Actually, matter does appear and disappear from and to nothing. There are energy fields that permeate space, and when their potential gets too high, they collapse and eject a particle. Similarly, particles can be destroyed or decay and upon that event they cause a spike in the background energy fields.

One of the essential functions of a collier is to compress a bunch of crap into a tiny spot, so that when enough decays in that specific spot it will cause such a local spike in energy that new particles must subsequently be ejected (particles that are produced at some calculated energy level - different energy levels producing different ejections).

*This is at the subatomic level. Large collections of matter don't just convert to energy.

I know plenty of people roll eyes at that, but the math upon which those machines are built are using the same math that makes things like modern lithography machines work (they manipulate tiny patterns of molecules). You basically prove the math every time you use a cell phone (thing with modern micro chips).

...

But that's beside the point. If there ever was 'nothing', the question isn't "whether or not god exists to have made things" - it's "why do things exist". God could be an answer. As could infinite other possibilities.

...

Personally, eternity is the answer I assume is most likely to be correct. Because you don't have to prove anything. The universe need not be static - but if something was always there (even just energy fields), then there is an eternity in one form or anther.

Background energy and quantum tunneling are a neat concept (referring to metastability). Because you can have a big-bang like event if the background energy level tunnels to a lower state, expanding a new space starting at that point, re-writing the laws of physics in its area of existence. Meaning that our universe as we know it can simply be one of many bubbles of expanding tunneling events - created at the time of the event, and due to be overwritten by another at some point. Essentially a non-permanent local what-we-percieve-as-a-universe, among many. (I'm avoiding the concept that time and space are relative to each bubble, and there is no concept of an overarching time and place outside of any one event).

(All this comes from taking formulas that model measurements of reality, globing them into larger models, and then exploring the limits of those models at extreme values/limits. ... with a much lagging experimental base slowly proving and disproving elements of the model (and forcing model refinement upon a disproval, so that the model encompasses the new test data))

-scheherazade

Few points...

We have no options for serious load shifting to utilise all that solar power in the evenings when it would make a difference. And power companies refuse to trust it for baseload power, so they still generate what they estimate they need for base load,and pay for rapid generation to handle spikes. Most electricity generated from home solar in Aus is wasted.

Without battery backups, the best production of the day goes to the energy company for 8 cents, and we buy back power from them (generated by coal of course) at night for 36 cents. Our energy companies aren't going to pay a premium for power they really don't give a crap about.

Most panels in Aus face north/east, to generate the largest amount of energy. When most people aren't home to use it. Instead, panels should face north/west to generate the most power in the afternoon when we come home from work/fire up air conditioners/start cooking etc. And even then, the power than is generated is but a fraction of what is consumed during peak periods due to the setting sun.

Annnnd most people in Australia do not even check their systems to see if they're still doing anything... It's estimated 14% of all home solar systems are currently non-functional due to faulty panels, inverter or both.

Until the point in time comes when energy companies can create a way to load shift solar production to ensure continuity of power, or household power storage units pricing comes down enough to be viable, non industrial solar in Australia is mostly feel good propaganda.

And while a number of coal plants have closed recently, it's not due to lack of demand as solar take up reduces requirement for coal fired power... It's because the plants are not viable any more to run and owners do not want to run at a loss. Each one that closes represents a significant portion of our overall generation being lost, with no core plan for continuity (wind and solar are not being considered as a core strategy currently).

I'm all for saving the planet, but the science/facts on solar outweigh the feel goods. Perhaps instead of patting ourselves on the back, we should be thinking about a better plan.

That mariachi skull was super badass. Mexican & South American cultures are so fascinating. Most of us in the US hardly even know a tidbit about it. I moved down to the border into the mountainous sonoran desert in Arizona and have definitely heard that there's been an up-spike of deportation & border patrol goons since the election....

One thing they didn't mention that I'm really not convinced about is how impairing weed is, for how long, and how much it contributes to auto accidents. In recent years there's been a big spike in the proportion of drivers involved in fatal accidents who tested positive for marijuana :

https://www.merryjane.com/news/weed-related-car-accidents-increase-raising-more-questions-about-legal-limit

Of course that doesn't mean it caused the accidents, if people are just smoking twice as much nowadays, even a random sample would show a big increase. But it seems like the research on this is lacking. Does anyone know of any government that has science based guidelines for a sensible blood-pot content limit?

Officers can and have been hit or killed while deploying spike belts and I'm not sure if they still try to shoot out tires these days.

The PIT maneuver can work quite well but different factors like speed, traffic and apparently trailers even can affect it.

I remember seeing this video years ago, this guy almost managed to defeat it on driving skills alone!

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Mustang-Police-Chase


But who knows if this will perform well in real world situations, we might never see this on a real vehicle but I thought the idea was nifty!

Probably, but your typical P.I.T. just puts the suspect car in a spin, out of control, where this would be similar to a spike strip on a rear wheel, with the added benefit of adding the drag weight of the police vehicle.

I think it's still a lot safer than a P.I.T. although I admit their "suspects" are reacting very unrealistically.

