I should clarify that statement a bit: nothing related to actual game state from the client can be trusted. In other words, for instance, you wouldn't rely on the client performing hit-detection and telling the server "I just attacked and hit this creature for x damage". Instead, you would only relay the raw input commands (e.g. "I just pressed the command to cast a fireball") from the client to the server, and it's the server that processes all the game logic, then sends the result back to the client as to whether it hit or not, what the effect was, and so on. The client is really just a dumb terminal with fancy graphics and sound fx.
Of course, the client also has a full set of local collision data and local agent positions, so it can more or less predict what will happen on the server in advance, especially regarding your character, since it obviously knows how you're planning to control before the server does. This is important to reduce the apparent effect of network latency. Otherwise, the game would feel horribly laggy, especially when moving your character around and firing off spells or skills. Client-side prediction is a pretty old technique for networked videogames, but generally has to be uniquely tailored and tuned for each game you make.
On the contrary, mobile devices and hardware are awash in security features. Hardware based chain-of-trust, encrypted storage, signed applications, detailed permissions... these are all lessons learned from their big brother operating systems. Modern mobile OSes are actually far more difficult to maliciously subvert than PC systems, but of course, many of those features mean they're also closed systems, and aren't nearly as flexible. It's definitely a trade off. We see that pretty clearly with Android vs iOS, where iOS has a miniscule amount of malware simply by virtue of being a closed system.
In terms of game development, I think the focus is more on hacking the client than hacking the OS. As a former MMO dev, the rule was that you really can't trust *anything* the client gives you. Simple as that. It makes development a hell of a lot harder, but time and time again we see new MMOs or multiplayer games (presumably created by inexperienced developers) that break this cardinal rule and get hacked all to hell and back.
The submitter funnily avoids naming the largest and most complex instrument ever built by man, the European Large Hadron Collider, by casually downplaying and referring to it as "a different atom smasher". Methinks the submitter is an envious American.
While EU countries contributed the bulk of the resources, personnel, and location of course, the US also contributed over half a billion dollars of the estimated $6.4 billion (€4.6 billion) total cost, technical and scientific contributions, and more than a few personnel. It was and still is a massive international effort, with scientists and engineers from 100 different countries contributing.
As a US citizen, I was actually quite proud of *humanity* for creating such an amazing device, all for the purpose of advancing our scientific understanding. What's there to be envious of? I think it's fantastic. No one but you seems intent on turning it into an international pissing match.
One of the big improvements was a focus on optimization. There were a number of global locks in Windows Vista that were re-engineered in Windows 7 to be much more efficient on multi-core/multi-CPU machines.
BTW, don't pay any attention to the internal version numbers. These were mismatched simply for compatibility reasons, not because it was a "minor" tech upgrade or anything like that.
The Soviets had already built up enough forces in the far east to attack Japanese territory of Manchukuo, and they actually declared war on Japan and launched a major attack just after the first atomic bomb dropped. There's little doubt that the military might of the Soviet Union, which was now a juggernaut of massive proportions, would have been able to overwhelm not only their mainland holdings, but eventually the home islands as well.
There was a real danger that Japan would have become a communist stronghold, or possibly split between a democratic south and communist north. That's what the US was really worried about, and why they were so desperate to end the war as quickly as possible.
Nearly every single major automaker on the planet is predicting that self-driving cars will be available for purchase by 2025, so I'm tending to give them the benefit of the doubt, since it would seem like they'd have the best information available to make such a bold prediction. I suppose it could be possible that they're just all stating the same exaggerated claims for fear of looking like they're behind in the technological race, but that would be equally speculative.
Also, keep in mind that "self-driving" probably won't mean "never have to touch the steering wheel again". For the first generation of self-driving cars, I'm betting that humans will likely have to take over for tricky parking jobs, extreme weather conditions, or going anywhere off the beaten path. However, I'm betting that they *will* be able to handle driving on most surface streets. From there it will just be a series of refinements and improvements to handle all the edge cases where humans currently have to take over.
