A lot of the high school classes are dumbed down enough that they really don't prepare students for college level courses.
Interesting. This must vary wildly based on the high school and the community college involved. I live in Maryland and found the opposite to be the case.
When I was in community college I was afraid that what you just described would happen to me, so I took Calculus 1 in community college even though I already had it in high school. I then realized that the high school course went further than the community college course and was more rigorous.
I am surprised people were naive to think "cloud" vendors could be trusted with their data.
You are assuming that the cloud vendors are at fault, but the article doesn't really pin the blame on anyone. Everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to blame the vendor, but who really is at fault here?
The article talks about business users sharing files inappropriately, like opening them up publicly or storing files like source code on the cloud which is often in violation of the policies. It says that 15% of business users' accounts have been compromised, but it doesn't say why or how. So we don't know if the cloud vendor was the one at fault, or if it was the users' fault. Looking at the top cloud apps they are listing, they are things like Google Drive, Facebook, and YouTube. So far I don't think there have been any major compromises to these apps, so that indicates that the problem is more likely on the users' side. I wonder if the real report says that.
This entire summary is devoid of content. It's just a long ranting insult with no valuable technical information at all. It could be talking about anything. This does not belong on Slashdot. With Slashdot these days I just want to downvote entire articles, or be able to edit the summary or something. HTTP 2.0 is probably a good topic to discuss, but not with a summary like this one.
Some will expect McDonald's new french fries to be a masterpiece, while others expect it to be a great example of design. Others will be cynical. There may be an assumption it is 'tastier.' Others will think it is 'greener.' Well the truth is yes, no,yes, yes,maybe, only sometimes, and definitely not.
Instead, how about something more like:
The IETF is preparing to ratify HTTP 2.0. This is the first significant update to the most widely-used protocol blah blah blah... However, the proposal is very polarizing because of...
Thank you for all that information! I meant to post in the Makerbot operators Google group and get their opinions, so it was nice to get a free head-start on that.
I have a jammed extruder on my Makerbot Replicator as a result of printing in laywoo-d3. For whatever reason it stopped extruding while I wasn't watching, and when I came back I found it permanently jammed. No amount of unloading or loading will fix it. At this point I will have to resort to some of the more difficult measures such as running acetone through the extruder, or drilling it out, or something like that. The trouble is that I don't know what resin is in the laywoo-d3 so I'm not sure if acetone will work in this case or if I need something else.
I am not sure if my experience is typical or not. While everyone says that Makerbot's announcement is not a big deal, it really is important because it means they have tested and endorse the product. If you just run experimental filaments through your printer you do so at your own risk.
Also note that the failure here might not be the filament at all. Printers need to be able to detect extruder failures and stop the print before the extruder becomes permanently stuck. I think this is coming in newer models, as it is certainly on the professional products.
Lastly: The stuff really doesn't look much like wood. I tried the "cherry" color and it looks more like weak reddish-brown plastic. You can run scripts that adjust the temperature to get a gradient effect, but it just isn't very realistic. The material is very soft and I don't recommend it for most purposes.
Because when you are in a public place you have no right to the expectation of privacy.
Does that mean that the FBI could legally wiretap a public pay phone without a warrant? That seems unlikely: being in a "public place" should not override wiretapping laws.
Oh daaaammmmn boy you got me! That buuuurrns! Sheesh, I hope you don't respond like that IRL. As a glider pilot, I am well aware of the meaning of glide ratio. So, skipping the ad-hominem attack and moving on to discussion:
Yes, glide ratio is very important. But the glide ratio of the HTV is not comparable to the glide ratio of a passenger plane. It held essentially no cargo and unfortunately, these things don't scale linearly.:-( Suppose we could make something with a glide ratio of 1000:1, that could carry 10 lbs. Physics does not permit us to scale that technology to carry 10,000 lbs and retain the efficiency.
A sillier example: a bullet probably has a good L/D too, but we would not point to a bullet and draw the conclusion that passenger jets could get similar efficiencies.
If that's true, then you could have extremely efficient flight at Mach 20.
Glide ratio != efficiency per passenger mile.
