I was thinking more along the lines of the simple "herd behavior" rules that get used in animation these days. IIRC, there are two parameters in that model and by adjusting them you get all of running herd of herbivores, swimming school of fish, and flying flock of birds. Given distance sensors, it ought to be straightforward (I avoid "simple") to have rules that, if followed by each vehicle individually, give rise to cooperative behavior.
My father was a field auditor and safety engineer for most of twenty years, putting on >50K miles per year, and never had an accident. At the first opportunity after I got my license, he made me chauffeur him around for a week to, as he said, "put some polish on." One of the points he pounded at me all that week was that driving in traffic, particularly heavy traffic, is a herd endeavor, not a solitary one. Good self-driving software is going to have to be able to handle that, until we get to the day when most of the cars are autonomous.
@jaybird
Dude, that's what you always say. I think you underestimate all of the difficulties of making a product, the size of the market, and willingness to pay. There are big players (ArcGIS, MapInfo) with polished tools and substantial development staffs. There are professional cartographers. There are graphic design folks who will take the output of any of those and make it really slick with Illustrator. What I have here is the beginnings of a set of tools that let people who can't afford all of that do "simple" things. I know what I would say to someone who showed up asking for an investment whose business plan was "We're going to sell something of interest to a limited number of people who can't afford to buy the bright, shiny products."
The obvious question from a non-lawyer would seem to be, "Does it matter that 'The Slants' is a name chosen by a group of Asian-Americans for themselves, while 'the Redskins' was chosen by a group of white men for a group of (now, at least) predominantly black players?"
It's not about the end (mastery), it's about the process :^) My cartogram software will never be "finished" -- there will always be another feature that could be added, or something that could be done better, or...
And E. R. Burroughs a bit later. My grandmother had a walk-in closet in her house that was filled with paperback books, sans front covers. As a kid I read all of the Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Tarzan series. Amazingly, they are all still in print today.
I don't know about Chris's reasons, but my biggest problem in theaters is that I've reached that unfortunate point in life when the sound level needed to understand has gone up, and the sound level that causes discomfort has come down. The lower bound gets challenged by the background noise that seems to have become more common. Sound limiters for the high end are uncomfortable when worn that long. The wife and I will no doubt watch the Blu-Ray or DVD when it comes out, but with the audio run through some form of dynamic range limiter.
This is the first Hamilton I've read. I would definitely put it in the airport novel category. Once upon a time I realized I was probably an expert on airport novels -- I found that I had a shelf in one of the bookcases with a double row of the darned paperbacks, all purchased in airport book shops around the US.
I enjoy reading the thoughts of people who encountered Star Wars as a kid. When the original came out, I was already a grad student. It was still cool, but I was already mostly a grown-up.
Anyway, I finished Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and have started the sequel. It's not that it's that good, but the story moves along nicely, and when something has this many moving parts I'm curious to see if the writer can actually tie things up reasonably.
One of the marginal arguments is that, contrary to popular belief, crude oil isn't fungible. There's heavy and light, sour and sweet, varying levels of heavy metal content. Refineries are to some degree specialized in what kind of crude they handle best. For example, Valero opted to emphasize handling heavy, sour crudes at its refineries. At one point when light crude supplies were declining sharply, that appeared to be a brilliant move -- until the glut of US shale oil, which is almost all light. There are some (probably minor) efficiencies from being able to match crudes to refinery capabilities more closely. Eg, with US light crude on the global market, Asian refineries that do best with light crude would buy more of that and less heavy crudes, lowering the price of Valero's inputs.
One of the big things more water gets you is durability. If you want turf thick enough to stand up to kids and pets (large dogs in particular), you've got to feed and water it. There are some varieties that will stay green(ish) with little water, but they're fragile. Ditto for grass that you let go dormant -- it's not growing when it's brown, and the damage accumulates.
Yes. I remember those ancient days, when places where you could get donuts at 7:15 on the way to work, or at 11:30 at night if the mood struck, were few and far between. Lots of bakeries that had better donuts, but they were only open for regular business hours. Can't speak to their coffee then -- coffee has always done nasty things to my insides, so I avoid it.
