It depends on how you define "work". I've done it before; in Finland going from BRUTALLY hot sauna (like 90's C hot) to a lake that was probably just above freezing. You don't want to stay in long, but the cycle puts you into sensory overload mode and it feels really good unless you push the time spent in either extreme too long.

I've also done it in Colorado with less of an extreme temperature gap. Saunas in the US usually run a lower temperature (usually they try to keep them under 120 F or so) but you can make them feel hotter by pouring water on the heater stones to crank up the humidity. I've gone from that to rolling around in snowdrifts, and the effect is again quite nice as long you don't stay in the snow too long (probably under a minute).

Maybe I just have genetics like those crazy Polar Bear Club dudes.

Watch Me Crank Dat Soulja Boy den Super Man Dat ho.

And here I thought the claims around his four laptops were put to rest in July of last year or, at the very latest, after his meeting with Ray MacGovern, Jesselyn Radack and Thomas Drake in October.

There was nothing of substance on those laptops and to suggest otherwise with any credibility demands extraordinary proof.

Why?

Because of two primary reasons, as far as I am concerned:

- Any of Snowden's claims has yet to proven false. The entire apparatus is trying and they failed miserably so far. Probably because Snowden actually knows what he's talking about, unlike such cranks as Rep. Peter King.

- Snowden spent years working within the intelligence industry (CIA, NSA, private contractors) and he has proven to be careful and meticulous. Unlike the public (or the British MoD), he'd know better than to transport any sensitive information on a device like a laptop or a smartphone. Or an external harddrive. Or a disk. He'd use flash memory, possibly a thumb drive, probably an SD card -- the less embedded controllers a device has, the better. Heavily encrypted, of course, and if anyone doesn't believe that crypto works... tough luck, I'm done trying to convince people otherwise.

So, the only people who received data from him are Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. American journalists reporting on American issues, just like he said.

As for the the revelation of "tons of national secrets and techniques": he has revealed nothing. Let me say that again: Snowden has revealed nothing.

He has empowered members of the press, the fourth estate, to do their bloody jobs and fullfil their role as watchdog over the government, something they failed at miserably in this particular regard. All revelations happen at the discretion of those journalists who are now the sole proprietors of the Snowden-documents.

If, however, you don't subscribe to the notion of a free press as a line of defence against government abuse, then I can't change your mind.

By the way, "putting American lives at risk" should have received a trademark by now, the way it has been waved around to kill uncomfortable conversations. I vividly remember how desperate they were to find proof that the Afghan/Iraqi War Logs and the Gitmo Files were endangering lives. As far as I know, they never found any. And as far as I know, all releases based on Snowden-documents were carefully chosen and redacted where neccessary to protect the identity of human assets. All claims to the contrary need to provide evidence.

But I'm glad to see that the "American industry" has found its way into the argument. At least we don't have to pretend that this is solely about terrorism anymore. Industrial espionage, diplomatic advantages and... keeping your own population in check.

Yay! It's just like the old days.

Oh wait, I forgot. My country has been under full scale surveillance by the US, the British and the French since the late '40s, so it's actually business as usual.

It's a set-up for what's going to be ubiquitous in less than 20 years A10anis, cameras on every pole (wi-fi, infrared, audio, facial recognition software) and a cop's nose up every corner of your ass at the great cost of having ended the 'great experiment' -

Feinstein is only a shill for power-brokers and a miniature version of someone whose mentality of "I, Me, Mine" let's a few people dictate the their will over of every person on the planet who is not in their small circle.

Mind you, they believe that the bulk of humanity are not suited to dictate the course of the planet but hey; The same people who have chosen to guide the course of humanity's burst off the planet would keep us rhesus monkeys in small, manageable boxes while they romp freely around the globe with the bulk of our assets and the maximum amount of power to dictate further every aspect of our lives.

