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I'd like to also add that although I agree with all of this, all of it is invalid since Canadians voted for their MP, not for the Prime Minister. I bet the numbers would be waaaay different if we also picked out PM.

True, but the popular vote represents the general sentiments of the population. Regardless of the number of seats they have, 38% support for the Conservatives means an overwhelming majority of Canadians did *NOT* support them. The only reason they're in power, is that the opposing votes were split among 4 other parties. Canadians did not monolithically, as joe suggests, get together and decide to "reward" the Conservatives. Instead, the Conservatives managed to take advantage of further splitting on the left thanks to the growing popularity and relevance of the NDP and Green parties.

I can attest to this. I've never made it past level 5. I suppose the idea is not to feel like you have to kill everything?

Something like that. "Don't go too deep too fast" is probably good advice for Nethack.

"Caribou Barbie" is AWESOME. Also: Shit, I've attended half the colleges she has, and for longer! Someone write me in as President this November! I'm qualified! Woo hoo!

I read "Hooked on Phonics". I am also qualified.

Those Mavericks couldn't win it all either...

Megaman X proved that!

Diesel vs Petrol? Surely ye jest? Apples to oranges anyone?

There is no diesel Prius. But, sure, diesels will generally get much better mileage because diesel fuel contains more energy/unit volume. Then again, diesel is more expensive than gasoline too.

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Actually, this probably should end with another "Everything went better than expected," because I started dating another girl pretty soon afterwards, and now things have worked out into a pretty good friendship with the comic girl. So, walking away wouldn't have been the best choice I guess.

In other words, you're endangering the lives of everyone around you, because you believe firing off emails one-handed while driving isn't a "serious" risk. Which is what everyone else who does something distracting just before having an accident is thinking.

Oh shut the fuck up. It's just like anything else. If you're stupid about it, bad things may happen. If you're smart about it, they probably won't. Like your hands are always at 10 and 2 and you never take your eyes off the road, ever.

I call bullshit on this one.

Maybe if you were the only person using *the whole internet* at that time and if you add in the exclusive power usage of all the routers, firewalls, switches etc.. during your search.... actually, still not likely. Bearing in mind that a search I just tried that returned half a billion results took only 0.16 seconds. Timesonline, be warned, we'll be monitoring your future conduct.

we were shopping for a Camry, or at least my wife thought she wanted one. hadn't even thought about a Prius. Saw the Yaris, wife thought it was too small (it was the same size as our current car, a 1991 Toyota Corolla LE). Then we saw the Prius, we took a test drive just to check it out, decided we liked it, and bought it. I prefer a hatchback or wagon to a sedan, and the Yaris 2 door hatchback (and the 4 door) is still too small. Also it gets pretty poor reviews in Consumer Reports, while the Prius gets the highest rating for reliability and overall owner satisfaction. You get what you pay for, and the Yaris is simply Toyota's attempt to compete with the cheap Korean cars.

As I said elsewhere, I own a 2 door hatchback Yaris. If it's too small, it's too small. Interestingly for passenger space I feel like I have far more room in the Yaris for me and for my drinks/maps/etc than I do in my Subaru outback, and my kids say that the back seat feel more spacious as well. If you need the cargo space, yes, it's lacking, but like I said "if it meets your needs". As far as reviews... owner reviews and professional reviews seem to disagree on the Yaris. I've yet to meet a owner that didn't absolutely love their Yaris. At home we "fight" over who gets to drive it (on the days that I actually drive, I usually cycle). I used to hate driving the Camry that we had before and always took the Subaru on longer trips, but now it's almost always the Yaris.

there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with someone who advocates prison for getting caught doing something he/she has done before. the goddamned xtian pretards are like this in general.

actually he's against prison, but also against legalization.

Shit happens.

[and then you die](http://dictionary.babylon.com/Shit_happens_and_then_you_die)

You apparently don't live with 3 autistic children. If you let it go for a day or two, it's possible to turn around and be 3" deep in Rice Krispies/Cheerios/paper cuttings without even noticing it. I've always thought that it was fairly ironic that I'd end up having to vacuum and do laundry every day, as I'm a pretty live and let live person. Now the vacuuming is just a survival technique.

You miss, are a hero for taking care of three children, autistic or not, and still giving BJ's. Tell your husband I said you deserve a Dyson. They are the best vacuums out there. (I steam clean carpets for a living)

Hannibal Lecter

I have a hard time seeing him as a villain. Even in Hannibal and Red Dragon, he still came off as a decent fellow...you know...a decent fellow that killed people. Hannibal Rising and Silence of The Lambs he was an anti hero, but I think it's safe to say that most viewers were secretly rooting for him. I like to think of him as Chaotic neutral.

eh, no. 9mm hollow points are effective enough, and considering you'll probably be spending months in the mud, in water, in adverse conditions, and what ammo you find may quite possibly be damaged or corroded, you'd want a gun that can handle a misfire. I mean yeah, you'll be able to punch through engine blocks, blast giant holes in magical zombies, but you're also much more likely to have it fail on you in adverse conditions. Also it's really hard to aim so you'd have to be that much closer to the zombie, or take that many more shots, which considering it's smaller magazine, may be fatal. Plus you'd go deaf that much quicker making quick zombie detection that much harder. The following article is actually a comparison between the 9mm and the .45 but there's a bit about the .357 in there too. http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/2008/05/stopping-power-considered-9mm-vs-45.html It comes down to preference really in a post apocalyptic zombie world, I just feel tactically, you've got a better gun in the glock, despite what years of playing counter-strike has taught me. EDIT: wow i say "that much" a lot in this post.

glock is a far more reliable and accurate gun. i just prefer the punch in this case. if i had terminal ballistics data on undead i might be willing to go with the hollow-point 9mm, but google seems to have failed me there. im looking for raw force, knockdown capability, because i don't know what kind of organ damage id need to put one down yet. tell me more about the zombies, ie does their brain do anything, how are they alive, how fast do they move, then i'd prolly go glock. no seriously, how does google not have terminal ballistics on zombies? wake up sheeple, resident evil was an inside job?

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What is a cube map? Quake is such a simple engine compared to the Source one, so I have no idea.

