(I've heard of it happening to others, but never thought it could happen to me . ..
It finally happened . . . I see something worth moderating up, but I have no points . ..)
"I have a couple cards and if I'm somewhere I worry about the system's integrity, I use the card that doesn't have any autopayments associated with it. Then if it does get stolen, there's absolutely no hassle outside of a two phone calls to the issuer: one to report it, and one to activate the new card."
You have no idea how simple, powerful, and non-obvious that statement was . . . and yet I've never seen it suggested before.
Tomorrow I will be busy rearranging my financial life.
Not "Google Glass" as is but . . . some future version of that, would seem to be the ideal.
HIGHLY directional microphone, lets you "look" at the speaker of interest to help #1 see facial expressions/body language, #2 discern that "voice" from among the background noise clutter, with interpreted output onto the display.
Something should be possible... if its done in "Wet" electronics (Brain-Body), with enough processing power and sensitivity, discernment should be somewhat possible in "Dry" electronics (IC's and discrete components.)
I keep thinking back to my early days in Ham Radio . . . as time passed and band conditions changed, signals faded and were occluded by background noise, but my human ears "locked on and tracked" the fading morse code. Such that, a passing observer, walking in fresh, might not "hear anything" in the din of noise . . . when I was just able to stay locked on and keep the conversation going a few minutes/seconds longer. How was I staying "locked on"?
Clearly, all I need to do is break out the CSI Miami DVD's and watch a few episodes, where they pull out a clear conversation from the background of a garbled audio conversation, and just repeat their procedure . ..
It'll take more than just directional audio input and decoding (recognition) software. (For those cases when you're trying to listen to ONE conversation in a room full of three or four going on) . . . "directionality" will help, but some pretty heavy duty "fast fourier transforms" (or something similar) might be needed to "track" the particular voices of interest. And laughter, non "voice" sounds like "gasps", tonal changes for surprise or interrogation . . . will make "tracking" problematic.
(Whether build by God, or 1.5 million years of evolution . . . the current design has a big head start.)
I know . . . all that's design postulation, and not the "I need it now" answer you were hoping for. Just thinking out loud.
I remember as a teenager, my mother telling about a miscarriage she had a few years after I was born (too young to remember). Apparently they did a D&C afterwards (to scrap residue off the walls). But, hospitals (at that time at least) must've listed some Abortions as D&C's.
(At the time of the conversation) its 13+ years later and someone had just stolen some hospital records and was harrasing recent D&C patients for "having Abortions" . . .
She was horror struck at what it must've been like, for those "want to be mothers", still suffering the tragedy of having lost a child unwillingly . . . to have some dipwad confront them and accuse them of having an Abortion.
Patient records should be sacrosanct for a reason.
I don't disagree. I'd just like to see all the numbers before I drink the Kool-Aid(tm). No matter how efficient the electric plant is, they still need to mine, and install, and have fleets of trucks to maintain . . . copper/wood/steel distribution systems. (I know, Gas doesn't just "appear" at my local Convenience store tank, they have refineries and fleets of trucks that pollute too, . . . I'm just saying without a FULL head to head TOTAL end to end comparison . . . its hard to separate propaganda from fact. And its in both industries interests to obscure those facts.)
Ignoring all that . . . (3 years ago when I checked) the pricebreak for my wallet, just wan't there yet, considering . . . initial vehicle cost, my mileage per year (and the type city/highway) and expected mileages per $ on electric and including expected rising gas prices, and expected maintenance and lifespans of the vehicles . . . Hybrid just wasn't there yet. (Considering the range, and my lifestyle in KY . . . "Electric only" is totally out of the question.) And at the typical 15k miles per year, my life/driving is pretty typical for here.
I'd like to by Hybrid and save the planet. I'd even pay a "slight" premium over gas. But, the numbers just aren't there yet. (And I mean by $10k+ not there.) If I lived in a large city and drove only locally 95% of the time (and could use a rental otherwise) . . . Maybe.
But living an average KY life . . . Hybrid just doesn't cut it for me, dollar-wise.
Looking at "Inductive charging" on Wikipedia . . . the "new improved" high frequency charging . . . is only 86% efficient compared to what direct would be.
Even if that's way off and its more like the 99% hoped for . . . use of heavy metals, disposal of old batteries, charging inefficiency, drive efficiency (and capacity) due to battery weight . . . I'm still waiting to see the final number to prove Electric is "really" better than Gasoline. Even "pollution" . . . that Electricity didn't just magically appear. Has anyone factored in the "pollution" at the generating site?
