Category Archives: Singularity

What is the worlds largest single organism? A quick Google search could leave you with more questions than you anticipated. Depending on our prior knowledge, we may think that the largest single organism would be a giant sequoia, blue whale, coral reefs, or a pool of algae. However, the true answer is more complex that we may assume.

First, lets get specific and identify what an organism is. An organism is a form of life composed of parts that depend on one another, that maintain various vital processes. When we are considering the largest single organism in the world, we look at genetically identical forms of life of plants, animals, or fungi.

There are two top contenders for largest organism, both of which can be found in our own backyard: Armillaria ostoyae and Populus tremuloides, commonly known as honey fungus and aspen trees. In short, aspen and fungi both claim the title. An Aspen grove in Utah wins for greatest mass, while a fungal community in Oregon covers the largest distance, but there is more to uncover and much to debate.

Aspen trees and honey fungus exist as a single organism because of their hidden underground connectivity. Aspen trees have a root system which links them to other genetically identical trees. In autumn, trees in the same organism will transform leaves simultaneously. This singularity occurs because the aspen reproduces by sending a clone from its roots through the forest floor.

One such organism in Utah has done this enough to cover over 107 acres, called Pando, meaning I Spread in Latin. Pando has been growing and dying for over 80,000 years and has over 47,000 genetically identical trees, weighing over an estimated 13 million pounds. The other contender, the honey fungus, invites further curiosities.

Fungi are in a kingdom all of their own, separate from plants and animals. Fungi are composed of a network of threads or strands called mycelium, which produces spores and feeds on organic matter. Just like the aspen connects via its root system, fungi connect beneath the earth with their mycelial structure.

Fungi create a network of these tiny mycelial roots spanning dozens of feet under the earth, hardly breaching the surface. Mycelial structures have been compared to the neurons in human brains and have even been dubbed natures internet because they work in a similar function.

These fungal structures link roots of trees and act as a messenger for forest flora with impeccable speed and accuracy. In Oregon, the largest stand of fungus is called the Humongous fungus and it is 2,200 acres of Armillaria ostoyae, otherwise known as the honey fungus or shoestring fungus.

The parasitic structure thrives by stealing nutrients and water from the trees, and has been doing so for approximately 2,400 years. If this plot of fungus is truly connected, it could weigh between 13 million to 69 million pounds. However, we have no true answer for the depth and complexity of this structure because it lives so finely under our feet. One sprouting mushroom can bridge a 60-foot distance to the nearest mushroom through the mycelial connections.

When we consider the aspen grove and the honey fungus, both can stake a claim to the title of largest organism, depending on how we measure. Knowing we do not have a simple answer to the question reveals that nature holds many more secrets. Some of these secrets may even hold answers to some of humanitys numerous problems and mysteries. By protecting and studying nature, we protect ourselves for generations to come.

Taylor Branson is a Naturalist at Walking Mountains Science Center. In her free time, you can find her hiking up mountains, reading in a hammock, tending to her plants, or working in a creative art project.

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Curious Nature: What is the world's largest organism? - Vail Daily News

In Destiny 2s fifteenth season, Season of the Lost, players can earn a new exotic grade weapon by progressing through the Season Pass the Lorentz Driver. This new Linear Fusion Rifle may look like yet another science fiction weapon powered by impossible energies and ridiculous technology. Thats not necessarily the case this time, as the Lorentz Driver has its mechanics and name rooted in real science. Heres how the weapon breaks down its interpretation of the Lorentz force.

So, first off, we have to look at the force this weapon is named after, the Lorentz force. Originally developed from a complete derivation by Hendrik Lorentz in 1895, Lorentz force is the combination of electric and magnetic forces on a charged particle due to electromagnetic fields. This charged particle will only feel a force due to the magnetic field if it is moving with a component of its velocity perpendicular to the field. If it moves parallel to the magnetic field, it experiences no force. Particles, or a single particle, guided by this force is influenced by the Guiding Center, where all surrounding particles align towards this point in space.

The sum of these two forces creates a force that we call the Lorentz force. This concept allows almost all modern electronics to function; speakers, computers, and even railguns all utilize the idea of Lorentz force as the main basis of how they handle electricity and magnetism. Particle accelerators and cyclotrons especially utilize Lorentz force due to their circular shapes and how the force multiplies the speeds of charged particles, allowing them to collide and create new elements.

