Voice recognition is a joke. 9 times out of 10 my gf's android phone is way off and can't recognize half the words.
And yesterday I tried Youtube's automatic close captionning, on a video with a guy speaking correct american english, in a very quiet room, and it was really funny, as ALL sentences where complete and utter garbage.
I don't know where you live but here in Canada garbage trucks are run by private companies, the contract being awarded by the city to the lowest bidder.
So good luck having those private companies invest in anything else than trucks that are crapped out and barely legal on the road, and the lowest wage they can give to any driver which has a driving permit.
I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash.
Except when you're on a motorcycle, then you're screwed. That's why I NEVER stop on a yellow when I'm on my bike, I much prefer to get a ticket than to be mowed down by the teenage girl texting while driving her father's SUV.
I have never had a car not able to maintain a steady 80-85 mph, hill or no hill, even my first car, a 1983 Ford Escort with something like 65hp...
And I've been on the road for 22 years, with 14 different cars. 90% of these cars had small 4cyl engines.
I think the problem is most drivers can't be bothered to maintain their speed on hills, I'm often overtaken by cars going faster than me, and then I pass them on a hill, to be overtaken by them again after the hill, while I'm on cruise control and maintaining my speed +-1mph.
So we just don't have to take a trip to anywhere now?
And it's not an argument against sending robot, it makes a lot of sense from a science point of view and I'm all for it.
But it's boring as hell. Last January I went to Paris for the first time, and let me tell you that it's way different than looking at beautiful pictures and exploring via Google Street View.
I would love to be able to go to the Moon or Mars someday... not that I think it will come to be in my lifetime sadly.
Well when I took my driving class (way back in the 80's), it was called an emergency brake and we were showed the proper way to use it in an emergency: frantically applying/releasing at a fast rate. This way you can actually slow down the car while not completely loosing control. By the way this was told as a measure of last resort. Since the hydraulic brakes of modern cars consists of two independant circuits, you need both of these to fail before completely losing your brakes.
And you won't overheat your brake fluid, because it's a mechanical brake, that works with a steel cable... You can overheat the braking shoes and be left with almost no braking power tough.
The car can't "ignore" the brake input, since it's a simple hydraulic mechanism.
Of course it can decide to provide less assist or alter the front/rear repartition slightly, or fire up the ABS at the wrong time or at the wrong rate (thus reducing braking power).
I don't know where you learned COBOL, but passing parameters by reference is not only possible but also very easy... you just add "BY REFERENCE" after the parameter...
You can pass by value, by reference, by content, and also you can pass the address of the parameter.
Exactly, My old dryer had 2 motors, one for the fan and one to turn the drum. That drum was mounted on 8 ball bearing rubber wheels.
The newer one has only one motor doing both duties, and the drum, at the front, is resting on a strip of felt glued on the metal lip of the round opening, and at the back it's a centrally mounted metal sphere resting in a plastic hole, with a little grease.
After ten years the felt is so thin that it's about to get metal to metal.
Great for motorcycle users? When I ride my watch is covered by my jacket and my gloves... And even if it wasn't, I need my left hand on the handlebar most of the time...
I have a Garmin etrex Legend for my motorcycle, it's great because it's small, doesn't have a touch screen (remember that I wear thick leather gloves) and is waterproof.
Like the new Lincoln MKZ with TOUCH controls for volume and temperature, on a smooth surface, without any tactile reference. Bravo!
I even hate the push buttons and rotary controls for the heater, it used to be that you could control everything with 2 slides, one for temp and one to choose where to send the air.
It was very easy to know, only by touch, where the slides are. With a rotary button, you have to look at it to see where it is pointing. And the push buttons are also much less convenient, if I have to put the control on front defrost quickly (because the windshield is suddenly fogging) with the old controls I only had to slide it all the way to the right.
Now I have to find the front defrost button wich is the second to the right, flush with all the other buttons.
Even in some car manuals of the 70's and 80's it was stated that if you want to defog or defrost the car in an emergency you just put all the slides to the right or to the top (depending on the orientation of the controls) without thinking, it will automatically put the heater to front defrost,maximum heat, full fan, outside air (no recirculation).
It's the same problem with almost every interface today, from electronics (think about how easy and fast it was to change the volume or choose the input on a 70's Receiver, with it's big buttons compared to receivers of today with it's tiny buttons and display you have to look at)
Don't get me started on volume and mute controls. Why don't laptops get a physical cut off switch as a mute button? When I power up my laptop in a library or at school I have to remember if I put it on mute the last time, and if not I need to wait for the mute button to become responsive but since it's controlled by software and a certain driver, it becomes usable right after Windows decide to play it's login sound. Very annoying. How much would it cost to put a physical switch to cut out the electrical signal to the speakers???
I think we're moving backward with UI, today look ingenuity and trend is more important than usability.
