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(Boston Channel)   High school students developing device that detects and fills potholes before they form   (thebostonchannel.com ) divider line
    More: Spiffy  
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10344 clicks; posted to Main » on 12 Nov 2004 at 5:06 AM (12 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»



44 Comments     (+0 »)
 
 
2004-11-12 05:14:08 AM  
Spiffy? More like SAD.
 
2004-11-12 05:14:48 AM  
The streets of Muncie, Indiana surrender.

/BSU grad
 
2004-11-12 05:15:11 AM  
daisies?

/muy obscuro?
 
2004-11-12 05:18:26 AM  
We can't have stuff like this! How will all those "workers" get paid for standing around watching the other two actually fill in the pot holes?
We've got to protect our phoney baloney jobs, Gentlemen!
Harrumph!
 
2004-11-12 05:23:36 AM  
So we shut down the roads, everytime this thing is creeping along, looking for magic holes?
 
2004-11-12 05:23:58 AM  
Some companies think it might and they're gambling time and equipment that the students are driving down the right path

My pun detector may not be working too well, but why is it that 'journalists' always intend on adding some quasi-witty/pun to the end of their stories? They always turn out lame and certainly don't lend any air of professionalism to it at all.
 
2004-11-12 05:32:47 AM  
Yeah, do they teach lame puns at the journalism schools? Every farkin' article is loaded with these jewels, and I think it's illegal to write a headline without one.

Very annoying.
 
2004-11-12 05:33:53 AM  
But can they fill sinkholes?

Spince - yeah. I think it harkens back to their high school newspaper days (shudder).

On a off-topic but related remark: when I can correct the grammar and logic of "journalists", and I'm an engineering student, it's a sad, sad day. The fact that I can do it far too often while reading my college newspaper always provides for laughs before class, but there's still a little tear in my eye.

/joking about the tear
//thankfully that stuff doesn't show up in the NYTimes much
 
2004-11-12 06:00:11 AM  
I think most headline writers graduated from the Fark school of journalism. Now that's a sticky situation where your dog wants a better headline before surrendering and noting that . Oh and of course, the Sun is there.
 
2004-11-12 06:44:04 AM  
Aren't these types of articles what you would normally hear on a news broadcast?
 
2004-11-12 06:45:33 AM  
I don't care, as long as they fill them before I bend another half-axle.... farking PennDOT.... two in six years....
 
2004-11-12 06:53:15 AM  
I'd drill it!
 
2004-11-12 07:40:27 AM  
I'm glad I'm not the only one that has noticed the increasing overabundance of puns, rhymes, and obscure reference crap that is taking over journalism in this country. One of my recent favorites from the NY Times:

October 22, 2004

The grizzled Galahads of Camelot gathered again for one brief, pining moment on Thursday to remember Pierre Salinger as the piano-playing White House press secretary and bon vivant who pioneered the live-television presidential news conference and made the New Frontier "a lot more fun," as Senator Edward M. Kennedy recalled in a tender eulogy.

"Pierre was part of our family," Mr. Kennedy told Mr. Salinger's own family and friends, "and I'm sure Jack and Jackie and Bobby are in seventh heaven right now, because they're so glad to be reunited with Pierre at last.''

Slower of tread and whiter of head, a surviving cross section of the politicians and reporters who 42 years ago this week were immersed in the Cuban missile crisis filed into Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown for a Mass in memory of Mr. Salinger, who died on Saturday near his home in France at age 79.
 
2004-11-12 07:47:27 AM  
We can't have stuff like this! How will all those "workers" get paid for standing around watching the other two actually fill in the pot holes?

Somebody's going to have to evaulate, service, and supervise the work of those machines. Those other workers are not just standing around you know. They are creating new potholes so they have something to do next week.

Don't fear though, money will actually be saved in the long run, because the machine will do it right the first time.
 
2004-11-12 08:00:47 AM  
Actually, they are wasting their time, but to each his own. I digress.
 
2004-11-12 08:49:58 AM  
The streets of Monterrey, Mexico surrender.
 
2004-11-12 08:54:54 AM  
Ummm, I hate to tell them but the company I'm at already has the technology to detect potholes before they appear on the surface. It's really not that hard.
 
2004-11-12 08:59:24 AM  
What about potholes created by Illinois nazis?

[image from nederpoparchief.nl too old to be available]

/hates illinois nazis.
 
2004-11-12 08:59:52 AM  
it's not the _finding_ of potholes thats the problem - its the _fixing_
 
2004-11-12 09:36:28 AM  
Of course, anything having to do with pot interests highschoolers
 
2004-11-12 09:36:51 AM  
How do you fill a hole before it forms?
 
2004-11-12 09:46:50 AM  
Craven -
you beat me too it, how can you fill them?
they're in high school for the wrong thing, they need to learn the order of operations.
IF IT AINT BROKE, DUN FIX IT
 
2004-11-12 09:48:42 AM  
Winnipeg, pothole central needs this technology
 
2004-11-12 09:57:55 AM  
I can't believe no one commented on the fact that Mr. Burns (who is the shop teacher they interview in the video) looks like Carol O'Connor. He looked more like him back over ten years ago when I had him as a teacher.. and Carol O'Connor hadn't been dead for a really long time. I bet now they look nothing alike.

