You were driving close enough to be unable to avoid road hazards. Therefore, your fault.
Someone has already responded to you (and someone else gave you a downmod). I'm going to rebut your argument further to show readers that yes, tire debris from trucks are a negative externality and not something truckers have the right to be doing.
I wasn't driving fast or carelessly. In fact I was driving at 55 MPH, the speed limit through that stretch -- and routinely exceeded by many. I was in the right lane when this all went down with the truck passing, and while my weaving was mostly effective there is only so much one can do. Perhaps it is my fault that I wasn't driving a car more nimble than a Prius, or my fault I wasn't doing 30 MPH instead, or my fault that I was on Rt 128, but in our system of responsibility none of those things matter.
Further, that doesn't change the fundamental relationship between motorists on the highway: We are expected not to spew heavy pieces of rubber all over the road for people to hit. Some trucker, somewhere, got the benefit of not having to pay for proper tire upkeep. The cost of this benefit was shifted to other motorists. This isn't some imaginary externality, it is a very real cost shifting.
As an aside, someday I hope to rig up a dashcam. Driving in the Boston area is always "interesting" and I'd like to record choice moments of other motorists for posterity. Such a scheme would also help rebut some of these nonsense arguments (and in this case, maybe help identify the nitwit trucker responsible).
I was reading a DOT report on "Commercial Medium Tire Debris Study" (DOT HS 811 060) and an inference that approximately 50% of tire failures are due to belt separation and that 50% of the probable cause is due to under inflation (both refer to "all tire failures").
And not enough of the cost of tread separation is borne by users of retreads. Aside from the all too common problem of tire guts strewn along the shoulder of the highway, there is the very real danger of a retread causing damage to a vehicle or possibly an accident with injuries. Last year, I had the pleasure of driving along Rt 128 here in Bostonland at night. An 18 wheeler decided to cast off one of its tires; I managed to avoid all but one of the pieces. My reward is a large dent in my once pristine car, and no clue who is responsible beyond the fact that it is 17 wheeler now.
I'm not saying retreads are always bad, nor am I suggesting we should soak truckers because they are evil. But the way retreads are currently used have significant externalities for other road users. The very same road users who would have bought an item that the truck was carrying if they didn't have to fix their car.
the obvious way for government/society to control the electricity industry is to control the distribution network, every house in Victoria will get a government funded smart meter that can operate in reverse so now the electricity lobbyists can't bitch about the cost of implementing net metering when the electricity companies are told THEY have no choice about buying back electricity generated by their customers solar panels and what-not.
Sounds like the government in Victoria got hoodwinked, or older Australian electric meters are special. In North America, even our old spinning disc, five dial electric meters run just fine in reverse when power is passing through out to the grid.
I have been wondering for a while now whether it might be practical to equip trains with little automated drones, which fly ahead of the train. The idea is to spot dangerous obstructions before the train gets too close to stop.
This line of thinking -- giving trains a lot of advance warning about potential problems -- is currently being addressed by fixed wayside sensors. Mostly it is of the "there is another train ahead of you, stop!" variety, but some progress has been made on the "there is something other than a train ahead of you, stop!" front. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Separation for one example
It would be interesting to see how well a drone aircraft/mini-train can work in formation with a high speed train, but because the strategy is based on something moving just as fast as its parent many of the problems aren't actually solved, just shifted/reduced in degree ("well the high speed express train stopped, but the drone still took out the family of four at the level crosssing")
If there's a problem with a charge on your card, would you rather (a) dispute the charge on your credit card, withholding payment until resolved, or (b) dispute the charge and try to get the debit card company to give you money back?
This. I'm about to burn through yet another lunch break to deal with Sovereign Bank about a debit card chargeback against GoDaddy. I submitted the dispute to them on July 22. After multiple calls to several different people, the only thing I have learned so far is the chargeback department got my chargeback. No money back in my account. No word on when this may happen. No one answers the chargeback department's direct line.
The money in this case is small. But I am very worried about what might happen if the amount was larger. To be fair, Sovereign has been prompt in handling my previous chargebacks (when someone stole my debit card number), but the way this case was handled erases any brownie points they earned previously.
