mkwt
@mkwt@lemmy.world
- Comment on How are criminals apprehended by vigilantes able to go to prison? 16 hours ago:
Usually in these stories, Batman or whoever leaves behind enough evidence to support a successful prosecution, along with the tied-up bag guy.
The vigilante broke the law to gain evidence, so all the evidence the vigilante obtained would be thrown out,
That’s actually an interesting situation. The fourth and fifth amendments put restrictions on the government, not private vigilantes. So if the cops just happen to find evidence in plain view, there won’t be a direct constitutional reason to suppress it.
Now if the local prosecutor has a pattern or practice of deliberately turning a blind eye to the unlicensed private investigators that routinely supply them with illegally obtained information, there’s probably a claim there. But it’s a lot more complicated to make that case than a straight-up 4th amendment case.
- Comment on ShitpostID: 4185519047 1 day ago:
120 giga-grand-pianos-per-square-football-field.
- Comment on Your car’s tire sensors could be used to track you 2 weeks ago:
Eh, the fucking cellular modems in my car that stream the camera data for training can be used to track me. Hell, the anti theft tracker that I paid money for can be used to track me.
- Comment on Why is the USA attacking Iran? 2 weeks ago:
They don’t like the U.S. either, as they believe that they are an imperialist power that wants to take advantage of the Middle East. That is one reason that the United States deems Iran an enemy.
In 1953, the CIA and MI6 effectively ended representative democracy in Iran when they backed a coup d’etat that deposed Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mosadegh. Mosadegh had tried to audit the books of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (which later became a division of BP).
The 1953 coup resulted in the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, ruling autocratically and with heavy support from the United States. This status continued until 1979, when an Islamist revolution deposed the Shah and installed the Islamist government led by a clerical Supreme Leader that exists today.
In 2013, the CIA released declassified documents that showed that the CIA planned and carried out the 1953 coup using all kinds of abhorrent tactics, including bribery of public officials, astroturfed paid protesters, and false flag operations.
So hopefully that explains why the US is “the great Satan” to Iran, and why Iran keeps spouting “death to USA” rhetoric.
- Comment on Did I discover a fake conspiracy theory? 3 weeks ago:
It would have been really helpful if Steve Patterson could have cited a case number or a caption or something.
- Comment on Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-Haaaaw! 4 weeks ago:
Damn revenuers!
- Comment on Yes this year is going to be really good and productive 4 weeks ago:
And severance pay and notice of layoffs are de facto fairly common in corporate America.
- Comment on When did it become normalized to start passing credit card processing fees to the customer? 4 weeks ago:
The credit card companies have always tried to prevent merchants from doing this by inserting language prohibiting either credit card surcharges or cash discounts into the contract agreements with the merchants. Obviously, credit card companies want to make it easy and convenient for consumers to use their credit cards.
I can’t immediately find it, but at some point I think 10-15 years ago, some merchants sued the credit card companies over this, and they won a court ruling that said that the clauses forbidding cash discounts and surcharging are unenforceable. As a result, merchants are now free to do it, but there are various rules. And some state legislatures have started to get involved with regulating things.
- Comment on Can anyone explain why? 1 month ago:
alcohol in pretty much any quality has negative effects
The key is that this guidance came out somewhere between millennial and gen z coming of age.
When I was a child the TV news would run “health” stories about how moderate amounts of red wine are good for you. It turned out those studies were funded by the alcohol industry.
- Comment on Deep Time 1 month ago:
If that’s a Tomcat, where’s that lizard’s RIO?
- Comment on Woke up with hate in my heart 1 month ago:
Achtung! likely originates from the same era, propagating through allied machine shops during WWII. And I’ve seen that in the wild.
- Comment on genius 2 months ago:
In some past aerospace work, I’ve seen requirements where, if you do use cast parts, you have to cast extra parts on each lot to use for destructive testing. Specifically to inspect the cross sections for flows or grains or whatever they want to look at.
- Comment on Drive safe 2 months ago:
Seems like it might be 60 km/h.
- Comment on Refried beans is just Latino hummus 3 months ago:
Al pastor is actually a lot more recent than the Moors.
Shawarma was imported by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the late 1800s. The meat switched over to pork based on availability and the fact that the Lebanese immigrants were mainly Christian.
- Comment on Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It 3 months ago:
The absolute safest bet is to perform a wipe.
This may be effective at preventing the government from accessing the data. But as we see, the law, including the 5th amendment, doesn’t protect from legal exposure to obstruction-type charges. Or lying to the cops type charges if you say you’ll unlock the phone, but then you actually wipe the phone.
