This piece isn't about the code per. se. It is about the use it is put to.
Some people might set out to write software that is ONLY usable for malevolent purposes - and they could be fully aware of this when they do the job and deliver the result. Just like some people will work in cigarette factories. Or design more "efficient" land mines.
However, the vast majority of software that is used for evil can also be used for good. Take GPS for example. It can be used to guide ambulances to accident victims and it can be used to guide missiles to their targets (it can also be used to make those missiles more accurate thereby reducing collateral damage - go figure).
Is the person who invented the for() loop responsible for all the unknown uses it is put to? Is the team that fixes a bug in car's firmware responsible for saving lives? These are unknowable points. The best that programmers (and testers and designers) can do is to produce high quality work, that fits within their ethical framework. Then sleep easy at night.
The GOOD thing is that with lower production costs, it will become less costly to live so maybe these things will balance out as they always have in the past. The future economy, though, looks like it will be vastly different than what we have today.
Not really. For many people the base-cost of living: the rent, the energy bills, the property taxes, the children - those will all continue at the same levels as before. Many families, especially the low-paid, have very little discretionary income so the lower production costs (not including the raw material, marketing, and development costs) of non-essential consumables will have very little impact on their household budgets.
It's really easy to imagine that games would permeate our lives much the way digital music does today.
There is no action (air guitar notwithstanding) needed to have music playing. Although when I visited a Disney Store once I was confronted with "music" playing the entire time. That (the wrong type of music) is a living hell.
But back to games. While we can live with music, we cannot passively play a game. A game needs input and the "twichy" ones need fast reactions which implies paying attention all the time. This is clearly impractical.
I would suggest that either this guy has a radically different view of what future "games" will be like, or he was making this stuff up as he went along.
the most common concerns being unwanted contact (43%) and various forms of harassment (39%).
The two qualifiers to this would be the level of "community" where the negative interaction took place and whether the individual receiving this negative interaction was identifiable or using a pseudonym.
One can imagine that "public" humiliation would result in a worse outcome for the recipient. Where the individual could be identified in the real world. Possibly even physically encountering their abuser.
However, the level of sensitivity of individuals varies widely. Some are resilient enough to shrug off a bout of internet abuse while others can be severely affected - even if their account was entirely anonymous. Maybe there is a lack of education in how to cope with anonymous attacks? Should people be reminded that having someone you have never met insulting your avatar cannot possibly have any real meaning, since they know nothing about you. Maybe people should be taught how to toughen up - since cultural norms for behaviour (both online and offline) vary wildly across the world.
To be blunt, what Zuckerberg "thinks" is irrelevant.
He is in a position to obtain and have analysed the data - not just about whether the fake stories and lies are a "small proportion" of FB's content, but just how much that "small proportion" gets liked, reposted and commented on. Being a small proportion is meaningless if it is influential. And it is the influence that these fake stories have, not the quantity of them, which is important.
One could also say that The Washington Post reaches only a small proportion of the world. But Zuckerberg considered it worth buying.
For a projectile aimed at something 100 miles away, it's going to be very difficult to tell, in real time, whether you've hit the target or not. The best you could do would be to have a drone nearby to report back. But if you can operate a drone in theatre, why not use that to fire a missile of its own?
Being able to effortlessly speak, read and write american (as opposed to the language used in England) at a high level, to know the culture, to have the nuances of intonation, politeness, expectations, professionalism and body language counts for 40 - 50 points on your IQ.
It is not enough to have been on a 6-month language course and to be able to ask for (and understand) directions to the bathroom. You have to be able to read and write complex, technical, documents. You also have to be able to demonstrate the social skills (what about them cowboys?) to mingle with your colleagues. You have to be able to ask for explanations and understand them.
Being a good coder, tester, designer or integration specialist isn't enough. To earn the rates that american IT workers command, you have to blend in and pay back the confidence that your employer places in your soft skills.
Respondents were also asked to identify the most common causes of bugs
Surely the cause of bugs is programmers getting it wrong (or, if you want to go to a higher level, errors in the design or specification). All the cited reasons don't cause bugs, they merely prevent their detection.