Looking at how the Lorentz Driver weapon functions, we can break down the components of the mechanics and how they tie to Lorentz force itself in a basic manner. The Linear Fusion Rifle in Destinys universe is a weapon that projects a super-concentrated beam of elemental energy in a single shot, much like a sniper rifle but with much more piercing power.

The Lorentz Driver is a void element weapon, which is described in Destinys lore as an energy of absence or vacuum where energies can be negated. When players score a Precision Kill, or a head shot, on a target a small black hole forms that attracts nearby enemies and then erupts in an explosion of void energy. Targets at random will also be highlighted by the weapons scope system and drop a small, golden tag called a piece of Telemetry Data. When players pick up three of these tags they will gain a buff known as Lagrangian Sight.

When a singularity forms from a Precision Kill, this is basically the Guiding Center of Lorentz force charging a particle and attracting things near it to a common alignment. Since the energy of the weapon is void and it usually produces a vacuum-like effect when used, the fact nearby objects tend to collapse in on void energy, it makes sense.

While the Lagrangian Sight buff is active, the Lorentz Driver will cause more damage and every kill, precision or not, will cause the singularities to form. According to the weapons lore entry from in-game documentation the rifle was possibly built haphazardly by the alien race known as the Fallen, or Eliksni, from non-weapon parts.

Applying the basics of Lorentz force to the weapon makes it easy to see how it all works. The weapons most basic functions are similar to that of a real-life railgun, a type of cannon that employs magnetism and large amounts of electricity to propel a projectile at high speeds with the use of electromagnetic rails. Lorentz force is applied to how the weapon projectile is propelled by applying a charge to a beam of energy.

When the weapons Lagrangian Sight kicks in, it is using the basis of Lagrangian mechanics that add to the weapons power and precision. When the Lagrangian is applied to the weapons mechanisms, it is interacting with the weapons potential energy and bolstering its accuracy to find a vector within space, which explains why the singularities form on any kill rather than a precision kill.

While in the Destiny universe, weaponry and energy are dictated by the games own lore and concepts of how everything functions, its clear Bungies writing team did their homework on this one. The weapons name doesnt just serve as flavor, but is a simplified demonstration of a foundation of electricity and magnetism.

The brilliance of the weapon mechanics make it not only an engaging weapon to use, but the clever demonstrations of real-life electromagnetism show Bungies attention to detail is bar none. Destiny is not a super-accurate world, but its roots in science and use of worldbuilding to give structure to how everything mingles allows unique representations of real-life concepts of science to exist such as this. As the saying goes, any sufficiently advanced technology can be indistinguishable from magic.

If you're looking for more sci-fi gaming content, check out our best Star Wars games guide, and if you're looking to get immersed in the VR space battles then we've also got our best PSVR space games guide for you.

Play Destiny 2 Beyond Light on Xbox Game Pass

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The science behind Destiny 2s Lorentz Driver weapon - Space.com

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Yes, we know it's October, but the holiday shopping season (apparently) knows no bounds. We're already starting to see early Black Friday deals pop up across the web, so it's not too early to start crossing things off your gift list. The Apple TV 4K remains on sale for $160 while the AirPods Pro and a couple of MacBooks are also discounted. A pair of our favorite Bose earbuds are down to a record low while the Echo Show 8 is still on sale for $100. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The latest Apple TV 4K is down to $160 on Amazon, which is close to an all-time-low price. It's the best high-end streaming device you can get and we gave it a score of 90 for its speedy performance, Dolby Vision and Atmos support and much improved Siri remote.

Billy Steele / Engadget

The AirPods Pro, Apple's best sounding wireless earbuds, are back down to $179. That's $70 off their normal price and close to a record low. These buds earned a score of 87 from us for their IPX4 design, improved audio and solid ANC.

Billy Steele/Engadget

Apple's AirPods Max are on sale for $449, or $100 off their normal price. We gave these expensive headphones a score of 84 for their stellar sound quality, good ANC and solid onboard controls.

Apple

Amazon knocked $100 off most 11-inch iPad Pro models, bringing the 256GB WiFi version down to an all-time low of $800. We gave the larger version of the tablet a score of 87 for its powerful performance, lovely display and new Center Stage feature.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

The 512GB MacBook Air M1 has been discounted to $1,099. This is arguably the best Apple laptop for most people and it earned a score of 94 from us for its impressive performance, excellent battery life, lack of fan noise and good keyboard and trackpad.

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Apple's Mac Mini M1 is on sale for as low as $600 right now thanks to a few automatically applied coupons. The best deal is arguably on the 512GB version, which is $150 off and down to $750. The design of the small desktop hasn't changed much, but the big improvements come from the M1 chipset inside.

