I watched the same show, which is why I chose "bayonet" instead of "knife" or "spike".
It was a British guy (chap?) talking about how "air bags" sound so soft and comfortable so people don't care about accidents. Put a bayonet on there, and people will be driving around at 15 km/h and no more accidents.
I generally avoid bicycle lanes for this simple reason:
IT'S JUST PAINT.
It provides little, if any, protection against vehicles. I try to stick to trails that give a large separation between a bike and any given car, especially since most of those cars have people reading, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, playing the trumpet, under the influence, putting on makeup, shaving, texting, on the phone, otherwise distracted, or all of the above.
I prefer a nice, wide, 200-foot buffer zone with houses, trees, bodies of water, fences, and other impediments to vehicular traffic.
If I can't find that, I choose a lighter route one block over on side streets. It works out very well most of the time.
Cycling in a bike lane is done as a last resort. If I end up in traffic, I make sure that I can keep up with the traffic. Otherwise I'm an obstacle to traffic, and that translates easily to just "an obstacle". Over my morning commute, I am on trails 80% of the time, on bike lanes 15% of the time, and in traffic 5% of the time.
That 5% is going to get me hurt one day, but it's a smaller risk than coronary failure.
I'm the parent poster. I ride a bicycle to work. That's way more dangerous than a car with a bayonet. According to some stats I found, bikes make up 1% of all traffic but 2% of traffic fatalities. This makes sense; in the ongoing battle between 2-ton steel objects travelling 50 km/h vs. 200-pound meaty objects travelling 25 km/h, the cars don't lose very often. (I joke that the helmet is wearing me for protection.)
I've been riding for 13 years. In that time, I've had two minor accidents. An accident from when I was ~8 has given me a small scar on my lower lip -- my teeth went through there and into a car's fender.
CHA is the only stat that is whatever you want it to be IRL. If you want a high Charisma, just pretend you have a high one until you actually do. The downside to the technique is that it does require a high INT and WIS.
I have no problem using the pedals in my Mazda 5, even when wearing heavy winter boots. If this situation ever happened, I would hold in the clutch, shift into neutral, and let the rev limiter take care of the problem.
I have been in a car where the driver had his foot on the wrong pedal. It was fairly obvious that he thought his foot was on the brake, because he kept pressing the gas harder and harder until we hit the other car. He was still flooring it after impact and couldn't understand why the car was accelerating instead of braking. His Porche hit an SUV.
The same thing happened to my kids, except they were in a stroller and a car ran over them. The gas pedal was still floored after the accident. The car was a Mustang.
EVERY computer is vulnerable to an attack unless it is on a physically separate network. All the filtering, priviledges, firewalling, and folks with guns will only go so far in defending your security.
Two days ago, Batman vs. Dracula was on TV. It was late and I wanted to go to bed, so I set up the DVR to record for later viewing. I got the error, "record blocking signals are detected." so I wasn't able to record it.
I went downstairs and downloaded the torrent. I'll put it on my thumb drive and watch it with the DVR anyway. It just won't have any commercials, skipped or not.
Yes, my DVR will play.avi files from a thumb drive. I got it at Costco, so if it ever breaks I can bring it back. (The last one broke after 3 years -- they gave me back full cash.)
Interesting juxtaposition of how Costco treats its customers vs. how Cartoon Channel treats its customers...
The military uses GPS for targeting. It's not going away until a higher-resolution replacement is found.
The GPS consumer market is a great way for the manufacturers to ditch the receivers that don't pass military QC.
Also, like you say, the most important places to have GPS are places where there isn't cell coverage. They still sell satellite phones for a reason. Not everyone used GPS to get to the store.
I've struggled mightily with my Radeon 9200 video card under Ubuntu. I don't get any acceleration. Often the resolution goes back to default VESA, at 800 x 600 @ 60Hz. Irritating but livable.
Viewing any Flash movies ends the browsing session, taking all resources and preventing any other loads. The only way to fix it is to close the tab. If I didn't have Flashblock, surfing would be impossible. No Flash. Think about that for a minute.
Yes, I've installed the proprietary drivers AND the Flash drivers. I'm not an idiot. I have a fair bit of Unix / Linux experience.
Support has ranged from "lol get a better card" to "ATI has proprietary drivers and doesn't work under Ubuntu. It's their fault for not supporting a GPL framework" to "your computer is too old and you should buy another one". I note that Voodoo cards are supported.
So realistically, the attitude is "buy $100 - $500 worth of stuff that may or may not work in order to get the free program to work."
Personally, I'm looking forward to when my wife gets her new laptop so I can get the XP licence back and actually be able to use my computer. Ubuntu's been a pain in the ass for the last two years, and I'm sick of it.
Technically, graphics cards are four-dimensional already, which is why they can solve these certain types of problems with such great speed. Their construction is coincidentally designed such that they solve certain types of problems very quickly.
The interesting thing about those problems is that many difficult problems in other formats can be massaged to fit into that format.
It depends on which of the ethical schools you're subscribing to.