In Massachusetts, there most definitely is. After the TJX breach, there was a big push to get businesses that hold personal information to take appropriate precautions. This culminated in M.G.L. Chapter 93H and corresponding regulations, which among other things makes data breaches actionable if the business did squat all to prevent it.
Lately, our Attorney General has been doing everything she can to keep herself in the news, and I would not be surprised if she files suit against Sony post haste.
All older bills are valid until they wear out. In other words; this is a pointless exercise unless they set an expiry date for older bills.
More accurately, all bills are valid until the Federal Reserve shreds them.
The more interesting point in a bill's life is when it is deemed no longer fit for further circulation. This happens when a bill lands at a bank and doesn't meet the fitness requirements spelled out at http://www.frbservices.org/files/operations/pdf/FRB_Fitness_guidelines.pdf . Aside from declaring worn bills to be unfit, the fitness requirements also cast all older bills ($20s, $10s, and $5s before the first series of redesigns) into the unfit-for-further-circulation pile.
This strategy isn't perfect. There are many old $20s, $10s and $5s that never made it to a bank. But it is good enough considering it was successful in making those old bills a small fraction of what is currently circulating. Hopefully, the older bills are more likely to be scrutinized as they come through.
Very carefully, though, they still keep your xbox live account active and charge you the subscription fee.
That's interesting. I wonder what the legal position is with them doing that.
Disclaimer; IANAL. They might get away with it in the US, but if it came to court within the EU, I suspect that they'd lose due to the stronger consumer laws. Regardless of any legal weaselling over how they defined words, and what they said in the contract, in effect what they've done is to cancel the service that is being paid for (and done it *themselves*). Any reasonable person would assume that they are no longer being charged for a service that is no longer being supplied.
Many states in the United States have strong consumer protection laws as well. In Massachusetts, such a stunt would be an unfair and deceptive practice (see M.G.L c. 93A). I expect many other states have similar laws. But if the Xbox account is paid with a credit card, a simple chargeback will be quick and effective.
Hey now. Don't leave out FirstEnergy Corp, which managed to (through poor maintenance combined with efforts to hide rather than fix problems) take out electricity for Ohio, Ontario, Quebec, New York, Pennsylvania, and New England in 2003.
Not really. FirstEnergy's ineptitude was one factor, but only a part of the perfect storm that led to the cascading failure in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, (most of) New York and a (tiny) part of Connecticut (Quebec was unaffected). The big issues were the sudden tripping of a major Cleveland-area power station and corresponding deficit of reactive power in that area, and a control system that effectively stopped processing updates, leaving controllers in the dark about the actual state of the system.
And if you aren't trying to convince others, then why are you here?
To share information, you adversarial #@%$@#%$@.
Relax, there is really no need to get nasty.
But I can't support your stance that you were reporting "just the facts" when you clearly stated an opinion along with it. We will just have to agree to disagree on that.
I didn't say there was one and only one cause of that really big event, and I think you're a twat for implying that this is what I meant.
Quoting from your original post:
The great blackout of 2003, which took out the north east united states and a good chunk of ontario, was caused by deregulation (removing the requirement to clear the branches around the power lines [wikipedia.org]).
What exactly did you mean?
Be happy I was in a good enough mood to give some more information which your reply did not really warrant.
To be fair, it was your original post that needed more information. In any event, you raised some points, I raised some counterpoints.
How much research and time-spent are you expecting out of slashdot posts? Really? I linked to a wikipedia article relevant to the topic, it had enough info there to lead to the rest I gave later, you should have been able to do that yourself, rather than to blab off about being incorrect and misleading.
That is disingenuous. I propose that instead of making the reader support your thesis, you should do the work. That seems to be the best way to convince others of your point. And if you aren't trying to convince others, then why are you here?
Oh, and Quebec was isolated from the rest of the Eastern Interconnection (connected only via HVDC ties) in 1990 because of its demonstrated repeated inability to stop cascading blackouts, long long before deregulation hit the scene. Quebec physically could not be affected by the 2003 blackout on the HVAC system.