Also, I would like to say it seems messed up that the school would be able to get money for all this science crap when back when I was in high school they couldn't afford paper.
 
2004-11-12 09:59:38 AM  
Why don't they just pave the road with better material to prevent potholes from forming in the first place?
 
2004-11-12 10:04:53 AM  
Goin' to BSU right now, and the potholes are worse than ever, although the city did pave some of the problems away.

/Munice potholes own all of your potholes
 
2004-11-12 10:05:37 AM  
yeah, that would actually be Muncie
 
OBB [TotalFark]
2004-11-12 10:26:50 AM  
So... all this machine really does is look for potholes where the ashphalt hasn't collapsed yet. You'd still have to chip away the asphalt on the surface with an air hammer to fix them, or alternately use some other machine, like a Patchmater to fix them.
[image from roaron.com too old to be available]
 
2004-11-12 10:42:26 AM  
They should have had these kids around before they "finished" the Big Dig in Boston... The damn thing is now LEAKING!!!

/thankfully not a Boston/Mass. resident/
 
2004-11-12 10:45:33 AM  
smedrick Why don't they just pave the road with better material to prevent potholes from forming in the first place?

Because we have to keep that crew of 10 highly paid workers standing around! We have to have someone there to watch the other two of 'em patch the holes.

No no no. Sure, spending a few dollars more on higher-grade materials could have the roads lasting 5-10 years before needing additional repairs. But that would just put people out of work! Instead, we use the lowest-grade shiat scraped off the bottom of the barrel- that way we're guaranteed to have the roads crumble again in under six months! Sometimes less!

If we FIX the problem we put men with families out of buisness! You don't want these people to loose jobs, do you? Unless you hate America. Why do you hate America?
 
2004-11-12 10:47:23 AM  
JohnGaltDiscGolfer: The streets of Muncie, Indiana surrender.

Bloomington, Indiana doesn't seem to be much better.

I'm seeing a theme here.. oh yea, Indiana. Or maybe it's just students..

/red state
 
2004-11-12 10:50:38 AM  
I didn't get a Harumph form you!

give the man a Harumph!

Harumph.
 
2004-11-12 10:52:37 AM  
I'm from the Boston area...
This def gets a SPIFFY from me.
 
c
2004-11-12 10:54:20 AM  
Attention students: please come use that thing in Springfield immediately.

Also, please stop being dorks.

/went to Agawam High, and actually took that robotics course. Slept straight through it though after finding out we'd spend most of the time building a crappy robotic arm cast out of aluminum. Terminator-hand it was definitely not.
 
2004-11-12 10:57:23 AM  
Why don't they just pave the road with better material to prevent potholes from forming in the first place?

The same reason they don't build the entire airplane like the black box.
 
2004-11-12 11:52:00 AM  
Haha, pathetic...
 
2004-11-12 12:24:10 PM  
OBB:
Read the article again, it clearly says the robot then drills into the hole and fills it.
 
2004-11-12 12:24:59 PM  
And to think I spent my High School years masturbating and drinking beer!
 
2004-11-12 12:42:12 PM  
Goin' to BSU right now, and the potholes are worse than ever, although the city did pave some of the problems away.


We used to say that Muncie potholes were so huge that you needed to raise your arms (as if in a roller coaster) to fully appreciate their breadth!

I haven't been to campus in almost 10 years. I hear they really stopped-up McKinley Ave. It used to be a completely driveable street all the way through campus.

Delphis:

Yeah, actually Michigan has pretty bad potholes too (Detroit has some of the worst I've ever experienced). It's a northern climate thing, but it sure is fun to poke fun at Muncie, #2 on David Letterman's Top Ten Places that Resemble the Surface of the Moon!

I've never actually been to Bloomington, though. Say, since you're probably an IU person, wouldn't it be funny if they'd lay a huge combover on Purdue's basketball arena roof in honor of Keady's impending retirement? :-)
 
2004-11-12 02:04:42 PM  
So, a work crew leaves the DOT. There are 3 trucks carrying six people to a suspected pothole. Once they get there, the foreman looks at the road, decides that the hole must be filled and calls out to the crew to get to work. They look in the back of the trucks, and there are no shovels! A paniced call is made to headquarters, informing them of this crisis. Don't worry, says the dispatcher, we will get some shovels out there right away, in the meantime you can lean on each other!

Thank you, you are very kind.
 
2004-11-12 02:24:45 PM  
Supermilk, you watch your ass.
 
2004-11-12 02:26:22 PM  
Ronin and C,
I'm slightly scared by the fact that we all had Mr. Burns as a teacher. Way weird to have that many farkers/farkettes from crappy old Agawam High.
BTW, the principal of this school looks like a female, slightly uglier version of Howard Stern.
 
2004-11-12 02:43:13 PM  
Why don't they just pave the road with better material to prevent potholes from forming in the first place?

The same reason they don't build the entire airplane like the black box.


Yes. We wouldn't want the road to weigh too much. Then it might not be able to fly...
 
2004-11-12 10:57:58 PM  
If you fill the hole before it forms, isn't that just putting down a jagged bump or piece of debris in the roadway? Sounds like an awful idea.
 
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