Your technological ignorance is showing. In order to 'home in' on a radio signal you need to triangulate on it, you can't do that from a single position.
Exercise is certainly important in counteracting the body's inclination to lower your metabolic rate to account for a sudden decrease in intake.
Sure, we're in agreement there, but we're discussing the accuracy (or lack thereof) of 'fitness bands' for calories burned. Everyone should exercise in some significant way on a regular basis for best overall health. Of course you don't need any sort of technology beyond a decent pair of walking/running shoes to do that, either.;-)
I've had performance testing in a lab using that sort of technology. You have to have a mask covering your entire nose and mouth, so no air leaks in or out. It's bad enough when you're an athlete putting up with that for 10 or 20 minutes, the average overweight person who has to force themselves to exercise at all is not going to put up with that for even ONE minute, let alone spend $4000 for the privilege of doing so every time they go to the gym or go out to run. Also that's still just an estimate albeit a more accurate one, and in the end dietary intake is still more significant for weight loss than exercise is. Bottom line: Nobody is going to spend $4000 for something they have to strap to their face every time they exercise -- therefore such things weren't relevent to even mention for purposes of this subject.
There are too many variables involved in determining calories burned by any biological entity, and these 'fitness bands' are not the only device that has this problem, either. The closest you can come are devices that measure power generated by your muscles (PowerTap hubs, SRM or Quarq cranksets and other bicycle-mounted direct measuring instrumentation like them, rowing machines with an ergometer, etc), and even then there is a variable 'biological efficiency' term in the equation that means you can only call it an estimate. Some of the worst accuracy devices are things like the treadmills and stationary bikes in a public gym, which just use statistical averages of a range for calories burned given a level of exertion, and even then they tend towards the high end of the range to keep people motivated to continue using the treadmill or stationary bike. Something like these fitness bands work in a similar way, and I'd fully expect that they too tend to estimate on the high end of the range of 'calories burned' to keep you motivated. The fact that they track heart rate means it's a little more accurate, given one more term in the equation, and if they have a way to enter your bodyfat percentage, that would improve the estimation also. There are other factors you can plug into such an equation to make it more accurate, but in the end it's still just an estimate because of the efficiency factor. Therefore: none of what is being claimed here about it's lack of accuracy in 'calories burned' is terribly surprising. Of course for the average person, moving their body for significant amounts of time (not just getting off the couch, going to the 'fridge for another soda/beer, then back to the couch) is good regardless of trying to track 'calories burned', and to be quite honest, your dietary intake is more important when trying to lose excess bodyfat than exercise is. Of course you don't need any 'fitness bands' for that, just a decent pair of running shoes, so that doesn't make the company any money now does it?
There be something like a secondary receiver built into all drones, that when it receives the appropriate signal, causes the drone to descend and land safely, or perhaps return to it's point of origin. In law enforcement, firefighting, or other emergency situations, the signal could be broadcast in the affected area, thus acting as a 'drone repellant'. Once it's landed, the drone would remain in a 'disabled' state, unable to launch, until such time as the disable signal ceases to be broadcast. Disabling the 'repellent' receiver is made punishable by large fine and perhaps jail time, if you've done that and it's flown into an area that's experiencing an emergency situation. If criminals or terrorist operatives are using a drone to deliver explosives or some other destructive force, it would have the bonus effect of potentially blowing them up instead. Now, someone is going to point out that the drones' hardware could be hacked to disable this 'disable' function, but I see no reason why it couldn't be so thoroughly integrated into the drones' control hardware/firmware/software that there would be no way to prevent it from performing it's intended function.
I'd sooner that there be something like a secondary receiver built into all drones, that when it receives the appropriate signal, causes the drone to descend and land safely, or perhaps return to it's point of origin. In law enforcement, firefighting, or other emergency situations, the signal could be broadcast in the affected area, thus acting as a 'drone repellant'. Once it's landed, the drone would remain in a 'disabled' state, unable to launch, until such time as the disable signal ceases to be broadcast. Disabling the 'repellent' receiver is made punishable by large fine and perhaps jail time, if you've done that and it's flown into an area that's experiencing an emergency situation.