And amazing how often the miners proper are complaining bitterly about the people who have settled on the big asteroids and now monopolize the trade in hydrogen for the fusion reactors, markets for the mined ore, repair facilities that can replace some piece of exotic hardware that can't be jury-rigged, etc. Prospectors have always been hugely dependent on cities... as any casual study of the history of the American West would demonstrate.
So, then, are you just whining, or do you have a plan? Everyone's entitled to whine -- I certainly do my fair share of that. And I'm always interested in hearing about practical plans.
The whole system was set up 200+ years ago on the principle that a small group would decide for the rest of us. The whole thing was "Cast your vote for your US Representative, your state legislatures and governor, and every four years for electors. Then shut up and do what you're told." Hell, direct election of US Senators only happened when things were within a very few states of calling a Constitutional Convention, despite the very high hurdle on that. At about the same time, citizen initiatives and recalls at the state levels were a radical new idea.
I'm not remarking on it good or bad, just pointing out that that's what happened (and continues to happen, all over the world). My personal opinion is that economic libertarianism in the US died when the frontier closed, although the corpse is still thrashing. Last night's debate was terrifying to me because it looks very much like civil libertarianism, even for the privileged groups in the US, is about to die.
This past summer I drove across the Great Plains with an about-to-turn-two granddaughter. For her, it was Lilo and Stitch [1]. We also planned on 90 minutes for lunch and a couple of other lengthy rest stops where there could be a bunch of running about. Oh, and tried to schedule things so that we were getting into the car at her normal nap times -- she dropped off to sleep pretty quickly.
[1] There's a market out there for a movie player app that's (a) almost impossible to get out of and (b) has controls to start/stop the playback and to make modest adjustments in the volume, but no more than that.
It's all part of the same trend. For the last hundred years or so, the developed countries of the world have decided that, as they got richer, there was a growing list of things that would be made available to everyone, not just the well-to-do. So we got modest public pensions, much more affordable access to college, guaranteed access to health care for (at least) some parts of the population, clean air, clean water, and so on. In the case of previously poor countries that reached developed status, at some point they all decided to do the same thing. The accounting for it differs from country to country, but there's no question about what's happened.
Resistance was most pronounced in the United States, with the net result that the same services are much more expensive to provide than in the other developed countries.
I agree with you about liberalism being the result of people feeling conservatism is wrong for the country, but how are you bringing those people along, getting them to see that what you want is indeed right for the country?
If you'll grant me the assumption that there's a strong correlation between the liberal/conservative split and the urban/rural split, then... Crop price supports, subsidized crop insurance, subsidized infrastructure from electricity under the REA to broadband under RUS and everything in between. School district equalization funds that keep rural schools going. More states than not have been running programs to try to maintain or increase rural health care services for decades. As an interesting one, satellite television at the same price everyone pays (you wouldn't believe what the satellite companies originally intended to charge customers who were beyond the reach of cable). There's at least an arguable case for liberals saying, "If you want us to help you pay for the parts of modernity that you like, you have to accept some parts that you're not so fond of."
Somewhat to Kolohe's point, there's plenty of federal employment in the Denver metro area -- big ones include the Denver Federal Center, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ball Aerospace, and NIST/NOAA/NCAR/NREL just off the top of my head. But they're not why Douglas County is rich.
A third of Douglas County's population is in the very well-to-do Highlands Ranch. More than half lives in HR and the other towns along the northern boundary of the county. Any gap between those and the southern Denver suburbs disappeared years ago. In fact, some of the big southern suburbs -- Littleton, Aurora -- now extend into Douglas County somewhat.
Re the last couple of sentences, they may also be in the situation that if the employment went away and it took them a year to find a new position, there would have to be significant changes in expenditures. Somewhere recently I read a piece about families with a quarter-million or more in annual income who were effectively living paycheck to paycheck.
Not much. Most of Douglas County's rich folks work in the huge array of tech, finance, and high-end business services that has spread out from the Denver Tech Center.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Who Will Win the Driverless Car War?”
I was thinking more along the lines of the simple "herd behavior" rules that get used in animation these days. IIRC, there are two parameters in that model and by adjusting them you get all of running herd of herbivores, swimming school of fish, and flying flock of birds. Given distance sensors, it ought to be straightforward (I avoid "simple") to have rules that, if followed by each vehicle individually, give rise to cooperative behavior.
