Sheesh..always amazes me how personally people take differences in opinion over software that they didn't even write! I mean, I could understand it if you were an Amarok dev and the GP was a itunes dev, but still...
In any case. You're happy using multiple software packages and multiple devices. GP likes using one software program and one device. Can't we all just get along??
I have a naming convention that identifies my work from the directory and filename. iTunes basically strips this info, making it pretty useless for me.
So you're NOT using file metadata? That would seem to be the easiest solution, and makes a whole variety of software and players like your mp3s better.
Additionally, iTunes..Preferences..uncheck "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" with a nice little description of everything that that means below it. That option has been around as long as I have been using itunes.
I do remember (fondly even) the old days of Winamp though I never have liked skins, but hadn't Pentiums been out for most of the 90s? That DX2 would have been pretty long in the tooth by the time of winamp i think:)
3.) all tracks are part of albums where all tracks of the album are present, so that if each track says there are 12 tracks in the album, but there are only 11 tracks from that album in the collection, that album is excluded.
Out of curiosity...why is that useful or desirable? Why are any of your points useful actually?
Not trying to be a smartass, I just really don't get why you would care about those things?
Re:A site geared towards Linux user, to learn Open
on
OpenBSD 4.4 Released
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· Score: 1
It is nice to know that BSD though slowly is also moving somewhere
Everything in my email has been true of BSDs for a LONG time. POSIX conformance statements, recursive grep, less is more, etc.
I do not like BSD. I do not like Unix. But I like Linux.
I think we have differing conceptions of what unix is.
BSD is good as development community. It is good as technology preview. But that's about it. Using it do some work in business is quite complicated due to very steep learning curve.
I stridently disagree with this. As I and others have been attempting to say, if you actually look at the man page, look at documentation, etc, the BSDs have a huge advantage over pretty much all linux distros. When I first started playing with linux/bsds, I think the first one i used was an ancient slackware, then some redhat, debian, etc. When I first used BSD I used FreeBSD and have never regretted it. From the FreeBSD handbook to the manpages to the standardized and logical system layout, the learning curve was far easier for me.
And even after that you would find that Linux is much much more interoperable that BSD or commercial Unix and much easier to use in practically any environment
What does that even mean? How is linux "mouch much more interoperable than BSD" ? I run netatalk, nfs, samba and apache on my FreeBSD server. I run OpenSSH on all of them. Almost all software for linux will run on the BSDs. Some do require some modfication. (Actually, most of the BSDs have a linux compatibility layer that let you run linux binaries as if native).
If you're talking a barebones FreeBSD install versus a ready-to-go Ubuntu--I won't disagree about off the bat enduser usability. If you compare PC-BSD or a preconfigured FreeBSD+gnome/kde/whatever to Ubuntu, on the other hand...
Re:A site geared towards Linux user, to learn Open
on
OpenBSD 4.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
As long as bash is not default shell, less is not default pager and VIM is not default text editor - I'm NOT interested.
Lucky for you, less is more and pdksh isn't a bad shell (not everyone loves bash..). In the BSD realm it's extremely easy to add a package or even compile it from scratch via ports, so even vim is within your reach! If you don't like messing with defaults, might I suggest that neither openbsd nor linux are for you?
And find doesn't search by default in current directory.
Hmm.. OSX, Solaris, Free/OpenBSD all seem to require directory specification in find. I thought I remembered it being required in linux as well--when did linux distros change?
And grep isn't recursive.
hint: "-R"
And, for **** sake, where is POSIX conformance statement??? Even Linux man pages (more or less all of them) have by now info how does/doesn't particular tool/call conform to POSIX.
Exactly where you would expect to find it--in the man page. Where exactly did you look, and why are you getting so worked up? Linux, BSDs, etc can be complicated if you're new to them--that's one of the strongest things about the BSDs--consistent system design and excellent documentation.
If you're not familiar with how to look in manpages, here you go:
$ man find...scroll down...
