Domain: darwinawards.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to darwinawards.com.
Comments · 470
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Re:Shame on you Facebook!
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Re:Magnesium
It may not be explosive, but you're still playing with fire.
(only fire-related Darwin Award I could find in my brief search) -
Re:If children are our future...
It's called survival of the fittest. Darwin Awards.
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Re:Yah...
Meet Lawn Chair Larry. The site has also a similar story about another person who tried that and got nominated for the award as he wasn't quite as lucky as Larry.
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Re:Greed is Good
Well, to use the current Darwin Award rules, death is not required. Inability to reproduce is. Specifically, sterilization is a viable alternative. So, given sufficient quantities of sufficiently hot coffee dumped into a crotch (which, by normal human physiology, is necessary to reproduction), non-lethal hot coffee burns may qualify.
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Re:I must not use it?
I believe he uses the word "must" as in "you must not try to check if your gas tank with a lighter". You are free to do so, but he wants to tell you that it is a bad idea. And in his opinion, it is a ridiculously bad idea. It is certainly worse than proprietary software, and we all know what he thinks of that.
I would have to agree with him. Preferring software as a service vs. software running on your machine is a bad idea. It might be convinient in many cases, but you shouldn't trust a third party with your data and your work, especially when you can avoid it. It might not look that bad, but as you already have the tools on your computer, it's not worth it even if the issues don't look like a big deal to you.
This does not apply in each case you use 'software as a service'. Examples of acceptable use of software running on someone else's server would include using Slashdot for news discussion, using web hosting services and using GNU Savannah for your software project. His point is not to use Google Docs to edit your private documents, and not to use Gmail to send your private mails, or to be more specific - not to let them become a replacement for your office suite and mail client/server.
Of course, avoiding any software services is nuts, it is not needed, and it is not even possible. And running a program on your friend's server doesn't hurt, either. You should, however, be well aware of the risks. Unfortunately, in many cases you have to trust your data to a third party. Read stories about leaked private information here lately? Then I say you shouldn't let your word processing and spreadsheet needs become a part of those cases. Simply don't do it.
I totally disagree. I realize there may be some inconveniences with using online services sometimes, but we should try and face the challenges to solve those issues, instead of simply tagging them as evil.
If there are privacy issues, we should look for ways to avoid them, by using cryptography or legistlation where necessary.
It's all about progress. We wouldn't be doing ourselves a favor by just rejecting it. We should embrace it and fix whatever issues show up in the way.
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Re:I must not use it?
I believe he uses the word "must" as in "you must not try to check if your gas tank with a lighter". You are free to do so, but he wants to tell you that it is a bad idea. And in his opinion, it is a ridiculously bad idea. It is certainly worse than proprietary software, and we all know what he thinks of that.
I would have to agree with him. Preferring software as a service vs. software running on your machine is a bad idea. It might be convinient in many cases, but you shouldn't trust a third party with your data and your work, especially when you can avoid it. It might not look that bad, but as you already have the tools on your computer, it's not worth it even if the issues don't look like a big deal to you.
This does not apply in each case you use 'software as a service'. Examples of acceptable use of software running on someone else's server would include using Slashdot for news discussion, using web hosting services and using GNU Savannah for your software project. His point is not to use Google Docs to edit your private documents, and not to use Gmail to send your private mails, or to be more specific - not to let them become a replacement for your office suite and mail client/server.
Of course, avoiding any software services is nuts, it is not needed, and it is not even possible. And running a program on your friend's server doesn't hurt, either. You should, however, be well aware of the risks. Unfortunately, in many cases you have to trust your data to a third party. Read stories about leaked private information here lately? Then I say you shouldn't let your word processing and spreadsheet needs become a part of those cases. Simply don't do it.
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Re:All aspects of securerom?
Or, if you're an idiot, a 100% chance of blowing your brains out.
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They have already... several times...
The Darwin Awards have been doing that for us for years.
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Re:Yeah really
So, the abuser uses this service and finds out you are calling from a cell phone...perhaps even the same cell phone number you have had for years. How does this help them find out exactly where you are?
Of course, if you did not disable their ability to get Google Latitude updates about your location, perhaps you are Darwin Award worthy.
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Re:neodarwinism
I suppose I did read your
this
broadly.
To properly address your point then, I offer you some examples where average scientifically-minded people think of evolution as a Darwin-centric idea, or where Darwin is a synonym for natural selection:
- Darwin Fish bumper stickers
- The infamous Darwin Awards
- The term Social Darwinism
- National Geographic's obsession with Darwin for the man's 200th birthday anniversary, including tonight's show Darwin's Secret Notebooks
- Various articles published in respected science journals like Nature, such as Kevin Padian's Darwin's Enduring Legacy, stating that "perhaps no individual has had such a sweeping influence on so many facets of social and intellectual life as Charles Darwin."
- The annual "international recognition of science and humanity," called Darwin Day Celebration
These are just a few examples of how Darwin is used to encapsulate the entire field of evolutionary biology. Sure, professional biology scientists may not use Darwin's name so casually, but is there any wonder why average people who support the theory of evolution also appear to idolize Darwin?
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Re:Leica
The inability to experience compassion is a warning sign of a psychopathic personality.
Thanks for the warning... I'm guessing you've never heard of the Darwin Awards? Some people find them humorous.
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Re:Cold beer
Fridges may be cold-blooded killers, but still need human assistance.
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Re:2nd warning label following the initial
Heck, I'm still quite a few years from 40 and still played cops and robbers, watched "violent" roadrunner cartoons, and pretended to "shoot" people with my finger in elementary school. All things that supposedly that are "harmful" yet i'm a productive member of society, don't do drugs, have a steady job, good education...and so on.
I'm not
:(. But maybe it's not too late yet; I'm sure these things must be stashed on P2P somewhere !But seriously, Road Runner cartoons are great at driving home the point that people who do stupid things with hazardous devices often have unpleasant things happen to them
;). I still remember the one where the Coyote was attempting to unstuck a ton of rocks - from beneath ! "What the heck am I doing ?" indeed. And if this guy had seen it, maybe he would still be with us.Maybe that's the real problem with today's youth - they haven't seen enough blood, so they haven't formed the association "goes kaboom -> danger". If you look at those old fairy- and folk tales, they all spend a great deal of time showing how people who don't think things through get the shaft. It makes me wonder if all the hysteria about children seeing sex or violence isn't actually increasing the chances that they'll grow up violent perverts.
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Re:For the love of God.....
Hey, isnt so bad, they will make the fastest cars in history. Wonder what will be the speed when they hit the ground. Maybe even faster than this one
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Re:Slashdot
Its slashdot for God's sake. If you can't laugh at someone's death here where can you?
4chan.
Yeah, definitely 4chan.
And of course here where it's expected to laugh yer ass off.
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Re:Oh no!
I think there's a Darwin award about that.
That one was an Honorable Mention.
There was nothing honorable about mentioning it here, though.
/ouch //FAP FAP FAP FAP -
Re:Uh
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Re:Some Darwin awars ready and waiting
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Your going to really confuse future scientists
If you do this, and then we suffer a major catastrophe wiping out our technology and records, and you have a few of these guys running around, you're going to really confuse folks in the future.
Now they were there, then they weren't, then they were there again?
They are going to find one of those guys frozen in ice on a ski resort somewhere 10 million or so years in the future when the sun goes into a solar maximum and the whole of society is beating themselves up because they are arrogant enough to believe they are the cause of global warming. They are going to find traces of Pizza and Cappuccino in his stomach use it to speculate about the plants and animals that existed at the time of his demise.
Then some fat professor is going to espouse a popular theory that we evil human beings exterminated most of the Neanderthal 100 million years ago with genocide and left no remains to be unearthed. They will create fancy computer animated models 'proving' to the public just how bad we were. There will then be midnight vigils and a renewed effort to clone the Neanderthal once again. Affirmative action will insure they get a top notch education and preferred jobs and opportunities even though the only thing they can do is swing a club and grunt. Finally, both races eventually end up in extinction and the earth can finally rids itself of the vermin and disease that roamed its surface for millennia.
I think it deserves a Darwin Award. But who will be around to give it? -
Re:I'm amazed
Although stupid people die more, so you tend to get slightly more bright people in older age groups, meaning that actually, slightly less than 50% of people are of below average intelligence.
Small comfort eh? -
Re:His site?
It's here.
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Re:Takes all kinds
After this post, I have to mention the Darwin Awards.
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Re:Darwinlinky http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2000-11.html
now that's crappy driving.
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Re:Darwin Award here we come
The Darwin Award rules state that the asshat must cause his own demise.
Unfortunately when it comes to accidents caused by self-impaired driving, the victim is often not the asshat driver but an innocent bystander who would otherwise be looking forward to decades of fulfilling life. This disqualifies the asshat from the Darwin Award.
