The real question is what are we going to do about it? I'm getting increasingly interested in the political process - I've written my MP and the opposite candidate about my views on these things. I've told them my vote is contingent on a roll-back on policies such as this (along with airport scanners).
I'm starting with the soap box, and the ballot box will soon follow. We'll see how many boxes it takes until we see change. Part of the problem with the West is that we've lost the realisation that change is possible and is driven by public choice. We get the government we deserve, and I am damned well going to make my vote in September count.
Likewise. I actually refused to sign the boiler plate at a new dentist after I moved. Upon close reading, the forms insisted that I agree to undergo any procedure the dentist thought necessary for the care of my teeth. So, don't want that root canal the dentist says you need? Too bad - you've already agreed to it. So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back. Not a peep out of them - they were as surprised as I was! They likely had no idea that clause was even in their paperwork, probably inserted by an over-zealous lawyer at some point.
Hello, UAV researcher here. The answer to all of your questions is "Yes".
Let's break it down:
1. A UAV is not limited by the g-constraints of human pilots
2. A UAV will be 300+ kg lighter than a similar manned fighter
3. A UAV does not get tired at night or during extended operations
4. A UAV benefits from the same targeting systems humans use
5. A UAV will unwaveringly sacrifice itself to make a kill if commanded.
6. A radio-silent UAV with preprogrammed orders and terrain databases is no more jammable than a conventional aircraft.
Within 15 more years of development, there will not be a manned aircraft that can survive against a UCAV.
The always-pilot error belief is a mild form of conspiracy theory. People familiar with aircraft systems can tell you that aircraft are frightingly well-engineered precisely because the aircraft manufacturers, airlines and associated industries know fully well that their livelihoods live and die by the public perception of safety. There is a very strong motivation to getting the engineering right. That's why it literally takes almost a decade to bring a new aircraft to market.
It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors. Outside of those, manufacturers develop good working models of their systems and then test them extensively until they find failure points. Considering the uncertain factors, weather was a major cause of accidents early in aviation before weather radar was a standard safety feature, and aviation forecasts were fine-tuned. Now that weather is largely an avoidable risk factor (excepting extremes such as flying into thunderstorms or freak clear air turbulence cells), it should hardly be surprising that the leading cause of accident is the one thing that is most difficult to design around. If you can find a way to make any complex system (aircraft, car, nuclear reactor, etc) idiot-proof without taking away control from the idiot then I have a prize for you.
But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case. These regulators would never stop aircraft from flying, since obviously no fault could be admitted to. Rather, a quick search shows a long history of documented design flaws: de Haviland Comet square windows, DC-10 cargo door, 787 battery fires, 747 cargo door electrical fault (AL182, PA103, UAL811, TWA800), 747 aft galley electrical bus being under refridgerator drip pan (QF2), many many engine failures (Delta 1288, QF32, CA786 to name a few). Not all of these flaws were fatal, but they are officially acknowledged as design and manufacturing flaws nonetheless. If the conspiracy were real, they should never have been owned up to. Instead, we see well-documented explanations of what the flaws are, and FAA directives on how they must be fixed. In fact, there have been many cases where the FAA has forbidden whole classes of aircraft from flying until design flaws are rectified - most recently with the 787 battery problem.
When you consider that there are 10s of thousands of aircraft in the air at any one time and the failure rate is so low, it's obviously that engineers have gone to great lengths to make the design-build-maintenance-operation process for modern aircraft very reliable. Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw. Again, you'll find human error completely dominates.
Like most conspiracy theories, a little research and a bit of common sense goes a long way to shooting down bogus claims.
Interestingly, I was talking to some Airbus designers, and they mentioned that they 3D print brackets used in ailerons out of sintered titanium. If they tried to machine the same part it would either weigh twice as much or cost twice as much for all the machining to lose the extra weight from its complex geometry. The 3D printing process let them only put material in the key loading directions the part had to be strong in, and nowhere it didn't. It made for a much better part.
In fairness to Makerbot, they can produce resolutions that the Ups can't touch - I operate both in my student labs. That said, because the Makerbot Replicators 2Xs we're using are 'higher performance', they're also much more finnicky about working until you've really cinched down on their calibration and preferred settings.
What we're really seeing here is the impatience of the Now Generation. What? You have to wait -thirty minutes- for something to be produced?? OMG!
