An (extremely cynical) friend of mine calls doctors "tech support for your body." Not a bad way to look at it.
This particular guy is 101% mistrustful of the entire medical profession, as his mother's cancer diagnosis and treatment was bungled, resulting in her death.
You can google around for the lowdown, but in short it's this: there is wormwood in absinthe, the psychoactive agent is a chemical called thujone, and it is harmless unless you are drinking 15 glasses a day like Van Gogh.
Straight wormwood extract is indeed bad news but the amount in absinthe is very very small. You are far more likely to be put on your ass by the alcohol: it is 55% to 75% alcohol by volume.
Seems like only about half of all absinthe drinkers get any kind of "secondary" effects out of it, and they are not hallucinations. It's described as a "different kind of buzz." I can't drink more than 1 glass of the stuff since I don't like the taste, so I haven't had any unusual experiences.
Don't be a nutter. Just because a chemical is found in meat doesn't mean it is bad. In fact, taurine is ESSENTIAL TO LIFE, veg-head.
Technically, taurine is classified as a non-essential amino acid, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to human life. It just means that your body has a biochemical pathway for synthesizing it from other compounds. So avoid it if you like; there's still plenty inside you. Avoiding it because it is in meat is just silly. You're meat.
Natural substances cannot be reproduced, thus you would have to slay a human, suck the Taurine out and put it into a drink.
That is one of the top 3 crazy things I have ever heard. There are PLENTY of chemicals that occur in nature that can be PERFECTLY replicated by industry.
Absinthe is NASTY. I ordered some from Spain. Did a lot of reading on it, and as expected, it's loathsome... tastes like black licorice. It's a very complex liqueur though... probably very enjoyable if you like the prominent anise taste.
You'd need a way to store your solar power. There is a night on the moon, and it's about 2 weeks long. Gotta store power for it, or maybe use nuclear power.
But power aside, the sheer cost of moving the crap up there is prohibitive. These are ridiculous stories. At least in the early '70s we were FLYING to the moon and we could talk about hotels with a straight face. Today it is obviously a pure fantasy and I'll be happy never to see something like this in the news again. Well, maybe not never... run a story 1 year before I can buy a freaking ticket, and not a second earlier.
Weaver was also exonerated of all charges. It was shown in court that he was entrapped into buying a sawed-off shotgun. He was a racist jerk, but he didn't do anything wrong.
For the crime of being a racist jerk with guns, he had his kid shot in the back and his wife in the head. The sniper who dropped the woman wasn't even punished.
It's not funny at all. There are already a lot of copyrighted laws that cannot be freely distributed. Check this link. Highlights:
* California and 47 other states have building laws that are copyrighted by one of three nonprofit organizations. [and they'll get nasty if you try to redistribute the text.]
* The federal government requires U.S. physicians to use a medical billing code that's owned by the American Medical Association.
This is one of the most insane things I have ever heard of. For some reason it is a little-known fact... probably because it's things like building codes, and not the traffic codes that everyone needs to know about. It's still unforgiveable.
Even if you have the bloated monster v7 on your system, the older, lighter player should still be there. At least it is on WinMe. Look for mplayer2.exe, and manually assign it to play MPG, AVI, etc. You may have to leave some of the newer streaming formats assigned to WMP7.
I haven't seen WMP7 pop up in MONTHS and I am SO happy.
Re:It was drek, but the graphics were amazing.
on
Review: Final Fantasy
·
· Score: 1
What if you liked old anime, like Iczer-One, classic Bubble Gun Crisis and Dirty Pair? I love that stuff, but I haven't seen much modern anime that I can stand to sit through.
Every time a cool-looking movie comes out I have to curb my enthusiasm. I have been burned too often... I can never love again. I make trustworthy friends go see movies first and give me a report. I have even started blowing theaters off and just waiting for DVD or satellite. And I used to see every piece of crap they put out. No more.
One of the airlock outer doors on Mir was held closed with a C-clamp. Can you believe it? There's a great book called Dragonfly that dishes out the inside scoop on Mir. Great reading.
