The advantages of laissez-bribé should be evident to anyone.

It removes the current disincentive to report bribery and the incentive to act on its influence. It reduces the ability of malefactors to gauge the effectiveness of bribes and removes any hold they have over their subject, because there can be no question of impropriety. It allows for effective monitoring of corruptive influence, provides a running record of officials' interests and creates a new platform for understanding and managing the economic imperatives inherent in the public-private interface. It even builds an inescapable fine into the act of bribery itself and converts otherwise hidden income into taxable revenue! Could there be a more elegant and socially responsible system?

Requires oversight, sure, but it's obviously functionally superior to any naive moralistic alternative.

I think James Randy Moss probably understood all this and, American hero that he is, valiantly laid his career on the line to usher in a new era of honesty and accountability in public service.

LOVED his wall gauges.
*promote hording all the old school engineering, and keeping it working. It's beautiful stuff. I just hope for his sake the clutter doesn't take over.
Stay weird, Mr. Milster. Your love of what you do is obvious, and warms the heart.

Oh, I agree that what the woman on the bicycle did was profoundly stupid and she should have waited for the signal or at least recognized the dangerous situation she was in re: oncoming traffic. She put everyone else in a dangerous and easily avoidable situation. At the same time though, were I driving the oncoming car, I would be slowing down and covering my brakes at the crosswalks, anticipating that a pedestrian might dash out from between the cars (happens a lot, though they usually stop short right after freaking me the hell out). In many places, hitting a pedestrian on a crosswalk is your fault regardless of the signals.

I'll certainly also grant you that a collision in the situation was probably unavoidable given how fast bike lady was going, but I also can't approve of the oncoming driver. Of course, speed is hard to gauge in the video, but they seemed to be just driving along at a constant high-ish speed assuming having the right of way means you don't have to watch out for idiots doing foolish thing.

Also, I see it as a reasonable (though stretched in this instance) rule of thumb that in a dense urban environment, if you have to swerve to avoid a pedestrian rather than just braking, you weren't driving carefully enough.

Three good reasons to aim [an attack at] an opponent's sword: gain a tactical advantage (e.g. position, or momentum of either blade), gauge a reaction (e.g. is your opponent tense or over-reactive), or wear out your opponent.

Number of the films shown that do so for those reasons: surprisingly high, by my count... maybe 10-15%.

Nice montage, but I'm off to find a one of swordfights that are both artistic and realistic. There are so many good fights out there.

You almost never hear of an NHL player being upset (in a litigation sort of way) about injuries they got that resulted from fighting (drop the gloves and throw punches).

In general, the one major incident I am aware of that resulted in legal action being taken against a player was when Todd Bertuzzi checked Steve Moore down the the ice from behind and then drove his head/neck into the ice with his stick in some heavy followup hits. This is mentioned in the wikipedia article @eric3579 posted, and hinted at in the article @RedSky posted from the Economist.

In that incident, Steve Moore (a lower-level player on the Colorado Avalanche) had hit Marcus Naslund (a star level player of the Vancouver Canucks) in a previous game. That hit was a fairly normal hockey hit -- Naslund had the puck, Moore intentionally hit him to try to separate him from the puck, but arguably led with his elbow to Naslund's head. It was a dangerous play, that should have be penalized (it wasn't) -- although I don't think Moore intended to cause injury. It is a fast game, sometimes you can't react quick enough to avoid a dangerous collision like that. Still, I think that kind of play should be penalized to make it clear to players that they need to avoid dangerous plays if possible. Steve Moore didn't have a history of dirty or dangerous play, but still.

Anyway, all of that dovetails in pretty nicely with my previous post, specifically about what leads to a "spontaneous fight". Moore, a 3-4th line guy (lower ranks of skill/ability on the team) hit star player Naslund. In almost ANY hockey game where that kind of thing happens, you can expect that somebody from the star's team is going to go over to the offending player and push them around, probably with the intent to fight them. Usually it happens right at the time of the incident, but here it was delayed to a following game between the two teams.

In the next game between Colorado and Vancouver, Moore got challenged by a Vancouver player early in the first period and fought him. But I guess that the lag time and injury to Naslund (he ended up missing 3 games) had brewed up more bad blood than that so many Vancouver players hadn't gotten it fully out of their systems. Later in the game, Todd Bertuzzi skated up behind Moore when he didn't have the puck, grabbed him and tailed him for several seconds trying to get him into a second fight, and when he didn't respond just hauled back and punched him in the back of the head.

Moore fell to the ice, where Bertuzzi piled on him and drove his head into the ice. A big scrum/dogpile ensued, with Moore on the bottom. As a result of that, Moore fractured 3 vertebrae in his neck, stretched or tore some neck ligaments, got his face pretty cut up, etc. Pretty severe injuries.

So, in comparison:
Moore (lesser skill) hit Naslund (high skill) resulting in a minor(ish) injury, that could have ended up being much worse. But, it was a legitimate hockey play that just happened to occur at a time when Naslund was vulnerable -- arguably no intent to harm/injure.
Bertuzzi hit Moore in a following game, after he had already "answered" for his hit on Naslund by fighting a Vancouver player. Bertuzzi punched him from behind and followed up with further violence, driving his head into the ice and piling on him, initiating a dogpile. Not even close to a legitimate hockey play, well away from the puck, and with pretty clear intent to harm (maybe not to injure, but to harm).


