The cynic in me would suggest that the dogs are most likely trained that way on purpose. (The appeal of a walking "probable cause generator" is pretty tempting to a cop, I'd suggest).
You comply with the search, or they can hold you indefinitely until the dogs come to sniff the outside. If you are innocent, it's always better for you if you comply, though if everyone innocent were to not comply, the system would collapse.
Besides, if you don't comply, they'll use your "nervous behavior" as part of the PC for the search. The PC is that you looked nervous and were in an area with know drug trafficking. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
One better - the trained dog can be considered probable cause as well (as interpreted through the cop who wants to search your car).
In Canada - at least, in BC - flashing green does not mean that you have right of way to turn left. It simply means that the traffic light is currently in "no switching" mode - i.e. it'll remain green unless someone does something to change that. Most often, that's used on pedestrian-controlled lights - basically, when it's blinking, you know the button was not pressed, and so you can just cruise through at regular speed.
Weird - doesn't work that way in Alberta. Right-of-way for lefts is a flashing green *arrow*. Can't recall ever seeing a plain ol' flashing green.
On the other side, the failsafe hazard setting is usually flashing red or yellow (meaning "stop" or "yield" respectively.
" Plus, it's totally fun to live at work! If you've ever worked a campaign, you know this!"
No, no it isn't. It's called slavery. The fact they you 'get' to leave to get coffee once in a while doesn't change that.
Let's split the difference - it might be awesome to be part of The Big Event, but I certainly wouldn't do it for free. (Even all those campaign interns are doing it for the prospect of a government job at the end.)
Show me a data center admin that's not "on call" 24/7 and I'll show you a data center with a nightly power-down procedure.
Being paid is another matter entirely.
Yeah, but there's different levels of "on call".
There's "my phone can ring at any hour, but I'm not expected to be able to reach the office or be particularly sober" on call, there's "I'm expected to be able to get into the office and be coherent on 2 hours notice" on call, and there's "chain you to the desk" on call.
The better service you want, the more you should be paying for it.
On the other hand, apparently the men-women ratio in nursing is 1:19 (yes, one guy for every 19 women). But I suspect if some organization started offering men-only scholarships for nursing there'd be riots.
I suppose it's just a shame that we have to bribe women to go against the trend, rather than just changing society. (I have a five year old daughter, and I will make damned sure she gets a chance to try a little bit of everything, gender-bias be damned.)
A trip to the girl's toys section of walmart should be proof enough of that.
Yes, can we *please* make girl's toys (and clothes) in something other than hot pink?
I have a daughter, and I tried to keep the pink away from her. Oh, how I tried. But once you get out of pure unisex baby clothes, the girls section is *nothing but freaking pink*!
"Profitable" for goverment agencies does make sense, when you consider where the money is going.
TSA doesn't make a profit, true - but every time that money goes to private contractors, you bet your bottom dollar *they* think of the TSA as profitable.
Because most states in the US are "at-will employment" states. For some reason they believe that letting employers fire you for no reason is good for employees.
In an effort to be anti-snark, can anyone give us a defense of "at will"?
This fails the sanity check - they're saying that each of their 20K stores is being defrauded for between 715 and 920 thousand dollars.
Each. The most expensive TV that Best Buy sells is $6500. For them to be losing that amount, they'd have to be getting 2-3 unrecoverable, top-end televisions a *week*. Every week. All year long.
Not to mention that the software is almost certainly identifying "abuse" as defined as "they're returning too much stuff"
What they are attempting to prevent is those folks who buy the damn thing on Friday and return it on Monday as not being what they wanted. If it's being returned because it doesn't work, that's a different issue and should be gladly handled by the retailer as usual.
The problem is, there's no way to differentiate people who do a weekend "rental" from people who bought it, got it home, and it isn't what they wanted. (i.e. a "legit return"). The only real difference is that the former *know* they don't want to keep it.
Actually, why hasn't someone just started a TV rental business for this sort of thing?
As a customer who doesn't do such things, I was happy to see them enforce their policy as every time a customer "rents" via buy/return, it raises prices for everyone else. (I think they would have exchanged it if it was defective which seems fair enough).
How so? They'll just take your return, tape it up and put it back on the shelf. They've made a couple days interest.
What strikes me as interesting is - how to they intend to *enforce* this if (say) I don't have a Driver's License? Or send my wife/kid/buddy instead?
