It would be about recovering otherwise 'wasted' energy. And burning gas to create electricity isn't very efficient.
Use it like brakes that recover energy.
From what I'm imagining, the energy would come from the force of the tire meeting the pavement as it rotates. If true, that is not wasted energy- that is the energy that makes your car go. It now takes that much more energy (plus some!) to rotate that tire.
In the case of regenerative brakes, you are leaching energy from the car's momentum when you're actively trying to slow it down. Usually that energy would just be converted to heat via the brakes- which indeed wasted energy.
You know you're dealing with uneducated provincials when they use religion and Christianity as a pure 1:1 mapping / synonym.
You are technically correct, but it's also fairly well understood that (at least in the US) Christianity is the default religion. It's the Kleenex, if you will. Go out into the street and ask the first 1000 people you see what the first thing they think over when the word "religion" is said, and I'm fairly sure an overwhelming majority will be Christianity related. And even those who thought of another religion would still understand this article was talking about Christianity after a small moment of confusion.
Of course, this is different in a place such as India. Or any other area with a dominant religion.
If you read the Dead Hand article you linked to, then you know that it doesn't necessarily require human intervention to fire. Some claim it is always functioning. Some claim it never did. Some claim it has to be manually switched on. However, considering part* of its purpose was to guarantee retaliation in the event of a surprise attack, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn it was the former. Some quotes from Russian officials in that article would lead me to believe that was well. Again, different cultures can rationalize different things.
I will point out one thing though which always scared me about that system- suppose that you're right, and Perimeter would only send launch codes to the missiles in the event it was primed to do so by a human hand. That says nothing about the various missiles that are sitting there waiting to hear from Perimeter as well. Given the nature of the system, I doubt that each missile would have to be manually turned on. Thus, you still have a computer controlling a nuke. Again, nobody talking really seems to know, so my fears may be unjustified.
*I also find it somewhat humorous (given the original topic) that one Russian official claimed Dead Hand was invented "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge." In other words, they couldn't trust themselves, so they gave the responsibility to a computer. Very interesting, that quote.
Anyway, I'm sensing we're getting further and further off-topic here. But I have very much so enjoyed our debate.
But all of those technologies are controllable. The military is all about ensuring that every component can be completely trusted.
The military doesn't have 100% control now, and likely never will. Because of that, they are far more concerned with risk / reward.
The military already trusts computers more than it should. Yes, what they use is tested, and the code reviewed, but there are always n+1 bugs in every program. There is always the chance that a bad chip can cause extremely weird behavior. They know this, and it is acceptable because the chances are small. But they are always there. Take the various computers that supposedly control the nuclear weapons in the USA and USSR of old. Software that was supposedly designed to react to a nuclear strike even if no humans were left to push the red button.
All that said, human soldiers are even worse. Yes, every army in the world makes their soldiers go through brainwashing and other exercises to instill a fierce loyalty in their tools. However, it's never perfect because humans are (at least currently) unpredictable 100% of the time. We still have defectors, rebels, and AWOLs.
That said, any military would love to get a soldier that was a smidgeon more reliable, for obvious reasons. However, the more trustworthy the human or software, the more responsibility it is given. If we have the assumption that an AI construct is 100% reliable, more responsibility than ever will be afforded it. And don't forget that the US military isn't the only one out there... there are regimes for more crazy that may do less testing in order to win a war faster, for example. And just like in the nuke example, the repercussions won't likely be limited to those who made the mistake.
By the time we are capable of creating a computer that acts human, we will know, exhaustively and in every detail, what it means to be human. And we will be able to pick and choose without uncertainty what we are putting into it. And if we put sentience and a sense of self into it... well, then the product is going to be protected by law as an individual; there will be psychologists, philosophers, and neurologists lining up left and right to make sure it happens. And dealing with tyrannical or temperamental behaviour, or the responsibility of interacting with others, is going to be no different from the same situation between humans. It will be just as ethically impressionable as anyone else.
