I don't want a smart phone. I choose not to use one - I only care to have a simple phone that does the bare minimum. If they want me to have a smart phone, they'd better provide it for me because I will not spend my own money for a device I choose not to have. Under Australian law (to which I am subject) I don't believe a company can force you to provide your own equipment.
Oh for a mod point or ten. I spent the first year of my faculty position scrambling to get funding, and now that I've got it I need to scramble to do research whilst also running classes. Between the dozen 'urgent' things to be done at any one time, I never get a chance to really sit and think hard about my research problems - I just have to hope that I hit on something novel and important when I'm in the shower and that a student then does it justice to get the papers out. It's shit and it makes our research shit.
I would suggest an accelerometer mounted to baton/conductor and a rumble motor
I'm a robotics researcher - some of my work includes developing aids for the blind. Of all the comments here, this is the sanest one and the one that would actually work for people with vision impairment. It's simple, it's cheap and it will WORK. We've had good success with similar systems for other tasks like navigation and playing soccer.
Spoken like someone who has never had to actually prep G-code, fixture a part or debug mill routing. CNC machining is a technical discipline requiring real skill and experience. Experts are paid very good money for their time and talent.
Fortunately, the Geneva Convention specifically excludes non-state combatants from its protection. Mercenaries, terrorists and insurgents/freedom-fighters are all excluded. The moment you take up arms without being in the military, you are not covered by it.
I think a big misconception here is that being totally 'off the grid' is somehow the logical goal. Leaving the grid will satisfy your need to not be tracked, certainly, but I think the pareto principle applies: you can do 20% of the effort to gain 80 percent of the benefit - no need to become a survivalist to avoid intrusive tracking. Turn off cookies, use public transport, leave the cellphone at work when you go home, pay in cash.
Yes, stores have CCTV cameras in them, but they rarely check them except in case of a crime being committed. Sure, they could use fancy face-tracking software cross-referenced with databases to find out who everyone who pays cash is, but really, they won't bother because the vast majority of people will pay with a loyalty card anyway, incentivised with frequent flyer miles or somesuch. Companies go for what's going to turn a profit - they don't do long-tail very well unless it costs them nothing.
You might say that being conspicuously absent from some modes (eg. trackable transactions) highlights you for scrutiny, but I would argue that that's a bit paranoid - companies won't double their tracking efforts to make 2% more from 'different valuers'. Governments might worry about the 2% of weirdos out there, but they already track the things that concern them - purchases of explosive materials, weapons, and phonecalls to known agitators. The best way to keep the government out of your life is to keep your nose clean, follow the law and don't publicise it if you belong to the scarlet letter club du jour (eg. communists, satanists, pedophiles, science fiction writers, etc).
Although Minecraft is DRM free, it still requires server-side activation. For this reason, I did not buy it. I simply will not pay for a game that requires someone's permission to install it, even after money has changed hands. This is a great pity, as I very much respect the work Mojang has done and would like to support it.
Hello - robotics researcher here (specialising in UAVs). I wonder when these breathless articles about battlefield robotics will end. There is nothing new about battlefield robots - we've had tomahawk missiles since the early 80s. It's just that these days we think about them as robots rather than as cruise missiles. Drone strikes? What about the missile strikes from the Gulf War? They were the champions of good and (along with stealth technology) the gold hammer of the Forces of Good.
The only thing that has changes is more penetration of robots into our militaries and more awareness of some of the ethical considerations of automated weapons. Don't forget - the machine gun and landmine have killed far more people than drones likely ever will. They kill mindlessly so long as the trigger was pulled or they are stepped on. And yet, their ethical considerations were long debated. It's just that "omg a robot!" is headline magic.
(To whit - the author of this article must not know that much about robotics if they're claiming "The turtlebot could reconnoitre a battlesite". No it can't - it's a glorified vacuum cleaner. I just kicked the one in my lab. It can barely get over a bump in the carpet.)
Let's focus on the real ethics of robotic warfare: how our leaders choose to use the tools we have made.
