Police who commit serious misconduct are in the extreme minority (5% of cops in NYC are responsible for 80%+ of the resisting arrest citations, for example). Police who commit things that should be misconduct may be in the minority, but not by much. (Getting tickets fixed--I've even heard of this for drunk driving.)

It's BS to say it's putting cops' lives at risk, for the most part. That being said, a lot of cops are feeling really under attack these days because of the public outrage over the last few months and the cops who were ambushed in NYC--like, their families are really worried about them, and I Can respect that.

The cop locator does two things for the ap. It lets people speed, I suppose. But the only situation where I've seen it used is really for fun, in a spot-the-cop kind of way.

That being said, people would be dumb not to check it before robbing a bank, I suppose. Of course, most people who rob banks are pretty dumb.

(It is not productive employment--it pays something like 30-60K/yr with a high likelihood of getting caught each year, IIRC).

:)

Ah, Seaquest was fun. Not in the same league, but it was so ambitious it was kinda cute.

Also, 5% of people picked Voyager. That's the only time I've ever felt someone should be banned from Slashdot.

I mean, I suppose someone could pick it based on one or two episodes, but as a whole the idea that it could be better than Babylon 5, DS9, TNG, and the X-files is really damn near unforgivable. I mean, it's not war crimes, but it's not good.

TNG had an amazing actor and some really good ones. DS9 had a couple of good ones. DS9 had more involved story arcs, but most of the individual episodes were simply less profound--making the show too much about the story and less about exploring the human condition actually costs it something, even though it's a little more fun in some ways. That being said, it's not like TNG didn't have its major weak spots. I think Marina Sirtis had one good episode, for example--she was excellent in Face of the Enemy--and all of the other episodes she featured prominently in were really terrible.

This is the problem with English not being written in math. He said A is not contained in B, you said B is contained in C.

A (gospel stories) at least intersects with C (morality plays in various guises), but that doesn't mean that A (gospel stories) is contained in B (Great Literature or High Literature, and taking those to be the same thing which they arguably are not).

The Gospels were good for their time. Today we have better fiction, it's just that we have to be more discriminating to find it.

Get off my lawn! (And go write a ray-tracer! (on an 80486!))

Nice try, but ST:TNG wasn't serialized because it wasn't something that was done at the time. When ST:TNG came out, sci-fi shows were simply not heavily serialized. X-files had a little bit, but only a little bit, and that was it.

TNG was part of the evolution in scifi shows in that it introduced more and more two-part episodes, which were OMG almost like having a movie! Serialization was much more of a product of Babylon 5, where JMS wanted to tell a particular story. DS9 grew in part in response to that competition--you not only had larger story arcs, but you also had more aliens, ship shots, more everything. (Except for how they shot a war with around a half-dozen actors.)

There was an explanation for O'Hare leaving, btw, that was planned in advance, although I agree it would have been better to keep him. JMS planned an exit strategy for every major character in case they left the show before the story was through. That being said, the fourth/fifth season thing sucked.

It depends on exactly what they are blocking. If they're blocking corporate VPNs, it will just make companies even less willing to trust the security of systems in China. Hint: they're not willing to trust that security now. Any major foreign corporation that keeps source code in China now is nuts.

Deep space exploration could benefit from that kind of durability. It's lasted longer than most governments...

It should pick whoever prefers the cooler temperature, because the other person can button up and then both are comfortable.

In practice it will pick the woman's, even though that makes the guy less comfortable most of the time, because of the way interpersonal dynamics play out between most couples.

Unless you're in one of the few states that either has proportional representation or is a swing state. I have seriously considered moving to a swing state for that reason.

Any job where a significant percentage of people will have a compromised immune system. If you work in estate planning, for example. An illness can be life-threatening for the elderly and if you put them in that position when it was easily preventable you should be liable at least for their funeral expenses.

News for Nerds. Nerds like editing stuff.

I read it. It's pretty, exploratory, well worth a read.