Topic: WCDT Strips 3266 to 3270 (18th to 22nd July 2016) (Read 28949 times)

Mordhaus · « **Reply #100 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 08:58 »

Doing your own guest strip during guest strip week is pretty damn Meta!

Eternal_Newbie · « **Reply #101 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 09:04 »

Good excuse to play around with art styles without people acting like it's the end of the world

Stoutfellow · « **Reply #102 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 09:10 »

Stella Liebeck was 79 years old when she received third - not second - degree burns in her genital area from spilled McDonald's coffee. She was hospitalized for eight days and underwent two years of medical treatment afterwards. Comparing blisters on your back to subdermal cell-death in the groin is absurd; talk about "never having to work again for the rest of her life" is silly when applied to a 79-year-old woman; and comparing the wilful act of a conscious (albeit corporate) agent, an agent which had been officially warned about its behavior, to a force of nature is disingenuous at best.

Spoe · « **Reply #103 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 10:48 »

Quote from: Stoutfellow on 22 Jul 2016, 09:10

...and comparing the wilful act of a conscious (albeit corporate) agent, an agent which had been officially warned about its behavior, to a force of nature is disingenuous at best.

And thus the point of "punitive damages." She wasn't awarded millions to cover her sustained losses – those were covered by compensatory damages of $160,000 to cover medical expenses, etc. after being reduced by 20% to cover the assigned division of blame. She needed skin grafts! She was awarded $2.7 million by the jury to punish McDonald's for their wanton acts related to the temperature of the coffee and to deter them from continuing to do so because they had knowledge of prior burn cases and no intention of doing anything about the temperature of the coffee which their own quality assurance representative testified was not fit for consumption at the temperature served.

Penquin47 · « **Reply #104 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 10:50 »

Quote from: Morituri on 22 Jul 2016, 08:27

There are a whole population of people who experience second-degree burns several times during our lives and aren't particularly impressed.

The reaction around Boulder to "Second degree burns" was "what, she got some blisters and now she never has to work again for the rest of her life? That happens to dozens of people I know every year. It's even happened to me a few times. It's not a life-changing experience or even particularly traumatic, how the hell did anybody decide it was worth that?"

And yea, it mostly happens "for the sake of somebody's bottom line." You go up to work, you realize after an hour or two that you forgot sunscreen, you know you'll be fired if you don't fix the damn fences anyway, and you finish the job before you go back. Business as usual, sucks to be you. If you don't want to deal with that kind of thing, don't ever start doing farm and ranch work. I've also gotten stomped by bulls and cut up by barbed wire for the sake of somebody's bottom line. If you don't want to consider second degree burns for the sake of somebody's bottom line to be entirely normal, then lucky for you you weren't born there.

I don't think it's particularly reasonable for anybody to get a million bucks (literally, a living wage for life just off of interest payments!) for anything that leaves them able-bodied and not permanently disfigured. Hell, the guy who lived down the road from me got his arm torn off by a baler and he had to go on disability worth substantially less than what that twit got for her lap full of hot coffee.

Still not comparable. You're the one who went up there (three times, apparently?) without sunscreen. Your bosses didn't make you work out there without sunscreen. They did not endanger you, you endangered yourself.

Get some coffee from a place that serves it at the proper temperature, or make your own. Spill it on your arm. Did you get burned? If you did, it's mild. First-degree. This woman had NO reason to expect second (or third) degree burns from a cup of coffee. McDonald's was aware that the temperature at which they served their coffee could cause second and third degree burns, because this was not the first time someone had spilled their coffee and been burned.

Morituri · « **Reply #105 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 11:25 »

Okay, third degree burns is a lot more serious than second, I'll give it that. I've known a bunch of people who got third degree burns too though; accidents with hot oil mostly. A few got disability but most of them (all who could still walk in fact) were denied. None of them got multimillion dollar settlements. You don't even consider filing a lawsuit unless something unusual happens.

Erf. I'm going to quit responding to this because I fear my responses are likely to generate more heat than light. I will say however that down in the real world where there is absolutely NOTHING unusual about getting injured in an accident - even BADLY injured as in permanently disabling - the idea that someone who hadn't even been disabled had been taken seriously when suing, AND recovered more than twice their medical costs, read like a missive from bizarro world about someone who had some unbelievable kind of privilege or entitlement that the rest of the world just didn't get. Bad as her experience may have been, a whole lot of people who suffered worse routinely and knew damn well we'd have been laughed at if we'd tried to sue, sort of resented it.

