Fully Functional Driverless Car

When ebooks first came out, my reaction was NEVER - I love my paper books. Well you know the old adage - Never say never. I still love paper books. I love the feel and the smell of them as well as the positive memories they invoke when holding them in my hands. But as I age and my lifestyle has changed somewhat I've come to appreciate the advantages of ebooks. Old hands tend to ache after holding a paper book after a while and old eyes tend to prefer larger print and more light. The lighter iPads or ebook readers solve both of these problems. When traveling it is so much easier to download a couple of ebooks from the library then add the weight of books to your carry on. Then there is the ease of selecting and returning ebooks from the comfort of your favorite armchair.

My library now has an arrangement with hoopla that allows me to download movies, TV shows and music which I think I will enjoy. While they have newer TV series available, I chose an old Ellery Queen series as my first download. It presents all the clues and then challenges you to figure out whodoneit. I'm normally pretty good at this but failed completely last night.

FERGUSON, Mo. - The Ferguson Police Department's Public Information Officer (PIO) has been placed on unpaid leave, effective immediately, after responding to an inquiry from a Washington Post reporter regarding the destruction of the Michael Brown memorial.

"I don't know that a crime has occurred," the Ferguson PIO told the Washington Post. "But a pile of trash in the middle of the street? The Washington Post is making a call over this?"

The City of Ferguson released a statement Saturday evening stating the PIO admitted to making the remarks and misleading his superiors after being asked about the contents of the interview.

My favorite:

The war in Afghanistan is over, the President says. The sky is green, the President says. The sun rises in the West, the President says.

And this one:

Mission Accomplished! I'm glad we ended the war in Afghanistan! Except for that part about the war.

Marcy Wheeler reminds us of this NYT report, from November:

   President Obama decided in recent weeks to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year.

    Mr. Obama's order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions.

    In an announcement in the White House Rose Garden in May, Mr. Obama said that the American military would have no combat role in Afghanistan next year, and that the missions for the 9,800 troops remaining in the country would be limited to training Afghan forces and to hunting the "remnants of Al Qaeda."

    The decision to change that mission was the result of a lengthy and heated debate that laid bare the tension inside the Obama administration between two often-competing imperatives: the promise Mr. Obama made to end the war in Afghanistan, versus the demands of the Pentagon that American troops be able to successfully fulfill their remaining missions in the country.

FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator -- another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack.

Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn't point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault.

The problem seems to be the new site keeps trying to replace my password for this site which is of course not the correct password for the new  site.  I guessed that from the number of dots it keeps replacing for the new password when I hit login.  They are fewer.   I have tried resetting the password twice and I get this message

Sorry, that key does not appear to be valid.

With a place to request a reset of the password.  Again.

I had read about it.  And some unfavorable reviews but I was surprised how much I liked it.  

Decades into the future, an environmental catastrophe has turned earth into a decaying wasteland. A few wretched specimens of humanity survive by using a mix of old and new technologies. Everything is grimy and gritty. Oh, and there are robots. If this sounds like a story you've heard before, join the club. These are some of the most tired, weatherworn elements of dystopian sci-fi, a genre that has been ticking along for almost as long as the motion picture itself. But they are given an enchanting new lease on life in Automata, an ambitious film by fledgling Spanish director Gabe Ibàñez, which opens in the US in limited release and on-demand on Friday, October 10th. Don't let the familiar images in the previews dissuade you: this is a richly atmospheric, lovingly detailed movie that is a must-see for any sci-fi fan.

Automata gets so many things right, especially when it comes to world building. Ibàñez, who came up as a visual effects artist, decided early on to create his robots using practical effects -- full-scale puppetry -- rather than relying on CGI. The results are impressively authentic.  A robot beggar with a staticy voice caught on loop, pleading for money on behalf of its human owner, who lies curled up beside it in a darkened tunnel, is almost profound.

If the props and scenery are the root of Automata's success, it's the cast that sells the rest of the film. Antonio Banderas, who has had a long career playing both a romantic strongman and a psychopath in various movies.......Robert Forster, who received wide praise for his guest-starring role toward the end of Breaking Bad's run, is also superbly cast as Jacq's hapless boss. Dylan McDermott, who seems to relish taking on increasingly unsavory characters, gets to be more despicable than ever as a drug-addled corrupt cop. The fact that Melanie Griffith and Javier Bardem lend their voices as robots seems almost too good to be true, but there they are (Griffith also appears briefly as a black market, human mechanic).

