To make this work, wouldn't people have to be on a system where they'd lose their anonymity online? How else could they guarantee who's on a "do not track me" list without knowing who you were when you were online?
...Napalitano. When she was the governor of our state, she had zero qualms about putting up the state's first statewide photo enforcement system to catch speeders anywhere they put a van or a fixed camera. SHE was the driving force behind it (along with lobbyists at the state capital, of course), and she sold it as a "revenue stream" and a "necessary safety measure that saves lives."
Well guess what happened when Jan Brewer ordered that the state's contract wouldn't be renewed... NOTHING! No carnage, no increased loss of life, nothing. It was all a lie for money and false security.(If you think Jan Brewer is a racist nutjob that is all about SB1070 and that's why she got elected, that's not the case, as you can see here.)
When Janet N. left Phoenix to go to DC as DHS secretary, I was immediately ecstatic - knowing that MAYBE the cameras could go away (which they eventually did, thank goodness), but I quickly after wondered if we'd dumped our state's problem on the entire country. It turned out that I was right. The woman could give a rat's butt about privacy, and as long as she's in power in DC, we'll be facing down the barrel of a surveillance nation all in the name of security (and revenue for lobbyists who provide it)... "If it keeps people in line, do it," is what her actions seem to speak... (which is odd, coming from such a "progressive" government.)
If Obama got rid of Janet Napalitano, this problem for Obama would quickly go away (until it wasn't a "problem" anymore after another massive terrorist attack).
When the first superbug from these farms crosses species, strikes the human population, and kills millions via the food chain in the form of disease or starvation, the problem with moral-free, unabashed capitalism will probably clear itself up pretty quickly - for better or worse.
I don't go to Hahvahd, but I have sometimes had professors count big final projects instead of a big final written exam. Sometimes the class content just isn't amenable to written exams.
That may be true, but should "sometimes" equal 75-80% of the time in undergrad courses (only 259/1137 have final exams)?
It sounds to me like either 1) Hahvahd is more about collecting tuition and stamping them as "Havhavd Approved" with a sheepskin, 2) more and more professors are too busy doing research to justify their existence on the payroll to bother with giving finals, or 3) both.
Janet Napalitano was the one who turned on the 1st statewide speed camera system on state highways. She thought nothing of any privacy issues or anything else, other than the "$90,000,000 in annual revenue the system would generate." (Luckily for us, our current governor Jan Brewer - yes, the one that signed the illegal immigration bill everyone thinks of when you say "Arizona" anymore - is going to allow the camera program to expire...
When Janet the Carpetbagger left us high and dry in AZ for a post in DC she'd been sucking up for during Obama's campaign (and just when a ton of red ink her AZ budgets had ran up hit the fan), many of us Arizonans were really glad that she left town. However, we knew there was a dark side to her taking the DHS Secretary position, and now we're starting to see it. May God help this country if she gets her way on all of her initiatives...
It may just have, if this disaster does what it could economically and environmentally do to the southern US and any other part of the world affected by this...
That whole "slow down at the cameras, then speed up" was going to end in Arizona eventually. How? Through those cameras.
Redflex's contract with DPS had a stipulation for what they called "point to point" tracking. With a real-time database, ANPR (license plate reading tech), and their 2/47 video recording system (with a 6 month archive), they were going to give you a ticket if you got from Camera A to Camera B too quickly.
They have it installed in Show Low, Arizona as a pilot program, and if they'd garnered the political will, they would've turned in on across Arizona.
Nevermind the security implications (a private company knowing when I'm home or not, based on my car's location). They were going to do it ASAP, solely to increase revenue... (BTW - before anyone says something about a cell phone and GPS, that's a VOLUNTARY thing. You have no opt out with a state-run camera system.
They're only a money making scheme because people are too stupid and arrogant to keep to the speed limit.
This is the typical arrogance of a pro-camera individual. Nevermind the corruption of the camera system. Nevermind the speed traps (ask Arizonans about driving on the 51 or through Star Valley - they get 50% of their town's revenue from a 65 to a 45 speed limit camera). Nevermind the safety issues (there ARE accidents at the camera locations - here's proof right where I drive). Nevermind the millions being shipped out of the American economy and to Austrailian stock holders. Nevermind the lies about statistics.
All arguments for the cameras come down to FUD, selfishness, and anger/vengeance.
Typical FUD
"It's scary to drive without the cameras. People are crazy!"
"The most dangerous thing a cop can do is a traffic stop. They get killed doing that some times!"
"You never know who's out there..." (my personal favorite... the press does this one all the time - they tell you to watch out for your neighbor, and then tell your neighbor the same thing...
"Do you want your kids to get killed by a speeder zooming past your school?"
"If people would just slow down, accidents would drop - and you'd be safer."
"Speeders are dangerous!"
