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User: Bigjeff5

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  1. Re:This is why they install roundabouts on How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive · · Score: 1

    We've got a large double-roundabout (it looks like a circle with a cinched waist) for getting onto and off of a highway, which replaces to stop lights, and I think it is absolutely brilliant.

    When there is no traffic you can just cruise through with no delay, and even in heavy traffic the only thing that stops up the roundabout is if the highway is at a stand-still. They work fabulously.

    We've also got another, smaller roundabout in a neighborhood that the city has had nothing but complaints about. There seems to be a minimum size for a good roundabout, and the city made this one too small.

    So, it all depends. When done right they are fabulous, and they only need standard road maintenance instead of all the extra crap that goes with stop lights.

  2. Re:From the No Duh Dept. on How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive · · Score: 1

    so it's forced to function like a giant four-way stop.

    You've inadvertently hit on the crux of the matter. Four-way stop lights are horrible, and are the root cause of many, many accidents. A well designed roundabout will move more traffic with fewer accidents without any lights at all, for exactly the reason the GP described. Generally unless it's a massive roundabout, you're only dealing with one or two cars at most, and it is more like merging than intersecting traffic, so it is much much safer.

    The key is it has to be large enough for the traffic flow, if you skimp it will just become another bottle-neck, though I still think it would be safer than a stop light.

  3. Re:I just don't see how this is a good idea. on How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But the fact is, you are making the roads more dangerous! How can this be a good thing?

    Because drivers are more careful, and rarely careless, when conditions are dangerous. People being careless is usually what kills.

    Alaska sees dangerous, icy roads 2/3 of the year, yet our over-all accident and death rate is lower than the national average. Shouldn't it be the case that the nice, grippy streets of the lower 48 would be much safer?

    We also tend to drive individually and do less carpooling and the like because destinations are so far apart. So again, dangerous roads seem on the surface to mean people drive more carefully, for a net reduction in accidents and loss of life.

  4. Re:From the No Duh Dept. on How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive · · Score: 1

    Using licensed drivers (including provisional) instead of total population, it's 70 deaths per million in the UK and 207 per million in the US, so no matter how you slice it the US is in worse shape regarding vehicle deaths per million.

    I will point out though, that this varies widely by region. On average, the UK could be more equivalent to a safer region to drive than the average US. It's hard to get that from the statistics though.

    For example, in Alaska we have icy, dangerous roads 2/3 of the year, yet our auto accident death rate is well below the national average. Why? Well, I personally believe it is because our cities and roads are so spread out that a person who gets into trouble has plenty of room to move without injuring anybody. In Anchorage, the largest city, we fit a whopping 300k people in an area the size of Mexico City.

    So yeah, tighter roads might help in some areas, but it would be death in Alaska. The vast majority of our auto accidents and auto deaths in the areas of the cities that are tight and have no room to maneuver, because stopping doesn't work on wet ice, even if you're going slow.

  5. Re:ipod? on Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Multi-touch ipods didn't, dumbass.

  6. Re:Patent Trolls on Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction · · Score: 5, Interesting

    didn't they kinda give up their rights when they stayed silent when the iPhone launched three years ago?

    You mean when they began patent negotiations, and finally sued for patent infringement a year ago? You can't sue for patent infringement until someone actually infringes on your patent. Two years is not a long time when it comes to doing research and preparing for a patent infringement lawsuit, and it was Apple who requested the trial be delayed so they could prepare. You might have a point if they had waited five or ten years, but at this point any patent infringement lawsuit against the iPhone is still within a reasonable time-frame. It is Apple who is delaying and stalling and generally being a douchebag toward the rest of the cell phone industry here.

    This is Elan Microelectronics basically saying Apple should not be permitted to release a new potentially infringing product while they have litigation in progress that directly concerns the type product they are releasing.

    I think their position is completely reasonable, but I'll admit I might think differently if I were an Apple fan.

  7. Re:Troll Worthy? on Multi-Touch Tech Firm Seeks iPad Sales Injunction · · Score: 1

    These guys have a lawsuit pending against Apple, this is an injunction request to prevent further infringement pending to outcome of the lawsuit.

    On the surface at least, it sounds legit, as Apple has been fighting a number of patent lawsuits regarding their iPhone since its release.

  8. Re:Potential censorship? on US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter · · Score: 1

    Sure thing, time delays on live events weren't in any way government imposed.

    The broadcasters censored themselves by implementing longer time delays without government influence, because the lack of such time delays cost them a hell of a lot of money in indecency fines.

