Passion

Blah blah blah

Points of View

When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view.

--Obi Wan

Typically, when you proverbially step into someone else's shoes, and see things from their point view, you may identify with them and come closer to a mutual understanding.  Not so with this cops-only forum I discovered today.  I don't want to post a link, but if you like to copy and paste:

http://forums.officer.com/f37/

Actually thats the exact page in the traffic section that I got to.  It took me 3-4 hours to comb through apparently 37 pages of people asking cops questions about traffic shit.  And, sadly, it made me respect cops less.

The first thing I was disturbed to learn was that my new practice of only rolling down the window 2 inches actually pisses them off.  So I'm going to start rolling it halfway down.  I think the 2 inches trick is only for potheads anyway; idk.  Also, I very carefully read some stories about what happens after people have gotten away during a chase.  Also, I learned that not even law enforcement officers can agree on the legality and effectiveness of LIDAR blockers.  Most of them were indignant at the very mention of them.

For law enforcement officers, giving you the ticket they think you deserve instead of letting you off with a warning is the police version of a Starbucks barista secretly giving you decaf because they hate you.

In general, though, all of the law enforcement officers answering the questions has this sort of...attitude.  It is hard to describe; the closest I can come is to point out that cops seem to hate the phrase "speed trap" and respond to questions on that topic by asking what a speed trap is or saying speed traps don't exist, etc.  Funny thing is, everyone who isn't a cop knows exactly what a speed trap is.

Law enforcement officers think that instead of complaining about private property use, people should thank them for going after speeders in their neighborhood.  Personally, I would thank them for not enforcing speeding in my neighborhood (preferably not on my planet).  In fact, I would bake them a cake if they did all of their speeding enforcement in the neighborhoods of people I hate.

Oh, and another thing I learned...is the laws about "obstructing justice" are apparently broad enough to be used for bullshit in traffic.  So my idea about how to reduce the effectiveness of DUI checkpoints...if anyone ever does that, make sure there is no evidence whatsoever that you are intentionally wasting their time, because apparently that is an arrestable offense.

Also, apparently in WA you can't speed while executing a pass in the opposing lane...so perhaps one of my lawyers was wrong.  Would explain why he suggested a plea deal.

Finally, we came to some threads on people warning each other about cops trying to catch speeders, and this is where the starkest difference comes out.  For one thing, at least use your flashers instead of your high beams.  For another, the law enforcement officers were indignant and even confused about why anyone would help another people avoid a speeding ticket.  I'm confused about why anyone wouldn't.  To me, this comes naturally.  Warning a fellow motorist about a speed trap is like warning someone they are about to step on a bees nest, or about muggers in a certain place.  I am genuinely confused about why cops don't immediately get why we help each other.

I think what's going on, is that cops have this imaginary link in their heads that connects breaking speeding laws and actually doing something wrong.  They don't see themselves as simply one piece of many is this large chess game that also involves city planners, judges, juries, manufacturers of radar detectors, and those shitfuckers that make red light cams.  They seem to believe that they were put here to punish people who exceed the speed limit, and they seem to be laboring under the mistaken assumption that all of the drivers, deep down, are members of this speeding-is-wrong club.

I felt tempted, just a little, to join the forum and explain to them that, for some of us, speeding is our religion and we take every step possible to (safely) exceed the speed limit by as much as possible, for as long as possible, and to help others exceed the limit, and do to anything and everything in our power to reduce the effectiveness of speed limit enforcement, and it has absolutely nothing to do with getting somewhere fast.  When they pull us over, we are not meek little civilians who feel guilty, but opposite players in a bitter, bitter war.  We are bringing our A game, analyzing every word said out of a desire to improve our position, drawing out prosecution of any ticket they write based on our theories about what is the least cost-effective options for them.

I didn't, though, and, of course, I am no such person.

I never speed.

Oh, and one last thing--there were some posts where police refused to answer questions, because apparently "tactics" are never discussed on an open forum.  Purely out of journalistic curiosity, I find myself suddenly interested in acquiring whatever training manuals they have.  If you know where to get such information, do let me know.  Also, I'm still bitter about being suspected of a DUI, so training manuals on that would be interesting also.

Also, ALSO, here is some information about the sort of state model of a traffic stop, based solely on information from the forum:

The transition from driving to a traffic stop happens when a cop gets reasonable suspicion, which is way easier than probable cause.  I don't think its hard for them to make shit up.

