IF the color glossy sales literature leads you to believe that the thing you are buying is capable of safely driving itself and the company doesn't go out of it's way to dispel such misconceptions, one could imply that the company either advertised falsely and/or produced a product that wasn't safe.
Change products for a second... Let's say you market a drug to treat some sickness. You clearly say it CURES the illness in your advertisements, and in most cases that's true. But in a small percentage of cases, it doesn't cure anything but kills the patient. Do you think you, the manufacturer, are going to be sued? You betcha, lawyers are going to be beating down the doors of every civil court in the country to file suit on behalf of those unfortunate people who die. Why do you think RX companies have all those warnings on their stuff? You think they do that because the FDA makes them? Maybe, but I don't think so.
Same thing for an "auto pilot" in a car.... Kill one person while on autopilot and queue up the civil suits...Follow that with large disclaimers and liability wavers for everyone...
You assume Musk's motives are about selling cars... I'm not so sure that's true.
I actually think that Musk's driving force is more about PR than running any of his business ventures the most productive way possible. I suspect that he craves the attention that comes from having that flashy idea, and the money that comes from the starry eyed investors who flock to his door to "invest" in them. I don't think he's a snake oil salesman, only that he's not opposed to throwing plausible ideas up on the wall and see what kind of attention sticks to it.
In short, he only really cares about the attention. Which doesn't mean he's not about turning a profit, he wants that too, but because it brings him positive attention. Which, in Musk's case, hasn't been a bad thing for him.
Can you please focus on making your electric cars and the batteries that run them better and more affordable instead of getting sidetracked with these bullshit features that nobody wants?
Actually, I think everybody wants the stuff the pied piper is attempting to sell (I'd love to have all that stuff he keeps dreaming up), he just doesn't have it at a price anybody can really afford. I cannot afford a Tesla, even the stripped down model myself.
Of course, Musk's issue is that a Tesla is way too expensive BECAUSE of all this wiz-bang cool stuff he keep stuffing in them, and THAT is why Tesla will continue to struggle as a company until this kind of madness stops.
Take an example from history. The beauty of the Ford Model-T wasn't that it was available only in black and only in one configuration from the factory, but that it was CHEAPER than the hand built cars of the day and the average Joe could afford one. The average Joe cannot afford a Tesla, which is why he cannot sell enough of them. There is something to learn from Ford.
I can come up with a few examples that I STRONGLY suspect don't meet that standard... Mostly they drive cars around here, but some of them are in public office...
Ah yes, but marketing is reality to a lawyer looking for a payday. You cannot SELL something with color glossy printed materials if what you are actually getting isn't as described in said color glossy materials.
You can bet that the lawyers will have their way with Tesla should the "autopilot" thing turn out to have faults (or even limitations) that might kill you and these are not plainly disclosed in the advertisements. You can also bet that Tesla will now require signatures (in blood) that indemnify them of all liability for any faults or limitations, past, present or future to make it harder for their customers to sue...
Are you SURE these two instances where not just coincidences?
Wondering out loud... are you SURE you want to believe an anecdote posted by an Anonymous Coward actually happened?
I guess the hint of sarcasm in my voice wasn't obvious....I was actually thinking that if the poster thought this was true, they really had paranoid delusions and thus mental issues.... In which case, I'm chalking the whole thing up to being coincidences...
IF you care about it enough, you can afford it. Trust me..;)
Where it is an advantage to have lots of resources for crafty lawyers when you go to civil court, the fact remains that you still *can* prevail when the law is on your side. Our courts ARE fair, regardless of what people like to say. If there is enough money at stake, you can even get a good lawyer to take the case on commission and not have to worry about paying them until you collect.
Roku is basically in the "it works" category for nearly all the service providers I know of and care to use. I've only had one fail, but it took a lighting hit that took the rest of my AV equipment to make it happen. That is why I believe they are top of the heap.
When is Google going to figure out who's depressed by looking at their search history....
"Hey there Google user, we noticed that you might be depressed so here is a list of shrinks in your area that we urge you to call as soon as possible!"
I care about depression because I have family members who suffer from it and I clicked on this story because I find what Google does interesting in a "Let's watch NASCAR for the crashes" sort of way.
