http://xkcd.com/703/

Right, this was probably an expensive INS (e.g. ring laser gyro) + GPS system. I imagine they would use something like this for a prototype, because they can get precise acceleration information without having to recalibrate after changes to the vehicle. The good news is that it is easy to get acceleration data for cars because they only have one axis of rotation, and they have wheels that are always on the ground. For production cars with this sort of technology, they can probably just use the speedometer along with something that measures how much the front wheels are turned. Maybe they will throw in a cheap INS to detect loss of wheel traction or otherwise improve the quality of the speed/acceleration data.

Of course, this only helps for navigation, which is probably the easiest part of the problem. Collision avoidance would probably be done with cameras, radar, ultrasonic ranging, etc.

This is great! I've been looking for a new metaphor for my current software project. The "two story outhouse" metaphor wasn't quite working anymore.

My line is "I assert nothing." I don't believe anything is true unless I can prove it using mathematics. If I need any information that cannot be obtained by proof, I just do the best that I can, and I accept that my information may be incorrect.

Why exactly is telling people MORE about the product they are buying a bad thing?

Passing a law that requires anybody to do anything is always a bad thing. We should only do this if we expect the collective benefit derived from the new law significantly outweighs the harm to the adversely affected individuals. Keep in mind what is going on here: the court is not going to decide what information phone companies are allowed to publish or people are allowed to obtain. The court is only going to decide whether stores are required to display this information.

In my opinion, the law is not helpful, so it should be removed. If manufacturers want to publish information about phones or educate the public, then they are free to do so. If some people are concerned about phone radiation and they want to research the power output of phones before buying them, then they are free to do so. Until we see convincing research that shows that cell phone radiation is harmful, this arrangement should be good enough.

Great idea! Unfortunately, such an app would require a working antenna on the device.

You don't need to navigate using a browser on an HTPC. You can use the (fully supported (for now)) Hulu Desktop application and browse using a remote control. You can even set up a launcher in Windows Media Center to launch the program so you never need a keyboard. It works fine and my wife uses it all the time. Though I would definitely prefer better integration with Media Center.

Regardless of how our payment processing technology progresses, we will always need a secure and private mechanism that allows us to purchase (or possibly sell) something. I have seen people try to jump through all sorts of cryptographic hoops in order to develop such a system, but nothing is more simple and effective than simply taking something out your wallet and giving it to someone in exchange for the thing that you want to purchase.

It makes little sense to classify anything as evil or not evil. Morality is complicated, and people have vastly different and often conflicting motivations.

It's just as well. I'm never invited to those sorts of parties anyway.

If you have any interest in this stuff, go watch Cosmos! It's all on Hulu and its free (if your country is allowed access).

If you are not allowed to access Hulu, you can still see episodes of Cosmos on the view screen of your space ship of the imagination.

If we want efficient code, we have to figure out ways to reward the programmers that write it. I don't see any sign that people anywhere are interested in doing this. Anyone have suggestions for how it might be done?

"Efficiency" is accomplished by including some software requirements involving time, memory/disk usage, etc. If nobody is interested in doing this, then that means it isn't important to the project. There are some large classes of projects (e.g. embedded systems, real-time systems) that always these performance requirements, because they are important.

Keep in mind that efficiency isn't the only desirable property of software. If I am tasked with implementing some new functionality, and I don't have any documented performance requirements, I will write code in a way that maximizes maintainability at the expense of performance. Maintainability is another valuable property and it is often at odds with efficiency.

After all, they don't care if they sell ALL their tickets, just that they make a profit, so the more they buy, the higher they can set *their* per ticket price, and the fewer overall they'd have to sell.

So, how is that different from the way the concert producer sells tickets? The concert producer has exactly as much power to "artificially" influence the demand by selling fewer tickets (e.g. at a smaller venue), reducing the availability of the tickets (e.g. you have to stand in line for a day or win a contest with your local radio station) and altering the ticket price. So both the scalper and the producer are selling tickets, while doing what it takes to make a profit. The only major difference is the concert producer has enough money to buy favorable laws.

I'd love an electric assist bike because my current bike commute is on 5 miles of dedicated bike trail sandwiched between some fairly dangerous road travel (1 mile to get from my house to the trail, 1 mile to get from the trail to work). I would feel a lot safer if I could use the electric assist on the roads so I would be going closer to the speed of traffic while traveling uphill. While traveling on the trail or while traveling downhill on the road, I would turn off the electric assist and just pedal.

What prevents me from buying such a bike is the concern that I wouldn't be allowed to ride it on the bikeways even if I am not using the electric assist at the time. I'm paying attention to how the laws shape up around this.

Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, says Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation

There are two possible realities associated with this statement:

• There are intro computer science courses out there in which students learn how to do word processing and spreadsheeting.
• A program director at the NSF doesn't know the difference between courses on "computer science" and "business computer applications."

I don't know which reality is worse.