Wait, what? So to turn off the engine and get out of the car you have to press a button for 10seconds?! Every Time?! No offense, but I'll calling bullshit on that! I'm pretty sure you can just pull the key out like every other car.
No, you bring the car to a stop, electronically put it in park (something you can only do when the vehicle senses its not moving) and then you get out and the car turns itself off. If you can't be bothered to understand anything outside your tiny existence you really ought to shut the fuck up. Again.
The move came after a fiery 2009 Lexus crash after a floor mat was improperly installed and may have trapped the accelerator pedal, causing the vehicle to race down California Highway 125 outside San Diego at more than 100 miles per hour, crashing and bursting into flames, killing an off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer and three members of his family.
Sounds Darwinian to me. If you don't know how to turn your car off, then frankly as a race we don't need you genes!
Holy SHIT how many times is this going to be regurgitated? Ever driven a fully drive-by-wire Lexus? No? Ever driven one that refused to override the throttle? No? Then shut the fuck up. Twice.
You wouldn't want to turn off the car. Braking and steering would instantly become more difficult than most people would expect.
A better solution would be to put your car in neutral. Most, if not all, modern cars have RPM limiters on the engine, so your car jumping to max RPM shouldn't be an issue. It would just be loud. You can then coast to a stop with your power steering and power brakes still functioning.
Once you are stopped, then turn off the engine.
Braking is vacuum assisted so if the throttle is open the car is still going to be very challenging to stop regardless of RPM or control state. You are no better or worse off if the ignition is cut.
You should switch to neutral. If you turn off the engine, you loose power steering, brake boosters, and if you go too far, can even lock up the steering wheel. If you're driving with a manual transmission is even easier, just step on the clutch pedal.
A car with a stuck accelerator is going to have absolutely no vacuum to assist with braking, and in case you have never tried to stop a car that has a non-functioning vacuum system, it is quite hard. Add to that the possibility that the car accelerated to a particularly high speed before you took action, and getting the car to stop even after you disengage the transmission will still be challenging.
I understand it's just another port to plug things in. Just what we need, laptops with fifteen different input and output ports. VGA, DVI, HDMI, DP, USB3, whatever thunderbolt is, FW, eSATA, unique docking connector, Ethernet, unique power socket, and a card reader for eighteen different cards. I'm sure I've missed a few.
That's the real head scratcher. Apple, the king of "you won't see a port that isn't absolutely essential" is the one championing Thunderbolt despite it being far less useful than one of the many display options they have thrown away in recent years (no VGA, use DVI-mini!, no DVI-mini, use DVI-micro!, no DVI-micro, use Mini-displayport!) As many others have noted, it is basically the second coming of Firewire; it tries to out-do something that is widely accepted with something that is slightly superior but much more expensive. While you would think that Apple of all companies would be able to pull that off, it just doesn't feel like it has any legs.
Your point on eSATA may be due more to being able to simply run a PCI bracket with an eSATA port on it from your motherboard, and most people have unused SATA ports. Also, eSATA is not normally powered on 2.5" external drives. Yes, there are powered variants, but they never took off. USB is far handier for portable drives. As for Thunderbolt, I think it's safe to say that other vendors will bring that cable price down. I don't see Thunderbolt making a big splash on desktops, but it could be a great thing for laptops, especially ultrabooks. One tiny port to a docking station that can provide you with just about any kind of port, from more USB ports to a friggin' SCSI connector.
How is that docking station use working out for all those thunderbolt-equipped macs? I think I remember the press conference went something like this:
Hey Mac fans, congratulations because your new Macbook will have another fantastically fast (and lonesome) connector on it starting in 2011! You can use it for all kinds of things, like a display (never mind the micro-displayport plug on there) or for really fast hard drives (never mind the USB3 plug on there) and of course the best part is that you can use it to plug really expensive cables in to! Let's open it up for questions, yes you sir, what, did you actually ask if it's going to be a good way to attach a docking station??? What. THE. FUCK. would a macbook owner want a docking station for? Are you out of your FUCKING mind? If they want a desk full of shit to do work on, they are going to buy a desktop Mac, not some motherFUCKING docking station! Where have you been for the past ten years??? Docking station! I think Steve Jobs just died a little on the inside...
