I'm not sure which revisionist idiot informed the general OSS/Google fanboy world that selling unlocked phones directly to consumers was somehow innovating. Nokia has been doing this for years. I bought my last Nokia phone, the E70, well before even the iPhone was out directly via Nokia's website. You can still buy many Nokia products this way, including the venerable N900.
The prices may not always be the very best you can find but at least they are a trusted source.
Sony Ericcson sells them directly too (unlocked). Though I don't recall if it's their whole inventory or just select models.
It's hard to do considering these phone are pseudo camouflaged, from my understanding at first glance it looks like an ordinary iPhone.
It would be like "Finding" a wallet in someone's pocket with something specific inside (like a 2-dollar bill or a Discover credit card). Sure if you check enough wallets I'm sure you'll find them but it would be noticed fairly quickly.
I imagine the big options are:
- Intentional leaks by Apple. The most likely in me eyes since it's now twice.
- *Very* careless employees, perhaps bragging that they have the new 4g (perhaps while intoxicated). Then leaving them behind, or not noticing that the phone disappeared 2 minutes after they bragged about it.
- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.
- Some other sort of coordinated effort with geeks trying to find out which Apple employee might have the phone. Find out where the phones are developed, determine which employees work in fields with access to the iPhones, chat up those 1-2 dozen employees until you find one with the phone.
I shudder to think that someone might grab some of their significant other's saliva in order to see what their genetic tests reveal and call the whole thing off based on the fact that their offspring would have a 5% higher chance of getting breast cancer according to The Super Deluxe Cancer Finder 3000.
I wouldn't be *as* concerned with the interpersonal relationship side of things. If someone learns they both carry the recessive Gene for a harmful genetic disorder (*not* trivial stuff like eye color or crow's peak) then it's important to know. And maybe with their values they *want* their own kid with their mate, and not from a sperm/egg donor or adoption agency. If it was anything more trivial than that, then it was probably not a healthy relationship anyway.
The big thing would be companies using said tests/results to let go of employees with too high a risk for their health insurance premiums. Some US companies already use weight and smoking as criteria to fire people in At-Will States... and some will explicitly state the health insurance reasons. So long as they don't violate some of the big laws (race, religion, gender, etc) they're pretty much allowed to do fire someone for whatever reason they want.
I'll start off by saying I have no plans on getting one. I don't see it being worth it, and would rather dump the money on a netbook or mid-range laptop.
Plus, I have an iPhone which does about 90% of what an iPad can do but with a smaller screen. If I didn't have an iPhone I *might* consider the iPad but I'm not sure. When I'm home in 1-2 rooms away from my PC I'll sometimes just do some light browsing on my iPhone if it's simple stuff like news/weather/wikipedia/etc.
That being said I can see the benefit, it is *something* like an e-Book read on steroids. Granted I prefer to read on ePaper over an LED (and real paper over ePaper), I can see the appeal there.
Browse the internet, read news, read Marvel comics, etc. All on a decent rez color screen. Leave it lying on the coffee table, put it wherever, it looks less obtrusive than leaving a Netbook lying around.
Again, I don't want one and don't see myself ever getting one. But it has *some* appeal that might matter to some people.
The only real weakness with the movie is that the villain was underdeveloped. But seeing as this was also an origin movie, there's only so much that can be shoehorned in.
Does Iron Man really have an iconic archenemy? A Joker to his Batman? I'm not so sure.
I believe The Mandarin is probably the closest thing he has to a true nemesis.
Beyond that he has a decent range of villains that've made things difficult for him, some of which with a personal grudge. Ultron usually fairs pretty well since he eventually learns to control Stark's armor, but he's someone else's nemesis.
Then again, not every comic book character has a nemesis as closely tied as Batman's Joker. I'd say maybe 1/2 have something similar.
Flash? A large rogue's gallery, though I *guess* one of the Zooms is his "Joker"
Wonder Woman?
Punisher?
Henry Irons?
Don't get me wrong, they all have decent villains with a personal grudge against them. But a big iconic archenemy like Joker, I don't know.
A couple of years back I had an appointment to have a Comcast DVR delivered when I got my HDTV.
I waited, and waited, and waited. I made sure the phone wasn't in use and that I could hear the outside.
Nothing.
I called, they said he was on his way.
Nothing. 6-7 hours go by, and it's still "he's running late, he's on his way" And the nerve to say "If you're not there when he eventually comes you'll have to wait another week"
I eventually got through to a manager and out they canceled the friggin' delivery due to lack of hardware, and didn't tell me. They canceled it in the beginning of the day, but 6+ hours later the desk technicians were saying "he's on his way."
Douche Nozels.
Verizon hasn't been perfect, but support is a lot better.
ferries, channel tunnel, trains, automobiles, nope, just won't do... I have driven from London to Athens in less time than many of these people have been sat in airports wringing their hands... I also suspect that it may be CHEAPER to hire a car and drive back home, than to attempt to live in an airport for a week.
I know a few people that are stuck across the Atlantic from their homes, that really has to stink. A bunch of them had to go on business trips (separate locations) and are now stuck.
I guess there's always the ship / cruise option but I imagine those tend to be a tad more expensive than a company would want to pay for. Especially when they can go to another work-site and use their network to do some of their tasks.
