NJ Drivers

I always thought there was something not quite right with NJ drivers. The NY Times has now confirmed my suspicions

You know, the latest thing that I have observed here in NJ are people who are so impatient to make left turns that they will actually go around you to make a left turn. This is especially true of SUV drivers. Never mind that people usually do not look to see if the person BEHIND them is making the left turn at the same time they are so that's a huge accident waiting to happen. There ought to be huge huge fines for that kind of behavior.

“There was a lot of traffic, and I couldn’t figure out when it was my turn to go into the other lane,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t doing it quickly enough for my husband because he started yelling: ‘Merge! Merge!’ I just pulled the car over, got out, and handed him the keys..."

Turn? It's your turn to get into the other lane when there's enough space between oncoming vehicles for your car to fit and accelerate to the speed of traffic.Please someone revoke this woman's license. Seriously nervous drivers are the worst. They hit their brakes for no other reason than that they are scared.

“I had to drive on Route 46 to take my New Jersey driver’s test,” said Ms. McClenahan, who is in her early 40s. “That was really traumatic — all the cars were whizzing by. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. After that experience I said, I am never going on Route 46 again.”

And please, do stay off 46. Personally I think she ought to have failed the test. Perhaps it's just me, but while I was anxious about my driving test, It was not traumatic. And I took my test in Michigan. I did most of my practicing on highways. Personally I think there ought to be a confidence score. If a person is really shook, they ought not be licensed.

Oh and this..this is classic:

“I’m afraid of simultaneously keeping my eye on the speedometer, merging, and looking at signs to see where I’m going,” said Ms. Schneider, 40, who got her license at age 34 after she and her family moved to the suburbs...She said she has driven on highways about five times so far, mostly using a GPS device in her minivan, but doesn’t plan to hit Route 3 again anytime soon."

Hey stupid. When merging you don't look at your speed. there's no need. You can't be merging AND looking for signs at the same time. Looking for signs means you're trying to get off. If you're trying to get off, then you ought to be in the rightmost lane ANYWAY (for right sided exits). And although she's confused by the array of things she has to look at she's got the GPS in the car. I'l lay odds that this one also has a phone. I will put money on it.

Then there's this:

Ms. Kelly has also sworn off highways for good. “I’m not going to be a highway driver; that won’t be happening,” she said. “I have no clue how people merge at high speeds. I can’t even imagine it. I mean, are you people nuts?”

No seriously, did she really ask HOW people merge at high speeds? FIrst and foremost there's this thing called relativity. If Were both moving in the same direction and I'm going 80 and you're going 70, I'm moving faster than you are by 10 MPH. really It's not that hard to merge with a 10 MPH gap. What you do is press that thing called an accelerator as much as you need to to get up to speed. If you have to press hard enough you'll trip what is called the "kick down" response in the computer and the car will down shift for more acceleration. You should try it. It's what you're expected to do. If my 20 year old car can make it, your relatively new one can

I do have to agree with one thing on though, there are plenty of people in NJ who seem not to understand that when there is a merge up ahead and there are cars looking to enter, one ought to change lanes to give them space if you can. It would be even more polite to give a flash to let them know that you see them and are letting them in.

New Year, New Modes of Living

And so this year I have a few resolutions:

1) To be more fit. Anyone who knows me knows I'm already way fit. Not built. Fit. I'm trying to get stronger and faster. Not the easiest thing for someone running up to 40 years old but a goal I can reach.

2) Stop wasting money. Yes thought I am fortunate at this time to be employed (and seeing the recent unemployment stats that is saying a lot). But this year I'm doing my best to leverage frugality. So first thing is that my 88 325i died. So I had the opportunity to replace it with a '97 318i which gets about 50% more useful gas mileage as my other vehicle, a '97 Z3 2.8. When you're pumping premium, that matters. Not that when gas prices hit $5 I was sweating all that much as I live within my means (and I had been biking to work), but why spend the money if you don't have to?

So I'm looking at a minimum of a 20% reduction in my gas usage this year, without changing my habits. That's about $300 bucks for the year. I'm not keeping full tabs on my gas usage because it comes out of my weekly allowance.

