But I do concede that it's probably closer than the limited exceptions I was trying to get at.
This is what I was trying to get at. The "exceptions" run the opposite of what you suggested. There is a definition of assault and a definition of battery. If an act does not meet those defintions there is not crime. "Sport" does not need and "exception" because it does not meet the definition of either assault or battery. It is certain acts of excesive violence beyond what might be normal in a sport that can cause a sporting activity to result in a criminal charge.
This isn't true. Read the laws in New York (it's the first one listed, 120.00, then 120.05 and 120.10; all three degrees of assault have provisions that don't require intent). ..
The very first degree specifically requires intent. The rest require actual injury through neglegence or recklessness.
Shining a laser on someone does not cause injury. I just walked up to my cat, laser in hand, and "drilled" the sucker right into her head at point blank range for a over a minute.
She purred and licked my nose, completely unaware that she was being "assualted."
Then I "drilled" myself right in the forehead. Without looking in a mirror I couldn't even tell where the dot was. It doesn't even cause sensation, let alone injury.
Laser doesn't mean "death ray." It's just a frickin' light. I can injure myself much easier with a common, 60 watt lightbulb. In fact, I have injured myself with one of those, and even caused temporary blindness, which I have never done with a laser, even though I spend far more time handling lasers than lightbulbs.
In any case, consent isn't at play in the particular example of shining a LASER at someone.
It most certainly is. That's why I brought it up in the first place, and why you won't go to jail for trying my proposed experiment.
You will use a subject who consents, and who will suffer no legally actionable injury from the activities.
And it isn't illegal to shine a laser on someone. Only to assault them. Shining a laser on someone doesn't meet the defintion of assault, anymore than shining a flashlight on them does (and if that person is driving a car the flashlight is far, far more likely to cause them injury).
The 1% may be rude to them, which is something nobody needs.
Ok, so what's your solution to the existence of rude people then?
The chairs, I would assume, are there so you can sit down for a bit, not so you can take off your shoes and read through the entire novel without paying.
It might surprise you to find out that the people who read the most books without paying for them are also the people who spend the most money on books, and by a considerable margin. People who do not love books do not go hang out in bookstores for days at a time.
People who read the most books for free at the library are also great book buyers. People who do not go to the library buy few, if any, books.
You mentioned the "NYC way", and so you may need to understand that the suburban areas have a slightly different culture.
I do not live in NYC. I dislike the place rather intensely, although I am, by professional and family/personal ties often obliged to go there.
I live well upstate in an area rife with suburbia. Ed Koch publicly called it "The land of pickup trucks and gingham dresses," which likely cost him the governorship.
It is not "rude" to ask people, politely, to be polite, and I am at a loss as to how having chairs that are only comfortable for a short time invokes personal rudeness.
I agree that the young, minimum wage personel in a chain bookstore aren't the best people to do the job of politely maintaining order though, and I for what they make I wouldn't expect them to be.
If you want better service and managment than that then my advice would simply be not to go to McBookstores, just as you might avoid McDonald's. They're frickin' chain stores staffed by minimum wage kids. What do you expect?
It is very simple. Ask them nicely and politely to move along to allow another customer a seat. It works 99% of time without any complaint whatsoever.
The remaining 1% can simply have their asses tossed.
There is something called the "social contract." It is perfectly reasonable to invoke it without having to make up a lot of silly rules.
Of course there's always the NYC way. Have the seats ergonomically designed to suddenly become painful to sit in after 20 minutes. Such seats can be purchased off the shelf.
I must assume that the chain bookstores that put out comfy armchairs and sofas expect people to occupy them for a considerable time if they so desire.
I can't help it if English is dumb. I didn't invent it. Many words have multiple meanings, but, in this case, you'll find they actually have a direct relationship if you think about it.
. ..are you therefore implying that whenever I go to a restaurant, I am being entertained, therefore the staff are my friends?
No. I am implying that they are your host. You may even be met at the door and seated by a young woman whose proper title is "hostess." And that is what you are paying for. To be a guest.
Guests are entertained. Feeding them is part of the entertainment, as is treating them with respect and seeing to whatever other needs they might have that are reasonable to fulfill, like providing them with a place to pee, wash up a bit and plug in their laptop.
