Bought my first computer (used, for $200) in the early '90s: an Epson Equity II+ (8088/640K/20Mbytes). Prior to this, the only computer I'd ever used was my Uncle's Amiga.
So I swung by Radio Shack to get some 5 1/4" floppies, brought the thing home and start playing around with DOS 4.x which was installed on it. Wasn't long before I had formatted the hard drive and wiped out everything on it.
Being a total n00b, I innocently walked into Radio Shack again holding three floppies in my hand. I explained what had happened, and asked the clerk if he wouldn't mind making a copy of DOS for me. He stood slack jawed for a few seconds, looked at the other clerk who just chuckled, then took pity on my sorry ass and bootlegged me a copy of DOS 5.0, which had just come out that week.
... you know: the people who slow down not because they have to, but specifically to let someone in from an adjacent lane, or driveway, or side street, whatever. They think they are being a courtious driver, sharing the road, etc.
They are oblivious to the fact that for the one vehicle they let in, they are causing at least one other car behind them to have to slow down and potentially miss the next traffic signal. Or worse, the person they let in does something to aggrivate the situation further:
drive too slow
deciding that they really want to be in the left lane so they hold up the first lane while they force their way into the next lane, causing that lane to have to slow down and so on
how many times has someone in front of you let a person in from say a gas station only to have that person make an immediate right turn and you all wind up waiting for the pedestrians?
In each one of these cases, if the good samaritan had simply followed the rules of the road and maintained their right of way it would have been better for all. The few seconds of time saved by the benefactor is a fraction of the compounded delays of the people behind the samaritan.
What aggrivates me even further, is that driving schools preach that this kind of behavior is good and will help reduce the number of accidents. BULLSHIT. The rules of the road were designed to prevent accidents by increasing the predictability of events that occur on the road.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when you are compelled to give up your right of way or even blatantly break the rules in order to maintain your safety and that of others. Unfortunately, people have been taught by authority figures (driving schools, often as a condition of getting a ticket dismissed) that this should be a matter of practice. This is reinforced by the fact that if you sound your horn (as a safty warning of course:) at someone who suddenly decides to follow this advice, you are considered an asshole.
Unless it is to mitigate an unsafe situation, follow the rules of the road people!
... you know: the people who slow down not because they have to, but specifically to let someone in from an adjacent lane, or driveway, or side street, whatever. They think they are being a courtious driver, sharing the road, etc.
They are oblivious to the fact that for the one vehicle they let in, they are causing at least one other car behind them to have to slow down and potentially miss the next traffic signal. Or worse, the person they let in does something to aggrivate the situation further:
drive too slow
deciding that they really want to be in the left lane so they hold up the first lane while they force their way into the next lane, causing that lane to have to slow down and so on
how many times has someone in front of you let a person in from say a gas station only to have that person make an immediate right turn and you all wind up waiting for the pedestrians?
In each one of these cases, if the good samaritan had simply followed the rules of the road and maintained their right of way it would have been better for all. The few seconds of time saved by the benefactor is a fraction of the compounded delays of the people behind the samaritan.
What aggrivates me even further, is that driving schools preach that this kind of behavior is good and will help reduce the number of accidents. BULLSHIT. The rules of the road were designed to prevent accidents by increasing the predictability of events that occur on the road.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when you are compelled to give up your right of way or even blatantly break the rules in order to maintain your safety and that of others. Unfortunately, people have been taught by authority figures (driving schools, often as a condition of getting a ticket dismissed) that this should be a matter of practice. This is reinforced by the fact that if you sound your horn (as a safty warning of course:) at someone who suddenly decides to follow this advice, you are considered an asshole.
Unless it is to mitigate an unsafe situation, follow the rules of the road people!
if you're recognized and respected (not liked, just respected) then people will look out for you.
That's very true... I moved into an area in Brooklyn right about the time when La Familia was turf warring with a couple other gangs, and you better believe that they would cut your belly open in a blink of the eye if they felt threatened.
Me: White, long hair, skinny.
Them: Puerto Rican, pissed at "The Man", carrying weapons.
I got lots of stink eye from them (as well as other gang's members) for the first couple of months, but it was my behavior that saved my ass. Kept my head high, returned eye contact (but no staring!) and even though I was shitting my pants at times, I never let it show.
Sooner or later, I was judged to be "safe". Once that happened, I just sort of blended into the 'hood, where still to this day exists an unspoken "cold war" mentality: If I recognize you, then you probably recognize me, so in the absence of any real issue, I'm not going to fuck with you cuz you know where to find me.
"wonder how long before Starbucks and HP get John Doe lawsuits in the mail."
That sounds a tad alarmist, and appears to assume that online music distribution is automaticaly out to screw the "Industry".
In general, you can distribute copyrighted music in any common format such as the internet. All that's required is that you pay royalties to ASCAP/BMI/et. al.
