Weird News Stories part2

[ManifestedISO]

Astonishing display of control, right there. A Marine pilot, it's worth noting.  

[Agiel]

US Navy Harrier Pilot lands with no nose landing gear, placing the nose cone on a customized stool on the USS Bataan carrier. Crazy stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D10-sn_LYbA

 

Damn was about to post this myself.

 

Though a more detailed account:

 

[Raithe]

io9 - Psychologists find that nice people are more likely to hurt you...

 

 

People who are agreeable are also more likely to make destructive choices, if they think doing so will help them conform to social expectations. That's the finding of psychologists, who suggest that disagreeable, ornery people may be more helpful than we think.

 

Researchers recently conducted a version of Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments, where people were asked by doctors to "shock" others until they died. Only later did they discover they people they'd "killed" were just actors. A surprising number of otherwise kindly people "killed" others, just because they'd been given orders.

In revisiting the experiment, researchers have found evidence that agreeable people will often choose to do destructive things because they don't want to upset anyone by disagreeing with direct orders.

 

Writes Kenneth Worthy at Psychology Today:

People with more agreeable, conscientious personalities are more likely to make harmful choices. In these new obedience experiments, people with more social graces were the ones who complied with the experimenter's wishes and delivered electric shocks they believed could harm an innocent person. By contrast, people with more contrarian, less agreeable personalities were more likely to refuse to hurt other people when told to do so.

 

This probably explains why Hulk is always saving the world.

Edited June 29, 2014 by Raithe

[ManifestedISO]

 

 

Fascinating bit of psychology, there. He says the moment the aircraft touched down, he "forgot" how to turn off the engines. Overcome with relief, I imagine, but it's interesting how, even after performing a complex task over and over again ... the one time a critical variable is introduced, meeting that challenge can temporarily erase whatever non-critical steps follow the event horizon. 

 

Anyway, well done, Captain. Anyone know what sort of decoration this calls for ... besides staying alive and not destroying the aircraft and ship. 

[Raithe]

BBC News - Authors Cosplaying as their favourite childhood characters...

 

 

 

Photographer Cambridge Jones has collaborated with The Story Museum for its latest exhibition which celebrates childhood story heroes and sees well-known authors dress up as their favourite literary characters. When the The Story Museum approached Cambridge Jones to take pictures for its 26 Characters exhibition, the photographer wanted images that visitors would actually stop and look at.

 

"Just taking a bunch of authors isn't going to make people interested - and authors aren't necessarily outgoing people," he says. "So I thought what if we gave them permission to have fun by asking them who their favourite character from childhood was and let their imagination run free."

 

With the help of costumes from the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre, the resulting exhibit features 26 writers portraying a collection of rogues, rascals, witches and wild things.

 

Each one features in their own character-themed interactive space, accompanied with audio of the authors reading extracts from their books and interviewed about their chosen character:

 

Philip Pullman as Long John Silver from Treasure Island

One of the most exciting aspects of working on this project for The Story Museum has been the transformative nature of the process. Without fail, we take erudite and grown-up writers and turn them into young children again.

In Philip's case this was even more pronounced than normal. He had not been well and yet valiantly came to the shoot anyway. It was clearly an effort for him, even to get up the many flights of stairs. Yet after a little make-up and a costume, we had one of the most agile, loud and spirited Long John Silvers you are ever likely to meet.

 

Neil Gaiman as Badger from Wind in The Willows

It never struck me as one of the best ideas - Neil Gaiman as Badger. A medieval swashbuckling hero maybe, or as a dark overlord from another time zone, perhaps. Or even the lead singer in a very cool band....but Badger from Wind In The Willows?!

And then an odd thing happened: he just started to become Badger - literally in front of my eyes. With wonderfully simple make-up and exquisite robes, he started to move like Badger, he started to smile like Badger, he even started to talk as I imagine Badger talks. When we finally went on set and gave him his chair and book, he just WAS Badger.

 

Francesca Simon and Stephen Butler as The Queen of Hearts and The Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland

I drove Francesca and Stephen from London to Oxford for the shoot, which was a good thing because by the time we got there, there wasn't much we didn't know about each other and even less we were not prepared to do in front of each other - which, when you are planning to shoot The Queen of Hearts and The Mad Hatter, is incredibly helpful.

