or even some older music (most blues albums for instance) the songs really do stand alone and in many cases the album is simply a collection of good songs.
Well, given that the album is a relatively modern invention, around the time of... classic rock... this shouldn't be that surprising.:)
how many artists out there still make albums that are greater than the sum of their parts?
Bah, this just ends up being a battle of musical tastes. As a canonical example, I'd say aside from Pablo Honey, Radiohead have consistently put out albums that have been cohesive pieces of art. I'm sure many others can be listed (again, my collection, which runs the gamut from classic to modern rock, is populated strictly with albums I consider to be quality pieces of work from start to finish... certainly they aren't all concept albums, but they're consistently devoid of filler).
IOW, just because your tastes suck, doesn't mean the album is dead.;)
I like some albums too, but some good songs only exist in isolation.
Then sell those as singles. But the loss of the album, as a format, would still be a loss for music listeners, IMHO.
but rejecting the song because of the album is just silly
Actually, forget individual songs, I flat out reject artists because of bad albums. Again, it's about quality, and pride in your work. If you can only be bothered to put out a couple quality tracks on a given album, thanks, but I can take my money and my time elsewhere.
1) You are missing out on a lot of decent songs, just because they were released on poor albums.
Meh, tough shit. If the artists were any good, they wouldn't be padding their albums out with crap. Hell, I'd prefer to buy a short album, maybe for a slightly lower price, than an album that's 75% garbage.
And as for "missing out", there is more than enough music out there to satisfy me for *multiple* lifetimes. If I miss out on a few gems floating in piles of garbage, so be it. Again, I don't listen to *songs*. I listen to *albums* (you need only to see how I use my media player to understand this... I don't remember the last time I put it on random or created an arbitrary playlist).
Which makes sense from an economic perspective
Actually, it has absolutely nothing to do with economics. Again, an album, for me, is an experience. Why would I want that experience interrupted by bits of filler?
How do you -know- an album will be good before buying it.
You listed them already. In-store sampling. Recommendations from friends or other reliable sources. Being Canadian, I can simply download a copy and see if I like it. Or just rely on good acts to produce consistently good material (there are some artists I like from whom I've never purchased a dude album).
There are many ways to avoid bad albums. Most people are simply too lazy to bother.
I think that it means the end of the arbitrarily compilation of an album.
And that'd be a damned shame, if you ask me.
I believe the album, as an artistic concept, marked a significant change in the way music was conceptualized. No longer did artists just release one-off hit singles meant to have decent radio play. Suddenly, artists could focus on creating larger units of work which stood on their own, representing a cohesive theme. Take classics like "Dark Side of the Moon", or "Sgt. Pepper's", or "OK Computer". The songs on those albums are great, yes. But the wholes really are far greater than the sums of their parts.
Personally, I listen to nothing but albums. I *hate* listening to songs in isolation. An album, for me, is an immersive experience. It's an opportunity to dive into a world of the artist's creation. And should the album disappear as a musical format, I believe music would lose a significant form of artistic expression.
Really, half the time albums are about 80% fluff just to pad the track numbers in order justify the price.
Then don't buy them. It's as simple as that. Why anyone would throw away valuable dollars on an album with two or three decent songs on it, I'll never know. Flipping through my collection, the worst albums have, at most, two or three average or below-average tracks. Anything more than that, and I skip the album. There are better artists putting out higher-quality material that would be just as happy receiving my money.
If someone is attacking you, and you have a taser, it is not torture if you use the taser to prevent that person from harming you, or another person. And regardless of how you read that document, there is nothing in it that says self defense is torture.
As an aside, I should point out that I agree with this. I tried to go back and make sure I qualified my statements, and it's evident I missed one. When I said:
"The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination" *are* torture, whether you like it or not."
I really meant:
"The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination", when used to subdue or coerce, *is* torture, whether you like it or not."
IOW, I absolutely accept self-defense as an excuse to make use of a taser. But I reject the idea that police, in general, limit their uses to such circumstances, instead using them as a replacement for proper policework and negotiating tactics (the case of the Polish guy in the Vancouver airport comes to mind...). And it's *those* uses that I believe constitute torture.
