Today on Slashdot, more of the same: Microsoft Sucks, Apple and Google are gods gift to technology, and legions of antisocial haxors just line up to suckle on Steve Jobs' iRod.
It's all about how you spin it. On one hand, the Zune can only share songs under the "3/3" limitation. On an iPod, there is no such limitation. Why? Because *you can't use the iPod to share songs, period.* If I plug my iPod into someone elses PC and try to access the library, I will get a friendly iTunes prompt asking if I want to attach my iPod to that PC. If I say "yes" it nicely deletes all the music from the iPod. If I say no, it gives me no access to my content.
The only way to change that is to use a hack, like the WinAmp ml_ipod extension.
Why would apple do that? Aren't they the most awesomest bestest company?....It turns out, that apple needed the music industries backing just as much as Microsoft does.
If people weren't so stupidly biased, the headline would read "Zune sharing is crippled, but still waaay better then what you can do with the iPod"
Are you really that stupid or do you just act that way when you're posting to Slashdot?
First, those parties have no hope of ever effecting change. They are on the fringe. A populist message is needed for a political party to ever have the hope of gathering enough members and momentum to actually gain power. Populism is not "lets dismantle the federal gov't" like the Libertarians have espoused.
Second, I'd bet dollars to danishes that those people are being actively "observed" by the various powers that be.
Third, this thread started with someone suggesting riots, followed by someone suggesting the invocation of the 2nd ammendment. To them educated folk, that mean GUNS! They talkin about usin' GUNS!
So please... save us all the trouble and just ridicule yourself in your signature. It will save a lot of people flaming you, which means less bits on the wire, which means less electricity and slower global warming. So do it for the fate of the planet!
DARPA is spending MILLIONS to help researchers re-grow limbs. Try that again. They're spending MILLIONS (which is what you need for a fair retirement) to advance the RE-GROWTH OF A HUMAN LIMB. In other news, I'm donating $12.32 towards the advancement of Sentinent AI. By my estimates, my $12 will yield results in 2 or 3 hundred years. Shortly thereafter my AIbot will then invent a way to regrow human limbs, beating the underfunded DARPA project by 3 or 4 hundred years.
These mechanisms are a lot more sophisticated then checking the BIOS date against a lockout date. While I can't speak first-hand about the technique MSFT used, I am familier with other systems like this, specifically armadillo.
Most likely it's a simple, check the bios on install, compare that to lockout date, then prevent install if biosdate > lockoutdate. During install, write a single bit to the disk config sectors to prevent reinstall, then, after install, start counting days.
This is a very basic setup that I've seen used dozens of times.
If nothing else, your post was well written and certainly given some thought.
One thing that jumps out at me is your criticism of Microsoft for not following their own Guidelines. However, I don't think you've ever seen new versions of MSFT software running on Vista. There's no reason to think that this behavior, such as shortcut naming, etc, hasn't been brought inline with these reccomendations.
Also, it's important to remember that these guidelines came from the OS group. They are no more forced on the Office group then they are on ISVs.
I'm also left feeling like if some of these guidelines were reversed, you'd still disagree with them. If they said "All user warning should include a sound effect" or "Always open ReadMe files for every install" I'm sure you'd have some (valid) criticism of that as well.
One final thing: Citrix/TermServ is very common. You're right about that. But if someone is intalling Citrix on a VISTA machine, they deserve the latency they'll get. As for in-built TermServices, there's no reason to believe that many of these active UI elements aren't "reduced" when using Terminal Services. This has long been a part T.S., reducing screen colors, resolutions, etc.
The iPod basically accounts for every dime of profit that Apple makes. Who do you think a pricewar would hurt the most? Here's a hint: It's not Microsoft.
As someone mentioned, this stigma comes from the undesirables online that we've all heard about. As is typical, we ignore the 95% of good moral people and focus on the 5% of scammers, predators, degenerates and slashdot readers.
I think this is further reinforced because many people who would be totally normal if you met them in the elevator of your building or in line at starbucks, when online, show their slimy underbelly. Look at all the AOL searches that were posted.