What's wrong with a girl having sexual experience? Attitudes like these keep women ashamed of their sexuality.

You'd have to meet her.

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He's trying to (white house bomb) goad us (iran is my friend) into making (obama likes little boys) a mistake (kill bo), it's a (constitution) trap!

I'm going to ignore your opinionated bullshit, but I take offense at your statement about drivers. Because, err, that's basically true. All the drivers you need come with the system. The only thing you really have to decide are which printer drivers to install, and even then that's only if you want to skip installing the ones you don't need. Yes there are third-party drivers, but those are generally pretty optional. Sure, there's probably some peripheral out there that *needs* a driver, but in that case it comes with it. Most of the time, third-party peripherals can actually be controlled by user-space apps on OS X. For example, the USB Missile Launcher. There's an OS X app (that only kinda works, because there is absolutely no developer documentation for this thing, trust me I looked) and it works entirely in user-space. No kexts. In fact, the only drivers I've ever installed are third-party mouse drivers. There was SteerMouse, which is a great universal mouse driver to enable all the extra buttons on some third-party mice and give you more control (but again, all optional, the mouse still *works* without any drivers). And the other was the Razer mouse driver, and that was just to be able to control the DPI on my Razer mouse. As for system restarts, I pretty much only restart when I install something that requires it. I can't remember the last time I had a kernel panic. And incompatibility? 80% of software out there on the market is pure crap. And what about Windows's incompatibility with the Mac-only software? (yes, it exists, and it's generally pretty good stuff). And if you really are troubled by this, you can install Windows using BootCamp or virtualize it with VMware or Parallels.

You gotta be kidding me! Now I'm a mac user myself but I just want to debunk a few things. I work for Ohio University's IT department so I can tell you I have experience with a great deal of software. The fact of the matter is, 80% of the software out there on the market is NOT pure crap. About 90% of the software that is used by the university is windows only and has no comparable mac counterpart. The dinning halls, the housing offices, OUPD, parking services and the garage.... all use software that you can't get for mac. Hell even the architects at univeristy planning and implementation need the newest version of Autocad each year which comes out for mac a year later than windows. Also by pointing out the fact that windows is incompatible with some mac-only software, I'm glad you recognized that 1% of the market. Thats great. Now being a mac fan, I know you can get BootCamp, I have windowsxp on my macbook pro right now. But in order to use that option, you need a mac first. And considering 100% of the few thousand employees I support have PCs and not macs.... the switch would be so incredibly cost ineffective (especially since most of these old farts barely know how to use windows, teaching them something new would be impossible) Oh yea, OSX doesn't have Dell printer drivers. In a perfect world, we would all use Macs, but that is not the case. We are the minority. And the majority needs tech support.

I like the Chris Rock's version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCCjFbFXn8

Fuck yaaa! Awesome shit, man.

What? Wish I would have known that when i was in Alaska, any one who has ever been will feel my pain...

The thing I hated about mosquitos in alaska is how small they were. In socal where I grew up, they were fairly big, and easy to kill. In alaska, they were small and harder to kill.

What about the kitten with "rectum problems"?

Real pity it got cut off.

It's more like reading a book or journal article they authored (but did not cite on their CV). They publish this information in the public domain, how is that an invasion of privacy?

A lot of stuff is in the public domain, and yet seeking it out would be an invasion of privacy. For example, I could sit outside your house in a van, filming everything I can see through the windows. Legal, but still a dick move. The thing about Myspace profiles is that they are intended for friends and acquaintances, and that *intent* should be respected. Privacy is more of an ethical issue than a legal one. Besides, the chances of using inaccurate information are too high. Anyone can create a fraudulent Myspace page, and they are also easy to 'hack into'.

We can all bring plastic bats, and when we disagree with each other we can just bonk each other on the head.

well Sweet SMFA

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That's cute and all, but unless you're a breeder, you should [have your pets spayed and neutered](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLxJg5fmmWs)!

I took this cat in as a stray two months ago and spaying her was the first thing I tried to do. The vet then told me that she was pregnant, so I decided to let her have the kittens, and now as soon as the vet says it's okay, I'll have her spayed. Have no worries!

I'm not sure I get this comic. Is this more than just a comment on video game violence? Some rock history, perhaps?

...no one wants to answer because they don't want to look like an idiot if you're trollin'.

Damnit!

Could have been worse, I was just thinking how I've never actually seen 2 girls 1 cup. Take that, Internet!

Do you have to agree with a band's moral and political views to enjoy downloading their albums?

If you did I wouldn't listen to Burzum. But you don't, so I so.

Yeah, isn't this exactly what we're encouraging people NOT to vote on? Shouldn't we be discussing issues and not age, race, sex, or which candidate you'd rather "have a beer with"? I mean, frankly, there's quite enough legitimate reasons to dislike John McCain, so there's really no reason to stoop to stupid personal attacks - but I guess since he's a Republican that's OK.

Age is certainly a valid consideration. Just as someones health and mental state are.

Why gparted? Why not just use diskpart.exe in Windows which lets you do this live, while the machine is up and running? You Linux-people managing windows machines should try learning Windows too :P

Because one or more of the following severe limitations that are almost ALWAYS encountered: * The volume must be formatted with the NTFS file system. * For Basic volumes, the unallocated space for the extension must be the next contiguous space on the same disk. * For Dynamic Volumes, the unallocated space can be any empty space on any Dynamic disk on the system. * Only the extension of data volumes is supported. System or boot volumes may be blocked from being extended, and you may receive the following error: Diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please make sure the volume is valid for extending * You cannot extend the partition if the system page file is located on the partition. Move the page file to a partition that you do not wish to extend.

My husband and I had a "No rape and no murder" clause when we first started dating. However, the contract expired after one year. He was free to rape and murder he all he wanted, but he didn't. Ah, flirting is weird.

Teach me how to do it?

You know, I've always wondered if pro-lifers eat eggs, because essentially they're eating aborted baby chickens.

