Android, AFAIK, only allows one window to be visible no matter the size of the display. Kinda like Metro UI for Windows 8, except that Windows 8 allows you to use older software and get multiple windows. There are even mods that allow multiple Metro apps to be visible at once.
So, Android = Windows 8 without desktop mode and compatibility with older software. Good for phones and tablets (browsing the net etc), but not that good for actual work if you need more than one window at a time.
Um, when I look to the left, there's an obstuction in the way. It goes on for at least 4 or 5 car lengths. Could be a railing or a wall or something. I can't see an intersection anywhere?
What if there is no railing (maybe someone else drove trough there and made a hole)?
You evidently have never had a bad ignition switch/lock cylinder.
Had it once - I had to carefully position the key or the fan would not turn on. However, a switch that does not turn off the engine by itself is an annoyance at worst. Also, I would get it replaced quite fast if I had that problem. It would be a problem only if it failed at the same time that the throttle decided to stick full open. But even then there's downshifting etc.
You may have also not enjoyed the phenomenon of dieseling where the engine continued to run on its own even when you shut the ignition off.
At least in my car (and one other car of similar age) dieseling does not provide any real power (barely enough for the engine to turn) and can be stopped quite easily (either step on the gas or put it in gear).
Because of the LPG mod, I also have one m ore way to turn off the engine - if I am currently driving on LPG, I can just set the fuel selector to "none" and the engine will stop. With gasoline it's not so easy, as when the fuel selector is set to none, I still need to wait for the fuel in the carburetor to be used up (the reason for a three position fuel selector).
I want to do that too, however, I can't find a Web mail reader that has threads (conversations) like Gmail does. Roundcube kinda has them, but not fully. There is a plugin for Thunderbird that is almost as good as Gmail, but I do not want to keep a copy of my email on every computer I use to read mail.
The crash recorder says the driver pushed the accelerator and was not pushing the brakes, and then the car was hit.
With a faulty input the recorder can say anything. If the recorders input is connected to the output of the buggy controller, then controller failure vs driver actually stepping on the gas would be impossible to distinguish. We know that the controller was buggy in a way that could cause memory corruption and unpredictable behavior.
If the driver had more time he may have figured out to step on the brakes. With a mechanical sticking throttle, you press the accelerator, the car accelerates but when you release it the car keeps accelerating. You can quickly figure out what happened. Now, if the car started accelerating suddenly without any input from the driver, I could see the driver going "WTF?" for a long fraction of a second (or even more than a second) before doing something to prevent it.
You say you can just turn the key and the car will definitely shut off, but not if there is an electrical fault that prevents that.
OK, there could be a short inside the ignition switch or the switch could break while in the "on" position. OK. This would not be a problem unless something else broke too as I could always stop the engine by stopping the car, shifting into 4th gear and quickly releasing the clutch while applying - the engine would stall immediately and then I would just disconnect the battery to prevent the car from draining it.
Now, if the ignition switch failed and the throttle got stuck open, I could downshift or just set to neutral gear. The car would coast to a stop (with the engine screaming). When I stop, I open the hood and pull the low voltage wire from the ignition coil, or in the case of my car, it would be easier to pull the sensor wire from the electronic ignition, which is not like modern electronic stuff, it has like 2 transistors inside).
If the clutch fails I can still force the stick into neutral.
So, to make my car unstoppable, all these unconnected parts have to fail simultaneously: cluth, shifter, ignition switch and of course throttle. All these parts are separate mechanical systems, not like in modern cars where they all may be controlled by a single CPU.
Also, if my mechanical throttle can stick so can your computerized one (because while it is controlled by software, the throttle itself is still mechanical). Same can be said for clutch, ignition etc. The cars that are drive-by-wire (you turn the steering wheel, this sends a signal to a computer that then activates actuators that actually steer the car), the system is more complex and has more mechanical parts (in addition to the software) that can fail compared to a purely mechanical system.
Well I have the experience of my shift linkage coming apart while on the road
However, the clutch still worked. So, the shift linkage has to break as well as clutch for you o not be able to stop using them. But then you could just turn off the ignition and the car would stop.
Newer cars may prevent you from turning the engine off while in motion, stepping on the brakes and accelerator at the same time (in some cases the brakes may be turned off) or something else. A purely mechanical system does not have these problems. I turn off the ignition then this is precisely what happens - no more sparks and the engine stops.
I would have set the transmission to second gear and wouldn't need the push (though I could only drive slower).
