So your point is that punishment should be determined by economics? Interesting. Let's see, Fry's is out half a million and a few jobs, but the grafitti removal industry is up half a million and a few jobs. Then let's add a couple new law enforcement / corrections jobs. Oh, and a nominal increase in sales to the spray paint industry. Hmm, I'm a bit confused about whether this comes out plus or minus. But, regardless, I agree with you. Justice should come down to economics.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think you're really on to something. If a criminal kills someone, I think we should base the punishment on the economic value of the victim. Then, if you kill a migrant farm worker, you do a few days in jail, and if you kill a CEO, you get drawn and quartered. But there's something else we should add to your theory to make it more ecomically sound. If a CEO kills a migrant farm worker and we punish the CEO, well, we're decreasing the economic output of the CEO. So, not only should we punish the killing of CEOs more highly, we should punish CEOs less. Both of these things are in our economic interest. Likewise, not only should killing migrant farm workers be punished more lightly, but we can afford to punish migrant farm workers more severely.
Of course now we could use some better, more general terminology. Let's call the people who are worth more "noble" and the people who are worth less "peasants." Then we can just make a general rule that says that noblemen are worth more than peasants and should get away with more. And a peasant should be hanged for stealing an apple.
Thanks for the bit about voting money from the treasury. That crystalized several thoughts I've been having lately.
I have been a Republican all my life. I've always been of the philosophy that there is nothing wrong with being rich and that the governemnt shouldn't stand in your way if you want to get rich.
But that philosophy was built on old assumptions, the main one being that the people trying to get rich wouldn't try to pound everybody else in the ass as hard as they could. That's no longer true. Even benevolent paternmalism is a thing of the past.
The distribution of wealth doesn't concern me all that much, but the distribution of power troubles me greatly.
The point of this discussion is correct, standard usage. Replying "Well, you're wrong because I don't do things like that!" is rather strange.
If you want to tell me that I'm wrong with respect to my knowledge of the rules, fine. If you want to tell me that you think the rule stinks, fine. If you want to tell me that you formally denounce all rules of usage, fine.
But don't tell me I'm wrong because you don't like the rule. That's as sensible as arguing that 2+2=5 because you don't think 2+2=4 is aesthetically pleasing and so you designed your own system wherein the former is true.
You are arguing outside the bounds of the original discussion, i.e. correct, standard usage. This is acceptable, if a bit divergent, in your second reply where you qualify your position. But your first reply was unqualified and thus you weren't playing by the rules.
If you want to join in an argument, fine. If you want to take exception with the assumptions or ground rules of the argument, fine. But you must, Sir, declare your intentions of not playing by the rules. Otherwise, you risk others not taking your arguments seriously.
I'm not positive, but isn't it a chemical change rather than a phase change? A phase change would be from one of the four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) to another. My understanding is that what is involved is a dye undergoing a chemical change, not a phase change.
What happens when MS puts out something that has bugs? It's not so bad if it's not a big bug, but that's not a given.
A couple years back, I was running Windows Update on a box at work and it installed a video driver (Intel, I think) which BSODd my box. I couldn't even rescue it and had to reload it. I knew other people who had the same problem with that update. A day or so later, MS yanked that update.
Now that was my fault. I had a back room of identical boxes on shelves that I could have tested the patch on first. But what about Mom and Pop? When their box BSODs, it'll cost them $100 to put it back working, and they may lose some pix of the grandkids. Who's going to pay for that? MS? Not bloody likely.
You overlook the fact that language isn't science. I'm not a big fan of most cultural relativism, but I have to say that when it comes to language, right and wrong are not absolutes.
Take the word 'octopus'. What's the correct plural? 'Octopi'? Wrong. 'Octopi' is actually a hypercorrection. People think the rule, i.e. that which makes the usage correct, is that if you want to pluralize a word that ends in 'us', you drop the 'us' and add an 'i'. They think this because of 'cactus', 'cacti', etc. They see a pattern and incorrectly assume that it's the rule. In fact, the rule for pluralizing words in English is the same as it always has been. To pluralize an English word, add 's', unless the word already ends in 's', in which case you add an 'es'. The exception here is that at one time it was believed that when bringing foreign words into English, one should bring in the plural as well.
