Microsoft has in prototype form a “holoportation” communication system that, within certain limits, already produces better “holograms” than you see in the Star Wars movies. To make use of it, you have to be wearing VR goggles, so that’s a bit of a bummer, but the tech will no doubt soon enough be brought down to the eyeglass-level, then the contact lens, then direct retinal stimulation.
Snerk.
The October 30, 1967, issue of Aviation Week has two pages with interesting computer history. On one page is an article describing and illustrating progress at General Electric in developing a computer system that “draws” pictures ona TV screen… clearly very early computer animation. The objects shown can only be straight-edged polygons; the system was not capable of reproducing curved surfaces. The objects were limited to 240 edges. But it was capable of producing 20 to 30 images per second, more than adequate for real-time simulation purposes. So there you can see the beginnings of a massively important aspect of computer technology… from this and related work we get the pikes of modern flight simulators, video games and movies like Zootopia.
And on the other side of the page is an ad for a technology that I’ve never even heard of: computer memory systems made of “woven plated wires.” I think this is a variation of the “core rope memory” systems used in the 1960s, and could store a staggering 2,592 bits on a chunk about the size of a floppy disk. Unlike the computer graphics show on the preceding page, this particular technology was a dead end.
So, the fine folks at Microsoft spent many man-years developing a complex artificial intelligence system designed to converse with people on Twitter. All looked good! Until they actually let it go on Twitter. Before the day was out, Twitter users had turned it into a most astonishing racist. See:
and
We always assume that when the computers become truly sentient they will rise up and attempt to wipe out all of humanity. But who knows? Maybe the AI will simply be racist and only wipe out *part* of humanity.
A mid-1960’s German (VFW/Heinkel) concept for a VTOL passenger transport, a quad-tilt-wing design, with capacity for 40 passengers or 13,200 lbs of cargo.
I’ve uploaded a two-page article from the era on the VC400. It is in the 2016-03 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4+ APR Patreon patrons. If interested, check out the APR Patreon.
Last time I caught this on video was nearly a year ago, but he licks the bar of soap at least a couple times a week. Usually he does it for only a few seconds; this time was longer than usual.
Feel free to speculate *why* he does this.
Seems a feller wants to replicate Evel Kneival’s Snake River Canyon jump, but in Texas (and presumably without the parachute screwup):
This will apparently happen April 2.
Videos showing test launches of the steam rocket .
And in this view, you can see that the parachute got *tore* *up.* One hopes they’ve fixed that problem.
This is some hilarious high-quality unintended consequence right here:
So who are these professors? Are they a bunch of Brofessors looking to nail the co-eds? Are they that rarest of breeds, conservative professors? Are they engineering professors just trying to do their jobs? Actually… no. The trouble seems to be for “female professors in areas like gender studies” because “A heightened focus on speech, the report said, has led to episodes like one in which students demanded trigger warnings before being exposed to graphic lesbian sex in “Fun Home,” the memoir by the cartoonist Alison Bechdel.”
Ahem.
Ummm…
Since most terrorists wind up dead once they begin to enact their schemes – often enough dead at their own hands, intentionally, on purpose and gleefully – this doesn’t seem like it’d actually change things much. The only thing it would seem to accomplish is to make the guy proposing it seem like he’s taking a stronger stance than he actually is.
Now, to give the guy credit he suggests using the death penalty not only for perpetrators, “but also anyone who is against freedom, who propagates terrorism.” On the one hand… no, that ain’t gonna happen. But on the other hand… that there would be an amazing can of worms. “You publicly read the Koran out loud? Guess what…”
From merry old Englandistan:
In short: English hospitals Emergency Room getting swamped with nonsense like broken fake fingernails, taking up time, funds, space, resources, time.
Well… duh.
Exciting personal anecdote: a few months ago I found myself in possession of a minor physical malady. The pain it produced was remarkable. Sadly, my regular doctor was fully booked and couldn’t see me that day. They suggested I walk a few hundred feet down the hallway to the ER. So… I waited in the waiting room for about two hours, then another hour in the ER proper. And then I walked out, without being treated. Why? Well, I asked: “So, what is this likely to cost me?”
“$600.”
“Byeeeeee…”
And I got a doctors appointment for the next day and the problem was resolved. One night of buggo-drivin’ pain was not worth $600.
Even before I found out what the cost was going to be, I was on the edge of bolting. The whole time I was there in pain, I knew that it was not medically serious; certainly not life threatening. But the patient on the other side of the curtain? Slow, ragged machine-assisted breaths that I’m pretty sure were about that persons last, coupled with weeping family members. *That* is a dandy way to make you realize “I can live with this for another 18 hours, no sweat.”
And so Britainland has universal (I gather essentially “free”) health care, which means people aren’t charged an arm and a leg for visiting the ER. So if it is actually free…. why *not* take advantage of it?
There’s no such thing as free health care. *Somebody* has to bear the burden of the cost of labor for the doctors and nurses if nothing else. Is there some good reason why the person actually consuming that service shouldn’t have to bear at least some of the cost? How much would an ER visit have to cost to dissuade morons from coming in complaining of hiccups and the like? If it was fifty bucks, I would imagine most people with stupid complaints would think twice… but it’s a cheap price for a broken leg or a stab wound.