They were impeccable, inspired, fun, spontaneous and, well, just great. Stephen was just about to hand in his latest book to his publisher and had been on stage until late the night before, and Francesca - well, I was just so struck by her beauty when she lifted her hair and put on the robes... stunning.

 

Anthony Horowitz as Jekyll and Hyde

There are people who instinctively value and appreciate photography and there are those that regard it as a necessary evil. I would hazard a guess that Anthony is in the latter camp. If this is true, then we compounded the ordeal by providing a costume that was the wrong size.

Somehow, with creative zeal and no small effort on Anthony's part, we managed, nevertheless, to produce one of my favourite shoots in the series. I drove Anthony to the station, and he seemed a touch bemused that someone could earn a living from photography, but all that melted into insignificance once we realised we were both learning Greek and had a profound love of all things Hellas!

 

Benjamin Zephaniah as Anansi the spider

I have worked with Benjamin several times in my career. Once when I was a student and we wanted him on the cover of our student magazine Isis (he was very cool and living with his dub band in Handsworth) with all the requisite Rasta accoutrements. Then again in East London when he was suffering greatly from racist attacks and couldn't even reveal his address to anyone for fear of such an attack.

I arrived at the door of his university office and see Professor Benjamin Zephaniah written in smart letters on the door. "You've come up in the world" I said teasingly, but was greeted with a slightly worried: "Have I… I hope not". This is a man who was put amongst us to enlighten and help others - not to rise above them. My flattery was wasted if not confusing. And what a spider he makes!

 

Malorie Blackman as the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz

One of the many fascinating components of this lovely job has been the response of my own children to the different authors I intermittently disappear off to create portraits with.

Sometimes they appear unmoved by some of the greatest names in modern literature. Sometimes they work out days later that it was the author of one of their favourite books ("Daddy you could have told me you were photographing them!"). And sometimes it's Malorie Blackman ("OH MY GOD - YOU ARE PHOTOGRAPHING MALORIE BLACKMAN - CAN I COME!"). They could not - which is a shame because we had such fun!

 

Michael Morpurgo as Magwitch from Great Expectations

Like several of our (male) authors, Michael was not an avid reader when young. He was explaining to me he found books quite hard work to get through and they lacked the appeal of playing in the outdoors with other kids.

This seems interesting to me on two levels: firstly, it is of course no accident that The Story Museum has encased its mission in stories rather than books, taking the story out of the realm of "classroom" and "homework" and putting it firmly in the realm of imagination and fun.

Secondly that one of the most successful story tellers of our age is as empowered and fuelled by his imagination from childhood playing as he is from a scholastic digestion of letters and punctuation.

 

Terry Jones as Rupert the Bear

Terry has a house near where I grew up in Wales, but he also lives in a secret location in London town which is both central and in the countryside simultaneously. I'd been there before but forgotten how perfect it would be for Rupert the Bear - a character Terry loves deeply and always has.

We started with a studio set-up and it quickly became clear that Terry had somehow imbibed the movement of Rupert the Bear perfectly. He could move and take up stances exactly as Rupert does in all those annuals of yesteryear. So we quickly abandoned the studio and went out into the London countryside to capture Rupert behind trees, bouncing through the grass and generally just Ruperting about.

 

Terry Pratchett as Just William

Here's the thing: Terry is not a writer - he doesn't write anymore. His condition means he effectively speaks the word into text with [his assistant] Rob's help. In a funny way, I think that has freed his imagination even more and all around him are details and objects from other worlds - maps of unknown kingdoms or books that light up.

Terry was on great form that day and had vivid memories of childhood and the teacher who said he would never become anything….! We then all went to the local pub for a fine lunch and chat. Fond memories of fond memories.

 

Holly Smale as the White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia

It was Holly's birthday when we met and she had very kindly agreed to do the shoot before going on to celebrate later in the day.

That is all I can tell you! She cast a spell on me from the moment that she put on her White Queen costume that left me powerless and speechless, such was her power and beauty. It's a miracle we got any photos out of the session at all. I was truly mesmerised.

 

 

 

 

[Agiel]

 

 

 

Fascinating bit of psychology, there. He says the moment the aircraft touched down, he "forgot" how to turn off the engines. Overcome with relief, I imagine, but it's interesting how, even after performing a complex task over and over again ... the one time a critical variable is introduced, meeting that challenge can temporarily erase whatever non-critical steps follow the event horizon. 

