This is exactly the problem with all these sorts of copy protection! Perhaps not so much in Britain, but in the United States the entire point of copyright is to enrich the Public Domain, and if you can't preserve the game then it never enters the Public Domain. Because of that, these jerks that insist on Draconian copy protection don't deserve to be eligible for copyright to begin with!
I can't exactly picture Al Franken and Russ Feingold sitting around smoking cigars and laughing while their servers churn away printing reports about opposition voters. Now Cheney on the other hand...
But that's only because it's hard to imagine Democrats smoking cigars. Replace "smoking cigars" with "sipping overpriced lattes" and the situation becomes much easier to imagine.
In fact, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Franken, Feingold and Cheney used the same data mining service...
Wouldn't it be nice if we knew our family and friends, the teller at the bank, the mayors of our towns were being honest? I'm not giving up the war - I'm buying into the solution.
But you don't know that! Just because you might be honest, doesn't guarantee that they'll reciprocate. What if the bank teller is a thief? What if the mayor is corrupt?
Most identity theft is perpetrated by "family and friends..."
Like I said, the yellow ones like St. Charles are highways. Is the speed limit (posted limit, not the speed you might decide to drive) 40+ MPH on those side streets that have stop signs where they intersect St. Charles?
The network is far from free to run, and is losing money. Unless they can figure out another way to monetize it (eg. advertising infrastructure, "subscription fee" from developers, whatever), I don't think anyone can realistically expect it to remain free forever.
Sony didn't have to insist on chaining the PS3 to a proprietary gaming portal, you know. They could have just let it use the Internet like a normal PC!
...New Orleans,Little Rock, Knoxville, Tucson, Houston, Dallas, Memphis, Nashville...
Exactly as I suspected. All those cities -- along with Atlanta, where I live, by the way -- are the poster children for suburban sprawl (especially Dallas, I've heard). Even within the city limits, they still have lots of suburban-style development because they were planned by people like this jerk.
Even so, the cities you listed do have some city streets. Take New Orleans, for example. See all those little white streets (e.g., in the Garden District between St. Charles Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street)? Those are city streets. In contrast, see the yellow roads, such as South Claiborne Avenue and Tulane Avenue (AKA, US 90 and US 61)? Those are highways. Even when you drove through the city, I'm willing to bet that you mostly stayed on the highways.
I never said anything -- you were talking to "SuperBanana." However, the incident in question was cited several times elsewhere in the thread. For example, in this post, submitted 35 minutes before yours. Happy now that I've spoon-fed you?
If you're cycling at or near the speed limit, take the lane (ride in the center, or even towards the left) so that the cars can't pass you. Also take the lane any time being passed would be unsafe (e.g. narrow lanes or blind curves), even if you're going slow. This is not only safer, but legal (in the US) and recommended.
It should have also come out in court that it was the cyclists fault for *not maintaining a safe following distance*!!!
Please kindly explain how the FUCK you're supposed to maintain a safe following distance -- in a bike or a car -- when some asshole decides to merge INTO you!
In fact, bicycles are (afaik) the only vehicle which you have a right to use on the roads. For every other vehicle you must have a valid driving license.
What about tractors, horse-drawn carriages, or even horses by themselves? In the U.S. all those things count as vehicles but don't require driver's licenses, AFAIK.
The problem with your post is that you don't understand the difference between "city streets" and "highways." City streets are typically laid out in a grid pattern, have closely-spaced intersections (say, 1/10th of a mile apart), and have 25-35 MPH speed limits. Highways tend to have 40+ MPH speed limits and fewer intersections, but may still be only two lanes. Residential areas that are called "subdivisions" instead of "neighborhoods" are typically directly attached to highways.
You're probably confused because you only think you've been in cities, while in reality you were in the suburban sprawl surrounding them.
The fundamental problem is traffic still moves in a flow at a certain speed.
Yes -- it moves at the speed of the vehicle in front. If that vehicle happens to be a 15 mph bicycle, then so be it!
You have exactly the same responsibility to pass safely (or not at all) whether the vehicle in question is a bicycle, mail truck, horse and buggy, tractor, or anything else.
Of course if it's a manual you can just drop the clutch.
You mean pressing or depressing the clutch, pushing it in. "Dropping" the clutch means letting it out (and quickly, as when drag racing). If you think it sounds backwards, consider it as dropping the clutch plates into each other so that they engage.
You've never owned a car with a manual transmission, then. (Or at least not one with a manual and cruise control.) They have to cancel the cruise whenever you depress the clutch, or else the engine revs up.
The grandparent poster has a manual-transmission car. Cruise control can't downshift by itself in that case, so it just has a switch that cancels the cruise when the clutch is depressed (just like with the brake) in order to keep the engine from revving up in neutral.
First of all, there are two separate cases: curves and slopes. Curves, whether horizontal or vertical, do indeed require you to accelerate by definition because you are changing direction. Slopes, on the other hand, are straight both horizontally and vertically (their rate of elevation change is constant), so no acceleration is required to maintain speed.
Secondly, you're confusing acceleration with power. In order to maintain speed around the curve, you must increase power because some of the energy that had been used maintaining your speed when you were going straight is now expended as cornering friction. In order to maintain speed on a (positive) slope, you must increase power to compensate for the gain in potential energy.
In other words, despite it being often called the "accelerator pedal," mashing on the throttle to maintain speed up a hill isn't really "acceleration," except at the vertical curves at the bottom and top.
What's with the obsession with parsing words around here?
The Slashdot readership is composed mostly of computer programmers, and parsing computer languages that have very precisely-defined meanings is the bulk of the job. Can you blame them if some of that mindset spills over when processing natural language?
