How so? I've always found C# docs to be quite a bit better than the equivalent Sun/Oracle's Java docs. Language features like auto-property/fields, Lamda expressions, LINQ, etc have been sorely missed in Java (at least by me) until recently. Admittedly, the C# frameworks are a bit lacking compared to the Java ecosystem though. I will admit that I've had to get back into Java recently for my job and after starting to use IntelliJ, it's actually made Java mor enjoyable.

My programming started with BASIC on an IBM XT back in the 80s and various programming books, mainly just copying the programs as written then trying to modify them. This book in particular was pivotal for me as I loved the old Infocom text adventures of the time:

Write Your Own Adventure Programs For Your Microcomputer:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxv0SsvibDMTYkFJbUswOHFQclE/view

(It looks like these books were released for free by Usborne: https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-books/ ... what a nostalgia trip!)

In high-school I learned C and LISP for Autocad programming. I continued to learn about C (plus a little C++) and ASM thanks to John Carmack and DOOM/Quake. Wrote my own computer games (mainly RTS as the Command and Conquer series was big back then) ... nothing great but I thought they were cool.

Dabbled in Java a bit in college but ultimately shifted to C++ and C# after getting a consultancy job and that is what I continued with until recently. Now I'm back into Java and currently trying to catch up on all the front-end Javascript libraries now as well as tinkering with Perl, GO, and Objective-C.

Humans have been using drugs since the first person ate the wrong plant and got high instead of dying.

If you look at most drugs in nature, it is almost impossible to OD on them IN THEIR NATURAL FORM.

It's only when we alter that using chemicals, heat, or modifying the plant's genetic code via cross-pollination that we get drugs that destroy people.

Conversely, drugs that have been distilled from natural sources have also saved millions from death or from chemical imbalances in their bodies.

Man made drugs keep me on a (mostly) even keel. Without them my life is hell. Not from addiction, but because my body's chemicals are out of whack.

Yet some man made drugs are poison and should not be used (or extremely rarely). Most opioids fall directly into that category. Still, it is the corporate greed and misuse of these drugs that make them an ignored epidemic.

I could go on, but TL;DR

Natural drugs are a gift to humankind. Man Made drugs are a mixed bag.

On my profile page, right under my name is my channel with a "manage" button, hitting that brings me to my modify existing channel page, and bottom right is an "abandon" button. I think we only get one channel per user. Does that help?

Sorry for the delay @greatgooglymoogly - to keep it simple I just modified the video submission form so your account won't be required to answer the math human test question.

Hopefully it works for you now. Let us know!

I don't know what point you're trying to make. Nothing I said was incorrect. For a gun to fire simunition, it has to have special modifications. Whether the modifications are easy or hard had nothing to do with the point I made, which is that a gun modified to fire simunition can't fire regular ammunition. So if they were using simunition, there is no chance of one of them grabbing the wrong "clip" and accidentally killing someone.

A 40mm LTL round sounds about like a pistol being fired. Here is a video I found doing a quick search.

If you watch the video again, between 23 and 24 seconds you can see a green powder cloud, which looks exactly like this 40mm marking powder grenade, which according to the manufacturer, has an effective range of 5 to 120 feet.

It also has a warning: "This product can expose you to chemicals including Lead Salts and Hexavalent Chromium, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and Lead Salts, which are known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm."

I doubt it was simunition. I've never heard of it being used outside of training (not saying it isn't thought). Simunition only works in special modified guns because it doesn't produce enough blowback to cycle in a normal gun, and guns modified for sumunition can't load regular ammunition.

From the sound it made, it was more likely some sort of 40mm less-than lethal round fired from a launcher.

Either way, these should never be fired at anyone that is non threatening because although they are called less-than-lethal, they can still cause serious injuries.

Your video, Free Power for 16 years from a modified Washing Machine, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

At best that leaves only the rare pre 1986 automatics already in private hands, only in some states (totally illegal under any circumstances in many other states), only if you can first pass an expensive background check more stringent than the one federal agents must pass. Sounds like some serious regulation to me.

What you, me, or others consider firearms means nothing. I gave you the law as written, it includes those, they are illegal, so there are effective regulations on firearms already....that doesn't mean they're sufficient. Those words are different words, that's why they're spelled and pronounced differently. Speed limits are effective laws, but not sufficient to regulate vehicle use.

Why do so many firearms lovers fear being on a registry? I've always found that insane, like every other purchase you make isn't tracked or something. There's no purchase privacy anymore, for anything.

It doesn't take any money to ban certain firearms, certainly not a boatload, and not the ocean of cash health care costs. That's a red herring. All it takes is for representatives to vote the way their constituents want them to by 98%.
Perhaps in that sense it would take money, because in order to get them to vote as the people want, campaign finance reform is necessary, and that will cost money, but it's the best thing our country could possibly spend money on.

I support a slightly modified second amendment and universal health care. My interpretation allows for regulations, registration, universal background checks even for family transfers, bans of certain types, seizure from violent convicts and mental patients (impossible without a registry, btw), etc. Yes, I understand that's not how the constitution is written today, but the constitution is a living document. In California, we have most of that as state law already, including an outright ban on fully or selectively automatic weapons.

Btw, you suggest....Try to make people feel welcome.
I was responding in kind to your off hand assumption that, without your derisive "warning", he would be "dumb" enough to make an assumption about you. Then you go on to say making assumptions is dumb. Care to rethink? Had you been more thoughtful and less derisive in making that point I likely would have ignored the hypocrisy.

At first it seemed like it was mostly civvies working on this guy, is everyone just issued one of these things? I'd probably modify mine with a cattle prod, just for that little extra something.

Motorola used Linux company-wide for firmware development in 1992? That's not impossible, but seems pretty unlikely. Of course, "Linux" might just be laymen for "a Unix."

I don't disbelieve the story, since his primary thing was social engineering, but I don't know if I buy the "I was going to hack the firmware on my phone to fool the feds" angle. He would need their tool chain to build it and then a way to get the modified firmware on the phone. Back then a commercially available handset was probably not field programmable. I don't know that he's been connected to any particular technical hacking achievements.

I think his stories need to be taken with a grain of salt. Plenty of truth, but also exaggeration and self-promotion.

Basically the Emperor, a human who was effectively immortal due to his psychic power constantly regenerating his cells, began to be considered a god because of a combination of lies from the chaos lords and because some of his followers simply couldn't reconcile his existence without him being divine. He constantly fought against it, telling them he was not a god.

Due to the chaos lords interference, a cult formed that would accept him as nothing less than a God. They fought a huge war and the Emperor was triumphant, but was so wounded that he was going to die. Unfortunately, his mind and psychic powers control FTL travel and some other stuff, so he had his people modify a 'throne' he had been creating to help him control the daily duties his mind performed easier. The modifications would keep his mind functional even as his body rotted and decayed.

The great irony is that he began to be worshiped anyway and his skull is the symbol of the imperium because it shows his willingness to sacrifice himself to 'protect' Mankind.

The effect of trillions of human beings expressing a deep faith in His divinity has massively empowered the Emperor's mind and soul. Whatever He may have been before the Horus Heresy, the Emperor now truly is a God within the Warp, equal in power to any one of the four major Chaos Gods, and very likely as powerful as all four of them combined, as He has become perhaps the strongest spiritual force for Order in the Milky Way Galaxy. His mind must claim the life energies of 1,000 human psychics a day to empower FTL and other functions of the imperium.

probably the police-modified versions of this Ford don't even have that App available...
(though this is the least requires-suspension-of-disbelief moment of Designated Survivor)

I would speculate that the mushroom is just a very heavy mass that the engine lifts and drops. I'm going to guess it's 1000 tons and the engine is a modified crane. It lifts it pretty quick, so whatever is is, it's powerful. (The reason I don't think its a piston is because of the block and tackle , but that could be for something else entirely).

I disagree that there is net benefit from illegal immigrants.

Yes, they do pay taxes. They do not collect retirement benefits.

They also tend to not pay for medical insurance and their jobs do not provide it (for the most part). Generally when they have medical issue, they either go to a free clinic that is there for poor people or they go to a non private hospital emergency room. They cannot be turned away. This cost gets passed on to people paying for their insurance and hospital costs because Hospitals hike up insurance costs to make up the difference. It also causes massive delays at the ER, making it harder for them to deal with people really needing emergency care.

They do utilize public schooling without paying similar amounts of costs. For example, here in Austin, most of the areas that are predominantly Hispanic do not have to pay the same level of property and school taxes as I do. I don't even have kids, but if I lived in East Austin, my taxes would be significantly lower. It has led to East Austin starting to have a Gentrification problem as people/businesses move their to exploit the lower taxes.

Many illegal immigrants carry the minimum or no insurance. My wife's car was totaled some years ago, almost killing her, by an illegal immigrant who had no insurance. We had to use our insurance for her treatment and for the replacement of her vehicle. The man who hit her disappeared.

They utilize fake id and ssid to get welfare benefits. They do get caught now and then, but they flee the area and get new info.

They also do get married to citizens and then, if they get divorced, they flee to avoid child support/alimony. I know of at least 3 friends/acquaintances that had this happen in the last 10 years.

I don't think they are more likely to commit crime than anyone else, but they are more likely to flee the country if caught.

The money they do earn is, in many cases, spent at local ethnic shops that usually are also owned by illegal immigrants. It has become so prevalent that many local stores have tried to modify how they are setup to attract illegal immigrants.

It has been shown that they save and send money out of the US, many times doing their best to avoid any custom duties that would be attached to larger sums.

Because they are violating the law and crossing the border, we spend a massive fuckton of money trying to stop them. This is probably the largest outlay of cost and the one everyone feels, even people living outside of a state affected by illegal immigration.

To be fair, maybe I am getting a skewed picture as I live in a city that has basically said "Fuck the laws, ya'll c'mon in and live here!"

Honestly, if we aren't going to stop them or deport them, then just fucking give them legal status so they are treated like everyone else. At least then they can be hounded by bill collectors too.

The tricky thing about full auto is that most people avoid it primarily because of the severe penalties. Simply owning one that isn't registered and taxed is opening yourself to up to 10 years in federal prison plus a fine of up to 250k. If you commit a crime with one, they will hit you for the crime and the NFA penalty.

It isn't difficult at all to modify most current semi auto rifles into full auto. Heck, some of the older ones like the SKS can actually duplicate full auto fire by accident via slamfire. People don't do it because of the heavy penalty if you get caught, but it 'is' doable.

Of course, that doesn't take into account international concerns over automatic weapons, where access is usually limited to the military style rifles.

As an aside, you will see people here exploit loopholes like the bump stock to simulate full auto because they can't be subject to the NFA. Personally I think that is a bigger issue than printable guns, at least in the US. I think we still have something like 400-500k of those still floating around. To me it is far more of a 'sky is falling' issue than plastic printed guns, but that's just me.