Ok, I'm curious. Let's run the numbers for my home country - Australia. The total taxation rate of GDP is about 22%; our GDP per capita is about $71k. That's about $15k per person. The minimum cost of living in Australia is about $16k per person assuming for a typical family of four. The Mincome experiment showed that people do not stop working on basic incomes, but in fact contribute to produce and to gain higher education. It could be quite possible to set the minimum income to be something like $7.5k per annum per capital (as many people will not need it, if paid a higher wage) and use remaining tax revenue to fund defence, infrastructure and health (which account for about half the budget). It does not appear to be outlandish to me. CAVET EMPTOR: this post and its figures were hastily researched using google and are probably deeply flawed and entirely wrong... but they're a starting point for facts-based discussion.
I think the problem is not managers/engineers/etc per se. The problem is not the job function so much as the deadwood doing the function. I have known useless engineers, and I have known useless managers, and I have known useless administrative staff. The problem is the people: they are no good at their job and don't care to get better. The problem is, those people need to eat and pay their bills, so they have to have a job somewhere. I think a large part of society's ills could be cured with something akin to a basic income that basically pensions off people who don't want to be there so that those of us who do - who are highly motivated and capable - can get on with things. Let the manager who wants to spend all day fishing do exactly that. I want to spend all day building robots and educating students. The work will get done, and our industrial processes can produce enough for everyone.
same camera, settings, direction, time of day, physical location etc...you end up with the same shot
I can't even start with how wrong that is. Much like two bullets fired from a gun clamped in a vise will never hit exactly the same point, so too is a photograph unique. Even something as trivial as precisely how hard the photographer triggers the shutter will effect the quality of the output. And if you aren't satisfied with that, I will find you a robot that can reproduce oil paintings on canvas. Every non-trivial arrangement of atoms in the universe is unique. Either uniqueness is sufficient (and every process can be art), or else it isn't and you need a more robust discriminator.
Unfortunately, marriage has many secular and economic implications that religious ceremonies and lifetime commitments do not in of themselves encode. For equal protection under the law, marriage (the legal institution) is necessary. People can wring their hands all they want about how homosexual unions may be legally equivalent to heterosexual marriage but, if the two should be identical legal constructs, it begs the question why different language should be needed to describe them. If not the word marriage, why not not simply reword all legislation with the more neutral 'civil union' as the norm and remove contentious words such as "marriage" altogether?
Yes, I know I'm just setting it up for the "omg teh gays r destroying ur marriage, see!! see!!" response.:)
I think the argument that the author is trying to make is that the scope of new work is more tightly focussed than before. There have been relatively few new 'fundamental' discoveries in physics, compared to refinements and increasing precision. While we are always inventing new ways to use physical laws, the laws themselves haven't changed substantially since quantum mechanics became well understood (proposed nearly 100 years ago).
Once upon a time, people didn't understand how many physical systems worked; the motion of galaxies and the intricacies of light interferometry were classic examples - a single scientist could make a new discovery, Now, we have good reliable models for their behaviour. The sorts of physics experiments that discover novel phenomena about how the mechanisms of the universe functions require teams and teams of physicists.
There are relatively few outright mysteries that remain - the Higgs Boson and the effects shaping the inflation of the universe (eg. dark mater) are classic examples of our time. I suspect that eventually, we will have a coherent explanation for all observable physical phenomena - it's not over yet by a long shot, but one day we'll figure it out.
That doesn't really hold at the university level, where research is required in conjunction to teaching. In fact, it serves a twin purpose - research forces people who just want to teach to stay current in their discipline. Teaching forces people who just want to research to focus and order their knowledge so it can be understood by novices. High school teachers get out of date pretty quickly, but university professors (certainly in my experience) has to be on the ball.
Perhaps the real question here is "Is the field of academic computer science out of touch?"
Full disclosure: I am a robotics researcher ('lecturer', equiv. to an assistant professor) at a university; I'm on a fellowship, though, so I don't have to teach much!
To be a pedant, apostacy is converting away from a religion ("deconverting"?), not simply disbelieving. If you were never a member of the club, you're just an heathen. If you leave the club, you're an apostate.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want a smart phone. I choose not to use one - I only care to have a simple phone that does the bare minimum. If they want me to have a smart phone, they'd better provide it for me because I will not spend my own money for a device I choose not to have. Under Australian law (to which I am subject) I don't believe a company can force you to provide your own equipment.
