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User: chihowa

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  1. She's not in the California state legislature, though. Back to civics class for you!

  2. Re:Just Tack on a Fee on Driverless Cars Could Cripple Law Enforcement Budgets · · Score: 1

    Does it really save that much gas, though? I know that the power required to overcome air resistance increases at the cube of the velocity, but transmission gearing and available engine horsepower influence fuel consumption at cruising speed more than aerodynamics.

    It's not completely scientific, but I used to have to repeatedly drive a 100 mile trip in northern Colorado, where the speed limit is 75 mph. I tried an experiment, with n=3 of making the same trip at 55 mph (which really pissed everybody else off, but it's science!) and 80 mph. I used cruise control, changed my speed as little as possible, tried to control for as much as I could. Filled up the tank before I left, filled it up on arrival, and compared the total fuel consumed. I actually used less fuel overall at 80 mph than 55. My late 90s Honda Accord got 37 +/- 4 mpg at 55 mph and 45 +/- 2 mpg at 80 mpg. I was amazed at both the fuel economy in general at high speeds and the better economy at a higher speed.

    A better, more controlled experiment could probably be done, and I'm only claiming that this seems to be true over a relatively small range of speeds ( 100 mph, maybe?), but it's not altogether surprising.

  3. Re:Just Tack on a Fee on Driverless Cars Could Cripple Law Enforcement Budgets · · Score: 1

    If we dropped human drivers, speed limits could be increased in many cases...

    Not really because of technical reasons, either. If there's no speeding revenue to be collected, there's no reason to keep the speed limits absurdly low.

  4. Re:Reminds me of the Hyperblimp reports on Google's Rogue Internet Balloon Test Spurred UFO Reports Nationwide · · Score: 1

    Speaking of RC and amateur devices, I'm surprised that they didn't just use APRS to keep track of the balloons. The power budget of a GPS and VHF transmitter are tiny and they can tie into the network (almost) no matter where, or how high, the balloon goes.

    The transmissions aren't commercial in nature, so as long as there is a licensed ham there is should be all legal.

  5. Re:Google Play Store in AOSP? on XMPP Operators Begin Requiring Encryption, Google Still Not Allowing TLS · · Score: 1

    Was Google aware at the time that this policy was granting essentially the entire pocket personal media player market to Apple?

    Probably, but Google's whole thing is always connected, cloud dependent appliances. Searching, streaming, and advertising/tracking wouldn't consistently work, which would make that whole market less interesting to them.

    They don't really sell many physical products, like Apple, so there's no big push for Android on standalone devices. Then again, in the 2.x days they were still desperate for Android market penetration, so it is a little surprising that they didn't chase any market they could.

  6. Re:Sure, I'll explain. on XMPP Operators Begin Requiring Encryption, Google Still Not Allowing TLS · · Score: 1

    Utter bull. Play store is included with AOSP.

    Utter bull, indeed.

    You're referring to the entirely closed-source bundle that you download from the not-at-all-sketchy-sounding site, goo-inside.me, right? The one that's signed with a self-signed certificate?

    The same Google Apps that increasingly contains closed source versions of what used to be open source OS components? Yeah, I'm not sure what "evil" spin you could put on this totally "open" behavior of Google's...

  7. Re:Survivalists on Pentagon Document Lays Out Battle Plan Against Zombies · · Score: 1

    I thought we were talking Mad Max, not a full-blown war. Why would a modern army with artillery be attacking this guy's little farm?

  8. Re:Survivalists on Pentagon Document Lays Out Battle Plan Against Zombies · · Score: 1

    Bands of marauders would have to find an isolated place in order to overrun it (the solar panels are probably fine, but the wind turbine and wood stove might attract people from afar). Nobody's going to travel hundreds of miles into the middle of nowhere in the hopes of finding supplies. Most of the rounds he's hoarding can be used for hunting, too.

    In the medieval period, repelling multiple armed attackers required architectural defenses and a similar number of trained fighters. That hasn't really been the case since the invention of the firearm. A single person (or a few people) with a bunch of bullets in a reasonably well selected location could keep off a bunch of desperate marauders long enough to make them decide to move on.