One of the reasons I prefer the manual transmission - you can push start the car if the battery is dead (the engine requires low current to start - a small UPS battery could be used to provide power to the alternator and the fuel valves (part of the LPG modification in my car).
One of the reasons I love my classic car - no software (and no catalytic converter) to worry about. Problems arise because some mechanical part wears out or breaks - that can be seen and it usually results in the engine not running instead of accelerating (probably the only failure that could cause acceleration would be if the throttle return spring broke but even that would require me to press the accelerator to start accelerating, also, since the transmission is manual, even if the spring broke and the car wold not stop accelerating after I release the pedal, I could just downshift). The engine is simpler too.
A TRUELY free market is as impossible as true Communism. In the real world you can only have the perverted versions of both since both can be exploited.
A world with a lighting cable only would be much better, as it is not as fragile as micro A.
Too bad it's patented and Apple does not want to license it. Well, maybe in 19 years (after the patent expires) we will replace the mini-USB requirement with the Lightning port requirement.
people survived a hundred years of traveling on the roads without a gps. get a map, learn where you're going, follow road signs. it really is not hard.
People survived thousand of years without modern stuff, so why are you using it? Why use a cellphone, you can just go to a post office and call. Why use a phone at all, just send a telegram. Or a letter.
GPS is convenient. I do not have to stop at every intersection, pull out the map and figure out where I need to turn (or go straight). I do not have to memorize the route to somewhere I am going for the first time (usually I can go there a second or fourth time without GPS). I can just plan the route on the GPS and maybe find a better way of going there (instead of the traditional way of following the road signs or asking someone else for directions (which I cannot remember anyway)).
For a stable 12V you would need a converter that can convert both up and down which is quite a bit more complex.
Or just a big smoothing cap if you do not need 12.00V, but are OK with the voltage of a lead-acid battery. Since the phone would still have to use a buck DC-DC converter (to convert the voltage to what is compatible with a single cell Li-Ion battery), the fact that car voltage is 11V to 14.5V normally (excluding dips and spikes) would not be a problem, unless the manufacturer is cheap and used caps rated for 13V or so.
Cars don't have regulated 12V outlets because usually there is no need for them. Any simple device (light bulbs, motors) can tolerate that range and modern electronics use 5V or lower voltage so they have a regulator inside them anyway and electronics that can tolerate 12V (say, 4000 series chips) can tolerate the 15V and spikes up to 20V anyway.
Too bad there are so many differences between the phones that I almost certainly won't find a model that is exactly the same as the phone I want except it uses USB for charging. Though since Nokia phones use 5V for charging, a simple wiring adapter can make it charge from USB (though my current phone, the E90, has a USB port, it does not charge from it).
If you are using a thermonuclear bomb (and the only reason that a bomber with such a bomb would be over enemy territory is the intent to drop it on some target) then it means that you are prepared to destroy a city or some other large area. If the plane is shot down then it won't reach the intended target, if it is over enemy territory them it may as well detonate the bomb. Also, this way you prevent the enemy from recovering the bomb and using the uranium/plutonium in his own bombs.
Let's say in WW2 the Japanese managed to shoot down the plane carrying Little Boy. It the bomb detonated over some other city instead of Hiroshima, would that have made a difference? Even if the bomb detonated over an empty field it would still have made an impression. If the plane quietly went down, then maybe the war would not have ended as soon.
Such large weapons would either be weapons of last resort by the losing side or an attempt to force the enemy to surrender in fear by the winning side. In any case, detonating it anywhere on the enemy territory would be preferable to having it fall to the ground and not go off.
AFAIK methane is quite light - lighter than air. Mars atmosphere is composed almost entirely of CO2, which is heavier than air, so, wouldn't methane just rise to the top where it would be detected by orbiters but not be produces at such a rate to be in detectable concentration near the surface?
Actually, I think that NK power plant is much safer than the Japanese or American ones. You mess something up and cause an accident in a Japanese or American power plant, you may get fined and lose you job. someone messes up The Powerplant That Will Bring Us Victory (not even permanent damage) - he gets shot. Not wanting to get shot is quite good motivator for people to be more careful.
To be archived, you have to bake the tape (in an oven) and then you get one playback on your analog deck, so it can be digitized for archive.
