Then don't take the job, if it's going to conflict with your belief system. It really is that simple. If you knowingly enter into a position where you'll be required to say or do things that run contrary to your beliefs, that's your own problem, and you have no one but yourself to blame. At that point, either do what you've been asked to do, or quit -- but it's too late to start whining about it. You knew going in what would be expected.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
The purpose of a defense attorney is never to say "My client is not guilty." His job is to say "If you accuse my client of a crime, I am here to make sure you play by the rules which you have set for prosecuting the charge."
You are here claiming that it's okay for legislators to write vague, poorly-defined, wishy-washy laws and statutes, and then do whatever the hell they want based on "Oh, well, we know what we meant." No. If the law is not defined to cover something, then that's it -- it's over. The ability to re-interpret it to mean what you think it should mean instead of what it actually says is terrifying.
I would much rather see a "criminal go free" based on this sort of thing, than to give any authority the ability to run amok and prosecute anybody based on such arbitrary and vague laws they want to interpret to suit their immediate needs.
Pointing out that a law doesn't define what the hell it's talking about is not a "legal loophole". It is saying that the action is not illegal, since "illegal" means "against the law". And you can't do something against the law if the law in question doesn't exist, or doesn't apply to the situation.
Furthermore, your definition is question-begging. "Criminals go free..." No, they don't. A man is a criminal when he has committed a crime. A crime is committed when he is in violation of a law. To be in violation of a law, there must be a law in place which specifically and precisely defines what action is being referred to. How can someone be a "criminal" when he hasn't broken a law? (And no -- saying that the law "should have" been in place doesn't cut it.)
I agree that it is prudent to rewrite the law from "email" to "electronic correspondence", but you cannot go retroactively rewriting things and then prosecuting people on that basis. Your line of thinking is extremely dangerous.
If you look at what they tested, it has very little to do with technology. The fact that they were being asked to perform these tasks with a computer does not change that.
First, they were asked to select a thesis statement (essentially). Surprise, few of them could -- which is what I'd expect from our education system.
They couldn't identify which websites were relevent or authoritative to their topic. Well, I bet they couldn't do that with books, or when speaking to someone who claims to be an expert, or watching TV, or any number of other means of information gathering. People are stupid and believe anything they're told and never bother to examine the source or information critically. Shocking.
They proved to be inept at making slides for presentations. The criteria was how well and efficiently they put information into a slide, how relevent that information was, and so forth. I am not the least bit surprised to discover that people write stupid shit, don't understand what they're talking about, and are almost completely incapable of expressing a simple idea to another human.
But none of this is really related to technology. It's just people being stupid, brainless, slavering mouth-breathers. Welcome to Earth.
Oh please. Of all the stupid shit people pay for, you're bitching about this? I can't even tell if you're joking or not, because this sort of opinion is sincerely espoused by many.
On the assumption that you're serious, how is "Oh, I can hit a ball with a stick" any more valuable a skill? You claim it requires "physical accumen", but there's no real argument for that -- it's eye-hand coordination, same as gaming. The running around in baseball is often incidental and there are plenty of fatass baseball players.
How about racing? Oh, whooptee, you can drive a car fast. Well, all that takes is the ability to sit on your duff and react quickly to what's going on -- just like gaming.
You can reduce just about any skill or craft down to something that sounds stupid. Chess? Oh, the ability to memorize a few pieces and how they're allowed to move on a completely arbitrary, artifical environment. Wow.
Frankly, I think gaming is equally on par as, say, "mortgage broker" or "medical transcription" in terms of usefulness or skill, yet these are supposed to be legitimate professions. Get real.
But god, do I ever hate the word "potable". It sounds like a hayseed trying to say "portable": "Them big ol' buckets uh water'r too heavy t'be po'table!"
The word has one and only one meaning: "drinkable". It has no distinction from this definition, either, unlike most other synonyms in the English language which at least have some nuance of meaning distinct from other words. So, would someone tell me why anyone would insist on using the word "potable" instead of "drinkable", particularly in such cases as this where both words are used?
I cannot tell you how much NAT and associated single routable addresses which mean using PAT as well, suck for VoIP applications, particularly if they're using SIP. A huge portion of my time at work is spent inventing lame workarounds for NAT-related problems for my VoIP users (and explaining how to do it, to people that barely know what a router even is).
Think modems, as in external devices. With these phones you could be anywhere with your laptop, connect them, and have instant internet access at respectable speeds. Now you don't have to pay extra for whatever "hotspot" you happen to find yourself near.
I admit it is not the most astounding technology out there, but it could be pretty useful. I know I've even used by Motorola cellphone as a dialup modem (recognized by Windows and Ubuntu Linux as a Hayes modem) to dial up a connection in a few circumstances. Once, I was driving, hopelessly lost, and after calling a few people who couldn't help me, I finally grabbed my laptop from the backseat, hooked up the cellphone, and checked Google maps. (Slowly, I might add -- you're not going to get above 9600bps this way. That's 1.1k. Hello, 1993.)
Like many of you, I don't have a home landline -- just a cable net connection and cellphone. Well, if my cable goes down, I can try to find wireless in the area, but the neighbor's wireless is sketchy at best. If I absolutely must get something done, dialup is the only way to go, and my handy cellphone lets me do it. In fact, once my cable was down for a week straight because the idiots at Charter disconnected me when they meant to disconnect one of the neighbors and couldn't be arsed to send someone out to correct this. My cellphone at least let me get on IRC and AIM -- but if I'd had 3G speeds, I could have gone about my business much more normally.
If the price becomes reasonable and so do the speeds and reliability (and I believe all these conditions will occur sooner or later), I can easily see many people forgoing all traditional cable and internet access, and using their phone for a sort of all-in-one solution.
Most of the users who would complain "I don't know how to use Linux" barely know how to use Windows either. They can manage to do things if they are explicitly shown how to double-click to run the program and perform a predetermined set of tasks, but if you ask them to do much else, most people are at a loss. It never occurs to them that every program they've ever used has a "menu" at the top from which they can "do stuff" -- put a new program in front of them that they've never seen, and they're asking for help three seconds later.
Okay, it's a bit cynical, but for many people it's also true. They have no real basis from which to say "Linux? But I don't know how, and I do know Windows." I suspect that if you put KDE in front of them and told them it was the new version of Windows, they'd never know the difference.
