Is that why Wal-Mart greeters always insisted that my civil rights end at the door when they attempted to check my bags all the time? Is that why I always had to make a scene and refuse? Hell, this is one of the reasons I stopped going to Wally World -- along with the fact that they are evil.
Hehe, one time I told one of them "Who died and made you a peace officer?" as I refused his third order to stop while walking out the store. Guess what? Nothing ever came of it!
Hey, I'm not advocating equipment enforced speed limits. I even said in my OP that I can't really throw stones -- I speed all the time. I go to work at 80-85 even if I'm not running late. I like to drive fast. So I'm the last one that can throw stones.
I was just pointing out that in virtually all scenarios where you have the choice of speeding up or slowing down it is never better to speed up. It also seems that all of the examples people have posted relate to motorcycles -- bikes are very different from cars and different rules apply. Your friend is lucky to be alive -- semi vs bike is not pretty.
In fact, the trucker bearing down on you is one situation that I would always recommend speeding up -- or getting out of their way. Even if they have the ability to slow down and avoid hitting you it's a pretty shitty thing to make them do. Often times they need to build up that speed going downhill to be able to make the next hill with any decent amount of speed. I can be a fairly big asshole behind the wheel when I perceive that somebody is being one to me (don't tailgate me) -- but I am always respectful to truckers. I get out of their way or speed up and I always try to help them out with lane changes (flash your lights if it's clear) and the like.
I don't like the feel of FWD myself; it feels a lot like towing a trailer with inadequate brakes. What's your gripe with it?
I don't have a specific gripe with it because it's what I learned to drive on. I'm also a big fan of it in winter driving -- for all the bragging that people with SUVs and 4x4s do, I'd be willing to bet that I can do anything (on roads) in bad weather with FWD and good tires that they can do. Of course if your car bottoms out in the snow then all bets are off:)
The only time I ever got stuck with FWD was when I was running late to Christmas dinner and didn't have time shovel out our 60 foot long driveway. I had enough of a running start (between my space and the guys that had been parked behind me) that I should have been ok -- but as I was zipping towards the road a plowtruck came up the street. I had to stop to avoid hitting him and once I stopped I was screwed. When I opened the car door snow fell into my car. Needless to say I didn't make it to dinner;) But had I made it out of the driveway I would have been fine.
Some of my non-specific gripes with FWD would be that it seems to eat tires and complicate the front end. Every car I've ever owned had alignment issues. Whether or not that has to do with FWD, my old junker cars or an incompetent repair shop remains open to debate. I would just like the choice of having a RWD without paying $35,000 for a crown vic:)
Ever try passing on a two-way road with one lane each? If you are passing a truck and see a car coming, you either speed up, or slow down, depending on your position. Presumably during said maneuver you would be driving a bit above the speed limit, as well.
All the time. And that scenario doesn't equal "high speed evasive" which was what I was discussing. If you are passing someone and somebody appears in the distance then you have two choices -- speed up or slow down. I'd usually speed up assuming it was safe to do so.
'm a big fan of slowing to a stop in the road. They'll generally pass before you completely stop.
I have this theory. It's called gravity. All objects in the universe have a gravimetric attraction towards each other. Gravity falls off with the square of the distance as I recall. So it stands to reason that the closer you get to my rear bumper the harder it is going to be for me to push my foot down on the gas;)
That said, brake checking is illegal - you'll get a ticket for reckless driving (or similar) to match their "following too closely" ticket. Well, depending on how smooth the other party is when the cops arrive, anyway...
Yeah, but it doesn't stop me when I'm annoyed at being followed too closely. You'd probably have a hard time getting away with it on an open highway (but then, on an open highway, why didn't the asshole just pass you?) but in town or traffic you could always claim that somebody cut you off and you had to slow down. Plus the other guy being somebody as inconsiderate enough to tailgate isn't likely to be very smooth when the cops come.
One time after I got rear-ended by someone I got out to ask if she was ok. She promptly started screaming at me "Why the fuck did you stop?". As though it was my fault she rear ended me while talking on her cell phone. I wound up in a screaming match with her and the paramedics broke us up (happened right in front of the fire station). By the time the police arrived I was calm and collected. Working for the insurance agency kind of taught me the drill. She bitched and swore at them and wound up getting a following too closely ticket -- I didn't even open my mouth. After they talked to me they decided to issue her a ticket for distracted driving and violation of the NYS law against handheld cell phone use. For the record I was stopped and waiting for her to pass me so I could back into a parking space -- with my turn signal on!
Umm, I live there. Where exactly were you? Have you ever driven in the city, New Jersey or dare I say it, certain parts of Europe? If you think Upstate NY drivers are maniacs I'd be scared to see you elsewhere;)
He cut in front of the guy behind me, clipped his bumper and started spinning directly towards my back bumper. I was doing 60 at the time. I indeed downshifted and stepped on it. I got from 60 to ~75-80 rather quickly (being a turbocharged car helped tremendously), and guess what -- I didn't get hit! I would have been hit if I had hit my brakes or stayed at 60mph. After I got outta the way, I pulled over and called 911 etc etc....
He had to have had some speed advantage to have been able to maintain enough forward speed while spinning that he could have hit you. Granted, it sounds like in that scenario that braking would not have been your best bet;)
So yes, "evasive high speed" is a legitmate technique that educated/practiced drivers can use to avoid accidents. It takes split second reaction time, a "good head," and a just a little bit of practice. Always be looking around, know your vehicle -- it's performance AND limits, and be ready to put forth all efforts to USE that vehicle to save your own ass, whether the owner's manual says you should or not.
Looking around is the key point to the defensive driving. Though if your above scenario actually required a rapid 20mph increase in speed I would probably be screwed in my car. I would likely get ready to take the hit and be ready to control my car to a safe stop because there's no way that my tired old clunker would speed up in time (assuming there wasn't room to get out of the way in another lane).
Only because they are willing to pay for them. It's not like they are restricted to law enforcement only. I have a friend who owns a Crown Vic Police Interceptor -- complete with the spot lights (usually aimed at you when you get pulled over), larger dome light (for writing tickets), bigger alternator (for running all the equipment), better cooling system (prolonged high speed chases) and exploding gas tank (*duck*). He buys a new one every year. Yeah, he has money to waste. But the point is that you can get them if you want them.
And actually it's kind of fun to drive. Too bad no other decent American car has RWD as an option.
My minivan otoh pushes 90 quite easily, and would probably break 120 if i wanted to try it.
It's probably got a fuel shutoff somewhere between 100-125. My old car had a fuel shutoff at 120 (though it actually kicked in at 115 because my speedometer was off;) -- I would be zipping along with a nice amount of acceleration and when it hit 120 my engine would turn into a massive brake. The fuel cut-off wouldn't release until the speed dropped below 110. My current car has this limit at about 110. One time I bypassed it by shifting into netural on a nice downgrade to avoid the engine braking affect. I think I got my car up to about 135 that time. I was actually scared;)
I think this has something to do with the tires that most cars use. The typical consumer tire isn't rated for more then 120. There might also be a law enforcement stake as well.
I haven't RTFA, but I can only assume that there is some room to allow for the
use of evasive high speed when necessary.
You know, I shouldn't throw stones, because I speed all the time and not usually just a "little bit" -- 80-85 is common for me on the highway. That said, I've been driving for almost 15 years. I used to work for an insurance agency and attended more safe driving courses/schools then I can recall. I processed thousands of accident reports and claims. And not once in all of that did I see an accident that could have been prevented by "evasive high speed".
Your at cruising speed. Let's say 70mph. All of a sudden something that happens that will require you to speed up or slow down 10mph to avoid it. What action do you think is faster? To gain that speed in time to matter will doubtless require a downshift. That's going to add at least a second on a shift stick. It might even take that long in an automatic -- since newer automatics lock the torque converter at cruising speed and would need to unlock it before downshifting. All the CVTs that I've driven in my day seem to be equally slow to change gear ratios to anything meaningful. Then how long will it take to actually gain that speed? Contrast that to your brakes. The brakes that I might add have the power to stop your your car even against the force of a runaway engine.
The first thing you are taught in defensive driving is to study the situation around you and think about what could wrong. For each scenario of something that could go wrong you are supposed to have a way to get out of that problem without it becoming an accident. This could be as simple as thinking "What will I do if he doesn't stop at that stop sign?" with the answer "I'll stop" (duh!) -- but it works equally well on the West Side Highway at rush hour. In all of my driving experience I can not once think of a situation where my method of getting out of trouble would have involved speeding up.
This doesn't mean that there aren't scenarios where you need to speed up to stay out of trouble -- some asshole tailgating you comes to mind (speed up to pass the guy on your right and get out of the dimwits way). I'm just saying that I've never seen a scenario where a split second decision to go faster would have prevented an accident. I've seen lots where a split second decision to brake would have.
As far as what is normally allowed, I would say +10 is pretty safe from tickets. Say, 45->55 or 65->75. I think when you hit 80mph, you're fair game.
It's generally been my experience that around these parts you can get away with +15mph as long as you acknowledge the cop when you see him. I usually cruise at 80 on the highway (posted 65) and 70-75 on rural roads. When I come to a speedtrap I make eye contact with the officer and take my foot off the gas. If they see you do this they will usually assume that you didn't realize you were going that fast and not come after you. I've talked to local sheriff's duputies and they confirm this line of logic. Of course slamming on the brakes when you see a speedtrap virtually ensures that you will get a ticket -- nothing they dislike more then seeing your hood take a nosedive. All I do is take my foot off the gas so they will see me slow down.
I'd also recommend wearing your seatbelt at all times (nothing shows more arrogance then speeding while not wearing one) and it never hurts to be dressed decently. I've been pulled over twice in my day -- the first time I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and was on my way to the post office. I got the book thrown at me. The second time I was wearing a suit jacket and tie and on my way home from my employers Holiday Party. I had a little bit of booze on my breath (I'd had two drinks at the party) -- he asked me about that, accepted my explanation and let me go with a warning.
That's my life experience and suggestions for dealing with traffic cops. It hasn't failed me yet. YMMV
Ma Bell was a utility, and a monopoly. Time Warner is neither.
You don't think that internet access qualifies as a utility? Maybe not in the classical sense of the word but I think you could make an argument that internet access is just as essential in the 21st century as telephone was in the 20th. In many areas Time Warner has a monopoly on broadband internet access. In many other areas they have a complete monopoly on internet access, because your only dialup option is AOL.
