Cell phone - in lines and on coasters? C'mon!!

I think its important to be very aware of your surroundings while driving. Seems to me that with a phone in your ear, you are less likely to be doing that and able to look around. And a passenger is aware of your surroundings and can help provide warnings whereas the person on the other end of the phone is clueless. Adjusting the AC or changing the radio station happen quickly and then allow you to get back to driving and you don't really need to think much about either one of them. Talking on a phone is different in terms of brain power diversion. And as a general rule, I think we tend to overstate our ability to multitask. More often than not for most of us, we aren't really doing either task well.

Lord Gonchar said:
So what is it about holding a phone up to your ear while talking that suddenly makes it more dangerous?

Well, for those of us with manual transmissions it means that you can either shift or steer.

Not sure about the rest of yinz.

maXairMike said:
...I have noticed that drivers behind me talking on their cell phones tend to look down at their wheel/console and only occasionally glance up, so maybe there's some reason people look down rather than ahead when talking?

This is an interesting one, and I see it more with hands-free users, especially speakerphone users. For some reason, when people are talking to a speakerphone, they tend to look at the speaker when talking. Unless it's built into the vehicle, in which case they tend to look at the radio.

I've never understood that one. I guess it is kind of like presenters who point their remote control device at the *screen* even though it's an RF device. Which is a good thing since the receiver is located at the *computer*.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Resources on distracted driving:
http://pubsindex.trb.org/DOCs/Distracted%20Driving%20Articles.pdf

Most of those you have to order, but abstracts are still visible. Otherwise, here's one accessible paper (limited by relatively small sample size, but still found some results with regard to urban areas at least).
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/conferences/2011/RSS/1/Benedetto,A.pdf

RideMan said:
There's no reason to fully switch, therefore we haven't done it, in spite of the fact that our schoolchildren generally *haven't* been taught the US system of weights and measures in the past 30 years. Somehow they still manage to figure it out...

My impression is that it's only a matter of time until we switch, at least when it comes to standard practices used in science & engineering. Once that happens, it's only a matter of time until most other things switch, with the likely exception of our road system.

There are only a few engineers where I work who cling to the metric system, and they are universally above the average age of engineers here. Many of them were schooled on both sides of the fence, so to speak. Very few of the engineers on my side of the median age were taught anything other than metric beyond the basic conversion principles.

I think the flattening of the Earth, as a result of information being so easily accessible, is helping to speed this along. Metric is more logical, easier to use and is used by the vast majority of the Earth's population. It's only a matter of time before we get on board, hopefully.

It depends on where you are and what you're doing. I think we're going to have some form of the present blended system for the foreseeable future. And honestly, I'm OK with that, because it means I can pick a set of units that make the most sense for the task at hand. Or I can just arbitrarily pick one: I can buy Coke™ by the ounce or by the liter depending on the packaging. The places where most of us use measurements most often or in commerce are the places least likely to change. The "magic number" for our children is still 48"; we buy gas by the gallon and meat by the pound, boards by the foot; we measure our trips by the mile. The infrastructure supports it, and because in a very real sense the actual units used are unimportant, changing that infrastructure represents a huge and unnecessary expense.

Areas where conversions are more important, where International commerce is involved, or where standards do not already exist or are not entrenched into the infrastructure...that's where we're going to see conversion happen, to the extent that it hasn't happened already.

That said, I'd like to shoot the guy who invented the A4 page. My file cabinet is letter sized.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yeah, you pretty much need to be able to switch between the two systems with ease. Engineering offices here (Canada) use Metric, but all of the carpenters/tradesmen on site use Imperial. In school we were taught to use both; the calculations don't actually change at all, just the units.

Even the US auto industry, which sucks at most things (notably making money), went metric decades ago. My first car, an '87 Ford Escort, was all metric.

Also, Emily Haines is hot. So there's another reason to switch.

Jeff said:
Even the US auto industry, which sucks at most things (notably making money), went metric decades ago. My first car, an '87 Ford Escort, was all metric.

With nuts and bolts it doesnt matter that much

13mm = 1/2"

15mm = 9/16"

19mm = 3/4 "

Not equal. Being just slightly off tends to split sockets (especially the cheap kind you have when you're messing with your first car).

Hey, if Ohio State can switch to semesters (after decades of talking about it), we can change over to metric. LOL

But calling a coaster mega- when it's 60.97m tall sounds so lame.

Someone asked me about the 2K sign on the Millennium Force station. Easy---the track length is 2 kilometers. As for Dragster, 122mph is not as impressive sounding as 200kph. Now all we need is an impresssive metric figure for height!

And here I thought 2k meant 2000, in like the year it was built.

Roz Stevenson said:
Someone asked me about the 2K sign on the Millennium Force station. Easy---the track length is 2 kilometers.

Interesting. Clearly it is supposed to stand for the year 2000, but doing the conversion, the track length is only about 30 feet more than 2K.

"K" is frequently used as an abbreviation for "thousand," but kilometer is "km."

I knew that Jeff, but thanks for clearing that up for others.

2K or not 2K, that is the question...

^ 2-chez!