> I wouldn't be surprised if you were pulled over for violating a posted sign, despite the fact that it "shouldn't be there".
Of course. I would not be surprised, either.
> You can't break the law just because you disagree with it without having consequences.
I break the rules, I get to live with the consequences. This seems to be painfully obvious to the point of triviality.
That does not change anything with my initial statement, though "context is everything". That the context for me as a driver can be different from the context of a policeman watching me... obvious...
> Does the school playground cease to exist outside of school hours?
No.
> And does that playground stop attracting young children outside of school hours?
Yes. There is none.
> Alternately, it it a good thing for drivers to get out of the habit of slowing down and paying extra attention in the vicinity of a school?
You are assuming that there is a causation, or at least correlation, between deciding not to speed down and not paying attention. I don't know where that is coming from.
It seems that you are making a lot of assumptions about how that facility is set up.
You can trivially view the complete facility all the time. If there are no cars parked, and there weren't, you can literally see everything. On the other side of the road, there is a closed hedge. The single street that crosses off to the one side can also be viewed and has a gentle slope, not a 90 degree corner.
Also, what tells you I was not cautious? Believe me, I am. Especially so when driving through a residential area.
The funny thing is that, even though this is an assumption, if you have a driver's licence yourself, you will definitely have been over the speed limit at some point. Most likely in a situation similar or worse than the one I described.:)
> School might have still been in session. Summer school, or some other special program going on.
No. German basic school does not know summer school.
> But you're right that context is everything.
Aye:)
> And the speed limit on normal highways is 80km/h, not 100km/h.
Not everyone lives in the USA; point in case, I live in Germany. When I drove to work this morning, my top speed was 240+ km/h and it was completely legal.
> Yes, it's wrong. What makes you so special that you can ignore posted limits, regardless of what you think their reason is?
Interesting approach. Are you telling me you never ever in your whole life assessed a situation, came to the conclusion that whatever a sign tells you is wrong and/or it was left in place by mistake and did something else instead?
You are free to disagree in this specific situation, but unless you are a holy sage, you broke some rules, somewhere, sometime.
> I'd also like to know more about this power of clairvoyance you have that makes you so certain there wasn't remedial school in session, or a youth program, or any other activity that might have been a reason to leave the signs up.
It was a basic school so no summer school or similar takes place, ever. And yes, I would have known if stuff happenend there.
And then, it still depends on how much you speed and context. Point in case, there is a school (i.e. 30 km/h for about 50 meters) directly after a normal out-of-city street (i.e. 100 km/h). During the last school holidays, they left the limit signs up. Was it wrong to go through those 50 meters at 50 km/h, which is the normal inner city speed? Especially since they removed the signs during this holiday season and in the ones before?
Thanks for doing the mental legwork, but if people just used _specific numbers and units_ instead of three SUV trunks to the gallon of football fields, I would feel less like smacking someone.
> I think you are severely underestimating the power of witness testimony in a court of law. There have been murder convictions based entirley around people claiming to have seen someone in a certain area arguing with someone moments before someone was killed.
At least in Germany, if there are two people claiming opposite things with nothing else in supporting evidence either way, and unless either side is too likely to be lying, the old in dubio pro reo works. You might be right about those pesky non-caucasian white males that have the nerve to annoy a jury with testimony, though.
> I'm not arguing the existence of a god or God, I'm not arguing that those who told you about them were telling the truth. Please don't take as that. I'm simply attempting to say that there are conditions to which evidence is only available to a few people and you have to take their word for it.
That's the thing. I don't have to take the word of anyone for anything. I am free to apply my own logic, reasoning, moral framework and mood of the day to any and all information I receive. I am free to re-evaluate this information based on other information and turn around 180 degrees the second I realize that I have been wrong. What you might have meant was "if you are inclined to believe someone (for whatever reasons) and want to believe in a particular story told by said person (for whatever reasons), sometimes you can only base this on faith".
If you tell me you like tofu, I will prolly believe you even though I disagree with your sentiment. If you tell me you can burp the alphabet, I might ask for proof. If you tell me you met a holy spirit that told you it's OK to get out of debt by stealing from the local church (this has happened!), I might not believe you.
