There would be some extra two way traffic, but by definition, if traffic is returning to pick up a second commuter, then not all commuters are on the road at once. Considering how long the commute traffic lasts around here, I'd guess only 25% or so are on the road at any given time, and even if the robotaxis had to make a round trip for each with the return trip being empty, that's still half the cars you'd need total.
Besides, as someone else pointed out, by on the road I meant both parked and traveling, and part of the goal is to get rid of a lot of asphalt and parking lots, which robotaxis would do just fine. Even if the freeways were left intact, residential streets wouldn't be lined with parked cars doing nothing useful, and buildings wouldn't be surrounded by acres of parking lots doing nothing useful. I wonder what percentage of cities is wasted just parking cars? 20%? A lot, anyway, and that's what it would be wonderful to get rid of, in addition to reducing the amount of money wasted buying cars which do so little useful work by being parked so much of the time. And people would get the car needed for the task at hand, not the general purpose car which has to cover so many possibilities and thus is almost always bigger than needed.
I had my disk drive laid against a hillside across from my front door, 75% slope or so... it sometimes slid around, sometimes jumped a few feet in the air, and being only 100 feet away, it was easy to go pick it up if it moved too far.
One magazine load (10 rounds) about $2. One destroyed disk drive, priceless.
Fun too. They bounce around pretty nicely.
Of course, if you want to send it for warranty exchange, the manufacturer probably wouldn't appreciate yoru marksmanship. But if the alternative is to keep them forever so no one else can try to recover the data, I'd say go for the AR-15.
Think what life would be like if no one needed to actually own their own car, if all car needs were met by robotaxis. I mean with enough of them around that you could pick one up within a minute at most. You would call for one on your cell phone -- it would use your cell phone location to know where to pick you up -- you'd say or type in the address -- when you get there, it charges your cell phone or robotaxi account or whatever -- it goes away to serve somebody else.
You could get by with one tenth the number of cars on the road today.
You could eliminate most parking at offices and factories and in residential areas.
You could reduce te number of cars sold every year by a factor of ten.
They could mostly be electric, thus quieter and centralizing the smog makers at power plants.
You could always get a vehicle more suited to your immediate needs. No need to buy a uge general purpose SUV or minivan or pickup just for the occasional furniture move or picking up loads of potting soil.
I have long thougt that owning cars is silly -- most cars are used for commuting. They drive for a few minutes, they sit, they drive for a few minutes, they sit. All those parking spaces -- streets in US residential areas are twice as wide as tey need to be so everybody can park their commute vehicles.
I figured sooner or later it would come to robotic cars -- you ave an appointment for your commute, the robocar drives to your home, picks you up, drives you to your workplace, drives away. No need for parking spaces, no need to produce nearly as many cars, and of course it would be extended to other uses, so you would always get the best car for each purpose, rather than trying to buy a car which will serve all your needs, even tose you seldom do like moving furniture or bringing home 1000 pounds of planting soil.
Armitage was ONE of Novak's sources, and he leaked it by accident. Whereas Cheney and Rove began an independent campaign of revenge on Wilson by leaking his wife's name. In fact, Armitage got the Plame name from the briefing sheet published internally by Rove and Cheney, which seems to have accidentally -- nudge, nudge -- wink, wink -- left out the fact known to them that she was an undercover agent.
We didn't even have water! We had to smash our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make water, and as for making snow, why, we had to make our own freon, and let me tell you...
An unfortunate side effect of turning the rascals out as often as possible is that someone will take up the void. What void? you ask... the power void. It turns out that rookie politicians need guidance, amd even if they don't actively seek it out, they are at least unusually susceptible to its influence, and when there are few experienced politicians to supply that guidance, the lobbyists step in where they see the chance.
I still vote against incumbents and resign myself to the lobbyists having more influence. I wish it weren't so, but it sure appears to be so.
Back in my day, we had to smash hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make our own water. Then some high mucketity-muck would come along and steal it. We tried substituting deuterium and tritium instead of hydrogen but they never did steal enough to self-destruct.
I think all they've done is replace a general purpose PC network stack with a dedicated one on the NIC. They get to optimize the stack, they get to avoid general OS interruptions, they avoid PCI latency, but not much else. Good for a millisecond or two, maybe.
