You would have to admit the element of speed helped contribute to Princess Di's death.
That and driving in to a concrete pillar. That tunnel doesn't have crash barriers down the middle. But again it's inappropriate speed. They were going too fast for the road conditions. You wouldn't do 60mph through a housing estate would you?
And if motorcycles make it easier for one to avoid an accident, then why have the accident rates been increasing?
Because again it's relative. Biking has become popular and there are more bikers and scooterists on the road. There are more of them and so more accidents and more fatalities. As a percentage of riders I don't know whether it's an increase or not. One of the biggest factors in the accident rate at the moment is born agains or mid life crisis bikers. Usually middle aged men who have returned to biking afterf a long long break or just got their licence. Either way they can afford machines which are just too powerful for them. Experienced and sensible bikers know better.
Car safety is interesting. It's not a simple thing to solve as there are so many dependencies amoung numerous factors.
a) Speed does not kill. If it killed then people would be dieing all the time in F1 and World Super Bikes. There is an increase in risk but nothing like you would expect. Inapproprate speed kills. 70mph on a dry road with little traffic is safer than 50mph in fog in the rush hour.
b) There's primary safety verses secondary safety. For example there are some types of accident where a motorcyclist is better off than a car driver as the biker will come off and slide down the road where as the driver is contained. Also on a motorcycle you're more likely to be able avoid a collision. My bike, which is relatively slow, will accelerate to 100mph and brake back to zero within 15 seconds. Together with it being thin and it's handling means that I'm more able to avoid accidents than in a car.
I should also introduce risk compensation theory here. A Volvo or SUV should, in theory, be safer than, say a classic mini, but the driver either consciously or unconsciously knows this and so drives less safely.
c) Personal responsibility is another factor. US air bags are far more explosive than european ones because in Europe we assume that drivers and passengers are wearing seat belts. US car manufacturers assume their customers are not. In fact new US regulations have killed the classic lines of cars like Aston Martins as they now have to be designed so that idiots who drive without safety devices don't hurt themselves too much.
d) Experience of drivers. Although technically the UK national speed limit is 70mph provided coniditions are right speeds up to 100mph are sort of tolerated on motorways. If you ask any driver over here, most would say they've driven at atleast 80mph, and probably 90mph at some point or other. And yet our road death toll is proportionally far less than the US and motorways are the safest roads in the UK. In Germany on the autobahns speeds of 150mph are not unknown. It's because we're used to these speeds.
e) The vehicles themselves. Sports cars are always safer than regular cars or SUVs at the same speed because they have better brakes, better handling and better acceleration. Accelerating out of trouble on a road (to avoid a collision) is just as valid as braking to avoid one and in some cases more advisable. It's similar which sports bikes and sports/tourers.
Judging from what I've seen on these US reality COP TV shows the average European car has better braking, handling and acceleration than the US equivalent. The narrators express horror at vehicles travelling at speeds which are normal in Europe.
Arguments against high speed cars are generally flawed because in the end a car is as fast as you drive it and if you're rich enough to own one you can afford to go to track days at a local circuit (which are very popular over here and great fun).
No, I am not saying that we shouldn't innovate just because of what a bunch of loony Moslems might do, but we owe it to ourselves to think about the possible consequences.
As apposed to loony Christians? The religious reich are just as bad. They just have a better marketing department. I would be more worried of the creationists who would blow it up lest it prove the world was round.
With enough CPU cycles you can do anything in software. The question here is cost. I work in the digital television industry and you don't find software solutions for decoding MPEG streams in set top boxes. Why? Cost! It's far cheaper to have a slow processor and custom hardware than an expensive , power hungry, heat generating processor. The VIA MPEG decoder is on a board with a fairly low power processor which is oriented more towards embedded style applications and cheap with it.
the only reason marijuana isn't legal today is that people make too much money on maintaining the status quo.
The reason it isn't legal in many countries is that the US is heavy handed against countries which make it legal. The reason it became illegal was to protect the synthetic rope manufacturers in the US in the early 20th century. Originally ropes were made from hemp and in the UK (I think) there's still a requirement on farmers to grow hemp for rope manufacture for the Navy. It's just that it's been superceded by the drugs laws.
If it's a choice between deliberate disruption and incompetance I would vote incompetance every time. Yes some people are out to get you but that's no reason to be paranoid.
Re:Why don't they just flip a coin...
on
Flavor vs. Flavour
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· Score: 1
Of course, since the most number of Linux Distros and installations are going to be in the U.S.
Are you sure about this given the open source initiatives that are taking place all around the world? SuSE is German, Linus is Finnish, Mandrake is French, Redhat is US based with many europeans contributing (like Alan Cox who's Welsh).
Linux is international and as such should reflect it's internationality by using internation spellings where ever they originated.
Think about it-- we're still measuring stuff in feet, quarts, and pounds, for God's sake
But they are not the same as British measurements. Your quart for example isn't the same as the British quart. A US gallon is a quarter larger than a British one.
Re:U.S. spelling has the original forms
on
Flavor vs. Flavour
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· Score: 1
Add to that places like Indian where it's the official second language (as it's a common ground in a country with several languages) and you can guarantee it uses British English spelling.
It was originally named by the US and the Brits changed the naming to be consistent with other elements. It just seemed inconsistent to have Strontium, Calcium, Plutonium etc and then to have Aluminum.
...it's difficult to use it in conjunction with mobile phones for dial up without script hacking.
I have an SL5500 and I keep swapping between the Sharp rom image and OpenZaurus. The rom version that came with my PDA was fine but a little out dated. Sharp, in their wisdom, have changed the format for the PIM apps in the new rom which means I can't sync with Qtopia desktop on my Linux box any more. And OpenZaurus/Opie seems to be more suited to those using WiFi/permanently on-line connections rather than dial-up. The e-mail client either supports only IMap or is crap. PPP is a pain to set up. I like the way it works on the earlier sharp rom. Why wasn't that kept? Ideal I would want a combination of all three.
I have to say I haven't tried Opie 1.0 as I'm still running pre0.99. It does seem to be heading in the right direction but it seems unfinished in some areas. I suspect this is because apps are developed by people who want that functionality. I have the source and have looked at updating the bits I need but I don't have the time. I'm afraid I spend all my day at work designing and developing embedded systems and just want to use my PDA without having to develop for it.
Sorry to be cynical, and it does look nice BUT, are PDAs really going to survive more than another year or so ? Already PDA sales are outstripped by about 10 to 1 by Smartphones, and that ratio will only increase in favour of the Smartphone.
I have a Sharp Zaurus running OpenZaurus and a SonyEricsson T68i.
The T68i is a smart(ish) phone containing the functionality I require when wandering around the office and out shopping and the like. It's small enough to be unobtrusive without being too small to be useful.
But often I require more functionality than that and don't want to have to have my laptop with me. The Sharp is ideal. It's keyboard means I can type with my thumbs, write e-mails, browse web sites even use it as media player.
I know some phones, like the SonyEricsson P800, have much of the same functionality but they lack one useful feature. They don't have a keyboard. Also they have to be large enough to be useful but small enough not to be a brick and that's a compromise.
I agree that many people who would have bought PDAs will now buy smart phones but there will always be a market for PDAs, if reduced.
Well I don't know what sort of groups you hang out in but the ones I do are all like pubs or clubs. Watch the behavour is a newbie. Once they find some where they enjoy and fit in they'll move from newbie to regular. Then they'll be acting just the same as everyone else in that group.
Incidentally most of the groups I'm subscribed to are quieter on weekends as everyone's out actually meeting people and having social lives. For example I'm clubbing on Wednesday and will meet others I know from on-line. Many of my regular friends were first met on-line.
These groups may be elitist or cliques but not because of they way you think. They are like pubs because they all personally know one another and a newbie that no one has met will be treated as an unknown entity at first.
Oh I agree that music support on Linux is rather crap. I did say generally! Generally implies exceptions. My PC also dual boots in to XP for similar reasons but XP has been the first time that I've thought "actually this isn't bad" of a Microsoft OS.
So what's wrong with some elitism. Internet mail, usenet and IRC all came from the UNIX world. They were developed by geeks for geeks. Linux has nothing to do with it. I was using them first on a VAX mainframe. It appears that it's Linux elitist because generally users with clue use Linux on their home machines. But having said that I know plenty of windows users who hate top posting, insufficient trimming of quotes and the like. This is because they started on line using DOS and such practices were highly inconvenient when using DOS too. The elitism comes from those who used the net in the early days and those who have got the AOL CD on the door mat. It's a lack of understanding which can be sorted with polite education.
Why change usenet? It doesn't need changing. It works.
Usenet is like a mass of pubs. Some pubs you like, others you don't. Some are the olde worlde pubs that sell real ale, others sell mass produced beer and you can buy chip butties, others are more like wine bars and others are where the lager louts hang out. If you don't like your local you go somewhere else, you don't try and change it.
I am subscribed to several groups. We are all types of users, some newbies, some not. There are strict rules about the groups laid down in the group's charter. It's only twats who leap in without lurking for a while and who haven't read the charter who get stick. Usually they are helped politely first and it's only if they are beligerant do they get hassled. Most of the time the groups are nice happy families.
You wouldn't go to a pub and leap in to conversations without testing the water. So why do it on line.
With respect to radio I've heard performers on independent labels complain vehemently about the RIAA as broadcasters have to pay them royalties for all tracks played but there's no requirement for the RIAA to track down and recompense the artists who aren't their members.
Of course! One of the advantages to the cable operators is target advertising. The broadcasters really wouldn't be happy if the providers gave their customers a way of avoiding the advertising as thats how the broadcasters earn their dosh. But advertisers would possibly pay more for transmission to a restricted audience if it knew that that audience is more likely to take notice of it's advertising.
Does this give you a direct feed from the front end demodulated signal?
The reason why PVRs on digital television make sense is because they're relatively easy to implement. Just record the demodulated feed on to the harddrive. Then when playing back feed the transport stream in to the decoder from the HD rather than the front end.
Slashdot Mirror
You would have to admit the element of speed helped contribute to Princess Di's death.
That and driving in to a concrete pillar. That tunnel doesn't have crash barriers down the middle. But again it's inappropriate speed. They were going too fast for the road conditions. You wouldn't do 60mph through a housing estate would you?
And if motorcycles make it easier for one to avoid an accident, then why have the accident rates been increasing?
Because again it's relative. Biking has become popular and there are more bikers and scooterists on the road. There are more of them and so more accidents and more fatalities. As a percentage of riders I don't know whether it's an increase or not. One of the biggest factors in the accident rate at the moment is born agains or mid life crisis bikers. Usually middle aged men who have returned to biking afterf a long long break or just got their licence. Either way they can afford machines which are just too powerful for them. Experienced and sensible bikers know better.
Car safety is interesting. It's not a simple thing to solve as there are so many dependencies amoung numerous factors.
a) Speed does not kill. If it killed then people would be dieing all the time in F1 and World Super Bikes. There is an increase in risk but nothing like you would expect. Inapproprate speed kills. 70mph on a dry road with little traffic is safer than 50mph in fog in the rush hour.
b) There's primary safety verses secondary safety. For example there are some types of accident where a motorcyclist is better off than a car driver as the biker will come off and slide down the road where as the driver is contained. Also on a motorcycle you're more likely to be able avoid a collision. My bike, which is relatively slow, will accelerate to 100mph and brake back to zero within 15 seconds. Together with it being thin and it's handling means that I'm more able to avoid accidents than in a car.
I should also introduce risk compensation theory here. A Volvo or SUV should, in theory, be safer than, say a classic mini, but the driver either consciously or unconsciously knows this and so drives less safely.
c) Personal responsibility is another factor. US air bags are far more explosive than european ones because in Europe we assume that drivers and passengers are wearing seat belts. US car manufacturers assume their customers are not. In fact new US regulations have killed the classic lines of cars like Aston Martins as they now have to be designed so that idiots who drive without safety devices don't hurt themselves too much.
d) Experience of drivers. Although technically the UK national speed limit is 70mph provided coniditions are right speeds up to 100mph are sort of tolerated on motorways. If you ask any driver over here, most would say they've driven at atleast 80mph, and probably 90mph at some point or other. And yet our road death toll is proportionally far less than the US and motorways are the safest roads in the UK. In Germany on the autobahns speeds of 150mph are not unknown. It's because we're used to these speeds.
e) The vehicles themselves. Sports cars are always safer than regular cars or SUVs at the same speed because they have better brakes, better handling and better acceleration. Accelerating out of trouble on a road (to avoid a collision) is just as valid as braking to avoid one and in some cases more advisable. It's similar which sports bikes and sports/tourers.
Judging from what I've seen on these US reality COP TV shows the average European car has better braking, handling and acceleration than the US equivalent. The narrators express horror at vehicles travelling at speeds which are normal in Europe.
Arguments against high speed cars are generally flawed because in the end a car is as fast as you drive it and if you're rich enough to own one you can afford to go to track days at a local circuit (which are very popular over here and great fun).
No, I am not saying that we shouldn't innovate just because of what a bunch of loony Moslems might do, but we owe it to ourselves to think about the possible consequences.
As apposed to loony Christians? The religious reich are just as bad. They just have a better marketing department. I would be more worried of the creationists who would blow it up lest it prove the world was round.
With enough CPU cycles you can do anything in software. The question here is cost. I work in the digital television industry and you don't find software solutions for decoding MPEG streams in set top boxes. Why? Cost! It's far cheaper to have a slow processor and custom hardware than an expensive , power hungry, heat generating processor. The VIA MPEG decoder is on a board with a fairly low power processor which is oriented more towards embedded style applications and cheap with it.
the only reason marijuana isn't legal today is that people make too much money on maintaining the status quo.
The reason it isn't legal in many countries is that the US is heavy handed against countries which make it legal. The reason it became illegal was to protect the synthetic rope manufacturers in the US in the early 20th century. Originally ropes were made from hemp and in the UK (I think) there's still a requirement on farmers to grow hemp for rope manufacture for the Navy. It's just that it's been superceded by the drugs laws.
More info here.
If it's a choice between deliberate disruption and incompetance I would vote incompetance every time. Yes some people are out to get you but that's no reason to be paranoid.
Fair point. Wrong way around.
Of course, since the most number of Linux Distros and installations are going to be in the U.S.
Are you sure about this given the open source initiatives that are taking place all around the world? SuSE is German, Linus is Finnish, Mandrake is French, Redhat is US based with many europeans contributing (like Alan Cox who's Welsh).
Linux is international and as such should reflect it's internationality by using internation spellings where ever they originated.
Think about it-- we're still measuring stuff in feet, quarts, and pounds, for God's sake
But they are not the same as British measurements. Your quart for example isn't the same as the British quart. A US gallon is a quarter larger than a British one.
Add to that places like Indian where it's the official second language (as it's a common ground in a country with several languages) and you can guarantee it uses British English spelling.
It was originally named by the US and the Brits changed the naming to be consistent with other elements. It just seemed inconsistent to have Strontium, Calcium, Plutonium etc and then to have Aluminum.
What I find interesting is that after the last big bombing in the US everyone didn't go around the US shouting "terrorist" at red-neck white people.
Scotch is a drink. Scots is a person. You're obviously not that in to your ethnicity are you!
To which he says, I've got a better deal, how about I give you the finger, and you give me my phone call.
Tell that to those guys in camp x-ray.
...it's difficult to use it in conjunction with mobile phones for dial up without script hacking.
I have an SL5500 and I keep swapping between the Sharp rom image and OpenZaurus. The rom version that came with my PDA was fine but a little out dated. Sharp, in their wisdom, have changed the format for the PIM apps in the new rom which means I can't sync with Qtopia desktop on my Linux box any more. And OpenZaurus/Opie seems to be more suited to those using WiFi/permanently on-line connections rather than dial-up. The e-mail client either supports only IMap or is crap. PPP is a pain to set up. I like the way it works on the earlier sharp rom. Why wasn't that kept? Ideal I would want a combination of all three.
I have to say I haven't tried Opie 1.0 as I'm still running pre0.99. It does seem to be heading in the right direction but it seems unfinished in some areas. I suspect this is because apps are developed by people who want that functionality. I have the source and have looked at updating the bits I need but I don't have the time. I'm afraid I spend all my day at work designing and developing embedded systems and just want to use my PDA without having to develop for it.
Sorry to be cynical, and it does look nice BUT, are PDAs really going to survive more than another year or so ? Already PDA sales are outstripped by about 10 to 1 by Smartphones, and that ratio will only increase in favour of the Smartphone.
I have a Sharp Zaurus running OpenZaurus and a SonyEricsson T68i.
The T68i is a smart(ish) phone containing the functionality I require when wandering around the office and out shopping and the like. It's small enough to be unobtrusive without being too small to be useful.
But often I require more functionality than that and don't want to have to have my laptop with me. The Sharp is ideal. It's keyboard means I can type with my thumbs, write e-mails, browse web sites even use it as media player.
I know some phones, like the SonyEricsson P800, have much of the same functionality but they lack one useful feature. They don't have a keyboard. Also they have to be large enough to be useful but small enough not to be a brick and that's a compromise.
I agree that many people who would have bought PDAs will now buy smart phones but there will always be a market for PDAs, if reduced.
Who would need it to. It's a CDMA phone!
Well I don't know what sort of groups you hang out in but the ones I do are all like pubs or clubs. Watch the behavour is a newbie. Once they find some where they enjoy and fit in they'll move from newbie to regular. Then they'll be acting just the same as everyone else in that group.
Incidentally most of the groups I'm subscribed to are quieter on weekends as everyone's out actually meeting people and having social lives. For example I'm clubbing on Wednesday and will meet others I know from on-line. Many of my regular friends were first met on-line.
These groups may be elitist or cliques but not because of they way you think. They are like pubs because they all personally know one another and a newbie that no one has met will be treated as an unknown entity at first.
Oh I agree that music support on Linux is rather crap. I did say generally! Generally implies exceptions. My PC also dual boots in to XP for similar reasons but XP has been the first time that I've thought "actually this isn't bad" of a Microsoft OS.
Actually if you break charter you usually breaking the rules of your ISPs AUP. You can get your account pulled for breaking charter.
So what's wrong with some elitism. Internet mail, usenet and IRC all came from the UNIX world. They were developed by geeks for geeks. Linux has nothing to do with it. I was using them first on a VAX mainframe. It appears that it's Linux elitist because generally users with clue use Linux on their home machines. But having said that I know plenty of windows users who hate top posting, insufficient trimming of quotes and the like. This is because they started on line using DOS and such practices were highly inconvenient when using DOS too. The elitism comes from those who used the net in the early days and those who have got the AOL CD on the door mat. It's a lack of understanding which can be sorted with polite education.
Why change usenet? It doesn't need changing. It works.
Usenet is like a mass of pubs. Some pubs you like, others you don't. Some are the olde worlde pubs that sell real ale, others sell mass produced beer and you can buy chip butties, others are more like wine bars and others are where the lager louts hang out. If you don't like your local you go somewhere else, you don't try and change it.
I am subscribed to several groups. We are all types of users, some newbies, some not. There are strict rules about the groups laid down in the group's charter. It's only twats who leap in without lurking for a while and who haven't read the charter who get stick. Usually they are helped politely first and it's only if they are beligerant do they get hassled. Most of the time the groups are nice happy families.
You wouldn't go to a pub and leap in to conversations without testing the water. So why do it on line.
That sounds useful. Thanks I'll have a look.
With respect to radio I've heard performers on independent labels complain vehemently about the RIAA as broadcasters have to pay them royalties for all tracks played but there's no requirement for the RIAA to track down and recompense the artists who aren't their members.
Of course! One of the advantages to the cable operators is target advertising. The broadcasters really wouldn't be happy if the providers gave their customers a way of avoiding the advertising as thats how the broadcasters earn their dosh. But advertisers would possibly pay more for transmission to a restricted audience if it knew that that audience is more likely to take notice of it's advertising.
Does this give you a direct feed from the front end demodulated signal?
The reason why PVRs on digital television make sense is because they're relatively easy to implement. Just record the demodulated feed on to the harddrive. Then when playing back feed the transport stream in to the decoder from the HD rather than the front end.