Is there an obligation to avoid playing chicken?
on
Is Your GPS Naive?
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· Score: 1
Just out of curiosity:
Is it legal for a car going 75 mph to pass a large semi+trailer going 74 mph? That's what our non-speeder claims to do...
A car attempting to pass a semi at 75 mph is not going to be able to shift right to allow someone who wants to go 80 mph to pass him: the semi going 74 mph will be in the way. So, if that feat is legal, it'll force anyone behind this pair to go no faster than 75 mph.
On the other hand, that car is going to be spending quite a while in the blind spot of that semi. Passing a vehicle going 74 mph at 75 mph is going to take a while. So, if the semi's driver failed to notice that the car had started to pass it or mistakenly assumed that the car had gone to a normal above-the-limit speed while it was passing, then who is responsible if the semi tries to shift to the left lane when the car is still there next to it?
In other words, even if that passing behavior is legal, it may be suicidal.
Governor McCreevy of NJ had already taken up the cause for stricter seatbelt laws before this happened; if he hadn't, I might not have repeated the "hypocrite" charge. The "buckle-up" campaign he'd set up will be starting soon anyway. All this will do, assuming it doesn't discredit NJ's seatbelt laws (which looks unlikely), is give him an anecdote to hammer in his points.
I don't even know if he knew that his vehicle was speeding, or if he knew how much it was speeding. He was riding in the back seat, after all. It can be hard to tell how fast you're going if you aren't driving.
I believe that the hypocrite governor of NJ is gonna be punished enough by getting that sort of injury from a crash. He might even stop being a hypocrite.
But either the fella driving oughta be punished, or there was an emergency going on that no one wants us to know about.
I found it interesting that those asked to comment for that Yahoo! article were more furious about the governor's failure to wear a seatbelt than about the driver's speeding.
The ad I saw pushed the HD-DVDxDVD crossbreed as an HD-DVD that can still work in a normal DVD player. Its initial price point will probably be at the HD-DVD level, and it will be made instead of a normal HD-DVD. It will be for both those with an HD-DVD player and those with only a DVD player who hope to upgrade someday. The idea is that you can get HD quality on the title when you upgrade your player, without having to repurchase the film.
I imagine that eventually, films will come out in the crossbreed format but not the normal DVD format. Since some people do care about what film they're buying, this also will blur that price-point issue.
It will also make things easier (assuming HD-DVD wins) if there are crossbreed discs when media corps. decide to phase out normal DVD players. Normal DVDs can play on HD-DVD players, but they'll look no better on them; if all you have is DVDs, why not keep buying cheap DVD players? (Esp. the ones with "illegal" features.) But when the HD capability is already in the disc, someone who's less technical (and unaware of DRM risks) may want to upgrade the player to something that can show the HD-DVD side.
Actually, saving Con Air might be a good idea. I'll add The Rock and National Treasure as well, though I imagine most of you would not.
Nicolas Cage is one of the more intellectual (read "less dumb") action heroes. He's also a relation of Francis Ford Coppola. For these reasons, his work should be saved--even if it's only so future generations can wonder exactly what this generation was thinking.
I didn't bet, but you're probably right.
I saw an ad in Entertainment Weekly pushing the idea of discs that had DVDs on one side and HD-DVDs on the other. Anyone want to bet that studios supporting HD-DVD will soon issue all their new (non-BluRay) films in this format? Those discs will play in ordinary DVD players, and they will be already adapted to one HD format if the customer decides to upgrade to HD. Backward compatibility and possible lock-in: what a beautiful combo for a marketing department!
Since OpenOffice has a spreadsheet program, a database program, and a program to make presentations with, I'm certain that there are Open Document formats specific to spreadsheets, databases, and "presentations."
Probably it is more prevalent in the Northeast. In the Northeast, and in Chicagoland, there's so much traffic using the highways that if almost all the highways have toll booths, they can just put toll booths at regular intervals. Not everyone using the tollways of Illinois passes a booth at every trip, but enough do that relatively small tolls at each booth can maintain the system. (The one indisputable freeway that I took in Northern Illinois was horribly maintained.)
In states with less population, it can't work that way. The other main tollway I've travelled is in Kansas; they manage by having a booth at each end of its tollway (which covers pieces of at least three interstates) and a booth at each exit in between, excepting "rest stop" exits which have food, gas and not much else. No secret where the tollbooths are--they're listed on the tickets people not using the RFID tags get. The tolls are higher, but they're paid all at once when you get off.
