As an anecdote on the other side of the coin, Qwest installed my DSL on the wrong (second) phone line, and lied to me about getting a static IP to get me to sign up. They then lied to the PUC when I complained, saying they never told me any of that.
- His more expensive smart phone doesn't get lost.
It took a lot of time and effort to build the system in that picture. A cellphone is a prepackaged complete system with battery and sensors and a way of communicating with the outside world so you can track it. If your time is worth nothing, the building hardware over and over again is the way to go.
- It doesn't run out of juice because the package took more than the 12-24 hours your average smart phone lasts
Ok, so you hook a simple battery to the phone that will run it for longer. This is a $20 at most device. Problem solved for less money than it takes to think about it.
- It doesn't get discovered and create a stir why it was it was necessary to send frequent pictures/video of the mail facilities (will someone think of terrorism!1!!)
Why yes, this probem doesn't exist for the lashup in the original story, does it?
- It provides you with GPS information that is more accurate then it usually is inside buildings that likely have poor cellular coverage...and really wouldn't tell you much anyways.
Hmm, let's see. The last good gps fix is outside this large building. Where could the phone possibly have gone? Did I say the system was perfect?
- It doesn't take more effort to program a cell phone to take 3 seconds of video every minute and more when it's significantly moving,
You write the program once and load it into 100 phones, vs. building 100 Arduino systems with cameras etc...
ultimately still requiring you to reacquire the package to download all the video
Well, duh, that might be why I said MMS a picture once an hour and not "send all the video back via live stream".
The social contract is signed every day you're not dead from the laws protecting you.
So, you're saying, not only is there a shrink-wrap EULA involved, but that EULA is not written down anywhere at all and there is not even a small checkbox on a web page where you have to click "I agree". All you have to do to accept the EULA is take your next breath?
Fascinating concept. I wonder if Bill Gates is listening.
By the way, if the laws are protecting you, how can you be dead from them?
Our country was built by individuals banding together to accomplish tasks that no individual can accomplish alone.
And yet the same people wrote a constitution that put serious limits on what the government could do. Apparently this "banding together" thing wasn't supposed to be government mandated fed by enforced collection of property from the civil population.
The difference is, of course, that "banding together" is not really what socialism is. Socialism is "banding together by force", as in chaining people to each other. The real "banding together" the founders talked about was voluntary, charity.
And, in fact, the quote you refer to dealt with the revolution, where "banding together" to fight the British was necessary to prevent the British from simply hanging a few malcontents and squelching the whole problem.
You mean like the sensors that are in almost every modern cell phone these days?
Instead of the jury-rigged lash-up this guy used, he could have written an app and taped a smart phone to the inside of the box with a hole cut out for the camera. Much smaller, lighter, self-powered, and it could have MMSd a picture back once an hour with GPS coordinates so he knew where it was.
So, other than claiming that promiscuity is a virtue, you're basically repeating the same things I said only in more words. Everything you said under (2) is basically what I said in one sentence: paternity tests allow determination of fatherhood for purposes of inheritance or child support.
No, what causes disputes is a woman who sleeps with so many men that she cannot identify the father, or who sleeps with someone else and tries to trick a man into marrying her to take care of the child that the real father won't. Paternity tests only uncover the original unethical acts, it is not an unethical act in and of itself. It is those unethical acts that cause the disputes.
A biological father has nothing to do with a real father.
A biological father is a real father. It has nothing to do with "father figure" or "parenting", however.
Fatherhood is determined by society, not DNA.
You keep saying this, but that doesn't make it true. Biological fatherhood is determined by DNA. Parental rights are determined by society.
Paternity testing allows determination of true family medical history and genetic lineages for susceptibility to certain diseases. Paternity testing allows legal determinations of fatherhood for purposes of inheritance and child support. Paternity testing allows determination of common ancestry involved in marriage prohibitions (e.g., brother/sister).
To above and below, the idea of this healthcare bill is to provide the working class with health care better or more on par with what the ultra rich get by doing it communally, socialist.
Huh? "To above and below"? That's the false promise of socialism, that the poor people will get the same stuff as the rich. "The idea of this bill" is failure since the rich will always be able to afford better health care, boats, jets, cars, etc, than the poor can.
Even when the natural result of trying to hand out free health care to everyone is a scarcity of that health care. The rich will be paying for it, so there will be people who will provide. This is true even in Great Britain where socialist medicine is the norm. The ultra-rich have created a market for grey market medicine by doctors who think their services are worth something. The poor are stuck in waiting lines because there isn't enough free healthcare for everyone who wants it.
Meanwhile the ultra-rich can still pay for the best private medicine known to man.