Moore sued Bertuzzi, his team (the Canucks), and the NHL. Bertuzzi claimed that his coach had put a "bounty" on Moore, and that he hadn't intended to injure him -- just to get back at him for his hit on Naslund. Bertuzzi was suspended for a fairly long span of time, and his team was fined $250,000. The lawsuit was kind of on pause for a long time to gauge the long-term effects on Moore, but was eventually settled out of court (confidential terms).

All of this stuff is or course related to violence in hockey, but only loosely tied to fighting in hockey. Some would argue (with some merit in my opinion) that if the refs had called a penalty on Moore's hit on Naslund, and allowed a Vancouver player to challenge him to a fight at that time instead of the following game, it probably wouldn't have escalated to the level it did.

So, at least in my opinion, the league (NHL) needs to be careful, consistent, and fairly harsh in handing out penalties/suspensions to players who commit dangerous plays that can or do result in injuries -- especially repeat offenders. BUT, I think that allowing fighting can actually help mitigate that kind of stuff also -- as long as the league keeps it from getting out of hand and the enforcer type players continue to follow their "code".

My current car is a 2013 Jetta but I realized from that photo you linked to that I am looking in the wrong place. In the video, I got the impression they were showing the low fuel warning light and I saw nothing when I looked at mine. The little icon on the gauge itself does have a triangle pointing to the right, however.

I searched for gauge cluster pics of my prior VWs (2003 Golf and 2000 Beetle) and they did not have the icon. My mom's Ford probably does have it and I never noticed. My dad's Toyota might be just a year or two too old.

The rest were definitely too old. It looks like this is something that's been added in the last 5 years for most of these makes.

But that wouldn't have multiple touch screen gauges and weapon selects!

Ok, well, there is NO WAY those statistics can be correct.
9.6% people dressing as Witches?
Batman in second place and Vampires in third?
23 Million pets? 7.9% of pets dressed as a pumpkin?

There is no way whatsoever they can know what everyone dresses up as. Sure they can gauge sales of store bought costumes. But they have no way of knowing how many people make up their own costumes or re-use old costumes.

The slap bands don't work because the arms are at angles to each other. Slap bands can only rotate in a straight direction (They are basically tape measure metal), so they wouldn't be able to come back to meet in the center like they illustrate. Also they have the motors all prettily lined up and facing directly off the wrist, that would require the material to be able to twist.

For the rotor size, these are fixed pitch rotors. You can change the pitch of the rotor to give you different flight characteristics and in general you have to match the pitch to the motor to be the most efficient. I may have this reversed, but a lower pitch prop gives you more torque and less overall speed, but a higher pitch prop gives more top speed, less torque. Making a prop that can be injection molded at that size that even works is difficult, making one that is super efficient would be even more so. QC would have to be incredibly exacting. As a gauge, the 2" x 2" quad has 1" props. They can lift it and buzz it around pretty well. Those things were a pain to get correct and I have a hard time imagining anyone making them more efficient than they are. In the case of the 2" quad, we didn't even paint the body because we want to limit the impact on flight time from added weight. All molded in color. That's how sensitive these things can be. There are better motors if you are willing to pay, but even then it may not be enough.
Go Pro records in HD, but doesn't actually broadcast anything (plus it is big enough to keep this thing from flying anywhere). If you want to broadcast video you have to do it in 640x480 tops. To do that you need something like an FPV system that broadcasts on a spread spectrum. If you went bluetooth you have an effect range that is pretty small. Wifi requires more power to get a longer range. A video transmitter system would require a separate device to attach to your phone to receive the signal and translate it to a PPM signal for through the headphone jack. But a VTX is pretty heavy as well.
And things may drain just a little bit of power, but it stacks up. At most you have a 250mAh Lipo battery that can fit in there. That isn't going to buy you a bunch of flight/video time.
Video on the phone is going to be subject to interference, so you would want to record on the quad. this would get you HD quality, but also adds weight, which means more battery draw, which means less flight time.
-B

I can see a relation between certain crimes and gun ownership/availability, but not really with overall crime...possibly more severe crimes though, often just having the gun on you raises the level of crime, even if you never even show it.
In America, many 'burglars' come armed, which raises the crime to armed robbery. That way, if they're caught, they can at least try to assert control over the homeowners and get away more easily (at least that seems to be the theory). If suddenly there were 95% fewer guns, I would expect more burglary and less armed robbery, both because the criminals have fewer guns and less fear of running into an armed home owner, another 'normal' thing in America. It's essentially the same crime, but one is done with a gun on the intruder.
I'm there with you, call the cops, but I also have a 12 gauge in my bedroom. Should an intruder insist on entering the room my wife, our dog, and I are in, I'll murder away without qualm and sleep fine afterwards.

