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180704724
comment
bypulpo88
026 @08:03PM
(#65960230)
Attached to: Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
Hey look, the one person who mentioned that in-real-life "stopping time" and "stopping distance" is not time-/homogeneous!
Yeah and they're modding me 'troll' for it LOL
180690582
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @03:59PM
(#65957500)
Attached to: Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
I'm accustomed to 20 in school zones and I have seen 10. I guess in LA it varies between 15 and 25 so you have a fair point. I'd be interested in hearing if it was going 17 specifically because it was in a school zone during drop-off hours, and if they typically go under 20 in that situation.
I'd also be interested to know how the crossing guard was involved, and how Waymos work with crossing guards generally.
I have no doubt that this is all big news because it was a Waymo, and I'm sure many human drivers would not have fared better. Still If I were Waymo I would design these things to be so cautious in school zones that people begin to complain about that. Since LA has lowered the school speed limit to 15 for some districts then go max 15 in all of them. Maybe less at drop off and pick up time. Because like I said, when you hit a kid, you're lucky if you get a fair trial by jury, let alone a fair trial by media.
People are (irrationally?) wary about self-driving cars, and people are (irrationally?) protective of children. So if you're a Waymo exec, it's rational to protect your years of investment.
180690374
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @03:31PM
(#65957444)
Attached to: Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
That may be, but my comments weren't about evaluating people's driving skills. The point was that Waymos will be safer if they have enough intelligence to take the situation into account and drive more conservatively in higher risk situations. This was a response to RobinH's comment that
The car was probably following the posted speed limit precisely.
In my view following the letter of the law may be too fast.
180687518
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @11:32AM
(#65956790)
Attached to: Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
This is pretty much the ideal situation where a self-driving car can perform better than a human driver. The car was probably following the posted speed limit precisely.
Mostly agree but there's one thing a human would do better, or at least some humans. You recognize that you're near a grade school around 3PM, understand there is limited visibility around crosswalks and buses etc., and understand how children behave. So you voluntarily slow down to *below* the posted speed limit. I know that's what I do, not so much because I'm an exemplary driver, but I certainly want to avoid being crucified by a jury for bumping a careless kid. No way a driver (or Waymo) gets a fair trial in that situation, and we humans know this, so we protect the kid and ourselves.
180687406
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @11:25AM
(#65956764)
Attached to: Waymo Robotaxi Hits a Child Near an Elementary School in Santa Monica
Yes it's wise not to drive faster than your visibility permits. If a brick wall suddenly enters the range of your headlights you should be able to stop in time.
Your rule of "never overdrive your ability to stop for something that may appear in front of you without warning" is much harder. Someone can hide (intentionally or not) in front of any parked car and jump out full speed without warning if they want to. To follow your rule, you'd have to drive 5 MPH or maybe even less, any time that there are cars parked between you and the sidewalk. In many cities that's most of the time.
180650020
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @11:09AM
(#65946562)
Attached to: Anthropic Updates Claude's 'Constitution,' Just In Case Chatbot Has a Consciousness
Claude's moral status is deeply uncertain. We believe that the moral status of AI models is a serious question worth considering.
Imagine you were selling potted plants, and realized society had fallen into such a state that you could make audacious unfounded claims like "My potted plants are quite possibly conscious. Be sure to talk to them every day" and actually see these claims given credence and "serious" consideration by the media.
You'd sell a lot of potted plants!
180614722
comment
bypulpo88
026 @10:23AM
(#65934614)
Attached to: Hundreds Answer Europe's 'Public Call for Evidence' on an Open Digital Ecosystem Strategy
The real reason the EU is embracing open source is because it doesn't want to be dependent on U.S. tech firms... b/c they don't have a strong domestic tech industry themselves.
Much ignorance? Typical American attitude. Remember that every CPU ... was developed in the UK.
1. It gives me no pleasure to remind you the UK is not in the EU.
2. Racist/nationalist attacks and generalizations do not help the conversation for any of us. Nor do they make you appear informed or thoughtful, even if you are. Au contraire.
3. Cherry-picking European economic successes does not an economic analysis make. I don't believe anybody is suggesting that the EU does not have a tech industry, so of course you can point to some good things they've done. Doesn't counter GP's point.
4. Stats are more convincing than cherry-picking or anecdotes. Google quickly gave me this: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en... Nice chart showing stagnant growth until about 10 years ago. A lot of people's impressions may be a few years out of date, which is not the same as ignorant. Feel free to educate them. Calling them names and insulting their (assumed?) nationality may make it more difficult for you to do so.
5. I took GP's comments to mean than the EU has a *comparatively* weak tech industry, is therefore dependent on US (and others') tech. and would like to change this. Sounds like a good idea, just like reducing dependence on Russian energy is a good idea. In both cases, the first step is recognition of the problem and the EU was very slow to do that. I hope they do better from here. Here's some good reading from the European Commission: https://commission.europa.eu/t...
180585530
comment
bypulpo88
2026 @11:08AM
(#65926410)
Attached to: AI Models Are Starting To Crack High-Level Math Problems
I will never trust an LLM for math. There is a proven history indicating a complete lack of math literacy that is so ingrained that I will likely never trust an LLM for math.
Wolfram Alpha is quite good
One of the nice things about math is you don't need to trust someone for a result, in fact you shouldn't. You can verify everything, and without enough people looking at things, everything eventually gets verified to everybody's satisfaction. It's generally easier to verify a result than to come up with it yourself.
By "never trust" do you mean you wouldn't spend any of your precious time trying to verify a result you knew came from an LLM, because you expect a high rate of nonsense from LLMs? Can't blame you, and that's a bias that might serve you for now (though not in this case according to TFS). At some point LLMs (combined with some other AI techniques no doubt) will move beyond that.
180482257
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @06:34PM
(#65889119)
Attached to: Google's 'AI Overview' Wrongly Accused a Musician of Being a Sex Offender
as a professional musician, this guy is a public figure and the actual malice standard for defamation applies
The standard set by the supreme court (Gertz v Welch) for a private citizen plaintiff to be treated as a public figure in a defamation trial was "pervasive fame or notoriety." It's not clear that this guy meets that standard (though I imagine his relative Jack White might). I hope we can at least agree that most professional musicians are not considered public figures in this sense. They'd have a hell of a time if they were.
180457139
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @07:29PM
(#65882133)
Attached to: Wall Street Has Stopped Rewarding 'Strategic' Layoffs
It used to be that once you had 500 shareholders (including stock option holders) you had to go public. The JOBS Act raised that to 2000
You have to register with the SEC and make public financial disclosures at that point, but you don't have to "go public" in the way that term is being used on this thread, i.e. shares become publicly traded so people can buy them and force your company to do things.
There are many large privately-held companies out there. Forbes publishes a list: https://www.forbes.com/lists/t...
180439321
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @11:49AM
(#65874835)
Attached to: 'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You
Ok I'm still working to figure out exactly what you're on about... my example was simply pointing out that just because a technology is established from an engineering perspective doesn't mean there's sufficient demand to accommodate it in the design of a large monolithic product like a car. In fact the more "established" a piece of engineering is, probably the older it is, probably the less demand there is for it. But these are generalities.
Why not include an audio jack in every car? They could but they don't have to, so some will and some won't. If enough customers care to make it worth their while, they'll do it. I suppose it's also possible for some supplier (e.g. of satellite radio systems) to make it worth their while by paying them not to do it, but ultimately the customer buys the car or not.
Why deliberately make it hard to plug a CD player in to the speakers
I don't see how they deliberately make it hard, they're just not going deliberately out of their way to include a feature.
I'm not clear on what this has to do with the efficiency of capitalism specifically. If the decision to include a feature in a car is made not by the demand of customers to have it, but rather by the deliberation of Glorious Benevolent Central Committee, the feature still has to be important enough to be included. Niche features are actually less likely to happen because said Committee has very limited decision-making bandwidth. They are less efficient, in that sense. This is one reason you see miles and miles of identical concrete apartment blocks in such places, and a lot of wholesale copying of stuff designed elsewhere.
180434061
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @12:56PM
(#65873113)
Attached to: 'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You
Why is it economically inefficient yet engineeringly easy to put CDs in new cars?
What does "engineeringly easy" mean exactly? I mean the construction of CD players is certainly a solved problem, but so is the construction of 8-track players. CDs aren't quite 8-tracks but they're well on their way in that direction.
Is it engineeringly easy to make 8-track players an option for new cars? What would be involved in maintaining the supply chain for 8-track players and all the parts that go into them, at sufficient scale to make it cheap enough to be worth founding a company to market them, produce them, stock them, install them? Who will invest in that company, given the limited customer base? Given that automakers might not guarantee physical space in the dash for such a thing?
None of these inefficiencies and risks are specific to capitalism either.
180430347
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @02:01PM
(#65871563)
Attached to: 'Subscription Captivity': When Things You Buy Own You
Why is economic efficiency so often at odds with engineering efficiency?
I'm not sure that they are at odds in your example. What you're asking for is not efficient by either measure, if most people want (or are willing to accept) streaming. It's not efficient for anybody to cater to esoteric tastes, even if they're good tastes.
180429969
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @12:24PM
(#65871333)
Attached to: Trump Dismantling National Center For Atmospheric Research In Colorado
Because I call it as it is.
You're not calling it as it is, you're exaggerating. This is exactly the kind of self-defeating hyperbole that's been weakening the political opposition in the US for a long time now. Many people have tuned them out, so they don't respond quickly to screams of "OMG THATS FACISM" even if it's facism.
facing an existential crisis with its basic institutions being demolished
The NCAR is a useful organization and I support their work, but they are not a basic institution of democracy. The politicization of executive branch departments is a problem, but it is hardly new, nor unique to the U.S., and it is (in many cases) within the bounds of the president's power as defined in the constitution. It did not require a "corrupt supreme court" to establish this.
the last line of defense, your judges, are now getting sentenced. Where's the action?
Are you referring to Hannah Dugan, the judge convicted of obstructing justice by hiding a suspect from the arresting officers? This judge committed an actual crime as defined by statute, she was tried according to the rule of law, and a jury of her peers convicted her. (She didn't deny her crime, she claimed immunity because she's a judge. Both the court and the jury considered her claim and disagreed.) That's what democracy and the rule of law looks like. If we don't like it, we can change the laws so judges are free to commit crimes while on judicial property, or abolish immigration regulations. There are reasons we don't do that.
In context your comment makes it sound like this judge was jailed merely for going against the president within the bounds of her authority. That's hardly "calling it as it is."
Even one of the Balkan countries managed to take down a corrupt government
Even them? You look down on people from Balkan countries as well, do you?
180425679
comment
bypulpo88
2025 @05:01PM
(#65869945)
Attached to: Microsoft Made Another Copilot Ad Where Nothing Actually Works
Citation needed. I'm the meantime, Copilot gave me this:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
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