Seems like the inevitable is about to happen. Nobody want's to mine Bit Coin for what they pay anymore. Silly me, I thought that this wouldn't happen until all the coin was gone and they stopped issuing new ones, I was wrong by a long shot.
If another product doesn't exist, capitalism provides a solution. Competition. Create your own product and sell it for profit.
Our civil courts are far from perfect, but as a system they are the best in the world for what they do. Yes, it can be expensive to use them, Yes, lawyers are usually the only people that make money from this process, but you CAN take on the "evil corporations" and win if your cause is just. Which is my point. IF you care enough about the principles of the matter and you have the law on your side, you will win... Eventually....
The problem with having the legislature cough up some law is the same problem you have when you are trying to drive a finishing nail with a sledge hammer. You want the finished product to be nice looking so you are driving small nails, but all you have is a sledge hammer so you beat the stuffing out of what you are driving the nail into and what you get looks like junk, because it is junk.
Personally, I believe that capitalism already has a solution to this kind of thing, two actually. As a consumer, aware of this situation, you can choose another product... Or, if you have already purchased a product that is now known to be flawed and the manufacturer refuses to fix it because you don't like the new license terms, you can file a civil suit.
I don't believe that we need a law in this case, except perhaps one that requires full disclosure of such license terms with rights to return the device for a full refund should such terms be changed and support withdrawn w/o accepting the new terms within the warranty period.
Sorry, didn't realize you intended to go get it and bring it back.... Doubt anyone ever decides to do that. There would be no point to head to the edge of interstellar space and return.
My discussion was assuming you want to go someplace outside the solar system and happened pass one of the vehicles along the way... We are not leaving the solar system for another and return even a radio signal. We simply cannot go fast enough unless the laws of physics get changed...
LOL.. Voyager is traveling a whole lot slower than 1/2 C.. But that's not my point.
I'm saying that with nozzle velocities at 1/2 C you will have issues thrusting a space craft of any useable weight to speeds approaching 1/2 C. Chemical propellants are not efficient enough (weight to thrust/Impulse) . Ion thrusters are much better but. Right now, ion thrusters only accelerate the propellant to maybe 100 Km/s, which isn't even 1 % of C. We are going to have to do a lot better with propellant nozzle speeds to get the specific impulse up high enough to make any kind of travel outside our solar system possible in a lifetime.
Obviously this all depends on Newtonian physics, so I suppose it's possible that our understanding of physics might be incorrect, but I'm not counting on having to scrap 4,000 years of scientific thought, experience, observation and the math that explains it all any time soon....
Horror of horrors... You might have to pay for the channel guide data to know what's on in the cool Kodi interface and still have 40 channels of garbage...
So... You think we are going to get such speeds soon? Right now, the best we can manage it likely about 1/2 C using ion engines (unmanned one way trip, no stopping at destination). The limiting factor is how much propellant we can actually get onto a craft along with a nuclear reactor big enough to power things. Also, the most efficient ion engines use Xenon which is in pretty limited supply.
I'm not seeing any promising space propulsion technologies that will get something useful going any faster myself.
Hard to know what we might invent in 500 years, but if you are working on any kind of propellant based system you will be limited by nozzle velocities and the weight of the propellant. Assuming you can get 90% of C nozzle velocities, you are going to have a problem getting any useful load going 50% C while keeping enough propellant to stop when you get there. If you want a two way trip, just the propellant weight will increase exponentially.
50 % C is simply not fast enough, assuming we could actually get to that speed...
I've heard this observation before... During the primaries.. Then again during the general election.... I not so sure it was right back then, along with the "he has no path to 270" observation which was obviously wrong.. Perhaps it's still wrong? I wonder..
Slashdot Mirror
IF the color glossy sales literature leads you to believe that the thing you are buying is capable of safely driving itself and the company doesn't go out of it's way to dispel such misconceptions, one could imply that the company either advertised falsely and/or produced a product that wasn't safe.
