I notice that you post as AC. I wonder - is your post just sour grapes? I've been running Namoroka for a long time now - currently at 3.6.6prerelease I think it's pretty sweet. Yeah, because I constantly run near cutting edge betas, there are glitches, but so far, it has NOT BROKEN.
How do you figure that FF doesn't test their browser, before release? I'm testing it! I've been testing it! Not just me, but thousands of other people who like to live life in the fast lane.
Come back and post a real complaint - maybe someone can help you - or not.
Personal bias. Imagine that. No one at slashdot, or anywhere on the web would have the nerve to voice a fucking OPINION, would they?
I call 'em like I see 'em. I see liberal bias, and I see neocon imperialism, and I see the rest of the conservative world to frigging confused to make a difference. Then, there's the Tea Party. I haven't decided about them yet.
But, yes, there is plenty of liberal bias to go around, anywhere and everywhere. I hope the real conservatives pull their heads out of their asses, divorce the neocons, and start doing things right. Life might be good - or not.
But, the links I gave you do support the opinion I gave you - if you bother to read them.
"Oh, and the position is ceremonial - until it's not.
?????"
I can help with that. A lot of jobs and positions are "ceremonial" - but when you search down through the paperwork, and all the dross, there really are resposibilities associated with the job.
In a time of crisis, a powerful personality who exerts his will might change that ceremonial position into a real position of power.
Of course, that is largely dependent on the people he has to interact with. If he's surrounded by a bunch of putzes with no clue to reality, he just walks over them. If he's surrounded by equally powerful personalities with their own missions in life, then he might still be restricted to the ceremonial part of his job.
"He said Manning had been detained without charge for 3 to 5 weeks and lawyers were unable to meet or contact him."
Mr. Assange does understand that Manning is in the military, subject to the UCMJ, and that most civilian efforts to "defend" him are worthless? Manning faces a court martial, I believe the military has two steps in the appeals process, then an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. The Supremes seldom bother to hear cases from the military.
Same deal with Nidal Hasan, charged with those killings at Fort Hood. The military doesn't give him unlimited appeals like civilians get.
Anyway - what I'm getting at, if you want to "defend" someone in the military, you have to get inside the military courtroom. And, you only get a couple of chances to get it right.
Oh no. Now look what you've done. You have me thinking that maybe I should install FreeBSD when I get this other Opteron assembled with all the rest of the stuff laying around. You proselytizer!
My thoughts exactly. I've never even installed an RSS reader onto my desktop. I have RSS going to my iGoogle page. News from around the world, covering geek stuff, general news, science, nature, the military - all the important stuff. And, I don't have to wade through posts about some silly chick's least favorite color of lipstick, or who is doing some celebrity bimbo this week.
Hmmm. Maybe. But, you do realize that some IRC channels are actually collaborative support channels, and development tools? Does twitter offer anything like that?
"'I don't really care what you had for breakfast' "
Let me go on.
I don't give a rip what color shoes you're wearing - or even if you're wearing shoes today.
I don't give a rat's ass that your dog escaped, and that you tore your panty hose while chasing him down.
I never care whether you put make up on, let alone whether it matches your clothes.
NO ONE cares how much you like your inlaws - not even your inlaws.
Only six or eight people in the whole wide world cares that your special other made you feel good last night, and if you're not married, five of those six or eight wants to punch you in the face.
I give less than a rat's ass which team is your favorite.
I think your choice of automobile is a sign of latent homosexuality.
I think your girlfreind/boyfreind is a dyke/flaming queer.
Your BOSS uses your tweets as jokes to prove how stupid you are.
Yo MAMA uses your tweets as jokes to prove how stupid you are!
Why in hell do you think your dog was trying to escape, anyway? He's sick of your inane tweets!
I'm sure that others can add to this list. And, no, I'm not looking for freinds, so don't add me to your twitter/facebook/myspace/MSN/etc/etc/etc account.
OSS4 is difficult to get installed and configured - but yes, the results are far superior to ALSA and/or Pulse. The good people at OSS really need to develop a slick, smooth script that will remove ALSA and install OSS4 reliably. Those people who are migrating to Linux from Windows simply are not going to go to all the trouble necessary at this point in time to get it installed. Worse, the most popular Linux distro around offers zero support for OSS4. Talk about a minefield!
