Speaking as somebody who has over a half million miles of professional on the road driving experience and a completely clean driving record during that time, I would expand your criteria to include anyone who cannot demonstrate an ability to pass the same tests that law enforcement officials, truck drivers, and other professionals have to pass.

    You might as well push your logic to the conclusion it demands - get the people without the proper reflexes, the incompetent who just can't learn how to operate a motor vehicle, or learn the rules, and the ones without the proper attitude behind the wheel, off the road. Get the "old" and "young" people off the road. For that matter, get everyone off the damned road, rip up the concrete and put railways there ;-)

  Do that, we might see a real drop in fatalities. The statistics regarding drunk driving have been massively overinflated for decades, often because it's a nice political election football. Incompetent or inattentive drivers still account for the most massive percentage of accidents. Perhaps we should concentrate on the most common causes, rather than on the not so common causes. But that wouldn't satisfy the teetotalers.

  I'd rather be sharing the road with someone who is drunk and weaving, than with someone who just plain doesn't know how to operate their damned vehicle. I have a better chance of predicting what the drunk will do than I have with the other.

  YMMV.

  People with the right connections and good enough lawyers won't even have to worry about paying the fines.

  Indeed. Anyone who thinks that a complete and total police state would eliminate or completely control human "misbehavior" is not only ignorant but fundamentally stupid and certainly should not be holding any position in which they have power over others. I seem to recall that personal freedom is something that is often lauded as what our military vets have died for - here in the US - opposing such thorough and socially devastating state control as that imposed by Stalin, Hitler, etc, in the name of protecting the citizens.

  Good little citizen. Pat, pat, pat. ID, please. Are you a official citizen? Do you have any Sins to declare?

GSVEMR

check out Return of the Ewok

  Oh, thank you, sir, for that. Hadn't seen it. I won't go as far as to say I spewed beer out my nostrils, but it was a close, close thing.

GSVEMR

I didn't get to see it... and as an old Star Wars fan, who first saw it in the Paramount Theater in Mason City, IA, during it's first run, PAID FOR 26 CONSECUTIVE SHOWINGS during it's run there, bought the FIRST VHS tapes out and wore them out, spent thousands of hours building the plastic models you charged so much for, went and saw all of the first trilogy in the theaters many times, vhs, and even, even!!! despite my misgivings, went and paid to see the "prequels" at least twice each in the theater just so nobody could say I didn't know what was going on.... etc, etc, after this and the last article here about Lucas, all I have to say is

  FUCK YOU AND YOUR GREEDY BULLSHIT, GEORGE. OH, AND FUCK YOU FOR YOUR "SPECIAL EDITION" TOO. Han shoots first, because he's HAN SOLO, the smuggler, all around scoundrel, and independent human being. I LIKED HIM THE WAY HE WAS. TAKE YOUR POLITICALLY CORRECT BANTHA POODOO AND YOURSELF AND CRUSH THEM IN A WASTE DISPOSAL UNIT ALONG WITH YOUR SITH LAWYERS THEN FEED THE RESULTING GOO TO THE SARLACC.

  I think we can certainly dispel any doubts about whether or not Lucas's Sith Army of lawyers monitors the web.

  It's kind of funny, you know - Star Wars was all about fighting oppression in the form of an evil empire. Then Lucas joins one.... or creates one, that line is pretty blurry...

  Also - and this is rather ironic, really - Google stands up to China's EvIL EmPiRE (TM), but can't stand up to the Lucas/Hollywood Empire.

  In any case, it doesn't matter. It was up long enough that many people would have ripped the video from Youtube, converted it, and it'll be all over the web in many forms in hours, if it isn't already (haven't checked yet, had to comment on it first *g*)

  Let's see Lucas's Empire put a C&D on THAT.

  The more web servers you attempt to influence, Lucas, the more copies will slip thru your fingers...

    Long live the Rebellion!

  GSVEMR

  There is only one scientific method: observe, measure, repeat.

  Eh. Observe, measure, model, repeat - as you point out in your second paragraph :-)

  Theories are simply models of reality. Whether they are done laboriously on paper or somewhat easier on computers (for certain types of problems) really doesn't make much of a difference, as long as the intent is the same. I know I'm being pedantic, but there seems to be a certain disconnect in many people's minds between "theory" and "model".

  Well said, otherwise.

  GSVEMR

  Indeed. Gives an entirely new meaning to the old phrase "my ass is on fire".

  Modern equivalent: "My ass is experiencing a solar plasma event."

  Hmm. Just doesn't cut it.

  Attempting humor in any part of society is always risky. There is no such thing as a joke that isn't potentially offensive to someone.

  Unfortunately, it seems like more and more people whose statements have the potential of becoming public have to tread a line so fine that they often end up saying nothing at all.

  I don't remember for sure, anymore, but I think it was George Burns who said that the least risky part of public comedy was having your joke fall flat. The most risky part was jail time.

  The moral? Shy away from humor unless you don't care about karma or you're sure you joke will make somebody spew coffee out of their nose.

  If you have a tried and true formula for making someone spew coffee out of their nose, you should probably be on the comedy circuit. Perhaps you should copyright it ;-)

  Come on, now. Karma on slashdot, from a realistic standpoint, is meaningless. Making people laugh, that's priceless.

  GSVEMR

  I'm the same way. I still use my VX8300 that I bought new in '06 - it's the first cell phone I ever owned, and I've been an electronics/computer geek for longer than many of the people on this site have been alive. I just never had a need for one until then.

