so, where am i? what happened?
as noted, i went grocery shopping yesterday afternoon. i left around 12:00 and was back at like 21:00. so, my computer was off around 10:00. i did a lot of walking yesterday on an empty stomach (i hadn't eaten since tuesday night) and it took a toll on my legs. so, i got something to eat, took a shower and crawled into bed, hoping to implement some of the ideas i had thought through regarding the scripting...
regarding the scripting.
i stated previously that i haven't done any scripting, but that was a bit of an oversight - i have taken courses in functional programming, and i was actually unusually good at it. we used scheme instead of lisp, but it was very similar. i had a bit of a moment walking out to get some salami when i realized i should be approaching this less like it's oop and more like it's functional, and so i'll give that a shot when it comes up.
as mentioned, this is a tricky issue. i'm fighting against the api; i'm asking it to do something it was designed to prevent. in a sense, i'm breaking it. it looks like an easy task, and it would be in any other context, but javascript isn't supposed to be aware of what's happening locally, and it isn't supposed to run without user input. it's supposed to compile remotely. but, as i stated, i don't want any of that.
and, no, i don't want to tell people to install some other language, like python. everybody has java. it's baked into the browser...
if i approach this more like a script, i think the right listener should launch on a play error. i was trying to get it to react to the canplay(), which is a haphazard error testing, but it wouldn't fucking load. i was emulating what the standard pushed down; if you look at the html5 code, it must essentially be running a try...catch block in just throwing out the different file types. but, i can't even do that without prompting for a click. it's just the api. it needs inpuuuuuuut.
if i can set the thing to the mp3 array by default and then listen for a play error, i should be able to run through a linear script (it will look like an expanded recursion, but i can't recurse because the array is hardcoded, and that's actually the point - it's more like an expanded lisp routine) that checks all of the options and exits when it finds the right one.
i'm not 100% sure that javascript will do this the same way that lisp or scheme would, but so long as it does, i think it should work.
if not, i'm going to have to ask for the click. so be it.
anyways.
i collapse out of the shower at like midnight and i'm just exhausted, and i go to turn the machine back on to find that same bloody rpcrtremote.dll error. ugh.
we have a pattern here, don't we? it seems to break when i go out. why is that?
and, why was my chromebook parallel to my bed? it's always perpendicular. always.
and, why was my universal power adapter, which i use for my laptop, pulled out of it's socket?
and, why was my (admittedly dilapidated) converted desk disheveled, as though somebody tried to move it?
i have now checked the power usage, and there's no obvious spike when i was gone. but, it seems like somebody was down here, probably around the same time that the cops were circling around me at the store. the thought crossed my mind, even then...
so, what can i do besides turn the router off and reimage? i got a start on it before i passed out, and got to finishing it this morning. it took a few tries this time, actually, which is making me wonder what they actually did. i know that what worked was a three-pass format of the drive, indicating that they may have inserted something in there pretty deeply.
when i got back up, i checked my email and found a response from the oiprd, who were supposed to provide an application record by thursday but are instead offering to redo the review around the question of the arrest. i rejected their request outright. they are continuing to insist on this reductionist perspective, and they're still refusing to consider the pattern of harassment by the officer, which is the actual crux of the complaint. i fully expect that if i were to allow them to conduct a second review, they'd miss every deadline, and i'd either be back in divisional court for delay or in divisional court for review. that strikes me as a pointless waste of time, and i don't want to go through with it - i want the issue dealt with by an actual judge, and i think i should have had the right to get the thing in court from the fucking getgo.
but, they pointed out that a case was released yesterday that updates dunsmuir, so i had to take a look at it. as mentioned, i don't think the new rules really affect this particular case, but i hope that the outcome isn't a lessening of judicial oversight. the oiprd is a good example of the kind of tribunal that needs serious judicial oversight. it may have statutory powers, but it has no relevant expertise, whatsoever. i poked around a little, and some for-profit style lawyers are claiming they love it, but i'm not sure the reasons they're providing are very well thought through. if their optimism pans out, the result could be an americanizing of the law, which would be deeply catastrophic, for canada. i don't want to be an american. i'm afraid of americans.
so, for example, the language about not needing to check the expertise of the panel is very worrying on the surface (i would strongly support the use of judicial review in scenarios where the tribunal does not have the expertise to rule correctly, and who could argue otherwise?), but so long as the judiciary continues to pull these cases on the basis that the rulings are unreasonable, it might be less of a problem than i'm imagining that it could be. i think the previous precedent is more thorough, but i do acknowledge that there is sometimes a redundancy in worrying about whether the panel did do it right or whether the panel can do it right; if the panel can't do it right, they almost certainly didn't do it right, so this scenario where they don't have the expertise and somehow get the right answer is going to be exceedingly rare. but, the law should be thorough, and if this is a taste of the direction that the court is moving in, there should be some critical essays written about it to try and pull them back from it. there's no purpose in hardcoding logical shortcuts into the law, like that.
frankly, the truth is that it's lazy, and that's maybe the easy way to state what's wrong with the changes they made. there may not be serious, substantive differences. but, it's far less rigorous, and it just comes off as lazy and haphazard.
but, the thing those lawyers wanted to see was a precedent that didn't bother assessing the abilities of the panel, and you can imagine scary outcomes resulting from the judiciary mindlessly deferring to these unqualified juntas "because legislation". the worst case scenario is a perfect algorithm for third-world backwardsness. it's potentially devastating...
...but only if they actually defer this way (and, my case is actually an example of this, as the judiciary should not be deferring to "members of the community" on issues of law, that would be retarded), and, so long as they continue to defer properly to the reasonableness standard, they really shouldn't.
likewise, abolishing the correctness standard is at first glance a pretty frightening proposition. certiorari is one of the oldest rules that we have. the supreme court should hardly be gutting 2500 year old roman precedent; this is the heart of our legal system, arguably the most important legal precedent that we have, anywhere, ever. certiorari does exist in ontario statute, but this is a part of the "unwritten rules and conventions" in the preamble of the constitution, really. a western legal system would no longer be a western legal system, without it.
but, taking a closer look at it pulls out that they aren't actually doing that. rather, they're just fucking with the language. and, in the end, they might even be giving themselves more power, if they no longer have to rely on anything besides a broad and purposefully undefined concept of "reasonableness".
obviously, the judiciary needs a check on it, too - the principle of judicial independence is paramount, but they can't have absolute power. however, i think the balance of power should lie in the courts, and not in these panels and tribunals. i'm in favour of activist judges; what i'm worried about is giving these "independent bodies" too much power. so, i would appear to be directly ideologically opposed to the new chief justice on this matter. and, again this is frustrating, because the guy was put in power by the liberals, and he's carrying through with a reform party style harperist agenda.
but, it's not as bad as it looks at first.
and, i honestly don't think it will be nearly as substantive as some commenters are suggesting.
and, i've been at that all afternoon.
so, now i need to get back to the scripting...and let's hope the new idea works....
but, what to do about this thing? i've kept the image unmodified from the backup, to see what happens. will it stay stable for a while? a strict reimage doesn't take that long, but how long can i avoid it for?