You fell for the misleading claims, though. They're not talking about replacing anything, they're just phrasing their ban proposal in a way that would imply it. So that they sound reasonable.
When he says:
delusional group of ideologues... who will actively seek to prevent dedicated bicycle facilities from being built if it means people will ride in ways they disapprove of
What he means by "dedicated bicycle facilities" is a park. Where you're allowed to ride your toy. Of course, they blame "vehicular cyclists" but that isn't who is trying to popularize the idea; it is anti-bicyclists who are pointing at fringe nutcases to try to paint bicyclists in general as insane impediments to road traffic.
However if you're saying that at the same time cyclists should be banned from roads that don't have a dedicated bicycle lane, then I have to vehemently disagree with you,
Pretty sure nobody is saying anything of the sort. Well, no cyclists would, anyway.
They're certainly saying it, not cyclists but people involved in that debate. The reason it sounds like something nobody would say is because it isn't a popular idea.;) Probably less than 1% of people supporting any sort of ban actually support replacing all of the access they would be removing. Pretty much all the people talking about it are intentionally misleading in how they present the issue, because if people understand what they actually mean they'll get laughed at. What they really mean is, bicycles are just toys, not transportation, and transportation plans don't need to seriously include them.
who will actively seek to prevent dedicated bicycle facilities from being built if it means people will ride in ways they disapprove of.
This is intentionally misleading. Nobody proposing to ban bicycles from traffic lanes is actually proposing to spend the money to replace that access with dedicated lanes. No, telling cyclists to stay in the park is not the same as building "dedicated facilities" in the context of traffic.
Not only that. The laws limit the speed to 20 mph max for electric. Worthless on flat roads when you can easily reach 25 mph. It prevents them from being used on the roads properly.
No surprise, but cow-herd misrepresents the laws. In my State the cutoff is 15mph, not 20, but that isn't a speed limit of any sort.
That is merely the speed where it becomes a moped or scooter instead of a "bicycle." So if your device can go over that speed, then it is type of light motorcycle rather than a bicycle, and can't be used on bicycle-only paths. The funny part is that your complaint is that the rule interferes with being able to use electric bikes on roads; no, that is exactly the solution those rules explain to you: if you want it fast enough to be useful on most roads, then you'll have to drive it... on the road.
Also, it has nothing to do with electric; in most states it applies to any power-assisted bicycle, regardless of technology used. And before these laws were written, all power assisted bicycles were mopeds, a type of light motorcycle! These laws were added specifically to allow those devices which operate at a low (device-limited) speed to operate without licensing and on bike paths.
Disappointing that you switched to Mars in the middle there. What we were talking about was reuse of rockets.
The reason it is disappointing is that it shows you didn't even consider another explanation, you're ready to engage in logical fallacy rather than confront another perspective.
You talk more about cadence, but you didn't first disagree with my claim cadence is not a viable measure of research progress, so it is hard to know what you intended to convey other than that you didn't understand what I wrote before you responded to it. Why is "cadence" important at all? It obviously would matter to the short term cash flow of a company, but how could the short term cadence of results tell you about what research progress is being made? If one company is launching more satellites and not researching reuse, and another never launches a real payload but commits lots of money to bench testing components for reusability, with the eventual aim of doing launch tests, who is more likely to eventually have reusable rockets? I say the company whose actions are part of a goal of reuse is going to make more progress to that goal than a company that isn't interested in it and doesn't believe it is profitable to research.
As for Mars, if you're not interested in it, why be against it? It will clearly advance various parts of the technology involved in space flight. The great thing about diving back into a gravity well quickly is that it is harder than just flying around once you're out there. The technology is not yet at the point where it is practicable to do something useful other than pure science once you're out there; and those things are only about payload and do not advance the vehicles at a very fast rate. It seems to me that something somewhat pointless but that is a clear, visible goal is what is needed to push the vehicle technology forwards.
