Things I liked about Firefly:

- Mal was sometimes moral and admirable, loyal to ship and crew, but also a dirty sleezebag when required. Awesome hero/anti-hero combo
- Young Morena Baccarin = HOT!! Loved the sexual tension she had with Mal
- Self-reliance of western + mystique of space = WIN. I think that atmosphere is what made the show so enticing, so full of possibilities
- They sometimes spoke chinese words and phrases, such a clever and original prediction of our cultural future
- Fuck lasers (only had it in 1 episode I think)
- Outer space is silent (with very few exceptions), THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING PHYSICS AND COMMON SENSE.


What I didn't like:

- silly overelaborate dialog sometimes
- Gina Torres is too smoking HOT for Alan Tudyk, sorry I didn't buy them being a couple for one second
- Speaking of Alan, I was always expecting him to be so funny, but he never was, and his character was so bland and dispensable, which explains why he was killed in the movie
- Nathan Fillion should've toned down being so clever, I wish his character were a bit darker. Can't stand him in Castle either, sorry.

>> Youtube:

This automatic food dispenser was supposed to help alleviate some of the cat's anxiety about meal time, but as you can see, it hasn't exactly helped the cat relax much yet.No. The automatic food dispenser was supposed to help alleviate some of the owner's anxiety about their cat's annoying mealtime behavior.

A friend of ours got one of these and the cat figured out he didn't have to wait if he just knocked the dang thing over. It got pushed into a corner, and then taped up, before finally being discarded. Cats are dumb and lazy as rocks until they realize they can destroy their way to something they want.

The damn machine looks like it's programed to torment kitty. It Make's a terrible racket while it sounds as if it's tumbling the portion it's going to dispense. Then, while still churning the kibbles, it begins to squawk in a Pokemonesque voice while STILL forgoing kitty's meal-time!!

(edit) Ohhhhhh wait.....I just watched it again....It's the neurotic cat not the cleverly-designed dispenser that's fucked up!!

@renatojj So you are saying you cant be threatened economically? Off course you can be. Damage can be economical or mental too. There is no reason to exclude those. Far from it, you can argue these are in the end physical too.
Force is not required to be physical in this process.
What you need is leverage, ie something that the other needs. If you are the giver of a job that that other person needs and it is difficult for him to find it elsewhere, you are in a position of power without any other need of force. If you own a well in a desert you are the most powerful man without any force. And you can coerce people to do your bidding for them to receive water. No force required, just threat.

On right to have a job. The thousands of philosophers, lawyers, human rights activists, politicians, etc that worked on the UDHR just believe that without the job, people will starve, ie will die, ie will get a right offended. Hence, they need a job. And thats is were coercion comes in. The NEED (not the right) to have a job to survive (or at least live on a "decent" level in your society) Coercion isnt about having or not having a job. Its about the threat of not getting it / losing it and accepting things you would otherwise not. Discussing whether or not someone is suitable for a job is besides the point, as we are all unsuitable for the job we have in some form or other. So unskilled, incompetent, dispensable, these are all point of view based. In a world of geniuses you and me would be unsuitable for anything. But are we really? Off course not, just like every tree, flower, bacteria and animal has a role, so does every person.

On coercion: by a child's psychological manipulation? For sure. (Check with any parent and they will readily agree ) What about a person you're in love with? Yes off course. What about a guy who is more qualified for a job than you are, is he coercing you out of that position? No. He nor you has the job to give. The coercion comes when your boss says to work 12 hours a day and get paid for 8 because someone else might be better and he might give that person the job.

On justifying anything government does: you make assumptions I dont follow. Punish coercion -> using force -> more social injustice.
If it is coercion and we define coercion is something bad, isnt it justified to do something against it? You can do something against it with or without force, but even if it is done with force (meaning someone somewhere gets his freedoms lessened) again, isnt that justified to stop him or her being able to coerce someone as that is bad? Its like saying government cant stop someone from shooting someone because that would lessen the freedom of the shooter. I would define social injustice not as the max rights of that individual but of the max rights of the whole population. So not "using force" would lead to social injustice.