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Re:Battery?
You'll be wanting to check this out then.
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Re:FireFox successfully D.O.S. attacked themselvesMaybe the Mozilla team can get the Guinness Book of World Record's "Most effective self inflicted denial of service attack." Yeah, they should have gone for the Darwin Awards instead of Guinness...
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Re:Are you sure they're thrown away?
The jet engine on the car thing was debunked, though I think someone should try to make it a reality...
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Re:Not big brother?Isn't the question more if the student is learning something or not? If a student is absent for most of the lessons and scores full at all tests - is there a problem?
Maybe it's better to set up a check that if a student fails three tests in a row and has been absent for most of the time that student isn't fit to be present anyway and can choice between go dumpster diving or attend and learn something.
But of course - it's sure a lot funnier to gang up listening to hip-hop (or whatever it's called today, sounds the same anyway) and smoke pot. But it's not productive. At most these deserves a DA.
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Re:But isn't AI and metadata just around the corne
Because nobody was paying Mother Nature to eveolve humans, the process was pretty haphazard and filled with a million years of errors. We might do significantly better by paying attention to the details and culling obvious errors far earlier.
It could be fun to set up some "Minsky Awards" for AI's that manage to destroy themselves, to match the Darwin Awards at http://www.darwinawards.com/. -
Well, I know of ONE
But i don't know if its what you're looking for...
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Re:Ob. Family Guy
Eating too much hair can lead to Trichobezoars, some of which were thought to have mystical powers. Others can lead to Darwin Awards.
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Re:AHH
Quibbling correction, it's JATO http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html
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Re:Goodbye to MS-Office ?
They should add the darwin awards t-shirt prints to the MS Office default clip-art collection.
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Re:not terribly funny
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Re:not terribly funny
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Lawn Chair Larry
Unfortunately, there is still no one to equal the awesome Lawn Chair Larry. That was the best ever.
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Re:The Real Darwin Awardsdrivers who drive distracted, intoxicated or stupid That is in there. However, it comes with this disclaimer: Darwin says, "This nomination is not popular. It is against the rules to receive a Darwin Award if you injure innocent people. I thought this event might qualify anyway, because the driver was an idiot, and the occupants of the Hummer were not seriously injured. But it seems that I was wrong. This story will likely be removed from the archive soon."
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Re:Slashdotted....Some more that I managed to read after waiting a long time for them to load...
10(27 July 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico) 24-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel's gym when she realised she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.
So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow, she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up towards her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, if she was looking down, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?
Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let's just say, the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.Rare Double Darwin.
(12 September 2007, Tampa, Florida) The setup: A woman wins two concert tickets from a local radio station. She can't believe her luck. The Dave Matthews Band, live! She invites her friend to join her. But they are in for more than a concert experience.
Flash forward to the next morning. My buddy, head of operations at the amphitheater, looks like hell. He tells me that two women were killed the previous night at the concert. I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened at the amphitheater. I ask for details.
Flash back to the previous evening, 8:30pm and pouring rain. The show is delayed. Two women leave the venue to escape the rain. They pass multiple free shuttle buses that run directly to the parking lot. Instead, they opt for a shortcut across a 7-lane Interstate.
They run a hundred yards through wet grass, and jump a six-foot fence that borders the road. Ahead are 3 lanes of freeway traffic, a 100' median, and another 4 lanes of traffic. Beyond that is another six-foot fence, the maze of an 'under construction' garage, and a long hike around a casino.
All in all, the 'shortcut' to their vehicle covers a distance of about a half mile. And the women are in a torrential thunderstorm. Free shuttle bus, or mad dash across dangerous territory?
My buddy was an eyewitness when the first vehicle struck the women at 8:30 pm. Oddly, this was in the first lane of traffic, on a straightaway where one can see headlights for miles in either direction. The impact hurled the women farther into traffic, and each was struck by a second car. They did not survive the collisions.
Ironically, one of the women was an "energetic and gifted athlete" who won two national championships in gymnastics. Physical prowess is no substitute for the homespun maxim:
"Stop. Look. Listen. Or tomorrow you'll be missing."(19 August 2007, Serbia) It's well known that alcohol impairs judgement. It's well known that carnivorous wild animals and humans don't mix. What happens when we combine all three? One might expect men, beer, and bears to combine with lethal consequences. Such was the case for a 23-year old man who inadvertently fed himself to Masha and Misha at the Belgrade Zoo.
