A company issues an IPO and the closing price ends up at the same price as the IPO price? Not only is this not "stumbling out of the gate", but it means it was done right. If the price jumps too much, the founders of facebook lost out on a lot of money. If it drops, then the initial investors were suckers.
Whether Facebook is able to increase earnings remains to be seen. My gut is it will increase substantially, but not enough to justify the current P/E ratio once risk is factored in. But others think the opposite. So, the investment bank did a very good job in pricing.
Thanks, AC, you are quite right. The more you learn about neural networks, artificial neural networks and computer AI, the more you doubt that there is such a thing as intelligence:)
Humans aren't doing math at all in those situations. Hence, dumbing down a computer's math will not make it more "intelligent". Intelligent systems that are being designed today take advantage of a myriad of techniques developed over the past few decades. Path finding systems use different types of tree search algoritms. Self-driving cars will use a pair of cameras to judge distance and relative speed of external objects. In neither of these cases does imprecise math help the intelligence of they system.
What exactly does imprecise math have to do with AI? Intelligent systems may use heuristics, but that is not the equivilent (far from it) as not doing proper math.
Yup, this is part of the externality cost I mention in the post below. I am very free market oriented and frustrated at how big business/gov't has perverted it. US citizens see these perversions and assume that free market doesn't work. Yes, even a free market has its weaknesses that must be corrected by government intervention, but so much could be cured by not subsidizing established energy sources and taxing according to externality costs.
Or, we can invest in technology that already exists and that is already proven before trying to leapfrog two levels of technology. Solar on Earth would work in the US if we'd have technocrats instead of politicians running the country
11.8 Billion is what Facebook will raise, not the total valuation of the company. I don't know the specifics on the number of shares that will be sold versus how many will be held the current owners, but if these numbers were to be provided, the math would make more sense.
Ok, let me try another example. Imagine flipping a coin. The odds are 1 in 2 that you'll get heads. So you flip once and get tails. You're math indicates that the next probability of getting heads is 1 in 1. However, the real probability of getting heads on the next coin flip is still 1 in 2. Each time you flip, the probability is independent of the previous times you flipped.
Yes, I agree. If I have a coin with a 50-50 chance of heads or tails, then my 50th flip is also a 50-50 chance. Howevevr, the odds of getting all heads 80 times in a row is (0.5^80). If heads is the chance of dying in a car crash in a given year, then 80 flips means I have a 1 - (0.5^80) chance of dying (not good).
So if I have a 1 in 9000 chance in any given year of dying, then the cumulative odds of surviving driving over 80 years is (8999/9000) ^ 80. I am not talking about my odds of dying in year 80, but the odds of a single person dying some time in their life.
I am not assuming that my odds go up each year, but am talking about a forward look cumulative percentage. As a 38 year old, I only have 40 or so years of chances to die in a car crash (I am down to about a 0.4% chance).
I think we both are talking past each other a bit and don't have any fundamental disagreement about the math.
I cannot say when the majority of cars will be driverless, but I can say the technology is darn near close to ready now. There have been enough real world tests to show that it does work. I think the only thing remaining is to get the cars into the real world. Are there risks? Yes. This is why Nevada required the driver and passenger for the near future. The original poster (may be you, may not be) suggested that even this very controlled rules would mean he would not even travel to Nevada. That is sheer stupidity.
If you enjoy driving, have at it. Me? I'd much rather do something productivee. 900 mile car rides are for the birds. I've done those and longer. If I could use the time productively, I'd jump at it. And yes, you could nap... the car will be able to drive more safely than you, especially at night when your one mean of perceiving the environment around you is dramatically diminished.
Are you safe from the driver next to you? Safer than a piloted car. I am a defensive driver and regularly have to adjust for idiots who think a yellow light means they should hurry up and get through the intersection even though they won't make it until three seconds after it turns red. My position on the safety of autonomous cars isn't coming from a vaccum... these cars have been tested in Europe, Asia and North America... the next step is expanding the testing.
Will it be bug free? Probably not. But neither are the people who drive now. Even a perfect program dealing with an uncontrolled environment will make "mistakes". But it will be safer than human driving. If your argument is that a driverless car will have accidents, therefore we shouldn't use them, then you should also insist we get rid of cars altogether.
So, I stand by my statement to the GGP. If he won't travel to Nevada because they put in a well-regulated to test an unpiloted car, then he is a luddite.
The only other thing I can think of is you are assuming I am going 1 * 80 / 9000 to get my calc. For numbers this close to zero and for this short of a period, the math works out pretty close, though.