STANDARDS
The find utility syntax is a superset of the syntax specified by the IEEE
Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') standard.
The options and primaries -amin, -cmin, -empty, -follow, -fstype, -iname,
-inum, -links, -ls, -mmin, -maxdepth, -mindepth, -execdir, and -print0
are extensions to IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2''). The -iname option was
inspired by GNU find....snip...
As much as I wanted to try BSDs, unfortunately, most of them (OpenBSD included) remain kind of toy for basement kids who do not know anything better.
You wouldn't be attempting a poorly researched troll, would you? I think I just wasted my time:-/
*BSD might be true Unix, but this is not something to be particularly proud of, as Unix has history of being worst platform for both users and developers.
If you don't like unix, you don't like linux. (note that that DOESN'T affirm the opposite--if you do like unix, that doesn't mean you have to like linux!)
Actually, using your example of the DVD player, wouldn't it be more like a locked door with somebody on the inside holding a key and unlocking the door everytime somebody (trusted) knocks?
If someone's computer dies, they either logon temporarily somewhere else until I can just grab a spare we keep around with all needed software preinstalled (Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, one or two proprietary, etc) and they're immediately up and running. No lost email, no lost files, same desktop, same preferences, etc.
Do you stay perpetually connected to the same machine? If not, you'll need to turn that shit off.
I don't know how to parse that?
I've never understood that either; Why call it ROAMING profiles if it's only of use when you're logging on to the same computer all the time?!
Because Roaming Profiles are incredibly useful and power, and they're used for much more than you seem to think they are?
I'll tell you what makes our login times at work take a long time--roaming profiles. 1gb+ of email, documents, etc can add pretty fast, especially with 100bt.
Yes, which is what tells us that the late 20th century warming is faster than natural, because we also have data on the usual natural sources of warming and cooling such as solar activity and volcanoes.
I'm not sure that's how it works. For instance, How did the global climate change between 1075 and 1100AD? Between 850BC and 870BC? etc We might have a fairly good idea for how climate in some areas changed over a period that INCLUDES that time period, but we have no data that is at all similar to what we have for the last maybe 100 years.
But the instrumental data we do have is enough to tell us that something anomalous is going on, when compared to the various measured factors in the climate system which are normally responsible for climate change.
This I don't understand either. It's like how downloaders can say "Download speed is currently 150kb/s, download will be done in 5 minutes." In reality that 150KB/s was an instantaneous spike--the average is more like 80kb/s. With the amount of data we have, it seems like we're measuring the slope but we really don't know where we are on the curve? Given at most 100 years of solid data, do we REALLY know all that?
he's not under the illusions reaganites are that free trade is somehow messianic on its own.
Does that mean anything or are you just being a zealot?
In the short to medium term though, it will result in tremendous economic pain to wealthier nations.
You think that's something that Krugman argues? Maybe you should read more of what he thinks about economic geography and clustering?
What we also have is increasingly skilled jobs going overseas, wage freezes, people working 60-80 hours per week if they have families to support, and home prices skyrocketing to 400% of people's annual income.
It's called a bubble. Look outside--it's bursting. See Japan, Tokyo. See Netherlands, Tulips. etc
Interesting--an economist that you seem to like gets awarded a prize and automatically anyone that disagrees with him is spouting a "pseudo-scientific religion."
Krugman supports free trade. Krugman is against protectionism. Krugman is a big supporter of globalization. Krugman defends factory sweatshops. Krugman blames Europe's high levels of unemployment on overbearing government regulations.
As a right winger, if that's the world's premier leftist economist (as I've seen people call him), I've got to feel pretty good about the growing consensus between left and right on issues like free trade and globalization.
I would think ALL economic theories would be pseudo-scientific to some degree. Maybe the previous winners of the prize who disagreed with Krugman on some things means something to you? no?
Technically, no. Assuming he took the picture then its his copyright, but he still needs a model release to publish identifiable photos.
Ok, that's true, though there are exemptions for news, etc (bloggers?)
