gladwell on big cars and small cars

I remember having written somewhere that I wasn't completely impressed by Malcolm Gladwell and his "Blink"...

But this weblog entry of his is excellently researched, thought out and presented...

Gladwell talks about the S.U.V. culture in the US and of its whys and whats...

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ!!

Click here for the full article (Will open in new window)..

Here's an excerpt...

In Europe and Japan, people think of a safe car as a nimble car. That's why they build cars like the Jetta and the Camry, which are designed to carry out the driver's wishes as directly and efficiently as possible. In the Jetta, the engine is clearly audible. The steering is light and precise. The brakes are crisp. The wheelbase is short enough that the car picks up the undulations of the road. The car is so small and close to the ground, and so dwarfed by other cars on the road, that an intelligent driver is constantly reminded of the necessity of driving safely and defensively. An S.U.V. embodies the opposite logic. The driver is seated as high and far from the road as possible. The vehicle is designed to overcome its environment, not to respond to it. Even four-wheel drive, seemingly the most beneficial feature of the S.U.V., serves to reinforce this isolation. Having the engine provide power to all four wheels, safety experts point out, does nothing to improve braking, although many S.U.V. owners erroneously believe this to be the case. Nor does the feature necessarily make it safer to turn across a slippery surface: that is largely a function of how much friction is generated by the vehicle's tires. All it really does is improve what engineers call tracking—that is, the ability to accelerate without slipping in perilous conditions or in deep snow or mud. Champion says that one of the occasions when he came closest to death was a snowy day, many years ago, just after he had bought a new Range Rover. "Everyone around me was slipping, and I was thinking, Yeahhh. And I came to a stop sign on a major road, and I was driving probably twice as fast as I should have been, because I could. I had traction. But I also weighed probably twice as much as most cars. And I still had only four brakes and four tires on the road. I slid right across a four-lane road. " Four-wheel drive robs the driver of feedback. "The car driver whose wheels spin once or twice while backing out of the driveway knows that the road is slippery," Bradsher writes. "The SUV driver who navigates the driveway and street without difficulty until she tries to brake may not find out that the road is slippery until it is too late. " Jettas are safe because they make their drivers feel unsafe. S.U.V.s are unsafe because they make their drivers feel safe. That feeling of safety isn't the solution; it's the problem.

bush and blair are liars....

there.. i've gone and said it!!!

like MILLIONS of other souls... but of course, it ain't gonna make a difference, is it?

Remember the "Downing Street Memo"? I wrote about it last year..
http://www.anujpradhan.com/2005/05/downing-street-memo.php

Well, now there's this new memo from a closed door meeting between Blair and Bush in the Oval Office on Jan 31st, 2003. (about 6 weeks before Bush attacked Iraq).

And the memo says, VERY GODDAMN clearly, that Bush and Blair knew there were no WMDs and knew they were going to attack Iraq, regardless of whether they were able to get a UN resolution or not..

The New York Times has covered this very welll.. Click Here For Story (You'll need an account - the account is free and well worth it) (Will open in new window)

So, please read and be informed and tell your friends and the stupid ignorant ones who still think that Bush was justified in attacking Iraq and that Iraq/Saddam had something to do with 9/11. And while you're explaining that to your friend, you might also want to bring up the issue of Osama Bin Laden, who seems to have disappeared from the hit list of the Bush Administration.. they've given up? Wasn't he the mastermind?

Anyway... ya, that's the story. Yet another memo leaked that proves that the world has been lied to by the leaders of two of the most powerful, influential and important nations.. And we can do nothing about it. AND... THE CHERRY ON THE ICING ON THE CAKE... Both the liars even got re-elected!!!

hello.. all y'all

I know I really haven't been posting much.
Apologies..

And thanks to everyone, friends and strangers for their kind comments etc.... I do read them and do feel thrilled to get comments or posts on my shoutbox..

BUT.. I am not necessarily going to reply to each comment/message left on my weblog OK? :)... if you really want me to reply, please send me an email.. you know the address!!!