My first impression of this is that it's an out-of-band attack on the overall integrity of encryption technologies. So far as I know, drone control signals are encrypted; what they want, then, is a backdoor into the encryption used. If successful, that would create a precedent for creating 'backdoors' in any encryption method ("..well, drone manufacturers were willing and able to comply with this law, so you have to, too, Apple/Google/$WHOEVER"). As much as I hate drones as a general concept, this cannot be allowed. Aside from the legal precedent it might create, it would also create a vector for attack by anyone wishing to seize control of any drone for whatever purpose they might have in mind; this, too, cannot be allowed to happen. Seriously, drones are bad enough as-is, without there being a ready-made ability for someone to hijack them, too.
Well guess what? Unless you're your own ISP, with your own connection directly to a totally neutral backbone, you're not in control of ANYTHING you're doing. They can do man-in-the-middle attacks. They can sift through your email. You can try to use Tor or a VPN, and they can write Terms of Service that say you're not allowed and disconnect you if you don't comply. Left to their own devices these companies will do whatever it is they want to do that makes them the most money from the most revenue streams, and they don't give a flying fuck about you, your rights, your privacy, or anything else.
I can't help what other people do, I can only control my own thoughts and actions and trying to dictate those of others just so that I might be able to feel more secure around them is just so much wasted energy.
I'm going to be blunt with you, for your own good: That is a cowards' attitude. It is within the power of EVERY CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES to stand up for what's right and speak out against what's wrong, and DEMAND that your will, the WILL OF THE PEOPLE, be done. That's how this country is supposed to work, friend. If you sit back and let them do whatever they want, THEY WILL DO WHATEVER THEY WANT. So show some backbone.
We're getting very, very close to the point where the Pussy-Grabber-In-Chief and his entire administration are not only run out of the White House on a rail, but maybe into a nice cozy cell in Leavenworth.
..and in case it matters to you: I voted 3rd Party in 2016 because I couldn't stand either this one or Hillary.
What I shop for, where I shop, what I buy, where I buy it, what I look at for entertainment, what times of the day I use the internet, what times of day I pay my utility bills, who I send and receive email from, etc etc etc are none of anybodys' gods-be-damned business, that's why. The real question here is: why do you NOT care? Do you like having complete strangers make all sorts of assumptions about you and your life? How would you like it if you were denied employment you're fully qualified for, because they bought collected information about you from ISPs and other websites (because nobody told them they weren't allowed to do that), and they made assumptions about you based on that? What if you were arrested for something you had nothing to do with based on your web browsing habits? What if your health insurance rates go up because they discovered that you occasionally use the internet to order a pizza? I could go on and on. Chances are you'll just scoff at all this as nonsense, but the FACT of the matter is that in a world where you can't even take a shit without some complete stranger knowing about it, you end up not in control of your own life anymore -- even worse than it already is. At the very least the rampant collection of your very personal internet usage fills your email with even more SPAM; do you not care about that, either?
At least give a damn about this because OTHER PEOPLE give a damn about it. Why should your lack of caring about it mean that everyone else has to put up with shitty companies snooping into our lives constantly? How is THAT right?
Why are you implying that "Iarwain Ben-adar", myself (the submitter of this entire subject) or anyone else at all has something to hide and that's why they want their BASIC RIGHT TO PRIVACY honored? As shocking as it might be to you, there is still such a thing as 'principles', and the 'principle' of individual privacy still counts to some of us. Why (apparently) does it not matter to you?
Checked them. It's 'available' at my address, but apparently they piggyback off of AT&T. How does THAT work? How do I know that AT&T wouldn't be invading my privacy?
It's probably that systems' asteroid belt, and all the junk left over from planetary collisions is not only so much higher in overall volume, but has had enough time to clump together. Bet you if they watch long enough they'll see a pattern to the dimming, and the dimming varies.
Which is why I said this. I said it not just to be funny.
For even greater potential hazard, be sure to thoroughly encrypt the data before committing it to strands of DNA.
'Processing information' incorrectly or inadequately hundreds of times faster than a human being can is still incorrectly processed information. The difference here is that instead of just a few people getting injured or killed (in the case of a passenger vehicle), or some sheet metal getting crumpled, dozens or maybe hundreds of people could DIE when 18000 gallons of flammable liquid is spilled all over the place and ignited.