If you are arguing that you and I have a less than 1% chance of dying in our lifetime because we have already survived a number of decades, I agree. But my point is that if a person born today has a 1 in 9000 chance of dying in a car crash each year and this person would otherwise have lived to 80, the odds are pretty close to 1% that he or she will die in a car crash.
1 - (8999/9000)^80 is around 0.9%.
If I am missing something obvious, please clarify.
If you have a 1 in 9000 chance of dying in a car crash each year and live for 80 years, then yes your lifetime odds of dying in a crash are close to 1%.
I think Massachusettes' success has a lot more to do with the socioecomic status of the families who live in that state. I can take the same curriculum, put in in an inner-city Philly school and not get the same results.
Yes, the curriculum is important, but it is secondary to the quality of the family unit.
People throw out 12 cents (not.12 cents:)) a kWh, but when I look at my bill I see surcharges and other fees that are based on usage. My last bill was truly more like 20 cents a kWh once I factored these items in. Based on that, replacing many of the bulbs in the house I just bought made a lot of sense.
The basement kids' play area had ten 60 watt bulbs that I replaced with 23 watt bulbs. Even if I take replacement costs to be equal between the two bulbs, the energy savings is enormous. The CFCs save me 370 watts per hour used over then ten bulbs and are a bit brighter. At 20 cents per kWh, I save 6 cents per hour used. My kids are pretty good about turning these lights off when not in use, so at 15 hours a week, I am saving 45 or so dollars per year. I imagine this will be even higher in the winter when they can't go outside to play as much.
And the CFCs themselves came from my old house, some of which were bought almost ten years ago. Back then they cost me $5/bulb. I have found that the ones I put in the bathroom and kitchen didn't last any longer than incandescent, but all of the other rooms lasted a long time.
How many bulbs do you break? I remember breaking one in the ten years I've used CFC's (when installing one), so I wouldn't use that as my purchasing criteria.
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A company issues an IPO and the closing price ends up at the same price as the IPO price? Not only is this not "stumbling out of the gate", but it means it was done right. If the price jumps too much, the founders of facebook lost out on a lot of money. If it drops, then the initial investors were suckers.
Whether Facebook is able to increase earnings remains to be seen. My gut is it will increase substantially, but not enough to justify the current P/E ratio once risk is factored in. But others think the opposite. So, the investment bank did a very good job in pricing.
In short, Mark Henderson wants Technocrats not Politicians running our system. I tend to agree.
Thanks, AC, you are quite right. The more you learn about neural networks, artificial neural networks and computer AI, the more you doubt that there is such a thing as intelligence :)
Humans aren't doing math at all in those situations. Hence, dumbing down a computer's math will not make it more "intelligent". Intelligent systems that are being designed today take advantage of a myriad of techniques developed over the past few decades. Path finding systems use different types of tree search algoritms. Self-driving cars will use a pair of cameras to judge distance and relative speed of external objects. In neither of these cases does imprecise math help the intelligence of they system.
What exactly does imprecise math have to do with AI? Intelligent systems may use heuristics, but that is not the equivilent (far from it) as not doing proper math.
This is first post according to my new power-efficient computer!
Damn. You beat me to it.
Yup, this is part of the externality cost I mention in the post below. I am very free market oriented and frustrated at how big business/gov't has perverted it. US citizens see these perversions and assume that free market doesn't work. Yes, even a free market has its weaknesses that must be corrected by government intervention, but so much could be cured by not subsidizing established energy sources and taxing according to externality costs.
Or, we can invest in technology that already exists and that is already proven before trying to leapfrog two levels of technology. Solar on Earth would work in the US if we'd have technocrats instead of politicians running the country
11.8 Billion is what Facebook will raise, not the total valuation of the company. I don't know the specifics on the number of shares that will be sold versus how many will be held the current owners, but if these numbers were to be provided, the math would make more sense.
Wait. This isn't reddit? My internet explorer must be broken.
Why did I know that was going to happen... sigh.
There is a huge difference between reading a web page and developing.
I don't know about you, but I like using a laptop and plugging into an external monitor when I need it.
Keyboard must be easy to clean and resist spills. Test against Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
Ok, let me try another example. Imagine flipping a coin. The odds are 1 in 2 that you'll get heads. So you flip once and get tails. You're math indicates that the next probability of getting heads is 1 in 1. However, the real probability of getting heads on the next coin flip is still 1 in 2. Each time you flip, the probability is independent of the previous times you flipped.
