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Comment Re:A solution in search of a problem... (Score 1) 326

It is against the law pretty much everywhere. However that law is enforced pretty much nowhere. It is just simply too difficult to enforce it, as a police officer has to catch the person in the act to even write a ticket. And then the ticket is so laughably small in terms of the monetary penalty as to be pointless to even write.

Once you successfully stick them with driving while using a cellphone, you have the basis to also slap them with driving while distracted, if they're speeding reckless endangerment as well...

Comment Re:"console shooter" (Score 4, Interesting) 93

Speaking as someone who likes shooters, AND who likes consoles, console shooters are rubbish.

If you are expecting them to give you the same experience as using a mouse, then they are quite rubbish. But they can be enjoyable, so long as they aren't trying to be both things. On the other hand, aside from the thorny issue of whether to mix PC and console players in multi (answer: no) it's often possible just to ratchet up the default difficulty for the PC. Halo was certainly a doddle by comparison on the PC, aside from segments driving vehicles where I found the difference to be negligible, but that didn't make it any more or less exciting (or the levels near the end any less boring.)

A console is a fine place to present a shooter that's heavy on story. And if you don't like those games, you can just avoid console shooters and spare yourself a lot of wasted time- wasting.

Comment Re:Carpooling should be as free as speech (Score 1) 288

This is about someone getting paid to drive someone else somewhere for a profit (a significant portion of which is taken by a large company), and that person not being able to use the HOV lane. That's it.

And what's wrong with that?

Either it's a HOV or it's a protected-for-protected-classes-and-fuck-the-public-interest lane.

Comment Re:Can we please cann these companies what they ar (Score 1) 288

Are there no safety standards which would apply to any vehicle on Californian public roads?

No. There are not. We don't have safety inspections here. Just smog inspections. That's because they don't care about our safety, just looking like they're doing something about air quality.

Comment Re:So what? (Score -1) 110

endemic corruption and all that it enables (e.g. drug-related violence, election fraud and inefficient business and government) make it impossible for the nation to realize its full potential.

Yes, the influence of the corruption in Norteamericano politics really has boned Mexico. Wait, is that not what you meant?

Comment Re:I've been through this (Score 1) 140

A simple "Sorry, I need help" isn't nearly enough. These days your online reputation can be your most important asset. Can you imagine if one of the people he did this to got turned down for a job because their name showed up on a child porn site or pro-Nazi group in a standard background check?

I can, but that wouldn't be his fault — at least, not entirely. That would be at least as much the fault of whoever runs the background check system, and whoever uses it and trusts it. And meanwhile, at least some of the people he did this to did likely mistreat him, and at least some of the others will have been complicit in that mistreatment, if only by cooperating with it if not directly contributing in some fashion. That obviously doesn't make what he did right, but people rarely snap without being victimized.

I don't know what went down on the forum you moderate, but if you were moderating a forum in which someone was abused, then you were part of what happened to them. Responsibility, it's not something you can put aside as convenient. Sure, legally you can do so, but that doesn't really change the facts.

Comment Re:Why just guns? (Score 1) 264

If a bad guy jumps you with a knife, pulling your gun out is too slow.

If a bad guy "jumps you" then unless you're Aikido dude or what have you, you're probably already fucked no matter how you intend to defend yourself. Initiative is massively important, and I don't mean that in a dungeons and dragons kind of way. Often, the first shot decides the fight.

On the other hand, most people aren't carrying around long sheathed knives, if the knife is big enough to need a weapon to defend against it then it's probably a folder and you very much can draw a gun, point it, and shoot in about the same kind of time.

Guns work great at a moderate distance. Three meters. If you can keep three meters and draw a firearm against a melee-armed man, you have control. At shorter distance, you have liability.

At a shorter distance, guns are still massively deadly. Point blank is scary for a reason. I don't want to be involved in a close-quarters fight with someone with any kind of weapon. The best defense is to be somewhere else. Yeah, blaming the victim, but if you have the opportunity to be somewhere [relatively] nonviolent, take that option.

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