Witness the Rodney King beatings; By taking the issue public, a massive riot ensued. This damage to public property and trust far outweighed what happened between those five men...and it's that need for gratification that's the greatest threat to justice and security, not the occasional police fuckup.
Ummm, no. The breach of trust between those who are supposed to uphold and enforce the law is a far greater damage than the riots that ensued when the beatings were made public. Also, it wasn't the beatings that resulted in the riot. Rather, it was the verdict from the courts that the cops were not guilty. When the courts reinforced the public perception that law enforcement -- from the cops on the street all the way up to the judges sitting in the courts -- was corrupt, well...Los Angeles reaped what it had sown.
Trust is a foundation of governance, as you point out. The system, and it's administrators, will work to maintain that trust. In places where the trust breaks down, and I think we have examples of that globally, the populace is subject to great chaos and uncertainty.
Insightful, but irrelevant.
What better way to foster trust in the government than by showing that when an agent of that government abuses his or her power, the government removes that person from a position of trust? You don't build trust by covering up problems; you build trust by showing that you won't tolerate individuals who abuse that trust. If you want to maintain that trust, you would do best to show that you can be trusted -- not by trying to create an illusion of trustworthiness.
I'm reminded of a quote: "Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." That's the status quo. We can do better.
There are a number of netbooks with 3G interfaces and built-in web cams, and there are a number of ways the video could be uploaded live elsewhere. NFS over a VPN tunnel (bandwidth might be an issue), FFMPEG (I'd have to play with that -- I've done it as a pull off of a laptop next to me, but I've never tried to push it to a remote server), sequential still shots SCP'd or FTP'd to a remote server, etc. Even better, with a netbook, the cop might not even recognize that you are filming him.
It's not the "vast majority" that are the problem; it's the exceptions to that rule (and I've encountered them once or twice), just as it's not the "vast majority" of the general population that makes it necessary for there to be police officers. Unfortunately, the bad cops are the ones who make it necessary for laws like these to be repealed. If a cop is abusing his authority, then *he* needs to go to jail -- not the bystander who videos the encounter.
they deserve to get beat down for what they do. 99% of the people on bikes are always breaking traffic laws running red lights or going the wrong way.
[citation needed]
You sometimes see people on bikes acting stupidly (especially if you watch YouTube) and I'll admit my bike sometimes tempts me to go faster than perhaps I should. I make no claims as to whether or not I ever give in to that temptation, or what constitutes "faster than I should"... However, you see the same kind of thing from people in cars, so if you are trying to say 99% of people on bikes are somehow more deserving of having the weight of the law come down on them, then, well, you're an idiot. I have *never* seen anyone on a bike run a red light, but I've seen lots of people do it in a car. Nor have I ever seen anyone on a bike driving the wrong way in traffic, but again, I've seen people do it in a car. I even did it accidentally once myself, but I pulled into a parking lot and turned around once I realized my mistake. When I took the ABATE/MSF class, the manual claimed that riding a bike can make one a *better* driver, because when you are on a bike, you realize that you are very, very vulnerable. Therefore, you tend to really pay attention to what is going on around you, unlike in a cage (biker slang for a car), where you feel very, very safe and very complacent.
Furthermore, even *if* bikers as a whole were more hooligans than drivers, there is no excuse whatsoever for the kind of police brutality described in TFA. A biker was shot in the *BACK* by a cop during a stop. Where I live, if I shot an armed intruder, inside my house, at night, but shot him in the back, I would go to jail, because the law says a person with his back to me is not a threat (the thought being that they are trying to get away), even if he's seven feet tall, built like Arnold Schwarzenneger used to be, carrying a foot-long knife in one hand and a Desert Eagle in the other. But you seem to think that because a cop did this to a biker (for whom you seem to have some kind of pathological hatred), it was okay? That's a double standard, and that's B.S. Another biker was confronted by a plain-clothes cop in an unmarked car who jumped out of the car waving a gun at him. If I have pulled over on the side of the road for a cop, hands in plain sight, then there is no excuse -- NONE -- for that kind of behaviour by a cop. Period. Even if I'm on a bike.