As for getting things up and running, Windows is not any easier than Linux, at least some distros. I realize everyone's machine is different and therefore things are not always going to go the same, but my Ubuntu install really was as easy as inserting the CD, clicking "Install", answering a few questions about myself and my time zone, and 20 minutes later I had a usable machine complete with most of the crap a user would ever care about -- email, web, office environment, music players, CD burners, DVD players, etc.
A base Windows install? You'll have IE and Outlook. Maybe WMP. Anything else you want you're going to have to find some third party software.
Here are my notes from a recent XP install at work, by the way. Do you think ANY user is going to know what to do for this stuff? What possible claim can there be for this nonsense that Windows is somehow easier?
Two identical questionos about install vs repair. (Just idiotic)
Partition manager makes no recommendations, issues dire warnings. (User has no idea what to do.)
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\drivers\ntfs.sys (User: "Duhhhh.... uhhhh...")
Run setup to repair console as per suggestion:
File setupdd.sys could not be loaded. The error code is 7. (User: "Uhhh.. er....")
Setup cannot continue.
Press any key to exit. (Great! Thanks, Windows!)
Fifth reboot, the damn thing FINALLY loads.
40 minutes of installing stuff. Questions about keyboard and stuff. 20 more minutes of commercials about Windows Movie Maker.
Stalls at 13 minutes with zero indication of progress. Just "Registering New Components..." Even I seriously thought about turning the damn thing off.
First boot. Resolution sucks ass. Like a user is going to know how to change it? Okay, some do. But before they can do anything they're interupted by panic-stricken messages about TAKE A TOUR OF WINDOWS OMFG THE FIREWALL IS OFF OMFG THE VIRUS DEFINITIONS HEY NEW HARDWARE DETECTED HEY YOU NEED TO REBOOT HEY HEY HEY
Then my favorite part. No network -- no ethernet, no wireless. No sound. No: Ethernet controller. Multimedia audio controller. Network controller. O2Micro Smartcard reader. PCI modem. Video controller.
"Ethernet controller. It is recommended that you connect to the Internet so that the wizard can search online and look for the appropriate software."
Uh yeah. Now I have to take my (Ubuntu) laptop, scour the net for drivers, burn them on a CD (with, I might add, Gnome's handy built-in utility), and take them to the Windows box just to get this crap working.
Give me a fucking break. There is no way a user would have made it this far. Explain to me how this is easier than a friendly distro like Ubuntu or SuSE?
it's no longer an issue of Grammar Nazism. This is just sheer idiocy, and let it be a lesson learned for all those who think mastering language is unimportant. For all we know, this guy may be able to factor complex quadratic equations in his head, but he sounds like a drivelling idiot, so nobody cares.
Big deal, man. A trial by jury means that twelve people will decide your fate -- twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty. That pretty much neutralizes a lot of faith I have in the justice system. For the record I am studying to be a criminal defense attorney, and I'm still saying this. Fact is that especially in situations involving children, the average yob is going to go into near-hysterics. Most of the world is not composed of rational, level-headed people.
You're talking about a country where a huge percentage of the population still thinks the world is 6000 years old. These are your peers, as in "jury of your peers". The OP has a point -- justice in the American system has the illusion of fairness, but it is really quite silly.
I realize that not everyone's computer environment is the same, so things can go wrong, but honestly, my Ubuntu install was as simple as inserting the CD, letting it run, answering a couple of basic questions about what my account would be, and 20 minutes later I had a fully functional system, complete with commonly-used apps, Open Office, music players, video players, CD burning software, DVD software, IRC and AIM clients, and email client. In other words, everything your average user would care about.
Now, here is how a recent install of XP went at work -- and keep in mind that when it's done, you have a bare-bones OS. If you want an office package, an AIM client, or anything else, really, you're going to have to go find it on your own, with the possible exception of Outlook Express, which seems to install on some systems but not all.
Two identical questionos about install vs repair.
Partition manager makes no recommendations, issues dire warnings. Like "your mother" knows what the hell to do here?
Setup is copying files... Takes forever, but not complicated, I admit.
Reboot.
Then this gem: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\drivers\ntfs.sys.
Run setup to repair console as per suggestion:
File setupdd.sys could not be loaded. The error code is 7. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.
Fifth reboot, finally loads.
ETA 40 minutes.
Answer questions about keyboard layout, timezone, computer name, password.
Wait some more. 20 minutes of commercials about Windows Movie Maker.
Stall at 13 minutes with "Registering Components..." No progress indication except for occasional new advertisement.
Reboot.
"Let's spend a few minutes setting up your computer!"
First boot.
Resolution sucks ass. Go to adjust it, interrupted by TAKE A TOUR! Along with about fifty windows and popups flying around the screen screaming about virus protection, firewall settings, registration notifications, and other irritations.
"Ethernet controller. It is recommended that you connect to the Internet so that the wizard can search online and look for the appropriate software."
It was at this point that I had to crawl around online and find individual drivers for each and every one of these devices, even though there is no reason generic drivers couldn't have sufficed at least to get me online. Since I couldn't use that machine to find these drivers, I had to use my (Ubuntu) laptop, then burn all the drivers to CD, and load them from there.
Now, you tell me that this is easy for an average user.
It's a simple matter of subject/verb agreement, and the American style is correct. "Google" and "Microsoft" are called "collective nouns", meaning that they refer to a single entity which is composed of multiple individuals. However, the fact that a group, by definition, has more than one person, does not mean it is proper to use the plural verb form when referring to the group as a whole.
"Google is doing something" is the proper phrasing when the noun refers to Google as a company. Google is one company, a single grouping.
British English is completely incorrect here, and for the record, this extends to "The band are playing" and "Arsenal suck".
If you're still not convinced, consider this exchange:
"Google are planning a new project." "Oh, it are?"
Sounds wrong, doesn't it? Now, perhaps you would argue that it could be phrased "Oh, they are?" except this would be highly ambiguous -- who are "they"? Every single person at Google? Just the upper management or executives? The technicians? The janitors?
The answer, of course, is that it's not limited to any particular person or persons -- it is the company as a unified collective which is planning the project, and therefore, the singular verb should be used.
Next up, the British obsession over archaic ligatures. "Foetus", my ass.
Windows is perfectly capable of being used the way I described as "good" -- with various windows positioned around the screen, overlapping each other, and whatever else. I do so all the time on my Windows machine at home: Xchat in a corner, Firefox dominating the middle area, IM windows wherever, Thunderbird kind of in the middle, Winamp in another corner, and so forth.
The problem isn't the OS. The problem is the way most people use it. In fact whenever my less-tech-saavy friends sit at my computer for whatever, as soon as they open Firefox, the first thing they do is hit Maximize so that it dominates the entirety of the screen.