I am interested in learning more about why Quebec is a separate interconnection, and I have little reason to disagree with your explanation. But I must point out that the first phase of the Quebec-New England HVDC system was finished in 1986, suggesting that the grids were asynchronous before 1990. Can you provide more information?
In my response, I posted three points. So far, you have only written an incomplete response to one of my points, along with an ad-hominem.
Your citation is valuable. I am unaware of the "Utility Vegetation Management Final Report," nor am I familiar with Rule 218. I will look into it, but I can't say I will reach the same conclusion once I read the whole thing.
In any case, vegetation management was not the sole cause of the blackout. A point that I raised and you dismissed without comment.
The great blackout of 2003, which took out the north east united states and a good chunk of ontario, was caused by deregulation (removing the requirement to clear the branches around the power lines). Quebec, which has state-owned power (Hydro-Quebec) was not hit hard by that blackout, because it keeps its grid out of phase with those dangerously unregulated parts around it.
Learn the lesson: You can't trust the greedy to run critical infrastructure.
Misleading and incorrect.
1. The article your cited does not state that the blackout was due to deregulation "removing the requirement to clear branches around the power lines." It states, quite clearly, that the main cause was due to a generating plant going offline, then several power transmission lines going offline (or "tripping") due to tree contact. Nowhere does it say that deregulation had anything to do with that sequence of events.
If you assert deregulation lifted a requirement that power transmission line RoW be clear of vegetation, please cite.
2. Wikipedia's summary of the findings is somewhat watered-down. Many other factors went into play, from the lack of situational awareness at FirstEnergy's control center, to reactive power deficiencies, and finally to the violent swings as 10s of gigawatts of electric power sloshed about the northeast trying to find an equilibrium, tripping generating plants and power lines along the way. A full report is available at https://reports.energy.gov/BlackoutFinal-Web.pdf
3. You seem to imply that Quebec's "state-owned" power concern decided to sever its AC links to adjacent areas because it did not want to be taken down with its "dangerously unregulated" neighbors. Are you sure it is because of that? I'm pretty sure that Hydro-Quebec has been its own AC interconnection since well before deregulation occurred.
What's mental is that a jury (or worse, a judge) accepted the result of a new, questionable, unproven technology as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was guilty. (I assume here that the Indian justice system has the same burden of proof as most others.)
India did away with jury trials in 1960. Look up K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra.
I'd like to suggest another factor: Stability-conscious developers -- those that know about race conditions, memory leaks, atomic transactions, and the like -- tend to gravitate towards operating systems that make it easy to put their ideas into practice.
That isn't to say Windows is inherently unstable, it just means that it is more difficult to write a stable and reliable application on that platform. And even if you think you got all your bases covered, you can still get blindsided by depending on poorly written code churned out by some.NET developer who was happy enough to ship something that appeared to work most of the time.
The good developers then shrug and say Windows is not suitable for critical computing, and go back to UNIX-ish platforms or whatever they are more comfortable with. Rushing into that void are legions of Windows developers who are also happy enough to ship something that appeared to work most of the time, and the cycle continues.
Tor hides your location, not your identity. What good is a hidden location when you're authenticating to the other end? If the other end (in this case, Google) knew more about that person's identity, then why wasn't that information released? It strikes me that all Google had was a throw-away email address for that blog.
For anything you do not want to be easily traced back to you, use Tor. Much better than relying on any intermediate parties to withhold your identity -- even if they mean the best.
Slashdot Mirror
You were driving close enough to be unable to avoid road hazards. Therefore, your fault.
Someone has already responded to you (and someone else gave you a downmod). I'm going to rebut your argument further to show readers that yes, tire debris from trucks are a negative externality and not something truckers have the right to be doing.
I wasn't driving fast or carelessly. In fact I was driving at 55 MPH, the speed limit through that stretch -- and routinely exceeded by many. I was in the right lane when this all went down with the truck passing, and while my weaving was mostly effective there is only so much one can do. Perhaps it is my fault that I wasn't driving a car more nimble than a Prius, or my fault I wasn't doing 30 MPH instead, or my fault that I was on Rt 128, but in our system of responsibility none of those things matter.