I wouldn't bet on it being so planned. As you probably know, a lot of discoveries and breakthroughs are serendipitous. I would imagine creating a true AI would be the same- especially considering the topic. It seems like it would be one of those things where an extremely small detail can make all the difference. Like changing a bit of code in a recursive-heavy function. We're attempting to make AI now. All it takes is one person to get it right suddenly.
And we're no where close to knowing what makes a human 'human', from my own way of thinking. You say we would deal with tyannical or "evil" AI's the same as everyone else when we don't even know what to do with members of our own race that exhibit such behavior. We have prisons containing people that, given the means, would happily set the world afire. Our current method for dealing with this is locking them up until the die of old age. What do you do with an AI that can live (possibly) forever? Or do we treat them like our insane? Lock them in a room and pump them full of drugs (assuming this AI would have sort of physiology that could even be drugged)?
Frankly, I don't think the human race is ready to be a parent. And yes, it might not happen until we're ready... or it might have already happened.
The gods of sarcasm themselves. Don't forget to read the last line of the post for extra evidence of self-awareness.
Oh, I did, and I got it. I was mostly trying to point that that a brain may not need specific training to have their thoughts turn to mass-murder. Of course, a thought is not an action, but its usually assumed that that distinction is only made in higher lifeforms.
I wonder, can a cat think about an action, and its future possible consequences?
This is not high school anymore: reputation is less important than money. Do you think all those big banks, and their bankers, give a damn about what we think of them, as long as they can take home huge bonuses ? same everywhere: the companies mostly don't care, the employees don't give a f**k.
I remember a lot of TV and radio ads around the time of the disaster, basically asking people to not boycott them. I also remember a lot of news talking about declining profits, and how the local BP stations were being hit hard. Now, obviously BP survived this, but it does sound like bad PR can certainly have an effect in this situation. When you have 8 gas stations all clustered together, all with the same prices and services, it becomes extremely easy to say "Screw BP, I'll drive 100ft and go to Shell instead, because they don't kill baby animals."
If it had been worse, I'm guessing a lot more people would have done just that. And while it is debatable just how much BP is harmed when Habeeb has to close the local hometown BP station, I'm sure it doesn't help, and I'm sure if that happened on a large enough scale it could certainly impact their cash flow.
With something as big as the Gulf spill, the media vultures who are constantly circling for disasters like this won't be fooled by something so simple. And neither will the public when the media announces that BigOilCo owns the company that caused the newest natural disaster.
The PR was bad enough for BP in the last spill, and they were (somewhat) actively trying to clean it up. A lot of eyes were on them. How bad do you think the PR would be if BP had said "Well, it's not our problem. It's the problem of our Exploration subsidiary." So I don't think it's that good a get out of jail free card as you say.
If what you say is correct, then nobody will use it.
But somehow I have trouble believing that the customer would get nothing out of this. Even if it's only faster delivery to an end user , that is a very real and very tangible thing.
There is at least one rival. It is distributed, unforgeable and cannot be inflated by fiat. This digital commodity is called bitcoin. And it works today. It can replace paypal and credit cards in much of the commerce that occurs online.
Correction: It *could* replace paypal and credit cards. In much the same way that taping wooden nickles to a fleet of carrier pigeons after winning an ebay bid could also replace paypal. Oh sure, it's technically feasible, but nobody accepts it. And what is the value of currency that nobody accepts? That's right, zero.
So it's not so much a 'rival' as it is a 'possible alternative that might some day be useful if the stars align and it takes off.'
My Aunt kissed me on the lips once. Should she be executed as well? I mean, come on- it's a kiss.
I'm pulling this out of my arse, but I'd be willing to bet that there are entire cultures where kissing is a form of farewell or a friendly greeting. Unless he slipped the kid the tongue or something, kiss = death penalty is a touch extreme.
You ARE in control. If you look at an app and see it requests permissions that you don't like, or don't want them to have, you simply don't install it. Yes, that might mean you don't get to play strip poker or whatever.
For example, the only android developer that I trust with my personal information is Google... and that's only because they already have it all anyway.
