I hear that argument a lot: "I need this powerful car so I can get out of other people's way"... but I've been driving for over 30 years, and in all of that time, there was only once when I had to rely on my vehicle's performance to get out of the way of an accident. And that was when I was on my motorcycle at a stoplight and saw the car approaching from behind at a high rate of speed - I made a quick (and illegal) right turn on red - he squealed to a stop in the middle of the intersection.

His observation may have a point, but I submit that it arises from a number of synergistic factors. More aggressive drivers are more likely to need all the power their car can give them, whereas more conservative motorists wouldn't often call upon that reserve. (Both categories, meanwhile, are likely to blame driving issues on "other idiots.")

One example that comes to mind is my trip home just an hour ago. I am stopped at a traffic light headed westbound on one of the main roads in my city. Eastbound traffic has a dedicated left turn lane; straight and left-turning eastbound traffic are given a green light before westbound traffic is allowed to proceed. Some eastbound nitwit decided that the left turn lane was a passing lane, and switched to that lane to cut past about eight or nine other cars. This presented a problem, as straight traffic was entering the intersection and soon, there would be no room to merge right before he smashed head-on into me.

His solution to the problem of his own stupidity was thus: gun the engine and pass the other eastbound cars, with just enough room to not ruin my day. The aggressive driver, therefore, chalks this one up as another case of power getting him out of a situation most rational people wouldn't have been in to begin with.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Less aggressive drivers sometimes have to quickly accelerate to avoid an accident that would have been caused by an aggressive driver, for instance. Living in Bostonland, I've had to do that more than once.

I'm not advocating that vehicle power should be limited, but it is important to understand exactly where the claim of "I need power to get out of the way" comes from.

Move. I mean that seriously. Not all dorms are alike, and chances are there is a quieter room available. You will have to approach your student services office or similar about your situation, and bring documentation. They may not be able to accommodate you entirely but they may find some arrangement that would be of benefit. For example, they may make a triple in a quiet dorm into a double with a known-quiet roommate.

If you want further information, give us the name of the school. Maybe someone here knows about a quieter dorm on your campus.

It passes the sniff test. Consider the possible scenarios:

1. As per http://www.fallingstar.com/nasa_funding.php, this has been in the works since 2011, grant money was released in January 2013, and only now is the mainstream media reporting on it.
2. An American bureaucracy approves a $5 million grant within three days, two of which are Saturday and Sunday.
3. There was already a fully-working secret skunkworks detection system that knew months ahead of time that Chelyabinsk Oblast would be grazed by a meteor, and they kept it a secret knowing there would be a lot of grant money headed their way; the only person they told was cousin Igor back in Russia who was ideally positioned to do brisk business in underwear and trouser sales

Which scenario is the most plausible?

Fundamentally, they do have different protections. With credit cards, you are disputing a bookkeeping entry that you haven't paid yet. With debit cards, you are asking for your own real money back.

Both credit cards and debit cards ultimately make you whole in the end (but see my earlier comment to this story about when that isn't the case), but the interim situations are quite radically different and important. Not at all a red herring.

There are many issues in play and I don't pretend to be an expert on all of them. In the case I hinted to, GoDaddy had my debit card number on file[1]. As a courtesy, I went through the process of explaining to GoDaddy that they are dumb and they should stop being dumb lest they get hit with a chargeback fee. They were less than accommodating. I then filed a chargeback with Sovereign Bank. Sovereign Bank sat on it for a few months, neither accepting or rejecting it. Status inquiries were either met with "it is in process" or voicemail hell. Never did get the money back, but I made sure that Sovereign knew why I was leaving.

Not all debit card disputes end like this. Indeed I had two other fraudulent charges, both of which Sovereign readily reversed.

The fundamental problem with debit cards is a bogus transaction instantly sucks money out of your account, putting you in the position of waiting for your money back. With credit cards, you decide what to pay and what to dispute. If a bank such as Sovereign proves less than capable of processing your dispute, that turns out to be their problem when you don't pay the disputed amount. As is your legal right.

[1] Actually, they didn't. Sovereign Bank changed my debit card number for some reason (an "upgrade") and invalidated the old one. I didn't bother to update records at GoDaddy, because I was leaving them. There is some mechanism available that lets merchants track down a new card number; GoDaddy helpfully updated their records and charged stuff to a card they never were authorized to use.

I should have elaborated earlier, but you are correct. There are more protections for the merchant in case of fraud if it is a card-present transaction. For card not present transactions (telephone order, online) the banks make fraud the merchant's problem.

It isn't true that Visa eats the cost of fraud in most cases. When you want to reverse a charge, your bank and Visa/Mastercard happily oblige because they usually yank the money straight out of the merchant's account.