Billy Steele/Engadget

The Bose QuietComfort earbuds are down to an all-time low fo $199 right now. We gave these buds a score of 87 for their stellar noise cancellation, great sound quality and good battery life.

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The mid-sized Echo Show 8 smart display is down to $100, which is close to the record-low price that we saw during Prime Day in June. We gave it a score of 87 for its minimalist design, lovely display and good sound quality.

Anova

Anova's entry-level sous vide machine, the Nano, is down to $95 on Amazon right now. That's the best price we've seen on the kitchen gadget that would make a great gift for the serious home cook in your life. This model uses 750 watts of power to heat up water and it'll run for up to 3,000 hours before it needs to be recharged.

You can save up to 67 percent on a bunch of games from Activision and Blizzard at GOG.com for the next couple of days. The sale includes Caesar, Pharaoh + Cleopatra, Singularity and others.

Amazon has a high-powered configuration of the Razer Book on sale for $1,200, or $400 off its normal price. It runs on an 11th-gen Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, Intel Iris Xe graphics and a 13.4-inch FHD+ touchscreen.

If you're willing to get a refurbished model, Sonos has its Arc soundbar for $80 off right now, and only the white model is on sale and in stock at the moment. We gave the Arc a score of 85 for its excellent sound quality, Dolby Atmos support and slick design.

NordVPN, one of our favorite VPNs, is running a sale on a two-year subscription. You can sign up and pay $99 for two years, plus you'll get an extra three months free. We like NordVPN for its speed, its no-logs policy, the thousands of servers it has to choose from and that one account supports up to six connected devices.

Another one of our top VPN services, Tunnelbear, is offering a two-year subscription for $100. You'll save 58 percent if you sign up with this deal, and we think Tunnelbear is one of the easiest VPNs to use, especially for those that don't want to go crazy configuring their connections.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

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The Apple TV 4K drops to $160, plus the rest of the week's best tech deals - Engadget

Raf Simon presented gender fluid looks during recent Paris Fashion WeekImage: Lucas Barioulet

Harry Styles in a Gucci dress, on the cover of Vogue magazine. The image was powerful, and it certainly created controversy, but not a backlashon the contrary, in fact. In some way, it's an image that embodies the changes that are taking place in an industry that's in the midst of profound transformation. Others, in the past, have triedfrom the punk movement of the '70s, and the likes of David Bowie, to Jean Paul Gaultier's men in skirtsbut without ever managing to bring what was then known as unisex or androgynous fashion, fully into the mainstream.

"There is an almost political dimension in saying that going along with gender is responding to an old patriarchal system," says the editorial director of Journal du Luxe, and this system is totally rejected by the progressive logic of Generation Z. "This is a genuine reality, especially in fashion and beauty. For this generation, which is obsessed with expressing its singularity, the no gender [concept] is a major catalyst for self-expression."

It's not surprising that fashion houses like Balenciaga and Gucci, which count numerous initiatives around genderor rather, no gender are among the world's most popular.* The former presented a gender-neutral haute couture wedding dress, while the latter went so far as to launch an entire section, Gucci MX, dedicated to non-binary fashion. It seems to be a winning strategy for these two luxury giants, who have clearly paved the way for the futureand the renewalof fashion.

Brands and major fashion houses are now each following the next in proposing 'gender fluid' or 'no gender' or 'non-binary' collections. And while some stand accused of 'gender washing,' others have embraced the concept and transposed it into their DNA. This is the case of Telfar, of course, but also of Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, Casablanca and Jeanne Friot.

More recently, on the Paris Fashion Week catwalks, Raf Simons, as well as Christelle Kocher, unveiled pieceseven entire collectionsheading in the direction of gender-fluid fashion. Meanwhile, celebrities like Lil Nas X stepped out in non-gender-specific outfits on the red carpet of the legendary MET Gala in New York. Such moves can only help make it easier for people to gradually free themselves from traditional gender stereotypes.

These offerings prove that non-binary fashion is more than just a trend. "I think it's a mainstream movement, and it's going to last, even if some people are going to be totally allergic to it. But if we look at the feminist movement today, we are in a logic of non-differentiation of the sexes, so the [idea of] 'no gender' has a bright future ahead of it," says Eric Briones.

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From the runway to the street, fashion is shaking off traditional notions of gender - Forbes India

Mo Gawdat believes that the singularity is coming and that AI poses a serious threat to humanity. Dire Warning

According to a former Google executive, the singularity is coming. And, whats more, he says that it poses a major threat to humanity.

