American vehicles are equipped with side windows only to order drive through fast food. They serve no other purpose. The side mirrors are simply decorations, and are frequently aimed in directions which give a beautiful view of the sky or of the side of the road. Well, it's not the vehicles, it's the perception of 99.999% of the American drivers. That is, drivers in America, regardless of where they came from. It's not a nationality problem.
I've wanted to ship my car over to Europe for quite a while. There are a few people I'd like to visit, and it would be nice to spend a few months over there, and have my own car to drive he whole time. It would be amazingly high on my list to take it for a spin on the autobahn. It's speed limited to 165mph, because of the tires that the car originally came with. I've only ever seen 150mph in my car (track conditions, I promise), and that limit was imposed by the physical conditions of the track. If there's only so much room to accelerate before a turn, you can only go so fast. There are plenty of relatively inexpensive ways to change that limit, since I use tires that are rated much faster than OEM. The OEM tires had terrible handling characteristics, especially on anything but dry well maintained asphalt roads.
Unfortunately, I totally agree with you. Cruising on most interstates, if I'm going a bit faster than the other cars (pretty common), I'll be on the left to pass. I'll inevitably come up on some jackass doing 50mph talking on his cell phone in the left lane. I'll hang out behind him at a safe distance, but still be obvious that I want to overtake him. Either through dumb luck or because he actually is watching, when I finally give up and move one lane to the right, he'll do the same thing. It's not based on my turn signal. It's when I'm half way into the right lane he'll just swerve over without signaling.
There are areas where the right lane isn't the best lane to stay in. On a 6 lane highway (3 lanes in each direction), the right lane is generally slow with traffic merging on and off. Rather than risk my own safety by dancing to the left then right at every on and off ramp, I'll stay in the center lane. That leaves the left lane open for people driving faster than me, and I stay out of the way of vehicles coming on and off the highway. In rural areas, it becomes less of an issue.
I'm very attentive to vehicles traveling faster than me, and will always signal and then move before they even have to consider slowing down. Oddly enough, that's what most of the laws say to do. On quite a few occasions on rural parts of interstates where it's 4 lanes (2 each way), I'll move to the left to pass large trucks. No offense to those drivers. I actually know a lot of the rules they work under, and understand what it's like to drive a heavy vehicle. Lots of times, when a faster vehicle approaches, I'll move over into the slow lane to let them pass. About half the time, they catch up, match my speed, and linger beside me. No ass, I didn't move over so you could block me in the slow lane. I moved over so you could overtake me. I guess the worst is the people who can't maintain a cruising speed. They'll haul ass up behind me (say 90+ mph), so I'll let them overtake me. I'll then move back to pass the slower traffic. Rather than maintaining their speed, they slow down to under the speed of the slow traffic, and when there's finally a break where I can pass on the right (I know, you're not suppose to), when I attempt to pass, they'll suddenly realize that they're driving slow and speed up. All I can do is be thankful that my car has lots of torque and horsepower, and it's power to weight ratio lets me accelerate quickly. 55 to 90 feels like I just bumped the gas for a second. Then I can resume a normal speed. They'll speed up to follow me for a couple minutes, and then drop way back, and then try to catch up. It's funny to watch if I'm way in front of them, but amazingly annoying if I'm behind them.
Maybe I should move to Germany. I may have to adjust my driving style slightly, but nothing like dealing with American drivers who take a 20 question written test and then prove that they can stay in their lane and parallel park in a 15 minute driving test.
I just had to renew my drivers license here. I've been driving for 20 years. They told me I had to take an exam on the renewal. The exam? A multiple choice test on common road signs. I was laughing while I was taking it, because I had alternative answers that were more entertaining.
Caution, pedophiles following children. Alternatively, it can be an indicator to pedophiles that children are in the area. Either way, the larger target is legal to run over and your damages will be reimbursed by the state.
the extra lane would be a candidate for an autobahn-style "no restrictions" experiment.
I've never driven the 99, but I've driven the full length of I-5. With a few exceptions, that would be a lovely road to cruise fast on, and plenty of people do.
I wouldn't see a single autobahn lane as being practical nor safe. Even with the carpool lane(s) clearly marked as such, with double yellow lines indicating not to change into or out of those lanes, I've seen quite a bit of amazingly stupid things happen. Cruising in the carpool lane with two passengers (cruise control set, so I wouldn't attract unwanted speeding tickets), I had people just decide they wanted out of the regular traffic lanes and into the carpool lane. Ahhh, there's nothing like a brake check or quick evasive maneuver at 70mph to wake up your passengers.
No, any experiment where there is a large difference in speed or ability between adjoining lanes of traffic should simply not exist. I would suggest for any such experiment, drivers AND vehicles should be certified. That's not just a "ya, he can drive that fast", but an intensive training and testing period. Drivers in America generally don't understand the basic concept of "slower traffic keep right", despite it being in every driver handbook, and posted on signs in most states. Lets not forget the ideas of turn signals, proper lane changes, attentive driving, and safe following distances.
As you exceed 150mph (242kph), "safe following distance" becomes a whole new concept. If you don't believe it, try realizing that the cars a mile ahead are only doing 30mph, and you have to slow from 150 to 30 before you hit them. (assume there is no option to drive in another lane, nor ditch into the grass). In the time that you realize "those cars are going slower", you're already a quarter mile closer. Your "good" brakes and "good" tires slow you down pretty quick, but when you bleed off 100mph, you're still going faster than they are. Pray to god they don't see you in the mirror and hit the brakes in a panic.
