enemy armor. Yes... if the tank is piloted by big dummies you can hit them with tow rockets or something but you can't believe that the infantry are going to be happy with that situation. Or that the tanks are going to be especially worried about it because they can just hang back.

    Can you cite any situation where infantry were taking down tanks with reasonable casuality figures and as close to an apples to apples supply/tech base? Because I can't think of one.

    The situations I've seen where infantry were able to hold against tanks had terrible causality figures from the infantry. It was numbers like 20 to 1... and worse. The vietnam numbers I saw were something like 100 to 1... the WW2 figures were around 20 to 1. I'm not sure what the Iraq numbers were but US causalities were so low that it could have been 100 to 1.

    Saying you're able to hold when you take losses like that is misleading. Propeller planes will kill jets occasionally. One of the first engagments in the Korean war involved an encounter between a squadron of US WW2 era heavy ground attack bombers versus some Russian Mig. I think it was a mig 15 or something. I forget. I can find out. Point is... the propeller planes actually held against the migs in that fight. They were tough planes built to take hits, were very heavily armed with something like six 20 mil cannons on the front of each, and they had so much more lift from their flight plan that they could fly tight slow circles that forced the migs to disengage before it could line up a shot. I think the Propeller planes were topping out around 300 miles an hour and the migs were able to hit 500 something.

    Now would you put propeller planes against jets? Generally not. Can they hold if you have enough of them? Sure.

    As I think I said previously... men with spears can hold against nuclear weapons, robotic terminators, and genetically engineered plagues if you have enough men with spears. Unless you're willing to take the attrition though, you can't hold if you have the wrong forces.

  17. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    yeah, more sensors, more capability, more brain power.

    Someone will say "but then it will cost so much!"...

    Each sensor costs about 1 to 10 dollars with more being 1 dollar than not. When it comes to capability What does a dust buster cost? 15-25 dollars... so if we have two of those... one that does dry and the other that does wet... 50 dollars to be generous. And brain power... a raspberry pi costs 25-35 dollars... and the rest is just some motors that are going to cost somewhere between 1 dollar and 20 dollars depending on how nuts you want to go with that... some gearing that is going to be 5 dollars and a housing that is maybe 10 dollars mostly because its specific to the product.

    You add it up and I frankly think they can sell the whole thing under the CURRENT price tag of 500 dollars. Cat puke detectors and all. Maybe throw a 25 dollar wifi card in there to connect it to a computer if you just can't handle it on the your build in controller and then throw in some software to make that work. I have a few machines that are always on.

  18. Re:Well, the thing is the robots... on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 1

    Hey bingo, why would I need a blow up doll when I have your mother? She's always there to go from suck to blow for me. :D

    You're so easy, bingo... when will you learn?

  19. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 2

    They have to be that way because they're so stupid. The ENTIRE robot has to fit under your furniture. It doesn't understand how to clean under something without going entirely under it.

    As to the size of the things... a bit more size would be a good idea. I'd also like it if they didn't put in any sneaky backdoor business plan into the thing such as "well, you just paid 200-500 dollars for this vacuum that works about as well as 50 dollar vacuum. Lets continue the fuckery by drilling you for whatever the stupid filters and other replacement parts cost!"

    The roomba needs more sensors. Ideally some optical ones and possibly some ultrasonic sonar. It needs to be able to connect to a proper computer where it can profit from more processing power. And the stupid bits and pieces need to not be a sides revenue scheme.

  20. Re:Channeling or maybe a spin on GLaDOS, part 2 on Another Slew of Science Papers Retracted Because of Fraud · · Score: 1

    Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  21. Re:Roomba technology on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh, Roombas are mostly fine. My issue with them more than anything is that they're stupid, don't interface with say a program running on a computer that could make them less stupid, and they've unacceptably high maintenance issues.

    The vacuum robots are getting decent. I'd like them to be clever enough to actually have a map of the room and know where they are in it... etc But what really annoys me most about them is that they have too many plastic parts in them. Most of the plastic in the guts of the roomba should be metal... ideally steel. Grit and other assorted shit gets into the gears and that creates friction and the friction creates heat. My last roomba ate itself. It melted its guts out.

    You can get after market metal guts to replace the shitty plastic modules that should be made out of stamped stainless steel plate. And that largely resolves the maintenance issues.

    However, I still think they should be smarter or should interface with something that is smarter. Have the thing connect via wifi to your network... ideally in a non-mickey mouse way... and then have a more substantial computer do the heavy lifting for it. I'm talking about the sort of thing a Raspberry pi could handle without breaking much of a sweat.

  22. Well, the thing is the robots... on How Long Until We Have a Home Robot That Lives Up To the Hype? · · Score: 2

    ... aren't good at dealing with shit just being anywhere in the house. They like things to be predictable. They're also really bad at identifying objects. I saw a thing in a lab where they had a robot that was doing a pretty good job of recognizing stuff. But are they going to be able to recognize the difference between a clean plate, a dirty plate, and a plate with food on it? And if they can't do that then they can't clear a table. Just a really basic thing you would want a home robot to do. Forget whether it has the arms to move any of that. If it can't tell the difference between these things then it can't clear a table.

