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Comment Re:OR (Score 4, Interesting) 579

One could argue that in most cases, a pedestrian paying attention could have avoided getting ran over if they'd pulled their heads out of their phones long enough to look around them.

SFPD claims to be keeping better stats these days but I could not find them online.
However here is what I did find: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/...

All three victims this year entered the crosswalk only after pushing a button to activate several flashing beacons to alert drivers to stop. There are six lanes of traffic across Sunset with an island in the middle. Thursday's crash occurred when several drivers stopped, but a Honda CRV kept going. The driver noticed the woman too late and skidded into her, clipping her with the front bumper and spinning her to the pavement. "She said she didn't see her, " San Franicsco Police Officer Gian Tozzini told KTVU. "I don't know how she didn't see the flashers. Maybe they're just looking forward and not paying attention."

That is three victims, one fatally injured, at a single crosswalk with flashing lights in the Sunset. The description matches what I see in my little New England town where I'll slow because I see a deer stepping into the road and the car behind me thinks they need to pass me on a two lane road so as not to slow down at all - not sure how bad I'd feel other than for the deer. A pedestrian was hit in our crosswalk same way - one car stopped, person started walking, car behind did not even slow down and passed in the next lane hitting the person in the crosswalk - actually tossing them into the front window of another car that had also stopped on the other side for the pedestrian - that car was full of kids coming home from little league.

Comment Re:magical scenario where (Score 1) 737

So running a conductor through a changing magnetic field will no longer produce a charge?

No it won't. It will produce an electric field which can be used to push charges around, but will not produce a charge.

Putting two lead oxide plates in an acid batch will no longer cause a chemical reaction?

Nope - no electrochemical reaction. You need metals of differing electronegativity, like Pb and PbO2.

My goodness, I was unaware that a catastrophe large enough to cause an apocalyptic event would change the fundamental laws of physics.

You're right it won't, but you might want to brush up on what they are before the apocalypse.

You sound young.

...

Comment Re:It's not trending. (Score 2) 371

Seriously? Never wondered what it would feel like to hit a baseball across the street and through a window? Never wondered what the sound would be like and not thinking beyond the cool sound of breaking glass tossed the ball up and let swing. And then in unexpected joy realized you hit it perfectly, to hear the glorious sound of that window break only to have your stomach sink to the depths realizing that you broke a damn window?

Comment Prograph (Score 2) 207

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prograph
I loved using this in the mid 90s. I was 5x to 10x productive. But there was no diff available, no way to do SCM, it was hard to come back to code I'd written 6 months before and refresh my memory of what it did. And it was next to impossible to collaborate will a team. I was forced to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_UML using some horrible tools (Kennedy Carter iUML) in the 2005s - same exact problems.
Now iBuilder or what ever the I tool is in XCode is pretty nice. But building software that works, is maintainable, is extendible, and so on is a hard task - I don't think it is the lack of drag and drop tools.

Comment Re:Depends on the energy source duh! (Score 5, Insightful) 775

http://www.theworld.org/2012/11/the-energy-costs-of-oil-production/ “Back in the 1920’s, oil was paying off at 100-to-1,” said Zencey. “It took one barrel of oil to extract, process, refine, ship and deliver 100 barrels of oil. That’s a phenomenal rate of return. If you work out the percentage, that’s a 10,000 percent rate of return.” But that’s not the rate of return today. Now, conventional oil production worldwide pays off at about a 20-to-1 ratio. And in Canada, where the oil comes from tar sands, it’s closer to 5-to-1. “Renewable energy sources are paying off at higher rates, 12-to-1, 15-to-1, 17-to-1. That tells you right there, hmmmm, the age of oil should be over.”

Comment Re:Threat from r/c planes (Score 1) 233

The difference you are describing is the difference between detonate and deflagrate. Even in a pipe you are not turning black powder into a high explosive - it is still just burning not detonating. See http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~eroberts/courses/ww2/projects/firebombing/detonation-and-combustion.htm for some good info.

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