@newtboy,
" Sane policy makers DO assume the absolute worst modeled outcome"

Here we disagree. When you have a high degree of unknowns in your modelling, you don't always just go off the worst case. Let me argue from the extreme to demonstrate that in principle.

If we are looking to mitigate the risk of an extinction level asteroid strike, we don't solely look at the worst case. The worst case is at a minimum assuming another KT extinction level asteroid out there on it's way to us. Space is big enough that it's still possible one is out there undetected on it's way here in our lifetimes. The probability of that may be low, but it's still a worst case not impossible outcome.

With that known worst case, should we bankrupt the global economy building either a defensive capability to detect and destroy/redirect it, or the capability to abandon the planet in our lifetimes because of this worst case risk?

The answer to me is of course not, you must ALSO take into account other variables like the probability of it happening, the unknowns in the equation that prevent us picturing the problem with full accuracy, and other factors.

Another entrant in the incredibly long line of adaptation / adaptive learning / intelligent systems / artificial intelligence demonstrations that aren't. The agents act based on a set of rules / freedoms/constraints prescribed by a human. The agents "learn" based on the objective functions defined by the human. With enough iterations (how many times did the narrator say "millions" in the video) . Sure, it is a good demonstration of how adaptive learning works, but the hype-fog is getting a big thick and sickening folks. This is a very complex optimization problem being solved with impressive and current technologies, but it is certainly not behavioural intelligence.

@newtboy said:
“i should have said "all but guaranteed under all BUT the most wildly optimistic projections". Got me”

Sigh, no. All but the most extreme end of the most pessimistic projections are for under 3ft by 2100. That is the science.

Each of your earlier claims can be demonstrated to be equally contrary to actual scientific expectation. Regrettably, your content to refute the IPCC with a link to a Forbes article...

Its a waste of my time to point out the science if you aren’t willing to. I’m out.

Well, until just recently, the NRA had a few million utter fanatics they could mobilize to punish those who displeased them. And it's not like the GOP has demonstrated any actual backbone in the last few decades.

We'll see if the NRA's current meltdown changes things in the next year or two...I suspect it might well do so.

I consider the Dems as criminals... in not impeaching Trump. There's a point where impeachment is no longer a political "calculation" (even if you think it is one) but a defense mechanism for democracy and justice. Evidence demonstrate we're long past that point.

It's not like taking down Trump the USA will not have a POTUS... you'll have the VP as immediate replacement. As much a delusional self-righteous lame-ass Pence is, the Right can at least salvage what little dignity remained by not having a chaotic egomaniac to lead them. That's a win for the Republicans no?

Watched a video made by Exit International, the lady demonstrating the use of the kit did it with the demeanor of an airline stewardess demonstrating the safety features on an airplane. Pretty surreal.

Seems light.
But I guess they had to go with the demonstrably false, as well as ignoring the gibberish where you're pretty sure you know what he's trying to say, but it might just be nonsense.

Congratulations! Your video, Chimp demonstrates difficulty of instagram, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 328 Badge!

Your video, Chimp demonstrates difficulty of instagram, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

She posted a video demonstrating the kinds of comments she was posting, which were then promptly deleted. As far as I could tell there was nothing in them to warrant their deletion except the suggestion that data may be recoverable - which apparently Apple thinks is bogus advice.

re. Encryption - as far as I am aware she repairs the phones enough for them to turn on, the phone's owner still has to unlock it they want their things back. There are also some components which have some sort of hardcoded serial number, and cannot be replaced, but apparently enough of the parts can be interchanged that it isn't usually a problem.

Breaking the toilet in front of the pooch made me grit my teeth as well. That were dumb.

I don't think there should be an onus on Apple to repair instead of replace, but they could cooperate a little (or a lot) better with those businesses that are willing to offer that service. At the very least they should cease misleading their customers and stop removing perfectly legitimate advice.

Oh the irony...

I'm a Christian, and I hate those people that only offers "thoughts & prayers" to steal the spotlight as much as the next guy. The arguments I get into with my fellow Christians about the danger of passivity is intense, you just don't know about it.

