Great points, especially about fire preparedness and the VERY good aspects of having an alarm. I'll keep these points in mind.
BTW, I was not at all suggesting that a shotgun would be in any way viable for hostage situations. I'd ask "how dumb do you think I am?", but this *is* the internet. The truth is, if I go out and buy a handgun, I would spend the time and money to take courses in pistol combat, which include things like couples training, room clearing, and other drills. I wouldn't consider myself, with my current lack of training, to be at all prepared for using a gun otherwise.
I'd forgotten about the alarm aspect; there's a reason calling 911 was early on my list.;)
The odds are much better that you'll get shot with your own gun in the scenario you describe. Also, consider that police officers miss nearly 90% of the time when they discharge their weapons. They have lots of training up front and ongoing training in firearms use which you almost certainly do not have. What makes you think your skills are better than theirs?
I picture the scenario as such:
Person enters my house without permission. Person is either unarmed, or armed. Person's intentions are either to steal from me or to hurt/rape my family.
Now, finding that an invader is in my home, I do not know how armed or hostile the adversary is. In such a case, it seems imprudent to be overly optimistic. If my goal is to maximize the safety of my family, I need to assume the worst: the adversary is both armed, and intends to harm my family. My threat-response choices should be based on this expectation.
So, versus an armed hostile adversary, my options are, in increasing levels of severity:
1) Run away. Get everyone out of the house, in the car, and Far Away. 2) Threaten adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process. 3) Harm adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process. 4) Kill adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
Let us examine the viability of each of these.
1) Run Away.
If this is possible, I want to do it. I'd much rather avoid confrontation, and make sure that no one gets hurt. However, in the case of a home invasion, the invader is quite likely to be between my family and the exit. If the adversary is hostile, we could be at risk. (Yes, we could open a window and escape that way; this isn't always guaranteed.)
Additionally, if I were to find the adversary already harming my family (or me), it's too late to do this (to an extent).
2) Threaten Adversary.
-- Call the police, and notify the adversary that they are on the way. Unarmed assailants are likely to be scared off, but I am not optimistic that an armed assailant would be convinced to go. They might take hostages. I realize this is not reasonable, but crazy people, psychos, or people who are high on $Drug are unlikely to be thinking completely rationally.
-- Any other threat I might make (to harm or kill the adversary myself) requires that the adversary believe I can and will do such a thing. Thus, this requires that I arm myself in a manner which will be percieved as a threat by all attackers.
A knife, sword, or spear won't do. A firearm is the weapon of choice, and I'd prefer a shotgun. Anything less is an automatic failure versus an assailant with a gun. (Yes, I know about the lethal distance. Yes, a short spear would be fantastic for CQ fighting in my house... and scary as hell, I imagine. However, it's still an inferior threat.) A blade may scare away that burglar with a knife, or the rapist with a box cutter, but will do nothing when they have a pistol, and may even aggravate their intentions.
Threats also have a chance to escalate into a combat situation ("You're welcome to try, have at thee!"). In such a case, I'd much prefer that I have an unfair advantage.
3) Harm Adversary.
This is both legally and ethically problematic, to me. If someone is an active threat to the life of my family or me, I do not feel it is prudent to try to "injure" them (not to mention that it's likely to impede my performance, as "shooting to wound" doesn't work). If someone is NOT an active threat to my life or my family, then I would be liable (legally) for having assaulted the invader. Anyone that I'd feel it's ethical to harm in self defense is an enemy which would be better completely unable to harm me, and therefore dead.
If I could disarm them safely, and then further ensure that they couldn't hurt me or my family, that see
What about when the targets are every member of congress, each of their staff, and every known government employee e-mail address? (Including the FBI.) State legislatures, the DMV, etc.
"Uh, yeah, the entire White House likes kiddy porn, your honor." "I am dubious as to the veracity of that claim."
The key is to ensure that the set of "positives" is chock-full of false positives, because there is NO way to ensure that they aren't that anyways. I'm thankful that I have neither the tools nor the courage to do such an act of civil disobedience. Random people in China, though, might do precisely that.
California, at least, has a law that requires you to merge with freeway traffic at something similar to freeway speeds. In the space of a freeway on-ramp, you should be able to accelerate to ~60 mph. Otherwise, you cause traffic and safety issues for other drivers.
