It raises the question of why go to the trouble of creating a killer android who looks like a short girl when she also doesn't look like a human. It's not much a disguise.

Exactly, and the title doesn't really do justice to what he's saying.
The question he's exploring is, once you have your financial needs met, why go any further?

In my free time I do usually opt to be entertained. But this guy chooses to be challenged even when there's no pressing need to be. I can see why that's more satisfying in the end.

Why go up? Just go straight in one direction. Eventually you will come to an edge.

True story -- the folks who fish in Alaska during the salmon runs are told that if a bear shows up to step back from the river. The bears won't bother them if they step back.

Well, person I was talking to told me that a bear showed up, everyone stepped back.... and the bear went to their catch lines, or whatever they are called, picked them up and ate all the fish. Like eating corn on the cob.

Why go into the river and work for a fish, when they are already caught for you?

IKR! Why go through all the trouble and not make it to scale?? The Enterprise A is apparently shorter than the Normandy, yet is listed as longer...

How is Halo a starship? Ringworld actually travelled to another star, but did Halo copy that at some point? (along with the basic premise).

To quote Homer J Simpson: Red M&Ms...Blue M&Ms...they all end up same color.

You obviously eat food. But why go through that effort when yo ucan bite on the stick.

I disagree 100%, this was one of the BEST product placements ever in a video game! You're just not getting the subtle humor. To me, it was very obvious. First, take note of the fact that they were inarguably wanting to make this game feel a bit like a television series. This is made most evident by the way they ended and began each episode (not to mention the fact that they called them "episodes" to begin with), but also by the cinematics in battle, the independent camera controls that let you see what was behind Wake as he was running forward, the narration, the fact that all the manuscripts had to appear on screen with the author's voice reading it aloud- erm, I think I made my point there.

So what would a television series do, naturally, at a moment like this? Why, GO TO A COMMERCIAL BREAK, OF COURSE! That's why this TV was in the break room. Commercials? Break room? You get it now?

However, I wouldn't even agree that this did any noteworthy damage to the tension. Because, arguably, the most "scary" part was over. At this point, all you had to do was get by that chandelier ball thingy and you're outside with Barry Wheeler, comic relief! I thought it was brilliant.

Why go?!?... are you kidding me... that was hilarious... Yes your giving them your money but that would be hard to pass up. I mean why go to a comedy club?...

Good grief someone having a logical non rabidly anti-US thought? You'll be lynched. Of course they dont want him, why go through all that hassle and bad PR this long after the damage is done. He wants to give the impression that the US is desparate to get their hands on him so he can keep his little rapist butt out of prison. Plenty of dumb asses like those who posted bail for the self styled 'freedom fighter' willing to swallow everything he says, and of course theyll be screwed over as well. Just sit back and enjoy the Assange one man show as he gets increasingly desparate for attention.

As for this 'news', an analyst showing interest and sympathy in wikileaks soon after an analyst leaks massive amounts of secret data to said site, and the military reacts with suspicion. Wow, shocking.

>> ^entr0py:

If the US justice department wanted Assange, why wouldn't they just request extradition from the UK? Do they need to let the Swedish sex crimes investigation play out first?

Below is the parable of the ox: (http://www.johnkay.com/2012/07/25/the-parable-of-the-ox)

Though it is about our economies in general, it also says something between the lines about markets without guidance. Namely that in ANY market, given enough time, you will get people who "abuse" the lack of rules and change the game in their favor. (Libor, credit default swaps, monopolies, etc etc) As free market policies work only when there is plenty of competition, as soon as some one cheats or in another form effectively removes competition the entire thing will collapse. Free market policies can be optimal during a time, however, that time is limited as before (just started market, monopoly or wild west) and after (mature market, few or 1 large competitors ruling the market, monopoly) you need guidance to make sure all the stakeholders are protected, not just those with power.

(BTW though there are rules setup to make sure the system works, you can see those are reactionary because otherwise the system doesnt work at all. They make sure there are good options for everyone, not just maximum options for those with power, aka in this case the cheaters)

25 July 2012, Financial Times

In 1906, the great statistician Francis Galton observed a competition to guess the weight of an ox at a country fair. Eight hundred people entered. Galton, being the kind of man he was, ran statistical tests on the numbers. He discovered that the average guess (1,197lb) was extremely close to the actual weight (1,198lb) of the ox. This story was told by James Surowiecki, in his entertaining book The Wisdom of Crowds.