Do you actually perceive a pressing need for more satellites? It seems to me there might be too many being sent up for stupid short-term commercial reasons that will seriously pollute orbit. What if they made the same number of launches, but didn't deliver anything? That might actually get humans into space sooner.
Orbital habitats are a great idea, and in my view (having read a lot of science fiction) that is an important goal for humanity, so that we can survive various disasters that Earth has experienced in the past. Maybe you haven't considered the similarity between a journey to Mars, and important parts of the orbital habitat technology ecosystem? For example, if you want to populate habitats, it seems like escape pods of some sort would be prudent. Orbital habitats could be vital insurance for humanity, but the habitats themselves will be higher risk on a day to day (or millennium to millennium) basis. Having evacuation available would help encourage a quality cross-section of humanity to be represented. When you go to Mars, you're sending something out on an extended trip and then dropping it back into a gravity well; that might not be the technology of the habitat, but it might be the technology of the escape pods. Think bigger. (plus, it gets people interested in space and that brings money, but you knew that part even before you overlooked it)
And why is cheap access to orbit a good goal? That creates a lot of very expensive externalities relating to security...
SpaceX is not yet operating at the cadence that could make reuse profitable, and they have not yet reflown the returned boosters. This is more important than simple profitability of the company, because it drives down the gateway cost of space. IMO that is critical for the human race.
Being profitable + doing serious R&D on reuse = the path to profitable reuse.
I've been reading your comments for a couple decades and usually they're more insightful than this one.;) They don't need to be "operating at a[n imposed] cadence" they need to be operating with the appropriate feedbacks and incentives to get there. The cadence might follow any of a variety of patterns, even while progress is continuous and regular.
"It isn't impossible" is the ultimate straw-man; nothing can be proved to be impossible.
The question isn't, "what refutes this idea?" but "what supports this idea." In that way, Elon starts out off the rails and never makes any sort of reasoned argument at all.
What he proves is that his idea is not falsifiable but that doesn't mean it is 1000-1 likely to be true; it means that it is such a poor idea that it is not even testable and should be discarded. It will not result in a hypothesis; it is pure Plato's Cave guessing.
What if the Deists already believe that "bearded man in cloud" is just an artistic representation crafted for children and cave-people?
I certainly have met Christians who say, "Why couldn't God have used evolution as his paint brush? And why would anybody think he'd have been able to explain the details to Moses? The Book doesn't have a physics section because nobody would have understood it when it was written, and new books aren't written post-Jesus." This is often implied by the phrase "liberal Christian." Liberal here not meaning politics, but a broad willingness to consider different ideas.
That's the funny thing about Faith; if they have enough of it, they can not only accept a man-in-the-cloud, they can also just modify their beliefs to match physical realities. People can have a lot of debates about God, but it is indisputable that Faith can encompass the full range of beliefs and allows for any set of beliefs to be adopted.
Jainism is a refuted doctrine with very few followers. (about 5 million worldwide) It was growing at the time of Siddhartha ("the Buddha") and indeed many Buddhist moral teachings are phrased specifically as comparisons with what Jain was teaching.
The reason I say "refuted" is that one of the most important beliefs is a sort of strict compliance non-violence; if you step on a bug, and it dies, you have murdered a living being. It is the same as premeditated murder of a human. It was an interesting idea, but it does not survive the microscope; you can't eat vegetables without also eating lots of living animals.
That is connected to the standard Buddhist concept of non-violence, which instead of being strict is based on intent. The formulation given is also a major moral debate with the Jainists during Siddhartha's life. The idea is that a monk who is sweeping the path and kills some ants that are on the path has not committed murder, because his intent is only to clean the path; he did not approach the path with the broom for the purpose of killing ants. And there is no way to sweep the path without some ants dying. A Jainist commits murder if his broom kills an ant, regardless of his intent, regardless of if he even saw the ant or had any way to avoid harming it.
