And since we know every possible effect the existence (or extinction) of an animal has to the ecosystem, we can sensibly make that list in the first place.
So we should spend endless amounts of money on hopelessly trying to save EVERY endangered species rather than saving only the ones that can actually be saved. Who wants to pick up the bill for that one? I think Opportunist (166417) has volunteered himself to take this Opportunity (LOLOLOLOL) to be the first one to go broke for this useless cause.
The only question that matters is whether the danger is justifiable in the situations in which it is actually used.
What danger? I have yet to see more than one or two instances in which a Taser has actually caused harm to an individual out of the thousands of times they've been used in the past couple decades, and every time it's due to blatant misuse. I wish we could have that kind of safety record with cars, guns, and high school football.
Linking to a Penn & Teller video as if it were some sort of actual content appropriate for thinking adults is your first hint your views are extreme.
Completely writing off information simply because it was presented by somebody you don't like is your first hint that there's absolutely no place for you in any kind of relatively serious political discussion. Go outside and play with your friends, grown-ups are talking right now.
but always make sure to leave you with the impression that the police and establishment are good guys.
That's because they are. Would you swear an oath to protect the public by putting others' lives ahead of yours? I didn't think so. There are some stupid cops out there, but they are a vast minority. I know a lot of cops and they are all great guys... I'm sorry you hold a grudge because they tell you to put out the joint and pull you over for driving 90.
What the fuck are you on about? I said "deserving" to differentiate from the danger to innocents and suspects who are not causing a situation which warrants the use of a Taser. Perhaps I could have used better phrasing, but you're being intentionally difficult or unintentionally stupid.
I'll say again, the ONLY time a taser should be used, is when an officer would use a handgun instead.
I disagree. An officer should ONLY use a handgun when the suspect is pointing a handgun at an innocent person. Tasers need to be more versatile than that. But I do agree with the general principle that Tasers should not be used as frequently as they are. But I would also like to point out that nearly every incident of improper (and often proper on a slow news day) garners tons of media attention, making a lot of people think that Tasers are misused a lot more often than they are. Your average police officer is not ever going to consider wielding his Taser against someone who's being 'lippy' during a traffic stop.
I hope you're being sarcastic. There's no reason to bring race into this.
Who's bringing race into this?
brother (plural brothers or (archaic) brethren)
Noun
1. Son of the same parents as another person. My parents love me and my younger brother equally, even though he is adopted.
2. A male child descended from the same parents. He's not a real brother. He's adopted.
3. A male having at least one parent in common with another (see half-brother, stepbrother).
4. A male fellow member of a religious community or church.
5. Someone who is a peer, whether male or female.
I can't seem to locate a published record of that particular study
Obviously, I posted three links that were published records of that study. I mean an actual paper published in an actual medical journal. All that I can find in Google are the thousands of articles from "the news" about the study that have better PageRank than the actual text of the actual medical paper.
Only by uninformed basement dwellers, anyone who's been even casually following "the news" for the past five years would know it's true.
That's the problem. "The news" broadcasts controversial events and propaganda and anecdotal evidence and videos of stupid hippies yelling at cops because they hate cops and unruly college students refusing to comply with peace officer demands at public speaking events and then whining when they get tazed. That's all I've ever seen on "the news". How about some actual data? How about some real statistics? Here's an irl scientific study which stated that out of the nearly 1000 cases of Taser use studied, 99.7% resulted in minor to no injury (as in, fall and scratch yourself on the concrete or similar), three hospitalizations, and two deaths which were found to not have been the result of Taser use: Taser Medical Safety: the state of the science - William P. Bozeman, MD, FACEP, FAAEM (PDF of a slideshow presentation made at University of Florida), Study: Tasers are safe to use - Physorg, Independent studies could answer questions about Tasers. I can't seem to locate a published record of that particular study, but here is another paper by Dr Bozeman that compares Tasers to other methods of incapacitation: Medical Aspects of Less Lethal Weapons.
That article is chock full of bullshit spin and propaganda from both sides of the debate. Also, the "Death and injuries related to Taser use" section has several publicized incidents that didn't actually result in death or injury.
The fact of the matter is that, with proper training and handling, a Taser device, when used in its intended setting against a deserving individual, is far safer to innocent bystanders, the environment, public safety personnel, and in most cases the suspects themselves than any other incapacitation method that I've ever heard of. So what if there's a slight risk of cardiac arrest if you're tasing a dangerous individual that's whacked out on meth? Would you rather he was shot by a firearm? Would you rather the police wrestle him to the ground by hand?
