Michelle Slaughter
Earl Gallows
Trigger Winchester
Otis Hangem
Billy Bob Guilty

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^5 for the Brazil reference.

Oh please, one of the most common forms of self-delusion is to focus on one little thing you do that is contrary to your usual behavior or line you won't cross making you not such a bad guy after all. Like focusing on that your bacon-cheese, greasy meat and white bread tower drenched in dressing with lots of oil-soaked fries has a leaf of lettuce and a slice of tomato too. And you ordered a Diet Coke, it's not that unhealthy right? I guess some of them are honest with themselves, it's still a calorie monster just without the final topping. But I'm guessing a lot more are lying to themselves, I know I've been prone to do so.

Soda has around 100 calories per 8 fluid ounces (varies slightly with type of soda). So you get a 32 ounce drink, that's 400 calories. That's a fair bit, even by fast food standards. Most fast food burgers are in the 800-1200 calorie range (a double quarter pounder with cheese is 740 calories for reference). So you are adding 33-50% more calories to a meal with a 32oz soda.

Well the thing is, the calories in that soda won't do much if anything to fill you up. Drink as much as you like, you still feel hungry. Not so with a hamburger. While it isn't high quality nutrition, it is still plenty of protein, fat, and carbs and your body is going to be satisfied by the consumption of it.

Thus cutting out the soda really can help. You reduce a non-trivial amount of calories and it isn't likely to make you feel less full. Ya, you are still eating fast food and it is not high quality nutrition, and it is high calorie for what you get, but it is better than just drinking sugar water which is more or less what soda is.

Weight loss and eating healthy isn't an all or nothing proposition. There is better and worse, and cutting out soda is doing better than leaving it in.

I forgot to mention an important consideration: one also has to take into account the tradeoff compared to using lots of sugar/glucose/HFCS/etc. While, optimally, intake from both groups should be restricted, I know that's not realistic for many people. I'm lucky in that my metabolism and insulin sensitivity allow me to handle large quantities of the high glycaemic index foods I love, but if you also have a sweet tooth -- depending on your genetics -- the artificial sweeteners may be the lesser evil.

Aspartame and a few of the other artificial sweeteners are excitotoxic (they overexcite some neurons to the point of death). For example, see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... and other research like it. The main counterargument is that studies showing excitotoxic effects in vivo have always been done with doses significantly higher than would be ingested using regular consumption of foodstuffs in which artificial sweeteners are used (indeed, a benefit of advanced artificial sweeteners is that they reach the threshold of sweetness when very dilute). While even a good deal of overconsumption of artificially sweetened soda drinks may not reach the amounts having been shown detrimental. However, I've found no safety evidence either way regarding very long term exposure at lower intensity, over decades. For me, that's cause for caution and limiting consumption (though even I don't totally avoid it, and that's from someone that doesn't particularly like the taste of soda drinks).

See, here you're confusing two very different things. A shitty low end Android will let you access Facebook. The iPhone 6 will let you hang with the rich kids. Rich kids have expensive habits. Rich kids often have expensive habits to show off that they're rich. Our little fishing boat doesn't fit very well in a yacht club, am I now poor because I can't "fit in" with the millionaires? Sorry, but wanting to pose in an economic league you're not doesn't strike me as any genuine poverty. At least not severe enough to forcibly take my money to even things out.

the AI which hacked hawking's system and is using him as a puppet has developed a sense of humor.

we're doomed, and it will be hilarious.

AWKWARD!

All well and good, but doesn't exactly solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.

Sure it does. (Not that one small pilot project solves the problem, I mean if the tech is scaled up.) It's carbon-neutral just like biofuels are, it does not add any net CO2 to the atmosphere: it only puts in what it took out to make the fuel in the first place. (I suppose your could even use it to remove CO2, to get us back to 350ppm via carbon sequestration -- make up a bunch of "blue crude" and then stick it underground, running an oil well in reverse.) The problem with greenhouse gas emissions is fossil carbon, which puts in carbon that was captured millions of years ago.

Agree. How is Pandora any different from radio? Artists' labels fight to get air time for singles in order to promote the art, the artist and potentially increase ticket sales when the artist tours. Pandora provides the same service.

That's okay, because they are unlikely to be taking the CO2 out of the atmosphere anyway. It would be much cheaper and easier to capture and reuse the outputs of an existing CO2 source (e.g. a coal plant) than it would be to suck CO2 out of the ambient air.

Google's social networking features remain marginal for the same reason all of the other social networking sites remain marginal: the value of a social networking application is proportional to the number of people who are already using it. And Facebook hit critical mass first, which means that anyone who wants to "socialize" online with all of their buddies is going to want to do that on Facebook, because that's where all of their buddies are to be found online.

Asking people to also sign up for a second social-networking service is a losing proposition, because it inconveniences them (now they have to check two sites every day) without providing any compensating benefit (why talk to their friends on site B when they could already do that on site A?).

I climb mountains as a hobby, and know many climbers, a large proportion of whom are geeks who are disinterested in team sports. It's a hobby like any other physical hobby. It brings risk, but also enormous enjoyment from the combination of experiencing the raw beauty of nature where there are very few others with the challenge and thrill of reaching a summit. We climb a peak not to show off; we climb it because it is there. A tiny fraction of mountaineers are interested in bragging rights (except, perhaps, amongst themselves in a good-spirited manner), so your slight against us is rude and ignorant. Fuck you!

Wow, I never thought the day would come, but I actually agree with drinkypoo on something!

It's my impression that pro players often get amateur players through bet sizing, if your call/fold response doesn't match the equity of your hand they'll pretty easily see that they can milk you for value or push you into folding. Or that the amateurs are bad at getting the maximum value out of their good hands because they give the pros easy call/fold odds. Of course there's a lot more to bet sizing than your own two cards, but you can't bluff properly without having a pretty good clue about what you represent having and making credible bets as if you had those cards. Pros are pretty good at smelling stories that don't make sense where you're betting on the turn/river like you have cards that you'd never play that way preflop/on the flop because they're usually a bluff. Or a very well disguised hand, but they'll sure test if you're capable of that.