The crystals would break down water. It releases hydrogen, sure. What do you think happens to the oxygen? It's in the same mixture. It's actually a very wonderful mixture, since it is broken down from a very happy molecule. I ran a torch on pure gases from electrolysis. It makes a nice hot and virtually invisible flame. That's a hint that it's a great mixture. Sure, the gases would rise, but it's rising from a pipe of some sort. If the barricade, as implied, contains the crystals, which react with the water, then that means your rising gases are close by too.
Liquid fuel used in vehicles is flammable, but it requires an oxidizer (i.e., oxygen). So, the limit to how fast it can burn *IS* how much oxygen can get to it. Your fuel/air mixture concern is absolutely reversed. The ICE in your car regulates the mixture of atmospheric gasses with liquid fuel to make a combustible mixture.
I can't say that I've ever spotted gasoline pipelines with connections to highway barricades. I have seen accidents with tanker trucks. They're big, messy, but isolated. They aren't long stretches of road. To the best of my knowledge, explosive gas pipelines don't run along highways at all.
Well, you do have a valid point there. There's nothing better for the ratings that big explosions and body parts strewn along the roads.
I'd hate to be on the cleanup crew when there's an accident on I-95 or I-10, and the explosion blows cars off the road for miles. I'd think it would be cost prohibitive to have flashback arrestors every few feet.
Something like this would have been more catastrophic if a hydrogen/oxygen filled line was anywhere near it.
I passed a burning car on I-5 once. The driver was out safely, and emergency crews were already on the scene when I got there. I guess it just caught fire, I didn't see any huge damage on it, but the flames were at least 15' high. His car was on the shoulder, and no cars were in the right lane because of the flames. I was in the second lane from the right, doing about 55, and even with my windows closed and air conditioner on (it was hot out that day), I could feel the heat through the window for just the second or so that I was near it.
Pretty much, if it could happen, it will somewhere. That is, until we invent crash proof vehicles.:) Since we can't even prevent crashes on railroads, which are heavily controlled, I don't foresee that coming anytime soon.
I agree. Some, but not all, would be recovered. Folks will get anxious if they aren't reminded.
I'd worry more about the tremendous explosion risk. The farther away from the road, the less effective it would be. But, the closer you put it to the road, the larger risk it becomes. Being that not all accidents happen *on* the road, it's a huge risk. Beyond the mentions above, in one community I lived in, there was a nice car-sized hole in the concrete wall. It was down the street from me, so I never got the details, but enough energy to punch through a brick wall is enough to do all kinds of bad things.
At the entrance of the same community, there was a brick island around a raised (approx 3' high) area full of soil and trees. The front of that was ruined by a minivan that landed roof-first on it. From what I recall, the paramedics radioed to the helicopter to turn around, since there weren't any survivors to rush to the hospital.
Needless to say, it was a kinda dangerous road to be on. The speed limit was 55. People frequently did 65 to 80 (or more), and almost as frequently lost control and the result wasn't pleasant.
If you had an infrastructure where highway barriers were full of water, generating a perfectly combustion mixture (like, not just good, but perfect) flowing into pipes, which would (obviously) need to be somewhere close to the road. If they are elevated, they run a risk of contact with a vehicle, or flames from an accident. I've seen bridges melt from accidents under them. Below the road, the gases rising create an extreme explosion hazard at ground level. One cigarette butt thrown out a window, and you could have an entire highway explode.
Anywhere around a highway is a potential heavy impact and fire hazard. If you watch the news, you'll see the "freak" accidents where cars leave the road and end up in houses or other buildings, or burst into flames for various reasons. Anyone who's worked for a while as in the emergency response industry (police, fire, paramedics) have seen vehicles on their roof. Thousands of pounds of pressure may break a pesky hydrogen pipeline.
I'm not against it though, it sounds like an interesting idea, although not a solution. If cars were powered by hydrogen instead of gasoline, and the noise on highways produced hydrogen to power them, the evil laws of thermodynamics jump in and say "don't get your hopes up."
If your social circle consists of low income labor folks, you'll see lower wages. If it consist of high end technical and executive people, you'll see higher wages.
If you graduated last year, I'd seriously doubt you'd see anywhere near the higher end of the spectrum for a while.
90% of the population aren't actively collecting unemployment. You only count as "unemployed" if you are collecting unemployment. Those who don't, either because they couldn't (the company fought against unemployment benefits), or have fallen off the books because their unemployment ran out, don't count. They also don't count if they seem to willingly be unemployed. Like, a housewife or retired person isn't counted in the unemployment figures, because they chooses to stay home. The real unemployement number is closer to 25% unemployed but looking.
"underemployed" don't count either. If you were a senior IT person for years making 6 figures, and have a wealth of experience, but can't get a job doing IT, and went to work for McDonalds making minimum wage, you aren't unemployed. You may not be able to afford your bills, but you're not unemployed. Those count for a very substantial number, probably 15% to 20%.
There are groups who assemble the more realistic numbers, and they really aren't pretty. Of all my friends, who were gainfully employed a few years ago, less than 10% are working now. The rest are sending out resumes every day, and spending their unemployment money driving around to find work. That includes myself.
... just to add to this, I went through some of my old mail. "Borat" was released Nov 3rd, 2006. We didn't watch the preview, but this was the email, 7 months before it was released. You'll see right in the invite, the target demographic was 17 to 34.
