Re:Hiding in plain sight
on
Hollow Spy Coins
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
First they came for the laptops, but I didn't speak up because I carried all my data in my phone...
But no, seriously, do you think that the day will never come when people's phones are seized? Laptops are more valuable than phones, so if they are willing and able to get away with dispossessing you of those, the only reason phones aren't being taken is that they don't feel that is useful 'right now'. Someday some undersecretary is going to think 'phones carry lots of data now too, we should be searching those as well!' and boom, a new policy will be put in place, and you'll be saying goodbye to your microSD card.
Considering how laptops have become fair game for involuntary search and seizure at US borders, I think putting your 'important stuff' on a microSD card inside a hollow coin is probably a good idea.
Guns don't fire themselves, and if your gun is in a position where the trigger is getting messed with by things other than your finger (like loaded and loose in a bag without a holster), that usually belies a baseline safety failure whereby you probably shouldn't be operating a gun in the first place. As others have pointed out, a safety is a mechanical device that can fail, and if you think that having a safety in place makes it possible to do weird/stupid things with regard to transport etc, you're in for a lesson. This is all covered as subsets of 'storage discipline' anyhow.
I wish it weren't true, but you're right. Carrying is not enough, you have to *think*. There was a man carrying concealed at a mall in Tacoma, WA when a lunatic with a rifle started firing at random people. He thought he was going to be a hero and never thought 'maybe I shouldn't draw in the open while facing somebody who is already sighted-in'. Ugh. Yeah, of course he was shot (not fatally, fortunately). That's why if the same ever happens to me (and I carry all the time), my first thought is not going to be 'draw!' but 'cover!' That should always be the first thought: secure yourself, prepare yourself, assess surroundings, locate and gauge actors (if possible without getting hurt... LOS works both ways, not that I need to tell you that), formulate the best plan of action, then and only then: act.
Access to credit was made entirely too easy in the last century. It has put many low and middle income people on a virtual plantation, but almost always because they chose it. Yeah, you can give me sob stories about medical catastrophes etc, but most people have gone into debt because they wanted more stuff than they could afford. Economic conditions are more causally related to wages than debt over long periods. And I'm not interested in counting the deficiency of restraint against how people are compensated. They are different issues.
So some "poor" can become "poorer" (that "minority that experiences loss"), but that can't mean the poor are becoming poorer because the rich are becoming so much richer that it hides the losses of the poor from the statistics you cherry-pick.
"The poor" as in the entire category of people who are 'poor' do not become 'poorer' on average. That is the point. You would like to fixate on a minority of that grouping, and then accuse ME of 'cherry-picking'. That is called 'projection'. How does one 'cherry-pick' the broadest possible terms anyway? Oh, that's right, because your argument only makes sense on the smallest, most anomalous of scales. Long timeframes: I win; short, temporary conditions: you win. Most inclusive definitions of groups: I win; most exclusive definitions of groups: you win. Who's 'cherry-picking' again?
If you don't see how inflation can make you poorer while allowing your income to increase
Disregarding that we are dealing with inflation-adjusted statistics, but I forgot, in your personal opinion they just aren't adjusted 'enough'.
You want to talk about your opinions on wealth inequality, I get it, I just don't care. That's not what started this, it's not what this is about, and I'm not going to debate it with you.
You also don't account for any downward mobility at all, as if an increase in the mean or median means that everyone's income rose.
You mean that some people, somewhere, actually make less over a period sometimes?! Oh. My. GOD. I had no idea...
You're just being disingenuous. You know the point of this is about medians and averages, and you're just bitter that even when stratified the overall trend is still up. Everybody can't have what they want, that's life. Whether you're talking about the minority that experiences loss, or the majority that experiences gain but just 'not enough' gain for your taste, I don't care. I'm not talking about subjective things. My point is only that overall, the trend is up. I don't care about exceptions, I don't care about how much. My only point is that the old chestnut of the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer' is a lie. Nothing else. You can bring up all the inequality you like, it's just not in the scope of this discussion.
