Freak acccident.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/nyregion/falling-tape-measure-kills-man-at-jersey-city-construction-site.html?_r=1

    “A tape measure is like a gun at a construction site,” Mr. González said. “Like a police officer, you don’t pull it out unless you’re going to use it.”

    Uhmmmm, no. That is the worst over-dramatization I have ever heard.

    But seriously, imagine the bad luck. The guy had just stepped out of his vehicle and presumably the next step would have been to put on his hard hat. This is a series of events where even the smallest deviation would have made it end entirely differently.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Intercourse said:

    Uhmmmm, no. That is the worst over-dramatization I have ever heard.

    Allow me:

    Headline and subheadline:

    Attention, men: don't be a creepy dude who pesters women in coffee shops and on the subway

    ###The 'railway Romeo' targets women who are trapped in a sealed metal tube underground. Guys: women's time and space are their own - don't be a douchebag

    ­
    [...]
    Hyperbole:

    Why is it that interrupting someone in a quiet moment, wilfully oblivious to their verbal and physical cues, is considered friendly, but rebuffing such an interruption is considered rude? Interrupting is objectively worse than not wanting to be interrupted. We only get one life. Wasting someone's time is the subtlest form of murder.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    I stand thoroughly corrected.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    You could have also thrown in the headline about how eating certain foods is akin to second hand smoking.



  • @PJH said:

    Interrupting is objectively worse than not wanting to be interrupted

    So, never talk to anyone ever? Finally, proof I've been doing it right all along and all those people with social lives are objectivly defective.

    Edit: and of course Discourse screwed up the quoting, but I CBA to fix it.



  • I was wondering why the hell he wasn't wearing it next to the building till I saw this bit from the article:

    As it plummeted, the tape measure struck a piece of metal equipment and shot toward Mr. Anderson.

    So still a mistake but a more understandable one.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Yep. If anything in that chain of events were different, including the tape measure being a fraction of an inch either way, he would have been fine.



  • @PJH said:

    Wasting someone's time is the subtlest form of murder.

    Hey, you do that for 80 solid years, and you've committed the perfect crime.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    My wife is a serial killer. (she is in HR)


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    That article is a great example of why hyperbole is not always the best tactic. That paragraph is awful, but the article started off so well. "Don't bug people who clearly don't want to be bothered" is one of those common-sense etiquette rules that nobody ever explicitly disagrees with, but "Wasting someone's time is [...] murder" is a statement nobody can agree with, so they end up deciding the whole article (and possibly the concept it's trying to portray) is rubbish. Through bad presentation, the whole point is lost.



  • I gave some dude a piece of paper that said "turn over" on both sides. Now I'm serving 15-to-life in the State Pen.


  • FoxDev

    should have been more subtle. i used one that said 'turn over' on one side and 'see other side for instructions' on the other



  • @locallunatic said:

    I was wondering why the hell he wasn't wearing it next to the building till I saw this bit from the article:

    As it plummeted, the tape measure struck a piece of metal equipment and shot toward Mr. Anderson.

    So still a mistake but a more understandable one.

    "Do you expect me to measure?"
    "No, Mr. Anderson, I expect you to die!"


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    You could have also thrown in the headline about how eating certain foods is akin to second hand smoking.

    How about how second hand smoking is akin to smoking (cancer-wise)?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Yeah, that one is BS also. All the studies that showed that link have been since thoroughly debunked.

    A few years ago our city passed an ordinance prohibiting smoking in any public place. Even though I quit smoking years ago, I was against it. I even went so far as to tell my in-laws that if they did not want to be around smoke, they could just eat somewhere else. Let the market decide. If no one goes to places that allow smoking, then businesses can become non-smoking by their own accord. Yet, people keep making up fucking reasons to pass laws that suit their agendas and they usually cite those fraudulent studies.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    Yes, how dare I want to walk around downtown, clearly asthmatics shouldn't exist in the public sphere.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Exactly. Keep your defective genome at home with an air purifier. 😛

    Outside I see as a non-point. Smoke dissipates readily. My wife is asthmatic and smoke outdoors has never bothered her. Even the slightest breeze mixes it with fresh to the point that I do not see how it could cause an issue, but I see your point.

    I was referring to in restaurants, bars, clubs, etc.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    I think it's a backlash against the "smoking section and nonsmoking section" idea that everyone was using. That never works. Smoke doesn't care about your signs and boundary lines. But it's one of those things where the smokers outnumber the people bothered by the smoke so the only way to change the paradigm is to go right to legislation. Your right to smoke ends where my shitty lungs begin and so on.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Intercourse said:

    Outside I see as a non-point. Smoke dissipates readily. My wife is asthmatic and smoke outdoors has never bothered her. Even the slightest breeze mixes it with fresh to the point that I do not see how it could cause an issue, but I see your point.