And therein lies the problem with 'octopus'. 'Octopus' is from Greek, and so, if you were to follow the rule, you would pluralize it as it would be done in Greek. Thus, the erstwhile correct plural of 'octopus' is 'octopedes' (pronounced ock-TOE-peh-deez).
But who uses that? Most people use 'octopuses' or 'octopi'. Even though 'octopedes' is technically correct, if you used it, no one would understand what you meant. And if no one understands your English, you've rather missed the purpose of attempting to communicate in English. You also come off as a pedantic jerk.
So what makes English usage correct, in the academic sense? What makes English usage correct in this sense is that the usage follows rules. Interestingly enough, those rules are open to dispute. These rules have different sources and some are more acceptable than others. Many of those rules with which the common man would have no quibble are acceptable because they came straight from the common usage. Remember, there weren't always grammar and usage rules. Some people came along and codified what people were already doing with their languages. Thus most English speakers of Eurpean descent have no problem with the rule that subject and verb must agree in number ('they are' not 'they is'). But other rules, such as that about not splitting infinitives, comes, at least in part, from a bunch of pedantic jerks who thought that English should adhere more to the structure of Latin. In Latin, 'to go' would be one word and so, to these pedantic jerks, 'to boldly go' seemed an abomination.
And what makes English usage correct in the common sense, as opposed to the academic sense? In the common sense, correct usage is that which sounds correct to the average speaker, rules be damned. Incedentally, the common man usually wins over the academician. Most academicians long ago gave up the fight over 'octopedes'. They will eventually give up the fight over 'ain't'. Picture if you will an English professor writing the New York times to admonish the Editor that he should use 'thee' and 'thou'. Language changes and so do language prigs, albeit more slowly.
So rules are rules, and nothing more. Personally, I find it perfectly acceptable to say, 'they's (they is) a bunch of mustard greens on the table,' but I wouldn't use that construction in a job interview nor in a paper because it's not correct. But I have to agree with Winston Churchill that there is some 'language up with which I will not put,' no matter how many pedantic jerks tell me how correct it is.
Personally, I think that 'shone' is a much better word than 'shined', but only because it sounds better to my ear. But I'm okay with people using 'shined'. It too is a hypercorrection, but it certainly seems to me to make more sense in that it seems better to follow the English rule that one indicates past tense in regular verbs by adding 'ed'. In fact, my friend, because 'shine shoned' is an irregular verb, it is by definition not following the rule. The only reason it is conside
Must every scientist preface every paper, every word out of his mouth, with a treatise on 500 years of the scientific method?
When you watch the weather chanel and an announcer in Atlanta (or where ever they are), says it's raining in Hong Kong, do you put on your asshat and say, "Oh, come on! How can he possibly know that?"
The fact is the weatherman could have got it wrong. But he has a method whereby he determines what he thinks he knows. And he has a certain degree of success. And by the same token, an astronomer has a degree of success/certainty. Obviously, the weatherman probably has more certainty, but only because he's talking about the next five days. Given a weatherman predicting rain on the 6th of June 2013 and an astronomer predicting the heat death of the universe, I'd put my money on the astronomer.
Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty. But, then, none of these scientists are claiming that they can. What they are claiming is that they think the evidence supports their hypotheses, nothing more.
You would, it seems, take us back to the day when men lived in a world which they didn't understand, which seemed totally random and capricious to them. Rather than try to understand the weather, they prayed for rain. You can go back to that world, brother. I'm staying here.
Do you hear that whizzing sound? That's the sound of photons circling you because they are trapped in the gravity well caused by your immense denseness.
Perhaps god is just a monkey you pulled out of your ass.
Perhaps god is the idjit left behind as all the smarter beings escaped an imploding universe.
Perhaps god is the meta-spiritual spooge energy earth mother goddess budha karma sponge love thingy.
All just as probable and grounded explanations as yours.
Hahaha. That's funny. It's an old saw. I think Sagan mentioned it in one of his books. An astronomer is giving a lecture and he says the universe will end in 5 billion years. A guy stands up in sort of a panic and says, "How many years?" The astronomer repeats himself. The guy sits down, saying, "Oh, thank God. I thought you said 5 million."
Just an aside, in one of his books, Sagan tells a story about how he was working at an observatory late one New Years Eve. A guy calls up and Sagan can hear the sounds of a party in the background. The guy, obviously drunk, says, "Let me talk to an ashtromener."