Seriously... who cares if he can read?

He's got three people closely connected with his campaign that are financially and personally close with Putin.

He throws out years of American policy and Republican rhetoric to replace it with carbon copies of Putin's policies (get rid of NATO, let Russia annex Ukraine, support Bashir al Assad).

Several former spies (including one CIA) have said, Putin recruited Trump. Trump is a Russian intelligence asset.

He has a private e-mail server exclusively communicating with one of Putin's closest confidants for months, with traffic spiking around key campaign events which mysteriously goes offline as soon as questions arise in Russia (as one analyst described it, the knee was hit in Russia and the foot kicked in Trump Tower). Days later a new Trump server appears and the first communication on the Internet is straight back to Russia.

Seriously, wouldn't it be BETTER to have a president (for life) who's a Russian agent who can't read than one who can? At least it causes some communication problems with his Russian masters and increases the likelihood he'll get tripped up.

What even happens to the US if a sitting president is found to be a Russian spy? Would he just declare martial law? Who knows, but I sure don't want to find out.

Yes, let's talk about the imaginary connections between Clinton's aide (SHE HAS DARK SKIN, OMG RUN FOR THE HILLS!) instead of the very real connection between Trump and Putin.

For months now, Trump has been communicating in secret with one of Putin's closest confidants through a private e-mail server. (see Clinton's not the only one who has a private server, only now we KNOW most of what's on hers, and her server wasn't set up as a direct line to Moscow)

We also know that communication traffic between the two parties spiked during specific campaign moments (conventions, debates, campaign scandals breaking).

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/10/was_a_server_registered_to_the_trump_organization_communicating_with_russia.html

At first I was going to make a snarky comment about the lack of grace in the choreography. Then I realized that anyone who can do all these acrobatics in spike heels is so far out of the norm that they are, for all intents and purposes, superhuman. Now I'm afraid to say anything even remotely derogatory about the video.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'spike jonez, Kenzo, crazy' to 'spike jonze, Kenzo, crazy' - edited by Sarzy

This kind of thing is why my biker buddy wears spiked or studded gloves. When someone comes into his lane like that, his fist goes into their window, or face if the window is open. I'm not normally one to support hitting another person first, but in those cases it's self defense against an assault with a deadly weapon.
Not only did she not merge properly, she accelerated to pass him on the right in order to improperly merge. If she didn't see him there, she's a menace to the public and needs her license taken away, if she did see him there and did that anyway, she's an attempted murderer and needs her license and freedom taken away before she's successful in hitting the next bike.

They were playing with the police the entire time, pretty much all of those bikes could outrun even the police helicopter if they wanted to. (not exaggerating)

If the police took to more aggressive stopping tactics, the riders would simply give it all the beans and disappear as soon as they saw them, instead of goading them like they did in that vid.

They could try and set up a fortified position in their path or take swipes into the crowd but that leads into the big one for me; many of them likely have guns & other weapons! If the police escalate the violence to death and serious injury by ramming & spike traps or back them into a corner, they would be giving the bikers incentive to fight back.

I might argue that escalation of violence would be more dangerous to the public than the anti-social riding.

There was a couple of 100 of them at least. Unless you are going to call in the national guard or some such, no police force is likely to have the manpower to win that fight if it came to it. (these people are demonstrably a bit crazy after all)

The police aren't stupid. Ethics aside, a gang of a few 100 lunatics is just more than almost any police force can deal with when together. That's why they don't scatter, they know that in a pack they are basically untouchable.

Police follow and hope to catch out the ones that fall off or otherwise make a mistake. Beyond that all they can really do is go after the gang in the traditional way; informants, infiltrators, slip ups and so on.

I understand the outrage, but practically speaking there is little more can be done other than subsequent investigations by the gang unit. Very difficult as you can't prove a given bike was involved without plates and chassis numbers. Or for that matter that a given individual was riding it at the time anyway.

Pit maneuver, please.
They were clearly endangering the public, and resisting arrest. Any injury they get from being rammed off their bikes, including death, is not compensable, and is their own fault.
What happens if you use a spike strip on a bike, I wonder.

What fucking reckless douchebags. Every single one of them should have their bike(s), and license taken, and then should be run into by their own bike at the maximum speed they ran from the cops, and then be arrested (if they survive).
They didn't think twice about running red lights at full speed while not even looking forwards sometimes. It's amazing they didn't kill someone in a crosswalk.
If you want to ride dirty, don't expect a whit of sympathy when you get rammed off your bike and end up paralyzed.
I was really glad to see at least one of them take himself out. I hope his bike is totaled, and his legs as well. I only wish it had happened 20 more times. Maybe he'll turn all his buddies in so he doesn't also get reamed by the DA.

The spikes needed to be like the ones they made on Mythbusters. Those were bent, sharpened hollow tubes and as soon as tires hit those they got shredded, whereas the non-hollow ones just stuck into the tires and self-plugged the holes they created, as what happened here.

I can't recall where i saw it, but a long time ago i saw a comedy skit(maybe) that had a large spike coming from the steering wheel in order for people to drive more carefully.