people talk about how you can't put a price on life yet whole industries are based on it. Insurance companies, hospitals etc. They all at some point have to decide how much a year, 10 years or 100 extra or lost years of human life are worth.
But of course other people deciding how much your life is worth doesn't give a good feeling so lets try a thought experiment:
How many adults do you think would accept a 10% chance of death in exchange for a million bucks? (thereby valuing their own lives at 10 million)
How many people would accept an increase of one in 10000 chance of death over a few decades for 20 minutes of time on the road saved per week day? I think a lot would since that's a real exchange for not just time but life- 20 minutes of life per day with my girlfriend is worth vastly more to me than 20 minutes spent in the rat race sitting in traffic. Over the course of a year, a decade, a lifetime that time adds up and I'd happily accept a reasonably tiny increase in risk in exchange for less time spent sitting in traffic vs time spent doing things I enjoy.
We make such choices on a regular basis- that's why we don't walk everywhere wearing body armor with a backpack full of first aid gear, the time saved and the effort saved by not doing so is worth more to people than the increased risk of death.
I mean there are enough almost trivial ways to hide information in pretty much any channel when the 2 parties get to meet up before hand to agree a protocol.
I'd almost ask why the even try.
"hi, mike, what time's the meeting today" or "Morning,how're the kids" can carry enough information to let someone game the system.
someone bright at the top makes THE RULES but the rules cannot be perfect but they try their best but assume that any mistakes will be handled with common sense.
Gradually it's accepted that as long as you follow/enforce THE RULES you are not making decisions, merely enacting earlier decisions but if you go against THE RULES your ass is the one on the line.
And so what does a smart person do? THE RULES say a kid can't have an epi-pen. they could follow common sense or they could follow THE RULES. if at any point later the kid dies... well they were just following the rules... not their fault.. if the kid somehow manages to bludgeon themselves to death with the cartridge then it's their arse on the line and it will be judged that breaking the rules lead to someone dying... they broke the rules so they get no protection.
everyone can be perfectly intelligent(if not ethical) and still convinced that it's everyone elses fault. the guys at the top expect common sense to be applied yet the guys at the bottom have no incentive to apply common sense.
It has happened in the past, it's just not a big enough deal that people hear about it. I think it was iran which tried to block youtube in their country and accidentally routed the whole world to their network which then melted. and some guy years ago who told the whole net he had the best route to everywhere.
I remember having problems with this shortly after the release of HL2(Ya I was pissed) but since then I haven't had too much problems with their actual servers going down.
for some strange and unexplained reason they failed to allow you to do this after steam has decided your game needs a patch, like when you want to play it. design flaw right there.
Oh my dialup days are long gone- though Steam over dialup is the devil, it is litterally evil, my first experince with steam was a surprise introduction after I bought half life 2 and then had to spend the best part of a full day on a pay dialup line with it trying(and failing, and corrupting my files and failing again and restarting... etc) to update half life 2 before I could play my single player offline game... which as you'd expect left a very very bitter taste.
Steam is really quite good and handy over a decent DSL connection but they utterly failed to consider even the posibility that any of their users might not have a high bandwidth connection.(like the ones who want to play single player games)
back then the worst element was the fanbase though since when I went on forums looking for any kind of fix or workaround I got nothing but a stream of trolls screaming about how there was nothing! NOTHING! WRONG WITH STEAM!!!!!
Now days it's only an issue over my wireless dongle when I'm away from home and I can live with that.
That's partly due to attempts to make speed cameras inconspicuous. Ideally they should be placed in locations that are highly visible from a long way back with obvious indicators to let the drivers know if they're going too fast well in advance.
but since the point is to collect as many fines as possible cameras get put where they instead cause situations like you describe.
It was near the france-spanish border. Not sure where, it was a few years ago. Don't know if it was a national thing or just something one of the regional governments came up with.
I was trying to go for a theme of effectiveness rather than revenue generation. I'm not all that attached to that system though it seems to work quite well.
