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User: roger10-4

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  1. Re:How hard is it to recognize a stoplight? on Will the Google Car Turn Out To Be the Apple Newton of Automobiles? · · Score: 1

    The field of computer vision (which this would fall into) is extraordinarily challenging. Just creating an algorithm that can simply *recognize* an object is hard let alone the ability to take that information and make a decision based on it. As a bit of a contrived example, imagine a person was holding a sign on a street corner that looked like a stop light (same colors, shape, size, etc.). As humans, we know it's not a stop light because we know people generally don't hold stop lights, we know a stop light is 3-dimensional, the lights glow, etc. Getting a computer to understand this type of contextual information is not easy.

  2. Re:Really? on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    Hell, silly putty started life as a failed plastic explosive.

    Uhm...no it didn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

  3. Re:costs on South Australia Hits 33% Renewal Energy Target 6 Years Early · · Score: 1

    Yeah, never that simple though. Wind/solar on the island obviously requires a lot of space - something there isn't much of. Plus, I think most of it is privately owned. Wind farms out in the ocean (like the ones in the UK) probably aren't an option due to the tourism impact and the desire to keep things "looking like paradise". The islands have various laws that forbid billboards, building aren't allowed to be taller than a palm tree (on Kauai), etc. Not sure that active volcanos are the most stable in terms of building power plants...

  4. Re:costs on South Australia Hits 33% Renewal Energy Target 6 Years Early · · Score: 2

    Yeah, I live in Hawaii - we pay about $0.33/KWh...it sucks and definitely has an impact on lifestyle.

  5. Re:10 and 2 is for older cars on Technological Solution For Texting While Driving Struggles For Traction · · Score: 1

    Yes, hand position plays a significant role in maneuvering if the driver is trained. Take a look at race car driver hand position.

  6. Re:The obvious solution on When Scientists Give Up · · Score: 1

    Nice thought in theory, but science and tech has changed. The "low hanging" fruit of science was picked long ago. What remains are are significantly more challenging problems that require significantly more overhead. How much does it cost to put a satellite in orbit and operate it, experiments for fusion, etc? The amount of money necessary is often going to exceed even what "rich" people have. Certainly this doesn't apply to all fields of science, but enough so that funding through external sources is not really optional for many fields. It's unfortunate.

  7. Re:Seagate failures on Seagate Ships First 8 Terabyte Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    I'm not making any claims about seagate reliability, just something to consider for your next HDD purchase. Obviously I don't know how you're using the drives, but workload plays a huge part in drive reliability. Drives made for consumer space (which a USB drive likely would be) are not equivalent to those made for the enterprise market and will fail earlier if they are overworked. If you take a look at Seagate's spec sheets, enterprise drives have reliability stats for 24x7 usage (consumer grade drives has no such stats because they're not made for this), longer power-on hours, and lower unrecoverable read errors, etc. Like anything mechanical, if it's used improperly it will most likely fail sooner than expected. So, if you're pounding these USB drives with huge amounts of data from a server every day, they aren't going to cut it.

  8. Re:The best seat in the house on Ask Slashdot: What Recliner For a Software Developer? · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think you missed the part where he still wants the kids and family around... :)

  9. Oh lookie... on The Quiet Before the Next IT Revolution · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another submission to a superficial article from syndeq to drum up traffic for Info World.

  10. I fail to see why this is relevant... on NFL Fights To Save TV Blackout Rule Despite $9 Billion Revenue · · Score: 1

    I fail to see how this is relevant to the /. audience or how this matters in any meaningful way. It is professional sports after all...quite possibly one to the most useless aspects of our culture.

  11. Re:Shenanigans! on Oracle Hasn't Killed Java -- But There's Still Time · · Score: 2

    Yeah, looking at syndeq's submissions...they're mostly links to "infoworld" articles. Looks like he's just trying to get extra traffic from the /. crowd.

  12. Re:Author thinks strong typing == static typing? on Programming Languages You'll Need Next Year (and Beyond) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're correct. The terms "strong" and "weak" do not have formal definitions and really aren't related to static or dynamic (which do have specific definitions). The definitions used by the article for functional programming and dynamic type systems aren't accurate/complete either. Furthermore, C/C++ wouldn't be considered a "strongly-typed" language since the type system can be freely ignored by the programmer. In any event, this article is poorly written and can probably be safely ignored.

  13. Re:What a waste, who the hell are we protecting he on Police Using Dogs To Sniff Out Computer Memory · · Score: 1

    If you read the article, the police got a search warrant based on other evidence. The dog was subsequently used to locate the device which led to an arrest warrant.

