Back to my original point, Just having a law to tell people to stop doing something, even if it's enforced like DUI's, still won't prevent everyone from doing it. I think having a safer alternative, like this HUD display, is optimal to solve the problem. That's what technology is for, solving problems. Grumbling and complaing about people being on their phones won't solve anything.
Just having the law is ineffective, you need to enforce the law and educate drivers as well.
And yes, enforcement combined with education does work.
Further more, there isn't a safe way to drive distracted. Our brains simply dont multitask. End of story. There is no safe way to tweet or text whilst driving. A person using a HUD to text or tweet will readily drive right up the tailpipe of the car in front of them because their brain is focused on the text or tweet and simply doesn't register that there is a car in front, let alone the fact it has stopped or slowed down. Our brains are dicks like that.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, not only will they be completely oblivious to what is in front of them, they will still veer out of their lane, make erratic speed changes and completely ignore anything to their sides or in their mirrors.
So we need to focus on driver education to curtail distracted driving and when that fails, law enforcement. A good driver will ignore distractions like tweets and texts (I even ignore phone calls, I have voicemail for a good reason).
HUD's don't require you to take your eyes off the road. Also, really they aren't a distraction from driving when their purpose is to actually assist in operating the vehicle safely.
I've bolded the critical part. When assisting the driver with operating the vehicle, HUDs are a very good idea. However having read Navdy's site, they seem to emphasise things people shouldn't be doing whilst operating a vehicle like texting or making a tweet. A driver focused on their text messages is not focused on the road regardless of where they're looking, their brain will be occupied with the task of texting and mutlitasking is doesn't really work. Even though they've got their eyes right in front of them, they'll still drive right up the tailpipe of the car in front because their brain simply wont register that the car is in front of them as it's focused on the task of texting.
I'd very much like a HUD for my 14yr old Nissan that could display things like my current location, speed, engine RPM, boost pressure (especially boost pressure as I dont want to mess my car up with 3rd party gauges) that can be obtained from the OBDII port and I would look at momentarily as part of normal driving. It would have to be one with a configurable UI. However having read Navdy's site, their device doesn't seem to do this as they keep going on about phone calls, texts and tweets.
The City of London Police is overseen by an elected body and funded through taxes. It is not a private police force. I think that was just a transparent attempt to sensationalize a news story.
The City of London police are not strictly a "private police force" by the dictionary definition of the words... they just act like it.
I think you're the first to suggest that this article means that Apple is doomed.
Pretty much.
Apple has faded so far into mediocrity, they now have to generate their own hate.
But seriously, I dont see how anyone is DOOOOMED(TM) by this because its just another competitor. Huawei and Xiaomi have been making phones for some time, the top models on par with the offerings from Samsung and HTC, this doesn't mean anyone is doomed as Android is already very competitive and fast moving.
I just committed the cardinal/. sin, I read the article, Xaiomi has 14% of the market, Samsung has 12% along with Lenovo and Yulong and Huawei has 11% with the remaining 39% being made up by "other" so Samsung is hardly suffering from a catastrophic loss.
Nonsense. The computer only needs to be markedly better than an *average* driver to be a huge safety win.
Nope,
Firstly people will never accept that. It needs to be far superior in order to be accepted by the general public.
Secondly, the average driver in the US is considered a very poor driver by Australian standards... and the Germans/English are better than us.
Thirdly, idiots tend to make different mistakes, computers will always make the same ones. For this reason, autonomous systems need to be far superior to the average driver as 1 in 1000 events on the road will catch maybe 1% of average drivers (because they fail in different ways) but if it gets 1 autonomous car, it will get others as well (because they all fail in the same way). For this reason, it needs to be able to avoid more risks than the average driver. Ironically, the unpredictability of bad drivers helps protect them and make them better than autonomous systems even thought their unpredictability is the biggest thing making them a bad driver.
It's getting that last 1% right that will take the most time.
That said, I wouldn't trust the current auto manufacturers to do the job properly, they mostly can't even install a media system without also potentially letting anyone with a bluetooth rifle take complete control of the critical electronics.
Back to my example about the Ford SUV.
