This "build shit, destroy shit" cycle we humans seem stuck in is going do do us in some day. At least when we blow shit up on Earth it lands somewhere to be slowly buried over by soil. All that orbital debris is going to form a freaking shrapnel belt at some point and it'll be Russian roulette every time we launch and sipping tea in front of a Gatling gun to stay in orbit. Life is hard by its nature, but we seem hell bent on making it as hard as possible. Then again, maybe they used those old Lenovo ThinkPad batteries in the thing and no weaponry was involved...

I wonder if it would help to have a device placed between the ends of the severed spinal cords such that they're perfectly flush against it. The device would read/write impulses from/to both sides and work like a router in that it would enumerate each connection and be able to map one to another. A skin-tight suit of electrodes could be fitted on the person to assist with the mapping process. Initially the heart and lungs would need to be manually operated until the correct nerves could be mapped. The output nerves from the brain could be identified based on the patterns detected by the intermediary device. The heart and diaphragm could be manually stimulated with electrical impulses to determine the input nerves. Once the basic functions were mapped (with manual backups still in place) the patient would be told to repeatedly flex muscles or move limbs in specific ways, allowing the device to detect and test possible mappings. The electrodes in the body suit would record the mapping attempt results which combined with visual observation would help determine if the correct muscle was being stimulated. Even if this worked, there's the problem of the intermediary device being a permanent addition to their body and that the spinal cord ends couldn't be shifted on its surface without disrupting the mappings. The device would almost have to be organic, or somehow allow its logical mappings to become physical and permanent. They'd also probably just have the major mappings correct and require extensive rehabilitation to function normally and may have side effects that are never corrected such as at itch coming from the "wrong place".

Before clicking the article the words "head up their ass" were already on my fingertips. Nicely done.

Targeting a mall for a mass shooting or bombing would cause a big reaction, but if a video surfaces of soccer mom kidnapped and beheaded inside the United States all hell will break loose. 9/11, bombings, mass shootings...those are all terrible but they're a little more abstract psychologically because they affect a group of random people. The idea that a van could pull up next to you while walking the dog on the other hand is something that you might find difficult to stop thinking about. They've tried this in other countries (Australia, I think?), so unless there's some radical shift in sentiment (or existence) among terrorist groups it's only a matter of time.

You're right. I should have immediately driven up to New York and starting digging through the rubble looking for evidence with my CSI Miami forensic kit. Or perhaps watched the conspiracy videos on YouTube; those are fine examples of critical thinking. I'm sure your critical thinking skills are so finely honed you quickly figured out exactly what happened and why, perhaps in part due to the aluminum shielding your brain from the media/illuminati's mind control waves. In any case, you're missing my point, which was to provide an example of how aggression/anger/rage alters one's reasoning. PSA: Keep posting as Anonymous Coward, as they have eyes on you.

Without writing a book about it, simply defining aggression as "How easily a person get pissed off" is an easily-understood and practical definition. Some examples of the fruit of high aggression we could do without would include spousal abuse, road rage and war-mongering/retaliation. A specific example of that last one would be how I felt after 9/11 (which I no longer feel), which was basically, "Oh you fucked up now. We're going to bomb the shit out of every last one of you. Die, motherfuckers, etc." There's a significant and dangerous disconnect between how a calm person and an enraged person reasons and acts.

Thanks for the info. You can probably tell I'm not a network engineer. Gotta admit though, it sounded pretty clever until that damned reality bumped into it. :)

It wouldn't surprise me if when detecting bittorrent traffic AT&T disallowed connecting to any peers or seeds with an AT&T IP address. The downloader would still max out their up/downstream bandwidth, but it would be a single-edged sword as all their connected peers and seeds would be non-AT&T customers. AT&T would then have more available bandwidth (at the expense of the other ISPs) and could argue they were enhancing their customers' experience. A brilliant plan until other ISPs find out and do the same. Perhaps then AT&T could start their own VPN service marketed to their own customers under a different brand, touting unrestricted bittorrent connectivity as a selling point.

Unintentionally, no doubt. On the bright side the more absurdly and widely abused the system is the more ammunition for reforming it. I hope they cause a real mess spamming the USPTO with every possible patentable combination of words. Maybe they'll replace the USPTO staff with an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters to process them.

Judgement is also a driving skill and probably the most important one. Knowing the rules is irrelevant if your poor judgement causes you to ignore them. Alcohol only impairs judgement if you let it (up to a point, obviously). It's not as if you're possessed by a demon and literally no longer have control over your thoughts and actions. If you remain mindful that you're intoxicated the impulse to do something potentially unwise is immediately followed by the question "Is this wise" and you can decide to crush the impulse and not perform the action. The problem, other than people who just can't drive worth a damn in any case, is people who have too many drinks and remain in denial of their altered state. If you have a broken leg you can walk just fine with a crutch and a little care. Most drunk drivers throw away the crutch, pretend their leg is just fine, and sprint with obviously disastrous results.

They did that on Mythbusters, but it was between alcohol intoxication and sleep deprivation. Interestingly they found sleep deprivation to be equally (if not more) debilitating than alcohol intoxication.

I like the idea for your study, but it would be fun if they also had a test requiring the participants to send a text message or repeatedly answer the phone or set up their GPS while driving.

This would be a useful equation if it weren't for the fact that the person in question was a fuckwad long before the anonymity or audience came. The idea that a thoughtful, virtuous person somehow becomes a troll because of anonymity and an audience is bullshit. The only thing anonymity does is melt away the facade of civility a fuckwad has carefully crafted for themselves.

It is ironic, though it may be because the Big Media remakes and sequels are often so shitty that we geeks spend the remainder of our lives trying desperately to scrub their memories from our minds. For example, if Alien 3 and 4 had been as good as the first two I would be cool with a new one every few years until the end of time. Another issue is that people tend to think sequels and remakes come at the cost of the exclusion of new/original works. As if making Star Wars XIV somehow prevents someone else from making a Heinlein film.

They didn't. CBS or Paramount or whoever generally turns a blind eye to projects like these as long as they don't make any money. Other than the recent films (which arguably are only Star Trek in name), the franchise is dead. It's possible even that they're keeping an eye on how the public receives it in consideration of creating a new official television series. I think if there is to be a new series they should put it on HBO and go for broke. Good actors, good writers, the occasional full-frontal and beheading/gibbing will make for some unforgettable Trek, if nothing else.

Either they're still tolerable or you haven't been watching much television lately. There are a lot of good shows, but holy shit, the majority are pretty awful. I think of ToS more as on-screen theater than some gritty, brutally-realistic drama. It's like Shakespeare. You gotta watch it with a certain perspective and malleability in order to enjoy it.