When it comes right down to it, this whole damned subject is supposed to be about safety of human beings, and it CANNOT be about anything else. I have said for as long as this whole 'self driving car' subject has been around, that if a 'self driving' vehicle of ANY KIND cannot be AT LEAST as flawless and safe as a human vehicle operator, then it has no business operating a vehicle at all. So far all I'm seeing is this entire technology being rushed to market as fast as they possibly can, and, apparently, to hell with who might get hurt in the process. Apparently, human lives are cheap, compared to the profit to be made from this.
I have a friend whose family ran several trucking companies, and he's been driving trucks his whole life; currently driving gasoline delivery trucks.
Do these people really think it's ever going to be a good idea to have 18,000 gallons of gasoline (or any other highly flammable or explosive liquid!) driving down the road with nothing but some half-assed computer operating it? I think not.
..diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including systemic bias, harassment, and discrimination..
These are not 'science community' issues; they are HUMAN RACE issues. This crap goes on all over the world, to varying degrees, in all areas of our so-called 'civilization', and they won't be solved through legislation (laws and regulations just drive attitudes underground) or much through discussion (ironically, it all gets paid 'lip service' and nothing really gets done). These issues will either be solved by humans evolving away from it all -- or it won't. Meanwhile it's all a continual struggle that apparently doesn't move the needle much one way or another, merely wasting time and energy, fighting amongst ourselves.
In contrast to my own opinion I still feel the human race is capable of evolving beyond this and all the other crap we perpetrate upon ourselves. The real question is whether we have enough time for that to happen.
Basically, they'd import the technology required from China. They'd create a 'Great Wall of the United Kingdom' and draconically enforce very strict controls over what is and is not published on the UK internet, and very strict controls over what can be accessed by the UK on the rest of the worlds' internet. In a country used to being a first-world, more-or-less democratic, non-communist country, it'll be a gigantic disaster. I doubt it'll ever get off the ground. As soon as people realize what it is they're planning, there'll be such an outcry that the Torries will have to back away from it.
Slashdot Mirror
Your technological ignorance is showing. In order to 'home in' on a radio signal you need to triangulate on it, you can't do that from a single position.
Exercise is certainly important in counteracting the body's inclination to lower your metabolic rate to account for a sudden decrease in intake.
Sure, we're in agreement there, but we're discussing the accuracy (or lack thereof) of 'fitness bands' for calories burned. Everyone should exercise in some significant way on a regular basis for best overall health. Of course you don't need any sort of technology beyond a decent pair of walking/running shoes to do that, either. ;-)
I've had performance testing in a lab using that sort of technology. You have to have a mask covering your entire nose and mouth, so no air leaks in or out. It's bad enough when you're an athlete putting up with that for 10 or 20 minutes, the average overweight person who has to force themselves to exercise at all is not going to put up with that for even ONE minute, let alone spend $4000 for the privilege of doing so every time they go to the gym or go out to run. Also that's still just an estimate albeit a more accurate one, and in the end dietary intake is still more significant for weight loss than exercise is. Bottom line: Nobody is going to spend $4000 for something they have to strap to their face every time they exercise -- therefore such things weren't relevent to even mention for purposes of this subject.
There are too many variables involved in determining calories burned by any biological entity, and these 'fitness bands' are not the only device that has this problem, either. The closest you can come are devices that measure power generated by your muscles (PowerTap hubs, SRM or Quarq cranksets and other bicycle-mounted direct measuring instrumentation like them, rowing machines with an ergometer, etc), and even then there is a variable 'biological efficiency' term in the equation that means you can only call it an estimate. Some of the worst accuracy devices are things like the treadmills and stationary bikes in a public gym, which just use statistical averages of a range for calories burned given a level of exertion, and even then they tend towards the high end of the range to keep people motivated to continue using the treadmill or stationary bike. Something like these fitness bands work in a similar way, and I'd fully expect that they too tend to estimate on the high end of the range of 'calories burned' to keep you motivated. The fact that they track heart rate means it's a little more accurate, given one more term in the equation, and if they have a way to enter your bodyfat percentage, that would improve the estimation also. There are other factors you can plug into such an equation to make it more accurate, but in the end it's still just an estimate because of the efficiency factor. Therefore: none of what is being claimed here about it's lack of accuracy in 'calories burned' is terribly surprising. Of course for the average person, moving their body for significant amounts of time (not just getting off the couch, going to the 'fridge for another soda/beer, then back to the couch) is good regardless of trying to track 'calories burned', and to be quite honest, your dietary intake is more important when trying to lose excess bodyfat than exercise is. Of course you don't need any 'fitness bands' for that, just a decent pair of running shoes, so that doesn't make the company any money now does it?
