motters

98 ms·

901.
by motters 16y ago
Interesting as a media-grabbing stunt, but not terribly useful. There might be applications in reconnaissance for emergency services or police, but that market is not very significant. Really roboticists need to be focussing their efforts
902.
The Forer effect(en.wikipedia.org)
3 points by motters 16y ago|2 comments
903.
by motters 16y ago
In that scenario the user is totally disempowered and at the mercy of unaccountable masters. It's that sort of tyranny over users that Apple played upon with its original 1984 ad.
904.
by motters 16y ago
This doesn't say what constitutes a copyright infringement. For example I'm viewing the BBC web site, and by doing so I'm downloading images that I certainly don't own the copyright on. Also, secret blacklists and the ability of politician
905.
by motters 16y ago
> What happens when we don't have cell reception or and Internet connection? This is a good point, and you can be certain that in any future wars/conflicts disabling "the cloud" will be a primary objective. My advice would be to by all
906.
by motters 16y ago
It's good to hear that Facebook is addressing the privacy issues, but it's a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. A lot of information which people believed to be private has already been disclosed, and they'll have t
907.
by motters 16y ago
Under "misuse" I would include things like: Use of robots for the purpose of prosecuting a war crime Use of robots to carry out an act of terrorism Indiscriminate use of deadly force by autonomous robots Use of autonomous robots in a milita
908.
by motters 16y ago
That's the crux of the problem - that most people's mental model of what's public and private doesn't fit with the way that Facebook is currently arranged. Where there's dissonance people are going to get caught out, embarrassed, outed, sa
909.
by motters 16y ago
They're only horrific if they're misused. Robots like this will also have plenty of non-military applications - especially in agriculture. Legged locomotion opens up the possibility of cultivating land which was previously inaccessible to
910.
by motters 16y ago
I wouldn't be too hard on Google, because they're probably one of the less evil of the well known software companies and have done a lot to support free software. Relative to Microsoft or Apple they look positively saintly.
911.
by motters 16y ago
It was a long time ago, but I remember having a conversation with the chief draughtsman at one company and him explaining with a tone of weary resignation how he needed to spend a large amount of money buying upgrades for AutoCAD even thoug
912.
by motters 16y ago
I remember probably a decade ago being told by CAD people how much companies pay to run AutoCAD, and being completely shocked. I never realised there was any software so expensive. Based upon my observations in several engineering compani
913.
ESR's Guide to Hacking With GPS(gpsd.berlios.de)
3 points by motters 16y ago|0 comments
914.
BP oil slick from space(nasa.gov)
1 points by motters 16y ago|0 comments
915.
by motters 16y ago
I'm thinking in terms of programming languages rather than products from particular companies. Recently I've gone back to using C/C++ and might also start using Python. As far as I know there are no software patent issues with those langu
916.
by motters 16y ago
I still think that Wave was nice as an idea, but that the implementation of it was poor. Unfortunately many people have completely dismissed it due to the slow and buggy user experience, but with more effort put into making a fast and ergo
917.
by motters 16y ago
I say this with some reluctance because I've written quite a lot of Mono/C# code, but to me this absolutely proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the software patent threat from Microsoft is real and not just some abstract academic debate
918.
by motters 16y ago
Having a kickstand or third wheel deployed when battery voltage gets low, or perhaps just when the robot has been static for a while to save on power, does make sense and if this is a separate piece of electronics then that's probably good
919.
by motters 16y ago
Sounds like the dot com business model all over again.
920.
by motters 16y ago
As a roboticist here's my 2p worth. $15K is on the pricey side, but for some industrial inspection tasks I can imagine this being a cost which can be justified. For just meeting folks in the office I'm not sure that many businesses are goi
921.
by motters 16y ago
Really it should be the opposite way around. Anything on facebook should be private by default (only viewable by friends), with an opt-in to make it public (anyone on the internet can see it). Only a minority of the population are exhibit
922.
by motters 16y ago
Probably the best example of why Facebook's privacy policy is broken. If you do a search for "drunken" I'm sure that most of these people only intended the photos to be viewed by their friends. Such material could easily be used to embarr
923.
BP oil slick(youtube.com)
49 points by motters 16y ago|39 comments
924.
by motters 16y ago
I agree. Other than trying to avoid phishing scams and using sensible passwords there's not much that the user can do to improve their digital security, especially in the era of cloud computing where much of what goes on from a software pe
925.
Squeezing maximum computes per watt out of the Sheeva plug computer(earth.org.uk)
2 points by motters 16y ago|0 comments
926.
by motters 16y ago
Those of us who have been around in the software industry for a while usually have some experience of being shafted, or left high and dry, by a particular software product or company. The most pernicious activity that I've seen is the "pay
927.
by motters 16y ago
I doubt that proprietary software will ever really go away, but I think that its importance will diminish over time as the heap of free software grows ever larger. Over time the issue of freedom in the digital domain has become increasingly
928.
by motters 16y ago
"Don't post it if you don't want it to be public" surely implies that email is a public broadcasting medium. Technically this is true, but that's not how most people think of email, including businesses and legal entities.
929.
by motters 16y ago
Indeed. Most ordinary Facebook users who are not avid followers of tech news probably have very little idea about these things, and just assume that "it's me and my friends". The appearance of Facebook does little or nothing to give the i
930.
by motters 16y ago
That's the difference between education and training. Computer science is supposed to teach you the science of computing - it's not supposed to be a training course teaching you job skills. Once you graduate that's only the beginning, not

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