ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
Under MUTCD § 4F.01 ¶ 03:
my expectation would be that if the next period is unprotected turning, it would flash yellow, and it does, but not before turning solid red for 1 second
This is the default under item F.6.
My preference would be for it to transition immediately from green to flashing yellow
This is permitted (not recommended or required) under item F.6.b.
If you feel like making a long shot, you can try asking your jurisdiction about this signal, citing these specific passages of the MUTCD in your complaint.
Steady and flashing signal indications shall be applied as follows:
(F) A steady YELLOW ARROW signal indication:
(6) Shall be terminated by a RED ARROW signal indication for the same direction or a CIRCULAR RED signal indication except:
(b) When the movement controlled by the arrow is to continue on a permissive mode basis during an immediately following signal phase, the display of a CIRCULAR GREEN signal indication or flashing YELLOW ARROW signal indication shall be permitted following a steady YELLOW ARROW signal indication. To provide a red clearance interval, it shall be permitted to display a steady left-turn RED ARROW signal indication immediately following the steady left-turn YELLOW ARROW signal indication.
turning left onto a one-way street
This is legal in some jurisdictions but not in others. NJ Statutes tit. 39 ch. 4 § 115:
The driver of a vehicle or the motorman of a streetcar:
(a) Intending to turn to the right or left at an intersection where traffic is controlled by traffic control signals or by a traffic or police officer, shall proceed to make either turn with proper care to avoid accidents and, except as provided in (b) below, only upon the "go" signal unless otherwise directed by a traffic or police officer, an official sign or special signal; or
(b) Intending to turn right at an intersection where traffic is controlled by a traffic control signal shall, unless an official sign of the State, municipality, or county authority having jurisdiction over the intersection prohibits the same, proceed to make the turn upon a "stop" or "caution" signal with proper care to avoid accidents after coming to a full stop, observing traffic in all directions, yielding to other vehicular traffic traveling in a direction in which the turn will be made, and stopping and remaining stopped for pedestrians crossing the roadway within a marked crosswalk, or at an unmarked crosswalk, into which the driver is turning.
Both the approach for and the turn shall be made as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway, unless such intersection is otherwise posted.
most drivers don't realize they can
And @gattsuru:
it's rare enough that a lot of motorists don't recognize it
Installing signs whose only purpose is reminding the motorist of something that he should already know is a bad practice. MUTCD § 2A.20:
Signs should be used and located judiciously, minimizing their proliferation in order to maintain their effectiveness. Regulatory and warning signs should be used conservatively because these signs, if used to excess, tend to lose their effectiveness. Route signs and directional guide signs for primary routes and destinations should be used frequently at strategic locations because their use promotes efficient operations by keeping road users informed of their location. In all cases, however, sign clutter should be avoided and minimized as much as practicable.
Sign clutter is the proliferation of sign installations or assemblies along the roadway or roadside, either separately or grouped, to such an extent that adequate spacing between installations necessary for orderly processing of the sign messages by the driver cannot be achieved. Sign clutter can reduce the effectiveness of one or more signs in a sequence of signs.
The basic role of traffic control devices is to provide only as much information to the road user as necessary to promote the safe and efficient operation of streets and highways. Sign clutter can result from the overuse of MUTCD-compliant signs and or signs that display information unrelated to traffic operation, navigation, or transportation information. Examples of such signs would include, but are not limited to, those displaying the birthplace or home of a noted person, local sports team accomplishments, population information, and self-described qualities of a community such as “friendly” or “open for business”.
Rather than installing superfluous signs, the jurisdiction should conduct an education campaign (e. g., through billboards or mass mailing if television/radio/YouTube advertisements will not achieve the desired penetration).
when the project was complete he drove down there to take a look and said that whatever other problems there were with the plan they got the signs wrong
LOL. Just a few weeks ago I myself sent to PennDOT a complaint about some signs that were blatantly wrong. Multiple signs all said "left lane ends, merge right", but in reality the right lane ended and motorists had to merge left! And I drove past these signs for many months before I got around to making the complaint. I imagine the lawsuit resulting from a crash at that location would be legendary. (No standards compliance? No design immunity!)
he thought that the MUTCD should adopt something similar
MUTCD-compliant signs serving this purpose already exist.
