Ambulances (while doing the work that requires frantic multitasking) have lights and sirens, though, which makes a big difference. People are (generally) very attentive and get-out-of-the-way-like towards them. Nobody expects them to stop for a pedestrian crossing, for example.
Idiots who text while driving don't have those obvious warning signs. Perhaps they should?
Are you trying to say non US drivers are worse or better?
Yes, I believe he is.
I've heard plenty of people say non-US are better, but my limited experience in Spain, Italy and Greece says otherwise.
I'm going to chalk this one up to limited sample size: you picked the three countries known in Europe for their reckless drivers. I remember my dad driving 90 kmph on a 70 kmph road and other cars honking while flying past us at over 120 kmph. That said, I almost got hit by a raging lunatic driver today as well (in Belgium). The difference is that here in Belgium, I don't expect people to be raging lunatic drivers. In Italy, I hesitate to even get in a car.
I know, but America isn't the only country that has cars anymore. I can't remember seeing an automatic transmission in a new car in the last 10 years here in Europe. I mean, they exist, sure, but they're hardly mainstream.
People with only one arm would need special cars anyway - or at least couldn't drive most cars safely, what with the stick shift, wiper blades and handbrake being on the right and the directional and headlights on the left of the steering wheel.
Mythbusters did an episode on this. Yes, being on a call is a large part of the distraction. However, I believe people holding a phone are much less likely to, for example, use their directionals while taking a turn.
The article only seems to mention smartphone apps, which doesn't seem optimal to me.
What about pressure monitors in the steering wheel that sound an alarm when they don't feel anything for more than, say, 30 seconds? Sure it might annoy those who prefer driving with one hand, but I suspect driving with two hands might be inherently safer anyway. Pressure monitors would also prevent you from fiddling with the radio for too long, and would work for people without smartphones - or people you lend your car to.
We have single states (equivalent to what Europeans refer to as countries) that are nearly half the size of the entire continent you live on. I could drive from one end of your content and back, and still have driven a shorter distance than to my brothers house.
Yes, you have big states. Congratulations. However, that doesn't mean it makes sense to take a job 1000 miles from your home and drive there every day, or move 3000 miles away and expect your family to visit every week.
You have bullet train rides between countries that are shorter than my wifes daily drive to work.
Perhaps that's another difference in ideology, but if someone I knew took a job and commuted hundreds of miles to another country on a daily basis, I'd call them insane.
You are a urban population. [...] We are not, we are a rural population. The majority of our people are scattered across the nation in little villages and towns.
I added up the numbers found in this Wikipedia article and found that 254,734,040 people in the United States live in what is defined as:
"one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban core area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties."
This is 84% of the estimated 301,621,157 people living in the U.S. in 2008. (source) The United States are very much an urban population - although these numbers include suburbs, too. Perhaps I should say suburban population.
You are a urban population. 90% of your people live in a handful of cities
I'm not going to do the math, but I'll reckon you're not that far off - given the 84% the U.S. scored. However, if 90% of the people work in large cities, it makes sense for 90% of the people to live in the actual city as well. The American model of surrounding cities with suburbs where everyone gets up in the morning to drive separate SUVs into the city makes little sense to me.
we have designed ourselves to be a nation that drives
You have designed yourselves to be a nation that doesn't care about the consequences of driving such distances, and in many cases flat out denies them.
Anything Europeans do thats 'good' for the environment still doesn't make up for the damage done over the past few thousand years
First of all, that's unfair. The United States have only existed for a couple hundred years, and most current Americans have European roots anyway, so anything before the 18th century is on all of us.
Second, as this chart clearly shows, burning of fossil fuels practically didn't start until well into the 19th century, and it didn't really take off until the 1950s. And I don't think we need to discuss the United States' part in this.
In short, you have no concept of living anywhere except your little neck of the woods. You are what Europeans typically like to refer to a 'ignorant American', except replace American with European and pull that big stick of smug out of your ass cause you're just showing everyone how clueless you are.
And I should just ignore how clueless you are? All of my statements are based on rationality. Yours are based on laziness and comfort.
