Would it make you feel better if the study was sponsored by Partners for Unbiased Assessments of Road Safety? Maybe you should petition the current group to change their name. I'm sure all their studies will be a lot more objective.
ABS is about control, not stopping distances. It allows you to retain control of your vehicle by preventing the wheels from locking up. As such, ABS will not reduce your velocity as much as tradtitional brakes and you will therefore impact with more energy.
You are apparently unaware about how ABS works. When brakes lock up and wheels don't spin anymore, the ABS reduces the force transmitted to the brakes until the wheels spin again. They then clamp up again to the force specified by the driver. Rinse and repeat. As a result, the braking power applied to the brakes is within a very small margin of the theoretical maximum. Yes, you could potentially brake better than an ABS system, if you'd know exactly what the current maximum braking force is that the road and tires will support. Chances are though, you merely think that you are a better driver than anyone else out there, and ABS will actually stop you in a shorter distance than you could do yourself, regardless of the condition of the road.
Rather than pick on a non-engineer you could have done some homework and answered the question yourself.
He wasn't presenting himself as a non-engineer, he was presenting himself as someone too lazy to do some basic background analysis. In spite of this, he still advocated jumping on some bandwagon. The reason I didn't answer it myself is because I don't know the numbers. Specifically, their design is so completely full of mumbo-jumbo that it is impossible to come up with realistic numbers. Generally, I don't know how much energy these things can extract from water. So I don't know, and I don't tell. Finally, please point out where I say that thermal difference engines are bad. I didn't - I said that not doing any type of analysis is how bad ideas get implemented. Why? Because you have no idea whether you're dealing with a bad idea or not.
And we'll never, ever, know all the answers up front.
Absolutely. However, this is no reason to not even try to get answers. At least make an honest effort.
At least these guys are TRYING to find a solution.
Very true. This does not, however, give them a free ride to implement anything they come up with.
If you want to define self-preservation as a value, be my guest. I doubt though you are any less interested in it than anyone else. Which means that it is still about the circumstances.
I'm sure someone can go into the math of exactly how much energy the ocean contains by multiplying water's heat capacity to the amount of water in the oean, but I'm too lazy to do that.
And this, folks, is exactly how bad ideas get implemented.
"No, really, how bad could a nuclear explosion be? I'm sure all those sailors looking at the pretty lights will be ok."
"No, really, we don't need no stinking forest management program. No one could ever use all the wood that is in the Rainforest. It's practically infinite!"
Someone looks at something bigger than he's used to, figures that nothing could ever be bigger, and goes about implementing something that completely breaks if this assumption is incorrect.
If you think 1 byte is all you'll ever need for a number, allocate a long. And if you can't do the math, don't do it.
And what do you think that solar energy is going to do if you don't turn it into electicity? The sun already raises the temperature last I checked.
Right - and a good chunk of the world's ecosystems rely on this to continue. Remove the sunlight, transfer the energy somewhere else, and you've just removed local heat. Good? Bad? Who knows, as it largely depends on the circumstances. But it is something to consider.
Don't know why this is modded insightful, other than that complete and utter corruption of our political system has been accepted as truth of the land.
That said, there are two reasons why this is unlikely. One (and the parent post already mentioned it), receipts will not be there for you to take home. They will be used to show you who the system thinks you voted for, and as an alternate means of counting votes. Which means that they will be collected before you leave the voting station. Two, this is illegal. Granted, it is difficult to prevent within families or other very close-knit communities, but it is unlikely that anyone else (especially not an employer) would be willing to face a fat, juicy lawsuit for voter coercion.
It's not even close to being the National Guard. Check the Wikipedia links throughout here - they are an actual police force, although their duties are much farther reaching than what we associate with the police here in the US.
Throw into that list Highway Patrol and police detectives - France is weird that way. It's administrated through the armed forced, but operates under civilian control for all its duties. As other people pointed out, Wikipedia is your friend in this confusion.