Now, if I had a larger screen at home I'd use it. In fact, my 19" CRT that does 1280x1024 just isn't cutting it for me anymore and I'm looking at a 19" or more CRT (I loathe widescreen). And this is on Windows.
It's not Microsoft, it's the users. They'd do the same thing in Gnome or KDE and you know it. I've seen them do the same thing with OSX. They either don't want, or don't know how, to manage looking at more than one thing at a time.
Right now I have a bunch of windows and terminals open, like most of you. I can see most of what's going on behind any application I have focused. Larger screens for people like us would be beneficial if only for the increased "real estate", which means we can have more crap open that isn't painted layers deep.
Now go look at some random user's desktop. You'll notice that, by and large, most people run all applications maximized. It doesn't matter what they're working on -- any applicatoin that has focus will take up the entirety of the desktop, leaving only the taskbar at the bottom.
They did this when it was 640x480. They did this when it was 1024x768. They do it now that they have 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. Of course, "most people" in office environemnts, for reasons I can't fathom, never bother running at full resolution anyway, even on LCDs. Give them a nice large 21" LCD screen that can do 1900 x 1600 and they'll still crank it down to 1024x768 because "it's too small".
Give "most people" a larger screen and they'll have one single larger window focused to the front. For the average yob, a larger screen just means more useless dead space around the tiny portion of the window that actually contains useful work or information.
I have a really hard time believing that even something as simple as file copying would be affected by this for most people. From my observation, this is how a user copies files, assuming they're on Windows:
1. Open Windows Explorer. Usually by the longest method possible (start > programs > wade through three columns of useless crap until they find Accessories > Windows Explorer).
2. It'll open maximized because that's how users run things. If for some reason it doesn't, they'll maximize it.
3. Spend a few minutes trying to figure out how they can use the square highlight to get only the files they want to copy (ctrl-click and shift-click never occurs to them, nor does using "detail" or "list" mode -- all icons and previews, baby!) This is after they've spent a few minutes trying to remember where they put their files, and how to navigate to that folder.
4. Copy or cut the files. If they use ctrl-C or X it's a miracle. Most will right-click and find "copy" or "cut" in the menu.
5. Open another instance of Explorer. Screw around for another couple minutes hitting the Up arrow and Back arrow until they finally find the folder they want to put the files in.
6. Right click, paste.
7. Done. Usually. Sometimes they have to go back and figure out why they just copied fifteen empty files called "New Word Document [1].doc".
Please tell me how a larger screen is going to help with this. As far as I can tell, a 30" screen to most people means an IE window 30 inches wide.
I do mild excercise throghout the week and I'm in good shape, but for the purposes of building muscle tone I've taken to a seemingly silly but, in my experience, effective way to get some excercise in during gaming sessions.
I'm talking about load times!
On my 2ghz machine, load times can be a minute or more between maps, depending on what game I'm playing. Any time that loading screen comes up for Unreal Tournament, I drop to the ground (with feet on the chair, for an incline) and crank out 30 or 40 pushups. A few rounds later and I've done 100 or more that day, which may not be much but is 100 more than most people do. I do this for situps, as well, and keep a pair of 25 pound handweights nearby so I can pump a set or two of those during load times. Better than staring at the progress bar, does a good job on my physique, and when I hear the game start again I can get right back to blowing stuff up.
Plus, it's a good way to work off some of that aggression about the jackass who just sits on the top hill the entire damned round and pops off sniper shots like a coward. God, I hate that guy. And his buddy with the vengeance kills. Hate him too.
Uh, anyway, try it. And for crissake, stick to diet soda.
I am the technical director for a VoIP provider I won't name (it's not Vonage), and I can tell you that Comcast has been a thorn in my side for a long time because of this nonsense.
Whenever a customer calls complaining about voice quality, it's almost always latency or some other issue with their connection; VoIP is, as you can guess, very sensitive to connection quality.
Comcast has been one of the worst for us, though other cable providers aren't much better (Time Warner, I'm looking in your direction). I cannot prove it, but I'm certain Comcast is doing some sort of traffic shaping for VoIP packets not their own, and it wreaks havoc with my company and many others, because we can't do anything for the customer except tell them "take it up with your ISP".
I think we all know what the ISP's invariable reaction is. Some tier-one flunky goes "Yup, signal looks good! No problems here!" and the customer comes back to us and there's nothing we can do about it. It doesn't matter how many pingtests, traceroutes, or other measures you offer them -- the cable companies have been notoriously unhelpful in getting their act together. Worse still they'll offer outlandish suggestions to the user, like "getting a static IP might help" or "upgrade your connection to six megs", neither of which will do a damn thing (well, the latter might, but it's not likely that bandwidth is the problem).
Now I admit that part of this is that VoIP over public residential/business connections is purely "best effort", especially the RTP stream is delivered via UDP which most ISPs and backbone providers consider less important than TCP. Contrawise, Comcast and other integrated providers can QoS their own VoIP packets any way they like. But for an ISP to leverage this fact to spread misinformation or misrepresent what is actually going on is totally ridiculous.
Part of the problem is that most people really don't know anything about computers or the internet. They'll tell you "but I have a fast connection! It's three megs!" because they don't understand the difference between latency and bandwidth, or they'll point out that their email and websites load really quickly. From this end-user's point of view there's nothing wrong with their connection that should cause their VoIP phone to suck, because "everything else works", and I partially agree with them -- they shouldn't have to constantly harrass their ISP to stop screwing around. (My disagreement is my cynicism of caveat emptor, and it wouldn't kill people to know a little something about how the service works, at the very least so they know to whom to complain when something goes wrong. In essence they're bringing a car to the mechanic complaining that the ride is bumpy, when the problem is the road outside their house is full of potholes.)
But even my cynicism has limits -- as a matter of fact I had to go through this same crap with my home cable provider, Charter, and it took nearly two weeks for me to get them to deal with the problem. Keep in mind that's someone like me, who knows what he's talking about, who is in IT, who can provide useful information about where the problem lies, and knows to whom to speak and how to phrase the problem to get results. What is your average user supposed to do, when they don't know anything about this stuff?
When it gets to that point, and the ISP is telling them things like "reboot the computer!", the user sees only a few choices -- get a new ISP, or get a new VoIP provider. And here comes Mr Comcast Droid with his promises of high quality, one bill, blah blah blah, and the user thinks that sounds pretty good, so they make the switch.
Also, for those of you griping about security of VoIP, I get that question a lot too. It's not particularly secure, but I find it amusing that nobody asks that question when they're getting a copper line from the local Bell, which isn't secure either. At least to eavesdrop on VoIP you'd have to have access to one of the routers along the path, whereas any ten-year-old can plug a handset into the phone interface on the outside of your house (my friends and I did it all the time to bug my sister).
The oppression is quite real and sometimes lethal, thanks to attitudes like yours, that a few seconds of your time is worth more than my life. You are willing to put my life at risk because you resent slowing down for a minute.
Did I hold a gun to your head and tell you to ride your 25mph bike on a 50mph thoroughfare? No, it was your choice to do this. I have no sympathy for people who willingly put themselves into dangerous situations and then bitch about the danger -- even if it's "wrong" that your life is in danger, you have no one but yourself to blame for your being there.
You're not being "oppressed" because 99% of the road-using populace doesn't cater to the 1% who chooses to put themselves in harm's way.
But ordering me to keep off it does imply you imaginine it belongs to you.
You know what they say about "assume"? It makes people use trite cliches.
Those are the conditions.
The "conditions" being referred to in the statute are clearly not meant to include "riding the bike in general", else the statute would be meaningless. The law is that you stay as far to the right as possible and do not interfere with the flow of traffic, unless something unusual is preventing you from doing so or you are about to turn left.
When bicycles kill as many people as cars, registration might be necessary.
Don't be naive. Registration isn't about identification -- it's about money. If it were simply a matter of being able to ID cars in the event of a problem, then why do I need to "renew" it every year although my information, nor the car's information, has changed in five years?
And considering the minuscule amount spent on bicycle infrastructure, I don't get my money's worth.
I'd say you get far more than your money's worth, actually. Considering the number of people as a percentage who actually use bicycles as a primary means of transportation, which is ridiculously small, it doesn't make sense to pool everyone else's money into supporting the infrastructure for a small number of whiners who can't even be bothered to obey the laws that are already in place. You're complaining that there isn't enough bike infrastructure -- I have a sneaking suspicion that if the amount of money put into installing, upkeeping, and expanding bike lanes were actually proportional to the number of bikers out there, and how much taxes they really pay for the roads, there would be much, much less of that infrastructure, at least in the States.
Cyclists are worse than Mac users when it comes to adopting elitist, oppressed-minority attitudes. I especially love how drivers are "inconsiderate" for not being super nice to cyclists, but cyclists see it as their divine freakin' right hold up traffic for three miles by going 20mph slower than everyone else, and that's not inconsiderate at all, eh?
You're the one who wants exalted status, to tell me to get off "your" road. Sorry, no, it's not your road
I said "the" road, not "my" road. Sounds to me like you're reading what you want to see, not what's actually there. Which seems pretty typical of cyclists, many of whom act like they're a member of some oppressed minority group.
Most roads were. Did they have cars in the 19th Century?
Don't confuse "route" with "road". The "route" for the main drag of Atlanta, Peachtree Street, is quite old. But today it is a multi-lane, asphalt-paved, 45mph strip. Are you seriously suggesting that it was built this way with bicycles and horse-drawn carriages in mind?
Citation for this law, please.
Of course it varies from state to state, but most states, if not all, have a law that reads something like this:
(a) Upon all roadways, any bicycle shall be driven either on a usable bicycle lane or, if a usable bicycle lane has not been provided, near the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway or upon a usable right- hand shoulder in such a manner as to prevent undue interference with the flow of traffic except when preparing for a left turn or when reasonably necessary to avoid conditions that would make it unsafe to continue along near the right-hand curb or edge.
which means that unless there is some obstacle jutting from the curb, or you're about to turn left, you're not supposed to cause "undue interference with the flow of traffic". That's from New York state.
Plenty of states have statutes regarding minimum posted speed limits. I'm not going to sit here and dig them up for you because you'll just counter that you're not riding your bike on roads with such a posted limit and I'll bitch that you're still impeding the flow of traffic and you'll say how is that illegal and I'll have to point out that that you're a doody head and you'll say maybe so but that's not against the law and I'll give you the finger.
By the way, I'm also getting tired of the "my taxes paid for the road, I have as much a right to it as you!" In fact, to operate my car on the road, I have to pay a yearly fee, and that license does not transfer to any vehicle I happen to fancy -- I have to pay another fee for every car I wish to drive. When you start paying tag and registration fees for your bicycle you can come to me with your "my taxes paid for this", but until then, you're not on equal footing.
(a) Upon all roadways, any bicycle shall be driven either on a usable bicycle lane or, if a usable bicycle lane has not been provided, near the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway or upon a usable right- hand shoulder in such a manner as to prevent undue interference with the flow of traffic except when preparing for a left turn or when reasonably necessary to avoid conditions that would make it unsafe to continue along near the right-hand curb or edge.
From the New York state statutes. Pretty typical (I'm in Atlanta, but for some reason I'm getting a 403 error when I try to look at Georgia statutes). What it means is that unless you are about to turn left, or there is some bizarre obstacle jutting out of the curb, you are not allowed to interfere with the flow of traffic -- period, end of story. If you cannot manage to do this because your bike is too slow, then you forfeit your right to use your bike on the road.
Actually, the road was built for bicycles. The public movement to get the roads paved in the US in the 19th century was spearheaded by cyclists.
So all the wide, multi-lane, paved roads that wend through my fair city are relics of the 19th century? Do you honestly expect me to believe this? Maybe the routes themselves are, but the infrastructure has been upgraded during the past century. These roads were not built with cyclists in mind.
Cyclists, of course, know this, despite protestations to the contrary, and you can hear it every time one of them gets his knickers in a twist about "murderously anti-cyclist roads" and "inconsiderate drivers" and complaints of all the frost heaves and potholes -- things that barely affect cars but wreak havoc on bicycles. There's a reason nobody cares.
In one of my English courses we were required to write that old standby, the persuasive essay. Being in a somewhat snarky mood and rather tired of having to dish out the same damn essay year after year, I declared that my topic would be "unresolved controversial issue", wrote it, and turned it in. Rather pleased with myself for being such a punkass, I then posted it to my website, where it was discovered by the professor; he called me into his office to give me a big lecture.
I was utterly confused as to what his problem was until he turned the monitor towards me, showing me the familiar blue-and-gray, at which point I dissolved into insane giggles and pointed out not only the date and time it was posted, but followed the link of "kitten" back to the identifier of my real name.
