[redacted]

>> ^Mcboinkens:
To be fair, what has the ISS accomplished? It seems ignorant to ask, and the budget is much, much smaller in comparison, but if we are arguing what spending could be cut, pretty much anything could be a target.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-gR9040fw

Because it's what's next. Right now it seems a drowsy step as we tumble into the larger stellar neighborhood, but every step we take away from our cradle ensures that it will not necessarily be our grave. The distances involved seem insurmountable, but so too did the distance between Eurasia and the Americas might have seemed to an ancestor, astride a hollowed out log (and even then, the Polynesians navigated unimaginable distances with tech that was hardly better than that ancestor). We need this as a species. I believe but cannot prove that a greater malaise has infected us as a species due to light pollution. Take a city kid out to a field in the middle of nowhere, and show him the Milky Way in all its glory, and he will gasp in transcendental delight. We no longer see such wonders, except as static images in books and on TV. We do need to feed the masses of humanity, but I believe that an understanding of our place in things makes us more likely to see that we are 'trapped' here, and need to care for our fellow prisoners, and that we will never truly escape unless we all go as one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVbnRbTi5XA

Socratic dialogue:

Blanfisticles: People donate more to causes that are threatened, therefore we must eliminate all funding for causes in order to increase their revenues!

Dystopianysus: Uhh, dude, you're nuts, tax cuts don't increase revenues cutting government funding to a program won't increase its revenue.

Blankfisticles: Whose responsibility is it to give to charitable causes, government, or people?

Dystopianysus: You're changing the subject.

Blankfisticles: So?

Dystopianysus: *sigh* Very well. I say it's everyone's responsibility to look out for other people, and that's why I don't see why setting up a society-wide arrangement like government funding for charitable programs bothers you.

Blankfist: You're an idiot. And a statist. And Thoreau was an anarchist, and as we all know he's an infallible person who you're a moron for not listening to. And no, I don't plan on living in a shack in the middle of nowhere, are you crazy too?

Blankfisticles: Shut up, id. What I mean to say is that helping people should come from the free and voluntary choices of individuals. No one should be forced to do anything not of their choosing.

Dystopianysus: And what if an insufficient number of people donate to charity, and it results in mass suffering? What then?

Blankfist: That won't happen.

Blankfisticles: I said SHUT UP, id. Excuse me, I mean to say that I would give all I had, and get on a soapbox to shout and yell to encourage others to give all they could to help the massive suffering, but I would never once put the threat of force on anyone.

Dystopianysus: But isn't it the duty of all people to help those in need?

Blankfisticles: Yes, but they shouldn't be forced to live up to that duty.

Dystopianysus: How is that a duty then? It's not a duty if you can choose not to live up to it without any consequences.

Blankfist: Still, you just shouldn't. Because.

Blankfisticles: People own themselves, and also own their lives, therefore people own the product of the labor they spend time on, and it should never be taken away from them just like your arm shouldn't be taken away from them. To say otherwise is to say that you can enslave another man, and you disagree with slavery don't you?

Dystopianysus: So what you're saying is that while you say it's our moral duty as individuals to help those in need, you're going to refuse to voluntarily agree to a social contract that formalizes that duty into a legal requirement to contribute money to charitable causes?

Blankfisticles: Pretty much.

NetRunner von Freud: Blankfisticles, have you ever considered the possibility that your affinity for these anti-tax philosophies is being driven by your more basic impulses, and that you just use them as post-hoc justifications for things you wanted to do anyways?

Blankfist: *gay

NetRunner von Freud: Sigh.

I dunno. I thought it was absolutely badass and creative. I especially loved when the jet platform flew off into the middle of nowhere. They should make it scream like a Looney Tunes character as it flies off, though.

>> ^guymontage:

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm
Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.
I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurren
ce
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.

The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.
If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.
More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.


fantastic. i would be very happy if science could disprove this theory. but we're still looking at probability.

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm

Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.

I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurrence
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.


The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.

If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.

More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.

^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
People who behave in ways that are this foolish deserve probationary, limited voting rights for a time.

First off, lets ignore how trivial it would be to buy small worthless plots of land in the middle of nowhere just for the ability to vote. It's just a poll tax by another name. The ability to get around the restriction will just lead to a stronger desire for restrictions by those who can vote, which leads to my next point.

While removing a non-random sample of people from the voter pool would affect voting trends, it also removes representation for those removed. Politicians wouldn't have to worry about proposing legislation that hurt those who can't vote as long as it benefited those who can. That may seem like a good thing if you believe it will consolidate power with a group you agree with, but once power shifts to someone you don't like then there are far fewer avenues available to combat their policies.

