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Comment Re:Which is why I always put my car in [P]ark (Score 1) 1440

Yet another reason to drive stick! If you're stopped at a light, you're not in gear... unless you're one of those asshats who loves to ride their clutch, in which case you deserve to be ticketed for putting undue wear on your throw-out bearing.

I assume that the law makes a concession for cars with manual transmissions and doesn't blanketly assume that all us fat 'mericans have automatic transmissions now. If this happened to someone driving stick, you couldn't use dashcam footage to prove your reverse lights flickered. But shouldn't the burden of proof be on the LEO? Shouldn't they have to verify that you car was in neutral or not when you were texting?

Also, this raises the question: if my car is rolling and I shut the engine off and put it in neutral and just coast, can I then legally text?

Comment Unsecured wifi isn't readily accesable radio comm (Score 1) 214

A wifi hotspot isn't "radio communications"?

Per Wikipedia (which is NEVER wrong):
Wi-Fi, also spelled Wifi or WiFi, is a popular technology that allows an electronic device to exchange data or connect to the internet wirelessly using radio waves.

“Wi-Fi transmissions are not 'readily accessible' to the 'general public' because most of the general public lacks the expertise to intercept and decode payload data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network"?

Any idiot with a laptop or wifi-capable cellphone can easily connect to an unsecured WAP by clicking on it, or even automatically as many wireless adapters have been configured to do so. Plus, there's the fact that 802.11 wifi operates on the ISM radio band for unlicensed use. Not to mention if I'm sitting in my home and the radio waves from my neighbor's wifi are entering my home, and I choose to see what they say, this is no different than the neighbor blasting his shitty hiphop music so loud that I can hear the lyrics.

I should also mention that the ISM frequency range is also home to cordless telephones and microwave ovens. So if cooking leftover pizza using an unlicensed radio frequency isn't considered "readily accessible," I don't know what is!

Comment No way in hell (Score 1) 195

Given Seagate's track record with forays into fancy new hard disk technologies, let me be the first to say NO WAY IN HELL AM I GOING TO TRY THIS... until at least a second or third gen has the bugs worked out.

I was fool enough to try their terabyte drives with their nifty vertically-oriented bit techniques. Went through six brand new hard drives in one month. SIX! Two drives RMAed three times. Finally told Seagate that I'm not going to be their guinea pig anymore, and that I'm going to shelve the drives and to call me when they iron the bugs out. That was over 2 years ago and I haven't heard a peep.

Comment Re:I am torn (Score 1) 322

Watching Serenity without having seen Firefly? That's like watching The Return of the Jedi without having seen A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. Then again, I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't seen any Star Wars, either. :p

Comment Rather useless (Score 2) 167

Pro's:
1) Its small size can be convenient in an era of bulky phones.
2) Attached to your body, it will theoretically be harder to lose it or let it get stolen.

Con's:
1) The screen is going to be too small to be very usable.
2) Battery life will likely suck since it is also too small.
3) With such a small screen, will be difficult to use, and you won't get many buttons, if any.
4) You can only use it one-handed.
5) The screen will probably get scratched to fuck since it sticks out from your wrist, and will probably stick out farther than your average watch.
6) Hot battery may get uncomfortable.

IMHO, smart watches are a great idea, but only as a bluetooth device for alerting you to new messages, calls and emails; using as a microphone Dick Tracy-style, and of course for checking the time. As a full-fledged smartphone, though, they're far too small to be that useful, but they might be decent as more of a dumb-phone for only making calls and such.

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