Except that in a 5 light cluster, the bottom lights are always the TURN ARROWS. Green Light is always the 3rd from the top.
And even if it is green it does not mean you are clear to plow through with reckless abandon. Green means that you are clear to proceed through the intersection as long as it is clear of obstructions ( like other cars, pedestrians, etc. ).
The ones you see around Denver *are* designed differently.
The shield around the lights is open on the top, so that it funnels wind downwards and blows the snow off of the light. The ones in Illinois are not. The Colorado shields cost ~$30.
This isn't a case of LEDs being bad. Nor is it "greens run amuck". It's idiots run amuck.
The driver of the truck should be prosecuted. In every light cluster with turn arrows, the turn arrows are on the bottom. They are NOT the solid green. And being from Illinois, in Driver's Ed we were all taught that Green does not mean 'Go'. It means *proceed when the intersection is clear*. So, failure on several points by the driver of the truck.
Illinois needs to install the same snow shields that Colorado and other states have successfully done with their LED light installations.
We'd probably have them already, except we spent all our DOT money on 'Rod R. Blagojevich - Governor' signs.
I thought of the same thing when I read the article. "Gee, that sounds like the miniaturized nuclear devices the Foundation created!".
Science Fiction again becoming science reality. Cool.
Latency in this application will kill your sound quality far more than a few dropped packets. Optimally you'll want to be under 300ms for things to be manageable.
The other main thing to look for is a CODEC you can use with your chosen provider that uses as little bandwidth as possible and supports loss concealment.
You need to worry about those two factors long before QOS becomes relevant to the equation.
Dropouts? I get dropped more often by my cell provider than my VOIP provider. And yes, this includes standing still while on cell and having call dropped.
911? The industry is still figuring out how to support this properly. Some carriers sort of fake it today, but nobody really supports it "natively". This should change in the next 6 months as the 911 standard/method for VOIP carriers is being finalized in the next few months.
Power? I've got my cable modem and VOIP adapter on a UPS, so not much happens to me. Assuming that your DSL/Cable is still up in a power outage of course. If your net connection goes down, your phone goes down, might be power, might be your provider, might be the lawnmower.
Actually, the SS5 used the MicroSPARC CPU arch. Basically, the same as the SS4, though the SS5 was
a better box overall. And the last SS5's went up to 170Mhz CPUs, where SS4 stopped at 110Mhz.
And even the SS5 is still serviceable as a basic system. I've got one that I use for personal devel work, code wrangling, cvs, mysql database, vanity web server. It's an SS5/170 running Solaris 8. Slapped two SCSI disk in, an SBUS HME network card ( on ebay for a bucks ) and it works very steady:
Correct. The court has a duty to ensure that until this is resolved, that neither party is unduly damaged in the process. It is not a forgone conclusion that SCO will fail ( or that case would have already been dismissed ), so the judge rightfully must maintain the Status Quo and allow SCO to declare the code is confidential and keep it sealed until or unless a determination is made otherwise.
SCO has won nothing here by allowing it to be kept sealed. As has been pointed out, they still have to put up or shut up with IBM. IBM ( and any outside parties that IBM chooses to enjoin ) will at last get to see the crown jewels ( or more accurately, the steaming turd ) that is the crux of SCO's argument.
How long have we had to wait for the LOTR movies? Surely we can wait a little bit longer before the public humiliation of SCO.
If you do something provocative, don't be too surprised the party you are attempting to provoke does indeed become provoked. He positioned not primarily as a S&R aid, but as a cruise missle.
To address the bus/tank analogy, it's not the engine that makes this like a cruise missile, it's the ability to deliver a payload to a target.
Not paying your taxes is a crime, if you draw the ire of the government, be sure your nose is clean. IE, if you live in a glass house, don't throw stones.
Why is that every argument against what I've said chooses to take a childish hyperbolic extreme interpretation? Let's stay in the realm of reality please. Oh, but it's so much easier to dismiss the points by stretching things so far out of context. Right.
Anyway, you've got your opinions, I've got mine. We'll have to agree to disagree.
"If the illegality of guns had any effect, how do you explain the murder rate in D.C.?"
Because DC is not a very large place, and immediately surrounded by places with less restrictions. One could also go into the socio-economic forces which usually parallel crime rates.
"Guns are very -simple- machines. It's not rocket science, the level of knowledge required to be safe is -very- low. *Far* less than the knowledge required to operate a car safely."
The very simpleness of their lethality is what scares me about them. The simpleness and suddeness.
Back to "You do understand that there have been cases where someone was trying to obtain a firearm, because they had *imminent* need of one, (a stalker, a pissed off ex-boyfriend/husband who wouldn't leave them alone, etc) who were murdered while they were waiting to obtain that firearm?"
