There should be a very large market for such a product.
The number 1 reason to own a firearm in the USA today is for self defense. You don't see many pure hunters anymore. Due to the expense, most hunters and recreational shooters wish to 'dual purpose' their guns - IE fun at the range AND useful for self defense..
I'm not going to say that there wouldn't be a market, but the NRA's objection is simple: They should not be mandated.
If you want to say they shouldn't be mandated that's fine, but that's a different story because that's not what the survey asked nor the essence of the objections here.
The survey asked if people would be interested in buying them, not mandating them, buying them. Clearly the answer is yes, likely due in part to the reasons I laid out.
Even if I wanted a gun for self-defence I would be willing to accept a small chance of failure in a smart gun if I had a teenager in the house and was rationally aware of the risk of suicide or horseplay.
And the same access and reliability issues apply to gun safes and trigger locks.
As a matter of market analysis, as long as they cost 5-10 times as much as a non-smart firearm with worse performance, not to mention restricted to.22lr, they're not likely at all to sell well.
That's circular reasoning, the only reason they cost a lot is because the NRA is trying to force them off the market so you don't get economies of scale. Allow them on the market the price will drop and performance issues go away.
A firearm must, above all things, be reliable. There is no indication whatsoever that the so-called "smart" features (whatever that is) have been developed to anything even close to acceptable real-world performance. Meaning "I pull trigger, gun goes bang every time." I've seen crappy fingerprint recognizing prototypes, some that require an associated bracelet or ring (works great until the battery dies...), GPS-enabled (no signal? stinks for you).
What if you're a hunter, recreational shooter, or anyone else who wants a gun for some purpose other than self-defence?
There should be a very large market for such a product.
Why not simply bet that warming would come in far short of the predictions mainstream scientists were putting out at the time? Maybe they couldn't get anyone to bite on those terms, maybe they were just that cocky, or most likely, they just wanted the media from putting money up predicting cooling.
Whatever the reason, if they'd wagered on more sane "you're models show too much warming" terms, they could have made some good money.
Probably rhetoric. The contrarians are building their reputation on the idea that the scientists are incompetent, corrupt, or in some other way completely wrong. If the contrarians are right then the current warm temps are just the high point of a cycle, so in a few years it should be cooler.
By betting that temperatures will rise, just not quite as much as the scientists claim, they'd be essentially conceding that they think AGW is happening.
Besides, they already benefited by cashing in on the PR of actually making bet, the fact the eventually lost isn't really something they'll be motivated to share with their followers.
I'm sorry but are you out of your mind??? You seriously just suggested that Mexico would simply decide to let the US put them behind a giant wall AND give the US part of their country for free?!?!?
No, you didn't read it very well. Go back and read it again, because you missed several key points.
Highlight the important points I missed.
You're going to blackmail them with trade sanctions? Even if it didn't cost your own economy more than it cost to build the wall it would still be illegal because of NAFTA. And they'll still tell you to go screw yourself because even in international politics people believe in fairness and don't respond well to public blackmail.
Do they want to stop the illegal immigration? Sure, they're losing good people and it's embarrassing, but they don't want a wall as a solution. A wall says they're such horrible desperate people that the US is building a wall to keep them out, they don't want that stigma.
As for joint action against the cartels, perhaps, though the US army isn't very well suited to that sort of work. But Mexico is never going to give up sovereignty in those areas to the US, officially or unofficially it's just not something countries do.
I just find it ironic that after all the whining about illegal Mexicans getting handouts from the US government Trump suddenly thinks the US should get a handout from the Mexican government!
And as for why Mexico should pay for the wall, or at least half of it, that is to get some say as to where the wall gets put. Some sections of Northern Mexico are largely under the control of the drug cartels, the same ones that have expanded across the border and have camps on the US side. If the Mexican Government is unable to control warlords on their side of the border, we can use the US Army to do that for them. And then put the border further south. Then we'll be happy to pay for the wall.
WFT?!?
I'm sorry but are you out of your mind??? You seriously just suggested that Mexico would simply decide to let the US put them behind a giant wall AND give the US part of their country for free?!?!?
That might be the most ridiculous suggestion I've ever heard.
You of course have to have some vision to understand that doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes, it is the end game, not the first move of a pawn. Mexico would have many chances along the way to work with us, to help deal with the problem. For example, were I US President, I would suggest to the Mexican Government that the US Army work with the Mexican Army to go after the drug cartels together.
Possible, cooperation has happened before. Though as the Mexican President I'd also suggest you clean up your drug problem so your country stops funding my drug cartels.
I would suggest that join border patrols by both armies could be implemented so they work together to stop the flow of drugs, money, and people across the border.
The level of help and effort put forth by them would determine where it goes next. If I see a good faith effort, then much of the harshness can be put aside.
And then you suggest that they give you part of their country and they reply by suggesting that you and your army GTFO or there's gonna be trouble.
Even if you somehow get the US public to support it then you create a latino terrorist problem and make the US into an international pariah.
I don't agree with your conclusion. You clearly don't agree with mine.
What I haven't heard is another solution, because it is easy to attack someone else who has a plan, it is far harder to come up with your own plan and put it out there.
I submit that the current situation cannot continue and has to be stopped, or we'll no longer have a country. At least not a great one.
What is your solution to stopping illegal border crossings?
1) I disagree the current situation cannot continue. You'll still have a country, it will be somewhat more latino but it will still be a country. That's not to say it's an ideal situation, but I submit that it's better than the outcome you propose.
2) If you do want to reduce the current situation then you can step up current enforcement and make it harder to employ illegal immigrants.
3) If you're really serious about stopping immigration you can build the wall and pay for it yourself as conservatives have suggested for ages. This talk about having Mexico pay for it is just bizarre, the US has more money and is the one who's most concerned about it, why is it Mexico's responsibility to protect your border?
So you're literally proposing they gun down women and children?
Oh yes, the "think of the children" argument...
You must admit it's terrible terrible optics.
