A third year CS student should be able to write a lot of competent software. And yet, we live in a world utterly lacking in competent software. Voting software? Garbage. Kinja? Dogshit. Facebook? Flaming pile. Systems managing billions of dollars every day are complete crap. No wonder, the banks still hire COBOL devs:…

Hanlon’s razor?

The problem with that is separate elections depress turnout. That’s how you get nutbars on school boards pushing creationism. They got in with ~200 votes because nobody bothered to show up on rando election day in May.

If something as crucial as the name of the candidate is wrong, then you can’t really trust any confirmation, can you?

In theory, you have instant tabulation and elimination of issues like hanging chads, crossed out entires and half-filled circles.

1) You’ve bought the ol’ false dichotomy. US Defense spending is ~3% of GDP (most of which is paid to Americans as salary, which means we’re taxing ourselves to turn around and pay ourselves). US R&D spending is ~2.8% of GDP (same as Germany, also most of that cash goes back to the public too). America could double…

The choice to end a life (or lives) is an ethical issue, not a scientific one. No amount of science compels you to pacifism. That leap requires philosophy. So your misanthropic non sequitur has zero bearing on the issue at hand.

All he’s saying is that a person ceases to exist when their body does. Any recreation or simulation is a clone. The original is gone forever and will not perceive anything the clones do.

America built it’s empire through sheer economic might, crafty statesmanship, and the fact that its nearest peers kept literally killing each other. Eventually the USA was left the singular military power in the world through all of the above. How did it do this? Well, having a land area twice that of Rome goes a long…

I’m guessing his last words were “what the fuck?”

The physics of pumping water from Lake Superior (elv. ~700ft) over the rockies (elv. ~5000ft), and then to Vegas (elv. 2000 ft) and across half the continent is...let’s just say ridiculous.

A new F-16 costs more than a new F-35A, so why would you bother with the Viper? No joke. Economy of scale is everything.

A Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24 like last year.

Marines are a specialized, self contained, rapid reaction expeditionary force. Something between the conventional army (and it’s heavy equipment) and special ops.

Christ, no. Jim Bob and his mountain cabin filled with his AR collection is *not* relevant to US domestic defense. He’s just a rube with a hobby.

Manchin waited until the GOP had their 50 votes. At that point, the nomination was fait accompli and it didn’t matter what he did. So he decided to vote yes so he can play up his “independent” reputation at home. He decided to salvage home state optics from a lost cause.

Bob Menedez should have been primaried out of office. But he wasn’t. And now we need that seat if we want any realistic chance of getting to 51 senators and stopping Trump’s court packing, and other horrific appointments.

Joe Walsh was defeated by now-senator Tammy Duckworth back in 2o12. Joe’s been a radio shithead since.

Dogs will retain people and events for their life. They can even love and adore you*. They will not, at least consciously, think about you when you’re not there. Dogs are not sentimental. They live entirely in the moment. They follow patterns and stimuli.

As they say in the sciences, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.