fuchikoma

There's no need to interfere with the vehicle/drone's GPS. It's a passive technology, so there wouldn't be a GPS signal coming from the car. It makes sense that automatic vehicles would adopt some kind of communications, but unless every car on the road was required to get a transponder, I don't see how they'd notice that an automatic vehicle didn't have one unless maybe they had special plates, and tested one another when following. My assumption is that if autonomous vehicles were made legal, someone might put a payload into what's been demonstrated already - apart from encryption, but since some of these cars already run Linux and Windows on desktop hardware, encryption would be trivial to implement. My misdirection idea wouldn't even be needed if they went to drop sites, but an amateur could still implement it by adding a radio receiver and if it picks up police band over a certain dBm value, it could go park at an alternate site for 6 hours or something before finishing the trip. I haven't seen the requirement for a driver, outside of competitions, but I agree it would probably be included in the first version of the law that allows them. In time, I could see it being relaxed as the safety record improves though, especially for things like long-haul trucking on highways and like I said, if the vehicle CAN go without a driver, then you may as well hack it to do so to avoid being arrested. If the police catch it, they'd just seize the goods and impound the car.

I agree. I guess I got kind of thick skinned to it after hanging out at a few of their sites for a few years - it didn't strike me as the issue so I was just looking at how they banned Jesus and various commenters. Your earlier ending summed it up well though. I look at the chaos that stirs up there from time to time and think "what a mess..."

I haven't seen a system where the car has to continually broadcast its final destination yet. Has that become part of Google's specs or something? Are they even required to transmit, considering they're also driving with humans on the road who can't use those signals? Is there an intervehicular automatic suspicious activity reporting meshnet being tested? This sounds like a lot of assumptions, where I'm basically talking about something out of the DARPA Grand Challenge competitions, with maybe a hack to detect radios on a certain frequency to spot the cops.

Considering how these things are still basically computers - not lacking in power, given the feeds they have to process to drive - if someone wanted to hide it, I'd think cracking it could literally be as hard as decrypting a TrueCrypt volume. Unless they could gain access to the computer without tripping any tamper sensors, hack into it, and analyze the RAM image or hijack the running session to read the mounted disk, I don't see how they'd manage. Anyway, I'm not saying these vehicles should not be allowed, just that it does present emergent legal issues.

If a vehicle was smart enough to run without a driver, it could be rigged to run without one, even illegally. They could only get the location if they tailed it without it misleading them, or if they could read/decrypt the navigation files onboard. It could also go to a one-time meeting place to do a dropoff. You'd lose your stash no matter how you got busted, if you were delivering it - but it'd be beneficial not to lose an associate in the process, especially if they may give the police info on the operation.

Yes, but when I got banned from Kotaku, they didn't come to my house and kick my PC. I think a closer analogy would be if someone owned a community center or club that used to be VIPs only, then one of the guests says something to annoy the staff, so the owner bans them from the building. Others may avoid the place because they get a bad reputation for it - or maybe they like it, who knows. It may be unjustified, but ultimately it's a symbolic gesture and they own the whole place so they make the rules. Dean could kick us right now for making a spelling mistake if he likes - or just for the hell of it. If Gawker wants to let their staff act like petulant children, that's their prerogative. I was irritated when I left the site, but that's my fault for getting attached to it. It's always been sort of a haphazard fiefdom over there. I agree with your other points though. But this case is kind of ironic, because I've long hated Diaz's style - he's like a pro troll - but in this case, while he was inarticulate as ever, I agreed with his sentiment... Figures that would be the one that gets him booted.

I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess one good use for autonomous vehicles would be contraband. Think of the drug cartels that can afford automatic weaponry and even military explosives... they could buy a robocar, load it up with cocaine (or meth, or whatever's profitable lately) and send it to make a delivery. If the cops pull it over, who do they arrest? It could be clean, unregistered, scrubbed of serial numbers, or even in time, built on a stolen car. They could even add things like if it senses a police radio transmission too close to it, it goes and hangs out at an alternate location for a while so it doesn't incriminate the receiver. Hmm... road-going anonymous packages... I suppose they could also put bombs inside, though I'm thinking drones would be locked out of most areas where VIPs are going to be already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjG4brhkllw I love the huge sound Pig made in the late 90s... I'm saddened I couldn't find "Satanic Panic" on Youtube, but this is a close second.