Have these people any idea how long it takes to produce something through conventional CNC, let alone hand fabrication? I have fabricated parts that have taken 24 hours for a mill to produce. That's a lot of angry birds, right there! The ignorance of what goes into the technological artifacts people take for granted is astonishing. I suspect many people today would benefit from activities and hobbies that reward patience and discipline rather than instant gratification.
As an aside, It's interesting that the author uses a time killing game as a yard stick for the waiting period - as if the time spent while printing was 'dead' and couldn't possibly be used for anything productive.
Interestingly, there is a science of advancing engineering practice - fittingly enough called "engineering science". Finding new ways of building things (by experiment) and finding out what does and does not work. Pretty much all new engineering fields start out that way. I can't think of any field of engineering that lacks a science branch - even naval engineering (hundreds of years of research and thousands of practice) has scientists advancing their techniques.
Actually, I'd argue both Jefferson and Madison are talking sense here. Jefferson points out that a valuable commercial product should be exploited. Madison says that risk amelioration is important to encouraging business innovation.
How does failing to mention them (valid statements, if unrelated to the GPs point) constitute picking and choosing?
Sir, I politely call your attention to the 30 astronauts and cosmonauts who lost their lives in spaceflight and training, and to whom we owe the space program's continued successes around the globe. These men and women gladly risked their lives to advance science and technology and they are heroes, every one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_disasters
The whole thing is very sad, when there are plenty of actually horrible things happening in the environment that don't need to be made up. Fake, or overblown, disasters simply weary the world for when the real thing comes along.
The problem here is that the only signal people have for what their body needs energy-wise is mediated by their hormone balance and brain-chemistry. If you have a condition where even too much energy feels like you're starving (a painful condition), it's readily understandable that you are going to eat too much, even with the best intentions. The problem of simply blaming "eating too much" is that it becomes synonymous with gluttony - a vice and failure of virtue. Even though yes, you are simply eating too much in the thermodynamic sense, it rapidly becomes a stigma where the patient is 'at fault', rather than the underlying medical condition. In this way, victimisation of obese patients is counter-productive.
Sure some people simply have no self-control - but is that because they are bad people, or because there is some factor at work that makes it hard for them? The blame game for obesity is a bit like accusing people with a birth mark of being in league with the devil and burning them - we should know better by now.
Hi - not Latvian, but a professor (with some little IP education). Generally speaking, "educational use" is not held to mean "so long as it's for education, do whatever you want". Educational use typically means discussion and criticism - using excerpts and passages to demonstrate a particular point, or using an example from a text. If the teacher had used fractions of the book as part of his lessons, he would likely have been covered under fair use provisions in many nations (including the US and Australia, where I teach). Conversely, wholesale duplication of a text is rarely considered fair use in an educational context.
That's a depressing attitude to take. Let me give you a similar example: nursing. As part of a nursing degree you are required to take practical educational modules such as how to find a vein and deliver an injection, how to properly insert an IV drip, how to administer blood and so on. These are skills that require immediate hands-on training; while there are some conceptual aspects that can be delivered via video ("tap the fixture to remove bubbles from the flow so that they do not enter the bloodstream"), other critical components require you to see and feel a patient under guidance. Short of some ridiculously advanced haptics, you can't deliver that instruction without being colocated with the student. I'm sorry, but it's not imagination failure: it's reality. I/can/ imagine the haptics, but that won't be primetime for a long time, if ever. So, do we castigate nurses for failing to adequately deliver remote education? No. We simply fly students out to the university when it comes time to do their practical educational components.
Likewise, when we instruct students on debugging, soldering, group work and critical discussions it is expected that they present at the university to undertake it. It is remarkably easy to show a student one on one what proper soldering looks like, how it feels and what the quality of the joint is afterwards - it's a tactile thing like finding a vein. Interactive skills like group discussions are greatly diminished over remote media, which is why many many business people and technical staff travel to do their jobs even in our increasingly technical age.
It is my expectation that, by the time a university student is committed to undertaking a four year degree, they will be sufficiently independent of their parents so as to be able to travel to a location proximal to their school. This is very very routine, and easily 70 percent of my class are from out of state. You're absolutely right - genius is not geographically determined (cf. Ramanujan) - and those students who excell at school are typically eligible for remote student scholarships to pay for their moving expenses to study at our university. The university really loves giving them out - it lets them talk about how they're helping the best and the brightest have new opportunities they might otherwise be denied through their remoteness.