Considerably more secure than TOR, but not any faster.
And, the donations most needed by any such community, is the donation of BANDWIDTH. Exit nodes, or the lack of exit nodes, are the most limiting factors with any of the darkweb softwares.
Yes, what BrokenHalo says. I started school in 1961, and learned pounds, ounces, etc. Somewhere along - ohhhh - 6th grade I think, they told us that within a couple years we wouldn't see any of that stuff, we needed to learn metric.
Metric is so easy - if you can count to ten, you have metric mastered. I've never figured out why people claim they have a hard time with it. Everything is powers of ten - everything. Almost everyone is born with ten appendages at the ends of their arms, right? Yeah, yeah, a FEW people don't get the full complement of fingers, and a FEW others manage to lose an appendage or two along the way. All the same, ten digits.
Ahhh well. I kinda like miles, gallons, and all the rest. They do take a tiny bit of brain power to compute. I get to feel superior when the real dullards can't understand what 128 ounces is equal to. "Oh my God, did you have to MEMORIZE that when you sailed on Noah's Ark?" "No, Honey, I'm just a low level genius, capable of multiplying 16 x 8, or 32 x 4 without benefit of a calculator."
Quick pop quiz: 1. How many US MILES around the earth at the equator?
2. How many NAUTICAL miles around the earth at the equator?
3. How many LEAGUES around the earth at the equator?
Go ahead, pull out the calculators if you need to. I'll just act smug, and nod my head, LMAO
I need not explain how or why the 85th percentile is meaningful. It has been explained by TRAFFIC ENGINEERS. Do you fear Google? Do you fear knowledge? Do you fear thinking for yourself?
Don't spout stupidities - google for the info that you're ignorant of.
Speed has never killed anyone, in all of history. Sudden changes in inertia have killed a lot of people, but if speed killed, than we wouldn't have very many pilots who survived mach1, let alone mach 3 speeds.
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/ "Numerous studies have shown that the 85th percentile is the safest possible level at which to set a speed limit. "
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Speed_limit "The speed limit is commonly set at or below the '85th percentile speed' (which is the speed at which 85% of the traffic is travelling)[24] and in the USA is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed.[25] A 1997 study carried out in Michigan, USA showed that drivers "drive at speeds that they feel are appropriate, apparently independent of the posted speed"[26] A speed limit that is considered to have been set arbitrarily slow can be difficult to enforce."
It seems to me that you have chosen to misinterpret my words. You'll note that I didn't ask or demand that ANYONE work for free. All I ask is that the profit motive not be the determining factor in health care considerations.
As for myself - I can't work for free, anymore than any other man or woman in the world. I MUST feed myself and my family, and all the rest of the stuff that goes with being a responsible adult.
But, personally, my career, my day to day decisions are NOT all profit driven. I COULD HAVE had any number of careers. Instead, I have chosen to work where I enjoy working, all of my life. When the job starts to suck, I go find another job. I walked away from the best paying job that I've ever had, because the boss thought that he "owned" me, and started becoming abusive. He simply could not imaging that anyone in this part of the world could walk away from more than 20 dollars an hour, a company vehicle, paid insurance, along with some other perks. I walked. Unlike so many Americans, I don't worship that Almight Dollar, to the exclusion of all other considerations.
Again - I don't ask that anyone work for free. All I ask is that people recognize that sometimes that dollar isn't the most important thing.
While I was in business, I put a roof on a house for an old lady, only charging her for the materials. I took a loss on that job, because I knew that she couldn't afford the work. I spent two days working on her house, and paid a helper out of my own pocket, because no one should have to put pots and kettles around the house to catch water from a leaking roof. Most especially, an aging woman in poor health. I did a few other jobs at discounts for people who needed a helping hand, but that one particular job, I actually took a loss.
If I can do such a thing, I expect that a doctor can do as much, now and then.
Profit. How much profit do you take with you when you leave this world, anyway?
My advice would be to stay off of any highway where the speed limit exceeds 80MPH. And, I've never claimed to be sensitive. Sensitivity has no place in any consideration of the laws of physics. Can't drive 100, stay the hell out of the way of traffic that is going 100+ - it's as simple as that.
