There was a story on here a few years ago about cosmic rays and server failures. It was a running joke for a little while that every time a server crashed, it was because of the cosmic rays. It was more entertaining in that the servers were 30 feet underground, and it was usually some machine in the middle of the rack, not the top one.:)
It was funnier that the "cosmic rays" would target problem machines, and not any of the dozens of identical machines around it that had really long uptimes.:) I really did have some people believing it though. I'd tell them about the news reports and sometimes even email them the news story. "Why does machine 123 keep crashing?" "Cosmic radiation, look it was on the Internet, it must be true."
It sounds like a good way for folks to blame anything but the real fault. If it were the cause, wouldn't we be seeing all kinds of mystery problems, not just associated to throttle problems in cars?
I'm not all that sure how far into UV I can see. I don't suspect it's all that far, but I could be wrong. I'm not going to stare into a laser to find out though.:)
Well, I've always been sensitive to bright sunlight. Coincidentally, I live in one of the areas of the US farthest south with the cleanest air. My car has tinted windows, and I keep sunglasses handy. On particularly bright days, I wear a hat too, to shade my eyes more. That wasn't really related to the surgery, I was that way before it.
After the surgery, black lights caused me serious pain. I'd simply have to close the eye that had surgery done, which made me look really funny.:) It's the visual equivalent of hearing two tones simultaneously, slightly off from each other, and hearing the warble, except it's not a flicker.
It took a few years before I could look at areas illuminated by black lights. Still, it's very weird seeing two colors at the same time, but at least it's only way up in the violet/UV range.
As far as causing cancer, well, the skin is sensitive to it. The inside of the eye? I'm not really sure. As far as I know, there's nothing unusual going on there. The surgery was done in 1993. So, 17 years later, it hasn't caused any problems there.
I don't know if newer implants filter UV. According to the Wikipedia page on intraocular lenses, they do exist, but I didn't bother to search any further. I'm hoping to get some more work done sometime soon. The IOL Wiki page does mention IOL's for astigmatism, so there may be an option for proper UV filtering and correcting my vision problems. I have an astigmatism in both eyes. As it is, there is a slight fault in the current implant, where there's a very little bit of trapped air. A warm compress on my face will cause that eye to fog. *THAT* is weirder than just seeing beyond the normal spectrum of light.:)
Having an IOL for astigmatism brings us back to the original question. Is it appropriate to medically adjust a person to make them more "normal"? We're already doing it so many ways that the proposed treatment isn't all that different.
I agree totally. It's as morally wrong to correct colorblindness as it is to change any other aspect of a person. Does it change the person? Sure.
I went through corrective eye surgery years ago because I had a congenital cataract (i.e., I was born with it). By the time I was 18, my vision was 20/200 in my bad eye. The fix in the early 90's was pretty simple. Cut the lens out, and put a plastic one in. The method has changed slightly since then, but it's pretty much the same. Something they didn't tell me about until after was that the natural lens filters UV light. After the surgery, the spectrum of light I was able to see was increased at the UV end of the spectrum. Black lights no longer remain almost invisible, they are bright blue to me, only in that eye. Comparing the two eyes, some things like purple flowers, are different colors in each eye. It's kind of weird, but something I've learned to live with. Did the adaptation make me "super" in some way? Not really. It's just different. Color blind people see fewer (or no) colors. I see more in one eye. It was an elective surgery. If I hadn't had it done, I would be blind in that eye by now.
Is it any worse for me to have my vision corrected so I wouldn't be blind? Is it wrong for someone who is missing a limb to get a prosthetic limb?
I have a friend who was in an accident and has no control over her legs. She's making progress towards walking again in the future. Should she just accept the fact that she can't walk, and not try to be "normalized" (as TFA said)? If the ability is there, and the patient wants it, let them have it.
The places I've seen it have been pretty remote, with no gas infrastructure anywhere near by. That's probably why I hadn't seen it. Not that I frequent landfills or anything, I'm just observant when I've been to them. It does make an awful lot more sense to harness it at least for something. The plumes I've seen on their burners have been pretty big, I'm sure it could have made some substantial energy.
I've actually noticed landfills with methane burners on them. On a daily basis, they cover the new trash with dirt, so the smell doesn't kill people for miles. They also install vented pipes (pipes with holes) so as things decay, the methane goes up, and is burnt about 12 feet above the ground. I suspect that handles any methane that works it's way through the soil too.
It seems like a better plan than spraying people down with giant perfume cannons and telling them it's roses.
Well, even if you do the married without the ring, you're still screwed. Once you enter into the legally binding contract with her, you're fucked. She can do as she wants after that, and all you can do is put up with it, or go commit suicide. Any other options, you're fucked even more.
