The simple fact is this law would be nonsense, but a great way for the US government to harass Americans: you can't legally harass a US citizen? No problem, just ask your mates in Germany to ask you to do so.
Let me just say that anyone I've known with Parkinson's (and that's at least three people) have all become quite angry when anyone tries to help them. That doesn't stop them from spilling milk all over the floor, but it gives them the dignaty to clean it up after.
At least, when it comes to scrub-up, their ailment helps them...
One of the states had a problem determining, which group of representatives to send, but the problem was settled according to the laws of the land, and I'm much more inclined to trust handling of it to 9 wise people with decades of legal experience than an enraged geek, whose side happened to lose.
Oh, yes, 9 "wize" people appointed by the winner's daddy, who trampled the will of hundreds of people arbitrarly deprived of their right of vote thanks to the shenanigans pulled by the winner's brother.
That would have absolutely no effect on the whole matter. If a private party illegally collects evidence for the governemnt, the government usually can't use it any more than if they had illegally collected it themselves. I certainly don't see how private maintenance of the public roads would have any bearing whatsoever on this subject. Unless you are just making things up to obfuscate the point because you don't even have a point.
Sure it would. The private corporation in charges of the roads would be perfectly justifying it's refusal of letting you drive on their roads because you drive dangerously.
This to me seems like a win, lose, lose, lose situation.
Automakers win.
Workers lose since they have to work harder.
The environment loeses since there is more junk being created.
More resources are consumed to make those cars, not to mention all the extra driving that is done. etc.
This is irrelevent.
The only thing that counts is that the CEO gets the fattest bonus and golden parachute, and, accessorly, that the company stock rises as high as possible.
My dad said many years ago that Detroit (you know that used to be the car capital of the world) was trying to make a throw-away car. He was saying this in the 60s and 70s so his spin was a little different than technology. His assessment of the situation was that they would lay down the first part, then attach the second part. When the third part was addded, it would be added in such a way that you couldn't remove the second part without removing the third part. The third part couldn't be removed until the fourth part was removed, etc. Then finally they would weld the last piece into place with a link all the way through to the first part. In that manner, you could not work on or repair the car. Once anything quit working, even as simple as a spark plug or a tire was low on pressure or the oil needed changing, you would have to get a new car.
The simple fact that there are engineers who worked on such a project is a good indication that engineering profession needs a serious kick in the ass.
A good start would be to require that every engineer, in order to keep their license, should be required to shoot and kill (with as much pain as possible) one MBA per fiscal year. This would have the added side-benefit of making MBA think twice before proposing such schemes.
No, serious. I'm one of those people who are blessed with a body that keeps its ideal weight no matter what I do. (Probably until I meet my one special girl) And considering I live as healthy as the average American stereotype, that's quite impressive. (Perhaps I should start selling my genetic material. $10/handfull)
The TGV isn't exactly a "conventional train". A vast amount of money was spent to engineer most aspects of its cars and tracks from scratch- just like a maglev.
Actually, no. The TGV **IS** a conventional train. There is no exotic technology in it that is not found elsewhere. There is no elaborate train-tilting suspension (like on the Acela or the Talgoes), just plain ordinary 2 stage (springs & airbags) springing. There is no fancy linear motor propulsion system (like on the ICTS), just a normal run-of-the-mill pinion-and-shaft traction motor transmission. There are no sophisticated eddy-current brakes, but plain vanilla rheostatic braking and disk-brakes. What makes the TGV so fast is the track, a perfectly normal track, but laid-out to go fast, just as an autobahn (or autostrada) is made to allow cars to go faster.
For that matter, TGVs will travel outside high-speed lines, (and conventional trains can exceptionally go on high-speed lines)
The biggest challenge met in developping the TGV was the high-speed current collection. Yet the solution was simply to overbuilt existing technology.
Some 20 years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Robert Dupont*, who was responsible for the development of the two-stage pantograph used on the TGV; turns out that the problem was a shockwave that travels on the overhead catenary wire, and as the TGV was travelling closer to the speed of that shockwave, the catenary was lifting from the pantograph. The solution was to stretch the catenary wire so the shockwave speed was faster (for the 513 km/h record runs, the catenary was stretched even more), and to put only one pantograph per single-unit train, with a high-voltage supply line strung on the roof of the train to feed the engine at the other end.