I've taken the train around, even though co-workers prefer to fly. They claim "well the flight's only an hour..." Yeh, but between security and delays you're only really saving an hour over the train. Heck, splurge on 1st class and it's about the same price and quite a pleasant experience to ride the rails for a few hours.
I imagine that particular problem would be distinguishable because the data would show the throttle going from 0% to 100% and back with no values in between.
True.
But as far as I'm concerned, it shows that too much faith is put into the black box. If the PC or Sensor has a problem which results in an accident, an inspector might simply claim "user error" because the black box said they accelerated at the wrong moment.
CNN had an article a couple of weeks back. A man was in the car with his family (and pregnant wife) and got into an accident that killed a bunch of people. He claimed that the car started accelerating on it's own.
Nobody believed him, and the investigators stated the black box recorded him pressing the accelerator at the time of the accident. He had major charges and has been in jail for a bunch of years now.
It was a Toyota, so now they're going to re-investigate. I'm not saying he's innocent, but it's a good example of this opinion. Until this became common knowledge, a lot of Joe Sixpacks probably thought the chances of the sensor or CPU putzing with the performance as a wacky idea.
Those of us that have had *some* problem related to those parts can believe it.
I'm sure a large % of people reporting the issue truly are experiencing user-error. But I don't doubt that at least some of them are experiencing the issue to its fullest.
It's not far more concerning to me. Whats concerning is how stupid people can be when put in the situation. You literally just press the brakes or turn the car off and it stops!
I did a minor experiment. I was coasting around 15 MpH, then applied heavy acceleration and brakes at the same time. I was slowing down, but not nearly enough to do much in an urgency. Sure, at completely rest my brakes were enough to over-power the engine but engine + kinetic energy is another story.
My concern about this kind of issue isn't the car accelerating up to 100+ MpH on the highway. Like you say, there are ways to slow down and stop.
It's when it accelerates *at the wrong moment*. You're a couple of car lengths from the car in front of you, you're nearing an intersection, you want to brake for some odd reason, etc. The big thing is if it happens near-or-at the time you need to stop. Pressing a brake a few seconds too late is usually a bad thing as it stands, accelerating instead... bad.
Throw in the shock of the event and the time it takes to throw it in neutral, and it's a dangerous thing if you need to stop.
As I mentioned in another post, I had issues with the sensors on my throttle of my GM car. It was sending faulty data to the onboard computer and thus the acceleration was behaving incredibly strange: thinking 1/2 pressure alternating between 0-pressure and full throttle.
If the vehicle has that much computer controlled functionality, why doesn't the black box tell which pedals were pressed at the time of impact and for the moments before impact? The black box system is arguably an invasion of privacy, but in this case it would go a long way toward fixing the problem(s) and perhaps saving lives.
I bought a brand new car in 2006. It was great for the first few months.
Then about 4 months in, it acted strangely. If I put the throttle past 1/2-way, the car would start bucking wildly. It was as if I was alternating between *flooring it* and *idling* every second. It was major because merging into fast traffic and crossing busy intersections (from a stop sign) was a real pain. I had to take it to the dealer 3 times for them to find the problem; they thought "user-error", fuel line, transmission, etc.
A sensor in the throttle assembly was faulty. It was reporting to the computer that I was flooring/idling/flooring/idling when in fact I obviously wasn't. It was showing the throttle position and everything.
So...
Had I gotten into an accident and someone looked at the black box, it would show the same thing. "Umm, he took his foot off the gas and then floored it, repeating. Probably drunk or distracted."
I don't know what people's problem is here in Oklahoma, but 9 times out of 10, anyone walking on the road in the middle of the night will be completely dressed in dark clothing.
On the other side of that fence, I have to be very careful to reign in my girls when I cross the parking lot to go into a store here. About 2/3 of the time, even if you are halfway across the parking lot road in front of the store, people will not stop to let you cross, even though you are in a crosswalk and you have small children. They are normally driving about 20 or 25 miles per hour in a parking lot within a few feet of outdoor displays that could block their view of people coming out of the building.
Well, CrossWalks are another story. By me we have signs by most cross walks as an extra reminder in case you can't see the painted lines through the rain. I always yield to the people there, partially because it's the law but also because I'm not a jerk.
However the instant I see a kid anywhere near the street I panic, because way too many times have I seen kids do the stereotypical "run into traffic after their toy." Fortunately I've never been the lead car that had to slam on the brakes but I've seen it enough to make me nervous as hell.
The same goes for people walking an overly-excited dog on too long a leash.
How can you be responsible for killing someone that ran out in front of you when you were driving safely within the speed limit and taking necessary precautions when driving? Exactly, you're not responsible.
I don't know what legal jurisdiction you live in but anywhere I've ever driven in the US the driver is always responsible for hitting a pedestrian.
I'm fairly certain that's the case in NJ too, however I vaguely recall someone telling me that on a case-by-case basis it can be changed as far as criminal charges go. Such as the grandparent's example of people running out into traffic.
I've had near misses where, from a *logical* standpoint I wasn't at fault... but I'm sure from a civil (if not criminal) standpoint I would be in deep trouble.
