And you get weird shit where clearly the engineers came from different planets:
In Montana, warning speeds for curves are posted at 5-10 MPH *below* the actual safe speed, so are safely posted for ALL vehicles, and if you're going a bit faster, you won't get into trouble. (And the posted warning speed is usually about right for poor road conditions.) Not only that, but all curves are correctly banked -- INTO the curve, so they help cars hold the road. The best example of that is I-15 through Wolf Creek Canyon -- a curvey road that requires almost NO steering, because the road is so well-banked that cars tend to naturally follow the roadway.
In California, warning speeds for curves are posted at EXACTLY the actual safe speed for average vehicles, which is too fast for heavy vehicles or sub-optimal conditions. Worse, curves are almost uniformly banked the wrong direction -- AWAY from the curve, so they tend to throw cars off the road (you always have to steer hard into curves here).
The alternative explanation might be that you're a careless biker/hiker. Not saying that you are, you might just be unlucky, or you might have met more than your share of idiots... but pointing this out since it can just as easily go the other way.
I know I've seen way more careless bikers in recent years -- the proliferation of bike lanes has apparently made them careless when they must share the roadway. Used to be (back before bike lanes) that a bike sharing the road behaved like either a car or a pedestrian, and drivers knew what to expect by where it was (in traffic lane, acts like car; on side of road, acts like pedestrian). Now we see this sortof hybrid behaviour that's both and neither, and is much LESS safe than before.
We already have this; it's called "liability insurance", and someone will be along shortly to sue you for infringing on their patented business method.
One could hold these cases up as an example of how civil suits involving mandatory penalties should not be allowed under the law -- because they almost invariably wind up tilted toward whoever can bring the biggest bludgeon into court.
You must be referring to the little spikes that sometimes appear on the surface. But "hair" often grows on established ice, well after freezing. I don't know if it grows from the ice or as a result of condensation, but it looks kinda like something your wife pulls out of her hairbrush.
Asus mobos that went into pre-Gateway eMachines sometimes had bad caps; dunno about their own-brand boards. I have a 4YO eMachine here (Intel mobo) with bad caps. I have a Dell that started failing before age 3, again bad caps. I just had a couple of random clone mobos die of bad caps at about age 6-7 years. I know someone who has had several ABITs fail that way too.
(OTOH, my 10YO Tyan and SuperMicro boards are still perfectly fine. The Tyans have caps 3x the usual size, and lots of 'em.)
The story as I heard it is that the failing capacitors come from a factory that got the formula via a bit of industrial espionage... problem is, they failed to steal the formula for the *stabilizer*. So their caps fail at an early age. And since these are cheaper, and OEMs like to go with the lowest bidder...
I see a lot of dead stuff cuz I'm the hardware guru for the local user grope, so I deal with all the donated machines. The HPs are usually okay. Gateway/eMachine about 50-50. Dell and Micron are mostly DOA.
A good undercoating will almost entirely negate salt damage. And I mean the thick stuff, not the quickie spray. As a side bonus, it'll cut road noise dramatically.
Probably true, however the people could make such a nuisance of themselves by repeatedly submitting gov't sites, that they effectively DDoS the system.
Well, one can hope, but France's history tends to indicate the contrary -- the people do nothing, nothing, nothing, then the whole place suddenly explodes and things get worse for a lot of people and no better for the rest.
I had no idea... sounds like they're more useful for making the community and the cops feel good than for keeping track of the perp. So, continuing with our little nightmare scenario, let's say airports implement these transponders, or even RFID tags affixed to each passenger's ear. (Just like livestock ID tags. Baaa, baaa, baaa.) Never mind the false sense of security, what about hacking them to interchange identities, and suchlike sundry pranks??
But the point is partly that the Lords are NEVER beholden to anyone's favours to get elected.
Under your system, I think we would see a rush of "retirements" and a great many underhanded deals of the type "You elect me and I'll elect you".
If someone is known to be too much of a freethinker, NO ONE in the Commons (except the candidate himself) would wish him elected to a body that could thwart the Commons' will.