Ford programmed it for dry conditions, it does not perform as well in the wet (sometimes it does not even work at all, as my friends Prelude found out the hard way). That system doesn't take into account the differing environmental conditions, it doesn't know if the road is smooth or coarse, wet or dry, tarmac or gravel. All of these factors make massive differences in braking distance.
That phone you bought in Australia is preferring Australian frequencies when searching for networks. In Australia it can find your network on one of those fairly quickly. In US it has to search through all of those and probably some others before reaching the frequencies where AT&T towers are. Since it is on a non preferred frequency, it may also be checking periodically for a signal on its preferred frequencies. If its a long term trip, it might be worth flashing an AT&T radio if one is available.
Actually the frequencies used by Telstra and AT&T are the same (850 MHz) and no, the bands do not differ between countries.
Further more, the phone was actually a grey import from the UK but seeing as there's no differences between countries, the Europe/UK originating radio works the same in any country.
What is actually happening is that my phone was swapping between towers more often, AT&T's network is not designed to handle congestion very well.
People who buy an Infiniti aren't particularly rich.
Infiniti's are just Nissan's with a body kit and a jacked up price tag. Almost all Infiniti's are based on the Nissan FM platform and can be bought as Nissan Skylines (V36) for much less. All the Infiniti range have a Nissan equivalent (Skyline, Altima, Terano). So buying an Infiniti on it's own is an indication of stupidity.
Beyond that, even though they're pricier than a Nissan they aren't that expensive. An Q50 starts at US$37,000. A rich person would be driving an Maserati or an S-Class or more accurately, they'd be being driven in it.
Absolutely. Anything that *almost* removes the need for you to be behind the wheel is an accident waiting to happen. Even if you remain in your seat, what are the odds that you'll remain alert and aware of the surrounding traffic after the 100th commute where it proved completely unnecessary to do so?
This is why autonomous cars are a long while away, sure we'll be 99% of the way there by 2018, it's that last 1% that's the bitch.
We cant remove the human from the link until we are 100% certain that the computer can make decisions better than a very good driver.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was in a rear end collision with one of those new Ford Kuga SUV's which advertise automatic emergency brakes... They dont work, even if they did engage they wouldn't have stopped in time because their based on a dry stopping distance, not a wet one (it's winter here in Oz). We cant even get simple systems to work reliably.
My bet - different CDRX settings, fast dormancy, idle timers. Is probably a better engineered network.
Pretty much this.
I used to have a Galaxy Nexus which I bought outright (pure Android, no carrier crap) and on Telstra in Australia it would last 2+ days on a single charge. I took it to the US and put an AT&T SIM card in it and it lasted 1-1.5 days, back to Australia on Telstra and it was 2+ days again. Usage of my phone actually decreased over this time as I wasn't using it for work, so the difference cant be explained by additional use.
Ahh the old Europe is superior to US because they drive stick argument. I love it when people become overly proud of a talent that pretty much anyone can learn in a few hours at a Walmart parking lot.
Amazing that most Americans lack this "talent pretty much anyone can learn in a few hours at a Walmart parking lot" given it's so simple to aquire.
Manual (stick) drivers are better because they are proactive, rather than reactive. Automatic drivers wait for the car to do something, then react. This translates into other disciplines necessary for driving such as hazard detection and risk avoidance, they wait for the hazard to become a risk, then try to mitigate it. Manual drivers on the other hand constantly have to think 5 seconds ahead of what the car is doing, so they see hazards earlier and mitigate potential risks earlier.
>If you dont have your car insured, that's your problem.
So, if someone steals your stuff, they can just call "no insurance" and it's okay?
No, it means you dont understand what "its your problem" means.
If you dont have insurance and your car gets stolen, you're on your own. It's your problem to deal with.
Whether you get theft insurance is your choice, I choose to because I'm smart enough to know that thieves are out there. Besides this, high speed chases almost always bring cars back as burnt out, crushed shells. So again, if you've got no insurance you're pretty much stuffed.
Well, the criminal then gets to pay for the damage he caused to the car.
Awww, it's so cute you think rich people are stealing old Astra's.
If something was stolen from me I would damn sure want to (preferably) get it back or at least get loss compensated.
This is what we call "Insurance".