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R3-1: "trucks over XX tons no right turn"
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R5-2: "no trucks"
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R12 series: "weight limit XX tons", "axle weight limit XX tons", "weight limit 2 axles XX T, 3 axles YY T, 4 axles ZZ T", etc.
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W8 series: "pavement ends", "loose gravel", "rough road", etc.
Presumably the municipal governments are just too incompetent to install them (and pass ordinances backing up the R (regulatory) signs).
The use of a flashing yellow arrow to indicate a permissive left turn was approved by the feds on an experimental basis in 2006 (Interim Approval 10) and on a permanent basis in 2009 (in the previous edition of the MUTCD). But adding an extra yellow arrow to a signal is a lot of money to spend, just to remind motorists of the default rule that they should be following anyway (on a green circle when neither a green arrow nor a "no left turn" sign is present).
Reminder: TVTropes is censored (1 2). An alternative is AllTheTropes.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
9hr ago
Flashback to when @ZorbaTHut banned somebody for having a confusing username.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
11hr ago
Item 1 of 3
Are there any traffic-sign designs that annoy you? (For reference, the US uses the MUTCD (Manual on Uniform Traffic-Control Devices), while several dozen other countries use ECE/TRANS/196 (the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals) plus local standards (such as UKGBNI's Traffic Signs Manual).)
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MUTCD sign R10-12, "left turn yield on green 🟢": This is redundant! It should be "left turn yield on green circle" or "left turn yield on green ⬤" instead of "left turn yield on green [green circle]".
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MUTCD sign W4-2L/R, "left/right lane ends": On most US traffic signs (see, e. g., sign W4-3L/R, "added lane on left/right"), thin lines (around 1.5 or 2 inches on a 36-inch sign) represent both lane lines and road edges, while thick lines with arrowheads (around 4 or 5 inches) represent traffic movements. For many years, I have been utterly baffled by the decision to denote road edges with thick lines (without arrowheads) on this sign only. IMO, the unusual thickness of these lines, especially in conjunction with the thin line representing a lane line on the same sign, invites the motorist to misinterpret them as traffic movements rather than as road edges. (Compare UKGBNI diagram 871.2, "reduction in number of traffic lanes ahead", which on a 1260-mm (50-inch) sign uses thin lines (30 or 45 mm, 1.1 or 1.8 inches) for both lane lines and road edges and thick lines (80 mm, 3.1 inches) with arrowheads for traffic movements. See also the code chart's semi-official rendition of Unicode character ⛙, "white left lane merge", which uses thin lines for lane lines and thick lines for road edges.)
Item 2 of 3
Front-page news on Reddit: Microsoft Publisher, a program for laying out printed (or at least page-based) works, is being discontinued. Competitors include Adobe InDesign (1 2 3), QuarkXPress (1 2 3), and Scribus. (Microsoft recommends Word and PowerPoint as replacements.)
At present, HTML+CSS is focused on the layout of a single webpage that can be as tall as it needs to be (1 2), and is unable to deal with such items as page numbers and section titles in page headers, footnotes in page footers, and page-number references for intra-document links. CSS Generated Content, CSS Paged Media, and CSS Generated Content for Paged Media technically exist, but only in draft form, not ready for implementation. It's my understanding that these drafts are based largely on the work of companies that have developed their own nonstandard solutions for problems that standard CSS fails to address—e. g., Prince XML, Antenna House Formatter, and BFO Publisher—just as other CSS standards have been based on the nonstandard work of major browsers. In particular, the acknowledgements section for CSS GCPM specifically states: "This work would not be possible without the immense contributions of Håkon Wium Lie." Lie, the creator of CSS, has been the chairman of Prince XML's board since year 2004 (1 2).
