My last car did this. Driving on snow or very wet roads would trigger the low tire pressure warning. It did detect an actual low tire once but there were so many false positives that I learned to ignore it.
One good thing is that it forced me to keep a pressure gauge in the car so I could check the tires and reset the warning light.
Once driving up a long steep hill in the snow the wheels were basically spinning the whole way up. By the top the ABS light came on. The speed was so different it assumed a dud sensor rather than a low tire:P Well it didn't have a low tire light either.
New cars have a lot more sound insulation, and louder stereos so it's a lot harder to know when a tire is getting low based on the sound. I've been on plenty of crappy roads where I've pulled over cause it felt like the tire was shot, It's kind of nice to have a little light save be a few min.
You shouldn't be relying on sound to know when it's low. The tire pressure should be regularly checked with a gauge. If the tire is significantly low you're going to feel it anyways.
Hmm...I remember when I got one of the newer (at the time) C5 Vettes, with the run flat tires and thought it was pretty cool to be able to monitor the tire pressure in each tire from the cockpit.
I can understand the need for this system for run flat tires, especially since you carry NO spare with you, but I can't imagine that many 'normal' cars out there today are going with run flats. If not...why are newer cars bothering with wireless from the tires??
Are there actually that many non-performance new cars out there running wireless communications with the tires in the first place?
Tire pressure monitoring systems are required in all vehicles in the US since September 2007. http://www.bartecusa.com/tpms_legislation.htm Many drivers with conventional tires do not regularly check their tire pressures, and drive for months on improperly inflated tires. The whole thing in part arose from the Firestone / Ford underinflated tire fiasco.
Test your Free Software bias! If this article had the following summary, would you react differently?
"Just released as part of the latest patch Tuesday for Windows 7 (and we imagine it will appear shortly in Windows Server, too) is a new feature called microsoft-census, which marks its initial release. Curious about what this feature provides, we did some digging and found it's for tracking Windows installations by sending an 'I am alive' ping to Microsoft on a daily basis. When the microsoft-census update is installed, the program is to be added to the daily scheduled tasks to be executed so that each day it will report to Microsoft over HTTP the number of times this system previously sent to Microsoft (this counter is stored locally and with it running on a daily basis it's thereby indicating how many days the Windows 7 installation has been active), the Microsoft distributor channel, the product name as acquired by the system's DMI information, and which Windows release is being used. That's all that microsoft-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Windows tracking measures attempted by Microsoft."
What does Windows Genuine Advantage do in this regard? Doesn't it periodically contact Microsoft?
And AFAIK you are not able to opt out. If you do not comply, it is my understanding that your computer will cease to operate.
I agree that the description reads like WGA. However I want to correct some of the things you stated. The latest version for Windows 7 (called WAT or KB971033) will periodically contact MS every 6 months, or on-demand if you validate on MS's website or download a genuine-gated download. It is a scheduled task that can be disabled. I don't think it's scheduled on Vista or XP. Currently WAT/WGA is not preinstalled, and is not pushed out as a mandatory update, it is optional. The whole package can be uninstalled without ill-effects. If your system is flagged as "non-genuine" it will annoy you but otherwise remain functional. Even in this non-genuine state WGA can be removed.
The system will remain functional if not-genuine. You will get a nag screen and black background at login, and you will not be able to download genuine gated optional downloads (XP-Mode, Microsoft Security Essentials), but otherwise the system will continue to run without any time limitation, or any feature limitations (other than what was listed), and it will still receive security updates. It will not "cease to function".
If you opt not to install WGA/WAT your computer will run fine, the only limitation is you cannot get genuine gated optional downloads.
I'm not saying I like WGA/WAT. Far from it. But the experience isn't as dire as you make it out to be.
I would say we've moved past first generation. The Prius has been available for worldwide sale since 2001. This gives plenty of time to see how they hold up in the real world (but there's still so much FUD about batteries exploding and costing $45000 to replace after 3 years, or being a complete "unknown"). As well manufacturers have had time to incorporate improvements, etc. Even though the Prius is currently in it's third generation, we can probably generalize and say the industry is second-gen by now.