Considering how far self-driving cars have come over the past decade, I don't see another decade to delivery being completely out of the question.
There's always a chance that someone will figure out a new method of getting a weapon on board, so let's just say I prefer a strategy of defense in depth. What's encouraging to me is that passengers are willing to take responsibility and fight for their own safety. That fact will also tend to discourage attempted hijackings, making the skies safer for everyone.
Does that sound like illogical reasoning to you? Maybe it is. I suppose perhaps I just like it when ordinary people fight back and win against people trying to do harm to others.
I'll say "shoe bomber", you tell me if you've heard of him
Yep, I remember him quite well. Do you know what I remember most about him? How he looked dazed, bruised, and bloodied as he was led off the plane. The real impression he made on me was this: after 9/11, anyone who tries to hijack or destroy a plane in flight is now almost certain to get the shit beaten out of them by angry passengers who have determined that it's better to take their chances and fight back. Hell, that alone makes me feel a hell of a lot more confident about airline security than any of the on-ground screenings.
Anyhow, I truly wish this would end the perception that it's always Conservatives/Republicans with the idiotic knee-jerk "ban it / censor it" reactions. It seems to happen just as often on the left as it does with the right, and it's stupid in both cases.
That's not a bad idea. The big downside is that unlike a library study area which just involves bringing a book or two to read, it's often a little harder to move your entire day-to-day work environment. For me, that typically involves one or two workstations, several monitors, specialized hardware (depending on the project) and an ergonomic keyboard, not to mention a work environment / OS / software specifically set up the way I like it. It's a bit more practical if you regularly use a laptop, I suppose.
Unfortunately, I've found it's extremely easy for me to get snapped out of the zone when I'm concentrating hard on something. I've learned to live with it, but working in an open environment makes things more challenging for me. That being said, I do agree that it makes collaboration and quick planning sessions FAR more friction-free.
Overall, I think it's an environment that definitely has benefits, especially for some types, but certainly has its drawbacks as well, especially for the more reclusive or easily distracted types.
I just took a look at the feedback lists, and suggestions related to the look and feel are in the top twenty or thirty popularity-wise (probably higher if you combine them). I counted at least two popular suggestions to bring back Aero Glass as an option, and one suggested perhaps even Luna. There was also another suggesting that simply indicated they weren't happy with the flat modern look, while another wanted to see transparency options.
On the other hand, there was one high-ranking suggestion that while they liked the flat look, they wanted to see more icons re-stylized to match the new look.
Certificate Patrol is worthless for anyone who uses Google services, which mints new certificates and expires old ones on a near daily basis. You're notified nearly every time you visit their site, which eliminates the value of the warning in the first place. Google has apparently decided that it's more secure to have rapidly-expiring certificates in lieu of long-term certificates that may have to be revoked, probably partially because they don't have an effective revocation system in place.
More critically, any solution that requires a third-party plugin and expecting the user to watch carefully for certificate changes is a complete non-starter for the general public.
Autonomous cars may not be perfect, but they will almost certainly be a damned sight better than 99.9% of all drivers out there today.
Exactly. The vast majority of accidents and vehicular deaths are caused by impaired drivers (alcohol, drugs, medication, fatigue), distractions (phone, texting, conversations, inattention, boredom), or excessive speeding. Note how all of these are exclusively human conditions, and a self-driving car effectively eliminates them completely. Even beyond that, they'll still likely do better at avoiding accidents caused by other drivers simply because of their inhuman reflexes.
It's going to be extremely interesting to see the safety records of self-driving cars in the first few years after release and compare them to human drivers. And of course, I suppose we can expect the very first fatal accident that involves a self-driving car to be big news around the world.
The fact that ANY root CA can issue Google domain certificate (or whatever domain they want) is bonkers. Nowadays, there are simply too many root CAs to be able to trust them all, if we ever really could. There used to be just a handful. Have you looked at your local CA store? There's hundreds of them nowadays! Did you know the Hong Kong Post Office is a root CA (Hongkong Post Root CA 1)? Doesn't that make you feel warm, fuzzy, and secure, knowing that the fine folks at that establishment could issue a fraudulent certificate for any website in the world?