    When people say "personal home robot" what I think they're looking for is a robotic maid. Rosy the robot. Pick my crap up. Dust. Organize things. Clean. Make me food. Clean up. etc.

    The roomba etc are about as close as we've gotten to that. And the roomba has so many fucking problems.

  23. Re:I dern't believe it! on F-35 Might Be Outperformed By Fourth-Generation Fighters · · Score: 1

    No, YOU are arguing against US military doctrine.

    As to your pathetic and laughable attempt to associate me with white supremacy by insinuation or to suggest my position is immoral while of course you're virtuous. I'm going to just assume that wasn't intentional. However, if you do it again, then I'm going to have to conclude it was intentional. and that is going to open you up to some pretty righteous rebuttals from me. So... Try to avoid that land mine in the future... It is unsupportable and will blow your legs clean off.

    As to linear advantages... I never said anything about that. That point is a strawman.

    As to open warfare, we had it in gulf war 1... and its happening in Ukraine right fucking now. So you know nothing. What is more, the exception is the urban warfare. That is recent and unusual. And it only happens because we don't want to kill civilians and the enemy is hiding behind women and children. All you need to do to negate the situation is either not care if you kill civilians which was basically the doctrine during WW2 when we nuked cities and carpet bombed cities and fire bombed cities. I think 60% of the direct causalities of war in WW2 were civilians. The other thing you can do is separate the civilians from the war-fighters (aka combatants... the term "solder" being a legal one that the terrorists rarely qualify for lacking rudimentary requirements like "uniforms"). And there are ways to do that. One thing you can do is lightly attack an outlying area to draw enemy combatants to you. Then fight them there. Another thing you can do is cause the civilians to flee the area which can be done with propaganda, non-lethal gas, destroying an area near them to spook them... whatever. The point is to separate the sheep from the goats. And then you can slaughter the goats and move on. What the enemy is doing is in the historic view of our culture... immoral. Hiding behind women and children... Come out and die instead of cowering under your daughter's skirts. THAT is the historic and cultural opinion of my culture regarding such behavior. What you'll say about that I can only imagine but that's our view on the matter. Either fight, surrender, or run away. But using civilians as human shields? Dishonorable. That said, if that's how they want to play it, they'll find that using babies as armor only works to a point.

    https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfro...

    As to killing armor rolling down tight city streets... Armor doesn't need to do that. That is also the worst possible situation armor could be in and using that as your example shows you need to use unrealistic contexts to support your position. Your argument is very weak. And really, why you think that's the point of armor is beyond me. This city fighting is bullshit... especially against the disorganized rabble we've been fighting lately doesn't require armor. There was an amusing situation in Iraq 2 where a Scottish platoon was cut off and out of ammunition. They fixed bayonets and charged the Iraqis. Guess what happened? The Iraqis ran away. So into that situation you're talking about these people having the discipline to encircle an armored column going single file through a city and destroy the first and last tank? Not going to happen. For one thing the tanks would have infantry escort and for another thing the tanks simply wouldn't be used that way unless they felt the area was secure in the first place.

    The tanks under current doctrine like to move FAST, unpredictably, engage at range, and ideally operate where our superior optics make our forces the only ones that can even see.

    This was a big part of why US tanks crushed Saddams tanks in Iraq 1. There were dust storms and mixed into US forces were a lot of Bradly troop carriers. The Bradly has pretty good optics... better than the Abrams. And the various craft are linked together so if the Bradly sees something the Abrams sees it too. Point was that there were dust

  24. Cowards on Another Wave of Publications Shut Down Online Comments · · Score: 1

    When you look at most places that have disabled comments its because they're talking shit and are tired of having of having sand rubbed in their dead little eyes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    The funniest examples are youtube comments. Comments on youtube are permitted pretty much everywhere.

    Where you see them disabled is when someone says something really stupid like

    "video games cause young men to rape the womenz"... and anyone making that statement almost always disables comments.

    You also see it with many other types of comments but they're typically fucktwits making stupid comments that can't be defended. So they disable comments to protect their echo chambers and hug boxes.

    Fuck em.

  25. Which is why you need to... on Another Slew of Science Papers Retracted Because of Fraud · · Score: 1

    ... Question, Audit, Check, Recheck, and remain open minded as to whether X actually equals Y.

    There's something of a cult these days of people that say "well newspaper M said X=Y so it must be true!"... and anyone that so much as remains skeptical about that is anti science. Because after all, science is about dogmatic acceptace of authority and slavish memorization and repetition of whatever your betters tell you it is...

    Oh wait, that's religion.

    Cue a horde of douchebags that will tell me I'm being anti science without getting the irony that they've just outed themselves.

    Mindless acceptance OR rejection of anything is not science or helpful. You need to think about these things. Or the reality is that you never thought about them and so you don't really have an opinion so much as programming.