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D.C. Commuters to be Scanned With Infrared Cameras
owlgorithm writes "Washington, D.C. area commuters are going to be "scanned like groceries at the supermarket" in order to catch single-occupant vehicles who are illegally using carpool lanes. The article, from the Washington Post, says that infrared cameras capable of detecting human skin will be installed, rather than the visible-spectrum cameras in use today. So much for using dummies in the front seat."
A local municipal government agency, using technology to solve a problem, as part of its charge to the public?
O, the humanity!
If we get rid of dummies in the front seat, half of the cars on my way to work would be driverless.
is watching you...
Remember, the ultimate goal of these politicians is to have such a dizzying array of laws that they can arrest anyone at any time and always have a "legitimate" reason.
Cameras only help them.
Care about privacy? Read this!
1 - Have a machine vision backend analyze images coming back from cameras, picking out "guilty" cars along with their plates. Discard other data.
2 - Ensure that the code used for this vision system is open to public scrutiny.
3 - Catch the crooks, and the regular folk don't even get recorded to a hard drive at any point.
4 - ???
5 - You know the rest...
1. attend random funeral 2. come back late at night, dig up corpse and skin it 3. glue skin to your blow-up doll 4. ??? 5. profit! note: steps 1 and 2 can be replaced with doing the job yourself - "it puts the lotion on it's skin"
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
Y.T. is not impressed.
... new dummies on the market that can be plugged in to your cigarette lighter...
placed strategically on the dummies will not fool the infrared cameras.... Shucks.....
Any use of technology MUST be a part of Big Brother, and is NEVER used for s legitimate task, even if it could have applications.
It's all about 1984, baby.
Now all those people driving too slow will get toasted.
Literally.
1) Switch from visual spectrum to infra-red cameras on HOV lanes
:)
2) Invent dummy that can be plugged in to the lighter socket in the car that heats up in a realistic way to fool infra-red cameras
3) Profit!!
Dibs on onehotdummy.com
--Brian
The answer is simple: Just stop by your local Home Depot first...
I knew I kept those dead bodies in the freezer for a reason...
...that a few things will happen:
1. Burqa-wearing folk will have a field day.
2. Some ninny will don tin-foil to jack with the system. He/she will later collapse from heat.
or
3. Some enterprising yob will try to create a heated, moving dummy. This will culminate in a video shot on the news: "Flaming Car Of Doom in a HOV lane near you....film at 11!"
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
So much for using dummies in the front seat
Yeah, now we have to use warm dummies. What a hassle.
So much for using dummies in the front seat.
Of course. Now, you'll have heated dummies.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
You can't take the sky from me...
I, for one, welcome our new heat seeking overlords.
the "Terminator" was created.
Hannibal Lecter: "Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?"
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
This is just plain ridiculous! Is carpool lane cheating such an earthshaking problem that there is a need to employ high tech imaging technology to catch the cheaters? Oh please, there will always be some asshats who will cheat any system put in place. It isn't a big deal. I'd rather be employing technology to solve real problems like disease, and famine.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
...while traveling. It was in the Singapore airport during the SARS scare. They were checking if anyone was running a fever. They weren't scanning a moving vehicle, though.
I'm not in an area that has carpool lanes but:
a.) Is it worth the trouble for so much money to be spent enforcing the carpool lane rules.
b.) Is it worth the effort for drivers to spend the resources on a warm dummy to beat the system?
I've used the HOV lane into DC with a child in an infant seat behind me. The camera isn't going to spot that.
Am I going to have to get sworn affidavits stating the child was with me? Should I take photos on my journey? Are HOV lanes 18+ now?
or just apply some thermo-electric pads plugged into the car. Lots of IR then.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why is the US culture so into punishing people? If you ride a train without a ticket: in the UK they will ask you to buy a ticket, in Canada they will fine you, in the USA they will arrest you. WTF USA? Aren't there better things to do than punish carlane cheaters?
I always pop my RealDoll in my microwave for a few minutes in the morning anyway - I really don't see this change affecting me.
I haven't read the article because the site forces me to register.
Stopping people from abusing the carpool lane makes sense. There's far too many people who sneak into the carpool lane, defeating the purpose of the lane. There's far too many people on the road driving alone in their car, which makes for a rather disturbing waste of a non-renewable resource (petroleum), and producing harmful greenhouse gases.
There should be strong incentives against doing this. More transportation should be pooled in order to conserve resources and save the environment.
So I have no problem with this initiative, as long as all they're doing is detecting that there is in fact more than one person in the car and not gathering any additional information about the passenger(s).
This space left intentionally blank.
So much for using dummies in the front seat."
Nah. They'll just have to upgrade to self-heated models.
and the first person to have a competent lawyer will rip this a new hole. Unreasonable search and seizure.
The Hummer HH is the first production vehicle featuring an HOV-lane friendly, climate-controlled interior of human skin. The Hummer HH's luxurious leathers exhibit the height of craftsmanship, using only hand selected free-range hides from mature Corinthians. Other manufactures cut corners with inferior hides from Asia or Latin America, but Hummer understands the continental appeal that only comes from aged Corinthians.
I would be interested in knowing what wavelengths they are using since I am sure anything close to the midwave will be blocked by the car's windows and there won't be much blackbody radiation emitted in the near IR.
Although the FA says that they are measuring the reflectivity of the skin. So even heating a dummy would be useless -- all you would need is to find a material that has about the same reflectivity as human skin. I wonder how they measure the reflectivity? perhaps they emit two wavelengths and measure the relative return of both? Either way it would be an interesting problem.
Anyway there are laws against tinting your windows in the visible spectrum but how can they make a law against blocking invisible parts of the spectrum? When the camera says that no one is driving they can't exactly give a ticket and cops won't even know the windows are tinted for the near IR until they get the pictures back.
Also there is no limit to how old the car poolers have to be. Is it not legal to drive in the HOV lane with two infants in rear facing car seats? They would fail this test but be perfectly legal. Also what if the passenger is wearing a heavy coat and has her long hair to the camera? Would that give a false result? Maybe this entire thing is just trying to scare people straight. "Oooh they got them laser and them infer things pointed at me better not drive in that there HOV lane! Stupid goberment!"
... better dummies like they do on Myth Busters.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
So how many IR LED's will it take to blind these IR cams?
I have to return some videotapes...
