The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXVIII

[Borachio]

20 km/hr is a bit slow. 20 mph seems a reasonable figure for residential areas though.

Collide with pedestrians at 40 mph and only 10% of them survive. At 20 mph, only 10% are killed.

(Or something like that, I heard.)

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html

Still, that's the "kill speed" lobby. A bunch of kill-joys, the lot of them. They're the sort that hoot angrily at me when I overtake them at high speed.

I like to grin maniacally back as I go sliding past them, sideways, on an icy road. Giving a cheery wave as I go.

 

[GinandTonic]

Why should people slow down to 15 mph for a roundabout? Generally the point is that you have to slow down less than at an ungoverned junction.

Approach the junction at a speed where it is possible to stop. Look at the single point you have to give way to. Get back on the gas. This is clearly faster than approaching the junction at a speed where it is possible to stop and checking several points that may contain hazards progressing.

 

[Borachio]

Wow! I wouldn't drive that way! I'd be checking every vehicle I can see (including any behind me), working out what it's likely to do.

I've seen people do some very strange things.

I've even seen people come the wrong way round roundabouts. I'm not going to be relying on them not doing so.

It really takes just milliseconds to check all possible points at an intersection.

 

[warpus]

Well, residential neighborhoods here have started using them as traffic control mechanisms, replacing intersections that would otherwise be 2-way yields with 4-way traffic circles, since the NIMBY crowd doesn't want anyone driving over 20 km/h in their neighborhoods.

I've seen a couple of these in Kitchener - and they seem to work well enough. According to my brother in law anyway - who is a good driver.

 

[Zelig]

20 km/hr is a bit slow. 20 mph seems a reasonable figure for residential areas though.

250 furlongs per hour or 215 leagues per day is also reasonable. What's your point?

Collide with pedestrians at 40 mph and only 10% of them survive. At 20 mph, only 10% are killed.

(Or something like that, I heard.)

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/killspeed.html

Still, that's the "kill speed" lobby. A bunch of kill-joys, the lot of them. They're the sort that hoot angrily at me when I overtake them at high speed.

I like to grin maniacally back as I go sliding past them, sideways, on an icy road. Giving a cheery wave as I go.

So implement lower speed limits for people who drive cars that are more dangerous to pedestrians. Why should I have to drive as slowly as them when I did the pedestrian-responsible thing and bought a car that's less harmful to pedestrians in the case of collisions?

Why should people slow down to 15 mph for a roundabout? Generally the point is that you have to slow down less than at an ungoverned junction.

Previously, the intersection would have no markings in the E-W direction, and yields in the N-S directions. E-W (where 90% of the traffic is) can drive 50 without slowing down, and N-S yields/stops as appropriate. Put in a traffic circle, and everyone going E-W has to dodge the traffic circle, which they can't do at 50 since it's such a tight turn.

I've seen a couple of these in Kitchener - and they seem to work well enough. According to my brother in law anyway - who is a good driver.

Yes, they do work really at slowing traffic to unreasonable speeds. They're placed on intersections where 90% of the (light) traffic is across one direction, so they're taking a road where you should be able to drive just fine at 50 and making you dodge all the concrete islands at 20 instead.

 

[Borachio]

250 furlongs per hour or 215 leagues per day is also reasonable. What's your point?

The point was you seem to be complaining that 20 kph limits were being engineered unreasonably into residential areas.

I was agreeing that 20 kph does seem a little too slow and I went onto to muse that 20 mph was a good compromise between 20 kph (too slow) and the present (mostly where I am) 30 mph (slightly too fast).

And then I went on to consider the correlation between speed of impact and injury.

But if you're demanding I come to some kind of profound cosmological significant philosophical conclusion on this issue, I fear you'll be disappointed.

So implement lower speed limits for people who drive cars that are more dangerous to pedestrians. Why should I have to drive as slowly as them when I did the pedestrian-responsible thing and bought a car that's less harmful to pedestrians in the case of collisions?

Yeah, why not?