In Australia people are taking to stealing keys as immobilisers have become so common and effective it's easier to break into a house and flog the keys before taking the car. I dont really care that much if they do this and steal my 14 yr old Nissan... It's insured for $13,500. Sure it would be a shame as it's a mint condition Silvia S15 but in the end it's a car I have properly insured.*
If you dont have your car insured, that's your problem. As for getting it back, well considering the kind of people who steal cars I'm not sure I'd want that either (the first thing Police do on recovered cars is a sharps check, a check for used needles. Insurers will do the same to make sure the cops didn't miss any).
* I drive a manual, these days that's enough to stop most thieves in their tracks.
Flu deaths aren't nearly as sexy as hemmoraghic fever. Someone passing away while sweating and shivering is nothing compared to having your internals turn to goo.
This scared the shit out of me, no matter how small of a scale ebola currently is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
This. Ebola is a very destructive virus.
The thing with Ebola is the fatality rate, up to 90% in some cases. Influenza (flu) infects 10's of thousands in each country per year but will only kill a few thousand at most in the countries with the most limited health care systems (in western nations, it kills maybe a dozen) and these people usually die from complications caused by other illnesses or old age.
Most people fight off flu with a bit of bed rest and some chicken soup, no such luck for Ebola as it attacks . The current fatality rate for the current outbreak is 60%, with 1600 confirmed cases (880 deaths) and there are more suspected cases. Beyond this, Ebola remains infectious after death, so people handling corpses without protection can contract the virus.
My doctor scared the shit out of me with my Yellow Fever vaccination (which is still the old school style live vaccine) and that has a fatality rate of 3% (less than 1% if treated early) and the vaccine had an infection rate of 1 in 5,000,000.
956 on the global scale of some 7 billion or whatever we are at now on the other hand hardly is an outbreak. Thats prob less than die daily in car crashes around the world
Compared to previous Ebola outbreaks, this is high. Considering that Ebola has a less than 50% survival rate (as low as 10% in some cases) it is in no way compatible to car crashes as you dont have a 60% chance of dying by getting into a car.
Also, Ebola becomes more infectious as the patients become sicker nor does it die at the same time as the host. The people most at risk of contracting Ebola are people treating those already infected and showing symptoms as well as those handling the bodies. So the potential for more cases is extremely high.
The stories about entire villages being wiped out from Ebola aren't just stories. It's because they didn't know how to handle the sick or dead (yep, everyone gather round an Ebola infected corpse for a regular funeral).
They always one up whatever move you do and the only way to end the cold war was when the US stopped the race and started de-escalating the conflict and offer a treaty after a treaty, until finally Russia felt safe enough to let go.
Erm...
The cold war ended because the Soviet Union was broke and in disarray.
Diplomacy was the only option left to Yetlsin. They couldn't feed an army, let alone civilians.
As it will be with Putin or Putin's successor. Breadlines, not hard-lines with break them.
The single-player campaign in Crysis was great, I loved it.
Single player Crysis was a very good game executed very badly.
It had all the underpinnings of a good game. The gameplay and action was engaging, the controls were intuitive and smooth, the interface was easy to understand, the environment was a very active part of the game.
After this it all went to pot. The story was crap, even for an FPS (I don't expect much of FPS, but Crysis was on the wrong side of terrible), the British guy was clearly designed by people who'd never met a real Englishman in their life and refined cringe-worthy to a weaponised level but this isn't the bit that ruined it. The two parts were that large parts of the game were very clearly removed to get it out the door on time and no effort was made to compensate (I.E. a quick and dirty cut scene) and whilst the first half of the game is good, the second half is just annoying.
Although I agree with you on the multi player completely, it would have been good if they didn't trust the client... NEVER EVER TRUST THE CLIENT.
Not really, I know people who write POS code for a company that competes with NCR. They have no ties to banks. it's all about talking to processors, like VISA, Mastercard, etc.
I guess people are trying to pin this on the bank because banks are evil. #wallstreet #99% #ideserverwhatyouworkedfor #givemestuff
This.
A lot of POS software only does validation locally (I.E. making sure the numbers match the right mask and the checksum). With POS software it's all about getting the transaction done fast, not right because morons, sorry, customers don't like waiting around for the bank to approve their spending.
