What's to say someone hasn't released a virus that infiltrates the live executable on PCs and tweaks a few bits to weaken the encryption? It's unlikely but not impossible. Verifying source code is not the same knowing the executable files in memory are clean. You need a verifiable real-time hash check every step of the way...etc.
Not impractical to follow though. KNOX from Samsung does something relatively similar to prevent rooting and similar hacks. It may not stop them but it will shut down your security container (or the device) instantly if something changes it's hash or starts writing to memory outside it's sandbox/etc.
So even after the audit (which I supported) I'd consider it 99.99999% safe. But don't think it will safe you if you do something to REALLY piss off the gov't.
Also they'll just beat you with a wrench...queue xkcd
Kind of ironic that the government agency that requires 6 or 7 years of receipts/documentation be available can somehow limit themselves to a 6 month retention policy on THEIR documentation (well email, but these days that's definitely relevant).
I work for a self regulated organization (finance) and we're required to retain every-fucking-thing for 7 years. It's not 'save your PST file'... it's a WORM compliance archive of email that's completely automatic and not even visible to the user. It boggles my mind that the IRS doesn't have something like this. From the sounds of it they're literally downloading from exchange and deleting the server copy. What the actual fuck? I think the last time I did that anywhere in or out of the enterprise realm was the old Outlook Express client on Win 98 or something. Like 15 years ago.
Without them quashing the whole suit on the basis on national security
or
without them refusing to comment on the basis of national security
or
without them delaying until the judge insists and then letting him privately view the evidence once and issue a ruling on the basis of national security
or
manage to disprove the claims of an 'anonymous source' who happens to provide the same information
What I don't understand...is why people are so focused on these long road trips. How often does everyone drive cross country? Even considering the semi-common trips I'd make - from NYC up to Boston or down to DC - they're all well within range and I could hit one or more superchargers along the way. A 20 minute stretch half way through a 4 hour drive? Yes please. Oh, and I get free 'gas' too?
Besides that... if I'm taking a (rare) very long road trip I'll rent a car anyhow to avoid putting the extra miles on mine.
Even the interminable road trips for vacation when I was little (checks google maps) were only about 200 miles. Maybe I'm the minority here but if I could afford a Tesla I'd pretty much never have problems with it's range limit. Forgetting to plug it in is another story though:)
How dare he spend time and effort and money to resolve a problem he's personally experienced?
I'm sure there are millions of customers satisfied by their experiences at dealerships. They did just fine so it's clearly just him having an unreasonable expectation. maybe it's a childhood trauma manifesting itself and causing him not to properly appreciate the dealerships. It's totally unreasonable - and obviously should be explicitly illegal - that Elon dare make a change to this. I mean...think of the children!
While we're at it, we should make it illegal to go from point A to point B in a straight line as well. Shortest distance my ass....
I sincerely, wholeheartedly hope they DO disrupt NADA and the automotive industry as we know it.
Plus it's hilarious watching a PSA written to 'teach' things basically everyone knows are complete BS. It amazes me that people can say these things without dying laughing.
I totally agree with you on shopping based for total price and it drives me nuts when the dealerships try to talk around it. I usually throw up my hands and tell them I'm going to read their worksheet from the bottom up. You start with the total $ and then show me what went into it. I usually only have to get up and put my coat back on once or twice before they stop with the games.
With that said...many people do NOT buy cars like you or I. Many people live check-to-check so the monthly payment has to work into their monthly budget and it's the only immediately relevant number to them. Sad but true and it's how people wind up getting ripped off at dealerships.
>50% discounts off list price are certainly unheard of in the US. Well unless the car is used:)
The lack of ability to negotiate isn't unique to direct sales. Saturn used to do fixed pricing and IIRC there was one or two others that did the same (again, in the US).
Consider the opposite though...a car with limited availability that's in demand can, and will, be sold above sticker price - much less invoice. Dealerships are just butt hurt that they can't get in on this and scum their way into extra profit.
Tesla has no need to run silly sales and promotions like other manufacturers (you'll note that the DEALERSHIPS aren't offering these promotions themselves) or worry about having stock levels too high. They're selling em as fast as they can make em.
