For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God," he adds. "I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way"
If we were to look at physics as it was understood several thousand years ago, we'd find probably most of what they thought was wrong. If we conclude from this that physics is all bullshit, that would be a huge mistake. We would ignoring everything learned in the last few thousand years.
Re God, a revolution of understanding occurred 2,000 years ago. Jesus was asked directly about a connection between disability and sin:
As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.' (John 9:1-3)
So Jesus agrees with Hawking - disability is not necessarily caused by sin. (Though eating unrefrigerated shellfish can cause illness, and covering your neighbor's wife may cause injury).
On this point, Hawking believes that what some people thought about God thousands of years ago was incorrect, and Jesus says Hawking is right. Jesus and Hawking agree!
Hawking then makes a huge jump: Because some people a few thousand years ago had one wrong idea about God, therefore God does not exist.
That's the exact same reasoning as: Because some people thousands of years ago had some mistaken ideas about stars, therefore stars do not exist.
In fact Biblically illness comes not from God but from:
Acts 10:38 "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."
Those in need of of healing were "under the power of the devil", not being cursed by God as punishment for some sin.
This mistaken idea may have come partially from the fact that some sins DO cause disease. For example, the Bible says to carefully drain the blood and of an animal before each it, being sure to do it in a certain way to keep the meat clean. Failing to do so can indeed cause illness.
That makes more sense. It sounds like it's not so much the *size* you're talking about, but the *aspect ratio*. iPads are 4:3 aspect ratio, most Android tablets are 16:9. That's the ratio of height to width.
4:3 is closer to the aspect ratio of letter sized paper.
There are, of course, some Android tablets that are 4:3, such as the Galaxy Tab S3. Most are 16:9. If you ever find yourself shopping for an Android for whatever reason, Google for 4:3 Android to get the shape that you prefer.
Personally, I like that I can get Android in 16:9, 4:3, 16:10, whatever I want.
Lol. There he is again, the guy I was talking about last week. Apparently he thinks I'm white, based on the fact that I'm honest enough to link to the government's own official statements about their policies.
All.iPad models for the last several years are iPad are 9.7". The newest iPad Pro Large is 12.9".
With Android you have a hundred choices, up to at least 21.5" and probably larger. The most popular Android tablet is the Galaxy Tab line by Samsung. The current model, the Galaxy Tab S4, is 10.5". Also popular is Galaxy Tab A, which is 10.1 inches.
You can get an Android tablet in any size you want, the most popular models are a little bigger than an iPad.
That's not to say anything particular Android device is "better" for everyone than an iPad. That's a personal choice depending on what you want to use it for, your budget, etc. But an iPad is 9.7", an Android tablet is whatever size you want.
I wouldn't know much about what's available on iPad specifically, other than seeing that searching for photo editor or grpahics editor in the app store brings up many results.
I had an iPad for three years and never really used it, because I don't see the niche for it. I already have my large phone in my pocket and it can do pretty much anything an iPad can do, without carrying an extra device. If I wanted a tablet, an Android tablet is more flexible, so I haven't had a use case where the iPad is the best fit. If I were doing heavy-duty graphics editing, something beyond the ability of free or cheap apps, a computer seems the best fit.
That's not to say nobody has a use case where iPad is the best choice. I just haven't. I use my (large) phone or my laptop.
That's trivial to do. bambu is a hardware compiler based on gcc. You run gcc with bambu and it spits out a file in a hardware description language known as Verilog. You feed the Verilog to the machine that makes the actual hardware chip according to the instructions in the Verilog. The chip can be made by assembling it as an ASIC, or by burning it, removing the parts you don't want, like a you would a stone sculpture. If it's made by removing unwanted connections that's called an FPGA.
Compare using the same source file and some of the same tools to render it as software. If you want to end up with a software rendition, you again run gcc to generate intermediate files. Those intermediate files are then fed to a linker.
$100 / month, $1,200 / year, would be absurd, wouldn't it. That would be $6,000 over 5 years
> you are only talking $83/month. > But it's not $100/month as you are absurdly claiming.
Yeah, only $1000 / year. Not $1,200 - that would be absurd.