And they'll have a tremendous resource for any sort of future isotope or fuel refining that might prove economically viable. I mean, imagine that... picture having all of the world's spent fuel, and then having a technical solution or geopolitical situation that makes it cheaper to get fuel from the waste than to mine new uranium. You're suddenly the near-exclusive nuclear fuel supplier to the entire world. Or supplier of medical isotopes, or isotopes for goods irradiation, or whatever else the future may demand.
And then you become the prime target to be "liberated" by a bigger country in need of this nuclear fuel...
JJ Abrams did a good job with the new Star Trek movies
What? Are you high? He fucking ruined it.
He turned an intelligent show, an universe wich could be used to adress some core questions of humanity and morality, and turned it into boring action films.
Great if you don't like to think for yourself and just want to be entertained.
Seriously, I already have problems keeping my connection below my monthly cap (60 GB combined up/down). I don't want to share it with other subscribers.
Buttons are the way to go for an interface in a car. That and big knobs or switches. Something with a lot of tactile feedback. Just look at an airplane's cockpit.
A touch interface has no place in a car, much too dangerous to use, and totally useless in winter when it's -30C and you wear gloves. The screen becomes slow as molasses and you can't control it without removing your gloves.
Of course, I'm not saying that you should observe the intersection AFTER the light goes green, it's exactly the reverse. You should have been observing your surroundings while the light was red, to asses any situation going on, so that when the light goes green you can then INSTANTLY get moving because you already know what's going on.
What I was trying to say was that if you are texting while sitting at a red light, you have 2 options when the light goes green:
1- get moving instantly, which is dangerous because you get into an unknown situation 2- check around you before moving, and piss off those waiting behind you
So yes you should be moving as soon as the light goes green, but to do so safely you use the time at the red light to observe what's going on in that intersection BEFORE the light turns green.
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Voice recognition is a joke. 9 times out of 10 my gf's android phone is way off and can't recognize half the words.
And yesterday I tried Youtube's automatic close captionning, on a video with a guy speaking correct american english, in a very quiet room, and it was really funny, as ALL sentences where complete and utter garbage.
I don't know where you live but here in Canada garbage trucks are run by private companies, the contract being awarded by the city to the lowest bidder.
So good luck having those private companies invest in anything else than trucks that are crapped out and barely legal on the road, and the lowest wage they can give to any driver which has a driving permit.
Can someone explain to me how you can write to Read Only Memory?
I've been driving for a few decades and have seen many serious injuries and fatalities, but not a single serious injury or corpse in a rear-end crash.
Except when you're on a motorcycle, then you're screwed. That's why I NEVER stop on a yellow when I'm on my bike, I much prefer to get a ticket than to be mowed down by the teenage girl texting while driving her father's SUV.
Along came guys like Jobs, Wozniak and Gates
And Jack Tramiel...
I have never had a car not able to maintain a steady 80-85 mph, hill or no hill, even my first car, a 1983 Ford Escort with something like 65hp...
And I've been on the road for 22 years, with 14 different cars. 90% of these cars had small 4cyl engines.
I think the problem is most drivers can't be bothered to maintain their speed on hills, I'm often overtaken by cars going faster than me, and then I pass them on a hill, to be overtaken by them again after the hill, while I'm on cruise control and maintaining my speed +-1mph.
What if I find driving a relaxing and fun thing to do?
When I get out of the office to go home, why on earth would I want to continue doing office work???
higher quality of life??? in the city???
So we just don't have to take a trip to anywhere now?
And it's not an argument against sending robot, it makes a lot of sense from a science point of view and I'm all for it.
But it's boring as hell. Last January I went to Paris for the first time, and let me tell you that it's way different than looking at beautiful pictures and exploring via Google Street View.
I would love to be able to go to the Moon or Mars someday... not that I think it will come to be in my lifetime sadly.
Well when I took my driving class (way back in the 80's), it was called an emergency brake and we were showed the proper way to use it in an emergency: frantically applying/releasing at a fast rate. This way you can actually slow down the car while not completely loosing control. By the way this was told as a measure of last resort. Since the hydraulic brakes of modern cars consists of two independant circuits, you need both of these to fail before completely losing your brakes.
And you won't overheat your brake fluid, because it's a mechanical brake, that works with a steel cable... You can overheat the braking shoes and be left with almost no braking power tough.
The car can't "ignore" the brake input, since it's a simple hydraulic mechanism.
Of course it can decide to provide less assist or alter the front/rear repartition slightly, or fire up the ABS at the wrong time or at the wrong rate (thus reducing braking power).
I don't know where you learned COBOL, but passing parameters by reference is not only possible but also very easy... you just add "BY REFERENCE" after the parameter...
You can pass by value, by reference, by content, and also you can pass the address of the parameter.
Exactly, My old dryer had 2 motors, one for the fan and one to turn the drum. That drum was mounted on 8 ball bearing rubber wheels.
