Today on NPR they carried a story about cops using a new kind of laser gun. This technology allows the po-po to use more laser guns. Also, it allows them to give tickets for tailgating.

That’s cool, because tailgating sucks.

The device measures your transgressions in seconds. The recommended distance in time between cars is two seconds. Get a lot closer than that and you face some pretty steep fines.

But how do you know how far in time you are behind another car? The NPR guy helpfully answered: pick a stationary object, and start counting when the car in front of you passes it: “One, one thousand, two.” Simple as that.

Neat! And wrong!

Counting “one, one thousand, two” just counted you up to one second. You may have landed on the word “two”, but you only counted one. This is just another reason why computer geeks are right, and all counting should begin at zero. “Zero, onethousand, one, onethousand, two.” There ya go. Two full seconds.

I can feel the highways getting safer already.

P.S.: This blog thing of mine hasn’t seen much use lately, but there’s a good reason. I’ve been pouring my time (in more than two second intervals) into a new piece of software. After almost two years of work, QLab finally hit version 1.0! Drinks all around!