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Live Longer, Drive Smaller!

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Live Longer, Drive Smaller!

That's why I close my eyes when I drive. Thank God for my Excursion and the custom rambar on the front.

Seriously, though, all those warnings are good (as long as false positives don't cause boy-who-cried-wolf syndrome in the driver) but being able to watch the back seat? I think this is going too far...

Commercial radio: Covers its budget and makes profit by ensuring that x number of people are tuned in at any given point during the day. This way, discrete ad units can be sold on that assumption that those x number of people will be listening... and eventually buying. The best way to maintain that number is by providing content unlikely to offend the demographic -- something that a listener may not really love, but certainly doesn't dislike enough to turn off. As a result, any discernable flavor is slowly leeched from the on-air content and you're left with Farina Cream of Wheat.

Public radio: Covers its budget through corporate underwriting and getting a certain number of people to contribute during fund drives. As long as this happens, it's mostly irrelevant how many people are listening at any given time. Over the years, the stations have found that one of the best ways to do this is through niche marketing -- even if people only listen to one or two programs a week, they'll likely become contributors if they truly value those shows. (Same thing works on cable. Tons of my friends only have HBO for "Sopranos" and "Six Feet Under".) Hence, the proliferation of such niche programs as Car Talk, The Splendid Table, or (God help me) Satellite Sisters. These multiple viewppoints prove profitable, so they remain a part of public radio. But don't get me wrong, public radio is still capable of selling out just as much as the next station on the dial. (Just check out savewnyc.org for one example of how things can turn ugly.) It just tends to remain more interesting while doing so.

Public radio is the most biased medium in existence

Exaggerate much?

• http://www.toyota.com/html/shop/vehicles/prius/ide x.html, Toyota Prius, currently available
• http://civichybrid.honda.com/, Honda Civic Hybrid, due out RSN, starting to be available for test drives
• http://www.hondacars.com/models/insight/index.html , Honda Insight, currently available
• http://rav4ev.toyota.com/, Toyota RAV4 EV (it's not a hybrid, sorry), only available in CA currently
• http://uktoyotaestimasite.tripod.com/, Toyota Estima, hybrid minivan. Not currently scheduled for release in the US
• http://hybridford.com/, Ford Escape, SUV, planned to be available in 2003. Ford licensed the Toyota HEV system for this

• http://www.ucsusa.org/vehicles/0mapveh.html, http://www.epa.gov/autoemissions/, The EPA's Clean Vehicle Guide
• http://carpoint.msn.com/browse/win_4018922.asp, http://www.cars.com/carsapp/national/?srv=parser&a ct=display&tf=/advice/bestworst/mileage/best_worst . mpl, 2002 overall fuel economy results
• http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bestworst.shtml, Vehicle fuel economy by class
• http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drive.shtml, Tips to improve your gas mileage
• http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/auto/cafe.html, http://www.ucsusa.org/vehicles/CAFE.html, Information about the CAFE standards
• http://www.greenercars.org/, The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE)

... using lengths of wire

Do your homework Just like you apparently did in this post. Yes Ma'am. http://cartalk.cars.com/Mail/Electric/-another good kneejerk reaction http://michele.usc.edu/105b/electrochemistry/batte ry.html-Problems with using batteries & fuel cells http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Shop/3589/effic iency.html-Maybe Stanley had it right to begin with... As for the lead acid batteries, almost all are recycled now Ah, yes they go to that happy, magic place where batteries go in dead and come out alive, and leave absolutely no pollution in the air or water. Again, I'm not saying electric cars and recycling are bad- just there's more to being 'environmentally friendly' than riding around in over-blown PowerWheels.

When I read this I didn't think of individual liability suits. If you don't take proper precautions, then you shouldn't have any recourse if you lose all your company's data. That should go for any OS.

What I think should apply, are Lemon Laws, to protect a customer from what is, inherintly, a piece of junk. I'm fairly certain no major version of Linux or BSD falls into that category.

At any rate, these laws protect buyers, not users.

Mod this as off-topic if you want. This week on the NPR radio show CarTalk, The lady who's voice they use for *OnStar(tm) called up and talked with Tom & Ray. Apparently GM buys the OnStar service from another company. The lady spoke about how advanced the voice regognition was and that the text to voice (that uses her voice) does not sound like your average: "At. The. Tone. Deposit. Thirty. Five. Cents." This voice tech seems like the only cool thing that the /. crowd would even care about.

The lady who called herself "Mary-Mac" said that she was just in Silicon Valley laying down more voice takes for OnStar, in addition to the thousands she has already done. I would not be surprised if they were finishing up this new spam stuff. And while the call was very self promoting, she also agreed with the hosts Click and Clack that you should pull over when using your cell phone. She even nice enough give them an OnStar-ish sound bite.