HOV lanes are fairly pointless as is. It's clear that people are not significantly incentivized to use the carpool lanes. Moreover, conflicting schedules (particularly after work) and the impossibility of spontaneity provide heavy disincentives toward their use. They certainly don't cut down on pollution or fuel consumption as cars spend more time stuck in traffic in the adjacent lanes, or taking longer, more circuitous routes. They don't cut down on traffic, as more cars are forced to fit in fewer lanes. People who live in Arlington or Falls Church, especially, could have to go miles out of the way to get to work, despite having a major traffic artery in their back yards.
The money spent on policing, enforcement, and, in some cases, construction and maintenance of elaborate switching mechanisms to change the direction of traffic in center lanes, could be more efficiently spent toward carbon offsets, and opening the lanes themselves to normal traffic would better accomplish the goal of reducing congestion. Or make the Metro train free to ride; it's already heavily subsidized anyway, and everyone would benefit from increased use. (Of course, capacity would likely need to be increased as well, since they're heavily used already).
Regulating the routes of traffic in an effort to decrease traffic is an exercise in futility. It merely relocates the problem; it does nothing to alleviate it. Traffic is already self-regulating, especially as the distribution of information becomes increasingly streamlined. When one route slows down, people take alternate routes. If the distribution is inequitable, it's because of poor infrastructure design in relation to the population. The cure is redesign, not banishing the overwhelming majority of vehicles from the shortest route between Point A and Point B. It would be one thing if HOV was a stopgap while more effective measures were implemented, but as it stands, it's merely contributing to the problem it claims to resolve.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If it's being scanned from the front, how well will it pick up children in the back seat? Especially rear-facing car seats. Or sleeping, and lying down.
If it were a human cop pulling you over, you can just tell him to look in the back seat. If they're scanning and sending tickets automatically, I see a potential problem.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Yes, yes, I know, they don't really specify... ...but hopefully you realize the idea and spirit of HOV lanes is for carpool, multiple passenger commuter, busses, passenger vans, and similar applications, and not someone who happens to be toting a child in an infant seat. :-/
(How did the parent get modded "Insightful"?)
I had an idea for a major improvement to slashcode, and I've been waiting for my best shot. This is the perfect forum.
The problem with the moderation system is that you have to wait for the post before you can moderate it. This is a serious design mistake. It's quite obvious with a story like this one. An enterprising moderator could have moderated half the jokes here "-1 obligatory" *before* the jokes were posted.
This single feature would go a long way toward rebalancing the force. The chuckleheads could continue their race to first post the obvious lines, while the chucklehead CDC could escalate their counterespionage in lockstep to strangle as many of the chucklehead jokes as possible in the interval between when the blowhard lemmings depart the cliff and when they impact the ground with the inevitable dull thud of exploding whale funny bones.
Are you saying, then, that a parent and child don't qualify for "two or more people" in the car? When did minors stop being people?
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Weekend at Bernie's
I'm saying, then, that the idea and spirit of HOV lanes is for carpool, multiple passenger commuter, busses, passenger vans, and similar applications, and not someone who happens to be toting a child in an infant seat.
I hope this clears things up.
And to be serious, I don't know what the specific law is in Virginia, Maryland, or Washington, DC, for HOV/HOT lanes. But the idea, purpose, and principle is what I said above, not for someone to be able to get somewhere faster or more conveniently because they have a child with them.
"Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
So let me get this straight: In order to solve a mere inconvenience (traffic), the lawmakers in the USA's capital are instauring a police dragnet that would be the envy of North Korea.
And this is the enlighted government of an enlightened nation? For crying out loud, are these people nuts? How crazy can these control freaks be?
I don't think that the problem needs such a grossly invasive measure.
Oh, and BTW, the sex industry already provides inflatable dolls with a resistor mesh under the surface that provides a pleasing, uniform skin heat. They just need a car adapter, and voila, the IR cameras are fooled. So I guess Congressmen and other pervs have nothing to fear.
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
So much for using dummies in the front seat."
Now the newest dummies will come with a 4ft cord ending in a cigarette lighter plug, in addition to the shirt that makes it look like it's wearing a seat belt.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But the idea, purpose, and principle is what I said above, not for someone to be able to get somewhere faster or more conveniently because they have a child with them.
It's a public service, it stops the parents from ramming the other cars while stuck in traffic.
Think about how you'd write the code for the machine. Your job is to count -- you have to find at least two distinct signatures. If you find more than one that is distinct, you ignore that car. If you find less than one, what do you do? Probably you consider this a detection error. A thermally reflective glass coating would work. I'd bet a heat pack hand warmer on the dashboard would do it too.
If it were me, I'd try a thermal hand warmer pack on the dashboard by the passenger seat; and maybe one each on a string in the back seat about where heads would be for back seat passengers.
Remember, glass is transparent in the visual spectrum, but can be opaque in the infrared. I know this from using Thermal Imaging Cameras in houses that are on fire. A big living room window can look just like a wall -- or even a mirror -- through the screen of a TIC depending on what outside temperature. You can see the shape of a person on the TIC when what you're looking at is a porcelain shower stall. Your own heat is being reflected back at you.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Gonna fart me up an infared car pool.
I'm saying, then, that the idea and spirit of HOV lanes
Yeah, except that in a nation of lawyers the idea and spirit mean practically nothing and its the literal word and even exact punctuation that mean the most. Just take the interstate commerce clause and the 14th amendment as starting examples.
Do you work for the government or are you just a long-term union employee?
In other words, yes, technically you're right. You will have a strong legal argument. But you're missing the point/spirit/intent of HOV lanes. You are *not* part of the solution, though technically you're still entitled to your HOV access.
http://www.ncdot.org/projects/hov/faqs.html#q2
Do children and infants count as passengers?
Yes. All states with HOV facilities count children and infants as passengers.
Why do children count as passengers in the HOV lane?
The main law governing HOV lane use is WAC 468-510-010. This law merely states "occupants." HOVs may therefore include passengers who are not licensed drivers. These can include senior citizens, people with disabilities, and children as well as other people who do not, or can not, obtain a drivers license for various reasons.
HOVs with non-licensed passengers do not always help to remove cars from traffic. However, one of the Department's considerations in determining HOV eligibility policy is the degree to which the policy will be enforceable by the State Patrol. It can already be challenging to accurately determine how many occupants are in a vehicle. It would be much more difficult, and more expensive, to additionally be required to determine occupant age or licensing status. Another consideration is that carpools are sometimes driven by parents or caretakers who transport groups of children to activities. This does keep additional vehicles off the road.
http://www.rtc.wa.gov/Studies/Archive/hov/faq.htm#Q12
Why are people with children allowed to use the HOV lane?