Autobahn style driving would definitely need clearly separated lanes. That would be with K-rails on each side, and safe acceleration/deceleration lanes. Anything less would be catastrophic. It's not the drivers and vehicles that could be certified that I'd be really worried about. It would be the 99.999% of the drivers on the road that worry me.
they're also the most likely to freak out and *drop* the gun when they fire it.
I saw the result of a dropped weapon once. My dad was carrying an antique revolver in a holster. The hammer was down, so it was theoretically safe. The holster was old and not so well designed. The pistol fell, hit the floor, and made a.38 caliber hole in the roof. That holster got properly disposed of (into the trash can).
I almost totally agree. Most parts are made to be replaced as a module. When's the last time you replaced the bearings in a hard drive, or soldered a pin on a memory stick? But, sometimes we do, and that's without the assistance of technical schematics.
A few months ago, I was given a hard drive to fix. The machine had been hit by a power surge, and a chip on the control board (the one on the bottom of the hard drive) melted. I replaced the board, and the drive started working again. Normally I wouldn't have touched it, but there's a long back story on it, and I didn't want to send them off for a very expensive hard drive recovery. Even still, I could have opted to replace the chip, rather than replacing the whole board.
In my car (4th gen TransAm), the headlight motor stopped working. Normal procedure is to replace the motor. The better fix is to replace the worn gear with a better one, which involves dismantling the defective component. GM doesn't provide documentation on doing that.
I know with aircraft, if it's not done the "right" way, the FAA gets a bit upset. I'm not an aircraft mechanic, but I'd suspect if you cracked open a modular component and swapped a piece of the inside, they would be less than entertained.
It's the same argument that an automobile manufacturer doesn't release the detailed specs of a vehicle, because the owners manual doesn't show a breakdown of the engine. They are available (for a price, of course) to the people that need the information.
But for both aircraft and auto manufacturers, I don't believe they release detailed specs of say the software that makes their vehicles work. I doubt A&P mechanics are fixing software flaws in the autopilot, just as auto mechanics can't fix the software in the cruise control. It's the same as a doctor wouldn't be able to change the software controlling a pacemaker.
I know plenty of automobile electronics have been reverse engineered, but that's due to the number available to work with, and the potential profit to be had from tuning the software. Most of us wouldn't know where to get our hands on a new or used pacemaker to begin reverse engineering it. I definitely wouldn't be able to get my hands on a new or used 777, nor have anywhere to store it. It's a bit bigger than most of our garages, and I can't imagine our significant others not minding that we have one in the garage.
... and those of us who lurked for a few years before ever creating an account. If only I had bothered to register when I first started coming here, I could have had a 4 digit UID.
Well, I didn't see an interface to play DTMF tones, or I would have tried that.:) There are these pretty crystals inside of the slanted table with all the buttons on it though.
I was thinking of making a lego mindstorm device to work it. There are 39 keys plus what appears to be a "go" button. It only allows 7 keys to be pressed, and takes about a minute to go through the full cycle. It appears to have 5.5e+18 combinations (roughly), so with wardialing it would take 1.04e+13 years to try out all the combinations. My math may be a bit wrong, but it still comes out to "a really freakin' long time". If only it had some sort of instruction manual.
I would expect time travel to exist at every point in time, since theoretically a person/persons capable of time travel would eventually visit pretty much every year for whatever reason
Actually, that's less than plausible.
Assume the following to be true.
1) A person has an estimate 100 year life span.
2) Assume they don't get sick ever and want to just stay where they are until they are better.
3) They allowed for exactly 7 days per trip. Who would want to visit an ancient civilization for just 24 hours?
4) Nothing interrupts their trip, blocking them from being able to travel again. That could include arrest by the local police for violation of local laws appropriate for that time period, or meeting a very lovely young lady with hourly rates and spending a week with her.
5) Any time travel device, unless the time travel is of a very short duration (not more than a few minutes), would necessitate the ability to travel in space also. Otherwise, a hop back even precisely one day would leave you floating in space rather than visiting yourself 24 hours previously. In that, it would be unrealistic to think that "time travel" would be only tied to your own place of origin, or even your own galaxy. There are an awful lot of star systems to visit in all of space, and even a few minutes at each would burn up your available travel time, without visiting a fraction of the available destinations.
They would have approximately 36,500 days to travel, or 5,214 trips. There's a lot of places to go.
If you were to visit a specific location (boring) on Earth (boring) every year at New Years Day, Easter, Litha, and Halloween (solstices and equinoxes, which have been celebrated times in most cultures throughout human recorded history), you'd burn up your available lifespan pretty quick (relatively to the entire timespan of the universe)
I'd recommend:
England, Stonehenge from 3000 BC to 1600 BC. Lots of partying, unless you pissed someone off.
Egypt, Giza on a regular basis from 2500 BC to 2000 BC. Note: don't look like a slave.
Greece, Rhodes, 2000 BC Be sure to snap a picture of the Colossus. I hear it was pretty cool.
If you'd like to let loose, there was some little shindig in New York state, August 15,16,17 of 1969 AD. Information is available on "the Internet" (circa 1990 AD - 2012 AD) or the "New Electronica Guide Of Temporal Wayfaring" (circa 3629 PA). Posters indicating the event can be viewed at the "Hard Rock Cafe", 1979 AD - current). Note: Don't eat the brown acid.
Find a guy named "Plato", sometime around 362 BC, and ask him for a precise location of a place known as the "island of Atlas". It'll help if you learn to speak and understand Polytonic Greek.
Generally, try to mingle in large groups of people, such as at festivals. It will avoid a lot of hardship if you don't attempt to seek out individuals. While Cleopatra of Egypt and Helen of Troy were very beautiful women, you may find it difficult or deadly to pursue even an introduction. Intervention in deadly situations may cause you to be just as dead as the famous target. That would include the balcony at Ford's Theater, or the Curia at the Theater of Pompey.
