*related=http://videosift.com/video/Lyrebird-Unbelievable-Jungle-Bird-Mimics-Bird-and-Human-Sounds

Bird sounds from the lyre bird - David Attenborough. has been added as a related post - related requested by Payback.

Bob, I'm unsure how you can reach the decision that preventing a 13 year old rape victim from terminating an unwanted pregnancy is not a punishment.

Let's say that you or I was raped by a person with HIV and contracted the disease. To mimic the abortion situation, let's also say that there was a large segment of society that, for religious or cultural reasons, felt that treatment of HIV should not be allowed. Would you not feel that you were being punished unfairly by not being allowed treatment for something you had no control over?

In any case, these laws will not stand in the end. They are simply new versions of Jim Crow Laws to prevent what a small segment of society doesn't like. The sad thing is that a lot of young girls and women will be traumatized or die because of them. Religious people need to stop trying to make laws to force people to follow their tenets.

that nostalgia guy is such an apologist for anything SW.

I enjoyed the heck out of the movie, but the similarities to 4 was a huge negative for me.

His so called "explanation" for why it's similar to 4 is bullshit. It would be a credible explanation if sequels mimicing previous movies was a relatively isolated phenomenon. But sequels copying previous movies is something that has been going on for a long fucking time, so his argument just does NOT hold water at all.

Sequels mimic previous movies because Hollywood thinks we're idiots and that we don't notice these things. It's that simple. Hollywood has always tended towards safe and simple instead of taking risks and telling different stories.

It's not rocket science.

I guess if #7 is going to mimic number 4, then having the old movie mimic the trailer for 7 makes sense.

OK, let's ignore the sideshow and get to the point. Yes, you make choices that do no harm and make you feel better unlike others (I'm looking at you, homeopathy). So did Kriss Kross but I still feel compelled to call wearing your pants backwards stupid. Your food trend isn't that much better.
I don't have to sift through the internet to know that. Do you like dessert?
I make a lot of dessert. A LOT! Even vegan. Vegan Vanillasauce. I have to replace milk and cream with soymilk and the eggyolks with some starch (usually corn, for the gluten-free asshats). The only original ingredients are sugar (healthy!) and vanillabean.
You see the problem?
I replace ingredients you object to to mimic a product you shouldn't want in the first place. All the fucking time. All the fucking time I see vegan recipes of dishes that normally contain eggs or milk or butter or even meatproducts. I know a cook who can make vegan Leberwurst. Go on, google 'Leberwurst' and explain to me how somebody who wants to eat that and be vegan isn't a tool.
I don't mind vegetarians at all. They have actually compelling reasons for that diet choice. I wouldn't make that choice ever but I can respect theirs and believe everybody should (a lot of people don't). I loose my respect for individual vegetarians the minute they start talking about Tofuschnitzel. You want Schnitzel? Maybe you should just go and have Schnitzel. You can still eat vegetarian the rest of the week. You're just 'mostly vegetarian' then. That's fine too.
Imagine a man who tells you all the time how he disapproves of the 'homosexual lifestyle' and thinks that kind of behaviour is immoral and wrong. Then that man goes home, tells his wife to get her strap-on and moans 'Channing!' repeatedly while she does him from behind.
That man is as much of a tool as the guy who walks in a restaurant and orders vegan creme brulee. Or any pie. Or pancakes. Or Lasagne. Or a milkshake. Or something with Cheese. Or with Honey. Or icecream. Sorbets are fine though. They're mostly fruit, sugar (healthy!) and water.
I don't hate you, I just call out the stupid thing you do. You want to improve the treatment of animals, make it more ethical? That's fine, I'm with you on that. I just don't see how not using butter can help.

It would certainly be a formative experience that they share in common.

Could be training, where the list of suspicious attributes (such as what clothes someone wears) are more likely to be worn by a particular culture (and since culture broadly tracks race, it would also then have a racial bias).

Could be that they are taught self reinforcing statistics. Something like : Blacks are more often convicted of crimes. So then the police more often expect blacks to be up to crimes, so they watch them more carefully - which in turn leads to more caught crimes in that population than in populations not watched so closely - which reinforces the statistic and repeats the cycle.

Could also be a social bias where the kinds of black people who go into the police force are more likely to have life experience that biased them against their own people. Some function or demographics, and location, etc.

Could also be pop culture bias. 'Black pop media culture' spent the last decade+ going on and on about 'gangsa this and gangsta that', etc. Since I haven't seen many 'gangsta cops' (lol), I wouldn't be surprised if the black cop population was culturally biased against the people that dress to mimic said media (which would more often be black people than white people)

In any case, I can theorize all I want, but not knowing the truth, it's all just guesswork.

-scheherazade

In the field of artificial intelligence, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural selection. This heuristic (also sometimes called a metaheuristic) is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems.[1] Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA), which generate solutions to optimization problems using techniques inspired by natural evolution, such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover.

I direct your attention to the first sentence. In the field of AI, in other words, an artificially created intelligence. Now even if you go to the the idea Turing had that a computer could learn and adapt itself to the point of AI, it is a device that had to be created by an outside designer at some point. It didn't just manifest, it was created and reached AI level, then it could at that point begin to try to 'imitate' natural selection.

It has become clear to me over our last couple of discussions that you are incredibly reluctant to think outside of the box YOU have created for yourself. You believe what you believe and damn the torpedoes with the rest.

All of their reactions pretty much mimic my own. I am by no means any kind of professional graphic artist but when Photoshop 3.0 killed the right click copy-pasta for selections, they killed it for the majority of casual users. Now you have to use the edit menu. "shakes fist!"

And I really liked Imagestyer 1.0

I'd love to get in on this conversation because this subject really interests me. This video touched on a lot of interesting theories.

@robdot - I don't understand people who think they "know" the answers to the universe. There are unanswered questions in every model. Do you know the answer to what dark matter and energy is? Nobody has yet detected it. Yet, our "universe" is supposedly filled with the stuff.

Let's also define what a universe is. My definition is; it's a place governed by the same set of physical laws.

So we have "our" universe, that we hypothesize about through our observations and measurements. We have theories that say "other" universes exist in some form or another. If their physical laws are different then ours, there would probably be no way to observe them, and therefore no way to prove their existence. Lack of proof is not proof that it doesn't exist.

I could write a book on what i "think" about what our universe is. For simplicity, let me just say that I moved from telecom engineering to software architect. In software, we create programs to run simulations. We create vast game worlds with whatever "physical" attributes we want to program into them. Lets assume we created artificial intelligence. In what context would "it" live? Most everyone assumes it would just be one conscience interacting with us in the form of a robot (Que cheesy Hollywood films).

Let's give it the power of quantum computing. It then decides to understand us (it's creator), it needs to program a simulation that mimics all it knows about our physical world. It wouldn't make one simulation, run it and be done. It would make many simulations, probably simultaneously, tweaking each new one based on the results of the previous ones.

Just imagine where this could lead. This intelligence could figure out how to create a multitude of different, very elegant universes. Its time scale would be different then our time. It's simulation could take seconds on its viewing scale, but appear to be billions of years when observing from within it. We have the power to pause, rewind, replay, tweak our simple creations. Imagine what this super intelligence could do with theirs?

Siblings?
http://videosift.com/video/Cockatoo-mimics-an-arguing-couple

Your video, Cockatoo mimics an arguing couple, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Who let the torch passed fall in the tall grass?
Fire alarm wire’s disarmed, what do you call that?
Call it predictable political cliche
So when the movie ends, the revolution’s dead. Replay
the sequence of events that led to these deep divisions;
I’ve realized that all the wrong people are in prison.
The children wanna know if I believe in the Reptilians!
I tell em ‘I don’t know’ but on the TV I see lizards.
When action was in fashion you were such an easy mimic!
Bumpersticker quote lifting, crib note statistics,
Grasp for the straw man, born again cynics
Fair-weather firebrand; spark my suspicion.
We knew you were the type to take the fight like a gimmick,
and rock the t-shirt when your sweat wasn’t in it.
The clock is still ticking for the victim of the future,
You’re waiting til’ they look like you to ever choose but–
Chorus:
Which Side Are You On?
Which Side Are You On?
(Damn)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask the Industry.)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask an Emcee.)
Verse 2:
Who wrote the greatest lines of our generation,
but couldn’t get from under their own small-minded hate trip?
The same rappers say they’re trooping the frontlines,
and casually use the word ‘Faggot’ as a punchline.
That’s not a man, that’s not a tough guy.
That is a sucker and a fraud to the culture!
Hip Hop is folk music grown from the struggle and
half these fools could put the mic down and run as a Republican.
Fuck ‘em then; they learn from their own wrong.
Homophobes don’t go to my shows, we too strong!
And if you’re in the front row, harassing girls during a song
I will reach and ask you exactly–
Chorus:
Which Side Are You On?
Which Side Are You On?
Verse 3:
I’m on the side of poor people getting organized;
I’m on the side of Choice where it is in short supply;
I’m on the side of those the system doesn’t authorize;
L-G-B-T We are on the side of Pride,
Justice and Equality;
Egypt to Wisconsin when they march against the Policy;
If you bringing down a King I’m on your side probably.
Kids’ll give me shit for this it really doesn’t bother me.
They were not around when we were wrestling with poverty.
So I follow none and ask no-one to follow me
Use your own mind, use your heart and your anger
Check yourself because Apathy is a cancer
And let your action be the answer.
Chorus
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask your government)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask your media)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask yourself)
Which Side Are You On?
Sample:
Don’t scab for the bosses,
Don’t listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organize.

Bird sounds from the lyre bird - David Attenborough. has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

The Amazing Lyrebird of Australia - Unseen Footage has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

Superb Lyrebird imitates construction sounds has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.