Slashdot Mirror
Then don't take the job, if it's going to conflict with your belief system. It really is that simple. If you knowingly enter into a position where you'll be required to say or do things that run contrary to your beliefs, that's your own problem, and you have no one but yourself to blame. At that point, either do what you've been asked to do, or quit -- but it's too late to start whining about it. You knew going in what would be expected.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
The purpose of a defense attorney is never to say "My client is not guilty." His job is to say "If you accuse my client of a crime, I am here to make sure you play by the rules which you have set for prosecuting the charge."
You are here claiming that it's okay for legislators to write vague, poorly-defined, wishy-washy laws and statutes, and then do whatever the hell they want based on "Oh, well, we know what we meant." No. If the law is not defined to cover something, then that's it -- it's over. The ability to re-interpret it to mean what you think it should mean instead of what it actually says is terrifying.
I would much rather see a "criminal go free" based on this sort of thing, than to give any authority the ability to run amok and prosecute anybody based on such arbitrary and vague laws they want to interpret to suit their immediate needs.
Pointing out that a law doesn't define what the hell it's talking about is not a "legal loophole". It is saying that the action is not illegal, since "illegal" means "against the law". And you can't do something against the law if the law in question doesn't exist, or doesn't apply to the situation.
Furthermore, your definition is question-begging. "Criminals go free..." No, they don't. A man is a criminal when he has committed a crime. A crime is committed when he is in violation of a law. To be in violation of a law, there must be a law in place which specifically and precisely defines what action is being referred to. How can someone be a "criminal" when he hasn't broken a law? (And no -- saying that the law "should have" been in place doesn't cut it.)
I agree that it is prudent to rewrite the law from "email" to "electronic correspondence", but you cannot go retroactively rewriting things and then prosecuting people on that basis. Your line of thinking is extremely dangerous.
If you look at what they tested, it has very little to do with technology. The fact that they were being asked to perform these tasks with a computer does not change that.
First, they were asked to select a thesis statement (essentially). Surprise, few of them could -- which is what I'd expect from our education system.
They couldn't identify which websites were relevent or authoritative to their topic. Well, I bet they couldn't do that with books, or when speaking to someone who claims to be an expert, or watching TV, or any number of other means of information gathering. People are stupid and believe anything they're told and never bother to examine the source or information critically. Shocking.
They proved to be inept at making slides for presentations. The criteria was how well and efficiently they put information into a slide, how relevent that information was, and so forth. I am not the least bit surprised to discover that people write stupid shit, don't understand what they're talking about, and are almost completely incapable of expressing a simple idea to another human.
But none of this is really related to technology. It's just people being stupid, brainless, slavering mouth-breathers. Welcome to Earth.
Oh please. Of all the stupid shit people pay for, you're bitching about this? I can't even tell if you're joking or not, because this sort of opinion is sincerely espoused by many.
On the assumption that you're serious, how is "Oh, I can hit a ball with a stick" any more valuable a skill? You claim it requires "physical accumen", but there's no real argument for that -- it's eye-hand coordination, same as gaming. The running around in baseball is often incidental and there are plenty of fatass baseball players.
How about racing? Oh, whooptee, you can drive a car fast. Well, all that takes is the ability to sit on your duff and react quickly to what's going on -- just like gaming.
You can reduce just about any skill or craft down to something that sounds stupid. Chess? Oh, the ability to memorize a few pieces and how they're allowed to move on a completely arbitrary, artifical environment. Wow.
Frankly, I think gaming is equally on par as, say, "mortgage broker" or "medical transcription" in terms of usefulness or skill, yet these are supposed to be legitimate professions. Get real.
But god, do I ever hate the word "potable". It sounds like a hayseed trying to say "portable": "Them big ol' buckets uh water'r too heavy t'be po'table!"
The word has one and only one meaning: "drinkable". It has no distinction from this definition, either, unlike most other synonyms in the English language which at least have some nuance of meaning distinct from other words. So, would someone tell me why anyone would insist on using the word "potable" instead of "drinkable", particularly in such cases as this where both words are used?
A real, practical situation that NAT sucks for?
VoIP.
I cannot tell you how much NAT and associated single routable addresses which mean using PAT as well, suck for VoIP applications, particularly if they're using SIP. A huge portion of my time at work is spent inventing lame workarounds for NAT-related problems for my VoIP users (and explaining how to do it, to people that barely know what a router even is).
Think modems, as in external devices. With these phones you could be anywhere with your laptop, connect them, and have instant internet access at respectable speeds. Now you don't have to pay extra for whatever "hotspot" you happen to find yourself near.
I admit it is not the most astounding technology out there, but it could be pretty useful. I know I've even used by Motorola cellphone as a dialup modem (recognized by Windows and Ubuntu Linux as a Hayes modem) to dial up a connection in a few circumstances. Once, I was driving, hopelessly lost, and after calling a few people who couldn't help me, I finally grabbed my laptop from the backseat, hooked up the cellphone, and checked Google maps. (Slowly, I might add -- you're not going to get above 9600bps this way. That's 1.1k. Hello, 1993.)
Like many of you, I don't have a home landline -- just a cable net connection and cellphone. Well, if my cable goes down, I can try to find wireless in the area, but the neighbor's wireless is sketchy at best. If I absolutely must get something done, dialup is the only way to go, and my handy cellphone lets me do it. In fact, once my cable was down for a week straight because the idiots at Charter disconnected me when they meant to disconnect one of the neighbors and couldn't be arsed to send someone out to correct this. My cellphone at least let me get on IRC and AIM -- but if I'd had 3G speeds, I could have gone about my business much more normally.
If the price becomes reasonable and so do the speeds and reliability (and I believe all these conditions will occur sooner or later), I can easily see many people forgoing all traditional cable and internet access, and using their phone for a sort of all-in-one solution.
Most of the users who would complain "I don't know how to use Linux" barely know how to use Windows either. They can manage to do things if they are explicitly shown how to double-click to run the program and perform a predetermined set of tasks, but if you ask them to do much else, most people are at a loss. It never occurs to them that every program they've ever used has a "menu" at the top from which they can "do stuff" -- put a new program in front of them that they've never seen, and they're asking for help three seconds later.
Okay, it's a bit cynical, but for many people it's also true. They have no real basis from which to say "Linux? But I don't know how, and I do know Windows." I suspect that if you put KDE in front of them and told them it was the new version of Windows, they'd never know the difference.