Next is the reduction in land line phone service. Why do I still have a land line? DSL and legacy. I've had my phone number for ever. Don't want to give it up. Sue me. Anyway. I have a Gizmo number which I can get mad minutes for 20 bucks. I don't make a lot of phone calls. So the biggest money waster is actually my cell phone, but I prefer to be available and I'm not clear that a pay-go plan will work for me for when I do use the phone heavily. In any event, between my Gizmo number and my Google Grand Central number, Vocito on the Mac and Dial Central on the Nokia Internet Tablet, I don't pay for phone calls. Nothing. Nada. Not even long distance. If I was convinced that both Gizmo and Grand Central will remain free I would probably drop the land line altogether. But as of now I'm saving $20/month. It's possible that I can go lower but these phone companies have so many fees and such. I may end up going with Vonage or something when it begins to annoy me enough. But as of now I'm looking at $240 for the year in savings.

Next up: Apple TV and Boxee. I've reduced my CableVision to basic cable. I just bought an Apple TV and installed Boxee on it. I get CNN news. I get all those reruns that Spike, FX, TNT, and everyone one else broadcasts and then some. Of course we have torrents but you know, that wouldn't be legal. I realized I was ready for this when I was willing to sit at my computer and watch Spenser for Hire at my laptop. I suppose my Spenser watching caught the attention of AOL because not 48 hours after I discovered their monster stash of Spenser, then they took it down. Next time, I use my browser plugin and rip that stuff. Note to media companies: suddenly making stuff unavailable is a bad idea. Not that I'm threatening to do anything illegal. So my Cable bill was just cut by $30/month. In July I'll have to pony up for Versus so I can watch Le Tour (unless it ends up online somewhere). But for now that's $360 for the year. The Apple TV of course will eat into that particular saving but I still come out ahead by $140 if you include it's cost. However since I had an Airport Express that died on New Years, I'm not going to include it in the cost because I would have paid for a replacement anyway.

So what we have is a possible $900 savings for the year if it all works out as planned ($75/month). Not too shabby for cutting expenses without really impacting my life. If I wasn't attached to my land line phone number I'd probably be able to reach a grand. Well lets see how this goes.

Chrysler, Ford Exercise Nuclear Option

Having not secured any bail out money from congress just yet, Chrysler and Ford have exercised the nuclear option of shutting down production in ALL plants for at least a month (Or perhaps until the government coughs up some dough). Although the manufacturers normally shut down production for 2 weeks around this time, the extra time is not normal.

Expect the stock market to dive off a cliff tomorrow or the day after.

update:

It would seem that many automakers around the globe are doing the same thing. Auto sales seem to be cratering world wide. So has the Mortgage Ponzi scheme along with the Spike in gas prices over the summer killing the auto industry? I know for myself I have went a purchased a 4 cylinder high MPG (and mileage) car for "daily" driving and letting the higher consumption (and far more fun to drive) vehicle to sit more often. Gas prices might be low now but I'm not getting caught out there when they spike again. It's bad enough I have to use premium fuel.

It's Not Walmart's Fault

I'm not one to defend Wal-Mart. I don't even shop at the store because of issues I have with their employment practices. However I must object strenuously to the multi-million dollar lawsuit that has brought against them by the family of Jdimytai Damour.

The responsible parties are those that trampled Jdimytai to death and they are the only responsible parties. Could Walmart foresee that it would be possible for people to act like they have absolutely no self-respect, self-restraint and total lack of home training? Sure. Is it Wal-Mart's responsibility for that? No? Could Wal-Mart foresee that some idiot in the parking lot of it's property could break into peoples vehicles? Sure? Is Wal-Mart responsible for the break in? No. Could Wal-Mart foresee that one could be run over in their parking lot when it is packed with customers going to a fro? Of course. Would Wal-Mart be liable if a person got run over in the parking lot? Absolutely not. Corporate entities as legal persons (an unfortunate circumstance) are no more responsible for the behavior of other people than is the citizen standing in line who was pushed along by the unruly crowd.