> Well, partially faith based. There are a lot of facts in most religions. These facts pertain to outcomes of events and historical accounting much like any other history is shown to us. To say something like Christianity is not based on any facts is sort of missing the forest for the trees. There are plenty of facts surrounding it. Biblical people actually existed, evens in the bibles actually transpires (perhaps not as recorded but the essence is real) and so on. Hell, even the plagues on Egypt in which Pharaoh was convinced to let the Jews go can be explained scientifically with the exception of one (which seems to be a combination of two separate conditions), and the weird thing is that one plague invites the others as a consequence of the effect the one had. Now attributing that to a god or God in faith, but the events can be very real and a fact.
Knocking down the strawman with a red herring. The fact that a particular faith incorporates certain facts into their stories does not prove the faith. The facts in faith are facts (though some people tend to be confused about what defines fact). The faith in faith are faith.
> Well, you are talking about the time span of 4000 or more years in which the miracles have happened. You can probably list them to less then 1 per century. The process of scientific validation or verification has been around for less then one century in the capacity it is today. No, I don't think it's funny that something that averages 1 in 100 or less and is recorded in a specific book or books that were propagated with an intent behind them is not happening in the 100-200 years or less that science has been around and capable of verifying the events in which the books or propagation of books seemed to lessen on the intent (In other words, they don't update the bible with current events anymore).
So because the scientific process did not exist, I should take the old stuff at face value? Thanks, but no thanks.
> On another note, a lot of things don't look like miracles any more with the progress of technology and special effects. This reminds me of Chris Angel, the "mind freak" dude. He had a heavy metal band in which he attempted to insert his illusions as part of the act. The music w
> A crowbar can easily be a very effective weapon. > A crowbar can easily overwhelm the mightiest of unarmed humans.
True. Though from everything I read, they leave the crowbar outside. Carrying a crowbar means they can bump into stuff, carry less and they don't need it to defend their life/well-being.
> Cats do eat the eyeballs of their dead owners.
I will try to verify that. Intriguing if true.
> Have you been robbed while you were present?
No, I have not. People I know closely were robbed while away for about fifteen minutes, though.
> If not, you have ZERO insight into the matter - you're simply lucky you live in a low-crime area.
Have you been in space? If not, you have ZERO insight into how satellites work. You're simply lucky that you don't live in a cave so you can see them pass by during the night.
Same as you probably informed yourself about how trajectories, solar panels and rocket fuel work, I informed myself about the relevant statistics and behaviour in my area. I do appreciate the fact that you assume I don't do basic research, though. Thanks.
As an aside, while my experience with dogs is limited, every person I know who has a large-ish, non-retarded (i.e. bred stupid), well-trained dog has a well-tuned alarm system.
1) I live in Germany and burglars don't attack people they rob. As we don't have a shotgun in every home, burglars don't carry weapons themselves. They crowbar a floor-level window out along with the frame, enter quick, leave within less than 15 minutes and don't need to protect themselves from gun-toting home-owners. Statistics prove this correct time and time again. 2) Unless I am in my bed fast asleep, it's not easy to overwhelm me. Believe me;) 3) Cats don't eat eyeballs. They would happily claw me to death for my green laser pointer or catnip treats, though.
Fwiw, _I_ did not ask for ways to protect myself. I took appropriate measures for stuff I own and live in an area where crime, other than government embezzlement, is de facto non-existent. You will not find many people who lock their cars or close their front doors around here, although I do, most of the time.
> > Studies have shown time and time again that stricter penalties help almost nothing as no criminal _wants_ to be caught, or expects to be. > > To me, it seems obvious that if the penalty is high enough, and sure enough, criminals aren't going to commit the crimes.
I should have been more explicit in that I was talking about "secret" crimes. Crimes in which a criminal assumes or reasonably expects to be caught will happen a lot less.
Fwiw, there is almost no general & exhaust test fraud in Germany, either. People receive an enema of epic proportions for faking official documents and with every policeman being able to radio in to the base and confirming tests, getting caught is all too likely.
Obviously, there is some heavy pre-selection at work as old and crappy cars tend to be checked for papers etc a _lot_ more often than anything that looks reasonably new and/or well-maintained. I speak from experience; my record is being checking three times in a single day whereas most people I know average exactly zero checks in their whole life.
> I don't know if anyone has studied if that actually reduces the number of guns being used during commissions of ordinary burglaries.
Studies have shown time and time again that stricter penalties help almost nothing as no criminal _wants_ to be caught, or expects to be. Else, they would not do it in the first place (in most cases).
What helps over here is that the burglar does not need a gun to increase his/her chance of survival/well-being. I would be willing to bet that "fewer burglars" correlates with "almost no private gun owners" not with "higher penalties". Correlation is not causation etc, but I am convinced that there is a link.
> > Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca (ca. 4 BC -AD 65) > > Churchill was a ruler.
I am agnostic, but I find if peculiar that everyone who uses the mantra above specifies a _jew_, not just a man. Presumably, this is done to shock Christians even more, but I would argue that Jesus stopped being Jewish by his own choice.
Point in case, I was "born Christian" but I am not Christian any more.
What were you saying about logic and common sense, again?
Actually, it is ridden with mistakes, wrong translations and re-translations, personal interpretation, contradictions, unlikely stuff and impossible stuff.
Pretty much every Bible-based religion has admitted this to some degree, only to interpret the remaining bits as truth.
The tendency of _really_ ignorant (not neccessarily stupid) people to try and ignore the scientific process and revert commonly accepted conclusions is... tiresome...
You prolly know it as you said above, but most others do not. There is a drug which can reproducibly create the tunnel of light. Said compound is also occurring naturally in the body. IIRC, it's main use is preservation of the brain in extreme circumstances.
I can't remember the name of the compound, though.
It's atomized pepper. Does that mean they actually break down the molecules? Apparently so as without cleaning up (it's optional!) there is no harm for humans, cats and dogs after three to four hours. Your toddler and pets will appreciate this fact as they are a lot closer to the ground when that stuff is stirred up again and again.
Also, even though it is a fine-grained powder based on pepper, it's not flammable.
That, or the FAQ is a steaming pile of lies and half-truths.
Annoying. Needs food. Must be taken care of on-site during holidays etc. Else, they will not be a security system when you need them the most. Craps. Must be taken for walks. Slobbers stuff. Not a cat.
Slashdot Mirror
> I wouldn't be surprised if you were pulled over for violating a posted sign, despite the fact that it "shouldn't be there".
Of course. I would not be surprised, either.
> You can't break the law just because you disagree with it without having consequences.
I break the rules, I get to live with the consequences. This seems to be painfully obvious to the point of triviality.
That does not change anything with my initial statement, though "context is everything". That the context for me as a driver can be different from the context of a policeman watching me... obvious...
My bad. I thought of Ohio while answering and _still_ thought of Ohio until I re-read his posting.
> Does the school playground cease to exist outside of school hours?
No.
> And does that playground stop attracting young children outside of school hours?
Yes. There is none.
> Alternately, it it a good thing for drivers to get out of the habit of slowing down and paying extra attention in the vicinity of a school?
You are assuming that there is a causation, or at least correlation, between deciding not to speed down and not paying attention. I don't know where that is coming from.
It seems that you are making a lot of assumptions about how that facility is set up.
You can trivially view the complete facility all the time. If there are no cars parked, and there weren't, you can literally see everything. On the other side of the road, there is a closed hedge. The single street that crosses off to the one side can also be viewed and has a gentle slope, not a 90 degree corner.
Also, what tells you I was not cautious? Believe me, I am. Especially so when driving through a residential area.
The funny thing is that, even though this is an assumption, if you have a driver's licence yourself, you will definitely have been over the speed limit at some point. Most likely in a situation similar or worse than the one I described. :)
> School might have still been in session. Summer school, or some other special program going on.
No. German basic school does not know summer school.
> But you're right that context is everything.
Aye :)
> And the speed limit on normal highways is 80km/h, not 100km/h.
Not everyone lives in the USA; point in case, I live in Germany. When I drove to work this morning, my top speed was 240+ km/h and it was completely legal.
> Yes, it's wrong. What makes you so special that you can ignore posted limits, regardless of what you think their reason is?
Interesting approach. Are you telling me you never ever in your whole life assessed a situation, came to the conclusion that whatever a sign tells you is wrong and/or it was left in place by mistake and did something else instead?
You are free to disagree in this specific situation, but unless you are a holy sage, you broke some rules, somewhere, sometime.
> I'd also like to know more about this power of clairvoyance you have that makes you so certain there wasn't remedial school in session, or a youth program, or any other activity that might have been a reason to leave the signs up.
It was a basic school so no summer school or similar takes place, ever. And yes, I would have known if stuff happenend there.
FWIW, this is a basic school; they do not have summer school or similar.
Speeding in a residential area is unacceptable.
Fixed that for you.