Kansas is threatening to turn one of their state highways into a tollway. My unofficial theory is that they want to do it because that state highway is a good way to escape the stretch of tollway between Lawrence and the eastern endpoint--at least, that's how I've used it!
Benefit of a national ID card:
After it becomes, well, national, laws can be arranged so that you no longer have to fill in tax forms. The IRS will have already collected that data through the year through strategic showing of that national ID, and it can just send you a bill, already filled out and due April 15 or thereabouts.
Yes, sweating over tax forms, choosing whether to itemize or not, and cheating on taxes will all be things of the past!
If all the data is in 50 databases, one per state, then breaking into one database just leaks license data from one state.
If all the data is in one large national database, then breaking into it could leak license data from literally everywhere in the country.
Also, anyone can figure out which addresses likely belong to the federal gov. Finding state databases would be slightly trickier, esp. if it's not your own state.
Okay. The President of the Confederate States of America was Jefferson Davis. It taxed, but the states within the confederation weren't always helpful about it. It held elections. It printed currency: the currency wasn't worth much when the Confederacy existed and was worth even less after the United States forcibly restored the Union, but it was there. It raised--well, actually, the states within the Confederacy raised state armies, and they all worked together against the Union Army. It would've sent and received ambassadors: the main thing keeping it from being recognized by Europe was the Emancipation Proclamation. It tried to create treaties... The Confederacy wasn't a nice country, but it was briefly an independent state.
The sad thing is, once a highway has toll booths on it, it's not a freeway anymore....
Every state whose tollways I've traveled on has RFID toll-collection. It's been brewing for over a decade at least. I wouldn't be surprised if every state with toll roads had RFID toll-collection, period.
I know that most of the highways in Northern Illinois were toll roads last I was there.
I can imagine it now. People who eat too much meat from cloned animals will have excess growth hormones build up in their own systems. If we thought the obesity epidemic is bad now, just wait for the first generation that eats meat which is all either cloned or descended from clones...
It's just hypothetical, of course. We'd never be able to prove it, esp. without labeling, and by the time it became apparent we might no longer care.
Well, if the kid really had made the bomb threat and had followed through on it, he would've been a grave danger to those going to his school. While it was easily verifiable that he didn't make the threat, it was hard to convince the authorities to make that verification.
Those who distrust America's use of Guantanamo Bay think that America isn't making serious efforts to verify the people in there are terrorists because the government doesn't want to find that it may have imprisoned people who aren't.
I consider the movement to jail people for bomb threats (as opposed to actual bombs) part of the War on Terror.
There is a difference between an alleged tie and a real tie. We don't know if those fellas attended that cleric's home group, do we?
The released fella has firmer ties to British intelligence than to Al Qaeda, which is why he finally was released.
To put it another way: That kid we're talking about was allegedly tied to a bomb threat by a Caller ID log. It happened to be an incorrect Caller ID log, but the tie was alleged...
Okay, so applicants can now research and disclose prior art on their own.
Another post says that Verizon deliberately refused to look for prior art, apparently for plausible deniability. If they don't look, they can't say that they knew any existed.
I hope Verizon won't be using the FastTrack process if they keep their current guidelines for searching for prior art...
As long as no one claims, "Hey, he karate-chopped me up!"
On the bright side, they're removing the zero-tolerance rules, so there's a chance of a fair hearing when these bullying charges are brought. Expulsions should be kept to the minimum needed for order, since they are directly linked with not getting a proper education.
Points taken and accepted. Vinyl is its own DRM.
But what to do if you own an album in vinyl that isn't available in CD form? Or worse, one that never will be available in CD form (without piracy at some stage)?
I once owned a McCartney interview album (used) that, when new, had been on the market for only one day. It took that long before MPL realized that they didn't have the copyright to the interview.
I don't think Apple has got all the old singles on iTunes yet, either.
I suspect that there are people who vote based on who supports what copyright law.
The problem is that most of those people work for the members of the MPAA and RIAA.
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Just out of curiosity:
Is it legal for a car going 75 mph to pass a large semi+trailer going 74 mph? That's what our non-speeder claims to do...