Mo Gawdat, formerly the Chief Business Officer for Googles moonshot organization, which was called Google X at the time, issued his warning in a new interview with The Times. In it, he said that he believes that artificial general intelligence (AGI), the sort of all-powerful, sentient AI seen in science fiction like Skynet from The Terminator, is inevitable and that once its here, humanity may very well find itself staring down an apocalypse brought forth by godlike machines.

Gawdat told The Times that he had his frightening revelation while working with AI developers at Google X who were building robot arms capable of finding and picking up a small ball. After a period of slow progress, Gawdat said that one arm grabbed the ball and seemed to hold it up to the researchers in a gesture that, to him, seemed like it was showing off.

And I suddenly realized this is really scary, Gawdat said. It completely froze me.

The reality is, he added, were creating God.

Theres no shortage of AI fearmongerers in the tech industry Elon Musk has repeatedly warned the world about the dangers of AI someday conquering humanity, for example. But that kind of speculative outlook somewhat glosses over the real hazards and harms linked to the AI weve already built.

For instance, facial recognition and predictive policing algorithms have caused real harm in underserved communities. Countless algorithms out there continue to propagate and codify institutional racism across the board. Those are problems that can be solved through oversight and regulation but you wouldnt know that if you, like Gawdat, think of AI development as the inevitable birth of a vengeful god.

READ MORE: Can this man save the world from artificial intelligence? [The Times]

More on AGI: When Will We Have Artificial Intelligence As Smart as a Human? Heres What Experts Think

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Former Google Exec Warns That AI Researchers Are "Creating God" - Futurism

TNT NBA analyst and Hall of Fame center Shaquille ONeal has made his pick for 2021-2022 MVP, and it may not be who you thought.

Not LeBron James, Luka Doni or even Giannis Antetokounmpo. Instead, ONeal says, its Stephen Curry.

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"Steph Curry. Look at what he did last year without Klay. He just kept playing. The way he shot the ball and how he shot the ball, Ive always liked him," said ONeal, in an exclusive interview with USA Todays Mark Medina. "Theres always an argument on the TNT set that You cant be MVP if your team doesnt have the best record. Ive always found that wrong. I always felt MVP was about singularity and not about team success. Ive always like how Steph plays."

Golden State Warriors forward Kent Bazemore, top, pours water on the head of guard Stephen Curry after an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies in San Francisco, Sunday, May 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

The 33-year-old Warriors point guard is a two-time MVP and three-time NBA Champion, yet it feels as if hes hardly regarded as a top-three player in the game anymore. Its strange, considering that Curry led the league in scoring last season with 32.0 PPG and was a member of the exclusive 40/50/90 club for the fifth time in his career. All while playing without shooting guard Klay Thompson, who was out all last season recovering from a torn right Achilles injury.

FILE - In this April 15, 2021, file photo, Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry (30) goes to the basket against Cleveland Cavaliers' Jarrett Allen (31) and Isaac Okoro during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Cleveland. Curry has landed the second $200 million contract of his career, reaching agreement on a $215 million, four-year extension with the Warriors on Tuesday, Aug. 3. (AP Photo/David Dermer, File)

Currys play even carried the Warriors into the first ever play-in tournament for the postseason, where they were eventually beaten by the Lakers and Grizzlies.

FanDuel Sportsbook has Curry tied with Joel Embiid and Kevin Durant for the third best odds to win the MVP this season at +800. That trails Doni at +480 and Antetokounmpo at +700.

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) points toward teammate Alfonzo McKinnie after Curry scored against the Denver Nuggets during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Oakland, Calif., Tuesday, April 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

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Curry should put up similar numbers this season, though his supporting cast might not help him much. Golden State general manager Bob Myers said on Monday that Thompson will not return until "maybe January." Forward Andrew Wiggins has refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine and is at risk of missing all 41 home games due to San Franciscos vaccine mandate.

The onus will certainly be on Curry once more, a role hes familiar with. Should Golden State make the playoffs this season, it will be because of Curry, and he might find himself as a three-time MVP when the season ends.

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Shaq goes with former MVP to reclaim this year's top honor - Fox News

The British novelist David Mitchell has taken people in extraordinary directions throughout his career. Individually, each of his critically acclaimed and popular booksincluding the best known, Cloud Atlasplays games with storylines, characters and relationships that stretch and bend and snap and reassemble across history, geography, even different dimensions. They comprise a sprawling narrative singularity marked by teasing, dark recurrences and transformations, through characters who appear in different books in defiance of conventional time, place and being.