Furthermore they are pushing out into telephony with the rollout of their digital phone VoIP product. While on the surface I don't think this is a bad thing (it's about time the telcos got some competition) it does really bother me that their product isn't as reliable as POTS but they pass it off as though it is. It's also just plain damn unfair that Time Warner hasn't been asked to pay any extra licensing or franchise fees for telco services -- but in areas where Verizon has rolled out video over the FiOS network they have had the municipalities come after them for francise fees -- with Time Warners backing.
No, Time Warner isn't Ma Bell just yet. The point that I wanted to make and the discussion that I wanted to see was they might be heading in that direction and what can be done to stop them without ruining competition?
.info and.biz? they were trying to force all the businesses to drop.com and to move to.info and.biz?
No, but I would make the argument that.biz suffers from the same lack of justification as.xxx does. What exactly is the point of.biz? To create more namespace? How exactly does that work when all of the "good" names are instantly snatched up by Cybersquatters? How does it help me when my organization now needs to register our.biz domain just to keep another cyber/typosquatter from jumping on it to either extort us for it or make a few ad bucks when our clients wind up at it by mistake?
All these extra TLDs only seem to exist to make money for ICANN and the registors IMHO. Even the enforced ones like.museum seem rather redundant -- what's wrong with.org exactly?
Perhaps ICANN should be working on getting non-English TLDs working instead of creating all of these new ones that don't serve any point.
My guess is that Nielson was missing the TVIO crowd and recorder crowd entirely. This made their product less accurate and less valuable to their customers. This cost them customers (who pay dearly for their services).
You do know that TiVo has an agreement with Nielson right? You do know that TiVo logs everything you watch and how you watch it and then gives that data to Nielson, right?
I sit on their homescan panel. I figure as somebody who boycotts Wally World and does all of his shopping at locally owned businesses it's the least I can do. I'm also being pestered to join their new TV/Radio panel -- but I haven't decided if I will or not. They have a rather interesting device that picks up audio signals from the stuff you watch/listen to and then sends that data to them in such a way that they can track what you watch/listen to. The only reason I haven't joined that panel is because I'm a bit leery about a device that listens to audio in my house and transmits it to an outside party;)
Still, I would love to figure out exactly how it works.
Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.
Maybe a little offtopic, but this is a technial question that I've always had -- how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?
I ask because if you can't account for lost packets then it's going to make your bittorrent idea a lot harder. I suppose it would work well for a stream that you wanted tens of thousands of people to see -- but in a bittorrent scenario you need to get the entire file. Using multicast would probably require a _huge_ rewrite of the bittorrent protocol.
The movie-era model of the Enterprise.... no bloody A, B, D, or D... is about the most fantastically beautiful model of a spacecraft I've ever seen; easily looking better than anything I can think of before or since. You could tell, from occasional clumsiness, in TMP that motion control camera technology wasn't *quite* there, but by TWOK, it was perfect and convincing. I mean... that was a starSHIP. And the remaining difficulty in working with such a huge model (I think it was eight feet long.) combined with a couple years of refinement of motion control technology meant that it moved like the heavy cruiser that The Enterprise is meant to be
TWoK is a great example. I wish I had thought of it first:) I didn't know they used an eight foot model for the original movies but I knew it was a shooting model and not CGI. But watching the Enterprise and Reliant duke it out was classic Trek. I don't think many people grasp that ships in the Star Trek universe are supposed to be ships and not fighters. In the Star Trek world I would make the point that computer targeting and rapid weapons fire would combine to make using any type of "fighter" suicidal. Recall the ease at which the Enterprise-D blew through the fighter like defenses in Conundrum. Even Bab5 has examples of this -- the Minbari would pretty much walk their capital ships right through fighters because they had the ability to target them with their heavy weaponry.
I think you can also find examples (though not on the grand scale of TWOK) in TNG. Even day to day maneuvers looked real to me. The only extended battle scene I can think of would be Yesterday's Enterprise -- and the ships on both sides moved like ships -- not fighters.
Contrast that with the CGI Enterprise E from Nemesis. Not only did it not look as good overall, but the way it moved totally destroyed the majesty that should be associated with the name Enterprise. That silly thing was flitting about the screen like something out of Wing Commander. Just totally wrecked the illusion and un-suspended my disbelief. that did.
I already held a grudge against the Enterprise-E because it always struck me as a way for Bermen and Bragga to get rid of the last bit of Roddenberry's influence. How the hell else do you go from "Ship designed for multi year exploration missions that carries families and civilians" to "warship"? The Enterprise-D was one of (if not the) the most studied and appreciated fictional vehicles in history. We knew more about her then any other fictional vehicle before or since. She was graceful. She had history. She was killed her before her time because the producers thought it would be "cool" to crash land a saucer.
And if that insult wasn't enough they had to add injury by copying the original movies. Just what exactly are the odds of Picard getting a new command and keeping his entire crew? At least the original movies showed some progression amongst the crew -- Kirk made Admiral and had to deal with the repercussions, Spock failed in his attempt to purge all emotions, Bones retired, etc, etc, etc.
My purposed method of bringing Star Trek back would be to wait at least 15 years and get the TNG crew back together for one last real sendoff. Let the actors age so you can show real advancement in the characters -- and pretend that the four TNG movies never existed. You could even write it off to some sort of technobabble bullshit about the Nexus from Generations or Q from All Good Things... to make it easier for the masses to follow.
