Quandaries of a twenty-something

[melannen]

I'm going to college part-time this year and commuting from home, and since I believe that cars (+UMCP parking) are the root of all evil, I'm taking the train (well, and buses. But they're BIODEISEL buses, so s'all good.)

Also, my sister has a job and a new apartment, and is doing packing and furniture shopping. (This is exciting, because we're mostly the class of people who don't buy our own furniture. It just sort of .. . appears, generally.)

I have two ponderables related to this, which I hereby throw out to the flist for arbitration.
[Poll #570808]

ETA: this article is everything that's wrong with modern American journalism. Oh noes! They had two commentators who thoughtfully agreed on something, instead of just spouting opposite ends of the fringe! They have abandoned all journalistic integrity! *weeps for her country*

Comments

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised at how many people chose "Yeah" on the train-ticket question. I might be wrong, but doesn't the ticket say something to the effect of One Ride on it? Whether it gets punched or not, it was intended to be used only once. That being said, if you do get to the station so close to departure that buying a ticket would cause you to miss, you can use the offencing ticket, as long as you make up for it, either by buying an extra ticket, or buy sending the fare amount to the transportation people.

My main stickiness with this is that re-using the ticket costs the transportation system that fare amount. If many people do it, it will lead to a fare increase, which hurts everyone.

[theemptylife.livejournal.com]

I prefer to think of it as evening out. As long as youve been ripped off or cheated at some point in the past, it's alright to reuse the ticket. And most likely, the public transportation being a large organization and all, theyve ripped someone off as well. So its even for them.
Secondly, as long as the ticket punchers are doing their jobs, there shouldnt be enough free riders to adversely affect the system.
Thirdly, and off-topically, I would say Thrift-store couches are gross. But I took in a couch from my building's hallway with a "FREE" sign on it. So I say go for it.

[theemptylife.livejournal.com]

Also, I agree that the country's journalism is in shambles, although from what I hear, we're better off than England in that respect. But this isnt really a shining example of it. In a show called "All Things Considered" there should be varying viewpoints, not too people who come into the discussion on the same page. It might also be nice if the glowing things Rosen had to say werent pure speculation. I think the write of that article just expects a little more for NPR, I know I do.
Hell, I listened a bunch of the confirmation hearing, and I didnt hear a hint of that view of Roberts. I heard a man stalling instead of answering. I heard excuses that didnt sit right or make sense. And I heard angry senators. No one can make any claims on what Roberts will do, because he wont talk to anyone about it.

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would depend on the couch itself. Feel free to go to a thrift store to find a couch, just make sure you check the cushions before you buy. XD

But saying it's okay to screw someone over if you've been screwed over in the past by someone else creates a kind of twisted "pay it forward" system, and that would be a Bad Thing.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Actually, the closest a Marc ticket comes to saying "one use only" is where it says "one way" on the ticket stub, suprisingly. Which I think has to do with the fact that you can buy multi-use tickets, and they print them on the same template as the one-way ones. Which is part of why I found the ethics so sticky when I started thinking about it. I guess if they posted rules about re-using unpunched tickets, they'd be advertising the fact that they only punch them about half the time.

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

Hmm... the intent of the ticket is still for it to be used once. Using it again is cheating. The question would then be about when cheating is necessary. The "going to miss the train" situation would be one. "I just got robbed, and thus have no fare (but somehow held on to my old ticket)" would be another.

Still, it's largely a judgement call. Letter of the "I'm sure it's written somewhere, on a sign, covered in graffiti" law may say: "don't do it." Ultimately, however, it's the rider's decision whether or not to re-use the ticket.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I've been ignoring the confirmation debates because at this point there's nothing at all I can do about it either way and there's no point in getting angry. But really, as far as I can tell, there's *nothing* to say about Rosen that isn't pure speculation, he doesn't seem to have said much that is concrete, ever. If he really does what he's claiming, and judges every case purely on technical legal merit rather than politics, then I actually agree he'd be a pretty darn good Supreme Court justice. (Of course, we've long since learnt that nobody associated with Dubya can be trusted to do what they claim, but on the *surface*, he seems ... just. Which is a good thing for a judge.)

And based on that article, they did have two people coming to it from different viewpoints, they just happened to have come to similar conclusions. It is the *worst* kind of yellow journalism to drag two people on a show just because they happen to disagree, if the two sides of their argument aren't equally valid. The goal of journalism is to get the truth out, not foster controversy in pursuit of some stupid ideal of 'balance'. If the article had been saying that the guy was a biased idiot, fine, but they seemed to be mad *solely* because the commentators agreed instead of bickering, which, just, argh! This is the sort of thing that leads to giving evolution and Intelligent Design equal time.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Well, see, going solely by the 'conditions of use' printed on the back, the intent of the ticket is for you to be able to show it to the conductor if he asks. In fact, all it says is about the purpose of the ticket is, "Ticket must be shown to the conductor each trip, or whenever requested." Which ... could be taken to mean they condone re-using it until it gets punched. Dunno.

(I voted for moral imperative to give them money, and morals trump ethics any day, so it's mostly academic unless I get a lot more broke than I am now, but still.)

[gaspaheangea.livejournal.com]

There's always the Pythonesque conductor scenario: "If you did not get your ticket punched, you logically did not ride on one of our trains, therefore you have not used the ticket. Therefore, you can use your ticket now, and I, the perfect conductor will punch it now so that your trip will be recorded in the Great Ticket Chad Collection in the Sky." says the conductor.

I think in such a case the rider probably saves the train company the extra time and hassle of dealing
with this particular conductor, but it's an edge case.