Solar power in orbit is only useful for powering things that are in orbit, like satellites or space stations. Beaming it back to earth is useless because the energy required to launch the panels far exceeds the power the panels could ever deliver. Searches always reveal the JAXA plans to do this, but those plans never address the launch cost issue. A brief summary of the problem exists in the Wikipedia article on space-based solar.
Is there more information on this project? It sounds awesome, but the article seems quite sensationalized:
Researchers asked one of the project’s three robots to make affogato. The bot, a two-armed, highly-dextrous PR2, queried the system, and discovered that affogato was an italian dessert composed of ice cream and coffee. Without any human nudging or intervention, the robot located the coffee, figured out how to get it out of a dispenser, and poured it over the scooped ice cream.
Let's break that down. A robot that can watch someone do something then repeat it would be the height of AI, as far as I know. Software that can watch a youtube video and generalize what is a "chair" or "coffee" merely from watching videos would be beyond any AI I am currently aware of. Software that can do that, PLUS recognize that what it is looking at now is coffee is completely unbelievable. Software + a robot that can do all of the 3 above is not something I expect within my lifetime. Pure science fiction.
I'm sure there is a good project here, but I can't tell what it is from the sensationalistic article. I don't accept that it merely watches youtube videos and learned to make coffee in a completely unrelated environment. There has to be a lot more going on that just watching videos and generalizing.
Suppose we had a technology that allowed us to record the waitress movements, and then play them back. Perhaps a learning robot of some kind. In what ways would that change the scenario? Would the best waitresses be able to demand a royalty on their waitress-bot recordings?
This is one of the differences between intelligent and unintelligent people. Intelligent people are more likely to judge their own skills.
1. There was a study performed where they assigned people various tasks to perform in isolation. Then the researchers asked them to weigh how well they did compared to the general public. In the absense of information, the more intelligent people assumed they did average or below. The less intelligent people thought they did above average. The bad news about this is it means less intelligent people might not actually realize it.
2. I had a neighbor whose son was truly stupid. He was a pre-teen, and his mom was using drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy. Sometimes we would play Dance Dance Revolution together sometimes. No matter what the result of the game, he would always think he did great, or at least was really close to beating me. His responses were completely unrelated to how well he actually did. It was a bit awkward actually.
If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to?
Because there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success. Unfortunately the second article is partially paywalled, but I don't see anything in it that asserts otherwise. Do not misconstrue the following excerpt:
A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.
One could read that and jump to the conclusion that this means that intelligence is not related to success. But that is not what it is saying. It is merely saying that if you butter-up an intelligent person, they will be more likely to fail. That is not the same as saying that IQ is not related to success.
Some of this is confirmation bias: I have free ad-supported apps on my phone and there is no option to pay to eliminate the ads. Another reason is the plethora of free and free/OSS apps
The Slashdot summary draws a conclusion that seems unsupported by the paper:
You may think you're better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa), but new research suggests you're probably equally good (or bad) at both.
But the paper says otherwise:
The genes that determine a person's ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person's overall ability.
So your score is 50% correlated, not equal. That is a really important difference! If the paper said people were equally good at math and reading, that would be a startling conclusion!
This indicates that if there is a genetic component, it is largely irrelevant as the learning environment has the greater impact.
False. I'm unclear how you came to that conclusion based on the quote you highlighted. It does not say that learning environment has a *greater* impact. It says learning environment has *some* impact. Overall, but it is less than or equal to the importance of genetics.
This result is consistent with other studies on the topic. Unfortunately, this fact pisses people off, especially educators. (Understandably since it is their job to educate everyone equally, and especially to raise the level of the poorest performers). But it is well correlated at this point. Think back to high school: everyone realized this at some point - there were some students who just seemed smarter. Some of them didn't even have to work for it. It sucked if you sat in one of these kids' shadow. It doesn't mean hard work doesn't pay off, it doesn't mean you should not invest in your children, but it does mean that just like in sports, your genes are as big a contributor as the environment.