The UN isn't going to ban water buckets and towels
Ah, I see. I was never running under the assumption that the UN was declaring tasers illegal (as far as the UN can declare anything illegal). After all, the guidelines for torture make no mention of mechanism, why would the UN start now?
No, I had assumed that the UN subcommittee was stating that the *use* of tasers by law-enforcement as a non-lethal method of subduing a suspect constitutes torture. And that would be in keeping with the existing guidelines (at least the way I read them).
At this point, the UN hasn't said anything about tasers, a subcommittee has said something about the taser related dealths in NA and there may have been some recommendation to Portugal to not buy tasers, but the article was not real clear on the detail of who said what, when, or why.
Yeah, that I completely agree with. Unfortunately, we can thank the current culture of journalism, which is more focused on getting a "scoop" rather than relaying concrete facts, for that one. Even a complete excerpt, with context, from the subcommittee would've been better than the few select quotes provided in TFA...
Actually, Police officers (in the US) have a significant amount of legal power.
Good for US police. But I was specifically referring to the excerpt of text that you selected, which stated that the definition of torture contains loopholes regarding "Lawful sanctions". Specifically, I'm contending that, in the context of the document, particularly due to references to "the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners", it seems clear that that loophole exists specifically in the case of individuals who have been charged and convicted by a court of law.
Once again, this is an issue with policy, not the taser itself.
Wrong. According to UN guidelines, as I've provided, the use of tasers in any context where the intent is to subdue or coerce constitutes torture.
Interestingly enough, a number of prisons in the US also use tasers.
Thus explicitly violating the UN guidelines. Obviously that doesn't mean much, but regardless, the UN position is completely consistent.
that document EXPLICITLY EXCLUDES incidents related to legal sanctions.
Did you even read the goddamned text? The full excerpt, as I quoted previously, is as follows:
It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
And, again, the "Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners" explicitly outlaws the use of corporal punishment. Period. End of story. Read the text yourself if you don't believe me.
So, again, if what you say is true, the US prison system does not follow the guidelines as set out by the UN. Again, that doesn't mean much, but that doesn't change the fact that the UN position is, again, entirely consistent.
You are removing responsibility from the true guilty parties (those officers that abuse their power) and placing it on an inanimate object
No, I'm not. I'm stating, without equivocation, that the use of tasers by police forces to subdue or coerce suspects constitutes torture on the UN human rights charter. Period.
Honestly, by that logic, waterboarding isn't torture. After all, the waterboard setup, itself, is just a tool. It all depends on how you use it! For example, if you were correct (and you're not), the use of waterboarding in prisons as a form of punishment would be perfectly fine.
It's not, by the way.
Also, if tasers are torture, by your definition, please explain to me how other traditional non-leathal tools of domination are NOT also torture.
The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination" *are* torture, whether you like it or not. That includes tasers, waterboarding, and a wide variety of other techniques. I would contend the use of billyclubs for anything more than self-defense *also* qualifies as torture.
And before you say anything, no, I would contend that tasers are not used for self-defense purposes in the vast majority of cases. Their primary use is in subduing troublesome individuals, that's it.
But they are wrong because of the person doing them, they are NOT the fault of his fist, or his club, or his taser.
No, they're wrong, based on UN guidelines, because the actions are performed with the intent to subdue or coerce the individual. *How* it's done doesn't matter (well, the effect has to meet the standards in the guidelines regarding "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental".
but, I think tasers are a very acceptable tool when they are used correctly
When used appropriately, tasing someone is not used to obtain information, confessions, punishment, revenge, intimidation, or coercion.
Excuse me. How are tasers *not* used to "[punish] him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed", and of course for "intimidating or coercing him or a third person". Last I checked, they were explicitly used to coerce people into cooperating with the police, and punishing those who remain non-compliant.
In fact, the UNTC goes on to explicitly exclude pain and suffering "inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".
