Hai! this is most assuredly the country where the Game Boy was invented. *humble bow to the master of mobile button mashing and then back to my knees where I belong*

I was born in the late 70s and had the fortune to experience the early days of personal computing and the internet via BBSes. The biggest issue I've personally experienced with the modern internet is the ease at which you can get side-tracked by deep links. I've lost count of the number of times I've started researching something work-related in the evening only to end up linking through two or three related articles and ending up on a YouTube video about the latest game trailer or whatever.

I've also noticed that my reading habits have changed. Instead of reading articles in their entirety, I will, at times, read a few sentences to get the gist then scan ahead to continue reading. I never used to do this but it is something I've caught myself doing with greater frequency over the past couple of decades. This has tripped me up a few times where I've had to go back and read the information again. I wonder if children that have grown up with the modern internet and its web of distractions (pun intended) are even worse off.

Maybe our brains are trying to adapt to a new way of gathering and processing so much disconnected information (e.g. one minute you're reading about a physics algorithm the next minute about screaming space goats). Perhaps it is a way to contain information overload and only retain what is useful?

The internet is an AMAZING invention and something everyone should have access to and be taught how to use effectively. As was mentioned above, you can pretty much teach yourself anything using the internet. The challenge is staying focused and sifting through all the ads, fluff articles, and random garbage that you get bombarded with every time you browse a website.

It's a good thing someone just invented a new lithium battery (not lithium ion) with a plastic electrolyte that can't short out and explode and can produce 3 times the energy density of lithium ion batteries. I hope they go into production soon.

I learned just yesterday that the Chinese for giant panda is "Big bear cat" and for red panda their name is "Red bear cat". Asians, I like your crazy animals, but you need to get more inventive with the names.

hahaha...this is what happens when you try to flirt with ideologues.
they will adore you,shower you with praise and attention.
until you become a liability,and then you are treated like a mangy dog covered in herpes.

milo is smart,very smart,and i hope he can rebound from this but in a more positive and less....character driven way...i think he has something to say,but maybe this time don't play to the ugly underside of politics.

if he can re-invent himself with a genuine and honest approach.i think he can be a force to be reckoned with,but just stop with the prostituting his integrity to appeal to most base,and ugly tribalism that dominates republican thinking.

Um...51 BILLION?!?!!! That's a good trick with a population of around 7 billion.
How does it save every person that's ever died of malaria...and why would you do that? We're overpopulated enough already.
*quality inventions. I'm glad these immigrants got to go to Stanford instead of Mumbai Tech.

Bigfoot may have invented the sport of monster truck racing, but grave digger made it great with freestyle.
It doesn't get much more *motorsports

I think public opinion is low because we're talking about a culture that has quite a few barbaric customs, even for the time when they were invented.

As we've seen these customs are held onto so tightly, and I think a lot of people are worried about this as much as the terrorism. Listening to ex-muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, I'm not surprised people are afraid of these customs becoming a regular thing in their own countries.

Obviously not everyone is like that, hence the need for a good vetting process, to make sure the right people are coming.

Funny, but flawed it's own way.

Let me preface this commentary by saying I am not in any organized religion. I go back and forth in believing in God and also not being able to find proof he exists, basically an agnostic theist. So this is not in any way an attempt to 'prove' anything other than that I disagree with the way the video is portraying the biblical tale. I also know there are far more egregious examples than this story of God as an uncaring, flawed being with an uncertain temperament.

First, this story is one of the 'go to' stories that most atheists or anti-religion people look to for a clear example of the 'wrongness' of the bible or God. The reason is, if you don't take anything else into context, this story is massively damning! What god would call for a mass genocide out of the blue, right? Certainly not one people consider to be good!

But, if we look at the context of the bible in the Old Testament, we see that this is not wholly out of line for the character shown of God. If we take the statements of the bible as literal, then God has already shown he will destroy any threat to those he considers his 'chosen people'; even those who are/were part of that group.

