Shock tactics are surely justified if it helps get a genuine message across. So i`d agree with you about the squashed-child ad if it were talking solely about speed, but not braking, assuming you are correct about the mechanics of ABS etc.
re the drunk driving thing - i believe the system is either in place, or planned, to catch speeders by spotting that a car was on camera in London at 3pm and in Derby at 4.15, and working out that you`d have to speed to get from A to B in that time. Assuming you do have some sort of persistant data to do this, then its a small step to profiling a drivers habits over time. So sure, one swerve now and then is pretty normal, but if the same car swerves (or does other actions consistant with tired/stoned etc drivers) multiple times on multiple occasions then perhaps the driver should be more closely observed.
I think a solution to much crime, including but by no means limited to dangerous driving, would be having relatively large numbers of people with absolutely no power of arrest or entering a property having digital cameras and filming bad drivers, muggers (or people acting like they might be about to mug or pickpocket people) etc - in addition to the existing cameras on roads and shopping areas - and if/when they do catch something potentially/obviously illegal they give/upload the info to the police. After a while, and with some sort of slashdot style karma system (clearly this would be abused, so faking stuff, harassing people etc would need some sort of deterrent), the police would have a handy source of info - far more than the police themselves could come up with without a ridiculous increase in numbers which they could use to follow up more closely the people involved. Done properly, with the consent of the public (ie as an extension of neighbourhood watch) i`m sure this could be implemented reasonably well. Its just an idea i`ve been wondering about, anyway!
Your points about braking are not relevant when discussing the effects of hitting an object at speed x vs speed y. For the purpose of what I wrote, assume the driver was too busy using their phone, or the child ran out from behind a van or something. (All drivers have passed the emergency stop part of a test, but then no drivers use the phone, or have a conversation with friends, or apply make up, or look at maps etc during a test).
"However, death/injury does not rise exponentially with speed generally, only in the case of hitting a pedestrian"
I was only concerned with cars hitting pedestrians in my point. Clearly at higher speeds you reach a point where the difference is less marked, as the chance of survival decreases. Even so, statistically you are better off in an accident where the speeds are smaller, not larger (though there are exceptions where the extra speed throws you away from another, more damaging impact. But this is a little like the `if i'd worn a seatbelt i`d have been killed` argument, which conveniently overlooks the fact that some people who didn't wear a seatbelt won't be able to take part in that conversation - they'd be dead!).
>A camera can not pick up an erratic drunk driver
False. With software, one could potentially pick up signs that someone is drunk - maybe they are sticking very close to the speed limit, or are not correcting their steering as often. I`ve hardly looked into it, but it sounds perfectly possible to identify possibly drunk/stoned/sleepy drivers and check them out more closely/breath test them.
>It cannot run a check on the car/driver to see if they have outstanding warants
The congestion charging system does just such a lookup to see if they`ve paid. Its hardly beyond the realms of possibility to look up all sorts of info based on the information retrieved from the numberplate.
>It cannot detect 5 children squeezed into the back seat.
That doesn't cause a problem for other road users, so i don't really care. But given the recent problems with cars being photographed speeding but drivers getting off because the pictures aren't clear enough to see who was driving, i`m sure the answer lies in higher definition photography.
>They should never be used as a replacement for real police in real cars. Only a suppliment.
Sure, I agree with that. Have computers do mindless checking of speed, and have humans check them out more closely before starting a potentially expensive court action.
"Maybe we should put government run cameras in our homes too. Because by your theory, we should be willing to give up our rights so the government can cacth criminals."
Well no, because thats not a public place, is it. Try not to lose your sense of perspective. Ditto for people who say `this is the beginning, think what could happen in the future`. Well, we can decide that then, can't we?
"Do you want a ticket sent to you monthly cause some camera caught you doing 55 in a 50 zone without your seat belt on since they were hard pressed to reach thier violation quota for the month?"
The UK (or more specifically, London) is about to introduce `congenstion charging` - that is, charging drivers money to enter the centre of London in a bid to reduce unneccessary traffic. This is being done with cameras and number plate recognition. People are complaining because they don't want to pay, not really because of any civil liberty concerns - we've generally accepted that as being a price worth paying.