Just to pick nits: the term "armor piercing" is kind of misleading. Big, heavy bullets, like the kind used in military rifles and hunting rifles, are all "armor piercing" by their nature. They'll slice right through all but the most elaborate personal armor, as that armor is typically designed only to stop handgun rounds.
Far from being specially crafted to pierce personal armor, this kind of ammo is as simple as it gets: lead covered in copper. Nothing fancy... but when it's flying fast it will punch through Kevlar pretty easily. (there are more exotic rounds for hunting, but they're not any more "armor piecing" than the basic stuff.)
You don't want to shoot a big animal with something that doesn't have good penetration, otherwise the ammo will lodge in the outer tissues, and the wound won't be fatal, and you'll have this horribly wounded animal to chase down. You need to penetrate down into the organs to make a clean kill.
Anyway, just had to address that urban legend thing.
Please tell me: is there any cross dressing, breeding of giant golden chickens or riding of said chickens? I thought the games were pretty lame on account of that stuff.
Does the movie have ANYTHING to do with the games besides the name?
Self Defense" basically just means "shoot 'em dead" to you guys, doesn't it?
It means shoot 'em until they are no longer a threat -- until they stop advancing on you. If a gun is capable of doing that quickly -- with one or two shots, perhaps not optimally aimed due to stress -- it's possible to kill the guy, sure. That's his problem though.
For me, "self defense" refers to guns, yeah. I am not a big guy. I would probably lose a physical struggle, and I am not about to bet my life on my chances in one.
Self-defense is a serious business! If you aren't prepared to take a life, don't use a gun. Using a teeny gun because it is less likely to kill someone will get YOU killed, because the angry guy with 5 tiny holes in him will come kick your ass and take your gun away.
(for you other gun nuts please note I am NOT saying that size is a replacement for good aim. It isn't and I am not advocating that. I'm looking at a worst-case scenario, using a truly tiny caliber like.22 for defense.)
Do you think the average criminal really wants a fight to the death, or are they more likely to run the second they see that you're armed?
I don't know what the average criminal wants, but if someone advances on me with a weapon, he'll get a warning and then he will get shot if he doesn't wise up.
Statistically guns are a great deterrent and are used a lot just how you describe. But if the bad guy calls your bluff you are in deep trouble! Never carry a gun you are not prepared to use, and never use a gun unless you feel you are justified in taking a life.
The best self defense is generally "running fast", or at least avoiding conflict however you can.
You're correct, in case of burglary you are not supposed to prowl your house trying to shoot the guy. You always should try to make yourself scarce and safe as a first priority. But depending on your house, safe escape might be impossible; your best bet could well be to hole up in the bedroom with the phone. In that scenario, I'd certainly want a gun with me.
Assuming you actually want to defend yourself, that is.
How could a person NOT want to defend themself? Are you a total pacifist, or are you just referring to gun use here?
I can understand people who do not want to risk taking a life during self-defense. Guns aren't for everyone. Great. It's a personal choice. But people who refuse to undertake self-defense of any kind... or who see self-defense as some kind of evil act... how can any rational person defend that position? Self-defense is a basic human right.
Well hey, if you spent some time here, welcome to the debate. But I do get fed up with people who have zero clue about life here putting their two cents in... I don't start yapping to Germans about the racism issues over there and I expect the same courtesy in return.
But since you have actually spent time here, huzzah.
I always turned their heads around, so you had a blank yellow visor on the space helmet. It turned them from cheery little spacement into my faceless minions of doom.
There are legal precedents about how once you edit the content in a public forum, you have become the "publisher" in effect, and you can he held liable for things in that forum. In other words, there are times when "hands off" is the only safe approach for the publisher or ISP; any editorial oversight sort of makes you liable for what's going on. (I think this harkens back to some case Prodigy was involved in, relating to some kind of libelous material on a forum, but I could be misremembering the source.)
