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  1. Re:enforce existing laws? on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 1

    This makes no sense. But, then again, you are posting as AC.

    By your logic, you may be me, and this post might be me replying to myself.

  2. No idea about your local regulations, but in most places cyclists are allowed to ride down the curb side of stationary vehicles. Especially so when there is a bike lane marked. Cars are only allowed to do this if the vehicle is stopped and indicating to turn left (or right in places that drive on the left side of the road). Many places also allow motorbikes to filter between lanes to get to the front when traffic is stopped at lights.

    Naturally this maneuvers can be dangerous if the cyclist isn't paying attention to motorists that are also not paying attention.

  3. Being overtaken while riding through an intersection is usually far more dangerous than being overtaken further up the road where there are far less distractions for the driver doing the overtaking.

  4. Re:enforce existing laws? on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, bicycles that don't roll through intersections are more likely to hold up traffic behind them, while having motorists make unsafe overtaking manoeuvres to get around them right near the intersection itself.

    Any time someone uses a car (or any object for that matter) to intentionally cause an accident, that person is open to prosecution. Whether it be a douche bag pulling in front of a 30 bike peloton and slamming on their brakes, or opening their door while queued up a traffic light just to stop a motorcyclist from filtering through to the front. That shit is illegal simply because it is someone intentionally causing harm to another person. Just like someone running over an old lady that was taking too long to cross the street; the light goes green on them, and a driver thinks 'fuck it I have right of way, I'll just blow right over the top of her in my oversized SUV'. They definitely don't have the 'right of way' to injure or kill someone.

    I'm sure there are many assholes out there who just claim they did what they did for some other idiotic but 'unintentional' reason. But, that doesn't make it right, nor does it guarantee a jury will believe them.

    Maybe I'm misreading your post, but If you can't see that road safety isn't just about blindly following regulations, then you should definitely not be driving on the road. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before you end up in court wondering how you got there.

  5. Re:Dangerous on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is nothing in the regulations that say treating a stop as a yield or a red light as a stop sign somehow gives you any additional right of way. All it means is that you don't have to wait as long to determine if the intersection is safe to cross.

    The Idaho Stop / California Roll is all about going slow enough that you can gauge the traffic heading towards the intersection for the other directions to determine if it is safe to move. A stop sign simply 'forces' cars to stop even if it would be otherwise safe to only slow down to a few miles an hour. And a red light forces cars to stop even when you can see for miles in both directions that there is nothing coming.

    A car moving slowly can easily kill or do heavy damage to a pedestrian (or another road user). Whereas a bicycle has a much smaller cross section, lower kinetic energy, and a rider that is far more likely to come off badly no matter how small the object/person is that they collide with.

    You can't be serious saying it is more dangerous to give way at slow speed versus coming to a complete stop and then having to huff and puff back up to speed, while simultaneously being overtaken with inches to spare by a bunch of impatient motorists because you can't outpace them.

    In fact the article gives clear statistics showing the exact opposite. Just about every cyclist I know treat 'right of way' as synonymous to 'enter at your own risk'.

  6. Re: Our patent system is totally broken on USPTO Approves Amazon Patent For Taking Pictures · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Win win for all ... patent lawyers!

    Sadly it is true that they are doing their duty to their customers. Customers who unfortunately are not the general public, but a small conclave of large corporations.

  7. Re: Our patent system is totally broken on USPTO Approves Amazon Patent For Taking Pictures · · Score: 2

    Like when a studio photographer points an umbrella flash at the white backdrop, or puts a slave flash behind the subject to soften or remove shadowing on the background.

    This is definitely an example of an examiner failing in their public duty.

  8. Re:What I want Blu-Ray for on Sony Warns Demand For Blu-Ray Diminishing Faster Than Expected · · Score: 1

    I agree on the TV seasons point, but I'd much prefer a full season on one piece of media. Blu-ray works like this in some cases, but only for short seasons, or where the video quality isn't high definition.

    For backups, what you really want is the whole backup to fit on one piece of media. Backing up with a dozen blu-ray disks seems pretty lame to me, when I can just pull out a USB3 portable hard drive and run a full backup unattended in less a quarter the time.

  9. Re:Well duh on Sony Warns Demand For Blu-Ray Diminishing Faster Than Expected · · Score: 1

    I've always wondered why blu-ray left a such bad taste in my mouth. The parent should be modded +5 Informative.

  10. Re:Blank Media on Sony Warns Demand For Blu-Ray Diminishing Faster Than Expected · · Score: 1

    This seems good in theory, however, of late I've found myself just using USB3 hard drives and thumb drives to do the same far more quickly and easily. And since a typical 2.5" hard drive is equivalent to 20+ blu-ray disks, they consume far less space, and it's far easier to manage larger subsets of your collection in bigger bundles.