Eternal_Newbie · « **Reply #106 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 14:15 »

Well, it's not her fault that quite often the law gets creatively interpreted against the employee in occupational injury cases and employers find creative ways of avoiding creating a safe workplace and dissuading employees from seeking compensation, even when creating a safe workplace (or even paying compensation) would be cheaper .

hedgie · « **Reply #107 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 17:17 »

The whole company did. And IIRC, regulators had warned them on multiple occasions.

Gyrre · « **Reply #108 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 17:20 »

Third degree burns to her crotch and lap.

Imagine that hot oil you mentioned getting spilled on your junk. Sounds pretty painful, right?

Tova · « **Reply #109 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 19:37 »

I realise you've stopped responding, and yes I've refrained from posting because otherwise I would have reacted to the ignorance you've displayed with more heat than light. But I will point out that the money awarded was punitive damages, not compensatory damages, Mori. It makes all the difference in the world. Google it.

When companies recklessly endanger their customers, they will get sued. This is not because we live in a bizzaro world, nor because of some sense of "entitlement."

You're talking about accidents, presumably not the result of reckless endagerment, which is the reason they didn't get multimillion dollar awards.

Please educate yourself on the difference between compensatory and punitive damages.

Zastie · « **Reply #110 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 20:04 »

Going a guest comic for your own comic is like making posts on a guest account on your own forum. Just wat.

Is it cold in here? · « **Reply #111 on:** 22 Jul 2016, 22:00 »

Quote from: jwhouk on 22 Jul 2016, 06:19

And no matter how rare that Pokemon may be, do NOT go into the parking lot of a correctional institution to try to capture one.

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling you're not speaking hypothetically here.

jwhouk · « **Reply #112 on:** 23 Jul 2016, 01:03 »

Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 22 Jul 2016, 22:00

Quote from: jwhouk on 22 Jul 2016, 06:19
And no matter how rare that Pokemon may be, do NOT go into the parking lot of a correctional institution to try to capture one.

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling you're not speaking hypothetically here.

There is a website that polls the game servers to find where Pokemon are spawning, one whose URL I don't have handy here. I put in the main entrance to our school. Yep, three Pokemon, all spawning in the parking lot.

Tova · « **Reply #113 on:** 23 Jul 2016, 02:04 »

Relevant: https://theconversation.com/pokemon-go-puts-pressure-on-when-technology-meets-the-law-62489

Storel · « **Reply #114 on:** 23 Jul 2016, 12:09 »

Quote from: jwhouk on 23 Jul 2016, 01:03

Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 22 Jul 2016, 22:00
Quote from: jwhouk on 22 Jul 2016, 06:19
And no matter how rare that Pokemon may be, do NOT go into the parking lot of a correctional institution to try to capture one.

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling you're not speaking hypothetically here.

There is a website that polls the game servers to find where Pokemon are spawning, one whose URL I don't have handy here. I put in the main entrance to our school. Yep, three Pokemon, all spawning in the parking lot.

But a school is not a correctional institution. I understand "correctional institution" to mean a prison, jail, or at least a juvenile detention facility. I'm not quite sure why you shouldn't go into a prison parking lot to catch Pokemon -- the people parking there should be prison guards, not actual prisoners, yes? Most prisoners don't commute to work.

Putting Pokemon in a school parking lot seems like a poor idea mainly because teenagers are notoriously poor drivers, especially when distracted.

cesium133 · « **Reply #115 on:** 23 Jul 2016, 13:18 »

Quote from: Storel on 23 Jul 2016, 12:09

Quote from: jwhouk on 23 Jul 2016, 01:03
Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 22 Jul 2016, 22:00
Quote from: jwhouk on 22 Jul 2016, 06:19
And no matter how rare that Pokemon may be, do NOT go into the parking lot of a correctional institution to try to capture one.

Oh dear. I have a horrible feeling you're not speaking hypothetically here.

There is a website that polls the game servers to find where Pokemon are spawning, one whose URL I don't have handy here. I put in the main entrance to our school. Yep, three Pokemon, all spawning in the parking lot.

But a school is not a correctional institution. I understand "correctional institution" to mean a prison, jail, or at least a juvenile detention facility. I'm not quite sure why you shouldn't go into a prison parking lot to catch Pokemon -- the people parking there should be prison guards, not actual prisoners, yes? Most prisoners don't commute to work.

Putting Pokemon in a school parking lot seems like a poor idea mainly because teenagers are notoriously poor drivers, especially when distracted.

IIRC, he works at a school in a juvenile correctional institution.

~~blue5~~ · « **Reply #116 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 11:29 »

Its a form of population control. Teens and their phones are zombies anyways

Thrudd · « **Reply #117 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 11:59 »

Quote from: blue5 on 24 Jul 2016, 11:29

Its a form of population control. Teens and their phones are zombies anyways

Makes them prime candidates for employment in the Bureaucracy that is government services.

Nepiophage · « **Reply #118 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 12:07 »

It's natural selection. Only those who are smart enough not to get run over, and don't waste all thier germ plasm on internet porn, will reproduce. So the next generation will be smarter than today's teenagers.
This is admittedly a low base

hedgie · « **Reply #119 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 12:46 »

The "Young People are stupid" meme was probably old when mentioned by Socrates. If society was de-evolving the way people have been saying for at *least* the last two thousand years we'd have grown tails again and be back in the trees.

Kugai · « **Reply #120 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 13:16 »

hedgie · « **Reply #121 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 13:38 »

Well, you're qualified to be librarian at least.

Is it cold in here? · « **Reply #122 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 16:20 »

Driving into a prison parking lot, in all the places I've read about, makes your car open for searches. Don't have a cell phone on you, or a butter knife in your picnic basket! If your deer rifle is in the trunk, FSM help you. The guards might consider you a security threat unless you fit into a category they understand, such as "employee" or "volunteer". If you're there to visit a prisoner, it depends on the place, but some will treat you like an inmate, so you'd be driving into a situation of people prepared to assume the worst.

(regular user mode)Please don't ask about jwhouk's workplace. He hates to talk about it and right now has compelling reasons not to talk about it.(/)

Tova · « **Reply #123 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 18:03 »

May I gently suggest that introducing a topic in a discussion forum is highly likely to provoke discussion on said topic. So perhaps it would be a bad idea to introduce topics that you are unwilling to discuss.

jwhouk · « **Reply #124 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 19:16 »

Truth. And it is more apropos to the Pokemon Go thread. So... on to the new week.

Oenone · « **Reply #125 on:** 24 Jul 2016, 20:16 »

I really love the line art on this strip

Storel · « **Reply #126 on:** 27 Jul 2016, 10:45 »

Quote from: cesium133 on 23 Jul 2016, 13:18

IIRC, he works at a school in a juvenile correctional institution.

Aha, that possibility had not occurred to me. Thank you!

JimC · « **Reply #127 on:** 28 Jul 2016, 03:27 »

Quote from: Tova on 24 Jul 2016, 18:03

May I gently suggest that introducing a topic in a discussion forum is highly likely to provoke discussion on said topic. So perhaps it would be a bad idea to introduce topics that you are unwilling to discuss.

Maybe not that simple. For many of us there will be topics which we can only discuss in a limited way due to ethical limitations, especially perhaps work related ones. If those with ethical restrictions don't contribute to those subjects at all, isn't there a risk that the only people who will discuss them are those least qualified to do so?

Tova · « **Reply #128 on:** 28 Jul 2016, 15:03 »

Do you mean SOMEONE MIGHT BE WRONG ON THE INTERNET?

HEAVEN FORFEND.

If you can't discuss it, don't get involved. This is not rocket surgery.

Kugai · « **Reply #129 on:** 28 Jul 2016, 17:33 »

Or Brain Science

Pilchard123 · « **Reply #130 on:** 29 Jul 2016, 00:57 »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

Thrillho · « **Reply #131 on:** 29 Jul 2016, 02:01 »

Quote from: Pilchard123 on 29 Jul 2016, 00:57

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I

This is literally one of my favourite sketches of all time.

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Author Topic: WCDT Strips 3266 to 3270 (18th to 22nd July 2016) (Read 28949 times)