In this case, the Amalekites were descendants of Esau. Esau was the brother of Jacob (later named Israel) and was supposed to inherit the blessing of his father, as well as command over the 'chosen people' of God. Esau was of rough nature and was a hunter. Once he was starving and went to Jacob, who tended the fields (sort of the Cain and Abel bit all over again), begging him for a bowl of lentil soup. Jacob told him that he would give him the bowl if Esau would pass his birthright (blessing and command) over to Jacob, since obviously Jacob was more able to care for his people than a solitary hunter. Esau agreed, but never really meant it, he was just hungry and was willing to say whatever he needed to so as to get that soup.

Jacob was dead serious though, so he took the birthright and became Israel, the leader of God's chosen. Esau was livid and swore to murder Jacob, who fled. Esau never got the birthright back, but he did sire the people who became the Amalekites, who in turn swore vengeance on Israel-ites.

This becomes important as time goes on, because basically every single time the groups encountered one another, the Israelites tried to be peaceful but the Amalekites always attacked.

By the time Saul was king, God chose to have him go and destroy the Amalekites, deeming them beyond saving. As he had told Moses during the first Amalekite attacks, he had Samuel tell Saul to blot their memory from history, wiping them out completely. Saul chose not to do this, sparing their king and some animals. Because of this, God replaced Saul with David.

So, now we come to the main part of the discussion. Like I said, this story is used quite often to show the capricious nature of God. However, like I said, it uses the story out of context. Now that we have the 'historical' description of the origin and ongoing nature of the conflict, we can put it into context.

If you are going to dissect the nature of 'God' as shown in the Old Testament, you have to look at the information given to show that nature. The bible says he is all-knowing, but it also says that he gave mankind free will. If you look on God as more of a creature running a simulation, he hopes that humanity will come to follow his rules of their own accord, even though he knows many will not. He chooses Israel and his descendants to be his 'messengers' to the other people that have chosen not to follow his rules, basically they are his missionaries that he hopes will lead his simulation to the proper conclusion.

Any group or race that tries to eradicate his messengers is a threat to his simulation, so he eventually will deal with them harshly. Sodom and Gomorrah, The Great Flood, and other examples of God deciding that he needs to protect his 'messengers' and clear off the playing board. In the case of the Amalekites, by this time period mentioned in the story, we are talking about generations of them trying to destroy the Israelites. So, God tells Samuel to tell Saul that they must be wiped from the playing board. Saul exercises his free will, therefore David enters the picture.

If you look at free will and God's choice of his messengers, as well as his protection of them, you get this story situation. By telling Saul to wipe them out, God is saying that he has tried to look the other way, but the Amalekites will never stop as long as they exist. Therefore they must be dealt with in a manner that will prevent them from rising as a people in the future and attempting harm to his messengers again.

It still doesn't paint God in a perfect light, but makes him more of a tinkerer. He keeps creating flawed inventions that choose to follow their own path and not his. The sad thing is, if you assume that he is all knowing, he knows this is going to be the end result. He creates angels and they turn on him. He creates humans and they turn on him. Then he creates Jesus, a combination of god and human, who doesn't turn on him. It is almost like he decides to create a Hero unit that can show the other simulations an easier path to winning.

Realistically and analytically, I know it doesn't make perfect sense. That is why I have my struggles with wanting to believe and then not being able to logically. If you choose to look at God as being a flawed creature (again, assuming that you believe he exists), the whole thing sort of makes more sense. In any case, we all have our own opinions and beliefs. I hope that my wordy post has explained how I try to work through mine.

Being caught on camera trying to pay people to implement their plan to disrupt the inauguration has proven to do nothing to deter Veritas from editing and using their footage to try to show that Dems are planning to disrupt the inauguration.
@bobknight33 , ready to call them liars yet? Keep in mind, this is where much of what you complain about comes from, right wing liars that dupe other right wingers into distrusting and hating the "other". I'll be incredibly surprised if your right wing radio and websites don't try to tell you this is real and dems are going to riot.



Note, contrary to his claim, the debunking video actually came out days before the Veritas video.
And others are already claiming #disruptJ20 (the hashtag Veritas invented to tag the people they wished to paint as disrupters) is really a pedophile recruitment organization in leagues with #pizzagate, probably hoping that another nutjob will attack them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HA-vHpVt8
Sweet Zombie Jesus...and rather than ostracize these repeatedly proven hardcore liars and frauds, the right embraces any bat shit crazy idea they spout and acts on them.

