What I couldn't glean from the references was whether it was Amazon selling, or a third-party, where the historic price was jacked up. I looked at products from the company complaining and found third parties selling for much more than the $9.99, from $18 up to $40-something. I've seen that often on Amazon, for small things, with third parties offering at 10x the price. One explanation I'd heard was someone's dynamic pricing reacting to another's dynamic pricing, causing a price spike.
What I'm not clear on then, is Amazon's comparable price based on an offering price or a price where something was sold? And is it limited to Amazon's offerings or open to third parties? I would not be surprised to learn that a 3rd party sold an identical item to an unsuspecting customer for a higher price in the not too distant past.
I've never understood why these third parties offered those items for such higher prices. My only thought is that they might keep one in stock, ready to be sold to the first person who comes to buy when Amazon happens to be out.
Great response. Whether Assange turns him self in is up to him, but there is a difference between shortening Manning's sentence vs a pardon that acts as if the conviction never occurred.
Granted, getting out is better than staying in, but Manning's time served is still much longer than senior people who have been found to have leaked classified information.
I've said for years that helmet laws probably costs lives. One healthy young male with a head injury is a source of several potentially life-saving organs. I don't think that it's of such value that helmets should be banned, but just that it shouldn't be mandatory. That plus the "presumed consent" mentioned above would help the organ shortage a bit.
The article is nonsense. The "surprise" that users didn't opt to move to a phone with different software after having one with a hardware problem does presume that users are really stupid. I'm not saying many aren't, but not that stupid. The more reasonable expectation would be that they'd opt for another Android phone and not an Apple one. The article mentions may opted for another Samsung phone, but fails to mention than in addition to offering refunds for the Note 7 they purchased, there were additional rebates if they purchased another Samsung phone as a replacement. ( http://venturebeat.com/2016/10... ) Samsung offered to pay people to stay with them and it seems to have worked.
Equating the decision to stick with the same OS and to take advantage of a $100 rebate as loyalty to a sports team ignores too many of the facts.
"Hidden" in the linked article it refers to gov't pressure to remove content. "Tech companies have long resisted outside intervention in how their sites should be policed, but have come under increasing pressure from Western governments to do more to remove extremist content following a wave of militant attacks."
Comments here specifically refer to the U.S. First Amendment, so if the "Western governments" refers to countries exclusive of the U.S., then those comments would still apply, but the gist is that the tech companies are doing this in response to some sort of gov't instigation.
*If* the U.S. were involved, how does that fit with "Congress shall make no law"? Not too hard actually, how many things are being done now that are not directly linked to a new federal law? An executive order, or even a letter from some agency can do much, without any direct link to a new law. Hell, all it would take in most instances is a group of politicians blaming YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for various terrorist attacks to get them to do it, no forced of law required.
Then how about the summary being incorrect? Clicking on the link did not give the attackers access, going to a fake site and giving them the current password did. If this was Gmail, how did the users not get all sorts of alerts about a new machine being logged into their account?
If the attackers did it one time, they'd only have access to past email messages. If was a recurring thing, then they'd have to access it all the time, leaving more clues that someone else was in the victim's ( chump's?) email.
If nothing else this points out the risk of having email accounts that are not professionally managed when the users are technologically clueless. Otherwise things like 2 factor authentication and enforced password security could have helped protect them from themselves.
Verizon announced that they'll be using radios mounted on light poles for their IoT initiative.
In the mid 90's that's how Metricom mounted their radios, having a selection of power taps that fit the several standard light sensors on top of the poles, making deals with cities, either paying for the access or trading in exchange for wirleless interent. Besides supporting consumers who just wanted internet access, they were initially targeting municipalities, meters and such. ( before IoT was coined ). I used it in 1996 do do paid consulting work at Starbucks before they were filled with college and high school students sucking down WiFi and doing their homework.
In 1999 MCI invested $600 million in Metricom. (Which they spent like drunken sailors and soon imploded, even though they had the most robust wireless data setup commercially available )
In 2005 Verizon purchased MCI.
So my first thought when I read the title was, "Yeah.. no shit".
Presumably this robot, under police control, had a video camera so the operator could guide it to the target. I'd like to see that video. I'd be Ok with it not showing the gruesome outcome, but the trip to the target, what the target was doing at the time and the eventual detonation. You'd think that a robot carrying a package to an armed man would have been been viewed with some suspicion, even for this unprecedented action. Did it get close enough to see the target? Did it confirm that the target still armed and dangerous at the time? If he aimed his gun at the robot, will that be construed as an aggressive act against a police officer? Who detonated the bomb? If it's a legal, justifiable action, then knowing who did it should be public.
