Valsuelm

How many people get robbed and killed/seriously injured in the streets vs how many people accidentally shoot themselves/others? Well, you don't have to be a genius to know which of these two things happen more often. ''Bunch of civilians'' says it all, your distrust to the general ''populace'' is disturbing. The strange thing is, though, you trust them with dangerous things like cars. But he doesn't. He's all for self driving cars and thinks that they will prevent accidents and save lives.

it would make more sense to make the story take place somewhere other than in Newport City/Japan I haven't watched Ghost in the Shell in over a dozen years. I recall it being a good movie but I don't recall the locale being overly central to the plot. Really, I don't care where it takes place or what color/race whoever is cast is in any movie unless it's central to the story. That said, I do not expect modern Hollywood to make a good live action version of Ghost in the Shell. They might surprise me and I hope they do, but I doubt they will.

I actually have a post half composed in that other thread to answer this, but the short of it is the answer is already half in that thread within the data linked therein coupled with data that's been linked many times in other threads regarding crime statistics, and the answer is you have a far far far better chance (more than a hundred times better) of finding yourself in an unfortunate situation where a weapon might save you or someone else vs finding yourself in an unfortunate accident with a weapon. I'll finish that post at some point in the coming days, but you can go find the data yourself amongst the CDC and FBI published statistics.

And you're a moderator? Just ...

Paul Simon performing songs from Graceland in Zimbabwe 1987

The best thing for something like that is other armed people at the office. Really. There is no 'balance'. The proposition that we should make laws or rules that govern everyone to prevent a random lunatic from doing super unusual evil deed X is steeped in fear, ignorance, and is lunacy itself. Not only are things like you mention super rare (there's a handful a year throughout the entirety of western civilization that is made up of of over a billion people; oh, and almost all of them happen in places where guns are essentially banned), people who are inclined to pick up a weapon and start using it on people because they had a bad day don't follow laws or rules. It really truly astounds me how this simple fact escapes so many people. "I was going to go on a murderous spree but them pesky ban on weapons laws/rules stopped me' said or thought no one ever.

Without knowing who did it or why, there's really not much to discuss. It could be what the media is going to say it is: Muslim radicals pissed off about a cartoon on Jihad. It could be a false flag attempt of some sort. It could be a couple of evil MFers who just wanted to go kill some people and stir up trouble. It could be a hit on an individual(s) for something completely unrelated to cartoons depicting Muslims or whoever. It could be something else entirely. There's not too much to prevent these things in any of the cases I listed above (other than some strange scenario under 'something else entirely'). The best thing would be to make it so the payoff for the perpetrators is minimal or doesn't exist, and given the nature of western society right now, that unfortunately isn't a very realistic option in many places (such as Paris).

So on one hand you want to make this a free speech issue and on the other you want to report others who would exercise that speech to the authorities... And never mind that it's not possible that the cartoon linked is the one that allegedly upset the men who perpetrated the killings. Go you...

Well, it probably makes more sense than arming copy editors would... Yea.. because if the copy editors were armed they might have been able to defend themselves rather than be mowed down like helpless grass. And banning weapons would have prevented an attack by what is likely a foreigner. Oh wait... the weapons used are already banned in France...

She doesn't have the breast for it, also I'm predicting outrage due to the fact that she isn't Asian. Maybe from the whackoloons that try and turn everything into a race issue, but it won't be the consensus. Japanese love Caucasians for the most part, and a large chunk of anime characters out there are drawn decidedly not Asian looking, including most if not all of the characters in Ghost in the Shell. Casting a live action Anime movie with predominately Caucasians would make sense.

Eh... I disagree. Chrono Trigger A Link to the Past Nethack Diablo Warcraft 3 Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 2 Planescape Torment World of Warcraft in late Vanilla and early BC Civilization 4: BTS I could name more. All of the above were amazing games, and widely acclaimed. Not for everyone of course, but nothing is, and out of the people who loved those games you won't find many stating that they'd want much changed in them. ie: I doubt too many who backed PoE who did so because the spirit of Baldur's Gate was primarily channeled would want to change much about that game. Yes, there are a couple minor things I'd change with all but the first three (those really are perfect), but they are mostly UI changes. ie: The one thing I'd change in the original BG is the tedium of the inventory system, or remove the XP cap (but a mod can do that), and that's really about it. BG2 I'd remove the 'romances' and revert to the more open world of BG1. Anon. We're talking about a major design decision that is not ignorable, not a minor UI issue or things that are ignorable. Obviously, I'm still going to play the game, and hope it's good. But the decision in regards to Combat XP and a few other biggies give me reservations in regards to the direction the game design was taken in. 'If it's not broken don't fix it' comes to mind. I just hope all the fixing of things that weren't broken doesn't diminish the quality of the game experience. Unfortunately I don't know of a single game out there that had a lot of things fixed that weren't broken come out for the better. I most certainly am hoping that PoE is the exception.

