I run my own business from home where the internet is critical. I literally have to stop working if it goes offline. Now I have redundant internet connections because of that but if they turned those off it would be very easy for me to prove substantial losses.
Berlin taxis are only available if you call one to pick you up. They will do drive-by pickup but the other public transport is that good in Berlin that the taxi business struggle so they basically don't circle the city anymore.
Japan is another country where taxis are great. I don't know what make of car they are (they seem to be custom) they have a mechanised arm which opens and closes the rear left door for you to get in and out of and all the drivers wear immaculate pressed uniforms. Taxis in Japan are everywhere as well you just flag them down or head to one of the million taxi ranks.
But that is exactly what is different between Australia, Europe, and the US. In Berlin most of the taxi's are recent model Mercedes, usually E classes and are in great condition. In Australia they are either Falcons, Commodores or Aurions with Prius being used inside the higher density city circle. These are also (generally speaking) in good condition. This is BECAUSE the market is highly regulated.
However if you read about Berlin taxis there is a really low demand for them because of how good other public transport is. To the point that taxis don't circulate around Berlin to do pickups - they are purely a call and we come service.
Taxis in Berlin are small fry business compared to say LA or New York. The other component is that European governments are more concerned with individual safety that the US government is. From the US side you can argue that that makes them interfering nanny states. From the European perspective the US government is criminally reckless. The German government sees regulating taxi services as a safety issue ergo it is regulated.
I think you are wrong in this case, particularly as the case is in Germany. In the US getting into a cab is pretty horrific experience at the best of times, my experience has been several white knuckle drives where I have actually said to the driver I will tip him if he slows down, or taxis that simply aren't clean.
In Germany my experience has been taxis arriving on time, driven well and immaculately clean. Having legislated taxi services can mean that your drivers are vetted to a higher level (ie police checked & driver skills checked) than a decentralised system can ever be.
If the whole project was dependant on the body they send in to space then they had bigger problems and they didn't have a space program at all. What they had was a person they put on a russian space ship and then FTA stuck in front of people to say what it was like.
If that is the case and the program was a program of 1 person then why would she have stayed? No development, nothing interesting, no reason to be there.
Not sure if I would go as far as saying the best roads. They have fantastic main highways but the roads get pretty rough when you are in the far north or the east and not on a main highway. I drove from Bremen in the north to Frankfurt on backroads 3 years ago and there were a few roads where they weren't wide enough for cars to pass each other (going in opposite directions.)
With regards to a fatality it depends on what happened and why for when / if you get your license suspended or when you get it back.
As for drink driving that is a huge no no in Australia. We have Random Breath Tests (RBTs) where the coppers will stop every car travelling along a road and breath test you..05 is the limit and if you blow over it is an instant 1 year ban from driving. If you are miles over you will get the book thrown at you. I have seen them close a 4 lane highway before and RBT everyone - 4 rows of 10 coppers.
The police are also, at their discretion, able to take a mouth swab for drugs. They normally profile you for that one ie. under 30 and driving out of an entertainment district at 3am.
I agree with your speed limit comment but I would also point out that the american cars I have driven in the states are truly awful. Last time I was over there I decided to hire a brand new mustang convertible and drive to the Napa Valley for the day. I distinctly remember coming to a bend in the highway at 55mph and seriously wondering if the car was going to make it round a highway bend or not. There was no feel in the steering wheel and the amount of body roll was unbelievable. The only way I can describe it was it felt like driving a water bed...... The next time we went to the states I hired a Golf. Didn't have the same "cool" factor as driving a mustang did but I felt safe.
ps the mustang had less than 2000 miles on it and we actually hired 2 and they were identical so I don't think I got a flogged out one or a lemon.
Having lived in Australia and the UK as well as driven a motorcycle 20000km around Europe and a car from LA to Miami I feel that I can comment without the citation.
Germany have the best drivers as they have the highest standard of awareness of other drivers on the road and they are very consistent in what they do. The behaviour on their autobahns and highways is completely predictable. The UK you need to learn what is the etiquette in order to be comfortable. They drive faster than their continental cousins on the same grade road, they tend to follow closer and generally require a lower gap. That said they are acutely aware of every other car on the road. They can do the zip merge and will let people in but if you are not from the uk you will find the spaces small.
