@Payback, @newtboy you're missing the point.

It doesn't matter if rape is worse than groping... we need to start drilling into people that neither is acceptable.

The sentence for these crimes is different and that's correct. (So no, a shoplifter isn't Bernie Madoff)

But as far as I know, none of the accused has been sentenced to anything.

But public shaming as a minimum? I'm fine with that.

And Aziz Ansari doesn't deny what happened, he's just "sorry she feels that way".

"Does this go both ways? If a man has a bad date, or bad sex..."
There's a difference between bad sex and being pressured into sex. Even if it's not rape, it's still not cool.

"I hope that girl you had a bad date with in high school doesn't come back to show you the error of your position by adding your name to the "me too" list, destroying your career, family life, and future with no recourse to prove your innocence...all because she didn't orgasm.....but I do hope you see the error."

If she came back said I was crap in bed, I would probably shrug and say "hey I was a teenage boy, they're all crap at sex". If she said, I pressured her into sex, I would deny it vigorously.

"Being weird is the same as being a rapist?!? Jesus fucking Christ, I always thought you were rational. "
Come on, newt, you know that's not what I said. I said "stop being weird, gropey or rapey". If I said "stop eating bacon, doughnuts or sugar", would you think I meant that bacon, doughnuts and sugar are the same?

First, I like weird people on a day to day basis. Second, there's nothing wrong with consensual weirdness.

But in context, it's pretty clear what I was talking about. But if you must have it spelt out, don't
- force people to watch you masturbate
- meet people (especially younger members of the opposite sex that work for you) in a dressing gown in your hotel room
- make sexually explicit remarks to strangers

But to reiterate, yes, there are degrees of violation. Rape is worse than groping and groping is worse than exposure. There, happy now?

Now that we're all agreed on that, can we focus on stopping the problem instead of this pointless grading of offences?

This really isn't difficult. If you can't tell whether another person is enthusiastic about sexual activity with you... maybe relationships aren't for you.

Her family seemed happy for those few moments to me. The Dr. seemed happy due to the success of the drug. The staff seemed happy that what may have seemed like pointless work paid off.

This is a nonsense argument and the reason this video is also nonsense. If you hold christianity up to the same standards then it is clearly not a religion of peace either. It's a stalemate, therefore a pointless line of argument.

There's really only two arguments against SSM.

1: "I think the institution of marriage is pointless". Great, then don't get married, but kindly fuck off and don't tell the rest of us how to live our lives.

2: "Gay people are icky". Not actually an argument, but at least you're being honest.

On the plus side, there's every chance that this insane waste of money will actually bring an end to the current Australian government. Literally everyone I've talked to in Australia (been there for work recently) thinks this postal vote is a massive waste of taxpayer money. The vast majority are perfectly fine with SSM, and even those against SSM know that this is pointless.

OTOH, if Australia does decide that it really does decide that it wants to continue being a backward, homophobic, rock-on-fire-that-no-one-should-live-in*, well that's just more tourist dollars for NZ!

* just kidding... there are some parts of Australia that are only mildly racist!

Exactly. I see a phrase all the time:

'If there are aliens in our galaxy, why haven't we detected evidence of them?'

Perhaps because they are so different from what we even recognize as life that we don't even know what we are looking for. Perhaps the use of radio waves to communicate is something they haven't done in so long, that using it to send a message in space is unfathomable. Or perhaps they never even used that technology in the first place. It's possible that their own physiology would make such technology pointless.

The point is, we're looking for them in very human ways and expecting something very human to come back. Perhaps a civilization at a stage similar to ours out there is asking the same question and using a technology to search that we ourselves have no understanding of. They could be our galactic neighbors and our differing biologies and technology could be so different, that wouldn't even recognize each other as life.

On the flip side of that coin, I once had a UFO experience that was anything but 'lights in the night sky' and the object did things our planes couldn't hope to do. So who knows, maybe they are already here.

Hmm. I disagree with your description text, @ChaosEngine.

I've never shot something fully-automatic. I have shot an AR-15 semi-automatic, and I know where you're coming from when you say that hitting a target on full auto would be difficult, especially for a relatively untrained person (recoil control).

However, I think Vox and others are basically correct when they say that this modification (bump stock) contributed to the Las Vegas shooting being so deadly. Specifically in that sort of scenario.

The dude wasn't picking targets and sniping, going for accuracy. He picked an ideal shooting location (elevation with clear LOS) and sprayed into a crowd. He'd have been more accurate by keeping the weapon on semi-auto and actually aiming carefully, and certainly would have gotten more hits per bullet fired, but on the other hand the rate of fire difference would have so different that people would have had more time between shots to scramble for cover, etc.

He had position, an abundance of bullets, and lots and lots of time. Given those givens, having a rate of fire approximately equal to fully-automatic means a much higher body count than if he'd have been limited to traditional semi-auto.


