Dave

Staff member
Our alarms all just went off for an active shooter on campus. The system was just implemented and I'm hoping this is a technical snafu.

So sitting in my office with the door closed & locked, waiting for an all clear.

Happy Friday.
 

Dave

Staff member
I'm skeptical that it's real since I haven't heard any shots, the administrators are standing outside my office laughing and joking around, and it's Friday when there's no students on campus.
 

Dave

Staff member
Back. It was not a drill. Nobody is hurt. Two people dialed the emergency "active shooter" number, which triggered the event. Got escorted out at gunpoint, which is always fun.
 
Back. It was not a drill. Nobody is hurt. Two people dialed the emergency "active shooter" number, which triggered the event. Got escorted out at gunpoint, which is always fun.
Like, as a prank or by accident? Either way they're dumb but now we have to figure out scale of stupidity.
 

Dave

Staff member


My boss is the first guy interviewed and I am in the shot of all the people. You could probably see which one I was, if it weren't filmed on a potato.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
English is a maddening language. Adding an S (or -es) makes things plural. Except It's Oxen and Children not Oxes or Childs, but Golden and Wooden aren't the plural of Gold or Wood, but both Brethren and Brothers are acceptable but Sistren makes you sound silly (or turboreligious) even though it's technically just as correct, but this rule has nothing to do with Man becoming Men or Woman becoming Women because that's denoting the plural by changing a vowel and holy fuck how does any non-native speaker learn this ridiculous language.
 
English is a maddening language. Adding an S (or -es) makes things plural. Except It's Oxen and Children not Oxes or Childs, but Golden and Wooden aren't the plural of Gold or Wood, but both Brethren and Brothers are acceptable but Sistren makes you sound silly (or turboreligious) even though it's technically just as correct, but this rule has nothing to do with Man becoming Men or Woman becoming Women because that's denoting the plural by changing a vowel and holy fuck how does any non-native speaker learn this ridiculous language.
Playing videogames.
 
Playing videogames.
Videogames (particularly multiplayer rpgs), webcomics, and the Image forums were crucial in getting me from mediocre to college-ready. They did jack for my accent, but I wrote better English than a lot of my native classmates pretty much from the get-go.
 
English is a maddening language. Adding an S (or -es) makes things plural. Except It's Oxen and Children not Oxes or Childs, but Golden and Wooden aren't the plural of Gold or Wood, but both Brethren and Brothers are acceptable but Sistren makes you sound silly (or turboreligious) even though it's technically just as correct, but this rule has nothing to do with Man becoming Men or Woman becoming Women because that's denoting the plural by changing a vowel and holy fuck how does any non-native speaker learn this ridiculous language.
I can also tell you from first-hand experience that it is a bitch to design an algorithm for, assuming you want something with a high success rate. SO many special cases to catch.

Also don’t forget about words like “data,” which are already plural unless you mean the Star Trek character, and constructs like “mothers-in-law” and “Attorneys General.”

—Patrick
 
Had Turkey dinner at work yesterday, yay!

40% absentee rate this morning, boo!

I had some gastrointestinal distress this morning, but 'toughed' it out and went to work. Then I ate lunch, bad idea!

*added time reference.
 
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Dunno where to put it, but since we don't have a Headlines thread:

Fatal crash on US 60 closes freeway for most of morning.

Reason for posting:
  1. This happened only a few miles away from me here in Mesa.
  2. It caused headaches for my workplace on Friday AM, because a lot of our bus routes go through this interchange (either on Higley or on the US 60 Superstition Freeway) every day.
  3. The driver who was killed... well, read the article. :Leyla:
 
Dunno where to put it, but since we don't have a Headlines thread:

Fatal crash on US 60 closes freeway for most of morning.

Reason for posting:
  1. This happened only a few miles away from me here in Mesa.
  2. It caused headaches for my workplace on Friday AM, because a lot of our bus routes go through this interchange (either on Higley or on the US 60 Superstition Freeway) every day.
  3. The driver who was killed... well, read the article. :Leyla:
What the f? That would be a comedy of errors if it weren't so sad people died. There are two things I'm struggling with though:

1) Who in this day and age doesn't wear a seatbelt in a vehicle? That's a Darwin award waiting to happen.
2) It doesn't look like it's a blind corner or obscured in any way from that photo, so how the f does the black truck just plow right through without seeing anything? I hope they find him and throw his ass in jail. Please post if they ever do.
 
