It seems like we live a universe where the knowledge and secrets of reality are kept well hidden and very difficult to access, like it is trying to keep us as ignorant fools who dont know what anything is or why its here. We have a better grasp in recent years, but we are still a long way to knowing what this is all about on a scientific level (thought religions propose their own speculative/intuitive ideas about this).
The religion of Science demands we question everything, rather than accept all on blind faith.
It is actually fairly simple relativity, the faster an object moves relative to another, the slower its time reference to the other is. Even though relative to each other from an outside viewpoint they seem to be travelling passed each other at greater than the speed of light, Each experiences a time dialation relative to mass and velocity, so in the frame of reference where the particles collide, they are moving much slower than the speed of light due to time taking longer. When the collision occurs, velocity is mostly cancelled out relative to the surrounding environment, and all of the energy that was contained in the high-speed sub-atomic particles is released in a cloud of elementary particles, which recombine into new and interesting matter. It is out of this cloud that the quark-gluon plasma is formed, which in turn is theoretically capable of forming quantum singularities at high enough energy densities. The faster you can get a particle moving, the higher its energy level is, the higher the density of energy will be at moment of collision.
russia is engaging in neoimperialism? What about USA my friend? Why don't you look at recent 60 years old history and lets count how many countries USA has invaded and how many has Russia? Need we even mention Iraq, Afganistan, constantly bombing Pakistan etc etc etc? you are truly a pathetic idiot or a total shill. I feel sorry for your severely limited view of the world.
You seem to be using secondary definitions of invasion that don't apply to the concept of imperialism. The primary definition, "incursion of an army for conquest or plunder," does apply to imperialism, and is not something America has engaged in for quite some time. You cite Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of American imperialism, yet in what way have we come to conquer or plunder? If conquest was our aim, why would we enable them to set up their own democratic government rather than claiming them as a U.S. Territory and institutiong our own? If plunder was our goal, would we not have taken the oil instead of buying it? In reference to Iraq, people love to toss out the "fact" that no WMDs have been recovered, which in itself is not entirely accurate, caches have been found scattered about, but nothing large enough to be news worthy. I find myself constantly having to remind people that lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. We know Saddam had the chemical weapons, and we know he used them. Just because he hid/destroyed/sold them we are supposed to pretend they never existed? We also know that the Taliban supported Al-Qaeda, who we know attacked us on 9/11, we know they controlled the remains of Afghanistan, and we know it was partly our fault they were there in the first place, giving us some responsibility in cleaning up the mess. In both of these countries, the US has led the efforts to break the stranglehold of tyrannical governments that have stifled innovation and economic growth, enabling the people to make their own choices. The economies in both Iraq and Afghanistan are doing much better than they were before we intervened.
I don't seem to be able to find any instances of American conquest since WWII and the islands we took from Japan, some of which they had taken from us, and some of which were later returned to Japan. I would hesitate to call this imperialism, however, since these islands were of tactical significance in our war with Japan, both as the means for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, and the US to attack Japan. Islands that held no military significance were isolated until after the war, rather than invaded.
I am not familiar enough with Russian history to verify or deny their recent acts of imperialism, and the atrocities I am familiar with are not germane to this descussion, and indeed are irrelevant to my point. You seem quick to deflect the finger from Russia towards the US, but provide no supporting facts to your argument, though you do provide loosely veiled hints at other facts not relative to the point you were attempting to dispute. Even if there was a long list of countries invaded by the US, that would not make it right for anyone else to do so, excepting circumstances where territory was being reclaimed by the original inhabitants, but then there are no nations in existence today that did not conquer their land from someone else if you look far enough into the past. Some would like to use that as justification of human nature to go to war and conquere others, but I would argue it is the animal nature that is territorial, and it is the human nature that seeks to improve itself, to rise above the base animal instincts and consider the betterment of the society and species along with the individual. Through intelligent discourse and sharing of information is this accomplished. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of the strongest, those who can plan ahead and anticipate eventualities are more likely to survive in the long run than those who attempt to conquer and destroy that which they do not, or refuse to, understand. Jus
Using Where's Waldo as an example, the "game" itself could be considered having 3 spatial dimensions, each page a parallel universe, but since time is not incorporated into the game system, I would not include it. Time elapses for the user, but the game system itself does not alter with time. If it were computerized and you had to search out the stripey one within a mass of activity it would then become a 4D game, which you would experience in 8D, your own 4 dimensions of space-time, plus the game's. Once you bring choice and randomality into the game mechanics, your experience goes to 10D, adding dimensions of probability and intent to the game's set.