Yeah, it's really more akin to eating chicken periods, I believe.

canada's very relaxed and as long as you aren't hurting anyone you're very unlikely to get any grief from anyone, let alone the police. Two days ago I got a ticket for not stopping at a stop sign, the officer apologized to me for having to give me a ticket, gave me advice on how to reduce the fine and then stopped traffic to let me back into it. He thanked me at the end of the experience.

Yep as long as you're not a prick to the police, most of them are fairly decent to deal with. I got stopped for speeding last month, I had my license and registration ready and all he said was, "You were going 70 in a 50, license and registration please. Be right back." Nothing like, "Do you know how fast your were going?" or lectures and he didn't even give me flak about my tint. Told me to have a nice day and I was free to go. Same cop, same area a week later, stops my friend, and my friend gives him attitude, and the cop gives him a fine and a remedial order to remove the tint on his windows (he has to go to court and prove he removed the tint.)

Use lolcat speech IRL!

heh. I like to say "it has a flavur" when someone makes good food. Somehow I don't construe that as nerdy though.

I don't think anti-depressants will do anything for you. Ritalin, on the other hand, will.

Yeah, Ritalin might. I know of Ritalin & Adderall as other prescription stuff that might affect you like that. You know of any others like them? Just checking out my options.

Well... to be fair, Demetri Martin stole a good number from Mitch Hedburg... but you know... at least he was funny about it... Dane Cook can't even be funny with other people's jokes.

What did Demetri steal from Mitch? Their styles are similar but that's all I've noticed.

This is incredibly inane.

and subhuman.

Let me tell you a few facts about Gandhi. Gandhi's religiously motiviated ascetic lifestyle is well known, and it had several repercussions in his life. First, he normally eschewed the use of vehicles, and walked everywhere he went. Because of this, the skin on the bottom of his feet became very tough. He also was known for not eating for long periods of time to make a point to the British authorities while in prison. And when he did eat, his circumstances prevented him from always getting proper nutrition, since he was poor. The malnutrition this caused had effects on his body, and in particular, his bones were not very strong. In addition, not eating for long periods of time can cause very bad breath. So, to sum up, Gandhi was a super-calloused fragile mystic vexed by halitosis. edit: schala09 had an excellent suggestion. See below. (it used to be "plagued")

George had just taken a new job as a bus driver on Sesame Street. At the first stop, two rotund girls boarded the bus, and introduced themselves to the bus driver as Patty Ann and Patty Sue. Each of them took up an entire seat. At the next stop, a little boy got on the bus and said, "I'm Ross, and mommy says that I'm SPECIAL!" He then ran to the back of the bus with arms flailing. At the next stop, while Ross sprinted a few times up and down the aisle making racecar noises, another boy hobbled on to the bus and said, "My name is Lester. Lester Cheese." He hobbled to the seat closest to the door, and promptly removed his shoe and began picking bunions on his feet. The disgusted bus driver wanted to look away, but he needed to keep an eye on Ross to make sure he stayed in his seat. When he got home, his wife asked him how his day went. He replied, "It was *awful*. I think I'm going to quit. Today I had two obese Patties, Special Ross, and Lester Cheese picking bunions on a Sesame Street bus."

This is precisely the problem with this sort of activity, where you very quickly get a very small feeling that you did something. I don't know what I would have done this evening if I hadn't sat here like a vegetable. But I know it would have been more interesting. Try it sometime; just switch everything off. No internet, no tv, no phone unless somebody calls you (or at all, if you are one of those people who is insanely active on the phone). For a while, you'll just sit there; it takes some minutes or hours to back off from being drip-fed the illusion of activity, and for your innate ability to find things to do to start to come back. Then it will. At first maybe you'll find yourself just thinking about stuff; there's usually a bit of a backlog of things to think about, if you've not been giving yourself time to do that. You might find yourself fetching a glass of water, or making a cup of tea, that you don't usually have at that time; suddenly you find yourself listening to your body and realising what it would like. While you're walking to the kitchen to fetch your drink, you'll realise that there is nowhere you're hurrying back to afterwards - you're not getting a drink as a break from something, you're just getting a drink. You'll drink it. You'll notice it tastes better than it did before. And you'll wonder why you would ever wire yourself into the internet and just sit there twitching in front of a screen all evening. Of course, next time you're feeling a bit tired, or you're doing something else with the computer, you'll get dragged back in again. "Oh well", you'll think to yourself, as loud as you can, to drown out the part of your mind which is screaming "Noooooooooo!". So it goes. Happy redditting.

Some people achieve a happy medium. Sometimes, I'm one of those people. On a non-work day, I get up and goto the beach before breakfast. Sometimes I have breakfast and then goto the beach. I'm going to be spending NYE camping in the bush, getting trashed with good company. And sometimes I roll into bed around midnight, having to get up 5hrs later, frustrated with myself that I got sucked in again.

I get into all sorts of places I shouldn't be just by acting like I belong there. For the most part you just realize the people who's job it is to keep you out are just like you and just do things that you wouldn't question if you were in their position.

It's pretty astounding how few people will think to question confidence. If it looks like you know where you are and what you're doing, then they'll just accept it. Not that I'm any different; I'm just, you know, saying.

Here you go: http://www.reddit.com/r/complaints

Well, no, I want to complain about individual posts in their own comment threads. Maybe a username switch. Nah, too lazy.

Yeah... roach bomb your cooking tools... great plan.

Some of the worlds greatest discoveries are accidents. It could be found that very small amounts of roach bomb greatly intensify the flavor of meat cooked with said utensils... I'm just saying.

Its LITERALLY A DAY AT THE BEACH STOP USING THE WORD LITERALLY WHEN YOU DONT MEAN LITERALLY

I thought this was the proper usage of the term literally as they don't mean a day on the beach as in easy but a day on the beach as in a day on the (virtual) beach

Women need to be taught from a young age that the power they hold regarding sexuality and accusations of sexual behavior are to be used in an emergency only, else we will accuse them of crying wolf, and won't be there to help when it really happens.

According to the feminists, women almost never lie, and these "few" (actually there are *many*, ~40% of rape allegations are false) victims of false allegations are necessary collateral in the war on rape, so no one cares.

Sweet. Where is that?

Israel! At Masada, actually, overlooking the Dead Sea.