Mill's utilitarianism model states that the best choice is the one that provides the most benefit for the most people. In terms of bank robbery, robbing a bank is highly ethical. The robber gets some money, that money gets spent, and a large trickle-down impacts the local economy. The bank is insured so they don't lose any money. The customers and tellers get some excitement and a story to tell for years. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was in a bank robbery?"
Kant's formal duty-based ethics means that you have to follow courses of action that are acceptable as universal principles for everyone to follow. Further, it is your INTENTION to follow the mores rather than your actions. Good will is the desire and intention to do one's duty. If your duty is to rob a bank, then robbing a bank is highly ethical. If they didn't expect you to rob it, they wouldn't spend all that time and money on robbery countermeasures.
Locke's rights-based ethics gives you rights based solely by your existence. The maximum possible liberty and happiness are fundamental; all other rights flow out of these basic ones. You are restricting the rights of the robbed in the bank, but as long as you are not taking their personal possessions (with the temporary exception of cell phones) you aren't treading on their rights significantly.
Finally, Aristotle's virtue ethics states that the goodness of an act or object depends on its function. A "good" knife cuts well; a "good" chair is comfy. So, a "good" bank robber is one that robs banks.
Reference: Andrews, Gordon. Canadian Professional Engineering and Geoscience: Practice and Ethics. Thomson Nelson, 2005. (pp. 126 - 130)
(It didn't seem right to not specify a source on this one.)
Slashdot Mirror
Post 30 million -- congratulations.
How many if we don't count goatse links or first posts?
I watched the same show, which is why I chose "bayonet" instead of "knife" or "spike".
It was a British guy (chap?) talking about how "air bags" sound so soft and comfortable so people don't care about accidents. Put a bayonet on there, and people will be driving around at 15 km/h and no more accidents.
They could also put in a short census blurb:
"There will be 17 million accidents this year. Accidents will increase your insurance rates."
"There will be 250 thousand debilating accidents. You will likely lose your job and be unable to have sex. You may have to eat from a tube."
"There will be approximately 50 thousand fatal car crashes. The last sound you will hear will be your neck snapping."
(I only made up the middle stat -- the other two are from census.gov)
I generally avoid bicycle lanes for this simple reason:
IT'S JUST PAINT.
It provides little, if any, protection against vehicles. I try to stick to trails that give a large separation between a bike and any given car, especially since most of those cars have people reading, drinking coffee, eating breakfast, playing the trumpet, under the influence, putting on makeup, shaving, texting, on the phone, otherwise distracted, or all of the above.
I prefer a nice, wide, 200-foot buffer zone with houses, trees, bodies of water, fences, and other impediments to vehicular traffic.
If I can't find that, I choose a lighter route one block over on side streets. It works out very well most of the time.
Cycling in a bike lane is done as a last resort. If I end up in traffic, I make sure that I can keep up with the traffic. Otherwise I'm an obstacle to traffic, and that translates easily to just "an obstacle". Over my morning commute, I am on trails 80% of the time, on bike lanes 15% of the time, and in traffic 5% of the time.
That 5% is going to get me hurt one day, but it's a smaller risk than coronary failure.
Hey, I like guys like him. I got my first job out of University because the other guy wouldn't budge on the wage.
I'm the parent poster. I ride a bicycle to work. That's way more dangerous than a car with a bayonet. According to some stats I found, bikes make up 1% of all traffic but 2% of traffic fatalities. This makes sense; in the ongoing battle between 2-ton steel objects travelling 50 km/h vs. 200-pound meaty objects travelling 25 km/h, the cars don't lose very often. (I joke that the helmet is wearing me for protection.)
I've been riding for 13 years. In that time, I've had two minor accidents. An accident from when I was ~8 has given me a small scar on my lower lip -- my teeth went through there and into a car's fender.
They aren't morons. They are unskilled and unaware.
Here is a two-step solution to fix distracted driving:
1. Remove the airbag from the driver's seat.
2. Replace it with a bayonet.
They'll pay attention now.
Intimidate is CHA based. ;)
CHA is the only stat that is whatever you want it to be IRL. If you want a high Charisma, just pretend you have a high one until you actually do. The downside to the technique is that it does require a high INT and WIS.
?
I have no problem using the pedals in my Mazda 5, even when wearing heavy winter boots. If this situation ever happened, I would hold in the clutch, shift into neutral, and let the rev limiter take care of the problem.
I have been in a car where the driver had his foot on the wrong pedal. It was fairly obvious that he thought his foot was on the brake, because he kept pressing the gas harder and harder until we hit the other car. He was still flooring it after impact and couldn't understand why the car was accelerating instead of braking. His Porche hit an SUV.
The same thing happened to my kids, except they were in a stroller and a car ran over them. The gas pedal was still floored after the accident. The car was a Mustang.
Linux immune to virii?
Like the Linux server botnet:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/09/12/1413246
or users of Wine:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/10/24/1759213
Or how Linux computers are used to control botnets:
http://www.abs-comptech.com/home/headlines/news/linux-based-web-servers-used-to-control-botnets
EVERY computer is vulnerable to an attack unless it is on a physically separate network. All the filtering, priviledges, firewalling, and folks with guns will only go so far in defending your security.