I barely consider myself an amateur mathmetician, I just like numbers and n-dimensional geometries, they make a lot more sense to me than people do. Maybe it is because I can visualize the additional dimensions of time and probability as diverging spatial dimensions each at 90 degrees to all the other dimensions, reading "The Boy Who Reversed Himself" and "Green Tycho" as a kid probably helped a lot as well.
Well, we can still blame marketing, because what they call 3D has been 4D all along, and if you want to get technical, you have to add in 5th and 6th dimensions of probability..
(b.) Meetings must be limited to information that *everyone* *needs* to know.
I've rarely seen this go well (if ever). Most meetings I have gone to (past tense due to being laid off) have been status meetings. Manager wants to find out what everyone has been doing, and somehow it's good for everyone to know what everyone else is doing. There is perhaps some merit to the latter, but not nearly as much as the manager would like to think. I really don't need to know about the....
I know where you are coming from. Managers don't seem to realize that in a culture of engineering/technical types, if someone is working on something that interests you or has applications with what you're doing, you probably knew about it before the manager did.
Discussions happen at lunch, in the break room, taking a smoke break, or just over the cube walls while working, and techie people like to talk about techie things of interest with those who share that interest.
Most of the time, in these "What is everyone working on?" meetings, if I didn't already know that someone was working on something it was because they were either new, or I didn't care or need to know.
There is the occasional cross team idea sparked by these meetings, but they are not common enough occurrences to justify a weekly 2 hour meeting.
Seem to be lacking in today's internet based culture. The article states that the 800 pages contained 15 incidents, not that there were only 15 incidents. Considering the difficulty in obtaining that information, is it not likely that there is more information to be had? The last statement of the article even states that another court case in Cincinnati was not included in those 15 incidents.
From the description of the cases involving simple overheating causing surface burns, a common thread seems to be that the device designed to be clipped to clothing while you work out was not properly sealed against moisture seeping into the case. This is what happens when you develop and manufacture electronics devices in a country with little quality control and the tendency to bully a scapegoat into suicide when mistakes are discovered by the public.
Standardized testing of an electronic device should include HALT (Highly Accelerated Lifecycle Testing), which subjects the device to a wide range of temperature and humidity, as well as vigorous shaking and dropping. It may be acceptable to release a product that stops working under those conditions, but not one that is likely to cause damage to surrounding objects if some moisture makes it into the case.
How quickly people seem to forget Apple's history with banning people from the forums and removing posts when being critical of an apple product or discussing problems/bugs with them, and does no one remember the silky smooth white iPod earbuds from China with the lead contaminated sheathings?
How many iPods did not burn the user but simply stopped working mysteriously?
Catastrophic failure is usually a minor failure that escalates for some reason, such as improper sealing allowing moisture to seep in which slightly changes the capacitance of a charging circuit, which over time causes the battery to be stressed bit by bit until it either fails safely, by no longer taking a charge, or depleting rapidly, or fails unsafely, by discharging very rapidly causing a cell to overheat and explode?
Psychology has uses in determining root motivations in individuals and cultures, there are basic responses to outside stimuli that are common between the majority of 'sane' subjects. That being said, the correlative data that makes a Rorshcach test useful is not a collection of 'correct' versus 'incorrect' answers, rather it shows the most popular response. If your definition of sanity is thinking and behaving the same as the majority of your peers and neighbors, then in the confines of a mental institution, the doctors would be considered the insane. Abstract pattern recognition is not something we understand well enough to diagnose a mental state from, if we did we could program a computer to recognize patterns as we do. Therefore, if correlated data is meaningless and it is the emotional response to the imagery that is important, than a completely randomized image would be the most useful for diagnostics. The ink blots themselves were the closest to a random image that could be created at the time, and a brilliant concept to begin with, but like many other great ideas, it was latched onto by others who did not truly understand it, but were content to use it for their own purposes. Draining the blood from people using leeches may have helped some recover from illness, but it was the enforced bedrest due to bloodloss and not the bloodloss itself that contributed. Just because something works does not mean it is working correctly, or for the reasons you may want it to.
