Bzzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing, though! You were a delight.

Uber is not a carpool or vanpool service. They facilitate a distributed taxi service. Carpools and Vanpools are formed wherein the driver and occupants share similar destinations. With Uber and Lyft, drivers are without destination until the promise of reimbursement for wear and tear, fuel, their time, and the facilitator fees is sufficient provokes them to pick up a passenger. That's a taxi service.

The constant attempt to brand these services as "rideshare" or "carpooling" is 100% genuinely deceptive.

Actually, yes. That would be acceptable. But again, there would be consequences.

As a result of such a policy, you'll see the NBA boycotted by a major portion of its fans and at least some of its players, coaches, and staff. The NBA's revenue will then sufficiently flounder so that such a policy would have to be revoked, and apology issues, probably some people fired, and likely even a symbolic donation of some amount to an organization fighting against such policies.

There are plenty of people who have just graduated high school who want to be teachers. There are plenty of people in college whose collegiate experiences inspire them to teach. The problem isn't finding teachers (or good teachers for that matter), but making sure they don't get lost in the complicated morass of certification, continuing education, and the bureaucracy of tenure. They also are, typically, willing to accept the likelihood of lower wages, but need to have proper support, small classes, and the guarantee of an good benefits and retirement plan.

Pay now or pay later. But you have to pay.

Disclaimer: I am a Mexican-American who grew up way below the poverty line to middle school-educated mother and a frequent felon father who got his GED in prison. I went to college, worked for a good portion of my career in higher education outreach, and continue to work at a university.

Affirmative Action was necessary at a time, but it is no longer necessary. The problem that Affirmative Action tried to solve is that those with very hard upbringings are at a severe educational disadvantage throughout their K-12 lives and may not have ever had a sufficient opportunity to become competitively eligible for admission to a 4-year research university in the non-local context. Race was a factor in that the most immediately visible instances of under-servedness were in communities dominated by racial minorities. The concept seemed obvious: give racial minorities some sort of boost in admissions applications.

But race (and more specifically, racism) was only one factor. With greater racial integration, the deeper-rooted issues are now more widely recognized: parent's education, family income, the actual schools attended/programs accessed, and childhood stress (divorces, violence, gangs pressures, etc.). The vast majority of universities now give special consideration (a couple extra points in the entire application score) to those who have had particular hard upbringings.

This is a better and more equitable non-impermutable-characteristic-based method of improving the quality of life for communities (religious, cultural, geographical, etc.) than Affirmative Action.

It is only barely relevant, but I fully agree with this AC. FOSS programs, if they're ever going to garner sufficient usership needs to have easily pronounceable names because, like it or not, word of mouth is the most trusted form of marketing.

You are correct that there are DC Fast Chargers in Oregon, but they have not been sustainably funded. At the moment, you can get a full charge $7.50 or unlimited charging for $20/month (http://evsolutions.avinc.com/services/subscriber_network/). That's a heavily subsidized system that mainly benefits those who have the disposable liquid capital to take advantage of a variety of incentives and buy a new car. Once they get that car, that car's fuel is highly subsidized?

Sounds like a plan that ignores the entire concept of income equity. Tax everyone, benefit the rich.

The existing system of EV charging is based on providing low-cost/no-cost fuel to the few early-adopters with high incomes. It does not scale well at all and the entire concept will fail quicker than it started if we ever have mass buy-in to plug-in EVs.

I work in Sustainable Transportation (more on modes, less on fuel types) and every time I talk to an EV owner, they all admit to having a fully separate gasoline-powered vehicle for long distance trips OR they integrate some form of car rental. Why? Because charging takes too long and they can't drive from Orange County to San Francisco in any EV on the market.

When EVs hit zero charge, they're done for 4 hours. That's not acceptable for most travelers.

"But Level III chargers are coming!" -- No they're not. They're a pipe dream to sell EVs, but will not ever materialize but for the Tesla owners nearby. They're expensive (to build and thus to use), taxing on the grid, and no one's willing to actually invest in them for financially sustainable public use.

EV adoption due to range and charge anxiety will continue to be a problem until either battery swapping is perfected or until another fuel source is adopted.

Because rageful pseudo-alpha nerds found a target and are ganging up.

No, it's a news aggregator that will sometimes source content from its readership ("Ask Slashdot"). So this submission isn't done under the flag of "Ask Slashdot"-- he deserves ridicule for this? All I see here are pseudo-alpha nerds taking some joy in hating on a "lesser nerd" because he had the audacity to do something outside of the norm.

There is too much rage here for what used to simply be "TL;DR".

You guys are taking Slashdot posts way too seriously.

How in the world is this insightful? What's with all the rage against the author?

The guy has a question. He has an idea. He describes it all clearly enough. And he somehow deserves ridicule?

This is News for Nerds. Not "News for Me and Only Me".

The only way to make a difference is with sectional priority exit. Google an image of the playa and you'll see that their parking arrangement intertwined with exhibits, housing, etc. However, since we can't expect everyone in a section to be packed up at once and we want to give all sections a chance at leaving every "exit day", we need a rotating priority schedule.

Solution: Sectional Priority Exit on a rotating schedule. Assuming there are twelve wedges to the radial playa organization (there doesn't actually have to be 12), each section will get 1 hour at a time to send Burners away. At 6am, the 6 o'clock section's exit will be given priority. If the stream of cars thins out before 7am, the 7 o'clock section is allowed to begin its exit. At 7am, the 6 o'clock section exit is halted and the 7o'clock section continues until 8am, etc.

This allows for a predictable control of flow off the playa and gives a predictable exit to those who want to leave the soonest without requiring that those who want to stay another day to exit.

Of the 34,000+ people that died on the road in automobile-involved collisions (2012), this is a very small population to target. We can do a lot better than that.

Here's a list of technologies that would better to mandate in the name road safety:

** Automatic braking systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_braking)
** Hardware Speed Limiters
** GPS-controlled in-dash speed limit display (shows the speed limit for your road/area in the dash)
** Veering Alerts (use of radar to sense when one is veering out of lane/off the road and sets off an alarm)
** Mandatorily installed, but optionally activated automobile black boxes. If your insurance provider wants to offer an incentive for proof of your safe driving, activate the black box, and provide monthly, quarterly, or yearly updates.

Here's a list of policy changes that would change driver behavior and thus decrease the yearly death/injury toll:

** Revised road funding policy that combines gas tax, vehicle weight, and vehicle miles traveled to better fund the roads.
** Vulnerable Road Users Law that would put the assumption of fault (along with extra penalties) on the automobile driver when a pedestrian, bicyclist, horse rider is injured or killed by an automobile on the road.

Intro: I am a transportation professional. "Rideshare" is my industry.

"Rideshare" and "Ridesharing" is a federal-, state-, and industry-specific term that describes the use of carpooling, vanpooling, transit (bus, rail), and even biking and walking as a form of transportation. Other industry terms used depending on era and region include alternative transportation, commuter choice, and sustainable transportation. "Rideshare" is a subsection of the Transportation Demand Management. Yes, it's weird to call biking "Rideshare", but that's what happens when old terms are continually used for additional purposes.

These distributed taxi systems are *not* "Rideshare" unless the driver was already going to a destination and picked up someone with a similar or en route origin and destination (which is almost never the case). Their use of the term "Rideshare" is deceitful. They are not a form of "sustainable transportation". They're just as bad driving one's own vehicle except that one needn't own a vehicle or worry about parking.

Lyft calls itself a ridesharing app and the co-founder, John Zimmer, should know better. He actually co-founded an actual rideshare-matching website/utility called Zimride which is used by TDM professionals all over the country. As someone in the industry, he knew the value of painting Lyft as "rideshare" (dodging taxi fees, getting funding, etc.) but he also knew the conflicts.

So please -- Pretty please. Stop calling these taxi systems ridesharing. Or else we'll have to start calling Best Buy and Apple store employees "programmers" and "network administrators".

From the experience of someone who has worked in both K-12 and higher education, the problem is innate to the competitive access to higher education and the roots are way deeper than 4-year research universities.

Elementary Schools (grades K-6)
Elementary schools have not been well known for their grade inflation. They are held to stronger minimum student competency standards that allow them to get away with giving a kid an "N" (needs improvement, aka: Fail).

Middle School (grades 7-8)
Grade inflation starts in middle schools where educators understand that proper placement into advanced high school courses poise students for better quality education (regardless of work completed).

High School (grades 9-12)
High School grade inflation most often occurs in advanced classes, to facilitate increased chances of being accepted into a well-respected 4-year university. This problem is exacerbated by helicopter parents and administrators/teachers that don't want to deal with them.

Community College
Grade inflation here is rare unless you're one of the very few students who are actually making the effort to transfer to a 4-year university. These students get "known" personally by instructors and under-staffed counseling centers and relationships are built, exceptions begin to be made/justified, etc.. I've helped to navigate student through CC specifically by connecting them to the right people to make sure they make the transfer in 2-3 years.

Undergraduate (4-year University)
Grade inflation here exists in part because faculty and lectures want students to "have every opportunity possible" to go to grad school (much like what happens in high school), but also because lecturers (without security of employment) that get bad reviews (grade rage) are less likely to be invited back to teach again. This problem is exacerbated by helicopter parents and administrators/teachers that don't want to deal with them.

And all of this exists because we make access to quality education a competition! There would not be grade inflation in middle school if every regular high school teacher was as effective and driven as those who teach high school advanced placement courses. There wouldn't be grade inflation if public universities put less weight into GPA and more into impromptu writing (submitted writing is too biased) and proctored exams. (Instead, GPA should only be for the valedictorian prize and as a progress report on the effort made towards one's education as exhibited by assignment submissions.)

Thus, there wouldn't be grade inflation if we made access to higher education an expected right given that minimum qualifications are made.

"But college education is so expensive! We can't educate everyone to the same caliber with what we have!"

I call BS. At a luxury- and notoriety-based research university, undergraduate education is expensive. At non-research universities, education is relatively cheap. Solution: Make the very specific and public differentiation between "College" and the "Research University". Want a good education with the potential to access research-based careers? Consider attending a Research University. Want a good education so that you'll be a better person, member of society, and have a head start in a chosen industry? Consider going to College.

In California, it's the difference between attending one of the California State University campuses and attending one of the University of California campuses. We need more Cal States and we need to utilize GPA less.

That's what it comes down to: Do my taxes directly fund the Olympics, the American athletes, or any other reasonable aspect? If they do, I want to be able to see them for a reasonable service fee without commercials or have access to the NBC stream, free of charge, but with commercials.

If I don't get that, then I'll probably find another means. Likely a streamed Canadian channel which provides the additional benefit of non-asinine hosts, generally cordial and likeable interviews, and no one screaming "USA USA USA!"