The ultra-rich will always be able to pay for the best private medicine known to man. They do this in the USA, they do this in Canada, and they even do it in Great Britain. They will always be able to buy better cars than you, bigger boats, and bigger airplanes. What's your point, that all of that stuff should be free?
...and promote it on Youtube. It worked for Jeff Dunham.
Jeff Dunham (Jeff fafa dunn HAMMM!) promoted himself by paying for his first Comedy Central special himself. That was after he did Carson and then his career slowed down.
His shows sell out and he's done world tours. For the guy later down who says he's not funny, well, a sense of humor is a funny thing. Part of his humor is that he pokes so many holes on those unfunny racial stereotypes that it becomes funny. And pokes holes in himself.
One of the funniest bits he ever did was when he was using Achmed and Achmed Jr at the same time and Achmed's legs kept falling off the podium. Jeff kept calling the stagehand out to reset him, and after a couple of times the stagehand duct taped the legs down. The reaction from Achmed was hilarious. I think it was ad-lib based on Jeff's expression, but I don't know.
I think that was the same show where Achmed was telling him about his childhood and how he had a pet dog his dad blew up so it had no legs. Jeff asked him what he called the dog. Even knowing that joke, I was crying. "Really?.... Really?... Did you just ask me..." Jeff played it so deadpan that the audience was in stitches.
Yeah, some of it I don't get, like Bubba J, but Walter is spot on and Achmed is right to be afraid of him.
I don't know; with the right equipment (arduino board with a memory card?)
That's right, you don't know. An Arduino? For a military data system? Handled by PFCs and below? On a daily basis?
I'd assume that either the entire unit would be authorized for all weapons...
"Hey Bob, we just got five new guys transferring in. Go program all the guns." "Hey Bob, Bravo squad was out on a patrol when you did all the guns yesterday for the new guys. Go make sure all the guns are programmed." "Hey Bob, two guys transferred out. Go program all the guns again." "Hey Bob,..." "If you say go program the guns again one more time, I'm going to smack you..."
and the armorer should have a list matching arms to soldiers.
In the days when I was issued an M16 on a regular basis, I was handed a weapons card with my name, weapon ID, and signature on it. When I drew my weapon from the armory, I handed the E1 behind the door my card, he went to the rack, picked up the weapon, put my card in its place, and handed me the M16. When I turned it in, the process went in reverse. The armorer had no idea who belonged to what weapon. The company admin did, maybe. Has that system changed in 25 years? Maybe. Maybe not. It worked and was simple.
plug in, wait while the program checks the serial and uploads the appropriate print profiles,
Plug in, system doesn't communicate. Look at gun, realize that is it a model 2 trigger lock and go back to the office to find the model 2 programmer that came in yesterday. What do you mean the shipment with the model 2 programmer isn't here yet? We got model 2s on the rack we need to program. Radar, get me General Hammond on the phone.
If the US military adopts this kind of "feature", then we know the game is over and we might as well all learn Korean or Chinese.
The CPU prevents the gun from being fired but if CPU fails, then there is no mechanism locking it.
The gun is locked by default. If the CPU fails when the gun is in default locked mode, something has to UNlock it.
EMP's aren't exactly portable or convenient.
That's why assuming the only failure mode is an EMP frying the CPU is silly and dangerous. It is more likely that the CPU fails to match a valid user. How do you implement "failover to function mode" in that case?
Just think about power steering in a vehicle.
Oh God, a car analogy. Useless car analogy. In a vehicle, there is a physical connection between the steering wheel and the turning mechanism. It is more correctly called "power assist steering". So, is our new magic gun going to fire no matter who pulls the trigger as long as he pulls on it hard enough? Is that what you call "failover to functioning"?
but let's just say the CPU could engage with in a few nanoseconds of the trigger starting to move (to save battery). And can actively lock the trigger until the user is authorized.
Remove CPU battery, bang, you're dead with your own gun in my hands. Thanks for playing.
A few nanoseconds? Are you serious? A physical locking mechanism is going to pull in in nanoseconds? What happens when the inertial dampener you've created to remove inertia from the locking system fails, Dr. Cochran? Move on to warp drive anyway?
And, keep in mind, this system is designed to function when there is failure. It didn't match an authorized user, it FAILED. It didn't match an unauthorized user, it SUCCEEDED. Those two paths are indistinguishable, so when it fails to match the authorized user and fails, but failovers into a functional mode, it will failover when it is successful in trying to keep an unauthorized user out, thus letting him in.
Failure to match is unlikely.