Change products for a second... Let's say you market a drug to treat some sickness. You clearly say it CURES the illness in your advertisements, and in most cases that's true. But in a small percentage of cases, it doesn't cure anything but kills the patient. Do you think you, the manufacturer, are going to be sued? You betcha, lawyers are going to be beating down the doors of every civil court in the country to file suit on behalf of those unfortunate people who die. Why do you think RX companies have all those warnings on their stuff? You think they do that because the FDA makes them? Maybe, but I don't think so.
Same thing for an "auto pilot" in a car.... Kill one person while on autopilot and queue up the civil suits...Follow that with large disclaimers and liability wavers for everyone...
It's why we cannot have nice things...
You assume Musk's motives are about selling cars... I'm not so sure that's true.
I actually think that Musk's driving force is more about PR than running any of his business ventures the most productive way possible. I suspect that he craves the attention that comes from having that flashy idea, and the money that comes from the starry eyed investors who flock to his door to "invest" in them. I don't think he's a snake oil salesman, only that he's not opposed to throwing plausible ideas up on the wall and see what kind of attention sticks to it.
In short, he only really cares about the attention. Which doesn't mean he's not about turning a profit, he wants that too, but because it brings him positive attention. Which, in Musk's case, hasn't been a bad thing for him.
Think Howard Hughes, only as an extrovert...
Of course.. Your mileage may vary...
Can you please focus on making your electric cars and the batteries that run them better and more affordable instead of getting sidetracked with these bullshit features that nobody wants?
Actually, I think everybody wants the stuff the pied piper is attempting to sell (I'd love to have all that stuff he keeps dreaming up), he just doesn't have it at a price anybody can really afford. I cannot afford a Tesla, even the stripped down model myself.
Of course, Musk's issue is that a Tesla is way too expensive BECAUSE of all this wiz-bang cool stuff he keep stuffing in them, and THAT is why Tesla will continue to struggle as a company until this kind of madness stops.
Take an example from history. The beauty of the Ford Model-T wasn't that it was available only in black and only in one configuration from the factory, but that it was CHEAPER than the hand built cars of the day and the average Joe could afford one. The average Joe cannot afford a Tesla, which is why he cannot sell enough of them. There is something to learn from Ford.
We know how to generalize.
Hmmm... Ain't that the truth...
I can come up with a few examples that I STRONGLY suspect don't meet that standard... Mostly they drive cars around here, but some of them are in public office...
Ah yes, but marketing is reality to a lawyer looking for a payday. You cannot SELL something with color glossy printed materials if what you are actually getting isn't as described in said color glossy materials.
You can bet that the lawyers will have their way with Tesla should the "autopilot" thing turn out to have faults (or even limitations) that might kill you and these are not plainly disclosed in the advertisements. You can also bet that Tesla will now require signatures (in blood) that indemnify them of all liability for any faults or limitations, past, present or future to make it harder for their customers to sue...
LOL.. Well, If I'm depressed, you folks have some real issues...
Are you SURE these two instances where not just coincidences?
Wondering out loud... are you SURE you want to believe an anecdote posted by an Anonymous Coward actually happened?
I guess the hint of sarcasm in my voice wasn't obvious....I was actually thinking that if the poster thought this was true, they really had paranoid delusions and thus mental issues.... In which case, I'm chalking the whole thing up to being coincidences...
IF you care about it enough, you can afford it. Trust me.. ;)
Where it is an advantage to have lots of resources for crafty lawyers when you go to civil court, the fact remains that you still *can* prevail when the law is on your side. Our courts ARE fair, regardless of what people like to say. If there is enough money at stake, you can even get a good lawyer to take the case on commission and not have to worry about paying them until you collect.
I own four, but use only one right now..
Roku is basically in the "it works" category for nearly all the service providers I know of and care to use. I've only had one fail, but it took a lighting hit that took the rest of my AV equipment to make it happen. That is why I believe they are top of the heap.
For the Roku? No time soon....
Other uses of impeachment are in the same boat...
When is Google going to figure out who's depressed by looking at their search history....
"Hey there Google user, we noticed that you might be depressed so here is a list of shrinks in your area that we urge you to call as soon as possible!"
THAT would be a story...
Wait... Wait....
