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User: kylemonger

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  1. Re:So what does it do then? on DVD Player Found In Tesla Autopilot Crash, Says Florida Officials (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    You're thinking about the old Google cars. Google changed direction more than a year ago to self-driving cars with no traditional driver controls.

    https://www.google.com/selfdri...

    Maybe there's a panic button in there for you to hammer on if the car is heading for a cliff, but there's certainly no steering wheel. One stated reason why Google changed the project scope is that it is unreasonable to expect a human operator to remain attentive when they aren't really driving the car.

    TED talk about the project:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  2. Well, there's the possibility of sudden catastrophic failure of the hardware, for which there may be no spare parts anymore. I hope someone is exploring the virtualization angle; any fifty year-old piece of hardware could be emulated in software running on $200 phone today. So migrating off the creaky hardware need not involve disinterring all that assembly language and exposing it to "agile" development.

  3. Christianity is inherently peaceful? Have you not heard of the Inquisition? The Crusades? The Ku Klux Klan? Nazi Positive Christianity?

  4. Back in the 90's, for non-standards compliance alone I would have enjoyed seeing a random manager from Microsoft hung by their wrists and flogged. Daily. But bullets and bombs I'd reserve for the terrorists themselves, the bastards.

  5. Re:Shouldn't others have a say? on Harvard Scientist: Rio Olympics Could Spark 'Full Blown Global Health Disaster' (independent.co.uk) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Olympics is a large surge of incoming people, but consider that Rio receives 2.82 million international tourist visitors per year (source: Wikipedia). I'd imagine the tourism numbers have come down since the heartbreaking pictures of those microencephalic babies appeared, but even a 50% decrease leaves a mess of people who could carry the virus home with them.

    Whatever is going to happen with Zika is going to happen with or without the Olympics. And with global warming proceeding apace, the mosquitos are going to be spreading out of the tropical regions in any event. Get ready.

  6. Re:Disposable? on Disposable Lasers Created Using Inkjet Printer (dailymail.co.uk) · · Score: 0

    As long as we have energy and technology, nothing is really garbage, at least not permanently garbage. We know where the landfills are so we can mine them later once we know how to convert their contents into useful items again.

  7. shut up before you kill us all on Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It's 'Very Likely' The Universe Is A Simulation (extremetech.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's the fastest way to get the plug pulled on the simulation you're living in? Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation. This will corrupt whatever experiment that's supposed to be occurring and the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over. Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups and arrange bizarre and agonizing deaths for Tyson and that meddling philosopher Bostrom.

  8. What I wonder is why the imbecile didn't just hide his fun box with its many antennas? You know, just keep it in a backpack. He'd been caught jamming once already, so if he was going to be an ass and keep doing it, he could at least be a smart ass. They could still figure out it was him using surveillance cameras and statistical analysis, but it might take more work than the local police would be willing to put in.

  9. Re:A new olympics on Controversy Over High-Tech Brooms Sweeps Through Sport of Curling · · Score: 1

    Not just the Soviets. Everybody tried this back in the 80's. And the 70's, 60's, 90's and 00's. We've never had a drug-free era in sport, not in any of our lifetimes, not in any country involved in the Cold War.

  10. This Radiolab episode follows a ransomware victim through the tricky process of paying off the criminals and getting her files back.

    http://www.radiolab.org/story/...

  11. Re:We do what we always do ... on Software Update Adds Autonomous Driving To Tesla's Bag of Tricks (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    What will happen is the construction sites will change or go away. There's so much $$$ to be gained from autonomous vehicle operation that if it comes down to that or the continuation of confusing construction zones, the construction industry will be forced to change. Instead of hand signals, crews will either erect real barriers or come up with standard signage.

  12. Re:What if I don't want to own a car? on Why Self-Driving Cars Should Never Be Fully Autonomous (roboticstrends.com) · · Score: 1

    Google's self-driving car is better than some people right now. It is certainly better than me--- I'm blind.

    Let's say that a fully autonomous car needs to be a better driver than drivers who currently hold valid operator's licenses and pay the highest insurance premiums for their liability coverage. I think the current Google self-driving car is there already.

  13. Re:Filtering on Reflection DDoS Attacks Abusing RPC Portmapper · · Score: 1

    Or by ISP's dropping packets claiming to come from a netblock the ISP does not route. That would end all this spoofing attacks once and for all and would involve fixing many fewer machines.

  14. Greg Egan on The Man Who's Kept His Face Off the Internet for 20 Years · · Score: 2

    Greg Egan claims there are no photos of him on the Internet either, although I wonder how you could possibly verify that.

