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Comment Samsung always pisses on Samsung (Score 1) 87

Samsung is collection of several companies and if you've ever spent any time working with them you quickly realize that they all prioritize other Samsung companies below other customers. I don't know whether it's because of anti-trust concerns, or market strategy, or just rivalry, but I've never seen any Samsung company that operated any differently. I worked quite a bit with Samsung Mobile and S.LSI, who are even quite interdependent (though S.LSI depends more on Samsung Mobile than the reverse), and they constantly ignored and even dissed one another.

Comment Re:Meanwhile (Score 1) 81

The problem is that it's not intuitive that there's a special case traffic rule for that and I don't remember it ever being brought up in driver's ed

There's no way your driver's ed class failed to mention that traffic is required to stop for school buses with their red lights flashing, and I think it's unlikely that your written test failed to include a question about school zone and school bus rules. Mine (Utah) certainly did.

Comment Re:Meanwhile (Score 1) 81

I guess neither humans or bots are trained well on that. It's pretty stupid anyway. The kids should cross the street at normal crossings like everyone else, not just anywhere a huge yellow beast stops and flips out a sign.

In rural areas, like where I live, there aren't any marked crossings, and there really isn't any reasonable place to put them. If you mark a crossing it would only ever be used by the one or two houses near it, and only by school children, because there's really no need for anyone to walk across the street otherwise. The school buses stop directly in front of each child's house. There aren't any locations where a bus could pick up multiple children without making them have to walk an unreasonable distance, so each kid's house is a stop.

Also, the speed limit on my road is 45 mph, and cars routinely drive 55 mph... so having the "huge yellow beast" with flashing red lights and a flipped-out, flashing red stop sign is definitely necessary.

Comment Re:Those failing engines and transmissions. (Score 1) 250

The direct fuel injection does seem to cause more trouble than it's worth.

Low tension rings cause more trouble than their worth Low viscosity oil causes more trouble than it's worth Stop-start causes more trouble than it's worth Variable displacement causes more trouble than it's worth Integral dual volute turbocharging causes more trouble than it's worth And yes, direct injection causes more trouble than it's worth.

The extreme CAFE mileage requirements have driven manufacturers to make a large number of terrible engineering choices in ICE drive trains. Extreme CAFE mileage requirements have greatly contributed to the excessive cost of vehicles and the excessive cost of repairs.

Yep. CAFE-style regulation is the wrong way to attempt to reduce carbon emissions. The right way is to impose a carbon tax, then let consumers vote with their wallets and engineers work to make the right tradeoffs to meet customer demand. My guess is that consumers would choose to buy the more fuel-efficient vehicles and engineers might make the same tradeoffs... but now it would be clear that those tradeoffs are worthwhile.

Comment Re:This will cost you money (Score 1) 250

Gas is not cheap.

Gas is pretty much exactly at its long-term, inflation-adjusted average price, and right where it was in the 1950s. Since then, it was a little higher in the 70s, a little lower in the 90s, a little higher in the early 2000s, but we're now back at the long-term normal price.

See https://afdc.energy.gov/data/1...

Whether the normal price of gas is "cheap" or "expensive" depends on your income and lifestyle, I'd think.

Comment Re:a much needed move? (Score 1) 250

A "much-needed move" would be to allow BYD cars to be sold here and let the free market economics (that conservatives ostensibly claim to love) sort everything out.

I'm not going to argue about the merit of allowing BYD or not. This is only about free market economics. BYD is heavily subsidized, and their entry in the market would skew any possible free market economics.

This is an appropriate place for tariffs. Not ridiculous, exclusionary tariffs like we have, but tariffs carefully calibrated to offset the subsidies as precisely as possible, putting BYD's cars on a level playing field against US EVs. I have great faith in free market capitalism and dislike anything that distorts the market, but sometimes you need to use regulation to correct for external market distortions.

Comment Re:Anomalies are a learning experience (Score 1) 89

It's ability to hover, and fixing itself to the deck allows for a much expanded launch envelope.

