2013-09-20

People Can't Drive, A Continuing Series

I find it fascinating that this:


...appears the same day that this article does:
Executing the "zipper" merge. Road work often reduces two lanes of traffic down to one. In these situations, American drivers typically merge into the right lane as soon as possible and form one long line. The main reason they do this is because people think it's bad behavior to stay in the left lane and merge late.

In fact, says Vanderbilt, traffic would be much better off if cars stayed in both lanes then merged at the very end, one by one, like a zipper. It's safer (fewer lane changes), it reduces back-ups (often up to 40 percent), and it quenches road rage (still on the rise).

The zipper merge is used in Germany but can't overcome its bad reputation in the United States. A trial in Minnesota failed because drivers wouldn't stay to the left. They were too nice.
Personally, I usually stay in the vanishing lane and drive right up to where it ends, then sit there and wait for someone to let me in.  Someone always does.  Besides, what other purpose would having that lane open to that point serve?  If one was only supposed to drive in a lane that wasn't going to end/exit, the entire highway would be one lane.

Learn to drive, people.

2013-09-17

Review: Riddick

Cheap night, best of a bunch of bad offerings, but I think I still overpaid. The machinations to get him out of the end of the previous one were a bit contrived, the entire pre-station piece is more of an introduction or prelude. After that it settles down to Riddick-being-Riddick set in a world of implausibly horrific monsters. The previous one was better, although one starts to suspect that it had a lot of other moving parts around the core Riddick-being-Riddick and the end result was an accident.

2013-09-12

In which we go to Moho.

Yeah, G+.  But what are you going to do?

2013-09-07

Review: Star Trek - Into Darkness

This movie was easily the worst move I have seen this week. And that's considering that I watched The A-Team this week.

2013-09-05

Review: The A-Team

A terrible movie, redeemed somewhat by the fact that nobody expected it to be anything but a terrible movie.

Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean -- On Stranger Tides

After typing in that long a title, I think it needs a longer review than the "That. Was. Terrible." reaction that I had when it was finished, and this it that longer review.

2013-09-01

Review: Oblivion

I liked it but I'm honestly not sure why.

There were problems with the way the drones worked and the mechanics of the broken moon. But I liked it, even if the end was perhaps a little lower key than we might otherwise expect.

(Update: I paid to own it in HD, so I must like it.)