Archive
daily 11/30/2012
-
Drudge’s $1-Coin Freakout: Congress weighs shift to $1 coins, Drudge reacts.
-
The paper-bill-to-metal-coin switch would save taxpayers an estimated $4.4 billion over the next three decades.
-
As Weigel routinely points out, the answer to pretty much any headline that ends with a question mark is No.
-
-
Stop-and-frisk Florida: Is there such thing as a “consensual” police encounter?
-
As Young later explained it, while he had no reason to suspect that June was doing anything illegal, he hadn’t seen the man before and wanted to make his acquaintance
-
In Florida, cocaine possession is a third-degree felony, and Escambia County judges aren’t inclined toward leniency for 64-year-old African-American career criminals. June was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison.
-
Monday, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed June’s conviction, denying his argument that the cocaine was seized in an illegal stop-and-frisk.
-
Once June started acting suspicious, though, Officer Young had reason to initiate a search.
-
But what interests me about this case is the way the appeals court characterized the initial contact between June and Young as a “consensual encounter.”
-
You can’t initiate a search during a consensual encounter, and you can’t initiate an investigatory encounter without “a well-founded, articulable suspicion of criminal activity.”
-
But, in reality, a police officer who pursues a “consensual” conversation is often just looking to screw you.
-
“The police officer’s main purpose is to get information about what the person is doing, and get permission to do something else, like search their person, house, car, bags, etc.,” they write
-
They stop you because they can generally tell if you’re suspicious or “up to something,”
-
he unspoken power dynamics in a police/civilian encounter will generally favor the police, unless the civilian is a local sports hero, the mayor, or a giant who is impervious to bullets.
-
When a citizen summons the police, police presence is a welcome relief.
-
Without a clear idea of where this encounter is going and how it will turn out, a citizen would feel irresponsible to treat this exchange like any other.
-
I’d argue that no reasonable person would have refused Young’s invitation to stop.
-
The fact that June was up to no good is irrelevant.
-
But of the 685,724 police stops initiated in 2011, 605,328 of them found absolutely nothing.
-
But it’s hard for a citizen to challenge an improper stop and frisk, because any his-word-against-yours system favors the guy with the gun and the badge.
-
As Nadler and Trout explain, most social interactions proceed according to implicitly understood rules, and there are unspoken potential penalties for violating those rules.
-
And that’s the point. Florida’s drug laws are harsh, and cops have been tasked with making drug arrests.
-
There were two of them. I was more worried about them being nervous of me, stopping cars at that late hour, until I realized it was two men, an older officer and a younger officer, obviously a rookie and quite enamored of his elder partner. They asked me all kinds of questions: Where was I going, and why, and how long had I known the guy who’d died, what happened to him anyway – was it a heart attack? Did he have a history of heart trouble? How was the widow taking it? How old was she? Only married six years, huh? What, this was her first marriage? Second? Did they have any kids? Is this a rental car? Howcome I’m driving a rental car, where’s my car? Is it in the shop? What happened to it?”
-
Now do you think a girl – pretty or otherwise – has ANY business stopped on the side of a major interstate at 2 a.m. to talk to two men she’s never before met? Really? REALLY??
-
-
-
f David Stern, who has threatened “substantial sanctions” against the Spurs for sitting their starters on Thursday, wants this sort of thing to go away? Then make 20 games off of the NBA’s schedule go away. Make inter-conference battles go away. Make a potential 27-game postseason run to lead up to Game 7 of the Finals go away. Make international play during the exhibition season go away.
-
I understand acting overly haughty over minor indiscretions, I’ve made a career and monthly payments on a gleaming 2008 Toyota Corolla out of it, so Stern’s heavy-handed response to Popovich’s move rings true.
-
And I wonder if any of that cash was ever considered to be earmarked for the thousands of workers that had their incomes completely turned on ear this time last year by a lockout that shifted absolutely no NBA needles.