And while I'll admit the U.S. are an amazing country with many great achievements, and I can't imagine the world without it, it does have significant shortcomings, and failing to see that would be a sign of ignorance us Europeans can only dream of. As the most powerful country in the world, it's your task to better that world.
You have cars and commercial airplanes for that. Private aircraft are either a hobby or a mode of transportation for the super rich aristocrats, and have little to do with freedom.
Of course there is a huge problem with any massive upgrade. That is simply cost. There are thousands of small Mom and Pop airports and FBOs that are just barley staying in business as it is. They can not afford spending thousands of dollars to get new radios. Then you have all the private pilots that also really can not afford the cost of upgrading. It is a myth that all private pilots are rich. A lot of them just have a passion for flying.
Maybe the problem is that Americans just fly too damn much. Americans already drive amazingly fuel-inefficient cars, use commercial airlines for small distances, and have the largest ecological footprint of any country in the world (apart from some small oil states like the U.A.E. and Qatar). The U.S. has much lower taxes on all kinds of fuel than any European country I've ever visited, which probably makes flying a cheaper hobby than watching out the window. This may be an indirect way to put some people off flying, and although there might be better ways to accomplish that, I think it might be a step in the right direction.
Bring on the flamebait mods for treading on the American way of life, call me a tree-loving hippie communist global warming conspirator, I don't care.
Yeah. One would almost assume it would be easier to switch to alternative sources of energy, bring our troops home, spend a fraction of the military budget on protecting our airliners and ports, and stop sponsoring military dictatorships in the middle east with arms and money.
You'd have to be pretty good at flipping pages. Some of them always stick together, and I'd hate to be in a space ship where the Captain is a robot who "read" the manual but skipped the page about turning on the life support systems.
In any reasonably free society, copying of digital content is impossible to prevent. In non-free societies, it does not matter as those in power can take the money of anybody anyways.
True. However, preventing copying of digital content is a step towards a non-free society, where those in power can take the money of anybody anyway.
How terribly disappointing, Obama. At least the EU threw out this stupid treaty. Hopefully this won't be successful at all.
Actually, the European Commission (the equivalent of the White House) has been supporting ACTA, or at least it hasn't been opposing it.
It was the European Parliament (the equivalent of the Senate and Congress) that opposed the secrecy surrounding ACTA. Even they haven't given an opinion on the contents of ACTA.
It wouldn't break any laws of thermodynamics. Say it only allows heat transfer from A to B.
If A is warmer than B, energy (heat) will flow from A to B (from warm to cold), decreasing A's temperature while increasing B's. This process decreases energy while increasing entropy, making it perfectly "legal" according to the laws of thermodynamics.
If B is warmer than A, nothing happens, or, perhaps more realistically, the heatsink now acts as a thermal insulator and only allows a very small amount of energy to go from B to A. It would be hard (read: impossible) to make it work perfectly, just like it's impossible to make a perfect thermal insulator.
So maybe something that literally only allows heat flow in one direction is impossible in practice, I don't see why you couldn't make something that has a (much) greater thermal conductivity in one direction than the other. It exists for electronics, why not for heat?
Yes, but a higher concentration of H2O gas in the atmosphere will result in rain, which (among other effects I'm sure you're familiar with) will dramatically decrease the amount of H2O in the air. Given that it needs to be -79C (-110F) to start raining (or, more accurately, snowing) CO2, it'll be a while before the earth has an effective way to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere (don't get me started on trees). Another problem with this idea is that CO2 snow will immediately sublime back to CO2 gas at higher temperatures ("higher" as in -78C or -109F).
So basically, we need an ice age to stop global warming caused by CO2. Irony, thou art a heartless bitch.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it's that damned AdBlock Plus that is preventing me from learning about my unmet needs!
"AdBlock Plus"? Is that what they call a basement door nowadays?
I know, cheap shot, but someone had to take it.
A half-meter long T-Rex that eats ants? I want one. Get those scientists working on a clone now!
Ambulances (while doing the work that requires frantic multitasking) have lights and sirens, though, which makes a big difference. People are (generally) very attentive and get-out-of-the-way-like towards them. Nobody expects them to stop for a pedestrian crossing, for example.