Even if you somehow get the US public to support it then you create a latino terrorist problem and make the US into an international pariah.
That's going to have awful consequences for the US including economic losses and a loss of soft power.
Instead of the Border Patrol driving SUVs along the border, why don't we have tanks and armored personal carriers on the border? When the people drive across the border in their SUVs, shoot them.
Kinda funny how you basically went from "have Mexico build the wall" to straight out arguing for "kill any Mexicans trying to cross the border" as a solution.
If keeping them out is so important to you then why not pay for the wall yourself?
International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
Very easy to make such a one line reply, but that is silly. Trade and the global economy weren't bad before all this free trade, life will go on just fine.
No it won't. The bill you propose literally bans the US from importing the vast majority of goods it currently imports. Even ignoring the massive trade war that causes it will massively increase costs and take a huge chunk out of the economy.
Our economy is not made to contract, look how much grief a few percent contraction caused in 2008. What you're describing would be worse than the great depression.
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants?
I'm not sure how you got that out of what I posted.
I decided to start with the charitable interpretation because the obvious interpretation was so bad.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
If an invading army is crossing your borders, you shoot at them.
As for invading Mexico, it may well come to that if they can't get the drug cartels under control. If they can't clean up their mess, we'll do it for them.
So you're literally proposing they gun down women and children?
Ignoring the moral concerns I'm also pretty sure that's unconstitutional unless you somehow get a declaration of war against illegal immigrants (fantastic optics!).
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state.
Yea, like it did after Iraq? I hate to burst your bubble, but no one in the world cares any more about Mexico than they did about Iraq, and we have FAR more interest in Mexico than we ever did in Iraq.
You have a very distorted misunderstanding of the world.
The most likely outcome of your policy is an outbreak of domestic latino terrorism.
You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts.
What if the United States passed a law saying that any goods imported into the US for sale, have to be made under the same laws as if they were made in the US?
Worker pay, hours, rights, EPA rules, etc. must all be followed.
Want to make the iPhone in China? Fine, go right ahead, but you have to pay the workers $7.25/hr and pay overtime over 40 hours. You also have to make them according to EPA rules.
International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
I'm hoping that's not a Trump policy.
The wall thing is interesting...
I get that you don't think that can happen, but you might be shocked. If we could get a US President who has a pair and understands that it isn't an equal or even situation, we might get something done with Mexico.
Or to put it another way... Trump is the only person who could meet with the Mexican President and say to him, "It may seem like we have each other over a barrel here... but it just seems that way..."
Or to be more blunt... Would the President of Mexico like the US Army deployed on his northern border and start dealing with the problem without his help?
It comes down to a different point of view:
"Mr. President (of Mexico), would you like lube or no lube? Either way you're going to learn who is actually in charge here, we can do this the easy or the hard way, take your pick."
"Together we can solve this problem WITH your help, or the US can solve it WITHOUT your help."
It is not a partnership of equals.
So what exactly are you proposing?
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants? I don't see why Mexico would mind, it's basically a really expensive way to pay for the wall yourselves.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state. Investors start to flee since the US has just demonstrated it no longer cares about the rule of law, the world starts looking to the Euro or something else as a safe reserve currency and the US economy collapses. I mean it's not that different from what Russia did with Ukraine and it isn't exactly turning out well for them.
The problem is your "stick" isn't nearly as big as you think it is, and when other people see you try to abuse your power they're going to start working to take it away.
Trump said he would 'get' Apple to make their products in America, not 'make' Apple. There's a difference. He's not going to force Apple to come to America but convince them. He's going to improve the business tax codes which Tim Cooke has said is a driving force for Apple to make their products overseas. Trump's statement is not so outlandish as some world make it to be.
Here's what he actually said...
"We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, they're amazing," Trump said. "I was saying make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we're gonna get things coming... we're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries."
Of course the actual reason isn't taxes (the US's effective rate is pretty low) but manpower.
China has relatively cheap labour and a manufacturing sector with a ton of expertise. You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts. Trump's chances of convincing Apple to more their manufacturing are about the same as his chances of convincing Mexico to give him a free wall.
Trump isn't an unstoppable force of whatever, he's an incompetent buffoon who's dangerous for the sole reason that a bunch of people think he's qualified to drive the bus. I don't think he's all that different from Palin who was a political force for years despite massive and obvious red flags. I suspect he'll similarly fade away when people realize just how incompetent he is and they start feeling embarrassed to follow him, whether it happens before the Republican's nominate their candidate is the big question.
I'm sure the same way any fleet of other vehicles is maintained. Repair it until it no longer meets serviceability standard, then part it out or scrap it. How is this any different than if a tire on a UPS truck blows out sending the truck careening into oncoming traffic?
The truck is already on the ground and the vast majority of failures leave it there.
Trucks are also much more expensive and contain even more valuable human drivers, this creates a much bigger incentive to keep things working safely. There's also more opportunity for the human driver to mitigate mechanical failures.
They do a reasonable amount of preventative maintenance to ensure a level of usefulness and safety, but occasionally a machine breaks and it could potentially hurt someone when it fails -- just like every other aspect of our lives. I know I'd rather be hit by a 55 pound out-of-control drone than a 10,000 pound out-of-control truck. Even still, I would imagine that a drone AI could be programmed to crash into trees or empty green space or some other reasonably safe emergency landing sites in the event of failure.
The 55 lb drone could do quite a bit of damage if it hits you in the head or falls into traffic and startles drivers.
As for maintenance a lot of businesses operate very close to the margin, sometimes in the red. They're going to save money everywhere they can, this includes doing the absolute minimum maintenance and running every drone until complete failure, it just becomes a question of how they fail.
It might be that the "fall from the sky" failure turns out to be rare enough to not be a concern, but it seems like people are simply overlooking the issue which could become a major hazard.
Drones don't last forever, how do they expect them to leave service? Are they going to throw old but functional drones on the scrap heap? Wait until they don't start and are too hard to repair?
