No thoughts just bees

Forgot a word in Spanish, while speaking Spanish to me, but remembered it in English. Became weirdly quiet as they seemed to lose their entire sense of identity.

Used a literal translation of a Russian idiomatic expression while speaking English. He actually does this quite regularly, because he somehow genuinely forgets which idioms belong to which language. It usually takes a minute of everyone staring at him in confused silence before he says “….Ah….. that must be a Russian one then….”

Had to count backwards for something. Could not count backwards in English. Counted backwards in French under her breath until she got to the number she needed, and then translated it into English.

Meant to inform her (French) parents that bread in America is baked with a lot of preservatives. Her brain was still halfway in English Mode so she used the word “préservatifes.” Ended up shocking her parents with the knowledge that apparently, bread in America is full of condoms.

Defined a slang term for me……. with another slang term. In the same language. Which I do not speak.

Was talking to both me and his mother in English when his mother had to revert to Russian to ask him a question about a word. He said “I don’t know” and turned to me and asked “Is there an English equivalent for Нумизматический?” and it took him a solid minute to realize there was no way I would be able to answer that. Meanwhile his mom quietly chuckled behind his back.

Said an expression in English but with Spanish grammar, which turned “How stressful!” into “What stressing!”

It’s Norwegian for copper.

-talk in english for 15 min with a dutch friend cause we both forgot we could speak dutch to eachother

-in a group where one was dutch and one was not, turned to the wrong person to ask something in dutch

-when in a restaurant, we ordered in dutch but I later asked for the bathroom in english

What happens if a superhero commits manslaughter? Like, for example, say Green Arrow is shooting at a guy's knee intending to (mostly) harmlessly disable him and prevent him from committing some kind of crime that would justify an arrow wound, but the guy moves last-minute and Green Arrow hits the leg artery. He now has one prevented crime but also one dead criminal, who did in fact have constitutional rights, as you noted in Joker Box.

Would a superhero in this situation have to unmask if put up for trial? Or would it be like "masked until proven guilty," because like, in the example I gave above there's a reasonable argument to be made for self-defense by proxy (that is, defending the target of the crime), so "yeah you're guilty" isn't guaranteed.

As unsatisfying of an answer as it might be, I don't actually have a good way of answering this question. Because there's no example to compare it to, and therefore no legal precedent. Because it's never happened. And if I were a bettering man I would put down a considerable amount of money on the fact that it never will. The superheroes of our world simply won't allow it to because they can't. Either morally or philosophically the heroes that defend our world are too focused on preserving sentient life in all its forms to ever allow it to come to pass.

(An art piece "The Fall of Green Arrow" by Mauro Cascioli in the aftermath of Green Arrow's murder of the supervillain Prometheus)

Let's take Green Arrow as an example (a COMPLICATED example, since Oliver Queen's identity is only publicly known because he committed an act of justifiable homicide (legally speaking) but it's the one you cited). If Green Arrow needed to shoot an arrow to disable a perp, he's not going to take the risk of shooting a sharp one at someone who is both twitchy and vulnerable enough to put themselves in that situation. He HAS arrows for that. Arrows that shoot knockout gas, or that set off disorienting strobe lights, magnet arrows that can rip a gun out of someone's hands or just a boxing glove arrow directly to the forehead in a pinch. It speaks to the level of care that superheroes MUST operate at that many of us don't appreciate because they make it seem so effortless.

Not killing someone in a fight to the death is REALLY hard, it turns out. Not only is human fight or flight instinct tuned by millions of years of evolution to go for the kill when we feel our lives are in danger, but the imbalance of power between those WITH superpowers and those WITHOUT only further magnifies the risk. Superman could kill somebody by standing stock still in front of them while they ran into him too hard, the Flashes could disintegrate people just by running beside them too fast, the amount of ways Firestorm's abilities could be used to turn human biology into Newtonian physics is too vast to quantify. So EVERYTHING they do is done with that understanding in mind. Every time. For everyone.

Superman, when holding a stance in front of a charging criminal will use his flight abilities to float backward with the impact absorbing most of it. The Flashes extend their control over the Speed Force to a large field around them as they run, halting the spread of inertia outside their control. Firestorm has a personal rule that he will never turn his powers against organic matter AT ALL for fear of what might happen. Every last one of them is painfully aware, with each passing second, how hard they have to hold back to keep any life from being put at risk. Whether it be the life of their allies, surrounding bystanders, or even the bad guys. Because make no mistake they could all DO IT if they so chose.

Superman doesn't struggle against Lex Luthor's latest gaudy warsuit because they're actually evenly matched. He struggles because he needs to find a way to disable the suit that ISN'T just forcing his hand through Lex's chest, suit and all, at six times the speed of sound. This becomes even MORE true with normal human criminals. Any bank robber or terrorist who thinks they have a leg up on the Green Arrow in their current situation should remember that he COULD have put a shaft of metal through their frontal lobe from a half mile down the street. And he doesn't miss. Ever. Heck if he REALLY didn't care there's nothing physically stopping him from aiming one of the explosive arrows he mostly uses for vehicles and walls DIRECTLY at someone's center mass. People don't think about things like that. One moment on the news we're watching Green Arrow lob enough plastic explosives to bring down a brick wall from three houses down the street. And then when he's on camera with the human bad guys he draws back a cartoon boxing glove like the bad guy actually might have the upper hand for half a second.

Because they don't MAKE us think about these sorts of things, they want us to know that we never have to worry about it. Unlike policemen who use "less lethal" methods of "crowd control" a superhero's methods will always be NON. LETHAL. Period. They will fight, and they will win, with both hands tied behind their backs if it means there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anybody dies today.

Like...now what? Batman clearly didn't mean to kill. That's his entire thing. He's probably freaking out even harder than the police and it probably involves a lot of ugly crying. For that matter, he probably turned himself in, assuming he could muster the presence of mind to do more than scream. It wasn't even "less-lethal force" in the way police use it. It was something any guy in a bar fight might be up against. At absolute worst this might be involuntary manslaughter. It couldn't have been any more clearly unintentional and not at all the desired outcome.

My instinct would be "we're leaving you masked for now because we know you're a responsible citizen with a long track record of avoiding injury to others even at personal cost, we will consult with the Justice Society, we'll probably call you back here for further questioning and a determination of whether you need to be unmasked to undergo a criminal trial." (I don't think most prosecutors would even try to press charges against "this man who is famous for helping people was trying to protect others and caused a freak medical accident.") And that, precisely because we know superheroes are the kind of people who will in fact return for questioning and accept the consequences of their actions. But like...that's only my instinct.

The part up top where I said I can't answer this question because there's no good example to compare it to should be very demonstrative. In all the years, all the fights, all of the places that a superhero has been in a fight for their life against an opponent who means them or others lethal harm. There has never been a SINGLE instance of a criminal being unintentionally killed by the hero in question. Villains have ended up in lethal situations due to their own hubris, put themselves in situations where the hero isn't able to save them from their own consequences.

But there has never been a single documented instance of any hero, powered or otherwise, killing a sentient being with their own hands, no matter how accidental. Trust me I looked. I looked for HOURS. I called people. I emailed people. There's nothing that even broadly resembles the situation that you describe and if I were a betting man I'd say that in the NEXT 100 years of superhero history there won't be one there either.

But I am very worried about there not being an answer.

Because Nina has a point: sometimes there are circumstances that cause freak accidents. A heart attack, or stroke, allergy or asthma attack to a smoke bom, or simply falling wrong and snapping your neck. They might be very, very rare, but not completely preventable. That's why they are called freak accidents. Just because they have not happened before, does not mean it will never happen. We need a contingency for this scenario. We need a plan, this is not something we can just improvise on. Now, if I were a betting woman, (which I am not, I am a scientist), I would bet on Batman having plans for this. He must have.

Because here is the thing. Power corrupts. And superheroes are very powerful. Which means we need systems with real checks and balances, including for mistakes or accidents. We need to be able to do real investigations, and be able to start them quickly so evidence does not get lost while we figure out whether the lead detective can have nightwing's phone number.

Victory.

I wouldn't call everything"put away", because I need to build specific storage for a lot of this stuff (particularly the garden tools and power tools), but at least everything is consolidated by type and I have surfaces again.

"Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. They're not killing 'THEM'. They're killing 'US'."

Wat is het hoogste bedrag wat deze persoon in je handen kan drukken zodat je het in je eigen zak stopt zonder verdere stappen te ondernemen? Met andere woorden: waar zit voor jou de grens tussen "oeh, gratis geld" en "hier zit een addertje onder het gras"?

- Ik wantrouw het direct, ongeacht bedrag

- ≤€50

- €100

- €500

- €1000

- €2000

- €5000

- €10.000

- €100.000

- >€100.000, maar ik heb een grens

- Ik heb geen grens. Gimme.

I suspect this was meant as a visual pun because this server is rated for 733 watts, almost exactly one metric horsepower

Back when I worked at the hospital, I had to take MRI training and it was my favorite thing every time. It was only like 10 minutes long and went a little something like this:

Hey. The MRI is basically a really big magnet and by basically I mean it is and we literally never turn it off. It's like really big. Really really big and powerful and The Magnet is always on. We don't turn it off Ever, for any reason. We mean it bro, The Magnet is literally always on. It's crazy strong and will definitely kill you. So don't bring any metal into the MRI room, man. You will fuck up the machine (because The Magnet is always on) and then you will die (again, because The Magnet is always on). Here's some fun questions for you to test your understanding!

1) The ______ is always on.

2) The Magnet is ______ on.

3) How often is The Magnet on?

4) The Magnet is always __.

5) The Magnet is always on. T/F

6) The Magnet is usually on but we know to turn it off for you because you're a very special boy :) T/F

7) My weak fleshy body can survive the wrath of The Magnet. T/F

8) Look at this 500 lbs steel hospital bed, which The Magnet has crumpled into an origami crane. Imagine if that was you.

9) Is The Magnet ever off?

10) Sometimes we turn The Magnet off. T/F

Thank you for taking MRI training. We hope you learned that The Magnet is always on, because it is. It's on Right Now and it will be on every time you come to the MRI. Have fun and remember: The Magnet is always on!