Touchy subject. Can't really say or comment about the issue. But given that most incidents have a reactive counter-measures, there is also a pro-active method to ensuring that such sensitive photos aren't somehow leaked.

People take for granted the ability to store the photos that they've taken in the cloud. This is convenience that a lot of people like, myself included. However, by storing a digital photo onto the cloud, two things happen: the photo is there "forever" and the photo can be stolen, nearly irregardless of security.

As far as security, the first and only line of defense is the password. Unfortunately we live in a day and age where password won't work no matter what you use -- complex, generated, correcthorsebattery (or whatever it was), and what else there is. Given time, the password will be cracked and the account compromised. We, as human beings, prefer convenience and are willing to give up security in order to make it easier for us to remember the billions of accounts that we have laying around -- Twitter, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. Having that one-password-fits-all kind of system, the line of defense is very thin and can break easily.

The pro-active method for intimate photos is to simply not store them onto the cloud. Instead, back them up into cold storage. Put it onto a backup drive and unplug it when it's not in use. It'll be inconvenient for many. But in most cases, it'll make it very difficult for anyone to steal those photos that some treasure so much. Once the photos are backed up, delete them off the device.

So yeah, most people would say to not take the photo in the first place. Unfortunately for me, I'm one who would say that too. Dammit...

It's unfortunate for anyone whose intimate photos are stolen. I know these victims must remain vigilant and strong to fend off the morons who make stupid comments about it. But the mind can only take so much verbal abuse. The sad thing about it all is that it doesn't matter whose at fault or who is to blame. Everyone loses.

Sure lucky760, I'll do Splenda, since some varieties of Coke Zero have Splenda in them.

First off it is important to note that the majority of the anti-sweetener "science" has been done by one man: Dr. Joseph Mercola. Now, watch out here, because his name is deceptive. You see, Mercola is an osteopathic physician. Osteopathy is a form of pseudoscience that believes that all pathology can be solved by manipulation of the bones and muscles. There is little science to back up these claims because they are clearly insane and worthy of ridicule. So, much like his doctorate, the claims he makes against sweeteners are pseudoscientific. A number of his beliefs are: that AIDS is not cause by HIV but by psychological stress; that immunizations and prescription drugs shouldn't be prescribed but people should instead buy his dietary supplements; that vaccinations are bad for you and your children (a belief which is the cause of recent outbreaks of whooping cough, measles and mumps); and that microwaves are dangerous machines that irradiate their products (they do, but not with the kind of radiation he is thinking of). Since he made a movie called Sweet Mistery: A Poisoned World, he has been at the forefront of anti-sweetener rhetoric. If you watch the movie, note how hilariously bad it is at actual science; the majority of the "evidence" is people claiming side effects after having ingested something with a sweetener in it (anecdotes are worth nothing in science except perhaps as a reason for researching further). So, you have a movement against something seen as "artificial" by a man who is not a doctor, not a scientist and is clearly lacking in the basics of logic.

Now, Splenda. Created by Johnson and Johnson and a British company in the seventies, it's primary sweetener ingredient is sucralose. The rest of it is dextrose, which as I have said above, is really just d-glucose and is safe for consumption in even very large quantities. So really, we are asking about sucralose. Sucralose is vastly sweeter than sucrose (usually around ~650 times) and thus only a very small amount is needed in whatever it is you are trying to sweeten. The current amount that is considered unsafe for intake (the starting point where adverse effects are felt) is around 1.5g/kg of body weight. So for the average male of 180lbs, they would need to ingest 130g of sucralose to feel any adverse effects. This is compared to the mg of sucralose that you will actually be getting every day. The estimated daily intake of someone who actually consumes sucralose is around 1.1mg/kg, which leaves a massive gap. Similarly to aspartame, if you tried to ingest that much sucralose, you would be incapable due to the overwhelming sweetness of the stuff.

There is some evidence that sucralose may affect people in high doses, but once again, this is similar to the issues with aspartame, where the likelihood of you getting those doses is extremely unlikely.

The chemistry of sucralose is actually way too complicated to go into, but suffice it to say that unlike aspartame, sucralose is not broken down in the body at all and is simply excreted through the kidney just like any other non-reactive agent. The reason that it tastes sweet is because it has the same shape as sucrose except that some of the hydroxy groups are replaced with chlorine atoms. This allows it to fit in the neurotransmitters in the tongue and mouth that send you the sensation of sweetness without also giving you all of those calories. Once it passes into the bloodstream it is dumped out by the kidneys without passing through the liver at all.

