Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Wind, Solar and Batteries are cheaper and clean (Score 1) 138

Baseload is a myth. Energy demand varies greatly each day and nuclear only goes at one speed.

Baseload isn't a myth, though the baseload is a small fraction of maximum consumption. It's also not true that nuclear can't load-follow, in the sense that there is nothing inherent in fission power that prevents it from being capable of load-following. It is true that older commercial nuclear plant designs can't load-follow.

High-level waste also isn't really a problem, though the much larger volume of low-level waste is somewhat problematic.

The real challenge for nuclear power is the cost. Nuclear power isn't inherently expensive, but regulations and opposition make it so. This is mostly driven by perceptions that nuclear power is very risky, which means tremendous effort is put into making it safe. The result is that it's demonstrably the safest form of power generation we have, but also among the most expensive. We could reduce the cost by reducing the safety requirements.

How expensive would it be if we reduced the required safety level to put it on par with other energy sources? I don't think anyone knows, and I doubt we'll ever know.

Comment Re:Enjoy it while it lasts (Score 1) 40

The cost savings will end when Arm jacks up licensing fees. Grsviton is gonna get hit too. ARM Ltd. is tired of watching their customers rake in all the revenue. And their Qualcomm lawsuit didn't work out. So Amazon, Google, MS, etc. are their next targets.

Hence Google's investment in RISC V. It's not yet competitive, but with some time and money it can become competitive. Also, ARM can't raise the prices too much because x86 is still right there.

Comment Re:On one hand (Score 1) 40

It is great to be platform agnostic. On the other hand, I sincerely doubt that the difference in energy consumption between x86-64 and ARM is significant enough to be a concern at Google, considering their market cap is literally three trillion dollars now.

You don't get to be a three trillion dollar company by saying "We have plenty of money so we don't need to be efficient". You also don't stay a three trillion dollar company that way.

Comment Re:it's a ridiculous and unreasonable rule (Score 1) 39

There is another one that sticks out to side and indicates that you should not go forward.

Not where I live. They do have a stop sign that flips out to the side.

I do not recommend passing a stopped bus, even if you do not hit anyone.

I'm wondering what I said that made you think I thought otherwise.

Comment Re:I still don't see how there's a basis to compla (Score 2) 36

The difference depends on context, of course.

Generally speaking there are several cases to consider:

(1) Site requires agreeing on terms of service before browser can access content. In this case, scraping is a clear violation.

(2) Site terms of service forbid scraping content, but human visitors can view content and ...
(2a) site takes technical measures to exclude bots. In this case scraping is a no-no, but for a different reason: it violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
(2b) site takes no technical measures to exclude bots. In this case, the answer is unclear, and may depend on the specific jurisdiction (e.g. circuit court).

(3) Site has a robots.txt file and ...
(3a) robots.txt allows scraping. In this case, even if the terms of service forbid scraping, the permission given here helps the scraper's defense.
(3b) robots.txt forbids scraping. In this case obeying robots.txt isn't in itself legally mandatory, but it may affect your case if the site takes other anti-scraping measures.

Comment Re:Shouldn't have circumcised those babies (Score 1) 58

Not *explicitly*. Offering such a database would be an invitation for people to look at the whole data broker industry. So what you, as a databroker who tracks and piegeonholes every human being who uses the Internet to a fare-the-well, do to tap into the market for lists of gullible yokels? You offer your customer, literally anyone with money, the ability to zero in on the gullible by choosing appropriate proxies.

For example, you can get a list of everyone who has searched for "purchasing real estate with no money down". Sad people who buy colloidal silver and herbal male enhancement products. People who buy terrible crypto assets like NFTs and memecoins. Nutters who spend a lot of time on conspiracy theory sites.

It's kind of like doxxing someone. You might not be able to find out directly that John Doe lives on Maple St and works for ACME services, but you can piece it together by the traces he leaves online. Only you do it to populations wholesale.

Comment Re:Waymo speeds through my school neighborhood (Score 1) 39

Sure the speed limit is 30, but we have tons of kids in the neighborhood and narrow streets due to parked cars (we are still in the heart of the coty). Everyone else travels at 20. Waymo regularly travels at 30mph. Maybe its lidar is detecting pedestrians and thinks it is safe, but just the other day I watched a kid run out from behind a parked car to catch a ball. No amount of lidar would catch that at the last minute.

Of course itâ(TM)s play fast, fail hard.. so change will not happen until a kid dies. Just hope it is not mine!

Have you pointed this out to Waymo? They're pretty responsive from what I've heard, and this is exactly the kind of thing they'd want to know about and update their model to consider, before a kid gets hit. Not only do they not want to kill kids because Waymo employees are humans, but it would also be horrendous PR that would seriously damage the company.

You can submit feedback through the Waymo app, regardless of whether or not you've used the service. There's probably also a way to report concerns through their web site.

One note: You might be surprised how good the cars are at noticing hidden dangers. I got a ride about ten years ago (when I worked for Google) and I was annoyed when a light turned green but my car just sat there... until about two seconds later when a cyclist came whizzing across the road in front of the car. There was a tall hedge in the way and I don't know how the car "saw" him -- no human driver would, the dude was asking to get squashed -- but it clearly did, and waited. My guess is that although LIDAR and cameras couldn't see through the hedge, RADAR could. Waymo uses LIDAR, RADAR, visual and infrared cameras and ultrasonic sensors so it's quite a bit better at "seeing" than any human could be. None of those can see a kid behind a parked car, though, so maybe they do need to update the model to be more careful in those circumstances.

Comment Re:it's a ridiculous and unreasonable rule (Score 2) 39

School buses even have a pole that sticks out the front of the bus so kids crossing the street have to go several feet in front of the bus so drivers who might be in the other lane can see the kids and they don't just appear in front of the bus.

I'm pretty sure the purpose of the pole is so the kids walk far enough in front of the bus that the bus driver can see them. Buses are tall and kids are short, so if a kid walks right in front of the bus they'll be hidden from the driver by the dashboard. If a bunch of kids disembark and several of them turn left out of the door, the driver would have to keep a very careful count to make sure they've accounted for all of the ones who could have turned left again, right in front of the bus and might be walking close enough to the nose that they're in that front blind spot. The pole makes the kids walk far enough in front of the bus before they turn in front of it that the driver can definitely see them.

It probably does help in the way you describe, but if that were the primary purpose the pole would be on the driver side.

Comment Re:TACO (Score 1) 82

It's a negotiating strategy outlined in "The Art of The Deal"...make a big, bold, over-reaching initial claim or ask (way beyond what you actually want), then "settle" back closer to the actual position you wanted in the first place as a "compromise".

It's really not. There is no plan, just a series of impulse-driven changes, shying away from the ones that cause problems that happen fast and are easy to see.

Comment Re:TACO (Score 1) 82

TACO backtracks again.

For the moment, until he randomly lurches in a different directly.

US policy looks like a drunken toddler staggering in random directions because that's exactly what's happening right now. The toddler bumps his head and lurches away from the pain, but the lesson doesn't stick.

The only answer for US business leaders right now is exactly what most of them are doing: hunkering down. No hiring, no expansion into other markets or offering new products, and cutting capex and opex wherever possible to build a cushion of cash to give them freedom to absorb whatever may happen in the future.

Slashdot Top Deals

Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit.

Working...