I stopped relying on Waze when it had me exit the freeway and then immediately re-enter the freeway just to pass a few cars. I thought, "Thanks, Waze. In order to save 15 seconds I just made several people angry."
To put things into perspective: over the last twenty years, there have been fewer than 200 fatalities in school shootings (including colleges and universities) in the United States. By way of comparison, during that period in the US there have been about 1000 deaths due to lightning strikes, 25 due to (unprovoked) shark attacks, 3000 due to international terrorism, and 200 due to domestic terrorism. So we really ought to be more concerned about lightning and box cutters than about handguns.
You're comparing apple to oranges. You compare the total number of lightning related fatalities to a fraction of gun related fatalities (those that occur at schools) and conclude that lightning is a greater concern than firearms. I think it would be more accurate to compare the total number of lightning fatalities to the total number of gun related fatalities. Either that, or count only the number of lightning related fatalities that occurred at schools.
Cyber Monday is about as much of a scam as Black Friday, and furthermore, using the prefix "cyber" in this sense is annoying unless you are in a 1980s novel.
I remember the first web based store I ever saw. It was called Cyberian Outpost. At the time it was a clever play on words. But now, it seems so overused.
The secret ballot where a ballot cannot be attached to a specific person after it has been cast is a fundamental part of our electoral system.
I always thought that the secret ballot was a legal requirement in the US. Then I saw this article, which prompted me to look into it. Apparently, it's more of a convention.
Nothing is stopping you. Except the laws of physics. I'd suggest grifting the metric. Make it an electric car.
I don't think there's any law of physics that precludes 1000 mpg. You just might have to find a fuel with a slightly higher energy density than gasoline.;)
because it's too awkward to carry around a bicycle helmet everywhere. It's too expensive to leave on a clothes rack, too bulky to carry around easily. A real annoyance. Of course that's not the case if you ONLY ride for sport, or if you ONLY ride to and from work where you have a locker or whatnot... but if you use a bike as your main transportation you find yourself carrying a helmet with you to cafés, meetings, shops, the cinema, concerts, and so on.
When I lock up my bike, I lock the helmet up with it.
How is it that this topic comes up every year at about this time?:) Around here we've been shortening the school year. It doesn't have anything to do with educational objectives. We're just doing it to save money.
The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. It is about 3.26 light-years, which is equal to just under 31 trillion (3.1×1013) kilometres or just over 19 trillion (1.9×1013) miles.
That's the thing, most people I talk to in the real World actually think that the scanner make them safe - they'd be pissed if they went away or if there were another successful terrorist attack would say, 'SEE! We needed those scanners!!"
I think the end of the article deserves more prominence:
[Dr. Volkow] said the research should not set off alarms about cellphone use because simple precautions like using a headset or earpiece can alleviate any concern.
“It does not in any way preclude or decrease my cellphone utilization,” she said.
I would be surprised if utility workers unions did not have some input here, meter readers being automated out of a job. I'm not being paranoid, I grew up in such a union household. Although my dad would have been the guy installing/replacing a meter not reading it.
When I was working on remote meter reading for Pacific Gas and Electric back in the late 80s, we were afraid that the meter readers would be hostile to our project. They reacted much better than we had feared. We were running a limited deployment test, so we put our meters on the houses that were difficult for the meter readers -- bad dogs, indoor meters, the solitary shack in the middle of nowhere.
At the conclusion of our project, the financial analysis supported the meter readers. Deploying remotely readable meters system-wide was too expensive. It was significantly cheaper to go on reading meters by hand. Apparently, the required equipment has become less expensive since then.
Could set up a solution so that the data is sent over the power lines instead of being wireless?
Back in the late 80s, I was working for Pacific Gas and Electric testing out remote meter reading solutions. The group that I was working with used a network of packet radios that communicated with the meters via power line carrier.
One of the customers in a test area had a touch-sensitive lamp that kept turning itself on and off. She complained that the new meters had brought a ghost to her house. So one of my co-workers performed an exorcism, installed a low-pass filter, and the ghost was gone.
The solution that we were testing worked pretty well. We installed a radio on every secondary that had a meter because the power line carrier communications were unreliable when they had to cross a transformer. One of the other groups was trying to use power line carrier end-to-end, but I didn't hear whether or not they got it working. In the end, all of the remote meter reading solutions were deemed by management to be too expensive. It was significantly cheaper to go on reading meters by hand.
I remember when I was working on smart meters back in the late 80s. We installed one on my boss's house to test it and my boss was showing it off to management. We were in the office reading the meter on his house and his usage was high. He picked up the phone, called his wife, and said, "Honey, could you please turn off the air conditioner.... Yes it is.... Honey, I'm reading the meter right now.... Okay." We took another reading about 30 seconds later and the usage had gone back down.
Slashdot Mirror
I stopped relying on Waze when it had me exit the freeway and then immediately re-enter the freeway just to pass a few cars. I thought, "Thanks, Waze. In order to save 15 seconds I just made several people angry."
Flying Car for Sale
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...
A professor of mine said that you should change jobs every five years, because that's how long it takes for your mistakes to catch up with you. ;)
To put things into perspective: over the last twenty years, there have been fewer than 200 fatalities in school shootings (including colleges and universities) in the United States. By way of comparison, during that period in the US there have been about 1000 deaths due to lightning strikes, 25 due to (unprovoked) shark attacks, 3000 due to international terrorism, and 200 due to domestic terrorism. So we really ought to be more concerned about lightning and box cutters than about handguns.