Why drop another bomb on a sinking ship ? If the polls drop, then use it otherwise you might validate some of the negative claims.

There's 4 weeks left to go. Opinions will be solidifying over the clip accuse next 2-3 weeks. A voter lost in that time is probably lost for good. The McCain clip camp has already promised to throw everything they've got at Obama, including stuff that's already been debunked, starting with Palin on that point accusing Obama of "palling around cloth with terrorists." This is the endgame. There material is no time following left to wait.

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*sigh*. If drinking 5 beers over 4-5 hours gets you too drunk to drive you should have your livers examined. Or maybe your senses of self righteousness.

A supposedly funny comic I'd never read again. /obscure?

If you've ever read David Foster Wallace, it makes total sense. Personally, (may get crucified for this) I found Infinite Jest to be completely pretentious. Not to say it's not well-written, it's just not my cup of tea.

Oh, I see. So just to clarify, sex for you guys at first was of satisfactory quality and frequency, then the pill killed all that, then she got off of it but it only came back to a certain, fractional degree? Thank you very much for your reply and this information, it's helping me and my life :). I convinced her to get off of birth control yesterday, even though I hate *hate* using condoms, but at least we'll be having sex (hopefully), and half or more of the fun for me anyway is making her feel good. I'm just asking you for this further information to attempt to gauge the response I should/could be getting after the birth control wears off, which I actually heard could be more than 120 days (to come off fully or almost fully) or in 5-10% of cases loss of sex drive can be permanent :/ On a side note, Fuck birth control pills. Why the fuck do they even *make* pills that let you have unprotected sex without getting pregnant all you want, and make them decrease sex drive to practically nothing in the vast majority of takers, decrease *sexual enjoyment* (for fuck's sake!), and sexual lubrication? Fuck all that! Fuck everything about that!!!

You are indeed correct. After she got off of the pill, her libido never returned to it's previous glory, but our sex life was vastly improved. Everyone hates using condoms but it sure as hell beats not getting laid at all. If you use the super thin ones, they are much better than normal domers. And yes expect it to take a while for the BC pills to get out of her system and her libido to begin its return.

Yeah and they only got like 38% of the vote anyway.

I'm not a Harper supported by any stretch of the imagination - but stop saying that stupid 38% number, it means *diddly squat* in our democracy. We (thankfully) have a political system with more than two parties, meaning that the mandate to rule can be acquired without a majority in the popular vote. This is *by design*, and unless you want the horrible two-party system of the USA, this is the way *it should be*.

You're not up to speed on Canadian politics, are you? Parliament was going to adjourn for a break week later anyway. The prime minister in Canada is not directly elected by the people - but is a job given to that political party with the most seats in parliament. The power of "executive branch" if you can call it that, is much more easily reigned in by parliament in Canada. And the very fact that the prime minister can be deposed by parliament at any time by a no-confidence vote, is really an innovation I would love to see in the usa. Here in the usa, no matter how obstinate and foolish our president is, we have to wait until the fixed election date to get rid of him.

That's like saying taking away someone's free speech is OK because they were going to stop talking soon anyway. Speaking of, Canada doesn't have free speech either. This move was because parliament was about to depose him, haven't you been reading this thread? You're not up on US politics, are you? The president can be impeached and removed from office before an election.

I make an etymological distinction: "ethics" is "conduct becoming a human", more in line with "ethology" than anything else, i.e., Diogenes made a very pointed ethical statement when he masturbated in plain view of patrons in the agora. "Morals" is "custom or comport", or as Cicero cried in outrage at the debauchery of his opponent "O tempora! O mores!" meaning "when I was young nobody would think of doing that".

or: "stop masturbating on my lawn!"

My issues with Ubuntu 8.04: -Mounting is all screwed up. Most of the time, USB sticks aren't recognized and I have to manually "sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/disk-1" (interesting sidenote: they are all fat32 formatted). When I boot up, my internal partition isn't automagically mounted as /media/disk. The drives usually have a different disk every single time. -Unmounting is all screwed up. If I'm lucky, my external drive is disk-2, if not, it has been disk-4 and even disk-6, because there's unmounted clutter laying around. -Games not really fit for quick multiplayer (although that can be fixed by installing Wormux. :])

May I suggest an open suse 11.0 install? http://software.opensuse.org/

Kaka is over rated. I haven't seen him do shit in the Lega Calcio.

you have no clue what you're talking about. and if you did, you would probably call it serie a.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/7lnhj/jesus_was_not_a_real_person_hes_actually/4es5

girlgy i

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That's too bad. As much as I despise the typical xtard pattern of behaviour, I hate to see someone else punished for it.

I have to wonder what kind of lashing Mrs. Kroll is giving to Mr. Kroll right now.

The problem with the Liberals is Dion. In the time since Harper has taken office, Dion has done an excellent job and making himself completely invisible to the public and not making a name for himself except for caving in. On the other hand, the Liberals also haven't really done anything to further tarnish their reputation. Personally, I don't like Harper, but as long as it's a minority government, I don't care who is running it, as long as the conservatives don't come back from an election with a majority.

And how much of that "invisible to the public" is due to the public just not being able to see clearly? How much of it is our main sources of information either being filtered through a conservative lens (or the CBC, which couldn't find its own shoes with a flashlight and a bucket of astroglide)? What kinds of things do you think Dion should be doing to make himself more visible?

Is there any chance the Netherlands don't throw the game against Romania?

as the oranje have already clenched the top spot in group C, i would imagine marc van basten would rest some key players and frankly, who knows if the players on the pitch will even show up. I am really looking forward to the france v italy match though.

Serious question time, the frog story reminds me of something for any redditors with an expertise in this sort of thing. I think I was about 8 or so when a group of boys, including myself, chucked about a dozen toads against the wall of a library, but mostly each other. We kind of played a game called "butts up" (interestingly, after commenting I notice butts up has a [wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butts_Up) ) with frogs, because losing meant sliming the guy with frog guts. I remember distinctly thinking throwing frogs at other kids was hilarious, and it was a lighthearted game oddly enough, looking back with an adults perspective. I can see the stupidity and possible connotations of crazy looking back, but as a kid it didn't seem that way. I don't want to do the am I a sicko discussion, because that isn't what I am curious about. I'm extremely confident I am about as "normal" as anyone else. I have no sick thoughts or whatever. What I am wondering is how can an incident so disgusting be done by kids completely normal? Another guy that I still talk to who lived by me is now just a normal guy who builds pools and coaches his kid's footballs games. I have to assume from knowing him and the fact there hasn't been any crazy types of killings or serial rapes or anything here, ever, that I can remember means the guy is pretty normal too. So what I wonder is how were we there at seven to nine or so and laughing it up when one of us got "pegged" with a toad?

