Posts by Eddy Ito

Re: @Rampant Spaniel: Rights

Let's not forget, it is perfectly possible to be tried for one thing and guilty of another. It may be that in answering a question of the type, "where were you on X?" it would be reasonable to not answer if one were running a moonshine operation even if it could prove one wasn't stealing a candy bar at the local 7-11. Of course this depends on the relative gravity of the crimes involved. Likewise, taking the 5th can apply to any witness not just the present defendant and it is far more preferable than lying only to get caught in the lie after. Finally, I don't believe there is a requirement that the answer necessarily be incriminating.

Traffic lights

I don't know the traffic lights are "working" in the normal sense. To me it looks like they are flashing yellow on the main through way and red on the cross streets. For instance as you approach or depart from this light on the starting street it is only seen yellow or apparently off whereas if you approach from this side it appears only to be red or off. Oddly, for some reason the opposite side jumps a block or two so it's clear that for some reason the G-car didn't go that way.

Re: you honestly believe they'll leave DVDs & BluRays alone!!!

It isn't going to matter much for anyone wearing Google's glasses. It's only a matter of time before they overlay ads onto your own front door. No need to watch anything, they'll serve it up before your eyes anyway. Why do you think Google is developing self driving cars? The windscreen is a great place to toss ads when you don't need to watch where you're going.

Re: We'll need wireless charging.

No big deal, in a few years we'll be buying beds and sofas with wireless charging built in. Surely our cars will also have some tech built in to address it and even provide a signal boost via the embedded femto-cell wireless internetwork station that will even relay a message to the auto club that our left rear tyre has gotten a little soft, is running hot and is on the verge of a blow out while we blissfully ignore the TPMS light flashing neon lime on the dashboard as we text about dinner plans on our leisurely paced commute since the car is now driving itself with the speed programmed in by the police to be 6.2 mph above the limit so they are guaranteed their ticket quota for the month and nobody really cares what we do behind the wheel and the tickets will be paid via direct deposit when the car bonks into the next "smart" parking space which is predetermined to be not less than seven blocks from our final destination. Ah, the internut of thin's, I so look forward to that day.

Re: Clearly...

It's actually an interesting mix across "party" lines in favor and even the dissent was split as it included the often swing vote of Kennedy. I do find it interesting that the dissent did consist of the three eldest even if I can't pin a logical reason behind it. I'm not clear on how the dissent seems to feel this decision undermines copyright by removing the strategy of being able to engage in price discrimination by geographical region even though the world is made trivially small by modern shipping, transportation and electronic data exchange.

Perhaps they would be Ok with charging people who drive small cars more money for fuel because they use less of it or simply make owners of 'silver' cars pay more because there are more cars of that color than others and so 'silver' cars use more fuel in an odd twist of supply and demand. Oh, you probably meant a different kind of gas, err, petrol, sorry.

Let's go one step further. A 3.5 inch "Retina" display at 326 ppi and if we assume the typical viewing distance is 18 inches then that means that the average 40 inch 1080p TV would look the same at a distance of roughly 9 feet given that each pixel will subtend roughly the same angle. Moving to 4K at 4096 x 2304 (16:9) and the same pixel size means that at the same 9 feet the screen size would need to be around 86 inches. If we assume that "Retina" is equal to the smallest angle the human eye can differentiate, there isn't much point pushing it further away because the extra pixels will be lost.

Now if you happen to have a 40-42" TV about 9 feet away have a gander at one of the upper corners and imagine that is the middle of the screen and ask yourself if you'd be comfortable watching something about four times that size given how far it extends into your peripheral vision. If the answer to that question is "great, I can finally take in the whole picture" then good on you, a 4K might be in your future. If the answer is "shit, I have to scan around the screen to take it all in and it's confusing" then 4K might not be the best choice. For me, I've only got about 12 feet across the room and I could see moving up to a 50 inch screen but I don't see dropping the extra dosh on 4K but if the kids want to, I won't stop them from buying one.

Re: Imagine what a full size drone could do

"Abduct an evil dictator while he's still being driven in his armoured car..."

