There are five in our town (part of a "trial period" that's lasted over ten years) and exactly zero are within six blocks of a school. They tend to be in busy intersections, and when I've seen them go off it's almost always because someone has followed a car into the intersection in heavy traffic and gotten trapped there when the light went red. Still a technical violation of the law (you're not supposed to enter an intersection until there is room on the other side to pass completely through) but arguably not much of a safety issue. With slow, heavy traffic in all directions, there isn't room to get up enough speed to cause significant injury.
I didn't see that episode. Did they try the slave flash idea? You put a high output flash pointing at where the camera(s) would be when you go through the intersection, with a slave sensor. The moment the traffic cam flashes, the slave goes off, significantly overexposing the image.
That's a pretty cold assessment I think, if you've just been paid for the first time in 3 years, it probably feels good to buy yourself something nice so at least it feels like you're working for something. It would be pretty depressing to live just as poorly as before because you gave every penny away to pay off old debts. Still don't let that get in the way of your being judgemental.
I'll take cold. There is a time for cold.
It's called being practical. I trust you've heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? When you're struggling with level 2 (Security of body, employment, health, property) it's not the time to blow resources on expensive trinkets that make you feel better. A practical adult realizes he doesn't get to *feel* better until he *is* better.
Doesn't stop people from doing it, though. In fact, with Apple trinkets, it appears quite common to buy the latest incremental upgrade before considering how you're going to make that overdue mortgage payment. (Yay for Apple, I guess.) And that truly is an illness. It's the difference between "I can't afford that" (meaning I don't get paid until Thursday) and "I can't justify the cost" (meaning I need that money for survival, not self-esteem). The latter comes with maturity. And maturity doesn't necessarily come with mere age.
The time for purchases to make you feel good is after you've figured out how you're going to get to work tomorrow with your car smoking on the side of the road. When you need a fan belt and a radiator hose, a new pair of shoes may give you some brief pleasure, but your car still won't move.
But don't let that get in the way of the new shinys at the apple store.
But, the guy in question says, you have nice things. Yes, I have a few nice things. But all my vehicles are paid off, my mortgage is paid ahead, and my bills are up to date. I *budget* for toys, I don't buy them *first*. And I can't even count the shiny things I've turned down, not because I don't have the money, but because I couldn't justify the cost. This appears to be a lost art.
Um, no, there are problems, perhaps insurmountable, but navigation isn't one of them, and the vastness of the universe also isn't one of them, depending on one's goals.
Yes, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Got it.
But we're not talking about sending a colony to Messier 82, or even the large megellanic cloud. Wiki shows 12 stars within 10 light years of Earth. 10 light years is still a mind boggling distance, but it's a whole bunch of orders of magnitude less than the current width of the universe.
It's always possible to set a goal so high that it could never be attained. I don't think that was the intention.
As to navigation, there is probably some distortion of constellations in 4 to 10 light years, but not so much that they, or the location of known pulsars, couldn't still be used for navigation. Launching a spacecraft is not like "from the earth to the moon", where there's a big BOOM at the start and then the projectile glides millions of miles to a precise destination. All spacecraft require mid-voyage corrections. Interstellar craft as well. It's a known science.
How to keep people alive for 100 years, (use unmanned probes?) practical long-haul propulsion systems, longevity issues, those are all valid concerns. But we've got the navigation thing down, and the nearest stars aren't *that* far away.
I hear and read glimpses that the government can enable a tracker inside your phone, even when you have it off. How likely is it that the government can track you even if you phone is in airplane mode?
Good question. I think it depends on what one means by "off". The feature would have to be built into the phone -- that "airplane mode" still included the ability to periodically ping cell towers. I'm thinking that (a) it's unlikely that the FAA would allow such a feature, and (b) even if they were somehow bought off (being a government agency and all) and assuming such a feature was actually designed into the phones, some hardware geek would have discovered it by now.
You wouldn't even be able to have the phone on "receive only" (not pinging the cell tower, but passively awaiting a signal from our overlords) and be undetectable -- there is always some kind of emission from a radio, usually the local oscillator used to mix down the signal.
Now, *I've* heard rumors that it's impossible to turn an i-phone completely off other than let the battery be completely exhausted. But I suspect it's an urban legend.
And so, you use your cell phone to send messages in TEXT rather than talk to them directly. It's less prone to misunderstanding, and is more easily queued and accessed from the queue.
Leave a message. (Remember those?) Check your messages at appropriate times. You're still better connected than the time before cell phones.
My conversations with my teenage daughter are almost entirely via text. She's more comfortable with that than with phone calls, as you can check for and respond to texts when you're not doing something else (like driving), whereas phone calls are more immediate -- they don't work unless both parties are in an environment where they're able to give the conversation their full attention. Moreover, texts and emails are (except for tone, which is difficult to express in text) less vague even in circumstances where voices are difficult to understand.
