Not I. The first thing I thought when I read that was: "So the asshole who created this mess is now trying to distance himself from it now that the shit is hitting the fan? 'Hey, I don't even KNOW these assholes!' just doesn't cut it for me. Regardless he can damned well be allowed to clean up the disaster he caused, then he's welcome to -- literally -- fall on his sword and take himself out of the picture.
"Angry comments"? I've got your angry comment right here: That asshat's entire riff on the subject of programming belongs on 4chan/b/. Does he have any clue that the Internet, his blog, his phone, and so many other things around him that he relies on on a daily basis are the results of the labors of these "exceptionally dumb weirdos" he's so blithely insulting? What a jackass.
If you're going to name-call then I'm going to insist you qualify that statement: How do I sound like a conspiracy nut? We live in a day and age where the fucking government spies on everyone, and a self-driving car would come equipped with everything they'd want to track where you're going at all times. Teenage hackers hack just about everything, what makes you think some little asshole isn't going to hack self-driving cars "for the lulz" and cause someone to drive off a bridge or into a concrete abutment and get killed? Well? Explain to me how I'm wrong?
More and more we are becoming a nation (a world?) where people don't know how to do anything for themselves. Dependence on machines to do everything for us is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, getting your car literally hijacked by a hacker, causing it to take you somewhere you didn't want to go, or intentionally getting you killed. More opportunities for governments and corporations to spy on you and track you. Less privacy. Etcetera.
For what it's worth, when designing a switching power supply, you want the equivalent series resistance (or ESR) of the filter capacitors to be as low as possible. This is why you'll often see several capacitors in parallel with each other rather than just one big one: paralleling them lowers the effective ESR.
In fact, it should be possible to construct these power cells out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices..
Not sure if they're making a comparison here or proposing an application, but wouldn't it be pretty spiffy if you had photovoltaic cells that stored the energy they collect and convert from sunlight, so it's there to use when you need it? Not sure what the leakage factor for a supercap of this type would be compared to current technology supercaps, you'd still have some energy stored for an hour or two at least, and I think that would be a game-changer for solar power.
But: Can Google be trusted anymore? Of late Google seems to be schizophrenic, like we've got Jeckyl-Google and Hyde-Google. Of course it's just as valid in this socio-political landscape to ask: Can we trust anyone anymore?
If by that you mean if you get in an accident and one or more battery packs gets physically damaged, self-discharges catastrophically, and starts a fire? Yes, I would consider that to be a serious drawback to this idea. Not that concentrating all your energy storage capacity in one place is all that much better (bigger BOOM! if damage occurs to it) but on the other hand having the battery pack in one central location on the vehicle makes it easier to protect and harder to damage in a garden-variety fender-bender. Think of it this way: What if you decided to distribute the gasoline storage capability of an internal-combustion engine automobile across lots of little tanks stored in the body panels? Insane, right? You'd never do it, it would turn the entire vehicle into one giant rolling fire hazard even worse than rear-endering an old Ford Pinto Runabout. While small battery packs distributed throughout the body panels is a significantly smaller risk than distributing gasoline throughout, it's still a risk. Of lesser but still considerable concern is the fact that an accident that leaves the vehicle otherwise functional/driveable could immediately and drastically reduce the total range-per-charge because of damaged battery packs. This is something that you couldn't as easily ignore as a crumpled fender or dented door.
So far as high-capacity battery packs and fire hazard from catastrophic self-discharge are concerned: Shouldn't there be (if there isn't already) some sort of fire-suppression/fire-control designed into the packs themselves, or at least mounted in the immediate vicinity of the battery packs? Something heat activated perhaps?
Nope! I'm going to continue to loudly remind everyone within earshot every time something like this happens so nobody will ever be allowed or able to forget that 'new doesn't always mean better', and sometimes it means the contrary.
Glad to hear that I'm not the only one left out here in the digital wilds of the Internet who isn't blindly following the trends like the rest of the sheep of the world apparently are. Have no e-book reader, don't want one. I'll stick to my nice, old-fashioned paper books, thank you very much, and 20 years from now I'll still be able to read them, regardless of what some anal-retentive, power-monging asshats think about what's inside them.
Who decides? The Powers That Be, that's who, the people who have the money and political/social power to decide things unilaterally and arbitrarily, and screw you and what you want, they obviously know what's best for you. So far as they're concerned, if you read certain books, you must have been seduced by Satan to stray from the True Path, and your Faith in Jesus is threatened, and it's their Duty to bring you back to the Path of Righteousness. Or, they want to quash your annoying tendency to be a free-thinker, or to have political views and attitudes that differ from what they want you to have so that their agenda can continue to go forward -- because, after all, they are the ones deserving to be in charge of the world, and what you want is irrelevant.
It all comes down to choice: You still have some, and there are people who want to take it away, because for whatever reason they believe that their choices are more important than yours, and yours are to be disregarded.
