I read a story early this morning talking about Musk's posting, and the author described the three car fires as "engulfed in flames". Similar language was used in early October; engulfed, erupted, etc.

In one case, the car provided dashboard cautions immediately after collision with road debris, then warnings, then the driver pulled over a couple of minutes later, the pack was smoking, he was able to get his belongings, etc. The interior of the car remained accessible and intact.

Meanwhile, I've witnessed, fought, and heard from friends who had car fires. It typically goes something like this: smoke from somewhere. Seconds, maybe 30 if you're lucky, there are flames. Within a minute or two the car is unsalvageable. In a crash in a gasoline car, the car can be on fire within seconds, and it can be a massive fire; rear collisions break up the fuel systems, front crashes cause both oil and gasoline to leak all over hot engine exhaust parts.

Firefighters generally don't rush to car fires because by the time they got the dispatch call, the car was already gone anyway; they're there mostly to put it out so the wrecker can collect it. Seriously, go look on youtube at car fires. Within the space of a minute or two, the car is well past the point of no return.

The hyperbolization here is amazing. Years ago Bose had a little problem with their car audio systems; the electrolytic capacitors would leak the electrolyte, which would then drip down the circuit board. In some cars, the amplifier board was positioned such that this would cause a short that would at the least cause smoking, and caused several fires.

One owner described driving down the highway, hearing the stereo crackle and drop out, looking in the back window and seeing smoke, racing over to the breakdown lane and getting out and the back shelf was already in flames; he barely had time to stop the car and escape an INTERIOR PASSENGER COMPARTMENT FIRE. In a less-than-a-year-old Audi. Reportedly Audi's regional rep inspected the burned-to-the-ground car and the customer got a replacement car.

Audi, Infiniti, Corvette, and a couple of other companies were affected; recalls were made for everyone except Audi; a bunch of Audi owners banded together when Audi refused to fix the damaged speakers, and kept selling defective units to replace failed ones. nhtsa refused to discuss with us whether they had reports of other fires or failures and refused to allow owners to speak to the person handling the investigation; Audi USA repeatedly claimed they hadn't ever heard of any malfunctions or fires, when we knew they'd paid for replacement vehicles a decade prior, and continued to claim as such even after other owners had sent in registered mail complaints and received confirmation.

Lo and behold, nhtsa finally got interested and Audi revised the amp board and did a voluntary recall. Presto, no more failures. They spent years milking owners (the amps would last a few years at most before failure.)

Then there's all the exotic cars that go up in flames; car enthusiast sites cover them routinely. Funny how Ferrari and Lambo never seems to get mentioned in the press as having a lot of car fires, huh? That's what the best money in PR gets you: shit swept under the rug fast.

ou wouldn't tell a man in that position "... successful entrepreneur hunk. You're most geeks dream man! You go man!"

Oh, really? Meet Bobak Ferdowsi, who generated endless amounts of fawning and creeper comments from women when he showed up on TV screens, and whose rise to stardom was almost entirely derived off him being accomplished...AND attractive. "Oh look, a guy geek who's a hunk!", everyone said, breathlessly. Can you imagine how all his other male colleagues, who contributed to the rover landing, feel about this? I imagine quite a few of them were pretty offended or hurt. Go google his name along with "girlfriend" or "wife" and see all the articles where the reporter says "Sorry, ladies, he's taken!"

In general, I was with you right up until you demonstrated complete ignorance of the male experience here while stating definitively what it is. Funny how if I, as a man, presumed to speak of what things are like for women, I'd be ridiculed as a mansplainer. Yet every day I hear women open their mouths and say the stupidest stuff about How It Is for men. Which is odd, since women's voices are by far the loudest in terms of gender issues. Anyway.

