PietdeVries

And interestingly, Germans that were at that time not even considering to migrate to the US (Werner von Braun anyone?) were just forced...

I drive one (C350e), and indeed it monitors traffic and brakes when another car in front does too. Now the question is: "does it really matter that the car can see through the car in front"? Because if the car is self-driving it will keep such a distance that it should be able to brake & stop safely if something happens in front of it. Meaning: the Tesla should still be able to come to a safe stop even if it only detected the nearest car was braking - just because of a -say 2 second- distance between the cars.

And in addition: the efficiency of a petrol-engine is much lower than an electric engine. So you perhaps only take in half of the fuel, if it gets you just as far you have what you need, isn't it?

The story suggests there is a 300 foot wide canal that can be used to let water go in casse of an emergency. Well, how about doing so now? Rather than using the turbines, use the canal to let the water out, but without it generating electricity...

Not sure about your statement...

In the Netherlands this is still done quite often because the soil is too unstable. Concrete piles are driven into the weak soil until it hits the sand. Houses are typically built on top. The pole can be protected with a wooden block that due to the friction can set fire.

Amsterdam is known to be built on wooden piles that remain intact as long as they stand under water: pumping away the water will cause the piles to rot and the houses to sink away.

And now you do the same with pumping water back and forth... I get it that trains are handy when you have plenty of space and lack water, but many, many places around the globe lack the space for the hughe amounts of train tracks running up a 1000 meter high hill.

In addition, take into account the enormous amount of moving parts. Maintenance everywhere! Compare the tracks with carts to a large pump/generator and pipelines with water I guess the latter is much simpler to maintain and better looking to the eye. While train tracks should be kept clear of people you could easily see people using the lakes up & down the mountain for recreation.

I have two of their products, and must say: when they work, they work awesome! Range is great, monitoring is great - just compliments.

But a firmware upgrade on their access point caused quite a lot of trouble. And with only one access point I seemed to be the lucky one, others had more work fixing it. Some got bricked when trying to revert to the old firmware. Support forum should provide background information if required.

Bottom line: the sales-flyer always looks great but the moment you actually touch the device you start to notice some issues you wished someone told you beforehand...

In a world where a lot of money is made in the gaming industry?

With the drop in oil prices from the past years, getting oil out of the ground in the US became too expensive. A lot of newly installed sites were closed because they could only operate efficiently with an oil price near $80 a barrel. I am quite sure the US imports a lot of oil...

Edit: quick results from 2015: 25% is imported. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=32&t=6

This seems true for most modern, western economies: they are migrating from a producing economy to a service & knowledge economy. Logistics is big (moving stuff) and services are big (consultancy, lawfirms, etc), but the actual factories are gone. And that makes sense: with higher education levels you can make more complex things than the "regular" factories do. Stuff that requires trained staff - brains.

Oh - and btw: the US likely not only refines most oil, it also consumes it: the US have grown to a country based on consumption, spending and borrowing, but not on producing anything. So if goods only come in and money only goes out, there comes a time where the money is gone. And that is when the trouble starts...

And is there an alternative to software patents? One of the examples (linked to the case against TomTom) is related to Fat32. I can imagine that if you "invent" a filesystem and everyone is enthusiastic & starts using it - you have the right to be paid for your work?

To my knowledge the essence of an electric engine is that is has max traction almost independent of the rpm. Where a petrol engine has an optimal rpm (4000 for instance) where it provides most power, the electric car does not. Consequence is that a petrol car needs a gearbox to keep the engine around this optimal RPM (and thus most power) while the electric engine does not need one - it accelerates and keeps on accelerating... So the Tesla is so fast because it is electric, not because it has other features.

Thing with these tracks is that you know where they are and thus you can anticipate. Just as with the trams riding them: if you stay off the tracks the chance of being run over by a tram are quite close to zero. Cars however are different. These tend to sneak up on you or come out of dark street corner unexpectedly. Their agility, speed and mass make it a true killer... In short: trams are part of life in Amsterdam and the locals are used to them and their tracks. Overall the quality of the bike lanes in the Netherlands is excellent and exceeds by far what SF has now...

Well, let's extend even further - why restrict to things abusive to kids, why not extend to all things abusive to anyone?!? Like news shows that obviously have "wrong" news or different opinions, history-channels that focus on the less glamorous sides of say the British in WWII, etc...

This is a slippery slope that one should not enter. If your kid encounters porn then banning porn will not fix the kid. Educating will fix your kid...

And it makes you wonder - 9/11 caused roughly 3.000 deaths. How many casualties have been made by US troops outside the US borders for "the good cause"? 10x times? 100x times more? Perhaps even a 1000 times more people died following the 9/11 attacks? And now you have given each and every one of those victims and their relatives a good reason to sue the US over their injuries...

Adding to that with a simple quote: "When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Matlovich

Good that you mention the blowing up of wedding parties by US drones - because by the same law that allows Americans to sue the Saudi's, any victim can now sue the US for damages because of these (often quite uncontrolled) drone attacks.

