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User: mark-t

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  1. Re:Anybody know the plate# for each scotus? on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 1

    You don't have to use strong language... all you have to do is tell them that you witnessed a car driving erattically, and believe the driver may be impaired. You tell them where, and when, and any information about the vehicle you can offer, and they will send out a unit to intercept the vehicle if they have any reason at all to believe that you are telling the truth. Again, I know this because I've done it. If they find absolutely nothing wrong, they will probably investigate *YOUR* call to check and see if it was a fraudulent report. I've never had the latter issue happen to me because I've never made a fraudulent report through 911. Since they can trace all calls to 911 anyways, the number of fraudulent calls tends to be relatively low and is probably not considered a significant risk factor.

  2. Re:Erratic driving does give reasonable suspicion on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 1

    Probably because most people usually can't be bothered to call in a complaint for bad driving to 911 just because the person is old... you would need to report suspicion of impairment for the police to do anything.

  3. Re:Anybody know the plate# for each scotus? on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 3, Informative

    The stuff might be 100% legal, but it still has to be something that the person actually witnessed firsthand. Saying that you "think" somebody is doing something illegal is not valid unless you actually saw them *DO* something that you thought was illegal.

    And yes, I know this. Although this knowledge is admittedly based on my own jurisdiction and it's possible laws may be different elsewhere.

  4. Re:Erratic driving does give reasonable suspicion on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 1

    It was true already.... this supreme court decision simply settles the matter. Police have always pull over *ANY* vehicle they want to if they have any reason to suspect that the driver is breaking the law. A 911 report has always been a reason... I know this because I've done it.

  5. Erratic driving does give reasonable suspicion on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bad driving *does* give reasonable suspicion of impairment, and even an anonymous report is certainly sufficient cause to stop the vehicle and briefly question the driver... which in general would amount to them just saying that they received a report about the vehicle... Since they had not personally witnessed the erratic driving, they would have had no basis to even ask him to get outside of his vehicle, but would have just questioned him through an open window, After quickly checking to see if there were any other reports about the vehicle, they would have asked the driver if they had anything to drink that evening. If the answer was no, and they had no reason to suspect the person was lying (ie, he was not visibly impaired), then they would have just let the person go.

    It was only after they had stopped the vehicle and actually questioned the guy that gave them further reasonable suspicion to search his vehicle, and find that he was guilty of another crime.

  6. Re:Free warrant! on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 1

    What measures did said officer take to avoid being fined for a fraudulent 911 emergency call? 911 calls are traced, you know... practically instantaneously, in fact.

  7. Re:Anybody know the plate# for each scotus? on Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips · · Score: 1

    That kind of weak language would not be sufficient, you would actually have to say what they were doing that was causing you to believe a crime was being committed, and there would have to be a reasonable basis for presuming it. In the case of anonymous caller in the story, the reported vehicle had actually done something illegal.

  8. Re:Oh noes, I can't drive X miles on Will the Nissan Leaf Take On the Tesla Model S At Half the Price? · · Score: 1

    Comparing running low on fuel to being low on charge s a flawed comparison. It takes less than10 minutes to completely refuel a car which will get you another 600 or so miles. It takes hours to fully recharge anelectric vehicle and even then, it has a fraction of the range. When you can get absolutely anywhere you want to be, as far away as you want to be, in a tesla or any electric vehicle, in about the same amount of time that you could cover that distance in a gasoline vehicle, range anxiety will vanish

  9. Re:Oh noes, I can't drive X miles on Will the Nissan Leaf Take On the Tesla Model S At Half the Price? · · Score: 1

    You are presuming that much of range anxiety was ever alleged to be based on rational thinking to begin with. Of course, however irrational and based on emotion it might be, it is no less a reality, and still merits being addressed.

    When you can go a thousand or.more miles in one day in an electric vehicle, whether that's on a single charge, or accomplished though rapid recharges that take only a few minutes each, at any of what should be ubiquitous recharge stations around the country, comparable to refuelling a car at a gas station, range anxiety will disappear.

  10. Re:Something wrong at the foundation - on Oklahoma Moves To Discourage Solar and Wind Power · · Score: 1

    Depends on the thickness of the sheet. If a sheet has thickness d, The maximum surface area of a sheet that fits in a box of volume V (assuming all side lengths are the same) is V^(1/3)/d *V^(2/3). If d is enough orders of magnitude smaller than the size of the box, the area can get to be quite large.

  11. How is this new? on Reinventing the Axe · · Score: 1

    As soon as I saw the picture of it, I recognized it as being the same as one that I saw someone using at a campsite I was at in the 1990's. I don't recall the exact year, but I remember the guy saying that it chopped wood a lot easier when I asked about it (I didn't even recognize it as an axe until he used it, where every single blow split his target in only one swing).

  12. I'm sure they can "order" it all they want... on Administration Ordered To Divulge Legal Basis For Killing Americans With Drones · · Score: 2

    That doesn't mean that it will actually happen though.

  13. Re:Better leave now on Kepler-186f: Most 'Earth-Like' Alien World Discovered · · Score: 1

    Oh... and to answer your question.... sending a processor there may allow future generations to explore it remotely, but it won't enable them to actually live there. The best case scenario is that this world will remain habitable only for another couple of billion years or so. Finding more worlds to call home means that humanity could endure indefinitely (or at least until the universe itself dies, which nobody will be around to see anyways).

