RANDOM THOUGHTS #189
Steve Cole ponders various
thoughts that came to mind.
1. On cop shows (and other action shows) you eventually see the bad guy grab someone (usually an attractive woman) and hold a gun to her head (or a knife to her throat) and order the good guy to put his gun down and kick it away, which the good guy does because he's, well, the good guy. In the real world, people who carry guns are taught to never put the gun down in such a situation. That gives the bad guy the opportunity to kill both of you. Instead, you tell the bad guy: "Hurt her, you die. Try to take her with you, you die. Stand here until I get tired of humoring you, you die. The only way you leave here alive is to surrender."
2. It gets better. Most cops and a lot of soldiers are very good shots. When I was in the State Guard (the lowest of the low of police and military organizations) my pistol score was so high (243 out of 250) that I was authorized to "take the shot" in a hostage situation. In real life, the cop doesn't give up his gun, and doesn't even make dramatic speeches like the one above. He simply aims very carefully and shoots the bad guy in the head. (Lieutenant Provenza did that on Major Crimes a few weeks ago and I stood up to cheer.) That's the best chance of survival for all of the innocents and the bad guy already forfeited his chance to survive when he pointed a weapon at an innocent person. I can say that anyone who holds a gun to my wife's head is going to get a bullet in his brain, and I have absolute confidence that he'll die before his finger gets the message to pull the trigger.
3. While I love astronomy, the big bang confuses me (as it does astronomers). The big bang theory is that the universe originated at a single point and expanded; it's now several times as big as the 27.4 billion light years we can see, which is why it looks the same in every direction (i.e., no obvious center of the original explosion). I heard another theory on TV which made a lot more sense, that two of those really thin dimensions which only physicists understand ran into each other 13.7 billion years ago and caused the instant creation of hydrogen atoms over the entire infinite billions of light years of the universe. Those then coalesced into clouds and the clouds into stars and the stars burned out and exploded and formed more clouds that turned into more stars.
4. I have been the smartest person in the room enough times to know how cool an ego boost that situation is. On the other hand, the smartest person in the room cannot learn anything (since he knows more than the others) and will ultimately be held responsible for whatever goes wrong (since, after all, they were counting on the smartest person in the room to let them know what was about to go wrong).
5. If I were on HELL'S KITCHEN and my team won a fun day with Chef Ramsay, when we got back I'd jump in and help the losing team prep the kitchens for the dinner service. This would keep me busy, make me feel better, earn me some friends on the other team, and allow me to be sure that our kitchen was prepped correctly.
1. On cop shows (and other action shows) you eventually see the bad guy grab someone (usually an attractive woman) and hold a gun to her head (or a knife to her throat) and order the good guy to put his gun down and kick it away, which the good guy does because he's, well, the good guy. In the real world, people who carry guns are taught to never put the gun down in such a situation. That gives the bad guy the opportunity to kill both of you. Instead, you tell the bad guy: "Hurt her, you die. Try to take her with you, you die. Stand here until I get tired of humoring you, you die. The only way you leave here alive is to surrender."
2. It gets better. Most cops and a lot of soldiers are very good shots. When I was in the State Guard (the lowest of the low of police and military organizations) my pistol score was so high (243 out of 250) that I was authorized to "take the shot" in a hostage situation. In real life, the cop doesn't give up his gun, and doesn't even make dramatic speeches like the one above. He simply aims very carefully and shoots the bad guy in the head. (Lieutenant Provenza did that on Major Crimes a few weeks ago and I stood up to cheer.) That's the best chance of survival for all of the innocents and the bad guy already forfeited his chance to survive when he pointed a weapon at an innocent person. I can say that anyone who holds a gun to my wife's head is going to get a bullet in his brain, and I have absolute confidence that he'll die before his finger gets the message to pull the trigger.
3. While I love astronomy, the big bang confuses me (as it does astronomers). The big bang theory is that the universe originated at a single point and expanded; it's now several times as big as the 27.4 billion light years we can see, which is why it looks the same in every direction (i.e., no obvious center of the original explosion). I heard another theory on TV which made a lot more sense, that two of those really thin dimensions which only physicists understand ran into each other 13.7 billion years ago and caused the instant creation of hydrogen atoms over the entire infinite billions of light years of the universe. Those then coalesced into clouds and the clouds into stars and the stars burned out and exploded and formed more clouds that turned into more stars.
4. I have been the smartest person in the room enough times to know how cool an ego boost that situation is. On the other hand, the smartest person in the room cannot learn anything (since he knows more than the others) and will ultimately be held responsible for whatever goes wrong (since, after all, they were counting on the smartest person in the room to let them know what was about to go wrong).
5. If I were on HELL'S KITCHEN and my team won a fun day with Chef Ramsay, when we got back I'd jump in and help the losing team prep the kitchens for the dinner service. This would keep me busy, make me feel better, earn me some friends on the other team, and allow me to be sure that our kitchen was prepped correctly.
posted by Federation Commander at 6:03 AM
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