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Communications

Utah Law Punishes Texters As Much As Drunks In Driving Fatalities 620

Posted by Soulskill from the g2g-ran-ovr-sum-guy dept.
The NY Times reports on legislation in Utah which harshly penalizes people who cause fatal car accidents while texting. Instead of merely facing a fine, offenders may now get up to 15 years in jail — the same as drunk drivers. "In effect, a crash caused by such a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an 'accident' like one caused by a driver who, say, runs into another car because he nodded off at the wheel. Instead, such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless. 'It's a willful act,' said Lyle Hillyard, a Republican state senator and a big supporter of the new measure. 'If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you're assuming the same risk.' The Utah law represents a concrete new response in an evolving debate among legislators around the country about how to reduce the widespread practice of multitasking behind the wheel — a topic to be discussed at a national conference about the dangers of distracted driving that is being organized by the Transportation Department for this fall."

Comment Re:I'd agree (Score 1) 436

by carluva (#29218491) Attached to: Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet
No: This is a common misunderstanding of probability. The probability of a particular event occurring does not increase with the number of non-occurrences (well, if the event is random, which in this case it is). Think of it on a smaller scale: Flipping a coin. Let's say I flip a coin and get heads five times in a row (not a likely occurrence, but very definitely possible). On the sixth flip of the coin, what is the chance of getting heads again? It's 1 in 2, or 50%. Regardless of the sample size, the probability of a given flipped coin being heads is 1 in 2.

So extend that concept to larger numbers: If the probability of a given occurrence is 1 in 1 billion, then the probability remains 1 in 1 billion regardless of whether there are 100 or 100 billion samples.

This is why statisticians have the concept of a mathematical impossibility: If the probability of an event is lower than a certain number (I think it's 1 in 10^50, if I remember right), it is considered mathematically impossible, regardless of the sample size! Now, I don't know what the probability of this is consideredâ"I doubt it's low enough to be considered a mathematical impossibility. But the point is, increasing the sample size does not make the event more likely to occur.
Space

Astrophysicists Find "Impossible" Planet 436

Posted by CmdrTaco from the just-like-global-warming dept.
SpuriousLogic writes "Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn't exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago. The planet is known as a 'hot Jupiter,' a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its "year") in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature. Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit. The problem is that a planet that close should be consumed by its parent star in less than a million years, say the authors at Keele University in England. The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago."

Comment Interesting Strategy (Score 1) 1

by carluva (#29203435) Attached to: Can Lexmark change the way we buy printers?
It seems to me there are several other implications of this approach:
  1. Overhead costs should go down - anytime a company can standardize or reduce variability in their products, overhead goes down; if Lexmark can translate that into lower prices for the consumer, that will be very good for them.
  2. Quality should go up - by the same token as number 1, reducing variables usually leads to higher build quality; if Lexmark can get both of these going in their favor, they will have a huge advantage.
  3. They might be giving up some market share - last time I checked, there were several printers on the market for significantly less than $99; by choosing not to offer a truly budget-model printer, Lexmark may be cutting itself out of a pretty significant segment of the market.

It will be interesting to see if they can make the pros outweigh the cons.

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