Near as I can tell, his victory is a small claims court win against the buyer who claimed a fraudulent chargeback. Not only is paypal not a direct part of that victory, it's a pretty small victory, since he still has to collect payment, and that is much harder than merely showing up in small claims court with your opponent missing. He still intends to pay off NCO and paypal, so they won't lose much at all from his "victory".
The sense of the saying is that it is only an infinitesimal point away from being forgotten, similar to saying a contract is all but signed, that only the very last step in forgetting something actually remains.
I have no references to back this up, but NASA has stated that as soon as the ISS is completed, they will mothball it and the shuttles. That puts paid to the lie about doing useful science on it.
NASA's goal since Apollo had been to further NASA's goal; see recursion, specifically tail recursion.
Putting heaters (computers) in an environment meant to be cold is just adding to the cooling workload. If the computer is at any decent operating temperature, it's going to be heating up the immediate surrounding area, and you don't want that.
Put the computers outside. String sensors as needed. If you have to have electronics near the business end of the sensors, put those electronics under the floor or over the ceiling.
Think of your refrigerator. Would you put even a small computer in there to keep your food warm?
Sure, I know two legs don't mean shut down all control. But you need a lot less than a single wheel, which is always off balance, whereas legs can more or less keep corrections to a minimum.
Seems to me there are two energy disadvantages. One, a regular wheel can have bearings and coast quite well. A single ball -- don't see how. Seems to me that you want the weight to be supported as close to top dead center as possible, because as the support points move towards the edge, you have more stress of the weight trying to slide down and outwards, which means more friction against the ball. Imagine worst case, where the weight is supported at.0001 degrees above the horizontal point... it would take a tremendous force to keep it from sliding that last fraction of a degree and falling off. Maybe you could have the weight supported at the top with a separate load bearing, but how could one bearing adjust to movement in both directions? Anyway, all that extra friction means that much more power required to just move. I wonder how far it can coast?
Second, a legged robot, even just two legs, needs no energy to stay upright when not moving, unless it's windy. Considering the current state of battery tech, this seems impractical. I wonder how much extra energy it takes to stay upright when motionless.
We are talking about kids learning to read who have no access to ANY physical books, and the cost of getting physical textbooks to them is so prohibitive that they might get one book per school, and that will be a donated book from the first world, inappropriate, out of date, and in a language they can't read, but maybe they will be lucky to have a teacher who can read and translate some of it.
This has nothing to do with novels to read while commuting or lying in a hammock. Thsi has everything to do with kids who have NO book access period.
One of the benefits of the cheap laptop is that textbooks are cheaper and easier to distribute, thus saving enough money to pay for the laptops. Plus you get up to date texts, and in your own language, especially if you write them yourself, which would mean no royalties from your foreign currency reserve. And the kids can take them home with them easier than lugging pounds of real books.
I don't think it is possible for any government to band what Brin talked about. The Soviet Union couldn't ban copiers and fax machines, the Chinese can't firewall everything and everybody, and I don't see how any government can ban cameras like these. Maybe they will make it illegal to buy complete spy cams, but the cameras themselves are already pretty cheap, and as computing power increases, it won't be necessary to buy specialized machines. Just buy a dozen $1 cameras, download the software to pick out license plate numbers, bingo... can't be stopped.
If I remember rightly, Brin wanted to make sure that all the street cams set up by police were also viewable by the public at all times so they could watch the watchers. But if cameras get dirt cheap and every balcony has a few, it won't matter what the police watch. In fact, it will quickly outpace what the police can set up to the point that the police won't waste money on any when the ViewTube of the future has far more and better cameras.
Technology will get so cheap and ubiquitous that the politicians won't have dime one to say about it. They will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers that are out of their control.
That's another aspect of equalizing things. Currently criminals are more willing to put in the effort to do things that require such effort; if their intended victims can now fight back the same way for much less effort, it will change things dramatically. It equalizes things, and the only people who need to fear that are those who can put out more than average effort, or those who can afford to hire them.
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There would be some extra two way traffic, but by definition, if traffic is returning to pick up a second commuter, then not all commuters are on the road at once. Considering how long the commute traffic lasts around here, I'd guess only 25% or so are on the road at any given time, and even if the robotaxis had to make a round trip for each with the return trip being empty, that's still half the cars you'd need total.
Besides, as someone else pointed out, by on the road I meant both parked and traveling, and part of the goal is to get rid of a lot of asphalt and parking lots, which robotaxis would do just fine. Even if the freeways were left intact, residential streets wouldn't be lined with parked cars doing nothing useful, and buildings wouldn't be surrounded by acres of parking lots doing nothing useful. I wonder what percentage of cities is wasted just parking cars? 20%? A lot, anyway, and that's what it would be wonderful to get rid of, in addition to reducing the amount of money wasted buying cars which do so little useful work by being parked so much of the time. And people would get the car needed for the task at hand, not the general purpose car which has to cover so many possibilities and thus is almost always bigger than needed.
I had my disk drive laid against a hillside across from my front door, 75% slope or so ... it sometimes slid around, sometimes jumped a few feet in the air, and being only 100 feet away, it was easy to go pick it up if it moved too far.
One magazine load (10 rounds) about $2. One destroyed disk drive, priceless.
Fun too. They bounce around pretty nicely.
Of course, if you want to send it for warranty exchange, the manufacturer probably wouldn't appreciate yoru marksmanship. But if the alternative is to keep them forever so no one else can try to recover the data, I'd say go for the AR-15.
Or M-1 Garand. Or any other reasonable facsimile.
Think what life would be like if no one needed to actually own their own car, if all car needs were met by robotaxis. I mean with enough of them around that you could pick one up within a minute at most. You would call for one on your cell phone -- it would use your cell phone location to know where to pick you up -- you'd say or type in the address -- when you get there, it charges your cell phone or robotaxi account or whatever -- it goes away to serve somebody else.
You could get by with one tenth the number of cars on the road today.
You could eliminate most parking at offices and factories and in residential areas.
You could reduce te number of cars sold every year by a factor of ten.
They could mostly be electric, thus quieter and centralizing the smog makers at power plants.
You could always get a vehicle more suited to your immediate needs. No need to buy a uge general purpose SUV or minivan or pickup just for the occasional furniture move or picking up loads of potting soil.
I am all in favor of tese robotaxis.
I have long thougt that owning cars is silly -- most cars are used for commuting. They drive for a few minutes, they sit, they drive for a few minutes, they sit. All those parking spaces -- streets in US residential areas are twice as wide as tey need to be so everybody can park their commute vehicles.
I figured sooner or later it would come to robotic cars -- you ave an appointment for your commute, the robocar drives to your home, picks you up, drives you to your workplace, drives away. No need for parking spaces, no need to produce nearly as many cars, and of course it would be extended to other uses, so you would always get the best car for each purpose, rather than trying to buy a car which will serve all your needs, even tose you seldom do like moving furniture or bringing home 1000 pounds of planting soil.
Me likes robocars.
Armitage was ONE of Novak's sources, and he leaked it by accident. Whereas Cheney and Rove began an independent campaign of revenge on Wilson by leaking his wife's name. In fact, Armitage got the Plame name from the briefing sheet published internally by Rove and Cheney, which seems to have accidentally -- nudge, nudge -- wink, wink -- left out the fact known to them that she was an undercover agent.
Which biological characteristics, exactly, cause someone to know who Britney Spears is?
Stupidity?
Peer pressure?
we had this thing called "stores" ... Amazing, yes?
Amazon, no.
We didn't even have water! We had to smash our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make water, and as for making snow, why, we had to make our own freon, and let me tell you ...
An unfortunate side effect of turning the rascals out as often as possible is that someone will take up the void. What void? you ask ... the power void. It turns out that rookie politicians need guidance, amd even if they don't actively seek it out, they are at least unusually susceptible to its influence, and when there are few experienced politicians to supply that guidance, the lobbyists step in where they see the chance.
I still vote against incumbents and resign myself to the lobbyists having more influence. I wish it weren't so, but it sure appears to be so.
Back in my day, we had to smash hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to make our own water. Then some high mucketity-muck would come along and steal it. We tried substituting deuterium and tritium instead of hydrogen but they never did steal enough to self-destruct.
All they have to do is give him a bad credit report as a deadbeat.
I think all they've done is replace a general purpose PC network stack with a dedicated one on the NIC. They get to optimize the stack, they get to avoid general OS interruptions, they avoid PCI latency, but not much else. Good for a millisecond or two, maybe.