    Sneaker net is also quicker and easier with high density hard drives, as people like to make copies of things they receive, and mounting a hard drive and copying what they want is far simpler than the effort of sorting through multiple disks. Unless of course you're just sending a single file or two, and for that we have tiny reusable thumb drives (or Dropbox and the like for those that only seem to exist online).

    There might be a niche market for people that create endless videos with their cameras, and like to distribute them to multiple friends at low cost. But, that is equivalent to how blu-ray is being used now. It will also dwindle with the current trend as people with tablets/netbooks/etc stare at you strangely as you try to give them the disk, and ask you if you'd kindly send them a Dropbox link.

  11. Re:low impact on Researchers Find Easy To Exploit Bugs In Traffic Control Systems · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is unlikely that the controller is able to set multiple cross signal lights to green at the same time. I did some work on one these systems about 20 years ago, and it contained circuitry (and physical switches to set the system) to lock out that kind of thing from happening (due to either a bug in the code, a failed code update, or in this case a hack). I assume newer units would have a small supervisory microcontroller to detect other anomalies, but either way if something went wrong the circuitry forced all light stacks to flash orange.

    This doesn't mean there aren't safety critical systems out there that have been designed by cowboy or non-embedded coders (like the current crop of ATMs that are far slower and unresponsive than previous models and probably have never felt the touch of an embedded systems expert).

    But, it is unlikely that a hack can cause accidents, beyond frustrating motorists by setting the lights red, or forcing one set continuously green.

  12. Re:We already had this happen back in '99 on Star Wars: Episode VII Cast Officially Announced · · Score: 1

    The one thing that completely broke continuity with three of those timeline events was because they cast a 10 year old kid as Anakin. Lucas then went and made up some bullshit that Anakin made C3PO to establish the kid as some kind of boy genius. A droid that for some reason was identical to every other factory made protocol droid out there.

    If he'd have just cast Anakin with an actor in their twenties, and kept C3PO and R2D2 as droid friends from an unknown era of the Naboo palace we wouldn't have had to put up with:

    1. Annoying kid / boy genius messiah
    2. Teen angst
    3. Ridiculous teen romance with an older woman
    4. More teen angst
    5. Noooooooooo

  13. Re:Star Wars, now with Lens Flare on Star Wars: Episode VII Cast Officially Announced · · Score: 1

    Wasn't Leigh Brackett responsible for the bulk of the Empire script? She didn't get sole credit because she went and died before it was done, from what I understand.

    So I guess it's out of the question to get her to write the new scripts?

  14. Re:you're limited in what you can do in post on Lytro Illum Light-Field Camera Lets You Refocus Pictures Later · · Score: 1

    Even though the light/brightness is F/2, the depth of field scales with the size of the sensor (which is listed as 1"). So compared to a full frame camera, this device has a crop factor of around 2.5. That means the F/2 is equivalent to a 35mm full frame camera with a maximum aperture size of F/5.

    So having a super narrow depth of field with good background defocus will require a larger distance between the object and the background, and a smaller distance between the camera and the object. This'll be ok for macro photography with narrow depth of field, or standard photography where medium field depths are desired.

    Smaller sensors also have smaller collection areas and therefore smaller pixels per unit area, so the light collected versus the noise (signal to noise) isn't as good as a larger sensor.

    This camera will be good for complex scenes in reasonable light that require refocusing after the fact. Possibly sports photography where a different set of players can be brought into crystal clear focus.

  15. Re:New connector great thanks on Next-Gen Thunderbolt: Twice as Fast, But a Different Connector · · Score: 1

    And of course the charger had to change as those new devices which much bigger batteries needed a much gruntier supply to charge them in a reasonable amount of time. At least Apple's chargers are backwards compatible, so you can charge all your old devices with the latest charger as long as you keep your old cables.

  16. Re:Hardware backdoors in the actual CPUs ? on Intentional Backdoor In Consumer Routers Found · · Score: 1

    Microcode is still patchable if a problem is found, which puts it in the same boat as the BIOS / OS kernel / etc, which albeit difficult to inspect, can still be inspected and loaded back to a known state.

    Whereas a hardware backdoor cannot be inspected by standard means, and may be more insidious such as a 'leaky' crypto engine. It's possible that a direct hardware exploit requires a microcode 'helper', but that is only one protection level removed from requiring a machine code helper.

    Microcode is simply a lower level machine code than the x86 machine code generated by the assemblers/compilers.

  17. Re:Hardware backdoors in the actual CPUs ? on Intentional Backdoor In Consumer Routers Found · · Score: 1

    What about the CPUs themselves ?

    Backdoors in software, while scary, can be worked around by using software you trust or write yourself.

    But what about backdoors in CPUs which only trigger, for example, as a result of a specific data sequence ?

    The problem with the obvious kind of hardware backdoor in the CPU is that it needs to interact with an unknown and otherwise complex operating system. And that is extremely difficult to do without associated exploit software running on the same system.