Here's a similar situation for you; The cyclist is a parent walking with their child. To pass them, you need to pass to close to the child, as the father is walking on the inside. He's being an idiot, but hey, that's life. Do you put the childs' life in danger because of a) the impatience of the idiot drivers behind you, or b) the idiocy of the parent?.
If the idiot parent is walking in the road, then I have a device on my vehicle for this kind of situation, it is called a horn. I push a button and a loud noise tells anything with ears to get out of the way.
It is really quite simple, if you use the roads, you obey all the traffic laws, or find another path. You don't go making your own path in the middle of one already designated, and you certainly don't use the threat of allowing yourself to be injured by another to prevent the other from passing you..
Now you're being silly, if you feel that unsafe and react to 'pressure' from drivers behind you then I'd say you probably be shouldn't be on the road in the first place.
The fact is that both cyclists and motorists are legally allowed to use the road, along with horses and carts, tractors, articulated lorries and all sorts of other things and the key to safe and relaxing journeys for everyone is for everyone to treat other road users with respect and make sure that your own driving/cycling whatever is considerate and safe.
It is not a matter of being uncomfortable or pressured by other drivers into unsafe acts, it is the fact that, just as there are agressive drivers that are easily agitated and will drive unsafely to bypass delays, there are agressive cyclists who think they have the right to own the roads, which are paid for by motor vehicle registration by the way. I know that, in many places, you can be ticketed for going too slowly on a public road if you do not have hazard lights on and do not yield to traffic. I live in an area where there are many cyclists, and most of them stick to the designated lanes or pathways, but some insist on riding in groups of 4+ occupying lanes of traffic when theses designated lanes are available. It is that kind of mentality that aggravates me the most.
I know that laws are not the same everywhere, just as common sense isn't always that common between cultures, but the laws of physics are constant.
Force = Mass * Acceleration
An automobile masses a good deal more than the heaviest cyclist, and will be little phased by impact with one.
Just as motorcyclists have learned, cyclists must also learn that drivers of automobiles do not always see you, can not judge your possible trajectories as easily as those of another auto due to your increased mobility, and in the case of cyclists, here in the states at least, you do not have as much right to the road as an automobile. The motor vehicle has been registered and inspected, neither of which is required for you, thereby paying for the right to use the roads for a year.
Humans are to be eaten young - before they pollute their meat with additives and artificial coloring and other toxic waste.
I believe Mr. Swift was on to something when he recommended the consumption of Irish babies that had not yet begun to walk. They are supposed to be quite succulent.
In all seriousness though, is mad cow disease still that much of a rampant issue in Europe that you are having to resort to eating horses, or is this some strange new fad of yours?
The possible applications for this technology are an exciting prospect. Handheld supercomputers, true real-time physics simulations for research and gaming, maybe even time travelling phone booths...
"with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person"
Who determines intent? Is it what I say my intent was, or is it what they say my intent was?
...but should someone be allowed to say they want to kill all members of [group X]?
Yes, they should.
If so, do members of [group X] have the right to take that threat seriously and act accordingly by pre-emptively defending themselves against the threat?
Yes again, and all involved have the right to pay the consequences of any unlawful actions they may take. Declaring the desire to do harm to a group of people is protected speech, however planning to do harm to a group of people and making preparations to do so is pre-meditation. The specifics of the situation determine the legality, and we already have laws to account for them. If [group X] decides to preemptively strike the threatener, then they have commited a crime unless they can justify self-defense to the satisfaction of the court.
Words are words, by themselves incapable of causing harm unless uttered at extremely high volumes. It is only when those words are acted upon that they become harmful, and blame then falls upon the perpetrator, not the author. Slander and libel are a different matter, of course, but again, we already have laws to deal with those situations.
