It's not about blaming the driver (and if you think the driver is as much or more of a victim than the dead child or the child's parent, you have a really twisted view of reality). It's about giving the responsible driver better tools to more effectively do what he's doing already.
If you don't think the benefit is worth the expense, that's one thing, but you sound like someone complaining that mandating railings on stairways is an abdication of personal responsibility that forces responsible people to pay for those irresponsible people who don't have perfect balance when they climb stairs.
Why assume the kids are unsupervised? Have you ever seen a toddler running around? They're faster than you might expect, and they're not always predictable, even when you *are* watching them.
They used to do this and people were getting killed left and right on the highways in accidents which today are easily survivable.
And in an interesting twist, I read an article about artificial hearts the other day which noted that because of the decrease in traffic fatalities due to all these safety features, the supply of hearts for organ transplants has dropped dramatically, putting more pressure on the effort to build a long-lasting artificial heart.
People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them
This is about sight lines. The problem it's trying to solve is backing up over someone who's too short & too close to be seen over the back of the car even if you *do* look in the mirror.
I'm willing to bet almost all involve old people whose vision and concentration are past their prime, young people without much experience, and people who are very distracted.
If by "young people without much experience," you mean the toddlers who haven't quite grasped the lesson that they shouldn't walk behind the car to wave bye bye to mommy or daddy or aunt so-and-so because they're too short to be seen over the back of the car using mirrors up at the front, then yeah.
But while that's what the proposal is focused on, that doesn't sound like what you're talking about.
I keep running into local businesses, especially restaurants, that had some designer build the entire site in Flash because it looked cool and they want to make a statement. And then I can't look up their hours or menu ahead of time. With hours you can at least call them, but that assumes you can get at the phone number -- and sometimes *that's* behind Flash as well. Hooray for third-party directories like Yelp.
So who's doing the analysis? Facebook, or Politico?
If Facebook is doing the analysis and handing Politico a graph (or rather the numbers that can be made into a graph), then big deal. Facebook already has access to the information, and nothing personal is going public, even anonymized.
OTOH, if Facebook is grepping for candidates' names, stripping off the usernames, and handing *that* to Politico, *that* would be a breach of privacy.
Even without new spellings, there are plenty of names with long-standing variations just within the traditional English spelling (Katherine/Catherine, for instance) or virtually-identical forms with origins in different languages (Jacob/Jakob). And that's before getting into nicknames. (Going back to the first example: Katie/Katy, or Kathy/Cathy, or Kate/Cate.)
Migration is the obvious explanation for mixing things up, but it occurs to me that large-scale shared culture also contributes: If you know several people named Steven but no one named Stephen, you'll only think of the first variation. If you start reading Stephen King, then you're exposed to the other spelling even if no one named Stephen moves to town.
Technology isn't just adding new terms to the language, it's also changing, and in some cases erasing, idioms that already exist. Take for example the phrase, "you sound like a broken record". How many people under the age of 25 even know what a broken record sounds like? As time goes on I expect that phrase to become increasingly rare, and to be replaced by a similar phrase, thus completing the circle of life:P
Maybe, maybe not. People still talk about putting the cart before the horse, but I'd bet most Americans don't have personal experience with horse-drawn carts. Never mind making silk purses out of sow's ears. "Broken record" might fall out of favor, or it might linger on like "the quick and the dead" (pretty much the only place in modern English where "quick" still means alive instead of fast).
Hmm, do TV commercials still say "Don't touch that dial!"?
Phonics is critical for being able to pick up new words, though. If you can *only* read by recognizing the shapes of words you already know, you can't learn new words on your own. You have to rely on what's taught to you.
Last(?) week, Firefox on my Mac laptop updated for 5.0.1. I wanted to make sure that I got the update on my Windows desktop, so I opened up the About box. It claimed I was up to date on 5.0. I assumed something was wrong with the update check. I had to search around a bit before I was able to determine that it actually was working properly, and 5.0.1 had been a Mac-only fix. (That's another problem: it's becoming harder to find things like release notes.)
Basically: Mozilla gave me incomplete information, and I wasted a few minutes trying to chase the rest of it down. And now they want to give me even less?
I tried to go without a watch the last time my watchband broke. But it's a heck of a lot more convenient (not to mention faster) to glance at my wrist than to dig my phone out of my pocket and turn on the display. I finally went and bought a new watchband.
That's ridiculous. I even remove posts from my own newsfeed from apps that I want to keep using. (Mainly: Networked Blogs is set up to auto-publish stuff from my stand-alone site, but sometimes I've already posted the same thing directly to Facebook, so I'll remove the extra copy.) So that counts as a vote against an app that I like use actively?
