Last names as a way to determine ethnic diversity, lost me there.

Cool though, that makes my sister latin american.

Too bad I am stuck with a name thats probably German in origin.

Diversity is fine. It was the tolerance of the society to entertain the notion that feeding a bunch of good for nothing intellectuals was a noble idea that made a golden age possible. Also the possibility to travel and communicate, the spread of information was helpful. Language barriers came down. That tolerance ended around 1250. Muslim lands were still ethnically diverse after that, but no more tolerance for science.

So tolerance of different ideas, customs, religions, foreigners and races seems more important than attempting to induce diversity artificially.

Tolerance naturally leads to diversity - you can see this in areas like scientific teams, hi-tech companies, or top sports teams. If you want the best people you arrive at not evaluating their race, but their abilities. That is if the society around you lets you do that.

My friends son just spent 6 months working in a chemical lab in Sweden. Met few Swedes, mostly worked with people from all over the world. So he helped with a Swedish project, he can now go back to work on his own project and he knows all these people from around the world who work on similar stuff. No one gives a damn about what ethnicity any of the people involved are or if the lab was "diverse". They all concentrate on the project. If a commision goes in and starts counting how many Laplandian scientists are filling a quota the scientists would show the (imaginary) commision their collective middle finger or just leave.

So i would argue that ethnically diverse scientific teams are not more succesful because they are diverse, they are more successful because they are open and tolerant (and that has led to their diversity).

Forcing diversity will not bring the same result.

Long? Sorry.

Fuck all the billionaires.

Not one of them would be in any real way worse-off if you took half their money and just gave it away. In fact they'd be better off because they'd be living in a better world.

Billionaires fuck the planet up, they artificially induce poverty by sucking so much wealth away from workers, and worst of all, they're the biggest criminals of all!

Of all financial crimes in America, theft, fraud, etc. If you stacked all the 'crimes' people think of on one side and wage theft by these billionaires against poor and middle income families you'd see that wage theft is bigger than all other types of crime in terms of dollar figures put together.

Another entrant in the incredibly long line of adaptation / adaptive learning / intelligent systems / artificial intelligence demonstrations that aren't. The agents act based on a set of rules / freedoms/constraints prescribed by a human. The agents "learn" based on the objective functions defined by the human. With enough iterations (how many times did the narrator say "millions" in the video) . Sure, it is a good demonstration of how adaptive learning works, but the hype-fog is getting a big thick and sickening folks. This is a very complex optimization problem being solved with impressive and current technologies, but it is certainly not behavioural intelligence.

Yes, we're overpopulated. That doesn't invalidate my arguments.

I gave examples of multiple cultures that do what you claim is impossible. I never implied Americans would accept a lower standard of living, only that it's the right thing to strive for, and coming like it or not.

I grow 75% of the produce for two people on 3/4 acres.

Masses of people are going to die unnecessarily. Period. This could be avoided, but won't be. Our choice is accept less now, or have nothing later.

The dependence on fossil fuels for agriculture could be quartered with some minor changes with little drop in output. The western world won't make the investment needed to make that a reality. Also, the fossil fuel needed to make fertilizers is not a significant amount....maybe as little as 3%of natural gas produced.

There are millions of hungry people now without access to the artificially supported agriculture system who relied on natural sources that no longer exist. Aren't you concerned about them?

Name one I listed not supported by science.

Food shortages are preferable to no food.

The 3' estimate is old, based on estimates already proven miserably wrong. Like I said, Greenland is melting as a rate they predicted to not happen until 2075.

When tens of millions must flee low lying areas, and all low lying farmland is underwater, and much of the rest in drought or flood, what do you think happens?

By 2100, all estimates show us far past the tipping points where human input is no longer the driving force. Even the IPCC said we have until 2030 or so to cut emissions in half, and we are not lowering emissions, we're raising them. 50 years out is 75 years late....but better than never.....but we aren't on that path at all. Investment in fossil fuel systems continues to accelerate thanks to emerging third world nations like China and India making the same mistakes the Western world made, but in greater quantities.

The IPCC report said if we don't immediately cut emissions today, by half in 11 years and to zero in 30, then negative emissions for the next 50 that we're on track to hit 3-6C rise by 2100 and raising that estimated temperature rise daily....4C gives the 3' sea level rise by 2100 with current models, but they are woefully inadequate and have proven to be vast underestimation of actual melting already.

We may develop the necessary tech, we won't develop the will to implement it. Indeed, we're at that point today....have been for decades.

