Let's say some drug said you'd potentially die or go blind by taking it. The patient agrees, takes the drug and subsequently dies or goes blind. That would not get reported to the FDA. OK, I understand that.
What I don't understand is that there's no mechanism for you (as you pointed out) for you to provide that data to the FDA anyway.
The whole thing seems like a very American way of doing Government business.
I am not 100% sure of course, but I think the outrage from users is that their personal data was used for nefarious purposes. Or at least purposes the user didn't anticipate.
Think of it this way. I'm quite open with my EV usage and patterns when it comes to my Hydro (Electricity) company asking me questions because I want them to use the data to anticipate electricity demand so we don't have brown-outs or they can advocate installing new infrastructure to support more chargers. I'm quite happy to give them accurate responses on their surveys for that purpose.
However, if they then use that data to, say, somehow create a electricity plan that penalizes poor people for NOT having EV's, then I'd have a real problem with that. I would characterize that as misuse of my data.
I don't use Facebook but I imagine that's where most of the rage comes from. People didn't think their "what kind of vegetable are you" surveys or data would be used to further an agenda that they, in all likelihood, oppose at the moral/religious/political/whatever level.
I think the root of the problem might actually be the fact that most people confuse 'autopilot' with 'autonomous driving'.
The former is just a series of cameras, logic, sensors, and software designed to identify and navigate around fairly obvious things like a truck or large vehicle in front of you. The latter lets you take your hands off the wheel and not pay real attention to what's going on. Think of it as being similar to a train. You take your seat and the train gets you to your destination with zero input from you. You don't need to worry about a cow on the tracks because something/someone else is monitoring that.
I have a 2017 Ford Fusion with lane assist and adaptive cruise control. It's a neat trick to show my passengers how the car will auto-steer itself back to it's lane if I let it wander across the line. Of course, this is done when the road is empty, doing around 40 km/h, and with my hands barely lifted off the wheel. Even if the road sweeps gently to the left or right, I can let the system essentially drive itself down the road. Tesla's autopilot is a much more enhanced version of that but it still relies on cameras etc. to make decisions and any driver should know a car-mounted camera just isn't as good as the human eye. My car comes with auto reverse parallel parking and let me assure you, that works maybe 30% of the time. It's nothing more than a gimmick really.
Think of all the times you're driving down the road and there's some random hazard that is hard to make out. Maybe an errant cone in the road, some separated truck tire, a bunch of broken glass from the last accident, a temporary narrowing of the road due to contruction but with only orange markers poorly marked on the road. It's unreasonable to expect a camera (or multiple cameras) to pick up those tiny details and make safe decisions. A human driver can process all that in a millisecond because they have experience and can quickly assess the immediate vicinity and make a decision. I just don't think we're quite there from a tech perspective.
So what happened? When you told the cashier "you look with your eyes, not with your hands" or similar, what was her reaction? She probably didn't even realize what she did was wrong - maybe it's company policy, maybe it was in her training, maybe she just saw other cashiers doing it and just followed suite?
But if you call her on it, it could cause her to change her behavior for the next customer. I'm kinda interested to know how that exchange went
I suppose the counter-argument is that you shouldn't need a degree in law just to be able to post pictures of cute animals.
A key part of reading comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of a set of words in a specific context and I would venture to say that's where additional protections are needed. Any person capable of reading can read even the most convoluted user agreement but MOST people would read it word by word but not really having the experience, education, or skill to fully understand the implications of a set of words in a specific order.
This may be a real bad analogy, but it's kinda like the protections you get in a Law. Imagine if your Law said "No-one is allowed to force you to work more than 8 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period".
Then you went to work for an employer who made you sign a 50 page employee contract. Somewhere buried in all that text was a roundabout way of the company saying you had to work 12 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period. That stipulation would be immediately null and void (despite your signature) because it's overruled by the Law that said you can't work more than 8 hours.