Pitying me just because I recognise that one way of teaching absolutely sucks and one way of teaching is somewhat better (and then choose to advocate for the better way) is somewhat disengenuous. I would be doing my students a disservice if I told them "Sure! We can teach you all you need to know just fine over the phone." They would be unprepared for their profession. If you would like to see something of my approach to teaching, I will put my money where my mouth is and show you my teaching materials. I currently teach a fourth-year project course in mechatronics. My class site is here and is publically accessible. You can see my project design, lectures and feedback to students. I urge you to tell me how to do my job better - I really am committed to improving my teaching and providing the best training possibile to my students.
In a country as vast and as spottily populated as Australia
I teach engineering - specifically practical project based courses in robotics. If students can't be in the lab, it's not really clear how they could be effectively instructed. If doing tech support over the phone is hard, consider the difficulties of effectively debugging a student's circuit when the students themselves don't understand what they've done (or why it's faulty).
The pedagogical aspects of instruction can (and certainily should) be abstracted into online resources, but some aspects of instruction in practical disciplines cannot be effectively remote-taught. At least, so I think - I'm staking my future career on it.:)
Actually, Australia is incredibly densely populated in a few select bits - 90% of Australia's population is urbanised. The flying doctor service was for those few too far to drive from a local hospital or clinic; these days it's increasingly eccentric to live that deep in the bush.
If they fired me just because I didn't provide my own phone it would be wrongful dismissal. So no.. they could not lay me off me on that basis.
It helps that, as an academic, there is little about my job that would be improved with a smart phone. I feel I provide much better instruction talking to students face to face than through some app.
Slashdot Mirror
would someone please at least a security engineer before they design the control API for the thing?
No. There's no pleasing security engineers.
Secret laws that citizens are obliged to follow, but forbidden to know, can be nothing but tools of tyranny.
No, shut them all down! Curse my metal body!
The real question is what are we going to do about it? I'm getting increasingly interested in the political process - I've written my MP and the opposite candidate about my views on these things. I've told them my vote is contingent on a roll-back on policies such as this (along with airport scanners).
I'm starting with the soap box, and the ballot box will soon follow. We'll see how many boxes it takes until we see change. Part of the problem with the West is that we've lost the realisation that change is possible and is driven by public choice. We get the government we deserve, and I am damned well going to make my vote in September count.
"The name's Bond - Jane Bond".
Likewise. I actually refused to sign the boiler plate at a new dentist after I moved. Upon close reading, the forms insisted that I agree to undergo any procedure the dentist thought necessary for the care of my teeth. So, don't want that root canal the dentist says you need? Too bad - you've already agreed to it. So, I crossed out those parts and corrected the language until it was something I was satisfied with. I called it to the attention of the receptionist and said "I don't agree to these terms as is. I have modified it in the following way, as noted on the form." Signed and handed it back. Not a peep out of them - they were as surprised as I was! They likely had no idea that clause was even in their paperwork, probably inserted by an over-zealous lawyer at some point.
In so far as he enlisted the support of the Vikings of Bjornstad, a living history reenactment group, yes.
Actually, the Russians got there first.
Hello, UAV researcher here. The answer to all of your questions is "Yes".
Let's break it down:
1. A UAV is not limited by the g-constraints of human pilots
2. A UAV will be 300+ kg lighter than a similar manned fighter
3. A UAV does not get tired at night or during extended operations
4. A UAV benefits from the same targeting systems humans use
5. A UAV will unwaveringly sacrifice itself to make a kill if commanded.
6. A radio-silent UAV with preprogrammed orders and terrain databases is no more jammable than a conventional aircraft.
Within 15 more years of development, there will not be a manned aircraft that can survive against a UCAV.
The always-pilot error belief is a mild form of conspiracy theory. People familiar with aircraft systems can tell you that aircraft are frightingly well-engineered precisely because the aircraft manufacturers, airlines and associated industries know fully well that their livelihoods live and die by the public perception of safety. There is a very strong motivation to getting the engineering right. That's why it literally takes almost a decade to bring a new aircraft to market.