 

Anyway, well done, Captain. Anyone know what sort of decoration this calls for ... besides staying alive and not destroying the aircraft and ship. 

 

 

Well I think that aviator could tell that story to any woman he wanted in a bar and she'd undress for him right then and there. I'd say that's almost as good as a Congressional Medal of Honour

Edited July 1, 2014 by Agiel

[ShadySands]

Man sets himself alight in protest over Japan’s move to end pacifism

A man drank petrol and set himself on fire in one of the busiest parts of central Tokyo today in protest against the Japanese government’s plans to change the country’s pacifist defence policy.

 

The unidentified man, who appeared to be in his fifties or sixties, was quickly extinguished by firemen and taken to hospital, where his condition was unknown. The self-immolation was the most dramatic protest so far against continuing efforts by the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to abandon some of Japan’s long established pacifist principles

Edited July 1, 2014 by ShadySands

[ShadySands]

Totally unrelated

 

Attractive felon receives modeling offer

 

and 

 

Are We Setting Unrealistic Standards Of Beauty For Our Felons?   (I love Clickhole)

 

Edited July 1, 2014 by ShadySands

[JadedWolf]

A Croatian court fired its cleaning lady because she tried to commit suicide during working hours instead of cleaning.

 

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/140703/croatian-court-fires-cleaner-over-suicide-bid

 

... That's really caring of them.

[Agiel]

Netherlands deems their traditional take on Christmas legend to be racist:

 

https://news.vice.com/article/the-netherlands-has-decided-traditional-black-face-is-racist

 

For those who are unfamiliar with the Dutch version:

 

http://youtu.be/NYdpte1W0vk

[Raithe]

NSA targets the privacy conscious

 

 

 

The investigation discloses the following:

 

• Two servers in Germany - in Berlin and Nuremberg - are under surveillance by the NSA.
• 
  
• Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search. Not only are German privacy software users tracked, but the source code shows that privacy software users worldwide are tracked by the NSA.
• 
  
• Among the NSA's targets is the Tor network funded primarily by the US government to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states.
• 
  
•  The XKeyscore rules reveal that the NSA tracks all connections to a server that hosts part of an anonymous email service at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It also records details about visits to a popular internet journal for Linux operating system users called "the Linux Journal - the Original Magazine of the Linux Community", and calls it an "extremist forum".
• 
  

 

 

For those interested, the full article is a lot longer, that's just the header of it all..

[Raithe]

Mind Hacks - A Spooks Guide to the Psychology of Deception

 

 

 

Last February, a file from the Edward Snowden leaks was released from a 2012 GCHQ presentation called ‘The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations’. It describes the ‘Online Covert Action Accreditation’ course which draws heavily on the psychology of influence and persuasion. This post will look at how they’re piecing together the science that forms the basis for these online operations.

 

The work seems to have been put together by GCHQ’s Human Science Operations Cell which presumably exists as an internal consultancy to allow the relevant cognitive and social sciences to be applied to practical covert operations.

 

One of the early slides lists the subjects the HSOC draws on which stretch from psychology to political science to neuroscience. At the current time, neuroscience has nothing practical to contribute, so they’re clearly blowing their neurological trumpets to sound a bit more high-tech but it’s worth noting the breadth of disciplines they draw on meaning they’ve got a wide and comprehensive vision of human behaviour from the micro to the macro.

 

However, one of the key slides has a road map of how everything fits together. It’s shown below and it’s quite dense so you can click the image below if you want a larger version.

 

One of the first thing that stands out if the ad-hoc-ness of their approach. They’ve appropriated a patchwork of relevant theories as a guide to practice with nothing being drawn from their own data.

 

You can see the main areas they’re drawing from – which includes profiling cultures and personality, research on persuasion, cognitive biases and scams, research on the psychology of stage magic, and organisational psychology or management science more generally.
 

 

Perhaps the weakest elements here are the cultural and personality profiling using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and a Big Five personality traits. The trouble is that while these are statistically reliable on the group level they predict very little on the individual level because the effects are swamped by individual variation.

This means it may be more useful in the domain of PSYOPS, which attempts to influence groups, rather than targeting individuals.

....

 

 

 

The full article expands on it all, for those with an interest...