I don't have all those numbers . . . all I know is, even with a "government rebate" (which I'm helping pay for) . . . 3 years ago (~2010) "Electric" or "Hybrid" wasn't (lifetime of the car) a profitable deal compared to Gasoline for me.
Dad was a KY State Police for 25 years . . . (most) every time they used tear gas into a house . . . it caught the house on fire. He even got an award for it once. OK technically the award was for ending the hostage crisis with no loss of life, but even 20 years after retiring he felt really bad about half burning the guy's house down.
Yeah, this'll go in with Tazers as something that never should have been invented. (Less lethal = easier to abuse.) I don't want anyone "shooting" anything at me (or me in my car), unless I've done something so bad . . . it'd be better to kill me than let me go.
(In Kentucky for example . ..) Sheriff's (and Deputy's) and State Police (those organizations with fewer officers covering wider areas) frequently have cruisers assigned to officers, and they take them home. Larger more metropolitan police (having a larger workforce that shares cars 24x7) less so.
Some mid-sized areas (like 50k population Bowling Green) have "some" officers take cars home. Parking a car at an apartment building, can have a "calming" effect, even if the officer is probably asleep.
It varies widely.
Excellent point. I keep saying we should ask "Am I choosing a language for the 1 hr project, or the 10 year project?"
If its the 1 hr project (lets say to port data from one proprietary DB format to another) . . . write it in anything, Java, C, Haskell, APL . . . I don't care. You need it quick, not efficient, then will throw it away.
But if we're going to be Mostly Running it for 20 years (and less so modifying it) . . . like say for an OS . . . then . . . efficiency beats all. (Doesn't eliminate expand-ability and maintainability . . . but beats them to first place consideration.)
And, under ideal circumstances . . . its gonna be hard to beat Assembler. (Slower to market . . . perhaps . . . but faster for you the next 20 years as you run it.)
Robots might be a step in the right direction but . . .
First . . . I (and I would think, almost everyone else) don't want "AI" . . . I want "Real Intelligence, just in a rapidly reproducible form".
And I'm afraid without the ability learn by feeling pleasure, pain, or loss . . . we'll only accomplish a "fast parrot", without a spark of "drive" necessary for true intelligence.
Of course, as soon as we accomplish true intelligence . . . I'll have to wonder if we've just ventured back into slavery, and won't have the time to ask the robot, because he'll be too busy debating the existence of God, or whether to use VI or Emacs, or which is better C or Java, and whether he should run his C or Java on a PC or a MAC.
I wasn't referring to the "lead up" questions, or the "base line" questions.
My point was (in response to the poster I first responded to) that . . . at one time . . . in KY . . . they read the ENTIRE list of questions before beginning, to try and insure they were getting a physical response to a lie, not to the core impact of the question itself.
I'm not trying to debate the merits of lie detectors in general. (We need "something" . . . but I'm not sure the "something' we need . . . exists, or ever will.)
No matter how passive or "non harmful" it is claimed to be, recurring-FMRI sounds like one of those things I'd like to avoid out of basic health paranoia. And (if useful for anything at all) lie detectors seem more useful for exclusionary than inclusionary purposes. (A trained spy is likely to beat it . . . but to eliminate focus on parents that might have "done something" to a missing child, . . . with no advance training, they might not be able to beat it. And passing that test, allows authorities to focus harder on "outside" suspects.)
I made that point once to a KY State Police polygraph operator (who I met because my father was a KSP officer) . . . the polygraph operator responded . . . "That's why we give/read a list of questions in advance . . . we want your reaction to the "lie" . . . not to the magnitude of the question."
But . . . that was 20 years ago . . . things may have changed.
Then . . . "we're doing it wrong."
There should never exist a "Bitcoin Bank" . . . there should only exist "Bitcoin Exchanges" that never "hold" anything, they only (atomically) exchange the singular small amount of Bitcoin you wish to covert to/from Fiat/Physical currency (or in/out of a real bank checking account).
Since (as I understand it) transfers of Bitcoin value/wealth could happen peer to peer to buy or sell goods and services directly between the two involved parties, . . . I see no advantage to "giving all our Bitcoin" to a bank. . . if you had 1000 Bitcoins, and wanted to exchange 2 for US$CashInCheckingAcct, then (atomically) transfer ONLY 2 Bitcoin in and get CashOut immediately.
The poster far above is correct . . . if your "giving" all your Bitcoin to a bank to hold for you . . . its just like ISK in a volunteer-player run "bank" in EVE Online . . . you're doomed.
