Why is this down voted? Its what most people who use ad-blockers think. Its probably the most honest comment in this thread. HN members might not like it, but so what?
Both of those platforms use Urea systems, as do larger and more expensive VW/Audio vehicles. The issue is purely in the small, inexpensive vehicles.
The NOx problems were mostly resolved through the injection of urea into exhaust gases (e.g. AdBlue), dramatically reducing NOx emissions while leaving the efficiency and power unaffected. Urea systems add an extra cost and complexity to the vehicle though (not to mention that you need to top up your urea additive occasionally), and VW seemed to find a loophole that allowed them to make small, inexpensive cars without urea injection. They did this by injecting fuel into the exhaust in the absence of Urea, but to achieve the same effect. But this can gunk up the NOx trap if used endlessly (it is far less precise than urea, obviously), reduces fuel economy, etc, so they built this One Little Trick that only actually does that during identified tests.
I don't understand this assertion. The two VW diesel (US) automobiles I've owned have had an AdBlue system. One was a base model Jetta TDI and the other a Passat TDI (which I now want rid of).
VW claimed to have a trick that removed the need for it on their smaller, lighter cars. But that trick was a trick that only allowed them to pass EPA tests.
On top of that, even though the Passat has an AdBlue urea system, it's still affected:
On the open road, a Volkswagen Jetta TDI blew through the
U.S. nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions limit by 15 to 35
times. A VW Passat TDI (with urea aftertreatment) was 5
to 20 times the maximum.
Not sure if there are USA/Europe differences with BMW's urea system (likely), but Blue Performance (urea system) is not standard on all BMW diesels in the UK (in 2014 anyway).
Perhaps the attacks on our fundamental values helps to prevent the silent majority taking them for granted? Im not talking violent terror type attacks, more the freedom to argue against them.
I'm in the UK, no idea where you are. I don't trust my government one bit with my data, or any one elses. The US so called justice system literally scares the hell out of me. From a UK perspective, its terrifying. Unfortunately for UK subjects, the UK government willingly hands our data over to the US government, and equally willingly allows us to be extradited on little more than a request. Being a European Citizen offers us in the UK very little protection from the US.
As others have said, I have very little problem with the likes of google and MS having a lot of data on me, as long as they use it fairly and reasonably, and Im kept informed. Of course we do have the problem of government access to that data.
Out of curiosity, which aspect of the US leal system scares you so much? I was under the impression that UK has a rather similar legal system in many respects, and has a number of problems as well. Personally I am a little scared of the French and German legal systems. And last year I read a very scary article about the Swedish legal system on HN.
US is doing a lot of things wrong these days when it comes to privacy, but when compared to EU, I find it to be about the same.
By European standards prison sentences in the US are very very long. There is also a perception that in the US the system is loaded against people who don't have enough money to pay for a good lawyer.
I am not very familiar with penalties in EU, but I thought that on all the basics, like fraud, robbery, burglary, assault, murder, etc the penalties were comparable to US. Where US does go insane is when it comes to drug and gun crimes. The NRA lobbied for very stiff penalties for anyone who uses a gun in a crime, at least in CA. The drugs on the other hand are just a national obsession for people here in US, so I get that criticism. But on all the basics, I think EU and US are at parity. The Federal prosecutors are quite insane, but Obama has been trying to fix that, and many Federal judges are quite reasonable. But again, if US does need adjust something, it's the Federal system.
As for money and lawyers, US, at least in CA has excellent public defenders. I might be biased, because a few of my good friends are public defenders. But also the smartest man I ever meat, at least when it comes to law, was head Public Defender in San Diego. Public defender job in a major city is a very competitive position. That's my first hand experience in CA. Not sure about other states.
According to the prison documentaries I've seen EU penalties in general are much lower (like half to one third) than US ones for the named crimes. And we don't have death sentences over here so that changes perception a lot.
For instance this is robbery sentence guidelines in UK [1] and CA [2]. As you can see, penalties are very comparable. Robbery in CA is 2, 3, or 5 years or 3-9 years, depending on the degree, while in UK it's 2-7 years or 7 - 12 years, also depending on the degree. The first level of robbery in UK is more attune to Petty or Grand Theft in CA. In CA there is also a GBH enhancement, that will bump you up to the 12 years, just like in the UK.
Obviously, I have not done the comparison for all the crimes, but I think if done, we would find that EU and US both have very similar penalties for all the person crimes, like theft, robbery, rape, murder, etc. Where there is a big difference is probably in the crimes that have to do with national obsessions. For US it's drugs, guns, terrorism. For EU it's WW2 and holocaust, and also terrorism nowadays. But checking drug penalties in UK I also found them to be very similar to Federal statutes in US. [3] Though, if I had to guess, I would think the UK is far less likely to apply it's possession only laws. So, that's a valid criticism.
US does have an insane incarceration rate, but it's again due to our obsession with drugs. Take that out of the equation, and we are about even. Not that that makes it all ok, but I think we are on a path to changing that.
CA is not the whole of the US. It's one relatively liberal state. What about states in the midwest? What about federal crimes? What about three strikes legislation? What about CFAA? What about death sentences? What about felony murder?
The US may be fixing some of these things but for an idea of how the US system is viewed from over here right now check out the documentaries by Louis Theroux and the one entitled "The Farm -- Life on Angola Prison".
Dunno about the US, but here in the UK, if someone were to die in a car equipped with a button labeled "insane", for our tabloid press, that button would be the main focus and the car manufacturer would be hauled over the coals based on that alone. It would be sold to readers that having such a button encouraged insanity on the roads, and the manufacturer would be claimed to be irresponsible for having such a button. Oh, that would be true, even if the manufacturer could prove that the button was never used.
> ...[F]or our tabloid press, that button would be the main focus and the car manufacturer would be hauled over the coals based on that alone.
When did tabloids change from the place where you went to get the latest scoop on The Amazing Bat Boy to publications that folks actually paid attention to?
Similarly, should manufacturers design their products to be inoffensive to every bloviating, prevaricating alarmist with a blog? I don't think so. That's an unreasonable tax on both innovation and sound design. :)
Absolutely. I take the view that if one needs very high security, you steer well clear of anything electronic and go back to the old ways. The idea of secure electronic communications is well and truly dead. If one's life depends on it, why even begin to trust IT? Over the last few years just about every aspect of IT has been exposed as a risk. I'm sorry, but its game over. Personally, I'd use the hell out of IT creating a nice normal profile for the spies, then go completely off piste for anything I absolutely needed to be secure.
What I'd like to know is why people though it was ever fully secure in the first place. It really never was.
Im not sure about your first sentence, but Im kinda with you. Seems to me, at the very least, the majority of people aren't that bothered by what our governments are up to. I think it somewhat trite for people who are against these things simply just snap to a position that says these governments are essentially omnipotent and rule regardless of our concerns. If the mass public were outraged enough, it would stop. In a democracy we cannot divorce ourselves form what our governments doing in out name. Its a cheap lazy cop out.
Well, the perhaps frightening scenario is that you arrive at a point where everyone assumes that someone else is 'taking care of it', when it fact, that person may be the only one even aware of it.
I'm not sure we're quite in that situation yet, but certainly there are severe inequities in how similar situations are treated (which is supposedly not allowed).
You would expect to see exactly that in a degraded democracy.
