Nope. Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus) and others are all prophets in Islam.
Same god. Different language.

In fact, had the popes been a little less dumb and less prosecuting of all flavors of Christianity other than Catholic and inclusive of others instead of constantly starting crusades against them - Islam could have easily been absorbed into Christianity.
It's no different than Mormonism or all those Evangelic flavors that would have been crusaded out had they sprouted when Islam did.
Just ask Cathars. Oh... wait... you can't.

Same thing mustard does. Nothing.

Sympathize ain't empathize.
Also, under the assumption that you are not a dog, your sympathy or empathy just makes you human.

Which again, does nothing to the argument. Cause that is not what it is about.
I'm not the one arguing that sympathy, empathy or anthropomorphizing is wrong or bad.

My argument is about human empathy OF the audience, WITH characters on the screen which are revealed in a twist to ALL be just robots - being INVALIDATED by that twist.
It's Scott yelling at the audience "Your empathy is futile, silly human. There is nothing to empathize with here. You are merely anthropomorphizing a walking toaster. IT does not feel! It is programmed to appear to fell. HA-HAA! And the cake is a lie too. It's made of shit! And you thought it looked tasty and delicious! STUPID HUMANS! YOU ARE ALL STUPID!!! Oh... wait... I'm human too..."

And that is stupid as berating a rock for being a rock.

And the answer would be "never". You stupid audience member.

If Rachel's childhood memories are all fake implants, and Decker's dreams (unicorns) and desires (matchstick man with a hard-on) are all fake implants, they are no different than Leon pretending to be human by carrying around photos (i.e. memories) or Batty memorizing "attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion".
Machines imitating human actions, trying to merely survive.

Besides, it is not about "emotions". They all show plenty of fear and anger, even happiness.
It's about EMPATHY.

The book is all about how humans NEED to empathize.
The movie only works if audience empathizes with the characters.

IF there is humanity in those characters to empathize with - that emphasizes audience's humanity.
If there isn't any humanity, if it is all fake and they are all toasters - that's not emphasizing empathy but pointing a finger at the human cognitive flaw of anthropomorphizing the machines.
It's berating the audience for their human flaws. For being human.
And that is stupid. Particularly coming from another human.
Which makes it a bad movie with a messed up message.

A movie with human Decker has a human witnessing something much like humanity in the machines he destroys, tries to save or is saved by.
The question of "at what point" is his and it is a valid one cause he, as a human, does not have that answer.
He does however, being human and not a machine, have free will and the ability to choose to try and save Rachel DESPITE everything and everyone telling him it will be a futile endeavor.
Not having a precise answer he makes a choice based on intuition and feelings and answers the question with "Now. At this point."

And there is no "sin" in audience feeling the same - cause we are all humans and there is nothing wrong with that. No shame. No sin. Just us. Humans.
It is a better AND more positive movie with a clear message.

Which is why they started off with massacres of Jews. Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Same reason, Muslim invasion, started later crusades up north, against "pagans" (Prussians, Slavs, Estonians... basically non-catholics). Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Or those against Cathars in France. Muslims. Again. Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

It's almost as if religious goals were then, just as they are now, a pretext for validation of religious hatred against "them" and a carte blanche for looting.

You know... them. Others. Minorities. Those who are different.
Be they Jews, heretics, pagans, Muslims, black, Asian, gays, communists...
Nitwit.

Sure, sure... That's why they just shine a flashlight into someone's eyes to see if they are a replicant.

Phew... And here I feared there'd have to use some kind of a complicated multi-hour psychobabble test about empathy, memories and baby spiders.
A test, during which, a camera shines a bright red light into their eyes.
A test, during which, they pull the shades down as it is too bright in the room to do the test.
Which shades out the light from the Sun - which just happens to shine in the owl's ONE red glowing eye.
Which is funny, and must be some kind of error in the filming, a goof if you will, cause when the owl turns around NOW IT'S THE OTHER EYE THAT IS GLOWING.
And as we " know " that the red glow is actually an indicator of replicantness and NOT just the light of the Sun reflecting - it must be a goof by a well known hackfraud Ridley Scott.