No, failure to match is the most likely, and most deadly, mode. EMPs are unlikely for the reason you already gave. Any obstruction to the fingerprint will cause a failure to match, as will simple algorithmic and data errors. You're the new guy in a 100 person platoon. We haven't yet been able to get all the guns programmed with your fingerprint -- fail.
Simple example? My buddy has been shot, I've put on my BSI to deal with first aid for him and some bad guy pops his head over the wall we're hiding behind. I pick up my gun, pull the trigger, wait 1/3 of a second to be recognized, then realize that my glove is keeping my gun from working. In the meantime the bad guy has gotten off ten rounds and we're dead. The CPU is quite happily working, running fine, waiting for the next finger to come along for it to recognize.
So if there was a 1 in 100 chance that a shooter would have an auth failure (high, just for the purposes of illustration),
There is a 1% chance that your car will go into autoaccelerate mode on your drive home tonight and you'll wind up as tomato paste on a bridge support column. Are you making the drive? There's a 1% chance that the weapon you depend on to keep you alive is not going to work because of a NEW added feature that is intended to keep you safe. It's not a feature that is intended to make the weapon function better. It's not easier to shoot, it's not more accurate, it doesn't add any range, it's not a better sight. It just might not fire when you need it to. You want to carry this weapon? You want to risk that you pick up a weapon with this "feature" in the heat of battle and find out you aren't authorized for that guy's gun as you point it at the bad guys and pull the trigger and nothing happens?
They can command higher incomes based on their experience.
This calls the question that needs to be asked whenever this kind of discussion comes up. It is not so much can an old dog learn new tricks, but can new dogs learn the old tricks?
Put that in whatever terms you want. Will a new programmer know "this works well for this kind of problem", compared to "I can find a library that does this but I don't know/care how it works (and it really sucks at speed)".
Failing to match the authorized user is a failure. Failing to match an unauthorized user is success. Both cases of "failing to match" are indistinguishable.
Failure means the CPU isn't responding.
That's another kind of failure.
In the case of an EMP, the CPU won't function and therefore it has "no lock at all."
An EMP is a minor consideration when talking about failure modes and how the weapon deals with them. ESD or EMP may cause the memory to fail and create a "failure to match" kind of failure, as well.
But, let's assume the only failure we care about is an EMP that takes the CPU out. If this failure results in function, then what electronics detects that the CPU isn't working and allows the gun to function, and then, what good will the trigger lock be when a criminal who steals the gun knows all he has to do is fry the CPU to get the gun to work? "Hey, Bob, look a whole case full of them smart guns we can't shoot, and a rack display of stun guns we can use to make them work fine..."
Now the tricky question: is it a Good Thing if a husband is physically abusing his wife and she picks up his handgun to defend herself, and all it does is enrage the husband into demonstrating the kewl trigger lock that means she can't shoot him but he can shoot her?
The danger of this kind of development is that anti-gun zealots will point at this product and say "why can't they all be that way", and then a tragedy that this system didn't prevent will come along and the emotional strings will be played so that this kind of lock will be mandatory. Worst of all worlds. Guns that fail to function as they are intended but criminals can get to work just fine for them.
That's why it has to fail-through to a working state.
What exactly does that mean for a biometric trigger lock?
What is a "fail"? It's when the authorized user attempts to use the weapon and the CPU doesn't recognize his biometrics. The "fail through working" mode means that the CPU doesn't recognize the authorized user's prints and lets him fire anyway.
So, how does the CPU know that it has failed to allow the authorized user and not succeeded in preventing an unauthorized user? It can't. "I read this data from the sensor, it doesn't match what I have on record for authorized users, I don't fire." That data won't match for an unauthorized user just like it doesn't match when an authorized user has a bandaid on his finger or whatever. Or if the CPU just fails to match it.
I.e., "fail through to working" is saying "no lock at all."
That's 1/3 of a second every time you put your finger on the trigger. If you're holding the weapon correctly, you don't walk around with your finger on the trigger. That's a 1/3 second advantage to anyone trying to shoot you with a good old dumb gun. That's an eternity, and that's where you'll be.
The second largest issue will be the technology use. What will happen the first time someone takes a friend to the range and the gun he's showing off won't fire? He'll add the friend to the authorized list of fingers. Then he's supposed to remove him. And put him back. And then add someone else.
The natural reaction will be "I'll just shut this damn system off, it's too hard to deal with..." and the gun will be open to anyone.
I'll only consider such a technology if/when law enforcement has been exclusively using such devices for years and data on false negative/positives is available.
No sane cop is going to give anyone an automatic 1/3 second firing advantage voluntarily. If they are forced to carry these weapons, you can expect the rates of officer involved shootings to go way up. Either officers will break training and keep their fingers on the trigger when holding their weapon, or they'll try to make firing decisions 1/3 or more second sooner than they ought to.
