Two Words: Beast Mtawarira

Have a quick look at the man here, on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1nCe9iZ2u0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0hOxFH3aC8

Then realise that this is Rugby, where a forward will tackle someone at that speed, put him down hard, and then bounce up to tackle his mate since the other bugger probably got a pass in before he went to ground.

And 6'3" and 113kg? A bit of a piker, no? <evil grin/>

Never really quite understood American Football...

Now Rugby, that is a game I can respect: all of the full-contact fun of American Football but none of the armour nor any of the all-too-frequent breaks... And a damn site more fun to play in either its full-contact or touch versions.

Touch-rugby on the beach with breaks for beer... Hmm. I loved summer!

Pity I'm a tad too old for that now.

It's only 1434 kilometers away from 499 light-seconds.

What does WinPhone8 need? It needs graduates from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft And Wizardry . Or Lord Voldemort himself -- like Ballmer with real power and a human IQ.

Am I the only one that read the statement? It seems to me that they are collecting information. In fact McDonald's doesn't deny they attacked him, they only state that their employees denied it. It's an important distinction. Their employees are quite naturally saying, "We're innocent!" while Mann's saying "They're guilty." Mann provided proof that one of their statements - namely that they didn't damage any of his property - is incorrect. But it doesn't seem McDonalds, as a whole, is calling Mann a liar. Here's the statement:

We share the concern regarding Dr. Mann’s account of his July 1 visit to a McDonald’s in Paris. McDonald’s France was made aware of Dr. Mann’s complaints on July 16, and immediately launched a thorough investigation. The McDonald’s France team has contacted Dr. Mann and is awaiting further information from him.

In addition, several staff members involved have been interviewed individually, and all independently and consistently expressed that their interaction with Dr. Mann was polite and did not involve a physical altercation. Our crew members and restaurant security staff have informed us that they did not damage any of Mr. Mann’s personal possessions.

While we continue to learn more about the situation, we are hearing from customers who have questions about what happened. We urge everyone not to speculate or jump to conclusions before all the facts are known. Our goal is to provide a welcoming environment and stellar service to McDonald’s customers around the world.

Interesting that your quotes comes from "Airplane!", a movie starring Leslie Nielsen.

If only this guy were right!

Imagine going to 10 or 20 years with no babies. This would be the best thing that could ever happen to the world, and it would delay the inevitable resource failure that always occurs with massive population growth. There will soon be 7 Billion people on the planet (yes, that is with a BIG B). A generation without babies would relieve economic and resource pressure greatly without the intervention of disease or starvation or war. We can only hope that this author is right -- even though biology and nature observably prove him wrong.

The Slashdot crowd is a good audience for the math of this whole thing. Fact: A single bacterium with unlimited space to grow and an unlimited food supply can reproduce enough to equal the weight of the Earth in just 72 hours (cell division every 30 seconds). Try it yourself. Post the code in this thread. I will if I get time this afternoon.

Anyone who has done big "O" notation knows that exponential growth is second only to factorial growth and that the rate quickly exceeds whatever resources are allocated. However, no one applies these numbers to the world we live in. Sooner or later, the resources must be exhausted. So, a generation that does not have kids would be a welcome break from our bounding dash for the abyss.

Someone will inevitably argue about the problems this could cause. Yeah, old people might have to work, but the real effect will be that employers will have to hire experienced people instead of ignorant college kids. Employers and teachers have the most to lose. Employers because they exploit young people for cheap labor, and teachers because their jobs depend on children. But all of these considerations are miniscule when compared to global starvation or war or both.