Yes, I may ask the local Citizens Federal Bank of Amerika to hold my millions in cash for me . . . but only because in the real world, I can't provide physical security of the stacks and stacks of bills. Its just not the same in Bitcoin. If I can protect only the "private key" . . . there is no need to have a "Bank" "protect the physical bits and bytes" of the Bitcoin value.
I don't see why we couldn't just have a transaction that said . . . . User1234 agrees (using his private key), AND ExchangeBroker agrees (using their private key), to take 2Bitcoin from User1234, and deposit 2BitcoinOfCashValue in User1234's Checking account 12345678, with ExchangeBroker receiving.1% exchange value as fee. . ..in one atomic transaction. Heck, Visa (or Paypal) should sign up to provide this as a per transaction service. But at no point need they "hold" all my Bitcoin value.
And there are so many "unexplained" points . . . (If I with my rack of GPU Bitcoin generators running in my basement discover the next key . . . while you (with your rack of GPU Bitcoin generators running in your basement discover the SAME key) . . . who wins? The first to report and propagate it to the "world-wide database")?
It just all seems too . . . (can't quite find the word . . . "shystery", "unavoidably fradulent", "unwittingly / inherently dangerous") to me . . . I'll stick to stuffing cash in my mattress.
I never invested in / used Bitcoins, because its either "value generated out of nothing" or . . . "some giant scheme by the NSA to convince us to crack encryption keys for them". Paranoia=Off
But to my noob question . . . if one of the benefits of Bitcoin is that . . . there is a complete transaction list for every Bitcoin, distributed everywhere . . . then why should I care if my Bitcoin bank went out of business . . . doesn't every other Bitcoin holder in the universe already have the proof that I own . . . what I own?
If I can cough up the Private Key (excuse my poor understanding of the concepts here) to match the records "everyone else" already has . . . how did the bank "take" anything from me?
For that matter . . . why are there even banks?
Bitcoin always sounded like "everyone has a copy of everyone else's balanced checkbook" . . . so, why can't I just continue to use my private key to make purchases?
Only my personal experience but as for "power cycling" . . . I follow one basic rule.
If you turn it off every night (when you go home from work) . . . it'll work fine, and last five years . . . then you're in the danger zone.
If you LEAVE IT ON for weeks at a time and NEVER turn it off . . . it'll work fine, and last five years . . . then you're in the danger zone.
What you NEVER want to do is . . . run it for a year (like at a factory plant) then turn it off for a week vacation. You're toast. (In my limited experience of 28 years) . . . if you turn it off that week . . . there is a 75% chance . . . it'll never turn on again.
I don't know if the "grease" settles, or the metal binds . . . I just know if its been on a year . . . don't turn it off for more than an hour or two if you want it to continue to work.
This isn't a problem of "eating your own dogfood" . . . Its not enough to use your own product. (I think) the point of the article, is that you should observe UNexperienced users and how THEY utilize (or have difficulty utilizing) the product.
I encountered the same thing this weekend using a popular "drawing" type product . . . watching the videos on the Company site, or on Youtube, made it seem easy. When I tried it for myself . . . I couldn't draw lines in an color but BLACK for TWO HOURS. The "experienced" users . . . unwittingly skipped over many basics a newbie user . . . just doesn't know.
It should almost be a "interrogation room" "through the glass" observation. So the developer can't "train" and can only see the suffering the new user experiences while trying to "find" the features they need.
For the tool I was using . . . its ultra powerful (once you know it) but . . . even the simplest features are maddeningly difficult to initially find. Easy and Powerful once found, but tortuously difficult to find.
That's the kind of "observation" I believe the article spoke of.
(Story aside) I'll second the ". . . we need smarter editors!" part . ..
I'm tired of articles titled "First ever PHOTO taken of planet around a distant star . .." (Then reading the article with . . . NO PHOTO attached. Even if there is a copyright issue, that's fine, just tell me.)
"Study finds that men with a shorter than average distance between rectum and scrotum will have fertility problems." (With nothing in the article mentioning . . . what the average distance is . . . so even if I bothered to measure, I'm left with nothing of tangible use from the article.)
I've grown to give high praise to those reporters that end their articles with "We asked them xxx, yyy,and zzz . . . but they refused to respond." (At least I know they TRIED to ask the relevant questions and give me a full story.)
My father (gone now, former KY state police) always said . . . "I could see he was going 10 miles over the limit . .." never stood up in court.
But even a farmer out in a field can look up and say about distant driver "he was just going too fast to make that turn" (placing blame for an accident squarely on the driver) . . . usually was upheld.