The saddest part about your rant is not even that it is so unbeliveably radical - it is that that's how societies used to work until, oh, 1900 or so. Then people figured out that that was no way to handle an exploding population, so they looked for alternatives. Granted, what we have is by no means perfect. But it is a step up from the dark ages, when your grand vision was fully realized.
Seriously, all you showed is that you have no clue about history, economics or sociology. I'd suggest to read up in those subjects, but I suspect that there's little chance you'll be able to pass this drivel on to anyone else. Might as well save those books for someone who'll actually benefit from them.
And exactly what did you expect from him? He is the CEO of a public company, with rules and regulations that govern that position. One of them being that you don't blab in a public forum about stuff that hasn't been officially vetted by your legal/PR/marketing/tech departments. As a result, all questions that are directly product-related (what new features) will be stiff PR stuff. The only questions that could be light-hearted and off-the-cuff are the Oprah cross-marketing type questions - questions that are really not that relevant to people who need to calculate bottomlines and predict futures.
If I rely on the fruits of my labor to feed my family, let me make the choice of whether I want to give it away, OK?
Except that your right to control distribution is a fairly recent development in law. I don't think that the impact of copyright law (and its continuing extension) has either been fully discussed, analyzed or brought up to the people who actually make laws. To simply state that the law should guarantee you an income because you happen to create something at some point is not a good reason to drop the discussion.
So in short, nothing happened. Total cost of this to Sony: close to zero, considering that their lawyers are already paid for and the music downloads are essentially zero cost to them. No fine. No jail time for trespassing or computer "hacking".
Watch as countless media conglomerates will do the same stuff again and again, until people have finally come to accept that getting shafted is just the way it'll be. A solid "Booo!" to every lawyer involved in this settlement. Sony won handily.
... has to be the Harvard "WE SUCK" prank. It's there for everybody to see, it's during the Yale-Harvard football game when everyone who cares about Yale-Harvard is out in force, it requires a non-trivial amount of planning and good execution, and, last but not least, it is self-inflicted. An absolute thing of beauty. I wish people would do that at a Raiders or Yankees game. Although that might end in a brawl. Which would make it even better.:D
I don't understand how the quote helps your case. When pressed for clarification, the general simply states: we have got information through this program that would not otherwise have been available.
He said nothing about whether that information was actually useful. It doesn't contradict his initial statement, but it's really more of an obfuscation rather than a clarification.
I also don't see how the fact that after 2001, 179 FISA requests have been modified illustrates that abuse has lessened. If anything, it tells me that Bush tried to push the envelope on who they're monitoring, and FISA told him "no". After which, in classic fashion, Bush decides to just ignore the FISA.
I work in the software monitoring business. As a result, my work (and that of my coworkers) requires me to regularly (i.e., about 15 times a day for 15 different customers) access some outside website. Considering that we have about 500 customers, with more coming in daily, filtering any websites is an impossibility. If we did, we'd be out of business in about 24 hours. So no, the solution you describe is not basic security. It is complete paranoia that can do far more harm than good, and only applicable to people who have no business using the Internet, ever.
What is a better solution? Dunno, since I'm no sysadmin. But I'd say it starts with plugging known exploits, educating users and having the standard security tools up and running. That is basic security. Not essentially cutting off the connection to the Internet.
In Afghanistan, most of the reald work (i.e. chasing terrorists) is done on foot. I'm sure the soldiers there would appreciate not having to lug 70 lbs of stuff around at 9000 feet. If you do need to do something else, just get out of it, do it, than strap the exoskeleton back on.
Alright, for the life of me, I can't find the videos where they showed cars navigating the last section of the course - what they referred to as bot-killer section on the grandchallenge site. I do remember things like some cars having trouble with bay hales and various poles and fences, but nothing definite. Specifically, I don't remember whether there was just a narrowing of the course, or if there were sections where vehicles had to actually navigate around something.
