That would depend on what you mean by hinder. Again, using a wheel chair allows somebody without the use of their legs to move from point a to b. I think what you are getting at is whether or not such devices would allow one to function normally in society. Then again, what does normal mean? Many people wear glasses. They are hindered, but are they disabled? Should we replace their faulty eyes with new bionic ones? Or do glasses and contacts mitigate the disability?
Ultimately, there is a subjective element as to how much hindrance is too much, but using bionics, only reduces the hindrance, it doesn't remove the actual disability.
I think there's a case to be made that genetically being human is far less important to being "human" than the shared culture we've developed. Organically laying out a clone of yourself is far less like yourself than raising an adopted child. This kind of program, while inspired, and theoretically plausible, doesn't actually achieve what we want to achieve.
Theoretically plausible? Really, in what universe?
The summary states that the goal of this is to make flying accessible to more people. Does that mean the research is being done so quadriplegics can still pilot a plane or is it for John Q. Public? Each raises its own question.
For quadriplegics and other people with disabilities, is there really a high demand for this? Are there large numbers of disabled people who the necessary knowledge to pilot a plane? For John Q. Public, wouldn't they still need to know how to fly? Flying is about more than just controlling wing surfaces and rudders and air speed.
For both groups, if the goal is to make flying accessible to more people then wouldn't research into an autonomous plane (like the Google cars) make more sense? We already have auto-pilots on the latest commercial airliners that can even land and take off.
Is this a real problem to be solved or is it merely a solution looking for a problem?
Longer answer is that even though technology cannot eliminate disabilities, it can definitely mitigate the impact. A prosthesis can only make up for what is lost. It can't keep the loss from happening. It is the loss itself that causes the disability.
Put differently, artificial limbs that are tied into a person's neural system and allows them to function, say as real legs and to walk doesn't eliminate the disability any more than a wheelchair does. Both allow a person to get from point a to point b. The artificial limbs may also provide numerous other advantages over a wheel chair, but they do not, in fact, change that the person has lost the function of their legs. That is the disability. The artificial limbs and/or wheel chair are just tools to mitigate the loss.
You would think somebody from MIT would realize this.
no. the idea of an autonomous vehicle with no possible driver to override it is just plain stupid.
The idea of a manually-operated vehicle with no possibility of a more accurate automated system overriding it is just plain stupid.
It all comes down to risk. Obviously today autonomous vehicles aren't ready to take over completely. However, they will steadily improve, and it seems unlikely that human drivers will improve at all. At some point the risk of a computer causing an accident will drop below the risk of a person causing one, and at that point it becomes safer to just not let people interfere with the operation of the vehicle.
Would you consider it wise to give passengers in an airliner the ability to take over in case the pilot makes a mistake? Such a feature is far more likely to cause a disaster than avert one. Once cars get to the point where they can be operated more safely than aircraft (which are already safer than cars are today) then taking control of a car in a crisis will just be getting in the way of the proven driver: the machine.
You ask the wrong question. What you should be asking is would you be willing to fly in an airplane without a flight crew? While today's modern planes have fantastic autopilots that can even take off and land the plane; and while the hazards encountered while flying are very well known, the systems are not 100% full proof and do fail.
Autonomous cars may be safer than regular cars, but to assume that they won't fail is wishful thinking and dangerous.
posting anon because fragile minded mod-bombers sunk my battleship.
You are correct that autism is not statistically irrelevant. On the other hand, the original poster said that most people learn best from others and studies show that is even true for people suffering from autism. My daughter had a form of autism, but was an exceptional reader (read The Hobbit in 2nd grade). Autism, like many other conditions, impact the lives of people differently.
As such, any one person's experience, yours or my daughter's, is statistically irrelevant when discussing a population. That is not an insult or slam against those dealing with autism. It is only a recognition that the world does not revolve around any one of us.
That makes no sense. If you ask for 10x more of something you now have 11x, counting the original. But that does not change the fact that that 10x is 10 times more more than 1x. (For positive values of x).
Nope. Consider x = 1. Would 1x be 1 times more than x?
No, it's not. It's exactly the same amount. It's not any more at all, eg. it's 0x more.
If you have 10 marbles and I have 2 times as many marbles, then I have 20 marbles. If I have 2 times more than you, I have 30 marbles (x +2x). As long as x is a positive integer, this is true (and quantities of zero or negatives don't make sense).