Can't. Resist. Can't.... Your insurance is going to suck when they hear your car crashes almost every single day....
Also, why limit it in general? Assuming Google and Apple (and others) don't come up with a stupidly complex, locked-down, restricted connectivity method why could't the mfgs support anything using an open/common standard?
In reality only iOS and Android have the market share to make that feasible...but MS will likely throw a ton of money to get themselves included (oh wait, Sync? Derp what a retarded interface).
They're not talking about energy produced, they're talking about the total rating of the panels they produce in a year. So at 250w/panel they're aiming to produce 4 million solar panels/year.
wow that's about a metric fuck ton of solar panels too. I wish the system integration/install wasn't stupid expensive still.
I wonder what this will do for the long-term viability of the car though...in regards to repairing it. If I have a 1998 Honda civic DX I know I can find parts for the windshield wiper assembly.
If I have a model 1.5.14b (mod alpha) Tesla S with options XYZ... do I need this wingding or that one for the rear-view mirror? Repair shops are going to hate this game.
At the same time...knowing the battery, motor, and other major components are the same is a huge win for the same question. Frankly the car industry revamping cars every freaking year is beyond stupid. Why is a 3000 pound, immensely complex, expensive piece of machinery rebuilt every year? To tweak a fender and include the radio buttons it should have had last year?
As usual...go Tesla. I just hope they have a good compatibility matrix for the upgraded components.
Yah, I can only imagine this will be useful in some very very specific situations.
In an oil or gas flame, the heat of combustion generally ignites the incoming fuel. In a forest fire you have an *immense* amount of latent heat even if you were to completely extinguish the flames for a brief moment. Similar reason to why they keep spraying down after a house fire is technically out.
NASA built redundancy into everything because they didn't know better. Material science was far less developed. Computer simulations basically non-existent. They didn't design a 30% margin into parts, they guessed and fixed whatever part broken with a strong/better one and tried again. If some part was 5000% over-engineered it wouldn't break but would negatively impact the overall system complexity/weight.
I'm pretty sure NASA (and plenty of others) also said Elon/Space-X was stupid for getting into building launch vehicles too. Yet here we are with their innovation not only a success, but bringing cheaper launches than anyone else. Clearly Space-X is not to be believed./sarcasm
Sorry but big government's approach to things isn't what I usually measure up against. They spent how much on the space shuttle and so it would be reusable and instead after every flight the basically take it apart and rebuild every major and most minor subsystems?
Let someone else give it a go before you just say it's impossible
Why not ask GM about 0-day vulnerabilities. How much is it going to cost them to 'patch' all the systems? (wait, is that a reverse car analogy...that works?)
As for RF FOBs...Yes, let's grab my laptop, an adapter, and solder a dozen or so wires to the car's computer, hack in, run some matrix code, and voila...car starts!...Or jam a screwdriver into the ignition and twist like they do in the movies.
Ok, so neither is reality but it's a general idea. The steering lockout is defeated electrically in one case and mechanically in another - big deal.
Honestly a tow truck driver can have your car in ~15 seconds. See yahhhhhhh........
No no no...as long as they strictly follow the "rules" they can do anything else that isn't specified without fear of recourse. There are some benefits to having a laundry list of stupid rules and regulations...you can easily play dumb about anything else./sarcasm
Who says that's a valid contract? The state (i.e. gov't aid) becomes a party to the contract once that woman goes to get aid for her/their child. They weren't involved in nor agreed to it. Granted if the mother(s) had lived up to their end and actually been able to support the child then none of this would have come up.
I don't agree with the outcome though and think this should be treated exactly like adoption.
...is as a projector screen that is only reflective at one very specific wavelength. It doesn't emit any light...there are no pixels...nothing about it changes what parts light up.
It's still quite novel...i'm not sure why they couldn't be more specific (or less misleading?) in describing it.
Keep in mind it's not totally transparent - see how the table looks yellow behind it? Add red and greed and you're going to reduce the incoming light further. They said it can be tuned...so could be changed to avoid any of the peaks in LED, CFL, and daylight. Will be interesting to see where this goes...but if they start painting cars and buildings with this it's going to do odd things to the incoming light.
