Mistreating your prisoners so severely that they die in jail before they've even been convicted of anything does tend to drop your repeat offender rate pretty low.

But the factual answer to your question is that, according to an ASU professer who studied that exact thing, "there was no significant difference in recidivism observed between those offenders released in 1989-1990 and those released in 1994-1995." (Arpaio's first term as sherriff started in 1992.) That's on top of the fact that arrests for actual serious crimes (that is, other than the crime of "being Hispanic") are plummeting, and the FBI claims a 70% increase in violent crimes and a 166% increase in homicides for this clown's county over the past 5 years. Given how absolutely horrible a job he's doing at actually enforcing the laws, it really is mind-boggling how many people buy into his PR stunts and keep relecting him.

I'm sure it'll come up elsewhere, but you can't really talk about "unintended" ways of playing a game without bringing up Dwarf Fortress. Though I suppose it's hard to specify what the "intended" way to play is, I'm sure it didn't originally involve killing goblins by catapulting them into the ceiling with a drawbridge.

Actually, the last thing we need is more idiots using the term "Activist Judge" and displaying their complete ignorance of the whole point of our judicial system.

Yes, because that always works.

Me: "My buddy from work is gonna meet us at the Star Trek move; he'll probably get there before me. "

Friend: "That's cool, I'll give him his ticket. What's he look like?"

Me: "um... his name is Ken?"

A general car driver WILL say "the engine is broken" if the engine, drive-train or ANY other mechanical part between engine and wheels seems to malfunction. That goes about many of you computer experts as well.

I find this analogy, plus the one from the article:

Ok, itâ(TM)s not really fair to pick on people for not knowing something that isnâ(TM)t in their field. Iâ(TM)d hate for a doctor to mock me because I donâ(TM)t actually know where my liver is or what on earth the spleen is for.

completely ridiculous, and entirely misses the point. Clearly I would hope that my auto mechanic doesn't expect me to know every piece of my engine. Nor would I expect my doctor to assume that I can pinpoint every organ in my body and it's function.

But if I told my mechanic that my engine was broken because there was a hole in my trunk, or complained about headaches to my doctor when my stomach hurt, I would look like an absolute idiot. People need to take some responsibility to understand the tool they are using. Hell, how long does it take to double-click on "My Computer" and see that "local disk" is just one part?

For the record, I tend to believe his claim, since 1. The Director of Digital Communications at TWC right now is Jeff Simmermon, and 2. The same username on other services (e.g. Twitter, YouTube) seems to be the same guy.

However, his first post was 4:00 on 12/31/2008, so you can clearly see why the veteran /.'s around here would be a tad suspicious. Just saying.

I think you mean:

"A random anonymous new user to /. who claims to be, and may or may not be, the director of communications..."

So you're saying the cable companies should *pay* for channels no one wants, *charge me* for the channels no one wants, but not actually *give me* the channels no one wants?

In your mind, that scenario makes *more* sense than just sending the channels they have down the wire and letting me decide not to watch it?