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I am not planning any nuclear attacks
111–120 of 151 posts
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the sake of clarity it's worth noting that in England tenant rights are quite good. For an eviction to take place it must be ordered by the courts and a landlord can only apply to the courts for possession after providing a tenant with 2 months notice. A quick eviction in England takes 3 months, an average eviction is closer to 5 and in some cases it can take much much longer. The only situation in which someone…
And then you'll never be able to rent again. At least through a letting agent, which is how most rentals occur.
I'd love to know why this is down voted, because it is unequivocally true.
Nearly all letting agents (probably all?) in the UK vet potential tenants and will run various forms of check, including credit checks. They will also ask for previous addresses, and if previously renting, will demand a reference from the previous agency and landlord.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#113That's a hell of a blast radius.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#114Devil's Advocate: You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry. is computer game". A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'. The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the…
The problem is that everyone in the chain ends up buying into this. The police make a record of it 'just in case.' You end up on a no-fly list 'just in case.' Everyone in the chain is covering their ass 'just in case' this person really is a terrorist. No one ends up willing to stick their neck out and say, "this person probably isn't a terrorist"... just in case.
Fantastic point that cannot be understated. When thinking about this I assumed the authorities would run some quick sanity check and dismiss it. While that probably does happen, we often see cases where it has not worked that way.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#115Devil's Advocate: You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry. is computer game". A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'. The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the…
It takes only the barest application of common sense to realize that an ICBM attack is not going to be planned on a whiteboard in plain view in some random apartment. It does not actually appear to be plans for a terrorist attack, because terrorists don't have ICBMs.
1. How do I know they don't have ICBMs? Bill O'Reilly hasn't told me that yet.
2. Or, we don't have ICBM's yet. Hoping that part of the plan will work itself out. Step 1: Collect underpants ... Step 3: Profit!
2. Maybe this terrorist is just working from home and trying to understand the larger plan. Or he could be brainstorming for a future powerpoint presentation on the subject.
Just having some fun with the idea.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
The extreme example of "everyone in the chain" buying into an extreme form of this thinking came in the form of the "1% doctrine" articulated by then-Vice President Dick Cheney: "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about our response."
Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it. "We captured a bunch of people. Some are harmless unfortunate bystanders. Some are dangerous people who are nevertheless not immune to handcuffs. Still, we'd better lock them up in harsh conditions without trial just in case ." "Iraq probably has no nuclear weapons and no means to deliver one, but we'd better invade the country just in case . We don't want to be wr…
> Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it.
Naturally; the "1% Doctrine" was formulated very shortly after 9/11 and, while the quote articulating it addresses Pakistani scientists aiding al-Qaeda, the significance is that it was a critical framing mindset from the highest levels for the Bush Administration policy on terrorism.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that everyone in the chain ends up buying into this. The police make a record of it 'just in case.' You end up on a no-fly list 'just in case.' Everyone in the chain is covering their ass 'just in case' this person really is a terrorist. No one ends up willing to stick their neck out and say, "this person probably isn't a terrorist"... just in case.
One big problem is that people take the idea of "better safe than sorry" as a way to avoid thought. Don't analyze the situation, just pick the option that appears safest after a glance! What it should mean is that you should take both probabilities and costs into account when deciding what to do, as it's often worth doing something easy to reduce the risk of something unlikely but catastrophic. But that doesn't mean…
> One big problem is that people take the idea of "better safe than sorry" as a way to avoid thought.
Sure, and while things like responses to terrorism are rather dramatic examples of that, "zero tolerance policies" in general are also a place where this manifests.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tip: just before you pull out your card to pay the fees, look into the kid's eyes and say something like "ummmm, this seems a lot, I don't really feel comfortable paying this much, can we reduce this at all?" The guy starts sweating as he sees his commission disappearing into the sunset, replaced by the prospect of a grovelling call to the property owner. They will often knock off about 50%. Sometimes you can just re…
Sorry but I live in a place where supply of property, rental or otherwise, is so constrained when compared to demand that any local letting agent knows they can rent out any place within a week. You go along with whatever they say or you don't get the place. End of story.
Sorry to hear that :( In the last couple of years a number of developers flooded our town with cheap student housing units so the market has kinda been upended, much to our delight.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#119Common sense isn't quite as "common" anymore. If you actually read those diagrams it is pretty obvious (to me) that that is a game, and not some missile design or "plan" (although who plans a state missile attack from their apartment?).
From his previous blog post, they could tell it was a game: “Except… the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one thing. There were some… whiteboards? And some… drawings on them?” “Ah shit! Yeah I totally forgot about those! You mean the nuclear attack thing, right?” “Yeah, that’s right.” “Yeeeeeah…. Sorry! You see…. It’s for this game I was making! It’s like, a web thing and it uses Google Maps…
> Reminds me of the time some kid was arrested for making a Counterstrike map based on his high school.
Nobody seemed to mention this, and I feel quite old saying its, but "Global Thermonuclear War" was the name of the simulation Matthew Broderick's character played in "War Games", which should have been another clue to the authorities or whoever that it's just a game.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
From his previous blog post, they could tell it was a game: “Except… the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one thing. There were some… whiteboards? And some… drawings on them?” “Ah shit! Yeah I totally forgot about those! You mean the nuclear attack thing, right?” “Yeah, that’s right.” “Yeeeeeah…. Sorry! You see…. It’s for this game I was making! It’s like, a web thing and it uses Google Maps…
> Reminds me of the time some kid was arrested for making a Counterstrike map based on his high school. Nobody seemed to mention this, and I feel quite old saying its, but "Global Thermonuclear War" was the name of the simulation Matthew Broderick's character played in "War Games", which should have been another clue to the authorities or whoever that it's just a game.
That is the exact name an actual terrorist would use to cleverly hide his real purpose and thwart the authorities.