I guess this is because the internet is a strange hybrid of personal privacy & exclusion and society and interpersonal relationships. The normal rules of society don't apply.
The stigma, though, is no different then meeting someone in a bar. Especially women. If she calls her mom and says "I met this great guy in the bar" there's stigma there. Not as much as there used to be, maybe, but it's still there. And for largely the same reason. Some degenerates, normal rules don't apply, etc.
There is a 5-blade version of this already sold in the US. It has 4 blades on the front, and the fifth on the back. I replaced my "Mach3" with it just a couple months ago.
my biggest complaint about the Mach3 was the difficulty in cutting a straight edge. I shaved with it for probably five+ years and still didn't master it.
It's funny that I'm actually writing about a fricken RAZOR, but I do reccommend the fusion. In addition to the trimmer blade, the 4-blades are much nicer then the 3 in the Mach3. The blades themselves a thinner, and there is a centimeter or so of this ribbed rubber strip at the bottom of the head that makes it glide very easily over your face, with the aloe strip on top to moisturize after the blades. It's really very nice.
Yea, you can't watch their competitors videos, therefore Microsoft is "strong arming" people.
The constant "gee whiz, micro$oft is $o evil and they $uck so bad. I use teh Linux." Microsoft bashing. Don't you ever get tired of the endless complaining about a company that, on balance, isn't any worse then a lot of other companies?
Microsoft is the largest software maker in the world. Get over it. Linux will never overtake Windows on the desktop. Get over it.
What does this (BETA) video site lack that Google's video site had when it launched? Anything?
Actually, Soapbox DOES lack something that Google Video launched with: A massive cadre of fanboys that fawn over google and deride microsoft.
Yep, just typical microsoft "strongarming" here. Nothing to see, just move along.
I'm sorry man, I know this is Slashdot, but the whole "BillG Is Teh Devil" thing is more played out then Soviet Russia Running linux on a Beowulf Cluster that translates All Your Base Are Belong To Us into 50 languages for ?????Profit.
Really, was it even worth your time to preach to the choir here? Talk about karma whoring.
I've worked as a developer for the national DNC and recently Howard Dean for America.
It *amazed* me how big their database is. It was so big that developers (at least all the ones I worked with) weren't allowed to query against their (Oracle) tables. We only had read access to (the hundreds of) views. It was the largest database I've ever worked against and it really taught me a LOT about writing applications that have to work with very large data sets.
It had information about how you told a DNC staffer you would vote in every election for a decade. Every time someone called you, it held your answers. Every time you requested a ride to the polls, or every time your home was canvassed. Obviously, there were gaps. If you were canvassed by the local Mayoral campaign, it wasn't in the DB. But the next time you get material dropped off from a Presidential or Congressional campaign, or the next time you tell them "Undecided" or "strongly supportive" just think about the DB table with a billion records in it that just incremented to 1,000,000,001.
And this was the DNC. From the devs I talked to that worked for the darkside, the RNC had a much more sophisticated system. Luckily, this is one area that's been given a lot of attention by Dean since the 2004 election. I really believe that now, finally, the democrats have technology parity.
You don't have to be able to match their bet to call their bluff. You just need to be willing to commit all of YOUR chips. If I raise you $100 and you only have $20 at the table, all I'm really raising you is $20.
This is more like YOU were bluffing, and I just raised you big time, and you know that all you hold is a pair of deuces, so you fold to my bet. It's not that they can't afford to fight it--christ, they have at least $30,000,000--it's that they know that they don't have a case.
The example they gave of a 30 second ad before a 3 minute video clip. Like a user wouldn't be willing to spend 15% of the time viewing ads.
I know this is groundbreaking, but it's my contention that a user just might be willing to watch, say, 20 minutes of ads for every 40 minutes of programming. Yes, I know this sounds CRAZY but trust me on this one....
This is true. The trouble happens because a family farm has finances that look more like a Family and less like a Business. For example, the fancy GPS equipment that was written about previously was probably purchased on credit, and this stuff is very expensive. A modern farm wouldn't blink their eye at 1/2 million dollars in equipment.