The other option is the new CM7 roms have the ability to remove permissions from apps. It has opened up a whole new world for me, as I'm now able to use apps I never wanted to install before because of their permission requirements.
Thing is, I have the right to have an opinion of people based on their actions. And my strong believe is that whoever came up with these names is a tosser, and if I met them, I would treat them as such. You don't want to be associated with them, you certainly wouldn't offer them a job, and you wouldn't trust any software written by a tosser.
My friends can be crude, and I'm still associated with them. Nor do I hide that fact.
I value a good sense of humor, and I would certainly offer them a job if I was in position to. I'd rather have somebody willing to laugh then some super-serious neckbeard.
Lastly, you do realize that anybody writing purposely malicious code names their products in such a way that it invites people to download and use it, right? If that is the case, you'd be more likely to find untrustworthy code in something like "MegaPyhtonLib." That's just my gut feeling, but it doesn't matter because neither of us have data to back it up.
The point of this all is that your personal beliefs are indeed yours to develop. But the line is drawn when you start assigning them to others, which I think is what you and the person who filed the original complaint are doing. Its the whole reason we (we = the collective Slashdot community, which you may not subscribe to) dislike censorship in the first place- it somebody pushing their beliefs on our own personal beliefs.
This is modded funny, but I think it's actually closer to insightful.
Parachutes work pretty well as far as I know. Probably the best system we have when you need to protect something from hitting the ground too hard. The big problem with them is that you need to me heading relatively straight down. Airplanes and helicopters have the problem that they don't fall straight down when an engine fails. Wings and rotors make it go all willy-nilly.
This thing would probably fall straight down, and from the looks of the current mockup, would be easy to attach a parachute to (no moving rotor on top). Also, assuming you have at least one engine left, it could probably be used to help stabilize the decent.
Sometimes we bet on the wrong technology. Shit, like change, happens. All you can do is see it coming and move on to what did win.
Hell, I remember going through the same thing after putting a bunch of time into learning Borland OWL, back when it was competing with Microsoft's MFC. I was too evangelical myself at the time to see what was going to happen and I paid for it.
Agreed. In my small hometown, the crappiest area is still better than NYC's "really nice location", at least in my eyes. Also, my wife can walk to the party store down the street at night without needing to carry a small arsenal to defend herself with.
This is singularly unhelpful advice because it misses the point. The point is not that it FORCES you to upgrade or that you CAN'T turn off the notices, it's that their philosophy fundamentally conflicts with what browsers are used for.
Web developers can't and won't use new features in browsers released every 2-3 months. And without the devs, all it is, is a broken marketing philosophy dictating product development.
Bullshit. As a web developer, you already know that we do all our coding for the lowest common denominator, which is currently IE 8 for most devs. Firefox can implement all the fancy features it wants, and neither of us can really use it. So your point is moot.
Web browsers are normally used for browsing the web. What you use it for is Firebug. You're making up arguments for the sake of arguing. The normal user isn't going to care, and you shouldn't care because you can just not update and keep using it as you want.
Yeah, I saw the prompt and my immediate reaction was "The only reason I open FireFox at all instead of Opera is if i need to use FireBug. Why should I break FireBug every two months?"
If Mozilla keeps to this schedule, I may just learn to like Opera's built-in inspector tool instead. I don't have time to be pestered by my browser as if it were a four year old child wanting a cookie.
If you're only using it for Firebug / development work, than why do you need to upgrade it so often? Turn off autoupdating, turn off the update prompt, and only update when it is affecting your development.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be about recovering otherwise 'wasted' energy. And burning gas to create electricity isn't very efficient.
Use it like brakes that recover energy.
From what I'm imagining, the energy would come from the force of the tire meeting the pavement as it rotates. If true, that is not wasted energy- that is the energy that makes your car go. It now takes that much more energy (plus some!) to rotate that tire.
In the case of regenerative brakes, you are leaching energy from the car's momentum when you're actively trying to slow it down. Usually that energy would just be converted to heat via the brakes- which indeed wasted energy.