And don't underestimate the cost of speeding cars, either - it kills more people than many other crimes (ie terrorism, murder etc). Death/injury rises exponentially with speed increase (not linearly), so for example the difference between 30 and 35 mph results is many greater deaths. Given that only a tiny number of journeys are so important that the it makes the risk of death/injury worthwhile, I believe it's worth the inconvenience to drivers. And if you have to use cameras to enforce the law, rather than the quaint idea of employing thousands of police with speed guns, then so be it.
re: your Franklin quote - i don't believe that the use of cameras DOES infringe your freedom, as they do not stop you from doing anything - they just make it easier to see that you were doing it at a late point. Given that they`ll be used in court, in front of a jury, then if you can see a problem with any given piece of film now, then its rather patronizing to think that a jury member won't have a similar problem with it at a later date when its being used as evidence against someone. A second point on the same issue - i personally have increased security and freedom when walking in an area covered by security cameras. But perhaps you`ve not been robbed at knifepoint? I think you might feel differently if you had (like I have, in Brixton - the shittiest part of London, with a huge street crime problem). People feel (and statistically are) safer in areas with cameras - do you perhaps have any statistics showing that people have less security and freedom?
>Except for that whole cameras everywhere you turn thing
Hows the hunt for the sniper going? Any idea how many people he would have been able to kill in the UK before he`d have been caught? Heard of David Copeland? He's the guy who bombed and killed/injured gays/blacks in the UK a few years ago. He worked alone but was still caught after `only` three attacks. He was the only consistant person on film in the three locations at the appropriate date/time. Or do you think that it's worth letting people like him get away with it with no chance of arrest other than waiting for him to make a mistake (like in your sniper case), because the horrible loss of rights by people being..uh..filmed while walking in a public place outweighs the advantages?
"Grok is from Stranger in a Strange Land and a very cool concept."
My understanding is that it means `Understand`. We already have a word for `Understand` - its spelled `Understand`. I asked a fan of the word Grok what was wrong with the word Understand, and was confronted with a hissy fit about how you don't stand under something, so why call it understand! I'm not sure how many words can be reasoned that way - its not how language evolved!
I`m with you on the profit thing, anyway! And/but I can't stand South Park!
It's annoying, isn't it. Almost as annoying as `grok` and `USIan`.
I think it's something to do with open source, and trying to profit from it. It'll never happen - its just a cheap way of getting hold of software. As long as the people writing it don't expect to profit from it, then I guess everybody's happy.
"Uhm, westernized capitalists make what the customers are willing to pay for"
You just repeated what HE said!! Quality has nothing to do with it.
The stuff about suits doesn't tell us much. Even if it's true, it just says that the west - free from the need to queue up for potatoes, cabbage etc - have the money/inclination to produce better products (why would you bother in the former USSR - you get paid the same anyway!). That doesn't mean we always DO produce higher quality stuff, however. Stravinsky is more than a match for Americana such as Copland, Ives et al!;_
"Also, if DRM does come down the path for everyone, the Military and Law Enforcement do not live by the same rules as Joe Shit and the Ragman do."
Well, they are allowed to kill people, break the speed limit, carry concealed weapons, etc etc...i`m pretty sure the public doesn't really give a shit if they are using chips which could be used to copy mp3's!
5 gig though? Why not 50? How much more money does it cost? its not like you`re paying for the storage space - its the `form factor` and the fact its bluetooth and all that shit. Surely the size of the drive is irrelevant?
"with Iraq and other terrorists and countries that harbor them"
You mean America/Israel? Or just countries that speak foreign? Its like Chomsky didn't exist or something. Or have you got a comprehensive rebuttal of all of Chomsky's points in your head, and you`re too lazy to type them up and post them on the net somewhere?
Whats a `dead language` then? We`re not talking about rap albums or september 11th t shirts here - its a functional tool for creating software. Or is the concept of writing software out of date now?
"Is Developer X going to spend 5 million making a game that can be pirated with ease because someone can goto lik-sang.com and get a modchip? NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo"
So why did Sony prevent developers from protecting against mod-chips then? Its trivial to discover if the PSX a game is running on has been chipped, but Sony apparantly told developers not to stop games from running. Why do you think that was?
"Just like Bach and Mozart in fact. Music by the numbers."
No, they are among the most important musicians in Western music.
