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Is Your Car Safe From Supermaneuverable Air-Defense Fighters

eric3579 says...

Oops, my bad. I just focused in on the one minute mark where he said "step one is to stop before the line. Then make sure to yield to vehicles..." I falsely equated that to a stop sign in my brain, but who stops first and then checks for traffic? Seems he has it backwards. Check for traffic while approaching and only yield/stop if necessary.

I've had very little experience with different kinds of roundabouts. The ones i've used are very basic. I know there are more complex ones with multiple lanes, bike lanes, and pedestrian cross walks but never have i personally come acrossed one. Decades ago however i did cross, as a pedestrian, the roundabout at the Arc De Triomphe In Paris. I couldn't imagine navigating that thing in a car.

cloudballoon said:

There is no observable Stop sign in the video nor IRL at roundabouts though. It would be absurd and a huge faux pas if the animator added Stop signs in it. Yield and Stop signs shouldn't co-exist.

PFAS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

bremnet says...

Howdy - I don't know if "addressed" is the right word. Commented on, but not given sufficient perspective. Having said that, the problem is incredibly complex, so there should be no expectation that Mr. Oliver's video or any other single thesis on the topic could possibly suffice.

Your "one chemical bond difference" is an appropriate consideration, but with recognition that once we reach on the order of C20-C40 length dispersable or emulsifiable molecules as surfactants / surface energy modifiers, the insoluble polymers come into play, with not 30'ish bonds growing one at a time, but leaping to 20,000 or more. No doubt the pool has already been irreversibly pissed into by the irresponsible producers that convert small molecules into very, very large ones, but with some control, responsibility, and integrity in our industrial process owners (yes, hell just froze over) there is no reason why we could not safely continue to produce the polymeric forms of PFAS. We do so for substantially more toxic chemical conversion processes today.

It's interesting to note the (usual) examples brought forward by others in this post (Teflon cookware), just waiting for someone to mention Gore-Tex, but by far the biggest impact won't be on consumer goods that we all touch regularly and recognize the name brands of, but will be on the industrial / commercial uses of these polymeric families that are pervasive in the systems / processes that we all derive benefit from every day. Ironies exist, that perhaps confuse the "all PFAS are bad" premise ... consider - effectively every seal, gasket and control valve in a water purification plant is most commonly made of a PFAS polymeric compound, PTFE included, all tested to rigorous specifications and compliance by specific agencies that do nothing other than deal with potable water (thankfully not the EPA - it's National Sanitation Foundation (the other NSF), or Water Research Advisory Scheme (WRAS) in the UK etc.) .

So my contention and the view of many in the end user community is that it's not the final form of some of these compounds that are bad, it's the horrendous messes we leave producing them. We can't unwind our Clock of Dumb, but killing the entire crop just to get rid of the long ago seeded weeds doesn't solve the actual problem, it makes it much, much larger.

Thanks for your comments.

newtboy said:

To be fair, most of your complaints were addressed in the piece.

For instance, medical implants, fairly stable, yes, but not in extreme heat like cremation, so as used they’re toxic to the environment despite being considered stable and inert.

The reason to ban them all was also explained, banning one toxic substance at a time means one chemical bond difference and the company can go ahead with Cancer causer 2.0 for a decade until it’s banned for being toxic, and then repeat. It’s how they’ve operated for decades.

I’m fine with outlawing the entire class and putting the onus on the chemical companies to prove any new variants are safe instead of forcing the hamstrung epa to prove they’re unsafe. I also think any company that dumped it into waterways should be instantly and completely forfeited to pay for cleanup. No company has the funds to pay for cleanup, but their assets are at least a start.

PFAS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

bremnet says...

I hate it when the uneducated try to explain a complex issue and do a piss poor job of it. Is PFAS a problem? Sure. Are ALL PFAS compounds a problem with regards to their toxicity? No. The small molecule species are problematic because of mobility. The polymeric species are stable as fuck, that's why they were invented and why we use them as seals and barrier layers to isolate corrosive liquids and gases, and why we use them in such things as medical implants. The polymers excel because they are inert and largely unreactive. So - are they all bad? No. Are they all good? No. But it's too late - the fuckwits like Oliver have fueled the Emotional Response bus, and society won't stand for outdated concepts like scientific investigation or rational thought. Eight member countries of the EU are presently on track to restrict or ban all PFAS in any form, sweeping all compounds into the same category with no differentiation between a water soluble perfluorinated molecule like perfluorinated PVME and a one million molecular weight PTFE polymer. If it has a -CF2- moiety in it, it's subject to being banned. Good science doesn't matter any more, the knee-jerk fear mongerers are now making the decisions.