Well played. /slow clap
You know you're dealing with uneducated provincials when they use religion and Christianity as a pure 1:1 mapping / synonym.
You are technically correct, but it's also fairly well understood that (at least in the US) Christianity is the default religion. It's the Kleenex, if you will. Go out into the street and ask the first 1000 people you see what the first thing they think over when the word "religion" is said, and I'm fairly sure an overwhelming majority will be Christianity related. And even those who thought of another religion would still understand this article was talking about Christianity after a small moment of confusion.
Of course, this is different in a place such as India. Or any other area with a dominant religion.
If you read the Dead Hand article you linked to, then you know that it doesn't necessarily require human intervention to fire. Some claim it is always functioning. Some claim it never did. Some claim it has to be manually switched on. However, considering part* of its purpose was to guarantee retaliation in the event of a surprise attack, I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn it was the former. Some quotes from Russian officials in that article would lead me to believe that was well. Again, different cultures can rationalize different things.
I will point out one thing though which always scared me about that system- suppose that you're right, and Perimeter would only send launch codes to the missiles in the event it was primed to do so by a human hand. That says nothing about the various missiles that are sitting there waiting to hear from Perimeter as well. Given the nature of the system, I doubt that each missile would have to be manually turned on. Thus, you still have a computer controlling a nuke. Again, nobody talking really seems to know, so my fears may be unjustified.
*I also find it somewhat humorous (given the original topic) that one Russian official claimed Dead Hand was invented "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge." In other words, they couldn't trust themselves, so they gave the responsibility to a computer. Very interesting, that quote.
Anyway, I'm sensing we're getting further and further off-topic here. But I have very much so enjoyed our debate.
But all of those technologies are controllable. The military is all about ensuring that every component can be completely trusted.
The military doesn't have 100% control now, and likely never will. Because of that, they are far more concerned with risk / reward.
The military already trusts computers more than it should. Yes, what they use is tested, and the code reviewed, but there are always n+1 bugs in every program. There is always the chance that a bad chip can cause extremely weird behavior. They know this, and it is acceptable because the chances are small. But they are always there. Take the various computers that supposedly control the nuclear weapons in the USA and USSR of old. Software that was supposedly designed to react to a nuclear strike even if no humans were left to push the red button.
All that said, human soldiers are even worse. Yes, every army in the world makes their soldiers go through brainwashing and other exercises to instill a fierce loyalty in their tools. However, it's never perfect because humans are (at least currently) unpredictable 100% of the time. We still have defectors, rebels, and AWOLs.
That said, any military would love to get a soldier that was a smidgeon more reliable, for obvious reasons. However, the more trustworthy the human or software, the more responsibility it is given. If we have the assumption that an AI construct is 100% reliable, more responsibility than ever will be afforded it. And don't forget that the US military isn't the only one out there... there are regimes for more crazy that may do less testing in order to win a war faster, for example. And just like in the nuke example, the repercussions won't likely be limited to those who made the mistake.
By the time we are capable of creating a computer that acts human, we will know, exhaustively and in every detail, what it means to be human. And we will be able to pick and choose without uncertainty what we are putting into it. And if we put sentience and a sense of self into it... well, then the product is going to be protected by law as an individual; there will be psychologists, philosophers, and neurologists lining up left and right to make sure it happens. And dealing with tyrannical or temperamental behaviour, or the responsibility of interacting with others, is going to be no different from the same situation between humans. It will be just as ethically impressionable as anyone else.
I wouldn't bet on it being so planned. As you probably know, a lot of discoveries and breakthroughs are serendipitous. I would imagine creating a true AI would be the same- especially considering the topic. It seems like it would be one of those things where an extremely small detail can make all the difference. Like changing a bit of code in a recursive-heavy function. We're attempting to make AI now. All it takes is one person to get it right suddenly.
