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Comment Re:alogrithms aren't racist (Score 4, Interesting) 352

I followed the link and looked at the photos. I could see how it would make that mistake.
1. The Color balance was off: What we call black people are actually just a richer brown. the color balance gave their color more of a real Black/Gray color, the natural color of a Gorilla.

2. The Angle of the shot. The tilted Angle makes it appeared that they are not upright but slouching in.

3. They were making unnatural facial features for humans. They were making funny faces at the camera.

4. The dark hue of the gentleman who was behind shirt, combined with the ladies hair style, makes it seem the body with much broader shoulder.

I expect the combination of a lot of factors created the wrong choice. But computer decision making, while getting good, isn't perfect, but it is often better then not having it because then it wouldn't be possible to catalog the millions of images. We need to accept that computers make mistakes and there should be a way to fix them when they are found.

Many of our derogatory comments come from the fact that we find similarities with something else, so it come to reason that a computer may make an actual mistake that will reinforce such derogatory meaning.

Comment Re:Makes sense. (Score 4, Insightful) 278

You are implying that ones political stance is an indicator of their intelligence?

There is a huge group of people who's opinion is based on what the party says, I am a loyal Democrat/Republican so my stance will match what they say. There is no attention of the detail of the message nor any attempt to challenge the notion brought up. So the Democrats say Global Warming is a problem, people will blindly follow. If the Democrats say GMO foods are bad, they will blindly follow. Intelligence isn't the issue, it is just the current polarized nature of the two party system which will normally make one side right and the other wrong (assuming one side is right)

Now the Democrats vs Government view on funding. Democrats prefer more of a blanket funding in scientists, So Scientists who are funded via the Democrats policies have invested interests in that party, so they are making a living off of researching climate science due to Democrats funding, so they will be friendly to that party, and in turn that party will listen to their studies. The Republicans will more likely fund Military or Energy science. Where there is less science and more engineering. Thus you will find a lot more Right winged engineers. As their main means of living is due to Republican policy. So the Republicans will more likely push ideas of a new Military Technology or Energy Extraction technology.

It is interesting on how your political views change depending on where you are living and who is controlling your purse strings.
Now they are crazies on both sides. You got the Leftist hippie type who wants to change everything to match their utopian vision where everyone is all happy because they follow one idea of a perfect life. Then you got the Far Right densest who thinks we should go back to the "Leave it to Beaver" life style, that he fondly remembers as a child (too young to realize the pressures of the world). These guys can often get into the House or Representatives thus get enough media attention to direct "The I have to do what the party says" people.

   

Comment College != Jobs (Score 3) 133

The problem in the US is the impression You go to School then you go to College with the college degree you can get a good job.
The marketing for the the For Profit takes advantage of this, and tries to make a Job focuses curriculum. But because employers are expecting a college degree, there is a bunch of other classes and stuff that is needed to take, which overall doesn't help out that much.
The traditional colleges, may have their marketing team say this will get you a good job, once you get into the school it is the impression "College is for learning, not job training"

The real solution is to give a better status of vocational training. So someone who wants a job in a particular field can get job training for that field. It isn't necessary for a Computer Science Degree to be a programmer. Also a Computer Science Degree shouldn't need to focus so much on programming, but more on the abstract concepts, that we normally wont get to until grad school.

College should be for learning. We should have a better quality and more positive few towards vocational schools for the Job training.

Comment Re:adjective choice (Score 1) 133

That is a general argument against most not-for-profit organizations. Because they NFP do seem to spend a lot of time and resources towards collecting money, and investing their "Excess Revenue" into sources where they can bring in more revenue.

For Not for profits do have to deal with being under a fine tooth comb and do not enjoy the same freedoms a for-profit will.

Comment Re: Assumptions are the mother of all ... (Score 1) 172

OK.
So you may had good reasons to stick with Windows 7. My place at work is using Windows 7, the UI change to windows 8 would cause way too much issues. Also we just migrated a few years to windows 7. And there was a huge compatibility issues that needed to be address... I do expect it is much easier to go from Windows 7 to Windows 10, as this time we didn't jump from a 32bit OS to a 64 bit.

Comment Re:Assumptions are the mother of all ... (Score 1) 172

I expect it is more from the Small business white box community. Yes they still exist. So they save money by getting Windows 7 Licenses and upgrading to Windows 10 by the time they sell their PC's.
I expect technically this would be against some agreement with Microsoft. But these guys are such small fries. The the cost of investing and fighting for it is more then then small pocket change these companies have for profit. If it were a Dell, HP or Lenovo doing this, that would be a different story all together.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 1) 843

Politics seems to conflict with the engineering process.

We make a prototype and test it. Then we fix the problems and try again.
It is rather expensive and time consuming. But it is the process. Aircraft are not your standard PC there are factors that are still not easily simulated.

Comment I do this all the time. (Score 1) 78

It is called a Rubber Band workaround.
Working with legacy systems without access to Source, however needs additional features. Intercept Pipes, data packets, or reports generated, then use its information to filter and add additional information.

It is a rubber band solution because it can break from a brand new unknown variable, and requires layers of fixes and workarounds to keep it running.

Comment Re: Cool (Score 1) 191

How is this about Android. The OS doesn't add the hardware feature, it will only support it. They are a lot of New Android phones that don't have that feature as well.
Now I don't expect Apples goal is to switch over Android users but to keep their devises up to date with other winning technology trends and with their vision of future tech as to keep the existing user base and try to get new to the phone users.
For the most part if you are an Android user or an iOS user you will not switch unless their is some killer feature, or some major ball that was dropped. Otherwise there is too much investment in your device with apps and learning how to use it to switch.

Comment Re:Irony? (Score 1) 40

I agree, It isn't that Coal Power is competing against Google. Heck what took most coal power plants out of business wasn't "Green" or renewable energy, but the US current glut of Cheap Natural Gas. While much cleaner then coal, is still a carbon polluting source. I work in a hospital, they have purchased some old out of business convince store buildings and but offices in them... Is that any more ironic?

If I ran a business I would love to have refurbish an old Barn and turn it into an open office design. A tech company based in a turn of the 20th century barn. Would that have any more irony?

Comment Re:SOLD! (Score 1) 219

The fact that it has less horizontal resolution makes it better?

Now when they moved to the Wide screen models, it was a fancy trick to lower the Vertical resolution, while offering a larger screen size. But that was when the average Resolution was around 72ppi. Today we are having much higher resolution screens, so going with this model will just cut away your horizontal resolution for you nostalgic feeling.

Comment Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring (Score 1) 244

The issue isn't the taste of Healthy vs Unhealthy.
Fat and Sugar, use to be hard to get nutrition. Fats from hunting down animals, and Sugar from rare to find fruits, or rather dangerous to get honey. So our body was designed to reward for finding such foods, as they were hard to find nutrition.

However now Fat and Sugar are plentiful, so we can eat this all the time, so our body gets more of this nutrition then it needs, and really more then it know how to handle. However the reward system for such foods is still there.

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