Vapymid

Found another seriously good 'un on Vimeo Not much of a plot but professionally done. Obviously influenced by T2 and HL2 and they say "to be continued"... Regards

APL6AD8tkio Vm-4FmsfUAc Regards

Do you mean Poland, Maine? One thing one can be sure of is that for any place on Earth there is a town in the US with that name already... Regards

ER64Oe77NR8 M4UUwjxtGXs Regards

A2HMVjv1nvU Crowd justice or when *not* to wash your hands. Regards

Azawb907Bjg No way back now... Regards P.S. The original album version with Ian Gillan has never been surpassed.

MJ2-e9JSRsM He *did* have a bad feeling about that... Regards

Yes, the farther is goes from the basics, the fuzzier it becomes... Regards

Well, yes, but underneath the flux and fluff there would be the base of "core" morality which is necessary to survive. For example, the notions of fairness and cheating. No matter what the extraneous "values" are at any given moment, these appear to be fundamental to any social group. Regards

Sorry, I must have misunderstood your post. As far as I am concerned I think some basic "morality" must be as objective as other natural laws. In fact, I would say that "morality" is our subjective interpretation of the objective laws defining the evolution of life in general and social interaction between individuals in a society in particular. Just like we sense gravity as "up" and "down" we also sense the events affecting our lives as "moral" or "immoral". Regards

9_mdqbJaKA0 The rocking Pharisees. Politicians conniving behind people's back. Things don't change much, do they? Regards

This I disagree with. Even higher apes and cetaceans show signs of morality in their social interaction. Doing what you want is not sign of immorality. If universal morality exists then it would make you want to do moral things and if it doesn't there is at least 50/50 chance that what you want to do would be moral. Regards

Simply because the level of awareness will fall. Take music, people all over the net voluntarily promote artists and songs they like, including on this site, yet all of it is "piracy" i.e. unauthorised copying and linking (according to the industry linking to something is being ancillary to copying is just as heinous a crime). I have spent $$$ buying stuff of which I found out watching machinimas set to "pirated" music. Not least by Zach Scott and Robert Stoneman. Yes, but that's the price of broad coverage. You either can have very limited and targeted awareness, which converts to a high percentage of sales or you can have a very broad awareness but with higher spillage. You can't have both high awareness and high conversion rate. You have no right to expect both. Regards

Well, in that case there is no loss to the rights holder anyway, right? But at least there is a prospect that the "pirate" may pay for it eventually. If you won't let them have a free copy the chances are they will never buy it from you anyway. You may argue that if no free copies are available they will actually be forced to buy it, but IP is not bread, it's not essential to life. I think, on balance, if "piracy" could be stopped completely tomorrow the sales would fall rather than go up. Regards

Q9DDpmyPZZA Regards

Completely agree. Also, copying is not stealing - it's an infringement of the right to control copying. Not more not less. Whether the infringement has caused economic loss or not is a different matter and is specific to circumstances. It can be argued that some infringements may actually result in the gain for the rights holder (I personally know of a few examples where it is most definitely the case). Regards

This was a triumph!!! Regards

OWrwYsSt6OE 9aEFAqR_lVc Regards

The most commonly known technologies are coal-to-liquid, gas(methane)-to-liquid and biomass-to-methanol. A lot of the technologies are based on Fischer-Tropsch process - which was invented in 1920's and is a process of converting carbon monoxide + hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. So, anything that will give you these two components can be used to make liquid fuels. That includes even atmospheric CO2 and water. What differs is the efficiency and the energy required. I would generally agree with you on biofuels and, although some crops can be used for both food and fuel, the first generation of biofuels went into direct competition with food production. Regards

You mean something like ? You lucky you. Regards

One thing I am sure about - people will not start consuming less. Maybe the food will become increasingly synthetic or artificially produced and "natural" food will be at a premium but I don't think humanity will accept moderation as a realistic option. As far as oil shortage is concerned - it's not oil but energy what is needed. If you have an energy source you can make as much oil as you need for transport or for chemical production. Water shortage is a more difficult problem (not insurmountable but expensive) to solve. Making fresh water by desalination is again a matter of energy supply, however, transporting meaningful amounts of water inland requires huge infrastructural investment. Either you have to build pipelines or canals or some kind of evaporation towers which will inject water vapour into the air and rely on the prevailing winds to transport it.

WeMAEzvcwao Regards

oifQ8syuy4s Regards

I guess, theoretically, it can be done. Provided that: - the US Government will sit on their hands while watching the Chinese go about the years of planning, months of preparation and training, weeks of assembling and loading the ships and planes that any such invasion would require. - the US CVNs will pretend they are fishing trawlers and turn the blind eye as the whole invasion fleet will sail across the Pacific - the US SSNs will urgently find something important to do in the Atlantic or elsewhere and their ELFs will mysteriously break down, so they won't be able to intercept the coming armada. - the US SAC will decide to ground its fleet for maintenance and to consider the satellite images of the approaching Chinese fleet a hallucination. Remember that the largest ever successful amphibian invasion in the world's history to date was the Normandy D-Day and that involved 160,000 troops + 25,000 paras + 200,000 navy crew and 5,000 ships. The distance between the staging and landing area was only a few hundred km. The invasion took place in the middle of a war with the target (Germany) already being engaged on 3 major fronts. To transport 10 million troops the Chinese will need a 1000 ships, each the size of Queen Mary - I am not aware they have nearly as many available. For smaller ships we are talking about maybe 50,000? But even more interesting question is why would the Chinese want to do it all and what will they achieve with the invasion? Imagine that, somehow, they've managed to disembark, unopposed, their 10 million poorly trained teenage conscripts on the shores of California. They will now face the need to fight their way across the continent to seize the seat of the Government on the opposite coast while maintaining a constant supply train across the Pacific. This is not likely to be a great success. But imagine then that they've done it. The US is now under the Chinese occupational authority - now what? Do they use it for lebensraum (Siberia or Australia would make easier targets)? Do they take the oil (better take Indonesia and Malaysia for that or, simpler, - just buy the stuff in the Middle East)? Do they enslave the population to assemble iPads in horrible conditions (they have plenty of workforce for that)? At the same time they will devalue a large portion of the foreign currency reserves they are sitting on, will kill the cash cow which feeds their export-oriented economy, will not make any friends in the world (well, may be some but who needs friends like that?). And, last but not least, with all these troops away from the homeland - who is going to keep the local population in check? It just does not add up. I think, no matter how tough it is, but the Americans are just going to have to learn to live with the thought that no one in the world wants to invade their country (other than the illegal immigrants, that is). Regards

Interesting... They put this up right next to a home town of a polygamist sect. Either the spooks think Mormons are the main threat to the US or they just want their workplace to be close to their family homes... Regards