Looking at bike headlamps, as it might be nice to ride after dark instead of the 100 degree heat. Found the "Bell Sports Lumina 300" bike headlamp at Walmart. You might think that implies 300 Lumens, but you'd be wrong. It's only rated at 50. I wonder how many people are mislead by that product name. They aren't lying or misrepresenting, but it seems pretty likely that their goal is to confuse and mislead. I didn't purchase, as I've seen brighter ones online for the same price.
https://bit.ly/2NCvLfA
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Monday, July 16, 2018
From the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44847184
I'm all for being weary of Internet connected devices with children for both developmental and privacy concerns. But it seems that this concern of kids learning to be rude by the terse commands given to Alexa or Siri is rather ridiculous. Yes, I expect there will be some learning required for the child to separate talking to a human-sounding device vs talking to a human, but that's ok. I have every confidence that children and parents are up to the task. Their interaction with pets is perhaps a good example of why this isn't a problem. Nearly any child who has a pet, especially a dog, will issue commands to that pet different than they will ask a person. We issue very terse commands: Sit. Stay. Come. Fetch. I don't recall there ever being concern about such rude commands impacting communication with humans. One difference between pets and an Alexa enabled device of course is that Alexa sounds human and speaks back. but in an age where children are regularly exposed to television and video games, which have their own real-sounding fake people, of which children already do well learning to separate real from fake, I can't see these devices as any more worrisome in that regard.
In 2016, venture capitalist Hunter Walk wrote a Medium post about the Amazon Echo which he described as magical, but added that it was adversely affecting his child's behaviour.
The reason he gave was the lack of manners required to get a response.
"Cognitively I'm not sure a kid gets why you can boss Alexa around but not a person," he wrote.
In January 2018, the research company ChildWise published a report warning that children who grew up accustomed to speaking that way to a virtual personality might become aggressive in later dealings with humans.
I'm all for being weary of Internet connected devices with children for both developmental and privacy concerns. But it seems that this concern of kids learning to be rude by the terse commands given to Alexa or Siri is rather ridiculous. Yes, I expect there will be some learning required for the child to separate talking to a human-sounding device vs talking to a human, but that's ok. I have every confidence that children and parents are up to the task. Their interaction with pets is perhaps a good example of why this isn't a problem. Nearly any child who has a pet, especially a dog, will issue commands to that pet different than they will ask a person. We issue very terse commands: Sit. Stay. Come. Fetch. I don't recall there ever being concern about such rude commands impacting communication with humans. One difference between pets and an Alexa enabled device of course is that Alexa sounds human and speaks back. but in an age where children are regularly exposed to television and video games, which have their own real-sounding fake people, of which children already do well learning to separate real from fake, I can't see these devices as any more worrisome in that regard.
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Kepler cost versus value
A brief search suggests the Kepler mission has cost around $600M. It has found around 4500 planets or candidate planets. Assuming at least 90% of those ultimately verify, that is a cost of $145k per planet found. This is obviously a very superficial and incomplete way to gauge the value of the mission, but I find it an intriguing number none-the-less. I can't help but wonder what the cost per planet found will be for TESS, though I get the sense it will be less than Kepler's. How fun would it be if it one day falls low enough that a crowd-funding effort could suffice:
"purchase the $50 package, and you can name your own planet! Platinum-package purchases at $500 will get a personalized dvd and poster including the details of a follow-up planetary survey!"I know there's a lot of fake/inconsequential star-registries out there where you can pay to name a star, but it would gain a certain legitimacy if it was linked to an actual discovery project...and would be fun.
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