Mitchells fiction affirms that defining statement in Don DeLillos Underworld, that everything is connected, by both emphasizing the consolation this can affordno matter how alienated you may feel in your immediate circumstances, you are not aloneand confirming the suspicion this otherwise encourages: that unseen forces exert decisive and likely malevolent control over our seemingly freely pursued lives.

Mitchells latest, Utopia Avenue, is at first glance a maximally detailed historical novel. Its particular areas of interest and treatmentrecent North Atlantic history and culture, celebrity and politics, 1960s historical figures and a briefly famous rock bandare related to music-making. That said, there is another, darker story here that (depending on how you feel about Mitchells overall body of work) either threatens or promises to be the primary source of the books considerable, if diffusive, energies and ambitions.

The novel begins with a young man, Dean, rushing down a busy street. He slips and falls on black ice: Bloody London. A bewhiskered stockbroker type in a bowler hat smirks at the long-haired louts misfortune, and is gone. Dean heads off again, only to be pickpocketed on his way to pay the rent to his merciless landlady before begging in vain for a pay advance from his boss, a miserly Italian restaurant owner. He is soon bruised, jobless and homeless. He wields his bass guitar as a final attempt to make it as a musician in late 1960s London. Amping up the already-high Dickensian mode, Dean flips his last coin to decide what to do next; the coin disappears down a gutter, and a mysterious stranger appears. Levon is a music producer who likes Deans music and invites him along to a nightclub to hear a virtuoso guitarist play psychedelic covers of Mississippi blues standards. Hes bloody amazing, Dean says. Who is he? His names Jasper de Zoet.

This all takes place in the first 15 rollicking pages of a 600-page story, and Mitchell is signaling, by way of the guitarists name,that what were about to read is linked somehow to his previous writings, including his historical novel about a Dutchmans experiences in 18th-century Japan, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. But Mitchell defers the unfolding of an intra-novel, inter-dimensional, trans-temporal war for human souls to the novels closing sequence. In the meantime, he blends two more standard kinds of novels: historical fiction and a rock band book. Levon, the quietly ambitious, gay Canadian impresario, brings together bassist Dean and guitarist Jasper with a female singer and keyboardist named Elf and a remote drummer called Griff to create the band. Mitchell provides all of his characters with an affecting back story that informs the aspirations and longings that figure in their musical collaboration, eventually called Utopia Avenue.

The main story focuses on the bands trajectory from mediocre early work to underground success to broader British attention and, eventually, fame and fortune in the United States. Bandmates sleep with other peoples spouses and deal with groupie pregnancies; Griff is behind the wheel in a car accident that kills his brother; and he steps away from the band at a crucial moment in its ascent; more established managers tempt the band to drop Levon; music journalists flirt and fence with Dean and his mates for inside stories on the promise of good coverage; one of Elfs boyfriends, not a musician, offers uninvited creative advice to the other members; another, her ex from a defunct folk duo, returns to her life with perfect dirtbag timing, just as Utopia Avenue is beginning to enjoy success, and casually volunteers to begin sitting in on sessions.

Later, the band has a bad mix-up with corrupt Italian police following a performance in Rome. Dean is imprisoned on false drug charges, and the British media play up his predicament.

Historical figures appear alongside the members of Utopia Avenue constantly. David Bowie, Nina Simone, Allen Ginsberg, Syd Barrett, the Butterfield Blues band, Diana Ross, Engelbert Humperdinck, Keith Moon, Grace Slick, Michael Caine, George Best, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and John Lennon all pass through, the effect of which is to encourage page-turning celebrity-sighting, not to substantively advance the novels story and ideas.

Building on its rising profile, which is helped by Deans Roman confinement and by songs that begin to chart, Utopia Avenue is invited to play in the United States. The band flies to New York and sets up at the Chelsea Hotel; members attend sodden parties where Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin think aloud the lyrics of now-famous songs.

Here a driving rationale emerges for why Mitchell chose this historical-cultural moment for his new novel: He uses the altered-state conditions of the late 1960s music scene to set off and also conceal his characters intensifying struggles with otherworldly forces and presences, particularly in the case of the talented guitarist Jasper, who has heard a particular voice and knocking in his head since childhood.

