This would be in line with testing emissions per gallon of fuel burned. Using cars less is a perfectly valid solution to air pollution problems, just as improving engine efficiency should be (not that it seems to be the full story in this case, as VW seem to be cheating the tests in Europe too, and I've seen several sources say that the emissions are up to 40 times higher when not under test).
A lot of the code is generated from higher level tools, so it wouldn't surprise me if millions of lines of churn were happening every day, at least at the start of the project. Developers are probably incentivised to maximise the churn at the start of a project by KPIs based on trends towards 0 as the project progresses.
Perhaps someone was told to lower the fuel flow when the test_mode flag was on.
Or to lower the running temperature of the engine. After all, when the car is on a dyno, there is no natural airflow through the radiator and around the engine, and we wouldn't want the car overheating during testing would we?
Likely there were different developers involved, none of whom had the full picture to avoid the chance of some junior guy way down the chain blowing the whistle. Making one microcontroller of the hundred or so on the bus send a "DiagnosticsInProgress" message on the CAN bus when something is plugged in to the OBD port seems harmless enough. And if that CAN message is documented completely differently in the message map handed to another developer, he could be tricked into switching to the alternate mode without knowing the actual circumstance that the switch is made. It probably isn't obvious to that developer that the emissions are going to be way higher with one of those settings, as he is just a software engineer implementing a specification, not a specialist in internal combustion engines.
Making your own PCBs makes as much sense as developing your own photos ever did. People do it because they like doing it, to learn, or to mess around with the results for fun/art. No one makes their own PCBs out of necessity or efficiency.
Stricter isn't really the right word. US regulations are based on a fixed amount of fuel, so the key to passing them is to burn the fuel inefficiently in a way that doesn't produce the pollutants they are looking for. European regulations are based on a fixed distance, so the key there is to burn the fuel as efficiently as possible as less fuel input translates to less pollutants output.
Sometimes people don't see things as unethical. It wouldn't surprise me if all the engineers thought, "stupid Americans and their regulations......we know how to make an engine that is clean enough."
Initially I also thought this might be the case, as US regulations only consider emissions per gallon of fuel burnt, so making the engine burn less fuel to produce less emissions does not help pass the tests like it does in Europe. But later information that came out suggests that they were cheating on the European tests too.
The Audi A3 is one of the models implicated in this scam. It appears that it includes any VW and Audi vehicles that don't have a urea injection system.
It appears that all diesel VW and Audi vehicles do have a urea injection system, but some only enable it during tests.
If there was a button in the car where they could push "better mileage, worse emissions" I'd bet most of them would have pushed it.
Even worse, what if the better mileage part of that actually improved the overall emissions when measured "per mile travelled" (European standard), even though it harms the "per gallon" emissions (US standard)?
If I was the original poster, I'd be more worried about
a friend who noticed a lot of strange activity coming from my phone's IP — sorry, I don't have the logs, but he pointed out that there were pings coming from my phone to a lot of sketchy addresses
I bet every kid who ever took an electronics class in high-school made a digital clock.
Nope. We started with a variable DC power supply, then a delay circuit using a 555 timer IC, and finally a dimmer circuit using a triac and pot (which I ended up using to turn a cheap single speed drill into a variable speed one). Apart from those three projects the rest of the year was theory as far as I recall.
Yet despite that there is nothing like the level of racial or terrorist fear in Australia as there is in the US. Oh sure there are still plenty of red necks who talk about Islam destroying the country and "If you don't like it leave" but the vast majority think those people a nuts and have no problem with other cultures or think they are going to get blown up.
Agreed about the vast majority, based on the Australians I know. But the big problem with Australia is the rednecks are in charge of the Government's immigration policy. From the offshore detention camps, to the fact that their visa regime is stricter than China's for Westerners.
I mean, yes, but why does everything on the internet act like a retard when it sees a linefeed?
If only there was an Options button that let you change to post in Plain Old Text.
or see the USGS map.
I think that would be a bit specialised to put under the Options button. Articles about Earthquakes only come about once a week, and are usually about some insignificant event like a 4.3 quake in on the San Andreas fault.
Aside: it would also be good if Slashdot had a "Reply to This" link under each post, so that people wouldn't reply out of place at the end of the thread all the time.
Except that we have an insider who uses the knowledge that the future use of a trademark is under consideration, and registers it purely with the intent of interfering. I think it would be a useful deterrent for the law to treat this as infringement despite the fact that the malicious registrant beat the legitimate user to the punch. Likewise for patents - patent holders who register vague patents for obvious future inventions without the intention or even technical knowhow to actually produce a working invention should get their own claims for damages thrown back at them.