Americans in the bottom 95% are the ones generating most the wealth; they are building things, designing gadgets, transporting goods, preparing food, disposing of trash, teaching children, keeping streets safe, healing wounds, and so on.
If you believe that the bottom 5% of earners includes any significant number of fully employed engineers, teachers, cops, and nurses/doctors/EMTs, then you are so out of touch with reality I can't do anything for you.
Your focus on that phrase ignores the very clear phrase "right of the people". It does not say "right of the militia". The definition of militia is important here, because if the militia was defined as every able-bodied enfranchised citizen (which in essence was how it was defined), then the use of the word 'militia' was synonymous in context with 'the people'. The opposite is not true, unless every other time 'people' or 'person' is used in the Constitution you intend to take it as synonymous with 'militia' or 'militia-member'.
Also as many scholars of 18th century American English have said, 'well regulated' meant something like 'in good order' not 'restricted by laws'. Also there is no grammatical connection between the first clause and the second. The amendment simply says the state needs a militia, and oh by the way, "the right of the people" shall not be infringed. The is no conditional wording that says this right proceeds from membership in a militia. I know you want it to say something else, but it doesn't.
Basically all this boils down to is you're complaining that the increase 'isn't enough'. That's subjective. Yeah, it'd be great if everybody had a mansion and a trust fund, so what? All I said is that characterization as a decrease is not true. You own analysis bears that out, with only a few (relatively) short periods being anomalous. We're no doubt in the middle of another one of those periods, but that doesn't negate the overall trend. In another few years it will just be another dip in the overall upward trend of the graph. It is undeniable that in terms of the overall history of this nation GNI/GDP per person has gone up, not down. Period, the end. Anything beyond that is your own subjective viewpoint about 'economic justice' or whatever. I don't care. To say that a downward trend is the 'real normal' is demonstrably a lie, and that was my only point, one which is not subjective.
I should have linked this in my original post. This isn't my first rodeo, and everybody should familiarize themselves with the real stats related to crime and gun ownership.
Most common suicide methods use materials that are easier to find and cheaper to buy than guns. It doesn't cost anything to throw yourself off a bridge, rope is cheap, knives and razors are ubiquitous, a ton of sleeping pills are still less expensive than a gun and there's no background check. Guns are one of the most expensive and most difficult means of suicide to acquire, and consequently they make up a minority of the total suicide rate.
On the wiki the graphs over time are at the bottom. However I find it funny that I slashdotted isualizingeconomics.com!
I also love being moderated down by people who think the system exists to air their disagreement. It shows you the kind of people they are, and how they would stifle honest discourse if they had power.
Funny story, one of my old supervisors had a brother who was a cop, and this brother was worried about his reaction time drawing, sighting and firing, so he would practice by dry-firing at characters on TV shows. One night he forgot to unload, shot the TV, but luckily nobody was in the house, so he went out and bought the exact same model and never told anybody but his brother.:-D
However, I agree, this guy should be told to do community service as a safety instructor. It should put the fear of God into those taking the class to hear his experience. It's really about training. My parents let me have toy guns at a very early age, but they would frequently drill me on how to handle them safely as though they were real. By the time I was given the opportunity to use a real one, safety had been drilled into me so well I would have had to consciously think 'I am going to handle this in an unsafe way' before I could bring myself to do such a thing. Safety had become instinct.
You mean that militia that was made up of all free men between the ages of 18 and 45? All of which were required by federal law to own guns? Yes, Virginia, there was a time in this country where NOT having a gun was ILLEGAL.
Do you seriously think suicide numbers would go down in the absence of guns? Suicide is about motivation, not tools. Almost nobody in Japan has a gun, but they kill themselves more often than we do.
Do you seriously think murder would go down in the absence of guns? Do you realize that murder per capita has been dropping for decades, and is as low as it's been in FIFTY YEARS, all while more and more guns enter private ownership. The facts simply don't correlate with your argument.