I sort of did this years ago when I had a TiVo. It didn't speed up voice, but if I turned on closed captions I could get through the last bit of a show before I had to leave somewhere by selecting a mild FF setting and reading the words rather than listening to them. In a similar vein, when I used to watch "Survivor" I'd FF through the BS drama and just watch the challenges. If something referred to an event I'd skipped I'd just go back and check it out.
In some way I think I've embraced the too-slow-for-me pace of TV by reading while watching most shows. Before the web I used to grab a magazine or two before settling down to watch TV for the evening. With live TV it was the magazine you paused when the TV demanded more attention, with recorded TV either can pause to make way for the other. (Living alone is necessary for this )
I have the option to speed up audiobooks but never do it. I appreciate the zen state I can get into when listening. I've come up with new patent ideas or work solutions while listening to a book. At times I'll realize that my mind wandered and I'd been ignoring the book, but that's ok, it's part of the process and I can always rewind and find my place. I think if I sped things up I'd miss the "thinking" part of the experience.
What would scare me about watching all TV sped up is that I'd get used to it. The guy in the article said he finds regular speed TV or going to a movie excruciating since it goes by too slow. What about listening to other people talk? There's already people who go on for too long and if I was used to a sped up world they would be even more difficult to deal with.
So I'll pass on the sped up video and audiobooks for now. I've already found ways to fill in the empty space by reading and thinking. I'd also be too worried about the real world feeling too slow and boring.
I've wondered the same thing, but also is a "cure" for obesity good? Would it better for the world if people could eat more and not gain extra weight? Aren't people who can eat less and still put on weight actually more efficient? While I'd seen some similar studies, I'd like to know how this affects how much work you can do on a given caloric intake. While it would be nice if all of a sudden I could eat what I want and not gain weight, I can't help that thinking that doing so is not much different than binge and purge at a Roman feast.
Maybe thin people in areas with less food availability should get transplants of gut flora from those who gain weight when eating less food?
Had the messages been contained on a secure server, subsequent classification could occur while the entire cache of message was still contained. Residing on a hard drive makes the that a bit difficult.
Classifying something retroactively seems a bit odd though. If they were on her personal server, not the "official" one, then the messages were already "out in the wild" with no chain of custody. Then again, a previously non-classified message could have been printed and distributed to someone who wouldn't meet the current qualifications for access, so the horse could be well out of the barn already.
No poor planning. Well after they'd scheduled things, had special lenses delivered for the presentation, Disney gave them new rules, which included only showing their new film on the largest screen at the theater. This doesn't mean Disney's movie couldn't be shown on smaller screens, just that the largest one was reserved for theirs. The same thing happened in Hollywood, forcing the movie out of the Cinerama Dome, with the threat of pulling the movie from all of the chain's theaters if it didn't play there.
No doubt the film was popular. How to get all those people in and out a a record pace? Squeeze the theaters by requiring them to show the film on the largest screens for a long period of time, pushing out any other movies. The Hateful Eight was to be shown in a special 70mm roadshow presentation. The problem though was that it could only be shown on smaller secondary screens. Disney required their new movie to show on the largest ones, or else not show the movie at all, on any screen.
So while their film is popular, it's not just the marketing hype that got it the numbers. A bit of strong arm tactics to push aside other movies seems to have contributed.
First "loophole" I could think of off the top of my head would be: "Sure we'll pay them $110K". Oh, those jobs include no paid health benefits, no vacation, no sick leave. That could drop the "cost" of the employee down to someone making $70K.
While that sounds bad at first, it wouldn't really be horrible, heck I might even be interested in having all the cash my employer was willing to put out and leave it up to me to spend it. For couples where the other spouse has a good deal on insurance, it might be nice to have the money rather than overlapping policies.
Reminds me of my time in the military. I'd been in 5 years and my housing was a barracks ( dormitory ) with shared bathroom. Someone just coming in with a spouse, kids or not, got a 2 or 3 bedroom house. My meals allowance was the ability to eat in a dining hall. Not on the base at mealtime? Sucks to be you, buy your own meal. Those with families got cash instead to eat what they wanted , when they wanted.
