There are aspects of this accident that iare absent from the various news reports, that is, the role of the left turn of the truck and nature of the intersection.
First off, it seems to me that driving on an experimental 'autpilot' in a roadway that has intersections (as is shown in the police report figure in: ( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07... ) is tremendously more dangerous than using it on an interstate. That, and the reported presence of a dvd player causes one to question the drivers decision making.
But a greater concern, at least for me, is that the truck appears to have turned right in front of the Tesla. One possibility there is that the intersection had traffic lights, whose detection was missed by both driver and computer, which if true, is a bigger concern than missing the side of a white truck on a bright background. The other is that the truck did not yield to the oncoming car when making its turn, that is the truck cut off the tesla in the intersection. Apart from the liability issues raised, that circumstance is much more difficult to react to, either in person or by computer.
Well at least the first part. Charging oneself up with a van de graff generator is a common first year physics lecture demo. We have a generator capable of 400,000 Volts (though it doesnt reach that when its humid), and I have many times, in front of about 230 students, held onto the charge storage sphere. for a minute or more. It's supposed to demonstrate the electric field from a point charge (nominally my head), with the 'sensor' being the hair on my head. It is really good at making one's hair stand on end.....
Of course when we do that demo, we stand on a 2 inch plexiglass plate, which sits on top of a couple of 4x4's. Turns out (not suprisingly) that the discharge part is much more risky than the charging. I have a student turn off the machine, which I'm still holding onto, and wait 30 seconds. The machine is then discharged by touching to ground. That give me a bit of a jolt, but if its done too soon -- IT REALLY HURTS!!
With the discharge event being an important part of this process, its not something I would willingly undergo....
Here is the abstract: Abstract
The actin cytoskeleton is a potentially vulnerable property of cancer cells, yet chemotherapeutic targeting
attempts have been hampered by unacceptable toxicity. In this study, we have shown that it is possible to disrupt
specific actin filament populations by targeting isoforms of tropomyosin, a core component of actin filaments,
that are selectively upregulated in cancers. A novel class of anti-tropomyosin compounds has been developed
that preferentially disrupts the actin cytoskeleton of tumor cells, impairing both tumor cell motility and viability.
Our lead compound, TR100, is effective in vitro and in vivo in reducing tumor cell growth in neuroblastoma and
melanoma models. Importantly, TR100 shows no adverse impact on cardiac structure and function, which is the
major side effect of current anti-actin drugs. This proof-of-principle study shows that it is possible to target
specific actin filament populations fundamental to tumor cell viability based on their tropomyosin isoform
composition. This improvement in specificity provides a pathway to the development of a novel class of anti-actin
compounds for the potential treatment of a wide variety of cancers. Cancer Res; 73(16); 5169–82. 2013 AACR.
whose summary comment is:
"And this is the point: when an article such as mine suggests that three decades of dietary dogma might be both wrong and hazardous to the health, it will elicit public and perhaps angry responses from purveyors of that dogma"
Note that Fumento's heated response is not to the book, but to Traubes NT Times magazine article, which was written in an inflammatory style...(citation in prior posts, and available in links within Fumento's response)
I suppose the visceral reactions of many of the posts reflect emotional content of the subject, since many posters have not read the book. - I am currently through about 40 percent of the book, and have to say that the authors approach is a rather methodical examination, starting with the research history of heart disease and leading to the roles of insulin and diet. As a scientist myself, I appreciate his gradual, pedagogic style. The book documents conclusions made about diet that have been wrong and yet were widely and forcefully proclaimed correct, and which retained influence both in public opinion and in availability of research funds. The author is not a scientist per se, but is a correspondent for science, and wrote about science, examining the Cold Fusion fiasco.
While it may be some time before we learn if his position is correct, the book is an interesting read, even just from its reviews of prior conclusions. It is certainly not a book written in the style of "buy my diet book so I can get rich".
As a netflix user, throttling is something that i have experienced, and am frustrated with.
But my biggest problem with netflix's approach is not that they throttle, but that they
claim ignorance, through emails and advertising, of what many of us have clearly observed.
I would be much happier as a customer if I knew, in detail, what their usage policy was and how it was implemented.
Scouring the net to try to learn what I could about their throttling practices, I found the following
site: "An Analysis of Netflix's DVD Allocation System"
It contains, by far the best information I could find regarding throttling. It includes enough
data to actually draw reasonable conclusions about some of the thresholds that netlflix
uses for limiting rentals. It has allowed my to adjust my use to almost always get sent new releases.
"In the design of this roaster, the extra TCs shold be in an distilled ice/water bath, otherwise the roaster temp depends on room temp, which is not what you would want. The roaster temp should be independant of the room temp variations (that is the whole point of a control system.)"
But its alot easier to read a thermometer and tell the computer what the ambient temperature it is, than to assemble an ice bath every roast.
It was pretty hard to find a reasonable tc meter, board, chip, etc, that getsthe right answer at 400+F with ambient anywhere between 20 and 95F. (winter/summer)
And pretty good stability and precision is necessary, as some stages of the roast ramp the bean temperature at a tenth of a degree F per second.
The hard part isn't the hardware, its the control algorithm.