America tends to be the opposite end of the spectrum to the UK. Technically I am sure their driving skills are find but awareness of others on the road appears to be zero. Keeping to the slow lane also seems to be an unknown art. Also on smaller streets stop signs and the like seem to be on a do I feel like following this today setup. If you are merging onto a highway you can pretty much bet the cars on the highway won't speed up or slow down to make life easier for you.
Australia sits half way between the UK and USA. There is slightly more awareness of other drivers (but not enough) people will accept a smaller gap and are more consistent drivers. Running stop signs and traffic lights is a big no no in Australia and most people don't do it.
I don't know about America but in Australia this would qualify as a criminal case. It is the same as what happened with the simpsons movie here. Basically Australia has thresholds which change the status, is the copyright infringement commercial in nature (ie are you selling the copies, is the value over $5000 and or is it BEFORE the release date.
Because the leak occurred before the theatrical release date it would shift into criminal statue here in Aus.
They have been the same physical layout but their aerodynamic profile isn't what this competition is designed to challenge. What they want to challenge is the electrical system. How much power can your cells generate, how efficiently can you transfer that power to your motor, how versatile is the motor and how well can you store that power for when the sun isn't as bright.
These aspects have continued to develop every year.
MotoGP and World SuperBike. The rules aren't really designed to slow the bikes down. It was supposedly to keep the costs down but that hasn't happened. It has had the effect of pushing a lot of the development into materials.
Recent motogp changes that I don't like include: Control tyres - you used to have michelin, dunlop and bridgestone developing tyres to suit the characterestics of a particular bike. Because the tyres had different wear characteristics you saw different tyres perform better on different tracks. They went all Bridgestone first and are going all Michelin in 2016. Engine design - the requirement that the engines not be over square (ie the cylinder bore must not exceed the piston stroke). This basically acts as a rev limiter without going to crazy expensive materials. It also means that in some aspects the engines are behind modern road bikes as several road bikes have over square engines as they produce higher top power Fuel limits - the fuel limits have been going down over time. This has the effect of capping power output across a race. It means you have to design a bike to carry more speed all the time. It actually makes the motogp act more like the smaller classes where corner speed is king. Go back to the 500cc 2 stroke era and you had bikes that sacrificed handling for crazy power. What they lost in the corners they made up in the straights (see screamer vs big bang engine design in the Honda NSR 500 for an example internal to one manufacturer)
To be fair though there have been some huge jumps in electronics. Things like the way the Honda cuts the ignition on upshifts so that the power of the engine doesn't cause micro spins of the back wheel giving them a couple of 10ths a lap was very cool. The launch control technology is also amazing (if you want to see what happens when you think your traction control is on when it is not search for Lorenzo practice highside)
The big problem going forward is that the owners of MotoGP have managed to acquire the rights to WSBK and the first thing they have done is dumb down the bikes so there is a bigger gap between the motogp and the WSBK.
Then they would all look alike but with 50 cubic feet of storage.
That is the problem with any engineering challenge where the conditions of a test are repeated over and over. Everyone will naturally move towards the same design as, without a major technological break through, that design is the most efficient concept.
It is the major reason I hate the direction motorcycle racing is going. By bringing in more rules about what is and isn't allowed they are reducing the possible solutions.
Also I would add. I have done a large number of long haul flights with my two girls and I learnt something from a pilot I met once. His advice was carry the kids car seat and put them in that. So now you will see me wheeling a compact fold up pram with two car seats precariously balanced on top of them as I make my way through the airport. When I get on the plane the car seat gets strapped into the chair and the kid into the car seat.
Two big reasons - 1 the can't get out of those. 5 point harness and a kid proof clip. 2 the first time my eldest had a seat of her own was the worst flight of my life. She would fall asleep in her chair and slump against the airplane seat belt. It would slowly loosen off till she fell out of the seat. Can you imaging the horror of a 2 year old who keeps being woken up every 15 minutes on a 24 hour flight... Oh dear god.... I spent 5 hours on the last leg walking back and forth in the crew area carrying her as it was the only way to stop the screaming.......
Spot on. I have the pram that is the size of a small car when I am at home and a super lighter super compact push chair when travelling. Not only does it fold up small and light it has like a rifle sling strap on it that allows it to be easily carried on my back. I managed to comfortably walk up a gazillion stairs to the Giant Buddha in Hong Kong with the kid on my shoulders and the stroller across my back.
WHy can't you pick your seats anyway? I log on to my favourite airlines web page 72 hrs before departure. I pick the seat I want, tick the box that says I'm not carrying any bombs or giant knives and then print out my boarding pass.
