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Comment Re:Or Maybe Self-Driving Vehicles (Score 1) 579

It can come in handy for situation in which the person who has the right of way is unclear. For instance, if I get to a stop sign slightly before a person to my right gets to the same intersection. If you go by who was there first, I have the right of way. If you assume the time difference between when we got there was negligible, they have the right of way. A courteous wave can speed things along.

It also works for when the other person has the right of way and doesn't know how stop signs work. Going out of turn could be dangerous and open you up to fault if the other car decides to go. Waving them through is the safest way to approach it, even if they deserve a one-fingered wave for not knowing how the stop sign works.

Comment Re:IF.. (Score 1) 561

I would guess Mensa members fall into two broad categories, those who have self esteem issues and need to tell people they are members as if they makes them somehow special or better and all the rest. Unfortunately the former are the most visible and give all members a bad name.

I'm trying to figure out which category to try to be in, but I can't find the second one.

Comment Re:But people forget what MENSA concluded (Score 2) 561

Sometimes I wonder if the reason that people of high IQ are lazy are that they've never learned the value of hard work. As a high IQ person (and non-practicing Mensan), I breezed through school while putting in a minimum amount of effort. An 'A' was an 'A' and more effort was fruitless. College was a bit tougher, but never really had to put my nose to the grindstone. I've noticed that I'm comfortable being lazy. Basically spent the first 18-22 years of my life training myself to do the bare minimum and surpassing my peers. Once introduced to the real world, it was a shock to be expected to be continuously putting in effort, or at least making that appearance. I really think that schools are setting up high IQ people for failure. And that's the story of why I'm on slashdot at work.

Comment Re:Next target, please (Score 1) 626

Yes, those are things that save (or generate) money for the state, but it's not guaranteed that those savings go to the police department. That's a problem I've seen in government budgets as well as corporate budgets. Each department is fighting only for its own interests, often to the detriment of the whole group (government, business, etc.). In high school, we had money in a technology budget and got TVs in every classroom, with dozens of spares (for the ~70 classrooms) left over, but couldn't afford new books for the English department. We literally had books with missing covers and pages from 25 years prior, but were able to spend huge amounts on TVs that wouldn't be used until after they were out of date. I suspect this will be the same issue. The transportation department will gain the benefits of the saved money, while the police will be underfunded.

Comment Re:One thing's for sure... (Score 1) 870

My employer pays more than minimum wage. I work for an employer that employs skilled labor. To attract people with the appropriate skills, they must pay more than the minimum wage, as other employers that are looking for similar talent do so. Simple supply and demand. This is probably true for most people that are on Slashdot.

The people making minimum wage are usually unskilled labor. Without skills to increase demand, they don't have many selling points to increase their wage. The logical thing to suggest is that they learn some skills. This is difficult for a few reasons. Learning new skills takes time and effort. Time is constrained, as supporting a family on minimum wage takes a lot of time at a low rate. Effort is constrained, as unskilled labor is generally less thinking and more doing. This often means that it's heavily physical and repetitive. So, if you're doing the same physical task over and over for 40+ hours a week, you're going to be tired. So, we have an exhausted person with not much time that needs to learn skills. It's not impossible to escape this cycle, but it is difficult.

Comment Re:What is the TSA for anyway? (Score 1) 427

It seems that Romney would like to streamline the TSA. There was also a republican bill introduced last year to reduce the TSA. Not that Romney, or any politician is without faults, but making assumptions about positions leads to uneducated voting, which I think is why we're in the position we're in.

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So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? -- Ayn Rand

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