You'd be surprised - even most $20,000 family sedans today can hit around 130mph. Just because they don't advertise it on TV doesn't mean that the car can't do it.
As for your assertion that the people who buy those cars max them out - I'd say, in general, that I'd have to disagree. In my experience it's much more common for people to buy expensive and fast cars and then never drive them fast because they're scared of hurting the car.
I work for a federal contractor; you have NO idea how stupid civil servants can be.
Oh, I've heard congressmen / senators and presidents talk - I'm very much aware how incredibly stupid just about everyone in government is.
My favorite one was a video on youtube of a Congressman / Senator talking to a military official about how we need to get our troops out of some country (Guam maybe?) because it's an island and if they put too many people on the island, the island will flip over and everyone will drown. The look on the officers face when the politician said that was priceless.
Well, we do sell cars that are capable of speeds "up to" 155 mph, 200mph, 250 mph, etc. Just because the odds of you ever hitting that high are slim to none doesn't make their statement false - it just means that SOME people will hit that speed and others won't, but it is possible to hit that speed.
You proved that you think someone is a moron if they don't go to college. Now, while most people who don't go to college may be morons, it's not an "if-then" situation - you can be brilliant and never go to college because you're out doing great things - yet you said you wouldn't give them the time of day because they didn't have a piece of paper. THAT is what you proved.
Valid point. However, here's a counterpoint - with our rigged two-party system that even the media perpetuates by demeaning and ignoring anyone who's not one of their chosen candidates, we essentially get to pick between the political equivalent of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. Both candidates are 95% the same and whichever one wins, we lose.
So yes, I definitely understand the people who don't vote. I still do (for now), but I'm considering not wasting the time since we get to choose between the Republican who'll take away our rights and drive the country into bankruptcy or the Democrat who'll take away our rights and drive the country into bankruptcy.
Ah, I see you believe the urban legend that speed in and of itself is dangerous. Speed in itself is no more dangerous than a fork is on it's own. However, speeding and not following basic road safety (not leaving a safe distance, not using turn signals, weaving through traffic) is dangerous.
But yes, this kid did learn a lesson - people are assholes. From now on, he'll (hopefully) be careful of the fact that everywhere you go, there's some asshole who wants to get you in trouble because they think they're funny.
INCORRECT:
The FBI is NOT prioritizing copyright over missing persons.
CORRECT:
The FBI has a backlog of missing person DNA to run in the DNA labs.
The FBI is increasing the amount of manpower assigned to copyright.
CONCLUSION
By increasing manpower assigned to copyright and NOT increasing the manpower assigned to running the DNA labs / increasing the amount of equipment needed to run the tests, the FBI IS prioritizing copyright above missing persons.
You had the facts correct - you just failed to make the obvious conclusion.
Yes, but he was meaning if it was an officially recognized (and preferably unionized) industry, the government would be falling over themselves to track missing people.
I must disagree. Government exists to protect the people and the peoples' resources.
I find that to be a more "wishful thinking of a perfect world" purpose of government. The reality is much more along the lines of "Government exists so that a minority can use the threat of imprisonment and violence to force their will upon others".
I agree with the idea, I just realize that "theoretical" and "applied" aren't always the same thing.
Gas is $2.77 in the other 95% of the country that isn't LA, San Francisco, NY, or Miami. You choose to live in an area with an obscene cost of living because you get the "cool" factor of living there. The res of us are more than happy to live somewhere that's not labeled "cool" and pay 1/4 of what you do a month in bills. It's all about tradeoffs my friend.
I know the feeling - I have a 15 year old Mazda that averages about 35 mpg (in the winter it's closer to 30, highway only with the cruise control and A/C on I get about 38.5) and I laugh at all the new "fuel efficient" cars that don't even match my car. Add in the fact that it's been damn reliable and the cost to own has been extremely low. However, it's finally showing it's age and is starting to require maintenance that it's just not worth doing (the value of the car is down to about $500, so it's not worth paying $3,000 in repairs), so I'll finally be getting a new car.......probably another Mazda that I'll own for 15 years.
Ever look at real world tests of Tesla's where they don't even get HALF of their claimed range? A car that can only drive for 45 minutes and then needs 8 hours of charging is NOT practical in any sense of the word.
You're ignoring the time lost on waiting for the mechanic. It takes LESS time to do your own work (when mechanics are charging $80 an hour in labor, you bet your ass they're dragging their feet). The average wait to get your brakes changed (for one axle, not both) is around 2 hours. My first time - having no clue what I was doing - only took 30 minutes. So not only do you save money, but you gain a lot of time to do other things as well.