As for the most environment where bugs are most costly to fix, I would suggest that would be once they reach the consumer and can only be fixed by a product recall? Although once they reach orbit, that can be a pretty expensive place to apply a fix, too.
Did they double-check the mirror this time? And compensate for zero-G?
And remember there's a difference between inches and centimetres.
Don't forget that on the rocket, the arrows should be pointing upwards.
Have they tuned the radio link to the correct frequency?
Luckily this telescope doesn't need parachutes. But they'd better put a screen-wipe in the package in case the mirror gets dusty between now and launch-day.
I don't care what channel something is on. I just want my TV to present me with a slection of programmes I do like - given my watching history - and some suggestions for others I might like. When I choose one, just show me the dam' programme. That's all! If I then specify that I want more, don't ask me any questions: just get it.
this is arguably the worst misuse of the DMCA we have ever come across
Good grief! it's a minor spat about a device that the public will have forgotten all about in a few months. Hardly worth raising your blood pressure over - let alone using superlatives about.
The point about UBI is that it provides enough to get by on.
That is fine as a temporary measure, but run the play through for a generation and see where it leads. The first thing that happens is that you have children growing up in an environment where there is no history of earning and no expectation of it. That leads to the question: why bother with an education? Once you start questioning that and consider the costs - books, all the stuff the "other kids" have, trips, the cost of transporting your offspring to school - it all adds up. And to what end? You don't have a job, the next generation is even less likely to have one - why expend energy and time learning stuff that will be no use.
After that we're really sunk: we have a generation who might just have picked up the basics: speech, a little counting, but who needs nothing more. Even if they are only a proportion of the population they are significant: not least because they will have a vote. But not only do they have no skills, they have no ability to pass on to their kids anything of themselves.
Sure, there would be machine learning available - but why bother, if you will never need that information or any skills.
Since the occupants of the vehicle will have no input (except possibly as witnesses, but probably worse witnesses that the vehicles instruments and recorders) there will be nobody in the frame for liability except those who were killed or injured by the collision and the organisation who defined the vehicle's behaviour in that situation.
If that court finds there was any way that the vehicle makers could have avoided the "accident", they will assign liability and costs. So we can expect that on the one hand will be the technical, legal andfinancial might of an international, multi-billion-$$$ company - and on the other the grieving (and possibly penniless) family of the injured party. It doesn't take a genius to see which way that "justice" will go (in the USA, at least - other countries will find differently).
However, once a vehicle's occupant is the one making a claim, exactly the same power dynamic will come into play. But this time in reverse: with the company claiming that the occupant suffered because the vehicle took a decision in favour of the safety of others, I guess the case law and the whole future of the self-driving car's legal position will be decided by who wins, what claim, first?
It will come down to a flip of the coin. Sounds like it will be a good time to become a lawyer - just make sure you pick the right side.
an approach called deep-learning, in which the program learns how to do tasks independently rather than being pre-programmed with a set of rules by a human.
So while humans learn many of life's most important things: how to use a fork, how to speak (and occasionally: listen), how to clothe ourselves. hpw to obey the law, by being "programmed" with a set of rules by a human, this machine figured it out by itself.
I can see that this has application in some areas, but to be a good member of society shouldn't we want certain aspects of co-existence, values and social behaviour to come from rules, rather than each person or computer coming too its own conclusion about co-operating?
this is the move to home automation expanding and growing
It's not home automation at all.
You still have to go to the kettle, and fill it with water. You still have to stop what you are doing to brew your tea. You still have to find a clean cup to put the tea in.
REAL home automation would know when you want a drink. It would make it for you. It would deliver it to you (where ever you are in the house) and pick up the dirty cup afterwards, wash it and stack it back in the cupboard.
Considered by the literary establishment, and frequently by non-SF award-giving institutions, to be trashy, pulpish, commercially driven lightweight gutter fiction,
The "establishment" scorn SF because it is about ideas, whereas mainstream fiction is about relationships.
Books about ideas require the reader to think, while books about relationships require that the readers feel. Thinking is much harder.
Yes, I can categorically say you love The Mars Trilogy more than I do, since I've never read it.