Like family leave with no comparable benefit for those who don't produce children, it's being compensated based on what you "need" vs what you "earn". Maybe I'm biased not having kids, but I'd prefer it was based on what you earn. If it's going to be need-based, then at least broaden the acceptable needs. Sabbaticals, or an equivalent time off in smaller increments for volunteer work or other personal enrichment would seem a reasonable need.
It's a difference that has existed for many years in NYC, long before Uber. Uber vehicles are not taxis, but "Black Cars" which can only be dispatched, not hailed. These are not taxis with a medallion. Uber changed / improved the dispatching process and pricing, but didn't create a new class. Lots of businesses have had accounts with a particular service, Uber makes it easy for an individual to do the same thing.
A better comparison would be not with one of a larger phone or phablet from two years ago, but to compare to reviews of them just before the larger ones from Apple were announced. Personally I have no desire for a larger phone, but I can see how someone would be resistant to the jumbo size and then warm up to it after a while.
Do I think many people are influenced by the Apple reality distortion field? Absolutely. I just don't think the linked article showed that reviewers changed their mind based on Apple releasing jumbo phones. Lumping in the release of the new Apple phones with 2 years of exposure to the Android versions doesn't make that point.
If I cared enough I'd look for reviews from those same sources from 2014, not 2012. But really, I don't. I didn't rely on any of them when I bought my current phone, why would I care what they think about a phone I won't buy? (My interest in this was about accuracy and consistency in reporting, not in choosing a phone )
I agree. Expecting a driver who's had no interaction with the vehicle for a long period of time to be alert and ready to grab the wheel is a fantasy. Having a "no driver" vehicle from the beginning is the better approach than relying on the fiction of an alert and ready human backup driver.
One article I read about VW's automatic steering mentioned that the driver always have to have their hands on the wheel, indicating their presence and keeping them engaged. That seems a better idea than a system that would allow the driver to hop in the back seat for a nap, but still lulls them into a state where they aren't paying attention and are near-useless in taking over in hurry.
The only practical "driver still required" automatic vehicle I can imagine in the near term is one that works to make highway driving more efficient. Change HOV lanes into "well behaved automatic vehicle lanes" where spacing and discipline is maintained. The best use of machine-driven vehicles is most likely to be in an environment where the vehicles are cooperating to optimize traffic flow. Let the drivers do the stop and go, find the parking spot stuff, let the vehicle do the part where working as a pack or flock is the better approach.
Dirt and dust is what I thought of also. While no moving air will help in that it won't draw as much air through it as a filter might, it will still collect lots of dust in hard to clean areas.
The only thought I had, which seems impractical, is to be able to remove the heatsink and place it in a ultrasonic cleaning bath like those used for jewelery. I could see it as an interesting curiosity, one I wouldn't mind cleaning once a year so so if it were on display. But I can't see it being a practical alternative for home use.
If it's very efficient maybe there's a benefit on putting them on rack-mounted servers that have cool, clean, air blown through them. Might decrease the density of servers you can put in a rack though, so there'd have to be a pretty good efficiency gain over active cooling to make that worthwhile.
As someone who tests hardware / software I took exception to the assumption that testers didn't find a long list of issues. I'm working on a shipping product that has hundreds of open software issues. These bugs have been documented in detail but were skipped to make ship dates, then skipped over and over again when updates were released in lieu of new features to lure in new buyers. Most bugs are seen as something not sexy enough to spend time on. If the problem they can create is considered an annoyance and not crucial to the product's operation they are skipped over.
So don't assume that bugs weren't found in testing. It's entirely possible that they were found, and the product shipped anyway.
If this is not debunked, then it's not a new issue for Seattle.
The Mercer Girls were an 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" women to the Pacific Northwest to balance the gender ratio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Regenerative braking appeals most to the people who think perpetual motion is possible. "If I go down a hill I'll get back the power I used to go up!" My guess is that most companies offer it more for marketing purposes than for actual usefulness.
Here's a link to a good breakdown and a quick summary: Not all drive systems are engaged all the time to be able to generate power. Of the ones that are, the amount of potential power to be recovered while braking in normal stop & go is small. The amount that could be generated comes in high bursts, often at too great a rate to be used to charge the battery. http://www.ecospeed.com/regenb...
The episode did a pretty good representation of the idea, showing things that the the dearly departed's avatar would know and not know based on their chat and email history.
Slashdot Mirror
What I couldn't glean from the references was whether it was Amazon selling, or a third-party, where the historic price was jacked up. I looked at products from the company complaining and found third parties selling for much more than the $9.99, from $18 up to $40-something. I've seen that often on Amazon, for small things, with third parties offering at 10x the price.