I'm not so sure they are going to take the joke lying down though. The last quote in the SFC article has some darker undertones.
"We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, said, adding: "We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on."
Should Stephen be concerned for his safety?/TinfoilHat
...via a technology that can transmit large amounts of complex information very quickly, all while lacking physical wires/cables and nearly impossible to jam.
Entangled photons, imposible to jam or eavesdrop upon, and as nearly instantaneous as we can measure.
We are a migratory species, our migration patterns are simply on longer cycles than seasonal ones. There exists no natural planetary body that will sustain life indefinitely, eventually we will have to move to a new world and terraform it or become extinct. The sooner we develop the technology the better we will be at it. If you are content to bury your head in the sand and leave the problem to later generations, then please do not reproduce and leave the resources to the innovators and explorers who seek to expand our horizons.
Electro-magnets wouldn't do so well, since they will only work on magnetic materials. Large Van De Graaff generators, however, would generate static fields attracting most any object, or at least polarize their charges to the point that the Earth's geomagnetic field could get a grip on them, likely slowing them to the point of deorbit. These could be made cheaply, set into an orbital path to clear, and then burn up on re-entry when they have collected sufficient mass to themselves deorbit.
A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State, therefore the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
That's pretty cut and dried, it applies to regulated militias. Or in other words it applies only to those that are in a militia for the purposes of civil defense. All other gun rights are based upon which ones aren't taken away in law.
This correction is the way I have always interpreted the 2nd amendment, since a militia is not a standing army but a collection of citizens, the People, who in times of need must be able to defend their homes/communities/State. This clause in the US Constitution exists because it is the duty of the People to prevent the government from becoming corrupt and possessing too much power. The first course of action should be the ballot box, failing that then the jury box, and finally the ammo box if all else has failed. The US was founded in revolution, and the founding fathers believed strongly that We The People should be capable of revolution when the tyrannies of the government grow to unacceptable levels with no other recourse. These days, it would take a good deal of hardship and corruption to get the average American to accept the need for revolution, since those are rarely stable and comfortable events, but we may get there before too long.
Thomas Jefferson summed these sentiments up nicely,
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
You seem to be under the impression that mission running and PvP are the only things you can do in EVE.
Mission running can be very repetetive, but will be improved with the introduction of epic mission arcs in the upcoming expansion. It also serves as one of the best means of increasing standings with npc corporations, which has the benefit of reduced prices for station services, access to high sec jump clones, T2 and Faction modules for much cheaper than they would be on the market, and much more.
There are a plethora of activities available to the new pilot, and if you approach the game with the expectation of getting out and "pew pew"-ing right off the bat, you will be disappointed unless you can afford the top named tier 1 equipment.
Mining is boring, but it is an option and can lead to great wealth.
There is blueprint research, production, and invention, which can be very lucrative.
Trade routes can be extremely profitable, especially if you pay attention to galactic news and can react to changing situations, like bringing needed modules to a war zone.
Exploration is steadily becoming more and more viable as a full time occupation, with exploration sites yielding rare skillbooks, salvage materials, implants, and other sought after items, and wormholes will only make this more enjoyable.
Skill queuing is another thing to be introduced in the March expansion, along with the ability to change your attributes once every six months to refocus on training in different skill categories.
If all you want to do is go out and hack and slash at random npcs, collect the loot and sell to some merchant, then EVE is not for you.
Which is precisely why the internal affairs division and the CSM were formed. There used to be GMs who blatantly defied the rules and helped out their friends with special in game items, which is what most people refer to when bringing up CCP's past misdeeds. Those who were found to be perpetrating these acts were subsequently fired, and the complicit player accounts banned. This is actually one of the first times CCP has described how an exploit worked, previously the exploit information was kept under close guard, and people had accounts suspended or banned for discussing them on the forums. There have been many improvements in the way CCP handles things recently, with the CSM giving players an elected representative to present issues that players care about directly to the developers without having to wade through pages of flames and trolls in the forums.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like we live a universe where the knowledge and secrets of reality are kept well hidden and very difficult to access, like it is trying to keep us as ignorant fools who dont know what anything is or why its here. We have a better grasp in recent years, but we are still a long way to knowing what this is all about on a scientific level (thought religions propose their own speculative/intuitive ideas about this).