Knowing how shitty a lot of POS systems are, is one of the big reasons I like using cash. I know one minor chain store that has PCEFTPOS sitting on a computer out the back... unpatched XP box that the staff use for emails/general internet access.
get a credit card and charge $100 a month and pay it off. or charge your living expenses and pay it off
simple
And make sure it's a cash back card;) I've made thousands back in rewards and never paid a single dime of interest. Credit cards are a scam; make it a game to see how much you can scam out of the scammers!
You're right that its a scam. But you're wrong about scamming the scammers.
Banks are set up to extract the most money out of you without you even noticing. Cashback and other rewards schemes are the best form of operant conditioning, so much so many people will defend the banks trying to rip them off.
Banks make an absolute shitload when you use your credit card but they know if they charge you, you'll just use cash or debit (or another means that doesn't cost you) so instead of charging you for having or using the card they charge the merchant for accepting it, this is called the Mercant Service Fee or Interchange Fee (sometimes both). The merchant must now pass this cost onto you in either fees or higher prices. The merchant cant use fees because the banks have conditioned you to use your card (the aforementioned operant conditioning) and conned you into believing it's free so the only option left open to the merchant is to build it into the price.
When I ran a business, my costs for accepting credit cards would often outstrip my staffing costs... In Australia. Let me say that again, in Australia. People don't know, don't want to know and really don't care how much it costs a merchant to accept credit cards.
It doesn't matter what rewards you get, the bank still makes a lot of money. This is Machiavellian brilliance, people will actually support being ripped off because they've been conditioned to get the reward and don't know about or will actively ignore the punishment. It's the ideal mixture of operant conditioning and Stockholm syndrome.
If you have a million in assets, what do you need a loan for?
We've finally arrived at the point where your only chance to getting a loan is not needing one.
Its always been like that.
But the reason you would get a loan if you have $1,000,000 in assets is because those assets aren't liquid. Also because you dont want to disrupt cash flow. It's common for businesses to finance large purchases rather than paying cash (talking around the $50,000 mark) even when they have that much cash on hand because it looks better on P&L statements and your creditors impose different conditions on businesses that go into the red.
But when you have a $1,000,000 relationship with the bank, you then become their customers, rather than the cash cow they might reluctantly provide a service to.
In Syria it's Muslims killing Muslims and a lot of people see that as a good thing. It may piss you off but it's just a fact, there are a lot of people that don't mind if Muslims kill themselves off.
And a lot of innocent people caught in the middle.
The problem is, the innocent people are also Muslims and saying that Muslims are suffering just doesn't garner much sympathy in the modern, xenophobic world.
The sad fact is, the only reason a lot of people, especially the Fox News crowd care about the Palestine conflict is that it's someone fighting Muslims... they don't give a shit about the Israelis (they'd just as quickly hate the Jews with the same irrational enthusiasm)... they only care that someone else (not a Muslim) is fighting Muslims.
Unless you're towing a yacht, or need to go off roading, a good (200hp+) minivan is a much more logical choice.
Most SUV's people purchase aren't capable of doing this.
A great many of them are just overweight hatchbacks that have been jacked up. FWD 2L engines with big bodies. Because of this, SUV's are actually quite deceptive size wise. They look big on the outside but have limited cargo capacity on the inside. Most SUV's lack a locking diff or low range gearbox which means they don't have the off road capability to tackle a damp, grassy hillside (also they lack underside protection, which only matters if you care about your car).
For passengers, a minivan is better, provides more room and comfort as well as better access to the third row (because they usually have larger doors). For cargo vans or station wagons (AKA Estate cars) are better as they will have more cargo space for the same sized car as well as handling much better (by having a lower centre of gravity).
I've gone offroading in the Australian outback, anything less than a Toyota Land Cruiser or Nissan Patrol will be killed out there. F-series utes (trucks) will have failed long before they get to where the Land Cruisers start. I call SUV's "soft roaders" because their off road capabilities end at mounting the curb.
Slashdot Mirror
I won't be happy until I get my LCARS display. Just imagine controlling a car like that.
Heck, "car" is already included in the acronym!
Yep, it'll be brilliant.
I make a sharp left and the console in the rear passenger seat explodes. Now if I could just get rear mounted phasers for the tailgaters.