I walk through security. Straight to my gate and on to the plane. Add an extra 2 minutes if I have checked luggage to have assigned to my boarding pass.
Actually not really. Imaging you are a family of 4. Mum is leading the two kids and dad is carrying all the bags looking a bit like a stressed donkey. Try as dad might I can guarantee you that some of the seats are going to get whacked by those bags as you go down those incredibly narrow aisles. Now your choice. Would you rather the chair get hit with the bag or your face get hit by the bag. It's not on purpose and god knows parents will do everything (including drugging their kids) to not have them impact others but sometimes it will impact other people. You will only understand this when you have kids yourself.
Actually outside of the US it seems to be common practice to ask people with young families to board first anyway. It would be for two reasons, the first one is it looks good to look after the children. Second and perhaps the biggest is families take longer to get settled in, young kids need a lot of assistance and you generally have to carry an inordinate amount of crap. If you are blocking the aisle while you buckle seat belts and the like you are slowing the whole boarding process. So it makes sense - send them in with first and business class.
If I could have a Win 7 style interface on my desktop / laptop. I really good touch interface for my tablet / phone and a really good lounge room interface for my xbox that could run the same software across all 3. Now that would be cool! RT wasn't crap because it was a different interface it was crap because it felt like it should run the same stuff as normal windows but didn't
Sorry not with you on this one. In principal your comment about money supply is absolutely correct but we are not talking about a government that saves during the good times and spends during the bad. We are talking about a government that just spends all the time. And I absolutely extend this to the Howard era government as well.
Much of the MRRT and Carbon tax takes were allocated to recurrent spending and this is where the problem lies. If this money was used for one off investments, ie Future fund or one of major infrastructure projects then yes great. Tying the MRRT and carbon tax to the NBN would have been perfect. Tying it tax cuts or wellfare is the problem.
Why would you assume he would compensate people for something that was being removed? I'm going to take your car and I will compensate you by paying you for it. Actually I'm not going to take your car, but you still want to be compensated as if I was?
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention that as soon as you host data external to your location you add latency and a failure point.
I run my own business from home where the internet is critical. I literally have to stop working if it goes offline. Now I have redundant internet connections because of that but if they turned those off it would be very easy for me to prove substantial losses.
Berlin taxis are only available if you call one to pick you up. They will do drive-by pickup but the other public transport is that good in Berlin that the taxi business struggle so they basically don't circle the city anymore.
Japan is another country where taxis are great. I don't know what make of car they are (they seem to be custom) they have a mechanised arm which opens and closes the rear left door for you to get in and out of and all the drivers wear immaculate pressed uniforms. Taxis in Japan are everywhere as well you just flag them down or head to one of the million taxi ranks.
But that is exactly what is different between Australia, Europe, and the US. In Berlin most of the taxi's are recent model Mercedes, usually E classes and are in great condition. In Australia they are either Falcons, Commodores or Aurions with Prius being used inside the higher density city circle. These are also (generally speaking) in good condition. This is BECAUSE the market is highly regulated.
However if you read about Berlin taxis there is a really low demand for them because of how good other public transport is. To the point that taxis don't circulate around Berlin to do pickups - they are purely a call and we come service.
Taxis in Berlin are small fry business compared to say LA or New York. The other component is that European governments are more concerned with individual safety that the US government is. From the US side you can argue that that makes them interfering nanny states. From the European perspective the US government is criminally reckless. The German government sees regulating taxi services as a safety issue ergo it is regulated.
I think you are wrong in this case, particularly as the case is in Germany. In the US getting into a cab is pretty horrific experience at the best of times, my experience has been several white knuckle drives where I have actually said to the driver I will tip him if he slows down, or taxis that simply aren't clean.
In Germany my experience has been taxis arriving on time, driven well and immaculately clean. Having legislated taxi services can mean that your drivers are vetted to a higher level (ie police checked & driver skills checked) than a decentralised system can ever be.
If the whole project was dependant on the body they send in to space then they had bigger problems and they didn't have a space program at all. What they had was a person they put on a russian space ship and then FTA stuck in front of people to say what it was like.
If that is the case and the program was a program of 1 person then why would she have stayed? No development, nothing interesting, no reason to be there.
Not sure if I would go as far as saying the best roads. They have fantastic main highways but the roads get pretty rough when you are in the far north or the east and not on a main highway. I drove from Bremen in the north to Frankfurt on backroads 3 years ago and there were a few roads where they weren't wide enough for cars to pass each other (going in opposite directions.)