So as long as everything goes smooth, a farm can keep the cash flow necessary to pay their loan payments, purchase their seed for the next season, and pay their salaries. But, like happens often to credit-loving families all over the USA, as soon as the income hits a snag the house of cards starts to fall apart. And this could be a direct problem: natural disaster, drought, pests, human error, or it could be indirect: a glut of cropX on the market depressing prices, a change in consumer tastes, changes in laws and regulations.
The point is that there's enough margin the business to put bread on the table, but there's not enough margin to build a meaningful safety net. The only recourse a farmer has is borrowing on his land, borrowing on next years' harvest, or bail-outs from the Federal Gov't. Federal assistance isn't what it used to be--and it isn't as much as many people think--and borrowing on the future only works for so long.
It can certainly be a lucrative business. Especially some years. All of those things I listed that hurt a farm serve to help the farms that aren't affected thru simple supply/demand economics. But more often then not, a farmer is making enough to keep on farming, much like the rest of us.
This is blatent misinformation. I didn't even read past the very first line!
Drug Paraphanalia in Ohio is a MISDOMENOR and carries a max fine of SIX MONTHS in jail, NOT THREE YEARS. And like most misdomeanors, you never serve a day in jail unless you have a prior conviction for the same offense.
The drug laws in Ohio are actually enlightened, especially regarding Marijuana. Possession of less then 100 Grams of weed will net you a CITATION. No arrest is made. You're given a ticket and you show up on your court date.
No, the reason they make you enter a code to activate a 30-second skip is so they can show they've made concessions for advertisers. At the time this had the benefit of drawing the industries ire towards ReplayTV, which seems in hindsight like a pretty good plan.
If by "jury-rig" you mean "pointing the remote at the TIVO and pressing a couple buttons" then yes, you're right, you have to jury-rig your TIVO for a 30 second skip.
And I bet you could even skip the "pointing the remote" step. Just make sure you're in the same room.
The guy calls someone a douche bag and it's moderated "redundant." That's gotta be a blow to the GP's self-esteem. It's so self-evident that he's a douche that it's redundant to actually say it.
When I said that I wasn't a beginner, I meant that I wasn't here in the beginning, like the GP to this post was.
But I did register in 2001 and I was here occassionally for about 2 years before that. So yes, I do consider 8 years of/. reading to be sufficiently long to qualify myself as "not a newbie"
Well, there were congressional hearings and people went to jail. Have you seriously never heard of the "Iran Contra" scandal? Of course, people fell on the granade to prevent it from blowing up in Reagans lap but do you think it was coincidence that the hostages were freed--after months and months of captivity--on the day that Reagan was sworn in?
Nice way to take my "drive by feel" comment out of context. Perhaps you can put words in others' mouths, but not mine. I drive by feel on roads where I KNOW the speed limit, and I keep my car at that speed or within 5-7 miles over.
And yes, I believe that driving is SIGNIFICANTLY different on interstates then it is on non-limited access roads. It's all about the perception of safety. When a highway was expanded in my home town a few years ago, no guard rails were installed in the new "clover leaf" interchange. The reason given is that there are fewer accidents and fewer deaths when there are no guardrails because people are more carful and they drive slower. Guard rails, they explained, give people the ILLUSION of safety while offering very little actual safety for cars traveling at high speeds.
On the interstate, if you post a speed limit of 80, people will drive 90. If you don't believe me, re-read this thread. Someone mentions this same scenario. I work in Michigan, where the interstate speed limit is 70. Nobody does 70. Everyone does 80, because you won't be ticketed unless you're doing more then 10mph over the limit. Once traffic gets to Ohio, where I live, people slow down to 75, 10 miles over the limit. They don't drive 80 in Ohio because it "feels safe" -- they don't want to be ticketed.
The illusion of saftey that an interstate provides would cause people to drive 100 if the limit was 90. At least enough of the people to cause serious problems.
