Octopus Overlords

stessier wrote:

hepcat wrote:I was being somewhat facetious and placing the magazine's editorial staff in the role of government.

I realized that, but people have enough trouble understanding the distinction that I find it unhelpful when people don't indicate they are just kidding.

They aren't preventing him from speaking, they just refuse to provide a platform for it.

hepcat wrote:

stessier wrote:

hepcat wrote:I was being somewhat facetious and placing the magazine's editorial staff in the role of government.

I realized that, but people have enough trouble understanding the distinction that I find it unhelpful when people don't indicate they are just kidding.

That's a bit condescending on your part, don't you think?

Fireball wrote:While a publication has no obligation to print views with which it doesn't agree, within certain boundaries it is a sign of both intellectual health and editorial confidence to print articles that offer a perspective other than that of the publication.

Fireball wrote:Popular science will print all sorts of evidence-based, scientific articles, regardless of where the editors stand on something. As will scientific journals.

If these online venues for scientific engagement are closed, the message becomes: "Well we didn't really mean for people to be engaged, we just want you to listen to us more." This is a return largely to outdated models of science communication where the sole purpose is to push information out to people for their ready and unquestioning uptake. If science is truly about discussion of evidence and a willingness to be open to new findings, then the public cannot be left out of that process.
But what about claims that there is a decades-long war against expertise? Well, a no commenting policy is also a no experts commenting policy. Comment spaces are also places for experts to answer questions and support or correct information presented in the article. I'm uncomfortable giving back complete control to how risks are presented in a forum where no expert has a space to disagree with what Popular Science or another venue says. What a no commenting stance says to me is that the publication doesn't need or want those contributions associated with their articles.
Overall, incivility doesn't seem to have nearly the dire effect that Popular Science seems to think it does. Comments are often frustrating (sometimes even heartbreaking) but readers are still making up their minds based on other factors. So the benefits Popular Science hopes for are unlikely to be realised. And instead of looking for better ways to manage, guide, moderate or selectively publish comments we lose all of the potential benefits for real engagement.

Fireball wrote:What does an Internet commenting policy have to do with the articles published by respectable publications? The world would be a better place if every website with article comments shut them down. There is nothing intelligent, edifying or insightful to be found in Internet article comments.

Fireball wrote:What does an Internet commenting policy have to do with the articles published by respectable publications? The world would be a better place if every website with article comments shut them down. There is nothing intelligent, edifying or insightful to be found in Internet article comments.

Rip wrote:

Fireball wrote:What does an Internet commenting policy have to do with the articles published by respectable publications? The world would be a better place if every website with article comments shut them down. There is nothing intelligent, edifying or insightful to be found in Internet article comments.

Quoted for history. Fireball thinks Guns&Ammo is a respectable publication.

For the record Editorials are nothing more than a comments section for magazine staff and cronies.

Does Popular Science have an editorial section? And if so are they free to take express whatever opinions they want even when it isn't what the magazine accepts as verified science?

Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Kip Judice confirmed Friday that Thomas was dead. Judice told The Advertiser.Thomas succumbed to injuries sustained during a confrontation with Arceneaux's relatives.

Judice said friends and family were searching for Arceneaux Friday and entered a vacant house where they believed they heard someone screaming. Thomas, who was armed with a knife, allegedly began to injure Arceneaux and one of Arceneaux's family members shot Thomas to stop him.

Rip wrote:Gun used to save a kidnap victim.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Kip Judice confirmed Friday that Thomas was dead. Judice told The Advertiser.Thomas succumbed to injuries sustained during a confrontation with Arceneaux's relatives.

Judice said friends and family were searching for Arceneaux Friday and entered a vacant house where they believed they heard someone screaming. Thomas, who was armed with a knife, allegedly began to injure Arceneaux and one of Arceneaux's family members shot Thomas to stop him.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/09/la ... latestnews

Alefroth wrote:

Rip wrote:Gun used to save a kidnap victim.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office spokesman Kip Judice confirmed Friday that Thomas was dead. Judice told The Advertiser.Thomas succumbed to injuries sustained during a confrontation with Arceneaux's relatives.