Never in any of my comments have I stated that gun control would be a global and complete panacea for anything. There will always be cases you can point to and say "if they only had a gun". And I can point to just as many cases of "our son/daughter would be alive today if only their attacker hadn't had a gun". A related question, what statistics in the cases you site were the victims killed with a gun?
Let's also address your presumption that making guns illegal means that any criminal who wants one will be able to get one, sounding as simple as just walking down to the corner. For a career criminal, sure, they'll find ways, just as you can find ways to get coke, crack, etc. For the average person in fit of rage/anger, if they don't have immediate access to a gun, or had to sit through a 10 day waiting period. You are aruging that every single one of those people will instead commit the same crimes if they didn't have ready access to such a simple and suddenly lethal instrument?
Also address the point I made previously, that I'm not opposed to someone who can pass a stringent qualification ( such as for a concealed carry permit ) from owning a gun. I think that *everyone* who wants to own a gun should go through similar tests to validate their necessity for owning and possesing one.
Yes, there are people in this world, quite a few who I would feel comfortable around carrying a weapon. There are far far more, who can pass the very simple tests to simply own a gun today, who scare the living fuck out of me.
Do we agree that the cold war was a good thing or a bad thing? Mutually Assurred Destruction is an insane policy to follow, whether between world superpowers, or between private citizens. I do not feel that the best path we can choose to take is an escalating arms race with our fellow citizens.
If everybody having guns is supposed to level the playing field between criminals and victims ( an arguement btw, that I do not buy into ), what happens when everyone has a gun, and criminals move up to more fire power? Will we all be driving armored humvee's with mk-19's on the roof and armored doors and windows, wearing kevlar vests and helmets? What is next?
"However, you *cannot* dismiss that some number of those murders would still be committed with a different implement."
Nope, I never did dismiss it. In fact I explicity acknowledged that this would happen. Did you read my comments?
Also, I'm not screaming that there will be bloodbath, and that civilation will revert back to neanderthalic conditions. So please, spare the hyperbole, and have a real debate sans the strawmen, eh?
We don't allow unliscensed doctors to perform medical procedures. Why should we allow what is in effect unliscensed police aka vigilante justice to be performed? If you want to carry a gun in order to prevent crime ( referring to the argument that no one will want to rob banks if they think that bank customers might be armed ) why not go through a 'deputy certification course'?
I'm not against guns, I'm against Joe Random Public being able to walk into a store and walk out with a gun ( waiting periods and other restrictions kept in mind ). Why is it easier in our society to get permission to own an instrument designed to *take* a life, than to own instruments designed to *save* a life ( as in the case of unliscensed medical practice )?
More to the point, I don't see a problem with concealed weapon permits, as for the most part those are fairly stricly controlled. However, there is a huge disparity between the checks required to get such a permit and to simply own a gun. If every gun owner had to go through the same strict tests as a concealed carry, I'd feel a lot safer than the current state of affairs.
It would make a difference for me. So there is a factor of at least one person who would not.
BTW, I've served in the US military, and am familiar with how to use weapons and have respect for them. I do *not* think that as a civilian I need to have or should have the ability to have access to the same weapons. Those weapons used exist for the sole purpose of taking lives. Arguments regarding "oh but I want to shoot targets, clay pigeons, etc." don't explain why you need to be able to carry a weapon around on your person at all times ( unless you are expecting clay pigeons to fall from the sky ). If you want to shoot at a range, leave the weapon at the range.
Look at a lot of european countries and their gun laws. Some are more strict, some are less strict. And both have higher and lower homicide/crime rates. No, it's not conclusive that higher gun ownership prevents crime, nor is it conclusive the other way. Both sides can find studies or data to back up their point.:)
I'm going to posit that a non-zero number of 'crimes of passion' would be prevented if the attacker had only a kitchen knife, instead of a handgun.
It requires a lot more effort to kill someone with a knife that with a handgun. If it requires more effort, fewer people are likely to do it.
Now let's avoid the circular argument about banning every conceivable implement that could be used to kill someone. Kitchen knives have a primary use in the kitchen as a cooking utensil. Handguns do not. If you can't see the difference there, then arguing with you further is pointless.
"Your desire is immaterial. A determined attacker can obtain any sort of distance weapon regardless of whether it is illegal. You are desiring a level of security where there can be none."
That's the point, a determined attacker, not Joe Pissed-Off who happens to have a.45 in his glove box. I have *NEVER* stated that banning guns would stop a determined attacker.
