Come on NASA,

The shuttle and now the Orion spacecraft have been and are designed by congressmen and women for make work projects in their states.

The shuttle, although a marvel of engineering, was a death trap due to putting the most venerable structures down the stack.

ISS is a fantastic endeavour, but its low earth orbit and NASA has been struggling with a new direction for decades. The moon... no wait... asteroids... no wait... Mars... hold on... the moon.

Just PICK ONE, at least DOUBLE the funding to NASA and make whatever new project a national initiative. The American space industry can do unbelievable things when the proper foresight is put is place backed by money. (hay, maybe take some out of the military complex?!).

We will see if the Moon remains a target for NASA, maybe that will change when your current "leader" is removed... I am mean voted out of his "office".

You’re talking about racism at an individual level, but these days most people acknowledge the more significant problem is systemic or institutional racism.

If some redneck thinks they’re better than a rich black dude, it doesn’t really matter. But it absolutely matters that the system is stacked against black people. The power imbalance is important.

Most bullied FLOTUS.

If this was Michael Obama the media would be losing its mind and blowing its stack. The outrage of outrage.

Then again Michael Obama is a dog and could not pull this off.

It's all about the number of views.

This is the ants version of riding a unicycle on the top of a smoke stack while juggling.

Hope this helps.

@newtboy,
without racial preferencing FOR white kids
I know for a fact though that in Canada any law, policy or practice that in any way, shape or form stated that has been abolished long ago. Any new ones would be destroyed in court immediately and without question. I've always understood the US to be the same, is that not correct? Is there anywhere in existence in US law, or policies that discrimination based upon race, outside of affirimative action, is ever allowed to exist?

I was convinced enough that the US was like Canada in this regard that back when Obama was president I had someone tell me about a Breitbart report claiming anti-white racism being dictated directly from the President's office. I barely bothered to look for evidence to disprove such a blatant lie from a known extremist propaganda rag. It's hard to express my shock/discouragement to hear that very same refrain, not from a right winger, but from the sources on the left adamant about the necessity of it...

I don't know how else to say this without repeating myself, but you can't achieve equality with racism. It is a situation where even if you are right, your still wrong. Putting actual race based discrimination into official party policy, and now apparently even into law is no longer something society is willing to tolerate. Doubly so when their children are the ones being discriminated against. The people will vote you out of office. You can kiss swing states goodbye. They will stack the Supreme Court against you to challenge and throw out the discriminatory law as unconstitutional.

You are fighting a battle you can not win. You are wrong to think that solving the problem of underfunded schools in bad socioeconomic regions is the harder nut to crack. Maintaining a law and systematic racism against whites to 'balance' the lack of opportunity is much harder, it's being dismantled already because people will not tolerate it. Demanding that university's open up XX spots for socioeconomically disadvantaged kids, regardless of race is already normal practice here in Canada and everyone can get on board. Doing it for race though, humans just don't work that way. The only times that's been successfully maintained is through force of numbers or military strength.

Bob, do you have any friends here?

I usually don't agree with what I assume are your beliefs but, I must say, I admire you sticking to your guns, so to speak.

I don't think you're a troll but rather, someone that is not afraid to stir the pot when the numbers seem to be stacked against you.

If nothing else you seem to be true to yourself.

Before the space shuttle would launch, the main engine would ignite first. After six seconds the two solid rocket boosters would ignite and the shuttle would launch.

The six second delay was necessary because the main engine ignition would rock the "stack" or the entire assembly of the shuttle, fuel tank and boosters forward. It took 6 seconds for the stack to return to the upright position.

This 6 second period of sway was referred to as "twang."

Figured I'd pass that little bit of info on to you in case you're ever asked about twang on a radio quiz show.

This video still doesn't apply to the 'kids' tag. That tag is for stuff that children might find enjoyable.

I am unsure as to why you feel the need to stack the max number of tags on controversial videos, but I would appreciate it if you at least kept them to tags that somewhat apply.

Odd. We vote on paper and have electronic readers that scan in the ballot, thus there is the electronic tally and the giant stack of ballots that can be compared, if needed. There is usually just 1 or 2 readers at a polling station.

A few years ago I had lunch at a restaurant with my extended family for some event (can't recall specifically), and as we were standing around talking in the parking lot afterwards, the AN-225 flew over us. We were pretty close to the airport and it was either landing or taking off, so it was quite low to the ground and surprised the hell out of us. We didn't have the slightest idea what it was, but the configurations of the landing gears and six jets made it clear it was damned unusual. Found out later that the beast was one-of-a-kind and a bunch of people were at the airport watching for it, which made it clear how lucky we were to randomly catch that.

I had no idea there was a propeller-based counterpart. I don't know enough about aerodynamics to understand how stacking the propellers like that makes any sense, so I'm just going to assume it's some sort of Soviet technomagic.

Sorry, that's pretty culturally-ignorant thinking right there.

Japanese people are not "meek" or "inhibited" any more so than Americans are. There are different cultural rules about self-expression but there are most certainly loud, aggressive, and flamboyant people here. They just express themselves in different ways than your typically loud, aggressive, and flamboyant American would.

You might think socioeconomic factors were a reason for the lack of crime, but you'd be wrong there too. Japan has a higher poverty rate and lower median income than the U.S.

The low crime rates here can much better be attributed to cultural factors. Every Japanese person is raised with the belief that it is shameful cause problems to the people around them, whether that be family, schoolmates, or co-workers. Getting arrested is about the most shameful thing you could do here. Just being suspected of a crime will likely get you fired from your job, before you are even tried.

And let's not forget the role the justice system here plays. If you get arrested you are almost 100% going to get convicted because the odds are massively stacked against you in the court system. You are basically guilty until proven innocent. Read this for more info about it.

And people here know this. They also know that Japanese prison is hellish. You won't be raped or assaulted there like in the U.S. but you will know exactly what is like to have all of your freedom stripped completely away.

You add to all of this the low unemployment rate of Japan, the high regulation of all weapons (including knives), a robust social system for helping the unemployed (although unfortunately lately a lot of people seem to be falling through the cracks), a nationalized health insurance plan (I pay a $1 co-pay to take my daughter to the doctor and all prescribed medicines are free), a strong social stigma against drug use, and the ability as an island nation to strictly police the borders to prevent the influx of illegal goods (i.e. drugs/guns) and you get the low crime rates in Japan.

tl;dr

There is little incentive to commit crime in Japan because the both social and legal repercussions are extremely severe, and there is little need to resort to crime to survive (plentiful jobs and robust social security). Likewise the opportunity to commit crime is lessened because of the strict regulation of weapons, drugs, and borders.

EDIT: I will say that on more than one occasion I've thought that a career criminal in the U.S. who suddenly found himself in Japan would feel like a kid in a candy store. Because of the lack of crime, people here don't take precautions against it--some people leave doors and windows unlocked when leaving the house, you'll see laptops or iPads left in cars in plain view, and people carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them (I'm talking like on the order of $1000 or more in some cases). On the one hand it can be reassuring but on the other hand I seriously worry about these people when they travel overseas.

Probability doesn't stack like that.

Imagine this.
25% chance. I.E. 0.25 ratio.

Using your method, after 10 trials, the ratio is 0.25 * 10 = 2.5, aka 250%. Beyond certain.



The proper method for 10 trials at 25% is : 1-(0.75^10) = 94% chance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_distribution#Assumptions:_When_is_the_geometric_distribution_an_appropriate_model.3F



Hence why 1/24'974 per year (aka 0.004% chance per year) needs 17'000 years to reach 50% chance overall.

If you use the discharge figure (1/514'147), you get to 350'000 years to reach 50%.

-scheherazade

I supported the Macs in offices and graphics departments for about 15 years and was a big advocate. Apple used to have a commercial where they compared the stacks of manuals you needed to run a PC, with the small booklet that came with the Mac.

Now every update to iTunes makes me cringe, the GUI is like a cockpit and I feel like I need a stack of manuals to do what used to be simple.

Jeez, what a stupid stack of stupidness. These are all pop culture memes, not school related .