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Submission + - Major Tech Companies Refusing To Abide By Unwarranted Gag Orders (redstate.com)

Submitted by HighAndDry
HighAndDry writes: The low level griping about law enforcement subpoenas requesting user information and instructing companies to not tell the subjects of the subpoenas has burst into full fledged rebellion.

Now Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have joined Yahoo in saying they will notify anyone whose accounts are the subject of an investigative diploma unless they receive a judicial gag order.

As citizens rely more and more on technology to communicate and store personal information, the abusive use of investigative subpoenas has become endemic. Often investigators request enormous amounts of information and bully ISPs, etc., into keeping quiet about the subpoena denying the subject the opportunity to challenge the request in court.

Submission + - BMW Engineered Its i3 REx Electric Car Just To Satisfy CA Bureaucrats

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: BMW is known for building "ultimate driving machines," but its electric cars are a whole new ball game. The new i3 electric car is the most efficient battery-powered car sold in the U.S.--but its optional range extender turns out to have been designed with one audience in mind: California bureaucrats in Sacramento. To get the i3 REx to qualify as the world's first "BEVx," BMW only lets the range extender turn on when the battery is exhausted--and it only carries 1.9 gallons of gas, giving less than 80 miles more on top of the battery's 81 miles. The design tactics worked: CA gives the i3 REx its top purchase rebate of $2,500, which no other plug-in car with an engine can boast. But at what cost to the actual driving experience?

Submission + - Why BMW Engineered Its i3 REx Electric Car Just To Satisfy CA Bureaucrats

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: BMW is known for building "ultimate driving machines," but its electric cars are a whole new ball game. The new i3 electric car is the most efficient battery-powered car sold in the U.S.--but its optional range extender turns out to have been designed with one audience in mind: California bureaucrats in Sacramento. To get the i3 REx to qualify as the world's first "BEVx," BMW only lets the range extender turn on when the battery is exhausted--and it only carries 1.9 gallons of gas, giving less than 80 miles more on top of the battery's 81 miles. The design tactics worked: CA gives the i3 REx its top purchase rebate of $2,500, which no other plug-in car with an engine can boast. But at what cost to the actual driving experience?

Submission + - For the First Time Ever, the FAA is Trying to Fine a Drone Hobbyist (vice.com)

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: For the first time ever, the Federal Aviation Administration is trying to fine a hobby drone operator, a development that threatens to throw the whole hobby into disarray if the agency successfully levies the fine. While the FAA has explicitly said it doesn’t want anyone flying drones commercially, it has never issued similar suggestions about hobby flight, which is why it has been just fine for some guy to fly a drone above a tornado, but illegal, in the FAA’s eyes, for a journalist to do the same.

That has changed, according to the agency. A spokesperson for the FAA told me that the agency “has proposed a civil penalty against an individual in New York City. The operator, who is a hobbyist, flew a drone carelessly or recklessly and violated air traffic rules as well. He ran the drone into a couple of buildings and it crash-landed 20 feet from a person.”

Comment Re:Gun nuts (Score 1) 1374

by jimbolauski (#46891619) Attached to: "Smart" Gun Seller Gets the Wrong Kind of Online Attention

If you wish to live in community that heavily regulates firearms, then band together and do so - nothing restricts a locality/city/region from banning the things of their own initiative (see also Chicago, D.C, New York City, etc.) However, please do not try to impose such things across the whole nation. There is no "reasonable" restriction in the eyes of those who wish to promulgate these laws, save for complete abolition.

Chicago and DC's gun ban laws have been struck down by the supreme court. The 10th amendment stops states and cities from enacting laws that violate the constitution. If people wanted to create a community with no guns they would need to do it on private land, violation would be a civil matter.

Comment Re:Efficiency? (Score 1) 234

If the system is in balance at 75mph a 20mph headwind will have you depleting your charge at 55mph. It's probably not a worry for daily commutes but for long trips it would be a worry. I would want the balance point to be at 90mph which would require about a 50% increase in power if I used it for long drives.

Comment Re:Except, government ISN'T government (Score 1) 338

by jimbolauski (#46882111) Attached to: To Save the Internet We Need To Own the Means of Distribution
If you eliminate government collusion in the market place the corrupt companies will no longer have an unfair advantage and will have to cater to their customers. Through regulation the government limits competition giving large established companies an advantage. The more paperwork that is required, the higher the overhead to comply. Larger companies can absorb the overhead better then small companies.

Submission + - In 1972, Scientists Discovered a 2 Billion-Year-Old Nuclear Reactor in W Africa

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: In June 1972, nuclear scientists at the Pierrelatte uranium enrichment plant in south-east France noticed a strange deficit in the amount of uranium-235 they were processing. That’s a serious problem in a uranium enrichment plant where every gram of fissionable material has to be carefully accounted for. The ensuing investigation found that the anomaly originated in the ore from the Oklo uranium mine in Gabon, which contained only 0.600% uranium-235 compared to 0.7202% for all other ore on the planet. It turned out that this ore was depleted because it had gone critical some 2 billion years earlier, creating a self-sustaining nuclear reaction that lasted for 300,000 years and using up the missing uranium-235 in the process. Since then, scientists have studied this natural reactor to better understand how buried nuclear waste spreads through the environment and also to discover whether the laws of physics that govern nuclear reactions may have changed in the 1.5 billion years since the reactor switched off. Now a review of the science that has come out of Oklo shows how important this work has become but also reveals that there is limited potential to gather more data. After an initial flurry of interest in Oklo, mining continued and the natural reactors--surely among the most extraordinary natural phenomena on the planet-- have all been mined out.

Comment Re:Ass time (Score 1) 499

by jimbolauski (#46871289) Attached to: You Are What You're Tricked Into Eating
If you are going to include sugar on the processed ingredient list then many other things belong as well like salt. I am simply trying to apply a uniform definition, and not pick and choose which items are "processed". You can have a steak using only unprocessed ingredients and it may be quite tasty but marinating and seasoning it will contain ingredients that are processed and it will be better.

Comment Re:Ass time (Score 1) 499

by jimbolauski (#46870509) Attached to: You Are What You're Tricked Into Eating
Just about anything you make will have processed ingredients, except a salad with no dressing. How many meals could you make without using a single processed ingredient, my guess is when you start making it you will have to cut out many of the things that enhance the taste.

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