sandworm

I had just been mountaineering the day before, which explained the cuts. But the real joke was that I couldn't go home. It was a boarding school. To her credit, she thought I was a day student too afraid to go home. Not to her credit, she should have talked to me or the teacher who took a group of us climbing BEFORE launching an investigation.

I was bored with the common rooms and just wanted to read a book. Where I got and hid the keys she never found out.

"Cheating undermines meritocracies and is therefor frowned upon by those in control of such."

I'd say that qualifies as a moral fact and most all would call it an accurate description of a state of affairs, a fact.

"All men are created equal" is not a fact, or even an opinion imho. It is a hope, a dream of people trying to describe an ideal state of affairs. That it isn't a "fact" doesn't mean that it cannot be something to believe in and strive for.

I don't believe this. Either the doc has deliberately kept his eyes shut or hasn't spent much time talking to patients. Incest, a term wide than but inclusive of most 'child abuse', is far more widespread than laypersons realize. Docs see it regularly and geneticists debate the ethics of tests any test which might reveal family secrets.

http://blogs.nature.com/spoonful/2011/02/qa_the_insidious_an...

My vpn is often blocked at airports and the like. I doubt the would dare block a google server.

And I totally dismiss logic dictating that we must only deal with the largest and most contentious contributors to a problem before all others. That is only a delay tactic.

Really. I learned to play on an OIL course. They mixed oil and sand to create a fairway and we carried around a piece of astroturf to place under the ball (see http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22230833). A grass course in a desert (ie most every course in california) is a totally unnecessary waste of water.

When they stop spending water on golf, THEN we can talk about rationing water for household use.

(Fyi, the airbase that picture was THE airbase for the first gulf war. The f117s would land there at night. Seeing a black triangle open white landing gear on approach was like something out of the x-files.)

I'm reminded of the first calls (90s->2002, not the later programs) for bids to replace the KC-135. There were only two real contenders, Airbus and Boeing. Airbus's first reaction was essentially: "why even bother."

SpaceX might be profitable today. It might be very profitable tomorrow. But because of the classified nature of the industry that can change in a heartbeat. Fall out of favour with certain government agencies and suddenly that constant stream of background checks slows, deadlines get missed, and profits become loss. There are many fingers on many kill switches.

Maybe the company is or will be a great success, but that success comes only with permission. Investors beware: Balance sheets are only half the story. The other half is not open for inspection.

I just tested my devices. Linux machines running firefox all passed. On the other hand my Android phone did not, lots of RSA_EXPORT ciphers accepted.

But as with nearly every security story: linux/foss software for the WIN!

For instance, a tax break by government to help "the middle class" shouldn't be helping lawyers and doctors. They aren't middle class. Progressive taxation or benefits should not aid those earning 200k/year.

What does it say about a society where lawyers, doctors and professors are considered "middle class"? These are educated professionals. They earn, or should earn, higher-than-average wages. But today such professions are looked down upon.

Why would anyone want to be a doctor? They spend their time dealing with old/sick people. Even a lawyer has to keep appointments, has to show up to work regardless because other people plan their day around meetings with lawyers.

It was not that long ago that people dreamed and struggled to complete the education necessary to enter these professions. Today they are looked down upon as labourers, wage earners whose pay is a function of their skill and the number of hours worked. Instead we praise property owners, capitalists, whose investments and pensions are instead a function of how much property they already own.

It is time to properly tax investment income and start respecting those who actually work for a wage,.

Look at the space program. All those astronauts put on a good show. They look like they all play baseball together on weekends. In reality, they are bunch of very assertive and competitive Type-A personalities that, absent the overwhelming desire to fly into space, would rip each other to shreds. They get the job done because it is a job, not highschool.

What you get are a bunch of new hires who's only qualification over the not-hired is that they put on a good show for the interviewers. I'd say they are the best actors, but that doesn't cover those very good actors who make the mistake of playing the wrong part. Say you are willing to work through weekends to meet deadlines ... oops sorry, you guessed wrong. In this office that attitude is too competitive. We are going with those who guessed "no, weekends are for relaxing" and don't think you would get along with them.

The message this sends to current employees is also evil: if you don't fit in perfectly we don't want you. So everyone shows up to work in costume, wearing a mask, because they fear standing apart. Bring the wrong suit or express the wrong opinion and you might not "fit" anymore. We often hear about a lack of visible diversity in IT. How can we expect to achieve visible diversity if we cannot yet tolerate emotional and cultural diversity? Employees and prospective employees should be judged on on their work product, not on their ability to emotionally camouflage themselves.

Did Office Space teach us nothing?

An all-electric car could have as few as a hundred moving parts. A few motors and connecting rods, some suspension componants, fans and a couple manual controls. You just don't need the thousands of tiny metal bits necessary to keep a gas/diesel engine ticking over. Better yet, those parts you do need can be generic. Electric motors are nothing special, nor are batteries. Since they do not mechanically interact they don't need to be as engine/vehicle specific as parts today. Once EVs become the norm, and the teething problems of EVs are worked out, aftermarket replacements will be everywhere.

