I'm just saying that he was a walking encyclopedia of examples of how even when you think you have thought of everything you haven't.
I agree with that wholeheartedly. Statements like "question all assumptions" are about as helpful as "foresee everything and never make mistakes."
Since it's harder to validate computers than physical systems it should make you think twice.
I question that. It's just that the most complex tasks require software because they are beyond what can be done with mechanical systems alone. For an example of a complex mechanical and software system, look at the Space Shuttle. What brought it down, twice? Mechanical problems, not software glitches.
You could be referring specifically to last week's incident, which I found fishy from the start:
Skeptics of Sikes also cite the 911 tape that was released shortly after the incident. During the tape, the dispatcher repeatedly told Sikes to put the car in neutral in order to stop it from accelerating. Sikes did not comply with her instructions or the instructions of the officer on the scene who told him to do the same thing via his public address system as they tore down the highway.... Sikes claimed he thought that would "flip the car."
Beyond the call itself, the Associated Press reports that Sikes's car was equipped with a brake override system, something that should have slowed the car down once he stomped on the brake pedal.
You make it sound as computers killed a golden era of safe engineering, as if perhaps we should go back. Let's keep some perspective here. Were cars back then simple, predictable, and solid? Perhaps. They were also death traps. How do the deaths with a suspected link to throttle software stack up statistically to those saved by anti-lock brakes? How does Toyota safety - on any model you choose - stack up to the competition when measured in deaths per millions of miles? I doubt this problem is even enough to appear in those big-picture statistics.
Geez, can people not even read the summary? They are at will employees (i.e. they can be fired), and are paid $55/hr including benefits (i.e. retirement benefits, if any).
Well, obviously, you can't remodel your kitchen for just the cost of hiring a handyman. Nor can the government build a new road for just the cost of labor. Simply dividing the cost of a project by the number of people employed is a misleading and almost meaningless figure - unless the projects truly have no value or future economic return. But that's not true, there's plenty of worthwhile work to do.
The issue of how to make life best for our grandkids is not so obvious. We can certainly give them less debt and lower taxes by neglecting education, infrastructure, and security, but it's far from clear that would improve their standard of living.
Seriously-- this is going to fix itself. Rampant inflation in china and india (over 100% on the low end of society) combined with deflation here and the retiring baby boomers should give us some relief in under five years.
You mean, things will be worse than now, but will stop declining further at some point. That's relief?
Being on relatively equal economic footing with a billion new customers for gasoline is going to hurt, bad. I think gasoline will hit $5 within 2 years. Agree or disagree? Please make a prediction so we can all revisit and poke fun at each other in 2 years:)
Our national debt is nearly $130,000 per American home* and projected by Obama's budget to increase +$10,000 more each year. We. Need. To Stop. Spending. Otherwise we'll have ~$200,000/home by the end of this decade, and all go bankrupt. As Cosby might say, "C'mon people! This isn't hard to figure out."
Pick your poison, it's either federal debt or higher unemployment. Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful - US GDP Per Worker is about $70K.
At some point, yes, deficit spending must be stopped. But it's not as if that makes the problem go away. Shutting down schools and public transit, for instance, may have longer term costs that outweigh the short-term savings.
I did it from work, but said I was doing it from home. Further, I entered an address of a home (not mine) in a rural area in my state that is currently trying to get federal stimulus money because they have no broadband.
So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?
Anyways, it's hard to imagine they won't be discarding outliers, and (regardless of intentions) your dishonest result will be an outlier.
But unlike the Wii, if you'd rather just sit down and waggle the controller, you can't.
I consider that an advantage. Having the choice of just waggling your wrist instead of moving your whole body is like having a "god mode", it ruins the game because you feel silly actually doing it when it isn't necessary.
And it totally destroys the motion tracker for online gaming, since the person just sitting there twiddling his fingers would have a huge advantage.
Don't get me wrong, traditional games using traditional controllers should and will continue to be released. But motion tracking games should not have the option of using a traditional controller.
So by removing it from public sources, are they thereby impacting at least some people's ability to get salt (IE those that do not eat much at home) and hence endangering them?
It wouldn't impact the availability of salt in the slightest, so long as salt shakers were still sitting on the tables. It would simply make salt "opt in" instead of "no choice."
Get this. Up until 15-20 years ago (practically) no college students had cell phones. They all managed to survive and get through school despite that handicap.
