The real question is if you are living in a simulation what's to say you yourself aren't an AI construct built for the real players to interact with.

Who are these real players? Do they know they are in a simulation? If they do surely they are doing crazy shit and having wild time. Could we all be serving the 1% in a more direct way than we even realize? Could they switch us off as soon as they are done playing?


Maybe we are all part of the latest GTA for this guy:
https://40.media.tumblr.com/20fdd0cf285da76d00423336fbce9ac2/tumblr_mxhmetV29n1s9x4auo1_500.jpg

"Pot edibles should be kept away from kids."

Well... it depends on what you mean by pot edibles. I plan on feeding my children all parts of the hemp plant in moderation (including the buds), though our hemp plants won't be selectively bred for high THC content.

The hemp plant isn't a drug. It can become a drug through refinement. But so can absolutely every other plant on the planet. I see no reason to single out the hemp plant.

I just realized, I'm so far removed from the drug culture that I honestly don't know what "pot edibles" means in this context. ... Seriously, is he referring to brownies or something?

That's it completely. It's all part of whole spiritual ranking system. some people just measure themselves not by where they are at, but by how many people, they think, they're better off than.

To be fair though, that's not a religious thing, that's just the human condition. we all have at one point said "wow, at least I don't have it as bad as THAT guy"

It's also just one big pascal's wager. Better believe, or else you'll be left behind. Shaming people into compliance. But wait, if a god is all knowing, isn't that god going to know who actually believes vs people who only believe because they fear the consequences?

The many problems fear-based rule systems.

Of course, after watching South Park's depiction of heaven, I never really cared if I ever got left behind:

This is all part of the conspiracy - aluminum won't foil the aluminati - you need proper tin foil.

The force of magnetism falls off quickly with distance. The force required to offer much pull at 6 feet (your theoretical head) would be huge at 6 inches, so tuning the 'suit' would be insanely difficult...and you would have to stay exactly the same distance from the magnetic force at all times (with all parts) or the balance would be off and you would fall up or down uncontrollably. I'm sure there are other problems, like subjecting yourself to a super powerful magnetic field for extended periods maybe?

For anyone that hasn't followed what this is about...

For the problems itemized in this video.
Loss of :
- power brake assist
- airbags
- power steering.

This affair was actually about 1 specific issue :
The detent in the key socket rotator was not as strong as it should have been.

What that specifically meant was that :
IF you had a large heavy keychain on your key, and you jerked it, or knocked it such that it swings hard, the keychain could pull on the key hard enough to turn the key to the OFF position.

So when the car would turn off, you'd lose the power brakes, power steering, and airbags would be inactive.

Under "normal" circumstances, this wasn't a problem.
But for the folks with a christmas tree hanging off of their key, it was a chance to turn off their car while driving.

(side note : Crying about the power steering and power brakes really misses the big issue : The steering lock can kick in while moving... which apparently no one gave enough of a crap about to think for the 2 seconds it takes to notice that elephant in the room)



In this case, the contention over whether or not the core problem with the key socket was negligence boils down to semantics.

Car companies buy their parts from sub contractors.
They spec out the parts, and sub contractors manufacture the parts 'to spec'.

The spec isn't a 'hard' requirement.
If you say "5 Newtons of force", that doesn't mean that 4.999999999999123 Newtons is unacceptable.

Actually, it's standard for ~all parts to not be exactly the spec. They just have to be 'close enough to work right'.

And for that matter, many of the numbers in various specs are 'off the cuff' values that are 'generally known to work fine'. Getting hung up on a specific number isn't salient - what matters is 'does it work right?'.

So the question becomes, what is "good enough to work right?".
In practice, that ends up being a judgment call. Often made by engineers that try out the parts.


Here's where congress and GM differed.

Congress said : The ignition socket wasn't 100% exactly what GM had in the spec that they sent to the subcontractors, so it was wrong from day 1, and they knew it wasn't 100% the spec since pre-production. Hence, GM was negligent.

GM said : Of course it wasn't 100% exactly the spec. That was to be expected. At the time, we had no indication that the actual provided part was so far out of spec that it would not work right.