The citizens of France should send their government's websites to the blacklist. That way they'll be sure not to be exploited by internet scammers and the like.
Knowledge can be accumulated at any age, and kids are generally better at collecting it than adults, because kids are still curious about everything. But wisdom comes only with sufficient realworld experience, which VERY few 17 year olds have, not even the best and brightest (indeed, their book learning often interferes with their ability to learn wisdom). Wisdom takes TIME and EXPERIENCE, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with education (tho a broad education can help).
Myself, I've know altogether too many well-educated, highly-intelligent people who lack all wisdom and can't seem to learn any (perhaps because wisdom cannot be represented by mere facts, and they don't consider anything that's not represented by facts), and I've also known people with little or no education who are nonetheless wise with long experience.
Maybe not as facetious as it sounds... I can envision fitting every passenger with a transponder, like those gadgets they use for enforcing house-arrest. Make 'em wear it from the time they come into the terminal at one end of their flight til they leave the terminal at the other. That way there'll be no sneaking off to the john or the baggage carousel.
It sounds ridiculous by itself, but imagine the fun to be had by the East German Stasi if they'd had access to today's technology....
Hmm... you're right. WE the Citizens, even if not defendants ourselves, are paying for the venue which the RIAA is using for extortion.
So when the RIAA lawyers get bitchslapped for their utter lack of ethics, they should have to reimburse the taxpayers for the court time they wasted (in addition to paying the defendant's costs). After all, our tax dollars provided the courts they're abusing, and paid for the judges whose time they're wasting!
"Their MO is "find people to sue, threaten much, try to extract money, drop the case if they want to fight or it will be too hard, and don't worry about whether they did it or not, hopefully they'll just pay some money to make us go away."
This differs how from an ordinary protection racket?? The only visible distinction from Vinny and Guido is that it uses the Court system as the bludgeon.
Yeah, that's what I was talking about, tho I oversimplified rather radically. Point being a lot of stuff we think of as explosive *isn't* unless conditions are right, whereas stuff we think of as safe sometimes isn't. Grain dust can explode quite nicely; you should see the matchsticks it turns a grain elevator into!
I learned about making diesel+fertilizer bombs from the Fish and Wildlife service; they use 'em to make duck-nesting ponds in overgrown marshes. Guess the gubmint better arrest all those F&W employees for disseminating terrorist info!;)
Maybe what's needed is not no-till, but new tilling technology -- some method of breaking up the soil below ground level, without unduly disturbing the surface. I can imagine how it could be done with a potato-fork-like device that penetrated, lifted, then withdrew without breaking the surface into wind-catching clods, but I don't know that this would be mechanically feasible at the scale of farm machinery.
Another factor is that grain combines, especially corn machinery, needs level to rolling ground. Haying equipment is not as large, heavy, or topheavy, and can be used on steeper ground. Also as a rule the steeper the ground the thinner and poorer the soil, and grains need decent soil.
BTW I'm wondering what advantage switchgrass has over alfalfa, which in a hot climate with sufficient water can produce up to 10 cuttings a year. Even in a northern climate, you get 3 cuttings. And alfalfa sets its own nitrogen, plus the primo first cutting can be sold at horse hay prices instead of silage prices.
Another thing I'm wondering -- is switchgrass any good as winter graze?
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They're just being consistent. After all, they seldom pay a fair share of their *legit* earnings to the artist either!!
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
"Montana Patrolman issued a speed ticket to a driver traveling at 85 mph (140 km/h) on a
stretch of State Highway 200."
Anyone know WHERE on Hwy 200 this took place?? there's plenty of that road where 85mph is less "reasonable and prudent" than "suicidal".
And you get weird shit where clearly the engineers came from different planets:
In Montana, warning speeds for curves are posted at 5-10 MPH *below* the actual safe speed, so are safely posted for ALL vehicles, and if you're going a bit faster, you won't get into trouble. (And the posted warning speed is usually about right for poor road conditions.) Not only that, but all curves are correctly banked -- INTO the curve, so they help cars hold the road. The best example of that is I-15 through Wolf Creek Canyon -- a curvey road that requires almost NO steering, because the road is so well-banked that cars tend to naturally follow the roadway.