Further, that doesn't change the fundamental relationship between motorists on the highway: We are expected not to spew heavy pieces of rubber all over the road for people to hit. Some trucker, somewhere, got the benefit of not having to pay for proper tire upkeep. The cost of this benefit was shifted to other motorists. This isn't some imaginary externality, it is a very real cost shifting.
As an aside, someday I hope to rig up a dashcam. Driving in the Boston area is always "interesting" and I'd like to record choice moments of other motorists for posterity. Such a scheme would also help rebut some of these nonsense arguments (and in this case, maybe help identify the nitwit trucker responsible).
I was reading a DOT report on "Commercial Medium Tire Debris Study" (DOT HS 811 060) and an inference that approximately 50% of tire failures are due to belt separation and that 50% of the probable cause is due to under inflation (both refer to "all tire failures").
And not enough of the cost of tread separation is borne by users of retreads. Aside from the all too common problem of tire guts strewn along the shoulder of the highway, there is the very real danger of a retread causing damage to a vehicle or possibly an accident with injuries. Last year, I had the pleasure of driving along Rt 128 here in Bostonland at night. An 18 wheeler decided to cast off one of its tires; I managed to avoid all but one of the pieces. My reward is a large dent in my once pristine car, and no clue who is responsible beyond the fact that it is 17 wheeler now.
I'm not saying retreads are always bad, nor am I suggesting we should soak truckers because they are evil. But the way retreads are currently used have significant externalities for other road users. The very same road users who would have bought an item that the truck was carrying if they didn't have to fix their car.
the obvious way for government/society to control the electricity industry is to control the distribution network, every house in Victoria will get a government funded smart meter that can operate in reverse so now the electricity lobbyists can't bitch about the cost of implementing net metering when the electricity companies are told THEY have no choice about buying back electricity generated by their customers solar panels and what-not.
Sounds like the government in Victoria got hoodwinked, or older Australian electric meters are special. In North America, even our old spinning disc, five dial electric meters run just fine in reverse when power is passing through out to the grid.
I am drifting dreadfully off-topic, but I have to ask: Was this incident what inspired you to choose the alias "flaming error?"
I have been wondering for a while now whether it might be practical to equip trains with little automated drones, which fly ahead of the train. The idea is to spot dangerous obstructions before the train gets too close to stop.
This line of thinking -- giving trains a lot of advance warning about potential problems -- is currently being addressed by fixed wayside sensors. Mostly it is of the "there is another train ahead of you, stop!" variety, but some progress has been made on the "there is something other than a train ahead of you, stop!" front. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Separation for one example
It would be interesting to see how well a drone aircraft/mini-train can work in formation with a high speed train, but because the strategy is based on something moving just as fast as its parent many of the problems aren't actually solved, just shifted/reduced in degree ("well the high speed express train stopped, but the drone still took out the family of four at the level crosssing")
If there's a problem with a charge on your card, would you rather (a) dispute the charge on your credit card, withholding payment until resolved, or (b) dispute the charge and try to get the debit card company to give you money back?
This. I'm about to burn through yet another lunch break to deal with Sovereign Bank about a debit card chargeback against GoDaddy. I submitted the dispute to them on July 22. After multiple calls to several different people, the only thing I have learned so far is the chargeback department got my chargeback. No money back in my account. No word on when this may happen. No one answers the chargeback department's direct line.
The money in this case is small. But I am very worried about what might happen if the amount was larger. To be fair, Sovereign has been prompt in handling my previous chargebacks (when someone stole my debit card number), but the way this case was handled erases any brownie points they earned previously.
In Massachusetts, there most definitely is. After the TJX breach, there was a big push to get businesses that hold personal information to take appropriate precautions. This culminated in M.G.L. Chapter 93H and corresponding regulations, which among other things makes data breaches actionable if the business did squat all to prevent it.
Lately, our Attorney General has been doing everything she can to keep herself in the news, and I would not be surprised if she files suit against Sony post haste.