The religion of Science demands we question everything, rather than accept all on blind faith.
It is actually fairly simple relativity, the faster an object moves relative to another, the slower its time reference to the other is. Even though relative to each other from an outside viewpoint they seem to be travelling passed each other at greater than the speed of light, Each experiences a time dialation relative to mass and velocity, so in the frame of reference where the particles collide, they are moving much slower than the speed of light due to time taking longer. When the collision occurs, velocity is mostly cancelled out relative to the surrounding environment, and all of the energy that was contained in the high-speed sub-atomic particles is released in a cloud of elementary particles, which recombine into new and interesting matter. It is out of this cloud that the quark-gluon plasma is formed, which in turn is theoretically capable of forming quantum singularities at high enough energy densities. The faster you can get a particle moving, the higher its energy level is, the higher the density of energy will be at moment of collision.
russia is engaging in neoimperialism? What about USA my friend? Why don't you look at recent 60 years old history and lets count how many countries USA has invaded and how many has Russia? Need we even mention Iraq, Afganistan, constantly bombing Pakistan etc etc etc? you are truly a pathetic idiot or a total shill. I feel sorry for your severely limited view of the world.
You seem to be using secondary definitions of invasion that don't apply to the concept of imperialism. The primary definition, "incursion of an army for conquest or plunder," does apply to imperialism, and is not something America has engaged in for quite some time. You cite Iraq and Afghanistan as examples of American imperialism, yet in what way have we come to conquer or plunder? If conquest was our aim, why would we enable them to set up their own democratic government rather than claiming them as a U.S. Territory and institutiong our own? If plunder was our goal, would we not have taken the oil instead of buying it? In reference to Iraq, people love to toss out the "fact" that no WMDs have been recovered, which in itself is not entirely accurate, caches have been found scattered about, but nothing large enough to be news worthy. I find myself constantly having to remind people that lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. We know Saddam had the chemical weapons, and we know he used them. Just because he hid/destroyed/sold them we are supposed to pretend they never existed? We also know that the Taliban supported Al-Qaeda, who we know attacked us on 9/11, we know they controlled the remains of Afghanistan, and we know it was partly our fault they were there in the first place, giving us some responsibility in cleaning up the mess. In both of these countries, the US has led the efforts to break the stranglehold of tyrannical governments that have stifled innovation and economic growth, enabling the people to make their own choices. The economies in both Iraq and Afghanistan are doing much better than they were before we intervened.
I don't seem to be able to find any instances of American conquest since WWII and the islands we took from Japan, some of which they had taken from us, and some of which were later returned to Japan. I would hesitate to call this imperialism, however, since these islands were of tactical significance in our war with Japan, both as the means for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, and the US to attack Japan. Islands that held no military significance were isolated until after the war, rather than invaded.
I am not familiar enough with Russian history to verify or deny their recent acts of imperialism, and the atrocities I am familiar with are not germane to this descussion, and indeed are irrelevant to my point. You seem quick to deflect the finger from Russia towards the US, but provide no supporting facts to your argument, though you do provide loosely veiled hints at other facts not relative to the point you were attempting to dispute. Even if there was a long list of countries invaded by the US, that would not make it right for anyone else to do so, excepting circumstances where territory was being reclaimed by the original inhabitants, but then there are no nations in existence today that did not conquer their land from someone else if you look far enough into the past. Some would like to use that as justification of human nature to go to war and conquere others, but I would argue it is the animal nature that is territorial, and it is the human nature that seeks to improve itself, to rise above the base animal instincts and consider the betterment of the society and species along with the individual. Through intelligent discourse and sharing of information is this accomplished. Survival of the fittest does not mean survival of the strongest, those who can plan ahead and anticipate eventualities are more likely to survive in the long run than those who attempt to conquer and destroy that which they do not, or refuse to, understand. Jus
Using Where's Waldo as an example, the "game" itself could be considered having 3 spatial dimensions, each page a parallel universe, but since time is not incorporated into the game system, I would not include it. Time elapses for the user, but the game system itself does not alter with time. If it were computerized and you had to search out the stripey one within a mass of activity it would then become a 4D game, which you would experience in 8D, your own 4 dimensions of space-time, plus the game's. Once you bring choice and randomality into the game mechanics, your experience goes to 10D, adding dimensions of probability and intent to the game's set.