Near as I can tell, his victory is a small claims court win against the buyer who claimed a fraudulent chargeback. Not only is paypal not a direct part of that victory, it's a pretty small victory, since he still has to collect payment, and that is much harder than merely showing up in small claims court with your opponent missing. He still intends to pay off NCO and paypal, so they won't lose much at all from his "victory".
The sense of the saying is that it is only an infinitesimal point away from being forgotten, similar to saying a contract is all but signed, that only the very last step in forgetting something actually remains.
I have no references to back this up, but NASA has stated that as soon as the ISS is completed, they will mothball it and the shuttles. That puts paid to the lie about doing useful science on it.
NASA's goal since Apollo had been to further NASA's goal; see recursion, specifically tail recursion.
Putting heaters (computers) in an environment meant to be cold is just adding to the cooling workload. If the computer is at any decent operating temperature, it's going to be heating up the immediate surrounding area, and you don't want that.
Put the computers outside. String sensors as needed. If you have to have electronics near the business end of the sensors, put those electronics under the floor or over the ceiling.
Think of your refrigerator. Would you put even a small computer in there to keep your food warm?
Sure, I know two legs don't mean shut down all control. But you need a lot less than a single wheel, which is always off balance, whereas legs can more or less keep corrections to a minimum.
Seems to me there are two energy disadvantages. One, a regular wheel can have bearings and coast quite well. A single ball -- don't see how. Seems to me that you want the weight to be supported as close to top dead center as possible, because as the support points move towards the edge, you have more stress of the weight trying to slide down and outwards, which means more friction against the ball. Imagine worst case, where the weight is supported at .0001 degrees above the horizontal point ... it would take a tremendous force to keep it from sliding that last fraction of a degree and falling off. Maybe you could have the weight supported at the top with a separate load bearing, but how could one bearing adjust to movement in both directions? Anyway, all that extra friction means that much more power required to just move. I wonder how far it can coast?
Second, a legged robot, even just two legs, needs no energy to stay upright when not moving, unless it's windy. Considering the current state of battery tech, this seems impractical. I wonder how much extra energy it takes to stay upright when motionless.
When Reagan came in, he really got interest rates down
I remember people buying houses in 1988, Reagan's last year in office, with 20% mortgages. A lot of people seem to forget that.
There's a perfectly good word, same number of syllables.
We are talking about kids learning to read who have no access to ANY physical books, and the cost of getting physical textbooks to them is so prohibitive that they might get one book per school, and that will be a donated book from the first world, inappropriate, out of date, and in a language they can't read, but maybe they will be lucky to have a teacher who can read and translate some of it.
This has nothing to do with novels to read while commuting or lying in a hammock. Thsi has everything to do with kids who have NO book access period.
One of the benefits of the cheap laptop is that textbooks are cheaper and easier to distribute, thus saving enough money to pay for the laptops. Plus you get up to date texts, and in your own language, especially if you write them yourself, which would mean no royalties from your foreign currency reserve. And the kids can take them home with them easier than lugging pounds of real books.
I don't think it is possible for any government to band what Brin talked about. The Soviet Union couldn't ban copiers and fax machines, the Chinese can't firewall everything and everybody, and I don't see how any government can ban cameras like these. Maybe they will make it illegal to buy complete spy cams, but the cameras themselves are already pretty cheap, and as computing power increases, it won't be necessary to buy specialized machines. Just buy a dozen $1 cameras, download the software to pick out license plate numbers, bingo ... can't be stopped.
If I remember rightly, Brin wanted to make sure that all the street cams set up by police were also viewable by the public at all times so they could watch the watchers. But if cameras get dirt cheap and every balcony has a few, it won't matter what the police watch. In fact, it will quickly outpace what the police can set up to the point that the police won't waste money on any when the ViewTube of the future has far more and better cameras.
Technology will get so cheap and ubiquitous that the politicians won't have dime one to say about it. They will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers that are out of their control.
That's another aspect of equalizing things. Currently criminals are more willing to put in the effort to do things that require such effort; if their intended victims can now fight back the same way for much less effort, it will change things dramatically. It equalizes things, and the only people who need to fear that are those who can put out more than average effort, or those who can afford to hire them.