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Author Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O  (Read 14870613 times)

Reelya

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123195 on: June 15, 2017, 03:23:23 am »

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/11/a-neo-nazi-with-explosives-and-a-framed-photo-of-timothy-mcveigh-is-not-a-threat-judge-rules/?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.fc0667e0acbd

This is one weird story.

Quote
Officials believe he also participated in neo-Nazi chat rooms where he threatened to kill people and blow up places.

Investigators found guns, ammunition and white supremacist propaganda in his bedroom, court records say. A framed photograph of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was on his dresser.

Prosecutors believe those reasons should keep Russell behind bars while he awaits trial on federal charges. A judge, however, disagreed and decided that Russell can be released on bond.

In a ruling Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas McCoun III of a federal-district court in Tampa said he does not believe there’s “clear and convincing evidence” that Russell is a threat to the community. Russell, 21, was charged last month with possession of unregistered destructive devices and unlawful storage of explosive material.

Federal officials found out about Russell after his roommate, a former neo-Nazi who is believed to have converted to Islam, admitted killing two other roommates. Devon Arthurs confessed that he shot his roommates for “disrespecting” his new faith. The 18-year-old also told police that all four of them, who lived in an apartment in Tampa, shared common neo-Nazi beliefs, until he reportedly converted to Islam.

Arthurs was arrested on May 19. Police found his roommates, 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman and 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk, with gunshot wounds in the head and upper body. They also found Russell, crying outside their apartment after finding his roommates dead.

Police discovered Russell’s bomb-making devices, as well as an explosive known as HTMD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine), in the garage after searching the apartment, court records say.
...
After he talked to detectives, Russell went to a gun store in Homestead, Fla., where he bought two hunting rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He was later arrested.
...
McCoun, the federal judge, said in the ruling that Russell’s purchase of the rifles and ammunition is concerning, but he did not believe it was enough to deny his request for a bond.

Righto, bomb threat guy found with a bomb factory, then stocks up on guns and ammo after detectives talk to him. Not a threat to the public. Thw whole neo-Nazi muslim thing just adds a level of wtf to the story.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 03:35:49 am by Reelya »
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Yoink

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123196 on: June 15, 2017, 03:27:00 am »

Well, that was quite a rollercoaster.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123197 on: June 15, 2017, 03:27:16 am »

In the US, there are 3 major "credit bureaus".

Equifax
Transunion
Experian

These big three make and keep a score on basically everyone in the US, which is called their Credit Score.  This is a measure of how trustworthy somebody is to repay a debt.  It is based on a secret sauce formula that the credit agencies do not want to release, but it basically uses all your past credit history, (debt payments and misses) as the major source of the computation.  The more lines of credit you have adds to this score.

This score us consulted by any smaller creditor who may consider extending you credit-- such as, a bank for a mortgage, or a car dealer for an auto loan.

People who have ruined their credit by declaring bankruptcy, or have had garnishments, or have bills in collections, will have very terrible credit scores and will not be able to get loans for basically anything, meaning they cannot buy a house or a car-- hell, even a major appliance like a refrigerator, on credit.

Perversely, this system rewards people who keep revolving debt, while de-facto penalizing people who instead keep fat bank accounts.  The amount of holdings you have is not used in the score calculation, only your history of making and paying off purchases.
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123198 on: June 15, 2017, 03:33:50 am »

Reelya-- from what I am gathering, he has not actually committed a crime by owning those items.

The US does not yet have a thought police, and I like it that way, and want it to stay that way.  Is the man possibly in need of pschological help? Quite likely-- has he actually committed a crime by owning those things? No. 

That's the breaks when upholding somebody's liberties-- even somebody who is not very nice.
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Reelya

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123199 on: June 15, 2017, 03:36:26 am »

What? That argument is a non-sequiter given the details of the story. Prosecuters are involved as are formal charges. The question isn't about whether he's been charged. He has been, and he's going to be found guilty (since he did have the stuff, and it seems pretty certain there's no wiggle room to get out of this. The fact that he stocked up on guns + 100's of rounds of ammo after the police detected him looks bad for him).

Quote
Prosecutors believe those reasons should keep Russell behind bars while he awaits trial on federal charges

Quote
Russell, 21, was charged last month with possession of unregistered destructive devices and unlawful storage of explosive material.

The question is whether he's a threat if released. Given that he stocked up on guns and ammo after the police visited him, then I'd say he's quite a likely threat. If the charges would mean e.g. 10 years in prison the guy might well decide to go down shooting, since he's probably mentally unstable, partly due to the other shit that went down with all his friends being dead or murderers.

BTW having a home bomb lab is indeed illegal in the USA:
http://criminal.lawyers.com/criminal-law-basics/bomb-making-is-illegal.html

Well he's in Florida I think and Florida does have a law outlawing construction or possession of bombs:
https://www.richardhornsby.com/crimes/weapons/possession-or-discharge-of-destructive-device.html
Quote
Under Florida Statute Florida Statute 790.161, the crime of Possession or Discharge of a Destructive is committed when a person willfully and unlawfully makes, possesses, throws, projects, places, or discharges (or attempts to make, possess, throw, project, place, or discharge) any destructive device.

Also Florida has the "10/20/Life law" which I think means that if three felonies were brought against him, he'd be looking at life in prison. Which would make him a much bigger risk.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 03:55:50 am by Reelya »
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123200 on: June 15, 2017, 03:51:20 am »

His framed picture of McVeigh, and his participation on neonazi chat rooms are what I was referring to.

It is not illegal to have or do those things.
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Reelya

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123201 on: June 15, 2017, 03:56:34 am »

Why even bring them up, they weren't what he's been charged with. It's the bomb/death threats and bomb making lab he had in the garage. If it mentioned he ate a peanut butter sandwich would you single out that detail and protest that peanut butter isn't illegal? You seem to have honed in on the least important details in the story and are acting like that refutes the whole story.

The story just mentions them for context. Having a picture of Timothy McVeigh isn't illegal. But the bomb threats and making the bombs are in fact illegal.

Being a huge fan of a terrorist bomber AND making bombs AND threatening to bomb people, does however add to the prosecutors narrative that he's high-probability threat if released.

Especially when you realize he probably has enough felony charges now that he's most likely going to triggers Florida's 3-strikes law and get life if he is (almost cenrtainly) convicted on all charges. All his friends are dead and he's an unstable bomber facing decades in prison and/or life in prison. If he's not high risk ... who is?
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 04:04:21 am by Reelya »
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Bumber

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123202 on: June 15, 2017, 04:04:16 am »

Bought a New 3DS XL around two years ago and never used it, due to issues with transferring over from my old 3DS.
(It had to be done using Wireless transfer, since the SD cards are different sizes. Had to buy an extra charger to prevent the other 3DS from running out of power during the process.)
A few weeks ago, my old 3DS's battery started losing the ability to hold a charge, so I decided to finally perform the transfer.
Transfer completes, and everything seems to be working fine until a few hours later when the New 3DS just dies mid-game. Attempting to turn it on causes power light to turn on for a second, then shut off with a small popping sound.

Checking the internet reveals the issue is most likely a fault in the ribbon cable that goes to the speakers, LEDs, etc. I call tech support, but it's out of warranty, so I'll have to pay. A licensed repair shop is nearby.
I take my New 3DS to the shop and tell them it's probably the ribbon cable. They disagree and tell me it's probably a software corruption due to failed transfer, and they'll have to reset the OS, losing the data stored in the system memory. I remove the microSD card that contains some of the more important save data.

Two days later, they tell me resetting the system didn't fix it. I give them the go-ahead to try to fix the ribbon. That doesn't work either. They give me the option to send it in to the manufacturer for repair, or have them give up on repairs (at no cost to me) and buy a new one. I opt to buy a new New 3DS XL at Target, and leave my broken one with them for spare parts.

I try setting up the new one and inserting the microSD card with my data aaaannnd... it's gone. I can see a bunch of files through my computer, but the 3DS sees it all as empty available memory. Turns out the data is encrypted to the specific system, and a system transfer is required to transfer the decryption key. A system transfer that requires two working 3DS's. "But don't worry," says the internet. "If you send both systems to the manufacturer, they might be able to salvage the system memory from the broken unit and manually transfer it to the new one." Y'know, provided the memory hasn't been reformatted or anything. FUCK.

