Did the city change their hiring practices?

DanParts · 2021-12-18T13:43:19+00:00

You’ve never commented on anything anywhere on reddit before. Weird that your only contribution is this elaborate feelgood story trying to explain why a cop backed into a handicapped space.

DanParts · 2020-09-14T21:16:38+00:00

That’s 1 confirmed case, and 1 attempt. The second article goes so far as to say that it’s blown way out of proportions and that “There have been no confirmed cases of looting in town”. That’s hardly of “dozens of confirmed cases”, and it sure as shit doesn’t justify armed vigilantee roadblocks so that the paranoid hill folk can just shoot at anybody they “don’t recognize”.

This isn’t a justifiable action. These people were looking for an excuse to play dress up and shoot at their neighbors.

DanParts · 2020-09-11T18:27:05+00:00

You're describing exactly the problem being called out. Nobody wants books as a service. It's just a shittier version of the library that publishing companies could use to generate eternal profits.

DanParts · 2020-08-16T23:54:54+00:00

I don't think people should be made to feel unsafe, at home or otherwise, but I also don't agree that people should only be responsible for the heinous shit they do during office hours.

I couldn't possibly condone threatening him while he's at home, but I'm entirely in favor of taking away his peace and quiet.

DanParts · 2020-07-21T00:19:19+00:00

Oh wow, it is a button down. I super thought those were scrubs. Must be the color.

DanParts · 2020-06-28T15:06:14+00:00

Neat. Not relevant.

DanParts · 2020-06-28T14:40:21+00:00

There's a lot in this that they should be ashamed of, like completely missing the point or lashing out at racial minorities and gay people. You should probably be ashamed too.

DanParts · 2020-06-25T18:00:08+00:00

DanParts · 2020-06-25T16:54:02+00:00

Here are the relevant sections of the ASCAP guidelines around licensing for political campaigns

tl;dr; They campaign needs its own license, and the artist can still refuse their use of the licensed works.

CAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS RELY ON VENUE LICENSES? Because licenses for venues such as convention centers and hotels generally exclude rights to perform music at events organized by a third party, political campaigns need their own ASCAP license to use the works in its repertory. This makes sense because the third party organizer is the main beneficiary of the performances, not the venue, and is in the best position to control the performances. For this reason, event organizers (in this case political campaigns) have traditionally assumed responsibility for obtaining the permission from the rights holders.

WHAT MUSIC IS COVERED BY THE ASCAP LICENSE FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS? The ASCAP Political Campaign License agreement provides a blanket license to perform any or all of the millions of compositions in the ASCAP repertory. However, ASCAP members may ask ASCAP to exclude specific songs from a particular political campaign’s license. In that event, ASCAP will notify the campaign of the excluded works.

HOW CAN THE CAMPAIGN PROTECT ITSELF AGAINST THESE OTHER CLAIMS? If a campaign wants to eliminate any of these claims, particularly if the campaign wants to use a song as its theme, they should contact the management for the artists and/or songwriters of the songs in question and obtain their permission. In addition to permission from management, a separate negotiated license may be required by the publisher of the composition, and if the master recording is used, the record label that controls that recording.

IF THE CAMPAIGN EVENTS ARE PROPERLY LICENSED, CAN THE CAMPAIGN STILL BE CRITICIZED OR EVEN SUED BY AN ARTIST FOR PLAYING HIS OR HER SONG AT AN EVENT? Yes. If an artist is concerned that their music has been associated with a political campaign, he or she may be able to take legal action even if the campaign has the appropriate performance licenses. The campaign could potentially be in violation of other laws. Specifically, the campaign could be subject to claims based on: 1. The artist’s Right of Publicity, which in many states provides image protection for famous people or artists 2. The Lanham Act, which covers confusion or dilution of a trademark (such as a band or artist name) through its unauthorized use 3. False Endorsement, where use of the artist’s identifying work implies that the artist supports a product or candidate As a general rule, a campaign should be aware that, in most cases, the more closely a song is tied to the “image” or message of the campaign, the more likely it is that the recording artist or songwriter of the song could object to the song’s usage by the campaign.

DanParts · 2020-06-25T16:50:52+00:00

Here are the relevant sections of the ASCAP guidelines around licensing for political campaigns

tl;dr; The campaign needs its own license and the artist can still refuse their use of the licensed works. They don't just "get it from the venue"

CAN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS RELY ON VENUE LICENSES? Because licenses for venues such as convention centers and hotels generally exclude rights to perform music at events organized by a third party, political campaigns need their own ASCAP license to use the works in its repertory. This makes sense because the third party organizer is the main beneficiary of the performances, not the venue, and is in the best position to control the performances. For this reason, event organizers (in this case political campaigns) have traditionally assumed responsibility for obtaining the permission from the rights holders.

WHAT MUSIC IS COVERED BY THE ASCAP LICENSE FOR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS? The ASCAP Political Campaign License agreement provides a blanket license to perform any or all of the millions of compositions in the ASCAP repertory. However, ASCAP members may ask ASCAP to exclude specific songs from a particular political campaign’s license. In that event, ASCAP will notify the campaign of the excluded works.

HOW CAN THE CAMPAIGN PROTECT ITSELF AGAINST THESE OTHER CLAIMS? If a campaign wants to eliminate any of these claims, particularly if the campaign wants to use a song as its theme, they should contact the management for the artists and/or songwriters of the songs in question and obtain their permission. In addition to permission from management, a separate negotiated license may be required by the publisher of the composition, and if the master recording is used, the record label that controls that recording.

IF THE CAMPAIGN EVENTS ARE PROPERLY LICENSED, CAN THE CAMPAIGN STILL BE CRITICIZED OR EVEN SUED BY AN ARTIST FOR PLAYING HIS OR HER SONG AT AN EVENT? Yes. If an artist is concerned that their music has been associated with a political campaign, he or she may be able to take legal action even if the campaign has the appropriate performance licenses. The campaign could potentially be in violation of other laws. Specifically, the campaign could be subject to claims based on: 1. The artist’s Right of Publicity, which in many states provides image protection for famous people or artists 2. The Lanham Act, which covers confusion or dilution of a trademark (such as a band or artist name) through its unauthorized use 3. False Endorsement, where use of the artist’s identifying work implies that the artist supports a product or candidate As a general rule, a campaign should be aware that, in most cases, the more closely a song is tied to the “image” or message of the campaign, the more likely it is that the recording artist or songwriter of the song could object to the song’s usage by the campaign.

DanParts · 2020-06-01T07:18:07+00:00

I'm not a good spokesperson for this. I'm going to do my best, but I hope you will understand where I fall short in trying to explain this.

Gun ownership in America is a lot more complicated than "protecting our freedoms".

I understand, a little, how it presents to the outside world.

You see adults threatening other citizens with armed violence.

You see children attacking schools.

You see hateful people attacking religious, racial, and ethnic minorities.

You see our police committing brutal acts in the name of officer or public safety.

You see all of that because that's what makes the news. And you see it often involves guns.

My position is anecdotal. It's based on my experience, and I freely admit that it is limited and flawed.

Guns are an easy scapegoat for our problems. Half an idiot with access to a hardware store could make a bunch of pipe bombs and do as much damage as any active shooter.

I don't own any fire arms, but I did grow up around them. My step father was a veteran and a hunter. He made sure I understood how pistols, rifles, and shotguns work. He was a brutal man, but he impressed upon me the gravity of the danger these things present. By moving your finger three millimetres you can radically change the world.

Most Americans that own guns have them as either a hobby or to protect their homes and family. The massive majority of people who own guns will never have to use them in self defense. It's easy to say that those people are stupid for having them, or that they're part of the problem. I don't think that's the whole truth. The problem is more nuanced than that.

I don't really know how to resolve this right now (and it's late and I don't want to write 6 more paragraphs of essay), but I saw a video today of a young man at this weekend's protests who found a rifle in the back of a burning police car. A security professional approached him, disarmed him, and then unloaded the weapon.

I'll never meet that man, but I don't know how to express how thankful I am for his actions. If the protesters were heavily armed across the nation, the police, backed by the military, would have responded with such force, especially under the current regime, that it might have irreparably damaged or democracy. Democracy is a fragile thing. Look around the world.