Item 3 of 3
Front-page news in Nowheresville, USA: A lawyer is removed from a county courtroom after rejecting the judge's instruction that he wear a tie.
According to the transcript, [lawyer Travis] Petty argued privately to [Judge Gary] Norton that the tie requirement is a violation of equal protection.
"But I disagree," Norton said. "It has always been that way. It was never a violation of equal protection, it's not now—in my career. I witnessed Judge Keller have a lawyer leave the courtroom who was wearing a nice sweater and no tie. It has always been that way."
"Segregation was once a thing, Your Honor, too. We have evolved from that," Petty said. "I also assert my First Amendment rights to not wear a tie."
"Your honor, you can have the sheriff escort me out of the courtroom," Petty said.
The transcript shows Norton then apologized to Petty's clients, advising both to find an attorney who will comply with the rules of court, postpone the hearings until Petty would agree to appear wearing a tie, or represent themselves.
Both chose to proceed with their hearings without Petty or another attorney representing them.
"I stopped wearing a tie within the last six months," Petty said Wednesday. "It's time to take a stand for equality and justice."
But his decision not to wear a tie started out as something else.
Petty said he initially refused to wear a tie in [former judge Tony] McDonald's court because he disagreed with McDonald's appointment to the bench. McDonald was a judge for less than a year before he lost the seat to David James in an election last year.
In that year, McDonald also stopped court and asked Petty to wear a tie. Petty refused. McDonald said he chose not to ban Petty from the courtroom, and allowed the day's cases to be heard because he did not want to embarrass Petty.
"Fortunately, he lost the election before I had the opportunity to appear before him again," Petty said.
Neither man denies they dislike each other—and each questioned the other's professionalism during interviews Wednesday.
Petty said last week he appeared in court dressed similarly to Erin Cosoleto-Miller, an assistant district attorney. Both wore slacks, a collared shirt and dress shoes. As a woman, Cosoleto-Miller is not required to wear a tie, Petty noted.
And neither should he, Petty said.
"The court can't impose different roles for different genders," Petty said. "I respect that the court has the authority to control decorum, and a need to do that, but there are gender-neutral ways of achieving that result."
Petty said he argued that case to Norton in the hallway, but it fell on deaf ears.
"He said, 'This is the way it's always been done,'" Petty said. "I attempted to make a gender equality argument, but he shut it down and said he wasn't willing to entertain that type of argument."
He intends to file a motion requesting that Norton reconsider. If that fails, Petty said he will file an appeal to the state Superior Court and is willing to make his argument to the state and even federal Supreme Courts.
A few days later, the lawyer makes the front page again—he sues McDonald for allegedly defaming him in a Facebook post responding to the news.
In the lawsuit filed this week, which included the post as an exhibit, Petty emphasizes that McDonald described the PFA in the present tense, even though it was withdrawn some two months ago: "[McDonald] said that the plaintiff (Petty) HAS a PFA against him by his wife," and that Petty was "abusing his children and wife."
McDonald said Wednesday that Petty pointed out a female district attorney was not told to wear a tie. The then-judge told Petty he could wear a dress if he wanted, so long as he dressed professionally.
In the suit filed Tuesday, Petty says McDonald's Facebook post "alluded" to his being transgender by making mention of McDonald's giving Petty permission to wear a dress in court and offering to refer to him as "miss, they them."
Petty also takes issue with McDonald's claims Petty "smacked" him in the chest with files while the two spoke in the hallway outside the courtroom.
Petty said Wednesday he never touched McDonald, and such an action would be considered contempt of court or even a felony assault charge.
As for Petty's refusal to wear a tie, he has not yet filed his promised motion asking Judge Norton to reconsider the court order mandating that he wear one.
He said at least for now he is focusing on suing McDonald for defamation.
But he has found case law from New Jersey to support his case against neckwear. "A female attorney was thrown out of court for wearing pants," he said. "New Jersey Superior Court ruled that judges can't make a woman wear a skirt or dress. I just want non-gender specific rules to apply in court."