Judice said friends and family were searching for Arceneaux Friday and entered a vacant house where they believed they heard someone screaming. Thomas, who was armed with a knife, allegedly began to injure Arceneaux and one of Arceneaux's family members shot Thomas to stop him.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/09/la ... latestnews

That's pretty random.

hepcat wrote:I recently tried to shoot a nail into place. Oddly enough, it didn't work. Then I tried to shoot some bread into toast. Again, no success.

hepcat wrote:I recently tried to shoot a nail into place. Oddly enough, it didn't work. Then I tried to shoot some bread into toast. Again, no success.

hepcat wrote:Hold on...let me just grab my gun so I can shoot you out a reply on the keyboard...there we go...now...adasdfgaewerfsdfggbssdfasaad

hepcat wrote:I recently tried to shoot a nail into place. Oddly enough, it didn't work. Then I tried to shoot some bread into toast. Again, no success.

hepcat wrote:Someone kick Fitzy. He's stuck again.

hepcat wrote:I recently tried to shoot a nail into place. Oddly enough, it didn't work.

pr0ner wrote:Obenshain is currently up by a mere 55 votes over Herring in the Virginia Attorney General race.

AWS260 wrote:

pr0ner wrote:Obenshain is currently up by a mere 55 votes over Herring in the Virginia Attorney General race.

Crazy close. Now Herring is up by a hairsbreadth.

Toe wrote:Columbia, South Carolina bans homeless people from downtown. Sets up homeless camps on outskirts that they can only leave by appointment or face arrest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p7gNAODsQM" target="_blank

Democrats who oppose voter ID have consistently claimed that it suppresses votes. If they are correct, then Texas should have seen turnout drop off in 2013 compared with the closest comparable election.
The 2013 election in Texas was an off-year, constitutional amendment election. Texas holds constitutional amendment elections every two years, after its legislative sessions, to give Texans the opportunity to approve or reject items that the legislature has approved for a vote. The Texas secretary of state administers elections and posts totals going back to 1992.

According to the Texas secretary of state's office, 10 amendments were up for vote in 2011, the last constitutional amendment election before the voter ID law passed. Some issues received more votes than others. The one most voted on received 690,052 votes, for and against. Overall, an average of about 672,874 Texans voted on these 10 constitutional amendments.
If voter ID suppressed votes, we should see a drop in turnout, right? Well, according to the Texas secretary of state's office, nine amendments went up for vote in 2013. The amendment that attracted the most votes, Proposition One, attracted 1,144,844. The average number of votes cast in 2013 was 1,099,670.

Turnout for the 2011 election was 5.37% of registered voters; for 2013 it was about 8%.
Democrats allege that voter ID will suppress the vote in predominantly Hispanic regions. Hidalgo County sits on the Texas-Mexico border and is 90% Hispanic. In 2011, an average of just over 4,000 voted in the constitutional amendment election. In 2013, an average of over 16,000 voted.
If voter ID was intended to suppress votes, it is failing as spectacularly as HealthCare.gov.
Look at Cameron County, which is about 85% Hispanic. Turnout increased from an average of 4,700 votes in 2011 to 5,100 in 2013.
So in its first real-world test, Texas' voter ID law -- which 66% of Texans support, according to a 2012 University of Texas poll -- had no impact on suppressing the vote. It even can be argued that voter ID helped increase turnout. Turnout was up, and in fact, the 2013 constitutional amendment election saw the highest constitutional amendment election turnout in Texas in about eight years.

Fireball wrote:That is an utter nonsense analysis. The bulk of the people who will be effected by this don't vote in Constitutional Amendment elections. They are marginal voters who are likely to show up in a Presidential year, less likely in a Gubernatorial year, and unlikely in any other year.

Fireball wrote:That is an utter nonsense analysis. The bulk of the people who will be effected by this don't vote in Constitutional Amendment elections. They are marginal voters who are likely to show up in a Presidential year, less likely in a Gubernatorial year, and unlikely in any other year.