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Topics - Spracne

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26
I've read some stories floating around the past few days about the ethics of genetic modification. Here's a quick primer, but more in-depth articles from the past few days can be easily found:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/bioethics-council--gene-editing-human-embryos-conditionally-ok-64508

On the one hand, it's hard to argue that avoiding congenital defects and horrible diseases is anything but a good thing. On the other hand, I could see how this could lead to increased inequality, depending on scale.

What say ye?

27
The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Help me fight an injustice!
« on: September 13, 2016, 12:57:26 AM »
I need an injustice--any injustice. Only caveat is that it needs to be something from which a credible civil rights or constitutional violation can be articulated. But, I'll worry about that. You worry about relating stories of the little guy getting mumped over by some type of government actor. It could be economic liberty, due process, equal protection, first amendment, fourth amendment, second amendment ( :excited:), anything really. I just need a discrete group of individuals who are suffering an injury as a result of onerous governmental (federal, state, or local) policies. Preferably one that has yet to be litigated, although this is not an absolute requirement.

Please reply ASAP as this request is time-sensitive.

Best,

Spracs.

28
Other Sports (Tiger's Back) / Team USA! USA! USA! @World Uni Games
« on: July 07, 2015, 11:56:40 PM »
Anyone else watching the basketball tournament in Guan Joe, Korea? The America's Team is 4-0 and about to win their pool going into bracket play.  Just beat their biggest pool competition in Serbia, and defeated weakling Chile by 1000 points yesterday :Sdeek:.  Join me in cheering on our envoy of patriots :cool:

29
Essentially Flyertalk / Dear 42
« on: May 21, 2015, 11:24:30 PM »
Do you want to build a snowman?

30
Essentially Flyertalk / The Kansas State University Powercats
« on: February 02, 2015, 02:15:19 PM »
I just changed the official mascot of KSU from the generic "Wildcats" to the unique "Powercats."

You're welcome.

31
Essentially Flyertalk / Quadratic Voting
« on: January 05, 2015, 09:07:06 PM »
Have you heard of it?  It has been called "the most important idea for law and public policy that has emerged from economics in (at least) the last ten years" (by one of the co-authors).  Still, in my view, quadratic voting is a procedure that a group of people can use to jointly choose a collective good for themselves. Each person can buy votes for or against a proposal by paying into a fund the square of the number of votes that he or she buys. The money is then returned to voters on a per capita basis. The collective decision rapidly approximates efficiency as the number of voters increases. By contrast, no extant voting procedure is efficient. Majority rule based on one-person-one-vote notoriously results in tyranny of the majority–a large number of people who care only a little about an outcome prevail over a minority that cares passionately, resulting in a reduction of aggregate welfare.

The applications to law and public policy are too numerous to count. In many areas of the law, we rely on highly imperfect voting systems (corporate governance, bankruptcy) that are inferior to quadratic voting. In other areas of the law, we require judges or bureaucrats to make valuations while knowing they are not in any position to do so (environmental regulation, eminent domain). Quadratic voting can be used to supply better valuations that aggregate private information of dispersed multitudes. But the most important setting is democracy itself. An incredibly complicated system of institutional self-checking (separation of powers, federalism) and judicially enforced constitutional rights try to correct for the defects of one-person-one-vote, but do so very badly. Can quadratic voting do better? Decide for yourself:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2396159_code249436.pdf?abstractid=2343956&mirid=1 <-- not a virus (free .pdf download of full article [.pdf does not contain viruses])

32
Essentially Flyertalk / Wutchu Get?!
« on: December 25, 2014, 04:18:01 PM »
She really knows what I'm all about




33
This thread's for the real 5-0 on the streets, kicking ass and saving lives.  I'll start.

Quote
The gunman who attacked the federal courthouse, the Mexican consulate and the Austin Police Department headquarters was killed by a single shot taken from 312 feet away by mounted patrol Sgt. Adam Johnson who also held the reins of two horses.

 :sdeek:

http://kxan.com/2014/12/01/chief-on-austin-gunman-hate-was-in-his-heart/

Shot the hate right out, he did.

34
The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / When Was the Last Time You...
« on: August 28, 2014, 03:14:55 PM »
...touched another person's feces?  Babies don't count, so parents - don't even start...

I'll go first - Today. 

Shared bathroom for the floor.  Finished my business, reached for the roll and my finger found the tidiest little dobber of human crap.  Just a little chocolate chip of fecal matter. 

Now you go.

35
Essentially Flyertalk / What do you call a group of...?
« on: July 24, 2014, 04:59:40 PM »
From oxforddictionaries.com...