Comedy by mocking people is one thing, as the targets so often do deserve scorns. But not offering any solutions or demonstrably doing anything more than mocking others, thus not making the world better is also "less than nothing."

Maybe it is hard to demonstrative over video, but I'm disappointed that the video didn't include any actual sand samples before and after.

Allow me to demonstrate your bias in this situation.

Q: if instead of bacon, what if they had 800 studies showing that, say, carrots cause cancer. Would you be arguing about the stats, or would you stop eating carrots?

I'm pretty sure you'd stop eating carrots. But because you enjoy bacon so much, it's having a impact on your reasoning. That is your bias.


I can prove this further by asking you what it would take to make you give up bacon. And I'm quite sure you would say nothing. Perhaps short of some instant effect, I know you would never stop eating it, no matter strong the evidence. In fact many people don't. They rather go blind and hav their legs amputated from preventable diabetes than give up their instant comfort foods. They are so biased they lose their own limbs, and still refuse to accept the reality.

You also you like to claim that me being vegan makes me biased. But the truth is that the Science made me vegan. And not the other way around. The reduction of animal cruelty is just a bonus.

Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon say the F-35’s superiority over its rivals lies in its ability to remain undetected, giving it “first look, first shot, first kill.”

Hugh Harkins, a highly respected author on military combat aircraft, called that claim “a marketing and publicity gimmick” in his book on Russia’s Sukhoi Su-35S, a potential opponent of the F-35. He also wrote, “In real terms an aircraft in the class of the F-35 cannot compete with the Su-35S for out and out performance such as speed, climb, altitude, and maneuverability.”

Other critics have been even harsher. Pierre Sprey, a cofounding member of the so-called “fighter mafia” at the Pentagon and a co-designer of the F-16, calls the F-35 an “inherently a terrible airplane” that is the product of “an exceptionally dumb piece of Air Force PR spin.” He has said the F-35 would likely lose a close-in combat encounter to a well-flown MiG-21, a 1950s Soviet fighter design.

Robert Dorr, an Air Force veteran, career diplomat and military air combat historian, wrote in his book “Air Power Abandoned,” “The F-35 demonstrates repeatedly that it can’t live up to promises made for it. … It’s that bad.”

The development of the F-35 has been a mess by any measurement. There are numerous reasons, but they all come back to what F-35 critics would call the jet's original sin: the Pentagon's attempt to make a one-size-fits-all warplane, a Joint Strike Fighter.

History is littered with illustrations of multi-mission aircraft that never quite measured up. Take Germany's WWII Junkers Ju-88, or the 1970s Panavia Tornado, or even the original F/A-18. Today the Hornet is a mainstay of the American military, but when it debuted it lacked the range and payload of the A-7 Corsair and acceleration and climb performance of the F-4 Phantom it was meant to replace.

Yeah, the F/A-18 was trash when it first came out and it took YEARS and multiple changes/fixes to allow it to fully outperform the decades old aircraft it was designed to beat when it was released.

The F35 is not the best at anything it does, it is designed to fully be mediocre at all roles in order to allow it to be a single solution aircraft. That may change with more money, time, and data retrieved from hours spent in actual combat, but as it stands it is what it was designed to be. A jack of all trades and master of none, not something I would want to be flying in a role where I could encounter a master of that role.

As @ChaosEngine says, it is far beyond time that we move to a design where the pilot is not in the plane. There is no reason at this time that we cannot field a plane that could successfully perform it's role with the pilot in a secure location nearby. Such planes could be built cheaper, could perform in g-forces that humans cannot withstand, and would be expendable in a way that current planes are not. However, this would mean that our corporate welfare system for huge defense contractors would take a massive hit. We can't have that, can we?

If being in Heaven means being around the people who say they will go, Trump supporters, then Hell is a billion times better. The fact that God doesn't care enough to tell his followers that they are following the literal antichrist system, is telling.

Trump Supporters... They HATE LGBTQIA people. They HATE the needy and the poor. They HATE scientific truth, like climate change. They are filled with HATE for foreigners. They LOVE wealth and inequality. They LOVE greed. They LOVE war. Every Trump supporter is like that. They are all bigoted people.

