Idiot of the Day

[metroid composite]

If someone spends as much as 800 hours playing any RPG, they may as well jump off a bridge.

You've just condemned most of Warcraft's players. Which is fair enough.

You've also possibly condemned some FFT players.

[DjinnAndTonic]

If someone spends as much as 800 hours playing any RPG, they may as well jump off a bridge.

You've just condemned most of Warcraft's players. Which is fair enough.

You've also possibly condemned some FFT players.

No offense, but entirely intentional.

[DomaDragoon]

If they jump off a bridge and don't have Fly equipped first, they deserve what they get.

[Excal]

Look, FFT Players don't jump off of bridges, they teleport.  Remember, it doesn't count as movement if it's vertical.

[NotMiki]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/08/oregon.intruder.911/index.html?hpt=C1

man bites dog.  not really.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/08/oregon.intruder.911/index.html?hpt=C1

man bites dog.  not really.

Dammit, I wanna know what part of town that happened in. Seems like a Westside thing.

e: called it. Dude lives in Southwest Portland. Arlington Heights to be exact.

[NotMiki]

can't speak for what neighborhood it was in, but this kind of thing has 'Only in America' plastered all over it.

[Lady Door]

This is a great example of what frustrates me about the American legal system:

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/03/18/what-is-a-copy-machine-presenting-a-deposition-for-the-ages/?mod=WSJBlog

How well can YOU define a photocopier for the court?

[NotMiki]

I can't guarantee you'll like the answer any better, but the reason this exchange happened the way it did is not because lawyers are incapable of understanding simple concepts.  It's because the guy being deposed and his lawyer are doing their very best to be absolute pains in the asses to the lawyer asking the questions (to the extent that they can without a judge reprimanding them).

Backing up a little bit, why is this guy being deposed?  A literal answer might be to say he's being deposed so that the lawyer asking questions can find out about his office setup.  The better answer would be that he's being deposed because someone sued his office to try to force them to do something they don't want to do.  The more forthright this guy is, the worse things turn out for the office he works for.  So he's resisting tooth and nail.  It ain't pretty, but it ain't hard to see why he does it, either.

[Lady Door]

I know. That's exactly the problem.

ETA: To clarify, I wasn't denigrating the speaker's intelligence. I just find it absolutely absurd that this kind of "Can you clarify that?" dodging is not only acceptable, but necessary.

[Crystalgate]

http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html

tl;dr version: Someone posted a negative review of a book and the author goes apeshit.

[Captain K.]

http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html

tl;dr version: Someone posted a negative review of a book and the author goes apeshit.

Fuck off, her writing is just fine!

[metroid composite]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vl_QNa-bCKc

Apparently DUI laws ruin a way of life, and hurt small business owners!

[DjinnAndTonic]

I literally choked on my dinner thanks to that. Shut up, Montana. You're killing people just by -suggesting- that.... >.>;;

[Grefter]

Hahaha the perfect argument against public transport right there.

[Cmdr_King]

That said, I think he happens to be right in a way.  Tightening up drunk driving laws doesn't really seem to have any positive benefit aside from increasing state cash flow and making poor people poorer.  That is, they're already deterring anyone they're going to deter, and added penalties are more or less punitive.
A better approach might be to lower the drinking age.  Say, not having one.  right now drunk driving is more or less a product of culture, so creating a culture with a better grasp of how to approach alcohol might work.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If you're expecting American culture to handle anything responsibily at this point you may be wasting your time

[Dark Holy Elf]

CK: I dunno, drunk driving has dropped by a huge amount over the past few decades thanks to the tougher (i.e. existant) penalties applied to it. You can argue we've reached the point where further punishment accomplishes little, though, yes. I don't feel well-informed enough to make any broad statements there.

US drinking age is probably a bit high (21 just seems weird to me, you can't drink until your fourth year of college? I'm sure that actually happens in real life) but I dunno about "no drinking age at all", it is provably quite bad for people in their mid teenage years.

[Cmdr_King]

Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying.  Having people to enforce drunk driving laws: useful!  taking away the license of anyone who ever drove drunk forever: so we just have a bunch of unlicensed drivers to take to jail now.  Just what we needed.

I remember looking into it once, and basically the UK doesn't have drinking ages.  You have to be 16 to buy it, but beyond that it seems to be "folks are going to let their kids have wine sometimes, it's no big thing"  which is the sort of attitude that might help.  Drinking isn't some big event, so you're more likely to approach it casually rather than say "Hells yeah lets get CRUNK!!"
In theory.

[superaielman]

The UK has a tremendous problem with alcoholism, and it's trending younger as well. Drinking age should be 18 though, it being 21 is all kinds of retarded.

[metroid composite]

Yeah, pretty much what I'm saying.  Having people to enforce drunk driving laws: useful!  taking away the license of anyone who ever drove drunk forever: so we just have a bunch of unlicensed drivers to take to jail now.  Just what we needed.

I remember looking into it once, and basically the UK doesn't have drinking ages.  You have to be 16 to buy it, but beyond that it seems to be "folks are going to let their kids have wine sometimes, it's no big thing"  which is the sort of attitude that might help.  Drinking isn't some big event, so you're more likely to approach it casually rather than say "Hells yeah lets get CRUNK!!"
In theory.

That's how it worked for me.  My parents offered us small amounts of wine frequently.  Haven't drunk since I was 13.

[Yoshiken]

The drinking age over here is 6. Age to buy alcohol is 18, though, and that's essentially causing the same problems - people see drinking as this big deal because you can't do it (easily) until 18 and so teenagers are making an effort to get alcohol earlier.

For a more normal example, let's look at somewhere like Germany. I know their legal drinking age is a lot lower (14, IIRC?), but no idea what the figures are like on alcoholism over there.

[NotMiki]

Hm.  maybe the US 21 drinking age DOES make sense.  We save most of our underage drinking for after high school.

[Cmdr_King]

And then never grow out of it~

[DjinnAndTonic]

Honestly, I feel like places like England and Japan can get away with strict DUI laws because they have the awesome public transportation in place. The US is just on such a different scale due to how spread out everything in the country is.

Like... I once tried to explain to my Japanese co-workers about Designated Drivers and they were like "If it was such a big deal, why didn't you all just walk home?"