If someone went back 20,000 years, and dropped their very nice pen from 1,000 years in our future, wouldn't you expect that the pen may have decomposed by now?
Or.. it's still laying out there, and no one has done an archeological dig yet at that specific geographic point to find it.
Or... as humans tend to do, someone found it and destroyed it because they didn't understand it.
Want a stargate? I already have one. My grandfather found it in the desert in Egypt years ago. I can turn it on, but I haven't found a combination of these freakin' buttons to do anything useful.
Unless destiny says that specific important events can and will happen without fail. Those who shape the future will always exist, and those who don't... well... don't really matter.
Obviously if you went back in time and killed your grandfather, that would show that you did exist. So in killing your grandfather, your creation simply came through a different path than you remembered. A simplified explanation would be, you go to McDonalds to get a hamburger. There are people working the registers, cooking the food, etc, etc. If one were removed from the equation (quit, fired, hit by a bus, etc), someone else would be brought in to fill the hole in the staff. You would not find that you can't have a hamburger served hot and fresh to you.
The unfortunate paradox then would be, if you did go back in time and did kill your grandfather, when you returned to the present you would find that your grandfather did exist and that you didn't kill him, because he was now someone else.
You cannot change events in the past to change the future. You can only change the minute details, but the outcome will always remain.
I imagine that, if you were in 1900, you would be criticizing Einstein
Albert may have been busy in 1900, doing what young men do best.:)
"Albert, it's no use day-dreaming about what would happen if you could ride a beam of light! We don't know what light is made of, let alone how you would attach a seat to it!"
Nah, no one ever accomplished those simple tasks before multicore processors were available.
</sarcasm>
Really, if they wanted a basic machine, as they indicated, they'd go with the cheapest processor, 128Mb RAM, etc, etc. You can set up most Linux distros to work in very tight constraints, and going with the slowest cheapest processor available new, and the smallest stick of ram available, may have come out cheaper.
Quite a while ago, when 133Mhz Pentiums were the norm, I was looking at an old machine that someone had given to me. It was an old 386 server. I was pondering "what will I do with this piece of shit", and finally put Linux on it and took it out for a test drive. It was pathetically slow, but it did the bare minimum that he specified. I didn't use it for much, since I had a blazing fast 200Mhz machine for my normal use. Who'd ever need anything faster.:) Eventually, it made it's way to the dumpster.
In skimming the article, they wanted to have flexibility to upgrade. You could go from something like an 2.9Ghz Athlon II x2 (which they used), to a 3.2Ghz Phenom II x6 That's a pretty decent upgrade.
I built my new desktop for Christmas (subsidized by friends and family as their presents to me). I went with an Asus motherboard with a AM3 socket, and an Athlon II x4. I actually intended to grab a Phenom II x4, but grabbed the wrong one. Oops. In some quick digging online, before taking a drive back to the store, it seems this CPU is can be overclocked to be rather comparable to the Phenom II x4, except it saved $100. I've been very happy with it, but will buy a good Phenom II eventually, as prices come down.
Thanks for that link. I just ran it on my own site. I love the way we think mob rule should run the world. We use it for our government (elections). We use it for our legal system (juries). We even (unfortunately) use it for the news, as cited in the linked article. Who cares what the truth is, and what trained experts in the field have to say about it, it's more fun to let the unwashed masses without all the facts make our decisions. I'm sure the argument of "well, tell them all the facts" will come out. Knowing most people have the attention span of a Chihuahua with ADD on speed, they won't make it beyond the first couple words of the introductory sentence. I like to think the readers here are better, but well written and intelligent comments have been responded to with "TL;DR" and arguments against my first few words, where the full statement actually agreed with their epic four line ranting.
[deep breath - focus on our happy place]
ok, back on topic... I'd rather get a report on the statistics of how safe electric/hybrid vehicles are from a source who has all the data, and can make an educated report on it. Something better than "Accidents went down. More hybrid cars were sold. Hybrid cars will save the world.", from a retired art teacher with a specifically crafted line to indicate that he's something resembling an expert. Not to say art teachers aren't intelligent, but they're far removed from a statistician at the NHTSA.
You know, I've seen an increasing trend in that. "Experts" have been coming out with "studies" in fiends. Because they have "Professor" or "Doctor" somewhere near their name, they are immediately presumed to be experts in the field that they are discussing. It rarely takes much research, sometimes just reading the article, to find out that their area of expertise has nothing to do with the topic of the study.
The article does hit both sides of it though, which is good. I couldn't find what he is currently teaching though. He's listed to be an instructor in the USU Art Department. His USU profile page doesn't really indicate much. The indicated department doesn't show him as being on the faculty nor staff.. That would be consistent with the "Emeritus" part of his title. He was a professor. He was in the art department, which doesn't seem to include any language arts.
I did find some rough name matches, so his art field may have been photography. Beyond that, I couldn't find anything about this guy.
So, his credentials went from sounding like an expert in the field, to "Mark Larson, retired art teacher", or more simply "Mark Larson, bored retired guy".
... and your iPhone has service everywhere, including the middle of office buildings, and datacenters. What did you have to pay for the "black magic" package that makes it immune to the laws of physics that pertain to RF communications?
Oh, I will never dispute that one. It's almost worse than someone who's afraid to hold a weapon. Anyone who's been to a shooting range has seen them. They hold the weapon as far away from themselves as they can, and lean way back like they're trying to run away from it. They're also the most dangerous. They're more likely to accidentally pull the trigger, and may accidentally shoot you, themselves, or anything a stray bullet could hit.
