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Comment MY HOME (Score 1) 557

In thinking about a new home, I would look at industry and how wiring and water runs are done. See if you can have a wiring closet.

If a new technology arrives that requires fibre, or requires 12 volt distribution, I would certainly plan that new wiring could be done without having to break ceilings, or walls, other than at outlets.

And I would have a 200amp 220v entrance, (which is what I have in my home), and with today's technology, protection devices for lightning caused voltage surges and the like. I would get a few 1k watt UPS's and some car batteries and build a backup system in case of power loss that could cause freezer or fridge content loss. And I would look at a dual internet system one of which has vpn only access to a second system, Reserve this system for automation. You should be able to vpn from the www to check on the internal system.

And I would not overdo the spending. You still want to be able to live and to enjoy stress free living.

Comment Re:Is there a difference? (Score 1) 131

Don't know if parent is trolling or not, but I had a similar thought. I've heard that Canadian carriers are even worse than US carriers when it comes to device freedom (and pricing, and reliability, and just about everything else) and a thought occurred to me that there may be carrier pressure to force the end users to buy a new device.

If so, it wouldn't be a narrative I hadn't heard before. I was on Sprint about 2.5 years ago and they were rather vicious when it came to that kind of thing.

Canadian carriers are concerned about maintenance costs and skills that their telephone support people need to have. Ergo, they want you to use their products that their support staff know and love.

Comment Re:Simplistic (Score 1) 385

This is incredibly simplistic, like all kinds of analyses like this.

Anything that really requires a mind rather than a simple result of calculation or mechanical action will likely not be replaced without some big advance. More likely, we will just have better tools for certain jobs making them more higher level — it can let them get stuff done easier - so they can do more.

Will robots understand mood? Will they read body language, understand that dialated pupils to show happiness, or pin sized pupils to show "shutting out". Will robot tell mood in a voice that speaks fast, or sadness in a voice that has tones of sorrow? And will it tell hiccoughs from sobs.
There are things that only a human can do, because that human has empathy. Can you give empathy or kindness to a robot?
Are you sure?

Comment Re:other people's money (Score 1) 413

Medicare - before the new drug benefit that was explicitly barred from seeking good deals. Seems socialism's better than its reputation - except when crafted by Republicans who want it to look bad...

I live in Montreal, and I have medicare. My province pays for it if I travel to other provinces, as long as I return to Quebec within 180days or I have residency in Quebec. I sleep at night, my wife sleeps at night and we do not worry about losing a home if we need hospitalization or any prescribed medication. Yes there is a tax, but I am under a single payer system. My daughter has $30,000 per year injections for MS. Now tell me what advantages I would have in moving to a oligopoly (A country run by the ultimate rich -- Kochs, Walmarts, etc.). With today's war-ing Republican vs Democratic government, Abraham Lincoln corps is surely turning in his grave. There are two words you have to know in English "Gelt and Schmuck". If you don't have the first, you are the second.

Comment Re:Clean room implementation? (Score 1) 223

Yes. Exactly.

It's all about the term of copyright versus the term of patent. Patent lasts only twenty years at present, while copyright is effectively perpetual (whenever Pooh and Mickey might enter the public domain, the legislators fix it). If copyright governs interfaces, that part of the law will keep the government from stealing IP away from its rightful owners after twenty years.

Is it time to produce a new language that is not like Java syntax. Surely some variant of python or APL could do the job. APL was used in the 1980's and cloaked in a modern garb could replace Python and Java both.

 

Comment Re:You know what would REALLY motivate kids? (Score 1) 208

The possibility of a good paying job in software development when they graduate college. Maybe even with the company paying off their student loans for them.

Instead of the chance to compete against low-balling H1B applicants...

The possibility of a good paying job in software development when they graduate college. Maybe even with the company paying off their student loans for them.

Kids don't need computer science. Just as Cell phones dumb down students (because students become conditioned to not being able to concentrate), cell phones should be kept from children until the child is 20. Ditto for computers. Far to easy to google an answer than to learn to research or think out the answer on your own.

But that does not mean that word processors or spread sheets should be disallowed, they basic office software is the only software that should be on the curriculum.
 

Comment Re:Answer (Score 1) 336

NONE! Find a real language! *ducks*

For non-ducks, the most important things to know about C++ aren't list in the summery: RAII and shared_ptr<T>

C++ is not C. C++ written like C tends to be crap code - just an overly complex and distracting language for that coding style. If C++ is the right tool for the job, you need to be using a coding style very similar to C# and Java: throwing exception when errors are encountered, writing exception-safe code all the time, returning from functions in the middle, and never, ever, worrying about cleaning up at the bottom of a function what you allocate at the top.

If all of that sounds wrong to you, congrats, you're a C coder, and there's nothing wrong with that. Good C code is good code. But C++ is designed to be used with "scoped objects", that is, every object cleans itself up when you exit scope, so you really have to internalize the tools for that, and that mindset.

Good C++ code is code that reads well, and is easily maintained. How much C++ code is needed for a beginner?

Syntax/grammar, classes, templates, inheritance and polymorphism and ability to debug. Anything else is a plus

Comment Re:Funny, that spin... (Score 0) 421

In light of the fact that Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are not even remotely experts in A.I. your opinion is fairly odd.

Question: What role do people who think that AI research is dangerous hold in the field of AI research?

Answer: None...because regardless of their qualifications, they wouldn't further the progress of something they think is a very, very bad idea.

Asking AI experts whether or not they think AI research is a bad idea subjects your responses to a massive selection bias. And discounting the views of others because they don't specialize in creating the thing they think should not be created does the same. You do realize that at your core, that's your only point...not that Hawking is an idiot, or that Gates doesn't know anything about technology. It's just that they don't work in the field of AI, so therefore they must not have any inkling whatsoever as to what they're talking about.

Can we build an AI machine that has a soul. A soul is the socially created concept that allows us to distinguish good from bad, happy from sad, right from wrong, life from death and animate from inanimate.

Souls in living things are inherited. it would be nice to have that proof that it is inherent in the dna that is transferred from creator to createe .

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