As for getting things up and running, Windows is not any easier than Linux, at least some distros. I realize everyone's machine is different and therefore things are not always going to go the same, but my Ubuntu install really was as easy as inserting the CD, clicking "Install", answering a few questions about myself and my time zone, and 20 minutes later I had a usable machine complete with most of the crap a user would ever care about -- email, web, office environment, music players, CD burners, DVD players, etc.
A base Windows install? You'll have IE and Outlook. Maybe WMP. Anything else you want you're going to have to find some third party software.
Here are my notes from a recent XP install at work, by the way. Do you think ANY user is going to know what to do for this stuff? What possible claim can there be for this nonsense that Windows is somehow easier?
Two identical questionos about install vs repair. (Just idiotic) Partition manager makes no recommendations, issues dire warnings. (User has no idea what to do.)
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\drivers\ntfs.sys (User: "Duhhhh.... uhhhh...")
Run setup to repair console as per suggestion:
File setupdd.sys could not be loaded. The error code is 7. (User: "Uhhh.. er....")
Setup cannot continue.
Press any key to exit.
(Great! Thanks, Windows!)
Fifth reboot, the damn thing FINALLY loads.
40 minutes of installing stuff. Questions about keyboard and stuff. 20 more minutes of commercials about Windows Movie Maker.
Stalls at 13 minutes with zero indication of progress. Just "Registering New Components..." Even I seriously thought about turning the damn thing off.
First boot. Resolution sucks ass. Like a user is going to know how to change it? Okay, some do. But before they can do anything they're interupted by panic-stricken messages about TAKE A TOUR OF WINDOWS OMFG THE FIREWALL IS OFF OMFG THE VIRUS DEFINITIONS HEY NEW HARDWARE DETECTED HEY YOU NEED TO REBOOT HEY HEY HEY
Then my favorite part. No network -- no ethernet, no wireless. No sound. No: Ethernet controller. Multimedia audio controller. Network controller. O2Micro Smartcard reader. PCI modem. Video controller.
"Ethernet controller. It is recommended that you connect to the Internet so that the wizard can search online and look for the appropriate software."
Uh yeah. Now I have to take my (Ubuntu) laptop, scour the net for drivers, burn them on a CD (with, I might add, Gnome's handy built-in utility), and take them to the Windows box just to get this crap working.
Give me a fucking break. There is no way a user would have made it this far. Explain to me how this is easier than a friendly distro like Ubuntu or SuSE?
it's no longer an issue of Grammar Nazism. This is just sheer idiocy, and let it be a lesson learned for all those who think mastering language is unimportant. For all we know, this guy may be able to factor complex quadratic equations in his head, but he sounds like a drivelling idiot, so nobody cares.
Big deal, man. A trial by jury means that twelve people will decide your fate -- twelve people who were too stupid to get out of jury duty. That pretty much neutralizes a lot of faith I have in the justice system. For the record I am studying to be a criminal defense attorney, and I'm still saying this. Fact is that especially in situations involving children, the average yob is going to go into near-hysterics. Most of the world is not composed of rational, level-headed people.
You're talking about a country where a huge percentage of the population still thinks the world is 6000 years old. These are your peers, as in "jury of your peers". The OP has a point -- justice in the American system has the illusion of fairness, but it is really quite silly.
I realize that not everyone's computer environment is the same, so things can go wrong, but honestly, my Ubuntu install was as simple as inserting the CD, letting it run, answering a couple of basic questions about what my account would be, and 20 minutes later I had a fully functional system, complete with commonly-used apps, Open Office, music players, video players, CD burning software, DVD software, IRC and AIM clients, and email client. In other words, everything your average user would care about.
Now, here is how a recent install of XP went at work -- and keep in mind that when it's done, you have a bare-bones OS. If you want an office package, an AIM client, or anything else, really, you're going to have to go find it on your own, with the possible exception of Outlook Express, which seems to install on some systems but not all.
Two identical questionos about install vs repair.
Partition manager makes no recommendations, issues dire warnings. Like "your mother" knows what the hell to do here?
Setup is copying files... Takes forever, but not complicated, I admit.
Reboot.
Then this gem: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\drivers\ntfs.sys.
Run setup to repair console as per suggestion:
File setupdd.sys could not be loaded. The error code is 7.
Setup cannot continue.
Press any key to exit.
Fifth reboot, finally loads.
ETA 40 minutes.
Answer questions about keyboard layout, timezone, computer name, password.
Wait some more. 20 minutes of commercials about Windows Movie Maker.
Stall at 13 minutes with "Registering Components..." No progress indication except for occasional new advertisement.
Reboot.
"Let's spend a few minutes setting up your computer!"
First boot.
Resolution sucks ass. Go to adjust it, interrupted by TAKE A TOUR! Along with about fifty windows and popups flying around the screen screaming about virus protection, firewall settings, registration notifications, and other irritations.
No network -- no ethernet, no wireless. No sound.
No: Ethernet controller. Multimedia audio controller. Network controller. O2Micro Smartcard reader. PCI modem. Video controller.
"Ethernet controller. It is recommended that you connect to the Internet so that the wizard can search online and look for the appropriate software."
It was at this point that I had to crawl around online and find individual drivers for each and every one of these devices, even though there is no reason generic drivers couldn't have sufficed at least to get me online. Since I couldn't use that machine to find these drivers, I had to use my (Ubuntu) laptop, then burn all the drivers to CD, and load them from there.
Now, you tell me that this is easy for an average user.
Sheesh.
You heard from George Bush himself that there are rumors on the internets. China is just heeding his words and putting them into action.
It's a simple matter of subject/verb agreement, and the American style is correct. "Google" and "Microsoft" are called "collective nouns", meaning that they refer to a single entity which is composed of multiple individuals. However, the fact that a group, by definition, has more than one person, does not mean it is proper to use the plural verb form when referring to the group as a whole.
"Google is doing something" is the proper phrasing when the noun refers to Google as a company. Google is one company, a single grouping.
British English is completely incorrect here, and for the record, this extends to "The band are playing" and "Arsenal suck".
If you're still not convinced, consider this exchange:
"Google are planning a new project."
"Oh, it are?"
Sounds wrong, doesn't it? Now, perhaps you would argue that it could be phrased "Oh, they are?" except this would be highly ambiguous -- who are "they"? Every single person at Google? Just the upper management or executives? The technicians? The janitors?
The answer, of course, is that it's not limited to any particular person or persons -- it is the company as a unified collective which is planning the project, and therefore, the singular verb should be used.
Next up, the British obsession over archaic ligatures. "Foetus", my ass.
