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Comment Re:Oh Just Release It to the Public Already! (Score 1) 195

I realize I'm being pedantic, but in 1922, back when German cinema was arguably the world's biggest and best, Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler featured an extended car chase sequence between the Dr. Mabuse, and the investigator hot on his trails. The policeman actually first had to follow after Mabuse on a horse, before quickly getting into a car - Germany was still transitioning at the time!

Although obviously it's been surpassed by other car chase scenes, it's uncanny how similar it is to a modern one, guns blazing and all. Maybe there's not much you can do with the basic idea.

Comment Re:Shepard Book (Score 1) 195

Book's past wouldn't have ever been revealed. He gave up his past life and forgave himself. The guy he used to be was dead and there was no need to speak of him.

Quite likely, you'd only be allowed to learn his past in a final series finale. But my question was not where did he come from, but where is he going.

Comment Re:Glad Newegg confirmed they're fake! (Score 1) 314

Speaking as someone who's packed stuff for a living, I doubt it (apart from the other arguments posters have raised). The boxing is almost certainly done by hand - the boxes themselves may be machine folded, though I doubt it. In the kinds of run sizes typical for this kind of thing, cheap labour is far more effective than machinery.

Comment Re:You are kidding, right? (Score 1) 737

Bill Gates co-authored many of the BASIC implementations on early home computers and PCs. He also founded Microsoft, which seems to me to have been one of the pioneers in the commodity software business (e.g. producing commodity software as a product, rather than custom software or software as part of a product).

Comment Re:bubbles = isolation (Score 1) 198

Most of the development I do is on a dual screen (at work) or three screen (at home) workstation. I'd have no problems spreading that workspace out. I think it would be great for debugging like in the video, but I wouldn't want to write new code in that interface. Make this a plugin for eclipse that lets me open this as a view for debugging and I'd use it in a heartbeat.

Comment How did they test? (Score 1) 276

Did they just correlate #of kids with TV vs. kids with PC? If so then surprise: correlation does not imply causation.
Either that or they could go around installing TVs and PCs and removing whatever kids had in their rooms before test, which I don't think the parents would let them do.

Comment Re:It's all about the tech (Score 1) 368

Yes, lets send up jammer signals that cover the entire continent or EMP the entire sky. lets pull out the missles an put them in every city.
.
The expense of the imaginary "safe, unbreakable, unhackable, wireless, remote control interface" isn't an issue; a plain old remote control signal will do thank you.

As for autonomous GPS devices....Say good-bye to accurate GPS.

The image/GPS based autonomous devices.....yep were screwed.

Comment not just a change in constants (Score 1) 231

You're right that spinning this as a green result is trendy. But it can't be just a change in constants, since they say they reduced the complexity. "Reducing the complexity" is a technical term that means the speed, as a function of input size n (or l,m,n, etc.), keeps improving as n gets bigger. That is,

lim time_required_new(n) / time_required_old(n) = 0.
n --> infinity

An example is that an O(n log n) algorithm like Heapsort has reduced complexity compared to an O(n**2) algorithm like selection sort. But you can't legitimately claim to have "reduced the complexity" just by cleaning up the code or cutting out a constant factor of work (like going from bubble sort to selection sort).

Comment Terror weapon (Score 4, Interesting) 368

Consider a small freighter, 200 km off New York. It launches a few hundred small unmanned planes, guided by a small computer autopilot. Each plane carries four thermite stick bombs, similar to the ones used in WWII. When the planes reach the vicinity of New York they climb to a few hundred meters altitude and start dropping the thermite devices. What was cutting edge tech 70 years ago is garage tech today.

Comment Re:You're looking at it wrong. (Score 1) 750

They panic, then act irrationally. Add to it that a large percentage of drivers are barely capable of driving when all the stars align perfectly. Throw a wrench in the system and all bets are off. I get your point on how police are supposed to be highly trained drivers. I don't know what to tell you, but hitting the brakes, shifting to neutral or holding the on/off button for 3s would have saved him.

The article also mentioned that many other manufacturer's on/off buttons are set up so that multiple rapid panic-like presses will turn off the car, not so with toyota, so it is plausible that many people may not be aware of how to turn off their toyota while it is in motion. The supposed reason for requiring a hold is that accidentally hitting the button and it instantly turning the car off would result in dangerous scenarios for most drivers. I personally dislike the whole on/off button in the first place. Additionally, turning the car off should be the last option as you will lose power steering and brake assist.

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