Check out some credit unions. I think mine required a $5 buy-in/minimum deposit or something silly like that. The only fee I've ever paid (10+ years) was for my mortgage application. The catch is they don't have 3 branches in every single town throughout the US...which doesn't matter if you're poor and don't travel or rarely need a teller (like me).
The banking industry of the 80's was a mess. The prime rate hit the highest ever of 21.5% and averaged around 15% for the decade (currently 3.25% for reference). It's no wonder they could pay a few % interest on accounts and still make plenty of money of loans without fees. Even at the lowest, the prime rate was 3x what it is today. Plus the deregulation of banking led to all kinds of nasty things. Most people forget how many banks failed in the early 80's and how many new ones popped up. The FDIC spent a ton of money (especially for the time) refunding deposits from failed banks.
Personally I'd rather a $8 fee than a 15% prime rate. Granted the poor are still taken advantage of and also wind up paying much higher interest rates...but that's a more complex socioeconomic issue. It's not just greedy banks.
A different issue though - the amount of background checking a bank does to open a simple check account. I declined and walked out a few years back when I realized what they were asking of me and asking me to sign - especially when they refused to let me have a copy of some of the paperwork I was told I had to sign.
NT 3.51 wasn't really meant to be a desktop OS. It was aligned with NT 3.51 server and skipped all bells and whistles from the desktop side. They also were competing with OS/2 Warp
NT 4 was a step forward - usable as a stable desktop with drivers to support peripherals but still aimed at administrators and developers who would eschew the bells and whistles for a more stable computer. Remember this was the time when a daily reboot was required for Win 9x
Win 2000 was the first real attempt at bringing PnP and other consumer-oriented technologies to the business OS. It had it's faults but overall definitely worked.
XP took that a step further and fully combined personal and consumer OS's.
Back in the NT and 2k days...I don't think many consumers paid retail prices for their OS. MS basically allowed piracy to get market penetration and made plenty of money from businesses and PC resellers since they had the default (essentially only) OS.
Win 8 is totally fine once you make it into Win 7 either by uninstalling 8 or installing enough add-ons to hide it.
Seriously...MS screwed up by making such a drastic change to the UI that's been around for the better part of forever. While the under-the-hood changes did add quite a bit they could have left them under the hood and left the UI mostly intact. Tweak a few things to make them easier but...why start with a clean slate and recreate everything? Some things are so buried or just missing... it's ridiculous. For home users it's not as drastic but business/enterprise? Do you know how difficult it is get get a secretary to click a different colored icon during an upgrade? Now you want one to learn Metro...I've watched people quit because of changes like that totally disrupting their work environment. Sad but true.
- home automation has been struggling along...quirky, expensive, not quite there. Yet. Nest is one of the few that's made it without turning into x11 crap from china. People are far more likely to allow home.google.com to automate their house than xyzautomagic5567.ru
- metadata is valuable. Even if it's not perfect it's still far better than none for... so many people. Look at google's cross-platform information usage. Google knows you're married, you google christian dating and 3 weeks later herpes medicine...the following week you get adds for divorce lawyers:) I'm exaggerating a bit but if google knows your home why not display adds for seamless around dinner time? If you set an away for 2 weeks...how about house monitoring / security services?
- The reputation of the company and the inventiveness of the execs has value too. Who else could make a THERMOSTAT cool? Seriously.
- one more way google (and everyone else) can laugh at scada exploits... or/TinHatOn/ allow the gov't to take over our houses
- on a larger scale contracting with power companies for things like optional temp adjustment on high demand days in return for reduced charges (i.e. raise AC by 2 degrees when it's 105 out and in return your days power costs 20% less...and the power co avoids having to buy expensive power from out of state or go to brown-out conditions)
etc. etc. etc.
There are many reasons if you take a long term view. Looking at just the thing on the wall? Well they still managed to sell an audrino and temp sensor for $250. That's worth something:)
Slashdot Mirror
*tin foil hat*
What's to say someone hasn't released a virus that infiltrates the live executable on PCs and tweaks a few bits to weaken the encryption? It's unlikely but not impossible. Verifying source code is not the same knowing the executable files in memory are clean. You need a verifiable real-time hash check every step of the way...etc.
