I read the article and while he mentions a couple of ridiculous things like redirecting a firework, he does have several valid points. The fact that the quad may have been flying inside a zoned area is certainly a valid claim. There is also the fact that he most certainly was flying over an occupied area, which while not a crime is a bit of a no no, unless he has the insurance to cover it if it all goes wrong. I get a little upset/nervous when guys go behind the flight line at an an RC airshow and those guys probably have more experience than this guy.
But the one thing I can see that is most certainly an issue and could bring down the FAA on his butt is that he most certainly broke 500 feet in altitude. Since most large fireworks detonate at 1,000 to 1,200 feet and he was right there with them, I'd put his at well over 500 feet. That's a problem, and considering the recent FAA guidance that was slammed down and pissed everyone off, the last thing we need is more people doing this sort of spectacle. It will just make things worse.

@ShakaUVM

By that logic, what would make sense is a lower standard of oversight, not none. Scientific studies are not a realistic source of guidance unless you are an expert in the field. Regulatory agencies such as the FDA, should and do exist for the purpose of informing the average consumer. If they are not working they need to be fixed, not circumvented.

If both Zoloft and Wort have discernible and scientifically significant benefits against depression, then medical decisions shouldn't be made by a seemingly arbitrary price classification into pharmaceuticals or alternative supplements.

The problem is, as with any multi billion dollar industry, existing players entrench the status quo. I have no doubt that to some extent existing pharmaceuticals companies benefit from the high barriers to entry the FDA has imposed in being able to deter competition from new starts.

Similarly, they would fight tooth and nail any new and uncertain supplement oversight because of the potential impact on their existing lines of revenue. But purely relying on merit, these are all terrible justifications.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

The irony of you as an American trash talking the Japanese for irradiating the Pacific is hilarious - and sad.

But seriously - racist comments like this get you an official warning. Please consult the guidelines if you need guidance.

Nope, he is still doing it right now.

Read the video description on YouTube: "I had a little trouble cutting down the Christmas tree at the TopHill U-Cut Christmas tree farm in Goodrich, MI. But, with proper guidance from my 3 year old and unwavering "support" from my wife, we were finally able to take the tree home."

Tags for this video have been changed from 'dive, missile, guidance, snow, hunt, track, mice' to 'dive, missile, guidance, snow, hunt, track, mice, fox' - edited by Grimm

Well maybe my skepticism is allayed somewhat. It seems they've got some guidance software to help with reversing. According to Volvo's site:

When reversing:
Perfect control without strain.
...

Furthermore, if you need to reverse long distances, here’s something new. The course stability is so great that you can reverse a truck and trailer more than a hundred metres without drifting off course.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

And y'know, so far the community here seems to be very warm, mature and honestly, quite interesting as well. With the sort of response I've gotten thus far, I would be surprised by myself if I didn't keep coming back for more, because intelligent and mature discussion is one of the things I live for.

So thanks again for the welcome, and for the offer of guidance! I may yet take you and pumpkinandstorm up on that offer.

gotta have morale even in shitty jobs yo. Not too many people grow up and tell their guidance counselor: I want to work for Wal-Mart when I grow up!"

I read a headline about a "top official" saying that this situation was 'reprehensible'. I thought wow, somebody in Washington actually gets it! ...Yeah, and then I read on:

"Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the leaking of reports that the National Security Agency and FBI monitored data from major Internet companies was 'reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans.'"

...Mother fucker. That's right, the leaking of reports is the part that is reprehensible. Shit like this makes me ashamed at what my country has become, under the guidance of both parties for many, many years. We need a federal government reboot to the last goddamn man, plus single term limits for everybody. Maybe then they couldn't fuck everything up so bad. Then again, it's Washington, so I'm sure they'd find a way.

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

The moral standard of western civilization is founded upon judeo-christian beliefs. Read:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595555455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366921071&sr=8-1&keywords=book+that+made+your+world

Following the morality the biblical God advocates is the hardest thing you will ever do. The standard of today is a superficial, politically correct morality where you pretend to be nice to people but curse them when they aren't around. God requires a transformation on the inside where you have genuine love for your fellow man.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Are you saying nigh universal adherence to certain moral standards isn't evidence for an absolute standard of morality?

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

You don't understand what God was doing in the Old Testament, or why He did it the way He did. It is morally consistent with His goodness and holiness, and there are logical reasons for why this is so. So far you are not interested in hearing them or discussing them. When you are let me know. In the end you don't have any excuse for suppressing the truth about Jesus, no matter what you think about how God acted in the Old Testament.

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

Basically, what you're saying is that because 2+2 probably equals four everywhere in the Universe, you are free to make absolute statements about morality? The fact is that your belief system leaves you with no justification for any absolute statement what so ever. Why should 2 + 2 always equal 4 in the first place? Can you tell me why the laws of physics should work in the same way 5 seconds from now without using circular reasoning?

Can you justify any piece of knowledge without God? If you can then tell me one thing you know and how you know it. Could you be wrong about everything you know?

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

It comes back to the same question: As the giver of life, and the adjudicator of His Creation, is it wrong for God to take life?

And here's another interesting brain tickler. If everything god commands is right, and god has a track record of testing his faithful with their willingness to commit infanticide, how can you say that this lady isn't moral?

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2001-08-17/news/0108170166_1_baby-s-death-baby-s-father-documents

The scripture is finished and anything which contradicts it is not of God.

Wrong, I know that things are wrong because humans and cultures have a long history of interacting with reality, and certain strategies have been more successful than others. You haven't spent one iota of your time discrediting this notion, whereas I have given you plenty of examples crediting mine and discrediting yours.

