Pepsi can use the trademarked term "Coke" when comparing the taste of their product to Coke, all perfectly legal.
Because, as I understand it, they have permission from Coke to do so. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the very act of saying "Pepsi is better than Coke" or vice versa is a way of reinforcing their duopoly where those are the only two options.
On the other hand, notice how most advertisements will say that their product is 10% better than "the other leading brand".
And when they do specifiy (as in "Clorox Oxi is better than Oxi Clean", "compare active ingredients to Claratin") it's usually because they are owned by the same company.
I agree though that forcing negative ad terms just reduces competition to no benefit in clarity.
That's an unfair comparison. If the impact force is only enough to bend body panels, then the casing of the wheel pod is all that would be damaged. If the force is enough to bend an axle, then an equivalent collision elsewhere on a car would do more than just "damage body panels".
I don't think it's entirely unfair. Most of the body panels are designed to collapse and crumple, sacrificing themselves for the passenger and to second order the rest of the car. You can bash in a body panel quite a bit and not damage much else (radiator being a common exception). The same amount of bashing in the wheel pod would pinch the tire. I doubt it can be designed with as much "give" as normal body panels. Which means more force directed into the struts and axle at the end of a lever-arm. The difference between a 20mph collision which clips one of those wheel pods is going to be a totally different beast than a 20mph collision that hits the front-side of a normal car.
Anyways, we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully there will be an affordable EV or PHEV coming out that you do like. What are your opinions on the i-EV (formerly i-MiEV) and the Volt?
Yeah, wait and see is the best option. There were also sorts of predictions both optimistic and dire laid at the feet of the Prius, many coming to nothing.
As to the others... The i-EV looks nice. I like the Volt better, mostly because it appears to have rear seats (as much as I love my small car, I expect to at least be able to cram 3 other people into it when necessary). I also like/dislike it's hybrid system. While running pure electric most times with range-extending ICE sounds very nice, on the other hand that ICE is added weight that shortens the pure electric range. But for American sales it seems like a wise decision.
I haven't yet run into a person who is neutral about the Aptera's styling
I can believe that, but while I'm not neutral, I'm also not diametrically opposed. I don't think it looks good at all, but I don't really care that much about looks.
As with all cars, if you damage a part of the car, you pay to get it repaired. No different with an Aptera.
I'd love to live in the universe where some damaged body panels is "no different" than a bent axle.
Comparisons to a more expensive car with aspirations towards being a hot-rod, with the expected higher repair costs to go with, is not an argument in favor of the Aptera's design.
As for three wheelers, there's a big difference between delta and tadpole configurations.
Yes, if it was a delta design, I'd be calling this the stupidest design ever, a disaster waiting to happen, and a sign that its designers were inebriated chimps. Instead, I refer merely to my "inherent dislike" of 3-wheeled designs.
Still I wish them much luck selling their car. Mass-market consumer EVs have to start somewhere, and if this design lets them pull it off, more power to them. I may even give one a test drive.
Lotus Elise: 0-60 in 4.9s. Tesla Roadster: 0-60 in 3.9s.
Electric motor torque: Sexy.
Why you'd be considering a $100k sports car if cost savings is a significant consideration is beyond me. For those in the market for a sports car, I think the Tesla Roadster can mostly stand on its own, it's relatively scant "green" credentials being just an added bonus.
Second person narration as a method of aggravation
on
Second Person
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· Score: 5, Funny
That's what I studied in my days of D&D. One of the most interesting parts of the 2nd person to me is its interaction with volition. See, a line like "you are likely to be eaten by a grue" simply describes the state of the world as it pertains to them, and "you place the teacup down on the table's edge, but it slips and falls to the ground and shatters" is simply describing the outcome of someone's chosen actions. These don't really bother anyone. But go so far as to narrate actions they did not explicitly choose, throwing in a ringer like "You begin to copulate aggressively with the cantaloupe", and you can throw your players into fits of existential angst, as if by stripping their volition from them you have stripped their very sense of self. This kind of philosophical dilemma can inspire a lot of exciting discussion between players and DM.