You're comparing apple to oranges. You compare the total number of lightning related fatalities to a fraction of gun related fatalities (those that occur at schools) and conclude that lightning is a greater concern than firearms. I think it would be more accurate to compare the total number of lightning fatalities to the total number of gun related fatalities. Either that, or count only the number of lightning related fatalities that occurred at schools.
Cyber Monday is about as much of a scam as Black Friday, and furthermore, using the prefix "cyber" in this sense is annoying unless you are in a 1980s novel.
I remember the first web based store I ever saw. It was called Cyberian Outpost. At the time it was a clever play on words. But now, it seems so overused.
The secret ballot where a ballot cannot be attached to a specific person after it has been cast is a fundamental part of our electoral system.
I always thought that the secret ballot was a legal requirement in the US. Then I saw this article, which prompted me to look into it. Apparently, it's more of a convention.
Why make them wear goggles? Apply the film to the windshield.
Goggles can be removed. There may be unforeseen situations in which the pilot wishes to remove the filter.
And what about a 1000 mpg car? Sounds much more interesting to me.
It's called a bicycle. Get off your lazy butt and try using one.
Only if I don't have to wear a helmet! ;)
This is the room for the 1000 gpm car.
LOL. I read that as 1000 gallons per minute. :)
But mpg wouldn't make sense without liquid fuel.
Maybe we could use MPGe.
Nothing is stopping you. Except the laws of physics. I'd suggest grifting the metric. Make it an electric car.
I don't think there's any law of physics that precludes 1000 mpg. You just might have to find a fuel with a slightly higher energy density than gasoline. ;)
Perhaps you should read some of my replies to other people that have said the same thing. To summarize - it isn't a viable solution for me.
Strange, the other replies weren't showing up for me. And here I thought I was being helpful. Sorry for the noise.
because it's too awkward to carry around a bicycle helmet everywhere. It's too expensive to leave on a clothes rack, too bulky to carry around easily. A real annoyance. Of course that's not the case if you ONLY ride for sport, or if you ONLY ride to and from work where you have a locker or whatnot... but if you use a bike as your main transportation you find yourself carrying a helmet with you to cafés, meetings, shops, the cinema, concerts, and so on.
When I lock up my bike, I lock the helmet up with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?_r=0
How is it that this topic comes up every year at about this time? :) Around here we've been shortening the school year. It doesn't have anything to do with educational objectives. We're just doing it to save money.
I'm going to try out NASA's meteor counter app. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/13dec_meteorcounter/
I thought parsecs was a unit of time though? So 770,000 parsecs is about 4 billion years?
So 12 parsecs is about 20 hours?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec
The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. It is about 3.26 light-years, which is equal to just under 31 trillion (3.1×1013) kilometres or just over 19 trillion (1.9×1013) miles.
The proposed building is essentially one very long hallway connecting endlessly with itself.
So, in other words, an infinite loop.
That's the thing, most people I talk to in the real World actually think that the scanner make them safe - they'd be pissed if they went away or if there were another successful terrorist attack would say, 'SEE! We needed those scanners!!"
Oblig. Simpsons: "Lisa, I want to buy your rock."
I think the end of the article deserves more prominence:
[Dr. Volkow] said the research should not set off alarms about cellphone use because simple precautions like using a headset or earpiece can alleviate any concern.
“It does not in any way preclude or decrease my cellphone utilization,” she said.
That now they're adding a 'like' button, do we get a 'dislike' button too?
I suppose that this system would allow people who want to vote "Anybody but X" to actually vote that way.
I would be surprised if utility workers unions did not have some input here, meter readers being automated out of a job. I'm not being paranoid, I grew up in such a union household. Although my dad would have been the guy installing/replacing a meter not reading it.
When I was working on remote meter reading for Pacific Gas and Electric back in the late 80s, we were afraid that the meter readers would be hostile to our project. They reacted much better than we had feared. We were running a limited deployment test, so we put our meters on the houses that were difficult for the meter readers -- bad dogs, indoor meters, the solitary shack in the middle of nowhere.
At the conclusion of our project, the financial analysis supported the meter readers. Deploying remotely readable meters system-wide was too expensive. It was significantly cheaper to go on reading meters by hand. Apparently, the required equipment has become less expensive since then.
Could set up a solution so that the data is sent over the power lines instead of being wireless?
Back in the late 80s, I was working for Pacific Gas and Electric testing out remote meter reading solutions. The group that I was working with used a network of packet radios that communicated with the meters via power line carrier.
One of the customers in a test area had a touch-sensitive lamp that kept turning itself on and off. She complained that the new meters had brought a ghost to her house. So one of my co-workers performed an exorcism, installed a low-pass filter, and the ghost was gone.
The solution that we were testing worked pretty well. We installed a radio on every secondary that had a meter because the power line carrier communications were unreliable when they had to cross a transformer. One of the other groups was trying to use power line carrier end-to-end, but I didn't hear whether or not they got it working. In the end, all of the remote meter reading solutions were deemed by management to be too expensive. It was significantly cheaper to go on reading meters by hand.
I remember when I was working on smart meters back in the late 80s. We installed one on my boss's house to test it and my boss was showing it off to management. We were in the office reading the meter on his house and his usage was high. He picked up the phone, called his wife, and said, "Honey, could you please turn off the air conditioner .... Yes it is .... Honey, I'm reading the meter right now .... Okay." We took another reading about 30 seconds later and the usage had gone back down.