And then, it still depends on how much you speed and context. Point in case, there is a school (i.e. 30 km/h for about 50 meters) directly after a normal out-of-city street (i.e. 100 km/h). During the last school holidays, they left the limit signs up. Was it wrong to go through those 50 meters at 50 km/h, which is the normal inner city speed? Especially since they removed the signs during this holiday season and in the ones before?
Thanks for doing the mental legwork, but if people just used _specific numbers and units_ instead of three SUV trunks to the gallon of football fields, I would feel less like smacking someone.
Rant over.
How I love Slashdot summaries.
> The running joke was... If you want to be absolutely certain a spacecraft is sterile, just make a flyby of Jupiter.
Finally, someone writes about the _WHY_ of the titanium case. Thanks :)
> ability to survive without logistical support such as repairs, parts, or energy supplies
To be fair, you probably like to visit the doc and eat food every once in a while, too.
> I think you are severely underestimating the power of witness testimony in a court of law. There have been murder convictions based entirley around people claiming to have seen someone in a certain area arguing with someone moments before someone was killed.
At least in Germany, if there are two people claiming opposite things with nothing else in supporting evidence either way, and unless either side is too likely to be lying, the old in dubio pro reo works.
You might be right about those pesky non-caucasian white males that have the nerve to annoy a jury with testimony, though.
> I'm not arguing the existence of a god or God, I'm not arguing that those who told you about them were telling the truth. Please don't take as that. I'm simply attempting to say that there are conditions to which evidence is only available to a few people and you have to take their word for it.
That's the thing. I don't have to take the word of anyone for anything. I am free to apply my own logic, reasoning, moral framework and mood of the day to any and all information I receive. I am free to re-evaluate this information based on other information and turn around 180 degrees the second I realize that I have been wrong.
What you might have meant was "if you are inclined to believe someone (for whatever reasons) and want to believe in a particular story told by said person (for whatever reasons), sometimes you can only base this on faith".
If you tell me you like tofu, I will prolly believe you even though I disagree with your sentiment.
If you tell me you can burp the alphabet, I might ask for proof.
If you tell me you met a holy spirit that told you it's OK to get out of debt by stealing from the local church (this has happened!), I might not believe you.
> Well, partially faith based. There are a lot of facts in most religions. These facts pertain to outcomes of events and historical accounting much like any other history is shown to us. To say something like Christianity is not based on any facts is sort of missing the forest for the trees. There are plenty of facts surrounding it. Biblical people actually existed, evens in the bibles actually transpires (perhaps not as recorded but the essence is real) and so on. Hell, even the plagues on Egypt in which Pharaoh was convinced to let the Jews go can be explained scientifically with the exception of one (which seems to be a combination of two separate conditions), and the weird thing is that one plague invites the others as a consequence of the effect the one had. Now attributing that to a god or God in faith, but the events can be very real and a fact.
Knocking down the strawman with a red herring. The fact that a particular faith incorporates certain facts into their stories does not prove the faith. The facts in faith are facts (though some people tend to be confused about what defines fact). The faith in faith are faith.
> Well, you are talking about the time span of 4000 or more years in which the miracles have happened. You can probably list them to less then 1 per century. The process of scientific validation or verification has been around for less then one century in the capacity it is today. No, I don't think it's funny that something that averages 1 in 100 or less and is recorded in a specific book or books that were propagated with an intent behind them is not happening in the 100-200 years or less that science has been around and capable of verifying the events in which the books or propagation of books seemed to lessen on the intent (In other words, they don't update the bible with current events anymore).
So because the scientific process did not exist, I should take the old stuff at face value? Thanks, but no thanks.
> On another note, a lot of things don't look like miracles any more with the progress of technology and special effects. This reminds me of Chris Angel, the "mind freak" dude. He had a heavy metal band in which he attempted to insert his illusions as part of the act. The music w
> A crowbar can easily be a very effective weapon.
> A crowbar can easily overwhelm the mightiest of unarmed humans.
True. Though from everything I read, they leave the crowbar outside. Carrying a crowbar means they can bump into stuff, carry less and they don't need it to defend their life/well-being.
> Cats do eat the eyeballs of their dead owners.
I will try to verify that. Intriguing if true.
> Have you been robbed while you were present?
No, I have not. People I know closely were robbed while away for about fifteen minutes, though.
> If not, you have ZERO insight into the matter - you're simply lucky you live in a low-crime area.
Have you been in space? If not, you have ZERO insight into how satellites work. You're simply lucky that you don't live in a cave so you can see them pass by during the night.
