I have musicians earplugs http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/erme.asp and they do the job nicely. They have to be fitted to your ear (an audiologist will make the molds and do the fitting). They knock down all frequencies evenly, so things sound the same, just significantly softer. I bought them for the many concerts I go to, but they have been lifesavers on airplanes, subways, and even while sleeping in noisy environments. They are expensive though -- look to drop $150-$200 on them -- but worth it.
I bet you'll see automated vehicles get access to their own lanes, sort of like HOV lanes are set up now for ride-sharing traffic. In the Washington DC area they are discussing having HOV-like lanes that you pay to have access to them instead of requiring ride-sharing. You get reduced traffic... for a price. Automated driving will be a similar convenience and there will be people willing to pay for it, at least initially.
By breaking them out of the normal traffic situations the navigation computers will be able to avoid having to deal with the random actions of normal drivers and be easier to trust during the roll-out. Once you get into the city autopilot will go off and you'll be asked to start driving. Over time when the system is perfected and the market is more fully penetrated you'll see autopilot everywhere, but it will probably start on dedicated for pay lanes first.
Actually, the NTSC standard specifies 525 lines at 60 fields a second. A field is an interlaced half of a frame, so that's 30 frames a second. Anything above 525 that and you're just interpolating -- it may look nice, but you're not getting any more signal.
Slashdot Mirror
I have musicians earplugs http://www.etymotic.com/ephp/erme.asp and they do the job nicely. They have to be fitted to your ear (an audiologist will make the molds and do the fitting). They knock down all frequencies evenly, so things sound the same, just significantly softer. I bought them for the many concerts I go to, but they have been lifesavers on airplanes, subways, and even while sleeping in noisy environments. They are expensive though -- look to drop $150-$200 on them -- but worth it.
These are the same guys who were predicting an "Internet Meltdown" a little while back -- I'd take their prognostications with a grain of salt ...
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http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/25/
By breaking them out of the normal traffic situations the navigation computers will be able to avoid having to deal with the random actions of normal drivers and be easier to trust during the roll-out. Once you get into the city autopilot will go off and you'll be asked to start driving. Over time when the system is perfected and the market is more fully penetrated you'll see autopilot everywhere, but it will probably start on dedicated for pay lanes first.
My $0.02
Actually, the NTSC standard specifies 525 lines at 60 fields a second. A field is an interlaced half of a frame, so that's 30 frames a second. Anything above 525 that and you're just interpolating -- it may look nice, but you're not getting any more signal.