I've never seen the logic in it. It's like when I've worked in offices with unisex bathrooms. Girls are all about spraying flowery stuff, turning the fan off, and closing the door. I've made the mistake of going in shortly after them, and all you smell is rancid shit and an overdose of perfume. I'd almost prefer just the smell of shit. Actually, I'd prefer the smell of nothing, but you can't fire someone for using the restroom, no matter how bad it smells.:)
Well, not really. Since I'm separated, if I were to sex up the wife, that would more than likely put it into the realm of B&E and rape.:) Sex-full nights with the girlfriend though are all fair game.:)
We all know, once you put the ring on the finger, all the sex is gone.
You have to consider the American legal system. After they're done threatening legal action, then they'll drag him into court. It won't be a one-hearing thing either. It'll span years. They may get a court order that he can't develop nor distribute such software until the conclusion of the case.
Say he wins in court. He can continue to distribute his software. That's assuming he can afford legal representation for that long. Most normal people can't financially handle a prolonged court case, so even if he started fighting it from the start, he'd run out of funds and do exactly what they tell him to.
If he loses in court, it'll cost him an absolute fortune. They can hire better lawyers, and keep it tied up in court for years. Ok, now he has to stop distributing in the future (since they probably got the court order to not distribute for the duration of the court case, he'll be faced with fines, and probably Facebooks legal fees.
So his choices are to stop, and accept it, or to fight it and spend every penny he has in court.
Someone like Facebook doesn't mind spending the money to drag it through court. It's "encouragement" for others not to do the same thing.
Nope, but I friended yours. But, they make it sound like there are loose women all over Facebook just begging to get laid. It takes more than a few MILFs for me to be a proper man-slut. I'm looking for like 3-4 per day at least. This one a week just makes me look easy.
Actually, I was wondering about that. I have a Garmin GPS. I would think that it would keep track of my average speeds over a given stretch of road, and even maybe associate it to a time. Regardless, when I drive the same route, it always (ALWAYS) underestimates my travel time by 10 minutes.
There's room for easy improvement there. Ya, it should know that you slow down early at the same spot, and be able to assume that it will happen again.
I had one of those hills when I was a kid. The next hill was about a mile away, so you glanced way ahead you could see the traffic light, and the cars headed for it. Once you started coming down that first hill, you lost visibility of the light and all the other cars. Then you had to guess (or pray). If I saw 10 cars, and the light was green, it will probably be red by the time they get there, so there'll be a line of cars just on the other side of the hill. If it was red, I ought to slow down, but it may have turned green by the time I get there. If there were no cars ahead of me in sight (like late at night), I have a good chance of not encountering anyone.
It was worse when it was just a 4 way stop sign. There was about one accident a week, and one fatality every few months. With the light, and flashing "STOP AHEAD" lights, it reduced the fatal accidents to about one per year. Even with the light in place, I barely missed a few accidents. I'd get a green light, and watch carefully for crossing traffic running the red light. A few times I had to stop short in the intersection to avoid getting hit. I did my best to not go through there, but there weren't a lot of choices. The other way around was about 60 miles out of the way.
Someone I know almost had an accident this morning. An older scruffy looking guy in a little beat up car looked directly at him, and then pulled straight out in front of him. Why? Probably to collect what he could from the insurance.
I've lived near areas where the poor and homeless would intentionally get in accidents. A homeless man may step out in front of your car, hoping that you will just hurt him, but not kill him. When given the choices of sleeping on the street without food, or sleeping in a hospital and eating 3 meals a day until they recover, they'll bounce off the hood of a car.
So, if you saw a well dressed man, attentively standing at a crosswalk, you may assume that he's waiting for it to be safe. If you see a homeless man dressed in rags attentively standing at a crosswalk, he may be looking for the right car to jump in front of, for a free trip to the hospital. (We'll skip edge cases where the well dressed man is suicidal).... and... I was completely stunned the first time a homeless person did that to me there. He waited, and waited, and just as I got there (doing a whopping 30mph), he stepped out in front of me. I stood on the brakes and didn't hit him, so he went wandering across the road, again trying to get hit. A local was with me and warned me to watch out for that, they try it all the time. Desperate people will do desperate things. It takes our generations of evolution to attempt to understand all the quirks that is our society.
But that's the thing. What's the difference between someone walking on the sidewalk; standing at a curb waiting to cross a street; and waiting for a ball to be thrown to them. To us it's obvious. For a computer, it would take a full fledged AI in the car to evaluate what's happening. For us, we can analyze everything. It would require not only seeing the person, but reading their body language to determine what they *might* do. It would likely need to go beyond that, For example a squirrel running across the road. I'm sure you've seen them run half way across, get scared, run away, and then right in front of your car. We do an awful lot of analysis to determine what the threat is.
I'll use another example. I was driving a friend's truck, with a trailer on the back. I spotted an object. I made the decisions that a computer may make. Is there room in the lane to go around it? I also determined if it was animate or not. Is it going to move when I get close? I didn't have room, but it looked large enough where it may cause damage. A quick look showed that I had room to move over just to get around it. When we were almost to it, I could see it was a bag of leafs. I missed it by about a foot, intentionally. If it had been a large dog, I would have needed to leave more room, as it may move.
