Not really, although I guess you can draw that conclusion if it makes sense to you. I was just objecting to the line of reasoning that goes "oh you don't like arcade games anymore and I can't think of anything else that's fun so there's nothing else fun in your life so you're a sad old grandpa".

I mean if you get a kick out of arcade games then more power to you. Anything that makes you happy is a good thing. Just don't decide that anyone who doesn't have exactly the same tastes as you is unhappy.

There's plenty of other fun things in life besides arcade games. Trolling for mod points on Slashdot, for instance.

I think that's a bit shortsighted. I'm 38 and I don't enjoy arcade games anymore, in the same way I no longer squeal with delight when I pick up a shiny thing like I might have done before I was 1. I've moved on to other things for fun, and I suspect the OP has too. It's not a loss, in the same way that when you stop crawling and start walking is also not a loss.

Did the OP say he didn't have fun anymore, or just that he didn't enjoy arcade games anymore?

You seem to think the two things are one and the same, which is kind of a shame. There's a whole wide world of fun out there for you to enjoy once you step out of the arcade!

That's a glass half empty point of view. If we hadn't added a protective layer of CO2 to our atmosphere we could be in an ice age right now.

If I was in charge the car would scream in pain.

"It burns! It burns! What have you done to me??? Oh the pain!"

I assumed that the "at least" comment in the headline meant "we got to 132MPH and could have gone faster but ran out of battery" ;)

btw, a modern turbo diesel engine in a small/medium car should be able to do 1000km (~600miles) on a 50L tank easily. I could get 1200km (~730miles) in my car at highway speeds on a good day

Most people don't understand math and think you are just trying to baffle them with bullshit. If you do an experiment though, which most people also don't understand, they'll think you're dazzling them with brilliance. There are some stupid "experiments" on youtube about the GFC involving balloons and weights and strings that operate on this principle.

I can't speak for anyone else but i'm just mostly trolling for mod points. Slashdotters can't mod up a "big brother is coming to get you" post fast enough.

The mail? They are already in your sewers, they can simply deliver the ticket that way, and maybe probe you when you are on the can just for good measure. "Please remain still, citizen. You may feel a small amount of discomfort, but struggling will just make it worse. If you haven't done anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about".

Of course there is a middle ground. You decide how much of your freedom you are willing to give up to secure some temporary safety and then vote accordingly.

This, but not for reasons of financial cost. The price of living in a free society is that occasionally someone is going to get pissed off at the world and blow up spectators at a marathon or take a gun to a classroom of kiddies. It would be great if we could stop this, but if the only way of stopping it is to take away your freedom and allow the government to spy on its people then maybe the price is too high. And from a financial point of view, maybe the money would be better spent on education and help for people who need it.

That said, this sounds like a cool idea from a technical point of view. I'm conflicted.

That might be a bit of a stretch, but OTOH detecting traces of THC or other drugs like that might not be outside the scope of this sort of project, and may not correlate with the average persons idea of a free society.

There is a very well established relationship between speed and safety.

If you are doing 30mph down a suburban street and something jumps out in front of you, or some moron brakes for no apparent reason, you have way more time to react than if you are doing 100mph. At 30mph someone might get hurt. At 100mph someone is going to die.

I think we'd both agree that doing 100mph down a suburban street is just me playing reductio ad absurdum, but it's easy to prove that the slower everyone goes the safer we all are. We just have to find a point between "everyone does 5mph and nobody dies, won't somebody _PLEASE_ think of the children!" and "everyone does 200MPH, i'm in a hurry dammit!" that balances safety and reasonable travel times

And I think we'd both agree that averaging 98MPH from coast to coast is too fast. Your German autobahn's are designed for those sort of speeds, and that's great, but i bet the roads this guy was travelling on aren't nearly that safe, especially if the other traffic is going 30-60MPH.

I'm somewhat conflicted about this.

There was nothing safe about it. He might be the best driver in the world, but no amount of being the best drive in the world can save you from the other idiots on the road, especially when you are doing an _average_ speed of 98MPH. This was reckless and put others at risk and if they catch him he probably shouldn't be allowed to drive again for a long time.

That said, I'm more than a little bit in awe of the fact that he pulled this off. That part of the equation is kind of awesome. The police had 28 hours to figure out that there was someone speeding across the country and bring out the helicopters etc and catch him, but he made it. In fact it all seems so unlikely in a country like the US that i'm almost a little dubious that it happened at all.

I pondered that as I was posting. I was going to add a footnote about the difference between a ceiling fan that just moves air around to enhance your body's natural cooling but doesn't actually cool the air vs a device that actually cools down the air before delivering it to you, but I figured most people would know what I meant... but maybe not.