Sagan says, "This is Carl Sagan. I'm an astronomer."
The guy says, "Whatsh zat fuzzy thing up in the shky?"
Sagan knows there's a comet visible so he tells the guy it's a coment.
"Whatsha comet?" the guy asks.
"Well," replies Sagan. "It's sort of like a dirty snowball."
After a short pause the caller says, "I wanna shpeak to a real Shtromoner."
I've been coding for several years now, both professionally and as a hobby, in maybe a dozen different languages (most of those as a hobby). I love Python. I'm addicted to it. And I love Nutshell books (I have 13 or more), but I don't care that much for Python in a Nutshell. Nutshell books are best when they are a high-density first read and a great reference afterwards. This one, however, has too much of a narrative thread to be a great reference and yet at the same time that narrative is not well woven -- the book is too choppy to be easily read straight trough. I would love a book written like VBScript in a Nutshell but about Python.
Also, this is just a nit pick but, while I realize that Python is a big subject, I dislike how often this book mentions something only to conclude "but I don't cover that here." Why tell me what you're not going to tell me? Just tell me what you are going to tell me. I can do the 'subtraction' myself.
Personally, I have found that the best way for me to begin learning Python and to continue to learn Python is to check out the documentation, google for specific questions, and experiment for the rest. Experimenting is especially handy and productive given the Python interactive interpreter (especially when coupled with the bash shell history). While there may be other languages/interpreters which allow you to do so, Python is the only language/interpreter I know of which allows you to design GUIs on the fly, adding and configuring elements from the command line:
Python 2.2.2 (#1, Feb 24 2003, 19:13:11)
[GCC 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import Tkinter as tk
>>> root = tk.Tk()
>>> btn = tk.Button(root)
>>> btn.pack()
>>> btn.configure(text='Exit')
>>> import sys
>>> btn.configure(command=sys.exit)
Which brings up another point. I have yet to find a really good source for Tkinter info -- neither a good tutorial nor a good reference. My main source of info to date is to use the following tricks. If, for instance, I want to find what I can do with the button in the example above, I do this.
>>> for a in dir(btn):
... print a ...
_Misc__winfo_getint
_Misc__winfo_parseitem
__doc__
[etc.]
winfo_width
winfo_x
winfo_y
>>>
>>> for key in btn.keys(): ... print key ...
activebackground
activeforeground
anchor
[etc.]
underline
width
wraplength
>>>
I would greatly appreciate it if someone could point me to a quality Tkinter reference.
Quit picking on Vin. He was decent in Saving Private Ryan. He was also good in Pitch Black. The problem is not so much his acting as his lousy choice in movies (lousy from the standpoint of script, not $).
Besides, he was an English major.
Re:traffic applications
on
NASA's Sensor Web
·
· Score: 2, Informative
IANATE (I am not a Traffic Engineer), but I am the son of one. As somebody already replied to you, they have loops under the asphalt at most intersections. They're basically big metal detectors (which always made me want to try to degaus someone's car so they wouldn't trip the signals). They're hooked into signal boxes on the corners and sometimes into central monitoring and control centers. They are used primarily to control signals rather than modeling traffic flow for study purposes (for that they mostly use a pneumatic tube running across the road which trips a counter). Signals can be operated by either loops, timers, or a combination of the two -- often times that varies by day, for instance a light at a crossroad may be timed during the day, but, at night, may be set to change only if someone pulls up to the loop. This is one reason why it pisses me off when someone stops ten feet before the stopbar (just before which the loops are generally located) -- that and it just seems like a stupid-ass thing to do.
As far as optimal stoplight pattern, that's a tricky issue. In many cases, lights are timed or operated by loops such that overall average vehicle travel time is greater than it could be, simply because studies have shown that driver satisfaction is increased if travel on major roads is less impeded by signals, even at the expense of greater delays on side roads. It's a matter of perception. So the 'optimal stoplight pattern' is a combination of decreasing average vehicle travel time and accomdating drivers' faulty perceptions of what is optimal.
As is often the case with human interaction with technology, the technology here is well-studied and well-tuned. The problems mostly lie with human perceptions, reaction time, errors, etc. For instance, the average time between when a signal turns green and when the first driver begins to move is 3 seconds. That also pisses me off. I drive a stick and I'm gone in a second.