This system needs to be fixed, or at least seriously updated. It just hasn't scaled well in the reality of today's world. I don't think we need to go to the extreme of exchanging private certs. Let's face it, that will never, ever happen anyhow. But we do need more assurances than we have now.
Not a single word in the article about HOW an autonomous car will change our society in a tangible way. You can safely skip TFA, because it actually says nothing about what the title implies. Instead, the author seems to needlessly hand-wring about the "ethics" of these cars.
These cars won't really deal with ethics, per se. Rather, they'll have goals and rules, and these will essentially encapsulate the ethics in an indirect manner. I'm betting these cars will have reasonably simple priorities for safety, like (I just came up with this on the spot, so don't get hung up on the details):
1) Never knowingly drive the car off the road for any reason. 2) Keep the car in the correct lane unless a collision is unavoidable, otherwise allow emergency lane changes. 3) If necessary, allow movement across the entire roadway, but only if it is otherwise unoccupied and can't cause a collision. 4) If all else fails, slow down or stop and tell the human to make sense of the situation
The trolly-switch dilemma that people keep bringing up is so ridiculously contrived that I just don't see it having a bearing on the reality of day to day driving and safety of the vehicle for a couple of reasons.
First, autonomous cars are much less likely to be surprised by someone cutting in front of them or other obstacles. They don't have blind spots, and their reaction times are many thousands of times faster than a human. As such, the choice of "hit A or B" is much less likely to come up in the first place, because the car would have been following a safe distance behind and would have hit the brakes at the first sign of trouble. So in the vast majority of cases, the car starts braking before the human occupant even realizes there's a problem. No accident at all, or a survivable collision at 10 or 20 mph instead of 70.
Second, in the rare situation an accident is inevitable, the priorities will be straightforward: protect the occupants of the car first within the constraints of keeping the car on the road, and if possible, in it's own lane. That simply means avoiding collisions if possible. If that's not possible, the car will simply attempt to brake as much as possible before the collision to protect the occupants. There will likely be no "swerve to miss the human and hit the bus instead". The car will brake as hard as physically possible, but if it can't safely swerve, it really has no choice but to continue forward in the safest path for its occupants.
I think people are making more of this than is actually necessary by constructing ridiculously overly-complicated and completely hypothetical scenarios and saying "how would an autonomous car deal with this?" Humans are almost never put into a situation where they have to make such a complicated choice in a split second. I'm not sure why we expect our machines to properly make choices that *we* could never make it in real time either. They're going to be better than humans in almost all situations that really matter, such as concentration, navigation, and reaction time in emergencies.
If you are OK with the head of the NSA being extradited, charged, found guilty of espionage and imprisoned in Europe or China then go right ahead and say such things...
QR codes are actually a general purpose matrix barcode, not just used for storing URLs, of course. They were originally designed by Japanese industry for inventory management.
That aside, yeah, it was like mobile tagging with QR codes, except the Cue Cat reader (unlike a smartphone) was physical device attached to your PC, which in turn had to run proprietary software that was intended to launch a website when you scanned a code. It was just a horribly clunky system that few people would be interested in taking the time to actually use.
No, but I remember the Cue Cat. No less than $185 million was invested in this ridiculous venture. I could never figure out how anyone ever thought this was a good idea, even before the benefit of hindsight. Not only ridiculously impractical, but privacy-invading and prone to security issues? Woot!
No, BigName Company was caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and the backlash was strong enough that they were forced to backtrack a bit. You could just substitute "Lenovo" and "Superfish" with "Verizon" and "supercookie", and the story would essentially be identical.
Don't discount the importance these headlines, though. The very fact that it *makes* news is a good thing, as it's the only thing that typically forces these companies to back down.
