No religion in schools was one of the few things I envied about the US school system
Really? Whether or not you believe in a religion it is worthwhile knowing what the basic beliefs of the major world religions are because chances are you are likely to have to interact with people who do believe in them. Besides, they do teach religion in US schools: they just cover it in their science classes!;-)
Ahh, you seem to be under the impression that we were taught what religion was, rather than preached at for an hour a week.
We learned nothing about Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism or Hinduism, let alone smaller religions. All we were taught was Christianity, straight from a preacher (a nun or priest) quoting the bible. To be fair, it was Anglican rather than Baptist, so less sin and hell-fire and more Jesus is great.
The Jewish kid had to get his parents to write a letter stating that he was not a Christian and did not want to participate. The preaching was mandatory for everyone else. It was entirely possible for a student to go through 12 years of schooling without learning a thing about another language.
England != UK. This is the Dept of Education for England not Scotland, or Wales, or Northern Ireland - all of which are UK yet, strangely, they are not England.
You're lucky the Americans can find the UK on a map, asking them to differentiate between the countries that make up the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland (not for long) and Northern Ireland is asking a lot.
Yes, you could teach it in a balanced way by looking at several creation myths from various religions, include it in a discussion of the enlightenment and maybe more people will leave HS understanding that religion and science split because blind faith and reason are fundamentally incompatible.
Yep, you can look at the various creation myths, spot the similarities (throw in Pastafarianism for shits and giggles), compare these myths to science and get students to spot the flaws.... The fundies would shit a brick.
The big problem behind creationism as science is that you're not meant to think critically about it. You're not meant to question it. Its entirely faith based. You have to accept, with no evidence that god exists before any of the rest of it makes sense.
Neither please. Choosing between a big brother-like ad-riddled OS from Google vs a severely restricted vendor lock-in from Apple? I'd rather run my car on Windows than either of these.
You don't want that.
For something as simple as my car stereo, I want something simpler than Windows, Android or IOS. Something like QNX that is designed to run on low powered hardware (and I mean even more low powered than ARM), something designed to do very few jobs but do them well. I dont need a general purpose OS that locks me into someone's distribution channel.
When I bought my Nissan S15 I replaced the original 2002 CD player modern one. I could have gone for a double DIN android infotainment system with all the bells and whistles but instead just bought a reasonably priced Alpine. Why, well at this point all I wanted was to play MP3 files from a USB stick. Maybe some time in the future I'll get around to installing a smarter unit that can link to a bluetooth OBD2 connector and display all kinds of fun dials and graphs like boost pressure, intake temp, G forces, GPS Speed/Indicated speed, MAF data and all the other things us car geeks love... But that will be when I have time to ensure the system reliably plays music above and beyond anything else, for now I only need the functionality that an off the shelf head unit provides.
Don't congratulate yourself too hard. This was only ever a problem in free schools*; teaching creationism in state schools was never even considered. It's worth pointing out that the education system in the UK is very different from that in the US: for one thing, local residents and local government have no say in the curricula.
Its also worth noting that unlike the US, religion isn't banned from schools, in fact scripture classes were opt out (last time I checked).
No religion in schools was one of the few things I envied about the US school system, here in Oz most private schools are Catholic or other Christian denomination.
But this move does not prevent the teaching of creationism in British schools, it only prevents it from being presented as an scientific theory. It can be taught in other classes that aren't classed as a science (like literature or art). However Creationism isn't really big in Britain where people tend to be more grounded in reality.
Car makers can simply support both protocols in their built in systems and whatever device you bring just pairs up with it.
The simple answer is neither.
Most car manufacturers will support neither protocol because it interferes with their proprietary protocols and proprietary operating systems that cost the suckers... erm I mean valued customers money to upgrade.
Auto manufacturers dont care about customers. Their wants or needs are immaterial, what matters is getting them shell out as much as possible before the planned obsolescence features kick in and then getting them to buy a new car without breaking any laws (well, any laws that may have real consequences).