Can anyone else confirm that this is true? If so, I'm very disappointed. Very.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnfbV75WC4k

I disagree. I've played Nethack and the IE games extensively over the years, Nethack being the one game I dust off almost every year since around 1988. Caution pays off in IE games as much as in Nethack. That is if you're like me and go for minimal reloads or even an ironman (something I don't expect to do with PoE on the first playthrough; and no one ascended on their first playthrough of Nethack either).

Those have existed pretty much since motion detectors were invented.

Right, people not driving cars are doing what they're doing because they're lazy. Speaking of "getting it wrong"... Touché and my bad. I corrected my oversight. It was a response to two people saying they were 'tired' and wanted to 'nap', so I mistakenly didn't include the better reasons one may not want to drive in my response.

The guy who wrote that article is an idiot. Starting right off with his first sentence he's getting it wrong and proves he is too lazy to or incapable or correctly reading the very data he is citing, and not surprisingly after that grand opening of stupidity goes on to show how little he thinks by basically just writing an advertisement for self driving cars, though perhaps that's intentional. In all the years cited, no year had less than 32,000 people die, and most years were thousands more than number. This guy isn't ready for marshmallows, he's got marshmallows between his ears, and is looking forward to his further enslavement. [interestingly the NHTSA data and the CDC data I linked in another thread don't jive with one another; of course some of the NHTSA data is just plain made up, ie: total number of miles driven, and the other data extrapolated from that number] Robot driven cars present more problems than they solve. I'll mention just one that I'll wager most of the folks here haven't considered: the more computerized the car the more it's hackable. Modern non-robot cars have already been hacked, and some have theorized already used as a manner to kill people, ie: Michael Hastings. Though there is no known case that I've seen where this has definitely happened yet, it's probably one of the best ways to kill someone if you're so inclined to right now as the majority of those who investigate accidents won't even think to look for evidence of a hack, let alone be capable of determining for certain if a hack occurred even if they suspect one. If you're too lazy to drive or have a burning need to be doing something other than driving yourself during your commute, take the train, bus, plane, carpool, taxi, etc. Keep your Orwellian (oh you probably didn't consider that aspect either) autos off the roads I drive please.

So many comments made in ignorance and a few revolting ones. Seriously, you 'Darwin'/'she deserved it' people are disgusting. Despicable. What happened was an accident. Tragic. Tragic things happen where people get killed accidentally in various ways every day somewhere in a nation of 300+ million people. Some of things are extremely unusual. Many of them because someone made a simple mistake, be it mental or physical in origin. If you think you're immune to making such mistakes you're foolish at best. Accidental deaths are the 5th leading cause of death across all ages nearly every year, and are the leading cause of death amongst the younger age groups. It's near certain that at least a couple of the people reading this will eventually check out via an accident of some kind, and all of us have the potential to. And honestly, to anyone who thinks this is any kind of gun issue or that this is even a remotely common way to accidentally die, the fact is that deaths due to accidental discharge of a firearm accounted for approximately 1 in 200 of all accidental deaths nationwide in 2010 as recorded by the CDC, and these stats really don't change much from year to year. You are more than 6 times more likely to accidentally drown, almost 5 times as likely to accidentally die as the result of a fire, almost 55 times more likely to die of accidental poisoning, 58 times more likely to die in a car accident, 42 times more likely to die as the result of a fall, etc. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr62/nvsr62_06.pdf This story isn't news. It's not relevant to any rational argument for or against guns. This story is just sad.

Never have, and likely never will. Ordinarily not my thing, and I don't find it appealing. But to each their own. However, I was once tempted to. I was propositioned as I was leaving my hotel by an absolutely drop dead gorgeous 10 blonde girl while in Montreal for work. This girl could have put many of the Victoria Secret models to shame (Montreal has the best looking prostitutes in North America from what I've seen in general but his girl was just wow). My tour bus was leaving momentarily, and was only a dozen yards or so away when she asked. Not getting on it meant my job. She was so smoking hot though that I seriously considered it. Had I not had the majority of the band's cash in a bag I was carrying I might have said @()#$ the job, I'm staying in Montreal a little while. But I liked those guys and didn't want to screw them over. Alas, if only I'd run into her earlier. I regret not asking for her number to hit her up when next I was in town.