He wasn't ready. Everyone matures at different rates. Just because I was ready at 8, and he wasn't ready at 13 doesn't mean anything. All of his firearms experience has been what he's seen on TV and in video games. Unless you have an unrealistically sized sound system in your house, you'll never approach the sound that a real weapon makes.
I think he was expecting what he learned from video games and TV. There is no such thing as recoil. The boom is comparable to firecrackers. There's nothing to using weapons, other than point, shoot, and watch the bad guy immediately die.
Because I was pretty sure he wasn't really ready, I gave him extra instruction. That, and my Springfield had been stored for quite a few years in someone's house and it was in need of a serious cleaning. That gave us extra time to go over everything several times.
He was ok with dry firing it at home. I explained every step of how we were insuring it was safe, and I made him do every step with me. He asked about the kick, so I had him hold his hand up and pushed with roughly an equivalent force. The only thing I couldn't simulate for him was how loud they really are. If I wasn't confident in his ability to safely handle a weapon in the range, I wouldn't have taken him. As far as the technical details on handling a weapon, he was prepared.
It wasn't until we were at the range, where real weapons were being fired, that he realized the reality of what he had been handling.
I guess I should include, I've known this kid since he was 1 year old. He trusts me and has confided personal things with me. Pretty much if I say it, it's true.
I've taught a lot of people how to shoot. Most do very well. It's when they become fatigued that they start messing up (like poor grouping, not like shooting someone in the next lane). That's always the good time to call it a day, and save the leftover ammo for next time.
My friends and family all know I'm the resident gun nut. They also know I'll keep them safe, and give responsible advice and training.
He was the first person I've ever taken shooting who refused to fire because he was too scared. If I wanted to just scare him, I could have done that at home.:) It was more of the introduction to reality versus the fantasy world of games and tv/movie violence, that threw him. I will take him to the range again someday when I'm sure he's ready. Until then, he knows how dangerous firearms can be and I'd be confident that if a weapon were left laying out he wouldn't touch it.
It's all about the shooters control of the weapon. Vertically aligned, there is lots of strength against the recoil. There isn't as much horizontally. The "kick" is up relative to the weapon, due to the fact that you're always holding it below the center of force.
For those who don't understand, go to the gym. On a machine where you can fully extend your arm, such as a machine for the biceps, push and see how much you can push straight up. Then try a machine where you are pushing across your chest. Unless you've been exercising specifically to strengthen those muscles (and ignoring the others) you will see a significant difference.... and, yes, it's harder to see through the sights.:) I'd give a description, but I don't usually sit at the computer with a weapon in hand, unless I'm expecting some unwelcome company. The black van left a couple days ago, so I think I'm safe.
I know I started shooting the Springfield well before I was 17. The Springfield 03A3 and the 30.06 use the same ammunition, and should have very similar handling characteristics. I had to bug my dad about it for quite a while before he let me shoot it the first time. I guess the respect for weapons did stick. I wouldn't take it out to fire without his permission, and I still believe every weapon is loaded, regardless if I "know" it's not. When he finally did let me, I wasn't all that strong, and definitely not big. I grew up to 5'8" and 150 pounds sometime in high school, and remained that size for quite a while.
A lot of the ability is to have proper instruction. Have a good stance. Wrap the strap around your left arm. Pull the weapon firmly into your shoulder. Squeeze the trigger, and don't panic.:)
Because my weapon has a steel butt plate on it, if I'm not wearing a padded jacket (I don't have one), it leaves abrasions on my shoulder. I can fire about 20 to 30 rounds per shoulder before it hurts too much to continue. A friend of mine in high school didn't listen carefully to the instructions, and didn't have the rifle pulled tight into his shoulder. It left him with a bruise that went about 6" across his chest, and about a foot down his right arm. After that healed, he wanted to try again, and followed the instruction precisely, and came out uninjured after 5 rounds.
Another friend didn't keep the sling tight and/or didn't have a good grip on it, and it did kick up and rubbed the side of his face. Mine doesn't have a scope on it, nor will it ever. It's an antique, and I refuse to modify it. I could imagine if it did have a scope, it would have likely hit him pretty hard where you describe.
I know my dad got me started real early, because he wanted me to know what these big metal things in the house did, and why I shouldn't play with them. I've talked to my mom recently about it, and she didn't agree with the age (about 8), but it obviously worked out fine. Neither me nor my sister ever accidentally fired a weapon. I still own weapons. She hasn't had one around since she moved out of the house years ago. Neither one of us is afraid of them, but know their purpose. They put large holes in things very violently. They are a last resort to protect your own life. Because I've gone through quite a bit of training over the years, I still help introduce novices to safe handling of firearms. If they're going to use one, I'd prefer they not accidentally get killed with one.
I was in the military for a very short time. They kicked me out, because my vision was not correctable without surgery. The recruiting sergeant promised they'd fix anything. I was young and dumb, and believed everything he said. I didn't sign up as a gungho "lets shoot stuff" person. I believed it to be a civic responsibility. Now that I'm older, I really understand the risks that were involved.
He doesn't talk about joining the military as the glamorous future. "I'll join the military, they'll make me an officer. People will respect me, I'll get lots of money and get to play with cool toys." No verbal explanation worked. One day at the shooting range, where he didn't even fire a weapon did. The other good side effect is, he stopped bugging me to take him to the shooting range.:) Now I can just go when I want to get some practice in. I really prefer solitary practice time, rather than instructing a novice shooter.
I'll have to rewatch it sometime. I thought he was given enough instruction, but it's possible that I simply don't remember correctly.
The name of the two parts are the charging handle, and the forward assist plunger. I had to cheat a little for the name of the forward assist plunger. I couldn't remember it either.:)
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American vehicles are equipped with side windows only to order drive through fast food. They serve no other purpose. The side mirrors are simply decorations, and are frequently aimed in directions which give a beautiful view of the sky or of the side of the road. Well, it's not the vehicles, it's the perception of 99.999% of the American drivers. That is, drivers in America, regardless of where they came from. It's not a nationality problem.
I've wanted to ship my car over to Europe for quite a while. There are a few people I'd like to visit, and it would be nice to spend a few months over there, and have my own car to drive he whole time. It would be amazingly high on my list to take it for a spin on the autobahn. It's speed limited to 165mph, because of the tires that the car originally came with. I've only ever seen 150mph in my car (track conditions, I promise), and that limit was imposed by the physical conditions of the track. If there's only so much room to accelerate before a turn, you can only go so fast. There are plenty of relatively inexpensive ways to change that limit, since I use tires that are rated much faster than OEM. The OEM tires had terrible handling characteristics, especially on anything but dry well maintained asphalt roads.
Unfortunately, I totally agree with you. Cruising on most interstates, if I'm going a bit faster than the other cars (pretty common), I'll be on the left to pass. I'll inevitably come up on some jackass doing 50mph talking on his cell phone in the left lane. I'll hang out behind him at a safe distance, but still be obvious that I want to overtake him. Either through dumb luck or because he actually is watching, when I finally give up and move one lane to the right, he'll do the same thing. It's not based on my turn signal. It's when I'm half way into the right lane he'll just swerve over without signaling.
There are areas where the right lane isn't the best lane to stay in. On a 6 lane highway (3 lanes in each direction), the right lane is generally slow with traffic merging on and off. Rather than risk my own safety by dancing to the left then right at every on and off ramp, I'll stay in the center lane. That leaves the left lane open for people driving faster than me, and I stay out of the way of vehicles coming on and off the highway. In rural areas, it becomes less of an issue.
I'm very attentive to vehicles traveling faster than me, and will always signal and then move before they even have to consider slowing down. Oddly enough, that's what most of the laws say to do. On quite a few occasions on rural parts of interstates where it's 4 lanes (2 each way), I'll move to the left to pass large trucks. No offense to those drivers. I actually know a lot of the rules they work under, and understand what it's like to drive a heavy vehicle. Lots of times, when a faster vehicle approaches, I'll move over into the slow lane to let them pass. About half the time, they catch up, match my speed, and linger beside me. No ass, I didn't move over so you could block me in the slow lane. I moved over so you could overtake me. I guess the worst is the people who can't maintain a cruising speed. They'll haul ass up behind me (say 90+ mph), so I'll let them overtake me. I'll then move back to pass the slower traffic. Rather than maintaining their speed, they slow down to under the speed of the slow traffic, and when there's finally a break where I can pass on the right (I know, you're not suppose to), when I attempt to pass, they'll suddenly realize that they're driving slow and speed up. All I can do is be thankful that my car has lots of torque and horsepower, and it's power to weight ratio lets me accelerate quickly. 55 to 90 feels like I just bumped the gas for a second. Then I can resume a normal speed. They'll speed up to follow me for a couple minutes, and then drop way back, and then try to catch up. It's funny to watch if I'm way in front of them, but amazingly annoying if I'm behind them.
Maybe I should move to Germany. I may have to adjust my driving style slightly, but nothing like dealing with American drivers who take a 20 question written test and then prove that they can stay in their lane and parallel park in a 15 minute driving test.
I just had to renew my drivers license here. I've been driving for 20 years. They told me I had to take an exam on the renewal. The exam? A multiple choice test on common road signs. I was laughing while I was taking it, because I had alternative answers that were more entertaining.
Caution, pedophiles following children. Alternatively, it can be an indicator to pedophiles that children are in the area. Either way, the larger target is legal to run over and your damages will be reimbursed by the state.
Caution, snakes following your car. Drive faster!
Any stop sign with a white border only means the stop is suggested. You should yield to larger vehicles.
I've never driven the 99, but I've driven the full length of I-5. With a few exceptions, that would be a lovely road to cruise fast on, and plenty of people do.
I wouldn't see a single autobahn lane as being practical nor safe. Even with the carpool lane(s) clearly marked as such, with double yellow lines indicating not to change into or out of those lanes, I've seen quite a bit of amazingly stupid things happen. Cruising in the carpool lane with two passengers (cruise control set, so I wouldn't attract unwanted speeding tickets), I had people just decide they wanted out of the regular traffic lanes and into the carpool lane. Ahhh, there's nothing like a brake check or quick evasive maneuver at 70mph to wake up your passengers.
No, any experiment where there is a large difference in speed or ability between adjoining lanes of traffic should simply not exist. I would suggest for any such experiment, drivers AND vehicles should be certified. That's not just a "ya, he can drive that fast", but an intensive training and testing period. Drivers in America generally don't understand the basic concept of "slower traffic keep right", despite it being in every driver handbook, and posted on signs in most states. Lets not forget the ideas of turn signals, proper lane changes, attentive driving, and safe following distances.
As you exceed 150mph (242kph), "safe following distance" becomes a whole new concept. If you don't believe it, try realizing that the cars a mile ahead are only doing 30mph, and you have to slow from 150 to 30 before you hit them. (assume there is no option to drive in another lane, nor ditch into the grass). In the time that you realize "those cars are going slower", you're already a quarter mile closer. Your "good" brakes and "good" tires slow you down pretty quick, but when you bleed off 100mph, you're still going faster than they are. Pray to god they don't see you in the mirror and hit the brakes in a panic.