I'm laughing at all you who got rid of your printed books because you thought e-books were so damned cool. How are you enjoying your e-book that got deleted right off your e-book reader? Did that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that they can reach right into a device you legally own, in the privacy of your own home, and delete something you paid cash money for? Which, by the way, never really existed because it's just data? Or better yet: the fact that they can alter the contents of works you bought digitally, and you will never know the difference?
I'll continue sticking to my nice, old-fashioned printed-on-paper books, and likewise continue to be immune to the revisionism that you e-book whippersnappers are being plagued by now.
Fuck Facebook, fuck Google, fuck all "social media", it's all bullshit and is ultimately used to invade your privacy; delete it all. People who claim to be your "friends" who won't be bothered to use other means to contact you weren't really your friends in the first place, so fuck them, too. Real friends will call you on the phone or at least send you an email.
Constantly having to check the speedo was tiresome
Oh poor baby! Actually having to pay attention to what the vehicle you're in control of is doing!
You're possibly a good example of what I was talking about in another comment: Automated systems in your car are making you lazy. Did your speed vary constantly during that 2000 total miles? I'll bet it did, and not having to practice and exercise that skill makes you weaker at it than someone who doesn't have or use cruise control in their car.
If we all accept what you're saying, then shouldn't that apply to aircraft and pilots as well as ground vehicles? If so then since autopilot systems have reached a level of complexity and sophistication such that an airliner can fly itself, from departure to arrival, that pilots don't need to be as well trained to handle the aircraft themselves? I find this idea to be absurd. Autopilot systems can fail, and even short of a total failure, they can grossly mishandle a given situation and create a life-threatening situation for both the aircraft and for people on the ground in it's flight path. Regardless of the fact that an automobile isn't going to fall out of the sky, an "autopiloted" automobile can, similarly to the above scenario, fail to properly handle a given set of circumstances to the point where the passengers of the vehicle and other vehicles and/or pedestrians are at risk of injury or death, or at the very least, risk of unnecessary property damage. Having inadequately trained, certified, and practiced drivers behind the wheel of an automobile that is self-parking and (soon enough, it seems) self-driving is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster, sooner or later. In my opinion, such features on vehicles will only encourage a decline in the overall effectiveness of the 'driver' behind the 'wheel' (whatever form that may end up taking) in non-typical or emergency situations, which will result in damage to property and injury or death to humans. I'd just as soon see the average, non-professional driver not be given access to such systems on their vehicles; the average, non-professional driver is barely adequate to the task at hand in the first place, and making it easier for them will just lower the bar even further.
I believe I addressed that already: Because it's a general-purpose computing device, and in spite of all the precautions you can take with it, it's still vulnerable to exploits that can take control of it and cause it to run an attacker's code. It being connected directly to the public Internet increases that threat.
In my opinion: Unless you're planning on also running servers (web, FTP, mail, etc) on your new "router/access point", then it's complete overkill to use even a netbook for that. Additionally, you'd be potentially opening yourself up to a world of hurt since your netbook, being a general-purpose computing device at heart, is going to be more vulnerable to outside attack than a purpose-built router/gateway/wireless access point.
I don't have Facebook anymore because they don't respect my basic right to privacy in the first place, and what makes you think I'm talking about "public records" anyway? I'm talking about data that is private and valuable to you or to your company.
Apparently it's not only politicians who are remarkably inept when it comes to technical matters, but many others as well. I think it's safe to say at this point that there is no way to 100% ensure that any data stored "in the cloud" is safe from the prying eyes of the truly motivated.
You want your data to be 100% secure? Then store it off-line. If the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, military intelligence, or whoever you care to name really wants to see what's stored on a USB flash drive or hard drive sitting on a shelf in my house (or stored in a safe deposit box, or in a vault somewhere, or buried in the ground in an undisclosed location) then they'll have to come and physically get it.
Sure but your odometer isn't connected to a radio transmitter that sends that data to some corporation or government agency somewhere. It also doesn't tell anyone where you've been driving or when.
I'd like to propose what I believe to be a much more useful new law that will immediately benefit every single citizen of the United States.
We make IQ testing of all politicians mandatory and retroactive. All politicians not posessing an IQ of at least 120 will be compelled to leave office, immediately. Moving forward, all candidates for public office must meet or exceed the 120 IQ test before being considered qualified to run for public office of any kind.
Furthermore any policitian making policy on technology-related matters must pass standardized testing indicating they're qualified to even be discussing the technology in question.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you listen to me? No! You all thought I was a nut-job because I bailed out of Facebook. Who's laughing at who, now?
Sheep.
Do people really fall for this?