At least Apple seems to support their devices for a decent amount of time, if you can stomach the insane amount of control and vendor lock-in that Apple exercises.
Considering my last two nexus phones cost me less than one new Iphone I came out ahead (Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 5, I skipped the 4 because the GNEX was still fine... In fact I only replaced the GNEX because I lost it).
Besides, even if I paid the same as an Iphone, not having to be locked into Apple would be worth it.
Originally it was based on school letter grades. An "A" game was one without any flaws. A game rated "AAA" not only was free of flaws or defects, but pushed the boundaries of what games could accomplish. They elevated their genres to new heights or defined entire new ones.
That definition has been long forgotten however. These days, AAA Game just means "massive budget." People are throwing millions and millions and millions at AAA games. With that kind of money at stake, studios can't afford to be creative or take risks. So AAA games are now risk-adverse "follow the leader" operations, with massive ad campaigns to ensure maximum profits. Often released annually with incremental changes (Madden, CoD, BF, etc) and sponsored by Mountain Dew, Doritos, or whatever other company is willing to throw $$$ at them.
AAA always referred to budget. I dont remember any of the classics that pushed boundaries like System Shock being called AAA back in the day.
The term comes from the finance industry, not education. A Triple A credit rating means that you can raise significant capital for a project. A AAA game is a game that has a significant amount of money behind it.
Grand Theft Auto V cost $150M to develop and $150M to market. The GTA games have been the benchmark of AAA games for almost 15 years.
I have never heard anyone describe any of them as turds in a pretty box.
Erm, GTA has not been the benchmark for AAA games by a long shot. Graphically they fall well short (well they are designed for consoles) but make up for it by having a good sense of humour... Well up until GTA IV, that was a giant turd in a box.
As the AC says, by the '80's Japanese stuff was considered quality, really you have to go back to the '50's for the real Japanese crap phase.
That was my point.
In the 80's the stuff from Japan was quality, but the "Jap Crap" mentality persisted because people from the 50's and 60's refused to let go of it.
Its the same with "Chinese crap" these days. People from the 80's and 90's refuse to believe that quality manufacturing can come from China. Having gotten stuff built in China you can get very good products made over there, western quality engineering but you pay near to western prices to get it. As we required quality over price, we chose to pay the premium and received components with a very low failure rate.
As has often been said, Hitler fought the wrong war when he headed East, he had much more in common with Stalin than he did with Winston Churchill
Sorry, but this is just parroting propaganda.
Fascism and Communism are polar opposites. Don't get confused that they're both authoritarian. Hitler and Stalin had very little in common. Hitler original plan was to go to war with the Soviet union in 1942, they honestly never expected Western Europe to go to war over Poland.
The Nazi's considered western European people to be of similar aryan stock to Germany, it was the Slavs and Russians they considered to be untermesh (spelling, German isn't my strong point).
However in the 50's (McCarthy era) Fascism was falsely equated to Communism in order to justify communist witch hunts against their political enemies that had nothing to do with communism but were in fact, extremely capitalistic.
However in reality, fascism is extreme right-wing authoritarianism. State control via capitalist means (I.E. the state owns everything around you), communism is extreme left-wing authoritarianism, state control via socialist means (I.E. the State controls you). Hitler had very little in common with Stalin from a philosophical stand point although it should be noted, they were both abused as children and had trouble forming relationships with women... but so do most psychopaths. So psychopathy is about all they have in common and putting two psychopaths in a room together is like putting two rabid dogs into the same cage.
Also this is why the worlds most successful economies have been mixed. Neither capitalist nor socialist, rather the applying the appropriate methodology where it's needed.
Doc Brown: No wonder this car failed. It says "Made in China".
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in China.
Doc Brown: Unbelievable.
Pretty much this.
The US is currently going through the "Jap Crap" phase with China.
Manufacturing in china can be very good, if you're willing to pay for quality manufacturing. If not then you get crap.