What proportion are going to end up falling from the sky over populated areas and how dangerous are those going to be?
A small continuous population, that doesn't give them the right to a self-governing state in that territory any more than it does small minorities in other states.
Land claims from well over 1000+ years ago notwithstanding.
The Jewish people have lived in the land of Israel for at least 3,300 years and have hand multiple self-governing states in that land. They don't have "land clams from well over 1000+ years ago," they have had a continuous claim for thousands of years. Invading powers have prevented them from reestablishing their state until 70 year ago.
Being a small minority doesn't mean you get to own the land, and old land claims go away after a few hundred years, much less 1000+.
Can you offer any other groups who ruled a territory over 1000 years ago whom you think have a better claim to the land than its current owners?
And the Jewish immigration was part of a specific plan to create a Jewish homeland. The massive Jewish immigration between 1920 and 1949 was during the Mandate when the British were in change and the local Arab population was unable to manage immigration.
First, Jews had been returning to the land of Israel since at least the 1880s, and the wider population still had ties to their homeland.
They were not so much trying to "create a Jewish homeland" as rebuild it. They have had to do the same thing more than once as invading powers through history have taken away the Israelis only for them to return home later.
And that return to Israel was Zionism, part of the explicit plan I referred to.
And it wasn't their homeland, it was the homeland of their ancient ancestors, who probably took it from someone else's ancient ancestors. Some of those invaders taking their homeland were likely under the impression that they were retaking their own homeland like the Palestinians are trying to now.
Why do ancient land claims only count for the Jews?
Second, why is it that only Jews returning to the land of Israel bother you when Arabs were migrating to those lands at the same time? Are you unaware of the massive movement of Arabs into that areas during the same decades? Where is your outrage about that?
Arabs were already the majority population. They weren't part of a planned demographic change and land seizure. There's nothing to be outraged about.
Third, here is a map of Arab lands and Israel. Could you explain why you think the Arabs have to possess the tiny dot that is Israel too? Don't they have enough land?
Because the land was not Israel's to take. And Arabs are not some amorphous blob, those were actual people who saw another ethnic group come in and take control of their territory.
Of course the Palestinian Arabs disagreed. A different ethnic group declares they're going to start colonizing your territory to create their own state, they then proceed to do so while you're under foreign occupation by states who generally side with the other ethnic group.
Excuse me, but what do you mean "colonizing your territory"? What makes you think it was theirs? You just seem to assume that without proof. What proof do you have?
I never claimed Palestine was an Arab country, though the Ottoman's gave them fairly decent autonomy. I claimed that it was Arab territory, as in territory with a huge Arab majority and Arab culture.
And I'm sorry but that site is ridiculous.
Just look at how they acknowledge that Palestine had a huge Arab majority for hundreds, probably more than a thousand years.
Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population afte
This is an oversimplification, although I think it does do a pretty good job of summarizing the Palestinian Arab perspective on things. One of the difficulties here is that every group has a narrative that emphasizes some aspects and details to make them sound like the aggrieved good guys. Note that while there was no native government to control immigration, the Jews going to Mandate Palestine were buying and settling land completely legally.
What if those Jewish immigrants declared they were going to buy up land in New York instead, and once they got enough people there they would declare their own state. And with a UN endorsement they did so until the UN announced a partition granting Manhattan to the new Jewish state.
Do you think that would have gone over well? Would the mass immigration have gone ahead if the US government was in charge of US territory and able to declare that the plan would not succeed? Imagine if it were Arabs instead of Jews if you want to ramp up the ethnic tension to match.
This is an oversimplification, although I think it does do a pretty good job of summarizing the Palestinian Arab perspective on things. One of the difficulties here is that every group has a narrative that emphasizes some aspects and details to make them sound like the aggrieved good guys. Note that while there was no native government to control immigration, the Jews going to Mandate Palestine were buying and settling land completely legally.
If you're confronted with a question with only bad answers the solution is to never put yourself in a position to answer that question.
The idea of creating a Jewish state in Arab occupied territory should never have been proposed.
Israel is Jewish now and you can't turn back the clock, but I think it's important and useful to acknowledge the original mistake.
They got kicked out of that region eventually by force, and then the UK came up with a snazzy plan to keep the muzzies down by reinstalling the jews in a place they'd already been driven out of.
This is a vast oversimplification. First, there was no intent to "keep the muzzies down" but rather to deal with an ongoing situation. In particular, there had been a small Jewish population in various parts of the land since the Roman times (such as around Safed) and there had been systematic return to the land since the 1800s with a large Jewish population by the 1920s and a very large population post World War II.
A small continuous population, that doesn't give them the right to a self-governing state in that territory any more than it does small minorities in other states.
Land claims from well over 1000+ years ago notwithstanding.
And the Jewish immigration was part of a specific plan to create a Jewish homeland. The massive Jewish immigration between 1920 and 1949 was during the Mandate when the British were in change and the local Arab population was unable to manage immigration.
Of course the Palestinian Arabs disagreed. A different ethnic group declares they're going to start colonizing your territory to create their own state, they then proceed to do so while you're under foreign occupation by states who generally side with the other ethnic group.
The foreign occupiers then propose to give the other group a state with most of the land even though you still have a bigger population. Is this a proposal you're going to agree to?
Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.
I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them. People don't remember acts like Elastica or Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen that charted and were popular for a short time. Hell, look at Weird Al's parodies throughout the years, there are some artists he parodied whose specific work is unknown now that were popular enough at the time to justify parody, like Tiffany and George Harrison's solo work.
Don't confuse style with talent.
The challenge with pop music is you need to grab people the first time they're exposed to it, so you need some very accessible elements on the surface for first time listeners to enjoy.
The problem is those elements get old very quickly, and if there's nothing else the listener gets bored and moves on, that's why pop acts rise and crash so quickly.
Bowie has held up as a pop act, that means not only does he include a great surface hook but he's able to add a subtext that allows the song to hold up long term and evolve his image so he stays relevant. This requires an exceptional amount of talent, those artists don't come along often.