The Buddhist concept of vegetarianism is also rooted in intent; it is not allowed for a monk to eat meat that was killed or purchased for him, but he is allowed to eat leftovers that would otherwise go to waste. And the test is if he believes, thinks, or suspects that the food was prepared specifically for him or for his visit. If his presence didn't cause the animal to be killed, then he has no moral involvement in the killing of the animal. But if it was prepared with the intent of feeding him, or more specifically if he thinks that might be true, then he has a share of the moral harm of killing the animal.
There are other examples; Jainism is a philosophy that was mostly superseded by Buddhism and Hinduism for real, physical reasons relating to how possible it is to follow it even if you're trying. That's why there are only 5 million followers, when there were probably more than that 2 thousand years ago.
As somebody who knows COBOL and always chooses something else, I agree with you. COBOL is just a crufty old language, there is nothing morally, ethically, or technically wrong with it. It just tastes bad.
That part doesn't bother me. It is the "it isn't high tech, because we want their money" part that annoys me. I don't care if they have sucky rules as long as they're the rules they want; but they should at least be honest about what the rules are.
My prepaid dumb phone lets me set the ring tone to "none," so I just have all the repeat spammers in my book. You have to do it in the phone contacts, not in the carrier interface.
You block individual HTML elements. So no problem. They can't style the ads differently to disclose that they are ads, and work in a web browser without a special plugin (like flash), and still stop ad blocking. They can have two of those at a time, but that's not good enough.
On a mobile device using an app, they're winning the arms race.
They also change flavors too frequently to follow through on any plans to fix things within the current flavor's ideology. You have to have drank the stuff, and also be ready to switch to the new flavor.
You can create a monopoly out of any company, just narrow how you define the market far enough.
In the old days, the purpose of talking about "desktop" wasn't to leave out laptops, or other portables, the point was to differentiate servers, workstations, and consumer desktops. Those were the three areas of computer sales.
Focusing narrowly on "desktop" as a flavor of consumer OS seems a bit silly to me.
Also, there is no perceived "lock." There is nothing at all that is platform-dependent outside of games, and even there, while gaming-on-a-PC is dominated by windows, consoles are most of the gaming market. And very few of the windows games are not available on a console. Office software, formerly an area of windows dominance, no longer requires windows; even if you're using MS Office.
It doesn't do a lot of good to just grab a chart and spam it out; think about what the implications are, and how it differs from the past. Then you can type in relevant words; if you have any insight to offer. Having no "lock-in" doesn't create a "strangle-hold." Especially when most consumer software sales are NOT for windows software. It is hilarious to narrow your categories so far that the majority of consumer software sales are excluded, and yet still to have retained the idea that the narrowed category is the significant category.
Let me put it another way: there is more commercial, proprietary software being sold on linux (android) than on windows. There are more consumer non-windows devices than windows devices, and that remains true if you only count general-purpose computers like desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart-phones. In the old days, the only way to get non-windows numbers in the majority was to include set-top boxes.
Significance has more to do with the ability to control the market than with having a chart. If they can't control the market, then they don't get any benefit from low quality free-riding consumers using their brand. They don't get benefit from supporting past products for a long time if their focus now is only on people willing to pay subscriptions.
Body fat estimating scales don't claim to "read" or otherwise measure body fat. They only claim to estimate what it would be in the average person with the same height/weight/age or whatever inputs it has.
But if the claim in the advertising when read using the words in the actual ad is not true, that is bigger deal. "Gosh, I saw some other products that also lied about what they do" isn't a defense that is likely to be worth the time saying it; even if you found a better example.
The question here isn't "is it shocking" but "is it fraudulent?"
If it's advertised as a fitness aid (it even has "fit" in the name!) or as helping with exercise, and that is exactly when it fails, then that is a potentially fraudulent product; and not because it isn't a medical device.
If it was good at measuring during exercise, but was inaccurate at rest, then that might not be a problem. After all, it is a fitness aid, not a heart monitor...
The big problem with attacking the methodology here is that if they call the bluff and make improvements to the methodology, the results aren't going to change and Fitbit knows that, or should know it based on their own information. Plus, as part of the lawsuit they're going to have to release to the opposing lawyers the information they have about the accuracy of the devices; is this study more accurate than their own (also self-funded!) data? Did they even do the testing to have a basis for believing their product is fit for its advertised purpose?