The problem with a debate like this is that the people who are against the topic at hand only look at the bad things about it, and can't be convinced by their relation to the good things. Allow me to cite a totally unrelated subject that is experiencing the same kind of public phenomena: The vaccine/autism debate. 1 in 110 children today have been diagnosed with autism, and some people have placed the blame on vaccines. Even if vaccines WERE to blame for autism, it would still be better to accept that 1 in 110 risk of autism than to accept the far greater risk of being killed or permanently disabled by the many diseases we are currently protected from by vaccination. Here's a neat video explaining that point: Penn & Teller's Bullshit - Vaccinations.
Same thing with Tasers. We can accept the very small risk of death or injury to people who are quite possibly dangerous criminals (and whether or not they're dangerous criminals, they are in every case of proper Taser use acting stupid and refusing to comply with very reasonable demands made by police in dangerous situations), or we can instead accept a much GREATER risk of death or injury to public safety personnel, innocent bystanders, and the suspects who we're trying to "protect" by banning the use of Tasers. I know which risk I'm willing to accept.
No, it's about ACTUALLY fooling people. This is fooling no one. Also, it's about fun. This is not fun.
Actually, CmdrTaco is sitting in a hilariously-oversized recliner chair laughing at all the people whining in the comments. April 1st is about fun for the people pulling the pranks and pain and misery for the people they're directed at. The more suffering for the second group, the more hilarity for the first. Physics, son.
Windows, on the other hand, was an OS which had a browser integrated for no other real reason beyond crushing the competition.
I don't understand why everybody seems to think there were sinister intentions behind Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. What does increased browser market share really accomplish? Let's imagine for just a moment a world in which Internet Explorer has never ever been bundled with an operating system, and Windows has never ever had an internet browser bundled with it. Do you think the world wide web would have had nearly the effect on the world as it has in actual reality? How many people would even know about that newfangled internet thing, and how many people would have taken the time to find a way to access it? Sure it would have caught on eventually, but the internet has only been around for 20 years or so and look how big of a part it has taken in everybody's lives. I submit that it would not have progressed nearly this far by now had Microsoft not given every Windows user a web browser out of the box.
Mozilla only got usable a few years ago (2005? 2006? Barely usable too - still had many memory issues back then) and that's when it started gaining marketshare.
If you think I'm trolling or talking shit, just look at Google Chome - it has gained so much share in a far far shorter time than Mozilla took.
I've been using Firefox on and off since before 1.0. I had no problems with it back then. It was horrible compared to the standards of today, but it was still better than fucking IE6. I think we could attribute Chrome's rapid market share gain at least in part, though, to the fact that people are now aware of (and actively seeking) newer better ways to browse the web, and it has been backed by a multi-billion-dollar household name since the get go. Firefox really started the alternative browser trend, so it took a long time to gain steam.
I don't know if I need to remind you but Netscape was essentially Mozilla's code and they even said it in the EULA around 1994 or 95: "Remember, it's spelled N-E-T-S-C-A-P-E but it's pronounced 'Mozilla'"
Netscape was Netscape Communications' code. "Mozilla" was simply a codename (and useragent) for the browser back in the day. When I said "before Mozilla came along" I was referring to when Netscape essentially died and forked off into what was formally and officially called Mozilla which later split into Firefox et al.
The settlement did nothing. It was Mozilla and Firefox which revived competition in the browser market.
This. The field of web browser development was almost completely stagnant before Mozilla came along. Since then, the web has made massive strides in usability and function, which would not have been possible without Mozilla (and later Google). No antitrust settlement could have caused new browsers to emerge.
It amazes me that in 2011, anyone is still willingly giving their personal data over to internet data miners. In 2000 I might have understood it for general lack of awareness about the extent of it. But it's been the lead story on bloody CNN on many occasions. It isn't a mystery now to anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the last decade.
Exactly. I know how much of my data companies like Google and Facebook have -- a fuckton. And you know how much that concerns me? Very little. What's the big deal? Why are people so hellbent on keeping things private? Newsflash: GOOGLE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR DATA, ONLY DATA. Nobody at Google is reading through your emails or browsing habits. It's all automated. Nobody knows anything about you because nobody cares about you.
These term that Google has to meet should be standard terms that ALL companies who collect information have to meet - especially the one about having to obtain user consent before sharing a user's private information with third parties.