  9. Re:Somebody needs to buy... on The Physics of Hot Pockets · · Score: 1

    Speaking of saving time, I find that most everything will cook well enough in some multiple of even minutes. The "minute plus" key is the only key I ever actually use on my microwave.

    Also, for anything under 99 seconds, you can save a button press by entering seconds instead of minutes:seconds. It's obvious, but it annoys me enough to type this to see people hit 1-3-0, when 9-0 works just as well.

  10. Re:"No reliable solution" on Apple's Revenge: iMessage Might Eat Your Texts If You Switch To Android · · Score: 1

    Not defending SMS, which is pretty horrible in many ways, but SMS does support delivery receipts. They are very handy for seeing if/when a message is delivered to the recipient's phone.

  11. Re:NO Photoshop for you! on Adobe Creative Cloud Services Offline (Again?) · · Score: 1

    I'm with you until this:

    But the concept has been co-opted and distorted by marketing, who have reduced the meaning of "cloud" to little more than a buzzword that applies to anything with online connectivity, even if that's not designed in a cloud-like way.

    "Cloud" has always been a marketing driven buzzword and because of that there's no real definition of "cloud-like way". "The cloud" is derived from networking diagrams where stuff outside of the diagrammer's control and scope is handwavingly lumped into a nondescript cloud. It has never meant anything specific, on purpose. Though the various technologies that it may or may not refer to are real, the actual term "cloud" has been marketing bullshit from the first time any corporate exec spoke it.

  12. Re:Comparative advantage is BS on Russia Bans US Use of Its Rocket Engines For Military Launches · · Score: 1

    That's my point. As long as the final stage has lifting engines mounted on it (and isn't big enough to be the only stage), stuff will have to be mounted next to it instead of beneath it and stuff will be more likely to fall off and cause it damage.

    The solid fuel booster pedantry was just pointing out that foam wasn't encasing the boosters because they weren't cryogenically cooled. The ET was, and that's where the foam came from. The GP said that the foam came from the booster and I was correcting that.

  13. Re:Comparative advantage is BS on Russia Bans US Use of Its Rocket Engines For Military Launches · · Score: 1

    The foam fell off of the tank, not one of the boosters. The boosters were solid fuel and didn't need to be cooled. Even without boosters, this would be a possible failure mode for any engines-on-shuttle design that can't hold all of its own fuel inside.

  14. Re:Not really a good sign on Researchers Find, Analyze Forged SSL Certs In the Wild · · Score: 1

    It's using TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256. That's not exactly a weak cipher, especially since AES256 is putatively not much stronger than AES128.

    I think the issue you're seeing originates on your end.

  15. Re:I didn't realise they didn't already did that. on Standards Group Adds Adaptive-Sync To DisplayPort · · Score: 2

    The pixel addressing of a modern graphics system (GPU to LCD) is purely digital, which is what he meant by "purely digital". Of course there are analog components in the displays, but the signal path is digital.

    It seems very inefficient to dump whole frames to the panel at a fixed (or even variable) interval. Why not just change individual pixels only when they are damaged?

  16. Re:It's a great idea on Standards Group Adds Adaptive-Sync To DisplayPort · · Score: 2

    There's no reason to go through grey between every frame. As you say, most pixels will remain the same color, and making every pixel grey at the V-sync frequency will just make the whole display strobe and look washed out.

    Grey-to-grey is just an easy thing to test for benchmarking displays. You don't actually do that in normal operation.

  17. Re:Time for a union that is only way to get the po on Plaintiff In Tech Hiring Suit Asks Judge To Reject Settlement · · Score: 2

    Silicon Valley tech employees are being abused by their employers!?

    That's what this entire case is about.

    Wow, what a ridiculous failure of perspective.

    That others are abused more doesn't mean that anyone should gladly take any amount abuse that is dealt to them. You may not have sympathy for them, but they don't need your sympathy to try to make things right.

