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l brake pedal accelerator and dashboard in such a car those are for humans likewise there is no need for fixed seats that face forward instead you can have seats that swivel so a group can have a discussion while riding or seats like those in first class on international flights that can lie flat so you can go to sleep leave for grandma s at midnight take an ambien and wake up a few hours later at your destination indeed there s no need for windows on such a car although most people will want them but the windows could also be darkened or better yet turned into computer screens you could surf the web and play video games of course there will be those who watch porn as well which leads to other things you could do while riding in an automated car with someone you love if all cars were automated you could also make them a lot lighter and smaller little women wouldn t insist on suv s so they can see over traffic and we wouldn t have to engineer massive cars of sheet metal to survive collisions with idiotic drivers of other massive piles of sheet metal and if all the cars are automated they can go a lot faster getting you to your destination more quickly that s because automated cars would not need for example the staggered start that humans take at a stop light they could all start at the same time and pace you might not even need stoplights just a system by which the vehicles yield to each other as they could know exactly where all the cars around them are going you can also drink and ride at least up to a point the way people interact with cars would be quite different as well no need to look all over for a parking spot you d get dropped off where you want to go and then the car would go find it s own remote parking spot when you re ready to go you just ask the latest version of the siri app on your smart phone to have you picked up like an instant cab without the smelly driver furthermore if you can summon a car to pick you up anytime why own a car why not sign up for a car sharing service and get whatever type of vehicle you need at the time driving into the office order up a nifty electric one seater taking the family to the beach get something more akin to an suv but without having to own one and drive it on the daily commute there will still be problems to work out that smelly person who had the car before you the people who leave their trash behind the people who try to override whatever safety systems are in place etc you can always count on a few people to do their best to ruin a good thing but most of these obstacles will be overcome it ll be a good while before everything s automated there will always be a few diehards crying out about freedom to drive themselves at least until they try one of those porn trips but the day is coming just look down the street posted by x curmudgeon at 9 12 pm 1 comment soccer ridiculousness part 1 in a belated effort to restore some semblance of balance to collegiate athletics the ncaa is considering some significant changes to off season training for a number of sports including soccer currently collegiate athletes in soccer pretty much face year round training and competition including international tours in the off season the ncaa s resource allocation workgroup is proposing to ban off season competition and international tours and to reduce the number of games in the season by about 10 percent these are rational steps to reign in a sport that like many others on college campuses has gotten out of control yet to hear the college soccer coaches yowl you d think the ncaa was proposing to shut soccer down these coaches many of them foreigners need to realize that college soccer is not pro soccer even though it may appear that way at times an article in last week s potomac soccer wire illustrates the hysteria the spring off season games are critical noted university of utah women s soccer coach rich manning on his twitter feed who would want to run lift and train for 6 months a year with no games and when you consider the ncaa doesn t allow players to play on outside teams it s almost a death sentence to anyone getting better from ages 18 22 a death sentence coach most of these players are going to have to go on to something other than soccer or at least they should although coaching apparently is always an option they ought to have some time to do something else in their lives they don t need to train all year either yes they need to maintain their conditioning but that s not the same as for getting better or playing all the time if they want to go pro go pro anyway other sports also have only one season football basketball baseball to name a few although it is true that some of these teams notably basketball do tour around the world in the off season remember georgetown s brawl with a semi pro team in china this past summer so we hope the rules will be enforced equitably bad as the utah coach s comments are they pale in comparison to the utterly ridiculous statements of rob kehoe collegiate programs director at the national soccer coaches association of america he s quoted in potomac soccer wire thusly if you have players that have eight months without competition opportunities what happens to their discipline in a campus situation they re going to be bored and involved with the scourge of the college campus which is substance abuse and relationship abuse issues the sport serves as a deterrent from being involved in things that are irresponsible illegal activities that are very prevalent on college campuses whoa we had no idea that colleges were such cesspools with soccer literally being the only thing saving these poor young men and women from a life of destitution and ruin soccer is a good sport but it s only a sport there are plenty of good ways of allowing college soccer athletes to maintain and even improve their skills without subjecting them to year round competition they need an occasional break from soccer and time to focus on what the rest of their lives will bring soccer coaches of course have nothing better to do but that s exactly why they shouldn t be the ones determining what limits should be placed on the sport within colleges posted by x curmudgeon at 8 48 pm no comments tuesday november 22 2011 va gop takes first step toward self destruction we knew they couldn t resist with its new dominance of all of virginia s government what s the first bill pre filed by a gop legislator why of course a bill to define human life as starting at conception even mississipians rejected this really bad idea the question is whether virginia s republican legislators needing to play to their base will have the good sense to say no to this bill if not they ll put governor mcdonnell in an awkward position one that will dash any aspirations he has for higher office senate gop vp nominee if he vetoes such a bill he loses the religious right if he signs it his moderate image the basis for his success so far is shattered moreover if this bill goes into law and believe us this one is just the tip of the iceberg you can bet there are plenty of other religiously inspired bills to come from the same group republicans can kiss their majority goodbye in short order va voters are concerned about the economy they didn t elect republicans to institute a taliban of state controlled religion in the commonwealth posted by x curmudgeon at 11 52 am no comments friday november 04 2011 first world problems versus