I almost ran over a guy that was bent over tying his shoes, in the middle of a poorly lit street near a turn, wearing (I kid you not) a full length black trenchcoat. On his knee, the thing covered him completely and blended with the flippin' street -- he was practically invisible. He didn't know why I was laying on the horn.
A BUNCH of times some cell-phone idiot was so involved in their conversation that they stepped out into traffic. The best is when they're walking on the sidewalk along the same direction of the traffic and then change their direction 45 degrees without looking behind them -- on a busy street in flippin' Newark.
Jerks riding their bicyles in the middle of traffic, AGAINST the flow of traffic that's legally going 50MpH.
Some old guy just walked in front of me on a main road (35-40MpH), raised his cane, and said you're supposed to yield to pedestrians. I almost laughed, it just *looked* like a "get off my lawn" gesture from cartoons. I was glad I had my brakes replaced the month prior, because he really had no concept of stopping distance. Oh, and the crosswalk was at least 50 yards away (if not further).
The list goes on and on, yet besides the disaster the victim's family would suffer due to loss of life or serious injury I too would've been up the creek.
Regarding UK roads - generally, the accident rate in the UK is about 1/3rd of the accident rate in the US - UK roads are vastly safer.
However, this probably has a lot to do with driver training which is generally much more thorough in the UK - as well as other things, such as drink-driving laws where a driving ban really means a driving ban - in many parts of the US, they still allow you to drive to work and back if you're "banned" for drunken driving.
I'm not going to defend us (the US) on this, I see way too many poor drivers on the road.
However, is a per-capital comparison truly valid to draw conclusions in this case? Obviously from a pure mathematical perspective it's interesting, or when justifying someone saying "wow, you guys have a lot of accidents." But as to reason and cause....?
I suggest that in any closed system, the chances of 2 items interacting increase as density increases (cars per square kilometer) though it probably also simply goes up as the general population increases (number of cars total).
Since a good percentage of accidents are multiple entities interacting (colliding) then simply having more drivers on the road increases the chance of accidents all by itself... without having to take anything else into account: adequate training, civil engineering, road upkeep, drinking laws, etc.
Compare a small town 1-mile across with a larger town that has a highway running through it; try to keep everything else the same (conditions of roads, wealth of the community, age demographic, etc). My guess is the small town will still have fewer accidents per capita than the large town, simply because there are more cars with which to collide. Plus the chances of 1 incident involving more cars increases as well. So instead of 4 accident for every 100 drivers, maybe 8 accidents for every 100 drivers.
So is a straight per-capita comparison really valid "proof" of one groups poor driving skills?
I know the roads in NJ tend to be complete crud, but I can't honestly speak for the rest of the country nor other ones even though I've been around the US and a few places in Europe.
"- Maybe you're in a caravan (which usually has multiple people in multiple cars). You want a line of communication available in case something comes up (traffic, getting lost, flat tire, etc)."
I prefer the CB radio for this...that way, all can hear the same thing..and you can talk to truckers to get 'smokey' reports.
I've found in the past few years..I've known where the cops were LONG before I ever got in range of my radar detector.
I remember my my family doing that when I was a kid because a couple of times we went on vacations with family friends and had to take 2 cars. I also remember hearing the truckers.
By the time I started driving, I had a small handheld CB I kept in the car; mostly in case of emergency and such. I lost the thing when I lent it to my parents and their car was stolen.
Cellphones were obviously around by the time I got my license and were starting to become popular, but it wasn't incredibly common among teens yet. I didn't get one until around College.
Maybe if you drive automatic I guess, but whilst it used to be true with all vehicles, I don't think that's really the case anymore if you drive manual. I find a lot of circumstances where being able to change gear quickly is much more important than two hands on the wheel. Why do I think that's the case now and didn't before? Power steering.
...
but with power steering I'd struggle to see how it's inherently less safe, unless power steering failed.
It is a little less-safe to drive one-handed, I believe usually in the middle of turns or bends in the road. - Your hand can slip, making you drift before you can react. Sideswipe or head-on collision. - Mid-curve you might need to make a quick-but-major adjustment due to an issue in front of you (getting cut off, debris on the road, child chasing a toy, etc).
For the most part you're going straight, so one hand is fine. And you can execute turns and such fine with one hand so long as you don't slip because a regular turn/bend is a fairly simple action.
But when something comes up and you need to act both quickly and precisely, that second hand can be vital.
No need for crazy car-stuck-on-crossing scenarios...
I agree with beuges, there are plenty of scenarios where a cell phone is fine and or useful if a car is moving... especially if it's a passenger using the phone.
Personally I've never been a fan of driving while on the phone. The most I might do is answer the phone in case it's an emergency (sick relatives and such), if it's an emergency then if it's a conversation that's thought-provoking or will take a while to talk about then I'll pull over. If it isn't an emergency I politely say I'm driving and will call them back. Beyond that, the most I'll do is make a 10-second call saying "I'm stuck in traffic and will be late for dinner" or "I've decided to swing by the super-market, text me anything you think we need for when I arrive at the store."
With passengers you have confirming directions (if you got lost), communicating with people in your caravan, calling ahead saying you'll be late, etc. I don't appreciate it if the passenger is just having a long drawn-out conversation about nothing while I'm driving, but sometimes a call is needed. Beyond what he posted...