If I were a freelance graphic designer, it might very well make sense for me to get Adobe. Fortunately there are many free and open source graphics editors that work as well or better for what I do, including some of the same tools used by Pixar and ILM to paint blockbuster Hollywood monies.
Inkjet printers use liquid that spreads out just a bit after it's placed. Laser printers use a solid pigment that stays exactly where it is placed, giving a sharper image.
Text is good sharp. Portraits and most other photography isn't supposed to have sharp, crisp lines between different colors. Photos are best with a softer transition between colors.
> A lot of us are against software patents in the first place
That's certainly true. Unfortunately, such people are against a non-existent concept. To make such a statement one has to believe there is such a thing as a "software patent".
The thing is, the exact same patented algorithm, written in any algorithmic language such as C, can be rendered both as an ELF executable (inarguably software) and as a gate array (inarguably hardware). Every patent that covers any algorithm that can be rendered as software can also be rendered as hardware. Therefore there simply is no such thing as a software patent.
I'm not comfortable *gambling* my retirement on any company that has never produced a saleable product.
I *invest* in companies which regularly produce good and profitable products and have continued to do so for a log time. Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Walmart, Quaker Oats, etc. If P&G's new product, Tide Ultra Max, doesn't do well that's okay. They'll continue to do just fine as a company.
It's entirely possible that *someone* will *eventually* come out with an economically feasible fusion reactor.
The odds that any particular company will do so in the next few years, before I retire, is very small. I wouldn't invest in any particular company that is based on trying to build a fusion reactor. Heck, even if they successfully build one, the company will fail if someone else builds a better one, or builds a similar one sooner.
So it is with Magic Leap. Sure maybe someday some company will have success with something like this. If it's any other company other than Magic Leap, investors in Magic Leap lose. If Magic Leap does it, then someone else quickly copies them and comes out with a better version, Magic Leap loses. If Magic Leap does it, does it first, and nobody follows up with a better version, Magic Leap investors still lose if it takes too long. There about many ways this can go, and almost all of the possibilities would be bad news for people who invested in Magic Leap.
It's similar to another stock. The largest, most successful auto company in the entire world is worth about $50 billion. Another company with less than 1% of their sales is also valued at about $50 billion at their current stock price. Sure Tesla might eventually grow by 50000% and become the world's largest car company, but there are hundreds of ways for that to end up not happening, and the stock assumes it already has happened.
It DOES cover thousands of packages. I don't know the exact number, but maybe 20,000 or so software projects are included.
I could write a few lines of code implementing virtually any patent in the world and open source it. Therefore, abandoning all patents implemented in ANY open source project is effectively equalivent to "abandon all patents". If that's what you mean, that's a simpler way to say it.
That's essentially the problem with GPLv3, by the way. It circuitously requires giving up patents in a way that isn't obvious on first reading. That's one reason many projects stick with GPLv2.
Speaking would have been been a better example for me to use. Try saying "three three three". You speak without by making sounds. As a side-effect of your brain telling your body to make the sound, your tongue ended up at a certain position for the "th" sound and another position for the "r' sound - and you may not know what those positions are! You know *how* to make the sounds. You may well not know *where* each part of your tongue is for "r" that's different from "s", and you don't need a map distinguishing the positions of "r" vs "s". You only need the know how, the "make an S skill", no location maps needed.
Just as your mouth can learn "make an R sound" and "make an S sound", so can your hands learn "make an R" and "make an S".
> You do realize your argument is they don't remember the location of keys, just relative location to where their fingers are and that's not spatial location?
It's not "my argument", it's well-established science. Motions that we learn thoroughly, such as writing, are a completely different area of the brain than picturing a map. A skilled typist learns first "make an A", then "type THE" and types it without thinking about location, without picturing a map of the keys. It becomes directly "triggering this muscle creates this letter". An *unskilled* typist has to think about *where* the keys are. A skilled typist has learned how a skill called "tab" which involves the muscles that control their little finger. It becomes a hand skill rather than a map. It's like picking up a cup, an adult know how much muscle movement your fingers need without thinking about how much pressure your putting on the cup. A toddler drops the cup often because they still have the intermediate, cerebral step of controlling the pressure on the cup.