This guy . . . will never be convicted. Without explicitly being caught . . . he'll pass under the same reasoning drug dealers do. (If 1 in 100 that take cocaine die from it, and you've just sold 100lbs . . . then . . . you're "defacto" guilty of murder. Its that "defacto" and not "nameable person" that makes all the difference.)
So, its an impressive feat . . . but still incredibly careless and stupid.
I've said it in similar articles . . . I'll repeat it again.
What happens when its a 50lb child, instead of a 100lb deer?
The goal isn't to "survive hitting the deer" the goal is to "avoid hitting the child".
The last time I pointed this out, the response was "the car can react 1000 times faster". True, but that's confusing "response time to apply the brakes" with "stopping distance of the car."
It doesn't matter who applies the brakes . . . stopping distance for a 25mph car on dry asphalt is about 30ft. If you begin slowing/stopping upon seeing the ball, the child might live. If you wait until you see the child. Prepare for a big lawsuit and lots of guilt therapy in your future.
I'll vote/allow the autonomous car, when it stops for the "ball rolling out into traffic, and can 'guess' that a child will follow, and 'anticipates' to stop for the child it can't see yet."
I've had friends see cattle come out thorough a fence and lay on the pavement at night, because it was warmer.
I've had friends know to stop because NOTHING was wrong with the SURFACE of the road . . . but the raging stream underneath it . . . had washed all the underlying support away . . . the asphalt simply hadn't collapsed yet.
Sorry . . . we've just got WAY too many years of AI ahead of us before autonomous cars are ready.
Out in the "left lane" of a Interstate . . . "maybe" . . . through a city . . . we're 50-100 years away from even a remote prayer of that.
Maybe France too . . . didn't they mention that an actual Dr. came standard with the ambulance when Princess Diana's time was up?
Not so in the U.S.A. (Don't get me wrong . . . EMS and ALS is WAY better than just hoping "Bubba" can keep them alive on the trip to the hospital . . . ). But some countries do staff "Doctors" in ambulances.
In general, the older I get, the more I become a "strict constitutionalist in favor of small federal government", but . . . while I respect the constitution more, it does seem to lag in one aspect . . . when your rights are tempered, because others have rights as well.
The constitution doesn't seem to address the distinction when one persons "right" comes into conflict with others "rights".
As in . .
If I walk out into the desert, away from all other people and property, with 20lbs of explosives strapped to myself and detonate it . . .
That's quite different, than if I walk into a crowded room and do the same thing.
The first, simply exercises my rights . . . the second, disrupts (in a violent and irreparable way) the rights of others.
The aspect most leave out of the discussion about searching your person . . . it isn't being performed to "find out" something "about you" . . . its to "protect others" rights. In an odd way, in this case . . . the searching of "you" has nothing to do with "you".
Having said that . . . (though I flew lots earlier in my career) I don't think I've flown commercially in the "scope or grope" era. Partially because I think I'd feel "violated" to do so . . . I'm just not sure (in light of the fact that its being done to protect "others rights" . ..) even though its being done "to me", that it technically is a violation of "me".
(I've done other things too but) Having worked now for 26 years on one application . . . (monitoring system for manufacturing machines), no one ever asks the question first . . . Should we even be looking at frameworks?
I know the "xyz" framework for Java will allow me to generate 2 trillion lines of code in 30 minutes that will run on any device known to mankind, but "xyz" wasn't around last year, and if this is another "20 year" project . . . will "xyz" even be around in five years?
If you're writing "conversion" code to move data off one system to another new one . . . that conversion is a "one time" deal. Use anything, Forth, Haskell, APL, heck, use Java . . . I don't care. And don't care what Framework you use to go with it. But if this is to be an application that will run for five (or ten, or . . . more) years, maybe that "xyz" framework or toolkit that came out last month, isn't the best choice.
No one ever seems to first ask "how long will this program/solution be around . ..?", then . . . base the language/framework choice on that.
Yet another case of . . . "we tend to solve the problems we've encountered before". If you're like me, supporting an ancient code base, the "flavor of the month" framework or toolkit, loses most of its merit. I suppose, if you're grinding away on "one time" solutions with overbearing requirements of "fast more so than better or maintainable" . . . frameworks look much more appealing.
Slashdot Mirror
And my mod points just expired yesterday . . . sigh.
(I've heard of it happening to others, but never thought it could happen to me . . . .)
It finally happened . . . I see something worth moderating up, but I have no points . .