I wonder if that might get extended to computer security matters. Once security analysis tools are illegal, publishers will be unable to ship secure products as easily, and to protect themselves they might try to get the same kind of deal. "Well, we didn't know about that root exploit, but since we never tested it we can't be liable. Lucky us!"
Of course, I'm a cynic. Prolly never happen... right? Right? Anyway, the software industry will cram UTICA down our throats soon and protect themselves that way.
You don't know much about guns. But that's OK; I'll clue you in.
A.22 is a very low-powered weapon. Unless your shot placement is very precise, you are unlikely to quickly incapacitate someone by shooting them with a.22. (Just to clear things up, by "shot placement" I mean being able to hit them in a vital area -- head or heart.)
A firearm that imparts more kinetic energy to the target is more likely to stop the target quickly. If someone is attacking you and you need to stop them, it's important to do so quickly. You don't want them to get off a few more shots, or a few more swings, or a few more slashes. Shoot them with a.22 and that's likely to happen.
If your life is on the line, and you actually need to shoot someone else -- you may as well do a good job of it. Unpleasant to think about but it's the truth.
Perhaps we as a nation can't aim very well?
That's a ridiculous statement. Let's see how steady your hands are when your life is in danger from an attack of some kind. Sheesh.
Please do not take this as a flame, my good German friend, but you do not have the cultural foundation to partake in this discussion in an informed manner. You can memorize all the statistics that you want, but unless you have lived here for a while, you don't know jack about American culture, and that's what this debate is all about -- culture. Not numbers. Demonstrate some cultural understanding along with the statistics and you are welcome to join in.
Americans believe a lot of things that look crazy to the rest of the world. It probably confuses, frightens, and disgusts you. Sorry; you'll just have to deal with it.
The US also has more stranglings per capita than other nations. We are a weird, violent culture. Guns aren't the cause. Don't know what is, but it isn't the guns.
Good point. That tour (been twice) is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, period. Any geek who lives within driving distance of Nevada needs to go.
Slashdot Mirror
An (extremely cynical) friend of mine calls doctors "tech support for your body." Not a bad way to look at it.
This particular guy is 101% mistrustful of the entire medical profession, as his mother's cancer diagnosis and treatment was bungled, resulting in her death.
You can google around for the lowdown, but in short it's this: there is wormwood in absinthe, the psychoactive agent is a chemical called thujone, and it is harmless unless you are drinking 15 glasses a day like Van Gogh.
Straight wormwood extract is indeed bad news but the amount in absinthe is very very small. You are far more likely to be put on your ass by the alcohol: it is 55% to 75% alcohol by volume.
Seems like only about half of all absinthe drinkers get any kind of "secondary" effects out of it, and they are not hallucinations. It's described as a "different kind of buzz." I can't drink more than 1 glass of the stuff since I don't like the taste, so I haven't had any unusual experiences.
I think aluminum pop cans have an insanely thin plastic liner inside them. Could be wrong, but I have read that somewhere.
I think the aluminum health thing was debunked anyway.
Don't be a nutter. Just because a chemical is found in meat doesn't mean it is bad. In fact, taurine is ESSENTIAL TO LIFE, veg-head.
Technically, taurine is classified as a non-essential amino acid, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to human life. It just means that your body has a biochemical pathway for synthesizing it from other compounds. So avoid it if you like; there's still plenty inside you. Avoiding it because it is in meat is just silly. You're meat.
Natural substances cannot be reproduced, thus you would have to slay a human, suck the Taurine out and put it into a drink.
That is one of the top 3 crazy things I have ever heard. There are PLENTY of chemicals that occur in nature that can be PERFECTLY replicated by industry.
Here, buy some taurine.
OT:
Absinthe is NASTY. I ordered some from Spain. Did a lot of reading on it, and as expected, it's loathsome... tastes like black licorice. It's a very complex liqueur though... probably very enjoyable if you like the prominent anise taste.
You'd need a way to store your solar power. There is a night on the moon, and it's about 2 weeks long. Gotta store power for it, or maybe use nuclear power.