Imagine a non-technical jury trying to follow this:
Then it's up to her lawyer to explain it to them in a way that makes sense. I was called to testify at a Grand Jury once over a computer related affair. Granted, Grand Jury is different then Petit Jury (Grand Jurors get to ask questions) but you'd be surprised at some of the technical related questions they asked me. I also feel pretty confident in saying that they understood all of my answers. This was in the middle of a rural farming county too -- so you can't even say that it was a jury pool of techies.
People aren't as dumb as you might think. Have some faith and hope in the system.
So you prefer the "noseridge-of-the-week" look over something really alien?
The only "real" aliens in Bab 5 were the First Ones. Star Trek has flirted with "real" aliens at times too -- the Sheliak from TNG and the Tholians come to mind. I could also mention 8472 but Voyager never existed in my World;) Of course the only "real" alien (non-humanoid) that had any recurring impact on Trek would probably have been Q. It's hard to say if he counts or not -- since they always get to show them in humanoid form.
Kind of hard to blame Bab 5 or Trek for the budget/time problem with showing "real" aliens though.
B5 had a grubby feel to it when compared to ST TNG and weird character appearances for anything that wwas not human. Like they were trying to look strange. I never got pulled in to it.
That's a bit unfair. Considering the budget that JMS was working with and the fact that CGI was still pretty new back then I'd say he did pretty damn well. As much as I love TNG, they had about a million dollar per episode budget if I recall correctly.
Of course, I'd make the argument that all the dependence on CGI actually has taken something away from Star Trek. Watch the TNG reruns on Spike TV. The Enterprise-D had graceful lines. It almost seemed magical to watch it move through space. They did all that with two shooting models -- a four and six foot if I recall correctly. The level of detail that they put into the sets and layout of the ship is still amazing to this day. I'd wager that we know more about the Galaxy Class Starship then any other fictional vehicle before or since.
Fast forward to DS9 or the Enterprise finale with the CGI images of Galaxy Class Starships. The CGI model of the Enterprise-D in ENT comes to mind. They just seem very fake to me. The magic is gone. The Enterprise-D represented a vehicle that could take us anywhere our imagination wanted to go. I started to lose faith in the Star Trek franchise when Paramount decided to destroy it for the sake of eye candy in Generations:(
Ah, it's refreshing to meet somebody else that heard of that show. That remains one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows. It deserved to do better then two seasons.
I'm still waiting for my specified encapsulated limitless memory archive. Screw laptops and PDAs;)
The customer is their meal ticket. Without customers they can't sell advertisments. But I still don't think that means they should do something that will encourge the *AA's of the World to pick a legal fight with them. Even if TiVo won such a fought (they probably would) how much money would it cost them?
TiVo has always had a wink and a nudge policy towards things like the 30 second skip. They've also usually been supportive of hackers in the community growing their product. I'm not really fond of the forced automatic updates -- but overall I think TiVo is trying to strike a reasonable balance.
In any event I'd rather see TiVo be successful then to see them fail and have to pick between the cable companies crappy DVR product or going to the hassle of building my own. Back in the day I would have loved nothing more then to sit down with something like MythTV and some old hard drives and build a DVR for myself. But I find that the more I work with PCs for a living the less I want to play with them when I get home.
The purpose of.xxx is a porn sink. Over time, porn sites will gravitate to.xxx voluntarily. Who wants to be name.com when they could be bettername.xxx.
You'd still wind up dealing with typo squatters like this guy. The Usenet example is a good point though and I tip my hat to you on that one.
In any case, I wish people would wait and see what happens rather then using it as an issue to further divide the World over. If DoC or the US Government actually blocks it then you'll have a point. Right now it looks like are they doing is slowing it down to allow more time for comment.
I think it is cheaper to have the sources located on the same media than provide and fund a website to download the same resources.
Hehe, you wouldn't think that if you still lived in dialup land and had to download one of the newer distros.
I remember when Slackware's A and N disk sets were still floppy sized and you could install off them. I think it required about nine or ten floppies to get going -- 14 megs -- about a 70 minute download on 28.8 dialup. Those sets contained everything you needed to get a console going and on a network -- you could download the rest at your lesiure -- including source if desired.
Just food for thought. It's no doubt less important then it used to be -- but I still have some nostalgia for those days.
Just another reason why politicians shouldn't be writing laws concerning subjects they know nothing about.
Actually, you should have said "just another reason why politicians shouldn't be enacting laws that were written by lobbyists". It's a bit unfair to demand that Congresscritters will be experts in all subjects.
But on a related topic -- why isn't there a CTO (Congressional Technology Office)? There's the Congressional Budget Office -- which is (allegedly) a non partisan office that exists to advise Congress on budgetary issues. They are the ones releasing the figures about Social Security that disagree wildly with what the White House would have us believe.
So why shouldn't there be a CTO? It's unreasonable to expect that all Congresscritters can be knowledgeable techies. They should have a non partisan agency to advise them about these issues -- then perhaps stuff like this wouldn't be overlooked.
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and they risk alienating their real customers.
Is that why Wal-Mart greeters always insisted that my civil rights end at the door when they attempted to check my bags all the time? Is that why I always had to make a scene and refuse? Hell, this is one of the reasons I stopped going to Wally World -- along with the fact that they are evil.
Hehe, one time I told one of them "Who died and made you a peace officer?" as I refused his third order to stop while walking out the store. Guess what? Nothing ever came of it!
Hey, I'm not advocating equipment enforced speed limits. I even said in my OP that I can't really throw stones -- I speed all the time. I go to work at 80-85 even if I'm not running late. I like to drive fast. So I'm the last one that can throw stones.
I was just pointing out that in virtually all scenarios where you have the choice of speeding up or slowing down it is never better to speed up. It also seems that all of the examples people have posted relate to motorcycles -- bikes are very different from cars and different rules apply. Your friend is lucky to be alive -- semi vs bike is not pretty.
In fact, the trucker bearing down on you is one situation that I would always recommend speeding up -- or getting out of their way. Even if they have the ability to slow down and avoid hitting you it's a pretty shitty thing to make them do. Often times they need to build up that speed going downhill to be able to make the next hill with any decent amount of speed. I can be a fairly big asshole behind the wheel when I perceive that somebody is being one to me (don't tailgate me) -- but I am always respectful to truckers. I get out of their way or speed up and I always try to help them out with lane changes (flash your lights if it's clear) and the like.
I don't like the feel of FWD myself; it feels a lot like towing a trailer with inadequate brakes. What's your gripe with it?
I don't have a specific gripe with it because it's what I learned to drive on. I'm also a big fan of it in winter driving -- for all the bragging that people with SUVs and 4x4s do, I'd be willing to bet that I can do anything (on roads) in bad weather with FWD and good tires that they can do. Of course if your car bottoms out in the snow then all bets are off :)
The only time I ever got stuck with FWD was when I was running late to Christmas dinner and didn't have time shovel out our 60 foot long driveway. I had enough of a running start (between my space and the guys that had been parked behind me) that I should have been ok -- but as I was zipping towards the road a plowtruck came up the street. I had to stop to avoid hitting him and once I stopped I was screwed. When I opened the car door snow fell into my car. Needless to say I didn't make it to dinner ;) But had I made it out of the driveway I would have been fine.
Some of my non-specific gripes with FWD would be that it seems to eat tires and complicate the front end. Every car I've ever owned had alignment issues. Whether or not that has to do with FWD, my old junker cars or an incompetent repair shop remains open to debate. I would just like the choice of having a RWD without paying $35,000 for a crown vic :)
Ever try passing on a two-way road with one lane each? If you are passing a truck and see a car coming, you either speed up, or slow down, depending on your position. Presumably during said maneuver you would be driving a bit above the speed limit, as well.
All the time. And that scenario doesn't equal "high speed evasive" which was what I was discussing. If you are passing someone and somebody appears in the distance then you have two choices -- speed up or slow down. I'd usually speed up assuming it was safe to do so.
'm a big fan of slowing to a stop in the road. They'll generally pass before you completely stop.
I have this theory. It's called gravity. All objects in the universe have a gravimetric attraction towards each other. Gravity falls off with the square of the distance as I recall. So it stands to reason that the closer you get to my rear bumper the harder it is going to be for me to push my foot down on the gas ;)
That said, brake checking is illegal - you'll get a ticket for reckless driving (or similar) to match their "following too closely" ticket. Well, depending on how smooth the other party is when the cops arrive, anyway...
Yeah, but it doesn't stop me when I'm annoyed at being followed too closely. You'd probably have a hard time getting away with it on an open highway (but then, on an open highway, why didn't the asshole just pass you?) but in town or traffic you could always claim that somebody cut you off and you had to slow down. Plus the other guy being somebody as inconsiderate enough to tailgate isn't likely to be very smooth when the cops come.
One time after I got rear-ended by someone I got out to ask if she was ok. She promptly started screaming at me "Why the fuck did you stop?". As though it was my fault she rear ended me while talking on her cell phone. I wound up in a screaming match with her and the paramedics broke us up (happened right in front of the fire station). By the time the police arrived I was calm and collected. Working for the insurance agency kind of taught me the drill. She bitched and swore at them and wound up getting a following too closely ticket -- I didn't even open my mouth. After they talked to me they decided to issue her a ticket for distracted driving and violation of the NYS law against handheld cell phone use. For the record I was stopped and waiting for her to pass me so I could back into a parking space -- with my turn signal on!
Upstate NY drivers are FREAKIN' MANIACS!
Umm, I live there. Where exactly were you? Have you ever driven in the city, New Jersey or dare I say it, certain parts of Europe? If you think Upstate NY drivers are maniacs I'd be scared to see you elsewhere ;)
He cut in front of the guy behind me, clipped his bumper and started spinning directly towards my back bumper. I was doing 60 at the time. I indeed downshifted and stepped on it. I got from 60 to ~75-80 rather quickly (being a turbocharged car helped tremendously), and guess what -- I didn't get hit! I would have been hit if I had hit my brakes or stayed at 60mph. After I got outta the way, I pulled over and called 911 etc etc....
He had to have had some speed advantage to have been able to maintain enough forward speed while spinning that he could have hit you. Granted, it sounds like in that scenario that braking would not have been your best bet ;)
So yes, "evasive high speed" is a legitmate technique that educated/practiced drivers can use to avoid accidents. It takes split second reaction time, a "good head," and a just a little bit of practice. Always be looking around, know your vehicle -- it's performance AND limits, and be ready to put forth all efforts to USE that vehicle to save your own ass, whether the owner's manual says you should or not.
