So can I jump in one of these and expect to drive at a steady 70mph for over 300 miles? If it can't, then it can't replace my diesel car.
I don't care if it can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. I *do* care if it can do 0 to 250 miles in 4.5 hours.
You wouldn't replace your diesel car with a gas or diesel SUV, either, would you (unless you need the space)?
This is a soccer mom vehicle. They don't drive 70mph for 300 miles. They drive 30-50 mph for lots of small trips, which is what an electric is really good for. Think of this as an electric replacement for gas-hog SUVs, and it makes more sense.
Who cares what kind of doors it has? The important thing is that it's electric and has the seating of a large SUV.
The soccer mom crowd doesn't need long range for ferrying family around, so this would be a great market, and would get a lot of gas guzzlers off the street if they can shave another 20-30k off of the price. The current tiny all-electrics would be terrible for lots of kids, multiple car seats, etc.
Exactly. This has to do with unmanned aircraft, which is entirely orthogonal to surveillance aircraft.
Personally, I'd like to see unmanned cargo flights; there's no real reason why every UPS/FedEx plane needs any human beings on it at all. (Of course, I supposed that would have ruined the movie Castaway).
captcha: "airmail". heh.
Also, the fall from the UPS delivery drone to my front yard would probably be more gentle than the current treatment...
Police radios are intended for tactical communication & coordination. There's normally little on there that would require covering up.
As a volunteer with my local PD, we were trained on the radios, and golden rule was, "Assume anything you say on the radio today will be on YouTube or the national news tomorrow." They already will use the issued cell phones or the chat/IM on their computers for anything sensitive or potentially embarrassing unless it's time critical.
So they sort of have to worry about what they say, but not enough to really matter. At least the radio traffic is recorded, unlike the cell phones.
The way the police are headed recently we need every single control and check possible over what they say and do. Letting them censor their own communications is a bad idea.
*Everything* the police does should be made public. If it was up to me I'd have every public servant walking around with a video camera on his shoulder recording everything they say/do. We need to watch the watchmen.
OTOH, yes, letting criminals listen in real time isn't good - it helps them get away. There's a better solution then 'encrypt everything' though...
In my city, most of that sensitive stuff isn't put on the radio in the first place. It all goes encrypted to the computers in their cars.
I have in the past heard police radio traffic that broadcast people's name, DOB, SSN, and all sorts of other identifying information (trying to verify a warrant) in the clear, so encryption wouldn't necessarily only benefit the police.
1) Nuke the North 2) Blame it on fusion experimentation 3) ??? 4) PROFIT!
Though I expect you are joking, I do expect the US and ROK have been exploring these options for years -- considering if it would work and how China would react. The North Korean leaders are clearly the most despicable exploiters of the human race the world has seen in generations, but China likes to have them as a buffer. Possibly also fearing the economy and military of a unified Korea.
Can't you trace radioactive residue somehow (ratios of isotopes, or something like that) after the fact? That might make that scheme difficult unless we can get some of their own nuclear material to build the bomb out of.
Bullet trains just don't make sense in the US. In, for example, Japan, there are fewer metropolitan areas, so transportation that's limited to a few high-traffic routes makes sense. There are too many combinations of origins and destinations here for anything but an insanely expensive and huge train network to be useful.
We'd be better off with a network of short-haul auto-trains built in the interstate highway right-of-way. Hop on just south of Dallas, for example, and get off at Waco, get back on the next section if you're going all the way to Austin. (basically a commuter train for cars) Bonus if you can charge electric cars on the train (suddenly that 100mi range doesn't seem so bad). This gets existing gasoline-powered cars off the road, and means that it's still useful even if it doesn't go exactly where you're coming from or going to.
What they should be doing is putting a chip on the card that contains a private key (which you can't read from the card). Plug the card into the POS system, and the POS system uploads the transaction information, the card attaches your account number and signs it, then returns it to the POS system which can then forward it to the bank.
Doesn't help if someone physically steals the card, but any sort of "skimming" would be impossible. (unless it's using a gimmicked point-of-sale system that's fiddling with the transaction information before it's signed, but if the card could display merchant name & amount, that would take care of that, too)
We need to have the liability insurance rates take vehicle weight into account. Take the weight of a "normal" car (about 3,000lb in the US), and multiply the premiums by (insured vehicle weight / 3000). Insuring a Mini? You get a discount because you won't be causing as much damage. Insuring a hummer? Enjoy your 2-3x insurance premiums (since you're carrying 2-3x the kinetic energy/damage potential).
That would definitely provide a disincentive to give young drivers (with already-high insurance) a huge vehicle to cause mayhem with.
So what happens when you park and fold the car, then someone comes and uses the extra space to park? You're stuck.
It's bad enough with cars that don't fold when idiots park so close you can't get back out.
