The thing is, you didn't *mention* it, you made an unverified probabilistic claim. Directly.

Your use of the word "probably" implies that *the most likely cause of death among people in England 2700 years ago was anti-semite persecution*. Logically following from here, if that's the most likely cause of death (which would qualify your "probably"), then a fairly large percent of 2700-year-back Yorkshire population would have had to be Jewish.

That's news to me.

Perhaps, just perhaps, people were modding you a Troll not because they believe Jews weren't persecuted... but more for the fact that you're making blanket, untrue statements, then following these up with ad-hominem attacks for anyone who doesn't chime in in agreement or downmods your terrible math.

https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=swallow+lego&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&channel=suggest

~1.37 million results, sadly - Google suggested this at the top of the list once I'd typed "Swallow le"

Lesson: people will always manage to do "stupid" things. And there are lots of people.

Yep - same reason I couldn't drink black tea for 5 years - a cup of black tea was the beverage I had at my desk *as I was starting to feel a bit nauseous* from a norovirus my wife'd picked up a few days earlier. I never finished it, and ended up having to take the train home soon after. Around 4 years in, I could start making my tea/coffees at less than 30% milk-by-volume again. I still can't drink them black, even diluted with water to half-strength.

Caveat: I work in data/risk management software in the financial sector. Also, I'm feeling a bit under-the-weather today, so sorry if this is less than coherent or comes off rambly.

When the GP says "give", I think they're aware that there are conditions built into that giving - I'd have a hard time believing they think bank loans are essentially gifts. But from the sound of your response, it seems you're against even this conditional-lending definition of 'give'...

So, following your logic... loans should be given to startup companies by institutions who *aren't* concerned about making a profit from the deal? Just wondering... why would anyone *with* money lend it to me (for the business I hope to start some day) if they had nothing to gain? Where should I go for capital?

If someone's willing to let me use their money now, on the hopes (which they share with me) that in the future, my business will thrive and I'll be able to pay them back with a bit on the side - I'll be happy for the deal! But there's the thing - do we really only want investors in ideas that "sound good" to someone at the bank, and which some lender personally can get behind (how would I find such a person for *my* business)? Realistically, a bank shouldn't care about me, nor my business - an investment system where the lenders line-item your expenditures and approve purchase-by-purchase aligned with my stated business plan would be a nightmare - our current system allows for banks to ignore the nitty-gritty details of my operations, assessing their risk by evaluating the market as a whole, my industry within it, my corporation within my industry, any past books we may have, potential collateral, etc... then charging me a spread above their costs to *get* the money they want to lend me. Perhaps if the government would just start lending directly to the people (at no interest as you seem to want?) we could have a functional world without interest-gatherers (and no inflation, too)... but for all sorts of reasons I don't see that going anywhere.

If I take their money, only to realize later that I'm unable to pay them back... well, we have courts for that to try to get them back at least what they gave me, but generally they'll go for the amount *I agreed to give them back*, regardless of whether I have that in liquid assets. I'd really rather not lose my house over it, but again - were they not able to take my assets as remuneration, you can bet your ass they'd either be out of the game (and not lending to just about anyone), or raising rates to account for all the non-payback.

So, parent poster; If you've got enough in the bank to cover the economy out of goodwill - please get to work. I'll call you first when I need $200k for brewing equipment, farm implements, and a robotics lab, and a commercial kitchen (yeah, my dream company will be that awesome). Thankfully, from the sound of things, you seem to think it's best not to charge interest, so you'll have the best rates around and will get all the business.

No, I don't think most financial institutions are well run, accurately measure risk, properly analyze any of the points I mentioned previously (or realize that their simplified models leave out lots of important real-world information - but that's another hours-long rant). *But* I think it's very clear that without some incentives (eg: a spread on every loan, and some gov't protection from too many people defaulting at once (asset seizure laws + trustworthy insurance + etc...)), nobody with money would have any reason to lend - only to spend. Trickle-down doesn't work well enough to make that a place I'd like to live.

It's worth noting that, during these times, there were indeed human-induced changes on a global scale rippling across the earth. Hint: there weren't fields of barley, wheat, olives, hops (etc) nor flocks of aurochs, swine, poultry (etc) sitting around 100,000 years ago, but by 3,000 BC these were becoming widespread. Even cities of 10,000 require fairly large-scale support networks, especially when dealing with the manufacture/farming (in-)efficiencies of those times. The clearing of land and changing use patterns have much larger effects than some of us would like to bother considering.

No, I'm not saying this is what caused the warming(s) you speak of, just noting that there are other human actions which can contribute to large-scale weather and (over a long-term enough outlook, if sustained) climate changes.

In DS9, during the Dominion war against the Federation, there's a sub-plot involving changelings having invaded Starfleet Command (actually, I think the Klingon and definitely the Cardassian leadership as well). For a time, it became standard practice to blood-test anyone involved in any important decision making, though hazily I remember this applying more to ships officers than the entire population. There were also later sub-plots about a rogue department (Section 30something) "within" Starfleet basically running unchecked hit-squads and the like.

As for the coups, in looking this up, I happily stumbled across a wikipedia article that recaps it better than I can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_revolutions_and_coups#Star_Trek

Not for me!

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Twitter mentions of Windows Email. loudtwitter.com/windows_email/ Ask Slashdot: Spoof an Email Bounce With Windows?: An anonymous reader writes "One cool feature I used on KMail ... http://t.co/KCUQMA9a. http://twitter./ com/ ... ;-)

Right about Discovery, wrong about Nat Geo.

Last I checked, it was owned by News Corp... (well, most of it anyway)

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/ (Somewhat dated)
http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=newscorp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geographic_Channel

Brawndo's got what ethernets crave

And, in a few more years (once Cadmium's controlled), childrens toys from China...

You really think there are going to be glaciers around in the distant future? ;-)

Personally, I don't get it; so long as you don't make me watch the Star Wars remakes with revised "shoots first" order, and bonus lumbering beasts, why do I care if other people do?

For many people out there, probably the ones who have the strongest views on "what marraige should be", there's a fear of change and a reluctance to embrace new ideas. Sure, some of these people may not even disagree with the ideas that strongly (though some definitely will), but if nothing else may embrace the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset. I know plenty of Star Wars geeks who to this day will get upset when you mention the changes made in the 90's re-releases, even though they have no effect on their lives other than changing something which was important to them.

The biggest difference, of course, is that both versions of Star Wars can co-exist, whereas with "redefinitions" of marraige, it's an either-or situation. If anything this will cement the opposition even further.

It's OK for different people to have different viewpoints - there's no empirical "right" or "wrong" on this issue.

As for the rest of your points though, I'd have to say I agree... someone who secretly enjoys the original Star Wars series but will only speak out against the re-releases when they think nobody will know they're doing it clearly is either afraid to embrace their opinion publicly (for whatever reason - it's not my place to decide why someone did something), or didn't hold the position that strongly to begin with.