I interpreted that as meaning that the "group" referred to the RIAA -- and it probably is, at least on the surface, in their best interest to settle in a manner which keeps this quiet. And, it probably is also in her interest, too -- less legal bills, money right now, possibly even more than she might get from a lawsuit.
OTOH, if she tries to fight for The Greater Good or something, this might not get settled. Still... if someone offered you $10 Million to settle, wouldn't you consider it? I know I sure as hell would.
I'll wear wool socks for hiking, but there's no way in hell I'm wearing it under my pants. [ Reply to This ]
The entire point of a kilt, however, is that you aren't wearing pants. Because you're not wearing a bifurcated garment below the waist, you are a little more free to move (depending on how worried you are about drafts, though). I worry far more about keeping one's bits covered, and whether a draft of wind will pull a Marilyn Monroe (it won't, but it's a very unnerving thought). A kilt pin solves most of those worries.
Comfort is already top-notch. I wouldn't want to wear one all the time, but mine is certainly comfortable in summer weather. (I have a Utilikilt, however, which is not a traditional form of kilt. Pockets are extremely handy.) I highly recommend one to anyone who is at ALL curious about wearing a kilt. When I've been wearing my kilt (vacations, summer weekends), I definitely am more acutely aware of pants-related omfort issues.
1) run linux 2) Give her a super secure way of logging on that no one else can use. 3) give parents the root password, and educate them on how to su to her username.
Viola, her password is proof against all friends and siblings, and even her parents don't know it, but she can still be monitored, parented, and so forth.
the UK has a very serious problem with gangs of youths causing trouble, and we're not just talking a little petty crime, there have been a number of recent cases where individuals, often adults, have actually being kicked to death or stabbed by such groups. In some areas, entire communities will not leave their homes at night, because the streets aren't safe.
Someone else mentioned a "Lord of the Flies" parallel, also.
If gangs of youths are posing a threat to public welfare, it seems like a good reason for said public to be able to defend themselves from such attacks. I realize that the UK has VERY different laws about weapon ownership than in the states, but it seems that if the "prey" of these predators were armed (guns? machetes? heavy walking sticks? sword-canes?) with something that posted an actual threat (as opposed to pepper spray), said pack of predators would be inclined to leave people alone.
You don't have to beat off ALL the attackers. You just have to tell them that you will make sure that you will mail or kill ONE of them, and ask who wants to be first. Point out that since they're likely going to kill you ANYWAY, you have nothing to lose, and don't expect to have to care about the legal repercussions. Just as a person with a revolver has often held at bay more than six people -- no one wants to be the casualty.
Is this legal? Certainly not. I wonder, though, what will happen to the rate (or type) of attacks when someone defends themselves from such a mob, and cripples or kills one of their attackers. To a certain extent, I would like to believe that "an armed society is a polite society", though I have no logical backing for such an assertion.
This is exactly the sort of situation which concealed-carry permits for handguns have been demonstrated to discourage. I realize that you don't have as many handgun deaths (accidental or otherwise;)) in the UK, but here in the States we don't really seem to have a problem (that I'm aware of?) of roving bands of youths beating people to death all over suburbia. (We do have gang issues, and that does seem somewhat different, but not being in an urban area, I can't say I've ever encountered such things -- which seems to differ from the other slashdotters' reports of widespread unruliness on the part of youth gangs.)
A very VERY high-powered laser, with the ability to actually aim at said satellite. I doubt that any private citizen (short of Bill Gates?) could afford such an endeavor. Not to mention that building such a device would arouse all sorts of curiosity on the part of the government, much like creating your own rocket launch pad would.
What's interesting, is that Baen's policy of Free Books (and buy more if you like 'em) worked for me at a meta-advertisement level. I was traveling, and in a bookstore looking for something to read. I noticed the Baen logo on Some Sci-Fi Book ("In Fury Born", to be specific). I'd never read anything by this author, never HEARD of the author. I had, however, read months earlier about Baen's stance on giving away free stuff.
I bought the book. Granted, I picked the one of the several Baen books that looked most interesting, but I specifically picked a Baen book because of their policy. I don't regret it -- the book was excellent. Still, such marketing tactics DO work, and I'm grateful to Baen for taking the stance they do.:)
It's like movie reviews- you find a reviewer who seems to share your likes and dislikes and stay with them. This is, of course, if you look at reviews as purely a buying guide. For game criticism of a more literary caliber there's no real source that I know of. Frankly I don't think most games would stand up to that, and I've been playing games since 1980.
