Can you imagine going to a movie theater and being subjected to an image of the movie company's logo in the corner of the screen for the duration of the show? Why does anyone believe this is acceptable for television?
Because I notice the pseudo-watermark logo for only a second or so, then my brain puts a blind spot there, the same as it does to the black bars when watching a 2.25:1 movie on a 16:9 screen. Do you find the television network's watermark distracting?
You won't even have to pay for parking, because it will drop you off at the entrance and then circle around until you're ready to leave. Or if you work where there's free 1-hour parking, just put your car into "musical chairs" mode. Take that, meter maids!
Does it result in fewer accidents? If drivers are slowing down because they sense that the conditions are less safe, then the absence of lines is just delaying people for no benefit.
Then, 6-8 months later, the same people who said "there is no way I'm paying 10 quid for the privilege of driving in this congested city", begin to rationalize the cost, and start driving again.
So the obvious thing to do is raise the congestion charge.. Brilliant! Now rinse and repeat...
The concept works quite well for parking in San Francisco. There are no wild swings like the kind you describe because they don't raise or lower the price more often than once every 6 weeks, and then they don't raise it by more than 25 cents an hour or lower it by more than 50 cents an hour. Here is the pricing data data. Notice how the prices get more and more stable (the percentages next to the yellow circles) as time goes on.
One way to make the prices more stable more quickly would be to use what engineers call a PID loop.
Oh, they were public works projects... paid for with bonds that the airlines agreed to pay, and are currently paying.
Do airports pay property taxes? No. Do ticket prices cover the full cost of air traffic control? No. Do ticket prices cover the full cost of TSA screening? Also no.
the airlines don't get to pull the eminent domain card.
HSR is a non-starter for most locations, IMHO. The cost is way too high for it to be functional.
If airports were cost-effective, airlines would build them. Airlines don't build airports; therefore, airports are not cost-effective.
If roads were cost-effective, drivers would pay the full cost of them. Drivers pay less than half the cost of the roads. Therefore, roads are not cost-effective.
So what's left? What mode of transportation pays for itself?
The fact that the large majority of drivers are reasonable and prudent is proved by the accident rate of cars on the road and how low it usually it.
Compared to what? Exactly how many crashes would make the crash rate no longer be low, and how would you objectively determine this number? The answer to this question is important in determining whether the rate if crashes is truly "low."
The 85th percentile rule is grounded in science.
From 1964, to be exact, before airbags and crumple zones reduced the need to avoid crashes.
So the rationale behind the 85th percentile rule doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
If you have any further doubts that traffic engineers are raving lunatics, please watch this short video created by a recovering engineer. It's absolute madness.
my grandfather has spinal damage - he can't get into or out of standard modern cars. He HAS to have a van, truck, or SUV that he climbs into, not moving down into.
That makes him a good candidate for a personal mobility device such as a Segway. If only we still built neighborhoods like the one he grew up in, where you didn't have to drive to the grocery store just to buy a gallon of milk, then a Segway would make more sense.
the poor tend to do more things that are stupid and land them in court in the first place.
Have you ever noticed how it's difficult to think about something when you're worried about something else?
The poor have more things to worry about than the rich, so asking them to make wise decisions when they don't know where their next meal is coming from is like that old saying, "the beatings will continue until morale improves!"
So rather than blaming them for making unwise decisions, it would be more helpful to lighten their cognitive burden in order to give them a better chance to make wise decisions.
Why shouldn't roads, especially limited access roads, pay for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half [uspirg.org]?
Because then poorer people wouldn't be able to use them - i.e. to get to work.
And with all those road and trucking subsidies, is it really too hard to understand why it's so difficult for trains to turn a profit?
Meanwhile, is it possible that we've committed ourselves to maintaining more than the economically optimal amount of infrastructure, that people intuitively realize this and that's why we aren't willing to raise taxes to keep our roads and bridges from crumbling? Or to look at it another way, what would "too many roads and bridges" look like? The answer to this question is important in determining whether we're already past that point.
Perhaps if truckers were required to pay their fair share, they might reduce their axle loading a little in order to avoid damaging the pavement, saving taxpayers money. And if the roads were required to pay for themselves, grocery stores might again locate themselves near railroad spurs, as they did before the Interstate Highway System came along, saving themselves and their customers money. More freight would be transported by rail which is three times as fuel-efficient as trucks, reducing our carbon emissions. But none of this magic will happen as long as we cling to the belief that roads need not pay for themselves.
I think the robot can only solve the first cube faster than a human, otherwise you could dump 50 cubes into a hopper and the machine would finish solving the last one about 60 seconds later. Now that would be impressive!
So change the rules to require the participant to solve, let's say 3 cubes.
In school, we teach kids how to protect themselves against drugs and stranger danger. We also teach them to look both ways before crossing the street; to stop, drop, and roll if they find themselves on fire; and to crawl under the desk in case of earthquake or nuclear detonation. Why not also teach them how to protect themselves against radical organizations? Then we would be protecting them with knowledge instead of ignorance.
And no modifications to the robots between matches, only repairs. Unlike what we saw in the most recent season of BattleBots, the same configuration must be used in every match, otherwise it isn't the same robot.
Nuclear is the only power source that can handle a huge load constantly without interruption... if you want to stop releasing CO2 into the atmosphere without messing up our lifestyles, it's the only way with current technology.
Unfortunately, electrical demand is not constant, and nuclear can not ramp up and down in response to hourly fluctuations in demand. To fix that, you need grid storage, or natural gas peaker plants, or demand-response smart meters. Coincidentally, these are the same fixes for the intermittent supply problems with wind and solar.
Nuclear power, today, is more expensive than wind and in some places, more expensive than solar.
