Raurin

You know what would make this whole thing more productive for better or for worse? Data.

How hard would it be to calculate risk of harassment lawsuit by industry/position? We could even compensate for different proportions of gender in those positions and find the ones where people are more likely to file against a coworker.

This is a new and frightening technology to many veterans of the justice system. These are the people who thought computers were a fad or a joke, and they're perpetually surprised at how popular computers have become.

If they appeal, it'll go to a higher court which could overrule the lower court. If a higher court refuses to hear the case (as the supreme court often does), then the ruling of the highest ruling court stands.

The law is vague because current laws were written by people who didn't understand the tech or were writing to govern or regulate a different technology entirely.

American. I used to get really nervous around police (my dad doesn't trust them, and that rubbed off on me), and I still get nervous when I'm driving with a cop behind me.

I used to be scared of police, but as I got to know a few cops and ex-cops and as I researched more statistics about police in America, I've grown to sympathize with them.

I think my attitude towards them is most similar to my attitude towards my immediate superiors at work: they could make my life hell if they wanted to, but they're generally good people.

I worry about non-LEOs that carry guns. Cops don't worry or bother me anymore. They're unpopular right now (thank you, sensationalist media), but they're generally doing a good job. I feel safe.

Haha. Yeah. I'm still using a version of Win7. I'm glad I dodged the Win8/8.1 mess, too.

Well, I'm not a New Yorker, and I don't know if I ever will be, but I'm a big fan of national projects. Bridges, high-speed rail, moon/mars projects, artificial islands!

Yeah, it makes some people a lot of money, but it also makes a lot of jobs and maintains the idea that America is a country of people who build great things. I'd gladly see some money diverted into these sorts of projects.

This week on "Sweeping, Unsupported Generalizations About Men Written by a Woman"...

This author has trends but no causal links, no direct evidence. She projects her own ideas of friendship and happiness onto male relationships. Despite trying to avoid "measuring male friendships with a female yardstick", that's exactly what she does when she departs from the data gathered to assert:

> [male-patterned behavior is] restrictive and dehumanizing. It’s oppression all dressed up as awesomeness.

> To be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, be kind to others, have empathy and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest. “Real men,” though, are not supposed to do these things.

> And it is part of why men have a hard time being friends.

> men often don’t have a lot of practice being a good friend

Thanks for your contribution, Lisa Wade. Maybe I'm the exception for having two confidants: a best friend from college and my current girlfriend. Maybe this is actually a problem in need of solving, but your projection (or perhaps begging the question) scuttled your argument from the beginning.

To me, that graph looks like the tech industry transition from hobby to industrial/business tool. Pre-1985, there weren't many colleges even offering computer science degrees, so any data from that era could easy fall apart due to small sample bias.

I don't think anything necessarily "happened" to women in tech. You could just as easily say that as computer science became a more established field, men swarmed it because it was interesting to them.

You can't ask living, breathing humans to not defend their lives.

Yeah, ~500 people have been killed by police in America so far this year. That includes rightful and wrongful shootings. Some of them were innocent, sure, and some were in a grey area, sure, but plenty were warranted.

Contrast that with over 100 /homicides/ in New Orleans so far this year. NONE of those are warranted or just (by virtue of being homicides).

And just to do the math, there are approximately 750,000 officers with the authority to arrest in the USA (wikipedia). If each of them interacted with only one non-officer per day (rounding against the police, here), that's over 160 million police interactions so far this year, making a deadly outcome the result of only .0003% of all police interaction, and I'll bet a huge segment of those shootings are warranted.

Staying out of the USA because you're scared of cops isn't exactly a rational decision.

Stray bullets and accidental shots are just as lethal as aimed ones. The point is that someone pulled over at a traffic stop can keep a gun hidden and take the first shot if they want to. Each and every traffic stop is a nervous bundle of potential danger for a cop, and they aren't paid to endanger themselves. That's why we go out of our way to make cops comfortable during a traffic stop. Keep your hands where they can be seen. No sudden movements. Polite interaction.

It's not healthy to be near nervous cops.

I mean, I don't play Solitaire, but it's crap like this that makes me glad I didn't take my free upgrade yet. I'm hoping to see some outrage over some of these "they're not bugs; they're features" on Win10, and maybe then we'll get a proper successor to Win7.

Actually curious: is the goal of the F-1 rule changes to level the playing field? I'd heard it was to keep automakers on their toes, guiding the competition towards things that the general public wants, too, like gas efficiency. If I remember correctly, one of the more recent years saw a huge tank capacity reduction, ostensibly to force automakers to create powerful engines while maintaining some semblance of efficiency.

And do you rise above that and present your argument's best face, or do you fight fire with fire?

What's the goal? I'll admit I'm pretty new to this forum, but one of my favorite parts is the civility of discussion that I've seen in the comments.

As much as you might be technically correct, there's no reason to antagonize the other guy, especially if the goal is to have him adopt your point of view. While he might have overstepped in his argument, phorese has a point in that guns are designed to deliver (usually destructive) kinetic energy at a distance.

Why might European governments be more restrictive? Are there any non-restrictive ones? Have there ever been? Where are they now? Might America be a different case, allowed to flourish under another set of rules?

I'm not saying you're wrong. You're not. Maybe I'm just encouraging civil discussion. Maybe I'm bored at work. Maybe both.

The way I see it, there are two reasons a person might want a handgun. Before I begin, I'll mention that I'm in favor of heavy regulation but fall short of an actual ban in many cases.

Reason 1: "I like guns. They're fun." And that's basically the entire argument. They have a hobby, and they don't want to see that taken away from them. Sometimes it makes sense to take things away from people and sometimes it doesn't. Obviously, gun enthusiasts argue that it doesn't make sense.

Reason 2: "But the bad guys already have guns." This is actually where I am. I'd love to see new regulation and harsh penalties for violations, but it must start with criminals. Gun bans do effectively remove guns from a population and criminals would also be affected (see Australia, among other places), but I believe there would be an ugly transition period in America when the good citizens have all dutifully turned in their guns and the criminals hold on to their already illegally owned guns. I'd prefer a system that takes guns from criminals and heavily regulates (but allows) qualified citizens to own them.

And to address your other points, especially where it concerns rifles: I grew up with people who can only afford meat in their diet if they hunted it themselves. Not only is it fun, but it IS a tool. A hunting rifle costs only a few hundred dollars, but it can not only enhance social time with friends who hunt but it can also put food on the table. It's considerably less dangerous and more useful than smallpox or mustard gas, and it's not guaranteed to bring damage to people or their property.