    You occasionally get a problem close to the entrance to a large building; a cadre of smokers can form quite an unpleasant gauntlet for any non-smoker to run when entering or leaving. That (together with poor door design that tends to suck smoke into the building) is why my employer tries to stop people smoking within 5m of entrances too.

    Most of the staff are good about it, but many undergraduates are inconsiderate asses.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    So, novel idea, don't go to places that have smoking in them. If enough people want non-smoking, places will become non-smoking. Simple idea. No one says that you have to eat at a particular establishment.

    No-smoking in government buildings, etc, I am all for. Anyone could be required to go in there. No one is required to go to Joe's Corner Bar.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @dkf said:

    my employer tries to stop people smoking within 5m of entrances too.

    Hell, I have no problem with this either. Your workplace is non-smoking, so I see no issue with prohibiting smoking within a reasonable distance of the entrance because people will congregate close to the entrance on days with inclement weather.

    What bothers me is the ass-backwards way they push these laws through. They say it is about protecting the health of those who have to work in bars and restaurants. If you are asthmatic, don't fucking work at Joe's Corner Cigar Bar. Work somewhere else. Another simple solution to a non-problem.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    But that's what I'm saying: the number of people harmed by smokers was less than the number of smokers, so you end up with a lot of disenfranchised people who can't find work because of other people who don't even realize there's a problem.

    If you're going to go with letting the market sort itself out, you're going to end up caring for those people with welfare checks.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Perhaps not worse than time wasting = murder, but this headline is pretty good:

    Daylight Saving Time Is America's Greatest Shame



  • It's true. Inciting rebellions in Central American countries? Those internment camps we set up during WWII? Our dishonest, illegal, and frankly despicable taking of southern California from Mexico?

    Nothing compared to slightly changing the clocks since the 1970s. NOTHING!


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    It's true. Inciting rebellions in Central American countries? Those internment camps we set up during WWII? Our dishonest, illegal, and frankly despicable taking of southern California from Mexico?

    None of those seem worse than slavery or genocide against the Indians. Though I think there's an argument that at least the rebellions and California stuff made the world better places.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Though I think there's an argument that at least the rebellions and California stuff made the world better places.

    Maybe. Eventually.



  • @boomzilla said:

    None of those seem worse than slavery or genocide against the Indians.

    I'm going to sound like the world's biggest asshole, but I'm not as concerned about the genocide against the Indians for two reasons:

    1. Long before the US was founded, 95% or more of the native population had already been killed by diseases from explorers of two centuries previous. Nothing we did to them could possibly compare to that. The culture we were "killing off" was shallow and history-less, frankly.

    2. Regardless of how awful the US was towards native populations, most countries in the same situation were significantly worse. Especially Australia. Or Belgium after it had gained control of the Congo.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    This submission to Yo Is This Racist is pretty bad too:

    http://yoisthisracist.com/post/101852117122

    (What, no onebox for Tumblr?) Rap can be pretty rough at times, but it's significantly less destructive than cannibalism.

    I'm always amused by what straight-laced people find excessively perverted. Hopefully that guy never takes a look at Urban Dictionary or googles "The Aristocrats"...


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @dkf said:

    Maybe. Eventually.

    At least the rebellions let someone other than the commies kill people they didn't like.

    Southern California is slowly being reclaimed, so the benefits of the conquest are slowly (or not) going away.

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'm going to sound like the world's biggest asshole, but I'm not as concerned about the genocide against the Indians for two reasons:

    Not bad reasons, but I still say it's worse than the WWII internment camps.



  • Let's just say the US has done a lot of shameful things in its history and leave it there. Because thinking about it, I just came up with another half-dozen or so.

    That said, Nazi Germany did more shameful things in like 11 years than we did in 250. So there's at least one government we can feel superior to.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @blakeyrat said:

    Let's just say the US has done a lot of shameful things in its history and leave it there. Because thinking about it, I just came up with another half-dozen or so.

    Yeah, as soon as you said your list I could have added a few to it. Towards the top of my list would be the exploitation of the Mujahideen to the point that we created the Taliban and made all the extremists in an entire region hate our country. We really fucked those people over.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    We really fucked those people over.

    Less than the Soviets were doing, though. It's always important to remember to ask, "Compared to what?"



  • @Yamikuronue said:

    But that's what I'm saying: the number of people harmed by smokers was less than the number of smokers, so you end up with a lot of disenfranchised people who can't find work because of other people who don't even realize there's a problem.

    If you're going to go with letting the market sort itself out, you're going to end up caring for those people with welfare checks.

    Back in the late 70's/early 80's, can anyone even remember places that were "non-smoking" or had "non-smoking sections" back then? The few places (restaurants, bars, etc.) I recall were chock-full of smoke and smokers. Watching older movies shows this to be the case, as that was your typical setting. Leaving it up to the market would have led to absolutely 0 progress on that front.