What the f? That would be a comedy of errors if it weren't so sad people died. There are two things I'm struggling with though:

1) Who in this day and age doesn't wear a seatbelt in a vehicle? That's a Darwin award waiting to happen.
2) It doesn't look like it's a blind corner or obscured in any way from that photo, so how the f does the black truck just plow right through without seeing anything? I hope they find him and throw his ass in jail. Please post if they ever do.
I know lots of stupid adults who only wear their seat belt because the car yells at them if they don't and they don't want to listen to it. I'm sure there are also people who have cars that are old enough to not make noise if you don't wear a seat belt.
 
You didn't see the reason which was listed right in the article: he was driving a truck with traffic barricades.

What I suspect happened was, he was driving down the shoulder of the 60 early in the morning to put down barricade signs for construction that was slated to begin this weekend at the 202 interchange (though that interchange is about two miles away, he may have still needed to put signs out far enough away because AZ laws are stupid). Dark car was under the Higley-US 60 overpass, and he didn't see it as he was speeding away to get to the next location he was supposed to put the barricades/signs down. Helpful driver (who may have been traveling with him, we don't know) stopped to assist when black truck going 90 in the right-most lane (bad idea to begin with but that doesn't stop anyone in this state) broadsided the stopped truck and essentially killed the driver.
 
My parents work in road construction, and this shit happens a lot. My cousin's husband (who also works road construction) was recently hit while being a good Samaritan to a car that caught fire from crashing into a car going the wrong way, and how the fuck does someone not notice a car that's on fire long before you plow into it?
 
What the f? That would be a comedy of errors if it weren't so sad people died. There are two things I'm struggling with though:

1) Who in this day and age doesn't wear a seatbelt in a vehicle? That's a Darwin award waiting to happen.
2) It doesn't look like it's a blind corner or obscured in any way from that photo, so how the f does the black truck just plow right through without seeing anything? I hope they find him and throw his ass in jail. Please post if they ever do.
It was 4 am, so I'm guessing the driver was drunk.
 
The Superstition Freeway is probably the most traveled freeway in the East Valley (general definition of "East Valley" = "everything east of Sky Harbor/Tempe"), and the fact it has five lanes in each direction plus HOV lanes points this out.

Abandoned vehicles are frequent along the shoulders of the highway, mostly because people start driving on it without thinking whether or not their beater cars can actually go freeway speeds.

I can attest that if you're going 65 MPH on that stretch - even if you're in the right lane - you're going to get passed by cars going even faster.
 
You didn't see the reason which was listed right in the article: he was driving a truck with traffic barricades.

What I suspect happened was, he was driving down the shoulder of the 60 early in the morning to put down barricade signs for construction that was slated to begin this weekend at the 202 interchange (though that interchange is about two miles away, he may have still needed to put signs out far enough away because AZ laws are stupid). Dark car was under the Higley-US 60 overpass, and he didn't see it as he was speeding away to get to the next location he was supposed to put the barricades/signs down. Helpful driver (who may have been traveling with him, we don't know) stopped to assist when black truck going 90 in the right-most lane (bad idea to begin with but that doesn't stop anyone in this state) broadsided the stopped truck and essentially killed the driver.
If this was a reply to my question, no, I read the article and watched the video. I understand how the first truck could have done that (drunk, sleep deprived, just bad vision, etc). My question was aimed at the truck that managed to plow through a) an over-turned truck, assuming his lights are on or blinking, plus the samaritan truck, again, assuming their hazards are on. Much like Dei's example, how the fuck do you not see any of that, or are you completely DUI?
 
Oh, in that case, yes.

Thing is, I'd love to see the traffic camera history for that one to see if the truck was obviously weaving before approaching the overpass.

EDIT: ADOT's 511.gov camera site only takes captures five seconds at a time. This is generally where the accident happened:


EDIT: If the photo is where they usually have it, it's located on the SE corner of the overpass. The truck was stopped on the freeway right before the bridge as it comes toward the camera. I didn't realize it when I copied the camera URL, but it will update to current every time it loads on this page...
 
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If this was a reply to my question, no, I read the article and watched the video. I understand how the first truck could have done that (drunk, sleep deprived, just bad vision, etc). My question was aimed at the truck that managed to plow through a) an over-turned truck, assuming his lights are on or blinking, plus the samaritan truck, again, assuming their hazards are on. Much like Dei's example, how the fuck do you not see any of that, or are you completely DUI?
My other thought was that he might have just been an asshole in a hurry and couldn't bother slowing down, and so he sped on by thinking he was avoiding the crash, focusing on the vehicles and not noticing the guy on the ground.
 
The exits on the 60 are spaced closer together, so it's possible the guy had just accelerated onto the freeway and never saw the truck. But I suspect alcohol may have been a factor.

The owner/driver of the black truck is probably never going to be able to get his car repaired, because someone will recognize the damage. That won't stop him/her from driving it around, though (I've seen trucks and cars with no front bumper to speak of driving around out here.)
 
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