If they demand a better study, even though their own data didn't contradict it, and a better study is done, they could be on the hook for the bill as part of the legal fees. Attacking this study is a knee-jerk reaction by their lawyers, but it might be poorly thought out.
It is just incredibly daft to attack the study unless the results are actually incorrect. And if they don't actually know, and haven't done a better study, then complaining might actually hurt them by demonstrating their intent to sell the product without knowing if it works; even if no further studies are done.
It might be that the best response would be to claim that the study showed the product to be good enough for advertised uses, and that it isn't a medical device. At least then they'd be staking their chances on a gray area, instead of on denying a provable problem with the product.
If you're not willing to switch to their new subscription-based system, you're simply not welcome as a customer. If you bought a computer with microsoft, you can't both keep what you bought and also have updates. You need to choose; do it their way, unplug the box from the network, or switch to a different OS. They're not the market leader anymore, they don't have the advantages of monopoly, and so they're not going to keep being the default consumer OS. They want customers willing to pay, and willing to commit to a subscription-based system. That means no poor people without financial security, no free OS copying, and not being installed on equipment that is sold as a product.
Quit whining and choose the OS that does what you want. I choose software freedom because nobody can change my choices for me later.
I thought "irony" is where people laugh at themselves while admitting they didn't understand the scope of the words used, and thought there was a contradiction, but then realized there wasn't one?
Any intentional attempt at irony would of course be included in the literal intent of the words, so I don't think your definition can encompass the most common uses. Unintentional uses seem to universally be not-ironic to people that understand the subject; they're just things people usually don't expect about the subject.
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You fell for the misleading claims, though. They're not talking about replacing anything, they're just phrasing their ban proposal in a way that would imply it. So that they sound reasonable.
When he says:
delusional group of ideologues... who will actively seek to prevent dedicated bicycle facilities from being built if it means people will ride in ways they disapprove of
What he means by "dedicated bicycle facilities" is a park. Where you're allowed to ride your toy. Of course, they blame "vehicular cyclists" but that isn't who is trying to popularize the idea; it is anti-bicyclists who are pointing at fringe nutcases to try to paint bicyclists in general as insane impediments to road traffic.
However if you're saying that at the same time cyclists should be banned from roads that don't have a dedicated bicycle lane, then I have to vehemently disagree with you,
Pretty sure nobody is saying anything of the sort. Well, no cyclists would, anyway.
They're certainly saying it, not cyclists but people involved in that debate. The reason it sounds like something nobody would say is because it isn't a popular idea. ;) Probably less than 1% of people supporting any sort of ban actually support replacing all of the access they would be removing. Pretty much all the people talking about it are intentionally misleading in how they present the issue, because if people understand what they actually mean they'll get laughed at. What they really mean is, bicycles are just toys, not transportation, and transportation plans don't need to seriously include them.
who will actively seek to prevent dedicated bicycle facilities from being built if it means people will ride in ways they disapprove of.
This is intentionally misleading. Nobody proposing to ban bicycles from traffic lanes is actually proposing to spend the money to replace that access with dedicated lanes. No, telling cyclists to stay in the park is not the same as building "dedicated facilities" in the context of traffic.
Not only that. The laws limit the speed to 20 mph max for electric. Worthless on flat roads when you can easily reach 25 mph. It prevents them from being used on the roads properly.
No surprise, but cow-herd misrepresents the laws. In my State the cutoff is 15mph, not 20, but that isn't a speed limit of any sort.
That is merely the speed where it becomes a moped or scooter instead of a "bicycle." So if your device can go over that speed, then it is type of light motorcycle rather than a bicycle, and can't be used on bicycle-only paths. The funny part is that your complaint is that the rule interferes with being able to use electric bikes on roads; no, that is exactly the solution those rules explain to you: if you want it fast enough to be useful on most roads, then you'll have to drive it... on the road.