I actually "pirate" old games for preservation/discovery. I put it in quotes because it's sort of questionable when the game's long since off the market and often the studio isn't around anymore. I see it like unofficial abandonware. It's a big issue for me though because the games I find the most interesting are the real oddball titles and those tend to vanish pretty completely. For instance, it took me years to find an ISO of the Japanese version of Unison for PS2 (silly idol dancing game where you learn the routines then perform live without an OSD/HUD!) I actually got a legit US copy of Flipnic off eBay after a few years of looking (PS2, Capcom, exploration and objective-based pinball.) I never put much effort into it, but I will probably never find a copy of Yanya Cabbalista ft Gawoo (PS2, cel-shaded skateboard game made to look like Jet Set Radio. Came with a skateboard you snap onto the Dualshock sticks.) I'm happy to say though that I have a new copy of Seaman 2 for PS2 (Jpn) and Idol Janshi Suchi Pai 2 for Saturn (Mahjong with cheating, Ken'ichi Sonoda art, used to be big in Japan.) Getting more contemporary, some games really do vanish fast! A few years ago, I looked all over for Ridge Racer 7 and there was only one used copy anywhere near me - luckily it was in town. I wasn't so lucky with Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney! I figured this would be everywhere... nope. Not new, not used, not on eBay, not at online used game stores. In the end, I had to import a copy from Japan, though luckily it has all the English scripts included and you can switch between them at the title screen (but each language has its own savegame... interesting.) I don't think anyone could collect the Beatmania series now, even if they only went after the IIDX games. I never found a legit copy of 5th Mix, and it's tough even bridging the gap between 9 and 15! I also have stacks of old PSX and Dreamcast games I downloaded and burned as a teenager. Some I bet are really rare now, like Pepsiman, Toma Runner vs L'arc~en~Ciel, LSD, N-Gen Racing, Kill Wheel (unreleased, may have also been called "Torc"), Thrill Kill (unreleased), and a beta or earlier copy of Rez called "K Project." I'm actually lazily copying these back to a hard disk now to preserve them because most are over a decade old and I don't trust these CDRs. I've seen studies that say CDR life may be as little as 5-10 years for some, based on accelerated aging tests that were done. I look forward to an affordable consumer-level mass long-term archival format like the sort of plastic micro-punchcards IBM was working on several years ago. With region locking, I couldn't have had that copy of Phoenix Wright... or other exclusives I've imported like Ouendan 1 and 2. It's also riskier to mod consoles now that they're always updating the firmwares. As a collector this makes me sad because it restricts what I can run, and while Sony's finally region-free, I have tracked down many games now as ISOs that just aren't available on retail discs anymore even used - and here I've even listed a few that were never even released, but I still want them in my collection... (If I keep thinking, more come up... Starfox 2, or Earthbound for NES!) I hope pirates and emulator enthusiasts will continue finding success in helping us to preserve the gameplay experiences of contemporary games - like if someone cracks all PSN/XBL/Wiiware games and puts them up for download in another 8-10 years or something. Maybe they have? I'm out of the loop now. (Well... that was circumlocutious...)

It can be very useful to check arguments against this list before making them, if you don't want to be shot down fast and hard. In this case, it's the ad hominem fallacy, which rarely works against someone who is thinking instead of feeling. Since it wasn't an out and out attack, but an attempt to make the argument look silly, it's more specifically an appeal to ridicule. Mind you, once you know how to spot all of these, it can be useful, if disingenuous to knowingly use them for a bit of sophistry... but every time you do so, it's like throwing a punch at your opponent that leaves you wide open for a counterattack.

Being picked by a government doesn't make something secure. You'd assume it would mean it's had adequate testing, but exploit knowledge changes over time. Also, they may likely be adopting policies like I mentioned about only using certain apps. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.in/news/1280089718/New-Android-privilege-escalation-bugs-discovered-by-researchers http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-16/android-security-threats-surge-with-infected-angry-birds-tech.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/20/google_android_vulnerability_patching/ It CAN be secure, but if you let your users install applications, it can also be made insecure very quickly.

I got hooked on the iPod Touch and then later the iPhone because it was most of the functionality of a laptop, but in my pocket. When the iPad came out, I was just confused - because it's the footprint of a netbook/laptop, but no USB ports, no memory card slots, super simplified, locked-down OS... It's like, the size of a laptop, and indeed, quick sleep/wake time, but so many drawbacks that I'd happily ignore in a pocket device. Having said that, despite the security issues that turn up, I could see someone getting one for secure computing - knowing there's very little chance there's a trojan or keylogger etc on there, you could do banking and write private messages, etc. If it was a 'Droid, you'd just have to stay strict about what goes on there, not go grabbing sketchy looking apps, and make sure your firmware doesn't have Carrier IQ baked in.

Obligatory response to "Just a Bill" and "Amendment to be." - Believe it or not, this was aired by NBC on Saturday Night Live, though now they try very hard to make sure it doesn't get out. (Also, they're largely owned by General Electric.)

Where I am, elementary school was grade 1-6, junior high was 7-9, and high school was 10-12. As I went through it, it shifted so that elementary was 1-6, middle school was 7-8 (or maybe 6-8? 7-8 for me...) and high school was 9-12. Can anyone comment on the modern American way? Or does it vary by state? Also, in Canada, "college" can be part or full time education, but you would rarely get a degree from one - usually a certificate or diploma, and it's often possible to transfer into a university program that grants a full degree. There were also various ways to qualify for professional tickets and certifications through my college. I'm not really clear on the American distinction between college and university, but it seems that either one can grant an associate's degree? Here, we have "social studies" classes which cover things like government, history and politics. They tend to focus on a major topic every term, so for instance, I think around grade 8 or 9 we spent a semester learning about Brazilian government and economy. Is this like a "government" class, or is that something special?

I'm intensely curious how they decided a qHD OLED screen plus front and back touch sensors came to "$50."

Comically NSFW (if you work in the strictest place in the world?)

Wasn't thrilled about the movie, but I've always liked this song.

METAPOD used WITCHES HAT. It's very effective! Just noticed that now...

This song is also Ready Steady Go (by L'arc~en~Ciel). It's impossible to find the real album version of this in the sea of covers, mutant versions and joke links, so here's the TV size one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0iJfvFbvJM

Yeah it's Ready, Steady, Go. Even got a cookery show with the phrase.

I never really took it as a gaming site, but more of a gaming, geeks and Japanese culture site that leans toward gaming. Mainly because of the huge number of non-gaming articles, huge number of people complaining there wasn't a strict focus on gaming, and the endless times it's been explained to them that the site isn't "KGamer". Once the notion sticks for some people though, they can't shake it. I figured it was more of a geek entertainment site. But I guess they got sick of repeating themselves so much, so now they can go "*sigh* Gaming link is over there."