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Submission + - US Navy wants smart robots with morals, ethics (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: he US Office of Naval Research this week offered a $7.5m grant to university researchers to develop robots with autonomous moral reasoning ability. While the idea of robots making their own ethical decisions smacks of SkyNet — the science-fiction artificial intelligence system featured prominently in the Terminator films — the Navy says that it envisions such systems having extensive use in first-response, search-and-rescue missions, or medical applications.

Submission + - Grace Hopper, UNIVAC, and the First Programming Language

M-Saunders writes: It weighed 13 tons, had 5,200 vacuum tubes, and took up a whole garage, but the UNIVAC I was an incredible machine for its time. Memory was provided by tanks of liquid mercury, while the clock speed was a whopping 2.25 MHz. The UNIVAC I was one of the first commercial general-purpose computers produced, with 46 shipped, and Linux Voice has taken an in-depth look at it. Learn its fascinating instruction set, and also check out FLOW-MATIC, the first English-language data processing language created by American computing pioneer Grace Hopper.

Submission + - Climate journal publishes referees' report in response to "witch-hunt" claims

Sockatume writes: The resignation of Prof. Lennart Bengtsson from an anti-global-warming think tank has triggered widespread outrage in the British tabloids, with the University of Bristol Professor blaming his departure on a "witch-hunt" environment amongst climate scientists and the rejection of one of his papers. The UK's Times quotes a passage from the reviewer comments in support of this, in which it is claimed that the paper was rejected for being "unhelpful to their cause". In response, that journal's publisher has taken the rare step of publishing the referees' report in full. The report describes Bengtsson's paper as a "simplistic comparison of ranges from AR4, AR5, and Otto et al [data sets], combined with the statement they they are inconsistent", "where no consistency was to be expected in the first place" and therefore is not publishable research. The referee adds a number of possible areas of discussion which would allow Bengtsson to make the same data into a publishable paper, but warns that publishing it in its current state "opens the door for oversimplified claims of errors and worse from the climate sceptics media ".

Submission + - AMD Preparing To Give Intel A Run For Its Money (itworld.com) 1

jfruh writes: AMD has never been able to match Intel for profits or scale, but a decade ago it was in front on innovation — the first to 1GHz, the first to 64-bit, the first to dual core. A lack of capital has kept the company barely holding on with cheap mid-range chips since; but now AMD is flush with cash from its profitable business with gaming consoles, and is preparing an ambitious new architecture for 2016, one that's distinct from the x86/ARM hybrid already announced.

Comment SCOTUS Opinions... (Score 1) 1374

SCOTUS also ruled in United States v. Cruikshank that the First Amendment right to assembly was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens. Reaching back to a case before SCOTUS began enforcing fundamental rights protected by the Bill of Rights doesn't really carry much weight these days.

United States v. Miller could also be read with "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" indicating that the "arms" most protected by the Second Amendment are those which are in use by the military. After all, how can the militia get training in use of those weapons if they are not available for use?

The actual text from United States v. Miller of "The Court cannot take judicial notice that a shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches long has today any reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, and therefore cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear such a weapon." seems to support the position I mention above at least as well as the one you put forth.

Comment Re:Gun nuts (Score 1) 1374

If you wish to live in community that heavily regulates firearms, then band together and do so - nothing restricts a locality/city/region from banning the things of their own initiative (see also Chicago, D.C, New York City, etc.)

Might want to look into that part a little more. While SCOTUS has said that there a many acceptable restrictions, DC's ban is gone, Chicago's ban has just gone and others will surely follow. Note that officials in DC and Chicago are still attempting to come up with something that will be acceptable under the standards set by the courts, but that's to be expected.

Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 1633

Very few people in the US are "armed to automatic weapons". The majority of us have semi-automatic shotguns and semi-automatic rifles, which fire one shot each time you pull the trigger -- just like revolvers, pump-action, bolt-action and other firearms with magazines. AND WE'VE GOT FUCKING GRIZZLY BEARS! (and several other nasty species)

Comment Re:This isn't helping... (Score 0) 846

She said that communism is good at dealing with that kind of thing, not that democracy was incapable of fixing it. She made the rather obvious point that communist states find it easier to act for the collective good, while in democracies people tend to act in their own interests.

Yep. That's why the Soviet Union and China had no environmental problems at all, while the United States rots in a cesspool of filth.

What's that? The Soviet Union and China were some of the most polluted countries on earth? Really!?

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