This is right up there with assuming that a moving cell phone with an active call is someone talking while driving, not a passenger, and auto-mailing them a ticket. Which I've heard suggested.
I can see blocking new uploads if, for instance, an unfamiliar app has been picked up by spammers who are using it to flood the service with bimbots or whatever.
But the next step shouldn't be to just delete everything ever uploaded by that app. The next step is to take a look at the uploaded data, say, "Oh, hey, there's a whole bunch of older uploads that look legitimate," and then take steps to block the spammers rather than the tool.
What next, deleting all accounts created by users running Chromium?
There are a certain number of sites and apps that will work with IE6 and 7, but not with 8 or newer, at least yet. I support users who need access to at least two such webshites.
Most browsers out there have pretty good update rates, driven by automatic updaters or a userbase made up of people who want the latest and greatest.
Firefox 3.5? 3.6 has been out for what, a year? 4.0 for several months. By the time this policy goes into effect, Firefox 5 will be out. And while Firefox users are slow to update compared to Chrome, Opera, etc. users, they're still a lot faster than IE users.
There's nothing (other than policy or preference) preventing anyone running IE7 from upgrading to IE8 at least. The minimum OS for IE7 was Windows XP, which can run IE8, and AFAIK there isn't a huge install base of IE7-specific web apps out there like there was with IE6 and ActiveX. And unlike the jump from IE6 to IE7, there isn't a huge change in user interface, so it should be a comfortable jump. People just need some encouragement to do it.
Even Superman's costume hasn't been static for the last 70 years. The overall look has been the same, but how the cape attaches, the design of the S-shield, and yes, even those red shorts, have changed a lot over time.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not about blaming the driver (and if you think the driver is as much or more of a victim than the dead child or the child's parent, you have a really twisted view of reality). It's about giving the responsible driver better tools to more effectively do what he's doing already.
If you don't think the benefit is worth the expense, that's one thing, but you sound like someone complaining that mandating railings on stairways is an abdication of personal responsibility that forces responsible people to pay for those irresponsible people who don't have perfect balance when they climb stairs.
Why assume the kids are unsupervised? Have you ever seen a toddler running around? They're faster than you might expect, and they're not always predictable, even when you *are* watching them.
They used to do this and people were getting killed left and right on the highways in accidents which today are easily survivable.
And in an interesting twist, I read an article about artificial hearts the other day which noted that because of the decrease in traffic fatalities due to all these safety features, the supply of hearts for organ transplants has dropped dramatically, putting more pressure on the effort to build a long-lasting artificial heart.
People back over other people because they aren't looking behind them
This is about sight lines. The problem it's trying to solve is backing up over someone who's too short & too close to be seen over the back of the car even if you *do* look in the mirror.
I'm willing to bet almost all involve old people whose vision and concentration are past their prime, young people without much experience, and people who are very distracted.
If by "young people without much experience," you mean the toddlers who haven't quite grasped the lesson that they shouldn't walk behind the car to wave bye bye to mommy or daddy or aunt so-and-so because they're too short to be seen over the back of the car using mirrors up at the front, then yeah.
But while that's what the proposal is focused on, that doesn't sound like what you're talking about.
I keep running into local businesses, especially restaurants, that had some designer build the entire site in Flash because it looked cool and they want to make a statement. And then I can't look up their hours or menu ahead of time. With hours you can at least call them, but that assumes you can get at the phone number -- and sometimes *that's* behind Flash as well. Hooray for third-party directories like Yelp.
So who's doing the analysis? Facebook, or Politico?
If Facebook is doing the analysis and handing Politico a graph (or rather the numbers that can be made into a graph), then big deal. Facebook already has access to the information, and nothing personal is going public, even anonymized.
OTOH, if Facebook is grepping for candidates' names, stripping off the usernames, and handing *that* to Politico, *that* would be a breach of privacy.
You're right, because no passengers should be allowed to talk on the phone either....
Not to mention people in taxis, buses, trains...
Can't have someone checking /. on their morning train commute, now can we?
The article isn't about old people being grumpy about the change, or about change in general. The article is about the change itself.
"Language changes" isn't new, but "This language is changing in this way" is.
Thank you - you came up with much better examples than I did.
On a related note, I wonder how long we'll keep using pictures of floppy disks as the toolbar icon for "save."
Even without new spellings, there are plenty of names with long-standing variations just within the traditional English spelling (Katherine/Catherine, for instance) or virtually-identical forms with origins in different languages (Jacob/Jakob). And that's before getting into nicknames. (Going back to the first example: Katie/Katy, or Kathy/Cathy, or Kate/Cate.)
