Messages

1

Just Shmooze / Re: The funny/strange/interesting/random pictures thread

« on: May 23, 2019, 03:26:31 PM »

Not a chance.

Ok, fine. So in that case at least LOL, J. should get it.

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Just Shmooze / Re: The funny/strange/interesting/random pictures thread

« on: May 23, 2019, 03:19:26 PM »

Dunno about you, but I'm pulling for LOL, J. to get the upgrade.

IDK about that. I'm kinda rooting for LOL, J.

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Destination Guides And Trip Planning / Re: Cleveland Master Thread

« on: May 23, 2019, 02:30:14 PM »

When I last followed basketball seriously Patrick Ewing was still on the Knicks, so I might not be the one to talk, (I probably can't even name 10 active players) but I just find the game itself really boring. There are a few exciting plays, but otherwise basically nothing really counts until the last five minutes. Sure, baseball is much slower paced (FWIW I haven't followed in 5+ years) but there is a certain excitement in how each play matters, how any one play could be the one that wins or loses the game. There's no running out the clock in baseball, you need to get 27 outs.

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Just Shmooze / Re: DDF Trivia

« on: May 23, 2019, 12:47:14 PM »

I don't think there were avatars back in '08

I'm pretty sure they were around from day 1.

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 23, 2019, 11:30:07 AM »

Uhm, that thing has wheels, not legs, because it’s designed for a flat surface warehouse. Which is why I said blended with the 4 legged design which is optimized for stability in all kinds of terrain.

1. Actually it has legs with wheels on them.


2. I think you missed my point. The fact that BD chose to use a bipedal design and deal with the associated balance issues for a robot that needs to work in a human environment shows that there is merit to the argument that it's not just a gimmick.

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Destination Guides And Trip Planning / Re: Cleveland Master Thread

« on: May 23, 2019, 12:34:53 AM »

MLB > NBA

FTFY

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 11:06:52 PM »

https://www.bostondynamics.com/handle blended with https://www.bostondynamics.com/spot-classic

I think this might prove my point.
Why did BD give that thing only two legs? wouldn't 4 be more efficient? And I'm guessing it can't deal with stairs, it only stays on one level.
Add the ability to walk up stairs and you kinda end up with the Ford thing...

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Up In The Air / Re: TWA Flight 800 Documentary

« on: May 22, 2019, 05:52:02 PM »

30 seconds into my research and already I see a potential major flaw with the video. They made it sound like there was zero evidence to support the idea of the spark in the fuel tank. The following is from the second paragraph on the wikipedia page for flight 800

Although it could not be determined with certainty, the likely ignition source was a short circuit.[1]:xvi Problems with the aircraft's wiring were found, including evidence of arcing in the Fuel Quantity Indication System (FQIS) wiring that enters the tank. The FQIS on Flight 800 is known to have been malfunctioning; the captain remarked on what he called "crazy" readings from the system approximately two minutes and thirty seconds before the aircraft exploded. As a result of the investigation, new requirements were developed for aircraft to prevent future fuel tank explosions.[9]

Now this is wikipedia after all and I haven't seen yet what the source for this is, (presumably the pilot talking about the crazy readings is from the cockpit voice recorder,) so I'll still take it with a grain of salt, but so far it isn't looking great for the video.

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 05:32:03 PM »

So the world "designed for bipedals" means that to get from a motor vehicle parked at the curb to a front door, carrying a delivery, often going up steps, sloped walkways, etc. etc., is designed to be done while maintaining balance using a bipedal design rather than a quad or more pedal design? You'll have to explain that one to me.

I was going to add a line to post basically saying that I don't know if this was the right move here, but this is often a concern with robots in general. I see I should've made sure to include it.

Depending on what this robot needs to do it may very well be gimicky, although it does seem kinda odd that they would want the extra trouble of the balance issues just for a gimmick. Unless of course by "gimmick" we mean "customers won't want to buy this with a quadruped because people will be uncomfortable with the way it looks." 

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Up In The Air / Re: TWA Flight 800 Documentary

« on: May 22, 2019, 05:18:58 PM »

Have you watched it? Thoughts?

Now that I watched it, I'll say that a lot of what they say sounds very suspicious and compelling, but they haven't quite convinced me.

I haven't looked into anything else about this yet, so at this point I'm basing it all strictly on what's in the video.
(I remember from back when it happened that there was a lot of talk about it being hit by a missile but I don't remember any of the details so I'm basically starting fresh here with this documentary.)

