And that would be good if the brakes were not working before going anywhere. But what if the brakes failed while the car is moving (which is what happened to me - a front right brake disc broke and somehow took out rear right brake too, so I was left with the left side (of course rear wheels do not contribute to the braking as much as front ones, so basically I was left with one brake)?
Fifth (and this is more about stigma rather than laws), I'm yet to see a convincing argument why society considers that people aren't accountable for having drunk sex (can't give consent), but are accountable for drunk driving.
Well, a drunk person can't make informed decisions (can't give consent), but he/she should have made the right decisions (designate a driver, go by cab etc) about getting home before getting drunk. Most of the time, driving drunk results from bad decisions made while sober. In my country, if you commit a crime, being drunk at the time is an aggravating circumstance - you should have known better (maybe alcohol makes you violent) before drinking.
Not really. One person in Poland was fined for riding a bicycle with BAC of 0.54%. Some guy in my country managed to do that with 0.5%. Driving a car is easier than riding a bike, so the record in my country for driving a car drunk is 0.84%. These are the levels at which a lot of people not only would not be able to ride a bike or drive a car, but would be dead.
You would spend $100 or so on a breathalyzer that can be used as many times as you want. No reason to spend $1 a pop for single-use ones if you want to test yourself every day.
Oh, and I bet if every car had some sort of device to indicate how fast you were going, people wouldn't break the speed limit, either!
I am sure that some people wouldn't. After all, the way it is now, you have to be able to judge the speed quite accurately to not go over the speed limit. If you think you are going too fast, then it's OK, but if you see a lot of cars passing you and start thinking you are going too slow and speed up, you might be over the speed limit. If there is a passenger in the car, then he can time the intervals between km posts and calculate the speed this way, but when I am not on a highway or driving alone, I sure would like a device that could tell me my speed. Then I would be able to drive at or below the speed limit without the help of another person.
the only thing these breathalyzers will do is tell you how drunk you are. If you already knew you were too drunk to drive then they're not terribly relevant!
They are relevant in the edge cases. Let's say some guy was at a party that lasted 6 hours. He drank 80mL of vodka and 0.5L of beer sometime in the first two hours of the party (because he wanted to drive home or was the designated driver). Now the party is ending and the guy is thinking whether he can legally drive home or should call a cab. A breathalyzer in a car will tell him that. Without the breathalyzer, he can either risk it or not, now he can make an informed decision.
Of course, it won't stop those who think that they won't cause an accident (and won't encounter the police) while driving drunk.
I don't think the car manufacturer will be at fault if a tire blows at 130km/h and the car crashes. However, knowing software bugs, if self driving cars get one, it will be something that a sober human driver would never do. So, the operator will be forced to watch the car hit something because the software disabled the brakes or the "something" is difficult to see with radar/camera (while being visible for a human eye) or something like that.
So, judging computer drivers the same as human drivers will probably get the computer drivers in jail.
For example - let's say the brakes fail, but I manage to notice it far away from the obstruction. I can downshift and brake with the engine until I am going at a few km/h at which point I can turn off the engine and stop. Will a computer driver consider this? The stopping distance would be big, but at least not infinity. I actually had to drive home ~25km in a city with barely functioning brakes (IIRC only one brake worked) - go slow, downshift to reduce speed to ~10km/h then brake to stop completely.
Nice. I have not seen a lot of those routers (most people just use the router they get from the ISP and those do not support analog phones and I use a PC as a router) so I have not seen one that has internal VoIP gateway.
Interesting, I should look if there is a SIP-to-phone provider in my country and how its costs compare with the costs of my cell phone or landline.
Well, Ubisoft's DRM comes to mind, but that is for games and the servers are still accessible. However, it does not require a large leap of logic to say that most likely some industrial software is using that too (after all, when the author of a $10k video editing software asked how to protect it, one of the answers/. users gave was "use always-on DRM"). Also, it does not have to be always-on DRM. Even if the DRM requires online activation during install only, when the servers go down, so does your ability to reinstall the software. And a company may turn the activation servers for $version off when it releases a new version.
On the other hand, making software explode - now that would be interesting. The software would have to come with a USB bomb that you would have to plug into the computer, or that feature (blowing up) won't work.
Not all of them though. My Nokia cellphone is "Made in Finland" for example. I have quite a few old devices that are "Made in USSR".
However, yes, a lot of devices are made in China, irrespective of the brand name. However, I would hope that the name brand companies do better quality control.
Well, the way it was explained to me the reason is twofold: 1) LPG burns hotter than gasoline, so it may damage colder engine. 2) Even though the vaporizer is connected to the cooling system, it still can freeze over if the engine is not warm enough.
In practice, if I start a cold engine on LPG it is very sluggish. When it reaches about 40C, the engine starts working much better.