As for your example of "earn $2k in a weekend doing a website" - if you take one hour to do both sets of brakes, you'll save a good $600. It's still coming out as the more cost effective thing to do.:)
Someone who takes care of their car and understands it is infinitely less likely to do something stupid and risk destroying their car (and innocent bystanders), not to mention they're less likely to do something stupid and lose control.
Well, you have a very low definition of a good driver, though seeing as how by your own admission you care nothing about cars, I'm sure a good part of that is to make sure that you qualify as a good driver (come on, we've all seen the surveys that show pretty much everyone thinks they're Michael Schumacher behind the wheel).
I'll give you a much better reason to learn how to do things on your car then "being manly" - money. Is being lazy and not taking any time to learn a new skill really worth paying around 400% more for new brakes? How about paying twice as much for an oil change or three times as much for new spark plugs? Those are all extremely simple things that someone with very little mechanical knowledge can easily learn (I did my brakes all by myself the first time with nothing to help me but a repair manual). Over the life of your car (lets say 10 years), you'll save probably $2,000 or so by learning to do those things yourself.
So the question is, now that you have an idea of just how much money you're throwing down the drain, do you still feel so smug for being "smart enough" to pay a mechanic instead of learning how to do something yourself? Trust me, I'm laughing at you all the way to the bank.
I never once said you had to be a mechanic or know everything about cars. It takes very little time or effort to at least know the basics, which do matter when it comes to choosing a good car and knowing how to drive. Ever wonder why the best race car drivers are the people who know pretty much everything there is to know about cars? Because it does make a difference, just like having some knowledge about computers (again, I'm not talking about being an expert) will help you make better purchasing decisions and use your computer better.
The people who don't care to learn anything about a computer are the ones who break them, yes, even Mac's.
That was the point I was making and the point you missed. People who do not care to take the time and effort to learn about their "magic tool" will not take care of it and will abuse it. This applies quite well to cars, which is why you see the morons who think that it's somehow a good idea to drive six inches off someones bumper at 80 mph - because they didn't bother to learn enough about how cars work to know that a car won't be able to stop that fast, even if you could react instantly.
If you care nothing about the car or how it works, you're not going to be as concerned with if you're driving like a maniac and risking serious damage to the car (as well as other cars on the road).
Just like people who car nothing about a computer and know absolutely nothing about how it works don't take care of their computer and get viruses galore.
*sigh* You don't get it. First off, the reason so many people pirate today is because of DRM. I didn't know a single person who pirated games until after DRM became the norm and people were tired of being screwed over. Secondly, the choice is "do I buy or do I not". The only difference is that, since they make the same $0 regardless, there's no logical reason NOT to pirate it if you've already decided to not buy it due to DRM.
But IMO it's completely unethical to pirate software simply because you disagree with the terms the seller set (i.e. if you disagree with the DRM). If you agree, buy it. If you disagree, walk away.
Except that every major studio has switched to DRM to kill used games and to nickel and dime people. So, you say I should just give up one of my favorite hobbies. I say, fuck the bastards that are actively trying to destroy my hobby and I'll play anyways - but I won't reward them for destroying PC gaming with DRM.
I've openly said many times that I fully support copy protection to prevent people from copying games. However, DRM, which serves no purpose but to tie your ability to play the game to the whims of the company, is completely and utterly unethical. The fact that you're defending them for putting it in there makes you a defender of DRM. If every car dealer started putting a credit card reader in the dashboard and you had to swipe your credit car and pay to start the car, would you really support the car dealers and say "if you don't like it, don't buy a car"? I doubt it.
If companies started losing sales of heavily-DRMed games because people weren't playing them instead of people pirating them, then most of them would snap back to their senses.
They already have started losing sales heavily. Hell, they've even been sued over it for the love of Farley. But they don't care, they just make up some more "piracy numbers" by randomly hitting some numbers on a keyboard and claiming that they need to rape customers even MORE to "stop piracy". The fact that no DRM has ever stopped piracy is a pretty glaring point that it's not designed to fight piracy. It's designed to make a used game worthless and to force people to buy Bioshock 5 because they turned off the servers for the DRM on Bioshock 4.
I'll leave you with a quote - "We must all fear evil men. But there is another evil that we should fear most - and that is the indifference of good men". You, my friend, are indifferent. I choose to fight those who desire is to harm and take advantage of people, all while making a profit while their customers lose.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, there ARE places (like speedtest) where it logs ISP and bandwidth in an area......
You'd be surprised - even most $20,000 family sedans today can hit around 130mph. Just because they don't advertise it on TV doesn't mean that the car can't do it.