Are you a vegan?

How old are you? How long have you existed with the rest of us? How does anyone find meaning in an infinitely answerable question? The first two questions are rhetorical, but just try and answer the last question. With most ideological philosophers, they would never ever try to answer the question of existence, because they're too busy trying to put meaning into existence, so it can be classified as a religion. Those who are foolish enough to ignore the truly galactically huge implications of trying to fit the infinite into the finite will find themselves in the worst position possible. Meaningful answers in the midst of an infinitely answerable question? What are the two states of confusion in a human being? Obliviousness and information overload. The infinite nothing is calling and you have no ass to grab onto. Ultimately De Cartes found himself in the same pickle.

Well, I was able to make a tiny bit more sense out of this post. I no longer thing you're a troll, just a person with very muddled thoughts. That's ok, I can certainly sympathize. I have a few issues with your position. First, age and experience have no bearing on a philosophical discussion. Let's leave that out of this. Second, I see no reason to assert that this question is infinitely answerable. You'll have to pull out a pretty amazing proof before I'll agree with you on that one. I'll admit that I've strained my noodle pretty hard for many years on this very question but haven't seemed to have made *any* progress, but that hasn't convinced me that there is no answer (which is what I think you're trying to say with this "infinitely answerable" buisiness. It's hard to tell, but it seems you're trying to promote an argument something like this: 1) the universe/reality/God/your mom is infinite, 2) the human capacity for reason is finite, 3) therefore humans are unable to grasp the nature of the universe/reality/God/your mom, so they should stop trying. Even if I were to agree with you on 1 and 2, 3 does not follow. Take a look at [Cantor's diagonal argument](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument) for just one example.

I like how the second truck just kind of...keeps on driving.

so you want stop so both fires keep burning?

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I think that might be what I do. I can pay off everything pretty fast since I worked quite a bit in school to defer loans. Although I still have about 20k of student debt. But what do I do in a year or two when I've accomplished this? In the mean time I'm going to be able to spend a little on long put off projects. Maybe buy those adruino's I neither had the time or money for:-)

and read a *Rich Dad, Poor Dad*. Now granted, of specific market gives become outdated (e.g., real investing), it's a great, of difference between how people understand vs. how poor people how rich got be in first and that and why people who land a soon wind up poor again. In po'folk view money as to spend; rich folk view money as to grow cultivate. Poor who acquire more money than they need to will simply find ways to spend more, as immediately themselves" to whatever they'd had to defer, thereby usually squandering their surplus short people who acquire more money needed for find ways to invest the surplus and living off of on investments, on big-ticket and optional a financial planner/advisor doesn't make commission on trades only earns a salary firm, a of your gains (not per-trade gains), your plans. If you can figure out where Money in your town invests, prolly some stodgy bank or that's around at go there intro consultation. If you cards right and keep pulling he kind of bank you are now, you'll able to retire in just few years a modest-or-better living off the on your investments alone. will observe the First Commandment of Old Money: shalt not dip into the capital." Ideally, set up so you *can't* touch your easily at Since you to work to survive by that you can to spend your time and on than making making money for yourself employer, such as engaging in volunteer non-profit causes,

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Yep, the triage system. I spent many hours in emerg with my GF at the time. She was having a problem breathing and was disoriented. After 4 hours they drew blood and she disappeared behind a curtain to be examined another 3 hours after that; panic attacks. Seemed bad to me and I was angry that it took a long time but in retrospect they called it correctly.

The system has got my children seen ahead of everyone in a packed ER at least 3 times. The issues were 2 concussions and a 105F fever. Rant out of nowhere: ERs in the US are very often used for minor issues by the uninsured (like illegals) and folks on public assistance, so they get stiffed on a lot of bills. My X works at our local Hospital. They've made quite a few serious mistakes at our local ER, and I'm very close to 5 victims of those mistakes. To make it short, the 5 mistakes were; The wrong pain killer injected into thumb. Result; thumb amputated. 8 month old brought in because it was thought he swallowed something. He was examined and sent home. Result: Dime stuck in esophagus for 8 months, it became encapsulated, and had to be surgically removed. Years of illnesses related to the issue. Man brought in with dislocated shoulder, but diagnosed with separated shoulder (they thought it went back in) and he was sent home. Result: So far 2 surgeries, the first being to remove the top of his humerus bone and replace with a fake one. Woman gave birth to child by c section, got infection that went untreated while in hospital. Result: She died. Elderly Vietnamese woman brought in complaining of stomach issues, but sent home because they thought she was a nut case. Result: Almost death.

I am getting into photography. Everything I have taken before was on a Canon PowerShot A550. Not a bad little digital camera. But I am looking for something just a step up. A nice camera for a decent price. Preferably something with image stabilization. Keep in mind, I am a high school student, with little money. Any Suggestions?

I was going to suggest a nikon d60 (which is what I have) but then I saw you are a high school student. http://www.kbtoys.com/genProduct.html/PID/4827228/ctid/17?cpncode=19-8356868-2&srccode=cii_10043468 Now you can be like the big boys!

That which can be afforded.

Well then that word is used very incorrectly in the title.

I might eat broccoli if it were wrapped in bacon.

BLASPHEMY. Year 428 of the Hog Mother's Reign: Clothed in Bacon, belly of Bacon, mouth and stomach full of Bacon, we have gone too far. The Hog Mother has been angered. We have been greedy and taken more than we needed. The sky darkens and streaks of grease flow across it at speeds unfathomable. We are frightened, but we know not what exactly we fear. The Hog Mother has always been at peace. Why have we failed her? He who wraps nasty food in bacon is sinning against the Holy Church of Bacon by tainting the Bacon of the Hog.