The Zoo director said of the incident, "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked, mauled corpse was found inside the bear habitat, along with several mobile phones, bricks, and plenty of beer cans. His clothes were completely undamaged, suggesting that he approached the bears bare-naked by choice. The bears, fearing that his intentions were as dishonorable as they were ill-informed, met -
Re:Slashdotted....Some more that I managed to read after waiting a long time for them to load...
10(27 July 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico) 24-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel's gym when she realised she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.
So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow, she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up towards her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, if she was looking down, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?
Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let's just say, the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.Rare Double Darwin.
(12 September 2007, Tampa, Florida) The setup: A woman wins two concert tickets from a local radio station. She can't believe her luck. The Dave Matthews Band, live! She invites her friend to join her. But they are in for more than a concert experience.
Flash forward to the next morning. My buddy, head of operations at the amphitheater, looks like hell. He tells me that two women were killed the previous night at the concert. I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened at the amphitheater. I ask for details.
Flash back to the previous evening, 8:30pm and pouring rain. The show is delayed. Two women leave the venue to escape the rain. They pass multiple free shuttle buses that run directly to the parking lot. Instead, they opt for a shortcut across a 7-lane Interstate.
They run a hundred yards through wet grass, and jump a six-foot fence that borders the road. Ahead are 3 lanes of freeway traffic, a 100' median, and another 4 lanes of traffic. Beyond that is another six-foot fence, the maze of an 'under construction' garage, and a long hike around a casino.
All in all, the 'shortcut' to their vehicle covers a distance of about a half mile. And the women are in a torrential thunderstorm. Free shuttle bus, or mad dash across dangerous territory?
My buddy was an eyewitness when the first vehicle struck the women at 8:30 pm. Oddly, this was in the first lane of traffic, on a straightaway where one can see headlights for miles in either direction. The impact hurled the women farther into traffic, and each was struck by a second car. They did not survive the collisions.
Ironically, one of the women was an "energetic and gifted athlete" who won two national championships in gymnastics. Physical prowess is no substitute for the homespun maxim:
"Stop. Look. Listen. Or tomorrow you'll be missing."(19 August 2007, Serbia) It's well known that alcohol impairs judgement. It's well known that carnivorous wild animals and humans don't mix. What happens when we combine all three? One might expect men, beer, and bears to combine with lethal consequences. Such was the case for a 23-year old man who inadvertently fed himself to Masha and Misha at the Belgrade Zoo.
The Zoo director said of the incident, "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked, mauled corpse was found inside the bear habitat, along with several mobile phones, bricks, and plenty of beer cans. His clothes were completely undamaged, suggesting that he approached the bears bare-naked by choice. The bears, fearing that his intentions were as dishonorable as they were ill-informed, met -
Re:Slashdotted....Some more that I managed to read after waiting a long time for them to load...
10(27 July 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico) 24-year-old Jessica was working out in the Provincia Hotel's gym when she realised she needed something from the floor below. Instead of picking up the phone, using the intercom, or just walking downstairs, she decided that the open shaft of the industrial lift was the communications device for her.
So Jessica stuck her head into the empty shaft to shout to the people downstairs. And somehow, she missed noticing that the elevator was coming up towards her. If the elevator had been going down, one could say that she was in no position to observe the approaching lift. But, leaving aside the stupidity of sticking your head into an elevator shaft, if she was looking down, how could she miss the mass of metal inexorably headed her way?
Since an elevator cage and a skull are both solid objects, one had to give. Let's just say, the elevator won. Jessica will be missed by her family, but not by the gene pool.Rare Double Darwin.
(12 September 2007, Tampa, Florida) The setup: A woman wins two concert tickets from a local radio station. She can't believe her luck. The Dave Matthews Band, live! She invites her friend to join her. But they are in for more than a concert experience.
Flash forward to the next morning. My buddy, head of operations at the amphitheater, looks like hell. He tells me that two women were killed the previous night at the concert. I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened at the amphitheater. I ask for details.
Flash back to the previous evening, 8:30pm and pouring rain. The show is delayed. Two women leave the venue to escape the rain. They pass multiple free shuttle buses that run directly to the parking lot. Instead, they opt for a shortcut across a 7-lane Interstate.