Also, having said all that about the technology being up to speed, I have to qualify it. The states set up regulations on signals, including their timing and such, but it is up to the government which owns the signal to implement the policies. In many cities there is no central signal administration and signals operate independantly or in small networks which means poorer coordination of traffic. Also, city traffic engineers are not always Traffic Engineers but often electrical or other engineers. No doubt they are fine electrical engineers, but you wouldn't necessarily want one designing bridges, nor managing traffic.
So the answer to your question is that the problem is not with the modeling or the engineering, but rather with the implementation.
So these are your points.
1) Stereotypes are bad.
2) The people who are stereotyped should police their own so that they won't continue to be stereotyped.
This is the logical conclusion of your remarks:
There are three groups:
1) The people who do ignorant things.
2) Those who stereotype larg groups.
3) The folks who are doing neither.
Your advice:
Group three is the group who has the work to do.
BTW, Big Stick diplomacy looks pretty good when you're on the right end. And wise up -- everyone would use the big stick if they could. It ammounts to jealousy.
No, I'm not really into vintage clothing. No I'm not going for a retro look. No, I'm not a filthy goddamned hippy. I'm a social activist.
Re:I'm still waiting.
on
Science Faction
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
My favorite scene in Minority Report is the one where Cruise is flipping through the images using his hands. Here he is using this totally cool, futuristic, literally hands-on GUI. Then he needs to transfer some data to another console a few feet away -- so he puts it on a disk and walks it over there. Ah, the sneakernet. I've always wondered if this was a stupid oversight -- or was it an ingenious commentary on how humans interact with technology. Excuse me now, I have to go print out some emails for my boss.
Here's how you increase public consciousness about RFID and make people desire a change. Place a number or RFID scanners in public places, e.g. the Mall in D.C., Times Square. Then send emails like the following.
"Dear Mr. Arron Jones. We hope you had a lovely time in D.C. We see that you passed the RFID scanners at the Smithsonian and the Air and Space Museum. At each scanner, you were recorded as being in close proximity to Miss Emily Smith, so we assume that she is an aquaintance of yours. Miss Smith was wearing a Victoria's Secret (TM) thong. You had about your person a package of Lifestyles (TM) condoms. We hope that on your next trip to D.C., your wife Mrs. Marry Jones will be able to accompany you. If you are interested in RFID technology or concerned about privacy, please contact your Congressman. Through the convienance of RFID technology, we know where you live and are able to provide a link to your congressman's homepage."
Slashdot Mirror
So your point is that punishment should be determined by economics? Interesting. Let's see, Fry's is out half a million and a few jobs, but the grafitti removal industry is up half a million and a few jobs. Then let's add a couple new law enforcement / corrections jobs. Oh, and a nominal increase in sales to the spray paint industry. Hmm, I'm a bit confused about whether this comes out plus or minus. But, regardless, I agree with you. Justice should come down to economics.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think you're really on to something. If a criminal kills someone, I think we should base the punishment on the economic value of the victim. Then, if you kill a migrant farm worker, you do a few days in jail, and if you kill a CEO, you get drawn and quartered. But there's something else we should add to your theory to make it more ecomically sound. If a CEO kills a migrant farm worker and we punish the CEO, well, we're decreasing the economic output of the CEO. So, not only should we punish the killing of CEOs more highly, we should punish CEOs less. Both of these things are in our economic interest. Likewise, not only should killing migrant farm workers be punished more lightly, but we can afford to punish migrant farm workers more severely.
Of course now we could use some better, more general terminology. Let's call the people who are worth more "noble" and the people who are worth less "peasants." Then we can just make a general rule that says that noblemen are worth more than peasants and should get away with more. And a peasant should be hanged for stealing an apple.
You, Sir, are a fucking genious.
Very insightful.
Thanks for the bit about voting money from the treasury. That crystalized several thoughts I've been having lately.
I have been a Republican all my life. I've always been of the philosophy that there is nothing wrong with being rich and that the governemnt shouldn't stand in your way if you want to get rich.
But that philosophy was built on old assumptions, the main one being that the people trying to get rich wouldn't try to pound everybody else in the ass as hard as they could. That's no longer true. Even benevolent paternmalism is a thing of the past.
The distribution of wealth doesn't concern me all that much, but the distribution of power troubles me greatly.