Sometimes we don't get so lucky. A long time ago, a deer ran across the road just as a friend of mine was driving through. It crushed the front of his car. He didn't have time to stop, but he tried hard. Swerving wasn't an option, as there was oncoming traffic. There was a cement barrier just ahead, so he couldn't swerve off the road. For him, there weren't a lot of options, other than to slow down as much as possible and accept the damage and get it fixed later.
If the car were driving itself, that would have been a nasty surprise for him to suddenly find that he hit something big.
I'd like to see added measures put into cars, like automatic braking when an object is detected in the lane. That works fine and dandy until you realize you're not always going straight on an empty road. There's a particular spot I drive on a regular basis. As far as looking ahead goes, it looks like I'll hit something just about every time. The lane has a choice of going straight or turning right on a fairly wide turn. Once I initiate the turn, there is frequently a car directly ahead of me (in the other turning lane). Hard braking would be catastrophic if the roads were slick. Since I, human, can evaluate the whole scene, it's a safe turn. That turn is disobeying my GPS too, so it's insisting I keep left, even though I'm turning right to avoid traffic.
Thinking about it, when I've stopped by in the past when leaving one of the many datacenters I've worked in, they tend not to sell me on stuff if I forget to take my badges off.:) I guess when you have a dozen proxcards with some notable companies on the ones facing out, that's a clue that I know exactly what I'm shopping for and to just let me buy it.:)
Since I don't work the DC's any more, I just have cards and it'd be silly to carry them around. Maybe I'll doctor myself up a CIA or NSA ID card, and "accidentally" let it show when I'm looking for something else in my pockets.:) Nah, that's probably the best idea. I don't like jail all that much.:)
Actually, you've spotted the #1 cause of accidents. Human failure. "I didn't see...", "I couldn't stop in time", and "I didn't realize..." are all fine excuses, but they're all human failures in operating thousands of pounds of motor vehicle.
I don't really foresee self driving cars on the road any time soon though. Like, not in our lifetime. The first time a kid runs out in front of an automated car and gets run over because it couldn't detect a child playing in a yard as being an obstacle, automated cars will be outlawed. For the average (good) driver, he can identify kids playing in the yard, slow down, and when a kid goes running out into the road, avoid the collision. The best we can hope for in automation is to know that the object is there. If an automated car slowed down every time there was an object in a yard it would have to pretty much remain parked.
I would love to see some of the systems that have been prototyped over the last 20 years show up in cars, such as automatic braking when following too close. That, unfortunately, may make drivers pay less attention to driving.
Threats don't generally work as well as you'd think. A threat to call the police may invite you a quick exit from the store.
I'm just satisfied that I bought their loss leader without any upsells, which means they lost money on the sale.:)
The one I got didn't come with Bluetooth, and they wanted something like $60 for a USB bluetooth receiver. I went over to CompUSA when I was done, and spent $20 on one.:) (and yes, I'm in one of the markets where CompUSA still has stores)
Come on, they aren't selling those yet. I just started listing them on eBay two days ago. There's still 5 days left on the auction. 15 bids, and 150,000 watchers. Ahhh, gotta love the gullibility of customers.;)
I was just out shopping for a utilitarian laptop. I just need something with a screen big enough to see, and a keyboard that I could touch type on.
CompUSA, Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, WalMart, Target. Best Buy happened to have the best deal. Of course, they first pushed me to accept an upsell. "No, I want this one." Next, they pushed me for the "optimized" version. The only ones on the floor were optimized. They pushed again, and I told them, "As soon as I get home, I'm backing up the install partition, wiping the drive, and putting on Linux." The guy wasn't totally confused, but he pushed for me to accept the wonders of Windows, so I would appreciate my experience more. {sigh} Grudgingly, he went, got the ladder, and got one of the non-optimized ones from a secured cage where a customer couldn't possibly accidentally take one to checkout. It wasn't for security. There were several "optimized" versions sitting right under the display where a customer could just pick it up and go unmolested.
No, I don't want to get a carrying case too. I don't want the laptop starter kit with wireless mouse and other crap I don't need.
From there, I had to go to the tech counter where they checked me out. "So, you want 6 months of free anti-virus, right?". Nope. "I already have that taken care of I told him, just to avoid the longer conversation. Two more prompts, and he realized I wasn't going to accept the upsell.
If I didn't need it fast, I would have ordered it online instead, and not had to refuse the plethora of upsells attempts.
In the end, I got the laptop, at the listed price, without anything extra, and as soon as I got home, I made the restore disks, and installed Slackware. It's working great.:)
Judging from customers I've met, I think you've severely overestimated the intelligence of the average consumer. If you say you've never had a call from someone complaining that their TV doesn't work, just to find out that they didn't know to hit the big red "power" button.
It's the same reason I don't answer my phone some days. "My internet doesn't work.", just to find out the powers out in the whole house. Of course, it doesn't help that when they call the power company and get a message during the 45 minutes of hold music that says "You can check your account online at http://www....../"
It's over 3 years old, and has nothing to do with Commodore, except someone set up a crappy site with the name on it to get the Commodore fans all wound up.