Idiots who text while driving don't have those obvious warning signs. Perhaps they should?
Are you trying to say non US drivers are worse or better?
Yes, I believe he is.
I've heard plenty of people say non-US are better, but my limited experience in Spain, Italy and Greece says otherwise.
I'm going to chalk this one up to limited sample size: you picked the three countries known in Europe for their reckless drivers. I remember my dad driving 90 kmph on a 70 kmph road and other cars honking while flying past us at over 120 kmph. That said, I almost got hit by a raging lunatic driver today as well (in Belgium). The difference is that here in Belgium, I don't expect people to be raging lunatic drivers. In Italy, I hesitate to even get in a car.
Traitors in this case will get attacked with blunt objects while walking the plank. Yar!
They're not pirates, they're anti-pirates. We'll ship 'em off to Siberia and make the plank walk them!
How about for enough money to hire Chuck Norris to be your new mother?
I know, but America isn't the only country that has cars anymore. I can't remember seeing an automatic transmission in a new car in the last 10 years here in Europe. I mean, they exist, sure, but they're hardly mainstream.
People with only one arm would need special cars anyway - or at least couldn't drive most cars safely, what with the stick shift, wiper blades and handbrake being on the right and the directional and headlights on the left of the steering wheel.
Mythbusters did an episode on this. Yes, being on a call is a large part of the distraction. However, I believe people holding a phone are much less likely to, for example, use their directionals while taking a turn.
How about instead of the headlights, you'd use the brakes for such a system?
The article only seems to mention smartphone apps, which doesn't seem optimal to me.
What about pressure monitors in the steering wheel that sound an alarm when they don't feel anything for more than, say, 30 seconds? Sure it might annoy those who prefer driving with one hand, but I suspect driving with two hands might be inherently safer anyway. Pressure monitors would also prevent you from fiddling with the radio for too long, and would work for people without smartphones - or people you lend your car to.
What happens when all that China has left, is China?
Then they'll have North Korea.
We have single states (equivalent to what Europeans refer to as countries) that are nearly half the size of the entire continent you live on. I could drive from one end of your content and back, and still have driven a shorter distance than to my brothers house.
Yes, you have big states. Congratulations. However, that doesn't mean it makes sense to take a job 1000 miles from your home and drive there every day, or move 3000 miles away and expect your family to visit every week.
You have bullet train rides between countries that are shorter than my wifes daily drive to work.
Perhaps that's another difference in ideology, but if someone I knew took a job and commuted hundreds of miles to another country on a daily basis, I'd call them insane.
You are a urban population. [...] We are not, we are a rural population. The majority of our people are scattered across the nation in little villages and towns.
I added up the numbers found in this Wikipedia article and found that 254,734,040 people in the United States live in what is defined as:
"one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban core area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties."
This is 84% of the estimated 301,621,157 people living in the U.S. in 2008. (source) The United States are very much an urban population - although these numbers include suburbs, too. Perhaps I should say suburban population.
You are a urban population. 90% of your people live in a handful of cities
I'm not going to do the math, but I'll reckon you're not that far off - given the 84% the U.S. scored. However, if 90% of the people work in large cities, it makes sense for 90% of the people to live in the actual city as well. The American model of surrounding cities with suburbs where everyone gets up in the morning to drive separate SUVs into the city makes little sense to me.
we have designed ourselves to be a nation that drives
You have designed yourselves to be a nation that doesn't care about the consequences of driving such distances, and in many cases flat out denies them.
Anything Europeans do thats 'good' for the environment still doesn't make up for the damage done over the past few thousand years
First of all, that's unfair. The United States have only existed for a couple hundred years, and most current Americans have European roots anyway, so anything before the 18th century is on all of us.
Second, as this chart clearly shows, burning of fossil fuels practically didn't start until well into the 19th century, and it didn't really take off until the 1950s. And I don't think we need to discuss the United States' part in this.
In short, you have no concept of living anywhere except your little neck of the woods. You are what Europeans typically like to refer to a 'ignorant American', except replace American with European and pull that big stick of smug out of your ass cause you're just showing everyone how clueless you are.