Now being D&D, you can explain everything away by introducing an evil wizard or cursed relic that is controlling them, and by giving them a fixed object to which to attribute their loss of free will, the issue can be resolved and the player's angst relieved.
The trick then is to pull the comforting rug of a deterministic universe in which they control their own destinies out from under them, such as with the line: "As soon as you strike the killing blow against the wizard, you notice behind him a large pile of gourds. Over come with lust, you tear off your clothes and leap upon the pile, rolling in ecstasy". What does it mean? Does free will exist? Can it exist only within the confines of those behaviors the universe has forced upon you?
Making players think the deep thoughts -- that's what being a great DM is all about.
Well this is just my opinion, but I think the Aptera is by far the ugliest of the bunch. It looks like a "space aged" (50's version thereof) golf cart. I also just inherently dislike a 3-wheeled car, and the exposed wheel struts. I see some very expensive repairs in the future after hitting something with the wheel as opposed to the front of the car.
Still, it's great that cheaper and practical EVs are coming. It's not like any of my previous car purchases have been made based on appearance.
A "simple machine" is no replacement for a soldier being able to carry 200 lbs of gear. Plus a thousand other obvious uses. Yes, a simple push-button machine would be better for one, specific task. There are already machines for those things, as they are predictable and hard for humans. This is about enhancing all the things that the most versatile and sophisticated machine, the soldier, can do.
Now that's just completely unfair. The majority of my tissue and all my organs are still completely alive. Sure it's spreading, but I'll probably just die when it goes too far. On the other hand, this is a great hook.
"Counting down to his untimely death, pursued by overzealous zombie hunters, The Lesionnaire fights for his life and his freedom while bringing justice to criminals."
Okay, you're hired as my well-meaning pseudo-nemesis.
Bring these in and you have everything a disaster area/forward operating base/remote research facility would need for connectivity and information.
Yeah, except for the massive power demands of an entire data center. You can't just plug the thing into a wall socket. Requires external cooling, too.
They're cool and all if you need to rapidly increase your capacity, especially if on a temporary basis, but when starting from zero, once you've built the infrastructure necessary to power/cool one of these, you may as well move all the computers inside too.
In situations like courtrooms, political debates, news shows, and whatnot, people can and do just say things that are trivially, demonstrably wrong all the time.
P.S. In case you're wondering what name to use in your list of Top 10 Favorite Super Heroes, or what to say to the Police Chief when he asks with a mix of incredulity and quiet respect "Who was that cloaked man?" after I stop a bank robbery, I am known as "The Lesionnaire"
Re:This is one of the reason I want to see this mo
on
The Science of Iron Man
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· Score: 5, Funny
You didn't use the right kind of spider! You need a spider that already has some serious mojo that can be enhanced by the radiation.
I used a Brown Recluse. After a couple seconds of microwave enhancement, I let it bit me. And damned if I didn't develop a bad-ass super power:
Necrotic Lesions.
Sure, sure, doesn't sound like much. But you just have to be creative. Normally I keep them covered up, but when I'm say getting the jump on some bank robbers, I just expose my hideous gaping wounds and dead flesh, and they toss their cookies giving me ample time to shoot them or whatever. It's awesome. Everyone should get super powers like mine.
As long as he stays in the atmosphere, it doesn't necessarily violate conservation of mass (I guess the air intakes are just improbably small and the compressor improbably effective). Energy is a different matter; that'd be one hell of a freaking battery he's got crammed up in there.
If we're taking MADD to be an example of a temperance union, then there is no difference between a temperance union and a prohibitionist union. The history of Prohibition shows that temperance movements are either disguised forms of or become prohibitionist movements. And yes, that's a bad idea.
Re:Flying suits of armor? I don't think so.
on
The Science of Iron Man
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· Score: 1, Insightful
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.