A few things that stuck out to me
1. A lot of what they talk about with the FBI, (e.g. the heavy FBI presence & a lot of the FBI behavior, ) is made to sound sinister and unusual but with much of it they don't actually say that this was abnormal for such an investigation. At least some of the things mentioned can easily be explained away with standard jurisdictional/turf wars between agencies.
Another thing with a potentially benign explanation is the claim that this couldn't be the plane used for the drug sniffing training because the report says they finished at 12 and the plane took off at 12:35 and according to (FAA?) regulations the flight crew needed to be onboard an hour before takeoff. A lazy officer who just estimated the times in his report, and/or a flight crew who weren't actually on the plane an hour before take off seems entirely plausible to me.

2. They don't do a very good job of backing up their "facts." e.g.
-The random damage & injury pattern means it must've been "a high ordnance detonation, not a low-speed explosion." They don't give anything to back this up, it appears to be just his opinion.
-Because missiles are round therefore they're kinda stealthy and wouldn't have been picked up by the radars. Um what?
-When they talk about the radar data proving the debris from the explosion was moving at least mach 4 they're a little light on the details, i.e. they haven't shown anything to convince me that for example these radars are capable of such precision and this wasn't just essentially noise.

Now of course the items in #2 could actually be true but they just didn't give the details in the video. Where they really lost me is the "here's what really happened" part.  Until that point everyone was talking about A streak across the sky, all of the sudden now there's 3 separate missiles?

And then of course the magnitude of what had to have taken place for there to have been 3 missiles fired at this plane from 3 different launch locations is not something I'm willing to believe at this point.

If we're talking about one missile it seems there are basically two options, either a terrorist with a shoulder-fired or a military mistake, likely from a navy ship. (They don't really talk about it in the video, but I seem to remember that talk at the time centering around a ship-fired missile)

The whole premise of the video is essentially that the FBI was covering it up from day one. That would seem to rule out a terrorist (or for that matter any non-US gov entity) attack, otherwise why the coverup?

If it was one missile you can conceivably say that it was somehow a mistake by the military but I don't see how 3 missiles from 3 firing points could possibly be a mistake, it would've had to be intentional on the part of the military and I'm not willing to go there. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that it was some kind of test and they mistakenly shot down the wrong target. But that makes no sense. AFAIK they're not doing live fire tests in middle of busy commercial airspace. and if they did everyone would know about it. And even if that did somehow happen, there would have been many many people involved and certainly some would have come forward, definitely by now. And come to think about it, even one errant missile from a ship would've had enough people knowing about it that it wouldn't stay a secret.


Of course all this is based strictly on what's in the video, once I start digging a little deeper and read up on it we'll see what I have to say.

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 03:43:57 PM »

I saw that, and I think the "attractiveness" is just another word for a gimmick.

I'm pretty sure in this context "attractiveness" doesn't mean "looks pretty to a viewer," I'm pretty sure it means it was desirable to the engineers.

4 legs would definitely be more efficient than 2 legs, and 6 or 8 probably even better, and possibly a combination of legs and wheels would be the most efficient.

As I understand it, the "efficiency" with >2 legs and/or added wheels is to overcome the instability of a bipedal. When you have a robot that needs to function within the human world, or as they say, a world "designed for bipedals," there is certainly a desirability (or "attractiveness") to a bipedal design.

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 01:27:02 PM »

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-22/ford-s-way-to-finish-driverless-deliveries-package-carrying-robots?srnd=premium

Seems super gimmicky to me. Why in the world would they opt for a bipedal design rather than a more versatile and stable design with 4 or more feet?

Ford’s decision to go with two legs, instead of wheels, came with help from researchers at the University of Michigan. “Our world is designed for bipedals—us,” Stephens said. “So there's an inherent attractiveness to a bipedal robot.”

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 01:22:49 PM »

Now how does one profit from it?

Buy stock in the companies developing the technologies?

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Just Shmooze / Re: Interesting Articles...

« on: May 22, 2019, 10:39:17 AM »

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenmcbride1/2019/05/21/netflix-has-175-days-left-to-pull-off-a-miracle-or-its-all-over/amp/

After a few weeks it’s no longer in theaters. You can’t buy it. You can’t rent it. The only way to watch is to subscribe to Disney’s steaming service, Disney+.

For example, the only place your children or grandchildren will be able to see Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2 may be on Disney+.

Pirating is gonna go way up.

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Just Shmooze / Re: Random Posts

« on: May 21, 2019, 04:47:41 PM »

I am sick to my stomach with a developing story of a fundraising scam that seems to be going around.