So.. you may have inadvertently consented to working 12 hour days - or maybe you're genuinely OK with working 12 hour days. But should that ever change in the future, you have the full protection of the law by telling your employer you only want to work 8 hours.
In the submitters (and many news outlets) defence, I would think for the majority of people, this was indeed 'sudden news'. Most people understand plate tectonics but that doesn't take away the newsworthiness of a huge crack opening up.
Think of volcanoes (volcano's?). Most folks understand they exist and, on occasion, they erupt - maybe even that eruptions are inevitable, but it's still news when it does blow.
I think even if the crack was a few mm wide, if it's any significant length or depth, it'd still be counted as interesting news.
Canadian here. I work in the tech industry and if I don't pick a call from my boss at 11pm, it would a career-limiting-move(tm). It is normally a critical issue that I should be woken up for, but sometimes it's trivial stuff that really could have waited until 8am.
In those cases, I find it's normally a case of, "Oh crap, some customer emailed the CEO (who's in a timezone where it's day time), and now the CEO has emailed his direct report, who has emailed his direct report but added [URGENT!] and it rolls all the way down until it gets to me. Once whatever minor issue is resolved, we *may* get an acknowledgement from the CEO a week later. So clearly not urgent but that's the way these things go.
I tell you what, I've sat in an Audi A8 with night vision and that thing is very impressive. It can pick up and highlight people on the road even when they're obstructed by a bush or something. Sure, I see them with my eyes, but I definitely notice them on the night vision display before I acknowledge them with my eyes.
I dunno if Uber has the same kind of system but there's no way it was working if it's the same. It could be a wholly inferior version of the Audi system too though.
From a testing strategy, a responsible plan may have had these components:
- Drive for 20 - 30 minutes. Pull over when safe and complete a report of the vehicles performance including the drivers own perception of their attentiveness
- Use that data to determine how long before a driver switch needs to occur and the autonomous vehicle testing can continue
- Have two safety drivers in the vehicle at any time. One primary and a secondary who keeps an eye on things
- Change the criteria depending on time and road conditions. E.g. the criteria for driving at 9am on a Monday morning in downtown probably shouldn't be the same as 2am on a Sunday in a rural area.
I agree, it's impossible to maintain 100% focus if you aren't driving but Uber hopefully took that into consideration. If they didn't, I'd wager it borders on negligence.
What I haven't seen/read yet is what qualification the safety driver had that would enable them to be a considered capable of monitoring the behavior of the vehicle while it was operating in autonomous mode?
For example - did the driver have to go through a cycle where the autonomous vehicle went around a closed course for 1+ hour and then an auditor reviewed the onboard camera to see how well the driver was able to maintain focus and stay alert?
If the answer is "No, that test, or a similar competency test, was not done" then Ubers whole strategy is flawed and they should never have been permitted to take that vehicle on public roads.
If the answer is "No, Uber had a test but that driver failed to maintain focus for 1+ hour" then Uber is at fault for allowing a clearly incapable driver of performing that test
If the answer is "Yes, Uber did that test and the driver did indeed stay alert for 1+ hours" then it could be the drivers fault since they were not attentive while out on public roads despite knowing the level of responsibility they had.
Most of us do some kind of testing before unleashing a product to our customers and they're backed (normally) by very comprehensive test plans with documentation. I don't think any of that has been made public which makes me think 1) It doesn't exist or 2) It's not as complete as maybe it should be.
This is really bizarre. I'm not sure why projecting onto the road is better than using tried-and-true technology like HUD (Heads up Display). Surely it would be better to project warnings etc. via HUD vs. onto the road? I have a HUD in my BMW and it is one of those technologies that I found genuinely useful and non-obtrusive.
For example, it shows turn by turn directions projected onto my windscreen, so I don't have to move my eyes or head. The location is just perfect and doesn't obstruct anything.
Would be great if we could understand the rationale Daimler used to project vs. HUD. I'm sure there's a reason, I just can't figure out what it would be.
