Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Josquius]

The other day heard rumours of tesla looking for a new site with the British volt scam factory being mentioned.
This would be a stupid business move.
But seems very fitting for the way the UK is going and musks increased focus on culture war edgelord troll nonsense over business sense.

[Sheilbh]

I'm cool with the other unions (I especially find the janitors refusing to cleab funny) but feel weird with the postal worker stuff. Mail seems sacred. Don't know why.

It's the source of an incredibly weird and exceptional contract rule in English law. The general rule is that when you accept an offer, that acceptance is binding once it is received. The exception is if it's by post when it's at the moment you post it.

There's a whole book on how it came about but the theory is basically that the postal system was such a miracle to 19th century people that the courts just went a bit wild. The idea that you could drop something into a box for the price of a stamp and that it would, reliably and promptly arrive was a communications revolution.

Even now the Royal Mail has a division (largely ex-policeman and prosecutors) who are entirely devoted to privately prosecuting postal fraud, meddling with the post etc.

So I can understand why it feels weird. I suppose it's the first communications tech and it kind of blew everyone's minds

[crazy canuck]

I'm cool with the other unions (I especially find the janitors refusing to cleab funny) but feel weird with the postal worker stuff. Mail seems sacred. Don't know why.

It's the source of an incredibly weird and exceptional contract rule in English law. The general rule is that when you accept an offer, that acceptance is binding once it is received. The exception is if it's by post when it's at the moment you post it.

There's a whole book on how it came about but the theory is basically that the postal system was such a miracle to 19th century people that the courts just went a bit wild. The idea that you could drop something into a box for the price of a stamp and that it would, reliably and promptly arrive was a communications revolution.

Even now the Royal Mail has a division (largely ex-policeman and prosecutors) who are entirely devoted to privately prosecuting postal fraud, meddling with the post etc.

So I can understand why it feels weird. I suppose it's the first communications tech and it kind of blew everyone's minds

The explanation is a bit different.  It could take weeks for the acceptance to arrive at its destination, and it might even get lost.  The purpose was to create trust in the postal system despite its problems.  It would be too unpredictable of the acceptance relied on the mail arriving.  And so the rule was made to remove that uncertainty.

Having lived through the era in which things were still communicated by post, and letters did go astray from time to time, it was an important rule, rather than an oddity which you have described.

[Sheilbh]

You're probably right - I'm half remembering a journal article making a provocative argument

But I think it is true of the wider 19th century experience through the works of Anthony Trollope (who was a career postal official and designed the first pillar box/post box in the UK). It was a revolution - I mean in the UK postmasters had the legal right to commandeer trains, or order stations to run a train to make sure the mail kept on time.

I think my contract tutor possibly just liked challenging us. We also had some Levinas set texts which I'm not sure I ever fully understood the relevance of - though that he loved (I think something to do with the other but can't remember)

[Barrister]

I'm cool with the other unions (I especially find the janitors refusing to cleab funny) but feel weird with the postal worker stuff. Mail seems sacred. Don't know why.

It's the source of an incredibly weird and exceptional contract rule in English law. The general rule is that when you accept an offer, that acceptance is binding once it is received. The exception is if it's by post when it's at the moment you post it.

There's a whole book on how it came about but the theory is basically that the postal system was such a miracle to 19th century people that the courts just went a bit wild. The idea that you could drop something into a box for the price of a stamp and that it would, reliably and promptly arrive was a communications revolution.

Even now the Royal Mail has a division (largely ex-policeman and prosecutors) who are entirely devoted to privately prosecuting postal fraud, meddling with the post etc.

So I can understand why it feels weird. I suppose it's the first communications tech and it kind of blew everyone's minds

So it's been a long time since I did first year contracts, but that was exactly the version I was told - that in the 19th century the mail was such a marvel they just made a number of assumptions about it.

FWIW, my contracts law prof was an Englishman so maybe that's where he got it.  (Professor John Irvine - holy shit he's still teaching!  He's been a professor at Robson Hall since 1975!)

Now that I'm going down a total tangent - Professor Irvine taught my favourite class ever - jurisprudence.  It was structured more as a discussion group - one person was assigned a writer or thinker, you made a short presentation then everyone discussed.  Very different from any other las school class.  And of course what made it even better was the class was taught in the staff faculty lounge, and Professor Irvine brought wine.

[Sheilbh]

FWIW, my contracts law prof was an Englishman so maybe that's where he got it.  (Professor John Irvine - holy shit he's still teaching!  He's been a professor at Robson Hall since 1975!)

Now that I'm going down a total tangent - Professor Irvine taught my favourite class ever - jurisprudence.  It was structured more as a discussion group - one person was assigned a writer or thinker, you made a short presentation then everyone discussed.  Very different from any other las school class.  And of course what made it even better was the class was taught in the staff faculty lounge, and Professor Irvine brought wine.

So I think there's something about law professors possibly.

He wasn't my favourite but I had an incredibly fun equity and trusts professor (being fun could not outweigh teaching equity ). He was also ancient and very eccentric. This was in the early 2010s. I looked him up and he'd taught John Cleese 50 years earlier

I think he just genuinely loved it - although he was absolutely furious at the Charities Act 2006.

[Barrister]

I think he just genuinely loved it - although he was absolutely furious at the Charities Act 2006.

I remember a different professor who was very proud of the fact that Manitoba had abolished the Rule against Perpetuities, which while I agree is a silly rule, seems like the sort of topic where you should have some kind of rule in place.

[Jacob]

The old thread is back and merged! (Thank you BvS)

[garbon]

 

[crazy canuck]

 

[HVC]

It's a thanksgiving day miracle

[jimmy olsen]

He's making a strong case for liberal arts education.

Or a proper history/archaeology education. Rome had already been founded by the time the Trojan war is supposed to have happened.

Eh...there were separate villages on some of the hills going way back, but I wouldn't say Rome had been founded until they drained the forum and confederated the villages into one community, which was probably in the 8th century BC.

[jimmy olsen]

Gen Xers man. Jesus christ.

Eh...this is more like a teenage millennial shitposter who got banned from SomethingAwful and ran off to 4chan in the early 2000s type behavior.

[Jacob]

That's a very precise description.

Accurate too, I reckon 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

The old thread is back and merged! (Thank you BvS)

No problem.  As I suspected, all the posts were still there, only the record that defined the topic was gone (presumably corrupted and deleted by the repair).  Fortunately, that record was easy to recreate manually.