I don't want to be rude here, but whilst you have a point when you say "just because charges aren't pressed doesn't mean nothing happened", you besmirch the point with a subjective piece of guesswork that is tantamount to saying that an accusation is evidence.

What metric are you using to gauge how many accusations are genuine? And "too common"? How many rescinded accusations are just common enough? I hope i haven't been rude or trodden on anyone's feelings because i know that this is an issue that goes close to the bone. But you correctly state that dropped charges don't mean innocence, but then use that correct statement to try and suggest, based on nothing but your opinion of common-ness and i assume no research (none was alluded to), that it's prevalent.

And that paints many innocent people with a dye that's hard to wash off. It SHOULD be hard to wash off, but in that case it should be so much more important to avoid spilling it.

You know why he got flagged as an enemy of the State, right? The reason being is that the 'state' in the United States of Unconsciousness has effectively cornered the market on cradle-to-grave programming of yet another generation's children.

Obedience
Conformity
Control
Marketing
Career Assignment
Instruction (how to be a dutiful wage-slave)

Check a local public school library and required textbooks in the U.S. for the latest version of history re-written, remedial English, science, maths texts-The majority of texts in school libraries???.....Fucking picture-books. Pathetic, and glaringly obvious the agenda and purpose.

The police state wants children as smart/ignorant as the cunts running the show need them to be....to be conveniently mind-fucked on-demand.

Is it working?? One has but to check the world-view of the 'millennials' to gauge the effectiveness of the mindfuck.

There probably wouldn't be enough spread over the length of the silencer. Could depend on the choke though. Last time I fired a 12 gauge with buckshot, the spread was about 6 inches over 75 to 100 feet. They do probably use a special shot and choke for shooting off door hinges though, so who knows there.

Of course, where something like this would be useful for military and criminal type stuff is in a very short barrel shotgun, which could change things. Then, of course, you're in the area of "why not just use a submachine gun?".

@Jerykk

I'll address by paragraph.

(1)

Wait, so I'm confused. Not enough research on my claim yet the death penalty apparently offers guaranteed results despite evidence to the contrary that I suggested?

Firstly I think you might be trying to make a bit of a straw man. I'm not saying that there should be no penalty. Some penalty obviously discourages some crime. But the argument is more over whether harsher sentences and mandatory minimums as this video discusses are helping, which I would argue they are not for the reasons outlined previously.

As for evidence of rehabilitation reducing recidivism, take for example:

http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/12/1/9.refs (see PDF)

Page 1
Finland, Norway and Sweden all have ~50-70 locked up per 100K, among the lowest. US has 716.

Page 2-3
Norway recidivism - 20%
US recidivism - 52%

I await your evidence to the contrary.

(2)

I'm talking per capita. Per capita the US certainly does have the highest among first world countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate#By_country

Sort by per capita and find me a developed country higher than the US please.

Russia is not a first-world country (that's actually a Cold War term, more correctly not a a developed country). I'm Russian, I assure you, I would know

Russia's GDP/capita is $14K USD, versus the US's $52K. Not even a close comparison.

(3)

But do criminals proportionalise justice? Like I asked, do you think anything but a small minority (likely white collar criminals) accurately know the likely sentence of a crime before they commit it? If they don't what's the purpose of making them more severe?

Nobody is proposing there be no penalty. Even Scandanavian prisons are a penalty. The question is, does the threat of 30 over 15 years locked up (should they even be able to decipher legal code to know this) actually make a difference? I would argue not, hence the argument for harsher sentences is illogical.

People are generally good at gauging the likelihood of being caught (ie your pirating example) but that's not what I was talking about (the scale of punishment being a deterrent).

(4)

I don't think what you're proposing is practical or logical. No society is going to accept the death penalty as a punishment for speeding. It's an irrelevant argument to make.

Again, why the need for elaborate ideas never before attempted? Why not just adopt a model that has already worked, such as the Scandinavian one? It seems like you're trying to wrap your mind around a solution that fits your preconceived notion of incentives and no government assistance like I suggested in my first post.

(5)

Venezuela is a developing country. Crime is largely a result of economic mismanagement by Chavez leading to joblessness and civil unrest.

There are plenty of countries with which to compare the US with. Obvious choices would be Australia or the UK. Anglo-Saxon countries, similar culture, comparative income/capita. Or really any European country. Your comparison would suggest tp me you're trying to stretch your argument to fit.

Stabbing a US outlet could also kill you, unless it's a (properly wired) GFCI outlet (or GFCI breaker). Being wet increases risk of shock, which is why GFCI outlets are required in bathrooms and recommended in kitchens.

GFCI will detect a very small amount of current running through the ground (instead of neutral like it should) and then trip the internal breaker. "very small" = less than could accidentally kill/injure your average human, which is surprisingly small.

regular breakers trip at a much higher amperage, 20% below what would physically start heating the wire gauge that is in the wall. This is why you should always use appropriate size fuses/breakers rather than bigger ones (or a penny instead of a fuse).

Why isn't everything GFCI then? They are much more expensive, and don't last as long. Teach your kids not to jab metal things in the outlet, or they'll learn the hard way.