You know what? It IS open! When I drove past it originally, it looked there was still some constructions going on but maybe that was incidental stuff. Over the weekend, I saw a Tesla Model S parked in one of the bays and it definitely had the cable plugged in
Thank you for the explanation. Although, I don't understand why, if the OP's company was turning a profit each quarter, they folded up. If they were turning profits, then it would mean they weren't making losses?
it IS about the charging network! I live in Southwest Ontario and the charging infrastructure is pretty woeful, despite the governments insistence that it's committed to EVs as the future.
The good news is that Tesla is about to open a massive supercharger station in Cambridge, ON. I drove past it a few days ago and counted at least 15 charging stations and that's right off the main 401 highway between London and Toronto so prime spot.
The other EV manufacturers aren't really serious about EV's and it shows when you look at their commitment to the infrastructure which is basically zero. When I was looking for an EV/Hybrid, I went to the local Chevrolet dealership to look at the Bolt & Volt models. The dealership is pretty close to my gym so I figured I could leave the car charging at their single EV station in the evening for the 2 hours I'm at the gym and it would be enough to get me home on battery power.
Upon speaking to the salesperson and even the owner, it quickly became apparent that their single station was an after thought - maybe something they had to do because corporate said they needed it in order to sell EV's. When I asked how they'd feel if I used it to charge my EV (purchased from them) in the evenings, they response I got was, "Well, sometimes we park other customer vehicles there so they can pick up their cars after hours"
True to form, each time I drive past on the way to the gym, that spot is ALWAYS blocked by some truck or van
Ford is no different, at least the dealerships in Brantford that don't even have L2 chargers! I've yet to see a manufacturer other than Tesla demonstrate a real commitment to charging infrastructure or even capabilities in their own dealerships.
Hi,
I didn't read the post as a 'shill' - just a statement on the current law and it's enforcement. I didn't detect any opinion from the OP on whether or not the law was fair or whether or not OP was in favor, just a factual statement.
If the law says, "Don't do this" and you do it anyway, can you really reasonably expect to not face prosecution? You may argue that whatever "this" is is fine to do, but that doesn't change the law.
At this point, I think the normal thing to say is something like, "If you don't like it, then vote or write to your " but I fear that might just be naive or overly-optimistic
I own 2 ICE cars and a Hybrid. I tend to keep my ICE cars for around 4-5 years each time and I very rarely by them brand new. Once an ICE car gets to around 6+ years, I've expected the following:
1. Engine oil leaks. Some are easy to fix (e.g. oil pan gasket). Some are very difficult (rear main seal). Some are really hard to find among the general grime and dirt that accumulates around the engine
2. Coolant leaks. Not as common, but out of the 8 cars I've owned in the past 15 years, 4 of them developed some kind of coolant leak. 1 was major - ruptured radiator.
3. Power steering leaks. My truck had a leaky power steering hose that took a while to find and replace.
4. Transmission leak. Both my truck and one of my ICE cars have slight transmission leaks. Truck should be fixed after I replaced the spline seal. I can't track the car one down yet
My point is this: In an ICE car, most of the fluids are kept in by rubber or composite seals. Those seals WILL fail over time. The mechanical bits are fine and likely to last 10+ years with good maintenance but seals will not. Especially if you leave in cold/icy areas where the freeze/thaw/heat cycle accelerates wear. When those seals fail, they will probably do so slowly, dripping oil and fluid until you check and find out it's low or a warning light pops up.
I love my ICE cars and I enjoy working on them. If we're really worried about the environment, we should expect cars to last (and not leak) for 10+ years. There's not many modern ICE cars that last that long without significant overhauls. However, I can't wait for electric vehicles to take off. There's just less mechanics to go wrong and much less seals to develop leaks over time. Sure, the battery will need to be replaced at the 8 year mark, but battery recycling is a well developed process.