Keep your phone on you, powered down. Or powered up in airplane mode (cell, gps, wifi turned off) if the phone has it. (Advantage is that "airplane mode" is usually instant on.)
This is assuming that you're carrying a phone that can be powered down. If not, I agree; leave it at home. Or get a different phone.
> Apparently the need to be trendy is worth hundreds of dollars in price premium.
Yep, and although not everyone is like that, enough are that successfully tapping into it is worth billions of dollars. Someone I know just came off 3 years of unemployment. Up to his neck in debt and late taxes, with no viable transportation, his first purchase with his first paycheck was a 4s. Because being trendy is more important than having, you know, a way to get to work. Or paying back the people who loaned you money when you were unemployed.
It's similar to the people who really, really want to waste USD $150 on a pair of Air Jordans. Most of them aren't going to buy them for playing basketball, they buy them because of the brand name and because of the perception that it will somehow make them cooler.
Very much the same thing when it comes to Apple products. Most of the people buying them don't understand what the specs, features and limitations mean for them. The only thing they know is the brand and the belief that it will somehow make them hip.
"Cool" and "Hip" for certain definitions of "Cool" and "Hip".
And that is so sad. It points out once again that a significant portion of the population has no basic understanding of the fact that character is who you are, not what you own. It's the consumer equivalent of re-posting facebook forwards because you haven't an original thought in your wee little head.
Ok, I'm depressed now. I'm going to go out and walk the dog, do something cheerful.
This is exactly what I do. It also has the advantage of letting you do the lossy compression on your own terms, so the resulting files don't automatically sound like shit.
Slashdot Mirror
There are five in our town (part of a "trial period" that's lasted over ten years) and exactly zero are within six blocks of a school. They tend to be in busy intersections, and when I've seen them go off it's almost always because someone has followed a car into the intersection in heavy traffic and gotten trapped there when the light went red. Still a technical violation of the law (you're not supposed to enter an intersection until there is room on the other side to pass completely through) but arguably not much of a safety issue. With slow, heavy traffic in all directions, there isn't room to get up enough speed to cause significant injury.
I didn't see that episode. Did they try the slave flash idea? You put a high output flash pointing at where the camera(s) would be when you go through the intersection, with a slave sensor. The moment the traffic cam flashes, the slave goes off, significantly overexposing the image.
> iPhone 2G, lasts me 12 hours full use or 4 days stand by (2 days average) - still use it btw with new battery
Seriously? I thought we weren't supposed to replace the battery.
Ssh. We're supposed to buy the iPhone 5 now, because the 4s is crap compared to the 5. We're not supposed to think about the iPhone 6 until May.
Didn't you get the memo?
It's about what sounds good at the time to the marketeers.
(Whenever I see the word "marketeers" I want to go "Emm eye cee (see you real soon) kay eee wye (why? because we like you)"...)
There should be a support network for the tragically hip.
Insightful.
iPhone purchasers will be ok with it.
That's a pretty cold assessment I think, if you've just been paid for the first time in 3 years, it probably feels good to buy yourself something nice so at least it feels like you're working for something. It would be pretty depressing to live just as poorly as before because you gave every penny away to pay off old debts. Still don't let that get in the way of your being judgemental.
I'll take cold. There is a time for cold.
It's called being practical. I trust you've heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? When you're struggling with level 2 (Security of body, employment, health, property) it's not the time to blow resources on expensive trinkets that make you feel better. A practical adult realizes he doesn't get to *feel* better until he *is* better.
Doesn't stop people from doing it, though. In fact, with Apple trinkets, it appears quite common to buy the latest incremental upgrade before considering how you're going to make that overdue mortgage payment. (Yay for Apple, I guess.) And that truly is an illness. It's the difference between "I can't afford that" (meaning I don't get paid until Thursday) and "I can't justify the cost" (meaning I need that money for survival, not self-esteem). The latter comes with maturity. And maturity doesn't necessarily come with mere age.
The time for purchases to make you feel good is after you've figured out how you're going to get to work tomorrow with your car smoking on the side of the road. When you need a fan belt and a radiator hose, a new pair of shoes may give you some brief pleasure, but your car still won't move.
But don't let that get in the way of the new shinys at the apple store.
But, the guy in question says, you have nice things. Yes, I have a few nice things. But all my vehicles are paid off, my mortgage is paid ahead, and my bills are up to date. I *budget* for toys, I don't buy them *first*. And I can't even count the shiny things I've turned down, not because I don't have the money, but because I couldn't justify the cost. This appears to be a lost art.
Um, no, there are problems, perhaps insurmountable, but navigation isn't one of them, and the vastness of the universe also isn't one of them, depending on one's goals.