On that note: why are people willing to accept this in sports, but not in academics? It's totally cool to say something about Nigerian runners having long legs, or say "white men can't jump, hahaha" or "Asians are short" but if you say some people are genetically gifted in intelligence sets off everyone's alarm bells.
Eight factors that correlate to higher test scores
Highly educated parents
Parents have high socioeconomic status
Mother was thirty or older at the time of first child's birth
Child had low birth weight
Parents speak English at home
Child is adopted
Parents are involved in the PTA
Child has many books in the home
Eight factors that do NOT correlate with higher test scores:
Family is intact
Family's recent move to a better neighborhood
Mother did not work between birth and kindergarten
Child attended Head Start
Parents bring children to museums regularly
Child is regularly spanked
Child frequently watches television
Parents read to him nearly every day
fuel at the No. 3 reactor began melting at 5:30 a.m. on March 13
I think this confirms that that they should not have flooded the reactor with seawater because the meltdown had already happened by the time they made that decision. They flooded the reactor on March 15th, as a last ditch attempt to prevent a meltdown. But it was too late to save the reactor since the fuel was already completely melted. So all the seawater did was let more nuclear material escape.
Or, alternatively, they should have flooded it with seawater days ahead of time. The tsunami was March 11th, so perhaps had they made that decision on March 12th it would have been in time to prevent the worst of it? Ehh... maybe not.... the reactor foundation was probably already damaged by that point.:-(
Perhaps new contributors should start with the documentation, then "move up" to contributing code? Or would one more barrier to becoming a contributor merely make things worse?
Does this effort solves the fundamental problem that you bring up? Kids aren't interested in these fields because they are hard and mathy. American society does not value those things. I bet you could get more kids into CS by teaching them shop than by teaching them CS. Like you say: Society has to value BUILDING. Reinvigorate that first.
The best way to fight these things is on the local level. It's tough to convince 10 million people why it is wrong. Much easier to convince 10,000 neighbors. By the time a state or country wants to implement this, it is too late.
You don't want dozens of applications that interface with the ERP system. If you do that, when the ERP interface API changes you now have to change dozens of applications. The ultimate result of that is that the ERP system upgrade cost now goes through the roof. 10 years laster, someone is going "You are using version *WHAT* ?!?!?! It only works with Internet Explorer version *WHAT*?!?!?!" I've been there! You also now have to train people how to use each of those applications.
Since you seem the first person who actually might know what these conventions say, can you explain something to me?
There is all this talk about Hamas using "human shields" and I want to know how that works. Let me make it easy by being extreme: Suppose country A duct tapes babies onto tanks then attacks country B. What response is permitted by country B? Is country A violating the geneva conventions? Would country B violate the geneva conventions if they returned fire?
I know that example is silly, but I think it is a solid place to start. I keep seeing allegations, videos, etc. of Hamas placing children near rocket launchers. So if Israel responds by destroying those rocket launchers, thus killing the children, who is the war criminal?
What part of "there is no place in Gaza away from civilians" did you not understand?
Did you watch the video? Is Gaza so crowded that the only place for kids to stand is posing, smiling, 5 feet from a rocket launcher while adults duck and hide? Because that is what the video seems to show.
But that is also why I wanted someone to clarify the video. It shows a bunch of kids, standing almost like they are posing for a photograph, next to some large black piece of equipment. What is that piece of equipment? Why did the adults ducked down a stairwell or whatever that was. What was it? What is with the guy hiding behind the truck?
Slashdot Mirror
This article is just a rant, full one one-liner insults and clichés. There are probably good debates on this topic, but this is not one of them.
Solar power in orbit is only useful for powering things that are in orbit, like satellites or space stations. Beaming it back to earth is useless because the energy required to launch the panels far exceeds the power the panels could ever deliver. Searches always reveal the JAXA plans to do this, but those plans never address the launch cost issue. A brief summary of the problem exists in the Wikipedia article on space-based solar.