I agree that asset forfeiture against citizens isn't warranted unless those assets are the direct gains of illegal activity. There are already punitive laws in place. This practice seemed to emerge with the "war on drugs", and continued with the war on terror.
I think a case could be made for asset seizure against foreign criminals, as there's no other way to punish them for crimes committed. I don't see why an "armed response" would be warranted if there's criminal activity involved. Of course, the big gotcha in all of this is that it's incredibly difficult to actually *prove* who's behind a cyber attack unless you can seize the person's personal computer.
Honestly, I think this is mostly saber-rattling aimed at NK and China, telling them that the US is willing to impose some financial hardships on anyone who attacks any US interests via the internet.
Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
Yeah, you should probably check a country's laws before you electronically infiltrate their corporations, banking system, or military computers. This isn't about citizens in other countries simply minding their own business. For those that are wondering how foreigners can be charged with US law, look up "extradition treaty". For those with whom we haven't signed such a treaty, look up "financial sanctions" or "asset forfeiture".
How purposefully obtuse do you have to be not to get this?
Or you could say humans have obvious Wookiee traits. Seriously though, I'd posit that he has very *subtle* human traits that we only recognize due to our tendency to anthropomorphize. No one would accidentally mistake him for a human - that's all I was saying.
That being said, I agree with you 100% about brilliant Mayhew's performance, as he completely brought Chewbacca to life. I'd also credit Ben Burtt with his magnificent sound design as well. I loved how you could always clearly understand what he was actually saying or feeling simply through his performance and the vocalizations. Frankly, I think saying that an actor *needs* his entire face visible is selling short the best actors, like Mayhew, who have performed amazing roles with mostly body language, or through a terribly restrictive mask.
My favorite two Chewie scenes: Alone in the Cloud City detention cell / repairing C3PO, and meeting up with Han in the cell under Jabba's palace.
I'm not sure if I agree with your reasoning that putting people in costumes means disdain for actors. That would mean indicting Peter Jackson for his work on Lord of the Rings, which put many people in costumes as well.
I think it's rather that Lucas communicated very poorly with them, as well as probably lacking empathy or understanding about what actors do and how they go about doing it. I get the feeling that Lucas just really isn't much of a people person, which possibly leads to problems when trying to direct actors or writing meaningful human drama.
Beside which, I'd take issue with the notion that a wonderful character can't be created without a human body or face being seen on screen. Would Darth Vader have been quite so memorable if his face hadn't been hidden behind that terrifying-looking mask? And consider how incredible a performance Anthony Daniels gave as C3P0 even while wearing a restrictive costume and a face that displayed no emotion at all. Chewbacca is a sidekick, yet is a beloved character even though he's never spoken a single intelligible line of dialogue and has no obvious human traits at all.
Even the world of CGI has seen breakout characters and performances, such as Andy Serkis's portrayal of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. His work was instrumental in helping filmmakers to understand that digital performance capture and voice work can be every bit as important as animation in helping to bring a CGI character to life.
Lucas was fantastic at world building, but absolutely horrible at directing actors, and even worse at writing emotionally engaging characters. He happened to luck out with Harrison Ford, who pretty much carried the weight of the series through his own gravitas and made everyone else look good as well. There were also other places he lucked out, like with Anthony Daniels. C3PO was originally envisioned as a smooth-talking, oily (not literally), used-car-salesman type character, but Daniels had an enormous influence on the character that he fundamentally changed the role.
If you listen to some "behind the scenes" from Star Wars, you'll hear the actors talking about how Lucas never really understood how to motivate or even talk to actors. He'd give them the lines, tell them where to stand, and just expect them to "do their thing". What's painfully obvious is that he couldn't really tell good dialogue from bad, or good character writing from bad. It's really too bad he didn't collaborate with and trust someone to override some of the worst aspects of the first trilogy - mainly the awkward love affair and the questionable motivations of Anakin. Critically, he ended up breaking that fundamental maxim of movies time after time in terms of character development: "Show, don't tell."