Migration is the obvious explanation for mixing things up, but it occurs to me that large-scale shared culture also contributes: If you know several people named Steven but no one named Stephen, you'll only think of the first variation. If you start reading Stephen King, then you're exposed to the other spelling even if no one named Stephen moves to town.
Technology isn't just adding new terms to the language, it's also changing, and in some cases erasing, idioms that already exist. Take for example the phrase, "you sound like a broken record". How many people under the age of 25 even know what a broken record sounds like? As time goes on I expect that phrase to become increasingly rare, and to be replaced by a similar phrase, thus completing the circle of life :P
Maybe, maybe not. People still talk about putting the cart before the horse, but I'd bet most Americans don't have personal experience with horse-drawn carts. Never mind making silk purses out of sow's ears. "Broken record" might fall out of favor, or it might linger on like "the quick and the dead" (pretty much the only place in modern English where "quick" still means alive instead of fast).
Hmm, do TV commercials still say "Don't touch that dial!"?
Phonics is critical for being able to pick up new words, though. If you can *only* read by recognizing the shapes of words you already know, you can't learn new words on your own. You have to rely on what's taught to you.
I can think of a number of "bugs" in Firefox, Gnome, Red Hat & other projects that have gotten the same treatment.
Like anything that's ever been closed with a WONTFIX.
Whenever I hear people complain about "hipsters," I think of this comic strip.
This sounds basically the same as the "Verified Account" badge on Twitter that's used to identify high-profile celebrities as not being impostors.
Last(?) week, Firefox on my Mac laptop updated for 5.0.1. I wanted to make sure that I got the update on my Windows desktop, so I opened up the About box. It claimed I was up to date on 5.0. I assumed something was wrong with the update check. I had to search around a bit before I was able to determine that it actually was working properly, and 5.0.1 had been a Mac-only fix. (That's another problem: it's becoming harder to find things like release notes.)
Basically: Mozilla gave me incomplete information, and I wasted a few minutes trying to chase the rest of it down. And now they want to give me even less?
I predicted spammers would shift to using stolen login credentials way back in 2005.
I tried to go without a watch the last time my watchband broke. But it's a heck of a lot more convenient (not to mention faster) to glance at my wrist than to dig my phone out of my pocket and turn on the display. I finally went and bought a new watchband.
Presumably the +1 button rolled out a few months ago will become the "Like" of this new network.
I have to wonder...is this an attempt to salvage or replace Buzz?
That's ridiculous. I even remove posts from my own newsfeed from apps that I want to keep using. (Mainly: Networked Blogs is set up to auto-publish stuff from my stand-alone site, but sometimes I've already posted the same thing directly to Facebook, so I'll remove the extra copy.) So that counts as a vote against an app that I like use actively?
This is right up there with assuming that a moving cell phone with an active call is someone talking while driving, not a passenger, and auto-mailing them a ticket. Which I've heard suggested.
I can see blocking new uploads if, for instance, an unfamiliar app has been picked up by spammers who are using it to flood the service with bimbots or whatever.
But the next step shouldn't be to just delete everything ever uploaded by that app. The next step is to take a look at the uploaded data, say, "Oh, hey, there's a whole bunch of older uploads that look legitimate," and then take steps to block the spammers rather than the tool.
What next, deleting all accounts created by users running Chromium?
There are a certain number of sites and apps that will work with IE6 and 7, but not with 8 or newer, at least yet. I support users who need access to at least two such webshites.
Ugh. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
My condolences.
Most browsers out there have pretty good update rates, driven by automatic updaters or a userbase made up of people who want the latest and greatest.
Firefox 3.5? 3.6 has been out for what, a year? 4.0 for several months. By the time this policy goes into effect, Firefox 5 will be out. And while Firefox users are slow to update compared to Chrome, Opera, etc. users, they're still a lot faster than IE users.
There's nothing (other than policy or preference) preventing anyone running IE7 from upgrading to IE8 at least. The minimum OS for IE7 was Windows XP, which can run IE8, and AFAIK there isn't a huge install base of IE7-specific web apps out there like there was with IE6 and ActiveX. And unlike the jump from IE6 to IE7, there isn't a huge change in user interface, so it should be a comfortable jump. People just need some encouragement to do it.
Even Superman's costume hasn't been static for the last 70 years. The overall look has been the same, but how the cape attaches, the design of the S-shield, and yes, even those red shorts, have changed a lot over time.
Check out some early Action Comics covers for comparison. http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/action-comics