Maybe someone should sue facebook to require verified model releases...
But the biggest difference between geocities and facebook is that I can see what my friend has put in his public space on geocities without signing up and agreeing to geocities terms of use. With facebook, I can't see what someone publishes without first becoming a EULA signing member.
Ok, so sign up under a pseudonym using a fake email address and no picture. I just don't see the problem with that?
So, let me get this straight, I have to sign up to facebook in order to protect my privacy? Surely I'm not the only one that sees anything fucking wrong with that? If I'm not on facebook I shouldn't have to sign up to keep myself off.
No, not at all. If it's not linked to an account, it's not really tagged. It could be ANY Vux 984, not necessarily you. Annoying yes, but nothing new or unique to facebook. The bad thing about tagging is anybody can go to your acct (IF you allow them) and instantly see ALL pictures of you. Can a friend put your picture on his geocities page? Can your friend put a picture of both of you with a label identifying you on his wall in his public office? Yes.
Really, facebook is not that bad. Don't put any special information in. Don't put pictures up. Enable privacy features. That's all.
Jesus Christ. If you aren't aware that we've either had rising unemployment or, at the most, steady wages (Which means dropping because of inflation.) pretty much all through the 90s and 00s, I don't know why I'm talking about the economy with you.
Actually you're wrong. During the 90s and most of the 00s we've had historically LOW unemployment. Much of the period we were running right at full employment rates. In fact, compared to the 70s and 80s, virtually the entirety of the last two decades have been lower than the preceding. If you had DATA that says otherwise, please share (and please swear more and swing about more ad hominems if you want--it's really helping your case). Likewise, wages rose during the 90s, and you're right have remained basically flat over the past decade. If you have information to the otherwise, please feel free to share it.
What we're actually taxing is the work that went into the each product. Or, rather, the amount of work that didn't happen here, or the amount that they would have paid had the work happened vs. where it did happen. Which is, of course, impossible to tax directly, but is certainly possible to estimate.
With the end result being...foreign goods are more expensive--and by extensions goods that everybody buys--while other countries whose products are suddenly taxed are going to in return tax OUR exports. Your rational for tax may be somehow ideological, but the end result is the exact same. American workers pay more for the basic necessities, and American companies export less. Either way, your policies hurt those at the bottom (the same people you're allegedly trying to help) far more than the people like you with cushy computer jobs.
I don't, in any way, propose we attempt to hinder Japanese car sales with tax
So what, it's only industries that you personally LIKE that get to be protected from foreign competition? I don't get it.
So despite my efforts to keep my image & life details to myself, this has been undermined many times over by Facebook fanatics who have tagged pictures of me, and have added "helpful" details about how the picture was taken at my wife's cousin's wedding, complete with dates & locations.
I agree, the helpful details etc are annoying as anything. You can, however, UNTAG yourself from photos! If you care about privacy (as you clearly do, and I do as well), I would highly recommend untagging yourself.
But... if you're going to claim cell phones are evil, there are plenty of other things available to the driver that are just as bad. The passenger is a distraction. Yes, I know the passenger is aware of the situation in the car better than the person on the cell phone, but in both cases the driver can simply ignore the other person either way.
I've seen articles in the past that refute your claim that talking to a passenger is the same as talking on a cellphone.
I'm not saying talking on the phone is safer, or even the same, it is a distraction, but its dumb to pick that one to single out when there are others that are just as bad and have existed FAR longer. I'm sure my reaction time goes down some when I'm singing along with the radio too, but there are other things that can be done that are more effective at making driving safer, like better training and higher requirements for getting a license. If you address some of the flaws with the way people all essentially drive by their own set of rules, then you'd have a much safer drive than worrying about the phone. Getting EVERYONE to use turn signals would be a good start, learning proper lane changing, safe distance between cars (i.e. stop tailgating or cutting off truck drivers), learning not to SIT in the blind spot of another driver, getting slow drivers to realize that going slower than the rest of the traffic on a highway IS DANGEROUS TO EVERYONE, things like that, any of which would result in more effective safety measures than worrying about the phone.
