Pattern Ghost

Speaking of AI. I found this text to image generator. It has a bunch of different models to choose from. Seems free with an option to upgrade for access to more features, but doesn't limit the number of images you can generate. I haven't played around with complex prompts, and it doesn't do as well with less detailed prompts as MidJourney, but it's decent at some stuff: Text-to-image AI Image Generator (free / freemium) - Dezgo

Thanks,Ranxerox. I see where our opinions diverge. I don't believe that anyone knocking on someone's door should have a gun directly pointed at them without first identifying them as an imminent threat to life or limb. The law agrees with me on that point. So, the police identifying themselves properly is a moot point. That said, let's agree to disagree on that detail.

This isn't relevant. The fact is that the guy aimed his gun at the officer. That's it. At that point, shooting him to prevent getting shot by him was on the table. The police were not illegally on the property. They mistakenly approached the wrong house to respond to a call. They identified themselves as police. While it's quite possible the homeowner didn't hear that or process it as he came down to the door, the fact is that instead of identifying whether they were a threat or not, he chose to engage them by threatening their lives by pointing a gun at them. He was within his rights to arm himself. Body cam footage clearly shows him pointing it at the officers. That's a lethal force threat that puts the police within their rights to shoot defensively. He made a mistake, and probably shouldn't have died for it, but the fact is he should not have opened the door without identifying who was on the other side. That's a bad tactic regardless of who was outside. If someone is outside pounding on your door, at any time of the day or night, the proper response is NOT to yank the door open and point a gun at whoever is out there. That was a bad response to the situation. I honestly don't care about the statement made by the police, either. They often dumb things down for the press or -- as I suspect in this case -- try not to point the victim of a tragic mistake in a bad light. Just because they're soft selling it doesn't mean that the man did not foolishly open his door in the middle of the night and point it at the person on the other side. The reason I reviewed that video was to see if the gun was actually pointed at the cops or if they shot someone standing there holding a gun at his side. Which he did. Which provoked a legal and ethical response from the responding officers. Was this a raid? It certainly wasn't a no-knock warrant. The responding officers knocked loudly and announced themselves as police and were in uniform. No argument here. They very loudly shouted "this is the police." The failure was on the part of the homeowner, when he yanked open his door and pointed his gun at an unidentified target. Had he exercised the least level of common sense and responsibility that should come with owning a firearm for home defense, he would have had his wife call 911 to report someone pounding on his door, not opened the door, not stood on the other side of the door at all, defended in place, and attempted to identify a threat before pointing a gun at someone. Period. Full stop. The homeowner bears all of the responsibility here. He could have the very least asked who was there before opening the door. The only reason he got shot was for pointing the gun at the police. Jesus, I've had the police knock on my door several times in the middle of the night. I've managed not to get shot any of those times because I identified who was on the other side of the door. (Twice looking for burglary witnesses, once looking for witnesses to a shootout in our apartment parking lot.) They did. Before you point a gun at someone, you need to identify who it is. If the threat is on the outside, you should remain on the inside, regardless of whether you have a right to go outside and look for trouble. These are important things. OK. So you agree the fault is with the homeowner?

It's tax day, everything annoys Pattern Ghost. 😁

Sorry for your loss, Logan. (And sorry for the late response, as I don't check this thread often.)

I'm not "jumping" to anything. I was merely curious if this was one of those cases where the guy opens the door in the middle of the night holding a gun at his side, and get shot for it. Which would be a very questionable shoot. OR, if this was case where the guy pointed a gun at a cop on his porch, which is a very clear cut stupid thing to do, and a good shoot. Beau did NOT mention this salient point in his rundown. (exact quote: "the homeowner opens the door and is holding a gun") I clearly stated this in my response to LL, when I said: Maybe you missed that part? I don't give two figs about defending anybody. I look. I evaluate. I give my professional opinion. That's it. I've personally brought it up in the context of police training drilling "your job is to go home alive" into officers, for one thing. That's not exactly the same context as people just shooting people on their porch (or getting shot attempting to do so), but that's a narrow concept. We did discuss at some length the foreign exchange student shot in Texas a while back, but I don't remember if that was before you joined or not. (And you know what's messed up? I can't get a good date on that incident, due to finding a LOT of articles about foreign exchange students being shot on porches.) Beau's overall point isn't some great insight. It's obvious. Sorry if that offends fans of Beau. I don't have anything against him in particular, but I don't find him particularly insightful. My reactions aren't "driven" by squat, least of all media coverage. Who do you think I am? I will tell you my reaction: Go find a clean video without any media input. Watch it with the sound off. Look to see if the guy has a gun pointed at the police or not. Jesus. People act like thinking for oneself is something difficult. What's with these assumptions about my motives today? Especially directly after I very clearly stated why I said what I did? Well, that sort of thing is why I don't look at amateur opinions about these things from the media. Agree with you on that, too.

ETA: Also, LL, if my initial statement about Beau stating the obvious was offensive to you, I want you to know that I wasn't calling you out or making a personal attack there. It was an offhand statement, and more driven by the fact that I sometimes find Beau annoying. I always considered you, if not a friend, at least a congenial acquaintance on the forum.

I never said it did, though I see where you may have read it that way. I was merely providing a little information about something I was curious about, so as to save anyone else who was also curious about that same thing the trouble of watching a man get killed. Also, the point about fear mongering being a bad thing and creating bad outcomes has been directly linked to shootings in this thread, by me. (And other posters. I can certainly recall many examples of times when I've said the same thing without having to dig through the thread, though.) And in other threads in the past where I commented on fear being the driving factor behind a lot of bad police shootings. While I don't expect any pats on the back for that, it does support my assertion that Beau -- at least in this case -- hasn't said anything that hasn't been said before, in many ways and in many contexts. Right here. In this thread.

I agree with the point, but it's hardly a revelation. The same thing has been said repeatedly in this thread. Also, in that final case of the police shooting, I looked up the video. Generally, it's not a good idea to be anywhere near a gun in the presence of police, but this wasn't jumpy police. The guy didn't just answer the door with a gun in hand. He opened it and pointed it directly at the police. No ambiguity on that one.

"or so" I'm getting to the age that decades start blurring together.

I'm not seeing a whole lot of that critical thinking element from the younger generation. I've been seeing a whole lot of "shout down the opposition" in the last decade or so, though.

They need to remove her from the Homeland Security Committee immediately. Preferably from office, but that attitude isn't appropriate to sitting on that committee or anything intelligence or security related. ETA: I've seen people actually lose top secret clearances for way less than the views expressed in the article below. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/marjorie-taylor-greene-defends-national-052635902.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACpacYumG7-4ot4_37AdHQMcQ4ooc_GvPSDvMoQWEDSKr9kHbrKzT1wlHQE7YJkYsMw_7D8CCubyY9o9JaLwZyauW4Lvpiz7NF4ekzXDCTA-dKmuFuRdx8z2CNQ6v8nzBarva4yGWgdX4PGbeFzifYqqPXaLvPB2X6ruABHGE3eU

Black Skimmer, credit: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/black-skimmer

They'd ban them straight out of the gate, I imagine.

It's also incredibly difficult to get your name back from one of the big two, even if you are one of the big two.

Stumbled upon this. Looks like some movement toward viable smart gun technology for limited use cases:

Honestly, I found her tone offensive even while agreeing with the content of the paragraph, so I can see where Scholastic is coming from. On the other hand, the book seems to be widely acclaimed, and a publisher should have the cojones to handle a little bit of controversy. Especially one with Scholastic's clout.

As iconic as the P51 is, the P47 seems a lot more durable, so I'd give it to the P47. Battle of the Pollys: Pollyanna (original movie) vs. Sweet Polly Purebred (Underdog's love interest)

Only if you move your feet really fast like a cartoon character.

I agree. Stand your ground is often misapplied. Abbot is a clown. None of that is what I was talking about. I was merely critiquing the logic of a specific portion of an essay. I'm a pedantic sort of person sometimes, and I like to analyse these sorts of details.

Read that guy's post. While I agree with him on the racism, he's wrong on the stand your ground aspects. Stand your ground laws were not misapplied in either case. Just because the governor is squawking about stand your ground laws in this case, or because the press was in Zimmerman doesn't mean the laws were really relevant. Here's the crux of both cases: Self defense does not apply if you provoke the conflict that leads to the killing. This was correctly applied in both cases, according to the evidence at hand. In the Texas case, given the evidence of intent and the fact that the moron was driving through a crowd, it was very clear the killer was seeking to provoke a confrontation. It doesn't matter if the victim did point his weapon at the shooter. The killer provoked the confrontation. In the Zimmerman case, simply following his victim was not illegal. Zimmerman was attacked, regardless of the size disparity, with physical evidence that supported that part of Zimmerman's story (being on his back with the victim on top of him, smashing his head into the ground. (And the weight advantage is a non-starter when the smaller guy is fit. Martin was the same size I was when I was in the Army, and I could have easily overwhelmed Zimmerman when I was that age.) The missing piece in the Zimmerman case was a witness to Zimmerman provoking the confrontation. I firmly believe he provoked the confrontation and should have been severely punished, but the law was not misapplied, nor was it "wrong." The system sometimes lets human filth loose because there are strict standards of proof. That's working as intended, no matter how distasteful the results often are.

Balrog, hands down, as Balrogs are on or near the same power level as the Nazgul's creator. One had to be taken out by a Wizard, and killed that incarnation of the Wizard in the process. The other was taken down by a plucky warrior. The Doctor from Doctor Who, David Tennant incarnation vs. Professor Moriarity of Sherlock Holmes fame.

Here's the Wikipedia article about the case, which summarizes the evidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Garrett_Foster IMO, while eyewitnesses are unreliable, this guy's Twitter statements are pretty damning evidence of a motive. The prosecutor made a point about the weapon being on safe and having an empty chamber, but that's totally irrelevant, since the affirmative defense was a weapon pointed at the shooter. Here's a video of the incident. Looks like the car is slowly moving into the protest crowd, provoking them. I'd say his actions with the vehicle align with his earlier tweets. Looks like he was trying to provoke a response: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/texas/video-2217414/Video-Video-shooting-protest-Austin-Texas.html The conviction looks legit to me.

Not really.

Yeah, I watched the video this morning. I got the impression from the trailer that they were actually attempting to honor the material instead of just slap the name on something. Glad to see it passed muster with the man himself. Looking forward to seeing this one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How so? I watch some BBC stuff, but not familiar with all of their shenanigans.