Oh, we’re just going to ignore trademarks, trade dress, and trade secrets are we? Very good, carry on

As for there *not* being an infinite number of ways of designing a slab phone, you’re a muppet. You think you’ve come up with counter-examples by showing that some designs are impractical, but that’s not a counter-argument. There’s an infinite number of ways to write a post on Slashdot, but most of them will be rubbish. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t also a huge number of good ways to do it (actually an infinite number). I imagined you weren’t being so dumb as to think about cubical phones as slab phones, and would understand that this meant rectangular phones without a folding component, and that might cause you to introspect, but apparently not. Oh well

The thing is with quote marks, you need to use them around something that the other person said. I didn’t say “proof”. That was your word. And I have specifically pointed to particular factors, you dimwit. I will mention a couple of them for a *third time*: governance and training. Do you really fucking need me to go show you the governance rules for ANPR in the UK? I can do, but how fucking tiresome, when the answer is exactly as I said it, the governance rules (a) exist and (b) are extensive, and neither of those things are true of the US. It’s just so fucking pointless with you people. You argue black is white for ever and ever, and die in a ditch on such stupid fucking things. Go look it up for yourself, the ANPR governance framework for UK policing is literally avaiable on the internet for you, and there’s no such equivalent for the US. All you have to do is look up NASPLE.

and goi look at this, you dipshit https://www.college.police.uk/...

You’re the one that’s made an assertion based on anecdotes, nobber, not me. I’m the one that was talking about systemic factors such as training and governance, on which you are conspicuously silent.

And finally, I just watched your supposed counter-example, and boy was that a wild self-own on your part. Throughout the entire chase, the officers were continually assessing risk, giving clear information about the direction of the absconding vehicle, talking in calm voices despite the incredibly stressful situation, etc. And when they caught up, they didn’t PIT, they boxed him in, got him out of the car, got tasers out but didn’t use him, didn’t beat him up it was the model of a professional chase. You’re a buffoon who can’t understand the point I was making.

Oh yes, because it's well known that the way you work out which police force is more professional is, you look for a single example of the one you don't like doing something terrible, and then you've proved your point. You definitely don't think about training standards, governance standards, restrictions on uses of ALPRs/ANPRs, militarisation, or, if we're going to be twatty about egregious examples of failings, fucking Uvalde. No sirree, we just do our motivated reasoning in public like a twat and consider it job done.

I implore you to spend just an hour of your time watching the very finest and best example of a police car chase you can find featuring US cops, one where they do everything by the book. And then watch a video of a good police car chase in the UK. The difference is vast. The UK police are so much more professional than the US police. But that's hardly a surprise, because the standards of recruitment and training are much higher. There's videos of European police officers asking questions and being stunned at how terrible US policing is.

Just watch this and listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
1m15s: "At this time, I deem it proportionate to continue. The driver is in full and proper control of their vehicle."
1m30s: "It is left left left Desborough Road... it is back down to low risk as we go left left left down Mayfield Road"
2m10s: "Heavy braking, Byron Close, prepare for decamp on Byron Close"
Then look at the arrest itself at 3m. It's almost friendly -- the officer says "mate" in the middle of it, FFS.

Your police forces are systemically inadequate, and what "defund the police" ought to mean, despite the nonsense you're spouting, is the kind of transformation that led to the abolition of the irredeemable Royal Ulster Constabulary at the end of the Troubles, and its replacement with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which has made a huge difference to the quality, culture and reception of policing there.

People like you, who think themselves so centrist and sensible, are a fucking disaster zone. You're not being centrist. Centrist is pushing for European-equivalent standards. You're simping for authoritarian inadequacy, and claiming that communities in the US must live with a patently failing status quo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

By the way, the difference in governance between the US and UK on the use of ANPR / ALPR is a striking example of just how bad the US is. The UK's ANPR operates within a nationally defined governance and audit framework, is governed primarily as a public policing capability with clear lines of institutional responsibility, has a formal national compliance and auditing architecture, and has up-front enforced rules on purpose limitation, proportionality, retention, access controls and data governance. The story that is described here just would not be possible in the UK, alarm bells would have gone off pretty much immediately. The US is a fucking backwater.

Erm, that wasn’t me, the OP. It was someone else.

As to your earlier points to me:
1. Philosophy routinely uses ordinary words in very specific ways to convey precise ideas. Think of Plato’s use of “form”, Aristotle’s use of “substance”, or Kant’s use of “transcendental”. That isn’t the same thing as arbitrarily “redefining” them. And anyway, Dummheit in German at the time connoted folly as much as stupidity. And beyond that, your own and his descriptions of the problematic conditions are nigh-on identical, so you seem to be getting hung up on his use of the word rather than recognising you seemingly share a diagnosis of a moral failing.

2. I’m specifically saying you can argue with authorities, but you’d better be sure of your grounds when you do it. And you self-evidently weren’t, because you attributed words to Bonhoeffer that weren’t his, but Cipolla’s.

In all seriousness, rather than argue more with me and get in a defensive funk, why not go read a little more about this incredible man?

https://bonhoeffersociety.org/...

A perfect encapsulaion of what Bonhoeffer was warning against. Dummheit in its purest form.

Bold of you to argue with Bonhoeffer given who he was, what he was trained in, what he did, whom he stood against, and his terrible fate. I’m not saying any of this makes him infallible, of course, but I am suggesting that you may be reading his words rather superficially. Your objection appears to me more about terms than about substance: Bonhoeffer is quite clear he’s not using “stupidity” in the simple meaning of the word, but instead to signify the surrender of independent judgement. And of course, Bonhoeffer used a German term with its own connotations, not the same as English: Dummheit.

The quote about what a stupid creature will do is not actually Bonhoeffer — it’s Cipolla in the 70s, as the source makes clear. Search for the name and you’ll see. It’s a bit confusing in how the page is laid out.

All those years ago:
“ ‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this thestupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily
irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.”

https://www.onthewing.org/user...

Yes, especially when you consider it’s not 90% of today’s electricity demand we should be focused on, but 90% of future demand including electrified vehicle fleet, low temp heating (buildings), etc, which is a big expansion of demand and supply cf today.

But the purpose of the stop was not enforcement of the vehicle code.

"When there is not probable cause to believe that a driver is violating any one of the multitude of applicable traffic and equipment regulations 24 -- or other articulable basis amounting to reasonable suspicion that the driver is unlicensed or his vehicle unregistered -- we cannot conceive of any legitimate basis upon which a patrolman could decide that stopping a particular driver for a spot check would be more productive than stopping any other driver." Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 661, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 1400 (1979)

In California, as I suspect in most states, the driver is required to produce a license and registration when being pulled over for a traffic stop.

California Vehicle Code 12951(b) states: "The driver of a motor vehicle shall present his or her license for examination upon demand of a peace officer enforcing the provisions of this code."

Since the vehicle was not involved, the stop would not require a license to of produced. Of course, the cop would lie and make up a reason.

You are conflating a consensual encounter with a detention.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Sodium helps solve for intraday storage. It does not suddenly lower costs to the point where, eg, the UK could get through a winter lull lasting a week. But that’s ok, because that’s the last and hardest 10% of decarbonisation of electricity, and we can focus on the other 90% first, including the massive expansions needed as we electrify transport and heat.

1. Don’t expect those prices to last. Distribution costs are rising everywhere and really sharply. Go watch a Mr Global video on this
2. Californians earn more. The 10 states whose electricity is least affordable (ie costs compared to incomes) are all red states