And when I say all Trump supporters, I mean damn near all the ones I personally know. My family, the people I work with. All evil, bigoted people who thump their chest about how Christian they are, and how anyone who reads the Bible would have to be Republican. Who agree with Jerry Falwell Jr. how those who don't support Trump are immoral. They are all stuck in this evangelical cult of Trump.

The day I see the Love of Christ from Republican Christians in masse, will be a miracle. But every fucking day I have to listen to Fox news near all day every day. I have to listen to listen to provable lies that are being taken as gospel, and having to hear how everyone who isn't supporting Trump is evil and against Christ.

Now you may argue that doesn't represent all Christians. But that clearly represents the vast majority of those who care to vote, and certainly of the kids in this video.

Also I wouldn't say I was a cultural Christian at all. My family was, we went to church once a week. Then I got serious about it. I started watching TBN all the time. Started going to an evangelical church. Blasted Democrats and anybody who wouldn't trust Fox News and Fox News alone (my prior comments as Charon seem to have been purged, but I'd blast evolution, trust only in Fox). I went 3 services a week. I was one of those people who'd make sure I said "Merry Christmas" just to be sure people got the message. As I've said before, the initial moment was realizing that the GOP was becoming more and more like the antichrist, and that it was the polar opposite of what Christ himself would want. I became a Libertarian, backed off the 3 services a week to just one, mostly in search of a church that wasn't practically telling people that Republican is the only way a real Christian could vote. Then in 2008 at the Republican debate when a room full of pro-life Christians started chanting "Let him die! Let him die!" with great enthusiasm, about a guy not having insurance and what should happen to him... that was the catalyst that opened the door to everything being so wrong. to say "this... this whole thing is wrong..." And then God did nothing. Christ did nothing. It's gotten a billion times worse since then. Those type of Christians continue to be the main reason people have the same moment where they go... no... and move on. I went, became Pagan for a time, and found it just as connecting to God, at least for those who were serious about it, and empathy says, if they are having just as sincere a relationship with their God as Christians have with God, then it is all equal... and the logic then said, "or not equal, and just as stupid".

Now perhaps I wouldn't be so anti-Christian if I wasn't surrounded by them at work, and having to live with people I'd shit and piss on their grave if their eventual grave wasn't attached to my sister's. Then again, I'd see the news of what these people are doing to this country, fucking it over for profit, and hurting the very people Christ said to help, and doing so in Christ's name... which is the technical definition of using the Lord's name in vain, not just saying something like "Jesus Christ" in exasperation. I do put up with my girlfriend being Christian, though it and her high sex drive are the two things that most drive me nuts... but beggars can't be choosers, and marriage is the only way out of this hell hole of being with my parents at 50 fucking years old... at least until child support goes away...

NOBODY is seeing the love of Christ demonstrated by people like my family, 80-95% of the people at work, Fox, TBN, CBN, 700 Club, Jim Baker, and the like. And they do represent the public image of Christianity. If the moderates and liberal Christians are the majority of Christians, then they don't make their voice known, they don't vote in opposition to these sort of people in this video and on Fox. So either God isn't moving their hearts, they don't care, or God doesn't exist. Even if he does, if my family, Bob, the people I work with, these kids, the other Trump supporters are the main ones there, then I don't want to have to be around them forever, it's bad enough being around them for a short life. Want people to come to God, then start with those sort of people and get them to see how they are doing more harm than good. They have to more at making the world a better place than they do, to leave the world in better shape for centuries to come. Not to take it all for now, not to assume Christ is coming back soon, but always practice he's 50,000 years from coming back... and 1,000 years from now, it's still 50,000 years from then. To act the way Christ said to act, not the greedy fucks that make up the GOP. To actually show the love he showed. He hung out with sinners, and railed against those who were walking around thumping their chest about how holy they are, yet these GOP Christians are thumping their chests, and shunning those who sin differently.

Anyhow I could rant on, but that's enough for now. I do appreciate the higher degree of kindness you tend to show than certain others, and my family... almost all Trump supporters I personally know...