One explanation I'd heard was someone's dynamic pricing reacting to another's dynamic pricing, causing a price spike.
What I'm not clear on then, is Amazon's comparable price based on an offering price or a price where something was sold? And is it limited to Amazon's offerings or open to third parties? I would not be surprised to learn that a 3rd party sold an identical item to an unsuspecting customer for a higher price in the not too distant past.
I've never understood why these third parties offered those items for such higher prices. My only thought is that they might keep one in stock, ready to be sold to the first person who comes to buy when Amazon happens to be out.
Great response. Whether Assange turns him self in is up to him, but there is a difference between shortening Manning's sentence vs a pardon that acts as if the conviction never occurred.
Granted, getting out is better than staying in, but Manning's time served is still much longer than senior people who have been found to have leaked classified information.
I've said for years that helmet laws probably costs lives. One healthy young male with a head injury is a source of several potentially life-saving organs. I don't think that it's of such value that helmets should be banned, but just that it shouldn't be mandatory. That plus the "presumed consent" mentioned above would help the organ shortage a bit.
The article is nonsense. The "surprise" that users didn't opt to move to a phone with different software after having one with a hardware problem does presume that users are really stupid. I'm not saying many aren't, but not that stupid. The more reasonable expectation would be that they'd opt for another Android phone and not an Apple one.
The article mentions may opted for another Samsung phone, but fails to mention than in addition to offering refunds for the Note 7 they purchased, there were additional rebates if they purchased another Samsung phone as a replacement. ( http://venturebeat.com/2016/10... ) Samsung offered to pay people to stay with them and it seems to have worked.
Equating the decision to stick with the same OS and to take advantage of a $100 rebate as loyalty to a sports team ignores too many of the facts.
"Hidden" in the linked article it refers to gov't pressure to remove content.
"Tech companies have long resisted outside intervention in how their sites should be policed, but have come under increasing pressure from Western governments to do more to remove extremist content following a wave of militant attacks."
Comments here specifically refer to the U.S. First Amendment, so if the "Western governments" refers to countries exclusive of the U.S., then those comments would still apply, but the gist is that the tech companies are doing this in response to some sort of gov't instigation.
*If* the U.S. were involved, how does that fit with "Congress shall make no law"? Not too hard actually, how many things are being done now that are not directly linked to a new federal law? An executive order, or even a letter from some agency can do much, without any direct link to a new law. Hell, all it would take in most instances is a group of politicians blaming YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for various terrorist attacks to get them to do it, no forced of law required.
Then how about the summary being incorrect? Clicking on the link did not give the attackers access, going to a fake site and giving them the current password did. If this was Gmail, how did the users not get all sorts of alerts about a new machine being logged into their account?
If the attackers did it one time, they'd only have access to past email messages. If was a recurring thing, then they'd have to access it all the time, leaving more clues that someone else was in the victim's ( chump's?) email.
If nothing else this points out the risk of having email accounts that are not professionally managed when the users are technologically clueless. Otherwise things like 2 factor authentication and enforced password security could have helped protect them from themselves.
Verizon announced that they'll be using radios mounted on light poles for their IoT initiative.
In the mid 90's that's how Metricom mounted their radios, having a selection of power taps that fit the several standard light sensors on top of the poles, making deals with cities, either paying for the access or trading in exchange for wirleless interent. Besides supporting consumers who just wanted internet access, they were initially targeting municipalities, meters and such. ( before IoT was coined ). I used it in 1996 do do paid consulting work at Starbucks before they were filled with college and high school students sucking down WiFi and doing their homework.
In 1999 MCI invested $600 million in Metricom. (Which they spent like drunken sailors and soon imploded, even though they had the most robust wireless data setup commercially available )
In 2005 Verizon purchased MCI.
So my first thought when I read the title was, "Yeah.. no shit".
Presumably this robot, under police control, had a video camera so the operator could guide it to the target. I'd like to see that video. I'd be Ok with it not showing the gruesome outcome, but the trip to the target, what the target was doing at the time and the eventual detonation. You'd think that a robot carrying a package to an armed man would have been been viewed with some suspicion, even for this unprecedented action. Did it get close enough to see the target? Did it confirm that the target still armed and dangerous at the time? If he aimed his gun at the robot, will that be construed as an aggressive act against a police officer? Who detonated the bomb? If it's a legal, justifiable action, then knowing who did it should be public.