Regarding the.50 cal. I'm not asking for physics to change. Simply responding to the position that I need to take the appropriate steps to protect myself or it's my own fault for getting shot. My question was what steps the previous poster would suggest.
Regarding the DC sniper victims, please answer the following: If they had concealed carry permits and were all armed with handguns, how would that have prevented any of them from being killed vs. the killer not being able to easily procure a bushmaster? Which would have been more effective at preventing those deaths?
( Also note I am *not* saying that nobody will ever get their hands on a weapon, but that the ease with which it can be done will be greatly reduced ).
A military overthrow would also only be needed if the political system has otherwise completely broken down ( IE, elections are ceased and we fall under rule of a dictator ).
The day elections are cancelled, we begin to put our knowledge of how to build weapons to good use. Until then, the harm caused by having them in our midst is a pretty high price to pay for possible eventuality that one day we might need to overthrow our government. I'm not convinced that price is worth paying.
Back to the overthrow theory. Our goverment has nukes. If they are really going to turn so bad that civilians need to rise up against them because things have gotten so bad, do we really think they wouldn't use WMD ( be they Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical ) against the civilian population?
So rather than attack the bad example, address the real question. Replace 'cyaniide' with 'aerosolized anthrax'. Cyanide happened to be the first fatal substance that popped into my head. I fully admit that for cyanide there are legitimate uses, as you point out in various industries.
You also mention that 'with effort' you could make it into a weapon. I'm not suggesting that we ban all possible precursors to every possible lethal substance. Rather that if you *have* converted it to a 'weapon', as you put it, that you have crossed the line between 'theoretical knowledge' to 'imminent threat'.
The rest of your points are very well put. The violence and speed with which murders can be comitted with guns are what bothers me the most about them. I never argued nor do I think that eliminating guns from society will prevent every murder. Simply that we will remove a major factor in the 'crimes of passion or opportunity'.
Uhh, hopefully I'm mistaken, but are you actually arguing that you have a right to posses and keep in your home bricks of C4?
Who do I think I am? I think I am a person who would like to be safe in my home, knowing that if you want to inflict harm upon me, you'll have to come up to me in person and deal with me. No cowardly standoff attack. I can defend myself just fine face to face, hand to hand.
The argument you are espousing is that everybody needs to walk around armed to the teeth. BTW, how does one protect against a.50 cal projectile? What should the DC Sniper victims have done differently since they obviously failed in protecting themselves properly from random sniper attacks? ( and yes, I know the DC sniper used a.223 not a.50, those are two separate questions )
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Hmmm... sounds like I've read about this somewhere....
Why not do something active?
Why not get out and explore the country that you are in with your wife and kids?
So, you use Solaris? Me too. And looking at alternatives now. It's a shame really, as the most stable gear I've run has been Solaris on Sparc.
I hate to break it to you, but snow in Illinois and Colorado contain the same amount of water.
Except that in a 5 light cluster, the bottom lights are always the TURN ARROWS. Green Light is always the 3rd from the top.
And even if it is green it does not mean you are clear to plow through with reckless abandon. Green means that you are clear to proceed through the intersection as long as it is clear of obstructions ( like other cars, pedestrians, etc. ).
The ones you see around Denver *are* designed differently.
The shield around the lights is open on the top, so that it funnels wind downwards and blows the snow off of the light. The ones in Illinois are not. The Colorado shields cost ~$30.
This isn't a case of LEDs being bad. Nor is it "greens run amuck". It's idiots run amuck.
The driver of the truck should be prosecuted. In every light cluster with turn arrows, the turn arrows are on the bottom. They are NOT the solid green. And being from Illinois, in Driver's Ed we were all taught that Green does not mean 'Go'. It means *proceed when the intersection is clear*. So, failure on several points by the driver of the truck.
Illinois needs to install the same snow shields that Colorado and other states have successfully done with their LED light installations.
We'd probably have them already, except we spent all our DOT money on 'Rod R. Blagojevich - Governor' signs.
I thought of the same thing when I read the article. "Gee, that sounds like the miniaturized nuclear devices the Foundation created!". Science Fiction again becoming science reality. Cool.
Latency in this application will kill your sound quality far more than a few dropped packets. Optimally you'll want to be under 300ms for things to be manageable.
The other main thing to look for is a CODEC you can use with your chosen provider that uses as little bandwidth as possible and supports loss concealment. You need to worry about those two factors long before QOS becomes relevant to the equation.
Delays? Not really.
Dropouts? I get dropped more often by my cell provider than my VOIP provider. And yes, this includes standing still while on cell and having call dropped.