My personal take :
If this was something as simple as 'actual malfunctions/breakages of parts', then it would be black and white.
But in these cases, nothing was actually broken or malfunctioning.
So you had to rely on statistics and analysis to identify the issue.
Statistics require data, data requires evidence, evidence requires time to collect.
Seeing as how the vast majority of cars had no problem, this isn't the kind of thing that just leaps out at you.

Since any given car, when made in massive quantities, will have all kinds of multiple complaints about multiple systems, you can't just go back and point at incident(s) X and Y and say that it was the smoking gun - because if it was, then you'd have a pile of smoking guns for every other part out there.
Every instance of every part has a small chance of going bad, and with enough cars, you'll have a lot of 'item A went bad' reports to sift through.
You can't jump to the conclusion after the first couple reports that the part is improper, and it's unrealistic to expect anyone to immediately make that conclusion.
In order to make an informed determination, you simply need a pattern to emerge.

(I listened to the CSPAN coverage of the hearings while driving.)

-scheherazade

I'm disturbed by this. Not the violence portrayed but the fact I'm dubious as to the sincerity of it.

My first thought was they got EXACTLY what they wanted. Then I thought maybe they got exactly what they wanted because all parts were controlled, Pussy, "Cossacks", media and "Police".

This seems more like performance art than a true trampled protest.

"Putin will teach you how to love the Motherland" seems a caricature to me.

I'm also not a fan of immersionist journalism which VICE uses as their raison d'etre (They're from Quebec). Seems to much like the polar opposite of whatever it is you call Fox News. Both are propaganda I guess.

I don't doubt the whippees were harmed. I'm sure it hurt like a somnabitch. I also know people are willing to do a lot of crap for a cause. Hell, there are a lot of people who getting beat like this just means it was a fun Saturday night.

UPDATE: All parts here, in replaced embed

"I don't know" is not a belief.

it's all part of the murky definition of atheism that seems to be in flux.

at one point Atheism used to be defined as a definitive claim that no gods existed. This was the primary reason I considered myself to not be an atheist. Because you can't know (presently) There could be a creator, just that a creator probably isn't an petty ass from the stone ages which is how most religions portray a creator.

However I would identify with with how the Atheist Experience defines Atheism: to be the rejection of theistic claims. They specifically say numerous times that they do not claim that no god exists, just that they call bullshit on the claims of all current man-made religions because of lack of evidence.

Which is a viewpoint I can agree with.

It's something I've kinda kept track of for a while, over the years I google the definition of Atheism and many times in the past, it's been defined implying the positive belief that there are no creator(s) which I can't agree with..again, because you can't prove a negative in this situation.

it does seem to be slowly changing though, more and more definitions have changed to match the Atheist Experience's definition.

David Silverman, (while I agree with him on a lot of things) is a douchebag IMO. I'm sorry, you're just not going to win people over with douchey billboards antagonizing theists.

I support freedom of religion, I agree with our founders though that gov't has to be secular. You can vote based on your religious beliefs. but a person elected into public office has to compartmentalize themselves from their religious beliefs and be secular. You govern everyone, not just the followers of your religion. Kick religion out of gov't, but as long as religion doesn't infringe on other peoples' rights, then they can do whatever they want.

It's official. Yahtzee is 100% troll.

This game is nothing short of amazing. It's graphically impressive (not as much as The Last of Us for example, but one has to consider the scale and freedom of one and the other), there's tons to do and see, and the gameplay is pretty fun. Yes the characters are all terrible people, but that's all part of the charm. Even the shrink is an asshole. Walter White was an awful person and Breaking Bad was still amazing.

Even his t-shirt is obnoxious. "Keep calm and" needs to die.

@budzos - I think it's all part of the ego trip that this sort of video is. Not just everything wrong with internet soapboxes but everything wrong with atheism too. This guy's nothing to do with me!

Holy shit this is awesome! Anyone know the song? Or is it all part of the add.

Part of the add

Hey Issie-I replaced the wrong embed on one of yer dead vidoes....
http://videosift.com/video/Charlie-Rose-interviews-Quentin-Tarantino-10102003

Ooops-Here's all parts onna player I made ya...
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXkx5NyqN8e3K6s9tlcBA8a4L0i0DUamC