Look at the second video on this page, Spin, by Brian Springer. This video is about an hour long and is all about how news is canned and commoditized. It features raw feeds captured by the filmmaker from his satellite dish. Some very interesting and sometimes funny moments of Bush Sr., Larry King and Pat Robertson, and others, caught on camera when they thought the cameras were off.
Wouldn't you just love your box to testify in your behalf you were driving responsibly, and what happened was unavoidable for you, given the circumstances?
Absolutely! But I'd rather err on the side of people, not machines. Besides, the box's testimony for me is just as subject to fallability as it's testimony against me.
Tire marks. The amount of energy required to cause so much metal deformation. Distances airborne. Inertial effects. Witnesses. And I am sure there are many I did not think of.
This is true, however that evidence is subject to variables, hence the concusions that are drawn from it is subject to interpretation and fair rebuttal.
One of the problems with black boxes is that they are used as an absolute, infallable authority, even though they are subject to variables just as much as tire marks or the other conditions that you mention. Sensors malfunction. Some people like to modify their vehicles - perfect example - putting custom tires on your car can make your speedometer inaccurate (and thus the black box reading).
How about just disconnecting the leads that provide the data you don't want to record? Surely there must be some that isn't critical. There's no critical reason why current speed should be recorded. No reason for recording brake pedal pressure or steering wheel position.
I had a perfectly clean email address for over two years. Only gave it to people I trusted. Then one day, my wife gave it to someone that she trusted so they could arrange an event.
Well, the person who was arranging the event with my wife's friend thought it would be a great idea to use evite.com, and that was the end of my nice clean account.
Harvesting email addresses is fair game when you are requesting them from the owner. Caveat emptor, etc. However, its outrageous that some businesses like evite.com knowingly harvest them from people they know are NOT the owner of the address. I'm sure they're hiding behind their opt-out policy, but that's total bullshit. They shouldn't be selling addresses unless they are reasonably sure they have permission from the owner. Besides, opt-out doesn't help me once the cat is out of the bag and the people they sold me to are reselling me.
You won't mind if we start tracking where you go and when you go there, will you? Only people with qustionable travel habits will be affected.
Oh, one more thing, you won't mind if we install surveillance cameras throughout your house will you? Don't worry, we'll use them only as authorized. Only people with questionable living habits will be affected.
My phone has an "airplane mode" where it disables the phone only, so you can still use the apps/games. Problem is, explaining that over and over, every freekin' time I get on a plane is getting old.
I've also heard that with the longer line of site possible from the air can cause problems where your call gets picked up by multiple ground stations. This can cause double/triple/etc. billing for a call.
Even better... run (or find an email provider that runs) qmail. Create a.qmail-default file. Then, when you fill out a form somewhere use youremail-identifyingstring@blah.com.
Not only will you be able to track who sold you out, but filtering becomes trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
a@a.aa
... or he'd shoot web from his ass.
Yep... no sysadmin is without his or her rm -rf story. Mine came about because somehow I created a file named *. The rest is obvious...
So I swung by Radio Shack to get some 5 1/4" floppies, brought the thing home and start playing around with DOS 4.x which was installed on it. Wasn't long before I had formatted the hard drive and wiped out everything on it.
Being a total n00b, I innocently walked into Radio Shack again holding three floppies in my hand. I explained what had happened, and asked the clerk if he wouldn't mind making a copy of DOS for me. He stood slack jawed for a few seconds, looked at the other clerk who just chuckled, then took pity on my sorry ass and bootlegged me a copy of DOS 5.0, which had just come out that week.
Wee!
They are oblivious to the fact that for the one vehicle they let in, they are causing at least one other car behind them to have to slow down and potentially miss the next traffic signal. Or worse, the person they let in does something to aggrivate the situation further:
In each one of these cases, if the good samaritan had simply followed the rules of the road and maintained their right of way it would have been better for all. The few seconds of time saved by the benefactor is a fraction of the compounded delays of the people behind the samaritan.
What aggrivates me even further, is that driving schools preach that this kind of behavior is good and will help reduce the number of accidents. BULLSHIT. The rules of the road were designed to prevent accidents by increasing the predictability of events that occur on the road.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when you are compelled to give up your right of way or even blatantly break the rules in order to maintain your safety and that of others. Unfortunately, people have been taught by authority figures (driving schools, often as a condition of getting a ticket dismissed) that this should be a matter of practice. This is reinforced by the fact that if you sound your horn (as a safty warning of course :) at someone who suddenly decides to follow this advice, you are considered an asshole.
Unless it is to mitigate an unsafe situation, follow the rules of the road people!
They are oblivious to the fact that for the one vehicle they let in, they are causing at least one other car behind them to have to slow down and potentially miss the next traffic signal. Or worse, the person they let in does something to aggrivate the situation further:
In each one of these cases, if the good samaritan had simply followed the rules of the road and maintained their right of way it would have been better for all. The few seconds of time saved by the benefactor is a fraction of the compounded delays of the people behind the samaritan.