I'm not surprised it was shot with an expensive camera, the *REAL* manufacturer had those done by a professional, I'm sure.
Any of the rest of the crap in the summary or on their site can be assumed to be absolute BS. But hey, for those interested I have a 16 core 4THz machine with 32TB RAM that's the size of a matchhead. It runs off of a patented method for gathering and storing static electricity from the air, and interfaces to all external devices (display, HID, etc) wirelessly. I'll start selling them for $1,950,000. If I sell one I can move to a nice island. If I sell 1000 I'll buy the island. Err, I mean, ummm, we'll reinvest in the company to make our products even better.:)
I do agree, high speed driving tends to be safer, although it is counter-intuitive.
In the past, I used to drive... well... quickly. I we all pay careful attention to what's around us, because any distant obstacle can come really quick.
Going slow, we're driving with the cruise control on, or following the taillights ahead of us. People don't really pay attention to what's around them.
I drove up beside an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. I didn't realize it was her until I was passing. I dropped back and waved. It took her a few minutes to realize who I was, and then she sent me a text next time she stopped.:) At least we don't text while we're driving, only stopped.:) I haven't found a good earpiece for my phone yet where I could talk comfortably while driving, so I don't generally use my phone while I'm driving.
Every accident I've been in was a fairly low speed accident, because someone did something stupid around me. The last one was a good example. I was going fairly slow (approx 20mph), which was appropriate for the area. A lady was in my blind spot on the right. She accelerated up and moved over 2 lanes into me. She didn't see me either. The guy behind me said it was amazing, he thought she'd realize she was doing something stupid. She actually pushed me into the median, so even the initial impact wasn't enough to get her to turn away.
I'm of the firm belief that if I stay away from the other cars on the road, they can't crash into me.:) I should move out to Wyoming or North Dakota. There's more people in the metro area I live in, than in either one of those states (or even both combined). I'd try Alaska, but I don't want to put my car versus a moose, nor do I want to drive 8 months of the year in the snow.:)
I know about the "crawling at 90mph". I know my car will do in excess of 150mph. From what I've read, it may or may not be limited by the computer to 165mph (the stock tires were only rated to 168mph). As it turns out, you need an awful lot of empty road at 150mph. When you're traveling a mile every 24 seconds, pesky little things like other cars and wild animals crossing the road can become troublesome. I guess I'm getting old, because I'm cruising around at the speed limit for the most part now. I do love having the power, if I need it. Like, pulling out into the stream of traffic on a highway, I can take a safe spot and be up to speed in just a few seconds. The good ol' grocery-getter will try to do the same thing, and end up slowing the traffic down and/or get hit.
I do know Chrysler did a lot of that with inferior products. They'd reduce the quality of some parts, so they were still perfectly serviceable to 99% of the drivers, but they are cheap and inferior if used beyond the designed scope. Unfortunately, this has become infectious, and many (MANY) other manufacturers have put in cheaper parts where good parts were called for. For example, I helped a friend with his brakes when I was a kid. The piston in the brake caliper was made of plastic. Hmmm, high temp area. Must be reliable. Why use an inferior material. I was helping him because the brakes failed on that side (notably that wheel), and the plastic piston had broken. More recently, I was helping someone with their minivan, and it wasn't a matter of which parts were failing, but which parts were still serviceable. It had less than 100k miles on it, and I can't say much more than the body (the parts that hadn't sun faded and/or cracked) was the only good part. From what I recall, the timing chain went, which destroyed the engine. The steering was catastrophically loose. The brakes were leaking at three wheels. The automatic seat belts failed and had to be re-secured. The air conditioner had a leak and failed a year or so before. The transmission had been slipping. The doors didn't sit right (weak hinges or rollers). Even the seats appeared that a 600 pound gorilla had been sitting in them, which wasn't the case. I offered to do the engine repair, and gave the price for just parts (free labor). I then compared it to the current book value of the vehicle in "excellent" condition. I didn't even include the other required repairs (steering and brakes), and it was already going to cost about 3x more than the book value of it. I basically told her, "for 3x what it's worth, I can get it driving right. You could go buy another one, but expect the same problems not too long after you buy it."
Don't let that go to bash Chrysler totally. They do make some good vehicles. They just push a lot more crap vehicles out than the good ones. I'm sure that helps their profit margin.
Damned Americans. Can't even go to Antarctica without running into them. What do they think, that they own the world?
(BTW, I'm American, and that's sarcasm for those without a clue)
Ok, all cult members to 85S 50E. That's where the "Alien rendezvous" will be. Be sure attend before the "end of the world". This is a non-partisan invitation. All cult members must attend, or your soul will be lost in accordance with your particular misguided beliefs.