Nobody is claiming that.
The "unlimited energy" thing is an extremely obvious impossibility, as are others. This article focuses on those "super power" aspects which do have a plausible amount of reality behind them.
One is that the current implementations being "sometimes-acceptable" means they don't count as a "proof of concept". Actually I think that's exactly what it means, same as muscle-enhancing exoskeletal body armor is very much in a "proof of concept" stage, and not actually usable in real-world deployments yet.
Second is that to actually improve the translation to the point where it is accurate requires a hard AI. Surely translation algorithms, enhanced with knowledge of colloquialisms and idiomatic usages, have the potential to make translations that are extremely good. It won't be the same as when a translator translates a novel into a foreign language, where they take creative liberties with the original text so as to improve the flow and try to make the jokes/puns work, but then again that translation is not "honest-to-god accurate" either.
Raising the drinking age to 21 is probably a good idea. Laws are supposed to benefit society. Reducing fetal alcohol syndrome and damage to the brains of our developing youth - you know, the future... well, it sounds like a good idea to me.
Ehh? How does raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 do that? Any mother who is so irresponsible that they would drink while pregnant would readily ignore any drinking laws, since plenty of people who are responsible enough to know not to drink while pregnant also ignore drinking laws. And if they get pregnant at age 22?
MADD is a temperance union, plain and simple. Whether such a thing is bad or not is up for debate, but claiming to be an anti-drunk-driving organization is just a lie.
The debate already occurred, the pro-temperance side had their chance to try out their side in reality, and it was a disaster. So I'm going to say with hubristic confidence that a temperance union is a bad idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Pepsi can use the trademarked term "Coke" when comparing the taste of their product to Coke, all perfectly legal.
Because, as I understand it, they have permission from Coke to do so. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the very act of saying "Pepsi is better than Coke" or vice versa is a way of reinforcing their duopoly where those are the only two options.
On the other hand, notice how most advertisements will say that their product is 10% better than "the other leading brand".
And when they do specifiy (as in "Clorox Oxi is better than Oxi Clean", "compare active ingredients to Claratin") it's usually because they are owned by the same company.
I agree though that forcing negative ad terms just reduces competition to no benefit in clarity.
That's an unfair comparison. If the impact force is only enough to bend body panels, then the casing of the wheel pod is all that would be damaged. If the force is enough to bend an axle, then an equivalent collision elsewhere on a car would do more than just "damage body panels".
I don't think it's entirely unfair. Most of the body panels are designed to collapse and crumple, sacrificing themselves for the passenger and to second order the rest of the car. You can bash in a body panel quite a bit and not damage much else (radiator being a common exception). The same amount of bashing in the wheel pod would pinch the tire. I doubt it can be designed with as much "give" as normal body panels. Which means more force directed into the struts and axle at the end of a lever-arm. The difference between a 20mph collision which clips one of those wheel pods is going to be a totally different beast than a 20mph collision that hits the front-side of a normal car.
Anyways, we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully there will be an affordable EV or PHEV coming out that you do like. What are your opinions on the i-EV (formerly i-MiEV) and the Volt?
Yeah, wait and see is the best option. There were also sorts of predictions both optimistic and dire laid at the feet of the Prius, many coming to nothing.
As to the others... The i-EV looks nice. I like the Volt better, mostly because it appears to have rear seats (as much as I love my small car, I expect to at least be able to cram 3 other people into it when necessary). I also like/dislike it's hybrid system. While running pure electric most times with range-extending ICE sounds very nice, on the other hand that ICE is added weight that shortens the pure electric range. But for American sales it seems like a wise decision.
I haven't yet run into a person who is neutral about the Aptera's styling
I can believe that, but while I'm not neutral, I'm also not diametrically opposed. I don't think it looks good at all, but I don't really care that much about looks.
As with all cars, if you damage a part of the car, you pay to get it repaired. No different with an Aptera.
I'd love to live in the universe where some damaged body panels is "no different" than a bent axle.