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I should clarify that statement a bit: nothing related to actual game state from the client can be trusted. In other words, for instance, you wouldn't rely on the client performing hit-detection and telling the server "I just attacked and hit this creature for x damage". Instead, you would only relay the raw input commands (e.g. "I just pressed the command to cast a fireball") from the client to the server, and it's the server that processes all the game logic, then sends the result back to the client as to whether it hit or not, what the effect was, and so on. The client is really just a dumb terminal with fancy graphics and sound fx.
Of course, the client also has a full set of local collision data and local agent positions, so it can more or less predict what will happen on the server in advance, especially regarding your character, since it obviously knows how you're planning to control before the server does. This is important to reduce the apparent effect of network latency. Otherwise, the game would feel horribly laggy, especially when moving your character around and firing off spells or skills. Client-side prediction is a pretty old technique for networked videogames, but generally has to be uniquely tailored and tuned for each game you make.
On the contrary, mobile devices and hardware are awash in security features. Hardware based chain-of-trust, encrypted storage, signed applications, detailed permissions... these are all lessons learned from their big brother operating systems. Modern mobile OSes are actually far more difficult to maliciously subvert than PC systems, but of course, many of those features mean they're also closed systems, and aren't nearly as flexible. It's definitely a trade off. We see that pretty clearly with Android vs iOS, where iOS has a miniscule amount of malware simply by virtue of being a closed system.
In terms of game development, I think the focus is more on hacking the client than hacking the OS. As a former MMO dev, the rule was that you really can't trust *anything* the client gives you. Simple as that. It makes development a hell of a lot harder, but time and time again we see new MMOs or multiplayer games (presumably created by inexperienced developers) that break this cardinal rule and get hacked all to hell and back.
The submitter funnily avoids naming the largest and most complex instrument ever built by man, the European Large Hadron Collider, by casually downplaying and referring to it as "a different atom smasher". Methinks the submitter is an envious American.
While EU countries contributed the bulk of the resources, personnel, and location of course, the US also contributed over half a billion dollars of the estimated $6.4 billion (€4.6 billion) total cost, technical and scientific contributions, and more than a few personnel. It was and still is a massive international effort, with scientists and engineers from 100 different countries contributing.
As a US citizen, I was actually quite proud of *humanity* for creating such an amazing device, all for the purpose of advancing our scientific understanding. What's there to be envious of? I think it's fantastic. No one but you seems intent on turning it into an international pissing match.
One of the big improvements was a focus on optimization. There were a number of global locks in Windows Vista that were re-engineered in Windows 7 to be much more efficient on multi-core/multi-CPU machines.
BTW, don't pay any attention to the internal version numbers. These were mismatched simply for compatibility reasons, not because it was a "minor" tech upgrade or anything like that.
Win10 looks
Just don't remind me how it looks. Other than that, it's doing fine.
The Soviets had already built up enough forces in the far east to attack Japanese territory of Manchukuo, and they actually declared war on Japan and launched a major attack just after the first atomic bomb dropped. There's little doubt that the military might of the Soviet Union, which was now a juggernaut of massive proportions, would have been able to overwhelm not only their mainland holdings, but eventually the home islands as well.
There was a real danger that Japan would have become a communist stronghold, or possibly split between a democratic south and communist north. That's what the US was really worried about, and why they were so desperate to end the war as quickly as possible.
Nearly every single major automaker on the planet is predicting that self-driving cars will be available for purchase by 2025, so I'm tending to give them the benefit of the doubt, since it would seem like they'd have the best information available to make such a bold prediction. I suppose it could be possible that they're just all stating the same exaggerated claims for fear of looking like they're behind in the technological race, but that would be equally speculative.
Also, keep in mind that "self-driving" probably won't mean "never have to touch the steering wheel again". For the first generation of self-driving cars, I'm betting that humans will likely have to take over for tricky parking jobs, extreme weather conditions, or going anywhere off the beaten path. However, I'm betting that they *will* be able to handle driving on most surface streets. From there it will just be a series of refinements and improvements to handle all the edge cases where humans currently have to take over.