It shows that they wanted people to delete emails they sent to them, probably out of fear someone might get their hands on them. Not sure why you're so eager to defend them?

It shows that one person wanted someone to delete some email for some reason. From that you draw the conclusion that thousands of scientists have engaged in a conspiracy to commit fraud.

God Emperor of Dune is my favorite of the series.

I didn't realize how good that book was until many months after I'd read it. It helps that he pretty much dedicates the rest of the series to explaining just how deep what he did in God Emperor was.

Thanks. I am quitting in about four weeks to start a teaching fellowship in Europe, but I don't know how much longer I can put up with this.

Ok. Good! Until then...Can you get any support from the school? Having a senior, preferably male, teacher come in and read them the riot act is good, but from the sound of it may not be forthcoming. Dealing with it on your own, it is *very very* important not to be drawn into these exchanges, even a tiny little bit. I know they say stuff *sotto voce* and try to pretend you misheard them, but don't be afraid to chuck them out any way. I would definitely start the next class by saying you have had enough of "bad behaviour", or "any behaviour that goes against the expectations of this school" (which makes it sound less personal and more based on authority from above) and will from now on be calling parents in *every* instance. DON'T mention the type of behaviour, it only gives it more status. Don't field any questions, they will try to get you to say it. You don't have to respond to everything students say to you! It's a hard habit to break when you are used to conversing with people who actually have manners. *Don't* get angry or upset - that's the hardest part when you are seething inside and your heart is pounding in your chest! If it happens, calmly tell the student to leave. If they whine and complain (they will!) don't buy into it!! Not even one word in response. Stay calm, keep telling them to go, don't ramp it up. I have seen similar situations, and truly have found this strategy to work best for me. They *expect* you to get mad and upset, that's why they do it. Don't give them the pleasure. You sound like the sort of teacher that kids would come to, and trust, because you like to talk with them. Many kids crave this and many are genuine and grateful for the attention. In a school with better leadership, you can do that and make a real difference. In this school, be business-like, cool and very consistent. Good luck indeed!!

To me, antivirus programs are more trouble than they are worth. Hell, the 1 virus I got (many many years ago from opening an unknown email) was less of an inconvinience than any AntiVirus program I've used. Now I don't even bother, they hurt your PC in day-to-day performance way more than a Virus does. Just keep your OS on a separate partition, if you ever do get a virus just reinstall and you *should* be good to go, with all your data/programs intact. You should also back up everything, just in case. Also, don't keep lists of info that should be secure (SSN, CC, etc..) but its not viruses you need to worry about then.

I use to think this, however you're completely wrong unless you're on linux or OS X. Its far easier to get infected than you think. Its gotten better again lately but with malware and spyware in recent years why take the risk. While malware and spyware are probably the biggest things that you need to worry about, but viruses are still pretty bad.

What's more crazy is that (in some sense I don't understand at all) 1+2+3+4+.... = -1/12

Also crazy: 1 + 4 + 16 + 64 + 256 + ... = -1/3; it follows from Gosper's [1972 result](http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hacks.html#item154) that the universe is two's complement. This is actually somewhat useful for doing division if you know the remainder will be zero; on most machines multiplying by 0xaaaaaaab is faster than dividing by 3.

You sir, are more enigmatic than a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces missing.

Thanks for the compliment. Here's a [piece](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy) for you.

holy shit, the world isnt fully controlled by idiots?! People know what a joke is?!!! good lord.

I know! And I thought we were all doomed...

[Bloxorz](http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz)

[Desktop Tower Defense](http://www.kongregate.com/games/preecep/desktop-tower-defense-1-5)

That really makes my blood boil. Or maybe it makes my blood run cold. Both happen at the same temperature anyway.

Does the same happen with baby blood?

Quality shoes don't make your feet sweat. They keep them warm while remaining breathable. Cheap, low-quality shoes prevent your feet from breathing out. So I guess Uggs are cheaply made.

I'm not sure how well they're put together, but they're made of sheepskin, wool on the inside. Wool is extremely breathable, and you'd think the natural wicking quality of it would help, but I guess not in her case.

but if you just search the forums you won't be able to see the blogs

That's true, but generally if I can't find anything on the forums I immediately go to the IRC channel. Are the blogs really helpful? Honest question.

How many 12-year olds are they going to profile before they realize what a waste of time and tax money this is?

If they are getting paid i don't think they really care.

So your argument is that you should be able to kill babies before they are born because of HeLa cells?

Either you lost track of the discussion, or this is pure intellectual dishonesty. We were talking about what defines a "human being". What I'm telling you is that it is simply wrong to even describe a zygote or blastocyst as a "baby". Even during the embryonic period and the majority of the fetal period, one should use strong qualifiers when using the word "human being". One of the interesting things about embryonic development is that structures tend to develop in roughly the [order in which they evolved](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory). It's not a universal rule, but in general, the gestation process is a progression from a more primitive organism to a more complex organism; almost like a little time-lapse of the organism's evolutionary history. One area in which this certainly holds true for humans is in the development of the cerebrum, which doesn't happen until very late in the pregnancy. Thalamic connections, required for sensory input, don't form until the 30th week. Sure, these things are made of human cells. They will, if everything goes correctly, turn into a baby. But if something doesn't have a "human" brain - that is, it has no capacity for thought, pain, or even short term memory (the hippocampus is part of the cerebrum, and is required for memory) - then it isn't a "person". It isn't a "human being" in the sense that the term connotes to most people.

That wasn't my impression...CTV does this interview every year and it is never a tough one.

??

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Don't run the engine with the windows rolled up while the car is stationary for a long time though. Many people have died of CO poisoning by trying to survive in winter conditions while stuck in a car due to running the engine with the windows closed.

Typically thats in a garage or enclosed space where air entering the cabin now is saturated with CO. If you have exhaust gases entering your passenger compartment, you've got other problems, as the CO should just float away as you get your precious O2.

While I agree more with Maher, he could have done a better job simply by giving the same amount of respect to Huckabee that Huckabee was giving to him.