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There was a story on here a few years ago about cosmic rays and server failures. It was a running joke for a little while that every time a server crashed, it was because of the cosmic rays. It was more entertaining in that the servers were 30 feet underground, and it was usually some machine in the middle of the rack, not the top one. :)
It was funnier that the "cosmic rays" would target problem machines, and not any of the dozens of identical machines around it that had really long uptimes. :) I really did have some people believing it though. I'd tell them about the news reports and sometimes even email them the news story. "Why does machine 123 keep crashing?" "Cosmic radiation, look it was on the Internet, it must be true."
It sounds like a good way for folks to blame anything but the real fault. If it were the cause, wouldn't we be seeing all kinds of mystery problems, not just associated to throttle problems in cars?
I'm not all that sure how far into UV I can see. I don't suspect it's all that far, but I could be wrong. I'm not going to stare into a laser to find out though. :)
Well, I've always been sensitive to bright sunlight. Coincidentally, I live in one of the areas of the US farthest south with the cleanest air. My car has tinted windows, and I keep sunglasses handy. On particularly bright days, I wear a hat too, to shade my eyes more. That wasn't really related to the surgery, I was that way before it.
After the surgery, black lights caused me serious pain. I'd simply have to close the eye that had surgery done, which made me look really funny. :) It's the visual equivalent of hearing two tones simultaneously, slightly off from each other, and hearing the warble, except it's not a flicker.
It took a few years before I could look at areas illuminated by black lights. Still, it's very weird seeing two colors at the same time, but at least it's only way up in the violet/UV range.
As far as causing cancer, well, the skin is sensitive to it. The inside of the eye? I'm not really sure. As far as I know, there's nothing unusual going on there. The surgery was done in 1993. So, 17 years later, it hasn't caused any problems there.
I don't know if newer implants filter UV. According to the Wikipedia page on intraocular lenses, they do exist, but I didn't bother to search any further. I'm hoping to get some more work done sometime soon. The IOL Wiki page does mention IOL's for astigmatism, so there may be an option for proper UV filtering and correcting my vision problems. I have an astigmatism in both eyes. As it is, there is a slight fault in the current implant, where there's a very little bit of trapped air. A warm compress on my face will cause that eye to fog. *THAT* is weirder than just seeing beyond the normal spectrum of light. :)
Having an IOL for astigmatism brings us back to the original question. Is it appropriate to medically adjust a person to make them more "normal"? We're already doing it so many ways that the proposed treatment isn't all that different.
I agree totally. It's as morally wrong to correct colorblindness as it is to change any other aspect of a person. Does it change the person? Sure.
I went through corrective eye surgery years ago because I had a congenital cataract (i.e., I was born with it). By the time I was 18, my vision was 20/200 in my bad eye. The fix in the early 90's was pretty simple. Cut the lens out, and put a plastic one in. The method has changed slightly since then, but it's pretty much the same. Something they didn't tell me about until after was that the natural lens filters UV light. After the surgery, the spectrum of light I was able to see was increased at the UV end of the spectrum. Black lights no longer remain almost invisible, they are bright blue to me, only in that eye. Comparing the two eyes, some things like purple flowers, are different colors in each eye. It's kind of weird, but something I've learned to live with. Did the adaptation make me "super" in some way? Not really. It's just different. Color blind people see fewer (or no) colors. I see more in one eye. It was an elective surgery. If I hadn't had it done, I would be blind in that eye by now.
Is it any worse for me to have my vision corrected so I wouldn't be blind? Is it wrong for someone who is missing a limb to get a prosthetic limb?
I have a friend who was in an accident and has no control over her legs. She's making progress towards walking again in the future. Should she just accept the fact that she can't walk, and not try to be "normalized" (as TFA said)? If the ability is there, and the patient wants it, let them have it.
The places I've seen it have been pretty remote, with no gas infrastructure anywhere near by. That's probably why I hadn't seen it. Not that I frequent landfills or anything, I'm just observant when I've been to them. It does make an awful lot more sense to harness it at least for something. The plumes I've seen on their burners have been pretty big, I'm sure it could have made some substantial energy.
I've actually noticed landfills with methane burners on them. On a daily basis, they cover the new trash with dirt, so the smell doesn't kill people for miles. They also install vented pipes (pipes with holes) so as things decay, the methane goes up, and is burnt about 12 feet above the ground. I suspect that handles any methane that works it's way through the soil too.
It seems like a better plan than spraying people down with giant perfume cannons and telling them it's roses.
Well, even if you do the married without the ring, you're still screwed. Once you enter into the legally binding contract with her, you're fucked. She can do as she wants after that, and all you can do is put up with it, or go commit suicide. Any other options, you're fucked even more.
I've never seen the logic in it. It's like when I've worked in offices with unisex bathrooms. Girls are all about spraying flowery stuff, turning the fan off, and closing the door. I've made the mistake of going in shortly after them, and all you smell is rancid shit and an overdose of perfume. I'd almost prefer just the smell of shit. Actually, I'd prefer the smell of nothing, but you can't fire someone for using the restroom, no matter how bad it smells. :)
Well, not really. Since I'm separated, if I were to sex up the wife, that would more than likely put it into the realm of B&E and rape. :) Sex-full nights with the girlfriend though are all fair game. :)
We all know, once you put the ring on the finger, all the sex is gone.