While this is true for the actual generation of the power it does not take into account the additional costs connected with these technologies.
Storage; These technologies are not dispatchable. One can not turn up the wind or sun when needed.
Nor can one turn up the nuclear reactor when needed.
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Because I notice the pseudo-watermark logo for only a second or so, then my brain puts a blind spot there, the same as it does to the black bars when watching a 2.25:1 movie on a 16:9 screen. Do you find the television network's watermark distracting?
Will driverless cars come with common sense, or will that be an upgrade?
You won't even have to pay for parking, because it will drop you off at the entrance and then circle around until you're ready to leave. Or if you work where there's free 1-hour parking, just put your car into "musical chairs" mode. Take that, meter maids!
Except of course for the benefit of increasing the survivability of collisions.
That's a trick question. The answer is nobody, because "accident" implies there's nobody to blame.
The concept works quite well for parking in San Francisco. There are no wild swings like the kind you describe because they don't raise or lower the price more often than once every 6 weeks, and then they don't raise it by more than 25 cents an hour or lower it by more than 50 cents an hour. Here is the pricing data data. Notice how the prices get more and more stable (the percentages next to the yellow circles) as time goes on.
One way to make the prices more stable more quickly would be to use what engineers call a PID loop.
Do airports pay property taxes? No. Do ticket prices cover the full cost of air traffic control? No. Do ticket prices cover the full cost of TSA screening? Also no.
Unfortunately, that is also false.
If airports were cost-effective, airlines would build them. Airlines don't build airports; therefore, airports are not cost-effective.
If roads were cost-effective, drivers would pay the full cost of them. Drivers pay less than half the cost of the roads. Therefore, roads are not cost-effective.
So what's left? What mode of transportation pays for itself?
Compared to what? Exactly how many crashes would make the crash rate no longer be low, and how would you objectively determine this number? The answer to this question is important in determining whether the rate if crashes is truly "low."
From 1964, to be exact, before airbags and crumple zones reduced the need to avoid crashes.
Then don't drive AT the speed limit.
The business owners at the mall appreciate you for quickly making a parking space available for another paying customer.
According to the first link:
Unfortunately, 80% of participants in one study rated themselves as above-average drivers. This disproves the above theory that "the large majority of drivers are reasonable and prudent."
So the rationale behind the 85th percentile rule doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
If you have any further doubts that traffic engineers are raving lunatics, please watch this short video created by a recovering engineer. It's absolute madness.
That makes him a good candidate for a personal mobility device such as a Segway. If only we still built neighborhoods like the one he grew up in, where you didn't have to drive to the grocery store just to buy a gallon of milk, then a Segway would make more sense.
That's not surprising when welfare is more or less dependent on the recipient not having a job.
Except, as explained above, when you're worried about where your next meal is coming from.
I drive with a dash cam. It records video of hundreds of innocent cars every day. Is this morally wrong?
Have you ever noticed how it's difficult to think about something when you're worried about something else?
The poor have more things to worry about than the rich, so asking them to make wise decisions when they don't know where their next meal is coming from is like that old saying, "the beatings will continue until morale improves!"
So rather than blaming them for making unwise decisions, it would be more helpful to lighten their cognitive burden in order to give them a better chance to make wise decisions.
Don't the poor take the bus?
Except it isn't really 1.3 times the price, because you will have that extra capacity sitting idle for years when you instead could have invested that 0.3 times the price into the stock market and earned around 7-8% annually. So 100 years later when the population triples and you finally actually "need" 3 times the capacity, you will have spent something like 15 times as much for only 3 times the capacity.
Why shouldn't roads, especially limited access roads, pay for themselves 100% from gas taxes and other user fees instead of less than half? And why should truckers continue to be heavily subsidized for the massive damage they cause to our roads?
And with all those road and trucking subsidies, is it really too hard to understand why it's so difficult for trains to turn a profit?
Meanwhile, is it possible that we've committed ourselves to maintaining more than the economically optimal amount of infrastructure, that people intuitively realize this and that's why we aren't willing to raise taxes to keep our roads and bridges from crumbling? Or to look at it another way, what would "too many roads and bridges" look like? The answer to this question is important in determining whether we're already past that point.
Perhaps if truckers were required to pay their fair share, they might reduce their axle loading a little in order to avoid damaging the pavement, saving taxpayers money. And if the roads were required to pay for themselves, grocery stores might again locate themselves near railroad spurs, as they did before the Interstate Highway System came along, saving themselves and their customers money. More freight would be transported by rail which is three times as fuel-efficient as trucks, reducing our carbon emissions. But none of this magic will happen as long as we cling to the belief that roads need not pay for themselves.
I think the robot can only solve the first cube faster than a human, otherwise you could dump 50 cubes into a hopper and the machine would finish solving the last one about 60 seconds later. Now that would be impressive!
So change the rules to require the participant to solve, let's say 3 cubes.
Nice straw man fallacy!
In school, we teach kids how to protect themselves against drugs and stranger danger. We also teach them to look both ways before crossing the street; to stop, drop, and roll if they find themselves on fire; and to crawl under the desk in case of earthquake or nuclear detonation. Why not also teach them how to protect themselves against radical organizations? Then we would be protecting them with knowledge instead of ignorance.
And no modifications to the robots between matches, only repairs. Unlike what we saw in the most recent season of BattleBots, the same configuration must be used in every match, otherwise it isn't the same robot.
Unfortunately, electrical demand is not constant, and nuclear can not ramp up and down in response to hourly fluctuations in demand. To fix that, you need grid storage, or natural gas peaker plants, or demand-response smart meters. Coincidentally, these are the same fixes for the intermittent supply problems with wind and solar.
Nor can one turn up the nuclear reactor when needed.