I'm not part of the purchasing team but I'll venture a guess that when buying a couple of thousand laptops at a time, you have certain specifications. Say a laptop meets all of those specs and you get a great deal on the price but it comes with a fingerprint scanner. You don't really care for the scanner but since you have the ability to disable it at the corp level, it doesn't matter.
So it's not quite a matter of purchasing a laptop with a scanner you'll never use. Rather, you're purchasing a laptop that otherwise meets your requirements but has a feature that you don't need but since it's within your budget parameters, you'll purchase it anyway.
You could argue that letting employees buy their own laptops is the solution but as someone who works for a 30k+ employee company, I can reassure you that's a finance / expense / support nightmare.
Hopefully I'm not coming across as a defender of fingerprint scanners or the problems with OS level flaws!
My point is simply that the effort required for my average co-worker to access my password-protected laptop is much lower to fool the biometric scanner than it is to exploit a flaw in the OS or the intel management engine.
Again, not talking about technically savvy people here - just the opportunistic person who watched Mythbusters and has sufficient motivation to unlock my PC with little to no detection risk.
You make a good point. Although, watching the Mythbusters bypass it - it didn't seem to require a LOT of resources. With the exception of the ability to pull the print in the first place...
What about detectability? If someone attacks a network from the outside, there's likely multiple systems that can flag it and alert the admin or security team. If someone copies my fingerprint and unlocks my PC, I have no idea. In fact, it would not register on any alarm / monitoring system.
Of course, if someone has their password written down, then all bets are off - but that person must know, one some level, that writing down passwords is not a good idea.
I think most organizations (hopefully I'm not generalizing too much here..) are somewhat protected against OS level flaw attacks through anti-virus software, firewalls etc and the effort & knowledge required to take advantage of those flaws.
With fingerprint vulnerabilities, however, the problem is that almost anyone can fake a fingerprint with very little technical know-how. All you really need is a method of pulling the print and access to a good photocopier/scanner according to the Mythbusters test. Like most attacks, I'm guessing the majority of the risk comes from the inside rather than the outside.
German car owner here. In fact, owner of multiple German cars over the years. They may have over-engineered them in the past but that is most certainly not the case today. In fact, they are woefully under-engineered, even before you factor in how much they cost.
The last over-engineered German car I had was a W140 (S-Class). The electronics were still a bit dodgy, but mechanically, it was solid and a thing of beauty. Today's German cars are over-priced and horribly engineered. They're still great to drive, beautiful to look at, very pleasant to sit in but the days of a Benz lasting more than half a million miles without major work is long gone.
Even in terms of tech, they are lagging. Laser headlights (BMW 7-series)? That's a multi-thousand dollar disaster waiting to happen. There is practically no benefit over LED lighting. Adaptive headlights? Another pending money pit. And why? Sure, theoretically you can argue that headlights that follow the steering wheel but in practice, it has zero real-world benefit. You're just one motor failure from googly headlights and a $4,000 bill.
Technology, to me, is things like exotic, light weight material for weight reduction across all models, or better engineering of critical components like valves, suspension to make them last longer . Gadgets like night vision and massaging seats are cool, but they're not leaps in technology.
I can concur. I have a 2017 Ford Fusion Energi and while it is a Hybrid, it doesn't engage the gas engine until the battery is depleted or some other external factor requires it. For example engine turns on if I put the heat up to max and it's -20C outside.
That being said, when it's in Electric Only mode, the acceleration/pick-up is astonishing. I have to press the accelerator very gingerly or it will lose traction and spin it's wheels. In fact, I have to be much more careful than compared to any other car I've driven (including a HEMI powered 300C SRT8).
It'll maintain this rapid acceleration to at least 60 km/h which is more than enough for inner city driving. Above 60 km/h, it's still potent but you lose some of that push-you-back-in-your-seat feeling.
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Good grief! That is genuinely terrifying.
Let's say some drug said you'd potentially die or go blind by taking it. The patient agrees, takes the drug and subsequently dies or goes blind. That would not get reported to the FDA. OK, I understand that.
