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Comment Re:Respecting copyright is an important part of FO (Score 1) 109

Happens I know both SCO's Expert and IBM's Expert. They both independently analyzed the codebases, each developing a similar set of analysis tools (think of a modified version of grep which searches for similarities in code patterns that remain after changing variable names and re-factoring equations to do the same math in more or fewer lines.)

Both researchers reached the same conclusion - the code which was the same in both systems was free to use - open source and MIT licensed (primarily code that was taken from the BSD source tree.) SCO's Expert went to the legal team and said that there was no stolen code, but that IBM likely had violated their obligations to the UNIX trademark by diluting its value when they put their weight behind Linux. The SCO legal team didn't feel that was a path forward, and continued to pretend there was stolen code.

Comment Sample size of 2 (Score 3, Interesting) 110

Really have no complaints with battery life so far - knock wood!

2017 Tesla Model S P100D - 9 years on the road, 202155 miles (purchased at 50K miles), range 86% of nominal. 270/315 miles

2015 Tesla Model S 85D - 11 years on the road, 125251 miles (purchased at 16K miles), range 90% of nominal. 244/270 miles

Both vehicles have free Supercharging, and that gets used a fair amount. Both now have home charging, but the 2015 was almost exclusively supercharged for about 3 years.

These battery packs have active cooling and heating, and an exceptionally good level of cell balancing, which doubtless helps with the longevity.

Also, in the 250K+ miles we've driven, we've had one unscheduled stop - a damaged tire. Biggest maintenance item so far was a failed cabin heater and leaking coolant valve on the P100D, that required them to drop the battery to fix it, the rest were several minor warranty repairs, a cracked suspension bushing on the 2015, replacing a rock-damaged windshield, and between the two vehicles there were some door handles and a trunk cinch actuator repaired or replaced. Most of the service work was done by "Tesla Rangers" in the driveway.

The P100D looks and drives like a two-or-three-year-old vehicle which has had a couple of curbside parking dings, the 85D looks and drives even better. I remember my first automobile - a 1970 Plymouth Duster, slant 6 engine, which had the engine's top end rebuilt at 75K miles and died utterly at 150K miles. Obviously a different class of vehicle, but it was thought of at the time as a vehicle which was so reliable it would outlast the owner - in comparison, it seemed to have been manufactured from empty soup cans and bailing wire - even the paint was mostly gone by 150K miles.

Comment Re: This is obviously bullshit lies because (Score 2) 165

2016 Tesla P100DL - replaced the brake pads (not rotors, just pads) at 160,000 miles, not because they were on the rivets, but because they were about 8 years old at that point, and I figured they're probably not designed to last that long - also changing them before they started to score the rotors saved changing the rotors.

Regenerative braking goes all the way down to zero MPH - the brakes just don't get used very much.

This is a stupidly quick (0-60MPH in under 3 seconds, can pull almost a G of acceleration) and ridiculously heavy EV. I get over 40,000 miles on a set of tires, which is good but not great - I suspect that will improve as tire compounds are reformulated for EVs. Newer EVs are lighter, have more range, and doubtless better on tires.

The AWD, traction control, regeneration, and ABS on the vehicle means that it's basically impossible to spin tires accelerating or skid when braking, which I'm sure helps with tire life.

I routinely go on lengthy trips around the eastern USA - never give a single thought to range. Vehicle charges in the driveway, I schedule my road trip charging for mealtimes, and select hotels that have an EV charger so the car's full in the morning.

Comment Re:Because Pneumatic Tires are Just Better (Score 1) 71

Tannus Airless road bike tires are just awesome. They're heavier, but I don't carry a pump or patch kit anymore and was running fairly heavy gatorskin tires before, so the extra weight nets out about even. Feels like a 110PSI inflation, maybe a little slower ride - wouldn't wanna race them - but not slow enough that I'm ever going back to pneumatic tires. The rubber isn't exactly solid, it's more like a very very dense closed-cell foam, so there's lots of air bubbles to create rebound energy that makes the ride feel more comfortable.

Comment Can't go bankrupt fast enough... (Score 4, Insightful) 128

For my money, Motorola can't go bankrupt fast enough, and I hope they manage to take Sprint/Nextel down with them when they go. I've suffered through three versions of Motorola's Nextel "ruggedized" phones:

The "i1000 plus" flip phone where the most gentle use would irreparably break the flip cover (which was not available to the service centers as a repair part)

The "i58sr" which had no screws holding its boards together (so required a weekly drop to the floor to reseat the connectors inside) and made such a loud "BEEP" in your ear when Nextel dropped a call (i.e. constantly) that I threw one through a car windshield. I had people across the room turn their heads and say "Ouch" when the thing would make that sound - I suspect it permanently damaged my hearing. Nextel's service people disavowed any knowledge of the beeping, and referred one to Motorola. Motorola said that nobody had ever reported this problem before, but then acknowledged that they had no actual way to know if anyone had ever actually done so, since they had no bug tracking or ticketing system (I used to call in about once a month to see if they'd fixed it yet). Finally a Motorola guy said that it was definitely a problem, but that Nextel had insisted they add the beep to let users know the calls were dropped, then told the service people to lie about it.

The "i315" with a smaller screen than the i58sr, but the same text strings in the firmware (so most of the menu items are wider than the screen and are only visible with line scrolling). The developers seemed to have gone through the firmware and deleted any items which were actually useful, such as "Alarm Clock", while adding a digital unit-to-unit radio which only works if you have the cell phone and walkie-talkie functions _disabled_ - a.k.a. a completely useless feature which never made it to other handset models.

At this point in my life, I wouldn't take a Motorola product - ANY Motorola product - if they paid me to take it - and Nextel has tried repeatedly. (I remember some poor Sprint telemarketer bravely going through her script offering me more and more Motorola junk as I told her more and more how much I despised all things Motorola and Nextel.)

The minute the FIC FreeRunner is available, I'll toss Motorola and Sprint/Nextel to the curb and never look back. And I'm just a _cellphone_ user - imagine the poor police/fire/rescue folks who are stuck with Motorola digital radios which don't work inside buildings, and which automatically deplete their batteries if they also carry a cellphone...

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