I think that point is obvious. The point the OP made was that as a collaboration tool, you _need_ your coworkers to have access to the beta to even try to figure out it's purpose in your day to day work. Wave wasn't testable in environments it could have thrived in. Hey, lets put everyone on our team onto wave for a month and see what we can do with it! Oh, I'm the only one with an invite? Damn. Scratch that.
When Gmail was invite only, it let you interact with non-gmail users, while taking advantage of gmail specific features, which let it thrive. But as you say, it's hard to use a collaboration tool if all members can't get invites, even if the limited availability is for server logistic / scaling reasons.
Google Answers seems odd too. Now, the whole "bounty" system that they used was quirky, but the idea in general seems like a very similar idea to Yahoo Answers, which I've used a lot and is immensely popular.
Babby jokes aside, I've found a very poor SNR on Yahoo answers. A lot of outright wrong answers.
HOA's are more interested that you only paint your house the neighbourhood standard of beige, and you have the right light fixtures on the front than they are in crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association
If you are studying 19th century philosophy or Russian literature or such, an instructor who has been working on a handful of lectures and seminars over his or her entire career is going to be a lot more interesting than someone experimenting with methodologies. The best education is an engagement - a relationship between minds - and cultivating that relationship is a slow, interior process.
I've had professors working on the same lectures over their entire career. It was still as unengaging in year forty as it was in year 5. Of course with tenure they didn't have to give a shit.
Newer professors, usually without tenure, I found made more of an attempt at being engaging, and would try things out. Some things might not work well, but they would learn from the experience and apply it to the following year.
If he/she is falling asleep, it's not a given that the professor is to blame: Education is not a spectator sport.
Some professors don't do anything to make it interactive (eg: ask questions), and aren't very receptive or useful to questions being asked, causing those classes to essentially become spectator sports.
Use it where appropriate. Yes, housekeeping is a good use, why is that looked down on? The ability to post/get assignment, outlines, etc online. The ability to email the professor with a question. But as far as the actual teaching? In many math / science classes, a "chalk and talk" approach works better than simply showing slides (Powerpoint of Latex/pdf), and "smart boards" and the like can get in the way. The background information is available in textbooks (with the assigned readings), and the lecture can be used for going over material and examples.
In math classes, while knowing how to use programs like MATLAB is useful, much more important is understanding the fundamentals behind it first. Otherwise programs like MATLAB, Maple, or graphing calculators become a crutch.
In many lectures (in any discipline), "technology" doesn't add a lot in the lecture by itself. Powerpoint slides, OHP slides, writing notes on the board from the text all have about the same impact.
Working through a MATLAB example in front of the class may be marginally useful (again as a supplement to fundamental learning). Labs are a different story, where hands on with tech that may be the same (or similar) to industry is a useful skill (even if taught on a 5 version behind Windows 98 version).
There's this idea that simply having computers in the class makes more learning happening. I've had classes take place in the computer lab. Most students just surf around on the net and ignored the professor. Likewise any time I see laptops out in a lecture, in most cases it's used as a distraction, not to take notes. The number of laptops were inversely proportional to how engaging the prof was. The more laptops were out, the less attention people were paying to the professor.
Basically there's this ongoing idea that simply throwing technology at education (or any problem) will make it better. That's not the case. It should be used only where there's a tangible benefit.
Apple introduced iBooks because they want people buying content from Apple, not from Amazon. That way Apple makes more money. Much the reason why they wanted people to buy music from iTunes and not completed uninhibited MP3s from Amazon. Simple business, nothing more.
The electric motor beats the combustion engine in every way
Not quite _every_ way. What it's missing is "soul" (all you folks driving stock Hondas won't notice any change, har har): the howl of a GT-1-spec V8 that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, the growl of a boxer-6, the scream of a racebike at 16k RPMs, even the burble of a tuned street-V8 idling. I guess you can play pretty motor sounds from a speaker, but still, it's not the same.:)
And there really is a lot of cool engineering in modern ICEs. Some of us will miss that.
Don't get me wrong, I think something like an AWD rally car with independent electric wheel motors is going to be _fantastic_, performance-wise. But it won't have quite the same emotional pull as the old stuff.
