Tag Archives: Links

Vigilante Justice?

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There was a shooting somewhere between Cedar Park and Lago Vista on Monday afternoon, and the news stories about it are making me have thoughts and questions.

The timeline of events is as follows:

1. Man gets money out of a Cedar Park bank.
2. Man drives to Lago Vista and stops at a gas station.
3. Man goes into the gas station, leaving money in his car.
4. Two other men break into said car and steal the money.
5. First man calls 911 and informs them he is following the car of the other two men and intending to stop them.
6. First man pulls in front of the other car and stops it.
7. First man claims the people in the other car brandished a gun, so he pulls out his gun and shoots the driver in the mouth, and then fires a second time.
8. The suspects’ car drives away.
9. One suspect is arrested at the hospital, and the other is located in Houston after taking a Lyft.

The biggest question I have is has the “stand your ground” Castle Doctrine changed in Texas to make chasing down and shooting someone who stole from you okay? Nowhere have a read that the guy who had his money stolen was detained or is in custody.

My understanding of the situation in which one is allowed to attempt to murder someone else legally does not include following people and putting yourself in a situation where you fear for your life. I have found nothing in the law that seems to have changed recently, and I feel that following someone, even if they are thieves, pulling in front of them and stopping their car would fall under “provoking” which is very clearly listed as being a nullifying factor for standing your ground.

This story just contains a lot of weird and dumb, and I’m hoping it doesn’t fall off the news radar entirely, because I need to know more. Mostly what I need to know is that the guy who did the shooting receives some consequences. Right now it seems that someone who thinks it’s okay to chase people down, put himself into a dangerous situation, and then shoot his way out of it is apparently walking around free. If this is going to be considered an okay thing to do in Texas now, I feel like that should be bigger news.

I question why other news outlets aren’t digging into this a bit more. Here’s the link to the story all the others seem to use as reference for their own stories, and if I’ve not heard more about this in a week or so, I’m going to poke the news people to see if they wouldn’t like to follow up on it.

Links of Note

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Matthew Inman, of The Oatmeal fame, has put out a list of Ten Eight Marvelous and Melancholy Things I’ve Learned About Creativity. Well, not so much of a list as a series of delightful and educational comics. Funny and smart and so very true. Worth looking at whether you are a creative sort or someone in your life is. Love it so much!

Next up … Getty Images is suing Stability AI for copyright infringement! It’ll be interesting to see how this case turns out, but it’s undeniable that images were scraped from Getty, so you’d think they’d win. Guess we’ll find out eventually, and maybe AI outfits will finally have to stop just sucking up everything on the internet without care for ownership or copyright.

And in closing, a year old story about how Facebook got the way it was (and still mostly is) that explains the reasons why I ditched that place years ago, though I didn’t know the behind the scenes stuff going on, I definitely knew things were swirling a drain. Now I know why, and you can too.

Links of Note

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Always keep in mind that anything you read on the internet may very well be the mad ravings of a delusional computer.

Next time you’re on your favorite news site, you might want to double check the byline to see if it was written by an actual human.
CNET, a massively popular tech news outlet, has been quietly employing the help of “automation technology” — a stylistic euphemism for AI — on a new wave of financial explainer articles, seemingly starting around November of last year.
Futurism/The Byte

This is an absolutely delightful photography project you simply must see! It’ll make you giggle, I promise!

“Passport Photos” looks at one of the most mundane and unexciting types of photography. Heavily restricted and regulated … It seems almost impossible for any kind of self-expression.

The series tries to challenge these official rules by testing all the things you could be doing while you are taking your official document photo.
Max Siedentopt – Passport Photos

Greedfall Done!

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At long last, I have completed my first play through of Greedfall. I count it amongst the best RPGs I’ve ever played. Truly enjoyed the game, even though the controls were a little weird. Eventually, I’ll play through it again … when I’ve forgotten the choices I made this time. Maybe my story will go differently!
A man and a women wearing European colonial garb lie on the rocky ground after a major battle.

Links of Note

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Just a few links to things I’ve had open in my browser tabs for a while, with the intention of writing actual blog posts, but I’ve had a serious case of the holiday lazies. I’ve also not been feeling so great, because the cedar is breeding. 🤣

First up we have all the info you need on the findings of the January 6 Committee. If you watched the televised hearings, you might think you know most of what there is no know. You’d be wrong. There’s so much more.

Welcome to this all-source repository of information for analysts, researchers, investigators, journalists, educators, and the public at large.

Check out our new addition below: A curated repository of deposition transcripts from the House Select Committee.
Just Security – January 6 Clearinghouse

Next up is a nightmare hellscape of a story about a cop who teaches other cops to use his own invented junk science to put innocent people behind bars. He can just sense when someone is guilty by listening to the 911 call, and for a fee, he can teach your local cops how sense it too! In fact, he probably already has taught them his bullshit.

Tracy Harpster, a deputy police chief from suburban Dayton, Ohio, was hunting for praise. He had a business to promote: a miracle method to determine when 911 callers are actually guilty of the crimes they are reporting. “I know what a guilty father, mother or boyfriend sounds like,” he once said.
Criminal Justice – Propublica

Yeah, Covid isn’t over. I’m certainly not pretending it’s over. It makes me angry that everyone who isn’t me is pretending it’s over when it clearly isn’t.

It’s that time of year again. Christmas? The holiday season? No, the time of year when we’re all supposed to pretend…Covid’s over. Smile!! Hey, take a selfie while you’re at it!! We won!! Or did we? Me? I’m tired of pretending that Covid’s over, and you should be, too.
Umair Haque – Medium

I’m doing my best! I too want to get back to blogging! Look, I’m doing it right now! 🤣

In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.

I want to go back there.
Bring Back Personal Blogging – The Verge

And finally, a nice post comparing social media outlets. You don’t have to be on Twitter to watch the Twitter train wreck. It’s constantly national freaking news. Of the people I know who haven’t left it yet, I’m beginning to assume they like it there best, and I’m gonna start holding that against them.