The point of this discussion is correct, standard usage. Replying "Well, you're wrong because I don't do things like that!" is rather strange.
If you want to tell me that I'm wrong with respect to my knowledge of the rules, fine. If you want to tell me that you think the rule stinks, fine. If you want to tell me that you formally denounce all rules of usage, fine.
But don't tell me I'm wrong because you don't like the rule. That's as sensible as arguing that 2+2=5 because you don't think 2+2=4 is aesthetically pleasing and so you designed your own system wherein the former is true.
You are arguing outside the bounds of the original discussion, i.e. correct, standard usage. This is acceptable, if a bit divergent, in your second reply where you qualify your position. But your first reply was unqualified and thus you weren't playing by the rules.
If you want to join in an argument, fine. If you want to take exception with the assumptions or ground rules of the argument, fine. But you must, Sir, declare your intentions of not playing by the rules. Otherwise, you risk others not taking your arguments seriously.
The question mark should be inside the quotation marks.
I'm not positive, but isn't it a chemical change rather than a phase change? A phase change would be from one of the four states of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma) to another. My understanding is that what is involved is a dye undergoing a chemical change, not a phase change.
Eh. It's just a shower. If they wanted to kill us, why not just shoot us when we got off the train?
At least I know about the bag checker.
And not being a sheep, I just walk right by them, don't even look at them.
It's quite obvious that everything should be called Marclar.
Whatever. All these translations bring tears to my ears.
What happens when MS puts out something that has bugs? It's not so bad if it's not a big bug, but that's not a given.
A couple years back, I was running Windows Update on a box at work and it installed a video driver (Intel, I think) which BSODd my box. I couldn't even rescue it and had to reload it. I knew other people who had the same problem with that update. A day or so later, MS yanked that update.
Now that was my fault. I had a back room of identical boxes on shelves that I could have tested the patch on first. But what about Mom and Pop? When their box BSODs, it'll cost them $100 to put it back working, and they may lose some pix of the grandkids. Who's going to pay for that? MS? Not bloody likely.
You overlook the fact that language isn't science. I'm not a big fan of most cultural relativism, but I have to say that when it comes to language, right and wrong are not absolutes.
Take the word 'octopus'. What's the correct plural? 'Octopi'? Wrong. 'Octopi' is actually a hypercorrection. People think the rule, i.e. that which makes the usage correct, is that if you want to pluralize a word that ends in 'us', you drop the 'us' and add an 'i'. They think this because of 'cactus', 'cacti', etc. They see a pattern and incorrectly assume that it's the rule. In fact, the rule for pluralizing words in English is the same as it always has been. To pluralize an English word, add 's', unless the word already ends in 's', in which case you add an 'es'. The exception here is that at one time it was believed that when bringing foreign words into English, one should bring in the plural as well.
And therein lies the problem with 'octopus'. 'Octopus' is from Greek, and so, if you were to follow the rule, you would pluralize it as it would be done in Greek. Thus, the erstwhile correct plural of 'octopus' is 'octopedes' (pronounced ock-TOE-peh-deez).
But who uses that? Most people use 'octopuses' or 'octopi'. Even though 'octopedes' is technically correct, if you used it, no one would understand what you meant. And if no one understands your English, you've rather missed the purpose of attempting to communicate in English. You also come off as a pedantic jerk.
So what makes English usage correct, in the academic sense? What makes English usage correct in this sense is that the usage follows rules. Interestingly enough, those rules are open to dispute. These rules have different sources and some are more acceptable than others. Many of those rules with which the common man would have no quibble are acceptable because they came straight from the common usage. Remember, there weren't always grammar and usage rules. Some people came along and codified what people were already doing with their languages. Thus most English speakers of Eurpean descent have no problem with the rule that subject and verb must agree in number ('they are' not 'they is'). But other rules, such as that about not splitting infinitives, comes, at least in part, from a bunch of pedantic jerks who thought that English should adhere more to the structure of Latin. In Latin, 'to go' would be one word and so, to these pedantic jerks, 'to boldly go' seemed an abomination.
And what makes English usage correct in the common sense, as opposed to the academic sense? In the common sense, correct usage is that which sounds correct to the average speaker, rules be damned. Incedentally, the common man usually wins over the academician. Most academicians long ago gave up the fight over 'octopedes'. They will eventually give up the fight over 'ain't'. Picture if you will an English professor writing the New York times to admonish the Editor that he should use 'thee' and 'thou'. Language changes and so do language prigs, albeit more slowly.