Putting the obvious moral issues aside, how loyal to this company are you? If the answer is "not very" then I think you already know what you should be doing (i.e, looking for another place of employment). If, however, you are a loyal employee, then suck it up & just do what they ask...finding a place to work that you actually enjoy is tough, especially in this economy.
Plus if they do come to ask about your astroturfing creds (they probably won't give two shits so none of this matters anyway) just tell them you do all of your product commentary as AC (for obvious reasons). And when you use the word obvious be sure to draw out the "O". They will know what you mean.
I think that if a lawmaker sponsors a law that is found to be unconstitutional later, they should immediately be put to death.
Good luck getting that passed... Question though, if THAT law is unconstitutional (as it could be seen that you are elected to employ your right to free speech upon the lawmaking process, among other implications) then do they still get to kill the people who passed it?
You're right, it is a shame that there is no "1040 YOU" form
You keep deliberately avoiding the merit of what I said in favor of attacking minutiae and strawmen. Whether someone enters six or sixty numbers; whether or not someone fills in nothing but a 1040EZ, or has 30 pages of esoteric tax documents even the beancounters don't often see...
Those have no impact on the merit of having a form automatically do basic input validation, purely-internal-calculations, and cross-form propagation.
So... We done here? Thanks for the dance, friend, but I'll sit the next one out if you don't mind.
And yet you keep responding. One more in case you don't get it: there are a thousand commercial products and services that do exactly what you need, so quit fucking whining that the government doesn't cater you your every exact whim and want. end of story.
You're right, it is a shame that there is no "1040 YOU" form that involves plugging in only the numbers that matter to just you, and being done. I would be for it. Nevertheless, coming up with a YOU form that works for the 150 million taxpayers and the alarmingly high number of tax "situations" each find themselves in has proven to be a real challenge. Do you think the IRS *likes* spending all their time checking numbers and finding innocent mistakes when they could be chasing legitimate tax cheats?
Bam, enter a half-dozen numbers in the right places, and hit "print". Total prep time, 30 seconds. You might well ask, then, why they can't add a simple wizard to semi-intelligently ask for those half-dozen numbers - But to answer that will cost you $40, payable to Intuit.
If you have only six tax-related figures to input and you aren't filing the 1040 EZ form (free to do on TaxAct, Turbotax, HRblock, and others) then you already messed up. Go back to the start and try again.
The long-overdue part is that the carriers will share this data so that one phone can't simply be switched to a different network (they have all already done this for their in-network phone database. However, given that most phones are only going to work when operating on the originally designed network anyway (given the patchwork of different standards and frequencies in use among the carriers) how many phone thefts is this really going to affect?
For complex returns, that may be correct. But there's no reason there can't be an open source product with consists of nothing more than an electronic version of the forms which allows you to type rather than print and which automatically does the math (on the forms) for you. Then it either prints or electronically submits the return. It's no different from picking up the paper forms and filling them out yourself. You're responsible for selecting the correct forms, knowing which laws apply, etc.
As amazing as this seems, the IRS (and many state and muni tax agencies) have in fact figured out how to produce a form-style PDF that can be filled in ENTIRELY electronically. The IRS does make you do the math yourself, but I am sure you can find an open source calculator to help with that, right? Many state and munis seem to do this better, with forms that run all the math for you and can be submitted electronically. And believe it or not they even make them easy to find via Google. The wonder of it all!
Actually it was a good reply and worth taking note.
Just because 'hurr hurr derpa no free software that does all my taxes for me' isn't what you were hoping for doesn't make it useless.
