I don't consider being mentally ill as an acceptable standalone reason for a shooting. There's always a reason, even if the reason is the result of a delusion. For example, the Tucson shooter is clearly mentally ill, but his shooting was motivated by (illness-fueled) anarchism and hatred of Rep. Giffords. We'll never know the true motivation behind the Navy Yard thing, because the guy is dead. But just passing it off as insanity without any direct cause seems like a cop-out.
On the other hand, I do admit that I misread your post before replying to it, and I thought you had said "the person that was most recently shooting..." So, I guess your original point stands.
Sure, it happens. Mali is a great example - without foreign (French) intervention, the Malian government was pretty much helpless. But I think a better example would be the US and bin Laden. Here was a man who had directly attacked the US, and despite our seemingly best efforts, toppling governments and generally stomping around the region, we still couldn't get him. Nobody was afraid of Saddam - we walked all over his army, tried him, and executed him. But bin Laden couldn't be found. When people defended the TSA, Patriot Act, and other anti-terrorism measures, they would invoke the specter of bin Laden, still hiding somewhere, plotting another 9/11. And people really did fear that.
I guess we have different viewpoints on what constitutes effectiveness for a terrorist. Yes, it's very rare for a single attack to effect political change. But sustained campaigns of terror can have great effect - the Algerian War is one example, the KKK another.
I think you're partially right and partially wrong. Terrorism can be effective, but only when it creates fear in a populace (that's a tautology, actually). What creates fear is not hurting and killing people, it's hurting and killing people with impunity. If someone punches you in the face, and then you fight back and beat them to a bloody pulp, you're not going to be afraid of them. If someone punches you in the face and easily defends against your attempts to retaliate, then the fear starts.
The Westgate attackers were, afaik, all captured or killed. Had they struck, killed a bunch of people, and then faded away into the shadows, then I think there would be a lot more fear shown by the Kenyan people. Or if Kenyan forces are defeated in Somalia, and Somalian terrorists continue to attack Kenya, then I think there will be more fear. But the current situation, where the Kenyans have been thus far quite successful in driving al Shabaab from its bases and then in bottling up their retaliatory strike, brings to mind more an animal in its death throes than something to be feared.
As long as you trust your eyes and common sense you're generally ok as well. Regarding that "certain maneuver" mentioned above, it was NASA who refused to correct course, despite their own (not mixed-up) sensors telling them that the probe was coming in too low.
Even properly converted and labeled units are no match for stupid management.
Uh, not really. GGP was trying to redefine things into British terminology, which AMC does not do and (to my knowledge) has never done. A season, in TV terminology, has nothing to do with 1/4 of Earth's orbit. It was an attempt to be pedantic and GP was justified in calling it out.
Where do you live, that food trucks are so predatory? The vast majority of food trucks I've seen hang out around office parks at lunchtime and bars at night. In both situations, they're stealing customers really only from fast food chains and sandwich shops, the targets of people who want a quick lunch or late-night drunk food. It's not like people go to a food truck to get a quality meal.
Planetside was a great game that was slowly and unrelentingly trashed by idiotic devs. Looking back at its heyday I consider it one of my favorite video games of all time. But the devs didn't understand balance and/or were outright biased, so with every patch (and every nerf to anything that wasn't an NC-specific weapon) they kept losing more players. And rather than fix the balance problems, they tried to keep players interested with "Hey, look at this!"-type big ideas that bore the distinctive scent of corporate suits, rather than game designers. An expansion that kept players interested for about a week (I don't think I ever saw a real battle in the Core Combat caverns after the honeymoon period ended), a wtf-level retcon of the entire in-game universe from one world with ten continents to ten separate worlds (???), and of course adding mechwarriors. But crazy new shakeups don't fix a game whose real issue is a simple balance problem. And once enough players had left that full-scale battles became the exception rather than the standard, the entire purpose of the game (massive, army-on-army combat) was gone. I don't know, maybe it's shaped up since I last played (2005 sometime), but it definitely didn't seem to be heading that way.
Now, I'm not arguing with you that Firefall is any better. 5v5 isn't even in the same league as army-level combat. But I wouldn't consider "minor success" to be jealous revisionism. Planetside was driven into the ground, pure and simple.