The key to effectively deal with network abuse is to make the responsible party understand that it's in their best interest to do that. Otherwise they stand to lose more than they are profiting from network abuse. As long as effective public email blacklist exist, network providers will have to reluctantly terminate their spambags, else their entire network gets blacklisted and they lose more, as their other, non-spamming pissed off customers flee to other providers, in order to be able to send mail.
The problem is that punishment is so severe that other ISPs will be very reluctant to use it so it's basically an empty threat.
Traffic degradation, reducing the bandwidth for packets directed towards misbehaving ISPs, now that's a little easier to sell and could again be very effective.
Of course this is running right into the net neutrality debate and goes under the heading of "be careful what you wish for". We want to shut down the cybercriminals, others want to shut down the torrent servers, and some even want to shut down wikileaks.
After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
Maybe alcohol causes physical activity and better health status? If only walking home from the bar.
More likely a lot of the light-to-moderate drinking crowd is going out for casual social drinking, and some of the people with less consumption are doing so because they don't get out much.
There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits./s
Do you have a citation for that? The natural reason for it to vary by gender is because men are heavier than women, but in that case you're still better off giving both genders the same advice and giving them the option to scale by body mass. I don't see any other reason why men and women of the same size should have different alcohol recommendations.
This article contradicts you and suggests this is a case of the guidelines catching up with the science and medical advice.
Every time there's anything about climate change, there are tons and tons more AC posts than usual, and of course, a large majority of them are making fun of the idea that humankind can change our climate. I wonder if it's just a few nutters, or a team of people paid by the oil industry to do this...
I think it's more that certain people are trolled by certain topics. They don't comment on much, but bring out a topic that they're passionate about and they come out of the woodwork to express their views. I'll do the same thing on some right leaning or libertarian blogs, I don't troll, but on some topics I think it's important to challenge the consensus and try to sway people.
On Slashdot the two big ones seem to be global warming and feminism (particularly in gaming or software development). I don't think there's anything insincere about their beliefs, they're just wrong.
I'm half in agreement. The new movie is underwhelming, but not because it's "retro", I think that's fine, it looks like it occurred ~35 years after RotJ. The movie is underwhelming because it's unoriginal and lacking vision. Honestly I think that's a pattern with JJ Abrams, he makes great TV but give him a movie and it's paint-by-numbers all the way.
I will give Lucas credit for the 2nd trilogy on those grounds. It was original and had vision. It just happened to be poorly executed at the same time.
You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.
In the context you are talking about, is race only color? Race has also had the meaning of a subgroup within a species sharing characteristics. In the terms you are talking about, is only characteristic superficial skin color?
When referring to humans race is almost exclusively used to refer to colour, in which case it isn't much use outside of an often harmful social construct. If we start talking about ethnicities then it becomes more useful, but at the end of the day it's important to remember we're just referring to probability distributions of genes.
Are you daft? Race is not a social construct. Have you ever seen black people? They have a completely different skin colour from white people. That's a fact, not a social construct. It proves that different races of human beings exist.
Your SJW attitude to *facts* is appalling, retract it.
Is Obama black or white? Are Kazakhs arab, asian, or a different race? What about Moroccans? Are the East African ethnicities that dominate the marathon the same race as the Jamaicans who dominate sprinting? Their skin colour is the same but the body types are drastically different.
You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.
I realize that exercise isn't a priority for most geeks
And having served as a Marine Corps Officer, I think I'm more familiar with physical exertion than most geeks. You emphasized the distance ran, I would emphasize getting shot, and from a noticeably high-powered weapon at that. If you shot me in the side with a Dragunov rifle (which fires the same 7.62x54mm rounds as the PKM light machine gun) and told me to run the Marine Corps obstacle course ( less than 100m), and THEN fight another Marine....I'd almost certainly lose, regardless of the melee skills of my opponent.
But Ren didn't lose, he won. The entire argument of "Ep7 sucks because the Dark Jedi lost a saber fight with a Stormtrooper" is moot...because it's factually incorrect.
The problem is we didn't really see Ren hurting from the gunshot wound. We saw him get shot, and we occasionally saw him wince and bleed, but that doesn't really register with the audience. If I could see him obviously hobbled or otherwise hurting as he fought it might be relevant, but what I actually saw on the screen was Ren defeating Fin by a narrow margin, and losing to... the girl with a slightly less memorable name. Ren as the bad guy is frankly not scary.
I think that kind of issue was indicative of the movie, there's decent ideas but they didn't think them through so they didn't really work. Imagine if Ren was a rage-filled fanatic with a ridiculous amount of power instead of a little kid with a temper tantrum. Now I'm actually scared of him.
More to the point think about how meaningless it was when they Death Star fired and blew up a Republic that basically had no role in the movie. Imagine instead if they spent the first half of the movie trying to sneak through First Order space in order to reach the Republic, and they knew they just had to reach the Republic fleets to be safe and decipher the map. Imagine we had regular scenes on Republic planets, perhaps with Han Solo, trying to smuggle them through First Order controlled territory. And then a giant Death Star comes out and simply destroys the Republic, Han Solo, and all of their plans?
I think I'd actually care about the new Death Star firing in that case.
Slashdot Mirror
There should be a very large market for such a product.
The number 1 reason to own a firearm in the USA today is for self defense. You don't see many pure hunters anymore. Due to the expense, most hunters and recreational shooters wish to 'dual purpose' their guns - IE fun at the range AND useful for self defense..
I'm not going to say that there wouldn't be a market, but the NRA's objection is simple: They should not be mandated.
If you want to say they shouldn't be mandated that's fine, but that's a different story because that's not what the survey asked nor the essence of the objections here.
The survey asked if people would be interested in buying them, not mandating them, buying them. Clearly the answer is yes, likely due in part to the reasons I laid out.