    On the other end, I agree with Intercourse on the 15-foot entrance rule going too far in the other direction. At this point, enough of a balance has been established that we can leave it to the market to figure out preferences. We got the law in place to clean up the air. The purpose is NOT to clean up the smokers from existence. They're people too.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Look at what we did to them objectively and then see if you still hold the same opinion. We used them as a secret pawn in our Cold War games against the Soviets. We secretly backed them in their war for independence, but never gave them enough backing to win. We only gave them enough weaponry and support to maintain a stalemate. By our inaction, or more correctly our lack of adequate action, we caused lots of Mujahideen to be needlessly killed. Accurate numbers are hard to come up with for that particular war. But we intentionally kept it at a stalemate, for years.

    In my opinion, that is worse than what the Soviets were doing. Even if you have a different opinion, do you really want the USA to be in the position of being "just marginally better than the Soviets under Brezhnev"? That seems to not be the best company to be in, at least to me.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Less than the Soviets were doing, though. It's always important to remember to ask, "Compared to what?"

    Afghanistan's been a mess because of outside interference since at least the 19th century, when it was the subject of clashes between the imperial ambitions of England and Russia. I'm not so good on the history of Mughal politics in relation to the area prior to that, but I can't believe there was nothing going on; the Khyber Pass is that strategically important as one of the few sane places for crossing the Himalayan ranges without going though extremely difficult territory.


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    @redwizard said:

    Leaving it up to the market would have led to absolutely 0 progress on that front.

    Absolutely incorrect. We had non-smoking bars and restaurants here well before we had smoking bans. In small towns, etc, it likely was different. But in major cities, you always had a choice. And those restaurants did well partly because they were non-smoking. It would have just taken a little longer to sort out by itself.

    Keep in mind, I quit smoking 10+ years ago. I prefer to go to non-smoking establishments. I just do not think that my preferences should become fucking law.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    In my opinion, that is worse than what the Soviets were doing.

    You have failed to change my opinion at all.

    @Intercourse said:

    Even if you have a different opinion, do you really want the USA to be in the position of being "just marginally better than the Soviets under Brezhnev"? That seems to not be the best company to be in, at least to me.

    You've failed to convince me we were in that category, either.

    @dkf said:

    Afghanistan's been a mess because of outside interference since at least the 19th century, when it was the subject of clashes between the imperial ambitions of England and Russia.

    I think you could go back a lot farther....at least to Alexander, though my knowledge of the history of that part of the world ain't great. I doubt it's ever been a nice place.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    I just do not think that my preferences should become fucking law.

    At the very least we should be honest about why we're passing the law.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Que?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    That goes back to talking about cancer and second hand smoke.

    @Intercourse said:

    Qué?

    Also, FTFY


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @boomzilla said:

    That goes back to talking about cancer and second hand smoke.

    I am not entirely sure which side of the argument you are on here, but I am on the side of people making their own choices. If people do not want to smoke, as I do not, they are not required to.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    I think you could go back a lot farther....at least to Alexander, though my knowledge of the history of that part of the world ain't great. I doubt it's ever been a nice place.

    I've got a vague recollection that the usual method for much of the time was to hire the various Afghan tribes into your army and to then go off and invade somewhere else (usually the Indus valley, modern day Pakistan, because that was the closest place with significant amounts of loot). I could be dead wrong though; I'm interpolating from what the Mongols and Alexander both did (the Mongols who did that became the Mughals IIRC, and there's at least one tribe in the Pakistani border country who appears to be fairly strictly Alexandrine in descent).


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    I am not entirely sure which side of the argument you are on here, but I am on the side of people making their own choices. If people do not want to smoke, as I do not, they are not required to.

    I'm generally against laws that force people to do things with / on their property. Having said that, some people are allergic, or at least have bad reactions when exposed to smoke. Personally, I really like the smell of tobacco, and smokers rarely bother me.

    I had asthma as a child, but don't recall being particularly sensitive to smoke. My sister didn't have asthma, but had problems when exposed to smoke.

    But most second hand smoke "debates" seem dominated by lung cancer concerns, which is just BS.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @boomzilla said:

    Having said that, some people are allergic, or at least have bad reactions when exposed to smoke.

    Yep, and there is a simple solution to that problem, if there is not a no-smoking sign outside they do not go inside. Problem solved!

    I am shit-terrified of heights, so I have never applied for a job working in a skyscraper. (truthfully, I have never applied for a job in my life, but that is a different story)

    @boomzilla said:

    But most second hand smoke "debates" seem dominated by lung cancer concerns, which is just BS.

    Agreed.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Intercourse said:

    truthfully, I have never applied for a job in my life

    Fucking privileged slackers.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dkf said:

    Afghanistan's been a mess because of outside interference since at least the 19th century

    Afghanistan's been a mess even without outside interference for 2000 years. Alexander the Great griped about 'em.



  • Is anyone else just surprised that tobacco is even legal?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    With the sort of tax revenue it generates, there's no other alternative.



  • I can think of 420 of them. 🚭


  • ♿ (Parody)

    It's amusing to hear stoners tell me about how they'll balance the budget.


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