This is one of the biggest reasons I enjoy reading Gabe and Tycho's (of Penny Arcade, for those under a rock;)) views on games. Tycho likes really strange crap, or likes the same things we do but for completely different reasons (e.g., playing an Engineer in TF2?;)) than most of us. Still, he manages to often find the kernel of neatness in the gameplay of just about anything he talks about (or, presumably, he wouldn't be mentioning it). Also, most importantly, he talks a lot about the social aspects of gaming, and the effect this has on his game choices. (For example, when he noted that the entire PA crew went to play R6:Vegas, rather than some other game which (I think?) he preferred on technical merits. I may have that migration backwards.)
More importantly... Jerry (Tycho) is a Gaming Nerd, and I am too (though in different ways). We like "traditional" RPGs, interesting game mechanics, and a bunch of other things... and I find that, somehow, his opinions about games often resonate deeply with me. I don't understand it, either, since many of the games he talks about are ones I don't play (since I don't have a newish console).
Gabe (Mike Krahulik) weighs in less often on games, but when he does, it's like a refreshing reminder of what it's like to hear a friend's honest opinion about something. When a game sucks, he'll say so. When it's awesome (like Assassin's Creed), he'll tell you also -- even if the reason for Awesomeness is something which "reviewers" might not grok.
Interestingly, today they mentioned their OWN game, which has been in the works for a while. Gabe said that games in general (and thus presumably this one) suck, until such point as they graduate to awesomeness. I don't know how good this game will be, but I'm very intrigued. It'll have to pass Gabe's highly tuned Fun Filter, and yet it seems like it also has a large amount of retro-ish gaming aspects which Tycho surely had a hand in bringing. Seriously -- rolling for initiative?? power-up combos?? This looks like it could be pretty darn fun. (Of course, I also felt the same way about SERPG, and have been playing FF1 these past three weeks.;))
Anyways... yeah. Find critics/reviewers that you like, and trust them to give you good info. =)
("Yahweh Doesn't Exist" (a sibling poster) mentioned Zero Punctuation -- which I also enjoy; not just for his scathing exposition of all that sucks, but also for the entertaining way he does it.)
If the share are at 88p each one it means they can not go down further...
It can always go down further. If you buy at 88, and it drops to 44, or 22, you've just lost 50% or 75% of your investment.
So - again, it IS for speculators. I agree that in the case of a bank like this, it might seem likely that it will go back up... but that's not a certainty, is it?
Can you tell me more about these small booksellers' networks? Is that something I can search to find things?
Recently, I wanted to find some old Conan books. ("SNOWHAWKS!!" *ahem*, sorry, my interest in Age of Conan is showing. =)) Where I live, I don't know of any small bookstores; my choices are Amazon, B&N, and Borders (though that's not local).
When I looked on Amazon, there were many "new and used" links, which were actually NOT from the Amazon warehouses, but were books being offered by smaller booksellers. I bought my book (through Amazon) from a bookstore which otherwise I'd have never heard of, and got a book which has been out of print for a while and which the larger stores (even Amazon) didn't carry.
In this way, I see Amazon as a way for smaller bookstores to reach larger audiences. I'm not sure how that's a bad thing, unless what they choose to stock are things which no one wants to buy.
A: "F--- Hoover." B: "F--- Hoover." {A and B Converse.} A: "F--- Hoover." B: "F--- Hoover.";) Apologies to George Carlin -- he was the only thing I could find on a quick google search for that phrase.
In a future where people may have wearable augmented-reality-devices (e.g. the screen-contacts from an earlier story), and wireless networking, I imagine that rfid or other tagging, combinedwith such databases, could indeed allow people to put such indicators over other people.
Might be kindof scary once you see peoples' criminal records floating over their heads as you walk down the sidewalk, though. I don't think it is a good thing, but then... it's hard to pinpoint why. As a father, I would love to be able to more accurately guage the threat level of people I (and my family) are around. As a citizen, though, I really don't like the idea that people would still be branded after having served their time.
I guess some part of our brain (or societal training?) doesn't want to believe in rehabilitation.
But exposing these types to the whole Internet to see forever (Internet remembers, the sentence is for life) is not right and won't solve the problem.
Interesting. Depends on what part of the problem you hope to address.