Also, it has nothing to do with electric; in most states it applies to any power-assisted bicycle, regardless of technology used. And before these laws were written, all power assisted bicycles were mopeds, a type of light motorcycle! These laws were added specifically to allow those devices which operate at a low (device-limited) speed to operate without licensing and on bike paths.
Disappointing that you switched to Mars in the middle there. What we were talking about was reuse of rockets.
The reason it is disappointing is that it shows you didn't even consider another explanation, you're ready to engage in logical fallacy rather than confront another perspective.
You talk more about cadence, but you didn't first disagree with my claim cadence is not a viable measure of research progress, so it is hard to know what you intended to convey other than that you didn't understand what I wrote before you responded to it. Why is "cadence" important at all? It obviously would matter to the short term cash flow of a company, but how could the short term cadence of results tell you about what research progress is being made? If one company is launching more satellites and not researching reuse, and another never launches a real payload but commits lots of money to bench testing components for reusability, with the eventual aim of doing launch tests, who is more likely to eventually have reusable rockets? I say the company whose actions are part of a goal of reuse is going to make more progress to that goal than a company that isn't interested in it and doesn't believe it is profitable to research.
As for Mars, if you're not interested in it, why be against it? It will clearly advance various parts of the technology involved in space flight. The great thing about diving back into a gravity well quickly is that it is harder than just flying around once you're out there. The technology is not yet at the point where it is practicable to do something useful other than pure science once you're out there; and those things are only about payload and do not advance the vehicles at a very fast rate. It seems to me that something somewhat pointless but that is a clear, visible goal is what is needed to push the vehicle technology forwards.
Do you actually perceive a pressing need for more satellites? It seems to me there might be too many being sent up for stupid short-term commercial reasons that will seriously pollute orbit. What if they made the same number of launches, but didn't deliver anything? That might actually get humans into space sooner.
Orbital habitats are a great idea, and in my view (having read a lot of science fiction) that is an important goal for humanity, so that we can survive various disasters that Earth has experienced in the past. Maybe you haven't considered the similarity between a journey to Mars, and important parts of the orbital habitat technology ecosystem? For example, if you want to populate habitats, it seems like escape pods of some sort would be prudent. Orbital habitats could be vital insurance for humanity, but the habitats themselves will be higher risk on a day to day (or millennium to millennium) basis. Having evacuation available would help encourage a quality cross-section of humanity to be represented. When you go to Mars, you're sending something out on an extended trip and then dropping it back into a gravity well; that might not be the technology of the habitat, but it might be the technology of the escape pods. Think bigger. (plus, it gets people interested in space and that brings money, but you knew that part even before you overlooked it)
And why is cheap access to orbit a good goal? That creates a lot of very expensive externalities relating to security...
SpaceX is not yet operating at the cadence that could make reuse profitable, and they have not yet reflown the returned boosters. This is more important than simple profitability of the company, because it drives down the gateway cost of space. IMO that is critical for the human race.
Being profitable + doing serious R&D on reuse = the path to profitable reuse.
I've been reading your comments for a couple decades and usually they're more insightful than this one. ;) They don't need to be "operating at a[n imposed] cadence" they need to be operating with the appropriate feedbacks and incentives to get there. The cadence might follow any of a variety of patterns, even while progress is continuous and regular.
Thank you for your interest in this topic. By-the-way, a Wat is a type of temple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"It isn't impossible" is the ultimate straw-man; nothing can be proved to be impossible.
The question isn't, "what refutes this idea?" but "what supports this idea." In that way, Elon starts out off the rails and never makes any sort of reasoned argument at all.
What he proves is that his idea is not falsifiable but that doesn't mean it is 1000-1 likely to be true; it means that it is such a poor idea that it is not even testable and should be discarded. It will not result in a hypothesis; it is pure Plato's Cave guessing.
What if the Deists already believe that "bearded man in cloud" is just an artistic representation crafted for children and cave-people?