Hospitality is a part of this, but entertainment? I don't expect my waiter to jump up and start dancing on a table with a tophat.
What is it you are doing when you have some friends over for dinner?
You are entertaining.
For when one doesn't feel like cooking, can't (on the road with no stove, etc). ..
I am on the road a lot. I often live out of a bike messenger/panniers/gig bag (and here's a hot tip that some of you may not have considered. An acoustic guitar is hollow) for days at a time. It is never necessary to cook in any vaguely civilized country in order to obtain a good meal. It is simply a cultural bias to associate eating with cooking. I never have to carry a camp stove and the attendant fuel because I simply don't carry anything that needs cooking. They call it trail mix for a reason, and you can walk into any supermarket/deli/convenience store in the world and walk out with days worth of good food you can simply stick in your mouth and eat.
I spent this past weekend in NYC living out of my gig bag. I spent less on food than I would have at home because I went to the corner markets where stuff is actually cheaper than it is outside of the city, instead of paying exorbitant city prices for restaurant meals which aren't even as healty anyway.
"The ship in a bottle you made me was far more than I expected. I really like it."
(I'm not sure why he's pleased about being a ship in a bottle, but we'll let that pass)
The object, the ship in a bottle, has already been refered to in explict terms. Only the simple pronoun is required after that. Refering to it later on in statistical terms (remember that "product" is a statistical term, and thus essentially plural, just like "consumer." They both refer to sets, not items, and are only singular in the sense of refering to the set as a whole) is lingistically, and conceptually, a bit weird. People are used to hearing that sort of language formation these days so the brain doesn't register it as weird, but it is.
Here's an example from a different perspective. You wouldn't say, "Your mom is nice. I really like your people." It would be, "I really like her."
"Your family is nice. I really like your people," is fine, because there you are speaking of a set.
And really, both the terms "consumer" and "product" have no reason to exist at all outside of the economic calculus. They are technical terms for mathmatically discussing the behavior of groups. They cannot even be correctly applied to unique items ( as all of my ships in bottles are. I've never made the same one twice and each has a different price). The economic calculus only applies to generic items, commodities. Unique items are inherently handled in a strict one to one, buyer/seller relationship.
I admit I'm very fond of the technical term "thingy" though. I used it just last night when I was strumming some warm up chords and someone asked, "Are you going to play that song?"
More and more consumer-facing industries are turning on their own customers because the customers are behaving different from what they like or expect.
You can largely blame this on the proliferation of business schools. Business school "trained" people will call a customer a "consumer" right to his face, which, not only ought to be unthinkable, but abuses the theoretical model for which the term is legitimately appropriate.
You see it in the use of the word "product" too, even for things that aren't even really products.
The theoretical business language, and the mental distance from the customer, who is a real individual person standing in front of you, that this creates is causing all sorts of social ills.
Even the "consumers" are using the language themselves now.
"Thank you for the guitar lesson. I really like your product."
"The ship in a bottle you made me was far more than I expected. I really like your product."
What on earth causes them to refer to my ships in bottles as "product?" It's a ship. In a bottle. And you already said that.
At least that really is a product in the theoretical model though. The guitar lesson thing has me really stumped.
I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting, but I'm just now consuming my morning caffeine.
Lot of that going around right now. Just check out my spelling and grammar so far this morning.
The fact of the matter is that if you'd ever done any fine woodworking (I build furniture, boats and musical instruments) you never look at the drill, but you pay very, very careful attention to the hole.
No woodworker gives a shit about drills, a drill is only the instrument to achieve the end goal, the perfect hole for the job, and the "drill business" is, in fact, the hole business.
Restaurants aren't in the feeding people business, they're in the making people feel good business. Farmers and grocery stores are in the feeding people business.
When I want food, I go to the supermarket. When I want a warm, dry, comfortable place to sit and get waited on like I was a noble, then I go to a restaurant, and if I don't get that, I never, ever go back there again. Neither does my money.
The main reason restaurants and bars have the highest rate of failure of any business is because their owners usually don't understand this.
You've been modded offtopic, but I'll support you in this, at least up to a point.
The fact is that restaurants arn't really in the food industry, they are in the entertainment and hospitality industry. Food just happens to be a major part of their entertainment and hospitality offerings, but not even necessarily the biggest part.