Even if I wanted a gun for self-defence I would be willing to accept a small chance of failure in a smart gun if I had a teenager in the house and was rationally aware of the risk of suicide or horseplay.
And the same access and reliability issues apply to gun safes and trigger locks.
As a matter of market analysis, as long as they cost 5-10 times as much as a non-smart firearm with worse performance, not to mention restricted to .22lr, they're not likely at all to sell well.
That's circular reasoning, the only reason they cost a lot is because the NRA is trying to force them off the market so you don't get economies of scale. Allow them on the market the price will drop and performance issues go away.
Sorry, but I don't believe this for one moment.
A firearm must, above all things, be reliable. There is no indication whatsoever that the so-called "smart" features (whatever that is) have been developed to anything even close to acceptable real-world performance. Meaning "I pull trigger, gun goes bang every time." I've seen crappy fingerprint recognizing prototypes, some that require an associated bracelet or ring (works great until the battery dies...), GPS-enabled (no signal? stinks for you).
What if you're a hunter, recreational shooter, or anyone else who wants a gun for some purpose other than self-defence?
There should be a very large market for such a product.
Why not simply bet that warming would come in far short of the predictions mainstream scientists were putting out at the time? Maybe they couldn't get anyone to bite on those terms, maybe they were just that cocky, or most likely, they just wanted the media from putting money up predicting cooling.
Whatever the reason, if they'd wagered on more sane "you're models show too much warming" terms, they could have made some good money.
Probably rhetoric. The contrarians are building their reputation on the idea that the scientists are incompetent, corrupt, or in some other way completely wrong. If the contrarians are right then the current warm temps are just the high point of a cycle, so in a few years it should be cooler.
By betting that temperatures will rise, just not quite as much as the scientists claim, they'd be essentially conceding that they think AGW is happening.
Besides, they already benefited by cashing in on the PR of actually making bet, the fact the eventually lost isn't really something they'll be motivated to share with their followers.
I'm sorry but are you out of your mind??? You seriously just suggested that Mexico would simply decide to let the US put them behind a giant wall AND give the US part of their country for free?!?!?
No, you didn't read it very well. Go back and read it again, because you missed several key points.
Highlight the important points I missed.
You're going to blackmail them with trade sanctions? Even if it didn't cost your own economy more than it cost to build the wall it would still be illegal because of NAFTA. And they'll still tell you to go screw yourself because even in international politics people believe in fairness and don't respond well to public blackmail.
Do they want to stop the illegal immigration? Sure, they're losing good people and it's embarrassing, but they don't want a wall as a solution. A wall says they're such horrible desperate people that the US is building a wall to keep them out, they don't want that stigma.
As for joint action against the cartels, perhaps, though the US army isn't very well suited to that sort of work. But Mexico is never going to give up sovereignty in those areas to the US, officially or unofficially it's just not something countries do.
I just find it ironic that after all the whining about illegal Mexicans getting handouts from the US government Trump suddenly thinks the US should get a handout from the Mexican government!
And as for why Mexico should pay for the wall, or at least half of it, that is to get some say as to where the wall gets put. Some sections of Northern Mexico are largely under the control of the drug cartels, the same ones that have expanded across the border and have camps on the US side. If the Mexican Government is unable to control warlords on their side of the border, we can use the US Army to do that for them. And then put the border further south. Then we'll be happy to pay for the wall.
WFT?!?
I'm sorry but are you out of your mind??? You seriously just suggested that Mexico would simply decide to let the US put them behind a giant wall AND give the US part of their country for free?!?!?
That might be the most ridiculous suggestion I've ever heard.
You of course have to have some vision to understand that doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes, it is the end game, not the first move of a pawn. Mexico would have many chances along the way to work with us, to help deal with the problem. For example, were I US President, I would suggest to the Mexican Government that the US Army work with the Mexican Army to go after the drug cartels together.
Possible, cooperation has happened before. Though as the Mexican President I'd also suggest you clean up your drug problem so your country stops funding my drug cartels.
I would suggest that join border patrols by both armies could be implemented so they work together to stop the flow of drugs, money, and people across the border.
The level of help and effort put forth by them would determine where it goes next. If I see a good faith effort, then much of the harshness can be put aside.
And then you suggest that they give you part of their country and they reply by suggesting that you and your army GTFO or there's gonna be trouble.
Even if you somehow get the US public to support it then you create a latino terrorist problem and make the US into an international pariah.
I don't agree with your conclusion. You clearly don't agree with mine.
What I haven't heard is another solution, because it is easy to attack someone else who has a plan, it is far harder to come up with your own plan and put it out there.
I submit that the current situation cannot continue and has to be stopped, or we'll no longer have a country. At least not a great one.
What is your solution to stopping illegal border crossings?
1) I disagree the current situation cannot continue. You'll still have a country, it will be somewhat more latino but it will still be a country. That's not to say it's an ideal situation, but I submit that it's better than the outcome you propose.
2) If you do want to reduce the current situation then you can step up current enforcement and make it harder to employ illegal immigrants.
This isn't a futile endeavour, the recession triggered a decline in illegal immigration and actually caused some to return. There's no reason to think you couldn't create enough incentives to stop the net immigration.
3) If you're really serious about stopping immigration you can build the wall and pay for it yourself as conservatives have suggested for ages. This talk about having Mexico pay for it is just bizarre, the US has more money and is the one who's most concerned about it, why is it Mexico's responsibility to protect your border?
So you're literally proposing they gun down women and children?
Oh yes, the "think of the children" argument...
You must admit it's terrible terrible optics.
Even if you somehow get the US public to support it then you create a latino terrorist problem and make the US into an international pariah.
That's going to have awful consequences for the US including economic losses and a loss of soft power.
Instead of the Border Patrol driving SUVs along the border, why don't we have tanks and armored personal carriers on the border? When the people drive across the border in their SUVs, shoot them.
Kinda funny how you basically went from "have Mexico build the wall" to straight out arguing for "kill any Mexicans trying to cross the border" as a solution.