But the most hilarious bit in these discussions about Deckard being a replicant is that should we accept those arguments to be true (regardless of logic or veracity) - they make BR into a shitty movie and reveal Scott to be a crappy director. And the whole thing is pushed by none other than him.

Why is that a shitty movie?
Cause human Decard showing empathy for toasters (which is what replicants are after all - just a machine with a timer which tells them what to do and when) emphasizes his HUMANITY.
Deckard's reluctance to return to the job, him falling for Rachel, him being afraid of Batty and then sharing in his final moment - it's all a show of his humanity.
And, the audience being human, it recognizes its own humanity in his.

A toaster pretending to be reluctant (it has no feelings - it's just a preprogrammed toaster) chasing a toaster, who does not want to be a toaster and wants to be a real boy/girl, pretending to fall for a toaster who thinks it's a real girl but finds out it is only a toaster, then pretends to be afraid, pretending to understand a toaster having a pretend moment... there is EXPLICITLY nothing to relate to in such a story.
Further more, it's an equivalent of a movie where the director shows the audience a man eating a juicy cake - and then tells the audience after credits that the cake is actually made of feces.

It is a movie which implies that the audience is stupid for assuming that what they are seeing is true.

Only, when that truth is empathy and humanity, Scott is actually trying to berate the audience for BEING HUMAN.
Either way, he comes of as an idiot. A George Lucas without all the toys.

He has issues. His brother CLEARLY had issues as well, maybe it runs in the family.
But Ridley's are more along the lines of some obsessive compulsive disorder combined with confidence issues.
He keeps second guessing his own work and taking any criticism at face value and as absolute judgment of quality.
Which is why so many of his movies end up with half the footage on the cutting floor.

The making of featurette of The Legend is very revealing of his flaws.
It's not that he will cut up the movie cause he heard some potheads snickering in the audience - it's how he will plunge openminded into any nonsense anyone suggests. Cause it will work in his mind at the moment.
"At the moment" being the operative term - as a single question later he will throw it out.
Though a moment ago he was all into scrapping half the movie and starting it over with lizard men.

He will take any suggestion, internalize it, visualize it and unless someone stops him - he will try to implement it in the movie.
ANY suggestion.

When there IS someone there to rationally explain how that is a bad idea, we get a flawed movie that could have been a masterpiece - like The Legend.
When there is no one to do that, so he hires and listens to a talentless hack - we get Prometheus.

Only thing Nazis experiments on Jews in death camps could be good for is using them as an example of CONFIRMATION BIAS.
And possibly for weeding out racists and holocaust deniers from the academia.

Nope.

Also nope.

The actual quote mentions a TYRANT. A singular ruler whose power relies heavily on personal reputation.
Misapplying that to a regime at best makes you misinformed. At worst disappeared.

A totalitarian government is NOT one that NEEDS fear and intimidation to rule. It's a government that already HAS you by the balls.
It does not need fear or intimidation. That's for petty dictatorships. A totalitarian government has CONTROL over rules and laws.
I.e. It does not need to intimidate you into not drinking alcoholic beverages. It just makes it illegal.

So, because it is aware of its own power, it is perfectly fine with letting you get your rocks off at its expense - as it knows that all it has to do is squeeze for your laughter to become a squeal.
And it also knows that if it lets you bark at it you will never get frustrated enough to bite, while it can dismiss you with a wave of a hand "proving its openness to criticism".
If you do eventually bite... well, you're clearly a mad dog. Just look at all your history of constant barking.

It's totalitarian cause it already has all the power and control. It doesn't need fear nor does it fear ridicule.
Only those who DO NOT have absolute power, but pretend that they do, fear laughter.

In no particular order... war, recession, genocide, ecological disaster, government prescribed religion, concentration camps, fascism, disbanding of social services, police state...

All far worse and clearly in a different category from "make people laugh at it".

The entire article could be summed up as "How our confirmation bias made us change the rules until the results confirmed our bias."