This kind of emotional thinking seems to come in any time a technology risks being replaced.
People miss calling the TV repair man to replace tubes in their TV. Of course that happened because the reliability improved dramatically so the repair business dried up.
In the music industry, people miss the "warmth" of Vinyl. Liking to compare a perfect vinyl setup against early digital recordings to state why their medium is superior, instead of modern digital recordings, they prefer the high distortion sound they grew up with. Ignoring the fact that they can't make lossless copies, ignoring that they can't play it in their car, ignoring that every time they play it, it wears.
Likewise with digital pictures you miss the excitement of waiting till the end of the vacation to pay $7 a roll for developing only to find out you fed the same roll through the camera twice, or that your aunt had her eyes closed at the family reunion. You also miss having to pay extra for doubles so that you can pay postage to mail a copy to your cousin instead of just sending a lossless email (yes most cameras save as a lossy jpeg, however subsequent copies will be identical to the original jpeg).
Cars likewise seem to sink a huge amount of emotion for a depreciating liability whose purpose is to get you from point A to B. America doesn't mandate un-ambiguous rear amber
turn signals because of "ascetics". People whine about computers in their car making it impossible to work on it or "tune it". Aside from the fact that you can still do a lot of maintenance yourself, people miss the era of cars that were hard to start in the winter, and miss driving behind and inhaling the smell of incomplete combusion. Speaking of the engine "Howl", there's a tremendous amount of noise pollution on the road. Particularly from people who make their rides "cool" with juice can exhausts, and Harley owners that love removing baffles from their exhaust so their motorcycle can sound like a stalling lawnmower.
Slashdot Mirror
You haven't used a touchscreen phone if you really think keeping it clean is as simple as washing your hands.
You're using it wrong. A magical touchscreen phone requires no maintenance.
Just how are they going to transfer the equipment and data without unplugging or pulling power?
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/HotPlug.php
We know it's impossible for Apple or Linux to get malware, so clearly it was only done for Windows Mobile.
I didn't see them mention it, but I think it's actually a blackberry?
My last car did this. Driving on snow or very wet roads would trigger the low tire pressure warning. It did detect an actual low tire once but there were so many false positives that I learned to ignore it. One good thing is that it forced me to keep a pressure gauge in the car so I could check the tires and reset the warning light.
Once driving up a long steep hill in the snow the wheels were basically spinning the whole way up. By the top the ABS light came on. The speed was so different it assumed a dud sensor rather than a low tire :P Well it didn't have a low tire light either.
New cars have a lot more sound insulation, and louder stereos so it's a lot harder to know when a tire is getting low based on the sound. I've been on plenty of crappy roads where I've pulled over cause it felt like the tire was shot, It's kind of nice to have a little light save be a few min.
You shouldn't be relying on sound to know when it's low. The tire pressure should be regularly checked with a gauge. If the tire is significantly low you're going to feel it anyways.
Hmm...I remember when I got one of the newer (at the time) C5 Vettes, with the run flat tires and thought it was pretty cool to be able to monitor the tire pressure in each tire from the cockpit.
I can understand the need for this system for run flat tires, especially since you carry NO spare with you, but I can't imagine that many 'normal' cars out there today are going with run flats. If not...why are newer cars bothering with wireless from the tires??
Are there actually that many non-performance new cars out there running wireless communications with the tires in the first place?
Tire pressure monitoring systems are required in all vehicles in the US since September 2007. http://www.bartecusa.com/tpms_legislation.htm Many drivers with conventional tires do not regularly check their tire pressures, and drive for months on improperly inflated tires. The whole thing in part arose from the Firestone / Ford underinflated tire fiasco.
Test your Free Software bias! If this article had the following summary, would you react differently?
Why the hypothetical scenario?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/11/1735210/Anti-Piracy-Windows-7-Update-Phones-Home-Quarterly http://backslash.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/30/179257
What does Windows Genuine Advantage do in this regard? Doesn't it periodically contact Microsoft?
And AFAIK you are not able to opt out. If you do not comply, it is my understanding that your computer will cease to operate.
