Bullets and lasers deliver this energy differently - the bullet's energy is transferred to the target in a much shorter time (milliseconds, I assume) which produces more chaotic results than the laser (for the same energy), which is waiting until the target ignites or a hole forms, wrecking the aerodynamics. Even so, I was curious how the energy payloads stack up.
A 32 kilowatt laser delivers (not surprisingly) 32kJ during a one-second pulse. I'm not sure how long this laser pulses, but from the video, it appears to be several seconds.
By way of comparison, a.50 Browning has a muzzle energy of 15kJ, which is about the same as a half-second exposure to the laser.
The Phalanx gun which this the laser purports to replace, on the other hand, shoots 20mm rounds - these could weigh 100g each, for a muzzle energy of 30.25kJ, comparable to the one-second pulse. Of course, the Phalanx shoots 50-75 rounds a second, for a total muzzle energy/second of firing of a whopping 2269kJ.
By coincidence, this is the same as the food energy in two Big Macs.
This sounds weird, but it's not that surprising - the pinnacle of the service economy is selling specialized conversation, isn't it?:-)
What I'm really curious is what sort of policies and worker-support practices will emerge in this industry. Without something, it's going to get messy, and quickly.
A therapist who is just listening to you vent is providing a bare minimum sort of service; the real goods happen when they start to challenge you (however subtly) to be more aware of the patterns you're enacting over and over again. Equally importantly are the boundaries that are set - therapists (AAMFT therapists, at any rate) are required to get regular supervision, a sort of meta-therapy.. which is intended as a safeguard in case the therapist gets triggered by the client in some way (e.g. idealizing them, becoming overly invested in their 'progress', irritated by the way the client reminds them of themselves ten years ago or their alcoholic aunt, etc.)
Painful as it is, one of the ways friends help one another is by not putting up with certain behavior - he talks shit all the time, he's always stoned, or whatever it is. Will rent-a-friends have the option of ditching a client? If not, will they just become anxious witnesses, providing support to people who would otherwise realize how intolerable they've become?
The PC isn't innovating because it doesn't need to - it's already perceived as "good enough" by its users. Advances in computing power generally get asorbed by the ever-increasing needs of the OS and office applications. Smart phones, on the other hand, are so constrained by their form factor and their tiny user interface that innovations in UI, usability, battery life, etc. are very meaningful. Merely making a different set of trade-offs can produce real wins.
This reminds me of an idea I read recently, that the feeling of being right is an enormous barrier to creativity, because once we're certain we no longer need to experiment.
Part of the issue is that police officers rely on their intimidation as a tool, and being filmed makes that a lot harder to use.
Police regularly deal with unsavory characters who lie easily, sometimes know the relevant law, or have nothing to lose, and the threatening presence of a police officer (physically imposing, assertive, suspicious and armed) is a useful tool to put the people they're talking to at a disadvantage.
If police are filmed routinely (e.g. we all carry a Schneier Life Recorder) - setting aside outright murder, corruption and cover-ups, even standard practice becomes potentially embarrassing ("YouTube: Cops harass my 17 year-old daughter!"), and anything borderline could easily turn into a career-limiting stink.
The reaction to this case is a case study for why other firms will choose to be less open about these sorts of things. What if Google had discovered the problem, deleted the data and not reported it to anyone? Now that they've gone public - which I assume was to improve their reputation as a privacy-respecting company - everyone who feels offended is taking a shot at the crosshairs Google has painted on itself. What lesson is this teaching the corporate community? There are a lot of people who will see this as a disclosure SNAFU, not a data collection SNAFU.
If such a thing got going strong, one or more detractors might accuse it of being an anti-competitive practice. I'd be curious how that would play out in court.
Yes, that occurred to me too. I just have this feeling that if I ever get this project truly off the ground, somebody's going to use it to spot UAVs in Afghanistan and I'll suddenly be a terrorist.
I'd love to know also. I bought a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 for about $100 to test out for my White Dots (www.whitedots.org) project, but it had very disappointing performance in low light levels (the only ones that matter for me). Distant planes disappeared in a sea of multi-colored noise.
This reminds me of a cleaning service that I heard of this weekend which, for an extra $20/hr, will work topless. This is the sugar-as-first-ingredient social experience. It seems great at the time, but eventually it will leave you lacking in ways that are hard to imagine. Surrounding yourself with ego-stroking houris isn't going to help you out in the relationships that really matter, is it?
There's a great essay in the starship combat supplement of the pen-and-paper role-playing game 2300 AD which is very entertaining reading. The space combat it describes is based on stealth. To avoid detection, ships rely heavily on remotes, which can use radar to illuminate and identify targets without the controlling ship giving itself away. Similarly, a lot of weaponry, usually lasers, is fired from drone 'submunitions'.