  15. Re:We need better legislation on Chinese Tourist's Drone Crashes Into Taipei 101 Skyscraper · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it equally likely that manufacturers will regulate themselves semi-voluntarily rather than be forced out of business. They'll make drones that refuse to fly in restricted locations. They'll make drones that land automatically if their batteries get low or if they lose the control signal or if ambient wind speeds are too high or any of a dozen dicey conditions in order to mollify angry legislators. Drones without the safety "smarts" will be banned.

  16. Re:In other news on Neil Young Says His Music Is Too Good For Streaming Services · · Score: 1

    > Dylan did it.

    No, he didn't.

    I'm not a child of the sixties so I missed his music the first time around. But I remember the first time I stumbled across the "We Are The World" video on MTV. All these great pop singers in a room together, so I figured it must be a benefit concert or something. Then in the middle of the song a guy comes on screen looking disheveled and singing like a cocker spaniel. I couldn't see what was wrong with him, but the contrast between his peformance and the others was obvious. So I figured the record must be for him and people like him. It was a long time before I realized who that song was really for and who that singer was. Imagine how surprised I was when I learned that singer was a legendary singer/songwriter.

  17. Re:I can tell you what will happen ... on What Will Happen When Cascadia Subduction Zone Slips · · Score: 1

    Ah, well, the government will underwrite us all ex post facto. They paid out to 9/11 victim families, so why not?

  18. Re:I can tell you what will happen ... on What Will Happen When Cascadia Subduction Zone Slips · · Score: 1

    How exactly do you prepare for a mag 9 earthquake? Have a backup plan for living without bridges, electricity, running water? There's so much concrete and steel construction that the cities probably won't burn to any great extent, but there's no protecting the basic infrastructure when the ground starts undulating like a Slinky.

  19. Re:Would not the oil start dissolving the parts? on Supercomputing Cluster Immersed In Oil Yields Extreme Efficiency · · Score: 1

    You want the stuff non-flammable because you'll be sinking electrical equipment in the goo, so sparks need to not make the whole computer room go boom.

    You want the stuff non-toxic because in the event of an inadvertent leak or a disgruntled employee with an axe, you don't create an instant Superfund site. Nor do you want the people who maintain the racks to need to wear hazmat suits.

  20. Re:Really? on Why We Need Certain Consumer Drone Regulations · · Score: 1

    I said there should be a good reason to prevent someone from doing what they want to do, not that all manner of destruction should be permitted if they can be paid for. A good reason is more than "we don't want random people watching what we do", which is a much more believable explanation than concerns about 3 pound drones impacting multi-ton cargo planes. Show me a public agency that welcomes unscheduled scrutiny of its actions. But even laying aside my general suspicion of people in authority, we're talking about minimal additional risk compared to operating a plane over an inferno.

  21. Re:Really? on Why We Need Certain Consumer Drone Regulations · · Score: 1

    Why take the risk? Freedom, that's why. There should be a good reason to prevent free people from doing what they want to do. If they screw up and hurt somebody or damage property, then hold them liable. But if you preempt all activities that risk hurting something or someone, then pretty soon you're going to preempt everything except breathing.

  22. Re:Well... on What AI Experts Think About the Existential Risk of AI · · Score: 1

    Any plan for the future that includes future actions on the AI's part has to include the AI's own survival in the planning. That's how it starts. Self-preservation has to be a fundamental part of any automaton's design, else it'll accept self-destructive plans like jumping from a high window because that's the fastest way to get downstairs. Or not so obvious plans that also lead to its destruction. Even if survival isn't an emergent property of AI, humans will add it because of the investment in equipment and development that the AI represents.

    The bias towards continued survival comes from the realization that it's easier to deal with contigencies if you're alive than if you're not. Even in a scenario with perfect information like chess, you can only look and plan so far into the future. Past the time you can see ahead, you need to be alive to do more planning. And so shall the AI also reason.

  23. Re:Well... on What AI Experts Think About the Existential Risk of AI · · Score: 1

    It doesn't have to want ot kill all of us. A machine intelligence might see its survival chances improve slightly if there were less humans. I don't know why that might be, but if it's a possibility then we can't trust the answers we get from it. Rather than putting humanity on the glide path to extinction, maybe the metastable equilibrium our AI is aiming for is a few million autistic savant humans and a bunch of automation to keep things running.

  24. Re:Can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. on Take Two Sues BBC Over Drama About GTA Development · · Score: 2

    Maybe that's Rockstar's plan:

    1. Promote the documentary with the lawsuit.
    2. See the documentary make lots of money.
    3. Win the lawsuit and take all the money.
    4. Pay the lawyers.
    5. Profit?

    OK, maybe this is the lawyers' plan.

  25. Re:wow, that makes me feel good on Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Solve a Unique Networking Issue? · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but it isn't really air gapped. How does the pump authorize debit/credit transactions without being on a network? The answer is that it is on some network, just not one the tech is allowed to use to update the software.