However, most Americans wont have a clue that the Volvo they're buying is made in China, as far as the average American knows Volvo is a European brand (despite being owned by Ford since 1999). This is pretty much the same way Toyota, Nissan and Honda escaped the "Jap Crap" mentality, they created three new brands, Toyota created Lexus, Nissan created Infiniti and Honda create Acura and started selling rebadged models at a premium. Because most Americans didn't make the connection between Lexus and Japan they paid the premium and Lexus, Infinit and Acura became popular brands because of their reliability.
Most of the top 10 reliable car brands in the US today are Japanese. America got over the whole "Jap Crap" thing because over time it was proven to be a myth. My bet is in 25 years, the same will be true of China and your kids will be complaining about Indian or African crap.
Anyone want to make any bets on how long they're being sold here in the U.S. before someone dies in an accident because it was made with sub-standard parts, or poor quality control?
I would, but it would take a long time to get my payout.
The overwhelming number of motor vehicle accidents aren't due to mechanical fault, they're due to driver error.
We've had Chinese made Great Wall cars in Australia for years and whilst they aren't the best manufactured cars, they aren't death traps in the slightest. Their biggest issue is the 20 second 0-100 (KPH) time but they're a work ute (pickup) not a performance car. The Great Walls aren't built to last, but they aren't unreliable either. Given the fact they're about half the cost of other ute's in Australia they tend to come out on top in a costs/benefits analysis if you can get over the slowness (Australia is the home of the V8 Maloo ute).
Also, having dealt with Chinese manufacturing, there are two types of chines manufacturing, quick and crap or slow and quality... and there is a sliding scale between them. The slow and quality manufacturing can produce good products but it costs more, when building stuff in China it really comes down to what level of quality you're willing to pay for, so yes, you're an idiot for assuming that everything that comes from China is automatically crap.
I hear this from people who drive a stick all the time, and I've never understood it.
When I drive a stick, if I'm starting on a hill I pull the parking brake with my hand, keeping the button held in so it didn't latch, and not release it till I had enough traction with the engine to support the car so it didn't roll backwards.
Probably because the US doesn't teach people to drive manuals properly any more.
What you described is called a "handbrake hill start" in Australia and is exactly the way to stop yourself from rolling back on a hill. Put the car in gear, hold the handbrake on, bring the clutch up to the friction point, push the accelerator to get the revs up and drop the handbrake... Simple and should take half the time the moron in front of you takes to drop their phone when they realise the lights have changed.
You can also do it sans the hand brake by using heel/toe shifting... But that is advanced driving where as most motorists these days fail at the basics like indicating, looking ahead, scanning their mirrors or keeping a consistent speed.
They are slow as dog crap stuck in molasses... in the Canadian winter.
not start going and then pause to think about what gear it should be in.
As a manual driver, I never have to think about what gear the car is in. It's an automatic reaction to how the car sounds/feels. If you have to think about something as simple as a gear change after about six months of driving practice (I.E. after you've passed a driving test) then you are not smart enough to drive.
Because if Chevrolet were allowed to sell cars without seat belts and airbags you would buy them.
Fixed that for you. When picking an example, pick one that makes sense.
And yes, yes a lot of people will because car manufacturers would make seatbelts an expensive option if they even offered them at all.
When Volvo introduced the seatbelt in 1959, most manufacturers didn't even offer them as an option and continued not to offer them until they absolutely had to in the 70's and 80's. If not for seatbelt regulations, a lot of manufacturers would still not offer them..
You massively underestimate both the greed of corporations and the stupidity of the masses.
Mexico's vaccination rates are higher than the US.
Are you sure? A few years ago when I was rather ill I went to a doctor who decided I needed a chest X-ray to rule out tuberculosis, which he described as (IIRC) "common" in San Francisco. I expressed surprise, and he said it was due to illegal immigration. Of course, it might have been due to illegal immigration from Honduras, Guatemala, etc., but most illegals around here are from Mexico.
Vaccination rates measure the number of children vaccinated, not the number of population that have received vaccinations. It's entirely possible for children to have a 99% vaccination rate but for the vaccinated diseases to still be present in the adult population because they didn't receive the vaccines.