HOV policies everywhere have allowed children to be counted as occupants of a carpool to meet the necessary occupancy requirement. While children may not be of driving age, there are two major reasons that we allow people with children to use the HOV lane: school and day care responsibilities and the idea of educating our children regarding ridesharing. Often, it is difficult to drop kids off at day care, drive to a park-and-ride, catch the bus, and get to work on time. Allowing parents to bring their kids along with them in the carpool, or on the bus, gives them an opportunity to use the HOV lane. This also keeps enforcing the lane very simple: two or more people per car.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I don't know about anybody else, but I first saw the headline as reading that drivers were being scammed by IR cameras, not scanned. Then, of course, when I read the summary, I found out that for all practical purposes, I was right.
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or super models
...be able to get somewhere faster or more conveniently because they have a child with them Less time on the road? Yes.Less time overall including the 20+ minutes of saying, "Let's go! Let's go! Don't hide your sister's shoes!"?????? Fat chance.
[waves paw] Bah!
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
Since IR is blocked by glass, all they will read from the windshield is the temperature of the glass. Now have the driver running the defroster on the windshield and you've got absolutely nothing useful. They will not detect the number of warm bodies inside the car.
No wonder we have such bad policies. The yahoos making the decisions didn't pass a high school physics class.
That's not how the law is written, it just says that you must have two or more people in the car. Now, if you want to change it to "two or more licensed drivers," that's another issue, and opens up a nasty can of worms about enforcement.
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So if I'm driving a passenger van with a baby in it, that's okay?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I guess the automated systems will have to take this legal reality into account, then, won't they?
(I think the original poster is assuming that just because someone is in the "back seat" or in an "infant seat", somehow they won't be counted. From TFA: "All blood is red, and all living humans have water in them, and we're reliant on those attributes." It would seem obvious that "living humans" would also include children, regardless of what position they're in or whether they happen to be behind or in a seat that will be essentially invisible to such detectors.)
It's great that HOV lane laws have apparently included children for simplicity. But even this Q&A makes it clear that children were only included for that reason, and that still wasn't the original idea or purpose of HOV/HOT lanes. Even so, the parent poster won't have to get affidavits from toddlers or in-vehicle video cameras monitoring their child's presence: if this system doesn't work to accurately detect multiple-occupancy vehicles within the law, it won't be serving its purpose.
Believe it or not, technology can and has taken the place of mundane human activity in all manner of disciplines, including law enforcement tasks.
Hey, I get here earlier when I drive in the carpool lane!
This space for rent
Neither. And, I'm not a lawyer or paralegal either. I do, however, understand how the law works and that trying to limit the carpool lane to cars with two or more licensed drivers would create a horrible enforcement problem. (See the other responses to my post for a better explanation of this issue.)
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It'll be cheaper to rent someone for the trip. This could be a major disruptive event on the windscreen washing industry as they all clamour of a piece of the new commuter passenger industry.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
study that suggests hov lanes don't work.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The same should apply to taxis with a single passenger. They should not be allowed to use the party lane unless there are more than one passenger.
I car-pool to work every day, and it pisses me off to no end when single occupant vehicles use the HOV lane, but then, I'm an asshole so I like to report them. The driver doesn't get cited, but he does get a nasty-gram through the mail courtesy of WSP.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
Thanks. It must be from being married at the same place as his last marriage, just a few days later, at least according to their staff.
Hmmm heated seat covers could be the new go for the local market.
--- I've completed diagnosis of your problem and can classify it as a YOYO...You're On Your Own
I mentioned this kind of system to UDOT when the put in the HOV here in Utah...The problem is the same as it is anywhere...Single occupants are constantly in the HOV lane... ... this only solved 1/50th of the problem.
I mentioned that UDOT should do a "pay per use" system, so UDOT decided to make a little money and make it an HOV or PAY for USE
Then I suggested that they need a few more officers to patrol the HOV and make some revenue off the violators...so they added 2 more officers...
Then I suggested to put in a 1-800 number for people to call and report violators, but that doesn't net any $$ and costs $$ so they said "no"...
So I suggested that they could put in the IR Cameras and catch violators by using a heat signature...they said the system costs to much...but with the number of HOV Violators that I see every day, they could pay for the system in about a year...
So the question is, does this kind of thing cost more than it brings in, or does it pay for itself and create a steady stream of income?
--E--
Just another excuse to further invade people'e privacy. Does anyone think they'll stop there? If you do, please report to the nearest Soylent Green Center for processing like the good automatons you are. I'm sure there are less Draconian methods to stop a problem caused essentially by poor urban planning to begin with, but that would like, make sense. And we can't have the Government Issue doing that, now, can we?
>>habius corpus
I knew all that my latin in highschool would be useful for something. I just never dared to hope it would be something as important as correcting trivial errors on Slashdot!
Here goes:
Habius might a singular genitive of an irregular noun, or a masculine second family nominate noun, but either way, it isn't "habeas" which is a subjunctive 2nd person singular verb meaning "may you have" [the body].
That felt great. Hail Caesar!
Relax I just want some peanuts.
Abolish the stupid car pool lanes. All they accomplish is narrowing the highways by one lane in each direction, causing traffic jams and increasing pollution.
New Jersey's policy of enforcing the lane control laws makes a lot more sense.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
and I wasn't a mannequin, so I didn't speak up.
I'm an asshole so I like to report them.
You've got your causes and effects reversed. You like to report them because you're an asshole.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
... through glass (which is almost totally reflective for the long wave ir cameras that i've used). i wonder if there's something special about the glass they use in vehicles...
> That's not how the law is written
...but hopefully you realize the idea and spirit of HOV lanes is" did you have trouble understanding?
What part of "they don't really specify...
Well, that rips it. The "Ice Queen" can drive herself to the office from now on.
How well do these infrared cameras work through the windshield glass anyhow? Can they really sense actual "human skin" or just a hot spot in the front seat? Are they affected by peoples heater's in the winter? Will a large dog trick the camera? How much will the taxpayers give to work the bugs out of this program? Me thinks someone needs to rethink this...