Looking around is the key point to the defensive driving. Though if your above scenario actually required a rapid 20mph increase in speed I would probably be screwed in my car. I would likely get ready to take the hit and be ready to control my car to a safe stop because there's no way that my tired old clunker would speed up in time (assuming there wasn't room to get out of the way in another lane).
Cops get different models from the public
Only because they are willing to pay for them. It's not like they are restricted to law enforcement only. I have a friend who owns a Crown Vic Police Interceptor -- complete with the spot lights (usually aimed at you when you get pulled over), larger dome light (for writing tickets), bigger alternator (for running all the equipment), better cooling system (prolonged high speed chases) and exploding gas tank (*duck*). He buys a new one every year. Yeah, he has money to waste. But the point is that you can get them if you want them.
And actually it's kind of fun to drive. Too bad no other decent American car has RWD as an option.
My minivan otoh pushes 90 quite easily, and would probably break 120 if i wanted to try it.
It's probably got a fuel shutoff somewhere between 100-125. My old car had a fuel shutoff at 120 (though it actually kicked in at 115 because my speedometer was off ;) -- I would be zipping along with a nice amount of acceleration and when it hit 120 my engine would turn into a massive brake. The fuel cut-off wouldn't release until the speed dropped below 110. My current car has this limit at about 110. One time I bypassed it by shifting into netural on a nice downgrade to avoid the engine braking affect. I think I got my car up to about 135 that time. I was actually scared ;)
I think this has something to do with the tires that most cars use. The typical consumer tire isn't rated for more then 120. There might also be a law enforcement stake as well.
I haven't RTFA, but I can only assume that there is some room to allow for the use of evasive high speed when necessary.
You know, I shouldn't throw stones, because I speed all the time and not usually just a "little bit" -- 80-85 is common for me on the highway. That said, I've been driving for almost 15 years. I used to work for an insurance agency and attended more safe driving courses/schools then I can recall. I processed thousands of accident reports and claims. And not once in all of that did I see an accident that could have been prevented by "evasive high speed".
Your at cruising speed. Let's say 70mph. All of a sudden something that happens that will require you to speed up or slow down 10mph to avoid it. What action do you think is faster? To gain that speed in time to matter will doubtless require a downshift. That's going to add at least a second on a shift stick. It might even take that long in an automatic -- since newer automatics lock the torque converter at cruising speed and would need to unlock it before downshifting. All the CVTs that I've driven in my day seem to be equally slow to change gear ratios to anything meaningful. Then how long will it take to actually gain that speed? Contrast that to your brakes. The brakes that I might add have the power to stop your your car even against the force of a runaway engine.
The first thing you are taught in defensive driving is to study the situation around you and think about what could wrong. For each scenario of something that could go wrong you are supposed to have a way to get out of that problem without it becoming an accident. This could be as simple as thinking "What will I do if he doesn't stop at that stop sign?" with the answer "I'll stop" (duh!) -- but it works equally well on the West Side Highway at rush hour. In all of my driving experience I can not once think of a situation where my method of getting out of trouble would have involved speeding up.
This doesn't mean that there aren't scenarios where you need to speed up to stay out of trouble -- some asshole tailgating you comes to mind (speed up to pass the guy on your right and get out of the dimwits way). I'm just saying that I've never seen a scenario where a split second decision to go faster would have prevented an accident. I've seen lots where a split second decision to brake would have.
As far as what is normally allowed, I would say +10 is pretty safe from tickets. Say, 45->55 or 65->75. I think when you hit 80mph, you're fair game.
It's generally been my experience that around these parts you can get away with +15mph as long as you acknowledge the cop when you see him. I usually cruise at 80 on the highway (posted 65) and 70-75 on rural roads. When I come to a speedtrap I make eye contact with the officer and take my foot off the gas. If they see you do this they will usually assume that you didn't realize you were going that fast and not come after you. I've talked to local sheriff's duputies and they confirm this line of logic. Of course slamming on the brakes when you see a speedtrap virtually ensures that you will get a ticket -- nothing they dislike more then seeing your hood take a nosedive. All I do is take my foot off the gas so they will see me slow down.
I'd also recommend wearing your seatbelt at all times (nothing shows more arrogance then speeding while not wearing one) and it never hurts to be dressed decently. I've been pulled over twice in my day -- the first time I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and was on my way to the post office. I got the book thrown at me. The second time I was wearing a suit jacket and tie and on my way home from my employers Holiday Party. I had a little bit of booze on my breath (I'd had two drinks at the party) -- he asked me about that, accepted my explanation and let me go with a warning.
That's my life experience and suggestions for dealing with traffic cops. It hasn't failed me yet. YMMV
Ma Bell was a utility, and a monopoly. Time Warner is neither.
You don't think that internet access qualifies as a utility? Maybe not in the classical sense of the word but I think you could make an argument that internet access is just as essential in the 21st century as telephone was in the 20th. In many areas Time Warner has a monopoly on broadband internet access. In many other areas they have a complete monopoly on internet access, because your only dialup option is AOL.