Times change. The fact that everybody now has a cellphone makes it much harder to get by without one. Payphones aren't widely available any more. Things aren't pre-planned as much; if you're not reachable, you simply miss out. Your friends' tolerance for telephone tag is different now.
Yes, you can still survive without one. But the fact remains, not having one now is quite different than not having one 15 years ago. A better analogy to not having a cellphone now would be not having your own PC 15 years ago - a few students didn't, but most did, so you were at a disadvantage if you didn't.
Unfortunately this isn't too uncommon. Guns are dangerous; they're made to kill people.
Also, the child was not genetically his, so I guess any darwin award must be given to the mother (or mothers who divorce and remarry in general) due to the Cinderella Effect:
a child under three years of age who lived with one genetic parent and one stepparent in the United States in 1976 was about seven times more likely (...) to become a validated child-abuse case in the records than one who dwelt with two genetic parents
Records in Great Britain were also examined and found that children were beaten by stepfathers at a rate of 100 times more than genetic fathers.
And, no, although this is a natural tendency I don't think it should be used as an excuse, or to argue for lighter sentences for abusers.
At least, unlike the Wii, this tracks actual positions in space, so it can tell the difference between a flick of the wrist and a full-on karate chop.
With Natal, the whole question is: will it work. Having full-body tracking of an articulated skeleton without any special tracking target (like a wand) is obviously the ideal - if it works.
Although, Amazon.com was founded in 1994 and first turned a profit 7 years later in the last quarter of 2001! (That article also announces Super Saver Shipping, which "Bezos acknowledged that Amazon's new shipping policy will be expensive in the short run, but could bring in new customers.") And now? In 2009 they turned almost a billion-dollars in profit.
Those wanting to own a McDonald's or Subway franchise in Germany must be prepared to offer up intimate personal details, including health information. One German official says the questionnaires violate the law....
According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, those wanting to partner with the fast-food chain Subway must agree to a background check "in accordance with anti-terror legislation" such as the US Patriot Act.
The report must also include information about the applicant's character, lifestyle and relationships. Future franchise owners are also asked whether they have ever been part of a terrorist organization.
McDonald's and Subway asking intimate data from franchisees
From its franchisees in Germany require the American fast food McDonald's and Subway deep insights into the intimate and the political convictions. Who wants to be partner of Subway, for example, must create an audit report in accordance with the anti-terror laws "such as the USA Patriot Act to agree." This report will contain information about "character", "lifestyle" and "relationships". The applicant shall provide information, even if she "ever directly or indirectly involved in terrorist activities were"
And babelfish translation of the same story:
McDonald' s and Subway demand most intimate data of franchise takers
Of their Franchise takers in Germany the American high-speed restaurant chains McDonald' require; s and Subway deep views of the privacy and the political convicition. Who for example partner of Subway would like to become, must the production of a test report " in agreement with the anti- terror Gesetzen" as " The USA patriot Act" agree. This report is information over " Charakter" , " Lebensweise" and " Beziehungen" contained. The applicants have to give even information whether them " ever at activities of terror beteiligt" directly or indirectly; were.
I do think the google version is significantly better.
I would call it a very rigorous test, since you can get by in a foreign country with far, far less expressiveness than it takes to read a news article. ("Where's the toilet?" "How much for this?" Or for DoD applications, "Stop or we'll shoot!")
Plus, round-trip translation at least doubles the error compared to an actual application which would involve one-way translation (and probably more, since the "return-trip" translation is starting with a poor quality input). A much more fair test would be comparing a one-way translation, man vs. machine.
I think we're supposed to assume that the FDA hasn't approved these techniques due to ethical concerns, and get all worked up about fundamentalist Christianity hampering scientific progress.
Of course the truth is the FDA hasn't approved it because nobody knows whether it really works and what the side effects might be. I suppose it's possible the Singularity Hub found the fountain of youth, and it's as simple as just shooting up with stem cells, but somehow I doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with that wholeheartedly. Statements like "question all assumptions" are about as helpful as "foresee everything and never make mistakes."
I question that. It's just that the most complex tasks require software because they are beyond what can be done with mechanical systems alone. For an example of a complex mechanical and software system, look at the Space Shuttle. What brought it down, twice? Mechanical problems, not software glitches.