But Walmart is an easy, deep pocketed, fearful of bad publicity company. Little, broke, looking to save 5 bucks off a computer, ordinary citizens don't have much to offer. Hopefully the police will be able to ID the people who stepped on Jdimytai and will have them arrested. The best crowd control is the threat of prosecution. I can guarantee you that if a high profile example is made of those who stepped on Jdimytai, who I understand was trying to protect a pregnant shopper, the next Black Friday at Wal-Mart will not have anything like what transpired.

The Case for a 12" MacBook

This photo clearly shows why those of us who have the 12 incher want another one.

No it doesn't mean 'cheap' Mr. Jobs. It means portable power in a form that is most portable.

Why There's No Firewire on the new MacBooks.

And so my dreams of a new black MacBook with firewire have been dashed along with my hope of a return of the 12" laptop from Apple. I'll get on the latter issue at another post. There's much to be bothered about the lack of Firewire on the MacBook but thinking about Apple and how Apple has moved in the past, the removal of FW from the consumer line of the laptop is completely understandable, if annoying.

Think about what has happened in the consumer camera space in the past couple of years. We have DV cameras that record directly to hard disk. We have flip cameras that record directly to SD disk (I have an older one with horrible compression). And of course we have the regular still cameras that save internally and externally to a number of removable media. What do all of these cameras have in common? They can transfer files directly over USB/USB2 to any computer or can have their removable media inserted into a card reader that also connects over USB.

Therefore the need for FW in the consumer space going forward does not need Firewire. it only needs USB. I have no doubt that the monstrosity that is iMovie 7.1 will be made to recognize these kinds of cameras and media (assuming it does not currently do so). I have long ago created a DVD through iMovie with my flip camera and files imported from an SD card. it's not hard.

What Apple has done is said that it won't allow it's more pro customers get away with buying the low end Mac to do work with "higher end" cameras. At least that's my read. If you want to hook up a Camera that *requires* firewire to move data then you probably have the resources to ante up for a MacBook Pro and Apple will be glad to take your money. of course that annoys people like myself who wanted a smaller machine but still wanted the pro features a-la the long dead 12" PB which had everything except the expansion slot.

Now some people are moaning about the supposed loss of FW target disk mode. If you have a techie who complains about this, please reconsider paying for his or her service. All intel Macs can be accessed in target disk mode via USB. No it's not firewire, but it does the same thing. they can still diagnose the HD with utilities over USB.

The Bad Thing About Cell Phones

And so I had a very busy weekend. Such a busy weekend in fact that I didn't place any phone calls or txt messages for 2 days. Well 1, but let me finish. In my apartment I have what we shall refer to as 'spotty" service. That is I get reception in one spot and not another. Oddly, on Friday night I happened to notice two odd things:

1) The battery had gone down to 1/2 charge.
2) I had 4 bars where I previously have none.

So I thought: "great my battery is going." and "Great! ATT must have thrown up a tower somewhere!"

Sadly neither was the case. After spending all day Saturday working on my Car and a DVD for a client, I settled down to enjoy the evening. I happened to look at my phone and lo and behold the battery was again at 1/2 charge. Now I'm thinking that I hadn't used the phone all day except to look at the time. But I also had 4 bars.I suppose I was so enraptured by having service in my apt. that it didn't dawn on me that something was not quite right.

So next day I head out to visit moms. While we're at Home Depot I decide to let somebody know I was alive ( I have a habit of not answering phones and people have habits of not leaving messages, bad combo). Oddly the message took forever to send and I never quite saw that it went since the screen blanked out to save the battery. But I had 4 bars!

Then I got annoyed that the lucky person to have received a txt message from me didn't even respond. I mean, a text message from me is a special thing y'all. Still I'm distracted by this 4 bars everywhere thing.

It didn't even occur to me that I had not received a single phone call in the past 36 hours which is odd. So anyway, this afternoon I'm at work, sitting in a room that is a known cellular dead zone. I check the phone. 4 bars. No way. so some 72 hours later I realize that the cell phone had in fact been partially locked up. It would show the time, play music and all that jazz, but it would not be receiving or sending calls or txt. Reboot.

As I exit the dead zone, the phone lets me know I have a message. From 2 days ago. just imagining if I only had the cell phone as a means of contact. That would have sucked. Worst is to have no clue that your phone is locked up.