You have to consider the American legal system. After they're done threatening legal action, then they'll drag him into court. It won't be a one-hearing thing either. It'll span years. They may get a court order that he can't develop nor distribute such software until the conclusion of the case.
Say he wins in court. He can continue to distribute his software. That's assuming he can afford legal representation for that long. Most normal people can't financially handle a prolonged court case, so even if he started fighting it from the start, he'd run out of funds and do exactly what they tell him to.
If he loses in court, it'll cost him an absolute fortune. They can hire better lawyers, and keep it tied up in court for years. Ok, now he has to stop distributing in the future (since they probably got the court order to not distribute for the duration of the court case, he'll be faced with fines, and probably Facebooks legal fees.
So his choices are to stop, and accept it, or to fight it and spend every penny he has in court.
Someone like Facebook doesn't mind spending the money to drag it through court. It's "encouragement" for others not to do the same thing.
Nope, but I friended yours. But, they make it sound like there are loose women all over Facebook just begging to get laid. It takes more than a few MILFs for me to be a proper man-slut. I'm looking for like 3-4 per day at least. This one a week just makes me look easy.
Actually, I was wondering about that. I have a Garmin GPS. I would think that it would keep track of my average speeds over a given stretch of road, and even maybe associate it to a time. Regardless, when I drive the same route, it always (ALWAYS) underestimates my travel time by 10 minutes.
There's room for easy improvement there. Ya, it should know that you slow down early at the same spot, and be able to assume that it will happen again.
I had one of those hills when I was a kid. The next hill was about a mile away, so you glanced way ahead you could see the traffic light, and the cars headed for it. Once you started coming down that first hill, you lost visibility of the light and all the other cars. Then you had to guess (or pray). If I saw 10 cars, and the light was green, it will probably be red by the time they get there, so there'll be a line of cars just on the other side of the hill. If it was red, I ought to slow down, but it may have turned green by the time I get there. If there were no cars ahead of me in sight (like late at night), I have a good chance of not encountering anyone.
It was worse when it was just a 4 way stop sign. There was about one accident a week, and one fatality every few months. With the light, and flashing "STOP AHEAD" lights, it reduced the fatal accidents to about one per year. Even with the light in place, I barely missed a few accidents. I'd get a green light, and watch carefully for crossing traffic running the red light. A few times I had to stop short in the intersection to avoid getting hit. I did my best to not go through there, but there weren't a lot of choices. The other way around was about 60 miles out of the way.
I've obviously been looking at the wrong places on Facebook. Where's the "casual sex hookup" area?
Thank you. :) .. and just to add to this ..
Someone I know almost had an accident this morning. An older scruffy looking guy in a little beat up car looked directly at him, and then pulled straight out in front of him. Why? Probably to collect what he could from the insurance.
I've lived near areas where the poor and homeless would intentionally get in accidents. A homeless man may step out in front of your car, hoping that you will just hurt him, but not kill him. When given the choices of sleeping on the street without food, or sleeping in a hospital and eating 3 meals a day until they recover, they'll bounce off the hood of a car.
So, if you saw a well dressed man, attentively standing at a crosswalk, you may assume that he's waiting for it to be safe. If you see a homeless man dressed in rags attentively standing at a crosswalk, he may be looking for the right car to jump in front of, for a free trip to the hospital. (We'll skip edge cases where the well dressed man is suicidal). ... and ... I was completely stunned the first time a homeless person did that to me there. He waited, and waited, and just as I got there (doing a whopping 30mph), he stepped out in front of me. I stood on the brakes and didn't hit him, so he went wandering across the road, again trying to get hit. A local was with me and warned me to watch out for that, they try it all the time. Desperate people will do desperate things. It takes our generations of evolution to attempt to understand all the quirks that is our society.
But that's the thing. What's the difference between someone walking on the sidewalk; standing at a curb waiting to cross a street; and waiting for a ball to be thrown to them. To us it's obvious. For a computer, it would take a full fledged AI in the car to evaluate what's happening. For us, we can analyze everything. It would require not only seeing the person, but reading their body language to determine what they *might* do. It would likely need to go beyond that, For example a squirrel running across the road. I'm sure you've seen them run half way across, get scared, run away, and then right in front of your car. We do an awful lot of analysis to determine what the threat is.
I'll use another example. I was driving a friend's truck, with a trailer on the back. I spotted an object. I made the decisions that a computer may make. Is there room in the lane to go around it? I also determined if it was animate or not. Is it going to move when I get close? I didn't have room, but it looked large enough where it may cause damage. A quick look showed that I had room to move over just to get around it. When we were almost to it, I could see it was a bag of leafs. I missed it by about a foot, intentionally. If it had been a large dog, I would have needed to leave more room, as it may move.