Back to my original point, Just having a law to tell people to stop doing something, even if it's enforced like DUI's, still won't prevent everyone from doing it. I think having a safer alternative, like this HUD display, is optimal to solve the problem. That's what technology is for, solving problems. Grumbling and complaing about people being on their phones won't solve anything.
Just having the law is ineffective, you need to enforce the law and educate drivers as well.
And yes, enforcement combined with education does work.
Further more, there isn't a safe way to drive distracted. Our brains simply dont multitask. End of story. There is no safe way to tweet or text whilst driving. A person using a HUD to text or tweet will readily drive right up the tailpipe of the car in front of them because their brain is focused on the text or tweet and simply doesn't register that there is a car in front, let alone the fact it has stopped or slowed down. Our brains are dicks like that.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, not only will they be completely oblivious to what is in front of them, they will still veer out of their lane, make erratic speed changes and completely ignore anything to their sides or in their mirrors.
So we need to focus on driver education to curtail distracted driving and when that fails, law enforcement. A good driver will ignore distractions like tweets and texts (I even ignore phone calls, I have voicemail for a good reason).
HUD's don't require you to take your eyes off the road. Also, really they aren't a distraction from driving when their purpose is to actually assist in operating the vehicle safely.
I've bolded the critical part. When assisting the driver with operating the vehicle, HUDs are a very good idea. However having read Navdy's site, they seem to emphasise things people shouldn't be doing whilst operating a vehicle like texting or making a tweet. A driver focused on their text messages is not focused on the road regardless of where they're looking, their brain will be occupied with the task of texting and mutlitasking is doesn't really work. Even though they've got their eyes right in front of them, they'll still drive right up the tailpipe of the car in front because their brain simply wont register that the car is in front of them as it's focused on the task of texting.
I'd very much like a HUD for my 14yr old Nissan that could display things like my current location, speed, engine RPM, boost pressure (especially boost pressure as I dont want to mess my car up with 3rd party gauges) that can be obtained from the OBDII port and I would look at momentarily as part of normal driving. It would have to be one with a configurable UI. However having read Navdy's site, their device doesn't seem to do this as they keep going on about phone calls, texts and tweets.
The City of London Police is overseen by an elected body and funded through taxes. It is not a private police force. I think that was just a transparent attempt to sensationalize a news story.
The City of London police are not strictly a "private police force" by the dictionary definition of the words... they just act like it.
I think you're the first to suggest that this article means that Apple is doomed.
Pretty much.
/. sin, I read the article, Xaiomi has 14% of the market, Samsung has 12% along with Lenovo and Yulong and Huawei has 11% with the remaining 39% being made up by "other" so Samsung is hardly suffering from a catastrophic loss.
Apple has faded so far into mediocrity, they now have to generate their own hate.
But seriously, I dont see how anyone is DOOOOMED(TM) by this because its just another competitor. Huawei and Xiaomi have been making phones for some time, the top models on par with the offerings from Samsung and HTC, this doesn't mean anyone is doomed as Android is already very competitive and fast moving.
I just committed the cardinal
Nope,
Firstly people will never accept that. It needs to be far superior in order to be accepted by the general public.
Secondly, the average driver in the US is considered a very poor driver by Australian standards... and the Germans/English are better than us.
Thirdly, idiots tend to make different mistakes, computers will always make the same ones. For this reason, autonomous systems need to be far superior to the average driver as 1 in 1000 events on the road will catch maybe 1% of average drivers (because they fail in different ways) but if it gets 1 autonomous car, it will get others as well (because they all fail in the same way). For this reason, it needs to be able to avoid more risks than the average driver. Ironically, the unpredictability of bad drivers helps protect them and make them better than autonomous systems even thought their unpredictability is the biggest thing making them a bad driver.
It's getting that last 1% right that will take the most time.
That said, I wouldn't trust the current auto manufacturers to do the job properly, they mostly can't even install a media system without also potentially letting anyone with a bluetooth rifle take complete control of the critical electronics.
Back to my example about the Ford SUV.
Ford programmed it for dry conditions, it does not perform as well in the wet (sometimes it does not even work at all, as my friends Prelude found out the hard way). That system doesn't take into account the differing environmental conditions, it doesn't know if the road is smooth or coarse, wet or dry, tarmac or gravel. All of these factors make massive differences in braking distance.