With regards to a fatality it depends on what happened and why for when / if you get your license suspended or when you get it back.
As for drink driving that is a huge no no in Australia. We have Random Breath Tests (RBTs) where the coppers will stop every car travelling along a road and breath test you. .05 is the limit and if you blow over it is an instant 1 year ban from driving. If you are miles over you will get the book thrown at you. I have seen them close a 4 lane highway before and RBT everyone - 4 rows of 10 coppers.
The police are also, at their discretion, able to take a mouth swab for drugs. They normally profile you for that one ie. under 30 and driving out of an entertainment district at 3am.
I agree with your speed limit comment but I would also point out that the american cars I have driven in the states are truly awful. Last time I was over there I decided to hire a brand new mustang convertible and drive to the Napa Valley for the day. I distinctly remember coming to a bend in the highway at 55mph and seriously wondering if the car was going to make it round a highway bend or not. There was no feel in the steering wheel and the amount of body roll was unbelievable. The only way I can describe it was it felt like driving a water bed...... The next time we went to the states I hired a Golf. Didn't have the same "cool" factor as driving a mustang did but I felt safe.
ps the mustang had less than 2000 miles on it and we actually hired 2 and they were identical so I don't think I got a flogged out one or a lemon.
Having lived in Australia and the UK as well as driven a motorcycle 20000km around Europe and a car from LA to Miami I feel that I can comment without the citation.
Germany have the best drivers as they have the highest standard of awareness of other drivers on the road and they are very consistent in what they do. The behaviour on their autobahns and highways is completely predictable. The UK you need to learn what is the etiquette in order to be comfortable. They drive faster than their continental cousins on the same grade road, they tend to follow closer and generally require a lower gap. That said they are acutely aware of every other car on the road. They can do the zip merge and will let people in but if you are not from the uk you will find the spaces small.
America tends to be the opposite end of the spectrum to the UK. Technically I am sure their driving skills are find but awareness of others on the road appears to be zero. Keeping to the slow lane also seems to be an unknown art. Also on smaller streets stop signs and the like seem to be on a do I feel like following this today setup. If you are merging onto a highway you can pretty much bet the cars on the highway won't speed up or slow down to make life easier for you.
Australia sits half way between the UK and USA. There is slightly more awareness of other drivers (but not enough) people will accept a smaller gap and are more consistent drivers. Running stop signs and traffic lights is a big no no in Australia and most people don't do it.
I don't know about America but in Australia this would qualify as a criminal case. It is the same as what happened with the simpsons movie here. Basically Australia has thresholds which change the status, is the copyright infringement commercial in nature (ie are you selling the copies, is the value over $5000 and or is it BEFORE the release date.
Because the leak occurred before the theatrical release date it would shift into criminal statue here in Aus.
They have been the same physical layout but their aerodynamic profile isn't what this competition is designed to challenge. What they want to challenge is the electrical system. How much power can your cells generate, how efficiently can you transfer that power to your motor, how versatile is the motor and how well can you store that power for when the sun isn't as bright.
These aspects have continued to develop every year.
MotoGP and World SuperBike. The rules aren't really designed to slow the bikes down. It was supposedly to keep the costs down but that hasn't happened. It has had the effect of pushing a lot of the development into materials.
Recent motogp changes that I don't like include:
Control tyres - you used to have michelin, dunlop and bridgestone developing tyres to suit the characterestics of a particular bike. Because the tyres had different wear characteristics you saw different tyres perform better on different tracks. They went all Bridgestone first and are going all Michelin in 2016.
Engine design - the requirement that the engines not be over square (ie the cylinder bore must not exceed the piston stroke). This basically acts as a rev limiter without going to crazy expensive materials. It also means that in some aspects the engines are behind modern road bikes as several road bikes have over square engines as they produce higher top power
Fuel limits - the fuel limits have been going down over time. This has the effect of capping power output across a race. It means you have to design a bike to carry more speed all the time. It actually makes the motogp act more like the smaller classes where corner speed is king. Go back to the 500cc 2 stroke era and you had bikes that sacrificed handling for crazy power. What they lost in the corners they made up in the straights (see screamer vs big bang engine design in the Honda NSR 500 for an example internal to one manufacturer)
To be fair though there have been some huge jumps in electronics. Things like the way the Honda cuts the ignition on upshifts so that the power of the engine doesn't cause micro spins of the back wheel giving them a couple of 10ths a lap was very cool. The launch control technology is also amazing (if you want to see what happens when you think your traction control is on when it is not search for Lorenzo practice highside)
The big problem going forward is that the owners of MotoGP have managed to acquire the rights to WSBK and the first thing they have done is dumb down the bikes so there is a bigger gap between the motogp and the WSBK.