People

a blush of boys
a drunkship of cobblers
a hastiness of cooks
a stalk of foresters
an observance of hermits
a bevy of ladies
a faith of merchants
a superfluity of nuns
a malapertness (= impertinence) of pedlars
a pity of prisoners
a glozing (= fawning) of taverners
 
Animals

a shrewdness of apes
a herd or pace of asses
a troop of baboons
a cete of badgers
a sloth of bears
a swarm or drift or hive or erst of bees
a flock or flight or pod of birds
a herd or gang or obstinacy of buffalo
a bellowing of bullfinches
a drove of bullocks
an army of caterpillars
a clowder or glaring of cats
a herd or drove of cattle
a brood or clutch or peep of chickens
a chattering or clattering of choughs
a rag or rake of colts
a covert of coots
a herd of cranes
a bask of crocodiles
a murder of crows
a litter of cubs
a herd of curlew
a cowardice of curs
a herd or mob of deer
a pack or kennel of dogs
a school of dolphins
a trip of dotterel
a flight or dole or piteousness of doves
a raft or bunch or paddling of ducks on water
a safe of ducks on land
a fling of dunlins
a herd or parade of elephants
a gang or herd of elk
a busyness of ferrets
a charm or chirm of finches
a shoal or run of fish
a swarm or cloud of flies
a skulk of foxes
a gaggle of geese on land
a skein or team or wedge of geese in flight
a herd of giraffes
a cloud of gnats
a flock or herd or trip of goats
a band of gorillas
a pack or covey of grouse
a down or mute or husk of hares
a cast of hawks
a siege of herons
a bloat of hippopotami
a drove or string or stud or team of horses
a pack or cry or kennel of hounds
a flight or swarm of insects
a fluther or smack or jellyfish
a mob or troop of kangaroos
a kindle or litter of kittens
a desert of lapwing
an exaltation or a bevy of larks
a leap or lepe of leopards
a pride or sawt of lions
a tiding of magpies
a sord or suit of mallard
a stud of mares
a richesse of martens
a labour of moles
a troop of monkeys
a barren of mules
a watch of nightingales
a yoke of oxen
a pandemonium of parrots
a covey of partridges
a muster of peacocks
a muster or parcel or rookery of penguins
a head or nye of pheasants
a kit of pigeons flying together
a litter or herd of pigs
a stand or wing or congregation of plovers
a rush or flight of pochards
a pod or school or herd or turmoil of porpoises
a covey of ptarmigan
a litter of pups
a bevy or drift of quail
a string of racehorses
an unkindness of ravens
a crash of rhinoceros
a bevy of roes
a parliament or building of rooks
a hill of ruffs
a pod or herd or rookery of seals
a flock or herd or trip or mob of sheep
a dopping of sheldrake
a wisp or walk of snipe
a host of sparrows
a murmuration of starlings
a flight of swallows
a game of swans; a wedge of swans in the air
a drift or herd or sounder of swine
a spring of teal
a knot of toads
a hover of trout
a rafter of turkeys
a bale or turn of turtles
a bunch or knob or raft of waterfowl
a school or pod or herd or gam of whales
a company or trip of wigeon
a sounder of wild boar
a destruction of wild cats
a team of wild ducks in flight
a bunch or trip or plump or knob (fewer than 30) of wildfowl
a drift of wild pigs
a pack or rout of wolves
a fall of woodcock
a descent of woodpeckers
a herd of wrens
a zeal of zebras


36
Tech Support and Suggestion Board / How did gE do it?
« on: April 23, 2014, 06:44:46 PM »
WtW.com is hurting.  How was gE able to successfully develop a rebel board and convert good :users: 's away from the mothership? Help us, you're our only hope. (But don't sign up for accounts.  That has been temporarily disabled d/t a recent bot attack).

37
The New Joe Montgomery Birther Pit / Life is Short...
« on: April 17, 2014, 06:09:54 PM »
Have an affair.

38
With Will graduating, it's almost time to graduate my moniker.  True, I didn't originally intend for my screen name to be related to Spradling (IRL, I am a Special Purchase and Resale Agreement Certified Negotiation Expert), but the Universe sometimes works in strange ways, thus we become entangled quantumly.

I need your help brainstorming a NuName.  The best submissions will be selected for a special drawing on May 18th. 

39
 :thumbsup: this guy  :thumbsup:

42
Kansas State Football / Chase Perfection - Catch Excellence
« on: June 24, 2013, 10:10:58 AM »

43
Essentially Flyertalk / Underrated?
« on: April 03, 2013, 06:04:50 PM »
This witticism:

I always think of that star football player proposing to his cheerleader girlfriend on national t.v.

Dreams can come true, ladies.  YOU are beautiful; YOU are worthwhile; and no one can ever take that away from YOU.

What if your dream is to be married to a pud RB who can't make an NFL roster??

Then you'd be named Shalin?  :billdance:

44
He's trying his darndest.  I used to be in debate with him in high school.  Ppl always made fun of him, calling him "pizza face" and it really hurt his feelings.  He has had to overcome a lot of insecurities, so he both deserves and needs our support.

Pimplin' Ain't Easy

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