911? The industry is still figuring out how to support this properly. Some carriers sort of fake it today, but nobody really supports it "natively". This should change in the next 6 months as the 911 standard/method for VOIP carriers is being finalized in the next few months.
Power? I've got my cable modem and VOIP adapter on a UPS, so not much happens to me. Assuming that your DSL/Cable is still up in a power outage of course. If your net connection goes down, your phone goes down, might be power, might be your provider, might be the lawnmower.
For instance, VoiceEclipse has a $12.95 Plan for 500 minutes. Additional minutes are still only 3.5 cents per minute.
This is the plan I've got at home. Cut my bill from SBC in half.
Just finished reading this a short while ago. Seems suddenly appropriate material.
Kinda fearful, actually.
It *is* worth standing up for what is right, no matter the cost.
And even the SS5 is still serviceable as a basic system. I've got one that I use for personal devel work, code wrangling, cvs, mysql database, vanity web server. It's an SS5/170 running Solaris 8. Slapped two SCSI disk in, an SBUS HME network card ( on ebay for a bucks ) and it works very steady:
SunOS core 5.8 Generic_108528-20 sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-5
12:01pm up 89 day(s), 36 min(s), 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.02
Sun hardware just runs and runs and runs. Find me a PC built the same time as my little SS5 that is still running :)
I think I'll vote for the "Cowboy Neal made me do it!" option.
SCO has won nothing here by allowing it to be kept sealed. As has been pointed out, they still have to put up or shut up with IBM. IBM ( and any outside parties that IBM chooses to enjoin ) will at last get to see the crown jewels ( or more accurately, the steaming turd ) that is the crux of SCO's argument.
How long have we had to wait for the LOTR movies? Surely we can wait a little bit longer before the public humiliation of SCO.
Not paying your taxes is a crime, if you draw the ire of the government, be sure your nose is clean. IE, if you live in a glass house, don't throw stones.
Why is that every argument against what I've said chooses to take a childish hyperbolic extreme interpretation? Let's stay in the realm of reality please. Oh, but it's so much easier to dismiss the points by stretching things so far out of context. Right.
Anyway, you've got your opinions, I've got mine. We'll have to agree to disagree.
Because DC is not a very large place, and immediately surrounded by places with less restrictions. One could also go into the socio-economic forces which usually parallel crime rates.
"Guns are very -simple- machines. It's not rocket science, the level of knowledge required to be safe is -very- low. *Far* less than the knowledge required to operate a car safely."
The very simpleness of their lethality is what scares me about them. The simpleness and suddeness.
Back to "You do understand that there have been cases where someone was trying to obtain a firearm, because they had *imminent* need of one, (a stalker, a pissed off ex-boyfriend/husband who wouldn't leave them alone, etc) who were murdered while they were waiting to obtain that firearm?"
Never in any of my comments have I stated that gun control would be a global and complete panacea for anything. There will always be cases you can point to and say "if they only had a gun". And I can point to just as many cases of "our son/daughter would be alive today if only their attacker hadn't had a gun". A related question, what statistics in the cases you site were the victims killed with a gun?
Let's also address your presumption that making guns illegal means that any criminal who wants one will be able to get one, sounding as simple as just walking down to the corner. For a career criminal, sure, they'll find ways, just as you can find ways to get coke, crack, etc. For the average person in fit of rage/anger, if they don't have immediate access to a gun, or had to sit through a 10 day waiting period. You are aruging that every single one of those people will instead commit the same crimes if they didn't have ready access to such a simple and suddenly lethal instrument?
Also address the point I made previously, that I'm not opposed to someone who can pass a stringent qualification ( such as for a concealed carry permit ) from owning a gun. I think that *everyone* who wants to own a gun should go through similar tests to validate their necessity for owning and possesing one.
Yes, there are people in this world, quite a few who I would feel comfortable around carrying a weapon. There are far far more, who can pass the very simple tests to simply own a gun today, who scare the living fuck out of me.
Do we agree that the cold war was a good thing or a bad thing? Mutually Assurred Destruction is an insane policy to follow, whether between world superpowers, or between private citizens. I do not feel that the best path we can choose to take is an escalating arms race with our fellow citizens.
If everybody having guns is supposed to level the playing field between criminals and victims ( an arguement btw, that I do not buy into ), what happens when everyone has a gun, and criminals move up to more fire power? Will we all be driving armored humvee's with mk-19's on the roof and armored doors and windows, wearing kevlar vests and helmets? What is next?
Nope, I never did dismiss it. In fact I explicity acknowledged that this would happen. Did you read my comments?
Also, I'm not screaming that there will be bloodbath, and that civilation will revert back to neanderthalic conditions. So please, spare the hyperbole, and have a real debate sans the strawmen, eh?