Will it stop rage-induced behavior? No. No one is acting rationally in a rage situation, and thus thoughts of consequences are rare.
I imagine it would stop people from thinking they could "get away with" such a pattern of behavior... but then I have a hard time even conceptualizing the belief that such behavior would be consciously done. (I know it is, but... damn. Why!?)
It might help ensure that future potential partners (after the abusee leaves) would know what they were getting into.
Using cash. To bribe the person at the door to not scan your ID I assume.
If they scan your ID, they know you were THERE. If you buy liquor with CASH, the only way they can prove you drank (or bought booze, actually) is to ask eyewitnesses. If you buy liquor with electronic means, then they can easily say "Hey, you were here, AND you bought booze" by querying databases. You suddenly become the result of a SQL query, effectively. A credit card purchase record would most likely give the SAME information, though, couldn't it?
Somebody needs to come up with a two-or-three-part license/age-verification/right-to-vote device/card so that for clubbing and purchases not involving checks or credit, only NAME AND AGE/DOB appear.
What kind of information is on a concealed carry permit? =) I saw someone mentioning in a different thread that they use that as their get-on-a-plane ID. If anything, whatever bardode might be on that is probably in a different format than drivers' licenses.
So I'm reading through that, and all I can think of (about 25% through) is the scene in Spaceballs where they're saying, "NOW now?" "yes! NOW now!". Thanks for the excellent scifi short story link, I do so love them.
Exactly. If Student A accuses Teacher B of improper conduct, and produces fabricatd / edited video/audio/photos/whatever to "prove" their allegations, pretty much the only defense the teacher has is to:
- prove the student's media evidence is forged - show counter-point video.
The former is harder to prove, and might require many hours of expert witness testimony. The latter... well, if I show you two videos of an event, and they differ, then ONE of them is mistaken. It would at least introduce doubt as to the veracity of ONE of them. However, if there are more than two recordings, it's easy to show that one is the odd one.
It seems that the logical extension of this is to record everything. While you're driving, record the sounds. When dealing with other people, have multiple audio sources and a video source, so that each person involved has multiple CYA procedures in place. The feasibility of tampering with multiple sources (especially video from multiple angles) is less... or at least more time consuming. Of course, this doesn't really cover sound recording very well. =/ Not to mention the whole risk that your recorder might get destroyed in the process of a police beatdown/frisking/X-raying/magnetic-device-scanning (or lost in the evidence locker?). For civil suits, though... yeah. Record everything you can.
The lesson will prove even more invaluable whenever he is next looking for work (I predict this to be coming sooner than he expects). All it will take is one person at the company to throw his name into google and then look at the internet archive version of his site and voila: Instant rejection.
This brings up an interesting (to me) issue. When someone DOES post something on the internet which others would consider sufficient for instant-rejection, how does that individual reform (and subsequently recover)? I like the idea of being able to know that John Q Applicant was a complete asshole at Some Time in the Past, but what if he's genuinely been trying to improve? What if he was off his meds that day, or his jealous now-ex wrote it? What if he recognizes that it was a mistake, and has been working actively to be a better team player? Will anyone ever give them a chance?
Before the internet, one could conceivably recover from such a career mistake (if this was one): move to a new city/state/country/industry, and start over. Now, it's so easy to Fail people out of the job selection process (or any other one) that it seems like some people may be excessively punished for past behaviors.
Slashdot Mirror
Haha. :) I meant that (as someone else pointed out), making a threat is actually an invitation for the other to take you up on it.
Great points, especially about fire preparedness and the VERY good aspects of having an alarm. I'll keep these points in mind.
;)
BTW, I was not at all suggesting that a shotgun would be in any way viable for hostage situations. I'd ask "how dumb do you think I am?", but this *is* the internet. The truth is, if I go out and buy a handgun, I would spend the time and money to take courses in pistol combat, which include things like couples training, room clearing, and other drills. I wouldn't consider myself, with my current lack of training, to be at all prepared for using a gun otherwise.
I'd forgotten about the alarm aspect; there's a reason calling 911 was early on my list.
I picture the scenario as such:
... and scary as hell, I imagine. However, it's still an inferior threat.) A blade may scare away that burglar with a knife, or the rapist with a box cutter, but will do nothing when they have a pistol, and may even aggravate their intentions.
Person enters my house without permission.
Person is either unarmed, or armed.
Person's intentions are either to steal from me or to hurt/rape my family.
Now, finding that an invader is in my home, I do not know how armed or hostile the adversary is. In such a case, it seems imprudent to be overly optimistic. If my goal is to maximize the safety of my family, I need to assume the worst: the adversary is both armed, and intends to harm my family. My threat-response choices should be based on this expectation.
So, versus an armed hostile adversary, my options are, in increasing levels of severity:
1) Run away. Get everyone out of the house, in the car, and Far Away.
2) Threaten adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
3) Harm adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
4) Kill adversary. Accept possibility that I will be harmed in the process.
Let us examine the viability of each of these.
1) Run Away.
If this is possible, I want to do it. I'd much rather avoid confrontation, and make sure that no one gets hurt. However, in the case of a home invasion, the invader is quite likely to be between my family and the exit. If the adversary is hostile, we could be at risk. (Yes, we could open a window and escape that way; this isn't always guaranteed.)
Additionally, if I were to find the adversary already harming my family (or me), it's too late to do this (to an extent).
2) Threaten Adversary.
-- Call the police, and notify the adversary that they are on the way. Unarmed assailants are likely to be scared off, but I am not optimistic that an armed assailant would be convinced to go. They might take hostages. I realize this is not reasonable, but crazy people, psychos, or people who are high on $Drug are unlikely to be thinking completely rationally.
-- Any other threat I might make (to harm or kill the adversary myself) requires that the adversary believe I can and will do such a thing. Thus, this requires that I arm myself in a manner which will be percieved as a threat by all attackers.
A knife, sword, or spear won't do. A firearm is the weapon of choice, and I'd prefer a shotgun. Anything less is an automatic failure versus an assailant with a gun. (Yes, I know about the lethal distance. Yes, a short spear would be fantastic for CQ fighting in my house
Threats also have a chance to escalate into a combat situation ("You're welcome to try, have at thee!"). In such a case, I'd much prefer that I have an unfair advantage.
3) Harm Adversary.
This is both legally and ethically problematic, to me. If someone is an active threat to the life of my family or me, I do not feel it is prudent to try to "injure" them (not to mention that it's likely to impede my performance, as "shooting to wound" doesn't work). If someone is NOT an active threat to my life or my family, then I would be liable (legally) for having assaulted the invader. Anyone that I'd feel it's ethical to harm in self defense is an enemy which would be better completely unable to harm me, and therefore dead.
If I could disarm them safely, and then further ensure that they couldn't hurt me or my family, that see
What about when the targets are every member of congress, each of their staff, and every known government employee e-mail address? (Including the FBI.) State legislatures, the DMV, etc.
"Uh, yeah, the entire White House likes kiddy porn, your honor."
"I am dubious as to the veracity of that claim."
The key is to ensure that the set of "positives" is chock-full of false positives, because there is NO way to ensure that they aren't that anyways. I'm thankful that I have neither the tools nor the courage to do such an act of civil disobedience. Random people in China, though, might do precisely that.
California, at least, has a law that requires you to merge with freeway traffic at something similar to freeway speeds. In the space of a freeway on-ramp, you should be able to accelerate to ~60 mph. Otherwise, you cause traffic and safety issues for other drivers.
I interpreted that as meaning that the "group" referred to the RIAA -- and it probably is, at least on the surface, in their best interest to settle in a manner which keeps this quiet. And, it probably is also in her interest, too -- less legal bills, money right now, possibly even more than she might get from a lawsuit.
... if someone offered you $10 Million to settle, wouldn't you consider it? I know I sure as hell would.
OTOH, if she tries to fight for The Greater Good or something, this might not get settled. Still
I'll wear wool socks for hiking, but there's no way in hell I'm wearing it under my pants.
[ Reply to This ]
The entire point of a kilt, however, is that you aren't wearing pants. Because you're not wearing a bifurcated garment below the waist, you are a little more free to move (depending on how worried you are about drafts, though). I worry far more about keeping one's bits covered, and whether a draft of wind will pull a Marilyn Monroe (it won't, but it's a very unnerving thought). A kilt pin solves most of those worries.
Comfort is already top-notch. I wouldn't want to wear one all the time, but mine is certainly comfortable in summer weather. (I have a Utilikilt, however, which is not a traditional form of kilt. Pockets are extremely handy.) I highly recommend one to anyone who is at ALL curious about wearing a kilt. When I've been wearing my kilt (vacations, summer weekends), I definitely am more acutely aware of pants-related omfort issues.
1) run linux
2) Give her a super secure way of logging on that no one else can use.
3) give parents the root password, and educate them on how to su to her username.
Viola, her password is proof against all friends and siblings, and even her parents don't know it, but she can still be monitored, parented, and so forth.
Someone else mentioned a "Lord of the Flies" parallel, also.
If gangs of youths are posing a threat to public welfare, it seems like a good reason for said public to be able to defend themselves from such attacks. I realize that the UK has VERY different laws about weapon ownership than in the states, but it seems that if the "prey" of these predators were armed (guns? machetes? heavy walking sticks? sword-canes?) with something that posted an actual threat (as opposed to pepper spray), said pack of predators would be inclined to leave people alone.
You don't have to beat off ALL the attackers. You just have to tell them that you will make sure that you will mail or kill ONE of them, and ask who wants to be first. Point out that since they're likely going to kill you ANYWAY, you have nothing to lose, and don't expect to have to care about the legal repercussions. Just as a person with a revolver has often held at bay more than six people -- no one wants to be the casualty.
Is this legal? Certainly not. I wonder, though, what will happen to the rate (or type) of attacks when someone defends themselves from such a mob, and cripples or kills one of their attackers. To a certain extent, I would like to believe that "an armed society is a polite society", though I have no logical backing for such an assertion.
This is exactly the sort of situation which concealed-carry permits for handguns have been demonstrated to discourage. I realize that you don't have as many handgun deaths (accidental or otherwise
A very VERY high-powered laser, with the ability to actually aim at said satellite. I doubt that any private citizen (short of Bill Gates?) could afford such an endeavor. Not to mention that building such a device would arouse all sorts of curiosity on the part of the government, much like creating your own rocket launch pad would.
What's interesting, is that Baen's policy of Free Books (and buy more if you like 'em) worked for me at a meta-advertisement level. I was traveling, and in a bookstore looking for something to read. I noticed the Baen logo on Some Sci-Fi Book ("In Fury Born", to be specific). I'd never read anything by this author, never HEARD of the author. I had, however, read months earlier about Baen's stance on giving away free stuff.
:)
I bought the book. Granted, I picked the one of the several Baen books that looked most interesting, but I specifically picked a Baen book because of their policy. I don't regret it -- the book was excellent. Still, such marketing tactics DO work, and I'm grateful to Baen for taking the stance they do.
This is one of the biggest reasons I enjoy reading Gabe and Tycho's (of Penny Arcade, for those under a rock
More importantly
Gabe (Mike Krahulik) weighs in less often on games, but when he does, it's like a refreshing reminder of what it's like to hear a friend's honest opinion about something. When a game sucks, he'll say so. When it's awesome (like Assassin's Creed), he'll tell you also -- even if the reason for Awesomeness is something which "reviewers" might not grok.
Interestingly, today they mentioned their OWN game, which has been in the works for a while. Gabe said that games in general (and thus presumably this one) suck, until such point as they graduate to awesomeness. I don't know how good this game will be, but I'm very intrigued. It'll have to pass Gabe's highly tuned Fun Filter, and yet it seems like it also has a large amount of retro-ish gaming aspects which Tycho surely had a hand in bringing. Seriously -- rolling for initiative?? power-up combos?? This looks like it could be pretty darn fun. (Of course, I also felt the same way about SERPG, and have been playing FF1 these past three weeks.
Anyways
("Yahweh Doesn't Exist" (a sibling poster) mentioned Zero Punctuation -- which I also enjoy; not just for his scathing exposition of all that sucks, but also for the entertaining way he does it.)
It can always go down further. If you buy at 88, and it drops to 44, or 22, you've just lost 50% or 75% of your investment.
So - again, it IS for speculators. I agree that in the case of a bank like this, it might seem likely that it will go back up
It'd be nice to be able to mod something +0 with things like "sarcastic" or something.
Can you tell me more about these small booksellers' networks? Is that something I can search to find things?
Recently, I wanted to find some old Conan books. ("SNOWHAWKS!!" *ahem*, sorry, my interest in Age of Conan is showing. =)) Where I live, I don't know of any small bookstores; my choices are Amazon, B&N, and Borders (though that's not local).