While I am not an expert, it seems to me that modern cars are designed trying to save the last cent. My car was made in 1982 and still works great in 2012. I wonder how many cars built in 2012 will be still in working condition in 2042.
The manual system was probably all that was available or just was cheaper (as there is no computer in my car (other than in the tape deck, anyway) it probably would be more difficult to make a controller based system work. Then again, I'm used to it, so I don't really care.
The carburetor has to be emptied because LPG (at least in my car) gets introduced to the air intake (between the air filter and carburetor), so, if there was still gasoline in the carburetor the mixture would be come way too rich and may result in problems.
A 1997 car will most likely have fuel injection. IIRC fuel injection took over around 1985.
The only problem with my car is if I arrive using LPG, stop the engine and don't drive anywhere for for a few days, it takes longer to start the engine (that is, to pump the gasoline to the carburetor), but it is possible to bypass that . Put the switch to LPG for a few seconds, then switch to gasoline then start the engine, while holding the accelerator a bit in (not all the way, just a bit above idle). Some LPG manages to get into the engine, which is usually enough for a few revolutions, which is usually enough to pump the gasoline to the carburetor.
They are almost certainly "about as good" as my car, those brands just attract whiners, therefore you hear more whining.
Or it could be that those cars are more expensive, therefore people expect them to be better. This does not only apply to cars - if, for example, I buy some cheap "made in China" device I do not really expect it to be well made. On the other hand, if I pay 2x or more for a brand name device I expect it to be better made - after all, if the only difference between them is the price and logo on the front, I might as well buy the cheaper one.
Yea, this is one o the reasons I like my 1982 car - it is actually possible for me to repair it, well, at least the electrical system and some other parts. Oh, and the electrical system is all discrete - no microcontrollers, firmware and EPROMs going bad to worry about. For example, the turning signal relay is made out two transistors, some passive components and a relay - in modern cars it's probably a 10MHz CPU running software that does the same thing - blink a light every so often (more often it the current is too low, indicating a bad bulb).
My 1982 Mercedes W123 has almost 500000km* and not only that, for the last 12 or so years, it has been modified to run on LPG (because it is cheaper) and I stil use LPG when I want to go somewhere more than a few km away (I can only switch the fuel source to "LPG" if the engine has warmed up**).
* probably already reached it, but the odometer has been replaced and the mechanic did not bother setting it to the same number as the old one. ** The process is like this (completely manual system): 1. If the engine is cold, switch on gasoline, start the engine. 2. When it has almost reached ~40C, turn off gasoline, drive (or wait) until the gasoline that is still in the carburetor is used up - I can usually go up to 1km on that. 3. Switch on LPG.
The body had some rust, but i had the car patched up. Also, it seems that I will need to replace all the door seals and the back window seal (I already replaced the front window seal) as 30 year old rubber is not known for its ability to keep water out.
Some guy downloads the software, tries to use it and finds that the output is corrupted. He then downloads $competitors_software and uses that instead.
Some time later, the employer of that guy asks him for his opinion about the software. The answer will be "It's complete garbage - I tried to just do a simple edit and the output was corrupted, if they can't get that right, who knows how many other bugs are there, if you want my advice we should buy $competitors_software instead - it works correctly and costs less/about the same".
You forgot to mention problems with the auth servers.
If some clients internet connection goes down, they will scream at you, but you can try to say that it is their problem for not having 8 backup lines.
If your authentication servers go down, all your clients will scream at you and you will have nothing to defend yourself with. So better have availability comparable to that of Google.
You probably could put the checksum inside the executable. Compile the executable with space reserved for the checksum then calculate the cheksum and write it.
That is, do it like it is done to calculate the header checksum of an IP packet.
However, it still would be quite easy to find and replace the checksum or nop out the code that verifies it.
Sure, and if one woman does not want to carry a gun/knife and go to self defense classes, advise her to dress in such a way that is less likely to attract a rapist.
back on topic: I'm not a fan of hunting, but I see why it's needed. For example, in my country, in one area there are too many wolves - they eat a lot of cattle, so hunting some of them so that they eat less cattle would be nice. Also, too many beavers in one place can result in floods - so that number should be controlled too. Also, if someone wants to hunt an animal to eat it, I'm OK with that too - after all, there is no difference (in my opinion) between the guy killing the animal himself or just buying meat. Well, as long as that animal in not endangered species. I probably wouldn't be able to pull that trigger, but then again, I never tried.
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And that would be good if the brakes were not working before going anywhere. But what if the brakes failed while the car is moving (which is what happened to me - a front right brake disc broke and somehow took out rear right brake too, so I was left with the left side (of course rear wheels do not contribute to the braking as much as front ones, so basically I was left with one brake)?
