I have seen far too much of that sentiment. That someone with right-of-way is entitled to plough through whatever hazards may be present and consequences be damned. I have sat in a car and actually hear the driver, after taking part in a near-miss event at an intersection, say that it's okay because they would win if it ever went to court.

Little consolation indeed, if you have to go carless for four weeks while it's being panelbeaten back into shape, or six months in hospital.

If this sort of mentality ever finds you, a good counter-principle is this:
You never have the right of way until everyone else gives it to you.

That is all.

Look, if you really want the alleged convenience of basic appliances connected to the Internet then you're playing tic-tac-toe with power-hungry governments and greedy companies.

The only way to win is to not play.

That might have been true a couple of years ago, but now that it's common knowledge that your device is probably spying on you, people are suddenly interested in how to make their devices NOT spy on them.

This. A thousand times this.

Here's what I use at present. I consider all of the highly useful.

Status-4-evar because no desktop browser should be without a status bar
Tab Mix Plus for its excellent session handling and handling of unread tabs.
Tree Style Tab for its correct placement of tabs on widescreen monitors (on the left, not at the top) and its absolutely wonderful hierarchical tree of tabs.
One of the many YouTube video downloaders
Flashblock for obvious reasons
Adblock, for when ads get to invasive.
Disable CTRL-Q Shortcut because 'q' is too close to 'w' on my keyboard.

I'm just going to paste someone else's comment here to address this good question:

  by radarskiy (2874255) on 04:56 PM February 13th, 2015 (#49044679)

a) Vaccines make the chance of contracting the disease very low, but not exactly zero.
b) Carries of the diseases increase the opportunity of the disease to mutate into a form that the vaccine doesn't protect.
c) Some people are allergic to the vaccine and must depend on everyone around them being vaccinated.

I agree with you on nearly every count.

LCD touchscreens for a vehicle where the operator is supposed to have his/her eyes on the road is just stupid. Any feature that lets another party remotely disable it /will/ eventually be abused. An automatic update system will eventually download an update that has somehow missed one step of testing and result in unpredicted probably dangerous behaviour. And don't get me started on the folly of self-driving cars.

There are however some "modern" features that I actually like:

Parking aids. I'm talking basic sonars and cameras here, not self-parking mechanisms. No computer required. Although admittedly a fresnel lens stuck to the back window helps a lot too.

Engine computers. Massive power-to-weight ratio improvements and fuel savings have been realized in recent times by otherwise-dumb computers constantly measuring and adjusting engine properties such as air/fuel mix and injection rate. I don't enjoy wasting fuel.

Are you referring to Hybrid in the sense of electric motors and batteries that are charged by regenerative braking? That's something I don't have any experience with but I'm not aware of any downside to them.

That sounds particular insidious. Can you please give the brand of the TV so we know what to avoid?

Thanks.

Projectors are fine for making things big, but not so much for making things look good.

Due to the fact they're projecting on to a white surface, unless you're sitting in a very dark room they have terrible contrast.

You'll also struggle to find one that does UHD due to the "active component" (the LCD/DMD through/off which light must pass) being much smaller than that of a monitor. It's been enough of a struggle to get projectors to go beyond.

How can a smart TV record and upload personal conversations if they're not connected to the Internet?

I mean, no one in their right mind would connect a microphone/camera enabled TV to the Internet anyway, right?

Right?

Is this a new term for fake calling for a SWAT team?

In my day to swat meant to study for an upcoming exam of some kind. Hence the headline confused me for some time.

Oh, and mutter something something my lawn.

Now we can change angles just like a DVD!

The writers are also artists for a given work.

Publishers and labels? Not so much.

Interesting. Care to share your diet with the rest of us?

Thanks