You can always read a company's privacy policy before submitting personal information to them, and you can always simply not submit data to them if you disagree with it. Companies have to follow their privacy policy, because it is a legal contract. They have every right to include the possibility of distributing your information to third parties. Google just fucked up and rushed Buzz without thinking it through, so now they're getting boned by the privacy police.
The food issue isn't one of production but of (lack of) governments.
A lot of those starving people in Africa are living in what used to be THE (not just the, THE) breadbasket of the continent. Why are they starving in what should be the most productive areas of Africa? Because they'll get killed trying to farm the land or they were killed and some group that has no idea how to farm has been given their land.
Fix the governments and you fix the food problem.
Who was talking about Africa? We in the United States have switched one hell of a lot of our once-food-producing farmland to biofuel production because that's where the money is. Remember those wheat shortages in the Northeast a couple years back? WHEAT SHORTAGES. People ran out of BREAD for god's sake. Because all the farmers started producing corn for biofuels to get the delicious government subsidies.
So now you have the task of convincing farmers to let you dig up their land to place telecom infrastructure, and ensuring that they're placed in such a way that they won't possibly be compromised by the activities on the surface of the actively-farmed agricultural land. And you again have yet to say how it would be better and cheaper to run Cat6 (which requires all this extra planning, equipment, and space) when you could just run fiber next to the road and not have to worry about setting up special hardware within 100 meters of every location.
Allow me to present to you, your average picture of rural California. Now how exactly do you propose that we run such a complex ring of fiber around such irregular areas with individual homes spaced out far more than the hundred-meter limit imposed upon gigabit-or-less Cat6 run lengths? The way I see it, every fiber tap will only be able to support one Cat6 drop simply due to the sheer distance between locations, which once again returns me to this question which you have yet to answer: Why bother with Cat6 in the first place? Why not just run fiber to every home?
Slashdot Mirror
And since we know every possible effect the existence (or extinction) of an animal has to the ecosystem, we can sensibly make that list in the first place.
So we should spend endless amounts of money on hopelessly trying to save EVERY endangered species rather than saving only the ones that can actually be saved. Who wants to pick up the bill for that one? I think Opportunist (166417) has volunteered himself to take this Opportunity (LOLOLOLOL) to be the first one to go broke for this useless cause.
The only question that matters is whether the danger is justifiable in the situations in which it is actually used.
What danger? I have yet to see more than one or two instances in which a Taser has actually caused harm to an individual out of the thousands of times they've been used in the past couple decades, and every time it's due to blatant misuse. I wish we could have that kind of safety record with cars, guns, and high school football.
Linking to a Penn & Teller video as if it were some sort of actual content appropriate for thinking adults is your first hint your views are extreme.
Completely writing off information simply because it was presented by somebody you don't like is your first hint that there's absolutely no place for you in any kind of relatively serious political discussion. Go outside and play with your friends, grown-ups are talking right now.
but always make sure to leave you with the impression that the police and establishment are good guys.
That's because they are. Would you swear an oath to protect the public by putting others' lives ahead of yours? I didn't think so. There are some stupid cops out there, but they are a vast minority. I know a lot of cops and they are all great guys... I'm sorry you hold a grudge because they tell you to put out the joint and pull you over for driving 90.
What the fuck are you on about? I said "deserving" to differentiate from the danger to innocents and suspects who are not causing a situation which warrants the use of a Taser. Perhaps I could have used better phrasing, but you're being intentionally difficult or unintentionally stupid.
I'll say again, the ONLY time a taser should be used, is when an officer would use a handgun instead.
I disagree. An officer should ONLY use a handgun when the suspect is pointing a handgun at an innocent person. Tasers need to be more versatile than that. But I do agree with the general principle that Tasers should not be used as frequently as they are. But I would also like to point out that nearly every incident of improper (and often proper on a slow news day) garners tons of media attention, making a lot of people think that Tasers are misused a lot more often than they are. Your average police officer is not ever going to consider wielding his Taser against someone who's being 'lippy' during a traffic stop.
I hope you're being sarcastic. There's no reason to bring race into this.
Who's bringing race into this?
brother (plural brothers or (archaic) brethren)
Noun
1. Son of the same parents as another person.
My parents love me and my younger brother equally, even though he is adopted.
2. A male child descended from the same parents.
He's not a real brother. He's adopted.