You're entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is that your opinion is just effing stupid, sorry.
The only action that would have any effect is collective, armed revolution by a measurable amount of the populace.
Do you mean the kind of collective, armed revolution that people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks engaged in forty years ago? </sarc>
While history has shown that collective, armed revolution is *one* way to effect change, it is not the only option, nor, IMHO, should it be the first option. I am by no means a pacifist, but I'd encourage lobbying legislators, protesting unjust laws and civil disobedience (i.e., get out your camera and record abuse when it happens) before I'm ready to start shooting people.
As I said, I was in the leftmost lane, and I swerved to the left. There was a solid yellow line, so anyone passing me would have been doing so illegally. Furthermore, paying attention to what is happening around you and knowing where your "outs" are will help keep you from hitting someone who is passing you.
As I also said, YMMV, and I'm okay with that. IMHO, it's better to avoid an accident than have done everything "right" and plow into someone anyway, but if you disagree, that's your call to make when you're the driver.
Four lanes, I'm on the inside lane doing about 40mph. As I'm about 50 feet or so from the intersection, the lady pulls out of the side road to cross my lane and enter the lane of oncoming traffic. From my perspective, it was obvious we would crash if I didn't take evasive action. I started to lift my foot off the accelerator and hit the brakes, but intuitively, I realize that I won't be stopped before reaching the point where she crosses my lane. So, I take a gamble that my car can speed up and swerve to the left to give me more room. I make it, but not by much.
The other driver can cross your lane so fast that there should be no way you can steer around them.
The other driver wasn't exactly Mario Andretti. It doesn't take long to cross eight feet, even from a standing start, but by swerving left, I increased the distance she had to travel to get where I was.
I have been in that situation several times too and the solution has always been to hold my line and break hard.
I (obviously) didn't have time to do the math at the time, but I do now. At 40mph, it takes about 120 feet to stop (source). As I said above, I was probably about 50 feet from the intersection when the other driver pulled out. My car was rather sporty with sticky rubber, so I *might* have done better than 120 feet to stop, but not more than 50% better. My options were: 1) try to stop and hit her anyway; 2) do nothing and hit her anyway; 3) take a gamble, hit the gas instead of the brake, and swerve left to give myself as much room as possible. Since two choices looked pretty certain to fail, I took the third option that at least gave me a chance of avoiding the accident, and it worked <shrug>
If you don't hold your line you put yourself at fault.
I call B.S. on that. She pulled out into oncoming traffic without even looking to the left to see if anyone was coming from that direction. Ergo, she gets a ticket for failure to yield. It would have to be some pretty bizarre logic that says taking the course of action that you reasonably believe gives you the *best* chance of avoiding an accident automatically puts you at fault. The only way I could see that happening is if I had hit someone in the oncoming lane of traffic. However, had there been traffic to hit in that lane, she wouldn't have pulled out in the first place, since that's the lane she was trying to enter.
In any case, I'm not trying to change your mind about what evasive action you should take when driving. You are the only one who can make that call. In your car, on your roads, in your situations, you know what works. In my car, that time, swerving and accelerating worked. In a similar situation, I'd probably do it again on the motorcycle I now drive. In my pickup truck, I'd push my brake pedal through the floorboard and let the ABS do what it can.
What about a door that is hinged just below the window as well as at the roof? If the car is upside down, you could then flatten the door against the ground, and still get out. Just an idea...
I drive a very fuel efficient (40-50mpg), 80 H.P. twin. 'Course it's only got two wheels, and would be a lot more fuel efficient, if I'd quit twisting the right handgrip...
Considering how few people actually accelerate at anything near an 8-second 0-60 time, I'm guessing it's not really that big of a deal to most drivers, except maybe for bragging rights.
...given the choice between "unimpressive performance" and "living to see your children grow up," it's amazing people continue to be so shortsighted.
