In fact, if I'm stopped at a stop light, there is no reason whatsoever I can't glance down and check emails since nothing is even moving, as long as I don't take too long and miss the light changing.
I can't believe that a motorcyclist could say something like that. You don't just "glance down" when you're reading texts or emails, unless you've got some magic photographic memory. It takes time, time during which you are not concentrating on what is around you.
I was on my 'bike at trafic lights once and a car came up behind me, and I could see in my mirrors he wasn't going to stop in time, so I nipped out of the way smartish. He hit the back of the car I'd been behind, presumably he was half asleep or pissed or something.
The point is, if I'd been reading my emails or fiddling with my GPS, I'd have had a bent/scratched motorcycle at best and a broken neck at worst.
You cannot possibly hold as a sensible belief that laws are immutable and should never change.
Or do you think slavery should still be legal, women shouldn't be allowed to vote or own property, and if you steal a loaf of bread you should be hanged?
Technology and culture change and the law has to reflect this.
Yes, because it's *so* much safer to wrestle with a badly-refolded & unwieldy 3x5 foot sheet of wrinkled paper that has "AAA" printed on it and can't be pinch-zoomed to enlarge microscopic type...
That is a brilliant point, only slightly undermined by the fact that it is illegal to read a map (or book) as you're driving anyway. Well, at least where I live.
I've been rear ended three times by people on cell phones. I actually saw all three in my rear view (I was stopped), before they hit me. Want to guess what EVERY SINGLE ONE failed to mention in the police report?
If you have been rear ended 3 times, then you should probably stop cutting people off, or slamming on your breaks.
If you rear end someone, it is your fault, simple as that. You were driving too close. You shold always allow adequate reaction/stopping time. The fact that a lot of people don't is irrelevant. No on ever said there aren't a lot of bad drivers around.
If someone has to make an emergency stop, they can't factor in the fact that some stupid, irresponsible, feeble-minded wankstain is driving too close to their rear.
No. Most road signs give you information that you don't act on at all. Your GPS tells you "Your exit is number 167 and it is in 0.9 miles." The road signs say things like "This is a random road that is not your exit" and "This is another random road that is not your exit."
If I'm looking out for exit 167, my brain is capable of scanning a sign that doesn't mention exit 167. It is also capable of seeing that a sign says "exit 166" and realising that the next sign wil say "exit 167". A quick flick of your eyes a few degrees away from straight ahead still focussed in the distance is not on the same level of distraction as looking down, refocussing and adjusting your eyes to the interior light/shade in your car.
This stuff is not hard, unless your road planners deliberately make it hard.
So, by that logic, we should ban car stereos since they encourage people to take their eyes off the road and their mind off driving.
Car stereos are designed so that you can pretty much operate them by touch. Modern cars have steering wheel controls. It is a similar story with the heating/ventilation system, indicators, wipers, light switches, gear lever and so on. Cars are designed so that you hardly have to take your eyes off the road or your hands off the steering wheel at all.
Ah yes, the good old libertarian fallback position that all human affairs should be settled by suing after the event. Anything else is "government" interference, no?
Presumably you wouldn't bother have laws against rape or murder, as they all just come down to paying damages to the victim/victim's family. American Taliban indeed.
However, there really aren't a lot of good reasons to accept people doing things while driving that increase the inherent risk several times over. If you passed your test, you know how to pull over somewhere safe for maybe 20 seconds to check a map or reconfigure your sat-nav, and you really ought to know how dangerous it is to unnecessarily take your hands off the wheel, your eyes off the road, or your mind off your driving. The fact that some people can pass their test apparently without knowing these things is why sometimes laws are needed to correct that oversight by revoking their licence.
I read a different version of this tale earlier today. In that version, it mentioned that the driver in question was stuck in a traffic jam and not actually moving.
Even if that's true, it's not a good defence. You need to be aware of what is going on around you while you are in control of your vehicle whether you are going 0mph or 100mph.
The consequences of being distracted at 0mph are less severe than at 100mph, but they still exist.
Despite your cynicism, I'm fairly sure that if you're being interviewed for a post whose criteria include being published in academic journals, the interviewer is likely to be at that level themselves.
I doubt they let the new girl in HR do the interviews for a new Professor of Difficult Sums.
At least we don't have a current vessel called the "Ponce".
Look it up, in UK English, a ponce is a pimp (and we don't like pimps) or alternatively a derogatory term for a camp/limpwristed man or general insult because of its similarity in sound with "nonce" (a prison informer or child molester).
Some people are more than ready to spend other peoples money but are unwilling to spend their own.
Fundamentally, you do not own your own money/wealth. You live in a society that allows people to accumulate individual wealth almost infinitely beyond their needs. This is not some rule of nature, it is a distorted version of civilisation.
