You're exactly right! I see the problem now.

It's not just an ad; it is a fundamental paradigm shift.

That's really fun. I play a lot of word games online and I will be adding yours to my daily regimen. Clever use of sound too. I may want to turn it off at times but for now at least I'm leaving it on.

In case you didn't already notice, there is a volume slider in the game's menu.

> They don't make battery electric cars.

They've been selling partial-electric cars since at least 2014. The Prius Prime allows for electric-only driving up to about 30 miles per charge. That's enough for my commute. I got 3500 miles on my first tank of gas.

Really since 1997 at low speeds.

Toyota has put a small battery and electric motor in their cars for 20 years now capable of propelling the vehicle at low speeds.

But if you're trying to build an actual electric vehicle, you don't want a small battery as that puts you on the worst part of the discharge rate and battery life curve. A larger battery in the same vehicle reduces the "C" rate and is much kinder on the battery plus gives you much more power to work with and ability to handle a much higher charge rate.

Big battery wins, long-term. Small battery is a false economy except on hybrids.

I think the lack of appreciation of this (and lack of availability of inexpensive batteries) has hampered a lot of carmakers. Address that (super cheap batteries so you can put a 500 mile battery in if you want), and virtually every "problem" with electric cars goes away or is dramatically reduced.

Here's the link, but the qualification round for this year has already passed. https://code.google.com/codejam/

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. Nitpicking the wording of an article's first sentence is practically a caricature of the Internet Dismissal.

I also think bergie's comment is a fair critique. If the very first sentence of an article is that absurd/unfounded/hyperbolic/etc, it's certainly fair to call it out.

He is providing minimum viable evidence that article is not particularly well written. I found his comment helpful.

A standard internet boast about not getting past sentence n, where the snark gets bigger as n gets smaller, is nothing worth posting here.

The article's author may not be a native English speaker. If so, the dismissal was not only unsubstantive but parochial. We have a lot of international content on HN and users need to read it charitably (and read other things charitably too).

Hmm, ok that's a good point.

That is a very fair critique. I don't know how that sentence passed the peer review without someone spilling coffee on their keyboard.

This isn't a peer reviewed paper

It then goes on to describe really basic problems billions of humans are naturally really good at, things we have no actual problem with in our real life, as opposed to say things that we are not good at, and therefore are real problems we have.

I'm not saying we shouldn't make AI to rival humans at those things, but they simply aren't our greatest problems.

It's true, in domains such as vision, humans excel. But the implementation of computer vision is an open door for much more powerful robotic applications to emerge, in industry, transportation, medicine, administrative work and caretaking.

Making vision cheap and effective for computers will help humans not need to do such backbreaking work as picking fruit (which was protected from automation because it depended on vision and dexterous manipulation). In agriculture, computer vision could lead to plant-level care, reducing the need for chemicals.

"The problems of Intelligence" - the many problems that one might associate with discussions about intelligence. They are indeed numerous.

"are, together, the greatest problem in science and technology." - You probably get this: together, those problems are the "golden ring" (or brass ring - see the carousel metaphor at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_ring) of science.

my paraphrasing would be:

"Intelligence is the greatest problem in science and technology today."

You cannot start an article like that unless it is your essay and you're a first year student.

You're wasting reader's time on meaningless, unproved statements. Perhaps he should demonstrate why that is the case. Or say "X considers Intelligence ..." and then quote him.

Well, he was born in Italy and English is likely not his first language. And his is a name I've heard all my career so, yes, I think he can start an article pretty much any way he pleases and I'll gladly read it.!8-))

But also I agree with Dr. Poggio's first statement in the paper (i.e.,"The problems of Intelligence are, together, the greatest problem in science and technology today."). I have a proof that this is so, however I haven't the time to post it this small textbox and be assured of no typos. Tempus fugit.

But if you know of other problem(s) that you believe are greater then you should indeed reveal them to us.

Perhaps he is writing a 'betoog' (I do not know how to translate this), a piece in which the point is not to inform the user but to convince them of a certain point of view.

Very nice. I've run a marginally similar site for a few years that I had just decided to sunset (http://randombracket.com). Too much work for about four days of usage :)

I'm glad I have your site to use now.

Where will the contest take place?

You're right, nobody has ever said that. I hope that's the point. I hope the end goal is that people will say that occasionally.

I never even glance at the comments on certain sites (e.g. YouTube, Yahoo Sports) because I know they are going to be awful. I do read comments on other sites (e.g. Deadspin, AVClub) because they often add to the story and are also often hilarious.

Strange that the Pharo home page doesn't explain what Pharo does. I'm not familiar with Pharo and after scrutinizing the Pharo home page I'm still don't have a clue what it does.

I see a lot of mentions of Smalltalk on this page yet 'Smalltalk' doesn't appear on the Pharo home page.

Am I missing something? If I'm not already familiar with Pharo, am I simply not part of the intended audience?

> I see a lot of mentions of Smalltalk on this page yet 'Smalltalk' doesn't appear on the Pharo home page.

Huh? Are we looking at the same page? On the home page I see "Pharo's goal is to deliver a clean, innovative, free open-source Smalltalk-inspired environment."

(Note that the HN link is not to the home page, but to the 2.0 download page.)

On the top of the website you can see: "Pharo is a clean, innovative, open-source Smalltalk-inspired environment".

Basically it is a programming language + ide + image based virtual machine.

Not trying to be a dick or anything, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharo

There's a link on the home page - "About" which goes into a bit more depth.

agree, really hard to find out what it is, the only work that I catch and gave me a hint is 'virtual machines', but still pretty vague

Must be really hard to figure you are looking at a download page and then to click on "home".