I don't think there was anything efficient about the HTV. It carried 0 passengers and the heat literally melted it's own skin off. Building a fast missile with a good glide ratio has very little to do with fuel efficiency of a passenger plane.
Is this maneuver easier or harder to do inside the atmosphere of Mars, as compared to Earth? It sounds like a possible plan for return trips from Mars, if the rocket is re-usable.
That's actually hilarious. While I applaud that they display the error code, it is funny that it requires a convoluted "special knock" to make it display the error code. How about just displaying the code right away? Or a button labeled "display error message?" If someone built a car that sang the error by Morse code after you opened the front passenger door 3 times would we call this good design?
I think I was in my teens before I learned it wasn't his actual birthday. Maybe even later. Maybe I should be embarrassed by that fact or something. Nobody ever corrected me, since it wasn't really a discussion topic, so I think I only discovered it through some unrelated reading. Every sermon, song, etc. said it was his birthday. I had no reason to question it since it wasn't of any theological importance. I think the same thing happens with the "3 wise men" as well. Why the heck do they put them in nativity scenes?
It's funny, I can't think of ever meeting a person who doesn't understand that it's a celebration, not an anniversary.
Have you asked, or are you just assuming they understand it the same way as you did? Maybe it was common belief 20 years ago but not today? Or maybe children believe that but figure it out later? Or maybe I'm just dumb.:-|
I'm sure they already have a 3/8" socket set on board, so this was just a test.
Actually they didn't. The Americans looked everywhere: they asked the Russians, Canadians, Brazilians, and Japanese, but all they could find were 9.5mm!
Didn't the rouble lose like a million percent of its value...but they also don't want to alienate the Russians by raising their prices to compensate for the currency crash
Economically speaking, this would mean that valve is selling games at 1 millionth of the usual price, but still profiting off them. Profiting so much, that they are willing to make custom software changes rather than just change the price. That's surprising math to me. Sometimes I wonder why companies, especially companies selling digital goods, don't just set the price in one particular currency then let it somewhat auto-fluctuate in the other currencies according to the market. Wouldn't that be simpler for them?
Politically speaking, Russia's currency lost value because they invaded a nearby nation and they are under sanctions. It is interesting that Valve is willing to go through effort to continue to offer them games at a price they can afford.
Excellent questions. There are a few reasons, but they are indirect.
Why would they care if anyone uses.NET if it's free and cross-platform?
1) Because Azure will be the default place to deploy.NET servers, which makes them money. 2) Because.NET developers will tend to use Visual Studio, which makes them money. 3) Because Windows phone and Windows 8 and the Windows store will be the default place to deploy those apps, which makes them money.
Also, note that there have been free and cross-platform imlpementations of.NET for >10 years. It has done very little to dilute Microsoft's business.
Isn't this more of an indication that they are abandoning.NET so they don't have to keep paying to maintain it?/quote. Open source != abandonware. And open source != free to maintain. Red Hat has not abandoned Linux, and pays quite a lot to improve and maintain it. Microsoft is moving toward the same model.
What has changed is that open-source is no longer a threat to Microsoft. It was a threat when Windows competed against Linux for the desktop and for the server. But today, Microsoft doesn't care about Windows and has re-invented itself: Microsoft lays its hopes on Azure.
All this open-sourcing of.NET is to entice people to use.NET and thus use Windows Azure. By eliminating the stigma of being closed and proprietary, they eliminate the #1 objection to using.NET. This openness goes both ways: not only is.NET opening, but Azure is supporting other stacks: node and LAMP for example. They don't care what tools you use anymore, they just want your hosting business.
Microsoft's new competitors are OpenStack, Amazon, and other cloud service providers. They will compete with those providers by trying to have the cloud platform that supports the most tools and the easiest process to get stuff into the cloud.
Facebook is doing some interesting research. Is it even possible to determine, from a picture, if someone is drunk? Do you start with face recognition algorithms, and look at the face? Can the algorithm learn body language? I am skeptical on this.
