I don't really think that is really an accurate description either. Rather, in Asimov's view autonomous robots would be completely uncontrollable without something like the three laws, and that even with the three laws there was still considerable danger to the operators.

Asimov's view was that if you tell a robot it can kill people, it's going to figure out a way to twist that into an order to kill you. You don't fuck around with telling robots to hurt people, it's just too dangerous due to the unintended consequences. You need to make sure that the robot is starting from purely altruistic intentions. I don't think it was a simple plot device, but a very considered belief.

It's not though. If they really sent a blanket threat to 10,000 people on the basis of one IP address, they are probably liable for significant damages in a class-action suit.

Yes, of course, then the British and Swedish forces will eventually give up and go home when they realize it's a war that can't be won.

I would expect that not only would a hybrid drive have that problem, but you wouldn't be able to recover because it's hard-wired to pretend it's a single disk and you can't just fall back to using it as two separate disks if the controller that does the caching has a failure.

Had he been a patent hound, other people would have received the support he received, and he would be a nobody.

Half the cost of the RT-N16 is presumably the WiFi. And that's what I buy them for.

The funny thing is, Apple's products that compete with Microsoft's core products are shit. Have you ever tried to use OS X Server? It's impossible to administer well. Windows Server 2008 R2 is a fine system by comparison.

Apple flat out gave up on XServe, and what's more they've basically done the same with Office. Microsoft, in contrast, is still very much in the game when it comes to everything Apple and Google are doing.

Whatever they did recently made it bearable. (Though yes, I had a good two years where Slashdot was unbearable to use.)

Personally, I just want a notebook I can write stuff in that I don't have to worry about charging. You may be surprised to learn that some people like to write.

This is the first product that actually sounds like it could be that device.

Exactly backwards. IT already has access to all patient info since, I hope, it's being backed up.

Not at all. I haven't personally worked with such systems, but my understanding is that in modern heathcare systems, everything is encrypted with multi-factor authentication, and all IT has access to is encrypted snapshots. If the professor was working on some sort of research that was ongoing and needed a system, I could see making the decision that it was just a prototype, and the best way to keep it relatively secure for a few months of the project was just not to give anyone but a few tech-savvy medical people the keys (and not back it up.)

This obviously isn't such a case, but the fact remains that if IT has access to all patient info, you're not HIPPA compliant.

Sounds like poster is a professor. Probably with tenure. In any case, professors in technical fields need wide latitude in setting up computers to do their jobs.

That said, this doesn't sound like research, this sounds like something simple that IT should be taking care of. (Of course, that's not to say IT should be forced to implement it, they have their own priorities, etc.)

Only way poster has a leg to stand on is if this thing somehow touches patient info. Then I can see an argument for keeping IT out.

The point though was that the specific ordering of the laws was the most stable form. The one presented by Motorola here is supposed to be flawed because when the android is allowed to place its own safety above obeying the human, it is easier for it to do things that have unintended consequences. It's also suggested that the robots can subconsciously disobey the three laws, especially by pretending not to see unintended consequences.

That's the "protect itself" part. Rated higher, of course, than obey the user.

ls, cat, grep, sed, free, etc.

If you're not using these 3 times as much as you're doing active things, I don't know how you know what's going on.

Sure, you occasionally run into the odd file that's only readable to root, but mostly you can see things well enough without touching anything before you decide what needs to be done. Then you say sudo just so you're clear about what you're doing.

But we don't want the males to have a shortened lifespan. We want the females to have a shortened lifespan, while the males live long and productive sex lives. That allows the number of bad genes in the population to grow until there are almost no females left.