I had a physics teacher in high school who tried to get out of a ticket for running a red light by using a whiteboard and some equations. She recorded the yellow light duration and measured it.
She showed that given the weight of her van, or presumably some stopping distance numbers, had she been going the speed limit when the light turned yellow, there was a range of positions she could have been in at that instant for which she'd have had neither the distance necessary to stop nor the time necessary to get through the light.
She won.
I seem to recall, and again [Citation needed], that actual deaths were/are going up, but that the statistic that's decreasing, as we get ever-safer cars, is the number of deaths per mile driven. But I'm not going to redo the research right now. I'm pretty sure it's out there.
Rather than just having one exam where nearly everyone passes, and can go on to fool themselves that they are good drivers.
Totally agree. My driver's license exam was a joke. A great story, but a joke:
I took my exam in Massachusetts, and one of the peculiar things about Massachusetts driving exams was that up until very recently you took the exam with a state trooper as your examiner.
Well, outside this particular branch of the Registry of Motor Vehicles was an intersection with two sets of red lights that all turned at the same time; the kind of intersection where there were train tracks in the middle and you weren't supposed to stop on them. So I'm sitting there in the right lane, at the first light, with my blinker on, and some idiot in a white SUV (whom it later became relevant was African-American) decided to make his own lane, one slot farther to the right than me. Over the curb.
And it's a hot summer day, so the trooper in my passenger seat has his window down. So does the guy in the SUV. Naturally, the cop yells "HEY YOU! STOP!" Of course, he doesn't stop, so the cop looks around the intersection in every direction, and he looks dead straight at me and goes: "Follow him!"
Now, at this point I figured it was either some kind of cruel cop joke, and he wanted me to fail the exam, or that he was serious... and he looked angry enough to be serious, but I thought that either way it would be worth the $40 to take the exam again, just to have the story.
So I looked around to make sure I wouldn't get us killed, and I gunned it through the intersection, and the cop has his arm out the window, waving the guy to pull over, and he has me honking the horn and flashing my high beams at the guy (who's got to be wondering what the hell is wrong with me, thinking I'm trying to be some kind of vigilante in a Driver's Ed Ford Focus) and then Mr. SUV notices the badge on the arm sticking out of my passenger window.
He pulls into the next lot on the right and I pull in behind him, and like a good Driver's Ed sheeple I put on my hazard lights and all... and the cop jumps out of the car before I've even stopped, and starts screaming at the top of his lungs. Ten seconds later, he's swearing at the top of his lungs. Thirty seconds later? Rodney King was mentioned.
It was at this point that my Driver's Ed instructor, who'd been sitting calmly and quietly in the back seat the entire time, poked his head between the two front seats and said to me "Never in my 21 years of teaching driver's education have I ever seen a student's car used as a police cruiser."
The cop cites the guy, and gets back into the car. Shakes his head, and says "Some people."
He turns and looks at my instructor: "This kid a good driver?"
Instructor, nonchalant: "Yeah."
"Alright, take a left, take a right, turn around and go back to the Registry."
That was it.
I passed.
So, I consider myself not just a good driver, but trained in police pursuit!:)
Motorcycle helmet law = nanny state.
Banning violent video games = nanny state.
Seat belt law = nanny state.
If someone really wants to not wear a helmet or a seat belt, it's their choice as long as I'm not paying their insurance.
And as it turns out, what with the whole insurance operating model wherein the group subsidizes the individual, you might not be paying their insurance, but if you pay yours, it's reasonably likely you are paying their medical bills.
I say this as someone who worked in accident reconstruction forensics: get over it. Wear a seatbelt and a helmet, unless you're going to be driving fast enough to die on impact and cleanse the gene pool.
If we lived in Unreal Tournament where anybody who died would be instantly respawned, you're talking about a whole different situation and a whole different set of human characteristics.
In a video game, I can always start over, always replay it if I got through the quest and didn't like the result. In real life, there is no undo button. And it's the ability to kill or hurt or steal or whatever without consequences--and the crux of the argument here is consequences to others--to the victim and their family, friends, etc. and without finality--that makes video games appealing.
On some level there's the question of "I wonder what it would be like to do that...?" because humans are nothing if not curious. But we don't have AI advanced enough or worlds persistent enough to mimic that experience.
But mostly I think the point is finality. The real world has no reset button.
