>> ^imstellar28:
1. The ends justify the means. Like a Medusa, this philosophy shows itself a thousand different ways; whether its burning witches at the stake, trespassing to videotape others having sex, or making STD testing mandatory for prostitutes - at its core, is the same monster: the ends justify the means. You cannot support one without supporting them all for despite their varied appearances, they are all one and the same.
2. Irrational Fear. Your argument is framed in fear, a tiger in a bushes or a Cheney in the desert. The results of policy driven by scaremongering and policy driven by reason and intellect have, historically, been more than lopsided. We are not a Fox News audience, so why would you try to provoke us as such?
3. Slippery slope principle/Snowball Effect. I do not think you pay enough respect to this principle. You seem content that humans do not carry simple principles to their furthest reaches, turning a tiny snowball into a 300 ft disaster as it reaches the bottom of the hill.

*sigh* Why do we need to go over this same ground all the time?

#1 conflates the prostitution equivalent of traffic laws with communists calling for a worker's revolution. You've admitted you'd like a violent revolution against people like me. You're a hypocrite, and a fearmonger.

#2 is pure projection. Irrational fear is thinking that the government requiring businessmen to care about their customers is more worrisome than letting businessmen be free to do whatever they can get away with behind a customer's back.

#3 is an example of your own irrational fear. There's a big difference between regulation requiring regular testing for STD's, and requiring testing for everyone. It's like the difference between saying "Football players should wear protective gear to play" and "everyone watching the game must wear the same protective gear". I can probably get the congress to implement the former rule, I'd certainly get laughed at for the latter. These same forces you think rule the private market are certainly at work in democratic politics.

4. Lesser of two evils. You seem distrusting of humans enough to force them into testing, and monitoring their behavior; but trusting enough of humans not to persecute others or abuse their power; yet the entire weight of history and psychology is against this notion. There has been far more suffering at the hands of human persecution than there ever has been at the hands of herpes, HIV, or chlamydia.

This is where you completely lose me. I'm distrustful of all humans. I'm trustful that politicians will obey elections, that our elections aren't being rigged, and that if they were, they couldn't keep it secret, and we'd have a revolution to put those things back in order. Keeping bad politicians out and good ones in is our responsibility. If you have an idea of how to make that effort easier, I'm all ears.

I'm generally trustful that most businesses are just out to make a buck, and have no inherent desire to be evil. I just think that they have a tendency to be amoral in their quest for profit, and often being evil is more cost-effective than being good.

When you're a public figure, you have to either a) sell evil as good, or b) do good. Everyone's capitalistic self interest is in trying to catch them doing evil, and out them for it. So much so, people in many different political sewing circles will make things up, and try to "out" politicians for things they didn't do (like, say, forge a fake birth certificate).

If you're a company with a product, you just don't tell people about the evil, and spend billions on marketing the positives of the product. If someone happens to catch them doing something evil, and tells the world about it, they get a vehement denial, and a disinformation campaign, maybe even a lawsuit (though they seem to do that less these days).

The market libertarians imagine is a figment of mathematical fancy -- out here in the real world, there isn't perfect information, there isn't perfect competition, and there are very few truly rational economic actors. Even if there were, what you would need to enforce a libertarian free market would be a government with perfect information, perfect enforcement, perfect impartiality, clear consensus on how to apply the law, and all the power it needs to enforce it.

Out here in the real world, we trust no one, least of all people who have a profit incentive for being indifferent to the harm they cause people.

1. The ends justify the means. Like a Medusa, this philosophy shows itself a thousand different ways; whether its burning witches at the stake, trespassing to videotape others having sex, or making STD testing mandatory for prostitutes - at its core, is the same monster: the ends justify the means. You cannot support one without supporting them all for despite their varied appearances, they are all one and the same.

2. Irrational Fear. Your argument is framed in fear, a tiger in a bushes or a Cheney in the desert. The results of policy driven by scaremongering and policy driven by reason and intellect have, historically, been more than lopsided. We are not a Fox News audience, so why would you try to provoke us as such?

3. Slippery slope principle/Snowball Effect. I do not think you pay enough respect to this principle. You seem content that humans do not carry simple principles to their furthest reaches, turning a tiny snowball into a 300 ft disaster as it reaches the bottom of the hill. How far would we have to travel from this "good intentioned" policy before someone asked the following "good intentioned" questions:

"which of you would join me in making it illegal to practice sex without regular testing for disease"
"which of you would join me in requiring annual testing of all persons for disease"
"which of you would join me in requiring armbands be worn which visually display the results of all disease tests"
"which of you would join me in prohibiting those with diseases from having sex"
"which of you would join me in making it illegal to leave your house without regular testing for disease"
and so on...