Autobahn style driving would definitely need clearly separated lanes. That would be with K-rails on each side, and safe acceleration/deceleration lanes. Anything less would be catastrophic. It's not the drivers and vehicles that could be certified that I'd be really worried about. It would be the 99.999% of the drivers on the road that worry me.
I saw the result of a dropped weapon once. My dad was carrying an antique revolver in a holster. The hammer was down, so it was theoretically safe. The holster was old and not so well designed. The pistol fell, hit the floor, and made a .38 caliber hole in the roof. That holster got properly disposed of (into the trash can).
I almost totally agree. Most parts are made to be replaced as a module. When's the last time you replaced the bearings in a hard drive, or soldered a pin on a memory stick? But, sometimes we do, and that's without the assistance of technical schematics.
A few months ago, I was given a hard drive to fix. The machine had been hit by a power surge, and a chip on the control board (the one on the bottom of the hard drive) melted. I replaced the board, and the drive started working again. Normally I wouldn't have touched it, but there's a long back story on it, and I didn't want to send them off for a very expensive hard drive recovery. Even still, I could have opted to replace the chip, rather than replacing the whole board.
In my car (4th gen TransAm), the headlight motor stopped working. Normal procedure is to replace the motor. The better fix is to replace the worn gear with a better one, which involves dismantling the defective component. GM doesn't provide documentation on doing that.
I know with aircraft, if it's not done the "right" way, the FAA gets a bit upset. I'm not an aircraft mechanic, but I'd suspect if you cracked open a modular component and swapped a piece of the inside, they would be less than entertained.
It's the same argument that an automobile manufacturer doesn't release the detailed specs of a vehicle, because the owners manual doesn't show a breakdown of the engine. They are available (for a price, of course) to the people that need the information.
Here's the list of manuals for a Boeing 777.
But for both aircraft and auto manufacturers, I don't believe they release detailed specs of say the software that makes their vehicles work. I doubt A&P mechanics are fixing software flaws in the autopilot, just as auto mechanics can't fix the software in the cruise control. It's the same as a doctor wouldn't be able to change the software controlling a pacemaker.
I know plenty of automobile electronics have been reverse engineered, but that's due to the number available to work with, and the potential profit to be had from tuning the software. Most of us wouldn't know where to get our hands on a new or used pacemaker to begin reverse engineering it. I definitely wouldn't be able to get my hands on a new or used 777, nor have anywhere to store it. It's a bit bigger than most of our garages, and I can't imagine our significant others not minding that we have one in the garage.
Well, I didn't see an interface to play DTMF tones, or I would have tried that. :) There are these pretty crystals inside of the slanted table with all the buttons on it though.
I was thinking of making a lego mindstorm device to work it. There are 39 keys plus what appears to be a "go" button. It only allows 7 keys to be pressed, and takes about a minute to go through the full cycle. It appears to have 5.5e+18 combinations (roughly), so with wardialing it would take 1.04e+13 years to try out all the combinations. My math may be a bit wrong, but it still comes out to "a really freakin' long time". If only it had some sort of instruction manual.
Actually, that's less than plausible.
Assume the following to be true.
1) A person has an estimate 100 year life span.
2) Assume they don't get sick ever and want to just stay where they are until they are better.
3) They allowed for exactly 7 days per trip. Who would want to visit an ancient civilization for just 24 hours?
4) Nothing interrupts their trip, blocking them from being able to travel again. That could include arrest by the local police for violation of local laws appropriate for that time period, or meeting a very lovely young lady with hourly rates and spending a week with her.
5) Any time travel device, unless the time travel is of a very short duration (not more than a few minutes), would necessitate the ability to travel in space also. Otherwise, a hop back even precisely one day would leave you floating in space rather than visiting yourself 24 hours previously. In that, it would be unrealistic to think that "time travel" would be only tied to your own place of origin, or even your own galaxy. There are an awful lot of star systems to visit in all of space, and even a few minutes at each would burn up your available travel time, without visiting a fraction of the available destinations.
They would have approximately 36,500 days to travel, or 5,214 trips. There's a lot of places to go.
If you were to visit a specific location (boring) on Earth (boring) every year at New Years Day, Easter, Litha, and Halloween (solstices and equinoxes, which have been celebrated times in most cultures throughout human recorded history), you'd burn up your available lifespan pretty quick (relatively to the entire timespan of the universe)
I'd recommend:
England, Stonehenge from 3000 BC to 1600 BC. Lots of partying, unless you pissed someone off.
Egypt, Giza on a regular basis from 2500 BC to 2000 BC. Note: don't look like a slave.
Greece, Rhodes, 2000 BC Be sure to snap a picture of the Colossus. I hear it was pretty cool.
If you'd like to let loose, there was some little shindig in New York state, August 15,16,17 of 1969 AD. Information is available on "the Internet" (circa 1990 AD - 2012 AD) or the "New Electronica Guide Of Temporal Wayfaring" (circa 3629 PA). Posters indicating the event can be viewed at the "Hard Rock Cafe", 1979 AD - current). Note: Don't eat the brown acid.
Find a guy named "Plato", sometime around 362 BC, and ask him for a precise location of a place known as the "island of Atlas". It'll help if you learn to speak and understand Polytonic Greek.
Generally, try to mingle in large groups of people, such as at festivals. It will avoid a lot of hardship if you don't attempt to seek out individuals. While Cleopatra of Egypt and Helen of Troy were very beautiful women, you may find it difficult or deadly to pursue even an introduction. Intervention in deadly situations may cause you to be just as dead as the famous target. That would include the balcony at Ford's Theater, or the Curia at the Theater of Pompey.
