Posts by DrSunshine0104

Google confirms Gulf of Mexico renamed to appease Trump – but only in the US

I live in the far corner from the Gulf in the US, so I would have almost no reason to put on a map publication. But this American GIS professional will never refer to it as the Gulf of America.

Tangentially, Denali is way more interesting word that an old, white guy's name. Noah Webster wanted to Americanize English so bad that he can almost be single-handedly attributed to drops of u's and s's in American vocabulary, but we collectively ignored native words which have made it distinctively American in an interesting way.

WINE 10 is still not an emulator, but Windows apps won't know the difference

I would love if ESRI ArcGIS Pro could be run in WINE. Everytime I have tried it seems to actively check for emulation and won't run.

But ESRI writes some of the most brittle software with the worst logging.

They probably don't want you using WINE because nothing will work because of bad programming practices!

Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office

Re: I went into the office for 40 years

I huffed car fumes and other people's body odour for 40 years!

Kids these days!

Ex-FBI employee jailed for taking classified material home

Re: Orange man...

I feel like I will be talking to brick wall but...

As implied by the line of logic in my previous post. Trump's alleged crimes have had a grand jury, evidence and an indictment. If Biden has committed crimes and the same procedure is used, I won't really have a problem with it.

As far as my belief that Trump is a criminal... I mean Trump has no compulsion against admitting his crimes in writing or on tape, so it isn't a difficult stroll to arrive to that Trump committed crimes.

Re: Orange man...

If he has done something wrong and a grand jury indicts him, or if the Republicans actually make a impeachment case against him that isn't absolute horseshit. Well, yeah I wont't be voting for him or lose my god-damn mind about it.

But the court of public opinion isn't really interesting to me, because I don't care about Biden himself nor am I interested in rumor-mill, school-age gossip. I am not emotionally attached to Biden or being right about Biden. Biden is human, I am human. I may have made a mistake about voting for him. But that doesn't nullify my position on Trump's indictment, my belief that Trump is a criminal, or my preference of political policies. Those are all separate issues.

Re: Orange man...

All conspiracies theories fall into this paradox. The people behind the curtain are simultaneously the ultimate masterminds but also complete dunces that are obviously corrupt. There is so much evidence of their corruption but only bring forward the silliest evidence like Hunter's laptop, or complete hearsay.

Re: Orange man...

You're right. I won't vote for Hunter Biden again.

Gen Z and Millennials don't know what their colleagues are talking about half the time

Is This Jargon

I am an older Millennial, but I don't feel like I use jargon at all that much in a office setting. I prefer explicit instruction or definitions. I am not going to say EOD or ASAP. I am going to email that I need this at the end of the day on 5th of April or I need this as soon as you can deliver it. I also don't text or instant message much and when I do, I still use formal punctuation and grammar. I don't like ambiguity and idioms, jargon and initialisms always feel like weasel words or imprecise.

But a point of order. Are many of the terms described in the article actually jargon? They seem more like colloquialisms or idioms? I always thought jargon was very domain specific. Though, I guess one could argue that some of this is very business-generic jargon.

Also, are Boomers less likely to actually look or admit to looking up a phrase they don't understand? They are more willing to learn as they go or less likely to worry about a misunderstanding? I have told a handful of Boomers that are somewhat naive what FUBAR meant because they kept using in the wrong company or incorrectly.

Google sued over 'interception' of abortion data on Planned Parenthood website

Re: The data you store in our cloudy appendages will be fondled.

The pipe dream that will never happen in the US is that changes to privacy notices should also NOT be retroactive. If you change your policy and I don't agree, then you cannot use my personal data any longer. It is a little concerning that company X can claim to be privacy focused, get bought out by company Y or simply change their policy and then suddenly all the agreed private data is suddenly sold to the latest LLM or start-up.

Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess

Re: Pay

One of the first things they teach you in university economics is that the free-market works when both parties are willing participants. That is obviously not how health services work. I don't hold off on getting cancer because I want a new vehicle. Private insurance companies have a sweet deal because your are forced to do business with them with the threat of death. So, medical debt or death? I know what most people chose and we can see that by the average medical debt that Americans carry around. I don't know why we continue to pretend that the free-market works in medical service costs.