Is there more information on this project? It sounds awesome, but the article seems quite sensationalized:
Researchers asked one of the project’s three robots to make affogato. The bot, a two-armed, highly-dextrous PR2, queried the system, and discovered that affogato was an italian dessert composed of ice cream and coffee. Without any human nudging or intervention, the robot located the coffee, figured out how to get it out of a dispenser, and poured it over the scooped ice cream.
Let's break that down.
A robot that can watch someone do something then repeat it would be the height of AI, as far as I know.
Software that can watch a youtube video and generalize what is a "chair" or "coffee" merely from watching videos would be beyond any AI I am currently aware of.
Software that can do that, PLUS recognize that what it is looking at now is coffee is completely unbelievable.
Software + a robot that can do all of the 3 above is not something I expect within my lifetime. Pure science fiction.
I'm sure there is a good project here, but I can't tell what it is from the sensationalistic article. I don't accept that it merely watches youtube videos and learned to make coffee in a completely unrelated environment. There has to be a lot more going on that just watching videos and generalizing.
I'm just playing devil's advocate here:
Suppose we had a technology that allowed us to record the waitress movements, and then play them back. Perhaps a learning robot of some kind. In what ways would that change the scenario? Would the best waitresses be able to demand a royalty on their waitress-bot recordings?
They figure it out on their own
This is one of the differences between intelligent and unintelligent people. Intelligent people are more likely to judge their own skills.
1. There was a study performed where they assigned people various tasks to perform in isolation. Then the researchers asked them to weigh how well they did compared to the general public. In the absense of information, the more intelligent people assumed they did average or below. The less intelligent people thought they did above average. The bad news about this is it means less intelligent people might not actually realize it.
2. I had a neighbor whose son was truly stupid. He was a pre-teen, and his mom was using drugs and alcohol during the pregnancy. Sometimes we would play Dance Dance Revolution together sometimes. No matter what the result of the game, he would always think he did great, or at least was really close to beating me. His responses were completely unrelated to how well he actually did. It was a bit awkward actually.
If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to?
Because there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success. Unfortunately the second article is partially paywalled, but I don't see anything in it that asserts otherwise. Do not misconstrue the following excerpt:
A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.
One could read that and jump to the conclusion that this means that intelligence is not related to success. But that is not what it is saying. It is merely saying that if you butter-up an intelligent person, they will be more likely to fail. That is not the same as saying that IQ is not related to success.
Some of this is confirmation bias: I have free ad-supported apps on my phone and there is no option to pay to eliminate the ads. Another reason is the plethora of free and free/OSS apps
So, these studies probably mean it isn't a fundamental ability problem, so where do I go from here?
The article doesn't actually say what the summary says it does. It does not say that your ability in math and reading is equal.
The Slashdot summary draws a conclusion that seems unsupported by the paper:
You may think you're better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa), but new research suggests you're probably equally good (or bad) at both.
But the paper says otherwise:
The genes that determine a person's ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person's overall ability.
So your score is 50% correlated, not equal. That is a really important difference! If the paper said people were equally good at math and reading, that would be a startling conclusion!
They have not shown a causal relationship.
True.
This indicates that if there is a genetic component, it is largely irrelevant as the learning environment has the greater impact.
False. I'm unclear how you came to that conclusion based on the quote you highlighted. It does not say that learning environment has a *greater* impact. It says learning environment has *some* impact. Overall, but it is less than or equal to the importance of genetics.
This result is consistent with other studies on the topic. Unfortunately, this fact pisses people off, especially educators. (Understandably since it is their job to educate everyone equally, and especially to raise the level of the poorest performers). But it is well correlated at this point. Think back to high school: everyone realized this at some point - there were some students who just seemed smarter. Some of them didn't even have to work for it. It sucked if you sat in one of these kids' shadow. It doesn't mean hard work doesn't pay off, it doesn't mean you should not invest in your children, but it does mean that just like in sports, your genes are as big a contributor as the environment.
