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Comment Wireless? Feh! (Score 1) 176

All we need to do is put poles with flexible wire strips on top of the cars and then put a wire mesh over all the roads that can be electrified so the cars can be charged while driving.

Works for bumper cars anyway!

(I used to joke about this but I really foresee the day when we charge our cars using a USB x.0 cable to both charge the car and sync its data (stereo, playlists, etc) nightly like we do our phones and tablets...)

Comment Re:No real reason to buy until games come out (Score 1) 310

by the_skywise (#45491717) Attached to: Xbox One Released

I know, I've been trying to buy the Pacific Rim soundtrack on CD (I like doing my own ripping) and it's impossible to find at any of my local stores... It's impossible to find practically any CD that isn't in the top 100 or been out longer than 3 months.

Guess I'm going to have to buy it off Amazon...

(Now for my car stereo, I love my front USB port!)

Comment What's the marketable point? (Score 1) 128

by the_skywise (#45473735) Attached to: Google Patents Fooling Friends With Snooping, Chatbots

I can understand Eliza like algorithms to make market-droids (CAUTION DROID IS TRADEMARKED BY WALT DISNEY STUDIOS AND LICENSED TO GOOGLE - YOU ARE FINED ONE DEMERIT FOR VIOLATION OF THE TRADE LANGUAGE CODE)

But how does scraping social media to target ads NOT come off as creepy to these guys and ultimately result in lost sales?

"Hi the_skywise, how are you doing since your father died? Did you ever think about trying DigEmDeep mortuary services?"
"How does it make you feel that Google should ESAD?"

Submission + - The Happy Accident That Resulted in Doctor Who's Iconic Striped Scarf (ecouterre.com)

Submitted by fangmcgee
fangmcgee writes: If it wasn’t for a case of crossed wires, one of Doctor Who’s most iconic accoutrements might never have been. We’re talking, of course, about the Fourth Doctor’s impossibly long—and woefully impractical—striped scarf, which he claimed he received from one Madame Nostradamus. The real-life provenance of the garment, though a mite less fanciful, is equally intriguing. Commissioned by BBC costume designer James Acheson in 1974 for Tom Baker’s portrayal of the fictional Timelord, the scarf was designed to finish off the freshly regenerated Doctor’s “bohemian look,” modeled after that of a fin-de-siècle student in Paris. The final 12-foot product, however, was a happy accident.

Submission + - Jailbreaking and unlocking might be restricted in treaty pushed by Obama (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty pushed by the Obama administration could complicate efforts to loosen restrictions on jailbreaking and unlocking smartphones, tablets, or other consumer electronics.

A working draft of the treaty published by WikiLeaks prohibits the manufacturing or distribution of devices or services "for the purpose of circumvention of any effective technological measure." It goes on to prohibit devices and services that "have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any effective technological measure, or are primarily designed, produced, or performed for the purpose of the circumvention of any effective technological measure."

Derek Khanna, a Yale Law Fellow who submitted a White House petition that led to the Obama administration publicly supporting the end of a ban on unlocking, wrote in Slate that "while the White House was publicly proclaiming its support of cellphone unlocking, it was secretly negotiating a treaty that would ban it."

The treaty text never specifically mentions jailbreaking or unlocking, but the lack of an exemption to the ban on circumventing technological measures has Khanna worried.

"The treaty as proposed would stop all methods of circumvention," Khanna wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "The key is that there must be an exemption to allow for unlocking. In the draft text, there is no exemption for unlocking."

Submission + - And Now For Something Completely Different: Monty Python Reunion Planned (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The Telegraph reports, "The original members of Monty Python will reunite more than 30 years after the comedy troupe last worked together. John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin will officially announce their reformation at a London press conference on Thursday. The five surviving members have reportedly been in months of secret talks about getting the Flying Circus back on the road. The reunion comes after several failed attempts to reform by the group. However, according to The Sun, the surviving members realised “it was now or never”, and had decided to embark upon “a fully-fledged reunion”. " — Related Telegraph stories: commentary, "best of", and a pan.

Submission + - Congressional Budget Office mulls ending NASA human space flight to cut deficit (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Space Ref, in a November 18, 2013 post has unearthed part of a Congressional Budget Office document that suggests, as an option for reducing the deficit, ending all human space flight activities at NASA.

This would mean that American participation in the International Space Station, the Commercial Crew program to develop privately operated space craft, the development of the Orion space craft and the Space Launch System heavy lift launcher, and President Obama’s asteroid exploration initiative would be terminated immediately.

The CBO argues that space exploration could be accomplished by robots alone and that ending human space flight would have significant cost savings ($73 billion over the next nine years) and would preserve the safety and lives of astronauts

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