The Screening Exchange Proudly Invites You To An Exclusive Movie Screening Of:
"BORAT" Tuesday, April 4, 2006 - Showtime: 7:30pm
Please arrive no later than 6:45pm
Seating is on a first-come first-served basis and can not be guaranteed.
Warner Bros. Lot - Screening Room 12 4000 Warner Blvd. Burbank, Ca 91522
(Enter at Gate 2, Park in Structure 3)
This invitation is for you and one guest, ages 17-34. NOBODY outside of this age range will be admitted into the screening.
Each audience member must have seen and enjoyed at least 3 of the following films in a movie theatre:
Best in Show The Ringer Napoleon Dynamite Wedding Crashers The 40 Year Old Virgin Old School Ali G Indahouse Starsky & Hutch Dodgeball Jackass: The Movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Anchorman
If you wish to attend this screening please confirm by phone or via e-mail: Confirmation Phone #: (866) 827-8280 Confirmation E-mail: rsvp5@thescreeningexchange.com
To expedite your confirmation we need the following information from you:
Your name Whether or not you will be bringing a guest? Your primary contact phone number Your gender and your guest's gender. Your ethnicity and your guests ethnicity Your age and your guests age Your e-mail address When leaving your information, please give the following code: E-47 Description: In BORAT - THE MOVIE! Sacha Baron Cohen - star of HBO's hit comedy Da Ali G Show, takes his outrageous Kazakstani reporter character Borat to the big screen. In this hilariously offensive movie Borat travels from his primitive home in Kazakhstan on a road-trip through the US, where he meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. Not for the faint-hearted!
MPAA rating status: The movie has not yet been rated but is believed to be 'R.' The studio cannot, of course, guarantee the rating that the film will ultimately receive.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: No one will be admitted if they are directly or associated with the entertainment industry, marketing, advertising, journalism, or any media related business including the internet. No one will be admitted to this recruited audience test preview who appears dirty or unkempt, intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, or who may interfere in any way with the enjoyment of the movie. Since this is a privately recruited audience, if you or your guest do not meet this criteria or any other criteria we feel will not fit the demographics and conditions of the screening, you and your guest will not be admitted or given a ticket. We reserve the right to cancel the screening at anytime. We reserve the right to expel or turn away any person from a screening. We reserve the right to refuse an invitation to any person during a recruit. No backpacks, large bags, video recording equipment, cameras or cell phones that have cameras will be allowed in the screening. We are not responsible for any personal items that are lost or left.
I was thinking more along the lines that there were more adults than teenagers. When I've gone lately, the only adults I've seen were taking children along to see kids movies.
I lived in LA for a while, and I saw quite a few sneak previews. We were part of focus groups, to get our opinions on how bad movies sucked.:) Sometimes there was a written questionnaire. Sometimes they'd ask us questions randomly on the way out. Quite a few times, they'd linger around just outside the theater to see what people had to say. For quite a few movies, they'd go walking through the group in the queue and grab teenagers to see it. For the most part, the target demographic has shifted away from working age adults and older people. Working age adults, I guess, don't have time to go to movies. Teenagers, who only have school to worry about and can borrow their parents car (or have their own) can get the money to burn on movies.
Depending on how we dressed, we may be skipped over. If we were dressed in business casual (usually because I just came from work), I was less likely to be invited in. If I wore jeans and a T-shirt, I'd usually be invited right in. It was usually worth it, because we'd see movie endings that were never in the production release.:) I was disappointed though when I saw "Crank". I didn't like the ending, and told them so. I just caught the end of it on TV a few nights ago, and was again disappointed that the ending was the same. I was hoping it ended differently. I won't say anything else, in case someone reading this hasn't seen it yet, and wants to see it. I don't know if the China Town scene remained. It was really good in the sneak preview. Since it was on TV, it may have just been censored.
For those in the Los Angeles area, check out thescreeningexchange.com. They send an email, and call advising you of movie screenings. Seats are limited, so make sure you RSVP if they ask, and show up early. You'll wait in line, but the movie is free.:) We saw a few that never made it to the theaters. I can't think of any names off-hand, since it's been several years. I do remember there was one that I really liked, but it never made it to the theaters or DVD, so you'd have a chance of seeing something that no one else will.:) Oh, and no ads, and sometimes there aren't even opening credits, or the credits won't be finished so they'll just have block words up saying the name. It was fun being one of the mysterious people who decide if a movie makes it or not. Not that my opinion made a huge difference. Some of them that I said was absolutely crap still made it to release.
I think the headaches and ghosting are a function of your distance from the screen.
Movie theaters are set up with the ideal seats in the middle. That can usually be judged by the speakers on the walls. Directly in the middle (front to back) should put your head at looking directly towards the middle of the screen. Then you have to find the middle left to right. If the theater is set up equally, it's easy to count seats. I've been in theaters that are seated like 2, 20, 8 , where there are 2 on the left row, 20 in the middle, and 8 on the right.
Once you've found the middle seat, you should find that it has a 36 degree field of view (angle between the left and right sides), and need no more than 15 degrees from looking directly forward to the top and bottom of the screen (30 degrees).
Assuming the theater was designed well, finding this middle seat should be ideal for picture and sound.
I've been in some great theaters, that you get a beautiful experience. I've also been in some where the "middle" isn't the middle. Sometimes they've just tried to maximize the available space, say if they've retrofitted a space in a strip mall for a movie theater. They'll add a little tilt to the floor, and cram as many seats as they can in.
There are all kinds of guidelines available for both professional theaters and home theaters. Really, if you follow them all as accurately as you can, you can have a beautiful viewing experience at home. I had a 10' wide screen with a DLP projector in my house, with the center of the couch being the optimal position for everything. The view height of the screen was perfect for that, and the viewing distance was perfect. All the speakers were tuned for exactly that position. It was still really good if you were on either end of the couch. You could get lost in a movie, and completely forget that you were sitting in the living room. It takes a good bit of time to set up though. I spent a whole day with a friend, pulling wires through the ceiling for my speakers, so they wouldn't be exposed.:)
So, in the regards of the headaches. There will be some segment of the audience who will have an excellent view, and the sound will be just right. If you're too close or too off center, ya, it'll give you a headache.
Movies still have their place. I've noticed that there's a substantial under-21 crowd. It's somewhere to go on a date, where you can be alone in a dark room with her. Parents don't generally tolerate sexin' up your date at home.:) Foreplay in the theater, intercourse in the back seat of the car, and back to moms house by midnight.
The over 21 crowd usually head for bars and clubs, and then back to their own apartments.
The over 30 crowd usually have friends over for food, drinks, and to watch movies, and then sexless nights with the wife. {sigh}
Back to the original statement. Ya, I've noticed that the crowd is rather young, compared to the way it used to be 20 years ago.
It's more of the practicality of the modern economy. When people were making closer to $45/hr, it wasn't a big concern to drop $50 on a movie. (3 tickets + snacks)
Now a lot of people aren't working, or are making closer to $15/hr. That $50 goes from 2.7% of the weekly paycheck to 8.3%. That $50 may be more important for paying rent, food, a utility bill, or gas to get to work. $50 for just over an hour of entertainment vs $50 for food, it becomes obvious which is more important.
Inflation hasn't been matched by the working wages. It's actually been working inversely. Prices have gone up, and people have less money to spend. If it's different where you are, I'm moving there.:)
Google is moving away from "Do no evil" to "extend, embrace and exterminate". By the looks of it, Google Buzz has been another Google flop though.
Facebook has their fair share of flop elements, such as their privacy (or lack thereof), which made the news but hasn't really scared too many people away. Considering how many games requests I've gotten from people I know, when I check my messages on there once every few months, they're still happily using them all.
Ya, I was thinking fat gov't contract. There are also an awful lot of rich people world wide that spend a lot of money on protective vehicles. I knew someone who worked for a guy like that. He spent something like $200k/ea to have Chevy Suburbans armored. After he was done, they couldn't go off road (too heavy, sunk into the dirt), handled like an overloaded dump truck, and could barely get out of their own way. He was just a paranoid rich guy. If this place can get the right reputation, it looks like it will be *the* vehicle to have. That, or the company will go under with a really cool prototype in the owners driveway, and a bunch of angry investors.
Ya, I tried that. It's hard to find good zombie help. They're always bringing back fresh zombies with missing arms and legs. One of them had no legs and was decapitated. What am I going to do with that? I had a zombie that'd drag itself around and kept bumping into things.
Too late, they're the basis of my first ZPM. Don't know what I'll do for future ones though. People get all pissy when you go around digging up bodies and using them in scientific applications.
I was trying to assemble a zombie army. It sounds like fun, but all that digging is a lot of work, and they've improved the security at the morgues.
Don't forget about the similarly powered vehicles. GM had the Camaro SS and Firebird TransAm WS/6, both similar in power, weight, and handling characteristics to the Corvette. The biggest difference (at least to me) was that the F-bodies have 4 seats, and cupholders.:)
I think he was probably referring to the soccer moms in their F650, EM-50, or Knight XV.
[/me goes looking for a place to test drive the Knight XV]
But it wasn't legally recognized. It was media recognized, because folks made a big deal out of it. Beyond that, it was officially *NOT* recognized as a protected anything. Please reference the United Kingdom's "Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006"
Or if you'd care to look at 2001 national statistics for the UK, you'll note that it says the following...
About sixteen per cent of the UK population stated that they had no religion. This category included agnostics, atheists, heathens and those who wrote Jedi Knight.
You'll get just as much religious protection as a Jedi, as you would as a Heathen, which is still nil.
If you care to think differently, more power to you. Folks think all kinds of things. Some people believe it is their right to steal and murder. Well, right up until about the time that they are caught.
Jedi is as recognized a religion as Snoopy was a candidate in the 1968 presidential campaign. People may have written it in, but it didn't actually mean anything.
Nah, he was perfectly appropriate with that. He could have just left "science" off of it, and opened up the whole discussion to any religion. As it was, it was left to only a handful.
[me ponders creating the First Church of Smytheology]
I guess that's the difference between a good criminal and a bad one. The bad ones get caught because they do stupid things. The good ones are very careful about what they do.
I wouldn't think the bad criminal would think ahead (or even have the afterthought) to do an in depth frameup job.
In the example of a murder, a good criminal wouldn't do it at the victims residence. They'd get him out somewhere else. A gunshot in a neighborhood or condo is pretty obvious. A gunshot on a boat at sea and the victim overboard, not quite so obvious. For areas with less water access, there are large tracts of land out there. How hard is it to lose a body in the woods or desert?
For your average B&E, it's pretty easy to cover your tracks. What do they get? Fingerprints and shoe prints. "Bunny suits" as you say, are optional. Even on large heists, they aren't digging around for DNA evidence. Hair is easily dealt with. Cut it off before the job. Skin? Well, people shed skin all the time, but no crime lab is going to analyze every piece of dust (as your skin comes off as) at a crime scene to see if you were there. And what kind of criminal would be dumb enough to drink out of a wine glass at the target? Oh ya, the bad ones.
And for reference, I'm not a criminal type, but it's been suggested that I could write some pretty good fiction where Mr. Bad Guy gets away with it.:) Don't just read fiction, watch the news. Attend some real court proceedings. Read transcripts of evidence provided at hearings. You'll expand your mind. Books and TV are frequently absolutely crap. They're drama to increase their sales. I spot errors in TV, movies, and books all the time. Not to say that the real investigators don't make mistakes when they're legitimately processing a scene, but in real life it's their jobs on the line. It's easy for errors to be written around, or overlooked.
"Oh look, I found the gun", he says as he picks up the weapon with his ungloved hand.
[later]
"We made a positive identification of the fingerprint on the weapon. We scanned it with [insert impossible tech], and then ran it through the InterPol database and had a response in 30 seconds."
That ranks right up with coincidentally having a spy satellite looking directly at the crime scene, and blowing up the image with [insert impossible tech] and reading the license plate number. BTW, that was used on an NCIS episode.:)
Even the liberal use of Luminol to find blood always finds the blood trail. They don't tell you that it'll also show animal urine, feces, and chlorine bleach. "You have traces of blood on the floor." could in reality be "the dog shit there last week." Bathrooms are great for showing everything wrong. "blood splatter" near the toilet can be the trace that a teenage boy used that toilet, and splattered. Widespread "blood" could be that it was cleaned. Luminol reacts with iron, so you may have a nasty blood stain if you spilled a Guinness.:)
I still love the misuse of fingerprint brushes on crime scenes (dust, don't wipe). Some show I was watching, they were fingerprinting a window in the rain, and came up with a positive print.
I guess I failed to mention, at one point in my life I was trained in the use of many of these things.
Honestly, I'm less worried about a random bad guy than I am about a LEO detective looking for a quick resolution to a case. Worse, a LEO detective with some sort of grudge against me. Grudges are easy to come by. Lets look at the two most motivating factors of any crime (which that would be), sex and money.
Say I meet a nice girl. Her ex-boyfriend or ex-husband was a cop. (god forbid she's cheating on him, then you're really screwed). He'd absolutely hate the fact that I'm dating "his" girl. Because of that, it could be more than reasonable for him to want me out of the way. Just a simple example, but a valid one.
Then there's money. Successful cops with high conviction rates get promotions. It could be something more nefarious, like he knows the real criminal, and is getting paid off to frame anyone else for it. In the case of a high profile case, it's worth a whole lot more to them to get a conviction, even if it means falsifying evidence and beating a confession out of your average Joe.
There's less of a chance that a bad guy would randomly chose me. If he's going to go through the work of framing me, it'd be easier to do the crime clean, so there were no traces back to him. Better yet, leave no evidence of the crime (in the case of murder, it's leaving a clean or untraceable crime scene, and disposing of the body in a way it won't be found). Eliminate the fingerprint evidence, and eliminate any trace evidence, and all you have left is circumstantial. Just because Mr. Bad Guy didn't like Mr. Victim doesn't mean that that he "encouraged" him to leave town. The sex factor can still come into play, but for a serious criminal, it's easier to dispose of the competition than to frame them and let them rot in jail.
In that, I have been through court. You'd be absolutely amazed at the falsified evidence that would be introduced to bolster their case. In my case, it went away with a good defense attorney, but it still made the truth harder to prevail. I got good news a few years later though, the cops involved were prosecuted for falsifying evidence and other serious crimes. None of it trickled down to my silly little case, but it was nice reading about it in the news. Karma's a bitch, and they brought her down on themselves with a vengeance. That in itself didn't overturn 20 years of previous convictions though.
If someone were out to get you, either for reasons that you did something, or you just happened to be there, it would become a reliable way to convict the person of choice.
"Your honor, we have on record sequence 121221212122...111. for Mr. Smythe, as stored in numerical format for his DNA. At the crime scene we also have the DNA matching 121221212122...111.
Mr. Smythe was in the country at the time. He also does not have a viable alibi, as he says he was at home, alone, sleeping at 0400 on March 15, 2010.
We have produced 4 reliable witnesses, all with the local law enforcement community, who will swear under oath that he was observed within 100 meters of the location of the crime.
And finally we have this piece of mail, with Mr. Smythe's fingerprints on it, which was found in the parking lot outside of the site of the crime."
The piece of mail? Junk mail I threw in the trash, that they moved to the crime scene.
The "reliable witnesses"? Those willing to testify to finish off the case.
And the DNA evidence? The sequence number was pulled from my record, and the "DNA expert" simply testified to the fact that it was mine.
Depending on where you are, the levels of corruption go deep. Having my DNA on file definitely doesn't make me feel very good about future legal problems that are not of my own doing.
When the defendant wins on the basis of DNA testing, it's usually that they have an unknown sample, and the defendants DNA is also an unknown sample, and then they don't match. I wouldn't want to make it easier for them, to already know what mine is, and ensure that mine will be what is found. It doesn't actually have to be mine, they just have to testify that it matched. Expert testimony is only as trustworthy as the expert.
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I figured banning cars was the easier one. :)
No cars would mean no car accidents. It would also mean that if we intended the system to be a fuel for the cars, then it wouldn't be needed.
If they banned smoking, there would be a lot more upset people. :)
Consider what was suggested.