They were correct. This is highly specialized software for a specific purpose operated based on state/country/province etc.>
This is true but no one has yet mentioned that there IS a free (as in beer) way to do your taxes: obtain the necessary (freely available) forms, read them, understand them, and complete them. There is even phone based help if you have specific questions, as well as many books available at your local library. There, your tax forms just got filed without spending a dime! If you don't want to invest this time or don't want to take the risk of doing them incorrectly, then supposing that a free option would be satisfactory is kind of laughable. It's like (oh yes, we do love our similes) wanting seat belts in your car (oh yes, we do love our CAR similes) but not wanting to pay for them, and still wanting them to be just as safe. Surely, by now someone made something that was just as safe but was also free, right?
We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook
None of that makes any financial sense. I'll bet 5 internets on a 2:1 basis that within a year "instagram" is merely the name of the icon replacing "take a picture" inside the facebook app and all of the instagram social media stuff is merged into facebook.
Its a pity, I was almost getting around to installing the android app, but now its like, why bother.
Considering Instagram's "niche" is a low-res photo with a shitty filter, replacing the Facebook photo functionality with ANYTHING remotely like this is probably enough to make Facebook useless to an even larger contingent of the general public. Some people prefer, you know, SEEING what they just took a picture of...
I can't record my own audio on my Android phone but a malware app can? So let me get this straight - to get what I believe should be a regular functionality I have to have someone install a malware app? Ridiculous. This is almost like giving someone syphillis to cure them of AIDS!
FUD much? Like there aren't a dozen call recording apps in the (legit version of the) app market, that keep you miles away from any malware like this article mentions?
I must admit, the first thought that came to my mind when reading this is, this sounds like a great setting for some spy thriller or such. I mean, an abandoned military base with launch silos, its own nuclear power, and slowly being destroyed by encroaching ice?
The perfect location to have the mastermind's base located in. At the end, the heroes have to race out of the base as it is finally being destroyed by the ice.
Sounds thrilling... "We have just 5 to 7 years to get out of these tunnels before the glacier shifts and destroys them! Oh no! I tripped! I won't make it! Go on without me!"
You are going to need to add radioactive mutant soldiers and the threat of direct nuclear attack into the mix before you get off the ground with that idea.
buy a consumer product. If you want to make an investment, make an investment.
Kickstarter is not a store, nor is it a brokerage. It is a place to donate and support things you'd like to see happen. Don't send any money their way if you're hoping for some sort of guaranteed return. It's a kind of participation, activism, or expression, not a kind of transaction.
Seeing as how (at least based on the evidence at hand) none of these outfits are operating as a true not-for-profit (some may operate without profit but that is something else entirely) then the word "donation" is NOT appropriate here. The word you are looking for is "snakeoil". They are selling (that is what you need to call it unless you are explicitly not operating with the intent to make a profit) a specific good (the promise of something magical and wonderful at some point in the future) and their customers have every reason to expect something in return (given that this is the whole premise of crowdsourcing.) Your attitude that "oh well its just a donation so if it's wasted or stolen who cares?" is the exact one that will lead crowdsourcing and outfits like Kickstarter straight to the shitter. There will be waste, and corruption, and outright lies; just thinking happy thoughts of "activism" will NOT save you. Don't get me wrong, the idea of crowdsourcing and Kickstarter is fantastic and if it's done right it can be very powerful and positive. But the same was said about Communism 100 years ago. You have been warned.
During tests in a controlled environment it was demonstrated that hard drives show no "failure curve" at onset, but follow a very boring, linear progression throughout their lifespan.
Interesting. Didn't the Google study on disk reliability show a distinct infant mortality spike in the beginning with a lowest failure rate between 1-2 years of age and after 2 years of age a sharp increase in failure rate quickly reaching a certain plateau? What you describe seems to be quite different.
Actually no that was the study I was referring to and it didn't show anything like the "Bathtub" curve you describe. The AFR for drives 0-1 year old was steady for the first year (at most 1% higher for drives new to 3 months than in the first year), and from 1-2 years it held steady and then 2-3 years it rose precipitously until in year 5 when it became statistically chaotic (likely due to drives that were suffering from more obscure failures than the normal bearing or platter wear-out.) Basically, it demonstrated a lack of a "DOA" effect that is exactly what one would expect given that automated production testing is very effective.
