Missing from this discussion is the simple fact that LOTS of cheap Android devices don't even come with Google Play, but are just loosely based on AOSP with some random app store that no right-thinking person would ever choose to use.

Also missing is the fact that Google seems to be very deliberate in allowing such devices to use Google Play, even though it generally works just fine on most/all of them once properly hacked into place. (Amazon's app store, by contrast, is a simple .apk download.)

Oh, so it's really just about cost, then. Why would anyone buy a Mercedez-Benz or even a Cadillac when Hyundai makes much cheaper vehicles that are just as good for normal driving?

Tesla currently produces only rather opulent and luxurious vehicles that are full of neat features which (strictly speaking) are not necessary. And they're priced accordingly.

Most people don't buy cars that do what they need because most people aren't engineers. Most people just buy cars that they like, want and can afford.

And just as some people like, want, and can afford a Bugatti Veyron or a McLaren, some people like, want, and can afford a Tesla. Or a wicked-fast Camaro. Or an M5 (which is actually a fantastic, though pricey, family sedan). Or a Shelby SuperSnake. Or whatever (including a Tesla).

Corollarily, if most people bought exactly what they needed, most people would be driving small, efficient sedans or coupes, or larger, also efficient, minivans. Most people don't do that.

Notably, since the fuselage is expected to look more-or-less the same throughout, superimposing a static image of it is rather useless.

. there's enough competition among Sat providers to give Verizon and such a very hard incentive to drop their costs. Even though most sat providers (Dish, HughesNet, etc) only provide around 7-10Mbps, they've started bringing down the prices just to keep ahead of the competition (for example, not even a year ago, it used to cost around $100+/mo just to get a 5Mbps connection from HughesNet with a ridiculously low bandwidth cap. - own it's dropped to $60/mo for 10Mbps and no cap, $45/mo for the same from Dish ($30/mo if you already have their TV service), etc.

Nope. All $59.99 buys from Hughesnet is a 10/1Mbps connection, with 10GB of "anytime" data, and another 10GB of "bonus bytes" (which can only be used between 2AM and 6AM). Per month.

If that's not a cap, I'm not sure what is.

Ah, now we've officially extended the discussion to broad generalizations.

Most people (not all, but most), I'd day say, have families and already have two vehicles in the household. Using a particular one to use when making extended trips, and either one for everything else, is not an absurd proposition.

It's a perfectly cromulent approach in that it offers solutions to the perceived problems.

"Nails are hard to use because I keep breaking bricks on them" is an obviously silly thing to say when hammers are cheap and available.

Likewise, "Teslas are hard to use because they take forever to recharge, and only go a few hundred miles" is also a silly thing to say when other tools are readily available, especially since most people don't drive more than a couple of hundred miles round-trip on a regular basis and normally come home every night.

It's a matter of using the right tool for the job. I don't need to drive a car every day that can do anything, and most other people don't either.

I'm not going to explain why it's better to use a hammer, or the proper application of a wrench. Their relative merits are implicit.

Meh.

I drive quite a lot, at least compared to most people I know around here. I drive an old, small, fun, reasonably efficient gas-burner. Lately, I've been doing about 700 miles a week, and I'm home every night.

A Tesla would be awesome for this, if my current car weren't already so paid-for and weren't relatively cheap to maintain.

Every now and then (once or twice a year on rough average), I do drive more than 450 miles at a stretch. Filling up in minutes instead of hours is admittedly very handy.

But for a long trip, I can just rent something more appropriate. No big deal.

I made a conscious decision a long time ago that I didn't need to own a truck because I can always have Big, Heavy Things delivered, or just rent something more appropriate. ("Renting something more appropriate" usually means renting a truck by the hour from Lowes/Home Depot, but has also included U-Haul box trucks of various sizes. Either is economical and easy compared to owning, driving, insuring, maintaining...etc...a truck of my own.)

If I were in car-buying mode I could very easily decide that I don't need a gas tank, and that a Tesla would be a perfect fit.

If the Tesla is cheap to drive (it seems to be), and fun and comfortable (no stated complaints there that I've ever read), than yeah: A range of a few hundred miles would be perfect for the vast majority of my driving.

Sure, I'll occasionally need something else: But that's what rental agencies (and friends!) are for. ("Hey, you want to use my Tesla this week while I take your Honda to Florida for a week?")

