Not too long ago I worked for a company that would take OEM (Gilbarco, Tokheim, etc.) gasoline pump parts (pcbs, panels, buttons, etc.) and send them to Shenzhen, China, to be ripped apart, analyzed and remade. IMO the recreated parts were better than the original.

So rather than trying to convince OEMs to modify their designs for your purposes, buy one, send it to such a company and pay FAR less while getting exactly what you need with full control over the manufacturing process.

I wrote:
"Me: Could you read this one paragraph (Slashdot title and summary)?

edittard writes:
"I rest my case."

If your case relies on being too lazy to read the blurb, you deserve what you get.

Conventional wisdom states that when you're in a hole, stop digging.

Your turn.

edittard writes:
"Why don't you find someone who understands English and ask them how many ways to interpret "Chimps Have a Built-In GPS" they can think of?"

OK. Did that. Here's the conversation verbatim:

Me: Could you read this one paragraph (Slashdot title and summary)?
Coworker: [reads] OK?
Me: After reading that blurb, would you say that the writers are implying that a chimp could be dropped somewhere in Michigan and know how to get to some other point?
Coworker: Uh ...no.
Me: Thanks.

Any other bright ideas?

editard writes:
"No they don't."

Thank you Captain Literal.

Do you really think anyone meant to imply primates have, in their brains, something commensurate with features found in a Garmin?

"Bullshit summary again. Or maybe bullshit article. Who cares? After a while, you don't bother."

I think we just found your problem...

An AC writes:
"...it was routine for me to lie to customers, change prices, say we didn't have something and stare at it, laughing all the while with my manager. I didn't particularly find it funny, but I needed the money. I quit that as fast as I can like any other respectable person."

Am I going out on a limb by thinking a respectable person wouldn't have routinely lied, for money, in the first place?

mossb1000 writes:
"Insurance on an item you can afford to replace is always a bad deal."

Not always. Let me give you an example...

Radio Shack offers an extended warranty ("insurance") on, among other things, their cordless phones. While a few extra benefits are added (surge protection, wear & tear), the *real* reason they're useful is because it covers the battery, too.

So let's take a Panasonic 3-phone system. Each battery is $15-20. The warranty gives you a new battery for each phone for the one-time warranty cost of $18.

So if everything goes 100% right, they're getting $45-60 in new batteries (3x20) for that $18.

commodore64_love writes:
"FOXnews was the 3rd most-popular cable channel in February (after USA/TNT). Left-leaning CNN/ MSNBC were a distant 15/23"

Citation?

knapper_tech writes:
"This is after we had to put up with giant anti-abortion posters on campus during the presidential election week that just happened to have horrid pictures of late-term abortions that are already illegal everywhere as far as I know anyway. WTF."

A fetus is a child, not a choice, or so the anti-abortion folks tell me.

If so, the people who put up the fliers were plastering your university with pre-term necrophilia pornography.

Nice.

oldspewey writes:
"... because wall warts with a tail..."

Wall warts? Pear pimples for hairy fishnuts?

Troy writes:
"From reading the report, it's pretty clear that the student had multiple opportunities to come clean before being arrested, and refused to take advantage of them. "

You're trying to cleverly avoid the glaring fact that "multiple opportunities" did not include simple, tried-and-true tactics like giving detention or suspending the student, much less asking the student to leave the class.

I'm willing to give the officer the benefit of the doubt that their affidavit is true but I'm not willing to assume, as others have, that certain things happened when they are not mentioned in the incident report (which is precisely the place where one would record it).

Troy continues:
"Yes, I agree that arresting the girl was overkill, but the report mentions that the officer had prior [negative] dealings with the student before, so I would suspect that there is a story here that goes back a little farther than "ZOMG STUDENT ARRESTED FOR TEXTING." "

Here's the law:

WI Statute 947.01: Disorderly Conduct. Whoever, in a public or private place, engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud, or otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor.

First, there is nothing at all in the law which allows for "prior negative dealings" to color the officer's determination that the law had been violated. Zero.

Second, let's go through the criteria for disorderly conduct:

Violent? No.
Abusive? No.
Indecent? No.
Profane? No.
Boisterous? No.
Unreasonably loud? No.

How about "otherwise disorderly conduct under circumstances in which the conduct tends to cause or provoke a disturbance?"

Good luck with that. I guarantee this gets thrown out by the judge (if it even gets that far) and when cops begin charging people with violation of laws for reasons which are sufficiently vague in order to achieve a desired end, that's harassment.

Troy continues:
"When sane, measured discipline isn't getting through to a kid, it may be a good time to over-react and try to get the kid's attention."

Again, there is no evidence that "measured discipline" was attempted.

Troy, let's take this from another angle...

Suppose we are dealing with an adult at a college who was texting in class. Further, like the real-world incident we're discussing, suppose the officer arrived as the class ended and the students were leaving.

Would the officer have a right to demand that the student reveal the existence of a cellphone? No.

Would the officer have a right to arrest the student for disorderly conduct? Of course not. Remember, the class is over and the student has never been asked to leave the class.

So you're forced to either explain why I'm wrong with my two conclusions or explain why the younger student in a high school is not entitled to the same equal protection under the law.

If you choose the former, show me an example of where this has occurred. Ever.

If you choose the latter, please cite law.

oldspewey writes:
"If I were to guess, I'd say the student escalated the situation to the point where a disorderly conduct citation was appropriate and warranted. The summary makes for fabulous reading with the whole "heinous case of texting without permission" bit, but there's a whole story (that's not detailed in TFA) around how many times she was told to stop, how she reacted when told to stop, how she reacted when told to hand over the phone, etc."

Wow.

What could be more germane to an incident report than actions by the student that would warrant an arrest?

"Guessing" that the student did something to warrant an arrest when we have the complaint in front of us (and making no mention of such behavior) is downright bizarre.

arthurpaliden writes:
"The parents would have the teacher charged with force able confinement and the school board would be sued."

OK, I'll bite. Cite one example where a school or teacher was sued for "force able confinement" when giving detention or suspension.

cream wobbly writes:
"They felt the need to involve the police because they had no way to remove this pupil otherwise. School personnel have been stripped of their powers of apprehension. You can't detain a school pupil any more -- they have to leave class of their own accord."

Strawman. There's nothing in the complaint about the student being asked to leave, much less refusing.

An AC writes:
"No, because in today's world the brat's parents would sue."

Cite an example of this ever happening for similarly-mundane infractions.

RockMFR writes:
"Students shouldn't be texting in class."

Agreed.

"If a student refuses to follow the rules, you have to do something."

Perhaps you've heard of "detention" and "suspension?"

"In our lawsuit-happy culture, calling the police is pretty much the only option."

Sure, if you want to pretend that there aren't more reasonable steps available.

"If you were being insubordinate at work, you would be fired and they'd have security escort you from the building. If you refused, you would be arrested."

Bingo! You'd have to refuse to leave in order for police to arrest or charge you.

Neither of these things happened. Therefore your reply makes ...well, pretty much no sense.