PDF available here:http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf
Well, they'll need to develop a chatbot that acts like a normal person, and a chatbot that acts like a sexual predator, and then all three of the pieces of software could go through a rapid automated evolutionary development process.
Now, what do you do with the piece of software that acts like a predator, though? Put it in car alarms or something?
Clearly they will use THAT piece to model the Chris Hansen bot against. And we all know there isn't enough of *that guy* to go around...
I think they could mine bash.org for a sampling to base their algorithm on. Unfortunately they'd have to wade through discussions of horse porn and tabletop role playing game issues before they could establish a firm model to follow...
A plastic strap won't save you from the drive head failing to move. I've seen this happen when a bunch of unemployed temp workers unload the truck. This is why it seems "batches" of similar drives fail if you are getting them from the same source... some asshole was throwing and kicking the boxes around.
If your static strap is made of (all) plastic, then you will have issues beyond shipping and handling woes...
Hard drives, amazingly, are tested pretty effectively before leaving the factory. During tests in a controlled environment it was demonstrated that hard drives show no "failure curve" at onset, but follow a very boring, linear progression throughout their lifespan. The result: if you don't screw up when you install it you have little to worry about on day 1 that is different from day 1000, which is the cold reality that all mechanical devices will fail.
Cue the "but I have seen so many DOA drives from XYZcorp..." and to that I will pre-retort with this: if you buy a quality drive (i.e. not a refurb or one specifically designed as a consumer throwaway) from a vendor that takes some care in shipping and handling, then no you did not stumble on "the conspiracy of XYZcorp's bad drives". The weakest link was you. Try wearing a static strap next time.
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Wait, what? So to turn off the engine and get out of the car you have to press a button for 10seconds?! Every Time?! No offense, but I'll calling bullshit on that! I'm pretty sure you can just pull the key out like every other car.
No, you bring the car to a stop, electronically put it in park (something you can only do when the vehicle senses its not moving) and then you get out and the car turns itself off. If you can't be bothered to understand anything outside your tiny existence you really ought to shut the fuck up. Again.
The move came after a fiery 2009 Lexus crash after a floor mat was improperly installed and may have trapped the accelerator pedal, causing the vehicle to race down California Highway 125 outside San Diego at more than 100 miles per hour, crashing and bursting into flames, killing an off-duty California Highway Patrol Officer and three members of his family.
Sounds Darwinian to me. If you don't know how to turn your car off, then frankly as a race we don't need you genes!
Holy SHIT how many times is this going to be regurgitated? Ever driven a fully drive-by-wire Lexus? No? Ever driven one that refused to override the throttle? No? Then shut the fuck up. Twice.
You wouldn't want to turn off the car. Braking and steering would instantly become more difficult than most people would expect.
A better solution would be to put your car in neutral. Most, if not all, modern cars have RPM limiters on the engine, so your car jumping to max RPM shouldn't be an issue. It would just be loud. You can then coast to a stop with your power steering and power brakes still functioning.
Once you are stopped, then turn off the engine.
Braking is vacuum assisted so if the throttle is open the car is still going to be very challenging to stop regardless of RPM or control state. You are no better or worse off if the ignition is cut.
You should switch to neutral. If you turn off the engine, you loose power steering, brake boosters, and if you go too far, can even lock up the steering wheel. If you're driving with a manual transmission is even easier, just step on the clutch pedal.
A car with a stuck accelerator is going to have absolutely no vacuum to assist with braking, and in case you have never tried to stop a car that has a non-functioning vacuum system, it is quite hard. Add to that the possibility that the car accelerated to a particularly high speed before you took action, and getting the car to stop even after you disengage the transmission will still be challenging.