Short version No for me too.
I sort of did this years ago when I had a TiVo. It didn't speed up voice, but if I turned on closed captions I could get through the last bit of a show before I had to leave somewhere by selecting a mild FF setting and reading the words rather than listening to them. In a similar vein, when I used to watch "Survivor" I'd FF through the BS drama and just watch the challenges. If something referred to an event I'd skipped I'd just go back and check it out.
In some way I think I've embraced the too-slow-for-me pace of TV by reading while watching most shows. Before the web I used to grab a magazine or two before settling down to watch TV for the evening. With live TV it was the magazine you paused when the TV demanded more attention, with recorded TV either can pause to make way for the other. (Living alone is necessary for this )
I have the option to speed up audiobooks but never do it. I appreciate the zen state I can get into when listening. I've come up with new patent ideas or work solutions while listening to a book. At times I'll realize that my mind wandered and I'd been ignoring the book, but that's ok, it's part of the process and I can always rewind and find my place. I think if I sped things up I'd miss the "thinking" part of the experience.
What would scare me about watching all TV sped up is that I'd get used to it. The guy in the article said he finds regular speed TV or going to a movie excruciating since it goes by too slow. What about listening to other people talk? There's already people who go on for too long and if I was used to a sped up world they would be even more difficult to deal with.
So I'll pass on the sped up video and audiobooks for now. I've already found ways to fill in the empty space by reading and thinking. I'd also be too worried about the real world feeling too slow and boring.
Word lens was acquired by Google and incorporated into Google Translate.
http://questvisual.com/
I've wondered the same thing, but also is a "cure" for obesity good? Would it better for the world if people could eat more and not gain extra weight? Aren't people who can eat less and still put on weight actually more efficient? While I'd seen some similar studies, I'd like to know how this affects how much work you can do on a given caloric intake. While it would be nice if all of a sudden I could eat what I want and not gain weight, I can't help that thinking that doing so is not much different than binge and purge at a Roman feast.
Maybe thin people in areas with less food availability should get transplants of gut flora from those who gain weight when eating less food?
Had the messages been contained on a secure server, subsequent classification could occur while the entire cache of message was still contained. Residing on a hard drive makes the that a bit difficult.
Classifying something retroactively seems a bit odd though. If they were on her personal server, not the "official" one, then the messages were already "out in the wild" with no chain of custody. Then again, a previously non-classified message could have been printed and distributed to someone who wouldn't meet the current qualifications for access, so the horse could be well out of the barn already.
No poor planning. Well after they'd scheduled things, had special lenses delivered for the presentation, Disney gave them new rules, which included only showing their new film on the largest screen at the theater. This doesn't mean Disney's movie couldn't be shown on smaller screens, just that the largest one was reserved for theirs.
The same thing happened in Hollywood, forcing the movie out of the Cinerama Dome, with the threat of pulling the movie from all of the chain's theaters if it didn't play there.
No doubt the film was popular. How to get all those people in and out a a record pace? Squeeze the theaters by requiring them to show the film on the largest screens for a long period of time, pushing out any other movies. The Hateful Eight was to be shown in a special 70mm roadshow presentation. The problem though was that it could only be shown on smaller secondary screens. Disney required their new movie to show on the largest ones, or else not show the movie at all, on any screen.
So while their film is popular, it's not just the marketing hype that got it the numbers. A bit of strong arm tactics to push aside other movies seems to have contributed.
First "loophole" I could think of off the top of my head would be: "Sure we'll pay them $110K". Oh, those jobs include no paid health benefits, no vacation, no sick leave. That could drop the "cost" of the employee down to someone making $70K.
While that sounds bad at first, it wouldn't really be horrible, heck I might even be interested in having all the cash my employer was willing to put out and leave it up to me to spend it. For couples where the other spouse has a good deal on insurance, it might be nice to have the money rather than overlapping policies.
Reminds me of my time in the military. I'd been in 5 years and my housing was a barracks ( dormitory ) with shared bathroom. Someone just coming in with a spouse, kids or not, got a 2 or 3 bedroom house. My meals allowance was the ability to eat in a dining hall. Not on the base at mealtime? Sucks to be you, buy your own meal. Those with families got cash instead to eat what they wanted , when they wanted.
Like family leave with no comparable benefit for those who don't produce children, it's being compensated based on what you "need" vs what you "earn". Maybe I'm biased not having kids, but I'd prefer it was based on what you earn. If it's going to be need-based, then at least broaden the acceptable needs. Sabbaticals, or an equivalent time off in smaller increments for volunteer work or other personal enrichment would seem a reasonable need.