  14. Re:Better leave now on Kepler-186f: Most 'Earth-Like' Alien World Discovered · · Score: 1

    That would be "human made"... not "human". I was, in fact, suggesting that human beings *will* get there someday... just not in any person's lifetime today, barring something happening within the next millennium or so that wipes us all out here first. Such an event is not impossible, but it's also quite far from certain, since it is such a short time span on a cosmological scale.

  15. Re:Only $2 billion? What's stopping them? on Expert Warns: Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP-Caused Blackout · · Score: 1

    The reality is that a continent-wide power disruption, which could easily follow a solar-generated EMP if our infrastructure is not hardened against it, will do hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars of damage to the economy., The east coast blackout of 2003 alone did about $10b worth of economic damage.... scale that up to the entire continent.

  16. Re:Only $2 billion? What's stopping them? on Expert Warns: Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP-Caused Blackout · · Score: 1

    Even ignoring the threat of so-called deaths, the damage caused by a massive EMP blackout will easily measure in the hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars for North America alone. The blackout on the east coast in 2003 alone created about $10b damage to the economy... scale that up to the entire continent.

  17. Re:One word: FUD on Expert Warns: Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP-Caused Blackout · · Score: 1

    A solar EMP could easily hit the entire US.

    Of course, a solar EMP isn't likely to be big enough in localized intensity to do any damage to small things like aircraft.... but it could still damage the electric grid on the ground, which has wiring that is many miles in length and so exceptionally large voltages can be induced by such an event.

  18. Except that those individual things wouldn't be tend to be affected by a solar generated EMP... A solar generated EMP isn't like an EMP weapon, which may do a lot of damage to only a very localized region. A solar EMP is ultimately only a threat to wiring that is on the order of multiple miles in length, such as the electric power grid. They are a threat to individual devices and appliances only to the same extent that they may be connected to a grid which is itself vulnerable.

  19. Only $2 billion? What's stopping them? on Expert Warns: Civilian World Not Ready For Massive EMP-Caused Blackout · · Score: 1

    Does anyone know what the so-called "politics" are that get in the way of just going and doing it, or is this doublespeak for the idea that it's going to be hard and not particularly rewarding work that nobody ultimately really wants to do?

  20. Re:Personal Experience on In a Hole, Golf Courses Experiment With 15-inch Holes · · Score: 1

    My grandfather asked me to go golfing with him when I was about 7. There was some conversation among the adults concluding that, based on my age only, I was a hazard to the green and therefore would have to just watch. So I followed around old guys for an hour on grass that I was not worthy to putt on. I realize this is an antecdote. Fuck golf.

    Your anecdote resonates with another experience I had as a youngster... I wasn't excluded from playing like you were, but my father's preoccupation with golf while I was growing up very nearly ruined my parent's marriage, and without me even realizing it at the time, created a psychological barrier that left a profound disliking for the game in general for many many years... he invited me to play with him a few times, but I never really enjoyed it. it would not be until I was in my early twenties when some peers invited me to go golfing with them that I finally realized what preconceptions about the game my subconscious had put there, based solely on my experiences I had while I was growing up.

    Going back to your story, however, hopefully, you've matured enough since that time to realize that in your case, this was a problem with the alleged "adults" who decided you were a problem for their game than the sport itself.... if your grandfather had more character, he would have told those assholes that they were being arrogant pricks right then and there, and taken you somewhere else instead of just going along with their suggestion and making you sit on the sidelines.

  21. Re:Try this on In a Hole, Golf Courses Experiment With 15-inch Holes · · Score: 1

    Two words: Tiger Woods. Wanna try a different conspiracy theory?

    There weren't any women in one of my physics classes at university either.... that doesn't mean that they were excluding them.

  22. Re:The ability to deflect asteroids == a strike on 3 Former Astronauts: Earth-Asteroid Collisions Are a Real But Preventable Danger · · Score: 1

    Against what? Other habitable planets?

  23. Re:Heh on Kepler-186f: Most 'Earth-Like' Alien World Discovered · · Score: 1
    Since we are talking about something that is easily hundreds of years into the future, I'd suspect that any generalizations one might try to make about what government values are likely to be amenable to is probably meaningless.

    A few hundred years ago it was unimaginable that church and state could ever be separated.. Time changes all things... even attitudes.

  24. Re:Tesla needs just a few more things on Mercedes Pooh-Poohs Tesla, Says It Has "Limited Potential" · · Score: 1

    Even in families, the general trend is still going to be not having more than one vehiicle per licensed driver in the family. If one is going to own a car in the first place, why spend a lot more money on a car that does what you need most of the time when you can spend a lot less money on a car that will do what you need *all* of the time?

  25. Re:Tesla needs just a few more things on Mercedes Pooh-Poohs Tesla, Says It Has "Limited Potential" · · Score: 1

    Most people don't need that

    Irrelevant. It is what most people want, or else range anxiety would be a non-issue.

    [ubiquitous charging] seems to be the case already

    Only near very metropolitan areas. If you are needing to drive rural for any real stretch, then there's a problem. Sure that's not most people, but take a guess how many cars there are on rural roads every single day? It's not exactly a small numbeer

    The Model S is cheaper than similar sedans

    The model S costs $80k... which is a good $30k or more than what one could spend on a brand new car that is just as good in terms of features, but may not carry any sort of status symbol or prestige with it. Hell, it's $50k more than the most expensive car that I ever bought.