I understand it's just another port to plug things in. Just what we need, laptops with fifteen different input and output ports. VGA, DVI, HDMI, DP, USB3, whatever thunderbolt is, FW, eSATA, unique docking connector, Ethernet, unique power socket, and a card reader for eighteen different cards. I'm sure I've missed a few.
That's the real head scratcher. Apple, the king of "you won't see a port that isn't absolutely essential" is the one championing Thunderbolt despite it being far less useful than one of the many display options they have thrown away in recent years (no VGA, use DVI-mini!, no DVI-mini, use DVI-micro!, no DVI-micro, use Mini-displayport!) As many others have noted, it is basically the second coming of Firewire; it tries to out-do something that is widely accepted with something that is slightly superior but much more expensive. While you would think that Apple of all companies would be able to pull that off, it just doesn't feel like it has any legs.
Your point on eSATA may be due more to being able to simply run a PCI bracket with an eSATA port on it from your motherboard, and most people have unused SATA ports. Also, eSATA is not normally powered on 2.5" external drives. Yes, there are powered variants, but they never took off. USB is far handier for portable drives. As for Thunderbolt, I think it's safe to say that other vendors will bring that cable price down. I don't see Thunderbolt making a big splash on desktops, but it could be a great thing for laptops, especially ultrabooks. One tiny port to a docking station that can provide you with just about any kind of port, from more USB ports to a friggin' SCSI connector.
How is that docking station use working out for all those thunderbolt-equipped macs? I think I remember the press conference went something like this:
Hey Mac fans, congratulations because your new Macbook will have another fantastically fast (and lonesome) connector on it starting in 2011! You can use it for all kinds of things, like a display (never mind the micro-displayport plug on there) or for really fast hard drives (never mind the USB3 plug on there) and of course the best part is that you can use it to plug really expensive cables in to! Let's open it up for questions, yes you sir, what, did you actually ask if it's going to be a good way to attach a docking station??? What. THE. FUCK. would a macbook owner want a docking station for? Are you out of your FUCKING mind? If they want a desk full of shit to do work on, they are going to buy a desktop Mac, not some motherFUCKING docking station! Where have you been for the past ten years??? Docking station! I think Steve Jobs just died a little on the inside...
Putting the obvious moral issues aside, how loyal to this company are you? If the answer is "not very" then I think you already know what you should be doing (i.e, looking for another place of employment). If, however, you are a loyal employee, then suck it up & just do what they ask...finding a place to work that you actually enjoy is tough, especially in this economy.
Plus if they do come to ask about your astroturfing creds (they probably won't give two shits so none of this matters anyway) just tell them you do all of your product commentary as AC (for obvious reasons). And when you use the word obvious be sure to draw out the "O". They will know what you mean.
I think that if a lawmaker sponsors a law that is found to be unconstitutional later, they should immediately be put to death.
Good luck getting that passed... Question though, if THAT law is unconstitutional (as it could be seen that you are elected to employ your right to free speech upon the lawmaking process, among other implications) then do they still get to kill the people who passed it?
You're right, it is a shame that there is no "1040 YOU" form
You keep deliberately avoiding the merit of what I said in favor of attacking minutiae and strawmen. Whether someone enters six or sixty numbers; whether or not someone fills in nothing but a 1040EZ, or has 30 pages of esoteric tax documents even the beancounters don't often see...
Those have no impact on the merit of having a form automatically do basic input validation, purely-internal-calculations, and cross-form propagation.
So... We done here? Thanks for the dance, friend, but I'll sit the next one out if you don't mind.
And yet you keep responding. One more in case you don't get it: there are a thousand commercial products and services that do exactly what you need, so quit fucking whining that the government doesn't cater you your every exact whim and want. end of story.
You're right, it is a shame that there is no "1040 YOU" form that involves plugging in only the numbers that matter to just you, and being done. I would be for it. Nevertheless, coming up with a YOU form that works for the 150 million taxpayers and the alarmingly high number of tax "situations" each find themselves in has proven to be a real challenge. Do you think the IRS *likes* spending all their time checking numbers and finding innocent mistakes when they could be chasing legitimate tax cheats?
