Yeah, I thought about bike couriers before I wrote that. Their range is limited (it doesn't have to be -- ten miles is do-able -- but it becomes a logistic problem to do it profitably), and it only works in the densest of cities.
For that to work in Manhattan, they'd have to also have a warehouse in Manhattan. And then rent would ridiculous.:)
I'm thinking that octocopter delivery would be better for Columbus, Ohio, than Manhattan: Dense enough to be profitable, and just sprawling enough that folks might actually have a front yard to call their own for a drop-zone.
If it were available, I'd use it on job sites where I find myself screwed (I once drove 4 hours total to fetch a singular hand-tool that I neglected to bring with me, but which I couldn't get from local bricks-and-mortar), or when I need a handful of cat5 jacks, or a POE injector, or.....
(As an aside, I'm amused that it is only $10 for 10 blocks: Do you mean to say that I can call a hardware store, put some goods on my account and arrange to have them delivered by bike courier at the rate you specify? Or takeout food? It sounds ridiculously cheap for a place as expensive as Manhattan. I assume tips are expected.)
Looking further out, I'd be happy with later-in-the-day deliveries, too: I can imagine placing an order, having it put onto a truck or a van, and having it driven to within 10 miles of my house sometime in the next few hours (along with lots of other orders).
That actually might be a good way to do it: Once the truck launches a swam of octocopters, the driver can just continue down the highway for the next launch, and wait for the others to come back. (That math, unlike bike couriers @ 10 mile radius, is easy to sort: There's far less human aspect to it.)
Or, if the 'copters are cheap enough, they could be loaded and launched from the truck, and the truck can carry on. The octocopters could then deliver their package and seek shelter (and charging) at a designated place, and intercept the truck the next time it is parked within range for the return trip.
Or, not even bother with the return trip: Just have the copters swap the truck when it is in range, and await loading. And then return to their designated shelter for the next round after the delivery is done.
Or even heavy-lifters moving more than one package at a time from the truck to the shelter, whereupon the swarm of local delivery octocopters delivers the packages. (This saves driver time.)
That all said and reconsidered: Maybe it could work in Manhattan. Or even small-town Ohio (if said small town is close to a major highway). Rooftop space and electricity are universally pretty cheap almost anywhere, for this amount of space and electricity.
It's interesting stuff, and most people can't identify it as an item unless they're listening properly.
The same thing happens when amplifying live performances when there isn't much around for sound to bounce off of.
The way I mix in an open field full of people is completely different from what I do in a crowded bar. In the former case, I need to add reverb because otherwise the whole thing sounds unnatural. In the later case, I can hear the room around me, and very seldom apply any additional delay-based effects. Instead, I can modulate the natural reverberation of the room with careful EQ adjustments.
IIRC, Pink Floyd had an interesting approach to this in some of their live recordings: Point microphones at stage from the FOH mix position (using some standard stereo mic technique) and...done. The FOH mix was ridiculously good, the equipment was ridiculously good, and the engineer was listening to the whole room when he mixed. The microphones just recorded what the room sounded like. I can't imagine that very much polish was required on the resultant 2-track.
This delivery system does not need to be cost-competitive with UPS ground or the Postal Service... it needs to be competitive with FedEx next day service.
It competes with none of these.
In the fanciful future wherein Amazon has a warehouse within 10 miles of actual people, the octocopter competes with a courier, or a local delivery driver.
There's a few of those pico/nano/whatever cells around. I don't have to look up to see them: I see them just fine when I'm climbing "large" towers. I also see them when I'm watching the output of a Yagi on a spectrum analyzer.
They say "We strongly recommend you don't these things [list of things]. It might break stuff. And you know, IF it breaks stuff, we're not going to fix it."
But what it DOES NOT say is "hey, idiot: if you put cyanogenmod on your phone, your warranty is GONE."
Go look at one sometime: If the tower shelter is old and small (think AMPS days), there's likely a generator on a concrete pad just outside.
If the tower shelter is larger (as they tend to be these days), chances are that there are one or more exhaust pipes exiting the building. (Tip: The exhaust pipes are at the opposite end of the building from the entrance for the antenna feedlines.)
Does it exist, or are we all just victims of our own selfish actions at every step of every day?
Because on some minute scale: When that old fucker showed up on my porch, I didn't have free will anymore. I had to decide to do *something*. (Even deciding to ignore his knocks would have been a selfish decision. Reduced to the absurd, even preemptively deafening myself with an icepick in anticipation of his knock would have been a selfish decision.)