There have been times (not a lot, but it's happened more than once) where it was my car's performance that prevented a wreck. The classic example for me is when someone pulls out of a side road, fixating upon oncoming traffic from their right, forgetting that they have to cross my lane before getting to the lane of traffic they are so concerned about. Had my car been unable to accelerate past and swerve around that car, I would have t-boned the driver. That's happened twice, and there have been other, similar examples in my twenty-odd years of driving.
OTOH, the one time that my car's performance indirectly caused a wreck (other driver ran a red light, obscured by a double row of SUVs in a turn lane so I couldn't see her coming, and I accelerated hard off the green light, arriving just in time to hit the rear quarter panel of the other car), my Celica was crash-worthy enough that I didn't even get so much as a bruise...and we hit pretty danged hard.
YMMV, but IMHO, vigilance and acceleration -- both linear and lateral -- trump an underpowered, lumbering behemoth that's only virtue is that it will protect the occupants in a crash. I'd rather avoid the crash in the first place than simply survive it.
Considering that 600 mph is roughly the typical cruise speed of a modern airliner, I would agree that it is a significant difference (even if it is only about 15% of the speed of the scramjet test vehicle).
On a somewhat related note, I thought it was interesting that the NASA applet gave a significantly lower speed for 70,000 ft. than my referenced source gave for 100,000 ft. (which should have been the lower speed). I suspect the NASA applet is probably more accurate than my source.
Crap. And I just bought the aftermarket exhaust cans for my personal scramjet, since they were advertised to have a way cooler than stock exhaust sound. At least you'll still be able to see the underbody lights I added as I zoom past...
Not necessarily. My airplane only has a range of approximately 280 km (but it takes a lot longer than 200 seconds to cover that distance). It may not be the *most* useful airplane at the airport, but it is 1) fun and 2) great for building flight time, since it is so freaking slow:)
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Witness the Rodney King beatings; By taking the issue public, a massive riot ensued. This damage to public property and trust far outweighed what happened between those five men...and it's that need for gratification that's the greatest threat to justice and security, not the occasional police fuckup.
Ummm, no. The breach of trust between those who are supposed to uphold and enforce the law is a far greater damage than the riots that ensued when the beatings were made public. Also, it wasn't the beatings that resulted in the riot. Rather, it was the verdict from the courts that the cops were not guilty. When the courts reinforced the public perception that law enforcement -- from the cops on the street all the way up to the judges sitting in the courts -- was corrupt, well...Los Angeles reaped what it had sown.
Trust is a foundation of governance, as you point out. The system, and it's administrators, will work to maintain that trust. In places where the trust breaks down, and I think we have examples of that globally, the populace is subject to great chaos and uncertainty.
Insightful, but irrelevant.
What better way to foster trust in the government than by showing that when an agent of that government abuses his or her power, the government removes that person from a position of trust? You don't build trust by covering up problems; you build trust by showing that you won't tolerate individuals who abuse that trust. If you want to maintain that trust, you would do best to show that you can be trusted -- not by trying to create an illusion of trustworthiness.
I'm reminded of a quote: "Sincerity is the key. Once you can fake that, you've got it made." That's the status quo. We can do better.
But the alternative doesn't work so well either. I seem to recall a lot of people losing their heads over this, once upon a time.
There are a number of netbooks with 3G interfaces and built-in web cams, and there are a number of ways the video could be uploaded live elsewhere. NFS over a VPN tunnel (bandwidth might be an issue), FFMPEG (I'd have to play with that -- I've done it as a pull off of a laptop next to me, but I've never tried to push it to a remote server), sequential still shots SCP'd or FTP'd to a remote server, etc. Even better, with a netbook, the cop might not even recognize that you are filming him.
It's not the "vast majority" that are the problem; it's the exceptions to that rule (and I've encountered them once or twice), just as it's not the "vast majority" of the general population that makes it necessary for there to be police officers. Unfortunately, the bad cops are the ones who make it necessary for laws like these to be repealed. If a cop is abusing his authority, then *he* needs to go to jail -- not the bystander who videos the encounter.
they deserve to get beat down for what they do. 99% of the people on bikes are always breaking traffic laws running red lights or going the wrong way.
