Good lord that was just pure athletic grace.

I'm sorry, but that is an oversimplification too great to just allow you to apologise for and continue on with the point.

To suggest a narrative in which all Thatcher did was close a few factories and blame the communities for being too lazy to fend for themselves or find a new job is not only naive and ignorant of all the facts, but incredibly insulting to people from those areas.

An apology for oversimplifying? I personally think you owe one to the hard working people of northern mining towns that were not only made redundant by Thatcher (with no other jobs available), they were victimised by her and then blacklisted so that they would not be able to find work again - some have only been vindicated in the past few years.

The only redeeming aspect of your frankly disgusting ideas about deprived areas in the UK is that you are clearly not in possession of the facts. Lazyness? The miners were the backbone of this country, the WORKING class - you know? Steelworkers lazy?

To some people in this country there has been no recovery, they are more in debt than ever, they have less job and home security, they are depressed, there is no future and it doesn't even seem like their kids will be able to do any better. David Chameron appears on the TV and tells them we're all doing better and the recovery is going great and they laugh at him... THEY'RE USING FOODBANKS TO LIVE. Their families eat by the grace of generous community members who donate food... in 2016....... in the United Kingdom, ex-fifth largest economy in the world. Recovery!? That's how the recovery was FUNDED!!! By taking money from the poorest and most desperate in the form of cuts and austerity! They're using foodbanks right now so that you can claim the UK had a recovery. Disabled people committed suicide because they felt as if they were a burden, because they were scared and saw no hope, all so that people could claim we had a fucking recovery. But the average person is no better off and the debt that Osborne made such a big deal about has increased. He's missed every target he made for himself and redefined poverty so that the statistics looked better!

And that isn't BECAUSE of brexit - that was before brexit. Many people are blissfully ignorant of how some people have to live their lives in this country, especially those most influenced by the Westminster bubble. Politicians and political commentators have completely misjudged the mood of the nation; that led to brexit, that has led to Corbyn who in fact has been the ONLY man in parliament to be making these points.

And they think he's no leader? When he goes to work every day he has to deal with around 400 people spitting abuse and doubt at him. He stood in parliament with hundreds of them jeering him and faced them down and made the democratic will of hundreds of thousands of people (who were not in attendance) felt. He is the only man who looks like a leader right now, the only one who looks like he knows what the hell to do.

I really didn't like the song at all, but her performance made it worth sitting through.
*quality balance and grace. She makes it look easy, and I'm certain it's not.

I wonder if Stephen Fry hates this?

Not really sure how you could. It's a pity the discussion is about anything other than how graceful this young lady is.

Congratulations! Your video, Chinese Reporter Gracefully Uses Slide, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 54 Badge!

Your video, Chinese Reporter Gracefully Uses Slide, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I just translated the lyrics. Damn, I forgot how difficult translating poetry can be. It took me quite some time. I tried to translate it as closely to the German meaning as possible, while still upholding or at least emulating some aspects of the poetic style of the original.

"Spring Greeting

1. (intro)
One beautiful spring day
A spring greeting – a little flower
Lay dying by the wayside

The poor thing had been plucked
Its existence doomed – Thrown away
To feed Death alone

2.
As I bowed down
To eye this misery
That bespoke brutal workings
Suggesting no remorse
A word escaped my throat
– Murder!

For this flower, so fragile
Was appallingly, purposely plucked
By the wayside, I assume
In a rush of ecstasy, absent-mindedly,
Someone bowed down
And bemused, elated, blushed,
In spring rapture, deeply delighted,
Discovered, clutched and killed it

Chorus:
And I asked myself, who seeks,
Against all grace and goodness,
To take such beauty's life
Executed, slaughtered
So disempowered, off-handedly
This peaceful blossom
So discarded and despised
Oh forbid

3.
The fool, he was so moved
That he had no doubt
His mind was captivated
By its splendor, which he abducted
And unscrupulously corrupted
As he took it – gave himself to it
Only then he became aware - it was dying

And suddenly the realization
Flashed through his mind and all too honestly
Comprehension became confession
Into his heart, painfully,
His misdeed crept, all too gravely

Chorus:
And he asked himself, who seeks,
Against all grace and goodness,
To take such beauty's life
Executed, slaughtered
So disempowered, off-handedly
This peaceful blossom
So discarded and despised
Oh forbid

4. (Bridge)
Shocked by his fallibility
He threw the beauty into the sand
Irritated by his misdeed
He retreated from his disgrace
‘Though he had desired the little flower,
Loved, adored, admired it,
He had not respected it
And this splendor by the wayside
Is now concluded and passed

Chorus:
And he asked himself, who seeks,
Against all grace and goodness,
To take such beauty's life
Executed, slaughtered
So disempowered, off-handedly
This peaceful blossom
So discarded and despised
Oh forbid

And he asked himself, who seeks,
Against all grace and goodness,
To take such beauty's life
Executed, slaughtered
So disempowered, off-handedly
This peaceful blossom
So discarded and despised
Man forbid

5. (outro)
One beautiful spring day
A spring greeting – a little flower
Lay dying by the wayside

Bereaved of the beautiful springtime
Of existence – doomed – of lust itself
A victim of vain humanity

It was me. It was me. I'm sorry.
It was me. It was me. Now I'm sorry."

The inherently chaotic event that exists in the otherwise predictable / trainable environment of driving a car is the unplanned / unmeasured disturbance. In control systems that are adaptive or self learning, the unplanned disturbance is the killer - a short duration, unpredictable event for which the system is unable to respond to within the control limits that have been defined through training, programming and/or adaptation. The response to an unplanned disturbance is often to default to an instruction that is very much human derived (ie. stop, exit gracefully, terminate instruction, wait until conditions return to controllable boundary conditions or freeze in place) which, depending on the disturbance, can be catastrophic. In our world, with humans behind the wheel, let's call the unplanned disturbance the "mistake". A tire blows, a load comes undone, an object falls out of or off of another vehicle (human, dog, watermelon, gas cylinder) etc.

The concern from my perspective (and I work directly with adaptive / learning control systems every day - fundamental models, adaptive neural type predictors, genetic algorithms etc. ) is the response to these short duration / short response time unplanned disturbances. The videos I've seen and the examples that I have reviewed don't deal with these very short timescale events and how to manage the response, which in many cases is an event dependent response. I would guess that the 1st dead person that results from the actions or inaction of self driving vehicles will put a major dent if not halt to the program. Humans may be fallible, but we are remarkably (infinitely?) more adaptive in combined conscious / subconscious responses than any computer is or will be in the near future in both appropriateness of response and the time scale of generating that response.

In the partially controlled environment (ie. there is no such thing as 100%) of a automated warehouse and distribution center, self driving works. In the partially controlled environment where ONLY self driving vehicles are present on the roadways, then again, this technology will likely succeed. The mixed environment with self driving co-mingled with humans (see "fallible" above) is not presently viable, and I don't think will be in the next decade or two, partially due to safety risk and partially due to management of these short timescale unplanned disturbances that can call for vastly different responses depending upon the specific situation at hand. In the flow of traffic we encounter the majority of the time, would agree that this may not be an issue to some (in 44 years of driving, I've been in 2 accidents, so I'll leave the risk assessment to the actuaries). But one death, and we'll see how high the knees jerk. And it will happen.

My 2 cents.
TB

@ChaosEngine.

Yeah. I know. Your last sentence says it all -- he didn't achieve near as much as was hoped for. Hence your disappointment.

From my perspective, I never believed he could do all that was hoped. Because this isn't a dictatorship (thank god, maybe we can survive Trump.) It was clear to me from the beginning that is wasn't possible.

So I wasn't disappointed. I was glad for all that he did manage to get through.

And that is what makes him consequential.

I have my list of things I am pissed at him about for doing -- including the murdering of brown people, including bin Laden. (And I'm pissed at most of the people in this country for cheering state sponsored targeted assassination and ignoring the huge collateral damage of that day and the days that followed.)

History isn't going to judge him on what he promised and couldn't get done. History will judge him on what he actually did. Half-assed heathcare is half an ass more than was managed in over a hundred years. LGBT people aren't disappointed.

And being the first black president -- he'll be in the history books for being that particular breed of person -- the minority who is 10 times better than the ruling majority, who swallows the indignities of prejudice with grace and determination, who rises above the humiliations to become The First. Think Jackie Robinson -- that is what we remember about him, that is the story that has survived. (The recent PBS doc taught me a fuller picture of who he actually was after he survived those brutal first two years in the majors.) That is the story we crave.

He's consequential, all right. Not perfect. Consequential.

What he said! And especially Fuck Nancy Grace.

*ban
Grace Properties DFW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Q8tvMPHi0

Nah, it was always the same. The lack of overtaking is commonly blamed on high downforce, carbon brakes, and super short braking distances, but it actually wasn't any better before they put wings on cars. Same thing: the rich, fast teams qualify and start at the front and stay at the front and get richer and faster...with the occasional fall from grace (Mclaren) or rise from obscurity (Brawn->Mercedes). As cool as they are technologically, development series like F1 tends to result in boring races.

ed: Oh, and using ground effect has been banned since 81(?). Interestingly, Indycars use the ground effect (though without the skirts so it's not as effective as the F1 ground effect cars), and by virtue of being a (mostly) spec series, has much better races.

Yeah, I'm sure being rejected early access to review code has a far bigger impact than cash. It takes time to review a product and get content generated and ready to go, which is why early review code is necessary so you can launch your review as soon as that review embargo ends... as those are the ones that will generate the click revenue, which is probably exceeds whatever studios may pay directly.

Hey, I've been offered review code (never of AAA titles, biggest I got offered was The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut and Sword Coast Legend) on occasion from a PR firm that somehow I got on their list (I do have a blog that is gaming focused, got a very small Twitch channel and YouTube channel that largely focuses on games). I personally only accept ones that I genuinely have an interest in... of course this perhaps clogs judgement all the more. I wanted to like the title... so I may be more forgiving. When I founded and ran Mortyr.net (it's long since been taken over) I admit my preview of the game was clouded a bit, though I've tried to apply lessons learned from that forward. Then again, it's perhaps easier to apply those lessons to myself as I'm too small to matter (and the offers for review code are very few and far between), a big publishing site who's reviews count on the Metacritic analysis, and rely on click through revenue has less room to be apply such lessons and almost needs to ignore impartiality in favor of making sure you keep in the publisher's good graces. A PR firm handing me a review code that doesn't work out well isn't as bad if Game Informer or somebody like that doesn't give it a positive review.

TLDR: Exactly what RedSky and Stormsinger said.

@radx
@RedSky

i feel like i am watching clash of the titans,and you both make me feel as if i am suffering from a debilitating head wound.

i.e: i am retarded.

while it is apparent you both come from different schools of thought.i rather enjoy how you both discuss matters that a layperson (sorry @radx,YOU are NOT a layperson) such as myself can actually learn and benefit from your discussion.

and you both engage with such grace and respect.

that's all i wanted to say.
carry on you two.
/grabs popcorn and a dictionary

I have no idea which performance came first but he's either gone way up in the world or way, way down! I'm hoping this came first and he's not fallen from grace as it were...