Posts by Eddy Ito

Re: Rotten to the core

I wouldn't say it's totally fucked as a business model. If it manages to force the taxi companies paying taxes and properly employing their drivers out of business, then Uber becomes a total monopoly and can then jack prices up to take advantage of being a monopoly.

That's a crappy business model. Forcing taxi companies out of business by hemorrhaging vast sums of cash is pretty stupid and not sustainable. One might think that once they have a monopoly they could raise their fees but they have already slit their own throats. The only reason taxi companies had a monopoly was because of "the rules" and government limiting who could enter the market space by use of the ever precious medallions. Once that government repression is eliminated and the market is wide open and anyone with a car and an app can then enter the market and compete, like Lyft, there can be no monopoly. Monopolies really only thrive when they have government backing which is also why the phone company was a monopoly for such a long time.

Uber's main problem has been that it has been so Machiavellian in how it goes about trying to undercut laws and hinder competitors that it mostly forgot about what the original goal was. It went from providing a service to blindly adopting win at all costs tactics that are ultimately self destructive as we've witnessed in these first stages of collapse. At this point it really needs a hard reboot with a refreshed business plan and a lot of chlorine to sanitize the corporate culture. The question is whether they will succeed in turning it around before investors decide to cut their losses and likewise the flow of cash currently running into the furnace.

Re: Tesla semi?

You have a strong, sneaky suspicion that of all engineering companies, Tesla does not know how to do engineering? On the basis that your uncle drives a truck?

That is an interesting point of view.

I'll say that having driven a truck both long haul and locally that the design is not going to be enjoyed by many drivers. I don't doubt the engineering is at least reasonable but there is a reason that cabover/forward control horses aren't very popular in the US even though they provide great visibility and it has everything to do with the relative locations of the front wheels and the driver's seat. While this truck appears to have the seat at least a bit behind the front wheels it isn't likely to be anywhere near a nice ride unless you happen to be a big fan of jerk and jounce. Hopefully the weight of the thing will keep it tolerable.

Re: You're being too picky

Isn't the end product of things like the Darpa robot thing to come up with something that can replace an otherwise sacrificial human in a dangerous or deadly situation like "the reactor is melting down, Lassie, go into the core and fully insert the control rods or we're all goners for sure!"

Having said that, I can see where jumping could come in handy but not sure about the fancy back flips being useful. Mind if I replace that landing mat with the ball pit from a Chucky Cheese or even just a foot deep pile of styrofoam peanuts?

Re: "The Russian ministry of defense is investigating"

It isn't like everyone else doesn't do it, it's just that every once in a great while one or two get caught. I'd wager fake news is likely as old if not older than news itself.

Re: Who is Marc Rich?

Precisely, it was a bad batch of candidates all the way around. I also fear it's going to be that way for quite some time since the potentially decent candidates either won't run because they realize they are far more effective operating outside the government and aren't megalomaniacs or they choose to run as a third party candidate because they would never fit into either the red or blue camp since both controlled by the 25-30% that makes up their party's base. It's also the base of each camp that precludes any possibility of a decent candidate from rising within either camp since they will have to pander to the base.

Does it bother anyone else that Al Qaeda translates as "the base" and the major parties are constantly leaning on or trying to mobilize their base? Not saying they're the same but all make extensive use of fear tactics.

According to this report he was cycling on the southbound side, presumably in a southerly direction. Also keep in mind that while Mr. Heppell may have been in good health he was 80 years old and even a very low speed collision could be serious enough to cause death to anyone especially if suffering a head injury. Also consider unintentional falls are the leading cause of injury death for people over 65 in the U.S. with over three times the number two cause, motor vehicle deaths.

That said, accidents do happen and some are even unavoidable with no real blame attributable and until more is known there is little point in speculating.

If anyone still didn't believe that we tend to bubble ourselves away with like thinking people, this should be plenty of evidence.

Re: The reports so far with some editorial....

Are the training targets roughly man-shaped...

That would depend on the training, wouldn't it? I reserve man shaped targets for close range handgun work but for 5.56/.223 I tend to use targets the size and shape of a groundhog, for .308 I use both deer and hog shaped targets. I use both groundhog and deer/pig for my Winchester 100 carbine in .243. Lastly the .38-55 mostly sees a 3'x5' steel gong at about 800 yards but I only paint a 3'x3' square on it and only count the ones in the square but I find the 1' bands left and right provide auditory feedback to help me dope the wind a bit as even a slight cross breeze tends to shift point of impact considerably at that distance.

I assume the police largely use people type targets and some departments seem to substitute actual black or brown people since let's face it, blue lives matter more.

Re: I want to sincerely apologize to each and every one of our users

How about she mail it from her Yahoo account?

Re: "Roadkill Roasts"

You might want to team up with Pamela over at www.peacefur.com as I'd wager your business models would complement each other nicely.