- Maybe you're in a caravan (which usually has multiple people in multiple cars). You want a line of communication available in case something comes up (traffic, getting lost, flat tire, etc).
Heck, at the risk of going against this sub-thread's though, I'll take it one step further and say that a cellphone in the car (without a passenger0 can be useful on rare non-crazy situations, usually more for answering the phone more than making the call. - Meet us at Hospital X, relative Y is hurt/sick/etc -- you change directions and go to new location. - Your son is sick/hurt, he needs to be picked up at the school nurse's office -- you change directions and go to the school - One of our servers is out, is there anything we can do -- pull over and discuss the issue or tell them it will have to wait until you get home.
Simply because the grandparent has never experienced any of these, that doesn't mean they're invalid. And none of them are rare/crazy things like calling 911 because you saw a crime or are trapped in an upside-down car.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." - I really doubt they planned on designing crappy DRM so that they can remove it and gain the good will of the fans.
I think it's much more likely a bunch of execs thinking they can do whatever they want and "those desperate suckers will buy it anyway".
I read the parent post more along the lines of:
"EA now realizes, via all of the fallout, that their new DRM is an Epic Fail. So they're setting the stage to remove it and attribute it to listening to the fans. And that this post was just a first stepping stone to make customers think that EA isn't just a bunch of idiots sitting in a room."
Then again, your famous quote still fits. While this could all be the start of a large plot by EA to cover their butts, it's also possible the guy spoke out of turn without thinking (or just not caring) about the consequences when the higher-ups hear of it.
You damn well can notice DRM on the Xbox 360. I recently had mine die and I sent it back to MS for repair. They sent back a referb unit as per their usual policy. Along with the Xbox was a note telling me to redownload all my DLC so that the licenses on my hard drive would be updated to work with the new console. Well that only works if the jack asses at MS remember to actually transfer the licenses to the new Xbox on their servers, which they failed to do in my case.
Hmm, I don't have much experience with additional-DLC (map-packs, extra levels, characters, gear, etc).
But I recently got myself a new XBox after giving my old one away to a family member a few years ago. Once I logged into Live! I saw it listed all of my purchased Arcade titles that I could download again free-of-charge. The fact I could download wasn't a big surprise, but I did enjoy that it bundled them all together in a single list.
I would've thought they'd implement something similar with additional-DLC, that it would be tied to your Live! account and not your individual console.
Laptop? You should probably use the drivers from your laptop manufacturer, they often customize things to get clock frequencies etc right for their specific model.
In my limited experience, the laptop manufacturer releases drivers at a very slow pace and they stop releasing new versions after a while. After some point the most they might do is release a new version if a new OS comes out.
For the most part that's alright (especially in non-gaming environments), but some games need a more recent version of a driver due to a fix or a new feature.
I tried playing Champions Online with the manufacturer's 1+ year-old video drivers on my laptop after a reformat. The game warned me of old drivers and performed horribly. I then installed something more recent directly from nVidia: the message went away and the performance went way up.
.. the problem is between the pedals and the seat, morons.
How does the parent comment quality as a Score: 5 Insightful?
I'll admit, some of the people that've experienced this might have accidentally touched the accelerator with the side of their shoe or something. I did that once in my life after putting on an new + uncomfortable pair of shoes, fortunately nothing happened as a result since it was on my driveway.
Then again on another car I also had a major problem with my throttle assembly. The dealer refused to acknowledge there even was a problem until I got in the car with them. After a couple of visits they said the sensor on the throttle assembly was sending bad data making the car think I was doing something else with the throttle than I actually was.
I imagine a human is involved: either an engineer made a mistake or a bean counter adjusted something.
Dont buy it. You will worry yourself sick whatever we say.
Agreed.
Even if experts came to you in person and told you not to worry, chances are it would always be in the back of your mind. One of the things you want when you get a place is peace of mind.
I'm not a doctor and I do not worry about things like cellphones or WiFi access points; but having a cell antenna pointed at window from a few feet away would be dis concerning.
And as others already posted, if you ever plan on selling the place your customer base may have the same fears.
Sure if it's an incredible one-in-a-lifetime deal it's hard to pass up, but you have to ask yourself "why is the owner willing to part with it for a song?" My guess is if you ever want to sell it you'll have to drop the price to a sweet deal as well.
Superman used to time travel pretty frequently. He'd fly faster than ths speed of light - either on his own, or in a Kryptonian rocket.
He could apparently travel either direction in time this way.
How long ago was this? Golden Age, Silver Age, Modern?
At one point (either late golden or early silver) he was insanely tough, I think fans sometimes jokingly referred to him as the planet juggler. Personally I only really followed the comics starting in the 1990s for a couple of years and then again recently, so my knowledge of the older stuff is hearse.
Eventually they started to tone him down some and take away some of his wacky abilities. I think at one point he could move so fast he could open a wormhole and pretty-much instantly transport himself anywhere on the planet. I imagine "ability to time-travel at will" was one of these insane abilities/tools.
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I'm not sure which revisionist idiot informed the general OSS/Google fanboy world that selling unlocked phones directly to consumers was somehow innovating. Nokia has been doing this for years. I bought my last Nokia phone, the E70, well before even the iPhone was out directly via Nokia's website. You can still buy many Nokia products this way, including the venerable N900.