Considering how far self-driving cars have come over the past decade, I don't see another decade to delivery being completely out of the question.
There's always a chance that someone will figure out a new method of getting a weapon on board, so let's just say I prefer a strategy of defense in depth. What's encouraging to me is that passengers are willing to take responsibility and fight for their own safety. That fact will also tend to discourage attempted hijackings, making the skies safer for everyone.
Does that sound like illogical reasoning to you? Maybe it is. I suppose perhaps I just like it when ordinary people fight back and win against people trying to do harm to others.
I'll say "shoe bomber", you tell me if you've heard of him
Yep, I remember him quite well. Do you know what I remember most about him? How he looked dazed, bruised, and bloodied as he was led off the plane. The real impression he made on me was this: after 9/11, anyone who tries to hijack or destroy a plane in flight is now almost certain to get the shit beaten out of them by angry passengers who have determined that it's better to take their chances and fight back. Hell, that alone makes me feel a hell of a lot more confident about airline security than any of the on-ground screenings.
Anyhow, I truly wish this would end the perception that it's always Conservatives/Republicans with the idiotic knee-jerk "ban it / censor it" reactions. It seems to happen just as often on the left as it does with the right, and it's stupid in both cases.
That's not a bad idea. The big downside is that unlike a library study area which just involves bringing a book or two to read, it's often a little harder to move your entire day-to-day work environment. For me, that typically involves one or two workstations, several monitors, specialized hardware (depending on the project) and an ergonomic keyboard, not to mention a work environment / OS / software specifically set up the way I like it. It's a bit more practical if you regularly use a laptop, I suppose.
Unfortunately, I've found it's extremely easy for me to get snapped out of the zone when I'm concentrating hard on something. I've learned to live with it, but working in an open environment makes things more challenging for me. That being said, I do agree that it makes collaboration and quick planning sessions FAR more friction-free.
Overall, I think it's an environment that definitely has benefits, especially for some types, but certainly has its drawbacks as well, especially for the more reclusive or easily distracted types.
I just took a look at the feedback lists, and suggestions related to the look and feel are in the top twenty or thirty popularity-wise (probably higher if you combine them). I counted at least two popular suggestions to bring back Aero Glass as an option, and one suggested perhaps even Luna. There was also another suggesting that simply indicated they weren't happy with the flat modern look, while another wanted to see transparency options.
On the other hand, there was one high-ranking suggestion that while they liked the flat look, they wanted to see more icons re-stylized to match the new look.
Certificate Patrol is worthless for anyone who uses Google services, which mints new certificates and expires old ones on a near daily basis. You're notified nearly every time you visit their site, which eliminates the value of the warning in the first place. Google has apparently decided that it's more secure to have rapidly-expiring certificates in lieu of long-term certificates that may have to be revoked, probably partially because they don't have an effective revocation system in place.
More critically, any solution that requires a third-party plugin and expecting the user to watch carefully for certificate changes is a complete non-starter for the general public.
Autonomous cars may not be perfect, but they will almost certainly be a damned sight better than 99.9% of all drivers out there today.
Exactly. The vast majority of accidents and vehicular deaths are caused by impaired drivers (alcohol, drugs, medication, fatigue), distractions (phone, texting, conversations, inattention, boredom), or excessive speeding. Note how all of these are exclusively human conditions, and a self-driving car effectively eliminates them completely. Even beyond that, they'll still likely do better at avoiding accidents caused by other drivers simply because of their inhuman reflexes.
It's going to be extremely interesting to see the safety records of self-driving cars in the first few years after release and compare them to human drivers. And of course, I suppose we can expect the very first fatal accident that involves a self-driving car to be big news around the world.
The fact that ANY root CA can issue Google domain certificate (or whatever domain they want) is bonkers. Nowadays, there are simply too many root CAs to be able to trust them all, if we ever really could. There used to be just a handful. Have you looked at your local CA store? There's hundreds of them nowadays! Did you know the Hong Kong Post Office is a root CA (Hongkong Post Root CA 1)? Doesn't that make you feel warm, fuzzy, and secure, knowing that the fine folks at that establishment could issue a fraudulent certificate for any website in the world?
