Category: Uncategorized

PETA Says It Will Sue New Jersey Over Deer/Car Accident

On November 16, 2001 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals activists Dan Shannon and Jay Kelly hit a deer while traveling in an automobile owned by PETA. PETA’s legal counsel, Matthew Penzer, last week faxed a notice to the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife declaring their intent to sue the state of New Jersey for contributing to the accident through their deer management practices.

In a press release, PETA outlined its legal strategy,

PETA argues that by placing the interests of hunters, who amount to barely more than 1 percent of New Jersey’s population, above the safety of the more than 8 million New Jersey residents and countless out-of-state travelers who use the roads, wildlife agencies are violating the state’s constitutional mandate to provide protection and security to its people. PETA also opposes the fear, the disruption of herd members’ relationships, and the bloodshed suffered by deer on grounds of cruelty to animals.

In a letter to Bob McDowell, director of New Jersey’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, Penzer wrote that,

. . . shortly before 1 o’clock in the morning on that date [Nov. 16, 2001], while driving a Honda Civic belonging to PETA (and while returning from a PETA campaigning tour) southbond on the New Jersey Turnpike, a deer darted out in front of the car and a collision resulted. . . . Damage to the car was severe, resulting in a repair bill that exceeded $6,000.00 and loss of use of the car for nearly two months. The total amount of damages is, as yet, unkown.

The best way to describe this is frivolous.

Source:

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British Justice, Part 2

I guess I’m just too much of a law-and-order right winger. This story is even more disgusting than the teenagers who terrorized the family. A man in Great Britain lost his temper with a 22 month old girl he was babysitting because she had an accident while being potty trained.

So, of course, he turned on the tap until the water was 96 degrees celsius, and held her under it. The girl was burned over 32 percent of her body. She almost died, and has had 13 operations over the last six months.

The man received a 6 year jail sentence. An improvement over the hooligants who received such mild sentences for terrorizing that family, but come on — somebody who would stick a toddler under near-boiling water from a tap needs to spend at least 10 to 15 years in jail. That’s as good a demonstration as I can think of that this person is incapable of living in society.

British Justice

How the hell does this happen? Two 17-year olds and an 18-year old in Great Britain target a family because they know the mother and father have learning disabilities and committ a series of crimes so disgusting (warning, this is genuinely disgusting even though no one was killed) that the trial judge describes it this way,

It is quite beyond the pale of normal understanding. I have many years of experience on the bench and criminal bar and although I have been concerned in more serious cases such as murder, I cannot remember any quite so revolting and degrading as this one.

Which means, of course, that rather than through the book at these two, one of them just had his sentence reduced from 24 months to 18 months. Almost as disgusting as the crime.

The European press often lambastes the United States for treating violent minors as if they were adults. Better to do that, though, than see this sort of monster back on the streets after only 18 months. No wonder crime is such a problem in Great Britain these days.

The Role of the Barcode in Human Progress

The BBC has fascinating account of the role of the humble barcode in human progress. The barcode made its debut 25 years ago in Great Britain — just a year after the first bar code appeared in the United States.

The barcode is ubiquitous today and, as the BBC documents, has revolutionized retail stores. For example, the BBC interviews a consultant to supermarket chains who notes that in the early 1970s the average store only stocked a couple thousand different product lines. Today the average supermarket in Great Britain stocks 25,000 different product lines. The efficiencies gained by using bar codes for pricing changes and inventory made it possible to dramatically expand the goods that stores could profitably sell.

It is clear from the article that, at least in Great Britain, they also led to the much-demonized consolidation of supermarkets and the emergence of enormous chain stores. The improvements in supply chain management that barcodes allowed also increased the economies of scale and allowed giant supermarkets to pass on the savings to their customers.

Barcodes are also used in other businesses, including to track raw materials and products in factory settings. The BBC notes that experiments are under way to use radio tags that have pricing and other information embedded so that a box of corn flakes can ring itself up at the register automatically. There are also experiments under way to use small barcodes to tag produce and similar goods.

Ah, the sweet smell of progress.

Source:

In praise of the bar code. Mark Ward, BBC News, February 16, 2002.

QuickPad Pro Works as a Portable, Cheap Word Processor

I am typing this review on my QuickPad Pro, which, like the AlphaSmart, is a portable dedicated word processor (though it has limited spreadsheet and personal information manager software). On the one hand, the QuickPad Pro is sort of a technological throwback, but on the other hand, it performs its main task well.

The QuickPad Pro weighs in at about 1.5 pounds and is about the size of a piece of 8 1/2 by 11″ paper. It runs off four AA batteries, which should get you through 100 or more hours (I’ve had mine for several weeks and am still on my first set of batteries). The cost is a mere $329 plus shipping.

The keyboard is a standard laptop-sized that is comfortable — the only downside is the half-sized space bar key, which takes some getting used to.