Undercover: EXPOSING MAGA Hypocrisy on Afghanistan

cloudballoon says...

Which POTUS started the war(s) in the first place? W. Bush. Which POTUS send billions upon billions of free military hardware to prop up a corrupt, coward, incompetent, puppet government? Trump.

Biden will own the absolutely hasty pull-out, though Biden ISN'T incorrect about unavoidable chaos. That's because the US -- AGAIN like most other American war adventures -- just pack up & left. In war, you either win, lose or negotiate an armistice to avoid a bloody and chaotic aftermath. You can't have an armistice with the Taliban because it wasn't - isn't - even a government entity. Biden was honest about the miscalculation about the speed of Afghanistan's fall to the Taliban at least. He said Intel couldn't imagine it'd be a matter of weeks but thought something like 90 days+? But that means crap because Intel said fall to the Taliban it WILL (i.e., an eventuality). So why the haste, where's the logistical & humanitarian planning? There is no justification for that strategic lapse. The major international criticism (100% valid IMO) is how Biden/America abandonned its own and allies' citizens & Afghan aides in a war torn country with little planning & time to get them out of the country BEFORE the military leave. And leaving all those military hardware intact to the Taliban? What the hell? I mean, what are the generals doing? Is American reverence of its President so total that you can't pushback and buy some time to plan for a better outcome? Or are they really THAT incompetent? What this fiasco shows is that Biden/Pentagon cares nothing BUT the military personel. That is f---ing it, no more, no less.

What we're witnessing in Afghanistan is arguably a collective American sin, not just Biden's. Most Americans want out, like it should've happened yesteryear. The US have been propping up its GDP by using endless wars to feed the mouths of the military industrial complex to sell hardware abroad. It's an addiction whether the Dem/GOP likes it or not. This is just another sad but typical American war history repeating itself again. It's America's military modus operandi. Want to apportion blame? Don't just blame it on Biden, there's plenty to go around: from the WH to the Senate, Pentagon and down to the "Almighty American Military Prowess' Sure Win" mentality in its people are all to blame.

Oh, rest assured that Republicans couldn't do better. Why? Because it's built into the American military DNA: arrogance & ignorance. That breeds blindness, making Intel useless - or worse - counterproductive because of the inherent lack of situational/cultural awareness. It's not really a political mistake, rather a huge military blunder.

It's a f---ing war crime to start a war and not knowing how to end it already. It's made worse that America collectively *think* it can "nation build" a vastly different (culturally, economically, socially, judicially... etc.) , and far away country by basically propping up a corrupt, dependant, puppet government and then leave, knowing (or EVEN worse, NOT knowing) the eventual outcomes. What a pathetic, cruel and deadly joke.

vil said:

Which potus put this plan into action though?

That One Guy in Every Dungeons & Dragons Game

dotdude says...

We had a lot more "Scoots"-like personalities in the group I played. Our DM, who had a "god complex", got put out when we derailed his schedule for exploring the dungeon he created. Just getting to his dungeon took a while - all by itself.

My character died early in the game. But the DM allowed me have a new one.

Why is that even a question?

bcglorf says...

The problem is, it's complicated.

First off, is the legacy of historical damage still scarring aboriginal communities in Canada.

Even disregarding that complexity though, current structure of governance in Canada makes the problem harder to identify and resolve.

Singh's return question is what would you do if Toronto faced the same problem? The answer is the federal government would by and large do nothing, because water supply is a municipal responsibility and the Mayor and city council of Toronto are responsible for fixing it, and thus federal funds don't go in and instead municipal tax money is used to keep the water supply going. Across Canada that model is working pretty decently, by and large.

The real question then is why are reserves having a harder time? Well, afore mentioned historical trauma aside, reserves represent small communities directly comparable in size and make up as municipal communities. However, the reserves are NOT managed like municipalities. Instead Canada still has a two tiered system of governance, one for reserves and another for municipalities.

In term so governance municipalities report to the provinces and the provinces report to the federal government. Reserves report directly to the federal government.

The affects everything related to governance and is responsible for a host of confusion and difficulty.

Services: Education and Health are provincially funded, and so the federal government transfer money to the provinces and tells them to figure out education and health services. Municipalities then just get those services. Reserves however sit outside that, and get entirely different intermediaries.