Likewise, I had a choice between 100Mb and 20Mb. The cost was the same, but the 100Mb came with a data cap of 50GB/month so I chose the 20Mb and have never regretted it.
Slashdot Mirror
This would be in line with testing emissions per gallon of fuel burned. Using cars less is a perfectly valid solution to air pollution problems, just as improving engine efficiency should be (not that it seems to be the full story in this case, as VW seem to be cheating the tests in Europe too, and I've seen several sources say that the emissions are up to 40 times higher when not under test).
A lot of the code is generated from higher level tools, so it wouldn't surprise me if millions of lines of churn were happening every day, at least at the start of the project. Developers are probably incentivised to maximise the churn at the start of a project by KPIs based on trends towards 0 as the project progresses.
Or to lower the running temperature of the engine. After all, when the car is on a dyno, there is no natural airflow through the radiator and around the engine, and we wouldn't want the car overheating during testing would we?
Likely there were different developers involved, none of whom had the full picture to avoid the chance of some junior guy way down the chain blowing the whistle. Making one microcontroller of the hundred or so on the bus send a "DiagnosticsInProgress" message on the CAN bus when something is plugged in to the OBD port seems harmless enough. And if that CAN message is documented completely differently in the message map handed to another developer, he could be tricked into switching to the alternate mode without knowing the actual circumstance that the switch is made. It probably isn't obvious to that developer that the emissions are going to be way higher with one of those settings, as he is just a software engineer implementing a specification, not a specialist in internal combustion engines.
Making your own PCBs makes as much sense as developing your own photos ever did. People do it because they like doing it, to learn, or to mess around with the results for fun/art. No one makes their own PCBs out of necessity or efficiency.
Stricter isn't really the right word. US regulations are based on a fixed amount of fuel, so the key to passing them is to burn the fuel inefficiently in a way that doesn't produce the pollutants they are looking for. European regulations are based on a fixed distance, so the key there is to burn the fuel as efficiently as possible as less fuel input translates to less pollutants output.
Initially I also thought this might be the case, as US regulations only consider emissions per gallon of fuel burnt, so making the engine burn less fuel to produce less emissions does not help pass the tests like it does in Europe. But later information that came out suggests that they were cheating on the European tests too.
The above is how the beancounters saw your post. And now whole departments are getting Grouponed.
I was going off this article, but I really should have known better than to trust the Daily Fail.
It appears that all diesel VW and Audi vehicles do have a urea injection system, but some only enable it during tests.
LOL. Why do you think they are advocates of open source?
Even worse, what if the better mileage part of that actually improved the overall emissions when measured "per mile travelled" (European standard), even though it harms the "per gallon" emissions (US standard)?
I don't hold a passport from any of those countries though.
Here's the list of countries with visa-free access to Australia, for whom visiting Australia is easy:
Nope. We started with a variable DC power supply, then a delay circuit using a 555 timer IC, and finally a dimmer circuit using a triac and pot (which I ended up using to turn a cheap single speed drill into a variable speed one). Apart from those three projects the rest of the year was theory as far as I recall.
Agreed about the vast majority, based on the Australians I know. But the big problem with Australia is the rednecks are in charge of the Government's immigration policy. From the offshore detention camps, to the fact that their visa regime is stricter than China's for Westerners.
I think that would be a bit specialised to put under the Options button. Articles about Earthquakes only come about once a week, and are usually about some insignificant event like a 4.3 quake in on the San Andreas fault.
Aside: it would also be good if Slashdot had a "Reply to This" link under each post, so that people wouldn't reply out of place at the end of the thread all the time.
So you're saying that abusing legal processes should be OK if it's just done for a laugh?
Except that we have an insider who uses the knowledge that the future use of a trademark is under consideration, and registers it purely with the intent of interfering. I think it would be a useful deterrent for the law to treat this as infringement despite the fact that the malicious registrant beat the legitimate user to the punch. Likewise for patents - patent holders who register vague patents for obvious future inventions without the intention or even technical knowhow to actually produce a working invention should get their own claims for damages thrown back at them.
If only there was an Options button that let you change to post in Plain Old Text.
Less important than salmon and cheap wine IMHO.
That should count as Trademark infringement right there - even if the legitimate user hadn't registered or even decided the name yet.
I'm pretty sure that unless your video is a 2x2 pixel image at 2fps, then it is Mbps.
Likewise, I had a choice between 100Mb and 20Mb. The cost was the same, but the 100Mb came with a data cap of 50GB/month so I chose the 20Mb and have never regretted it.