What aggrivates me even further, is that driving schools preach that this kind of behavior is good and will help reduce the number of accidents. BULLSHIT. The rules of the road were designed to prevent accidents by increasing the predictability of events that occur on the road.
Don't get me wrong, there are times when you are compelled to give up your right of way or even blatantly break the rules in order to maintain your safety and that of others. Unfortunately, people have been taught by authority figures (driving schools, often as a condition of getting a ticket dismissed) that this should be a matter of practice. This is reinforced by the fact that if you sound your horn (as a safty warning of course :) at someone who suddenly decides to follow this advice, you are considered an asshole.
Unless it is to mitigate an unsafe situation, follow the rules of the road people!
http://www.joefrank.com/shows.html
That's very true... I moved into an area in Brooklyn right about the time when La Familia was turf warring with a couple other gangs, and you better believe that they would cut your belly open in a blink of the eye if they felt threatened.
Me: White, long hair, skinny.
Them: Puerto Rican, pissed at "The Man", carrying weapons.
I got lots of stink eye from them (as well as other gang's members) for the first couple of months, but it was my behavior that saved my ass. Kept my head high, returned eye contact (but no staring!) and even though I was shitting my pants at times, I never let it show.
Sooner or later, I was judged to be "safe". Once that happened, I just sort of blended into the 'hood, where still to this day exists an unspoken "cold war" mentality: If I recognize you, then you probably recognize me, so in the absence of any real issue, I'm not going to fuck with you cuz you know where to find me.
Circuit City took a major body blow because no-one would buy a movie that they couldn't lend to their Mom.
I'll give you a P.O. Box that will accept it. Talk to me offline.
That sounds a tad alarmist, and appears to assume that online music distribution is automaticaly out to screw the "Industry".
In general, you can distribute copyrighted music in any common format such as the internet. All that's required is that you pay royalties to ASCAP/BMI/et. al.
I was born in '65 in NYC and lived there for 30 years, and I can't remember one of those pedestrian buttons ever working.
It only took me 20 minutes.
Look at the second video on this page, Spin, by Brian Springer. This video is about an hour long and is all about how news is canned and commoditized. It features raw feeds captured by the filmmaker from his satellite dish. Some very interesting and sometimes funny moments of Bush Sr., Larry King and Pat Robertson, and others, caught on camera when they thought the cameras were off.
Absolutely! But I'd rather err on the side of people, not machines. Besides, the box's testimony for me is just as subject to fallability as it's testimony against me.
Tire marks. The amount of energy required to cause so much metal deformation. Distances airborne. Inertial effects. Witnesses. And I am sure there are many I did not think of.
This is true, however that evidence is subject to variables, hence the concusions that are drawn from it is subject to interpretation and fair rebuttal.
One of the problems with black boxes is that they are used as an absolute, infallable authority, even though they are subject to variables just as much as tire marks or the other conditions that you mention. Sensors malfunction. Some people like to modify their vehicles - perfect example - putting custom tires on your car can make your speedometer inaccurate (and thus the black box reading).
How about just disconnecting the leads that provide the data you don't want to record? Surely there must be some that isn't critical. There's no critical reason why current speed should be recorded. No reason for recording brake pedal pressure or steering wheel position.
Stonehenge! Where the sprits dwell, where the banshees live, and they do live well!
s/beat the living crap out of you/kick your ass/
I had a perfectly clean email address for over two years. Only gave it to people I trusted. Then one day, my wife gave it to someone that she trusted so they could arrange an event.
Well, the person who was arranging the event with my wife's friend thought it would be a great idea to use evite.com, and that was the end of my nice clean account.
Harvesting email addresses is fair game when you are requesting them from the owner. Caveat emptor, etc. However, its outrageous that some businesses like evite.com knowingly harvest them from people they know are NOT the owner of the address. I'm sure they're hiding behind their opt-out policy, but that's total bullshit. They shouldn't be selling addresses unless they are reasonably sure they have permission from the owner. Besides, opt-out doesn't help me once the cat is out of the bag and the people they sold me to are reselling me.
Oh, one more thing, you won't mind if we install surveillance cameras throughout your house will you? Don't worry, we'll use them only as authorized. Only people with questionable living habits will be affected.
Bush I: Four years of war and deficit.
Clinton: Eight years of peace and prosperity.
Bush II: Two years of war and deficit.
My phone has an "airplane mode" where it disables the phone only, so you can still use the apps/games. Problem is, explaining that over and over, every freekin' time I get on a plane is getting old.
I've also heard that with the longer line of site possible from the air can cause problems where your call gets picked up by multiple ground stations. This can cause double/triple/etc. billing for a call.
Not only will you be able to track who sold you out, but filtering becomes trivial.