On that note: why are people willing to accept this in sports, but not in academics? It's totally cool to say something about Nigerian runners having long legs, or say "white men can't jump, hahaha" or "Asians are short" but if you say some people are genetically gifted in intelligence sets off everyone's alarm bells.
Excerpt from Freakanomics:
Eight factors that correlate to higher test scores
Highly educated parents
Parents have high socioeconomic status
Mother was thirty or older at the time of first child's birth
Child had low birth weight
Parents speak English at home
Child is adopted
Parents are involved in the PTA
Child has many books in the home
Eight factors that do NOT correlate with higher test scores:
Family is intact
Family's recent move to a better neighborhood
Mother did not work between birth and kindergarten
Child attended Head Start
Parents bring children to museums regularly
Child is regularly spanked
Child frequently watches television
Parents read to him nearly every day
fuel at the No. 3 reactor began melting at 5:30 a.m. on March 13
I think this confirms that that they should not have flooded the reactor with seawater because the meltdown had already happened by the time they made that decision. They flooded the reactor on March 15th, as a last ditch attempt to prevent a meltdown. But it was too late to save the reactor since the fuel was already completely melted. So all the seawater did was let more nuclear material escape.
Or, alternatively, they should have flooded it with seawater days ahead of time. The tsunami was March 11th, so perhaps had they made that decision on March 12th it would have been in time to prevent the worst of it? Ehh... maybe not.... the reactor foundation was probably already damaged by that point. :-(
That's super subjective. There are a lot of research scientists on this planet who would disagree with you.
reread the post. He specifically said the "sheathing" not the copper wire,
$500 for a bad review is pretty terrible until you learn that good reviews are $200 each.
Yes, but imagine if a terrorist changed all the in-flight movies to be Uwe Boll movies: Passengers might start jumping out of the plane!
Do any F/OSS projects allow you to report bugs in the documentation using the bug reporting tool?
Perhaps new contributors should start with the documentation, then "move up" to contributing code? Or would one more barrier to becoming a contributor merely make things worse?
Does this effort solves the fundamental problem that you bring up? Kids aren't interested in these fields because they are hard and mathy. American society does not value those things. I bet you could get more kids into CS by teaching them shop than by teaching them CS. Like you say: Society has to value BUILDING. Reinvigorate that first.
The best way to fight these things is on the local level. It's tough to convince 10 million people why it is wrong. Much easier to convince 10,000 neighbors. By the time a state or country wants to implement this, it is too late.
Is there something equivalent to "extradition" laws, but that apply to overseas evidence instead of oversees defendants?
You don't want dozens of applications that interface with the ERP system. If you do that, when the ERP interface API changes you now have to change dozens of applications. The ultimate result of that is that the ERP system upgrade cost now goes through the roof. 10 years laster, someone is going "You are using version *WHAT* ?!?!?! It only works with Internet Explorer version *WHAT*?!?!?!" I've been there! You also now have to train people how to use each of those applications.
Because the video disproves that statement.
Perhaps they should try to sieze their country codes instead!
Since you seem the first person who actually might know what these conventions say, can you explain something to me?
There is all this talk about Hamas using "human shields" and I want to know how that works. Let me make it easy by being extreme: Suppose country A duct tapes babies onto tanks then attacks country B. What response is permitted by country B? Is country A violating the geneva conventions? Would country B violate the geneva conventions if they returned fire?
I know that example is silly, but I think it is a solid place to start. I keep seeing allegations, videos, etc. of Hamas placing children near rocket launchers. So if Israel responds by destroying those rocket launchers, thus killing the children, who is the war criminal?
What part of "there is no place in Gaza away from civilians" did you not understand?
Did you watch the video? Is Gaza so crowded that the only place for kids to stand is posing, smiling, 5 feet from a rocket launcher while adults duck and hide? Because that is what the video seems to show.
But that is also why I wanted someone to clarify the video. It shows a bunch of kids, standing almost like they are posing for a photograph, next to some large black piece of equipment. What is that piece of equipment? Why did the adults ducked down a stairwell or whatever that was. What was it? What is with the guy hiding behind the truck?