We can't frame a reasonable argument against any of these ideas if we accept your premise, because they are all based on the same idea of "the common good" being more important than individual misery. Certainly, each would provide more and more "common good" at the expense of more and more individual misery. If "common good" is your only goal, there is no conceivable limit to the policies you could create.

4. Lesser of two evils. You seem distrusting of humans enough to force them into testing, and monitoring their behavior; but trusting enough of humans not to persecute others or abuse their power; yet the entire weight of history and psychology is against this notion. There has been far more suffering at the hands of human persecution than there ever has been at the hands of herpes, HIV, or chlamydia.

>> ^NetRunner:
Now, which of you would join me in making it illegal to practice prostitution without regular testing for disease? Neither of you?
Well then, I hope you all catch porcine chlamydia from your legal hookers.

By the way, at 300 ft distance, lightning induces so much electrical field in long ethernet wires as to blow up hubs/switches/computers... myth CONFIRMED

I have twice had lightning strike a tower about 300 ft from me, which would appear to be three times farther than this yard is perhaps? These were no ambiguous giggle-about-the-dog loud noises, these was a FINGER OF ZEUS class event that were loud and riveting beyond compare. If lightning really struck that yard, those people would be pooping twinkies of surprise at that distance, that dog would be cowering at the owners feet. Fake! Or perhaps it's Lightning Lite, a new, friendlier face on an old weather tradition?

Fake this, trash that, ballistic calculations blah blah blah...you people are LAZY. This isn't Youtube, folks, do the math if you're gonna complain so much.

First of all, a quick Googling reveals this gem:
"6-27-07: BOOM HEADSHOT! This is amazing. Willie, the father of Tina, who made the sandbag rests fires a .50BMG, an Armalite AR-50 and it ricochets off of a steel plate that it should have easily penetrated. The bullet comes straight back and hits him in the head. You can see it hit the dirt about 15 feet in front on him before it clobbers him. Luckily he was uninjured. He's a bit sore today, but otherwise fine. Lucky lucky bastard. He has been advised to buy lottery tickets while he still has so much luck. I don't know about the timing, but you can hear the hit on the steel plate. Time that till the impact on Willie's head... how fast is that 750 grain slug traveling? The range is 100 yards. Amazing."

The time from the sound of the shot to the sound of the impact of the bullet on the target is used to calculate for the initial velocity (sound delay over distance accounted for). The speed of the projectile (I'm not ruling out the possibility of a piece of the target being the ricochet, not the bullet) on ricochet to the ground is taken from the time from the sound of the impact of the bullet on the target to the sound of the impact on the ground. The speed of the projectile on ricochet to the earmuff is taken from the time from the impact on the ground to the impact on the earmuff. (This last impact makes a rather significant change in energy loss.)

For the sake of better accuracy, I assumed that the range was NOT 100 yards and calculated distance instead assuming that the gun was an Armalite AR-50 (.50 BMG), 750 grain slug, and that certain ballistic statistics on the gun were reasonably accurate, and that the ricochet did not return straight back, then compared the expected and actual times between the round being fired, the impact on target, impact on dirt, and then impact on person.

Keep in mind that I am no expert on large-caliber rifles and these calculations are the result of about 5 minutes of thinking, but unless you're willing to properly time the sounds on a video editor, incorporate angling for the energy transfer calculations and cross-reference ballistics info on the AR-50, I'm the best you're gonna get, so piss off.

Bullet weight: 750 gr
Average muzzle velocity: 2620 ft/s
Average energy: 11420 ft*lbf

Distance to target: 362 ft
Muzzle velocity of shot: 2603 ft/s
Velocity of the projectile on impact to the ground: 271 ft/s
Velocity of the projectile on impact to the earmuff: 210 ft/s

Conclusion: Very possible, especially assuming the target was steel, as I quoted above, but contrary to what the guy in the video said.

For reference sake, this is less than the speed an average paintball will hit you at (I think 250-300 ft/s). In all likelihood, though, the projectile had enough speed and energy and pointy bits to seriously mess this guy up if he'd been hit straight on. Maybe there'd be enough pressure to penetrate, maybe not, but I'd bet he'd have a broken bone or two at the very least.

On a final note, ricochets do happen with metal targets, and not completely rarely either, thus the rules of gun safety. This guy should NOT have been shooting at a steel/iron target with a .50 caliber rifle at such a close distance (I've heard that .50 cals can hit targets a mile and a half out), although it seems like he was smart enough to be wearing eye protection. He made the assumption that the round would penetrate the target, and we've all heard what happens when you assume. Hell, I can't even think of a reason to OWN a .50 caliber, past a psychoanalysis to make Freud weep or dreams of zombie pandemics.

Anyways, lucky guy, one-in-a-million-chance, remember gun safety, and you're welcome.

It seems like Wenger wants you to do one thing: throw out your old knives. Actually, it wants you to do several things: throw out your bike tools, your toiletries, your laser pointer and so on, because you can find all of these instruments in a huge Swiss Army knife, which includes every tool the company makes. Wenger is calling the contraption “Giant Knife Version 1.0.” It debuted with all 85 features and can perform hundreds of functions.
Who doesn’t need a cigar cutter next to a bicycle chain rivet setter next to a golf divot repair tool? Wenger is on to something with this everyman’s gadget. It wouldn’t be a knife, though, without a blade, so Wenger put seven in the line-up. And it wouldn’t be Swiss Army unless it came with tweezers and a toothpick. (They’re included, too.)

Here are all 85 tools included in Giant Knife, Version 1.0:

1. 2.5” 60% Serrated locking blade
2. Nail file, nail cleaner
3. Corkscrew
4. Adjustable pliers with wire crimper and cutter
5. Removable screwdriver bit adapter
6. 2.5” Blade for Official World Scout Knife
7. Spring-loaded, locking needle-nose pliers with wire cutter
8. Removable screwdriver bit holder
9. Phillips head screwdriver bit 0
10. Phillips head screwdriver bit 1
11. Phillips head screwdriver bit 2
12. Flat head screwdriver bit 0.5 mm x 3.5 mm
13. Flat head screwdriver bit 0.6 mm x 4.0 mm
14. Flat head screwdriver bit 1.0 mm x 6.5 mm
15. Magnetized recessed bit holder
16. Double-cut wood saw with ruler (inch & cm)
17. Bike chain rivet setter, removable 5m allen wrench, screwdriver for slotted and Phillips head screws
18. Removable tool for adjusting bike spokes, 10m hexagonal key for nuts
19. Removable 4mm curved allen wrench with Phillips head screwdriver
20. Removable 10mm hexagonal key
21. Patented locking Phillips head screwdriver
22. Universal wrench
23. Laser pointer with 300 ft. range
24. 1.65” Clip point utility blade
25. Metal saw, metal file
26. 4 mm allen wrench
27. 2.5” blade
28. Fine metal file with precision screwdriver
29. Double-cut wood saw
30. Cupped cigar cutter with double-honed edges
31. 12/20-Gauge choke tube tool
32. Watch caseback opening tool
33. Snap shackle
34. Telescopic pointer
35. Compass, straight edge, ruler (in./cm)
36. Mineral crystal magnifier with precision screwdriver
37. 2.4” Springless scissors with serrated, self-sharpening design
38. Shortix key
39. Flashlight
40. Fish scaler, hook disgorger, line guide
41. Micro tool holder
42. Micro tool adapter
43. Micro scraper-straight
44. Reamer
45. Fine fork for watch spring bars
46. Pin punch 1.2 mm
47. Pin punch .8 mm
48. Round needle file
49. Removable tool holder with expandable receptacle
50. Removable tool holder
51. Multi-purpose screwdriver
52. Flat Phillips head screwdriver
53. Flat head screwdriver bit 0.5 mm x 3.5 mm
54. Spring loaded, locking flat nose nose-pliers with wire cutter
55. Phillips head screwdriver bit 0
56. Phillips head screwdriver bit 1
57. Phillips head screwdriver bit 2
58. Flat head screwdriver bit 0.5 mm x 3.5 mm
59. Flat head screwdriver bit 0.6 mm x 4.0 mm
60. Flat head screwdriver bit 1.0 mm x 6.5 mm
61. Can opener
62. Phillips head screwdriver
63. 2.5” Clip point blade
64. Golf club face cleaner
65. 2.4” Round tip blade
66. Patented locking screwdriver, cap lifter, can opener
67. Golf shoe spike wrench
68. Golf divot repair tool
69. Micro straight-curved
70. Special tool holder
71. Phillips head screwdriver 1.5mm
72. Screwdriver 1.2 mm
73. Screwdriver .8 mm
74. Mineral crystal magnifier, fork for watch spring bars, small ruler
75. Removable screwdriver bit holder
76. Magnetized recessed bit holder
77. Tire tread gauge
78. Reamer/awl
79. Patented locking screwdriver, cap lifter, wire stripper
80. Special Key
81. Toothpick
82. Tweezers
83. Adapter
84. Key ring
85. Second key ring

Dennis Pireta, Wenger’s marketing director put it succinctly when he noted, “This is not exactly going to win any awards for lightest, smallest or most efficient tools…” The knife is a brute, weighing 2 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 8.75 inches. But don’t worry, it has a key ring so you can carry it on a belt loop.

Wenger set the price at $1,200.