One of the big reasons that places like Mexico have higher vaccination rates is because they still live with diseases like tuberculosis that have been eliminated in the developed world for over a generation. It's easy for uninformed soccer mums to claim that vaccinations are the devil and unnecessary when the diseases they vaccinated against are no longer prevalent in their countries because their parents had the good sense to vaccinate them.
Anti-vaxxers need to go and live somewhere where polio is still present. They need to see children disfigured from it.
In my city, Perth, Western Australia taxi's picking up passengers have to pay $2 to open the boomgate to get out, make the Uber drivers go there. That way the airport still gets it's revenue.
My personal feelings with "ride sharing" is that it needs to be governed under the same laws as other taxi/private car services. Drivers need to have a taxi license and insurance (private insurance does not cover you if you're using your car for a business).
The problem is, Uber cant operate under these conditions. They're already floundering in Australia because they dont have many drivers (drivers are barely breaking even in Oz, let alone making money) they aren't much cheaper than a taxi and there are a lot of horror stories about people waiting 45 minutes for a Uber car before just calling a regular taxi.
And WTF is up with idiots that slow down 10 - 20 MPH at every green light?
That's my wife, she has been hit by people running red lights while texting twice. I saw it happen to someone else Monday.
The city could make a boat load of money if they had cameras at the traffic lights catching the people running the red lights.
They do in Australia.
The net effect is that very few drivers take the risk of running red lights. Ultimately this is what you want as it reduces right angle accidents (which tend to produce more fatalities than rear end or head on accidents and block intersections for a while, which is painful for everyone at peak hour).
However fines are not effective deterrents. You need to risk someone losing their license or possibly even facing jail time before it sinks in to a lot of people. Fail to stop for 2 red lights during a double demerit weekend and you'll wipe out your license in my state.
BTW, your wife is fortunate not to have been seriously injured. My Honda Integra was turned into a Honda Sandwich a few months back between an ANCAP 5 star Holden Calais and an ANCAP 5 star Mazda 3... the only one not to have any injuries was me in the car with a 2 star safety rating. The reason for this is because I sit upright (not leaning back) which reduces the chance of neck injures as I'm not craning my neck to see out the windscreen.
Yeah , I wonder why that could be. Perhaps because some arrogant ass is blocking the lane when he's supposed to move over if the nearside lane is clear. If you want to play traffic cop go sign up and do the 2 years training, otherwise get out the fecking way.
And this is why Americans are such bad drivers.
First off, it's not the role of ordinary people to play traffic cop as you pointed out, this includes deciding that you should try to intimidate people to "get them of the fecking way".
Secondly, the speed limit is all you can reasonably expect people to go. If you want to go faster, you have to find a way around. If they're going faster, they're doing you a favour, if not, tough titties, act like a mature, responsible adult.
Thirdly, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to be in the centre or centre-inside lane, especial in the US where the inside lane is often turned into an exit lane.
Courtesy dictates that you should treat the centre lanes as inside lanes and only the most outside lane as a dedicated passing lane. Courtesy also dictates that you should stay as inside as possible and finally, courtesy dictates above that you should never be a dick to another road user by flashing and beeping at them like an arsehole.
If there were a 10 commandments of the road, "thoult shalt not be a cock" would be number 1, 2 and 3. The cardinal sin of the road is thinking you own it and have the right to boss others about.
The plural of Prius should be Priora if you're going latin; Priuses just sounds dumb.
In English, the plural of Prius should be Prii (pry-eye) as the plural of an English word ending in "ius" is "ii".
I agree that Prii sounds equal as stupid as Priuses but stupid describes just about everything about the Prius. So it is at least consistent.
Slashdot Mirror
without learning a thing about another language.
Erm... should say religion.
The fundies would shit a meatball.
FTFY.
Do I sense his noodly appendage behind your inspiration?
Well played good sir, well played.
