Worth noting that the US spends half a trillion a year on bombs, Halliburton lunch packs and torture centers. A few hundred million to get a profitable company off the ground dosn't really show up.

Also, the Oil companies and their political cover have caused damage costing somewhere in the region of 10,000 x US GDP by trashing the environment which will kill a billion and cause 2 billion refugees in 200-400 years. One of the reasons Elon wants a few humans elsewhere when the shit hits the fan..

"I started "coding" at 8 by typing out programs from an adventure game programming book, in BASIC (think old Infocom games, like Wishbringer/Zork, etc). "

Me too! I remember typing out pages and pages of BASIC on my C64 from a magazine... ugh. Then I made my own adventure game (ripping off Aliens) with a whole bunch of gotos for each "room".... the horror!

"The challenge in today's programming environment is the rapid pace of change. It's so f'n hard to keep up with every new toolkit, platform, library, programming language enhancements, etc."

Pfsh... how hard can it possibly be?

This is so true...

Programming without the internet was tough. I remember my early years of programming in ASM and C/C++. The only internet access was via BBSes and Trumpet Winsock. Your only source of real help was from Usenet groups and questionable help files. There was no such thing as Intelli-sense (as we know it now) or auto-complete; you pretty much had to memorize the parameters for all Win32 API calls and the STL for C++ was brutal to use. Programming nowadays is relatively easy in comparison - pretty much anyone can code thanks to the internet and fantastic online resources. Heck, my 7 yr old daughter is learning to write code using a Scratch-derived visual programming language and Cosmo (look it up, it's awesome). I started "coding" at 8 by typing out programs from an adventure game programming book, in BASIC (think old Infocom games, like Wishbringer/Zork, etc).

The challenge in today's programming environment is the rapid pace of change. It's so f'n hard to keep up with every new toolkit, platform, library, programming language enhancements, etc.

California essentially banned them in grocery stores (oddly they still have free produce plastic bags) and charges $.10 for paper bags. It seems to be working.....
https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/05/18/are-plastic-bag-bans-good-for-the-environment/

From 1 jan 2016 the Dutch government has obliged shops and restaurants to charge 10 cents for any plastic bag they give out.

https://www.government.nl/topics/environment/ban-on-free-plastic-bags

This means plastic bag use in supermarkets, shops and restaurants has fallen by 70%. It has also triggered shops and restaurants to be more aware. Disposable napkins, cutlery etc are only given when asked. Part of this was that it is a cost to the companies and the government made it socially acceptable, even hip, to take these out.

The video is right that pretty much the number one most important question is the weight of the truck (basically tare weight, which is actually the tractor plus empty trailer). When I watched the announcement, I thought Musk was slightly cagey about that, but I thought that he said that it would be in the ballpark of a normal ICE semi. Guess I should watch again.

I think Musk made some semi-optimistic predictions about battery tech improvement and economy of scale. Frankly, I think he's earned the right to be semi-bold with his predictions, given his and Tesla's track record (paying off govt. loan very early, single handedly pushing forward battery tech and production, etc. etc.). His optimistic predictions have a tendency of panning out.

The average American is never going to switch to an electric car purely or even largely for "green conscious" reasons. The switch will happen when the electric car is better than the ICE alternatives in concrete metrics like performance, reliability, and operating cost. Musk is pushing that date forward at an incredible pace. Arguably it is already true for many use-cases at the high price-point range of the Model S, but that price point limits the scope of the impact quite a bit. He knows that to really shake things up, he's got to get that price point down, and he knows that to do that he's got to improve the economy of scale on battery tech. Which he's doing by expanding it into adjacent markets like home batteries, etc.

I think he deserves a lot of credit for "walking the walk" when it comes to working hard to protect/improve the environment, as opposed to Al Gore et al. "talking the talk".

Organo -mercury compounds are extremely dangerous even at quite low levels because they do bio-accumulate in the natural environment. Read up on Minamata Disease - caused by industrial disposal of organo-mercury compounds into surface waters that ended up in Minamata Bay in Japan. The mercury bioaccumulated into the fish and shellfish - not only neurological effects but also severe birth defects for the population that consumed the fish.

What conservative policies?
When I grew up, those were fiscally responsible (not adding a trillion to the debt in one bill), pro environment (starting the epa, not trying to kill it), pro science (not claiming all science is only political conspiracy) based policies. No longer.
What does the word "conservative" even mean today? Whatever Trump says it means today, even when that contradicts what he said yesterday?

