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Comment: US Mileage? (Score 1) 374

by MartinSchou (#43634385) Attached to: Why US Mileage Ratings Are So Inaccurate

I'd be very surprised if any of the mileage ratings are accurate. They're all done in laboratory settings simulating very specific things.

Just because your car is rated at xx highway, doesn't mean that's what you'll be getting. It's more of an aid for comparison than accurate ratings.

That being said, it would be nice if the rating had an error bar attached to it. Something like 5.5 l/100 km +/- 0.5 would be helpful

Comment: Re:The reason terrorists keep terrorizing (Score 4, Insightful) 317

by MartinSchou (#43511055) Attached to: I paid attention to news of the Marathon bomb ...

These people didn't do that, so I think they are mass murderers rather than terrorists.

Are they really mass murderers though? Three people died as a result of the bombs.

Comment: There is a slight difference (Score 1) 400

by MartinSchou (#43408191) Attached to: Speeding Ticket Robots — Laws As Algorithms

If a human tickets you, you'll know right away. If you are speeding, get pulled over, ticketed and then continue speeding, you'll get ticketed next time as well. If it's the same police officer, other things may happen as well. And hopefully people who get pulled over, do not re-offend straight away.

With automated systems you don't know until much later. Typically days or weeks.

Comment: Re:Totally unworkable (Score 1) 115

by MartinSchou (#43310631) Attached to: Laser Fusion's Brightest Hope

Even if it was igniting and had good fusion gain, there are such a huge array of serious engineering issues that they have got no economic answers for that it is never going to work commercially.

Generally I find it to be better to wait until I know if something will work, before I start wondering about commercial applications.

In 1900 the idea of visiting the moon would probably have made H. G. Wells somewhat annoyed, as his book wasn't published until 1901 (before powered flight). Humans walked on the Moon a scant 70 years later. Making plans for a commercial suborbital venture would be a bit premature. It would have been premature 20 years ago. 10 years ago - not so much, as Virgin Galactic showed in 2004, because at that point the science of it was well established and it became a relatively easy engineering problem./blockquote

Comment: Re:But... (Score 1) 105

by MartinSchou (#43186593) Attached to: A Quarter of Sun-Like Stars Host Earth-Size Worlds

Why does it dim your hopes? We already knew that Earth was pretty rare (1 in 8 planets in our solar system) before discovering extra solar planetary systems.

Currently we know of 861 extra solar planets, which moves our rarity to 1 in 869. With an estimated 100 billion to 400 billion extra solar planets in the Milky Way, that becomes quite a few Earth-like planets.

If an Earth-like planet is a million to one, then it's between 100,000 and 400,000. If it's a billion to one, then it's between 100 and 400.

And that's without considering the estimated 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe and the billions of years that planets and life have to develop after our observations.

Comment: Re:Free Single Player? (Score 1) 259

by MartinSchou (#43126555) Attached to: EA Offering Free Game to Users After SimCity Launch Problems

Multiplayer Sim City does sound interesting, I agree, but they've gone about doing it in entirely the wrong way.

A much smarter way would have been to implement save-games in a Git-like fashion, where you can pick and choose which people to play with.

This obviously won't work for a real time game, but for games like Sim City and the like, it'd work just fine. Hell, a Civilization style game could work fine as well.

Government

Obama Administration Supports Journalist Arrested For Recording Cops 238

Posted by Soulskill
from the to-protect-and-serve dept.
New submitter SplatMan_DK writes "Ars Technica reports that the Obama Administration has filed a brief in support of a Maryland photojournalist who says he was arrested and beaten after he took photographs of the police arresting two other men. The brief by the Justice Department argues that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to photograph the actions of police officers in public places and prohibits police officers from arresting journalists for exercising those rights. Context: 'Garcia says that when Officer Christopher Malouf approached him, Garcia identified himself as a member of the press and held up his hands to show he was only holding a camera. But Malouf "placed Mr. Garcia in a choke hold and dragged him across the street to his police cruiser," where he "subjected him to verbal and physical abuse." According to Garcia's complaint, Malouf "forcibly dragged Mr. Garcia across the street, throwing him to the ground along the way, inflicting significant injuries." Garcia says Malouf "kicked his right foot out from under him, causing Mr. Garcia to hit his head on the police cruiser while falling to the ground." Garcia claims that Malouf took the video card from Garcia's camera and put it in his pocket. The card was never returned. Garcia was charged with disorderly conduct. In December 2011, a judge found Garcia not guilty.'"

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