If you have an infinitely long slope or gravity well, then sure, you could have a gravity-driven perpetual motion machine.

It is trivial to obtain a photo ID in the US. Any objection to the law on difficulty is just being silly.

Seems like the thing to do is to bring a gun to the knife-fight

>> ^heathen:

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that some infinite sets are more dense than others, rather than bigger?
Whether or not the numbers of an infinite set could theoretically be listed both sets are still infinite in size.

If you take the set of natural numbers (1, 2, 3, ...) and the set of integers (.. -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...), you will see that the infinite set of natural numbers is encompassed within the infinite set of integers. Thus the infinite set of integers is "bigger" by any measure.

If you prefer to look at the set of integers within the set of real numbers, you could reasonably use the term "denser" since there is an infinite and uncountable set between any given pair of integers, but bigger is still a reasonable term.

They send the SWAT team for _suspected thieves_ now? What the hell?

I think the implication is that it cheats, but it does so in less than 2 milliseconds, so the human eye can't tell that the computer is cheating.

And the takeaway is that computers can react so quickly to human actions that they can assist more smoothly than another human.

Awesome. I played this back in 2009/2010 when I was interviewing the programmer for Owlboy. It pretty well convinced me that we needed to hire him.

I loved the poem, but this comment is still pretty funny. Upvote video _and_ comment.
>> ^quantumushroom:

Just say you're gay. It's faster.

So maths ...

according to this website: http://www.csgnetwork.com/stopdistinfo.html, a vehicle slows at roughly 15 feet per second per second, which means in the 0.2 seconds that it takes the bike rider to discover that the truck is braking, the speed of the 90km/h truck would have reduced to about 86-87km/h

which means while the bike will travel 5m in those 0.2 seconds, the truck will travel about 4.8m, putting him 20cm closer to the truck.

Once again, too close for my comfort, but I don't think I'd call it stupid. Just risky, like base jumping and wingsuits.

Seems likely to me that he'd be able to brake faster than the truck could break, and if the truck started pulling too far away leaving him exposed, he could coast on the shoulder till he can safely stop.

I'm not saying I would do this, but it doesn't seem all that dangerous. I guess the one thing to worry about would be road debris, since he can't see it coming.

Clearly seduction and not rape. You should be more careful about throwing that word around lest it lose its impact.

After reading this NY Times article, it doesn't sound as bad as they're making it out to be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/18immig.html?pagewanted=all

"eight-hour shift that began at 11 p.m"
"paid $8.35 an hour"
"[charged] $400 a month for rent"

One of the students is from Nigeria ($2300 per capita GDP), going to med school in Ukraine (3900 per capita GDP).

The only part that's wrong here is the J-1 visa and the government rules surrounding it. Visa fees on the order of $3000-6000 is just ridiculous, especially for a "cultural exchange" visa.

There may have been a bait and switch here, but this is certainly not a case of capitalistic exploitation by the Corporation. Bureaucratic exploitation by the government perhaps.

Here's that study you wanted

Assuming a mid-range estimate of 120m stops per year, the likelihood of the cop being killed in a traffic stop is 1 in 20 million.

Your chances of being attacked by a shark is 1 in 11.5 million, according to the University of Florida’s International Shark Attack File. Lightning strikes are a bit more common even than that.

>> ^MrFisk:

How many cars are pulled over in the U.S., in a year? How many result in a fatality to the officer? I'm trying to figure out if it's more likely they'll be shot, hit by lightning, or bitten by a shark.

I remember ArcAttack when they were wee little tesla coils in a back room at DragonCon. Good times

The Elastic Clause is a joke. It renders the 10th Amendment meaningless if interpreted in that fashion.

The founders didn't intend for the federal government to do all these arguably good things that government does. The founders intended for the state and local governments to handle the minutiae of governing our everyday lives. The federal government's purpose was merely to mediate between the states and ensure "regular interstate commerce".

The founders designed a Federation.

I'm sure we disagree on the value of the various programs instituted under the federal government, but if we had followed the proper procedures of constitutional amendment, we would have the most important of these in place, while keeping the size and scope of our government limited in a way that would have avoided our current indebtedness.