  Other than using it as a phone, the only other features I use are 1) the camera - it takes decent pictures and comes in quite handy at times, 2) the calendar - if I forget something I had to do it quite handily reminds me, and 3) the alarm - I got rid of my bedside clock a few months after buying the phone.

  It talks to Bitpim 100% reliably, and I've only had to replace the battery once, just about a year ago. The greatest upside for me, in owning it for so long, is that I am so familiar with it's basic interface that I can do most anything on it without even having to look at it or concentrate on what I'm doing.

  I can't even imagine trying to do email on a phone. Most of my important email - the stuff I HAVE TO deal with as often as possible - runs to many paragraphs even on a widescreen LCD monitor, and I type at over 80wpm on a decent full sized keyboard; doing any sort of email on a phone with the tiny screen and keyboard would be akin to lighting myself on fire (I can text pretty quickly, but for serious grammatically correct email phones are literally painful, and so are the smart phone full keyboards I've looked at - I can't touch type on a netbook, either, my hands are too large).

  I agree with you wrt GPS's, too - the only time I carry my older etrex with me is if I'm hiking and want to retrace my wanderings later on a map. Otherwise what do I need a GPS for? I can read a map just fine and have a functional memory.

  I tried a few PDAs back about the time Dell came out with their newer Axim's, too, and all I have to say about that is that a pocket-sized 3x5 memo book is not only a helluva lot faster to take and organize notes on, but I don't have to worry about charging or dropping the thing; and as to "syncing" my scribblings at home, I have a scanner hooked up to my computer for that, and a very nice OCR program if I need to transcribe my notes to electronic format. (I learned to do block text very fast back when my professors required computer programs to be paper written before wasting time on the mainframes, so my handwritten text is ridiculously easy for OCR programs to read accurately; plus I have some years of drafting experience so I can sketch reliably and accurately)

  I'd challenge anyone out there to be able to take as detailed, concise, quickly and easily accessible field notes - involving both text and sketches - as fast as I can on a 3x5 spiral bound notepad, using any PDA/smartphone/whatever they care to choose.

  GSVEMR
 

If you're a distractible person you can be even more distracted if you want to. If you're a productive person you can be even more productive if you want to.

  Or, if you're subject to both tendencies, you can suffer from Extreme Informational Cognitive Dissonance Syndrome and eventually end up playing Tetris all day.

  Yes, one can suffer from both at once. As an example, it's like spending four intense hours searching forums trying to find that one variable setting you need to make xorg work properly, then you promptly get distracted by an youtube video someone sent you in your email, and forget to finish the build for two days.

  This is of course just a hypothetical situation, nothing of the sort has ever happened to anyone...

  Dude, they redirected the laser beams using advanced gravitics technology. Didn't you get the memo? Lucas is going to use it to shoot his next film on location.

  Didn't assume you were.

    You said it very well. It's not really science, but the pseudo-science that is part and parcel of the phenomenon of consumerism; which has deeper sociological roots.

  I do object to the use of terminology as jargon, however. Terminology for the most part describes the use of words that reflect specialization in science, and should not be misused as propaganda. We don't live in a perfect world, however; and the misuse, and, more frequently lately, abuse of the terminology of science by the media is beyond disgusting.

  I think that social networking sites are a good thing; but as with nearly all communication technologies in human history, they are being badly abused by those who find a profit potential in them.

  In that respect I agree with the FOSS community.

  Meanwhile, I stay away from them, and I advise all the people who will listen to me - which is a very short list relative to the internet as a whole - to do the same. The more mature social networking parts of the internet - usenet, etc - are beyond the reach of the average user, unfortunately.

  Human discourse should be free - and not just free of monetary considerations, but free of censorship, free of moderation (regardless of content); free from oversight of any sort. Yes, it is likely that it'll be taken over, for at least a short time, by those who see the short term profit motive as imperative.

  However, if it becomes moderated by large numbers of people who have their own ideological objectives, then no study of the phenomenon, no matter how pure it's motives, is worth anything. This is why a lot of the hard science theorists consider the social sciences to be ephemeral; lack of objectively hard data. Up is Up, Down is down.

  Algorithms - code - are written by humans, don't exist in a vacuum.

  Given what I've seen of Slashdot's moderation system, it looks like, as Larry Niven once put it very well, "evolution in action" ;)

  GSVEMR

  I must, at the insistence of my SO, retract the part about "Iron Chef approved" dull steak knives.

  I do not watch TV, and therefore I was not aware that the people on the Iron Chef shows actually use sharp knives.

  Consider that part of my statement duly redacted.

GSVEMR

  Indeed! Might be too complex for many of them...

  "Scissors", hah. Back in the 80s, for a brief but very fun time, I ran with a carny gal who didn't object to me using my sheath knife to remove any obstacles between us. This was back in the times when actually carrying the afore-mentioned terrorism weapon was not frowned upon, of course.

  I am certainly much more civilized now. I would not use just any old knife, I would use a suitably un-sharpened, socially fashionable, Branded(TM), DHS and Iron Chef approved, dull steak knife.

    One must keep up with the times, after all.

  GSVEMR

  One of the worst misconceptions one can live with is to assume that everyone that one deals with are just as rational as one is; and regarding your particular project, that they would be willing to be categorized as cleanly, and that the algorithmic results would make sense when applied to the real world.

Don't count on it.

GSVEMR