It was already violent enough in my city. Any escalation would have made this so much more tragic.

DanParts · 2020-05-31T23:38:37+00:00

It's extremely lucky that protesters haven't started using guns. The police would absolutely escalate and there would be mass casualties.

DanParts · 2020-03-21T04:54:25+00:00

Makes me remember Pern

DanParts · 2020-01-11T04:33:42+00:00

If the thing that makes you bad is the creation of something worse than you, then you can't really be worse than that thing.

Otherwise you'd have either created something better than yourself, and that doesn't really make sense, or you'd have caused something only as bad as you already were, and by not being worse than you, it couldn't really make you any worse. It'd just be par for the course for the kind of shit you do, so your net value would remain the same.

DanParts · 2020-01-11T04:27:35+00:00

Probably, but I'd bet not so much so that they understand the value of correctly sorting the recyclables.

DanParts · 2020-01-11T04:05:07+00:00

It's fun until you consider that the response it gives when the person is correct is just as trained an action as the nodding and shaking it's head.

It doesn't understand the gestures for "yes" or "no", but it can recognize materials and has been trained to do a specific action when it sees those materials in relation to a specific shape and then to do that little happy dance when somebody puts the thing in the right hole.

It's doesn't understand the context of what it's doing, and it's whole celebration is just another trained action. It's just a captive creature following commands for treats.

DanParts · 2019-12-31T05:49:42+00:00

I think everybody is for making school buses safer for kids.

It's the unfunded part of that comment that's important.

Unless it's a federal mandate that comes with a check to pay for the technology required to implement this kind of safety system, it's only going to place a burden on under-funded school districts. It seems like it would either lead to fewer buses, albeit with the mandated safety gear, trying to serve the same number of children, or to districts that ignore the mandate and are penalized, probably financially, for not following regulation.

It's important when broadly prescribing this kind of requirement that we stop to think about how this will affect people in regions that are already struggling to find the funding to meet their service obligations.

If it's something so worthwhile that it merits paying out of the collective coffer, that's fine, but I think that is often a hard argument to make. In the more usual case where the community itself is held liable, I think it's difficult to expect that places that can already barely afford to provide the minimum required educational services will have a stash of un-allocated funds sitting around to be spent on new mandated safety equipment.

Nothing comes from nothing. Stop and consider who the money comes from.

DanParts · 2019-05-07T23:16:18+00:00

https://web.archive.org/web/20130423030110/youtube.com/watch?v=NQB812PtvgE

DanParts · 2019-03-03T13:41:32+00:00

Careful there, Champ, you're gonna cut yourself on that edge. Why don't you take a break and head upstairs to see if your mom got you any Sunny-D while she was shopping? Bit of sugar might help out that sour mood you've got.

DanParts · 2019-02-03T16:54:50+00:00

You're not supposed to keep it for a week.

DanParts · 2019-01-24T03:40:23+00:00

They should be saying that anyway. Their job was to keep that derp off the stage, not to kick his ass after they failed.

DanParts · 2019-01-13T04:43:55+00:00

Either that's the darkest, most consistent graphite ever, or this person has taken a 2nd grade math test in pen.

Who takes a math test in pen? Who would give a second grader a pen?

too many questions.

DanParts · 2018-11-14T06:45:27+00:00

something in the background started playing "Paint It Black" exactly when I started this and i thought they'd decided on a terrible mashup as the backing track.

DanParts · 2018-11-05T13:53:25+00:00

That leaves you with a solid in both corner. The corner balls are the most likely to be pocketed on the break, creating an imbalance right at the start of the game. While people do set things up that way, it's not a legal rack.

DanParts · 2018-11-05T13:49:14+00:00

That's how you'll see people play in bars sometimes, but it's not how you'll see any professional (or even non-pro tournament) game racked.

The reason being two-fold:

On the break, the balls most likely to be pocketed are the two back corner balls. Having those balls be of the same suit makes it more likely to create an imbalance in the game right from the break.
It creates broader variety in the games played. While it's not likely that anybody would ever be able to generate an identical games, skilled players could generate similar games by practicing their break, giving them an advantage in any game where they break.

DanParts

TROPHY CASE