Yes, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." Got it.
But we're not talking about sending a colony to Messier 82, or even the large megellanic cloud. Wiki shows 12 stars within 10 light years of Earth. 10 light years is still a mind boggling distance, but it's a whole bunch of orders of magnitude less than the current width of the universe.
It's always possible to set a goal so high that it could never be attained. I don't think that was the intention.
As to navigation, there is probably some distortion of constellations in 4 to 10 light years, but not so much that they, or the location of known pulsars, couldn't still be used for navigation. Launching a spacecraft is not like "from the earth to the moon", where there's a big BOOM at the start and then the projectile glides millions of miles to a precise destination. All spacecraft require mid-voyage corrections. Interstellar craft as well. It's a known science.
How to keep people alive for 100 years, (use unmanned probes?) practical long-haul propulsion systems, longevity issues, those are all valid concerns. But we've got the navigation thing down, and the nearest stars aren't *that* far away.
I hear and read glimpses that the government can enable a tracker inside your phone, even when you have it off. How likely is it that the government can track you even if you phone is in airplane mode?
Good question. I think it depends on what one means by "off". The feature would have to be built into the phone -- that "airplane mode" still included the ability to periodically ping cell towers. I'm thinking that (a) it's unlikely that the FAA would allow such a feature, and (b) even if they were somehow bought off (being a government agency and all) and assuming such a feature was actually designed into the phones, some hardware geek would have discovered it by now.
You wouldn't even be able to have the phone on "receive only" (not pinging the cell tower, but passively awaiting a signal from our overlords) and be undetectable -- there is always some kind of emission from a radio, usually the local oscillator used to mix down the signal.
Now, *I've* heard rumors that it's impossible to turn an i-phone completely off other than let the battery be completely exhausted. But I suspect it's an urban legend.
My wife doesn't like cell phones and doesn't want to carry one. I insist she does anyway, powered down because she can't remember to charge it.
It's already paid off a couple years ago when she had an accident, and twice in the last 18 months when she had car trouble.
So yeah, I'm still in favor of carrying it when you can, keep it off when appropriate.
Correct!
And so, you use your cell phone to send messages in TEXT rather than talk to them directly. It's less prone to misunderstanding, and is more easily queued and accessed from the queue.
Leave a message. (Remember those?) Check your messages at appropriate times. You're still better connected than the time before cell phones.
My conversations with my teenage daughter are almost entirely via text. She's more comfortable with that than with phone calls, as you can check for and respond to texts when you're not doing something else (like driving), whereas phone calls are more immediate -- they don't work unless both parties are in an environment where they're able to give the conversation their full attention. Moreover, texts and emails are (except for tone, which is difficult to express in text) less vague even in circumstances where voices are difficult to understand.
Um, mine does not work like that...
Keep your phone on you, powered down. Or powered up in airplane mode (cell, gps, wifi turned off) if the phone has it. (Advantage is that "airplane mode" is usually instant on.)
This is assuming that you're carrying a phone that can be powered down. If not, I agree; leave it at home. Or get a different phone.
I would watch just for that.
re-gifting.
> Apparently the need to be trendy is worth hundreds of dollars in price premium.
Yep, and although not everyone is like that, enough are that successfully tapping into it is worth billions of dollars. Someone I know just came off 3 years of unemployment. Up to his neck in debt and late taxes, with no viable transportation, his first purchase with his first paycheck was a 4s. Because being trendy is more important than having, you know, a way to get to work. Or paying back the people who loaned you money when you were unemployed.
It borders on mental illness.
"We are going to revolutionize the way you purchase content" is a marketing slogan, not some proclamation from the Oracle.
It's similar to the people who really, really want to waste USD $150 on a pair of Air Jordans. Most of them aren't going to buy them for playing basketball, they buy them because of the brand name and because of the perception that it will somehow make them cooler.
Very much the same thing when it comes to Apple products. Most of the people buying them don't understand what the specs, features and limitations mean for them. The only thing they know is the brand and the belief that it will somehow make them hip.
"Cool" and "Hip" for certain definitions of "Cool" and "Hip".
And that is so sad. It points out once again that a significant portion of the population has no basic understanding of the fact that character is who you are, not what you own. It's the consumer equivalent of re-posting facebook forwards because you haven't an original thought in your wee little head.
Ok, I'm depressed now. I'm going to go out and walk the dog, do something cheerful.
This is exactly what I do. It also has the advantage of letting you do the lossy compression on your own terms, so the resulting files don't automatically sound like shit.
Or flac it and avoid the lossy issue altogether.
I don't see how taking advantage of other people's stupidity doesn't still make you an asshole.
It's one of the primary definitions of "asshole".
But what's really unique and forward-thinking is doing it in such a way that people build shrines to you.