As for the rest, I doubt that world public opinion could allow a commercial enterprise on Earth from abandoning the people IT had sent to Mars. You appear to still be thinking of this as a national / american enterprise. It isn't.
The shuttle programme cost about half a billion $$$ per launch, just for 1 vehicle to LEO.
Let's assume that with a decent design, efficient management and commercial flair the cost of a Mars mission is about the same - per journey: take-off to landing.
Let's also assume that for every populated launch, there is another that just carries supplies. The cost for 100 people to the red planet is about $1Bn - $10m per head. Now, I am sure there are plenty of people who would pay that amount. There are also many more that we (as the occupants of Earth) would be willing to raise the capital to send them - whether they want to go or not.
But to sustain $20Bn or more investment for 40 - 100 years before you have a viable colony needs more financing than one single internet outfit can provide - there are only so many millionaires who would be willing to walk away from their lives here on Earth. That kind of investment would only come from a nation or a religion.
It would also seem likely that some time after Musk got his operation running, there would be other operators entering the game. They would be setting up alternative colonies, for their own reasons and with their own goals in mind. It occurs to me that for a competing group, the simplest, least risky and cheapest route would be to NOT start up themselves, but to infiltrate or take over Musk's operation and then gain control of the colony (either by force, commercial shenanigans on Earth or indoctrination of the colonists) once it became self-sufficient.
The other side of corporate espionage is denying a company access to its own databases, research, customer lists, ledgers and everything else that is required to keep a company going.
While this device is very good at preventing other people fromgetting that data, it's the worst design possible for preserving it in the face of adversity. All that a bad person would have to do to put you out of business, if you relied on this device, is to say "Boo!" and all your data disappears.
Of course, if you have a backup then that has to be at the same level of "security" as this PC or it becomes the weakest link. Instead it's the most breakable link - which is merely another form of weakness. The same goes for restoring all your lost data: if you rebuild the lost data from across a network connection, that has to be untappable, too. I don't think the people who built this have thought it through properly.
Slashdot Mirror
The algorithm weeds through all 500 million tweets that are posted on a daily basis to "sort real news from spam, nonsense, ads, and noise,"
Has it found any, yet?
We were standing around in the tissue culture room, scratching our heads
Well, I suppose that's one way to get samples.
... and only 50% accurate. What did HAL think they were saying? It could explain a lot.
But did the survey ask what proportion of the population would give up sex to stop being bothered by pollsters?
Some people might set out to write software that is ONLY usable for malevolent purposes - and they could be fully aware of this when they do the job and deliver the result. Just like some people will work in cigarette factories. Or design more "efficient" land mines.
However, the vast majority of software that is used for evil can also be used for good. Take GPS for example. It can be used to guide ambulances to accident victims and it can be used to guide missiles to their targets (it can also be used to make those missiles more accurate thereby reducing collateral damage - go figure).
Is the person who invented the for() loop responsible for all the unknown uses it is put to? Is the team that fixes a bug in car's firmware responsible for saving lives? These are unknowable points. The best that programmers (and testers and designers) can do is to produce high quality work, that fits within their ethical framework. Then sleep easy at night.
The GOOD thing is that with lower production costs, it will become less costly to live so maybe these things will balance out as they always have in the past. The future economy, though, looks like it will be vastly different than what we have today.
Not really. For many people the base-cost of living: the rent, the energy bills, the property taxes, the children - those will all continue at the same levels as before. Many families, especially the low-paid, have very little discretionary income so the lower production costs (not including the raw material, marketing, and development costs) of non-essential consumables will have very little impact on their household budgets.
It's really easy to imagine that games would permeate our lives much the way digital music does today.
There is no action (air guitar notwithstanding) needed to have music playing. Although when I visited a Disney Store once I was confronted with "music" playing the entire time. That (the wrong type of music) is a living hell.
But back to games. While we can live with music, we cannot passively play a game. A game needs input and the "twichy" ones need fast reactions which implies paying attention all the time. This is clearly impractical.
I would suggest that either this guy has a radically different view of what future "games" will be like, or he was making this stuff up as he went along.
the most common concerns being unwanted contact (43%) and various forms of harassment (39%).
