Posts by Lucy Stewart
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In short it's a core technique in biology that frequently does not work as advertised :).
To vaguely relate this to the topic in some way: also used as part of testing DNA for crime scenes. Strangely enough, however, shows like CSI fail to depict the amount of time real scientists spend playing Minesweeper while waiting for the reaction to run.
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I know people are speaking highly of Chris Hocquard on the other thread, but for purposes of this one I'd just like to call
BINGO!
So how many shots is that worth?
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I wouldn't underrate retribution as a motive, personally. "Send you to a prison where you can't hurt anyone" is only half the story. The other half is "Where you will also get hurt yourself quite a lot, and where your days will be spent in the misery of deprivation that only prisoners can truly appreciate". If incapacitation were the only motive, you wouldn't hear such bitter complaints about the minor luxuries afforded to prisoners.
Oh, yeah - the SST and friends are all about giving people "what they deserve". They don't seem to grasp that just *being in prison* is a punishment, and a pretty severe one. It doesn't matter whether the TV in the common room is flatscreen or CRT if you never get to use the remote. And you can (falsely) compare prisons to hotels all you like, but if you never got to leave your hotel I imagine the appeal would pall quite quickly.
Actually, hey, that's an idea: lock David Garret in a hotel room with a plasma TV for five years and see if he still thinks it's better than they deserve afterwards.
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That's Ok Lucy. A good bit of screaming does wonders for the ambience of the lab. Mwa ha ha ha ha
Yeah, but who's gonna clean up afterwards? Talk about contamination issues.
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Apparantly summer students please them most but it can be difficult to explain to the graduate centre.
...I was doing those PCRs as a summer research student. And I promise you I wouldn't have gone quietly.
Although that does explain why all the thesis students seemed to be moving in packs.
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Funily enough this is exactly how Simon Powers intends to bring the crime rate down with his new DNA seizure laws...
Two problems:
1. It mostly didn't work.
2. I was using this technique on samples from bumblebees, who are not known for their frequent appearance in police databases. -
My experience (which admittedly is down the not 25 years end of the scale) is that people simply don't think they're going to get caught. Therefore the penalty is irrelevant.
I think that's true of everyone who breaks the law. They magnify the rewards, and reduce the risk. I don't really believe in longer sentences as deterrents; they're not, any more than capital punishment eliminates crimes it is applied to.
But I *can* see something of a place for the idea that some people just are too dangerous to let out. The trouble is, I don't think we invest nearly enough in prevention and rehabilitation to stop people getting to that point, and until and unless we do, all this law will do is mean some people go down for longer once they've reaches a point of being really bad. Even if its use is restricted to the most heinous of criminals, it's not going to stop them doing those things in the first place. It's all very ambulance/cliff-like.
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OTOH, we could make a drinking game.
It would dull the pain, which always helps.
When I was doing my masters we had moved on to making sacrifice to a fluorescent green plastic alien to make the PCRs work.
I wonder if there's a statement in there about the culture change ...Now if only someone had told me about the correct sacrificial process before the last three months of PCRs and gels, that would have been really helpful. As it was, I mostly resorted to scowling at the DNA samples to try and make them behave.
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Criminal A, upon release, commits (entirely consensual) incest. The judge upon looking at the situation, and decides it's not all that serious. A life sentence is not required. The judge can impose a non-custodial sentence (e.g. community work) or a custodial sentence of up to (but not including) five years' imprisonment. Only if the judge (ignoring the fact it will be a third strike) decides that the appropriate sentence would be five years' imprisonment or more, is the third strike rule of life with a non-parole period of 25 years imposed.
That's...suspiciously reasonable.
I'm with Giovanni. This thing of a hysterical-sounding law with actually quite well-thought-out provisions is really *bizarre*.
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Is the 'how to make a stupid law' thread an appropriate place to have a very peeved moment about the axing of the pay equity inquiries? Well, even if it isn't, let me have the moment anyway, or I might implode in my cubicle:
GAH! BAH! MEH! ARGH!
Those smarmy gits. Shorter Tony Ryall: 'Hey women - fuck you!'
Since when have they been interested in pay equity for *anyone*, really? But it does feel like a bit of a slap in the face.
Or, you know, a punch. With knuckledusters.