-
And we want Gregg Popovich, as he watches Tim Duncan fold himself into yet another airplane seat some 186 months into their relationship, to think about basic cable TV viewers in November instead of his team’s fortunes in June.
-
(Meanwhile, a resting baseball player awaiting his turn at bat after an hour in the dugout, adjusts parts of himself, spits out some sunflower seeds, and points out that his team plays twice as many games.)
-
David Stern used to do big things. Now, he can only rant and wrestle over minor misdeeds. And that’s the real crime.
-
-
Did Popovich, or Stern, sit those players? – TrueHoop Blog – ESPN
-
Six times more likely. Research shows that serious injuries are six times more likely in professional soccer players that play twice a week instead of once, because:
-
hy fatigued athletes get injured far more often.
-
Three days isn’t long enough to recover from important high-intensity conditioning work. Tightly bunched games force players to choose among the evils of skipping that conditioning or playing tired, which both increase injury.
-
Strategic rest is part of any long-term training program in any sport, which is part of the reason the NBA’s best coaches like Phil Jackson are always talking about rest.
-
and clearly San Antonio knows a thing or two about valuing rest in a league that plays far more than twice a week
-
it is a long season.
-
-
The Spurs do just about everything right
-
The Spurs have won with one sound decision after another, night after night, week after week, draft after draft, timeout after timeout, year after year.
-
The strategic resting of particular players on particular nights is within the discretion of the teams,” Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver told NBA.com last April during the lockout-shortened season. “And Gregg Popovich in particular is probably the last coach that I would second guess.”
-
Popovich evidently sees tremendous value in removing the two or three most injury-prone games from his player’ schedules
-
With the banishment of hand-checking and the allowance of zone defenses, Tom Thibodeau-style help defenses are the state of the art.
-
what is a tom thibodeau style defense?
-
-
Now playing defense means rushing all over the court as part of a five-man shape-shifting amoeba, instead of standing next to a man watching somebody else dribble.
-
Stern didn’t sit the Spurs’ stars on Thursday, but his schedule did, even if that doesn’t feel natural to most of us.
-
-
Microsoft’s next tablet priced to gather dust – MarketWatch
-
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — In the age of bring-your-own device to work, consumers have a lot of say as to what devices they want to use, and Microsoft Corp.’s premium pricing for the Surface Pro tablet may put them off, even if it does have a full Windows 8 offering
-
-
Usability expert slams Windows 8: ‘disappointing’ for ‘both novice and power users’ | ZDNet
-
Another criticism leveled at Windows 8’s user interface is that it encourages applications with extraordinarily low information density that make poor use of screen space.
-
“We know from our user testing of other tablets and mobile devices‘,” Nielsen writes, “that users quickly accumulate numerous applications, most of which they rarely use and can barely recognize — even with static icons that never change”.
-
Also on Nielsen’s hit list: the hidden charms menu bar that “makes sense on small mobile phones,” “makes less sense on bigger tablet screens,” and “makes no sense at all on huge PC screens,” as well as an overly-complicated set of error-prone gestures that “dramatically reduce the UI’s learnability.
-
-
Surface Pro: Too much money for too little tablet? | ZDNet
-
Besides grabbing people’s imagination, for once the iPad is cheaper than its competition. A 64GB iPad with Retina Display with Wi-Fi and cellular is $829. That’s $70 less than the entry level Surface Pro.
-
It’s also, I must add, below my Samsung Celeron-powered Chromebook, which comes in with six hours, and my ARM-powered Chromebook, which keeps running for up to six-and-a-half hours. The ARM model, which runs great with the lightweight Chrome OS, also only costs $249.
-
-
Georgia Defense Uses Approach of Alabama’s Nick Saban – NYTimes.com
-
None of the players got a chance to make excuses for Georgia Tech’s creeping within 32 points in the fourth quarter of an eventual 42-10 victory last Saturday.
