Awesome comment. I wish I could upvote it twice. I threw up a little in my mouth watching the grandstanding going on here and how apparently most Sifters are eating it up.

Fraud? Cross-selling is perfectly legal and in fact practiced regularly in many industries besides banking (like when Best Buy tries to get you to purchase a protection plan for any electronics you buy at their store). If she has an issue with it, as a legislator she is free to bring a bill to the floor to do something about it. The problem is, she didn't give a shit about cross-selling until she realized she was going to have an opportunity to stump for future votes in these hearings and she apparently doesn't give a shit about it now because despite those strong-worded pleas for action she's done nothing personally to make anything she said happen.

Stumpf should give up his money? He isn't the one who opened fake Wells Fargo accounts nor is there any evidence he directed his employees to do so. And as he tried to explain before she cut him off to grandstand some more, those fake accounts only represent 1% of the total cross-selling that happened, which means the stock price was not unduly inflated--people were in fact opening of their own volition more accounts with Wells Fargo than any other bank and Wall Street loved them for it.

The real issue here is that there were not adequate controls in place to prevent the fake accounts from being created in the first place (or detected quickly after being created). And for that Stumpf probably does have some small amount of responsibility, although it sounds to me more like whoever was in charge of compliance is the person who likely should be the one left holding the bag.

But let's not let reality get in the way of a politician's dreams of future offices.

OK, assuming what you say is correct (I'm not taking the time now to check) you have a point, but the stats, even if only 1/2 as bad as it seems, still show there's absolutely no equivalence.

Well, if you ate like that, no wonder you think meat is deadly. Eating like that, it is. Eaten in moderation, meaning <50g of CURED meats, and probably less than 1/3 lb of non cured lean red meats, the conclusion I came to is reasonable....that it's in no way comparable to smoking in it's danger. it's not even comparable if you eat 5 times the studied portion of cured meats, although it is clearly not healthy to do so. I eat < 1/2 lb of steak, on the rare occasions I eat it. I eat 1/2 a chicken breast on a normal day, baked. Because I eat good meat, properly prepared, in moderation, there's little to no statistical increase in danger to my health over eating pure vegetarian.

No sir, your stats are wrong....here's direct from the WHO.....
http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
12. How many cancer cases every year can be attributed to consumption of processed meat and red meat?

According to the most recent estimates by the Global Burden of Disease Project, an independent academic research organization, about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat.
Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer. However, if the reported associations were proven to be causal, the Global Burden of Disease Project has estimated that diets high in red meat could be responsible for 50 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide.
These numbers contrast with about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking, 600 000 per year due to alcohol consumption, and more than 200 000 per year due to air pollution.

So, it's 34000 cancer deaths for cured meats (and IF the correlative results with red meat are in fact causative, another 50000 worldwide for red meat) VS 1000000 cancer tobacco deaths. So no, it's not 2/3 there, it's at best, IF red meat is the cause of cancers at the highest level possible (not at all proven) it's 1/12 of the way there....around 8.4%. Agreed, that's not good, but no where near what you (and he) claims.

Cholesterol and saturated fat only MAY cause heart disease and diabetes, not 'do without a doubt', and then usually only in high levels (in normal people). They raise the risk factor for those diseases, but do not automatically cause heart disease and/or diabetes, even in people with incredibly high levels.

Research indicates that you missed the mark with the 644000 number, it's more like 34000 (and maybe another 50000, unproven) according to the WHO, I'll take the stats of the organization whose study is being discussed.

So if you look at the real numbers, it's still not comparable at all. Cancer, and death rates are orders of magnitude different, far more than 10 times higher for smoking with every possible benefit of a doubt given to meats toxicity/effects, so not at all easily matched. Sorry.

(and you also appear to be 100% wrong about cancer survivability)
http://www.Cancer.org -Colon cancer-For stage IIB cancer, the survival rate is about 63%. The 5-year relative survival rate for stage IIIA colon cancers is about 89%. For stage IIIB cancers the survival rate is about 69%, and for stage IIIC cancers the survival rate is about 53%.
http://www.lung.org - Lung cancer-The five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 54 percent for cases detected when the disease is still localized (within the lungs). However, only 15 percent of lung cancer cases are diagnosed at an early stage. For distant tumors (spread to other organs) the five-year survival rate is only 4 percent.

So, to summarize, colon cancer 53%-89% survivability (depending largely on when it's caught) VS lung cancer 4% (for 85% of cases, and 54% for the 15% of lucky few with early detections)

nichts - nothing
was machen wir - what have we done (I detect no remorse)

This has to be the most easily faked viral video out there. No visual effects, just a convenient accidental recording and stock 'glass breaking' sound effect. I'm not going to pretend to be an internet detective and 'prove' that this is fake, but it seems so much more likely that it is fake than anything else. And of course the licensing contact info is right up in the description.

Not really. You don't ask what peoples beliefs are at a job interview, why would you do it here? And asking her to seek faith? It would be no better than panel of Muslims suggesting to a Christian competitor that they should convert to Islam.

Frankly the overwhelming feeling I was detecting from the panel was fear. It was as if the slaves were trying to convince the rebel to shut up lest master hear and give them all the cane. Love is not a command to be obeyed.

Good point.

I don't dispute racism exists, and its effects are amplified by power and reach. There is a difference between quality and quantity when it comes to racism. Western racism seems of a low quality, but it generates a high quantity due to pragmatic reasons. Strangely, perhaps, I find this less reprehensible than high quality of racism that is mitigated by distance or political clout. That's definitely a bias I have.

EDIT:
I think the above video and my response to it demonstrate some of the problems in that stance. Akala confidently lists a collection of events that he clearly considers egregious. A subset of those I've addressed in my criticism, to varying extents. If detecting racism in our culture is disagreeing about how effective a foreign navy should be in it's coast guard duties on a foreign shore, perhaps we're disappearing down the rabbit hole. If detecting racism in our culture means finding a sub 1% discrepancy in prison death rates in a small sample size, then it could be we're missing the forest for the trees.
It isn't to say that there aren't still problems in western culture, but we are teaching ourselves to cry wolf constantly, and we know where that leads.

The short answer is "It depends!"

I know it's a crappy answer, but there are way too many parameters at play. There are many games today that have scripted scenes in them that are pretty cinematic. Think of GTA III, from 2001. The cut scenes in that game still outshine the actual gameplay of GTA V today.

If the scene is scripted, then all the animation, and camera movement can be fine tuned and all compute resources are pooled into the viewport of the camera. This allows the artists to focus all of the trickery on the shot itself, but not the rest of the world. From a PVS or scene-graph stand point, you have pretty much reduced the complexity to just what you are seeing.

I do not know how they made this demo and cannot comment on it with any authoritative capital. I've written 3D engines before (not for videogames though) and can comment on the technology I think I'm seeing here. My comments are just an opinion based on what I know. I do not have access to Unity and have never used it before. But here it goes:

For a scene like this, there should be reduced/canned computation in:

• Collision detection and response
  
• AI
  
• Animation / IK
  
• PVS
  
• Texture Atlasing
  

The shaders, unless they are geometry (the ripping of the skin/flesh in the Adam scene) could or could not be reduced in scope and complexity. I am not sure if they are scripted or dynamic. By scripted, I mean a geometry shader that reads vertex data from a VBO stream or some memory buffer instead of computing the vertices on the fly. It's still real-time, just not dynamic.

Most of the graphics you see here are standard applications of technology that's been around for a while:

• PBR shader
  
• Motion Blur Shader
  
• Depth of Field Shader
  
• Cascaded Shadow Maps Shader
  

The particle system seems pretty standard as well.

This is a great demo and I am extremely impressed with the art direction, but the engine itself is, after all, Unity with PBR for the characters, and maybe Global Illumation for the indoor scenes, which I believe they licensed from Geomerics.

I forgot about this.
I wonder how they are going to detect the core.

The core is theorized to be a metallic hydrogen.

It's almost certainly to avoid YouTube copyright detection.

Just got around to reading The Quantum Thief, which you recommended about a hundred years ago in one of the 'what are you reading' threads. Thought I'd send a little note of thanks since I really liked it and don't think I would have come across it on my own.

Constructing a sort of crime novel around the subtle implications of technologies that don't exist yet must be difficult work. When a break in the case comes about because the detective realises that, oh of course, since the thief used the key to his encrypted external memory to steal his identity, that must give him access to recordings of the thief's activities during the few minutes of the impersonation, and what's this, he used a quantum entangling drone to beam only one stolen minute of Time away from the victim, there's only one thing that can mean: to the resurrection house! - well it's a step above bootprints in the flower bed isn't it? And calling time-rich nobles 'millenniaires'...mmm, juicy.

I want to make an animatronic toy like this, where each kitten mechanism has a camera that follows any motion detected.

About as useless as those sleeping cat/puppy toys, but I spare no expense when it comes to adorable constructs.

We all have our biases.

Conservatives are likely to believe conspiracy nonsense that appeals to their biases (Obama is a muslim/kenyan/communist, etc).

And progressives are just as likely to believe conspiracy nonsense that appeals to their biases (see: anything to do with monsanto).

The trick is acknowledging your biases and fact checking anyway.

I wasn't kidding about automating that. If someone could write a browser plug-in that detected when you were submitting a URL to twitter or facebook and ran it against a snopes-style DB, that would be a boon for humanity.

The F-35 can do everything better than any other plane. It's weapons are better, it's senors are better, and it's communication and situational awareness is much better. Thanks to the stealth, it has better survivability.

The only area it has some disadvantages in performance are the acceleration and maneuverability. Which is a small disadvantage, it still accelerates incredibly fast, just slower than a lighter plane, which is just physics. But it's not a slouch by any means. Plus the maneuverability is still being worked on, it's all fly by wire and they can do some really magic things with those systems once it's all tuned. They haven't started pushing it to the limits yet from what I've heard. (and honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole "our plane sucks" thing was another tactic of spreading misinformation).

Here's the other thing. The F-16 can out maneuver and out accelerate the F-35. But every Russian fighter can out accelerate and out maneuver the F-16, anyway. Yet the F-16 always comes out on top. Why is that? Superior sensors, weapons, comms and tactics.

The F-35 is the best plane to achieve air superiority, because not many pilots have a death wish. Air combat is about survival, not about kills. Even in the Gulf war, the Iraqi's didn't want to fly against the F-15s because they knew they'd get just get shot down. They never even took off. So imagine how they would feel against a plane that can't be detected, let alone locked onto. A plane that can lock onto you and fire without you knowing. Not a good feeling knowing that at any moment you could explode without warning.

The A-10 is bullet proof, but not missile proof. It's a sitting duck against shoulder mounted IGLA's. Only the cockpit is bullet proof BTW which is great for the pilot, but not so great for the rest of the plane

I agree that the F-35 for the current war is overkill, but electronics and technology keeps getting cheaper day by day, and in 10 years time, even the current enemies will start buying more sophisticated systems. It's better to be prepared. As being reactionary like in WW2 and Vietnam was quite costly to the lives of allied forces. The F-35 will probably be in service for another 30 years, so it needs to try to meet as many requirements as it can for that time period, until the next plane comes out shooting lasers instead of missiles.

Also close air support these days is already done mostly by soft skin planes like the F-16. So not much difference there. Apart from the expense I guess. It's not low and slow either. You have a plane fly at such speed and high altitude the people on the ground never even know about it.


If you feel like it I'll give you a game of DCS World some time. It's a free flight sim (also used to train US national guard and other nations too). It really demonstrates the value of good sensors and weapons over flight performance

Now when it comes to being a waste of money, only time will tell. I guess either way it's win win though, because if there is no conflict that needs this plane it's only a good thing. And if there is a conflict we have the plane ready. But for the time being it really does seem like it's a waste of money. A lot of money, especially in a time of debt.

For sure, I believe that by trying to be all things, it has made compromises in other areas. But perhaps the flexibility is a more important than a few advantages here and there. All of the current US planes are also multi role as well, with the exception of dedicated bombers. So any jack of all trades worries also apply to the majority of the planes that have been in service for the last 30 years. It seems like versatility has been the driving factor for upgrades. So it makes sense a new plane would be designed with versatility in mind.

For things like Close Air Support, I would much rather be in the invisible fast plane, than the bullet proof slow plane like the A-10. You've dropped your bombs before the enemy even know you're there, and before the bombs hit the ground, you're 40KMs away, at an altitude where most ground based missile systems can't hit you(even if they can detect you).

Close air support of that nature of course only happens when you have reached full air superiority, which the F-35 is the best plane for.

It might seem overkill now to have such an advanced plane to drop bombs on people with AK-47's, but you never know how politics can change. Assad might decide to start buying some advanced Russian SAM systems, and that's when a stealth plane will come in handy.

The F-35 can fly both faster, and slower than the F-16, and longer at high angles of attack that would stall most planes. It although can't out accelerate the F-16 though since F-35 is heavier. But having the best acceleration isn't really a factor in modern air combat, where missiles are being thrown at each other from any between 20-100+km's range. As long as you can accelerate good enough, which being a fighter plane it can.

The F-35's afterburner-less supersonic speed is more important in a BVR(beyond visual range) engagement, since that's what allows you to put more distance between you and an enemy missile. The idea being that you fly perpendicular to a missile making it cover more ground and it runs out of fuel and speed so it falls out of the sky before it can reach you. Of course to lock onto a stealth plane you'd need to be quite close in the first place, by which time it would have shot you down, at least that's the theory.

If it comes to a close range scenario, say enemy AWACS manages to detect the F-35s, and direct a bunch of enemy fighters through a set of mountains to sneak up on the F-35s. And a visual range or even dog fight ensues. Then the F-35 would use a short range missile that can turn 90+ degrees and shoot behind itself . Which no other plane can do since all of the sensors are forward facing on all other planes.

But you're of course right, there is always eventually going to be a way of countering the stealth advantage, it's an arms race after all. Most likely it will be countered by some kind of cheap jamming drone swarming, which would make the F-35s sensors useless, and missiles too few, forcing the engagements to happen at shorter ranges.


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What I mean by dog fighting is a one on one engagement where each plane is trying to furiously out maneuver the other. That is a rare occurrence. There is a WW2 era video that explains the tactics used that make the one on one style dog fighting obsolete. https://youtu.be/C_iW1T3yg80?t=530

The planes have a system where as soon as one plane is engage by an enemy, then your wingman, or a spare clean up squadron comes and mops it up, since the enemy makes it self an easy target when engaging a friendly.