I had to email Nintendo tech support just to unlink my NNID from the broken unit just so I could re-download my software, sans save data.
Spoiler: Stuff I Lost (click to show/hide)

Mercifully, I only purchase 3DS games as physical copies, which store the important save data on the game card. The digital copies that I lost the entire saves to were all FTP games (which I refused to spend cash on) or redeemed prizes. I'm certainly not going to start buying digital copies from Nintendo after this.

Really, just WTF Nintendo? What do you have against us being able to keep backups? Why even have a removable SD card if it's tied to the unit, with the internal system memory as a single point of failure? What's with this ass-backwards system transfer DRM that convolutes the process of moving save data from one system to another? I could understand if it was just the executable data of the digital software that was system-lock, but you know cheaters and pirates can just use homebrew to get around either of these limitations, right?
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 04:29:51 am by Bumber »
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martinuzz

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123203 on: June 15, 2017, 04:44:50 am »

Creditcards are one other of those weird things that most Europeans don't get. Sure we have credit cards here. They're used by those people who are rich enough to not worry about paying it back.
But the majority of the population, including poor people having credit cards, and personal debts, like what's standard in the US? That's just crazy, and asking for trouble.
It's not that poor people can't get a credit card if they wanted. It's just, if you're raised properly, you would never think of spending money that you didn't earn first.
And there are some poor people who get credit cards. It's just that they won't have those very long. Miss a few payments, and you get a national registration banning you from getting credit or a loan for years.

EDIT: although I have to admit, the 'buy on credit' attitude has been slowly creeping into the EU for the past few decades as well. Just not really in the form of creditcards, more in the form of monthly payments.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 04:47:43 am by martinuzz »
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wierd

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123204 on: June 15, 2017, 05:09:34 am »

Shit, I should move to Europe.  I live that way because I was raised right, and I get penalized here for it. (De-facto, because I dont have miles and miles of credit purchase history. I pay cash.)
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Akura

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123205 on: June 15, 2017, 05:37:23 am »

Same here. I really hate the idea of having to owe someone money.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123206 on: June 15, 2017, 05:41:39 am »



Meanwhile ive been putting off paying my doctors bills because i didnt have any income to pay them with. Im literally the worst.

don't worry. I'm sure he wont pee in your medication or anything like that. *discreetly pulls zipper up and walks away whistling
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Ultimuh

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123207 on: June 15, 2017, 07:34:24 am »

There was no rain, and then there were rain. Then it stopped raining, and then the rain returned. And now there is no rain.. yet.. WTF weather, make up your mind!
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Hanslanda

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123208 on: June 15, 2017, 08:35:03 am »

Creditcards are one other of those weird things that most Europeans don't get. Sure we have credit cards here. They're used by those people who are rich enough to not worry about paying it back.
But the majority of the population, including poor people having credit cards, and personal debts, like what's standard in the US? That's just crazy, and asking for trouble.
It's not that poor people can't get a credit card if they wanted. It's just, if you're raised properly, you would never think of spending money that you didn't earn first.
And there are some poor people who get credit cards. It's just that they won't have those very long. Miss a few payments, and you get a national registration banning you from getting credit or a loan for years.

EDIT: although I have to admit, the 'buy on credit' attitude has been slowly creeping into the EU for the past few decades as well. Just not really in the form of creditcards, more in the form of monthly payments.

I am trying to build enough credit for a house loan. It's basically impossible to buy a house in the USA without a loan or being obscenely rich.
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Lord Shonus

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Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« Reply #123209 on: June 15, 2017, 08:41:32 am »

If you're willing (and have the skills or know somebody that does) to put in a lot of work, you can get a house surprisingly cheap. Around where I am, there are many houses in the 6-10 thousand dollar range, but the catch is that much of the plumbing and (sometimes) wiring has been stolen. Back when I was trying to buy a house (before I got one through family), I was getting my loan applications rejected without a credit check because I was asking for too little money.
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