They've been compulsorily fitted to taxis in New Zealand since August. Taxi companies fitted them at their own expense. Drivers are saying they feel safer, and the industry is claiming the amount of abuse against drivers have dropped and the cameras have directly led to arrests, including for several very serious incidents. Despite the camera systems costing upwards of $1000 per vehicle, the drivers are saying it's money well-spent.

So please ignore the cynicism of the Slashdot submitter & editor - they evidently do improve driver safety.

Because using the extension to determine what a file does was characteristic of MS-DOS. So the "C:\" part of that line isn't the only MS-DOSism present in that line, as Unix-like systems use permissions to determine if a file is executable or not rather than the extension.

Not realistic with current capacitor tech. At best, caps can currently store about 1/5th of the capacity of a battery of similar mass. The best production ultracaps are around 30Wh/kg, whereas LiPo batteries are well over 100Wh/kg, and can exceed 200Wh/kg for certain variants.

Well, it's not efficiency for starters, it's efficacy. And "output"/"input" is all a matter of perspective: I don't put a fixed amount of fuel in my car and then want to know how far I can drive. I know how far I must drive, so L/100km gives me consumption and therefore fuel cost of my commute. Hence I can readily estimate weekly, monthly, or yearly fuel cost.

It's also linear: 12L/100km is 20% worse than 10L/100km, and 8L/100km is 20% better, for a known distance that needs to be travelled. 8.33km/L -> 10km/L -> 12.5km/L is not linear. Whether you prefer a linear-proportional scale or inversely-proportional scale in this matter is up to you.

Consider that distance travelled is fixed (it is for me) and therefore distance is the "input", and fuel consumption (or cost) is the "output" - albeit a negative output - and then it makes perfect sense.

IMHO that's all to do with technical reasons of producing and displaying the photos, not inability for the eye to comfortably view them.

of course I didn't believe that it took photos, but to imply that 3d stereoscopic photography is rare is simply untrue, considering 1.5 billion viewmaster disks have been produced.

Aw, didn't mummy let you play with the Viewmaster?

Immaculate conception doesn't refer to the virgin birth (of Christ) but rather the doctrine that Mary herself was born immaculate (free from original sin), which has no implication of virgin birth whatsoever.

You might want to check where the Mazda3 MPS sits on the Nurburgring lap times. Look closely at the company it keeps. It's right between Corvette C5, Honda S2000, Honda NSX and Lotus Exige. It's faster than the MX5 (by 1 second) and the RX8 (by 4 seconds). The Mazda3 MPS is currently Mazda's fastest production model - despite being FWD. It's stopping distance (60-0mph or 70-0mph) is also exceptionally short, and comparable to many supercars. Look it up.

Not necessarily, as a parabolic reflector could be followed by a lens (at approximately the focal point) which refocuses the apparent source to infinity again; thereafter the beam would be trivial to 'steer' using a single flat mirror.

Uh, doppler shift? Is that not how radar guns work?

Digital does not imply binary. Nor does binary imply digital. PWM for instance is binary but not digital - in fact it's closer to analogue.

Digital generally means quantized or discrete. Few people count in binary (base-2) on their digits but they do count in whole steps, so 'digital' and 'integer' actually have very much in common.

In my country - the law. There must be a mechanical coupling of the steering wheel to the wheels. Power-assistance is obviously fine, but true drive-by-wire systems aren't legal. Presumably for reliability - if your engine stalls or electrics die you can still steer a power-steered car (though it's hard labour).

A manual transmission is far cheaper than a conventional auto or new double-clutch systems. That's a pretty big driver. I don't know what it's like in the US, but most automatics in New Zealand carry a price premium of around 10% vs the manual version.

Personally I dislike automatics purely because of the torque converter. I like my revs to directly correspond to wheel speed. Not some vague relationship where it feels like my pedal position is merely a suggestion.

Maybe US-spec Camry with its soft suspension. Other markets get a firmer, more responsive car. From this review, comparing a US-spec hybrid to the local (New Zealand) conventional model:

Note that down-under, the local Camry would in-turn be generally considered "wallowy" itself vs many of its contemporaries, but smaller sportier cars are the norm down here.