I completely agree with you. It would be great if people learned all those things. There's also a correlation between people doing those things and talking on a cellphone, and it's non-zero!
While I agree that most people who use cell phones while driving are dangerous, you're an idiot to think its the cell phones fault. The DRIVER is the problem, and most drivers on the road are too inept to handle driving and talking on the phone, but they also shouldn't be talking to someone else in the car either as they ARE NOT GOOD DRIVERS IN THE FIRST PLACE, with or without the phone.
No.
A cellphone can make a bad driver worse, and it can make a good driver a bad one. As studies have shown, EVERYBODY'S driving is impacted by using a cellphone. It's true if you're a bad driver to begin with you're going to be worse with a cellphone, but don't pretend that you are some kind of superhuman who can talk on a cellphone without losing any reaction time, etc.
That sort of statement is exactly why I feel no sympathy when a cyclist gets hit
Whether you want to change radio station, eat, dial a phone or anything else, the question to ask yourself is whether you can do it safely without interfering with your ability to drive - if you can there's no problem.
You are of course right--to a degree.
Studies have shown that talking on a cellphone--regardless of whether you use handsfree, headset, whatever--significantly impairs your reactions. This does not occur with passengers in the car. Does that mean that it's ALWAYS unsafe to use a cellphone--no probably not. If you're on an empty highway, you're probably ok. If you're in sparse traffic and not passing and not changing lanes, you're probably ok. But damn if I see one more dumbass zooming around a parking lot with their cellphone out, or unsafely weaving lanes while yacking... it's irritating to say the least.
Likewise eating--if you're holding food in your hand, you're being unsafe. Sure, maybe you can eat from a bag of M&Ms safely. Can you eat a burger safely? I say no.
Slashdot Mirror
Typical apple user drivel
Sheesh..always amazes me how personally people take differences in opinion over software that they didn't even write! I mean, I could understand it if you were an Amarok dev and the GP was a itunes dev, but still...
In any case. You're happy using multiple software packages and multiple devices. GP likes using one software program and one device. Can't we all just get along??
I have a naming convention that identifies my work from the directory and filename. iTunes basically strips this info, making it pretty useless for me.
So you're NOT using file metadata? That would seem to be the easiest solution, and makes a whole variety of software and players like your mp3s better.
Additionally, iTunes..Preferences..uncheck "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" with a nice little description of everything that that means below it. That option has been around as long as I have been using itunes.
I do remember (fondly even) the old days of Winamp though I never have liked skins, but hadn't Pentiums been out for most of the 90s? That DX2 would have been pretty long in the tooth by the time of winamp i think :)
3.) all tracks are part of albums where all tracks of the album are present, so that if each track says there are 12 tracks in the album, but there are only 11 tracks from that album in the collection, that album is excluded.
Out of curiosity...why is that useful or desirable? Why are any of your points useful actually?
Not trying to be a smartass, I just really don't get why you would care about those things?
It is nice to know that BSD though slowly is also moving somewhere
Everything in my email has been true of BSDs for a LONG time. POSIX conformance statements, recursive grep, less is more, etc.
I do not like BSD. I do not like Unix. But I like Linux.
I think we have differing conceptions of what unix is.
BSD is good as development community. It is good as technology preview. But that's about it. Using it do some work in business is quite complicated due to very steep learning curve.
I stridently disagree with this. As I and others have been attempting to say, if you actually look at the man page, look at documentation, etc, the BSDs have a huge advantage over pretty much all linux distros. When I first started playing with linux/bsds, I think the first one i used was an ancient slackware, then some redhat, debian, etc. When I first used BSD I used FreeBSD and have never regretted it. From the FreeBSD handbook to the manpages to the standardized and logical system layout, the learning curve was far easier for me.