No religion in schools was one of the few things I envied about the US school system
Really? Whether or not you believe in a religion it is worthwhile knowing what the basic beliefs of the major world religions are because chances are you are likely to have to interact with people who do believe in them. Besides, they do teach religion in US schools: they just cover it in their science classes! ;-)
Ahh, you seem to be under the impression that we were taught what religion was, rather than preached at for an hour a week.
We learned nothing about Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism or Hinduism, let alone smaller religions. All we were taught was Christianity, straight from a preacher (a nun or priest) quoting the bible. To be fair, it was Anglican rather than Baptist, so less sin and hell-fire and more Jesus is great. The Jewish kid had to get his parents to write a letter stating that he was not a Christian and did not want to participate. The preaching was mandatory for everyone else. It was entirely possible for a student to go through 12 years of schooling without learning a thing about another language.
England != UK. This is the Dept of Education for England not Scotland, or Wales, or Northern Ireland - all of which are UK yet, strangely, they are not England.
You're lucky the Americans can find the UK on a map, asking them to differentiate between the countries that make up the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland (not for long) and Northern Ireland is asking a lot.
Yes, you could teach it in a balanced way by looking at several creation myths from various religions, include it in a discussion of the enlightenment and maybe more people will leave HS understanding that religion and science split because blind faith and reason are fundamentally incompatible.
Yep, you can look at the various creation myths, spot the similarities (throw in Pastafarianism for shits and giggles), compare these myths to science and get students to spot the flaws.... The fundies would shit a brick.
The big problem behind creationism as science is that you're not meant to think critically about it. You're not meant to question it. Its entirely faith based. You have to accept, with no evidence that god exists before any of the rest of it makes sense.
Neither please. Choosing between a big brother-like ad-riddled OS from Google vs a severely restricted vendor lock-in from Apple? I'd rather run my car on Windows than either of these.
You don't want that.
For something as simple as my car stereo, I want something simpler than Windows, Android or IOS. Something like QNX that is designed to run on low powered hardware (and I mean even more low powered than ARM), something designed to do very few jobs but do them well. I dont need a general purpose OS that locks me into someone's distribution channel.
When I bought my Nissan S15 I replaced the original 2002 CD player modern one. I could have gone for a double DIN android infotainment system with all the bells and whistles but instead just bought a reasonably priced Alpine. Why, well at this point all I wanted was to play MP3 files from a USB stick. Maybe some time in the future I'll get around to installing a smarter unit that can link to a bluetooth OBD2 connector and display all kinds of fun dials and graphs like boost pressure, intake temp, G forces, GPS Speed/Indicated speed, MAF data and all the other things us car geeks love... But that will be when I have time to ensure the system reliably plays music above and beyond anything else, for now I only need the functionality that an off the shelf head unit provides.
Don't congratulate yourself too hard. This was only ever a problem in free schools*; teaching creationism in state schools was never even considered. It's worth pointing out that the education system in the UK is very different from that in the US: for one thing, local residents and local government have no say in the curricula.
Its also worth noting that unlike the US, religion isn't banned from schools, in fact scripture classes were opt out (last time I checked).
No religion in schools was one of the few things I envied about the US school system, here in Oz most private schools are Catholic or other Christian denomination.
But this move does not prevent the teaching of creationism in British schools, it only prevents it from being presented as an scientific theory. It can be taught in other classes that aren't classed as a science (like literature or art). However Creationism isn't really big in Britain where people tend to be more grounded in reality.
Why would it have to be exclusive?
Car makers can simply support both protocols in their built in systems and whatever device you bring just pairs up with it.
The simple answer is neither.
Most car manufacturers will support neither protocol because it interferes with their proprietary protocols and proprietary operating systems that cost the suckers... erm I mean valued customers money to upgrade.
Auto manufacturers dont care about customers. Their wants or needs are immaterial, what matters is getting them shell out as much as possible before the planned obsolescence features kick in and then getting them to buy a new car without breaking any laws (well, any laws that may have real consequences).