* Yeah, I know, Dupont is the french equivalent of Smith...
Which would also explain the general leadership of the European Union, which is some of the worst the world has ever seen. I guess those Europeans are just too fucking stupid to vote in people of value, and deserve what they get - a bunch of assholes bound and determined to establish a European socialist dictatorship.
Well, of course, unwashed cavemen who rape plunder and pillage are always angry when they discover that there are other vastly superior civilizations...
Distance to grocery store: 3 miles
Distance to work: 27 miles
Therefore, a person must have a car, or they will be broke and hungry.
Well, of course, if you work in the boondocks.
What money you save on lower taxes and cheaper house, you more than pay double on gas and car.
And why does the city sucks? Because cowards like you run out in the boondocks instead of making the city livable, leaving only the scum that lives there.
1. The US is about personal freedom. The freedom to do what you want and go where you want to go. This cannot be over emphasized. Until the formation of the EU travel between countries wasn't that high.
That personal freedom comes at a great cost to individuals and the rest of the world. Ask any iraki what he thinks about americans being free to run their cars whenever they want. Or any vietnamese for that matter...
Yet the americans adamantly refuse to go out and discover the world en masse. And when they do, they do it in the most boorish way possible, either by being obnoxious tourists, greedy raping businessmen or rampaging soldiers.
2. Combine that with a very large UNIFIED country. We ARE free to travel where we want within the United States and even into Canada. It is not uncommon for relatives to live in very different parts of the countries yet still see each other on a yearly basis.
You are free to travel into Europe and Mexico, too.
3. The US Highway systems is very large and connects all major cities. Many have multiple connections. These are subsidized by the GAS tax.
The gas tax does not cover the cost of the military, the political destabilization of Venezuela and the mid-eastern wars needed to keep an abundant supply of cheap oil.
4. Low gasoline taxes. We still maintain one of the lowest per capita tax loads across the world. Still it is too high and only serves to be wasted on government pork and vote buying schemes.
This is why 60% of the US population have no access to health-care, and why many talented people are denied the education needed to keep the USA competitive on the scientific side. Hence the high-reliance on foreign scientists.
And this explains the general stupidity and ignorance of the americans; they don't have any education. Thus they get the leaders they deserve.
5.
I don't think health/obesity can be tied to our fascination with cars. It has more to do with this Information Age where you no longer have to go anywhere to converse with people or find things out. Yet at the same time this lack of need to travel was not in conjunction with a change in diets.
Obesity sure is linked to cars, but more to the general ignorance and stupidity of the public who ill gladly gobble up the advertisements for crappy food, and the big agro-alimentary conglomerates who would sue the government into oblivion if they would start saying that eating this or that is unhealthy.
What does speed gives you? Since the energy expenditure squares each time the speed is doubled, you soon hit a wall where the energy efficiency drops well below an aircraft.
For example, a 1200 km trip (New-York_Chicago)
Speed time saved* Energy How much more than
100 12 10000 at 100 km/h
200 6 6 40000 4 times
300 4 2 90000 9 times
400 3 1 160000 16 times
500 2.4 0.6 250000 25 times
600 2 0.4 360000 36 times
700 1.71 0.29 490000 49 times
* from previous time
Fucking slashcode that won't let PRE pass. Fuck it (and cowboy neal too, at the same time).
So, each time you increase speed by 100 km/h, your energy use soars so much that for saving a paltry quarter-hour, you spend 13 times more energy than needed to go at 100 km/h!!!
This is the reason french TGVs only run at 300 km/h. They are designed for 400 km/h and routinely hit 450 km/h for demos but running them at 400 km/h would be too expensive for the tiny amount if time gained.
A high-speed maglev runs at the surface, where the air resistance is waaaaay much higher than for an aircraft at 35,000 feet. So the energy expenditure per seat IS GOING TO BE HIGHER than an airplane!
Even though the speed of sound is much higher on the ground than at 60,000 feet (where Concorde used to fly), 1000 km/h maglev trains will need very long viaducts and tunnels to avoid becoming high-speed stomach wrenching roller-coaster rides.
The only way a maglev could be useful is running within an evacuated tunnel in a long journey.