Re: Pay

Perhaps, but then you spend 3000 to 10000 on medical insurance premiums, depending on your situation, family and employer. The you STILL pay for services rendered, depending on the service, and you won't know how much that bill will be until AFTER you had the service. And because your health care is tied to your employer, if you see better benefits at another employer, then you'll need to go at a minimum a month without health insurance, or pay COBRA which is ungodly expensive until the new employer's health insurance can profit off of your random bad luck and misery... I mean insure your health and well-being. Just don't get an life-long illness or something that needs monthly follow-up if you hate your current job or want to start your own business. Or hope you don't get injured during holiday or you will pay extra for not being a good drone and staying at work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wpHszfnJns

Microsoft can't stop injecting Copilot AI into every corner of its app empire

They want to keep me in business writing policies that disable all this junk. Can't let government data vacuumed up and set to servers not managed by the said government. And it is junk, this is just Cotrana with new tricks to show and just as useless for actual work... can't wait.

Then, for my wife's Windows machine I'll have wait for a couple months until enough people to bitch to MS to finally provide a off switch to their 'AI'. *Stares at the Bing Discover button.* I just need to suck it up and pay another 80 dollars to have actual control of the OS.

Uncle Sam sounds like it may actually do something about rampant visa H-1B fraud

Re: Indian Immigration Visa

It isn't necessarily preferential treatment driving the petitions. Your are comparing four countries, two which have significantly lower standard-of-living and two with countries that usually measure above the US in almost all major metrics. It is far more likely that that a person from China and India will apply for a visa than that of a Canadian or German. As a person who works in the tech industry in Seattle that makes decent pay, I can still see why neither Canadian or Germans are clambering to come work in the US. People from those countries, in many ways have better working/life conditions than those of us in the US. All is not perfect but you are less likely to go destitute from random occurrences (ie. healthcare) or be exploited in Canada/Germany.

Also, you have to consider that everything may not be above-board with sponsorships from corporations. It might be cheaper to hire someone from overseas than to hire a native worker. They might be preying on a workers unfamiliarity of the US' laws and work culture to exploit them. This isn't a 'kids these days' remark but someone who is taking the risk to travel oversees for work might just be a more motivated work as well.

There is likely structural issues in the US' economy and application process that could be driving this phenomena, beyond Indians are gaming the system or foreign workers are getting preference. Use some thought or you sound like a bumpkin from my hometown with a chip on their shoulder.

Pentagon super-leak suspect cuffed: 21-year-old Air National Guardsman

The squads that may be on the ground in Ukraine may be posted out of a random military base in Massachusetts. Their chain of command would be out of the same base and would need to review on-going operations. The National Guard, despite the name and its traditional role, does a lot of operations oversees. George W Bush and his 'war on terror' revolved around sending a lot of the guard to Iraq. The US military is a large complex, overlapping organization so there is literally dozens or reasons why this junior National Guardsman would have access to this information.

NORAD is in a mountain, not at an airbase or in space. I once lived near US Midwestern Air Force base hundreds of miles/kilometres from the ocean and at least 75 miles from a large lake, but there was Navy personnel based there. Lots of places are chosen as bases for operations for many reasons, probably beyond our understanding or access to knowledge. I manage servers that live hours drive from me, but I still can do it from my home.

You know this is the 21st century and you are using a computer to communicate to people all over world from this site, right?

Microsoft promises it's made Teams less confusing and resource hungry

They should make SharePoint less confusing while they are at it. It feels like a decentralized mess without organization. You need to know arcane incantations to find the right site even if you have access to it. I own several SharePoint sites for project management and if it were not for the bookmark I couldn't find it. It doesn't appear in the organizational search when I look for it, but maybe that is user error.

How to get the latest Linux kernel on your Ubuntu box

Re: Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom: Mao Tse Tung...................NOT!!!

People might take you more seriously if you didn't write a post like a feces-smeared, loon with a pinboard and yarn.

Did you have a thesis you want to share? What you wrote is nonsensical screed. This is for IT professionals or enthusiasts not whatever you are... 4chan slob or whatever.

Ford seeks patent for cars that ditch you if payments missed

Between the problems with DRM on vehicles (and tractors), phones, etc and snooping around in them at the same time, we all might as well not call it owning anything and just renting.

AI cannot be credited as authors in papers, top academic journals rule

What about editing?

I know the answer is certainly 'in the future'.

But can ChatGPT actually make an edit to a section of a text without having rewrite the entire document? Can ChatGPT make a rewrite to paragraph in isolation, make it flow or not change voice? I feel this would be an obvious sign of generated text for now, if it is even a hindrance.

I do ponder how many students actually use this. Is this a lot of noise for a handful of bad actors or is it actually problem?

To those who have used it in school... good luck. As an apprentice right of school your work you better hope you can fake knowing this stuff. ChatGPT isn't going to sit for your interview and you'll likely not have the experience to bullshit around the interview questions from the expert across the table.

Smart ovens do really dumb stuff to check for Wi-Fi

I had refrigerator that was slightly older than I was (35 years) and I replaced it because it just seemed to run continuously at times and because of its age. I think the efficiency improvement mode an actual, measurable impact on my monthly electricity bill. 10 years would be the absolute minimum life expectancy for any durable appliance, clothing washer, dish washer, oven, motor vehicle, etc. If I buy a computer, phone, or component for general use at home, I expect at least 5 years out of it. Throw-away culture is absolutely out of control.

Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000

Re: Harmony by disharmony

I would argue your emphasis in the sentence is in the wrong place.

"That's right, that combination of those two tones are illegal to [re]broadcast."

The creation of the tones, use of the tones, listening to the tones is not illegal but it is illegal to broadcast the tones in public.

Against all rhetoric the smooth brains that hear from Joe Rogan, Musk or who ever is empty media head of the year, speech in the US isn't absolute. It was more restrictive in the past in-fact, and more free now.

But waiting to hear about the Fox News byline stating that 'Biden's FCC is out of control and a tool for the nanny state'.

Google institutional investor calls for wider cuts: 30k jobs

Re: Late stage capitalism

I come from a family where my grandparents are substantially wealthy (but I didn't nor have any of it right now) but my grandfather grew up extremely poor. Even he has seemingly forgotten the difficulties of growing up destitute. And REALLY doesn't grasp the amount of sheer luck that allowed him to arrive at current state as he subscribes to Ayn Rand's 'Objectivism'. (as a lover of philosophy if anyone wants to argue her tripe is philosophy, I will have a god-damn street brawl with you). I don't think the trope of losing one's self and changing because of you success is really unfounded from a person who has grown up adjacent to a very successful person. Not to completely discount his skill or intelligence, he is definitely a smart man who was good at his job, but he didn't do as much of the work alone as even he thinks.

Derek from Veritasium made a video that does a decent job of explain success blindness, especially when it is amplified through the culture here in the States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I

World of Warcraft Classic lead dev resigns to protest 'stack ranking'

No more likely they are referring to you inability to understand for various and wide ranging reasons why a person might take a job you deem as beneath your quite obvious superior intellect, as you don't work for Blizzard or enjoy their games. I mean if you cannot understand it, it must mean it does not make sense!

But, no. You are probably only a decimal of competency that you try to pose. You shuffle through the day terrified that someone might ask you to prove your competency only to disappoint everyone. If you cannot even attempt to abstractly brainstorm a reason why people might to take any job or like doing a well-defined task repetitively, I really doubt your cleverness or competency. Having the maturity it examine one's own weakness and problem solve is an absolutely must on my IT/dev team. You are showing your ass.

But, I used to play WoW way back in the aughts, I have worked a position that paid less than my skill and wasn't handed a 6 figure income out of university... so you shouldn't listen to me.

How to track equipped cars via exploitable e-ink platemaker

I absolutely commented that this would happen when the original article came out on the TheReg. But did I imagine, at least from the description, it would have been so easy? This is almost as embarrassing as the time the governor of my home state claimed a news reporter was a hacker while pressing F12. https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/missouri_html_hacking/.

Someone wrote a toy software and the California government dropped the ball on due diligence and didn't have third-party auditors actually pen test the software. Though, I suppose the saving light is that it is only test bedding the plates.

Tesla fails to push racial discrimination lawsuit into arbitration

Re: Shouldn't even be an issue

*IF* I remember correctly in the US you can get out of arbitration if you petition the court to allow it. I think it is a pretty high bar it most cases but I feel an accusation of violation of Title VII the court would side on the protection of the plaintiff's rights and grant them access to the courts. You shouldn't be able to voluntarily sign off your codified rights to arbitration even if there is even only a hint of impropriety.

Google accuses Indian antitrust watchdog of plagiarizing EU ruling

Re: Google: Get Better Lawyers.