This system needs to be fixed, or at least seriously updated. It just hasn't scaled well in the reality of today's world. I don't think we need to go to the extreme of exchanging private certs. Let's face it, that will never, ever happen anyhow. But we do need more assurances than we have now.
Not a single word in the article about HOW an autonomous car will change our society in a tangible way. You can safely skip TFA, because it actually says nothing about what the title implies. Instead, the author seems to needlessly hand-wring about the "ethics" of these cars.
These cars won't really deal with ethics, per se. Rather, they'll have goals and rules, and these will essentially encapsulate the ethics in an indirect manner. I'm betting these cars will have reasonably simple priorities for safety, like (I just came up with this on the spot, so don't get hung up on the details):
1) Never knowingly drive the car off the road for any reason.
2) Keep the car in the correct lane unless a collision is unavoidable, otherwise allow emergency lane changes.
3) If necessary, allow movement across the entire roadway, but only if it is otherwise unoccupied and can't cause a collision.
4) If all else fails, slow down or stop and tell the human to make sense of the situation
The trolly-switch dilemma that people keep bringing up is so ridiculously contrived that I just don't see it having a bearing on the reality of day to day driving and safety of the vehicle for a couple of reasons.
First, autonomous cars are much less likely to be surprised by someone cutting in front of them or other obstacles. They don't have blind spots, and their reaction times are many thousands of times faster than a human. As such, the choice of "hit A or B" is much less likely to come up in the first place, because the car would have been following a safe distance behind and would have hit the brakes at the first sign of trouble. So in the vast majority of cases, the car starts braking before the human occupant even realizes there's a problem. No accident at all, or a survivable collision at 10 or 20 mph instead of 70.
Second, in the rare situation an accident is inevitable, the priorities will be straightforward: protect the occupants of the car first within the constraints of keeping the car on the road, and if possible, in it's own lane. That simply means avoiding collisions if possible. If that's not possible, the car will simply attempt to brake as much as possible before the collision to protect the occupants. There will likely be no "swerve to miss the human and hit the bus instead". The car will brake as hard as physically possible, but if it can't safely swerve, it really has no choice but to continue forward in the safest path for its occupants.
I think people are making more of this than is actually necessary by constructing ridiculously overly-complicated and completely hypothetical scenarios and saying "how would an autonomous car deal with this?" Humans are almost never put into a situation where they have to make such a complicated choice in a split second. I'm not sure why we expect our machines to properly make choices that *we* could never make it in real time either. They're going to be better than humans in almost all situations that really matter, such as concentration, navigation, and reaction time in emergencies.
If you are OK with the head of the NSA being extradited, charged, found guilty of espionage and imprisoned in Europe or China then go right ahead and say such things ...
I'm failing to see a downside here...
QR codes are actually a general purpose matrix barcode, not just used for storing URLs, of course. They were originally designed by Japanese industry for inventory management.
That aside, yeah, it was like mobile tagging with QR codes, except the Cue Cat reader (unlike a smartphone) was physical device attached to your PC, which in turn had to run proprietary software that was intended to launch a website when you scanned a code. It was just a horribly clunky system that few people would be interested in taking the time to actually use.
No, but I remember the Cue Cat. No less than $185 million was invested in this ridiculous venture. I could never figure out how anyone ever thought this was a good idea, even before the benefit of hindsight. Not only ridiculously impractical, but privacy-invading and prone to security issues? Woot!
No, BigName Company was caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and the backlash was strong enough that they were forced to backtrack a bit. You could just substitute "Lenovo" and "Superfish" with "Verizon" and "supercookie", and the story would essentially be identical.
Don't discount the importance these headlines, though. The very fact that it *makes* news is a good thing, as it's the only thing that typically forces these companies to back down.
