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Comment Re:Pollute their data (Score 1) 136

It's been clear for a while that many of the studios were simply suing based on the the file name.

In order to establish that a file actually contains what you think it does you need cryptographic checksums, etc and the only way to guarantee this is to seed the files yourself.

Lookup "Prenda Law" to see how well that tactic worked out.

Comment Re:What I want to know is... (Score 1) 136

I'm sure the long-term endpoint will be

1: Not many using trackers (this is pretty much already the case thanks to DHT)

2: Obfuscation switched on, along with blocking other parties from seeing exactly what parts you are seeding.

3: Crossborder VPNs (As a non-australian I'd be more than happy to buy VPN endpoint access there, etc)

4: Tor-style protocols with data passing across a few intermediaries.

This is already happening but this kind of litigation simply speeds up the inevitable ubiquitousness of the solutions.

Comment Re:Just a Moment... (Score 1) 136

"but then discovered that multiple people occupied the dwelling, and were unable to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt [see above] which of those individuals committed the alleged crime."

If it's a criminal matter this is the case.

Evidential burden is _much_ lower in civil cases.

The odds are pretty good that criminal law threats will be used to obtain data which will then be used in civil cases.

Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 258

"In the short-term, it may be cheaper just to keep the drivers on for the entire trip"

Indeed, but they may not be actually driving until they're in areas where it's _needed_

This is going to make a big difference to uptime hours and I can see "drivers" being abused by unscrupulous employers.

Comment Re:I wonder (Score 1) 258

"Trucks are pulled over all the time for violations in properly securing their loads, and that's despite the fact that the driver is currently held legally responsible for it. Heaven help us if it's a corporate drone three states removed who may or may not be traceable."

There are ways of writing laws to hold corporations and their officers legally responsible for such things.

In one company I worked for (not in the USA), the CEO sent out a letter stating at the top: "I have no wish to go to jail for activities performed by my staff. Therefore any illegal activity will be dealt with swiftly and severely." it went on to say that culprits would be terminated on the spot and appropriate regulators notified., etc etc.

Comment Aircraft speed. (Score 1) 62

Firstly: Try catching a concorde flight today.

Secondly: All new-design contemporary turbofan jet aircraft travel slightly SLOWER than their turbojet predecessors (0.85–0.855 for a 747-400 instead of 0.89-0.91 for turbojet designs such as the Convair 900 and Boeing 707 - the 747 has always been a turbofan engine aircraft). Going faster than this has severe fuel penalties as it causes major issue with the fixed-pitch fans (and the larger the fan the lower the top speed).

There's a push to make civil transports slightly slower still for fuel economy purposes (bigger fans == greater efficiency/thrust but lower optimal speed as noted above). Having said that, the journey times are slightly faster because higher thrust levels mean that newer aircraft (or re-engined versions of old designs such as the 747) spend less time accelerating to cruise speed and altitude. In addition the higher thrust levels mean that the aircraft can carry far more passengers than original designs at the same or lower overall fuel consumption (same latency, bigger pipes)

Believe it or not, the big thing currently keeping speeds high is wing sweep. The "traditional" sweep on a jet transport was "set in stone" in 707-727 days and is optimised for near-transonic speeds. It's inefficient at the actual high-subsonic 0.8-0.85 speeds travelled at today - with inefficiency increasing as speed goes down (and of course, swept wings have nasty low speed stall characteristics plus they're a major contributor to the height limitations of current transport aircraft for the same reason - stall characteristics in thin air/high speed - aka "coffin corner", exacerbated by speed limits imposed by the use of fans for thrust instead of pure turbojet)

Reegnineering the 747 or other classic designs for a lesser sweep is a no-go area. There's been a lot of resistance within the industry to "de-sweep" wings as it's felt that passengers will associate this with turboprops, but this is a concept which _will_ happen with increasing emphasis on fuel consumption.

Several industry magazines have postulated that the ideal cruisng speed for future civil transports is likely to be in the 0.78-0.80 range, although there's a possibility that higher altitudes will be involved too (going above ~45,000 feet brings ozone into the cabin. This needs mitigation) To get there _will_ require much straighter wings than we currently see. Whether passengers like it will probably not matter in the end.

Comment Re:Um, not so much.... (Score 1) 105

"you get your connectivity from Pedro, and something goes wrong."

That's between you and Pedro, not you and AT&T. Let Pedro duke it out with them. He's not going to let them screw him over or you'll take your business down the road to Shnycorp.

The reality is that Pedro provides substantially better service for a couple of bucks more than Shinycorp

Shinycorp do big nationwide advertising and low prices, by cutting deals with AT&T for lower quality of service and longer times to get onsite than AT&T sells as standard.

The result is that when your line goes down with Shinycorp, you argue for hours with their phone droids and go through the entire modem waggling routine before they admit there might be a problem and someone will be out next week to fix it.

When you ring Pedro, you speak to Pedro's tech, who looks at your circuit and goes "I'm on it. There'll be someone onsite by the end of the day"

Shinycorp competes with Bastardcorp, Screwupcorp and Cheatemcorp. They all have low prices with various gotchas and they all offer the same poor level of service. They have the highest rate of customer complaints in the industry but everyone goes with them because they all put saturation advertising in the media, so joe average has never heard of the others. They make millions each day and everyone hates them but doesn't look elsewhere.

Pedro makes a comfortable income. You're happy with your level of service. He lives or dies on this, so it's in his interest to keep his customers happy.

Fantasy? No, that's what happens in places with LLU and fairly closely describes the way I buy my connection

Comment Re:If i can't work on my car (Score 1) 292

"My point was that points needed to be constantly adjusted."

Yup. I put a homemadeTAI system in my mother's car (A 1974 Datsun B210) back in the 80s and it went from needing point adjustments every 5000 miles to almost never (about 20k miles due to the rubbing block wearing out)

When I changed the points over to an optocoupler assembly the mechanic was horrified, but having eliminated the rubbing block the timing stayed solid for 60,000 miles.

As a nice side effect the engine could whiz through to 9000rpm if you weren't careful (6000rpm redline) but as we'd balanced everything this wasn't too much of an issue

Comment Re:If i can't work on my car (Score 1) 292

" Just degree the pickup."

Uh yeah right.

The pickup runs off a notched tooth ring on the flywheel plus another on the camshaft if you're lucky.
each plug has its own coil pack. Wasted spark is common (partly because it ensures unburned hydrocarbons don't go down the exhaust)

It's been a long time since cars had distributors.

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