Not I. The first thing I thought when I read that was: "So the asshole who created this mess is now trying to distance himself from it now that the shit is hitting the fan? 'Hey, I don't even KNOW these assholes!' just doesn't cut it for me. Regardless he can damned well be allowed to clean up the disaster he caused, then he's welcome to -- literally -- fall on his sword and take himself out of the picture.
"Angry comments"? I've got your angry comment right here: That asshat's entire riff on the subject of programming belongs on 4chan/b/. Does he have any clue that the Internet, his blog, his phone, and so many other things around him that he relies on on a daily basis are the results of the labors of these "exceptionally dumb weirdos" he's so blithely insulting? What a jackass.
If you're going to name-call then I'm going to insist you qualify that statement: How do I sound like a conspiracy nut? We live in a day and age where the fucking government spies on everyone, and a self-driving car would come equipped with everything they'd want to track where you're going at all times. Teenage hackers hack just about everything, what makes you think some little asshole isn't going to hack self-driving cars "for the lulz" and cause someone to drive off a bridge or into a concrete abutment and get killed? Well? Explain to me how I'm wrong?
That's where this is going.
More and more we are becoming a nation (a world?) where people don't know how to do anything for themselves. Dependence on machines to do everything for us is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, getting your car literally hijacked by a hacker, causing it to take you somewhere you didn't want to go, or intentionally getting you killed. More opportunities for governments and corporations to spy on you and track you. Less privacy. Etcetera.
Can't be too fast, can't be too slow
For what it's worth, when designing a switching power supply, you want the equivalent series resistance (or ESR) of the filter capacitors to be as low as possible. This is why you'll often see several capacitors in parallel with each other rather than just one big one: paralleling them lowers the effective ESR.
In fact, it should be possible to construct these power cells out of the excess silicon that exists in the current generation of solar cells, sensors, mobile phones and a variety of other electromechanical devices..
Not sure if they're making a comparison here or proposing an application, but wouldn't it be pretty spiffy if you had photovoltaic cells that stored the energy they collect and convert from sunlight, so it's there to use when you need it? Not sure what the leakage factor for a supercap of this type would be compared to current technology supercaps, you'd still have some energy stored for an hour or two at least, and I think that would be a game-changer for solar power.
But: Can Google be trusted anymore? Of late Google seems to be schizophrenic, like we've got Jeckyl-Google and Hyde-Google. Of course it's just as valid in this socio-political landscape to ask: Can we trust anyone anymore?
"spontaneously combust"
If by that you mean if you get in an accident and one or more battery packs gets physically damaged, self-discharges catastrophically, and starts a fire? Yes, I would consider that to be a serious drawback to this idea. Not that concentrating all your energy storage capacity in one place is all that much better (bigger BOOM! if damage occurs to it) but on the other hand having the battery pack in one central location on the vehicle makes it easier to protect and harder to damage in a garden-variety fender-bender. Think of it this way: What if you decided to distribute the gasoline storage capability of an internal-combustion engine automobile across lots of little tanks stored in the body panels? Insane, right? You'd never do it, it would turn the entire vehicle into one giant rolling fire hazard even worse than rear-endering an old Ford Pinto Runabout. While small battery packs distributed throughout the body panels is a significantly smaller risk than distributing gasoline throughout, it's still a risk. Of lesser but still considerable concern is the fact that an accident that leaves the vehicle otherwise functional/driveable could immediately and drastically reduce the total range-per-charge because of damaged battery packs. This is something that you couldn't as easily ignore as a crumpled fender or dented door.
So far as high-capacity battery packs and fire hazard from catastrophic self-discharge are concerned: Shouldn't there be (if there isn't already) some sort of fire-suppression/fire-control designed into the packs themselves, or at least mounted in the immediate vicinity of the battery packs? Something heat activated perhaps?
Nope! I'm going to continue to loudly remind everyone within earshot every time something like this happens so nobody will ever be allowed or able to forget that 'new doesn't always mean better', and sometimes it means the contrary.
Glad to hear that I'm not the only one left out here in the digital wilds of the Internet who isn't blindly following the trends like the rest of the sheep of the world apparently are. Have no e-book reader, don't want one. I'll stick to my nice, old-fashioned paper books, thank you very much, and 20 years from now I'll still be able to read them, regardless of what some anal-retentive, power-monging asshats think about what's inside them.
Who decides? The Powers That Be, that's who, the people who have the money and political/social power to decide things unilaterally and arbitrarily, and screw you and what you want, they obviously know what's best for you. So far as they're concerned, if you read certain books, you must have been seduced by Satan to stray from the True Path, and your Faith in Jesus is threatened, and it's their Duty to bring you back to the Path of Righteousness. Or, they want to quash your annoying tendency to be a free-thinker, or to have political views and attitudes that differ from what they want you to have so that their agenda can continue to go forward -- because, after all, they are the ones deserving to be in charge of the world, and what you want is irrelevant.
