All my extensions were disabled by the dev channel when that update came through. It gave me a messagebox when it ran the update letting me know it disabled them, and it doesn't give you a way to re-enable them. You do have to dig through the menu to re-enable them. This is after a previous version already made it so to distribute them internally you had to save the crx file, open the extensions page, and drag it on there.

I understand the point is security, but they're making legit purposes harder to deal with.

Do any space probes carry what qualifies as a supercomputer? Those are rather higher in altitude than any mountaintop.

As opposed to the entire populace of the USA which want to be gate-raped by the TSA, want to be locked up indefinitely without trial in Gitmo, and consider it the lesser evil that innocent children should die rather than american men with small penises give up their gun-toys.

Or perhaps there's a *populace* that is outraged by all these things, but a *government* that implements them. On both sides of the pond.

Simon.

I'd have thought that was clear from the last paragraph. I'm from the UK. I've lived here for almost a decade now, long enough to gain an informed view, I think.

Simon.

Let me be clear here. I'm very much against guns being as prolific as they are. The bullshit defeatist "if guns are illegal, only criminals will have them" argument is so abundantly wrong-headed it defies belief, IMHO. Just look at the gun statistics in England compared to the the US and you have a compelling argument.

However.

When you're looking for reasons why one society in particular has a record of atrocities like this, the first place to look is what makes that society unique. The famous NRA quote "It's not guns that kill people, people kill people" was an attempt to deflect criticism of the penis-extensions^W^W guns generally available (to which my and Eddie's retort is "sure, but the gun helps!"), but like all good propaganda it contains a kernel of truth. The real question then is "why are these people killing each other ?"

The real reason people are using guns to kill themselves and others is the society that they live in. The cold hard truth is that guns are available worldwide, and yet it's a peculiarly American thing (with some outliers) to go crazy and kill a bunch of children/people using your personal arsenal. What's wrong is deeper, I believe.

IMHO American society is in a slow but inevitable death spiral...

• The prevailing cry when social healthcare was proposed goes along the lines of "why should my tax dollars pay for your healthcare"
• The attitude that it's "every (wo)man for themselves", and you get ahead by screwing others. Sit up at the back there, Wall St.
• The violence inherent in the main sport - American football is more about the crunching tackles than any skill.
• The "jocks" vs nerds attitude embodies the whole "might is right" credo. This is a society-wide meme and science is losing the popular vote.
• That corporations attempt to squeeze every last drop of blood out of the stone, leading to a significant erosion of the medium skill tiers, with more low-paid, low-satisfaction jobs to support the higher-ups without providing any competition to them
• An ever more militaristic police system. Tasering, SWAT teams, armed police everywhere. It's just bad.
• The highest incarceration rate in the world (743 from every 100,000). Worse than China. About 80% of those are "Christian"...

It's hard to reconcile that Americans give generously to charities with the first two points above, unless it's just Democrats doing the giving; which is unlikely :). I'd have to posit a discontinuity between the act of giving, and the way of living. It's as if people are ok with being nice to others if they choose to, but refuse to have the general good of society imposed upon them. That's a very odd form of independence, and smacks of biting off your nose to spite your face, but since I don't understand the motivation, I may have it completely wrong there. What's clear is that charitable donation is important to Americans, but charitable society is not.

Religion also plays its part. The society is highly religious, relative to the developed world but religion here in the US is a business like any other. The prime goal is not to try and guide society in the right direction, it's to funnel cash to the higher-ups in the religious power structure. People are told they're doing the right thing as long as the cash is flowing upwards,and the "church"'s goal is simply to continue to make sure that is the case. Upon examination, it's a good metaphor for what's wrong in the more-general society.

It adds up to an uncaring society, and I can see how anyone stuck on the lower rungs with seemingly no prospect of getting higher up could reject it, and similarly reject the rest of the social rules we all expect to be obeyed. There's no golden solution here, no panacea, you're not guaranteed anything will ever be perfect, but if the society had more general welfare built in, it's my personal belief there'd be less atrocities.

A society is by definition a group of people collectively living by a set of rules. Ask any evolutionary theorist what's important, and (s)he'll tell you it's the rules of the game and the boundary conditions imposed by the environment. The environment in the USA needs a lot of attention IMHO. It's forcing the society down some unwholesomely bad paths.

Just IMHO, as an outsider looking in. Unlike most, I'm not stuck here. I've made no secret of the fact that I doubt I'll be staying here much longer. The above is why.

Simon.

Not so rare. So far it seems we're up to 758 or more.

Nowhere near. Find me a statistic that says police officers have killed 750+ people by picking them up and force-walking them to the squad car. This is a quote that's often bandied around, but it has no substance - weasel words like "could" creep in so that the intent of the phrase is actually to mislead rather than communicate.

As she should. There should never be a need for two heavily armed and well-trained men to electrocute one small woman in order to get her second arm into handcuffs.