At least Apple seems to support their devices for a decent amount of time, if you can stomach the insane amount of control and vendor lock-in that Apple exercises.
Considering my last two nexus phones cost me less than one new Iphone I came out ahead (Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 5, I skipped the 4 because the GNEX was still fine... In fact I only replaced the GNEX because I lost it).
Besides, even if I paid the same as an Iphone, not having to be locked into Apple would be worth it.
Originally it was based on school letter grades. An "A" game was one without any flaws. A game rated "AAA" not only was free of flaws or defects, but pushed the boundaries of what games could accomplish. They elevated their genres to new heights or defined entire new ones.
That definition has been long forgotten however. These days, AAA Game just means "massive budget." People are throwing millions and millions and millions at AAA games. With that kind of money at stake, studios can't afford to be creative or take risks. So AAA games are now risk-adverse "follow the leader" operations, with massive ad campaigns to ensure maximum profits. Often released annually with incremental changes (Madden, CoD, BF, etc) and sponsored by Mountain Dew, Doritos, or whatever other company is willing to throw $$$ at them.
AAA always referred to budget. I dont remember any of the classics that pushed boundaries like System Shock being called AAA back in the day.
The term comes from the finance industry, not education. A Triple A credit rating means that you can raise significant capital for a project. A AAA game is a game that has a significant amount of money behind it.
Grand Theft Auto V cost $150M to develop and $150M to market. The GTA games have been the benchmark of AAA games for almost 15 years.
I have never heard anyone describe any of them as turds in a pretty box.
Erm, GTA has not been the benchmark for AAA games by a long shot. Graphically they fall well short (well they are designed for consoles) but make up for it by having a good sense of humour... Well up until GTA IV, that was a giant turd in a box.
Saints Row The Third was a better GTA than GTA.
That was my point.
In the 80's the stuff from Japan was quality, but the "Jap Crap" mentality persisted because people from the 50's and 60's refused to let go of it.
Its the same with "Chinese crap" these days. People from the 80's and 90's refuse to believe that quality manufacturing can come from China. Having gotten stuff built in China you can get very good products made over there, western quality engineering but you pay near to western prices to get it. As we required quality over price, we chose to pay the premium and received components with a very low failure rate.
As has often been said, Hitler fought the wrong war when he headed East, he had much more in common with Stalin than he did with Winston Churchill
Sorry, but this is just parroting propaganda.
Fascism and Communism are polar opposites. Don't get confused that they're both authoritarian. Hitler and Stalin had very little in common. Hitler original plan was to go to war with the Soviet union in 1942, they honestly never expected Western Europe to go to war over Poland.
The Nazi's considered western European people to be of similar aryan stock to Germany, it was the Slavs and Russians they considered to be untermesh (spelling, German isn't my strong point).
However in the 50's (McCarthy era) Fascism was falsely equated to Communism in order to justify communist witch hunts against their political enemies that had nothing to do with communism but were in fact, extremely capitalistic.
However in reality, fascism is extreme right-wing authoritarianism. State control via capitalist means (I.E. the state owns everything around you), communism is extreme left-wing authoritarianism, state control via socialist means (I.E. the State controls you). Hitler had very little in common with Stalin from a philosophical stand point although it should be noted, they were both abused as children and had trouble forming relationships with women... but so do most psychopaths. So psychopathy is about all they have in common and putting two psychopaths in a room together is like putting two rabid dogs into the same cage.
Also this is why the worlds most successful economies have been mixed. Neither capitalist nor socialist, rather the applying the appropriate methodology where it's needed.
This is unlike Germany, where the only quality level is "high",
Surely you jest sir.
Either that or you haven't seen how badly VW transmissions fail, or the fact Mercedes and BMW are consistently on the bottom of reliability studies.
Doc Brown: No wonder this car failed. It says "Made in China".
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in China.
Doc Brown: Unbelievable.
Pretty much this.
The US is currently going through the "Jap Crap" phase with China.
Manufacturing in china can be very good, if you're willing to pay for quality manufacturing. If not then you get crap.
