Posts by Eddy Ito

Re: You have to marvel at the bullshit that goes into marketing guff.

I don't know what you've been smoking but it's clearly hazed your vision or the only led lights you've seen have "cool white" or some such and not clear covers. I just came from class where they had replaced all the florescent tubes with led tubes last year and I can tell you for certain that the led tubes have over a hundred leds each. Anyone can go ahead and verify that fact with a simple Google image search but don't let reality get in the way of a perfectly good uneducated rant.

If you want to bitch about the color spectrum of led lights, fine, but whinging about the use of "Green" in the marketing is just as childish as the folks who whinge about something not stating that it is "Green". Let's face it, too many people have been taught the buzzwords without really knowing the meaning so saying something has high "whatever" efficiency means absolutely bupkis to the more than 90% of people who don't really understand how what they are buying works but if you compare it to the hulk and say "it's green", at least they think they understand. Not saying it's wrong to call bullshit on marketing that won't back up its words with data but to not understand that most of it is hyperbole for the great unwashed smug fuckers is, IMNSHO, just silly.

Re: Radio

Aren't many audio frequencies reflected by density changes in the water column such as thermoclines and haloclines thus limiting how deep signals can be transmitted?

Re: Not to be racist

"(Many married women use this freedom without even knowing they are doing it.)"

If you are talking about the tradition of taking the husband's surname it's actually harder to not take it in some states. When the missus and I got hitched we were asked no fewer than four times if she was going to take my name and each clerk offered to sell accept the fee for the legal paperwork for changing her name, even the JP. Oddly many of them had a disappointed look when we politely declined, you would think they got a commission on each piece of paper filed.

I do recognize that women are currently more likely to switch back and forth because it can be such a hassle especially given dozens of longstanding accounts. Hell, I once nearly got into a row with a bank teller over check made out to the name I generally go by, my middle name Edward, and not my first name, Robert. In the end the bank manager had me fill out a form indicating Edward as an alias.

True Obama will likely overrule it but it won't be because of SEPs it will be because the company facing the ban is Microsoft, a U.S. company that owns lots of politicians makes considerable political contributions contributes mightily to the U.S. economy, politically speaking of course.

Makes sense

Given the NSA operates on the opposite premise, it only makes sense that Hanlon's razor would apply the the NSA.

Re: It doesn't matter if it's any good

The epithet "well known" is so often applied to something which has just been coined, in order to endow it with validity, gravitas and credibility.

Except the concept of a Veblen good is well known in economic circles. Just because it may not be well known to you doesn't make it an epithet.

Re: BIOS Password

"At least what they steal this way comes directly from the banks and not from a customer's account."

I'd imagine the criminals could easily record many card and PIN details on a Friday night and duplicate the cards for use later to drain a customer's account.

Re: "frying pan into the fire incidents"

@AC 20:49

"what makes you think that the engineers who designed this system are any less astute than your team?"

I don't know what you read but I did not state any such thing. I merely agreed with the original poster that the frying pan into the fire scenario was my first though as well. I never said it was my only thought but don't let that stop you from claiming that I'm "talking bollocks" when it's evident I'm not. I stated that I think it's a bad idea to take control away from the operator and merely stated my experiences. If it can be manually overridden then it doesn't fully take control, does it? It may be that a simple flick of the wrist will release the system back to the driver but that isn't clear since overriding the system isn't shown in the linked video. Granted, it's partially implied since the driver has his hands very near the wheel so as to catch it if it goes wonky but it isn't known if that is just a technology demonstrator in debug mode or something much closer to the final product. I also understand engineering, especially the research and development variety, and it comes with lawyers, lots of lawyers who not only obscure the language to shift as many patents as possible but also ones who understand that anyone hurt by the latest miracle will be launching massive sueballs at the company.

Since you mentioned non-incapacitated drivers, what do you suppose it does with one who is incapacitated and the car decides to swerve instead of stop as shown in the video? Does it then proceed to stop or wrongly release the car back to a person who is incapable of controlling it? I don't know. I also don't know if the engineering team thought of it because they didn't mention they had so I must assume they have not and would prefer they think about it now that it's been brought up. As a result this is a great technology demo but we don't know if it will make it past the lawyers to become a real product or even if the U.S. government will go ahead a make it mandatory like they did with tire pressure warning lights, traction control and soon rear view cameras for reversing.

"After all, you wouldn't like people talking bollocks about your own design either, would you?"

For your edification, I have these things called design reviews. The purpose of these is to do our best to determine if we have thought of all the details such as was the case with the wheelchair. In short, no I don't mind at all if people want to point out potential deficiencies in my designs, in fact I prefer to get such feedback as early and as often as possible. I'm not anywhere near that arrogant, as you so obviously think.

Re: Shall we all bookmark this thread

Why so we can look back and compare the irrational adoration some people pour over one or another ginormous globo-corp which could give half a shit if those same devotees kicked the bucket ten seconds after posting the details of their infatuation over the latest touchy feely shiny shiny? I mean it would be good for a laugh if it wasn't so pathetic.

Re: Bzzzzzt!!! Wrong!!!