I certainly have met Christians who say, "Why couldn't God have used evolution as his paint brush? And why would anybody think he'd have been able to explain the details to Moses? The Book doesn't have a physics section because nobody would have understood it when it was written, and new books aren't written post-Jesus." This is often implied by the phrase "liberal Christian." Liberal here not meaning politics, but a broad willingness to consider different ideas.
That's the funny thing about Faith; if they have enough of it, they can not only accept a man-in-the-cloud, they can also just modify their beliefs to match physical realities. People can have a lot of debates about God, but it is indisputable that Faith can encompass the full range of beliefs and allows for any set of beliefs to be adopted.
Jainism is a refuted doctrine with very few followers. (about 5 million worldwide) It was growing at the time of Siddhartha ("the Buddha") and indeed many Buddhist moral teachings are phrased specifically as comparisons with what Jain was teaching.
The reason I say "refuted" is that one of the most important beliefs is a sort of strict compliance non-violence; if you step on a bug, and it dies, you have murdered a living being. It is the same as premeditated murder of a human. It was an interesting idea, but it does not survive the microscope; you can't eat vegetables without also eating lots of living animals.
That is connected to the standard Buddhist concept of non-violence, which instead of being strict is based on intent. The formulation given is also a major moral debate with the Jainists during Siddhartha's life. The idea is that a monk who is sweeping the path and kills some ants that are on the path has not committed murder, because his intent is only to clean the path; he did not approach the path with the broom for the purpose of killing ants. And there is no way to sweep the path without some ants dying. A Jainist commits murder if his broom kills an ant, regardless of his intent, regardless of if he even saw the ant or had any way to avoid harming it.
The Buddhist concept of vegetarianism is also rooted in intent; it is not allowed for a monk to eat meat that was killed or purchased for him, but he is allowed to eat leftovers that would otherwise go to waste. And the test is if he believes, thinks, or suspects that the food was prepared specifically for him or for his visit. If his presence didn't cause the animal to be killed, then he has no moral involvement in the killing of the animal. But if it was prepared with the intent of feeding him, or more specifically if he thinks that might be true, then he has a share of the moral harm of killing the animal.
There are other examples; Jainism is a philosophy that was mostly superseded by Buddhism and Hinduism for real, physical reasons relating to how possible it is to follow it even if you're trying. That's why there are only 5 million followers, when there were probably more than that 2 thousand years ago.
As somebody who knows COBOL and always chooses something else, I agree with you. COBOL is just a crufty old language, there is nothing morally, ethically, or technically wrong with it. It just tastes bad.
That part doesn't bother me. It is the "it isn't high tech, because we want their money" part that annoys me. I don't care if they have sucky rules as long as they're the rules they want; but they should at least be honest about what the rules are.
My prepaid dumb phone lets me set the ring tone to "none," so I just have all the repeat spammers in my book. You have to do it in the phone contacts, not in the carrier interface.
At least buy the dynamaite that is fake-approved by ATF.
Reading. It's what's for dinner!
Thanks for that, AmiMoJo. Once again /. and their now owners create shit news like the gutter press as they scrape the gutter for clicks.
To be fair, it isn't "shit news" it is "gossip and lies" that aren't news.
It isn't news if it isn't believed to have actually happened or be happening.
You block individual HTML elements. So no problem. They can't style the ads differently to disclose that they are ads, and work in a web browser without a special plugin (like flash), and still stop ad blocking. They can have two of those at a time, but that's not good enough.
On a mobile device using an app, they're winning the arms race.
They also change flavors too frequently to follow through on any plans to fix things within the current flavor's ideology. You have to have drank the stuff, and also be ready to switch to the new flavor.
You can create a monopoly out of any company, just narrow how you define the market far enough.
In the old days, the purpose of talking about "desktop" wasn't to leave out laptops, or other portables, the point was to differentiate servers, workstations, and consumer desktops. Those were the three areas of computer sales.
Focusing narrowly on "desktop" as a flavor of consumer OS seems a bit silly to me.