The NRA is being more cunning than I figured they would, and has come out in favor of banning bump stocks. I agree with you that they see that mostly as a pointless concession, and a distraction from additional / better stuff that needs to happen.

But it isn't a pointless concession. If banning fully-automatic firearms in 1986 (minus the ones grandfathered in) was the right thing to do, extending that to include bump stocks is also the right thing to do. For the same reasons.

@newtboy is correct to note that technically, a rifle with a bump stock isn't a fully-automatic "machine gun". The user's finger still pulls the trigger once for every bullet that comes out -- semi-automatic.

However, I think that the "spirit" of the distinction is that with semi-automatic firing you have to think and consciously decide to pull the trigger each time you want to shoot a bullet, whereas with fully-automatic you consciously decide when you want to start and stop shooting. By the letter of the law, weapons with bump stocks are semi-automatic. But by that definition of the "spirit" of the law, they are fully-automatic. Pull the grip/barrel forward to start shooting, pull it back to stop.

It's a pretty frequent occurrence for technology to outpace the law. The definitions of semi vs fully automatic include the word "trigger" because they didn't anticipate this kind of conversion that makes the trigger sort of one step removed from the conscious decision to fire. The law would have similar hiccups if a weapon was developed that used a button or switch to fire, rather than a traditional trigger.

When those hiccups happen, the solution is to clarify the intent of the law and expand or clarify definitions as necessary. I'm pleasantly surprised that many legislators seem willing to do that with bump stocks, and that the NRA seems like it won't stand in the way. Mission accomplished, situation resolved? No. But a step in the right direction.

Cinema Sins just needs to die. They are just the worst kind of pointless nonsense masquerading as content.

In open warfare of govt vs people, drones don't matter, just like jets don't matter. I already covered this above.



Nowhere is an oppressive dictatorship - until it is.
[redacted]
I feel like people are too distracted with instagram and other B.S. to bother learning about how the world works.
History is long. The current peace is an anomaly. When things go bad, there is little warning. If you're lucky, a year or so of build up. If you're not lucky, weeks or days. Shit likes to spiral.
In bad times, you have only what you have on hand.


Most western countries with [regardless of gun ownership] don't have a population that's F'd in the head.
Nothing stops a German gun owner from taking his AR15 and shooting up a concert.
Storing his guns in a safe that he can open doesn't mean anything.
Paying for a new license card for every few guns doesn't alter the guns.

Gun laws, as proposed, are fluff. Nothing that makes people safer, nothing that prevents ownership, but plenty to crap on collectors.
* 10 round limit = 2 second pause to reload
* Gun show loophole is a misnomer.
* (re. above) Only private sales (gun show or not) don't require checks - but you still end up in court if the buyer does something bad.
* Assault weapons ban only bans pistol grips and threaded barrels. Cosmetics. Just google "California compliant AR15" (they already have a de-facto AWB).
* There's already laws against straw purchase.
* There's already laws against crazy people buying (already part of the background check)
* Registration is pointless as gun control. Doesn't alter the guns or who has them (background check already tells gov who, when, and where bought a gun).

(I'd sooner vote for mandatory roll cage and 6 point harness in every car. Could eliminate 90+% of car fatalities in one rule - if people cared enough.)


By the way, gun owners hate people like the Vegas shooter even more than anti-gunners hate people like him.
Precisely because assholes like that shooter make anti-gunners turn on their frustration on innocent gun owners.

The call to "do something" is the phrase that perfectly describes the sentiments that led to actions, that in turn became described by either "famous last words" or "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".





We had shit health insurance before Obama. We had shit insurance during Obama (only you're required by law to buy it, even if it's not a good value), we continue to have shit health insurance during Trump, and no matter what trump does, it will still be shit.
Problem is that the insurance company lobbyists draft the language of the law (no matter the party in charge), and it's not for our benefit.





Re. Minorities, most are living normal lives. The white eutopia that the few vocal people complain about, doesn't exist. At least I have yet to see it. Don't let a few thousand people in a nation of millions guide your thoughts about overall social norms.

I'm happy to see them protest. Frankly, I wish white people had the same solidarity that black people have. When a black gets shot by a cop, they come together. When a white is shot by a cop, other whites say "he probably deserved it". I wish the black community good luck and success.





Yes, I wish we weren't jailing more people than anywhere else on the planet, over things that harm nobody.
I wish we had the drug laws of Portugal (decriminalization)
I wish we had the legal system of Sweden (no jail before conviction).

Know how I said that most countries don't have as many people that are F'd in the head? Same applies for people in government.
None of this shit will get fixes.
Republicans are bible thumping retards that funnel money to defense contractors and campaign donors.
Democrats are buck-passing censors that funnel money to insurance companies and campaign donors.
And people just pick a team and bark at the other team, while each gets fleeced by their very own side.