Big deal, an American Republican is one who only wants a national defense and bible beatings when the NSA catches you having sex wrong and an American Democrat is one who wants to enjoy the benefits produced and paid for by everyone else while the NSA quells rumblings of dissent.

Re: OK

I think it looks more like a simplified horse rather than a cat. The forelegs seem to consist of the equivalent of a radius/ulna as the upper leg and a metacarpal analog as the lower leg as I'd expect of a horse. A more cat like model would use analogs of a humerus and radius/ulna since the humerus of a cat makes up a considerably larger percentage of a cat's leg length than it does in a horse. The back legs are just wrong and almost human like with no feet.

Re: That's a good one!

They're not joking. That's genuine smoke they're blowing up our arses. Look here, you'll see it in this mirror they handed out to prove that smoke is real.

Re: Rand Paul

I suspect a lot here will be even more shocked when they find out that he is not only a Republican but from the dreaded faction that likes to party with tea and that naturally bends the noses of many.

Re: "Any assassination could be seriously damaging to this nascent diplomacy"

I'd be more inclined to believe he said the wrong thing or spoke to the wrong people, perhaps in a hushed whisper, as the reason for it to have been an internally sanctioned hit. It's much easier on resources to blow up a fake high value target and blame it on the West if they were just looking for a pretext to kneecap diplomatic efforts.

Re: The price will make it or break it.

That's my fear. At first read I thought it would make a nice Meego IVI for long road trips with the chitlins but I wonder if it has the throat for it and I'm not about to drop a few hundred to find out.

Health insurance != health care.

Well said.

Let's not forget that the whole point of this is to force the healthy younger generation in their mid-20s to 30s buying full insurance they likely won't need to theoretically drive down the cost of insurance for the elderly and those with "pre-existing" conditions. I don't see it reducing the percentage of GDP spent on health care since any decreases in the amount spent in one group will be more than made up for by the cost imposed on another. It's just another tax to shift money around under the guise of commerce.

The question the ACA doesn't address is the potential shortage of doctors which may or may not materialize.

Re: Even if you needed that accuracy...

"How accurately can it be set when you change the battery ?"

Does it automatically adjust for daylight savings/summer time?

The source could be right

It just requires translation as I believe "cheap" or "cheaper" when relating to Apple means a lower cost for Apple hence a greater margin not a lower cost for the consumer of Apple products.

HUH?!?!

"They effectively made the office of President a Beeblebrox role with little real power."

When did this happen? Presidents have been doing their damndest to push their power envelope past the last Jerk in Chief and have been doing it since at least Andrew Jackson. Arguably FDR was the best at it being able to push around both other branches of government with the best accomplishment being Presidential term limits.

Re: Quote: "There has got to be something wrong..."

@AC 07:57

Gee, you're absolutely right. It's nice to have such an authoritative source of information and not just statements of opinion. What I don't understand is why would the Home Office representative state the recording practices are different if they aren't? I guess I'll have to take your word for it since you are such an authority on such matters.

Oh, just so you know, this is called sarcasm since you so clearly missed the irony earlier.

Re: "Investigating patents requires ... money"

Oh, I'm not arguing that a lot of patents aren't shite. Consider patent 6,368,227 which was ultimately reexamined and had all claims cancelled but it's illustrative in that the absolutely dumbest shite gets put up and passed through. I agree that even a design patent, which is supposed to be purely ornamental, when applied to a rectangle with softened corners is crap because the fact that it is rectangular isn't ornamental, it has functional utility for encasing a rectangular screen. Perhaps a start would be to require that patents be written in a language that is comprehensible to a normal person and not only lawyers similar to the reasonable person test in jurisprudence.

I also don't think the patent system helps the average inventor since I have a friend who has several patents that make some company bucket loads of cash but it doesn't do him much good other than a notch or two on his resume and I had several non-work related ideas that I feel might be patent or copyright worthy but I'll be damned if I was going to hand it to my corporate overlords considering the response I got when I made the mistake of asking about whether my contract allowed spending my own time working an open source project. As a result, prior to being self employed it was fuck that noise and now they aren't relevant to my business so why waste the money.

@MrXavia

It may very well be the case of maximizing profits. Checking the clove.co.uk site linked to in the article and exchanging the £495 (without vat) gives me US$799. Having a look around the US sites it seems an unlocked Note 3 is going for closer to US$899 so perhaps that's what it's all about.

Re: Such a waste of time and paper.

One of the things that happens when people start to live longer is that they tend to have fewer children. If you have a look at the data you'll see that birth rates are dropping as life expectancy increases and if you look hard you'll also see that as general education levels increase the birth rates also decrease. Sure health and education may not be as easy as giving a man a fish condom but it's a longer term solution than preaching about the evils of sex.

@AC troll 20:41

"9,000,000 new 5S sold not shipped in three days | Sales of 5C building up"

Funny, it wasn't but a few days ago when the 9m number applied to new iPhones of all types. You could wait to revise history until the headlines die down at least. I also think you'll find that the sold number not only includes the 5C but iPhones sold by Apple into the distribution stream and not actually to customers.

Re: "but the simple fact is that he hasn’t actually done anything wrong"

I was thinking exactly the same thing. He would be jailed and classed a sex offender for the rest of his life if he were here in the US.