Now, since I didn't RTFA, I don't know how the weapon reacts to a trigger pull, but if the trigger won't pull until the computer says ok you've just ruined any smooth pull of a trigger, turning a smooth pull into a pull/jerk action -- taking you off taget. Or the trigger will pull smoothly and the firing pin won't fire until the computer says ok. That leaves you holding a gun with a pulled trigger on target for 1/3 second or more waiting for the bang. And you're going to look pretty dead if your CPU fails and you're left standing with an otherwise functional gun pointing at a bad guy while you hope it actually fires.
Why, out of curiosity, would you worry about lead solder in a thing that fires lead bullets?
I wouldn't. You probably wouldn't. But politicians and regulatorycrats in some parts of the world do. RoHS is big in the EU. If you manufacture something, it has to be RoHS, even if you are making it out of lead.
The actions aren't unreasonable, but the fact that the government is stepping in demanding that they do this because some people are idiots and don't read the terms of a loan contract they are voluntarily signing is the unreasonable part.
I watched the T-Mobile ads last night, and not a single one of them was misleading or confusing. They haven't hid time to roll out the new versions, so these were the same ones that confused the Washington AG. If they did, it says a lot about him.
or somehow point out that bit about how all is due instantly if you cancel the contract.
What else do you want them to "point out" in a 30 second TV commercial? Frequencies? That you have to have your phone turned on to be able to make a cell call? That you need to charge the battery every so often?
It seems like common sense that if you choose to stop doing business with a company that means you stop doing business with that company, including any loans that you may have outstanding. It seems like common sense that when you stop doing business with someone with whom you have an outstanding loan balance, that you don't get to just walk away without paying it off. It seems "common sense" doesn't live in the Washington AG office, however.
...and a suicide bomber (as these individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter) would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd.
The fact that these two left the bags and ran away before the explosion removes them from the category "suicide bomber". They clearly expected and wanted to survive the attack.
Now, they may have accepted the fact that they would not survive a police encounter, but by hiding they demonstrated that they did not want to have that police encounter, thus also removing them from the category of "suicide by police".
You are right, true suicide bombers will wear their device until it goes off, and thus security cameras looking for unattended packages will fail to stop them. However, security that is looking for unusual behavior might. Not a guarantee, but nothing in life is guaranteed except that it ends at some point.
Either you 'voluntarily' bind yourself to TM or you'll have to cough up all the dough you still owe for the phone.
Or you take advantage of their "no annual contract" offer and get service without an annual contract and no termination fee. You don't have to "voluntarily bind yourself" to anyone. If you choose to do so, that's your choice. Just like you can buy accessories from them. The fact that they offer other things, too, doesn't mean that the advertisement for one thing is deceptive.
You can leave any time you want. If you can pay off the rest that you owe me, that is.
What you've missed is that there is no requirement for me to buy a car from you to start with. I can buy gas from you with no contract and no "termination fee" when I decide to buy gas somewhere else. You would be quite accurate and honest if you advertised "no annual contract" gasoline purchases.
There is no termination fee if I get phone service from T-Mobile. I don't have to buy a phone from them. They are offerering no-annual-contract phone service, just like the ads say.
In this case, T-Mobile is advertising no contract plans that aren't actually no contract plans,
They're advertising no contract CELL SERVICE plans. There is no contract for that. No annual contracts for their phone service.
You want to buy a phone from them on the installment plan, well, no reasonable person would expect there would be no contract for that. What sane person would hand out phones on an oral promise that "I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today", as Wimpy would put it? In writing? It's a contract. For the cell phone. In writing? Read it before you sign.
And what sane person would ever think that all provisions of ANY contract are going to be presented in a 30 second radio or TV spot? Have you ever seen ANY company do that? Some of them put in a lot of small print, but the contract always has more. Except in Mr. Washington State AG's world.
They can't afford to pay those 600 now, which would exactly be the case, though, if they went and left TM as their carrier. And if this is not pointed out explicitly, it is reasonable for the customer to assume that his two years, 50 bucks a month contract keeps running.
If you cancel your service with T-Mobile and go to another carrier, why would any sane person think that the "50 bucks a month contract" would keep running? In fact, most people scream bloody murder if they cancel a service and find out that the "contract" they thought they cancelled kept running.
That's indirectly forcing people into staying with them.
That's directly forcing people to pay off a loan that they agreed to pay off for a product they have been provided. Gosh, how awful. Don't want a balloon payment in a loan? Don't take the loan. Surprised by a balloon payment in a loan? Read the loan contract before you sign. Simple words to live by.