However, most Americans wont have a clue that the Volvo they're buying is made in China, as far as the average American knows Volvo is a European brand (despite being owned by Ford since 1999). This is pretty much the same way Toyota, Nissan and Honda escaped the "Jap Crap" mentality, they created three new brands, Toyota created Lexus, Nissan created Infiniti and Honda create Acura and started selling rebadged models at a premium. Because most Americans didn't make the connection between Lexus and Japan they paid the premium and Lexus, Infinit and Acura became popular brands because of their reliability.
Most of the top 10 reliable car brands in the US today are Japanese. America got over the whole "Jap Crap" thing because over time it was proven to be a myth. My bet is in 25 years, the same will be true of China and your kids will be complaining about Indian or African crap.
Anyone want to make any bets on how long they're being sold here in the U.S. before someone dies in an accident because it was made with sub-standard parts, or poor quality control?
I would, but it would take a long time to get my payout.
The overwhelming number of motor vehicle accidents aren't due to mechanical fault, they're due to driver error.
We've had Chinese made Great Wall cars in Australia for years and whilst they aren't the best manufactured cars, they aren't death traps in the slightest. Their biggest issue is the 20 second 0-100 (KPH) time but they're a work ute (pickup) not a performance car. The Great Walls aren't built to last, but they aren't unreliable either. Given the fact they're about half the cost of other ute's in Australia they tend to come out on top in a costs/benefits analysis if you can get over the slowness (Australia is the home of the V8 Maloo ute).
Also, having dealt with Chinese manufacturing, there are two types of chines manufacturing, quick and crap or slow and quality... and there is a sliding scale between them. The slow and quality manufacturing can produce good products but it costs more, when building stuff in China it really comes down to what level of quality you're willing to pay for, so yes, you're an idiot for assuming that everything that comes from China is automatically crap.
I hear this from people who drive a stick all the time, and I've never understood it.
When I drive a stick, if I'm starting on a hill I pull the parking brake with my hand, keeping the button held in so it didn't latch, and not release it till I had enough traction with the engine to support the car so it didn't roll backwards.
Probably because the US doesn't teach people to drive manuals properly any more.
What you described is called a "handbrake hill start" in Australia and is exactly the way to stop yourself from rolling back on a hill. Put the car in gear, hold the handbrake on, bring the clutch up to the friction point, push the accelerator to get the revs up and drop the handbrake... Simple and should take half the time the moron in front of you takes to drop their phone when they realise the lights have changed.
You can also do it sans the hand brake by using heel/toe shifting... But that is advanced driving where as most motorists these days fail at the basics like indicating, looking ahead, scanning their mirrors or keeping a consistent speed.
But then you went and bought a Prius.
They are slow as dog crap stuck in molasses... in the Canadian winter.
As a manual driver, I never have to think about what gear the car is in. It's an automatic reaction to how the car sounds/feels. If you have to think about something as simple as a gear change after about six months of driving practice (I.E. after you've passed a driving test) then you are not smart enough to drive.
Because if Chevrolet were allowed to sell cars without seat belts and airbags you would buy them.
Fixed that for you. When picking an example, pick one that makes sense. And yes, yes a lot of people will because car manufacturers would make seatbelts an expensive option if they even offered them at all.
When Volvo introduced the seatbelt in 1959, most manufacturers didn't even offer them as an option and continued not to offer them until they absolutely had to in the 70's and 80's. If not for seatbelt regulations, a lot of manufacturers would still not offer them..
You massively underestimate both the greed of corporations and the stupidity of the masses.
Chrysler is NOT American. It is subsidiary of Fiat.
Well that explains why Chrysler and Jeep are such crap... Fix It Again Tony.
Mexico's vaccination rates are higher than the US.
Are you sure? A few years ago when I was rather ill I went to a doctor who decided I needed a chest X-ray to rule out tuberculosis, which he described as (IIRC) "common" in San Francisco. I expressed surprise, and he said it was due to illegal immigration. Of course, it might have been due to illegal immigration from Honduras, Guatemala, etc., but most illegals around here are from Mexico.