So, If I had 1 times more marbles than you, than I would have two times as many marbles. For it to be the same amount, then I can't have more, I can only have 1 times as many as you.
Fedora makes sense for a computer geek's desktop, if that geek wants to play with the cutting edge. For web hosting, not so much. Centos makes more sense if you want it to just work, and keep working. Consider the support lifetime for Fedora.
Some people DO use Fedora on a web server. Since people write software in PHP 4 too - that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Fedora as a server also makes sense for developing new technologies. Just because there is a server version doesn't mean it is for deployment. One possibility would be that Redhat server vs Fedora server would be like Debian stable and Debian testing.
There've been both desktop and server users of Fedora for ten years. Giving them separate install images instead of making them choose differently from a single installer is not going to hurt anything, and might make testing and deployment very slightly simpler.
Might also allow for different release cycles, too, particularly desktop. It's conceivable that server would be the stable core but as new desktop and application updates are released, they could be packaged and released without disturbing the core. Some Ubuntu derivatives do that, using the LTS as a base and then updating the desktop and apps for in between releases until the next LTS.
or you know, you could use the mathematically correct "one tenth".
Except that one tenth is not mathematically the same as 10 times less. There is no such thing as x times less. If you have ten apples how many apples must I have if I have 10 times less? There are two possible ways to look at this. Using a number line with 0 in the middle and negatives to left and positives to the right, I would move 100 apples (10 times 10) to the left, because I have less and I would have the mathematically correct, but physically impossible -90 apples.
The other way, which is probably what the author meant is as you suggest one tenth. However, if I have one tenth of the ten apples, meaning I have one apple and apples are the unit of measure (in this case), technically I have 9 apples less. In other words, 10 is ten times more than 1, but 1 is only nine times less than 10.
While I think that you are correct and one tenth is what the author meant. Using ten times less, at least mathematically, means something totally different.
Assuming a slanted roof (oriented to south), you'd get at most 3500W from the device. In an 8-hour day, with some 60% total efficiency, you'd get some 17 kWh. That would be enough for the i3 I think.
This thing would be advantageous if it would keep the car in the shade during summer, and clear of snow in the winter. A garage would be better, though. And maybe setting the solar panels on the house is either too expensive, impossible,...
Of course if you are going to leave your car in the carport all day, it kind of defeats the purpose of having it. Now if this would charge a battery pack during the day that would then be used to either swap in the car (probably not) or charge the car overnight, that might be cost effective. However, because of inefficiencies, it probably wouldn't provide a full charge but would supplement the regular powergrid.
Have they solved the problem with quantum theory and the big bang being mutually exclusive (other than saying the laws of physics changed somehow)? If not, there is still a really big problem to solve.
That is not possible. I can see it in the court case. You had tge capacity to choose, yet you chose not to choose and my daughter is dead.
But, the simple reality it, that will happen anyway, no matter what decision is made. ("You chose to minimize the probability of X, and now my daughter is dead.")
I don't, by the way, buy the "Programmers have all the time in the world to get it right" bit. Programmers will not be able to anticipate everything, and their software will not always be able to calculate everything in the few milliseconds or so you might have to make such decisions.
When that happens with a real driver, often, they are charged with manslaughter. When it is your car making the decision? Who is at fault for the death?
Doesn't seem that odd to me. You react to touching something hot before any signal reach the brain. That's almost the definition of a reflex vs reaction.
That's because touching something hot triggers an action potential in the skin and only needs to travel to the spinal column and back to elicit the motion. The pain receptors fire more slowly and have to travel to the brain. That is different from neurons firing in the eye and the signal making it to the hand. It (hot reflex) is also much less complex. It only needs to jerk the hand back. Catching the falling glass requires many muscles working in concert.
If a planet has life on it. If we visit it, how much damage will that cause. I mean just the bacteria on our skin that is normally helpful, my thrive and kill off all the life on the planet that may not have such defenses.
It doesn't matter because the reality is we couldn't get there, anyway.
Maybe it's time for the legal system to get involved. If entities won't honor privacy, maybe we need the equivalent of the "Do Not Call" list for telephones implemented for the internet. Of course companies like Google and Yahoo will then just alter their service agreements to state that you do in fact agree to be tracked.
