“We have not cited any Google self-driving cars,” Sergeant Saul Jaeger, the press information officer at the Mountain View Police Department, told me. They hadn’t pulled one over and let the vehicle go, either, to Jaeger’s knowledge.
Google confirmed that they none of their cars had ever been ticketed in Mountain View or elsewhere.
“What we’ve been saying to the folks in the DMV, even in public session, for unmanned vehicles, we think the ticket should go to the company. Because the decisions are not being made by the individual,” said Ron Medford, safety director for Google’s self-driving car program, and the former deputy administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“A person, if it is defined as a human person and not a corporation, that’s what we’re really wondering about,” Medford said. “Even in this definition… does a person mean a human individual or can it mean something more? It would seem to me that in the future it might mean something different.”
The DMV’s Soublet responded: “Well, right, if you look at the common definitions that are in the vehicle code, a person includes a corporation and a partnership and other forms of entities. So when we think of a vehicle being operated, is it that inclusive? Is the operator that person, that could be a corporation?”
Because robotics companies need corporate persons to accept the legal responsibility for the work algorithms do.
It's graduation time, an occasion for commencement speakers, academic regalia, and celebrating achievement. One achievement has become a lot more common over the past few decades: the master's degree, the fastest-growing college credential in the US.
Arsenio Hall is the latest Hollywood star to express an interest in buying the Clippers, but he needs help to reach the billion dollars he believes he needs to secure the franchise.
FINALLY, A BLOATED EXPENSIVE GOVERNMENT WAR I WILL SUPPORT
A fungus that has already caused more than $1 billion in damages to the coffee trade in Latin America is threatening to inflate the price of high-end coffee beans — and the United States is worried.
The Internets Invisible Infrastructure | Timo Arnall | Via
‘Internet Machine‘ by artist Timo Arnall is a multi-screen video about the invisible infrastructures of the internet. Documenting one of the largest, most secure and ‘fault-tolerant’ data-centers in the world, the film reveals the hidden materiality of information through an investigation of some of the machines through which ‘the cloud’ is transmitted and hosted. ‘in this film I wanted to look beyond the childish myth of ‘the cloud’,’ explains Arnall, ‘to investigate what the infrastructures of the internet actually look like. It felt important to be able to see and hear the energy that goes into powering these machines, and the associated systems for securing, cooling and maintaining them.’ an exhibition of the works can be seen at BIG BANG DATA.
These extremely high-resolution scans were made from one of the three sets of pitch-documents Roy and Walt Disney used to raise the money to build Disneyland. There are no archive copies of this document. Neither the Walt Disney Company nor the Walt Disney Family Museum have it. But we certainly hope both organizations will download these documents for inclusion in their collections.
Roy Disney — the Disney brother who controlled the company’s finances - — didn’t like the idea of Disneyland at first. Walt Disney poached the best talent from the studios to help him flesh out his idea for a new kind of amusement park, eventually winning over Roy, who helped him raise the $17 million it took to build Disneyland.
The first animator Walt took into the project was the legendary Herb Ryman. Over the course of a weekend in 1953, Walt and Herb drew the storied first map of Disneyland, as pictured here. An additional eight typed pages of description and sales copy were added to these pages and the resulting “brochure” was used as an unsuccessful pitch session that Walt and Herb conducted for three different New York bankers.
"The previous logo looks like it was digitized by someone whose index finger was crushed with a hammer"
I came to this blog for the logos but stayed for the obscure #sickburns
Lip-smacking Good
First produced in the 1880s, ChapStick is one of the more well-known brands of lip balm around the world, sold in 25 countries. Owned by Pfizer since 2009 (previously by The A.H. Robins Company since 1963), ChapStick has been using the same script wordmark since the 1930s when it was designed by Frank Wright, Jr.. The logo has adorned the two-and-a-half-inch little tubes with the propensity to get lost for many years and its so ubiquitous that it might be easy to NOT notice that the logo on it recently changed. I buy at least one ChapStick every month or two when I am at the airport and realize that I left the last one I bought at home. Without any fanfare — and actually with a really poor rollout, since none of the digital applications have been updated — ChapStick introduced an evolution of its logo late last year, crafted by Toronto-based Ian Brignell.