Being treated well by the staff is very important and part of the atmosphere and ammenities that people go to a restaurant for (otherwise they could just go buy a bunch of bananas and chunck of cheese from a local mart, for a fraction the price).
Electricty, in the form of lighting, TV sets, radios, video games and other necessaries are part of parcel of the ammenities they offer that people go there for. Now those ammenities include a place to plug in your laptop. It isn't "leeching," it's what they are there for, and paying for.
Dear restaurant industry. Your custormer's needs are changing. Give them what they want. Tack a stupid quarter onto the bill if it makes you feel better.
Those of you that fucking cope will turn out to be the winners.
Okay, it is illegal to knowingly or recklessly cause physical harm to someone.
That is only partially correct.
There's of course an exemption (though in case law rather than written into the statutes) for recognized sports when the conduct is within both the rules and customs of that sport.
That is incorrect. There is simply no law against hitting anyone. However, it is correct to say that in certain cases violence in a sport may not excede certain levels. The "exemption" is not for the sport, but for the particular incident. This case law is also brand new, only a matter of a few years old.
Shining LASERs at people isn't a recognized sport, not is it any other exemption.
Again, sport has nothing to do with it, there is no legal authority for "recognizing" what is and isn't a sport and there is no law against shining lasers on people. People do it every day.
Some of them even pay for the priviledge, as it happens, in a sport.
You have missed the key issue entirely with your concept of "exemption," because the issue is consent. It is perfectly legal to permanantly mutilate another person if they consent. You can have it done at any mall.
If you did manage to blind them, you could easily be convicted of assault.
Assault is a crime of intent. With no intent, there is no assault. Criminal Negligence, perhaps.
If the jurisdiction has a separate charge of maiming. ..
So far as I know such a criminal charge does not exist in any American jurisdiction (severity of injury simply affects the class of battery, assault is not battery, and vice versa), although it is grounds for a civil suit.
It isn't against the law at all to hit someone. Only to assault or batter them.
Those words have a legal meaning that is not synonomous with hit.
Hell, it's even perfectly legal to stab someone with a sword too, and I've done that a fair number of times. I'd like to say I've done it more often than I've been stabbed, but I think I might be deceiving myself, and thus you.
. ..so if you're basing this off of what you've done with a red one, you might want to think again.
Oh, and I commonly use red, green and infrared lasers. I'm using red as my example because it the sort of hand held laser most other people can relate to, and the color/power of a laser are completely irrelvant to the issue of targeting.
Targeting, is, in fact, my primary preoccupation with lasers, and if you are hand holding you cannot reliably target a motionless and inanimate object the size of a retina only feet away from you. At twenty feet you'll need a mount to hit it for more than a quarter second at a time, and from 100 you'll need a shockproof mount of some sort, or someone walking across the floor might cause enough vibration to throw the beam off target.
An airplane is relatively easy to hit using the "firehose" method. And completely pointless for any reason other than goofing around.
Answer, not much. In terms of significance, not at all.
If you can aim well enough to get it on the plane itself, I think you could probably get it to hit the cockpit.
That's like saying if you can hit an elephant with a arrow from behind you could probably get it in the eye. It's completely falacious reasoning.
I live under the landing path of a major Air National Guard base. C130s are over my head several times a day. I could hit a fair percentage of them with a pointer if I tried (they're very low, and much, much larger than charter a small charter jet). I'd miss a few though.
Hitting the cockpit would be a physical impossibility.
Unless it works, in which case you'd be had for assault.
Nonesense. I've punched people square in the face, over and over, and never been had, nor could I have been had for assualt.
Green LASERS have a much higher output power than red ones.
That's one of the reasons I sometimes employ them for data aquisition purposes over red ones. You're still not going to hit a pilot in the air with one, let alone cause him any harm.
Here's an experiment you can try. Go get your picture taken with a camera that has a flash.
Happened to me about 30 times Sunday evening. A few days before that someone with a camera crept up right to edge of the stage while I was looking down, and as soon as I looked up let loose a stobe right in my face. It pretty much sucked, although I was complimented afterward for not so much as missing a beat when it happened.
But here's an experiment you can try. Take a "flash" picture with a laser pointer. What sort of image do you suppose you'll get and what are the odds that the subject was even aware you used a "flash"?
