Fuck no. Vaccination and circumcision have absolutely nothing to do with each other. One is the only way to ensure herd immunity and is responsible for eradicating a large number of dangerous diseases. The other is mutilation of an innocent child who is unable to consent.
Any sane person is both pro-vaccination and anti-circumcision.
Not that I disagree with your sentiments -- I currently get around 24MPG in my 3.5L V6 Pontiac G6. LOVE when I pull into a stop light next to, say, that solid black Mustang the other day...the light turns green, and they rev their engine ALL the way up....and ten seconds later I'm a hundred feet ahead of them and my foot's not even halfway down.
That's rich. You've got 200hp on a good day. No way in hell you actually beat a Mustang off the line, unless it was some old clapped-out smogged-out malaise-era Rustang.
It really isn't that hard to meet the average fuel consumption figure.
My car is rated at 26.8mpg and I get 26.3mpg real-world mileage with a mixture of city, freeway and highway driving, mostly city and freeway. I actually got 28mpg on my last tank of fuel. It's all a matter of being good at reading traffic and looking far ahead. And not going full-throttle everywhere, obviously.
But even if hardly anyone will get 54.5mpg in real life, perhaps they'll get 45 or even 50 on average. Still a major improvement.
If you want transparent AUR access, try yaourt instead of pacaur. It has the exact same syntax as pacman. I hardly ever use pacman anymore, since yaourt handles everything.
I was using Gentoo before I switched to Arch, as well.
The main draw for me is that Arch doesn't make specialized versions of packages, plug their own configuration tools or intentionally cripple itself due to ideology.
Apart from the boot-up message saying "Welcome to Arch Linux!" and the package manager, I could just as well be running Linux From Scratch. I like that, to me it's the closest to what Linux actually is, and it really isn't that hard to deal with compared to Fedora or Ubuntu or whatever, because I don't have to look up distro-specific guides for anything. Everything is vanilla and just as the developers intended.
I just recently migrated to Grub2 and Systemd. Couldn't have been easier.
Yeah, "threat" may be a strong word, but it is an upsetting force in regards to being able and allowed to drive your own cars.
I don't have any HPDE experience myself. People tell me that I am a very good, responsible and occasionally spirited driver, for whatever that's worth. I also ride motorcycles and understand braking zones, ideal cornering lines, grip levels etc., and I volunteer on the track construction team for a local historic racing event. Again, for whatever that's worth.
My car is not nearly as fast or powerful as a CTS-V, but it is a very well-sorted car that handles good without resorting to electronic helpers and is immensely fun to drive. I would be very sad if the ability to drive my own car was taken away from me, even if it is just a 160HP Peugeot 406.
I think what you and I both fear from automated cars is the end of being involved. I like being a part of making my car go down the road. I like changing gears, feeling the clutch engage and the feedback through the steering wheel when I navigate corners in a spirited fashion. I like knowing that I'm in control and that my skill is instrumental in making my car perform the way it should.
Any car interior design that requires you to look at a display to change a setting, or even worse, require you to navigate through various menus through a joystick or a touchscreen to change settings, should have been scrapped at the prototype stage.
On one hand, we have stereo controls mounted to the steering wheel, a brilliant invention that allows you to adjust the volume, change which station or track you're listening to or even pick up the phone, all without ever taking your eyes off the road. My car is slightly older so it uses a third stalk for these functions, but the basic principle is the same. You can adjust the stereo without ever taking your eyes off the road. +1 for road awareness!
Because the designers of my car didn't have their heads stuck up their asses, the climate control unit has big buttons that are easily distinguished by touch. Any combination of heating, cooling, vents, defrosting, AC etc., I can do without ever looking at the controls. That's good UI design, with proper tactile feedback that you just don't get with touch controls.
But now it seems we're moving in the opposite direction. Everything needs to have a touch display and fancy animations to further distract people from the act of driving. It sells due to the "ooh shiny" factor, but should be considered a danger to road safety on par with eating while driving.
Good luck eating grass and other RAW FOODS. I mean, it's really high in fiber, so it must be good for you, right? Never mind that your body can't process the cellulose, that's a minor detail.
Cooking food came about as a way to increase our choice in foodstuffs. It allows us to transform otherwise inedible or even downright poisonous raw plants etc. into nutritious foods, thus saving us from starving, as we would have if we had stuck with only raw foods.
I love nuts, salads etc. etc., but eating raw foods exclusively is dumb. It's a fad, it's non-sustainable and it's counter-productive in a world facing food shortages.