"I have a couple cards and if I'm somewhere I worry about the system's integrity, I use the card that doesn't have any autopayments associated with it. Then if it does get stolen, there's absolutely no hassle outside of a two phone calls to the issuer: one to report it, and one to activate the new card."
You have no idea how simple, powerful, and non-obvious that statement was . . . and yet I've never seen it suggested before.
Tomorrow I will be busy rearranging my financial life.
Not "Google Glass" as is but . . . some future version of that, would seem to be the ideal. HIGHLY directional microphone, lets you "look" at the speaker of interest to help #1 see facial expressions/body language, #2 discern that "voice" from among the background noise clutter, with interpreted output onto the display.
.
Something should be possible... if its done in "Wet" electronics (Brain-Body), with enough processing power and sensitivity, discernment should be somewhat possible in "Dry" electronics (IC's and discrete components.)
I keep thinking back to my early days in Ham Radio . . . as time passed and band conditions changed, signals faded and were occluded by background noise, but my human ears "locked on and tracked" the fading morse code. Such that, a passing observer, walking in fresh, might not "hear anything" in the din of noise . . . when I was just able to stay locked on and keep the conversation going a few minutes/seconds longer. How was I staying "locked on"?
Clearly, all I need to do is break out the CSI Miami DVD's and watch a few episodes, where they pull out a clear conversation from the background of a garbled audio conversation, and just repeat their procedure . .
It'll take more than just directional audio input and decoding (recognition) software. (For those cases when you're trying to listen to ONE conversation in a room full of three or four going on) . . . "directionality" will help, but some pretty heavy duty "fast fourier transforms" (or something similar) might be needed to "track" the particular voices of interest. And laughter, non "voice" sounds like "gasps", tonal changes for surprise or interrogation . . . will make "tracking" problematic.
(Whether build by God, or 1.5 million years of evolution . . . the current design has a big head start.)
I know . . . all that's design postulation, and not the "I need it now" answer you were hoping for. Just thinking out loud.
I remember as a teenager, my mother telling about a miscarriage she had a few years after I was born (too young to remember). Apparently they did a D&C afterwards (to scrap residue off the walls). But, hospitals (at that time at least) must've listed some Abortions as D&C's.
(At the time of the conversation) its 13+ years later and someone had just stolen some hospital records and was harrasing recent D&C patients for "having Abortions" . . .
She was horror struck at what it must've been like, for those "want to be mothers", still suffering the tragedy of having lost a child unwillingly . . . to have some dipwad confront them and accuse them of having an Abortion.
Patient records should be sacrosanct for a reason.
I don't disagree. I'd just like to see all the numbers before I drink the Kool-Aid(tm). No matter how efficient the electric plant is, they still need to mine, and install, and have fleets of trucks to maintain . . . copper/wood/steel distribution systems. (I know, Gas doesn't just "appear" at my local Convenience store tank, they have refineries and fleets of trucks that pollute too, . . . I'm just saying without a FULL head to head TOTAL end to end comparison . . . its hard to separate propaganda from fact. And its in both industries interests to obscure those facts.)
Ignoring all that . . . (3 years ago when I checked) the pricebreak for my wallet, just wan't there yet, considering . . . initial vehicle cost, my mileage per year (and the type city/highway) and expected mileages per $ on electric and including expected rising gas prices, and expected maintenance and lifespans of the vehicles . . . Hybrid just wasn't there yet. (Considering the range, and my lifestyle in KY . . . "Electric only" is totally out of the question.)
And at the typical 15k miles per year, my life/driving is pretty typical for here.
I'd like to by Hybrid and save the planet. I'd even pay a "slight" premium over gas. But, the numbers just aren't there yet. (And I mean by $10k+ not there.)
If I lived in a large city and drove only locally 95% of the time (and could use a rental otherwise) . . . Maybe.
But living an average KY life . . . Hybrid just doesn't cut it for me, dollar-wise.
Looking at "Inductive charging" on Wikipedia . . . the "new improved" high frequency charging . . . is only 86% efficient compared to what direct would be.
Even if that's way off and its more like the 99% hoped for . . . use of heavy metals, disposal of old batteries, charging inefficiency, drive efficiency (and capacity) due to battery weight . . . I'm still waiting to see the final number to prove Electric is "really" better than Gasoline. Even "pollution" . . . that Electricity didn't just magically appear. Has anyone factored in the "pollution" at the generating site?
I don't have all those numbers . . . all I know is, even with a "government rebate" (which I'm helping pay for) . . . 3 years ago (~2010) "Electric" or "Hybrid" wasn't (lifetime of the car) a profitable deal compared to Gasoline for me.