There will ALWAYS be some few damn fools who think that they are Mario Andretti. Places where everyone else is quite happy to drive 50 mph, he will insist on doing 80 or more. Places where everyone else is doing ~100 mph, he will insist on going 150 or more.
Remember, we don't have an Autobahn here in the states. There are few places that really are designed to run more than 100mph. There is SOME POINT at which an increase in speed is reckless endangerment, on any and all roadways in the states.
Those reckless drivers who insist on endangering every single soul that they get close to should be dealt with, and harshly.
The speed limit isn't to limit the reasonable person who is driving within safe limits - it is only there to enable the cops to identify and cite the less common idiots.
If the US should ever build the equivalent of the Autobahn, and decide not to post any speed limit at all, I will be among the first to drive it.:^)
Insurance companies, hospitals, and even individual doctors are profit driven.
While it is certainly no crime to make a dollar, that dollar shouldn't be THE_MOTIVATING_FACTOR in health care.
If/when every doctor, every hospital, and every insurance agent actively seeks to provide the best REASONABLE care possible, at the lowest REASONABLE cost possible, then we will have gone a long way toward solving our health care problems. Ambulance chasing lawyers need to be reigned in as well. An accident in which a person's neck is broken should involve some pretty big money - but the sum of money involved shouldn't guarantee that the victim can live on Easy Street with all his freinds and relatives for the rest of their lives, either. Worst of all - those ambulance chasers pocket half the settlement anyway, so the victim is screwed in the end, no matter what!
And, insurance fraud needs to be punished much more seriously than it is today. Any moron who defrauds an insurance company should get automatic prison time, the sentence to be determined by the amount of the fraud. 1 year for each ten thousand dollars sounds about right to me, sentences to include any and all executives of any companies involved.
In short, let's clean up our act, and stop looking at health care as a cash cow. Start looking at health care as an obligation to take care of each other. And, ourselves, of course.
You, sir, seem to have bought into the idea that the politicians who vote and set the speed limits have a clue. GP knows what he is talking about. Google the terms "speed limit" and "85th percentile".
You, and all drivers and voters, should be aware that politicians have no desire to post "safe" speed limits, because the vast majority of people will observe those speed limits. Their motivation is to generate revenue, by posting speed limits BELOW what safety dictates. If you know of a road near you where more than half the people consistently speed by more than 10 MPH over the speed limit, then you know of a cash cow.
There is SOME truth in your statement. In residential and business areas, streets that are poorly designed are indeed dangerous. For instance, there is absolutely NO REASON to put a 6 lane highway through a school zone - or, conversely, to build a school on a 6 lane highway. Depending on which was built first, whoever designed and built the latter structure was a complete MORON!!
However, the 85th percentile applies even in built up areas, PROVIDED THAT the streets and roads were designed and built by engineers and contractors who have a clue about traffic flow.
When you get into old city areas that predate motor vehicles, and when you get into cities and towns with no zoning or planning committees, then all bets are off.
Yes, it's safe to ignore those cautionary signs, most of the time. But, you should always be aware of them. Dead Man's Curve on I-90 in Cleveland Ohio pretty much means what it says. The Indian Stairway in Oklahoma says 25 mph on every curve, and you can do 35 on most of them, but two of those curves mean exactly what they say. There are a lot more.
And, if you're driving a truck or a camper, you had better pay attention too. We have a curve three miles north of my house in Arkansas, with warning signs that say "35 MPH". I can do ~65 in any of my kid's sports cars - but big trucks and campers alike have gone off that curve while doing ~40 - 45 MPH.
My own personal rule of thumb, is to slow to within 15 MPH of what the sign says BEFORE getting to the curve, then adjust as I see fit as I actually enter the curve.
I've found a few curves in W. Virginia and N. Carolina that scared the crap out of me, too. My rule of thumb was dangerously to fast for them! It sucks to get into the curve, then realize that it gets sharper before it straightens out!
Want a realistic speed limit, with zero meaningless bullshit involved? Build your road. Open it to the public. Monitor the speed of traffic for a month or more. There WILL be some idiots who drive to fast - just let them, they are part of the formula. There will also be some other morons who drive so slow, you wonder if they are alive or not. No problem - they are also part of the formula.