Fifth (and this is more about stigma rather than laws), I'm yet to see a convincing argument why society considers that people aren't accountable for having drunk sex (can't give consent), but are accountable for drunk driving.
Well, a drunk person can't make informed decisions (can't give consent), but he/she should have made the right decisions (designate a driver, go by cab etc) about getting home before getting drunk. Most of the time, driving drunk results from bad decisions made while sober.
In my country, if you commit a crime, being drunk at the time is an aggravating circumstance - you should have known better (maybe alcohol makes you violent) before drinking.
Not really. One person in Poland was fined for riding a bicycle with BAC of 0.54%. Some guy in my country managed to do that with 0.5%. Driving a car is easier than riding a bike, so the record in my country for driving a car drunk is 0.84%. These are the levels at which a lot of people not only would not be able to ride a bike or drive a car, but would be dead.
In my country you already have to have all that (except reserve light bulbs) and a fire extinguisher.
You would spend $100 or so on a breathalyzer that can be used as many times as you want. No reason to spend $1 a pop for single-use ones if you want to test yourself every day.
Oh, and I bet if every car had some sort of device to indicate how fast you were going, people wouldn't break the speed limit, either!
I am sure that some people wouldn't. After all, the way it is now, you have to be able to judge the speed quite accurately to not go over the speed limit. If you think you are going too fast, then it's OK, but if you see a lot of cars passing you and start thinking you are going too slow and speed up, you might be over the speed limit. If there is a passenger in the car, then he can time the intervals between km posts and calculate the speed this way, but when I am not on a highway or driving alone, I sure would like a device that could tell me my speed. Then I would be able to drive at or below the speed limit without the help of another person.
the only thing these breathalyzers will do is tell you how drunk you are. If you already knew you were too drunk to drive then they're not terribly relevant!
They are relevant in the edge cases. Let's say some guy was at a party that lasted 6 hours. He drank 80mL of vodka and 0.5L of beer sometime in the first two hours of the party (because he wanted to drive home or was the designated driver). Now the party is ending and the guy is thinking whether he can legally drive home or should call a cab. A breathalyzer in a car will tell him that. Without the breathalyzer, he can either risk it or not, now he can make an informed decision.
Of course, it won't stop those who think that they won't cause an accident (and won't encounter the police) while driving drunk.
I don't think the car manufacturer will be at fault if a tire blows at 130km/h and the car crashes. However, knowing software bugs, if self driving cars get one, it will be something that a sober human driver would never do. So, the operator will be forced to watch the car hit something because the software disabled the brakes or the "something" is difficult to see with radar/camera (while being visible for a human eye) or something like that.
So, judging computer drivers the same as human drivers will probably get the computer drivers in jail.
For example - let's say the brakes fail, but I manage to notice it far away from the obstruction. I can downshift and brake with the engine until I am going at a few km/h at which point I can turn off the engine and stop. Will a computer driver consider this? The stopping distance would be big, but at least not infinity. I actually had to drive home ~25km in a city with barely functioning brakes (IIRC only one brake worked) - go slow, downshift to reduce speed to ~10km/h then brake to stop completely.
Nice. I have not seen a lot of those routers (most people just use the router they get from the ISP and those do not support analog phones and I use a PC as a router) so I have not seen one that has internal VoIP gateway.
Interesting, I should look if there is a SIP-to-phone provider in my country and how its costs compare with the costs of my cell phone or landline.
Really? Most routers I have seen have RJ-11 socket so you can connect it to the phone line if you have DSL.
Well, Ubisoft's DRM comes to mind, but that is for games and the servers are still accessible. /. users gave was "use always-on DRM").
However, it does not require a large leap of logic to say that most likely some industrial software is using that too (after all, when the author of a $10k video editing software asked how to protect it, one of the answers
Also, it does not have to be always-on DRM. Even if the DRM requires online activation during install only, when the servers go down, so does your ability to reinstall the software. And a company may turn the activation servers for $version off when it releases a new version.
On the other hand, making software explode - now that would be interesting. The software would have to come with a USB bomb that you would have to plug into the computer, or that feature (blowing up) won't work.
It could also be that the software uses always-online (or just online activation) DRM and the manufacturer took down the activation servers.
Which is why you should have a firewall (or a NAT router) between your PC and the internet. It may not be perfect protection, but it works quite well.
Not all of them though. My Nokia cellphone is "Made in Finland" for example. I have quite a few old devices that are "Made in USSR".
However, yes, a lot of devices are made in China, irrespective of the brand name. However, I would hope that the name brand companies do better quality control.
Well, the way it was explained to me the reason is twofold:
1) LPG burns hotter than gasoline, so it may damage colder engine.