What you're proposing is exactly how Adaptive Cruise Control works. You set the speed you would like to go, and if someone in front is driving slower than you, it will match their speed and stay at a set distance behind them.
Regarding the attitude issue, I think a lot of people need to retake the driving test and learn some damn patience.
Gah, edit: "I like cars that have a good combination of solid handling and a comfortable ride because they have a good chassis, NOT a hyperadvanced ESP system."
First off, I think the tech is still way too expensive to put in every car. Look for it in luxury cars, for instance Mercedes-Benz has their active cruise control which automatically matches speed to the car ahead. We're even beginning to see night vision HUDs and intelligent navigation systems which can read traffic signs and warn you about them. Stuff like this always starts at the high end of the market and trickles down as costs decrease. Some of the newest cheap little city cars have automatic brake systems now that can detect pedestrians and brake automatically if you're going less than 30kph.
Why is it that all new tech lately seems to want to take control away from the human? Why does none of it ENHANCE the control an individual has (expect perhaps ABS)? I am not just along for the ride (pun not really intended but it works).
On mainstream cars, the #1 priority is safety for the average driver. Hence you get overly invasive ESP systems and safe dull handling. Drive a performance car, the newest BMW M3 for instance, and the story takes a completely different twist. There, the traction and stability control systems actually help you go through corners faster instead of putting a damper on things.
The most extreme example of this is the Nissan GT-R. It constantly monitors the forces enacted upon the car and correlates them to your inputs, sending power to whichever combination of wheels will get the car to do what you want. It's an absolutely ridiculously capable car and surprisingly easy to drive very very fast.
Me, I like to have as little computer interference as possible, I like cars that have a good combination of solid handling and a comfortable ride because they have a good chassis, a hyperadvanced ESP system. Peugeot seem to have been able to hit this mark with the majority of their cars. YMMV.
I just sold my car a couple of weeks ago, but I'm looking to buy a new (used) car soon. I'm going from a 55mpg 70hp diesel hatchback to a 25mpg 210hp V6 sedan for comfort and driving pleasure reasons. However, I am also halving my annual mileage by using public transport and my bicycle for commuting.
Selling our cars isn't the solution, we need to cut down on frivolous consumption and waste in general. How many people throw out food because they didn't eat it before it spoiled? How many people throw out perfectly good food? How many people impulse buy the latest gadget because it's a "must have" and then promptly forget about it a couple of months later.
Stop, reuse, recycle. Hell, just start using all the crap you already have instead of buying new crap all the time. Buy a used car instead of a new car, keep using your old computer instead of upgrading constantly. Buy locally-produced foods. Wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat.
A single big item like getting rid of the car doesn't help, especially in a society like the US where it's hard to function or hold down a job outside the major cities without a car. But there are a whole host of other things that will add up and help.
You should see the absolute shitstorm going on at freerepublic.com.
They're seriously calling this the worst thing that has ever happened in the US, the end of the republic, the end of the constitution and it just gets better and better the further you go. A bunch of them are seriously discussing assassinating judge Roberts etc.
And for all their ineffectual whining, they will not change a single letter in a single piece of legislation nor bend a single hair on a single head. It's fantastic to see them have a complete meltdown, very cathartic:-)
Your healthcare system was the most expensive to taxpayers in the entire western world, and yet completely substandard unless you bought ridiculously expensive health insurance. Then it was just expensive.
How can any system where a guy can crash his Vespa into a trailer a 5mph, spend a month in a hospital due to fluid in his lungs etc. and receive a bill for six hundred thousand dollars possibly be the best in the world by any metric? Luckily for him, he's a veteran, so the VA ate most of it. Now he "only" owes $80K.
The only ones who benefited from your "absolute best" healthcare system were the insurance companies.
You're absolutely delusional. Come visit the developed world sometime and see how real healthcare works. Yes, we'll treat you even though you're a foreign citizen. Because that's how a civilized society works.
Which part of "too many people for too few jobs" don't you get?
There simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, because the so-called "job creators" are sitting on their lazy fat asses and shoveling in the profits while laying off more and more people.
Help the people on the bottom of society get to a point where they have actual purchasing power and the hugely increased demand will force an increase in supply, creating jobs and increasing the standard of living for everyone.
Trickle-down economics, "bootstraps" and associated arguments have never, do not and will never work.
Except for smoothness, quietness, instant-on torque, direct drive (no gear changes), drivetrain reliability (much fewer moving parts), 'fuel' cost, emissions, energy source independence and a host of other areas. The only areas where ICE is objectively better are refueling time and weight.