Now maybe if it shortens the car enough that you can "parallel park" head in... Of course then you'd have to expand the car into traffic and sit there while you load up/get in.
These aren't intrusion tests they're talking about but certification audits.
My experience with those (ISO, SAS, etc.) is that a company hires someone to write up a bunch of documents to match what the auditors want to see, and tell the employees where to find it. Then the auditors come and get told/shown what they want to hear/see so they'll go away and let us get back to real work. The documentation isn't looked at again by regular employees until the next audit.
Those certs are just like professional certs like MCSE, CCNA, etc. They don't really have any bearing on whether or not you're good at what you do, but they sound good to customers/employers.
GUI vs. Command Line. I lived through that argument in the 80's and 90's. With a GUI, syntax problems go away - IF you can figure out how to find/launch the GUI. On the command line, all commands are available in one spot, but the syntax can be challenging. We really just traded one problem for another.
They way I usually put this is that GUIs are easy to learn, but tend to be difficult and inefficient to actually use, while CLI is difficult to learn, but once you do, they're very easy and quick to use. Which one is better depends on your particular use case.
It's very rare that I'll spill, but man, it seems like just a little splash has a high probability of rendering it useless.
At my last job, we used a dishwasher to clean keyboards coming back from lease returns (man, were they nasty). Out of hundreds or thousands that came through there over several years, I don't think any of them ever died because of that. What are you splashing on them, sulphuric acid?:P
In any event, the iron clad rule of development is: you write it in a week, you support it for eternity. So with that in mind, give them your code. If you wrote anything worthwhile, they will come back with more requests and then you can negotiate for raises and such. If you do this, don't go for the jugular in your demands. Negotiate small projects and raises. Again, over time, as they see your value you can move into more responsibilities and pay.
Or get a new job after they start using it, so you can charge nice, fat consulting rates for any other work on it.:P
In any case, since it was on your own time, make it clear that you're licensing it to them, not giving it to them - it's still yours. That might also be a tactful way to get them to think about paying you for it if you decide to leave at some point.
aaannd... now that I know about this, I'll just put some cheap flip-up dark filter glass on my piratical AK's scope, and now I have a convenient aim point, even if I couldn't otherwise see you!
Listening to the radio is completely different. You're just passively listening, not actively participating. I find I've tuned out the radio all the time when I'm driving. Converstations (on the phone and in person), managing kids, *fiddling* with the radio, etc. all sap attention, but not just listening. In fact, at least for me, it helps maintain focus.
They'd better be careful, too, because someone who only has a few months to live anyway, and realizes that these guys have just screwed their survivors out of thousands of dollars might very well take them out and shoot them...
When it comes to useful communication, talking is usually one of the most inefficient and ineffective ways to get real work done. Whatever slight advantage might come from the realtime aspect of it is immediately lost several times over due to the lack of any history being retained. This makes it far more difficult to refer back to it later, to share it with others, and to search through large volumes of it.
In most businesses, those people doing the real bulk of the work tend to prefer written communication. It's just a far more efficient way to work. In turn, those who prefer verbal communication are usually those who do the least real work. They're the ones who sit in meetings or phone calls all day "planning" or "discussing strategy" or otherwise not doing anything useful.
My experience is the exact opposite. It can take *ages* to go back and forth with email to hash something out that only takes a five minute phone call. Once we agree on something, it's easy enough to summarize in an email so we both have a record.
I'm all for legalizing some drugs for exactly this reason, but I have a feeling that anyone making serious progress in that direction will end up just as dead as anyone more openly defying the cartels.
A huge percentage of corporations are not gigantic multinational corporations like GE. They are small or medium businesses that don't have offshore offices or highly-paid tax accountants. They do their corporate taxes on turbotax and they pay 35%. I will soon be one of them as my business is changing from a sole-member LLC to a partnership next year. Guess that makes me part of the 1%...
Exactly... The big companies probably love the current system, because they have an advantage over the little guys.
We should change the corp tax code so that you get a deduction equal to the percentage of your employees that live in the US. Hire all Americans? They're already paying tax, so no tax for you. Offshore? Pay up if you're going to sell/do business here.
Well, how about having a national database that stores all that information. Just make the states and municipalities responsible for maintaining their own data. You don't keep it up to date? No one has to collect your taxes. That should guarantee that it's pretty accurate.
In order to work, though it would require some sort of nationally uniform product classification system to handle all of the different we-tax-this-but-not-that policies.
And I'm sure it will snowball quickly. Everyone who's disconnected will be connecting to any open wireless or other access they can find, and ultimately probably getting completely innocent people disconnected as well. Then they'll just move on to the next source of access.
Slashdot Mirror
So can I jump in one of these and expect to drive at a steady 70mph for over 300 miles? If it can't, then it can't replace my diesel car.