In theory, the trains could run at the orbital speed of the altitude they are; energy expenditure would then be zero (all you'd need is to accelerate the train to speed, and you'd recover most of that energy by decellerating it at destination). But the costs of digging tunnels that would be so perfectly aligned, immune to geological havoc (crossing from one tectonic plate to another isn't really a walk in the park) and to keep the thing perfectly evacuated would likely be prohibitive (and maintenance guys would need to work in spacesuits...). Such money should be spent instead for a space elevator.
EvilCorp does something bad to you. You file a suit against them. They hire a high-priced legal firm - they might even have some $300/hr lawyer on staff. Now you know that if you pursue the suit and lose you're going to be paying a fortune you cannot afford.
If you have a good case, a good, expensive law will take your case, knowing full well that your expenses will be paid by the company. This way, no frivolous chickenboner "lawsuites" will be filed.
IF YOU WANT A MOUSE WITH MORE THAN ONE BUTTON, GO BUY A MOUSE THAT HAS MORE THAN ONE BUTTON.
Why doesn't the Macintrash comes with a 3-button wheelmouse?
Because the typical run-of-the-mill Macintrash 1u3er would be overwhelmed by the overabundance of buttons.
It's not the 1-button Macintrash mouse that's annoying, but the fact that the whole fucking mouse itself is the goddammed fucking button, save for 2 little places that you should grab to move the rodent about, giving you instant cramps because they're never at the proper, comfortable place.
Fucking bullshit designers. They think that appearance is more important than anything else, including comfort and usability.
Are you suggesting that people should be required to pay for their own prosecution before they ever even break the law?
What do you think taxes are for?
But if you are demanding a legal precident, I'd see the Ammendments. Perhaps you could start with #4. If that isn't sufficient for you, let me know and I'll point you to more resources.
This is no problem. Just make holding a driver's licence conditionnal to a waiver of 4th amendment.
Or, better yet, privatize road safety enforcement and road maintenance. No more nasty constitutional interference. Problem solved!!!
Slashdot Mirror
Which is stupid, anyways, because in any case, for stupid white racist cops, all blacks look the same...
And no backup of the existing setup either...
Sure.
... cannons drive YOU!!!
So, when can we load Linux on it, so we can make a beowu...
This is irrelevent.
The only thing that counts is that the CEO gets the fattest bonus and golden parachute, and, accessorly, that the company stock rises as high as possible.
Everything else is fiddlestick poppycock.The simple fact that there are engineers who worked on such a project is a good indication that engineering profession needs a serious kick in the ass.
A good start would be to require that every engineer, in order to keep their license, should be required to shoot and kill (with as much pain as possible) one MBA per fiscal year. This would have the added side-benefit of making MBA think twice before proposing such schemes.
Welcome to the new goatsee.cx page...
Wail 'till you turn 40...
Actually, no. The TGV **IS** a conventional train. There is no exotic technology in it that is not found elsewhere. There is no elaborate train-tilting suspension (like on the Acela or the Talgoes), just plain ordinary 2 stage (springs & airbags) springing. There is no fancy linear motor propulsion system (like on the ICTS), just a normal run-of-the-mill pinion-and-shaft traction motor transmission. There are no sophisticated eddy-current brakes, but plain vanilla rheostatic braking and disk-brakes. What makes the TGV so fast is the track, a perfectly normal track, but laid-out to go fast, just as an autobahn (or autostrada) is made to allow cars to go faster.
For that matter, TGVs will travel outside high-speed lines, (and conventional trains can exceptionally go on high-speed lines)
The biggest challenge met in developping the TGV was the high-speed current collection. Yet the solution was simply to overbuilt existing technology.
Some 20 years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Robert Dupont*, who was responsible for the development of the two-stage pantograph used on the TGV; turns out that the problem was a shockwave that travels on the overhead catenary wire, and as the TGV was travelling closer to the speed of that shockwave, the catenary was lifting from the pantograph. The solution was to stretch the catenary wire so the shockwave speed was faster (for the 513 km/h record runs, the catenary was stretched even more), and to put only one pantograph per single-unit train, with a high-voltage supply line strung on the roof of the train to feed the engine at the other end.
* Yeah, I know, Dupont is the french equivalent of Smith...