More than that, they admit it up front. Under those circumstances a conviction is virtually impossible (although stranger things have happened), and the prosecutors know it. It'll be plea bargained to a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief and something like a $500 fine.
I've been momentarily blinded by oncoming headlights.
I have that experience daily. I've yet to see a car with headlasers though. The laser part makes a world of difference. There is no dispersion pattern for a laser. That's what makes it a laser. You have to look directly into the cohesive beam of a laser to see it at all. That's why it makes a red dot instead of a red splash, like car tail lights do. A person on the other side of the street from you can only see the laser at all if that tiny red dot happens to pass directly over his retina.
Now, take that car and toss it at a couple hundred miles an hour and several hundred feet over your head.
Try to make that little red dot pass directly over the retina of the driver. For that matter, try to make it hit the driver at all.
Try somthing easier, try to put out your own cat's eye with your laser pointer. You'll certainly be able to distract her, for hours on end. You'll get bored before she does.
Her eyes will be perfectly safe. You will not be able to even momentarily blind her.
Now I don't have to spend the next quarter century in jail.
There is no law against shining a laser pointer at someone.
And I'm sure all it would take would be a powerful pointer and a monocular.
There is no dispute over the fact that it was an ordinary laser pointer involved. I'm not sure what sort of "powerful" laser pointer you have in mind. Go down to Best Buy and try to buy one of these "powerful" pointers.
Let us presume, however, that you have somehow managed to get a "powerful" pointer and a monocular. You will still be unable to do anything more that pass the beam over the retina of a motionless man 20 feet away by "blind" luck, and only for a fraction of a second at a time. The feat has nothing to do with the power of the laser or any possible optical magnification.
You don't have to put anyone's eye out, all you have to do is illuminate the eyes enough that a visual distraction is created.
That is changing your premise. It is also much easier done with a simple Mini Mag than with a laser, since with the Mini Mag you are guarunteed a "hit," whereas with the laser a "hit" is quite unlikely.
Any ordinary laser pointer is capable of going miles into the air.
Find a dark place. Light a simple candle. Walk a mile away. If you have line of sight to the candle you will be able to see it. Camp fires have been observed from space.
Any man who can intentionally hit a small charter jet traveling at a few hundred miles an hour 3k feet in the air has accomplished something quite remarkable.
Although a helicopter hovering over your house at 50 feet is a piece of cake.
I imagine it would be much easier than you imagine. A sustained laser at a drivers eyes. ..
I defy you to accomplish this. It's unlikely you could manage to do it to man standing motionless in front of you 20 feet away.
Idiots are, in fact, putting their own eyes out with lasers by shining them directly in from a foot or less away, not putting out their neighbors eyes while playing red dot from across the street. It just doesn't happen, and you can't make it happen.
Try going outside and waving an ordinary flashlight around at the trees and stuff and observe what happens. The only difference here is that it was a "laser."
Oooooooooooooo.
I've shined one on my cat, at a range of only a few feet, quite intentionally, for hours and hours over the past years. I haven't put her eye out or nothin'.
The third possibility is that it was just some guy playing "green dot" who happened to pass it over a plane and the only consequence was freaking out a pilot over something essentially harmless.
Imagine trying to "bring down" a car with a laser pointer. I'll be you couldn't do it in a Godzillion years.
I find it telling that law enforcement officials admit that there was no act of terrorism involved and charges were only filed to "make and example" of how seriously they take the issue.
Perhaps they should be the one's thinking of the consequences of their actions, as such reasoning is simply no reason to press crimianl charges, although it seems to be growing in popularity these days.
The only legitimate reason for pressing a criminal charge is because you believe the person actually did what you are charging him with. Anything else is pure jackbootism.
Slashdot Mirror
I interpreted your "just fucking cope" comment to include none of these "countermeasures". . .
Definition of cope
KFG
But I do concede that it's probably closer than the limited exceptions I was trying to get at.
.
This is what I was trying to get at. The "exceptions" run the opposite of what you suggested. There is a definition of assault and a definition of battery. If an act does not meet those defintions there is not crime. "Sport" does not need and "exception" because it does not meet the definition of either assault or battery. It is certain acts of excesive violence beyond what might be normal in a sport that can cause a sporting activity to result in a criminal charge.
This isn't true. Read the laws in New York (it's the first one listed, 120.00, then 120.05 and 120.10; all three degrees of assault have provisions that don't require intent). .
The very first degree specifically requires intent. The rest require actual injury through neglegence or recklessness.
Shining a laser on someone does not cause injury. I just walked up to my cat, laser in hand, and "drilled" the sucker right into her head at point blank range for a over a minute.
She purred and licked my nose, completely unaware that she was being "assualted."
Then I "drilled" myself right in the forehead. Without looking in a mirror I couldn't even tell where the dot was. It doesn't even cause sensation, let alone injury.
Laser doesn't mean "death ray." It's just a frickin' light. I can injure myself much easier with a common, 60 watt lightbulb. In fact, I have injured myself with one of those, and even caused temporary blindness, which I have never done with a laser, even though I spend far more time handling lasers than lightbulbs.
In any case, consent isn't at play in the particular example of shining a LASER at someone.
It most certainly is. That's why I brought it up in the first place, and why you won't go to jail for trying my proposed experiment.
You will use a subject who consents, and who will suffer no legally actionable injury from the activities.
And it isn't illegal to shine a laser on someone. Only to assault them. Shining a laser on someone doesn't meet the defintion of assault, anymore than shining a flashlight on them does (and if that person is driving a car the flashlight is far, far more likely to cause them injury).
Lasers are not boogeymen.
KFG
The 1% may be rude to them, which is something nobody needs.
Ok, so what's your solution to the existence of rude people then?
The chairs, I would assume, are there so you can sit down for a bit, not so you can take off your shoes and read through the entire novel without paying.
It might surprise you to find out that the people who read the most books without paying for them are also the people who spend the most money on books, and by a considerable margin. People who do not love books do not go hang out in bookstores for days at a time.
People who read the most books for free at the library are also great book buyers. People who do not go to the library buy few, if any, books.
You mentioned the "NYC way", and so you may need to understand that the suburban areas have a slightly different culture.
I do not live in NYC. I dislike the place rather intensely, although I am, by professional and family/personal ties often obliged to go there.
I live well upstate in an area rife with suburbia. Ed Koch publicly called it "The land of pickup trucks and gingham dresses," which likely cost him the governorship.
It is not "rude" to ask people, politely, to be polite, and I am at a loss as to how having chairs that are only comfortable for a short time invokes personal rudeness.
I agree that the young, minimum wage personel in a chain bookstore aren't the best people to do the job of politely maintaining order though, and I for what they make I wouldn't expect them to be.
If you want better service and managment than that then my advice would simply be not to go to McBookstores, just as you might avoid McDonald's. They're frickin' chain stores staffed by minimum wage kids. What do you expect?
KFG
How do you propose they "fucking cope" with this?
It is very simple. Ask them nicely and politely to move along to allow another customer a seat. It works 99% of time without any complaint whatsoever.
The remaining 1% can simply have their asses tossed.
There is something called the "social contract." It is perfectly reasonable to invoke it without having to make up a lot of silly rules.
Of course there's always the NYC way. Have the seats ergonomically designed to suddenly become painful to sit in after 20 minutes. Such seats can be purchased off the shelf.
I must assume that the chain bookstores that put out comfy armchairs and sofas expect people to occupy them for a considerable time if they so desire.
KFG
That's dumb, I believe the word has two meanings.
.are you therefore implying that whenever I go to a restaurant, I am being entertained, therefore the staff are my friends?
I can't help it if English is dumb. I didn't invent it. Many words have multiple meanings, but, in this case, you'll find they actually have a direct relationship if you think about it.
. .
No. I am implying that they are your host. You may even be met at the door and seated by a young woman whose proper title is "hostess." And that is what you are paying for. To be a guest.
Guests are entertained. Feeding them is part of the entertainment, as is treating them with respect and seeing to whatever other needs they might have that are reasonable to fulfill, like providing them with a place to pee, wash up a bit and plug in their laptop.
KFG
Hospitality is a part of this, but entertainment? I don't expect my waiter to jump up and start dancing on a table with a tophat.
.
What is it you are doing when you have some friends over for dinner?
You are entertaining.
For when one doesn't feel like cooking, can't (on the road with no stove, etc). .