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly the problem with all these sorts of copy protection! Perhaps not so much in Britain, but in the United States the entire point of copyright is to enrich the Public Domain, and if you can't preserve the game then it never enters the Public Domain. Because of that, these jerks that insist on Draconian copy protection don't deserve to be eligible for copyright to begin with!
But that's only because it's hard to imagine Democrats smoking cigars. Replace "smoking cigars" with "sipping overpriced lattes" and the situation becomes much easier to imagine.
In fact, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Franken, Feingold and Cheney used the same data mining service...
But you don't know that! Just because you might be honest, doesn't guarantee that they'll reciprocate. What if the bank teller is a thief? What if the mayor is corrupt?
Most identity theft is perpetrated by "family and friends..."
What, we hadn't figured that out yet by the time ISS construction started?
Like I said, the yellow ones like St. Charles are highways. Is the speed limit (posted limit, not the speed you might decide to drive) 40+ MPH on those side streets that have stop signs where they intersect St. Charles?
Sony didn't have to insist on chaining the PS3 to a proprietary gaming portal, you know. They could have just let it use the Internet like a normal PC!
Exactly as I suspected. All those cities -- along with Atlanta, where I live, by the way -- are the poster children for suburban sprawl (especially Dallas, I've heard). Even within the city limits, they still have lots of suburban-style development because they were planned by people like this jerk.
Even so, the cities you listed do have some city streets. Take New Orleans, for example. See all those little white streets (e.g., in the Garden District between St. Charles Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street)? Those are city streets. In contrast, see the yellow roads, such as South Claiborne Avenue and Tulane Avenue (AKA, US 90 and US 61)? Those are highways. Even when you drove through the city, I'm willing to bet that you mostly stayed on the highways.
I never said anything -- you were talking to "SuperBanana." However, the incident in question was cited several times elsewhere in the thread. For example, in this post, submitted 35 minutes before yours. Happy now that I've spoon-fed you?
If you're cycling at or near the speed limit, take the lane (ride in the center, or even towards the left) so that the cars can't pass you. Also take the lane any time being passed would be unsafe (e.g. narrow lanes or blind curves), even if you're going slow. This is not only safer, but legal (in the US) and recommended.
Please kindly explain how the FUCK you're supposed to maintain a safe following distance -- in a bike or a car -- when some asshole decides to merge INTO you!
That may be true, but I absolutely refuse to believe its a better idea than just simply taking the damn lane to begin with!
What about tractors, horse-drawn carriages, or even horses by themselves? In the U.S. all those things count as vehicles but don't require driver's licenses, AFAIK.
The problem with your post is that you don't understand the difference between "city streets" and "highways." City streets are typically laid out in a grid pattern, have closely-spaced intersections (say, 1/10th of a mile apart), and have 25-35 MPH speed limits. Highways tend to have 40+ MPH speed limits and fewer intersections, but may still be only two lanes. Residential areas that are called "subdivisions" instead of "neighborhoods" are typically directly attached to highways.
You're probably confused because you only think you've been in cities, while in reality you were in the suburban sprawl surrounding them.
On the contrary, separate bike lanes are worse because cars cut across them all the time (especially when there are right-hand turn bays).
I've always figured that if I started commuting by bicycle I'd get two things:
Yes -- it moves at the speed of the vehicle in front. If that vehicle happens to be a 15 mph bicycle, then so be it!
You have exactly the same responsibility to pass safely (or not at all) whether the vehicle in question is a bicycle, mail truck, horse and buggy, tractor, or anything else.
But you have to admit, the GP's analysis was more interesting than the joke.
Except it's not. Right-hand-cars have the same pedal layout as left-hand-drive ones; they just have to shift left-handed.
(You probably already knew that, but someone else reading the post might not.)
You mean pressing or depressing the clutch, pushing it in. "Dropping" the clutch means letting it out (and quickly, as when drag racing). If you think it sounds backwards, consider it as dropping the clutch plates into each other so that they engage.
In any normal car (and even some hybrids), you'd be correct. But the Prius doesn't have neutral.
Your advice would have saved the cop in the Lexus, but it doesn't necessarily fix the problem Woz is talking about in this article.
Everybody else is talking about cars with automatic transmissions. Yours were all apparently manuals. (Good choice, by the way!)
You've never owned a car with a manual transmission, then. (Or at least not one with a manual and cruise control.) They have to cancel the cruise whenever you depress the clutch, or else the engine revs up.
The grandparent poster has a manual-transmission car. Cruise control can't downshift by itself in that case, so it just has a switch that cancels the cruise when the clutch is depressed (just like with the brake) in order to keep the engine from revving up in neutral.
You're not explaining it precisely enough.
First of all, there are two separate cases: curves and slopes. Curves, whether horizontal or vertical, do indeed require you to accelerate by definition because you are changing direction. Slopes, on the other hand, are straight both horizontally and vertically (their rate of elevation change is constant), so no acceleration is required to maintain speed.
Secondly, you're confusing acceleration with power. In order to maintain speed around the curve, you must increase power because some of the energy that had been used maintaining your speed when you were going straight is now expended as cornering friction. In order to maintain speed on a (positive) slope, you must increase power to compensate for the gain in potential energy.
In other words, despite it being often called the "accelerator pedal," mashing on the throttle to maintain speed up a hill isn't really "acceleration," except at the vertical curves at the bottom and top.
The Slashdot readership is composed mostly of computer programmers, and parsing computer languages that have very precisely-defined meanings is the bulk of the job. Can you blame them if some of that mindset spills over when processing natural language?