I'd say start small, we could get through the entire Senate and make a good dent in the House of Reps before the D.C. police caught on.

Re: Hmmm..

Sorry Andus, but it's been a few hundred years that "Public House" has actually meant "tavern" and not "a building open to the public". Unless perhaps you're in Oz or NZ in which case I believe a "pub" could also be an "inn".

Re: "Researchers reckoned...

"Conversely when we brought deer from America, we did not bring any wild cats or wolves along for the ride."

Actually only Caribou/Reindeer, if they count, are native to the Americas. The four imported species of deer in Britain seem to come from Persia or the Orient with the Fallow deer from the former and the Sika, Muntjac and the ominous Chinese Water Deer. Why ominous? Simple, "death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth..."

Re: Nanny can't fix it

"although it strikes me that maybe the population density of NH being around 1/3 of new york might have some influence on traffic levels & conditions :-)"

You could always make the comparison to Vermont (85.3% belt usage, secondary law) with slightly less than half the NH population density or Maine (82.6% belt usage, primary law) at about 1/3 that of NH and you would also find that their fatality rate is higher even though the seat belt usage is greater but I'm sure you're not interested in actual data.

You seem to think that current usage and safety has to do with laws and fines but, in a similar vein, I know lots of younger people who would never consider riding a motor bike without a helmet regardless of whether a law exists or not and I also know lots of older riders who hate wearing one and won't ride to states where they have to put a lid on. Certainly it must be because of the laws, it isn't about educating people to the benefits of wearing helmets or seat belts and people independently choosing to do so because it is just the smart thing to do.

In the long run education will win every time in spite of the fact the "nanny state's" insistence on penalizing people to conform. Reminds me quite a lot of the nuns back in school who couldn't answer the questions but insisted that you have faith because they're always right. Oh, of course I saw what you did there and the nuns would be proud of you for having such an open mind enlightened point of view.

Re: really?

I gotta side with Adam. If somebody told me 20 years ago that I'd be driving a Honda Fit with a fuel injected 1.5 litre engine and the 30 mpg it gets is only 30% better than the 23 mpg I got with my 1969 Mustang ragtop with an AFB on a 5 litre V8 I'd have said they were nuts but there it is.

I gotta agree with you. As I started reading I was thinking, 'oh, this is a good start.' Followed by 'oh, uh huh, ok, well then it looks like more "we have to do something" legislation.'

I agree that the only winning play is to hit the patent rewind button but if not perhaps they could say something to the effect of "infringement accuser isn't liable for both sides' legal fees but has to transfer the IP in question to the accused should they lose." That way only the owner of the IP can sue or the owner would have to agree to hand it over prior to the suit. It's the only bond that would really work.

Re: But look who they are up against...

It's not so much a privilege as it is keeping the bible banging votes on their side. The whole tax code is based around 1950s society where there is one income and a good do bee making the home all day. Some years ago I ran the numbers and the US tax code worked in the favor of married couples who had incomes where one spouse earned more than ~75% of the total and favored two unmarried people when the incomes were more even. As a result there are many cases of pairs of people who don't marry because the two salaries are near parity and it would easily push the combined income over the threshold into the next tax bracket. Note that this works on both ends of the spectrum even down to the point where one member of the couple is on public assistance but if they get married the assistance goes away while nothing is made more affordable by the union.

Of course if we were all treated equally in the eyes of the law most of what we did wouldn't matter because the corrupt institutions like the W.B. Church would be paying taxes like everyone else and its leader wouldn't make quite so much money thumping the bible in everyone's face. They'd be free to declare non-profit status provided they didn't mind audits to prove the fact but non-profit is likely against church policy.

The Spelling police

Actuarially you're swelling of 'there' awes smite connect.

Re: Only Microsoft...

"You really have to wonder what Microsoft's thinking is of tying some of the capabilities so tightly to the OS are."

Umm, I'll go out on a limb and say planned and enforced obsolescence. The thinking is if you want the new browser? You have to pay for the new Windows. The new MS Office (2013) isn't any different, they want Windows 7 or better. I don't know that it won't run on the older Windows and hopefully I won't have to find out if it runs on the current Windows but there it is.