Fashioning such a tool is largely about building image recognition technology that can distinguish between your drunken self and your sober self, and using a red-hot form of artificial intelligence called “deep learning”—a technology bootstrapped by LeCun and other academics—Facebook has already reached a point where it can identify your face and your friends’ faces in the photos you post to its social network, letting you more easily tag them with the right names.
Identifying one's face is not barely even AI any more. The fingerprint is based on the distance between the facial features. Yes, neural networks and things are good at finding those features, so AI is involved to some degree. Identifying some vague concept like drunkenness based on a facial recognition algorithm seems like a big step. I'll be impressed if they can do this with any reliability. I bet you could do better looking at the GPS coordinates of the picture, proximity to bars, the people in the picture, and the time of day. Maybe that is more like what they are doing, than actually judging the image itself.
P.S. This is supposed to be a tech blog. How sad is it that a story about deep learning AI yields nothing but a series of jokes about drunkenness?
Sounds like the HP and IBM law suits over printer cartridge lock-in.
This is *exactly* the kind of thing that the DMCA was made to prevent! Tape is a circumvention device and should be banned! (Since there was recently an article here about how the DMCA is being abused, so I'm itching for them to issue a DMCA takedown against this article so I can add it to the list of reasons to repeal the DMCA).
Who are the customers of this? I am skeptical of the business model for 3D printing as a service.
There are 2 kinds of people who want to 3D print: - Makers - Gimmick lovers
The makers won't use this service. 3 years ago every hackerspace had a 3D printer, and it was a cool reason to join up. Now, the makers just buy their own printer. The cost has gone down, and designing a 3D object is an iterative interactive process.
The gimmick lovers could use the service. There are two types of gimmicks: - Stock gimmicks that are all the same - Custom gimmicks
If there is significant demand for a stock gimmick, then it is cheaper and faster to mass produce the item and sell it. This is how we have done it for decades. Popular items on Thingiverse and are now sold on Amazon.
That leaves custom gimmicks and low-demand stock items for 3D printing. Does the royal mail have a system for customizing gimmicks? If not, then the pool grows yet smaller. I don't know if that customer base is big enough to be profitable. Maybe someone who wants a custom or rare gimmick can find a friend with a 3D printer. That's how it was with 2D printing back in the 80s. You always had a friend with a computer and a color dot-matrix printer, and they could make those "Happy Birthday" banners for you. I suspect that might be the way this really works.
How many places offer CNC routing as a service? That seems like the most equivalent thing to 3D printing. It has been around for decades, but I don't know of the post-office offering that service.
Those who have decided MS is eternally evil will never accept.NET. But you gotta admit that Microsoft is doing this right. This isn't the Gates / Balmer company any more. It seems that Microsoft realized that the Wintel & MS Office monopolies are dead, and that the bazaar is defeating the cathedral.
Their new hope is Azure. All this open-sourcing of.NET is to entice people to use.NET and thus use Windows Azure. By eliminating the stigma of being closed and proprietary, they eliminate the #1 objection to using.NET. Note that this door is open both ways: not only is.NET opening, but Azure is supporting other stacks: node and LAMP for example. They don't care what tools you use anymore, they just want your hosting business.
Very wise question. Is it because the amendments are made by committees?
IMHO, this is one of the problems with the US system. The constitution grants the houses the ability to govern themselves. So while a bill requires a simple majority to pass, there are lots of other votes that must happen before the bill can even be voted upon. There are rules static when a bill can be introduced, how amendments are added, how it gets out of committee, and how it comes to the floor for vote. So in the end, a senator/representation can't just propose X and bring it up for a vote. At that point, is it really democracy any longer?
The SSDs will have lots of regulation on-board because there are very specific voltages required to read and write to Flash memory. They should be just as reliable as USB flash drives and RAM and CPU and video cards and other electrically-sensitive things that require particular voltages to operate.
Great, so now we just need to fix the sudden random failures where the drive completely fails but it is 6 months old and showed no signs of degradation. A coworker of mine just had that happen with a Crucial SSD.
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A lot of the high school classes are dumbed down enough that they really don't prepare students for college level courses.
Interesting. This must vary wildly based on the high school and the community college involved. I live in Maryland and found the opposite to be the case.