"Governments couldn't get away with dishonestly putting up cameras to just make money. Someone would stop them..."
"People that hate the cameras just want to speed - period."
Typical selfishness/arrogance:
"I like it slower on the roads. I go the speed limit in whatever lane I want because I'm GOING THE SPEED LIMIT."
"Why can't everyone else just OBEY THE LAW? I do it..."
"I can drive safer now. Oh - wait - hold on... I need to take this call... (slows down in whatever lane)" (proceeds to send text while driving or take that all important business call)
"I don't speed, so I don't care."
"If people are too stupid to see the "Photo Enforcement Zone" signs, then they deserve a ticket."
"Who cares if people are making big money off of law enforcement. The state needs the money, and if it's a tax on someone else that pays for my kid's education, screw the speeders. Tell them to slow down like I do."
Any my personal favorite - anger/frustration/revenge/self righteous road rage
"That son of a bitch just cut me off... We need cameras every 1/4 mile to catch these guys..."
"I don't care! I just want someone or something to get even with that ahole that cut me off last week!"
"The cameras will make those bastards pay. I'm tired of inconsiderate pricks weaving in and out of traffic, scaring me to death. Put them in jail until they rot! Revoke their licenses!"
"STOP BREAKING THE LAW, ASSHOLE!!!"
Your post falls into the arrogance category. Also, the fact that you've switched to biking has probably elevated your snobbishness about your former fellow motorists that you don't even realize how short-sighted you sound.
BTW - the fact that you've been modded up to "+5 Insightful" shows exactly how many scared, arrogant, and/or angry drivers there are out there that would allow a facet of Big Brother to be installed in their lives without the slightest whimper of opposition.
Open your eyes, people - and start having a little faith in your fellow man again...
...act on a ban... and a little side info for you out of staters...
"Lawmakers considered repeal proposals within months, but set the issue aside and appealed for calmer debate when a passing motorist fatally shot a camera-van operator doing paperwork in his marked vehicle in April 2009.""
This is NOT why the lawmakers didn't move forward with repealing the plan. It was about money and lobbying - period.
Background - I'm from Arizona, and I've been helping collect signatures for camerafraud.com and their petition drive to ban ALL photo enforcement in Arizona. I've been following this issue VERY closely, and I've been in touch with multiple legislators - my rep in person multiple times - and here's the short, short version of the real story behind the state legislature's failure to do anything.
Arizona State Rep. Sam Crump, who adamantly opposes the cameras, authored a House bill to ban the state highway speed cameras. (While other legislative efforts were attempted with amendments to other non-related bills, his was the most prominent and likely to succeed.) It passed out of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee (which Sam sat on) on party lines. (Democrats universally opposed removing them. I'm not 100% sure why Dems were united... One said, "It's scary to drive on the roads." Another from the T&I committee said, "I'm an ER doctor," and went on to describe the "carnage" from accidents. And so on... But in the end, I think all the Democrats did it for political reasons - because the system was Janet Napalitano's brain child (along with Jay Heiler and other Redflex lobbyists pushing her for it), and they don't dare step on her powerful Democrat toes.)
After his bill passed the T&I and Rules committees, it suddenly stopped moving. I asked Sam why, and he assured me that he'd been promised it'd get a whole House floor vote.
At about this time, the driver was shot and killed in the van, and politics did get involved somewhat, but both sides claimed that the shooting supported their views. "The man wouldn't have been shot if he wasn't there in the first place with a speed camera," vs., "You see? Our society is falling apart. We NEED this kind of surveillance to discourage criminal activity," etc.
(Ironically enough, it was human witnesses that followed the shooter after the crime and gave detailed accounts that led to Destories's arrest - NOT all of the 24/7 video being shot by the camera van or any of the other $200,000+ worth of Big Brother-like technology deployed there in the van... Just like the NYC Times Square bomb was thwarted by people just paying attention... but that's another discussion for another time).
Meanwhile, the cameras were taking hundreds of thousands of pictures. Some were in high speed areas, but the more nefarious cameras were located right at 65 to 55 speed limit change locations (on the 51). Many people who didn't mind the cameras and generally drove safely were suddenly getting $181.50 tickets in the mail, and they were FURIOUS. This anger, combined with a New Times article that let the cat out of the bag about how you could just throw the tickets in the garbage, led to a general revolt against the cameras. As of today, only about 30% of all of the "criminals" were actually paid their photo tickets (the majority just threw the non-legally-binding "Notices of Violation" in the garbage, and forced process servers to chase them down - with only limited success. Many people were challenging the tickets in the state courts, which ultimately were being flooded to the point that you couldn't get a court date for several months for any issues.
Back at the capital, the state's budget crisis was growing by the day. Billions in annual shortfalls were becoming a reality, and the cameras WERE making some money from the people who actually just paid up. The top GOP man in the House - Speaker Kirk Adams - saw the political problems brewing. They couldn't cut the camera revenue and "let speeders off the hook" while they were cuttin
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Sorry - It's off-topic, but I can't resist... I'll do some math for you.