All older bills are valid until they wear out. In other words; this is a pointless exercise unless they set an expiry date for older bills.
More accurately, all bills are valid until the Federal Reserve shreds them.
The more interesting point in a bill's life is when it is deemed no longer fit for further circulation. This happens when a bill lands at a bank and doesn't meet the fitness requirements spelled out at http://www.frbservices.org/files/operations/pdf/FRB_Fitness_guidelines.pdf . Aside from declaring worn bills to be unfit, the fitness requirements also cast all older bills ($20s, $10s, and $5s before the first series of redesigns) into the unfit-for-further-circulation pile.
This strategy isn't perfect. There are many old $20s, $10s and $5s that never made it to a bank. But it is good enough considering it was successful in making those old bills a small fraction of what is currently circulating. Hopefully, the older bills are more likely to be scrutinized as they come through.
Very carefully, though, they still keep your xbox live account active and charge you the subscription fee.
That's interesting. I wonder what the legal position is with them doing that.
Disclaimer; IANAL. They might get away with it in the US, but if it came to court within the EU, I suspect that they'd lose due to the stronger consumer laws. Regardless of any legal weaselling over how they defined words, and what they said in the contract, in effect what they've done is to cancel the service that is being paid for (and done it *themselves*). Any reasonable person would assume that they are no longer being charged for a service that is no longer being supplied.
Many states in the United States have strong consumer protection laws as well. In Massachusetts, such a stunt would be an unfair and deceptive practice (see M.G.L c. 93A). I expect many other states have similar laws. But if the Xbox account is paid with a credit card, a simple chargeback will be quick and effective.
Hey now. Don't leave out FirstEnergy Corp, which managed to (through poor maintenance combined with efforts to hide rather than fix problems) take out electricity for Ohio, Ontario, Quebec, New York, Pennsylvania, and New England in 2003.
Not really. FirstEnergy's ineptitude was one factor, but only a part of the perfect storm that led to the cascading failure in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, (most of) New York and a (tiny) part of Connecticut (Quebec was unaffected). The big issues were the sudden tripping of a major Cleveland-area power station and corresponding deficit of reactive power in that area, and a control system that effectively stopped processing updates, leaving controllers in the dark about the actual state of the system.
Does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire count?
And if you aren't trying to convince others, then why are you here?
To share information, you adversarial #@%$@#%$@.
Relax, there is really no need to get nasty.
But I can't support your stance that you were reporting "just the facts" when you clearly stated an opinion along with it. We will just have to agree to disagree on that.
Anyway, this thread has dragged on too far. Don't worry, I have no hard feelings. If it makes you feel better, I asked for clarification for a post attacking yours: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1435938&cid=30028312
I didn't say there was one and only one cause of that really big event, and I think you're a twat for implying that this is what I meant.
Quoting from your original post:
The great blackout of 2003, which took out the north east united states and a good chunk of ontario, was caused by deregulation (removing the requirement to clear the branches around the power lines [wikipedia.org]).
What exactly did you mean?
Be happy I was in a good enough mood to give some more information which your reply did not really warrant.
To be fair, it was your original post that needed more information. In any event, you raised some points, I raised some counterpoints.
How much research and time-spent are you expecting out of slashdot posts? Really? I linked to a wikipedia article relevant to the topic, it had enough info there to lead to the rest I gave later, you should have been able to do that yourself, rather than to blab off about being incorrect and misleading.
That is disingenuous. I propose that instead of making the reader support your thesis, you should do the work. That seems to be the best way to convince others of your point. And if you aren't trying to convince others, then why are you here?
Oh, and Quebec was isolated from the rest of the Eastern Interconnection (connected only via HVDC ties) in 1990 because of its demonstrated repeated inability to stop cascading blackouts, long long before deregulation hit the scene. Quebec physically could not be affected by the 2003 blackout on the HVAC system.
I am interested in learning more about why Quebec is a separate interconnection, and I have little reason to disagree with your explanation. But I must point out that the first phase of the Quebec-New England HVDC system was finished in 1986, suggesting that the grids were asynchronous before 1990. Can you provide more information?