Build a car from non-rusting carbon fiber, fill it with easily replaceable generic parts, and you've got a recipe for vehicles lasting decades. THAT's what the car companies really fear.

It's a port city. Like New York, Vancouver or any other city connected to the outside world San Francisco gets waves of different immigrants with each generation. Today's wealth is just another gold rush, of which SF has seen many. It's a boom-and-bust city.

I knew one at school (2006) who really hated being thanked because he really didn't feel he was doing anything for his country. He had a sick kid. His only reason for serving in the army was his daughter's medical care. He saw the thanks, more specifically accepting the thanks, as a sort of lie. For him it was a job, a very good job. He openly admitted to being a mercenary. I think that actually protected him from some of doublethink: he was under no illusions about why he was fighting.

I also met a Vietnam vet once who stayed away from any vet activities. He wasn't damaged. As a pilot he enjoyed the war and hated how everyone made assumptions about his experiences. He hadn't been shot down, or even shot at. Accepting the empty "thanks" felt like validating misconceptions.

"The Recurrent and Metastatic Breast Cancer Data Collection Project Pilot report" http://www.ncin.org.uk/view?rid=1043

"Fifteen breast cancer units across England took part in the pilot for six months from June to November 2011. They identified 598 patients with recurrent and/or metastatic breast cancer, who were then matched with the National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring Dataset (NCWTMDS) and with data received by cancer registries."

It looks like the UK has been doing exactly what the OP found wasn't happening in the US: centralized databases.

Better animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6SmlOEzNBs

Watch the barrel. In the OP the entire barrel floats up and down slightly. That's incorrect. The breech end of the barrel moves up and down, the other end not so much. This is important because the angle between the barrel and the next round doesn't change in the former. Check the vid at about 3:24, after the assembly, to see what I'm talking about.

Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKRMcTlbWTs

And the recoil animation is wrong. The gun in the OP is recoiling while the bullet is still in the barrel. That's logical, but in reality recoil only gets going after the bullet is away. Once it's out of the way the remaining propellants really accelerate, causing the bulk of the recoil. That's why recoil doesn't impact accuracy. Flinching in anticipation of recoil is another matter.

Watch this gun at 00:10 and note it doesn't move until the bullet is long gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9Eos9bJDk

Proper 1911 recoil animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3IFJXxyEs&list=PL1469B47BB...

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture2b.html

That is basically how the common law functions today. Harm people and you are personally punished. Harm property and you must pay for that property. Criminal law and civil law, crimes and torts.

*Of course the "property" in the original were actually slaves, but the principal holds.

There other, older, legal traditions but they rarely are relevant to modern jurisprudence.

Sure. Corporations often cooperate with the hackers caught climbing around their systems. "I see you've already taken my keys. Perhaps we can come to some sort of key-sharing arrangement?"

No doubt this will be downvoted, but I would go with some basic legal texts. The law has been part of civilization from the beginning (Hammurabi). Something like Blacks Law Dictionary would be vitally important in setting up a reliable system post-zombie.

I got one for christmas. Whatever that books says, sharks CANNOT be scared away by splashing.

The version I got was probably a little dated.

http://globalnews.ca/news/754673/july-2013-the-all-time-drie...

Take a look at these images from January and December of last year. It is very hard to believe canada can be like this in winter. (I just grabbed a couple from my phone).

http://i.imgur.com/Kv9y42n.jpg http://i.imgur.com/4bTEfbr.jpg

I would imagine that some might be cut in. Laser? I presume that such numbers wouldn't create the changes needed for this technique.

The problem with Netflix really starts long before the consumer. With something like Black Books, which predates the netflix concept, nobody has universal distribution rights. The original creator, the BBC, long ago sold the American rights to someone else (PBS?). So there is nobody from which Netflix can purchase worldwide rights. Netflix instead purchases whatever rights they find and must mirrors them. Netflix very recently spoke out on this issue.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/netflix-upholds-geoblocking-...

I took my dog to the dog beach this morning. Sunny and 12* ABOVE. We had one day of snow this year. And the "wet coast" is really a myth. Seattle gets rain, but Vancouver is tucked behind Vancouver Island and is much drier.

In all seriousness, the real estate market is driven by people with money, the investor class. They are older and do not necessarily work, or they work internationally and can park their families anywhere they want. So Vancouver, being Canadian but without Canadian winters, is something different. I think Toronto will burst long before Vancouver.

The Chinese people I talk to in my neighbourhood all talk of Canada and Australia as more "stable" than the UK, China or the US. I'm not surprised. If all you have to go on are news reports, the US and UK don't come off well.