His preferred example showed the vehicle ignoring the first available lane. He blames poor behavior and irresponsible offensive driving on traffic lights?

Over at the frankenstien place!

ncdrawl wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5GSxNtScdo&feature=player_embedded

Well, I sat through all 15 minutes and can only assume traffic planners are less well-qualified in CT than in NY. Here in Brooklyn, the traffic light sequencing very obviously changes according to the time of day, with night-time avenue signals allowing someone traveling at 25 mph to drive up to 60 blocks on green. During rush hours, the same signals interrupt the traffic every few blocks, presumably because pedestrian safety over-rides traffic flow in these periods.

Coincidentally, poorly programmed traffic signal was a pet peeve of the late J. Gordon Holt, Stereophile's founder.

So JJ, will you be appearing on an AES workshop panel with Ethan to discuss traffic lights? :-)

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

...I just kept thinking "Really??!" Like this is the most important issue to go after?

Moderately related story:
Years ago I was in Indonesia on a biz trip, and we had hired a driver for the 3-4 days we were there. The car was a very nice BMW I recall, though the AC was on it's knees with the 100 degree heat and 90% humidity. In any case, to say the traffic flow was "inefficient" there would be a huge understatement. It was amazingly horrendous! Partly it was bad roads, mostly bad drivers, and throw in very old cars for good measure. Buses turned over on their side from soft road edges were common.

But that's what you get in a 3rd world country who at the time was still under a military dictatorship. But what I really had to laugh at was that one afternoon, stuck again in bumper to bumper, our driver says: "I really hate traffic." I know it was probably the money that kept him in the job, but still, I had to think "Dude, you're a DRIVER in Indonesia; bad traffic is ALL they have here! You better find some way to make peace with it, cause nothing's about to change anytime soon!" Also, to compensate, anytime the road cleared at all, he just floored it no mater where we were, city or highway. Good times.

Even in Roswell we have cameras that determine when lights should change colors based on traffic. The archaic method is the old iron metal plates that determine nobody is on the opposing traffic sign. We used to back up over them to get the light to turn green when there was no traffic.

How did you come across this?

Did you do a search for Ethan or for traffic lights?

Neither is healthy.

John Atkinson wrote:

[So JJ, will you be appearing on an AES workshop panel with Ethan to discuss traffic lights? :-)

John Atkinson

Editor, Stereophile

Huh? What?

The darkness must go
Down the river of night's dreaming
Flow morphius slow
Let the sun and light come streaming
Into my life, into my life

Dunno. Riff Raff joke omitted.

ncdrawl wrote:

Ethan actually mass distrod the email. I actually enjoy his mails as I generally side with him on audio matters...other than that misogynistic room treatment video...that was just disgusting. and creepy.

I got it as well.

ncdrawl wrote:

I actually enjoy his mails as I generally side with him on audio matters...other than that misogynistic room treatment video...that was just disgusting. and creepy.

Aside from destroying his 'sensible manufacturer' persona, I really loved that room treatment vid! Whoa, I was having a bad day and that video hit the spot!

Just patently unbelievable, from an audio standpoint, but Ethan is in the wrong business and needs to find more 'audio spokeswomen' to push more of his wares, involving large, esoteric, speaker cables preferably. No wonder why those little bottles of contact enhancer are so dang expensive!

No MIT networked cables please, Ethan; I'm not sick.