I agree that asset forfeiture against citizens isn't warranted unless those assets are the direct gains of illegal activity. There are already punitive laws in place. This practice seemed to emerge with the "war on drugs", and continued with the war on terror.
I think a case could be made for asset seizure against foreign criminals, as there's no other way to punish them for crimes committed. I don't see why an "armed response" would be warranted if there's criminal activity involved. Of course, the big gotcha in all of this is that it's incredibly difficult to actually *prove* who's behind a cyber attack unless you can seize the person's personal computer.
Honestly, I think this is mostly saber-rattling aimed at NK and China, telling them that the US is willing to impose some financial hardships on anyone who attacks any US interests via the internet.
Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
Yeah, you should probably check a country's laws before you electronically infiltrate their corporations, banking system, or military computers. This isn't about citizens in other countries simply minding their own business. For those that are wondering how foreigners can be charged with US law, look up "extradition treaty". For those with whom we haven't signed such a treaty, look up "financial sanctions" or "asset forfeiture".
How purposefully obtuse do you have to be not to get this?
Or you could say humans have obvious Wookiee traits. Seriously though, I'd posit that he has very *subtle* human traits that we only recognize due to our tendency to anthropomorphize. No one would accidentally mistake him for a human - that's all I was saying.
That being said, I agree with you 100% about brilliant Mayhew's performance, as he completely brought Chewbacca to life. I'd also credit Ben Burtt with his magnificent sound design as well. I loved how you could always clearly understand what he was actually saying or feeling simply through his performance and the vocalizations. Frankly, I think saying that an actor *needs* his entire face visible is selling short the best actors, like Mayhew, who have performed amazing roles with mostly body language, or through a terribly restrictive mask.
My favorite two Chewie scenes: Alone in the Cloud City detention cell / repairing C3PO, and meeting up with Han in the cell under Jabba's palace.
I'm not sure if I agree with your reasoning that putting people in costumes means disdain for actors. That would mean indicting Peter Jackson for his work on Lord of the Rings, which put many people in costumes as well.
I think it's rather that Lucas communicated very poorly with them, as well as probably lacking empathy or understanding about what actors do and how they go about doing it. I get the feeling that Lucas just really isn't much of a people person, which possibly leads to problems when trying to direct actors or writing meaningful human drama.
Beside which, I'd take issue with the notion that a wonderful character can't be created without a human body or face being seen on screen. Would Darth Vader have been quite so memorable if his face hadn't been hidden behind that terrifying-looking mask? And consider how incredible a performance Anthony Daniels gave as C3P0 even while wearing a restrictive costume and a face that displayed no emotion at all. Chewbacca is a sidekick, yet is a beloved character even though he's never spoken a single intelligible line of dialogue and has no obvious human traits at all.
Even the world of CGI has seen breakout characters and performances, such as Andy Serkis's portrayal of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. His work was instrumental in helping filmmakers to understand that digital performance capture and voice work can be every bit as important as animation in helping to bring a CGI character to life.
Lucas was fantastic at world building, but absolutely horrible at directing actors, and even worse at writing emotionally engaging characters. He happened to luck out with Harrison Ford, who pretty much carried the weight of the series through his own gravitas and made everyone else look good as well. There were also other places he lucked out, like with Anthony Daniels. C3PO was originally envisioned as a smooth-talking, oily (not literally), used-car-salesman type character, but Daniels had an enormous influence on the character that he fundamentally changed the role.
If you listen to some "behind the scenes" from Star Wars, you'll hear the actors talking about how Lucas never really understood how to motivate or even talk to actors. He'd give them the lines, tell them where to stand, and just expect them to "do their thing". What's painfully obvious is that he couldn't really tell good dialogue from bad, or good character writing from bad. It's really too bad he didn't collaborate with and trust someone to override some of the worst aspects of the first trilogy - mainly the awkward love affair and the questionable motivations of Anakin. Critically, he ended up breaking that fundamental maxim of movies time after time in terms of character development: "Show, don't tell."