Escalating the shit they do to you during a traffic stop requires probable cause.  This one is more difficult for them to bullshit;  good cops claim to b.s. this step only rarely.  Probably cause is highly subjective, though.  Also cop safety can be used as an excuse to make you exit your car, and to subject you to a pat down.  Also if you legally own a gun traffic stops become more difficult for you.

The transition from traffic stop to arrest requires probable cause.

In some jurisdictions, an arrest doesn't mean you're actually arrested and getting booked with your Miranda rights read;  it might simply mean that you sit in the back of the cop car while the cop warant-lessly searches your vehicle, which he is only allowed to do because he just arrested you.  Or something.

Sometimes cops can steal ("seize") your vehicle and never return it, even if you end up being acquitted of the crime they accuse you off.  I am kind of fuzzy on my understanding of this one.

I don't know.  During a traffic stop, unless you are recording, you're basically fucked.  All you can do is be polite and hope the cop has some integrity.

Night Moves

A road ninja...

drives until there is no road left

runs until there's no land left
fights to the end of a contest
sees until there is no light left
drinks until there is no rum left
sings until his voice is a mess

 dances until there is no night left

does some things I can't mention here

Kansas City Shuffles...
and flees with the heart of a countess

-- The Road Ninja Creed

First night with a private salsa instructor.  My partner bailed, but fortunately the instructor was a girl so we just did a solo lesson.  It was very ego bruising.  I may have to re-learn everything from the ground up and change most of my habits.  However she was a great teacher.  I see a way back in the game.

Focusing on people is tought...for example, last Friday we finished a designed meeting at work around 4pm, and I started cleaning up this mess of a codebase we have.  I left at 6 am.  I reduced maybe 2,000 lines of code down to 1,000, but my skiing plans for opening weekend were shot.  It was addicting...I think I'm going to start describing the sensation I felt as a coding high.  The time flies by, and you type furiously, your hands trying to keep up with your brain.  I think this only happens when I am refactoring out redundancy.  When you are writing new stuff, or fixing a bug, you have to do a lot of thinking.  When you are looking at existing, poorly designed code, and see a giant pattern and repetitive coding that can be reduced down to something better--once you see that--there is not much more thinking.  You just become an artist.

We (the royal we) are spinning up settlers again.  I think I am going to try to make it bi-monthly, and maybe look into any games that are simple enough to have a real conversation while you play.  Or, keep the game complicated, but just have people over for drinks first, or whatever.  There's got to be a way to make settlers a better social event.

Moving forward...I have to figure out a way to plan christmas.  I really really suck at making plans ahead of time.  For years and years I existed socially by drifting along the edges of many social groups at once.  I think in Seattle I need to create my own...somehow.  I suppose the sort of goal is to get to a place where we can have fun parties, and it is not difficult to throw a party.  I mean, its nice to have goals.  Some guys are currently trying to figure out how to sleep at all while caring for a newborn and holding a job.  I'm learning how to throw parties.

Legos are a constant distraction.  I've thought of a hundred Lego-related business plans that are not profitable and only appealing because I could pretend to make money while playing with Legos.  I think, if I want to have friends, I need to disable the entrepreneurial circuit in my brain while I try to make trains, and just treat Legos like an addiction...buying a set here, and a set there just to stave off the cravings.

Although, see, I do have this one great idea right now.  I would get people to use ldraw to fabricate virtual lego buildings, and we would construct a single massive city that I would curate, perhaps by putting better-looking buildings on main streets and more amateur-ish buildings on side streets...idk.  And this would be navigateable on a website with Myst-style navigation...then maybe later more of a second life thing.  And you could click on a building that someone made, and buy directions for it, so that this virtual city would sort of function as a medium of instruction manual purchases, and the real sets sold by the Lego Group would be there, and there would be referal links to Amazon, and etc.  Oh and then, maybe we'd do a kickstarter and actually create the physical version of the city in a big warehouse somewhere and try to get enough people to come see it so that we pay for renting the warehouse and all the legos we bought.

Also my apartment is fucking overflowing with the damn things.  In the end I may die cold alone and childless because I got cock blocked by little plastic toys.

Shit...anyway.

Anyway.




[edit]
Christmas:

1. message people, or something
2. find out if anything good for actual new years night
3. decide when flying back to seattle
4. fill in calendar with salsa, karaoke, parties
5.  figure out where to sleep

[edit]
Current carry-on:  2' x 1' 3.5" x 9.5"

Smaller?