Agreed. And the same people who complain that Congress is requiring the Post Office to be responsible with their pension plan will also be the first ones to complain about how irresponsible XYZ corp or union was when those retirees turn to the feds to bail out an unfunded pension. Maybe the answer is that pensions are the problem and all workers should be responsible for themselves. That removes a whole lot of power and temptation from a few people at the top.
Actually, if congress would let the USPS use the same rules as corporations use to figure pension liabilities, there wouldn't be a problem. Those rules dictate that you figure the future liability for all retired and current employees. What congress did was make the Post Office estimate how many new employees they will need over the next 75 years and add these yet to be hired employees to the calculation for the pension liability.
Nobody else in the private or public sector is required to do that.
This as well; but the fact is low rates are a seller's market, and real estate sale--non-speculative transactions, not "I bought houses and flipped them and got dick-rich in a bubble"--is more sustainable in a buyer's market of high interest rates.
It doesn't matter because the increased prices from flipping still impact those who were buying a primary residence. There wasn't one appraisal value for primary residences and another for flippers.
Even if we disregard the fact that you're pulling numbers out of your ass, you're off by nearly 30% in your calculations based on your made up numbers!
You can't just use minimum wage like that because it isn't directly tied to inflation, or to the more appropriate Consumer Price Index. http://www.usinflationcalculat...
And that doesn't isn't even that tied to the durability of the car, which would include repair and upkeep costs as well as life expectancy!
And besides all that, your math is horribly inaccurate! $15,080/$4,160 * 2500 = $9062.5 for a minimum wage job according to your math.
Actually, all of those numbers are right from Google. There are 2,080 work hours in a year. But you are correct, minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, which is part of the problem with the economy.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it a disability if it in no way hinders you?
That would depend on what you mean by hinder. Again, using a wheel chair allows somebody without the use of their legs to move from point a to b. I think what you are getting at is whether or not such devices would allow one to function normally in society. Then again, what does normal mean? Many people wear glasses. They are hindered, but are they disabled? Should we replace their faulty eyes with new bionic ones? Or do glasses and contacts mitigate the disability?
Ultimately, there is a subjective element as to how much hindrance is too much, but using bionics, only reduces the hindrance, it doesn't remove the actual disability.
I think there's a case to be made that genetically being human is far less important to being "human" than the shared culture we've developed. Organically laying out a clone of yourself is far less like yourself than raising an adopted child. This kind of program, while inspired, and theoretically plausible, doesn't actually achieve what we want to achieve.
Theoretically plausible? Really, in what universe?
The summary states that the goal of this is to make flying accessible to more people. Does that mean the research is being done so quadriplegics can still pilot a plane or is it for John Q. Public? Each raises its own question.
For quadriplegics and other people with disabilities, is there really a high demand for this? Are there large numbers of disabled people who the necessary knowledge to pilot a plane? For John Q. Public, wouldn't they still need to know how to fly? Flying is about more than just controlling wing surfaces and rudders and air speed.
For both groups, if the goal is to make flying accessible to more people then wouldn't research into an autonomous plane (like the Google cars) make more sense? We already have auto-pilots on the latest commercial airliners that can even land and take off.
Is this a real problem to be solved or is it merely a solution looking for a problem?
Longer answer is that even though technology cannot eliminate disabilities, it can definitely mitigate the impact. A prosthesis can only make up for what is lost. It can't keep the loss from happening. It is the loss itself that causes the disability.
Put differently, artificial limbs that are tied into a person's neural system and allows them to function, say as real legs and to walk doesn't eliminate the disability any more than a wheelchair does. Both allow a person to get from point a to point b. The artificial limbs may also provide numerous other advantages over a wheel chair, but they do not, in fact, change that the person has lost the function of their legs. That is the disability. The artificial limbs and/or wheel chair are just tools to mitigate the loss.
You would think somebody from MIT would realize this.
no. the idea of an autonomous vehicle with no possible driver to override it is just plain stupid.
The idea of a manually-operated vehicle with no possibility of a more accurate automated system overriding it is just plain stupid.
It all comes down to risk. Obviously today autonomous vehicles aren't ready to take over completely. However, they will steadily improve, and it seems unlikely that human drivers will improve at all. At some point the risk of a computer causing an accident will drop below the risk of a person causing one, and at that point it becomes safer to just not let people interfere with the operation of the vehicle.