    The real problematic standalone hardware 'backdoors' would be things like predictable patterns from a hardware random number generator, secret ways to override memory protection, a way to expose the private/secret keys in crypto hardware, etc.

    Those more subtle 'backdoors' could then be further exploited by user land code for nefarious purposes. User land code that would have otherwise posed no danger to the system or the user.

    That being said, if a 'hole' like that is discovered, it may be able to be partially worked around by trying to detect the use of the trigger patterns required to activate it, or by modifying the driver/system code that rely on those features.

  18. Re:What surprises me... on Intentional Backdoor In Consumer Routers Found · · Score: 1

    It doesn't look like they went out of their way to hide it as such. But, they did try to change its operating mode from remotely exploitable at any time by anyone, to only usable by someone on the local ethernet segment. Unfortunately, as most here are aware, that kind of 'fix' isn't a solid solution, and still remains exploitable.

  19. Re:End User License Agreement and Ethical Dilemmas on The Ethical Dilemmas Today's Programmers Face · · Score: 1

    Doesn't really matter, as the EULA can't effectively waive legal responsibility/requirements. A company can try to use an EULA to overtly say or infer that you don't have a particular right, but it can never absolve itself of observing that right.

  20. Re:The value of a Stradivarius on Elite Violinists Can't Distinguish Between a Stradivarius and a Modern Violin · · Score: 2

    The problem with Tom Andersons, is that they're like rabbits and tend to multiply in your collection.

  21. Re:Odd in that a bayonet seems pointless on Apple Patent Could Herald Interchangeable iPhone Camera Lenses · · Score: 1

    You could space the curved magnets around the periphery so they could be loosened by twisting. You could include a gentle depression on the perimeter to allow a release button on the lens to make that twist easier to perform when unlocked and much harder when locked. The lens would probably also need an outer weather seal that doubled as a soften auto-retractable snap buffer, so bringing the lens close wouldn't just snap on and shatter anything on either part. Also twisting on/off should partially clean the surface to avoid excessive build up from clogging the interface. It would be a good idea to include a dummy cover for when there is no lens attached to avoid crap getting into the sensor or onto the ring contact points.

    Also note that a good lens attachment needs to pass power and a comms signal to control the aperture hole size, auto-focus motors, possible a remote shutter, and zoom motors if it's a zoom lens. This might be able to be done with an inductive coupling running at a few megahertz, or using a direct magnetic drive of these movements by putting the motor armature in the camera/phone and a second magnet selector to determine which element the motor controls, or maybe a couple of these motors. But, to keep the size down in the camera/phone for people that don't walk around with a lens attached all the time, it would probably be more compact if the contacts where physical connections. This must be done so the twisting action of attaching the lens partially cleans the contacts on insertion.

    There are just so many cool an IMO obvious ways of doing this type of thing that it would be fun to work for a company trying to do this.

  22. Re:There are Three Things I Know on Supreme Court Skeptical of Computer-Based Patents · · Score: 1

    Come on, 1 week is far too short. How would the lawyers be able to survive without years of ongoing litigation?

  23. Re:There are Three Things I Know on Supreme Court Skeptical of Computer-Based Patents · · Score: 1

    Even better:

    1. Copyrights should be 14 years and require registration by loading into a fully searchable database that is made public on expiration of the copyright. This registration must take place within 12 months of publication/release or the copyright is forfeited. 12 months before the copyright is due to expire (and no earlier), an optional 14 year extension can be taken out after paying the appropriate fee. Assignment can happen at any time to any person (or corporation) for some consideration/value. Doesn't matter when/if the author lives or is dead as that just complicates things with no clear benefit.

    2. Patents should be graded by the industry they are in with only certain industries having a duration of 17 years from filing date. For industries with a constant flow of new developments (eg. software/computing), the maximum should be half that. Time limits should be further reduced for ideas of debatable inventiveness and/or that require very little effort/skill to 'invent'. If something seems obvious, then it is, and should not be patentable. Better to err on the side of caution and not implement the patent. If an invention just scrapes through by the skin of its teeth, then the duration should be even further reduced accordingly. If multiple submissions are made in 'parallel' by different entities, with all filing taking place before any of the inventions are disclosed, then no matter how non-obvious the patent thought it was, all these inventions should then be deemed inherently obvious and should either become void, or all parties get to share the total number of grantable years for that type of invention. (ie. if 2 parties submit equivalent inventions, they each get at most 3.5 years instead of the 7 that would have been given if only a single party filed.)

  24. Re:Don't get too excited. on Florida Judge Rules IP Address Can't Identify a BitTorrent Pirate · · Score: 1

    Isn't guilty until proven innocent (or rich) already standard operating procedure over there in the USA?

  25. Re:Non-Disclosure Agreements on L.A. Police: All Cars In L.A. Are Under Investigation · · Score: 1

    What's next? Courts requiring an NDA before you're allowed participate in the justice system?