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Comment Re:Obvious (Score 1) 163

What's interesting is to learn what conditions it won't handle.

When there are poor or no lane markers, especially when there's no double yellow in a two-lane, two-way local highway. Or when construction's shifted the lanes away from their original positions and the old lane markers haven't been erased so cleanly. Or when there are periodic potholes the size of half-basketballs in the most-used tire lanes (tire lanes being the path your car's tires take). Or when the lane is both narrow with inches to spare on either side, and shifts suddenly, and there's a H2 up ahead in the other lane going at half the speed limit. Or when a 45MPH highway has a sudden 20MPH curve, and the lanes are narrow to boot.

This kind of autonomous driving may work when both road and weather conditions are ideal, but something a little smarter would be necessary for even slightly harsher situations. In the extreme case, a lot of driving under extremely limited visibility is basically a high-stakes game of follow the leader. Essentially, it's not enough to be able to perceive the environment; driving under those conditions requires perceiving the actions of other like actors (and relying on the assumption that those actors are sane).

Comment Re:Bad summary of two separate issues (Score 1) 200

The right answer is to disband the NSA and hand SIGINT over to the Military which tends to follow the US Constitution a bit more closely.

The NSA is run by a four-star admiral and a four-star general before that. It is a branch of the military already.

You're thinking of armed forces intelligence like the Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence guys. I can't think that they'd be much better if tasked with the same mission.

What needs to change is the mission, not the agency.

Comment Re:If true. If. (Score 1) 200

Driving is a privilege not a right.

Emphasis mine. Driving is a privilege. It can be revoked at any time for any cause that the elected government deems reasonable.

But your inalienable rights are not privileges. They cannot be revoked.

Police checkpoints by themselves do not violate any rights. But the methods of selection and screening at the checkpoints may.

Of course, I agree that associating checkpoints with free speech zones is a rather broad leap. It is wrong in the same way that the airport security lines by themselves do not violate anybody's rights, but the (current) method of screening by the TSA does. Now free speech zones and say, the no-fly list are far closer. Speech is a right. Travel is also a right.

Comment Re:Can we dumb it down some more? (Score 1) 144

Then they applied magnetic field on both paths.

They applied the magnetic field to each path separately. They saw no change when the magnetic field was applied to the upper path, but they saw a change when it was applied to the lower path.

The way you state it, it's a bit confusing as to what they actually did with the magnetic field.

Comment Re:Who would still want to work there? (Score 1) 66

Um, what? How will they lose their best people? Via layoffs? That's possible, but it's also possible they'll lose a chunk of dead weight in the middle layers.

A lot of the most talented people don't care who they work for, as long as the pay's good and the job's interesting. And Microsoft has a lot of cash.

Initiating a change to a stagnant or destructive corporate culture is a good thing. Whether the results will be beneficial or even more destructive remains to be seen.

Comment Re:Hardly a shocker (Score 2) 45

Given how pro-patent the Federal Circuit has been in the past, this is noteworthy. Remember that it was the Federal Circuit who opened the gateway for software and business method patents.

I have a suspicion the supremes are a bit peeved at them right now for all the shitty decisions they've been making since the 90's, and they really are concerned that their authority will be undermined by the SCOTUS' recent decisions and the lower courts applying them.

The way I see it, this is basically them saying, "Hey everybody, we're still relevant!"

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