And even after that you would find that Linux is much much more interoperable that BSD or commercial Unix and much easier to use in practically any environment
What does that even mean? How is linux "mouch much more interoperable than BSD" ? I run netatalk, nfs, samba and apache on my FreeBSD server. I run OpenSSH on all of them. Almost all software for linux will run on the BSDs. Some do require some modfication. (Actually, most of the BSDs have a linux compatibility layer that let you run linux binaries as if native).
If you're talking a barebones FreeBSD install versus a ready-to-go Ubuntu--I won't disagree about off the bat enduser usability. If you compare PC-BSD or a preconfigured FreeBSD+gnome/kde/whatever to Ubuntu, on the other hand...
As long as bash is not default shell, less is not default pager and VIM is not default text editor - I'm NOT interested.
Lucky for you, less is more and pdksh isn't a bad shell (not everyone loves bash..). In the BSD realm it's extremely easy to add a package or even compile it from scratch via ports, so even vim is within your reach! If you don't like messing with defaults, might I suggest that neither openbsd nor linux are for you?
And find doesn't search by default in current directory.
Hmm.. OSX, Solaris, Free/OpenBSD all seem to require directory specification in find. I thought I remembered it being required in linux as well--when did linux distros change?
And grep isn't recursive.
hint: "-R"
And, for **** sake, where is POSIX conformance statement??? Even Linux man pages (more or less all of them) have by now info how does/doesn't particular tool/call conform to POSIX.
Exactly where you would expect to find it--in the man page. Where exactly did you look, and why are you getting so worked up? Linux, BSDs, etc can be complicated if you're new to them--that's one of the strongest things about the BSDs--consistent system design and excellent documentation.
If you're not familiar with how to look in manpages, here you go:
As much as I wanted to try BSDs, unfortunately, most of them (OpenBSD included) remain kind of toy for basement kids who do not know anything better.
You wouldn't be attempting a poorly researched troll, would you? I think I just wasted my time :-/
*BSD might be true Unix, but this is not something to be particularly proud of, as Unix has history of being worst platform for both users and developers.
If you don't like unix, you don't like linux. (note that that DOESN'T affirm the opposite--if you do like unix, that doesn't mean you have to like linux!)
Sounds a bit like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademgorodok except actually open and international. (also not in Siberia)
You insinuated that the USA is technologically inferior becase we've been living without the GSM buzz? Huh... :p
Verizon/Sprint/Alltell are the only big CDMA players left in the US afaik.
Actually, using your example of the DVD player, wouldn't it be more like a locked door with somebody on the inside holding a key and unlocking the door everytime somebody (trusted) knocks?
Why do you need roaming profiles?
1) Remote work locations
2) Best backup solution
If someone's computer dies, they either logon temporarily somewhere else until I can just grab a spare we keep around with all needed software preinstalled (Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, one or two proprietary, etc) and they're immediately up and running. No lost email, no lost files, same desktop, same preferences, etc.
Do you stay perpetually connected to the same machine? If not, you'll need to turn that shit off.
I don't know how to parse that?
I've never understood that either; Why call it ROAMING profiles if it's only of use when you're logging on to the same computer all the time?!
Because Roaming Profiles are incredibly useful and power, and they're used for much more than you seem to think they are?
I'll tell you what makes our login times at work take a long time--roaming profiles. 1gb+ of email, documents, etc can add pretty fast, especially with 100bt.
I imagine in most cases it's the login rather than the boot itself that takes the time....
Let's see..."dualistic generalities" .... "The rest of the world dont use."
So what you're saying is it's "us against them" in the use of dualistic generalities?
I think I see something wrong with your post....
Once again, this is why people who don't know anything about a topic shouldn't comment on it.
Wow, welcome to slashdot, get used to it!
Yes, which is what tells us that the late 20th century warming is faster than natural, because we also have data on the usual natural sources of warming and cooling such as solar activity and volcanoes.
I'm not sure that's how it works. For instance, How did the global climate change between 1075 and 1100AD? Between 850BC and 870BC? etc We might have a fairly good idea for how climate in some areas changed over a period that INCLUDES that time period, but we have no data that is at all similar to what we have for the last maybe 100 years.