If keeping them out is so important to you then why not pay for the wall yourself?
International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
Very easy to make such a one line reply, but that is silly. Trade and the global economy weren't bad before all this free trade, life will go on just fine.
No it won't. The bill you propose literally bans the US from importing the vast majority of goods it currently imports. Even ignoring the massive trade war that causes it will massively increase costs and take a huge chunk out of the economy.
Our economy is not made to contract, look how much grief a few percent contraction caused in 2008. What you're describing would be worse than the great depression.
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants?
I'm not sure how you got that out of what I posted.
I decided to start with the charitable interpretation because the obvious interpretation was so bad.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
If an invading army is crossing your borders, you shoot at them.
As for invading Mexico, it may well come to that if they can't get the drug cartels under control. If they can't clean up their mess, we'll do it for them.
So you're literally proposing they gun down women and children?
Ignoring the moral concerns I'm also pretty sure that's unconstitutional unless you somehow get a declaration of war against illegal immigrants (fantastic optics!).
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state.
Yea, like it did after Iraq? I hate to burst your bubble, but no one in the world cares any more about Mexico than they did about Iraq, and we have FAR more interest in Mexico than we ever did in Iraq.
You have a very distorted misunderstanding of the world.
The most likely outcome of your policy is an outbreak of domestic latino terrorism.
You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts.
What if the United States passed a law saying that any goods imported into the US for sale, have to be made under the same laws as if they were made in the US?
Worker pay, hours, rights, EPA rules, etc. must all be followed.
Want to make the iPhone in China? Fine, go right ahead, but you have to pay the workers $7.25/hr and pay overtime over 40 hours. You also have to make them according to EPA rules.
International trade dries up and the global economy collapses.
I'm hoping that's not a Trump policy.
The wall thing is interesting...
I get that you don't think that can happen, but you might be shocked. If we could get a US President who has a pair and understands that it isn't an equal or even situation, we might get something done with Mexico.
Or to put it another way... Trump is the only person who could meet with the Mexican President and say to him, "It may seem like we have each other over a barrel here... but it just seems that way..."
Or to be more blunt... Would the President of Mexico like the US Army deployed on his northern border and start dealing with the problem without his help?
It comes down to a different point of view:
"Mr. President (of Mexico), would you like lube or no lube? Either way you're going to learn who is actually in charge here, we can do this the easy or the hard way, take your pick."
"Together we can solve this problem WITH your help, or the US can solve it WITHOUT your help."
It is not a partnership of equals.
So what exactly are you proposing?
The army arrests and deports illegal immigrants? I don't see why Mexico would mind, it's basically a really expensive way to pay for the wall yourselves.
Maybe you're proposing they just summarily execute the immigrants or threaten to invade Mexico.
Well in that case the US becomes a pariah state. Investors start to flee since the US has just demonstrated it no longer cares about the rule of law, the world starts looking to the Euro or something else as a safe reserve currency and the US economy collapses. I mean it's not that different from what Russia did with Ukraine and it isn't exactly turning out well for them.
The problem is your "stick" isn't nearly as big as you think it is, and when other people see you try to abuse your power they're going to start working to take it away.
Trump said he would 'get' Apple to make their products in America, not 'make' Apple. There's a difference. He's not going to force Apple to come to America but convince them. He's going to improve the business tax codes which Tim Cooke has said is a driving force for Apple to make their products overseas. Trump's statement is not so outlandish as some world make it to be.
Here's what he actually said...
"We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, they're amazing," Trump said. "I was saying make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we're gonna get things coming... we're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries."
Of course the actual reason isn't taxes (the US's effective rate is pretty low) but manpower.
China has relatively cheap labour and a manufacturing sector with a ton of expertise. You might be able to stop current businesses from making the upheaval to move to China, but making a second upheaval to come back? Not with tax cuts. Trump's chances of convincing Apple to more their manufacturing are about the same as his chances of convincing Mexico to give him a free wall.
Trump isn't an unstoppable force of whatever, he's an incompetent buffoon who's dangerous for the sole reason that a bunch of people think he's qualified to drive the bus. I don't think he's all that different from Palin who was a political force for years despite massive and obvious red flags. I suspect he'll similarly fade away when people realize just how incompetent he is and they start feeling embarrassed to follow him, whether it happens before the Republican's nominate their candidate is the big question.
I'm sure the same way any fleet of other vehicles is maintained. Repair it until it no longer meets serviceability standard, then part it out or scrap it. How is this any different than if a tire on a UPS truck blows out sending the truck careening into oncoming traffic?
The truck is already on the ground and the vast majority of failures leave it there.
Trucks are also much more expensive and contain even more valuable human drivers, this creates a much bigger incentive to keep things working safely. There's also more opportunity for the human driver to mitigate mechanical failures.
They do a reasonable amount of preventative maintenance to ensure a level of usefulness and safety, but occasionally a machine breaks and it could potentially hurt someone when it fails -- just like every other aspect of our lives. I know I'd rather be hit by a 55 pound out-of-control drone than a 10,000 pound out-of-control truck. Even still, I would imagine that a drone AI could be programmed to crash into trees or empty green space or some other reasonably safe emergency landing sites in the event of failure.
The 55 lb drone could do quite a bit of damage if it hits you in the head or falls into traffic and startles drivers.
As for maintenance a lot of businesses operate very close to the margin, sometimes in the red. They're going to save money everywhere they can, this includes doing the absolute minimum maintenance and running every drone until complete failure, it just becomes a question of how they fail.
It might be that the "fall from the sky" failure turns out to be rare enough to not be a concern, but it seems like people are simply overlooking the issue which could become a major hazard.
Drones don't last forever, how do they expect them to leave service? Are they going to throw old but functional drones on the scrap heap? Wait until they don't start and are too hard to repair?
What proportion are going to end up falling from the sky over populated areas and how dangerous are those going to be?
A small continuous population, that doesn't give them the right to a self-governing state in that territory any more than it does small minorities in other states.