The screen is a non-backlit LCD that supports two separate text modes: 16 lines x 60 characters or 8 lines x 60 characters. This alone is a huge advance over the leader in these sorts of machines, the AlphaSmart. I eventually stopped using my AlphaSmart because the 4 line x 40 character screen was far too limiting. The QuickPad Pro’s screen makes it possible to edit long documents that would be far more difficult to do with something like the AlphaSmart.

The screen’s contrast can be adjusted somewhat to compensate for different lighting conditions, though without any backlighting, you need to have good lighting for it to work.

The QuickPad Pro has another feature that dramatically increases its usefulness compared to its competitors — a Compact Flash slot. I plugged a 64MB CF card into mine and used it to store all of my files. This also makes it possible to use the QuickPad Pro for writing/editing large projects. For example, I’ve copied the draft of the book I’m writing onto the CF card.

However, the one drawback to using a CF card is that when a card is in the slot, it sticks out about half an inch. This makes it difficult to store the QuickPad Pro with the CF card installed, requiring users to remove the card when storing the unit in its case. A better design would have used a CF slot with an ejection mechanism so the card could have been recessed entirely within the unit.

There are several ways to get data from the QuickPad Pro to a PC. I primarily use the CF card — just insert the card into a CF reader attached to a computer and copy the files.

Additionally, files can be transferred using USB, a free serial port, or via the QuickPad Pro’s built-in infrared transmitter. The unit ships with an infrared receiver that can be attached to PCs that works relatively well, if somewhat slow.

There are some odd oversights with the QuickPad Pro. The most inexplicable is that there is no built-in spell check function. Even the AlphaSmart offered a limited spell-checking function, and its absence in the QuickPad Pro is a major oversight.

There is also no way to do a word count on a document — a feature I’ve always found helpful. Saving documents has a major possible “gotcha.” When the user is editing a document or typing, those changes are not being saved automatically — lose power, and you also lose any changes.

Unfortunately, there’s also no way to save a document and continue editing it. To save a document, the user has to press “Escape,” which brings up an odd menu asking the user whether or not the document should be saved. If the user types “Y,” the changes are saved, but press “N” or mistakenly hit “Escape” again, and all changes are lost. There needs to be a way to save a document while editing it, and the user should be required to type “N” to cancel saving changes — users are simply too likely to mistakenly press “Escape” twice.

Finally, the battery compartment was not very user friendly. The battery compartment requires using a coin to open, which is odd given that even at a couple of hundred hours per set of batteries, even moderate users are likely to replace the batteries several times a year — having to pop the battery compartment is extremely inconvenient compared to the AlphaSmart’s elegant battery compartment.

However, none of these problems detracts from the fact that the QuickPad Pro is hands down the best sort of portable word processor since the Tandy 100. It is light enough that I can throw it in my backpack and not know it is there. And since I don’t have to put up with long boot times or worries about having the system shut down after just a couple of hours, I get a lot more writing done than I ever tend to do with my laptop.

For people who are looking for a cheap alternative to a laptop for basic writing tasks, I cannot recommend the QuickPad Pro highly enough.

PETA: Laughter Stresses Out Cows

On Feb. 12 I wrote about People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals complaining about a game of cow bingo organized as a fundraiser by students at Florida Southern College. A large field was marked off into a grid, and prizes awarded based on where the cow heeded the call of nature. PETA claimed that the cow was fed laxatives, a claim with Florida Southern College denied. Now, PETA is back for round 2 with FSC.

PETA’s Amy Rhodes complains that, “All they [FSC] did was deny the cow was fed laxatives. And they quoted [to the effect that the game was not cruel] someone who wasn’t even there .”

Hmmm. PETA complains that the cow was fed laxatives and when FSC denies that, PETA whines, “is that all you’ve got.” Rhodes should either put up or shut up by providing some sort of evidence that FSC is wrong on this point.

As to whether or not having a crowd watch a cow wander around a field is cruel or not, Rhodes maintains that it is, claiming her initial complaints were misunderstood. According to Rhodes,

I was not talking about the cow being embarrassed. That’s just silly, but I would assume that she was stressed in that situation. … I am told there were a hundred people laughing at (the cow), some children. You don’t teach children to ridicule animals or degrade them because they may do the same to people. It’s a dangerous message to send to children.

Perhaps she has a point — it might be better to laugh at and ridicule Rhodes for offering up such a ludicrous argument. It’s interesting, though, that Rhodes criticizes FSC for asking a local SPCA official who wasn’t at the event about whether or not it was cruel, but then herself launches into an argument prefaced by “I would assume that she was stressed.” What a convenient sort of hypocrisy that is.

I would assume in that situation that Rhodes doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Source:

PETA still critical of college’s use of a cow. Erik Ortiz, The Lakeland Ledger (Florida), February 14, 2002.