The crystals would break down water. It releases hydrogen, sure. What do you think happens to the oxygen? It's in the same mixture. It's actually a very wonderful mixture, since it is broken down from a very happy molecule. I ran a torch on pure gases from electrolysis. It makes a nice hot and virtually invisible flame. That's a hint that it's a great mixture. Sure, the gases would rise, but it's rising from a pipe of some sort. If the barricade, as implied, contains the crystals, which react with the water, then that means your rising gases are close by too.
Liquid fuel used in vehicles is flammable, but it requires an oxidizer (i.e., oxygen). So, the limit to how fast it can burn *IS* how much oxygen can get to it. Your fuel/air mixture concern is absolutely reversed. The ICE in your car regulates the mixture of atmospheric gasses with liquid fuel to make a combustible mixture.
I can't say that I've ever spotted gasoline pipelines with connections to highway barricades. I have seen accidents with tanker trucks. They're big, messy, but isolated. They aren't long stretches of road. To the best of my knowledge, explosive gas pipelines don't run along highways at all.
I can just see the headlines now. "1,000 dead as 1 mile of I-900 explodes into flames."
Well, you do have a valid point there. There's nothing better for the ratings that big explosions and body parts strewn along the roads.
I'd hate to be on the cleanup crew when there's an accident on I-95 or I-10, and the explosion blows cars off the road for miles. I'd think it would be cost prohibitive to have flashback arrestors every few feet.
Something like this would have been more catastrophic if a hydrogen/oxygen filled line was anywhere near it.
Some accidents have large fiery messes.
I passed a burning car on I-5 once. The driver was out safely, and emergency crews were already on the scene when I got there. I guess it just caught fire, I didn't see any huge damage on it, but the flames were at least 15' high. His car was on the shoulder, and no cars were in the right lane because of the flames. I was in the second lane from the right, doing about 55, and even with my windows closed and air conditioner on (it was hot out that day), I could feel the heat through the window for just the second or so that I was near it.
Pretty much, if it could happen, it will somewhere. That is, until we invent crash proof vehicles. :) Since we can't even prevent crashes on railroads, which are heavily controlled, I don't foresee that coming anytime soon.
I agree. Some, but not all, would be recovered. Folks will get anxious if they aren't reminded.
I'd worry more about the tremendous explosion risk. The farther away from the road, the less effective it would be. But, the closer you put it to the road, the larger risk it becomes. Being that not all accidents happen *on* the road, it's a huge risk. Beyond the mentions above, in one community I lived in, there was a nice car-sized hole in the concrete wall. It was down the street from me, so I never got the details, but enough energy to punch through a brick wall is enough to do all kinds of bad things.
At the entrance of the same community, there was a brick island around a raised (approx 3' high) area full of soil and trees. The front of that was ruined by a minivan that landed roof-first on it. From what I recall, the paramedics radioed to the helicopter to turn around, since there weren't any survivors to rush to the hospital.
Needless to say, it was a kinda dangerous road to be on. The speed limit was 55. People frequently did 65 to 80 (or more), and almost as frequently lost control and the result wasn't pleasant.
The #1 problem here would be.....
If you had an infrastructure where highway barriers were full of water, generating a perfectly combustion mixture (like, not just good, but perfect) flowing into pipes, which would (obviously) need to be somewhere close to the road. If they are elevated, they run a risk of contact with a vehicle, or flames from an accident. I've seen bridges melt from accidents under them. Below the road, the gases rising create an extreme explosion hazard at ground level. One cigarette butt thrown out a window, and you could have an entire highway explode.
Anywhere around a highway is a potential heavy impact and fire hazard. If you watch the news, you'll see the "freak" accidents where cars leave the road and end up in houses or other buildings, or burst into flames for various reasons. Anyone who's worked for a while as in the emergency response industry (police, fire, paramedics) have seen vehicles on their roof. Thousands of pounds of pressure may break a pesky hydrogen pipeline.
I'm not against it though, it sounds like an interesting idea, although not a solution. If cars were powered by hydrogen instead of gasoline, and the noise on highways produced hydrogen to power them, the evil laws of thermodynamics jump in and say "don't get your hopes up."
It all depends in where you are, and what you do.
According to this, for just California by county for 2006.
Santa Clara County average was $71,774.
Alpine County average was $26,392.
If your social circle consists of low income labor folks, you'll see lower wages. If it consist of high end technical and executive people, you'll see higher wages.
If you graduated last year, I'd seriously doubt you'd see anywhere near the higher end of the spectrum for a while.
Actually, that number is terribly skewed.
90% of the population aren't actively collecting unemployment. You only count as "unemployed" if you are collecting unemployment. Those who don't, either because they couldn't (the company fought against unemployment benefits), or have fallen off the books because their unemployment ran out, don't count. They also don't count if they seem to willingly be unemployed. Like, a housewife or retired person isn't counted in the unemployment figures, because they chooses to stay home. The real unemployement number is closer to 25% unemployed but looking.
"underemployed" don't count either. If you were a senior IT person for years making 6 figures, and have a wealth of experience, but can't get a job doing IT, and went to work for McDonalds making minimum wage, you aren't unemployed. You may not be able to afford your bills, but you're not unemployed. Those count for a very substantial number, probably 15% to 20%.
There are groups who assemble the more realistic numbers, and they really aren't pretty. Of all my friends, who were gainfully employed a few years ago, less than 10% are working now. The rest are sending out resumes every day, and spending their unemployment money driving around to find work. That includes myself.
