We had one on a busy road I need to get to work. The effect was for drivers to speed up to get in under the time limit. It became a, in a word, game. I cannot see it causing fewer accidents if it is causing people to drive faster.

The problem is that so a certain crowd, the goal of life is to avoid red lights. When on the road, it becomes the sum total of their existence. It is all they have to live for and they are going go for it no matter if they die trying.

Australia didn't adopt the idea from the U.S. Both countries were built on immigration and much of that was unskilled. It is in the countries' DNA.

Yep, there's nothing like comparing apples and oranges. Lessee, all these apples have pits. Oranges are round too, they must have pits. Oh, look, its true. These onions are round as well, hmmm...no pits. Oh well, its still the general rule though, round food has pits.

Jesus, please grow out of adolescent science.

Really? Ever see someone in their manic mode of manic depression? I have a sister with this as well as schizophrenia because many mental disorders rarely come alone, it is something like a smorgasbord. Anyhow, one evening she took exception to the wall-to-wall carpeting in Ma's bedroom while Ma was in the hospital. She ripped up that carpeting in the bedroom and an adjacent room, moving several pieces of large furniture out of the way to do it. I asked her how long it took, it took a few hours in the evening and a few the following morning.

She ripped up the carpeting with her bare hands. That's what can happen when she doesn't take her meds. And that was during a manic episode, the schizophrenic episodes are stranger.

Unless you've lived with someone with mental illness, you don't know squat about it.

I like the idea of redefining hunting. My definition would be we divide the hunters into two groups, like teams. The first team we'll call the Meat Eaters. The second team we'll call the Meat. Both sides get to use anything they like (drones, rocket propelled grenades, 50 cal. machine guns...Americans have the right to bear arms). We have 4 seasons a year where both sides get to go at each other with everything they have. It will be allowed to stake your kill on your 4 wheel drive's hood just to show how manly you are.

Well, the U.S. gave Iraq back to the Iraqis. That they decided what they hated most was each other is their problem. The U.S. is in the process of giving Afghanistan back to the Afghanis. Admittedly, the initial conditions were different, the U.S. was attacked by Al Qaeda and they were in turn aided and abetted by the Taliban which was running a toy government. Actually though, the Taliban are primarily Pashtun and they used Al Qaeda as shock troops on the other minorities when they wanted a town. Then they moved Pashtuns in to live in the new territory.

Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath Party. The Ba'ath Party got started in part to kick out the British. The Syrian version was more "intellectual" but still motivated by the Nazies. The French decided to make the Alawite minority the head honcho which promptly took control of the Party in Syria. They're still suffering. The Iraqi branch was also structured (by design) like the Nazi Party and proceeded to act like a bunch of Nazies towards their undesirables, namely the Shi'ites. The U.S. went in under questionable circumstances, but the result was the removal of a vicious dictator, which in my book is always a good thing. And the U.S. gave the first Arab country in history a chance at a working democracy. And it will take them time to work out the details. If the outside groups would stay out, that would make things easier for them. However, they must still learn to live together. And they would have had U.S. help had not Maliki decided his dick should look bigger than it is. Hell, the U.S. didn't even take their oil, they left it to the Iraqis to cut oil deals with anyone they liked, including the Chinese and Russians.

King Abdullah of Jordan had this to say of Erdogan: “Erdoan once said that democracy, for him, is a bus ride,” King Abdullah said. “‘Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off,’ [Erdoan said].”

The King saw little difference between Erdogan and Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood and considered Erdogan to be a softer version of Morsi. Of Morsi, he said Morsi had no depth. Now it appears Erdogan has little depth as well, attempting to ban Twitter will only advertise it for Turks.

Right now, Erdogan is favored to win the next election, but how will the Turks feel in a few years when they realized they got off the democracy bus along with Erdogan.

While the mere disappearance isn't a big deal, why it disappeared could be. In particular, we'd rather like to prevent it happening again.

Stealth techniques? For an air craft carrier? I give up, what would those be? The U.S. Navy's stealthiest surface ships are low to the water, and have very few sharp edges. I presume you've seen an air craft carrier up close, yes?

Hear, hear!! I suppose to the boneheaded CEO, institutional memory means nothing. It is hard to quantify, but without it, your company has no staying power.

Apparently, you don't believe in education either, or you wouldn't spell "global" as "globul" or "religion" as "religon". Tax rates in the U.S. are well below those of other countries. That alone doesn't make the U.S. not-capitalist, but it does put it in perspective. Yes, the company tax rates need to be adjusted, that usually happens about every 20-30 years, so hold on to your britches.

Socialized medicine? Errr....how come the insurance companies are still in business and the new ACA requires everyone to get insurance somehow. Ma and Pa Kettle do get Medicare, but that is because the sainted insurance companies want to cherry pick the healthy people and insure them. Death panels you say? What do you think actuarial boards of insurance companies are?

Global warming is a fact, stop trying to turn it into a political issue. Don't believe me? Look up Miami and the plans they have for sea level rise and how expensive it will be for them. And even if you do not believe in global warming (although frankly I think it is like not believing in gravitation), observe the data on the acidification of the oceans. That's directly due to CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere. It's killing coral in....Florida and throughout the Caribbean. Localized? Hardly, it is also killing coral in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. They expect it to be gone within about 50 years if something isn't done. Yes, I know, what's a good Libertarian care about coral. Well, the crux is the ocean is the bottom of the food chain. Maybe you've heard of it, you're at the top...for now.

And if the U.S. isn't a capitalist economy, how did the real estate market manage to tank the U.S. economy and give the world's a cold? The basic problem is that a pure capitalist economy spawns bubbles and monopolies. In order or to level that out, laws and regulations were needed. Don't believe me, look at the U.S. before the Great Depression. The economy was a wild west of an economy and lurched from crisis to crisis. Of course, if you lost your money in one, your days of lurching were over. The Great Recession happened because the Bush Administration did not believe in regulation. The head of the SEC was a puppet of Wall Street. That allowed Wall Street to run amok. Realtors, the local zoning officials, the builders, and the sainted American people worked with almost no rules and...splat...there went the economy.

That effect is because it takes so long to get to the front of any field, which I suspect you know. However, each field seems to do its damnist to exclude members of other fields or prevent one subfield from influencing another. Academia promotes this sort of fraternal organization and pisses on any cross-disciplinary researchers. In most companies, however, one is almost required to be cross-disciplinary at PhD level. I do not mean to imply that academic should be training PhDs for industry, but they cannot all get tenured at some university. So in the looking out for the well-fare of their graduates, they should be promoting cross-disciplinary research.

That's because there's a fine line between coding and designing. A design done in such a way that it is too expensive to code is not a realistic design. For realistic designs, it helps to have coding experience. Similarly, merely following specs for coders negates their influence on design when they spot an efficiency or feature that should be reflected back up into the design. I think this is what you intended to say.

For the GP: "one programmer in C++, in Fortran by another one, and in LISP by a third one". Nah, this should be "one programmer in C++ and/or Fortran and/or LISP". Good coders can use just about any language given a bit of experience with it, and these mainstream languages should be known by anyone who calls him/her self a coder.

What makes you think management can recognize mistakes? They'll simply declare them features of whatever system they are hawking, or "known difficulties in our progress", or something. Management doesn't recognize mistakes unless they lead to their ouster, and then they draw the wrong lessons.

Car: Ding, ding ding, your door is ajar, your door is ajar.
Owner: I know, fuck off.
Car: Ding, ding, ding, your door continues to be ajar, your door continues to be ajar.
Owner: Blow it out your ass.
Car: DING, DING, DING, You are failing to recognize a serious condition, I would like to talk to you about this. You are failing to recognize a serious condition, I would like to talk to you about it.
Owner: Cram it, I'm armed.
Car: DING, DONG, DING, DONG, I will be forced to inform your insurance company if we do not have a meaningful conversation about your attitude very shortly. I will be forced to inform your insurance company if we do not have a meaningful conversation about your attitude very shortly.
Owner: BLAM
Car: ding....ding...dohing...done...oh screw it.