I'm sure there are more optimal systems than what I described.
the uni network depends on how the network is set up. If steam can access the steam servers then you'll have no problem. If non-http traffic is limited then steam may be unable to connect at which point it will detect an active network connection while being unable to call home and will throw a hissy fit.
It changes as you approach the light if you're going above the speed limit and only tickets you if you *remain* over the speed limit and go through it. As opposed to the current norm where it's exaclty the same only it doesn't show any indicator to the driver.
Yet you call the former entrapment vs the latter.
All the crap about radar guns aside the point should be to get people to drive safely rather than collecting as many fines as possible. The vast majority of current systems focus on collecting fines with little reguard to safety.
I'd argue that technical solutions can solve human problems(not all but some). In my example the system gives clear obvious feedback to drivers which I think is superior to a system which tries to avoid letting you know when you're going a little too fast.
I don't really see how it could be a windows folder problem.
"blocking steam on your firewall "
Which is great if I think of this before it locks up because it can't find the steam servers, requiring me to find an open net connection before I can go back to using offline mode.
It's an odd and (one would think) easily fixed minor design fault which leads to a surprising amount of frustration.
For those wondering about the stunningly arrogant and annoying fanboys I was refering to whos personality problems far surpass any problems with the platform please see exibit A above.
Thing about speed cameras is that the focus rarely seems to be on actually getting traffic to flow at a safe speed.
I've seen some good systems which focus on indicating to drivers when they're going too fast.(rather than trying to keep them from realising they've slipped over the limit so you can fine them) Traffic lights suspended over the road, if you're going above the speed limit it goes orange, then red. As you drop bellow the speed limit it goes green again, you only get done for speeding if you fly through the red. It sounds odd but since there are lots of them and people are used to them it's quite safe and it keeps traffic at a steady speed.
With the current system they seem only too happy to let you speed as long as they can get money out of you for it.
Imagine if you will a state where theft were punished only with a fine and then instead of trying to prevent thefts the police concentrated purely on issuing fines.
thing is that steam is utterly retarded when it comes to network connections. If there's *any* kind of network, no matter if it's just a point to point between 2 laptops, a local lan with no net connection or anything which looks like a network connection then steam will decide that you don't really want to be in offline mode, obviously you made a mistake when clicking "offline mode" and so it kicks you out of offline mode and freaks out because it can't connect to the steam servers and locks itself up.
Even worse is when it does this while I'm using my edge dongle (very low bandwidth) and it decides that it absolutely positively has to download the 100mb patch for that single player game I was trying to play before it will even think about letting my play it.
If you've never experienced problems with steam then you're on a high bandwidth, high reliability, always-on, unrestricted net connection. In that situation steam is the best thing since sliced bread.
Otherwise steam has very very real problems and hordes of dedicated fanboys who deny those problems even exist.
"Either you're offline (or just dont let steam connect), and you get no update notifications, or you're online and connected, in which case you must download the updates, which I would, anyway."
This tells me how little thought you've put into this. I'm on 3 different networks regularly.
1: home, DSL, steam is pretty good on this except when it decides I really really need that massive patch for the game I want to play in single player. 2: university wireless, steam doesn't like this at all since it can't get at the steam servers but there is an active net connection so it decides I don't really want to be in offline mode then locks up because it can't get at the steam servers. 3: wireless dongle when I'm traveling, if I make the mistake of trying to play steam without first pulling out the dongle it will decide I need all the latest patches.... over an edge connection wherever I may be. this is where steam really goes to shit.
uncommon: 4: I'm on any kind of LAN without a net connection or if my ISP goes down.
Slashdot Mirror
"Human life is priceless and trumps the damage"
Not really true.
people talk about how you can't put a price on life yet whole industries are based on it.
Insurance companies, hospitals etc.
They all at some point have to decide how much a year, 10 years or 100 extra or lost years of human life are worth.
But of course other people deciding how much your life is worth doesn't give a good feeling so lets try a thought experiment:
How many adults do you think would accept a 10% chance of death in exchange for a million bucks? (thereby valuing their own lives at 10 million)
How many people would accept an increase of one in 10000 chance of death over a few decades for 20 minutes of time on the road saved per week day?
