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By the way, all the recent studies are showing that vitamin D supplements to not give health benefits. It looks like the sun exposure was causing the benefits, so taking away the exposure and replacing it with supplements doesn't work.

https://www.outsideonline.com/...

Interesting enough, I just read an article on how getting more sun is proving to be extremely beneficial, and that a lot of the cardiac issues darker skins folks have are likely caused by their skin blocking the sun!

https://www.outsideonline.com/...

It appears that the risk of death by skin cancer for too much sun is overwhelmed by the risk of cardiac issues from too little.

Money quotes "People with low levels of vitamin D in their blood have significantly higher rates of virtually every disease and disorder you can think of: cancer, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, heart attack, stroke, depression, cognitive impairment, autoimmune conditions, and more." and "Yet vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials ... it showed zero benefit"

Moderation!

Maybe vitamin D is not the only reason the sun is good for you. https://www.outsideonline.com/...

It means that the FAA can't pull my "certificate" first and ask questions later while I go broke.

A pilot certificate is actually the least of your concerns.

What happens if the FAA fines you $500 per day until you comply with their orders?

Yes, the FAA can fine you, and when you refuse to pay it, you end up in administrative court where you aren't innocent until proven guilty, and your refusal ultimately ends up with the sheriff showing up.

Despite all that, once the FAA passes its new rules, it'll still be legal for me to fly my unregistered helis, still legal for me to buy or build new models without registering them, and still legal for me to fly them.

It can be really expensive to prove that your actions are legal, but you're welcome to try. Someone gets to be the test case.

At the end of the day, neither you nor I are the person who actually decides if it is legal or not, a judge is.

You're probably familiar with this case:

http://www.outsideonline.com/1...

Are you aware it was overturned?

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

Here is the final outcome of that case:

http://motherboard.vice.com/re...

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Look, I'm not the FAA, I'm not here to tell you that you're right or wrong, I honestly don't care. What I am telling you is that your "tough guy attitude" doesn't work against an agency like the FAA who ultimately will get some type of drone regulations into place and if they decide to come after you, they'll almost always win.

How can you have 1.5 children per household?

2 children in one household and 1 in another. Even so, I wonder how it felt for photographer Kevin Michael Connolly or acrobat Jennifer Bricker or Jeanie Tomaini or plenty of others to grow up as the .5 child.

Free US (eg illegal colonialisation, broken treaties), Free Canada, Free Guantánamo Bay, Free New Mexico, Free Northern Ireland, Free Okinawa, Free Guam, Free Diego Garcia. Or do I need to add more exclaimation marks?

China has an extremely strong claim to Tibet that even the Dalai Lama does not contest. What Tibetians want is greater autonomy (which is reasonable). And given how the CCP generally tries to treat ethnic minorities slightly better (eg exempted from the one-child-policy), Tibet probably would have had greater autonomy if foreign influences hadn't tried to interfere, sparking historically-well-founded fears that Tibet was being used to subvert the CCP.

Or to put it another way. There are hundreds of ethnicity/communities around the world dispossessed from their lands (including some probably in your backyard). How much noise do you make about them? If the Chinese government was an ally of your country (but kept Tibet), would you make as much noise? Do you actually give a damn about Tibet, or do you just want to find an excuse to whack China? If the Chinese CCP fell over tomorrow, in the chaos that inevitably follows, would you care about Tibet (or the people of China)? How much did you care about the people of Russia in the chaos that followed the fall of communism or did you merely celebrate your victory?

and I am pedantic-- so I would point out the bird killer Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System

http://www.outsideonline.com/n...

The other problem with eating the meat of invasive species is that many of them are very high on the food chain and thus contain tons of mercury

Horses are expensive to maintain, and have a rough daily limit of about 30 miles. In comparison, a human walking at 3 mph can go the same distance in only 10 hours.

That's not comparable. The horse could do that forever (for example, see this US cavalry manual which stipulates cavalry can go 35 miles a day, six days a week indefinitely - page 152) while the person would not be able to maintain that sort of pace for more than a few hours to a day unless they were in really good shape.

In comparison, typical indefinite marching rates for an army were about 10 miles a day (both for roman legionaires and US soldiers).

It's very comparable. A human can keep up a 3mph walk forever as well. A 3mph pace is not hard for a human at all and without
a pack 30 miles a day would not be an issue for a human. 35 miles per day, six days a week indefinitely would not be a problem for
the average person either. I don't think a march with camp setup, etc... is comparable to what the original poster was talking about.
I think you underestimate what a human is capable of. When I was in college we went on a hike to the bottom of the grand canyon
for a week. None of us were in great shape, did any training, or probably near as fit as a peasant who worked all day in the field
every day yet we averaged about 20-25 miles a day for a week with heavy packs on rough terrain and making camp each night.
We obviously could have done alot more with a light pack. And again, we were not in shape, didn't train, and most had never even
been backpacking before. For endurance running a human is every bit as good as a single horse. The pony express used multiple
horses because horses are faster over short distances but over multiple days a human is actually faster. A good runner can do alot
more than 35 miles per day. This guy averaged over 50 miles a day for 40 days:
http://www.outsideonline.com/blog/outdoor-adventure/the-human-express-interview-with-karl-meltzer.html
Here is one of many articles that states that humans can outrun every animal on the planet:
http://discovermagazine.com/2006/may/tramps-like-us

OK, did some more googling. Actually I'm a bit surprised at the breakdown with cigarettes coming in at 1%.

There are pie charts like this from various states, and the highest percentage for cigarettes was 5%. Different regions have different characteristis. For example, it's much less likely for lightning to start a fire in Virginia because the vegetation is wetter.

I don't feel like googling the laws; but I bet you can get criminal penalties for a cigarette-caused fire in the US too. It seems like you could certainly get sued into oblivion if they can prove it's your fault.

Written a few years ago by Outside Magazine following the trainer's death. Very good read.

The Killer in the Pool

Because these days, anyone with enough money can make the attempt, experienced or not. And look at this picture and tell me that summiting isn't mundane these days. Hell, I personally know 3 people who have summitted, and I live in a relatively small town.

I'll miss Santa Cruz and The coast line and hills more than anything else. But I know, there are plenty of those places left unspoiled all across the coast.

Eh, what coast would that be? Here is what Mt Everest looks like near the peak these days.

Yup, came here to say this, but you beat me to it.

source

Ah I'm not talking about cancer being like evolution, talking about evolution if you live in a niche of really high radioactive potassium consumption from eating bananas all the time, after a bazillion generations you'd expect the survivors to be better than the average human about excreting radioactive or otherwise K and/or getting by with as little of that nasty stuff inside them as possible, despite it being a big part of their diet.

Its also not clear just how long this adaptation takes.
Every once in a while an article you find about animals in the Chernobyl exclusion zone suggests that the supposed ill effects are simply not appearing at anywhere near the rates expected or encountered in laboratory experiments.

From Here

He and his team are studying the mice to understand their resistance to radioactivity. They've found sensitivity to ionization, which results in certain tumors, and some of this passes down through the genes. But they're also finding heritable radiation resistance—which could perhaps be beneficial to humans someday.

There are other, mostly earlier, studies showing significant bug population decline around 2009.

Yes, let's fight over a piece of ice.

If we just copy India and Pakistan, no one will call us leaders of the "free world"!