So no, a skilled person does not work based on "relative location", picturing the location and then moving their fingers to the location they have in mind. Typing each letter becomes a skill, just as a full-time professional guitarist doesn't think about the location of each string, their fingers know how to play a given chord (actually their basal ganglia do).
Spatial memory is about remembering where things are. A skilled typist doesn't type "the" by thinking about where the T is, then where the H is, then where the E is. There"fingers just do it", they'd tell you. Psychometric experts would explain that it has moved from the cerebellum to the basal ganglia - motor connections.
Here's an experiment to see the difference:
Asked a skilled typist where the J is. They'll likely answer by fist putting their fingers out as if typing it, then move their finger to remind themselves, then describe the location. They tell their finger to type J and it hits J, which then reminds the spatial part of the brain where it is.
I once had an ATM pin number I had used for many years, but when asked I couldn't remember it for the life of me - until Input my fingers on a pin pad. Muscle memory. That's how skilled typists type, not by remembering the location of each letter.
Most people learned to type on a qwerty keyboard. Qwerty remains because nothing else, such as Dvorak, has been so much better that it's clearly worth completely re-learning how we type. Dvorak *is* better than qwerty, but it's not clearly so much better than "whatever you already know".
Smart phones don't use the muscle memory of typing on a keyboard. If you were accustomed to typing on a keyboard, you ALREADY have to learn a different skill, thumb-based text entry on a tiny screen. That would have been the time to ditch qwerty and switch to something else - at the transition when even if you're a fast typist on a standard keyboard, you have to re-learn anyway.
Yes, the NHTSA rates car safety, giving each car either four or five stars. Last year 97% of vehicles received one of the the top ratings.
One way to get a five star rating is to have the front wheels and most of the engine compartment end up in the front seats after a collision: https://www.thetruthaboutcars....
IIHS, on the other hand, provides ratings which allow you to tell which cars are the safest and which aren't so safe. Not every car gets a trophy from IIHS because failing to distinguish safe cars from less-safe ones, giving them all high ratings like NHTSA does, would reduce the profits of the companies sponsoring the testing. The companies need to know which ones are actually safer.
> It was founded in 1894 by William Merrill
That's right. Merril, an insurance underwriter, lead the project, which was funded by insurance companies.
Here's the thing - car accidents and the other dangers we are talking about kill tens of thousands of people every year. Real people, whose children actually lose their parents. This isn't a game and it's not theoretical. Livew are on the line, yours and mine. So let's do what works, okay? Let's figure out what has ACTUALLY improved safety effectively and do more of that, alright? We can choose something else to try to score points for some political theory.
When someone tells you about a topic, including its history, that's a hint that they might know something about the topic. They are therefore unlikely to be fooled by you making up stuff out of thin air.
> While "Underwriters" can mean insurance companies, it doesn't have to. And doesn't in this case.
> Oh, and later teh government gave it the ability to run legally binding tests on product safety.
What statute is that? If you plan to go look, let me suggest you not waste too much time looking for such a thing.
> And while car companies may advertise "it's safer", it does take a neutral third party observer to say whether it is.
Typically the third-party rating advertised is the IIIHS rating. Guess what IIHS stands for? Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Noticing a trend? Electrical safety (UL) - insurance companies. Fire code (NFPA) - insurance companies. Auto safety (IIHS) - insurance companies.
So who, exactly as responsible for creating and advancing safety standards? Insurance companies. They are really, really good at analyzing and minimizing risk because that's how they can be successful and make money, by reducing the risks of their customers.
You can find out by calling your mortgage company and asking them if they'll loan you the $200,000 to build a building that ISN'T up to code. Ask your insurance company if they'll insure a building if you build it without following fire code. Ask your real estate agent how much money you'd lose track of to see it if it's not up to fire code. Or, let's try asking YOU - If you were hiring me as the contractor to build for you, would you want me to: A) build properly, to code B) Build you crap that's unsafe, not complying with fire code
> or does government use penalties to coerce you to follow them?
The government penalty (failing to get a permit) is not in fact the primary motivation, and doesn't exist at all outside of city limits for many code requirements.