Rather than trying to actually collide with you or explode near you, "missiles" fly near you and zap you. Some use detonation lasers, channeling the radiation from a nuclear explosion through a short-lived lens, punching you with a nice concentrated blast of gamma rays.
Under fire, ships can release "shields" - clouds of water (or other) crystals to diffuse incoming laser light.
Gotta say, this sounds like a red herring to me. Although it may not look like it to those of us in the desktop generation, the cloud vendors are really providing us with a big computer, and operating it for us. If that big computer runs your custom Linux distro in a VM, is this materially different than running your custom stack on hardware provided and operated by your local ISP?
I think cloud hegemony more worrying. For a long time we've had different development camps focused on different technologies. But that didn't stop Microsoft buying Hotmail (though it raised eyebrows).
But imagine the potential for feudal-style woe if you're trying to sell your plucky "10,000 customers and growing rapidly" startup to Microsoft, when the entire operation runs inside a Microsoft competitors' cloud?
Or how about if you find yourself actively competing with your cloud vendor? iPhone app writers are facing this now. What if it becomes the prevailing situation?
Taxing ISPs specifically, seems ass-backwards. If you're going to subsidize an outdated industry (which, hey, is done all over the place) why not fund it out of tax revenue generally, rather than putting a brake specifically on the internet? How about a new tax on cigarettes?:-)
Seems reasonable enough. And once there's a decent precedent and revenue set by the university's scanning software vendor, they can start lobbying governments. Good for the university networks, good for national ISPs, right? With most ISP customers blindly installing whatever software the ISP sends them on that disc, and with the incremental costs buried invisibly in the $29.95/mo., who's going to complain?
The Slocum page refers to 'fleets' of these autonomous vehicles being practical because of their low cost. But in any given area of interest, how long before they get caught in a fishing net?
What are the legalities of fishing someone else's autonomous vehicle out of the sea? When can you deem such a thing 'abandoned'?
There are a lot of "are people rational" experiments along these lines, and my gut tells me that many run afoul of an incorrect understanding of the context in which experimental participants are making their decision.
For example, if I choose to defect and screw my opponent, will I be exposed as a cheat when the results of the study are published? What will the experimenter think of me? Will that hurt my chances of an advantageous trade with the experimenter in the future? Am I likely to face reprisal from my opponent? What moral ground will I have gained in subsequent negotiations over an opponent who I knew cheated me? What does it do to my opinion of myself now that I consider myself untrustworthy?
The brain has to balance innumerable factors such as this when considering the consequences of social actions. My suspicion is that these experiments teach us less about whether 'homo economicus' exists, and more about how hard it to design experiments to reveal him.
In related news, Yelp has announced that it has reached a $300 cross-advertising relationship with Slashdot to "do something" about a prominently displayed news item.
This is fascinating, but it does make me wonder what else they could be predicting.
For example, if they're correlating searches from at-work employees, I bet they could turn up all manner of interesting things - predicting layoffs or other adverse business conditions, see who HR is googling (are they interviewing Google employees?).
Or keeping tabs on start-ups that are doing research into areas that Google is looking to make acquisitions. (Imagine when you're trying to sell your company to Google, they pull your employees' search history to see how long you've really been working on your flux capacitor.)
This seems like something that might have stealth applications. Trying to avoid accidentally dinging the special paint apparently makes stealth bomber maintenance expensive. With fabric, you could remove it completely first! (Assuming you had fabric that wouldn't wrinkle at high speeds.)
Sames goes for bomb bay doors. Instead of having flaps that open, you'd just have a slitted bulge (c.f. the GINA headlights) that squeezes out the bomb. (Fire away with more vagina analogies.)
It's true that throughout history people have been displaced from menial jobs, gradually being replaced with cheaper, automated replacements. While this always causes temporary strife among those displaced, over the long term it leads to the creation of new types of jobs.
Now that farming is more efficient, the whole population isn't preoccupied with finding enough food to eat, so we can afford more luxury goods like nice haircuts and psychotherapy.
I think there's an important distinction made between this trend, however, and machines good enough to replace humans at everything. I'm not talking about a machine that cook fries for less than minimum wage, but a machine that's a better conversationalist, too - and better looking.
At this point, what new service industries will spring up for humans to fill? These hypothetical robots will immediately fill those better, too (in fact, they'll probably think them up).
At this point, the important consideration becomes how society is organized. Do we have sufficiently strong social mechanisms to ensure that everyone benefits from this advance in technology?
Slashdot Mirror
Bullets and lasers deliver this energy differently - the bullet's energy is transferred to the target in a much shorter time (milliseconds, I assume) which produces more chaotic results than the laser (for the same energy), which is waiting until the target ignites or a hole forms, wrecking the aerodynamics. Even so, I was curious how the energy payloads stack up.