(Also, hadn't realized that Canada doesn't enforce any sort of required return policy. Learn something new every day.)
You mean besides the "no-one believes for an instant that the black kid would be allowed to walk free for several months"?
Yes, there's a lot of people upset because a black kid got shot dead for carrying concealed candy. A lot of us are far more upset because a neighborhood watch volunteer with delusions of grandeur managed to scare himself into killing a kid.
NPR claims to get a tiny amount of money from the government. But every time Congress talks about cutting their budget NPR claims it would put them out of business.
Which is it?
Entirely possibly for it to be both - a lot of companies would go under if they lost 5% of their income in a short period of time.
Well, it depends on exactly how they implement it.
The standard advertising model is right out - I'll happily pay for it.
I'd love face recognition, but only from my personal address book. I have a horrible memory for faces, so I'd love that sort of memory aid. But having it auto-dial up Facebook and such is a bit too creepy for my taste.
It'd need to let me turn on/off notifications - I don't let my iPhone buzz when I get an email, I'm sure as hell not going to accept popups.
If there's a full-color display, I want zoom capability - use the camera, show me what I'm looking at, and then "enhance".
And if they're going to make it voice-activated, they'd damned well make sure it only listens to me. (Or else I *will* troll everyone wearing one of these.)
Are these servers part of an ongoing investigation? If yes, then you should be compensating the company for their use.
If no, do you have a court order prohibiting the sale of these servers (for whatever reason)?
If no, then I can't think of any reason why they can't sell these servers to whomever they wish. (And I'm amazed no-one's bothered trying the shell company gambit here - expect some random third-party to buy them any day now, who conveniently makes a deal with MegaUpload.)
I think this proves my point -- being someone who might run into your kid's teacher in a bar after hours means you likely have no problems with your kids knowing you frequent bars -- and so you also have no problems with your kids' teachers frequenting bars.
Actually, I'm personally almost never in bars. But I grew up in a small town where it's not exactly difficult to run into a teacher after-hours. And maybe they're walking into the grocery store, or maybe it's the bar (they're next door to each other). Plus, I have friends and relatives who are teachers - they're normal people, and they have normal appetites. I just can't think of a reason to justify that a 20-something person magically has to become a Matron just because their day job involves kids.
Now, if said teacher was flagged as being a vocal advocate for creation science, and had been filmed participating in book burnings and anti-gay protests, would you feel the same way? After all, these are also after-hours activities, and reflect on their moral and ethical codes while not necessarily affecting how they care for your children during school hours.
If you are truly fine with your kids' teachers doing things you find morally repugnant (whatever that may be for you), you've got a point, and it's one I personally agree with. If I have an issue, I should be at most pulling my child from the class (more likely just talking to my child about the related issues), not asking the teacher to leave. If your attitude changes to "but there's no way they can keep that out of how they train my children in the classroom!" then my observation about why teachers get singled out stands.
So long as they're not trying to tell my kid that she's "wrong" because she disagrees, I can't think of a reason why I'd do more than disagree. If my daughter was starting to feel uncomfortable, I'd likely request to swap her to the other classroom. (And I'd do that for a host of reasons - I had teachers I just couldn't get along with growing up; I had a 20% jump in Social swapping teachers once).
I suppose there's a line where I'd make a proper issue out of it, but it would be something a lot closer to Actually Illegal.
The local school board does *everything* online. Part of registering my kid for kindergarten was getting a sign-in for the school board's website. It's extremely rare to get anything printed from school that isn't my daughter's schoolwork.
Report cards? Online.
Attendance? Online.
Calendar, fieldtrips, notes from teacher? All online.
It's almost to the point where it's a bit *too* far Into The Future - the classroom doesn't have a blackboard or whiteboard, just one of those projector/touchscreen Smart Boards. At the kindergarten level I'm not too worried, but I won't be surprised to learn in a year or two that all the kid's classes are taught using Powerpoint slides.
If the lady comes to the desk and leans over in her low-cut shirt, I'm not going to apologize for what I may see. But it's not polite to stare either.
Yes, but it's even more than impolite for her to label you a creepy pervert after you've impolitely stared... seeing all that talk about false accusations, libel, etc.
If I'm staring down a lady's cleavage, I think that puts me in "creepy pervert" territory. Didn't your momma teach you that staring is impolite?