-scheherazade

I think it was right on the rails. I live in Houston, was fortunate to have come through Harvey with little damage, and spent hours helping folks get out of the small boats that were rescuing people from their water filled homes. The reporting from the various news agencies was on TV pretty much 24/7. But they don't get it... sure, people outside of the situation want to know what's going on, but some of the most inane, redundant, pointless and heartless questions in the world come out of the mouths of these reporters who feel they need to just keep on talking. On more than one occasion, we had to tell reporters to get the fuck out of the way so we could do our work instead of pausing to allow them to conduct an interview. In a situation like this, where people have lost EVERYTHING they own except for the clothes they have on, and have spent hours scared, cold and not knowing if anyone is coming to rescue them, how the fuck can anyone with an IQ bigger than their shoe size think it's a story that wants to be retold in front of a camera? We helped little kids out of boats, with their parents coming along a few boats behind, and reporters walking up to these shivering, scared kids to ask them about any pets they might have left behind or been unable to rescue - to get them to cry. That's inhuman. If it were me, I would've shoved that microphone down that stupid woman's throat. This isn't reporting, it sensationalizing. But I guess we wouldn't expect less from CNN. These people aren't reporters our journalists, they are pond scum.

Nope, she proves it.

"but you can easily convert it!!"

Yeah, but it's a pointless waste of time. It took 10 secs for that conversion in the video. There are 323 million people in the US. If 1% of the population did the conversion once a month, that's still over 100,000 hours wasted every year (and in the real world, the figure is likely several orders of magnitude higher).

There is no good reason whatsoever to use imperial measurements.

I can remember hearing a chinese person speaking with a strong yorkshire accent when I was a kid. I can't remember my specific train of thought, but I can remember thinking racism is pointless.

@worm, so basically #notallreplublicans?

You are absolutely correct in that "right-wing" politics does not require racism (without getting into a big discussion of how utterly pointless the terms "left" and "right" are in the political sphere).

However, you'd have to be wilfully ignorant not to recognise that there is a strong correlation between racism and political affiliation (especially in the US, which is the context of this discussion), and that's not even getting into the fact that fascism (a right wing ideology) DOES incorporate racism as a core tenet. So yeah, "alt right" is a valid term.

Basically, not all republicans are racist, but pretty much all racists are republican.

I would like to think "punch a nazi" isn't especially extreme though, certainly not extremely leftist. You can certainly pickup a large number of right leaning people who are on board for punching nazis.

It's other things from the left that I fear are needlessly driving away right leaning folks.

Calls for halting parts of the economy to save the world from catastrophic climate change, be that banning coal or oil or to a lesser extent carbon taxes. Instead taking the positive approach of promoting non-fossil fuels on the power grid and electric vehicles accomplishes more and doesn't directly attack the industry and livelihood of a large part of middle America.

Anything that amounts to calling it immoral to define a man as a human with a penis and a woman as a human with a vagina. How many voters do you really need to alienate over semantics?

Anything that amounts to demanding everybody accept and encourage your life choices, sexual or otherwise. The notion of judging one another based on our decisions and behaviours is a big deal to right leaning people, telling them that certain behaviours or choices are not only unquestionable but must be approved of is again pointless and needlessly drives away voters. There is common ground in love and let live, pushing beyond that to get back at the old guard is driving away potential allies at a time that can't be afforded.

Labelling any criticism of Islam as Islamaphobia. For that matter, use of pretty much all the morality-a-phobias should be done away with. Go back to demanding people live and let live without the requirement everyone embrace or endorse other people's decisions without being shouted down as immoral.

BLM

Refusing to allow rational discussion of statistically factual trends or differences between populations because it's racist or sexist. Those differences are a part of our reality and just demanding everyone put their heads in the sand drives many people unwilling to do so away. It also is damaging because many problems in society that we need to fix are informed by that data.

I got distracted by all the blinking lights. Where is he... the Death Star control room? Frankly, I'm mildly jealous that my work place does not look as awesome as that.

As to the test itself, it's way too basic. I would expect any beginning programmer to be able to write that with only a few hours training. You could make it slightly more challenging by adding some arbitrary restrictions like "don't use a for loop" (i.e. use recursion) but those are pointless academic wankery.

I actually wrote tests and hired a coder earlier this year. This test wouldn't have got you an interview, never mind a job.

You want to impress me? Start out by writing a test that verifies the output. I don't care if it works, I want to know you can PROVE it works. While you're at it, if I see a console.log or a printf or a cout or any kind of output in your algorithm (unless it's just there for debugging)... instant fail. Learn to separate presentation from logic.

Finally, if you REALLY want to impress me, make it scale. 100 numbers? Meaningless. 1 million? 194ms on my machine.
Write me a version that can do several billion and take advantage of whatever threads/cores are available,

Probably the one scene of the film that I do not want to see again.
Preceeded directly by one of the best film scenes ever, where the "deaf" chief thanks for gum, followed by rather pointless and premature celebration of "beating the system".