Land claims from well over 1000+ years ago notwithstanding.
The Jewish people have lived in the land of Israel for at least 3,300 years and have hand multiple self-governing states in that land. They don't have "land clams from well over 1000+ years ago," they have had a continuous claim for thousands of years. Invading powers have prevented them from reestablishing their state until 70 year ago.
Being a small minority doesn't mean you get to own the land, and old land claims go away after a few hundred years, much less 1000+.
Can you offer any other groups who ruled a territory over 1000 years ago whom you think have a better claim to the land than its current owners?
And the Jewish immigration was part of a specific plan to create a Jewish homeland. The massive Jewish immigration between 1920 and 1949 was during the Mandate when the British were in change and the local Arab population was unable to manage immigration.
First, Jews had been returning to the land of Israel since at least the 1880s, and the wider population still had ties to their homeland.
They were not so much trying to "create a Jewish homeland" as rebuild it. They have had to do the same thing more than once as invading powers through history have taken away the Israelis only for them to return home later.
And that return to Israel was Zionism, part of the explicit plan I referred to.
And it wasn't their homeland, it was the homeland of their ancient ancestors, who probably took it from someone else's ancient ancestors. Some of those invaders taking their homeland were likely under the impression that they were retaking their own homeland like the Palestinians are trying to now.
Why do ancient land claims only count for the Jews?
Second, why is it that only Jews returning to the land of Israel bother you when Arabs were migrating to those lands at the same time? Are you unaware of the massive movement of Arabs into that areas during the same decades? Where is your outrage about that?
Arabs were already the majority population. They weren't part of a planned demographic change and land seizure. There's nothing to be outraged about.
Third, here is a map of Arab lands and Israel. Could you explain why you think the Arabs have to possess the tiny dot that is Israel too? Don't they have enough land?
Because the land was not Israel's to take. And Arabs are not some amorphous blob, those were actual people who saw another ethnic group come in and take control of their territory.
Of course the Palestinian Arabs disagreed. A different ethnic group declares they're going to start colonizing your territory to create their own state, they then proceed to do so while you're under foreign occupation by states who generally side with the other ethnic group.
Excuse me, but what do you mean "colonizing your territory"? What makes you think it was theirs? You just seem to assume that without proof. What proof do you have?
MYTH - “Palestine was always an Arab country.”
I never claimed Palestine was an Arab country, though the Ottoman's gave them fairly decent autonomy. I claimed that it was Arab territory, as in territory with a huge Arab majority and Arab culture.
And I'm sorry but that site is ridiculous.
Just look at how they acknowledge that Palestine had a huge Arab majority for hundreds, probably more than a thousand years.
Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population afte
This is an oversimplification, although I think it does do a pretty good job of summarizing the Palestinian Arab perspective on things. One of the difficulties here is that every group has a narrative that emphasizes some aspects and details to make them sound like the aggrieved good guys. Note that while there was no native government to control immigration, the Jews going to Mandate Palestine were buying and settling land completely legally.
What if those Jewish immigrants declared they were going to buy up land in New York instead, and once they got enough people there they would declare their own state. And with a UN endorsement they did so until the UN announced a partition granting Manhattan to the new Jewish state.
Do you think that would have gone over well? Would the mass immigration have gone ahead if the US government was in charge of US territory and able to declare that the plan would not succeed? Imagine if it were Arabs instead of Jews if you want to ramp up the ethnic tension to match.
This is an oversimplification, although I think it does do a pretty good job of summarizing the Palestinian Arab perspective on things. One of the difficulties here is that every group has a narrative that emphasizes some aspects and details to make them sound like the aggrieved good guys. Note that while there was no native government to control immigration, the Jews going to Mandate Palestine were buying and settling land completely legally.
If you're confronted with a question with only bad answers the solution is to never put yourself in a position to answer that question.
The idea of creating a Jewish state in Arab occupied territory should never have been proposed.
Israel is Jewish now and you can't turn back the clock, but I think it's important and useful to acknowledge the original mistake.
They got kicked out of that region eventually by force, and then the UK came up with a snazzy plan to keep the muzzies down by reinstalling the jews in a place they'd already been driven out of.
This is a vast oversimplification. First, there was no intent to "keep the muzzies down" but rather to deal with an ongoing situation. In particular, there had been a small Jewish population in various parts of the land since the Roman times (such as around Safed) and there had been systematic return to the land since the 1800s with a large Jewish population by the 1920s and a very large population post World War II.
A small continuous population, that doesn't give them the right to a self-governing state in that territory any more than it does small minorities in other states.
Land claims from well over 1000+ years ago notwithstanding.
And the Jewish immigration was part of a specific plan to create a Jewish homeland. The massive Jewish immigration between 1920 and 1949 was during the Mandate when the British were in change and the local Arab population was unable to manage immigration.
The plan in question was then to partition the land between two states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine which the Jews accepted and the Palestinian Arabs by and large rejected.
Of course the Palestinian Arabs disagreed. A different ethnic group declares they're going to start colonizing your territory to create their own state, they then proceed to do so while you're under foreign occupation by states who generally side with the other ethnic group.
The foreign occupiers then propose to give the other group a state with most of the land even though you still have a bigger population. Is this a proposal you're going to agree to?
Whether you like his music or not, there is no denying that David Bowie was a true artist, a real entertainer. There was nothing fake about him. Nowadays, we don't see real artists like him very often.
I suspect that you're seeing history through rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of pop-acts in every era that Bowie overlapped with, we simply don't remember many of them. People don't remember acts like Elastica or Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen that charted and were popular for a short time. Hell, look at Weird Al's parodies throughout the years, there are some artists he parodied whose specific work is unknown now that were popular enough at the time to justify parody, like Tiffany and George Harrison's solo work.
Don't confuse style with talent.
The challenge with pop music is you need to grab people the first time they're exposed to it, so you need some very accessible elements on the surface for first time listeners to enjoy.