59 seconds * 2 trips/day (8 miles both ways for a commute) * 5 days/week * 50 weeks/year (minus 2 weeks vacation) ~= 492 minutes/year ~= 8.2 hours/year of extra time in your car.
Extrapolate that out to the approx. 500,000+ commuters in a typical, large American city every day (and that's low for LA, etc.), and you have approx. 4 MILLION man hours wasted in cars every year, in every large city...
That's a little higher than 59 seconds... if you take the macro view.
However, if you're still ok with your logic, that's fine. I then recommend that you spend one full, 8 hour work day a year - perhaps on a holiday? - doing nothing but sitting in your car and doing nothing but making cell phone calls or listening to the radio. (Of course you could just spend that time wittily preaching to us a little more about "just slowing down" while we drive, but that's up to you...)
While I'm all for protecting the currency from counterfeiters, doesn't there come a point where the 58th measure taken on these bills (vs. just say, 57) is no longer helpful due to human nature/laziness?
How many people here check EVERY $100 they receive for EVERY watermark or other countermeasure on these bills?
I seriously doubt that if I walk into a Home Depot or Wal-Mart with $1000 in cash to buy something that they're going to check EVERY countermeasure. I'll be lucky if they pull out a black pen or do a cursory scan of each bill...
Admittedly, maybe banks check every bill they receive with some high-tech equipment I'm not aware of for every countermeasure automatically, but back at the cash register, haven't we painted the bills enough different colors?
We don't support IE6 anymore, but we also don't forward people or otherwise make them angry. Instead, we just let the site be a little off in IE6 and move on.
We have a standardized theme/template that we use for all of our university sites now, and it was initially built a while ago when we supported IE6 (using its own little ie6.css file to fix the problems). Thanks to that work, the sites generally still "work" due to earlier efforts, but the newer ones aren't always perfectly laid out. (I usually take a look at them in IE6 in a VM for our group to be sure they're "good enough", and that's it.) Like other commenters here have said, the only reason we ever support IE6 now is if a picky client uses it in their office (and that is rare in our University environment thanks to a central IT department that has been pushing people to upgrade for years).
On IE7, however, we can't ignore it. Too many people still use it.. Yes, IE8 is light years ahead of IE7 in standards support (IE8 is what IE7 SHOULD have been), but IE7 is much more manageable in Standards Mode than IE6 ever was, so we tolerate it. Dealing with it is cake when compared to IE6 pain and suffering.
We will drop IE7 support about when the Google Analytics tell us that IE7 usage is between 5-10%.
IE6 - No new work to support it. IE7 - Support it fully.
If companies like Redflex or ATS - photo enforcement companies - get the technology working, and there's a buck to be made, they will GLADLY start tracking cell phone usage with a combination of antennas and automated optical photo scanning.All they'd need is an antenna to detect nearby cell phone signals at a certain threshold - and then start snapping pictures of ALL cars - drivers and their license plates, of course - that go by until the signal drops again. Then you have automated software flag people with their hands up to their ears (or maybe even looking down at a device, if they work hard enough on the software), and then send those positives onto real people to verify the driver's transgression. Two weeks later, BAM - a ticket in your mailbox and a cool chunk in the pocket of the photo company.
With that level of enforcement you'd quickly see a drop in cellphone usage. (Would accidents go down because of them? Possibly - but if they didn't, you'd never hear that side of the story as the politicians (and the companies) grow addicted to their newfound "sin tax" revenue.)
Heck - why stop there with just cellphones and texting? If someone is flagged by their software for NOT LOOKING AHEAD AT THE ROAD a certain percentage of the time, cite them for "reckless driving"... Why not? That's a dangerous behavior - and there's money to be made...
Especially the increased on/off cycles, which is what kills almost all CFLs before their time.
In my "study of one", CFLs also don't work right out of the box about 10-20% of the time. They don't light at all, or they flicker on and off, etc. There is a real quality problem with those bulbs. I much prefer plain, old fashioned incandescent bulbs.
This also doesn't take into effect that some kinds of CFL bulbs are hard on the eyes when lit (some are better than others). I have to go 50/50 to get the same light "warmth" in one bedroom.
Wake me up when LED bulbs are cheap enough to consider.
If a smallish piece of bread can bring this thing to its knees, someone should've built this to be just a little more durable. Heck - space shuttles are as simple and durable as your average backyard rock when compared to this thing. "Don't cough on it. It might break..."
I just went through this talk with my two young children (in early elementary school), and my wife pulled out this book and handed it to me - in the middle of my stumbling, bumbling, "ummm - don't let grown ups touch your balls," speech - and it was perfect. I couldn't have explained it any better to my boys if I'd tried a dozen times...