After you've monitored speeds for a reasonable period of time (remember, I said a month or more - six months seems to long, probably 60 to 90 days is right) you find that 85th percentile, and post that as the speed limit. Go ahead, and round it to the nearest 5 mph, or, if you insist (out of some unfounded fear) round to the next LOWER 5 mph. Post that speed limit now.
You will find that *almost* nobody speeds. You have found the magical number, which reasonable people can all agree on. Some still drive to slow - and you really ought to check them out. Elderly people, people with poor vision, people with poor reflexes, people with near zero experience. Go ahead, and check them out.
Those who normally speed through bullshit speed zones are *mostly* going to recognize that the speed limit here is reasonable, and they will tend to observe it, or stay within that 5 mph over range, for which almost no cop ever pulls a guy over.
The oddball who INSISTS that he is going to drive 10 to 30 mile over the speed limit is an utter moron, and he needs to be taken to court, fined, driver's license suspended, and possibly given some jail time. He has no business on the road.
This formula scares some people. "Oh dear, doing things this way might mean speed limits over 80 MPH!"
Tough noogies. If 80, 90, or 100 MPH scares you, then you have no business driving on a major highway. Take the back roads, and look at the pretty farms along the way. Or, just stay in town, and fly if you must travel to another city.
You need look no further than Google, and one of the first hits, from the NYTimes:
Slashdot error - I need to spoonfeed a link: Title of article is "Army missed warning signs of Major Nidal Hasan's Fort Hood massacre: military review" at http://www.nydailynews.com/
While that particular article, by itself, doesn't reveal very much, it SHOULD put you on the right road to finding dozens of other articles about Hasan. He made comments early in his education that should have tipped people off, he made comments late in his education that were truly alarming, and later as an officer and a doctor, he articulated sympathy for the Islamic jihadists fighting against our forces.
Let me try to find one particular quote for you - searching - - - -
If, from these links, you cannot use Google to find more damning evidence against both Hasan AND his superior officers, then you aren't trying.
The fact is, it was obvious during Hasan's internship that he was a loose cannone, he was dangerous, and that he held treasonous views. He most definitely established that his first loyalty was to Islam, and that he had little loyalty to the United States, or to the Army which he was sworn to serve.
All our lives, we've read news articles about the fighting being "escalated" in some banana republic. The guys who decided to use that word in customer relations were almost certainly stoners - or worse, GAMERS!!;^)
I've met your twin. Customer service was incapable of doing anything more than running through their meaningless checklist, and were completely stymied when I informed them that I didn't have a Windows computer in the house. I finally got hold of a guy who was able to ask pertinent questions, and fix my lack of DSL. I wrote his name down, and I always ask for him when I have any reason to call.
Funny thing is, he isn't customer service anymore. He's been promoted to a a manager's position.
I'll give credit where credit is due though. Today, my DSL provider has something there for the reps. If you call in, tell them that you have a Mac or a *nix box, they turn their little pages to the chapter titled "Mac users" or "Linux users". The support still isn't much, but at least they know how to "escalate" a problem.
Parenthetically - WTF is it with escalating a problem? I want a problem SOLVED, not escalated. I'm not fighting a band of rebels in the jungle, and I don't need artillery called in, with an airstrike. I just want the damned server rebooted, or the networking services on the router restarted, no escalations please.
Actually, Hassan and Shahzad are quite different cases. Hassan had a history of making treasonous remarks, and going off on seemingly irrational tangents. He was a known loose cannon, subject to military scrutiny and discipline. He really should have been dealt with very early in his career, and firmly.
Shahzad, on the other hand, is basically an unkown nobody, who could easily have evaded everyone's radar, if he were world-wise. No commission, no military background at all, no real education, not a public figure, nothing. Just another dummy who wanted to be something/somebody, and failed because he was stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
I notice that you post as AC. I wonder - is your post just sour grapes? I've been running Namoroka for a long time now - currently at 3.6.6prerelease I think it's pretty sweet. Yeah, because I constantly run near cutting edge betas, there are glitches, but so far, it has NOT BROKEN.
How do you figure that FF doesn't test their browser, before release? I'm testing it! I've been testing it! Not just me, but thousands of other people who like to live life in the fast lane.