The real power they will not wield is to provide for the basic needs and education of the throw-backs of humanity who would rather perpetrate violence and promulgate fear to maintain arcane sensibilities and uncivilized backward ideologies which are anti-evolutionary and savage, using anti-evolutionary and savage people to enforce what looks like order, which is in actuality, the same barbaric practice of subjugation, imprisonment, and fear.

The solution is to limit expansion of population until these ideologies are stamped-out like the insectoid disease that they are, that of a limited perspective based on arcane patterns of thought. We could do this through compassion and education but the established powers see a different solution that will protect their interests-

People like Diane Feinstein and her ilk see the rest of humanity as dogs and cattle. Unprivileged, unworthy flesh with which to extort from them their labor, their minds and souls to their utopian ends, at the cost of our unique humanity.

The same virulence that atheist's have against the western Christan diaspora, these elites have for anyone not aligned with their totalitarian ends.

That they justify their courses of action with propaganda like this, fear-induced surrender to force and control, is against all that is humane and righteous.

Bombs in subways?? Solution: No one has privacy or freedom of expression or thought beyond that which exist behind their eyes and between their ears-Greeeeeat. Your world, not mine.

Next will come thought crimes, cordoned neighborhoods, etc.

Start now by getting some of the comparatively neanderthal segments of humanity into those boxes, limit THEIR freedoms through educating them to at LEAST the level of 17th-century socialization before turning the entire world into a forced labor-camp.

Bread and circuses only work for so long before the emperor's clothes are set alight by those less inclined to hear shit as well as being forced to eat it.

Anarchy would solve some of the discord in civilized countries.

Fucking China-Get those insects to stop cranking-out useless consumption items at an exponentially toxic pace as well-Their version of the world makes Orwell's look like a clam bake. How? Stop using it. Create artisans and craftsman again and develop in every human an appreciation for THAT WHICH LASTS, rather than I WANT NOW, FIRST!

Americans, Europeans drunk on technology, disposable clothing, instant gratification and entertainment are a herd of disposable mental midgets to the Diane Feinsteins of the world.

Sick dance we're learning....I just hope we can stand the dervish without blacking-out.

This is where my thoughts immediately went -- maybe $15/hr sounds so high because we're so far behind the inflation curve -- but I wasn't sure, so I pulled up this list of historic minimum wages and this inflation calculator and started doing some conversions.

1950: $0.75 = $7.30 today
1960: $1.00 = $7.81 today
1970: $1.60 = $9.74 today
> 1978: $2.65 = $9.80 today -- @enoch: How are you getting $22?
1980: $3.10 = $9.28 today
1990: $3.80 = $6.92 today
2000: $5.15 = $7.03 today
2010: $7.25 - $7.71 today

@Yogi is probably right; These people are probably asking for $15 and hoping for $10 (and $10 seems reasonable based on historic rates above).

Cranking up minimum wage much higher than that might be treating the symptoms rather than the sickness. Entry level jobs not paying enough is not the root cause; the root cause is that people are trapped in entry level careers. By all means, bump minimum wage up to $10, maybe $12 an hour, but then start taking action so that, when inflation catches up to those rates, there's more job mobility.

I think that you will find enriched uranium is not plutonium. Also, depleted uranium can't be used to make nuclear weapons explode, so I don't know exactly why you bring it up. To be clear, all nuclear nations main weapons plutonium has been made in a very specific way, a way that is inconstant with power generation. It is exactly because power generation reactor are so costly that they are relatively poor weapons materials creators, the method in which uranium needs to be removed from the neutron flux requires you to shut it down often. It is better to get a small, non-power generation reactor and crank out the plutonium. This is what India did with a small test heavy water reactor (CIRUS reactor). You need a reactor you can quickly turn on and off (and uranium extracted), then chemically reprocess the uranium, let it cool down, then put it back into the reactor. This laborious method is why power generation reactors are poor candidates for weapons material generation and why the current generation of weapons have not been made this way.

IAEA safeguards are important to make sure enrichment centers aren't diverting enriched uranium, sure. Plutonium should also have some safeguards as well, so don't take my words for a lack of concern or action on a world stage, I just believe for most, their concerns are blown way out of proportion to the actual risk.