On laziness: You are right. If you are not careful, setting up rules that protect the weak can make them complacent. Its a balancing act. If you set no rules, ie free market, you open them up to abuse. If you set too many rules, they can become less eager to be the best they can be. BTW I dont call that lazy. There is a larger argument to make here, about the goals of capitalism (More and more efficiency, ever growing and ever improving) or about more soft lifestyles that would not be as efficient but might in the end bring more happiness. A topic for another time.

On the UDHR: I guess we want to achieve the same, we just disagree on the way to get there. I structurally dont believe free markets will get us there, as in every real case free markets have proven to be unreliable because people will abuse their powers and create too much inequality. There are so many examples (LIBOR, the entire financial derivatives markets, basically all unregulated markets) that I can ask this:
can you give me 1 example of a market that is run truly free that worked for a longer period of time?

That was so intense. I think I counted 4 missed high fives during the celebration. I'm betting that room has an auto Febreeze dispenser in it.

@rbar Welcome back. You present a good definition of coercion, but how did you deduce that it applies to any situation where one has a "higher degree of power"? Did you miss the word "force" in there? Also, "threats" usually refer to "threats of force", the Oxford dictionary defines threat as a "a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage...", which sounds pretty violent to me. I don't think it was referring to threats like, "I'm not talking to you anymore!" or even, "I will fire you!". However harsh it may be to get fired, it doesn't involve violence.

Even if your idea of coercion has nothing to do with violence, I'm sure if you look hard enough though, you will find broader and more convenient definitions, but they won't escape the notion of denying rights.

Now, apparently you think an employee has a right to a job or is "entitled to something". What if no one needs what an employee has to offer, what then? Are the unskilled, the incompetent, and the dispensable, therefore, automatic victims of coercion?

If anyone with "power" can coerce, can you be coerced by a child's psychological manipulation? What about a person you're in love with, can they *coerce* you by leveraging your feelings towards them? What about a guy who is more qualified for a job than you are, is he coercing you out of that position?

If we just throw the word "coercion" around willy-nilly, we can pretty much justify anything a government can do to punish those perceived as coercive, and this punishment usually involves the use of force. So, instead of correcting social injustice, we'll likely end up causing more of it if more force is being used.

I need to refresh your memory on this talk of laziness, it was in objection to your statement that "all people always want to improve themselves", which you used to dismiss my concern about incentives and moral hazards in society.

I'm sure people give up laziness when their survival is threatened, but that's not the point of laziness. Rising above the petty needs of survival doesn't compel one to reach for the utmost excellence, that's where laziness comes in, people don't "always want to improve themselves", specially if they can live on a comfortable level by using force to solve their problems, imposing their costs on others. It's the lazy way out, get it?

Instead of increasing their power by becoming more competent, more useful, more productive, employees could argue that they are being coerced and use laws to forcefully remove the choices of employers as a way of giving them, the employees, more power. Having the choice of using force to solve their problems, would harm the incentive to improve themselves and that would establish a moral hazard: trying to do the hard thing, like becoming more productive (it's not easy!) would be punished by its very cost, while doing the easy thing, which is to rely on force to solve your problems, would be rewarded.

Methinks that this kind of criticism says more about the individuals dispensing it than about the intended target...

Personally, I like leaving them in the case. Coke products have a perforation on one corner that turns the box into a dispenser rack.

>> ^shang:

yea I just recently went over all the evidence about it myself on another forum looks like folks at anonymous are putting the "threads" together huge online investigation that linked the recent video to his past 2010 animal abuse videos and last night people are wondering if this crazy naked man eating the homeless guy could possibly be the perpetrator since his myspace had listed his last where-a-bouts in Miami.
If you go to encyclopediadramatica.se even though it's crazy and usually full of trolls if you do a search for Luka Magnotta a lot of the "investigation" stuff has been posted there, even including a 2009 magazine article he wrote on how to disappear from society.
an ex porn star that went insane and unless this video is him getting shot, then he's still on the loose.


"Rudy Eugene, 31, pictured in an old police mugshot was shot dead in Miami, Florida yesterday following the horrific attack."~www.dailymail.co.uk

They suspect it was the widely available and soon-to-be un-available (thank god), bath salts. Some idiots suggest the effects resemble that of LSD. These same idiots are obviously people who have never used Lysergic acid diethylamide rather, the only drugs they are on are those dispensed by the propagandists and mind-control agents of the war on (drugs, terror, etc).

Hell if I am wearing crappy clothes, I'll just dry my hands on the back of my shirt after vainly attempting to use an electric drier. I think I've used one electric drier in my life that actually dried my hands in under 30 seconds. After 30-45 seconds I give up and move on, my clothes will probably dry faster if I wipe my hands on them than if I stood there trying to use that machine. And if you shake your hands dry, you end up with water drops all over you....like when you try to use a sink that is screwed up and sprays every which way. Looks like you spent your time pissing all over yourself either way, which is rather annoying.

Only reason I use more than one or two paper towels is because the dispenser is so screwed up you end up pulling out a wad of them instead of one, and feeding them back in is worse than just throwing them away...because no one is going to use them if you lay them out. So take the extra with you, or toss them. I prefer the rolls where you can crank it a couple times and rip off your paper towel. The old cloth rolling "towels" were nasty, would never use those....because you know someone did something to it...people are assholes.

Add my vote to the amazement that paper towel dispensers are still around. The airblade ones are awesome, and if you can't get 'satisfied' by using one of those, I'm not sure what the hell you want from your hand drying experience?

I got to go with Sepacore on this one if we are talking about the ATM just suddenly starts spitting money out on the ground without being prompted to do so and there is a mad rush for the cash.
First I highly doubt they record every single serial number they put into the ATM. The bank people are paid by the hour, and banks are among, if not the, the most profitable business per dollar earned, so they wouldn't waste time counting every single serial number. They do count the total dollars in and out before that teller leaves for the day. Now there is a slim chance it can read the number as it spits it out, but I have to doubt it is doing that.
Second, as pointed out, the money is traded too fast. Let's say the ATM spit out $2000, and you got $80 in the mad rush. Odds are that money will be spent before the bank/FBI and everyone gets involved in looking over the video. Then that money is likely to have been given as change. So even in the unlikely event that the ATM has an optical scanner to read the numbers it dispenses, it would be useless as the money would have traded hands too many times by the time they put a trace on it... even if it had an RFID chip in it, it would be too late.
That all said, the video does have you. They might not know how much you took or which ones you took, but the video does have you taking some in the mad rush. They will likely eventually ask you to return what you took. So Yogi is in part right on that one...
Now. If we are are simply talking about the ATM gives out some extra money out when you do a withdraw (you withdraw $80 and it accidentally gives you $100) and don't return it, then they probably be able to tell when it malfunctioned, and will seek you out quickly.

<sigh> It appears I'm wrong about intelligence on the Sift.

0.999... isn't infinitely close to 1. It is an identity of 1. It IS 1. They are exactly the same thing, not just really close, but exactly the same.

@VoodooV: You should have bet me a Sift mug or something. I would have paid out.>> ^entr0py:

Does that mean we can dispense with > and < completely and simply use >= and <= for any inequality? That would make my life easier. After all, infinitely close is close enough.

Does that mean we can dispense with > and < completely and simply use >= and <= for any inequality? That would make my life easier. After all, infinitely close is close enough.

I have no idea how this is cutting in line. Bad driver? Yes. A cheat? No.

Also, it seemed way to easy to knock over that gas dispenser AND catch on fire. You would think a little bit more engineering would go into a container of highly flammable liquid that services vehicles driven by the general public within a few feet so the above outcome is nearly impossible.

Then again, what the hell do I know? I'm commenting on a sifted video at half three in the morning....