To the extent that they notice, the people in Jaspers circle think he is acting a little weird, but then most people partying at the Chelsea Hotel circa 1969 are acting a little weird. They only become worried when Jasper suddenly disappears for hours and reappears just before a make-or-break U.S. show, where he plays alternatively like the Dutch Jimi Hendrix and like a semi-sentient zombie, thereby threatening the bands prospects.

Thereafter, Mitchell pursues an alternatively dramatic and mellow denouement. He braids together the personal and public rise, fall and renewal of a lovable group of ordinary British musicians, reaching to the present day, with an increasingly convoluted story of powerful time-travelling beings who fight each other, in and through the bodies of people from all over the world and all time, including both Jasper and his 18th-century ancestor, Jacob (and from many other places in David Mitchells oeuvre). By the end, both storylines affirm the irreducible and vivifying goods of the human soul.

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Review: Fame, fortune and falls from grace in the 1960s music scene - America Magazine

Twitter and other social media where Tesla fans tend to hang out is abuzz with Teslas Safety Scores. The idea is that the scores (probably with some improvements) will be used to determine how risky a persons driving is, and then be used to determine what rates a driver should be charged. While thats not happening yet, the scores are now being used to determine who gets to participate in the FSD Beta program via The Button.

In another article, I addressed the privacy concerns, but I also wanted to address a more practical problem with this and other insurance monitoring schemes: an attempt to quantify something thats inherently qualitative. In other words, trying to reduce complex information (the many, many decisions a driver makes in a week) to a one, two, or three digit number fails to capture important context that something like a driving history can better capture. The result is a number with no context.

Tesla cant really be faulted for doing this, because western culture and science itself does this all the time, and for very good reasons.

As philosopher Philip Goff points out in Galileos Error, subjective things and the experiences deeply tied to our consciousness are very hard to analyze. We could endlessly debate like in The Philosophers Football Match (a Monty Python Skit), but as a civilization, we really needed to be scoring points and making advances. Goff knew that scientific thinking couldnt analyze things that we only experience in our consciousness, let alone deep questions of spirituality or the metaphysical.

Galileo intentionally narrowed down sciences focus to the things that could be quantified (things like size, shape, position, motion) so that we could get down to business and solve problems. The scientific revolution that followed gave us everything from computers to limited space travel, but nobody really thought that things that could be quantified were the only things that matters. The idea was just to save those kinds of questions for later so we could get shit done.

Today, almost nobody whos a serious player in the physics world really thinks particles are sizeless points or that there really was a singularity at the beginning of the universe. Truth be told, we dont really know what particles are, but weve done a lot of very great things by skipping that kind of question and just focusing on what they do so we could get particles to do useful things.

The problem today is that were taking this philosophy of quantification far, far beyond anything Galileo ever intended. Subjective things, things we only experience in our consciousness, spiritual questions, and the metaphysical arent nonsense that should be ignored or somehow turned into numbers we can do math on.

Want an example in the Tesla community? Lets think about the comparison memes that have been floating around since the announcement of the Tesla Roadster 2.

A common Roadster vs meme. Fair Use, commentary.

In theory, the numbers are all true. Nobody disputes that. But, lets look at another comparison with numbers that are 100% accurate:

Even if youre a diehard Tesla fan, youre probably seeing what the problem is now. Yes, its entirely true that the 1996 Toyota Previa has better specs in this comparison. The Previa can be had for 3 grand, and it comes with a fridge, more seating, more sunroofs, and more wipers. Plus, you can go buy one TODAY!

But were missing important context with these numbers, arent we? One vehicle is an efficient family hauler, and buying something from the last century is something youd do to save money. The Roadster is meant to compete with supercars and hypercars, not old minivans with 300,000 miles. Modest differences in specs perhaps matter to other people, but to others its about the brand, the car being expensive/exclusive (the fact that the Bugatti costs $3 million will be a plus to some buyers who are just buying it to show off how rich they are), or the looks.

Honest, accurate numbers are great, but they arent enough when it comes to cars because there are other factors that cant be turned into numbers and directly compared.

The Safety Score makes a similar mistake.

Yes, the data it collects is probably close to 100% accurate. The computer can figure out what a hard braking event is, how close it is to the cars in front of it, and many other things. There may even be a good correlation between doing certain things on the road and getting into wrecks that back up Teslas choice of numbers.

The problem is that these numbers are largely divorced of context. Was the hard braking event caused by the drivers excessive acceleration into a situation that requires hard braking (poor driving)? Or, did some moron pull out in front of the driver, who then had to brake hard to avoid a collision (an example of good driving)?