I enjoyed past reviews from Red Letter Media a lot. They were insightful and detailed. They made me watch some movies in a new light and gave me a better understanding of them. However....

Go fuck yourselves, you whiny bitches!

You know what these people deserve? Everytime they turn on any screen of any kind to watch something even slightly related to sci-fi, it only plays Episode 1. They can't pause it, they can't stop it. And the Pod race as well as the 3-way lightsaber fight are edited out in their entirety. Just to make sure the relentless shittiness contains no form of relief.
We're finally getting decent Star Wars movies and all we get it 'But it ain't the original trilogy!!111!!'.
You people need more dialogue about the uncomfortableness of sand between your ass-cheeks. Or battle scenes characters only survive by entering slapstick-routines.
Sure, TFA and R1 certainly aren't perfect, maybe not even good, but they are surely much better than the awful shit Lucas shat down our throats the last 3 decades on the big screen.
The characters aren't likable enough? Have you met fucking teenage Anakin? I wanna slap the midichlorians out of that whiny bitch-face everytime he's on screen. He's so unlikable, the first time I didn't want to choke him until the Force left his body was when he murdered a classroom full of schoolchildren. That's what it took to make me go from 'I'm supposed to sympathise with this whiny-faced asshole?!' to 'Ok, he's the villian now. I'm supposed to feel this way about him'
There's not enough context? Go fuck yourself. Should we go and add extra flashbacks to Batman vs Superman on how Bruce Wayne's parents got shot? Just in case you don't get why he's Batman yet?
If you don't know what the Force is or who's Darth Vader, get the fuck out of my movie theater, mom! You're clearly here because somebody else dragged into this 'space war movie'.
I get it, the new movies aren't the perfect jewels of film-making your 5-year old self remembers the original trilogy to be ('Let's scrap the Wookies and invent the more Teddybear-like Ewoks, for the toy-sales!') but this is your response?
You're an teenage Anakin. A whiny, insufferable, bitch-faced asshole.
I welcome a healthy, critical discussion about movies any time. What I won't accept is this ridiculous display of ungratefulness after we suffered the prequel trilogy.
Star Wars is finally getting decent again. And you people shit all over it like the last 3 movies were even worth watching.
I'd rather watch Twilight than endure the creepy, awkward romance sub-plot of Episode 2 again. At least Twilight made laugh. And don't get me started on those tax disputes that started all that crap in the first place.
If you can't appreciate a Salami Pizza because there's no Pepperoni on it, you aren't worth any Pizza at all.

Bullshit. There are lots of decisions you can make that can affect everyone. Having kids is not as distinct as you're making out. The 1%ers can make decisions which affect millions of people way more than me having a kid ever could.

Every single one of us is someone's kid. Your moral situation is no different to anyone's, including my offspring. You can't separate yourself from any parent child thing, you're already intrinsically connected to that relationship. Your life is made better every day by things that other people do. Things that other people have invented, created. You're kept safe by people dying to protect you.

You live in a world made entirely of the work of other people's kids.

Interesting hypothesis.

She should probably give more credit to the generation above her. It's the same old miscalculation and underestimation I see time and again. The generation above her are just as adaptable, caring, etc as her generation but in different circumstances. They are the ones who brought the world together for her generation to enjoy (they invented just about every high tech thing she enjoys).

Nice condescending line there too, "statistics tell us Trump voters are uneducated". Implying they have no education. Perhaps she should have said less educated.

"Older voters didn't grow up with the internet". True. A group of older voters invented it though. And the rest adapted to using it just fine.

"Teach older folks about climate change". FFS. Really? Perhaps if she looked she'd find that the scientists leading the charge on climate change are "older folks". They've been doing it since before she was born.

"And how to sort out hoaxes on the internet". Like younger people are any better. Lol.

Actually getting a little bored now. She's provided no data to back up anything. Just a stream of consciousness diatribe insulting just about anyone over 40. How thoughtful of her. Not hypocritical at all.

Side note: there was no competition to win the popular vote. You can't win something there is no contest over. Hillary received more of the vote we call the "popular vote". She didn't win anything. Just like you don't win the most yards gained. It is just another metric that has zero bearing on the outcome of the competition.