Is it really the case that there is no such thing as a selfless action?
Is changing lanes on the highway to let someone else merge more easily absolutely, in every instance, a selfish act?
I committed a helpful action to get the old fucker off my porch.
The alternatives:
1. Leaving the old fucker on my porch and slamming the door in his face. 2. Calling the cops if he kept making a pest of himself. 3. Shooting him where he stood. (Which, by the letter of law, I can do in my state...though the law is currently being interpreted by the courts.)
All of these things are selfish things.
So following your logic, it seems that I had no choice in the matter that was not rooted in selfishness. And, by extension, I was devoid of free will at that time.
Philosophy is an abstract concept created by man in an attempt to solve all arguments before they ever have an opportunity to occur.
During the power outage following the derecho in 2012, a creepy old guy came knocking on my door. He had a tree fall on his power line a block or two away, making a mess out of the meter base on his house and so on, and was asking for my help getting it put back together.
I resisted strongly, but eventually relented: He wasn't taking no for an answer, and saying "Ok, I'll check it out," was the only way I was going to get that old fucker off of my porch.
Two trips to the store later (electrical projects take two trips; plumbing takes three), I had his house ready for the power company to hook back up whenever they'd get around to it.
I don't like the old guy. He smells funny, his house smells funnier, and he's hard to look at, and hard to talk to. He's pushy, needy, and demanding. I find his company to be unpleasant.
And I don't enjoy this sort of work. I can do it, and I know how to do it properly, but I've generally got better things to do.
What did I get out of the project? I lost an evening of doing what I wanted to be doing and spent it helping someone else because they needed it. I also got a twenty dollar bill that I tried to refuse to take, but when he shoved it in my pocket I realized that if I didn't take his money, he was going to follow me home and try even harder to pay me, and taking his money was the quickest way to get away from that person.
I also got this cool story (bro) about altruism. Which, you know, I wasn't looking for either.
Satisfaction? Nope, not really. Didn't want it, didn't get it.
At this point a candid reader might be thinking "Why do you help people, then, if you don't even like doing it?"
Because they're human. End of story.
Would I do it again? Yep. In fact, about a year later another bad wind storm knocked another part of a tree into that same power line: Rinse and repeat.
It is worth noting at this point that, much to the disdain of the other posters who responded: A bottle opener can be very useful for things other than opening bottles. It is not a single-task implement.
My own bottle opener is made by Bic in France.
It can open bottles just fine.
It can warm hands.
It can shrink shrink tubing.
It can light tobacco or other smoking medium.
It can start fires, using its own built-in ignition source and integral fuel supply.
It can also be a source of butane (which can be a very useful solvent).
It can be used as a high-temperature ignition source, using only its integral flint and steel.
Even the metallic air-intake vents on my Bic bottle opener can useful as a rasp for gently filing down sharp objects or fingernails, or deburring most any manner of obtuse thing that has burrs.
And when it ceases to be useful for all of these functions (all tools eventually wear out), it still has a spring that can be used for some project or other.
Nay, I say to the naysayers: A bottle opener (especially a Bic bottle opener) is a very fine tool, indeed.
(Give me a Bic bottle opener, a P38, a good folding knife, and a spork, and I shall rule the Earth.)
I work with cops, and their administrators (The Sheriff, The Chief, The Captain, etc), quite a lot since I work on dispatch consoles and radios and cruisers and fire engines and everything that goes along with all of that.
Most of our volunteer stations around here are minimal: Usually a bigger kitchen than one might expect, a small watch room, and a combination meeting/day room that really isn't a very fun place to relax. (Paid stations with full-time staff are very different, but we don't yet have any combination paid/volunteer stations around here).
So, maybe due to circumstances of the stations around here, I don't see cops hanging out at fire houses much.
What I do see: When I have to spend quality time in dispatch (any full-time dispatch center) solving some problem or other, or just chilling waiting to for an intermittent problem to either show up or not show up, there's often a man with a gun doing nothing but watching TV and chatting with dispatchers.
These are all small-ish police/sheriff departments, similar (I think) to what you're complaining about. In some departments, it is easy to note the box of un-served warrants just sitting there doing nothing.....
But it's the same with dispatchers, who browse Facebook for hours on end when they've got a binder full of already-assigned busywork for their long periods of interminable downtime.