The overall project was a "proof of principle" effort and made use of gear that was "on hand", to try to get to the algorithm tweaking stage as quickly as possible.
While the hardware has stayed more or less unchanged, the control approach has changed alot to get repeatability "in the cup", even while the ambient temperature varies from 95F to as low as 20F (roasting is done outside)......
Slashdot Mirror
First off, it seems to me that driving on an experimental 'autpilot' in a roadway that has intersections (as is shown in the police report figure in: ( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07... ) is tremendously more dangerous than using it on an interstate. That, and the reported presence of a dvd player causes one to question the drivers decision making.
But a greater concern, at least for me, is that the truck appears to have turned right in front of the Tesla. One possibility there is that the intersection had traffic lights, whose detection was missed by both driver and computer, which if true, is a bigger concern than missing the side of a white truck on a bright background. The other is that the truck did not yield to the oncoming car when making its turn, that is the truck cut off the tesla in the intersection. Apart from the liability issues raised, that circumstance is much more difficult to react to, either in person or by computer.
Any one have any further info?
Well at least the first part. Charging oneself up with a van de graff generator is a common first year physics lecture demo. We have a generator capable of 400,000 Volts (though it doesnt reach that when its humid), and I have many times, in front of about 230 students, held onto the charge storage sphere. for a minute or more. It's supposed to demonstrate the electric field from a point charge (nominally my head), with the 'sensor' being the hair on my head. It is really good at making one's hair stand on end.....
Of course when we do that demo, we stand on a 2 inch plexiglass plate, which sits on top of a couple of 4x4's. Turns out (not suprisingly) that the discharge part is much more risky than the charging. I have a student turn off the machine, which I'm still holding onto, and wait 30 seconds. The machine is then discharged by touching to ground. That give me a bit of a jolt, but if its done too soon -- IT REALLY HURTS!!
With the discharge event being an important part of this process, its not something I would willingly undergo....
Here is the abstract:
Abstract
The actin cytoskeleton is a potentially vulnerable property of cancer cells, yet chemotherapeutic targeting attempts have been hampered by unacceptable toxicity. In this study, we have shown that it is possible to disrupt specific actin filament populations by targeting isoforms of tropomyosin, a core component of actin filaments, that are selectively upregulated in cancers. A novel class of anti-tropomyosin compounds has been developed that preferentially disrupts the actin cytoskeleton of tumor cells, impairing both tumor cell motility and viability. Our lead compound, TR100, is effective in vitro and in vivo in reducing tumor cell growth in neuroblastoma and melanoma models. Importantly, TR100 shows no adverse impact on cardiac structure and function, which is the major side effect of current anti-actin drugs. This proof-of-principle study shows that it is possible to target specific actin filament populations fundamental to tumor cell viability based on their tropomyosin isoform composition. This improvement in specificity provides a pathway to the development of a novel class of anti-actin compounds for the potential treatment of a wide variety of cancers. Cancer Res; 73(16); 5169–82. 2013 AACR.
The cited article is extremely thin on information, but the publication that it is based on is available as a pdf:
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/73/16/5169.full.pdf+html
It was published yesterday...
http:///www.reason.com/news/show/28721.html
whose summary comment is: "And this is the point: when an article such as mine suggests that three decades of dietary dogma might be both wrong and hazardous to the health, it will elicit public and perhaps angry responses from purveyors of that dogma"
Note that Fumento's heated response is not to the book, but to Traubes NT Times magazine article, which was written in an inflammatory style...(citation in prior posts, and available in links within Fumento's response)
While it may be some time before we learn if his position is correct, the book is an interesting read, even just from its reviews of prior conclusions. It is certainly not a book written in the style of "buy my diet book so I can get rich".
A review of his position can be found in a an article written in 2002: "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=%7B367127E3-4395-4DB8-90E0-AC52B2D86AF4%7D, though it written in a firebrand style, which the book is not.
Scouring the net to try to learn what I could about their throttling practices, I found the following site: "An Analysis of Netflix's DVD Allocation System"
http://dvd-rent-test.dreamhost.com/
It contains, by far the best information I could find regarding throttling. It includes enough data to actually draw reasonable conclusions about some of the thresholds that netlflix uses for limiting rentals. It has allowed my to adjust my use to almost always get sent new releases.
"In the design of this roaster, the extra TCs shold be in an distilled ice/water bath, otherwise the roaster temp depends on room temp, which is not what you would want. The roaster temp should be independant of the room temp variations (that is the whole point of a control system.)"
But its alot easier to read a thermometer and tell the computer what the ambient temperature it is, than to assemble an ice bath every roast.
It was pretty hard to find a reasonable tc meter, board, chip, etc, that getsthe right answer at 400+F with ambient anywhere between 20 and 95F. (winter/summer) And pretty good stability and precision is necessary, as some stages of the roast ramp the bean temperature at a tenth of a degree F per second.
The hard part isn't the hardware, its the control algorithm.
The overall project was a "proof of principle" effort and made use of gear that was "on hand", to try to get to the algorithm tweaking stage as quickly as possible.
While the hardware has stayed more or less unchanged, the control approach has changed alot to get repeatability "in the cup", even while the ambient temperature varies from 95F to as low as 20F (roasting is done outside)......