Come back and post a real complaint - maybe someone can help you - or not.
Personal bias. Imagine that. No one at slashdot, or anywhere on the web would have the nerve to voice a fucking OPINION, would they?
I call 'em like I see 'em. I see liberal bias, and I see neocon imperialism, and I see the rest of the conservative world to frigging confused to make a difference. Then, there's the Tea Party. I haven't decided about them yet.
But, yes, there is plenty of liberal bias to go around, anywhere and everywhere. I hope the real conservatives pull their heads out of their asses, divorce the neocons, and start doing things right. Life might be good - or not.
But, the links I gave you do support the opinion I gave you - if you bother to read them.
"Oh, and the position is ceremonial - until it's not.
?????"
I can help with that. A lot of jobs and positions are "ceremonial" - but when you search down through the paperwork, and all the dross, there really are resposibilities associated with the job.
In a time of crisis, a powerful personality who exerts his will might change that ceremonial position into a real position of power.
Of course, that is largely dependent on the people he has to interact with. If he's surrounded by a bunch of putzes with no clue to reality, he just walks over them. If he's surrounded by equally powerful personalities with their own missions in life, then he might still be restricted to the ceremonial part of his job.
"He said Manning had been detained without charge for 3 to 5 weeks and lawyers were unable to meet or contact him."
Mr. Assange does understand that Manning is in the military, subject to the UCMJ, and that most civilian efforts to "defend" him are worthless? Manning faces a court martial, I believe the military has two steps in the appeals process, then an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. The Supremes seldom bother to hear cases from the military.
Same deal with Nidal Hasan, charged with those killings at Fort Hood. The military doesn't give him unlimited appeals like civilians get.
Anyway - what I'm getting at, if you want to "defend" someone in the military, you have to get inside the military courtroom. And, you only get a couple of chances to get it right.
Oh no. Now look what you've done. You have me thinking that maybe I should install FreeBSD when I get this other Opteron assembled with all the rest of the stuff laying around. You proselytizer!
My thoughts exactly. I've never even installed an RSS reader onto my desktop. I have RSS going to my iGoogle page. News from around the world, covering geek stuff, general news, science, nature, the military - all the important stuff. And, I don't have to wade through posts about some silly chick's least favorite color of lipstick, or who is doing some celebrity bimbo this week.
Hmmm. Maybe. But, you do realize that some IRC channels are actually collaborative support channels, and development tools? Does twitter offer anything like that?
"'I don't really care what you had for breakfast' "
Let me go on.
I don't give a rip what color shoes you're wearing - or even if you're wearing shoes today.
I don't give a rat's ass that your dog escaped, and that you tore your panty hose while chasing him down.
I never care whether you put make up on, let alone whether it matches your clothes.
NO ONE cares how much you like your inlaws - not even your inlaws.
Only six or eight people in the whole wide world cares that your special other made you feel good last night, and if you're not married, five of those six or eight wants to punch you in the face.
I give less than a rat's ass which team is your favorite.
I think your choice of automobile is a sign of latent homosexuality.
I think your girlfreind/boyfreind is a dyke/flaming queer.
Your BOSS uses your tweets as jokes to prove how stupid you are.
Yo MAMA uses your tweets as jokes to prove how stupid you are!
Why in hell do you think your dog was trying to escape, anyway? He's sick of your inane tweets!
I'm sure that others can add to this list. And, no, I'm not looking for freinds, so don't add me to your twitter/facebook/myspace/MSN/etc/etc/etc account.
OSS4 is difficult to get installed and configured - but yes, the results are far superior to ALSA and/or Pulse. The good people at OSS really need to develop a slick, smooth script that will remove ALSA and install OSS4 reliably. Those people who are migrating to Linux from Windows simply are not going to go to all the trouble necessary at this point in time to get it installed. Worse, the most popular Linux distro around offers zero support for OSS4. Talk about a minefield!
http://www.i2p2.de/
Considerably more secure than TOR, but not any faster.
And, the donations most needed by any such community, is the donation of BANDWIDTH. Exit nodes, or the lack of exit nodes, are the most limiting factors with any of the darkweb softwares.
