Spoiled brat thinks he can get away with anything. Well he thought wrong.

Is "peace disturbance at an athletic event" an actual crime, separate from normal disturbing the peace?

Anyway, I understand throwing the kid out of the stadium, but criminal charges seem excessive.

Is "peace disturbance at an athletic event" an actual crime, separate from normal disturbing the peace?

Now you know what life is like when the Quakers institute their version of Sharia Law!

Anyway, I understand throwing the kid out of the stadium, but criminal charges seem excessive.

Actions have consequences.

Best Fans in Baseball.

Anyway, I understand throwing the kid out of the stadium, but criminal charges seem excessive.

Green lasers can damage eyes, and pointing them at someone is more than a harmless prank. I see no reason not to throw the book at him.

He should have his children taken away once he has them.

Green lasers can damage eyes, and pointing them at someone is more than a harmless prank. I see no reason not to throw the book at him.

Agreed. This isn't as bad as the morons that shine lasers into the cockpits of planes but there's a fairly good chance it won't be harmless and it will hopefully discourage people from doing it in situations that may pose a bigger danger.

Green lasers can damage eyes, and pointing them at someone is more than a harmless prank. I see no reason not to throw the book at him.

Lasers are actually four times as bad for the eyes as a conventional bright light of the same intensity, because they interfere with themselves to form speckle patterns. Since the intensity goes as the square of the field, the bright parts of the speckle do a lot of damage. In general, visible light lasers are less dangerous than IR or UV, because the eye will try to blink before too much damage is done.

Laser safety courses can get really gruesome. One story that stuck with me is the guy who bent down to adjust a mirror and heard his own eyeball pop when it interrupted the beam.

The other thing that makes laser light more dangerous than regular light is that, since it's all the same frequency, your eye will focus it all at the same point rather than over a slightly extended volume. So instead of the entire retina getting dazzled, one part gets burned.

Leyshock and several other officers arrived at the suite and found other teens there with an adult who he said was uncooperative with police.

Matheny went to the security office, where the three teens were held, and identified the suspect, who was a friend of the suite contact's son, Leyshock said. The suite contact is an executive with Mercy Health Systems whom Leyshock characterized as "uncooperative" and "confrontational."

Most of the guests inside the suite were teenagers, Leyshock said.

Once the suite occupants left, Cardinals security personnel recovered two bottles of liquor that had been smuggled into the stadium, Walsh said.

The Cardinals will be discussing the issue with the owners of the suite and they could face sanctions ranging from revocation of privileges to being charged for the confiscated liquor bottles, Walsh said.

"We had young kids acting stupid, but we had adults acting even more boorish," Walsh said. "They were interfering with what we were doing to stop the problem."

They sound like lovely people

So much for St. Louis having the best fans in baseball.

It sounds like the adult in the box with the drunken teens is a GREAT role model.

This is how society sociopaths are groomed.

I'm guessing most people have not actually used a green laser - they are MUCH stronger than the typical laser pointer you buy at Office Max. They can put a sharp point on a building on the other side of town. A red laser probably wouldn't be noticeable from the boxes to the dugout.

Green lasers can damage eyes, and pointing them at someone is more than a harmless prank. I see no reason not to throw the book at him.

Based on the article, he pointed it at the mound and above Matheny's head. I'm not saying there was zero risk involved, but I'm not sure what law he broke. Teenagers do stupid somewhat risky things all the time.

Are green lasers worse than other color lasers?

EDIT: deputydrew just answered my question. Thanks.

Green laser pointers usually use a powerful IR diode plus a frequency doubling crystal to get the green light. Because of that, there's usually a lot of IR mixed in with the green. So they're doubly bad. There's a lot more energy in the beam than you would guess from the visible dot, plus invisible light doesn't trigger the blink reflex.

C'mon, how bad could it really be? If there's anything I learned from 80's cartoons it is that lasers can only hurt robots and vehicles (and then only in manner that allows all the passengers to escape first). And TV never lies.

All that this laser waving accomplished is to prove that Mike Matheny is not a robot. Or that, if he is a robot, he is carrying around tiny people inside him.

I should note that laser pointers typically have output strengths regulated to minimize the likelihood of eye injury, for exactly the reasons I've been talking about. Still, shining a laser directly in someone's eye is always stupid and sometimes dangerous.

I don't know who to believe, Zach or zack.

I should note that laser pointers typically have output strengths regulated to minimize the likelihood of eye injury, for exactly the reasons I've been talking about. Still, shining a laser directly in someone's eye is always stupid and sometimes dangerous.