That would be like the US government banning GM cars.
The efficiency and reliability of the US Government fleet would increase whilst costs reduce?
That phone you bought in Australia is preferring Australian frequencies when searching for networks. In Australia it can find your network on one of those fairly quickly. In US it has to search through all of those and probably some others before reaching the frequencies where AT&T towers are. Since it is on a non preferred frequency, it may also be checking periodically for a signal on its preferred frequencies. If its a long term trip, it might be worth flashing an AT&T radio if one is available.
Actually the frequencies used by Telstra and AT&T are the same (850 MHz) and no, the bands do not differ between countries.
Further more, the phone was actually a grey import from the UK but seeing as there's no differences between countries, the Europe/UK originating radio works the same in any country.
What is actually happening is that my phone was swapping between towers more often, AT&T's network is not designed to handle congestion very well.
Rich people generally are pretty stupid.
People who buy an Infiniti aren't particularly rich.
Infiniti's are just Nissan's with a body kit and a jacked up price tag. Almost all Infiniti's are based on the Nissan FM platform and can be bought as Nissan Skylines (V36) for much less. All the Infiniti range have a Nissan equivalent (Skyline, Altima, Terano). So buying an Infiniti on it's own is an indication of stupidity.
Beyond that, even though they're pricier than a Nissan they aren't that expensive. An Q50 starts at US$37,000. A rich person would be driving an Maserati or an S-Class or more accurately, they'd be being driven in it.
Absolutely. Anything that *almost* removes the need for you to be behind the wheel is an accident waiting to happen. Even if you remain in your seat, what are the odds that you'll remain alert and aware of the surrounding traffic after the 100th commute where it proved completely unnecessary to do so?
This is why autonomous cars are a long while away, sure we'll be 99% of the way there by 2018, it's that last 1% that's the bitch.
We cant remove the human from the link until we are 100% certain that the computer can make decisions better than a very good driver.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine was in a rear end collision with one of those new Ford Kuga SUV's which advertise automatic emergency brakes... They dont work, even if they did engage they wouldn't have stopped in time because their based on a dry stopping distance, not a wet one (it's winter here in Oz). We cant even get simple systems to work reliably.
My bet - different CDRX settings, fast dormancy, idle timers. Is probably a better engineered network.
Pretty much this. I used to have a Galaxy Nexus which I bought outright (pure Android, no carrier crap) and on Telstra in Australia it would last 2+ days on a single charge. I took it to the US and put an AT&T SIM card in it and it lasted 1-1.5 days, back to Australia on Telstra and it was 2+ days again. Usage of my phone actually decreased over this time as I wasn't using it for work, so the difference cant be explained by additional use.
Ahh the old Europe is superior to US because they drive stick argument. I love it when people become overly proud of a talent that pretty much anyone can learn in a few hours at a Walmart parking lot.
Amazing that most Americans lack this "talent pretty much anyone can learn in a few hours at a Walmart parking lot" given it's so simple to aquire.
Manual (stick) drivers are better because they are proactive, rather than reactive. Automatic drivers wait for the car to do something, then react. This translates into other disciplines necessary for driving such as hazard detection and risk avoidance, they wait for the hazard to become a risk, then try to mitigate it. Manual drivers on the other hand constantly have to think 5 seconds ahead of what the car is doing, so they see hazards earlier and mitigate potential risks earlier.
Beyond this, manuals are just more fun to drive.
>If you dont have your car insured, that's your problem.
So, if someone steals your stuff, they can just call "no insurance" and it's okay?
No, it means you dont understand what "its your problem" means.
If you dont have insurance and your car gets stolen, you're on your own. It's your problem to deal with.
Whether you get theft insurance is your choice, I choose to because I'm smart enough to know that thieves are out there. Besides this, high speed chases almost always bring cars back as burnt out, crushed shells. So again, if you've got no insurance you're pretty much stuffed.
Well, the criminal then gets to pay for the damage he caused to the car.
Awww, it's so cute you think rich people are stealing old Astra's.
If something was stolen from me I would damn sure want to (preferably) get it back or at least get loss compensated.
This is what we call "Insurance".