I'm still waiting for the magic breakthrough.
Dad was a KY State Police for 25 years . . . (most) every time they used tear gas into a house . . . it caught the house on fire. He even got an award for it once. OK technically the award was for ending the hostage crisis with no loss of life, but even 20 years after retiring he felt really bad about half burning the guy's house down.
Yeah, this'll go in with Tazers as something that never should have been invented. (Less lethal = easier to abuse.) I don't want anyone "shooting" anything at me (or me in my car), unless I've done something so bad . . . it'd be better to kill me than let me go.
(In Kentucky for example . . .) Sheriff's (and Deputy's) and State Police (those organizations with fewer officers covering wider areas) frequently have cruisers assigned to officers, and they take them home. Larger more metropolitan police (having a larger workforce that shares cars 24x7) less so.
Some mid-sized areas (like 50k population Bowling Green) have "some" officers take cars home. Parking a car at an apartment building, can have a "calming" effect, even if the officer is probably asleep.
It varies widely.
No AI here (and no argument on your evaluation of editors either).
Excellent point. I keep saying we should ask "Am I choosing a language for the 1 hr project, or the 10 year project?"
If its the 1 hr project (lets say to port data from one proprietary DB format to another) . . . write it in anything, Java, C, Haskell, APL . . . I don't care. You need it quick, not efficient, then will throw it away.
But if we're going to be Mostly Running it for 20 years (and less so modifying it) . . . like say for an OS . . . then . . . efficiency beats all. (Doesn't eliminate expand-ability and maintainability . . . but beats them to first place consideration.)
And, under ideal circumstances . . . its gonna be hard to beat Assembler. (Slower to market . . . perhaps . . . but faster for you the next 20 years as you run it.)
Robots might be a step in the right direction but . . .
First . . . I (and I would think, almost everyone else) don't want "AI" . . . I want "Real Intelligence, just in a rapidly reproducible form".
And I'm afraid without the ability learn by feeling pleasure, pain, or loss . . . we'll only accomplish a "fast parrot", without a spark of "drive" necessary for true intelligence.
Of course, as soon as we accomplish true intelligence . . . I'll have to wonder if we've just ventured back into slavery, and won't have the time to ask the robot, because he'll be too busy debating the existence of God, or whether to use VI or Emacs, or which is better C or Java, and whether he should run his C or Java on a PC or a MAC.
I wasn't referring to the "lead up" questions, or the "base line" questions.
My point was (in response to the poster I first responded to) that . . . at one time . . . in KY . . . they read the ENTIRE list of questions before beginning, to try and insure they were getting a physical response to a lie, not to the core impact of the question itself.
I'm not trying to debate the merits of lie detectors in general. (We need "something" . . . but I'm not sure the "something' we need . . . exists, or ever will.)
No matter how passive or "non harmful" it is claimed to be, recurring-FMRI sounds like one of those things I'd like to avoid out of basic health paranoia. And (if useful for anything at all) lie detectors seem more useful for exclusionary than inclusionary purposes. (A trained spy is likely to beat it . . . but to eliminate focus on parents that might have "done something" to a missing child, . . . with no advance training, they might not be able to beat it. And passing that test, allows authorities to focus harder on "outside" suspects.)
I made that point once to a KY State Police polygraph operator (who I met because my father was a KSP officer) . . . the polygraph operator responded . . . "That's why we give/read a list of questions in advance . . . we want your reaction to the "lie" . . . not to the magnitude of the question."
But . . . that was 20 years ago . . . things may have changed.
Thanks for the clarification.
.1% exchange value as fee. . . .in one atomic transaction. Heck, Visa (or Paypal) should sign up to provide this as a per transaction service.
Then . . . "we're doing it wrong."
There should never exist a "Bitcoin Bank" . . . there should only exist "Bitcoin Exchanges" that never "hold" anything, they only (atomically) exchange the singular small amount of Bitcoin you wish to covert to/from Fiat/Physical currency (or in/out of a real bank checking account).
Since (as I understand it) transfers of Bitcoin value/wealth could happen peer to peer to buy or sell goods and services directly between the two involved parties, . . . I see no advantage to "giving all our Bitcoin" to a bank. . . if you had 1000 Bitcoins, and wanted to exchange 2 for US$CashInCheckingAcct, then (atomically) transfer ONLY 2 Bitcoin in and get CashOut immediately.
