Random Randomness.

[smr-nj]

26 minutes ago, Toddwert said:

looks like a good time 

Eerily reminiscent of freshman year in college.

[chasfh]

Left turn lane, 2023.

[Mr.TaterSalad]

3 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Leaving radio on your own terms is a rarity.    I loved how honest he was about his weirdness. 

But maybe he's not your cup of tea, but let me tell you a Stoney story. 

When WDFN update person Sabrina Black, who was a friend of mine, got really sick, with leukemia, the fine folks at Clear Channel decided to fire her for missing so much time.   Chemo and hospital stays will do that.   Steve Black's (St. Steven of Clawson) insurance was already maxed out.     Stoney and Wojo went to management and told them whatever her salary was, take it equally out of their pay to cover it so she can keep her job and her insurance.   So if you don't like him on the air - always remember that about him.  She passed away with one less worry.   Talk about a Mensch

That's an incredible gesture by both Stoney and Wojo to do that. Damn, what a gracious thing to do. **** Cheap Channel for firing her though when she was dying of cancer.

[Motor City Sonics]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

Left turn lane, 2023.

Royal Oak?   

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Royal Oak?   

The only Fullerton I know locally is in Detroit - runs parallel to Plymouth road but nowhere on that road could be this pic  - so .... considering the source.....near the corner of Fullerton and Clybourne in Chicago not far from Lincoln Park? Block # is right, PNC Bank is there but doesn't match quite right though.......

Edited August 24, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

The only Fullerton I know locally is in Detroit - runs parallel to Plymouth road but nowhere on that road could be this pic  - so .... considering the source.....near the corner of Fullerton and Clybourne in Chicago not far from Lincoln Park? Block # is right, PNC Bank is there but doesn't match quite right though.......

Western Ave. It was yesterday.

[Motor City Sonics]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Western Ave. It was yesterday.

Chicago? 

[casimir]

11 hours ago, chasfh said:

I understand the theory that "bicycles are vehicles, too" and "share the road" and yada, yada, yada.

I also understand the reality that there are idiots behind the wheel and my Schwinn & helmet ain't no match for an idiot behind the wheel.  Therefore, I'll just stay off of the roads as much as possible, thank you.

[Biff Mayhem]

9 minutes ago, casimir said:

I understand the theory that "bicycles are vehicles, too" and "share the road" and yada, yada, yada.

I also understand the reality that there are idiots behind the wheel and my Schwinn & helmet ain't no match for an idiot behind the wheel.  Therefore, I'll just stay off of the roads as much as possible, thank you.

Yes. If there is a sidewalk, I'm riding on it. If a cop wants to write me a ticket for it, okay. I think most, if not all, of these bicyclists who are so adamant about riding on very busy roads do so out of arrogance. I get it that it's legal and they have the right to do so; I just think they're douchebags. All of them. Especially the guys dressed in the multicolored bike attire. Even frat guy and softball guy calls bicycle guy a douche.

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, casimir said:

I understand the theory that "bicycles are vehicles, too" and "share the road" and yada, yada, yada.

I also understand the reality that there are idiots behind the wheel and my Schwinn & helmet ain't no match for an idiot behind the wheel.  Therefore, I'll just stay off of the roads as much as possible, thank you.

Exactly. Our brilliant city leaders have decreed that Ann Arbor must be bicycle friendly, but the pols  don't seem to have a clue that physics don't care about whatever ordinances and road marking ideas they decide to put down. They are on one hand providing spaces for bicycles while busily making it more dangerous for them with the other.

The problem is you have two kinds of cyclists. There are people like me, who want nothing more than to stay as far away from cars as possible when riding (and I'm probably over 20K miles as a cyclist), and you have those whose main goal in life to assert their political rights on the road. I find the 2nd group to be mostly outright crazy, basically organ donors in the waiting. But those are the folks that do most of the policy agitating, and IMO their views lead to a lot of very unsafe road design decisions. 

For instance, it's Quixotic at best to mandate cyclist's right of way in places where drivers can't see them, yet we now have a bunch of those situations in downtown.