In California, warning speeds for curves are posted at EXACTLY the actual safe speed for average vehicles, which is too fast for heavy vehicles or sub-optimal conditions. Worse, curves are almost uniformly banked the wrong direction -- AWAY from the curve, so they tend to throw cars off the road (you always have to steer hard into curves here).
The alternative explanation might be that you're a careless biker/hiker. Not saying that you are, you might just be unlucky, or you might have met more than your share of idiots... but pointing this out since it can just as easily go the other way.
I know I've seen way more careless bikers in recent years -- the proliferation of bike lanes has apparently made them careless when they must share the roadway. Used to be (back before bike lanes) that a bike sharing the road behaved like either a car or a pedestrian, and drivers knew what to expect by where it was (in traffic lane, acts like car; on side of road, acts like pedestrian). Now we see this sortof hybrid behaviour that's both and neither, and is much LESS safe than before.
[laughing] Nope, I saw it that way at first too, and wondered WTF??!
We already have this; it's called "liability insurance", and someone will be along shortly to sue you for infringing on their patented business method.
One could hold these cases up as an example of how civil suits involving mandatory penalties should not be allowed under the law -- because they almost invariably wind up tilted toward whoever can bring the biggest bludgeon into court.
You must be referring to the little spikes that sometimes appear on the surface. But "hair" often grows on established ice, well after freezing. I don't know if it grows from the ice or as a result of condensation, but it looks kinda like something your wife pulls out of her hairbrush.
Asus mobos that went into pre-Gateway eMachines sometimes had bad caps; dunno about their own-brand boards. I have a 4YO eMachine here (Intel mobo) with bad caps. I have a Dell that started failing before age 3, again bad caps. I just had a couple of random clone mobos die of bad caps at about age 6-7 years. I know someone who has had several ABITs fail that way too.
(OTOH, my 10YO Tyan and SuperMicro boards are still perfectly fine. The Tyans have caps 3x the usual size, and lots of 'em.)
The story as I heard it is that the failing capacitors come from a factory that got the formula via a bit of industrial espionage... problem is, they failed to steal the formula for the *stabilizer*. So their caps fail at an early age. And since these are cheaper, and OEMs like to go with the lowest bidder...
I see a lot of dead stuff cuz I'm the hardware guru for the local user grope, so I deal with all the donated machines. The HPs are usually okay. Gateway/eMachine about 50-50. Dell and Micron are mostly DOA.
One word: undercoating.
:)
A good undercoating will almost entirely negate salt damage. And I mean the thick stuff, not the quickie spray. As a side bonus, it'll cut road noise dramatically.
BTW my Ford pickup turned 30 last month.
I was rather more impressed by these silver whiskers... looks like it grew a whole beard!!
http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/photos/pom/2003sept.htm
Probably true, however the people could make such a nuisance of themselves by repeatedly submitting gov't sites, that they effectively DDoS the system.
Well, one can hope, but France's history tends to indicate the contrary -- the people do nothing, nothing, nothing, then the whole place suddenly explodes and things get worse for a lot of people and no better for the rest.
I had no idea ... sounds like they're more useful for making the community and the cops feel good than for keeping track of the perp. So, continuing with our little nightmare scenario, let's say airports implement these transponders, or even RFID tags affixed to each passenger's ear. (Just like livestock ID tags. Baaa, baaa, baaa.) Never mind the false sense of security, what about hacking them to interchange identities, and suchlike sundry pranks??
But the point is partly that the Lords are NEVER beholden to anyone's favours to get elected.
Under your system, I think we would see a rush of "retirements" and a great many underhanded deals of the type "You elect me and I'll elect you".
If someone is known to be too much of a freethinker, NO ONE in the Commons (except the candidate himself) would wish him elected to a body that could thwart the Commons' will.
