The American Justice System Update

I found the story that included my forgotten details in a book titled Unusually Stupid Americans. Two professional carpet installers sued the company who made the carpet adhesive that they used when it exploded and burned them. The product explicitly said "Do not use indoors because of flammability." However, the jurors said that the warning label did not provide enough warning and the men were awarded $4M apiece. I put the blame on the 'professional' carpet installers, who chose to buy carpet adhesive that prohibited its indoor use.

Some other outrageous lawsuits that held up in court include: $24K awarded to a San Francisco mugger who sued the cab driver who used his cab to pin the mugger against a building, $2.2M awarded to a convenience store worker for hurting her back trying to open a pickle jar (including $170K for emotional distress), and $14.1M awarded to a woman because she was hit by a subway. She had been lying on the tracks in an attempt to commit suicide. While I feel blessed to live in the United States of America, I am ashamed that its judicial system allows these kinds of lawsuits to even enter a courtroom.

Growth

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." --1 Corinthians 13:11

To me, this Bible verse implies that childish things are undesirable when compared to adult things. However, when I reflect on this passage and think about how I have changed from when I was young, there are some changes that I do not think are desirable. Take the picture above, for example. This is a picture of nine dolphins swimming in a bottle, but I bet you couldn't see them when you first looked at the picture. You must focus on the darker parts of the image. I lost my innocence at some point in my "maturing" and will never get it back. This saddens me to an extent, but I know that it was an inevitable part of getting older and experiencing more things, and I don't think that I would trade my innocence for the knowledge and life-lessons that I have gained from these new experiences. Oh, the URL where I found the picture didn't show up very well and I can't take credit for the illusion, so here's the site.

While I think that innocence is the main casualty in my maturing process, I think that a lot of people lose their sense of humor when they age. I don't think that I could make it through life without a sense of humor but it seems to me that too many people find that the best way to grow up involves jamming something uncomfortable into their anuses and leaving it there for the rest of their lives, which I am sure removes the ability to take anything lightly. Unfortunately, when they lose their sense of humor they replace it with a sense of entitlement regardless of whether it is deserved. I witnessed a simple example of this when I was walking to class today. There was a guy who had opened a door to a building on campus and, after entering the building, he held the door open for a girl who was behind him. I was not paying enough attention to notice if she had acknowledged his incredibly selfless act, but apparently she didn't. As a result, the guy stopped her and vehemently said "you're welcome." I was taken aback and confronted him about his attitude, informing him that he was making a huge deal out of an insignificant event. The next period of classes was about to start so he didn't argue, but I could see that he wasn't happy with what I said. In any event, I think that this sense of entitlement destines these people to be disappointed, which causes them to feel even more entitled to something else. This is not a healthy way to live and probably causes a good chunk of the lawsuits today.

While I have enjoyed the process of growing up and want to continue maturing, I think that it is important to keep practicing things that were instilled in me as a child, like telling the truth, doing things to be kind and not for compensation, and apologizing for my faults. In this sense, I think that to become a man some childish things cannot be forgotten.

The American Justice System

I have been troubled for some time about the amount of lawsuits that actually get an opportunity to be heard in court, much less win. For example, recently someone sued a company for doing something stupid with a product and incurring bodily injury as a result. There was a warning label printed either on the package or the product, but the plaintiff actually won his case because the warning label was not visible enough. I apologize for the lack of specifics, but my memory is vague and I don't think that I can remember enough pertinent details to have any success with a search engine. The point is that this person's ineptitude was rewarded.

An example that I can remember is from a few years ago and involved a woman spilling coffee on herself at McDonald's and suing for shit like medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish, and the like. She won her case, received seven figures, and probably retired. Since then, McDonald's has printed large warning labels on its coffee cups to make sure that its customers know that the coffee at McDonald's is hot.

I have come to the conclusion that since this woman was able to get herself to McDonald's and had the money to buy a cup of coffee, she had enough intelligence or experience to know that hot things require cautious handling to minimize the chance of being burned. I know enough about coffee to know that it is an acquired taste and, as a result, this woman had coffee before and knew that coffee falls in the 'hot things' category. Thus, her injury was the effect of either an accident or her own carelessness. In both cases McDonald's should not have been held liable, but it was anyway. This would only happen in America.

I think that the American Justice System should not only allow its judges laugh plaintiffs of cases as bogus as these out of the courtroom, it should let them drop balloons and confetti from the ceiling. It should also take away the plaintiffs' right to vote in any election ever again, make them take some kind of ethical seminar, and force them to drive Chevy Vegas for the rest of their lives.

How many pounds make one metric ton?

When Mike suggested that the world switch to a consistent setting on the clock, I began to think about the plausibility of this concept. I only came up with two problems with it. First, Santa couldn't utilize time zones to help deliver gifts all over the world in one night. However, he could add a few deer to his sleigh and things would work out fine. Second, if the world operated on the same time, some people would see the sun rise at 10:00 p.m.. This would take an adjustment, but it is really the same adjustment made as a result of DST. It may take a some time to get used to going to your '9 to 5' at midnight, but I'm sure the world can handle it. The only real problem with having the sun rise at 10:00 p.m. is that things like sundials would not work as they do now. But I think that if you're relying on a sundial to tell the time you don't have to pick the kids up from soccer practice in an hour and, as a result, probably don't really need to know what time it is anyway.

Thinking about the possibility of 'world time' got me to think about other inconsistencies in measurement in the world and the benefits of having a world standard set of measurements. Actually, this is almost the case. A few decades ago pretty much everyone in the world adopted the SI as standard. Some of you may not know what SI means. That is because the United States of America uses English units. SI is a French acronym, but translated in English it means International System (of Units). While you may not have known what SI was, I'm sure you knew some of its units of measurement. The seven basic units of measurement in SI are the second, meter, kilogram, ampere, Kelvin, mole, and candela. Since I am in a scientific major in college, these units play a big part in my areas of study. Unfortunately, English units are much more difficult to use. While SI makes use of the metric system (1000 millimeters in one meter, for example), English units are not as easily converted and often require multiple factors of conversion in a given problem.

This rarely poses a problem for people who are not as controlled by numbers as I am. However, since conversions are rarely needed in an everyday life, I believe that it would not take much for the United States to make the switch to SI. A simple government decree forcing manufacturers to print ingredients and contents in SI would cause the consumer to learn the system pretty quickly. A single system of units would make my life a lot easier and would probably make life in the United States a little easier too, once Americans got past their apprehensions and stubbornness of switching.

The question posed in the title is a simple example of unit inconsistency. Pound is an English measurement, but it can be used to measure a mass or a force (force is mass multiplied by length divided by time twice). This double meaning can cause problems. In the title question the unit could be mass or force and depends on what you want to measure. Metric ton is a measurement in SI and is different from the ton used in the United States. This is one unit that can cause inconsistency in measurement. One example of failure due to unit inconsistency was the Mars Climate Orbiter which burned up in the Martian atmosphere because project teams used both English and SI forces in their calculations and did not convert them to a single system.

In case you were wondering, there are 2204.623 pounds in one metric ton. Oddly enough, this is the same value whether it is a mass measurement or a weight measurement.

April 2, 2006

In about 6 hours a historic event will take place in Indiana. For the first time in 40 years, the entire state will observe Daylight Saving Time* (DST) along with 47 other states of the Union. Since I have lived in Indiana for all of my 21 years, I have never observed this and don't know much about it. Therefore, I did a little research to become more knowledgable about this biennial occurrence with which I am forced to comply. This is what I found:

The concept of DST was proposed by Benjamin Franklin to, as the current name suggests, maximize the use of the luminescence provided by our sun and save on candles and oil which were used to provide artificial light sources (he probably also wanted more people to listen to him and be early to bed, early to rise, ...). While saving these materials was a good idea, the concept of removing and adding time was fundamentally flawed and Franklin's proposal was rejected. That is, of course, until recently. DST was enforced by the federal government circa WWI in order to conserve the necessary resources to create electricity. Within a year, however, the law was repealed. FDR called for a forward shift of the clocks for 3 years during WWII for similar reasons as those circa WWI. After WWII, the practice became inconsistent among the states and was confusing for the increasing number of travelers. To alleviate this problem, in 1966 the Uniform Time Act was issued for nationwide observance of the time switch. However, individual states could disregard this law by passing their own law saying they didn't have to abide by it; this tells me that the Uniform Time Act was basically a suggestion.

This creates a space between the paragraphs.

Until Governor Mitch Daniels got some political power to pass some legal something last year (he has a daughter who goes to Purdue, by the way, but I still think he's the worst Indiana Governor of my lifetime), Indiana was one of the few states in the Union sane enough to pay zero attention to DST. But this spring the sun will be right overhead at 1:00 p.m. and later in the summer won't set until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m.. Thank you, Mitch Daniels, for rejecting logic and ruining 40 years of tradition in Indiana.

.

I have always thought that DST was one of the least practical ideas ever. Time is constant. How can any sane person try to adjust the measurement of a constant? If I wanted to lose an hour and then gain it back later I would drive to Illinois and back. Some people who care more about DST than I do performed studies and found that DST reduces total traffic accidents in the United States by nearly 1%. However, it might be easier to reduce the number of accidents and would decrease the number by more than 1% if people stopped applying makeup, eating, or talking on their cell phones while driving. Others claim that the day can be better utilized if a larger part of the waking hours were during daylight hours. I am not sure this is true, because it sounds like personal opinion. As a result, I will rebut this argument with my personal opinion that if you want to make better use of the day you should wake up earlier and spare me the inconvenience of shifting my clocks and my sleep schedule twice a year.

This creates a space between the paragraphs.

Ultimately, aside from those who have sleep disorders and cannot quickly adjust to the effects of DST, the time shift is just an inconvenience. However, this inconvenience has caused many problems worldwide as evidenced in part right here. By the way, because of George W. Bush next year the USA will jump ahead before St. Patrick's Day.

This creates a space between the paragraphs.

This creates a space between the paragraphs.

This creates a space between the paragraphs.

*The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, but many feel that appending an 's' to Saving is easier to say and, as a result, is also accepted.