Somehow I think that if you're spending $100k on a car, you have other ones that can do your general purpose driving. At this price point, you're talking about a market in competition with, say, German super-sedans and sports cars (M5 starting at $85k, Benz SL starting at $98k, Audi R8 starting at $115k, Porsche 911 anywhere from $75k to $125k) and American sports cars (Z06 starting at $75k, Viper just under $90k), other imported miscellanea (Nissan GT-R just over $75k, various Lexus, Infiniti, Acura... I'm getting tired of looking up MSRPs)... I'm sure I've missed a great many, but do you see a trend?
When you put the $100k in context, are any of those general purpose? The closest you'll get is the M5, which is tame enough to be a daily driver, or maybe one of the super-lux BMW 7 series or MB S-classes. But who wants a $100k SUV, barring certain people's Hummers?
Granted, my auto magazine subscriptions may have skewed my perception about what exactly is out there for $100k, but I scarcely think you'll find people looking for general-purpose in that range. General purpose is a term best applied to practical cars suitable for driving every day. I'm thinking $30k to $50k or so. And if I spend $100k on a car, at that point, it can be an investment, and it doesn't depreciate nearly as much with age, if at all, depending on your choice of car. Which means I'm in no rush to put hundreds of thousands of miles on it as a daily driver. It means I'm going to take it out on the weekends to have some fun.
I think those who complain about how hard it is to do this underestimate the draw of a good challenge. I'm tempted to free mine, but I use it for gaming too much.
As to what to do with this one:
Step 1: Do not connect to XBOX Live
Step 2: Do not download Summer 09 update
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
In this case, Step 3 is "try Free60." And step 3.5 is "use XBOX360 as a Linux machine."
Look back to FiveThirtyEight posts before the election on methodology and in particular, "house effect". This explains why Rasmussen (but not Strategic Vision, LLC.) is skewed a few points toward Republicans. It has to do with how they select their samples, among other methodological choices, but it's not faulty polling. Rasmussen actually does report real results. Confusing house effect for making shit up is trivializing the latter.
So basically, all we need to do is go into our local music store, and get a list of everyone who's bought the latest Brittany Spears CD, or look into the DMV records for everyone who's ever owned, say, a Pontiac Aztec, or a Scion xB, or go out and buy a few seasons of What Not to Wear on DVD and look up the participants, and go on a door-knocking campaign.
"Excuse me sir/ma'am: can we get a sample of your DNA? We're collecting specimens to breed a goat that has no taste, and clearly, your genes would be of use to us."
There seems to be some Slashdot moderation rule whereby the phrase "I'm going to get modded down" or "I've got karma to lose" or the like invariably nets one "Interesting" or "Insightful". Really, is there just some automated slashscript function that could be employed without us having to waste our own mod points?
Really? They came up with Go Daddy out of Jomax? The tragedy here is that the original name was ripe for a JoMama joke.
"JoMama's pipe is so fat..."
"JoMama's not like a truck... she's more like a series of tubes that [censored]."
Help me out here,/. There have to be some I'm missing.
My mother owned a Jaguar X-type from 2002 or so. I once read a review of it (this one, I think) and they made exactly this point:
There was a time not long ago when Jaguars were stunningly beautiful, fantastic driving cars that were known to be fragile and unreliable. Jaguars were sexy but leaked oil. Jaguars were luxurious and emotional, but their windows often failed to go up or down. Jaguars were invigorating to drive but could leave you stranded on a cold morning.
This Jaguar, the X-Type, is the opposite of those great Jags of the past. This car trades those wonderful qualities that made Jaguars cars to lust after and has replaced them with the bland reliability that makes Toyotas cars to lust after....
Is Acid3 really still a useful test now that browser vendors will specifically tweak their software to pass it?
Yes, it is: the point of Acid is to point out flaws in browser rendering, and last I checked, the process of "specifically tweaking" software to address rendering issues was called "fixing bugs."
Really, I think this is just a massive cover-up for what happened when they found a copy of "Penetration Training 14" on the CEO's desk, and a bottle of hand lotion in the drawer.
Slashdot Mirror
Somehow, I don't think these particular subs would be very good for that.
Slashdot story in 2072: MPAA asks again for control of neural inputs
The MPAA is arguing that if they could directly control consumers' neural input pathways, they could offer more goods to consumers.
Where's the +1 Prescient mod when you need it?
Oh, and then they changed the light timing.
I had a physics teacher in high school who tried to get out of a ticket for running a red light by using a whiteboard and some equations. She recorded the yellow light duration and measured it. She showed that given the weight of her van, or presumably some stopping distance numbers, had she been going the speed limit when the light turned yellow, there was a range of positions she could have been in at that instant for which she'd have had neither the distance necessary to stop nor the time necessary to get through the light. She won.
