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I'm not familiar at all with your power cords and etc over there, but if it's fused I may know your problem.

Desktop computer power supplies are notorious for having cheap capacitors inside of them, and if one of them happens to malfunction it will explode and cause the power supply to stop functioning, or if it's fused (which it never is here) it could blow the fuse.

I suspect your cable is fused because if it actually burned the insulation would melt, and that would be quite a current draw, enough to blow your breakers/fuses in your house.

If you have any electrical meters measure the amperage that's passing through, if you don't try swapping to a bigger power supply.  Don't leave it unattended anymore if you don't want your home to burn.

Looks like it is going to be shot down tomorrow night (Wednesday).

During..

DUM DUM DUUUM..

A lunar eclipse!

The judicial system most places in the US is heavily overburdened. If the courts have to spend resources on traffic cases, that means they'll have less to spend on more important cases. You have a right to take this to court if you absolutely must, but I have to tell you, I think it's a bullshit case. "I don't know what speed I was going" is not an argument; it's damn near an admission of guilt. All the other stuff about changing speed limits and "everybody else were speeding too" is just lame excuses.

Bringing this to court is just going to waste everybody's time, and cost way more than the amount of the ticket. If this was a matter of abuse of authority, or an obviously bogus fine, of course you should protect your rights. But given the circumstances, just pay the damn ticket!

I looked in my states statutes and the fine is $20 for my $180 ticket.  The rest are court costs and state pork, so yes, he will pay for the court hearing one way or the other.

Giving people tickets for speeding up to 50 mph 100 yards before the 45 mph sign (just guessing - he said it was nearby) is a superfluous waste of time and bogus ethically as well.

Darth is right.  You'll be going to a Kangaroo court, almost no matter what.

I've done this before too, same situation, in a little speed trap town right in front of the 45 mph speed limit sign, except in Oklahoma the speed must increment in 10's or the signs are not legal, so it was from 35 - 45 and I was going 50.

First thing to do is look at the ticket, it says which law you broke.  Google Kansas state statutes and read the law to see what the specifics are.  Some states do say that the speed change is in effect once you see the sign, in Oklahoma the speed change is in effect immediately (physically) after you pass the sign.

These laws vary by state and not every state (I'll bet most don't) requires you to see the radar reading.

You should read up on how radar works, if there was heavy traffic and the cars around you were bigger there's NO way he could know the reading came from you.  His only defense is that he could see how fast you were going relative to the other cars, and if he got a high reading from the nearby cars and your car appeared to be going the same/similar speed then you're done.  You can bring this up in court.  The radar unit picks up the strongest signal.  The best way to bring this up isn't to say it, because you're not an expert, but ask the police officer how the radar specifically reacts to those situations.  If he doesn't know, then question his competence later in the process, but NOT during the questioning.  FYI, I had a rookie cop who had 8 hours of "training" from the police chief, neither of whom had ever had any official schooling for radar use, neither of whom read the damn manual, and the rookie wasn't aware of many common properties of radar units and I STILL WAS DECLARED GUILTY.

If he was parked at an angle to you his reading is inaccurate, it would be less than you were actually going.  It will never read higher (if the reading is coming from you).  They will bring this up if they were parked at an angle and the radar isn't self-correcting.

So basically, you've probably already googled this but here's what happens:
You go to an initial hearing, they'll explain their version of how the law works, which is that if you're guilty, plead and pay the fine.  If you're absolutely not guilty, plead and come back at a later date for your trial.  If you're guilty and you have an excuse (mitigating circumstances) ask to mitigate.  In reality, pleading innocent just means you're going to make them prove you're guilty and if you choose to mitigate it isn't a guilty plea, you're just trying to negotiate a deal without going to trial.  If you fail to reach an agreement you're satisfied with, then you simply plead innocent and go to trial anyway.

If you go to trial, the city/county lawyer will question the police officer.  He'll ask him to identify you, and identify your vehicle and how fast you were going.  Often, right after this, they'll try to show him the ticket, but you should object because that colors his testimony by proving he can't recall all of the events on his own.  They'll ask some other standard questions which vary, like whether or not they tested the radar unit with a tuning fork or not.

Remember one thing, the police officer can and will lie.  If you're going to try to question him and get what you feel is the truth out of him, it had better be pretty fucking clever because you can't expect him to just let you go.  Would you go to court over something and just give up?

Also, he's going to show up.  Expecting him not to is stupid, they get paid to do it and they nearly always show up.

Basically, if I had to do it over again I would have tried to mitigate.  Most of the time they'll drop the fine a notch or two.  If you want to go through the trial, realize it's an intimidating process and if you aren't much of a public speaker GOOD LUCK.

I'll defend free speech to my death, I think they should have been allowed to picket the funeral.  They might have even won a Darwin award.

That baptist church thingie seems pretty fake to me. Not that it doesn't nail the typical bible-belt hillbilly mentality quite well, but still...

I live in the bible belt not too far south (in American terms) from where they are.  They once wanted to picket a funeral of a dead soldier who lived in one of the small towns near where I grew up.  (See: http://www.godhatesamerica.com )

Men bearing rifles and hundreds of death threats from locals made the highway patrol decide to intervene and not allow the church members anywhere near the funeral.

They are very much real, and too crazy for mainstream bible-belters.

I see what you did there Boyd, trimmed the beard and grew out the rest of the hair since the last time I saw you.

Once I was standing on the street minding my own business after a disappointing day at work when I saw a flash.  I didn't know what it was, and I wasn't particularly worried.  There was a guy next to me wearing a brown hat and overcoat that must have seen it too, because he initiated a conversation with me.  He asked me if I wanted a new job with lots of travel opportunities, next thing I knew I was zipping through the galaxy trading baconburgers and pornography.

Weirdest shit that ever happened to me.

Civic centers, city hall, VFW halls (veteran of foreign war - they're even in tiny cities), schools, American Legion, Mason halls (they're all about doing things for public good, right?).  Those are in every medium sized American city and also cheap, maybe even free for something like AA.  Pubs and restauraunts aren't really popular meeting places here, only for short get-togethers to celebrate something before going elsewhere.  There's a big stigma around alcohol consumption here that keeps most groups and employers distanced from it except for special occasions.

taken from the AA site:

There's a lot of talk about God, though, isn't there?
The majority of A.A. members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the A.A. group, still others don't believe in it at all. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and nonbelief.

This is true, they say that.  Most people familiar with it say it's a separate religion.  Thing is, it doesn't work out practically when you involve groups of people raised in the bible belt, probably even in some liberal regions.  I know it to be a fact that there's little ambiguity in my region about what god and whose god it is.  The meetings all take place in churches, I've never heard of one in another public place.  Often they use the opportunity to encourage attendance to their institution, which as Collossal has pointed out, is a really shady thing to do to someone in such a fragile state.  This info is all secondhand from the woman I know who gave up alcohol, probably subject to widespread variation.  The actual truth of it in the new century I don't know, because it's been about 20 years since she did it.

Talking about it makes me want a drink, and I've been sober for 17 days now.

I've known people who went through the AA program, and several of the steps involve acknowledging that there is a god.  I have a real problem with that, since it can't possibly be a necessary step in combating alcoholism and only serves to toss out atheists.

http://www.oc-aa.org/1212.htm

Worked for one woman I knew, had noticeable effects on a guy who was friend of a friend, didn't work at all for another guy 'cause he never thought it was a problem in the first place.

I love them all except for the ants, I don't get that one either.  I can really relate to the procrasturbating comic, not so much to the penis-on-the-bike-seat comic, but it's hilarious anyway because it's a penis joke.

I stumbled it so maybe you'll get some extra random visitors soon.

Great plan, but first we need a Kucinich girl on youtube.  Time has already run out on this one and we need to get on the ball.  Know any takers?

I don't think IR is really good enough.  Accelerometers are cheap enough now that they'll be what is used.

They're micro-machines that have a silicon springboard with a capacitive sensor to tell how much gravity is pulling on it.. by measuring this and plugging into an equation you can get the tilt angle.  Sometimes a gyro must be used along with it to stabilize rapid movements, which might make the springboard oscillate uncontrollably.

This is what has been used in those look-at-what-you-want-to-kill systems in American helicopters.  The Wii-mote uses them too.

i don't know much about laying carpets, but if you got them ready cut so they just need to be laid then you could probably do it yourself quite easily.

Sorta.. a carpet will often shrink with time, and if it's not properly secured then it advances away from the walls leaving an ugly gap there.  Since it's so expensive to buy it anyway, having it installed improperly to save a few bucks isn't a good idea.

You need some special tooling, nothing extreme, just big shears.  Some types of padding use fiberglass to insulate from the floor and they can make you very itchy and miserable if you don't handle them properly.

In my shop, I was actually thinking sometimes, *Should I say have a nice christmas? What if said person doesn't celebrate it?* but just thought to hell with it and said it whenever to whoever.

My first thought would be to do the opposite of what would be appropriate, like wish everyone a happy Kwanzaa no matter what.

Then, I guess you do have a business to run.

While my intuition tells me the huge working Hispanic population here means there's no problem with them, I often wonder what our signs and instructions in "Spanish" look like to a native speaker (in America).

Just to throw in the flip side of things..

Yep, that's Satan punishing you.

If you happen to be able to afford something really nice for yourself after working overtime for months that's God rewarding you.

PS.  What did you do wrong?

Yuf, sometimes I don't visit here for months but look in on these forums just to see if you've made another outrageously hilarious post like that one.

Another funny thing about girls is you can never trust them as a judge of image, if they say a girl is ugly it just means they don't like that particular girl.

Egg nog and rum.