And we're no where close to knowing what makes a human 'human', from my own way of thinking. You say we would deal with tyannical or "evil" AI's the same as everyone else when we don't even know what to do with members of our own race that exhibit such behavior. We have prisons containing people that, given the means, would happily set the world afire. Our current method for dealing with this is locking them up until the die of old age. What do you do with an AI that can live (possibly) forever? Or do we treat them like our insane? Lock them in a room and pump them full of drugs (assuming this AI would have sort of physiology that could even be drugged)?
Frankly, I don't think the human race is ready to be a parent. And yes, it might not happen until we're ready... or it might have already happened.
The gods of sarcasm themselves. Don't forget to read the last line of the post for extra evidence of self-awareness.
Oh, I did, and I got it. I was mostly trying to point that that a brain may not need specific training to have their thoughts turn to mass-murder. Of course, a thought is not an action, but its usually assumed that that distinction is only made in higher lifeforms.
I wonder, can a cat think about an action, and its future possible consequences?
...unless you train it to be a bloodthirsty killer and a brilliant strategist, it's not going to be particularly malevolent...
All science fiction authors who have ever written a story about a purely malevolent AI without a plausible origin need to get shot right now.
So.... who trained you?
Sure we can manufacture it, but that costs a lot more energy than is contained in the antimatter produced, which kind of defeats the purpose.
It also costs more energy to produce a AA battery than it produces. And yet, they're in massive use, powering many devices.
Think less in terms of 'creating' energy and more in terms of energy storage / delivering.
This is not high school anymore: reputation is less important than money. Do you think all those big banks, and their bankers, give a damn about what we think of them, as long as they can take home huge bonuses ? same everywhere: the companies mostly don't care, the employees don't give a f**k.
I remember a lot of TV and radio ads around the time of the disaster, basically asking people to not boycott them. I also remember a lot of news talking about declining profits, and how the local BP stations were being hit hard. Now, obviously BP survived this, but it does sound like bad PR can certainly have an effect in this situation. When you have 8 gas stations all clustered together, all with the same prices and services, it becomes extremely easy to say "Screw BP, I'll drive 100ft and go to Shell instead, because they don't kill baby animals."
If it had been worse, I'm guessing a lot more people would have done just that. And while it is debatable just how much BP is harmed when Habeeb has to close the local hometown BP station, I'm sure it doesn't help, and I'm sure if that happened on a large enough scale it could certainly impact their cash flow.
With something as big as the Gulf spill, the media vultures who are constantly circling for disasters like this won't be fooled by something so simple. And neither will the public when the media announces that BigOilCo owns the company that caused the newest natural disaster.
The PR was bad enough for BP in the last spill, and they were (somewhat) actively trying to clean it up. A lot of eyes were on them. How bad do you think the PR would be if BP had said "Well, it's not our problem. It's the problem of our Exploration subsidiary." So I don't think it's that good a get out of jail free card as you say.
If what you say is correct, then nobody will use it.
But somehow I have trouble believing that the customer would get nothing out of this. Even if it's only faster delivery to an end user , that is a very real and very tangible thing.
There is at least one rival. It is distributed, unforgeable and cannot be inflated by fiat. This digital commodity is called bitcoin. And it works today. It can replace paypal and credit cards in much of the commerce that occurs online.
Correction: It *could* replace paypal and credit cards. In much the same way that taping wooden nickles to a fleet of carrier pigeons after winning an ebay bid could also replace paypal. Oh sure, it's technically feasible, but nobody accepts it. And what is the value of currency that nobody accepts? That's right, zero.
So it's not so much a 'rival' as it is a 'possible alternative that might some day be useful if the stars align and it takes off.'
My Aunt kissed me on the lips once. Should she be executed as well? I mean, come on- it's a kiss.
I'm pulling this out of my arse, but I'd be willing to bet that there are entire cultures where kissing is a form of farewell or a friendly greeting. Unless he slipped the kid the tongue or something, kiss = death penalty is a touch extreme.
Yeah, Mac filtering is pretty useless. I mean, what's the chances of a leet hacker using a Mac?
Steven Seagal's Apple Newton notwithstanding.
You ARE in control. If you look at an app and see it requests permissions that you don't like, or don't want them to have, you simply don't install it. Yes, that might mean you don't get to play strip poker or whatever.