It's a difference that has existed for many years in NYC, long before Uber. Uber vehicles are not taxis, but "Black Cars" which can only be dispatched, not hailed. These are not taxis with a medallion. Uber changed / improved the dispatching process and pricing, but didn't create a new class. Lots of businesses have had accounts with a particular service, Uber makes it easy for an individual to do the same thing.
http://www.driveubernyc.com/tl...
Actually the requirement was if it went that hight *and* was going fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
A better comparison would be not with one of a larger phone or phablet from two years ago, but to compare to reviews of them just before the larger ones from Apple were announced. Personally I have no desire for a larger phone, but I can see how someone would be resistant to the jumbo size and then warm up to it after a while.
Do I think many people are influenced by the Apple reality distortion field? Absolutely. I just don't think the linked article showed that reviewers changed their mind based on Apple releasing jumbo phones. Lumping in the release of the new Apple phones with 2 years of exposure to the Android versions doesn't make that point.
If I cared enough I'd look for reviews from those same sources from 2014, not 2012. But really, I don't. I didn't rely on any of them when I bought my current phone, why would I care what they think about a phone I won't buy? (My interest in this was about accuracy and consistency in reporting, not in choosing a phone )
I agree. Expecting a driver who's had no interaction with the vehicle for a long period of time to be alert and ready to grab the wheel is a fantasy. Having a "no driver" vehicle from the beginning is the better approach than relying on the fiction of an alert and ready human backup driver.
One article I read about VW's automatic steering mentioned that the driver always have to have their hands on the wheel, indicating their presence and keeping them engaged. That seems a better idea than a system that would allow the driver to hop in the back seat for a nap, but still lulls them into a state where they aren't paying attention and are near-useless in taking over in hurry.
The only practical "driver still required" automatic vehicle I can imagine in the near term is one that works to make highway driving more efficient. Change HOV lanes into "well behaved automatic vehicle lanes" where spacing and discipline is maintained. The best use of machine-driven vehicles is most likely to be in an environment where the vehicles are cooperating to optimize traffic flow. Let the drivers do the stop and go, find the parking spot stuff, let the vehicle do the part where working as a pack or flock is the better approach.
Dirt and dust is what I thought of also. While no moving air will help in that it won't draw as much air through it as a filter might, it will still collect lots of dust in hard to clean areas.
The only thought I had, which seems impractical, is to be able to remove the heatsink and place it in a ultrasonic cleaning bath like those used for jewelery. I could see it as an interesting curiosity, one I wouldn't mind cleaning once a year so so if it were on display. But I can't see it being a practical alternative for home use.
If it's very efficient maybe there's a benefit on putting them on rack-mounted servers that have cool, clean, air blown through them. Might decrease the density of servers you can put in a rack though, so there'd have to be a pretty good efficiency gain over active cooling to make that worthwhile.
As someone who tests hardware / software I took exception to the assumption that testers didn't find a long list of issues. I'm working on a shipping product that has hundreds of open software issues. These bugs have been documented in detail but were skipped to make ship dates, then skipped over and over again when updates were released in lieu of new features to lure in new buyers. Most bugs are seen as something not sexy enough to spend time on. If the problem they can create is considered an annoyance and not crucial to the product's operation they are skipped over.
So don't assume that bugs weren't found in testing. It's entirely possible that they were found, and the product shipped anyway.
If this is not debunked, then it's not a new issue for Seattle.
The Mercer Girls were an 1860s project of Asa Shinn Mercer, an American who lived in Seattle, who decided to "import" women to the Pacific Northwest to balance the gender ratio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Which inspired the TV series:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Regenerative braking appeals most to the people who think perpetual motion is possible. "If I go down a hill I'll get back the power I used to go up!" My guess is that most companies offer it more for marketing purposes than for actual usefulness.
Here's a link to a good breakdown and a quick summary: Not all drive systems are engaged all the time to be able to generate power. Of the ones that are, the amount of potential power to be recovered while braking in normal stop & go is small. The amount that could be generated comes in high bursts, often at too great a rate to be used to charge the battery.
http://www.ecospeed.com/regenb...
This is the basis of S02E01 of "Black Mirror"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
The episode did a pretty good representation of the idea, showing things that the the dearly departed's avatar would know and not know based on their chat and email history.