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Comment Re:War of government against people? (Score 4, Insightful) 875

Town A has 5 police per thousand people, and 3 crimes reported per thousand people every day. The next year, they increase the number of police to 7 per thousand people, but crime rates go up to 5 crimes reported per day. Despite the negative correlation, this doesn't disprove the idea that having a greater police presence reduces crime.

Ahem... I hate to have to tell you this, but yes it did. The simple fact is: you had greater police presence, but crime went up. Your hypothesis has been disproved.

In an uncontrolled study, it disproves nothing. The data could be a result of gun proliferation reducing crime. The data could just as well be a result of gun proliferation increasing crime, only for those crime levels to be affected more strongly downwards by some other independent cause. You can't simply plot a bunch of statistics and call it a day. You have to exhaustively search through a large enough data set to definitively isolate that single variable amongst all others.

If you find "stop, drop, and roll" ineffective while someone is pouring gasoline on you, you haven't disproven the technique, you're merely found one situation in which other factors are overriding it.

Comment Re:hype (Score 1) 243

[Please read comments carefully before posting.]

I stated the fact that many suspensions attain desirable negative camber while turning as a consequence of body roll.

Yes, that is incorrect. They experience positive camber, as the load on the outer wheel causes the top of the outer wheel to flex outward. As explained, negative camber is never desirable. The only reason to configure your suspension for negative camber is so that when turning, loads on your suspension bring your wheel back to neutral camber for maximum traction.

Comment Re:hype (Score 1) 243

Cars can gain traction in turns if body roll results in negative tire camber (especially on the outside wheel).

That's not accurate. Cars have their best traction when at neutral camber, meaning the surface of the tire is flat against the surface of the road. In a turn, the outside tire will be loaded more heavily than the inside, and will tend to lean towards positive camber. Thus, if you "pre-stress" the suspension with negative camber, such that lateral load in the corner increases the tire to neutral camber, you will gain traction.

Of course, setting up your suspension for negative camber will make your tire wear poorly, so you really need tires that are designed to be used with negative camber, and will result in poor grip when not turning, so doing it on anything that is not explicitly a track car is just stupid.

Comment Re:Yeah. Right. (Score 1) 243

Yes. ABS is the answer, all the time. You don't just stomp your brakes like an idiot because you have ABS. You still "threshold brake" as close as possible. ABS allows you to operate much closer to that threshold, as it recovers much more quickly when you exceed it.

Comment Re:Yeah. Right. (Score 1) 243

No they can't, because the threshold is continuously changing, there is no way to accurately know the position of that threshold, and once you cross the threshold, you have to drop way off to get back down below it. Operating it digitally is the only way to ensure you regain grip and maintain braking performance. It's a similar principle as to why it's easier to break AC than DC. You can build DC circuit breakers, but you need a lot of circuitry to provide that zero quench that AC experiences natively.

Comment Re:Still not as good as Bose Active suspension (Score 1) 243

Unlike conventional dampers, which transmit vibrations to the vehicle occupants and sacrifice comfort, the wheel damper in the Bose system operates without pushing against the car body, maintaining passenger comfort.

So in other words, it works on magic... If they're able to generate a force without incurring a counter force, then why the fuck are we even bothering with wheels? They've invented a reactionless drive system. Get these people to NASA, stat!

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