ReconRat

Yeah, I get to see a lot of school buses when going to and from work. So many people stop on 4 lane roads, I had to look it up, twice or more. No you don't have to stop in the opposite direction, if 4 lanes or more, divided or not. You do have to stop for 3 lane roads. I will advise caution, of course, since it's very likely that the person in front will stop or panic and stop. When they didn't need to, or shouldn't have. Not to mention that a person behind you, might be the one that's not stopping...

Selectable traction control would be interesting... I would think that could be added to any bike. If someone would make a kit of it.

Yeah, I was a little too high on the weight. I just gave myself a refresher course on mass vs weight. The felt weight of a person's mass will vary both with the mass of the planet and the distance from the center of the planet's mass. So a large diameter planet of high mass would have a lower felt weight of the person, compared to a high density and mass of small diameter. Which would feel very heavy. Of course, a large diameter planet of one Earth mass would just be a big puff ball of worthless properties. Lots of variables, it's a difficult search for the perfect planet.

A super Earth of 3.6 more mass would make people a lot heavier. I'm guessing I'd weigh about 575 pounds. No thanks. I'm still waiting for something with not frozen/boiling water to be found in the .5 to 1.25 mass range. That would be extremely interesting. And indeed, that is what they are looking for. Our next home.

I've said this before. Somehow, somewhere, it got reversed in usage. Probably some widely distributed textbook used in nursing and medical education, that had bogus information. I've always known what vf1000 has said here, to be true. Either that or it's that darn alternate universe thing again. Who hasn't burned themselves on an air-cooled motor? I've had numerous 1st & 2nd degree burns from them. But never a 3rd degree. A decent burn has to come from the header, nothing else comes close. Blowing flame out of an exhaust header will of course ignite whatever gets in it's way. Cotton ignites at 250C/482F. No way anyone burned jeans, other than flame coming out of a header. Considering many bikes have owner installed after market exhaust pipes, I'd guess that was the source and the cause. That means I'd only consider dealer installed exhaust systems in the lawsuit. And the claim should go against the dealer/mechanic, not the manufacturer. However, wood will slowly begin to char at 120C/248F to 150C/302F. I'm guessing that cotton would be similar. So it does sound possible that the hottest parts of an air cooled engine could produce what looks like the beginnings of a burn, in a relatively short but technically extended period of contact. edit: Come to think of it, I've "charred" jeans many times on bikes or tools or whatever. It doesn't take all that much to make cotton turn to a light to medium brown from heat. Where's my money... edit2: Here you go, here's the conditions where the factory parts would actually burn something. The bike vibrates hard enough to let flame or super heated air get past the header of the rear cylinder, right against the rider's leg. Considering what I've seen vibration do that I'd never expect, I'd have to think that it's at least possible. Also, a cracked header flange will blow a nice little flame, if it wants to.

If you haven't ever been to a critical accident... People do strange things, when honestly trying to help. It's quick and chaotic and dangerous. You'll have to worry about everyone while doing what needs to be done. So some one running up and freezing, is normal and acceptable.

What, doesn't everyone re-engineer stuff better than the designer who made it?

I don't know when things changed, but kids used to get shipped off to "military school" or "girl's schools" when caught being out of control. Kids didn't go up against parents back then. I suppose schools for bad kids don't exist anymore. Unfortunately, bad kids still exist.

btw, the highest price for gasoline was in 1982, adjusted for inflation. That was the record until the spike in pump prices in both 2008 and 2011. I was looking for data for the early 70s, the end of the Vietnam War. Fuel prices jumped back then. I didn't find any records going back that far.

Social security funds wouldn't have been all that bad off, if the US government hadn't decided to borrow it all. (That means spend it without regard to the consequences in the future. Same as every maxed out credit card owner.) Have fun with that.

The news later said it was a truck pulling off the right side of the road. A co-worker that was out that direction that day, said he hit a "boom truck", whatever that is. I guess that means a wrecker or truck with heavy lift rig. But it's pretty clear that when the medivac helicopter showed up, 3 or 4 more cars wrecked on the other side of the freeway, and another medivac helicopter had to be called for that wreck.

Weatherman Found With Dead Man in Tub Yeah, let's release him. Good idea.btw, reading literally, which in the English language is often a mistake, does it not say that the dead man was partying hard? ZOMBIE! (Yeah, I know, it should have said the "now dead man" or the "man who died". Not "the dead man partied".)

I shot past a deer walking parallel toward me on the freeway at night. I could have stuck my foot out and kicked it. (Hell, I could have stuck my elbow out.) I had no chance to react, but the deer jumped sideways away from me, it's reactions and awareness were way better than mine. Deer should be legally required to have headlights or at least running lights at night...