[ShadySands]

Jesse Ventura in court to fight claims made by ‘America’s deadliest sniper’

 

I understand wanting to clear your name but I don't see what he hopes to accomplish since the guy who made the claims is dead

[Raithe]

io9 - This rule about Drone Surveillance is absurd
 
 

Right now, in the United States, law enforcement can put you under drone surveillance without a warrant — as long as the drone never lands on your property. What the hell is going on here? How can this be legal? First of all, let me assure you that this kind of surveillance is going on right now. Law enforcement can choose to watch you with a drone, and they don't have to get permission from a judge (AKA a warrant) to do it.
 
The FBI recently sent a letter detailing their drone surveillance practices to Senator Rand Paul. Paul wanted to know how the agency justified using drones in this way under current privacy law. The FBI's Stephen D. Kelly replied that the FBI believes that people watched by drones do not have "reasonable expectation of privacy" because "there is no physical trespass involved." So if a drone hovers quietly above your backyard, filming everything you do, it's just fine — because it never actually touched your personal property.


Privacy as Trespass


This disturbing little rule comes to you via a very literal interpretation of U.S. privacy laws. Most of our laws associate violation of privacy with trespassing. It makes sense, when you think about it. For most of U.S. history, a person had to walk onto your property or search your person into order to gain access to your private stuff. But over the past couple of decades, trespass has started to seem like a metaphor for privacy that's "from the past," as Roy on The IT Crowd would say.
 
In fact, "trespass" is a terrible way to think about privacy violation, according to Parker Higgins, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Technologies like drones make it obvious that FBI agents can peep into your windows without walking into your backyard. "It was once a fact that trespass served as a good proxy for [privacy], Higgins told io9. "Increasingly we see examples that that proxy has failed."
 
Higgins thinks the drone rule is a perfect example of this failure. "Whether the drone touches down or not is irrelevant to most people," he said. "They're not offended that it touched down. They're offended that it's invading their privacy."


The Third Party Doctrine


But how did we even reach this point of absurdity, where the FBI can argue that they don't need a court's permission to look inside your windows because they aren't landing on your lawn to do it?
 
In their letter to Paul, the FBI rep mentions a famous Supreme Court decision from 1979 called Smith v. Maryland, which provided the foundation for what lawyers today often call the "third party doctrine." In that case, a man named Smith had robbed a woman and then proceeded to stalk her and make threatening phone calls. The police nabbed him by asking the phone company to tell them what numbers their suspect had called. It turned out that Smith had been calling the victim repeatedly, and they were able to make the arrest.
 
Smith argued that his privacy had been violated when the police asked the phone company to furnish them with what he believed were his "private" phone records. The court wasn't buying it. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy, the argued, because he'd turned that information over to the phone company. It wasn't on his property, and it wasn't on his person. So it wasn't private. In their decision, one justice wrote that "this Court consistently has held that a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."
 
Today, the FBI is able to use this idea to justify their unwarranted drone surveillance because the court ruled that people should expect less privacy protection for anything that isn't on their bodies or in their homes. The drone spies are just the most extreme example of how this works.
 
Mostly, the third party doctrine has become influential in recent years because courts are grappling with so many cases where people are storing what they consider private information with third parties. Think about your web mail, Skype conversations, Swarm check-ins, or privacy-locked Instagram photos. Those are all stored with third parties, and until recently a law enforcement officer could take a look at most of them without a warrant.
 
"We've got this concept of personal space being private, but it's not limited to your space anymore," explains Higgins. "Your space extends via high frequency signals to servers and clouds. Law enforcement recognizes this. That's why they want this information."


What Do You Expect to Be Private?

One of the bedrock ideas that shapes U.S. citizens' idea of privacy comes from the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects citizens from "unreasonable searches" by the government. The Amendment also says that a warrant should be issued to law enforcement only after they have established "probable cause." It wasn't until 1967 that the Supreme Court reinterpreted this Amendment to mean that people should be guaranteed "a reasonable expectation of privacy" even outside their homes.
 
When it comes to understanding privacy, many courts are still struggling to figure out what "reasonable expectation of privacy" means in a world of drones and digital archives.
 
But over the last few years, a new definition of privacy has begun to emerge. A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued a crucial decision in Riley v. California which will require law enforcement officers to get a warrant before searching people's cell phones for everything from text messages to GPS data. This extends our "reasonable expectation" of what's private to information stored with the phone company, with Google, or in your Lyft app. It also extends our protection from "unreasonable searches" from government.
 
