Technicalities

I was watching some TruTV at work tonight -- one of those follow the investigation shows -- and something one of the officers said struck me as just plain wrong. He said something to the effect that they were absolutely positive that the guy was their murderer, but he was able to 'get off on a technicality.'

Quite frankly, there's no such thing as a technicality. Either you (as a cop) did your job correctly, or you didn't. You either filled out the application for a warrant fully and correctly, based it on valid (i.e. legal) observations, and executed it within the letter of the law; or you didn't. There was no technicality, there was a fuck up; and it's on you. You broke the rules that allow the prosecutor to present your evidence to the court -- whether it was continuing questioning after a subject asked for a lawyer, stopping a vehicle without a valid reason, or just plain not dotting your 'i's and crossing the 't's on your report -- don't blame the court for finding that the defendant was right on challenging how you did your job.

Reinstalling Windows a distinct possibility

Really, the one of the few things that's sticking in my craw about my plans to go back to school next year is the possibility of having to reinstall Windows on my PC -- or pick up a notebook that can run the programs I need (most likely Office 07+, Visual Studio.NET, that sort of thing).
The other things weigh on my mind as well, don't get me wrong; but this is a concern too. It's not that I don't like Microsoft products. OK, part of it is. Helping my wife with her database homework has been a lesson in frustration when I know that the operation is possible (because after a 5 minutes refresher I can do it with the basic SQL functions[1]) but the lack of coherence in the instructor, instructional material, and online help made the same task next to impossible in Outlook 07.

The other part is -- if I have to use my current computer -- I'll have to find more space for my media server. Not that it's actually 'serving' much (ftp only right at the moment, but hey). Speaking of which, I need to make sure that I have anon read capabilities enabled there, too; or figure out how to get it to follow links. If nothing else, I may have to mount the drive inside my home folder.



[1] SELECT * FROM table
WHERE value=(SELECT MAX(value) FROM table)
OR value=(SELECT MIN(value) FROM table)
will display the largest and smallest 'value'