From TFA: "Teagle, who will lead a run-up expedition this spring to bore further into the oceanic crust than ever before, said the forward push to get this project rolling is coming largely from Japanese funding agencies and the availability of a massive Japanese deep-sea drilling vessel called Chikyu."

Japanese funding agencies would maybe have something else to do with their money in the next ten years, sadly ?

Did you know it could be used in medicine, aerospace, and military applications ?

That's so funny ! No one made this joke before ! Godzilla jokes are so original !

"That's silly. They're trying to build a supercomputer out of MIPS chips. That'll never work..." THAT's what I'd call an argument. May I ask why ?

This is raycasting, not raytracing.

When doing raycasting, you will basically throw one ray per column (320x240 resolution -> 320 rays) (only primary rays are thrown, most of the time). Perspective is then added (the farest the ray hits, the smallest the wall will be on the screen). Quite fast, albeit very simple (no lighting, reflexion, or such).
When doing raytracing, you throw one ray per pixel (that's the primary one) to know which object it hits, then another one for each light source (secondary one, for shadows and color), then N others if needed (think reflection, etc.). Each of these secondary rays will then throw other rays, etc etc. Computationally very intensive, even after good optimizations, but quite realistic.

"The claim being made is that religion causes these conflicts. Im pretty sure Pol Pot didnt start his movement for the sake of a religious belief, but a political one." And how is that a different thing ? A religion is nothing more than a bunch of people telling they've got the Truth. Quite like politics to me.

The "professions liberales" are the independant ones (like physicians, lawyers, etc.), where you can freely chose how much you'll ask (so that's not a salary). "Liberal" has a very, very (very) different usage in France. It just means you are free to do what you want, as in "liberté" (liberty / freedom). Economically, at least.

"French Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Industry Ministry.
What are we going to do with all of these ministries? Are IT staff going to spend the weekend in a massive cleaning to remove traces of 'spectacular' redundancy, too?"

My preferred one is :
"Secretaire d'Etat aupres de la ministre de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie, charge du Commerce, de l'Artisanat, des Petites et Moyennes entreprises, du Tourisme, des Services, des Professions liberales et de la Consommation"
That's ONE guy (no need to translate, most of the words are english-ready, apart from 'small and middle sized companies'). And they *really* call him like that *everytime* it appears in the senate (often).

"In both scenarios you're removing an unwanted being from your life at your own desire.

The term 'being' seems a bit philosophical to me. From when exactly does it become a 'being' ? (that's all the fun, I know)

The sun does not shine 24hours/day... at least not on our planet.

Actually yes, it is, at the poles. Both of them beeing part of the same planet.

"I would have sex with her too"

She's 238 by now you gross !

Yes there is, for ... retards, specifically. That's a general notion, not just "sometimes it applies, sometime not".

" I don't believe for a second that (...) disagreeing with a law morally entitles somebody to break it."

So you are a state-robot. The law says this, so you do this. That's part of a bigger problem of our system : noone is responsible of anything anymore. "That was the order !". Can't you just assume what you do ? I respect the law, most of the time, for a stupid-simple reason : that's logical. I stop at "stop" signs, I pay my taxes, etc. But I smoke pot, too. That's illegal where I live, and I can't think of *one* reason not to do so if I like to.
So I break the law, should I go to prison because that's not moral to you ? Fuck no. It does not concern you, at all, ever.
Be clever, and stop mixing "moral" with "law", that's stupid.

They just fortified the positions of those they're trying to scare off.

Don't resist or they will bite harder, that is. No way.

something that generates enough revenue to be self-sustaining

Like capable of generating $30 per month ? Seems hard.