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As an anecdote on the other side of the coin, Qwest installed my DSL on the wrong (second) phone line, and lied to me about getting a static IP to get me to sign up. They then lied to the PUC when I complained, saying they never told me any of that.
- His more expensive smart phone doesn't get lost.
It took a lot of time and effort to build the system in that picture. A cellphone is a prepackaged complete system with battery and sensors and a way of communicating with the outside world so you can track it. If your time is worth nothing, the building hardware over and over again is the way to go.
- It doesn't run out of juice because the package took more than the 12-24 hours your average smart phone lasts
Ok, so you hook a simple battery to the phone that will run it for longer. This is a $20 at most device. Problem solved for less money than it takes to think about it.
- It doesn't get discovered and create a stir why it was it was necessary to send frequent pictures/video of the mail facilities (will someone think of terrorism!1!!)
Why yes, this probem doesn't exist for the lashup in the original story, does it?
- It provides you with GPS information that is more accurate then it usually is inside buildings that likely have poor cellular coverage...and really wouldn't tell you much anyways.
Hmm, let's see. The last good gps fix is outside this large building. Where could the phone possibly have gone? Did I say the system was perfect?
- It doesn't take more effort to program a cell phone to take 3 seconds of video every minute and more when it's significantly moving,
You write the program once and load it into 100 phones, vs. building 100 Arduino systems with cameras etc...
ultimately still requiring you to reacquire the package to download all the video
Well, duh, that might be why I said MMS a picture once an hour and not "send all the video back via live stream".
The social contract is signed every day you're not dead from the laws protecting you.
So, you're saying, not only is there a shrink-wrap EULA involved, but that EULA is not written down anywhere at all and there is not even a small checkbox on a web page where you have to click "I agree". All you have to do to accept the EULA is take your next breath?
Fascinating concept. I wonder if Bill Gates is listening.
By the way, if the laws are protecting you, how can you be dead from them?
Our country was built by individuals banding together to accomplish tasks that no individual can accomplish alone.
And yet the same people wrote a constitution that put serious limits on what the government could do. Apparently this "banding together" thing wasn't supposed to be government mandated fed by enforced collection of property from the civil population. The difference is, of course, that "banding together" is not really what socialism is. Socialism is "banding together by force", as in chaining people to each other. The real "banding together" the founders talked about was voluntary, charity.
And, in fact, the quote you refer to dealt with the revolution, where "banding together" to fight the British was necessary to prevent the British from simply hanging a few malcontents and squelching the whole problem.
Instead of the jury-rigged lash-up this guy used, he could have written an app and taped a smart phone to the inside of the box with a hole cut out for the camera. Much smaller, lighter, self-powered, and it could have MMSd a picture back once an hour with GPS coordinates so he knew where it was.
So, other than claiming that promiscuity is a virtue, you're basically repeating the same things I said only in more words. Everything you said under (2) is basically what I said in one sentence: paternity tests allow determination of fatherhood for purposes of inheritance or child support.
All paternity testing does is cause disputes.
No, what causes disputes is a woman who sleeps with so many men that she cannot identify the father, or who sleeps with someone else and tries to trick a man into marrying her to take care of the child that the real father won't. Paternity tests only uncover the original unethical acts, it is not an unethical act in and of itself. It is those unethical acts that cause the disputes.
A biological father has nothing to do with a real father.
A biological father is a real father. It has nothing to do with "father figure" or "parenting", however.
Fatherhood is determined by society, not DNA.
You keep saying this, but that doesn't make it true. Biological fatherhood is determined by DNA. Parental rights are determined by society.
Paternity testing allows determination of true family medical history and genetic lineages for susceptibility to certain diseases. Paternity testing allows legal determinations of fatherhood for purposes of inheritance and child support. Paternity testing allows determination of common ancestry involved in marriage prohibitions (e.g., brother/sister).
To above and below, the idea of this healthcare bill is to provide the working class with health care better or more on par with what the ultra rich get by doing it communally, socialist.
Huh? "To above and below"? That's the false promise of socialism, that the poor people will get the same stuff as the rich. "The idea of this bill" is failure since the rich will always be able to afford better health care, boats, jets, cars, etc, than the poor can.
Even when the natural result of trying to hand out free health care to everyone is a scarcity of that health care. The rich will be paying for it, so there will be people who will provide. This is true even in Great Britain where socialist medicine is the norm. The ultra-rich have created a market for grey market medicine by doctors who think their services are worth something. The poor are stuck in waiting lines because there isn't enough free healthcare for everyone who wants it.
Meanwhile the ultra-rich can still pay for the best private medicine known to man.