Sometimes we don't get so lucky. A long time ago, a deer ran across the road just as a friend of mine was driving through. It crushed the front of his car. He didn't have time to stop, but he tried hard. Swerving wasn't an option, as there was oncoming traffic. There was a cement barrier just ahead, so he couldn't swerve off the road. For him, there weren't a lot of options, other than to slow down as much as possible and accept the damage and get it fixed later.
If the car were driving itself, that would have been a nasty surprise for him to suddenly find that he hit something big.
I'd like to see added measures put into cars, like automatic braking when an object is detected in the lane. That works fine and dandy until you realize you're not always going straight on an empty road. There's a particular spot I drive on a regular basis. As far as looking ahead goes, it looks like I'll hit something just about every time. The lane has a choice of going straight or turning right on a fairly wide turn. Once I initiate the turn, there is frequently a car directly ahead of me (in the other turning lane). Hard braking would be catastrophic if the roads were slick. Since I, human, can evaluate the whole scene, it's a safe turn. That turn is disobeying my GPS too, so it's insisting I keep left, even though I'm turning right to avoid traffic.
Thinking about it, when I've stopped by in the past when leaving one of the many datacenters I've worked in, they tend not to sell me on stuff if I forget to take my badges off. :) I guess when you have a dozen proxcards with some notable companies on the ones facing out, that's a clue that I know exactly what I'm shopping for and to just let me buy it. :)
Since I don't work the DC's any more, I just have cards and it'd be silly to carry them around. Maybe I'll doctor myself up a CIA or NSA ID card, and "accidentally" let it show when I'm looking for something else in my pockets. :) Nah, that's probably the best idea. I don't like jail all that much. :)
Actually, you've spotted the #1 cause of accidents. Human failure. "I didn't see...", "I couldn't stop in time", and "I didn't realize..." are all fine excuses, but they're all human failures in operating thousands of pounds of motor vehicle.
I don't really foresee self driving cars on the road any time soon though. Like, not in our lifetime. The first time a kid runs out in front of an automated car and gets run over because it couldn't detect a child playing in a yard as being an obstacle, automated cars will be outlawed. For the average (good) driver, he can identify kids playing in the yard, slow down, and when a kid goes running out into the road, avoid the collision. The best we can hope for in automation is to know that the object is there. If an automated car slowed down every time there was an object in a yard it would have to pretty much remain parked.
I would love to see some of the systems that have been prototyped over the last 20 years show up in cars, such as automatic braking when following too close. That, unfortunately, may make drivers pay less attention to driving.
Threats don't generally work as well as you'd think. A threat to call the police may invite you a quick exit from the store.
I'm just satisfied that I bought their loss leader without any upsells, which means they lost money on the sale. :)
The one I got didn't come with Bluetooth, and they wanted something like $60 for a USB bluetooth receiver. I went over to CompUSA when I was done, and spent $20 on one. :) (and yes, I'm in one of the markets where CompUSA still has stores)
Come on, they aren't selling those yet. I just started listing them on eBay two days ago. There's still 5 days left on the auction. 15 bids, and 150,000 watchers. Ahhh, gotta love the gullibility of customers. ;)
I was just out shopping for a utilitarian laptop. I just need something with a screen big enough to see, and a keyboard that I could touch type on.
CompUSA, Best Buy, Staples, Office Depot, WalMart, Target. Best Buy happened to have the best deal. Of course, they first pushed me to accept an upsell. "No, I want this one." Next, they pushed me for the "optimized" version. The only ones on the floor were optimized. They pushed again, and I told them, "As soon as I get home, I'm backing up the install partition, wiping the drive, and putting on Linux." The guy wasn't totally confused, but he pushed for me to accept the wonders of Windows, so I would appreciate my experience more. {sigh} Grudgingly, he went, got the ladder, and got one of the non-optimized ones from a secured cage where a customer couldn't possibly accidentally take one to checkout. It wasn't for security. There were several "optimized" versions sitting right under the display where a customer could just pick it up and go unmolested.
No, I don't want to get a carrying case too. I don't want the laptop starter kit with wireless mouse and other crap I don't need.
From there, I had to go to the tech counter where they checked me out. "So, you want 6 months of free anti-virus, right?". Nope. "I already have that taken care of I told him, just to avoid the longer conversation. Two more prompts, and he realized I wasn't going to accept the upsell.
If I didn't need it fast, I would have ordered it online instead, and not had to refuse the plethora of upsells attempts.
In the end, I got the laptop, at the listed price, without anything extra, and as soon as I got home, I made the restore disks, and installed Slackware. It's working great. :)
Judging from customers I've met, I think you've severely overestimated the intelligence of the average consumer. If you say you've never had a call from someone complaining that their TV doesn't work, just to find out that they didn't know to hit the big red "power" button.
It's the same reason I don't answer my phone some days. "My internet doesn't work.", just to find out the powers out in the whole house. Of course, it doesn't help that when they call the power company and get a message during the 45 minutes of hold music that says "You can check your account online at http://www....../"
Don't get too impressed with yourself. You missed the obvious part. Look at the filename.
http://www.commodoreusa.net/i//zpc9100_full.jpg
It's over 3 years old, and has nothing to do with Commodore, except someone set up a crappy site with the name on it to get the Commodore fans all wound up.