As for your assertion that the people who buy those cars max them out - I'd say, in general, that I'd have to disagree. In my experience it's much more common for people to buy expensive and fast cars and then never drive them fast because they're scared of hurting the car.
I work for a federal contractor; you have NO idea how stupid civil servants can be.
Oh, I've heard congressmen / senators and presidents talk - I'm very much aware how incredibly stupid just about everyone in government is.
My favorite one was a video on youtube of a Congressman / Senator talking to a military official about how we need to get our troops out of some country (Guam maybe?) because it's an island and if they put too many people on the island, the island will flip over and everyone will drown. The look on the officers face when the politician said that was priceless.
Then you do some research and you find out what that ISP's average speeds are in your area.
Well, we do sell cars that are capable of speeds "up to" 155 mph, 200mph, 250 mph, etc. Just because the odds of you ever hitting that high are slim to none doesn't make their statement false - it just means that SOME people will hit that speed and others won't, but it is possible to hit that speed.
Yes, and less rolling resistance means longer stopping distances.
How do you incorporate Swarm intelligence into computer AI? Simple - SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS!
You proved that you think someone is a moron if they don't go to college. Now, while most people who don't go to college may be morons, it's not an "if-then" situation - you can be brilliant and never go to college because you're out doing great things - yet you said you wouldn't give them the time of day because they didn't have a piece of paper. THAT is what you proved.
"Supporting the troops" is simply a way to voice that you understand that they are in harm's way on your behalf
Really? Please, explain to me how the current wars are in any way defending my freedoms or this country.
Valid point. However, here's a counterpoint - with our rigged two-party system that even the media perpetuates by demeaning and ignoring anyone who's not one of their chosen candidates, we essentially get to pick between the political equivalent of Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. Both candidates are 95% the same and whichever one wins, we lose.
So yes, I definitely understand the people who don't vote. I still do (for now), but I'm considering not wasting the time since we get to choose between the Republican who'll take away our rights and drive the country into bankruptcy or the Democrat who'll take away our rights and drive the country into bankruptcy.
Ah, I see you believe the urban legend that speed in and of itself is dangerous. Speed in itself is no more dangerous than a fork is on it's own. However, speeding and not following basic road safety (not leaving a safe distance, not using turn signals, weaving through traffic) is dangerous.
But yes, this kid did learn a lesson - people are assholes. From now on, he'll (hopefully) be careful of the fact that everywhere you go, there's some asshole who wants to get you in trouble because they think they're funny.
INCORRECT: The FBI is NOT prioritizing copyright over missing persons.
CORRECT: The FBI has a backlog of missing person DNA to run in the DNA labs. The FBI is increasing the amount of manpower assigned to copyright.
CONCLUSION
By increasing manpower assigned to copyright and NOT increasing the manpower assigned to running the DNA labs / increasing the amount of equipment needed to run the tests, the FBI IS prioritizing copyright above missing persons.
You had the facts correct - you just failed to make the obvious conclusion.
Yes, but he was meaning if it was an officially recognized (and preferably unionized) industry, the government would be falling over themselves to track missing people.
I must disagree. Government exists to protect the people and the peoples' resources.
I find that to be a more "wishful thinking of a perfect world" purpose of government. The reality is much more along the lines of "Government exists so that a minority can use the threat of imprisonment and violence to force their will upon others".
I agree with the idea, I just realize that "theoretical" and "applied" aren't always the same thing.
The KISS principle suggests that they would use a capacitor.
The Doc Brown principle suggests that they would use a flux capacitor!
Gas is $2.77 in the other 95% of the country that isn't LA, San Francisco, NY, or Miami. You choose to live in an area with an obscene cost of living because you get the "cool" factor of living there. The res of us are more than happy to live somewhere that's not labeled "cool" and pay 1/4 of what you do a month in bills. It's all about tradeoffs my friend.
I know the feeling - I have a 15 year old Mazda that averages about 35 mpg (in the winter it's closer to 30, highway only with the cruise control and A/C on I get about 38.5) and I laugh at all the new "fuel efficient" cars that don't even match my car. Add in the fact that it's been damn reliable and the cost to own has been extremely low. However, it's finally showing it's age and is starting to require maintenance that it's just not worth doing (the value of the car is down to about $500, so it's not worth paying $3,000 in repairs), so I'll finally be getting a new car.......probably another Mazda that I'll own for 15 years.
Ever look at the Tesla web site?
Ever look at real world tests of Tesla's where they don't even get HALF of their claimed range? A car that can only drive for 45 minutes and then needs 8 hours of charging is NOT practical in any sense of the word.