Yes. Lawful sanctions. As handed down by a court of law, not a cop on the street. Further, the text explicitly states that such actions must be "consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners". Interesting that you excluded that bit of text. I wonder what said rules state? Well, among other things, they state that:
"Corporal punishment, punishment by placing in a dark cell, and all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments shall be completely prohibited as punishments for disciplinary offences."
Which, in my mind, clearly rules out tasers. It also states:
"No prisoner shall be punished unless he has been informed of the offence alleged against him and given a proper opportunity of presenting his defence."
Last I checked, most taser victims aren't given a chance to defend themselves before the shock is administered.
So, no, by the UN's own documents, tasers are *not* an acceptable tool for law enforcement, and do, in fact, meet the guidelines for torture, unless your reading of the text is so drastically distorted as to be rendered meaningless.
Maybe you misunderstood: it isn't the cop who's doing the escalating.
Say what? Of course it's the cop escalating. The OP specifically said cops are expected to "[use] a level of force sufficient enough to stop whatever situation you're facing", which apparently means "going one level above the force being used against you". That's escalation, by definition.
The GP's point, which you apparently missed, was that such a tactic, of meeting violence with (greater) violence is useless when faced with someone experiencing a fear- or pain-induced adrenaline rush, as they will be incapable of judging the situation rationally. In fact, I'm betting they'll be more likely to go "one level above" the force being used by the cops in order to protect themselves (yay fight-or-fight instinct), which will trigger further escalation by the cops, etc.
Most of the new stuff I encounter is from places like SomaFM. Most (all?) of the stuff they play is from indie labels and unsigned bands, and I can listen passively, which means I get decent background tunes while I work, and if I hear something I like, I can take a look at my stream player to see who the artist is and investigate from there.
Basically, I'm lazy, so why not let someone else send the music to me?:)
Electric cars need energy and where does it come from?
From large scale, centralized power generation facilities that are far more efficient than millions of individual little ICEs, while being far *far* easier to upgrade to new technologies for reducing emissions or further enhancing efficiency. Furthermore, vehicles powered by grid electricity benefit from new generation technologies, meaning you can suddenly run your vehicle on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear, etc. And unlike a gasoline powered car, you can make the shift to other more cost effective generation technologies as existing methods become prohibitively expense due to resource scarcity.
IMHO, you're spot on. It's very easy to drag a game out (and HL2 definitely has some of those moments... the vehicle sequences, for example, are much too long, if you ask me). Proper pacing is an artform, and I would rather a shorter, more evenly paced game, than a piece that's clearly been stretched to meet gamer's playtime expectations.
Without voice chat I feel like it's a lot harder to be helpful, especially with spies and locations of things
Meh, in the old days of TF on the Quake engine, we just set up lots of keyboard macros with various canned phrases ("incoming", etc), which take care of most of the common situations (I assume this is possible in TF2... I haven't gotten into it deeply enough to check). Other than that, just type quickly.:) TBH, I never play with voice chat, and for larger games, I can't imagine it being worthwhile... it's tough enough getting a group of strangers to work in a coordinated fashion without having everybody speaking at once. But, maybe that's the old fogey in me coming out...
But Holmes has been hyped for its visual impact, which I'd say is.. lacking.
Well, I think it's more accurate to say that, unlike, say, Hale-Bopp or Hyukatake, the visual impact of Holmes can only be truly appreciated if you understand the science of it. Consider, the coma of this thing is *huge*. Sure, it may look like a fuzzy ball, but it's a fuzzy ball with a truly massive angular extent, generated by an object that's barely resolvable as a point in an average telescope. That's pretty freakin' cool, if you ask me. But I'll agree it doesn't have the same aesthetic appeal as some more visually impressive comets.
You don't find a fairly run-of-the-mill comet suddenly displaying a massive outburst and a million-fold increase in brightness, along with a truly *massive* coma, fascinating?
TBH, your post belies an attitude which saddens me... the fact that the visual impact of thing is more important than the scientific reality of it. It's part of the reason I avoid showing people nebulae and star clusters in my telescope. While they are scientifically fascinating objects, they simply don't have the real-life impact that the Hubble program has caused people to come to expect.