What I am supposed to be discrediting? You're asking me to nail jello to a wall. You have not even defined what "successful" is supposed to mean beyond pure survival. In that case, every civilization has been successful. Tell me what your definition of success is supposed to be.

For the millionth time, I have no hopes of convincing you of anything - you'll defend your stance against literally any proof. But you seem to come here on the sift with the intent of demonstrating to others that there is some logical basis for your beliefs.

What proof? The foundation of atheism stands upon the shifting sands of relative truth. You, the atheist, ultimately make yourself the measure of all truth. Because of that, you can't tell me a single fact about the world that you can justify.

Well you're failing miserably, mainly because you are only capable of restating the following sentence as if it is an agreed upon truth:

"Not only is the entire concept logically contradictory, but it doesn't match our experience, which is that some things are absolutely wrong. "

I don't expect you to have any good support for that, but the audience out there just waiting to be convinced, they will need at least something.

Torturing babies for fun; not absolutely wrong?

I'm still waiting for you to give Stalin some kind, any kind of argument as to why he should adopt your morality and abandon his own. If you can't tell Stalin why he is wrong, then you have no hope of escaping the charge of incoherency.

"... If people rob and cheat you, you don't say that they are just executing their particular survival strategy, you say that those things are wrong. You know they are wrong because you have a God given conscience which tells you that they are. "

Actually, that's exactly what I say, and average modern human morality is considerably superior to the filth that the biblical God advocates.

I am only saying that they are wrong by todays generally agreed upon moral standards. Some of these moral standards are extremely effective and have been around since very early human communities, so they only have the illusion of being absolute due to high adherence rate.

Murder, theft, oppression and incest are three fairly obvious examples. The evolutionarily advantageous trait of society building tends to list it's effectiveness when such things are widespread. But we have a very long human tradition of sanctioning and celebrating murder and theft as long as it occurs well outside our cohort. Killing other tribes is celebrated in the bible, as is stealing their possessions. Ethically justified slavery took another 4000 years to mostly get rid of, and hell, it was common practice to fuck your fifteen year old cousin all the way up to about the late 1800s here in the good old US of A as long as it was under the marital auspices of the church, of course.

Yep, but thank God that his just definition of morality - if we didn't have god's guidance through scripture, we'd probably do crazy shit!

Do you see that these are absolute statements? On what grounds do you say there is no absolute morality? Saying there are no rules is a rule; this statement contradicts itself

Using the word 'absolute' is a concession to brevity, but nice try - seriously dude, this is laughable and it wouldn't even stand up in Jr. High debate - absolutes do exist, they just need to be well justified, and yes if you want to be nitpicky about it there is an ever so remote chance that 1+1 is not equal to two in some distant corner of the universe. But as humans with an admittedly limited scope of understanding, we have to accept that level of certainty. If you want to relegate your theory to claiming its space somewhere in the possibility that we might be wrong about the whole 2+2=4 thing, go right on ahead.

There, that's what I meant by absolute. happy?

When God issued the command to wipe out Canaan, it would have been immoral for the Israelites to disobey Him.

Well then thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass in the whole god based morality thing. I prefer to have a really good reason to never slaughter innocent kids. But thanks for finally answering my question: there has been a good reason to butcher a toddler after all! Praise The Lord, for he is good!

Maher's channelling an alternate dimension left wing O'Reilly here.

The issue here though is that most religions have been interpreted radically at one point or another in time as Levin mentions. Certainly both Christianity and Islam have sufficient sections in their religious books that can be interpreted to incite extremist violence.

Islam being in the spotlight for its radicals has more to do with the social development / HDI measures of majority Muslim dominated countries. As Levin mentions, Islam can also be a façade or rationale for violence in the name of nationalist causes or as a reaction to oppression.

In many cases the Qur'an is irrelevant as those recruited, especially in lower developed countries in the Middle East can be illiterate and ultimately rely on an imam for any and all religious guidance.

Watch my first link (start halfway through to skip to BtC; @Mobius as well) and read this.

Essentially you're mistaken with this assertion.

@rebuilder : FYI

@schlub : this was the first crypto currency to get the execution right; therein a very original idea.



Back in my hole.

He does have a point. As @braindonut said there isn't an exclusive relationship between having a degree and being educated.

Out of the graduates I've worked with most of their experiences are described in this video. Students follow the orders of the curriculum and end up burnt out and disinterested.

I think a lot of the problem is in school guidance and social attitudes towards what education actually is. Most see and communicate it as a necessary tool to gain employment opportunities. Because of this, students choose their higher education subjects based on job outcomes, so a hell of a lot of students aren't actually interested in their classes.

Then numbers led government set targets for education institutions. When measurements are made into goals they stop being measurements. This leads to curriculums that focus on test outcomes rather than knowledge and skill.

All of the people mentioned in this video that were successful had something else in common apart from the fact that they didn't complete higher education. They pursued their dreams despite their formal education, not because of it, and they all pursued their own education.

Jobs, Wozniak and Gates taught themselves everything about computers. They didn't wait around for anyone to plan out their education.

Beckham trained in football since he could walk.

Richard Branson didn't wait around for a degree, he started selling mail order records from his garage and started learning the business by doing rather than reading.

I could go on.

One thing I find very common with graduates is that when I ask them what projects they've worked on during their education; what projects they started themselves; what they've created and put out there out of their own passion for their industry... 95% have nothing.

I would hire someone who has done their own thing and does not have a degree rather than someone who has 5 masters to their name and has done diddly squat outside of the requirements of their education.

RFlagg said: "Not everyone working at your local restaurant, retailer or whatever is there because they are lazy..."