Yup. Time to hit up your med school chum for that spare cadaver.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
On another note even though the HOV lanes were put their to reduce the number of cars on the road practicality is a requirement all to often missed in law making and restricting the law so that only drivers with cars of their own count would be totally unfeasible from an enforcement POV and anyways carpooling kids is a legitimate way to reduce traffic (4 cars with 1 kid each vs 1 car with 4 kids on their merry way to school). Anyways my $0.02CAD worth.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
Cut the federal government back down to rational constitutional size and structure. 3/4ths of the metro DC area has to move back home in some distant state and get real jobs. The roads that are still there now in DC metro area wouldn't *need* special HOV lanes then. Heck, you want a better start on a solution, just outlaw chauffeurs. Make every one of those pompous "VIP" overlord dudes have to deal with normality, and they'll think of something better than HOV patches.
dress the dummy in electrically heated long-johns.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The real question is, can it detect BODIES? DEAD BODIES???
**insert evil laugh here***
My dummy reads a newspaper.
Although the "spirit of the law" may apply in sports and a huge number of other games and events, court is a place where the letter of the law is more important than anything else. It would be quite illegal for a judge to say "Well, you obeyed the law as it was written but your actions were against the spirit of the law, therefore, you're guilty of committing XYZ".
Those carpool lanes might not be meant for people carrying children in infant seats, but until the law actually states that, on paper, that's how they can (and will) be used.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
That's what he said.
ResidntGeek
You like to report them because you're an asshole.
-jcr
I typically don't defend assholes, but the two sentences are grammatically equivalent. One is written Cause --> Effect; the other, Effect ^-- Cause. Another slipup like this might get you sent back to Grammar Nazi boot camp. Achtung!
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
What about passengers in the back seat?
Passengers who may be catching a nap with a hat over his or her face?
Solar-Ray and similar windshields which are almost opaque to IR?
Oops. This automated enforcement system needs to be reevaluated.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Wow, some fairly interesting ideas on how to get around this camera. My suggestion is far simpler. How about actually carpooling :-/
If Mick Jagger and his ex drive in a HOV lane they'll get fined: I'm so hot and she's so cold - cold like a tooooomb stone...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It puts the lotion on or it gets the hose again!
I assume you meant "therefore" instead of "because".
The plan blatantly disregards cold-blooded politicians. Back to the drawing board, boys.
Not to support the guy but he's got a point, why should a taxi driver get an easy ride because he's a taxi driver? Surely there is 1 person in that care going from A to B, the driver is little more than a horse pulling a cart.
I like muppets.
what morons!
the "correction" doesn't CORRECT anything--the original sentence said the EXACT same thing!
good thing moderators don't represent the average citizen. oh wait...people are supposed to be "smarter" here....
Please, won't someone think of the Batman fans?
good fer da cops on this one. i drove up 395 everyday in my prius (going south in the morning -- so on the regular lanes) and saw all the yuppie nazi blackwater geeks speeding down the hov's in the middle (not even dr johnson dummies in the pass seat). it's about time that tech gets them. Put em in jail w/OJ & brittney. I used to work the nite shift on the media center in dc and got to look at all the cams on the freeways. Nothing but mf's got called out.
The thing about this kinda enforcement is that it's color blind. Like, the cams ain't racist, lookin for the DWB/DWA's to mess with. Also, think about being a cop trying to flag down suv nazi's on the ann rand freeways of dc. Some have got kilt! Red Ken uses cams to enforce the law in london, so there. i worry more about big bro at the demo than on the freeway. If you all just slow down, obey traffic laws, and stop being blackwaters, you got nothing to worry about.
Asshole or not, I'm please that he/she reports them.
I'm sorry, but if that person is the only one in the vehicle driving in an HOV lane, then that jackass deserve to be reported! People need to learn to be considerate of others and the roads they drive on.
Side note: Hang up the FUCKING CELL PHONE while in rush hour traffic!!! I sware to God, if I get into an accedent cause of someone not paying attention while on the phone, I WILL subpoenia those phone records and sue!
Life is not for the lazy.
What are the laws about Motorcycles in HOV lanes?
My impression was that most glass is opaque to UV but not IR, which is why your dashboard gets hot in the sun.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
... that's my wife! /rimshot .max
66 is HOV durring rush hour. The thing is, if you are going to or from the IAD via Dulles Toll Rd its not HOV. So, how would the IR scanner know where you are going/comming from?
BTW, if you ever get busted on 66 between DC and the Toll rd, just tell em you are going to the airport/just dropped some one off.
nice article and comments found on this page, greetings girl
Having lived there for 20yrs, DC is a city with a lot of high tech, surveillance-oriented companies. Seeing the budgets shrinks due to congress & the war,... and the over-saturation of these 'application firms' the past few years, I'm not surprised creative, but destructive ideas using surveillance tech is coming to the consumer market in order for these companies to survive.
Bulls**t. If you really want to talk about intent, HOV lanes are primarily created for the benefit of high-density transit and carpool transit vans. Carpoolers are included to make it more politically palatable.
In as far as they include carpoolers, HOV lanes are as much about social engineering as transit management. Otherwise, road pricing based on occupancy would be used instead, since it's far more efficient.
You're complaint essentially is that the family car is breaking your social engineering goal. Even so, I think you've got it backward. It's not that the HOV lanes are for carpoolers, the non-HOV lanes are for single-occupant commuters using the highway during peak demand. In this sense, the car with parent and kids, (more likely to employ a less regular schedule with a pattern that is less suited to public transit alternatives), definitely belongs in the HOV lane.
I'll be sure to have my kids wave to you as we pass by.
Requiring HOV lane passengers to have valid licenses is a can of worms so squirmy I'd not even go there.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
So I take apart a heating blanket and plug it into the cigarette lighter in my car. Wrap the dummy with the blanket. Technology beaten. Congrats at wasting more of my tax dollars on technology we don't need.
We had all those stupid radar devices in California and now they have to rip all those out because no one wanted to be mailed a ticket. Technology is great, I'm just tired of brain dead ideas. You want people to stop driving in the car pool lane? Heres a solution... QUIT BORROWING FROM THE TRANSPORTATION FUND AND BUILD ME ANOTHER LANE. With that said I don't drive in the carpool lane illegally.
...to all you poor saps who have to actually get on a highway to get to work every day.
OK... Let's see how law enforcement has managed to keep their salaries while not doing work.....
.....And Now.....
