I agree with Mass Bike that the truck driver was responsible. Not sure that he should be criminally charged, that's a really big hammer to use on someone that almost certainly did not intend any harm. But he wasn't even cited, although he left the scene. He called the Boston police many hours later, from New Jersey.

That said, I would advise any cyclists to avoid ever putting themselves in the position that Dr Kurmann found herself in. It is dangerous to ride beside large vehicles with limited visibility, as we see. Also good to note that semi trucks frequently swing left to set up a right turn -- I don't believe she realized the danger she was in until the truck was close to actually passing in front of her.

The symbol in the middle lane is a "sharrow", which really indicates that the middle lane is not a bike lane. The sharrow is supposed to indicate to motorists that bicycles may be expected in the lane, and to remind cyclists that they are allowed to use it. The Boston police report gets this wrong, irresponsibly making the driving public stupider. At the time of the crash the right lane was used as a turn lane, and there was a bus stop just before the crash site, making it likely that cyclists would use the middle lane.

It's fun to say that you never trust anyone, but that can't literally be true. For example, I trust thousands of drivers standing at red lights or stop signs not to charge out and run me over. It would be almost impossible to move in traffic without relying on most drivers to do the right thing most of the time.

The funny thing was that after the genesis, they almost always neglected to have a solid library of games available for their hardware. The game gear was incredibly more capable than the gameboy, but they didn't support it with titles. Same as the nomad. If they could have managed to swing one of their portables into being a viable nintendo competitor, they might still be around.

If this is from Russia, I think they're tourists. Russians don't use parachutes. They'd climb down that vertical cable using their balls.

Also, I think this cable set up is for catching low-flying aircraft trying to sneak, nap-of-earth, during the cold war. Either that or it's the World's most epic rope swing.

Cops would have been 100% justified in shooting gelman at any point after he started swinging his knife towards the narrator and before the narrator disarmed him.. Or at least kicking the shit out of him as necessary to stop his killing spree. Due process is for after the perp has been apprehended.

I'm not at all convinced of that (Clinton's political career being over).

It would be the sane response. And yet, clearly the DNC (and US politics in general) aren't reined in by trivialities like sanity. I think that unless the fickle public gets really riled up over this, the DNC would swing just as hard for Clinton or some other corporate-friendly type over anybody like Sanders or Warren in 2020.

Sanders being an Independent in the Senate was held against him hard by party bigwigs. Somewhat understandably. That being said, Sanders' brand of "Independent" was/is a fantastic guide to what the Democrat party should be working to become.

Politics is all bullshit, all the time. As a result, a huge percentage of voters are quite disenfranchised and don't really see any candidate as being on their side. Sanders turned that on its head. And old, rather-eccentric, Jewish dude got people excited (me too!). Massive gold-plated opportunity, with giant fucking neon signs pointing at it saying "pounce on this NOW", and the DNC took a big shit on it instead because they can't fathom a world without being 99.9% funded by massive corporations in return for congressmen, vetoes, and judges being bought and paid for.

I think that's what the guy is talking about with regards to "taking over the party". The "Justice Democrats" thing is about progressive candidates funded by actual goddamn people instead of laundered corporate money. I'm not real optimistic about their chances of really shaking up the status quo, but by god I sure hope they do.

I think it's an ugly necessity.

Equality isn't about treating everybody the same. I mean, I wish we could do that, but then I wish people wouldn't decide if they are going to hire somebody from their very first glance. But that's what we do. We do nothing and we simply allow our unconscious bias to rule our decision making which, in most cases, would be great for somebody like me.

I mean, I don't like it. I can understand entirely why people feel they have been cheated when somebody gets a job or promotion ahead of them just for the sake of ticking a diversity checkbox. Maybe you're right, maybe it is just adding energy to that pendulum, but then a pendulum without resistance swings forever. I hope conscious decisions to readdress imbalanced caused by unconscious bias works more as a dampening effect, as resistance.

Back to semantics. Like the woman in the video, I probably had quite a knee-jerk response to men's rights. Sometimes probably warranted, but then some feminists have some pretty dumb things to say as well. Anyway, the person that helped changed by mind about it was a woman and a feminist. Don't define a group by it's most extreme edges because I think it just leads you to make uncharitable judgements about people that identify as part of that group before you've even really listened to them.

If you would ever advocate for a man's rights or against a woman's privilege, no, you would fail the feminist purity test, imo.

Absolutely, the label we use is less important than the actions we perform, but it's not meaningless.
Feminism is exactly as sexist as masculinism....but point taken.

Please note that affirmative action absolutely is racist, though. It divides people into races then treats the different races differently...the very definition of racism. I don't see how denying that fact accomplishes anything, it just sets up a future problem that mirrors the one you're working to solve. Ignoring that means you likely won't stop the pendulum swing at the center and we'll be right back where we started eventually.

This must be the civilian version. I am convinced that, like the hoola hoop, the original metal Slinky was actually a failed experiment by the defense industry to create a hand thrown weapon that could inflict great entanglement on the target, and with sufficient velocity, bleeding. At least that's how things normally wound up when we got bored of walking them down the stairs and started swinging them over our heads.

@drradon -- It was cool to compare this with the limited stuff I can remember from taking an intro to fencing (foil) class in college.

There was a different parry for incoming attacks to each quarter of your body facing the opponent (top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right). And that's just for 2 opponents both using the same general stance and weapon. I'd guess these guys would have different counters for each combination of stance/style, weapon of their opponent, and target area. That's a lot to remember -- although a lot would be relatively consistent across different combos.

I liked the high guard styles (two named "guard of the lady" stood out), because they seemed to pair nicely with "beat attacks" -- where you attack and swing to hit the opponent's weapon rather than their body. Gets their weapon out of position and leaves you in better position to make a second attack that they can't easily parry.