A 32 kilowatt laser delivers (not surprisingly) 32kJ during a one-second pulse. I'm not sure how long this laser pulses, but from the video, it appears to be several seconds.
By way of comparison, a .50 Browning has a muzzle energy of 15kJ, which is about the same as a half-second exposure to the laser.
The Phalanx gun which this the laser purports to replace, on the other hand, shoots 20mm rounds - these could weigh 100g each, for a muzzle energy of 30.25kJ, comparable to the one-second pulse. Of course, the Phalanx shoots 50-75 rounds a second, for a total muzzle energy/second of firing of a whopping 2269kJ.
By coincidence, this is the same as the food energy in two Big Macs.
This sounds weird, but it's not that surprising - the pinnacle of the service economy is selling specialized conversation, isn't it? :-)
What I'm really curious is what sort of policies and worker-support practices will emerge in this industry. Without something, it's going to get messy, and quickly.
A therapist who is just listening to you vent is providing a bare minimum sort of service; the real goods happen when they start to challenge you (however subtly) to be more aware of the patterns you're enacting over and over again. Equally importantly are the boundaries that are set - therapists (AAMFT therapists, at any rate) are required to get regular supervision, a sort of meta-therapy.. which is intended as a safeguard in case the therapist gets triggered by the client in some way (e.g. idealizing them, becoming overly invested in their 'progress', irritated by the way the client reminds them of themselves ten years ago or their alcoholic aunt, etc.)
Painful as it is, one of the ways friends help one another is by not putting up with certain behavior - he talks shit all the time, he's always stoned, or whatever it is. Will rent-a-friends have the option of ditching a client? If not, will they just become anxious witnesses, providing support to people who would otherwise realize how intolerable they've become?
The PC isn't innovating because it doesn't need to - it's already perceived as "good enough" by its users. Advances in computing power generally get asorbed by the ever-increasing needs of the OS and office applications. Smart phones, on the other hand, are so constrained by their form factor and their tiny user interface that innovations in UI, usability, battery life, etc. are very meaningful. Merely making a different set of trade-offs can produce real wins.
This reminds me of an idea I read recently, that the feeling of being right is an enormous barrier to creativity, because once we're certain we no longer need to experiment.
Part of the issue is that police officers rely on their intimidation as a tool, and being filmed makes that a lot harder to use.
Police regularly deal with unsavory characters who lie easily, sometimes know the relevant law, or have nothing to lose, and the threatening presence of a police officer (physically imposing, assertive, suspicious and armed) is a useful tool to put the people they're talking to at a disadvantage.
If police are filmed routinely (e.g. we all carry a Schneier Life Recorder) - setting aside outright murder, corruption and cover-ups, even standard practice becomes potentially embarrassing ("YouTube: Cops harass my 17 year-old daughter!"), and anything borderline could easily turn into a career-limiting stink.
No doubt this would make police uncomfortable.
Save us? This is to protect the government. :-)
The reaction to this case is a case study for why other firms will choose to be less open about these sorts of things. What if Google had discovered the problem, deleted the data and not reported it to anyone? Now that they've gone public - which I assume was to improve their reputation as a privacy-respecting company - everyone who feels offended is taking a shot at the crosshairs Google has painted on itself. What lesson is this teaching the corporate community? There are a lot of people who will see this as a disclosure SNAFU, not a data collection SNAFU.
If such a thing got going strong, one or more detractors might accuse it of being an anti-competitive practice. I'd be curious how that would play out in court.
Yes, that occurred to me too. I just have this feeling that if I ever get this project truly off the ground, somebody's going to use it to spot UAVs in Afghanistan and I'll suddenly be a terrorist.
I'd love to know also. I bought a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 for about $100 to test out for my White Dots (www.whitedots.org) project, but it had very disappointing performance in low light levels (the only ones that matter for me). Distant planes disappeared in a sea of multi-colored noise.
This reminds me of a cleaning service that I heard of this weekend which, for an extra $20/hr, will work topless. This is the sugar-as-first-ingredient social experience. It seems great at the time, but eventually it will leave you lacking in ways that are hard to imagine. Surrounding yourself with ego-stroking houris isn't going to help you out in the relationships that really matter, is it?
There's a great essay in the starship combat supplement of the pen-and-paper role-playing game 2300 AD which is very entertaining reading. The space combat it describes is based on stealth. To avoid detection, ships rely heavily on remotes, which can use radar to illuminate and identify targets without the controlling ship giving itself away. Similarly, a lot of weaponry, usually lasers, is fired from drone 'submunitions'.