Yes, what BrokenHalo says. I started school in 1961, and learned pounds, ounces, etc. Somewhere along - ohhhh - 6th grade I think, they told us that within a couple years we wouldn't see any of that stuff, we needed to learn metric.
Metric is so easy - if you can count to ten, you have metric mastered. I've never figured out why people claim they have a hard time with it. Everything is powers of ten - everything. Almost everyone is born with ten appendages at the ends of their arms, right? Yeah, yeah, a FEW people don't get the full complement of fingers, and a FEW others manage to lose an appendage or two along the way. All the same, ten digits.
Ahhh well. I kinda like miles, gallons, and all the rest. They do take a tiny bit of brain power to compute. I get to feel superior when the real dullards can't understand what 128 ounces is equal to. "Oh my God, did you have to MEMORIZE that when you sailed on Noah's Ark?" "No, Honey, I'm just a low level genius, capable of multiplying 16 x 8, or 32 x 4 without benefit of a calculator."
Quick pop quiz: 1. How many US MILES around the earth at the equator?
2. How many NAUTICAL miles around the earth at the equator?
3. How many LEAGUES around the earth at the equator?
Go ahead, pull out the calculators if you need to. I'll just act smug, and nod my head, LMAO
I need not explain how or why the 85th percentile is meaningful. It has been explained by TRAFFIC ENGINEERS. Do you fear Google? Do you fear knowledge? Do you fear thinking for yourself?
Don't spout stupidities - google for the info that you're ignorant of.
Speed has never killed anyone, in all of history. Sudden changes in inertia have killed a lot of people, but if speed killed, than we wouldn't have very many pilots who survived mach1, let alone mach 3 speeds.
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/
"Numerous studies have shown that the 85th percentile is the safest possible level at which to set a speed limit. "
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Speed_limit
"The speed limit is commonly set at or below the '85th percentile speed' (which is the speed at which 85% of the traffic is travelling)[24] and in the USA is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed.[25] A 1997 study carried out in Michigan, USA showed that drivers "drive at speeds that they feel are appropriate, apparently independent of the posted speed"[26] A speed limit that is considered to have been set arbitrarily slow can be difficult to enforce."
It seems to me that you have chosen to misinterpret my words. You'll note that I didn't ask or demand that ANYONE work for free. All I ask is that the profit motive not be the determining factor in health care considerations.
As for myself - I can't work for free, anymore than any other man or woman in the world. I MUST feed myself and my family, and all the rest of the stuff that goes with being a responsible adult.
But, personally, my career, my day to day decisions are NOT all profit driven. I COULD HAVE had any number of careers. Instead, I have chosen to work where I enjoy working, all of my life. When the job starts to suck, I go find another job. I walked away from the best paying job that I've ever had, because the boss thought that he "owned" me, and started becoming abusive. He simply could not imaging that anyone in this part of the world could walk away from more than 20 dollars an hour, a company vehicle, paid insurance, along with some other perks. I walked. Unlike so many Americans, I don't worship that Almight Dollar, to the exclusion of all other considerations.
Again - I don't ask that anyone work for free. All I ask is that people recognize that sometimes that dollar isn't the most important thing.
While I was in business, I put a roof on a house for an old lady, only charging her for the materials. I took a loss on that job, because I knew that she couldn't afford the work. I spent two days working on her house, and paid a helper out of my own pocket, because no one should have to put pots and kettles around the house to catch water from a leaking roof. Most especially, an aging woman in poor health. I did a few other jobs at discounts for people who needed a helping hand, but that one particular job, I actually took a loss.
If I can do such a thing, I expect that a doctor can do as much, now and then.
Profit. How much profit do you take with you when you leave this world, anyway?
My advice would be to stay off of any highway where the speed limit exceeds 80MPH. And, I've never claimed to be sensitive. Sensitivity has no place in any consideration of the laws of physics. Can't drive 100, stay the hell out of the way of traffic that is going 100+ - it's as simple as that.
The point of posting the speed limit, you ask?
There will ALWAYS be some few damn fools who think that they are Mario Andretti. Places where everyone else is quite happy to drive 50 mph, he will insist on doing 80 or more. Places where everyone else is doing ~100 mph, he will insist on going 150 or more.