And all of this is before we consider the actual driving histories of the people getting these scores. If a person has zero tickets, zero collisions, and zero claims on their record, thats a safe driver. You cant take a sample of their driving data with no context, assign it a low score, and then say that person should be paying more for insurance. Insurance rates are supposed to be based on the risk of paying out claims, and a history of no claims and no tickets is enough.

With an at-fault accident, its indisputable that something unsafe occurred. It doesnt take a mathematician, an algorithm, or an artificial neural network to see that a car or cars got smashed up. After an accident, an investigator must make a number of qualitative judgements to determine who was at fault.

When it comes to tickets, youre getting information that was first judged by several humans (a cop, a judge, etc.) before it got counted as an infraction. The police officer had to observe some driving behavior and look at the totality of the circumstances before deciding that a qualitative violation of the law occurred. Then, a judge can look at the case and decide if it was really a violation. After all, police dont go to law school, so the accused gets an opportunity to have the situation reviewed by someone who did.

If its a serious accident, nobody gets put in prison because some number got crunched and turned out bad. A jury of ones peers gets as much information as allowed by the law, and then makes a qualitative judgement based on all of the context, and doesnt just blindly look at a number supplied by a computer.

Thus, its fair to use the history of these kinds of things to judge a drivers safety, because the context was considered, sometimes multiple times, at each step.

Like anything involving computers, the idea of garbage in, garbage out applies here. Numbers that get collected up by a computer with no context are a very poor substitute for better data that factored that context in at each step.

Computers, science, and numbers have done amazing things for human civilization, but we cant forget that a few numbers dont tell the whole story.

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The Potential Problem With The Safety Score: Numbers Arent Everything - CleanTechnica

We are going through an unpredictable speed increase in the advancement of technology innovation, how we utilize and rely upon it, especially programming. More than 66% of the worldwide economy will be digitally based before the start of 2022, as indicated by International Data Corporation. It has been anticipated by Singularity Hub that the quantity of Internet clients will twofold a long time from now. It required 40 years to make the primary half billion applications, it will require just five years somewhere in the range of 2018 and 2023 to make the following half billion likewise as indicated by International Data Corporation.

In this current decade, the universe of software programming is nearly seeing a progression of fervor with remarkable changes, patterns occurring in innovation advancements. The part of Computer Programming will turn out to be exceptionally essential for the software product item designing organizations which to a great extent influences the fate of IT Product Developments. Simultaneously, these movements in the programming field would not positively decree a specialty innovation for adoption however essentially permit engineers to bear the assumptions for programming patterns in 2023.

The Covid-19 pandemic has sped up technological transformation. It brought about a quick squeeze of advancements and, meanwhile, uncovered a lack of individuals whose work it is to convey them to the software developers.

As indicated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), interest for this job is projected to become 22% by 2029. Today, not just tech organizations shout out for programmers. Numerous associations have moved their business measures on the web and began to dispatch administrations on the Internet without any preparation. They are in need of specialized technical ability. As an ever-increasing number of organizations need to restore their administrations and foster new advancements to meet their clients quick developing necessities, the absence of experts will settle the score greater. Moreover, the abilities recruiters are anticipating from the candidates presently are not the same as those before the quarantine.

This is probably going to put little and moderate sized organizations, searching for competitors with the right range of abilities, into a troublesome position. Not a surprise 41% of associations mean to build their spending on programming re-appropriating. Not to lose in the race of continually evolving requests, joining forces with programming improvement specialists seems like a lovely insightful arrangement; itll assist organizations with being better furnished with new devices in the software organizations to keep the speed of digitization.

With the ascent of new advances in programming improvement, expanded and computer generated reality arrangements are projected to speed up. In the coming years, VR and AR will be generally utilized in medical care, instruction, science reproductions, web based business, and training, also gaming and online media, giving extraordinary advantages.

For instance, virtual fitting rooms today change the manner in which individuals shop. Use of AR/VR/MR arrangements in learning makes totally new review ways while subbing the need to envision things dependent on portrayals. In medical services, these innovations help to picture the human body better, extending analytic potential outcomes.

Improve the Online work Insight

Software developers will assist with further developing the remote work insight. Many organizations have started to return to their strategies to bring remote work permanently. Thus, new innovation developments will emerge to take care of the issues associations face with a conveyed labor force like efficiency and cooperation.