Not impractical to follow though. KNOX from Samsung does something relatively similar to prevent rooting and similar hacks. It may not stop them but it will shut down your security container (or the device) instantly if something changes it's hash or starts writing to memory outside it's sandbox/etc.
So even after the audit (which I supported) I'd consider it 99.99999% safe. But don't think it will safe you if you do something to REALLY piss off the gov't.
Also they'll just beat you with a wrench...queue xkcd
Kind of ironic that the government agency that requires 6 or 7 years of receipts/documentation be available can somehow limit themselves to a 6 month retention policy on THEIR documentation (well email, but these days that's definitely relevant).
I work for a self regulated organization (finance) and we're required to retain every-fucking-thing for 7 years. It's not 'save your PST file' ... it's a WORM compliance archive of email that's completely automatic and not even visible to the user. It boggles my mind that the IRS doesn't have something like this. From the sounds of it they're literally downloading from exchange and deleting the server copy. What the actual fuck? I think the last time I did that anywhere in or out of the enterprise realm was the old Outlook Express client on Win 98 or something. Like 15 years ago.
Without them quashing the whole suit on the basis on national security
or
without them refusing to comment on the basis of national security
or
without them delaying until the judge insists and then letting him privately view the evidence once and issue a ruling on the basis of national security
or
manage to disprove the claims of an 'anonymous source' who happens to provide the same information
or ...
What I don't understand...is why people are so focused on these long road trips. How often does everyone drive cross country? Even considering the semi-common trips I'd make - from NYC up to Boston or down to DC - they're all well within range and I could hit one or more superchargers along the way. A 20 minute stretch half way through a 4 hour drive? Yes please. Oh, and I get free 'gas' too?
Besides that ... if I'm taking a (rare) very long road trip I'll rent a car anyhow to avoid putting the extra miles on mine.
Even the interminable road trips for vacation when I was little (checks google maps) were only about 200 miles. Maybe I'm the minority here but if I could afford a Tesla I'd pretty much never have problems with it's range limit. Forgetting to plug it in is another story though :)
How dare he spend time and effort and money to resolve a problem he's personally experienced?
I'm sure there are millions of customers satisfied by their experiences at dealerships. They did just fine so it's clearly just him having an unreasonable expectation. maybe it's a childhood trauma manifesting itself and causing him not to properly appreciate the dealerships. It's totally unreasonable - and obviously should be explicitly illegal - that Elon dare make a change to this. I mean...think of the children!
While we're at it, we should make it illegal to go from point A to point B in a straight line as well. Shortest distance my ass....
I sincerely, wholeheartedly hope they DO disrupt NADA and the automotive industry as we know it.
Plus it's hilarious watching a PSA written to 'teach' things basically everyone knows are complete BS. It amazes me that people can say these things without dying laughing.
I totally agree with you on shopping based for total price and it drives me nuts when the dealerships try to talk around it. I usually throw up my hands and tell them I'm going to read their worksheet from the bottom up. You start with the total $ and then show me what went into it. I usually only have to get up and put my coat back on once or twice before they stop with the games.
With that said...many people do NOT buy cars like you or I. Many people live check-to-check so the monthly payment has to work into their monthly budget and it's the only immediately relevant number to them. Sad but true and it's how people wind up getting ripped off at dealerships.
>50% discounts off list price are certainly unheard of in the US. Well unless the car is used :)
The lack of ability to negotiate isn't unique to direct sales. Saturn used to do fixed pricing and IIRC there was one or two others that did the same (again, in the US).
Consider the opposite though...a car with limited availability that's in demand can, and will, be sold above sticker price - much less invoice. Dealerships are just butt hurt that they can't get in on this and scum their way into extra profit.
Tesla has no need to run silly sales and promotions like other manufacturers (you'll note that the DEALERSHIPS aren't offering these promotions themselves) or worry about having stock levels too high. They're selling em as fast as they can make em.
What part of this CAN'T you get if the manufacturer runs the showroom?
Can't. Resist. Can't.... ...
Your insurance is going to suck when they hear your car crashes almost every single day.