Edited August 24, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Motor City Sonics]

11 minutes ago, casimir said:

I understand the theory that "bicycles are vehicles, too" and "share the road" and yada, yada, yada.

I also understand the reality that there are idiots behind the wheel and my Schwinn & helmet ain't no match for an idiot behind the wheel.  Therefore, I'll just stay off of the roads as much as possible, thank you.

Every single day, without fail, when I go home - Eastbound on 94 in Ann Arbor.........someone in the left lane has to cut across traffic to exit on 23 because they were in the left lane, probably on their phone, and not paying attention and it just completely screws up traffic.   Last Friday a woman stopped in the left lane.   Stopped.  On a Freeway.   Signaling to other drivers that she needed to get over.    First of all it wasn't going to happen, there was too much traffic in the right lane and nobody was going to stop to let her through, and secondly - she had already passed the point where she could exit - meaning she'd have to drive several feet in the wrong direction to get around the wall to the exit.   Maybe it's still on my dash cam.      A sane person would realize their mistake and just go to the next exit and turn around.       To me, anyone who ride a bike or a motorcycle without a helmet has a death wish.  They may be the safest and best rider of all time, but I am guessing that roughly 35-40% of the people on the freeway are not looking up most of the time, they are glued to their phone.    Self-driving cars can't get here fast enough.     But you know what will happen.  Every time one of those cars has an accident people are going to flip, when the human rate of accidents will probably be 20 times higher. 

 

[Motor City Sonics]

5 minutes ago, Biff Mayhem said:

Yes. If there is a sidewalk, I'm riding on it. If a cop wants to write me a ticket for it, okay. I think most, if not all, of these bicyclists who are so adamant about riding on very busy roads do so out of arrogance. I get it that it's legal and they have the right to do so; I just think they're douchebags. All of them. Especially the guys dressed in the multicolored bike attire. Even frat guy and softball guy calls bicycle guy a douche.

Bike riders in Detroit will often blow through stop signs and red lights and they lose their **** when you almost hit them, when all you're doing is following the rules of the road.   If you're on wheels, the laws apply to you too.   Bike, motorcycle, scooter, wheelchair........same rules apply.     I think a lot of bike riders are big d-bags too.  

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Self-driving cars can't get here fast enough.

what will happen when/if more self driving cars arrive is that people won't do the needed regular maintenance and calibration of the sensor suites and you will end up with 10% lethal vehicles out there. That's the reality on the engineering end. Airplanes use autopilots (in an orders of magnitude simpler environment) and they spend more on instrument maintenance per plane in a year than any one pays for a car.

[chasfh]

58 minutes ago, Biff Mayhem said:

Yes. If there is a sidewalk, I'm riding on it. If a cop wants to write me a ticket for it, okay. I think most, if not all, of these bicyclists who are so adamant about riding on very busy roads do so out of arrogance. I get it that it's legal and they have the right to do so; I just think they're douchebags. All of them. Especially the guys dressed in the multicolored bike attire. Even frat guy and softball guy calls bicycle guy a douche.

I grew up in suburban Detroit riding bikes on the sidewalks. Everybody did. It would have been insane to ride a bike right on 12 Mile Road or Van Dyke. The difference here is that there are people everywhere which is way they ban bikes on sidewalks. It’s a walking town. No one walks on sidewalks in metro Detroit. It’s a driving town.

They’ve done a really good job in this town of marking off bike lanes separated from the driving lanes, some of them by permanent pylons and even parking lot blocks but they haven’t done that to Western yet, probably because it’s a suburban-sized artery with four driving lanes and a permanent middle lane, along with parking lanes on either side. There’s just not enough room. People who ride bikes or scooters on that street are nuts.

[oblong]

There was a large event going on at Comerica Park and also at the other venues.... so Cass from the Masonic all the way down to Grand River was pretty congested between 6 and 7 pm with cars looking for parking and pedestrians walking... and these two cyclists were there plowing through everyone, they think they have right of way over pedestrians.  Even auto drivers were cautious.  Not these cyclists.  I'm like "Ok, you want to ride.... can't you go a few blocks over if you want to go north or south from midtown to downtown?   Like avoid the people and cars?