Absolutely. Maher felt condescending. Huckabee really showed respect toward his guest.

that was way too many spoilers for one post, buddy. You best ease up.

Using SPOILER POST wasn't enough? I thought I made it fairly clear that people who aren't interested in knowing about the plot should stay away.

I was going to say the same thing about RPGs; RPGs were Sony's strong spot during the PS/PS2 eras, but the 360 has the lead over the PS3 by leaps and bounds in terms of RPGs so far (JRPGs especially are huge in japan, and Microsoft has been trying to win over the japanese market by pushing for JRPGs on the console). The caveat is that if you like RPGs and didn't have a PS2, then a PS3 with backwards compatibility will give you the chance to play the many excellent PS1 and PS2 RPGs.

The 360 still isn't very good for rpg's though. Eternal Sonata, Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, and Oblivion are about it. And Blue Dragon sucks pretty hard and Oblivion gets really, really boring after about 20-30 hours. The other three are all fairly decent, but still not really anything special. Hopefully Star Ocean 4 will be sweet, but right now there really aren't any great RPG's out on any of the current gen consoles.

Also, not English.

If it's not English, what is it, Swahili? Everyone in here understands the meaning of it...

There are also many, many amazing audience recordings available on the intertubes. The Zappa family trust tolerates that they are shared and exchanged for the love of the music, not the money. The google is your friend. If you get a chance, do see his son Dweezil performing his dad's music live on stage, together with various Frank Zappa alumni! I saw him earlier this year, and by fuck: they're pretty good musicians! http://www.zappa.com/ http://www.zappa.com/zpz/index.html

Yes, I saw them a few years ago in Brussels (with Steve Vai, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Terry Bozzio). A shame about that feud with Ike Willis, an extra dynamic male vocalist would have brought them as close as possible with the original as possible without ressurecting Frank.

Can we stop referring to everything as a blog...

And NEVER use the world blogosphere.

I thought of the short story [The Last Question](http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm), which is just as good as this story.

Just as good? I would say about a billion times better. The Last Question really touched me on a personal level.

Lighten up, Francis.

Any of you guys call me Francis, and I'll kill you.

Point taken. But keep in mind that what is so horrifying to them isn't so much a lowering of their standard of living - but that they will have to come into contact with the plebs.

I know this is all anecdotal, but from my personal experience it really seems like the middle class have more issues socializing with the poor than the rich do socializing with the middle class. Snobbishness always seemed to me to follow a bit of a bell curve, topping off with suburbanites who can afford a Mercedes, but have to finance it.

Would you at least agree that it's somewhere between letterman and a real news show?

If that's the case, it is only because real news shows have failed to do what TDS does and point out obvious lies/failures/hypocrisy etc and merely relays facts as presented by their article topics. Investigative journalism needs to come back.

Banks invested poorly and went bankrupt. Sounds like the free market punishing bad business practices. Or am I missing something?

Yes - the average person who suffers because of banks' actions. I'm not talking about the bailout; With or without it, small business that had no hand in poor decision making on Wall Street would suffer. You can see the situation as just another 'market correction', but if you're an everyday restaurant owner who has to close down due to credit suddenly drying up, you'd rather the government put in regulations to prevent these things from occurring. Sarbanes-Oxley has helped the auditing profession tremendously, and I don't see why similarly strict regulation of the banking industry (instituting an oversight board, passing new laws, etc.) would be a bad thing.

Seriously people, read the damn paper (Science, **321**, p. 226). They report optical quantum efficiencies of 50% (number of photons out over number of photons in, ignoring the energy lost due to the redshift during re-emission), and power conversion efficiencies (ie. the number you care about) of 6.8%. That, and their dyes show an 8% degradation over three months. Don't get me wrong, what these guys did was impressive -- they used a bunch of fluorescence/phosphorescence tricks to try and reduce the reabsorption of emitted light, which is the major hurdle to the use of these concentrators. And the use of organics is nice, in that they are dead simple to process. But quit with the damn sensationalist headlines!

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5886/226 Science 11 July 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5886, pp. 226 - 228 DOI: 10.1126/science.1158342 Prev | Table of Contents | Next Reports High-Efficiency Organic Solar Concentrators for Photovoltaics Michael J. Currie,* Jonathan K. Mapel,* Timothy D. Heidel, Shalom Goffri, Marc A. Baldo{dagger} The cost of photovoltaic power can be reduced with organic solar concentrators. These are planar waveguides with a thin-film organic coating on the face and inorganic solar cells attached to the edges. Light is absorbed by the coating and reemitted into waveguide modes for collection by the solar cells. We report single- and tandem-waveguide organic solar concentrators with quantum efficiencies exceeding 50% and projected power conversion efficiencies as high as 6.8%. The exploitation of near-field energy transfer, solid-state solvation, and phosphorescence enables 10-fold increases in the power obtained from photovoltaic cells, without the need for solar tracking. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. * These authors contributed equally to this work. Back {dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: baldo{at}mit.edu Photovoltaic (PV) concentrators aim to increase the electrical power obtained from solar cells. Conventional solar concentrators track the Sun to generate high optical intensities, often by using large mobile mirrors that are expensive to deploy and maintain. Solar cells at the focal point of the mirrors must be cooled, and the entire assembly wastes space around the perimeter to avoid shadowing neighboring concentrators. High optical concentration without excess heating in a stationary system can be achieved with a luminescent solar concentrator (LSC) (1–5). LSCs consist of a dye dispersed in a transparent waveguide. Incident light is absorbed by the dye and then reemitted into a waveguide mode. The energy difference between absorption and emission prevents reabsorption of light by the dye, isolating the concentrated photon population in the waveguide. In this way, LSCs can achieve high optical concentrations without solar tracking (6). Unfortunately, the performance of LSCs has been limited by self-absorption losses that restrict the maximum possible concentration factor. Here we describe an efficient variant of an LSC that mimics a four-level laser design and exhibits optical concentrations suitable for practical applications. Typically, LSC dye molecules are cast into a transparent plastic sheet; however, we deposited a thin film of organic dye molecules onto glass. Our devices were fabricated with thermal evaporation, but solution processing could also be used. Precise control over the film composition allowed us to apply the recent advances of organic optoelectronics to LSCs, including Förster energy transfer (7), solid state solvation (8), and phosphorescence (9). We term the resulting devices organic solar concentrators (OSCs). To obtain the highest power efficiencies, we constructed tandem OSCs (2). Incident solar radiation first encounters an OSC employing a short-wavelength dye. Longer wavelengths are transmitted through the first OSC and absorbed by a longer-wavelength dye in a second OSC (Fig. 1). Alternatively, solar radiation transmitted through the top OSC can be gathered by a bottom PV cell or used to heat water in a hybrid PV thermal system (2). Fig. 1. Physical configuration of OSCs. (Top) OSCs consist of a thin film of organic dyes deposited on high-refractive-index glass substrates. The dyes absorb incident solar radiation and reemit it at a lower energy. Approximately 80% of the reemitted photons are trapped within the waveguide by total internal reflection for ultimate collection by a PV device mounted on the substrate edges. Photon loss (dashed lines) occurs because of nontrapped emission or absorption by other dyes. Blue arrow, high-energy incident visible light; green circles, dye molecules. (Bottom) Light transmitted through the first OSC can be captured and collected by a second OSC, whose dyes absorb and emit light at lower energies, for electrical conversion at a second, lower-bandgap PV device. Alternatively, the bottom OSC can be replaced by a low-cost PV cell or used to heat water in a hybrid PV thermal system. Yellow arrow, low-energy incident visible light; red circles, dye molecules.