Mostly spot-on. A better argument from Google would be to say that EU count findings don't have precedent in Indian law. Which is a valid consideration but plagiarism? What a joke, sounds like Google is running the clock, trying to make it expensive, or written by a undergraduate intern.

At least in the US, most text produced by the federal government is copyright-free. Otherwise it would hinder the spread of government information. Imagine CNN having to pay to the federal government to inform citizen of a new federal law they are currently subject to. I would be shocked to find that the EU copyrights their text, or at least in a restrictive manner.

Intel settles to escape $4b patent suit with VLSI

Re: "investigate the validity of the company's patents"

I have worked as a civil servant for quite some time and it is not generally laziness or I have been very lucky. Sure, you can find some lazy people but you can find that anywhere.

It is almost certainly budget restraints. We spend a huge amount of time tracking money, talking about budgets, creating budgets and finalizing them is a several month long process and money is always an enormous restraint in low budget departments. Which is fine by me, it is public money and it should be carefully used on things with the most impact.

You probably need to look at it more politically from career civil service perspective. The USPTO is almost certainly underfunded for the amount of work they do and even patent fees probably recover only a percentage of the actual cost of filing patents. I have worked in fee recuperated departments, getting more than 60% of you operational expenses recovered would be good. The fact is people will complain to the politicians about fees and because fees and budgets are controlled by politicians, you can rarely actually recuperate costs But appliciants less likely to complain from a general ledger line for the operational budget. While 2000 USD for a fee seems like a lot it would actually only pay personnel expenses for a single clerk for only about a single work week, no money for capital projects or copier paper.

Patent clerks are probably faced with the choice of getting through the queue or researching each fully. If the length of time to get a response on an application increases significantly then you'll have applicants ringing the politician. Most politician are there to showboat and don't have a grasp of operations, so their response would be to cut budgets which only makes the problem worse. Meanwhile, the companies that are targetted by patent trolls are targetted because of their money. These companies can afford these battles and to them the costs of the legal battle are often small compared the amount of money the generated through ownership of a patent. It is daft, but everyone is happier politically (which is more important) if the USPTO churns out patents than spends x3 longer carefully researching.

Tesla driver blames full-self-driving software for eight-car Thanksgiving Day pile up

Nothing like rolling out beta software into production environment. Just remember to save frequently and make backups of your will and life policies!

Too big to live, too loved to die: Big Tech's billion dollar curse of the free

Thanks for the suggestion. I have used Proton and have been pretty happy with its service, but good to know what is out there.

US House boots TikTok from government phones

Why would TikTok be on government-owned devices in the first place? I am the admin for MDM in a small local government agency and we can afford such IT oversight and management.

But, I wonder if this is the case of making a statement and making it official, and there are nearly zero US government mobile devices with TikTok installed.

Microsoft patent eyes ads in streaming online games

Re: Too much advertising?

I grew up around Branson, Missouri in the States and could only wish that was true for billboards/hoardings. The 65 highway between Springfield and Branson, Missouri is a blighted, hellscape of outdoor advertisment. The adverts become background noise for the residents but they were always there...

For those not familiar and my UK brothers/sisters: Branson is the off-off Broadway for every has-been musician and actor to entertain Boomers of a certain persuasion. The roadways to Branson are absolutely paved with billboards for stupid show, conventions, and guns (very American).

Having worked for a short stint in the advertisement department of a large company, marketing is probably the least scientific of a profession outside of the arts. They would just throw money at shit and it was insanely difficult to track the actual impact. So no, there will always be a fool, and often the same one who will pay for spot that provides no benefit.

Musk bans private-plane-tracking @Elonjet on Twitter, threatens legal action

Re: Publicly available ≠ public

I am sure it has been pointed out before, but filing a FAA flight plan generates a public record that people can request from the US government. If people know the tail number of your aircraft then anytime it takes to the air with a flight plan, they'll know where and when you travelled.

If he doesn't want people to know where he is going, then he needs to avoid information leak about his jet, which would be insanely difficult. It takes dozens of people to maintain a jet and keeping them all from knowing or talking about the aircraft would be impossible. The same reason why conspiracy theories are fantasy.

If he wants to personally own a jet then he basically cannot leave US airspace and only fly VFR. Otherwise fly charter or commercial.

Windows Subsystem for Linux now packaged as a Microsoft Store app

Anyone else find the moniker for this feature a bit weird. I follow the phrasing, but still sits a bit odd with me.

