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Comment Not conclusive (Score 5, Insightful) 930

by OWJones (#32898166) Attached to: Toyota Sudden Acceleration Is Driver Error
While this is a useful data point, it's not conclusive. If the root cause is some electronics error whose symptoms are a sudden acceleration and (according to two victims) no response to the brake, it's not surprising that the black box -- presumably using the exact same input controlling the engine -- would claim that the accelerator was fully pressed and the brake was untouched.

Comment Re:As a parent of two children... (Score 1) 756

by OWJones (#32022234) Attached to: California's Santa Clara County Bans Happy Meal Toys
I whole-heartedly support your philosophy of turning what works in your house into a law that applies to everyone. For example, in my house the mother of the kid has sex with me on a regular basis. Clearly there should be a law stating that in these situations, women who have children should sleep with me.

Comment Re:How accurate are these data? (Score 1) 81

by OWJones (#30873136) Attached to: Deadline For Data.gov Arrives, and Delivers

Completely true.

In 2005 the state of Virginia wanted me to fork over AT LEAST $3,000 (!) to get per-precinct turnout figures. Not per-precinct results; those were free at the State Board of Elections website. But if you wanted to know actually how many voters showed up at each precinct they said it would take 4-6 weeks and "reproduction costs" would be between $3,000 - $5,000 for them to send me a CD with the PDFs. They had per-county/city turnout results (also on the website). But apparently getting it down to the precinct level was going to be a massive undertaking, requiring one staffer to spend three to five weeks full-time collecting this data and then another week to digitize it and send it out.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA 'making available' theory rejected in Barker (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In a 25-page decision (pdf) which has been awaited for two years in Elektra v. Barker, Judge Kenneth M. Karas has rejected the RIAA's "making available" theory and its "authorization" theory, but sustained the sufficiency of the complaint's allegations of "distribution" and "downloading", and also gave the RIAA 30 days to cure the defects in its complaint by filing a new complaint. The judge left it open for the RIAA to allege that defendant made an "offer to distribute", and that the offer was for "the purpose of further distribution", which, the judge held, would be actionable."
Graphics

Submission + - Intel Releases 965/G35 IGP Documentation (phoronix.com) 1

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "Intel is now releasing specifications for the 965/G35 integrated graphics processors. While there have long been open source display drivers for them, the specifications themselves were not available without an NDA until recently. The specifications are now available under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License."
Space

Submission + - Learning From Columbia Disaster, 5 Years Later (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by mattnyc99
mattnyc99 writes: It's hard to believe that five years have passed since the Columbia Space Shuttle went down on Feb. 1, 2003, but NASA is remembering the loss, while the legacy of the crew lives on and the disaster affects plans for the Shuttle's replacement every day. From former astronaut Tom Jones: "Columbia's loss forced the realization that the aging, fragile shuttle had to be replaced. Now that the process has begun, the president and Congress have failed to deliver promised funding, and NASA is wrestling with capsule-weight and booster-vibration problems; Orion's piloted debut has slipped back to early 2015. But its safety-oriented design shows the agency is trying to put Columbia's costly lessons into practice, lowering risks for future astronauts."
Security

Submission + - Engineers == terrorist mindset?

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: An article EE Times, notes a study by two Oxford University researchers — Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog" in which they point to overrepresentaion of engineers in Islamist movements, and especially in violent groups. The paper's abstract states: "We find that graduates from subjects such as science, engineering, and medicine are strongly overrepresented among Islamist movements in the Muslim world, though not among the extremist Islamic groups which have emerged in Western countries more recently. We also find that engineers alone are strongly over-represented among graduates in violent groups" The original paper is here
Microsoft

Submission + - MSFT and McLaren to provide Engine Controls to F1 (speedtv.com)

Submitted by
onescomplement
onescomplement writes: "Formula One, in a probably vain attempt to contain costs, has partnered with McLaren and Microsoft for a standard Engine Control Unit. Orignally this was meant to control "driver aids" such as traction and skid control but the regulating organization figured out that it was folly to try to figure out whether the system was being gamed. (Can you say obscured code? Sure, I knew you could.)