Yes, I agree. If I have a coin with a 50-50 chance of heads or tails, then my 50th flip is also a 50-50 chance. Howevevr, the odds of getting all heads 80 times in a row is (0.5^80). If heads is the chance of dying in a car crash in a given year, then 80 flips means I have a 1 - (0.5^80) chance of dying (not good).
So if I have a 1 in 9000 chance in any given year of dying, then the cumulative odds of surviving driving over 80 years is (8999/9000) ^ 80. I am not talking about my odds of dying in year 80, but the odds of a single person dying some time in their life.
I am not assuming that my odds go up each year, but am talking about a forward look cumulative percentage. As a 38 year old, I only have 40 or so years of chances to die in a car crash (I am down to about a 0.4% chance).
I think we both are talking past each other a bit and don't have any fundamental disagreement about the math.
Driverless cars exist today.
I'll bite.
I cannot say when the majority of cars will be driverless, but I can say the technology is darn near close to ready now. There have been enough real world tests to show that it does work. I think the only thing remaining is to get the cars into the real world. Are there risks? Yes. This is why Nevada required the driver and passenger for the near future. The original poster (may be you, may not be) suggested that even this very controlled rules would mean he would not even travel to Nevada. That is sheer stupidity.
If you enjoy driving, have at it. Me? I'd much rather do something productivee. 900 mile car rides are for the birds. I've done those and longer. If I could use the time productively, I'd jump at it. And yes, you could nap... the car will be able to drive more safely than you, especially at night when your one mean of perceiving the environment around you is dramatically diminished.
Are you safe from the driver next to you? Safer than a piloted car. I am a defensive driver and regularly have to adjust for idiots who think a yellow light means they should hurry up and get through the intersection even though they won't make it until three seconds after it turns red. My position on the safety of autonomous cars isn't coming from a vaccum... these cars have been tested in Europe, Asia and North America... the next step is expanding the testing.
Will it be bug free? Probably not. But neither are the people who drive now. Even a perfect program dealing with an uncontrolled environment will make "mistakes". But it will be safer than human driving. If your argument is that a driverless car will have accidents, therefore we shouldn't use them, then you should also insist we get rid of cars altogether.
So, I stand by my statement to the GGP. If he won't travel to Nevada because they put in a well-regulated to test an unpiloted car, then he is a luddite.
The only other thing I can think of is you are assuming I am going 1 * 80 / 9000 to get my calc. For numbers this close to zero and for this short of a period, the math works out pretty close, though.
Let me see if I can clarify
If you are arguing that you and I have a less than 1% chance of dying in our lifetime because we have already survived a number of decades, I agree. But my point is that if a person born today has a 1 in 9000 chance of dying in a car crash each year and this person would otherwise have lived to 80, the odds are pretty close to 1% that he or she will die in a car crash.
1 - (8999/9000)^80 is around 0.9%.
If I am missing something obvious, please clarify.
If you have a 1 in 9000 chance of dying in a car crash each year and live for 80 years, then yes your lifetime odds of dying in a crash are close to 1%.
I think Massachusettes' success has a lot more to do with the socioecomic status of the families who live in that state. I can take the same curriculum, put in in an inner-city Philly school and not get the same results.
Yes, the curriculum is important, but it is secondary to the quality of the family unit.
I can amplify your statement.
People throw out 12 cents (not .12 cents :)) a kWh, but when I look at my bill I see surcharges and other fees that are based on usage. My last bill was truly more like 20 cents a kWh once I factored these items in. Based on that, replacing many of the bulbs in the house I just bought made a lot of sense.
The basement kids' play area had ten 60 watt bulbs that I replaced with 23 watt bulbs. Even if I take replacement costs to be equal between the two bulbs, the energy savings is enormous. The CFCs save me 370 watts per hour used over then ten bulbs and are a bit brighter. At 20 cents per kWh, I save 6 cents per hour used. My kids are pretty good about turning these lights off when not in use, so at 15 hours a week, I am saving 45 or so dollars per year. I imagine this will be even higher in the winter when they can't go outside to play as much.
And the CFCs themselves came from my old house, some of which were bought almost ten years ago. Back then they cost me $5/bulb. I have found that the ones I put in the bathroom and kitchen didn't last any longer than incandescent, but all of the other rooms lasted a long time.
How many bulbs do you break? I remember breaking one in the ten years I've used CFC's (when installing one), so I wouldn't use that as my purchasing criteria.
People with your mentality are the reason progress takes as long as it does.