A car attempting to pass a semi at 75 mph is not going to be able to shift right to allow someone who wants to go 80 mph to pass him: the semi going 74 mph will be in the way. So, if that feat is legal, it'll force anyone behind this pair to go no faster than 75 mph.
On the other hand, that car is going to be spending quite a while in the blind spot of that semi. Passing a vehicle going 74 mph at 75 mph is going to take a while. So, if the semi's driver failed to notice that the car had started to pass it or mistakenly assumed that the car had gone to a normal above-the-limit speed while it was passing, then who is responsible if the semi tries to shift to the left lane when the car is still there next to it?
In other words, even if that passing behavior is legal, it may be suicidal.
Governor McCreevy of NJ had already taken up the cause for stricter seatbelt laws before this happened; if he hadn't, I might not have repeated the "hypocrite" charge. The "buckle-up" campaign he'd set up will be starting soon anyway. All this will do, assuming it doesn't discredit NJ's seatbelt laws (which looks unlikely), is give him an anecdote to hammer in his points.
I don't even know if he knew that his vehicle was speeding, or if he knew how much it was speeding. He was riding in the back seat, after all. It can be hard to tell how fast you're going if you aren't driving.
I believe that the hypocrite governor of NJ is gonna be punished enough by getting that sort of injury from a crash. He might even stop being a hypocrite.
But either the fella driving oughta be punished, or there was an emergency going on that no one wants us to know about.
I found it interesting that those asked to comment for that Yahoo! article were more furious about the governor's failure to wear a seatbelt than about the driver's speeding.
The ad I saw pushed the HD-DVDxDVD crossbreed as an HD-DVD that can still work in a normal DVD player. Its initial price point will probably be at the HD-DVD level, and it will be made instead of a normal HD-DVD. It will be for both those with an HD-DVD player and those with only a DVD player who hope to upgrade someday. The idea is that you can get HD quality on the title when you upgrade your player, without having to repurchase the film.
I imagine that eventually, films will come out in the crossbreed format but not the normal DVD format. Since some people do care about what film they're buying, this also will blur that price-point issue.
It will also make things easier (assuming HD-DVD wins) if there are crossbreed discs when media corps. decide to phase out normal DVD players. Normal DVDs can play on HD-DVD players, but they'll look no better on them; if all you have is DVDs, why not keep buying cheap DVD players? (Esp. the ones with "illegal" features.) But when the HD capability is already in the disc, someone who's less technical (and unaware of DRM risks) may want to upgrade the player to something that can show the HD-DVD side.
Actually, saving Con Air might be a good idea. I'll add The Rock and National Treasure as well, though I imagine most of you would not.
Nicolas Cage is one of the more intellectual (read "less dumb") action heroes. He's also a relation of Francis Ford Coppola. For these reasons, his work should be saved--even if it's only so future generations can wonder exactly what this generation was thinking.
I didn't bet, but you're probably right.
I saw an ad in Entertainment Weekly pushing the idea of discs that had DVDs on one side and HD-DVDs on the other. Anyone want to bet that studios supporting HD-DVD will soon issue all their new (non-BluRay) films in this format? Those discs will play in ordinary DVD players, and they will be already adapted to one HD format if the customer decides to upgrade to HD. Backward compatibility and possible lock-in: what a beautiful combo for a marketing department!
Coming soon: MS Office for XBOXes!
Since OpenOffice has a spreadsheet program, a database program, and a program to make presentations with, I'm certain that there are Open Document formats specific to spreadsheets, databases, and "presentations."
Probably it is more prevalent in the Northeast. In the Northeast, and in Chicagoland, there's so much traffic using the highways that if almost all the highways have toll booths, they can just put toll booths at regular intervals. Not everyone using the tollways of Illinois passes a booth at every trip, but enough do that relatively small tolls at each booth can maintain the system. (The one indisputable freeway that I took in Northern Illinois was horribly maintained.)
In states with less population, it can't work that way. The other main tollway I've travelled is in Kansas; they manage by having a booth at each end of its tollway (which covers pieces of at least three interstates) and a booth at each exit in between, excepting "rest stop" exits which have food, gas and not much else. No secret where the tollbooths are--they're listed on the tickets people not using the RFID tags get. The tolls are higher, but they're paid all at once when you get off.