The two qualifiers to this would be the level of "community" where the negative interaction took place and whether the individual receiving this negative interaction was identifiable or using a pseudonym.
One can imagine that "public" humiliation would result in a worse outcome for the recipient. Where the individual could be identified in the real world. Possibly even physically encountering their abuser.
However, the level of sensitivity of individuals varies widely. Some are resilient enough to shrug off a bout of internet abuse while others can be severely affected - even if their account was entirely anonymous. Maybe there is a lack of education in how to cope with anonymous attacks? Should people be reminded that having someone you have never met insulting your avatar cannot possibly have any real meaning, since they know nothing about you. Maybe people should be taught how to toughen up - since cultural norms for behaviour (both online and offline) vary wildly across the world.
He is in a position to obtain and have analysed the data - not just about whether the fake stories and lies are a "small proportion" of FB's content, but just how much that "small proportion" gets liked, reposted and commented on. Being a small proportion is meaningless if it is influential. And it is the influence that these fake stories have, not the quantity of them, which is important.
One could also say that The Washington Post reaches only a small proportion of the world. But Zuckerberg considered it worth buying.
For a projectile aimed at something 100 miles away, it's going to be very difficult to tell, in real time, whether you've hit the target or not. The best you could do would be to have a drone nearby to report back. But if you can operate a drone in theatre, why not use that to fire a missile of its own?
Being able to effortlessly speak, read and write american (as opposed to the language used in England) at a high level, to know the culture, to have the nuances of intonation, politeness, expectations, professionalism and body language counts for 40 - 50 points on your IQ.
It is not enough to have been on a 6-month language course and to be able to ask for (and understand) directions to the bathroom. You have to be able to read and write complex, technical, documents. You also have to be able to demonstrate the social skills (what about them cowboys?) to mingle with your colleagues. You have to be able to ask for explanations and understand them.
Being a good coder, tester, designer or integration specialist isn't enough. To earn the rates that american IT workers command, you have to blend in and pay back the confidence that your employer places in your soft skills.
Respondents were also asked to identify the most common causes of bugs
Surely the cause of bugs is programmers getting it wrong (or, if you want to go to a higher level, errors in the design or specification). All the cited reasons don't cause bugs, they merely prevent their detection.
As for the most environment where bugs are most costly to fix, I would suggest that would be once they reach the consumer and can only be fixed by a product recall? Although once they reach orbit, that can be a pretty expensive place to apply a fix, too.
Did they double-check the mirror this time? And compensate for zero-G?
And remember there's a difference between inches and centimetres.
Don't forget that on the rocket, the arrows should be pointing upwards.
Have they tuned the radio link to the correct frequency?
Luckily this telescope doesn't need parachutes. But they'd better put a screen-wipe in the package in case the mirror gets dusty between now and launch-day.
I don't care what channel something is on. I just want my TV to present me with a slection of programmes I do like - given my watching history - and some suggestions for others I might like. When I choose one, just show me the dam' programme. That's all! If I then specify that I want more, don't ask me any questions: just get it.
this is arguably the worst misuse of the DMCA we have ever come across
Good grief! it's a minor spat about a device that the public will have forgotten all about in a few months. Hardly worth raising your blood pressure over - let alone using superlatives about.
That is fine as a temporary measure, but run the play through for a generation and see where it leads. The first thing that happens is that you have children growing up in an environment where there is no history of earning and no expectation of it. That leads to the question: why bother with an education? Once you start questioning that and consider the costs - books, all the stuff the "other kids" have, trips, the cost of transporting your offspring to school - it all adds up. And to what end? You don't have a job, the next generation is even less likely to have one - why expend energy and time learning stuff that will be no use.
After that we're really sunk: we have a generation who might just have picked up the basics: speech, a little counting, but who needs nothing more. Even if they are only a proportion of the population they are significant: not least because they will have a vote. But not only do they have no skills, they have no ability to pass on to their kids anything of themselves.
Sure, there would be machine learning available - but why bother, if you will never need that information or any skills.