But the instrumental data we do have is enough to tell us that something anomalous is going on, when compared to the various measured factors in the climate system which are normally responsible for climate change.
This I don't understand either. It's like how downloaders can say "Download speed is currently 150kb/s, download will be done in 5 minutes." In reality that 150KB/s was an instantaneous spike--the average is more like 80kb/s. With the amount of data we have, it seems like we're measuring the slope but we really don't know where we are on the curve? Given at most 100 years of solid data, do we REALLY know all that?
he's not under the illusions reaganites are that free trade is somehow messianic on its own.
Does that mean anything or are you just being a zealot?
In the short to medium term though, it will result in tremendous economic pain to wealthier nations.
You think that's something that Krugman argues? Maybe you should read more of what he thinks about economic geography and clustering?
What we also have is increasingly skilled jobs going overseas, wage freezes, people working 60-80 hours per week if they have families to support, and home prices skyrocketing to 400% of people's annual income.
It's called a bubble. Look outside--it's bursting. See Japan, Tokyo. See Netherlands, Tulips. etc
Interesting--an economist that you seem to like gets awarded a prize and automatically anyone that disagrees with him is spouting a "pseudo-scientific religion."
Krugman supports free trade. Krugman is against protectionism. Krugman is a big supporter of globalization. Krugman defends factory sweatshops. Krugman blames Europe's high levels of unemployment on overbearing government regulations.
As a right winger, if that's the world's premier leftist economist (as I've seen people call him), I've got to feel pretty good about the growing consensus between left and right on issues like free trade and globalization.
I would think ALL economic theories would be pseudo-scientific to some degree. Maybe the previous winners of the prize who disagreed with Krugman on some things means something to you? no?
I felt like being oldschool and was wondering if anybody would notice ;)
Geocities... It's so Web 1.0
Technically, no. Assuming he took the picture then its his copyright, but he still needs a model release to publish identifiable photos.
Ok, that's true, though there are exemptions for news, etc (bloggers?)
Maybe someone should sue facebook to require verified model releases...
But the biggest difference between geocities and facebook is that I can see what my friend has put in his public space on geocities without signing up and agreeing to geocities terms of use. With facebook, I can't see what someone publishes without first becoming a EULA signing member.
Ok, so sign up under a pseudonym using a fake email address and no picture. I just don't see the problem with that?
So, let me get this straight, I have to sign up to facebook in order to protect my privacy? Surely I'm not the only one that sees anything fucking wrong with that? If I'm not on facebook I shouldn't have to sign up to keep myself off.
No, not at all. If it's not linked to an account, it's not really tagged. It could be ANY Vux 984, not necessarily you. Annoying yes, but nothing new or unique to facebook. The bad thing about tagging is anybody can go to your acct (IF you allow them) and instantly see ALL pictures of you. Can a friend put your picture on his geocities page? Can your friend put a picture of both of you with a label identifying you on his wall in his public office? Yes.
Really, facebook is not that bad. Don't put any special information in. Don't put pictures up. Enable privacy features. That's all.
Jesus Christ. If you aren't aware that we've either had rising unemployment or, at the most, steady wages (Which means dropping because of inflation.) pretty much all through the 90s and 00s, I don't know why I'm talking about the economy with you.
Actually you're wrong. During the 90s and most of the 00s we've had historically LOW unemployment. Much of the period we were running right at full employment rates. In fact, compared to the 70s and 80s, virtually the entirety of the last two decades have been lower than the preceding. If you had DATA that says otherwise, please share (and please swear more and swing about more ad hominems if you want--it's really helping your case). Likewise, wages rose during the 90s, and you're right have remained basically flat over the past decade. If you have information to the otherwise, please feel free to share it.
What we're actually taxing is the work that went into the each product. Or, rather, the amount of work that didn't happen here, or the amount that they would have paid had the work happened vs. where it did happen. Which is, of course, impossible to tax directly, but is certainly possible to estimate.