This only applies to some tapes that were made wrong - basically the manufacturers used a binder that would react with moisture in the air and become goo. Baking the tape dries it out and then you can play it a few times until the moisture gets beck in
This is limited to specific brands and models of tape (go to tapeheads.net or some other forum dedicated to analog recording and you will find the list of tape to avoid). Others work fine. I have one tape that was recorded in 1951, the backing is paper (later tapes would use acetate and modern tapes use polyester) and the tape plays OK with no shedding.
When I listen to a digital recording, it feels like listening to radio, but when I listen to cassette, tape or record I see the media playing and I enjoy the music more, even though it may not be as accurate as digital.
Also, copying a record to cassette is more convenient and reliable than recording to a PC and I can play the cassette at home, on my Walkman or in my car.
I have a 300mbps uncapped conection (though the ISP sometimes throttles it to 40mbps during peak hours - not every day though) and I seed torrents - ~30TB/month uploaded. I don't download a lot though - maybe 700 or 800GB/month (that includes the ACK packets for uploaded data). I could probably upload even more if the torrent server had a faster hard drive.
Well, maybe not forever, but at least for a couple thousand years, that would be nice. I also would like the option of killing myself in an event that I consider my current circumstances to be worse than death. Though complete immortality (like Captain Jack from Doctor Who) would still be preferable to death.
So, if the exploit was published, the cars would be more secure than now? I mean before the manufacturers could release a patch and all affected car owners install it.
Yes, if the car manufacturers published the details (schematics and source code) for the system when they created it, someone would have found this vulnerability sooner and (hopefully) would have informed the car manufacturers who then would be able to patch it hopefully before it was installed in a lot of cars. Publishing the exploit would only help if there was a workaround that was easily done to prevent that exploit. If there is no way to secure the system without the (currently non-existant) patch, then releasing the exploit would make it worse as it would be available to more car thieves.
Or, for example, if Sony published the source code etc for PS3 DRM, would it have taken as long to hack it?
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Android, AFAIK, only allows one window to be visible no matter the size of the display. Kinda like Metro UI for Windows 8, except that Windows 8 allows you to use older software and get multiple windows. There are even mods that allow multiple Metro apps to be visible at once.
So, Android = Windows 8 without desktop mode and compatibility with older software. Good for phones and tablets (browsing the net etc), but not that good for actual work if you need more than one window at a time.
Um, when I look to the left, there's an obstuction in the way. It goes on for at least 4 or 5 car lengths. Could be a railing or a wall or something. I can't see an intersection anywhere?
What if there is no railing (maybe someone else drove trough there and made a hole)?
You evidently have never had a bad ignition switch/lock cylinder.
Had it once - I had to carefully position the key or the fan would not turn on.
However, a switch that does not turn off the engine by itself is an annoyance at worst. Also, I would get it replaced quite fast if I had that problem. It would be a problem only if it failed at the same time that the throttle decided to stick full open. But even then there's downshifting etc.
You may have also not enjoyed the phenomenon of dieseling where the engine continued to run on its own even when you shut the ignition off.
At least in my car (and one other car of similar age) dieseling does not provide any real power (barely enough for the engine to turn) and can be stopped quite easily (either step on the gas or put it in gear).
Because of the LPG mod, I also have one m ore way to turn off the engine - if I am currently driving on LPG, I can just set the fuel selector to "none" and the engine will stop. With gasoline it's not so easy, as when the fuel selector is set to none, I still need to wait for the fuel in the carburetor to be used up (the reason for a three position fuel selector).
I want to do that too, however, I can't find a Web mail reader that has threads (conversations) like Gmail does. Roundcube kinda has them, but not fully. There is a plugin for Thunderbird that is almost as good as Gmail, but I do not want to keep a copy of my email on every computer I use to read mail.
The crash recorder says the driver pushed the accelerator and was not pushing the brakes, and then the car was hit.
With a faulty input the recorder can say anything. If the recorders input is connected to the output of the buggy controller, then controller failure vs driver actually stepping on the gas would be impossible to distinguish. We know that the controller was buggy in a way that could cause memory corruption and unpredictable behavior.
If the driver had more time he may have figured out to step on the brakes. With a mechanical sticking throttle, you press the accelerator, the car accelerates but when you release it the car keeps accelerating. You can quickly figure out what happened. Now, if the car started accelerating suddenly without any input from the driver, I could see the driver going "WTF?" for a long fraction of a second (or even more than a second) before doing something to prevent it.
You say you can just turn the key and the car will definitely shut off, but not if there is an electrical fault that prevents that.