Rather than trying to actually collide with you or explode near you, "missiles" fly near you and zap you. Some use detonation lasers, channeling the radiation from a nuclear explosion through a short-lived lens, punching you with a nice concentrated blast of gamma rays.
Under fire, ships can release "shields" - clouds of water (or other) crystals to diffuse incoming laser light.
Gotta say, this sounds like a red herring to me. Although it may not look like it to those of us in the desktop generation, the cloud vendors are really providing us with a big computer, and operating it for us. If that big computer runs your custom Linux distro in a VM, is this materially different than running your custom stack on hardware provided and operated by your local ISP?
I think cloud hegemony more worrying. For a long time we've had different development camps focused on different technologies. But that didn't stop Microsoft buying Hotmail (though it raised eyebrows).
But imagine the potential for feudal-style woe if you're trying to sell your plucky "10,000 customers and growing rapidly" startup to Microsoft, when the entire operation runs inside a Microsoft competitors' cloud?
Or how about if you find yourself actively competing with your cloud vendor? iPhone app writers are facing this now. What if it becomes the prevailing situation?
Taxing ISPs specifically, seems ass-backwards. If you're going to subsidize an outdated industry (which, hey, is done all over the place) why not fund it out of tax revenue generally, rather than putting a brake specifically on the internet? How about a new tax on cigarettes? :-)
Seems reasonable enough. And once there's a decent precedent and revenue set by the university's scanning software vendor, they can start lobbying governments. Good for the university networks, good for national ISPs, right? With most ISP customers blindly installing whatever software the ISP sends them on that disc, and with the incremental costs buried invisibly in the $29.95/mo., who's going to complain?
Backups.
The Slocum page refers to 'fleets' of these autonomous vehicles being practical because of their low cost. But in any given area of interest, how long before they get caught in a fishing net?
What are the legalities of fishing someone else's autonomous vehicle out of the sea? When can you deem such a thing 'abandoned'?
There are a lot of "are people rational" experiments along these lines, and my gut tells me that many run afoul of an incorrect understanding of the context in which experimental participants are making their decision.
For example, if I choose to defect and screw my opponent, will I be exposed as a cheat when the results of the study are published? What will the experimenter think of me? Will that hurt my chances of an advantageous trade with the experimenter in the future? Am I likely to face reprisal from my opponent? What moral ground will I have gained in subsequent negotiations over an opponent who I knew cheated me? What does it do to my opinion of myself now that I consider myself untrustworthy?
The brain has to balance innumerable factors such as this when considering the consequences of social actions. My suspicion is that these experiments teach us less about whether 'homo economicus' exists, and more about how hard it to design experiments to reveal him.
In related news, Yelp has announced that it has reached a $300 cross-advertising relationship with Slashdot to "do something" about a prominently displayed news item.
This is fascinating, but it does make me wonder what else they could be predicting.
For example, if they're correlating searches from at-work employees, I bet they could turn up all manner of interesting things - predicting layoffs or other adverse business conditions, see who HR is googling (are they interviewing Google employees?).
Or keeping tabs on start-ups that are doing research into areas that Google is looking to make acquisitions. (Imagine when you're trying to sell your company to Google, they pull your employees' search history to see how long you've really been working on your flux capacitor.)
Reminds me of Freakonomics, in which Levitt discusses how drug-dealing gangs' organizational structure mirrors that of McDonalds.
This seems like something that might have stealth applications. Trying to avoid accidentally dinging the special paint apparently makes stealth bomber maintenance expensive. With fabric, you could remove it completely first! (Assuming you had fabric that wouldn't wrinkle at high speeds.)
Sames goes for bomb bay doors. Instead of having flaps that open, you'd just have a slitted bulge (c.f. the GINA headlights) that squeezes out the bomb. (Fire away with more vagina analogies.)
Rescued from certain death by The Teddy Bear of Vecna .
Neat! Next up, Frankenstein Bioengineering.
If nobody's allowed to download more than the average user, the average will drop pretty rapidly. Soon, nobody will be able to download anything!
It's true that throughout history people have been displaced from menial jobs, gradually being replaced with cheaper, automated replacements. While this always causes temporary strife among those displaced, over the long term it leads to the creation of new types of jobs.
Now that farming is more efficient, the whole population isn't preoccupied with finding enough food to eat, so we can afford more luxury goods like nice haircuts and psychotherapy.
I think there's an important distinction made between this trend, however, and machines good enough to replace humans at everything. I'm not talking about a machine that cook fries for less than minimum wage, but a machine that's a better conversationalist, too - and better looking.
At this point, what new service industries will spring up for humans to fill? These hypothetical robots will immediately fill those better, too (in fact, they'll probably think them up).
At this point, the important consideration becomes how society is organized. Do we have sufficiently strong social mechanisms to ensure that everyone benefits from this advance in technology?
Fuseboy