3. A male having at least one parent in common with another (see half-brother, stepbrother).
4. A male fellow member of a religious community or church.
5. Someone who is a peer, whether male or female.
Good idea. Let me know when the bullet salesmen aren't training the sharpshooters.
..... what?
I can't seem to locate a published record of that particular study
Obviously, I posted three links that were published records of that study. I mean an actual paper published in an actual medical journal. All that I can find in Google are the thousands of articles from "the news" about the study that have better PageRank than the actual text of the actual medical paper.
Only by uninformed basement dwellers, anyone who's been even casually following "the news" for the past five years would know it's true.
That's the problem. "The news" broadcasts controversial events and propaganda and anecdotal evidence and videos of stupid hippies yelling at cops because they hate cops and unruly college students refusing to comply with peace officer demands at public speaking events and then whining when they get tazed. That's all I've ever seen on "the news". How about some actual data? How about some real statistics? Here's an irl scientific study which stated that out of the nearly 1000 cases of Taser use studied, 99.7% resulted in minor to no injury (as in, fall and scratch yourself on the concrete or similar), three hospitalizations, and two deaths which were found to not have been the result of Taser use: Taser Medical Safety: the state of the science - William P. Bozeman, MD, FACEP, FAAEM (PDF of a slideshow presentation made at University of Florida), Study: Tasers are safe to use - Physorg, Independent studies could answer questions about Tasers. I can't seem to locate a published record of that particular study, but here is another paper by Dr Bozeman that compares Tasers to other methods of incapacitation: Medical Aspects of Less Lethal Weapons.
Your turn.
"Excited delirium."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taser_safety_issues
That article is chock full of bullshit spin and propaganda from both sides of the debate. Also, the "Death and injuries related to Taser use" section has several publicized incidents that didn't actually result in death or injury.
The fact of the matter is that, with proper training and handling, a Taser device, when used in its intended setting against a deserving individual, is far safer to innocent bystanders, the environment, public safety personnel, and in most cases the suspects themselves than any other incapacitation method that I've ever heard of. So what if there's a slight risk of cardiac arrest if you're tasing a dangerous individual that's whacked out on meth? Would you rather he was shot by a firearm? Would you rather the police wrestle him to the ground by hand?
The problem with a debate like this is that the people who are against the topic at hand only look at the bad things about it, and can't be convinced by their relation to the good things. Allow me to cite a totally unrelated subject that is experiencing the same kind of public phenomena: The vaccine/autism debate. 1 in 110 children today have been diagnosed with autism, and some people have placed the blame on vaccines. Even if vaccines WERE to blame for autism, it would still be better to accept that 1 in 110 risk of autism than to accept the far greater risk of being killed or permanently disabled by the many diseases we are currently protected from by vaccination. Here's a neat video explaining that point: Penn & Teller's Bullshit - Vaccinations.
Same thing with Tasers. We can accept the very small risk of death or injury to people who are quite possibly dangerous criminals (and whether or not they're dangerous criminals, they are in every case of proper Taser use acting stupid and refusing to comply with very reasonable demands made by police in dangerous situations), or we can instead accept a much GREATER risk of death or injury to public safety personnel, innocent bystanders, and the suspects who we're trying to "protect" by banning the use of Tasers. I know which risk I'm willing to accept.
all the maimings and deaths by electrocution
[citation needed]
No, it's about ACTUALLY fooling people. This is fooling no one. Also, it's about fun. This is not fun.
Actually, CmdrTaco is sitting in a hilariously-oversized recliner chair laughing at all the people whining in the comments. April 1st is about fun for the people pulling the pranks and pain and misery for the people they're directed at. The more suffering for the second group, the more hilarity for the first. Physics, son.
Windows, on the other hand, was an OS which had a browser integrated for no other real reason beyond crushing the competition.
I don't understand why everybody seems to think there were sinister intentions behind Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. What does increased browser market share really accomplish? Let's imagine for just a moment a world in which Internet Explorer has never ever been bundled with an operating system, and Windows has never ever had an internet browser bundled with it. Do you think the world wide web would have had nearly the effect on the world as it has in actual reality? How many people would even know about that newfangled internet thing, and how many people would have taken the time to find a way to access it? Sure it would have caught on eventually, but the internet has only been around for 20 years or so and look how big of a part it has taken in everybody's lives. I submit that it would not have progressed nearly this far by now had Microsoft not given every Windows user a web browser out of the box.