Would you consider it wise to give passengers in an airliner the ability to take over in case the pilot makes a mistake? Such a feature is far more likely to cause a disaster than avert one. Once cars get to the point where they can be operated more safely than aircraft (which are already safer than cars are today) then taking control of a car in a crisis will just be getting in the way of the proven driver: the machine.
You ask the wrong question. What you should be asking is would you be willing to fly in an airplane without a flight crew? While today's modern planes have fantastic autopilots that can even take off and land the plane; and while the hazards encountered while flying are very well known, the systems are not 100% full proof and do fail.
Autonomous cars may be safer than regular cars, but to assume that they won't fail is wishful thinking and dangerous.
nuff said
And yet the Vatican is one of the leading private funders of scientific research. Sometimes it is helpful to check facts before spouting bigotry.
There's this thing, it's called Autism.
It is NOT statistically irrelevant.
jmc23
posting anon because fragile minded mod-bombers sunk my battleship.
You are correct that autism is not statistically irrelevant. On the other hand, the original poster said that most people learn best from others and studies show that is even true for people suffering from autism. My daughter had a form of autism, but was an exceptional reader (read The Hobbit in 2nd grade). Autism, like many other conditions, impact the lives of people differently.
As such, any one person's experience, yours or my daughter's, is statistically irrelevant when discussing a population. That is not an insult or slam against those dealing with autism. It is only a recognition that the world does not revolve around any one of us.
That makes no sense.
If you ask for 10x more of something you now have 11x, counting the original. But that does not change the fact that that 10x is 10 times more more than 1x. (For positive values of x).
Nope. Consider x = 1. Would 1x be 1 times more than x?
No, it's not. It's exactly the same amount. It's not any more at all, eg. it's 0x more.
If you have 10 marbles and I have 2 times as many marbles, then I have 20 marbles. If I have 2 times more than you, I have 30 marbles (x +2x). As long as x is a positive integer, this is true (and quantities of zero or negatives don't make sense).
So, If I had 1 times more marbles than you, than I would have two times as many marbles. For it to be the same amount, then I can't have more, I can only have 1 times as many as you.
Fedora makes sense for a computer geek's desktop, if that geek wants to play with the cutting edge. For web hosting, not so much. Centos makes more sense if you want it to just work, and keep working. Consider the support lifetime for Fedora.
Some people DO use Fedora on a web server. Since people write software in PHP 4 too - that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Fedora as a server also makes sense for developing new technologies. Just because there is a server version doesn't mean it is for deployment. One possibility would be that Redhat server vs Fedora server would be like Debian stable and Debian testing.
There've been both desktop and server users of Fedora for ten years. Giving them separate install images instead of making them choose differently from a single installer is not going to hurt anything, and might make testing and deployment very slightly simpler.
Might also allow for different release cycles, too, particularly desktop. It's conceivable that server would be the stable core but as new desktop and application updates are released, they could be packaged and released without disturbing the core. Some Ubuntu derivatives do that, using the LTS as a base and then updating the desktop and apps for in between releases until the next LTS.
or you know, you could use the mathematically correct "one tenth".
Except that one tenth is not mathematically the same as 10 times less. There is no such thing as x times less. If you have ten apples how many apples must I have if I have 10 times less? There are two possible ways to look at this. Using a number line with 0 in the middle and negatives to left and positives to the right, I would move 100 apples (10 times 10) to the left, because I have less and I would have the mathematically correct, but physically impossible -90 apples.
The other way, which is probably what the author meant is as you suggest one tenth. However, if I have one tenth of the ten apples, meaning I have one apple and apples are the unit of measure (in this case), technically I have 9 apples less. In other words, 10 is ten times more than 1, but 1 is only nine times less than 10.
While I think that you are correct and one tenth is what the author meant. Using ten times less, at least mathematically, means something totally different.
Yes, but how many people would have clicked on the link if the title was actually representative of the findings?
Assuming a slanted roof (oriented to south), you'd get at most 3500W from the device. In an 8-hour day, with some 60% total efficiency, you'd get some 17 kWh. That would be enough for the i3 I think.
