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Comment Re: No 3,5 mm audio jack?!?!? (Score 1) 124

What? Really? Someone needs to go back and learn some basic E/M theory. Inducing a signal on both lines would result in a net zero for the load, because both sides of the load would be driven equally..

Um, that is what I said happens to a balanced connection.
Unlike an unbalanced connection where one wire is shared.

Speaker wires are a completely different beast, with enormously more power.

Comment Re: No 3,5 mm audio jack?!?!? (Score 1) 124

Balanced output especially for portable headphones has a rather large effect on sound quality, perhaps most of all because the thin wires of portable headphones are susceptible to noise, and with a balanced output, any EM noise hitting both wires cancel exactly out. And it allows for higher voltage differential, which further raises the noise ceiling.

Comment Re:No Headphone Jack, No Sale (Score 1) 124

if the power circuit is internally reduced to -40 (ie has soaked ambient heat overnight) it's hard to expect much of the chemistry, if it's urgent I guess jam it in your pants or armpit.

One problem with many capacitive touch displays is that they stop working if your hands are cold and dry.

Comment Re:Autonomous bikes and scooters??? (Score 1) 76

Agreed - however, the leaning of the passenger is also a big component of the stability of most two-wheel vehicles. Not having that, most autonomous two-wheel vehicles need to add a gyroscopic balancing system.

As kids, we had fun pushing our bicycles off a small hilltop and watched how they stayed upright - the one that got the farthest would "win". Most made it all the way, and my best friend had a bike that hardly ever fell over until it was at a standstill. Looking at it with hindsight, I suspect that his bike had a sharp enough front angle and heavy enough frame that it would auto-adjust better.

Comment Re:Autonomous bikes and scooters??? (Score 2) 76

Gyroscope.

This is what most people think is the reason why bikes tend to stay stable. It's also mostly wrong.
Sure, if running really fast with heavy wheeled motorbikes, the gyrostabilization effect is noticeable. But it's negligible for light bikes at lower speeds or smaller wheels.
The main reason is how the front frame is angled. As long as a bike is going forward, a dip to the side combined with the rider's weight will angle the steering towards the middle, which helps right the bike.

This is something to look for when buying the first bike for a toddler. The more angled back the steering column is, the more stable it will be. A chopper is far more stable than a pennyfarthing.

Comment Re:War on Drugs (Score 1) 355

We put more people in jail because of the war on drugs.

Only around 1 of 5 of the US prison population has drug charges as the only or main reason. Both property crime and violent crime have far more incarcerations.
https://static.prisonpolicy.or...

The ratio of incarcerations to the general population is sky high in the US compared to other countries even if every single one of the drug convicts were released.

There are many factors why the US has such a high number of inmates, including a for-profit prison system, elected judges (nobody will get elected on a promise to be more lenient than hard), but probably most of all inequality.

AI

AI is Sending People To Jail -- and Getting it Wrong (technologyreview.com) 355

At the Data for Black Lives conference last weekend, technologists, legal experts, and community activists snapped the kind of impact AI has on our lives into perspective with a discussion of America's criminal justice system. There, an algorithm can determine the trajectory of your life. From a report: The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world. At the end of 2016, nearly 2.2 million adults were being held in prisons or jails, and an additional 4.5 million were in other correctional facilities. Put another way, 1 in 38 adult Americans was under some form of correctional supervision. The nightmarishness of this situation is one of the few issues that unite politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Under immense pressure to reduce prison numbers without risking a rise in crime, courtrooms across the US have turned to automated tools in attempts to shuffle defendants through the legal system as efficiently and safely as possible. This is where the AI part of our story begins. Police departments use predictive algorithms to strategize about where to send their ranks. Law enforcement agencies use face recognition systems to help identify suspects. These practices have garnered well-deserved scrutiny for whether they in fact improve safety or simply perpetuate existing inequities.

Researchers and civil rights advocates, for example, have repeatedly demonstrated that face recognition systems can fail spectacularly, particularly for dark-skinned individuals -- even mistaking members of Congress for convicted criminals. But the most controversial tool by far comes after police have made an arrest. Say hello to criminal risk assessment algorithms.

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"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc

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