Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Lies, damn lies, and statistics (Score 1) 421

You got the numbers, but don't understand anything about them. The biggest problems with Indian education are at the primary education level - which is why a huge number of children never reach school, drop out, or don't learn anything in primary school. And the drop outs have more to do with impecuniosity than with schools - children have to start "work" at an age of 9.

Secondary, and higher education is really much better than that in the US - taking cost, availability and quality into account. Which is why those who do get good primary education somehow, are like the people the GP describes.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 406

We demonstrably already have people willing to trust their life to a system which categorically was NOT designed to operate autonomously. We have armies of insurance providers who issue policies based on measured risk rather than perceived risk. And we have regulators who demonstrably prefer to pass rules favoring whichever way the corporate campaign contributions are blowing.

Not sure where this fits. Irrelevant?

We also have a not inconsiderable number of people content to drive through rush-hour traffic while simultaneously talking on the phone, eating breakfast, and possibly managing their kids. I would bet you good money that there's a certain percentage of them that would jump on the chance to have an electronic chauffeur because they are quite aware of many close calls they've had when driving with lots of distractions, but can't bare to schedule things more safely

You have no clue about how humans think.

Or would just appreciate having some time to themselves during the day instead of having to spend a couple hours a day driving the same stretch of idiot-filled road day after day

This is a different point, and I just replied to your argument of safety. You seem to assume safety and perceived safety are same, but it is clear that there is a very weak link between these 2, sometimes increase in one leads to decrease in the other.

They certainly won't be a *majority* any time soon, but if you can appeal to 0.01% of the population that's 40 000 people in the US alone - plenty viable for a test market, and as time goes on the inevitable horror stories will be weighed against the substantial insurance discounts and general laziness. Assume even 1% of the population is rational enough to recognize that the affordable and much improved mk3 version is in fact a safer driver than they are and first-hand experience at the luxury will spread it like wildfire.

Yes, it will probably take decades after the first one hits the road to really catch on, but that's normal - what percentage of cars on the road today do you suppose are 20+ years old?

I am not sure you realize your statements are schizophrenic. Wildfire? 1%? 0.01%? 20 years?

The original poster said "This is why autonomous cars are a long while away", to which you said "Nonsense". Now you yourself say autonomous cars are a long while away, though not in these words, interspersed with contradictions like wildfire.

Comment Re:They deserve it (Score 1) 286

Now you know that this is a class action suit. But I don't think it is a good idea in the US legal system. Reasons :

1. one initial weakly fought class action suit indemnifies the defendant from a proper class action suit for this topic, and somewhat related topics.

2. the customers get nearly nothing, company loses some money so that future products for the customers are more expensive, and the lawyers get tons of money. All 3 of these monetary transactions are bad for the customers.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 406

Nonsense. The computer only needs to be markedly better than an *average* driver to be a huge safety win. It doesn't even need to *always* be better than the average driver - if it can reliably avoid 90% of the most common accidents, then even it it fails spectacularly in the last 10% of edge cases, and even if humans would have avoided 100% of those, the autonomous systems will still have reduced the number of accidents by a factor of 9.

It only needs to be so to be useful. But it needs to be far better to be perceived to be useful. Because humans - regulators, law-enforcers and car buyers do not think like that.

If an automated car drives 10 times better than average, that is zero advantage. Because an average driver perceives himself as 10 times better than average.

Then there is the issue of control - driving a car seems safer to most people even today than flying as a passenger in an aircraft, because in an aircraft passengers do not control the possibility of accidents. In a car, the driver decides how much risk he takes, and a huge majority of drivers think they are taking zero risk.

Comment Re:Legitimate concerns (Score 1) 282

If B were truly anonymous, then A would not be able to Bully him. Go ahead, try bullying an anonymous coward on slashdot. The idea doesn't even make sense.

Ability to remain anonymous legally in a jurisdiction does not mean everyone is completely anonymous. Ability to carry a loaded gun does not mean everyone carries and is trained to use one. Anonymity in the bullying case is so similar to guns, even fallacies are alike !!

The outbreak of Facebook has ensured 99% of internet users are "effectively de-anonymized". An outbreak of a similar disease in the gun world would ensure guns are rendered useless as a defence too, by de-gunning 99% people.

So what? His pseudo identity will be booted / ip banned, his comments deleted etc.

1. No, online platforms today have done a horrible job in protecting most cases of bullying. There is no reason why de-anonymization laws in one country will suddenly make all online platforms completely cooperative with that one country's vicims in relieving them of the bullying. It is a huge uphill battle to even convince Facebook that a registered account is bullying. Many of those online platforms are not based in that country.

Even if they did get so cooperative suddenly, the bully can change identities and bully again.

"Polite society" can trivially banish and ignore the 'anon' person, and there's nothing he can do about it.

If there were a polite society, online bullying wouldn't be allowed to go so out of control, even without anonymity.

Nothing like guns. ... The guy with the gun can't simply be tossed out ... because he has a gun.

The childish argument of gun superiority. A person you don't know, don't see, attacks from any direction, and cannot be attacked back s infinitely more terrifying than a steel nerved, gun wielding, shooting champion enemy who is de-anonymized.

Comment Re:Sure, but... (Score 2) 502

No, cross country you just need HV. DC comes handy when there are too many suppliers with independent problems and synchronization issues between them cause trouble all over the grid. But DC isn't fundamentally necessary just because transmission is cross country.

And no one does 3000 miles at 110 V. Transmission (long distance) grade voltage starts at 110 kV and above.

Comment Re:XP losing Market share is not bad news. (Score 1) 336

Those 3 that I listed are the implications of being outdated.

No.

a) Cost of integration. As time passes the system fits less well with the rest of the software / hardware ecosystem

Time passes continuously. Time doesn't start passing once jbolden threshold of outdatedness is attained.

b) Cost of transitioning at a later date. There is a window to transition after that it becomes a very complex project.

This is very arbitrary as some essential assumptions are not mentioned, but presumably this is not directly related to outdatedness but an effect of even more time passing after something getting outdated.

c) Cost of maintaining and modifying. As knowledge of the system decreases this can skyrocket

You haven't proven knowledge must decrease. Use of knowledge, as well as its decrease, are dependent on purpose which you refuse to discuss.

So no, these are not answers to my questions.

Comment Re:correlation, causation (Score 1) 387

Implicit in feminism is the realization that we live in a male-dominated society, not a female-dominated one

So you are saying that feminism is not "the belief that women are just as capable and deserving of respect as men". But according to you, feminism is, instead, a belief that we live in a male-dominated society along with the belief that women are just as capable and deserving of respect as men. You intentionally hid this important fact to promote feminism as an equitable belief system, and not poisoned. But since I pointed out the contradiction in your definition, the lid is blown. How do you avoid to accept now that feminism, is indeed poisoned as claimed by the earlier post.

Secondly - "the realization that we live in a male-dominated society, not a female-dominated one". This is a highly childish statement with an implicit assumption that society is either male-dominated, or female dominated. This implicit assumption is false. Some people dominate others, of either sex.

In your hypothetical female-dominated society

I did not hypothesize any female-dominated society.

I think you could put both those ideas under the umbrella of humanism, which puts humans and their well-being at the centre of our moral universe.

If you called it humanism, which is much less poisoned, the original poster wouldn't have claimed it poisoned and I wouldn't have needed to expose your facade.

Slashdot Top Deals

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

Working...