What I don't understand is that there's no mechanism for you (as you pointed out) for you to provide that data to the FDA anyway.
The whole thing seems like a very American way of doing Government business.
I am not 100% sure of course, but I think the outrage from users is that their personal data was used for nefarious purposes. Or at least purposes the user didn't anticipate.
Think of it this way. I'm quite open with my EV usage and patterns when it comes to my Hydro (Electricity) company asking me questions because I want them to use the data to anticipate electricity demand so we don't have brown-outs or they can advocate installing new infrastructure to support more chargers. I'm quite happy to give them accurate responses on their surveys for that purpose.
However, if they then use that data to, say, somehow create a electricity plan that penalizes poor people for NOT having EV's, then I'd have a real problem with that. I would characterize that as misuse of my data.
I don't use Facebook but I imagine that's where most of the rage comes from. People didn't think their "what kind of vegetable are you" surveys or data would be used to further an agenda that they, in all likelihood, oppose at the moral/religious/political/whatever level.
I think the root of the problem might actually be the fact that most people confuse 'autopilot' with 'autonomous driving'.
The former is just a series of cameras, logic, sensors, and software designed to identify and navigate around fairly obvious things like a truck or large vehicle in front of you. The latter lets you take your hands off the wheel and not pay real attention to what's going on. Think of it as being similar to a train. You take your seat and the train gets you to your destination with zero input from you. You don't need to worry about a cow on the tracks because something/someone else is monitoring that.
I have a 2017 Ford Fusion with lane assist and adaptive cruise control. It's a neat trick to show my passengers how the car will auto-steer itself back to it's lane if I let it wander across the line. Of course, this is done when the road is empty, doing around 40 km/h, and with my hands barely lifted off the wheel. Even if the road sweeps gently to the left or right, I can let the system essentially drive itself down the road. Tesla's autopilot is a much more enhanced version of that but it still relies on cameras etc. to make decisions and any driver should know a car-mounted camera just isn't as good as the human eye. My car comes with auto reverse parallel parking and let me assure you, that works maybe 30% of the time. It's nothing more than a gimmick really.
Think of all the times you're driving down the road and there's some random hazard that is hard to make out. Maybe an errant cone in the road, some separated truck tire, a bunch of broken glass from the last accident, a temporary narrowing of the road due to contruction but with only orange markers poorly marked on the road. It's unreasonable to expect a camera (or multiple cameras) to pick up those tiny details and make safe decisions. A human driver can process all that in a millisecond because they have experience and can quickly assess the immediate vicinity and make a decision. I just don't think we're quite there from a tech perspective.
So what happened? When you told the cashier "you look with your eyes, not with your hands" or similar, what was her reaction? She probably didn't even realize what she did was wrong - maybe it's company policy, maybe it was in her training, maybe she just saw other cashiers doing it and just followed suite?
But if you call her on it, it could cause her to change her behavior for the next customer. I'm kinda interested to know how that exchange went
I suppose the counter-argument is that you shouldn't need a degree in law just to be able to post pictures of cute animals.
.. you may have inadvertently consented to working 12 hour days - or maybe you're genuinely OK with working 12 hour days. But should that ever change in the future, you have the full protection of the law by telling your employer you only want to work 8 hours.
A key part of reading comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of a set of words in a specific context and I would venture to say that's where additional protections are needed. Any person capable of reading can read even the most convoluted user agreement but MOST people would read it word by word but not really having the experience, education, or skill to fully understand the implications of a set of words in a specific order.
This may be a real bad analogy, but it's kinda like the protections you get in a Law. Imagine if your Law said "No-one is allowed to force you to work more than 8 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period".
Then you went to work for an employer who made you sign a 50 page employee contract. Somewhere buried in all that text was a roundabout way of the company saying you had to work 12 hours in a consecutive 24 hour period. That stipulation would be immediately null and void (despite your signature) because it's overruled by the Law that said you can't work more than 8 hours.