Not many people know the events that followed. A few years later, the scales seemed to become less and less reliable. Repairs were expensive; but the fair organiser had a brilliant idea. Since attendees were so good at guessing the weight of an ox, it was unnecessary to repair the scales. The organiser would simply ask everyone to guess the weight, and take the average of their estimates.

A new problem emerged, however. Once weight-guessing competitions became the rage, some participants tried to cheat. They even sought privileged information from the farmer who had bred the ox. It was feared that if some people had an edge, others would be reluctant to enter the weight-guessing competition. With only a few entrants, you could not rely on the wisdom of the crowd. The process of weight discovery would be damaged.

Strict regulatory rules were introduced. The farmer was asked to prepare three monthly bulletins on the development of his ox. These bulletins were posted on the door of the market for everyone to read. If the farmer gave his friends any other information about the beast, that was also to be posted on the market door. Anyone who entered the competition with knowledge concerning the ox that was not available to the world at large would be expelled from the market. In this way, the integrity of the weight-guessing process would be maintained.

Professional analysts scrutinised the contents of these regulatory announcements and advised their clients on their implications. They wined and dined farmers; once the farmers were required to be careful about the information they disclosed, however, these lunches became less fruitful.

Some brighter analysts realised that understanding the nutrition and health of the ox was not that useful anyway. What mattered were the guesses of the bystanders. Since the beast was no longer being weighed, the key to success lay not in correctly assessing its weight, but rather in correctly assessing what other people would guess. Or what others would guess others would guess. And so on.

Some, such as old Farmer Buffett, claimed that the results of this process were more and more divorced from the realities of ox-rearing. He was ignored, however. True, Farmer Buffett’s beasts did appear healthy and well fed, and his finances were ever more prosperous: but, it was agreed, he was a simple countryman who did not really understand how markets work.

International bodies were established to define the rules for assessing the weight of the ox. There were two competing standards – generally accepted ox-weighing principles and international ox-weighing standards. However, both agreed on one fundamental principle, which followed from the need to eliminate the role of subjective assessment by any individual. The weight of the ox was officially defined as the average of everyone’s guesses.

One difficulty was that sometimes there were few, or even no, guesses of the oxen’s weight. But that problem was soon overcome. Mathematicians from the University of Chicago developed models from which it was possible to estimate what, if there had actually been many guesses as to the weight of the animal, the average of these guesses would have been. No knowledge of animal husbandry was required, only a powerful computer.

By this time, there was a large industry of professional weight guessers, organisers of weight- guessing competitions and advisers helping people to refine their guesses. Some people suggested that it might be cheaper to repair the scales, but they were derided: why go back to relying on the judgment of a single auctioneer when you could benefit from the aggregated wisdom of so many clever people?

And then the ox died. Among all this activity, no one had remembered to feed it.

>> ^NetRunner:

@jimnms I think the right lesson to take from the example of Brazil is "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime."
Also, you're wrong about gun shows, there's a pretty big loophole. From wikipedia:

U.S. federal law requires persons engaged in interstate firearm commerce, or those who are "engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, to hold a Federal Firearms License and perform background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI prior to transferring a firearm. Under the terms of the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, however, individuals "not engaged in the business" of dealing firearms, or who only make "occasional" sales within their state of residence, are under no requirement to conduct background checks on purchasers or maintain records of sale (although even private sellers are forbidden under federal law from selling firearms to persons they have reason to believe are felons or otherwise prohibited from purchasing firearms).

In other words, you can always just say you're a private seller, and sell guns at gunshows without doing background checks or recording the sale.
There are videos, sifted right here on Videosift, of people going and buying guns at gunshows while literally saying to the seller "I don't need a background check, right? 'Cause I probably couldn't pass one" with the seller replying with some form of "no problem, here's your gun".
But more than anecdotal video evidence, there's also a been series of studies about drug cartels moving serious amounts of guns using straw purchases at gun shows.
Yet for some reason you're calling Moyers a liar for saying the same thing.
Also, the Assault Weapons Ban set the maximum legal size of a single clip at 10 rounds. IIRC, this latest shooting featured the shooter using a barrel mag with over 100. That used to be illegal. Also, the Tuscon shooting featured a shooter using 2 guns with 30-round clips -- and he was stopped when he had to reload.
Personally, I don't quite understand the anti-gun control side of the argument. Say banning assault weapons only reduces the number of people killed by gun violence by 1.6%. That's still what, a few thousand people's lives a year? Why is having assault weapons legal for civilians worth the deaths of a thousand people a year? Why would it be worth the death of even one person a year? You can still have a pistol, a hunting rife, a shotgun, etc., you just can't have a high-velocity, large-magazine firearm. What exactly is the harm in making that illegal?