In Australia people are taking to stealing keys as immobilisers have become so common and effective it's easier to break into a house and flog the keys before taking the car. I dont really care that much if they do this and steal my 14 yr old Nissan... It's insured for $13,500. Sure it would be a shame as it's a mint condition Silvia S15 but in the end it's a car I have properly insured.*
If you dont have your car insured, that's your problem. As for getting it back, well considering the kind of people who steal cars I'm not sure I'd want that either (the first thing Police do on recovered cars is a sharps check, a check for used needles. Insurers will do the same to make sure the cops didn't miss any).
* I drive a manual, these days that's enough to stop most thieves in their tracks.
Flu deaths aren't nearly as sexy as hemmoraghic fever. Someone passing away while sweating and shivering is nothing compared to having your internals turn to goo. This scared the shit out of me, no matter how small of a scale ebola currently is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
This. Ebola is a very destructive virus.
The thing with Ebola is the fatality rate, up to 90% in some cases. Influenza (flu) infects 10's of thousands in each country per year but will only kill a few thousand at most in the countries with the most limited health care systems (in western nations, it kills maybe a dozen) and these people usually die from complications caused by other illnesses or old age.
Most people fight off flu with a bit of bed rest and some chicken soup, no such luck for Ebola as it attacks . The current fatality rate for the current outbreak is 60%, with 1600 confirmed cases (880 deaths) and there are more suspected cases. Beyond this, Ebola remains infectious after death, so people handling corpses without protection can contract the virus.
My doctor scared the shit out of me with my Yellow Fever vaccination (which is still the old school style live vaccine) and that has a fatality rate of 3% (less than 1% if treated early) and the vaccine had an infection rate of 1 in 5,000,000.
956 on the global scale of some 7 billion or whatever we are at now on the other hand hardly is an outbreak. Thats prob less than die daily in car crashes around the world
Compared to previous Ebola outbreaks, this is high. Considering that Ebola has a less than 50% survival rate (as low as 10% in some cases) it is in no way compatible to car crashes as you dont have a 60% chance of dying by getting into a car.
Also, Ebola becomes more infectious as the patients become sicker nor does it die at the same time as the host. The people most at risk of contracting Ebola are people treating those already infected and showing symptoms as well as those handling the bodies. So the potential for more cases is extremely high.
The stories about entire villages being wiped out from Ebola aren't just stories. It's because they didn't know how to handle the sick or dead (yep, everyone gather round an Ebola infected corpse for a regular funeral).
I hear they also keep tigers away. You don't see any tigers around here, do you?
Sir, I say sir, I dispute your claim... well I will as soon as I've finished fighting of this bloody great big Bengal Tiger.
They always one up whatever move you do and the only way to end the cold war was when the US stopped the race and started de-escalating the conflict and offer a treaty after a treaty, until finally Russia felt safe enough to let go.
Erm...
The cold war ended because the Soviet Union was broke and in disarray.
Diplomacy was the only option left to Yetlsin. They couldn't feed an army, let alone civilians.
As it will be with Putin or Putin's successor. Breadlines, not hard-lines with break them.
The single-player campaign in Crysis was great, I loved it.
Single player Crysis was a very good game executed very badly.
It had all the underpinnings of a good game. The gameplay and action was engaging, the controls were intuitive and smooth, the interface was easy to understand, the environment was a very active part of the game.
After this it all went to pot. The story was crap, even for an FPS (I don't expect much of FPS, but Crysis was on the wrong side of terrible), the British guy was clearly designed by people who'd never met a real Englishman in their life and refined cringe-worthy to a weaponised level but this isn't the bit that ruined it. The two parts were that large parts of the game were very clearly removed to get it out the door on time and no effort was made to compensate (I.E. a quick and dirty cut scene) and whilst the first half of the game is good, the second half is just annoying.
Although I agree with you on the multi player completely, it would have been good if they didn't trust the client... NEVER EVER TRUST THE CLIENT.
Not really, I know people who write POS code for a company that competes with NCR. They have no ties to banks. it's all about talking to processors, like VISA, Mastercard, etc.
I guess people are trying to pin this on the bank because banks are evil. #wallstreet #99% #ideserverwhatyouworkedfor #givemestuff
This.