Comparisons to a more expensive car with aspirations towards being a hot-rod, with the expected higher repair costs to go with, is not an argument in favor of the Aptera's design.
As for three wheelers, there's a big difference between delta and tadpole configurations.
Yes, if it was a delta design, I'd be calling this the stupidest design ever, a disaster waiting to happen, and a sign that its designers were inebriated chimps. Instead, I refer merely to my "inherent dislike" of 3-wheeled designs.
Still I wish them much luck selling their car. Mass-market consumer EVs have to start somewhere, and if this design lets them pull it off, more power to them. I may even give one a test drive.
Lotus Elise: 0-60 in 4.9s.
Tesla Roadster: 0-60 in 3.9s.
Electric motor torque: Sexy.
Why you'd be considering a $100k sports car if cost savings is a significant consideration is beyond me. For those in the market for a sports car, I think the Tesla Roadster can mostly stand on its own, it's relatively scant "green" credentials being just an added bonus.
That's what I studied in my days of D&D. One of the most interesting parts of the 2nd person to me is its interaction with volition. See, a line like "you are likely to be eaten by a grue" simply describes the state of the world as it pertains to them, and "you place the teacup down on the table's edge, but it slips and falls to the ground and shatters" is simply describing the outcome of someone's chosen actions. These don't really bother anyone. But go so far as to narrate actions they did not explicitly choose, throwing in a ringer like "You begin to copulate aggressively with the cantaloupe", and you can throw your players into fits of existential angst, as if by stripping their volition from them you have stripped their very sense of self. This kind of philosophical dilemma can inspire a lot of exciting discussion between players and DM.
Now being D&D, you can explain everything away by introducing an evil wizard or cursed relic that is controlling them, and by giving them a fixed object to which to attribute their loss of free will, the issue can be resolved and the player's angst relieved.
The trick then is to pull the comforting rug of a deterministic universe in which they control their own destinies out from under them, such as with the line: "As soon as you strike the killing blow against the wizard, you notice behind him a large pile of gourds. Over come with lust, you tear off your clothes and leap upon the pile, rolling in ecstasy". What does it mean? Does free will exist? Can it exist only within the confines of those behaviors the universe has forced upon you?
Making players think the deep thoughts -- that's what being a great DM is all about.
Well this is just my opinion, but I think the Aptera is by far the ugliest of the bunch. It looks like a "space aged" (50's version thereof) golf cart. I also just inherently dislike a 3-wheeled car, and the exposed wheel struts. I see some very expensive repairs in the future after hitting something with the wheel as opposed to the front of the car.
Still, it's great that cheaper and practical EVs are coming. It's not like any of my previous car purchases have been made based on appearance.
A "simple machine" is no replacement for a soldier being able to carry 200 lbs of gear. Plus a thousand other obvious uses. Yes, a simple push-button machine would be better for one, specific task. There are already machines for those things, as they are predictable and hard for humans. This is about enhancing all the things that the most versatile and sophisticated machine, the soldier, can do.
Now that's just completely unfair. The majority of my tissue and all my organs are still completely alive. Sure it's spreading, but I'll probably just die when it goes too far. On the other hand, this is a great hook.
"Counting down to his untimely death, pursued by overzealous zombie hunters, The Lesionnaire fights for his life and his freedom while bringing justice to criminals."
Okay, you're hired as my well-meaning pseudo-nemesis.
Bring these in and you have everything a disaster area/forward operating base/remote research facility would need for connectivity and information.
Yeah, except for the massive power demands of an entire data center. You can't just plug the thing into a wall socket. Requires external cooling, too.
They're cool and all if you need to rapidly increase your capacity, especially if on a temporary basis, but when starting from zero, once you've built the infrastructure necessary to power/cool one of these, you may as well move all the computers inside too.
Are you saying my statement was trivially and demonstrably false?
That's slander. You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, soon.
You haven't been to court.