Bah, that's just pedantry. When people refer to "greenhouse gases", they usually mean gases responsible for the currently increasing greenhouse effect we are seeing, resulting in global warming. Water, having a very short cycle, is not part of this problem (rates of evaporation will increase as a function of global temperature, but that's counteracted by an increase in precipitation, and so the overall effect is fairly minimal).
There are some actions so heinous towards humanity that pretty much any punishment is justifiable
Again, what you describe is revenge, not deterrence or justice, and I believe that *revenge* should never be a function of the criminal justice system.
Now, if your goal is deterrence, it's pretty obviously that punishments such as murder (and, thus, rape, torture, etc) don't work. Otherwise, states like Florida would have significantly lower capital crime rates, which they don't.
As for justice, well, let's just say our ideas of justice clearly differ. I would *never* consider rape or murder just. Period. I believe we, as a society, should try to be better than the simplistic "an eye for an eye". Obviously you disagree, and clearly we won't be convincing one another on that point.
So, in my mind, such punishments can only serve a single purpose: revenge. And believe that purpose is immoral and unjust.
Bullshit. Is it really your contention that raping someone is the worst possible thing a person can do?
Nice strawman! All homemade and everything.
No, I didn't say that. I said rape is never justifiable as punishment. I also believe beatings, killing, and most other forms of corporal punishment are unjustified.
Put another way, there are some actions so heinous that pretty much any punishment is justifiable.
What you describe is self-righteous revenge, and I happen to think that's beneath us. It serves no purpose, and brings us to the level of thugs and killers. You may think that's fine. I don't.
Stop being such a politically correct left-wing flower child and reading shit into my post that wasn't there.
Well, first off, no, I don't have fucking Office Space memorized. I have better things to do with my time than memorize lines from shitty movies.
Second off, whether you meant it or not, there *are* those who think that prison rape is perfectly fine, and I'm fucking sick of people tacitly condoning it by casually referring to "pound me in the ass" prisons, as if it's something justifiable, or in this case, funny. It's not. Find another goddamned joke. You're part of the fucking problem, whether you realize it or not.
How finding prison rape objectionable equates to "being such a politically correct left-wing flower child", I'll never know. I find that shit offensive, and frankly, you should too.
You have completely glossed over/missed the point of my post in favor of picking on a specific line that happens to be quite popular on/.
Actually, no, I misunderstood because I don't have that god damned movie memorized. In fact, for all the times I've seen that statement, this is first time (and I've been here a long time) that it's been pointed out that it is, in fact, a movie quote.
Besides, if I said "she should be sent to a prison and raped repeatedly", would you find that funny (well, you might, but perhaps that's the problem)? I doubt it. But, apparently a change of phrasing makes all the difference...
Jane Fonda was a fucking treasonous cunt that deserved to be sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for what she did
I'm sorry, but *no one* deserves to be raped, and the very idea of using such a thing as punishment is disgusting and abhorent. But, I would like to believe you didn't actually intend to advocate such a thing.
No offense, but if that's what you think, then you're not terribly educated on the subject.
Among other things, HD-DVD players have a stable featureset that has been finalized for some time now, and as a consequence, greater player compatibility. As I understand it, they also have certain technical capabilities (video overlays) not present in Blu-Ray. Oh, and the authoring environment is better understood. And if that all wasn't enough, it's apparently cheaper to convert a DVD production chain to HD-DVD.
But, yeah. You're right. There's no difference between the two other than storage capacity.
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or even some older music (most blues albums for instance) the songs really do stand alone and in many cases the album is simply a collection of good songs.
:)
;)
Well, given that the album is a relatively modern invention, around the time of... classic rock... this shouldn't be that surprising.
how many artists out there still make albums that are greater than the sum of their parts?
Bah, this just ends up being a battle of musical tastes. As a canonical example, I'd say aside from Pablo Honey, Radiohead have consistently put out albums that have been cohesive pieces of art. I'm sure many others can be listed (again, my collection, which runs the gamut from classic to modern rock, is populated strictly with albums I consider to be quality pieces of work from start to finish... certainly they aren't all concept albums, but they're consistently devoid of filler).