When I was in community college I was afraid that what you just described would happen to me, so I took Calculus 1 in community college even though I already had it in high school. I then realized that the high school course went further than the community college course and was more rigorous.
I am surprised people were naive to think "cloud" vendors could be trusted with their data.
You are assuming that the cloud vendors are at fault, but the article doesn't really pin the blame on anyone. Everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to blame the vendor, but who really is at fault here?
The article talks about business users sharing files inappropriately, like opening them up publicly or storing files like source code on the cloud which is often in violation of the policies. It says that 15% of business users' accounts have been compromised, but it doesn't say why or how. So we don't know if the cloud vendor was the one at fault, or if it was the users' fault. Looking at the top cloud apps they are listing, they are things like Google Drive, Facebook, and YouTube. So far I don't think there have been any major compromises to these apps, so that indicates that the problem is more likely on the users' side. I wonder if the real report says that.
This entire summary is devoid of content. It's just a long ranting insult with no valuable technical information at all. It could be talking about anything. This does not belong on Slashdot. With Slashdot these days I just want to downvote entire articles, or be able to edit the summary or something. HTTP 2.0 is probably a good topic to discuss, but not with a summary like this one.
Some will expect McDonald's new french fries to be a masterpiece, while others expect it to be a great example of design. Others will be cynical. There may be an assumption it is 'tastier.' Others will think it is 'greener.' Well the truth is yes, no ,yes, yes ,maybe, only sometimes, and definitely not.
Instead, how about something more like:
The IETF is preparing to ratify HTTP 2.0. This is the first significant update to the most widely-used protocol blah blah blah... However, the proposal is very polarizing because of ...
Thanks, I'll look into that.
Thank you for all that information! I meant to post in the Makerbot operators Google group and get their opinions, so it was nice to get a free head-start on that.
I have a jammed extruder on my Makerbot Replicator as a result of printing in laywoo-d3. For whatever reason it stopped extruding while I wasn't watching, and when I came back I found it permanently jammed. No amount of unloading or loading will fix it. At this point I will have to resort to some of the more difficult measures such as running acetone through the extruder, or drilling it out, or something like that. The trouble is that I don't know what resin is in the laywoo-d3 so I'm not sure if acetone will work in this case or if I need something else.
I am not sure if my experience is typical or not. While everyone says that Makerbot's announcement is not a big deal, it really is important because it means they have tested and endorse the product. If you just run experimental filaments through your printer you do so at your own risk.
Also note that the failure here might not be the filament at all. Printers need to be able to detect extruder failures and stop the print before the extruder becomes permanently stuck. I think this is coming in newer models, as it is certainly on the professional products.
Lastly: The stuff really doesn't look much like wood. I tried the "cherry" color and it looks more like weak reddish-brown plastic. You can run scripts that adjust the temperature to get a gradient effect, but it just isn't very realistic. The material is very soft and I don't recommend it for most purposes.
Because when you are in a public place you have no right to the expectation of privacy.
Does that mean that the FBI could legally wiretap a public pay phone without a warrant? That seems unlikely: being in a "public place" should not override wiretapping laws.
but it's not my job to educate you.
Oh daaaammmmn boy you got me! That buuuurrns! Sheesh, I hope you don't respond like that IRL. As a glider pilot, I am well aware of the meaning of glide ratio. So, skipping the ad-hominem attack and moving on to discussion:
Yes, glide ratio is very important. But the glide ratio of the HTV is not comparable to the glide ratio of a passenger plane. It held essentially no cargo and unfortunately, these things don't scale linearly. :-( Suppose we could make something with a glide ratio of 1000:1, that could carry 10 lbs. Physics does not permit us to scale that technology to carry 10,000 lbs and retain the efficiency.
A sillier example: a bullet probably has a good L/D too, but we would not point to a bullet and draw the conclusion that passenger jets could get similar efficiencies.
If that's true, then you could have extremely efficient flight at Mach 20.
Glide ratio != efficiency per passenger mile.
I don't think there was anything efficient about the HTV. It carried 0 passengers and the heat literally melted it's own skin off. Building a fast missile with a good glide ratio has very little to do with fuel efficiency of a passenger plane.