First off, stationary generators run for long periods at optimal duty cycles, unlike car engines which run at varying speeds, compromising efficiency for driveability. Stationary generators are also fitted with large, heavy and efficient filter systems, unlike filters car engines, which have to take weight into consideration.
Secondly, moving to electric power for vehicles is the best way to make them energy source independent. Internal combustion engines can generally only run on a couple of specific types of fuel, gasoline, diesel, LPG, alcohol and so on, whereas electricity is electricity. It doesn't matter to the car if it was made by burning oil or coal, or if it was made using hydroelectric dams, geothermal plants, solar power, nuclear fusion or whatever.
Making our vehicles energy source independent frees us from our oil dependency and allows much greater flexibility on a large scale. In fact, it would be great if all vehicles were electric and the oil was used to generate electricity instead. Efficiency would be higher and emissions would be lower.
I absolutely love my Sennheiser PX100s. They're inexpensive, durable and sound better than anything else in their size or price range, better than phones costing more than twice as much. I'm never going back to earbuds for my MP3 player.
In a completely different price range ($250+), I love my AIAIAI TMA-1s (and have preordered the updated "studio" over-the-ear version). They're closed-back phones, but with none of the tubbiness that haunt cheap closed-back phones, like you mentioned. The guys behind them really did their homework, the sound is great and the bass is utterly amazing. It's not huge or in your face, but it's deep, solid and clean, perfect for DJing (which is what the non-studio version was made for). They'll also play loud enough to rattle your skull without even breaking a sweat or distorting.
Cheap headphones have their place, but gimme a nice set of Sennheisers, Beyerdynamics, AIAIAIs etc. any day for listening at home or in a studio.
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Fuck no. Vaccination and circumcision have absolutely nothing to do with each other. One is the only way to ensure herd immunity and is responsible for eradicating a large number of dangerous diseases. The other is mutilation of an innocent child who is unable to consent.
Any sane person is both pro-vaccination and anti-circumcision.
Not that I disagree with your sentiments -- I currently get around 24MPG in my 3.5L V6 Pontiac G6. LOVE when I pull into a stop light next to, say, that solid black Mustang the other day...the light turns green, and they rev their engine ALL the way up....and ten seconds later I'm a hundred feet ahead of them and my foot's not even halfway down.
That's rich. You've got 200hp on a good day. No way in hell you actually beat a Mustang off the line, unless it was some old clapped-out smogged-out malaise-era Rustang.
It really isn't that hard to meet the average fuel consumption figure.
My car is rated at 26.8mpg and I get 26.3mpg real-world mileage with a mixture of city, freeway and highway driving, mostly city and freeway. I actually got 28mpg on my last tank of fuel. It's all a matter of being good at reading traffic and looking far ahead. And not going full-throttle everywhere, obviously.
But even if hardly anyone will get 54.5mpg in real life, perhaps they'll get 45 or even 50 on average. Still a major improvement.
I can't prove anything outright, but I feel that using f.lux has helped me sleep more easily. On Linux I use redshift.
If you set it to the slow transition speed (1 hour), the change is imperceptible. Until you try turning it off, that is. The difference is amazing.
If you want transparent AUR access, try yaourt instead of pacaur. It has the exact same syntax as pacman. I hardly ever use pacman anymore, since yaourt handles everything.
I was using Gentoo before I switched to Arch, as well.
The main draw for me is that Arch doesn't make specialized versions of packages, plug their own configuration tools or intentionally cripple itself due to ideology.
Apart from the boot-up message saying "Welcome to Arch Linux!" and the package manager, I could just as well be running Linux From Scratch. I like that, to me it's the closest to what Linux actually is, and it really isn't that hard to deal with compared to Fedora or Ubuntu or whatever, because I don't have to look up distro-specific guides for anything. Everything is vanilla and just as the developers intended.
I just recently migrated to Grub2 and Systemd. Couldn't have been easier.
Yeah, "threat" may be a strong word, but it is an upsetting force in regards to being able and allowed to drive your own cars.
I don't have any HPDE experience myself. People tell me that I am a very good, responsible and occasionally spirited driver, for whatever that's worth. I also ride motorcycles and understand braking zones, ideal cornering lines, grip levels etc., and I volunteer on the track construction team for a local historic racing event. Again, for whatever that's worth.
My car is not nearly as fast or powerful as a CTS-V, but it is a very well-sorted car that handles good without resorting to electronic helpers and is immensely fun to drive. I would be very sad if the ability to drive my own car was taken away from me, even if it is just a 160HP Peugeot 406.