And not only future drone attacks - also any victim of US armed forces since 2001, as the law goes back in time. So: you got hurt by an American in the past 15 years? Feel free to sue the US...

I think the article is complaining too much... True, it takes 30 years for an idea to grow to something useful, but that is not because nobody cares (or think you are nuts) - the idea just hasn't gotten to a final, usable form. Carter can put solar cells on the Whitehouse, but to no use. The cells will, compared to today's solar cells, hardly generate any power and cost way too much. Same for the car, the personal computer, the mobile phone and the plane: there was simply no market and no use for the average Joe to actually buy it...

There is price, and there is cost...

Living in the Netherlands, the price of a Tesla is around 100.000 euros. However, if I can lease the thing, the actual cost (due to tax benefit, etc) drops like a rock to a level that compares to a small, cheap car. For full electric cars you hardly pay taxes because the government wants to stimulate this clean way of transportation.

Now comparing to a Mercedes with a similar price is wrong, simply because the Mercedes with a similar price is costing much, much more in day to day operation: more tax (heavy car = high tax), no green car, so more taxes).

I believe that at least for the Netherlands, most hybrid or full-electric cars are driven by people that have a company car. We just love tax refunds. We hate the hassle of charging, so many hybrid cars in 2015 (Mitsubishi Outlander is a good example) were driven on petrol - not electricity.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

And so it begins...

If a Brexit-fanatic like Boris somehow gets hold of the UK, and Trump does the same in the US, we'll be looking back at "those good old days prior to June 2016" in no time... The world-economy will get more introvert, like the "me first" kids at school who don't care about the rest. And that will be the fuel of the upcoming unrest in the rest of the world...

And the bad thing is, that it's in general not the cleverest set of people that make extra kids to get a higher income. Overall, the more educated people are, the smaller their families are. So this will effectively reverse everything that Darwin claimed: no survival of the fittest, but victory by the 'stupid' by overpowering the educated...

Edit: yes, I do, but I am unsure if it will stand the test of Hacker News readers :)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2172480?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con... http://www.iqtestexperts.com/iq-family.php

Sure - or alternatively, employers move to another country where wages are lower and employees complain less. China for instance. Think back: what is still entirely made in the US or the UK? What can we still produce without China? And why with free money down the streets would that all over a sudden change or improve? But it will change in a worse way when employees want better working conditions...

Let me know when you have this thing in place: I will start a "Spring Break Holiday Park" somewhere in the south where beer is $20 and a Rum&Coke goes for $40. Only people from 25 are allowed in.

Hmm... So with everyone getting free money, including the children, there is no need for a father to take care of the family when he decides to diforce, right? Afterall, the family gets a good deal of income even when daddy is gone. So marriage will no longer be a bond forever, it will be a bond until something nicer comes along since there is no financial penalty anymore: no pressure to stay together for the kids. Mom and Dad can simply split up and move elsewhere. Wonder how that incease in broken families works out for the future kids...

Edit: my mother had me checked - I am not insane. Anyway: while you are right that keeping two unhappy people together might be much worse than them splitting up, I can imagine that a big organisation like the church (any church) will be a force opposing this idea once they figure this one out.

Ah - and that is where the problem starts...

What I've picked up from 'rule-making' so far is that rules in general are OK for 80% of the users. It's the 20% that is the exception (to the rule) and that requires additional rulings. And then the problem starts: of this 20% again only 80% is fixed by the extra rule, so more rules are needed. Then the third rule to fix things actually allows some to profit extra, so... well, you get the idea. Wherever there are rules, some people suffer, and fixing it breaks things...

I fear it will only increase inflation to a level that the 10k people get is representing about the same in goods as the current level is they have. Free money is fake: it doesn't work in my opinion. It either increases the price level (hey - even the poor bum gets 10k a year, so he can afford a $10 bread, isn't it?) or it will stop people from over-achieving. My motivation to earn extra with a job only to see it go to taxes would reduce significantly if I can remain at the same level without a job and just 2 or 3 extra kids :)

True - those were the days...

However, I believe these OS-es come with certain presets that will not expose them to the wild-internet immediately. I assume (yes - assume) that MS has enabled the firewalls per default on these images, so unless you use them to browse to certain "entertainment sites" you should be quite ok...

Edit: ok, ran a lab-test (so not the real thing): Windows XP with IE6 on one VM, Kali with Armitage on the other. A "Hail Mary" of 22 exploits did not result in any session on the windows machine...

I would almost say "challenge accepted" - this calls for a little test!

I don't believe that the images that Microsoft made available are so vulnerable as-they-are that they will be infected within hours...

But... As soon as your bridge for the lights is on some sort of guest AP/network, your client on your phone can't reach it anymore, and thus has to be on that same network. And that will annoy you quick enought to not try to install the extra or guest AP at all...