Is this maneuver easier or harder to do inside the atmosphere of Mars, as compared to Earth? It sounds like a possible plan for return trips from Mars, if the rocket is re-usable.
That's actually hilarious. While I applaud that they display the error code, it is funny that it requires a convoluted "special knock" to make it display the error code. How about just displaying the code right away? Or a button labeled "display error message?" If someone built a car that sang the error by Morse code after you opened the front passenger door 3 times would we call this good design?
I think I was in my teens before I learned it wasn't his actual birthday. Maybe even later. Maybe I should be embarrassed by that fact or something. Nobody ever corrected me, since it wasn't really a discussion topic, so I think I only discovered it through some unrelated reading. Every sermon, song, etc. said it was his birthday. I had no reason to question it since it wasn't of any theological importance. I think the same thing happens with the "3 wise men" as well. Why the heck do they put them in nativity scenes?
I just heard this on a secular radio station a few days ago: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/c/christmas_songs/born_on_christmas_day.html
It's funny, I can't think of ever meeting a person who doesn't understand that it's a celebration, not an anniversary.
Have you asked, or are you just assuming they understand it the same way as you did? Maybe it was common belief 20 years ago but not today? Or maybe children believe that but figure it out later? Or maybe I'm just dumb. :-|
I'm sure they already have a 3/8" socket set on board, so this was just a test.
Actually they didn't. The Americans looked everywhere: they asked the Russians, Canadians, Brazilians, and Japanese, but all they could find were 9.5mm!
Didn't the rouble lose like a million percent of its value...but they also don't want to alienate the Russians by raising their prices to compensate for the currency crash
Economically speaking, this would mean that valve is selling games at 1 millionth of the usual price, but still profiting off them. Profiting so much, that they are willing to make custom software changes rather than just change the price. That's surprising math to me. Sometimes I wonder why companies, especially companies selling digital goods, don't just set the price in one particular currency then let it somewhat auto-fluctuate in the other currencies according to the market. Wouldn't that be simpler for them?
Politically speaking, Russia's currency lost value because they invaded a nearby nation and they are under sanctions. It is interesting that Valve is willing to go through effort to continue to offer them games at a price they can afford.
Excellent questions. There are a few reasons, but they are indirect.
Why would they care if anyone uses .NET if it's free and cross-platform?
1) Because Azure will be the default place to deploy .NET servers, which makes them money. .NET developers will tend to use Visual Studio, which makes them money.
2) Because
3) Because Windows phone and Windows 8 and the Windows store will be the default place to deploy those apps, which makes them money.
Also, note that there have been free and cross-platform imlpementations of .NET for >10 years. It has done very little to dilute Microsoft's business.
Isn't this more of an indication that they are abandoning .NET so they don't have to keep paying to maintain it?/quote.
Open source != abandonware. And open source != free to maintain. Red Hat has not abandoned Linux, and pays quite a lot to improve and maintain it. Microsoft is moving toward the same model.
FUD.
What patents? The stuff they are open sourcing is dependent on DirectX or even Windows. It runs on Linux and Mac.
What has changed is that open-source is no longer a threat to Microsoft. It was a threat when Windows competed against Linux for the desktop and for the server. But today, Microsoft doesn't care about Windows and has re-invented itself: Microsoft lays its hopes on Azure.
All this open-sourcing of .NET is to entice people to use .NET and thus use Windows Azure. By eliminating the stigma of being closed and proprietary, they eliminate the #1 objection to using .NET. This openness goes both ways: not only is .NET opening, but Azure is supporting other stacks: node and LAMP for example. They don't care what tools you use anymore, they just want your hosting business.
Microsoft's new competitors are OpenStack, Amazon, and other cloud service providers. They will compete with those providers by trying to have the cloud platform that supports the most tools and the easiest process to get stuff into the cloud.
Facebook is doing some interesting research. Is it even possible to determine, from a picture, if someone is drunk? Do you start with face recognition algorithms, and look at the face? Can the algorithm learn body language? I am skeptical on this.