Same as you probably informed yourself about how trajectories, solar panels and rocket fuel work, I informed myself about the relevant statistics and behaviour in my area. I do appreciate the fact that you assume I don't do basic research, though. Thanks.
> nor do we expect friends to turn up at 0300
You have the wrong friends ;)
As an aside, while my experience with dogs is limited, every person I know who has a large-ish, non-retarded (i.e. bred stupid), well-trained dog has a well-tuned alarm system.
I could do that, except:
1) I live in Germany and burglars don't attack people they rob. As we don't have a shotgun in every home, burglars don't carry weapons themselves. They crowbar a floor-level window out along with the frame, enter quick, leave within less than 15 minutes and don't need to protect themselves from gun-toting home-owners. Statistics prove this correct time and time again. ;)
2) Unless I am in my bed fast asleep, it's not easy to overwhelm me. Believe me
3) Cats don't eat eyeballs. They would happily claw me to death for my green laser pointer or catnip treats, though.
Fwiw, _I_ did not ask for ways to protect myself. I took appropriate measures for stuff I own and live in an area where crime, other than government embezzlement, is de facto non-existent. You will not find many people who lock their cars or close their front doors around here, although I do, most of the time.
> > Studies have shown time and time again that stricter penalties help almost nothing as no criminal _wants_ to be caught, or expects to be.
>
> To me, it seems obvious that if the penalty is high enough, and sure enough, criminals aren't going to commit the crimes.
I should have been more explicit in that I was talking about "secret" crimes. Crimes in which a criminal assumes or reasonably expects to be caught will happen a lot less.
Fwiw, there is almost no general & exhaust test fraud in Germany, either. People receive an enema of epic proportions for faking official documents and with every policeman being able to radio in to the base and confirming tests, getting caught is all too likely.
Obviously, there is some heavy pre-selection at work as old and crappy cars tend to be checked for papers etc a _lot_ more often than anything that looks reasonably new and/or well-maintained. I speak from experience; my record is being checking three times in a single day whereas most people I know average exactly zero checks in their whole life.
> I don't know if anyone has studied if that actually reduces the number of guns being used during commissions of ordinary burglaries.
Studies have shown time and time again that stricter penalties help almost nothing as no criminal _wants_ to be caught, or expects to be. Else, they would not do it in the first place (in most cases).
What helps over here is that the burglar does not need a gun to increase his/her chance of survival/well-being. I would be willing to bet that "fewer burglars" correlates with "almost no private gun owners" not with "higher penalties". Correlation is not causation etc, but I am convinced that there is a link.
You might be correct, but let me reply by quoting http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1744812&cid=33154332 :
> > Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca (ca. 4 BC -AD 65)
>
> Churchill was a ruler.
I am agnostic, but I find if peculiar that everyone who uses the mantra above specifies a _jew_, not just a man. Presumably, this is done to shock Christians even more, but I would argue that Jesus stopped being Jewish by his own choice.
Point in case, I was "born Christian" but I am not Christian any more.
What were you saying about logic and common sense, again?
> And the Bible is infallible
Actually, it is ridden with mistakes, wrong translations and re-translations, personal interpretation, contradictions, unlikely stuff and impossible stuff.
Pretty much every Bible-based religion has admitted this to some degree, only to interpret the remaining bits as truth.
The tendency of _really_ ignorant (not neccessarily stupid) people to try and ignore the scientific process and revert commonly accepted conclusions is... tiresome...
> It can be readily created in the lab.
You prolly know it as you said above, but most others do not. There is a drug which can reproducibly create the tunnel of light. Said compound is also occurring naturally in the body. IIRC, it's main use is preservation of the brain in extreme circumstances.
I can't remember the name of the compound, though.
Join #zoneminde on irc.freenode.net tell your story and wait a day or three. Sucks, but tends to yield results.
So, I read the FAQ.
It's atomized pepper. Does that mean they actually break down the molecules? Apparently so as without cleaning up (it's optional!) there is no harm for humans, cats and dogs after three to four hours. Your toddler and pets will appreciate this fact as they are a lot closer to the ground when that stuff is stirred up again and again.
Also, even though it is a fine-grained powder based on pepper, it's not flammable.
That, or the FAQ is a steaming pile of lies and half-truths.
> Dog
Annoying.
Needs food.
Must be taken care of on-site during holidays etc. Else, they will not be a security system when you need them the most.
Craps.
Must be taken for walks.
Slobbers stuff.
Not a cat.