Also, why limit it in general? Assuming Google and Apple (and others) don't come up with a stupidly complex, locked-down, restricted connectivity method why could't the mfgs support anything using an open/common standard?
In reality only iOS and Android have the market share to make that feasible...but MS will likely throw a ton of money to get themselves included (oh wait, Sync? Derp what a retarded interface).
They're not talking about energy produced, they're talking about the total rating of the panels they produce in a year. So at 250w/panel they're aiming to produce 4 million solar panels/year.
wow that's about a metric fuck ton of solar panels too. I wish the system integration/install wasn't stupid expensive still.
I wonder what this will do for the long-term viability of the car though...in regards to repairing it. If I have a 1998 Honda civic DX I know I can find parts for the windshield wiper assembly.
If I have a model 1.5.14b (mod alpha) Tesla S with options XYZ ... do I need this wingding or that one for the rear-view mirror? Repair shops are going to hate this game.
At the same time...knowing the battery, motor, and other major components are the same is a huge win for the same question. Frankly the car industry revamping cars every freaking year is beyond stupid. Why is a 3000 pound, immensely complex, expensive piece of machinery rebuilt every year? To tweak a fender and include the radio buttons it should have had last year?
As usual...go Tesla. I just hope they have a good compatibility matrix for the upgraded components.
Yah, I can only imagine this will be useful in some very very specific situations.
In an oil or gas flame, the heat of combustion generally ignites the incoming fuel. In a forest fire you have an *immense* amount of latent heat even if you were to completely extinguish the flames for a brief moment. Similar reason to why they keep spraying down after a house fire is technically out.
Exactly.
NASA built redundancy into everything because they didn't know better. Material science was far less developed. Computer simulations basically non-existent. They didn't design a 30% margin into parts, they guessed and fixed whatever part broken with a strong/better one and tried again. If some part was 5000% over-engineered it wouldn't break but would negatively impact the overall system complexity/weight.
I'm pretty sure NASA (and plenty of others) also said Elon/Space-X was stupid for getting into building launch vehicles too. Yet here we are with their innovation not only a success, but bringing cheaper launches than anyone else. Clearly Space-X is not to be believed. /sarcasm
...we can't do it, you clearly can't either.
Sorry but big government's approach to things isn't what I usually measure up against. They spent how much on the space shuttle and so it would be reusable and instead after every flight the basically take it apart and rebuild every major and most minor subsystems?
Let someone else give it a go before you just say it's impossible
Why not ask GM about 0-day vulnerabilities. How much is it going to cost them to 'patch' all the systems? (wait, is that a reverse car analogy...that works?)
As for RF FOBs ...Yes, let's grab my laptop, an adapter, and solder a dozen or so wires to the car's computer, hack in, run some matrix code, and voila...car starts! ...Or jam a screwdriver into the ignition and twist like they do in the movies.
Ok, so neither is reality but it's a general idea. The steering lockout is defeated electrically in one case and mechanically in another - big deal.
Honestly a tow truck driver can have your car in ~15 seconds. See yahhhhhhh........
Erm buddy...?
Yep...and how much does it cost if you add a backup solution and off-site replication?
Another $1200 NAS
Somewhere to put it
Connectivity
Maintenance and/or monitoring
Cheaper? Probably (for now). Cheaper enough to be worth if if you value your data? Not for me.
No no no...as long as they strictly follow the "rules" they can do anything else that isn't specified without fear of recourse. There are some benefits to having a laundry list of stupid rules and regulations...you can easily play dumb about anything else. /sarcasm
Who says that's a valid contract? The state (i.e. gov't aid) becomes a party to the contract once that woman goes to get aid for her/their child. They weren't involved in nor agreed to it. Granted if the mother(s) had lived up to their end and actually been able to support the child then none of this would have come up.
I don't agree with the outcome though and think this should be treated exactly like adoption.
...is as a projector screen that is only reflective at one very specific wavelength. It doesn't emit any light...there are no pixels...nothing about it changes what parts light up.
It's still quite novel...i'm not sure why they couldn't be more specific (or less misleading?) in describing it.