1. Camera-linked speed traps.
2. Cameras mounted at intersections to look for "stolen" plates.
3. Face-recogition cameras to look for "criminals".
4. Cameras at intersections to catch red-light runners.
5. Cameras on sidewalks to look for trouble to happen.
6. Cameras that "monitor suspicious behavior" in subway stations and airports.
7. Microphones mounted on roof-tops that triangulate loud noises, such as gunshots.(yes, a city by me *DID* put these up)
8. Cameras to make sure people don't cheat the HOV lanes (GOD FORBID!)
Every time law enforcement tries to justify putting in a camera for some mundane task that could be done by anyone with half a brain, ( like having a cop walk down a street, instead of having a camera scan the faces of people and watch them go about their normal business and wait for the one off-chance that someone will break the law ), they claim that is will free up officers for more serious calls.
Calls like what? A Buy 1 Get One Free promo at Dunkin' Donuts?!
How much more time to they need?! Where the hell do we live, if the cops need to free up this much time?? BOSNIA???
The idea of HOV lanes was a half-finished turd that sounded good and politically-correct, but wasn't. The only thing it did was force people to pay for something they either couldn't use or didn't use through fuel and highways taxes that could have instead gone to despertely needed things like fixing potholes, retrofitting/reinforcing bridges, spans, and overpasses, and widening roads in towns that have far outgrown the capacity of their current roads.
Instead of wasting money for a reason as stupid as this, how about:
1. Higher fines for speeding.
2. Higher fines for people who go to slow.
3. Higher fines for seatbelts.
4. Higher fines for DUIs and reckless driving.
5. Higher fines for red light runners
6. Higher fines for drugs.
7. Higher fines for those idiots who think driving while yakking on the phoe is a good idea (hands-free OK)
8. No more warnings.
9. Making sure that money that was originally intended for highway maintenance actually GOES TO HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE!
10. Higher fees for transnational freight (CAN/MEX or MEX/CAN, goods that cross the United States, but are not sold in the U.S.)
11. Higer fines for weight violations.
12. Higher fines for bicyclists who use the roads but don't follow the same traffic laws that apply to them, are a hazard.
The money generated from this would definitely pay for additional cops to do the work, and more!
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Au contraire! It would be best if HOV lanes were better controlled. Then, buses carrying 40 passengers each (and other transit vehicles) could speed ahead to the Metro train stations, making mass transportation more enticing for commuters. You could restrict non-transit vehicles from using those lanes altogether, but if only legitimate carpoolers were using them, I'm guessing they wouldn't block up the transit vehicles too much, but I'd rather they ditched HOV in favor of bus-only lanes than simply added one more lane to the parking lot that is I-66.
The other way to get more people riding is to increase the frequency with which buses and trains run; if you can walk to the bus stop on the corner and get a ride within 10-15 minutes, it's not much of a change to your schedule compared with hopping in a car. You still have the ease of movement that cars offer, and you don't have to worry about what to do with your 3500 pounds of steel, plastic, and rubber when you get where you're going.
BTW, drivers are actually subsidized on DC's Metro -- parking structures and systems still cost more than they rake in. People who use buses, or walk or bicycle to Metro stations are paying more than their fair share. So, yeah, transit users should pay less, and drivers should pay more...if drivers aren't just on their way to Metro, but are going downtown, they're probably parking in "free" (subsidized) spaces, so again, removing that subsidy would encourage riding the train, which would alleviate traffic (and encourage Metro to increase the frequency of service).
Udall's Fourth Law: Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you don't like.
Straight from the slashdot quotes, very convenient. Now the problem with techy solutions, and the reason slashdot geeks will always be skeptical of them, leading to other geeks making fun of the said skepticism as a sort of mature outlook on the matter - the problem is that technology always has loopholes:
You introduce a harmless little thing like an IR based camera solution and suddenly people buy thin, invisible, heated coating for their seats or windshields that will fool your nifty little cam for a little cost. Camera tech evolves to identify human heat signatures using pattern matching techniques on the images. Spoofing tech evolves to comply. Police begin searches of cars... do you see where this is going?
I live (and go to grad school) in DC; I honor the code, everybody I know does, and HOV lanes almost never get blocked because of violators, AFAIK. If they do, then maybe the troopers on the road, instead of being busy tossing salad, can keep an eye out for infractions and produce solid cases that nobody can contend. Humans are good for some things. Use them. Automating criminalization is not easy, and should be avoided when possible.
Speaking as a DC area commuter who takes I-95 in Virginia everyday, this is a great idea.
When traffic is heavy, any small distraction can turn into a back-up as the flow phase changes from movement to stoppage.
So on I-95, cops patrol the HOV lanes, and when they find a violator they turn on their lights and pull the miscreant over.
Meanwhile, the very action of turning on their lights and pulling the miscreant over slows down the traffic in the non-HOV lanes, leading to a back-up.
I'd much prefer that HOV violators are detected by camera and mailed tickets than stopped by a police car.
It's not like your kids would be driving by themselves otherwise :)
But I tell you what, I'll count your kids if you count my dogs towards HOV occupancy...
The front seat is normally where the dummy is kept.
capcha: calming. Yes I feel calmer having shared that, thank you.
doesn't the wavelength of the lidar depend on the laser that's used? for what it's worth, i've used microbolometer fpa long wave ir (800-1300nm odd) and glass is almost totally reflective. it caused a lot of heartburn (turns out that computer vision in ir bands is a very different problem than in visible spectrum).
Longwave IR isn't the only IR band. (Think real hard now... What do you think warms your car when it sits in the sun? How do you think heat gets through the glass on solar heating systems?)
Try looking at this image, and you can plainly see inside the car.
In DC/northern Virginia, and probably elsewhere, they're called "Slug Lines". Very employed people use them, and whole parking lots are set up near the interstate for people to park, and wait in line for another commuter to take them the rest of the way to DC via the HOV lane. Web sites are available to help arrange car pools if you don't like hopping in with just anyone. The biggest slug line downtown is probably at the Pentagon, but I think there are others. I don't know if Maryland has any.
This makes a whole lot more sense because it actually reduces the number of cars on the road. The HOV lanes are silly anyway, they need a Metro Bus system that doesn't scare away everyone but those with no choice. Or maybe better Metro (light rail) and VRE (commuter train) access. To get to a train station in northern Virginia, you usually have to drive fifteen minutes away from the interstate, through twisty two lane roads, four way stops, and even G^d d*mned subdivisions with 15MPH limits. Every day after work, people huddle near the train doors as it stops, and run to their cars to get out of the parking lot as fast as they can. Few have the luxury of being the first to wait in traffic on the main road or interstate while the rest curse the stupid road planning for what would otherwise be a perfect alternative to spending three hours driving thirty miles up the interstate.