Yep, sure, no sacrifices needed. You can have it all and more and let the next guy pay the bill. What if we're the last guys in line?

Funny, isn't that what the Paris climate accord is? Sane leaders giving such stupidity serious consideration, because they understand it's not stupidity it's reality. Granted, they don't go nearly far enough, but they did something more than just claim it will be fixed in the future by something that doesn't exist today and ignoring human behavior and all trends, because using/having less is simply unacceptable.

We need a nice pandemic to cull us by 9/10 and a few intelligent Maos to drive us back to sustainability. We won't get either in time.

Frank, the high speed tracking camera guy, sounds a bit like he's got Stephen Hawking's artificial software voice. Kinda weird.

I guess Earworm missed someone...

https://videosift.com/video/The-Artificial-Intelligence-That-Deleted-A-Century

Your video, The Artificial Intelligence That Deleted A Century, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

A human that can strike fear into the heart of Artificial Intelligence.

Either way, he brought plenty more than needed.


Sidenote :
Everyone who shoots regularly (sport, not hunting) has thousands of rounds.
A 1k brick of 223 is ~28c per shot.
If you buy boxes of 20 each at the range, you're gonna pay closer to ~50c per shot.
If you go to the range 2x per month, firing 200 rounds per trip (6 or 7 mags worth), that's 2.5 months to empty a 1k brick.
~110 bucks/month if you buy 1k at a time.
~200 bucks/month if you buy individual boxes at the range.
The choice is simple. 1k bricks to save money.
So if you have 5 different caliber rifles, you have 5 1k bricks.
This is one of those "out of touch" sort of things with TV coverage. They make it sound like thousands of rounds is a lot to have.

Granted, I know hunters that have 40 rounds to their name, and it will take them 10 years to shoot all 40. One shot at season start to check zero. Then 1 or 2 more to take 1 or 2 deer. But they don't like to shoot, they like to hunt.



I googled 'rapid fire triggers'.

Geissele, Timney, Hypertouch, these are all normal triggers.
They are premium offerings. Smooth, low grit, low creep, clean crisp break.
They don't actually have any function that artificially increases rate of fire.
The marketing can fool you if you don't know what they are.
(It's like buying a "no name mouse" vs a "gamer mouse". One feels better, but you still click just as fast.)

Tac Con 3MR does have its own gimmick. It does a partial reset on every fire. Your finger still has to move forward and back to fire again, so you're still limited by your reaction time. In reviews it's no different than a normal trigger rate of fire wise.



4473 just asks if you've ever been convicted of a felony that could (not did) have had a 1 year sentence. That's a pretty broad set.

AFAIK, they all screw your right to vote. I could be wrong.


Note :
Sorry about edits mid your reply.
I have a habit of "word processing" in place - out of fear that I'll click back or something and lose my text.

-scheherazade

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

So, someone gave the bot with general artificial intelligence the goal of "make people happy by serving them ice cream" this is the horrifying, world ending result.

As artificial and awkward as Sebastian Vettel's victory celebrations. Nice sound and pictures.

Han Solo might be a good fit actually, in a positive way.

I don't support our pulling out of the Paris Accord. I think it was the wrong thing to do. And I don't mind GDP growth for other nations, even China. What I do mind is the notion that the world's greatest polluter can increase its amount of Co2 emitted and still be touted as successfully contributing to reduced Co2 emissions worldwide.

"Telling China to limit their total CO2 emission to pre 2005 values is like telling a teenager in the middle of puberty to limit their food consumption to the same amount as when they were 9 years old. It's just not an option."

Who's telling China to do that? I only suggested that China's pledge to reduce their Co2 emissions to 60-65% of their 2005 levels as a ratio of GDP isn't all that it's made out to be. Your analogy is faulty because food consumption is necessary for life, but spending billions on destroying coral reefs while making artificial islands in the South China Sea is not. The CCP certainly has the funds necessary to effect a bigger, better and faster transition to green energy. Put another way, I believe that China has the potential to benefit both their people through economic growth and simultaneously do more in combating global climate change. I simply don't trust their current government to do it. I've been living in China now for over 19 years...and one thing that strikes me is the prevalence of appearance over substance. Perhaps you simply give them more credence in the latter, while my own perception seems to verify the former.

"But their total emissions is still increasing! This is just a farce and they're doing nothing!"

The second half of your statement is a strawman. They are doing something, just not enough, imho. And China's emissions have yet to plateau, therefore it's not an achievement yet.