We don't allow unliscensed doctors to perform medical procedures. Why should we allow what is in effect unliscensed police aka vigilante justice to be performed? If you want to carry a gun in order to prevent crime ( referring to the argument that no one will want to rob banks if they think that bank customers might be armed ) why not go through a 'deputy certification course'?
I'm not against guns, I'm against Joe Random Public being able to walk into a store and walk out with a gun ( waiting periods and other restrictions kept in mind ). Why is it easier in our society to get permission to own an instrument designed to *take* a life, than to own instruments designed to *save* a life ( as in the case of unliscensed medical practice )?
More to the point, I don't see a problem with concealed weapon permits, as for the most part those are fairly stricly controlled. However, there is a huge disparity between the checks required to get such a permit and to simply own a gun. If every gun owner had to go through the same strict tests as a concealed carry, I'd feel a lot safer than the current state of affairs.
BTW, I've served in the US military, and am familiar with how to use weapons and have respect for them. I do *not* think that as a civilian I need to have or should have the ability to have access to the same weapons. Those weapons used exist for the sole purpose of taking lives. Arguments regarding "oh but I want to shoot targets, clay pigeons, etc." don't explain why you need to be able to carry a weapon around on your person at all times ( unless you are expecting clay pigeons to fall from the sky ). If you want to shoot at a range, leave the weapon at the range.
Look at a lot of european countries and their gun laws. Some are more strict, some are less strict. And both have higher and lower homicide/crime rates. No, it's not conclusive that higher gun ownership prevents crime, nor is it conclusive the other way. Both sides can find studies or data to back up their point. :)
I'm going to posit that a non-zero number of 'crimes of passion' would be prevented if the attacker had only a kitchen knife, instead of a handgun.
It requires a lot more effort to kill someone with a knife that with a handgun. If it requires more effort, fewer people are likely to do it.
Now let's avoid the circular argument about banning every conceivable implement that could be used to kill someone. Kitchen knives have a primary use in the kitchen as a cooking utensil. Handguns do not. If you can't see the difference there, then arguing with you further is pointless.
That's the point, a determined attacker, not Joe Pissed-Off who happens to have a .45 in his glove box. I have *NEVER* stated that banning guns would stop a determined attacker.
Regarding the .50 cal. I'm not asking for physics to change. Simply responding to the position that I need to take the appropriate steps to protect myself or it's my own fault for getting shot. My question was what steps the previous poster would suggest.
Regarding the DC sniper victims, please answer the following: If they had concealed carry permits and were all armed with handguns, how would that have prevented any of them from being killed vs. the killer not being able to easily procure a bushmaster? Which would have been more effective at preventing those deaths?
( Also note I am *not* saying that nobody will ever get their hands on a weapon, but that the ease with which it can be done will be greatly reduced ).
A military overthrow would also only be needed if the political system has otherwise completely broken down ( IE, elections are ceased and we fall under rule of a dictator ).
The day elections are cancelled, we begin to put our knowledge of how to build weapons to good use. Until then, the harm caused by having them in our midst is a pretty high price to pay for possible eventuality that one day we might need to overthrow our government. I'm not convinced that price is worth paying.
Back to the overthrow theory. Our goverment has nukes. If they are really going to turn so bad that civilians need to rise up against them because things have gotten so bad, do we really think they wouldn't use WMD ( be they Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical ) against the civilian population?
You also mention that 'with effort' you could make it into a weapon. I'm not suggesting that we ban all possible precursors to every possible lethal substance. Rather that if you *have* converted it to a 'weapon', as you put it, that you have crossed the line between 'theoretical knowledge' to 'imminent threat'.
The rest of your points are very well put. The violence and speed with which murders can be comitted with guns are what bothers me the most about them. I never argued nor do I think that eliminating guns from society will prevent every murder. Simply that we will remove a major factor in the 'crimes of passion or opportunity'.
Who do I think I am? I think I am a person who would like to be safe in my home, knowing that if you want to inflict harm upon me, you'll have to come up to me in person and deal with me. No cowardly standoff attack. I can defend myself just fine face to face, hand to hand.
The argument you are espousing is that everybody needs to walk around armed to the teeth. BTW, how does one protect against a .50 cal projectile? What should the DC Sniper victims have done differently since they obviously failed in protecting themselves properly from random sniper attacks? ( and yes, I know the DC sniper used a .223 not a .50, those are two separate questions )
Or perhaps you need to make holes appear in the paper faster, so a full auto ar-15 is needed.
Or maybe a hole punch just isn't feasible. :)