Anyway, this particular post is especially for all the people i know and love all over!! It's great knowing that y'all are there! :)

I'll post more soon. Lets see... Pictures from snowboarding maybe.. my comments on the brilliant Sopranos new season.. maybe pictures from the maple sugar shack place.. and since you all liked the newspaper pictures so much, maybe a scan of the earlier newspaper article that you guys haven't seen yet!

Maybe a video of the TV spot!! :D.. hehe.. yup, it did happen!

BUT.. all that takes time.. and so it'll come up.. one of these days, keep checking back.

g'night for now.

In print...

Click on the pics for the larger images (will open in new windows).

News

From The Republican

Link to Story


Link To Pictures - Edit: Added this line later in the day.. :)

Computer aids driver's ed skills
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
By STAN FREEMAN
sfreeman@repub.com

AMHERST - A rite of passage endured by generations of teens, "Driver's Ed" may soon be headed into the shop for an overhaul.

Researchers at University of Massachusetts in Amherst found that novice drivers who used a computerized program to train them in recognizing risks on the road were much more likely than untrained drivers to look for those risks once they were on an actual road.

"This is the first time in the history of driver education that anyone has shown any effect of training on crash-related behaviors," said Donald L. Fisher, director of the university's Human Performance Laboratory and the lead researcher on the study that will be published in the journal Injury Prevention.

Young drivers are involved in a disproportionate share of fatal crashes. In fact, 16-year-old drivers have a fatal crash rate eight times that of drivers ages 45 to 64. Often, the cause of such crashes is a failure by novice drivers to scan the roadway for potential risks, such as a car coming out of a blind driveway, Fisher said.

While standard driver education teaches students the physical mechanics of driving a car, it does not seem to teach them to drive safely, he said. "There has been no study documenting the effectiveness of standard driver education in the reduction of crashes."

The study by Fisher, Anuj Pradhan and Alexander P. Pollatsek began with the training of novice drivers on a computer. They were shown still pictures of various driving situations, such as a truck parked so that it blocked a crosswalk, and then asked to use the cursor to mark areas of the scene where risks existed, such as where a pedestrian might walk into the path of the car. Mistakes sent them to explanatory screens and then they were shown new pictures.

Next, 12 drivers who had gone through the training as well as 12 drivers who had not were tested on a driving simulator and on actual roads in Amherst and Hadley to measure how well they identified risks. All wore equipment that tracked their eye movements so that the researchers could determine where they looked as they drove.

The study found that 70 percent of the trained drivers looked at places where there were risks on the road similar to those encountered in their training. Only 33 percent of the untrained drivers looked for those same risks. The study also found that 59 percent of the trained drivers looked at places on the road where risks existed that were not like those in their training. Among the untrained drivers, 39 percent looked for those same risks.

Fisher said, "For those scenarios that they were trained to recognize on the PC, the drivers did very good, but what was really surprising was how well they did in scenarios they were not trained for," indicating the training seemed to give them a general education to driving risks.

Despite the findings, traditional driver's education still has a place in training young drivers, he said.

"There is an important role schools can play. The drivers need to know the rules of the road and how to maneuver the vehicle. And during the time on the road, it's critical to have a driving instructor with the student. However, there is no doubt in my mind that driver education ought to include (computer) programs like this," Fisher said.

ho hum

here are some pictures from our lab move last year...
(might take a bit for the pics to load)
http://www.ecs.umass.edu/hpl/labmovepics/index.html

Sopranos Season 6 started today!! Which means one more hour of my life every week booked, for the next 3 months. I've been lookin forward to this for a long time now! :)

Grey's Anatomy is going downhill.. I'm going to stop watching it.

I realise over the weekend that I find it impossible to be productive without a real deadline. :(

Oh ya, I also moved my Google AdSense links to the top of this page, so please go ahead and click on the links and follow them.. :).
Same goes for Kalimpong.info

Would be nice if that'd pay for at least the webhosting.

Something to worry about

Very Important News Article!!

From the BBC.

Himalayan melting risk surveyed
By Navin Singh
BBC News, Kathmandu

A new weather station is expected to show the extent of warming in the Himalayas, one of the world's biggest deposits of ice and a key source of fresh water.

It has been installed on the longest Himalayan glacier, in the Everest region of Nepal.