"Now you may say "China's not putting funds towards green energy!" Well, that's also not true. China already surpassed the US, in spending on renewable energy. In fact, China spent $103 billion on renewable energy in 2015, far more than the US, which only spent $44 billion. Also, they will continue to pour enormous amounts of resources into renewable energy, far more than any other country."

This is also misleading. What I'm suggesting is that China could do more. It's certainly a matter of opinion on whether the Chinese government is properly funding green initiatives. For example, both your article and the amounts you cite ignore the fact that those numbers include Chinese government loans, tax credits, and R&D for Chinese manufacturers of solar panels...both for domestic use AND especially for export. The government has invested heavily into making solar panels a "strategic industry" for the nation. Their cheaper manufacturing methods, while polluting the land and rivers with polysilicon and cadmium, have created a glut of cheap panels...with a majority of the panels they manufacture being exported to Japan, the US and Europe. It's also forced many "cleaner" manufacturers of solar panels in the US and Europe out of business. China continues to overproduce these panels, and thus have "installed" much of the excess as a show of green energy "leadership." But what you don't hear about much is curtailment, that is the fact that huge percentages of this green energy never makes its way to the grid. It's lost, wasted...and yet we're supposed to give them credit for it? So...while you appear to want to give them full credit for their forward-looking investments, I will continue to look deeper and keep a skeptical eye on a government that has certainly earned our skepticism.

""But China is building more coal plants!" Well that's not really true either. China just scrapped over 100 coal power projects with a combined power capacity of 100 GW . Instead, the aforementioned investments will add over 130GW in renewable energy. Overall, Chinese coal consumption may have already peaked back in in 2013."

Well, yes, it really is true. China announcing the scrapping of 103 coal power projects on January 14th this year was a step in the right direction, and certainly very well timed politically. But you're assuming that that's the entirety of what China has recently completed, is currently building, and even plans to build. If you look past that sensationalist story, you'll see that they continue to add coal power at an accelerating pace. As to China's coal consumption already having peaked...lol...well, if you think they'd never underreport and then quietly revise their numbers upwards a couple of years later, then you should more carefully review the literature.

"So in the world of reality, how is China doing in terms of combating global warming? It's doing a decent job. So no "@Diogenes", China is NOT the single biggest factor in our future success/failure, because it is already on track to meeting its targets."

Well, your own link states:

"We rate China’s Paris agreement - as we did its 2020 targets - “medium.” The “medium“ rating indicates that China’s targets are at the last ambitious end of what would be a fair contribution. This means they are not consistent with limiting warming to below 2°C, let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit, unless other countries make much deeper reductions and comparably greater effort."

And if the greatest emitter of Co2 isn't the biggest factor, then what is? I'm not saying that China bears all the responsibility or even blame. I'm far more upset with my own country and government. But to suggest that China adding the most Co2 of any nation on earth (almost double what the US emits) isn't the largest single factor that influences AGW...I'm having trouble processing your rationale for saying so. Even if we don't question if they're on track to meet their targets, they'll still be the largest emitter of Co2...unless India somehow catches up to them.

To restate my position:
The US shouldn't have withdrawn from Paris.
China is not a global leader in fighting climate change.
To combat climate change, every nation needs to pull together.
China is not "pulling" at their weight, which means that other nations must take up more of the slack.
Surging forward, while "developed" nations stagnate will weaken the CCP's enemies...and make no mistake, they view most of us as their enemies.
The former is part of the CCP's long-term strategy for challenging the current geopolitical status quo.
I believe that the Chinese Communist Party is expending massive amounts of resources abroad and militarily, when the bulk of those funds would better serve their own people, environment and combating the global crisis of climate change.

Oh, that explains a lot. The closer you get to downtown and to UT, the rent/sale value rises exponentially on houses I wouldn't let my pets live in. I've seen crappy 1940's houses that are falling apart listed for 400k and up that close to UT.

Yeah, Austin is pretty tame. I live in one of the sort of 'bad' areas and we never have had any issues. The closest I've ever come to real trouble is when I walking away from a music venue in south-east Austin a few years back. Three guys asked if I wanted to buy a knife and I, like a total idiot, was like "Sorry, I might have but I spent all my cash inside the club."

It was only after finished walking to my car and left that I realized they were kind of attempting to mug me.

Edit: On the flip side though, unless you live in a district the city keeps the taxes artificially low in (IE, east Austin), you get reamed. Our house is from the late 50's and is valued at 215k, but our yearly property/school taxes run over 4k. Since they just took out another huge bond, I expect next years will be closer to 5.

well done, but too smooth....sounds artificial in a weird way in my opinion.