It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors. Outside of those, manufacturers develop good working models of their systems and then test them extensively until they find failure points. Considering the uncertain factors, weather was a major cause of accidents early in aviation before weather radar was a standard safety feature, and aviation forecasts were fine-tuned. Now that weather is largely an avoidable risk factor (excepting extremes such as flying into thunderstorms or freak clear air turbulence cells), it should hardly be surprising that the leading cause of accident is the one thing that is most difficult to design around. If you can find a way to make any complex system (aircraft, car, nuclear reactor, etc) idiot-proof without taking away control from the idiot then I have a prize for you.
But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case. These regulators would never stop aircraft from flying, since obviously no fault could be admitted to. Rather, a quick search shows a long history of documented design flaws: de Haviland Comet square windows, DC-10 cargo door, 787 battery fires, 747 cargo door electrical fault (AL182, PA103, UAL811, TWA800), 747 aft galley electrical bus being under refridgerator drip pan (QF2), many many engine failures (Delta 1288, QF32, CA786 to name a few). Not all of these flaws were fatal, but they are officially acknowledged as design and manufacturing flaws nonetheless. If the conspiracy were real, they should never have been owned up to. Instead, we see well-documented explanations of what the flaws are, and FAA directives on how they must be fixed. In fact, there have been many cases where the FAA has forbidden whole classes of aircraft from flying until design flaws are rectified - most recently with the 787 battery problem.
When you consider that there are 10s of thousands of aircraft in the air at any one time and the failure rate is so low, it's obviously that engineers have gone to great lengths to make the design-build-maintenance-operation process for modern aircraft very reliable. Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw. Again, you'll find human error completely dominates.
Like most conspiracy theories, a little research and a bit of common sense goes a long way to shooting down bogus claims.
Interestingly, I was talking to some Airbus designers, and they mentioned that they 3D print brackets used in ailerons out of sintered titanium. If they tried to machine the same part it would either weigh twice as much or cost twice as much for all the machining to lose the extra weight from its complex geometry. The 3D printing process let them only put material in the key loading directions the part had to be strong in, and nowhere it didn't. It made for a much better part.
In fairness to Makerbot, they can produce resolutions that the Ups can't touch - I operate both in my student labs. That said, because the Makerbot Replicators 2Xs we're using are 'higher performance', they're also much more finnicky about working until you've really cinched down on their calibration and preferred settings.
What we're really seeing here is the impatience of the Now Generation. What? You have to wait -thirty minutes- for something to be produced?? OMG!
Have these people any idea how long it takes to produce something through conventional CNC, let alone hand fabrication? I have fabricated parts that have taken 24 hours for a mill to produce. That's a lot of angry birds, right there! The ignorance of what goes into the technological artifacts people take for granted is astonishing. I suspect many people today would benefit from activities and hobbies that reward patience and discipline rather than instant gratification.
As an aside, It's interesting that the author uses a time killing game as a yard stick for the waiting period - as if the time spent while printing was 'dead' and couldn't possibly be used for anything productive.
I think it's a typo for 'wins a kewpie doll'. Kewpie dolls are often given away as prizes at games of skill and chance at fairs and carnivals.
Interestingly, there is a science of advancing engineering practice - fittingly enough called "engineering science". Finding new ways of building things (by experiment) and finding out what does and does not work. Pretty much all new engineering fields start out that way. I can't think of any field of engineering that lacks a science branch - even naval engineering (hundreds of years of research and thousands of practice) has scientists advancing their techniques.
Are you in the faculty of contradiction?
No.
And if the Bitcoin Foundation actually transmitted monetary value you might actually have a point.
Actually, I'd argue both Jefferson and Madison are talking sense here. Jefferson points out that a valuable commercial product should be exploited. Madison says that risk amelioration is important to encouraging business innovation.
How does failing to mention them (valid statements, if unrelated to the GPs point) constitute picking and choosing?
This approach has killed the space program.
exploration is done by bold people who die
Sir, I politely call your attention to the 30 astronauts and cosmonauts who lost their lives in spaceflight and training, and to whom we owe the space program's continued successes around the globe. These men and women gladly risked their lives to advance science and technology and they are heroes, every one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_disasters
The whole thing is very sad, when there are plenty of actually horrible things happening in the environment that don't need to be made up. Fake, or overblown, disasters simply weary the world for when the real thing comes along.