Kansas is threatening to turn one of their state highways into a tollway. My unofficial theory is that they want to do it because that state highway is a good way to escape the stretch of tollway between Lawrence and the eastern endpoint--at least, that's how I've used it!
Benefit of a national ID card:
After it becomes, well, national, laws can be arranged so that you no longer have to fill in tax forms. The IRS will have already collected that data through the year through strategic showing of that national ID, and it can just send you a bill, already filled out and due April 15 or thereabouts.
Yes, sweating over tax forms, choosing whether to itemize or not, and cheating on taxes will all be things of the past!
If all the data is in 50 databases, one per state, then breaking into one database just leaks license data from one state.
If all the data is in one large national database, then breaking into it could leak license data from literally everywhere in the country.
Also, anyone can figure out which addresses likely belong to the federal gov. Finding state databases would be slightly trickier, esp. if it's not your own state.
Okay. The President of the Confederate States of America was Jefferson Davis. It taxed, but the states within the confederation weren't always helpful about it. It held elections. It printed currency: the currency wasn't worth much when the Confederacy existed and was worth even less after the United States forcibly restored the Union, but it was there. It raised--well, actually, the states within the Confederacy raised state armies, and they all worked together against the Union Army. It would've sent and received ambassadors: the main thing keeping it from being recognized by Europe was the Emancipation Proclamation. It tried to create treaties... The Confederacy wasn't a nice country, but it was briefly an independent state.
The sad thing is, once a highway has toll booths on it, it's not a freeway anymore....
Every state whose tollways I've traveled on has RFID toll-collection. It's been brewing for over a decade at least. I wouldn't be surprised if every state with toll roads had RFID toll-collection, period.
I know that most of the highways in Northern Illinois were toll roads last I was there.
Down with using SSNs on driver's licenses!
I can imagine it now. People who eat too much meat from cloned animals will have excess growth hormones build up in their own systems. If we thought the obesity epidemic is bad now, just wait for the first generation that eats meat which is all either cloned or descended from clones...
It's just hypothetical, of course. We'd never be able to prove it, esp. without labeling, and by the time it became apparent we might no longer care.
But if Open Document Text does almost everything .doc files do, how can we be sure it doesn't have similar back doors?
Well, if the kid really had made the bomb threat and had followed through on it, he would've been a grave danger to those going to his school. While it was easily verifiable that he didn't make the threat, it was hard to convince the authorities to make that verification.
Those who distrust America's use of Guantanamo Bay think that America isn't making serious efforts to verify the people in there are terrorists because the government doesn't want to find that it may have imprisoned people who aren't.
I consider the movement to jail people for bomb threats (as opposed to actual bombs) part of the War on Terror.
There is a difference between an alleged tie and a real tie. We don't know if those fellas attended that cleric's home group, do we?
The released fella has firmer ties to British intelligence than to Al Qaeda, which is why he finally was released.
To put it another way: That kid we're talking about was allegedly tied to a bomb threat by a Caller ID log. It happened to be an incorrect Caller ID log, but the tie was alleged...
Okay, so applicants can now research and disclose prior art on their own.
Another post says that Verizon deliberately refused to look for prior art, apparently for plausible deniability. If they don't look, they can't say that they knew any existed.
I hope Verizon won't be using the FastTrack process if they keep their current guidelines for searching for prior art...
As long as no one claims, "Hey, he karate-chopped me up!"
On the bright side, they're removing the zero-tolerance rules, so there's a chance of a fair hearing when these bullying charges are brought. Expulsions should be kept to the minimum needed for order, since they are directly linked with not getting a proper education.
A competitor to the RIAA in music? Excellent!
What machine will grind to a halt? For all I know, it'll be the shredder.
Points taken and accepted. Vinyl is its own DRM.
But what to do if you own an album in vinyl that isn't available in CD form? Or worse, one that never will be available in CD form (without piracy at some stage)?
I once owned a McCartney interview album (used) that, when new, had been on the market for only one day. It took that long before MPL realized that they didn't have the copyright to the interview.
I don't think Apple has got all the old singles on iTunes yet, either.
Yes, but how many indie artists & labels are you trying to deal with? This would cut down on variety on any given internet radio station.
I suspect that there are people who vote based on who supports what copyright law.
The problem is that most of those people work for the members of the MPAA and RIAA.