IC Forum Archive

the drunken samurai · Posts: 4645

ah if only...

Karoshi · Posts: 968

Lotus made a completely electric car what goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds.
It's called the Tesla.

http://www.teslamotors.com

I've never said this about a car but: I WANT IT.

aderack · Posts: 5018

They should get Coily for a mascot.

extralife · Posts: 3316

Karoshi wrote:

Lotus made a completely electric car what goes from 0-60

I just want to post to say how much I love that particular use of the word "what"

Lestrade · Posts: 817

Karoshi wrote:

Lotus made a completely electric car what goes from 0-60 in 4 seconds.
It's called the Tesla.

http://www.teslamotors.com

I've never said this about a car but: I WANT IT.

Shit yes. I refuse to buy a car until I can get a good hybrid or electice. Oh, and finish getting my license. That being said, this = yes.

dhex · Posts: 2963

108 · Posts: 2600

dhex wrote:

Michelle Malkin is insane.

and unlike coulter she's not funny at all.

i didn't know who she was so i youtubed her just now.

man she reminds me of this girl i tried to have sex with (and then eventually succeeded) in college. my lord. holy shit.

holy lord.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

If this is the same girl I'm thinking of, then yeah, I just had a memory flashback of a TV sketch comedian who did this skit where he wrote a love letter to her about how he'd domesticate her and she'd love it. It went on and on, and was pretty great.

108 · Posts: 2600

Psiga wrote:

If this is the same girl I'm thinking of, then yeah, I just had a memory flashback of a TV sketch comedian who did this skit where he wrote a love letter to her about how he'd domesticate her and she'd love it. It went on and on, and was pretty great.

Here she is.

Say what you will about her being nuts and humorless and all that, though I do reckon she is a reasonably intelligent girl in a position of some vague power; though she might have went wrong somewhere down the line and though she might support one or two things not perfectly related to her fundamentals, to the point where it raises the question of who told her to care about that, for the most part, she seems pretty solid. She has things she believes in and is eolquent and elegant enough to go somewhere and get mad about them in places people can see her and laugh at her. Though something about her appearance suggests to me The World's Most Gorgeous Muppet, seeing her laugh and knowing why she's laughing gives me a hunch that she approaches sex the way a flaming horse approaches a brick wall, and so I have to give her a thumbs-up.

Karoshi · Posts: 968

Lestrade wrote:

Shit yes. I refuse to buy a car until I can get a good hybrid or electice. Oh, and finish getting my license. That being said, this = yes.

I like the fact that the point of it might just be to show what can be done. Many supercars are just technology showcases. The Bugatti Veyron, the world's fastest and most expensive car is still sold at a huge loss (£4 million per car according to Jeremy Clarkson). Bugatti and its parent company VAG gained huge worldwide recognition for making the world's fastest car though. This car is pretty widely known in automotive circles. Maybe other firms will follow suit and build their own cars to compete. This car is unique though, its as impracticle as any other 100k sports car, just it runs off of a different fuel source. It's only purpose is to show that you can have something as pointless as an exotic, but not feel bad about hurting the environment.

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

IN OTHER NEWS: Guess we're finally starting to play it straight. If you ask me, they don't deserve the kindness.

Crazy Bacon Lips · Posts: 783

Wait, didn't we say like a year ago that there were no secret prisons?

dark steve · Posts: 3002

Well they were still secret then.

I mean that's sort of the point.

Crazy Bacon Lips · Posts: 783

But they still call them secret. Even though they wholeheartedly admit their existence.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

Shhhhh

Kazu · Posts: 894

Kudos to the EU for not giving in to Microsoft.
Microsoft threatens european Vista delay ... as if they need to threaten.

With resigning execs and some delays till now, it still seems like the January 2007 release is ... a bit optimistic?
Kind of reminds me of another company currently having problems to ship their new toy in November ...

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

Crazy Bacon Lips wrote:

Wait, didn't we say like a year ago that there were no secret prisons?

"we" also said that we don't torture prisoners.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

I can't think of any warring nation that doesn't partake in propaganda and clandestine interrogations.

Rud13 · Posts: 3277

Crazy Bacon Lips wrote:

But they still call them secret. Even though they wholeheartedly admit their existence.

We also don't know where they are, so there you go.

aderack · Posts: 5018

This is pretty interesting. In effect what it does is it compares nearby frames for missing information, reconstructing a higher-definition picture with each slight sub-pixel shift. It only really works well with a camera that's moving, of course.

evnvnv · Posts: 333

military coup goin' on in Thailand right now. There are tanks everywhere but they're not shooting at anything, just being scary.

I'm just really confused by this. Weren't they already going to have a new election in November anyway? Now the military gets to be in control for 1 year and they're going to have a new constitution.

It would be interesting if this happened any time people got upset about shady election-dealings in the US...

Also, in a slightly less urgent subsector of the 'political unrest in Asia' category; tons of people in Taiwan are demanding that the president here step down. I still can't figure out why exactly people dislike him so much. There's lots of general corruption + scandals, but... well I guess to an American they don't seem like much.

President Chen's campaign promise was that he was going to clean up all the corruption and stuff going on in the last days of the KMT's rule of Taiwan, but I guess he didn't do it? And instead got himself involved in a bunch of messed up stuff. To me it's like, "sure, he's a corrupt politician. What else is new?" But I guess it would kind of suck to have your bright shining opposition-party hope of fair politics turn out to be just another corrupt official. I kind of doubt there are going to be any tanks rolling around in the streets here any time soon, though (thankfully).

Psiga · Posts: 3990

A beatless heart has been invented.

dhex · Posts: 2963

hey, all that pope stuff was pretty neat, huh?

Psiga · Posts: 3990

There's a pope? Does he have an unbeating heart? Did he admit that creationism is b0rked?

dhex · Posts: 2963

the catholic church has been fairly pro evolution for a while.

anyhoo i was referring to this:

http://dhex.org/cuny/persuasion/The%20Pope's%20speech.doc

Psiga · Posts: 3990

I remember the vatican astronomer, or whatever he is, down-talking Creationism, but have not yet heard any lines from the Pope himself. That would be a great blow. The scientists would be able to say, "Good grief, dumb American Christians! Even THE POPE thinks this is hooey!"

But no, no. The jihad rages on.

dhex · Posts: 2963

actually, people have used that line. (even the vatican thinks this is hooey)

because, well, that was the standard. the niggle being about evolution not being a moral center for the ethical decisions in life, ya ya ya ya ya. but the official catholic church position is pretty clear and obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_catholic_church#Pope_John_Paul_II

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

Fuck the mainstream.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,20162569-7486,00.html

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

Vice City responsible for triple murder:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4213643.html

Funniest part is the claim that the kid became a BETTER marksman by playing it.

dhex · Posts: 2963

Karoshi · Posts: 968

A bill has passed, the so-called "torture" bill, that is not only immoral and un-American, but is actually illegal and unconstitutional. It allows for those people who are determined to be enemy combatants to be held indefinitely, and secretly, and removes habeas corpus rights, and gives the president the authority to decide what kind of interegation methods can be used.

Those wishy-washy Democrat pussies who voted for it only did it so they won't be painted as "soft" on terrorism by the corrupt Republican liars in the upcoming elections.

How the hell did we (you know, those of us in the United States, not japanese people by-way of the American mid-west) get to this point.

Also politicians are evil blablabla I just don't vote that's why i'm in another country shut up.

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

i would say that people voted in a majority of republicans because they hate abortions and homosexuals but dhex would probably yell at me

Psiga · Posts: 3990

It's darkly amusing to me, since I can't even fathom a nation that would not be willing to torturously interrogate threats to national security. This just makes it official.

And why not? It's harder to keep these things a secret now. Forty years ago? Psh. Nobody's gonna know until it's way too late.

Now that it's official, now that it's harder to keep secrets, the people have an opportunity to pay attention to an injustice which has always been going on anyway.

Sync-Swim · Posts: 634

lol Rome thought about invading Persia too, it went grandly.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

I'm not honestly sure how accurate this reporting is, but it seems enlightening: http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_terrorists.html

Our definition of torturous interrogation seems to be nerfed, by way of the gummint.

“Why don’t you mention to him that conspiracy is a capital offense?” “That would be a violation of the Convention Against Torture,” shot back the agent—on the theory that any covert threat inflicts “severe mental pain.”Ohshit! No, don't threaten me! No, no! PLZ ;_;

I actually wasn't aware that the other agencies were as (relatively) goodie-goodie about this as they are. The directive to not let mad dog military guys beat the shit out of anyone who comes through the door is understandable, but to not be able to just do the basic things like isolation, sleep deprivation, temperature fluctuation, unyeilding noise, and hunger... What the hell?

I guess the question is, does this supposed 'torture act' give the OK for controlled use of hands-off interrogation methods, or does it give the OK for the afore-mentioned mad dog military guys to gang beat somebody into a broken pulp first and ask questions later?

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

Psiga wrote:

It's darkly amusing to me, since I can't even fathom a nation that would not be willing to torturously interrogate threats to national security. This just makes it official.

Taa daa! It does worry me to leave such command decisions in the hands of Rear-Echelon Mother Fuckers; I know one guy in Canada who can attest to gubmint ineptitude. A little more thought before action, eh?

Some people I know wouldn't dream of taking such prisoners; they'd rather kill them all. Personally, a level playing field is always best.

Psiga · Posts: 3990

GcDiaz wrote:

Some people I know wouldn't dream of taking such prisoners; they'd rather kill them all. Personally, a level playing field is always best.

Yeah, that's an interesting thing... Do you just not take prisoners? Do you take prisoners but then just lock them up in a Geneva-friendly way with four square and a roof over their heads, knowing that they have information which could change the course of things?

If that article I linked to is any indicator, the definition of 'torture' is so fucking far away from what comes to mind. To my understanding, even under this new 'torture bill', the shit that went down at Abu Ghraib still wouldn't be kosher. There's a difference between stripping a jailed-without-trial civilian naked with a bag over his head, hogtied and surrounded by dogs, versus sleep depriving a confirmed terrorist while leaving him in social isolation. One is uslessly demeaning for the sake of being a bloody prick, and the other is warping a criminal's mind enough for him to talk.

If that article is any indicator, most of America's military complex really was trying to play by the rules. On the record, anyway. The article had hints of bias.

dhex · Posts: 2963

dark steve · Posts: 3002

So I guess north korea wasn't just talking shit.

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

dark steve wrote:

So I guess north korea wasn't just talking shit.

So that's one confirmed member of the Axis of Evil that has called Dubya's bluff. What to do, what to do?

Karoshi · Posts: 968

The biggest danger (I can think of) is if Japan decides to act preemptively and China feels obligated to to back up N. Korea.

ReroRero · Posts: 2148

So yeah, the Dead Sea is drying up.

aderack · Posts: 5018

I saw a special on that, on PBS. It was kind of depressing!

Sawtooth · Posts: 2350

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6152118.stm

jesus

extralife · Posts: 3316

I ain't a fan of the death penalty, but if these guys don't get it no one should.