Previously, the intersection would have no markings in the E-W direction, and yields in the N-S directions. E-W (where 90% of the traffic is) can drive 50 without slowing down, and N-S yields/stops as appropriate. Put in a traffic circle, and everyone going E-W has to dodge the traffic circle, which they can't do at 50 since it's such a tight turn.



Yes, they do work really at slowing traffic to unreasonable speeds. They're placed on intersections where 90% of the (light) traffic is across one direction, so they're taking a road where you should be able to drive just fine at 50 and making you dodge all the concrete islands at 20 instead.

Roundabouts are plainly not suitable for every single intersection. And some roundabouts are plainly poorly situated and designed.

If you make a roundabout big enough, though, you can negotiate it at any speed you choose. Subject to suitability.

 

[Zelig]

But if you're demanding I come to some kind of profound cosmological significant philosophical conclusion on this issue, I fear you'll be disappointed.

No, I'm just opposed to esoteric units of measure.

Yeah, why not?

Why not limit speeds to 10 km/h on every road at any time? That would pretty much completely eliminate pedestrian deaths.

Roundabouts are plainly not suitable for every single intersection. And some roundabouts are plainly poorly situated and designed.

If you make a roundabout big enough, though, you can negotiate it at any speed you choose. Subject to suitability.

Yes, and my complaint is specifically with roundabouts that are simply the size of a regular intersection with a concrete island in the middle, in locations where the vast majority of the traffic is in a single direction.

 

[GinandTonic]

That's where a painted roundabout should be used. All it really changes is the priority. It makes it possible for drivers to turn across traffic in the rush hour but, with suitable sight lines, through traffic to keep going when there is no other traffic. Also good design would be to put only a few painted roundabouts on an arterial road - just enough to allow local traffic to turn access the arterial road in heavy traffic.

Obviously painted roundabouts can only be used where the drivers can be trusted to respect the right of way, otherwise lots of people will die.

 

[Borachio]

No, I'm just opposed to esoteric units of measure.

I'll take that as a humorous quip, I think.

I just mentioned 20 mph as a convenient round number but a bit faster than 20 kph. And tied it into research from the oohdearmeisn'tspeeddangerous?.org, but if you can't handle mph then choose the figures and units that suit you. It really makes no difference to me.

Why not limit speeds to 10 km/h on every road at any time? That would pretty much completely eliminate pedestrian deaths.

It would. And I'd be all in favour. But I think it might be a more sensible precaution to have a man (or woman) walking with a red flag, and blowing a whistle constantly, in front of every vehicle.

Yes, and my complaint is specifically with roundabouts that are simply the size of a regular intersection with a concrete island in the middle, in locations where the vast majority of the traffic is in a single direction.

Yup, painted donuts are the way forward for you, my friend.

 

[Borachio]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=540972

What is this, please? Is it an example of schizophrenia, or something else?

Generally schizophrenics have some kind of internal logic to them, but I can't seem to decipher much of anything.

Still, I'm not acquainted with Beyond Earth. Maybe it does all make some kind of sense.

 

[gay_Aleks]

This is an example of spambot.

 

[warpus]

Every once in a while when somebody pronounces the word "height", it sounds wrong to me. WAY wrong. What I mean by that is that I hear a distinct 'h' sound in there, before the 't'.

This is how I pronounce the word "height" - HI (as in the greeting) T (as in the first sound in the word TO)... HI-T

it's almost as if some people are trying to pronounce every single letter in the word.. HEI-GH-T

It comes out really weird and I always do a double take.

Are there English dialects in the world where this pronunciation of height occurs? Who here doesn't pronounce it as just HI-T ? Am I just hearing things? Are people just getting confused by the H? What's going on?

 

[Civ'ed]

Where does the Polka come from? I've always assumed Poland, but...

 

[warpus]

I believe it's Czech.

 

[Phrossack]

Every once in a while when somebody pronounces the word "height", it sounds wrong to me. WAY wrong. What I mean by that is that I hear a distinct 'h' sound in there, before the 't'.

This is how I pronounce the word "height" - HI (as in the greeting) T (as in the first sound in the word TO)... HI-T

it's almost as if some people are trying to pronounce every single letter in the word.. HEI-GH-T

It comes out really weird and I always do a double take.