Oh for a mod point or ten. I spent the first year of my faculty position scrambling to get funding, and now that I've got it I need to scramble to do research whilst also running classes. Between the dozen 'urgent' things to be done at any one time, I never get a chance to really sit and think hard about my research problems - I just have to hope that I hit on something novel and important when I'm in the shower and that a student then does it justice to get the papers out. It's shit and it makes our research shit.
Yeah, just like fireworks!
... Oh wait.
I would suggest an accelerometer mounted to baton/conductor and a rumble motor
I'm a robotics researcher - some of my work includes developing aids for the blind. Of all the comments here, this is the sanest one and the one that would actually work for people with vision impairment. It's simple, it's cheap and it will WORK. We've had good success with similar systems for other tasks like navigation and playing soccer.
Each user has their very own UHF antenna. The receiving center has thousands of tiny UHF antennas, one per user
This really does highlight the absurdity of the current legal framework.
Spoken like someone who has never had to actually prep G-code, fixture a part or debug mill routing. CNC machining is a technical discipline requiring real skill and experience. Experts are paid very good money for their time and talent.
Fortunately, the Geneva Convention specifically excludes non-state combatants from its protection. Mercenaries, terrorists and insurgents/freedom-fighters are all excluded. The moment you take up arms without being in the military, you are not covered by it.
I think a big misconception here is that being totally 'off the grid' is somehow the logical goal. Leaving the grid will satisfy your need to not be tracked, certainly, but I think the pareto principle applies: you can do 20% of the effort to gain 80 percent of the benefit - no need to become a survivalist to avoid intrusive tracking. Turn off cookies, use public transport, leave the cellphone at work when you go home, pay in cash.
Yes, stores have CCTV cameras in them, but they rarely check them except in case of a crime being committed. Sure, they could use fancy face-tracking software cross-referenced with databases to find out who everyone who pays cash is, but really, they won't bother because the vast majority of people will pay with a loyalty card anyway, incentivised with frequent flyer miles or somesuch. Companies go for what's going to turn a profit - they don't do long-tail very well unless it costs them nothing.
You might say that being conspicuously absent from some modes (eg. trackable transactions) highlights you for scrutiny, but I would argue that that's a bit paranoid - companies won't double their tracking efforts to make 2% more from 'different valuers'. Governments might worry about the 2% of weirdos out there, but they already track the things that concern them - purchases of explosive materials, weapons, and phonecalls to known agitators. The best way to keep the government out of your life is to keep your nose clean, follow the law and don't publicise it if you belong to the scarlet letter club du jour (eg. communists, satanists, pedophiles, science fiction writers, etc).
Although Minecraft is DRM free, it still requires server-side activation. For this reason, I did not buy it. I simply will not pay for a game that requires someone's permission to install it, even after money has changed hands. This is a great pity, as I very much respect the work Mojang has done and would like to support it.
"Peripheral vision."
Hello - robotics researcher here (specialising in UAVs). I wonder when these breathless articles about battlefield robotics will end. There is nothing new about battlefield robots - we've had tomahawk missiles since the early 80s. It's just that these days we think about them as robots rather than as cruise missiles. Drone strikes? What about the missile strikes from the Gulf War? They were the champions of good and (along with stealth technology) the gold hammer of the Forces of Good.
The only thing that has changes is more penetration of robots into our militaries and more awareness of some of the ethical considerations of automated weapons. Don't forget - the machine gun and landmine have killed far more people than drones likely ever will. They kill mindlessly so long as the trigger was pulled or they are stepped on. And yet, their ethical considerations were long debated. It's just that "omg a robot!" is headline magic.
(To whit - the author of this article must not know that much about robotics if they're claiming "The turtlebot could reconnoitre a battlesite". No it can't - it's a glorified vacuum cleaner. I just kicked the one in my lab. It can barely get over a bump in the carpet.)
Let's focus on the real ethics of robotic warfare: how our leaders choose to use the tools we have made.
Ok, I'm curious. Let's run the numbers for my home country - Australia. The total taxation rate of GDP is about 22%; our GDP per capita is about $71k. That's about $15k per person. The minimum cost of living in Australia is about $16k per person assuming for a typical family of four. The Mincome experiment showed that people do not stop working on basic incomes, but in fact contribute to produce and to gain higher education. It could be quite possible to set the minimum income to be something like $7.5k per annum per capital (as many people will not need it, if paid a higher wage) and use remaining tax revenue to fund defence, infrastructure and health (which account for about half the budget). It does not appear to be outlandish to me.