Remember, we don't have an Autobahn here in the states. There are few places that really are designed to run more than 100mph. There is SOME POINT at which an increase in speed is reckless endangerment, on any and all roadways in the states.
Those reckless drivers who insist on endangering every single soul that they get close to should be dealt with, and harshly.
The speed limit isn't to limit the reasonable person who is driving within safe limits - it is only there to enable the cops to identify and cite the less common idiots.
If the US should ever build the equivalent of the Autobahn, and decide not to post any speed limit at all, I will be among the first to drive it. :^)
Insurance companies, hospitals, and even individual doctors are profit driven.
While it is certainly no crime to make a dollar, that dollar shouldn't be THE_MOTIVATING_FACTOR in health care.
If/when every doctor, every hospital, and every insurance agent actively seeks to provide the best REASONABLE care possible, at the lowest REASONABLE cost possible, then we will have gone a long way toward solving our health care problems. Ambulance chasing lawyers need to be reigned in as well. An accident in which a person's neck is broken should involve some pretty big money - but the sum of money involved shouldn't guarantee that the victim can live on Easy Street with all his freinds and relatives for the rest of their lives, either. Worst of all - those ambulance chasers pocket half the settlement anyway, so the victim is screwed in the end, no matter what!
And, insurance fraud needs to be punished much more seriously than it is today. Any moron who defrauds an insurance company should get automatic prison time, the sentence to be determined by the amount of the fraud. 1 year for each ten thousand dollars sounds about right to me, sentences to include any and all executives of any companies involved.
In short, let's clean up our act, and stop looking at health care as a cash cow. Start looking at health care as an obligation to take care of each other. And, ourselves, of course.
You, sir, seem to have bought into the idea that the politicians who vote and set the speed limits have a clue. GP knows what he is talking about. Google the terms "speed limit" and "85th percentile".
You, and all drivers and voters, should be aware that politicians have no desire to post "safe" speed limits, because the vast majority of people will observe those speed limits. Their motivation is to generate revenue, by posting speed limits BELOW what safety dictates. If you know of a road near you where more than half the people consistently speed by more than 10 MPH over the speed limit, then you know of a cash cow.
There is SOME truth in your statement. In residential and business areas, streets that are poorly designed are indeed dangerous. For instance, there is absolutely NO REASON to put a 6 lane highway through a school zone - or, conversely, to build a school on a 6 lane highway. Depending on which was built first, whoever designed and built the latter structure was a complete MORON!!
However, the 85th percentile applies even in built up areas, PROVIDED THAT the streets and roads were designed and built by engineers and contractors who have a clue about traffic flow.
When you get into old city areas that predate motor vehicles, and when you get into cities and towns with no zoning or planning committees, then all bets are off.
Yes, it's safe to ignore those cautionary signs, most of the time. But, you should always be aware of them. Dead Man's Curve on I-90 in Cleveland Ohio pretty much means what it says. The Indian Stairway in Oklahoma says 25 mph on every curve, and you can do 35 on most of them, but two of those curves mean exactly what they say. There are a lot more.
And, if you're driving a truck or a camper, you had better pay attention too. We have a curve three miles north of my house in Arkansas, with warning signs that say "35 MPH". I can do ~65 in any of my kid's sports cars - but big trucks and campers alike have gone off that curve while doing ~40 - 45 MPH.
My own personal rule of thumb, is to slow to within 15 MPH of what the sign says BEFORE getting to the curve, then adjust as I see fit as I actually enter the curve.
I've found a few curves in W. Virginia and N. Carolina that scared the crap out of me, too. My rule of thumb was dangerously to fast for them! It sucks to get into the curve, then realize that it gets sharper before it straightens out!
This. 85th percentile rules.
Want a realistic speed limit, with zero meaningless bullshit involved? Build your road. Open it to the public. Monitor the speed of traffic for a month or more. There WILL be some idiots who drive to fast - just let them, they are part of the formula. There will also be some other morons who drive so slow, you wonder if they are alive or not. No problem - they are also part of the formula.
After you've monitored speeds for a reasonable period of time (remember, I said a month or more - six months seems to long, probably 60 to 90 days is right) you find that 85th percentile, and post that as the speed limit. Go ahead, and round it to the nearest 5 mph, or, if you insist (out of some unfounded fear) round to the next LOWER 5 mph. Post that speed limit now.
