Seriously, red-light cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money making. Often the contracts with the company providing the cameras sets a specific maximum length for the yellow light. Making it longer would bring penalties to the City.
Don't recall the specifics, but at least one study found that lengthening the yellow light acually reduced accidents more than installing cameras.
The study noted here actually found that accidents went up after installing the damned things. Then again it was Florida...
The IOC is above Canadian law. They are allowed to ignore Canadian human rights laws, can force venues to rescind non-smoking regulations, and are able to take over lands, streets and buildings at will.
Anyone who has worked within the VANOC orbit knows that VANOC and the IOC believe that all others must bow down before them.
Here on the North Shore of Vancouver there was much wailing last year as a tall cellular antenna tower was approved.
"I can choose not to carry (a cellphone), but if there's a huge antenna in my neighbourhood, I can't choose not to be within (its range)."
Of course of you drive down the main street of North Vancouver and look near the top of every building with any height, you'll see dozens of cel antennas.
The question whether we should be cruel enough to point that out.
The vast, vast majority of books, which still make a tidy profit, do not sell millions of copies. And many entry level texts - like first year Statistics texts - move tens of thousands of copies.
I refuse to believe that a text that sells 50,000 copies costs significantly more to produce than a novel that sells the same number. Certainly not enough to justify a markup of $100-150 a copy.
Given the exorbitant, outrageous, and staggering prices that even first year post-secondary text books sell for, this doesn't seem worth a moment's thought.
Once you've figured out how to price text books about the same as a best seller hard-cover book instead $100-200 a copy, I'll be willing to worry about teachers selling lesson plans.
A passle of good looking girls, a few beers, and these guys will have lots of incentive to hone their language skills.
It's like the old story of the kid who grew to be twelve years old without ever uttering a word. Doctors found nothing, psychologists found nothing, neurologists found nothing - there was no reason why he shouldn't talk.
One morning though he sat down at the kitchen table picked up his breakfast, and said "This porridge is cold!"
His startled Mother says "My God Tommy! You talked! What happened?"
Tommy looks at her and says "Until now everything was OK."
Move to Canada: No DMCA (Yet), no software patents, no bullshit.
That last one may be pushing things just a bit..
FWIW, municipal elections seem to favour paper ballots followed by scanners for counting. To my mind that offers a nice balance of speed and accuracy in counting, with nice paper backups in case there are questions.
Hey guys - if you're trilling on about how beautiful and inspiring this "music" is, it's probably about time that you got out of your basement and headed out to see some real live musicians (rock, punk, baroque - doesn't matter).
There are about a million living breathing artists out there doing truly beautiful (or at least seriously rocking) music. No need for this odd ersatz stuff.
AC Clarke was quoted as saying that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic.
Surely this magic non-polluting gasoline from plastic would trump even the magic non-polluting electricity that will power all of the magic non-polluting electric cars!
... had manned space fight and was working sending people to the Moon and Mars? Admittedly far-fetched, but if that happened then some people would just say "NASA? Who cares?"
I recently registered with an un-named University and discovered that their PIN/password for my account is required to be SIX characters! Even if it can "contain letters, digits or punctuation" it seems awful limited.
The NYT article is pretty specific that the study of 10,000 drivers was needed because all of the current estimates of the impact of cel use on driver accidents are based on unproven assumptions and (one might suggest) speculation.
The problem as always is that so much traffic safety "data" is founded on police reports of the "speed was a factor" variety. These are subjective guesswork, not scientific evidence
Certainly any distraction raises the likelihood of driver error, but that includes a multitude of things including loud music, scantily clad women on street corners, animated electronic billboards, and kids fighting in the backseat
You can't eliminate all distractions, so how can we teach drivers to filter out non-essential stimulation, or create auto technology that will protect drivers in moments of distraction?
In most Canadian cities you can just call your local public library with a simple question and they'll look it up for you.
Yeah, libraries are so pre-digital.
And what could be more pointless than Twitter?
on
The Twitter Book
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Following Iranian elections on Twitter was amazing, but from what I can see 99% of Twitter traffic boils down to "I had a bagel for lunch" and "I'm going poo-poo and Twittering it on my iPhone."
I still think Twitter is grossly overrated and expect that it has already peaked big time.
Oh yeah, all that I ever used was Maxell chrome tape. Everything else was just not as good. Plus everybody wanted to be like the Maxell Guy in the ads.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, red-light cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money making. Often the contracts with the company providing the cameras sets a specific maximum length for the yellow light. Making it longer would bring penalties to the City.
Don't recall the specifics, but at least one study found that lengthening the yellow light acually reduced accidents more than installing cameras.
The study noted here actually found that accidents went up after installing the damned things. Then again it was Florida...
If he wins, it could mean the end of the net in Canada and will reverberate around the world.
Uh, good thing we're not getting all hysterical here....
Windows 3.1 and Central Point PCTools desktop. Perfect match.
Sad to think that CP Tools eventually came to be that great bloated mess that is Norton Super Mega Ultimate Anti-Everything Utilities Suite.