So
In the submitters (and many news outlets) defence, I would think for the majority of people, this was indeed 'sudden news'. Most people understand plate tectonics but that doesn't take away the newsworthiness of a huge crack opening up.
Think of volcanoes (volcano's?). Most folks understand they exist and, on occasion, they erupt - maybe even that eruptions are inevitable, but it's still news when it does blow.
I think even if the crack was a few mm wide, if it's any significant length or depth, it'd still be counted as interesting news.
Canadian here. I work in the tech industry and if I don't pick a call from my boss at 11pm, it would a career-limiting-move(tm). It is normally a critical issue that I should be woken up for, but sometimes it's trivial stuff that really could have waited until 8am.
In those cases, I find it's normally a case of, "Oh crap, some customer emailed the CEO (who's in a timezone where it's day time), and now the CEO has emailed his direct report, who has emailed his direct report but added [URGENT!] and it rolls all the way down until it gets to me. Once whatever minor issue is resolved, we *may* get an acknowledgement from the CEO a week later. So clearly not urgent but that's the way these things go.
I tell you what, I've sat in an Audi A8 with night vision and that thing is very impressive. It can pick up and highlight people on the road even when they're obstructed by a bush or something. Sure, I see them with my eyes, but I definitely notice them on the night vision display before I acknowledge them with my eyes.
I dunno if Uber has the same kind of system but there's no way it was working if it's the same. It could be a wholly inferior version of the Audi system too though.
From a testing strategy, a responsible plan may have had these components:
- Drive for 20 - 30 minutes. Pull over when safe and complete a report of the vehicles performance including the drivers own perception of their attentiveness
- Use that data to determine how long before a driver switch needs to occur and the autonomous vehicle testing can continue
- Have two safety drivers in the vehicle at any time. One primary and a secondary who keeps an eye on things
- Change the criteria depending on time and road conditions. E.g. the criteria for driving at 9am on a Monday morning in downtown probably shouldn't be the same as 2am on a Sunday in a rural area.
I agree, it's impossible to maintain 100% focus if you aren't driving but Uber hopefully took that into consideration. If they didn't, I'd wager it borders on negligence.
What I haven't seen/read yet is what qualification the safety driver had that would enable them to be a considered capable of monitoring the behavior of the vehicle while it was operating in autonomous mode?
For example - did the driver have to go through a cycle where the autonomous vehicle went around a closed course for 1+ hour and then an auditor reviewed the onboard camera to see how well the driver was able to maintain focus and stay alert?
If the answer is "No, that test, or a similar competency test, was not done" then Ubers whole strategy is flawed and they should never have been permitted to take that vehicle on public roads.
If the answer is "No, Uber had a test but that driver failed to maintain focus for 1+ hour" then Uber is at fault for allowing a clearly incapable driver of performing that test
If the answer is "Yes, Uber did that test and the driver did indeed stay alert for 1+ hours" then it could be the drivers fault since they were not attentive while out on public roads despite knowing the level of responsibility they had. Most of us do some kind of testing before unleashing a product to our customers and they're backed (normally) by very comprehensive test plans with documentation. I don't think any of that has been made public which makes me think 1) It doesn't exist or 2) It's not as complete as maybe it should be.
This is really bizarre. I'm not sure why projecting onto the road is better than using tried-and-true technology like HUD (Heads up Display). Surely it would be better to project warnings etc. via HUD vs. onto the road? I have a HUD in my BMW and it is one of those technologies that I found genuinely useful and non-obtrusive.
For example, it shows turn by turn directions projected onto my windscreen, so I don't have to move my eyes or head. The location is just perfect and doesn't obstruct anything.
Would be great if we could understand the rationale Daimler used to project vs. HUD. I'm sure there's a reason, I just can't figure out what it would be.