OK, there could be a short inside the ignition switch or the switch could break while in the "on" position. OK.
This would not be a problem unless something else broke too as I could always stop the engine by stopping the car, shifting into 4th gear and quickly releasing the clutch while applying - the engine would stall immediately and then I would just disconnect the battery to prevent the car from draining it.
Now, if the ignition switch failed and the throttle got stuck open, I could downshift or just set to neutral gear. The car would coast to a stop (with the engine screaming). When I stop, I open the hood and pull the low voltage wire from the ignition coil, or in the case of my car, it would be easier to pull the sensor wire from the electronic ignition, which is not like modern electronic stuff, it has like 2 transistors inside).
If the clutch fails I can still force the stick into neutral.
So, to make my car unstoppable, all these unconnected parts have to fail simultaneously: cluth, shifter, ignition switch and of course throttle. All these parts are separate mechanical systems, not like in modern cars where they all may be controlled by a single CPU.
Also, if my mechanical throttle can stick so can your computerized one (because while it is controlled by software, the throttle itself is still mechanical). Same can be said for clutch, ignition etc.
The cars that are drive-by-wire (you turn the steering wheel, this sends a signal to a computer that then activates actuators that actually steer the car), the system is more complex and has more mechanical parts (in addition to the software) that can fail compared to a purely mechanical system.
Well I have the experience of my shift linkage coming apart while on the road
However, the clutch still worked. So, the shift linkage has to break as well as clutch for you o not be able to stop using them. But then you could just turn off the ignition and the car would stop.
Newer cars may prevent you from turning the engine off while in motion, stepping on the brakes and accelerator at the same time (in some cases the brakes may be turned off) or something else. A purely mechanical system does not have these problems. I turn off the ignition then this is precisely what happens - no more sparks and the engine stops.
I would have set the transmission to second gear and wouldn't need the push (though I could only drive slower).
One of the reasons I prefer the manual transmission - you can push start the car if the battery is dead (the engine requires low current to start - a small UPS battery could be used to provide power to the alternator and the fuel valves (part of the LPG modification in my car).
One of the reasons I love my classic car - no software (and no catalytic converter) to worry about. Problems arise because some mechanical part wears out or breaks - that can be seen and it usually results in the engine not running instead of accelerating (probably the only failure that could cause acceleration would be if the throttle return spring broke but even that would require me to press the accelerator to start accelerating, also, since the transmission is manual, even if the spring broke and the car wold not stop accelerating after I release the pedal, I could just downshift). The engine is simpler too.
A TRUELY free market is as impossible as true Communism. In the real world you can only have the perverted versions of both since both can be exploited.
A world with a lighting cable only would be much better, as it is not as fragile as micro A.
Too bad it's patented and Apple does not want to license it. Well, maybe in 19 years (after the patent expires) we will replace the mini-USB requirement with the Lightning port requirement.
people survived a hundred years of traveling on the roads without a gps. get a map, learn where you're going, follow road signs. it really is not hard.
People survived thousand of years without modern stuff, so why are you using it?
Why use a cellphone, you can just go to a post office and call.
Why use a phone at all, just send a telegram. Or a letter.
GPS is convenient. I do not have to stop at every intersection, pull out the map and figure out where I need to turn (or go straight). I do not have to memorize the route to somewhere I am going for the first time (usually I can go there a second or fourth time without GPS). I can just plan the route on the GPS and maybe find a better way of going there (instead of the traditional way of following the road signs or asking someone else for directions (which I cannot remember anyway)).
For a stable 12V you would need a converter that can convert both up and down which is quite a bit more complex.
Or just a big smoothing cap if you do not need 12.00V, but are OK with the voltage of a lead-acid battery. Since the phone would still have to use a buck DC-DC converter (to convert the voltage to what is compatible with a single cell Li-Ion battery), the fact that car voltage is 11V to 14.5V normally (excluding dips and spikes) would not be a problem, unless the manufacturer is cheap and used caps rated for 13V or so.
Cars don't have regulated 12V outlets because usually there is no need for them. Any simple device (light bulbs, motors) can tolerate that range and modern electronics use 5V or lower voltage so they have a regulator inside them anyway and electronics that can tolerate 12V (say, 4000 series chips) can tolerate the 15V and spikes up to 20V anyway.
Too bad there are so many differences between the phones that I almost certainly won't find a model that is exactly the same as the phone I want except it uses USB for charging.