Because the teacher is the only one who becomes legal guardian of their children during the day. The others may be role models to children, but teachers actually are substitute parents -- so when parents see a teacher doing something they wouldn't let their children catch THEM doing, they get upset.
That said, the doctor may get in trouble too. The lawyer wouldn't because most people assume they've got no ethics to begin with and are legally covered.
And as long as the teacher is sober during the day, I don't think it's any of my business what they're doing after hours. That line of reasoning is how companies feel justified in demanding passwords. Hell, if I ran into my kid's teacher after hours at a bar I'd *buy* her a drink as a thank-you. (If it's one of my old teachers, it'd be an apology beer for having to put up with me.)
Teachers are people too, and we certainly don't pay them enough to demand particular behaviors after hours.
It is expected that individuals in certain jobs (primarily dealing with children) show standards of behaviour different from the norm.
In some cases there is a good reason for it...I think it would be difficult for a 18 year old boy to keep their minds on schoolwork if the students were passing around links to pictures of their 22-year old teacher in clubwear at a rave.
Not to burst your sexism, but it's safe to assume that if the 18-year-old kid wishes to ogle his 22-year-old teacher (of whatever gender), what they're wearing at that moment will probably suit the kid just fine.
(Not to mention that at 18, it's entirely possible the kid was at the same club - they're legal, after all.)
I'll agree with you in that I don't think newly-minted teachers should be in high schools. Not for any salacious reason, but simply the fact that four years isn't really enough distance to enforce the student/teacher distinction (in either direction). Let them do a couple years in junior high first to age up a bit.
And oddly, I'd say the ban is the system "working as intended" - ignoring the TOS violation (because does anyone honestly think *that* was the real reason), it's a case of Foursquare deciding that their business model is not well served by helping out these people, and cutting them off. Invisible hand and all that.
I agree with you that I don't see a reason to post my exact location to the world (I don't even do it on the "friends only" settings), but I'll accept that some people may have a need or want to do so.
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The cynic in me would suggest that the dogs are most likely trained that way on purpose. (The appeal of a walking "probable cause generator" is pretty tempting to a cop, I'd suggest).
You comply with the search, or they can hold you indefinitely until the dogs come to sniff the outside. If you are innocent, it's always better for you if you comply, though if everyone innocent were to not comply, the system would collapse. Besides, if you don't comply, they'll use your "nervous behavior" as part of the PC for the search. The PC is that you looked nervous and were in an area with know drug trafficking. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
One better - the trained dog can be considered probable cause as well (as interpreted through the cop who wants to search your car).
In Canada - at least, in BC - flashing green does not mean that you have right of way to turn left. It simply means that the traffic light is currently in "no switching" mode - i.e. it'll remain green unless someone does something to change that. Most often, that's used on pedestrian-controlled lights - basically, when it's blinking, you know the button was not pressed, and so you can just cruise through at regular speed.
Weird - doesn't work that way in Alberta. Right-of-way for lefts is a flashing green *arrow*. Can't recall ever seeing a plain ol' flashing green.
On the other side, the failsafe hazard setting is usually flashing red or yellow (meaning "stop" or "yield" respectively.
" Plus, it's totally fun to live at work! If you've ever worked a campaign, you know this!"
No, no it isn't. It's called slavery. The fact they you 'get' to leave to get coffee once in a while doesn't change that.
Let's split the difference - it might be awesome to be part of The Big Event, but I certainly wouldn't do it for free. (Even all those campaign interns are doing it for the prospect of a government job at the end.)
Show me a data center admin that's not "on call" 24/7 and I'll show you a data center with a nightly power-down procedure.
Being paid is another matter entirely.
Yeah, but there's different levels of "on call".
There's "my phone can ring at any hour, but I'm not expected to be able to reach the office or be particularly sober" on call, there's "I'm expected to be able to get into the office and be coherent on 2 hours notice" on call, and there's "chain you to the desk" on call.
The better service you want, the more you should be paying for it.
and in phase three you just burn 'em up and toss out the corpses afterwards.
That's wasteful - you should be recycling them by using heat-exchange engines.
On the other hand, apparently the men-women ratio in nursing is 1:19 (yes, one guy for every 19 women). But I suspect if some organization started offering men-only scholarships for nursing there'd be riots.
I suppose it's just a shame that we have to bribe women to go against the trend, rather than just changing society. (I have a five year old daughter, and I will make damned sure she gets a chance to try a little bit of everything, gender-bias be damned.)