And whenever present a problem that is actually caused by bored dispatchers, the administrator is all "They shouldn't ever be bored!"
And any other day, there I am, in dispatch, doing what I do. And there's said-administrator and between two and four bored dispatchers, and maybe a cop or two, maybe even a sergeant of a Chief or the Sheriff. The Facebooks are being browsed, Ebay is being perused, Youtube is being laughed at, cable TV is being watched......
If that's not clear, allow me to be concise: The administrators say one thing ("they should always be busy!") while condoning another thing entirely.
At one point in one particular dispatch center, they'd even taken to watching movies with a portable copy of VLC that was happy to run on an XP guest account, on the 50" plasma monitor that I installed for security cameras.
But, back to my original premise: Is it really so different in this profession than any other?
For my own personal anecdote: I considered myself a pretty good employee when there were things to do when I worked as a full-time hourly IT goon, in that I didn't have a TV in my office (unlike other folks in the company) and I didn't spend a few hours each day gossiping noisily with those at the desks around me.
But I did spend a substantial amount of time reading Slashdot when there weren't things that needed done immediately, scavenging old hardware to experiment with in ways that were usually only useful to me, and generally being non-productive. So, *shrug*: I can't say that I was any better than a cop or a dispatcher when it came to keeping busy: It is the bane of the hourly employee to be inherently more lazy than could ever be considered desirable.
Can you honestly say that you have never been so-afflicted? That you've never tried to do as little as possible just so you can go home at the end of the day, not be totally drained, and still get your usual paycheck?
I can say that I am more productive in a paid hour than I used to be, because I employ myself these days and when I'm working on a thing, I want to get that thing -done- so I can relax at home.
But at this point, I'm being paid multiples more per hour of work, which is itself its own brand of fucked-upedness: I now get to slack most of the time, since it is -my- time. I set my own schedule, or (typically) none at all.
I never have to hold a desk down in order to make money, so I don't ever have to come up creative with ways to pass time while at work, or intentionally slack just to "finish out my day" at a particular time an
Just anecdotal, but when I was a volunteer firefighter the local police had the combination to the fire stations so they could go in, use the bathroom, and catch up on paperwork. So very often I'd find a cop sitting in the day room, feet up on the coffee table, soda in one hand TV remote in the other and no paperwork in sight. Every time I would think "I pay this guy's salary with my tax dollars."
Because cops, unlike damn near every other group of professional individuals, cannot ever take a break during their shift.
Right?
My own anecdotes:
I have a cow-orker who is lazy, takes enough smoke breaks to go through most of a pack during his never-more-than-8-hour day, and is of mind to time his every action on a jobsite so that he can "finish out his day" at a time and place that best suits him and his paycheck. He spends at least an hour of his workday day in the bathroom. Sometimes he goes to the bathroom for several minutes before he leaves for a job, stops for several minutes on the way to a job, and uses the bathroom again once he gets to a job.
He's such a lazy of shit that he doesn't even own a personal vehicle in a small city that is big enough that it absolutely requires one to drive to get anything done: He hauls his family around in his vinyl-covered, logo-encrusted corporate-owned work van on evenings and weekends, running errands, getting groceries, going to church, visiting family, etc.
Meanwhile, I have a friend who is a paramedic EMT for a private company. He works 48 hour shifts, and when he leaves the station for any reason, he takes a squad ("ambulance") with him so that even when he's allegedly enjoying his brief respite of personal time ("lunch"), he can still respond as quickly as possible if the shit hits the fan and more help is needed than is cooling their heels back at the station.
He leaves the squad running in the parking lot, because simply: The squad is -always- either running, or it is on shore power. (In this way, the squad is either ready to go immediately when it is out-and-about, or there is another squad a few steps away in the event that one fails to start at the station.)
The lazy cow-orker has a profound fondness for complaining at great length at just how unprofessional this behavior is, whenever he sees a squad parked at a diner or in the parking lot of a grocery store. "If he's on the clock, he should be working, at the station. And he shouldn't drive an am-bu-lance around unless he's on a call. It's just unprofessional."
I say to him: "Cow-orker, I see your van parked all over the place when I know you're not working, and you take half a day of breaks every day. What makes you so special, and them so indentured? And wouldn't you like more potential squads available in town, than fewer squads?"
He doesn't get it. I'm not sure you get it, either.