I am on the road a lot. I often live out of a bike messenger/panniers/gig bag (and here's a hot tip that some of you may not have considered. An acoustic guitar is hollow) for days at a time. It is never necessary to cook in any vaguely civilized country in order to obtain a good meal. It is simply a cultural bias to associate eating with cooking. I never have to carry a camp stove and the attendant fuel because I simply don't carry anything that needs cooking. They call it trail mix for a reason, and you can walk into any supermarket/deli/convenience store in the world and walk out with days worth of good food you can simply stick in your mouth and eat.
I spent this past weekend in NYC living out of my gig bag. I spent less on food than I would have at home because I went to the corner markets where stuff is actually cheaper than it is outside of the city, instead of paying exorbitant city prices for restaurant meals which aren't even as healty anyway.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
And you don't have to cook them.
KFG
What would you suggest in its place?
How about "It."
Here's how it goes in natural language:
"The ship in a bottle you made me was far more than I expected. I really like it."
(I'm not sure why he's pleased about being a ship in a bottle, but we'll let that pass)
The object, the ship in a bottle, has already been refered to in explict terms. Only the simple pronoun is required after that. Refering to it later on in statistical terms (remember that "product" is a statistical term, and thus essentially plural, just like "consumer." They both refer to sets, not items, and are only singular in the sense of refering to the set as a whole) is lingistically, and conceptually, a bit weird. People are used to hearing that sort of language formation these days so the brain doesn't register it as weird, but it is.
Here's an example from a different perspective. You wouldn't say, "Your mom is nice. I really like your people." It would be, "I really like her."
"Your family is nice. I really like your people," is fine, because there you are speaking of a set.
And really, both the terms "consumer" and "product" have no reason to exist at all outside of the economic calculus. They are technical terms for mathmatically discussing the behavior of groups. They cannot even be correctly applied to unique items ( as all of my ships in bottles are. I've never made the same one twice and each has a different price). The economic calculus only applies to generic items, commodities. Unique items are inherently handled in a strict one to one, buyer/seller relationship.
I admit I'm very fond of the technical term "thingy" though. I used it just last night when I was strumming some warm up chords and someone asked, "Are you going to play that song?"
"What, the Tom Waits thingy? Sure"
KFG
More and more consumer-facing industries are turning on their own customers because the customers are behaving different from what they like or expect.
You can largely blame this on the proliferation of business schools. Business school "trained" people will call a customer a "consumer" right to his face, which, not only ought to be unthinkable, but abuses the theoretical model for which the term is legitimately appropriate.
You see it in the use of the word "product" too, even for things that aren't even really products.
The theoretical business language, and the mental distance from the customer, who is a real individual person standing in front of you, that this creates is causing all sorts of social ills.
Even the "consumers" are using the language themselves now.
"Thank you for the guitar lesson. I really like your product."
"The ship in a bottle you made me was far more than I expected. I really like your product."
What on earth causes them to refer to my ships in bottles as "product?" It's a ship. In a bottle. And you already said that.
At least that really is a product in the theoretical model though. The guitar lesson thing has me really stumped.
I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting, but I'm just now consuming my morning caffeine.
Lot of that going around right now. Just check out my spelling and grammar so far this morning.
KFG
First, eat the banana, thus disarming him.
Second eat the cheese.
Sometimes foodstuffs are just foodstuffs you know. You don't need a recipe, just stuff it in your mouth and chew for goodness' sake.
Oh, yeah, sooner or later you might want to try swallowing ( or at least that's what I tried to tell her).
KFG
The fact of the matter is that if you'd ever done any fine woodworking (I build furniture, boats and musical instruments) you never look at the drill, but you pay very, very careful attention to the hole.
No woodworker gives a shit about drills, a drill is only the instrument to achieve the end goal, the perfect hole for the job, and the "drill business" is, in fact, the hole business.
Restaurants aren't in the feeding people business, they're in the making people feel good business. Farmers and grocery stores are in the feeding people business.
When I want food, I go to the supermarket. When I want a warm, dry, comfortable place to sit and get waited on like I was a noble, then I go to a restaurant, and if I don't get that, I never, ever go back there again. Neither does my money.
The main reason restaurants and bars have the highest rate of failure of any business is because their owners usually don't understand this.
KFG
So what does that make Mc Choke 'n Puke then?
A drive-by window. When you see their window, just keep driving by.