That's not a loophole in gun shows, private sales and transfer of firearms are not regulated in some states. You can't set up a booth and sell guns at a gun show unless you are a licensed gun dealer. And you certainly aren't going to walk in and buy a fully automatic assault rifle without showing ID or getting a background check. If a person legally has a fully automatic weapon, they have to have a class 3 federal firearms license and register the weapon with the ATF. If they sell that weapon, the person they are selling it to must also have a class 3 firearms license and the transfer of the weapon must be reported to the ATF.

I've seen the videos you speak of and I read the report you linked. It's good that the ATF is doing their job and cracking down on those douchbags dealers. What you said about Brazil, "gun control laws need to be properly enforced to reduce homicide", not "gun control laws never reduce gun crime.", can be said about the U.S. also.

The assault weapon ban limited pistols magazines to 10 rounds and rifles to 30 rounds. This also only applied to weapons and magazines manufactured or imported before the 1994 law went into effect. He still could purchase the high capacity magazine if it was manufactured or imported before the law went into effect, or he could have purchased it illegally.

People are still confused about what an assault rifle is. The definition of an assault rifle is a gun that can fire full auto or in bursts, and generally uses a shorter, less powerful cartridge than a battle rifle. The guns the media so ignorantly call assault rifles are NOT assault rifles. They look like their military assault rifle counterpart, fire the same round, but the internals are different. They only fire in semi-automatic and can not be modified to fire full auto.

If "assault weapons" were the least used weapons in violent crimes, why go after them when according to the DOJ the effect on crime is "too small for reliable measurement, because assault weapons are rarely used in gun crimes." The guns most preferred by criminals are small caliber (.25, .38 an 9mm) easily concealed pistols with magazines of 7 or less. So what do they do? They ban "assault rifles" and big magazines. Does that make any sense? It's just politics to appease the mass stupids by banning big scary looking guns.

Lets apply the same logic used by legalize drug crowd (which I'm all for). Pot and other drugs are illegal. There are laws against the sale and possession of these drugs, yet people still get them. Ban all guns, and people will still get them, only it will just criminals with guns. Both England and Australia have banned private ownership of guns, and their crime rates went up because the only people left with guns were criminals [1][2][3][4]. Why don't we give that a try here, because it worked so well for them.

The Dad better pray to God (since I'm assuming he's an old-testament sorta bloke) that those two don't meet up and conspire a reprisal--it goes like this. Yes we both met. No we never had sex (there is no proof; except perhaps crappy wannabe eye-witness testimony, that stuff dies a lot in hearings). Show the video and accuse the Dad of both assault and emotional damage by showing it to the local community. Tell them that you did as the Dad said because you thought he was going to beat you up, plus he had a friend to jump in too if he was losing (something like that). Tell them you tried to talk the Dad down for a long time, but he threatened to break into your house as well, to get the job done--hell if you're going to be an asshole and lie, why go halfway. Everything, and I mean everything is now on Dad--his case is a shut door, meanwhile the statutory rape will NEVER most likely go anywhere.

So I really hope he "thinks" he knows what he's doing. I think he thinks he's doing this kid a favor, but he should've called the cops... DON'T take the law into your own hands, it ALWAYS goes south and I bet you anything this one does too (eventually, something will happen, like @jncross said).

Seriously, this is why you NEVER do this. Pure stupidity on both sides, no wonder the daughter is stupid and involved with older men over the legal age, her Dad is an idiot too (she has daddy issues, up to her neck I'm guessing).

>> ^pumkinandstorm:

Incredible!! This is incentive to go to the gym. NOW.


Why go now? Apparently we have plenty of time. Im going to wait till im 74 then I'll start going.