Along the same lines, there's also the fact that we're driving more miles.
I seem to recall, and again [Citation needed], that actual deaths were/are going up, but that the statistic that's decreasing, as we get ever-safer cars, is the number of deaths per mile driven. But I'm not going to redo the research right now. I'm pretty sure it's out there.
Rather than just having one exam where nearly everyone passes, and can go on to fool themselves that they are good drivers.
Totally agree. My driver's license exam was a joke. A great story, but a joke:
:)
I took my exam in Massachusetts, and one of the peculiar things about Massachusetts driving exams was that up until very recently you took the exam with a state trooper as your examiner.
Well, outside this particular branch of the Registry of Motor Vehicles was an intersection with two sets of red lights that all turned at the same time; the kind of intersection where there were train tracks in the middle and you weren't supposed to stop on them. So I'm sitting there in the right lane, at the first light, with my blinker on, and some idiot in a white SUV (whom it later became relevant was African-American) decided to make his own lane, one slot farther to the right than me. Over the curb.
And it's a hot summer day, so the trooper in my passenger seat has his window down. So does the guy in the SUV. Naturally, the cop yells "HEY YOU! STOP!" Of course, he doesn't stop, so the cop looks around the intersection in every direction, and he looks dead straight at me and goes: "Follow him!"
Now, at this point I figured it was either some kind of cruel cop joke, and he wanted me to fail the exam, or that he was serious... and he looked angry enough to be serious, but I thought that either way it would be worth the $40 to take the exam again, just to have the story.
So I looked around to make sure I wouldn't get us killed, and I gunned it through the intersection, and the cop has his arm out the window, waving the guy to pull over, and he has me honking the horn and flashing my high beams at the guy (who's got to be wondering what the hell is wrong with me, thinking I'm trying to be some kind of vigilante in a Driver's Ed Ford Focus) and then Mr. SUV notices the badge on the arm sticking out of my passenger window.
He pulls into the next lot on the right and I pull in behind him, and like a good Driver's Ed sheeple I put on my hazard lights and all... and the cop jumps out of the car before I've even stopped, and starts screaming at the top of his lungs. Ten seconds later, he's swearing at the top of his lungs. Thirty seconds later? Rodney King was mentioned.
It was at this point that my Driver's Ed instructor, who'd been sitting calmly and quietly in the back seat the entire time, poked his head between the two front seats and said to me "Never in my 21 years of teaching driver's education have I ever seen a student's car used as a police cruiser."
The cop cites the guy, and gets back into the car. Shakes his head, and says "Some people."
He turns and looks at my instructor: "This kid a good driver?"
Instructor, nonchalant: "Yeah."
"Alright, take a left, take a right, turn around and go back to the Registry."
That was it.
I passed.
So, I consider myself not just a good driver, but trained in police pursuit!
Motorcycle helmet law = nanny state. Banning violent video games = nanny state. Seat belt law = nanny state.
If someone really wants to not wear a helmet or a seat belt, it's their choice as long as I'm not paying their insurance.
And as it turns out, what with the whole insurance operating model wherein the group subsidizes the individual, you might not be paying their insurance, but if you pay yours, it's reasonably likely you are paying their medical bills.
I say this as someone who worked in accident reconstruction forensics: get over it. Wear a seatbelt and a helmet, unless you're going to be driving fast enough to die on impact and cleanse the gene pool.
You're neglecting one thing: finality.
If we lived in Unreal Tournament where anybody who died would be instantly respawned, you're talking about a whole different situation and a whole different set of human characteristics.
In a video game, I can always start over, always replay it if I got through the quest and didn't like the result. In real life, there is no undo button. And it's the ability to kill or hurt or steal or whatever without consequences--and the crux of the argument here is consequences to others--to the victim and their family, friends, etc. and without finality--that makes video games appealing.
On some level there's the question of "I wonder what it would be like to do that...?" because humans are nothing if not curious. But we don't have AI advanced enough or worlds persistent enough to mimic that experience.
But mostly I think the point is finality. The real world has no reset button.
FYI, crowded theater caveat of free speech is the notion that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater and defend it as free speech.
Clearly. It took 7.3 billion years for the data to get here. Sounds on par with Verizon to me.