I think what you and I both fear from automated cars is the end of being involved. I like being a part of making my car go down the road. I like changing gears, feeling the clutch engage and the feedback through the steering wheel when I navigate corners in a spirited fashion. I like knowing that I'm in control and that my skill is instrumental in making my car perform the way it should.
Yes, but the knob or button is right there and can be found at least partly by touch.
No such luck with a touchscreen where you have to focus on the screen to find the control you want, possibly even in a submenu somewhere hidden.
Any car interior design that requires you to look at a display to change a setting, or even worse, require you to navigate through various menus through a joystick or a touchscreen to change settings, should have been scrapped at the prototype stage.
On one hand, we have stereo controls mounted to the steering wheel, a brilliant invention that allows you to adjust the volume, change which station or track you're listening to or even pick up the phone, all without ever taking your eyes off the road. My car is slightly older so it uses a third stalk for these functions, but the basic principle is the same. You can adjust the stereo without ever taking your eyes off the road. +1 for road awareness!
Because the designers of my car didn't have their heads stuck up their asses, the climate control unit has big buttons that are easily distinguished by touch. Any combination of heating, cooling, vents, defrosting, AC etc., I can do without ever looking at the controls. That's good UI design, with proper tactile feedback that you just don't get with touch controls.
But now it seems we're moving in the opposite direction. Everything needs to have a touch display and fancy animations to further distract people from the act of driving. It sells due to the "ooh shiny" factor, but should be considered a danger to road safety on par with eating while driving.
Good luck eating grass and other RAW FOODS. I mean, it's really high in fiber, so it must be good for you, right? Never mind that your body can't process the cellulose, that's a minor detail.
Cooking food came about as a way to increase our choice in foodstuffs. It allows us to transform otherwise inedible or even downright poisonous raw plants etc. into nutritious foods, thus saving us from starving, as we would have if we had stuck with only raw foods.
I love nuts, salads etc. etc., but eating raw foods exclusively is dumb. It's a fad, it's non-sustainable and it's counter-productive in a world facing food shortages.
What you're proposing is exactly how Adaptive Cruise Control works. You set the speed you would like to go, and if someone in front is driving slower than you, it will match their speed and stay at a set distance behind them.
Regarding the attitude issue, I think a lot of people need to retake the driving test and learn some damn patience.
Gah, edit: "I like cars that have a good combination of solid handling and a comfortable ride because they have a good chassis, NOT a hyperadvanced ESP system."
First off, I think the tech is still way too expensive to put in every car. Look for it in luxury cars, for instance Mercedes-Benz has their active cruise control which automatically matches speed to the car ahead. We're even beginning to see night vision HUDs and intelligent navigation systems which can read traffic signs and warn you about them. Stuff like this always starts at the high end of the market and trickles down as costs decrease. Some of the newest cheap little city cars have automatic brake systems now that can detect pedestrians and brake automatically if you're going less than 30kph.
Why is it that all new tech lately seems to want to take control away from the human? Why does none of it ENHANCE the control an individual has (expect perhaps ABS)? I am not just along for the ride (pun not really intended but it works).
On mainstream cars, the #1 priority is safety for the average driver. Hence you get overly invasive ESP systems and safe dull handling. Drive a performance car, the newest BMW M3 for instance, and the story takes a completely different twist. There, the traction and stability control systems actually help you go through corners faster instead of putting a damper on things.
The most extreme example of this is the Nissan GT-R. It constantly monitors the forces enacted upon the car and correlates them to your inputs, sending power to whichever combination of wheels will get the car to do what you want. It's an absolutely ridiculously capable car and surprisingly easy to drive very very fast.
Me, I like to have as little computer interference as possible, I like cars that have a good combination of solid handling and a comfortable ride because they have a good chassis, a hyperadvanced ESP system. Peugeot seem to have been able to hit this mark with the majority of their cars. YMMV.
Good. Cities should not have to rely on punishments for income. Much better to set taxes to a realistic level instead.
I just sold my car a couple of weeks ago, but I'm looking to buy a new (used) car soon. I'm going from a 55mpg 70hp diesel hatchback to a 25mpg 210hp V6 sedan for comfort and driving pleasure reasons. However, I am also halving my annual mileage by using public transport and my bicycle for commuting.
Selling our cars isn't the solution, we need to cut down on frivolous consumption and waste in general. How many people throw out food because they didn't eat it before it spoiled? How many people throw out perfectly good food? How many people impulse buy the latest gadget because it's a "must have" and then promptly forget about it a couple of months later.