The worldwide pandemic affected computerized change this year. Zoom and Slack saw tremendous increases in 2020, and the new year will carry new acknowledgment to organizations as they comprehend which summed up instruments sometimes fall short for the associations special work processes and styles. The change to more light-footed, adjustable, and fabricated advancements will keep representatives connected with and useful in progressively virtual work areas. Programming engineers will lead this charge in pinpointing and building answers to assist with tackling the intrinsic difficulties in remote work.

Software developers will have the exceptionally disseminated nature of the product and the utilization of open source programming will make applications harder to secure, and security should be an indispensable piece of the software stack. The new structures will accept zero-trust security configuration, give hearty character and access the board, and make encryption straightforward. For instance, software developers will send all around expressed and coordinated security models to diminish hazards, working in provisions like security activities and AI-driven irregularity identification into programming stages.

Applications are getting more modest. Rather than customary applications with huge, heavyweight bundles, there are more reduced down applications. These applications use things like microservices that impart over APIs.

This implies that groups should be up to the difficulties of moving to microservices. (Or, more than likely they may withdraw from microservices back to stone monuments or small administrations). There will likewise be 1,000s of APIs used in applications rather than the 1 or 2 utilized in customary applications. It will be significantly more critical to have API for the executives.

Computer programming moves towards disentanglement, with another way to deal with making new applications known as low-code improvement.

Low-code stages empower nearly anybody to foster programming without customary coding yet through graphical UIs and setup. Such programming conditions have extraordinary potential since they permit individuals to transform their thoughts into advanced arrangements with restricted or no particular improvement abilities.

Regardless of some pandemic monetary turbulence, programming improvement re-appropriating organizations are relied upon to rapidly restore their solidity. Gartner states that the IT administrations market came around 4.6% in 2020 yet will ascend to 4.1% in 2021. Business Wire likewise predicts the ascent of the IT re-appropriating market from $342.9 billion every 2020 to $410.2 billion by 2027.

Because of the hardships to discover capable IT experts in the nearby market, organizations go to custom programming improvement organizations for profoundly gifted experts outside their space. In their turn, IT rethinking organizations should continually adjust and consolidate arising advancements to fulfill the business need for great applications around the world.

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What will be the Future of Software Development in 2023 - Illinoisnewstoday.com

Neuromorphic computing, one that seeks to design algorithms and integrated circuits imitating the physics of the human brain and nervous system, is one of the branches with the most potential. In recent years, we have seen brain-computer interfaces and the singularity, with claims that our minds could be linked to cyberspace.

Now, Samsung Electronics has shared a new insight that takes the world a step closer to realizing neuromorphic chips that can better mimic the brain by copying and pasting the brains neuronal connection map onto the chip.

The leading engineers and scholars from Samsung and Harvard University suggested a way to copy the brains neuronal connection map using a nanoelectrode array and to paste this map onto a high-density three-dimensional network of solid-state memories. Using this copy and paste approach, the team envisions to create a memory chip that approximates the unique computing traits of the brain low power, facile learning, adaptation to the environment, and even autonomy and cognition that have been beyond the reach of current technology.

The original goal of neuromorphic engineering, launched in the 1980s, was to mimic the structure and functions of neuronal networks on a silicon chip. Given its difficulty (even until now, it is not known how a large number of neurons are wired together to create the higher functions of the brain), the goal has become to design a chip inspired by the brain rather than rigorously mimicking it.

Samsungs approach involves returning to the original neuromorphic goal of the brain reverse engineering. It uses a nanoelectrode array that can effectively enter a large number of neurons so it can record their electrical signals with high sensitivity. These massively parallel intracellular recordings are then used to compile the neuronal wiring map by detailing the strength of different neural connections. This allows you to copy the neuronal wiring map, which can then be pasted into a network of non-volatile memories, such as a solid-state drive (SSD), or into resistive random access memories (RRAM). Each memory would be programmed so that its conductance corresponding to the strength of each neuronal connection in the copied map.

Obviously, years (perhaps decades) will pass for a first practical demonstration of the research. The human brain has over 100 billion neurons and thousands of times more synaptic connections. So, the ultimate neuromorphic chip will require 100 trillion or so memories. The study also indicates a quick way to paste the neural map into the memory network by downloading it directly.

Among the many challenges that the obtaining of a neuromorphic chip still poses is that of integrating such a large number of memories on a single chip, something that would be possible through 3D memory integration, a technology in which Samsung claims to be a leader and that leaves clearer their role in all this.

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Samsung wants to copy and paste the brain on memory chips - Inceptive Mind