- Comment on Man Charged for Wiping Phone Before CBP Could Search It 3 months ago:
If he’s a US citizen, he’s better off refusing to enter any PIN. That’s protected by the 5th amendment.
If not a citizen and this was in a port of entry context, then he would still have the 5th amendment protection. But customs can simply choose to refuse entry on discretion. So that’s a potentially serious consequence.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
I’m not sure what attracts down votes to your comment. People should read up on the know nothing party. This shit has happened before.
America has always been a contradiction. It is Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert E. Lee. It is both ICE and this nativity.
- Comment on I fall for it every year. Every. Year. 3 months ago:
It’s funny because earlobes are, like, all gristle.
- Comment on Darkness Everywhere 3 months ago:
Also going backwards in time compared to everyone else.
- Comment on Hashtag spiritual hashtag truth 3 months ago:
You are correct. The public only receives written transcripts of the relevant sections of tape only. Off-topic conversations, meaning anything that is not relevant to the air accident, are not released. The audio files are not released to the public.
- Comment on I work long hour and make little money 3 months ago:
It’s a real geopolitical problem for Russia. Russia got screwed by geography in terms of natural harbors that don’t freeze over in the winter. It’s why they’ve always had a crap navy, going way back into the imperial days.
Right now, the Russian Navy is based in Murmansk (brrrr. limited routes to get out into Atlantic) and the Black Sea. The Black Sea is bad for them because Turkey (a NATO member) makes sure to maintain total control of what passes through the Bosphorous.
Part of what Russia did in Syria during the civil war netted them a lease on a base on the Mediterranean. That could have had some use for power projection, but I think they lost it when a certain opthalmologist was expelled.
Anyhow, it’s hilarious when the trolls posing as MAGA Americans bring this up, because real Americans just take their total abundance of ports that don’t freeze over completely for granted. That’s why I point out secondary, less busy port cities on the Gulf of Mexico, where the water is actually pretty warm (instead of just not freezing over). Just to highlight how good the US has it. Even if we were forced to give up Norfolk and Coronado, there are plenty of other suitable places we could have naval bases.
- Comment on I work long hour and make little money 3 months ago:
Ah, yes. As a patriotic American I love our warm water ports like Corpus Christi and Tampa. Don’t you love warm water ports as well?
- Comment on Microsoft makes Zork I, II, and III open source under MIT License 3 months ago:
we have officially submitted upstream pull requests to the historical source repositories of Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III
Zork was originally developed for the PDP-10. It was split into titles I, II, and III for the home microcomputer market. I’d love to learn about just how many revision control systems this code has been through.
- Comment on Navy removes signs claiming a Mexican beach is US territory 3 months ago:
I’d like to conclude with a quote from Woody Guthrie:
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me. Sign was painted, said, “Private Property” But on the back side, it didn’t say nothing. This land was made for you and me.
- Comment on Navy removes signs claiming a Mexican beach is US territory 3 months ago:
The gov is doing this thing with the signs because “trespassing” into the 100 ft.-wide “military base” is a much more serious crime than just crossing the border not at a port of entry.
The civilian chucklefucks they hired to put the signs up apparently failed to notice where they crossed the mouth of the river.
- Comment on Hilary can't catch a break 4 months ago:
I remember I went to a Mardi Gras parade that year, and every single float was a joke about Bill Clinton’s penis. Very family friendly that was.
- Comment on [Video] Anti-ICE protesters hold a 80’s themed yoga class outside the Portland ICE facility. 4 months ago:
This form of exercise is called aerobics. It is not yoga.
- Comment on Aeroplane 4 months ago:
I’m pretty sure on newer 737s the autopilot disconnects when it detects a sufficient physical force on the yoke.
On airplanes that don’t do this, the autopilot servos are clutched so that you can still override them by applying a specified amount of force. There are reinforced points on the bottom of the dash panel that you can use with your foot to get leverage to help with this.
(This also applies as a backup on planes that do disconnect)
- Comment on The trauma. The terror. The humanity!!!1!!1! 4 months ago:
We might never know. Subway has been accused of bread shenanigans in the past (in addition to short-selling their footlongs).
- Comment on The trauma. The terror. The humanity!!!1!!1! 4 months ago:
The FBI crime lab didn’t even do any forensic analysis on whether the sub measured up to the full 12 inches or not.
It was such a shoddy investigation.