And couldn't this open up the folks reporting it to charges of possession of [insert contraband here] ??
The citizens of France should send their government's websites to the blacklist. That way they'll be sure not to be exploited by internet scammers and the like.
Don't confuse knowledge and wisdom.
Knowledge can be accumulated at any age, and kids are generally better at collecting it than adults, because kids are still curious about everything. But wisdom comes only with sufficient realworld experience, which VERY few 17 year olds have, not even the best and brightest (indeed, their book learning often interferes with their ability to learn wisdom). Wisdom takes TIME and EXPERIENCE, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with education (tho a broad education can help).
Myself, I've know altogether too many well-educated, highly-intelligent people who lack all wisdom and can't seem to learn any (perhaps because wisdom cannot be represented by mere facts, and they don't consider anything that's not represented by facts), and I've also known people with little or no education who are nonetheless wise with long experience.
Maybe not as facetious as it sounds... I can envision fitting every passenger with a transponder, like those gadgets they use for enforcing house-arrest. Make 'em wear it from the time they come into the terminal at one end of their flight til they leave the terminal at the other. That way there'll be no sneaking off to the john or the baggage carousel.
It sounds ridiculous by itself, but imagine the fun to be had by the East German Stasi if they'd had access to today's technology....
"WE pay for the privilege of being extorted."
Hmm... you're right. WE the Citizens, even if not defendants ourselves, are paying for the venue which the RIAA is using for extortion.
So when the RIAA lawyers get bitchslapped for their utter lack of ethics, they should have to reimburse the taxpayers for the court time they wasted (in addition to paying the defendant's costs). After all, our tax dollars provided the courts they're abusing, and paid for the judges whose time they're wasting!
"Their MO is "find people to sue, threaten much, try to extract money, drop the case if they want to fight or it will be too hard, and don't worry about whether they did it or not, hopefully they'll just pay some money to make us go away."
This differs how from an ordinary protection racket?? The only visible distinction from Vinny and Guido is that it uses the Court system as the bludgeon.
"Not to worry, NYCL wrote letters to both judges, reminding them of what the RIAA lawyers had forgotten."
When I read this, I *cheered*!!!
Our very own legal hero, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way!!
Seriously, if all lawyers were like NYCL, it'd be tough to find anyone willing to pursue cases like the RIAA has been putting forth.
So you put the lookalike device into the hold, and its timer goes off and it works just as well as with a human holding it.
Or you place it into a laptop's innards.
Yep, time for all the baggage to go by a separate cargo plane, so only that pilot is at risk. All passengers will strip at the gate.
Yeah, that's what I was talking about, tho I oversimplified rather radically. Point being a lot of stuff we think of as explosive *isn't* unless conditions are right, whereas stuff we think of as safe sometimes isn't. Grain dust can explode quite nicely; you should see the matchsticks it turns a grain elevator into!
;)
I learned about making diesel+fertilizer bombs from the Fish and Wildlife service; they use 'em to make duck-nesting ponds in overgrown marshes. Guess the gubmint better arrest all those F&W employees for disseminating terrorist info!
Maybe what's needed is not no-till, but new tilling technology -- some method of breaking up the soil below ground level, without unduly disturbing the surface. I can imagine how it could be done with a potato-fork-like device that penetrated, lifted, then withdrew without breaking the surface into wind-catching clods, but I don't know that this would be mechanically feasible at the scale of farm machinery.
Another factor is that grain combines, especially corn machinery, needs level to rolling ground. Haying equipment is not as large, heavy, or topheavy, and can be used on steeper ground. Also as a rule the steeper the ground the thinner and poorer the soil, and grains need decent soil.
BTW I'm wondering what advantage switchgrass has over alfalfa, which in a hot climate with sufficient water can produce up to 10 cuttings a year. Even in a northern climate, you get 3 cuttings. And alfalfa sets its own nitrogen, plus the primo first cutting can be sold at horse hay prices instead of silage prices.
Another thing I'm wondering -- is switchgrass any good as winter graze?