A trip to the girl's toys section of walmart should be proof enough of that.
Yes, can we *please* make girl's toys (and clothes) in something other than hot pink?
I have a daughter, and I tried to keep the pink away from her. Oh, how I tried. But once you get out of pure unisex baby clothes, the girls section is *nothing but freaking pink*!
"Profitable" for goverment agencies does make sense, when you consider where the money is going.
TSA doesn't make a profit, true - but every time that money goes to private contractors, you bet your bottom dollar *they* think of the TSA as profitable.
Because most states in the US are "at-will employment" states. For some reason they believe that letting employers fire you for no reason is good for employees.
In an effort to be anti-snark, can anyone give us a defense of "at will"?
This fails the sanity check - they're saying that each of their 20K stores is being defrauded for between 715 and 920 thousand dollars.
Each. The most expensive TV that Best Buy sells is $6500. For them to be losing that amount, they'd have to be getting 2-3 unrecoverable, top-end televisions a *week*. Every week. All year long.
Not to mention that the software is almost certainly identifying "abuse" as defined as "they're returning too much stuff"
What they are attempting to prevent is those folks who buy the damn thing on Friday and return it on Monday as not being what they wanted. If it's being returned because it doesn't work, that's a different issue and should be gladly handled by the retailer as usual.
The problem is, there's no way to differentiate people who do a weekend "rental" from people who bought it, got it home, and it isn't what they wanted. (i.e. a "legit return"). The only real difference is that the former *know* they don't want to keep it.
Actually, why hasn't someone just started a TV rental business for this sort of thing?
As a customer who doesn't do such things, I was happy to see them enforce their policy as every time a customer "rents" via buy/return, it raises prices for everyone else. (I think they would have exchanged it if it was defective which seems fair enough).
How so? They'll just take your return, tape it up and put it back on the shelf. They've made a couple days interest.
What strikes me as interesting is - how to they intend to *enforce* this if (say) I don't have a Driver's License? Or send my wife/kid/buddy instead?
(Also, hadn't realized that Canada doesn't enforce any sort of required return policy. Learn something new every day.)
You mean besides the "no-one believes for an instant that the black kid would be allowed to walk free for several months"?
Yes, there's a lot of people upset because a black kid got shot dead for carrying concealed candy. A lot of us are far more upset because a neighborhood watch volunteer with delusions of grandeur managed to scare himself into killing a kid.
NPR claims to get a tiny amount of money from the government. But every time Congress talks about cutting their budget NPR claims it would put them out of business.
Which is it?
Entirely possibly for it to be both - a lot of companies would go under if they lost 5% of their income in a short period of time.
Well, it depends on exactly how they implement it.
The standard advertising model is right out - I'll happily pay for it.
I'd love face recognition, but only from my personal address book. I have a horrible memory for faces, so I'd love that sort of memory aid. But having it auto-dial up Facebook and such is a bit too creepy for my taste.
It'd need to let me turn on/off notifications - I don't let my iPhone buzz when I get an email, I'm sure as hell not going to accept popups.
If there's a full-color display, I want zoom capability - use the camera, show me what I'm looking at, and then "enhance".
And if they're going to make it voice-activated, they'd damned well make sure it only listens to me. (Or else I *will* troll everyone wearing one of these.)
Are these servers part of an ongoing investigation? If yes, then you should be compensating the company for their use.
If no, do you have a court order prohibiting the sale of these servers (for whatever reason)?
If no, then I can't think of any reason why they can't sell these servers to whomever they wish. (And I'm amazed no-one's bothered trying the shell company gambit here - expect some random third-party to buy them any day now, who conveniently makes a deal with MegaUpload.)
I think this proves my point -- being someone who might run into your kid's teacher in a bar after hours means you likely have no problems with your kids knowing you frequent bars -- and so you also have no problems with your kids' teachers frequenting bars.
Actually, I'm personally almost never in bars. But I grew up in a small town where it's not exactly difficult to run into a teacher after-hours. And maybe they're walking into the grocery store, or maybe it's the bar (they're next door to each other). Plus, I have friends and relatives who are teachers - they're normal people, and they have normal appetites. I just can't think of a reason to justify that a 20-something person magically has to become a Matron just because their day job involves kids.