[citation needed]
You sometimes see people on bikes acting stupidly (especially if you watch YouTube) and I'll admit my bike sometimes tempts me to go faster than perhaps I should. I make no claims as to whether or not I ever give in to that temptation, or what constitutes "faster than I should"... However, you see the same kind of thing from people in cars, so if you are trying to say 99% of people on bikes are somehow more deserving of having the weight of the law come down on them, then, well, you're an idiot. I have *never* seen anyone on a bike run a red light, but I've seen lots of people do it in a car. Nor have I ever seen anyone on a bike driving the wrong way in traffic, but again, I've seen people do it in a car. I even did it accidentally once myself, but I pulled into a parking lot and turned around once I realized my mistake. When I took the ABATE/MSF class, the manual claimed that riding a bike can make one a *better* driver, because when you are on a bike, you realize that you are very, very vulnerable. Therefore, you tend to really pay attention to what is going on around you, unlike in a cage (biker slang for a car), where you feel very, very safe and very complacent.
Furthermore, even *if* bikers as a whole were more hooligans than drivers, there is no excuse whatsoever for the kind of police brutality described in TFA. A biker was shot in the *BACK* by a cop during a stop. Where I live, if I shot an armed intruder, inside my house, at night, but shot him in the back, I would go to jail, because the law says a person with his back to me is not a threat (the thought being that they are trying to get away), even if he's seven feet tall, built like Arnold Schwarzenneger used to be, carrying a foot-long knife in one hand and a Desert Eagle in the other. But you seem to think that because a cop did this to a biker (for whom you seem to have some kind of pathological hatred), it was okay? That's a double standard, and that's B.S. Another biker was confronted by a plain-clothes cop in an unmarked car who jumped out of the car waving a gun at him. If I have pulled over on the side of the road for a cop, hands in plain sight, then there is no excuse -- NONE -- for that kind of behaviour by a cop. Period. Even if I'm on a bike.
You're entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is that your opinion is just effing stupid, sorry.
You're not very familiar with history, are you?
The only action that would have any effect is collective, armed revolution by a measurable amount of the populace.
Do you mean the kind of collective, armed revolution that people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks engaged in forty years ago? </sarc>
While history has shown that collective, armed revolution is *one* way to effect change, it is not the only option, nor, IMHO, should it be the first option. I am by no means a pacifist, but I'd encourage lobbying legislators, protesting unjust laws and civil disobedience (i.e., get out your camera and record abuse when it happens) before I'm ready to start shooting people.
Exactly. They say it to us already, so it's about time the second edge started cutting back.
I've got a '98ish consumer-grade HP-660C that still works. Not all consumer-grade HP printers are junk.
He thought they were asking for his autograph.
Joomla! is not a computer language...
As I said, I was in the leftmost lane, and I swerved to the left. There was a solid yellow line, so anyone passing me would have been doing so illegally. Furthermore, paying attention to what is happening around you and knowing where your "outs" are will help keep you from hitting someone who is passing you.
As I also said, YMMV, and I'm okay with that. IMHO, it's better to avoid an accident than have done everything "right" and plow into someone anyway, but if you disagree, that's your call to make when you're the driver.
Well said, guv'nor!
I don't get that scenario.
Four lanes, I'm on the inside lane doing about 40mph. As I'm about 50 feet or so from the intersection, the lady pulls out of the side road to cross my lane and enter the lane of oncoming traffic. From my perspective, it was obvious we would crash if I didn't take evasive action. I started to lift my foot off the accelerator and hit the brakes, but intuitively, I realize that I won't be stopped before reaching the point where she crosses my lane. So, I take a gamble that my car can speed up and swerve to the left to give me more room. I make it, but not by much.
The other driver can cross your lane so fast that there should be no way you can steer around them.
The other driver wasn't exactly Mario Andretti. It doesn't take long to cross eight feet, even from a standing start, but by swerving left, I increased the distance she had to travel to get where I was.
I have been in that situation several times too and the solution has always been to hold my line and break hard.