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
I think the standard argument is that saying "the government should have the same rights over its sovereign territory that you have over your personal property" proves too much.
In the ideal libertarian society, an individual, firm, or voluntary community would be free to forbid prostitution or gambling on its property, charge an annual fee for use of its property, do very nearly all of the things that libertarians currently regard as rights violations when the government does them. Since what we actually have is a society in which much property belongs to government…
What makes more sense is to explore ways other than immigration restrictions in which involuntary interactions with immigrants can be reduced even if not eliminated. Open borders do not imply instant citizenship. While there were no restrictions on immigration in the early history of the US, there were restrictions on naturalization. Such restrictions could be retained in an open-borders system. Libertarian theory does not imply that everyone who comes can vote.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
The advice that I always give people is that most of marriage is actually "roommate stuff".
People claiming that friendship and romance are qualitatively (not just quantitatively) different in shambles.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
Either moral worth does not change with age, or it does. If it does, I think it seems the most sensible to say that it peaks during the reproductive window.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
Input: Three interesting items
Output after 30 hours: Not only zero upvotes, but also zero downvotes
I feel compelled to give voice to my confusion. Did everyone see the first item, find it yawnworthy but not sufficiently objectionable to deserve a downvote, and just minimize the entire comment without even looking at the second and third items?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
This website's Markdown implementation does not support the fancy hyphens-and-pipes table syntax that Reddit's implementation supports, so users are forced to type the table HTML manually—and that's a good thing™. More people should learn (X)HTML. Typing HTML in a plaintext editor often is more relaxing than typing in a WYSIWYG text editor.
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You don't have to mess with Character Map or AutoCorrect in order to type en and em dashes, subtraction, multiplication, and division symbols, directional quotation marks, etc.; and you don't have to guess at what specific character a horizontal line is when you see it long after you typed it. Instead, you can just type a character reference (picked from a default list in HTML or a fully custom list in XHTML)—& ndash; & mdash;, & minus;, & times;, & div;, & ldquo;, & rdquo;, etc. (without the spaces)—and it will remain perfectly legible in the plaintext forever.
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You don't have to mess with invisible section divisions and style changes, constantly having to guess whether Word has actually done what you wanted it to do. Sections are clearly visible elements, and styles are clearly visible classes. Nothing is ambiguous.
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I think there was recently a discussion here regarding how learning a second language enables a person to better understand his first language. Likewise, learning HTML enables a person to better understand what Microsoft Word is trying to do behind the scenes while you clumsily interact with its interface.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
I obviously am not an illustrious doctor, but it appears to me that the ICD has more or less retained Asperger's syndrome in its table of diagnoses.
| 6A02 = autism spectrum disorder | Functional language | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mildly impaired or not impaired | Impaired | Completely absent or almost completely absent | ||
| Disorder of intellectual development | Absent | 6A02.0 ≈ Asperger's syndrome | 6A02.2 | — |
| Present | 6A02.1 | 6A02.3 ≈ childhood disintegrative disorder | 6A02.5 |
| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| German | 47 % |
| Autistic | 58 % |
| Overall | Wittgenstein |
You have, apparently, both the cultural formation that produces systematic people and the neurological substrate that makes systematic thinking feel like breathing. This is either a significant advantage or an explanation for certain recurring difficulties in your life. Probably both.
Schopenhauer also fits here. So does Ramanujan, though he wasn't German. The category isn't German or autistic—it's people for whom the gap between how things are and how they ought to be is not an abstraction but a constant, low-grade irritation.
My mother tells me that I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at some point, but she doesn't have any of the court files to prove it.
I doubt that I have any German heritage, though my mother does hail from a former Danish colony.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
Civil-engineering problem of questionable importance: What is the best definition of "intersection"?
The illustrious lawyers among us will recite the legal definition (1 2): the area within the extended gutterlines of the intersecting roadways. Or, more exhaustively (the green lines in this example PDF, a rendition of this cursed location):
- For each point where a road's gutterline stops running parallel with the road's baseline: From the point, draw a line parallel with the road's baseline. The largest shape enclosed both within such lines and within the gutterlines is the intersection.