The Screening Exchange Proudly Invites You To An Exclusive Movie Screening Of:
"BORAT" Tuesday, April 4, 2006 - Showtime: 7:30pm
Please arrive no later than 6:45pm
Seating is on a first-come first-served basis and can not be guaranteed.
Warner Bros. Lot - Screening Room 12
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, Ca 91522
(Enter at Gate 2, Park in Structure 3)
This invitation is for you and one guest, ages 17-34. NOBODY outside of this age range will be admitted into the screening.
Each audience member must have seen and enjoyed at least 3 of the following films in a movie theatre:
Best in Show The Ringer
Napoleon Dynamite Wedding Crashers The 40 Year Old Virgin Old School Ali G Indahouse Starsky & Hutch
Dodgeball Jackass: The Movie
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Anchorman
If you wish to attend this screening please confirm by phone or via e-mail:
Confirmation Phone #: (866) 827-8280
Confirmation E-mail: rsvp5@thescreeningexchange.com
To expedite your confirmation we need the following information from you:
Your name
Whether or not you will be bringing a guest?
Your primary contact phone number
Your gender and your guest's gender.
Your ethnicity and your guests ethnicity
Your age and your guests age
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Description: In BORAT - THE MOVIE! Sacha Baron Cohen - star of HBO's hit comedy Da Ali G Show, takes his outrageous Kazakstani reporter character Borat to the big screen. In this hilariously offensive movie Borat travels from his primitive home in Kazakhstan on a road-trip through the US, where he meets real people in real situations with hysterical consequences. Not for the faint-hearted!
MPAA rating status: The movie has not yet been rated but is believed to be 'R.' The studio cannot, of course, guarantee the rating that the film will ultimately receive.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
No one will be admitted if they are directly or associated with the entertainment industry, marketing, advertising, journalism, or any media related business including the internet. No one will be admitted to this recruited audience test preview who appears dirty or unkempt, intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, or who may interfere in any way with the enjoyment of the movie. Since this is a privately recruited audience, if you or your guest do not meet this criteria or any other criteria we feel will not fit the demographics and conditions of the screening, you and your guest will not be admitted or given a ticket. We reserve the right to cancel the screening at anytime. We reserve the right to expel or turn away any person from a screening. We reserve the right to refuse an invitation to any person during a recruit. No backpacks, large bags, video recording equipment, cameras or cell phones that have cameras will be allowed in the screening. We are not responsible for any personal items that are lost or left.
I was thinking more along the lines that there were more adults than teenagers. When I've gone lately, the only adults I've seen were taking children along to see kids movies.
I lived in LA for a while, and I saw quite a few sneak previews. We were part of focus groups, to get our opinions on how bad movies sucked. :) Sometimes there was a written questionnaire. Sometimes they'd ask us questions randomly on the way out. Quite a few times, they'd linger around just outside the theater to see what people had to say. For quite a few movies, they'd go walking through the group in the queue and grab teenagers to see it. For the most part, the target demographic has shifted away from working age adults and older people. Working age adults, I guess, don't have time to go to movies. Teenagers, who only have school to worry about and can borrow their parents car (or have their own) can get the money to burn on movies.
Depending on how we dressed, we may be skipped over. If we were dressed in business casual (usually because I just came from work), I was less likely to be invited in. If I wore jeans and a T-shirt, I'd usually be invited right in. It was usually worth it, because we'd see movie endings that were never in the production release. :) I was disappointed though when I saw "Crank". I didn't like the ending, and told them so. I just caught the end of it on TV a few nights ago, and was again disappointed that the ending was the same. I was hoping it ended differently. I won't say anything else, in case someone reading this hasn't seen it yet, and wants to see it. I don't know if the China Town scene remained. It was really good in the sneak preview. Since it was on TV, it may have just been censored.
For those in the Los Angeles area, check out thescreeningexchange.com. They send an email, and call advising you of movie screenings. Seats are limited, so make sure you RSVP if they ask, and show up early. You'll wait in line, but the movie is free. :) We saw a few that never made it to the theaters. I can't think of any names off-hand, since it's been several years. I do remember there was one that I really liked, but it never made it to the theaters or DVD, so you'd have a chance of seeing something that no one else will. :) Oh, and no ads, and sometimes there aren't even opening credits, or the credits won't be finished so they'll just have block words up saying the name. It was fun being one of the mysterious people who decide if a movie makes it or not. Not that my opinion made a huge difference. Some of them that I said was absolutely crap still made it to release.
I think the headaches and ghosting are a function of your distance from the screen.
Movie theaters are set up with the ideal seats in the middle. That can usually be judged by the speakers on the walls. Directly in the middle (front to back) should put your head at looking directly towards the middle of the screen. Then you have to find the middle left to right. If the theater is set up equally, it's easy to count seats. I've been in theaters that are seated like 2, 20, 8 , where there are 2 on the left row, 20 in the middle, and 8 on the right.
Once you've found the middle seat, you should find that it has a 36 degree field of view (angle between the left and right sides), and need no more than 15 degrees from looking directly forward to the top and bottom of the screen (30 degrees).
Assuming the theater was designed well, finding this middle seat should be ideal for picture and sound.
I've been in some great theaters, that you get a beautiful experience. I've also been in some where the "middle" isn't the middle. Sometimes they've just tried to maximize the available space, say if they've retrofitted a space in a strip mall for a movie theater. They'll add a little tilt to the floor, and cram as many seats as they can in.