The prices may not always be the very best you can find but at least they are a trusted source.
Sony Ericcson sells them directly too (unlocked). Though I don't recall if it's their whole inventory or just select models.
It should be mentioned, a few month ago Google started selling Nexus Ones equipped to handle AT&T's 3G frequencies.
I can easily think of other possibilities that don't require an Evil Conspiracy(TM):
I accept that, and my second bullet point covers that. Though I say "careless" and "intoxicated" instead of unlucky.
It's bound to happen, though you'd think after the fiasco recently that those with the secret 4g phones would be very very very careful.
But mistakes happen.
It's hard to do considering these phone are pseudo camouflaged, from my understanding at first glance it looks like an ordinary iPhone.
It would be like "Finding" a wallet in someone's pocket with something specific inside (like a 2-dollar bill or a Discover credit card). Sure if you check enough wallets I'm sure you'll find them but it would be noticed fairly quickly.
I imagine the big options are:
- Intentional leaks by Apple. The most likely in me eyes since it's now twice.
- *Very* careless employees, perhaps bragging that they have the new 4g (perhaps while intoxicated). Then leaving them behind, or not noticing that the phone disappeared 2 minutes after they bragged about it.
- An inside job, or some otherwise corporate espionage thing. I don't see what they would gain here other than seeing what Apple's internals look like a few weeks early, which wouldn't help them rush a product to market ahead of Apple.
- Some other sort of coordinated effort with geeks trying to find out which Apple employee might have the phone. Find out where the phones are developed, determine which employees work in fields with access to the iPhones, chat up those 1-2 dozen employees until you find one with the phone.
I shudder to think that someone might grab some of their significant other's saliva in order to see what their genetic tests reveal and call the whole thing off based on the fact that their offspring would have a 5% higher chance of getting breast cancer according to The Super Deluxe Cancer Finder 3000.
I wouldn't be *as* concerned with the interpersonal relationship side of things. If someone learns they both carry the recessive Gene for a harmful genetic disorder (*not* trivial stuff like eye color or crow's peak) then it's important to know. And maybe with their values they *want* their own kid with their mate, and not from a sperm/egg donor or adoption agency. If it was anything more trivial than that, then it was probably not a healthy relationship anyway.
The big thing would be companies using said tests/results to let go of employees with too high a risk for their health insurance premiums. Some US companies already use weight and smoking as criteria to fire people in At-Will States... and some will explicitly state the health insurance reasons. So long as they don't violate some of the big laws (race, religion, gender, etc) they're pretty much allowed to do fire someone for whatever reason they want.
I'll start off by saying I have no plans on getting one. I don't see it being worth it, and would rather dump the money on a netbook or mid-range laptop.
Plus, I have an iPhone which does about 90% of what an iPad can do but with a smaller screen. If I didn't have an iPhone I *might* consider the iPad but I'm not sure. When I'm home in 1-2 rooms away from my PC I'll sometimes just do some light browsing on my iPhone if it's simple stuff like news/weather/wikipedia/etc.
That being said I can see the benefit, it is *something* like an e-Book read on steroids. Granted I prefer to read on ePaper over an LED (and real paper over ePaper), I can see the appeal there.
Browse the internet, read news, read Marvel comics, etc. All on a decent rez color screen. Leave it lying on the coffee table, put it wherever, it looks less obtrusive than leaving a Netbook lying around.
Again, I don't want one and don't see myself ever getting one. But it has *some* appeal that might matter to some people.
Does Iron Man really have an iconic archenemy? A Joker to his Batman? I'm not so sure.
I believe The Mandarin is probably the closest thing he has to a true nemesis.
Beyond that he has a decent range of villains that've made things difficult for him, some of which with a personal grudge. Ultron usually fairs pretty well since he eventually learns to control Stark's armor, but he's someone else's nemesis.
Then again, not every comic book character has a nemesis as closely tied as Batman's Joker. I'd say maybe 1/2 have something similar.
Flash? A large rogue's gallery, though I *guess* one of the Zooms is his "Joker"
Wonder Woman?
Punisher?
Henry Irons?
Don't get me wrong, they all have decent villains with a personal grudge against them. But a big iconic archenemy like Joker, I don't know.
A couple of years back I had an appointment to have a Comcast DVR delivered when I got my HDTV.
I waited, and waited, and waited. I made sure the phone wasn't in use and that I could hear the outside.
Nothing.
I called, they said he was on his way.
Nothing. 6-7 hours go by, and it's still "he's running late, he's on his way" And the nerve to say "If you're not there when he eventually comes you'll have to wait another week"
I eventually got through to a manager and out they canceled the friggin' delivery due to lack of hardware, and didn't tell me. They canceled it in the beginning of the day, but 6+ hours later the desk technicians were saying "he's on his way."
Douche Nozels.
Verizon hasn't been perfect, but support is a lot better.
ferries, channel tunnel, trains, automobiles, nope, just won't do... I have driven from London to Athens in less time than many of these people have been sat in airports wringing their hands... I also suspect that it may be CHEAPER to hire a car and drive back home, than to attempt to live in an airport for a week.
I know a few people that are stuck across the Atlantic from their homes, that really has to stink. A bunch of them had to go on business trips (separate locations) and are now stuck.