Taxation and funding: municipal, provincial and federal governments all gather taxes and distribute funds up and down. Reserves only deal with funding though directly to the feds, again cutting out the provincial intermediary.

Both of the above mean making an apples to apples comparison of communities to try and ensure both are treated 'equally' is impossible. It also means that solutions that work on one side don't in the other.

It's a big mess, and just throwing money at the system and saying that will fix it is just wrong. Not only that, it's been TRIED and failed. The above mentioned differences also apply to rules surrounding transparency, accountability and fraud prevention. Meaning there are a great many more loopholes available on the reserve funding side for anyone involved or attached to providing services(be that council members on reserve, or any number of external entities hired in good faith to perform services). That in turn means the amount of money lost to direct and indirect corruption is harder to find/stop.

So fix all that is the next obvious response. The problem is still complex though because when does 'fixing' becoming simply white folks making aboriginals do things the 'right(white) way that was already the source of lingering historical damage I didn't even consider yet...

It's a hard problem to solve and Singh's just trying to score cheap political points peddling easy and false answers to a complex problem.

Racing for $100

Digitalfiend says...

I don't really see the point of these videos as the outcome of this exercise can really depend on where this sort of polling is done. I get what they are trying to convey, but it's too simplistic.

If you did this very same exercise in my neighbourhood, I'd wager good money most of the visible minority students would be stepping forward as well. There are a lot of *very* well-off visible minority families in this area. Do this exercise again in an affluent black-community - same outcome? I don't think so.

Also why are no other ethnicities represented? Where are the Muslim, Indian, and Asian teens? Again, in my area and across Toronto, many of these minority groups have children that are thriving. Do they have privilege too? My perspective as a Canadian might be a little different than someone from the US but this topic feels too complex and nuanced to be reduced to a simple metaphor.

More on those pesky vaccine passports among other things

luxintenebris jokingly says...

idk 'bout all that. *

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2136864,00.html

especially yattering about exercise in an over-worked, underpaid, non-union, low benefits strata 'essential' working-class society. hell. give 'em a sensible 40hr work week w/fair compensation, twice-yearly dr. check-ups, and 3 weeks vacation - then you could piously grouse about how they ignore being too tired to walk around the block. { f.m. } besides, who points out when that should be YOUR last piña colada for the evening?

yeah, folks should take care, but the bloated calling the bloated is disingenuous. when they operate at 10% - then pull out the soapbox.

paradoxically, why do we need doctors at all when insurance companies know what drugs or procedures anyone should require? have faced that phalanx before. 'y' is cheaper than 'x', for them, but 'x' was their w.m.d. only six months prior. only to find concerns that 'x' and 'y' might have different risks, the pharmacist said, "they are almost identical." silly me. why worry?

it's a highly mucked system. for an average citizen, an illness could affect their entire being. and their loved ones. a bankruptcy hurts far more than the debtor. it's sickening to think that our system inflicts so much pain and alters so much more lives. it is immoral.

just too odd that cavemen felt more of an obligation to provide healthcare than the present system to their members. just being out one hunter (bob's bum toe) they saw the immediate effect on their own personal well-being. they might actually like bob too. wished him better, and for his family too. happy to fund his wellness plan. get him back up, and running to pay off that moss and lizard bacon foot wrap. all of that w/o having to nail a hippy to wood to realize there is a better way.

one would think, the US has the ability to put a 'copter on mars, program it to fly itself, and have it beam back the wright moment of achievement but figuring out how to get bob's toe healthy, w/o it costing him an arm, is too complex.** it's like really bad kafka.

perhaps the odd savior: the more the right disses socialism the better it appears. if the 'traffic cone of treason' loving hockey pucks continue, maybe the best hope of getting a healthier healthcare system (in the way nazis made the world a better place) saner people might use these bad brains' bad example to right the system by going left (the costanza principle: if everything they say is wrong then not following their advice has to be right).

end of rant ( 'thou feel better getting that elephant off my chest...for a bit).

oh! they should get the vaccine(s). after all, how appreciative is it when Hair Furor is the only reason we have it at all? /s

* btw: insurance is happy w/pharmaceutials? kick-backs?
** 'tho bob's toe would feel better if he'd just stop putting his foot in his mouth.

StukaFox said:

You don't want a vaccine? Lovely. We will be canceling your health insurance. Since you've chosen to be a complete cunt, we've chosen not to pay for your utter cuntiness.

I work in health insurance. The three biggest contributors to the price of insurance are:
1: fraud (doctors are notorious for this)
2: general waste (upbilling; unnecessary tests that are only performed to keep the fucking ambulance-chasing lawyers from filing malpractice suits because someone got the shits from an antibiotic)
3: PREVENTABLE HEALTH ISSUES. This includes obesity, smoking, not exercising, not getting annual checkups and atrocious dietary habits as first-order issues. If not corrected, these lead to more expensive and longer term second-order issues: diabetes, heart disease, cancer, vascular disease. These issues start a feedback loop with the second-order effects cause immobility which contributes to increasing first-order effects which amplifies second-order effects -- lather, rinse, repeat.

Now add a good case of Covid to that mix. If you end up on a ventilator for two week, there's a mil-plus in hospital bills: someone has to either pay that (welcome higher insurance rates!) or the hospital has to eat it (welcome even HIGHER insurance rates!) You can bitch all you want about the cost of healthcare in America, but you're paying for every dumb, entitled asshole who spouts shit like MUH FREEDUMS!! when asked to do basic things to protect themselves and others.

tl;dr: your idiot views of what the actual fuck "freedom" is ends at my wallet. Fuck you and get your goddamn vaccine. And put down the Cheetos while you're at it.

Reflections on Trusting Trust - Computerphile

noims says...

I remember reading that paper in the early 00s and loving it. The bombshell for me was that at about 4:47 in the video he says he thinks Ken actually did do what I assumed the paper was joking about, which I'll admit sent a little shiver down my spine.

The only limit would have been Ken's forward thinking on how complex the self-updating aspect would be. Once it passes a certain threshold , iirc, it's essentially unstoppable. Below a certain threshold it would probably already have been found.

Can You Trust the Media? | Manufacturing Consent Explained

TheFreak says...

Every time this guy lays down an assertion, he's presenting questionable supposition as fact. He's building all of his points from a shaky foundation of paranoia presented as reality.

There are definitely problems with the way that 24 hour news media is formatted and it is causing social issues. But the problem is a lot more complex than "a conspiracy of rich people controlling you". Any solution is going to require real objective, unbiased and clear-eyed analysis of how the news business works today. This video isn't that.

Cyberjank 2077

wtfcaniuse says...

When people forget every other buggy game they ever played including Witcher 3 on console. The eyes in the game are customizable (did he skip character creation options?).

Yes it was buggy AF at launch. Most games are, especially massive complex games, 1.03 fixed a lot of bugs, so did 1.04. Even massive big budget releases like RDR2 had game breaking bugs, scripting fails, AI fails, etc.

Doesn't help that they had to try and make it run on console hardware that is well below minimum PC specs.

PC booting from a vinyl record (earrape warning)

smr says...

I work in IT. I troubleshoot and optimize incredibly complex systems using a wide range of toolsets. There is zero chance I could make something like this work without trashing my house in a frustration meltdown.

The Chaotic Pendulum

TheFreak says...

I'd call it a complex pendulum. Except that it seems to fall to a static state within seconds, right after he cuts the video in each clip.

Who knew a Praying Mantis could kill a Hummingbird

StukaFox says...

Y'know, I saw that picture taken in New South Wales (Aussieland) of the gigantic goddamn spider that'd caught, and was in the process of eating, a sparrow. So I thought, "Huh -- that's some fucked-up shit right there, y'all..."

In your life, you will come to certain milestones, one of which is "accepting shit you ain't gonna be able to do nothin' about..." Y'know, stuff like Japanese people clubbing dolphins, the GOP and Furries. I mean, you're totally appalled, but there ain't shit you can do about it. You either accept it and move on, or head up to the roof of the apartment complex across the street from Anthrocon and see if you can get your name on the board.

That brings us back to the Dante-esque horror that was the gigantic goddamn spider from Boganland. What're you gonna do, right? You know that spider's paid off the Prime Minister and is on a Qantas flight to parts unknown (probably in whatever that class is that's above Business Class that the airlines keep totally fuckin' secret because of fears that if you found out they were serving dolphin steak and cocaine up near the pointy end of the aircraft, you might just decided to jump out of your seat, charge the hidden door to the Coked-Up Cetacean Lounge, and proceed to hoover every last flake of that fine, fine Peruvian blow -- or get shot seven times in the back if you're black) and will soon be consume children, the elderly, or blasted passengers stumbling off a Qantas A-380 with a wild look in their eyes and a coke-stache that would embarrass Chuck Barris.

So the moral of this story is: Jesus FUCK I love cocaine!!

Assembly of the worlds largest fusion reactor (ITER) begins



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