A CEO does not need to have thousands of times the wealth of his workers. It doesn't do him any good, never mind society as a whole.
When someone spends $500m on a yacht, he is simply thumbing his nose at society. There is no particular reason why the overwhelming majority of the population couldn't pass a law limiting wealth to ten times a reasonable average. The billionaire is ALLOWED to get away with having that money, he has not in any way EARNED the right to it. Working hard is no justification for anything. Plenty of miners, postmen and cleaners work a lot harder than any CEO.
Oh, and a big hi to all the libertarian mods out there.
.
Think about what the next 75 years will bring us. Science is advancing at such a rate that we might be a species capable of interstellar travel ourselves very soon.
Interstellar? You do know that means "between stars" don't you? At the moment we're quite impressed that we have got an unmanned probe out of our own solar system in 35 years.
The Internet Wayback Machine folks could use the funding and would be achieving the same purpose, albeit not in a format that the library folks might want....but they could come to agreement.
This is specifically for UK web sites, and the British Library is a British institution funded by the British taxpayer. Archive.org is US-based and a separate entity.
The "British billion = 10^12" went out of use in the 1970's. The Brits use the same billion=10^9 as everyone else.
No a billion is still 10^12. That has never changed. But because Americans usually get it wrong, the British now uses the American billion when speaking about money, but the real billion when speaking about everything else. Of course billions are rarely used for anything other than money.
No one in Britain uses billion to mean 10^12 unless they are being deliberately anachronistic, and have no interest in communicating with other people. In the UK, you would say the world population was 7 billion, for instance.
This website is written in English. So, for example you would see 3.1415927 here rather than 3,1415927. It is silly to quibble about how conventions are different in other languages/cultures. I wouldn't go to a Russian language website and start moaning about how the alphabet is all fucked up.
There is no "French Intelligence Agency" -- or CIA, or whatever -- there is a group of individual people who make individual decisions to promote or deny freedom, while saying they are part of something greater, so as to confuse people.
I think you're the one that's confused, mate. Maybe you shouldn't have stopped your medication? If I were you I'd get to a hospital soon, before you do yourself or anyone else any harm.
Wouldn't it be nice to just have a Worldwide Revolt Day and just turn the whole shithouse upside down, then begin again?
Not if you ended up with some libertarian/Randian hellhole, with a few rich well-armed people in control instead of the at least partly democratically accountable existing governments, no.
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In fact, if I'm stopped at a stop light, there is no reason whatsoever I can't glance down and check emails since nothing is even moving, as long as I don't take too long and miss the light changing.
I can't believe that a motorcyclist could say something like that. You don't just "glance down" when you're reading texts or emails, unless you've got some magic photographic memory. It takes time, time during which you are not concentrating on what is around you.
I was on my 'bike at trafic lights once and a car came up behind me, and I could see in my mirrors he wasn't going to stop in time, so I nipped out of the way smartish. He hit the back of the car I'd been behind, presumably he was half asleep or pissed or something.
The point is, if I'd been reading my emails or fiddling with my GPS, I'd have had a bent/scratched motorcycle at best and a broken neck at worst.
Take a tap from the cluebat: you can't. All you can do is flit between two or more things, badly. You're not a computer.
Or do you think slavery should still be legal, women shouldn't be allowed to vote or own property, and if you steal a loaf of bread you should be hanged?
Technology and culture change and the law has to reflect this.
Yes, because it's *so* much safer to wrestle with a badly-refolded & unwieldy 3x5 foot sheet of wrinkled paper that has "AAA" printed on it and can't be pinch-zoomed to enlarge microscopic type...
That is a brilliant point, only slightly undermined by the fact that it is illegal to read a map (or book) as you're driving anyway. Well, at least where I live.
I've been rear ended three times by people on cell phones. I actually saw all three in my rear view (I was stopped), before they hit me. Want to guess what EVERY SINGLE ONE failed to mention in the police report?
If you have been rear ended 3 times, then you should probably stop cutting people off, or slamming on your breaks.
If you rear end someone, it is your fault, simple as that. You were driving too close. You shold always allow adequate reaction/stopping time. The fact that a lot of people don't is irrelevant. No on ever said there aren't a lot of bad drivers around.
If someone has to make an emergency stop, they can't factor in the fact that some stupid, irresponsible, feeble-minded wankstain is driving too close to their rear.
No. Most road signs give you information that you don't act on at all. Your GPS tells you "Your exit is number 167 and it is in 0.9 miles." The road signs say things like "This is a random road that is not your exit" and "This is another random road that is not your exit."
If I'm looking out for exit 167, my brain is capable of scanning a sign that doesn't mention exit 167. It is also capable of seeing that a sign says "exit 166" and realising that the next sign wil say "exit 167". A quick flick of your eyes a few degrees away from straight ahead still focussed in the distance is not on the same level of distraction as looking down, refocussing and adjusting your eyes to the interior light/shade in your car.
This stuff is not hard, unless your road planners deliberately make it hard.
So, by that logic, we should ban car stereos since they encourage people to take their eyes off the road and their mind off driving.
Car stereos are designed so that you can pretty much operate them by touch. Modern cars have steering wheel controls. It is a similar story with the heating/ventilation system, indicators, wipers, light switches, gear lever and so on. Cars are designed so that you hardly have to take your eyes off the road or your hands off the steering wheel at all.
Presumably you wouldn't bother have laws against rape or murder, as they all just come down to paying damages to the victim/victim's family. American Taliban indeed.
the "total cost to society" is one of those things that to me anyway, is no different than "wont someone think of the children!"
In the words of the late Mrs Thatcher "there is no such thing as society". She was a sociopathic cunt too.
I read a different version of this tale earlier today. In that version, it mentioned that the driver in question was stuck in a traffic jam and not actually moving.
Even if that's true, it's not a good defence. You need to be aware of what is going on around you while you are in control of your vehicle whether you are going 0mph or 100mph.
The consequences of being distracted at 0mph are less severe than at 100mph, but they still exist.
I doubt they let the new girl in HR do the interviews for a new Professor of Difficult Sums.
Look it up, in UK English, a ponce is a pimp (and we don't like pimps) or alternatively a derogatory term for a camp/limpwristed man or general insult because of its similarity in sound with "nonce" (a prison informer or child molester).
Some people are more than ready to spend other peoples money but are unwilling to spend their own.
Fundamentally, you do not own your own money/wealth. You live in a society that allows people to accumulate individual wealth almost infinitely beyond their needs. This is not some rule of nature, it is a distorted version of civilisation.
A CEO does not need to have thousands of times the wealth of his workers. It doesn't do him any good, never mind society as a whole.
When someone spends $500m on a yacht, he is simply thumbing his nose at society. There is no particular reason why the overwhelming majority of the population couldn't pass a law limiting wealth to ten times a reasonable average. The billionaire is ALLOWED to get away with having that money, he has not in any way EARNED the right to it. Working hard is no justification for anything. Plenty of miners, postmen and cleaners work a lot harder than any CEO.
Oh, and a big hi to all the libertarian mods out there. .
No, you must be wrong, because in Hollywood movies, alien ships capable of interstellar travel are still always susceptible to small arms fire.
Think about what the next 75 years will bring us. Science is advancing at such a rate that we might be a species capable of interstellar travel ourselves very soon.
Interstellar? You do know that means "between stars" don't you? At the moment we're quite impressed that we have got an unmanned probe out of our own solar system in 35 years.
So the average website contains about 1 thousand pages then? That seems like a lot...
No, it doesn't. Imagine how many pages something like the BBC website has on any particular day.
There is still no harm in a national archiving organisation doing its job for its own country's data.
...typically British utter redundancy.
Yeah, we're the sort of idiots who make more than one back up of important data. What's the point of that eh?
Hint: redundancy is somethimes a very, very good thing indeed.
Why not work with the good folks at archive.org and their Internet wayback machine?
Is it not a similar idea?
The Internet Wayback Machine folks could use the funding and would be achieving the same purpose, albeit not in a format that the library folks might want....but they could come to agreement.
This is specifically for UK web sites, and the British Library is a British institution funded by the British taxpayer. Archive.org is US-based and a separate entity.
No a billion is still 10^12. That has never changed. But because Americans usually get it wrong, the British now uses the American billion when speaking about money, but the real billion when speaking about everything else. Of course billions are rarely used for anything other than money.
No one in Britain uses billion to mean 10^12 unless they are being deliberately anachronistic, and have no interest in communicating with other people. In the UK, you would say the world population was 7 billion, for instance.
This website is written in English. So, for example you would see 3.1415927 here rather than 3,1415927. It is silly to quibble about how conventions are different in other languages/cultures. I wouldn't go to a Russian language website and start moaning about how the alphabet is all fucked up.
Yes, it's not like the fucking summary says it's one billion web pages or anything, is it? Oh, wait...
The commercial Windows based editors may well work a lot better, but I'll never know, because I'll never use any of them.
Religious purity is far more important than common sense, eh?
There is no "French Intelligence Agency" -- or CIA, or whatever -- there is a group of individual people who make individual decisions to promote or deny freedom, while saying they are part of something greater, so as to confuse people.
I think you're the one that's confused, mate. Maybe you shouldn't have stopped your medication? If I were you I'd get to a hospital soon, before you do yourself or anyone else any harm.
Wouldn't it be nice to just have a Worldwide Revolt Day and just turn the whole shithouse upside down, then begin again?
Not if you ended up with some libertarian/Randian hellhole, with a few rich well-armed people in control instead of the at least partly democratically accountable existing governments, no.