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Comment Re:I wish I'd thought of that (Score 2) 221

With my 2006 Prius I was told that if I lost both keys that the only way to recover was to replace the computer. If I had at least one key fob I could add more key fobs but it required having at least one fob.

My current car does not have a physical lock, making it all the more difficult to break in to. It can't be programmed over ODB either.

Comment Re:Is this legal? (Score 1) 700

A compatible chip does not use the FTDI USB ID. FTDI paid for their USB ID. It is not available to other chips, whether they are "compatible" or not. The chips, BTW, are fake chips with FTDI's logo and part number printed on them, not compatible chips if you read the article. USB to serial chips are not a general class like USB storage devices where there are many compatible chips so in other words one cannot make a compatible chip. In the USB storage case, each chip or device has its own vendor and device ID which is not needed to be compatible. For USB serial this is not the case since there is no standard.

Comment Re:Tesla wasn't the target, it was China (Score 1) 256

You must not drive much. I drive 40-50 miles every day. I have a tremendous amount of storage and it's certainly fun to drive. I also never have to set foot in a gas station. I spend 5 seconds plugging in at night and 5 seconds unplugging in the morning to a full battery (or whatever level of charge I choose). I don't have to stand out in the weather and wait in line for fuel nor has the range been much of an issue. It's also a somewhat different driving experience with how smooth and quiet and responsive the car is. There is no lag.

Comment Great Job (Score 1) 256

The problem is that you now have the big players writing the laws to stifle competition. In this case, it's not the auto manufacturers, but the dealerships. The dealerships are not the mom and pop dealerships but the huge conglomerates. For example, the 5th largest which Warren Buffet just bought, the Van Tuyl Group does $8 billion in annual revenue. In my area there are a huge number of dealerships under the Del Grande Dealer Group. These are the guys who are paying off the politicians.

To get an idea of why car dealerships are generally so unpleasant to deal with This American Life has a good podcast showing why car salesmen are the lying scum they are. Some of the auto manufacturers would like to ditch the dealerships but they can't due to the laws. Most states have laws that prevent manufacturers from competing against dealerships but those don't apply if there are no dealerships as in Tesla's case.

The dealerships like to make the argument that they add protection to the consumer. This is pure BS. I know someone who bought a Fisker Karma. When Fisker went bankrupt, so did the warranty even for those who paid for it. Most dealerships dropped all support for the car like a hot potato leaving the owners in a lurch or get support from a couple of ex-Fisker employees who do the support on their own and paying for all service and repairs out of pocket.

Comment Re:Tesla wasn't the target, it was China (Score 1) 256

I have a single car that's electric, now granted it is a Tesla model S. I don't have any issue if I have to drive from the Bay Area to LA. I was planning to drive up to Seattle though sadly I couldn't get the time off of work. The rate they're building superchargers makes it easier and easier for long distance travel. If I need to go on a long trip that isn't covered, renting a car for the few times I need to is still cheaper than all the gas I'd be burning otherwise. I kept my old car for about six months but I never drove it so I ended up selling it. The only trip I've taken where I couldn't take my Tesla is one where I wouldn't take my Tesla anyway since it involved a lot of bumpy dirt roads. In general long trips have not been a problem. While I do have to stop every few hours I find I'm more relaxed when I get to my destination.

Comment Re:Is it legal to make code compatible alternative (Score 3, Informative) 700

I've had issues with many non-FTDI USB to serial adapters but the real FTDI ones have been rock solid. I pushed for integrating a quad FTDI USB to serial chip into one of our products since the FTDI chip can also do i2c and JTAG. I'm sure a knock-off chip would have a lot of problems. I've had the FTDI serial chip reliably running at 10Mbps.

Comment Why is FTDI the villan? (Score 1) 700

Maybe there have been a lot of support calls on these fake devices not working properly. If that's the case, why not nip the problem in the bud and kill off the counterfeit chips. I pushed for FTDI USB to serial chips in some of my company's products because they work and have good OSS support. I've had too many other USB to serial adapters give me problems, but never FTDI based ones. FTDI also provides a lot of useful code for doing interesting things with their chips, like JTAG and I2C.

Comment I wish they'd focus more on things like MRSA (Score 4, Interesting) 384

I wish they'd focus more on things like MRSA and KPC which kills far more people in this country and are far more deadly. These diseases are easily spread and there is no cure for them. While not trying to diminish the cause to fight Ebola, frankly there are a lot of things far deadlier in this country that people should be worried about.

The cases in Texas I think can be squarely blamed on incompetence from the Dallas hospital.

In the case of KPC, Congress has basically put their head in the sand and handtied the CDC and FDA from effectively studying and fighting it, thanks to the livestock lobbies Frontline has a good episode on this. It doesn't help that congress has cut the budget of the CDC significantly over the last decade and played politics to make it difficult to study and fight the causes.

As it is, the CDC had to cut back on their research on Ebola due to the budget cuts and the delays in the worldwide community for fighting and funding the fighting of Ebola aren't helping matters either. If the Dallas hospital wasn't so incompetent, there's a good chance Thomas might have survived and nobody else would have become infected.

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