I guess there's always the ship / cruise option but I imagine those tend to be a tad more expensive than a company would want to pay for. Especially when they can go to another work-site and use their network to do some of their tasks.
I've taken the train around, even though co-workers prefer to fly. They claim "well the flight's only an hour..." Yeh, but between security and delays you're only really saving an hour over the train. Heck, splurge on 1st class and it's about the same price and quite a pleasant experience to ride the rails for a few hours.
I imagine that particular problem would be distinguishable because the data would show the throttle going from 0% to 100% and back with no values in between.
True.
But as far as I'm concerned, it shows that too much faith is put into the black box. If the PC or Sensor has a problem which results in an accident, an inspector might simply claim "user error" because the black box said they accelerated at the wrong moment.
CNN had an article a couple of weeks back. A man was in the car with his family (and pregnant wife) and got into an accident that killed a bunch of people. He claimed that the car started accelerating on it's own.
Nobody believed him, and the investigators stated the black box recorded him pressing the accelerator at the time of the accident. He had major charges and has been in jail for a bunch of years now.
It was a Toyota, so now they're going to re-investigate. I'm not saying he's innocent, but it's a good example of this opinion. Until this became common knowledge, a lot of Joe Sixpacks probably thought the chances of the sensor or CPU putzing with the performance as a wacky idea.
Those of us that have had *some* problem related to those parts can believe it.
I'm sure a large % of people reporting the issue truly are experiencing user-error. But I don't doubt that at least some of them are experiencing the issue to its fullest.
It's not far more concerning to me. Whats concerning is how stupid people can be when put in the situation. You literally just press the brakes or turn the car off and it stops!
I did a minor experiment. I was coasting around 15 MpH, then applied heavy acceleration and brakes at the same time. I was slowing down, but not nearly enough to do much in an urgency. Sure, at completely rest my brakes were enough to over-power the engine but engine + kinetic energy is another story.
My concern about this kind of issue isn't the car accelerating up to 100+ MpH on the highway. Like you say, there are ways to slow down and stop.
It's when it accelerates *at the wrong moment*. You're a couple of car lengths from the car in front of you, you're nearing an intersection, you want to brake for some odd reason, etc. The big thing is if it happens near-or-at the time you need to stop. Pressing a brake a few seconds too late is usually a bad thing as it stands, accelerating instead... bad.
Throw in the shock of the event and the time it takes to throw it in neutral, and it's a dangerous thing if you need to stop.
As I mentioned in another post, I had issues with the sensors on my throttle of my GM car. It was sending faulty data to the onboard computer and thus the acceleration was behaving incredibly strange: thinking 1/2 pressure alternating between 0-pressure and full throttle.
If the vehicle has that much computer controlled functionality, why doesn't the black box tell which pedals were pressed at the time of impact and for the moments before impact? The black box system is arguably an invasion of privacy, but in this case it would go a long way toward fixing the problem(s) and perhaps saving lives.
I bought a brand new car in 2006. It was great for the first few months.
Then about 4 months in, it acted strangely. If I put the throttle past 1/2-way, the car would start bucking wildly. It was as if I was alternating between *flooring it* and *idling* every second. It was major because merging into fast traffic and crossing busy intersections (from a stop sign) was a real pain. I had to take it to the dealer 3 times for them to find the problem; they thought "user-error", fuel line, transmission, etc.
A sensor in the throttle assembly was faulty. It was reporting to the computer that I was flooring/idling/flooring/idling when in fact I obviously wasn't. It was showing the throttle position and everything.
So...
Had I gotten into an accident and someone looked at the black box, it would show the same thing. "Umm, he took his foot off the gas and then floored it, repeating. Probably drunk or distracted."
I don't know what people's problem is here in Oklahoma, but 9 times out of 10, anyone walking on the road in the middle of the night will be completely dressed in dark clothing.
On the other side of that fence, I have to be very careful to reign in my girls when I cross the parking lot to go into a store here. About 2/3 of the time, even if you are halfway across the parking lot road in front of the store, people will not stop to let you cross, even though you are in a crosswalk and you have small children. They are normally driving about 20 or 25 miles per hour in a parking lot within a few feet of outdoor displays that could block their view of people coming out of the building.
Well, CrossWalks are another story. By me we have signs by most cross walks as an extra reminder in case you can't see the painted lines through the rain. I always yield to the people there, partially because it's the law but also because I'm not a jerk.
However the instant I see a kid anywhere near the street I panic, because way too many times have I seen kids do the stereotypical "run into traffic after their toy." Fortunately I've never been the lead car that had to slam on the brakes but I've seen it enough to make me nervous as hell.
The same goes for people walking an overly-excited dog on too long a leash.
I don't know what legal jurisdiction you live in but anywhere I've ever driven in the US the driver is always responsible for hitting a pedestrian.
I'm fairly certain that's the case in NJ too, however I vaguely recall someone telling me that on a case-by-case basis it can be changed as far as criminal charges go. Such as the grandparent's example of people running out into traffic.
I've had near misses where, from a *logical* standpoint I wasn't at fault... but I'm sure from a civil (if not criminal) standpoint I would be in deep trouble.