BTW - IMO, the watches are for the overly paranoid - or the overly controlling - parent that doesn't trust other people enough, including their own children. There's another word P.T. Barnum for these kinds of parents - suckers...
(quick, pedantic spelling edit for parent post - It's Berenstain with an s).
As of this post, there are only 48 comments - pretty low for a front page Slashdot article. Admittedly, this is only Slashdot, but if there was even a slight correlation with the lack of thought about the issue in the general public, that would suggest that apathy abounds on the issue and that little is going to be done about it.
Privacy is less important to people that ever. Many are more concerned with the opposite - their own celebrity and 15 seconds of fame...
Two answers: a) Janet Napalitano, and b) The Voter Protection Act of 1998
On Janet, she has forced through many social programs and expenditures, including all-day kindergarten, state employee pay raises, etc. She did a majority of the damage during the housing run-up, when times appeared to be good, and as soon as she saw a way out, she jumped at it. (Why do you think she spent SO much time working for Obama? She knew what kind of fiscal disaster was coming and that she'd helped architect, and she only had 2 more years due to term limits, so she angled for a federal job as hard as she could...) Thanks for all the fish, Janet...
On the Voter Protection Act, it was the result of legislative meddling after the people of Arizona passed a proposition that legalized a poorly worded marijuana legalization proposition at the ballot. The supporters of the prop were furious, and they put together the VPA, which a) raised the bar for the Legislature to overturn any passed propositions, and b) forced the state government to fund any props that were passed. Fast forward to 2009... Many props have passed over the last 10 years, and they originally are set up to use existing money that has time limits, such as one that funds health care for the poor based on finite tobacco settlement monies, or another more wasteful one that markets Arizona to outsiders. When those monies run out, the state is legally bound to continue funding the passed propositions due to the well-meaning but poorly worded VPA.
A significant percentage of the Arizona budget is set aside for these programs, and can't be touched. When you add that to federally required spending programs that must be funded (or the state loses federal money), the state has to cut to save money from what's left - education, social programs, etc.
When you mix that with politicians who in many cases are hard core tax opponents (the GOP controls the state legislature with an iron fist), and you have a recipe for weird and short-sighted solutions, like this embarrassment of a plan to sell capital buildings...
NOTE: I've been in contact with quite a few of the politicians at the capital, and I know my state representative personally and have spoken with him at length about it, and I've heard their long and logical explanations this is based on... It's the perfect storm of recession, politics, irresponsible overspending, tax avoidance, and the VPA.
Here in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, we have dozens of fixed and mobile speed cameras on our state highways. (There is currently a drive to ban them - go to camerafraud.com to learn more about their drive - but that's another story). A big part of the pro-camera argument coming from the vendors (and the Highway Patrol - called DPS in Arizona) is that the cameras significantly improve traffic flow and make the roads "smoother and more efficient" for drivers, and this study flies in the face of this oft-preached philosophy.
I'm one of those "jerk drivers" this study was talking about, and my anecdotal experience has been that since the cameras were installed and turned on last November, the drivers now will not move over and let other drivers by (this behavior suddenly appeared the week of the installation, so there's strong correlation between the two events.) Whether it is because of speed camera fear, pride, revenge-driven anger at speeders, or gadget-induced ignorance of the drivers around them (cell phones, texting, etc.), they are now clogging ALL lanes at cruise control like speeds. (In many cases I have seen these drivers taking advantage of their "smooth" time by choose to text or call other people or do some other menial (and dangerous) task while being oblivious of the rolling traffic jam that is forming behind them.)
When I can finally get past these drivers and go around them at 15+ over the ridiculously low 55 or 65 MPH speed limits they are rolling along at (keep in mind that these are speed limits on newer, modern, wide, and smooth 10+ lane highways), it breaks these clogs up for various reasons. Sometimes the slow drivers realize that they are a problem and move over. At other times, other drivers are encouraged to speed up and go around the slower drivers. Either way, the traffic cesspool that forms due to one or two "law abiding citizens" that don't move out of the way is broken up - by me, a "jerk" driver.
So, if this study is correct, and speed cameras continue to go up everywhere, and license plates are tracked in order to enforce speeds EVERYWHERE, traffic is going to suffer greatly in Arizona, unless us "jerks" keep it moving more efficiently.
The per unit cost is so high because, unlike past US-built fighters and the upcoming F-35, it is illegal to build an F-22 and sell it to another country, per Congressional mandate. Because there are no other customers available besides the US, and because the US has enough of them (for now), there's no way to take advantage of the economies of scale that could be brought to bear with continued production.
Maybe they should change that 25,000 fine to 30 pieces of silver... That's what a man was paid for turning in another man who taught a religious point of view that the powers that be at the time found to be blasphemous.