A lot of POS software only does validation locally (I.E. making sure the numbers match the right mask and the checksum). With POS software it's all about getting the transaction done fast, not right because morons, sorry, customers don't like waiting around for the bank to approve their spending.
Knowing how shitty a lot of POS systems are, is one of the big reasons I like using cash. I know one minor chain store that has PCEFTPOS sitting on a computer out the back... unpatched XP box that the staff use for emails/general internet access.
get a credit card and charge $100 a month and pay it off. or charge your living expenses and pay it off
simple
And make sure it's a cash back card ;) I've made thousands back in rewards and never paid a single dime of interest. Credit cards are a scam; make it a game to see how much you can scam out of the scammers!
You're right that its a scam. But you're wrong about scamming the scammers.
Banks are set up to extract the most money out of you without you even noticing. Cashback and other rewards schemes are the best form of operant conditioning, so much so many people will defend the banks trying to rip them off.
Banks make an absolute shitload when you use your credit card but they know if they charge you, you'll just use cash or debit (or another means that doesn't cost you) so instead of charging you for having or using the card they charge the merchant for accepting it, this is called the Mercant Service Fee or Interchange Fee (sometimes both). The merchant must now pass this cost onto you in either fees or higher prices. The merchant cant use fees because the banks have conditioned you to use your card (the aforementioned operant conditioning) and conned you into believing it's free so the only option left open to the merchant is to build it into the price.
When I ran a business, my costs for accepting credit cards would often outstrip my staffing costs... In Australia. Let me say that again, in Australia. People don't know, don't want to know and really don't care how much it costs a merchant to accept credit cards.
It doesn't matter what rewards you get, the bank still makes a lot of money. This is Machiavellian brilliance, people will actually support being ripped off because they've been conditioned to get the reward and don't know about or will actively ignore the punishment. It's the ideal mixture of operant conditioning and Stockholm syndrome.
If you have a million in assets, what do you need a loan for?
We've finally arrived at the point where your only chance to getting a loan is not needing one.
Its always been like that.
But the reason you would get a loan if you have $1,000,000 in assets is because those assets aren't liquid. Also because you dont want to disrupt cash flow. It's common for businesses to finance large purchases rather than paying cash (talking around the $50,000 mark) even when they have that much cash on hand because it looks better on P&L statements and your creditors impose different conditions on businesses that go into the red.
But when you have a $1,000,000 relationship with the bank, you then become their customers, rather than the cash cow they might reluctantly provide a service to.
In Syria it's Muslims killing Muslims and a lot of people see that as a good thing. It may piss you off but it's just a fact, there are a lot of people that don't mind if Muslims kill themselves off.
And a lot of innocent people caught in the middle.
The problem is, the innocent people are also Muslims and saying that Muslims are suffering just doesn't garner much sympathy in the modern, xenophobic world.
The sad fact is, the only reason a lot of people, especially the Fox News crowd care about the Palestine conflict is that it's someone fighting Muslims... they don't give a shit about the Israelis (they'd just as quickly hate the Jews with the same irrational enthusiasm)... they only care that someone else (not a Muslim) is fighting Muslims.
Unless you're towing a yacht, or need to go off roading, a good (200hp+) minivan is a much more logical choice.
Most SUV's people purchase aren't capable of doing this.
A great many of them are just overweight hatchbacks that have been jacked up. FWD 2L engines with big bodies. Because of this, SUV's are actually quite deceptive size wise. They look big on the outside but have limited cargo capacity on the inside. Most SUV's lack a locking diff or low range gearbox which means they don't have the off road capability to tackle a damp, grassy hillside (also they lack underside protection, which only matters if you care about your car).
For passengers, a minivan is better, provides more room and comfort as well as better access to the third row (because they usually have larger doors). For cargo vans or station wagons (AKA Estate cars) are better as they will have more cargo space for the same sized car as well as handling much better (by having a lower centre of gravity).
I've gone offroading in the Australian outback, anything less than a Toyota Land Cruiser or Nissan Patrol will be killed out there. F-series utes (trucks) will have failed long before they get to where the Land Cruisers start. I call SUV's "soft roaders" because their off road capabilities end at mounting the curb.
A Darth Vader voice would be more fun for misbehaving kids:
I was thinking more along the lines of a Goa'uld voice.