Tell me, what is the "spirit" of the speed-limit law, if not to limit your speed? Laws are laws. Speeders like yourself justify it by claiming the people within the law are the problem. The reason you have to justify it, is because nobody believes that. It's never the case. It's like saying the people that DON'T do cocaine are the problem. If EVERYONE would just do what FEELS GOOD and do cocaine, then there would be no drug problem. That's rock-solid logic, my friend.
People don't drive what feels right. They drive what they think they can get away with.
You think I'm making an ass of myself? Look at your post, my friend. You pulled out a study that is 1) old and 2) not applicable to interstate driving, and you throw in some bass-ackwards logic to fill in the cracks.
And before you say that the age of the study doesn't matter, think about it. It's all about the perception of safety. And anti-lock brakes, traction control, side airbags, safety cages, crumple zones, five star ratings, etc, have all been introduced to the mass market AFTER the study was created. All of these things contribute to UN SAFE SPEEDS.
Good luck in traffic court. If I were you, I'd bring a copy of the study with you. I'm *certain* a judge would find it complete justification for your lawlessness.
Much to my surprise, most Americans don't equate Iran Contra with the hostage crisis even though they are one in the same. President Elect Ron Reagan should shoulder a significant amount of the blame for the length of the hostage crisis.
After being elected in November, he opened back channel negotiations with the Ayatollah. The gist is Reagan offered to supply Iran with arms on the condition that Iran held our hostages until he took the oath. That's two months those innocent people had to live in captivity so Reagan could score political points.
The only justice in the whole thing is that Reagan is forever stained by Iran-Contra. That's little consolation to the hostages, I'm sure, but it's something.
Carter worked tirelessly in the months before leaving office to secure their release. There was little he could do outside of ordering an invasion of Iran. I think we can agree that would not have been a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Today on Slashdot, more of the same: Microsoft Sucks, Apple and Google are gods gift to technology, and legions of antisocial haxors just line up to suckle on Steve Jobs' iRod.
....It turns out, that apple needed the music industries backing just as much as Microsoft does.
It's all about how you spin it. On one hand, the Zune can only share songs under the "3/3" limitation. On an iPod, there is no such limitation. Why? Because *you can't use the iPod to share songs, period.* If I plug my iPod into someone elses PC and try to access the library, I will get a friendly iTunes prompt asking if I want to attach my iPod to that PC. If I say "yes" it nicely deletes all the music from the iPod. If I say no, it gives me no access to my content.
The only way to change that is to use a hack, like the WinAmp ml_ipod extension.
Why would apple do that? Aren't they the most awesomest bestest company?
If people weren't so stupidly biased, the headline would read "Zune sharing is crippled, but still waaay better then what you can do with the iPod"
One important difference is the ability to nest folders.
I can have a "project" folder, and can have a dozen subfolders inside of it.
OR, I can have a "work" folder that contains a project folder, and a "consulting" folder that contains a "Project" folder.
Are you really that stupid or do you just act that way when you're posting to Slashdot?
First, those parties have no hope of ever effecting change. They are on the fringe. A populist message is needed for a political party to ever have the hope of gathering enough members and momentum to actually gain power. Populism is not "lets dismantle the federal gov't" like the Libertarians have espoused.
Second, I'd bet dollars to danishes that those people are being actively "observed" by the various powers that be.
Third, this thread started with someone suggesting riots, followed by someone suggesting the invocation of the 2nd ammendment. To them educated folk, that mean GUNS! They talkin about usin' GUNS!
So please... save us all the trouble and just ridicule yourself in your signature. It will save a lot of people flaming you, which means less bits on the wire, which means less electricity and slower global warming. So do it for the fate of the planet!
DARPA is spending MILLIONS to help researchers re-grow limbs. Try that again. They're spending MILLIONS (which is what you need for a fair retirement) to advance the RE-GROWTH OF A HUMAN LIMB. In other news, I'm donating $12.32 towards the advancement of Sentinent AI. By my estimates, my $12 will yield results in 2 or 3 hundred years. Shortly thereafter my AIbot will then invent a way to regrow human limbs, beating the underfunded DARPA project by 3 or 4 hundred years.