You're ignoring the time lost on waiting for the mechanic. It takes LESS time to do your own work (when mechanics are charging $80 an hour in labor, you bet your ass they're dragging their feet). The average wait to get your brakes changed (for one axle, not both) is around 2 hours. My first time - having no clue what I was doing - only took 30 minutes. So not only do you save money, but you gain a lot of time to do other things as well.
As for your example of "earn $2k in a weekend doing a website" - if you take one hour to do both sets of brakes, you'll save a good $600. It's still coming out as the more cost effective thing to do. :)
Someone who takes care of their car and understands it is infinitely less likely to do something stupid and risk destroying their car (and innocent bystanders), not to mention they're less likely to do something stupid and lose control.
Well, you have a very low definition of a good driver, though seeing as how by your own admission you care nothing about cars, I'm sure a good part of that is to make sure that you qualify as a good driver (come on, we've all seen the surveys that show pretty much everyone thinks they're Michael Schumacher behind the wheel).
I'll give you a much better reason to learn how to do things on your car then "being manly" - money. Is being lazy and not taking any time to learn a new skill really worth paying around 400% more for new brakes? How about paying twice as much for an oil change or three times as much for new spark plugs? Those are all extremely simple things that someone with very little mechanical knowledge can easily learn (I did my brakes all by myself the first time with nothing to help me but a repair manual). Over the life of your car (lets say 10 years), you'll save probably $2,000 or so by learning to do those things yourself.
So the question is, now that you have an idea of just how much money you're throwing down the drain, do you still feel so smug for being "smart enough" to pay a mechanic instead of learning how to do something yourself? Trust me, I'm laughing at you all the way to the bank.
I never once said you had to be a mechanic or know everything about cars. It takes very little time or effort to at least know the basics, which do matter when it comes to choosing a good car and knowing how to drive. Ever wonder why the best race car drivers are the people who know pretty much everything there is to know about cars? Because it does make a difference, just like having some knowledge about computers (again, I'm not talking about being an expert) will help you make better purchasing decisions and use your computer better.
The people who don't care to learn anything about a computer are the ones who break them, yes, even Mac's.
That was the point I was making and the point you missed. People who do not care to take the time and effort to learn about their "magic tool" will not take care of it and will abuse it. This applies quite well to cars, which is why you see the morons who think that it's somehow a good idea to drive six inches off someones bumper at 80 mph - because they didn't bother to learn enough about how cars work to know that a car won't be able to stop that fast, even if you could react instantly.
If you care nothing about the car or how it works, you're not going to be as concerned with if you're driving like a maniac and risking serious damage to the car (as well as other cars on the road).
Just like people who car nothing about a computer and know absolutely nothing about how it works don't take care of their computer and get viruses galore.
*sigh* You don't get it. First off, the reason so many people pirate today is because of DRM. I didn't know a single person who pirated games until after DRM became the norm and people were tired of being screwed over. Secondly, the choice is "do I buy or do I not". The only difference is that, since they make the same $0 regardless, there's no logical reason NOT to pirate it if you've already decided to not buy it due to DRM.
But IMO it's completely unethical to pirate software simply because you disagree with the terms the seller set (i.e. if you disagree with the DRM). If you agree, buy it. If you disagree, walk away.
Except that every major studio has switched to DRM to kill used games and to nickel and dime people. So, you say I should just give up one of my favorite hobbies. I say, fuck the bastards that are actively trying to destroy my hobby and I'll play anyways - but I won't reward them for destroying PC gaming with DRM.
I've openly said many times that I fully support copy protection to prevent people from copying games. However, DRM, which serves no purpose but to tie your ability to play the game to the whims of the company, is completely and utterly unethical. The fact that you're defending them for putting it in there makes you a defender of DRM. If every car dealer started putting a credit card reader in the dashboard and you had to swipe your credit car and pay to start the car, would you really support the car dealers and say "if you don't like it, don't buy a car"? I doubt it.
If companies started losing sales of heavily-DRMed games because people weren't playing them instead of people pirating them, then most of them would snap back to their senses.
They already have started losing sales heavily. Hell, they've even been sued over it for the love of Farley. But they don't care, they just make up some more "piracy numbers" by randomly hitting some numbers on a keyboard and claiming that they need to rape customers even MORE to "stop piracy". The fact that no DRM has ever stopped piracy is a pretty glaring point that it's not designed to fight piracy. It's designed to make a used game worthless and to force people to buy Bioshock 5 because they turned off the servers for the DRM on Bioshock 4.
I'll leave you with a quote - "We must all fear evil men. But there is another evil that we should fear most - and that is the indifference of good men". You, my friend, are indifferent. I choose to fight those who desire is to harm and take advantage of people, all while making a profit while their customers lose.