When I looked on Amazon, there were many "new and used" links, which were actually NOT from the Amazon warehouses, but were books being offered by smaller booksellers. I bought my book (through Amazon) from a bookstore which otherwise I'd have never heard of, and got a book which has been out of print for a while and which the larger stores (even Amazon) didn't carry.
In this way, I see Amazon as a way for smaller bookstores to reach larger audiences. I'm not sure how that's a bad thing, unless what they choose to stock are things which no one wants to buy.
New protocol:
;) Apologies to George Carlin -- he was the only thing I could find on a quick google search for that phrase.
A: "F--- Hoover."
B: "F--- Hoover."
{A and B Converse.}
A: "F--- Hoover."
B: "F--- Hoover."
http://www.opensecrets.org/
I believe it's only for the US; sorry for not reading further into parent posters to see if they were from other nations.
In a future where people may have wearable augmented-reality-devices (e.g. the screen-contacts from an earlier story), and wireless networking, I imagine that rfid or other tagging, combinedwith such databases, could indeed allow people to put such indicators over other people.
... it's hard to pinpoint why. As a father, I would love to be able to more accurately guage the threat level of people I (and my family) are around. As a citizen, though, I really don't like the idea that people would still be branded after having served their time.
Might be kindof scary once you see peoples' criminal records floating over their heads as you walk down the sidewalk, though. I don't think it is a good thing, but then
I guess some part of our brain (or societal training?) doesn't want to believe in rehabilitation.
Interesting. Depends on what part of the problem you hope to address.
Will it stop rage-induced behavior? No. No one is acting rationally in a rage situation, and thus thoughts of consequences are rare.
I imagine it would stop people from thinking they could "get away with" such a pattern of behavior
It might help ensure that future potential partners (after the abusee leaves) would know what they were getting into.
Templar, or Travaglia? ;-) (Clearly, Templar -- the BOFH would've had electrified door handles or something similarly Zrrt-riffic.)
If they scan your ID, they know you were THERE.
If you buy liquor with CASH, the only way they can prove you drank (or bought booze, actually) is to ask eyewitnesses.
If you buy liquor with electronic means, then they can easily say "Hey, you were here, AND you bought booze" by querying databases. You suddenly become the result of a SQL query, effectively. A credit card purchase record would most likely give the SAME information, though, couldn't it?
What kind of information is on a concealed carry permit? =) I saw someone mentioning in a different thread that they use that as their get-on-a-plane ID. If anything, whatever bardode might be on that is probably in a different format than drivers' licenses.
So I'm reading through that, and all I can think of (about 25% through) is the scene in Spaceballs where they're saying, "NOW now?" "yes! NOW now!". Thanks for the excellent scifi short story link, I do so love them.
Exactly. If Student A accuses Teacher B of improper conduct, and produces fabricatd / edited video/audio/photos/whatever to "prove" their allegations, pretty much the only defense the teacher has is to:
... well, if I show you two videos of an event, and they differ, then ONE of them is mistaken. It would at least introduce doubt as to the veracity of ONE of them. However, if there are more than two recordings, it's easy to show that one is the odd one.
... yeah. Record everything you can.
- prove the student's media evidence is forged
- show counter-point video.
The former is harder to prove, and might require many hours of expert witness testimony. The latter
It seems that the logical extension of this is to record everything. While you're driving, record the sounds. When dealing with other people, have multiple audio sources and a video source, so that each person involved has multiple CYA procedures in place. The feasibility of tampering with multiple sources (especially video from multiple angles) is less... or at least more time consuming. Of course, this doesn't really cover sound recording very well. =/ Not to mention the whole risk that your recorder might get destroyed in the process of a police beatdown/frisking/X-raying/magnetic-device-scanning (or lost in the evidence locker?). For civil suits, though
Scary.
This brings up an interesting (to me) issue. When someone DOES post something on the internet which others would consider sufficient for instant-rejection, how does that individual reform (and subsequently recover)? I like the idea of being able to know that John Q Applicant was a complete asshole at Some Time in the Past, but what if he's genuinely been trying to improve? What if he was off his meds that day, or his jealous now-ex wrote it? What if he recognizes that it was a mistake, and has been working actively to be a better team player? Will anyone ever give them a chance?
Before the internet, one could conceivably recover from such a career mistake (if this was one): move to a new city/state/country/industry, and start over. Now, it's so easy to Fail people out of the job selection process (or any other one) that it seems like some people may be excessively punished for past behaviors.