You should check out CarTalk, it is on your local NPR stations on the weekends and last week's show can be heard during the week on their website. The hosts regualarly beat up on GM and OnStar, so much so they almost talk about it every week now.

Of course. Well, tech journalists are usually going to write for tech periodicals, which sell advertising to tech firms. Predictably, that makes them about as impartial as Car and Driver magazine.

This is exactly the same thought I had. As with automobile "journalists," tech "journalists" are dependent on the companies they "report" on to send them the products to "report" on. If they want to get the next round of products to review, the "journalists" will give semi-favorable reviews to even the crappiest products. In the automobile industry, the only "journalists" who give truly bad reviews are the Car Talk guys who (rightfully) haven't given a good review to a GM product in 10+ years and haven't had a free GM vehicle to review in that time either.

Sure, tech and auto journalists can give you the basic numbers (benchmark tests/0-60 times) and a general impression of the reviewed item but to expect an impartial review from either type of "journalist" is a bit of a stretch.

People that bite the hand that feeds them don't get fed very often. How else can you explain the plethora of positive Microsoft press?!

Eric

I hope this dies an early death in the marketplace.

What's wrong with video on demand? That's exactly what I want. That's exactly what PVR provides, in a sort of backwards, silly way. Instead of just broadcasting shows, why can't networks also make them available for download/streaming?

This already exists in radio somewhat. Let me give you a specific example: I like to Listen to Car Talk on NPR. It comes on once a week, but I don't worry about being near my radio to hear it. If I miss it, I can just go to The Car Talk website and listen to the RealAudio version of the show whenever I want. It's great. There aren't even commercials in the web version (not that there are many commercials on NPR anyway).

My bike, with my fat butt on it, has been radared at 215.

"And my penis, which I am very self-conscious about, has been measured at 2.15 inches."

Sorry, I know this is flamebait, but damn I can't help but think there's a very large grain of truth behind the idea that a man's penis size is inversely proportional to the horsepower-to-mass ratio (or just raw horsepower, depending on the version of the formula you find funniest) of the vehicle he drives.

In a blatant attempt to violate this law, my dream car is an Austin (or Morris, et al -- whatever) MINI. These are the coolest cars in the world. Someday I will have one. Oh yes. Someday... :)

My bike, with my fat butt on it, has been radared at 215.

"And my penis, which I am very self-conscious about, has been measured at 2.15 inches."

Sorry, I know this is flamebait, but damn I can't help but think there's a very large grain of truth behind the idea that a man's penis size is inversely proportional to the horsepower-to-mass ratio (or just raw horsepower, depending on the version of the formula you find funniest) of the vehicle he drives.

In a blatant attempt to violate this law, my dream car is an Austin (or Morris, et al -- whatever) MINI. These are the coolest cars in the world. Someday I will have one. Oh yes. Someday... :)

When it comes to cell phones in cars, I have only one policy: Drive Now, Talk Later!

I'm sure what you meant to say there was "SUVs are safer than smaller cars because you can drive them over other cars more easily". Although technically that's still wrong because SUVs are officially trucks. Also, here's a small collection of links about SUVs.

It's perfectly fitting that this inefficient bloated monster should run Java onboard...

• technical discussions like Dr. Dobb's Technetcast
• Geeks in Space
• Financial planning programs like MoneyTalk
• Non-computer technical support programs like Car Talk

Dave Aiello

I say, definetly go to this site! Even if the cause doesn't strike a chord with you, Tom and Ray Magliozzi (a.k.a. Click and Clack) will get you laughing anyway!

P.S.: I was typing this at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, and I'm still debating as to which server is slower, Wentworth's, or Slashdot's.

the Parent link is a wonderful thing

*gives self a DopeSlap(tm)*

silly rabbi, kicks are for trids!
...dave

It's not especially hard/b> to jam cell phones, but it is quite unlawful. If you get caught, the FCC (US) or DTI (UK) or whomever will cause you great pain.

Like so many other things, this is best solved by society at large deciding "We're not gonna take it": The next time a phone rings in the theater, get everybody around the miscreant to shout "Is this a theater or a phone booth?" Keep yelling this as long as the jackass is in the theater. Eventually people will realize that rude behavior (phone in theater) will be met with rude behavior (people yelling at you).

In addition, for folks talking on the phone while driving, go listen to this RealAudio Clip from Cartalk: it's of this moron yapping on his cellphone to a calling when he wrecks! It's a classic!

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

Nah, I think people enjoy driving too much for it ever to go away.