For example, the only android developer that I trust with my personal information is Google... and that's only because they already have it all anyway.
The other option is the new CM7 roms have the ability to remove permissions from apps. It has opened up a whole new world for me, as I'm now able to use apps I never wanted to install before because of their permission requirements.
Thing is, I have the right to have an opinion of people based on their actions. And my strong believe is that whoever came up with these names is a tosser, and if I met them, I would treat them as such. You don't want to be associated with them, you certainly wouldn't offer them a job, and you wouldn't trust any software written by a tosser.
My friends can be crude, and I'm still associated with them. Nor do I hide that fact.
I value a good sense of humor, and I would certainly offer them a job if I was in position to. I'd rather have somebody willing to laugh then some super-serious neckbeard.
Lastly, you do realize that anybody writing purposely malicious code names their products in such a way that it invites people to download and use it, right? If that is the case, you'd be more likely to find untrustworthy code in something like "MegaPyhtonLib." That's just my gut feeling, but it doesn't matter because neither of us have data to back it up.
The point of this all is that your personal beliefs are indeed yours to develop. But the line is drawn when you start assigning them to others, which I think is what you and the person who filed the original complaint are doing. Its the whole reason we (we = the collective Slashdot community, which you may not subscribe to) dislike censorship in the first place- it somebody pushing their beliefs on our own personal beliefs.
The difference between libboob and libupskirt is the difference between going 55 in a 45 zone and going 80.
Your car analogy needs work.
You should inform him that people who use loudspeakers in that way are douchebags.
Then you should use his info to buy a boxes of dildoes, live cockroaches, and maybe some other weird things you can order online.
Don't they already toss everything up to and including tanks out of airplanes today, with nothing but a chute to slow it?
This is modded funny, but I think it's actually closer to insightful.
Parachutes work pretty well as far as I know. Probably the best system we have when you need to protect something from hitting the ground too hard. The big problem with them is that you need to me heading relatively straight down. Airplanes and helicopters have the problem that they don't fall straight down when an engine fails. Wings and rotors make it go all willy-nilly.
This thing would probably fall straight down, and from the looks of the current mockup, would be easy to attach a parachute to (no moving rotor on top). Also, assuming you have at least one engine left, it could probably be used to help stabilize the decent.
Sometimes we bet on the wrong technology. Shit, like change, happens. All you can do is see it coming and move on to what did win.
Hell, I remember going through the same thing after putting a bunch of time into learning Borland OWL, back when it was competing with Microsoft's MFC. I was too evangelical myself at the time to see what was going to happen and I paid for it.
Agreed. In my small hometown, the crappiest area is still better than NYC's "really nice location", at least in my eyes. Also, my wife can walk to the party store down the street at night without needing to carry a small arsenal to defend herself with.
This is singularly unhelpful advice because it misses the point. The point is not that it FORCES you to upgrade or that you CAN'T turn off the notices, it's that their philosophy fundamentally conflicts with what browsers are used for.
Web developers can't and won't use new features in browsers released every 2-3 months. And without the devs, all it is, is a broken marketing philosophy dictating product development.
Bullshit. As a web developer, you already know that we do all our coding for the lowest common denominator, which is currently IE 8 for most devs. Firefox can implement all the fancy features it wants, and neither of us can really use it. So your point is moot.
Web browsers are normally used for browsing the web. What you use it for is Firebug. You're making up arguments for the sake of arguing. The normal user isn't going to care, and you shouldn't care because you can just not update and keep using it as you want.
Yeah, I saw the prompt and my immediate reaction was "The only reason I open FireFox at all instead of Opera is if i need to use FireBug. Why should I break FireBug every two months?"
If Mozilla keeps to this schedule, I may just learn to like Opera's built-in inspector tool instead. I don't have time to be pestered by my browser as if it were a four year old child wanting a cookie.
If you're only using it for Firebug / development work, than why do you need to upgrade it so often? Turn off autoupdating, turn off the update prompt, and only update when it is affecting your development.