You make it sound as computers killed a golden era of safe engineering, as if perhaps we should go back. Let's keep some perspective here. Were cars back then simple, predictable, and solid? Perhaps. They were also death traps. How do the deaths with a suspected link to throttle software stack up statistically to those saved by anti-lock brakes? How does Toyota safety - on any model you choose - stack up to the competition when measured in deaths per millions of miles? I doubt this problem is even enough to appear in those big-picture statistics.
If not, you would think we would at least have sold it on craigslist, which is easy and quick if you sell below market value.
Trying to out-shine the sun on battery power is a losing strategy, period. Reflective/transflective all the way, baby!
But without a daylight-visible screen, the iPad has no chance of being a good e-reader in itself.
Geez, can people not even read the summary? They are at will employees (i.e. they can be fired), and are paid $55/hr including benefits (i.e. retirement benefits, if any).
On the other hand, the average tech support call is from somebody who calls tech support more often than the average person.
The issue of how to make life best for our grandkids is not so obvious. We can certainly give them less debt and lower taxes by neglecting education, infrastructure, and security, but it's far from clear that would improve their standard of living.
You mean, things will be worse than now, but will stop declining further at some point. That's relief?
Being on relatively equal economic footing with a billion new customers for gasoline is going to hurt, bad. I think gasoline will hit $5 within 2 years. Agree or disagree? Please make a prediction so we can all revisit and poke fun at each other in 2 years :)
Pick your poison, it's either federal debt or higher unemployment. Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful - US GDP Per Worker is about $70K.
At some point, yes, deficit spending must be stopped. But it's not as if that makes the problem go away. Shutting down schools and public transit, for instance, may have longer term costs that outweigh the short-term savings.
On the other hand, what is this energy source displacing? Coal?
So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?
Anyways, it's hard to imagine they won't be discarding outliers, and (regardless of intentions) your dishonest result will be an outlier.
I consider that an advantage. Having the choice of just waggling your wrist instead of moving your whole body is like having a "god mode", it ruins the game because you feel silly actually doing it when it isn't necessary.
And it totally destroys the motion tracker for online gaming, since the person just sitting there twiddling his fingers would have a huge advantage.
Don't get me wrong, traditional games using traditional controllers should and will continue to be released. But motion tracking games should not have the option of using a traditional controller.
It wouldn't impact the availability of salt in the slightest, so long as salt shakers were still sitting on the tables. It would simply make salt "opt in" instead of "no choice."
Times change. The fact that everybody now has a cellphone makes it much harder to get by without one. Payphones aren't widely available any more. Things aren't pre-planned as much; if you're not reachable, you simply miss out. Your friends' tolerance for telephone tag is different now.
Yes, you can still survive without one. But the fact remains, not having one now is quite different than not having one 15 years ago. A better analogy to not having a cellphone now would be not having your own PC 15 years ago - a few students didn't, but most did, so you were at a disadvantage if you didn't.
Apple dosn't see it that way. They openly reject competition with Apple software on the iPhone.
Also, the child was not genetically his, so I guess any darwin award must be given to the mother (or mothers who divorce and remarry in general) due to the Cinderella Effect:
And, no, although this is a natural tendency I don't think it should be used as an excuse, or to argue for lighter sentences for abusers.
With Natal, the whole question is: will it work. Having full-body tracking of an articulated skeleton without any special tracking target (like a wand) is obviously the ideal - if it works.
Those hydrogen-peroxide packs are old news; the main problem is they can only fly for about 30 seconds.
Although, Amazon.com was founded in 1994 and first turned a profit 7 years later in the last quarter of 2001! (That article also announces Super Saver Shipping, which "Bezos acknowledged that Amazon's new shipping policy will be expensive in the short run, but could bring in new customers.") And now? In 2009 they turned almost a billion-dollars in profit.
Der Spiegel offers version of some of its stories in English. They aren't direct translations, but quite similar.
Here's part of a story published in english:
And the same story, published in German, translated to English by google:
And babelfish translation of the same story:
I do think the google version is significantly better.
Plus, round-trip translation at least doubles the error compared to an actual application which would involve one-way translation (and probably more, since the "return-trip" translation is starting with a poor quality input). A much more fair test would be comparing a one-way translation, man vs. machine.
You're so bothered by the problem you don't even care about the solution?
Of course the truth is the FDA hasn't approved it because nobody knows whether it really works and what the side effects might be. I suppose it's possible the Singularity Hub found the fountain of youth, and it's as simple as just shooting up with stem cells, but somehow I doubt it.