I would agree though that the terrain wasn't as forbidding as it could have been. Then again, I think DARPA reworked their goals. Instead of going for the automated tank roaming across unmarked land, they were going for the supply truck that goes from point A to point B across a terrain that is known to be passable, and probably consists of a lot of road.
I also think that calling it a toy challenge is a bit harsh. Last year, none of the vehicles could stay on the road. This year, a lot of them went the distance. In between, there had to have been some serious advances (even if only incremental) in the technology and algorithms used.
Another point - nighttime, rain and snow are much easier to deal with for machines than for humans. Machines can use lasers, radar, infrared, uv and all kinds of other active and passive mechanisms to peek through rain, sleet and fog. Humans can't. As such, daytime driving is an advantage only for humans. And DARPA probably chose it because it is easier to find stuff that got lost during the day. Which is what a lot of vehicles were expected to do.
Incorrect. According to the website (http://www.grandchallenge.org/), the course was designed to include obstacles that had to be avoided. If I remember correctly, the obstacles included tank crosses, beams and poles, and a couple of vehicles actually got hung up on them. There was a corridor, but it was not possible to finish the course by simply relying on GPS and keeping within the middle of the road. Finally, the tunnel prevented the use of GPS.
In short, the Grand Challenge was indeed a grand challenge in that it incorporated all aspects of autonomous driving (save the road rage).
And I'd agree with you. As long as I'm on a road with other people, I'd rather be in control of my car. At least for as long as no one demonstrates that a car can drive itself among idiots and morons (and we're all better than 90% of the other drivers on the road, right?). As soon as we have robots-only roads, I'll be happy to let go of the steering wheel and take a nap while my car drives itself home.
This is one of the first problems that AI people faced. The solution is simple: the algorithm is weighted so that it would much rather steer your into a ditch on the right side of the road (fairly cheap damage) than into oncoming traffic on the left (likely death, and guaranteed totaling of the car).
... is that the CMU team relied heavily on extensive pre-analysis of the environment, and failed (at least in the sense that it didn't come in first). Stanford instead relied on a probability analysis of the incoming data, along with multiple technologies for different goals (lasers for short range data, video for long range data).
It seems that the DARPA grand challenge not only showed off the first realistically autonomous vehicles, but also laid to rest the idea that expert systems were the way forward. The way forward instead is self-teaching computers. Hooray for self-teaching AI overlords!
Slashdot Mirror
Would it make you feel better if the study was sponsored by Partners for Unbiased Assessments of Road Safety? Maybe you should petition the current group to change their name. I'm sure all their studies will be a lot more objective.
You are apparently unaware about how ABS works. When brakes lock up and wheels don't spin anymore, the ABS reduces the force transmitted to the brakes until the wheels spin again. They then clamp up again to the force specified by the driver. Rinse and repeat. As a result, the braking power applied to the brakes is within a very small margin of the theoretical maximum. Yes, you could potentially brake better than an ABS system, if you'd know exactly what the current maximum braking force is that the road and tires will support. Chances are though, you merely think that you are a better driver than anyone else out there, and ABS will actually stop you in a shorter distance than you could do yourself, regardless of the condition of the road.
In short, ABS is better than you. Use it.
He wasn't presenting himself as a non-engineer, he was presenting himself as someone too lazy to do some basic background analysis. In spite of this, he still advocated jumping on some bandwagon. The reason I didn't answer it myself is because I don't know the numbers. Specifically, their design is so completely full of mumbo-jumbo that it is impossible to come up with realistic numbers. Generally, I don't know how much energy these things can extract from water. So I don't know, and I don't tell. Finally, please point out where I say that thermal difference engines are bad. I didn't - I said that not doing any type of analysis is how bad ideas get implemented. Why? Because you have no idea whether you're dealing with a bad idea or not.
And we'll never, ever, know all the answers up front.
Absolutely. However, this is no reason to not even try to get answers. At least make an honest effort.
At least these guys are TRYING to find a solution.
Very true. This does not, however, give them a free ride to implement anything they come up with.