"And let's not get started on some of the "dance" and "trance" stuff"
Trance bores me, but i like a lot of tecno, especially the minimal stuff. Don't compare that to Glass's pretentious tosh though. He may impress people who don't like real music, but he's not fooling anyone - it's derivative nonsense and he has and will have no followers to continue his nonsense. Minimalism is a dead end.
I dislike Irish music, but i like the music of other cultures which could be described similarly (for example classical Indian music, or Muslim Qawali musuc, such as that performed by Nusrat fateh ali khan.
>want my mind to go blank and unwind
Sure, don't we all. There is better music than Glass's for that, however. How about some John Tavener, Erik Satie, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno... there's loads of atmospheric, textured music around that isnt just
So do I, but this Glass `music` is just bullshit music by numbers. 1234321234321.... Then minor key. Then back to major. Change the pitch. Minor. Major. Then slightly slower. Jesus. As someone posted recently on Usenet:
---... impression which I've never been able to shake off is that by the end of the film Glass's music has firmly established itself as just another symptom of the very *problem* - the 'life out of balance', the 'state of life that calls for another way of living - that the film makes us aware of: in those later sequences we watch people eating worthless, synthetic food, see them leading impoverished, shallow lives - and we hear worthless, synthetic, impoverished, shallow music. The tragedy is that people get so much *enjoyment* from the sheerly egressive, 'stimulating', hypnotic experience offered by the music in those later stages that they never stop to think about what's happening...
You mean they aren't including those dry, sandy oceans? That's a little restrictive!
Re:I'll support anything that gets rid of Billy Ba
on
Fritz's Hit List
·
· Score: 1
Seriously, has anyone had any experience with visiting family/friends and seeing one of those tacky pieces of crap? What did you say/do? Grab it and throw it out the window/in the trash, or try and reason with them?
Slashdot Mirror
Shock tactics are surely justified if it helps get a genuine message across. So i`d agree with you about the squashed-child ad if it were talking solely about speed, but not braking, assuming you are correct about the mechanics of ABS etc.
re the drunk driving thing - i believe the system is either in place, or planned, to catch speeders by spotting that a car was on camera in London at 3pm and in Derby at 4.15, and working out that you`d have to speed to get from A to B in that time. Assuming you do have some sort of persistant data to do this, then its a small step to profiling a drivers habits over time. So sure, one swerve now and then is pretty normal, but if the same car swerves (or does other actions consistant with tired/stoned etc drivers) multiple times on multiple occasions then perhaps the driver should be more closely observed.
I think a solution to much crime, including but by no means limited to dangerous driving, would be having relatively large numbers of people with absolutely no power of arrest or entering a property having digital cameras and filming bad drivers, muggers (or people acting like they might be about to mug or pickpocket people) etc - in addition to the existing cameras on roads and shopping areas - and if/when they do catch something potentially/obviously illegal they give/upload the info to the police. After a while, and with some sort of slashdot style karma system (clearly this would be abused, so faking stuff, harassing people etc would need some sort of deterrent), the police would have a handy source of info - far more than the police themselves could come up with without a ridiculous increase in numbers which they could use to follow up more closely the people involved. Done properly, with the consent of the public (ie as an extension of neighbourhood watch) i`m sure this could be implemented reasonably well. Its just an idea i`ve been wondering about, anyway!
Your points about braking are not relevant when discussing the effects of hitting an object at speed x vs speed y. For the purpose of what I wrote, assume the driver was too busy using their phone, or the child ran out from behind a van or something. (All drivers have passed the emergency stop part of a test, but then no drivers use the phone, or have a conversation with friends, or apply make up, or look at maps etc during a test).
"However, death/injury does not rise exponentially with speed generally, only in the case of hitting a pedestrian"
I was only concerned with cars hitting pedestrians in my point. Clearly at higher speeds you reach a point where the difference is less marked, as the chance of survival decreases. Even so, statistically you are better off in an accident where the speeds are smaller, not larger (though there are exceptions where the extra speed throws you away from another, more damaging impact. But this is a little like the `if i'd worn a seatbelt i`d have been killed` argument, which conveniently overlooks the fact that some people who didn't wear a seatbelt won't be able to take part in that conversation - they'd be dead!).
>A camera can not pick up an erratic drunk driver
False. With software, one could potentially pick up signs that someone is drunk - maybe they are sticking very close to the speed limit, or are not correcting their steering as often. I`ve hardly looked into it, but it sounds perfectly possible to identify possibly drunk/stoned/sleepy drivers and check them out more closely/breath test them.