Many building codes are only *legally* enforced by municipal ordinance - within city limits. Outside city limits, people build to code because no bank is going to issue a mortgage on a non-compiant building, insurance companies won't insure it, and far fewer people would want to buy it, thereby greatly reducing the price the builder could sell it for. The codes are pretty well followed for construction in the county, where there is no legal requirement.
> I wonder how far fire and safety regulatory orgs would get without municipal code adoption of their standards?
You can read all about it, because that was the case for about 100 years. Still many building codes are only *legally* enforced by municipal ordinance - within city limits. Outside city limits, people build to code because no bank is going to issue a mortgage on a non-compiant building, insurance companies won't insure it, and far fewer people would want to buy it, thereby greatly reducing the price the builder could sell it for. The codes are pretty well followed for construction in the county, where there is no legal requirement.
"Bruce Schneier] argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with security and privacy for society generally."
THAT part is an insight that might merit further thought. How can one arrange the system such that what is good for the company is good society? When you do that, it can work really well.
As far as the "I can think of no industry" but, Bruce is generally a smart guy, so I'm surprised to hear him start the interview with a statement that is so flat out wrong on the facts. More than that, anyone who knows a little history KNOWS it's completely wrong.
"There's no industry that's improved safety or security without governments forcing it to do so.", he said.
Has Bruce never heard of Underwriters Laboratories (UL listed, UL registered, etc)? Underwriters means insurance companies. That's not government, that's insurance companies offering guidance and an incentive. How about the National Fire Protection Association, which writes the fire codes? That's another safety organization started by insurance companies, and insurance companies wouldn't insure a building unless it met fire code. Later, local governments ALSO said "me to", but the NFPA and fire codes were created by insurance companies, not government.
The auto companies were advertising safety innovations for half a century before there was any major legistlature. From Dusenberg advertising hydraulic brakes in the 1920s to Ford marketing safety glasses in all its cars in the 1930s to padded dashboards, safety cages, and disc brakes in the 1940s - it wasn't until the 1960s that the government got involved.
So it's simply factually incorrect, plain wrong, to say "There's no industry that's improved safety or security without governments forcing it to do so". My side gig is pyrotechnics, fireworks. A LOT of what we talk about and work on in the industry is safety, sometimes talking about how to convince the government official to allow us to do things the safer way rather than insisting on outdated procedures, or things that are a bad (dangerous) fit for the situation.
Personally, I prefer for decisions to be made by people who have at least *some* interest or knowledge of the subject.
The majority of Americans don't have enough interest in civics to even know who the current vice president is. That's fine, it doesn't mean they are stupid; they just prefer to spend their time on attention on other things.
If someone is interested in botany and knows all about which plants grow well here, I want them to help decide what to plant. If they don't even know who their current senator *is*, how could they possibly judge the senator's performance? They can't in any useful way, of course. At best, they might see a 140 character Twitter "vote for Sheesa Crook - do it for the plants".
Page 1 of any economics textbook will introduce the two main branches of economics. Most Americans don't know the two main branches, the stuff from page 1, so how the heck can they make informed decisions about national economic policy? They can't, of course. They can only vote based on a bumper sticker.
I'd prefer if all the people running around saying "everybody needs to vote" would switch to saying "everybody should learn a about civics so they can make informed voting decisions".
You disagree? Think about some of the people who have been elected lately, because people vote without having a clue about the policies each candidate represents.
Btw, Bruce Perens is also a regular on Slashdot. He's had a pretty decent career, I'd say. Achieved quite a lot. One thing I don't think he's done is blow $60,000 putting the name of a fancy school on a piece of paper. He teaches university courses, he doesn't buy overpriced ones.
I'm sorry if you're struggling to pay your student loan debt or whatever, but your kids do NOT have to do the same thing. It's not required. I hope you don't tell them that it is. That would be really mean.
Slashdot Mirror
Hawking writes:
For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God," he adds. "I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way"
If we were to look at physics as it was understood several thousand years ago, we'd find probably most of what they thought was wrong. If we conclude from this that physics is all bullshit, that would be a huge mistake. We would ignoring everything learned in the last few thousand years.