Since the occupants of the vehicle will have no input (except possibly as witnesses, but probably worse witnesses that the vehicles instruments and recorders) there will be nobody in the frame for liability except those who were killed or injured by the collision and the organisation who defined the vehicle's behaviour in that situation.
If that court finds there was any way that the vehicle makers could have avoided the "accident", they will assign liability and costs. So we can expect that on the one hand will be the technical, legal andfinancial might of an international, multi-billion-$$$ company - and on the other the grieving (and possibly penniless) family of the injured party. It doesn't take a genius to see which way that "justice" will go (in the USA, at least - other countries will find differently).
However, once a vehicle's occupant is the one making a claim, exactly the same power dynamic will come into play. But this time in reverse: with the company claiming that the occupant suffered because the vehicle took a decision in favour of the safety of others, I guess the case law and the whole future of the self-driving car's legal position will be decided by who wins, what claim, first?
It will come down to a flip of the coin. Sounds like it will be a good time to become a lawyer - just make sure you pick the right side.
an approach called deep-learning, in which the program learns how to do tasks independently rather than being pre-programmed with a set of rules by a human.
So while humans learn many of life's most important things: how to use a fork, how to speak (and occasionally: listen), how to clothe ourselves. hpw to obey the law, by being "programmed" with a set of rules by a human, this machine figured it out by itself.
I can see that this has application in some areas, but to be a good member of society shouldn't we want certain aspects of co-existence, values and social behaviour to come from rules, rather than each person or computer coming too its own conclusion about co-operating?
this is the move to home automation expanding and growing
It's not home automation at all.
You still have to go to the kettle, and fill it with water. You still have to stop what you are doing to brew your tea. You still have to find a clean cup to put the tea in.
REAL home automation would know when you want a drink. It would make it for you. It would deliver it to you (where ever you are in the house) and pick up the dirty cup afterwards, wash it and stack it back in the cupboard.
This is just being a slave to your gadgets.
Considered by the literary establishment, and frequently by non-SF award-giving institutions, to be trashy, pulpish, commercially driven lightweight gutter fiction,
The "establishment" scorn SF because it is about ideas, whereas mainstream fiction is about relationships.
Books about ideas require the reader to think, while books about relationships require that the readers feel. Thinking is much harder.
get the cost down to 140-200K/person
Hmmm, that's cheaper than sending people to prison ....
I suggest the colony is called New Australia
As for the rest, I doubt that world public opinion could allow a commercial enterprise on Earth from abandoning the people IT had sent to Mars. You appear to still be thinking of this as a national / american enterprise. It isn't.
Let's assume that with a decent design, efficient management and commercial flair the cost of a Mars mission is about the same - per journey: take-off to landing.
Let's also assume that for every populated launch, there is another that just carries supplies. The cost for 100 people to the red planet is about $1Bn - $10m per head. Now, I am sure there are plenty of people who would pay that amount. There are also many more that we (as the occupants of Earth) would be willing to raise the capital to send them - whether they want to go or not.
But to sustain $20Bn or more investment for 40 - 100 years before you have a viable colony needs more financing than one single internet outfit can provide - there are only so many millionaires who would be willing to walk away from their lives here on Earth. That kind of investment would only come from a nation or a religion.
It would also seem likely that some time after Musk got his operation running, there would be other operators entering the game. They would be setting up alternative colonies, for their own reasons and with their own goals in mind. It occurs to me that for a competing group, the simplest, least risky and cheapest route would be to NOT start up themselves, but to infiltrate or take over Musk's operation and then gain control of the colony (either by force, commercial shenanigans on Earth or indoctrination of the colonists) once it became self-sufficient.
Pyrotechnics look impressive in bad films, but in real life? hardly.
While this device is very good at preventing other people fromgetting that data, it's the worst design possible for preserving it in the face of adversity. All that a bad person would have to do to put you out of business, if you relied on this device, is to say "Boo!" and all your data disappears.
Of course, if you have a backup then that has to be at the same level of "security" as this PC or it becomes the weakest link. Instead it's the most breakable link - which is merely another form of weakness. The same goes for restoring all your lost data: if you rebuild the lost data from across a network connection, that has to be untappable, too. I don't think the people who built this have thought it through properly.