I barely consider myself an amateur mathmetician, I just like numbers and n-dimensional geometries, they make a lot more sense to me than people do. Maybe it is because I can visualize the additional dimensions of time and probability as diverging spatial dimensions each at 90 degrees to all the other dimensions, reading "The Boy Who Reversed Himself" and "Green Tycho" as a kid probably helped a lot as well.
Well, we can still blame marketing, because what they call 3D has been 4D all along, and if you want to get technical, you have to add in 5th and 6th dimensions of probability..
(b.) Meetings must be limited to information that *everyone* *needs* to know.
I've rarely seen this go well (if ever). Most meetings I have gone to (past tense due to being laid off) have been status meetings. Manager wants to find out what everyone has been doing, and somehow it's good for everyone to know what everyone else is doing. There is perhaps some merit to the latter, but not nearly as much as the manager would like to think. I really don't need to know about the ....
I know where you are coming from. Managers don't seem to realize that in a culture of engineering/technical types, if someone is working on something that interests you or has applications with what you're doing, you probably knew about it before the manager did.
Discussions happen at lunch, in the break room, taking a smoke break, or just over the cube walls while working, and techie people like to talk about techie things of interest with those who share that interest.
Most of the time, in these "What is everyone working on?" meetings, if I didn't already know that someone was working on something it was because they were either new, or I didn't care or need to know.
There is the occasional cross team idea sparked by these meetings, but they are not common enough occurrences to justify a weekly 2 hour meeting.
Seem to be lacking in today's internet based culture. The article states that the 800 pages contained 15 incidents, not that there were only 15 incidents. Considering the difficulty in obtaining that information, is it not likely that there is more information to be had? The last statement of the article even states that another court case in Cincinnati was not included in those 15 incidents.
From the description of the cases involving simple overheating causing surface burns, a common thread seems to be that the device designed to be clipped to clothing while you work out was not properly sealed against moisture seeping into the case. This is what happens when you develop and manufacture electronics devices in a country with little quality control and the tendency to bully a scapegoat into suicide when mistakes are discovered by the public.
Standardized testing of an electronic device should include HALT (Highly Accelerated Lifecycle Testing), which subjects the device to a wide range of temperature and humidity, as well as vigorous shaking and dropping. It may be acceptable to release a product that stops working under those conditions, but not one that is likely to cause damage to surrounding objects if some moisture makes it into the case.
How quickly people seem to forget Apple's history with banning people from the forums and removing posts when being critical of an apple product or discussing problems/bugs with them, and does no one remember the silky smooth white iPod earbuds from China with the lead contaminated sheathings?
How many iPods did not burn the user but simply stopped working mysteriously?
Catastrophic failure is usually a minor failure that escalates for some reason, such as improper sealing allowing moisture to seep in which slightly changes the capacitance of a charging circuit, which over time causes the battery to be stressed bit by bit until it either fails safely, by no longer taking a charge, or depleting rapidly, or fails unsafely, by discharging very rapidly causing a cell to overheat and explode?
Psychology has uses in determining root motivations in individuals and cultures, there are basic responses to outside stimuli that are common between the majority of 'sane' subjects. That being said, the correlative data that makes a Rorshcach test useful is not a collection of 'correct' versus 'incorrect' answers, rather it shows the most popular response. If your definition of sanity is thinking and behaving the same as the majority of your peers and neighbors, then in the confines of a mental institution, the doctors would be considered the insane. Abstract pattern recognition is not something we understand well enough to diagnose a mental state from, if we did we could program a computer to recognize patterns as we do. Therefore, if correlated data is meaningless and it is the emotional response to the imagery that is important, than a completely randomized image would be the most useful for diagnostics. The ink blots themselves were the closest to a random image that could be created at the time, and a brilliant concept to begin with, but like many other great ideas, it was latched onto by others who did not truly understand it, but were content to use it for their own purposes. Draining the blood from people using leeches may have helped some recover from illness, but it was the enforced bedrest due to bloodloss and not the bloodloss itself that contributed. Just because something works does not mean it is working correctly, or for the reasons you may want it to.
and still later cloned the Mac user interface.