Keep in mind it's not totally transparent - see how the table looks yellow behind it? Add red and greed and you're going to reduce the incoming light further. They said it can be tuned...so could be changed to avoid any of the peaks in LED, CFL, and daylight. Will be interesting to see where this goes...but if they start painting cars and buildings with this it's going to do odd things to the incoming light.
Check out some credit unions. I think mine required a $5 buy-in/minimum deposit or something silly like that. The only fee I've ever paid (10+ years) was for my mortgage application. The catch is they don't have 3 branches in every single town throughout the US...which doesn't matter if you're poor and don't travel or rarely need a teller (like me).
The banking industry of the 80's was a mess. The prime rate hit the highest ever of 21.5% and averaged around 15% for the decade (currently 3.25% for reference). It's no wonder they could pay a few % interest on accounts and still make plenty of money of loans without fees. Even at the lowest, the prime rate was 3x what it is today. Plus the deregulation of banking led to all kinds of nasty things. Most people forget how many banks failed in the early 80's and how many new ones popped up. The FDIC spent a ton of money (especially for the time) refunding deposits from failed banks.
Personally I'd rather a $8 fee than a 15% prime rate. Granted the poor are still taken advantage of and also wind up paying much higher interest rates...but that's a more complex socioeconomic issue. It's not just greedy banks.
A different issue though - the amount of background checking a bank does to open a simple check account. I declined and walked out a few years back when I realized what they were asking of me and asking me to sign - especially when they refused to let me have a copy of some of the paperwork I was told I had to sign.
NT 3.51 wasn't really meant to be a desktop OS. It was aligned with NT 3.51 server and skipped all bells and whistles from the desktop side. They also were competing with OS/2 Warp
NT 4 was a step forward - usable as a stable desktop with drivers to support peripherals but still aimed at administrators and developers who would eschew the bells and whistles for a more stable computer. Remember this was the time when a daily reboot was required for Win 9x
Win 2000 was the first real attempt at bringing PnP and other consumer-oriented technologies to the business OS. It had it's faults but overall definitely worked.
XP took that a step further and fully combined personal and consumer OS's.
Back in the NT and 2k days...I don't think many consumers paid retail prices for their OS. MS basically allowed piracy to get market penetration and made plenty of money from businesses and PC resellers since they had the default (essentially only) OS.
Win 8 is totally fine once you make it into Win 7 either by uninstalling 8 or installing enough add-ons to hide it.
Seriously...MS screwed up by making such a drastic change to the UI that's been around for the better part of forever. While the under-the-hood changes did add quite a bit they could have left them under the hood and left the UI mostly intact. Tweak a few things to make them easier but...why start with a clean slate and recreate everything? Some things are so buried or just missing ... it's ridiculous. For home users it's not as drastic but business/enterprise? Do you know how difficult it is get get a secretary to click a different colored icon during an upgrade? Now you want one to learn Metro...I've watched people quit because of changes like that totally disrupting their work environment. Sad but true.
It's worth it for a few reasons...
- home automation has been struggling along...quirky, expensive, not quite there. Yet. Nest is one of the few that's made it without turning into x11 crap from china. People are far more likely to allow home.google.com to automate their house than xyzautomagic5567.ru
- metadata is valuable. Even if it's not perfect it's still far better than none for ... so many people. Look at google's cross-platform information usage. Google knows you're married, you google christian dating and 3 weeks later herpes medicine...the following week you get adds for divorce lawyers :) I'm exaggerating a bit but if google knows your home why not display adds for seamless around dinner time? If you set an away for 2 weeks...how about house monitoring / security services?
- The reputation of the company and the inventiveness of the execs has value too. Who else could make a THERMOSTAT cool? Seriously.
- one more way google (and everyone else) can laugh at scada exploits ... or /TinHatOn/ allow the gov't to take over our houses
- on a larger scale contracting with power companies for things like optional temp adjustment on high demand days in return for reduced charges (i.e. raise AC by 2 degrees when it's 105 out and in return your days power costs 20% less...and the power co avoids having to buy expensive power from out of state or go to brown-out conditions)
etc. etc. etc.
There are many reasons if you take a long term view. Looking at just the thing on the wall? Well they still managed to sell an audrino and temp sensor for $250. That's worth something :)