Re God, a revolution of understanding occurred 2,000 years ago. Jesus was asked directly about a connection between disability and sin:
As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents.' (John 9:1-3)
So Jesus agrees with Hawking - disability is not necessarily caused by sin. (Though eating unrefrigerated shellfish can cause illness, and covering your neighbor's wife may cause injury).
On this point, Hawking believes that what some people thought about God thousands of years ago was incorrect, and Jesus says Hawking is right. Jesus and Hawking agree!
Hawking then makes a huge jump:
Because some people a few thousand years ago had one wrong idea about God, therefore God does not exist.
That's the exact same reasoning as:
Because some people thousands of years ago had some mistaken ideas about stars, therefore stars do not exist.
In fact Biblically illness comes not from God but from:
Acts 10:38 "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."
Those in need of of healing were "under the power of the devil", not being cursed by God as punishment for some sin.
This mistaken idea may have come partially from the fact that some sins DO cause disease. For example, the Bible says to carefully drain the blood and of an animal before each it, being sure to do it in a certain way to keep the meat clean. Failing to do so can indeed cause illness.
That makes more sense. It sounds like it's not so much the *size* you're talking about, but the *aspect ratio*. iPads are 4:3 aspect ratio, most Android tablets are 16:9. That's the ratio of height to width.
4:3 is closer to the aspect ratio of letter sized paper.
There are, of course, some Android tablets that are 4:3, such as the Galaxy Tab S3. Most are 16:9. If you ever find yourself shopping for an Android for whatever reason, Google for 4:3 Android to get the shape that you prefer.
Personally, I like that I can get Android in 16:9, 4:3, 16:10, whatever I want.
Lol. There he is again, the guy I was talking about last week. Apparently he thinks I'm white, based on the fact that I'm honest enough to link to the government's own official statements about their policies.
All.iPad models for the last several years are iPad are 9.7". The newest iPad Pro Large is 12.9".
With Android you have a hundred choices, up to at least 21.5" and probably larger. The most popular Android tablet is the Galaxy Tab line by Samsung. The current model, the Galaxy Tab S4, is 10.5". Also popular is Galaxy Tab A, which is 10.1 inches.
You can get an Android tablet in any size you want, the most popular models are a little bigger than an iPad.
That's not to say anything particular Android device is "better" for everyone than an iPad. That's a personal choice depending on what you want to use it for, your budget, etc. But an iPad is 9.7", an Android tablet is whatever size you want.
I wouldn't know much about what's available on iPad specifically, other than seeing that searching for photo editor or grpahics editor in the app store brings up many results.
I had an iPad for three years and never really used it, because I don't see the niche for it. I already have my large phone in my pocket and it can do pretty much anything an iPad can do, without carrying an extra device. If I wanted a tablet, an Android tablet is more flexible, so I haven't had a use case where the iPad is the best fit. If I were doing heavy-duty graphics editing, something beyond the ability of free or cheap apps, a computer seems the best fit.
That's not to say nobody has a use case where iPad is the best choice. I just haven't. I use my (large) phone or my laptop.
> Go implement exfat in a hardware gate array.
That's trivial to do. bambu is a hardware compiler based on gcc. You run gcc with bambu and it spits out a file in a hardware description language known as Verilog. You feed the Verilog to the machine that makes the actual hardware chip according to the instructions in the Verilog. The chip can be made by assembling it as an ASIC, or by burning it, removing the parts you don't want, like a you would a stone sculpture. If it's made by removing unwanted connections that's called an FPGA.
Compare using the same source file and some of the same tools to render it as software. If you want to end up with a software rendition, you again run gcc to generate intermediate files. Those intermediate files are then fed to a linker.
$100 / month, $1,200 / year, would be absurd, wouldn't it.
That would be $6,000 over 5 years
> you are only talking $83/month.
> But it's not $100/month as you are absurdly claiming.
Yeah, only $1000 / year. Not $1,200 - that would be absurd.
If I were a freelance graphic designer, it might very well make sense for me to get Adobe. Fortunately there are many free and open source graphics editors that work as well or better for what I do, including some of the same tools used by Pixar and ILM to paint blockbuster Hollywood monies.