"
My father was a field auditor and safety engineer for most of twenty years, putting on >50K miles per year, and never had an accident. At the first opportunity after I got my license, he made me chauffeur him around for a week to, as he said, "put some polish on." One of the points he pounded at me all that week was that driving in traffic, particularly heavy traffic, is a herd endeavor, not a solitary one. Good self-driving software is going to have to be able to handle that, until we get to the day when most of the cars are autonomous.
On “So You Want To Draw a Cartogram”
...because that schtuff is monetizable.
@jaybird
Dude, that's what you always say. I think you underestimate all of the difficulties of making a product, the size of the market, and willingness to pay. There are big players (ArcGIS, MapInfo) with polished tools and substantial development staffs. There are professional cartographers. There are graphic design folks who will take the output of any of those and make it really slick with Illustrator. What I have here is the beginnings of a set of tools that let people who can't afford all of that do "simple" things. I know what I would say to someone who showed up asking for an investment whose business plan was "We're going to sell something of interest to a limited number of people who can't afford to buy the bright, shiny products."
On “A Belated Hanukkah Gift For A Wealthy Man”
The obvious question from a non-lawyer would seem to be, "Does it matter that 'The Slants' is a name chosen by a group of Asian-Americans for themselves, while 'the Redskins' was chosen by a group of white men for a group of (now, at least) predominantly black players?"
On “So You Want To Draw a Cartogram”
It's not about the end (mastery), it's about the process :^) My cartogram software will never be "finished" -- there will always be another feature that could be added, or something that could be done better, or...
"
You don't think hunting counts?
On “Fandom Über Alles”
And E. R. Burroughs a bit later. My grandmother had a walk-in closet in her house that was filled with paperback books, sans front covers. As a kid I read all of the Barsoom, Pellucidar, and Tarzan series. Amazingly, they are all still in print today.
On “I hate to say it, but…”
I don't know about Chris's reasons, but my biggest problem in theaters is that I've reached that unfortunate point in life when the sound level needed to understand has gone up, and the sound level that causes discomfort has come down. The lower bound gets challenged by the background noise that seems to have become more common. Sound limiters for the high end are uncomfortable when worn that long. The wife and I will no doubt watch the Blu-Ray or DVD when it comes out, but with the audio run through some form of dynamic range limiter.
On “Sunday!; or, Maribou’s Star Wars Review; or, A Love Letter from Me in 2015 to Me in 1984”
This is the first Hamilton I've read. I would definitely put it in the airport novel category. Once upon a time I realized I was probably an expert on airport novels -- I found that I had a shelf in one of the bookcases with a double row of the darned paperbacks, all purchased in airport book shops around the US.
"
I enjoy reading the thoughts of people who encountered Star Wars as a kid. When the original came out, I was already a grad student. It was still cool, but I was already mostly a grown-up.
Anyway, I finished Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and have started the sequel. It's not that it's that good, but the story moves along nicely, and when something has this many moving parts I'm curious to see if the writer can actually tie things up reasonably.
On “Linky Friday #145: Politics In Everything”
One of the marginal arguments is that, contrary to popular belief, crude oil isn't fungible. There's heavy and light, sour and sweet, varying levels of heavy metal content. Refineries are to some degree specialized in what kind of crude they handle best. For example, Valero opted to emphasize handling heavy, sour crudes at its refineries. At one point when light crude supplies were declining sharply, that appeared to be a brilliant move -- until the glut of US shale oil, which is almost all light. There are some (probably minor) efficiencies from being able to match crudes to refinery capabilities more closely. Eg, with US light crude on the global market, Asian refineries that do best with light crude would buy more of that and less heavy crudes, lowering the price of Valero's inputs.
"
One of the big things more water gets you is durability. If you want turf thick enough to stand up to kids and pets (large dogs in particular), you've got to feed and water it. There are some varieties that will stay green(ish) with little water, but they're fragile. Ditto for grass that you let go dormant -- it's not growing when it's brown, and the damage accumulates.
On “Talk to me like I’m stupid”
Yes. I remember those ancient days, when places where you could get donuts at 7:15 on the way to work, or at 11:30 at night if the mood struck, were few and far between. Lots of bakeries that had better donuts, but they were only open for regular business hours. Can't speak to their coffee then -- coffee has always done nasty things to my insides, so I avoid it.
On “Market Failure 5: Imperfect Information (When life hands you lemons, call your mechanic)”
And amazing how often the miners proper are complaining bitterly about the people who have settled on the big asteroids and now monopolize the trade in hydrogen for the fusion reactors, markets for the mined ore, repair facilities that can replace some piece of exotic hardware that can't be jury-rigged, etc. Prospectors have always been hugely dependent on cities... as any casual study of the history of the American West would demonstrate.
"
So, then, are you just whining, or do you have a plan? Everyone's entitled to whine -- I certainly do my fair share of that. And I'm always interested in hearing about practical plans.
"
The whole system was set up 200+ years ago on the principle that a small group would decide for the rest of us. The whole thing was "Cast your vote for your US Representative, your state legislatures and governor, and every four years for electors. Then shut up and do what you're told." Hell, direct election of US Senators only happened when things were within a very few states of calling a Constitutional Convention, despite the very high hurdle on that. At about the same time, citizen initiatives and recalls at the state levels were a radical new idea.
"
I'm not remarking on it good or bad, just pointing out that that's what happened (and continues to happen, all over the world). My personal opinion is that economic libertarianism in the US died when the frontier closed, although the corpse is still thrashing. Last night's debate was terrifying to me because it looks very much like civil libertarianism, even for the privileged groups in the US, is about to die.
On “Traveling with Children”
This past summer I drove across the Great Plains with an about-to-turn-two granddaughter. For her, it was Lilo and Stitch [1]. We also planned on 90 minutes for lunch and a couple of other lengthy rest stops where there could be a bunch of running about. Oh, and tried to schedule things so that we were getting into the car at her normal nap times -- she dropped off to sleep pretty quickly.
[1] There's a market out there for a movie player app that's (a) almost impossible to get out of and (b) has controls to start/stop the playback and to make modest adjustments in the volume, but no more than that.
On “Market Failure 5: Imperfect Information (When life hands you lemons, call your mechanic)”
It's all part of the same trend. For the last hundred years or so, the developed countries of the world have decided that, as they got richer, there was a growing list of things that would be made available to everyone, not just the well-to-do. So we got modest public pensions, much more affordable access to college, guaranteed access to health care for (at least) some parts of the population, clean air, clean water, and so on. In the case of previously poor countries that reached developed status, at some point they all decided to do the same thing. The accounting for it differs from country to country, but there's no question about what's happened.
Resistance was most pronounced in the United States, with the net result that the same services are much more expensive to provide than in the other developed countries.
On “Food for Thought”
I agree with you about liberalism being the result of people feeling conservatism is wrong for the country, but how are you bringing those people along, getting them to see that what you want is indeed right for the country?
If you'll grant me the assumption that there's a strong correlation between the liberal/conservative split and the urban/rural split, then... Crop price supports, subsidized crop insurance, subsidized infrastructure from electricity under the REA to broadband under RUS and everything in between. School district equalization funds that keep rural schools going. More states than not have been running programs to try to maintain or increase rural health care services for decades. As an interesting one, satellite television at the same price everyone pays (you wouldn't believe what the satellite companies originally intended to charge customers who were beyond the reach of cable). There's at least an arguable case for liberals saying, "If you want us to help you pay for the parts of modernity that you like, you have to accept some parts that you're not so fond of."
On “Only the Right Believes in Class Conflict Anymore”
Somewhat to Kolohe's point, there's plenty of federal employment in the Denver metro area -- big ones include the Denver Federal Center, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ball Aerospace, and NIST/NOAA/NCAR/NREL just off the top of my head. But they're not why Douglas County is rich.
"
A third of Douglas County's population is in the very well-to-do Highlands Ranch. More than half lives in HR and the other towns along the northern boundary of the county. Any gap between those and the southern Denver suburbs disappeared years ago. In fact, some of the big southern suburbs -- Littleton, Aurora -- now extend into Douglas County somewhat.
"
A boat is a hole in the water into which you can throw an infinite amount of money.
"
Re the last couple of sentences, they may also be in the situation that if the employment went away and it took them a year to find a new position, there would have to be significant changes in expenditures. Somewhere recently I read a piece about families with a quarter-million or more in annual income who were effectively living paycheck to paycheck.
"
Not much. Most of Douglas County's rich folks work in the huge array of tech, finance, and high-end business services that has spread out from the Denver Tech Center.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.