You are right that the cardholder has much more leverage to reverse bad charges on a credit card versus debit. After I had left GoDaddy, they made the mistake of hitting my debit account for one more charge. Reasoning with GoDaddy didn't work, so I filed a chargeback through Sovereign Bank. Long story short, Sovereign proved to be completely unable to handle it, and I didn't have the leverage of saying I wasn't going to pay the disputed amount.

Now, nothing has direct withdrawal rights to my money. No entity should have my debit card on file, nor any prior approval for ACH withdrawals. If they want to charge me every month, they do it on the credit card, or I can pay them via bill pay or (occasionally) check. I am aware that a sufficiently determined company can still get access to my checking account, but at least in that circumstance I can expect to be made whole in the end.

While this theory has some merit, in the context of Windows 2000 it is not applicable. There is at least one known vulnerability in Windows 2000 that was not patched: http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/top-threat/284393-microsoft-not-patching-tcp-ip-vulnerabilities-on-windows-2000-and-xp and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/MS09-048#section3

I was under the impression that "caller pays" was always the rule for land line phone service, and this happened even without government edict.

You have piqued my curiosity, do you have any more information on this?

Perhaps I am not clearly conveying my thoughts, let me try again:

1. I was driving in the right lane, truck passing me on my left.
2. Truck tire blows out and drops debris in the lane right in front of me.
3. As the only thing I was doing was driving along on the highway and allowing a truck to pass me, I maintain I'm not at fault for being unable to avoid all the crap thrust upon the road.
4. I never ranted about "fat cat truckers." In fact, I specifically said in a previous post "nor am I suggesting we should soak truckers because they are evil." In a following post I touched upon trucking's role in the economy by pointing out how the wares carried on said truck would be that much less in demand if people had to keep paying for avoidable car repairs.

I thought I gave the sense with my measured, reasoned comments that I am willing to share the road while expecting other road users to be responsible (and likewise I will reciprocate in responsibility). I'm sorry if that wasn't more clear. Additionally I am well aware of the current state of the trucking industry. It is rough and I sympathize. Still doesn't excuse putting an unsafe rig on the road.

Someone has already responded to you (and someone else gave you a downmod). I'm going to rebut your argument further to show readers that yes, tire debris from trucks are a negative externality and not something truckers have the right to be doing.

I wasn't driving fast or carelessly. In fact I was driving at 55 MPH, the speed limit through that stretch -- and routinely exceeded by many. I was in the right lane when this all went down with the truck passing, and while my weaving was mostly effective there is only so much one can do. Perhaps it is my fault that I wasn't driving a car more nimble than a Prius, or my fault I wasn't doing 30 MPH instead, or my fault that I was on Rt 128, but in our system of responsibility none of those things matter.

Further, that doesn't change the fundamental relationship between motorists on the highway: We are expected not to spew heavy pieces of rubber all over the road for people to hit. Some trucker, somewhere, got the benefit of not having to pay for proper tire upkeep. The cost of this benefit was shifted to other motorists. This isn't some imaginary externality, it is a very real cost shifting.

As an aside, someday I hope to rig up a dashcam. Driving in the Boston area is always "interesting" and I'd like to record choice moments of other motorists for posterity. Such a scheme would also help rebut some of these nonsense arguments (and in this case, maybe help identify the nitwit trucker responsible).

And not enough of the cost of tread separation is borne by users of retreads. Aside from the all too common problem of tire guts strewn along the shoulder of the highway, there is the very real danger of a retread causing damage to a vehicle or possibly an accident with injuries. Last year, I had the pleasure of driving along Rt 128 here in Bostonland at night. An 18 wheeler decided to cast off one of its tires; I managed to avoid all but one of the pieces. My reward is a large dent in my once pristine car, and no clue who is responsible beyond the fact that it is 17 wheeler now.

I'm not saying retreads are always bad, nor am I suggesting we should soak truckers because they are evil. But the way retreads are currently used have significant externalities for other road users. The very same road users who would have bought an item that the truck was carrying if they didn't have to fix their car.

Sounds like the government in Victoria got hoodwinked, or older Australian electric meters are special. In North America, even our old spinning disc, five dial electric meters run just fine in reverse when power is passing through out to the grid.

I am drifting dreadfully off-topic, but I have to ask: Was this incident what inspired you to choose the alias "flaming error?"

This line of thinking -- giving trains a lot of advance warning about potential problems -- is currently being addressed by fixed wayside sensors. Mostly it is of the "there is another train ahead of you, stop!" variety, but some progress has been made on the "there is something other than a train ahead of you, stop!" front. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV#Separation for one example

It would be interesting to see how well a drone aircraft/mini-train can work in formation with a high speed train, but because the strategy is based on something moving just as fast as its parent many of the problems aren't actually solved, just shifted/reduced in degree ("well the high speed express train stopped, but the drone still took out the family of four at the level crosssing")