I (obviously) didn't have time to do the math at the time, but I do now. At 40mph, it takes about 120 feet to stop (source). As I said above, I was probably about 50 feet from the intersection when the other driver pulled out. My car was rather sporty with sticky rubber, so I *might* have done better than 120 feet to stop, but not more than 50% better. My options were: 1) try to stop and hit her anyway; 2) do nothing and hit her anyway; 3) take a gamble, hit the gas instead of the brake, and swerve left to give myself as much room as possible. Since two choices looked pretty certain to fail, I took the third option that at least gave me a chance of avoiding the accident, and it worked <shrug>
If you don't hold your line you put yourself at fault.
I call B.S. on that. She pulled out into oncoming traffic without even looking to the left to see if anyone was coming from that direction. Ergo, she gets a ticket for failure to yield. It would have to be some pretty bizarre logic that says taking the course of action that you reasonably believe gives you the *best* chance of avoiding an accident automatically puts you at fault. The only way I could see that happening is if I had hit someone in the oncoming lane of traffic. However, had there been traffic to hit in that lane, she wouldn't have pulled out in the first place, since that's the lane she was trying to enter.
In any case, I'm not trying to change your mind about what evasive action you should take when driving. You are the only one who can make that call. In your car, on your roads, in your situations, you know what works. In my car, that time, swerving and accelerating worked. In a similar situation, I'd probably do it again on the motorcycle I now drive. In my pickup truck, I'd push my brake pedal through the floorboard and let the ABS do what it can.
Gotta agree with you there, lol!
What about a door that is hinged just below the window as well as at the roof? If the car is upside down, you could then flatten the door against the ground, and still get out. Just an idea...
Except that the VW Lupo would likely avoid the accident since it's more agile on the road.
BTDT, but in an Eagle Talon rather than a VW Lupo.
I drive a very fuel efficient (40-50mpg), 80 H.P. twin. 'Course it's only got two wheels, and would be a lot more fuel efficient, if I'd quit twisting the right handgrip...
Considering how few people actually accelerate at anything near an 8-second 0-60 time, I'm guessing it's not really that big of a deal to most drivers, except maybe for bragging rights.
...given the choice between "unimpressive performance" and "living to see your children grow up," it's amazing people continue to be so shortsighted.
There have been times (not a lot, but it's happened more than once) where it was my car's performance that prevented a wreck. The classic example for me is when someone pulls out of a side road, fixating upon oncoming traffic from their right, forgetting that they have to cross my lane before getting to the lane of traffic they are so concerned about. Had my car been unable to accelerate past and swerve around that car, I would have t-boned the driver. That's happened twice, and there have been other, similar examples in my twenty-odd years of driving.
OTOH, the one time that my car's performance indirectly caused a wreck (other driver ran a red light, obscured by a double row of SUVs in a turn lane so I couldn't see her coming, and I accelerated hard off the green light, arriving just in time to hit the rear quarter panel of the other car), my Celica was crash-worthy enough that I didn't even get so much as a bruise...and we hit pretty danged hard.
YMMV, but IMHO, vigilance and acceleration -- both linear and lateral -- trump an underpowered, lumbering behemoth that's only virtue is that it will protect the occupants in a crash. I'd rather avoid the crash in the first place than simply survive it.
Considering that 600 mph is roughly the typical cruise speed of a modern airliner, I would agree that it is a significant difference (even if it is only about 15% of the speed of the scramjet test vehicle).
On a somewhat related note, I thought it was interesting that the NASA applet gave a significantly lower speed for 70,000 ft. than my referenced source gave for 100,000 ft. (which should have been the lower speed). I suspect the NASA applet is probably more accurate than my source.
Crap. And I just bought the aftermarket exhaust cans for my personal scramjet, since they were advertised to have a way cooler than stock exhaust sound. At least you'll still be able to see the underbody lights I added as I zoom past...
Useless for a plane...
Not necessarily. My airplane only has a range of approximately 280 km (but it takes a lot longer than 200 seconds to cover that distance). It may not be the *most* useful airplane at the airport, but it is 1) fun and 2) great for building flight time, since it is so freaking slow :)
Well, for one, neither German, Japanese, nor Russian is my native language...