I can see it now:
Judge: Mr. Smith, you are charged with illegally driving in the carpool lane by yourself as determined and documented by a state infrared camera. How do you plead?
Mr. Smith: Your honor, my wife is a cold-blooded bitch. Having to drive to work with her in the car is bad enough, please don't extend my suffering by making me sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic with her. On second thought, I'll be happy to pay the fine if I could get a copy of this "state documentation" so I can prove to the judge in our pending divorce case that she is certified as cold-blooded and I am suffering greatly because of it...
What will kill this is the number of false negatives - they will be trying to fine many people on the basis of failure of their system.
Right, but the closer enforcement can come to that standard, the better. (not worse)
Parents sometimes get to use the carpool lanes with kids, but with infrared scanners that miss small children in carseats because they probably look about the same as pets, there's no logical reason that they should be allowed to keep the privileges they'd enjoyed as a byproduct of previously difficult-to-enforce scenarios. As I'm sure speeding laws were more difficult to enforce in the absence of radar guns, the law will evolve to embrace the technology of enforcement.
no, actually, i can't "plainly" see inside the car. i can barely see inside the car, even after having dicked around with my gamma settings. what i can easily see is a ton of reflections of the environment (which are highlighted quite clearly if you do play around with the gamma).
i use infrared cameras on a regular basis for my work and i've never seen near ir behave substantially differently from a monochrome sensor. the near ir cameras that i've worked with (without active illumination) are pretty useless at night. so unless there's some other kind of processing going (image intensification or what have you), i don't see how near ir helps to solve the problem. on the other hand, mid and longwave ir cameras are actually useful so long as you have a reasonable temperature differential between the target and ambient (which is likely to be a problem in places like dc with high humidity and ambient temperatures pretty close to body temperature for long stretches during the summer).
They're just automating an inspection that could have been performed by cops on the ground. I know because I got a ticket for driving in the stupid carpool lane once. And you're already in public in a vehicle where you're, at most, shielded from plain view by a bit of glass. Which is to say you're not shielded from plain view.
So, unless law enforcement plans to use this technology to see something it's not already capable of seeing, e.g. using it to see through the walls of your home, I don't think this is a big deal.
no warm bodies in the trunk.
So many suggested avoidance schemes, but haven't any of you actually thought that maybe you could just car pool instead? Easy solution and so much better for the environment. Plus you might actually get some stimulating conversation on the way rather than the inane radio DJ chatter ;-)
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
shit son. I had no idea that after puncturing that realdoll, it would still really help with that ticket on the I-95 !!
It's the people who won't obey traffick rules who are assholes, not the people who report them. I've been nearly killed numerous times by cretins who run the red light, go over the speed limit, take a shortcut through the left line in left turns, won't use the turn signal, drive through crossroads without any regard for other traffick, just have to pass the car in front of them despite there being incoming traffick, jump from line to line randomly, etc.
Fine them till they go banckrupt, then lock them away for life and throw away the key. Or at the very least take away their licenses and damn cars. The roads aren't a fucking playground, they're a public utility, and screwing up there gets people killed. The traffick rules should be enforced with the fervor appropriate to the risks breaking them causes; namely, they should be enforced as matters of life and death, since they are.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Whilst too many cars are undoubtedly a problem on the US roads, I think the lack of roundabouts is really slowing things down. I work in Milton Keynes, in the UK. There are lots of cars on the road, and I go through the town/city Monday-Friday. It's designed as a grid system, like many US cities... and the traffic is no problem at all. At worst, it slows down briefly (a few minutes) as you're queueing for a roundabout, but you keep moving; you don't get the stop/start traffic that traffic light intersections bring. I think US cities would benefit from trying to eliminate as many traffic lights as possible for roundabouts. Try them - you'll like them.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
The 3-in-1 rule in Jakarta (meaning that 1 cars must have 3 passengers) only applies to certain roads at certain time of the day. The going rate about 2 years ago was around 50 cents. Anyway, you can almost consistently escape capture by the police if you positioned your car correctly while driving. Yeah, they actually look inside your car to find violator.
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
welcome our brand new electrically heated dummy overloads! Coming to a car seat near you!
overloads -> overlords.
On the second thought, given an electrical heating I welcome overloads too
Since when did children contribute anything of value to society. Get off my lawn.
So where exactly would that leave taxis or chauffeur driven vehicles. Do the more wealthy, yet again have advantages beyond the average.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
you are not an asshole, you are being a good citizen. the HOV lane is there to ensure that as many people can get where they are going as efficiently as possible for the benefit of everyone. If people abuse that system, they are basically leeching off the law-abidance of everyone else to get a free (fast) ride.
Fuck em.
I'm glad you report them. I would too.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Doctor: ... misuse of the cadavers-
Dr. Nick: I get here faster when I drive in the car pool lane.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
The HOV lanes in Northern VA are HOV-3, requiring 3 people in the car, or being a hybrid with a special plate. And this is a non-issue, as there's a form of hitchhiking called slugging here. People line up at park and rides, and when someone drives up who going to the same general areas as the person in the line is, they get in. 3 people, carpooling, and free.
I don't think this will work, unless you require people to drive with their windows down...
Thermal cameras see heat, and will just see the temperature of the glass, and not the heat of the occupants of the vehicle.
Seems I remember a Mythbusters episode where an infrared camera was defeated by a simple plane of glass.
This action will probably be a waste of money as the cameras will not be able to peer into a car with the windows rolled up.
DocWat232
I already got the idea to do this in Atlanta. I believe that they use handheld IR cameras already since there are bears sitting next to the HOV lane all the time at night in their little impalas. You just need to tap your car's coolant line and run a radiator through a mannequin and get the flow designed right to have the decoy between 70 to 100degF. Don't forget that clothing changes an IR signature. It's not that difficult of a thing to do.
Dog Body Heat = 1 standard human commuter unit.
How long before these images start showing up on websites? Especially the "chicks with dicks" kind. Infrared of what looks to be a busty blond...but what's that thing there...omg it's a...
Look for my earlier post with the links. I think they are using a system similar to, if not identical to, this 'dtec' or 'dted' system produced by a company in a UK.