It's clear that conservative values are long ago out the window.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/18/warning-of-ecological-armageddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers

Well... fuck.

Uhhh... you are aware of the atrocities Japanese soldiers committed less than a century ago during WWII, right? And I think you're confusing psychopaths (who may or may not be violent) with those suffering from a psychosis (a complete mental break with reality).

Either way, mental illness is a huge problem in Japan and in fact treatment of mental illness is one area where their socialized medicine is sorely lacking behind other countries.

I don't know of any credible studies that say that mental illness rates are lower in Japan than in other developed countries, but I do know that the overwhelming majority of crimes in pretty much any country are actually committed by people who are legally sane.

So, despite what you may believe, "genetic" predisposition is an unlikely factor in explaining Japan's crime rate. Besides which, criminologists agree that whatever role genetics plays in people becoming criminals it isn't nearly the most important factor and is dwarfed by environmental factors (see this for a scholarly article on the topic and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212>this for a popular news article).

You're trying to paint this as two equal parts of the recipe for crime when in reality it's more like "add two cups of environmental and a dash of genetics/personality/whatever."

Crime does happen here. The kinds of stuff I hear about on a daily basis in the news: crimes of desperation (homeless guy stealing to survive), thrill-seeking crimes (stealing a bike because you're young and stupid and the chances of getting caught are pretty low), crimes of passion (i.e. domestic violence, drunken bar fights, etc.), organized crime (i.e. yakuza), and the big one--sexual assault.

Sexual assault is so prevalent in Japan that there are actual signs warning women of areas where they are likely to be groped or have men expose themselves. There are train cars for women only so they don't have to get groped on the way to work or school. I mean, how fucked up is that?

So it isn't all rainbows and unicorns over here. Crime happens, and unfortunately is much more likely to happen to you if you're a woman. Still, even accounting for that the crime rates here are ridiculously low, for the reasons I stated above.

The thing about bump stocks that people are not realizing is that they are simply a mod that allows you to do the same thing you could already do with many semi-automatic weapons, emulate automatic fire.

There is a slightly more dangerous method which can be done simply by not bracing the stock and using the pistol grip. Many semi-auto weapons also can easily be 'broken' to cause slamfires, where the rounds are auto-fired as soon as they are loaded due to a stuck firing pin.

I highly believe in gun rights and the second amendment. But this latest tragedy has finally done it. There is simply no need to have that many semi-automatic rifles in one's possession. We need to re-enact the AWB from 1994, we need to set a cap limit on how many semi-automatic rifles a person can own, and we need to clearly state that ANY modification that can simulate automatic fire is illegal.

We have fostered a state where the mentally ill are no longer being treated or taken care of, except by drugs. Since it is clear that we have multitudes of people separated from becoming the next mass murderer simply based on whether to not they took their meds (or were diagnosed correctly to begin with), we need to make a stricter environment that prevents these people from getting the weapons to make it easier.

Fighting on the street isn't even comparable to MMA. Not to take away from the hardness of any MMA fighter, but MMA is a sport. There are rules, and it's a safe environment (as safe as can be considering what happens in the octagon). You don't have to worry about the other guy poking your eye out or biting you, you probably won't die, etc.

The best thing for self defense is to be able to identify a dangerous situation, and get away from it using any means necessary, before it escalates. Getting into your car and driving away is the best thing you can do.

The other part of it is not looking like a victim, it's a body language thing.

And in these cases, Aikido is as good as any other martial art.


Having said that I'd still love to see someone use Aikido in an MMA match just for entertainment, because the only videos I've ever seen are ones like this, where the partner is going with the flow to avoid injury.


Actually now that I think about it, are you allowed to dislocate/break joints in MMA? Because the damage is likely to be permanent.

Nothing to do about racism just good old American patriotism..

I can't go around wearing a Trump or Obama hat while on the job as I meet customers.... Company dictate rules of conduct. Politics do not belong in the work environment.

Trump is only properly pointing out how ungrateful some are by disrespect the very unity of America activity of standing for the National Anthem..

Sales of NFL tickets and clothing and ESPN ratings will dictate the true direction of this .

Just a few minor quibbles....
They aren't professionals, or at least this isn't a professional stunt.
That environment isn't controlled.
That wasn't a 15 second free fall, he forgot to account for the time the sound takes to reach him...maybe a 14.5 second fall.

Also...NOPE! Some pee came out just watching, and I started making Tina Belcher sounds uncontrollably. Screw that.