So...*shrug*

Extrapolation and assumption are not the same thing.

I've seen it work perfectly more often than not. It's not rocket surgery, but just a matter of having the right tools for the job....

This is the best solution. But running wire is a PITA.

But the wire is already there.

Ever work on cabling in a courtroom after, say, 2005? I have. There's Cat5* reasonably close to all of the requisite points, already. There is at least one computer on the judge's bench, also hardwired.

Network cabling in the courts is a PITA, but it's already been done.

*: No, maybe not 5e or 6, but whatever: Even common gigabit performs just fine, by specification, on the plain-old Cat5 that we've had for decades now. There may also be Cat3 installed, but that's also a perfectly cromulent way to get 10Mbps 802.3 10base-T between endpoints on the Court Recorder system...which ought to be plenty, even with fast-talking lawyers driving the content therein.

And the press will still ignore largely it, bring in all their crap, and turn it on.

Then they dig their own grave. Let them. At least the proceedings will continue without interference.

I was actually waiting for someone to bring up a rape analogy. Your analogy fails.

If you break up a rape, you've done two things: Witnessed wrongdoing and attempted (succeeded?) in stopping it.

If you pen-test someone else's network, you've done none of these things. Where's the witnessed wrongdoing? Where's the stopping it?

In the first case, of course you are (or should be) a hero. But to extend your analogy, in the latter case, you're done nothing more than check every girl you can find to see if she's rapable.

Apples and ugly.

I'm a bit of a devil's advocate as I write this, but:

The law is already responsible for security. When I leave the cheap door locks on my house locked and the windows open (but locked, and because the weather is beautiful), and someone breaks in (by picking the lock, using a metal rod to bypass the locked window, a sledgehammer to knock the doorknob-lock off of the door, or just throwing a brick through the window), the crime is the same as if I had fancy Medeco deadbolts, high-security doors, wrought-iron security cages over the windows, a solid alarm system, and a well-trained attack dog: B&E.

The reason? As I understand it, it revolves around intent. I intend for my house to be secure, and therefore (in the eyes of the law) it is.

What makes electronic security different from physical security?

Excellent. Agreement on /., who'da thought?

Huh? I'm not talking about the remote being a keyboard, I'm talking about the remote identifying itself as a keyboard. It's the equivalent of bar-code scanners that you plug into a keyboard port and that "type" whatever you scan with them.

Oh, neat. Where do I buy one of those? Will it work with my other stuff, too?

Keyboards have some buttons that are very good for remote control functions, like "up" and "down" and "left" and "right" and "enter" and "escape" and "pause/play" and "fast forward". Make a handheld stick with just those buttons, and have it pair over bluetooth as a keyboard, and that remote would then work with an Apple TV, an Ouya, a Fire TV, a Linux box running MythTV, a Windows box running Steam in big picture mode, et cetera, et cetera. That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, I guess it won't work with my other stuff: So when you want to switch devices (say, from using Apple TV to a Linux box with MythTV), you have to perform the device-specific re-pairing incantation? That's not handy. It promotes one-remote-per-device and therefore physical clutter and needless expense.

I see. There are features in a remote that I'm so uninterested in that I don't even think of them, that you consider absolutely essential. (Though a subset of those are easy. They could all be easy given specific device choices which I'm not going to assume.)

So you're uninterested in turning things on and off, and adjusting the volume?

You and I will not like the same remotes.

That's actually a realistic possibility.

But I dare say that you might be unique. Most people want a simple remote, and don't want to think through the configuration of their AV system every time they change tasks. I submit that this has been wanted by people ever since VCRs required people to tune to channel 3.

...which is a problem that is better-solved by having the local conglomerate provide a temporary, fast(ish) pipe for press over cable/*DSL, with a couple of well-configured 802.11g access points on non-overlapping channels (and another 802.11n at 5GHz, just because), with some decent QoS rules on a router and the WPA key of the day taped to the front of the judge's bench.

Have the court add it to the court costs. It's not even (relative) pennies on this scale, and it is in-keeping with some other things that court costs provide for: HVAC, lights, power, building maintenance...

Or, you know, hardwiring the court recorder's system....which has no business using 802.11 on ISM bands to begin with.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who could optimistically have this all going, and going well, before lunch...or at worst, mid-afternoon on a lazy Saturday, with some behind-the-scenes tweaking on Monday morning to match traffic expectations with reality.