Further, these "vessels" better at least segregate me from all the dregs of society. Speaking as one who once got scabies from a family of dirty people on a Toronto subway, I make enough money to afford a car. If the price of cars and fuel or highway congestion are inflated too much by idiotic tree-hugger ideals, rather than take transit, I'll just move to somewhere where I don't have to share a confined space with the city's effluence. And, as I move, I'll take my skills and my disposeable income with me.

Nope. I'm 26 years old; I've been on the Internet since 1988. (Remember ARPANET? This was long before Spry Mosaic came out, and a full 5 years before Yahoo registered their domain name.) And if you can judge how much I can do at once based on how many applications are currently open on my desktop, there are 10 currently going on my machine.

Wow! That's really cool. Yeah, you can watch a DVD while you drive. I hope you've at least had enough sense to set it up so that only the passengers get to watch the movies.

MP3s in the car are great; keep the volume low enough that you can hear the siren of the fire truck coming at you. And don't get distracted by choosing the tunes as you drive.

Ya know, for all your apparent engineering and hacking skills, I would have thought you'd have had enough taste to do this in a real car.

Sure. Right.

You probably spend a lot of time driving, and I do too. I'm in a familiar place, surrounded by familiar objects. I know where all the controls are, I know the dimensions of my vehicle, and I have the seat adjusted comfortably. I am at piece. I am in a comfortable space.

Familiarity breeds contempt. By being too comfortable, you start to forget that you're in a machine, that you're hurtling down the road at speeds sure to be deadly to your frail body. You are in mortal danger.

Now, having said that, I'm not advocating that everyone drive really slowly in the fast lane. That's sure to cause even more accidents as people try to swerve around you.

What people have to realize is that driving is a complex task, and it should take all your concentration. How complex is it? Well, let's keep in mind that the US Army, among other organizations, have been trying to build a vehicle that can drive on its own. And they've met with only very limited success.

My driving record is flawless. Zero accidents, zero speeding tickets, zero other moving violations. (Parking tickets are another matter.) I've got an air brake license, which allows me to drive up to 15 tons with air brakes. I used to have to go out on the road, driving large loads of professional audio, video and TV production equipment across the country, setting it up, working the show, then driving back. I've logged over 360,000 miles in diverse cities and massively different driving conditions. And I have yet to get a speeding ticket.

As the astute will note, my very nickname is evidence of one of my passions: "BigBlockMopar" refers to any member of the family of Chrysler-built "big-block" V8 engines. Chysler big-block engines were available from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, in displacements from 361 to 440 cubic inches. (For sake of reference, 440 cubic inches = 7.2L. Compare that to a Honda Civic's 1.5L engine.)

I own several cars, including a CASCAR Enduro class racecar. It's not streetable; I enjoy towing it out to Mosport and doing laps at 95+ MPH. In full race conditions.

83% of all drivers think they're better than average (source: California DMV). Both my insurance company and I agree that I am truly a skilled driver. And the reason? I concentrate on the road.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agrees with me: cellphones are dangerous when you're driving. Further, check out this link. Talking on the cellphone while you drive increases your chances of having an accident 400 times. That's worse than being drunk to twice the legal limit (0.16% B.A.C.). I can't imagine what the risks of driving and computing must be - I'll wait until I get home, rather than try it behind the wheel... My daily driver is a 4,500lb 1976 Dodge Ram with a 400CID (6.6L) big-block V8. I only hope that when you hit me, my truck kills you.

While the animated Mach 5 had the uncanny ability to fly, drive under water, the real-life replica is a little more "limited" with special jumping hydraulics, interactive voice responses to the steering-wheel buttons and a pair of circular saw-blades -- an indispensable gizmo for those off-road car chases. The remote-control homing pigeon will also be added in the future, as will the underwater periscope (no word, however, whether or not the car will gain submersible powers).

So I question whether the pigeon is there.

-m

While the animated Mach 5 had the uncanny ability to fly, drive under water, the real-life replica is a little more "limited" with special jumping hydraulics, interactive voice responses to the steering-wheel buttons and a pair of circular saw-blades -- an indispensable gizmo for those off-road car chases. The remote-control homing pigeon will also be added in the future, as will the underwater periscope (no word, however, whether or not the car will gain submersible powers).

So I question whether the pigeon is there.

-m

Also, if you click on the Gallery button, there are a couple more pictures.

Enjoy

Also, if you click on the Gallery button, there are a couple more pictures.

Enjoy

OK, and besides cameras in cars, I would like to have this technology used to provide web browser services in my car.

Oh, great. Now we'll get people getting in accidents with the excuse "I just looked at Slashdot for a second, honest!"

Drive Now, Talk Later