I think a lot would since that's a real exchange for not just time but life- 20 minutes of life per day with my girlfriend is worth vastly more to me than 20 minutes spent in the rat race sitting in traffic.
Over the course of a year, a decade, a lifetime that time adds up and I'd happily accept a reasonably tiny increase in risk in exchange for less time spent sitting in traffic vs time spent doing things I enjoy.
We make such choices on a regular basis- that's why we don't walk everywhere wearing body armor with a backpack full of first aid gear, the time saved and the effort saved by not doing so is worth more to people than the increased risk of death.
problem is that could effectively mean "There are no rules" and anything, no matter how crazy, is common sense to someone.
I mean there are enough almost trivial ways to hide information in pretty much any channel when the 2 parties get to meet up before hand to agree a protocol.
I'd almost ask why the even try.
"hi, mike, what time's the meeting today" or "Morning,how're the kids" can carry enough information to let someone game the system.
Social networking just adds a few bands.
they don't even have to be outnumbered.
someone bright at the top makes THE RULES but the rules cannot be perfect but they try their best but assume that any mistakes will be handled with common sense.
Gradually it's accepted that as long as you follow/enforce THE RULES you are not making decisions, merely enacting earlier decisions but if you go against THE RULES your ass is the one on the line.
And so what does a smart person do? THE RULES say a kid can't have an epi-pen.
they could follow common sense or they could follow THE RULES. if at any point later the kid dies... well they were just following the rules... not their fault..
if the kid somehow manages to bludgeon themselves to death with the cartridge then it's their arse on the line and it will be judged that breaking the rules lead to someone dying... they broke the rules so they get no protection.
everyone can be perfectly intelligent(if not ethical) and still convinced that it's everyone elses fault. the guys at the top expect common sense to be applied yet the guys at the bottom have no incentive to apply common sense.
it is the nature of any sufficiently large bureaucracy.
They made the font bigger on the signs.
if there had been really massive signs at columbine you can be sure it wouldn't have happened.
Are you saying we shouldn't protect our children!!!!
It has happened in the past, it's just not a big enough deal that people hear about it.
I think it was iran which tried to block youtube in their country and accidentally routed the whole world to their network which then melted.
and some guy years ago who told the whole net he had the best route to everywhere.
"If it's distinguishable from magic, it's not advanced enough."
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science"
I agree, vote rigging should be treated as seriously as a crime can be.
I'd add to that- politicians taking bribes should attract similar penalties.
I remember having problems with this shortly after the release of HL2(Ya I was pissed) but since then I haven't had too much problems with their actual servers going down.
for some strange and unexplained reason they failed to allow you to do this after steam has decided your game needs a patch, like when you want to play it.
design flaw right there.
Oh my dialup days are long gone- though Steam over dialup is the devil, it is litterally evil, my first experince with steam was a surprise introduction after I bought half life 2 and then had to spend the best part of a full day on a pay dialup line with it trying(and failing, and corrupting my files and failing again and restarting... etc) to update half life 2 before I could play my single player offline game... which as you'd expect left a very very bitter taste.
Steam is really quite good and handy over a decent DSL connection but they utterly failed to consider even the posibility that any of their users might not have a high bandwidth connection.(like the ones who want to play single player games)
back then the worst element was the fanbase though since when I went on forums looking for any kind of fix or workaround I got nothing but a stream of trolls screaming about how there was nothing! NOTHING! WRONG WITH STEAM!!!!!
Now days it's only an issue over my wireless dongle when I'm away from home and I can live with that.
news flash- I don't even own a car but unlike you I don't interpret every posible improvement as some kind of insult to my ability.
Let me guess- you're deluded that you're an absolutely fantastic driver.
I haven't touched steam in the last few months(finals) so I probably missed that.
Good to hear they've fixed that one.
That's partly due to attempts to make speed cameras inconspicuous.
Ideally they should be placed in locations that are highly visible from a long way back with obvious indicators to let the drivers know if they're going too fast well in advance.
but since the point is to collect as many fines as possible cameras get put where they instead cause situations like you describe.