It all comes down to choice: You still have some, and there are people who want to take it away, because for whatever reason they believe that their choices are more important than yours, and yours are to be disregarded.
I'm laughing at all you who got rid of your printed books because you thought e-books were so damned cool. How are you enjoying your e-book that got deleted right off your e-book reader? Did that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that they can reach right into a device you legally own, in the privacy of your own home, and delete something you paid cash money for? Which, by the way, never really existed because it's just data? Or better yet: the fact that they can alter the contents of works you bought digitally, and you will never know the difference?
I'll continue sticking to my nice, old-fashioned printed-on-paper books, and likewise continue to be immune to the revisionism that you e-book whippersnappers are being plagued by now.
Guess I'll be carrying a can of spray-paint or a pad of Post-It notes with me when I go to the store, starting in 2015.
#IDontWannaBeTracked
Fuck Facebook, fuck Google, fuck all "social media", it's all bullshit and is ultimately used to invade your privacy; delete it all. People who claim to be your "friends" who won't be bothered to use other means to contact you weren't really your friends in the first place, so fuck them, too. Real friends will call you on the phone or at least send you an email.
Constantly having to check the speedo was tiresome
Oh poor baby! Actually having to pay attention to what the vehicle you're in control of is doing!
You're possibly a good example of what I was talking about in another comment: Automated systems in your car are making you lazy. Did your speed vary constantly during that 2000 total miles? I'll bet it did, and not having to practice and exercise that skill makes you weaker at it than someone who doesn't have or use cruise control in their car.
If we all accept what you're saying, then shouldn't that apply to aircraft and pilots as well as ground vehicles? If so then since autopilot systems have reached a level of complexity and sophistication such that an airliner can fly itself, from departure to arrival, that pilots don't need to be as well trained to handle the aircraft themselves? I find this idea to be absurd. Autopilot systems can fail, and even short of a total failure, they can grossly mishandle a given situation and create a life-threatening situation for both the aircraft and for people on the ground in it's flight path. Regardless of the fact that an automobile isn't going to fall out of the sky, an "autopiloted" automobile can, similarly to the above scenario, fail to properly handle a given set of circumstances to the point where the passengers of the vehicle and other vehicles and/or pedestrians are at risk of injury or death, or at the very least, risk of unnecessary property damage. Having inadequately trained, certified, and practiced drivers behind the wheel of an automobile that is self-parking and (soon enough, it seems) self-driving is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster, sooner or later. In my opinion, such features on vehicles will only encourage a decline in the overall effectiveness of the 'driver' behind the 'wheel' (whatever form that may end up taking) in non-typical or emergency situations, which will result in damage to property and injury or death to humans. I'd just as soon see the average, non-professional driver not be given access to such systems on their vehicles; the average, non-professional driver is barely adequate to the task at hand in the first place, and making it easier for them will just lower the bar even further.
How, exactly?
I believe I addressed that already: Because it's a general-purpose computing device, and in spite of all the precautions you can take with it, it's still vulnerable to exploits that can take control of it and cause it to run an attacker's code. It being connected directly to the public Internet increases that threat.
In my opinion: Unless you're planning on also running servers (web, FTP, mail, etc) on your new "router/access point", then it's complete overkill to use even a netbook for that. Additionally, you'd be potentially opening yourself up to a world of hurt since your netbook, being a general-purpose computing device at heart, is going to be more vulnerable to outside attack than a purpose-built router/gateway/wireless access point.
I don't have Facebook anymore because they don't respect my basic right to privacy in the first place, and what makes you think I'm talking about "public records" anyway? I'm talking about data that is private and valuable to you or to your company.
Apparently it's not only politicians who are remarkably inept when it comes to technical matters, but many others as well. I think it's safe to say at this point that there is no way to 100% ensure that any data stored "in the cloud" is safe from the prying eyes of the truly motivated.
You want your data to be 100% secure? Then store it off-line. If the FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, military intelligence, or whoever you care to name really wants to see what's stored on a USB flash drive or hard drive sitting on a shelf in my house (or stored in a safe deposit box, or in a vault somewhere, or buried in the ground in an undisclosed location) then they'll have to come and physically get it.
odometers
Sure but your odometer isn't connected to a radio transmitter that sends that data to some corporation or government agency somewhere. It also doesn't tell anyone where you've been driving or when.
..than allow any vehicle I own to have a tracking device installed on it. JUST SAY NO.
I'd like to propose what I believe to be a much more useful new law that will immediately benefit every single citizen of the United States.
We make IQ testing of all politicians mandatory and retroactive. All politicians not posessing an IQ of at least 120 will be compelled to leave office, immediately. Moving forward, all candidates for public office must meet or exceed the 120 IQ test before being considered qualified to run for public office of any kind.
Furthermore any policitian making policy on technology-related matters must pass standardized testing indicating they're qualified to even be discussing the technology in question.
Need I say more?