I don't care if it can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. I *do* care if it can do 0 to 250 miles in 4.5 hours.
You wouldn't replace your diesel car with a gas or diesel SUV, either, would you (unless you need the space)?
This is a soccer mom vehicle. They don't drive 70mph for 300 miles. They drive 30-50 mph for lots of small trips, which is what an electric is really good for. Think of this as an electric replacement for gas-hog SUVs, and it makes more sense.
Who cares what kind of doors it has? The important thing is that it's electric and has the seating of a large SUV.
The soccer mom crowd doesn't need long range for ferrying family around, so this would be a great market, and would get a lot of gas guzzlers off the street if they can shave another 20-30k off of the price. The current tiny all-electrics would be terrible for lots of kids, multiple car seats, etc.
Exactly. This has to do with unmanned aircraft, which is entirely orthogonal to surveillance aircraft.
Personally, I'd like to see unmanned cargo flights; there's no real reason why every UPS/FedEx plane needs any human beings on it at all. (Of course, I supposed that would have ruined the movie Castaway).
captcha: "airmail". heh.
Also, the fall from the UPS delivery drone to my front yard would probably be more gentle than the current treatment...
Police radios are intended for tactical communication & coordination. There's normally little on there that would require covering up.
As a volunteer with my local PD, we were trained on the radios, and golden rule was, "Assume anything you say on the radio today will be on YouTube or the national news tomorrow." They already will use the issued cell phones or the chat/IM on their computers for anything sensitive or potentially embarrassing unless it's time critical.
So they sort of have to worry about what they say, but not enough to really matter. At least the radio traffic is recorded, unlike the cell phones.
The way the police are headed recently we need every single control and check possible over what they say and do. Letting them censor their own communications is a bad idea.
*Everything* the police does should be made public. If it was up to me I'd have every public servant walking around with a video camera on his shoulder recording everything they say/do. We need to watch the watchmen.
OTOH, yes, letting criminals listen in real time isn't good - it helps them get away. There's a better solution then 'encrypt everything' though...
In my city, most of that sensitive stuff isn't put on the radio in the first place. It all goes encrypted to the computers in their cars.
I have in the past heard police radio traffic that broadcast people's name, DOB, SSN, and all sorts of other identifying information (trying to verify a warrant) in the clear, so encryption wouldn't necessarily only benefit the police.
1) Nuke the North
2) Blame it on fusion experimentation
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
Though I expect you are joking, I do expect the US and ROK have been exploring these options for years -- considering if it would work and how China would react. The North Korean leaders are clearly the most despicable exploiters of the human race the world has seen in generations, but China likes to have them as a buffer. Possibly also fearing the economy and military of a unified Korea.
Can't you trace radioactive residue somehow (ratios of isotopes, or something like that) after the fact? That might make that scheme difficult unless we can get some of their own nuclear material to build the bomb out of.
Bullet trains just don't make sense in the US. In, for example, Japan, there are fewer metropolitan areas, so transportation that's limited to a few high-traffic routes makes sense. There are too many combinations of origins and destinations here for anything but an insanely expensive and huge train network to be useful.
We'd be better off with a network of short-haul auto-trains built in the interstate highway right-of-way. Hop on just south of Dallas, for example, and get off at Waco, get back on the next section if you're going all the way to Austin. (basically a commuter train for cars) Bonus if you can charge electric cars on the train (suddenly that 100mi range doesn't seem so bad). This gets existing gasoline-powered cars off the road, and means that it's still useful even if it doesn't go exactly where you're coming from or going to.
What they should be doing is putting a chip on the card that contains a private key (which you can't read from the card). Plug the card into the POS system, and the POS system uploads the transaction information, the card attaches your account number and signs it, then returns it to the POS system which can then forward it to the bank.
Doesn't help if someone physically steals the card, but any sort of "skimming" would be impossible. (unless it's using a gimmicked point-of-sale system that's fiddling with the transaction information before it's signed, but if the card could display merchant name & amount, that would take care of that, too)
We need to have the liability insurance rates take vehicle weight into account. Take the weight of a "normal" car (about 3,000lb in the US), and multiply the premiums by (insured vehicle weight / 3000). Insuring a Mini? You get a discount because you won't be causing as much damage. Insuring a hummer? Enjoy your 2-3x insurance premiums (since you're carrying 2-3x the kinetic energy/damage potential).
That would definitely provide a disincentive to give young drivers (with already-high insurance) a huge vehicle to cause mayhem with.
So what happens when you park and fold the car, then someone comes and uses the extra space to park? You're stuck.
It's bad enough with cars that don't fold when idiots park so close you can't get back out.
Now maybe if it shortens the car enough that you can "parallel park" head in... Of course then you'd have to expand the car into traffic and sit there while you load up/get in.
These aren't intrusion tests they're talking about but certification audits.
