Thanks StukaFox, you managed to produce no peer reviewed papers but have claimed some sort of research victory because you got some answers from Google. Nice. I'd hire you as a researcher for sure.

So I mentioned the Australian and New Zealand legislation. Lets see if there is a peer reviewed paper that examines this.

McPhedran, Samara; Baker, Jeanine (2011). "Mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand: A descriptive study of incidence". Justice Policy Journal.

New Zealand didn't enact Australia's draconian laws. You can buy an AR15 there with high capacity magazines. They also haven't had a mass shooting in 20 years. The peer reviewed paper examines this and comes to the conclusion I stated above.

I see you have some ABS data. Nice. I use the ABS all the time.

Oh wait. You took only the last two years of data for a data set that spans over 40 years. Bad form mate. Lets see if the rate of firearms related homicide was reducing at a similar rate before the legislation changes using a much larger time period.

Lucky for me someone else already did this to make my day easier. They used Australian Institute of Criminology (the official government source) data over a 30 year period. It shows the rate did not change with the legislation change in 1997.

Nice examination of the issue on Quora

Are there peer reviewed papers which come to the same conclusion? Yes.

Lee, Wang-Sheng; Suardi, Sandy (2010). "The Australian Firearms Buyback and Its Effect on Gun Deaths". Contemporary Economic Policy. 28 (1): 65–79

Jeanine Baker, Samara McPhedran; Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Did the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Make a Difference?, The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 47, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 455–469

Chicago? I wasn't going to mention it. I'm not American. I am Australian.

Conclusion: go wipe the egg off of your face.

Edit: forgot to answer your question.

"What conclusions can we draw from this? "

We can conclude that for a short period of time the homicide by firearm rate went up. Just as it goes up and down for any short period of time in most countries. This does not negate the TREND, which in the USA has been downward year on year for the last 25 years. The rate of firearm ownership has increased over the same 25 year period.

Wow, that a fascinating statistic you pulled out of your ass.

Let's see what literally THREE FUCKING SECONDS of searching on Google produces

(search term: "Australia homicide rate")

Oh, look!

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2016~Main%20Features~Victims%20of%20Crime,%20Australia~3

Aaaaand I quote:

"Across Australia, the number of victims of Murder decreased by 4% between 2015 and 2016, from 236 to 227 victims

A weapon was used in 69% of Murders (157 victims). A knife was twice as likely to have been recorded as the murder weapon (71 victims), when compared to a firearm (32 victims). (Table 4)"

So there was a DECREASE in the murder rate in 2017. Furthermore, of 227 murders, only -32- were from firearms, or ~14%.

Let's look at mass shootings in Aussieland.

Oh, that's right, we can't: BECAUSE THERE WERE NONE!

How about the good ol' USA where any idiot can purchase a gun?

In 2016, there were 10,182 murders by firearms. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/). A total of 17,250 people were reported killed in the US in 2016, with the number of murders increasing by about 8.6% in comparison to 2015. (https://qz.com/1086403/fbi-crime-statistics-us-murders-were-up-in-2016-and-chicago-had-a-lot-to-do-with-it/)

Let's see here: ~14% of the murders is your maligned Antipodes were committed with a firearm and the murder rate was down while ~60% of the murders here in the US were committed with a firearm and the murder rate is up.

What conclusions can we draw from this?

Oh, yeah, there's this as well:

https://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

And a nb: I know you're going to howl and wail that Chicago has the most restrictive gun laws in the US and people are getting mowed down there left, right and center.

From NPR:
(https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555580598/fact-check-is-chicago-proof-that-gun-laws-don-t-work)

"A 2015 study of guns in Chicago, co-authored by Cook, found that more than 60 percent of new guns used in Chicago gang-related crimes and 31.6 percent used in non-gang-related crimes between 2009 and 2013 were bought in other states. Indiana was a particularly heavy supplier, providing nearly one-third of the gang guns and nearly one-fifth of the non-gang guns."

(actual study here: http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/papers/JCrimLC%202015%20Guns%20in%20Chicago.pdf )

In conclusion: maybe do a little research next time, hmm?

That is a legit question. Ignoring that they used a segment of another video, the question is how quickly it used that video segment to render this. The keyword in the paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01497) is "Towards Real Time", which I guess means it may have been delayed a bit from the original video, but I didn't read past the abstract, and that paper is just the bases for the video.

To be of any real value, say in a car to help it self-drive, is how fast it can do it, and read street signs.

I'm going to guess the reason it doesn't do billboards is it is trained, for whatever reasons to only look so high. Then again, they took another video, then sent that video through the processor, so why ignore them? Also, can it recognize "storefront" "billboard" etc... reading those and translating in real time probably would be a bit advanced for now, but still...

Very analogous to Westboro Baptist "church" stooges. They (ab)use their constitutionally protected rights to free speech to say the most offensive and provocative crap that they can come up with, specifically with the intention to incite a (violent) reaction against them. Why? Because pretty much the entire Phelps family are lawyers, and they know that they can generally win any assault case that they can provoke people into. All that hate they spew boils down to a stupid, petty moneymaking scam.

Is the Seattle Nazi that devious and cunning? I doubt it. Probably just a crazy / fucked up guy, as Maher said. That doesn't excuse his fuckwittery, but it does reinforce Maher's argument that punching the guy is NOT the best response.

Morello is awesome, with RATM and Audioslave, and now Prophets of Rage, etc. But he's dead wrong on this issue, and comes across as a bit of an "internet tough guy". Outside of just ignoring them, I kinda think the only way to one-up these people is to know the law, what constitutes assault etc., and essentially beat them at their own game (ie. provoke them into doing something to you). On the other hand, there's something to be said for using using passive-aggressive snark to mock / humiliate them in a nonviolent way, ala the Foo Fighters:

But bikes can brake much faster due to being 1/10 the weight. My bicycle has far less contact and stops on a dime.
I'm pretty sure some new bikes have abs too.

Well as for the braking, bikes actually can't break as fast as a car often due to very tiny tire contact patches... breaking hard on a bike can be quite dangerous! My car can stop WAY faster than any motorcycle I've owned because with the car you can just slam on the brake and abs kicks in. and tons of tire contact. Also this is probably a go-pro or similar, so wide lens and everything looks way further than it would have appeared to the rider.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

What exactly does "Rule 19" say?

@newtboy 's description:
"This means that now republicans have ended free speech in the senate, and any time they feel they have been insulted, they'll end the debate and silence the offenders. I find that treasonous, as it directly and horrendously effects how the senate works (or doesn't) and means the party in power can now enforce their un-American idea that they are the only one's allowed to speak."

I agree that it seems to have been used to stifle free speech in this instance. But it doesn't seem like it could be used that way "any time" -- only when the the content being read/spoken is a quote from previous senate sessions?

The reason that I think the full story is important is that the best way to put the kibosh on this would be to turn the tables and have Warren et al. use it on Republicans to demonstrate that it is a bullshit "rule". That sort of violates the whole "they go low, we go high" thing, but a disfunctional, ineffective legislature might be preferable to an actively evil/corrupt legislature. And more importantly, (ab)using the rule is likely the best way to get it removed ASAP so this shit can't happen again.

--edit--
OK, I guess that the "impugn" part is the key, rather than specifically referring to any previous senate session statements. But that just makes it more bullshit, because "impugn" (synonyms include "challenge", "criticize", etc.) is way to broad to be enforceable. I suggest that the moment any senator refers to anybody, dems should "take offense" and invoke Rule 19 themselves.

That's really interesting, although I can't say I understood everything you said. If there were absolutely nothing, of course there would be no energy fields to generate anything. Where ever something comes into play, some force or dynamic, we aren't talking about nothing anymore.

I'm curious what you think about this paper:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.4658

God is the best answer for why the Universe had a beginning, including a beginning to time itself, for many different reasons. I'll get to those a bit later, just wanted to hear what you thought about the paper.

I'll ask another question though: If something is eternal isn't it perfectly stable..doesn't that have to be the case? Why would it suddenly generate a Universe for no reason?

Just for the record.... the snowboarder shouldn't have ridden that line. Sure, he had an ABS backpack... great, but he didn't read the terrain.

As easy as it is to criticise in hindsight there were plenty of signs that he should have read (recent natural avalanche activity, convex rollover, the Avalanche Canada report) that should have said "stay away".

I'm not trying to make myself sound smarter than this guy. I still consider myself very much a beginner in the backcountry, so I take as much care as possible, including knowing and trusting the guys I ride with.

Bottom line: you should be looking for reasons NOT to go.

Yeah, those ABS bags are pretty amazing, but they are ridiculously expensive ($1000+). I've given it a lot of thought and I know some people say you can't put a price on your life, but they're not without issues.

First, they can potentially put you in a worse situation then an avalanche! Being buried is obviously bad, but being carried over a cliff is worse.

But more insidiously, they can lead to poor decision making. I try to stay in a constant state of, if not fear, at least extreme caution in the back country. I'm actuated aware how easy it is to fuck yourself up, and I would always rather say "nah, let's come back another day" than ride in dodgy conditions. In short, I have all the gear, but I never want to rely on it.

Is ABS illegal in Canada? Or just plowing before people go to work?

*ban
Ab De Villiers Fans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfhcdujW1J4

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.