Being a Christian, sometimes I'm stunned at the sheer ignorance that some people have of the lessons being taught by their own religion which they claim to be defending...
The Polytechnic campus of ASU in Mesa, AZ has created jet fuel out of algae. That school has been focusing on many other solar technologies as well, since Arizona annually has an abundance of sunny days.
I'm guessing that you were pissed off at Episode I's tarnishing of the Force as well?
Don't read so much into it. Mr. Incredible's arrogance, and his later humbling, were part of the story arc, and that fallibility helped the superhero be more like Buddy because neither character was perfect.
That point you made is part of what made it such a great story. It touched a nerve for everyone, albeit in different ways.
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To make this work, wouldn't people have to be on a system where they'd lose their anonymity online? How else could they guarantee who's on a "do not track me" list without knowing who you were when you were online?
...Napalitano. When she was the governor of our state, she had zero qualms about putting up the state's first statewide photo enforcement system to catch speeders anywhere they put a van or a fixed camera. SHE was the driving force behind it (along with lobbyists at the state capital, of course), and she sold it as a "revenue stream" and a "necessary safety measure that saves lives."
Well guess what happened when Jan Brewer ordered that the state's contract wouldn't be renewed... NOTHING! No carnage, no increased loss of life, nothing. It was all a lie for money and false security.(If you think Jan Brewer is a racist nutjob that is all about SB1070 and that's why she got elected, that's not the case, as you can see here.)
When Janet N. left Phoenix to go to DC as DHS secretary, I was immediately ecstatic - knowing that MAYBE the cameras could go away (which they eventually did, thank goodness), but I quickly after wondered if we'd dumped our state's problem on the entire country. It turned out that I was right. The woman could give a rat's butt about privacy, and as long as she's in power in DC, we'll be facing down the barrel of a surveillance nation all in the name of security (and revenue for lobbyists who provide it)... "If it keeps people in line, do it," is what her actions seem to speak... (which is odd, coming from such a "progressive" government.)
If Obama got rid of Janet Napalitano, this problem for Obama would quickly go away (until it wasn't a "problem" anymore after another massive terrorist attack).
When the first superbug from these farms crosses species, strikes the human population, and kills millions via the food chain in the form of disease or starvation, the problem with moral-free, unabashed capitalism will probably clear itself up pretty quickly - for better or worse.
I don't go to Hahvahd, but I have sometimes had professors count big final projects instead of a big final written exam. Sometimes the class content just isn't amenable to written exams.
That may be true, but should "sometimes" equal 75-80% of the time in undergrad courses (only 259/1137 have final exams)?
It sounds to me like either 1) Hahvahd is more about collecting tuition and stamping them as "Havhavd Approved" with a sheepskin, 2) more and more professors are too busy doing research to justify their existence on the payroll to bother with giving finals, or 3) both.
Arizona - Obvious choice for solar.
Colorado - Ok.. I guess they get a lot of sun too.
Indiana - Huh?
Why not New Mexico? SoCal? Nevada? Is it politics? Distribution/distance (Indiana's proximity to the east coast)?
Janet Napalitano was the one who turned on the 1st statewide speed camera system on state highways. She thought nothing of any privacy issues or anything else, other than the "$90,000,000 in annual revenue the system would generate." (Luckily for us, our current governor Jan Brewer - yes, the one that signed the illegal immigration bill everyone thinks of when you say "Arizona" anymore - is going to allow the camera program to expire...
When Janet the Carpetbagger left us high and dry in AZ for a post in DC she'd been sucking up for during Obama's campaign (and just when a ton of red ink her AZ budgets had ran up hit the fan), many of us Arizonans were really glad that she left town. However, we knew there was a dark side to her taking the DHS Secretary position, and now we're starting to see it. May God help this country if she gets her way on all of her initiatives...
"or until cheap oil runs out."
It may just have, if this disaster does what it could economically and environmentally do to the southern US and any other part of the world affected by this...
I haven't read a more eloquent version of, "Think of the CHILDREN!!", in a long time...
That whole "slow down at the cameras, then speed up" was going to end in Arizona eventually. How? Through those cameras.
Redflex's contract with DPS had a stipulation for what they called "point to point" tracking. With a real-time database, ANPR (license plate reading tech), and their 2/47 video recording system (with a 6 month archive), they were going to give you a ticket if you got from Camera A to Camera B too quickly.
They have it installed in Show Low, Arizona as a pilot program, and if they'd garnered the political will, they would've turned in on across Arizona.
Nevermind the security implications (a private company knowing when I'm home or not, based on my car's location). They were going to do it ASAP, solely to increase revenue... (BTW - before anyone says something about a cell phone and GPS, that's a VOLUNTARY thing. You have no opt out with a state-run camera system.
They're only a money making scheme because people are too stupid and arrogant to keep to the speed limit.