This thing would be advantageous if it would keep the car in the shade during summer, and clear of snow in the winter. A garage would be better, though. And maybe setting the solar panels on the house is either too expensive, impossible, ...
Of course if you are going to leave your car in the carport all day, it kind of defeats the purpose of having it. Now if this would charge a battery pack during the day that would then be used to either swap in the car (probably not) or charge the car overnight, that might be cost effective. However, because of inefficiencies, it probably wouldn't provide a full charge but would supplement the regular powergrid.
Have they solved the problem with quantum theory and the big bang being mutually exclusive (other than saying the laws of physics changed somehow)? If not, there is still a really big problem to solve.
That is not possible. I can see it in the court case. You had tge capacity to choose, yet you chose not to choose and my daughter is dead.
But, the simple reality it, that will happen anyway, no matter what decision is made. ("You chose to minimize the probability of X, and now my daughter is dead.")
I don't, by the way, buy the "Programmers have all the time in the world to get it right" bit. Programmers will not be able to anticipate everything, and their software will not always be able to calculate everything in the few milliseconds or so you might have to make such decisions.
When that happens with a real driver, often, they are charged with manslaughter. When it is your car making the decision? Who is at fault for the death?
Doesn't seem that odd to me. You react to touching something hot before any signal reach the brain. That's almost the definition of a reflex vs reaction.
That's because touching something hot triggers an action potential in the skin and only needs to travel to the spinal column and back to elicit the motion. The pain receptors fire more slowly and have to travel to the brain. That is different from neurons firing in the eye and the signal making it to the hand. It (hot reflex) is also much less complex. It only needs to jerk the hand back. Catching the falling glass requires many muscles working in concert.
YMMV, but the quality of various groups is dependent on the members of the group, not Yahoo and they had groups long before Google did.
If a planet has life on it. If we visit it, how much damage will that cause. I mean just the bacteria on our skin that is normally helpful, my thrive and kill off all the life on the planet that may not have such defenses.
It doesn't matter because the reality is we couldn't get there, anyway.
What do they offer than other companies don't offer, better, and without the lack of respect?
Yahoo Groups?
Maybe it's time for the legal system to get involved. If entities won't honor privacy, maybe we need the equivalent of the "Do Not Call" list for telephones implemented for the internet. Of course companies like Google and Yahoo will then just alter their service agreements to state that you do in fact agree to be tracked.
It's not just the size that counts! Granted that 185TB data cartridges is impressive, but how long does it take to read/write such a monster?
Agreed. And the same people who complain that Congress is requiring the Post Office to be responsible with their pension plan will also be the first ones to complain about how irresponsible XYZ corp or union was when those retirees turn to the feds to bail out an unfunded pension. Maybe the answer is that pensions are the problem and all workers should be responsible for themselves. That removes a whole lot of power and temptation from a few people at the top.
Actually, if congress would let the USPS use the same rules as corporations use to figure pension liabilities, there wouldn't be a problem. Those rules dictate that you figure the future liability for all retired and current employees. What congress did was make the Post Office estimate how many new employees they will need over the next 75 years and add these yet to be hired employees to the calculation for the pension liability.
Nobody else in the private or public sector is required to do that.
And let's not forget that the USPS only controls US mail. Outbox was free to do this in other countries. Another "victim" hurt by big bad government.
This as well; but the fact is low rates are a seller's market, and real estate sale--non-speculative transactions, not "I bought houses and flipped them and got dick-rich in a bubble"--is more sustainable in a buyer's market of high interest rates.
It doesn't matter because the increased prices from flipping still impact those who were buying a primary residence. There wasn't one appraisal value for primary residences and another for flippers.
Even if we disregard the fact that you're pulling numbers out of your ass, you're off by nearly 30% in your calculations based on your made up numbers!
You can't just use minimum wage like that because it isn't directly tied to inflation, or to the more appropriate Consumer Price Index. http://www.usinflationcalculat...
And that doesn't isn't even that tied to the durability of the car, which would include repair and upkeep costs as well as life expectancy!
And besides all that, your math is horribly inaccurate!
$15,080/$4,160 * 2500 = $9062.5 for a minimum wage job according to your math.
Actually, all of those numbers are right from Google. There are 2,080 work hours in a year. But you are correct, minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, which is part of the problem with the economy.