Of course I have; I'm a judge.
Really? Found those WMDs yet?
Yes.
In situations like courtrooms, political debates, news shows, and whatnot, people can and do just say things that are trivially, demonstrably wrong all the time.
No they can't.
you were driving without both hands on the wheel!
Don't be silly; that would be unsafe!
He was wearing an eye patch. Yarr!
P.S. In case you're wondering what name to use in your list of Top 10 Favorite Super Heroes, or what to say to the Police Chief when he asks with a mix of incredulity and quiet respect "Who was that cloaked man?" after I stop a bank robbery, I am known as "The Lesionnaire"
You didn't use the right kind of spider! You need a spider that already has some serious mojo that can be enhanced by the radiation.
I used a Brown Recluse. After a couple seconds of microwave enhancement, I let it bit me. And damned if I didn't develop a bad-ass super power:
Necrotic Lesions.
Sure, sure, doesn't sound like much. But you just have to be creative. Normally I keep them covered up, but when I'm say getting the jump on some bank robbers, I just expose my hideous gaping wounds and dead flesh, and they toss their cookies giving me ample time to shoot them or whatever. It's awesome. Everyone should get super powers like mine.
Since, far from being a savior, Iron Man ends up destroy all humans.
You say poh-tay-toh, I say poh-tah-toh.
As long as he stays in the atmosphere, it doesn't necessarily violate conservation of mass (I guess the air intakes are just improbably small and the compressor improbably effective). Energy is a different matter; that'd be one hell of a freaking battery he's got crammed up in there.
At least until this case gets decided and the law is thrown out.
That sexually explicit comment there obviously serves no purpose other than titillation.
Hell yes it encourages it. The basic operation in the game is the carjacking. Having the cops come after you is a part of the game known as "the fun".
If we're taking MADD to be an example of a temperance union, then there is no difference between a temperance union and a prohibitionist union. The history of Prohibition shows that temperance movements are either disguised forms of or become prohibitionist movements. And yes, that's a bad idea.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and try to claim that everything developed in a fantasy environment is directly translatable to real life.
Nobody is claiming that.
The "unlimited energy" thing is an extremely obvious impossibility, as are others. This article focuses on those "super power" aspects which do have a plausible amount of reality behind them.
Well, I disagree in two ways.
One is that the current implementations being "sometimes-acceptable" means they don't count as a "proof of concept". Actually I think that's exactly what it means, same as muscle-enhancing exoskeletal body armor is very much in a "proof of concept" stage, and not actually usable in real-world deployments yet.
Second is that to actually improve the translation to the point where it is accurate requires a hard AI. Surely translation algorithms, enhanced with knowledge of colloquialisms and idiomatic usages, have the potential to make translations that are extremely good. It won't be the same as when a translator translates a novel into a foreign language, where they take creative liberties with the original text so as to improve the flow and try to make the jokes/puns work, but then again that translation is not "honest-to-god accurate" either.
This works just as well with GTA IV (or Vice City) as with Mario Kart.
Mama-mia! I've had-a too much to drink-a!
But really, more than Drunk Driving, I prefer Drunk Brawling, Drunk Space Bounty Hunting, and Drunk Surgery.
Raising the drinking age to 21 is probably a good idea. Laws are supposed to benefit society. Reducing fetal alcohol syndrome and damage to the brains of our developing youth - you know, the future... well, it sounds like a good idea to me.
Ehh? How does raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 do that? Any mother who is so irresponsible that they would drink while pregnant would readily ignore any drinking laws, since plenty of people who are responsible enough to know not to drink while pregnant also ignore drinking laws. And if they get pregnant at age 22?
MADD is a temperance union, plain and simple. Whether such a thing is bad or not is up for debate, but claiming to be an anti-drunk-driving organization is just a lie.
The debate already occurred, the pro-temperance side had their chance to try out their side in reality, and it was a disaster. So I'm going to say with hubristic confidence that a temperance union is a bad idea.