This is the typical arrogance of a pro-camera individual. Nevermind the corruption of the camera system. Nevermind the speed traps (ask Arizonans about driving on the 51 or through Star Valley - they get 50% of their town's revenue from a 65 to a 45 speed limit camera). Nevermind the safety issues (there ARE accidents at the camera locations - here's proof right where I drive). Nevermind the millions being shipped out of the American economy and to Austrailian stock holders. Nevermind the lies about statistics.
All arguments for the cameras come down to FUD, selfishness, and anger/vengeance.
Typical FUD
Typical selfishness/arrogance:
Any my personal favorite - anger/frustration/revenge/self righteous road rage
Your post falls into the arrogance category. Also, the fact that you've switched to biking has probably elevated your snobbishness about your former fellow motorists that you don't even realize how short-sighted you sound.
BTW - the fact that you've been modded up to "+5 Insightful" shows exactly how many scared, arrogant, and/or angry drivers there are out there that would allow a facet of Big Brother to be installed in their lives without the slightest whimper of opposition.
Open your eyes, people - and start having a little faith in your fellow man again...
...act on a ban... and a little side info for you out of staters...
"Lawmakers considered repeal proposals within months, but set the issue aside and appealed for calmer debate when a passing motorist fatally shot a camera-van operator doing paperwork in his marked vehicle in April 2009.""
This is NOT why the lawmakers didn't move forward with repealing the plan. It was about money and lobbying - period.
Background - I'm from Arizona, and I've been helping collect signatures for camerafraud.com and their petition drive to ban ALL photo enforcement in Arizona. I've been following this issue VERY closely, and I've been in touch with multiple legislators - my rep in person multiple times - and here's the short, short version of the real story behind the state legislature's failure to do anything.
Arizona State Rep. Sam Crump, who adamantly opposes the cameras, authored a House bill to ban the state highway speed cameras. (While other legislative efforts were attempted with amendments to other non-related bills, his was the most prominent and likely to succeed.) It passed out of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee (which Sam sat on) on party lines. (Democrats universally opposed removing them. I'm not 100% sure why Dems were united... One said, "It's scary to drive on the roads." Another from the T&I committee said, "I'm an ER doctor," and went on to describe the "carnage" from accidents. And so on... But in the end, I think all the Democrats did it for political reasons - because the system was Janet Napalitano's brain child (along with Jay Heiler and other Redflex lobbyists pushing her for it), and they don't dare step on her powerful Democrat toes.)
After his bill passed the T&I and Rules committees, it suddenly stopped moving. I asked Sam why, and he assured me that he'd been promised it'd get a whole House floor vote.
At about this time, the driver was shot and killed in the van, and politics did get involved somewhat, but both sides claimed that the shooting supported their views. "The man wouldn't have been shot if he wasn't there in the first place with a speed camera," vs., "You see? Our society is falling apart. We NEED this kind of surveillance to discourage criminal activity," etc.
(Ironically enough, it was human witnesses that followed the shooter after the crime and gave detailed accounts that led to Destories's arrest - NOT all of the 24/7 video being shot by the camera van or any of the other $200,000+ worth of Big Brother-like technology deployed there in the van... Just like the NYC Times Square bomb was thwarted by people just paying attention... but that's another discussion for another time).
Meanwhile, the cameras were taking hundreds of thousands of pictures. Some were in high speed areas, but the more nefarious cameras were located right at 65 to 55 speed limit change locations (on the 51). Many people who didn't mind the cameras and generally drove safely were suddenly getting $181.50 tickets in the mail, and they were FURIOUS. This anger, combined with a New Times article that let the cat out of the bag about how you could just throw the tickets in the garbage, led to a general revolt against the cameras. As of today, only about 30% of all of the "criminals" were actually paid their photo tickets (the majority just threw the non-legally-binding "Notices of Violation" in the garbage, and forced process servers to chase them down - with only limited success. Many people were challenging the tickets in the state courts, which ultimately were being flooded to the point that you couldn't get a court date for several months for any issues.
Back at the capital, the state's budget crisis was growing by the day. Billions in annual shortfalls were becoming a reality, and the cameras WERE making some money from the people who actually just paid up. The top GOP man in the House - Speaker Kirk Adams - saw the political problems brewing. They couldn't cut the camera revenue and "let speeders off the hook" while they were cuttin
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Sorry - It's off-topic, but I can't resist... I'll do some math for you.
59 seconds * 2 trips/day (8 miles both ways for a commute) * 5 days/week * 50 weeks/year (minus 2 weeks vacation) ~= 492 minutes/year ~= 8.2 hours/year of extra time in your car.
Extrapolate that out to the approx. 500,000+ commuters in a typical, large American city every day (and that's low for LA, etc.), and you have approx. 4 MILLION man hours wasted in cars every year, in every large city...
That's a little higher than 59 seconds... if you take the macro view.