Well, I'm no rocket expert. But there's a diagram in the linked report of the remnants of the 330mm rocket, and it makes a pretty convincing case that the rocket was loaded with chemical weapons and not with explosives.
The NBC article on this includes this line, though:
In a further development, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Russian president had discussed the weapons handover plan with Obama at last week’s G-20 summit.
So according to Russia, at least, this didn't come out of nowhere. It's been planned for a little bit. The reporter may have even been a planted question, a trial balloon for the official announcement.
Syria has never denied having chemical weapons. They have repeatedly and quite openly stated that they have them. What they denied was USING them on their own people.
Human Rights Watch just posted the results of their own analysis. They say it was Assad and not the rebels, mainly because the rebels are not known to have 140mm or 330mm rockets or their associated equipment.
If you hadn't directly quoted me, I'd think you were replying to the wrong comment.
AC's post was about the "enough for 100,000 photos and 125,000 songs" bit, not the "7x the 64GB device" bit. He seemed angry that the article measured file size in a Common Joe fashion rather than a technical fashion, when in fact the article did both. That's like getting mad if an ad for a sedan claims "comfortably sits 5 people" as well as the actual measurement of interior volume.
No idea why someone labelled this with "intelligent design" as that means no evolution at all.
ID was always explained to me as accepting evolution, but not natural selection (i.e. the traits that compose modern life were artifically selected for by the "designer"). As such, you could conceivably put an ID tag on this story.
One of the biggest problems with nuclear power, agreed on by proponents and critics alike, is that the currently-operating plants are older-generation designs, repaired and refurbished to run long past their expected lifetime.
The natural gas boom is putting these older-gen reactors out of business. When the cost goes back up and nuclear becomes profitable again, we'll get the chance to actually implement the newer designs.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't consider being mentally ill as an acceptable standalone reason for a shooting. There's always a reason, even if the reason is the result of a delusion. For example, the Tucson shooter is clearly mentally ill, but his shooting was motivated by (illness-fueled) anarchism and hatred of Rep. Giffords. We'll never know the true motivation behind the Navy Yard thing, because the guy is dead. But just passing it off as insanity without any direct cause seems like a cop-out.
On the other hand, I do admit that I misread your post before replying to it, and I thought you had said "the person that was most recently shooting..." So, I guess your original point stands.
Hey, that's like two blocks from the best Mexican food in the city, Ninfa's on Navigation. Great location choice!
Remember, Muslims are allowed to lie to infidels! Therefore, every shooter is a Muslim.
the terrorist that was most recently shooting up DC is in prison now. They caught him.
Uh, did you forget about the Navy Yard Shooting?
Curiously, Nissan's goal appears to be to take sloppy human drivers out of the equation to eliminate road fatalities."
"We want fewer people to die" is a curious position to take?
Sure, it happens. Mali is a great example - without foreign (French) intervention, the Malian government was pretty much helpless. But I think a better example would be the US and bin Laden. Here was a man who had directly attacked the US, and despite our seemingly best efforts, toppling governments and generally stomping around the region, we still couldn't get him. Nobody was afraid of Saddam - we walked all over his army, tried him, and executed him. But bin Laden couldn't be found. When people defended the TSA, Patriot Act, and other anti-terrorism measures, they would invoke the specter of bin Laden, still hiding somewhere, plotting another 9/11. And people really did fear that.
I guess we have different viewpoints on what constitutes effectiveness for a terrorist. Yes, it's very rare for a single attack to effect political change. But sustained campaigns of terror can have great effect - the Algerian War is one example, the KKK another.
Even more if the zombies have chainsaws.
I think you're partially right and partially wrong. Terrorism can be effective, but only when it creates fear in a populace (that's a tautology, actually). What creates fear is not hurting and killing people, it's hurting and killing people with impunity. If someone punches you in the face, and then you fight back and beat them to a bloody pulp, you're not going to be afraid of them. If someone punches you in the face and easily defends against your attempts to retaliate, then the fear starts.
The Westgate attackers were, afaik, all captured or killed. Had they struck, killed a bunch of people, and then faded away into the shadows, then I think there would be a lot more fear shown by the Kenyan people. Or if Kenyan forces are defeated in Somalia, and Somalian terrorists continue to attack Kenya, then I think there will be more fear. But the current situation, where the Kenyans have been thus far quite successful in driving al Shabaab from its bases and then in bottling up their retaliatory strike, brings to mind more an animal in its death throes than something to be feared.