CAVET EMPTOR: this post and its figures were hastily researched using google and are probably deeply flawed and entirely wrong... but they're a starting point for facts-based discussion.
I think the problem is not managers/engineers/etc per se. The problem is not the job function so much as the deadwood doing the function. I have known useless engineers, and I have known useless managers, and I have known useless administrative staff. The problem is the people: they are no good at their job and don't care to get better. The problem is, those people need to eat and pay their bills, so they have to have a job somewhere.
I think a large part of society's ills could be cured with something akin to a basic income that basically pensions off people who don't want to be there so that those of us who do - who are highly motivated and capable - can get on with things. Let the manager who wants to spend all day fishing do exactly that. I want to spend all day building robots and educating students. The work will get done, and our industrial processes can produce enough for everyone.
And terrorists, as we all know, are not people and have no rights.
same camera, settings, direction, time of day, physical location etc...you end up with the same shot
I can't even start with how wrong that is. Much like two bullets fired from a gun clamped in a vise will never hit exactly the same point, so too is a photograph unique. Even something as trivial as precisely how hard the photographer triggers the shutter will effect the quality of the output. And if you aren't satisfied with that, I will find you a robot that can reproduce oil paintings on canvas.
Every non-trivial arrangement of atoms in the universe is unique. Either uniqueness is sufficient (and every process can be art), or else it isn't and you need a more robust discriminator.
Unfortunately, marriage has many secular and economic implications that religious ceremonies and lifetime commitments do not in of themselves encode. For equal protection under the law, marriage (the legal institution) is necessary. People can wring their hands all they want about how homosexual unions may be legally equivalent to heterosexual marriage but, if the two should be identical legal constructs, it begs the question why different language should be needed to describe them. If not the word marriage, why not not simply reword all legislation with the more neutral 'civil union' as the norm and remove contentious words such as "marriage" altogether?
:)
Yes, I know I'm just setting it up for the "omg teh gays r destroying ur marriage, see!! see!!" response.
And in another universe, he does.
www.sinfulrobot.com/oculus-rift.html
You're welcome.
Wait a minute! Who told you?!!
I think the argument that the author is trying to make is that the scope of new work is more tightly focussed than before. There have been relatively few new 'fundamental' discoveries in physics, compared to refinements and increasing precision. While we are always inventing new ways to use physical laws, the laws themselves haven't changed substantially since quantum mechanics became well understood (proposed nearly 100 years ago).
Once upon a time, people didn't understand how many physical systems worked; the motion of galaxies and the intricacies of light interferometry were classic examples - a single scientist could make a new discovery, Now, we have good reliable models for their behaviour. The sorts of physics experiments that discover novel phenomena about how the mechanisms of the universe functions require teams and teams of physicists.
There are relatively few outright mysteries that remain - the Higgs Boson and the effects shaping the inflation of the universe (eg. dark mater) are classic examples of our time. I suspect that eventually, we will have a coherent explanation for all observable physical phenomena - it's not over yet by a long shot, but one day we'll figure it out.
So more food must equal more good? I knew it!
Time for another cheeseburger. Nom!
Nooooooooooo! That's impossible!
That doesn't really hold at the university level, where research is required in conjunction to teaching. In fact, it serves a twin purpose - research forces people who just want to teach to stay current in their discipline. Teaching forces people who just want to research to focus and order their knowledge so it can be understood by novices. High school teachers get out of date pretty quickly, but university professors (certainly in my experience) has to be on the ball.
Perhaps the real question here is "Is the field of academic computer science out of touch?"
Full disclosure: I am a robotics researcher ('lecturer', equiv. to an assistant professor) at a university; I'm on a fellowship, though, so I don't have to teach much!
Kate couldnt take the heat so she got out of the kitchen
And yet, ironically, Islamic extremists want to get women like her back in the kitchen.
To be a pedant, apostacy is converting away from a religion ("deconverting"?), not simply disbelieving. If you were never a member of the club, you're just an heathen. If you leave the club, you're an apostate.