-
“It’s all about the process,” Grantham said this week. “You have young players out there, and they need to be ready to play when called upon.”
-
Our actions should be consistent, not situational.
-
-
The Process, after all, is the foundation of Saban’s philosophy, which is a regimen to be followed with no pampering allowed.
-
The two men, still friends, will get a chance to reunite Saturday when No. 2 Alabama plays No. 3 Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game
-
Saban and Grantham each use the same maxim when explaining their vision of football: “Big people beat up little people.
-
“I’ve always been really close to Todd professionally and personally,” Saban said. “If you’re going to rank assistants, he’s one of the two or three best I’ve ever had on our staff.
-
In 2008, his first season as the defensive line coach with the Dallas Cowboys, Grantham’s star player, the All-Pro end DeMarcus Ware, had a career-high 20 sacks.
-
“Little people can’t block big people,” Grantham said. “When you have big people, you don’t have to commit all your defensive backs to the run game. You can play what I call a seven-and-a-half-man box. You got the extra half guy in the secondary because your guys up front can seal off gaps and hold the point.
-
“Big people beat up little people. It’s why there are weight classifications in boxing.”
-
“Certainly, I would have considered working for Nick,” Grantham said. “The thing about him is he is a discipline guy, so all you have to do when you are with him is coach.
-
daily 11/28/2012
-
Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignor
Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignorance of the laws of nature, is only possible in so far as those laws are known. #CSLewis
-
“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” -Stev
“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” -Steven Wright
-
Saw Quan Cosby at DKR’s memorial service 2 weeks a
Saw Quan Cosby at DKR’s memorial service 2 weeks ago and he was a free agent. Now he has joined fellow Horn Jordan Shipley in Jacksonville.
-
TMobile myTouch 3G: Rooting – CyanogenMod Wiki
-
Before you do anything — Make a backup
Don’t forget to back up your data. If you have synced the device with a Google account, then the contacts, calendar, Gmail, & select other Google-related data will not be lost and will come back after the next sync. However, you should backup anything you want to keep that is not stored on the SD card:
-
-
Golden’s Nuggets: The many sides of Mack, props to RG3, and so… | www.statesman.com
-
Mack Brown appears to be fresh out of answers. And he’s not even trying to pretend that things are well in these parts
-
Brown realizes that this team hasn’t improved much over the 2011 team.
-
Griffin is one of the kids who make you appreciate good parents and good coaches. He’s always been respectful to those around him, and unlike some athletes I have been around, he has never big-timed a reporter
-
-
Bohls: Future of Horns’ quarterbacks is cloudy | www.statesman.com
-
It sounded as if any of five quarterbacks — junior-to-be Ash, senior-to-be McCoy, current redshirting freshmen Connor Brewer and Jalen Overstreet, and likely midterm enrollee Tyrone Swoopes
-
When I asked if he remained as committed to returning next season as ever, an exasperated Brown said, “Yes, for the 19th time.”
-
-
‘Two and a Half Men’ actor not expected on set | www.statesman.com
-
he teenage actor who stars in “Two and a Half Men” and called the CBS comedy “filth” may have some time before he faces the show’s producers.
-
is character has been largely absent because he has joined the Army.
-
heen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, who plays billionaire Walden.
-
t is the third most popular comedy on television behind CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” and ABC’s “Modern Family.”
-
daily 11/27/2012
-
Jeb Bush, with cash and clout, pushes contentious school reforms
-
Former
-
-
Excel Blog – Field List and Field Well in the Excel Web App
-
When you open a workbook with a PivotTable or a PivotChart in the browser, and click on a cell, you will see the field list, just like you do in the desktop application.
-
And from there, you can add dimensions, measures, and filters without leaving the relative comfort of Excel. And, yes, there is a certain amount of comfort in Excel because you know the tool so well. Now we give you one more reason to use it: BI analytics in the browser. Actually, there’s another reason — if you still (try to) use the currently deprecated Office Web Components (OWC), start using the Excel Office Web App. You’ll like it infinitely more than the OWC. I promise.