How so? I don't see how hovering makes any difference at all... it's just a waste of fuel, increasing gravity loss. It's nicer from a controllability standpoint, but SpaceX has clearly perfected the hoverslam maneuver and once you have that down it makes more sense than to waste fuel hovering and translating. Bolting itself into the deck helps with rough seas, I suppose, but it seems unlikely you'd want to try landing in very rough conditions anyway.

Spacex doesn't seem to care for doing this all that often any more.

Nah. They do it when it makes sense. They don't do it for Starlink launches because it's cheaper to launch a slightly lighter load and shorten turnaround time, to avoid waiting for the droneship to ferry the rocket back to land. Plus their launch cadence is so high that they'd need a big fleet of droneships. So they reserve those for paying customers who need the greater capacity. I don't think anything about New Glenn's capabilities changes those calculations.

Comment Re:study confirms expectations (Score 1) 192

That's actually a good question. Inks have changed somewhat over the past 5,000 years, and there's no particular reason to think that tattoo inks have been equally mobile across this timeframe.

But now we come to a deeper point. Basically, tattoos (as I've always understand it) are surgically-engineered scars, with the scar tissue supposedly locking the ink in place. It's quite probable that my understanding is wrong - this isn't exactly an area I've really looked into in any depth, so the probability of me being right is rather slim. Nonetheless, if I had been correct, then you might well expect the stuff to stay there. Skin is highly permeable, but scar tissue less so. As long as the molecules exceed the size that can migrate, then you'd think it would be fine.

That it isn't fine shows that one or more of these ideas must be wrong.

Comment Re:Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score 1) 169

The AI is significantly more aware of other cars around it. Unlike a human, the self-driving system has continuous 360-degree visibility.

While I agree that it *should* always be safe to hit the brakes, the truth is that when you're driving on busy roads most of the time it's not safe to brake hard. People follow too close more often than they maintain proper separation.

I also agree that drivers should always have sufficient situational awareness to know whether or not it's safe to brake, they often don't, and they often react without considering the consequences. This isn't a "man vs woman" thing, it's a human thing.

Comment Re:study confirms expectations (Score 1) 192

it is a royal BITCH to try and remove them

It's worth noting that the way you remove them is by making them stop just sitting there, to the degree they do. The various approaches ultimately just try to break the ink up into smaller pieces that can be absorbed into the bloodstream and carried throughout the body... hopefully to get filtered out by the kidneys and liver and then excreted, but who knows? It seems likely to me that tattoo removal may create exactly the same effects as tattoo application, but moreso.

Comment Re:It's not Waymo's fault (Score 1) 169

You shouldn't worry about getting rear ended. That's the worry of the person behind you. It's their fault if you get rear ended.

Have you ever been rear-ended? I have, twice. Both times while I was stopped at a red light, so fault was absolutely incontestable. It's their fault, but you end up without a car. Sure, their insurance has to pay, but they only have to give you what it's worth, not what it will cost you to replace it, and the difference is significant. Not to mention that you could be injured. Your hospital bills will be covered, but you were still injured and have to deal with pain, the recovery, and maybe even some amount of permanent damage. My neck has never been quite right after the second time I was rear-ended.

Comment Re:It's not Waymo's fault (Score 1) 169

I can tell you exsctly how many human drivers would respond in a situation like this, because I've seen it happen and have heard about it enough times: the driver would have accelerated away from the incident at high speed.

They would have done that after slamming on the brakes in a vain attempt to avoid hitting the dog, possibly losing control of their vehicle, and possibly causing a collision with other cars or objects. If their reaction failed to cause a serious accident, then maybe they'd have sped away.

Comment Re:One dog and one cat... (Score 1) 169

Many millions of those miles are on roads that never have animals on them.

Until last month, Waymo only allowed their cars to drive on city streets, no freeway driving. Even now, freeway usage is limited, only for selected riders (I'm not sure what the selection criteria is).

So, basically all of Waymo's millions of miles are on streets that often have animals on them.

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