[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531453]I know -- it was Coriolis forces
:grin:[/QUOTE]

No, those would be in play only if the lanes had a north/southerly component. I still favor relativistic effects.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;531423]Colorado has a 419.99 mile marker:
[URL]https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/41999-mile-marker[/URL][/QUOTE]
Haha, that's funny, and quite creative too!
They solved the debate of 0.99999 = 1 :razz:

[QUOTE=kriesel;531256]Remember how computers were going to make us more productive and our lives easier?
<snip>[/QUOTE][url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-dorothy-brown-computer-rollout-debacle-20191126-3sblqlrw65cgxi2zm43jiem7hq-story.html]Dorothy Brown’s office debuts upgrade to criminal court computers to wide ridicule[/url][quote]The rollout of a long-awaited upgrade to Cook County courts’ archaic case management system by beleaguered Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s office has caused disarray at the county’s main criminal courthouse on Chicago’s Southwest Side.

Attorneys and clerks interviewed by the Tribune since the rollout two weeks ago complained the supposed advancement has instead resulted in incomplete case information, poorly trained staff and lengthy delays in securing the most basic documentation.

One lawyer said he waited 45 minutes for paperwork that under the old system would have taken just a few moments to obtain. With some routine tasks now taking far more clicks to complete, clerks reportedly have worked late into the night to finish the same workload they routinely completed during a normal workday.
<snip>
In a 2017 news release, the vendor, Tyler Technologies, touted a $36 million agreement with Cook County to revamp the circuit clerk’s computer system from top to bottom.[/quote]
Tyler Technologies is in Plano, TX.

Yep. Hire an out-of-state vendor to upgrade an important administrative computer system. Works every time.

Marker 666
 

Stolen in Ontario Canada.

Re: Marker 666
 

[QUOTE=petrw1;531511]Stolen in Ontario Canada.[/QUOTE]
Hmm. Reminds me of...
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_491]U.S. Route 491[/url]:[quote][b]With the 666 designation[/b], this road was nicknamed the "Devil's Highway" because of the significance of number 666 to many Christian denominations, which is believed by some that 666 is the Number of the Beast. This Satanic connotation, combined with a high fatality rate along the New Mexico portion, convinced some people the highway was cursed. [b]The problem was compounded by persistent sign theft.[/b] These factors led to two efforts to renumber the highway, first by officials in Arizona, later in New Mexico.[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;531462]No, those would be in play only if the lanes had a north/southerly component. I still favor relativistic effects.[/QUOTE]
Ahh, but you see, that means the discrepancy is between the markers on the [i]north[/i] shoulder and those on the [i]south[/i] shoulder :smile:

I of course, favor the "human error" theory. Here's another variant: If the markers are every 1/5 mile, maybe the folks doing the placement got mixed up and thought they were every [i]quarter[/i] mile.

I'm sure the real explanation is much more interesting.

[url=https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/27/us/virtual-reality-russian-dairy-farm-cows-trnd/index.html]Russian dairy farmers gave cows VR goggles with hopes they would be happier and make better milk[/url] | CNN -- Elsie Borden got VRed / Her lactate flow to un-retard / Russian trolls her feed deluged / Now she's a bovine Putin stooge.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;531462]No, those would be in play only if the lanes had a north/southerly component. [/QUOTE]Well, there is a significant north-south spacing between the eastbound and westbound pairs of lanes, with a median wide enough for a small woods at some points, but the north-south distance between 0.2 mile pitch markers on the south side of the westbound two lanes and the 1 mile pitch on the north side is modest. [QUOTE]I still favor relativistic effects.[/QUOTE]You have far more faith in my old pickup than I do. And ordinary grade tires fail from heat and centrifugal forces at a fraction of the speed of sound, much less of light. [URL]https://wheelzine.com/tire-speed-rating-codes[/URL]