There be something like a secondary receiver built into all drones, that when it receives the appropriate signal, causes the drone to descend and land safely, or perhaps return to it's point of origin. In law enforcement, firefighting, or other emergency situations, the signal could be broadcast in the affected area, thus acting as a 'drone repellant'. Once it's landed, the drone would remain in a 'disabled' state, unable to launch, until such time as the disable signal ceases to be broadcast. Disabling the 'repellent' receiver is made punishable by large fine and perhaps jail time, if you've done that and it's flown into an area that's experiencing an emergency situation. If criminals or terrorist operatives are using a drone to deliver explosives or some other destructive force, it would have the bonus effect of potentially blowing them up instead. Now, someone is going to point out that the drones' hardware could be hacked to disable this 'disable' function, but I see no reason why it couldn't be so thoroughly integrated into the drones' control hardware/firmware/software that there would be no way to prevent it from performing it's intended function.
I'd sooner that there be something like a secondary receiver built into all drones, that when it receives the appropriate signal, causes the drone to descend and land safely, or perhaps return to it's point of origin. In law enforcement, firefighting, or other emergency situations, the signal could be broadcast in the affected area, thus acting as a 'drone repellant'. Once it's landed, the drone would remain in a 'disabled' state, unable to launch, until such time as the disable signal ceases to be broadcast. Disabling the 'repellent' receiver is made punishable by large fine and perhaps jail time, if you've done that and it's flown into an area that's experiencing an emergency situation.
My first impression of this is that it's an out-of-band attack on the overall integrity of encryption technologies. So far as I know, drone control signals are encrypted; what they want, then, is a backdoor into the encryption used. If successful, that would create a precedent for creating 'backdoors' in any encryption method ("..well, drone manufacturers were willing and able to comply with this law, so you have to, too, Apple/Google/$WHOEVER"). As much as I hate drones as a general concept, this cannot be allowed. Aside from the legal precedent it might create, it would also create a vector for attack by anyone wishing to seize control of any drone for whatever purpose they might have in mind; this, too, cannot be allowed to happen. Seriously, drones are bad enough as-is, without there being a ready-made ability for someone to hijack them, too.
If I hadn't lived in this country since I was born, I wouldn't want to come here right now, either.
I can't help what other people do, I can only control my own thoughts and actions and trying to dictate those of others just so that I might be able to feel more secure around them is just so much wasted energy.
I'm going to be blunt with you, for your own good: That is a cowards' attitude. It is within the power of EVERY CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES to stand up for what's right and speak out against what's wrong, and DEMAND that your will, the WILL OF THE PEOPLE, be done. That's how this country is supposed to work, friend. If you sit back and let them do whatever they want, THEY WILL DO WHATEVER THEY WANT. So show some backbone.
We're getting very, very close to the point where the Pussy-Grabber-In-Chief and his entire administration are not only run out of the White House on a rail, but maybe into a nice cozy cell in Leavenworth.
..and in case it matters to you: I voted 3rd Party in 2016 because I couldn't stand either this one or Hillary.
"It's a simple accounting error -- OR IS IT???
o Make 'simple accounting error'
o Nobody catches it
o GIVE MONIES TO BEST BUDDY PUTIN
o ???
o PROFIT!
..but you've hit the nail on the head. With a mallet made of depleted uranium.
What I shop for, where I shop, what I buy, where I buy it, what I look at for entertainment, what times of the day I use the internet, what times of day I pay my utility bills, who I send and receive email from, etc etc etc are none of anybodys' gods-be-damned business, that's why. The real question here is: why do you NOT care? Do you like having complete strangers make all sorts of assumptions about you and your life? How would you like it if you were denied employment you're fully qualified for, because they bought collected information about you from ISPs and other websites (because nobody told them they weren't allowed to do that), and they made assumptions about you based on that? What if you were arrested for something you had nothing to do with based on your web browsing habits? What if your health insurance rates go up because they discovered that you occasionally use the internet to order a pizza? I could go on and on. Chances are you'll just scoff at all this as nonsense, but the FACT of the matter is that in a world where you can't even take a shit without some complete stranger knowing about it, you end up not in control of your own life anymore -- even worse than it already is. At the very least the rampant collection of your very personal internet usage fills your email with even more SPAM; do you not care about that, either?