  14. Re:I can see how you could think it dangerous. on The View From Inside A Fireworks Show · · Score: 1

    The other comments pointing out that the shells are launched from a minimum safe distance to prevent the shells from making it into a populated area are good points - and I agree with those (except perhaps the operators themselves) . However, applying statistics is a little off the mark I think. The alignment of a few unlikely events is usually what causes unexpected accidents.

  15. Re:Illegal and Dangerous? on The View From Inside A Fireworks Show · · Score: 0

    It's dangerous because the copter could have collided with the firework before it reached proper altitude. Subsequently, this could have altered it's trajectory such that it went somewhere it shouldn't (such as the spectators) or detonated at a lower altitude than it should. Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, but you don't add uncontrolled elements to a dangerous environment that is supposed to be highly controlled for public safety.

  16. Definitely Dangerous on The View From Inside A Fireworks Show · · Score: 2

    While it was cool, I can see how this could be considered dangerous. I don't know much about fireworks, but I can imagine that a collision between a UAV and the firework itself could potentially alter the trajectory of the firework leading it to go somewhere it shouldn't. You get enough senseless idiots flying these things around pyrotechnics, something bad will eventually happen.

  17. Gee, really? on FAA's Ruling On Smartphones During Takeoff Has Had Little Impact · · Score: 1

    Of course the usage hasn't changed. Takeoff and landings are the most exciting parts of a flight. You're either a) not yet gone crazy because of being stuck in a sardine can with crying children and big, fat stinky people or b) you're getting close to escape from the same crying kids and fat, stinky oafs. Why would an electronic device be more interesting?

  18. Oh Goody... on Solar-Powered Electrochemical Cell Used To Produce Formic Acid From CO2 · · Score: 1

    I can't help but wonder how much formic acid would be generated to reduce the excess CO2 we create in any significant measure.

  19. Re:So the conclusion is... on Ph.Ds From MIT, Berkeley, and a Few Others Dominate Top School's CS Faculties · · Score: 1

    Yeah, you're probably right - most of them are there all the time. But it's likely they were there doing something not related to their 9 month "professor" salary. They could have been working on research funded by a grant, writing a book (make more money), writing papers/proposals (good for promotions), or teaching summer school (I'm guessing there is financial compensation for this, but who knows...probably depends on the school), etc.

  20. Re:So the conclusion is... on Ph.Ds From MIT, Berkeley, and a Few Others Dominate Top School's CS Faculties · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Check out cra.org - it's a better representation of salary data for academia (comp. sci. specifically). Salaries are comparable with the private sector. Keep in mind that salaries in academia are typically for a 9-month period. Professors have 3 months to do what they wish (more or less). Your last comment depends a lot on the advisor and perhaps the culture in a given institution. Certainly what you describe exists; to what degree I don't know. But I also know plenty of profs who genuinely care about their students and do not abuse them in this manner.

  21. Re:So the conclusion is... on Ph.Ds From MIT, Berkeley, and a Few Others Dominate Top School's CS Faculties · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A Comp. Sci. professor is not low paying position - especially at a top university. Some of these places pay more than the private sector. You also have the added bonus of possibly getting tenure.

  22. Re:PhD or not Phd? on Ph.Ds From MIT, Berkeley, and a Few Others Dominate Top School's CS Faculties · · Score: 1

    No, that's not it at all. The article didn't say they *only* hire from those schools - it's just skewed that way and you have a better chance if you do get your PhD from one of those schools. I'd venture a guess that a top 10 school will probably consider an individual that has done some exceptional research as well. Furthermore, there are hundreds of other universities, the private sector, and consulting jobs for people that don't get their PhD from a top 10 university.

  23. Half-breed on TechCrunch and Others On the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 · · Score: 1

    Certainly this will fill a niche market, but it's too bulky to replace tablets and too restricted to replace laptops. It seems like one of those products trying to cater to multiple consumer markets but ends up not being satisfactory in any of them.

  24. Would they care if we're slow? on Understanding an AI's Timescale · · Score: 1

    In theory, they'd be immortal. They can wait if they're interested in what we're saying. That may be they real question...are they interested in what we think?

  25. Re:-Wall -Werror on Finding More Than One Worm In the Apple · · Score: 1

    Need to explicitly add -Wunreachable-code. Annoyingly, "-Wall" doesn't catch this particular error (at least on the versions of gcc I've used).