If you want to define self-preservation as a value, be my guest. I doubt though you are any less interested in it than anyone else. Which means that it is still about the circumstances.
And this, folks, is exactly how bad ideas get implemented.
"No, really, how bad could a nuclear explosion be? I'm sure all those sailors looking at the pretty lights will be ok."
"No, really, we don't need no stinking forest management program. No one could ever use all the wood that is in the Rainforest. It's practically infinite!"
Someone looks at something bigger than he's used to, figures that nothing could ever be bigger, and goes about implementing something that completely breaks if this assumption is incorrect.
If you think 1 byte is all you'll ever need for a number, allocate a long. And if you can't do the math, don't do it.
Right - and a good chunk of the world's ecosystems rely on this to continue. Remove the sunlight, transfer the energy somewhere else, and you've just removed local heat. Good? Bad? Who knows, as it largely depends on the circumstances. But it is something to consider.
Don't know why this is modded insightful, other than that complete and utter corruption of our political system has been accepted as truth of the land. That said, there are two reasons why this is unlikely. One (and the parent post already mentioned it), receipts will not be there for you to take home. They will be used to show you who the system thinks you voted for, and as an alternate means of counting votes. Which means that they will be collected before you leave the voting station. Two, this is illegal. Granted, it is difficult to prevent within families or other very close-knit communities, but it is unlikely that anyone else (especially not an employer) would be willing to face a fat, juicy lawsuit for voter coercion.
It's not even close to being the National Guard. Check the Wikipedia links throughout here - they are an actual police force, although their duties are much farther reaching than what we associate with the police here in the US.
Throw into that list Highway Patrol and police detectives - France is weird that way. It's administrated through the armed forced, but operates under civilian control for all its duties. As other people pointed out, Wikipedia is your friend in this confusion.
Personally, I dig press releases from Infinium Labs. It gives me something to laugh about during the day.
The saddest part about your rant is not even that it is so unbeliveably radical - it is that that's how societies used to work until, oh, 1900 or so. Then people figured out that that was no way to handle an exploding population, so they looked for alternatives. Granted, what we have is by no means perfect. But it is a step up from the dark ages, when your grand vision was fully realized.
Seriously, all you showed is that you have no clue about history, economics or sociology. I'd suggest to read up in those subjects, but I suspect that there's little chance you'll be able to pass this drivel on to anyone else. Might as well save those books for someone who'll actually benefit from them.
And exactly what did you expect from him? He is the CEO of a public company, with rules and regulations that govern that position. One of them being that you don't blab in a public forum about stuff that hasn't been officially vetted by your legal/PR/marketing/tech departments. As a result, all questions that are directly product-related (what new features) will be stiff PR stuff. The only questions that could be light-hearted and off-the-cuff are the Oprah cross-marketing type questions - questions that are really not that relevant to people who need to calculate bottomlines and predict futures.
Except that your right to control distribution is a fairly recent development in law. I don't think that the impact of copyright law (and its continuing extension) has either been fully discussed, analyzed or brought up to the people who actually make laws. To simply state that the law should guarantee you an income because you happen to create something at some point is not a good reason to drop the discussion.
So in short, nothing happened. Total cost of this to Sony: close to zero, considering that their lawyers are already paid for and the music downloads are essentially zero cost to them. No fine. No jail time for trespassing or computer "hacking".
Watch as countless media conglomerates will do the same stuff again and again, until people have finally come to accept that getting shafted is just the way it'll be. A solid "Booo!" to every lawyer involved in this settlement. Sony won handily.
... has to be the Harvard "WE SUCK" prank. It's there for everybody to see, it's during the Yale-Harvard football game when everyone who cares about Yale-Harvard is out in force, it requires a non-trivial amount of planning and good execution, and, last but not least, it is self-inflicted. An absolute thing of beauty. I wish people would do that at a Raiders or Yankees game. Although that might end in a brawl. Which would make it even better. :D
He said nothing about whether that information was actually useful. It doesn't contradict his initial statement, but it's really more of an obfuscation rather than a clarification.
