We work 40+ hard hours because we get measured and paid for performance. So the question is, how much are people willing to work and contribute outside the structure of traditional employment? He makes a good case that channeling just 1% of the time spent on TV would make a big difference, and I believe people are ready to contribute more than 1% to "productive" web-based leisure activities. So it's a big deal even in a tired world.
The behavior of the swivel cannot be extended to the behavior of the firing mechanism. Just think of how many weapons have to be moved all the time. How many guns, missiles, and so forth have been mispointed and misplaced? I can't speak from firsthand knowledge, but it seems reasonable to assume that the firing mechanism is substantially more reliable. This article isn't reporting that a robot fired when it should not have--if it were, it would be much more troubling.
Three false moves prior to certification is not a problem. Compare this to false moves by soldiers carrying rifles, which are universal. Even if a robot were to point its gun in the wrong direction, the person controlling it, and there always is one, would not pull the trigger. The Army will (and should) let the Talon see action. Gun-shooting robots are inevitable.
The flexibility assumption isn't quite right. The tire's pressure relates to both the weight it supports and the stress within the tire itself. Counter example: an inflated tire (bicycle or car) held up by its rim with XX psi in the tire and 0 psi against the outside world.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is George W. Bush's name for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), which was Bill Clinton's name for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), which was Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars."
Why not just deduct the rebate at the cash register? We all know that's doable. No, their dream is to extract from each customer the maximum personal price. Those willing to pay full price do, and those only willing to pay a lower price get it. Willingness to do senseless work determines who falls in what camp--it's just like coupon clipping.
There can be good trustees, and it's easy to imagine ways to incentivize trustees to improve the chances of good management. But in the end, trustee motivation does not match the owner motivation. The owner of an asset gets all the benefits of good use of the asset. At best, a trustee gets a small percentage.
It does seem to be a way to avoid estate taxes. However, I doubt most people are doing it for this reason. The article suggests that the "so-called dynasty trusts" are typically used to "pay out funds to a person's children, grandchildren and future generations" and do not need to have anything to do with cryogenics. You can get the tax scam without the cryo.
These people are doing it to avoid the dread of death. I don't think it should be legal. What if everyone who died just tied up their assets this way? We would have a "Trustee Economy" (you read it here first). This would not be good. Trustees are not motivated to optimize the use of assets the way owners are.
Most of the ants in a colony are workers. But workers are a dead end for genes. Only the males and queens pass their genetic material to future colonies. The remarkable part about this finding is that for this one species (or is it two?), new males have only the father's genes and new females (queens) have only the mother's genes. Workers have a mix. This is different from the typical case for other ants and other animals, where the parent genes are mixed to produce both male and female offspring.
You could argue all that on a range of prices, $1K to $20K. So what qualifies as expensive? In the domain of GUI evelopment tools, $5K per developer's license is expensive. And a lot more than just QT is needed to develop an application.
I agree. QT is good and liked by all the developers I know who work with it. It is expensive to use commercially, though. For a developer's license that includes integration with OpenGL and other things we need, it runs $4950 USD.
This is a neat concept, with or without the "neuroevolution" approach (evolving artificial neural networks with genetic algorithms). Including human brains in the training loop for algorithm development is key. The reason so many AI algorithms have found limited application in fielded physical systems (such as weapon systems) is because the competing approach--dozens of smart engineers, working long hours, tweaking human-readable algorithm code and Monte Carlo simulating the tweaked designs over and over for years--is so effective.
This must hit a special nerve with New Zealanders, who are trying to eradicate rats wherever possible. There are three types of wild rats in New Zealand, and none of them really belong there: black rats were introduced in the 1860's, brown rats were introduced on Captain Cook's ship in 1760's, and Kiore rats were introduced by Maori settlers in the 960's (plus or minus).
It's interesting research, but the manufacturing-in-space argument is weak. This has been used as a justification for the expense of going to orbit with astronauts, and it never rings true to me. Floride glass fiber won't be manufactured more than 100 feet from the surface of the Earth in the forseeable future. Has any of the materials-properties-in-space research has lead to new commercial products?