    That's the closest thing we have to censorship - our indecency laws. They are the same laws that make it illegal to run around flashing everybody. You can argue against those if you like, but broadcasters are held accountable for the content that they send over the airwaves.

    The government is reactive in this case, censorship is always proactive - preventing the information from getting out to begin with. In this way broadcasters censor themselves to avoid fines for publicly displaying indecent material.

    The FCC encourages self censorship, but they have no power to censor. They can only issue fines for indecent behavior, just like you can be fined for running through a mall naked (you'll actually be arrested in that case, so the FCC has far less power over broadcasters than the cops do over citizens).

  9. Re:Potential censorship? on US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter · · Score: 1

    Not really.

    This sort of thing has come up before. Broadcasters can be punished after the fact, but they cannot be prevented from broadcasting anything. To avoid indecency fines, the broadcasters self censor.

    It's similar, but it actually puts the government in a pretty weak position, as they cannot prevent anything if the broadcasters are willing to take the fine. What really stops them is that people in America don't want that sort of thing on a regular basis, else it would be worth it for broadcasters to take the indecency hit an show the stuff anyway.

    Personally, I don't think the FCC should be able to fine them at all, but in order to get rid of them we'll have to get rid of our indecency laws as well, and I don't see that happening.

    In any case, it's nothing like the Chinese firewall or the Australian filter, because the FCC can not actively block anything, to do so would be illegal and they would be seriously beaten up in court. The most they can do is fine for indecency after the fact.

  10. Re:These people... on US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter · · Score: 1

    Does Australia have a Freedom of Information Act?

  11. Re:Remarkable... on US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter · · Score: 1

    The US has no nationwide government filtering of any kind, period. There is nothing available on the internet that I can't get to.

    All government sponsored internet filtering there is exists at the state and local level, and only within schools and libraries (it's always "for the children"). Even some of that is getting pushed back, libraries in particular.

  12. Re:Both of them are missing the point entirely on US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter · · Score: 1

    Like a nation-wide filter, sensible politicians are a practical impossibility.

  13. Re:Allow only 10 patents per year on US District Judge Rules Gene Patents Invalid · · Score: -1, Troll

    What are you, retarded?

  14. Re:Conversely on US District Judge Rules Gene Patents Invalid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The genes can't be patented, because they were discovered, not created, and not discovered in the "OMG I just discovered how to make rubber!" kind of way. They were discovered in the "I just patented New England" kind of way.

    Now, the tools and methods of discovery, those certainly should be patentable. The genes were always there, however, and we knew they were there somewhere, and the patent does not allow you to do anything with them, it just tells you where they are.

    That is why it was struck down, and that is why this won't have any serious effect on medical research. The stuff that should be patentable is patentable, the stuff that should not be patentable is no longer patentable.

  15. Re:Don't the indictments just encourage suicide? on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    Hold it there buddy, it would take an extremely disturbed person to commit suicide to get back at a bully. That in itself is evidence of how horrific the bullying was.

    I'm saying that there shouldn't be an extra punishment when the bullying leads to a suicide.

    Most of what the bullies did would land you in jail as an adult for assault, harassment, and stalking. Indicting them for these crimes is not giving them extra punishment, it's giving them the exact punishment they deserve. From the sounds of things, death is exactly what these bullies wanted for this girl, particularly judging by their complete lack of remorse.

    Is it not more chilling to reward bullies by condoning their driving someone to commit suicide?

    The "extra" punishment should be directed at the parents and/or the administrators for turning a blind eye to the abuse this girl was receiving.

  16. Re:Would it be legal to do this to an adult? on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    Most of it would be harassment, some would probably be assault. Stalking is definitely stalking.

  17. Re:This needs to be fixed on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    The solution is easy, at least for male bullies - they just need the shit kicked out of them once or twice and they'll stop.

    The girls, I don't know, females are incredibly vicious and nasty. I'm not surprised that it was girls doing most of the bullying and that they were able to drive this poor girl to suicide. I don't know how you'd deal with a female bully other than swift, stern, and consistent punishment.

  18. Re:it's more than just cyberbullying on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    Most states (if not all) only apply those laws to adults and / or people who are not within a certain number of years in age of the other person.

    That's only true if they have statutes on the books stating as much. If not, it is applied word for word.

  19. Re:bullying not entirely enigmatic on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    It's because they are allowed to be assholes.

    It's pretty easy to correct early, and almost impossible later. If you're trying to be best friends with your kids, you've probably got a 50% or better chance of producing an asshole.