These mechanisms are a lot more sophisticated then checking the BIOS date against a lockout date. While I can't speak first-hand about the technique MSFT used, I am familier with other systems like this, specifically armadillo.
Most likely it's a simple, check the bios on install, compare that to lockout date, then prevent install if biosdate > lockoutdate. During install, write a single bit to the disk config sectors to prevent reinstall, then, after install, start counting days.
This is a very basic setup that I've seen used dozens of times.
If nothing else, your post was well written and certainly given some thought.
One thing that jumps out at me is your criticism of Microsoft for not following their own Guidelines. However, I don't think you've ever seen new versions of MSFT software running on Vista. There's no reason to think that this behavior, such as shortcut naming, etc, hasn't been brought inline with these reccomendations.
Also, it's important to remember that these guidelines came from the OS group. They are no more forced on the Office group then they are on ISVs.
I'm also left feeling like if some of these guidelines were reversed, you'd still disagree with them. If they said "All user warning should include a sound effect" or "Always open ReadMe files for every install" I'm sure you'd have some (valid) criticism of that as well.
One final thing: Citrix/TermServ is very common. You're right about that. But if someone is intalling Citrix on a VISTA machine, they deserve the latency they'll get. As for in-built TermServices, there's no reason to believe that many of these active UI elements aren't "reduced" when using Terminal Services. This has long been a part T.S., reducing screen colors, resolutions, etc.
The iPod basically accounts for every dime of profit that Apple makes. Who do you think a pricewar would hurt the most? Here's a hint: It's not Microsoft.
As someone mentioned, this stigma comes from the undesirables online that we've all heard about. As is typical, we ignore the 95% of good moral people and focus on the 5% of scammers, predators, degenerates and slashdot readers.
I think this is further reinforced because many people who would be totally normal if you met them in the elevator of your building or in line at starbucks, when online, show their slimy underbelly. Look at all the AOL searches that were posted.
I guess this is because the internet is a strange hybrid of personal privacy & exclusion and society and interpersonal relationships. The normal rules of society don't apply.
The stigma, though, is no different then meeting someone in a bar. Especially women. If she calls her mom and says "I met this great guy in the bar" there's stigma there. Not as much as there used to be, maybe, but it's still there. And for largely the same reason. Some degenerates, normal rules don't apply, etc.
There is a 5-blade version of this already sold in the US. It has 4 blades on the front, and the fifth on the back. I replaced my "Mach3" with it just a couple months ago.
my biggest complaint about the Mach3 was the difficulty in cutting a straight edge. I shaved with it for probably five+ years and still didn't master it.
It's funny that I'm actually writing about a fricken RAZOR, but I do reccommend the fusion. In addition to the trimmer blade, the 4-blades are much nicer then the 3 in the Mach3. The blades themselves a thinner, and there is a centimeter or so of this ribbed rubber strip at the bottom of the head that makes it glide very easily over your face, with the aloe strip on top to moisturize after the blades. It's really very nice.
+5 to the Fusion.
Yea, you can't watch their competitors videos, therefore Microsoft is "strong arming" people.
The constant "gee whiz, micro$oft is $o evil and they $uck so bad. I use teh Linux." Microsoft bashing. Don't you ever get tired of the endless complaining about a company that, on balance, isn't any worse then a lot of other companies?
Microsoft is the largest software maker in the world. Get over it. Linux will never overtake Windows on the desktop. Get over it.
What does this (BETA) video site lack that Google's video site had when it launched? Anything?
Actually, Soapbox DOES lack something that Google Video launched with: A massive cadre of fanboys that fawn over google and deride microsoft.
Yep, just typical microsoft "strongarming" here. Nothing to see, just move along.
I'm sorry man, I know this is Slashdot, but the whole "BillG Is Teh Devil" thing is more played out then Soviet Russia Running linux on a Beowulf Cluster that translates All Your Base Are Belong To Us into 50 languages for ?????Profit.