I found the film to be amusing - and some outright laughs - and an interesting satire. That is, for the most part. It deteriorates into pure propaganda at the end. Unfortunate.

At its best, it is reminiscent of "Dr. Strangelove" - with both sides, ours and the Commies, being lampooned in a pretty even fashion.

Some funny lines include the Kim Jong-Un character, when asked by the American interviewer if he could see some of his tanks, answers, "F-ck yeah!". Things like that could even cause some optimism in the viewer, imo.

One line I enjoyed was one of our people referred to John Kerry as an "oak-tree lookin' f-ck". I do really like irreverence - especially when it is well deserved.

When all is said and done, however, the film does descend into propaganda - depicting Kim as truly evil and manipulative, and the CIA folks who are using the interviewers as assassins are left pretty much alone - kinda stupid perhaps, but basically OK.

I do think that a film depicting our potus being incinerated - with an actor made up to look just like him - would encounter serious outrage here - faux perhaps - but outrage none the less.
That is just my opinion. I cannot really imagine how such a scenario would play out when bounced off of today's politicians and talking heads. A field day for CNN and the rest I expect.

Mr. Obama making a special appearance to chastise Sony for initially withdrawing the film from distribution put an American face on the film. In my opinion, that is. That is what makes me speculate about a similar film that had one of the members of the axis of evil - or the "list of state sponsors of terrorism" - one of their faces on it - with Kim or someone urging the release of  a film with a potus lookalike being burned alive... Well, I don't think that would go over so well here.

One last thing.
I believe, if I read the story correctly, that initially the word was that people considering going to theaters to watch the film would be in danger of attacks from terrorists. Hence the withdrawal by Sony. Then come the exhortations urging the film's release. I don't know - but this reminds me of Bush urging us to go about our daily chores as usual even as he is releasing terror alerts.

We are the ones who are not supposed to give in to the terrorists by staying away. No. We should not give in.

I don't know about that.

It reminds me of the old saw - used over and over in sci-fi films, in which the government has knowledge of an invasion of aliens or some such, but decide with definite certainty to not tell the public - so that we won't panic.

Personally, if I know that an attack has been threatened at a theatre or some other public venue, I would prefer to avoid the site of the threat. I would, in short, prefer to "panic" than walk into a dangerous situation without having been given proper warning.

To my knowledge, people seeing the film have emerged unscathed. So the whole terror business was either phony or overblown.

Lastly, North Korea was definitely labeled as the source of all the threats and hacking by the potus. They denied it and invited the US to join them in investigating the source of the hacking.
We have yet to do so.

Of course, as usual, this issue fades from our consciousness.
Accusations and denials. Both unproven. What else is new?

"The hacker group appears to be attempting to dominate Tor's relays to the point where it can comprise anonymity. Tor keeps you anonymous by bouncing your communications around a network of volunteer nodes. But if one group is controlling the majority of the nodes, it could be able to eavesdrop on a substantial number of vulnerable users. Which means Lizard Squad could gain the power to track Tor users if it infiltrates enough of the network.

So far, they have already established over 3000 relays, nearly half of the total number. That's very not good."

unitron says:   
December 28, 2014 at 12:41 pm

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Well, I registered an account and got a password a few months back when our gracious hostess first announced this bold new step into the future (he said, stifling the kind of unkind thoughts he usually has whenever WordPress.com is involved), so let's take this puppy for a spin and see if my avatar shows up.
Reply

I'm less than thrilled to be giving up the preview function.

Your comments over there have been very helpful, please keep them coming.

The road to the Super Bowl in the NFC now goes through Seattle, with a home team that's won nine of their last ten outings, and a defense which has allowed only three touchdowns during that six-game stretch.

We'll see what happens. But years from now, if the fates decree an as-yet-unrealized Seattle Seahawks dynasty, we may look back and reflect upon the end of the 2014 regular season as the moment when that dynasty really came of age.

I've been watching the NFL since I was six years old, and this Seahawks defensive unit is quite possibly the best I've ever seen.

