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Comment Fighter pilots (Score 1, Informative) 50

But I don't think people with normal abilities will be trading in their limbs just to be able walk a little longer, run a little faster, or carry more weight.

You might see fighter pilots getting this done in order to avoid blacking out at high g-forces when the blood drains out into the legs. Examples include Sir Douglas Bader, who rejoined the RAF after losing his legs in an accident, and Super NES-era Fox McCloud, who is depicted in an illustration on the cover of Nintendo Power as having metal legs.

Comment Lighter socket in a positive-ground vehicle (Score 1) 837

My car doesn't have a 12V outlet, you insensitive clod (and if it did, the polaritity would be reversed) -- car built in '57, with positive ground wiring.

Then reverse the wires going to the receptacle. An ANSI/SAE J563 receptacle in a positive-ground vehicle would have -12 to -15 V on the can and ground on the tip.

Comment Signals, zoning, and subsidizing transit (Score 1) 837

They can bike or walk or take the bus.

That depends on 1. signal sets that can detect bicycles rather than leaving them at a dead red, 2. zoning policies that encourage pedestrianism, and 3. paying bus drivers for a minimal level of service even during low-ridership periods, such as nights, Sundays, and holidays. Is Oregon willing to invest in all three of these?

a battery pack is heavier

True, a 500 kg Tesla model S battery is heavier than the 30 kg of gasoline in a 40 L tank. But is an electric motor and drivetrain also heavier than a gasoline engine and drivetrain?

Comment Fourth power rule of thumb (Score 5, Informative) 837

Road wear is often estimated as the fourth power of axle weight. So I imagine the final regulation will include road wear as a factor. Incidentally, this rule of thumb is sometimes cited as why cyclists aren't taxed. A 200 pound* bicycle causes one ten-thousandth of the wear that a 2000 pound car causes, which means cyclists' contribution to road wear would likely be too small to collect.

* Occupied weight

Comment Consumer Price Index (Score 1) 1094

under the present minimum wage, one qualifies for government assistance, which means the money is coming out of the taxpayers wallet.

As wages rise, businesses' labor costs will rise, which tends to increase the prices they have to charge to recover the cost of providing goods or services. Some of these goods and services are necessities, and the threshold for government assistance is indexed to costs of necessities. So increasing wage level increases costs, which increases the general price level, which increases the CPI, which increases how much one can make while remaining eligible for entitlements, which puts the taxpayers' situation right back where it was.

Comment The market prefers automated search (Score 1) 618

Yea, it's called 'search' for a reason, you know. Automated or not.

And the vast majority of users have chosen automated, ad-supported full-text search of the public web over non-automated, non-ad-supported directories. The market has spoken.

And good sites have an index so searching SHOULD get you what you're after.

So how should a user determine which sites in a category contain documents about a particular subject, if the subject is more narrow than the scope of the webring listing? Or are you intending to propose an automated way for a user to submit one query to the index of each of the sites in a category?

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