I've always thought that autonomous Battlebots would be incredible to watch; better by far than the remote-controlled version.
Go watch Firefly. It was an American show, cancelled after one mangled season, that was quite possibly the finest Sci-Fi show ever made.
Yes, that is exactly what I meant.
Also, imdb.
The keys are, like, right next to each other.
Two days ago, Batman vs. Dracula was on TV. It was late and I wanted to go to bed, so I set up the DVR to record for later viewing. I got the error, "record blocking signals are detected." so I wasn't able to record it.
I went downstairs and downloaded the torrent. I'll put it on my thumb drive and watch it with the DVR anyway. It just won't have any commercials, skipped or not.
Yes, my DVR will play .avi files from a thumb drive. I got it at Costco, so if it ever breaks I can bring it back. (The last one broke after 3 years -- they gave me back full cash.)
Interesting juxtaposition of how Costco treats its customers vs. how Cartoon Channel treats its customers...
The military uses GPS for targeting. It's not going away until a higher-resolution replacement is found.
The GPS consumer market is a great way for the manufacturers to ditch the receivers that don't pass military QC.
Also, like you say, the most important places to have GPS are places where there isn't cell coverage. They still sell satellite phones for a reason. Not everyone used GPS to get to the store.
Web posts, too, you holy martyr of Allah, you.
About your sig:
You're right, the old bulbs are better. When you're done all that's left is some recyclable glass and metal, no toxins, no plastics.
Manufacturing is easy, and cheap enough that at $0.25 a bulb GE makes a profit.
Do they produce heat? Sure, when it's dark out. That's usually in the winter, when you WANT more heat.
CFL bulbs are terrible; LEDs are worse.
I'd say that pen and paper and then never looking at your notes again after the class is over is fine. Use ink.
What? It worked for me and I'm an Electrical Engineer.
Great, you can use this certificate:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000818.html
I've struggled mightily with my Radeon 9200 video card under Ubuntu. I don't get any acceleration. Often the resolution goes back to default VESA, at 800 x 600 @ 60Hz. Irritating but livable.
Viewing any Flash movies ends the browsing session, taking all resources and preventing any other loads. The only way to fix it is to close the tab. If I didn't have Flashblock, surfing would be impossible. No Flash. Think about that for a minute.
Yes, I've installed the proprietary drivers AND the Flash drivers. I'm not an idiot. I have a fair bit of Unix / Linux experience.
Support has ranged from "lol get a better card" to "ATI has proprietary drivers and doesn't work under Ubuntu. It's their fault for not supporting a GPL framework" to "your computer is too old and you should buy another one". I note that Voodoo cards are supported.
So realistically, the attitude is "buy $100 - $500 worth of stuff that may or may not work in order to get the free program to work."
Personally, I'm looking forward to when my wife gets her new laptop so I can get the XP licence back and actually be able to use my computer. Ubuntu's been a pain in the ass for the last two years, and I'm sick of it.
Will this version support Flash? It sure would be nice to view Youtube movies or play online games.
Of course, that's Adobe's fault, or ATI's fault.
Thanks, Ubuntu!
I'd *just* read some Stainless Steel Rat stories, so give me a break.
Technically, graphics cards are four-dimensional already, which is why they can solve these certain types of problems with such great speed. Their construction is coincidentally designed such that they solve certain types of problems very quickly.
The interesting thing about those problems is that many difficult problems in other formats can be massaged to fit into that format.
Imagine the burn-in.
It depends on which of the ethical schools you're subscribing to.
Mill's utilitarianism model states that the best choice is the one that provides the most benefit for the most people. In terms of bank robbery, robbing a bank is highly ethical. The robber gets some money, that money gets spent, and a large trickle-down impacts the local economy. The bank is insured so they don't lose any money. The customers and tellers get some excitement and a story to tell for years. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was in a bank robbery?"
Kant's formal duty-based ethics means that you have to follow courses of action that are acceptable as universal principles for everyone to follow. Further, it is your INTENTION to follow the mores rather than your actions. Good will is the desire and intention to do one's duty. If your duty is to rob a bank, then robbing a bank is highly ethical. If they didn't expect you to rob it, they wouldn't spend all that time and money on robbery countermeasures.
Locke's rights-based ethics gives you rights based solely by your existence. The maximum possible liberty and happiness are fundamental; all other rights flow out of these basic ones. You are restricting the rights of the robbed in the bank, but as long as you are not taking their personal possessions (with the temporary exception of cell phones) you aren't treading on their rights significantly.
Finally, Aristotle's virtue ethics states that the goodness of an act or object depends on its function. A "good" knife cuts well; a "good" chair is comfy. So, a "good" bank robber is one that robs banks.
Reference:
Andrews, Gordon. Canadian Professional Engineering and Geoscience: Practice and Ethics. Thomson Nelson, 2005. (pp. 126 - 130)
(It didn't seem right to not specify a source on this one.)