You will find that *almost* nobody speeds. You have found the magical number, which reasonable people can all agree on. Some still drive to slow - and you really ought to check them out. Elderly people, people with poor vision, people with poor reflexes, people with near zero experience. Go ahead, and check them out.
Those who normally speed through bullshit speed zones are *mostly* going to recognize that the speed limit here is reasonable, and they will tend to observe it, or stay within that 5 mph over range, for which almost no cop ever pulls a guy over.
The oddball who INSISTS that he is going to drive 10 to 30 mile over the speed limit is an utter moron, and he needs to be taken to court, fined, driver's license suspended, and possibly given some jail time. He has no business on the road.
This formula scares some people. "Oh dear, doing things this way might mean speed limits over 80 MPH!"
Tough noogies. If 80, 90, or 100 MPH scares you, then you have no business driving on a major highway. Take the back roads, and look at the pretty farms along the way. Or, just stay in town, and fly if you must travel to another city.
"Care to reference at least an article"
You need look no further than Google, and one of the first hits, from the NYTimes:
Slashdot error - I need to spoonfeed a link: Title of article is "Army missed warning signs of Major Nidal Hasan's Fort Hood massacre: military review" at http://www.nydailynews.com/
While that particular article, by itself, doesn't reveal very much, it SHOULD put you on the right road to finding dozens of other articles about Hasan. He made comments early in his education that should have tipped people off, he made comments late in his education that were truly alarming, and later as an officer and a doctor, he articulated sympathy for the Islamic jihadists fighting against our forces.
Let me try to find one particular quote for you - searching - - - -
Not exactly what I was looking for, but pertinent:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/199506.php
Can't find the exact quote I'm looking for at the moment, but there is a lot of insight into Hasan's mind here:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/014754.html
If, from these links, you cannot use Google to find more damning evidence against both Hasan AND his superior officers, then you aren't trying.
The fact is, it was obvious during Hasan's internship that he was a loose cannone, he was dangerous, and that he held treasonous views. He most definitely established that his first loyalty was to Islam, and that he had little loyalty to the United States, or to the Army which he was sworn to serve.
And, you, sir, are right on target.
All our lives, we've read news articles about the fighting being "escalated" in some banana republic. The guys who decided to use that word in customer relations were almost certainly stoners - or worse, GAMERS!! ;^)
I've met your twin. Customer service was incapable of doing anything more than running through their meaningless checklist, and were completely stymied when I informed them that I didn't have a Windows computer in the house. I finally got hold of a guy who was able to ask pertinent questions, and fix my lack of DSL. I wrote his name down, and I always ask for him when I have any reason to call.
Funny thing is, he isn't customer service anymore. He's been promoted to a a manager's position.
I'll give credit where credit is due though. Today, my DSL provider has something there for the reps. If you call in, tell them that you have a Mac or a *nix box, they turn their little pages to the chapter titled "Mac users" or "Linux users". The support still isn't much, but at least they know how to "escalate" a problem.
Parenthetically - WTF is it with escalating a problem? I want a problem SOLVED, not escalated. I'm not fighting a band of rebels in the jungle, and I don't need artillery called in, with an airstrike. I just want the damned server rebooted, or the networking services on the router restarted, no escalations please.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Windows+is+like+the+faint+smell+of+piss+in+a+subway%3A+it's+there%2C+and+there's+nothing+you+can+do+about+it.
Actually, Hassan and Shahzad are quite different cases. Hassan had a history of making treasonous remarks, and going off on seemingly irrational tangents. He was a known loose cannon, subject to military scrutiny and discipline. He really should have been dealt with very early in his career, and firmly.
Shahzad, on the other hand, is basically an unkown nobody, who could easily have evaded everyone's radar, if he were world-wise. No commission, no military background at all, no real education, not a public figure, nothing. Just another dummy who wanted to be something/somebody, and failed because he was stupid.
"Apathy is what makes this world so screwed up when in fact it's filled with mediocre people."
I think that's more accurate. Great people are very hard to find. Good people are difficult to find. Mediocre people are everywhere.