smoothgrips

Relevant yt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkDD03yeLnU

> Comparing your proposed 30000 guns in France with more guns than inhabitants in the US.

My point is, even countries with very strict gun laws have lots of guns, most of which are illegal, but they're still there, still accessible to people who want them and go through the effort to get them.

> This argument still does not negate the fact that it's much harder to get your hands on a working firearm.

I wasn't trying to negate that. In fact, I agreed: "While I agree it is more difficult to find a gun in Europe than in America..."

I'm countering this claim that you made:

>Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they need one

I believe that, yes, any lunatic _can_ find a gun. Yes, again, I agree, they are harder to get. However, I do believe that if said lunatic _really_ wanted one, he'd find one.

> Not every lunatic where I live can find a gun when they need one

While I agree it is more difficult to find a gun in Europe than in America, that doesn't mean that a lunatic _can't_ get a gun. Guns exist in EU countries that have very strict gun laws. If said lunatic was determined enough, they _will_ get their hands on one.

> Despite these strict laws, France seems to be awash with guns.

> In 2012, French authorities estimated that there were around 30,000 guns illegally in the country, many likely used by gangs for criminal activities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/16...

Firearms in Europe _are_ available, they're just harder to find. But I believe that if someone is determined enough, they'll find them, and use them.

Places like England, and Whales, which have very strict gun laws in comparison with places like the US, still suffer from gun related homicides all the time.

> gun crime in England and Wales soared by 35% last year. [...] Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences, Home Office statistics revealed. [...] Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362. [...] It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-154307/Gun-crime-soa...

Same here. Last time I was at a craps table: pass line, come bet, with odds on both. Made something like $500 in less than an hour ($5 table). Granted, this doesn't happen every time. I do lose money sometimes. But, the atmosphere is fun. Chips flying all over the table... everyone drinking and feeling loose... laughs, jokes, chatting with others... the cheer when the shooter hits... camaraderie... it's great. Definitely better than sitting in your room. I see it as a form of entertainment. Before I go gambling, I plan it out. Determine how much I can comfortably play with. I also expect that I will lose it. And then once the money is gone, I'm done gambling.

> I'm italian and I visited united states a couple of months ago. In my opinion the biggest problem is that you don't have decent food at affordable prices. Healthy food has nonsensical high prices and if you want something at a human price you don't have much choice except fast food. What a shame.

We recently just spent a week in Spain. We went to the grocery store and bought a whole cart full of food for like 20 euros. I was blown away. The equivalent amount of food in the US would have easily been like 100 dollars, probably more.

I think you're thinking of CodeMAP, not CodeLENS.

CodeMap => https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/modeling/use-c...

You're assuming that all honest people want to naturally kill other people when they're mad at them. If that were the case, crime rates would be astronomically high regardless if guns existed or not. If person A gets mad at person B and desires to kill them, they'll find a way to kill them. If they don't have a gun, then they'll use a knife, or a bat. Hell, they'll use their bare hands if they have to.

Honest people don't kill other people unless they feel their own lives are threatened. Criminals by definition do not follow the law, so by outlawing guns, only outlaws will have guns. What you effectively do is remove the gun from the honest person desiring to protect themselves, and arm the criminal with bad intent. The honest person is left defenseless.

Case in point: "Shooting incidents in London have almost doubled compared with the same period last year, prompting grave concerns that gun crime in some areas is out of control." [0]

Aren't guns illegal in England? How are people then getting shot, by guns, in a city where guns are illegal? Again, because criminals by definition don't follow the law and will find a way to get a gun regardless.

[0]: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/nov/03/london-gun-crime-s...

Your reasoning is not accurate. When you allow honest citizens to defend themselves, crime rates drop.

"Statistics show that in these states the crime rate fell (or did not rise) after the right-to-carry law became active (as of July, 2006)."

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/concealed-carry/

> [T]he quality and design of recent Thinkpads has gone utterly to shit. The new keyboards are particularly atrocious.

I've never owned a Thinkpad until recently. I purchased a Thinkpad T450s and I love it. I also think the keyboard is quite nice as well. Now I'm curious how the older Thinkpads were. Were they considerably better? Did I buy a bad product and not even know?

It's unfortunate that you are "traumatized" in regards to Plato, or anything, for that matter. Even though you consider yourself "traumatized", Plato still has good ideas, and likely some not so good ideas as well. I would encourage judging the ideas on their own merit, and not to immediately dismiss them simply because you don't like Plato.

So, they emailed your password to you? Plaintext? They store passwords in plaintext? Paypal?

I guess that is one way to do it. I don't know if I would do that myself. I went through the normal channels and here in SLC it went very smoothly. The thing with the "do it yourself" approach is, without the sleep study, you don't know what pressure to use. They use the analysis from the sleep study to determine what pressure to use. Also, you will consistently need to purchase new supplies on a regular basis. You'll be paying full price for those forever, whereas mine are covered by my insurance (since I went through the proper channels), so over time you will spend more money than I will.

I have a Nexus 5 I've had for, well, going on a year and half now, and with the exception of the battery (which for me lasts most of the day), it has been an exceptional phone. For only $400ish (bought full retail through Google), it has met or surpasses my ROI. It is still as fast today as when I bought it. I am always up to date with the latest version of Android. It rarely crashes or even hiccups. I am very satisfied with it. I am a little sad that the Nexus 6 cost so much more, but even if it was the same price as the Nexus 5, I currently have no need to upgrade my phone. I plan on using this as long as it will go, which I'm guessing might be another year or two, maybe even longer.

I never said Samsung is more influential than Apple. I also never said Apple isn't influential. I don't know where you got those ideas from. All I said is, according to what I found, Samsung has more revenue than Apple. Also, I think the word "influential" is subjective. That is all.

Biggest in what way? Number of employees? Sure. Revenue? Samsung has got them beat [1]. Also, influential is very difficult to prove definitively. I find that word to be very subjective. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_informatio...

I definitely would not give up amazon for free education, health care, etc... Those socialists implementations come at a very high cost. Yes, our current system is not well, but it's better than the government taking 60% of my earned income.

This is a great example of the "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" logical fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

I've often wondered if the NSA is constitutional. Not what they're doing, but the organization itself. The constitution, from my understanding, grants the federal government power to do certain things. Therefore, if the constitution doesn't specifically grant the federal government the power/ability to run, say the NSA (or other federal department), does that not warrant the entire thing unconstitutional?

I program in both Windows and Linux environments, Visual Studio for the former and Vim for the latter. When I transition from Windows to Linux (and thus VS to Vim), I realize how much more I enjoy Vim. Even with VS's fancy intellisense and other similar features, I'm still faster in Vim. And every time I learn a new trick, I like Vim even more. And I've only been using Vim for a few years. I wonder how much faster and better I'll be after five more years of using it.

Started a project using AngularJS. I'm finding it quite fun and exciting. I have a decent JQuery background and find myself having to actively refrain from using JQuery. Trying to learning the "Angular way" of doing things.