IOW, just because your tastes suck, doesn't mean the album is dead.
I like some albums too, but some good songs only exist in isolation.
Then sell those as singles. But the loss of the album, as a format, would still be a loss for music listeners, IMHO.
but rejecting the song because of the album is just silly
Actually, forget individual songs, I flat out reject artists because of bad albums. Again, it's about quality, and pride in your work. If you can only be bothered to put out a couple quality tracks on a given album, thanks, but I can take my money and my time elsewhere.
1) You are missing out on a lot of decent songs, just because they were released on poor albums.
Meh, tough shit. If the artists were any good, they wouldn't be padding their albums out with crap. Hell, I'd prefer to buy a short album, maybe for a slightly lower price, than an album that's 75% garbage.
And as for "missing out", there is more than enough music out there to satisfy me for *multiple* lifetimes. If I miss out on a few gems floating in piles of garbage, so be it. Again, I don't listen to *songs*. I listen to *albums* (you need only to see how I use my media player to understand this... I don't remember the last time I put it on random or created an arbitrary playlist).
Which makes sense from an economic perspective
Actually, it has absolutely nothing to do with economics. Again, an album, for me, is an experience. Why would I want that experience interrupted by bits of filler?
How do you -know- an album will be good before buying it.
You listed them already. In-store sampling. Recommendations from friends or other reliable sources. Being Canadian, I can simply download a copy and see if I like it. Or just rely on good acts to produce consistently good material (there are some artists I like from whom I've never purchased a dude album).
There are many ways to avoid bad albums. Most people are simply too lazy to bother.
I think that it means the end of the arbitrarily compilation of an album.
And that'd be a damned shame, if you ask me.
I believe the album, as an artistic concept, marked a significant change in the way music was conceptualized. No longer did artists just release one-off hit singles meant to have decent radio play. Suddenly, artists could focus on creating larger units of work which stood on their own, representing a cohesive theme. Take classics like "Dark Side of the Moon", or "Sgt. Pepper's", or "OK Computer". The songs on those albums are great, yes. But the wholes really are far greater than the sums of their parts.
Personally, I listen to nothing but albums. I *hate* listening to songs in isolation. An album, for me, is an immersive experience. It's an opportunity to dive into a world of the artist's creation. And should the album disappear as a musical format, I believe music would lose a significant form of artistic expression.
Really, half the time albums are about 80% fluff just to pad the track numbers in order justify the price.
Then don't buy them. It's as simple as that. Why anyone would throw away valuable dollars on an album with two or three decent songs on it, I'll never know. Flipping through my collection, the worst albums have, at most, two or three average or below-average tracks. Anything more than that, and I skip the album. There are better artists putting out higher-quality material that would be just as happy receiving my money.
Its method of storing its database as raw inodes is... mildly frightening, to say the least.
Huh? Why? I mean, I'm no qmail zealot, but if you're afraid of storing data in your filesystem, you have far *far* bigger problems.
Mr. Burns: 'Lets see. It was the best of times, it was the "blurst" of times! You stupid monkey!'
Maybe CMU just needs to hire smarter monkeys...
If someone is attacking you, and you have a taser, it is not torture if you use the taser to prevent that person from harming you, or another person. And regardless of how you read that document, there is nothing in it that says self defense is torture.
As an aside, I should point out that I agree with this. I tried to go back and make sure I qualified my statements, and it's evident I missed one. When I said:
"The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination" *are* torture, whether you like it or not."
I really meant:
"The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination", when used to subdue or coerce, *is* torture, whether you like it or not."
IOW, I absolutely accept self-defense as an excuse to make use of a taser. But I reject the idea that police, in general, limit their uses to such circumstances, instead using them as a replacement for proper policework and negotiating tactics (the case of the Polish guy in the Vancouver airport comes to mind...). And it's *those* uses that I believe constitute torture.
