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User: Prof.Phreak

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  1. What part about this is considered "self-driving" then, exactly?

    The guy behind the wheel was "self" driving the car. Normally, for Uber, another driver drives the car, but in this case, the guy behind the wheel was self driving it.

    Soon, in perhaps a decade, we'll have these self driving cars everywhere. Where you or I or anyone will be able to self drive our own car, without relying on Uber's driver.

  2. regulating gene research just moved all such gene research underground (or to other less-regulation heavy nations). The same will happen with AI... assuming they could come up with a suitable definition that they could apply to stuff.

    e.g. is binary search AI ? (it pretty intelligently eliminates potential places an item could be in... what if it did that to nuclear weapons? eh?! eh!? think of the children!!!)

  3. Re:Probably true for everyone on Scientists Say Smart People Are Better Off With Fewer Friends · · Score: 1

    the dominant culture in the USA - and hence one of the most popular cultures in most of the developed world - is strongly extravert.

    No, they're just more outgoing about it :-)

  4. Re:Where the TMT can go now on Giant Telescope Project Stalled By Hawaiian Natives (khon2.com) · · Score: 2

    Put it right next to the Mauna Loa Observatory. There's already a paved road leading all the way up, so it's not like a huge amount of infrastructure is required. Sure there might be an eruption in the next 100 years or so that could wipe it out, but... that's a problem for the next generation.

  5. Re:Thermos is the ultimate AI on Is AI Development Moving In the Wrong Direction? (hackaday.com) · · Score: 2

    That's pretty clever!

    I think I heard intelligence described as maintaining a certain average... for example, you're presented with a random variable, your task is to come up with an offset to maintain a certain average. You won't get it perfectly right, but if your average has lower variance than the original random variable, then you're doing well. In other words, you take input, and adjusting to it...

    For example, a cell maintains it's state such that metabolism continues to happen. Environment gives it varying inputs, and it must adjust to maintain state to keep chemical reactions going (when it stops doing that, it dies)... (usually by having a lot less variation inside than outside presents it with).

    For a cell, that `maintenance' logic could've been achieved via selection (evolution, cells that weren't good at maintaining state didn't live long).

    Extrapolated via evolution all the way to human beings, we maintain our state (eat, drink, avoid cars, work, etc.,) to avoid dying (maintain our life to keep it going). Along the way we find more clever ways of `specializing' to obscure features of the random variables we're presented with by the environment (such as building rockets to go to the moon, etc.)

    In that sense, a thermos really is `intelligent'---it maintains its ``life'' while conditions remain favorable (hot stays hot, cold stays cold, etc.,). Environment outside could get hot/cold much more frequently than the maintain internal state, etc.

  6. ...can't wait for their Faraday iCage appliance then... supplement the walled garden.

  7. Re:I did this in 2010 and nobody cared on Self-Driving Delivery Robots To Hit Sidewalks of London In 2016 (thestack.com) · · Score: 1

    Couldn't get anyone to invest in it. Why?

    Because 2010. This is 2015... free moneh for everyone!*

    *tech startups with "autonomous", "app", "cloud", "shiny", and "daffodil" in their descriptions.

  8. This could be solved by making it slightly sturdier, perhaps 200-400lb (instead of easy-to-carry-away 40lb), perhaps a metal cage to protect bits, a taser for those enthusiastic pedestrians... and in extreme cases, perhaps a gun...for those termination missions (though then it would have to be made to look like Schwarzenegger :-).

  9. That'e exactly the wrong outcome! on Google and Microsoft Agree To Stand Down In Patent Wars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they really want things to change, they should agree to work towards abolishing stupid patents---not to create semi-trusts that other companies have to fight.

  10. Re:The Homer! (FP?) on Many Drivers Never Use In-Vehicle Tech, Don't Want Apple Or Google In Next Car · · Score: 1

    If we went by what people wanted, we'd have faster horses instead of cars. Driverless cars where people spend time in virtual reality facebook *are* coming, and everyone will wonder how we ever lived without them. Before then, we'll have a hodgepodge of crap, like heads up display of facebook and cars that don't quite drive themselves but get in the way right in the wrong moment.

  11. Re:Chinese economy on the verge of collapse? on China's Island-Building In Pictures · · Score: 1

    Or like magratheans, building islands for the super rich while the times are good.

  12. Re:Design by Fisher-Price? on New Leaked Build Is Evidence That Windows 10 Will Be Ready By July 29 · · Score: 1

    I'm not a fan of the new `flat' look they're going for... but "designed by fisher price" was used to describe WindowsXP... so... this is something else. Perhaps designed by Seth Macfarlane?

  13. Re:How do you extract and identify on DNA On Pizza Crust Leads To Quadruple Murder Suspect · · Score: 2

    DNA on pizza is just a cover story for a $HUGE_INVASION_OF_PRIVACY.

    e.g. they probably asked NSA/Verizon/etc whose cellphones were in the house in the last few weeks.