Exactly what kind of evidence would you expect?
If someone went back 20,000 years, and dropped their very nice pen from 1,000 years in our future, wouldn't you expect that the pen may have decomposed by now?
Or.. it's still laying out there, and no one has done an archeological dig yet at that specific geographic point to find it.
Or... as humans tend to do, someone found it and destroyed it because they didn't understand it.
Want a stargate? I already have one. My grandfather found it in the desert in Egypt years ago. I can turn it on, but I haven't found a combination of these freakin' buttons to do anything useful.
Unless destiny says that specific important events can and will happen without fail. Those who shape the future will always exist, and those who don't ... well ... don't really matter.
Obviously if you went back in time and killed your grandfather, that would show that you did exist. So in killing your grandfather, your creation simply came through a different path than you remembered. A simplified explanation would be, you go to McDonalds to get a hamburger. There are people working the registers, cooking the food, etc, etc. If one were removed from the equation (quit, fired, hit by a bus, etc), someone else would be brought in to fill the hole in the staff. You would not find that you can't have a hamburger served hot and fresh to you.
The unfortunate paradox then would be, if you did go back in time and did kill your grandfather, when you returned to the present you would find that your grandfather did exist and that you didn't kill him, because he was now someone else.
You cannot change events in the past to change the future. You can only change the minute details, but the outcome will always remain.
Albert may have been busy in 1900, doing what young men do best. :)
Everyone knows the answer to that one. Duct tape.
Which is almost as good advice as "don't observe metal while putting a super nova in the microwave"
Nah, no one ever accomplished those simple tasks before multicore processors were available.
</sarcasm>
Really, if they wanted a basic machine, as they indicated, they'd go with the cheapest processor, 128Mb RAM, etc, etc. You can set up most Linux distros to work in very tight constraints, and going with the slowest cheapest processor available new, and the smallest stick of ram available, may have come out cheaper.
Quite a while ago, when 133Mhz Pentiums were the norm, I was looking at an old machine that someone had given to me. It was an old 386 server. I was pondering "what will I do with this piece of shit", and finally put Linux on it and took it out for a test drive. It was pathetically slow, but it did the bare minimum that he specified. I didn't use it for much, since I had a blazing fast 200Mhz machine for my normal use. Who'd ever need anything faster. :) Eventually, it made it's way to the dumpster.
In skimming the article, they wanted to have flexibility to upgrade. You could go from something like an 2.9Ghz Athlon II x2 (which they used), to a 3.2Ghz Phenom II x6 That's a pretty decent upgrade.
I built my new desktop for Christmas (subsidized by friends and family as their presents to me). I went with an Asus motherboard with a AM3 socket, and an Athlon II x4. I actually intended to grab a Phenom II x4, but grabbed the wrong one. Oops. In some quick digging online, before taking a drive back to the store, it seems this CPU is can be overclocked to be rather comparable to the Phenom II x4, except it saved $100. I've been very happy with it, but will buy a good Phenom II eventually, as prices come down.
Thanks for that link. I just ran it on my own site. I love the way we think mob rule should run the world. We use it for our government (elections). We use it for our legal system (juries). We even (unfortunately) use it for the news, as cited in the linked article. Who cares what the truth is, and what trained experts in the field have to say about it, it's more fun to let the unwashed masses without all the facts make our decisions. I'm sure the argument of "well, tell them all the facts" will come out. Knowing most people have the attention span of a Chihuahua with ADD on speed, they won't make it beyond the first couple words of the introductory sentence. I like to think the readers here are better, but well written and intelligent comments have been responded to with "TL;DR" and arguments against my first few words, where the full statement actually agreed with their epic four line ranting.
[deep breath - focus on our happy place]
ok, back on topic... I'd rather get a report on the statistics of how safe electric/hybrid vehicles are from a source who has all the data, and can make an educated report on it. Something better than "Accidents went down. More hybrid cars were sold. Hybrid cars will save the world.", from a retired art teacher with a specifically crafted line to indicate that he's something resembling an expert. Not to say art teachers aren't intelligent, but they're far removed from a statistician at the NHTSA.
[breathe deep. happy place... happy place... happy place...]
You know, I've seen an increasing trend in that. "Experts" have been coming out with "studies" in fiends. Because they have "Professor" or "Doctor" somewhere near their name, they are immediately presumed to be experts in the field that they are discussing. It rarely takes much research, sometimes just reading the article, to find out that their area of expertise has nothing to do with the topic of the study.
The article does hit both sides of it though, which is good. I couldn't find what he is currently teaching though. He's listed to be an instructor in the USU Art Department. His USU profile page doesn't really indicate much. The indicated department doesn't show him as being on the faculty nor staff.. That would be consistent with the "Emeritus" part of his title. He was a professor. He was in the art department, which doesn't seem to include any language arts.
I did find some rough name matches, so his art field may have been photography. Beyond that, I couldn't find anything about this guy.
So, his credentials went from sounding like an expert in the field, to "Mark Larson, retired art teacher", or more simply "Mark Larson, bored retired guy".
Oh, I will never dispute that one. It's almost worse than someone who's afraid to hold a weapon. Anyone who's been to a shooting range has seen them. They hold the weapon as far away from themselves as they can, and lean way back like they're trying to run away from it. They're also the most dangerous. They're more likely to accidentally pull the trigger, and may accidentally shoot you, themselves, or anything a stray bullet could hit.
He wasn't ready. Everyone matures at different rates. Just because I was ready at 8, and he wasn't ready at 13 doesn't mean anything. All of his firearms experience has been what he's seen on TV and in video games. Unless you have an unrealistically sized sound system in your house, you'll never approach the sound that a real weapon makes.