They run a hundred yards through wet grass, and jump a six-foot fence that borders the road. Ahead are 3 lanes of freeway traffic, a 100' median, and another 4 lanes of traffic. Beyond that is another six-foot fence, the maze of an 'under construction' garage, and a long hike around a casino.
All in all, the 'shortcut' to their vehicle covers a distance of about a half mile. And the women are in a torrential thunderstorm. Free shuttle bus, or mad dash across dangerous territory?
My buddy was an eyewitness when the first vehicle struck the women at 8:30 pm. Oddly, this was in the first lane of traffic, on a straightaway where one can see headlights for miles in either direction. The impact hurled the women farther into traffic, and each was struck by a second car. They did not survive the collisions.
Ironically, one of the women was an "energetic and gifted athlete" who won two national championships in gymnastics. Physical prowess is no substitute for the homespun maxim:
"Stop. Look. Listen. Or tomorrow you'll be missing."(19 August 2007, Serbia) It's well known that alcohol impairs judgement. It's well known that carnivorous wild animals and humans don't mix. What happens when we combine all three? One might expect men, beer, and bears to combine with lethal consequences. Such was the case for a 23-year old man who inadvertently fed himself to Masha and Misha at the Belgrade Zoo.
The Zoo director said of the incident, "Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage."
The man's naked, mauled corpse was found inside the bear habitat, along with several mobile phones, bricks, and plenty of beer cans. His clothes were completely undamaged, suggesting that he approached the bears bare-naked by choice. The bears, fearing that his intentions were as dishonorable as they were ill-informed, met -
AmusingI find it amusing, that the story that probably best reflects
/., is also the one most likely to be disqualified. The note at the bottom of the Laptop Still Works indicates the following:Darwin says, "This nomination is not popular. It is against the rules to receive a Darwin Award if you injure innocent people. I thought this event might qualify anyway, because the driver was an idiot, and the occupants of the Hummer were not seriously injured. But it seems that I was wrong. This story will likely be removed from the archive soon."
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Re:how many?OK - sorry for that.
Correction: machine gun.
And yes - range is an issue, but considering the availability of a SAM battery and a machinegun it's a lot easier to set up a machinegun or even a sniper rifle in the flightpath of an airliner and punch some holes in the aircraft. It will sure cause one hell of a racket when the officials try to figure out when and where the bullet holes originated.
The whole idea behind terrorism is not the effect itself but the aftereffects of canceled flights and a lot of stressed up officials closing highways and sure cause a lot of nuisance for ordinary people. And also scare ordinary people "flying IS dangerous to your health".
I can think of other ways too, but then the terrorist handbook hunters will take a too great interest.
And still - more people die from other causes every year than from aircraft accidents. (cars, suicide, smoking, gunshot wounds (Dick Cheney), diseases, etc...). Sooner or later you will end up at the Darwin Awards deaths too, but they are actually a little more rare than aircraft accidents - but more hilarious.
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Re:Must be widespread....The best you can do is stop further propagation. Darwin Awards!
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Complex systems often rise from simple rules.
Opinions, beliefs, and moral inclinations are not hereditary. They, along with social class/social standing are more often similar to the parents than not, because of nurture, not nature.
Evolution only deals with genetics.
I believe Richard Dawkins (among others) would disagree, having produced some work on evolutionary factors that suggests evolution is not merely genetic. Cultural byproducts such as desires beyond basic survival can influence behaviors that affect the likelihood of reproduction. Contemplating what forces in our society may deter child bearing is an exercise I leave for the reader.
As the pro-choice gene has not been demonstrated to exist, I'm going to go ahead and conclude that evolution and abortion don't belong in the same argument.
There is no need to demonstrate it and it likely does not exist. However, there is no need for such a specific gene as simple constructs often give rise to greater sophistication, especially in biological systems. I propose that a thought experiment—even in the absence of empirical data—may be revealing. Suppose we have some number of couples. One third choose always to bear children from pregnancy, the next third does so conditionally (suppose 50%), and the last third always avoids or terminates pregnancy. What conclusions do you think we can make about following generations? My prediction is the genetic and memetic factors that promote reproduction over competing interests will become dominant, marginalizing those that are permissive of abortion.
Grouping them together leads down a dangerous road.
I am assuming self-selection (or deselection as the case may be). If people personally choose or make choices that prohibit the propagation of their genes (and memes) then we do not have Social Darwinism, just the regular variety. (And we sometimes laugh at these types.)
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Too much faith in humanity?