  14. Re:Marketing genius! on Giant Survival Ball Will Help Explorer Survive a Year On an Iceberg · · Score: 1

    someone watched movie 2012, and thought... aha.... what if... a floating ball! And before you know it, we got a product out there.

  15. The employer is bound to low ball you. That's just game theory. Unless you negotiate, you lose. Lets they the average dev in their company makes $95k, they're bound to offer you $90k. Or even $95k, which is "fair" in some sense. Now, the difference between an average dev and a "pretty good" dev is not just a 10% gain in productivity... often a good dev is 10-100x as productive, and often means success or failure of the entire project. How much is that worth to the company? They'll be able to hire an average dev with their offer, but they won't ever get a pretty good dev on their team ("pretty good" dev will often ask for 4-6x the "average" salary).

    (and everyone has seen those places, with teams of 50 "average" developers unable to do anything in less than a year... and fail spectacularly a year later).

  16. It also means that the quality of the folks they hire will go down quite dramatically (just about nobody I know accepts the first offer from the employer).

  17. Re:But we know the Standard Model is incomplete on Years After Shutting Down, Tevatron Reveals Properties of Higgs Boson · · Score: 1

    wasted billions of dollars and need to build a better instrument. ...and that wasn't the point?

  18. Re:Technology can indeed fail on Planes Without Pilots · · Score: 1

    You're on a tech site... which means a good percentage of the folks here would agree that the damn airplane should be smart enough not to crash---even if the pilot directs it right at the mountain---the damn airplane should just refuse to destroy itself (yes, there's that remote possibility of sensor malfunction where the pilot "knows better"... well... those don't malfunction as often as humans, and also, we can build better and more sensors... we can't build better humans).

  19. Re:If MOOCs aren't the end of college, automation on The End of College? Not So Fast · · Score: 1

    What would you study ?

    How to build automation to replace the other 50%?

  20. Re:Either way, something has to be done! on The End of College? Not So Fast · · Score: 1

    There are plenty of community/city/state schools that are dirt cheap (e.g. 2-3k per semester, 4-6k a year). Also, average student debt in the country is ~$25k or so, I'd hardly call that a 'lifetime of debt'... (yes, fresh graduates can't pay it off in a year, but that's why they're not all due in a year). And if you work on the side (yes, tough, many folks had to do this) you can graduate with no debt at all. And then there's financial aid (if you *really* cannot afford it).

    Now, if you're getting an acting degree from NYU and end up with $150k in debt and no job... well then, that's just poor decisions right there.

    It works the other way with medical degrees. Yes, the degree is "expensive" by `normal' standards, but a doc is expected to earn 2-3x that debt per year... so dollar mounts a skewed.

  21. Re:And what good would it do? on Why the Final Moments Inside a Cockpit Are Heard But Not Seen · · Score: 1

    The cameras wouldn't be there to help in *that* incident. It would be there to help document and train for situations that might happen on future flights---situations that may not be as clear cut at this particular incident. The argument that it would not improve aviation safety is silly...

  22. Re:the server market cares about linux / VMware on OEMs Allowed To Lock Secure Boot In Windows 10 Computers · · Score: 1

    I can imagine a situation where Lenovo (or Dell, etc.) keep it unlocked for their "business" customers (e.g. Thinkpad line), and lock for everyone else... In a few years, that would pretty much kill off linux for anyone who casually wants to try it out on their then-"old" laptop.

  23. Re:Buggy whip makers said automobiles aren't... on Lyft CEO: Self-Driving Cars Aren't the Future · · Score: 1

    Very likely the reverse.

    I'd imagine that most accidents involving automated cars will *provably* (video and telemetry info and all that) be human operator's fault (or the other driver)... suddenly humans will find their insurance go sky high, while insuring a self driving car will be dirt cheap (they'll be harder to steal too).

  24. Re:Buggy whip makers said automobiles aren't... on Lyft CEO: Self-Driving Cars Aren't the Future · · Score: 1

    All your concerns are valid, BUT, do you really think that "average human driver" makes the right decisions that much better than the potentially *random* behavior an automated car will display in all these extreme scenarios? Yes, lets say an automated car runs over a child (and saves the dog)... but do you really think the "average human drive" would do any better???

    My guess, automated systems will prove to be several orders of magnitude safer overall than current human operators... there will still be accidents, but they'll be much more rare (and perhaps much more deadly, but if accident rate goes to 1% of what it is now, that would be huge---so much so that human driving may actually be banned on most streets).

    Kind of like "most car accidents involving trucks" are *not* caused by the truck driver mistake... the future automated car accidents will probably not be caused by computer error, but by someone being stupid around one.

    Imagine everyone staying in lane, maintaining speed, distance, etc. And actually driving the posted speed limit on city streets (even automation wouldn't have much problem slowing down from 25mph for a child (or dog, or tumbleweed) on the road).

  25. Don't look at the... on World's Most Powerful Laser Diode Arrays Deployed · · Score: 3, Informative

    Laser Diode Arrays with remaining eye.