Random Thoughts.....

Wes said:
Installed a blink doorbell camera and another wireless camera at the back door a few days ago. Got a notification on my phone of myself peeing off the porch. Thought I was out of its view. My wife text me from work asking what in the hell is wrong with me, lol. I’m probably uploaded in a cloud somewhere peeing off my porch forever.
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Whenever my wife says the same thing, I just asked her WTF is wrong with the person that stays married to me?
 
Wes said:
Installed a blink doorbell camera and another wireless camera at the back door a few days ago. Got a notification on my phone of myself peeing off the porch. Thought I was out of its view. My wife text me from work asking what in the hell is wrong with me, lol. I’m probably uploaded in a cloud somewhere peeing off my porch forever.
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Next time pee like a kindergartner with your pants and underwear down to your ankles and give her a view
 
skyhighZJ said:
Had one of my dudes always volunteer to go first for the whiz quiz. He was known to go full pants off dance off and “verify” there was no contraband before he donated his sample. Lol
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Could be the same fellow lol he’s been in the army quite some time now…. And yet a couple years back at a concert, in a coed bathroom. He did the same once again. Believe it or not a reasonably good looking woman stood beside him and did the same.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
When all those songs and things you heard your parents say finally clicks and you truly understand what it is they were talking about and that they aren't just words or lyrics to a song.
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Finally figure out what Mmmbop was about?
 
we spend billions on trying to eek out .05 mpg from fullsize trucks and jeeps....making them less reliable, more complicated, harder to work on, and more expensive.....

but we stop a line of 30 cars at an ill timed red light to let 1 car turn. Then all 30 have to accelerate......when they are getting the worst MPGs....single digits.

multiply that by 24/7, 365, 10,000 intersections across the USA.....thats alot of fuel!

why didn't we start with the 'free' things first before we started junking and replacing good vehicles because of 'poor' mpgs?
 
benXJ said:
we spend billions on trying to eek out .05 mpg from fullsize trucks and jeeps....making them less reliable, more complicated, harder to work on, and more expensive.....

but we stop a line of 30 cars at an ill timed red light to let 1 car turn. Then all 30 have to accelerate......when they are getting the worst MPGs....single digits.

multiply that by 24/7, 365, 10,000 intersections across the USA.....thats alot of fuel!

why didn't we start with the 'free' things first before we started junking and replacing good vehicles because of 'poor' mpgs?
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And 1 Mount St Helens outweighs 50 years of that in a split second. How much of it is really caused by us?
 
It's not the pollution really....it's the mpg 'mandates' and super complicated expensive engine that aren't as reliable in the name of 1 mpg that they tell me I have to abide by.

Common sense (ha) stop light timing, traffic study, and road design, which we already have large tax payer bureaucracys for, could handle mpg concerns as a part of their daily job. So cost neutral for me. And no hybrid/turbo/start-stop nonsense that never work as promised in the real world anyway.
 
benXJ said:
we spend billions on trying to eek out .05 mpg from fullsize trucks and jeeps....making them less reliable, more complicated, harder to work on, and more expensive.....

but we stop a line of 30 cars at an ill timed red light to let 1 car turn. Then all 30 have to accelerate......when they are getting the worst MPGs....single digits.

multiply that by 24/7, 365, 10,000 intersections across the USA.....thats alot of fuel!

why didn't we start with the 'free' things first before we started junking and replacing good vehicles because of 'poor' mpgs?
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You mean like roundabouts instead of lights?

Because of Chevy Chase and national lampoons Vacation.
 
Well it would take years and billions to convert most to roundabouts. It would cost basically nothing to time lights better....or flash...or allow right on red...or not set timers that just randomly turn red at 2am or immediately trigger when one car pulls up to a packed freeway going 60mph. It would be a start.

Instead of nonsensical mpg rules while not attacking the ENTIRE issue
 
skyhighZJ said:
And not one damn American knows how to properly negotiate a “traffic circle”. Yes there’s a difference. A round about and a traffic circle are 2 different things based on size and lanes of travel.
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Wildest thing I ever seen....in 2015 we were in Arizona on a family vacation. Intentionally took a back road route on about a 3 hour ride. Its late at night, like 1AM.
2 lane road through the desert - that special kinda dark that only the desert gets, where the sky is bright and clear but the vast expanse is so nothing it looks likee the abyss.. Speed limit is 70 and the rental car cruise control is set to 88...suddenly out of nowhere...is that a sign, in the middle of the road?.......brakes were locked, tires were screeched...it was a roundabout with no spurs yet - surely future development was planned, no time to look...My son still tells the story of "Dad drifting the Hyundai Elantra in Arizona"....
 
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driving home last night......got stopped at 3 stop lights in a pack of 20+ cars (both directions on a 4 lane road) so 1 car could turn left, then 2 cars turn left, then 1 car go straight across.

