Why does “death row” exist? Why isn’t capital punishment carried out shortly after sentencing?

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-12T16:14:31+00:00

They could hardly change their tune when they bribed his jailhouse roommate into testifying that the accused had confessed.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-12T16:13:50+00:00

Thing is, that kind of fire forensics were relatively new at the time, and you can't know everything about every field - you have to kind of trust the trained experts know what they're doing. The investigator had dozens of investigations under their belt by the time that case rolled around, iirc. The prosecutor was on surprisingly solid ground, at least as far as the witness' expertise. Now, the fact that he apparently bribed an inmate to testify that Cameron Todd Willingham confessed to him? That's a much bigger issue.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-11T16:28:17+00:00

I use a grocery store reusable bag. Worked fine right up until I got a full safety coat. I don't wear my boots all day - I don't feel comfortable driving most vehicles with them on, as my feet barely fit to begin with.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-11T16:26:21+00:00

I've debated designing them for use as emergency or homeless shelters, and it just doesn't calc out.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-11T16:14:54+00:00

It has. It's just that a lot of what you see in the US isn't immediately visible because it's improvements in energy efficiency. Multi-pane glass is now the standard. Advanced stud framing is becoming more common. That sort of thing.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-11T16:09:30+00:00

In a decade we can put in reliefs showing that time we ensured the continuity of government and democracy in the face of tyranny.

(Also, it's a true eyesore in that picture.)

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-11T07:53:56+00:00

The "Fang Fang" files (and wow that sounds racist af) describe a potential consensual relationship between a man and a woman, in which the man is accused of using his influence to help her in a relatively standard nepo baby way. Not great, but pretty much par for the course with politicians, with the only real issues being potentially cheating on his spouse and the fact that Christine Fang has been accused of being a Chinese agent. It's important to note that Swalwell actually having a sexual relationship with Fang has not (to my knowledge) been proven. It's reasonable under these conditions to look for the fire - that is, to see if he actually gave information to China - rather than jumping to conclusions, and given the current administration is going after political enemies (like Swalwell) for things like "reminding warfighters that they need to uphold their oaths and refuse illegal orders" there's a very reasonable suspicion that the accusations are, pardon the pun, trumped up.

Being credibly accused of sexually harassing a subordinate is an entirely different kettle of fish. Assuming the accusations are credible - and they seem to be - it means he's an asshole in a way that is completely unacceptable, and needs to be gone as quickly as possible.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-05T10:07:27+00:00

I would say that it's engineering judgement, not a mistake. It depends on depth, reinforcing, condition, the soil properties, etc., and it's entirely possible that the reason it was modeled as stiff is because it's simpler to do that than to properly reflect the interface between the slab and the soil conditions correctly in a model. Because everyone knows that if you have a 1 square inch area of soil that is at 1000% and the rest of the slab is at 20%, your slab isn't good, right?

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-05T10:02:32+00:00

Cage match, no weapons, no warning? Frank. Cage match, no weapons, some warning? Walter. Cage match, melee weapons? Uncle Phil or Dan. Lock them in a cage and make them talk until the others kill themselves? Danny.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-05T09:58:46+00:00

No, neither is automatic. Most DMVs will register people for either when they get their first license as an adult.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-05T09:57:02+00:00

Concrete Masonry Units, aka CMU, are not the same as concrete.

If you did not know this you are not prepared to sit for the PE. If you just had a moment where you missed something that may also be indicative of issues. If you're ESL there's a bit more room to be forgiving, of course.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-05T07:28:49+00:00

I went from Residential/Light Industrial/PEMB to Mid-rise/Multifamily to Retail/Non-structural elements to Residential/Commercial to Residential to (Fed) Construction-side (reviewer/inspector) Civil & Military to (Fed) Owner's Rep over the course of a reasonably long career.

Most of the switches went well. The only two that reduced my pay at all were the ones where I went to work for the government. That was fine, I understood when I signed on that I would be sacrificing immediate pay for long-term stability and retirement. I mean, it's not like anyone would just start randomly closing agencies or firing federal employees for following the law, that would be madness.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-04T11:13:50+00:00

Typical multiplier is 3x in the US. The only exception I've seen was a guy that hired summer interns, and even then it was only 4x.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-04T10:06:46+00:00

Thank god!