"See? When I change the rules of poker to be like blackjack, the game evolves into a game of blackjack on its own! Fascinating! It is as if evolution would like to avoid the poker altogether."

Capitalism is not a social system - it's an economic system. I.e. It is about making and trading THINGS.
You "win" by making and having more things faster.

Socialism and communism are social AND economic systems. Being SOCIAL they are primarily about benefits of PEOPLE AND/OR SOCIETIES.
You "win" by achieving a satisfied and happy society.

That's why it intuitively works for families and tribes - goals are common and simple.
And why it is a bitch to work in a larger society in which many smaller groups may have conflicting and complex goals.

He is also one of the two people who came up with the idea for the movie.

Morse.

It is a claim by an MP in UK Parliament, made back in 2005.

They got their number by essentially guessing. Cause there is no such number as "passengers per vehicle".

Except there is no such value as "passenger kilometres" for buses in the source as you can't use that for buses - cause they operate by "zones" and not by destinations.
Same price for one stop as it is for three or five and passengers keep getting on and off along the way.
A ticket price is not related to the of distance that a passenger WILL BE traveling but to the MAXIMUM distance ALLOWED to travel.

So, they rounded it down to the lowest common denominator.
"9 passengers average" might be stretched as technically not a "wrong" number - just factually completely inaccurate as an average, minimum or maximum number of passengers.

It's actually the minimum number of passengers a bus must be able to carry in order to NOT BE CONSIDERED a "not-a-bus".
If it talks like a bus, drives like a bus... then it is not a taxi, which CAN be used as a bus but it is NOT a bus.
So what is a bus? Anything from 9 seats and up.

Transport Statistics Great Britain, 2002, 5 Public Transport: Notes and Definitions

That "9 passengers average" is like saying that average number of seats for motor vehicles is 1 - because motorcycles.

Wouldn't say "actually" as always, but I would agree on it meaning "often". Or even "most of the time".

I mostly doubt their abilities to correctly asses the situation more than their motivation.
Incompetence trumps malice. And those willing to chance it on an alternative approach tend to be incompetent by definition.
Otherwise it wouldn't be an alternative approach but a tried and true strategy.
That, and that Niven law about fools and noble causes.

Even Hitler thought that he was doing the greatest thing ever for Germany and the human race.
Just like the Soviet block was later willing to sacrifice everything (that means personal freedoms and comfort too, comrade) in that last final decisive battle to unite humanity - it's right there in the song.
Or the way USA block was fine with whatever was needed to protect democracy and American way of life from godless communists. Even if that means a dictatorship or two, mister.

Idealism is a great starting point for any professional breaker of eggs. After all, that omelet is just within our reach... you can almost smell it.

No they don't.

They are GIVEN a shelf life of 3-5 years based on lab tests interpreted in such a way that the continuous chain of procurement of such vests by the police and the military is maintained AND so the producers of said vests could cover their asses in court in case it's needed.
"See, your honor, evidence shows that the officer Smith exposed his vest to higher temperature and UV light than what is written on the label. Ergo, it is his fault that high velocity round our client's vest wasn't ever designed for, not to say that it isn't the greatest vest out there, wasn't stopped by the said vest which is still a perfectly safe vest if you buy it brand new every 3-5 years."

Back in reality, you'd need to either soak it in strong acid or expose it to direct UV for hundreds of hours for the fibers to lose a significant part of their tensile strength i.e. bullet stopping abilities.
450 hours of direct UV will degrade 4500 denier kevlar to ~65% and 1500 denier kevlar to ~35%.
900 hours will knock it further to ~48% and ~23%, respectfully.

Even then, that only means that the TOP LAYER is degraded. Kevlar is not transparent. It degrades because it absorbs UV light.
And that's IF it was worn on top of other clothes, without any kind of a liner or protective or decorative impregnation.
I.e. If police were running around in banana-yellow ponchos for protection from bullets.

It's in the specs and real-life tests by people who are re-selling USED police kevlar vests confirm it.

It's plastic. The stuff that will take millions of years to degrade out of the ecosystem.