There have been numerous reports of glacial retreats in the Himalayas over the years, but this weather station will be able to quantify changes to the local climate.

One part of it has been set up on the Nguzumpa Glacier to record solar radiation, relative humidity, air and soil temperature, wind speed and direction, and precipitation.

The other part has been placed in the river fed by the 35km-long glacier, to measure changes in flow caused by glacial melt.

Officials with Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Metrology will climb up the Cho Oyu Mountain to the Nguzumpa Glacier in March to collect data from the unmanned station.

"Once we get to see the figures in March, we will learn the extent of glacial retreat caused by global warming," said the department's chief glaciologist, Om Ratna Bajracharya.

Temperatures rising

Previous studies have shown temperatures in the Himalayas have been rising at a rate of 0.06C per year, fuelling fears that melting glaciers have been filling glacial lakes more rapidly.

There are 3,250 glaciers in the Nepalese Himalayas, and 2,315 of them contain glacial lakes that are increasing in size at varying rates.

"While we do know that there is a lot of glacier melting due to global warming, we still need to know the exact causes and dynamics of such melting," said Chandra Prasad Gurung, Nepal representative of the environmental group WWF which provided the weather station equipment.

"Therefore, having the weather station installed will help us understand more of the weather patterns and enable us to monitor the issue clearly."

Before the station, scientists either visited the glaciers themselves or studied satellite images to see any changes.

Most of the scientific reports have shown that glacial retreat and increases in lake size are occurring at a rapid rate.

Between 1970 and 1989, Japanese researchers discovered most glaciers in the Everest region had retreated 30-60m (100-200ft). To the west, in the Dhaulagiri region, field studies carried out before 1994 showed the same trend.

Nepal's most studied glacier in Tsorong Himal underwent a 10m (33ft) retreat between 1978 and 1989.

However, the Himalayan glacial system is not the only one under threat.

The World Glacier Monitoring Service, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), collated records from across the globe and concluded that 30 major glaciers - assessed as being a representative global sample - had thinned by an average of 6m (20ft) between 1980 and 2001.

Flooding lakes

Two years ago Unep and the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development found that 20 glacial lakes in Nepal and 24 in Bhutan were filling up so rapidly that their walls could breach by 2009.

The report was based on satellite images, but there have been no follow-up studies even though glaciologists have called for urgent further investigation.

Their worries are triggered by both the short- and long-term problems that retreating glaciers can pose.

A short-term problem is Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (Glof), the result of shrinking glaciers and melting ice that causes lakes to grow and breach loose moraine walls, sending huge floods of water, mud and boulders downstream.

In 1985 a glacial lake burst in Khumbu in the Everest region, killing at least 20 people and washing away a hydropower station, the trekking trail to Everest base camp and numerous bridges.

Researchers say the worst-case scenario would be a major Himalayan earthquake, which could cause dozens of glacial lakes to burst simultaneously.

In Peru, experts say about 30,000 people have died in Glof-related incidents.

In the long-term, computer simulations suggest that global warming will affect the flow of Himalayan rivers over the 21st Century.

They indicate spring flow in these rivers will increase over the next five decades, but the time will come when there will be so little snow in the Himalayas that the rivers could run dry in the dry season.

"In some rivers, the flow may go down by as much as 90%," said hydrologist Syed Iqbal Hosnain, of the University of Calicut, India, who modelled what would happen in snow-fed regional rivers.

But the depletion in water level in Himalayan rivers will not just affect the lives of people in the mountains, but also the hundreds of millions of people who live downstream.

Nearly 70% of discharge to the River Ganges comes from Nepalese snow-fed rivers, which means that if Himalayan glaciers dry up, so could the Ganges.

This could also apply to other major rivers in South Asia like the Brahmaputra and Indus, the lifelines for millions.

Please read and control your greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank You

microsoft designs the ipod package..

hehe... funneee

and bowling goes on...

t'was Raz'z b'day yesterday..

here are the usual rowdies at bowling.. :D..

If a Jimmy Buffet fan is known as a parrot head... who would be a parrot tail I wonder?

phonecam pic.. not so good!



read all about it here at Steph's page.