In sum, if sweeteners were bad for you, they wouldn't be allowed in your food. Science is not against you, it is the only thing working for everyone at the same time. The reason sugar has gotten around this is because we have always had it. If you want to be healthier, don't drink pop, drink water or milk (unless you are lactose intolerant, then just drink water). Don't drink coconut milk, or gatorade, or vitamin water. Assume that when a company comes out with something like "fat free" it really reads "now loaded with sugar so it doesn't taste like fucking cardboard." Assume that when a company says something is "natural" it is no more natural than the oils you put in your car. IF you want to live and eat healthy, stay on the outside of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles. All of the processed food is in the aisles, not on the outsides and the companies know that you don't want to miss anything. Make your food, don't let someone else do it. And never, ever buy popped popcorn, anywhere, the mark-up on that shit is insane.

I don't have a lot of time at the moment to get into this in depth, but this article might help to clarify my thoughts on the issue.

This is not a "competition," by any means, but I am sensitized to the issue, having been indoctrinated throughout my schooling and my upbringing by what feels like a social inequity which purports that, implicitly, men are "bad" and need to be "checked" at every turn, while women are "good," and must be protected and acquiesced at all times. As I get older, however, this attitude turns sour as I continuously find myself faced with a stark dichotomy between either heeding the social, professional, and political needs, wants, and desires of "all women," and those of protecting my own social, professional, and political needs, wants, and desires "as a man." These shouldn't be dichotomous, but for some reason, it has become such.

I am willing to look at and manage my own triggers and/or issues around this, as a personal effort (and I do on almost a daily basis), but in the meantime (and in the hopes of supporting such an effort), I feel there needs to be a lot more recognition and dialogue around what constitutes "equality" (be it gender, or financial, or otherwise) within a society that is either politically regulated and thereby "rigged," by definition on behalf of some people, at the expense of others; or it is socially imposed, whereby (for example) a man is simply expected to be the breadwinner, by virtue of his gender, and reactively judged if he is or can not be that.

I have no interest in "making a video" about this, since my energies are better placed elsewhere, at present, but I can and do make comments on videos like this one, in an effort to meet and respond to the messages with which we're inculcated, with the personal albeit opposing view that things "are as they are" for a reason, and if we're to do anything about it, it requires a fuller examination of the entire picture, and not simply a one-sided, biased and therefore "unequal," perspective which posts blame (and/or guilt) upon one side of the equation without any (or with little) insight as to what role one plays in the issue, oneself.

I am not saying that the inequities aren't there. In fact, I'd go so far as to say
that people need to come to terms with the fact that some people will always "have more" than others and, in a leveled playing field, that is the only fair situation that can exist. In other words, any forced or imposed "equality" is implicitly incompatible with both liberty and freedom, and can not (and should not) be abided as a matter of course.

I encourage you to take a look at the article posted at the top of this comment for another perspective on the same (or "similar") issue.

I would think that if you were really interested in learning anything (be it about private law enforcement or anything else), you'd know how to manage your own discomfort in order to read something fully without being so reactive and defensive, which only serves to confirm your biases.

You say that "most people don't think of taxation as theft," but such a notion is actually irrelevant to the point here. Did you sign a social contract? I certainly didn't. There's no such thing (and to believe in one is to be living in a fantasy world).

Look: No one is forcing you to read anything you don't want to read. It's your right to learn or not learn whatever you want. In fact, you shouldn't read it (as if I stood to gain anything by your reading it). The ignorance here (in my view) is your own and only you stand to benefit by addressing it. Whatever your life circumstances, they're your problem and you certainly don't need anyone else's (particularly my) input on the matter.

Your comments... well.. They speak for themselves. I wish you all the best and know that if you are happy with your situation then I have nothing to contribute to it and if you are not, then you have what you deserve.

People who cling to dogma or sarcasm aren't likely to change their views regardless of the 'evidence.' They have a different agenda. And that's their prerogative. And someone will always exploit it (if it hasn't been exploited already).

Many people read Murphy's work (along with Mises, Higgs, etc.) including Harvard professors and the heads of central banks, and the kings of various political persuasions. How many people read your views on economics, or care about what you think is "worth reading" or not?