"Windows Subsystem For Linux"

This sounds like someone describing Wine; sounds like a Windows compatibility layer running on Linux kernels. Add an apostrophe or something.

World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

I am a bit concerned to know how someone who was already laid-off managed to help others back into Twitter's security system. Did Musk lay-off HR and SecOps first thing?

Investor tells Google: Cut costs now and stop paying staff so much

Re: TCI Fund Management

Self-reflection is never an option to these people. 'Someone else's fault' is their credo. Tightening of the belt is always someone else's duty.

Country that still uses fax machines wants to lead the world on data standards at G7

Re: "still uses fax machines" - off the high horse, please

I have worked in state/local US government and still see fax machines quite a bit. I have heard the reasoning for this is because a fax machine is a end-point to end-point communications device.. The logic being (and completely ignoring the realities of modern infrastructure) that the data sent between the two parties was never at rest on a device not owned by the intended recipient and therefore not modified or copied. I have never asked our legal counsel if this is true or not. If so, it is probably just a case of the conservative lawyer culture or laws lagging behind reality.

Wells Fargo, Zelle slammed by Liz Warren over rampant online banking fraud

At this point if anyone still has a Wells Fargo account really needs to have their head examined. It is like continuing to do investment schemes with Bernie Madoff after he was busted. You are just a piggy bank that Wells Fargo can smash.

Strong support for Snap and Ubuntu Core as Canonical meet IRL

Pretty soon Linux Mint is going to have to go full LMDE because it is going to be way too much work to get a convenient, working system out of a Ubuntu base. Or they'll relent and have Snaps enabled by default. I find it unlikely, they are constantly making reversals from Canonical and they enable Flatpak by default over Snaps.

All the US midterm-related lies to expect when you're electing

Re: Dems preparing for loss?

Who is they and are they actually unified? You link to Elizabeth Warren's press release and article written by an unrelated reporter, both which seems to have slightly different thesis. I think it is a bit broad to say 'they' (implied Democrats) from your two examples.

Warren et al. are asking election equipment companies how they plan to protect elections while they consider financial considerations, their threat mitigation plans, etc. They are conducting oversight, which is their job.

The article, which seems to have no partisan narrative, is illuminating possible threats to the election process that the author has identified.

Finding and mitigating threats are not the same thing as a threat actually realised. There are lots of threats in our lives that remain possibilities and are not actually experienced. We buy insurance or wear seat belts, even if it is the safest car in the world(TM). We search for civilization ending meteors even though we will likely all be long dead before it happens again.

It is not a contradiction for Democrats to highlight risks to the election system but then determine an election was secure. If the election was compromised there was a certainty a flaw in the election process. But it does not follow that if an election was secure there were no threats. And this kind of thinking and lack of critical thinking is why American democracy is on the ropes

Reducing partisan divide alone does not boost support for democracy, study finds

Re: Glad to see researchers finnally pulling their noses up.

There is a 'slight' difference in someone or a group of someones setting up a guillotine with a Trump effigy and then thousands of people walking to Congress and pushing their way in, killing and getting themselves killed, vandalizing and stealing.

Version 252 of systemd, as expected, locks down the Linux boot process

Re: For a second....

Then it gets more convoluted by the time you factor in American English dialects. Some regions of the US use autumn instead of fall. There might be a dialect seen more often by those outside and inside the States because of commerce style-guides, but there is a lot variation regionally in usage and spelling.

My only issue is people who act incensed a another culture using a different dialect of English. I can never tell if they are being contemptible or daft. If you have a middling grasp of the English language and reading comprehension you can almost determine the word usage through context.. It is is English. If there ever was a mongrel of languages, it is English.

The GNOME Project is closing all its mailing lists

Yuck. I don't visit GNOME mailing lists but yuck. Discourse is only good for chatting in my experience. Anything beyond that, it is busted bots, prior knowledge of arcane, undocumented functionality, and emoji spam. And if you disable what should be aesthetic features of Discourse you can actually break functionality... amazing engineering.

I want information not a conversation with a emoji-happy preteen. I want organized information, not information metaphorically written on a postcard and tumbled in a bingo cage. Searching forums can be a nightmare depending on how intelligently a person labelled their post, but sure, let's make that worse.

God, I sound like a grumpy old man at 36.

