Letters to the Editor
jebldmm
Published Letters: 933 Editor's Choice: 164
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This is junk science at it's worst
[Read the article: Your cellphone yapping is slowing me down]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Only in America can a scientist spin a study in which he finds that people on cell phones drive more cautiously into a negative. How does somebody else driving behind a slow car slow me down? If I were dumb enough to refuse to change lanes, then the car in front of them would slow me down just as much. Essentially, this study is saying that driving slowly and cautiously impedes the flow of traffic and costs us all time and money. It's a bit creepy that some scientist with an obvious bias against cell phones can get the kind of media coverage that this guy has gotten.
I drive home every day on a stretch of road that is responsible for about a dozen deaths a year, mostly caused by speeding drivers. People driving more slowly is not the biggest problem driver's face - it's the fact that many of us need to get where we are going as fast as possible that causes car wrecks and high blood pressure.
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@Target
[Read the article: Your cellphone yapping is slowing me down]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good point. And don't forget that driving at .08 is not all that dangerous. Acceptable blood alcohol levels for driving have been dropped in recent years as a deterrent against driving, not because there is a dramatic increase in accidents at the lowest levels (this does not justify drunk driving - few of us know exactly how inebriated we are at a given time, and it's better to simply not drive if you've been drinking at all). Any "distraction" reduces driving safety. Drinking coffee, being tired, thinking about a personal problem, changing the radio station, putting your IPod on pause, talking to a passenger... anything. Focusing on cell phones is, imo, misleading and dangerous, because it lulls drivers into thinking that they are driving safely simply because they are not using their cell phone.
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Imagine a late night flight
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]4 hours from Denver, it's 2:00 in the morning and the plane has landed. The plane is lightly filled, with plenty of room to stretch out. Most of us slept or quietly read throughout the flight. Because of a weather delay (real) we haven't met our time slot, and have to wait at the airport to get a gate - about an hour (It was a small airport, and I suspect they had to go wake up the crew). The plane is silent, calm, dark. Then a woman decides to call her friend and tell her all about the sex shops she visited in Montreal over her vacation. Loudly. Very loudly. I am on the list of people who not only feel that cell phones should be banned on flights in the air, but also on the ground. Perhaps they could set up a "cell phone area" at the back of the plane, allowing people to make emergency calls if the plane is held up. Otherwise, boot the users off the plane. I don't normally have problems with cell phones, but we were a captive audience. .
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I think the tech world will survive
[Read the article: Bill Gates' final CES keynote. (Long live Bill Gates)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Microsoft is the borg of the computing industry. They don't innovate, they simply take other's ideas and replicate them. Gates is not a magician - he was at the right place at the right time, and he was willing to lead an organization that ruthlessly took advantage of others ideas to build an empire. I suspect that if Microsoft had never existed, technology would be further advanced, since startups would have been able to develop their ideas instead of being taken over by the borg as soon as their ideas started getting popular.
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@Lynx
[Read the article: Bill Gates' final CES keynote. (Long live Bill Gates)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason that companies didn't innovate was because Microsoft put them out of business as soon as they started to be successful. The only "innovation" that resulted from Microsoft's business practices was the panicked frenzy of start-ups trying to stay one step ahead of Goliath, but even that eventually faded as potential innovators realized that as soon as they started to show a profit they would be put out of business by Microsoft. Apple has served as the creative arm of Microsoft for decades, and that is only because Microsoft allows it to exist it in order to prevent the inevitable anti-trust suits that would be brought (and won) if Apple ceased to exist.
Imagine what our world would be like if Microsoft had supported all of the innovators instead of absorbing them or putting them out of business...
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Steward looked more uncomfortable than unprepared
[Read the article: Stewart rambles, Colbert rallies! ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He obviously was not happy about being there. As I understand it, he is a union supporter and member (it's hard to get clear information through the rumors, but he is supposedly a member of the writer's guild). The writer's guild was picketing his show. I'm guessing that he was forced back, but he didn't want to be there. He intelligently chose to focus on the strike, at least in part to deflect some of the pressure I'm sure he was feeling from union members and friends. Colbert is in a better position. His character is by definition not a strike supporter, so he had a wealth of anti-strike material to draw from while still obliquely supporting the striker's. I don't envy either of them. They have to deal with both personal ethical issues and the reality that they will probably suffer professionally as a result of working during a strike.
I really wish that the participants of this strike would make more of an effort to get together. I don't particularly care if television shows are being held up, but there are a lot of people suffering over what amounts to a "how much money can I keep" issue. This isn't the glory days of striking, when they were trying to get decent work hours and safe working conditions.