Windows is perfectly capable of being used the way I described as "good" -- with various windows positioned around the screen, overlapping each other, and whatever else. I do so all the time on my Windows machine at home: Xchat in a corner, Firefox dominating the middle area, IM windows wherever, Thunderbird kind of in the middle, Winamp in another corner, and so forth.
The problem isn't the OS. The problem is the way most people use it. In fact whenever my less-tech-saavy friends sit at my computer for whatever, as soon as they open Firefox, the first thing they do is hit Maximize so that it dominates the entirety of the screen.
Now, if I had a larger screen at home I'd use it. In fact, my 19" CRT that does 1280x1024 just isn't cutting it for me anymore and I'm looking at a 19" or more CRT (I loathe widescreen). And this is on Windows.
It's not Microsoft, it's the users. They'd do the same thing in Gnome or KDE and you know it. I've seen them do the same thing with OSX. They either don't want, or don't know how, to manage looking at more than one thing at a time.
Right now I have a bunch of windows and terminals open, like most of you. I can see most of what's going on behind any application I have focused. Larger screens for people like us would be beneficial if only for the increased "real estate", which means we can have more crap open that isn't painted layers deep.
Now go look at some random user's desktop. You'll notice that, by and large, most people run all applications maximized. It doesn't matter what they're working on -- any applicatoin that has focus will take up the entirety of the desktop, leaving only the taskbar at the bottom.
They did this when it was 640x480. They did this when it was 1024x768. They do it now that they have 1280x1024 and 1600x1200. Of course, "most people" in office environemnts, for reasons I can't fathom, never bother running at full resolution anyway, even on LCDs. Give them a nice large 21" LCD screen that can do 1900 x 1600 and they'll still crank it down to 1024x768 because "it's too small".
Give "most people" a larger screen and they'll have one single larger window focused to the front. For the average yob, a larger screen just means more useless dead space around the tiny portion of the window that actually contains useful work or information.
I have a really hard time believing that even something as simple as file copying would be affected by this for most people. From my observation, this is how a user copies files, assuming they're on Windows:
1. Open Windows Explorer. Usually by the longest method possible (start > programs > wade through three columns of useless crap until they find Accessories > Windows Explorer).
2. It'll open maximized because that's how users run things. If for some reason it doesn't, they'll maximize it.
3. Spend a few minutes trying to figure out how they can use the square highlight to get only the files they want to copy (ctrl-click and shift-click never occurs to them, nor does using "detail" or "list" mode -- all icons and previews, baby!) This is after they've spent a few minutes trying to remember where they put their files, and how to navigate to that folder.
4. Copy or cut the files. If they use ctrl-C or X it's a miracle. Most will right-click and find "copy" or "cut" in the menu.
5. Open another instance of Explorer. Screw around for another couple minutes hitting the Up arrow and Back arrow until they finally find the folder they want to put the files in.
6. Right click, paste.
7. Done. Usually. Sometimes they have to go back and figure out why they just copied fifteen empty files called "New Word Document [1].doc".
Please tell me how a larger screen is going to help with this. As far as I can tell, a 30" screen to most people means an IE window 30 inches wide.
I do mild excercise throghout the week and I'm in good shape, but for the purposes of building muscle tone I've taken to a seemingly silly but, in my experience, effective way to get some excercise in during gaming sessions.
I'm talking about load times!
On my 2ghz machine, load times can be a minute or more between maps, depending on what game I'm playing. Any time that loading screen comes up for Unreal Tournament, I drop to the ground (with feet on the chair, for an incline) and crank out 30 or 40 pushups. A few rounds later and I've done 100 or more that day, which may not be much but is 100 more than most people do. I do this for situps, as well, and keep a pair of 25 pound handweights nearby so I can pump a set or two of those during load times. Better than staring at the progress bar, does a good job on my physique, and when I hear the game start again I can get right back to blowing stuff up.
Plus, it's a good way to work off some of that aggression about the jackass who just sits on the top hill the entire damned round and pops off sniper shots like a coward. God, I hate that guy. And his buddy with the vengeance kills. Hate him too.
Uh, anyway, try it. And for crissake, stick to diet soda.
I am the technical director for a VoIP provider I won't name (it's not Vonage), and I can tell you that Comcast has been a thorn in my side for a long time because of this nonsense.
Whenever a customer calls complaining about voice quality, it's almost always latency or some other issue with their connection; VoIP is, as you can guess, very sensitive to connection quality.
Comcast has been one of the worst for us, though other cable providers aren't much better (Time Warner, I'm looking in your direction). I cannot prove it, but I'm certain Comcast is doing some sort of traffic shaping for VoIP packets not their own, and it wreaks havoc with my company and many others, because we can't do anything for the customer except tell them "take it up with your ISP".
I think we all know what the ISP's invariable reaction is. Some tier-one flunky goes "Yup, signal looks good! No problems here!" and the customer comes back to us and there's nothing we can do about it. It doesn't matter how many pingtests, traceroutes, or other measures you offer them -- the cable companies have been notoriously unhelpful in getting their act together. Worse still they'll offer outlandish suggestions to the user, like "getting a static IP might help" or "upgrade your connection to six megs", neither of which will do a damn thing (well, the latter might, but it's not likely that bandwidth is the problem).
Now I admit that part of this is that VoIP over public residential/business connections is purely "best effort", especially the RTP stream is delivered via UDP which most ISPs and backbone providers consider less important than TCP. Contrawise, Comcast and other integrated providers can QoS their own VoIP packets any way they like. But for an ISP to leverage this fact to spread misinformation or misrepresent what is actually going on is totally ridiculous.
Part of the problem is that most people really don't know anything about computers or the internet. They'll tell you "but I have a fast connection! It's three megs!" because they don't understand the difference between latency and bandwidth, or they'll point out that their email and websites load really quickly. From this end-user's point of view there's nothing wrong with their connection that should cause their VoIP phone to suck, because "everything else works", and I partially agree with them -- they shouldn't have to constantly harrass their ISP to stop screwing around. (My disagreement is my cynicism of caveat emptor, and it wouldn't kill people to know a little something about how the service works, at the very least so they know to whom to complain when something goes wrong. In essence they're bringing a car to the mechanic complaining that the ride is bumpy, when the problem is the road outside their house is full of potholes.)
But even my cynicism has limits -- as a matter of fact I had to go through this same crap with my home cable provider, Charter, and it took nearly two weeks for me to get them to deal with the problem. Keep in mind that's someone like me, who knows what he's talking about, who is in IT, who can provide useful information about where the problem lies, and knows to whom to speak and how to phrase the problem to get results. What is your average user supposed to do, when they don't know anything about this stuff?
