Slashdot Mirror
California Bans Front-Seat Computer Use
An anonymous reader submits "As of January 1, 2004 the State of California has banned the use of notebook computers used anywhere in the front seat (PDF) of a moving vehicle. Previously, the ban applied just to TV sets. Even if your car-pooling front seat passenger is just doing some programming, you can be charged with a crime (AB 301). Thanks go to CA Assemblymember Sarah Reyes for this well meaning but overly broad piece of legislation." The text is mercifully short, but still contains some tricky language; probably the meaning of "installed" at the very least needs to be clarified. Would a laptop affixed to a installed bracket count? Considering the complexity of modern automotive navigation/control systems (now sneaking into budget vehicles, too), it seems like a very fine distinction. The law would seem to ban handheld computers being used as navigation aids, too, or GPS devices with games, and very soon, nearly all cell phones.
fuck you all. I have all of you.
Linux sux. FreeBSD is teh rawx.
Love Always,
News For Turds
GNAA / Google confirms: Linux is dying.
By GNAA Staff
Here you have it: it's official; Google confirms: Desktop Linux is dying.
Now, you might be thinking this is just another cut & paste troll based on the typical *BSD is dying bullshit.
It isn't.
As you might have know, your favorite search engine, Google, has been running a little statistics service, called "Zeitgeist".
Since about a year ago, they started providing statistics of the operating systems used to access their search engine worldwide.
I will let the numbers speak for themselves:
Operating Systems Accessing Google in January 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in March 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in April 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in May 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in June 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in July 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in August 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in September 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in November 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in December 2002
Operating Systems Accessing Google in January 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in February 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in April 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in May 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in June 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in July 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in August 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in September 2003
Operating Systems Accessing Google in November 2003
If you've looked at even a few of these links, you don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Desktop Linux's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Desktop Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Linux on Desktop because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux on Desktop. As many of us are already aware, Linux on Desktop continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
According to Google Zeitgeist, there are about 80% of Internet Explorer 6 users. The only platform supporting Internet Explorer 6 is, of course, Microsoft Windows. These statistics are consistent with the earlier presented graphs of the operating systems used to access Google, with the Windows family consistently taking the top 3 ranks. Out of remaining 20%, the split is even between MSIE 5.5, MSIE 5.0, both Windows-only browsers. Netscape 5.x
Ack! Zee Governator iz making zee Caleeforneea a Poleece State!
This, in my eyes, will affect the future of GPS.
No longer will we be able to have a built in LCD terminal for GPS. We will now be stuck speaking to someone, somewhere, asking for directions, help, et cetera.
I wonder if they thought of what happens to all cars retrofitted with LCD GPS systems? Are they now illegal?
Make me your friend; my fans get +1 comment scores.
Probably OT but who cares, we all need to rant once in a while.
I'm in the UK and seem to be in a dwindling minority of people who know that you're supposed to MATCH THE SPEED of the traffic on the motorway when you are joining the flow. DON'T STOP, JUST PUT YOUR F-ING FOOT DOWN.
The problem is that joining a motorway ISN'T EVEN PART OF THE TEST for fricks sake!!!
It's in the highway code and left up to the newly passed driver to read up on it later or take further lessons. Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.
I've even seen people sitting STATIONARY on the hard shoulder (emergency/recovery lane) indicating their intention to pull out when a big enough gap emerges. NO NO NO NO NO. YOU ARE ALLOWED TO ACCELERATE TO A SENSIBLE MEGING SPEED WITHIN THAT LANE.
MORONS FRICKING EVERYWHERE
Today people think their time is so extremely important that they can't bear to arrive some place before they absolutely need to. Well, I have news for you: when you arrive someplace, you are either early or late. There is no third choice, unless you can manage to arrive within planck time of the chosen moment.
Just get accustomed to being early for everything and life is less stressful. Yes, you might get one less thing done over the course of the day. (The horror!)