You know what? It IS open! When I drove past it originally, it looked there was still some constructions going on but maybe that was incidental stuff. Over the weekend, I saw a Tesla Model S parked in one of the bays and it definitely had the cable plugged in
Thank you for the explanation. Although, I don't understand why, if the OP's company was turning a profit each quarter, they folded up. If they were turning profits, then it would mean they weren't making losses?
it IS about the charging network! I live in Southwest Ontario and the charging infrastructure is pretty woeful, despite the governments insistence that it's committed to EVs as the future.
The good news is that Tesla is about to open a massive supercharger station in Cambridge, ON. I drove past it a few days ago and counted at least 15 charging stations and that's right off the main 401 highway between London and Toronto so prime spot.
The other EV manufacturers aren't really serious about EV's and it shows when you look at their commitment to the infrastructure which is basically zero. When I was looking for an EV/Hybrid, I went to the local Chevrolet dealership to look at the Bolt & Volt models. The dealership is pretty close to my gym so I figured I could leave the car charging at their single EV station in the evening for the 2 hours I'm at the gym and it would be enough to get me home on battery power.
Upon speaking to the salesperson and even the owner, it quickly became apparent that their single station was an after thought - maybe something they had to do because corporate said they needed it in order to sell EV's. When I asked how they'd feel if I used it to charge my EV (purchased from them) in the evenings, they response I got was, "Well, sometimes we park other customer vehicles there so they can pick up their cars after hours"
True to form, each time I drive past on the way to the gym, that spot is ALWAYS blocked by some truck or van
Ford is no different, at least the dealerships in Brantford that don't even have L2 chargers! I've yet to see a manufacturer other than Tesla demonstrate a real commitment to charging infrastructure or even capabilities in their own dealerships.
Can I ask a honest question?
Can someone explain this?
Hi,
:(
I didn't read the post as a 'shill' - just a statement on the current law and it's enforcement. I didn't detect any opinion from the OP on whether or not the law was fair or whether or not OP was in favor, just a factual statement.
If the law says, "Don't do this" and you do it anyway, can you really reasonably expect to not face prosecution? You may argue that whatever "this" is is fine to do, but that doesn't change the law.
At this point, I think the normal thing to say is something like, "If you don't like it, then vote or write to your " but I fear that might just be naive or overly-optimistic
Sorry, I don't have a positive suggestion here
Mosquitoes. They're real common and I doubt many would shed a tear if they were to die off.
I own 2 ICE cars and a Hybrid. I tend to keep my ICE cars for around 4-5 years each time and I very rarely by them brand new. Once an ICE car gets to around 6+ years, I've expected the following:
1. Engine oil leaks. Some are easy to fix (e.g. oil pan gasket). Some are very difficult (rear main seal). Some are really hard to find among the general grime and dirt that accumulates around the engine
2. Coolant leaks. Not as common, but out of the 8 cars I've owned in the past 15 years, 4 of them developed some kind of coolant leak. 1 was major - ruptured radiator.
3. Power steering leaks. My truck had a leaky power steering hose that took a while to find and replace.
4. Transmission leak. Both my truck and one of my ICE cars have slight transmission leaks. Truck should be fixed after I replaced the spline seal. I can't track the car one down yet
My point is this: In an ICE car, most of the fluids are kept in by rubber or composite seals. Those seals WILL fail over time. The mechanical bits are fine and likely to last 10+ years with good maintenance but seals will not. Especially if you leave in cold/icy areas where the freeze/thaw/heat cycle accelerates wear. When those seals fail, they will probably do so slowly, dripping oil and fluid until you check and find out it's low or a warning light pops up.
I love my ICE cars and I enjoy working on them. If we're really worried about the environment, we should expect cars to last (and not leak) for 10+ years. There's not many modern ICE cars that last that long without significant overhauls. However, I can't wait for electric vehicles to take off. There's just less mechanics to go wrong and much less seals to develop leaks over time. Sure, the battery will need to be replaced at the 8 year mark, but battery recycling is a well developed process.