Bam, enter a half-dozen numbers in the right places, and hit "print". Total prep time, 30 seconds.
You might well ask, then, why they can't add a simple wizard to semi-intelligently ask for those half-dozen numbers - But to answer that will cost you $40, payable to Intuit.
If you have only six tax-related figures to input and you aren't filing the 1040 EZ form (free to do on TaxAct, Turbotax, HRblock, and others) then you already messed up. Go back to the start and try again.
Its built into the GSM spec and widely used.
You must be new here. Carrier's #1 and #3 (by subscribership) are not using GSM at all...
The long-overdue part is that the carriers will share this data so that one phone can't simply be switched to a different network (they have all already done this for their in-network phone database. However, given that most phones are only going to work when operating on the originally designed network anyway (given the patchwork of different standards and frequencies in use among the carriers) how many phone thefts is this really going to affect?
For complex returns, that may be correct. But there's no reason there can't be an open source product with consists of nothing more than an electronic version of the forms which allows you to type rather than print and which automatically does the math (on the forms) for you. Then it either prints or electronically submits the return. It's no different from picking up the paper forms and filling them out yourself. You're responsible for selecting the correct forms, knowing which laws apply, etc.
As amazing as this seems, the IRS (and many state and muni tax agencies) have in fact figured out how to produce a form-style PDF that can be filled in ENTIRELY electronically. The IRS does make you do the math yourself, but I am sure you can find an open source calculator to help with that, right? Many state and munis seem to do this better, with forms that run all the math for you and can be submitted electronically. And believe it or not they even make them easy to find via Google. The wonder of it all!
Actually it was a good reply and worth taking note.
Just because 'hurr hurr derpa no free software that does all my taxes for me' isn't what you were hoping for doesn't make it useless.
They were correct. This is highly specialized software for a specific purpose operated based on state/country/province etc.>
This is true but no one has yet mentioned that there IS a free (as in beer) way to do your taxes: obtain the necessary (freely available) forms, read them, understand them, and complete them. There is even phone based help if you have specific questions, as well as many books available at your local library. There, your tax forms just got filed without spending a dime! If you don't want to invest this time or don't want to take the risk of doing them incorrectly, then supposing that a free option would be satisfactory is kind of laughable. It's like (oh yes, we do love our similes) wanting seat belts in your car (oh yes, we do love our CAR similes) but not wanting to pay for them, and still wanting them to be just as safe. Surely, by now someone made something that was just as safe but was also free, right?
We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook
None of that makes any financial sense. I'll bet 5 internets on a 2:1 basis that within a year "instagram" is merely the name of the icon replacing "take a picture" inside the facebook app and all of the instagram social media stuff is merged into facebook.
Its a pity, I was almost getting around to installing the android app, but now its like, why bother.
Considering Instagram's "niche" is a low-res photo with a shitty filter, replacing the Facebook photo functionality with ANYTHING remotely like this is probably enough to make Facebook useless to an even larger contingent of the general public. Some people prefer, you know, SEEING what they just took a picture of...
I can't record my own audio on my Android phone but a malware app can? So let me get this straight - to get what I believe should be a regular functionality I have to have someone install a malware app? Ridiculous. This is almost like giving someone syphillis to cure them of AIDS!
FUD much? Like there aren't a dozen call recording apps in the (legit version of the) app market, that keep you miles away from any malware like this article mentions?
I must admit, the first thought that came to my mind when reading this is, this sounds like a great setting for some spy thriller or such. I mean, an abandoned military base with launch silos, its own nuclear power, and slowly being destroyed by encroaching ice?
The perfect location to have the mastermind's base located in. At the end, the heroes have to race out of the base as it is finally being destroyed by the ice.
Sounds thrilling... "We have just 5 to 7 years to get out of these tunnels before the glacier shifts and destroys them! Oh no! I tripped! I won't make it! Go on without me!"