It was near the france-spanish border.
Not sure where, it was a few years ago.
Don't know if it was a national thing or just something one of the regional governments came up with.
I was trying to go for a theme of effectiveness rather than revenue generation.
I'm not all that attached to that system though it seems to work quite well.
I'm sure there are more optimal systems than what I described.
the uni network depends on how the network is set up.
If steam can access the steam servers then you'll have no problem.
If non-http traffic is limited then steam may be unable to connect at which point it will detect an active network connection while being unable to call home and will throw a hissy fit.
So your answer is that there's no need to improve the current ineffective systems because you like being a smug fucker?
I think you missed the point of it.
It changes as you approach the light if you're going above the speed limit and only tickets you if you *remain* over the speed limit and go through it.
As opposed to the current norm where it's exaclty the same only it doesn't show any indicator to the driver.
Yet you call the former entrapment vs the latter.
All the crap about radar guns aside the point should be to get people to drive safely rather than collecting as many fines as possible.
The vast majority of current systems focus on collecting fines with little reguard to safety.
I'd argue that technical solutions can solve human problems(not all but some).
In my example the system gives clear obvious feedback to drivers which I think is superior to a system which tries to avoid letting you know when you're going a little too fast.
I don't really see how it could be a windows folder problem.
"blocking steam on your firewall "
Which is great if I think of this before it locks up because it can't find the steam servers, requiring me to find an open net connection before I can go back to using offline mode.
It's an odd and (one would think) easily fixed minor design fault which leads to a surprising amount of frustration.
For those wondering about the stunningly arrogant and annoying fanboys I was refering to whos personality problems far surpass any problems with the platform please see exibit A above.
Thing about speed cameras is that the focus rarely seems to be on actually getting traffic to flow at a safe speed.
I've seen some good systems which focus on indicating to drivers when they're going too fast.(rather than trying to keep them from realising they've slipped over the limit so you can fine them)
Traffic lights suspended over the road, if you're going above the speed limit it goes orange, then red.
As you drop bellow the speed limit it goes green again, you only get done for speeding if you fly through the red.
It sounds odd but since there are lots of them and people are used to them it's quite safe and it keeps traffic at a steady speed.
With the current system they seem only too happy to let you speed as long as they can get money out of you for it.
Imagine if you will a state where theft were punished only with a fine and then instead of trying to prevent thefts the police concentrated purely on issuing fines.
thing is that steam is utterly retarded when it comes to network connections.
If there's *any* kind of network, no matter if it's just a point to point between 2 laptops, a local lan with no net connection or anything which looks like a network connection then steam will decide that you don't really want to be in offline mode, obviously you made a mistake when clicking "offline mode" and so it kicks you out of offline mode and freaks out because it can't connect to the steam servers and locks itself up.
Even worse is when it does this while I'm using my edge dongle (very low bandwidth) and it decides that it absolutely positively has to download the 100mb patch for that single player game I was trying to play before it will even think about letting my play it.
If you've never experienced problems with steam then you're on a high bandwidth, high reliability, always-on, unrestricted net connection.
In that situation steam is the best thing since sliced bread.
Otherwise steam has very very real problems and hordes of dedicated fanboys who deny those problems even exist.
"Either you're offline (or just dont let steam connect), and you get no update notifications, or you're online and connected, in which case you must download the updates, which I would, anyway."
This tells me how little thought you've put into this.
I'm on 3 different networks regularly.
1: home, DSL, steam is pretty good on this except when it decides I really really need that massive patch for the game I want to play in single player.
2: university wireless, steam doesn't like this at all since it can't get at the steam servers but there is an active net connection so it decides I don't really want to be in offline mode then locks up because it can't get at the steam servers.
3: wireless dongle when I'm traveling, if I make the mistake of trying to play steam without first pulling out the dongle it will decide I need all the latest patches.... over an edge connection wherever I may be.
this is where steam really goes to shit.
uncommon:
4: I'm on any kind of LAN without a net connection or if my ISP goes down.