Meh, I say. Programmers, sysadmins, IT folk, telco guys, carpenters, plumbers, cops, paramedics, astronauts, soldiers, whatever: We're all human. And we all need some personal time in the course of a busy work day, else our work unilaterally fucking sucks.
Meanwhile, most cops are union. The singular union contract I've ever had had specified that I get two paid, uninterrupted 15-minute breaks and a lunch of at least 30 minutes in an 8-hour day, but I can't imagine it reading much different for any other union...
In rejoinder, so what if a cop uses some of his time in the day room at a fire house? Isn't that what day rooms are for? (Hell, -I've- done this, and I'm not a cop, a paramedic, or a fireman. I just happened to be working at a firehouse, and I just happened to think it was the right time to take a load off of my feet for a short bit. So I put my 50 cents into the coffee can in the fridge, grabbed a Coke, and found a couch to relax in and maybe I even did *gasp* put my feet up on a well-worn coffee table. After I was done with my break, I went back to work. *shrug*)
I have medication and therapy. I've them for a very long time.
But unless you've spent considerable time in the time-out corner when 5, or an unforeseen month in solitary as an adult, I'm not sure that you have a leg to stand on when telling others who have done these things how they should conduct themselves.
I think he was talking more about highways (and said as much), while you're talking about more local roads (and said as much).
Regarding your own commentary: Yes. Timing a red light correctly is a boon for both expediency and economy (unless rushing into a well-timed intersection that just turned green for you results in an accident with cross-traffic chasing a yellow or running a red, in which case all gained efficiency is lost, and St. Peter might be on the horizon).
It saves on braking, it saves on acceleration, and average speed can remain very high indeed, with similar positive results on fuel economy.
But again, I think you two are talking about two completely different things: My reply was referring to his made-up accident data, and you are referring to a mild form of hyper-miling.
Please remember, when timing a red light, that cross traffic might not be paying any attention at all: Perhaps the light was green when they last looked up from their cell phone, and is now red, but now they're T-boning you while you're doing 25-30 and they're driving however fast they're driving.
EVEN IF YOU'RE RIGHT, and the accident is legally not your fault, that can be still construed a dickish move. All legality aside: Every intersection should be approached with caution and care, especially one that just changed states. It's your own life on the line.
(My own scale of efficiency tends to cause me to preclude being in accidents, and not worry so much about how others around me are driving unless I can help them on their way. If they're driving too slow, I pass them when safe. If they're driving too fast, I let them go. Sometimes, when safe, I drive well above the "speed limit"; other times, I'm at it or well below it when the situation dictates. It depends on the conditions.
Whatever the case, I don't keep score: I just drive safely, which includes staying out of other people's way.
You know, if they ever perfect those lead batteries, I think they'd also have the benefit of providing hydrogen as a waste product, which is AWESOME because then we can run our fuel cells with it!
It's win-win-win, baybee! Free energy is like money in the bank!
I remember being 5, and confined to a corner. It wasn't an environment with less stimulation; it was an environment where my thoughts ran rampant and were impossible to quiet. Normally it just made me very, very angry, with a sort of non-directive anger that is very difficult to diffuse.
I remember being angry, in the corner. Sure, it was a relief to get out, but the sense of relief did not cover the negativity associated with it.
I remember being thirty-something, and confined to a solitary jail cell in county. It wasn't an environment with less stimulation; it was an environment where my thoughts ran rampant and were impossible to quiet. Normally it just made me very, very angry, with a sort of non-directive anger that is very difficult to diffuse.
I remember being angry, in the cell. Sure, it was a relief to get out, but the sense of relief did not cover the negativity associated with it.
I'm still angry. About being in the corner when I was 5, and about being in jail 30-ish years later.
I'm afraid that the only positive thing I learned from these experiences is that dinner always happens about the same time each day, and that food is a reasonable cure for anger.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I thought about bike couriers before I wrote that. Their range is limited (it doesn't have to be -- ten miles is do-able -- but it becomes a logistic problem to do it profitably), and it only works in the densest of cities.
For that to work in Manhattan, they'd have to also have a warehouse in Manhattan. And then rent would ridiculous. :)
I'm thinking that octocopter delivery would be better for Columbus, Ohio, than Manhattan: Dense enough to be profitable, and just sprawling enough that folks might actually have a front yard to call their own for a drop-zone.
If it were available, I'd use it on job sites where I find myself screwed (I once drove 4 hours total to fetch a singular hand-tool that I neglected to bring with me, but which I couldn't get from local bricks-and-mortar), or when I need a handful of cat5 jacks, or a POE injector, or.....
