That's about the size of it. It's slashdot, so they must maintain their rabidly anti-UK stance no matter what.
It's like they hate us because we're free, or because we keep pulling them out of the shit when they get embroiled in wars the US can't fight on their own, or something.
Only if you want off-air or live streaming. The BBC provides about a dozen advert-free channels of high-quality programming, and dozens of ad-free radio stations..
Compare this with the state of TV in the US, where you pay about the same amount of money (or more, depending on your cable or satellite provider) to watch ten minutes of adverts with two minutes of programme in between.
Anything that takes your hands off the controls of the vehicle makes your driving more dangerous. Using a hand-held mobile phone is more dangerous, because you have one hand off the controls for an extended period of time, and people tend to stop looking out the sides of the vehicle and in the mirrors when they're on the phone.
I have a handsfree phone kit in my van, and I also have a handsfree radio setup - there's a boom microphone mounted on the sun visor and a remote push-to-talk button on the gearstick. I still think it's safer to avoid using either when traffic conditions get a bit tricky.
Incidentally, people in the US seem to make a lot of noise about automatic gearboxes being safer because the driver is not "distracted" by changing gear. It's pretty simple - if you have to think consciously about changing gear after your second or third driving lesson, you lack the mental capacity to drive a car.
The US spends twice as much as a percentage of GDP on healthcare as the UK, but Americans have on average a two year shorter lifespan than people from the UK.
"The US" isn't spending a bent penny to keep anyone alive. The patient - or if they're lucky, their insurance company - is paying to keep them alive, and they're only doing it because the doctors are required to so the hospital can squeeze a few more dollars out.
The number of hams who contribute to actual research and development of radio today is miniscule.
... and this is a Bad Thing.
The people who do emcomm aren't contributing a damn thing. The reason we have amateur bands is *not* because of emcomm, but because there aren't really any great commercial uses for HF, or even VHF. In most of the world, 70cm is second-user shared with military comms.
All that emcomm does is line the pockets of equipment manufacturers, who can sell the latests greatest box of shiny crap to the CBers.
No, you're missing the point entirely. Did I say *anything* about voting stuff up?
It would give a mechanism to see how many people agree or disagree with a post, without the flood of useless "lol me too!11!!!1!!!!!1" AOLer posts that plague slashdot.
Everyone gets excited about using the latest, greatest shiny expensive box to buy so they can play at being police dispatchers, and nobody actually does any radio.
Keep emcomm off the amateur bands. Let them stick to the frequencies allocated to blue-light services, or mobile phones if necessary.
Unfortunately because catering is now farmed out to external suppliers, the food in NHS hospitals is now just about as bad as it is in private hospitals.
The *real* problem here is that these companies cannot grasp the idea that diet is *extremely important* to a patient's recovery, and quite often someone needs to eat very specific things at very specific times that don't line up with the almighty schedule. Once again, profit is put before patient care.
Right, but you pay a *fortune* for it. Most people in the US simply cannot afford healthcare, and if they have something happen to them they will be in debt for the rest of their lives.
It's the same in any country with socialised healthcare though - if there are private facilities available, there's nothing to stop you paying to use them.
Here in the UK, you can use the NHS, or if you'd prefer to have dirty hospitals, bad food, the bare minimum of treatment and staff who cannot speak English and a view over the executive staff car park full of new Jaguars and Mercs, you could go private.
Making a profit is fundamentally incompatible with good healthcare. Something has to give.
I've found that the single-spoke steering wheel on my CX (looks like this, from this article) make a perfect laptop stand. Since the steering wheel is practically locked solid above 70mph it doesn't even slide about when you're driving on the motorway.
I wonder how different roads will affect it? Much of my driving is done on twisty country roads with speeds varying from 30mph to 60mph. I'm guessing the app won't say much about things like my road position or anticipation. If I drive on the motorway it's just a case of stick it in 6th and rumble along at 70mph and 2200rpm in a straightish line for the day, with breaks every two hours. I could be sitting there reading a book or posting on slashdot - whoops, had to change lanes for that lorry there - and thus driving really quite dangerously, but with no real indication of "erratic" driving.
Drive sensibly while you're running the app, drive like a nutter when you're not.
On a more serious note, if this ran *all the time* then it may provide useful metrics on driver ability without the privacy concerns of GPS tracking. Yes, you could *theoretically* estimate someone's position from the accelerometer data - that is, after all, how Intertial Navigation Systems work - but it wouldn't be very accurate. You could estimate someone's position from cell handoff too, if you included that in the data, but then you'd have to be *trying* to be creepy;-)
One of the companies I work with installs GPS trackers in vehicles for things like lorries, heavy plant and such. Their system has an option for an accelerometer that will beep if the drivier is accelerating too quickly, and thus wasting a lot of fuel. One biggish fleet has apparently saved about 1 million Euros on diesel alone using this, never mind tyres and repairs.
It's considerably less hassle than ANPR, because ANPR only tells you the car's registration number. Reading the article, this won't hold the registration (which you probably don't care about) but will hold the VIN and a certain amount of technical data. If you used ANPR you'd have to pull all that down from a database somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
That's about the size of it. It's slashdot, so they must maintain their rabidly anti-UK stance no matter what.
It's like they hate us because we're free, or because we keep pulling them out of the shit when they get embroiled in wars the US can't fight on their own, or something.
Only if you want off-air or live streaming. The BBC provides about a dozen advert-free channels of high-quality programming, and dozens of ad-free radio stations..
Compare this with the state of TV in the US, where you pay about the same amount of money (or more, depending on your cable or satellite provider) to watch ten minutes of adverts with two minutes of programme in between.