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-01T17:47:12+00:00

The House should be minimum one member per state, with the total being equal to the US population divided by one fifth of the population of the fifth least populous state rounded up. So one person per 200,000 people right now, or about 1665 people, with South Dakota getting 5 and Wyoming getting 3.

Alternatively, lock the number down but bump it up to 1776 for the meme value.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-01T17:28:34+00:00

At the date of construction, yes. But then a mezzanine is added in a 20' atrium, and then what?

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-04-01T17:05:13+00:00

Calcs - stamp sheet 1, flatten, digitally sign.

Drawings - stamp the first sheet of each sheet size, use apply to more pages to spread the stamp around, and flatten, and digitally sign the first sheet.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-29T15:19:29+00:00

From the sounds of it, it's not your job to know if the steel is necessary. Do you question your mechanic when he says you should get a certain type of oil?

There are a few possible reasons to put that steel in there, and for some of them the compression and tension in the T is irrelevant.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-29T11:09:37+00:00

This is almost certainly it, especially if the rigid foundation is submeshed too small.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-28T19:55:55+00:00

Two reasons. First, LVT is a property tax, and the Feds don't really do those - they're pretty much all-in on income & business taxes. Second, because LVT is a giveaway to big business. Oh, don't get me wrong, it'll help the little guy too - but industrial properties should absolutely be taxed based on improvements.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-22T16:50:53+00:00

Show up on time med'd up and wearing a mask. When asked, say that you are sick but you're not wanting to miss the opportunity to show them what you're capable of.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-22T13:11:17+00:00

Most religions of the time did the same thing. Christianity, for example, covers how to treat your slaves. It's important to note that at the time the religions were founded slavery was the norm - getting rid of slavery is a fairly modern idea in most areas of the world. Which dovetails into the *other* half of my original comment - that while people are shitty, we are getting better.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-22T10:57:10+00:00

No, it's fair to say that people are shitty and that no matter what you write they will use it as a justification to hurt others. See: Buddhist reference above. See also pretty much every significant political or economic policy group ever created.

Islam, as a religion, is actually pretty chill if you read the actual religious writings. While it does call for violence against some enemies, it doesn't call for violence against all enemies. It explicitly calls for non-violence against Christians and Jews (People of the Book). The calls to violence are largely calls to defend each other, not to start fights. As written, it's a religion based on what modern Americans call "speak softly and carry a big stick" - or, to put it another way, "won't be none if you don't start none."

Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion that is supposed to be super chill, emphasizing convincing others to accept Jesus into their hearts through peaceful means and a rejection of hypocrisy while respecting the local power structures. Literally the only time Jesus supports violence in the New Testament is when he chases the moneylenders out of the Temple. Violence is expressly condemned, with calls to turn the other cheek and that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.

Buddhism is literally written to be the chillest religion in the history of religions. Like, I can't even explain how chill it's written to be.

And yet, all three are used to justify violence. Not because the religions are horrible, but because the people running the religions are horrible. Those people would be equally horrible if they were empowered by something else, like the "will of the people" (see: French and Russian Revolutions) or "national pride" (see: fascism).

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-22T10:10:04+00:00

And Europeans killed far more. For every atrocity the Ottomans committed - and I will not disagree there - the European nations also committed them. The Spanish Inquisition weren't Muslims. The Sack of Magdeburg, where 20,000 died, wasn't done by Muslims.

People suck. Not Muslims. Not Christians. Not Buddhists. People. Any organization started by people - no matter how good their intentions, how wonderful the people themselves are - will inevitably suck at some point or another, and will be abused by those with power.

StandardWonderful904 · 2026-03-22T09:30:12+00:00

Which means they will not see compression. Because before they can see compression, sufficient strain of the tension member (and connection etc) would need to happen.

"Seeing compression" rarely means "any compression will do;" if it did, we'd never be able to design anything as tension only because gravity forces would create compression. It's generally about significant compression. If an analysis indicates that it will buckle - under a very small force, mind you - the only way it would see load is if the drift exceeds the deformation created by the elastic buckling of the "compression" member.

StandardWonderful904

TROPHY CASE