One comment I found kind of hilarious was that "...There is a huge engineering community in motorsport and the way they look at data is all built on the products that sit on PCs. Most of those PCs are running core infrastructure that comes from Microsoft. In motorsport you operate as close to the boundaries as you are comfortable doing. Getting close to Microsoft allows you to push those boundaries in that area."

Huh?"
Censorship

Submission + - Collapsed UK bank attempts to censor Wikileaks (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by James Hardine
James Hardine writes: Wikileaks has released a couple of hilarious legal demands over a confidential briefing memo entitled Project Wing — Northern Rock Executive Summary. Northern Rock Bank (UK) collapsed spectacularly late last year on the back of the sub-prime lending crisis and was re-floated by the Bank of England at a cost of over £24bn. The memo was used by the Financial Times, the Telegraph and others. It attracted a number of censorship injunctions, as reported by the Guardian, which only Wikileaks continues to withstand. In their legal demand to Wikileaks, Northern Rock's well-known media lawyers, Schillings, invoke the DMCA & WIPO, claim it'll be 10 years in prison for Wikileaks operators for not following the UK injunction, but then, incredibly, refuse to hand over a copy of the order unless Wikileaks' London lawyers promise not to give it to Wikileaks. Finally they claim copyright and more — on their demands! The letters raise a serious issue about the climate of censorship in the UK, where one can apparently easily obtain a censorship order — a judge made law — that everyone is meant to obey, but no one is meant to know.
United States

Submission + - FBI wants you to help solve 36-year old mystery (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "In what is likely the last push to solve one the most notorious crimes of this century, the FBI this week opened previously sealed files and unseen photos on the now 36 year old Dan (DB) Cooper hijacking case. In November 1971, between Seattle and Reno, Cooper parachuted out of the back of an airliner he'd hijacked with a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash. He's never been found, though some of the stolen money was recovered. This week the FBI Special Agent Larry Carr put out new information and a release looking for further public help in solving the 36-year old mystery. "This case is 36 years old, it's beyond its expiration date, but I asked for the case because I was intrigued with it," Carr told the New York Times. Carr, a federal agent based in Seattle who usually investigates bank robberies, and who was 4 when the hijacking occurred. "I remember as a child reading about it and wondering what had happened. It's surreal that after 36 years here I am, the only investigator left. I wanted to take a shot at solving it." http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/23435"
Handhelds

Submission + - Research: Drivers on cellphones cause traffic jams (networkworld.com)

Submitted by BobB-NW
BobB-NW writes: University of Utah researchers have conducted a new study that drivers on cell phones are to blame for more than causing accidents — they also cause traffic jams. And that costs society plenty, too, in lost productivity and fuel costs.
Music

Submission + - Tax on camera storage to benefit RIAA

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "New levies proposed for iPods and memory cards": The Canadian government is proposing that the common, portable, digital storage mediums (DVDs, CDs, compact flash, SD cards, etc) be whacked with a levy to reflect their use in piracy and that the money from that levy goes to...you guessed it, the music industry. If it were just CDs, I might be happy, but solid state storage is just a bridge too far. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20071221/copyright_act_071221/20071222?hub=Canada
Music

Submission + - New York judge grabs all Brooklyn RIAA cases

Submitted by
newtley
newtley writes: ""I wonder how many of the defendants think the settlements were 'equitable'?" That's Recording Industry vs The People on news that a New York judge has decided only he and another judge should preside over Brooklyn cases. Judge J. Trager, "has denied the motions by the defendants in two Brooklyn cases, Maverick v Chowdhury and Elektra v Torres, for random judicial assignment of RIAA cases," it says. Trager holds, "the cases should all continue to be assigned just to himself and Magistrate Judge Levy". In this decision denying the defendants' motion, "Judge Trager said that (a) many of the defendants have retained the same attorneys, (b) there have been approximately 350 RIAA cases in the Eastern District of New York, and (c) Magistrate Levy has brought about 'equitable settlements'," says RIvTP's Ray Beckerman."

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