The IOC is above Canadian law. They are allowed to ignore Canadian human rights laws, can force venues to rescind non-smoking regulations, and are able to take over lands, streets and buildings at will.
Anyone who has worked within the VANOC orbit knows that VANOC and the IOC believe that all others must bow down before them.
Of course of you drive down the main street of North Vancouver and look near the top of every building with any height, you'll see dozens of cel antennas.
The question whether we should be cruel enough to point that out.
That depends largely on whether you're a twelve year old girl, and in class at at the time.
NOTHING beat those speeds for texting!
How on earth can things like this happen? After the Y2K debacle how can anyone
not anticipate and extensively test for future dates?
Is this sheer utter incompetence, or just a total lack of intelligence?
Yee Gods!
My God. If your employer wants a uniform (or uniform appearance) you wear the shirt. Who cares? They're paying your salary, so they call the shots.
In the grand scheme of workplace complaints this is so low on the list as to be not worth mentioning.
The vast, vast majority of books, which still make a tidy profit, do not sell millions of copies. And many entry level texts - like first year Statistics texts - move tens of thousands of copies.
I refuse to believe that a text that sells 50,000 copies costs significantly more to produce than a novel that sells the same number. Certainly not enough to justify a markup of $100-150 a copy.
Given the exorbitant, outrageous, and staggering prices that even first year post-secondary text books sell for, this doesn't seem worth a moment's thought.
Once you've figured out how to price text books about the same as a best seller hard-cover book instead $100-200 a copy, I'll be willing to worry about teachers selling lesson plans.
A passle of good looking girls, a few beers, and these guys will have lots of incentive to hone their language skills.
It's like the old story of the kid who grew to be twelve years old without ever uttering a word. Doctors found nothing, psychologists found nothing, neurologists found nothing - there was no reason why he shouldn't talk.
One morning though he sat down at the kitchen table picked up his breakfast, and said "This porridge is cold!"
His startled Mother says "My God Tommy! You talked! What happened?"
Tommy looks at her and says "Until now everything was OK."
Move to Canada: No DMCA (Yet), no software patents, no bullshit.
That last one may be pushing things just a bit..
FWIW, municipal elections seem to favour paper ballots followed by scanners for counting. To my mind that offers a nice balance of speed and accuracy in counting, with nice paper backups in case there are questions.
...but I'd say if the PM wants to keep any sort of respectability ...
Ah, you must be a recent immigrant to this country...
Hey guys - if you're trilling on about how beautiful and inspiring this "music" is, it's probably about time that you got out of your basement and headed out to see some real live musicians (rock, punk, baroque - doesn't matter). There are about a million living breathing artists out there doing truly beautiful (or at least seriously rocking) music. No need for this odd ersatz stuff.
AC Clarke was quoted as saying that any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic.
Surely this magic non-polluting gasoline from plastic would trump even the magic non-polluting electricity that will power all of the magic non-polluting electric cars!
In related news, they've solved the dilemma of getting rid of toxic waste.
ICK! This one grosses me out!
Besides, what if the stem cells turn out to pass on the "fatty" gene?
... had manned space fight and was working sending people to the Moon and Mars? Admittedly far-fetched, but if that happened then some people would just say "NASA? Who cares?"
I read this story, and marvel that anyone could be dimwitted enough to follow through on some of the prankster's suggestions.
How can these people go this far without once going "Hmmm, something doesn't make sense here..."?
If I was dumb enough to get tricked by these idiots I'd at least have the sense to shut up and not tell anyone.
I recently registered with an un-named University and discovered that their PIN/password for my account is required to be SIX characters! Even if it can "contain letters, digits or punctuation" it seems awful limited.
I always knew that I liked AVG, but this is just the coolest! iTunes really is rather virus like.
Lord almighty. As usual with Facebook controversies, you can very easily opt out of this and never have your photo used by an advertiser.
And of course, Facebook is not mandatory, it's something that you choose to be part of.
And of course, why in hell do so many people post illegal or embarrassing items to a fairly public and insecure site?
The NYT article is pretty specific that the study of 10,000 drivers was needed because all of the current estimates of the impact of cel use on driver accidents are based on unproven assumptions and (one might suggest) speculation.
The problem as always is that so much traffic safety "data" is founded on police reports of the "speed was a factor" variety. These are subjective guesswork, not scientific evidence
Certainly any distraction raises the likelihood of driver error, but that includes a multitude of things including loud music, scantily clad women on street corners, animated electronic billboards, and kids fighting in the backseat
You can't eliminate all distractions, so how can we teach drivers to filter out non-essential stimulation, or create auto technology that will protect drivers in moments of distraction?
In most Canadian cities you can just call your local public library with a simple question and they'll look it up for you.
Yeah, libraries are so pre-digital.
Following Iranian elections on Twitter was amazing, but from what I can see 99% of Twitter traffic boils down to "I had a bagel for lunch" and "I'm going poo-poo and Twittering it on my iPhone."
I still think Twitter is grossly overrated and expect that it has already peaked big time.
Oh yeah, all that I ever used was Maxell chrome tape. Everything else was just not as good. Plus everybody wanted to be like the Maxell Guy in the ads.