I agree that the description reads like WGA. However I want to correct some of the things you stated. The latest version for Windows 7 (called WAT or KB971033) will periodically contact MS every 6 months, or on-demand if you validate on MS's website or download a genuine-gated download. It is a scheduled task that can be disabled. I don't think it's scheduled on Vista or XP. Currently WAT/WGA is not preinstalled, and is not pushed out as a mandatory update, it is optional. The whole package can be uninstalled without ill-effects. If your system is flagged as "non-genuine" it will annoy you but otherwise remain functional. Even in this non-genuine state WGA can be removed.
The system will remain functional if not-genuine. You will get a nag screen and black background at login, and you will not be able to download genuine gated optional downloads (XP-Mode, Microsoft Security Essentials), but otherwise the system will continue to run without any time limitation, or any feature limitations (other than what was listed), and it will still receive security updates. It will not "cease to function".
If you opt not to install WGA/WAT your computer will run fine, the only limitation is you cannot get genuine gated optional downloads.
I'm not saying I like WGA/WAT. Far from it. But the experience isn't as dire as you make it out to be.
Where is the OS that believe that I own my computer, not the OS maker?
Gentoo?
I would say we've moved past first generation. The Prius has been available for worldwide sale since 2001. This gives plenty of time to see how they hold up in the real world (but there's still so much FUD about batteries exploding and costing $45000 to replace after 3 years, or being a complete "unknown"). As well manufacturers have had time to incorporate improvements, etc. Even though the Prius is currently in it's third generation, we can probably generalize and say the industry is second-gen by now.
For a Canadian study, I checked the Canadian Toyota site. Strange concept! http://www.toyota.ca/cgi-bin/WebObjects/WWW.woa/37/wo/Home.Vehicles.Go.Matrix-sODsOsTPA7xfRCJfQKuSb0/8.7?v108060e.html
I think collecting cans will earn you more than Mturk.
I think that point is obvious. The point the OP made was that as a collaboration tool, you _need_ your coworkers to have access to the beta to even try to figure out it's purpose in your day to day work. Wave wasn't testable in environments it could have thrived in. Hey, lets put everyone on our team onto wave for a month and see what we can do with it! Oh, I'm the only one with an invite? Damn. Scratch that.
When Gmail was invite only, it let you interact with non-gmail users, while taking advantage of gmail specific features, which let it thrive. But as you say, it's hard to use a collaboration tool if all members can't get invites, even if the limited availability is for server logistic / scaling reasons.
Google Answers seems odd too. Now, the whole "bounty" system that they used was quirky, but the idea in general seems like a very similar idea to Yahoo Answers, which I've used a lot and is immensely popular.
Babby jokes aside, I've found a very poor SNR on Yahoo answers. A lot of outright wrong answers.
HOA's are more interested that you only paint your house the neighbourhood standard of beige, and you have the right light fixtures on the front than they are in crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association
Sounds as exciting as Forklift Simulator! http://www.forkliftsimulator.com/
Yet most do.
Honestly it's utterly appalling the quality of software found in many commercial and industrial critical systems.
The quality of that software makes what MS writes look like gold in comparison.
Even Q2 I would answer with a "maybe."
If you are studying 19th century philosophy or Russian literature or such, an instructor who has been working on a handful of lectures and seminars over his or her entire career is going to be a lot more interesting than someone experimenting with methodologies. The best education is an engagement - a relationship between minds - and cultivating that relationship is a slow, interior process.
I've had professors working on the same lectures over their entire career. It was still as unengaging in year forty as it was in year 5. Of course with tenure they didn't have to give a shit.
Newer professors, usually without tenure, I found made more of an attempt at being engaging, and would try things out. Some things might not work well, but they would learn from the experience and apply it to the following year.
If he/she is falling asleep, it's not a given that the professor is to blame: Education is not a spectator sport.
Some professors don't do anything to make it interactive (eg: ask questions), and aren't very receptive or useful to questions being asked, causing those classes to essentially become spectator sports.
What is a VTC?
