There's also a problem with liquefaction. Most of Victoria and Vancouver (in BC) are built on soft earth which will become mud and will stop supporting the stuff we've built. All those foundations, bridges, streets, they'll all become impassable. There's a liquefaction map I saw at an engineering presentation and the whole thing was red and black. Victoria is literally built on landfill garbage right next to the ocean. One of its landmark buildings, the Empress Hotel, was slowly sinking until it had a major refurb to drive piles down as far as they could reach.
Vancouver is the biggest port for exporting all of Canada's wheat, lumber, ore, etc. If it shuts down, people could be starving for work and food all over the world. It's not all bad though, because EA North would cease to exist. However, greater Vancouver is where most of BC's engineers live and work. We're your experts in fixing up after an earthquake, and most of us would probably be gone.
It's going to be bad when it hits. The upside is that most people here have earthquake kits, emergency supplies, ninja reflexes (we do earthquake drills) and have some idea that it will in fact happen.
I hate driving, and I'll avoid it if I can. I prefer to bike, walk, or if it works, run.
I used to run to work once a week, and it would take me about 40 minutes. (Yes, I'd shower at work.) I'd bus home and it would take me 45-55 minutes to get home by bus. Yes, it took longer to bus home than it did to run in. T2 moment: "I can get out and run faster than this!".
Add to that the erratic bus schedule, the chance of missing the bus, or getting passed by the driver, or whatever. Taking the bus is awful.
Location is one factor. Since I'm divorced and share custody of two kids, I can't move.
I go to a lot of meetings, meetups, networking events, do a lot of volunteering, ran the local engineering chapter for a couple of years, and I've got enough friends that I'm reasonably sure that it's not my personality. I mean, I can't judge it for myself and it's really the common thread of failure in my life, but from what I can see it's nothing overtly shitty about the way I deal with other people.
I mean, I teach yoga and spin classes. I know how to be nice.
I've just had bad luck with my career. It's really been a trainwreck since the get-go.
Also, as a diver I have a dedicated dive computer. (A Shearwater Petrel) My daily-wear watch is a Movado. I happen to like the minimalist look and the thin profile.
I haven't seen a diver using a "dive watch" in... ever. My backup timepiece is a Timex Ironman my dad got me when I was a teenager.
The A-10 "Warthog" is arguably the most heavily armoured plane in the world. From its wikipedia entry:
[The armour is] "made up of titanium plates with thicknesses from 0.5 to 1.5 inches (13 to 38 mm) determined by a study of likely trajectories and deflection angles. The armor makes up almost 6% of the aircraft's empty weight."
It's expensive to stay on high alert all the time. All those extra guards, guns, maintenance, etc. That costs money. Up here, after 9/11, we maintained high alert at the bases for a couple of years, then decided to go back to more-or-less before. Not quite; back in 2000 I could walk onto the base only flashing my ID, and once I did show a post-it that said PASS on it. As it stands now, I do require an actual valid pass to get onto the base. However, the security on the base itself is lower than that of my local YMCA. (The base passes are easy to forge and don't get scanned or recorded; the gym requires an active membership and records your entry times.)
What I'm getting at here is that when you're on guard duty at the War Memorial, you're there to be a meet-and-greet kind of soldier. The only shooting you're expecting is some selfies with the kilted guy (meaning you) and maybe a couple of shots at the bar after work. You're not guarding anything. It's a public sculpture that's maybe 50 feet per side. There's literally nothing there to defend. (I've been there a few times; years ago for work I stayed at the Lord Elgin and worked in the next-door building, housing some PW stuff.)
Now, here's the other thing. Bullets. You have to track the shit out of them. If you gave the guards at the War Memorial live ammo, it would be a complete clusterfuck. If you're giving someone ammo, you're expecting them to get shot at, right? Which really means they should be wearing armour as well, not the ceremonial dress uniform (which only offers protection against thrown bullets) So you've got to get them armour, bullets, and a real gun, plus track all that stuff from day to day. What if the gun got dropped and discharged? What if you stopped for a picture and someone took your gun or cut themselves on the bayonet? What if the magazine fell out and the ammo sprayed all over the ground? Now the person guarding is presenting the image of a drunkard scrambling around for their car keys in the dark.
Weird scenarios, but all significantly more likely than a schizophrenic walking up to you and shooting you in the back in cold blood on a boring Hump Day morning.
Slashdot Mirror
I know.
But now you're tagged as one.
If we can make the colony sustainable, it's way past time for us to make a backup.
We either get ourselves to other planets and stay there, or we all die here on our single-planet graveyard.
As a single guy in my late 30s, I would bang a 70-year old if I got 300k a year for it.
There's also a problem with liquefaction. Most of Victoria and Vancouver (in BC) are built on soft earth which will become mud and will stop supporting the stuff we've built. All those foundations, bridges, streets, they'll all become impassable. There's a liquefaction map I saw at an engineering presentation and the whole thing was red and black. Victoria is literally built on landfill garbage right next to the ocean. One of its landmark buildings, the Empress Hotel, was slowly sinking until it had a major refurb to drive piles down as far as they could reach.
Vancouver is the biggest port for exporting all of Canada's wheat, lumber, ore, etc. If it shuts down, people could be starving for work and food all over the world. It's not all bad though, because EA North would cease to exist. However, greater Vancouver is where most of BC's engineers live and work. We're your experts in fixing up after an earthquake, and most of us would probably be gone.