All of this on top of the millions of times each year that firearms in private hands prevent or stop criminal behavior.
As gun owner and owner's rights activist, even I agree, he should get a felony charge. He should have his firearms confiscated. However I do agree with others saying that he shouldn't get jail time. Give him a suspended sentence.
I concur. I regularly carry an H&K USP that has no safety. Safety is trigger discipline, sight discipline (don't point it at valuable things and treat it as though it is loaded at all times), and storage discipline.
You just can't stop stupid with a switch. Like that one gun safety instructor who thought his gun was unloaded and thought he'd make a point by pulling the trigger with it to his head. It was loaded, and he's dead. You follow all of the rules, all of the time, or someday something will go wrong, and you'll be sorry.
Re:How did a 3-year old pull the trigger?
on
Accidental Wii Suicide
·
· Score: 4, Informative
While I'm not certain that the real story is being told here, mostly from the perspective of the gun being unwieldy to fire by a three year old, as the father of an almost-three year old, I can tell you that they don't think about 'weight difference' and think 'different object, handle differently'. If I give my daughter a ping pong ball, she'll probably throw it (and she can throw hard), and if I give her a golf ball, she'll throw it like a demon (which is why I would never put something like that in her hands). All she thinks is 'ball!' and regardless of weight she'll throw it.
Yes, thankfully we've moved beyond knee-jerk ideology to the practical matter at hand. The 'culture' didn't 'cause' anything. An irresponsible adult kept a weapon in an unsafe manner and somebody paid for it with their life. That's his fault, not the gun's, not the 'culture's'. The end.
The Sultan of Brunei is complete twit anyway. He has pissed away over 80% of his inherited fortune on palaces, planes, and more Rolls-Royces than any other single person. If his father could rise from the dead he would probably kick him in the balls if he knew how wastefully the fortune he had acquired was being wasted.
Slashdot Mirror
First they came for the laptops, but I didn't speak up because I carried all my data in my phone...
But no, seriously, do you think that the day will never come when people's phones are seized? Laptops are more valuable than phones, so if they are willing and able to get away with dispossessing you of those, the only reason phones aren't being taken is that they don't feel that is useful 'right now'. Someday some undersecretary is going to think 'phones carry lots of data now too, we should be searching those as well!' and boom, a new policy will be put in place, and you'll be saying goodbye to your microSD card.
Considering how laptops have become fair game for involuntary search and seizure at US borders, I think putting your 'important stuff' on a microSD card inside a hollow coin is probably a good idea.
Guns don't fire themselves, and if your gun is in a position where the trigger is getting messed with by things other than your finger (like loaded and loose in a bag without a holster), that usually belies a baseline safety failure whereby you probably shouldn't be operating a gun in the first place. As others have pointed out, a safety is a mechanical device that can fail, and if you think that having a safety in place makes it possible to do weird/stupid things with regard to transport etc, you're in for a lesson. This is all covered as subsets of 'storage discipline' anyhow.
I wish it weren't true, but you're right. Carrying is not enough, you have to *think*. There was a man carrying concealed at a mall in Tacoma, WA when a lunatic with a rifle started firing at random people. He thought he was going to be a hero and never thought 'maybe I shouldn't draw in the open while facing somebody who is already sighted-in'. Ugh. Yeah, of course he was shot (not fatally, fortunately). That's why if the same ever happens to me (and I carry all the time), my first thought is not going to be 'draw!' but 'cover!' That should always be the first thought: secure yourself, prepare yourself, assess surroundings, locate and gauge actors (if possible without getting hurt... LOS works both ways, not that I need to tell you that), formulate the best plan of action, then and only then: act.
If this doesn't get turned into an episode of American Dad then Seth MacFarlane should quit the business.
Oh, and the French can still suck it.
Access to credit was made entirely too easy in the last century. It has put many low and middle income people on a virtual plantation, but almost always because they chose it. Yeah, you can give me sob stories about medical catastrophes etc, but most people have gone into debt because they wanted more stuff than they could afford. Economic conditions are more causally related to wages than debt over long periods. And I'm not interested in counting the deficiency of restraint against how people are compensated. They are different issues.