You are going to need to add radioactive mutant soldiers and the threat of direct nuclear attack into the mix before you get off the ground with that idea.
buy a consumer product. If you want to make an investment, make an investment.
Kickstarter is not a store, nor is it a brokerage. It is a place to donate and support things you'd like to see happen. Don't send any money their way if you're hoping for some sort of guaranteed return. It's a kind of participation, activism, or expression, not a kind of transaction.
Seeing as how (at least based on the evidence at hand) none of these outfits are operating as a true not-for-profit (some may operate without profit but that is something else entirely) then the word "donation" is NOT appropriate here. The word you are looking for is "snakeoil". They are selling (that is what you need to call it unless you are explicitly not operating with the intent to make a profit) a specific good (the promise of something magical and wonderful at some point in the future) and their customers have every reason to expect something in return (given that this is the whole premise of crowdsourcing.) Your attitude that "oh well its just a donation so if it's wasted or stolen who cares?" is the exact one that will lead crowdsourcing and outfits like Kickstarter straight to the shitter. There will be waste, and corruption, and outright lies; just thinking happy thoughts of "activism" will NOT save you. Don't get me wrong, the idea of crowdsourcing and Kickstarter is fantastic and if it's done right it can be very powerful and positive. But the same was said about Communism 100 years ago. You have been warned.
During tests in a controlled environment it was demonstrated that hard drives show no "failure curve" at onset, but follow a very boring, linear progression throughout their lifespan.
Interesting. Didn't the Google study on disk reliability show a distinct infant mortality spike in the beginning with a lowest failure rate between 1-2 years of age and after 2 years of age a sharp increase in failure rate quickly reaching a certain plateau? What you describe seems to be quite different.
Actually no that was the study I was referring to and it didn't show anything like the "Bathtub" curve you describe. The AFR for drives 0-1 year old was steady for the first year (at most 1% higher for drives new to 3 months than in the first year), and from 1-2 years it held steady and then 2-3 years it rose precipitously until in year 5 when it became statistically chaotic (likely due to drives that were suffering from more obscure failures than the normal bearing or platter wear-out.) Basically, it demonstrated a lack of a "DOA" effect that is exactly what one would expect given that automated production testing is very effective.
PDF available here:http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/research.google.com/en/us/archive/disk_failures.pdf
Well, they'll need to develop a chatbot that acts like a normal person, and a chatbot that acts like a sexual predator, and then all three of the pieces of software could go through a rapid automated evolutionary development process.
Now, what do you do with the piece of software that acts like a predator, though? Put it in car alarms or something?
Clearly they will use THAT piece to model the Chris Hansen bot against. And we all know there isn't enough of *that guy* to go around...
I think they could mine bash.org for a sampling to base their algorithm on. Unfortunately they'd have to wade through discussions of horse porn and tabletop role playing game issues before they could establish a firm model to follow...
That broke it, too... Back to the drawing board.
Youmustbenewhere.
A plastic strap won't save you from the drive head failing to move. I've seen this happen when a bunch of unemployed temp workers unload the truck. This is why it seems "batches" of similar drives fail if you are getting them from the same source... some asshole was throwing and kicking the boxes around.
If your static strap is made of (all) plastic, then you will have issues beyond shipping and handling woes...
Hard drives, amazingly, are tested pretty effectively before leaving the factory. During tests in a controlled environment it was demonstrated that hard drives show no "failure curve" at onset, but follow a very boring, linear progression throughout their lifespan. The result: if you don't screw up when you install it you have little to worry about on day 1 that is different from day 1000, which is the cold reality that all mechanical devices will fail.
Cue the "but I have seen so many DOA drives from XYZcorp..." and to that I will pre-retort with this: if you buy a quality drive (i.e. not a refurb or one specifically designed as a consumer throwaway) from a vendor that takes some care in shipping and handling, then no you did not stumble on "the conspiracy of XYZcorp's bad drives". The weakest link was you. Try wearing a static strap next time.