No. It's not. These weapons are replacements for when an officer would otherwise shoot the suspect, they are still lethal weapons, they just don't kill as often as bullets do. That was their stated benefit. The slippery slope was too much, and now they're used *exactly* as I described - as cattle prods to subdue anyone making the police officers job anything but simple.

Which is irrelevant. It is the principle that is outrageous here, not the specific case.

You're missing my point completely. The UK police *carry* truncheons as a part of the symbol of their authority. They very rarely get *used*. The US police appear to electrocute people who they really have no reason to. There is a massive difference there.

As for violence, the violence of the act has nothing to do with the impact potential, it has to do with the potential for damage. Strangling someone is seen as worse than breaking their leg. Being electrocuted is worse than getting a bruised arm (bones are significantly harder to break than you seem to think) because of the much greater possibility of killing the suspect.

Sure. If it doesn't kill you.

The firearms was relevant in the context of the other site, but be that as it may, I fail to see how an unarmed policeman who can't (and won't) electrocute you is appalling compared to an armed policeman who can and does.

You're correct, by the way. I used to be far more pro- the USA than I am having lived here for almost a decade. At the moment, I'm not really sure your society does function. It gets by, and from my perspective it seems to be eating itself to do so. I'm presumably someone the US wants very much to stay here - I pay a lot of taxes for example, but I'm seriously starting to think about the exit strategy. Maybe the year coming, maybe the year after, but I'm not long for this place.

Policeman 1 grabs the left arm while policeman 2 grabs the right arm. How exactly does she "whip out a knife" with both arms held ?

This is marked up ? Seriously ?

I've read of countless cases where someone has died as a direct result of being electrocuted with a taser, even though the company tries to cover it up as much as possible. I've never heard of anyone dying due to a wrenched shoulder. I've also never come across a "tiny chinese woman" who I thought would be too much of a problem to escort firmly but non-violently to the nearest squad car. Just grab hold and start walking, for $deity's sake. Mass and Physics will do their thing and your problem is solved.

Tasers are "less-lethal" weapons, designed to replace when you would open fire on someone. You are *not* supposed to use them like glorified cattle prods, to herd people to your desired goal. They kill, just less often than bullets do.

This was my comment on the same subject on a different website... ...
From the UK here. Used to work in a pub (a bar for all you yanks). Our policemen don't carry guns, but they do have night-sticks. Contrary to popular US opinion, UK society isn't the land of Madam Georgian Roses, we have our own confrontations especially when the pubs get to letting-out time.

I've seen many, many confrontations over the years, between police and drunken hefty 250-lbs 6'-something tall men, never mind small 40-year old women. You know what the vast majority of those encounters had in common ? Very little violence. Zero electrocutions. Everyone walking away under their own power.

I've seen a relatively small policewoman cowe a group of rowdy drunks on her lonesome, just because of the way she talked, the way she stood, and her manner of being in total control of the situation. She got my (and their) respect because she deserved it, and she knew it. They knew they could beat the crap out of her if they wanted to, she knew it too, but the results of that would not be pretty for the drunks, and both of them knew that too. That was all the leverage she needed.

That comes from a populace that has a genuine respect for the law as a whole, and not just a fear of draconian sentences, brutal "takedowns" and electrocution. In a peculiarly British fashion we arm our police with the respect they need to do their jobs well, by arming them with next to nothing else. You can either do as you're told by the policeman with a truncheon, or you can escalate. Escalation almost never works out, so you do as you're told and everything stays civil. Mostly. In any event it fosters a society that doesn't reach for lethal weapons as soon as there's any sort of confrontation. This, I feel, is a good thing.

Giving policemen guns is an easy argument to make soundbites from, but a terrible thing to do. Giving them tasers just makes them *more* likely to hurt someone seriously, not less. ...

Simon.

When I worked at Walgreens from 2007-2010, the amount of printing the photo department did dropped sharply because the economy was worsening and because people were moving most of their photo viewing onto smartphones. Nowadays, 3D printing would make much better use of the photo department space than 2D printing and it would substitute many of the cheap toys and tools on the middle aisle.

What's especially intriguing is that 3D printing could substitute all forms of 2D printing. Instead of selling paper and inkjet cartridge refills, the store could sell powdered plastic for home 3D printers. Instead of printing pictures in store, the store could print objects that are bigger, better, and made from more materials than home 3D printers can use. In addition to sending out orders for custom mugs and T-shirts, the store could send out orders for the highest quality 3D printed items possible.

One problem is that there isn't really a consumer-level killer app for 3D printing yet. It needs somebody like Steve Jobs to make 3D printing into something nobody can do without.

Re: Britain. Ancient history.

Just like the US genocide towards the native Americans, or the imposition of slavery across half a continent. No man is responsible for the sins of his father, so what we're talking about is what *this* generation has done. In that regard, the US is adjudged to be sorely lacking.

Simon.

I'm assuming your "talk about hyperbole" is in fact a response to your previous paragraph ? Right ? Right ?

Because if it's not, there's something seriously wrong with your world-view...

Simon

Well, at least in the UK, that was very much against public sentiment, and the fucker lost his government because of it.

Simon.