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Comment Factor in milage quotas.... (Score 2) 471

Auto makers in the US are required to keep the average mileage of their vehicles below a certain standard. This means that, to produce a lot of inefficient vehicles (trucks, SUVs, etc.) they need to produce a quantity of fuel efficient vehicles.

Producing vehicles that use 0 gallons per mile has the added benefit of allowing them to make more gas hogs. This probably isn't a huge part of the reason they made the volt, but it would be a contributing reason.

Staying relevant and in the press would be another factor.

Comment OCR (Score 1) 214

If you are going to have to make arcane gestures for each letter, you might as well go the route of optical character recognition. At least that way, you don't have to learn a whole new way to write each letter for your mobile device.

Comment Pressure (Score 1) 239

The engine's compressor is used and pumped into the cabin to replace escaping air.

So, no it's not airtight. Minus 10 geek points for not watching the Mythbusters episode where they had to seal the heck out of the cabin to run their explosive decompression test.

Comment Thank you for noticing (Score 1) 351

Seriously, thank you for noticing that money spent on space exploration is actually spent here on earth and therefore doesn't simply disappear from the economy.

I've seen too many negative comments about how spending money on space exploration is a waste when we have problems here on earth. The way some people talk, you would think we were proposing taking billions of dollars and sending it all into space.

Comment contributing absolutely nothing... (Score 1) 445

Every single penny he makes comes from someone else's pocket

You just described everyone except the places that mint pennies.

he simply monopolizes a resource and profiteers from it,

Monopolizes? Please clarify, is he preventing other people from also buying books in the book stores? Or is he preventing people from going to other bookstores?

contributing absolutely nothing to the economy.

Actually, he's filling a demand by increasing the flow of supply. If anything, the more books brought to the global market, the less they cost. If books that are in demand, collecting dust on a shelf, that contributes nothing to the economy.

Seriously, anyone in the book business that can't be bothered to check on the value of their inventory deserves to have their ... what was happening again? .... oh yeah, deserves to have their books bought. What?

1. Open a book store
2. Have a customer scan your books
3. Have them give you money for some of the books
4. Profit.

Comment Re:Me fail logic. (Score 1) 341

And only the logic deficient and the religious crazies are left arguing the options.

Really? You are absolutely certain you are correct and anyone else is either logic deficient or a religious crazy?

To everyone who isn't massively close minded, I posit that is would be possible that, the first creature that we would have identified as.... 'yup, that's a chicken', could have been born without the benefit of an egg. Or, the egg could have predated such a 'first chicken', with the precursor to the chicken already having egg-laying capability.

Anyway, the point of any such 'chicken and egg' debate isn't about the chicken or the egg. It's about applying reason to a problem as an exercise in reason.

Now, if you will excuse me, I think I'm just going to pop into my time machine and find out if the first egg-laying chicken-like creature does, in fact, taste like chicken.

Comment Weaseling? (Score 1) 251

Seriously... if Alice alters Bob's machine to steal money from Trent, you want the bank to be on the hook?

The problem with that is the bank isn't in a position to oversee any of this transaction. You can easily hook Alice for the crime. You can argue fault for Bob (if physical security of the machines is lax), as he needs to keep his machines secure. Trent should only be 'on the hook' for pursuing legal action. But the bank.... what did they do wrong? Process a transaction from Trent? How do you secure that while actually letting Trent buy his gas?

Apple

Submission + - Apple prohibits buying iPads with cash (sfgate.com)

crimperman writes: Want a new iPad? Just don't try to pay for it with cash. As a San Francisco woman discovered, Apple's purchase policy for the iPad states that you can only pay by credit or debit card. that's it. No cash or gift cards accepted. Apple claim this is to protect them from people buying the iPads and selling them abroad. And apparently they're not breaking the law. From TFA:

"There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise"

Comment Re:DO NOT WILLINGLY SUBMIT YOUR DNA!!! (Score 1) 468

If you read.... and understand.... the summary. The data they have won't be identifiable. They will have the DNA and a barcode. They won't know who it belongs to. Presumably, the student will be able to access some result of the data through the use of their barcode.

Now, if they wanted to find out who the DNA belonged to, they would have to clone the individual using their DNA and then .... wait .... Kids, DO NOT DO THIS!!! Ever!

Comment Don't let go of the wheel.... (Score 1) 419

Don't let go of the wheel to shift gears, that's what your knee is for. Whichever leg isn't engaging the clutch can steady the wheel.

But seriously, the summary states, "undertaking studies to see if the efforts curb behavior and attitudes." Notice that it doesn't mention safety. Apparently, the important part of enforcing the law isn't to see if it does anything useful, but simply to make sure the people are properly obedient to the law.

Anyway, drive safe everyone.

Comment Re:As an Indian citizen (Score 3, Informative) 141

It has been upheld. As recently as 2009, the Delhi HC used privacy as a reason for the decriminalization of homosexuality.

To quote from the Delhi High Court:
"In the Indian Constitution, the right to live with dignity and the right of privacy both are recognised as dimensions of Article 21"

To quote again:
"It is not within the constitutional competence of the State to invade the privacy of citizens lives or regulate conduct to which the citizen alone is concerned"

How much stronger does this need to be stated before it's recognized that Indian courts protect privacy within the legal framework?

Recently the Supreme Court said that pre marital sex was no one else's business. The foundation for that is is a strong ideal of privacy.

Also, lease agreements do not need to be registered if it's less than a year. Can you tell me in exactly which way the US looks at privacy differently?

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