It was over, or immediately forgotten, as people tried to figure out if there was a Soviet connection to the Kennedy assassination. But all of it was part of the Cold War. Touch and go everywhere around the world. There's a lot of things that happened in the military and politics, for many years, that isn't a part of history that we can go and read, or see on TV. Clashes between Soviet and US troops, that never made the news. Some of it started in WWII, Korea and Vietnam didn't help, and some of it started when Gary Power's U2 got shot down. It lasted a long long time. Basically it lasted until the Berlin Wall came down. And now it's a different political game. Basically one with a lot more players. Not just the USA and USSR. But not by much. That's where the real world power still is located. If the USA and USSR (Russia now) ever actually become good friends, the rest of the world isn't much.

Good point. Very similar. Only 9/11 we knew we'd kick somebody's ass for it somewhere. With the Kennedy assassination, it really wasn't clear what was going on, but it was pretty much the exact same fear of the unknown. The moment with Kennedy was aggravated by the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the year prior. The effects of that were still being felt. The entire country had mobilized and moved military assets South to fight in Cuba. The roads were full of troops, and the skies were full of aircraft, all moving South. You could feel the fear everywhere. The Soviets and the USA were on the trigger. We were at a DefCon 2 and 3 for way too long. We were about to do the big one. The entire country thought we were goners. That feeling lasted a long time. And it changed the way people think, forever.

The remnants of that last hurricane/tropical storm is currently centered over Cincinnati. It's still turning and raining some. Think of the power of that storm, to make it up here and still be rotating like that.

Ten years since 9/11. A decade of change. There will be about 20 different TV shows on Sunday about 9/11. Prepare for sadness. I guess it's time to reflect upon life as we thought we knew it. Maybe time to teach the kids a bit of history also. The History Channel and A&E will broadcast a documentary on Sunday 9/11. 102 Minutes That Changed America:Sun., 9/11 at 8:46am 102 Minutes That Changed America:Sun., 9/11 9/8c 9/11: Ten Years Later — History.com One more: I'll teach some history right now. In the months after 9/11, I ran across a compelling short article in The New Yorker. I present it here: The Real Heroes Are Dead - A love story. by James B. Stewart A Reporter at Large: The Real Heroes Are Dead And if you want to read the long version: "Heart of a Soldier" by James Stewart Biography of Rick Rescorla

Who looks at OR freebies? Gotta give them a push start. For all I know, it was added there the first time I posted it. edit: If you install it, it will run on any website on your screen.

lol, if you think that's fun, try this one: http://erkie.github.com/ install it in your browser, you'll never be bored at work again.

*thinking*... dawn of time... 170+ in a 61 Catalina w/ 389 GTO engine running tri power (3 dueces). Not as crazy as it sounds, other than the tires wouldn't take that very long. Freeways back then might only have a couple of cars on them as far as you could see. Speed limit was 70, and people drove at 100 all the time. Yeah, didn't do that very often. It attracted a lot of attention. Actually, we never did know how fast it was, the speedo was buried past the 170 mark.

I-70 closed in both directions after another crash, going the other direction. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/05/I70crash.html The motorcycle rider was life flighted and died. No details. http://www.abc6onyourside.com/shared/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wsyx_vid_13198.shtml Medics said motorcycle hit a parked car on the side of the freeway. One driver in second crash of three cars was life flighted also. The second crash probably happened when the first helicopter was landing? http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/sep/05/one-critical-after-motorcycle-crash-ar-722829/

Nice catch, but the column structure isn't there on the corners and along the walls. And the electrical grid is below ground in downtown St Petersburg, not street level like in the picture. The Winter Palace was the basis (copied) for many other palaces built around Europe. My guess was somewhere in Italy. *searching* & attempting to hack license plates.... nope, it's the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, plates aren't Euro, and it matches this photo of the back side of the Palace along the waterfront: In another photo it says it's the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. edit: one more hack, the pic is originally from this website: http://izismile.com/2011/09/05/daily_picdump_107_pics-12.html

Something everyone should do. Whenever it gets too complicated, or too intense, or confusing. Go ahead and back off, slow down and take it easy. Or even stop and take a break. Not worth the danger, there will always be another day.

No real answer, many people ask the same question. It's a public track (rent a lap), with parts of the roads open to normal public traffic when not racing. Most of the writing is supposedly just chalk marks. There's advertising, vandalism, tagging, and some mark crashes, braking points, turn ins, etc. I've seen the same thing in Hocking Hills, to a lesser extent. Estimated 3 to 12 public racers die on the track every year, based on local police reports. edit: original track was 174 turns and several jumps. Times under 8 minutes by anything or anyone are rare. Use of the full track for pro racing ended in 1939. Fastest lap at that time was Louis Chiron, at an average speed of 112.31 km/h (72 mph) in his Bugatti. Wikipedia

ok ok, I'm bad do over Wikpedia