Are there English dialects in the world where this pronunciation of height occurs? Who here doesn't pronounce it as just HI-T ? Am I just hearing things? Are people just getting confused by the H? What's going on?

I hear some people say it as "heightth." Like "length," they think it ends with a soft th sound.

They are Bad People.

 

[warpus]

I hear some people say it as "heightth." Like "length," they think it ends with a soft th sound.

They are Bad People.

That's EXACTLY the thing I hear.. and it bugs me.

I used to think maybe it's a British thing or something..

 

[Old Hippy]

I used to think maybe it's a British thing or something..

and you were right

Spoiler :

Heighth is no error

It is a misunderstanding that the spelling or pronunciation of heighth is an illiterate and uneducated error. Although many wrongly consider it such, history is not on their side, nor are the better dictionaries.

Despite how in particular over the last century the heighth spelling has come to be stigmatized, heighth is a perfectly legitimate word of ancient lineage. It was used not only by Shakespeare and Milton, but even by Charles Dickens, who wrote considerably later than the first two.

The spelling that is no longer used is hight, although it was once common. Interestingly, Shakespeare variously employed not only height and heighth but also hight, depending on the work:

•1591 Shaks. Two Gentlemen from Verona, ɪᴠ. iv. 169 — I know she is about my height.
•1594 Shaks. Richard III, ɪ. iii. 41 — I feare our happinesse is at the height.
•circa 1600 Shaks. Sonnet xxxii — Exceeded by the hight of happier men.
•1606 Shaks. Anthony & Cleopatra ɪɪɪ. x. 21 — Anthony..Leauing the Fight in heighth, flyes after her.
•1606 Shaks. Troilus & Cressida, ᴠ. i. 3 — Let vs Feast him to the hight.
•1613 Shaks. Henry VIII, ɪ. ii. 214 — By day and night Hee’s Traytor to th’ height.

Editions of Anthony & Cleopatra with normalized spellings now generally read:


The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
Claps on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard
Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.
I never saw an action of such shame.
Experience, manhood, honor, ne’er before
Did violate so itself.

The thing to understand, though, is that this is not some spelling that died out when the reign of Elizabeth I came to an end. It remained in use by writers of unimpeachable integrity up through the 19th century and sometimes even into the early 20th.

All three forms of the word — height, heighth, hight — were long used, but in truth, only the last of those has completely fallen away. For while the OED no longer admits hight as a modern spelling, it does present both height and heighth as admissible variants, with -th listed second. In its rather long etymology section on this word, it observes

i use them both 'hite', when in general conversation, heighth when talking with building profesionals but always spell it height

 

[Farm Boy]

Yea, I don't know if it's right or not but off the cuff it seems like I use both too.

 

[warpus]

That is incredibly interesting Graffito! And I guess that settles that.

I have another question: I have recently mocked the tradition of sending/giving christmas cards, on facebook. my dad saw the post and next thing you know my mom is calling me asking me what the hell I'm writing on facebook about christmas. I stuck to my guns and said that the practice achieves nothing, that it's a waste of paper, and that if somebody really wanted to convey a Christmas greeting to me, that they'd call me or come visit and say something original as opposed to going with a pre-written message by somebody else.

Anyway, I've thought about this, and I guess this tradition means a lot to my parents, even though it's a really stupid tradition. So I bought a christmas card that on the front says "Thinking of you Mother at Christmas .. As a child, I was awed by Christmas and all of the wonder the season brought" .. inside it says how amazing and magical christmas is and how she's responsible and how amazing of a mother she is. The card is all christmassy. The one for my dad says "For a wonderful father at christmas" and has equally "putting this guy up on a pedestal" type text inside.

It's very cringeworthy stuff, but also very sentimental and christmassy. And it was going to be a joke, but now I've realized that the cards are incredibly appropriate and actually will turn into a nice gesture. But once we start drinking I think we're going to laugh about it.. So .. my question is, what the hell do I write inside these cards? I have never even called my mom "Mother", what the hell..

 

[Takhisis]

a) They're a nice gesture.
b) Many, many people don't know how to write those words themselves.