Voter exclusion is not a path to "better" voters because you cannot accurately predict the effects of such a specific change in a complex system. Conservatives talk all the time about the "unintended consequences" of government intervention in free markets. Restrictions that are meant to fix one problem create entirely unforeseen new problems that can be even worse than the original issue, and that becomes very powerful and dangerous when those changes are distilling the views of a specific subset of the population.

>> ^silvercord:

>> ^volumptuous:
This planet would be one hell of a lot more fun of religious zealots stopped blowing eachother up over claims to some piece of shit desert in the middle of nowhere.
Horowitz is a well known hardcore piece of shit who has backed wholesale slaughter and land grabs for years and years. This girl is an idiot. Both of them should just kill eachother.

"if relgious zealots stopped blowing each other up . . . "
"Both of them should just kill each other."
Well? Which way do you want it?


I should've been more clear.

The zealots should kill eachother, not the general populations who are just trying to go about their days and feed their kids and work their shitty jobs and not die of dysentery.

So good! Nicely said.

>> ^volumptuous:

This planet would be one hell of a lot more fun of religious zealots stopped blowing eachother up over claims to some piece of shit desert in the middle of nowhere.
Horowitz is a well known hardcore piece of shit who has backed wholesale slaughter and land grabs for years and years. This girl is an idiot. Both of them should just kill eachother.

>> ^volumptuous:

This planet would be one hell of a lot more fun of religious zealots stopped blowing eachother up over claims to some piece of shit desert in the middle of nowhere.
Horowitz is a well known hardcore piece of shit who has backed wholesale slaughter and land grabs for years and years. This girl is an idiot. Both of them should just kill eachother.


"if relgious zealots stopped blowing each other up . . . "

"Both of them should just kill each other."

Well? Which way do you want it?

This planet would be one hell of a lot more fun of religious zealots stopped blowing eachother up over claims to some piece of shit desert in the middle of nowhere.

Horowitz is a well known hardcore piece of shit who has backed wholesale slaughter and land grabs for years and years. This girl is an idiot. Both of them should just kill eachother.

>> ^NinjaInHeat:

An American father and his daughter catching giant lizards in Saudi Arabia, the father knows exactly what species it is and what to expect its behavior to be, some how I doubt they're just harassing animals for shits and giggles. All I can say is that most people should be so lucky to experience such a childhood, quality if I've ever seen it.


I know what a uromastyx is, but I wouldn't sit there chasing it all over the place, holding it down for no reason. The thing is like a giant horned lizard only more exotic. What I don't understand is why it was way out in the middle of nowhere like that--no shelter or food can be seen in the video, and it was obviously feeling very vulnerable. If this reptile were gravid, it's likely that kind of stress could kill the babies.

Do shit with your kids, fine, but teach them to respect nature, not abuse it.

This is really a prime example of exactly what is wrong with "arbitrary law" and the government in general. One guy thinks he has all the answers (sorry jwray I know you mean well) but unfortunately he choses the wrong sources to base his science on, and he gets it completely wrong....instead of a bunch of laws which "help reduce our health care costs" we have a bunch of wasteful taxation which does the exact opposite.

Every idea sounds great when it springs forth from you brain...and I'll even admit jwray not even a couple years back I have made this exact argument: Tax alcohol and use it to fund liver transplants...tax cigarettes and use it to fund lung cancer treatment, etc. The reality is such taxes are anti-human; because a tax on a personal choice is passing judgment on the way someone choses to live their life - when it does not affect you in the slightest.

If someones personal choices affect your life, then yes, pass all the judgment you want, take them to court or call 911 but if I want to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere and buy a deep fryer, cigarettes, booze, soda, and potato chips from www.unhealthylifestyleproducts.com who are you to tack on perceived "healthcare costs" ?

>> ^cybrbeast:
. EOD are not snipers!


From what I understand, EOD personnel are trained in the use of the Barret for long range explosive detonation. I can buy them taking out an entrenched enemy sniper, especially one bunkered in a lone structure out in the middle of nowhere (although this particular enemy sniper was pretty damn effective), but yeah...I agree that tagging the runner was a bit of a stretch.

Man. I hope that bus driver was fired. The driver, at the least, was doing the exact opposite of their job. It reminds me (I know this is a more extreme example) of the RCMP in northern Canada taking native people for being drunk out in the middle of nowhere and kicking them out of their cars. Needless to say in the winter in northern Canada that can be fatal.