[casimir]

I was in Boston this summer, north of the proper and in downtown.  They had specific and dedicated bike lines along the road which were cordoned off by physical barriers in some spots and mere painted lines in other spots.  The physical barriers, ok, I might be fine with that.  But paint?  Nah, not for me.

Now, granted, I use the bike for fresh air and exercise.  I'm fortunate enough to have a bike trail that rolls through my neighborhood, and even more fortunate that it connects to metro parks in either direction.  I don't have to rely on it out of necessity (say work or school).

[casimir]

3 hours ago, Biff Mayhem said:

Yes. If there is a sidewalk, I'm riding on it. If a cop wants to write me a ticket for it, okay. I think most, if not all, of these bicyclists who are so adamant about riding on very busy roads do so out of arrogance. I get it that it's legal and they have the right to do so; I just think they're douchebags. All of them. Especially the guys dressed in the multicolored bike attire. Even frat guy and softball guy calls bicycle guy a douche.

Yeah, so, the bike trail that runs through my 'hood is less than a 1/4 off of a decently used two lane road.  Guess wear you'll find some of the spandex wearers.

And just for the record, yes I wear a helmet and no I do not wear spandex.

[Motor City Sonics]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

what will happen when/if more self driving cars arrive is that people won't do the needed regular maintenance and calibration of the sensor suites and you will end up with 10% lethal vehicles out there. That's the reality on the engineering end. Airplanes use autopilots (in an orders of magnitude simpler environment) and they spend more on instrument maintenance per plane in a year than any one pays for a car.

what will happen is instead of 20 times fewer accidents than humans it will be 18 times fewer accidents.  

Plus, remember,  Americans (and humans in general) are getting dumber. 

Saw a clip of Channel 7 News from Nov. 3, 1975.   There was a story about a judge who committed perjury.   They asked "the man on the street" and the answers given were clear, well-thought and measured.     I compare that to today and it made me really sad and angry.   I bet that 40% of the population doesn't know what the word perjury means now.   But they can probably tell you who's on Dancing With The Stars this season.   

 

 

[djhutch]

17 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

what will happen is instead of 20 times fewer accidents than humans it will be 18 times fewer accidents.  

Plus, remember,  Americans (and humans in general) are getting dumber. 

Saw a clip of Channel 7 News from Nov. 3, 1975.   There was a story about a judge who committed perjury.   They asked "the man on the street" and the answers given were clear, well-thought and measured.     I compare that to today and it made me really sad and angry.   I bet that 40% of the population doesn't know what the word perjury means now.   But they can probably tell you who's on Dancing With The Stars this season.   

 

 

Not only the man-on-the-street interviews, but the amount of time the news dedicated to the story, covering all the avenues, and even the lack of a chop job on the answers to questions.  Man do I miss news like that.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, djhutch said:

Not only the man-on-the-street interviews, but the amount of time the news dedicated to the story, covering all the avenues, and even the lack of a chop job on the answers to questions.  Man do I miss news like that.

I won't come back though - it's obsolete. The problem is the audience that created the demand that kind of quality news has left live television for other news sources and is never likely to go back.

[Motor City Sonics]

Are you a turtle? 

[Motor City Sonics]

3 hours ago, djhutch said:

Not only the man-on-the-street interviews, but the amount of time the news dedicated to the story, covering all the avenues, and even the lack of a chop job on the answers to questions.  Man do I miss news like that.

and no BREAKING NEWS sounder.     Some News Directors have been fired by Corporate for not using BREAKING NEWS almost every newscast, whether the story warranted it or not.     Ann Arbor Schools firing their Superintendent, to me, is not BREAKING NEWS (whooooshhh)

[CMRivdogs]

2 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Are you a turtle? 

YBYSA I am

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I won't come back though - it's obsolete. The problem is the audience that created the demand that kind of quality news has left live television for other news sources and is never likely to go back.

Everybody is a man-on-the-street all the time these days. This forum is lousy with men-on-the-street.

[gehringer_2]

40 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Everybody is a man-on-the-street all the time these days. This forum is lousy with men-on-the-street.

well, for your information, I for one, am firmly ensconced in a Lazy-Boy which is most definitely not in any public thoroughfare.