The problem here is that the only signal people have for what their body needs energy-wise is mediated by their hormone balance and brain-chemistry. If you have a condition where even too much energy feels like you're starving (a painful condition), it's readily understandable that you are going to eat too much, even with the best intentions. The problem of simply blaming "eating too much" is that it becomes synonymous with gluttony - a vice and failure of virtue. Even though yes, you are simply eating too much in the thermodynamic sense, it rapidly becomes a stigma where the patient is 'at fault', rather than the underlying medical condition. In this way, victimisation of obese patients is counter-productive.
Sure some people simply have no self-control - but is that because they are bad people, or because there is some factor at work that makes it hard for them? The blame game for obesity is a bit like accusing people with a birth mark of being in league with the devil and burning them - we should know better by now.
Hi - not Latvian, but a professor (with some little IP education). Generally speaking, "educational use" is not held to mean "so long as it's for education, do whatever you want". Educational use typically means discussion and criticism - using excerpts and passages to demonstrate a particular point, or using an example from a text. If the teacher had used fractions of the book as part of his lessons, he would likely have been covered under fair use provisions in many nations (including the US and Australia, where I teach). Conversely, wholesale duplication of a text is rarely considered fair use in an educational context.
Typo - the correct link is http://robotics.itee.uq.edu.au/~metr3800/.
That's a depressing attitude to take. Let me give you a similar example: nursing. As part of a nursing degree you are required to take practical educational modules such as how to find a vein and deliver an injection, how to properly insert an IV drip, how to administer blood and so on. These are skills that require immediate hands-on training; while there are some conceptual aspects that can be delivered via video ("tap the fixture to remove bubbles from the flow so that they do not enter the bloodstream"), other critical components require you to see and feel a patient under guidance. Short of some ridiculously advanced haptics, you can't deliver that instruction without being colocated with the student. I'm sorry, but it's not imagination failure: it's reality. I /can/ imagine the haptics, but that won't be primetime for a long time, if ever. So, do we castigate nurses for failing to adequately deliver remote education? No. We simply fly students out to the university when it comes time to do their practical educational components.
Likewise, when we instruct students on debugging, soldering, group work and critical discussions it is expected that they present at the university to undertake it. It is remarkably easy to show a student one on one what proper soldering looks like, how it feels and what the quality of the joint is afterwards - it's a tactile thing like finding a vein. Interactive skills like group discussions are greatly diminished over remote media, which is why many many business people and technical staff travel to do their jobs even in our increasingly technical age.
It is my expectation that, by the time a university student is committed to undertaking a four year degree, they will be sufficiently independent of their parents so as to be able to travel to a location proximal to their school. This is very very routine, and easily 70 percent of my class are from out of state. You're absolutely right - genius is not geographically determined (cf. Ramanujan) - and those students who excell at school are typically eligible for remote student scholarships to pay for their moving expenses to study at our university. The university really loves giving them out - it lets them talk about how they're helping the best and the brightest have new opportunities they might otherwise be denied through their remoteness.
Pitying me just because I recognise that one way of teaching absolutely sucks and one way of teaching is somewhat better (and then choose to advocate for the better way) is somewhat disengenuous. I would be doing my students a disservice if I told them "Sure! We can teach you all you need to know just fine over the phone." They would be unprepared for their profession. If you would like to see something of my approach to teaching, I will put my money where my mouth is and show you my teaching materials. I currently teach a fourth-year project course in mechatronics. My class site is here and is publically accessible. You can see my project design, lectures and feedback to students. I urge you to tell me how to do my job better - I really am committed to improving my teaching and providing the best training possibile to my students.
In a country as vast and as spottily populated as Australia
I teach engineering - specifically practical project based courses in robotics. If students can't be in the lab, it's not really clear how they could be effectively instructed. If doing tech support over the phone is hard, consider the difficulties of effectively debugging a student's circuit when the students themselves don't understand what they've done (or why it's faulty).
:)
The pedagogical aspects of instruction can (and certainily should) be abstracted into online resources, but some aspects of instruction in practical disciplines cannot be effectively remote-taught. At least, so I think - I'm staking my future career on it.
Actually, Australia is incredibly densely populated in a few select bits - 90% of Australia's population is urbanised. The flying doctor service was for those few too far to drive from a local hospital or clinic; these days it's increasingly eccentric to live that deep in the bush.
If they fired me just because I didn't provide my own phone it would be wrongful dismissal. So no.. they could not lay me off me on that basis. It helps that, as an academic, there is little about my job that would be improved with a smart phone. I feel I provide much better instruction talking to students face to face than through some app.