Furthermore they are pushing out into telephony with the rollout of their digital phone VoIP product. While on the surface I don't think this is a bad thing (it's about time the telcos got some competition) it does really bother me that their product isn't as reliable as POTS but they pass it off as though it is. It's also just plain damn unfair that Time Warner hasn't been asked to pay any extra licensing or franchise fees for telco services -- but in areas where Verizon has rolled out video over the FiOS network they have had the municipalities come after them for francise fees -- with Time Warners backing.
No, Time Warner isn't Ma Bell just yet. The point that I wanted to make and the discussion that I wanted to see was they might be heading in that direction and what can be done to stop them without ruining competition?
No, but I would make the argument that .biz suffers from the same lack of justification as .xxx does. What exactly is the point of .biz? To create more namespace? How exactly does that work when all of the "good" names are instantly snatched up by Cybersquatters? How does it help me when my organization now needs to register our .biz domain just to keep another cyber/typosquatter from jumping on it to either extort us for it or make a few ad bucks when our clients wind up at it by mistake?
All these extra TLDs only seem to exist to make money for ICANN and the registors IMHO. Even the enforced ones like .museum seem rather redundant -- what's wrong with .org exactly?
Perhaps ICANN should be working on getting non-English TLDs working instead of creating all of these new ones that don't serve any point.
Maybe because TiVo is doing business with them? This is hardly news -- for anybody that owns a TiVo or pays attention.
My guess is that Nielson was missing the TVIO crowd and recorder crowd entirely. This made their product less accurate and less valuable to their customers. This cost them customers (who pay dearly for their services).
You do know that TiVo has an agreement with Nielson right? You do know that TiVo logs everything you watch and how you watch it and then gives that data to Nielson, right?
I sit on their homescan panel. I figure as somebody who boycotts Wally World and does all of his shopping at locally owned businesses it's the least I can do. I'm also being pestered to join their new TV/Radio panel -- but I haven't decided if I will or not. They have a rather interesting device that picks up audio signals from the stuff you watch/listen to and then sends that data to them in such a way that they can track what you watch/listen to. The only reason I haven't joined that panel is because I'm a bit leery about a device that listens to audio in my house and transmits it to an outside party ;)
Still, I would love to figure out exactly how it works.
Imagine what would happen if ISPs started supporting IP multicast.
Maybe a little offtopic, but this is a technial question that I've always had -- how does/would IP multicast account for missing or dropped packets? Is it even possible to do so or do all multicast packets have to function more like UDP then TCP?
I ask because if you can't account for lost packets then it's going to make your bittorrent idea a lot harder. I suppose it would work well for a stream that you wanted tens of thousands of people to see -- but in a bittorrent scenario you need to get the entire file. Using multicast would probably require a _huge_ rewrite of the bittorrent protocol.
The movie-era model of the Enterprise.... no bloody A, B, D, or D... is about the most fantastically beautiful model of a spacecraft I've ever seen; easily looking better than anything I can think of before or since. You could tell, from occasional clumsiness, in TMP that motion control camera technology wasn't *quite* there, but by TWOK, it was perfect and convincing. I mean... that was a starSHIP. And the remaining difficulty in working with such a huge model (I think it was eight feet long.) combined with a couple years of refinement of motion control technology meant that it moved like the heavy cruiser that The Enterprise is meant to be
TWoK is a great example. I wish I had thought of it first :) I didn't know they used an eight foot model for the original movies but I knew it was a shooting model and not CGI. But watching the Enterprise and Reliant duke it out was classic Trek. I don't think many people grasp that ships in the Star Trek universe are supposed to be ships and not fighters. In the Star Trek world I would make the point that computer targeting and rapid weapons fire would combine to make using any type of "fighter" suicidal. Recall the ease at which the Enterprise-D blew through the fighter like defenses in Conundrum. Even Bab5 has examples of this -- the Minbari would pretty much walk their capital ships right through fighters because they had the ability to target them with their heavy weaponry.
I think you can also find examples (though not on the grand scale of TWOK) in TNG. Even day to day maneuvers looked real to me. The only extended battle scene I can think of would be Yesterday's Enterprise -- and the ships on both sides moved like ships -- not fighters.
Contrast that with the CGI Enterprise E from Nemesis. Not only did it not look as good overall, but the way it moved totally destroyed the majesty that should be associated with the name Enterprise. That silly thing was flitting about the screen like something out of Wing Commander. Just totally wrecked the illusion and un-suspended my disbelief. that did.
I already held a grudge against the Enterprise-E because it always struck me as a way for Bermen and Bragga to get rid of the last bit of Roddenberry's influence. How the hell else do you go from "Ship designed for multi year exploration missions that carries families and civilians" to "warship"? The Enterprise-D was one of (if not the) the most studied and appreciated fictional vehicles in history. We knew more about her then any other fictional vehicle before or since. She was graceful. She had history. She was killed her before her time because the producers thought it would be "cool" to crash land a saucer.
And if that insult wasn't enough they had to add injury by copying the original movies. Just what exactly are the odds of Picard getting a new command and keeping his entire crew? At least the original movies showed some progression amongst the crew -- Kirk made Admiral and had to deal with the repercussions, Spock failed in his attempt to purge all emotions, Bones retired, etc, etc, etc.
My purposed method of bringing Star Trek back would be to wait at least 15 years and get the TNG crew back together for one last real sendoff. Let the actors age so you can show real advancement in the characters -- and pretend that the four TNG movies never existed. You could even write it off to some sort of technobabble bullshit about the Nexus from Generations or Q from All Good Things... to make it easier for the masses to follow.