But to reiterate, the relatively complex process to make weapons ready plutonium is why powered reactors aren't used in for weapons material for any of the worlds nuclear weapons nations, nor have any of the non-nuclear nations which have nuclear power and participate in NPT and IAEA systems been implicated in such actions. If Amory Lovins is the one forming your opinion on this, I would suggest a different source. It is like asking the CATO institute their opinion on climate change. I would consult the IAEA or some respectable international organization known for objective science rather than an anti-nuclear advocate. I, actually, fell for the same supposed expert (Amory Lovins) and was fairly anti-nuclear myself as a result. While there surely is some overlap between weapons technology and reactors, they are separate enough that safeguards can be highly effective. The existence of many nuclear powered states without nuclear weapons gives credence to their abilities. Only those countries who decide not to participate in NPT and IAEA systems have been the players known to developing weapons, most notably North Korea.

IAEA Safeguards: Stemming the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/S1_Safeguards.pdf

I think he is pessimistic is because energy use is also in growth, usually from coal. When you similarly look at CO2 emissions over the past decade, they aren't going down...every year is a new record. Even in IEA's 450 Scenario, "oil, coal and natural gas — remain the dominant energy sources in 2035"...this is a problem.

I can't find a notable environmental group that endorsees nuclear at all. Like the public, most environmental NGOs don't really make a distinction in reactor types. Nuclear is nuclear is nuclear. From friends of the earth to greenpeace, they are all pretty proudly anti-nuclear, with only local chapters of FoE even remotely interested in revisiting their views.

At any rate, I hope you aren't finding me to be combative or argumentative, I am not the best communicator of controversial issues. But I think climate issues are forcing us into a pretty thick walled box which will be hard to breakout of even in the most optimistic technological factors, which is why even if every single concern people have about nuclear is completely justified, waste, weapons, ect, we would most likely still need to build lots and lots of nuclear to even hope to address climate issues...they are that challenging.

Tried hard (and failed) to avoid audibly yelling at the screen. Yeah, that'll help.

Seems weird that they would be relatively more cavalier about cranking the wheel while reversing as opposed to moving forward. Most new drivers are the opposite...

Did someone not teach this person you must crank the wheel all the way to the left or right BEFORE putting the foot on the gas?

Oh and this...
http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=HIpQ4ah5XTY

Cool-was searching for something to crank this half-pipe up with ;O

Ouch. I didn't even need to crank my speakers up!

When my goddamn gas tank isn't full that's when it shuts off... fucking asshole gas pumps. I wanna turn a crank goddamnit make that shit overflow... this is murica!

Yeah, what the hell is happening here? Pretty fucked up if the police cranked up the speed just to disperse the crowd, even if the majority of them are angry douche-bags.

Well if this gives you any clue, I took a full-sesh of Ecktachrome slides of an ex-grilfriend's 4-wisdom-tooth oral surgery while she was under with her mouth cranked-open wide enough for an no-girths-turned-away frat party....

I still use "kraut" like old WW2 vets do as an homage to simpler times....I take this license according to my own justifications based on my personal heritage of Euromutt. Plus, using recognizable stereotypes well,....that's comedy 101

Thanks for the lesson on Sclagen (which the g-translator interprets as "beat" or "strike" while schlag is defined as "shock." So why was that crappy pop music that Germans were cranking-out in the 60's called, Schlagen? Was it meant to refer to 'hits or beats' or 'shocking hits?'

WTF was that? Who was the jackass that started playing music in the middle of Obama's toast, and why did no one else stop it? I would have stopped and asked them to shut that racket off...fuckers. If they want to refuse, revamp the toast to "Well then, Fuck the queen, that disrespectful bitch".
The next time their royalty is here making a speech or toast, we need to interrupt it in the middle with our national anthem and just crank it up if they keep talking, with the crowd joining in!