So some "poor" can become "poorer" (that "minority that experiences loss"), but that can't mean the poor are becoming poorer because the rich are becoming so much richer that it hides the losses of the poor from the statistics you cherry-pick.
"The poor" as in the entire category of people who are 'poor' do not become 'poorer' on average. That is the point. You would like to fixate on a minority of that grouping, and then accuse ME of 'cherry-picking'. That is called 'projection'. How does one 'cherry-pick' the broadest possible terms anyway? Oh, that's right, because your argument only makes sense on the smallest, most anomalous of scales. Long timeframes: I win; short, temporary conditions: you win. Most inclusive definitions of groups: I win; most exclusive definitions of groups: you win. Who's 'cherry-picking' again?
If you don't see how inflation can make you poorer while allowing your income to increase
Disregarding that we are dealing with inflation-adjusted statistics, but I forgot, in your personal opinion they just aren't adjusted 'enough'.
You want to talk about your opinions on wealth inequality, I get it, I just don't care. That's not what started this, it's not what this is about, and I'm not going to debate it with you.
I realize reading back that you didn't mean bottom 5%, and I rescind what I said about it.
You also don't account for any downward mobility at all, as if an increase in the mean or median means that everyone's income rose.
You mean that some people, somewhere, actually make less over a period sometimes?! Oh. My. GOD. I had no idea...
You're just being disingenuous. You know the point of this is about medians and averages, and you're just bitter that even when stratified the overall trend is still up. Everybody can't have what they want, that's life. Whether you're talking about the minority that experiences loss, or the majority that experiences gain but just 'not enough' gain for your taste, I don't care. I'm not talking about subjective things. My point is only that overall, the trend is up. I don't care about exceptions, I don't care about how much. My only point is that the old chestnut of the 'rich get richer and the poor get poorer' is a lie. Nothing else. You can bring up all the inequality you like, it's just not in the scope of this discussion.
Americans in the bottom 95% are the ones generating most the wealth; they are building things, designing gadgets, transporting goods, preparing food, disposing of trash, teaching children, keeping streets safe, healing wounds, and so on.
If you believe that the bottom 5% of earners includes any significant number of fully employed engineers, teachers, cops, and nurses/doctors/EMTs, then you are so out of touch with reality I can't do anything for you.
Your focus on that phrase ignores the very clear phrase "right of the people". It does not say "right of the militia". The definition of militia is important here, because if the militia was defined as every able-bodied enfranchised citizen (which in essence was how it was defined), then the use of the word 'militia' was synonymous in context with 'the people'. The opposite is not true, unless every other time 'people' or 'person' is used in the Constitution you intend to take it as synonymous with 'militia' or 'militia-member'.
Also as many scholars of 18th century American English have said, 'well regulated' meant something like 'in good order' not 'restricted by laws'. Also there is no grammatical connection between the first clause and the second. The amendment simply says the state needs a militia, and oh by the way, "the right of the people" shall not be infringed. The is no conditional wording that says this right proceeds from membership in a militia. I know you want it to say something else, but it doesn't.
The wiki includes breakdown graphs at the bottom. The overall trend is an increase, which is my only point.
Basically all this boils down to is you're complaining that the increase 'isn't enough'. That's subjective. Yeah, it'd be great if everybody had a mansion and a trust fund, so what? All I said is that characterization as a decrease is not true. You own analysis bears that out, with only a few (relatively) short periods being anomalous. We're no doubt in the middle of another one of those periods, but that doesn't negate the overall trend. In another few years it will just be another dip in the overall upward trend of the graph. It is undeniable that in terms of the overall history of this nation GNI/GDP per person has gone up, not down. Period, the end. Anything beyond that is your own subjective viewpoint about 'economic justice' or whatever. I don't care. To say that a downward trend is the 'real normal' is demonstrably a lie, and that was my only point, one which is not subjective.