But power aside, the sheer cost of moving the crap up there is prohibitive. These are ridiculous stories. At least in the early '70s we were FLYING to the moon and we could talk about hotels with a straight face. Today it is obviously a pure fantasy and I'll be happy never to see something like this in the news again. Well, maybe not never... run a story 1 year before I can buy a freaking ticket, and not a second earlier.
Weaver was also exonerated of all charges. It was shown in court that he was entrapped into buying a sawed-off shotgun. He was a racist jerk, but he didn't do anything wrong.
For the crime of being a racist jerk with guns, he had his kid shot in the back and his wife in the head. The sniper who dropped the woman wasn't even punished.
It's not funny at all. There are already a lot of copyrighted laws that cannot be freely distributed. Check this link. Highlights:
* California and 47 other states have building laws that are copyrighted by one of three nonprofit organizations. [and they'll get nasty if you try to redistribute the text.]
* The federal government requires U.S. physicians to use a medical billing code that's owned by the American Medical Association.
This is one of the most insane things I have ever heard of. For some reason it is a little-known fact... probably because it's things like building codes, and not the traffic codes that everyone needs to know about. It's still unforgiveable.
Even if you have the bloated monster v7 on your system, the older, lighter player should still be there. At least it is on WinMe. Look for mplayer2.exe, and manually assign it to play MPG, AVI, etc. You may have to leave some of the newer streaming formats assigned to WMP7.
I haven't seen WMP7 pop up in MONTHS and I am SO happy.
What if you liked old anime, like Iczer-One, classic Bubble Gun Crisis and Dirty Pair? I love that stuff, but I haven't seen much modern anime that I can stand to sit through.
Every time a cool-looking movie comes out I have to curb my enthusiasm. I have been burned too often... I can never love again. I make trustworthy friends go see movies first and give me a report. I have even started blowing theaters off and just waiting for DVD or satellite. And I used to see every piece of crap they put out. No more.
One of the airlock outer doors on Mir was held closed with a C-clamp. Can you believe it? There's a great book called Dragonfly that dishes out the inside scoop on Mir. Great reading.
Just to pick nits: the term "armor piercing" is kind of misleading. Big, heavy bullets, like the kind used in military rifles and hunting rifles, are all "armor piercing" by their nature. They'll slice right through all but the most elaborate personal armor, as that armor is typically designed only to stop handgun rounds.
Far from being specially crafted to pierce personal armor, this kind of ammo is as simple as it gets: lead covered in copper. Nothing fancy... but when it's flying fast it will punch through Kevlar pretty easily. (there are more exotic rounds for hunting, but they're not any more "armor piecing" than the basic stuff.)
You don't want to shoot a big animal with something that doesn't have good penetration, otherwise the ammo will lodge in the outer tissues, and the wound won't be fatal, and you'll have this horribly wounded animal to chase down. You need to penetrate down into the organs to make a clean kill.
Anyway, just had to address that urban legend thing.
Cool, thanks for the update. That puts me at ease.
Please tell me: is there any cross dressing, breeding of giant golden chickens or riding of said chickens? I thought the games were pretty lame on account of that stuff.
Does the movie have ANYTHING to do with the games besides the name?
Self Defense" basically just means "shoot 'em dead" to you guys, doesn't it?
.22 for defense.)
It means shoot 'em until they are no longer a threat -- until they stop advancing on you. If a gun is capable of doing that quickly -- with one or two shots, perhaps not optimally aimed due to stress -- it's possible to kill the guy, sure. That's his problem though.
For me, "self defense" refers to guns, yeah. I am not a big guy. I would probably lose a physical struggle, and I am not about to bet my life on my chances in one.
Self-defense is a serious business! If you aren't prepared to take a life, don't use a gun. Using a teeny gun because it is less likely to kill someone will get YOU killed, because the angry guy with 5 tiny holes in him will come kick your ass and take your gun away.
(for you other gun nuts please note I am NOT saying that size is a replacement for good aim. It isn't and I am not advocating that. I'm looking at a worst-case scenario, using a truly tiny caliber like
Do you think the average criminal really wants a fight to the death, or are they more likely to run the second they see that you're armed?