I wasn't very good at fencing. Bad footwork, not good form, and pretty slow on parries. But the one thing that let me win matches was aggression and beat attacks. The instructors and more skilled people could see it coming and dodge or otherwise counter it (especially after they figured out that was the one reliable tool in my box), but it was a fun technique to use for me. Cool to see these guys do pretty much the same thing, but just as a small part of a much bigger bag of tricks than I had.

I drove a semi sometimes for a couple years for my family farm. Didn't drive a whole lot, and pretty much all on back dirt roads and in lots/fields, to get some experience before possibly getting a CDL. Never ended up getting the CDL because I moved and changed jobs. I was around and learned from skilled drivers (my dad for one), so I know a little bit, but I'm certainly no expert. That being said:

Backing up a vehicle with a trailer is quite difficult because compared to a normal vehicle with no trailer, all your intuition is wrong and little mistakes get amplified quickly.

Backing up a car and want your tail end to go right? Turn the wheel right. Want the same thing to happen in a semi with a trailer? First turn the wheel left while you back up, which will push the tail end of your tractor left, causing a reaction like pressing on a lever that pushes the tail end of the trailer right. But don't overdo it, because that same lever-type action causes more movement the further you get away from the fulcrum point, so a tiny move there can result in a BIG swing.

Complicating that, you have no central rear view mirror. Side mirrors work, but distance can be obscured by the huge trailer very quickly.

Basically, backing up is one of the most daunting things about learning to drive a truck, particularly for people new to it. The "pull ups" he mentioned are the best way to overcome that. Pulling forward a short/medium distance gets the tractor and trailer back into alignment, so that straight back should result in the trailer going straight back. From that point, you can try to make small corrections. If it starts to swing a lot, pull up again and straighten out, lather rinse repeat.


The guy in the video does a good job (way better than I could do), but he seems to think he's the shit. I don't think you earn real trucking community bragging rights until you can reverse double trailers, or even triples if you want to be worshiped as a god.

Here's a video with doubles:


One of the full-timers on my family farm was quite good with doubles. Not "obstacle course" good, but I saw him reverse a slow circle around a grain bin. And he liked to tell stories about a some semi-mythical whiz guy that could reverse triples around a corner, etc.

Ok, you got me to watch...up until he said "this time it's been a lot harder for the media to defend the far left and antifa without any fake nazis". There's so much bias in this it's lost any meaning or point it might have had. Your prodding earned it my downvote.
Happy?

EDIT: Also, his third sentence is a pure lie, the patriot prayer protest was officially canceled, no longer permitted, and those that showed up anyway were only there to attack the lefties, which they did wearing armor and swinging clubs as they rushed into the crowd, they were NEVER peaceful, they were intentionally provocative and violent so they could show us all how violent and out of control the left is with their response, and so they could get a few good licks in on some libtards. It didn't work out like they hoped, though, some of those snowflakes hit hard.

Oh Bob. If his tactics were used primarily against whites or if he was black or a democrat, you would say he's the worst monster in American history.
$140 million to pay for his illegal actions, with dozens of multi million dollar claims still in litigation....that's a great sheriff? 160 deaths in his jail that he gleefully calls a concentration camp, many if not most from undetermined causes....that's a great sheriff?
Yes, under Obama, the DOJ was interested in people abusing their power in ways that were clearly unconstitutional, like pulling people over because they looked Hispanic for no other reason than to check if they were legal citizens...a clear violation of civil rights....but yeah...fuck that constitution thing if it's in the way of fucking with beaners, huh? Wow.

Trump has set a precedent that you and yours will regret when power swings the other direction. You constantly seem to forget that it will.
There are far more democrats than republicans in America, so again, not sure where you get this idea besides wishful thinking....similar to wishing you could equate the radicals with the liberals. good luck with that.

Interesting that Maher thanked / congratulated Jillette for voting for Hillary, but didn't note that he outspokenly did so as a "vote swap" thing where he (in an "important state" re Electoral College) voted for Hillary in return for a friend (in a meaningless / foregone conclusion state) voting for Gary Johnson.

I think that is a fine way to mildly game the system, which is more than mildly broken with the idiotic Electoral College. On the other hand, I think it is fine (honorable even?) to vote your conscious and vote for a third party candidate that has no actual chance of winning, even if you're in a tightly contested swing state.

But my favorite bit is Jillette talking about potential benefits of the Trump presidency. "Trump as a cautionary tale" is actually a very real thing, that will actually have long-term benefits. Whether or not those long-term benefits outweigh the short-term disaster definitely remains to be seen.

My wife and I went last year for about 9 days, drove the whole island's perimeter. We stayed at airbnbs, around $100 a day for 2 people, and Iceland's version of rent a wreck wasn't bad (I don't recall how much, but I am a seriously cheap bastard, so it couldn't be much). Most stuff was free, the attractions are mostly nature, but true, food and gas weren't cheap at all.
Many times you can get a deal where you accept a few days layover and get free lodgings, they want tourism.
Definitely worth looking into...I hope you can swing it. Good luck, and good travels.

Jesus fucking Christ, learn to read.
I clearly said someone just giving lip service, as in someone just using words but not following through with actions, should not be met with violence.
An ACTIVE Nazi, as in someone physically enacting those words, making physical efforts to preform some genocide, or in the act of actually attacking a black, jew, hispanic, homo, cuck, libtard, etc, (not just calling them names, but attacking) yes, resist their violence with exponentially more violence from every direction without hesitation or empathy.

You aren't putting words in my mouth, buy you are 100% backwards in your interpretation of what I thought was clearly written.
I was raised to believe you are allowed to be as wrong and stupid as you like in America, but your right to swing your fist ends firmly at my nose and that line, once crossed, enables a righteous and crippling response without qualm.