Imagine a non-technical jury trying to follow this:
Then it's up to her lawyer to explain it to them in a way that makes sense. I was called to testify at a Grand Jury once over a computer related affair. Granted, Grand Jury is different then Petit Jury (Grand Jurors get to ask questions) but you'd be surprised at some of the technical related questions they asked me. I also feel pretty confident in saying that they understood all of my answers. This was in the middle of a rural farming county too -- so you can't even say that it was a jury pool of techies.
People aren't as dumb as you might think. Have some faith and hope in the system.
Cube cell mates? He was talking about Bab5, not Star Trek ;)
Oh, wait....
So you prefer the "noseridge-of-the-week" look over something really alien?
The only "real" aliens in Bab 5 were the First Ones. Star Trek has flirted with "real" aliens at times too -- the Sheliak from TNG and the Tholians come to mind. I could also mention 8472 but Voyager never existed in my World ;) Of course the only "real" alien (non-humanoid) that had any recurring impact on Trek would probably have been Q. It's hard to say if he counts or not -- since they always get to show them in humanoid form.
Kind of hard to blame Bab 5 or Trek for the budget/time problem with showing "real" aliens though.
B5 had a grubby feel to it when compared to ST TNG and weird character appearances for anything that wwas not human. Like they were trying to look strange. I never got pulled in to it.
That's a bit unfair. Considering the budget that JMS was working with and the fact that CGI was still pretty new back then I'd say he did pretty damn well. As much as I love TNG, they had about a million dollar per episode budget if I recall correctly.
Of course, I'd make the argument that all the dependence on CGI actually has taken something away from Star Trek. Watch the TNG reruns on Spike TV. The Enterprise-D had graceful lines. It almost seemed magical to watch it move through space. They did all that with two shooting models -- a four and six foot if I recall correctly. The level of detail that they put into the sets and layout of the ship is still amazing to this day. I'd wager that we know more about the Galaxy Class Starship then any other fictional vehicle before or since.
Fast forward to DS9 or the Enterprise finale with the CGI images of Galaxy Class Starships. The CGI model of the Enterprise-D in ENT comes to mind. They just seem very fake to me. The magic is gone. The Enterprise-D represented a vehicle that could take us anywhere our imagination wanted to go. I started to lose faith in the Star Trek franchise when Paramount decided to destroy it for the sake of eye candy in Generations :(
Time Trax: 1993
Ah, it's refreshing to meet somebody else that heard of that show. That remains one of my favorite Sci-Fi shows. It deserved to do better then two seasons.
I'm still waiting for my specified encapsulated limitless memory archive. Screw laptops and PDAs ;)
The customer is their meal ticket. Without customers they can't sell advertisments. But I still don't think that means they should do something that will encourge the *AA's of the World to pick a legal fight with them. Even if TiVo won such a fought (they probably would) how much money would it cost them?
TiVo has always had a wink and a nudge policy towards things like the 30 second skip. They've also usually been supportive of hackers in the community growing their product. I'm not really fond of the forced automatic updates -- but overall I think TiVo is trying to strike a reasonable balance.
In any event I'd rather see TiVo be successful then to see them fail and have to pick between the cable companies crappy DVR product or going to the hassle of building my own. Back in the day I would have loved nothing more then to sit down with something like MythTV and some old hard drives and build a DVR for myself. But I find that the more I work with PCs for a living the less I want to play with them when I get home.
TiVo just works. And it works really well for me.
The purpose of .xxx is a porn sink. Over time, porn sites will gravitate to .xxx voluntarily. Who wants to be name.com when they could be bettername.xxx.
You'd still wind up dealing with typo squatters like this guy. The Usenet example is a good point though and I tip my hat to you on that one.
In any case, I wish people would wait and see what happens rather then using it as an issue to further divide the World over. If DoC or the US Government actually blocks it then you'll have a point. Right now it looks like are they doing is slowing it down to allow more time for comment.
I think it is cheaper to have the sources located on the same media than provide and fund a website to download the same resources.
Hehe, you wouldn't think that if you still lived in dialup land and had to download one of the newer distros.
I remember when Slackware's A and N disk sets were still floppy sized and you could install off them. I think it required about nine or ten floppies to get going -- 14 megs -- about a 70 minute download on 28.8 dialup. Those sets contained everything you needed to get a console going and on a network -- you could download the rest at your lesiure -- including source if desired.
Just food for thought. It's no doubt less important then it used to be -- but I still have some nostalgia for those days.
Just another reason why politicians shouldn't be writing laws concerning subjects they know nothing about.
Actually, you should have said "just another reason why politicians shouldn't be enacting laws that were written by lobbyists". It's a bit unfair to demand that Congresscritters will be experts in all subjects.
But on a related topic -- why isn't there a CTO (Congressional Technology Office)? There's the Congressional Budget Office -- which is (allegedly) a non partisan office that exists to advise Congress on budgetary issues. They are the ones releasing the figures about Social Security that disagree wildly with what the White House would have us believe.
So why shouldn't there be a CTO? It's unreasonable to expect that all Congresscritters can be knowledgeable techies. They should have a non partisan agency to advise them about these issues -- then perhaps stuff like this wouldn't be overlooked.