It's going to be bad when it hits. The upside is that most people here have earthquake kits, emergency supplies, ninja reflexes (we do earthquake drills) and have some idea that it will in fact happen.
I hate driving, and I'll avoid it if I can. I prefer to bike, walk, or if it works, run.
I used to run to work once a week, and it would take me about 40 minutes. (Yes, I'd shower at work.) I'd bus home and it would take me 45-55 minutes to get home by bus. Yes, it took longer to bus home than it did to run in. T2 moment: "I can get out and run faster than this!".
Add to that the erratic bus schedule, the chance of missing the bus, or getting passed by the driver, or whatever. Taking the bus is awful.
You guys used to have a great train system. The biggest users were minorities, poor people, immigrants, ethnic groups, hell, even LGBTQA.
Typical Americans and their attitudes... made you dismantle it.
Uh, yeah, I've been networking for 10 years. I've never stopped looking for my next job.
Location is one factor. Since I'm divorced and share custody of two kids, I can't move.
I go to a lot of meetings, meetups, networking events, do a lot of volunteering, ran the local engineering chapter for a couple of years, and I've got enough friends that I'm reasonably sure that it's not my personality. I mean, I can't judge it for myself and it's really the common thread of failure in my life, but from what I can see it's nothing overtly shitty about the way I deal with other people.
I mean, I teach yoga and spin classes. I know how to be nice.
I've just had bad luck with my career. It's really been a trainwreck since the get-go.
I'm a PE in electrical engineering and I've been out of work since December 2013.
You tell me if it was worth the time and money.
Just go with it. I'm an EE and if I tried to over-pedant everything wrong I encountered in a day I'd starve to death.
Also, as a diver I have a dedicated dive computer. (A Shearwater Petrel) My daily-wear watch is a Movado. I happen to like the minimalist look and the thin profile.
I haven't seen a diver using a "dive watch" in ... ever. My backup timepiece is a Timex Ironman my dad got me when I was a teenager.
Nah, this will pass then get thrown out once it gets to trial.
The current Canadian government has passed several "mean to the accused" bills, but every one has been thrown out by the courts.
The A-10 "Warthog" is arguably the most heavily armoured plane in the world. From its wikipedia entry:
[The armour is] "made up of titanium plates with thicknesses from 0.5 to 1.5 inches (13 to 38 mm) determined by a study of likely trajectories and deflection angles. The armor makes up almost 6% of the aircraft's empty weight."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Some albums are so bad I rate them as "waste of bandwidth".
This comment was on a pallet.
But the longshoremen were on break. Union rules, sorry.
I plan on pirating the movie and having a drunken night of watching it with friends.
I'm a little drunk rihght now. Pardon the uh... typos? Fuck off, it's Solstice.
A buddy and I were talking about how you could prank someone with this.
Find a couple out on a date, wait for the guy to check his phone, then order drone-delivered condoms.
That's what I thought too, and it wasn't making sense. "How is a protocol blocking a torrent site?"
Indeed. The ongoing international outcry over Tienanmen Square haunts the Chinese government to this day.
Hey man, I was BORN in the 1900s.
We call it a rhubarb.
As a counter example, a woman once told me that she thought my foul mouth was awesome.
"Awww, fuck off, you asshole."
Blew her clothes right off her body. She was super smart and had the body of a 22-year-old stripper.
Here's the deal.
It's expensive to stay on high alert all the time. All those extra guards, guns, maintenance, etc. That costs money. Up here, after 9/11, we maintained high alert at the bases for a couple of years, then decided to go back to more-or-less before. Not quite; back in 2000 I could walk onto the base only flashing my ID, and once I did show a post-it that said PASS on it. As it stands now, I do require an actual valid pass to get onto the base. However, the security on the base itself is lower than that of my local YMCA. (The base passes are easy to forge and don't get scanned or recorded; the gym requires an active membership and records your entry times.)
What I'm getting at here is that when you're on guard duty at the War Memorial, you're there to be a meet-and-greet kind of soldier. The only shooting you're expecting is some selfies with the kilted guy (meaning you) and maybe a couple of shots at the bar after work. You're not guarding anything. It's a public sculpture that's maybe 50 feet per side. There's literally nothing there to defend. (I've been there a few times; years ago for work I stayed at the Lord Elgin and worked in the next-door building, housing some PW stuff.)
Now, here's the other thing. Bullets. You have to track the shit out of them. If you gave the guards at the War Memorial live ammo, it would be a complete clusterfuck. If you're giving someone ammo, you're expecting them to get shot at, right? Which really means they should be wearing armour as well, not the ceremonial dress uniform (which only offers protection against thrown bullets) So you've got to get them armour, bullets, and a real gun, plus track all that stuff from day to day. What if the gun got dropped and discharged? What if you stopped for a picture and someone took your gun or cut themselves on the bayonet? What if the magazine fell out and the ammo sprayed all over the ground? Now the person guarding is presenting the image of a drunkard scrambling around for their car keys in the dark.
Weird scenarios, but all significantly more likely than a schizophrenic walking up to you and shooting you in the back in cold blood on a boring Hump Day morning.
And hey, the US drones don't have a problem with stairs. They just level the building.
Huh, I missed a meeting. What's the new tech?