For me the issue is time shifting. I'd like to be able to grab a copy to watch later and then delete it. Rather require streaming in real time during the hours I watch TV, I'd rather stream it in the wee hours when internet traffic is at a minimum and then watch it the next day or even later. Similarly when I was on DirecTV we used to have pay-per-view movies and then could keep them on the DVR for a long time (once I had one stored for a year before I got around to watching what I paid for). Then they introduced a 24-hour rule, imposed by the content providers and not just a quirky whim from the satellite provider. Then I lost a movie that I had *paid* for and recorded the previous day.
Similarly, I don't think there's anything unethical or immoral about buying a program in the US, sticking it onto a usb drive, driving up into Canada and watching it there, as long as it isn't shared with others.
I'm not pirating anything, I just want a digital DVR that works with streaming content.
By your logic, all the Slashdot editors have to do in their summaries is say "there's some news, head to a news site to find out what it is!" Having to google what a summary is talking about means that it is a bad summary.
The article was not about any designated thoroughfare. It was a neighborhood that others decided to use as a shortcut. Any place that has two ends will be used as a thoroughfare by someone, and you can't make all residential roads have no outlet.
Transportation means a way to get form A to B, there is no "least amount of time" in that definition. If pedestrians or bikes are a problem then why not limit cars or at least the assholes in cars who think that speed limits don't apply to them? Pedestrians arrived before the cars did, they drove slowly on the roadways before the assholes showed up later. Drivers have no special rights in this regard. On a freeway or highways sure, pedestrians and bikes may not be allowed, but that's not the same as the one lane road in front of your house.
Most suburbs have roads to get through that have higher speed limits. I've never heard of a place that goes on for miles with house after house and only single lane roads, no mass transit, no expressways, no thoroughfares, etc. Where do they put the shops?
It's very easy to drive that slowly. I do it all the time. I drive slower than that in some places (like in front of schools). Anyone who can not drive that slowly has a problem, they need to learn some basic patience, learn to relax, take some time to enjoy the drive. If they're going to be late then they should have started sooner. How do you drive in a parking lot? No way can you do 25mph while looking for a parking space. Zero sympathy. Consider walking instead.
The problem is not that children routinely play in the street or that they're taught to play in the street. The problem is that they will dart out into the street to retrieve a ball, often when they're too young to know better.
And what exactly was wrong with dropping the speed limit? Did it harm anyone?
Getting a lot of traffic on your street does not raise property values. Very often it lowers the values. The more newer neighborhoods (which are often more affluent) will have speed bumps, traffic circles, roads the bend, etc. The older neighbhoods on the other hand will have very little in the way of traffic abatement.
Moving is hard, and expensive, and completely impractical for many people. The self entitled jerks should just learn to obey the law instead.
Just because they build in a leeway is not a right to exceed the limit. We're also not talking about people going 35 in a 30mph zone, but people going 50 in a 30mph zone.
I don't think these roads were designed to be thoroughfares. It just happens over time. A sleepy neighborhood can become a heavy traffic neighborhood with just a few changes, such as a new employer showing up. Sometimes there are side effects of other political decisions: the town that refuses to allow expressways can end up with heavy traffic on residential streets (ie, the houses face the street with no fences), or if they refuse to have mass transit, etc.
This is true. Which is why the posted speed limit is not permission to always go that fast. Almost every US state also requires to travel at a safe speed even if it less than the posted limit. Even in some states that removed speed limits you can still be pulled over for going too fast.
It's hard to switch. It worked great in France at the beginning though; rew regime comes out, chops off a lot of heads, then says "we have a new measurement system, anyone opposed raise your hand." But once you've got settled into a routine it's very hard to change it. It really helps if you have an absolute monarchy that can force everyone to switch against their will.
Unfortunately we were changing, we had cars with both miles and kilometers, road signs with miles and kilometers, measuring cups with ounces and liters, etc. But the educational push for metric was eliminated even though we had bills passed to support metric for trade (even Reagan signed such a bill in 1988). Without the educational push it meant that the general public wasn't going to convert. Earlier bills also never made conversion mandatory.