The ultra-rich will always be able to pay for the best private medicine known to man. They do this in the USA, they do this in Canada, and they even do it in Great Britain. They will always be able to buy better cars than you, bigger boats, and bigger airplanes. What's your point, that all of that stuff should be free?
...and promote it on Youtube. It worked for Jeff Dunham.
Jeff Dunham (Jeff fafa dunn HAMMM!) promoted himself by paying for his first Comedy Central special himself. That was after he did Carson and then his career slowed down.
His shows sell out and he's done world tours. For the guy later down who says he's not funny, well, a sense of humor is a funny thing. Part of his humor is that he pokes so many holes on those unfunny racial stereotypes that it becomes funny. And pokes holes in himself.
One of the funniest bits he ever did was when he was using Achmed and Achmed Jr at the same time and Achmed's legs kept falling off the podium. Jeff kept calling the stagehand out to reset him, and after a couple of times the stagehand duct taped the legs down. The reaction from Achmed was hilarious. I think it was ad-lib based on Jeff's expression, but I don't know.
I think that was the same show where Achmed was telling him about his childhood and how he had a pet dog his dad blew up so it had no legs. Jeff asked him what he called the dog. Even knowing that joke, I was crying. "Really? .... Really? ... Did you just ask me..." Jeff played it so deadpan that the audience was in stitches.
Yeah, some of it I don't get, like Bubba J, but Walter is spot on and Achmed is right to be afraid of him.
I don't know; with the right equipment (arduino board with a memory card?)
That's right, you don't know. An Arduino? For a military data system? Handled by PFCs and below? On a daily basis?
I'd assume that either the entire unit would be authorized for all weapons ...
"Hey Bob, we just got five new guys transferring in. Go program all the guns." "Hey Bob, Bravo squad was out on a patrol when you did all the guns yesterday for the new guys. Go make sure all the guns are programmed." "Hey Bob, two guys transferred out. Go program all the guns again." "Hey Bob, ..." "If you say go program the guns again one more time, I'm going to smack you..."
and the armorer should have a list matching arms to soldiers.
In the days when I was issued an M16 on a regular basis, I was handed a weapons card with my name, weapon ID, and signature on it. When I drew my weapon from the armory, I handed the E1 behind the door my card, he went to the rack, picked up the weapon, put my card in its place, and handed me the M16. When I turned it in, the process went in reverse. The armorer had no idea who belonged to what weapon. The company admin did, maybe. Has that system changed in 25 years? Maybe. Maybe not. It worked and was simple.
plug in, wait while the program checks the serial and uploads the appropriate print profiles,
Plug in, system doesn't communicate. Look at gun, realize that is it a model 2 trigger lock and go back to the office to find the model 2 programmer that came in yesterday. What do you mean the shipment with the model 2 programmer isn't here yet? We got model 2s on the rack we need to program. Radar, get me General Hammond on the phone.
If the US military adopts this kind of "feature", then we know the game is over and we might as well all learn Korean or Chinese.
The CPU prevents the gun from being fired but if CPU fails, then there is no mechanism locking it.
The gun is locked by default. If the CPU fails when the gun is in default locked mode, something has to UNlock it.
EMP's aren't exactly portable or convenient.
That's why assuming the only failure mode is an EMP frying the CPU is silly and dangerous. It is more likely that the CPU fails to match a valid user. How do you implement "failover to function mode" in that case?
Just think about power steering in a vehicle.
Oh God, a car analogy. Useless car analogy. In a vehicle, there is a physical connection between the steering wheel and the turning mechanism. It is more correctly called "power assist steering". So, is our new magic gun going to fire no matter who pulls the trigger as long as he pulls on it hard enough? Is that what you call "failover to functioning"?
but let's just say the CPU could engage with in a few nanoseconds of the trigger starting to move (to save battery). And can actively lock the trigger until the user is authorized.
Remove CPU battery, bang, you're dead with your own gun in my hands. Thanks for playing.
A few nanoseconds? Are you serious? A physical locking mechanism is going to pull in in nanoseconds? What happens when the inertial dampener you've created to remove inertia from the locking system fails, Dr. Cochran? Move on to warp drive anyway?
And, keep in mind, this system is designed to function when there is failure. It didn't match an authorized user, it FAILED. It didn't match an unauthorized user, it SUCCEEDED. Those two paths are indistinguishable, so when it fails to match the authorized user and fails, but failovers into a functional mode, it will failover when it is successful in trying to keep an unauthorized user out, thus letting him in.
Failure to match is unlikely.
No, failure to match is the most likely, and most deadly, mode. EMPs are unlikely for the reason you already gave. Any obstruction to the fingerprint will cause a failure to match, as will simple algorithmic and data errors. You're the new guy in a 100 person platoon. We haven't yet been able to get all the guns programmed with your fingerprint -- fail.