Use it where appropriate. Yes, housekeeping is a good use, why is that looked down on? The ability to post/get assignment, outlines, etc online. The ability to email the professor with a question. But as far as the actual teaching? In many math / science classes, a "chalk and talk" approach works better than simply showing slides (Powerpoint of Latex/pdf), and "smart boards" and the like can get in the way. The background information is available in textbooks (with the assigned readings), and the lecture can be used for going over material and examples.
In math classes, while knowing how to use programs like MATLAB is useful, much more important is understanding the fundamentals behind it first. Otherwise programs like MATLAB, Maple, or graphing calculators become a crutch.
In many lectures (in any discipline), "technology" doesn't add a lot in the lecture by itself. Powerpoint slides, OHP slides, writing notes on the board from the text all have about the same impact.
Working through a MATLAB example in front of the class may be marginally useful (again as a supplement to fundamental learning). Labs are a different story, where hands on with tech that may be the same (or similar) to industry is a useful skill (even if taught on a 5 version behind Windows 98 version).
There's this idea that simply having computers in the class makes more learning happening. I've had classes take place in the computer lab. Most students just surf around on the net and ignored the professor. Likewise any time I see laptops out in a lecture, in most cases it's used as a distraction, not to take notes. The number of laptops were inversely proportional to how engaging the prof was. The more laptops were out, the less attention people were paying to the professor.
Basically there's this ongoing idea that simply throwing technology at education (or any problem) will make it better. That's not the case. It should be used only where there's a tangible benefit.
Apple introduced iBooks because they want people buying content from Apple, not from Amazon. That way Apple makes more money. Much the reason why they wanted people to buy music from iTunes and not completed uninhibited MP3s from Amazon. Simple business, nothing more.
Shouldn't you be using a full screen emacs or vim text editor anyways?
There's thermal->rotational efficiency. Rotational->Electrical efficiency. Electrical transmission efficiency. Charging efficiency. Discharging efficiency. Electrical->Rotational efficiency.
The electric motor beats the combustion engine in every way
Not quite _every_ way. What it's missing is "soul" (all you folks driving stock Hondas won't notice any change, har har): the howl of a GT-1-spec V8 that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, the growl of a boxer-6, the scream of a racebike at 16k RPMs, even the burble of a tuned street-V8 idling. I guess you can play pretty motor sounds from a speaker, but still, it's not the same. :)
And there really is a lot of cool engineering in modern ICEs. Some of us will miss that.
Don't get me wrong, I think something like an AWD rally car with independent electric wheel motors is going to be _fantastic_, performance-wise. But it won't have quite the same emotional pull as the old stuff.
This kind of emotional thinking seems to come in any time a technology risks being replaced.
People miss calling the TV repair man to replace tubes in their TV. Of course that happened because the reliability improved dramatically so the repair business dried up.
In the music industry, people miss the "warmth" of Vinyl. Liking to compare a perfect vinyl setup against early digital recordings to state why their medium is superior, instead of modern digital recordings, they prefer the high distortion sound they grew up with. Ignoring the fact that they can't make lossless copies, ignoring that they can't play it in their car, ignoring that every time they play it, it wears.
Likewise with digital pictures you miss the excitement of waiting till the end of the vacation to pay $7 a roll for developing only to find out you fed the same roll through the camera twice, or that your aunt had her eyes closed at the family reunion. You also miss having to pay extra for doubles so that you can pay postage to mail a copy to your cousin instead of just sending a lossless email (yes most cameras save as a lossy jpeg, however subsequent copies will be identical to the original jpeg).
Cars likewise seem to sink a huge amount of emotion for a depreciating liability whose purpose is to get you from point A to B. America doesn't mandate un-ambiguous rear amber turn signals because of "ascetics". People whine about computers in their car making it impossible to work on it or "tune it". Aside from the fact that you can still do a lot of maintenance yourself, people miss the era of cars that were hard to start in the winter, and miss driving behind and inhaling the smell of incomplete combusion. Speaking of the engine "Howl", there's a tremendous amount of noise pollution on the road. Particularly from people who make their rides "cool" with juice can exhausts, and Harley owners that love removing baffles from their exhaust so their motorcycle can sound like a stalling lawnmower.