>It cannot run a check on the car/driver to see if they have outstanding warants
The congestion charging system does just such a lookup to see if they`ve paid. Its hardly beyond the realms of possibility to look up all sorts of info based on the information retrieved from the numberplate.
>It cannot detect 5 children squeezed into the back seat.
That doesn't cause a problem for other road users, so i don't really care. But given the recent problems with cars being photographed speeding but drivers getting off because the pictures aren't clear enough to see who was driving, i`m sure the answer lies in higher definition photography.
>They should never be used as a replacement for real police in real cars. Only a suppliment.
Sure, I agree with that. Have computers do mindless checking of speed, and have humans check them out more closely before starting a potentially expensive court action.
"Maybe we should put government run cameras in our homes too. Because by your theory, we should be willing to give up our rights so the government can cacth criminals."
Well no, because thats not a public place, is it. Try not to lose your sense of perspective. Ditto for people who say `this is the beginning, think what could happen in the future`. Well, we can decide that then, can't we?
"Do you want a ticket sent to you monthly cause some camera caught you doing 55 in a 50 zone without your seat belt on since they were hard pressed to reach thier violation quota for the month?"
The UK (or more specifically, London) is about to introduce `congenstion charging` - that is, charging drivers money to enter the centre of London in a bid to reduce unneccessary traffic. This is being done with cameras and number plate recognition. People are complaining because they don't want to pay, not really because of any civil liberty concerns - we've generally accepted that as being a price worth paying.
And don't underestimate the cost of speeding cars, either - it kills more people than many other crimes (ie terrorism, murder etc). Death/injury rises exponentially with speed increase (not linearly), so for example the difference between 30 and 35 mph results is many greater deaths. Given that only a tiny number of journeys are so important that the it makes the risk of death/injury worthwhile, I believe it's worth the inconvenience to drivers. And if you have to use cameras to enforce the law, rather than the quaint idea of employing thousands of police with speed guns, then so be it.
re: your Franklin quote - i don't believe that the use of cameras DOES infringe your freedom, as they do not stop you from doing anything - they just make it easier to see that you were doing it at a late point. Given that they`ll be used in court, in front of a jury, then if you can see a problem with any given piece of film now, then its rather patronizing to think that a jury member won't have a similar problem with it at a later date when its being used as evidence against someone. A second point on the same issue - i personally have increased security and freedom when walking in an area covered by security cameras. But perhaps you`ve not been robbed at knifepoint? I think you might feel differently if you had (like I have, in Brixton - the shittiest part of London, with a huge street crime problem). People feel (and statistically are) safer in areas with cameras - do you perhaps have any statistics showing that people have less security and freedom?
>Except for that whole cameras everywhere you turn thing
Hows the hunt for the sniper going? Any idea how many people he would have been able to kill in the UK before he`d have been caught?
Heard of David Copeland? He's the guy who bombed and killed/injured gays/blacks in the UK a few years ago. He worked alone but was still caught after `only` three attacks. He was the only consistant person on film in the three locations at the appropriate date/time.
Or do you think that it's worth letting people like him get away with it with no chance of arrest other than waiting for him to make a mistake (like in your sniper case), because the horrible loss of rights by people being..uh..filmed while walking in a public place outweighs the advantages?
If you`re suggesting that its an American spelling, then I assure you that I looked it up at Dictionary.com to make sure, and even IT didn't like it!
"Grok is from Stranger in a Strange Land and a very cool concept."
My understanding is that it means `Understand`. We already have a word for `Understand` - its spelled `Understand`. I asked a fan of the word Grok what was wrong with the word Understand, and was confronted with a hissy fit about how you don't stand under something, so why call it understand! I'm not sure how many words can be reasoned that way - its not how language evolved!
I`m with you on the profit thing, anyway! And/but I can't stand South Park!
It's annoying, isn't it. Almost as annoying as `grok` and `USIan`.
I think it's something to do with open source, and trying to profit from it. It'll never happen - its just a cheap way of getting hold of software. As long as the people writing it don't expect to profit from it, then I guess everybody's happy.
11)....
12)Profit!!
Sorry, there's no sign of a profit in the tech industry in the coming 12 months. I was joking.
At least they'll be able to spell 'apocalyptic'!