Simple example? My buddy has been shot, I've put on my BSI to deal with first aid for him and some bad guy pops his head over the wall we're hiding behind. I pick up my gun, pull the trigger, wait 1/3 of a second to be recognized, then realize that my glove is keeping my gun from working. In the meantime the bad guy has gotten off ten rounds and we're dead. The CPU is quite happily working, running fine, waiting for the next finger to come along for it to recognize.
So if there was a 1 in 100 chance that a shooter would have an auth failure (high, just for the purposes of illustration),
There is a 1% chance that your car will go into autoaccelerate mode on your drive home tonight and you'll wind up as tomato paste on a bridge support column. Are you making the drive? There's a 1% chance that the weapon you depend on to keep you alive is not going to work because of a NEW added feature that is intended to keep you safe. It's not a feature that is intended to make the weapon function better. It's not easier to shoot, it's not more accurate, it doesn't add any range, it's not a better sight. It just might not fire when you need it to. You want to carry this weapon? You want to risk that you pick up a weapon with this "feature" in the heat of battle and find out you aren't authorized for that guy's gun as you point it at the bad guys and pull the trigger and nothing happens?
They can command higher incomes based on their experience.
This calls the question that needs to be asked whenever this kind of discussion comes up. It is not so much can an old dog learn new tricks, but can new dogs learn the old tricks?
Put that in whatever terms you want. Will a new programmer know "this works well for this kind of problem", compared to "I can find a library that does this but I don't know/care how it works (and it really sucks at speed)".
That's not a failure. That's a negative match.
Failing to match the authorized user is a failure. Failing to match an unauthorized user is success. Both cases of "failing to match" are indistinguishable.
Failure means the CPU isn't responding.
That's another kind of failure.
In the case of an EMP, the CPU won't function and therefore it has "no lock at all."
An EMP is a minor consideration when talking about failure modes and how the weapon deals with them. ESD or EMP may cause the memory to fail and create a "failure to match" kind of failure, as well.
But, let's assume the only failure we care about is an EMP that takes the CPU out. If this failure results in function, then what electronics detects that the CPU isn't working and allows the gun to function, and then, what good will the trigger lock be when a criminal who steals the gun knows all he has to do is fry the CPU to get the gun to work? "Hey, Bob, look a whole case full of them smart guns we can't shoot, and a rack display of stun guns we can use to make them work fine..."
Now the tricky question: is it a Good Thing if a husband is physically abusing his wife and she picks up his handgun to defend herself, and all it does is enrage the husband into demonstrating the kewl trigger lock that means she can't shoot him but he can shoot her?
The danger of this kind of development is that anti-gun zealots will point at this product and say "why can't they all be that way", and then a tragedy that this system didn't prevent will come along and the emotional strings will be played so that this kind of lock will be mandatory. Worst of all worlds. Guns that fail to function as they are intended but criminals can get to work just fine for them.
That's why it has to fail-through to a working state.
What exactly does that mean for a biometric trigger lock?
What is a "fail"? It's when the authorized user attempts to use the weapon and the CPU doesn't recognize his biometrics. The "fail through working" mode means that the CPU doesn't recognize the authorized user's prints and lets him fire anyway.
So, how does the CPU know that it has failed to allow the authorized user and not succeeded in preventing an unauthorized user? It can't. "I read this data from the sensor, it doesn't match what I have on record for authorized users, I don't fire." That data won't match for an unauthorized user just like it doesn't match when an authorized user has a bandaid on his finger or whatever. Or if the CPU just fails to match it.
I.e., "fail through to working" is saying "no lock at all."
The second largest issue will be the technology use. What will happen the first time someone takes a friend to the range and the gun he's showing off won't fire? He'll add the friend to the authorized list of fingers. Then he's supposed to remove him. And put him back. And then add someone else.
The natural reaction will be "I'll just shut this damn system off, it's too hard to deal with..." and the gun will be open to anyone.
I'll only consider such a technology if/when law enforcement has been exclusively using such devices for years and data on false negative/positives is available.
No sane cop is going to give anyone an automatic 1/3 second firing advantage voluntarily. If they are forced to carry these weapons, you can expect the rates of officer involved shootings to go way up. Either officers will break training and keep their fingers on the trigger when holding their weapon, or they'll try to make firing decisions 1/3 or more second sooner than they ought to.