The UN isn't going to ban water buckets and towels
Ah, I see. I was never running under the assumption that the UN was declaring tasers illegal (as far as the UN can declare anything illegal). After all, the guidelines for torture make no mention of mechanism, why would the UN start now?
No, I had assumed that the UN subcommittee was stating that the *use* of tasers by law-enforcement as a non-lethal method of subduing a suspect constitutes torture. And that would be in keeping with the existing guidelines (at least the way I read them).
At this point, the UN hasn't said anything about tasers, a subcommittee has said something about the taser related dealths in NA and there may have been some recommendation to Portugal to not buy tasers, but the article was not real clear on the detail of who said what, when, or why.
Yeah, that I completely agree with. Unfortunately, we can thank the current culture of journalism, which is more focused on getting a "scoop" rather than relaying concrete facts, for that one. Even a complete excerpt, with context, from the subcommittee would've been better than the few select quotes provided in TFA...
Actually, Police officers (in the US) have a significant amount of legal power.
Good for US police. But I was specifically referring to the excerpt of text that you selected, which stated that the definition of torture contains loopholes regarding "Lawful sanctions". Specifically, I'm contending that, in the context of the document, particularly due to references to "the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners", it seems clear that that loophole exists specifically in the case of individuals who have been charged and convicted by a court of law.
Once again, this is an issue with policy, not the taser itself.
Wrong. According to UN guidelines, as I've provided, the use of tasers in any context where the intent is to subdue or coerce constitutes torture.
Interestingly enough, a number of prisons in the US also use tasers.
Thus explicitly violating the UN guidelines. Obviously that doesn't mean much, but regardless, the UN position is completely consistent.
that document EXPLICITLY EXCLUDES incidents related to legal sanctions.
Did you even read the goddamned text? The full excerpt, as I quoted previously, is as follows:
It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
And, again, the "Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners" explicitly outlaws the use of corporal punishment. Period. End of story. Read the text yourself if you don't believe me.
So, again, if what you say is true, the US prison system does not follow the guidelines as set out by the UN. Again, that doesn't mean much, but that doesn't change the fact that the UN position is, again, entirely consistent.
You are removing responsibility from the true guilty parties (those officers that abuse their power) and placing it on an inanimate object
No, I'm not. I'm stating, without equivocation, that the use of tasers by police forces to subdue or coerce suspects constitutes torture on the UN human rights charter. Period.
Honestly, by that logic, waterboarding isn't torture. After all, the waterboard setup, itself, is just a tool. It all depends on how you use it! For example, if you were correct (and you're not), the use of waterboarding in prisons as a form of punishment would be perfectly fine.
It's not, by the way.
Also, if tasers are torture, by your definition, please explain to me how other traditional non-leathal tools of domination are NOT also torture.
The use of techniques that involve "non-leathal tools of domination" *are* torture, whether you like it or not. That includes tasers, waterboarding, and a wide variety of other techniques. I would contend the use of billyclubs for anything more than self-defense *also* qualifies as torture.
And before you say anything, no, I would contend that tasers are not used for self-defense purposes in the vast majority of cases. Their primary use is in subduing troublesome individuals, that's it.
But they are wrong because of the person doing them, they are NOT the fault of his fist, or his club, or his taser.
No, they're wrong, based on UN guidelines, because the actions are performed with the intent to subdue or coerce the individual. *How* it's done doesn't matter (well, the effect has to meet the standards in the guidelines regarding "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental".
but, I think tasers are a very acceptable tool when they are used correctly
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree, then.
When used appropriately, tasing someone is not used to obtain information, confessions, punishment, revenge, intimidation, or coercion.
Excuse me. How are tasers *not* used to "[punish] him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed", and of course for "intimidating or coercing him or a third person". Last I checked, they were explicitly used to coerce people into cooperating with the police, and punishing those who remain non-compliant.
In fact, the UNTC goes on to explicitly exclude pain and suffering "inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".
Yes. Lawful sanctions. As handed down by a court of law, not a cop on the street. Further, the text explicitly states that such actions must be "consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners". Interesting that you excluded that bit of text. I wonder what said rules state? Well, among other things, they state that:
"Corporal punishment, punishment by placing in a dark cell, and all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments shall be completely prohibited as punishments for disciplinary offences."