I think he was expecting what he learned from video games and TV. There is no such thing as recoil. The boom is comparable to firecrackers. There's nothing to using weapons, other than point, shoot, and watch the bad guy immediately die.
Because I was pretty sure he wasn't really ready, I gave him extra instruction. That, and my Springfield had been stored for quite a few years in someone's house and it was in need of a serious cleaning. That gave us extra time to go over everything several times.
He was ok with dry firing it at home. I explained every step of how we were insuring it was safe, and I made him do every step with me. He asked about the kick, so I had him hold his hand up and pushed with roughly an equivalent force. The only thing I couldn't simulate for him was how loud they really are. If I wasn't confident in his ability to safely handle a weapon in the range, I wouldn't have taken him. As far as the technical details on handling a weapon, he was prepared.
It wasn't until we were at the range, where real weapons were being fired, that he realized the reality of what he had been handling.
I guess I should include, I've known this kid since he was 1 year old. He trusts me and has confided personal things with me. Pretty much if I say it, it's true.
I've taught a lot of people how to shoot. Most do very well. It's when they become fatigued that they start messing up (like poor grouping, not like shooting someone in the next lane). That's always the good time to call it a day, and save the leftover ammo for next time.
My friends and family all know I'm the resident gun nut. They also know I'll keep them safe, and give responsible advice and training.
He was the first person I've ever taken shooting who refused to fire because he was too scared. If I wanted to just scare him, I could have done that at home. :) It was more of the introduction to reality versus the fantasy world of games and tv/movie violence, that threw him. I will take him to the range again someday when I'm sure he's ready. Until then, he knows how dangerous firearms can be and I'd be confident that if a weapon were left laying out he wouldn't touch it.
Ditto.
It's all about the shooters control of the weapon. Vertically aligned, there is lots of strength against the recoil. There isn't as much horizontally. The "kick" is up relative to the weapon, due to the fact that you're always holding it below the center of force.
For those who don't understand, go to the gym. On a machine where you can fully extend your arm, such as a machine for the biceps, push and see how much you can push straight up. Then try a machine where you are pushing across your chest. Unless you've been exercising specifically to strengthen those muscles (and ignoring the others) you will see a significant difference. ... and, yes, it's harder to see through the sights. :) I'd give a description, but I don't usually sit at the computer with a weapon in hand, unless I'm expecting some unwelcome company. The black van left a couple days ago, so I think I'm safe.
Hmmm, what was that noise on the back porch?
Really?
I know I started shooting the Springfield well before I was 17. The Springfield 03A3 and the 30.06 use the same ammunition, and should have very similar handling characteristics. I had to bug my dad about it for quite a while before he let me shoot it the first time. I guess the respect for weapons did stick. I wouldn't take it out to fire without his permission, and I still believe every weapon is loaded, regardless if I "know" it's not. When he finally did let me, I wasn't all that strong, and definitely not big. I grew up to 5'8" and 150 pounds sometime in high school, and remained that size for quite a while.
A lot of the ability is to have proper instruction. Have a good stance. Wrap the strap around your left arm. Pull the weapon firmly into your shoulder. Squeeze the trigger, and don't panic. :)
Because my weapon has a steel butt plate on it, if I'm not wearing a padded jacket (I don't have one), it leaves abrasions on my shoulder. I can fire about 20 to 30 rounds per shoulder before it hurts too much to continue. A friend of mine in high school didn't listen carefully to the instructions, and didn't have the rifle pulled tight into his shoulder. It left him with a bruise that went about 6" across his chest, and about a foot down his right arm. After that healed, he wanted to try again, and followed the instruction precisely, and came out uninjured after 5 rounds.
Another friend didn't keep the sling tight and/or didn't have a good grip on it, and it did kick up and rubbed the side of his face. Mine doesn't have a scope on it, nor will it ever. It's an antique, and I refuse to modify it. I could imagine if it did have a scope, it would have likely hit him pretty hard where you describe.
I know my dad got me started real early, because he wanted me to know what these big metal things in the house did, and why I shouldn't play with them. I've talked to my mom recently about it, and she didn't agree with the age (about 8), but it obviously worked out fine. Neither me nor my sister ever accidentally fired a weapon. I still own weapons. She hasn't had one around since she moved out of the house years ago. Neither one of us is afraid of them, but know their purpose. They put large holes in things very violently. They are a last resort to protect your own life. Because I've gone through quite a bit of training over the years, I still help introduce novices to safe handling of firearms. If they're going to use one, I'd prefer they not accidentally get killed with one.
I was in the military for a very short time. They kicked me out, because my vision was not correctable without surgery. The recruiting sergeant promised they'd fix anything. I was young and dumb, and believed everything he said. I didn't sign up as a gungho "lets shoot stuff" person. I believed it to be a civic responsibility. Now that I'm older, I really understand the risks that were involved.
He doesn't talk about joining the military as the glamorous future. "I'll join the military, they'll make me an officer. People will respect me, I'll get lots of money and get to play with cool toys." No verbal explanation worked. One day at the shooting range, where he didn't even fire a weapon did. The other good side effect is, he stopped bugging me to take him to the shooting range. :) Now I can just go when I want to get some practice in. I really prefer solitary practice time, rather than instructing a novice shooter.
I'll have to rewatch it sometime. I thought he was given enough instruction, but it's possible that I simply don't remember correctly.
The name of the two parts are the charging handle, and the forward assist plunger. I had to cheat a little for the name of the forward assist plunger. I couldn't remember it either. :)
AR-15 parts diagram