Stop, reuse, recycle. Hell, just start using all the crap you already have instead of buying new crap all the time. Buy a used car instead of a new car, keep using your old computer instead of upgrading constantly. Buy locally-produced foods. Wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat.
A single big item like getting rid of the car doesn't help, especially in a society like the US where it's hard to function or hold down a job outside the major cities without a car. But there are a whole host of other things that will add up and help.
You should see the absolute shitstorm going on at freerepublic.com.
They're seriously calling this the worst thing that has ever happened in the US, the end of the republic, the end of the constitution and it just gets better and better the further you go. A bunch of them are seriously discussing assassinating judge Roberts etc.
And for all their ineffectual whining, they will not change a single letter in a single piece of legislation nor bend a single hair on a single head. It's fantastic to see them have a complete meltdown, very cathartic :-)
Haha what?
Your healthcare system was the most expensive to taxpayers in the entire western world, and yet completely substandard unless you bought ridiculously expensive health insurance. Then it was just expensive.
As an example: http://i.imgur.com/UH2Ko.jpg
How can any system where a guy can crash his Vespa into a trailer a 5mph, spend a month in a hospital due to fluid in his lungs etc. and receive a bill for six hundred thousand dollars possibly be the best in the world by any metric? Luckily for him, he's a veteran, so the VA ate most of it. Now he "only" owes $80K.
The only ones who benefited from your "absolute best" healthcare system were the insurance companies.
You're absolutely delusional. Come visit the developed world sometime and see how real healthcare works. Yes, we'll treat you even though you're a foreign citizen. Because that's how a civilized society works.
Which part of "too many people for too few jobs" don't you get?
There simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, because the so-called "job creators" are sitting on their lazy fat asses and shoveling in the profits while laying off more and more people.
Help the people on the bottom of society get to a point where they have actual purchasing power and the hugely increased demand will force an increase in supply, creating jobs and increasing the standard of living for everyone.
Trickle-down economics, "bootstraps" and associated arguments have never, do not and will never work.
This is what happens when you let the free market run wild.
Do you want to live in a world where everyone can just run roughshod over anyone they please in their unending search for maximum profit?
EV isn't better in any way than ICE yet
Except for smoothness, quietness, instant-on torque, direct drive (no gear changes), drivetrain reliability (much fewer moving parts), 'fuel' cost, emissions, energy source independence and a host of other areas. The only areas where ICE is objectively better are refueling time and weight.
Go drive a Tesla Roadster. It's astonishing.
So, don't buy a new personal computer, then? Continue using the old one.
Try it out, it won't hurt you.
First off, stationary generators run for long periods at optimal duty cycles, unlike car engines which run at varying speeds, compromising efficiency for driveability. Stationary generators are also fitted with large, heavy and efficient filter systems, unlike filters car engines, which have to take weight into consideration.
Secondly, moving to electric power for vehicles is the best way to make them energy source independent. Internal combustion engines can generally only run on a couple of specific types of fuel, gasoline, diesel, LPG, alcohol and so on, whereas electricity is electricity. It doesn't matter to the car if it was made by burning oil or coal, or if it was made using hydroelectric dams, geothermal plants, solar power, nuclear fusion or whatever.
Making our vehicles energy source independent frees us from our oil dependency and allows much greater flexibility on a large scale. In fact, it would be great if all vehicles were electric and the oil was used to generate electricity instead. Efficiency would be higher and emissions would be lower.
Oh no, no, no.
Religion tells us that heaven and hell exist. Therefore, the burden of proof is on the religious believers to prove their hypothesis.
No, because the Swiss have these two amazing things called "self control" and "common sense".
I absolutely love my Sennheiser PX100s. They're inexpensive, durable and sound better than anything else in their size or price range, better than phones costing more than twice as much. I'm never going back to earbuds for my MP3 player.
In a completely different price range ($250+), I love my AIAIAI TMA-1s (and have preordered the updated "studio" over-the-ear version). They're closed-back phones, but with none of the tubbiness that haunt cheap closed-back phones, like you mentioned. The guys behind them really did their homework, the sound is great and the bass is utterly amazing. It's not huge or in your face, but it's deep, solid and clean, perfect for DJing (which is what the non-studio version was made for). They'll also play loud enough to rattle your skull without even breaking a sweat or distorting.
Cheap headphones have their place, but gimme a nice set of Sennheisers, Beyerdynamics, AIAIAIs etc. any day for listening at home or in a studio.