However, if you're still ok with your logic, that's fine. I then recommend that you spend one full, 8 hour work day a year - perhaps on a holiday? - doing nothing but sitting in your car and doing nothing but making cell phone calls or listening to the radio. (Of course you could just spend that time wittily preaching to us a little more about "just slowing down" while we drive, but that's up to you...)
While I'm all for protecting the currency from counterfeiters, doesn't there come a point where the 58th measure taken on these bills (vs. just say, 57) is no longer helpful due to human nature/laziness?
How many people here check EVERY $100 they receive for EVERY watermark or other countermeasure on these bills?
I seriously doubt that if I walk into a Home Depot or Wal-Mart with $1000 in cash to buy something that they're going to check EVERY countermeasure. I'll be lucky if they pull out a black pen or do a cursory scan of each bill...
Admittedly, maybe banks check every bill they receive with some high-tech equipment I'm not aware of for every countermeasure automatically, but back at the cash register, haven't we painted the bills enough different colors?
We don't support IE6 anymore, but we also don't forward people or otherwise make them angry. Instead, we just let the site be a little off in IE6 and move on.
We have a standardized theme/template that we use for all of our university sites now, and it was initially built a while ago when we supported IE6 (using its own little ie6.css file to fix the problems). Thanks to that work, the sites generally still "work" due to earlier efforts, but the newer ones aren't always perfectly laid out. (I usually take a look at them in IE6 in a VM for our group to be sure they're "good enough", and that's it.) Like other commenters here have said, the only reason we ever support IE6 now is if a picky client uses it in their office (and that is rare in our University environment thanks to a central IT department that has been pushing people to upgrade for years).
On IE7, however, we can't ignore it. Too many people still use it.. Yes, IE8 is light years ahead of IE7 in standards support (IE8 is what IE7 SHOULD have been), but IE7 is much more manageable in Standards Mode than IE6 ever was, so we tolerate it. Dealing with it is cake when compared to IE6 pain and suffering.
We will drop IE7 support about when the Google Analytics tell us that IE7 usage is between 5-10%.
IE6 - No new work to support it. IE7 - Support it fully.
The key is actual enforcement.
If companies like Redflex or ATS - photo enforcement companies - get the technology working, and there's a buck to be made, they will GLADLY start tracking cell phone usage with a combination of antennas and automated optical photo scanning.All they'd need is an antenna to detect nearby cell phone signals at a certain threshold - and then start snapping pictures of ALL cars - drivers and their license plates, of course - that go by until the signal drops again. Then you have automated software flag people with their hands up to their ears (or maybe even looking down at a device, if they work hard enough on the software), and then send those positives onto real people to verify the driver's transgression. Two weeks later, BAM - a ticket in your mailbox and a cool chunk in the pocket of the photo company.
With that level of enforcement you'd quickly see a drop in cellphone usage. (Would accidents go down because of them? Possibly - but if they didn't, you'd never hear that side of the story as the politicians (and the companies) grow addicted to their newfound "sin tax" revenue.)
Heck - why stop there with just cellphones and texting? If someone is flagged by their software for NOT LOOKING AHEAD AT THE ROAD a certain percentage of the time, cite them for "reckless driving"... Why not? That's a dangerous behavior - and there's money to be made...
Especially the increased on/off cycles, which is what kills almost all CFLs before their time.
In my "study of one", CFLs also don't work right out of the box about 10-20% of the time. They don't light at all, or they flicker on and off, etc. There is a real quality problem with those bulbs. I much prefer plain, old fashioned incandescent bulbs.
This also doesn't take into effect that some kinds of CFL bulbs are hard on the eyes when lit (some are better than others). I have to go 50/50 to get the same light "warmth" in one bedroom.
Wake me up when LED bulbs are cheap enough to consider.
If a smallish piece of bread can bring this thing to its knees, someone should've built this to be just a little more durable. Heck - space shuttles are as simple and durable as your average backyard rock when compared to this thing. "Don't cough on it. It might break..."
Mod parent up!
I just went through this talk with my two young children (in early elementary school), and my wife pulled out this book and handed it to me - in the middle of my stumbling, bumbling, "ummm - don't let grown ups touch your balls," speech - and it was perfect. I couldn't have explained it any better to my boys if I'd tried a dozen times...
BTW - IMO, the watches are for the overly paranoid - or the overly controlling - parent that doesn't trust other people enough, including their own children. There's another word P.T. Barnum for these kinds of parents - suckers...
(quick, pedantic spelling edit for parent post - It's Berenstain with an s).
As of this post, there are only 48 comments - pretty low for a front page Slashdot article. Admittedly, this is only Slashdot, but if there was even a slight correlation with the lack of thought about the issue in the general public, that would suggest that apathy abounds on the issue and that little is going to be done about it.
Privacy is less important to people that ever. Many are more concerned with the opposite - their own celebrity and 15 seconds of fame...