Which, in my mind, clearly rules out tasers. It also states:
"No prisoner shall be punished unless he has been informed of the offence alleged against him and given a proper opportunity of presenting his defence."
Last I checked, most taser victims aren't given a chance to defend themselves before the shock is administered.
So, no, by the UN's own documents, tasers are *not* an acceptable tool for law enforcement, and do, in fact, meet the guidelines for torture, unless your reading of the text is so drastically distorted as to be rendered meaningless.
As for Tasers, I think they can be USED for torture, but they are just a tool. And like all tools, they can be used correctly, or incorrectly.
That statement is completely absurd.
Used "correctly", a taser is meant to shock someone into incapacitation. That's torture in my book, and apparently the UN agrees.
Maybe you misunderstood: it isn't the cop who's doing the escalating.
Say what? Of course it's the cop escalating. The OP specifically said cops are expected to "[use] a level of force sufficient enough to stop whatever situation you're facing", which apparently means "going one level above the force being used against you". That's escalation, by definition.
The GP's point, which you apparently missed, was that such a tactic, of meeting violence with (greater) violence is useless when faced with someone experiencing a fear- or pain-induced adrenaline rush, as they will be incapable of judging the situation rationally. In fact, I'm betting they'll be more likely to go "one level above" the force being used by the cops in order to protect themselves (yay fight-or-fight instinct), which will trigger further escalation by the cops, etc.
I've been shot by my own Taser (in training), and while I would call it very unpleasant, I would not call it painful.
So were you hit when you weren't expecting it? Was it prolonged contact? Did you receive multiple shocks?
Because if none of those things is true, then you have very little perspective when it comes to the majority of taser abuse cases.
Most of the new stuff I encounter is from places like SomaFM. Most (all?) of the stuff they play is from indie labels and unsigned bands, and I can listen passively, which means I get decent background tunes while I work, and if I hear something I like, I can take a look at my stream player to see who the artist is and investigate from there.
:)
Basically, I'm lazy, so why not let someone else send the music to me?
Electric cars need energy and where does it come from?
From large scale, centralized power generation facilities that are far more efficient than millions of individual little ICEs, while being far *far* easier to upgrade to new technologies for reducing emissions or further enhancing efficiency. Furthermore, vehicles powered by grid electricity benefit from new generation technologies, meaning you can suddenly run your vehicle on solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, nuclear, etc. And unlike a gasoline powered car, you can make the shift to other more cost effective generation technologies as existing methods become prohibitively expense due to resource scarcity.
So, what was your point, again?
IMHO, you're spot on. It's very easy to drag a game out (and HL2 definitely has some of those moments... the vehicle sequences, for example, are much too long, if you ask me). Proper pacing is an artform, and I would rather a shorter, more evenly paced game, than a piece that's clearly been stretched to meet gamer's playtime expectations.
Without voice chat I feel like it's a lot harder to be helpful, especially with spies and locations of things
:) TBH, I never play with voice chat, and for larger games, I can't imagine it being worthwhile... it's tough enough getting a group of strangers to work in a coordinated fashion without having everybody speaking at once. But, maybe that's the old fogey in me coming out...
Meh, in the old days of TF on the Quake engine, we just set up lots of keyboard macros with various canned phrases ("incoming", etc), which take care of most of the common situations (I assume this is possible in TF2... I haven't gotten into it deeply enough to check). Other than that, just type quickly.
But Holmes has been hyped for its visual impact, which I'd say is .. lacking.
Well, I think it's more accurate to say that, unlike, say, Hale-Bopp or Hyukatake, the visual impact of Holmes can only be truly appreciated if you understand the science of it. Consider, the coma of this thing is *huge*. Sure, it may look like a fuzzy ball, but it's a fuzzy ball with a truly massive angular extent, generated by an object that's barely resolvable as a point in an average telescope. That's pretty freakin' cool, if you ask me. But I'll agree it doesn't have the same aesthetic appeal as some more visually impressive comets.