Now, if said teacher was flagged as being a vocal advocate for creation science, and had been filmed participating in book burnings and anti-gay protests, would you feel the same way? After all, these are also after-hours activities, and reflect on their moral and ethical codes while not necessarily affecting how they care for your children during school hours.
If you are truly fine with your kids' teachers doing things you find morally repugnant (whatever that may be for you), you've got a point, and it's one I personally agree with. If I have an issue, I should be at most pulling my child from the class (more likely just talking to my child about the related issues), not asking the teacher to leave. If your attitude changes to "but there's no way they can keep that out of how they train my children in the classroom!" then my observation about why teachers get singled out stands.
So long as they're not trying to tell my kid that she's "wrong" because she disagrees, I can't think of a reason why I'd do more than disagree. If my daughter was starting to feel uncomfortable, I'd likely request to swap her to the other classroom. (And I'd do that for a host of reasons - I had teachers I just couldn't get along with growing up; I had a 20% jump in Social swapping teachers once).
I suppose there's a line where I'd make a proper issue out of it, but it would be something a lot closer to Actually Illegal.
Or a real right to bear arms.
Anyone in Canada who has a need for a gun, can have a gun. Most people who want a gun can have one too.
We're just a teensy bit fussier on who and where we hand out the guns. And in exchange, we get shot at a lot less.
The local school board does *everything* online. Part of registering my kid for kindergarten was getting a sign-in for the school board's website. It's extremely rare to get anything printed from school that isn't my daughter's schoolwork.
Report cards? Online.
Attendance? Online.
Calendar, fieldtrips, notes from teacher? All online.
It's almost to the point where it's a bit *too* far Into The Future - the classroom doesn't have a blackboard or whiteboard, just one of those projector/touchscreen Smart Boards. At the kindergarten level I'm not too worried, but I won't be surprised to learn in a year or two that all the kid's classes are taught using Powerpoint slides.
If the lady comes to the desk and leans over in her low-cut shirt, I'm not going to apologize for what I may see. But it's not polite to stare either.
Yes, but it's even more than impolite for her to label you a creepy pervert after you've impolitely stared... seeing all that talk about false accusations, libel, etc.
If I'm staring down a lady's cleavage, I think that puts me in "creepy pervert" territory. Didn't your momma teach you that staring is impolite?
Because the teacher is the only one who becomes legal guardian of their children during the day. The others may be role models to children, but teachers actually are substitute parents -- so when parents see a teacher doing something they wouldn't let their children catch THEM doing, they get upset.
That said, the doctor may get in trouble too. The lawyer wouldn't because most people assume they've got no ethics to begin with and are legally covered.
And as long as the teacher is sober during the day, I don't think it's any of my business what they're doing after hours. That line of reasoning is how companies feel justified in demanding passwords. Hell, if I ran into my kid's teacher after hours at a bar I'd *buy* her a drink as a thank-you. (If it's one of my old teachers, it'd be an apology beer for having to put up with me.)
Teachers are people too, and we certainly don't pay them enough to demand particular behaviors after hours.
It is expected that individuals in certain jobs (primarily dealing with children) show standards of behaviour different from the norm.
In some cases there is a good reason for it...I think it would be difficult for a 18 year old boy to keep their minds on schoolwork if the students were passing around links to pictures of their 22-year old teacher in clubwear at a rave.
Not to burst your sexism, but it's safe to assume that if the 18-year-old kid wishes to ogle his 22-year-old teacher (of whatever gender), what they're wearing at that moment will probably suit the kid just fine.
(Not to mention that at 18, it's entirely possible the kid was at the same club - they're legal, after all.)
I'll agree with you in that I don't think newly-minted teachers should be in high schools. Not for any salacious reason, but simply the fact that four years isn't really enough distance to enforce the student/teacher distinction (in either direction). Let them do a couple years in junior high first to age up a bit.
And oddly, I'd say the ban is the system "working as intended" - ignoring the TOS violation (because does anyone honestly think *that* was the real reason), it's a case of Foursquare deciding that their business model is not well served by helping out these people, and cutting them off. Invisible hand and all that.
I agree with you that I don't see a reason to post my exact location to the world (I don't even do it on the "friends only" settings), but I'll accept that some people may have a need or want to do so.
By that logic, women who wear dresses and walk on stairs want people to stand under and peer upwards.
Similar to patents, perving using a computer is the same thing as being a pervert - it might not be illegal, but it's still a problem on your end.