1. What the blueprints say, and what people will do to their ultra-capacitor-powered car are two different things. The Darwin Awards are full of people who... did things quite differently than the manufacturer imagined.
So I'll bet someone _will_ take it as necessary proof of manhood to take it apart, cut the cables, and make a dangerous mess, just because, you know, his dad told him that Real Men mess with their car's engine. And if he doesn't take it apart and make a bigger mess (before finally taking it to the mechanic anyway), then he might as well wear a dress and a purse.
2. And that's not even counting the millions of clueless rice boys (car modders) and the unscrupulous vendors preying on them. Someone _will_ sell clueless insecure guys a special power cable claimed to increase their horsepower by 10%, or something equally ridiculous. (Same as the 1000$ hi-fi power cables sold to "audiophiles," or 4" exhaust pipes for 1.1 litre engines. Odin knows there's no shortage of buyers for either.) Watch them take the engine apart and do dangerously irresponsible things with the cables.
Or, honestly, it just begs doing dangerous stuff with the voltage at either the capacitor (to increase range), or the electro-motor (since torque and horsepower do increase with voltage.) When some insecure kid's bragging rights depend on how fast he can accelerate, do you honestly think it won't happen? I can see the whole overclocking willy-waving contest happening all over again with cars.
And as with chips, there'll be a bit of variation to how much you can push a part. The fact that there's always a safety margin doesn't mean it's _guaranteed_ to go X% higher. The safety margin is there precisely because you get a bit of a gauss curve, and some parts will fall a bit short. Some motors will cheerfully take twice the voltage, some will have a spot of thinner wire or insulation and short out. Some capacitors will cheerfully take more voltage, some will have a weaker bit of insulation somewhere between those plates, and get an arc right through it if you push them.
Except with overclocking, at most you fry the chip, and tend to see it crashes long before that. With a capacitor you just get a hell of a lot of energy discharged in a very short time. Assuming that the capacitor only holds the energy of, say, half a tank of gasoline, discharging all that energy in half a second is very much equivalent to half a tank of gasoline blowing up. Better yet, stored energy rises with the square of the voltage, so over-volters will get quite the fireworks.
3. Well, what the blueprints say, and what the whole thing looks like after crashing into a tree, are often different things. I'm sure, for example, in normal cars radiator blueprints don't involve it having several breaks and punctures either. -
Re:Video Evidence
This guy agreed with you: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2005-15.html
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Re:All content is copyrighted
Wrong. I am one of the (few) people who has made a living on my copyrighted material while the material remains free online. Yet... I support copyright.
By publishing books, I have managed to make a living from my Darwin Awards stories. The website makes no money, but increases my audience share. I keep my 700 stories available of my own volition. It is my decision to make, not yours to make on my behalf.
Too many times, I have spoken with people who feel they do not need to pay for any creative item. And the logic they use to justify their theft (of movies, etc.) is based merely on the fact that they can.
If copyright laws didn't exist, I could not maintain any control over the definition of a Darwin Award, and people would be able to corrupt it by, say, giving a Darwin Award to someone who had killed many other people while removing themselves from the gene pool. By limiting the recipients to (1) adults who (2) remove (3) themselves alone from the gene pool in a (4) monumentally stupid manner which is (5) verifiably true, I have managed to create a niche of humor that amuses many people.
If I had no such control, you would see people nominating events in which innocent bystanders were injured, or where the deceased was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or children who make mistakes...
Who would laugh at a Darwin Award if it involved a kid who accidentally started a fire in a school that killed hundreds of children? Only one sicko in a thousand, that's who.
Copyright is essential not only for me to make a living, but for me to create a humor genre that most people enjoy, rather than one that makes most people cringe.
The Internet has made possible the mass distribution of creative works. But it is up to the copyright holder to decide if free distribution works for their material. Just because you *can* steal a copyrighted work, doesn't mean you should.
Don't paint all copyright holders with the EVIL RIAA brush.
This is a hot button. -
Re:What is the point of putting it in orbit?Some countries transmit power via microwave , abeit not for 36000km's.
don't laugh and please mod me informative
;-) -
Re:Pictures
When I read the headline, I was intrigued. It makes the whole process sound like something from 24. The sort of thing that normally gets me shouting "That's bloody impossible!" at the TV and annoying my wife. However when you look at the actual photo, you realise that the guy, as well as being evil, is a complete fuckwit. At first glance, you know that this is a reversible transformation. This guy should be given a Darwin Award for utter stupidity.