I'm not part of the purchasing team but I'll venture a guess that when buying a couple of thousand laptops at a time, you have certain specifications. Say a laptop meets all of those specs and you get a great deal on the price but it comes with a fingerprint scanner. You don't really care for the scanner but since you have the ability to disable it at the corp level, it doesn't matter.
So it's not quite a matter of purchasing a laptop with a scanner you'll never use. Rather, you're purchasing a laptop that otherwise meets your requirements but has a feature that you don't need but since it's within your budget parameters, you'll purchase it anyway.
You could argue that letting employees buy their own laptops is the solution but as someone who works for a 30k+ employee company, I can reassure you that's a finance / expense / support nightmare.
Hopefully I'm not coming across as a defender of fingerprint scanners or the problems with OS level flaws!
My point is simply that the effort required for my average co-worker to access my password-protected laptop is much lower to fool the biometric scanner than it is to exploit a flaw in the OS or the intel management engine.
Again, not talking about technically savvy people here - just the opportunistic person who watched Mythbusters and has sufficient motivation to unlock my PC with little to no detection risk.
You make a good point. Although, watching the Mythbusters bypass it - it didn't seem to require a LOT of resources. With the exception of the ability to pull the print in the first place...
What about detectability? If someone attacks a network from the outside, there's likely multiple systems that can flag it and alert the admin or security team. If someone copies my fingerprint and unlocks my PC, I have no idea. In fact, it would not register on any alarm / monitoring system.
Of course, if someone has their password written down, then all bets are off - but that person must know, one some level, that writing down passwords is not a good idea.
I think most organizations (hopefully I'm not generalizing too much here..) are somewhat protected against OS level flaw attacks through anti-virus software, firewalls etc and the effort & knowledge required to take advantage of those flaws.
With fingerprint vulnerabilities, however, the problem is that almost anyone can fake a fingerprint with very little technical know-how. All you really need is a method of pulling the print and access to a good photocopier/scanner according to the Mythbusters test. Like most attacks, I'm guessing the majority of the risk comes from the inside rather than the outside.
A few years ago, Mythbusters had an episode where they showed how easy it was to fool fingerprint scanners into granting access.
The place where I work prohibits this via IT Policy and disables the fingerprint scanner on all laptops
German car owner here. In fact, owner of multiple German cars over the years. They may have over-engineered them in the past but that is most certainly not the case today. In fact, they are woefully under-engineered, even before you factor in how much they cost.
The last over-engineered German car I had was a W140 (S-Class). The electronics were still a bit dodgy, but mechanically, it was solid and a thing of beauty. Today's German cars are over-priced and horribly engineered. They're still great to drive, beautiful to look at, very pleasant to sit in but the days of a Benz lasting more than half a million miles without major work is long gone.
Even in terms of tech, they are lagging. Laser headlights (BMW 7-series)? That's a multi-thousand dollar disaster waiting to happen. There is practically no benefit over LED lighting. Adaptive headlights? Another pending money pit. And why? Sure, theoretically you can argue that headlights that follow the steering wheel but in practice, it has zero real-world benefit. You're just one motor failure from googly headlights and a $4,000 bill.
Technology, to me, is things like exotic, light weight material for weight reduction across all models, or better engineering of critical components like valves, suspension to make them last longer . Gadgets like night vision and massaging seats are cool, but they're not leaps in technology.
I can concur. I have a 2017 Ford Fusion Energi and while it is a Hybrid, it doesn't engage the gas engine until the battery is depleted or some other external factor requires it. For example engine turns on if I put the heat up to max and it's -20C outside.
That being said, when it's in Electric Only mode, the acceleration/pick-up is astonishing. I have to press the accelerator very gingerly or it will lose traction and spin it's wheels. In fact, I have to be much more careful than compared to any other car I've driven (including a HEMI powered 300C SRT8).
It'll maintain this rapid acceleration to at least 60 km/h which is more than enough for inner city driving. Above 60 km/h, it's still potent but you lose some of that push-you-back-in-your-seat feeling.