Which was taken from Xerox.
Here's a similar situation for you; The cyclist is a parent walking with their child. To pass them, you need to pass to close to the child, as the father is walking on the inside. He's being an idiot, but hey, that's life. Do you put the childs' life in danger because of a) the impatience of the idiot drivers behind you, or b) the idiocy of the parent?.
If the idiot parent is walking in the road, then I have a device on my vehicle for this kind of situation, it is called a horn. I push a button and a loud noise tells anything with ears to get out of the way.
It is really quite simple, if you use the roads, you obey all the traffic laws, or find another path. You don't go making your own path in the middle of one already designated, and you certainly don't use the threat of allowing yourself to be injured by another to prevent the other from passing you..
Now you're being silly, if you feel that unsafe and react to 'pressure' from drivers behind you then I'd say you probably be shouldn't be on the road in the first place.
The fact is that both cyclists and motorists are legally allowed to use the road, along with horses and carts, tractors, articulated lorries and all sorts of other things and the key to safe and relaxing journeys for everyone is for everyone to treat other road users with respect and make sure that your own driving/cycling whatever is considerate and safe.
It is not a matter of being uncomfortable or pressured by other drivers into unsafe acts, it is the fact that, just as there are agressive drivers that are easily agitated and will drive unsafely to bypass delays, there are agressive cyclists who think they have the right to own the roads, which are paid for by motor vehicle registration by the way. I know that, in many places, you can be ticketed for going too slowly on a public road if you do not have hazard lights on and do not yield to traffic. I live in an area where there are many cyclists, and most of them stick to the designated lanes or pathways, but some insist on riding in groups of 4+ occupying lanes of traffic when theses designated lanes are available. It is that kind of mentality that aggravates me the most.
I know that laws are not the same everywhere, just as common sense isn't always that common between cultures, but the laws of physics are constant.
Force = Mass * Acceleration
An automobile masses a good deal more than the heaviest cyclist, and will be little phased by impact with one.
Just as motorcyclists have learned, cyclists must also learn that drivers of automobiles do not always see you, can not judge your possible trajectories as easily as those of another auto due to your increased mobility, and in the case of cyclists, here in the states at least, you do not have as much right to the road as an automobile. The motor vehicle has been registered and inspected, neither of which is required for you, thereby paying for the right to use the roads for a year.
Humans are to be eaten young - before they pollute their meat with additives and artificial coloring and other toxic waste.
I believe Mr. Swift was on to something when he recommended the consumption of Irish babies that had not yet begun to walk. They are supposed to be quite succulent.
In all seriousness though, is mad cow disease still that much of a rampant issue in Europe that you are having to resort to eating horses, or is this some strange new fad of yours?
The possible applications for this technology are an exciting prospect. Handheld supercomputers, true real-time physics simulations for research and gaming, maybe even time travelling phone booths...
"with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person"
Who determines intent? Is it what I say my intent was, or is it what they say my intent was?
...but should someone be allowed to say they want to kill all members of [group X]?
Yes, they should.
If so, do members of [group X] have the right to take that threat seriously and act accordingly by pre-emptively defending themselves against the threat?
Yes again, and all involved have the right to pay the consequences of any unlawful actions they may take. Declaring the desire to do harm to a group of people is protected speech, however planning to do harm to a group of people and making preparations to do so is pre-meditation. The specifics of the situation determine the legality, and we already have laws to account for them. If [group X] decides to preemptively strike the threatener, then they have commited a crime unless they can justify self-defense to the satisfaction of the court.
Words are words, by themselves incapable of causing harm unless uttered at extremely high volumes. It is only when those words are acted upon that they become harmful, and blame then falls upon the perpetrator, not the author. Slander and libel are a different matter, of course, but again, we already have laws to deal with those situations.
"We don't typically name U.S. space station hardware after living people and this is no exception," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, said, adding: "We have invited Stephen to Florida for the launch of COLBERT and to Houston to try out a version of the treadmill that astronauts train on."