Also, there is no perceived "lock." There is nothing at all that is platform-dependent outside of games, and even there, while gaming-on-a-PC is dominated by windows, consoles are most of the gaming market. And very few of the windows games are not available on a console. Office software, formerly an area of windows dominance, no longer requires windows; even if you're using MS Office.
It doesn't do a lot of good to just grab a chart and spam it out; think about what the implications are, and how it differs from the past. Then you can type in relevant words; if you have any insight to offer. Having no "lock-in" doesn't create a "strangle-hold." Especially when most consumer software sales are NOT for windows software. It is hilarious to narrow your categories so far that the majority of consumer software sales are excluded, and yet still to have retained the idea that the narrowed category is the significant category.
Let me put it another way: there is more commercial, proprietary software being sold on linux (android) than on windows. There are more consumer non-windows devices than windows devices, and that remains true if you only count general-purpose computers like desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart-phones. In the old days, the only way to get non-windows numbers in the majority was to include set-top boxes.
Significance has more to do with the ability to control the market than with having a chart. If they can't control the market, then they don't get any benefit from low quality free-riding consumers using their brand. They don't get benefit from supporting past products for a long time if their focus now is only on people willing to pay subscriptions.
Body fat estimating scales don't claim to "read" or otherwise measure body fat. They only claim to estimate what it would be in the average person with the same height/weight/age or whatever inputs it has.
But if the claim in the advertising when read using the words in the actual ad is not true, that is bigger deal. "Gosh, I saw some other products that also lied about what they do" isn't a defense that is likely to be worth the time saying it; even if you found a better example.
The question here isn't "is it shocking" but "is it fraudulent?"
If it's advertised as a fitness aid (it even has "fit" in the name!) or as helping with exercise, and that is exactly when it fails, then that is a potentially fraudulent product; and not because it isn't a medical device.
If it was good at measuring during exercise, but was inaccurate at rest, then that might not be a problem. After all, it is a fitness aid, not a heart monitor...
Fine print doesn't always help, either.
The big problem with attacking the methodology here is that if they call the bluff and make improvements to the methodology, the results aren't going to change and Fitbit knows that, or should know it based on their own information. Plus, as part of the lawsuit they're going to have to release to the opposing lawyers the information they have about the accuracy of the devices; is this study more accurate than their own (also self-funded!) data? Did they even do the testing to have a basis for believing their product is fit for its advertised purpose?
If they demand a better study, even though their own data didn't contradict it, and a better study is done, they could be on the hook for the bill as part of the legal fees. Attacking this study is a knee-jerk reaction by their lawyers, but it might be poorly thought out.
It is just incredibly daft to attack the study unless the results are actually incorrect. And if they don't actually know, and haven't done a better study, then complaining might actually hurt them by demonstrating their intent to sell the product without knowing if it works; even if no further studies are done.
It might be that the best response would be to claim that the study showed the product to be good enough for advertised uses, and that it isn't a medical device. At least then they'd be staking their chances on a gray area, instead of on denying a provable problem with the product.
If you're not willing to switch to their new subscription-based system, you're simply not welcome as a customer. If you bought a computer with microsoft, you can't both keep what you bought and also have updates. You need to choose; do it their way, unplug the box from the network, or switch to a different OS. They're not the market leader anymore, they don't have the advantages of monopoly, and so they're not going to keep being the default consumer OS. They want customers willing to pay, and willing to commit to a subscription-based system. That means no poor people without financial security, no free OS copying, and not being installed on equipment that is sold as a product.
Quit whining and choose the OS that does what you want. I choose software freedom because nobody can change my choices for me later.
darn whippersnappers these days don't even know how the machines work anymore. Pretty soon our society will be like in Spock's Brain.
I thought "irony" is where people laugh at themselves while admitting they didn't understand the scope of the words used, and thought there was a contradiction, but then realized there wasn't one?
Any intentional attempt at irony would of course be included in the literal intent of the words, so I don't think your definition can encompass the most common uses. Unintentional uses seem to universally be not-ironic to people that understand the subject; they're just things people usually don't expect about the subject.