When it comes to loop quantum gravity, and special relativity, I would take loop quantum gravity with a grain of salt. Especially since it has no observed evidence. It's not that I think it's silly to keep an open mind to revisions and discoveries, it's that the language you used, "take it with a grain of salt", is ludicrous when you're talking about something as observed and verified as special relativity. Taking something with a grain of salt implies that you're approaching it as though it has little credibility. It's not like I was explaining a [brand new, unverified, unobserved theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity).

My point is that they all should be taken with a grain of salt. Singularities aren't any less far-fetched than Big Bounces. We can make observable predictions about the present, but anyone telling you they *know* what happened 14 billion years ago is lying or delusional. Here's that [article I mentioned.](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026861.500-did-our-cosmos-exist-before-the-big-bang.html?page=1) Again, I'm not endorsing the theory. Just pointing out that singularities aren't considered a "given" in physics. (P.S. not sure if you caught my edit earlier)

She had me until she started bashing JIRA, which is hands down the best bug tracking system I've used, and which soundly beats Bugzilla for both overall costs and ease of use (which are actually the same thing.) It's sad to see that the writer is so incompetent as well. At least Bob happened to the right people.

If they have bugzilla, like bugzilla, use bugzilla - why exactly would they want to pay for JIRA? She was bashing OSS to Commercial software because Bob said so, when there was no business case for spending the money. Besides, Bob didn't even show up to that meeting...

You could almost certainly assemble a less expensive and/or more powerful system with parts from Newegg or Tigerdirect. I know I'm not offering anything specific to look at, but this is almost always an option worth considering.

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea how to assemble a PC. Thanks for the idea though.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see this going anywhere.

We can agree on that much at least. ;+) Seriously though, I don't know what you disagree with at this point? I agreed with you that you could "create a distribution of Linux in a centralized way". Are you disagreeing with my original admittedly broad brush statements about competing ideals?

(This is the comment that started the thread.) 1. Example: would you kill a random man for $100M when you know that money could save at least 100 terminally ill people who are curable but have no money for the gold? The utilitarian answer should be yes. Still we feel there is something wrong with it. It would be very hard to actually DO it. Our gut instincts just don't accept it. Would you really, REALLY do it? 2. But apparently similar decisions are made all the time. A paramedic may decide to let someone die who has a low chance of survival anyway in order to be able to focus his efforts on somebody else who can likely be saved. An army general may sacrifice a small rearguard at a retreat in order to save the majority of his army. Such decisions we usually consider regrettable but acceptable. Why? What's the difference? 3. There difference is that there is a difference between "to kill" and "to let die". And that's the problem with utilitarianism: it sees only results, and from a results point of view there is no difference. However, our common sense morality, our gut instincts seem to say that not only results count, but all three things: motivation, the action itself, and the result. In all three cases, the motivation is similar, the result is similar - it's the difference in action itself ("to kill" vs. "to let die") that makes one acceptable and the other not. This doesn't mean that now I'm saying only actions count, I'm saying best is to weight motivations, actions and results, all three. As that's what we instinctively seem to be doing.

Our gut instincts are evolved to help us survive. The aversion to killing is natural. But that doesn't mean that killing is always wrong, like in your example. I think it's fairly well accepted that our evolved instincts for survival of self and kin aren't the be all and end all of morality. We can and should intellectualize our morality based on what we know of the world, not intuit through what our instincts tell us.

At first I was like "Yay! My school's on reddit!" but then, I realized it was for this. Now I'm a sad panda.

I'm glad I didn't take up that acceptance letter.

So what would you have done if he did wear a condom and didn't want to photograph you?

I'd like to think the end result would have been the same, but I sense that everyone's principles can be bought for a certain price. I doubt my price is five grand with complete discretion. It might, however, be 50 G's. That would be half of my student loans... magically removed from my anxieties forever (after careful laundering, of course), opening up the priceless door to the pursuit of a low-paying but desired career earlier in life. I realize this logic is the opposite of the feminism I usually champion, but I take comfort in the statistical improbability of ever having to encounter the problem.

My family owns pigs. I dunno if they just got dumb pigs, but they have yet to show any traces of ingenuity (or, for that matter, path finding). That said, I accept that not all of them are on the same level. Still, pigs aren't sentient in the same way that higher animals are.

"higher animals" is a loaded label. perhaps it's how they're raised? I don't know how your family keeps them, but ones kept in stalls and crates very quickly go crazy and don't act "intelligently," to say the least. on the other extreme, ones that are very well-treated tend to spend a lot of time sleeping and otherwise loafing, so that's also not too strong an indicator of what they're capable of. all I know is, pigs are often put up against primates in university studies and frequently outdo their simian counterparts in digital testing (ie animal video games).