Should Stephen be concerned for his safety? /TinfoilHat
...via a technology that can transmit large amounts of complex information very quickly, all while lacking physical wires/cables and nearly impossible to jam.
Entangled photons, imposible to jam or eavesdrop upon, and as nearly instantaneous as we can measure.
Heh, they won't be giving a Hulk away for a while yet. At least until they get the T3 mining barge developed.
We are a migratory species, our migration patterns are simply on longer cycles than seasonal ones. There exists no natural planetary body that will sustain life indefinitely, eventually we will have to move to a new world and terraform it or become extinct. The sooner we develop the technology the better we will be at it. If you are content to bury your head in the sand and leave the problem to later generations, then please do not reproduce and leave the resources to the innovators and explorers who seek to expand our horizons.
Electro-magnets wouldn't do so well, since they will only work on magnetic materials. Large Van De Graaff generators, however, would generate static fields attracting most any object, or at least polarize their charges to the point that the Earth's geomagnetic field could get a grip on them, likely slowing them to the point of deorbit. These could be made cheaply, set into an orbital path to clear, and then burn up on re-entry when they have collected sufficient mass to themselves deorbit.
Back in action, let's go for another 4 years...
A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State, therefore the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
That's pretty cut and dried, it applies to regulated militias. Or in other words it applies only to those that are in a militia for the purposes of civil defense. All other gun rights are based upon which ones aren't taken away in law.
This correction is the way I have always interpreted the 2nd amendment, since a militia is not a standing army but a collection of citizens, the People, who in times of need must be able to defend their homes/communities/State. This clause in the US Constitution exists because it is the duty of the People to prevent the government from becoming corrupt and possessing too much power. The first course of action should be the ballot box, failing that then the jury box, and finally the ammo box if all else has failed. The US was founded in revolution, and the founding fathers believed strongly that We The People should be capable of revolution when the tyrannies of the government grow to unacceptable levels with no other recourse. These days, it would take a good deal of hardship and corruption to get the average American to accept the need for revolution, since those are rarely stable and comfortable events, but we may get there before too long.
Thomas Jefferson summed these sentiments up nicely,
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Exactly, M$ has us by the joystick...
For some, complexity is fun, and simplicity is boring.
You seem to be under the impression that mission running and PvP are the only things you can do in EVE.
Mission running can be very repetetive, but will be improved with the introduction of epic mission arcs in the upcoming expansion. It also serves as one of the best means of increasing standings with npc corporations, which has the benefit of reduced prices for station services, access to high sec jump clones, T2 and Faction modules for much cheaper than they would be on the market, and much more.
There are a plethora of activities available to the new pilot, and if you approach the game with the expectation of getting out and "pew pew"-ing right off the bat, you will be disappointed unless you can afford the top named tier 1 equipment.
Mining is boring, but it is an option and can lead to great wealth.
There is blueprint research, production, and invention, which can be very lucrative.
Trade routes can be extremely profitable, especially if you pay attention to galactic news and can react to changing situations, like bringing needed modules to a war zone.
Exploration is steadily becoming more and more viable as a full time occupation, with exploration sites yielding rare skillbooks, salvage materials, implants, and other sought after items, and wormholes will only make this more enjoyable.
Skill queuing is another thing to be introduced in the March expansion, along with the ability to change your attributes once every six months to refocus on training in different skill categories.
If all you want to do is go out and hack and slash at random npcs, collect the loot and sell to some merchant, then EVE is not for you.
Which is precisely why the internal affairs division and the CSM were formed. There used to be GMs who blatantly defied the rules and helped out their friends with special in game items, which is what most people refer to when bringing up CCP's past misdeeds. Those who were found to be perpetrating these acts were subsequently fired, and the complicit player accounts banned. This is actually one of the first times CCP has described how an exploit worked, previously the exploit information was kept under close guard, and people had accounts suspended or banned for discussing them on the forums. There have been many improvements in the way CCP handles things recently, with the CSM giving players an elected representative to present issues that players care about directly to the developers without having to wade through pages of flames and trolls in the forums.