semi random yikes

[iftsiga]

"Exxon Mobil prohibits its employees from talking on the phone while driving company cars. It did so after conducting a study finding that the braking reaction time of phone drivers is three times longer than that of drunk drivers. ExxonMobil researchers also found that phone drivers are as likely to rear-end the car ahead as drunks, and that they are unable to maintain position in their lane. As with all other studies, Exxon Mobil found that it makes no difference whether the driver uses a hands-free phone."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9443-2005Feb8.html
http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/cellphones/

+So: phone OR drive.

Much as I hate cell phones, I'd like to see more people taking buses or trains or bikes or rickshaws or one-horse open sleighs, ideally. I am still wondering whether an item seen a few days ago about SUV drivers torching their gas-guzzlers for the insurance was true (or significant).

Today I am wondering how one goes about finding out if biodiesel/SVO fuel requires more or less energy to produce than fuel alcohol (the most efficient to produce sort. Is it butanol?). The main complaint against fuel alcohol seems to be "but we'd have to take some crops [or old corn cobs] currently fed to livestock and make that into fuel!" How about drive less and stop sticking cow chunks into your faces. The phrase "livestock overpopulation" pops into mind.

I am curmudgeonly today.

Comments

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

And thats why its illegal over here. Oh, no, sorry, its illegal because the "nanny state" likes to piss everyone off, like that smoking ban thing.
Aparently, people falling asleep at the wheel account for as many accidents as drunk drivers, and the main cause of falling alseep at the wheel is Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (or whatever its US name is). And the main cause of Sleep Apnoea is...?

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

face marmots?

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

No, thats the main cause of Marmotitis, a particularly virulent variety of gopher pox.
Its actually "being overweight".

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

I was actually going to guess smoking. Someone on queerportland has been preaching about it being the leading cause of deaths of gays...umlbtq.

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

What, Marmotitis? I thought the gays all died of suicide and AIDS?

incidentally

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

I'm increasingly skeptical when professional articles about overweight persist in defining it by BMI. Body mass is higher if you are musclier, damn it. I also get really angry with women's charts and "test your body fat percentage" websites that tell ME to get on a reducing plan. My weight and 5'10", say, is a supermodel being fed speed and coke, not a healthy body ideal.

There is, although a correllation with many diseases, not necessarily a proven cause by "fat" (within reason) alone. Someone can be padded and yet cardiovascularly healthy. I'd very much like it if anyone was actually viewing things from an angle of what's genuinely most healthy and discarding their personal fetishes or culturally-instilled beauty standards.

Re: incidentally

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

Diet Coke, surely?
All those sorts of newspaper pieces are not science, or news, but Marketing. The only cure is to go out and spend more.
The kind of people who get sleep apnoea from weight are unmistakably an unhealthy size. Its not a BMI thing, or an ideal body shape thing, its being unable to ever get a good nights sleep because your lungs cannot function optimally when lying down.

[squamous.livejournal.com]

More and more it seems to me like most people are barely cautious drivers to begin with. Doesn't really surprise me that the addition of a phone call makes things even worse. I am part of the problem though since I typically will answer my phone if it rings while I am driving. I try to keep the call short though....

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

Keeping it short is better than most people do.

I think the core problem, phones or no, is that we're putting basically monkeys in control of heavy machinery.

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

I thought we were supposed to be putting monkeys in charge of a million typewriters so they could produce the complete works of Shakespeare (eventually)?

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

I believe "I will call you back when I'm not driving" shouldn't be taken as offensive if one even picks up a ringing phone while operating a vehicle.

Most people probably shouldn't be driving. I see them on the road and I see them with their shopping carts and they seem to think they're both handy instruments for bullying and most people just should not be driving at all.

[squamous.livejournal.com]

Apes, please. We prefer to be called apes. :)

[xauenmurph.livejournal.com]

Ms. Damn Dirty Ape has a kind of ring to it.

[simmeringhatred.livejournal.com]

Speaking of curmudgeon and alternative energy, there is a piece in this weeks Private Eye pseuds corner about an Australian who runs his motorbike off the gas from his colostomy bag, and takes extra beef jerky along in case of traffic jams.