site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   801 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 3, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Mildly interesting court opinion:

  • A woman and her daughter allege the following: In the middle of the night, they are about to get out of their car in front of their house. They look out of the car's window and are terrified to notice a cousin of theirs standing outside the window and pointing what appears to be a pistol at them, with his finger on the trigger. They hear two clicks, but no gunshot occurs. The two alleged victims flee to a nearby alley. By the time they return to their car with a police officer, the cousin has disappeared.

  • The cousin is charged with possessing a gun as a felon, possessing an instrument of crime, assault, and reckless endangerment. A search of his residence turns up no gun. Nevertheless, at a bench trial he is found guilty of all charges and is sentenced to 26 years of prison (with the possibility of parole after 13 years). The appeals panel vacates the conviction of reckless endangerment since there is no proof that the gun was loaded, but affirms the other three convictions, and leaves the 26-year sentence untouched since the trial judge imposed no penalty for the reckless endangerment.

Don't forget that you can be convicted of serious charges in a "he said she said" case, on witness testimony alone, if the jury (or the judge in a bench trial) finds the witnesses more credible than you are "beyond a reasonable doubt"!

Mildly interesting court opinion:

  • While driving around in the middle of winter, a police officer observes a woman crying and yelling as she bangs on the front door of a house while wearing only a bathrobe and a pair of slippers. When the officer stops and inquires, the woman states that her romantic partner pushed her out of the house after an argument. The romantic partner exits the house and talks with the officer. The officer advises the woman of her state-law rights to seek a restraining order or press criminal charges for domestic violence, but the woman refuses to do so.

  • Several minutes later (after, among other things, using her car's computer to review the department's training on domestic violence), the officer returns to the house and talks again with the woman to advise her even further of her rights under state law. The woman still isn't interested in doing anything. However, since the police have been called to this house five times in total, the officer tells another officer to contact a detective for further investigation.

  • Later on the same day, the woman is found dead in the house. The romantic partner pleads guilty to manslaughter. The woman's estate sues the officer for negligence, arguing that the officer was obligated to arrest the romantic partner because there was evidence that the romantic partner had perpetrated domestic violence (pushing, which constitutes the crime of assault) against the woman. The officer moves for summary judgment, arguing that state law grants absolute immunity to liability for any failure to make an arrest. The trial judge denies the motion.

  • The appeals panel reverses. The law says that an officer is obligated to arrest an alleged perpetrator of domestic violence if the alleged victim "exhibits signs of injury". Here, the officer observed no such signs. And, in any event, that domestic-violence law does not override the separate law that grants absolute immunity to liability for failure to make an arrest, which applies in all cases where the officer acts in good faith. The woman's estate will not be getting any damages.

Not-so-fun fact: While both the federal government and the New Jersey government allow random members of the public to access all the documents in a case docket online, it appears that the Pennsylvania government does not! Rather, electronic access to Pennsylvania judicial documents is restricted to lawyers and case participants "for legal and security reasons", and members of the public must request documents manually by submitting a form to the court clerk.

Microsoft has a convenient list of controller manufacturers that are sufficiently high-quality to be trusted with the official Xbox license.

I have a Microsoft wireless Xbox360 controller I bought to use with emulators on my PC. I very rarely game so it sat around for a couple of years, and when I came to use it again the dongle was dead. The giant dongle. The giant dongle with the ~2m wire (why?!). I have a wifi dongle that is barely larger than the USB port it plugs into and that can handle bi-directional network speed data transmitted to the other end of the house, but a receiver for what amounts to little more than single key presses sent from the chair towards the screen has to be the size of a 240V wall plug for some reason.

Anyway after a little reading around I prised open the giant dongle's case and replaced the microscopic fuse component (why use such a small component when there's so much space?) and restored it to working order. Apparently this is a common fault. Imagine how many people have resorted to just binning it and buying another. Probably not many at the price they charge, the size they make it, and the frequency with which it breaks.

A 'blade'-style automotive fuse housing costs 50-75 cents at scale, and a glass vial-style fuse holder costs 30-50 cents, and the fuses themselves cost money on top of that. A single 0606 500ma fuse is cheaper at unit one digikey prices; at scale, they're basically free. They're probably only included at all because they're part of the USB standard -- overdraw could and does kill older motherboard USB ports, and rarely even entire motherboard USB controllers! -- not that it stops designers in other cases.

Ideal answer would involve a PTZ self-resetting fuse (though they're not great options for USB devices people are likely to leave plugged in indefinitely, and usually end up 5-10c), or a through-hole conventional fuse that could be fixed by anyone with a soldering iron and patience (though mixing SMD and through-hole parts gets stupid expensive, esp for boards with SMD on both sides). But it's not as nonsensical as it looks at first glance.

Ideal answer would involve a PTZ self-resetting fuse

These at least used to have a failure mode where they failed short when abused often, and I've typically seen them paired with a real fuse that handles that case.

Fair. I'm assuming a USB device going into a computer has a power supply has enough current limiting to prevent wires or PCBs catching on fire, but that was an actively bad assumption back in 2005.

IIRC, the usb spec has always required that any compliant usb port can withstand an infinite short circuit of any pin to any pin without damage.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats