deanb

Before they revealed they were working on a self-driving car (though given the advance of things I'd say in secret they were working on the cars at the time), Schmidt had said it was a fluke of history that the car was invented before the computer. Sure it wouldn't have all the fancy GPS n optical sensor tech we have now, but a self-driving car would be fairly doable assuming you built the roads from the ground up based on it (think scaletrix style roads, markers on road side for your car to interact with. It'd be doable. And hey, if Babbage had kicked off when he did then computers might be even further along than they were). It'll be as insane to our grandkids as the concept of coal mining is to us. My mum is all like "when we were kids we didn't have smartphones and the internet, we'd go outside and play" and myself n siblings look at her and go "you do remember that smartphones only really became a thing when we were heading into college, and we didn't get interent until Dean was 13. What do you think /we/ did as kids?". Also oh god I remember the days of not being able to be on the net and the phone at the same time. Oh the magical black slab that has so enamoured us all.

Ted Cruz more recently for winning that caucus thingy, and yeah Jeb Bush for being an ex-presidents son/brother. But the general gist is "Trump and 6 others". Oh and Carson for being a weird evangelical. I don't know much of Cruz but he seems like if he caught his skin on something it'd pull off and reveal the lizard/robot endoskeleton beneath.

Probably cos car companies have a lot of cash. As do insurance companies (less crashes = less payouts), and also drink companies (no worry of DUI = maybe more folks likely to hit the bottle. If one guy in the party is the designated driver you're gonna be up by at least 20% increase of drinkers if they don't need to go teetotal for the night) (The only guys losing out being taxi drivers, and eventually lorry drivers but the logistics firms will be pro-self driving lorries. That's a massive cut in your expenses). "Back in my day we used to be the operators of cars" "You used to sit inside the control box and still navigate at 150mph. Did people die?" "Err not quite, and yeah all the time. Also we used to wind the windows down with a rotating handle. Also wars were fought by men. And we used to have entire swathes of land for growing animals called cows which we turned into burgers."

It kinda says a lot that I don't recognise a single name you've mentioned. It's sorta "Trump and 6 others" for Republicans and "Sanders and Clinton" for the Democrats. Also @GOH: Scroll up a bit

Yeah it's jsut one of them things that kinda needed nailing down for this to progress. I think it's gonna come around pretty damn quick, bit of an avalanche. And yeah, no drunk driving in a self-driving car. I imagine something in its place will pop up though, since even though you're not driving you're still gonna have to tell the car where to go. (But I imagine that's the same scenario as telling a taxi driver where to go while drunk).

Okay someone explain the "Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing." thing. Iv'e seen it around a bit, I would take a guess given context it's something Trump has said without fully paying attention to what he is saying (or how it would be taken).

So sorta via HotHeart. Peter Serafinowicz (voice of Darth Maul alongside other film and TV roles) decided to re-dub Donald Trump as an upper-class British guy. (incidentally Donald Trump sounds kinda weird and I don't think his mouth connected to the rest of him, cos it moves really weirdly.)

And the fuller video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPs_v2JAwjo

Hah, I read them in a lump so until I got to the end of your post I assumed you'd read the full trilogy (in five parts). Read another good 42 theory the other day. To summarise: If you count all the numbers up on a pair of dice you end up with 42. Making existence "a throw of the dice". (I still like mine though) Currently reading the Tiffany Aching books(as in the Pratchett books about Tiffany Aching, not as in books by a Tiffany Aching). I'd kinda skipped them before now as they're related to the "Witches" series (also they're in the YA set of Discworld books) but wanting to have marked off all the mainline Discworld stuff (there's the "Science of Discworld" books as well as weird stuff like Nanny Ogg Cookbook and Where's My Cow that I'm less fussed with) and his last book is a Tiffany Aching book. They're pretty good, actually even though the Witches pop up now and then they're quite different in style to the main Witches books (which parody Shakespeare n Brothers Grimm stories). My only beef with them I guess is, and this might be an issue from reading them in a row instead of in release order, they're so far got a bit of an overall similar narrative structure of some antagonistic force becoming focused on Tiffany then eventually being defeated then Weatherwax pops up at the end to pat her back. But other than that it's nice to have these new characters being built up, and always nice to read more of Pratchetts writing and explore the Discworld. Incidentally cos I had to look up what order they're in I know the rough plot and what happens to one major character but so far not spoiling the books for me....

I believe it's much in the same way I had a lot of friends born in Germany when younger: Their parents are British. I imagine that while he was physically born out of America, his parents are likely American so he's American by default. My understanding is the rules on what kind of level of citizenship you need to become president has never been properly tested in court, so who knows.

I'm tempted by Talos Principle, though figured it'll drop in price again in future, plenty of games to hold my interest at the moment.

So this popped up on my FB feed this morning (as an advert, so I guess it's sorta working). Bit weird to see Fred Dinenage teaching us how to kill aliens. The descriptions calls him a veteran, which I guess is quite possible (especially as the XCOM series is quite old) I guess for the target age and audience of XCOM many will recognise Fred. He taught us many things, so killing aliens isn't too far off. For some context: and from what my parents will have watched (I guess he was one of those people you don't think of, but assume are dead, but it looks like he hasn't aged a day)

Read Miracleman last week. Certainly a lot darker than anything Superman might take a crack at (the Billy Batson/Black Adam character is raped at an orphanage by one of the other boys and in returns transforms to Black Adam like and kills most of London in morbid ways (including a checkers board of breasts). Sort of explores what'd happen if ended up with superhero like beings, especially of such a powerful nature(although while having all the powers of Superman/Shazam Miracleman is psychokinetic). There's similarity with Red Son to a degree too, with a world knowing peace and all these massive advancements provided by the new "gods" of the world. Only bummer is it ends so sharply. Best I can tell from reading up on it there was some issues with the publisher so the final bits never got finished (There's just a rough overview of upcoming arc, n some uninked stills). Currently on Y: The Last Man (someone mentioned it other day n I figured it'd be a good follow up)

Wrapped up Daredevil, it's pretty damn sweet. Looking forward to more Marvel-Netflix shows in future. Much more solid I think in structure than Jones, which as Jack noted above did have a lot of "Evil always triumph cos good is dumb". Good character development too, and introspection n such for the good guys. Fisk was great, he was really sincere in his ambitions, right up until the end with his Samaritan story where I think was the turning point to him becoming Kingpin. I think if they'd fucked up Fisk, it would have all fallen apart so hooray to him.

I mean, there is a picture of him right at the top of the article

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35490238 Matt LeBlanc to be co-host of Top Gear with Chris Evans. It sorta makes sense. He's actually in a sitcom on BBC2 atm so he's at least chummy with them, and he's known in America too so there's a draw there (especially as Americans will know Chris Evans as Captain America, not radio & TV host). The only problem is...he'll always be stuck in second gear. It says additional cast to be announced shortly(always weird when BBC goes third person) so still hoping on Sue Perkins. Also of less relevance to the Americans, Dara O Briain and Angela Scanlon announced as hosts for nu-Robot Wars (both Irish) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35482622

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35418272 Neat look at some of the plans put forward for London after the great fire. Knew of Wren's design from school, neat to see the others (also a little bit on other cities such as Chicago n such)

Hey we own our hereditary powers. Saves a lot more time embracing a structured aristocracy than not talking about it. Anyway not since the Pitt's, who I believe were around the time of the revolutionary war, have we had any related Prime Ministers (no doubt some will be related distantly). Two of your presidential candidates are related to presidents from within the last 20 years. If Hillary wins, then aside from the combo breaker that is Obama, you'll have gone Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton. I understand that the POTUS doesn't hold absolute power and is only one arm of the Executive, Judicial and Legislative powers, but still much more power than our Queen. Anywho on the "Caucus" front, it related to any words? It does sound unlike really any other word, doesn't seem to have any root words.

NFS: Most Wanted is free on Origin atm. p.s: You can set Pushbullet to alert you of the "On the House" origin games.

Fuck it: What is a "caucus". Like I'm aware on the overall basics of your fucked up 18th century "democratic" system*, but what the hell does "caucus" even mean? Just sounds like "Cactus" but said by someone missing their teeth...and tongue,,.maybe even most their face. *Ours is by no means perfect, but we don't decide on coin tosses and usually the folks that can vote on the winner is in the tens of millions, not the tens.

Goddamit Hot Heart got here before me. Anywho, from what I've seen from your lots posts so far (and others online) this isn't the game I thought it would be (not that I'd looked too deeply anyway).

"The Tyranny of the masses" Also if you're opposed to people being picked on popularity I've several alternative systems for you...