The stereotype for nerds/geeks is that they're socially clueless, fat, smelly, sweaty, badly dressed, and physically vulgar in appearance. When a man who is a geek/nerd/scientist gets covered by a journalist and is not the stereotype / is reasonably attractive and well-dressed, it's pretty goddamn common for the reporter to go out of their way to note it with a backhanded complement. Something along the lines of "not your typical (insert insult here)-looking nerd, either!" I've watched reporters zoom to a guy whose role in a project was minimal, but they're the most photogenic, so they're the one who gets interviewed. The same thing happens when there's a woman in the group; the reporter goes "OMG OMG WOMAN IN STEM" and practically lunges for them.

It's been unthinkable (or at least worthy for popular condemnation and mockery) for a reporter to say that a female scientist is "not homely, fellas! She's not just a rocket scientist, she's cute and looks great in a dress too!" Yet the same shit happens to men and nobody says a word about it, not even in, if especially not in, the most ivory-pillar circles of gender studies. It's also extremely common for the nerd/geek/scientist's clothing and physical appearance to be considered comment-worthy if it fits the stereotype; "Joe Shmoe looks the part of an astrophysicist; his shit isn't tucked in, his hair is astray, and his glasses are perched at an angle, covered in smudges." Awww, look, isn't it endearing? Meanwhile, how the hell does it make Joe Shmoe feel that his appearance and dress was apparently worthy of comment when he thought the interview was about his amazing research?

No, see, the thing is, your feelings are supposed to be your responsibility, not the group's.

It is, at a minimum, the group's responsibility if they are community of VOLUNTEERS are trying to attract new members, to not be a bunch of assholes to each other.

Your extremely hostile, nasty, aggressive, ignorant, threatened response perfectly demonstrates the issues we're talking about. Also: stop narcissistically blaming everyone around you for how they react to the way you act towards them.

Makerbot also launched a call for open models of math manipulatives on Thingiverse (you might remember them from elementary school) so that teachers have something useful to print immediately.

Why are we encouraging schools to buy thousands of dollars in equipment (the 3D printer, the computer to drive it, the materials, etc - nevermind the teacher getting sent off to training seminars and whatnot) when we don't have enough textbooks for students, teachers for decades have been paying out-of-pocket for school supplies, and students are not performing well because they're hungry?

We don't need 3D printers. We need paper, chalk, textbooks, and sandwiches.

Well clearly you do not understand what the word "environment" means.

If someone makes a sexist, derogatory joke in the weekly programming meeting and someone is offended and complains, it's not a defense to say "well it was only one joke, in one meeting, from one person."

The problem is not the one joke. The problem is that the environment was conducive, accepting, and tolerant of the joke. Linus's abusive treatment of others is not only tolerated, but accepted, excused, and justified, both there and on other communities (like Slashdot, right now...) Because he's in a leadership position, it sets the example and tone for how others are treated...

The response to people saying "I'm not comfortable contributing" is not "stop being a baby." If it is, you don't actually care about getting people to contribute.

I find Feedly far more annoying for other reasons, like the incessant nagging every time I login to upgrade to Feedly Pro, both top-of-screen dismissible alerts, and non-dismissible stuff on the right side of the screen. It's one thing to have a premium service. It's another to repeatedly and constantly pester people about it.

Tire pressure MONITORING system.

If you owned a car with one, you'd know they are the bane of your existence. They're constantly failing.

Neither of us has any idea whether he checked tire pressure before he did the run. 130mph isn't really that super-duper in a modern car with tires rated for it...as noted, a decent number of people to it on the autobahn, or the Nurburgring, every day.

I thought conventional wisdom was to at least mix batches, if not brands.

I haven't done this in years, nor has anyone else I know. What I do instead is a badblocks test of every drive with before+after SMART parameter collection, and then a burn-in of a week or two, usually just part of bringing the system online.

We also limit ourselves to 2TB drives tops, because 3TB drives have a higher failure rate and 4TB drive failure rates are reportedly astronomical.

Mavericks introduced some "really cool" bugs, like graphics redrawing issues.

I now regularly have all sorts of static, black borders, and other artifacts around various screen elements. I'm not alone, if you google around.

Common Core doesn't specify questions or tests - this is just a shitty test, that happens to meet (maybe?) Common Core.