WASHINGTON -- Just as millions of people are gaining insurance through Medicaid, the program is poised to make deep cuts in payments to many doctors, prompting some physicians and consumer advocates to warn that the reductions could make it more difficult for Medicaid patients to obtain care.

The Affordable Care Act provided a big increase in Medicaid payments for primary care in 2013 and 2014. But the increase expires on Thursday -- just weeks after the Obama administration told the Supreme Court that doctors and other providers had no legal right to challenge the adequacy of payments they received from Medicaid.

The impact will vary by state, but a study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that doctors who have been receiving the enhanced payments will see their fees for primary care cut by 43 percent, on average.

Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist at the Urban Institute and co-author of the report, said Medicaid payments for primary care services could drop by 50 percent or more in California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, among other states.

Everyone should not be allowed to "write their own story" about the Michael Brown shooting.  An audiotape of the shooting exists, as well as substantial related physical evidence.And yet I have seen very little discussion of this evidence, particularly from Michael Brown supporters.

Many seem to be more interested in discussing "the lessons of Ferguson" or some other broad topic.  Indeed, some of Brown's supporters candidly concede that the facts are irrelevant. But for those who want to know whether the grand jury reached the right conclusion, the facts are paramount....

This author tells us that this is the scenario that detectives presented and that the Grand Jury likely bought:

That Brown ran ~205 feet from the gunshots at the Tahoe, then turned around and raced back to catch the first of 10 additional shots at about the 185ft point.

We know for a fact by the shell casings in this diagram that Wilson was 150 feet from the Tahoe running towards Brown when he fired his first of the 10 shots. And according to an indisputable audiotape and police dispatches that that would be ~7 seconds after exiting the Tahoe.

That puts Wilson at ~150ft point with Brown at ~185ft point both running towards each other when Wilson begins firing. Really??? Does any witness describe them both charging each other when Wilson fires???

That also means that a second earlier [6s] Brown would have just started back from where he stopped [205ft] and turned around as Wilson reaches the 128ft point and is still running.

That also means that a second earlier still [5s] as Brown stops at 205ft point, Wilson reaches the ~107ft point and is still running.

Brown is 98 feet ahead of Wilson almost home free when he stops for no apparent reason to go back??? Really???

Was Brown really that fast and Wilson that slow??? If so then why not just keep running???

Did he have that big a lead to start with??? How long was that call to dispatch that Wilson made???

Even if you grant Brown a 3.8 second head start for Wilson to make his call, it would mean that Brown ran that 205 ft distance in 8 seconds at a blistering 25.625fps as opposed to Wilson covering only 107 feet over 5 seconds at a respectable 21.428fps.

And Brown did so carrying 280lbs, with marijuana in his system, bleeding from a bullet wound, in flip flops part of the way, then one flip flop, finishing in just socks.

Apparently some jurors didn't believe that they were getting all they needed from the prosecutor because at one point in the proceedings the prosecutor admonished the Grand Jury because it had come to her attention that some members were conducting their own investigation.

I'll just lay all of your "misstatements" out:

1. "We know for a fact by the shell casings in this diagram that Wilson was 150 feet from the Tahoe running towards Brown when he fired his first of the 10 shots."

2. "And according to an indisputable audiotape and police dispatches that that would be ~7 seconds after exiting the Tahoe."

3. "That puts Wilson at ~150ft point with Brown at ~185ft point both running towards each other when Wilson begins firing."

4. "That also means that a second earlier [6s] Brown would have just started back from where he stopped [205ft] and turned around as Wilson reaches the 128ft point and is still running."

5. "That also means that a second earlier still [5s] as Brown stops at 205ft point, Wilson reaches the ~107ft point and is still running."

6. "Even if you grant Brown a 3.8 second head start for Wilson to make his call, it would mean that Brown ran that 205 ft distance in 8 seconds at a blistering 25.625fps as opposed to Wilson covering only 107 feet over 5 seconds at a respectable 21.428fps."

7. "And Brown did so carrying 280lbs, with marijuana in his system, bleeding from a bullet wound, in flip flops part of the way, then one flip flop, finishing in just socks."

Once again, the number of cops standing around watching their comrades strike, drag and gas citizens, mostly women Protestors, seems to indicate football is no longer the preferred spectator sport for the men in blue who still are not wearing visible name tags & badges.