Day: July 13, 2019

I’d call it an open secret in the world of cars but for the fact that everyone knows about it: the dual-clutch transmission in the last-generation Ford Fiesta and Focus was an utter disaster. The gearboxes are plagued with problems like sudden acceleration, sputtering, and slipping into neutral at highway speed.

Source: Ford Knew How Defective Its Fiesta and Focus Transmissions Were for Years: Report

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The worthlessness of Gooferment “regulators”!

And Ford Crony Capitalists equally to blame.

The sharks (i.e., the legal industry) didn’t go all “class action” on them?

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Since the early ’90s, millions of right-hand-drive cars from Japan have found their way into Russia, a country that drives on the right side of the road, just like the U.S. and totally opposite from Japan.That is to say, for these cars, they’re going to operate on the wrong side of the road than what they were designed for.The JDM import industry in Russia peaked in 2008, when over 500,000 second-hand vehicles from Japan were imported. Since then, economic and legal factors have dented the trade, which has declined “ten-fold” in recent years. Unsurprisingly, rumors float that the era of right-hand-drive is slowly coming to an end.

Source: How Right-Hand Drive Japanese Imports Took Over Siberia

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For some reason, I found this funny.  Like the lines: “… drive thru the McDonald’s drive thru in reverse …” and “… pay tolls with a bill extender …”.

Ya can’t make this stuff up.

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“Let’s say [a filmmaker] wanted to do a biographic movie about Heath Ledger, and rather than have an actor play Heath Ledger, they used a digital version,” says Bennett. “We think that would be perfectly fine. Now contrast that example with a [re-created] Heath Ledger becoming the next Captain Jack Sparrow in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That wouldn’t be OK. That would threaten actors’ livelihood.”

So it’s not just exploitation. Digital technology also puts jobs at risk.

But, as Bennett acknowledges, if Heath Ledger’s heirs were bequeathed his right of publicity in a will and then licensed it to Disney so a deepfake version of Ledger could play Jack Sparrow, that would be totally fine by law.

In fact, right now, there are only a few A-list actors in Hollywood, and the biggest reason they are not in every film is limitations on their time. But if the technology developments enable them to simply license their name, image and voice and not really spend any time actually on set, wouldn’t that potentially take away jobs? All the roles just might go to Dwayne Johnson and Jennifer Lawrence.

Source: Deepfakes Pose Increasing Legal and Ethical Issues for Hollywood | Hollywood Reporter

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I find this fascinating stuff.

And, it means that you can’t even believe your eyes anymore.

Wow.

Like the unreliability of “eyewitness testimony”, even digital evidence will be suspect.  What happens to DNA evidence as technology improves?

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