At least give a damn about this because OTHER PEOPLE give a damn about it. Why should your lack of caring about it mean that everyone else has to put up with shitty companies snooping into our lives constantly? How is THAT right?
Why are you implying that "Iarwain Ben-adar", myself (the submitter of this entire subject) or anyone else at all has something to hide and that's why they want their BASIC RIGHT TO PRIVACY honored? As shocking as it might be to you, there is still such a thing as 'principles', and the 'principle' of individual privacy still counts to some of us. Why (apparently) does it not matter to you?
Checked them. It's 'available' at my address, but apparently they piggyback off of AT&T. How does THAT work? How do I know that AT&T wouldn't be invading my privacy?
It's probably that systems' asteroid belt, and all the junk left over from planetary collisions is not only so much higher in overall volume, but has had enough time to clump together. Bet you if they watch long enough they'll see a pattern to the dimming, and the dimming varies.
No, Mike, it's not the Finagle-be-damned Ringworld.
All it would take is someone having the bright idea of creating a bacteria to serve as a 'backup system', to replicate the DNA strands.
Which is why I said this. I said it not just to be funny.
For even greater potential hazard, be sure to thoroughly encrypt the data before committing it to strands of DNA.
Worst idea ever. Nice job, Microsoft.
money tends to justify things
It absolutely, positively cannot be allowed to be about profit.
Microsoft should just spin off a whole new company specifically for this project.
They can name it The Umbrella Corporation.
'Processing information' incorrectly or inadequately hundreds of times faster than a human being can is still incorrectly processed information. The difference here is that instead of just a few people getting injured or killed (in the case of a passenger vehicle), or some sheet metal getting crumpled, dozens or maybe hundreds of people could DIE when 18000 gallons of flammable liquid is spilled all over the place and ignited.
When it comes right down to it, this whole damned subject is supposed to be about safety of human beings, and it CANNOT be about anything else. I have said for as long as this whole 'self driving car' subject has been around, that if a 'self driving' vehicle of ANY KIND cannot be AT LEAST as flawless and safe as a human vehicle operator, then it has no business operating a vehicle at all. So far all I'm seeing is this entire technology being rushed to market as fast as they possibly can, and, apparently, to hell with who might get hurt in the process. Apparently, human lives are cheap, compared to the profit to be made from this.
I have a friend whose family ran several trucking companies, and he's been driving trucks his whole life; currently driving gasoline delivery trucks.
Do these people really think it's ever going to be a good idea to have 18,000 gallons of gasoline (or any other highly flammable or explosive liquid!) driving down the road with nothing but some half-assed computer operating it? I think not.
Hear, hear.
..diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including systemic bias, harassment, and discrimination..
These are not 'science community' issues; they are HUMAN RACE issues. This crap goes on all over the world, to varying degrees, in all areas of our so-called 'civilization', and they won't be solved through legislation (laws and regulations just drive attitudes underground) or much through discussion (ironically, it all gets paid 'lip service' and nothing really gets done). These issues will either be solved by humans evolving away from it all -- or it won't. Meanwhile it's all a continual struggle that apparently doesn't move the needle much one way or another, merely wasting time and energy, fighting amongst ourselves.
In contrast to my own opinion I still feel the human race is capable of evolving beyond this and all the other crap we perpetrate upon ourselves. The real question is whether we have enough time for that to happen.
Basically, they'd import the technology required from China. They'd create a 'Great Wall of the United Kingdom' and draconically enforce very strict controls over what is and is not published on the UK internet, and very strict controls over what can be accessed by the UK on the rest of the worlds' internet. In a country used to being a first-world, more-or-less democratic, non-communist country, it'll be a gigantic disaster. I doubt it'll ever get off the ground. As soon as people realize what it is they're planning, there'll be such an outcry that the Torries will have to back away from it.