third word problems this morning my older son reminded me how trivial some of our utter frustrations can be it wasn t a great morning the curmudgeon is a single parent for most of this week and it s the first hour and a half of each school day morning that is the real challenge the last two days were great though with everything running like clockwork yesterday however unbeknownst to me our housekeeper apparently unplugged my clock radio then plugged it in and reset the time but she conveniently had me fall back an hour just a little too soon for the switch to standard time this weekend as a result my alarm would have gone off an hour late this morning but for one of the kid s alarms waking me up only a half hour late and quite confused as to why his alarm was going off at what seemed like 5 35 a m so this morning was a big rush with dad grumbling quite a bit about our housekeeper s negligence then older son lightens the mood on our trip to school by saying this a good example of first world problems and how they compare to third world problems first world problem alarm clock reset to wrong time third world problem no electricity first world problem this steak is medium not medium rare third world problem we have no food first world problem she said something mean about me on facebook third world problem a militia group raped all the girls in our village you get the picture so next time you re angry about something that has happened to you play the first world third world game you ll feel better posted by x curmudgeon at 11 41 am no comments tuesday november 01 2011 why va independents should vote dem in state senate races if you re one of virginia s many independent voters next tuesday s elections especially for state senate races should be of great interest to you virginia has a large group of mostly moderate independent voters they tend to be fiscally conservative and socially libertarian i e they don t want the government telling them what to do in their bedrooms or with their guns their primary interest is in getting good government services as efficiently as possible not surprisingly these sensible folks are disgusted with both major parties for those of you who fall into this large category of independent voters tuesday s election is important because if the virginia state senate swings to a republican majority the commonwealth will be for the first time in many years a single party state with the gop controlling both houses of the legislature as well as all the major constitutional offices governor lt gov ag etc that will in turn unleash social conservatives to push and enact a flurry of regulations on conduct as well as to turn on the spigots for spending on conservative programs no it turns out that republicans are not against regulation nor are they against welfare spending it s just a matter of who what they want to regulate sexual mores and who they want to reward businesses churches as long as democrats continue to control the state senate neither party can go too far off the rails with its agenda the current stalemate is not ideal on some issues particularly transportation funding the legislature has gotten nowhere for years virginians increasingly pay a higher and higher price each year for the lack of investment in transportation infrastructure but it s not like gov mcdonnell s solution of sticking a tollbooth every few miles and pretending its not a tax is going to solve the problem in any event independent voters have an important stake in how this election goes republicans bill the election as a referendum on pres obama but obama s got nothing to do with it the real issue is whether virginia is going to retain the balance that has served it so well over recent years posted by x curmudgeon at 6 00 pm no comments sunday october 30 2011 perfect for halloween sorcerors and apprentices we commend to you the sorcerers and their apprentices how the digital magicians of the mit media lab are creating the innovative technologies that will transform our lives by frank moss moss is the recent former director of the mit media lab and the book is an informal tour of the lab s discovery process which has brought us such things as digital books where i read this one the mit media lab is an agglomeration of scientists engineers artists and other experts into what moss calls anti disciplinary fields such as kindergarten for life opera of the future and new media medicine to say that the lab is doing cutting edge work in science and technology would be an understatement the folks in the lab are in many areas re inventing the way things are done from city driving to doctor s office visits it s a short read less than 240 pages and a fun one learning how the lab s denizens in the city of the future group for example have created a foldable car that can be stacked like luggage carts at an airport is fascinating the technologists in the lab don t just dream up great but perhaps impractical ideas they implement them by creating working prototypes and then giving the technology away to their many corporate sponsors while the gadgets and systems created at the lab are mind boggling moss s bigger point is the process of creation at the lab the antidisciplinary approach the new city car for example was created by a team that included only one automotive engineer which gave them the freedom not only to think outside the box but to discard the box altogether some of the lab s projects are almost magical in nature the book highlights the roles of many of the quirky people involved in this process of creation these are not boring people and the book is a fun read that makes one optimistic for the futue the only negative is moss s occasional myopic tendency to imply that no one else in the world is doing similar work we doubt that s the case but surely labs like mit s are still pretty rare and the approach used there could be more widely adopted in academic and corporate settings who knows maybe they ll even figure out a way to make blogger s buttons work in explorer 9 posted by x curmudgeon at 3 20 pm no comments thursday october 27 2011 gop the party of fiscal irresponsibility here s a biting op ed from an oldline republican doubting the current crop of gop presidential candidates commitment to fiscal responsibility http economix blogs nytimes com 2011 10 25 the republican idea of tax reform emc eta1 we ll just add that borrow and spend is no better probably worse than tax and spend wish we could go back to the days of fiscally conservative but socially liberal bill clinton and al gore hat tip to ls for the article posted by x curmudgeon at 4 12 pm no comments monday september 19 2011 how to save the postal service it s hard to believe that people are upset that the postal service might have to cut out saturday mail delivery really is there anything that comes in the mail on saturday that couldn t wait until monday the fact of the matter is that nothing particularly time sensitive comes in the mail yes we do need mail service but why not limit it to two times a week say tuesday and saturday would it really make a difference the mail is a little like human food digestion a lot of stuff goes in a tiny amount of with actual nutritional value is extracted and the rest gets excreted as waste in our household the curmudgeon processes the mail more than 90 of it gets immediately dumped into the recycling bin the rest goes into one of two piles stuff that needs to get filed eventually usually on a rainy ...