(As an aside, I'm amused that it is only $10 for 10 blocks: Do you mean to say that I can call a hardware store, put some goods on my account and arrange to have them delivered by bike courier at the rate you specify? Or takeout food? It sounds ridiculously cheap for a place as expensive as Manhattan. I assume tips are expected.)
Looking further out, I'd be happy with later-in-the-day deliveries, too: I can imagine placing an order, having it put onto a truck or a van, and having it driven to within 10 miles of my house sometime in the next few hours (along with lots of other orders).
That actually might be a good way to do it: Once the truck launches a swam of octocopters, the driver can just continue down the highway for the next launch, and wait for the others to come back. (That math, unlike bike couriers @ 10 mile radius, is easy to sort: There's far less human aspect to it.)
Or, if the 'copters are cheap enough, they could be loaded and launched from the truck, and the truck can carry on. The octocopters could then deliver their package and seek shelter (and charging) at a designated place, and intercept the truck the next time it is parked within range for the return trip.
Or, not even bother with the return trip: Just have the copters swap the truck when it is in range, and await loading. And then return to their designated shelter for the next round after the delivery is done.
Or even heavy-lifters moving more than one package at a time from the truck to the shelter, whereupon the swarm of local delivery octocopters delivers the packages. (This saves driver time.)
That all said and reconsidered: Maybe it could work in Manhattan. Or even small-town Ohio (if said small town is close to a major highway). Rooftop space and electricity are universally pretty cheap almost anywhere, for this amount of space and electricity.
It's interesting stuff, and most people can't identify it as an item unless they're listening properly.
The same thing happens when amplifying live performances when there isn't much around for sound to bounce off of.
The way I mix in an open field full of people is completely different from what I do in a crowded bar. In the former case, I need to add reverb because otherwise the whole thing sounds unnatural. In the later case, I can hear the room around me, and very seldom apply any additional delay-based effects. Instead, I can modulate the natural reverberation of the room with careful EQ adjustments.
IIRC, Pink Floyd had an interesting approach to this in some of their live recordings: Point microphones at stage from the FOH mix position (using some standard stereo mic technique) and...done. The FOH mix was ridiculously good, the equipment was ridiculously good, and the engineer was listening to the whole room when he mixed. The microphones just recorded what the room sounded like. I can't imagine that very much polish was required on the resultant 2-track.
It competes with none of these.
In the fanciful future wherein Amazon has a warehouse within 10 miles of actual people, the octocopter competes with a courier, or a local delivery driver.
There's a few of those pico/nano/whatever cells around. I don't have to look up to see them: I see them just fine when I'm climbing "large" towers. I also see them when I'm watching the output of a Yagi on a spectrum analyzer.
But it's not 80%. Nowhere near.
*sigh*
This, again?
Reading it:
They say "We strongly recommend you don't these things [list of things]. It might break stuff. And you know, IF it breaks stuff, we're not going to fix it."
But what it DOES NOT say is "hey, idiot: if you put cyanogenmod on your phone, your warranty is GONE."
What is this crazy moon-man language?
Most cell phone towers have generators.
Go look at one sometime: If the tower shelter is old and small (think AMPS days), there's likely a generator on a concrete pad just outside.
If the tower shelter is larger (as they tend to be these days), chances are that there are one or more exhaust pipes exiting the building. (Tip: The exhaust pipes are at the opposite end of the building from the entrance for the antenna feedlines.)
Sarcasm aside: The last time I sent a fax, I just plugged my cell phone into my computer with a USB cable, and sent a fax. Worked great.
The ability for a cell phone to act as a fax modem is not at all new.
So, Socrates: Free will.
Does it exist, or are we all just victims of our own selfish actions at every step of every day?
Because on some minute scale: When that old fucker showed up on my porch, I didn't have free will anymore. I had to decide to do *something*. (Even deciding to ignore his knocks would have been a selfish decision. Reduced to the absurd, even preemptively deafening myself with an icepick in anticipation of his knock would have been a selfish decision.)
Is it really the case that there is no such thing as a selfless action?
Is changing lanes on the highway to let someone else merge more easily absolutely, in every instance, a selfish act?
I think I agree with you, but I might be missing the point.
Was I missing a "because, Free Market" in there, or "because, Corruption," or a "because, Constitution" somewhere?