As long as you trust your eyes and common sense you're generally ok as well. Regarding that "certain maneuver" mentioned above, it was NASA who refused to correct course, despite their own (not mixed-up) sensors telling them that the probe was coming in too low.
Even properly converted and labeled units are no match for stupid management.
Uh, not really. GGP was trying to redefine things into British terminology, which AMC does not do and (to my knowledge) has never done. A season, in TV terminology, has nothing to do with 1/4 of Earth's orbit. It was an attempt to be pedantic and GP was justified in calling it out.
"The same number of lawyers, now less informed" =/= "fewer lawyers".
Where do you live, that food trucks are so predatory? The vast majority of food trucks I've seen hang out around office parks at lunchtime and bars at night. In both situations, they're stealing customers really only from fast food chains and sandwich shops, the targets of people who want a quick lunch or late-night drunk food. It's not like people go to a food truck to get a quality meal.
Planetside was a great game that was slowly and unrelentingly trashed by idiotic devs. Looking back at its heyday I consider it one of my favorite video games of all time. But the devs didn't understand balance and/or were outright biased, so with every patch (and every nerf to anything that wasn't an NC-specific weapon) they kept losing more players. And rather than fix the balance problems, they tried to keep players interested with "Hey, look at this!"-type big ideas that bore the distinctive scent of corporate suits, rather than game designers. An expansion that kept players interested for about a week (I don't think I ever saw a real battle in the Core Combat caverns after the honeymoon period ended), a wtf-level retcon of the entire in-game universe from one world with ten continents to ten separate worlds (???), and of course adding mechwarriors. But crazy new shakeups don't fix a game whose real issue is a simple balance problem. And once enough players had left that full-scale battles became the exception rather than the standard, the entire purpose of the game (massive, army-on-army combat) was gone. I don't know, maybe it's shaped up since I last played (2005 sometime), but it definitely didn't seem to be heading that way.
Now, I'm not arguing with you that Firefall is any better. 5v5 isn't even in the same league as army-level combat. But I wouldn't consider "minor success" to be jealous revisionism. Planetside was driven into the ground, pure and simple.
Wow, congratulations, you proved all etymologists wrong with three seconds of thought.
Etymologists?
Sorry, all subtlety controls were destroyed during the Dice acquisition.
You could at least post the non-mobile version of the link.
Well, I'm no rocket expert. But there's a diagram in the linked report of the remnants of the 330mm rocket, and it makes a pretty convincing case that the rocket was loaded with chemical weapons and not with explosives.
In a further development, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Russian president had discussed the weapons handover plan with Obama at last week’s G-20 summit.
So according to Russia, at least, this didn't come out of nowhere. It's been planned for a little bit. The reporter may have even been a planted question, a trial balloon for the official announcement.
Syria has never denied having chemical weapons. They have repeatedly and quite openly stated that they have them. What they denied was USING them on their own people.
Human Rights Watch just posted the results of their own analysis. They say it was Assad and not the rebels, mainly because the rebels are not known to have 140mm or 330mm rockets or their associated equipment.
If you hadn't directly quoted me, I'd think you were replying to the wrong comment.
AC's post was about the "enough for 100,000 photos and 125,000 songs" bit, not the "7x the 64GB device" bit. He seemed angry that the article measured file size in a Common Joe fashion rather than a technical fashion, when in fact the article did both. That's like getting mad if an ad for a sedan claims "comfortably sits 5 people" as well as the actual measurement of interior volume.
He said 500GB. He gave the technically-inclined measurement, and then the Common Joe measurement. What's the problem?
"By your powers combined, I am Captain Lobbyist!"
No idea why someone labelled this with "intelligent design" as that means no evolution at all.
ID was always explained to me as accepting evolution, but not natural selection (i.e. the traits that compose modern life were artifically selected for by the "designer"). As such, you could conceivably put an ID tag on this story.
One of the biggest problems with nuclear power, agreed on by proponents and critics alike, is that the currently-operating plants are older-generation designs, repaired and refurbished to run long past their expected lifetime.
The natural gas boom is putting these older-gen reactors out of business. When the cost goes back up and nuclear becomes profitable again, we'll get the chance to actually implement the newer designs.