There are all kinds of guidelines available for both professional theaters and home theaters. Really, if you follow them all as accurately as you can, you can have a beautiful viewing experience at home. I had a 10' wide screen with a DLP projector in my house, with the center of the couch being the optimal position for everything. The view height of the screen was perfect for that, and the viewing distance was perfect. All the speakers were tuned for exactly that position. It was still really good if you were on either end of the couch. You could get lost in a movie, and completely forget that you were sitting in the living room. It takes a good bit of time to set up though. I spent a whole day with a friend, pulling wires through the ceiling for my speakers, so they wouldn't be exposed. :)
So, in the regards of the headaches. There will be some segment of the audience who will have an excellent view, and the sound will be just right. If you're too close or too off center, ya, it'll give you a headache.
Movies still have their place. I've noticed that there's a substantial under-21 crowd. It's somewhere to go on a date, where you can be alone in a dark room with her. Parents don't generally tolerate sexin' up your date at home. :) Foreplay in the theater, intercourse in the back seat of the car, and back to moms house by midnight.
The over 21 crowd usually head for bars and clubs, and then back to their own apartments.
The over 30 crowd usually have friends over for food, drinks, and to watch movies, and then sexless nights with the wife. {sigh}
Back to the original statement. Ya, I've noticed that the crowd is rather young, compared to the way it used to be 20 years ago.
It's more of the practicality of the modern economy. When people were making closer to $45/hr, it wasn't a big concern to drop $50 on a movie. (3 tickets + snacks)
Now a lot of people aren't working, or are making closer to $15/hr. That $50 goes from 2.7% of the weekly paycheck to 8.3%. That $50 may be more important for paying rent, food, a utility bill, or gas to get to work. $50 for just over an hour of entertainment vs $50 for food, it becomes obvious which is more important.
Inflation hasn't been matched by the working wages. It's actually been working inversely. Prices have gone up, and people have less money to spend. If it's different where you are, I'm moving there. :)
Ummm, like Google Buzz?
Google is moving away from "Do no evil" to "extend, embrace and exterminate". By the looks of it, Google Buzz has been another Google flop though.
Facebook has their fair share of flop elements, such as their privacy (or lack thereof), which made the news but hasn't really scared too many people away. Considering how many games requests I've gotten from people I know, when I check my messages on there once every few months, they're still happily using them all.
Ya, I was thinking fat gov't contract. There are also an awful lot of rich people world wide that spend a lot of money on protective vehicles. I knew someone who worked for a guy like that. He spent something like $200k/ea to have Chevy Suburbans armored. After he was done, they couldn't go off road (too heavy, sunk into the dirt), handled like an overloaded dump truck, and could barely get out of their own way. He was just a paranoid rich guy. If this place can get the right reputation, it looks like it will be *the* vehicle to have. That, or the company will go under with a really cool prototype in the owners driveway, and a bunch of angry investors.
Ya, I tried that. It's hard to find good zombie help. They're always bringing back fresh zombies with missing arms and legs. One of them had no legs and was decapitated. What am I going to do with that? I had a zombie that'd drag itself around and kept bumping into things.
You forgot to mention the competing standards.
IEC 62196
Magne Charge (EV1, EV S-10, Toyota Rav4 EV) [depreciated]
AVCON, and Avcon EVII ICS-200 (Honda EV Plus, Ford Ranger EV)
I'd be confident there are probably more official ones, and probably even more by individuals doing homebuilds.
Too late, they're the basis of my first ZPM. Don't know what I'll do for future ones though. People get all pissy when you go around digging up bodies and using them in scientific applications.
I was trying to assemble a zombie army. It sounds like fun, but all that digging is a lot of work, and they've improved the security at the morgues.
Don't forget about the similarly powered vehicles. GM had the Camaro SS and Firebird TransAm WS/6, both similar in power, weight, and handling characteristics to the Corvette. The biggest difference (at least to me) was that the F-bodies have 4 seats, and cupholders. :)
I think he was probably referring to the soccer moms in their F650, EM-50, or Knight XV.
[/me goes looking for a place to test drive the Knight XV]
But it wasn't legally recognized. It was media recognized, because folks made a big deal out of it. Beyond that, it was officially *NOT* recognized as a protected anything. Please reference the United Kingdom's "Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006"
Or if you'd care to look at 2001 national statistics for the UK, you'll note that it says the following...
You'll get just as much religious protection as a Jedi, as you would as a Heathen, which is still nil.
If you care to think differently, more power to you. Folks think all kinds of things. Some people believe it is their right to steal and murder. Well, right up until about the time that they are caught.
Jedi is as recognized a religion as Snoopy was a candidate in the 1968 presidential campaign. People may have written it in, but it didn't actually mean anything.
Nah, he was perfectly appropriate with that. He could have just left "science" off of it, and opened up the whole discussion to any religion. As it was, it was left to only a handful.
[me ponders creating the First Church of Smytheology]
I guess that's the difference between a good criminal and a bad one. The bad ones get caught because they do stupid things. The good ones are very careful about what they do.
I wouldn't think the bad criminal would think ahead (or even have the afterthought) to do an in depth frameup job.
In the example of a murder, a good criminal wouldn't do it at the victims residence. They'd get him out somewhere else. A gunshot in a neighborhood or condo is pretty obvious. A gunshot on a boat at sea and the victim overboard, not quite so obvious. For areas with less water access, there are large tracts of land out there. How hard is it to lose a body in the woods or desert?