Really, was it even worth your time to preach to the choir here? Talk about karma whoring.
I've worked as a developer for the national DNC and recently Howard Dean for America.
It *amazed* me how big their database is. It was so big that developers (at least all the ones I worked with) weren't allowed to query against their (Oracle) tables. We only had read access to (the hundreds of) views. It was the largest database I've ever worked against and it really taught me a LOT about writing applications that have to work with very large data sets.
It had information about how you told a DNC staffer you would vote in every election for a decade. Every time someone called you, it held your answers. Every time you requested a ride to the polls, or every time your home was canvassed. Obviously, there were gaps. If you were canvassed by the local Mayoral campaign, it wasn't in the DB. But the next time you get material dropped off from a Presidential or Congressional campaign, or the next time you tell them "Undecided" or "strongly supportive" just think about the DB table with a billion records in it that just incremented to 1,000,000,001.
And this was the DNC. From the devs I talked to that worked for the darkside, the RNC had a much more sophisticated system. Luckily, this is one area that's been given a lot of attention by Dean since the 2004 election. I really believe that now, finally, the democrats have technology parity.
You don't have to be able to match their bet to call their bluff. You just need to be willing to commit all of YOUR chips. If I raise you $100 and you only have $20 at the table, all I'm really raising you is $20.
This is more like YOU were bluffing, and I just raised you big time, and you know that all you hold is a pair of deuces, so you fold to my bet. It's not that they can't afford to fight it--christ, they have at least $30,000,000--it's that they know that they don't have a case.
The example they gave of a 30 second ad before a 3 minute video clip. Like a user wouldn't be willing to spend 15% of the time viewing ads.
I know this is groundbreaking, but it's my contention that a user just might be willing to watch, say, 20 minutes of ads for every 40 minutes of programming. Yes, I know this sounds CRAZY but trust me on this one....
nobody ever knows what defenestrate means.
This is true. The trouble happens because a family farm has finances that look more like a Family and less like a Business. For example, the fancy GPS equipment that was written about previously was probably purchased on credit, and this stuff is very expensive. A modern farm wouldn't blink their eye at 1/2 million dollars in equipment.
So as long as everything goes smooth, a farm can keep the cash flow necessary to pay their loan payments, purchase their seed for the next season, and pay their salaries. But, like happens often to credit-loving families all over the USA, as soon as the income hits a snag the house of cards starts to fall apart. And this could be a direct problem: natural disaster, drought, pests, human error, or it could be indirect: a glut of cropX on the market depressing prices, a change in consumer tastes, changes in laws and regulations.
The point is that there's enough margin the business to put bread on the table, but there's not enough margin to build a meaningful safety net. The only recourse a farmer has is borrowing on his land, borrowing on next years' harvest, or bail-outs from the Federal Gov't. Federal assistance isn't what it used to be--and it isn't as much as many people think--and borrowing on the future only works for so long.
It can certainly be a lucrative business. Especially some years. All of those things I listed that hurt a farm serve to help the farms that aren't affected thru simple supply/demand economics. But more often then not, a farmer is making enough to keep on farming, much like the rest of us.
MISINFORMATION!
This is blatent misinformation. I didn't even read past the very first line!
Drug Paraphanalia in Ohio is a MISDOMENOR and carries a max fine of SIX MONTHS in jail, NOT THREE YEARS. And like most misdomeanors, you never serve a day in jail unless you have a prior conviction for the same offense.
The drug laws in Ohio are actually enlightened, especially regarding Marijuana. Possession of less then 100 Grams of weed will net you a CITATION. No arrest is made. You're given a ticket and you show up on your court date.
So please, stop spreading FUD.
No, the reason they make you enter a code to activate a 30-second skip is so they can show they've made concessions for advertisers. At the time this had the benefit of drawing the industries ire towards ReplayTV, which seems in hindsight like a pretty good plan.
If by "jury-rig" you mean "pointing the remote at the TIVO and pressing a couple buttons" then yes, you're right, you have to jury-rig your TIVO for a 30 second skip.