Another landmark case in this area is U.S. v. Jones, a 2012 decision where the Supreme Court ruled that putting a GPS tracker on somebody's car is in fact a "search." Of course we can't reasonably expect that we are in private when we're driving down the street. But observing a car as it passes by is very different from attaching a device to it and following the car's every movement. At that point, the GPS device is being used to tail a suspect, and that requires a warrant.
 
But courts aren't the only institutions preventing us from having the privacy we reasonably expect. There is also a digital divide when it comes to how we think about privacy. People who grew up socializing online don't understand privacy in the same way as people who didn't. As danah boyd explains in her indispensable book about online youth culture, It's Complicated, today's teens use social media to supplement real-life friendships. Conversations that high schoolers in the 1980s would have had in whispers behind cupped hands are now happening on Snapchat and Facebook.
 
So it's not that privacy has disappeared among young people; it's that our expectations about it are changing. If there's an entire generation growing up that views a Snapchat comment as private, then that's the way the law should treat it. Just because we have the technology to eavesdrop on people — whether online or in the street — doesn't mean we should be allowed to use it as evidence in court. One might say the same thing about the unreasonable searches that the NSA was doing before Edward Snowden blew the whistle.
 
"We need to reconceptualize privacy, but that's hard," said Higgins. "We can expect that there might be a few more really terrible outcomes in the short and medium term before we understand that the old framework we had is legal, but not in line with norms and expectations. I hope we eventually get there."

[Mor]

Right now, in the United States, law enforcement can put you under drone surveillance without a warrant — as long as the drone never lands on your property. What the hell is going on here? How can this be legal? First of all, let me assure you that this kind of surveillance is going on right now. Law enforcement can choose to watch you with a drone, and they don't have to get permission from a judge (AKA a warrant) to do it.

[..]

I agree its a loop hole, but for the time being, before any of ya paranoia kicks in, that some immature kid in uniform getting off by spying on you butnaked having sex in the yard. I'd like to note, that they are likely to answer to a higher authority then Judge, and I don't mean GOD, but the elite fighters from accounting and horrors of s***load of bureaucracy in between At least I assume that you guys in the US are there, with all the budget cuts I have been hearing about.

 

 

Jesse Ventura in court to fight claims made by ‘America’s deadliest sniper’

 

I understand wanting to clear your name but I don't see what he hopes to accomplish since the guy who made the claims is dead

As always greed? Its a best-selling book, if he wins he can collect a pay check... That or those alleged remarks closed doors for him, which he needs to be open. Edited July 11, 2014 by Mor

[Hiro Protagonist]

Woman slept next to mother's corpse for three years

 

I've heard of people never wanting to let loved ones go but this is ridiculous.

[Amentep]

 

Jesse Ventura in court to fight claims made by ‘America’s deadliest sniper’

 

I understand wanting to clear your name but I don't see what he hopes to accomplish since the guy who made the claims is dead

As always greed? Its a best-selling book, if he wins he can collect a pay check... That or those alleged remarks closed doors for him, which he needs to be open.

 

As I understand it, he filed the lawsuit while Kyle was still alive; death doesn't stop a lawsuit, it just means a loss would effect the estate.

[Raithe]

For the amusement value..

 

io9 - Creationists help Climate Change Deniers attack US Science Education

 

 

The Heartland Institute, a prominent, Chicago-based organization opposing climate science, has teamed up with the creationist Discovery Institute to launch a smear campaign against a group promoting the nationwide adoption of updated science education guidelines.

 

The guidelines in question are the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), adopted so far by 11 states and the District of Columbia. The National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science—working with 26 state governments—developed the NGSS to update K-12 science education in schools for the first time since 1998.

 

But, because the NGSS includes material on evolution and how humans are causing climate change, it has faced opposition in some states. Most recently, the Wyoming legislature became the first in the U.S. to reject the NGSS. Lessons on climate change, lawmakers said, would brainwash kids against the state's coal and oil industries.

 

The non-profit National Center for Science Education (NCSE)—whose members include thousands of teachers and scientists—provides information and advice to defend quality science education at local, state, and national levels. And its advocacy on behalf of the NGSS has made it a target for both young-earth creationists and climate change deniers.