Now, since I didn't RTFA, I don't know how the weapon reacts to a trigger pull, but if the trigger won't pull until the computer says ok you've just ruined any smooth pull of a trigger, turning a smooth pull into a pull/jerk action -- taking you off taget. Or the trigger will pull smoothly and the firing pin won't fire until the computer says ok. That leaves you holding a gun with a pulled trigger on target for 1/3 second or more waiting for the bang. And you're going to look pretty dead if your CPU fails and you're left standing with an otherwise functional gun pointing at a bad guy while you hope it actually fires.
Why, out of curiosity, would you worry about lead solder in a thing that fires lead bullets?
I wouldn't. You probably wouldn't. But politicians and regulatorycrats in some parts of the world do. RoHS is big in the EU. If you manufacture something, it has to be RoHS, even if you are making it out of lead.
Not unreasonable if you ask me.
The actions aren't unreasonable, but the fact that the government is stepping in demanding that they do this because some people are idiots and don't read the terms of a loan contract they are voluntarily signing is the unreasonable part.
I watched the T-Mobile ads last night, and not a single one of them was misleading or confusing. They haven't hid time to roll out the new versions, so these were the same ones that confused the Washington AG. If they did, it says a lot about him.
or somehow point out that bit about how all is due instantly if you cancel the contract.
What else do you want them to "point out" in a 30 second TV commercial? Frequencies? That you have to have your phone turned on to be able to make a cell call? That you need to charge the battery every so often?
It seems like common sense that if you choose to stop doing business with a company that means you stop doing business with that company, including any loans that you may have outstanding. It seems like common sense that when you stop doing business with someone with whom you have an outstanding loan balance, that you don't get to just walk away without paying it off. It seems "common sense" doesn't live in the Washington AG office, however.
...and a suicide bomber (as these individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter) would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd.
The fact that these two left the bags and ran away before the explosion removes them from the category "suicide bomber". They clearly expected and wanted to survive the attack.
Now, they may have accepted the fact that they would not survive a police encounter, but by hiding they demonstrated that they did not want to have that police encounter, thus also removing them from the category of "suicide by police".
You are right, true suicide bombers will wear their device until it goes off, and thus security cameras looking for unattended packages will fail to stop them. However, security that is looking for unusual behavior might. Not a guarantee, but nothing in life is guaranteed except that it ends at some point.
We have valuable information that we cannot trust the police with.
Then do not stand on a public street displaying it to the rest of the world.
Either you 'voluntarily' bind yourself to TM or you'll have to cough up all the dough you still owe for the phone.
Or you take advantage of their "no annual contract" offer and get service without an annual contract and no termination fee. You don't have to "voluntarily bind yourself" to anyone. If you choose to do so, that's your choice. Just like you can buy accessories from them. The fact that they offer other things, too, doesn't mean that the advertisement for one thing is deceptive.
Then you take the amount of time to do all that and quadrupal it
Run a web content package on a dual-core dual-threaded CPU?
You can leave any time you want. If you can pay off the rest that you owe me, that is.
What you've missed is that there is no requirement for me to buy a car from you to start with. I can buy gas from you with no contract and no "termination fee" when I decide to buy gas somewhere else. You would be quite accurate and honest if you advertised "no annual contract" gasoline purchases.
There is no termination fee if I get phone service from T-Mobile. I don't have to buy a phone from them. They are offerering no-annual-contract phone service, just like the ads say.
In this case, T-Mobile is advertising no contract plans that aren't actually no contract plans,
They're advertising no contract CELL SERVICE plans. There is no contract for that. No annual contracts for their phone service.
You want to buy a phone from them on the installment plan, well, no reasonable person would expect there would be no contract for that. What sane person would hand out phones on an oral promise that "I'll gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today", as Wimpy would put it? In writing? It's a contract. For the cell phone. In writing? Read it before you sign.
And what sane person would ever think that all provisions of ANY contract are going to be presented in a 30 second radio or TV spot? Have you ever seen ANY company do that? Some of them put in a lot of small print, but the contract always has more. Except in Mr. Washington State AG's world.
They can't afford to pay those 600 now, which would exactly be the case, though, if they went and left TM as their carrier. And if this is not pointed out explicitly, it is reasonable for the customer to assume that his two years, 50 bucks a month contract keeps running.
If you cancel your service with T-Mobile and go to another carrier, why would any sane person think that the "50 bucks a month contract" would keep running? In fact, most people scream bloody murder if they cancel a service and find out that the "contract" they thought they cancelled kept running.
That's indirectly forcing people into staying with them.
That's directly forcing people to pay off a loan that they agreed to pay off for a product they have been provided. Gosh, how awful. Don't want a balloon payment in a loan? Don't take the loan. Surprised by a balloon payment in a loan? Read the loan contract before you sign. Simple words to live by.