The poster far above is correct . . . if your "giving" all your Bitcoin to a bank to hold for you . . . its just like ISK in a volunteer-player run "bank" in EVE Online . . . you're doomed.
Yes, I may ask the local Citizens Federal Bank of Amerika to hold my millions in cash for me . . . but only because in the real world, I can't provide physical security of the stacks and stacks of bills. Its just not the same in Bitcoin. If I can protect only the "private key" . . . there is no need to have a "Bank" "protect the physical bits and bytes" of the Bitcoin value.
I don't see why we couldn't just have a transaction that said . . . . User1234 agrees (using his private key), AND ExchangeBroker agrees (using their private key), to take 2Bitcoin from User1234, and deposit 2BitcoinOfCashValue in User1234's Checking account 12345678, with ExchangeBroker receiving
But at no point need they "hold" all my Bitcoin value.
And there are so many "unexplained" points . . . (If I with my rack of GPU Bitcoin generators running in my basement discover the next key . . . while you (with your rack of GPU Bitcoin generators running in your basement discover the SAME key) . . . who wins? The first to report and propagate it to the "world-wide database")?
It just all seems too . . . (can't quite find the word . . . "shystery", "unavoidably fradulent", "unwittingly / inherently dangerous") to me . . . I'll stick to stuffing cash in my mattress.
Thanks for the clarification though.
I never invested in / used Bitcoins, because its either "value generated out of nothing" or . . . "some giant scheme by the NSA to convince us to crack encryption keys for them". Paranoia=Off
But to my noob question . . . if one of the benefits of Bitcoin is that . . . there is a complete transaction list for every Bitcoin, distributed everywhere . . . then why should I care if my Bitcoin bank went out of business . . . doesn't every other Bitcoin holder in the universe already have the proof that I own . . . what I own?
If I can cough up the Private Key (excuse my poor understanding of the concepts here) to match the records "everyone else" already has . . . how did the bank "take" anything from me?
For that matter . . . why are there even banks?
Bitcoin always sounded like "everyone has a copy of everyone else's balanced checkbook" . . . so, why can't I just continue to use my private key to make purchases?
Only my personal experience but as for "power cycling" . . . I follow one basic rule.
If you turn it off every night (when you go home from work) . . . it'll work fine, and last five years . . . then you're in the danger zone.
If you LEAVE IT ON for weeks at a time and NEVER turn it off . . . it'll work fine, and last five years . . . then you're in the danger zone.
What you NEVER want to do is . . . run it for a year (like at a factory plant) then turn it off for a week vacation. You're toast. (In my limited experience of 28 years) . . . if you turn it off that week . . . there is a 75% chance . . . it'll never turn on again.
I don't know if the "grease" settles, or the metal binds . . . I just know if its been on a year . . . don't turn it off for more than an hour or two if you want it to continue to work.
This isn't a problem of "eating your own dogfood" . . . Its not enough to use your own product. (I think) the point of the article, is that you should observe UNexperienced users and how THEY utilize (or have difficulty utilizing) the product.
I encountered the same thing this weekend using a popular "drawing" type product . . . watching the videos on the Company site, or on Youtube, made it seem easy. When I tried it for myself . . . I couldn't draw lines in an color but BLACK for TWO HOURS. The "experienced" users . . . unwittingly skipped over many basics a newbie user . . . just doesn't know.
It should almost be a "interrogation room" "through the glass" observation. So the developer can't "train" and can only see the suffering the new user experiences while trying to "find" the features they need.
For the tool I was using . . . its ultra powerful (once you know it) but . . . even the simplest features are maddeningly difficult to initially find. Easy and Powerful once found, but tortuously difficult to find.
That's the kind of "observation" I believe the article spoke of.
(Story aside) I'll second the ". . . we need smarter editors!" part . . .
." (Then reading the article with . . . NO PHOTO attached. Even if there is a copyright issue, that's fine, just tell me.)
I'm tired of articles titled "First ever PHOTO taken of planet around a distant star . .
"Study finds that men with a shorter than average distance between rectum and scrotum will have fertility problems." (With nothing in the article mentioning . . . what the average distance is . . . so even if I bothered to measure, I'm left with nothing of tangible use from the article.)
I've grown to give high praise to those reporters that end their articles with "We asked them xxx, yyy,and zzz . . . but they refused to respond." (At least I know they TRIED to ask the relevant questions and give me a full story.)
My father (gone now, former KY state police) always said . . . "I could see he was going 10 miles over the limit . . ." never stood up in court.