When it gets to that point, and the ISP is telling them things like "reboot the computer!", the user sees only a few choices -- get a new ISP, or get a new VoIP provider. And here comes Mr Comcast Droid with his promises of high quality, one bill, blah blah blah, and the user thinks that sounds pretty good, so they make the switch.
Also, for those of you griping about security of VoIP, I get that question a lot too. It's not particularly secure, but I find it amusing that nobody asks that question when they're getting a copper line from the local Bell, which isn't secure either. At least to eavesdrop on VoIP you'd have to have access to one of the routers along the path, whereas any ten-year-old can plug a handset into the phone interface on the outside of your house (my friends and I did it all the time to bug my sister).
The oppression is quite real and sometimes lethal, thanks to attitudes like yours, that a few seconds of your time is worth more than my life. You are willing to put my life at risk because you resent slowing down for a minute.
Did I hold a gun to your head and tell you to ride your 25mph bike on a 50mph thoroughfare? No, it was your choice to do this. I have no sympathy for people who willingly put themselves into dangerous situations and then bitch about the danger -- even if it's "wrong" that your life is in danger, you have no one but yourself to blame for your being there.
You're not being "oppressed" because 99% of the road-using populace doesn't cater to the 1% who chooses to put themselves in harm's way.
But ordering me to keep off it does imply you imaginine it belongs to you.
You know what they say about "assume"? It makes people use trite cliches.
Those are the conditions.
The "conditions" being referred to in the statute are clearly not meant to include "riding the bike in general", else the statute would be meaningless. The law is that you stay as far to the right as possible and do not interfere with the flow of traffic, unless something unusual is preventing you from doing so or you are about to turn left.
When bicycles kill as many people as cars, registration might be necessary.
Don't be naive. Registration isn't about identification -- it's about money. If it were simply a matter of being able to ID cars in the event of a problem, then why do I need to "renew" it every year although my information, nor the car's information, has changed in five years?
And considering the minuscule amount spent on bicycle infrastructure, I don't get my money's worth.
I'd say you get far more than your money's worth, actually. Considering the number of people as a percentage who actually use bicycles as a primary means of transportation, which is ridiculously small, it doesn't make sense to pool everyone else's money into supporting the infrastructure for a small number of whiners who can't even be bothered to obey the laws that are already in place.
You're complaining that there isn't enough bike infrastructure -- I have a sneaking suspicion that if the amount of money put into installing, upkeeping, and expanding bike lanes were actually proportional to the number of bikers out there, and how much taxes they really pay for the roads, there would be much, much less of that infrastructure, at least in the States.
Cyclists are worse than Mac users when it comes to adopting elitist, oppressed-minority attitudes. I especially love how drivers are "inconsiderate" for not being super nice to cyclists, but cyclists see it as their divine freakin' right hold up traffic for three miles by going 20mph slower than everyone else, and that's not inconsiderate at all, eh?
I said "the" road, not "my" road. Sounds to me like you're reading what you want to see, not what's actually there. Which seems pretty typical of cyclists, many of whom act like they're a member of some oppressed minority group.
Most roads were. Did they have cars in the 19th Century?
Don't confuse "route" with "road". The "route" for the main drag of Atlanta, Peachtree Street, is quite old. But today it is a multi-lane, asphalt-paved, 45mph strip. Are you seriously suggesting that it was built this way with bicycles and horse-drawn carriages in mind?
Citation for this law, please.
Of course it varies from state to state, but most states, if not all, have a law that reads something like this: which means that unless there is some obstacle jutting from the curb, or you're about to turn left, you're not supposed to cause "undue interference with the flow of traffic". That's from New York state.
Plenty of states have statutes regarding minimum posted speed limits. I'm not going to sit here and dig them up for you because you'll just counter that you're not riding your bike on roads with such a posted limit and I'll bitch that you're still impeding the flow of traffic and you'll say how is that illegal and I'll have to point out that that you're a doody head and you'll say maybe so but that's not against the law and I'll give you the finger.
By the way, I'm also getting tired of the "my taxes paid for the road, I have as much a right to it as you!" In fact, to operate my car on the road, I have to pay a yearly fee, and that license does not transfer to any vehicle I happen to fancy -- I have to pay another fee for every car I wish to drive. When you start paying tag and registration fees for your bicycle you can come to me with your "my taxes paid for this", but until then, you're not on equal footing.
Shocked, I say, that you haven't had to graph quadratic equations or find derivatives outside of a classroom environment.
(a) Upon all roadways, any bicycle shall be driven either on a usable bicycle lane or, if a usable bicycle lane has not been provided, near the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway or upon a usable right- hand shoulder in such a manner as to prevent undue interference with the flow of traffic except when preparing for a left turn or when reasonably necessary to avoid conditions that would make it unsafe to continue along near the right-hand curb or edge. From the New York state statutes. Pretty typical (I'm in Atlanta, but for some reason I'm getting a 403 error when I try to look at Georgia statutes). What it means is that unless you are about to turn left, or there is some bizarre obstacle jutting out of the curb, you are not allowed to interfere with the flow of traffic -- period, end of story. If you cannot manage to do this because your bike is too slow, then you forfeit your right to use your bike on the road. Actually, the road was built for bicycles. The public movement to get the roads paved in the US in the 19th century was spearheaded by cyclists.
So all the wide, multi-lane, paved roads that wend through my fair city are relics of the 19th century? Do you honestly expect me to believe this? Maybe the routes themselves are, but the infrastructure has been upgraded during the past century. These roads were not built with cyclists in mind.
Cyclists, of course, know this, despite protestations to the contrary, and you can hear it every time one of them gets his knickers in a twist about "murderously anti-cyclist roads" and "inconsiderate drivers" and complaints of all the frost heaves and potholes -- things that barely affect cars but wreak havoc on bicycles. There's a reason nobody cares.
In one of my English courses we were required to write that old standby, the persuasive essay. Being in a somewhat snarky mood and rather tired of having to dish out the same damn essay year after year, I declared that my topic would be "unresolved controversial issue", wrote it, and turned it in. Rather pleased with myself for being such a punkass, I then posted it to my website, where it was discovered by the professor; he called me into his office to give me a big lecture.
I was utterly confused as to what his problem was until he turned the monitor towards me, showing me the familiar blue-and-gray, at which point I dissolved into insane giggles and pointed out not only the date and time it was posted, but followed the link of "kitten" back to the identifier of my real name.
I got an A on this paper.