Vapymid

Amazing how often the Lamb is being misunderstood, even dismissed as self-indulgence by Gabriel. People tend to fixate on the effects and the ambient pieces and miss all the music.

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From down under...

Vntmp7i7E0U

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Yes. Can he fail, armed with his chocolate surprise?

Then, of course, there is this:

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@Jeb_CC: Both are good. I liked the earlier one more - nicely syncopated and feels more like a complete piece. I can imagine the latter being a base for a larger number, however.

BTW, not all rock only has to have 3 chords in it

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That HEV suit fits Ross like a glove! At least, I suppose, the glove parts do...

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Latest reports are saying - both engines failed on that TransAsia flight in Taiwan. The pilots did an excellent job avoiding crashing into buildings and making it to the river. If only they had 10-15 more meters of height in reserve, they could have avoided the final stall and land with the wings level, but they hadn't. RIP.

@AP_Pastor: I hate airports but I love flying. Just being on a plane lifts my spirits (as long as it's a window seat )

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Oh, this is not good...

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Aviation is one of those things that make me feel proud for the humanity. It is the fastest and the most energy intensive way to travel and should be the most dangerous but, in fact, it has been turned into the safest mass transportation system on the planet.

That out of the way, the risk differs between the types and geographic location of carriers.

A low cost airline is generally, more susceptible than a flag carrier to commercial pressures and cutting corners on maintenance and crew selection and training. That's one risk factor.

Another is the culture, where deference to authority is strong and ingrained. In this situation, a technician may not report a fault he had noticed while his boss didn't or a co-pilot may not point out to the captain that he is missing something important.

International aviation rules and standards are designed to minimise the influence of such factors but it is not possible to completely eliminate them and when the two are combined - they amplify each other, unfortunately.

I have to admit that losing 2 planes in such manner is not saying good things about TransAsia.

The first one suggests the crew may not have acted correctly or wisely when faced with a bad weather en-route (however, Air France lost a much bigger plane in similar circumstances - so, even a major airline is not beyond inadequacies in crew training).

The second incident is likely to have been triggered by an engine failure - which questions the quality of maintenance, especially in such a new aircraft. Whether the crew handled the engine problem as best as they should have - is not yet known (I suspect they probably did all the right things but the circumstances conspired against them).

In general, however, I would say that your individual chances of being killed in an air crash on a particular trip are still very low.

Try to use major carriers, if you can, and avoid travelling when there are major storms around if you'd like to minimise them further, but still, I'd rather fly than take a boat.

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I think more like:

H-C=C-C=C-H

That unbound C at the right end of your molecule will have to react with something...

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So you're thinking something like a personality profile in addition to a background check?

Also, I think it would be a good idea to track and challenge people stockpiling stuff without a proper reason.

The problem with that is that it violates the freedom of an individual. As long as they haven't committed a crime, it is illegal to surveil them in that fashion.

I am personally opposed to profiling and tracking in general, but not when there is a rational reason, which in my opinion is not a matter of freedom but rather that of responsibility.

For example, if you get a pilot licence - you accept to be bound by the Laws of the Air, you maintain your log book, you know that you must fly a certain minimum number of hours to maintain currency and that if you don't, you will need to do a mandatory check-out with an instructor before you can fly solo again and your licence may be revoked if you break these rules.

In the case of guns - it's similar IMHO. You exercise your right to own a weapon but with it comes additional responsibility and the granting authority has a justifiable right to monitor compliance.

Let's not use the emotionally charged word "gun" for a moment.

Imagine we are talking about a "Chemically-Actuated High-Power Kinetic Projector" device. Most people would find it perfectly reasonable and even obvious that certain professional criteria and regulations should apply to operators of such machinery, don't you think?

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I would suggest to not send it to anyone, at least if there is anything in the pictures that can provide identification. Better safe than sorry...

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I am always puzzled when women overdo their make-up - after all, they will have to appear without it at some stage and if make up was the only reason the relationship started, it won't last beyond that point anyway...

