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I'm singing in the rain.

At 12/11/14 04:42 PM, GoodLuckTurtle wrote:

I never said that that specific shooting was wrong but mentioned it because it's a big transition from somebody who was doing his job well to somebody who wasn't

I may have come off as a bit abrasive on that front, but it wasn't targeted at you in any way.
I just wanted to make it clear that this was in no way a bad thing, no matter one's personal stance on police force usage and this particular case.

At 12/11/14 04:12 PM, GoodLuckTurtle wrote:

First off, before we even start on this case, let's get something straight:

Groubert was also involved in shooting and wounding a crime suspect who fired shots on his fellow officers a few years ago. He was awarded by his department for what they considered brave actions that day.

If somebody starts shooting on you and you shoot them, that's not bad in any way. That's self defense, the oldest and arguably greatest right of every human being on this planet.
If he manages to be in that and only wounds the suspect without going full-on Rambo mode with a small baby's weight of adrenaline pumping everywhere, that's pretty impressive in my book.
That aside...

Do you think Groubert is guilty of aggravated assault and battery, or of a different charge, or was he right to have shot Levar Jones, as shown in the video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBUUO_VFYMs

I'm not a lawyer or a judge, so I honestly can't tell whether he's crossed the line. I don't know the law well enough to be able to say whether he was acting within his rights as a police officer or if he's crossed it.
With that in mind: There's no doubt that he made a shitty call at the moment. He lost his cool, maybe because there was some unresolved trauma from the previously mentioned incident, and he ended up shooting a man who seems extremely unlikely to have been breaking any laws at that time. If he'd kept his cool for a fraction of a second longer, nothing would have happened.
What people often forget, however, is one of the first things you learn in any profession involving firearms: It's your safety first. If someone looks like they're going for a gun, shoot first. I'm not saying I think it looks like the person is diving for his gun, but if the officer was in some way still affected by the previous incident, HE might believe that. And when the police are in danger or believe themselves to be so, what they're trained to do, often, is the magdump.
It's what we see here (to some extent), and what happened with Mike Brown earlier. It looks and sounds crazy, but it is arguably the most effective way of making sure a real criminal with violent or lethal intent doesn't hurt or kill you.
Was it the right call to make in this case? I don't think a lot of people would honestly believe that. Drawing your own gun (or taser if available) may well be justified, but that's not what happened here.
Was it across the line for a police officer? Should he have been better able to make that call? I'd certainly hope so, although the fact that this was apparently the first time he's had to use his gun in years points to something else being at work.
If it comes to a trial, it'll take an impressive defense attorney to get him off the hook, but whether it goes that far... I honestly can't say.

Well I joined the army because of a girl (stupid idea, I know), so I'd say on a net they hardened me up big time.

Thank God that was a very short contract...

Alright I'm going to have to ask you all to take a seat right there because I'm about to get real with you.

First off, we have Wikipedia, namely:

Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes in her book The How of Happiness that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level is genetically determined (based on twin studies), 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.

That and pic related should already be pushing you in the direction of "no, it changes nothing/so little it's statistically insignificant".
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

Happiness is the focus of cross-field studies between sociologists, economists, psychologists, philosophers Et-fucking-cetera, and has been quantified to such a level that I as an enthusiastic layman can still say with a great sense of confidence that no, money doesn't make you happy.
UNLESS...
You're gaining more wealth than the people in your immediate surroundings.
Gains in national or global wealth (i.e. everyone becoming more wealthy) don't change happiness levels significantly.
But if you personally get a raise, but nobody else in your social circle/neighbourhood does, your net happiness will go up because you're now richer in relation to your immediate social circle.
This leads to the curious paradox that, all other things being equal, a lower-middle-class person who only has daily face-to-face interactions with the lower class will be happier overall than a lower-upper-class person who only has daily face-to-face interaction with upper class people.
Again: Absolute (net) wealth doesn't determine happiness, Relative wealth does (to a degree).

Obviously, this leaves out a score of other factors, some of which are more important to happiness than relative wealth.
A few examples:
Having children decreases happiness, until they move out on their own. Then happiness returns to previous levels (all other things remaining equal throughout this time).
Being in a relationship will make you more happy, with a better SO having a greater effect. Incidentally, the happier you are, the better an SO you can get, so if you want to maximize your happiness, find a new girlfriend as soon as you get one until you peak.
The level of social trust (trust among strangers) is important. Not much else to say about that.

The question "what makes people happy?" is so ridiculously hard to answer you could spend you entire life getting Ph.D's in it and still not have found all the answers.

Having done extensive research and testing on this subject, I can confidently say a number of things:

1): You don't know the meaning of pain. My personal research has taken me to the rightmost value on the attached graph (see attached graph for graph), and I feel confident in telling you that it will only get worse, at an exponential rate.

2): As you can see from the attached graph (please refer to previously mentioned attached graph for graph), increasing the time between orgasms* is subject to the law of diminishing marginal returns.
*Orgasms=fapping for the purpose of this review.
That is to say, the intensity, length and general pleasure increases rapidly at first (being negative if time spent waiting is too short), but then evens out as time spent waiting increases, reaching almost 100% of potential value at less than a week spent waiting.
If you were a rational agent seeking to achieve the highest possible utility (read: pleasure) from your orgasms, but also had to deal with time constraints, you would thus seek to fap once every 2-3 days, as the opportunity cost of doing so is far less than your potential gain. Indeed, an argument could be made for daily fapping.
Based on this preliminary study, I have come up with a number of hypotheses that could all account for the irrational behavior OP is exhibiting:
2.a): OP is not in fact a man, and as such the study does not apply to her/it.
2.b): OP suffers from a hitherto undiscovered condition that makes fapping less pleasurable for him.
2.c): OP suffers from a hitherto undiscovered condition that significantly increases plasure-gain from time spent between orgasms.
2.d): OP is a little baby, wah wah wah (unlikely hypothesis).
It is therefore the opinion of this writer that no conclusion can currently be made as to the reason for OP's behaviour. Suggest further field studies to acquire a larger set of data.

3): For those concerned: Yes, this is the theoretical maximal length of time a human male can spend between fapping, barring disabling physical injuries, other physical restraints, or genetical or psychological anomalies thus far undiscovered or described by modern science.
For further reading on the subject of human male orgasm frequency and utility optimization, please refer to my 2008 paper: "Long term orgasm denial and the rational male, a study of".

Addendum: An improvement of Pareto-efficiency of orgasms can be achieved by accurate identification of fetishes and/or toy preferences, regardless of orgasm frequency.

I hope this finds you well.
Yours sincerely,
Huddud, Head of department of sexual studies, University of the Internet.

At 12/11/14 02:10 AM, Vinnyy wrote:

Then why are you wasting your time here?

Where else would I be wasting my time?