Where the hell is the money going?
Two answers: a) Janet Napalitano, and b) The Voter Protection Act of 1998
On Janet, she has forced through many social programs and expenditures, including all-day kindergarten, state employee pay raises, etc. She did a majority of the damage during the housing run-up, when times appeared to be good, and as soon as she saw a way out, she jumped at it. (Why do you think she spent SO much time working for Obama? She knew what kind of fiscal disaster was coming and that she'd helped architect, and she only had 2 more years due to term limits, so she angled for a federal job as hard as she could...) Thanks for all the fish, Janet...
On the Voter Protection Act, it was the result of legislative meddling after the people of Arizona passed a proposition that legalized a poorly worded marijuana legalization proposition at the ballot. The supporters of the prop were furious, and they put together the VPA, which a) raised the bar for the Legislature to overturn any passed propositions, and b) forced the state government to fund any props that were passed. Fast forward to 2009... Many props have passed over the last 10 years, and they originally are set up to use existing money that has time limits, such as one that funds health care for the poor based on finite tobacco settlement monies, or another more wasteful one that markets Arizona to outsiders. When those monies run out, the state is legally bound to continue funding the passed propositions due to the well-meaning but poorly worded VPA.
A significant percentage of the Arizona budget is set aside for these programs, and can't be touched. When you add that to federally required spending programs that must be funded (or the state loses federal money), the state has to cut to save money from what's left - education, social programs, etc.
When you mix that with politicians who in many cases are hard core tax opponents (the GOP controls the state legislature with an iron fist), and you have a recipe for weird and short-sighted solutions, like this embarrassment of a plan to sell capital buildings...
NOTE: I've been in contact with quite a few of the politicians at the capital, and I know my state representative personally and have spoken with him at length about it, and I've heard their long and logical explanations this is based on... It's the perfect storm of recession, politics, irresponsible overspending, tax avoidance, and the VPA.
Here in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, we have dozens of fixed and mobile speed cameras on our state highways. (There is currently a drive to ban them - go to camerafraud.com to learn more about their drive - but that's another story). A big part of the pro-camera argument coming from the vendors (and the Highway Patrol - called DPS in Arizona) is that the cameras significantly improve traffic flow and make the roads "smoother and more efficient" for drivers, and this study flies in the face of this oft-preached philosophy.
I'm one of those "jerk drivers" this study was talking about, and my anecdotal experience has been that since the cameras were installed and turned on last November, the drivers now will not move over and let other drivers by (this behavior suddenly appeared the week of the installation, so there's strong correlation between the two events.) Whether it is because of speed camera fear, pride, revenge-driven anger at speeders, or gadget-induced ignorance of the drivers around them (cell phones, texting, etc.), they are now clogging ALL lanes at cruise control like speeds. (In many cases I have seen these drivers taking advantage of their "smooth" time by choose to text or call other people or do some other menial (and dangerous) task while being oblivious of the rolling traffic jam that is forming behind them.)
When I can finally get past these drivers and go around them at 15+ over the ridiculously low 55 or 65 MPH speed limits they are rolling along at (keep in mind that these are speed limits on newer, modern, wide, and smooth 10+ lane highways), it breaks these clogs up for various reasons. Sometimes the slow drivers realize that they are a problem and move over. At other times, other drivers are encouraged to speed up and go around the slower drivers. Either way, the traffic cesspool that forms due to one or two "law abiding citizens" that don't move out of the way is broken up - by me, a "jerk" driver.
So, if this study is correct, and speed cameras continue to go up everywhere, and license plates are tracked in order to enforce speeds EVERYWHERE, traffic is going to suffer greatly in Arizona, unless us "jerks" keep it moving more efficiently.
The per unit cost is so high because, unlike past US-built fighters and the upcoming F-35, it is illegal to build an F-22 and sell it to another country, per Congressional mandate. Because there are no other customers available besides the US, and because the US has enough of them (for now), there's no way to take advantage of the economies of scale that could be brought to bear with continued production.
Maybe they should change that 25,000 fine to 30 pieces of silver... That's what a man was paid for turning in another man who taught a religious point of view that the powers that be at the time found to be blasphemous.
Being a Christian, sometimes I'm stunned at the sheer ignorance that some people have of the lessons being taught by their own religion which they claim to be defending...
The Polytechnic campus of ASU in Mesa, AZ has created jet fuel out of algae. That school has been focusing on many other solar technologies as well, since Arizona annually has an abundance of sunny days.
I'm guessing that you were pissed off at Episode I's tarnishing of the Force as well?
Don't read so much into it. Mr. Incredible's arrogance, and his later humbling, were part of the story arc, and that fallibility helped the superhero be more like Buddy because neither character was perfect.
That point you made is part of what made it such a great story. It touched a nerve for everyone, albeit in different ways.