Re: 2 things

... who the fuck puts a printer on the open internet? And if you do why do you leave the web interface open?

The answer to both is everyone who mistakenly relies on puffy printers.

Re: Measles and vaccines...

Funny thing about "Dad's generation", at least in the US, the reason they had a better grip on things was likely because they didn't have to deal with their nerves being rubbed raw with various forms of nonsense like goop glop, breatharianism, and the death of the melting pot. Besides, everyone was too busy chasing commies and practicing the duck and cover.

Maybe less acute minds need to have something to focus on in order to avoid going down the cow patty path of mental masturbation that leads to a hypersensitivity to rational thought that causes orgasmic outbursts claiming the moral high ground based on being offended by the possibility of being wrong.

^{Hmm, that was a bit longer than planned.}

Re: I think I might have AI

Did you watch the video? The assault turtle can be reoriented at will and still gets classed as a rifle.

The crash is the result of knee jerk reactions of people who don't understand the credit anyway. Musk probably thinks it's a joke since the tax credit is limited to the first 200,000 units sold in the US for any given manufacturer. At the end of 2016 Tesla was already over the half way point at 110k+ US sales and if the same ratio of US sales to units built was maintained this year Tesla would be scheduled to limit out fairly early in the first quarter of 2018 if not later this year.

In short Tesla is already nearing the end of when its buyers could claim the credit anyway and if it happens a month earlier than expected it isn't going to change Tesla's situation much. On the upside the dip is now priced in instead of being priced in after they sold number 200,000 in the US which would be in about a month or two. Those of us who were already keyed in on this can now take our Tesla shorts early and move on to the next fully predictable market over-reaction.

Re: Interesting stuff

@AC, That's just it. There were more people who turned out against Trump especially in places like California. Given that statistically there was little deviation from any other election you could make exactly the same argument that the ads suppressed the vote because it acted as a turn off to rational thinking people. It would take a tremendous amount of research and close inspection of the exit polls to even get any feeling of whether these ads had any impact at all. Single sided conjecture saying that these ads definitively tipped anything other than most folks BS meter is silliness.

Of course there's also the easy thing of getting rid of the crazy Tuesday non-holiday. Then you can have the election take place over the course of a week so people aren't so inconvenienced by lines that are 40+ minutes long at the end of a long work day. Take the next week tallying the vote and slap the news media for announcing anything ahead of the official totals. FFS, the inauguration isn't until late January there isn't much need to determine the winner before the Thursday Turkeyfest and folks could get a chance to wind down after a few bottles of wine, slices of pie, pounds of turkey, taters, and gawdknowswhatt and folk will be calm, fat, dumb, and happy, and looking forward to a nap after a nice digestif. What could be better than announcing the election results during the halftime show of either Dallas or Detroit or perhaps even during one of the parades.

Re: "temperatures on the day averaged about 9°C."

It certainly does sound like a case of the anti-icing equipment they were testing failed and the drones iced up and dropped out. Perhaps the MoD don't have the telemetry to tell them definitively and since the drones are now the property of Davey Jones the best they can do is say the cause is uncertain as they have no absolute evidence. One day there may be an explanation that involves the phrase "more likely than not".

Re: Inspired

I think the whole service was inspired by Walmart restocking your fridge.

Somehow I get the impression that this is more about keeping tabs on the drivers to make sure they aren't duffing off most of the day. I can see some interesting conversations back at the delivery hub like "how come it regularly takes you 45 minutes to go from the Johnson's house to the Smith's which is only four doors down?" and "Hmm, given their recent purchases the Johnson's must be expecting another baby."

Hypervisors for cars

I could see where one might want to have the low priority infotainment part running in a different VM from the more critical systems especially as we tend toward more autonomy. Anything that aids to prevent a compromise of the music streaming subsystem from taking down something like the brakes or spuriously setting off an airbag at random has to be a good thing.

Sometimes they turn them on at just the right time not realizing there is a 30 second pre-record buffer.

Re: Landing spot?

I believe the technical term is ditching although that does carry an implication that it was intentional.

Re: Maybe if they collected less insects, there would be more around...

Personally I don't understand the whole desire for a grass lawn having grown up mowing the better part of two acres most weekends as a kid. I much prefer the low maintenance of things like clover, creeping thyme, low growing sedums, hazelwort, moneywort, creeping buttercup, hen and chicks, etc. All are relative low growing so keeping spaces open to highlight taller varieties. Sure it takes care in the beginning to select plants appropriate to the environment and getting them established but the ability to finally lose the lawnmower is bliss. Of course it requires also being fee from the tyranny of a homeowners association or a city which mandates a crisp green lawn.

Re: How seizure laws ever stood --

Just to follow up, I found the story which gives actual numbers. The average seizure in Chicago is about $4,500 but the median is only $1,049 and the most seizures are done in poorer, largely minority sections of town.

Read the whole piece here.