You don't find a fairly run-of-the-mill comet suddenly displaying a massive outburst and a million-fold increase in brightness, along with a truly *massive* coma, fascinating?
TBH, your post belies an attitude which saddens me... the fact that the visual impact of thing is more important than the scientific reality of it. It's part of the reason I avoid showing people nebulae and star clusters in my telescope. While they are scientifically fascinating objects, they simply don't have the real-life impact that the Hubble program has caused people to come to expect.
Bah, that's just pedantry. When people refer to "greenhouse gases", they usually mean gases responsible for the currently increasing greenhouse effect we are seeing, resulting in global warming. Water, having a very short cycle, is not part of this problem (rates of evaporation will increase as a function of global temperature, but that's counteracted by an increase in precipitation, and so the overall effect is fairly minimal).
There are some actions so heinous towards humanity that pretty much any punishment is justifiable
Again, what you describe is revenge, not deterrence or justice, and I believe that *revenge* should never be a function of the criminal justice system.
Now, if your goal is deterrence, it's pretty obviously that punishments such as murder (and, thus, rape, torture, etc) don't work. Otherwise, states like Florida would have significantly lower capital crime rates, which they don't.
As for justice, well, let's just say our ideas of justice clearly differ. I would *never* consider rape or murder just. Period. I believe we, as a society, should try to be better than the simplistic "an eye for an eye". Obviously you disagree, and clearly we won't be convincing one another on that point.
So, in my mind, such punishments can only serve a single purpose: revenge. And believe that purpose is immoral and unjust.
Bullshit. Is it really your contention that raping someone is the worst possible thing a person can do?
Nice strawman! All homemade and everything.
No, I didn't say that. I said rape is never justifiable as punishment. I also believe beatings, killing, and most other forms of corporal punishment are unjustified.
Put another way, there are some actions so heinous that pretty much any punishment is justifiable.
What you describe is self-righteous revenge, and I happen to think that's beneath us. It serves no purpose, and brings us to the level of thugs and killers. You may think that's fine. I don't.
Stop being such a politically correct left-wing flower child and reading shit into my post that wasn't there.
/.
Well, first off, no, I don't have fucking Office Space memorized. I have better things to do with my time than memorize lines from shitty movies.
Second off, whether you meant it or not, there *are* those who think that prison rape is perfectly fine, and I'm fucking sick of people tacitly condoning it by casually referring to "pound me in the ass" prisons, as if it's something justifiable, or in this case, funny. It's not. Find another goddamned joke. You're part of the fucking problem, whether you realize it or not.
How finding prison rape objectionable equates to "being such a politically correct left-wing flower child", I'll never know. I find that shit offensive, and frankly, you should too.
You have completely glossed over/missed the point of my post in favor of picking on a specific line that happens to be quite popular on
Actually, no, I misunderstood because I don't have that god damned movie memorized. In fact, for all the times I've seen that statement, this is first time (and I've been here a long time) that it's been pointed out that it is, in fact, a movie quote.
Besides, if I said "she should be sent to a prison and raped repeatedly", would you find that funny (well, you might, but perhaps that's the problem)? I doubt it. But, apparently a change of phrasing makes all the difference...
Maybe you should watch a movie?
Why? How can the content of that movie possibly justify the idea of rape as punishment?
Jane Fonda was a fucking treasonous cunt that deserved to be sent to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for what she did
I'm sorry, but *no one* deserves to be raped, and the very idea of using such a thing as punishment is disgusting and abhorent. But, I would like to believe you didn't actually intend to advocate such a thing.
No offense, but if that's what you think, then you're not terribly educated on the subject.
Among other things, HD-DVD players have a stable featureset that has been finalized for some time now, and as a consequence, greater player compatibility. As I understand it, they also have certain technical capabilities (video overlays) not present in Blu-Ray. Oh, and the authoring environment is better understood. And if that all wasn't enough, it's apparently cheaper to convert a DVD production chain to HD-DVD.
But, yeah. You're right. There's no difference between the two other than storage capacity.