KFG
You've been modded offtopic, but I'll support you in this, at least up to a point.
The fact is that restaurants arn't really in the food industry, they are in the entertainment and hospitality industry. Food just happens to be a major part of their entertainment and hospitality offerings, but not even necessarily the biggest part.
Being treated well by the staff is very important and part of the atmosphere and ammenities that people go to a restaurant for (otherwise they could just go buy a bunch of bananas and chunck of cheese from a local mart, for a fraction the price).
Electricty, in the form of lighting, TV sets, radios, video games and other necessaries are part of parcel of the ammenities they offer that people go there for. Now those ammenities include a place to plug in your laptop. It isn't "leeching," it's what they are there for, and paying for.
Dear restaurant industry. Your custormer's needs are changing. Give them what they want. Tack a stupid quarter onto the bill if it makes you feel better.
Those of you that fucking cope will turn out to be the winners.
KFG
Okay, it is illegal to knowingly or recklessly cause physical harm to someone.
.
That is only partially correct.
There's of course an exemption (though in case law rather than written into the statutes) for recognized sports when the conduct is within both the rules and customs of that sport.
That is incorrect. There is simply no law against hitting anyone. However, it is correct to say that in certain cases violence in a sport may not excede certain levels. The "exemption" is not for the sport, but for the particular incident. This case law is also brand new, only a matter of a few years old.
Shining LASERs at people isn't a recognized sport, not is it any other exemption.
Again, sport has nothing to do with it, there is no legal authority for "recognizing" what is and isn't a sport and there is no law against shining lasers on people. People do it every day.
Some of them even pay for the priviledge, as it happens, in a sport.
You have missed the key issue entirely with your concept of "exemption," because the issue is consent. It is perfectly legal to permanantly mutilate another person if they consent. You can have it done at any mall.
If you did manage to blind them, you could easily be convicted of assault.
Assault is a crime of intent. With no intent, there is no assault. Criminal Negligence, perhaps.
If the jurisdiction has a separate charge of maiming. .
So far as I know such a criminal charge does not exist in any American jurisdiction (severity of injury simply affects the class of battery, assault is not battery, and vice versa), although it is grounds for a civil suit.
KFG
How couldn't you have been charged with assault?
It isn't against the law at all to hit someone. Only to assault or batter them.
Those words have a legal meaning that is not synonomous with hit.
Hell, it's even perfectly legal to stab someone with a sword too, and I've done that a fair number of times. I'd like to say I've done it more often than I've been stabbed, but I think I might be deceiving myself, and thus you.
And it isn't illegal to shine a laser on someone.
KFG
. . .so if you're basing this off of what you've done with a red one, you might want to think again.
Oh, and I commonly use red, green and infrared lasers. I'm using red as my example because it the sort of hand held laser most other people can relate to, and the color/power of a laser are completely irrelvant to the issue of targeting.
Targeting, is, in fact, my primary preoccupation with lasers, and if you are hand holding you cannot reliably target a motionless and inanimate object the size of a retina only feet away from you. At twenty feet you'll need a mount to hit it for more than a quarter second at a time, and from 100 you'll need a shockproof mount of some sort, or someone walking across the floor might cause enough vibration to throw the beam off target.
An airplane is relatively easy to hit using the "firehose" method. And completely pointless for any reason other than goofing around.
KFG
How much larger at that distance, I don't know.
Answer, not much. In terms of significance, not at all.
If you can aim well enough to get it on the plane itself, I think you could probably get it to hit the cockpit.
That's like saying if you can hit an elephant with a arrow from behind you could probably get it in the eye. It's completely falacious reasoning.
I live under the landing path of a major Air National Guard base. C130s are over my head several times a day. I could hit a fair percentage of them with a pointer if I tried (they're very low, and much, much larger than charter a small charter jet). I'd miss a few though.
Hitting the cockpit would be a physical impossibility.
KFG
Unless it works, in which case you'd be had for assault.
Nonesense. I've punched people square in the face, over and over, and never been had, nor could I have been had for assualt.
Green LASERS have a much higher output power than red ones.
That's one of the reasons I sometimes employ them for data aquisition purposes over red ones. You're still not going to hit a pilot in the air with one, let alone cause him any harm.
KFG
Here's an experiment you can try. Go get your picture taken with a camera that has a flash.