Rent-calculating software biz accused of colluding with 'cartel' of landlords

Re: This classic 'market forces'

This describes the 'market forces' in the US medical system.

One party in the medical system is always under duress. And from my macroeconomics 101 class, the free market only really works when both parties are not being forced into the transaction. And I don't think there is a reality where even 10% of people would accept their death as the part of the trade-off of not getting medical services.

Having a safe place to sleep is a cornerstone of human needs, this almost meets the same issues that the US medical system suffers.

Microsoft's Lennart Poettering proposes tightening up Linux boot process

Re: I was tempted to reject outright

I am not saying this is a slippery slope but you can keep extending this, "What can you trust?" mentality until you arrive at the light passing to your eyeballs. Can you trust your init, your DE, your application, your display manager, etc? Pretty soon you have to have all the applications on your system signed by a 'trusted authority' and we have arrived at the hellscape of MacOS development. The initrd isn't built with bits that are not already on your hard disk. The bad actor would have to be already on the disk and would be in a place where it could be discovered.

This isn't my bailiwick and would gladly be told how I am mistaken but this just seems to keep kicking the trust problem down the road without actually solving anything.

Apple perfects vendor lock-in with home security kit

The non-smart door locks I have exposed to have been universally slow. It takes 2-3 seconds to full retract the bolt. I could have turned the bolt in far less time with a key, and it doesn't sound like a paper shredder while I am at it too. I am not sure what the use case is for a homeowner. If my hands are full, it doesn't solve anything, I still have to turn or press the handle. If I am travelling light, bringing my phone doesn't sound like travelling light.

Musk grumbles about 'overpaying' for Twitter

"...asked the judge to delay the trial while he figured out financing"

Proof enough that this was never more than to stir the pot and market himself. This is not a serious person.

You want to take a company private at 40+(?) billion, you dick around for months and not the get the financing started until your threatened by the seller in court (probably to avoid discovery)? My understanding, despite being so rich, he is going to have to do a lot of collateral and borrowing to get this done.

Then go public and trash talk the stock you want to buy? I have a feeling the SEC will come knocking again. God, this man is insufferable.

CEO told to die in a car crash after firing engineers who had two full-time jobs

The whole 'its immoral' was where I jumped ship. Leave it to a CEO to consider the dollar a moral system.

Scanning phones to detect child abuse evidence is harmful, 'magical' thinking

Re: You misunderstood

For me, as a US government employee, and the person who handles the deployment of our mobile devices that is couldn't less true. EVERYTHING on our gov-owned phones are archived. There isn't active scanning for illegal stuff on our phones, so if someone was storing illegal imagery on their work phone I wouldn't actively notified about it but if it was there, it is highly likely that would have been archived.

I personally don't want active monitoring on our phones though, it would likely be a huge waste of my time and then it also fosters, in my opinion, a negative environment for the worker. That and I hate the general work-culture move from actually managing people to using tools and policy to manage people. So many 'managers' are not managing people, they just a grunt worker have a quota of other employees as their product. It suddenly because IT's problem to track what their employees are doing instead of the manager actually talking, mentoring, and guiding their subordinate's work.

Water pipes hold flood of untapped electricity potential

Re: The elephant in the water pipe?

My thought originally but I would imagine the engineers would account for any pressure loss in the system and size pipes, valves, etc accordingly. Maintaining pressure in the water system is not only important for service expectations but water safety too. If the feeder to the impeller is big enough compared to the mains to the rest of the community the losses wouldn't really manifest. Nothing is free but gravity is as close as you can get, it would take time/space, and assuming the engineers balance the flow through the impeller, the water in the pipe would would pressurize because the head of the water column didn't change, gravity is still there 'pressing' down on the water.

California legalizes digital license plates for all vehicles

Re: Ok being a Brit....

You see, changing our units of measure to the (far superior) Metric system doesn't make money. It would cost us money, so we'll be stuck with a weird archaic system that has little logical reasoning... forever. But make a registration plate that is mostly a novelty because it uses technology, a person can make a buck off that.

This sounds like a bad idea. How do you keep a person from changing the number on their e-ink plate? The device is in complete control of the end user, even if they use some kind of key to verify operations, this is ripe for exploitation. E-ink doesn't need constant voltage and as far as I know doesn't provide feedback of what is displayed. Just disconnect the screen, 'flash' the display to a fake reg number. Even if there is cryptographic information on the plate, you might be able to selectively flash the screen.