I don't know what the average criminal wants, but if someone advances on me with a weapon, he'll get a warning and then he will get shot if he doesn't wise up.
Statistically guns are a great deterrent and are used a lot just how you describe. But if the bad guy calls your bluff you are in deep trouble! Never carry a gun you are not prepared to use, and never use a gun unless you feel you are justified in taking a life.
The best self defense is generally "running fast", or at least avoiding conflict however you can.
You're correct, in case of burglary you are not supposed to prowl your house trying to shoot the guy. You always should try to make yourself scarce and safe as a first priority. But depending on your house, safe escape might be impossible; your best bet could well be to hole up in the bedroom with the phone. In that scenario, I'd certainly want a gun with me.
Assuming you actually want to defend yourself, that is.
How could a person NOT want to defend themself? Are you a total pacifist, or are you just referring to gun use here?
I can understand people who do not want to risk taking a life during self-defense. Guns aren't for everyone. Great. It's a personal choice. But people who refuse to undertake self-defense of any kind... or who see self-defense as some kind of evil act... how can any rational person defend that position? Self-defense is a basic human right.
Well hey, if you spent some time here, welcome to the debate. But I do get fed up with people who have zero clue about life here putting their two cents in... I don't start yapping to Germans about the racism issues over there and I expect the same courtesy in return.
But since you have actually spent time here, huzzah.
From the Zometools web page:
YOU CAN MAKE...
Squares
Cubes
Triangles
Pyramids
Regular Polygons
And many more!
*yawn*
I always turned their heads around, so you had a blank yellow visor on the space helmet. It turned them from cheery little spacement into my faceless minions of doom.
There are legal precedents about how once you edit the content in a public forum, you have become the "publisher" in effect, and you can he held liable for things in that forum. In other words, there are times when "hands off" is the only safe approach for the publisher or ISP; any editorial oversight sort of makes you liable for what's going on. (I think this harkens back to some case Prodigy was involved in, relating to some kind of libelous material on a forum, but I could be misremembering the source.)
I wonder if that might get extended to computer security matters. Once security analysis tools are illegal, publishers will be unable to ship secure products as easily, and to protect themselves they might try to get the same kind of deal. "Well, we didn't know about that root exploit, but since we never tested it we can't be liable. Lucky us!"
Of course, I'm a cynic. Prolly never happen... right? Right? Anyway, the software industry will cram UTICA down our throats soon and protect themselves that way.
But then why are we suing tobacco companies?
Because they lied. Glock never said, "if you pull the trigger it won't go off, nope, no way, it' sjust decorative."
You don't know much about guns. But that's OK; I'll clue you in.
A
A firearm that imparts more kinetic energy to the target is more likely to stop the target quickly. If someone is attacking you and you need to stop them, it's important to do so quickly. You don't want them to get off a few more shots, or a few more swings, or a few more slashes. Shoot them with a
If your life is on the line, and you actually need to shoot someone else -- you may as well do a good job of it. Unpleasant to think about but it's the truth.
Perhaps we as a nation can't aim very well?
That's a ridiculous statement. Let's see how steady your hands are when your life is in danger from an attack of some kind. Sheesh.
Please do not take this as a flame, my good German friend, but you do not have the cultural foundation to partake in this discussion in an informed manner. You can memorize all the statistics that you want, but unless you have lived here for a while, you don't know jack about American culture, and that's what this debate is all about -- culture. Not numbers. Demonstrate some cultural understanding along with the statistics and you are welcome to join in.
Americans believe a lot of things that look crazy to the rest of the world. It probably confuses, frightens, and disgusts you. Sorry; you'll just have to deal with it.
The US also has more stranglings per capita than other nations. We are a weird, violent culture. Guns aren't the cause. Don't know what is, but it isn't the guns.
Good point. That tour (been twice) is the most amazing thing I have ever seen, period. Any geek who lives within driving distance of Nevada needs to go.