Logo detail. Roll over image to overlay the old logo.Old and new Cherry flavors.A line-up of Chapstick flavors.
This is a straight-up logo review, as there is no major range of applications nor a brand system to look at. The above images are simply to place the logo in context. (Not the prettiest of contexts, as the packaging isn't exactly cool). The previous logo looks like it was digitized by someone whose index finger was crushed with a hammer because the curves on those beziers are as smooth as chapped lips. The wordmark, as a whole, has always been pleasant. Similar to the Kleenex wordmark: it's just there and it makes the product look and feel like something you would want to smush against your face. The ChapStick logo is used so small that it's no wonder no one has bothered to improve it.
The new wordmark by Ian is the perfect evolution. It maintains the same flavor but improves greatly on it with a few simple moves: a less pronounced italic slant; ball terminals in the "C", "S", "c", and "k"; a more curved "k"; clearer stems for the "a" and "p"; and, obviously, bezier curves like the wings of an angel. Yes, it might be too much waxing about a wordmark evolution, but this is the kind of stuff that gets me all excited and if ChapStick doesn't want to make a big deal of it (or update its PNG files) I will. Now, where did I leave my ChapStick?
GAUNTLET? BY THE PEOPLE WHO MADE MAGICKA???? UHH YES OK THANK YOU YES
Gauntlet, this year's reboot of the classic co-op dungeon crawler, will be released Sept. 3 on Linux and Windows, publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced today.
The downloadable title will cost $19.99 for a Steam Play copy that is valid across both platforms. Pre-orders are already up for Gauntlet, with all pre-order customers set to receive a free digital comic, Gauntlet: Darkness Calls, from DC Entertainment. Various retailers are also offering unique in-game weapons as additional pre-order bonuses; Steam pre-purchase customers will get the Reaper's Visage helm and a double-headed axe known as Azkog the Demon Slayer.
Darkness Calls will focus on the origin story of Morak, the hooded villain of the franchise. It's Morak's gauntlet that players are trying to survive in an effort to recover the Sacred Orb he stole. You can see the cover of Gauntlet: Darkness Calls below.
Gauntlet is in development at Arrowhead Game Studios, the company behind Magicka and Helldivers. The game will offer four fantasy classes — Warrior, Wizard, Valkyrie and Elf — and those characters will have to work together to clear out procedurally generated dungeons. For more on Gauntlet, check out the trailer below, and read our preview from the 2014 Game Developers Conference.
Thanks to Li for sending in her awesome wearable thesis project. Check out her site here.
This installation expresses a person’s physiological activity when meeting
a stranger, uses three physical shell shape objects to exaggerate such
reactions by covering the wearer’s face. Each object has its own framework
and moving patterns representing different personalities.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
We’ve known each other for almost two years now. And yeah, in that time I’ve given a lot of speeches, but they all have one thing in common: they’re all different.
so the first four hoards were so popular that theyve become kind of on ongoing series ! some of the ones here feature the commissioners ocs and personal items, but ALL of them involve things very dear to me: weird lizards on piles of junk
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Last week, China's Central Government Procurement Center posted a notice on new requirements for government tender, that included, among other things, the mysterious request that Windows 8 be excluded from the bidding process on computer purchases. The agency could not be reached Tuesday, but China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that the government was forbidding the use of Windows 8 after Microsoft recently ended official support for Windows XP."
"because Heat fans were stomping too close to the birds' babies"
fuck the Heat
Birds don't want you near their babies, even if you root for the home team.
With the first two games of the Eastern Conference semis taking place in Indiana, fans in Miami are catching the games at watch parties outside American Airlines Arena. One problem ... ANGRY BIRDS:
This is some cutthroat reporting. The folks at WSVN determined that the birds were attacking because Heat fans were stomping too close to the birds' babies ... so the reporters went ahead and did just that, putting themselves in harm's way with predictably hairy results:
Thank you for your intrepid and questionable on-scene reporting, WSVN. Godspeed, Heat fans.
Super Opinionated.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