So does Microsoft.
Well, of course, if you work in the boondocks.
What money you save on lower taxes and cheaper house, you more than pay double on gas and car.
And why does the city sucks? Because cowards like you run out in the boondocks instead of making the city livable, leaving only the scum that lives there.
That personal freedom comes at a great cost to individuals and the rest of the world. Ask any iraki what he thinks about americans being free to run their cars whenever they want. Or any vietnamese for that matter...
Yet the americans adamantly refuse to go out and discover the world en masse. And when they do, they do it in the most boorish way possible, either by being obnoxious tourists, greedy raping businessmen or rampaging soldiers.
You are free to travel into Europe and Mexico, too.
The gas tax does not cover the cost of the military, the political destabilization of Venezuela and the mid-eastern wars needed to keep an abundant supply of cheap oil.
This is why 60% of the US population have no access to health-care, and why many talented people are denied the education needed to keep the USA competitive on the scientific side. Hence the high-reliance on foreign scientists.
And this explains the general stupidity and ignorance of the americans; they don't have any education. Thus they get the leaders they deserve.
Obesity sure is linked to cars, but more to the general ignorance and stupidity of the public who ill gladly gobble up the advertisements for crappy food, and the big agro-alimentary conglomerates who would sue the government into oblivion if they would start saying that eating this or that is unhealthy.
Why? For speed?
Conventional trains routinely hit 320 km/h FOR LONG STRETCHES AND DURATIONS (not just for 10km portion out of a 700 km journey), and have gone as fast as 515 km/h in tests.
The sheer complexity of the switches (*) guarantees that the resulting network will be much less flexible than an ordinary conventional high-speed rail whose switches are of the ultra-simple time-tested conventional design.
What does speed gives you? Since the energy expenditure squares each time the speed is doubled, you soon hit a wall where the energy efficiency drops well below an aircraft.
For example, a 1200 km trip (New-York_Chicago) Speed time saved* Energy How much more than
100 12 10000 at 100 km/h
200 6 6 40000 4 times
300 4 2 90000 9 times
400 3 1 160000 16 times
500 2.4 0.6 250000 25 times
600 2 0.4 360000 36 times
700 1.71 0.29 490000 49 times
* from previous time Fucking slashcode that won't let PRE pass. Fuck it (and cowboy neal too, at the same time).
So, each time you increase speed by 100 km/h, your energy use soars so much that for saving a paltry quarter-hour, you spend 13 times more energy than needed to go at 100 km/h!!!
This is the reason french TGVs only run at 300 km/h. They are designed for 400 km/h and routinely hit 450 km/h for demos but running them at 400 km/h would be too expensive for the tiny amount if time gained.
A high-speed maglev runs at the surface, where the air resistance is waaaaay much higher than for an aircraft at 35,000 feet. So the energy expenditure per seat IS GOING TO BE HIGHER than an airplane!
Even though the speed of sound is much higher on the ground than at 60,000 feet (where Concorde used to fly), 1000 km/h maglev trains will need very long viaducts and tunnels to avoid becoming high-speed stomach wrenching roller-coaster rides.
The only way a maglev could be useful is running within an evacuated tunnel in a long journey.
In theory, the trains could run at the orbital speed of the altitude they are; energy expenditure would then be zero (all you'd need is to accelerate the train to speed, and you'd recover most of that energy by decellerating it at destination). But the costs of digging tunnels that would be so perfectly aligned, immune to geological havoc (crossing from one tectonic plate to another isn't really a walk in the park) and to keep the thing perfectly evacuated would likely be prohibitive (and maintenance guys would need to work in spacesuits...). Such money should be spent instead for a space elevator.
Because the typical run-of-the-mill Macintrash 1u3er would be overwhelmed by the overabundance of buttons.
It's not the 1-button Macintrash mouse that's annoying, but the fact that the whole fucking mouse itself is the goddammed fucking button, save for 2 little places that you should grab to move the rodent about, giving you instant cramps because they're never at the proper, comfortable place.
Fucking bullshit designers. They think that appearance is more important than anything else, including comfort and usability.
Or, better yet, privatize road safety enforcement and road maintenance. No more nasty constitutional interference. Problem solved!!!
Oh, and pray tell, why not?
Let 'em go after this one.