I care about depression because I have family members who suffer from it and I clicked on this story because I find what Google does interesting in a "Let's watch NASCAR for the crashes" sort of way.
I guess that makes me certifiable...
Dang... You have all the luck...
Wondering out loud.... Are you SURE these two instances where not just coincidences?
Seems like the inevitable is about to happen. Nobody want's to mine Bit Coin for what they pay anymore. Silly me, I thought that this wouldn't happen until all the coin was gone and they stopped issuing new ones, I was wrong by a long shot.
If another product doesn't exist, capitalism provides a solution. Competition. Create your own product and sell it for profit.
Our civil courts are far from perfect, but as a system they are the best in the world for what they do. Yes, it can be expensive to use them, Yes, lawyers are usually the only people that make money from this process, but you CAN take on the "evil corporations" and win if your cause is just. Which is my point. IF you care enough about the principles of the matter and you have the law on your side, you will win... Eventually....
You want to regulate this junk how?
The problem with having the legislature cough up some law is the same problem you have when you are trying to drive a finishing nail with a sledge hammer. You want the finished product to be nice looking so you are driving small nails, but all you have is a sledge hammer so you beat the stuffing out of what you are driving the nail into and what you get looks like junk, because it is junk.
Personally, I believe that capitalism already has a solution to this kind of thing, two actually. As a consumer, aware of this situation, you can choose another product... Or, if you have already purchased a product that is now known to be flawed and the manufacturer refuses to fix it because you don't like the new license terms, you can file a civil suit.
I don't believe that we need a law in this case, except perhaps one that requires full disclosure of such license terms with rights to return the device for a full refund should such terms be changed and support withdrawn w/o accepting the new terms within the warranty period.
I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further!
But you CAN divide by zero if the other number is small enough! At least that what they said during my calculus class...
Sorry, didn't realize you intended to go get it and bring it back.... Doubt anyone ever decides to do that. There would be no point to head to the edge of interstellar space and return.
My discussion was assuming you want to go someplace outside the solar system and happened pass one of the vehicles along the way... We are not leaving the solar system for another and return even a radio signal. We simply cannot go fast enough unless the laws of physics get changed...
LOL.. Voyager is traveling a whole lot slower than 1/2 C.. But that's not my point.
I'm saying that with nozzle velocities at 1/2 C you will have issues thrusting a space craft of any useable weight to speeds approaching 1/2 C. Chemical propellants are not efficient enough (weight to thrust/Impulse) . Ion thrusters are much better but. Right now, ion thrusters only accelerate the propellant to maybe 100 Km/s, which isn't even 1 % of C. We are going to have to do a lot better with propellant nozzle speeds to get the specific impulse up high enough to make any kind of travel outside our solar system possible in a lifetime.
Obviously this all depends on Newtonian physics, so I suppose it's possible that our understanding of physics might be incorrect, but I'm not counting on having to scrap 4,000 years of scientific thought, experience, observation and the math that explains it all any time soon....
Don't tell the FCC.. I'm not sure these guys know what Over the Air means anymore...
Horror of horrors... You might have to pay for the channel guide data to know what's on in the cool Kodi interface and still have 40 channels of garbage...
So... You think we are going to get such speeds soon? Right now, the best we can manage it likely about 1/2 C using ion engines (unmanned one way trip, no stopping at destination). The limiting factor is how much propellant we can actually get onto a craft along with a nuclear reactor big enough to power things. Also, the most efficient ion engines use Xenon which is in pretty limited supply.
I'm not seeing any promising space propulsion technologies that will get something useful going any faster myself.
Hard to know what we might invent in 500 years, but if you are working on any kind of propellant based system you will be limited by nozzle velocities and the weight of the propellant. Assuming you can get 90% of C nozzle velocities, you are going to have a problem getting any useful load going 50% C while keeping enough propellant to stop when you get there. If you want a two way trip, just the propellant weight will increase exponentially.
50 % C is simply not fast enough, assuming we could actually get to that speed...
I've heard this observation before... During the primaries.. Then again during the general election.... I not so sure it was right back then, along with the "he has no path to 270" observation which was obviously wrong.. Perhaps it's still wrong? I wonder..