Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Seems like a double edged sword (Score 1) 32

While not needing to compress and decompress gasses along with other inefficiencies of a standard data center sounds good. What are the long term issues?

How much energy was required to make, test, transport, assemble, and test was needed? Additionally, a hole in the side of a terrestrial data center can be patched easily. A hole that forms in this means a total loss. What about replacing outdated equipment? Even in nutrient poor water radiators and plumbing will need maintenance due to algae, bacteria, and critters growing on everything.

I've kept saltwater reef tanks. Keeping plumbing clean long term can be a challenge in a biologically closed system. In the open ocean who knows what kind of invasive critter could find all that warm plumbing an ideal new home. I suppose you could flush lines with toxic chemicals occasionally. But that's not really good for the environment.

Comment Re:That's not AI failure! (Score 5, Insightful) 144

What's really stupid is that the police looked at the picture of a Doritos bag and a couple of fingers and didn't realize it was a false positive. (Or more likely didn't even bother to look at the evidence before flying off the handle.)

From TFS, it doesn't sound like the police saw a picture until after the fact. The way it reads, the AI flagged the frame in the video and called the police. The police were responding to a call for an armed person. If you're responding to a call for a possible shooter, it's unlikely you will be grilling the caller, on site, before trying to stop a potential mass shooter.

It seems to me that the company who makes the AI should require a person to review the video once the call goes out. That way they can give the police an all clear before they arrive.

Comment Re: "Mis-information" = BS Madup word ;-D (Score 1) 110

So an actor playing a doctor in a movie is fraud in your mind?

My dear, fine friend, your logical fallacy is the ridiculous example.

YouTube is mainly an entertainment platform, just like movies. Sure, it gets a lot of content that is actually educational. However no one in their right mind should be thinking of it as anything other than entertainment. There were a lot of medical professionals who were banned from YouTube over posting accurate information during the covid panic.

Comment Re:Can the F-35 do anything on time and budget? (Score 1) 57

The issue has nothing to do with f-35 shortcomings and is related to the EMALS on the Ford carrier. They didn't have the necessary information for the F-35 when the Ford was built. The EMALS will be updated during a refit that was scheduled for later this year the last time I heard. All upcoming Ford class carriers will be capable of yeetng F-35s off the deck when they are commissioned.

Comment Cable security drones (Score 1) 40

It seems like this would ba a good use case for drones. A fleet of RTG reactor powered submersible drones following ships watching for them dragging anchors seems like a good job for a drone. If it finds a ship dragging an anchor near a cable it phones home and a remote operator fires a torpedo. Problem solved.

Comment Re:Why not use low earth orbit satellites instead? (Score 1) 40

That would just cause indiscriminate mayhem. You'd take out your own satellites too.

Taking out all satellites would do more harm to the US than any other country. The US relies on them a lot more than any other military. Obviously they have backups and contingencies. But it would degrade Intel, targeting, and navigation. The Navy had to make changes because they got too reliant on GPS.

Civilian navigation would be a disaster in the US. I still keep a road atlas in my car. But I know a lot of folks who can't read a map

Comment Re:Who knew this, and when did they know it? (Score 1) 126

You can bet money the drug makers have known this for a while but kept silent to protect profits.

I doubt it. And I certainly doubt any of the companies making generic beta blockers know.

When a novel drug is created/discovered the company will pay for multiple animal trials and eventually human trials. That costs millions of dollars and half a decade to a dozen years to complete. The upshot is that if it does what it's supposed to do and has an acceptable number and frequency of side-effects it gets approval to be sold. So the company gets to be the sole provider for twenty years. Now they can make a slight change to that drug and go through an expedited approval and get another 20 years off of the modified version; but the original formula can now be produced and sold by any other pharmaceutical company. Keep in mind that less than 10% of drugs that go through clinical trials actually get approved. So those trials need to be paid for by the successful drugs as well. Many health insurance policies also pick up less of the cost of a brand name drug once generics become available as well.

Typically the original company stops making the drug once it can no longer compete with the generic manufacturers. Generic manufacturers aren't looking to do new studies on drugs because there's no benefit in doing so. Actually it would be very detrimental. Once the patent has expired, there's no benefit to doing further studies by the pharmaceutical companies because every company that makes a drug will benefit from a new study even if they didn't pay for it. This is why no companies run trials for herbal extracts or anything that can't be patented.

However there have been a lot of questions about the way in which many drug trials have been done. We know that the pharmaceutical companies have massaged the numbers to flat out lied. In many cases companies who do the trial have also lied out of fear that they wouldn't get more contracts if things didn't go the way the company wanted. But in this case, I'd guess that the cohort size of the original trial simply didn't pick up on this.

Comment Re:Um... (Score 1) 68

I think the word you're looking for is "shutter", referring to those wooden doors that people used to fold over their windows at night or in bad weather.

You are correct, but my phone had a different idea than me.

And I'm pretty sure that he was saying his company had a good visionary idea.

That might be what he believes. But no.

Slashdot Top Deals

What ever you want is going to cost a little more than it is worth. -- The Second Law Of Thermodynamics

Working...