Huh. How does this work? I mean, this is a pretty elementary question, but it seems it's a pimped-up peg leg - the only actuator is at the ankle, right? So no muscle or motor to bend or extend the knee joint? Which would explain the slightly odd gait - he'd have to throw his foot ahead a bit to get his leg to straighten out.

edit: I'm an idiot. It's a below-the-knee amputation.

Chernobyl was a big cock-up allright, as was Fukushima, although that seems to have been less severe.

What would you say is the most dangerous form of energy production we have now? What about the safest? Look up "Deaths by terawatt hour", you might be surprised.

Even wind power has killed about 3 times as many people per TWH produced as nuclear, AFAIK mainly due to the amounts of steel and concrete used in constructing the plants, the production of which is relatively dangerous. Coal is on a different planet altogether, killing about 1500 times as many people per TWH as nuclear.

Even if you assume the total deaths from nuclear power production are underreported and underestimated by a factor of 10, that would still only put it on par with solar power in terms of people killed to produce energy.

Now, nuclear isn't a cureall solution to our energy problems. Even if we wanted to, we simply couldn't build enough power plants to cover all our energy needs with nuclear, you've got the storage issue, you've got the issue of plant placement, and in general relying on one technology alone is a bad idea.

Still. Coal. 1500 times as deadly. How many articles and videos have you seen on how scary coal is? What gives?

Porn is, as per Potter Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio, a thing that you know when you see it. An interesting thing for a SCOTUS justice to say in the 60's, seeing as it implies a certain... familiarity with the subject matter.

Do you think Maru's owner gets enough views to make a living from the ad revenue on these vids? I'd imagine they must be close, if anyone can do it.

Back when I was a kid starting to think about what to do, profession-wise, it was all about "new media". No-one quite seemed to know what that actually meant, but I'm pretty sure even the most visionary vocational guidance councelor never suggested to anyone that a career of filming a cat getting into cardboard containers might be worth considering. And yet...

Imagine going back into art and media schools in the 90's to show the teachers what their new field is going to turn into!

Spoilers do follow:

What bugged me most was that as a last ditch attempt to save humanity, the NASA successors in the film decided to spend all their time and resources on sending first scouts, then hopefully colonists through an unprecedented wormhole, in the hopes that a suitably survivable planet might be found on the other side. To judge by the film, a lifeless, icy waste without a breathable atmosphere was considered a decent candidate.

So against that background, we come back from the wormhole to a city-sized space station, complete with lawns and baseball.

Why all the trouble? With that level of tech apparently within reasonable reach, why not at least consider colonizing a planet in our own solar system? Why risk everything on a complete unknown?

Man, until the end credits rolled, I was sure David OReilly had started doing live action shorts...

Well, see, it's only censorship if the gubmin' does it. This, it's freedom.

What are the streaks that don't appear to originate at the piece of uranium? Other radiation sources?

I want to like it, but this trailer makes it seem very cheesy. Here's hoping it's actually a comedy, that might work!

Without friction, you're not going to have much control.

Just one thing... Avoid doing this without full-length pants. You'd be surprised how easily you get rope burn doing this in shorts. I knew a guy who managed to get blood poisoning from it.

I don't buy for a minute the idea that Sony alone made the call to cancel the release.

What do you do when you get hit and threatened by what appears to be a rogue state, like happened to Sony? You go to the cops. Probably the FBI in this case. After that, considering your company is now in the middle of an international diplomatic situation involving an unstable nuclear power, you get some considered advice from the US state dept. (probably) on how to proceed.

Judging by the outcome, the decision was it's best to cancel the release to avoid making the situation worse, but to make it Sony's call, because a western government would rather not be seen bending to terror or demanding censorship.

So now 14 lions go hungry. And what about the cubs, huh?

That's going to be the time the cops (or anyone else with access) can reroute or stop a car at will, without the passengers having any say in it. Of course, taking this thinking to the logical conclusion, humans wouldn't have much input in the whole system in the first place.

I think I'm going to go watch Colossus: the Forbin project now...

The dog learned to go down a flight of stairs. The cat learned to watch its back. Different lessons.