-
You can also access it from the new named object view. If I publish only the PivotTable, I can work with that table using the field list:
-
(for example, it seems curious that the highest paid player in Major League Baseball essentially plays pitch and catch with, effectively, the lowest paid player on the field).
-
daily 11/26/2012
-
Language in Puerto Rico: Hablen inglés … por favor?
-
The results of a non-binding referendum on November 6th appear to suggest that a majority of Puerto Rican voters favour joining the United States as the 51st state.
-
But similar referendums failed in 1967, 1993, and 1998, so Tuesday’s vote, if controversial in its result, is symbolically significant.
-
The United States might be rusty at the statehood thing—the last time a new state was admitted was in 1959—but the government has, after all, done this 37 times since 1776.
-
Some politicians have argued that Puerto Rico needs to more fully adopt English
-
The use of Hawaiian, which is co-official with English in Hawaii, declined precipitously when English was declared official in schools in the then-Hawaiian Territory
-
-
Jeb Bush is the answer to Republican Hispanic issues.
-
-
Despite language differences, business ties between the island and the mainland already run deep
-
The Democratic Party has already done a decent job of wooing Hispanic voters, and a shamed Republican Party will be following their example soon.
-
daily 11/24/2012
-
Is River Song returning to Doctor Who? Plus BSG alums talk about Riddick and Man of Steel!
-
We’re only working from secondhand rumors here, so take this with a grain of salt, but River Song actress Alex Kingston was reportedly spotted in the Cardiff area last Saturday
-
-
How Israeli Drone Pilots Made Their Life-and-Death Choices Over Gaza | Danger Room | Wired.com
-
This was Sunday. Gil, a captain in the Israeli Air Force, was sitting in a green-painted metal box on the Palmahim Air Base, south of Tel Aviv. In front of him was a joystick and a set of screens.
-
Israeli leaders believe they’ve accomplished that task. “The Arab view is now that Israel is a crazed animal, locked in a cage, fuming to get out all the time,” a senior Foreign Ministry official tells Danger Room, approvingly. “Now, it’s the responsibility of the Arab leadership to keep the animal in the cage, by not provoking it.”
-
. His Heron spy drone doesn’t have any weapons
-
During the conflict’s peak, the Israelis had six to ten of the 200th’s surviellance drones flying over Gaza at all times.
-
Then the UAV flies on its own, guided by from place to place by a series of waypoints.
-
daily 11/23/2012
-
Alice’s Restaurant Illustrated: A Thanksgiving Counterculture Classic | Open Culture
Alice’s Restaurant Illustrated: A Thanksgiving Counterculture Classic. 18 minutes of fun: http://t.co/xm0DIRUJ
daily 11/21/2012
-
RT : Jaguars signed wide recei
RT @AdamSchefter: Jaguars signed wide receiver Jordan Shipley and waived fullback Will Ta’ufo’ou.
-
42 gallons RT : how much is in a “barrel” of o
42 gallons RT @aitchojohnny: @boonepickens @boonepickens @pickensplan @earltank how much is in a “barrel” of oil
-
Hide not your talents, they for use were made,Wha
Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
What’s a sundial in the shade?
#BenFranklin
daily 11/19/2012
-
Course | Technology Entrepreneurship – YouTube
Technology Entrepreneurship (Stanford) http://t.co/7i4BDclb Added to our list of 550 Free Online Courses: http://t.co/1m825KzL
-
God has infinite attention… You’re as much alone
God has infinite attention… You’re as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He’d ever created. #CSLewis
daily 11/16/2012
-
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart. #BenFranklin
-
The typical expression of open
The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” #CSLewis
-
Spike up. http://t.co/I5pbGwda
-
The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a ho
The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal. #CSLewis
Cshonea's Blog 