I almost ran over a guy that was bent over tying his shoes, in the middle of a poorly lit street near a turn, wearing (I kid you not) a full length black trenchcoat. On his knee, the thing covered him completely and blended with the flippin' street -- he was practically invisible. He didn't know why I was laying on the horn.
A BUNCH of times some cell-phone idiot was so involved in their conversation that they stepped out into traffic. The best is when they're walking on the sidewalk along the same direction of the traffic and then change their direction 45 degrees without looking behind them -- on a busy street in flippin' Newark.
Jerks riding their bicyles in the middle of traffic, AGAINST the flow of traffic that's legally going 50MpH.
Some old guy just walked in front of me on a main road (35-40MpH), raised his cane, and said you're supposed to yield to pedestrians. I almost laughed, it just *looked* like a "get off my lawn" gesture from cartoons. I was glad I had my brakes replaced the month prior, because he really had no concept of stopping distance. Oh, and the crosswalk was at least 50 yards away (if not further).
The list goes on and on, yet besides the disaster the victim's family would suffer due to loss of life or serious injury I too would've been up the creek.
Regarding UK roads - generally, the accident rate in the UK is about 1/3rd of the accident rate in the US - UK roads are vastly safer.
However, this probably has a lot to do with driver training which is generally much more thorough in the UK - as well as other things, such as drink-driving laws where a driving ban really means a driving ban - in many parts of the US, they still allow you to drive to work and back if you're "banned" for drunken driving.
I'm not going to defend us (the US) on this, I see way too many poor drivers on the road.
However, is a per-capital comparison truly valid to draw conclusions in this case? Obviously from a pure mathematical perspective it's interesting, or when justifying someone saying "wow, you guys have a lot of accidents." But as to reason and cause....?
I suggest that in any closed system, the chances of 2 items interacting increase as density increases (cars per square kilometer) though it probably also simply goes up as the general population increases (number of cars total).
Since a good percentage of accidents are multiple entities interacting (colliding) then simply having more drivers on the road increases the chance of accidents all by itself... without having to take anything else into account: adequate training, civil engineering, road upkeep, drinking laws, etc.
Compare a small town 1-mile across with a larger town that has a highway running through it; try to keep everything else the same (conditions of roads, wealth of the community, age demographic, etc). My guess is the small town will still have fewer accidents per capita than the large town, simply because there are more cars with which to collide. Plus the chances of 1 incident involving more cars increases as well. So instead of 4 accident for every 100 drivers, maybe 8 accidents for every 100 drivers.
So is a straight per-capita comparison really valid "proof" of one groups poor driving skills?
I know the roads in NJ tend to be complete crud, but I can't honestly speak for the rest of the country nor other ones even though I've been around the US and a few places in Europe.
"- Maybe you're in a caravan (which usually has multiple people in multiple cars). You want a line of communication available in case something comes up (traffic, getting lost, flat tire, etc)."
I prefer the CB radio for this...that way, all can hear the same thing..and you can talk to truckers to get 'smokey' reports.
I've found in the past few years..I've known where the cops were LONG before I ever got in range of my radar detector.
I remember my my family doing that when I was a kid because a couple of times we went on vacations with family friends and had to take 2 cars. I also remember hearing the truckers.
By the time I started driving, I had a small handheld CB I kept in the car; mostly in case of emergency and such. I lost the thing when I lent it to my parents and their car was stolen.
Cellphones were obviously around by the time I got my license and were starting to become popular, but it wasn't incredibly common among teens yet. I didn't get one until around College.
Maybe if you drive automatic I guess, but whilst it used to be true with all vehicles, I don't think that's really the case anymore if you drive manual. I find a lot of circumstances where being able to change gear quickly is much more important than two hands on the wheel. Why do I think that's the case now and didn't before? Power steering.
...
but with power steering I'd struggle to see how it's inherently less safe, unless power steering failed.
It is a little less-safe to drive one-handed, I believe usually in the middle of turns or bends in the road.
- Your hand can slip, making you drift before you can react. Sideswipe or head-on collision.
- Mid-curve you might need to make a quick-but-major adjustment due to an issue in front of you (getting cut off, debris on the road, child chasing a toy, etc).
For the most part you're going straight, so one hand is fine. And you can execute turns and such fine with one hand so long as you don't slip because a regular turn/bend is a fairly simple action.
But when something comes up and you need to act both quickly and precisely, that second hand can be vital.
No need for crazy car-stuck-on-crossing scenarios...
I agree with beuges, there are plenty of scenarios where a cell phone is fine and or useful if a car is moving... especially if it's a passenger using the phone.
Personally I've never been a fan of driving while on the phone. The most I might do is answer the phone in case it's an emergency (sick relatives and such), if it's an emergency then if it's a conversation that's thought-provoking or will take a while to talk about then I'll pull over. If it isn't an emergency I politely say I'm driving and will call them back. Beyond that, the most I'll do is make a 10-second call saying "I'm stuck in traffic and will be late for dinner" or "I've decided to swing by the super-market, text me anything you think we need for when I arrive at the store."
With passengers you have confirming directions (if you got lost), communicating with people in your caravan, calling ahead saying you'll be late, etc. I don't appreciate it if the passenger is just having a long drawn-out conversation about nothing while I'm driving, but sometimes a call is needed. Beyond what he posted...