That system uses 1550nm telecommunications band light, which passes well enough through glass, but is absorbed by human skin. The UK system looks for dark areas which match certain size/shape limits that qualify as likely human faces.
Windows down, coat on
Can they see you?
I can see that ticket
HOV Northbound
Speed 53
Number of occupants 0
Fine $450.00
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
They aren't "people" in the context of an HOV lane, the purpose of which is (allegedly) to reduce traffic congestion by concentrating two or more people into a car, thus taking cars off the road which those people would otherwise be using on their own.
Now, it's impossible to try to make everyone "prove" that they'd be driving on their own if they weren't passengers in this HOV-using car, so the law just sort of assumes, for the sake of simplicity, that if you're in a car with a passenger, you can use the HOV lane. So far, so good.
On the other hand, it's pretty easy to prove that your ten year old kid wouldn't be taking his own car if he weren't your passenger, so the fact that he's riding with you doesn't take a car off the road.
Yet for some idiotic reason the law says your ten year old kid counts when enforcing HOVs. The rationale is usually "Well, the law says occupant", but then, doesn't my dog count as an occupant? Why couldn't I put her in the back seat, let her stick her face out the window, and cruise on down the HOV lane? She's as much a passenger as some kid, and both are equally likely to be using their own cars if I weren't giving them a ride.
Suddenly the "occupant" argument sounds pretty stupid, yes?
The fact that the law makes such conditions acceptable shows the true meaning of the HOV lane, which is revenue generation and federal compliance. Here in Atlanta the only reason we have them is because our ozone was too high and the EPA leaned in and said we don't get any more federal highway funding until we do something about it, so we said sure, how about we lop off a lane from every highway? That'll clear it right up!
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Or invest in decent public transport instead.
.... equivalent traffic jam length to transport that many people in cars - 224 metres.
In London: length of one typical train carriage: approx 16 metres. Length of one auto - approx 4 metres. Capacity of train carriage: approx 56 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_A62_Stock)
One 4 carriage train with seats occupied is saving you a kilometre of road traffic...
Isnt' there more important things to worry about than someone driving solo in the car pool lane? Like:
1. assholes cutting in an out of lanes without using a turn signal
2. assholes not using turn signals and talking on the cell phone
3. assholes not using turn signals and putting on makeup
4. assholes not using turn signals and putting on makeup and smoking a cigarette
5. assholes not using turn signals and eating
6. assholes not using turn signals to tell me that they are changing lanes. The goes directly to SAFETY and COURTESY. Didn't these people have mothers that taught them to be polite?
7. people making abrupt speed changes on the freeway (they should get a physics lesson when they do that, and sometimes they do but not as often as I would like).
Not using turn signals was on some agency's list of items that lead to road rage, maybe it was the pope's. But I've never seen anyone ticketed for that because it's hard to prove in court. But if someone goes 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, look out. It's because they can measure the speed. everything else is subjective.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein
Instead of a dummy in the front seat, I'll just put my toaster. Done.
We will spend millions of dollars on high technology to automatically issue a couple hundred bucks worth of fines. Do people calculate the ROI for prosecuting crimes anymore? Yes, I know, apples & oranges, but there is a point where it would simply be a waste of money to worry about carpool lane violations.
Perhaps they had it right in the movie THX 1138 where the android cops simply stopped chasing THX all because they went over the realtime budget.
And anyway, Falls Churchians and Arlingtonians have plenty of roads other than 66 to choose from. Hell, you can't even get onto 66 going Eastbound from half of Arlington, anyhow. more efficiently spent toward carbon offsets I've never understood this whole carbon offsets thing. Is there any actual legal framework with teeth in place to force emitters to purchase "carbon credits"?
Even if there was such a thing, I would be against it for this purpose. Why should we prefer to spend our "carbon emition" resources on ParkingLot-66 as opposed to actual production of useful goods? To me, that seems wasteful. Or make the Metro train free to ride; it's already heavily subsidized anyway, and everyone would benefit from increased use. DC Metro is already at capacity. You seem to be familiar with Northern VA, so you've probably heard the term "Orange Crush". The Blue line is at capacity as well.
There really isn't much more that Metro can do to increase capacity. They're already running many 8 car trains. What metro really needs to do, that they will never do, is add more tracks. Currently, if there is one "sick passenger" on one train in one direction, the entire metro system gets brought to its knees. This is because that line will have to single-track (trains going in both directions on one track), and the resulting slowdown gums up the other lines as well.
At any rate, I disagree with your assertion that HOV won't change behavior. I know plenty of people who HOV when they otherwise would not. Slug lines further support this position.
What I think may screw the whole thing up is these HOT lanes. I mean, really. People in NoVA have way more money than time. Why should I bother to pick up slugs if I can just pay $5 or whatever and not even have to slow down?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
So what happens when my driver is driving and I'm napping in the back seat on the way to work?
flip the source of the ray to this.
So this means my passengers in the back can be doing other more entertaining acts instead of having to stay upright to be seen by the cameras as we whiz down the road.
Cool, I'm moving to be a passenger instead of a driver.
No more ' but sir, she really was in the car, you just couldn't see her.. ' explanations either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They have had this on "24" for a few years now
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
In general, it's probably better to err on the side of tolerance with regard to HOV's, at least until they are as busy as all the other lanes of traffic.
Wouldnt turning on your heated front seats spoof the cameras anyway???
I'm not sure how 'foolproof' these will be. My city has red-light cameras and even when they malfunction, the kangaroo court people just rubberstamp the fines for the most part.
If the camera is looking for heat signatures... people could just warm up the dummy using the same ol' technology as heated blankets work... a dummy could have heating coils embedded in it or just wrap the thing in an electric blanket.
Since people can be in different places in a car... would it be looking for the 2nd passenger in the front seat? What if you're a parent and have children in the back seat that the camera doesn't see? What about if you have passengers in the back seat?
IMO, automated law enforcement is a really bad idea... most in the US are getting set up as civil penalties which have much lower burdens of proof. I would prefer to be pulled over by an officer who has the situational awarness and could actually look inside my car and verify if I didn't have someone in the back seat or not.
Your wrong with you're spelling of "traffick", it should read "traffic" instead.