Inkjet printers use liquid that spreads out just a bit after it's placed. Laser printers use a solid pigment that stays exactly where it is placed, giving a sharper image.
Text is good sharp. Portraits and most other photography isn't supposed to have sharp, crisp lines between different colors. Photos are best with a softer transition between colors.
> A lot of us are against software patents in the first place
That's certainly true. Unfortunately, such people are against a non-existent concept. To make such a statement one has to believe there is such a thing as a "software patent".
The thing is, the exact same patented algorithm, written in any algorithmic language such as C, can be rendered both as an ELF executable (inarguably software) and as a gate array (inarguably hardware). Every patent that covers any algorithm that can be rendered as software can also be rendered as hardware. Therefore there simply is no such thing as a software patent.
I'm not comfortable *gambling* my retirement on any company that has never produced a saleable product.
I *invest* in companies which regularly produce good and profitable products and have continued to do so for a log time. Companies like Proctor & Gamble, Walmart, Quaker Oats, etc. If P&G's new product, Tide Ultra Max, doesn't do well that's okay. They'll continue to do just fine as a company.
It's entirely possible that *someone* will *eventually* come out with an economically feasible fusion reactor.
The odds that any particular company will do so in the next few years, before I retire, is very small. I wouldn't invest in any particular company that is based on trying to build a fusion reactor. Heck, even if they successfully build one, the company will fail if someone else builds a better one, or builds a similar one sooner.
So it is with Magic Leap. Sure maybe someday some company will have success with something like this. If it's any other company other than Magic Leap, investors in Magic Leap lose. If Magic Leap does it, then someone else quickly copies them and comes out with a better version, Magic Leap loses. If Magic Leap does it, does it first, and nobody follows up with a better version, Magic Leap investors still lose if it takes too long. There about many ways this can go, and almost all of the possibilities would be bad news for people who invested in Magic Leap.
It's similar to another stock. The largest, most successful auto company in the entire world is worth about $50 billion. Another company with less than 1% of their sales is also valued at about $50 billion at their current stock price. Sure Tesla might eventually grow by 50000% and become the world's largest car company, but there are hundreds of ways for that to end up not happening, and the stock assumes it already has happened.
It DOES cover thousands of packages. I don't know the exact number, but maybe 20,000 or so software projects are included.
I could write a few lines of code implementing virtually any patent in the world and open source it. Therefore, abandoning all patents implemented in ANY open source project is effectively equalivent to "abandon all patents". If that's what you mean, that's a simpler way to say it.
That's essentially the problem with GPLv3, by the way. It circuitously requires giving up patents in a way that isn't obvious on first reading. That's one reason many projects stick with GPLv2.
The list of covered projects can be found here:
https://www.openinventionnetwo...
It's essentially everything included in any major Linux release.
Speaking would have been been a better example for me to use. Try saying "three three three". You speak without by making sounds. As a side-effect of your brain telling your body to make the sound, your tongue ended up at a certain position for the "th" sound and another position for the "r' sound - and you may not know what those positions are! You know *how* to make the sounds. You may well not know *where* each part of your tongue is for "r" that's different from "s", and you don't need a map distinguishing the positions of "r" vs "s". You only need the know how, the "make an S skill", no location maps needed.
Just as your mouth can learn "make an R sound" and "make an S sound", so can your hands learn "make an R" and "make an S".
> You do realize your argument is they don't remember the location of keys, just relative location to where their fingers are and that's not spatial location?
It's not "my argument", it's well-established science. Motions that we learn thoroughly, such as writing, are a completely different area of the brain than picturing a map. A skilled typist learns first "make an A", then "type THE" and types it without thinking about location, without picturing a map of the keys. It becomes directly "triggering this muscle creates this letter". An *unskilled* typist has to think about *where* the keys are. A skilled typist has learned how a skill called "tab" which involves the muscles that control their little finger. It becomes a hand skill rather than a map. It's like picking up a cup, an adult know how much muscle movement your fingers need without thinking about how much pressure your putting on the cup. A toddler drops the cup often because they still have the intermediate, cerebral step of controlling the pressure on the cup.