And I should just ignore how clueless you are? All of my statements are based on rationality. Yours are based on laziness and comfort.
And while I'll admit the U.S. are an amazing country with many great achievements, and I can't imagine the world without it, it does have significant shortcomings, and failing to see that would be a sign of ignorance us Europeans can only dream of. As the most powerful country in the world, it's your task to better that world.
You have cars and commercial airplanes for that. Private aircraft are either a hobby or a mode of transportation for the super rich aristocrats, and have little to do with freedom.
Of course there is a huge problem with any massive upgrade.
That is simply cost.
There are thousands of small Mom and Pop airports and FBOs that are just barley staying in business as it is. They can not afford spending thousands of dollars to get new radios.
Then you have all the private pilots that also really can not afford the cost of upgrading. It is a myth that all private pilots are rich. A lot of them just have a passion for flying.
Maybe the problem is that Americans just fly too damn much. Americans already drive amazingly fuel-inefficient cars, use commercial airlines for small distances, and have the largest ecological footprint of any country in the world (apart from some small oil states like the U.A.E. and Qatar). The U.S. has much lower taxes on all kinds of fuel than any European country I've ever visited, which probably makes flying a cheaper hobby than watching out the window. This may be an indirect way to put some people off flying, and although there might be better ways to accomplish that, I think it might be a step in the right direction.
Bring on the flamebait mods for treading on the American way of life, call me a tree-loving hippie communist global warming conspirator, I don't care.
Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
All I know is my gut says maybe.
Yeah. One would almost assume it would be easier to switch to alternative sources of energy, bring our troops home, spend a fraction of the military budget on protecting our airliners and ports, and stop sponsoring military dictatorships in the middle east with arms and money.
Clearly, you don't understand politics.
You'd have to be pretty good at flipping pages. Some of them always stick together, and I'd hate to be in a space ship where the Captain is a robot who "read" the manual but skipped the page about turning on the life support systems.
And it wouldn't just be for blind people anymore!
Thank god this system uses a camera and a tongue sensor. The title made me think of that creepy guy on the bus that licks everything.
In any reasonably free society, copying of digital content is impossible to prevent. In non-free societies, it does not matter as those in power can take the money of anybody anyways.
True. However, preventing copying of digital content is a step towards a non-free society, where those in power can take the money of anybody anyway.
How terribly disappointing, Obama. At least the EU threw out this stupid treaty. Hopefully this won't be successful at all.
Actually, the European Commission (the equivalent of the White House) has been supporting ACTA, or at least it hasn't been opposing it.
It was the European Parliament (the equivalent of the Senate and Congress) that opposed the secrecy surrounding ACTA. Even they haven't given an opinion on the contents of ACTA.
It wouldn't break any laws of thermodynamics. Say it only allows heat transfer from A to B.
If A is warmer than B, energy (heat) will flow from A to B (from warm to cold), decreasing A's temperature while increasing B's. This process decreases energy while increasing entropy, making it perfectly "legal" according to the laws of thermodynamics.
If B is warmer than A, nothing happens, or, perhaps more realistically, the heatsink now acts as a thermal insulator and only allows a very small amount of energy to go from B to A. It would be hard (read: impossible) to make it work perfectly, just like it's impossible to make a perfect thermal insulator.
So maybe something that literally only allows heat flow in one direction is impossible in practice, I don't see why you couldn't make something that has a (much) greater thermal conductivity in one direction than the other. It exists for electronics, why not for heat?
Well to be fair H2O is also a greenhouse gas.
Yes, but a higher concentration of H2O gas in the atmosphere will result in rain, which (among other effects I'm sure you're familiar with) will dramatically decrease the amount of H2O in the air. Given that it needs to be -79C (-110F) to start raining (or, more accurately, snowing) CO2, it'll be a while before the earth has an effective way to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere (don't get me started on trees). Another problem with this idea is that CO2 snow will immediately sublime back to CO2 gas at higher temperatures ("higher" as in -78C or -109F).
So basically, we need an ice age to stop global warming caused by CO2. Irony, thou art a heartless bitch.
Well, you used to need a reason to declare war on another country. Things change, my friend. Declaring war isn't what it used to be.