 

And thus, a partnership is blossoming. Yesterday, the main article on the Heartland Institute website is written by the Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin, whose ignorance of science is the stuff of legends.

His article is the first in a two-part column on "how the National Center for Science Education is targeting the nation's schools to enforce a mythical consensus on global warming alarmism."

 

The column trots out the popular young-earth creationist tropes, such as claims of censorship:

 

Critics believe that, by seeking to put a lid on scientific controversies, NCSE actually serves as an impediment to science education—such that many school systems and individual teachers refrain from teaching about the topics extensively, or avoid the topics entirely, in order to avoid the wrath of "consensus" enforcers. As a result, the nation's schoolchildren learn neither the facts underlying the theories and counter-theories, nor the reasoning processes by which real science separates fact from fiction….NCSE has attempted not to promote good science education but to censor views with which it disagrees.

And, Luskin characterizes this as "propagandizing kids," comparing the new education standards to racist beliefs:

 

Indoctrination in the schools is nothing new. During the lead-up to Prohibition, supporters of a ban on alcoholic beverages planted propaganda in textbooks declaring that drinking alcohol could cause a person to combust spontaneously in blue flame. In the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925, the American Civil Liberties Union defended the use in a classroom of the book A Civic Biology, which taught evolution but also white supremacy and eugenics (the alleged need to eliminate "parasitic" people from the population). In 1957, at a key point in the Civil Rights movement, the textbook Alabama History for Schools declared that slavery had been beneficial, "the earliest form of social security."

And, he explains, the National Center for Science Education is part of an elitist, scientific cabal:

 

NCSE is the beneficiary of grassroots activism on the part of scientists, educators, and others who support its mission. But much of its support comes from powerful groups that are pillars of the political establishment and the scientific-technological elite. (President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned of the danger "that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.")

Indeed, NCSE has been collaboratively envisioned, created, and supported financially by elite establishment groups, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the National Science Teachers Association, the National Science Foundation, and many other national educational and scientific (or scientist-activist) organizations.

 

All of this is in keeping with the long-term strategy of the Heartland Institute. Two years ago, leaked documents revealed its plans to promote a science curriculum for schools that would raise doubts about human-caused climate change. They even discussed strategies for "dissuading teachers from teaching science." I'll be looking forward to seeing what Luskin has to say in the second part of his column.

 

[Volourn]

http://www.nba.com/2014/news/07/11/lebron-james-goes-back-to-cavs.ap/index.html

[Keyrock]

So, CNN decided to interview Captain Jack Sparrow:

 

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/07/11/exp-erin-intv-vine-alix-catherine-tichelman-boyfriend-death.cnn.html

 

To the best of my knowledge, this was not a very poorly timed April Fools joke and is a real thing that happened and completely serious.  Also, the whole Google exec dying by heroin overdose is a weird story in itself.

[ShadySands]

 

 

Jesse Ventura in court to fight claims made by ‘America’s deadliest sniper’

 

I understand wanting to clear your name but I don't see what he hopes to accomplish since the guy who made the claims is dead

As always greed? Its a best-selling book, if he wins he can collect a pay check... That or those alleged remarks closed doors for him, which he needs to be open.

As I understand it, he filed the lawsuit while Kyle was still alive; death doesn't stop a lawsuit, it just means a loss would effect the estate.

Yeah, the lawsuit started before Kyle was killed but there was some speculation that Ventura would drop it since he didn't seem to have his heart in it in the first place since rumors were that his SEAL/UDT buddies demanded he defend himself

[ShadySands]

Restaurant Watches Old Surveillance And Shares Shocking Results On Craigslist

A busy NYC restaurant kept getting bad reviews for slow service, so they hired a firm to investigate. When they compared footage from 2004 to footage from 2014, they made some pretty startling discoveries. So shocking, in fact, that they ranted about it on Craigslist!

 

 

Here's the transcription:

We are a popular restaurant for both locals and tourists alike. Having been in business for many years, we noticed that although the number of customers we serve on a daily basis is almost the same today as it was 10 years ago, the service just seems super slow even though we added more staff and cut back on the menu items...

 

One of the most common complaints on review sites against us and many restaurants in the area is that the service was slow and/or they needed to wait a bit long for a table. 