So rules are rules, and nothing more. Personally, I find it perfectly acceptable to say, 'they's (they is) a bunch of mustard greens on the table,' but I wouldn't use that construction in a job interview nor in a paper because it's not correct. But I have to agree with Winston Churchill that there is some 'language up with which I will not put,' no matter how many pedantic jerks tell me how correct it is.
Personally, I think that 'shone' is a much better word than 'shined', but only because it sounds better to my ear. But I'm okay with people using 'shined'. It too is a hypercorrection, but it certainly seems to me to make more sense in that it seems better to follow the English rule that one indicates past tense in regular verbs by adding 'ed'. In fact, my friend, because 'shine shoned' is an irregular verb, it is by definition not following the rule. The only reason it is conside
You are too cool. When I read that, I heard the voice in my head. Thanks for the memory.
The profit comes from economizing on apostrophes.
You asshats drive me bonkers.
Must every scientist preface every paper, every word out of his mouth, with a treatise on 500 years of the scientific method?
When you watch the weather chanel and an announcer in Atlanta (or where ever they are), says it's raining in Hong Kong, do you put on your asshat and say, "Oh, come on! How can he possibly know that?"
The fact is the weatherman could have got it wrong. But he has a method whereby he determines what he thinks he knows. And he has a certain degree of success. And by the same token, an astronomer has a degree of success/certainty. Obviously, the weatherman probably has more certainty, but only because he's talking about the next five days. Given a weatherman predicting rain on the 6th of June 2013 and an astronomer predicting the heat death of the universe, I'd put my money on the astronomer.
Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty. But, then, none of these scientists are claiming that they can. What they are claiming is that they think the evidence supports their hypotheses, nothing more.
You would, it seems, take us back to the day when men lived in a world which they didn't understand, which seemed totally random and capricious to them. Rather than try to understand the weather, they prayed for rain. You can go back to that world, brother. I'm staying here.
Do you hear that whizzing sound? That's the sound of photons circling you because they are trapped in the gravity well caused by your immense denseness.
Perhaps god is just a monkey you pulled out of your ass.
Perhaps god is the idjit left behind as all the smarter beings escaped an imploding universe.
Perhaps god is the meta-spiritual spooge energy earth mother goddess budha karma sponge love thingy.
All just as probable and grounded explanations as yours.
Sorry. Have to call 'em as I see 'em.
What is an ungent? Did you mean unguent? Ungulate? Are you refering to a jar?
Huh? Where's the Al in SiO2?
Hahaha. That's funny. It's an old saw. I think Sagan mentioned it in one of his books. An astronomer is giving a lecture and he says the universe will end in 5 billion years. A guy stands up in sort of a panic and says, "How many years?" The astronomer repeats himself. The guy sits down, saying, "Oh, thank God. I thought you said 5 million."
Just an aside, in one of his books, Sagan tells a story about how he was working at an observatory late one New Years Eve. A guy calls up and Sagan can hear the sounds of a party in the background. The guy, obviously drunk, says, "Let me talk to an ashtromener."
Sagan says, "This is Carl Sagan. I'm an astronomer."
The guy says, "Whatsh zat fuzzy thing up in the shky?"
Sagan knows there's a comet visible so he tells the guy it's a coment.
"Whatsha comet?" the guy asks.
"Well," replies Sagan. "It's sort of like a dirty snowball."
After a short pause the caller says, "I wanna shpeak to a real Shtromoner."
Also, this is just a nit pick but, while I realize that Python is a big subject, I dislike how often this book mentions something only to conclude "but I don't cover that here." Why tell me what you're not going to tell me? Just tell me what you are going to tell me. I can do the 'subtraction' myself.
Personally, I have found that the best way for me to begin learning Python and to continue to learn Python is to check out the documentation, google for specific questions, and experiment for the rest. Experimenting is especially handy and productive given the Python interactive interpreter (especially when coupled with the bash shell history). While there may be other languages/interpreters which allow you to do so, Python is the only language/interpreter I know of which allows you to design GUIs on the fly, adding and configuring elements from the command line: Which brings up another point. I have yet to find a really good source for Tkinter info -- neither a good tutorial nor a good reference. My main source of info to date is to use the following tricks. If, for instance, I want to find what I can do with the button in the example above, I do this. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could point me to a quality Tkinter reference.