But this definition obviously is terrible. It's wildly underinclusive, as it fails to include the large area of pavement between those extended gutterlines and the rounded corners of the intersection. And it can produce nonsensical results on oddly-shaped corners (as illustrated on the southeast leg of the example).
Civil engineers and avid pedestrians may prefer this definition (the blue lines in the example):
- For each point where a road's gutterline stops running parallel with the road's baseline: From the point, draw a line perpendicular to the road's baseline. The largest shape enclosed both within such lines and within the gutterlines is the intersection.
However, this definition can be rather overinclusive on corners with large radii (as illustrated on the north leg of the example).
One of the more questionable achievements of my civil-engineering career was coming up with a third definition (the pink lines in the example):
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Within the intersection, draw as many inscribed circles as possible, each osculating (tangent to, touching, kissing) three corners of the intersection. (Generally, the number of circles will be equal to the number of legs on the intersection minus two.) The largest shape enclosed both within lines joining intervisible tangency points and within the gutterlines can be considered the lower bound of the definition of the intersection.
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For each tangency point: For each road baseline visible to that tangency point: From the tangency point, draw a line perpendicular to the baseline. The largest shape enclosed both within these lines and within the gutterlines can be considered the upper bound of the definition of the intersection. Typically, use the upper bound to determine paving limits.
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If you need to pave farther up the side road (e. g., in order to paint a crosswalk or construct a curb ramp), just move your paving limit up the side road accordingly (still perpendicular to the side road's baseline).
Finding the center point of each inscribed circle requires an iterative solution with the parallel-offset tool, since CAD software does not have a function to find it automatically. But, IMO, this definition does a great job of drawing something that at least looks good intuitively. It still can be considered underinclusive, but it serves as the least inclusive solution that doesn't leave huge lacunae (unlike the first definition). If you want to be a little more inclusive, you can do so easily (without having to go to the extreme of the second definition). And, unlike both of the first two definitions, it works well, not just with the clean lines and arcs of proposed gutterlines, but also with the ragged line strings of a survey of existing gutterlines.
Pragmatic addendum to the third definition:
- In rare situations, a leg of an intersection may have two corners with wildly mismatched radii, causing the triangular area of difference between the upper bound and the lower bound on that leg to be very large. In such a situation, use your engineering judgment to determine whether the lower bound, or even the first definition, rather than the upper bound, should be used as the paving limit on that leg.
The small, boring box (1 2*) that will serve as my glorious custom house is approximately halfway through its two-month construction schedule.
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Photograph 1: Foundation walls; sewer pipes
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Photograph 2: Slab; wall framing in progress; air compressor for nail guns
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Photograph 3: Walls without siding; siding ready for installation
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Photograph 4: Fancy roof trusses, eliminating the need for interior bearing walls; water pipes and electrical wires in ceiling
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Photograph 5: Wall framing; electrical boxes
I think I overheard one of the workers joke that his shed is bigger than this house. 😈
*For room dimensions, I measure to the face of the drywall, while the contractor measures to the face of the stud. Any other discrepancies between these two drawings should not be considered material.
Months ago, I posted about how (1) South Seaside Park, a discontiguous and neglected neighborhood of Berkeley Township, had won in court the right to secede from Berkeley Township and be annexed by the contiguous municipality of Seaside Park Borough, but (2) the Seaside Park Borough council still needed to vote to accept the land transfer. Now, the Seaside Park Borough council has finally voted in agreement.
- Mostly-paywalled news article
- Annexation-impact study conducted by a contracted consultant (finding that annexation would decrease the property-tax rate in Seaside Park Borough by 8 percent, from 1.774 mills to 1.631 mills annually)
- Video of council meeting
- 5:22: Start of relevant discussion
- 15:25: A councilor mentions that, despite widespread criticism of the impact study, she did an informal sensitivity analysis on the figure of 8 percent using a spreadsheet provided by the consultant, and "we can be off by quite a bit before it turns into a negative scenario".