Then they would all look alike but with 50 cubic feet of storage.
That is the problem with any engineering challenge where the conditions of a test are repeated over and over. Everyone will naturally move towards the same design as, without a major technological break through, that design is the most efficient concept.
It is the major reason I hate the direction motorcycle racing is going. By bringing in more rules about what is and isn't allowed they are reducing the possible solutions.
Also I would add. I have done a large number of long haul flights with my two girls and I learnt something from a pilot I met once. His advice was carry the kids car seat and put them in that. So now you will see me wheeling a compact fold up pram with two car seats precariously balanced on top of them as I make my way through the airport. When I get on the plane the car seat gets strapped into the chair and the kid into the car seat.
Two big reasons - 1 the can't get out of those. 5 point harness and a kid proof clip. 2 the first time my eldest had a seat of her own was the worst flight of my life. She would fall asleep in her chair and slump against the airplane seat belt. It would slowly loosen off till she fell out of the seat. Can you imaging the horror of a 2 year old who keeps being woken up every 15 minutes on a 24 hour flight... Oh dear god.... I spent 5 hours on the last leg walking back and forth in the crew area carrying her as it was the only way to stop the screaming.......
Spot on. I have the pram that is the size of a small car when I am at home and a super lighter super compact push chair when travelling. Not only does it fold up small and light it has like a rifle sling strap on it that allows it to be easily carried on my back. I managed to comfortably walk up a gazillion stairs to the Giant Buddha in Hong Kong with the kid on my shoulders and the stroller across my back.
WHy can't you pick your seats anyway? I log on to my favourite airlines web page 72 hrs before departure. I pick the seat I want, tick the box that says I'm not carrying any bombs or giant knives and then print out my boarding pass.
I walk through security. Straight to my gate and on to the plane. Add an extra 2 minutes if I have checked luggage to have assigned to my boarding pass.
I'm sorry but WHAT???? No assigned seating? That is just asking for agro! You would get people fighting in the line!
I fly A LOT and there is no way I would fly on a just stack yourself in flight.
Actually not really. Imaging you are a family of 4. Mum is leading the two kids and dad is carrying all the bags looking a bit like a stressed donkey. Try as dad might I can guarantee you that some of the seats are going to get whacked by those bags as you go down those incredibly narrow aisles. Now your choice. Would you rather the chair get hit with the bag or your face get hit by the bag. It's not on purpose and god knows parents will do everything (including drugging their kids) to not have them impact others but sometimes it will impact other people. You will only understand this when you have kids yourself.
Actually outside of the US it seems to be common practice to ask people with young families to board first anyway. It would be for two reasons, the first one is it looks good to look after the children. Second and perhaps the biggest is families take longer to get settled in, young kids need a lot of assistance and you generally have to carry an inordinate amount of crap. If you are blocking the aisle while you buckle seat belts and the like you are slowing the whole boarding process. So it makes sense - send them in with first and business class.
If I could have a Win 7 style interface on my desktop / laptop. I really good touch interface for my tablet / phone and a really good lounge room interface for my xbox that could run the same software across all 3. Now that would be cool! RT wasn't crap because it was a different interface it was crap because it felt like it should run the same stuff as normal windows but didn't
Sorry not with you on this one. In principal your comment about money supply is absolutely correct but we are not talking about a government that saves during the good times and spends during the bad. We are talking about a government that just spends all the time. And I absolutely extend this to the Howard era government as well.
Much of the MRRT and Carbon tax takes were allocated to recurrent spending and this is where the problem lies. If this money was used for one off investments, ie Future fund or one of major infrastructure projects then yes great. Tying the MRRT and carbon tax to the NBN would have been perfect. Tying it tax cuts or wellfare is the problem.
Why would you assume he would compensate people for something that was being removed? I'm going to take your car and I will compensate you by paying you for it. Actually I'm not going to take your car, but you still want to be compensated as if I was?
No I don't think so. I think the plan is to stop spending more than we earn. Though if that is considered forward-into-the-past I'm all for it.