Yeah, you don't have to die, just ruin your chances to pass on your (faulty) genetic code.

" The prime tenet of the Darwin Awards is that we are celebrating the self-removal of incompetent genetic material from the human race. Therefore, the potential winner must be deceased, or at least incapable of reproducing. The traditional method is death. However, an occasional rebel opts for sterilization, which allows her more time to enjoy the dubious notoriety of winning a Darwin Award. " - Darwin Awards, rules.

Pink is a combination of red and white light.
There are almost surely numerous combinations of various spectral colors that will look exactly like ultra-pink to our limited eyes. Fitting into the various color gamuts involved in color reproduction and perception is not very simple at all.

Whiter than white washing powders work by using fluourescence -- they transmute some of the ultraviolet light striking them into visible light. The reason this works is explainable by a color gamut, the gamut of the human eye. If we could see in the ultraviolet range that is being absorbed then the trick wouldn't be nearly as effective. There are animals, for example bees, that do see colors bluer than we can, and in fact some flowers have patterns that are visible only to them.

It is possible that fluorescence is partly responsible for ultra-pinkness. If it is, that would have been more interesting than what was presented.

I suspect, but do not know, that the CMYK or RGB color representation schemes are up to the task of encoding the colors you describe. The problem is that there is no practical process that can sense them in an image, nor any practical process that can mechanically reproduce them.

As someone who doesn't have, and doesn't intend to have, kids...

Bill is missing the point. Yes, it's great for the environment, but we don't need a day for single or intentionally childless people, because EVERY day is "I didn't reproduce day".

I can sleep in every weekend. I can go out on any given school night.

Now it needs a robotic platform dexterous enough to reproduce the movements.

The results have not been reproduced in further studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Wait, aren't they supposed to be having a hard time getting these guys to reproduce? And yet if we manage to get them to do it, we pay THEM a million bucks? What the shit!?

Ah. Late last night after 11 PM PST, VS was showing:

"Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to videosift.com.

Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s).

Error code: <a rel="nofollow" id="errorCode" title="SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP">SSL_ERROR_NO_CYPHER_OVERLAP

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.

Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem."


https://s28.postimg.org/9id7f2tjx/ssl.jpg for a screen shot/capture from SM's Page Info's Security tab.


I could reproduce this error in both of my computers (64-bit W7 HPE SP1 OS & 64-bit Linux/Debian Jessie/stable)'s SeaMonkey v2.46 web browsers. Also, Firefox v51 in my Debian box. I could not reproduce it in W7's IE11 & Debian's Chrome v50 web browsers that aren't based on Mozilla's Gecko engine.


I told Dag and Lucky760 about it, and it was fixed about 1.5 hours later. Kudos to the quick fixes!

No sir, Bill starts with the belief that the scientific method is the best method for finding fact....much better than fables older than they claim the earth is. His belief has verifiable evidence you can see and reproduce, Ham's has impossible fables about magic no one alive has ever witnessed told third hand or more, compiled and edited by a ruler with the sole goal being solidifying political control.

It seems he's forgotten his religious responsibility to care for the planet and creation.

Why would it matter if you're going to die? Because some people find things outside themselves to be important, and care what happens to those that come after them...clearly they don't matter a whit to Mr Ham after he's moved on.

It's crazy to have an intellectual discussion with someone that refuses to utilize their intellect.

Tree rings aren't evidence? But fables are? WTF, man?

How would Ham prove 100% that his insane beliefs are correct? He clearly can't.

The problem with religion, it can't ever admit it's wrong at all, so it can't adapt to new information. When it's proven wrong, they MUST deny the proof, leading to denial of fact and science, leading to idiots like this.

Now I want to see a painting simulator in an open world game. Real brushes and canvas and paint. Because I want to see some obsessive person reproduce a famous painting.

Living in Thailand, I've grown to really appreciate locally grown meat and produce in comparison to massive factory farm stuff.

One good example: Tilapia fish. Back home in the US, I thought Tilapia was disgusting. It tastes like algae, because they are raised in man-made concrete tanks and fed exclusively on algae that is easy to grow. They won't breed in those conditions, so they have to pump in hormones to basically force them to reproduce, more hormones to make them grow quickly, etc. etc.

Here in Thailand, I live in a town close to a lake. If you go to the lake you can see huge enclosures made of nets, which keep the Tilapia contained but otherwise living very normal fish lives. They get a natural lake diet of insects, plants, etc., no need to give them any extra food. They reproduce without any encouragement.

Talk to one of the fish farmers, and they will pull up some of the net and present you with several fish to choose from. Point one out and they will pull it out, smack it on the head to kill it instantly, and then scale and gut it for you and put it in a bag. From alive in the lake to dinner in 15-20 minutes.

Or, if you go to a local market in town, people have stalls set up that serve the middleman function. They go to the lake and buy 20-50 Tilapia to put into a big tank in the back of their pickup, and keep them alive in there for a day or two until they are sold, for a slight markup so you don't have to drive out to the lake.


Roughly the same thing applies to pork, chicken, and most fruits and vegetables. Somewhat for beef also, but there is less of that since most Thais follow a branch of Buddhism that discourages killing/eating cows. So, gotta go to the Islamic Thai shops for beef.