The newer one has only one motor doing both duties, and the drum, at the front, is resting on a strip of felt glued on the metal lip of the round opening, and at the back it's a centrally mounted metal sphere resting in a plastic hole, with a little grease.
After ten years the felt is so thin that it's about to get metal to metal.
Great!
Great for motorcycle users? When I ride my watch is covered by my jacket and my gloves... And even if it wasn't, I need my left hand on the handlebar most of the time...
I have a Garmin etrex Legend for my motorcycle, it's great because it's small, doesn't have a touch screen (remember that I wear thick leather gloves) and is waterproof.
Like the new Lincoln MKZ with TOUCH controls for volume and temperature, on a smooth surface, without any tactile reference. Bravo!
I even hate the push buttons and rotary controls for the heater, it used to be that you could control everything with 2 slides, one for temp and one to choose where to send the air.
It was very easy to know, only by touch, where the slides are. With a rotary button, you have to look at it to see where it is pointing. And the push buttons are also much less convenient, if I have to put the control on front defrost quickly (because the windshield is suddenly fogging) with the old controls I only had to slide it all the way to the right.
Now I have to find the front defrost button wich is the second to the right, flush with all the other buttons.
Even in some car manuals of the 70's and 80's it was stated that if you want to defog or defrost the car in an emergency you just put all the slides to the right or to the top (depending on the orientation of the controls) without thinking, it will automatically put the heater to front defrost,maximum heat, full fan, outside air (no recirculation).
It's the same problem with almost every interface today, from electronics (think about how easy and fast it was to change the volume or choose the input on a 70's Receiver, with it's big buttons compared to receivers of today with it's tiny buttons and display you have to look at)
Don't get me started on volume and mute controls. Why don't laptops get a physical cut off switch as a mute button? When I power up my laptop in a library or at school I have to remember if I put it on mute the last time, and if not I need to wait for the mute button to become responsive but since it's controlled by software and a certain driver, it becomes usable right after Windows decide to play it's login sound. Very annoying. How much would it cost to put a physical switch to cut out the electrical signal to the speakers???
I think we're moving backward with UI, today look ingenuity and trend is more important than usability.
Now get off my lawn!
will look awful on cable...
They're already compressing the hell out of regular 1080P...
I would much prefer to have uncompressed 1080P than compressed 4K.
And they'll have a tremendous resource for any sort of future isotope or fuel refining that might prove economically viable. I mean, imagine that... picture having all of the world's spent fuel, and then having a technical solution or geopolitical situation that makes it cheaper to get fuel from the waste than to mine new uranium. You're suddenly the near-exclusive nuclear fuel supplier to the entire world. Or supplier of medical isotopes, or isotopes for goods irradiation, or whatever else the future may demand.
And then you become the prime target to be "liberated" by a bigger country in need of this nuclear fuel...
No steel? Good luck waiting for the light to change...
JJ Abrams did a good job with the new Star Trek movies
What? Are you high? He fucking ruined it.
He turned an intelligent show, an universe wich could be used to adress some core questions of humanity and morality, and turned it into boring action films.
Great if you don't like to think for yourself and just want to be entertained.
Seriously, I already have problems keeping my connection below my monthly cap (60 GB combined up/down). I don't want to share it with other subscribers.
Buttons are the way to go for an interface in a car. That and big knobs or switches. Something with a lot of tactile feedback. Just look at an airplane's cockpit.
A touch interface has no place in a car, much too dangerous to use, and totally useless in winter when it's -30C and you wear gloves. The screen becomes slow as molasses and you can't control it without removing your gloves.
CarPlay makes driving directions more intuitive by working with Maps to anticipate destinations based on recent trips via contacts, emails or texts
No. Please, no. Every gadget, app, of software that tries to anticipate anything has, from my experience with them, success rate of almost zero.
That includes Netflix with it's dumb suggestions.
Having only 900hp total with 2 engines while other fighters of that era had between 1000hp and 1500hp with only one engine.
In times of war you don't want some high tech complex machine like this, you want clever and simple design, easy to repair and reliable.
And what is the situation where it's safe to text while stopped at a red light? I can't find any.
And please keep this discussion civilized. I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if you come up with a good argument.
Of course, I'm not saying that you should observe the intersection AFTER the light goes green, it's exactly the reverse. You should have been observing your surroundings while the light was red, to asses any situation going on, so that when the light goes green you can then INSTANTLY get moving because you already know what's going on.
What I was trying to say was that if you are texting while sitting at a red light, you have 2 options when the light goes green:
1- get moving instantly, which is dangerous because you get into an unknown situation
2- check around you before moving, and piss off those waiting behind you
So yes you should be moving as soon as the light goes green, but to do so safely you use the time at the red light to observe what's going on in that intersection BEFORE the light turns green.