2) Even though the vaporizer is connected to the cooling system, it still can freeze over if the engine is not warm enough.
In practice, if I start a cold engine on LPG it is very sluggish. When it reaches about 40C, the engine starts working much better.
While I am not an expert, it seems to me that modern cars are designed trying to save the last cent. My car was made in 1982 and still works great in 2012. I wonder how many cars built in 2012 will be still in working condition in 2042.
On the other hand, you can have a lot of "fun" with a diesel car when outside is -20C or colder.
The manual system was probably all that was available or just was cheaper (as there is no computer in my car (other than in the tape deck, anyway) it probably would be more difficult to make a controller based system work. Then again, I'm used to it, so I don't really care.
The carburetor has to be emptied because LPG (at least in my car) gets introduced to the air intake (between the air filter and carburetor), so, if there was still gasoline in the carburetor the mixture would be come way too rich and may result in problems.
A 1997 car will most likely have fuel injection. IIRC fuel injection took over around 1985.
The only problem with my car is if I arrive using LPG, stop the engine and don't drive anywhere for for a few days, it takes longer to start the engine (that is, to pump the gasoline to the carburetor), but it is possible to bypass that . Put the switch to LPG for a few seconds, then switch to gasoline then start the engine, while holding the accelerator a bit in (not all the way, just a bit above idle). Some LPG manages to get into the engine, which is usually enough for a few revolutions, which is usually enough to pump the gasoline to the carburetor.
They are almost certainly "about as good" as my car, those brands just attract whiners, therefore you hear more whining.
Or it could be that those cars are more expensive, therefore people expect them to be better. This does not only apply to cars - if, for example, I buy some cheap "made in China" device I do not really expect it to be well made. On the other hand, if I pay 2x or more for a brand name device I expect it to be better made - after all, if the only difference between them is the price and logo on the front, I might as well buy the cheaper one.
Yea, this is one o the reasons I like my 1982 car - it is actually possible for me to repair it, well, at least the electrical system and some other parts. Oh, and the electrical system is all discrete - no microcontrollers, firmware and EPROMs going bad to worry about. For example, the turning signal relay is made out two transistors, some passive components and a relay - in modern cars it's probably a 10MHz CPU running software that does the same thing - blink a light every so often (more often it the current is too low, indicating a bad bulb).
My 1982 Mercedes W123 has almost 500000km* and not only that, for the last 12 or so years, it has been modified to run on LPG (because it is cheaper) and I stil use LPG when I want to go somewhere more than a few km away (I can only switch the fuel source to "LPG" if the engine has warmed up**).
* probably already reached it, but the odometer has been replaced and the mechanic did not bother setting it to the same number as the old one.
** The process is like this (completely manual system):
1. If the engine is cold, switch on gasoline, start the engine.
2. When it has almost reached ~40C, turn off gasoline, drive (or wait) until the gasoline that is still in the carburetor is used up - I can usually go up to 1km on that.
3. Switch on LPG.
The body had some rust, but i had the car patched up. Also, it seems that I will need to replace all the door seals and the back window seal (I already replaced the front window seal) as 30 year old rubber is not known for its ability to keep water out.
That can bite you in the ass.
Some guy downloads the software, tries to use it and finds that the output is corrupted. He then downloads $competitors_software and uses that instead.
Some time later, the employer of that guy asks him for his opinion about the software. The answer will be "It's complete garbage - I tried to just do a simple edit and the output was corrupted, if they can't get that right, who knows how many other bugs are there, if you want my advice we should buy $competitors_software instead - it works correctly and costs less/about the same".
You forgot to mention problems with the auth servers.
If some clients internet connection goes down, they will scream at you, but you can try to say that it is their problem for not having 8 backup lines.
If your authentication servers go down, all your clients will scream at you and you will have nothing to defend yourself with. So better have availability comparable to that of Google.
You probably could put the checksum inside the executable. Compile the executable with space reserved for the checksum then calculate the cheksum and write it.
That is, do it like it is done to calculate the header checksum of an IP packet.
However, it still would be quite easy to find and replace the checksum or nop out the code that verifies it.
Sure, and if one woman does not want to carry a gun/knife and go to self defense classes, advise her to dress in such a way that is less likely to attract a rapist.
back on topic:
I'm not a fan of hunting, but I see why it's needed. For example, in my country, in one area there are too many wolves - they eat a lot of cattle, so hunting some of them so that they eat less cattle would be nice. Also, too many beavers in one place can result in floods - so that number should be controlled too.
Also, if someone wants to hunt an animal to eat it, I'm OK with that too - after all, there is no difference (in my opinion) between the guy killing the animal himself or just buying meat. Well, as long as that animal in not endangered species.
I probably wouldn't be able to pull that trigger, but then again, I never tried.