For yawn-inducement of those outside my profession, I talk about randomization rates, principal investigators, study coordinators, CRAs, CROs, inclusion/exclusion criteria, subjects lost to follow-up, screening visits, protocols, and HIPAA violations. For those inside my profession, these terms cause instant shudders and uncontrollable twitches.
Why open-source software is so awesome and Microsoft is evil and stupid. Which I could really make interesting if you will just give me your ear for 45 minutes…
What web browser people are using, if we can drop support for Internet Explorer 6 and whether or not using tables for layout is a crime.
Sometimes it is super hard to step outside of the job and just think about the fact that people just want to click a button and go to Facebook to see pics of the grandkids.
What typographic museum have YOU been living in?
:: checks username ::
Oh. Never mind.
What is dark energy and can we explain it?
Sith?
(I know what she does)
Hush… You’re not supposed to let the world know that!
I had a great case once: my guy shoplifted a bunch of merchandise in County A, then tried to return it for cash at another branch of the same store in adjoining County B. Clerks at store B got suspicious and called cops, and my guy was arrested.
So he gets charged with theft. And I let them get all the way to trial (at some cost to my guy, who was locked up) before raising the point that the theft happened in County A; they couldn’t prove an essential element of the crime - venue. The Commonwealth tried to amend the information to add possession of stolen property (which is an onoing offense and which they could charge in B) but they were way too late. So my guy did four months awaiting trial but avoided the felony conviction and what would have been a multi-year sentence.
Are programmable locators a better solution for obtaining manufacturing flexibility or the use of a palletized system wherein a particular pallet may only work for a single product line? (There are a lot of other variables that go into consideration.)
Hah! Are you kidding? I’m not even a member of whatever profession this is a work topic for, but I care about it, as do quite a number of other Dopers, as evidenced by the many threads on it, like this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and…you get the point. 
On the civil side, earlier this week I represented a parent in a convoluted third party custody action. I’d requested a continuance as I didn’t learn of the case until just a couple of days before the hearing. Other lawyer was not cooperative. Big Firm guy, from the Big City several hours away. His calendar was just too important for mere professional courtesy that is the norm among local lawyers.
He also wasn’t particularly diligent. He filed an original custody action in the county where his client lives. He did this despite knowing there was an existing custody order in the county where my client lives. Which means the Court that issued that order retains continuing exclusive jurisdiction to modify the existing custody order.
So at docket call, he announces ready. Says he’s got several witnesses, and expects the hearing will take hours. I announced that perhaps a conference in chambers would “help us narrow the issues”. The judge knew something was up because normally I’d have announced ready with number of witnesses and estimated trial time, but said we’d have a conference in chambers.
In chambers, other lawyer launches into this long winded statement of his position as I just sit there politely. When he finishes, the judge turns to me with an arched eyebrow, and says she assumes I will be counterclaiming for custody with the standard defense for third party cases?
Eventually, your Honor. But not today. The other eyebrow goes up at this point. I’m casually producing a certain document from my file. Your Honor, I happen to have a copy of that previous order Mr. Other Lawyer mentioned, but I’m a little confused. That order is from County-where-client-lives, and is signed by Judge-who-is-a-close-personal-friend-of-this-judge. (hands order to Judge) I think that Court has continuing exclusi-
And that’s as far as I got. The judge added the -ve jurisdiction. Then the judge lit into Mr. Other Lawyer in a manner that would have intimidated your average U.S.M.C. Drill instructor. Flayed the guy alive, rolled him in rock salt, and then she started getting harsh.
Case dismissed. With leave to refile in the proper county. I smiled politely, and informed the Court that I’d be more than happy to accept process for my client in the new action, and I’d be able to do a hearing on any of several dates. Mr. Other Lawyer slithered outside to explain to all of his witnesses what had just happened.
Did you have to offer proof that the theft happened in County A? Did the Commonwealth not know where the theft took place?
The % of native speakers that would mark the grammar in a particular sentence as correct or incorrect, eg. The man that the Rockburys hired to divide the slopes of the canyons into pieces of equal sizes arrive today.
I know, it was the easiest topic off the top of my head. A better one is what stops the hot gas (at about a million degrees) at the center of galaxy clusters from cooling and forming more stars?
I was going to cut to the chase and just post “poop.”
Not to be argumentative, but I would probably like to read something like that. Sorry.
Wellll… when the first flood damage prevention legislation began to be put in place in the 60’s, the idea was to protect people from the peril of flood. The thought was that by mapping out the floodplains, people would refrain from building there. Instead, it had the opposite effect, of drawing development to cheap floodplain land because it could be filled with dirt and built upon.
That bred other problems such as the loss of the beneficial aspects of allowing floodwaters to fill up the floodplain periodically, not the least of which was their value as storage areas for flood water.
“No adverse impact” is the notion that development in the floodplain should not create any kind of adverse impact, whether it is loss of storage or anything else.
Some folks think that “no adverse impact” goes too far and is anti-development. Some others think that it doesn’t go far enough.
Bus contention. The Frequency of Main Lobe Clutter. Tracklets. Kill assessment.
I think this isn’t particularly contentious, and there’s a few people outside computer science who care quite a bit about this problem.
Do you mean there are people out there who are not interested in cataloguing. :eek: