etendue

Very interesting question. What if, by chance, you tested that blood and found it positive for HIV? What are your ethical obligations viz. notification as one example? (Mosquitos can't transmit HIV, but they can capture the virus while feeding)

I'd like to speak with you, but I only see a medium link.

I'll add to the other responses that downforce is also something to be considered and air density is a factor there as well.

The person I was responding to said "absolutely no impact", which is absolutely incorrect. I don't have a great intuition of how significant these factors are on the model, but I would not dismiss the terms without careful consideration when we're measuring results in fractions of a second.

Air density and temperature should both have an influence on the performance of electric vehicles, and both change with elevation.

Ditto. Interestingly, Gruber thinks that it was underpriced: https://twitter.com/gruber/status/767918392342818816

I was thinking of in the sense of model-based systems engineering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-based_systems_engineerin...)

Being memory safe (and here we implicitly assume the compiler ecosystem is behaving as intended) does not guarantee the code is generally safe.

> The rust compiler basically taught me how to write safe systems code, that's an amazing thing.

It did no such thing: as one example, if there's an error in your model, would the compiler catch it? Maybe, maybe not.

Safe systems code requires a proper software development lifecycle (SDLC). Rust could be a part of that SDLC, but alone is insufficient to produce a safe system. Advertising it as such is common, but I think very misleading.

Interesting, my first thought jumped to gold and the 5d->6s transition that is well-known for needing relativistic consideration to correctly predict the yellow color.

I don't think the answer given is a great one, but I like that they sent a correction.

Assuming that you have only filed for a provisoional, the problem is that you have nothing that is of value.

The most valuable IP is a patent which has been successfully defended. Less valuable is an issued patent that has been licensed. Less valuable than that is an issued patent. Less valuable than that is a patent application. The quality of the patent is also major factor of the patent's value. Having a realized implementation is also a major factor in the patent's value.

A provisional patent (N.B., this is not an issued patent nor a patent pending) establishes a priority date, but there's a very long and treacherous road ahead. It's not fait accompli that your patent will be issued, nor that your preferred claims will survive prosecution.

If you use an iPad, an app called LiquidText (http://liquidtext.net) is great for textbooks or journal articles. It lets you pull excerpts, highlight, annotate, and also compress sections for side-by-side viewing. It's not as good as paper, but it's much better than viewing a static PDF.

I'd bet on the legacy manufacturers.

Musk has a reputation for firing senior managers that give him answers he doesn't like, or that fail to meet his unreasonable demands. That level of management meddling doesn't bode well for Tesla's manufacturing future. Nor does "putting parts in the car knowing [they] are bad", if the accusation (by a departed employee) is true. (http://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-sets-ambitious-goals-a...) I have previously questioned, and still do, Tesla's PLM.

Legacy manufacturers do know how to do software, despite the general lousy state of in-car entertainment systems arguing otherwise. They also know how to manufacture a quality product at scale. It's an easier task for them to bolster their software than for Tesla to learn what they already know about manufacturing and ramp up manufacturing.

My theory is that slow news, like slow food, is better for you. I think the quality of weekly news magazines (like New Yorker) is superior to daily newspapers, which are themselves superior to web sites. By my theory, social media is the worst of all.

> But, still, I sometimes wonder why there is such a hard push for more gun-control laws every year given this decreasing level of domestic violence.

Another thing to ponder is why the focus on semiautomatic rifles, when 1, violent crime overwhelmingly uses handguns, and 2, the previous assault weapon ban was deemed ineffective by the DOJ. And what is the basis for proposing expanded background checks in response to, for example, the Orlando mass shooting when the shooter not only passed a background check, but had a security guard license (which itself has a more intensive background check).

> Apple hasn’t said why it would be making this change, but this summer, along with Microsoft, the company lobbied Unicode, the nonprofit consortium that decides which emojis should exist, against adding a separate rifle.

The rifle emoji Apple and Microsoft opposed was a sporting rifle (used in biathalon) that was proposed along with other winter sports. It had absolutely nothing to do with "gun violence" except for the vocal protestations of a tiny minority.

I look forward to Apple removing the football emoji soon since pro football has a problem with chronic traumatic encephalopathy and tinkering with emoji will clearly help with solving the problem.

Federighi's response is nonsensical: LCDs don't use phosphors in the color filter plane.

Modelica (https://www.modelica.org) is another useful option for MBSE that has more commercial front-ends than one can shake a stick at (e.g., CATIA and Wolfram SystemModeler), as well as free options.

There's also a Systems Engineering version of Enterprise Architect (http://sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea/systems.html) that I think is great for the price.

> The NASA definition the original one, I would think. How are people using "systems engineering" as a term elsewhere, that is incongruent with the NASA definition?

The term has been co-opted by people in IT doing (I think) operations type work.

It certainly makes a job search much more frustrating since the number of IT positions greatly outnumbers those for the traditional definition.

In the US, an academic postdoc is a training position with a shamefully low salary and without provision for advancement, somewhat analogous to a medical internship. It's a job, but not a career.

Depending on location, there may be mechanisms to preferentially hire a postdoc on as non-tenured faculty. It became more common in biomedical sciences after the recession when grad students stayed on for "postdocs" with their advisors when they couldn't find a job, and were then aged out of the postdoc.

The sustainability practices that you mention are needed when the demand on resources exceeds the ability of the resources to otherwise replenish: a conservation problem. It sounds like in NMS it would be sustainable for a single explorer to attempt to strip mine the planet and nuke the whales since the influence a single player could exert is insignificant on a planetary scale.

The objection to shooting animals in order to scan them is interesting: it was the first step of Audobon's process.

I use plant as a term of the art.

Calling a group just plumbers is to me condescending: it's a trade that requires creative thinking, knowledge, experience, and a willingness to (literally) deal with other people's sewage. Plumbers are the real MVP. But the same is fairly said for other professions and trades (excepting that, one hopes, the sewage is figurative). There is a difference between those who are self-taught or taught on the job versus those educated in academia, and there are many situations when it's useful or important to be able to distinguish between the two groups. The difference in training doesn't speak to the quality of work, but it does speak to expected capabilities.

I would describe programmers you have described as "tradesmen", similar to electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters, etc. I see nothing condescending about that.

A chemical engineer designs a plant, but plumbers and pipe fitters (and others) are the ones who actually build the plant.

I think (perhaps in a more charitable light) that there is a difference between tradesmen and professionals, and by definition, autodidacts aren't in the latter grouping. "Cranks" appear in both groups after all.

To expand on one aspect of hostile, some white blood cells greet foreign bodies with micromolar concentrations of a variety of oxidants and radicals: hypohalous acids (not just the familiar household bleach, hypochlorous acid, but also the nastier hypobromous acid), peroxides, superoxide, nitroxides, maybe even hydroxyl radical.

Realizing that, it's easy to see why autoimmune diseases are so devastating.

The pacemaker or ICD generator is replaced when the battery is exhausted, typically 8–10 years. The procedure is not a big deal, it is commonly outpatient and done under local. Outside of some durable orthopedic implants, few implants will survive in the body for 50 years: it is a very hostile environment.

As a famous engineer said, "and if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a wagon."

Something to consider is that a "good" risk analysis takes into account the foreseeable use and misuse of a product based on the information available. Given that it is no secret that AutoPilot users have used the system contrary to directions, it is reasonable to demand that the risk analysis be updated to account for this reality (assuming it did not account for this) as part of the continuous PLM process.

> The driver never braked. It's possible that he noticed the trailer and refrained from braking for some reason, but that would be really weird.

He could have had a medical complication. He could also have erred in thinking that the trailer would have cleared the path in time, or in thinking the car would have braked for him, or in perhaps his reaction time was insufficient. I have no idea. None of the items on my brainstormed list strike me was weird.

> I don't see why they have to wait for an investigation to talk about what the car did, nor about what the driver did with the car.

Tesla doesn't have to, but the skeptic in me observes that it is all too easy to spread misinformation (that would benefit them) through the technology press before the investigation is completed. I personally don't see an advantage for Tesla to speak at this stage since there are serious product liability issues in play, but I admittedly don't get Tesla in general.

Short of an unholy ritual involving the supernatural, Tesla PR or Musk can only guess as to what the driver noticed in this case, and neither can accurately speak to what the either the driver or car did or did not do until the investigation is completed.

I think there's a lot to be concerned about wrt. AutoPilot and I plan on thoroughly reading the completed investigation reports.

> The main thing is that the system didn't detect the trailer.

Has that information been made public? Unless it has, that statement would also appear to be speculative at this point.

> Exactly why it failed to detect the trailer is interesting, but doesn't change anything about fault or responsibility.

I would say that it is far too early to make that declaration, given that the investigation is ongoing.