So no, a skilled person does not work based on "relative location", picturing the location and then moving their fingers to the location they have in mind. Typing each letter becomes a skill, just as a full-time professional guitarist doesn't think about the location of each string, their fingers know how to play a given chord (actually their basal ganglia do).
I should have ended that with:
They remember the finger movement (muscle) for the letter, not the geographical location of the key.
Spatial memory is about remembering where things are.
A skilled typist doesn't type "the" by thinking about where the T is, then where the H is, then where the E is. There"fingers just do it", they'd tell you. Psychometric experts would explain that it has moved from the cerebellum to the basal ganglia - motor connections.
Here's an experiment to see the difference:
Asked a skilled typist where the J is. They'll likely answer by fist putting their fingers out as if typing it, then move their finger to remind themselves, then describe the location. They tell their finger to type J and it hits J, which then reminds the spatial part of the brain where it is.
I once had an ATM pin number I had used for many years, but when asked I couldn't remember it for the life of me - until Input my fingers on a pin pad. Muscle memory. That's how skilled typists type, not by remembering the location of each letter.
Most people learned to type on a qwerty keyboard. Qwerty remains because nothing else, such as Dvorak, has been so much better that it's clearly worth completely re-learning how we type. Dvorak *is* better than qwerty, but it's not clearly so much better than "whatever you already know".
Smart phones don't use the muscle memory of typing on a keyboard. If you were accustomed to typing on a keyboard, you ALREADY have to learn a different skill, thumb-based text entry on a tiny screen. That would have been the time to ditch qwerty and switch to something else - at the transition when even if you're a fast typist on a standard keyboard, you have to re-learn anyway.
Yes, the NHTSA rates car safety, giving each car either four or five stars. Last year 97% of vehicles received one of the the top ratings.
One way to get a five star rating is to have the front wheels and most of the engine compartment end up in the front seats after a collision:
https://www.thetruthaboutcars....
IIHS, on the other hand, provides ratings which allow you to tell which cars are the safest and which aren't so safe. Not every car gets a trophy from IIHS because failing to distinguish safe cars from less-safe ones, giving them all high ratings like NHTSA does, would reduce the profits of the companies sponsoring the testing. The companies need to know which ones are actually safer.
> It was founded in 1894 by William Merrill
That's right. Merril, an insurance underwriter, lead the project, which was funded by insurance companies.
Here's the thing - car accidents and the other dangers we are talking about kill tens of thousands of people every year. Real people, whose children actually lose their parents. This isn't a game and it's not theoretical. Livew are on the line, yours and mine. So let's do what works, okay? Let's figure out what has ACTUALLY improved safety effectively and do more of that, alright? We can choose something else to try to score points for some political theory.
When someone tells you about a topic, including its history, that's a hint that they might know something about the topic. They are therefore unlikely to be fooled by you making up stuff out of thin air.
> While "Underwriters" can mean insurance companies, it doesn't have to. And doesn't in this case.
It was founded by the Western Insurance Union and Chicago Underwriters Association in 1893
https://www.ul.com/aboutul/his...
> Oh, and later teh government gave it the ability to run legally binding tests on product safety.
What statute is that? If you plan to go look, let me suggest you not waste too much time looking for such a thing.
> And while car companies may advertise "it's safer", it does take a neutral third party observer to say whether it is.
Typically the third-party rating advertised is the IIIHS rating. Guess what IIHS stands for? Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Noticing a trend? Electrical safety (UL) - insurance companies.
Fire code (NFPA) - insurance companies.
Auto safety (IIHS) - insurance companies.
So who, exactly as responsible for creating and advancing safety standards? Insurance companies. They are really, really good at analyzing and minimizing risk because that's how they can be successful and make money, by reducing the risks of their customers.
> But is the fire code truly optional
You can find out by calling your mortgage company and asking them if they'll loan you the $200,000 to build a building that ISN'T up to code. Ask your insurance company if they'll insure a building if you build it without following fire code. Ask your real estate agent how much money you'd lose track of to see it if it's not up to fire code. Or, let's try asking YOU -
If you were hiring me as the contractor to build for you, would you want me to:
A) build properly, to code
B) Build you crap that's unsafe, not complying with fire code
> or does government use penalties to coerce you to follow them?