So, um. Why didn't you just, uh, you know, fix them?
Replacing a fluorescent tube in a laptop is not exactly rocket surgery. It just takes a bit of time, and surprisingly few dollars.
I committed a helpful action to get the old fucker off my porch.
The alternatives:
1. Leaving the old fucker on my porch and slamming the door in his face.
2. Calling the cops if he kept making a pest of himself.
3. Shooting him where he stood. (Which, by the letter of law, I can do in my state...though the law is currently being interpreted by the courts.)
All of these things are selfish things.
So following your logic, it seems that I had no choice in the matter that was not rooted in selfishness. And, by extension, I was devoid of free will at that time.
Philosophy is an abstract concept created by man in an attempt to solve all arguments before they ever have an opportunity to occur.
Altruism does not imply joy or self-satisfaction.
During the power outage following the derecho in 2012, a creepy old guy came knocking on my door. He had a tree fall on his power line a block or two away, making a mess out of the meter base on his house and so on, and was asking for my help getting it put back together.
I resisted strongly, but eventually relented: He wasn't taking no for an answer, and saying "Ok, I'll check it out," was the only way I was going to get that old fucker off of my porch.
Two trips to the store later (electrical projects take two trips; plumbing takes three), I had his house ready for the power company to hook back up whenever they'd get around to it.
I don't like the old guy. He smells funny, his house smells funnier, and he's hard to look at, and hard to talk to. He's pushy, needy, and demanding. I find his company to be unpleasant.
And I don't enjoy this sort of work. I can do it, and I know how to do it properly, but I've generally got better things to do.
What did I get out of the project? I lost an evening of doing what I wanted to be doing and spent it helping someone else because they needed it. I also got a twenty dollar bill that I tried to refuse to take, but when he shoved it in my pocket I realized that if I didn't take his money, he was going to follow me home and try even harder to pay me, and taking his money was the quickest way to get away from that person.
I also got this cool story (bro) about altruism. Which, you know, I wasn't looking for either.
Satisfaction? Nope, not really. Didn't want it, didn't get it.
At this point a candid reader might be thinking "Why do you help people, then, if you don't even like doing it?"
Because they're human. End of story.
Would I do it again? Yep. In fact, about a year later another bad wind storm knocked another part of a tree into that same power line: Rinse and repeat.
It is worth noting at this point that, much to the disdain of the other posters who responded: A bottle opener can be very useful for things other than opening bottles. It is not a single-task implement.
My own bottle opener is made by Bic in France.
It can open bottles just fine.
It can warm hands.
It can shrink shrink tubing.
It can light tobacco or other smoking medium.
It can start fires, using its own built-in ignition source and integral fuel supply.
It can also be a source of butane (which can be a very useful solvent).
It can be used as a high-temperature ignition source, using only its integral flint and steel.
Even the metallic air-intake vents on my Bic bottle opener can useful as a rasp for gently filing down sharp objects or fingernails, or deburring most any manner of obtuse thing that has burrs.
And when it ceases to be useful for all of these functions (all tools eventually wear out), it still has a spring that can be used for some project or other.
Nay, I say to the naysayers: A bottle opener (especially a Bic bottle opener) is a very fine tool, indeed.
(Give me a Bic bottle opener, a P38, a good folding knife, and a spork, and I shall rule the Earth.)
Ok, I see more where you're coming from now.
I work with cops, and their administrators (The Sheriff, The Chief, The Captain, etc), quite a lot since I work on dispatch consoles and radios and cruisers and fire engines and everything that goes along with all of that.
Most of our volunteer stations around here are minimal: Usually a bigger kitchen than one might expect, a small watch room, and a combination meeting/day room that really isn't a very fun place to relax. (Paid stations with full-time staff are very different, but we don't yet have any combination paid/volunteer stations around here).
So, maybe due to circumstances of the stations around here, I don't see cops hanging out at fire houses much.
What I do see: When I have to spend quality time in dispatch (any full-time dispatch center) solving some problem or other, or just chilling waiting to for an intermittent problem to either show up or not show up, there's often a man with a gun doing nothing but watching TV and chatting with dispatchers.
These are all small-ish police/sheriff departments, similar (I think) to what you're complaining about. In some departments, it is easy to note the box of un-served warrants just sitting there doing nothing.....
But it's the same with dispatchers, who browse Facebook for hours on end when they've got a binder full of already-assigned busywork for their long periods of interminable downtime.