  20. Re:Cyberbullies? on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 1

    According to wikipedia, this exemption is valid only if the declarant is unavailable as a witness. It's vague to me, whether a defendant is or is not available as a witness since of course he can't be compelled to testify against himself.

    The question is whether or not the defendant has opportunity to cross examine the person who made the statement. With hearsay, the person who actually made the statement is not the witness, and so the defendant cannot cross-examine the source - he can't face his accuser, basically.

    However, if the statement originated with the defendant himself, he certainly is available for cross-examination if he so chooses, so he has the opportunity to face his accuser (himself) in court. Thus, the hearsay rule does not apply, and the statement is admissible.

    The "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" portion of the miranda rights doesn't start when you are arrested, that is in force continuously.

    While you cannot be compelled to testify against yourself, you also have the right to defend yourself on the witness stand, and that's what lifts the hearsay rule when the statement originated from the defendant.

  21. Re:Cyberbullies? on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 3, Informative

    The hearsay rule does not apply if the defendant is the declarant.

    In other words, "Bill told me the defendant and the victim had sex" doesn't fly, it gets tossed. However, "The defendant told me the defendant and the victim had sex" stands. If it came straight from the defendant, it isn't inadmissible by hearsay.

    If five people come forward and say the same exact thing, then the defendant doesn't have a leg to stand on in arguing that he never said it. All he can argue is that he never actually did it, which will damn him one way or another - though less so if he didn't actually commit statutory rape.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay_in_United_States_law#Admission_by_party-opponent

  22. Re:Your rights OFFLINE! on 9 MA Cyberbullies Indicted For Causing Suicide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And you're exactly the reason so many bullies get away with this shit. The best way to treat a bully is with a dose of his own medicine. They won't "get it" that it's not ok to hurt someone smaller than them unless someone bigger still shows them how small they are in the scheme of things.

    Had I been there I'd damn well have called the police - adults hitting children is not OK unless it's a case of self-defense.

    He didn't hit the kid, he picked him up and tossed him. That usually won't hurt a child unless he trips or slips when he lands, and even if he had accidentally hurt the kid, kids heal fast. As long as the intention was an overwhelming display of power, and not an actual intention to cause harm, I'm a-ok with it. A safer response would have been to simply pick the kid up, hold him at eye level, and explain exactly what will happen the next time.

    Bully's respond to overwhelming force, not bullshit "you be nice now" sissy crap. They are counting on that, because they know nobody will do anything to stop them. If someone does actually do something, the quit real quick, because being a bully isn't about taking risks.

    Rather than being an adult and handling it right he simply beat up a child.

    Part of being an adult is knowing when to talk and when to act. Bullies don't respond to talk, they never have, and they never will. A verbal reprimand without any physical force behind it is just letting them off the hook, and they damn well know it. For the most part, the GP did the right thing. A touch excessive, perhaps, and definitely put himself in a position where a sissy like you could have gotten him into serious trouble with the law, but it was better he do that than let that poor kid be victimized on his way to school every day, and potentially end up killing himself like the girl in TFA.

  23. Re:But will it run... on AMD's 12-Core Chip Cuts Software Licensing Costs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since multi-threading is so hard to do right, most of what you are going to do is consolidation.

    So instead of having 6 separate servers, you just shove buttloads of RAM in a single server and set up a SAN for your data storage, and move all 6 servers to one box. You can even split it up further than that - if you have a couple servers that need to be separate from each other, but don't really need a lot of processing power, you can put those on a single core apiece. So you could potentially consolidate up to 12 servers into one box with virtual servers. More than likely you'll only get 6 or 8 out of it, because dual cores do help a lot, but still there's the potential to turn two racks of servers into one server and a SAN.

    You save on space, you save on energy, and you ultimately save on hardware (though SANs are expensive, so if you don't need the speed you could go to a standard NAS setup). To expand your data storage you just need to expand your SAN, so you can add servers and storage independently of each other. All of these are major up sides to going this route.

    Going from a 60 server setup to a 10 server setup has a massive potential for savings.

  24. Re:Software Licensing Costs? on AMD's 12-Core Chip Cuts Software Licensing Costs · · Score: 1, Troll

    Yeah, you know, the OS that is preferred 20 to 1 to Linux. ;)

  25. Re:comScore got it more or less right on FCC Relying On Faulty ISP Performance Data · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Technically false, but true in practice.

    Better would have been to say Windows doesn't come with any such tools, and therefore the vast majority of people don't have access to such a feature because they lack the technical ability to get it.