Happened to me about 30 times Sunday evening. A few days before that someone with a camera crept up right to edge of the stage while I was looking down, and as soon as I looked up let loose a stobe right in my face. It pretty much sucked, although I was complimented afterward for not so much as missing a beat when it happened.
But here's an experiment you can try. Take a "flash" picture with a laser pointer. What sort of image do you suppose you'll get and what are the odds that the subject was even aware you used a "flash"?
KFG
(you'd need steadier hands than mine!)
Aha!
I think they're making the guy a patsy.
More than that, they admit it up front. Under those circumstances a conviction is virtually impossible (although stranger things have happened), and the prosecutors know it. It'll be plea bargained to a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief and something like a $500 fine.
KFG
I've been momentarily blinded by oncoming headlights.
I have that experience daily. I've yet to see a car with headlasers though. The laser part makes a world of difference. There is no dispersion pattern for a laser. That's what makes it a laser. You have to look directly into the cohesive beam of a laser to see it at all. That's why it makes a red dot instead of a red splash, like car tail lights do. A person on the other side of the street from you can only see the laser at all if that tiny red dot happens to pass directly over his retina.
Now, take that car and toss it at a couple hundred miles an hour and several hundred feet over your head.
Try to make that little red dot pass directly over the retina of the driver. For that matter, try to make it hit the driver at all.
Try somthing easier, try to put out your own cat's eye with your laser pointer. You'll certainly be able to distract her, for hours on end. You'll get bored before she does.
Her eyes will be perfectly safe. You will not be able to even momentarily blind her.
KFG
Now I don't have to spend the next quarter century in jail.
There is no law against shining a laser pointer at someone.
And I'm sure all it would take would be a powerful pointer and a monocular.
There is no dispute over the fact that it was an ordinary laser pointer involved. I'm not sure what sort of "powerful" laser pointer you have in mind. Go down to Best Buy and try to buy one of these "powerful" pointers.
Let us presume, however, that you have somehow managed to get a "powerful" pointer and a monocular. You will still be unable to do anything more that pass the beam over the retina of a motionless man 20 feet away by "blind" luck, and only for a fraction of a second at a time. The feat has nothing to do with the power of the laser or any possible optical magnification.
You don't have to put anyone's eye out, all you have to do is illuminate the eyes enough that a visual distraction is created.
That is changing your premise. It is also much easier done with a simple Mini Mag than with a laser, since with the Mini Mag you are guarunteed a "hit," whereas with the laser a "hit" is quite unlikely.
KFG
Any ordinary laser pointer is capable of going miles into the air.
Find a dark place. Light a simple candle. Walk a mile away. If you have line of sight to the candle you will be able to see it. Camp fires have been observed from space.
Any man who can intentionally hit a small charter jet traveling at a few hundred miles an hour 3k feet in the air has accomplished something quite remarkable.
Although a helicopter hovering over your house at 50 feet is a piece of cake.
KFG
I imagine it would be much easier than you imagine. A sustained laser at a drivers eyes. . .
I defy you to accomplish this. It's unlikely you could manage to do it to man standing motionless in front of you 20 feet away.
Idiots are, in fact, putting their own eyes out with lasers by shining them directly in from a foot or less away, not putting out their neighbors eyes while playing red dot from across the street. It just doesn't happen, and you can't make it happen.
KFG
Try going outside and waving an ordinary flashlight around at the trees and stuff and observe what happens. The only difference here is that it was a "laser."
Oooooooooooooo.
I've shined one on my cat, at a range of only a few feet, quite intentionally, for hours and hours over the past years. I haven't put her eye out or nothin'.
KFG
The third possibility is that it was just some guy playing "green dot" who happened to pass it over a plane and the only consequence was freaking out a pilot over something essentially harmless.
Imagine trying to "bring down" a car with a laser pointer. I'll be you couldn't do it in a Godzillion years.
I find it telling that law enforcement officials admit that there was no act of terrorism involved and charges were only filed to "make and example" of how seriously they take the issue.
Perhaps they should be the one's thinking of the consequences of their actions, as such reasoning is simply no reason to press crimianl charges, although it seems to be growing in popularity these days.
The only legitimate reason for pressing a criminal charge is because you believe the person actually did what you are charging him with. Anything else is pure jackbootism.
KFG