And I bet you could even skip the "pointing the remote" step. Just make sure you're in the same room.
The guy calls someone a douche bag and it's moderated "redundant." That's gotta be a blow to the GP's self-esteem. It's so self-evident that he's a douche that it's redundant to actually say it.
When I said that I wasn't a beginner, I meant that I wasn't here in the beginning, like the GP to this post was.
/. reading to be sufficiently long to qualify myself as "not a newbie"
But I did register in 2001 and I was here occassionally for about 2 years before that. So yes, I do consider 8 years of
He runs Windows One Care or Ad Aware.
And I found the Wiki:s piracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_con
Well, there were congressional hearings and people went to jail. Have you seriously never heard of the "Iran Contra" scandal? Of course, people fell on the granade to prevent it from blowing up in Reagans lap but do you think it was coincidence that the hostages were freed--after months and months of captivity--on the day that Reagan was sworn in?
Nice way to take my "drive by feel" comment out of context. Perhaps you can put words in others' mouths, but not mine. I drive by feel on roads where I KNOW the speed limit, and I keep my car at that speed or within 5-7 miles over.
And yes, I believe that driving is SIGNIFICANTLY different on interstates then it is on non-limited access roads. It's all about the perception of safety. When a highway was expanded in my home town a few years ago, no guard rails were installed in the new "clover leaf" interchange. The reason given is that there are fewer accidents and fewer deaths when there are no guardrails because people are more carful and they drive slower. Guard rails, they explained, give people the ILLUSION of safety while offering very little actual safety for cars traveling at high speeds.
On the interstate, if you post a speed limit of 80, people will drive 90. If you don't believe me, re-read this thread. Someone mentions this same scenario. I work in Michigan, where the interstate speed limit is 70. Nobody does 70. Everyone does 80, because you won't be ticketed unless you're doing more then 10mph over the limit. Once traffic gets to Ohio, where I live, people slow down to 75, 10 miles over the limit. They don't drive 80 in Ohio because it "feels safe" -- they don't want to be ticketed.
The illusion of saftey that an interstate provides would cause people to drive 100 if the limit was 90. At least enough of the people to cause serious problems.
Tell me, what is the "spirit" of the speed-limit law, if not to limit your speed? Laws are laws. Speeders like yourself justify it by claiming the people within the law are the problem. The reason you have to justify it, is because nobody believes that. It's never the case. It's like saying the people that DON'T do cocaine are the problem. If EVERYONE would just do what FEELS GOOD and do cocaine, then there would be no drug problem. That's rock-solid logic, my friend.
People don't drive what feels right. They drive what they think they can get away with.
You think I'm making an ass of myself? Look at your post, my friend. You pulled out a study that is 1) old and 2) not applicable to interstate driving, and you throw in some bass-ackwards logic to fill in the cracks.
And before you say that the age of the study doesn't matter, think about it. It's all about the perception of safety. And anti-lock brakes, traction control, side airbags, safety cages, crumple zones, five star ratings, etc, have all been introduced to the mass market AFTER the study was created. All of these things contribute to UN SAFE SPEEDS.
Good luck in traffic court. If I were you, I'd bring a copy of the study with you. I'm *certain* a judge would find it complete justification for your lawlessness.
Much to my surprise, most Americans don't equate Iran Contra with the hostage crisis even though they are one in the same. President Elect Ron Reagan should shoulder a significant amount of the blame for the length of the hostage crisis.
After being elected in November, he opened back channel negotiations with the Ayatollah. The gist is Reagan offered to supply Iran with arms on the condition that Iran held our hostages until he took the oath. That's two months those innocent people had to live in captivity so Reagan could score political points.
The only justice in the whole thing is that Reagan is forever stained by Iran-Contra. That's little consolation to the hostages, I'm sure, but it's something.
Carter worked tirelessly in the months before leaving office to secure their release. There was little he could do outside of ordering an invasion of Iran. I think we can agree that would not have been a good thing.