Well, watching events (snowboarding and downhill)---it has surely been windy---would have scrambled a drone show good and proper...

For about 3-4 months now, when this song comes on the radio or my ipod scramble, the volume increases markedly. It's odd.

I think you need the scramble suit from 'A Scanner Darkly'
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqrvzb

A different type, but yeah, they can be found under just about every pot these days. Every somewhat covered crevice seems to harbour some, really.

I had only seen singular examples in damp corners until maybe 3 or 4 years ago when they started popping up in ever increasing numbers. Nowadays, go outside and lift any pot, you'll find 5+ of them scrambling. When I pulled up the edge of an old sheet of rolled roofing the other day, there were dozens of them.

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.

Your video, Scaramucci Lashes Out, GOP Scrambles on Health Care: A Close, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Interesting and good, but it missed an opportunity to talk about another reason that Clinton removed the scrambling that reduced accuracy to ~100m in 2000:

It was fairly easily circumvented.

Your GPS device isn't sending anything TO the satellites -- just receiving FROM them. So, the scrambling had to be done on a system-wide scale; it couldn't skew your location 37m to the west and your friend a block away 62m northeast. So, every device in a particular area (that can see the same satellites) would be skewed by essentially the same distance and direction.

That means that all you needed to circumvent the scrambling was a GPS device relatively nearby at a known latitude and longitude. Then you took the GPS reported coordinates of that device and compared them to the known coordinates, and badda-bing you've got the skew figured out.

I remember that system being used to overcome the scrambling in the late 90's for robotics / AI competitions where things like early versions of drones or other robots had to autonomously navigate a maze or move towards some particular target coordinates.

Basically, if nerdy robotics enthusiasts could circumvent the scrambling, surely a motivated enemy military or terrorist group could too. So, there wasn't much point in continuing it. Ending the scrambling was a good thing for Clinton to do, but I'm sure that impracticality played just as much if not more of a part in his decision as benevolence towards citizens of the Earth / potential economic rewards for American companies did...

This is disgusting. I can't believe they would show this on TV, it's utterly immoral.... who serves scrambled eggs without toast?!?

Also, Louis CK really doesn't get enough props as a dramatic actor.

Ouch.

I wonder whether the tire to the back of the head or the forehead to the pavement caused the worse concussion...

Glad to hear he survived -- hope he didn't get his brains scrambled either!

I was unaware I would lose my star when I called dead on it....had to scramble to find the fix!

As the last vestige of Republican establishment support distances itself from Trump, his campaign managers scramble to fill media space with any talking head they can offer up as a sacrifice to the talk show gods.

"Lochte sounds like a kid scrambling after his mother caught him in a lie—and that might not be far from the truth. The story of Lochte’s alleged robbery first emerged on Sunday, when his mother, Ileana, told media that her son had been held up at gunpoint." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/18/ryan-lochte-s-mom-isn-t-helping-with-his-rio-olympics-robbery-story.html

Sounds like when it first came out it was squashed as untrue until his mom contacted media with his story. http://qz.com/761591/a-cautionary-tale-via-ryan-lochte-dont-tell-your-mom-you-were-robbed-when-you-were-really-just-partying/

Obviously different industry, but I have to occasionally do "art tests" in my field when I'm starting work for a new client or studio. These usually involve about a weekend-ish worth of unpaid work to produce a sample of art that's in the style and level of quality they need.
Architects have similar hoops, where they scramble, unpaid, to beat out competition for the lowest bid of work, so that scenario doesn't exactly belong here. I watched the whole thing because it was mildly interesting to see what the point was, but I didn't get anything out of it when it was over. (Other than "wtf is zulu alpha kilo?")

I think its possible, i just tried, but the scrambled sides wont really be scrambled, if you freeze the video, you can see that they end up sort of checker-patterned. The hardest part is figuring out how to place the wrong pieces. in a solve I use the same general pattern every time, so doing it wrong on purpose is hard. I managed to get 3 perfect sides except 1 sidepiece (which could be hidden with a thumb while the 3 other sides remained sort of scrambled.

edit: I got it working! 3 sides solved, 3 "scrambled"
proof: http://imgur.com/yU3afW8