You can easily purchase lasers imported from abroad that exceed US standards (if there are such standards). The one green laser I've handled was amazingly powerful and made me feel quite uncomfortable just having it in my hands.

Posts 16 through 18 are intensely confusing in terms of the speaker. This is even worse than when we had all those Joneses!

This one time back in college, we filled up a guy's house with popcorn and used a laser to pop all the kernels. Professor Hathaway was mighty pissed.

This one time back in college, we filled up a guy's house with popcorn and used a laser to pop all the kernels. Professor Hathaway was mighty pissed.

That was you in the bunny slippers?

Wow Shane Loux sighting! Still knocking around after being on the 119 loss Tigers team back in the day. ERA over five and a miniscule strike out rate, that's the Shane Loux I remember.

This isn't as bad as the morons that shine lasers into the cockpits of planes but there's a fairly good chance it won't be harmless and it will hopefully discourage people from doing it in situations that may pose a bigger danger.

Yeah maybe, but idiots aren't really in the business of studying case history before they decide to do their idiocy. Just ban him from the stadium, strong punishment, no tax payer impact.

How do you ban someone from a stadium, anyway? Do you train all the gate employees to be on the lookout for someone resembling one of these banned people? That's not going to work.

How do you ban someone from a stadium, anyway? Do you train all the gate employees to be on the lookout for someone resembling one of these banned people? That's not going to work.

I imagine it's mostly a threat, and a way to have someone arrested for trespassing if he ever shows up and causes mischief again.

This one time back in college, we filled up a guy's house with popcorn and used a laser to pop all the kernels. Professor Hathaway was mighty pissed.

Dan, this is God. Stop playing with yourself.

This one time back in college, we filled up a guy's house with popcorn and used a laser to pop all the kernels. Professor Hathaway was mighty pissed.

First thing I thought of was "Is this a reference to real Genius" (had to go to IMDB to verify)

Posts 16 through 18 are intensely confusing in terms of the speaker. This is even worse than when we had all those Joneses!

Now all we need is for RB and RMc to come in.

I don't know who to believe, Zach or zack.

One of them is a robot.

Now all we need is for RB and RMc to come in.

And rlr.

And rlr.

rLr is dead. There is only the Skat Kat. All hail the Skat Kat.

How do you ban someone from a stadium, anyway? Do you train all the gate employees to be on the lookout for someone resembling one of these banned people? That's not going to work.

Do whatever God did to Cain so that people knew something was wrong. Maybe some sort of facial tattoo, like Mike Tyson or John Candy's The Guy With A Snake On His Face.

The one green laser I've handled was amazingly powerful and made me feel quite uncomfortable just having it in my hands.

That's what she said.

Do whatever God did to Cain

I don't think having this guy throw a perfect game is really going to turn him away from baseball.

You can easily purchase lasers imported from abroad that exceed US standards (if there are such standards).

There are such standards. Laser performance and labeling standards are found in 21 CFR Part 1040. Federal enforcement is via the Centers for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), the same folks at FDA who regulate x-ray systems.

Lasers and other radiation-emitting devices from abroad are subject to FDA inspection at the time of import clearance (importers fill out FDA form 2877). Anything from overseas not meeting U.S. standards would have to be smuggled in or otherwise fraudulently identified.

I imagine it's mostly a threat, and a way to have someone arrested for trespassing if he ever shows up and causes mischief again.

This.

Back in college, I made an impromptu roadtrip with three friends to a riverboat casino to play some cards -- I and one of the guys with me were 21, the other two weren't, but had decent fake IDs (I think they were 20). One of the 20 yo's got snagged and taken out of line when he tried to pass off his fake... We were prepared to just give him the car keys, tell him to have fun at MacDonalds, and that we'd see him in a couple hours -- but eventually, they took our entire party out of line and took us to the security office (really freaking out the other 20 yo whose ID had passed muster). They took all our pictures, told us we were banned from the premises, and security guard then walked us out to yellow line painted on the sidewalk and explained that if we crossed over the line, we could be arrested for trespassing.

About a month later, my grandmother -- who fancies a little blackjack -- invited me to meet her and some family at the same riverboat... having not divulged my banning, I was sweating bullets - but boarded and played for a couple hours without incident (in retrospect, a trespassing fine would have been cheaper).

As a laser physicist that went into that line of study because of Real Genius... I feel I need to respond.

First, and most importantly, the laser physics in Real Genius is actually not bad at all... their chemistry is a bit off though. At one point they ask if a substance that is clearly a solid is "liquid nitrogen"...

As for the lasers. Technically all of the green laser pointers are supposed to be under 5 mW or a class IIIa laser. Both of the ones I have ar 7-9 mW with full batteries. If they are below a certain threshold, as one fo the Zackhs mentioned, the human blink response is fast enough that you will close your eye before any permanent damage... at 8-10 mW where some of these green laser pointers are... I’m not sure if that is still true. Im not sure how much of that extra power is the IR beam. If they are designed correctly, there should be negligable IR radiation coming out as intercavity doubling is very efficient.

Actually some of the red laser pointers are nearly as powerful, but the eyes response peaks in the green, so they will appear brighter even at the same power level.

I have a burn mark on the inside rim of my last pair of glasses as I was leaner over to align the beam. I was thinking to my self... what is that burning smell... Oh.. its my glasses. One more millimeter and it would have hit the glass and possibly bounce into my eye, and I’d immediately have been a pirate.

Now all we need is for RB and RMc to come in.

Here, sir! (rushes in, trips over own feet)

This one time back in college, we filled up a guy's house with popcorn and used a laser to pop all the kernels. Professor Hathaway was mighty pissed.

First thing I thought of was "Is this a reference to real Genius"

Ahh, Jordan. Brilliant, cute, sweet, short dark hair, and just a pinch of crazy. You will be mine. Oh, yes...you will be mine...!

As a laser physicist that went into that line of study because of Real Genius... I feel I need to respond.

This could be the greatest sentence I've ever read.

As a laser physicist that went into that line of study because of Real Genius.

I'm guessing it wasn't beause you could hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis, because that would seem to be a terrible waste of your talents.

I [heart] Toxic Waste

Ahh, Jordan. Brilliant, cute, sweet, short dark hair, and just a pinch of crazy. You will be mine. Oh, yes...you will be mine...!

Meh.

I'll take Hilly from Weird Science for $800, Alex.

If they are below a certain threshold, as one fo the Zackhs mentioned, the human blink response is fast enough that you will close your eye before any permanent damage... at 8-10 mW where some of these green laser pointers are... I’m not sure if that is still true

My guess is that it is still true. Green wavelenghth lasers are preferentially absorbed by the hemoglobin in retinal tissue, resulting in a processs called photocoagulation if the power density (irradiance) is high enough. However, I know that continuous wave aiming lasers in green wavelength ophthalmic laser systems can be directed onto the retina for indefinite periods of time. These beams are -- if my memory serves -- 500 microwatts or below.

Back in the day, a colleague of mine was looking right down the barrel of the resonant cavity of a (supposedly) malfunctioning 5-watt argon laser when it turned on. Argons are blue-green. He lost the sight in that eye due to the significant photocoagulation in the macular area. N=1, blink response is no good at 5 watts.

Nerds!

#26 The Brits have made stadium bans work. Basically they start with facial recognition software on the crowds outside the gate and have stadium security (or the police, since there are some court ordered bans) follow up with the people flagged at step one.

It's obviously fairly expensive and I'm doubtful whether the Cardinals have anything more than a banned individuals book that security maintains.

But the more important question is that could you really pop corn with a laser?

And #37, Zonk -- Vegas casinos have put a fair amount of money into spotting people they don't want in (mostly blackjack counters plus known cheats). It's not perfect, but it is pretty good. A small place such as the one you're talking about probably wouldn't bother.

#40 I get that a lot

#41, as I had never tried the world will never know. It sounds painful though, so I’m guessing I did not miss any major opportunities.

The pinnacle of my laser physics career was in the closing years of grad school. I had been running the film society for a few years and was the treasurer. As I needed to focus on graduating I was transferring all my treasurely knowledge to a rather attractive young co-ed. I told her to meet me at the lab. She came in in the middle of an experiment where we had 3 pretty powerful lasers going (500 mj/pulse) green light was scattered everywhere with the lights off, and I had my goggles on. I told her to wait outside for a few minutes.

When we finished the measurement I joined her, and she remarked "Wow, you really are Val Kilmer".

Its been all downhill from there... until I met my wife, and she was one of the first people who when I said "I’m a laser Physicist..." She did not say.. "oh" and walk away.

Real Genius is actually one of the better depictions of science that you'll see in the movies. As Dr. Scott says, the laser physics is pretty realistic (the optical table is suspiciously uncluttered, but how many movies do you see that even have optical tables?). It also does a really good job of capturing the pressure and intensity of being at a hardcore science school, while still making it seem fun.