I used a gallon at least to get back up to 60 mph 3 times.....times 20 cars...times thousands times a day, times tens of thousands of intersections....how much wasted fuel is that?!.....they could fix that tomorrow, for free in a variety of ways. No new car, no new engine, no mandate, no glitchy 15 speed trans, no start-stop, no hundreds of millions of dollars, no road work, no nothing

its so crazy how dumb we are
 
benXJ said:
driving home last night......got stopped at 3 stop lights in a pack of 20+ cars (both directions on a 4 lane road) so 1 car could turn left, then 2 cars turn left, then 1 car go straight across.

I used a gallon at least to get back up to 60 mph 3 times.....times 20 cars...times thousands times a day, times tens of thousands of intersections....how much wasted fuel is that?!.....they could fix that tomorrow, for free in a variety of ways. No new car, no new engine, no mandate, no glitchy 15 speed trans, no start-stop, no hundreds of millions of dollars, no road work, no nothing

its so crazy how dumb we are
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Well, it likely didn't take a gallon to get back up to speed, otherwise you'd probably use like 20-30 gallons per trip, or you REALLY need to fix whatever is wrong with your car. And a hybrid with stop-start technology would have been very effective in that situation, using the regenerative braking to charge a battery, not using any fuel while sitting, and then using the battery/electric motor to get the car going again.

But the general point still stands, that there is so little done on the actual FLOW side of traffic. It's a pointless control grab. Why do they not change all lights to flashing yellow on the primary road and flashing red on the secondary road from like 10pm-5am every day?
 
jeepinmatt said:
Why do they not change all lights to flashing yellow on the primary road and flashing red on the secondary road from like 10pm-5am every day?
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There are several lights like that around here. And almost all of the ones on the base where I work do starting at 5:30pm because most people are gone by then.

I'm sorry life is so inconvenient for @benXJ ... and wonder why he doesn't go into civil engineering and fix the problem he's so passionate about.
 
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RatLabGuy said:
There are several lights like that around here. And almost all of the ones on the base where I work do starting at 5:30pm because most people are gone by then.

I'm sorry life is so inconvenient for @benXJ ... and wonder why he doesn't go into civil engineering and fix the problem he's so passionate about.
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There are hundreds of thousands of civil/road engineers already.
Yes, ill timed stoplights are inconvenient, for me and you, but that was not the point at all of what I posted earlier. Read much?

Your gov't says MPGs have to be this # by this time....and automakers say 'yes massa' and get right to it spending billions and making the car you buy more expensive, more complicated, less reliable, more mining intensive, and less user friendly. It DIRECTLY affects your wallet and has no net positive impact on emissions or resource destruction. So....why?

My curiosity (and random thought) leads me to ask why the free/cheap/easy/quick things are not done across the board, from sea to shining sea.....FIRST....before fixing things that aren't broken?

Regardless of what MPG you get in your car, piss poor infrastructure planning (while having an army of engineers and companies that do this very thing) has a negative affect.....for really no good reason that I can think of.

Why aren't the free/easy things done first? For the benefit of us all....in many ways.
 
benXJ said:
There are hundreds of thousands of civil/road engineers already.
Yes, ill timed stoplights are inconvenient, for me and you, but that was not the point at all of what I posted earlier. Read much?

Your gov't says MPGs have to be this # by this time....and automakers say 'yes massa' and get right to it spending billions and making the car you buy more expensive, more complicated, less reliable, more mining intensive, and less user friendly. It DIRECTLY affects your wallet and has no net positive impact on emissions or resource destruction. So....why?

My curiosity (and random thought) leads me to ask why the free/cheap/easy/quick things are not done across the board, from sea to shining sea.....FIRST....before fixing things that aren't broken?

Regardless of what MPG you get in your car, piss poor infrastructure planning (while having an army of engineers and companies that do this very thing) has a negative affect.....for really no good reason that I can think of.
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And you missed my point.
Since you are so passionate about this problem ,what are you going to do about it? How much time is it worth to you to craft an actual solution? Not just "somebody needs to make this more efficient" but figure out what the better plan would be, and how much would it cost to discern and implement said plan?

Why aren't the free/easy things done first? For the benefit of us all....in many ways.
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and my other point - some places are.
 
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benXJ said:
There are hundreds of thousands of civil/road engineers already.
Yes, ill timed stoplights are inconvenient, for me and you, but that was not the point at all of what I posted earlier. Read much?

Your gov't says MPGs have to be this # by this time....and automakers say 'yes massa' and get right to it spending billions and making the car you buy more expensive, more complicated, less reliable, more mining intensive, and less user friendly. It DIRECTLY affects your wallet and has no net positive impact on emissions or resource destruction. So....why?

My curiosity (and random thought) leads me to ask why the free/cheap/easy/quick things are not done across the board, from sea to shining sea.....FIRST....before fixing things that aren't broken?

Regardless of what MPG you get in your car, piss poor infrastructure planning (while having an army of engineers and companies that do this very thing) has a negative affect.....for really no good reason that I can think of.

Why aren't the free/easy things done first? For the benefit of us all....in many ways.
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Strangely I agree with most of your point, rare as that may be, but you have thrown out the less reliable line a few times and it simply isnt true. Cars built today are more reliable and durable than at any time in the history of the automobile.
 
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