And whenever present a problem that is actually caused by bored dispatchers, the administrator is all "They shouldn't ever be bored!"
And any other day, there I am, in dispatch, doing what I do. And there's said-administrator and between two and four bored dispatchers, and maybe a cop or two, maybe even a sergeant of a Chief or the Sheriff. The Facebooks are being browsed, Ebay is being perused, Youtube is being laughed at, cable TV is being watched......
If that's not clear, allow me to be concise: The administrators say one thing ("they should always be busy!") while condoning another thing entirely.
At one point in one particular dispatch center, they'd even taken to watching movies with a portable copy of VLC that was happy to run on an XP guest account, on the 50" plasma monitor that I installed for security cameras.
But, back to my original premise: Is it really so different in this profession than any other?
For my own personal anecdote: I considered myself a pretty good employee when there were things to do when I worked as a full-time hourly IT goon, in that I didn't have a TV in my office (unlike other folks in the company) and I didn't spend a few hours each day gossiping noisily with those at the desks around me.
But I did spend a substantial amount of time reading Slashdot when there weren't things that needed done immediately, scavenging old hardware to experiment with in ways that were usually only useful to me, and generally being non-productive. So, *shrug*: I can't say that I was any better than a cop or a dispatcher when it came to keeping busy: It is the bane of the hourly employee to be inherently more lazy than could ever be considered desirable.
Can you honestly say that you have never been so-afflicted? That you've never tried to do as little as possible just so you can go home at the end of the day, not be totally drained, and still get your usual paycheck?
I can say that I am more productive in a paid hour than I used to be, because I employ myself these days and when I'm working on a thing, I want to get that thing -done- so I can relax at home.
But at this point, I'm being paid multiples more per hour of work, which is itself its own brand of fucked-upedness: I now get to slack most of the time, since it is -my- time. I set my own schedule, or (typically) none at all.
I never have to hold a desk down in order to make money, so I don't ever have to come up creative with ways to pass time while at work, or intentionally slack just to "finish out my day" at a particular time an
Because cops, unlike damn near every other group of professional individuals, cannot ever take a break during their shift.
Right?
My own anecdotes:
I have a cow-orker who is lazy, takes enough smoke breaks to go through most of a pack during his never-more-than-8-hour day, and is of mind to time his every action on a jobsite so that he can "finish out his day" at a time and place that best suits him and his paycheck. He spends at least an hour of his workday day in the bathroom. Sometimes he goes to the bathroom for several minutes before he leaves for a job, stops for several minutes on the way to a job, and uses the bathroom again once he gets to a job.
He's such a lazy of shit that he doesn't even own a personal vehicle in a small city that is big enough that it absolutely requires one to drive to get anything done: He hauls his family around in his vinyl-covered, logo-encrusted corporate-owned work van on evenings and weekends, running errands, getting groceries, going to church, visiting family, etc.
Meanwhile, I have a friend who is a paramedic EMT for a private company. He works 48 hour shifts, and when he leaves the station for any reason, he takes a squad ("ambulance") with him so that even when he's allegedly enjoying his brief respite of personal time ("lunch"), he can still respond as quickly as possible if the shit hits the fan and more help is needed than is cooling their heels back at the station.
He leaves the squad running in the parking lot, because simply: The squad is -always- either running, or it is on shore power. (In this way, the squad is either ready to go immediately when it is out-and-about, or there is another squad a few steps away in the event that one fails to start at the station.)
The lazy cow-orker has a profound fondness for complaining at great length at just how unprofessional this behavior is, whenever he sees a squad parked at a diner or in the parking lot of a grocery store. "If he's on the clock, he should be working, at the station. And he shouldn't drive an am-bu-lance around unless he's on a call. It's just unprofessional."
I say to him: "Cow-orker, I see your van parked all over the place when I know you're not working, and you take half a day of breaks every day. What makes you so special, and them so indentured? And wouldn't you like more potential squads available in town, than fewer squads?"
He doesn't get it. I'm not sure you get it, either.
Meh, I say. Programmers, sysadmins, IT folk, telco guys, carpenters, plumbers, cops, paramedics, astronauts, soldiers, whatever: We're all human. And we all need some personal time in the course of a busy work day, else our work unilaterally fucking sucks.
Meanwhile, most cops are union. The singular union contract I've ever had had specified that I get two paid, uninterrupted 15-minute breaks and a lunch of at least 30 minutes in an 8-hour day, but I can't imagine it reading much different for any other union...