Maybe the system here is old-fashioned, quaint, or a bit backwards ... but everything is really nice, fresh, and tasty compared to supermarket stuff back in the US.

When they jammed it out on stage, I doubt it was as succinct as radio / record version. But a lot of great songs tend to be written(or should I say discovered) in this kind of instant form, all of a sudden something just clicks, and it just feels natural, it's almost a subconscious processes. Especially if you've been jamming with people for a while, then you're all on the same wavelength, or same drugs as I'm sure anyone from the 60s will tell you.

Many bands most popular songs start off as a joke, such as Nirvana's Smells Like Teens Spirit, or Primus' Shakehands with Beef. Which is why you get a lot of one hit wonders. They've had their light bulb moments, but nobody really knows how it happens, so it can't be reproduced. (not to say that Nirvana or Primus are one hit wonders by any means).

I see parallels with song writing and inventing or engineering. A lot of the greatest inventions were eureka moments while most of the others were just plain old hard work by dedicated engineers. But it's usually the eureka moments that change the course of history.

Also, this was a story in a mainstream UK paper today (the Sun). Reproducing it here because I wouldn't give the pricks another click:

WHERE THE BREX WAS WON Streets full of Polish shops, kids not speaking English… but Union Jacks now flying high again
People from Portsmouth, Plymouth and Boston revel in their relief at EU exit
BY BEN GRIFFITHS AND RYAN SABEY 26th June 2016, 2:11 am

VOTERS in Britain’s most Eurosceptic towns spoke of their relief at Brexit saying: “We’re elated.”

The anti-Brussels fervour was greatest in Boston where 75.6 per cent opted for Leave.

Single market too far … a corner shop in Boston, Lincolnshire
One in six of the Lincolnshire town’s 65,000 population are Eastern Europeans — the highest percentage in the UK.

Yesterday a buzz was back in its medieval centre where High Street stores are flanked by Polish and Lithuanian shops. Crosses of St George and Union Jack flags were adorning pubs and homes.

Caterer and mum-of-five Sally Shuttleworth, 58, said: “I’ve never been so elated as when I saw the Brexit result come in.

“Boston is an example of how Britain has lost its identity with all the Polish shops.

“We need tighter border controls. Immigrants are hard workers but there is too much pressure on the system, on schools, and hospitals.

“You could tell by the number of people streaming out of polling stations that the vote meant a lot to the town.”

In January the Boston area was named the most murderous place in England and Wales, with 15 cases per 100,000 people.

It also has the unwanted title of least integrated town in the UK.

Elation … Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, revealed: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.”
Translators are employed at Park Academy primary school where half the children speak Eastern European languages.

Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, 69, added: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.

“Whether you think the EU or immigration is right or wrong things have to stop in Boston.

“It is crippling the UK and we had to deal with it once and for all and vote out.

“The EU wasted money on so many things. They should have put the money in places like Latvia and Estonia to build them up so those people would not want to come here. We should never have joined the Common Market in 1975. I remember it well. Now we have finally put it right.”

Variety … the town of Boston has many shops and eateries catering for Polish tastes
Locals yesterday talked of celebratory parties, extra busy pubs and cheering in the streets.

There are around 1,200 people, mostly Brits, out of work in the town and many hope the result might see a change in fortunes.

Jobless Paul Cook, 53, said: “I don’t think people in the South realised how important this vote was to us.

“It is brilliant that we have voted out. We have had enough of the EU telling us what we can and cannot do. Not being able to control who comes in the country is a big problem. Now we can hopefully get a points system that will allow skilled people in.

“I’m hoping it will free up more roles for British-born people.”


There ya go. Racism is now acceptable in public discourse.

Worst mistake I ever made was repainting my '51 Chevy. The patina was on the way to being perfect.
Now I take photos of every worn, vintage car I find so I can faux reproduce it on my '74 Karmann Ghia. There's nothing more beatiful than paint worn through to primer at the edges and the satin luster of old stainless trim.

Cells have no "purpose"?

I think that depends on how you define "purpose". I don't think humans (or other animals / organisms) have any particular intrinsic purpose. At least, nothing granted to us by a higher power or outside influence or whatever. We assign purpose to ourselves, and to other fuzzy-boundary collections of things. Things that are "alive" exist to use energy, move, reproduce, etc. Things that are "tools" exist to be a preferable means of accomplishing some task. Etc.

If any of those things have "purpose", certainly cells can have a "purpose" as well. Neurons exist to transfer bio-electric currents. Rod and cone cells in our eyes exist to react to light in general or particular wavelengths of light.

I don't think that we have any physical or intangible soul that serves as the core of our being. We have cells, organs, and organ systems that make up a "meat computer" that provides us with consciousness (a word that we invented, but which describes a fairly concrete idea), and I would argue that consciousness is the closest thing that we have to a "soul".

At some point, if we can create a machine that emulates / replaces the functionality of all those cells, organs, and organ systems that are responsible for consciousness, and copy a snapshot of the states of all of that in an organic being (like us) into a mechanical counterpart, then ... yeah. I think that machine would be the organic being that it was a copy of, in a far more meaningful way than Henrietta's cancer cells are "her".

I'm beginning to understand why Pandas aren't interested in reproducing.