Akhira

It let me vote. Though I had to give it permission to access my data first.

Congrats Pooka!

Congratulations, Pooka! Don't become Smaug.

I'm sorry. I had to.

Oh dear.

 

Girls, you're all pretty.

Agreed.

Congratulations Spain! Great news. Interesting link too.

yeah, but some of us here just won't let go of our rich wild west gunfight at the OK Corral culture. In fact, you can have it when you pry it from our cold dead hands. I'll be honest, I own a gun because of the old adage "it's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." you can count on the fact that probably all the "bad guys" (otherwise known as evil men with evil schemes) have guns. And most of the crazy people. I don't take it with me to social events, but I do take it with me (I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon - they are too damn easy to get) if I go somewhere where there are lots of different people, but typically leave it in the car (I know, why bother). I don't want to be paranoid but since my income elevated sharply and I don't like to use credit cards, I sometimes have what some would consider too much cash on me. Now, if I get robbed, I'm not going to be a hero or anything. Money doesn't matter when it comes to life. But if it comes down to me or an assailant, I would very much like to be the one telling the surviving tale. I wouldn't own a gun if we had the same laws as other more civilized countries.

Slinker, I'm not sure I get what you're saying, or even if you're addressing me. But in case you are:

Where I come from, the bad guys don't own or need guns. Apathy, corruption, bad driving and bribery work fine for them. Giving the the populace guns won't solve anything.

Here ya go. Some nice up-votes. About as much as I can contribute to the topic.

Having never seen a privately handgun in India, I can say that they make me nervous. For the similar reasons to what Mark says. I own a hunting knife and have never used it to stab someone, though I'm tempted to. A gun would make it too easy. Even easier to shoot myself in the foot.

My simplistic viewpoint basically boils down to this:

"It's easier & takes less time to shoot a bunch of people in broad daylight or an enclosed space, than it is stab the same amount of people. I'm against privately owning guns, unless you have very, very, very good reason for it."

The constabulary in our police force are issued batons, with which they inflict enough damage on innocent citizens. You'd have to be sub-inspector to own a revolver.

Zatanna dumps both and seduces Raven.

Happy belated one.

Eh. I approve of both. This forum has a history of being a level-headed mature group (no trolls, flame wars etc.). I think being childish once in a while is acceptable.

*excuse me while I go indulge my sense of humor belonging to someone whose 12*

What beautiful art. Where is it from?

Actually, I posted a picture here of me and then my girlfriend after we started dating. That was four years ago. So this is my second picture I've posted online. You two must have missed that one. You could see my face in that one, no hat, glasses, or beard even.

I remember that one. You had shorter hair?

*applause*

Sethos sent me a sketch of myself once. It's currently hanging in my Mom's room.

EDIT: Oops! Happy birthday Sethos!

I can't help but notice that it will be installed on the USS Ponce. Oh and...pew pew pew, where's my laser cutter?

What?

Well happy un-birthday then.

Oh! Happy birthday Josh.

Much obliged guys. I guess this should be filed under things-I-should-know-by-now.

It's a symbol for the Marriage Equality Act in New York, to allow same sex marriage (or "gender neutral" as I believe the new term is).

 

Apparently. I googled it.

I feel dumb . How do you google images?

Red Hood looks a little....

What's with these things?

Who are those two on the right? Robin, Batgirl, Batman, ?, ?.

Dude, self-learning robots are AI's the way you think. It was mentioned right in the beginning of the article.

When Darpa talks about artificial intelligence, it’s not talking about modeling computers after the human brain. That path fell out of favor among computer scientists years ago as a means of creating artificial intelligence; we’d have to understand our own brains first before building a working artificial version of one. But the agency thinks we can build machines that learn and evolve, using algorithms — “probabilistic programming” — to parse through vast amounts of data and select the best of it. After that, the machine learns to repeat the process and do it better.

We don't understand how our own brains work yet. That kind of technology is a long way off. What it it will give us (should it succeed) is more efficient problem solvers, simple enough for non-IT experts to use.

Will they help us terraform the planet when we flee to Mars (and maybe find a songspire...)?

I would like to see more of these. Preferably the kind not cannibalized by the military.

So It Begins: Darpa Sets Out to Make Computers That Can Teach Themselves

Microwave pizza sucks.

EMC is a tough nut to crack though, it is ridiculously hard to shield an electronic device to prevent it interfering with other devices. It's like engineering voodoo as to what is going to cause high noise in a product. Sometimes grounding a part will fix a problem, sometimes it will make it worse and a lot of the time the actual software will have as much to say as the mechanics. My products only have to achieve class A though, class B is the really hard one.

Is such grounding possible on planes or am I misunderstanding what you said? There's always one joker who refuses to turn of his or her mobile/tablet or at least switch to airplane mode.

We get first dibs on the album then? I enjoyed listening to your demos.

Oh and smashing guitar (no pun intended).