In rejoinder, so what if a cop uses some of his time in the day room at a fire house? Isn't that what day rooms are for? (Hell, -I've- done this, and I'm not a cop, a paramedic, or a fireman. I just happened to be working at a firehouse, and I just happened to think it was the right time to take a load off of my feet for a short bit. So I put my 50 cents into the coffee can in the fridge, grabbed a Coke, and found a couch to relax in and maybe I even did *gasp* put my feet up on a well-worn coffee table. After I was done with my break, I went back to work. *shrug*)
Indeed. Allegedly, my VZW Droid 4 can grok Glonass.
I have no idea if it actually works -- if there's an app for that, I haven't seen it.
I quite often use GPS on the phone and would love redundancy and/or any additional data for accuracy.
I've been researching it and studying it since the Audio Home Recording Act of (1992?).
I just reckon that with my twenty-ish years of studying, that anything abnormal should come with a citation.
You don't have a citation.
*shrug*
Therefore, DM, I disbelieve.
I have medication and therapy. I've them for a very long time.
But unless you've spent considerable time in the time-out corner when 5, or an unforeseen month in solitary as an adult, I'm not sure that you have a leg to stand on when telling others who have done these things how they should conduct themselves.
Just sayin'.
No.
Because still no party (and you don't count as a party) is saying that all bets are off if you dupe a card, except for you.
This verbiage is, at very best, very vague when it comes to what might happen when a person's copied card is compromised.
Which is to say: It does not match your original assertion of (paraphrasing) "Yer fucked."
I parse that as "Not all Android users own their devices."
I think he was talking more about highways (and said as much), while you're talking about more local roads (and said as much).
Regarding your own commentary: Yes. Timing a red light correctly is a boon for both expediency and economy (unless rushing into a well-timed intersection that just turned green for you results in an accident with cross-traffic chasing a yellow or running a red, in which case all gained efficiency is lost, and St. Peter might be on the horizon).
It saves on braking, it saves on acceleration, and average speed can remain very high indeed, with similar positive results on fuel economy.
But again, I think you two are talking about two completely different things: My reply was referring to his made-up accident data, and you are referring to a mild form of hyper-miling.
Please remember, when timing a red light, that cross traffic might not be paying any attention at all: Perhaps the light was green when they last looked up from their cell phone, and is now red, but now they're T-boning you while you're doing 25-30 and they're driving however fast they're driving.
EVEN IF YOU'RE RIGHT, and the accident is legally not your fault, that can be still construed a dickish move. All legality aside: Every intersection should be approached with caution and care, especially one that just changed states. It's your own life on the line.
(My own scale of efficiency tends to cause me to preclude being in accidents, and not worry so much about how others around me are driving unless I can help them on their way. If they're driving too slow, I pass them when safe. If they're driving too fast, I let them go. Sometimes, when safe, I drive well above the "speed limit"; other times, I'm at it or well below it when the situation dictates. It depends on the conditions.
Whatever the case, I don't keep score: I just drive safely, which includes staying out of other people's way.
Why are you keeping score?)
Aww you fucking BOGART!
That's the last time I let you party with my girlfriend, you stingy fucking bogart!
You know, if they ever perfect those lead batteries, I think they'd also have the benefit of providing hydrogen as a waste product, which is AWESOME because then we can run our fuel cells with it!
It's win-win-win, baybee! Free energy is like money in the bank!
(Now pass me that crack pipe!)
I remember being 5, and confined to a corner. It wasn't an environment with less stimulation; it was an environment where my thoughts ran rampant and were impossible to quiet. Normally it just made me very, very angry, with a sort of non-directive anger that is very difficult to diffuse.
I remember being angry, in the corner. Sure, it was a relief to get out, but the sense of relief did not cover the negativity associated with it.
I remember being thirty-something, and confined to a solitary jail cell in county. It wasn't an environment with less stimulation; it was an environment where my thoughts ran rampant and were impossible to quiet. Normally it just made me very, very angry, with a sort of non-directive anger that is very difficult to diffuse.
I remember being angry, in the cell. Sure, it was a relief to get out, but the sense of relief did not cover the negativity associated with it.
I'm still angry. About being in the corner when I was 5, and about being in jail 30-ish years later.
I'm afraid that the only positive thing I learned from these experiences is that dinner always happens about the same time each day, and that food is a reasonable cure for anger.