Grandfather here, and not really. I've dealt with random streets and hilly terrain too.
The problem with people saying "it's on the right side of the road" is that roads have two right sides, and people often have no freaking clue the which way you're supposed to be going when the landmark appears "on the right".
Sometimes there's a way out, though! Ask the non-map-literate direction giver if their relative location applies when headed uptown vs. downtown, or towards the river vs. away from the river, etc. Usually even navigation-illiterate people can grasp this.
GPS doesn't destroy local knowledge. If anything, it may destroy people's ability to navigate with a map and compass. Talking turn-by-turn GPS is dumbed down to the point that (assuming it works right) you'll arrive at your destination without ever having to read a map. However I don't think it's really an issue. So many people ALREADY don't have a clue with a map and compass that I doubt GPS will make matters worse. It's like trying to argue that audiobooks encourage illiteracy--might be a tiny amount of truth to it but really it's not an issue.
Bottom line: learn to read a damn map. Learn to dead reckon without landmarks. You will become a better person, and your instructions will be far FAR less annoying to your map-literate friends.
The turn-by-turn electronic voice is merely a crutch for people who can't read maps. People will continue to give horrible directions even with GPS. Bottom line: learn to navigate with a map and compass.
I can't even count the number of times some well meaning person tried to give me directions like, "it's on the right side of Foobar Avenue".
So then I ask "Is that the right side as you're headed east or headed west?" and they freeze up as their eyes glaze over. Sometimes I try to help by rephrasing the question like "well, is it on the north or south side of Foobar Avenue?", and of course they're still helpless. Too many people have no concept of cardinal directions and no idea how to dead reckon from one point to another without familiar landmarks. If these kind of people ever found themselves in unfamiliar territory they'd be screwed.
Absolutely been done, though compressed air is far more likely than natural gas. Divide the pipe into compartments, pressurize each compartment, and install a pressure transducer in each segment. If one of the segments gets breached it loses pressure and you can tell exactly where the damage happened.
I think this stuff is outlined in the old TEMPEST specs. It's not just about EM leakage, but damage detection and mitigation and airgapping of different levels of classification. I bet there's plenty of triple runs of pipe going into buildings in northern Virginia: SIPRNet, NIPRNet and JWICS ought to be in separate conduits.
According to the latest Department of Homeland Security fear tactic, anyone engaging in "cyber-attacks" is now a terrorist.
Random House has begun vandalizing consumers' property without their consent. Did anyone sign a EULA permitting Random House to disable text-to-speech? If not, Random House is essentially conducting "cyber terrorism".
Now realistically, I'm not in favor of sending the CEO of Random House to gitmo... but you can see how there is a double standard for corporations vs. individuals.
You don't have to be into extreme sports or anything, but extracurricular activities *are* important. If you're a nerd, what sort of nerd activities do you do? What are you most awesome at? List that stuff on your resume.
Actually come to think of it... I don't think any ROOMS in 31N are purged. If anything, only the samples themselves are stored in gastight purged containers.
The breathing gear stuff is probably completely salt-worthy. All I know is Shae was going for a scuba cert at the time, and that's why she wasn't in Florida with the other 3 when they got busted.
Thad was a real type-A personality type. Very self confident and extroverted. I don't know much about how the other students got involved in the heist, but I'd imagine Thad was the ringleader.
Shae was probably allowed in on the plan because she could have supplied the scuba gear for breathing in the nitrogen-purged storage room. There's no reason they would have needed wetsuits, though.
Haven't read TFA yet, but the general story is true. I worked at JSC and knew Shae.
The samples were in a floor safe that they rolled out of the building on a dolly. The sting was set up as if a Belgian rockhound wanted to buy some of the samples, and they agreed to meet in Florida. The 3 other interns crossed state lines for the sting. Shae stayed in TX that weekend to attend scuba classes.
That's true. I almost learned the hard way that you can't turn right on a red light in Quebec. Luckily the gendarme saw my US license plate and took pity.
Nothing more than some slight of hand with the county budget. Next year if car crash costs go down, there'll be a surplus in the drunk driving fund and no easy way to apply it somewhere useful.
There's no way that would work in, say, Houston. The problem is not just uninsured cars with Texas tags. There are cars driving around from Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. How the heck do they propose to check if *those* vehicles are insured?
Here's an easy metric: compare yellow light times at intersections with cameras vs. intersections that do not have cameras. If the city has demonstrably shorter yellows where the cameras are installed, it's pretty clear that something fishy is going on.
I bet insurance companies have data like this already. Do premiums go up when red light cameras go in? Hmmm...
That's the problem with law enforcement in Houston. Police there only earn so much, and it's hard to pay the bills. Officers often take side jobs guarding private properties (stores, private parking lots, etc) and work those side jobs WHILE IN UNIFORM.
Once you've crossed that line as a cop taking money on the side to watch a store, you're a mercenary, not a soldier. I expect anyone in uniform to be serving the public good, impartially. Unfortunately, Houston has a culture that places off-duty cops on private payrolls, while still in uniform impersonating actual public servants. It's a total racket: payola to off-duty cops who show up in uniform to guard your store, or risk higher crime due to lack of legitimate police presence.
Shortening yellow light timing is dangerous. The damn thing turns yellow AS A SAFETY FEATURE to allow traffic time to slow down. It doesn't surprise me that Houston would do something as stupid as trying to entrap motorists with artificially short yellows. Just look at how screwed up their light rail system is. How many cars does that train hit every month? It's not the train driver's fault... they just designed the track/street system in an utterly stupid way.
Back when I studied traffic laws for my license in Pennsylvania, they pointed out something important. Maybe it's just a PA thing:
If your front bumper was already over the line before the light turned red, you are OK. You don't have to *clear* the intersection prior to red, merely *enter* it before it turns red and you are legal.
Is there any reason the rules for average children *should* apply?
Every person has special needs, whether they're gifted, average, or dumb as a stump. When you treat all children as if they all have the same abilities they will resent it. They will resent YOU.
Children should be challenged and rewarded if they succeed. That's not coddling.
That's true. As a mid-career nerd myself, however, I've noticed that our type often presents themselves as a pain in the ass without realizing it.
People are fickle. If they think you're intentionally being an ass, they'll resent it. For me at least, that means making a conscious effort to spend at time making small talk, attending social stuff, and engaging coworkers on topics besides just work. Getting to know your coworkers isn't just Dilbert teambuilding bullshit. It also (a) covers your ass by helping the mundanes relate positively to you and (b) gives you insights into how your coworkers think, too.
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Amigas kept everything in 'drawers'. This is clearly the best system for storing hot grits.
MS-DOS has DIR command, not FOL. Can't blame the early DOS jockeys for this though, cause they just borrowed the convention from VMS.
At least this is one thing that MS, DEC and Unix can all agree on: "directory" is correct, and "folder" is dumb.
Grandfather here, and not really. I've dealt with random streets and hilly terrain too.
The problem with people saying "it's on the right side of the road" is that roads have two right sides, and people often have no freaking clue the which way you're supposed to be going when the landmark appears "on the right".
Sometimes there's a way out, though! Ask the non-map-literate direction giver if their relative location applies when headed uptown vs. downtown, or towards the river vs. away from the river, etc. Usually even navigation-illiterate people can grasp this.
Amen to that! I would get off your lawn, but I seem to have misplaced my GPS....
Surely you can tear your eyes away from the road at least once every half hour to look at the map displayed on your dashboard-mounted GPS device.
If you can't be bothered to scan your instruments, why are you still permitted to drive?
GPS doesn't destroy local knowledge. If anything, it may destroy people's ability to navigate with a map and compass. Talking turn-by-turn GPS is dumbed down to the point that (assuming it works right) you'll arrive at your destination without ever having to read a map. However I don't think it's really an issue. So many people ALREADY don't have a clue with a map and compass that I doubt GPS will make matters worse. It's like trying to argue that audiobooks encourage illiteracy--might be a tiny amount of truth to it but really it's not an issue.
Bottom line: learn to read a damn map. Learn to dead reckon without landmarks. You will become a better person, and your instructions will be far FAR less annoying to your map-literate friends.
The turn-by-turn electronic voice is merely a crutch for people who can't read maps. People will continue to give horrible directions even with GPS. Bottom line: learn to navigate with a map and compass.
I can't even count the number of times some well meaning person tried to give me directions like, "it's on the right side of Foobar Avenue".
So then I ask "Is that the right side as you're headed east or headed west?" and they freeze up as their eyes glaze over. Sometimes I try to help by rephrasing the question like "well, is it on the north or south side of Foobar Avenue?", and of course they're still helpless. Too many people have no concept of cardinal directions and no idea how to dead reckon from one point to another without familiar landmarks. If these kind of people ever found themselves in unfamiliar territory they'd be screwed.
They could be, but more likely they'll just have their student visas terminated and be sent back to China.
As opposed to mildly illegal?
Absolutely been done, though compressed air is far more likely than natural gas. Divide the pipe into compartments, pressurize each compartment, and install a pressure transducer in each segment. If one of the segments gets breached it loses pressure and you can tell exactly where the damage happened.
I think this stuff is outlined in the old TEMPEST specs. It's not just about EM leakage, but damage detection and mitigation and airgapping of different levels of classification. I bet there's plenty of triple runs of pipe going into buildings in northern Virginia: SIPRNet, NIPRNet and JWICS ought to be in separate conduits.
According to the latest Department of Homeland Security fear tactic, anyone engaging in "cyber-attacks" is now a terrorist.
Random House has begun vandalizing consumers' property without their consent. Did anyone sign a EULA permitting Random House to disable text-to-speech? If not, Random House is essentially conducting "cyber terrorism".
Now realistically, I'm not in favor of sending the CEO of Random House to gitmo... but you can see how there is a double standard for corporations vs. individuals.
You don't have to be into extreme sports or anything, but extracurricular activities *are* important. If you're a nerd, what sort of nerd activities do you do? What are you most awesome at? List that stuff on your resume.
Actually come to think of it... I don't think any ROOMS in 31N are purged. If anything, only the samples themselves are stored in gastight purged containers.
The breathing gear stuff is probably completely salt-worthy. All I know is Shae was going for a scuba cert at the time, and that's why she wasn't in Florida with the other 3 when they got busted.
Thad was a real type-A personality type. Very self confident and extroverted. I don't know much about how the other students got involved in the heist, but I'd imagine Thad was the ringleader.
Shae was probably allowed in on the plan because she could have supplied the scuba gear for breathing in the nitrogen-purged storage room. There's no reason they would have needed wetsuits, though.
Haven't read TFA yet, but the general story is true. I worked at JSC and knew Shae.
The samples were in a floor safe that they rolled out of the building on a dolly. The sting was set up as if a Belgian rockhound wanted to buy some of the samples, and they agreed to meet in Florida. The 3 other interns crossed state lines for the sting. Shae stayed in TX that weekend to attend scuba classes.
Now that SRJC has destroyed their credibility as an institute of higher education, perhaps they'll be lowering tuition.
That's true. I almost learned the hard way that you can't turn right on a red light in Quebec. Luckily the gendarme saw my US license plate and took pity.
Nothing more than some slight of hand with the county budget. Next year if car crash costs go down, there'll be a surplus in the drunk driving fund and no easy way to apply it somewhere useful.
There's no way that would work in, say, Houston. The problem is not just uninsured cars with Texas tags. There are cars driving around from Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. How the heck do they propose to check if *those* vehicles are insured?
Here's an easy metric: compare yellow light times at intersections with cameras vs. intersections that do not have cameras. If the city has demonstrably shorter yellows where the cameras are installed, it's pretty clear that something fishy is going on.
I bet insurance companies have data like this already. Do premiums go up when red light cameras go in? Hmmm...
Well, as long as the local governments are honest what's wrong with letting cities or states choose their own rules?
Central rule only ensures that when there's corruption, we all get corrupted the same way.
That's the problem with law enforcement in Houston. Police there only earn so much, and it's hard to pay the bills. Officers often take side jobs guarding private properties (stores, private parking lots, etc) and work those side jobs WHILE IN UNIFORM.
Once you've crossed that line as a cop taking money on the side to watch a store, you're a mercenary, not a soldier. I expect anyone in uniform to be serving the public good, impartially. Unfortunately, Houston has a culture that places off-duty cops on private payrolls, while still in uniform impersonating actual public servants. It's a total racket: payola to off-duty cops who show up in uniform to guard your store, or risk higher crime due to lack of legitimate police presence.
Shortening yellow light timing is dangerous. The damn thing turns yellow AS A SAFETY FEATURE to allow traffic time to slow down. It doesn't surprise me that Houston would do something as stupid as trying to entrap motorists with artificially short yellows. Just look at how screwed up their light rail system is. How many cars does that train hit every month? It's not the train driver's fault... they just designed the track/street system in an utterly stupid way.
Back when I studied traffic laws for my license in Pennsylvania, they pointed out something important. Maybe it's just a PA thing:
If your front bumper was already over the line before the light turned red, you are OK. You don't have to *clear* the intersection prior to red, merely *enter* it before it turns red and you are legal.
Is there any reason the rules for average children *should* apply?
Every person has special needs, whether they're gifted, average, or dumb as a stump. When you treat all children as if they all have the same abilities they will resent it. They will resent YOU.
Children should be challenged and rewarded if they succeed. That's not coddling.
That's true. As a mid-career nerd myself, however, I've noticed that our type often presents themselves as a pain in the ass without realizing it.
People are fickle. If they think you're intentionally being an ass, they'll resent it. For me at least, that means making a conscious effort to spend at time making small talk, attending social stuff, and engaging coworkers on topics besides just work. Getting to know your coworkers isn't just Dilbert teambuilding bullshit. It also (a) covers your ass by helping the mundanes relate positively to you and (b) gives you insights into how your coworkers think, too.