- Maybe you're in a caravan (which usually has multiple people in multiple cars). You want a line of communication available in case something comes up (traffic, getting lost, flat tire, etc).
Heck, at the risk of going against this sub-thread's though, I'll take it one step further and say that a cellphone in the car (without a passenger0 can be useful on rare non-crazy situations, usually more for answering the phone more than making the call.
- Meet us at Hospital X, relative Y is hurt/sick/etc -- you change directions and go to new location.
- Your son is sick/hurt, he needs to be picked up at the school nurse's office -- you change directions and go to the school
- One of our servers is out, is there anything we can do -- pull over and discuss the issue or tell them it will have to wait until you get home.
Simply because the grandparent has never experienced any of these, that doesn't mean they're invalid. And none of them are rare/crazy things like calling 911 because you saw a crime or are trapped in an upside-down car.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." - I really doubt they planned on designing crappy DRM so that they can remove it and gain the good will of the fans.
I think it's much more likely a bunch of execs thinking they can do whatever they want and "those desperate suckers will buy it anyway".
I read the parent post more along the lines of:
"EA now realizes, via all of the fallout, that their new DRM is an Epic Fail. So they're setting the stage to remove it and attribute it to listening to the fans. And that this post was just a first stepping stone to make customers think that EA isn't just a bunch of idiots sitting in a room."
Then again, your famous quote still fits. While this could all be the start of a large plot by EA to cover their butts, it's also possible the guy spoke out of turn without thinking (or just not caring) about the consequences when the higher-ups hear of it.
You damn well can notice DRM on the Xbox 360. I recently had mine die and I sent it back to MS for repair. They sent back a referb unit as per their usual policy. Along with the Xbox was a note telling me to redownload all my DLC so that the licenses on my hard drive would be updated to work with the new console. Well that only works if the jack asses at MS remember to actually transfer the licenses to the new Xbox on their servers, which they failed to do in my case.
Hmm, I don't have much experience with additional-DLC (map-packs, extra levels, characters, gear, etc).
But I recently got myself a new XBox after giving my old one away to a family member a few years ago. Once I logged into Live! I saw it listed all of my purchased Arcade titles that I could download again free-of-charge. The fact I could download wasn't a big surprise, but I did enjoy that it bundled them all together in a single list.
I would've thought they'd implement something similar with additional-DLC, that it would be tied to your Live! account and not your individual console.
But I guess I'm wrong.
Laptop? You should probably use the drivers from your laptop manufacturer, they often customize things to get clock frequencies etc right for their specific model.
In my limited experience, the laptop manufacturer releases drivers at a very slow pace and they stop releasing new versions after a while. After some point the most they might do is release a new version if a new OS comes out.
For the most part that's alright (especially in non-gaming environments), but some games need a more recent version of a driver due to a fix or a new feature.
I tried playing Champions Online with the manufacturer's 1+ year-old video drivers on my laptop after a reformat. The game warned me of old drivers and performed horribly. I then installed something more recent directly from nVidia: the message went away and the performance went way up.
.. the problem is between the pedals and the seat, morons.
How does the parent comment quality as a Score: 5 Insightful?
I'll admit, some of the people that've experienced this might have accidentally touched the accelerator with the side of their shoe or something. I did that once in my life after putting on an new + uncomfortable pair of shoes, fortunately nothing happened as a result since it was on my driveway.
Then again on another car I also had a major problem with my throttle assembly. The dealer refused to acknowledge there even was a problem until I got in the car with them. After a couple of visits they said the sensor on the throttle assembly was sending bad data making the car think I was doing something else with the throttle than I actually was.
I imagine a human is involved: either an engineer made a mistake or a bean counter adjusted something.
Wasn't the whole point of the whole quantum mechanics thingie that you cannot measure things this precise?
No Fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it.
- Prof Farnsworth, Futurama
Dont buy it. You will worry yourself sick whatever we say.
Agreed.
Even if experts came to you in person and told you not to worry, chances are it would always be in the back of your mind. One of the things you want when you get a place is peace of mind.
I'm not a doctor and I do not worry about things like cellphones or WiFi access points; but having a cell antenna pointed at window from a few feet away would be dis concerning.
And as others already posted, if you ever plan on selling the place your customer base may have the same fears.
Sure if it's an incredible one-in-a-lifetime deal it's hard to pass up, but you have to ask yourself "why is the owner willing to part with it for a song?" My guess is if you ever want to sell it you'll have to drop the price to a sweet deal as well.
Superman used to time travel pretty frequently. He'd fly faster than ths speed of light - either on his own, or in a Kryptonian rocket.
He could apparently travel either direction in time this way.
How long ago was this? Golden Age, Silver Age, Modern?
At one point (either late golden or early silver) he was insanely tough, I think fans sometimes jokingly referred to him as the planet juggler. Personally I only really followed the comics starting in the 1990s for a couple of years and then again recently, so my knowledge of the older stuff is hearse.
Eventually they started to tone him down some and take away some of his wacky abilities. I think at one point he could move so fast he could open a wormhole and pretty-much instantly transport himself anywhere on the planet. I imagine "ability to time-travel at will" was one of these insane abilities/tools.