Fashioning such a tool is largely about building image recognition technology that can distinguish between your drunken self and your sober self, and using a red-hot form of artificial intelligence called “deep learning”—a technology bootstrapped by LeCun and other academics—Facebook has already reached a point where it can identify your face and your friends’ faces in the photos you post to its social network, letting you more easily tag them with the right names.
Identifying one's face is not barely even AI any more. The fingerprint is based on the distance between the facial features. Yes, neural networks and things are good at finding those features, so AI is involved to some degree. Identifying some vague concept like drunkenness based on a facial recognition algorithm seems like a big step. I'll be impressed if they can do this with any reliability. I bet you could do better looking at the GPS coordinates of the picture, proximity to bars, the people in the picture, and the time of day. Maybe that is more like what they are doing, than actually judging the image itself.
P.S. This is supposed to be a tech blog. How sad is it that a story about deep learning AI yields nothing but a series of jokes about drunkenness?
Sounds like the HP and IBM law suits over printer cartridge lock-in.
This is *exactly* the kind of thing that the DMCA was made to prevent! Tape is a circumvention device and should be banned! (Since there was recently an article here about how the DMCA is being abused, so I'm itching for them to issue a DMCA takedown against this article so I can add it to the list of reasons to repeal the DMCA).
By 2017, they anticipate 1.95 customers.
Who are the customers of this? I am skeptical of the business model for 3D printing as a service.
There are 2 kinds of people who want to 3D print:
- Makers
- Gimmick lovers
The makers won't use this service. 3 years ago every hackerspace had a 3D printer, and it was a cool reason to join up. Now, the makers just buy their own printer. The cost has gone down, and designing a 3D object is an iterative interactive process.
The gimmick lovers could use the service. There are two types of gimmicks:
- Stock gimmicks that are all the same
- Custom gimmicks
If there is significant demand for a stock gimmick, then it is cheaper and faster to mass produce the item and sell it. This is how we have done it for decades. Popular items on Thingiverse and are now sold on Amazon.
That leaves custom gimmicks and low-demand stock items for 3D printing. Does the royal mail have a system for customizing gimmicks? If not, then the pool grows yet smaller. I don't know if that customer base is big enough to be profitable. Maybe someone who wants a custom or rare gimmick can find a friend with a 3D printer. That's how it was with 2D printing back in the 80s. You always had a friend with a computer and a color dot-matrix printer, and they could make those "Happy Birthday" banners for you. I suspect that might be the way this really works.
How many places offer CNC routing as a service? That seems like the most equivalent thing to 3D printing. It has been around for decades, but I don't know of the post-office offering that service.
Those who have decided MS is eternally evil will never accept .NET. But you gotta admit that Microsoft is doing this right. This isn't the Gates / Balmer company any more. It seems that Microsoft realized that the Wintel & MS Office monopolies are dead, and that the bazaar is defeating the cathedral.
Their new hope is Azure. All this open-sourcing of .NET is to entice people to use .NET and thus use Windows Azure. By eliminating the stigma of being closed and proprietary, they eliminate the #1 objection to using .NET. Note that this door is open both ways: not only is .NET opening, but Azure is supporting other stacks: node and LAMP for example. They don't care what tools you use anymore, they just want your hosting business.
Very wise question. Is it because the amendments are made by committees?
IMHO, this is one of the problems with the US system. The constitution grants the houses the ability to govern themselves. So while a bill requires a simple majority to pass, there are lots of other votes that must happen before the bill can even be voted upon. There are rules static when a bill can be introduced, how amendments are added, how it gets out of committee, and how it comes to the floor for vote. So in the end, a senator/representation can't just propose X and bring it up for a vote. At that point, is it really democracy any longer?
The SSDs will have lots of regulation on-board because there are very specific voltages required to read and write to Flash memory. They should be just as reliable as USB flash drives and RAM and CPU and video cards and other electrically-sensitive things that require particular voltages to operate.
Great, so now we just need to fix the sudden random failures where the drive completely fails but it is 6 months old and showed no signs of degradation. A coworker of mine just had that happen with a Crucial SSD.