I also don't see how the fact that after 2001, 179 FISA requests have been modified illustrates that abuse has lessened. If anything, it tells me that Bush tried to push the envelope on who they're monitoring, and FISA told him "no". After which, in classic fashion, Bush decides to just ignore the FISA.
I work in the software monitoring business. As a result, my work (and that of my coworkers) requires me to regularly (i.e., about 15 times a day for 15 different customers) access some outside website. Considering that we have about 500 customers, with more coming in daily, filtering any websites is an impossibility. If we did, we'd be out of business in about 24 hours. So no, the solution you describe is not basic security. It is complete paranoia that can do far more harm than good, and only applicable to people who have no business using the Internet, ever.
What is a better solution? Dunno, since I'm no sysadmin. But I'd say it starts with plugging known exploits, educating users and having the standard security tools up and running. That is basic security. Not essentially cutting off the connection to the Internet.
In Afghanistan, most of the reald work (i.e. chasing terrorists) is done on foot. I'm sure the soldiers there would appreciate not having to lug 70 lbs of stuff around at 9000 feet. If you do need to do something else, just get out of it, do it, than strap the exoskeleton back on.
Alright, for the life of me, I can't find the videos where they showed cars navigating the last section of the course - what they referred to as bot-killer section on the grandchallenge site. I do remember things like some cars having trouble with bay hales and various poles and fences, but nothing definite. Specifically, I don't remember whether there was just a narrowing of the course, or if there were sections where vehicles had to actually navigate around something.
I would agree though that the terrain wasn't as forbidding as it could have been. Then again, I think DARPA reworked their goals. Instead of going for the automated tank roaming across unmarked land, they were going for the supply truck that goes from point A to point B across a terrain that is known to be passable, and probably consists of a lot of road.
I also think that calling it a toy challenge is a bit harsh. Last year, none of the vehicles could stay on the road. This year, a lot of them went the distance. In between, there had to have been some serious advances (even if only incremental) in the technology and algorithms used.
Another point - nighttime, rain and snow are much easier to deal with for machines than for humans. Machines can use lasers, radar, infrared, uv and all kinds of other active and passive mechanisms to peek through rain, sleet and fog. Humans can't. As such, daytime driving is an advantage only for humans. And DARPA probably chose it because it is easier to find stuff that got lost during the day. Which is what a lot of vehicles were expected to do.
Incorrect. According to the website (http://www.grandchallenge.org/), the course was designed to include obstacles that had to be avoided. If I remember correctly, the obstacles included tank crosses, beams and poles, and a couple of vehicles actually got hung up on them. There was a corridor, but it was not possible to finish the course by simply relying on GPS and keeping within the middle of the road. Finally, the tunnel prevented the use of GPS.
In short, the Grand Challenge was indeed a grand challenge in that it incorporated all aspects of autonomous driving (save the road rage).
And I'd agree with you. As long as I'm on a road with other people, I'd rather be in control of my car. At least for as long as no one demonstrates that a car can drive itself among idiots and morons (and we're all better than 90% of the other drivers on the road, right?). As soon as we have robots-only roads, I'll be happy to let go of the steering wheel and take a nap while my car drives itself home.
This is one of the first problems that AI people faced. The solution is simple: the algorithm is weighted so that it would much rather steer your into a ditch on the right side of the road (fairly cheap damage) than into oncoming traffic on the left (likely death, and guaranteed totaling of the car).
... is that the CMU team relied heavily on extensive pre-analysis of the environment, and failed (at least in the sense that it didn't come in first). Stanford instead relied on a probability analysis of the incoming data, along with multiple technologies for different goals (lasers for short range data, video for long range data).
It seems that the DARPA grand challenge not only showed off the first realistically autonomous vehicles, but also laid to rest the idea that expert systems were the way forward. The way forward instead is self-teaching computers. Hooray for self-teaching AI overlords!
Unless, of course, they buy legislation that has this specific loophole.