Vaccination rates measure the number of children vaccinated, not the number of population that have received vaccinations. It's entirely possible for children to have a 99% vaccination rate but for the vaccinated diseases to still be present in the adult population because they didn't receive the vaccines.
One of the big reasons that places like Mexico have higher vaccination rates is because they still live with diseases like tuberculosis that have been eliminated in the developed world for over a generation. It's easy for uninformed soccer mums to claim that vaccinations are the devil and unnecessary when the diseases they vaccinated against are no longer prevalent in their countries because their parents had the good sense to vaccinate them.
Anti-vaxxers need to go and live somewhere where polio is still present. They need to see children disfigured from it.
In my city, Perth, Western Australia taxi's picking up passengers have to pay $2 to open the boomgate to get out, make the Uber drivers go there. That way the airport still gets it's revenue.
My personal feelings with "ride sharing" is that it needs to be governed under the same laws as other taxi/private car services. Drivers need to have a taxi license and insurance (private insurance does not cover you if you're using your car for a business).
The problem is, Uber cant operate under these conditions. They're already floundering in Australia because they dont have many drivers (drivers are barely breaking even in Oz, let alone making money) they aren't much cheaper than a taxi and there are a lot of horror stories about people waiting 45 minutes for a Uber car before just calling a regular taxi.
And WTF is up with idiots that slow down 10 - 20 MPH at every green light?
That's my wife, she has been hit by people running red lights while texting twice. I saw it happen to someone else Monday.
The city could make a boat load of money if they had cameras at the traffic lights catching the people running the red lights.
They do in Australia.
The net effect is that very few drivers take the risk of running red lights. Ultimately this is what you want as it reduces right angle accidents (which tend to produce more fatalities than rear end or head on accidents and block intersections for a while, which is painful for everyone at peak hour).
However fines are not effective deterrents. You need to risk someone losing their license or possibly even facing jail time before it sinks in to a lot of people. Fail to stop for 2 red lights during a double demerit weekend and you'll wipe out your license in my state.
BTW, your wife is fortunate not to have been seriously injured. My Honda Integra was turned into a Honda Sandwich a few months back between an ANCAP 5 star Holden Calais and an ANCAP 5 star Mazda 3... the only one not to have any injuries was me in the car with a 2 star safety rating. The reason for this is because I sit upright (not leaning back) which reduces the chance of neck injures as I'm not craning my neck to see out the windscreen.
Yeah , I wonder why that could be. Perhaps because some arrogant ass is blocking the lane when he's supposed to move over if the nearside lane is clear. If you want to play traffic cop go sign up and do the 2 years training, otherwise get out the fecking way.
And this is why Americans are such bad drivers.
First off, it's not the role of ordinary people to play traffic cop as you pointed out, this includes deciding that you should try to intimidate people to "get them of the fecking way".
Secondly, the speed limit is all you can reasonably expect people to go. If you want to go faster, you have to find a way around. If they're going faster, they're doing you a favour, if not, tough titties, act like a mature, responsible adult.
Thirdly, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to be in the centre or centre-inside lane, especial in the US where the inside lane is often turned into an exit lane.
Courtesy dictates that you should treat the centre lanes as inside lanes and only the most outside lane as a dedicated passing lane. Courtesy also dictates that you should stay as inside as possible and finally, courtesy dictates above that you should never be a dick to another road user by flashing and beeping at them like an arsehole.
If there were a 10 commandments of the road, "thoult shalt not be a cock" would be number 1, 2 and 3. The cardinal sin of the road is thinking you own it and have the right to boss others about.
The plural of Prius should be Priora if you're going latin; Priuses just sounds dumb.
In English, the plural of Prius should be Prii (pry-eye) as the plural of an English word ending in "ius" is "ii". I agree that Prii sounds equal as stupid as Priuses but stupid describes just about everything about the Prius. So it is at least consistent.