Somehow I think that if you're spending $100k on a car, you have other ones that can do your general purpose driving. At this price point, you're talking about a market in competition with, say, German super-sedans and sports cars (M5 starting at $85k, Benz SL starting at $98k, Audi R8 starting at $115k, Porsche 911 anywhere from $75k to $125k) and American sports cars (Z06 starting at $75k, Viper just under $90k), other imported miscellanea (Nissan GT-R just over $75k, various Lexus, Infiniti, Acura... I'm getting tired of looking up MSRPs)... I'm sure I've missed a great many, but do you see a trend?
When you put the $100k in context, are any of those general purpose? The closest you'll get is the M5, which is tame enough to be a daily driver, or maybe one of the super-lux BMW 7 series or MB S-classes. But who wants a $100k SUV, barring certain people's Hummers?
Granted, my auto magazine subscriptions may have skewed my perception about what exactly is out there for $100k, but I scarcely think you'll find people looking for general-purpose in that range. General purpose is a term best applied to practical cars suitable for driving every day. I'm thinking $30k to $50k or so. And if I spend $100k on a car, at that point, it can be an investment, and it doesn't depreciate nearly as much with age, if at all, depending on your choice of car. Which means I'm in no rush to put hundreds of thousands of miles on it as a daily driver. It means I'm going to take it out on the weekends to have some fun.
I think those who complain about how hard it is to do this underestimate the draw of a good challenge. I'm tempted to free mine, but I use it for gaming too much.
As to what to do with this one:
Step 1: Do not connect to XBOX Live
Step 2: Do not download Summer 09 update
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
In this case, Step 3 is "try Free60." And step 3.5 is "use XBOX360 as a Linux machine."
Look back to FiveThirtyEight posts before the election on methodology and in particular, "house effect". This explains why Rasmussen (but not Strategic Vision, LLC.) is skewed a few points toward Republicans. It has to do with how they select their samples, among other methodological choices, but it's not faulty polling. Rasmussen actually does report real results. Confusing house effect for making shit up is trivializing the latter.
So basically, all we need to do is go into our local music store, and get a list of everyone who's bought the latest Brittany Spears CD, or look into the DMV records for everyone who's ever owned, say, a Pontiac Aztec, or a Scion xB, or go out and buy a few seasons of What Not to Wear on DVD and look up the participants, and go on a door-knocking campaign.
"Excuse me sir/ma'am: can we get a sample of your DNA? We're collecting specimens to breed a goat that has no taste, and clearly, your genes would be of use to us."
There seems to be some Slashdot moderation rule whereby the phrase "I'm going to get modded down" or "I've got karma to lose" or the like invariably nets one "Interesting" or "Insightful". Really, is there just some automated slashscript function that could be employed without us having to waste our own mod points?
Or maybe even +1, Should Be Modded Down.
Really? They came up with Go Daddy out of Jomax? The tragedy here is that the original name was ripe for a JoMama joke. "JoMama's pipe is so fat..." "JoMama's not like a truck... she's more like a series of tubes that [censored]." Help me out here, /. There have to be some I'm missing.
Fancy seeing you here, Mr. Dorworth!
Yes, very well written. And in other news, DOE to do NEPA's EIS on BNFL's AMWTP at INEEL after SRA protest.
My mother owned a Jaguar X-type from 2002 or so. I once read a review of it (this one, I think) and they made exactly this point:
There was a time not long ago when Jaguars were stunningly beautiful, fantastic driving cars that were known to be fragile and unreliable. Jaguars were sexy but leaked oil. Jaguars were luxurious and emotional, but their windows often failed to go up or down. Jaguars were invigorating to drive but could leave you stranded on a cold morning.
This Jaguar, the X-Type, is the opposite of those great Jags of the past. This car trades those wonderful qualities that made Jaguars cars to lust after and has replaced them with the bland reliability that makes Toyotas cars to lust after....
Maybe we'd like it better if it leaked.
Is Acid3 really still a useful test now that browser vendors will specifically tweak their software to pass it?
Yes, it is: the point of Acid is to point out flaws in browser rendering, and last I checked, the process of "specifically tweaking" software to address rendering issues was called "fixing bugs."
Really, I think this is just a massive cover-up for what happened when they found a copy of "Penetration Training 14" on the CEO's desk, and a bottle of hand lotion in the drawer.
A year on this planet is less than an earth day. Sounds about right to me.
Mod parent up! This has interesting implications.
Really, mods? I can understand Funny or Troll, on either end of the spectrum, but Insightful? Seriously?