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I love how you think what you just described is complex. WOuld you describe walking as complex? A robot can't do it. You have to automatically adjust your balance with each step and it is considered the hardest thing to program, bi pedal motion that is. if your not careful you can sprain your ankle, walk into moving traffic, or go carreening right off a bridge. But for me, walking is simple, I do check all my mirrors, I use my eyes quickly needing only to check a 20 times a minute, meaning my eyes have lots of left over cycles to be used doing other things. Also I listen to music in my car, quite loudly, but my ears listen for key noises outside my car, sirens, screeching tires, and other things, things I don't have to think about because my sub conscious handles those "simple" processes. My brain has subconscious and conscious processes that can perform independant of eachother, I am sorry YOU can not do this and have to think carefully about everything you do, I bet you can't chew bubble gum and walk either, poor guy, do you also think breathe in/breathe out, or constrict, unsconstrict for your muscles, must be hell when you go jogging. constric hamstring breathe in circulate blood take in visual data of course adjust balance for forward leg movement ---error-- cache overflow and then you hit the ground poor SOB I am so sorry for you
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
can you see to the right while looking to the left???? NOOOOO OH GOD WHAT JUST CAME FROM THE RIGHT AHHHHHH!!!!!!! AND your sister burns to death in the heap of your multi ton vehicle
Anonymous Cowards - Oh God, How I hate you
And he's a fuckin moron. Also a thief according to SCO.
Some of us have the ability to do two things at once,
I really hate people who think this way. "I am above average and don't need to be treated like the rest of you." Just like people who still drink and drive.
I've never heard of two drunks hitting each other in a car accident... maybe sober people should stay off the road at 3am.
... that means that cops w/ computers in their patrol cars are breaking the law too.... better rip them out and install a secretary in the back seat. Another stupid law created by spineless, ignorant neophytes in Sacramento. I wonder if that means CB radios are outlawed as well, what about delivery people (UPS, FedEx)!??!?!
I think the point of making new laws is to make everyone in volation of some law by contradictions, e.g., simplify political leveraging (extortion) of trouble-makers, and more ways to make lawyers rich.
The real problem is that there is no real debate on laws (because the SIGs/PACs/lobbiests own the politician's ears), and there's no immediate accountability, and there's no review/disposal of outmoded/outdated laws. For example, laws from the 19th century regarding commerce, wagons and livestock ought to be examined w/ a fine-tooth comb.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
How many people do you see on Motorways observing sensible stopping distances and how many people do you see doing 90Mph + tail-gating cars in front of them ?
If everyone did drive safely and within their limits under the road conditions at the time then there wouldn't be any need for speed limits or any other road rules, the trouble is that they don't and in not doing so accidents happen and people die.
If someone is doing 70Mph in a built up residential area with school crossings etc dotted around the place would you think that was acceptable behaviour ?
Probably you wouldn't and you'd expect the police to stop anyone doing that and charge them with dangerous driving, the reason they were driving dangerously is because they were driving far too fast under road conditions which are not safe for driving on at that speed. That being the case it's perfectly sensible to enforce a speed limit which is suited to the road layout.
"None of this exists in your mapquest-enabled vehicle which has, effectively, three navigational tools: the steering wheel, the brakes, and the accelerator."
I suppose you think that stopping, pulling over, geting out a paper atlas, looking for 10 minutes to find your area, figuring out where you are going, putting the map away, and then merging back into high speed traffic is far superior to a quick glace down to a map display on the dashboard, don't you? I bet you beat your wife and secretly wish there was still slavery, too... SOme things are just outdated and replaced by more advanced technology.
"You have NO point of reference for determining where your vehicle is on the roadway or how fast it's traveling, much less where it is in relation to moving objects around you."
Furthermore, if you think that by looking down at the center console of a car (or even the passenger seat, for that matter) COMPLETELY blinds you to the outside world, then either you wear horse-blinders on a regular basis or you need to have your eyes checked. It's something called PERIPHERAL VISION, and the rest of us humans on the planet have it. Oh yeah, and I guess I can no longer look at my radio, my temperature adjustment, my window control, my mirrors, heck I can't even look at my speedometer or gas guage because the I would "have no point of reference" would I?
If you are not capable of looking at your dashboard and keeping your behicle from careening off the side of the road, then please, do us all a favor, and KEEP YOUR ASS OUT OF ANY SORT OF AUTOMOBILE!