The posted limit is 70mph. That's about 10[SUP]-7[/SUP] c. Now consider that aside from radar, a standard basis for ticketing for speeding is observed time and distance past markers, and the discrepancy between markers was up to 1/4 mile; in a timed mile that's as much as 70 / (3/4) = 93mph, 23mph in error. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit_enforcement[/URL]

Decades ago I owned a sedan whose analog speedometer became much less accurate around that speed with age, to the point where its speedometer indicated about the same for a 22% speed variation. By practicing timing miles and noting the engine sound, speed could be controlled within a couple mph.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531509]Yep. Hire an out-of-state vendor to upgrade an important administrative computer system. Works every time.[/QUOTE]The wonders of a low-bid award process (perhaps further compromised by affirmative action preferences). I've had to give awards to untested firms, actually required by law to do so, that ended up botching the job, because they deftly bid 1% less than the preference percentage. IE, the known, reliable, competent shop bids X, the preference firm bids 1.04 X knowing the affirmative action preference is 5%. Their skill was not in delivering, it was in bidding.

[QUOTE=kriesel;531983]The wonders of a low-bid award process (perhaps further compromised by affirmative action preferences). I've had to give awards to untested firms, actually required by law to do so, that ended up botching the job, because they deftly bid 1% less than the preference percentage. IE, the known, reliable, competent shop bids X, the preference firm bids 1.04 X knowing the affirmative action preference is 5%. Their skill was not in delivering, it was in bidding.[/QUOTE]It appears the contract was awarded via "competitive bidding." I don't know whether "affirmative action" played any role in the process.

There might be other considerations in this case. I would point out that Cook County Clerk Dorothy Brown managed to skate on bribery charges, thanks in large part to a subordinate committing perjury to protect her boss.

In order to get some idea of the vendor's offerings, I also googled

scandal "tyler technologies"

and found all sorts of stuff. Their case-management software is called "Odyssey." I don't know what else is on offer, but it seems possible that one selling point is "the bandwagon."

One of the suggested alternate searches was

tyler technologies odyssey problems

so I tried that. My, oh my. Their Odyssey software has left a trail of chaos and destruction in its wake nationwide. For example, this Ars Technica article from 3 years ago, [url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/court-software-glitches-result-in-erroneous-arrests-defense-lawyers-say/]Lawyers: New court software is so awful it’s getting people wrongly arrested[/url]

[quote]OAKLAND, Calif. -- Most pieces of software don't have the power to get someone arrested -- but Tyler Technologies' Odyssey Case Manager does. This is the case management software that runs on the computers of hundreds and perhaps even thousands of court clerks and judges in county courthouses across the US. (Federal courts use an entirely different system.)[/quote]

I wonder if anyone buying this software has ever wondered about what its name might imply for its use...

[url=https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-dulos-death-trial-continue-20200131-owx7o4cwczd7tm44qhc66wwbeq-story.html]Fotis Dulos has died, but his lawyer wants to proceed with his murder trial anyway. Is that possible?[/url]

[quote]Fotis Dulos may have died Thursday but if his attorney has his way, the murder trial for killing Dulos' estranged wife, Jennifer Farber Dulos, will still go forward.

Shortly before announcing Dulos' death outside Jacobi Medical Center in New York Thursday, Norm Pattis filed an extraordinary motion seeking to substitute the estate of Dulos as the defendant in the case in what he said is an effort to clear his name.[/quote][i]What???[/i] You don't haul defendants into criminal court simply by substituting their names for those already accused. Not in [i]this[/i] country, anyway.

Besides, the estate demonstrably did not even [i]exist[/i] at the time of the crime. No way can it be named as a criminal defendant in that case.

Forgive me if I am being unduly cynical, but what I see here is a lawyer, having been denied the chance of soaking his client, now seeking a way to suck his estate dry.

The estate [i]could[/i] be sued for damages from a wrongful death caused by the deceased. But perhaps Mr. Pattis is not a civil attorney.