The high-profile Japanese robotics efforts seem focused on "cute" designs, such as QRIO, AIBO, Wakamaru, ASIMO, and so forth. The successful recent U.S. efforts, such as Roomba, PackBot, Talon, and Da Vinci, tend to be uncute but useful. There is a decided cultural difference.
I think there are signs that robots are coming to the home for real this time. Take iRobot's Roomba, with 1.2 million units sold. If there is already a solid (though admittedly not overwhelming) market for a wandering, vacuuming robot, can, say a wandering lawn-mowing robot be that far off? Or a vacuuming robot that does more than wander? It's a sign.
Right, based on the increase in life expectancy, you would expect innovation age to increase by more than six years. I think there is less big innovation by older people because they realize the expected payoff is not worth it. You gamble your time, money, and energy, and you sacrifice other things in life. And what do you get? Are you really happier after you are famous in some technical circle? Innovation age growing more slowly than life expectancy could be evidence that people get cleverer as they age.
It is too hard to get right. When will someone die because of (anonymous?) access to a public Internet weapon interface? I can't imagine the day isn't coming, whether or not there are laws. Will it be intentional or accidental? I don't want to write that app.
Exactly. The real issue is net quality of life. So how does overeating affect that? Eating rich food is enjoyable. To what degree does that balance out the unpleasantness of being overweight during life and maybe (or maybe not--according to the article) checking out early?
Progress will continue. Periodic doubling of computational power transcends physical rationale. Exponential growth is produced by positive feedback, and there is positive feedback in computational progress because each generation of computer is used to design and build the next.
As long as silicon is behind the best computers, this exponential growth will be represented through Moore's Law. Even when we move on from silicon, exponential growth will continue in the new medium. It is reasonable to predict that despite knowing zero about the new medium.
It seems we can program anything done with conscious thought--algebra, logic, and so forth. It's mostly the things we do unconsciously--recognize objects, interpret terrain, extract meaning from sentences--that can't be put adequately into code.
Would the code for these unconscious processes really be complicated, or is it just that we don't have mental access to the techniques?
There is a good information page maintained by some guys at Columbia who reverse engineered the Skype protocol: www1.cs.columbia.edu/~salman/skype/. The linked article "An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to_Peer Internet Telephony Protocol" is especially insightful.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't that essay make you want to post comments to Slashdot, rather than just read? It does me.
We work 40+ hard hours because we get measured and paid for performance. So the question is, how much are people willing to work and contribute outside the structure of traditional employment? He makes a good case that channeling just 1% of the time spent on TV would make a big difference, and I believe people are ready to contribute more than 1% to "productive" web-based leisure activities. So it's a big deal even in a tired world.
The behavior of the swivel cannot be extended to the behavior of the firing mechanism. Just think of how many weapons have to be moved all the time. How many guns, missiles, and so forth have been mispointed and misplaced? I can't speak from firsthand knowledge, but it seems reasonable to assume that the firing mechanism is substantially more reliable. This article isn't reporting that a robot fired when it should not have--if it were, it would be much more troubling.
Three false moves prior to certification is not a problem. Compare this to false moves by soldiers carrying rifles, which are universal. Even if a robot were to point its gun in the wrong direction, the person controlling it, and there always is one, would not pull the trigger. The Army will (and should) let the Talon see action. Gun-shooting robots are inevitable.
Here is another good discussion (PDF): http://www.rootsecure.net/content/downloads/pdf/sk ype_protocol.pdf.
The flexibility assumption isn't quite right. The tire's pressure relates to both the weight it supports and the stress within the tire itself. Counter example: an inflated tire (bicycle or car) held up by its rim with XX psi in the tire and 0 psi against the outside world.
The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is George W. Bush's name for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), which was Bill Clinton's name for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO), which was Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars."
Why not just deduct the rebate at the cash register? We all know that's doable. No, their dream is to extract from each customer the maximum personal price. Those willing to pay full price do, and those only willing to pay a lower price get it. Willingness to do senseless work determines who falls in what camp--it's just like coupon clipping.
There can be good trustees, and it's easy to imagine ways to incentivize trustees to improve the chances of good management. But in the end, trustee motivation does not match the owner motivation. The owner of an asset gets all the benefits of good use of the asset. At best, a trustee gets a small percentage.