 

We decided to hire a firm to help us solve this mystery, and naturally the first thing they blamed it on was that the employees need more training and that maybe the kitchen staff is just not up to the task of serving that many customers. 

 

Like most restaurants in NYC we have a surveillance system, and unlike today where it's a digital system, 10 years ago we still used special high capacity tapes to record all activity. At any given time we had 4 special Sony systems recording multiple cameras. We would store the footage for 90 days just in case we needed it for something.

 

The firm we hired suggested we locate some of the older tapes and analyze how the staff behaved 10 years ago versus how they behave now. We went down to our storage room but we couldn't find any tapes at all. 

 

We did find the recording devices, and luckily for us, each device has 1 tape in it that we simply never removed when we upgraded to the new digital system!

 

The date stamp on the old footage was Thursday July 1, 2004. The restaurant was very busy that day. We loaded up the footage on a large monitor, and next to it on a separate monitor loaded up the footage of Thursday July 3 2014, with roughly the same amount of customers as ten years before.

 

I will quickly outline the findings. We carefully looked at over 45 transactions in order to determine the data below:

 

2004:

 

Customers walk in.

 

They gets seated and are given menus, out of 45 customers 3 request to be seated elsewhere.

 

Customers on average spend 8 minutes before closing the menu to show they are ready to order.

 

Waiters shows up almost instantly takes the order.

 

Appetizers are fired within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take longer.

 

Out of 45 customers 2 sent items back.

 

Waiters keep an eye out for their tables so they can respond quickly if the customer needs something.

 

After guests are done, the check delivered, and within 5 minutes they leave.

 

Average time from start to finish: 1:05

 

2014:

Customers walk in.

 

Customers get seated and is given menus, out of 45 customers 18 requested to be seated elsewhere.

 

Before even opening the menu they take their phones out, some are taking photos while others are simply doing something else on their phone (sorry we have no clue what they are doing and do not monitor customer WIFI activity).

 

7 out of the 45 customers had waiters come over right away, they showed them something on their phone and spent an average of 5 minutes of the waiter's time. Given this is recent footage, we asked the waiters about this and they explained those customers had a problem connecting to the WIFI and demanded the waiters try to help them.

 

Finally the waiters are walking over to the table to see what the customers would like to order. The majority have not even opened the menu and ask the waiter to wait a bit.

 

Customer opens the menu, places their hands holding their phones on top of it and continue doing whatever on their phone.

 

Waiter returns to see if they are ready to order or have any questions. The customer asks for more time.

 

Finally they are ready to order.

 

Total average time from when the customer was seated until they placed their order 21 minutes.

 

Food starts getting delivered within 6 minutes, obviously the more complex items take way longer.

 

26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food.

 

14 out of 45 customers take pictures of each other with the food in front of them or as they are eating the food. This takes on average another 4 minutes as they must review and sometimes retake the photo.

 

9 out of 45 customers sent their food back to reheat. Obviously if they didn't pause to do whatever on their phone the food wouldn't have gotten cold.

 

27 out of 45 customers asked their waiter to take a group photo. 14 of those requested the waiter retake the photo as they were not pleased with the first photo. On average this entire process between the chit chatting and reviewing the photo taken added another 5 minutes and obviously caused the waiter not to be able to take care of other tables he/she was serving.

 

Given in most cases the customers are constantly busy on their phones it took an average of 20 minutes more from when they were done eating until they requested a check. Furthermore once the check was delivered it took 15 minutes longer than 10 years ago for them to pay and leave.

 

8 out of 45 customers bumped into other customers or in one case a waiter (texting while walking) as they were either walking in or out of the Restaurant. 

 

Average time from start to finish: 1:55

 

We are grateful for everyone who comes into our restaurant, after all there are so many choices out there. But can you please be a bit more considerate?

 

This sounds like my wife. I walk in and look at the menu and know what I want right away and the waiter usually has to come back a few times before my wife even looks at the menu

 

 

EDIT: I always get an extra space before my quotes that isn't there when I'm typing it and I have to go in and edit it out

Edited July 14, 2014 by ShadySands

[Gfted1]

German Government Is Using Typewriters to Avoid the NSA's Gaze.

 

[Calax]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/07/15/six-californias-tim-draper/12661161/

 

Somebody is gonna try to split up California.

[ShadySands]

Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative