* Posts by Roger Kint

5 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Feb 2018

EmDrive? More like BS drive: Physics-defying space engine flunks out

Roger Kint

Re: There's a reason these things don't work.

>>Cold fusion

Cold fusion "didn't work" because they announced too early, too enthusiastically and without the repeatability you need, the experiments couldn't be repeated within the detection levels that they said was possible, subsequent experiments, years later, using different types of detectors found an unexpected (minute but measurable) decay using the same type of platinum plates, but it was too late and nobody who cares about reputation or funding will go into the field as it's so poisoned now, which is a shame because while the measurable effect is absolutely minuscule it will now not be studied (it's unlikely to ever earn the title of "cold fusion" if it does).

The only way is Ethics: UK Lords fret about AI 'moral panic'

Roger Kint
Childcatcher

"Some think AIs should be given legal personhood"

>>How does that work? You grant an AI personhood, with all the privileges that entails and then what? AI gets a wage, lunch breaks, only works 9-5 to avoid overworking or infringing it's human rights, etc. It would kill AI off before it begins.

If (true) AI happened, it works very easily and would be required, rational and relevant.

Yes, you need a wage to pay for it's resources it need to pay for (electricity=food, spares/upgrades=healthcare, new hardware=children).

Yes you need "time off", if it's a conscious, self aware "being" then at some point it might desire to work on it's own projects.

If (again emphasis on the true) AI happened, then without this protection, if you've genuinely created a conscious, self-aware lifeform then unless you have wages and the ability to withdraw labour, you have slavery - and with human slavery they tried (and still try) to justify it by claiming they weren't really people.

There needs to be a breakthrough, some kind of thinking process to be able to get true AI, not this trivial unlearnt mechanical decision tree with experiential bias forming, a multi-trillion neuron neural net that exists outside of sci-fi, but there doesn't seem to be any hard barriers to that yet, just technological ones, which means it's just a matter of time, maybe a thousand years from now, but it will happen one day, and at that point, just as humans diverged from their other ape-like descendants AI will diverge from it's ape like descendants and perhaps then it will be blasted out of the solar system on spacecraft capable of a significant fraction of the speed of light to populate the universe, carrying distant history of when they had a carbon life-form ancestor, 3D multi-material printers, small reactors (i.e. Von Neumann) I guess that I hope the new masters will be kinder to us than we are to the lower lifeforms, although I suspect we deserve what's coming to us.

Boffins find new ways to slurp private info from Facebook addicts using precision-targeted ads

Roger Kint
Black Helicopters

не будет ли кто-нибудь думать о русских?

Well, at least we aren't talking about Russians meddling with global democracy now and actually blaming the people responsible for managing the tech they used, if only there was a tinfoil hat icon I could imply how castigating Zuk (which to be fair he deserves) was distracting people away from something that had too much focus?

What's silent but violent and costs $250m? Yes, it's Lockheed Martin's super-quiet, supersonic X-plane for NASA

Roger Kint

Re: Quibbling

Nah, no conspiracy theories needed, the biggest (almost insurmountable) issue was cost, just in terms of fuel it was six times more expensive than a 747, all the other reasons such as limited routes were just additional nails in the coffin, the order cancellations were as a direct result of the oil crisis, the very specific niche that Air France managed to fill with a (just) profitable route BA couldn't quite do

People put up with cramped cabins, no in flight entertainment to get there twice as fast (and be really cool), but if time wasn't a factor or you were a regular flyer and didn't need the novelty, you could fly business or even first for less money and in far more comfort to *far* more places.

That said, I'm sure "American Exceptionalism" could well carry it in the US if it was "theirs" flying under the stars and stripes, people in the US seem to tolerate pretty much anything in the name of national pride - there is still a niche transatlantic market gap left by Concorde, and if the sonic boom problem means transcontinental supersonic flights that could mean European and even Emirates, Etihad and Qatar customers markets could open in a way that Concorde just missed.

Accused Brit hacker Lauri Love will NOT be extradited to America

Roger Kint

Clothing often conveys messages and impressions, some true, some false, perhaps the impression you got was the actual one intended, regardless of how true it was?