My god.... all three of those videos are bad. Best? How about near worst. 2014 was a little lacking in amazing videos. At least in the creative and entertainment department. I could link some good informational videos, as well as some good music videos, but there's no Psy, Numa Numa, or Leeroy this year. That said, you can always count on Schmoyoho for some good stuff:

I actually looked this one up as I almost couldn't believe it was real; thought maybe it was a spoof trailer. It looks bad, which is a shame too because there's so much potential for a good movie about the Silk Road, but I'll see it, and only because it's got John Cusack in it. He's one of a small handful of actors I'll give anything he's in a watch. Here's to hoping the trailer isn't doing it justice and it's the next Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Hmmm they have release the movie, it's a success because people believe it's their patriotic duty to see it. These are people who would not have gone to see it otherwise. Hmmm... the conspiracy theory doesn't sound as nuts as it did a week ago. It seems the day has come and gone where it's anyone's patriotic duty to see a Rogen/Franco movie. That's gotta be a step above hell freezing over. The end of the world can't be far off now.

Sheen is an amateur. Pros don't **** their heads up to the point they think they're 'winning' a losing game. @OP: Get off your ass, step away from the computer, go outside and do something. Fresh air does wonders. Perhaps find yourself a If you're Pro like that guy then maybe you could get yourself songified. Either way, the journey is worth it if you make it.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/24/no-north-korea-didn-t-hack-sony.html This article sums up what pretty much everyone out there with a modicum or more of tech knowledge is saying. There's zero evidence in the public domain that North Korea is responsible, and what evidence there is points in an entirely different direction. That doesn't stop the main steam media from pushing the North Korea is responsible narrative though. One should ask themselves why that is.

Requiring the average policeman to have a college degrees would generally be a waste of resources, and see very little to no improvement in the behavior of the police. Just as there is generally very little to no improvement amongst employee group X for job X that requires a college degree. In fact, it could be argued that requiring a college degree and other certifications is actually detrimental to the quality of the potential employee pool. Certainly this is true of some professions out there (though I wouldn't generally count police among them). The university system in the U.S. has by and large been watered down in terms of quality. Just in my few decades on this planet this is discernible, let alone if you look to the earlier part of the 20th century and the 19th. Anon, as that's a much larger subject. A couple things to keep in mind 213374U. - While it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, in general police compensation is really good in the U.S.. In fact better than average in many ways than a great number of other sectors of employment, including those with college degrees. ie: Where I live, police get to retire with full benefits (and those benefits are really good) after 20 years (something pretty much unheard of with any other job, and something that is frankly BS imo as a taxpayer). - Generally cops with a 4 year college degree are not under-earners at all. They tend to be detectives, work on some kind of special task force, work for the State Police (NY and other states generally require a college degree for their State Police), work for the FBI, work for another government policing agency, etc. - Pretty much anything and everything done by or associated with the Rand Corporation is slanted evil in some manner and is often pure BS. The last link you posted above is Rand. I started reading it and got as far as 'decreasing resources' in the Preface before alarms bells blasted in my head. Then I scrolled up to see that it was Rand. Why did alarm bells go off in my head? Because while there might be a few police departments out there that have fewer resources than they had in the past (and that's not necessarily a bad thing) the vast majority of departments have money rained upon them from the State and Federal government levels. Oh, and the Rand Corporation is instrumental in that happening as it's one of the entities out there pushing for the militarization of the police. No doubt as it also happens to have direct, deep, and intimate ties with those who build military hardware. Rand also happens to be pro pretty much every war the U.S. has been in and puts out propaganda to encourage more military spending and more war. - Statistics. More often than not they don't tell the whole story. Most certainly this is true of the ones you linked. A college degree definitely does not necessarily equate to more pay these days. You're smart, think about it. If everyone has a college degree, where does the money come from to magically pay them all more? Nowhere. If we take employee pool X doing a certain job, and replace them all with people with college degrees, where does the money to pay them more come from? Nowhere. And that's one of the reasons that the value of a college degree has tanked in the last two decades, and also one of the reasons that student debt in the U.S. has reached insane levels. While certainly some degrees will see you likely get more pay than others, it's not really the degree that gets you that higher pay, it's the job. A degree just may open the door to get that job. If we want to attract 'better people' to become police officers then the nature of the job needs to change, not the payscale. If we want to curb some of the police brutality and corruption out there, there are a few things we can do. But for the most part they're all moot unless the police that actually brutalize citizens and are corrupt are held accountable. More often than not, they are not, and that problem trumps all others.