The government penalty (failing to get a permit) is not in fact the primary motivation, and doesn't exist at all outside of city limits for many code requirements.
Many building codes are only *legally* enforced by municipal ordinance - within city limits. Outside city limits, people build to code because no bank is going to issue a mortgage on a non-compiant building, insurance companies won't insure it, and far fewer people would want to buy it, thereby greatly reducing the price the builder could sell it for. The codes are pretty well followed for construction in the county, where there is no legal requirement.
> I wonder how far fire and safety regulatory orgs would get without municipal code adoption of their standards?
You can read all about it, because that was the case for about 100 years. Still many building codes are only *legally* enforced by municipal ordinance - within city limits. Outside city limits, people build to code because no bank is going to issue a mortgage on a non-compiant building, insurance companies won't insure it, and far fewer people would want to buy it, thereby greatly reducing the price the builder could sell it for. The codes are pretty well followed for construction in the county, where there is no legal requirement.
"Bruce Schneier] argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with security and privacy for society generally."
THAT part is an insight that might merit further thought. How can one arrange the system such that what is good for the company is good society? When you do that, it can work really well.
As far as the "I can think of no industry" but, Bruce is generally a smart guy, so I'm surprised to hear him start the interview with a statement that is so flat out wrong on the facts. More than that, anyone who knows a little history KNOWS it's completely wrong.
"There's no industry that's improved safety or security without governments forcing it to do so.", he said.
Has Bruce never heard of Underwriters Laboratories (UL listed, UL registered, etc)? Underwriters means insurance companies. That's not government, that's insurance companies offering guidance and an incentive. How about the National Fire Protection Association, which writes the fire codes? That's another safety organization started by insurance companies, and insurance companies wouldn't insure a building unless it met fire code. Later, local governments ALSO said "me to", but the NFPA and fire codes were created by insurance companies, not government.
The auto companies were advertising safety innovations for half a century before there was any major legistlature. From Dusenberg advertising hydraulic brakes in the 1920s to Ford marketing safety glasses in all its cars in the 1930s to padded dashboards, safety cages, and disc brakes in the 1940s - it wasn't until the 1960s that the government got involved.
So it's simply factually incorrect, plain wrong, to say "There's no industry that's improved safety or security without governments forcing it to do so". My side gig is pyrotechnics, fireworks. A LOT of what we talk about and work on in the industry is safety, sometimes talking about how to convince the government official to allow us to do things the safer way rather than insisting on outdated procedures, or things that are a bad (dangerous) fit for the situation.
Personally, I prefer for decisions to be made by people who have at least *some* interest or knowledge of the subject.
The majority of Americans don't have enough interest in civics to even know who the current vice president is. That's fine, it doesn't mean they are stupid; they just prefer to spend their time on attention on other things.
If someone is interested in botany and knows all about which plants grow well here, I want them to help decide what to plant. If they don't even know who their current senator *is*, how could they possibly judge the senator's performance? They can't in any useful way, of course. At best, they might see a 140 character Twitter "vote for Sheesa Crook - do it for the plants".
Page 1 of any economics textbook will introduce the two main branches of economics. Most Americans don't know the two main branches, the stuff from page 1, so how the heck can they make informed decisions about national economic policy? They can't, of course. They can only vote based on a bumper sticker.
I'd prefer if all the people running around saying "everybody needs to vote" would switch to saying "everybody should learn a about civics so they can make informed voting decisions".
You disagree? Think about some of the people who have been elected lately, because people vote without having a clue about the policies each candidate represents.
Btw, Bruce Perens is also a regular on Slashdot. He's had a pretty decent career, I'd say. Achieved quite a lot. One thing I don't think he's done is blow $60,000 putting the name of a fancy school on a piece of paper. He teaches university courses, he doesn't buy overpriced ones.
I'm sorry if you're struggling to pay your student loan debt or whatever, but your kids do NOT have to do the same thing. It's not required. I hope you don't tell them that it is. That would be really mean.