Want

http://www.opulentitems.com/hidden-bookcase.html


[Edit]
Also, just discovered that 7 cm must be the perfect hair length, at least on the top.  Perfect side hair length is about 3 cm.  I honestly don't think my hair has ever looked this good in my life.  Must have gotten lucky with the rate of growth since whatever happened at my last hair cut.

Suga

I had to hear it multiple times before I believed them:  apparently for some girls a skinny guy with little muscle mass is the ideal physique.  Yeah, I know;  I didn't believe it either.  I think the first time was when a girl stared at my chest and said "wow you're like the ideal male." I did at least have the grace to stare at her incredulously and look offended. 

I've run into a bunch, though, so I guess they must exist.   Weight lifting is still recommended, because it opens up all the girls who aren't into stick figures.  Anyway.  The point of this is that I considered my flat stomach to be my single advantage in the looks department.

You can imagine my alarm when I started getting fat, despite the fact that I was walking to work every day and had a standing desk.  Suddenly I had a belly like every other chump out there.  I'd always sneered at fat people, thinking "all you have to do to fix that is change your entire lifestyle."  Turns out changing your entire lifestyle is difficult, but I wanted my advantage back.  Nothing seemed to be working initially.

Then everything changed when I switched jobs, stopped walking to work, and no longer had a standing desk, and was working too much to go to the gym.  Didn't actually get much fatter.

Something inspired me to fix it again.  I signed up for a ridiculously expensive gym whose only real advantage was that it was located in the same building as work, so I'd have no excuse to skip it.

Two days later, I still had not actually gone to the gym and worked out.  Yet, as I was walking up the stairs, I noticed that the jeans I wear which typically choke the life out of my waist were falling down.  I had lost weight.

And it wasn't from exercising, or jumping on the sitting-is-evil bandwagon, or walking to work, or any of those other recommended lifestyle changes, or any physical activity like cycling, climbing, dancing or skiing (work left no time for any of them).  It was the simple fact that I had switched from drinking three 20 oz* bottles of mountain dew per day, to only allowing myself one 12 oz can (doubly ironic because I reduced my soda intake after joining the company that gives free fucking sodas).
 
So...while all those difficult life changes (that required significant willpower) probably had numerous health benefits, when it comes to being fat, drinking less sugary soda was more effective than all of them combined.  I find this discovery fascinating and utterly depressing at the same time.  I fucking love soda.  And now I get to look forward to months of not drinking it if I want to regain my previous belt size.

In conclusion:  holy fuck sugar makes you fat.



*Sure, 60 ounces of high fructose corn syrup might sound bad now, but when you have a shitty programming job at a company like Flabazon, that genetically engineered, unnaturally sweet poison is one of few comforts.  Seriously I can't believe I'm happier at Bikrosoft.

Dreams

Perhaps inspired by recent events, last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with a bunch of people from high school.  Except...these people in my dream don't exist in real life.  My mind stocked the dream plot with completely fictional acquaintances and siblings-of-friends.  And they had names.  That's never happened before.  Thought it would make an interesting story plot, but I didn't feel like writing a story.  Oh, and, AND, part of the dream was about one of my old motorcycles.  In my brain, the handle on this object was my old dual sport (can go offroad) dirtbike-like motorcycle.  You know, the second motorcycle that I owned.  Except I never owned such a motorcycle.  My second bike is the one I have now.  That didn't stop me from being confused for half an hour after I woke up, trying to remember this mysterious second bike I thought I'd forgotten about.  Not like it matters.  In the dream, I rode it around and then sold it to one of the fictional high school acquaintances that don't exist.  That might be a good story plot too...imagine if the main character simply discovers that he used to ride a certain motorcycle, and finds a picture of himself on it, but actually has no memory of it whatsoever.  I know the amnesia plot has been done to death for noir films, but what about a plot where the character is missing specific time periods or situations, and its not related to child trauma?  Hmmmm........

That dream, at least, was better then the penultimate dream in the list of ones I remember;  in that one I was in Disney World in like, Toronto or something, riding around on an imaginary monorail system much more impressive than the real one, and I was with a high school girl who was a romantic interest until I officially gave up a few months ago (guess my subconscious disagrees, because its a dick) and some guy dressed as a security guard convinced us to buy fake monorail tickets.   Seriously, dreams are the best inspiration for good stories.  I wonder if this is what being high is like.

I have a strong interest in lucid dreaming.  Its only happened a few times in my life, and usually all I do is fly around as much as I can before I wake up.  The last time it happened though, I had recent memories of articles I read about lucid dreaming, and so I deliberately tried to pull some Inception shit, and I have to say, the imaginative power at your disposal in a dream is pretty awesome.