But even a farmer out in a field can look up and say about distant driver "he was just going too fast to make that turn" (placing blame for an accident squarely on the driver) . . . usually was upheld.
This guy . . . will never be convicted. Without explicitly being caught . . . he'll pass under the same reasoning drug dealers do. (If 1 in 100 that take cocaine die from it, and you've just sold 100lbs . . . then . . . you're "defacto" guilty of murder. Its that "defacto" and not "nameable person" that makes all the difference.)
So, its an impressive feat . . . but still incredibly careless and stupid.
I've seen the ball . . . and stopped to save the child.
Until they can show me a car that will do the same . . . No! Just . . . No!
I've said it in similar articles . . . I'll repeat it again.
What happens when its a 50lb child, instead of a 100lb deer?
The goal isn't to "survive hitting the deer" the goal is to "avoid hitting the child".
The last time I pointed this out, the response was "the car can react 1000 times faster". True, but that's confusing "response time to apply the brakes" with "stopping distance of the car."
It doesn't matter who applies the brakes . . . stopping distance for a 25mph car on dry asphalt is about 30ft. If you begin slowing/stopping upon seeing the ball, the child might live. If you wait until you see the child. Prepare for a big lawsuit and lots of guilt therapy in your future.
I'll vote/allow the autonomous car, when it stops for the "ball rolling out into traffic, and can 'guess' that a child will follow, and 'anticipates' to stop for the child it can't see yet."
I've had friends see cattle come out thorough a fence and lay on the pavement at night, because it was warmer.
I've had friends know to stop because NOTHING was wrong with the SURFACE of the road . . . but the raging stream underneath it . . . had washed all the underlying support away . . . the asphalt simply hadn't collapsed yet.
Sorry . . . we've just got WAY too many years of AI ahead of us before autonomous cars are ready.
Out in the "left lane" of a Interstate . . . "maybe" . . . through a city . . . we're 50-100 years away from even a remote prayer of that.
Maybe France too . . . didn't they mention that an actual Dr. came standard with the ambulance when Princess Diana's time was up?
Not so in the U.S.A. (Don't get me wrong . . . EMS and ALS is WAY better than just hoping "Bubba" can keep them alive on the trip to the hospital . . . ).
But some countries do staff "Doctors" in ambulances.
Many above mention the 4th amendment.
.) even though its being done "to me", that it technically is a violation of "me".
In general, the older I get, the more I become a "strict constitutionalist in favor of small federal government", but . . . while I respect the constitution more, it does seem to lag in one aspect . . . when your rights are tempered, because others have rights as well.
The constitution doesn't seem to address the distinction when one persons "right" comes into conflict with others "rights".
As in . .
If I walk out into the desert, away from all other people and property, with 20lbs of explosives strapped to myself and detonate it . . .
That's quite different, than if I walk into a crowded room and do the same thing.
The first, simply exercises my rights . . . the second, disrupts (in a violent and irreparable way) the rights of others.
The aspect most leave out of the discussion about searching your person . . . it isn't being performed to "find out" something "about you" . . . its to "protect others" rights.
In an odd way, in this case . . . the searching of "you" has nothing to do with "you".
Having said that . . . (though I flew lots earlier in my career) I don't think I've flown commercially in the "scope or grope" era. Partially because I think I'd feel "violated" to do so . . . I'm just not sure (in light of the fact that its being done to protect "others rights" . .
Heinlein rests a little easier tonight.
(I've done other things too but) Having worked now for 26 years on one application . . . (monitoring system for manufacturing machines), no one ever asks the question first . . . Should we even be looking at frameworks?
.?", then . . . base the language/framework choice on that.
I know the "xyz" framework for Java will allow me to generate 2 trillion lines of code in 30 minutes that will run on any device known to mankind, but "xyz" wasn't around last year, and if this is another "20 year" project . . . will "xyz" even be around in five years?
If you're writing "conversion" code to move data off one system to another new one . . . that conversion is a "one time" deal. Use anything, Forth, Haskell, APL, heck, use Java . . . I don't care. And don't care what Framework you use to go with it. But if this is to be an application that will run for five (or ten, or . . . more) years, maybe that "xyz" framework or toolkit that came out last month, isn't the best choice.
No one ever seems to first ask "how long will this program/solution be around . .
Yet another case of . . . "we tend to solve the problems we've encountered before". If you're like me, supporting an ancient code base, the "flavor of the month" framework or toolkit, loses most of its merit. I suppose, if you're grinding away on "one time" solutions with overbearing requirements of "fast more so than better or maintainable" . . . frameworks look much more appealing.
jkh