Quit picking on Vin. He was decent in Saving Private Ryan. He was also good in Pitch Black. The problem is not so much his acting as his lousy choice in movies (lousy from the standpoint of script, not $). Besides, he was an English major.
IANATE (I am not a Traffic Engineer), but I am the son of one. As somebody already replied to you, they have loops under the asphalt at most intersections. They're basically big metal detectors (which always made me want to try to degaus someone's car so they wouldn't trip the signals). They're hooked into signal boxes on the corners and sometimes into central monitoring and control centers. They are used primarily to control signals rather than modeling traffic flow for study purposes (for that they mostly use a pneumatic tube running across the road which trips a counter). Signals can be operated by either loops, timers, or a combination of the two -- often times that varies by day, for instance a light at a crossroad may be timed during the day, but, at night, may be set to change only if someone pulls up to the loop. This is one reason why it pisses me off when someone stops ten feet before the stopbar (just before which the loops are generally located) -- that and it just seems like a stupid-ass thing to do.
As far as optimal stoplight pattern, that's a tricky issue. In many cases, lights are timed or operated by loops such that overall average vehicle travel time is greater than it could be, simply because studies have shown that driver satisfaction is increased if travel on major roads is less impeded by signals, even at the expense of greater delays on side roads. It's a matter of perception. So the 'optimal stoplight pattern' is a combination of decreasing average vehicle travel time and accomdating drivers' faulty perceptions of what is optimal.
As is often the case with human interaction with technology, the technology here is well-studied and well-tuned. The problems mostly lie with human perceptions, reaction time, errors, etc. For instance, the average time between when a signal turns green and when the first driver begins to move is 3 seconds. That also pisses me off. I drive a stick and I'm gone in a second.
Also, having said all that about the technology being up to speed, I have to qualify it. The states set up regulations on signals, including their timing and such, but it is up to the government which owns the signal to implement the policies. In many cities there is no central signal administration and signals operate independantly or in small networks which means poorer coordination of traffic. Also, city traffic engineers are not always Traffic Engineers but often electrical or other engineers. No doubt they are fine electrical engineers, but you wouldn't necessarily want one designing bridges, nor managing traffic.
So the answer to your question is that the problem is not with the modeling or the engineering, but rather with the implementation.
So these are your points. 1) Stereotypes are bad. 2) The people who are stereotyped should police their own so that they won't continue to be stereotyped. This is the logical conclusion of your remarks: There are three groups: 1) The people who do ignorant things. 2) Those who stereotype larg groups. 3) The folks who are doing neither. Your advice: Group three is the group who has the work to do. BTW, Big Stick diplomacy looks pretty good when you're on the right end. And wise up -- everyone would use the big stick if they could. It ammounts to jealousy.
No, I'm not really into vintage clothing. No I'm not going for a retro look. No, I'm not a filthy goddamned hippy. I'm a social activist.
My favorite scene in Minority Report is the one where Cruise is flipping through the images using his hands. Here he is using this totally cool, futuristic, literally hands-on GUI. Then he needs to transfer some data to another console a few feet away -- so he puts it on a disk and walks it over there. Ah, the sneakernet. I've always wondered if this was a stupid oversight -- or was it an ingenious commentary on how humans interact with technology. Excuse me now, I have to go print out some emails for my boss.
Here's how you increase public consciousness about RFID and make people desire a change. Place a number or RFID scanners in public places, e.g. the Mall in D.C., Times Square. Then send emails like the following. "Dear Mr. Arron Jones. We hope you had a lovely time in D.C. We see that you passed the RFID scanners at the Smithsonian and the Air and Space Museum. At each scanner, you were recorded as being in close proximity to Miss Emily Smith, so we assume that she is an aquaintance of yours. Miss Smith was wearing a Victoria's Secret (TM) thong. You had about your person a package of Lifestyles (TM) condoms. We hope that on your next trip to D.C., your wife Mrs. Marry Jones will be able to accompany you. If you are interested in RFID technology or concerned about privacy, please contact your Congressman. Through the convienance of RFID technology, we know where you live and are able to provide a link to your congressman's homepage."