The problem is those elements get old very quickly, and if there's nothing else the listener gets bored and moves on, that's why pop acts rise and crash so quickly.
Bowie has held up as a pop act, that means not only does he include a great surface hook but he's able to add a subtext that allows the song to hold up long term and evolve his image so he stays relevant. This requires an exceptional amount of talent, those artists don't come along often.
The key to effectively deal with network abuse is to make the responsible party understand that it's in their best interest to do that. Otherwise they stand to lose more than they are profiting from network abuse. As long as effective public email blacklist exist, network providers will have to reluctantly terminate their spambags, else their entire network gets blacklisted and they lose more, as their other, non-spamming pissed off customers flee to other providers, in order to be able to send mail.
The problem is that punishment is so severe that other ISPs will be very reluctant to use it so it's basically an empty threat.
Traffic degradation, reducing the bandwidth for packets directed towards misbehaving ISPs, now that's a little easier to sell and could again be very effective.
Of course this is running right into the net neutrality debate and goes under the heading of "be careful what you wish for". We want to shut down the cybercriminals, others want to shut down the torrent servers, and some even want to shut down wikileaks.
After accounting for health status and physical activity, light to moderate alcohol drinking had no direct protective effect on mortality.
Maybe alcohol causes physical activity and better health status? If only walking home from the bar.
More likely a lot of the light-to-moderate drinking crowd is going out for casual social drinking, and some of the people with less consumption are doing so because they don't get out much.
Staying home all the time is bad for your health.
There is nothing scientific about it, and the medical profession say the change has nothing to do with new scientific data. The sole motivation driving this was to make men equal to female.
As if this bullshit is going to reduce anyone with a penis to change their drinking habits. /s
Do you have a citation for that? The natural reason for it to vary by gender is because men are heavier than women, but in that case you're still better off giving both genders the same advice and giving them the option to scale by body mass. I don't see any other reason why men and women of the same size should have different alcohol recommendations.
This article contradicts you and suggests this is a case of the guidelines catching up with the science and medical advice.
Every time there's anything about climate change, there are tons and tons more AC posts than usual, and of course, a large majority of them are making fun of the idea that humankind can change our climate. I wonder if it's just a few nutters, or a team of people paid by the oil industry to do this...
I think it's more that certain people are trolled by certain topics. They don't comment on much, but bring out a topic that they're passionate about and they come out of the woodwork to express their views. I'll do the same thing on some right leaning or libertarian blogs, I don't troll, but on some topics I think it's important to challenge the consensus and try to sway people.
On Slashdot the two big ones seem to be global warming and feminism (particularly in gaming or software development). I don't think there's anything insincere about their beliefs, they're just wrong.
I'm half in agreement. The new movie is underwhelming, but not because it's "retro", I think that's fine, it looks like it occurred ~35 years after RotJ. The movie is underwhelming because it's unoriginal and lacking vision. Honestly I think that's a pattern with JJ Abrams, he makes great TV but give him a movie and it's paint-by-numbers all the way.
I will give Lucas credit for the 2nd trilogy on those grounds. It was original and had vision. It just happened to be poorly executed at the same time.
You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.
In the context you are talking about, is race only color? Race has also had the meaning of a subgroup within a species sharing characteristics. In the terms you are talking about, is only characteristic superficial skin color?
When referring to humans race is almost exclusively used to refer to colour, in which case it isn't much use outside of an often harmful social construct. If we start talking about ethnicities then it becomes more useful, but at the end of the day it's important to remember we're just referring to probability distributions of genes.
Are you daft? Race is not a social construct. Have you ever seen black people? They have a completely different skin colour from white people. That's a fact, not a social construct. It proves that different races of human beings exist.
Your SJW attitude to *facts* is appalling, retract it.
Is Obama black or white? Are Kazakhs arab, asian, or a different race? What about Moroccans? Are the East African ethnicities that dominate the marathon the same race as the Jamaicans who dominate sprinting? Their skin colour is the same but the body types are drastically different.
You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.
Spoilers Obviously.
I realize that exercise isn't a priority for most geeks
And having served as a Marine Corps Officer, I think I'm more familiar with physical exertion than most geeks. You emphasized the distance ran, I would emphasize getting shot, and from a noticeably high-powered weapon at that. If you shot me in the side with a Dragunov rifle (which fires the same 7.62x54mm rounds as the PKM light machine gun) and told me to run the Marine Corps obstacle course ( less than 100m), and THEN fight another Marine....I'd almost certainly lose, regardless of the melee skills of my opponent.
But Ren didn't lose, he won. The entire argument of "Ep7 sucks because the Dark Jedi lost a saber fight with a Stormtrooper" is moot...because it's factually incorrect.
The problem is we didn't really see Ren hurting from the gunshot wound. We saw him get shot, and we occasionally saw him wince and bleed, but that doesn't really register with the audience. If I could see him obviously hobbled or otherwise hurting as he fought it might be relevant, but what I actually saw on the screen was Ren defeating Fin by a narrow margin, and losing to... the girl with a slightly less memorable name. Ren as the bad guy is frankly not scary.
I think that kind of issue was indicative of the movie, there's decent ideas but they didn't think them through so they didn't really work. Imagine if Ren was a rage-filled fanatic with a ridiculous amount of power instead of a little kid with a temper tantrum. Now I'm actually scared of him.
More to the point think about how meaningless it was when they Death Star fired and blew up a Republic that basically had no role in the movie. Imagine instead if they spent the first half of the movie trying to sneak through First Order space in order to reach the Republic, and they knew they just had to reach the Republic fleets to be safe and decipher the map. Imagine we had regular scenes on Republic planets, perhaps with Han Solo, trying to smuggle them through First Order controlled territory. And then a giant Death Star comes out and simply destroys the Republic, Han Solo, and all of their plans?
I think I'd actually care about the new Death Star firing in that case.
Or just the masses re-joining this time under assumed/fake names?
Or even if they are legitimate new users how many of the 39 million previous users left?