Mozilla only got usable a few years ago (2005? 2006? Barely usable too - still had many memory issues back then) and that's when it started gaining marketshare. If you think I'm trolling or talking shit, just look at Google Chome - it has gained so much share in a far far shorter time than Mozilla took.
I've been using Firefox on and off since before 1.0. I had no problems with it back then. It was horrible compared to the standards of today, but it was still better than fucking IE6. I think we could attribute Chrome's rapid market share gain at least in part, though, to the fact that people are now aware of (and actively seeking) newer better ways to browse the web, and it has been backed by a multi-billion-dollar household name since the get go. Firefox really started the alternative browser trend, so it took a long time to gain steam.
I don't know if I need to remind you but Netscape was essentially Mozilla's code and they even said it in the EULA around 1994 or 95: "Remember, it's spelled N-E-T-S-C-A-P-E but it's pronounced 'Mozilla'"
Netscape was Netscape Communications' code. "Mozilla" was simply a codename (and useragent) for the browser back in the day. When I said "before Mozilla came along" I was referring to when Netscape essentially died and forked off into what was formally and officially called Mozilla which later split into Firefox et al.
The settlement did nothing. It was Mozilla and Firefox which revived competition in the browser market.
This. The field of web browser development was almost completely stagnant before Mozilla came along. Since then, the web has made massive strides in usability and function, which would not have been possible without Mozilla (and later Google). No antitrust settlement could have caused new browsers to emerge.
It amazes me that in 2011, anyone is still willingly giving their personal data over to internet data miners. In 2000 I might have understood it for general lack of awareness about the extent of it. But it's been the lead story on bloody CNN on many occasions. It isn't a mystery now to anyone who hasn't been living in a cave for the last decade.
Exactly. I know how much of my data companies like Google and Facebook have -- a fuckton. And you know how much that concerns me? Very little. What's the big deal? Why are people so hellbent on keeping things private? Newsflash: GOOGLE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR DATA, ONLY DATA. Nobody at Google is reading through your emails or browsing habits. It's all automated. Nobody knows anything about you because nobody cares about you.
These term that Google has to meet should be standard terms that ALL companies who collect information have to meet - especially the one about having to obtain user consent before sharing a user's private information with third parties.
You can always read a company's privacy policy before submitting personal information to them, and you can always simply not submit data to them if you disagree with it. Companies have to follow their privacy policy, because it is a legal contract. They have every right to include the possibility of distributing your information to third parties. Google just fucked up and rushed Buzz without thinking it through, so now they're getting boned by the privacy police.
The food issue isn't one of production but of (lack of) governments.
A lot of those starving people in Africa are living in what used to be THE (not just the, THE) breadbasket of the continent. Why are they starving in what should be the most productive areas of Africa? Because they'll get killed trying to farm the land or they were killed and some group that has no idea how to farm has been given their land.
Fix the governments and you fix the food problem.
Who was talking about Africa? We in the United States have switched one hell of a lot of our once-food-producing farmland to biofuel production because that's where the money is. Remember those wheat shortages in the Northeast a couple years back? WHEAT SHORTAGES. People ran out of BREAD for god's sake. Because all the farmers started producing corn for biofuels to get the delicious government subsidies.
Bookmarking this comment. Thank you for being you.
Do you have any evidence that diet can affect the right hip differently than the left hip?
It depends upon the structural polarity of the particular heifer from which you harvest the majority of your milk supply.
The respect level would be much higher if twatter didn't store user data in the first place.
....... and how the bloody dick would a service like Twitter go about operating without storing user data?
So now you have the task of convincing farmers to let you dig up their land to place telecom infrastructure, and ensuring that they're placed in such a way that they won't possibly be compromised by the activities on the surface of the actively-farmed agricultural land. And you again have yet to say how it would be better and cheaper to run Cat6 (which requires all this extra planning, equipment, and space) when you could just run fiber next to the road and not have to worry about setting up special hardware within 100 meters of every location.
Allow me to present to you, your average picture of rural California. Now how exactly do you propose that we run such a complex ring of fiber around such irregular areas with individual homes spaced out far more than the hundred-meter limit imposed upon gigabit-or-less Cat6 run lengths? The way I see it, every fiber tap will only be able to support one Cat6 drop simply due to the sheer distance between locations, which once again returns me to this question which you have yet to answer: Why bother with Cat6 in the first place? Why not just run fiber to every home?