Unfortunately, no. Not and do any justice to the article. This is just one of those things that needs to be read in its entirety to be absorbed and properly understood. It is worth the read.

I still have issues with affirmative action -- like not believing it works very well -- but after reading the article in The Atlantic, there are a lot of things I am rethinking.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

I machined an AR receiver from an aluminum casting using just a drill press.

I'm no machinist. Just a well informed hobbyist and amateur gunsmith.

LK

You need to read the article instead of just looking at the pictures.

He turned the shovel blade into the receiver.

It is an impressive build.

LK

I'd be surprised if there wasn't a JBoss or Tomcat back end in there somewhere. And while JSON is popular with the web crowd, XML still rules when dealing with back end processing and transformation. There are since powerful enterprise tools that can do XML but far fewer that know what JSON is.

but you can suck a bag of dicks.

It's normal and natural for someone to feel frustrated when he or she has difficulty finding someone to date. It's normal to feel rejected when you get rejected. It's normal to resent being overlooked.

At one time or another, most if not all people have felt this way.

Because I have a male point of view, I'm going to add that it's normal for men to be frustrated and bewildered by the disconnect between what women say they want in a man and what kind of men they actually date.

Obviously, violence should never result from these feelings. This frustration should be motivation for self improvement.

The response should be more along the lines of "Oh, you're not interested? ok. Take care."

Me, I use the women who ignored me and the bitches who used me as motivation to treat the woman in my life even better.

My point is that being frustrated and angry are alright just so long as you don't cross the line and start hurting people.

LK

I don't think so.

Stability of ordinary matter is well explained by other more traditional theories (strong/weak forces for nucleus, electromagnetic for atoms and molecules, gravity for even larger structures). This theory described stable states that initially no one believed existed.

Morever, these configurations are stable but quite fragile.

I found the summary confusing but the article made more sense.

The theory was that there exist configurations of three particles that is stable in a strange sort of way. The strange part is that if a certain configuration was stable then putting the particles in the same configuration but the distances blown up by a certain factor (22.7 if the three particles were the same) gives another stable configuration. So you can keep blowing up the distances in multiples of 22.7 and would get an infinite sequence of stable configurations. These configurations are necessarily quantum and not classical since the distances involved would be much larger than the range of the forces between the particles. (Although even the initial distances are large too, if i understood correctly, you would agree that they _will_ get pretty large at some point).

Now some independent groups have shown the existence of such states with the required blowup. Since similar-particle setup required cooling things down to the limit of present day technology, only _one_ configuration was observed initially. Someone used a system of different particles resulting in a blowup factor less than 22.7 allowing them to observe _three_ of these configurations, essentially validating the theory.

Hope that made sense (IANAP).

What I'm describing is a societal behavior trait, not necessarily one fundamental to humans as a species. We (Americans) didn't used to have it, but with the comforts of civilization and not having to struggle comes complacency and a softness.

No, I'm not saying we should go back to struggling for a living, I'm just pointing out a simple fact. Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty.

As an American who has not lived extensively in another country for several years now, I don't presume to speak for them. I spoke only for what I am immersed and have experienced first hand. That isn't bigotry, just confining my opinion to what I know -- my own subgroup.

Yes, the media plays a large role in exacerbating this. So does Hollywood and the entire political apparatus. It is in their own self interests.

Hollywood and the media sell tickets, boost ratings and make money. Politicians get elected off of fear, accrue power by doling out patronage and make money.

There is an entire ecosystem based on keeping the public afraid. Scared people are willing to buy the feeling of security, even if it is fleeting and false.

I agree, but don't have enough experience with people from too many other countries to speak in that general sense. I'm immersed in American culture and thus see it every day.

The sad truth is the majority of Americans are fundamentally cowards. That, combined with the human tendency to grossly over estimate the risks from rare events with severe consequences creates this problem.

Unlike a war which happens over there terrorist acts can happen anywhere. If they can happen anywhere, they can happen here, to me! Gasp!

Look at the hysteria that occurred when the anthrax mailings were going on. People were reporting "white powder" everywhere and breathlessly telling each other "that could've been me, I could have DIED".

No, not really. Unless you were a postal worker, you had a bigger chance of being kicked to death by a wild mule than you did of encountering anthrax in a package.

The sad truth is people play their potential role up in their mind because they think their lives are boring and uneventful. A terrorist attack may be horrible, but it is exciting, too. People do the same thing with celebrities. "OMG! I ate dinner in the same restaurant as Justin Bieber! He was there the night before!"

Add all of that together and you get a lot of people who will gladly give up lots of freedom for a little (perceived) security.

Thanks. Paxil showed up the other day. I can't seem to find your e-mail address, though I thought I had it before. Mine is charles DOT e DOT hill AT gmail DOT com.

I don't get up to Springfield much anymore since I moved out of the Chicagoland area.

The 10% Ethanol fuels destroy the gaskets in the fuel pumps.

I have been going through gaskets every other year since I bought my house.

LK

If I have to turn my head to see more, then I want a break of some sort. When working on something that really needs focus, I prefer to be able to read by just moving my eyes and keeping my head still.

At work, I use two monitors but they're for two distinctly separate tasks. The one on the right is always e-mail and chat. The one on the left -- pretty much directly in front of me -- is for whatever else I'm working on.

Widescreens are good for positioning stuff in an IDE, but as far as the actual code goes I personally prefer 132-column width window, Deja Vu Sans Mono font.