    This is "divide and rule" in action. The little people fighting among themselves because some are slightly less little than others.

  18. Re:Here's a revolutionary concept on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 1

    Rules exist for a reason, and the goal that the rules are meant to accomplish is more important than the rules themselves. A stance like yours insists that you should wait for a red traffic light in the middle of the night when no one is coming.

    If the rules do not serve their intended purpose, rationality demands that they be changed or ignored. The purpose of the rules of the road are to safely expedite traffic flow, which they are not doing in this case and are thus being changed.

  19. Re:Stopping and thinking on Traffic Optimization: Cyclists Should Roll Past Stop Signs, Pause At Red Lights · · Score: 1

    Doubly so because, especially as a pedestrian who is waved to cross, the driver inevitably starts rolling forward while you are still crossing. They're doing you no favors when they encourage you to walk in front of their vehicle and then immediately express their impatience and start threatening to hit you.

  20. Re:So... cloud access? on Apple Can Extract Texts, Photos, Contacts From Locked iPhones · · Score: 1

    Actually, less than 100% and probably less than 99.99%. Heardbleed only affected OpenSSL versions 1.0.1 through 1.0.1f. Many devices and OSs never moved to the 1.0.1 version and were never vulnerable. A huge number of systems used, and still use, 0.9.8 (eg all Macs, many routers).

  21. Murder and self defense on Autonomous Car Ethics: If a Crash Is Unavoidable, What Does It Hit? · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. Any targeting at all is ethically and legally unacceptable. If someone dies in an accident, that's tragic and either totally accidental or negligent manslaughter. If one party is specifically targeted, for whatever reason, it becomes murder.

    On that note, if you are simply a bystander and another car targets you to crash into to avoid an accident, you might be able to claim self defense if you misrepresent your vehicle as an unacceptable target (eg, a car full of kids). People die in car accidents all of the time and another car deciding that, through no fault of your own, they are going to deliberately crash into you seems like an overt attack against you.

  22. Re:Simple answer on Autonomous Car Ethics: If a Crash Is Unavoidable, What Does It Hit? · · Score: 2

    But what happens the second time the safety-conscious car is deliberately avoided, or the n-th time? In order to keep up with these payments, the policy holder is going to face increasing rates due to no action of his own. With the current insurance scheme, the payout is limited to the value of the car and damage from accidents decreases the value, limiting the total policy payout.

    Your scheme sounds like a shakedown: "How much are you willing to pay to not be deliberately crashed into?"

  23. Re:Explotative? on The Exploitative Economics of Academic Publishing · · Score: 2

    Impact factor is determined by the average number of citations a contribution to a journal gets. They aren't dictated by the publishers.

    There are sleazy things that publishers can do to boost their impact factor, and it's not really the best metric to use anyway, but it's not subjective or made-up like you imply.

  24. Re:The only features ... on The Feature Phone Is Dead: Long Live the 'Basic Smartphone' · · Score: 2

    It's been getting gradually worse, too.

    Back when cell phones were analog, the call quality was generally better. Partially, it was because considerably larger bandwidth was allotted to each voice channel (at the cost of being able to handle fewer phones). Mostly, though, it was because in the analog system the call degraded by having increasing static, which is fairly easy to hear through to a point, and calls degrade now by entirely losing audio or adding chirps and skips.

  25. Re:Hiding shady practices on Police Departments Using Car Tracking Database Sworn To Secrecy · · Score: 1

    As an aside, and not particularly directed at you, I wish people would identify the state or country when they say "my state" or "my country".

    I do too, but I don't think (most) people are doing it by accident or neglect. I think it's a more credible sounding way of pulling facts out of their ass and they're afraid of being called out as wrong if they give enough details to verify them.

    I have no idea if that's true in this particular case, because a quick search shows that license plate information is only a matter of public records in 38 states, but in many cases it clearly is. I love the long back-and-forth arguments where "my state" or "my country" is continually referred to as a point of rebuttal but never identified.