For your average B&E, it's pretty easy to cover your tracks. What do they get? Fingerprints and shoe prints. "Bunny suits" as you say, are optional. Even on large heists, they aren't digging around for DNA evidence. Hair is easily dealt with. Cut it off before the job. Skin? Well, people shed skin all the time, but no crime lab is going to analyze every piece of dust (as your skin comes off as) at a crime scene to see if you were there. And what kind of criminal would be dumb enough to drink out of a wine glass at the target? Oh ya, the bad ones.
And for reference, I'm not a criminal type, but it's been suggested that I could write some pretty good fiction where Mr. Bad Guy gets away with it. :) Don't just read fiction, watch the news. Attend some real court proceedings. Read transcripts of evidence provided at hearings. You'll expand your mind. Books and TV are frequently absolutely crap. They're drama to increase their sales. I spot errors in TV, movies, and books all the time. Not to say that the real investigators don't make mistakes when they're legitimately processing a scene, but in real life it's their jobs on the line. It's easy for errors to be written around, or overlooked.
"Oh look, I found the gun", he says as he picks up the weapon with his ungloved hand.
[later]
"We made a positive identification of the fingerprint on the weapon. We scanned it with [insert impossible tech], and then ran it through the InterPol database and had a response in 30 seconds."
That ranks right up with coincidentally having a spy satellite looking directly at the crime scene, and blowing up the image with [insert impossible tech] and reading the license plate number. BTW, that was used on an NCIS episode. :)
Even the liberal use of Luminol to find blood always finds the blood trail. They don't tell you that it'll also show animal urine, feces, and chlorine bleach. "You have traces of blood on the floor." could in reality be "the dog shit there last week." Bathrooms are great for showing everything wrong. "blood splatter" near the toilet can be the trace that a teenage boy used that toilet, and splattered. Widespread "blood" could be that it was cleaned. Luminol reacts with iron, so you may have a nasty blood stain if you spilled a Guinness. :)
I still love the misuse of fingerprint brushes on crime scenes (dust, don't wipe). Some show I was watching, they were fingerprinting a window in the rain, and came up with a positive print.
I guess I failed to mention, at one point in my life I was trained in the use of many of these things.
Honestly, I'm less worried about a random bad guy than I am about a LEO detective looking for a quick resolution to a case. Worse, a LEO detective with some sort of grudge against me. Grudges are easy to come by. Lets look at the two most motivating factors of any crime (which that would be), sex and money.
Say I meet a nice girl. Her ex-boyfriend or ex-husband was a cop. (god forbid she's cheating on him, then you're really screwed). He'd absolutely hate the fact that I'm dating "his" girl. Because of that, it could be more than reasonable for him to want me out of the way. Just a simple example, but a valid one.
Then there's money. Successful cops with high conviction rates get promotions. It could be something more nefarious, like he knows the real criminal, and is getting paid off to frame anyone else for it. In the case of a high profile case, it's worth a whole lot more to them to get a conviction, even if it means falsifying evidence and beating a confession out of your average Joe.
There's less of a chance that a bad guy would randomly chose me. If he's going to go through the work of framing me, it'd be easier to do the crime clean, so there were no traces back to him. Better yet, leave no evidence of the crime (in the case of murder, it's leaving a clean or untraceable crime scene, and disposing of the body in a way it won't be found). Eliminate the fingerprint evidence, and eliminate any trace evidence, and all you have left is circumstantial. Just because Mr. Bad Guy didn't like Mr. Victim doesn't mean that that he "encouraged" him to leave town. The sex factor can still come into play, but for a serious criminal, it's easier to dispose of the competition than to frame them and let them rot in jail.
In that, I have been through court. You'd be absolutely amazed at the falsified evidence that would be introduced to bolster their case. In my case, it went away with a good defense attorney, but it still made the truth harder to prevail. I got good news a few years later though, the cops involved were prosecuted for falsifying evidence and other serious crimes. None of it trickled down to my silly little case, but it was nice reading about it in the news. Karma's a bitch, and they brought her down on themselves with a vengeance. That in itself didn't overturn 20 years of previous convictions though.
If someone were out to get you, either for reasons that you did something, or you just happened to be there, it would become a reliable way to convict the person of choice.
"Your honor, we have on record sequence 121221212122...111. for Mr. Smythe, as stored in numerical format for his DNA. At the crime scene we also have the DNA matching 121221212122...111.
Mr. Smythe was in the country at the time. He also does not have a viable alibi, as he says he was at home, alone, sleeping at 0400 on March 15, 2010.
We have produced 4 reliable witnesses, all with the local law enforcement community, who will swear under oath that he was observed within 100 meters of the location of the crime.
And finally we have this piece of mail, with Mr. Smythe's fingerprints on it, which was found in the parking lot outside of the site of the crime."
The piece of mail? Junk mail I threw in the trash, that they moved to the crime scene.
The "reliable witnesses"? Those willing to testify to finish off the case.
And the DNA evidence? The sequence number was pulled from my record, and the "DNA expert" simply testified to the fact that it was mine.
Depending on where you are, the levels of corruption go deep. Having my DNA on file definitely doesn't make me feel very good about future legal problems that are not of my own doing.
When the defendant wins on the basis of DNA testing, it's usually that they have an unknown sample, and the defendants DNA is also an unknown sample, and then they don't match. I wouldn't want to make it easier for them, to already know what mine is, and ensure that mine will be what is found. It doesn't actually have to be mine, they just have to testify that it matched. Expert testimony is only as trustworthy as the expert.
That sounds like the contents of my closet.
Actually, that's a lie. I don't have a clown mask. But, I do have more interesting things. :)