There's a lot of misunderstanding (and hence vitriol) about CC out there; Common Core says your students need to have certain skills. How you develop them is up to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative#Mathematics_Standards

I have a 4, and it's pretty solid. Suggestion: buy the 16GB in a month or so after the 5 has been out. Lots of people will probably upgrade.

Just note that the 4 was sold in a couple of different flavors (AT&T, Tmobile, and Google store.) I'm pretty sure the straight Google one is the preferred/most capable, but double check?

On the other hand, doesn't automatic gearboxes have neutral setting? Wouldn't moving into this be roughly the same as depressing the clutch on a manual gearbox?

For years, some cars have not had mechanical linkages to the automatic transmission; the shifter is just a human interface that plugs into a wire. This started in the luxury market and has wound its way down. Interfaces include joysticks resembling shifters, rotary dials, and push buttons.

The slide has been away from direct mechanical control of various car components for a while. It started with throttles, then it went to brakes (yep...) and now even some steering systems are going to steer-by-wire. Same for push-button ignition control systems. It's pretty horrifying.

Still, plenty of "runaway" cases have involved vehicles with mechanical ignition keys, mechanical transmissions, and mechanical throttles. People are just stupid, uneducated (they think that if they shift out of Drive the car will explode, ditto for shutting off the ignition...poor braking technique, like trying to "ride" the brakes to reduce speed, instead of braking HARD to STOP the car immediately) or get caught speeding and try to use it as an excuse to get out of it.

Yes, there is a savings, but how much is it going to cost NY taxpayers up front ? Would a better strategy be to replace the sodium lights with LED style lights, as they wear out?

Upfront costs don't matter much; the cost is in the labor getting to these lights. Every time they replace one, the future labor cost drops.

It only helps if somebody pushes at the correct time; but if the fixtures are being reevaluated in anything resembling a serious way, that's your best chance to get action on things like fixtures that point upward, ill-designed fixtures that don't target their output very well, and all the various other dubious lighting decisions that help add up to light pollution.

Unfortunately, the major impact around me is that our streets are now incredibly bright at night...they used the extra efficiency to make everything brighter, not use less power. God help you if you've got a bedroom that falls within the cone the new LED lights throw, too. My bedroom became lit like a supermarket, even with the shades down. It took four calls to the city before someone came out and re-tweaked the light.

Really, I wish people would pay attention to the studies that show that brighter != less crime/safer.

It's an example of how 95% of cyclists in my city and many others ride.

ANECDOTES ARE NOT EVIDENCE. You used it to support your claim that all cyclists are law-breaking, reckless, and cause their own injuries.

Cyclists are not reckless compared to anyone else using the road, and their behavior is substantially less reckless given that when they commit the same traffic infractions, they only endanger themselves. NYC counts cyclist-on-ped injuries and they account for less than 1% of total pedestrian injuries; the other 99% are motor vehicles.

Further, your claim that this reckless behavior equates to causes of injuries and deaths, is also bullshit. There are numerous studies and reviews that disprove this myth.

Again: just like women who blame rape victims for getting raped (she was drunk, she was dressed inappropriately, she shouldn't have been on that street, she shouldn't have been alone, etc) you're constructing a myth to convince yourself that you're better, and won't get injured or killed because you're better. You're doing it again, sanctimoniously talking about sport/recreational riders now (what does their clothing have to do with it?) Some day, a driver is going to do something illegal, you're not going to be able to avoid it despite how amazingly awesome a perfect bike rider you are in your non-spandex shorts. Then you'll get to witness first-hand the victim-blaming crap I've experienced.

Here's some real facts and studies:

Australian helmet cam study: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/study-blames-drivers-for-bike-crashes-20101122-18330.html

London study: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/drivers-to-blame-for-twothirds-of-bicycle-collisions-in-westminster-8602166.html

UK-wide study: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study

Toronto study which found cyclists at fault in TEN PERCENT of crashes: http://www.examiner.com/article/study-claims-cyclists-at-fault-only-10-percent-of-crashes