I shouldn't give you this outlet here to feel important (as if this debate served any other purpose), but i don't want to be an enabler.

Van Jones is kinda kooky in my opinion. I digress.

To imply that Obamacare is a Republican plan is ludicrous. Why can politicians not take responsibility for their own legislation? Republicans and Democrats are all the same. I see little difference between the two parties. They are all reactive, knee-jerk legislators that believe there needs to be a law for every situation known to mankind.

Leave the American People alone. Me and my neighbors can take care of ourselves.

Van Jones should read Dr. Covey's book:

“Proactive is a word you won’t find in most dictionaries. It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Look at the word responsibility- “response-ability”- the ability to respond. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.

Reactive people are also affected by the social environment, by the “social weather.” When people treat them well, they feel well, when people don’t, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values-carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.

Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological. But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.

As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “No one can hurt you without your consent.” In the word of Gandhi , “They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them” It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.

I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else’s behavior. But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”

I'd be especially hard to find since I don't have a facebook account anymore. I've recently been thinking about reactivating my old account again...if I do, I'll tell you where to find me.

Wow, impressive. This is another step forward in the virtual reality we expected to see decades ago (after seeing the Lawnmower Man and other VR-themed sci-fi, peaking with the Matrix.) This tech along with Oculus Rift will put people inside their avatars.

I didn't see the actor really shaking his jowls or showing his face reactive to gravity, which is a big part of what current CGI lacks. He probably wasn't allowed in case the headset broke, although I'm not fully aware if its role in the demo. I also wonder where the texture on the poly came from. It looks to be a good match for his face, but it wasn't real-time.

Fantastic sift!

...in my experience, i have found that young practitioners in any modality, full of absolute conviction and surety, are the ones most likely to injure their clients.
I find that the deeper PT's, rolfers, and massage therapists study and work by musculature, which again is a reactive system in the body, the worse their results are. The focus on muscle strength, length and size has a psychological basis - we are in the mechanical age....thus we analogize to this...seeing the body as mechanical, robotic...a system of pulleys and hinges, insertions and attachments. Our emphasis is however misplaced. We are 70% water - and are more accurately a system of pressurized membranes and relationship, where fluidity is at a premium.

@hatsix
sure, Chiro is western as much as osteopathy is, but in the general scheme of things, somatic practitioners in the west are considered "alternative" health care. Chiro is good for acute subluxations. Poor for chronic. Most acute subluxations are however a result of a chronic misalignment that has suddenly become acute.

as for, homeopathy. quackery perhaps, but it also operates under the same exact same premise as vaccinations: "like cures like".

PT's operate under a principle of "strong vs. weak" muscles in assessing structure and prescribing treatment. Their general bent is to "strengthen" the weak muscles in order to stabilize the problematic joint. The problem with PT and any other therapy that is primarily concerned with relative length in contractile tissue (muscle and fascia), is that contractile tissue is a "reactive" system in the body rather than control. The control lies within the neurology. PT has thus been shown to be of limited effectiveness.

and, btw, the garbageman has done more for stopping the spread of disease than the doctor.

Watching it again with notes.
Single * are what he says, double ** are what I respond.
*Dopamine is released for novelty - aka new girls/guys.
*No control group, since everyone watches porn.
*Doctors thinks people who like porn, have ADD and related things.
*Internet porn is as different from sex, as video games from checkers.
*Porn is addictive, because of our built-in reward system (dopamine, binge mechanism).
*Excessive addiction, leads to brain changes (other pleasures numbed, hyper reactive to porn, willpower erosion) like all other addictions.
*"Reddit effect" constant novelty is addicting.
*He talks about a voluntary control group of people who voluntarily give up internet porn. I have issues with this.
** In people who voluntarily give up internet porn, there will often be other factors leading to this; say a wife that hates it and influence the man to also hate it. Or some bad experience might turn a person off it. My point is, that he assumes that there's only one variable changes from the rest of the people, and that's not really true, since many other factors play into it, since something caused the willing rejection of internet porn. It's not a true control group.
** Overuse of porn desensitizes the brain, stopping the use returns the sensitivity. This makes sense. This is like any other addiction, this does not say anything about whether or not porn is bad, it says overuse/addiction to porn is bad. I agree with that.

He wants us to not be addicted to porn. This does not speak against anything I've said in this thread.

>> ^chingalera:
It's the delicious slurry being stirred by that giant, stainless paddle that makes these delicious nugglies seem grody~Not to worry. That chicken glop is lovingly whipped. Sinew and tendon, cartilage and growth-enhancers, feet and feathers into a flavorful wad of chickeny yum ready for the deep-fryer!


I intentionally had tendon in my dinner tonight so I'm getting a kick out of your reply. My girlfriend regularly takes my chicken bones and eats the cartilage off them. Although not my favorite we often have chicken feet at our table when we have dim sum with friends. Are you suggesting that we WASTE parts of the chicken just because you aren't used to eating them?

What material would you prefer over stainless steel that would be non reactive and easy to sanitize?

Why do you say "glop is lovingly whipped?" Don't you want uniform mixing and flavor?

Growth enhancers are not necessary. Breeds labeled as "Fryers" grow exceptionally fast eating regular old feed. I once bought a set of Ameraucanas with my fryers. They had the exact upbringing but grew three times as fast (literally).

Are you trying to spread FUD? Are you secretly on an antimeat agenda?

>> ^jmzero:
I appreciated your reply, and your "fate of the rich" comment, @shinyblurry. Clearly we don't agree on lots of stuff (and I was, true to character, angry in my initial response) but I understand your perspective on the political bits and am inclined to agree with your interpretation on the religious ones (whatever we disagree in terms of cosmic reality, I think we agree that Jesus had a worthwhile philosophy that's worth understanding). And we also agree that this video was really grating, so there's that too .

Thanks, I am glad we can agree on something, especially if it is Jesus. I'm glad you can see something worthwhile in what He has taught us. Even when I was agnostic I recognized a deeper wisdom in His words that I hadn't seen anywhere else. I suspect we have more areas of agreement about it, but of course we are looking at the world through very different glasses. I'm interested to hear what your particular prescription is, if you feel like sharing that some time.

As far as anger goes, don't sweat it. I've been guilty of being fairly reactive as well, and I apologize for that. This medium does not always lend itself well to civil discourse, and without being able to read facial expressions and body language, misinterpretations are inevitable. It is also an issue that tugs at your heart strings, because it touches everything about who you are as a person. It goes straight to the core of a persons belief system. That can be a sensitive area for many.

And yes, this video is obnoxious, but somehow something good came out of it.

@bcglorf
and your armchair analysis sucks. ?? wtf? why do you always have to be confrontational?
Seriously man, you've destroyed any credibility you might have by being confrontational in the first sentence. You immediately red-flag yourself as someone who is emotional and reactive rather than rational. Communication is a skill that can be developed. there are many nice people here that can help you.

strategically, Israel is fairly worthless. To radical crazies, it might mean something, but right now, the largely secular population of Iran doesn't really care about it. They care about Israel's actions, not their land.
The holy land was fought over in the past when things like mythology trumped other things. In a future that will seeing a reduction in both available energy and food supply, it is quickly losing any strategic appeal. Real power is interested in other gains....geo-political gain...and religious foolery remains primarily a pretext for strategic actions.

@RedSky
thanks great analysis and addition. altho whether Iran has a nuclear weapon or one in development IS certainly in doubt.
as for oil reserves, 10-11% is alot.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^bcglorf:

I'm not entirely a layman. I'm basing my opinion on searches through peer reviewed journals, ones like this. If you go and take a look, you'll find it is a pretty much bullet-proof decimation of the statistical methods used in the infamous hockey stick graph. It's not a run and gun hit job by hacks funded by big oil either. Mann's team that generated the original hockey stick graph already came to the same conclusion(with gentler wording) in their own most recent work.
Read Mann's article for yourself, he's one of the most vehement of those claiming the science is 'settled'. His most recent paper's calculations with different statistical methods though show that the earth was just as warm(or warmer) twice before in just the last 2k years.
The science that is settled is that the planet has been warming for the last long while. The science is settled that the planet has been warming over just the last 100 years that we've had instrumental record. The science is settled that mankind is inputting measurable and even significant levels of CO2 into the atmosphere. The science is settled that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect. The science is settled that CO2's overall contribution to the greenhouse effect is less between 5-15%, while water vapor accounts for 60-90%. Science is well agreed that the role of water vapor in long term climate change is very poorly understood.
I challenge anyone to dispute the above assessment of the current state of scientific understanding, as my searching of peer-reviewed journals shows the experts in each relevant field agreeing with the above statements. Putting those together doesn't exactly add up to 'time to panic'. The only smoking gun that every was considered was the hockey stick graph that appeared to show that the last 100 years of warming was abnormal and unusual. The evidence for it is being thrown out though, and the newly recalculated data, even by the original team, suddenly looks a lot less worrying and much more normal.

That's probably the first rebuttal to climate change I've ever read that doesn't spout nonsense and lies. Kudos to you.
Out of interest, you say you're "not entirely a layman". May I ask if that means you have studied climatology or simply that you read the papers?
As for water vapour, it's not really a "forcing agent", it's reactive. It's better explained here.


My background is computer science but that requires a strong math background as well. When doing any manner of computer simulation of a complex and unknown system, the purely theoretical models are rarely sane. The reason being you can't model the bare physics of a complex system, so you have to essentially estimate(fake) the macro effects and properties. You get good computer models by comparing the results to real data and iterating back and forth until your model starts doing a better job of reflecting reality. The big red flag for me with climate models is the really limited real world data available to compare models to. I don't models aren't worthwhile, scientists are building them because they are useful. The trouble is what they are useful for. By definition, the models have to be treated as less reliable than the raw data we calibrate them against and run our sanity checks against. Neither does it matter how many different models we run, all that gets is closer to the same reliability as the real world measures that we have.

That ties into the article I linked, where the climate guys trying to rebuild temperature data to calibrate computer models from where themselves not strong enough in statistics to notice very significant flaws in the methods they were using. Flaws that systematically produced the results they initially deemed significant. Without a strong grounding there, I have to assess we are still left with a long road to go before really saying we understand this.

As for water vapor being reactive, I would very much disagree. Any climate scientist trying to tell you that is trying to simplify things for you to the point they are no longer being accurate. Ice caps melting, oceans rising, and cloud cover doubling is going to drive climate. It is going to force climate more strongly than anything else. The big unknown is just what parameters water vapor works under, it's simply not well understood yet. Computer models don't even know what sign to assign it as a forcing agent for pitysake. Most likely because it can act as both positive and negative based on environmental factors which are dependent on temperature among other things. When it comes to what kind of forcing H2O does the honest answer is that it's role is so complicated we just simply do not know. What we DO know is that currently, it contributes to 60-90% of the overall greenhouse effect. That tells me it's role in forcing is a much more worthy area of focus and study than CO2 and it's a crying shame so many more dollars are spent on CO2 than H2O when what we really need is to understand the whole system in order know what is really going on.

>> ^bcglorf:


I'm not entirely a layman. I'm basing my opinion on searches through peer reviewed journals, ones like this. If you go and take a look, you'll find it is a pretty much bullet-proof decimation of the statistical methods used in the infamous hockey stick graph. It's not a run and gun hit job by hacks funded by big oil either. Mann's team that generated the original hockey stick graph already came to the same conclusion(with gentler wording) in their own most recent work.
Read Mann's article for yourself, he's one of the most vehement of those claiming the science is 'settled'. His most recent paper's calculations with different statistical methods though show that the earth was just as warm(or warmer) twice before in just the last 2k years.
The science that is settled is that the planet has been warming for the last long while. The science is settled that the planet has been warming over just the last 100 years that we've had instrumental record. The science is settled that mankind is inputting measurable and even significant levels of CO2 into the atmosphere. The science is settled that CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect. The science is settled that CO2's overall contribution to the greenhouse effect is less between 5-15%, while water vapor accounts for 60-90%. Science is well agreed that the role of water vapor in long term climate change is very poorly understood.
I challenge anyone to dispute the above assessment of the current state of scientific understanding, as my searching of peer-reviewed journals shows the experts in each relevant field agreeing with the above statements. Putting those together doesn't exactly add up to 'time to panic'. The only smoking gun that every was considered was the hockey stick graph that appeared to show that the last 100 years of warming was abnormal and unusual. The evidence for it is being thrown out though, and the newly recalculated data, even by the original team, suddenly looks a lot less worrying and much more normal.


That's probably the first rebuttal to climate change I've ever read that doesn't spout nonsense and lies. Kudos to you.

Out of interest, you say you're "not entirely a layman". May I ask if that means you have studied climatology or simply that you read the papers?

As for water vapour, it's not really a "forcing agent", it's reactive. It's better explained here.