- 16:45: The mayor discusses the fact that, regarding topics that the state's sloppily-drafted neighborhood-secession statute fails to cover (e. g., debt transfer), advisory judicial opinions on those topics are not available, so Seaside Park Borough will just have to negotiate in good faith over those topics with Berkeley Township, and hope that no lawsuits emerge from those negotiations.
- 25:39: A representative of Berkeley Township points out more sloppy drafting. South Seaside Park is defined in the secession petition as including only the inhabited part, so that's the only part that Seaside Park Borough is annexing. But Seaside Park Borough, as part of annexation, has copied-and-pasted a Berkeley Township ordinance that imposes a particular zone, not just on the inhabited part, but also on an adjacent state park that will not be annexed. (See the map that I drew previously. In drawing that map, I erroneously assumed that South Seaside Park included the state park, but it actually does not include the state park.) Seaside Park Borough's lawyer says the error will be corrected.
- 36:11: The petition organizer makes a speech.
- 40:58: A person points out that annexation will overturn the budget that Seaside Park Borough just adopted. The mayor explains that, after annexation, Seaside Park Borough will have to get permission from the state government to adopt an amended budget.
- 1:43:18: The big vote
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
We are exurban, and the houses have moats, in the form of fenced yards with dogs that go all the way around their house, such that there isn't a way to do neighborly things like knock on the person's door and yell at them.
There still should be a government-owned grassy verge right next to the driveway where it meets the road, so that there is no need to sit in the road. Even if there's no government-owned sidewalk to mark an obvious boundary, you presumably can check your county's GIS website (or the county's tax map in conjunction with Google Maps) to determine the exact spot where the neighbor's land ends and the government's land begins.
It's unclear whether the early morning revving is technically illegal or not
You presumably can check your municipality's noise ordinance. (Though I vaguely remember hearing somewhere that many municipal noise ordinances have been found unenforceably vague in recent years. If you feel like taking a long shot, you could nag your municipal government to enact an enforceable noise ordinance.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
The following sequence of events might be funny.
(1) Antagonist starts truck and goes back inside his house.
(2) Protagonist walks outside, sets up a folding chair on the government-owned grassy verge between the sidewalk and the street-parked truck (or on the government-owned grassy verge near the driveway-parked truck), and sits down.
(3) Antagonist hides inside his house.
(4) Protagonist remains comfortably seated, and summons a police officer to come and listen to the noise.
(5) Either antagonist emerges to be confronted by the protagonist and the officer, or his truck runs out of gasoline.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
7d ago
I don't think it's unreasonable advice for a depressed person.
They may not be able to keep up in the depths of winter, depending on local climate
This is solved if you just buy the right heat pump.
According to IRC § N1108.2.2(14) (part of a complicated section where you have several options for earning 10 "additional energy-efficiency credits"), the recommendation (worth up to 16 credits by itself, depending on your climate zone!) is to buy a heat pump that, at 5 °F (−15 °C), maintains at least 70 percent of the heating capacity that it has at 47 °F (8 °C). You can read the heat pump's specifications to determine whether it meets that requirement. For example:
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This heat pump has rated capacity of 24 kBTU/h at 47 °F and 19.2 kBTU/h at 5 °F, for a ratio of 80 percent.
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This heat pump cheats with a backup electric-heating system to maintain 70 percent of rated capacity all the way down to −5 °F (−21 °C).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
10d ago
Fun image-format-conversion shenanigans:
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Image obtained from Twitter: 147-KiB JFIF
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Image obtained from Tumblr: 167-KiB PNG
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Image obtained from Tumblr and converted to a palette: 13-KiB PNG
Four-panel edit:
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Blurry image obtained from Twitter: 103-KiB JPEG
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Image obtained from Tumblr, converted to a palette, and edited in a non-blurry manner: 16-KiB PNG
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
12d ago
In the US, flashing green indications are not permitted (MUTCD § 4A.04 ¶ 01 item A).
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