I do like when women wear skirts though

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I accept that criminals won't be stopped getting guns by laws and regulations. In fact, this is the main reason why I think that civilian gun ownership should be allowed (albeit controlled) - simply because law abiding citizens are put at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the criminals.

But what I think the controls and regulations would do is - limit the amount of loonies with guns and also, hopefully, enforce a certain minimal proficiency and safety standards among civilian gun owners.

I think that if you can't buy a gun on impulse, if you have to show evidence that you know how to handle it, if you have to demonstrate that you have a secure place to store it - that would all reduce the number of drunk shootings, accidental discharges, toddlers shooting parents etc.

Also, I think it would be a good idea to track and challenge people stockpiling stuff without a proper reason.

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Am I missing something here? I googled these names out of curiosity and nothing comes up?

We were joking, but only by half.

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On a rather different direction, were people aware of Scottish Independence Referendum?

You could hardly avoid it. The BBC was full of it for a good whole year before the referendum itself.

What did you think of the whole thing?

 

Relevance: SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) want Scotland to leave the UK.

I am pleased that people voted "NO". I believe that Scotland's secession would have benefited only a small group of politicians and their friends and would have turned out to be a big economic disaster for the rest of the people there. At least in the immediate to medium term.

Long term? In the long term people manage to fix the past mistakes and adjust and make do. But is independence a goal worthy of such sacrifice in the meantime? I think - not.

Also, it would have seriously weakened the UK's position on the international arena (not to say that of Scotland alone!).

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I saw an "expert" being interviewed on the BBC on this subject and eventually, after a lot of prodding by the journalist, she admitted that she has no idea how is it supposed to work and that the army is probably doing it "because they have to be seen doing it, as everybody else seems to be doing it in some way already".

I hope there is more to it than that, but seeing how the government has announced it so openly and proudly, I fear it is going to end up being just another PR exercise and a failed IT project...

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The problem with guns in my eyes is not the firearm itself or the entirely the people behind them but the mass media that love sensationalizing and making a game out of these tragedies that inspire more to commit such acts. The further propagation of gang and drug culture that end up leading to more violence doesn't help this either with the lack of proper knowledge and awareness of firearms safety.

But you can't suppress the media without severely limiting the freedom of speech and even if you do, the information will spread anyway through the internet, and gangs are a wider socioeconomic problem and it is not going to go away either...

I will forever defend the rights of American citizens to carry firearms to protect themselves from threats be it foreign or local and for recreational use. I'll be damned if I ever see the founding father's work ripped apart and called 'outdated' by people who are far less intelligent than them.

Looking at the US from the outside I can say: here is your problem - the guns are simply too easily available, which in turn make them look as if not dangerous in the eyes of too many people who become careless. A licensing program and tighter controls will most likely cut a lot of accidental and petty gun crime. It won't stop the maniacs but, perhaps, will make killing sprees happening more rarely.

However, given the politisation of the issue, supported by the weapons manufacturers, it's not going to happen. A rational debate of this matter is impossible in the US, at least for the time being...

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So, if it happens - who is going to fight whom? Who is going to support the government and who will be against?

Any idea?

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What about school uniforms? X3

In my school days it was like this:

Pretty nice IMHO.

Apparently, these days it's a prized item in kinky shops, but I wouldn't know these things...

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eneeth is the second molecule in the carbohydron group, preceded by enemeth and succeeded by eneprop.

Ah, exotics... I forgot about these. Almost as unstable and toxic as erwat, I suspect...

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Goes to show, even scientists with 'peer-reviewed' findings can be very wrong.

Well, that's what peer reviews are for - they find mistakes which the original researchers miss, as happened in this case.

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@Ross: I second Jsor's suggestion to use a frame-server - either DebugMode or AVISynth. Provided, however, that handbrake can operate as a client (I don't know - I have not tested it myself for that).

@Veyrdite: I'm intrigued by your avatar - that molecule does not look right to me...

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Looks like a false-positive...

Cosmic inflation: Leak suggests BICEP detection was wrong

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lIzsuCblzNA

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Nice. For some reason, reminds me of the Lamia from the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway...

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