With the end result being...foreign goods are more expensive--and by extensions goods that everybody buys--while other countries whose products are suddenly taxed are going to in return tax OUR exports. Your rational for tax may be somehow ideological, but the end result is the exact same. American workers pay more for the basic necessities, and American companies export less. Either way, your policies hurt those at the bottom (the same people you're allegedly trying to help) far more than the people like you with cushy computer jobs.
I don't, in any way, propose we attempt to hinder Japanese car sales with tax
So what, it's only industries that you personally LIKE that get to be protected from foreign competition? I don't get it.
So despite my efforts to keep my image & life details to myself, this has been undermined many times over by Facebook fanatics who have tagged pictures of me, and have added "helpful" details about how the picture was taken at my wife's cousin's wedding, complete with dates & locations.
I agree, the helpful details etc are annoying as anything. You can, however, UNTAG yourself from photos! If you care about privacy (as you clearly do, and I do as well), I would highly recommend untagging yourself.
But ... if you're going to claim cell phones are evil, there are plenty of other things available to the driver that are just as bad. The passenger is a distraction. Yes, I know the passenger is aware of the situation in the car better than the person on the cell phone, but in both cases the driver can simply ignore the other person either way.
I've seen articles in the past that refute your claim that talking to a passenger is the same as talking on a cellphone.
I'm not saying talking on the phone is safer, or even the same, it is a distraction, but its dumb to pick that one to single out when there are others that are just as bad and have existed FAR longer. I'm sure my reaction time goes down some when I'm singing along with the radio too, but there are other things that can be done that are more effective at making driving safer, like better training and higher requirements for getting a license. If you address some of the flaws with the way people all essentially drive by their own set of rules, then you'd have a much safer drive than worrying about the phone. Getting EVERYONE to use turn signals would be a good start, learning proper lane changing, safe distance between cars (i.e. stop tailgating or cutting off truck drivers), learning not to SIT in the blind spot of another driver, getting slow drivers to realize that going slower than the rest of the traffic on a highway IS DANGEROUS TO EVERYONE, things like that, any of which would result in more effective safety measures than worrying about the phone.
I completely agree with you. It would be great if people learned all those things. There's also a correlation between people doing those things and talking on a cellphone, and it's non-zero!
While I agree that most people who use cell phones while driving are dangerous, you're an idiot to think its the cell phones fault. The DRIVER is the problem, and most drivers on the road are too inept to handle driving and talking on the phone, but they also shouldn't be talking to someone else in the car either as they ARE NOT GOOD DRIVERS IN THE FIRST PLACE, with or without the phone.
No.
A cellphone can make a bad driver worse, and it can make a good driver a bad one. As studies have shown, EVERYBODY'S driving is impacted by using a cellphone. It's true if you're a bad driver to begin with you're going to be worse with a cellphone, but don't pretend that you are some kind of superhuman who can talk on a cellphone without losing any reaction time, etc.
That sort of statement is exactly why I feel no sympathy when a cyclist gets hit
Damn, that's pretty unhuman and extreme!
Whether you want to change radio station, eat, dial a phone or anything else, the question to ask yourself is whether you can do it safely without interfering with your ability to drive - if you can there's no problem.
You are of course right--to a degree.
Studies have shown that talking on a cellphone--regardless of whether you use handsfree, headset, whatever--significantly impairs your reactions. This does not occur with passengers in the car. Does that mean that it's ALWAYS unsafe to use a cellphone--no probably not. If you're on an empty highway, you're probably ok. If you're in sparse traffic and not passing and not changing lanes, you're probably ok. But damn if I see one more dumbass zooming around a parking lot with their cellphone out, or unsafely weaving lanes while yacking... it's irritating to say the least.
Likewise eating--if you're holding food in your hand, you're being unsafe. Sure, maybe you can eat from a bag of M&Ms safely. Can you eat a burger safely? I say no.