"Uhm, westernized capitalists make what the customers are willing to pay for"
;_
You just repeated what HE said!! Quality has nothing to do with it.
The stuff about suits doesn't tell us much. Even if it's true, it just says that the west - free from the need to queue up for potatoes, cabbage etc - have the money/inclination to produce better products (why would you bother in the former USSR - you get paid the same anyway!). That doesn't mean we always DO produce higher quality stuff, however. Stravinsky is more than a match for Americana such as Copland, Ives et al!
"Also, if DRM does come down the path for everyone, the Military and Law Enforcement do not live by the same rules as Joe Shit and the Ragman do."
Well, they are allowed to kill people, break the speed limit, carry concealed weapons, etc etc...i`m pretty sure the public doesn't really give a shit if they are using chips which could be used to copy mp3's!
5 gig though? Why not 50? How much more money does it cost? its not like you`re paying for the storage space - its the `form factor` and the fact its bluetooth and all that shit. Surely the size of the drive is irrelevant?
>Writing a weblog is just that: an exercise in
>writing, not a playground for techies."
"That's not writing, that's typing." - Truman Capote.
"with Iraq and other terrorists and countries that harbor them"
You mean America/Israel? Or just countries that speak foreign? Its like Chomsky didn't exist or something. Or have you got a comprehensive rebuttal of all of Chomsky's points in your head, and you`re too lazy to type them up and post them on the net somewhere?
This is the brave, new, post Apple Imac world remember. The spec and price isn't as important as the colour.
"We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If you can think of a simpler way, I'd like to hear it." - Kang (The Simpsons)
"After all, it's well known that apes can type Shakespeare dramas if you just have enough of them and give them enough time"
Naah - check out the internet. That just ain't true!
Whats a `dead language` then? We`re not talking about rap albums or september 11th t shirts here - its a functional tool for creating software. Or is the concept of writing software out of date now?
I didn't know that, cheers. How long has there been protection against them? I remember talking to a PSX developer about this around 5 years ago!
"Is Developer X going to spend 5 million making a game that can be pirated with ease because someone can goto lik-sang.com and get a modchip? NOooooooooooooooooooooooooo"
So why did Sony prevent developers from protecting against mod-chips then? Its trivial to discover if the PSX a game is running on has been chipped, but Sony apparantly told developers not to stop games from running. Why do you think that was?
"Just like Bach and Mozart in fact. Music by the numbers."
5 3135313531
No, they are among the most important musicians in Western music.
"And let's not get started on some of the "dance" and "trance" stuff"
Trance bores me, but i like a lot of tecno, especially the minimal stuff. Don't compare that to Glass's pretentious tosh though. He may impress people who don't like real music, but he's not fooling anyone - it's derivative nonsense and he has and will have no followers to continue his nonsense. Minimalism is a dead end.
I dislike Irish music, but i like the music of other cultures which could be described similarly (for example classical Indian music, or Muslim Qawali musuc, such as that performed by Nusrat fateh ali khan.
>want my mind to go blank and unwind
Sure, don't we all. There is better music than Glass's for that, however. How about some John Tavener, Erik Satie, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno... there's loads of atmospheric, textured music around that isnt just
1234321234321234321234321234321
13531353135313
31313131313131
I mean, for gods sake...
> I like to listen to music
... impression which I've never been able to shake off is that by the end of the film Glass's music has firmly established itself as just another symptom of the very *problem* - the 'life out of balance', the 'state of life that calls for another way of living - that the film makes us
So do I, but this Glass `music` is just bullshit music by numbers. 1234321234321.... Then minor key. Then back to major. Change the pitch. Minor. Major. Then slightly slower. Jesus. As someone posted recently on Usenet:
---
aware of: in those later sequences we watch people eating worthless, synthetic food, see them leading impoverished, shallow lives - and we hear
worthless, synthetic, impoverished, shallow music. The tragedy is that people get so much *enjoyment* from the sheerly egressive, 'stimulating', hypnotic experience offered by the music in those later stages that they never stop to think about what's happening...
>oceans (as in liquid water oceans)
You mean they aren't including those dry, sandy oceans? That's a little restrictive!
Seriously, has anyone had any experience with visiting family/friends and seeing one of those tacky pieces of crap? What did you say/do? Grab it and throw it out the window/in the trash, or try and reason with them?