These people are doing it to avoid the dread of death. I don't think it should be legal. What if everyone who died just tied up their assets this way? We would have a "Trustee Economy" (you read it here first). This would not be good. Trustees are not motivated to optimize the use of assets the way owners are.
Most of the ants in a colony are workers. But workers are a dead end for genes. Only the males and queens pass their genetic material to future colonies. The remarkable part about this finding is that for this one species (or is it two?), new males have only the father's genes and new females (queens) have only the mother's genes. Workers have a mix. This is different from the typical case for other ants and other animals, where the parent genes are mixed to produce both male and female offspring.
You could argue all that on a range of prices, $1K to $20K. So what qualifies as expensive? In the domain of GUI evelopment tools, $5K per developer's license is expensive. And a lot more than just QT is needed to develop an application.
I agree. QT is good and liked by all the developers I know who work with it. It is expensive to use commercially, though. For a developer's license that includes integration with OpenGL and other things we need, it runs $4950 USD.
This is a neat concept, with or without the "neuroevolution" approach (evolving artificial neural networks with genetic algorithms). Including human brains in the training loop for algorithm development is key. The reason so many AI algorithms have found limited application in fielded physical systems (such as weapon systems) is because the competing approach--dozens of smart engineers, working long hours, tweaking human-readable algorithm code and Monte Carlo simulating the tweaked designs over and over for years--is so effective.
This must hit a special nerve with New Zealanders, who are trying to eradicate rats wherever possible. There are three types of wild rats in New Zealand, and none of them really belong there: black rats were introduced in the 1860's, brown rats were introduced on Captain Cook's ship in 1760's, and Kiore rats were introduced by Maori settlers in the 960's (plus or minus).
It's interesting research, but the manufacturing-in-space argument is weak. This has been used as a justification for the expense of going to orbit with astronauts, and it never rings true to me. Floride glass fiber won't be manufactured more than 100 feet from the surface of the Earth in the forseeable future. Has any of the materials-properties-in-space research has lead to new commercial products?
True, robotic mowers have been around for while--but the number sold is low, tens of thousands instead of millions.
The high-profile Japanese robotics efforts seem focused on "cute" designs, such as QRIO, AIBO, Wakamaru, ASIMO, and so forth. The successful recent U.S. efforts, such as Roomba, PackBot, Talon, and Da Vinci, tend to be uncute but useful. There is a decided cultural difference.
I think there are signs that robots are coming to the home for real this time. Take iRobot's Roomba, with 1.2 million units sold. If there is already a solid (though admittedly not overwhelming) market for a wandering, vacuuming robot, can, say a wandering lawn-mowing robot be that far off? Or a vacuuming robot that does more than wander? It's a sign.
Right, based on the increase in life expectancy, you would expect innovation age to increase by more than six years. I think there is less big innovation by older people because they realize the expected payoff is not worth it. You gamble your time, money, and energy, and you sacrifice other things in life. And what do you get? Are you really happier after you are famous in some technical circle? Innovation age growing more slowly than life expectancy could be evidence that people get cleverer as they age.
It is too hard to get right. When will someone die because of (anonymous?) access to a public Internet weapon interface? I can't imagine the day isn't coming, whether or not there are laws. Will it be intentional or accidental? I don't want to write that app.
Exactly. The real issue is net quality of life. So how does overeating affect that? Eating rich food is enjoyable. To what degree does that balance out the unpleasantness of being overweight during life and maybe (or maybe not--according to the article) checking out early?
As long as silicon is behind the best computers, this exponential growth will be represented through Moore's Law. Even when we move on from silicon, exponential growth will continue in the new medium. It is reasonable to predict that despite knowing zero about the new medium.
It seems we can program anything done with conscious thought--algebra, logic, and so forth. It's mostly the things we do unconsciously--recognize objects, interpret terrain, extract meaning from sentences--that can't be put adequately into code. Would the code for these unconscious processes really be complicated, or is it just that we don't have mental access to the techniques?
There is a good information page maintained by some guys at Columbia who reverse engineered the Skype protocol: www1.cs.columbia.edu/~salman/skype/. The linked article "An Analysis of the Skype Peer-to_Peer Internet Telephony Protocol" is especially insightful.