The problem with removing the human contact from law enforcement, is it makes it much harder to correct errors. To illustrate the principle: Last summer I appeared to a witnesses, from a distance, to be stealing from a construction site, and appeared to another witness, from a great distance, to be storing stolen materials in my garage. Actually I took nothing from the site and put nothing in my garage, but it looked that way to them. This is the same kind of problem that will in general occur with remote sensors. In my case, a month later police showed up at my house at night, cuffed me, and hauled me off to jail. Through the whole ordeal, which took months and $3500 in legal fees, I was never once questioned by a police officer, though if I had been I could have easily demonstrated my innocence. As law enforcement continues to become more and more distant for police and other law enforcers, this sort of thing will become more and more common.
This is a great idea, I wish they'd do it for 101 in teh Bay Area. It pisses me off to see single occupant cars zip by me in the HOV lane. I wonder how they justify it in their heads. And are they the kind of person who thinks "Well, it's late at night and there's no one around so I can just roll thru this red light/stop sign".
// todo: implement sig
Currently in VA hybrid owners are exempt from HOV lane rules. I wonder if that will still be in effect.
In California the arguments against red light cameras are bullshit. I'm tired of 3 or 4 pedestrians getting killed every month at intersections in San Francisco. Run the red light, get a ticket. Tough Shit.
In California, the ticketing process is not automated:
1) Has to be issued by a law enforcement officer after reviewing the pictures taken by the camera.
2) Has to be mailed to you within 2 1/2 weeks (or something like that.)
3) The mailing contains the photos the machine took of you, as I understand it.
I got "flashed" at an intersection is San Francisco when I rolled into the crosswalk after the light turned red. I did not get a ticket. The machine strobed three times, I was mostly stopped at the first flash, completely stopped for the second, and by the thirs had already started to back out of the crosswalk. Splitting hairs legally, I probably *did* run the light, since my wheels entered the crosswalk, but law enforcement used its dicretion, luckily in my favor.
I know in some jurisdictions the pictures are mailed off to Pakistan or whereever and you only know you got cited when your registration gets blocked in two or three years. Those laws needs to be changed.
One more thing, we just got back from a trip to France. France is blanketed with photo radar and radar-crazy Gendarmerie. You can get a ticket for going 2 kph over the limit. And guess what? No asshole drivers!! It was wonderful to drive in France.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
*For home use, of course.
Have gnu, will travel.
...if I'm several steps ahead of you in a burning house, it is only because I'm using a some rescue webbing to drag you out while keeping your head down. You don't really ever want that to happen.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's about time. I commute daily on I-270 and see these violators all the time. They think there are ways to get around it. They put manikins in their cars, they'll ride the lane when it's raining out (assuming bacon doesn't want to pull them over), or here's the worst - putting a "Baby on Board" suction to the window and having a baby seat in the back. PLEASE! It's about time these morons get caught and fined. Fines are usually $500+, but no points are assessed. I hope that changes, too.
-50 DKP for lame post!
1) Reflection. Reflect your signature (and heat signature) to the right seat... it may work, it may not.
2) I bet these cameras will only look for a passenger in the right seat, so drive from the right seat.
Fundamentally this system is flawed because it expects a passenger to be in the front right seat.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I thought glass was opaque to infrared radiation?
Is that even a realistic possibility?
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
. . . vampires rarely work by day? Rush hour problems? :)
hawk
probably related to eye safety
Is not impressed.
What if I start commuting wearing a burkha and "Blue Blockers"?!?!
Your new here aren't you??? Just look for any discussion about DMCA and see if we do or do not craft our laws carefully.
Those who can, do.
Thank you for not saying "which BEGS the question", but rather showing an example of an easy way to express what you mean using a correct and non-grammarNazi-targeted construct.
I've decided that one way to get people to use the phrase "begging the question" properly, a more effective way than hounding them for using the phrase improperly, would be to use it properly as much as possible so that people can get used to seeing it in the right context. Your sentence provides a nice counterpoint to that, by showing when the phrase should not be used.
Yes, I am a grammar Nazi at heart. Go ahead and complain about how the English language is dynamic --it is so due no less to people who resist change as people who promote change (especially inadvertently).
And, yes, this is off topic, but certainly not out of place in an international English-language forum such as Slashdot.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
You're wrong with your spelling of 'Your wrong with you're spelling...'.
/. that the poster is in fact, male) cannot distinguish between the use of "your" as a possessive and "you're" as a contraction, he winds up looking like an idiot. Do you have similar problems with "its" and "it's"?
I am highly amused by those who chose to correct other's grammar or spelling, but because he (I assume since this is
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
As long as it's still alive and producing heat. Otherwise, stewing it in a large 12volt crock pot for soup would be the next best thing...but the crock pot must be in the passenger seat.
...make a dummy that plugs into the cigarette lighter, and generates a steady 98.6F....problem solved.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
She was fine (if shaken), the rental car was totaled, and that's three vehicles (including one innocent bystander's) that she completely destroyed in 4 hours. It definitely wasn't mean to take her license, as my mum and my aunt had both been trying to have it revoked for years. At that stage Nanna had advanced Alzheimer's, and had trouble doing things like 'braking for corners' and 'staying on the correct side of the road' let alone little niceties such as stopping for red lights. It's a miracle she didn't kill someone.
If I ever get to the point where I'm unfit to operate heavy machinery then I'll stop doing so, I won't just smile, nod and put everyone else's lives in jeopardy.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
A dummy can be crafted with a required heating. Just put some heating cable in, power it from the car power supply. Military dummy vehicles do it for decades already.
I'm going to point to the post being a joke and hope you evolve a sense of humour in order to enjoy it before you die.
Some if I only use the highway every now and then, I'm allowed to use the HOV lane all by myself! Because that's what it's for! Thanks, this will really free up my weekends!
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Upon review, it does not look like you're the sort of jack-booted authoritarian who loves the police no matter what they do. And you aren't incapable of some reasonable degree of thought. So, you don't go on my foes list. Not that I expect you care all that much. But I thought I'd tell you that I considered it.
You might want to do some reading and research. The police in the US are definitely a mixed bag and have a strong tendency towards unnecessary violence and being brutish thugs. I think it varies a lot by location, but in some locations they are truly vicious thugs who get off on hurting and/or killing people. Unfortunately the establishment considers even vicious thugs better than no police and almost always acts to cover things up to avoid destroying the police's reputation.
I tend to give them a bit of a benefit of a doubt because they sometimes deal with some pretty extreme situations, but I still think that we have way overly brutal police in most places in the US.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop