Um...accepting bribes is a federal felony....even if you don't stay bought.
Taking the bribe is not 'doing his job correctly'....it's a crime, even if he doesn't follow through afterwards.
WTF? Bill didn't offer any reciprocity for the BJ, did he?!? First I've heard that. What legislation was she promoting, or who got the presidential pardon?
I'm all for cops getting BJs daily before they start their shift, not a bad idea at all...but certainly not from those they stop, absolutely not with the promise they'll 'look the other way' about the crime...even if they follow through with the original charge regardless of the fact that they were just bought and paid for. EDIT: Also, not on the clock/the public's dime, not while in uniform, and not posted publicly.

Thank god racism is over...right?

Fucking cowards in blue. Get a grip, asshats. 10 cops, 5+ cars, dogs, weapons drawn, aimed, and cocked...for what?!? Legal open carrying while black, which is just fine if you're white?

Every day I'm more surprised there isn't a racial uprising against police and reciprocation of this behavior, ending in numerous cops shot dead by 57 bullets in self defense because they had a pen and pad in their hand. If 'well trained' officers can make that mistake constantly, why not citizens? Maybe that's why they are so pant-pissingly terrified of a black man with a gun, they know it would be reasonable for it to be used against them in self defense?

If I were black, I would be dead or in jail today. No question.
Totally disappointed in cops every-single-time lately. This shit boils my blood.
*promote

Me either. I ended up doing some Wikipedia reading, and it turns out that there was a sort of transitional phase where the combination of reciprocating engines with a cruising turbine wasn't entirely uncommon. I'd always thought it one or the other exclusively.

I also hadn't realized how many ships used turbine-electric setups instead of direct drive. Wiki page.

One quibble with the video--I didn't get all of the ships shown when he was talking about coal dust as the reason for black hulls, but at least a couple were late enough that I'm pretty sure they'd been build as oil-burners (SS Normandie for example).

this should be common knowledge and totally non-controversial.
but in my country people are so saturated by materialism and actually judge their own value by their ability to purchase and how much money they make.

and they wonder why they need medications to:ease their anxiety,"balance" their brain chemicals,help them sleep,help them stay awake and alert.

i deal with this on a weekly basis and it has been getting worse.
normal people spending so much energy to project this so-called "perfect' life,when the reality is they are broken and disillusioned.

it is not an easy thing to tell someone that the life they had been leading was a lie and not the reality they may have actually wanted for themselves.

that they had become slaves to a system that sought only to extract value from them,while reciprocating nothing in return.

freeing people from the invisible chains that bind them is a process that takes time.i am not always successful but it can be done and it is a worthy challenge.

while i appreciated the words in this talk i have to admit it has made me a tad sad....this should be common knowledge.

my country has terminal spiritual cancer....
im going to go watch some cartoons now,or have a good cry...

Reciprocal *promote. Good job I found this. Love it!

How am I supposed to continue to interact intelligently when you keep twisting my words to imply things I have repeatedly stated I was not saying?

I deliberately chose my words to make it clear that I was not saying the driver MUST have done anything but only that he MIGHT. Simple reading comprehension; trying to twist my words for emotive effect is not going to work on me. (apart from getting a rise which it totally did)

You only seem willing to entertain a single perspective assessment of the situation and appear completely closed off to any other interpretation/speculation I have attempted to present.

The fact you have repeatedly ignored the core argument I have been making (that there is no such thing as one perspective and morality is a relativistic concept) suggests that either A you don't understand what I'm trying to say (in which case I'm happy to explain further) or B. don't want to understand (in which case I can't do shit for you sorry)

Let me put it another way. Do you think we understand Hitler and the Nazi's better by A. calling them racist fags and blindly denouncing their actions as "evil". or B. attempting to understand the mindset and motivations for what they did with a minimum of emotional compromise?

When you take the care to examine life's little unpleasantries like Nazi's or bike gangs or whatever from a less emotive position, you realise that they were/are not just some abhorrent alien force in society. Any one of us has the same capacity to behave like this, they aren't fundamentally different creatures and the belief that they are is exactly what allows people to justify doing this kind of thing in the 1st place. (If you asked one of the bike gangers to describe you and I you'd likely find they used the same kind of derogatory and dehumanising terms and categories, we're just slipping into the reciprocal tribal mindset)

Do I think bike gangs (and for that matter large groups of people in general) generally represent humanity at its worst? Yes totally, they are to my sensibilities 1st class arseholes. That's why I've agreed with you repeatedly on this (from post 1 onwards in fact!) I just like to come at things from more than one perspective because ultimately perspective is all that really exists to us, in this case I shared some measure of perspective with the bikers as I can see how thing thing could have escalated from that POV and how they might well have justified their actions to themselves.

Ethics/morals are little more than deep aesthetic preferences, they have no observable basis of authority in the natural world, only our own minds. While it's an illusion were arguably better off with, it does rather get in the way of objectivity.

All I really take exception to is having my words and meaning distorted and my core argument ignored. It's called a straw-man (reciting a deliberately distorted and weak version of your opponents argument to then tear it down) that shit wouldn't even fly in a high-school debating club and it certainly wont work with me here. Its fine that you disagree but at least get what your disagreeing with right please.

It's not about "good and "bad" "right" and "wrong" but rather "why" and "how". In short it's more complicated than "bike curious fags" and reducing matters only to that does nothing to help the situation other than to illustrate ones deep aesthetic distaste (which in itself is totally valid and I've not contradicted at any stage). I have somewhat more split "deeply held aesthetic preferences" here which is what I originality began talking about, perhaps that's why I'm finding it easier to at least relate to the bikers side of things even if I don't agree or condone.

"....and also disagree that anything excuses...."

^ This phrase beautifully demonstrates the folly of rigid non-perspective based morality. By embracing any arbitrary absolute truth or principle such as this one renders objectivity and transcendence impossible. Justification is a personal thing, what I'm interested in is provocation and explanation, we can argue what's justified until the cows come home because its not an objective concept it's a subjective preference.

This, when all semantics are stripped away is the core of why we are disagreeing I think. You think Ethics/morals are actual things that matter in their own right, I think they are no more than strong preferences who's usefulness is directly proportional to ones ability to understand and sympathise with those of others. Everything else has really been a play around that (by both of us) in less direct terms I fear....

Love this scene.... someone on a forum laid out all the layers nicely:

Tywin doesn't want anyone else finding out Arya's secret, since only him knowing about it keeps him in a power position - as such it is a genuine advice on how to maintain her cover.

At the same time it is a power play move. Since Arya is trying to hide an important secret from Tywin, she considers herself in an empowered position to him. That could be ok for a while, but he doesn't want her to get too comfortable thinking she's outsmarted him - he's reminding her that he's the one in power.

But it works as relationship trust building - Tywin is showing that he has also had a secret (= knowing Arya's secret) from her, and by revealing it he shows he's now placing more trust to her. Even further, he shows that even though she'd had a secret from him he has chosen to both ignore her mistrust and keep her secret safe from others.

The move also places Arya in subtle social debt. Tywin has now revealed a secret to her, while at the same time making sure she no longer has a chance to reveal it herself. This makes her be in social dept to him, and now her only social reciprocity option is to revel some further secret, like who she actually is.

But all that trust building also works as social "entrapment". Tywin is probably also be aiming at making Arya more at ease, so she might accidentally slip her cover and reveal a significant clue to her true identity.

This is all made more powerful by Tywin's way of revealing the secret by not directly stating that there was any secret between them. He doesn't say "Girl, I know you're trying to hide you're a highborn but you can't fool me", but instead he plays it like they've both all the time been conspiring together. This, in the surface level, places them in the same company, sharing a secret, which makes it more hard for Arya to keep a further secret (her identity) from him - especially since they are in fact now sharing the secret. Of course, both of them do clearly understand what happened, but usually humans cannot completely disconnect the surface level - the trick still works, whether you know it's a just a game. He also does the same in-grouping by quite genuinely placing them both in the same group or "clever people" - which clearly works, too, as is revealed by Arya's warm smile at the end of the scene.

But in midst of all this, it also seems he genuinely likes her company. Tywin clearly appreciates skills in intelligence and cunning, and Arya has displayed both. It also seems he appreciates the way she states her opinions somewhat frankly, it's the sort of feedback which a man in his position doesn't get often.

.. and having all of this in a one simple, small scene is why I really love the show!

When I started watching this, I thought "meh, it's not so bad" and then he clearly crossed the line with threats of sexual violence in custody. (Not that something similar hasn't been used before!)

But thinking about it again, if a cop pulled me over and called me "boy", I would be annoyed. I try to deal with the police with courtesy and as a minimum I expect that to be reciprocated. That said, I've been lucky enough that in my few dealings with police, they have all been professional and courteous, even when I was a drunken idiot teenager

Yes, that's the kind of love we and our children should all aspire to, the kind where you see someone much better looking than you who is so uninterested they don't hesitate to board a train. But no worries- as long as you watch them through a window and stalk them long enough, you'll be able to compel them to reciprocate.

Edit: Oh boy, wall of text crits for 10k.

His explanation was rather short and somewhat misleading. Maybe they thought a proper explanation would have been too dry or too lengthy to be of any interest for a sufficient number of their viewers.

tl:dr

If all rotor settings are indicated to be correct, a feedback loop within the circuit indicated a subset of correct connections on the plugboard, even if the initially assumed connection turned out to be wrong. It didn't show all connections, but enough to run it through a modified Enigma to determine if it's a false positive or in fact the correct setting. If it was correct, the rest could be done by hand.

----------------------- Long version -----------------------

Apologies in advance. We had to recreate parts of the Bombe as a simulation, but a) it's been a while and b) it was in German. I'll try to explain the concept behind it, hopefully without screwing it up entirely.

The combination of clear message and code snippet (2:25) is called a crib. This can be used to create a graph, wherein letters are the vertices and connections together with their numerical positions are the edges.

For example, at position 1, "A" corresponds to "W". So you'd create an edge between "A" and "W" and mark that edge as "1". At position 4, "B" corresponds to "T", so there's the edge marked as "4". All edges are bidirectional, the transformation at a specific position can go either way.

Once your graph is finished, you check for loops. These are essential. Without loops, you're boned. In this case, one loop can be found at positions 2,3,5 in form of "T->E->Q->T".

Here the Bombe comes into play. It uses scramblers, each combining all three rotors plus reflector of an enigma into one segment. This way, one Enigma setting is functionally equal to a single scrambler.

Now you can use those scramblers to create an electrical circuit that corresponds to your graph -- scrambler = edge. All scramblers are set to the same initial configuration. The first scramber remains at in the inital configuration, while the second and third get configurations in relation to their edge's numerical value. Configuration in this case means the value of their internal three rotors, so there are 26*26*26 possible settings within each scrambler.

It's basically a sequence of three encryptions.

Example: in our little TEQ triangle, the first scrambler (TE, 2) gets a random starting position. The second scrambler (QE, 5) gets turned three notches, the third scrambler (QT, 3) gets turned one notch. The initial configuration might be wrong, but only the relation between the scramblers matters. A wrong result simply tells you to turn all scramblers another notch, until you get it right.

You have a possibly correct setting when the output matches the input. Specifically, a voltage is applied to the wire of letter "T", leading into the first scrambler. And on a test register attached to the last scrambler, the wire of letter "T" should have a voltage on it as well. If the setting is incorrect, a different letter will light up. Similarly, all incorrect inputs for this particular setup will always light up a different letter at the the end, never the same (thanks to the reflector). If output equals input, you're golden. And if several loops are used, all with the same input/output letter, each of their outputs must equal the input.

To reduce the number of false positives, you need as many connected loops within the crib as possible.

So far, that's an Enigma without a plugboard. To account for that, they introduced feedback loops into the circuit. In our small scale case, the output of the third scrambler would be coupled back into the input of the first scrambler. The number of loops determines the number of possible outcomes with each specific setting. All of these are fed back into the first scrambler of each loop.

The plugboard, however, changed the input into the system of rotors. Instead of a "T" in our example, it might be a "Z", if those two letters were connected on the board.

A random hypothesis is made and fed into the machine. If the scramblers are set incorrectly, a different letter comes out at the end of each loop and is in return fed back into the first scramblers. Result: (almost) everything lights up. If you start with a good graph, everything will light up.

-----
A key element for this was the "diagonal board", which represented a) all possible connections on the plugboard and b) the bidirectional nature of those connections (AB = BA). Maybe it can be explained without pictures, but I sure as hell can't, so "a grid of all possible connections between scramblers and letters + forced reciprocity" will have to suffice.
-----

If, however, the setting was correct, a wrong hypothesis for the input connection merely meant that everything except the right connections was lit up.

Let's say the fix point of the loops in our graph is the letter "T". We assume that it's connected to the letter "Z" on the plugboard. A voltage is applied to "Z" on the test register, and thereby inserted into the circuit at the first scrambler. Loop #1 applies voltage to the letter "A" on the test register, #2 lights up "B", #3 lights up "F". These three outputs are now fed back into the first scrambler, so now the scrambler has voltage on ZABF, which in return lights up ZABF+GEK on the test register.
This goes on until everything except "U" is lit up on the test register. That means three things: a) the settings are correct, b) the hypothesis is wrong, c) "T" is connected to "U".

Reasons:
a) if the settings were incorrect, the entire register would be alive
b) if the hypothesis was correct, only the letter "Z" would be alive on the register
c) due to the feedback loop, the only way for the output to be "U" is if the input was also "U", and the reciprocity within the system makes it impossible for any other input to generate the output "U". Since "T" was the fix point for our loops, "T" is connected to "U".

Similarly, if the initial hypothesis is correct, everything on the test register except "U" stays dead.

The diagonal board provides registers for every single letter and allows the user to pick one as a test register. During operation, all the other registers serve as visual representations of the deductions based on the initial hypothesis. So you actually get to see more than just the initial connection, all based on the same concept.

Haha, I actually tried that for a little while because yeah, it bothered me how insincere the whole thing can be and I hate doing that whole dance. Thing is if you unload fully on your partner then it puts them in an awkward postion because they feel they have to reciprocate your full disclosure when perhaps they don't trust you sufficiently. At least thats the way I see it (and its why I stopped being a dick to people who were just trying to be polite )

The worst small talk? 1st year of university. You meet a lot of new people which I was mostly fine with. What bothered me endlessly was the same few questions. Where are you from. What course are you on etc etc. Maybe its selfish of me, but first I got bored of asking them and then I got bored of answering. Eventually I started asking people what their favorite flavour of icecream was (lemon sorbet btw) just to, you know, break routine. I guess you might call it an ice(cream)breaker and tbh, it worked quite well. Oh, and if somebody answers vanilla then you need to keep that person close. They are the best kinds of people (and there aren't very many vanillas). Maybe I don't really have a problem with small talk, I just have a problem with boring small talk

Interesting to note that "How do you do?" is traditionally reciprocated with another "How do you do?". I mean, its seems totally absurd, its almost like the question is rhetorical - it certainly doesn't expect an answer. Its just a polite courtesy and to do anything but show the same courtesy back would be considered rude - how self absorbed of you to actually answer! The conversation might evem bloom into discourse on the state of the weather (the last refuge of the unimaginative .

Oh, and it kind of is stupid though SveNitoR. Don't worry, I don't consider myself stupid or somehow broken in this regard, but I really can't see how anxiety serves any purpose. Obsessing over the tiny details of a conversation only serves to make me look stiff and robotic, like some sort of psychopath trying to remember how to smile with their eyes. I've heard theories that the reason alcohol is so embedded in our society is because on some level we actually sort of need it to overcome this inhibition. Unfortunately I don't drink, although I have found a sort of vicarious empathy - I inherit the same hibition if I am with people who are a bit buzzed, just none of the memory loss (a blessing ang a curse). Anyway, thats quite tangental. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm quite comfortable being an introvert and while anxiety certainly bothers me and stresses me out more than I'd like I don't let it paralyse me.

Tired of that $2.6 Million Program that Teaches Chinese Prostitutes to Drink?

by John Ransom


Liberty is about a lot of things; it’s a deep topic. But at its core liberty can be summed up in one simple and reciprocal concept. That concept is respect.

You know the 2010 last election was about many things, but it was mostly about respect.

It was about starting to restore the respect that people have in government, by getting the government to restore the respect that they show to you…by taking liberty seriously.

If you are like me, you think that many of our elected officials from both the right and the left truly believe that what they think of you is much more important than what you think of them.

If you’re like me you’re tired of a trillion dollars in so-called stimulus spending that went to mob-connected asphalt contractors rather than the pockets of working families who own businesses and pay taxes and do all the working and dreaming in this country.

If you’re like me, you’re tired of a $2.6 million program that teaches Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly while unemployment soars across the country.

If you’re like me, you're tired of an arrogant federal government which pays out $47 billion in fraudulent claims in Medicare every year while they lecture the rest of us about healthcare economics.

If you are like me, you’re tired of the US Postal service wasting $30 million on a program that pays 1100 employees to do nothing. Yes, today, the US Post Office sat 1100 employees in empty rooms, as they do every day, and literally paid them to do nothing. They can’t play cards; they can’t watch TV, in fact they can’t do anything at all. To the tune of $30 million per year.


Yet this very same federal government comes to us now and proposes to manage our healthcare, our retirement, the education of our children, the auto industry, the oil industry, pharmaceuticals, the mortgage industry and lectures the American people that they are under-regulated.

If you’re a middle American like me, from the grassroots, I bet you know someone who owns their own business; if you’re like me you probably know someone who has paid employees of that business on time every week, but hasn’t been able to pay themselves a dime. Yet these very same people who provide half the new jobs in our economy, who have lost money over the last few years, still owe the government tens of thousands of dollars in taxes every year. People wonder where our jobs have gone? They’ve been crushed by a system that doesn’t honor job creation; by a system that doesn’t honor liberty; a system that gives no respect.

And if you are like most of the voters I speak to, you are tired of insiders from Washington and Wall Street on both sides of the aisle, and their wasteful spending schemes that don’t even propose to solve the very issues facing Main Street and working families.

Let’s suppose global warming is real; I don’t think it is, but let’s say it's so for the sake of argument. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard-- which will cost American families $1800 per year-- please show me how it’s going to lower the earth’s temperature. They can’t because the Renewable Electricity Standard wasn’t created to combat global warming and it won’t lower the earth’s temperature.

Ok, so let’s suppose the issue is carbon emission; that carbon is really bad and we have to get it out of our atmosphere. Show me please how the Renewable Electricity Standard is going to reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. They can’t. It wasn’t designed to do that and it won’t do that.

The government doesn't write legislation with solutions in mind, but rather with power and control of your very lives. And it is inside of your lives where you will wrestle back that control.

I’m often reminded that it’s with readers just like you where many of the seminal events of our country happened. It’s in rooms just like you’re in right now that a small group of patriots in Massachusetts planned the Boston Tea Party; it’s in groups just like you are a part of today that was born the Mayflower Compact; it’s in the free association of our citizens, for the common good and with common respect, that the greatness and goodness of our country will always be found.

And as long as people like you, freely associate for the common good and meet in respect, our country will always remain both great and good.

But ordinary people are paying attention, actually reading the Constitution; people are actually asking questions about the 10th Amendment, asking: What kind of power does Washington really have over us?

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people who have been awakened to that yet, that’s why readers like you are so important. Each individual reading this is so incredibly important because the job you have this year as a citizen has never, ever, ever been more important. The 2012 election is going to determine what it’s like to live in this country for a long time. It’s going to be people just like you, having conversation just like this, in rooms across America that are going to make a difference.

This is the chance to turn the tide. The chance we have today is to bury that last vestiges of big government in our country; to reclaim our liberty from a new deal and replace it with a true deal.

I’ve been very fortunate because over the last half dozen years I’ve been able to travel all around the country working with grassroots activists just like you. I understand, I think, better than elected officials, what makes the grassroots so special. It's you and your ability to communicate.

We have all these new tools available for citizens to communicate that just a few years ago we didn’t have. A few years ago readers wouldn’t have been as energized and as informed because we didn’t have the ability to communicate as we do now. We have been so fractured and fragmented all around the country and around the nation that we feel like we can’t do anything, that Washington is so big and out of touch that we can’t do anything.

In fact, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Now is the time we really do have the opportunity. For the first time in our history ordinary citizens have the ability to communicate with one another over the heads of the media in publications like Townhall. We are networked on social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter that expose us to thousands of people for free.

But when I was growing up there were three TV stations and two newspapers in every town that decided what the news was. There were probably a dozen people in any town that picked our news for us.

Those days are over.

This election isn’t about voting for the next person standing in a long line of elites who will rule over us; it’s about what kind of country we want to be in the future.

It’s about preserving the American dream right here right now. Because when they mess with our liberty, they really mess with our ability to dream.

I believe that the ability to dream is worth handing down to our kids.

I believe that it’s our dreams that makes us the most dynamic country in the world.

It’s the dream that brings jobs and prosperity to the US.

It’s a dream that treats promises like they really matter.

And it’s the dreams that are the promise of America.

Because when politicians treat the promises they campaign on like they matter, when they are held accountable to those pledges-- by us-- we will restore the respect they owe us.

>> ^brycewi19:

So what's the hedgehog getting out of this relationship?!


Not everyone requires reciprocation. Do you recall the lyrics:

Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused

I'm still laughing about 'jelloems'. And thank you for the reciprocity! And you definitely should watch Invader Zim.
In reply to this comment by ZappaDanMan:
In reply to this comment by jonny:
*promote

cheers :

>> ^lantern53:

Atheists crack me up. If there is no God, no afterlife, then man is free to do any damn thing he pleases, whether it is porking another man or killing a buttporker. Who's to judge? Yet atheists love to judge the Christian because the Christian does not live up to Christian values. Meanwhile, the atheist can have no values, and this is the most highly valued thing of all.


"If there's no threat of eternal torture people can do whatever they want! What, reciprocity? Human responsibility? Goodness for goodness' sake? What witchcraft is that? I don't go kill the people my ancient book tells me to hate only because I'm afraid my sky-daddy will punish instead of reward me!"