I should have linked this in my original post. This isn't my first rodeo, and everybody should familiarize themselves with the real stats related to crime and gun ownership.
Most common suicide methods use materials that are easier to find and cheaper to buy than guns. It doesn't cost anything to throw yourself off a bridge, rope is cheap, knives and razors are ubiquitous, a ton of sleeping pills are still less expensive than a gun and there's no background check. Guns are one of the most expensive and most difficult means of suicide to acquire, and consequently they make up a minority of the total suicide rate.
I actually thought of that weapon when I read the story... it looks like a light-gun for laser tag...
Yes, you're right entirely, sadly.
On the wiki the graphs over time are at the bottom. However I find it funny that I slashdotted isualizingeconomics.com!
I also love being moderated down by people who think the system exists to air their disagreement. It shows you the kind of people they are, and how they would stifle honest discourse if they had power.
Funny story, one of my old supervisors had a brother who was a cop, and this brother was worried about his reaction time drawing, sighting and firing, so he would practice by dry-firing at characters on TV shows. One night he forgot to unload, shot the TV, but luckily nobody was in the house, so he went out and bought the exact same model and never told anybody but his brother. :-D
However, I agree, this guy should be told to do community service as a safety instructor. It should put the fear of God into those taking the class to hear his experience. It's really about training. My parents let me have toy guns at a very early age, but they would frequently drill me on how to handle them safely as though they were real. By the time I was given the opportunity to use a real one, safety had been drilled into me so well I would have had to consciously think 'I am going to handle this in an unsafe way' before I could bring myself to do such a thing. Safety had become instinct.
You mean that militia that was made up of all free men between the ages of 18 and 45? All of which were required by federal law to own guns? Yes, Virginia, there was a time in this country where NOT having a gun was ILLEGAL.
Do you seriously think suicide numbers would go down in the absence of guns? Suicide is about motivation, not tools. Almost nobody in Japan has a gun, but they kill themselves more often than we do.
Do you seriously think murder would go down in the absence of guns? Do you realize that murder per capita has been dropping for decades, and is as low as it's been in FIFTY YEARS, all while more and more guns enter private ownership. The facts simply don't correlate with your argument.
All of this on top of the millions of times each year that firearms in private hands prevent or stop criminal behavior.
As gun owner and owner's rights activist, even I agree, he should get a felony charge. He should have his firearms confiscated. However I do agree with others saying that he shouldn't get jail time. Give him a suspended sentence.
I concur. I regularly carry an H&K USP that has no safety. Safety is trigger discipline, sight discipline (don't point it at valuable things and treat it as though it is loaded at all times), and storage discipline.
You just can't stop stupid with a switch. Like that one gun safety instructor who thought his gun was unloaded and thought he'd make a point by pulling the trigger with it to his head. It was loaded, and he's dead. You follow all of the rules, all of the time, or someday something will go wrong, and you'll be sorry.
While I'm not certain that the real story is being told here, mostly from the perspective of the gun being unwieldy to fire by a three year old, as the father of an almost-three year old, I can tell you that they don't think about 'weight difference' and think 'different object, handle differently'. If I give my daughter a ping pong ball, she'll probably throw it (and she can throw hard), and if I give her a golf ball, she'll throw it like a demon (which is why I would never put something like that in her hands). All she thinks is 'ball!' and regardless of weight she'll throw it.
Yes, thankfully we've moved beyond knee-jerk ideology to the practical matter at hand. The 'culture' didn't 'cause' anything. An irresponsible adult kept a weapon in an unsafe manner and somebody paid for it with their life. That's his fault, not the gun's, not the 'culture's'. The end.
Keep repeating that pithy little lie, and maybe someday in an alternate universe it will be true.
But not here.
The Sultan of Brunei is complete twit anyway. He has pissed away over 80% of his inherited fortune on palaces, planes, and more Rolls-Royces than any other single person. If his father could rise from the dead he would probably kick him in the balls if he knew how wastefully the fortune he had acquired was being wasted.