But it doesn't mean we're some archaic medieval country full of buffoons either. Every single scientist and engineer in the US understands metric. You can't do anything without it. Every track and field athlete knows what a meter and kilometer is. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology is a key player in coming up with precise physical definitions of various SI units.
Never understood zebra crossings. We have crossings in the US, they just don't have that pattern. The crossings with or without paint are almost always at intersections and anyone driving through a heavy pedestrian area or a residential neighborhood should automatically be slowing at intersections.
I do see one big problem in the US, and that's actually the use of traffic schools. In other words if you get a traffic ticket here you either pay the fine and get some points on your record, or you pay the same amount and attend traffic school. And those schools are usually online now. So the choice is to add up more points which could lead to the loss of a license or higher insurrance premiums, versus a really simple online course and quiz. If people lost their license they would most certainly learn their lesson, whereas a couple hours of inconvenience isn't changing anyone's behavior.
But decreasing speed is very easy, no one is hurt by it, maybe trivially inconvenienced (if you want to speed use a road that's not in a residential area, duh). I think instead that you need to provide a credible reason why you need to go above the speed limit.
Because we've actually measured stopping distances at various speeds, we know what people's reaction times are. Sure the kid could jump out into the street just one foot in front of you, but if the kid chases a ball two houses away will you have enough time to stop. That's why you do not drive 50mph in front of a school that's in session unless you're a moron; and yet there are people who think it's possible for them. For a school the law here says 25mph, but I am personally dropping to 15-20 in that situation. If you are indeed in a hurry then use an express road rather than speeding through a residential neighborhood.
Slashdot Mirror
For me the issue is time shifting. I'd like to be able to grab a copy to watch later and then delete it. Rather require streaming in real time during the hours I watch TV, I'd rather stream it in the wee hours when internet traffic is at a minimum and then watch it the next day or even later. Similarly when I was on DirecTV we used to have pay-per-view movies and then could keep them on the DVR for a long time (once I had one stored for a year before I got around to watching what I paid for). Then they introduced a 24-hour rule, imposed by the content providers and not just a quirky whim from the satellite provider. Then I lost a movie that I had *paid* for and recorded the previous day.
Similarly, I don't think there's anything unethical or immoral about buying a program in the US, sticking it onto a usb drive, driving up into Canada and watching it there, as long as it isn't shared with others.
I'm not pirating anything, I just want a digital DVR that works with streaming content.
I thought it was the "Star Wars Christmas Special" bit?
We're talking about paper ballots, marked ballots, etc. Physical things, since the context was Bush v. Gore.
By your logic, all the Slashdot editors have to do in their summaries is say "there's some news, head to a news site to find out what it is!" Having to google what a summary is talking about means that it is a bad summary.
That was Scrappy. Scrappy, Scrappy Poo, what are you?
I had scrapy once but the ointment cleared it right up.
I'm in Google's customer base, and I want something that just works and lacks clutter, but which is also usable.
Except you can never get just a single vote be repeatable. Recounts have errors, and each recount of physical ballots can give you a different result.
The article was not about any designated thoroughfare. It was a neighborhood that others decided to use as a shortcut. Any place that has two ends will be used as a thoroughfare by someone, and you can't make all residential roads have no outlet.
Back on alt.fan.pratchett we used to refer to Americans and Yukians.
Transportation means a way to get form A to B, there is no "least amount of time" in that definition. If pedestrians or bikes are a problem then why not limit cars or at least the assholes in cars who think that speed limits don't apply to them? Pedestrians arrived before the cars did, they drove slowly on the roadways before the assholes showed up later. Drivers have no special rights in this regard. On a freeway or highways sure, pedestrians and bikes may not be allowed, but that's not the same as the one lane road in front of your house.
Most suburbs have roads to get through that have higher speed limits. I've never heard of a place that goes on for miles with house after house and only single lane roads, no mass transit, no expressways, no thoroughfares, etc. Where do they put the shops?