My experience with those (ISO, SAS, etc.) is that a company hires someone to write up a bunch of documents to match what the auditors want to see, and tell the employees where to find it. Then the auditors come and get told/shown what they want to hear/see so they'll go away and let us get back to real work. The documentation isn't looked at again by regular employees until the next audit.
Those certs are just like professional certs like MCSE, CCNA, etc. They don't really have any bearing on whether or not you're good at what you do, but they sound good to customers/employers.
GUI vs. Command Line. I lived through that argument in the 80's and 90's. With a GUI, syntax problems go away - IF you can figure out how to find/launch the GUI. On the command line, all commands are available in one spot, but the syntax can be challenging. We really just traded one problem for another.
They way I usually put this is that GUIs are easy to learn, but tend to be difficult and inefficient to actually use, while CLI is difficult to learn, but once you do, they're very easy and quick to use. Which one is better depends on your particular use case.
It's very rare that I'll spill, but man, it seems like just a little splash has a high probability of rendering it useless.
At my last job, we used a dishwasher to clean keyboards coming back from lease returns (man, were they nasty). Out of hundreds or thousands that came through there over several years, I don't think any of them ever died because of that. What are you splashing on them, sulphuric acid? :P
Let him set up the meeting... there's nothing that says you have to show up.
In any event, the iron clad rule of development is: you write it in a week, you support it for eternity. So with that in mind, give them your code. If you wrote anything worthwhile, they will come back with more requests and then you can negotiate for raises and such. If you do this, don't go for the jugular in your demands. Negotiate small projects and raises. Again, over time, as they see your value you can move into more responsibilities and pay.
Or get a new job after they start using it, so you can charge nice, fat consulting rates for any other work on it. :P
In any case, since it was on your own time, make it clear that you're licensing it to them, not giving it to them - it's still yours. That might also be a tactful way to get them to think about paying you for it if you decide to leave at some point.
aaannd... now that I know about this, I'll just put some cheap flip-up dark filter glass on my piratical AK's scope, and now I have a convenient aim point, even if I couldn't otherwise see you!
Listening to the radio is completely different. You're just passively listening, not actively participating. I find I've tuned out the radio all the time when I'm driving. Converstations (on the phone and in person), managing kids, *fiddling* with the radio, etc. all sap attention, but not just listening. In fact, at least for me, it helps maintain focus.
Not to mention that the cartels know this, and anyone making serious headway along those lines would probably have a very short life...
They'd better be careful, too, because someone who only has a few months to live anyway, and realizes that these guys have just screwed their survivors out of thousands of dollars might very well take them out and shoot them...
Hereby I claim that factoring large primes can be done. The task of finding fairly trivial implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
factorprime( number )
return [1, number]
There you go... :P ...or did you mean "determining whether large numbers are prime"? :)
When it comes to useful communication, talking is usually one of the most inefficient and ineffective ways to get real work done. Whatever slight advantage might come from the realtime aspect of it is immediately lost several times over due to the lack of any history being retained. This makes it far more difficult to refer back to it later, to share it with others, and to search through large volumes of it.
In most businesses, those people doing the real bulk of the work tend to prefer written communication. It's just a far more efficient way to work. In turn, those who prefer verbal communication are usually those who do the least real work. They're the ones who sit in meetings or phone calls all day "planning" or "discussing strategy" or otherwise not doing anything useful.
My experience is the exact opposite. It can take *ages* to go back and forth with email to hash something out that only takes a five minute phone call. Once we agree on something, it's easy enough to summarize in an email so we both have a record.
I'm all for legalizing some drugs for exactly this reason, but I have a feeling that anyone making serious progress in that direction will end up just as dead as anyone more openly defying the cartels.
A huge percentage of corporations are not gigantic multinational corporations like GE. They are small or medium businesses that don't have offshore offices or highly-paid tax accountants. They do their corporate taxes on turbotax and they pay 35%. I will soon be one of them as my business is changing from a sole-member LLC to a partnership next year. Guess that makes me part of the 1%...
Exactly... The big companies probably love the current system, because they have an advantage over the little guys.
We should change the corp tax code so that you get a deduction equal to the percentage of your employees that live in the US. Hire all Americans? They're already paying tax, so no tax for you. Offshore? Pay up if you're going to sell/do business here.
Well, how about having a national database that stores all that information. Just make the states and municipalities responsible for maintaining their own data. You don't keep it up to date? No one has to collect your taxes. That should guarantee that it's pretty accurate.
In order to work, though it would require some sort of nationally uniform product classification system to handle all of the different we-tax-this-but-not-that policies.
And I'm sure it will snowball quickly. Everyone who's disconnected will be connecting to any open wireless or other access they can find, and ultimately probably getting completely innocent people disconnected as well. Then they'll just move on to the next source of access.