The problem is that grades are arbitrary. The instructor defines them, and the universities and the students pressure instructors to give higher grades in lower division courses. Instead of arbitrary grades, assign lower division grades by quintile. Top 20% A, Bottom 20% F. It's enough to maintain student competition, gets rid of the "easy graders". For higher division, drop the lowest grades, with F being giving to a small percentage at the option of the instructor. Mid division would be ABCD quartiles. Upper division ABC. Graduate AB.

If it's possible for a student to get a degree by taking only "easy" courses, that's a problem with the design of the major curriculum.

You called?

Oh, right, FUCK BETA!

That doesn't necessarily make them more dangerous. I have a friend who lost a home to a fire that started in the engine compartment of a car in the garage. It was probably a leaky fuel line dripping onto a hot engine component. In your reconing is that an internal or an external heat source? Of order half a dozen car fires happen during a typical commute day on SF bay area freeways, and that's not counting the fires that start because of collisions.

It doesn't seem that likely that Teslas are any more fire prone than any other car. The rates for gasoline cars have about one serious (i.e. reported to police) fire per 18 million miles. If the average car goes 180K miles, that's about 1% that go up in flames at some point. The average Tesla hasn't gone that far, and I don't know what the fleet mileage is, but I'll be surprised if they are that flammable.

Dude, this is my *home*.

How would you know, you 4-digit n00b? :)

(Yes, I know, we all resisted getting accounts at first)

Oh, hardly.

People have been complaining about the decline of /. since day 1.

DG

Why not? I did it.

A ban that was subsequently overturned, was it not?

Card and the homophobes are playing King Canute. Try as they might, they cannot order back the tide. They might have the occasional local and temporary success, but the writing is very much on the wall here.

So then why care if he wants to waste his money supporting a futile fight?

But on the other side, Ender's Game the story has had uncounted amounts of positive effects on people (including me turning my life around, and all the second order effects that spill from that). Exposing more people to that story is only a good thing (especially if it leads to reading the books - the first three are very, very powerful and life-changing works of art)

I was shocked to my core to learn how reprehensible a person Card really is - and I still struggle to reconcile how that person could possibly write Ender's game, Speaker for the Dead, and the other one (the Shadow series is just Card going back to the well and largely forgettable) That, in of itself, is a valuable lesson.

I'll happily trade some money flowing into the hands of bigots to fund windmill-tilting if that results in a world where Ender's Game exists.

So then don't do a sloppy implementation, and reap the benefits.

Stop being a Luddite - TBW is awesome. Almost as much as EFI trumping carbs.

The comments about TBW making assembly cheaper are well-founded and accurate, but there's WAY more than just that:

TBW let's you get rid of the idle speed solenoid / idle speed bypass motor, which handles high idle during warmup and anti-stall during big drop throttle. Instead, the ECU can move the throttle plate directly. More control authority, less under/overshoot, more stable idle, less idle fuel consumption - not to mention a savings of between 1 (PWM idle solenoids like Honda) to as many as 6 wires (stepper motor systems like Mitsubishi)

TBW allows you to change the ratio between delta pedal and delta throttle - and do so *dynamically*. You can do this by changing the linkage and cam on a mechanical throttle, but it's a big deal and not easy to tune. With TBW, it's a lookup table or a function. If you have a powerful car with a big throttle body, this can pay HUGE fuel savings and vehicle control dividends at low throttle plate angles, where tiny tiny differences in throttle plate angle make huge differences in airflow.

TBW makes traction control / stability control WAY easier - and it doesn't crackle and bang like spark retard systems do.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Just because you can't imagine the benefits don't mean they aren't there.

I participated in an event that raced a period-complete 1970 Plymouth Superbird Hemi against a bone-stock 1999 Honda minivan. Not a drag race, but a race with corners.

The Honda wasn't just faster, it was WAY faster.

We use taxes to fund our universal healthcare system. And the air ambulance that would come get him if required.

You're talking about a nation that went to war with itself - killing millions of people - so that it could try and keep the institution of SLAVERY.

In the face of that, how is brinksmanship over paying the bills in any way surprising?