It's very easy to drive that slowly. I do it all the time. I drive slower than that in some places (like in front of schools). Anyone who can not drive that slowly has a problem, they need to learn some basic patience, learn to relax, take some time to enjoy the drive. If they're going to be late then they should have started sooner. How do you drive in a parking lot? No way can you do 25mph while looking for a parking space. Zero sympathy. Consider walking instead.
The problem is not that children routinely play in the street or that they're taught to play in the street. The problem is that they will dart out into the street to retrieve a ball, often when they're too young to know better.
And what exactly was wrong with dropping the speed limit? Did it harm anyone?
Getting a lot of traffic on your street does not raise property values. Very often it lowers the values. The more newer neighborhoods (which are often more affluent) will have speed bumps, traffic circles, roads the bend, etc. The older neighbhoods on the other hand will have very little in the way of traffic abatement.
Moving is hard, and expensive, and completely impractical for many people. The self entitled jerks should just learn to obey the law instead.
Just because they build in a leeway is not a right to exceed the limit. We're also not talking about people going 35 in a 30mph zone, but people going 50 in a 30mph zone.
I don't think these roads were designed to be thoroughfares. It just happens over time. A sleepy neighborhood can become a heavy traffic neighborhood with just a few changes, such as a new employer showing up. Sometimes there are side effects of other political decisions: the town that refuses to allow expressways can end up with heavy traffic on residential streets (ie, the houses face the street with no fences), or if they refuse to have mass transit, etc.
People with a death wish tend to have it granted.
This is true. Which is why the posted speed limit is not permission to always go that fast. Almost every US state also requires to travel at a safe speed even if it less than the posted limit. Even in some states that removed speed limits you can still be pulled over for going too fast.
It's hard to switch. It worked great in France at the beginning though; rew regime comes out, chops off a lot of heads, then says "we have a new measurement system, anyone opposed raise your hand." But once you've got settled into a routine it's very hard to change it. It really helps if you have an absolute monarchy that can force everyone to switch against their will.
Unfortunately we were changing, we had cars with both miles and kilometers, road signs with miles and kilometers, measuring cups with ounces and liters, etc. But the educational push for metric was eliminated even though we had bills passed to support metric for trade (even Reagan signed such a bill in 1988). Without the educational push it meant that the general public wasn't going to convert. Earlier bills also never made conversion mandatory.
But it doesn't mean we're some archaic medieval country full of buffoons either. Every single scientist and engineer in the US understands metric. You can't do anything without it. Every track and field athlete knows what a meter and kilometer is. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology is a key player in coming up with precise physical definitions of various SI units.
Well that screws up the meme that America is the stupidest country on the planet because we have to learn to divide by something other than 10.
Never understood zebra crossings. We have crossings in the US, they just don't have that pattern. The crossings with or without paint are almost always at intersections and anyone driving through a heavy pedestrian area or a residential neighborhood should automatically be slowing at intersections.
I do see one big problem in the US, and that's actually the use of traffic schools. In other words if you get a traffic ticket here you either pay the fine and get some points on your record, or you pay the same amount and attend traffic school. And those schools are usually online now. So the choice is to add up more points which could lead to the loss of a license or higher insurrance premiums, versus a really simple online course and quiz. If people lost their license they would most certainly learn their lesson, whereas a couple hours of inconvenience isn't changing anyone's behavior.
But decreasing speed is very easy, no one is hurt by it, maybe trivially inconvenienced (if you want to speed use a road that's not in a residential area, duh).
I think instead that you need to provide a credible reason why you need to go above the speed limit.
Because we've actually measured stopping distances at various speeds, we know what people's reaction times are. Sure the kid could jump out into the street just one foot in front of you, but if the kid chases a ball two houses away will you have enough time to stop. That's why you do not drive 50mph in front of a school that's in session unless you're a moron; and yet there are people who think it's possible for them. For a school the law here says 25mph, but I am personally dropping to 15-20 in that situation. If you are indeed in a hurry then use an express road rather than speeding through a residential neighborhood.
You may have someplace to be but it won't matter when you're spending time in jail because your schedule will be cleared up.