In my response, I posted three points. So far, you have only written an incomplete response to one of my points, along with an ad-hominem.
Your citation is valuable. I am unaware of the "Utility Vegetation Management Final Report," nor am I familiar with Rule 218. I will look into it, but I can't say I will reach the same conclusion once I read the whole thing.
In any case, vegetation management was not the sole cause of the blackout. A point that I raised and you dismissed without comment.
The great blackout of 2003, which took out the north east united states and a good chunk of ontario, was caused by deregulation (removing the requirement to clear the branches around the power lines).
Quebec, which has state-owned power (Hydro-Quebec) was not hit hard by that blackout, because it keeps its grid out of phase with those dangerously unregulated parts around it.
Learn the lesson: You can't trust the greedy to run critical infrastructure.
Misleading and incorrect.
1. The article your cited does not state that the blackout was due to deregulation "removing the requirement to clear branches around the power lines." It states, quite clearly, that the main cause was due to a generating plant going offline, then several power transmission lines going offline (or "tripping") due to tree contact. Nowhere does it say that deregulation had anything to do with that sequence of events.
If you assert deregulation lifted a requirement that power transmission line RoW be clear of vegetation, please cite.
2. Wikipedia's summary of the findings is somewhat watered-down. Many other factors went into play, from the lack of situational awareness at FirstEnergy's control center, to reactive power deficiencies, and finally to the violent swings as 10s of gigawatts of electric power sloshed about the northeast trying to find an equilibrium, tripping generating plants and power lines along the way. A full report is available at https://reports.energy.gov/BlackoutFinal-Web.pdf
3. You seem to imply that Quebec's "state-owned" power concern decided to sever its AC links to adjacent areas because it did not want to be taken down with its "dangerously unregulated" neighbors. Are you sure it is because of that? I'm pretty sure that Hydro-Quebec has been its own AC interconnection since well before deregulation occurred.
According to http://mospublic.ercot.com/ercot/jsp/frequency_control.jsp Texas is currently (as of when I checked the page) using 35.3 GW. Of which, 34.9 GW is generated in-grid.
I wonder if this would count as an unfair and deceptive practice as described in Massachusetts G.L. 93A.
What is to prevent any such proposed system from becoming yet another popularity contest plagued by those who want to quash unpopular ideas?
What's mental is that a jury (or worse, a judge) accepted the result of a new, questionable, unproven technology as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was guilty. (I assume here that the Indian justice system has the same burden of proof as most others.)
India did away with jury trials in 1960. Look up K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra.
You have hit the nail right on the head.
I'd like to suggest another factor: Stability-conscious developers -- those that know about race conditions, memory leaks, atomic transactions, and the like -- tend to gravitate towards operating systems that make it easy to put their ideas into practice.
That isn't to say Windows is inherently unstable, it just means that it is more difficult to write a stable and reliable application on that platform. And even if you think you got all your bases covered, you can still get blindsided by depending on poorly written code churned out by some .NET developer who was happy enough to ship something that appeared to work most of the time.
The good developers then shrug and say Windows is not suitable for critical computing, and go back to UNIX-ish platforms or whatever they are more comfortable with. Rushing into that void are legions of Windows developers who are also happy enough to ship something that appeared to work most of the time, and the cycle continues.
Just goes to show how out of touch Americans really are with the rest of the world.
I think you mean ignorant.
First World Countries = NATO
Literally everyone who was allied with the USA during WWII and the Cold War
Second World Countries = Warsaw Pact
Literally everyone who was allied with Russia during WWII and the Cold War
Third World Countries = Neutral
Literally everyone who was not allied with the USA or Russia during WWII and the Cold War
While we are on the subject of ignorance, you do know who was fighting who in WWII, right? Hint: It wasn't the United States versus the Soviet Union.
And the Internet, too, if everyone grabs the Vista .tar.gz.
For anything you do not want to be easily traced back to you, use Tor. Much better than relying on any intermediate parties to withhold your identity -- even if they mean the best.