Though since Nokia phones use 5V for charging, a simple wiring adapter can make it charge from USB (though my current phone, the E90, has a USB port, it does not charge from it).
If you are using a thermonuclear bomb (and the only reason that a bomber with such a bomb would be over enemy territory is the intent to drop it on some target) then it means that you are prepared to destroy a city or some other large area. If the plane is shot down then it won't reach the intended target, if it is over enemy territory them it may as well detonate the bomb. Also, this way you prevent the enemy from recovering the bomb and using the uranium/plutonium in his own bombs.
Let's say in WW2 the Japanese managed to shoot down the plane carrying Little Boy. It the bomb detonated over some other city instead of Hiroshima, would that have made a difference? Even if the bomb detonated over an empty field it would still have made an impression. If the plane quietly went down, then maybe the war would not have ended as soon.
Such large weapons would either be weapons of last resort by the losing side or an attempt to force the enemy to surrender in fear by the winning side. In any case, detonating it anywhere on the enemy territory would be preferable to having it fall to the ground and not go off.
At least in my opinion.
But you probably would want the bomb to go off in the event that the bomber is shot down.
So, free/open hardware should have restrictions built in so the user cannot run certain software?
In that case, I'd rather take closed hardware that has no restrictions as to what software I can run on it.
AFAIK methane is quite light - lighter than air. Mars atmosphere is composed almost entirely of CO2, which is heavier than air, so, wouldn't methane just rise to the top where it would be detected by orbiters but not be produces at such a rate to be in detectable concentration near the surface?
Actually, I think that NK power plant is much safer than the Japanese or American ones. You mess something up and cause an accident in a Japanese or American power plant, you may get fined and lose you job. someone messes up The Powerplant That Will Bring Us Victory (not even permanent damage) - he gets shot. Not wanting to get shot is quite good motivator for people to be more careful.
To be archived, you have to bake the tape (in an oven) and then you get one playback on your analog deck, so it can be digitized for archive.
This only applies to some tapes that were made wrong - basically the manufacturers used a binder that would react with moisture in the air and become goo. Baking the tape dries it out and then you can play it a few times until the moisture gets beck in
This is limited to specific brands and models of tape (go to tapeheads.net or some other forum dedicated to analog recording and you will find the list of tape to avoid). Others work fine. I have one tape that was recorded in 1951, the backing is paper (later tapes would use acetate and modern tapes use polyester) and the tape plays OK with no shedding.
When I listen to a digital recording, it feels like listening to radio, but when I listen to cassette, tape or record I see the media playing and I enjoy the music more, even though it may not be as accurate as digital.
Also, copying a record to cassette is more convenient and reliable than recording to a PC and I can play the cassette at home, on my Walkman or in my car.
And then some information from the NSA servers about the politicians who initiated this would mysteriously find its way to WikiLeaks...
I have a 300mbps uncapped conection (though the ISP sometimes throttles it to 40mbps during peak hours - not every day though) and I seed torrents - ~30TB/month uploaded. I don't download a lot though - maybe 700 or 800GB/month (that includes the ACK packets for uploaded data). I could probably upload even more if the torrent server had a faster hard drive.
what's so terrifying about the inevitable conclusion that is death?
I guess one part of it is instinct of self preservation.
And the other part is that I just don't like changes, much less permanent ones, so yea...
That's easy enough to say for someone who hasn't had to deal with 10 billion years of other lifeforms and their bullshit.
May be, but I would rather like to make my own mind about it after I live 10G years :)
Well, maybe not forever, but at least for a couple thousand years, that would be nice. I also would like the option of killing myself in an event that I consider my current circumstances to be worse than death. Though complete immortality (like Captain Jack from Doctor Who) would still be preferable to death.
Maybe they guessed her password and accessed the data but cannot say so publicly as that would be a crime.
So, if the exploit was published, the cars would be more secure than now? I mean before the manufacturers could release a patch and all affected car owners install it.
Yes, if the car manufacturers published the details (schematics and source code) for the system when they created it, someone would have found this vulnerability sooner and (hopefully) would have informed the car manufacturers who then would be able to patch it hopefully before it was installed in a lot of cars.
Publishing the exploit would only help if there was a workaround that was easily done to prevent that exploit. If there is no way to secure the system without the (currently non-existant) patch, then releasing the exploit would make it worse as it would be available to more car thieves.
Or, for example, if Sony published the source code etc for PS3 DRM, would it have taken as long to hack it?