A 2007 article about the ZPC9100
Or the real manufacturer site
I'm not surprised it was shot with an expensive camera, the *REAL* manufacturer had those done by a professional, I'm sure.
Any of the rest of the crap in the summary or on their site can be assumed to be absolute BS. But hey, for those interested I have a 16 core 4THz machine with 32TB RAM that's the size of a matchhead. It runs off of a patented method for gathering and storing static electricity from the air, and interfaces to all external devices (display, HID, etc) wirelessly. I'll start selling them for $1,950,000. If I sell one I can move to a nice island. If I sell 1000 I'll buy the island. Err, I mean, ummm, we'll reinvest in the company to make our products even better. :)
Thanks. :)
I do agree, high speed driving tends to be safer, although it is counter-intuitive.
In the past, I used to drive ... well ... quickly. I we all pay careful attention to what's around us, because any distant obstacle can come really quick.
Going slow, we're driving with the cruise control on, or following the taillights ahead of us. People don't really pay attention to what's around them.
I drove up beside an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. I didn't realize it was her until I was passing. I dropped back and waved. It took her a few minutes to realize who I was, and then she sent me a text next time she stopped. :) At least we don't text while we're driving, only stopped. :) I haven't found a good earpiece for my phone yet where I could talk comfortably while driving, so I don't generally use my phone while I'm driving.
Every accident I've been in was a fairly low speed accident, because someone did something stupid around me. The last one was a good example. I was going fairly slow (approx 20mph), which was appropriate for the area. A lady was in my blind spot on the right. She accelerated up and moved over 2 lanes into me. She didn't see me either. The guy behind me said it was amazing, he thought she'd realize she was doing something stupid. She actually pushed me into the median, so even the initial impact wasn't enough to get her to turn away.
I'm of the firm belief that if I stay away from the other cars on the road, they can't crash into me. :) I should move out to Wyoming or North Dakota. There's more people in the metro area I live in, than in either one of those states (or even both combined). I'd try Alaska, but I don't want to put my car versus a moose, nor do I want to drive 8 months of the year in the snow. :)
I know about the "crawling at 90mph". I know my car will do in excess of 150mph. From what I've read, it may or may not be limited by the computer to 165mph (the stock tires were only rated to 168mph). As it turns out, you need an awful lot of empty road at 150mph. When you're traveling a mile every 24 seconds, pesky little things like other cars and wild animals crossing the road can become troublesome. I guess I'm getting old, because I'm cruising around at the speed limit for the most part now. I do love having the power, if I need it. Like, pulling out into the stream of traffic on a highway, I can take a safe spot and be up to speed in just a few seconds. The good ol' grocery-getter will try to do the same thing, and end up slowing the traffic down and/or get hit.
I do know Chrysler did a lot of that with inferior products. They'd reduce the quality of some parts, so they were still perfectly serviceable to 99% of the drivers, but they are cheap and inferior if used beyond the designed scope. Unfortunately, this has become infectious, and many (MANY) other manufacturers have put in cheaper parts where good parts were called for. For example, I helped a friend with his brakes when I was a kid. The piston in the brake caliper was made of plastic. Hmmm, high temp area. Must be reliable. Why use an inferior material. I was helping him because the brakes failed on that side (notably that wheel), and the plastic piston had broken. More recently, I was helping someone with their minivan, and it wasn't a matter of which parts were failing, but which parts were still serviceable. It had less than 100k miles on it, and I can't say much more than the body (the parts that hadn't sun faded and/or cracked) was the only good part. From what I recall, the timing chain went, which destroyed the engine. The steering was catastrophically loose. The brakes were leaking at three wheels. The automatic seat belts failed and had to be re-secured. The air conditioner had a leak and failed a year or so before. The transmission had been slipping. The doors didn't sit right (weak hinges or rollers). Even the seats appeared that a 600 pound gorilla had been sitting in them, which wasn't the case. I offered to do the engine repair, and gave the price for just parts (free labor). I then compared it to the current book value of the vehicle in "excellent" condition. I didn't even include the other required repairs (steering and brakes), and it was already going to cost about 3x more than the book value of it. I basically told her, "for 3x what it's worth, I can get it driving right. You could go buy another one, but expect the same problems not too long after you buy it."
Don't let that go to bash Chrysler totally. They do make some good vehicles. They just push a lot more crap vehicles out than the good ones. I'm sure that helps their profit margin.
Damned Americans. Can't even go to Antarctica without running into them. What do they think, that they own the world?
(BTW, I'm American, and that's sarcasm for those without a clue)
Ok, all cult members to 85S 50E. That's where the "Alien rendezvous" will be. Be sure attend before the "end of the world". This is a non-partisan invitation. All cult members must attend, or your soul will be lost in accordance with your particular misguided beliefs.
Sincerely,
Prophet of the Messiah