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Comment Re:And all these computer parts in cars... (Score 1) 231

IDK, anti-lock brakes are nice, variable ignition timing, crash detection, monitoring the health of the engine and supporting systems, not to even get started on the newer stuff like key-less entry/starting, information displays, entertainment for passengers, voice-activated actions, adaptive cruise-control, and that's just off the top of my head.

Comment Twitter? Really? (Score 2) 236

Am I the only one who finds it sad that such an influential author's death warranted only a tweet by his publisher and that it was "confirmed" by a NYT reporter's tweet as opposed to say, Clancy's estate or an official family statement? Tom Clancy dies and he gets two tweets. I suppose there's a bit of irony there. Now get off my lawn.

Comment Re:Trust (Score 1) 311

Maybe those just aren't good examples, but both have way more than simple trust involved. There's a huge disincentive to perpetrate either of those actions. In the case of a driver, there's car repairs, court costs, plus the downstream effects; running down a pedestrian, especially one on a sidewalk is a life altering action that no sane individual would perform just on a lark. In the case of an insecure computer, the company would be ruined if it came out that they were doing this to all the systems it sold, and targeting specific individuals would be prohibitively expensive.

No, the ones to worry about are those who have a reward that outweighs the risk. Voting is an excellent example of this.

Comment Re:Thought... (Score 3, Insightful) 359

I have no idea how Apple did it

Really? They blanketed the media with commercials showing hands zooming and flipping through pictures, and I'm sure every Apply "Genius" showed every customer this cool feature of why you would want a touch interface on your phone. They basically sat down with every single person who bought an iPhone and showed them how to do it.

Comment Re:and in tsunamis? (Score 1) 89

only the front of the wave that is in the shallows slows, which is when the body and rear of the wave piles into it. Each part that gets to the shallows slows, but 'the wave' itself isn't slowing

True. I was imprecise in my language; I meant the foremost period of the wave.

Two waves that are five minutes apart in the ocean, traveling the same speed, will hit land five minutes apart as well.

False. The speed of the wave is determined by the depth of the water relative to the amplitude of the peak. As the wave approaches a shoreline, the first period will shorten and therefore the wave peaks will hit, probably dramatically, less than 5 minutes apart.

Comment Reduce driver fatigue (Score 1) 311

This might cause a major culture shift in road trips. One, forcing a 30 minute rest every 3-4 hours will do wonders for driver fatigue and provide an easy opportunity for driver swapping. Second, when you can't iron-man a 1,400 mile trip in less than a day, it becomes more probable you'll take a second to stop and take in the local scenery and culture of the area of the US you're driving through. This could do wonders for bringing the country back together since people won't be traveling from one microcosm to another without interacting with all those in between.

Comment Re:Note the discrepancy (Score 1) 91

Nobody committed fraud by hiding material facts.

Actually, that is exactly the stated problem; though, not surprisingly, Facebook denies any such thing. Reports came to light that information was selectively released in the days before the IPO and that the IPO was inappropriately priced based on that information.

Comment Re:patents vs. research? (Score 1) 121

From TFA:

No IP (intellectual property) should stand in the way of you, the countries of the world, to protect your people.

I find it really sad that countries are willing to bomb other countries and kill people under the auspices of protecting their citizenry, but feel so hamstrung by IP claims when they're actually trying to protect their citizenry that they need a pep-talk from the head of the WHO.

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