I find when I'm driving an automatic I end up changing gear manually just as often as when I'm driving a car with a manual box *anyway*.
Automatic gearboxes can only change up or down based on speed. They can't see hills or bends.
Wow, missing the point *and* an ad-hom!
Anything that takes your hands off the controls of the vehicle makes your driving more dangerous. Using a hand-held mobile phone is more dangerous, because you have one hand off the controls for an extended period of time, and people tend to stop looking out the sides of the vehicle and in the mirrors when they're on the phone.
I have a handsfree phone kit in my van, and I also have a handsfree radio setup - there's a boom microphone mounted on the sun visor and a remote push-to-talk button on the gearstick. I still think it's safer to avoid using either when traffic conditions get a bit tricky.
Incidentally, people in the US seem to make a lot of noise about automatic gearboxes being safer because the driver is not "distracted" by changing gear. It's pretty simple - if you have to think consciously about changing gear after your second or third driving lesson, you lack the mental capacity to drive a car.
... and continue as normal.
Give them enough time to leave the USB stick with the case notes in a pub, and forget all about it.
And little to keep you from falling into the props.
Because of course although the designers can figure out how to make a hover bike, they haven't heard of wire mesh yet...
Let's see yours, then.
(insert Santayana quote here)
The US spends twice as much as a percentage of GDP on healthcare as the UK, but Americans have on average a two year shorter lifespan than people from the UK.
How's all that spending working out for you guys?
"The US" isn't spending a bent penny to keep anyone alive. The patient - or if they're lucky, their insurance company - is paying to keep them alive, and they're only doing it because the doctors are required to so the hospital can squeeze a few more dollars out.
The number of hams who contribute to actual research and development of radio today is miniscule.
... and this is a Bad Thing.
The people who do emcomm aren't contributing a damn thing. The reason we have amateur bands is *not* because of emcomm, but because there aren't really any great commercial uses for HF, or even VHF. In most of the world, 70cm is second-user shared with military comms.
All that emcomm does is line the pockets of equipment manufacturers, who can sell the latests greatest box of shiny crap to the CBers.
No, you're missing the point entirely. Did I say *anything* about voting stuff up?
It would give a mechanism to see how many people agree or disagree with a post, without the flood of useless "lol me too!11!!!1!!!!!1" AOLer posts that plague slashdot.
Everyone gets excited about using the latest, greatest shiny expensive box to buy so they can play at being police dispatchers, and nobody actually does any radio.
Keep emcomm off the amateur bands. Let them stick to the frequencies allocated to blue-light services, or mobile phones if necessary.
Unfortunately because catering is now farmed out to external suppliers, the food in NHS hospitals is now just about as bad as it is in private hospitals.
The *real* problem here is that these companies cannot grasp the idea that diet is *extremely important* to a patient's recovery, and quite often someone needs to eat very specific things at very specific times that don't line up with the almighty schedule. Once again, profit is put before patient care.
Right, but you pay a *fortune* for it. Most people in the US simply cannot afford healthcare, and if they have something happen to them they will be in debt for the rest of their lives.
It's the same in any country with socialised healthcare though - if there are private facilities available, there's nothing to stop you paying to use them.
Here in the UK, you can use the NHS, or if you'd prefer to have dirty hospitals, bad food, the bare minimum of treatment and staff who cannot speak English and a view over the executive staff car park full of new Jaguars and Mercs, you could go private.
Making a profit is fundamentally incompatible with good healthcare. Something has to give.
You get used to facebook having a "Like" button. Slashdot needs one, for people who don't currently have mod points to go "+1 Funny"
I've found that the single-spoke steering wheel on my CX (looks like this, from this article) make a perfect laptop stand. Since the steering wheel is practically locked solid above 70mph it doesn't even slide about when you're driving on the motorway.
I don't know where you are, but high school goes up to age 18 here if you stay on until final year - you can leave at 16 if you want, and some do.
At 16, you are legally not a child.
I wonder how different roads will affect it? Much of my driving is done on twisty country roads with speeds varying from 30mph to 60mph. I'm guessing the app won't say much about things like my road position or anticipation. If I drive on the motorway it's just a case of stick it in 6th and rumble along at 70mph and 2200rpm in a straightish line for the day, with breaks every two hours. I could be sitting there reading a book or posting on slashdot - whoops, had to change lanes for that lorry there - and thus driving really quite dangerously, but with no real indication of "erratic" driving.
Drive sensibly while you're running the app, drive like a nutter when you're not.
On a more serious note, if this ran *all the time* then it may provide useful metrics on driver ability without the privacy concerns of GPS tracking. Yes, you could *theoretically* estimate someone's position from the accelerometer data - that is, after all, how Intertial Navigation Systems work - but it wouldn't be very accurate. You could estimate someone's position from cell handoff too, if you included that in the data, but then you'd have to be *trying* to be creepy ;-)
One of the companies I work with installs GPS trackers in vehicles for things like lorries, heavy plant and such. Their system has an option for an accelerometer that will beep if the drivier is accelerating too quickly, and thus wasting a lot of fuel. One biggish fleet has apparently saved about 1 million Euros on diesel alone using this, never mind tyres and repairs.
When you say "your own books", do you mean books you wrote yourself, that you hold copyright on?
This sounds like a good story worth an article.
What's a Romney/Ryan?
It's considerably less hassle than ANPR, because ANPR only tells you the car's registration number. Reading the article, this won't hold the registration (which you probably don't care about) but will hold the VIN and a certain amount of technical data. If you used ANPR you'd have to pull all that down from a database somewhere.