The Gaming Den

I was sceptical at first, but if the Guinnesbook of world records says it's real, then how much space for reasonable doubt is left?
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/new ... nce-427011
Also, yes, fuck hoverboard, that thing is leagues ahead.
If you combine it with the backbpack fuel tank, you could probably also make a pretty bitching jet pack i guess.

Stahlseele wrote:I was sceptical at first, but if the Guinnesbook of world records says it's real, then how much space for reasonable doubt is left?
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/new ... nce-427011
Also, yes, fuck hoverboard, that thing is leagues ahead.
If you combine it with the backbpack fuel tank, you could probably also make a pretty bitching jet pack i guess.

What's the huge breakthrough that made this possible now? Did somebody figure a way to build much more powerful fans? Also, what's the fuel autonomy?

i have no clue.
4 micro turbines with 250HP each.
Fuel for about 10 minutes of flight time.
Maximum Speed of 150km/h and a flight ceiling of 3050m.

http://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-hoverbo ... 1774176409

Here's another story purporting its realness, with more technical details. I need to start a savings account and go on a diet.

Stahlseele wrote:so, appearantly, we are living WAY further into the future than i had thought:
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/new ... nce-427011
That thing is somehow real.

Back into the Future II promised us true hoverboards cheap and and safe enough for kids by 2015.

Older sci-fi media promised half the solar system colonized by now, autonomous androids, portable laser guns and sentient AIs by now.

We've had heavier than air tech for over a century by now, a personal version that can only go for 10 minute is still lagging quite behind people's expectations. Computers were created after airplanes, started much bigger than airplanes, yet we now have versions that fit inside a pocket and can last multiple hours working.

On the other hand, smartphones are basically crazy Star Trek tech for our parents or grandparents. There is still hope for sex robots and cheap cyberware as weekend surgery within our lifespans.

Indeed, with the kinds of injuries you'll get from letting a whole bunch of dickheads fly around on "like on TV" hoverboards in cities, you'll probably want the cheap cyberware to be out first so limb replacements are an option.

I'm not sure if limb replacement will be of any help if you break your neck/spine falling from the skies. If the idiot survives, they'll at worst get some broken bones, and that's not exactly the kind of thing that demands amputation.

But if someone develops artificial limbs that are better than the real thing, would you wait until you suffer an accident to do the "upgrade"? There was already some controversies about "disabled" runners with artificial high-tech legs actually being considered superior to meaty ones.

Also Sex robots technically already exist. We call them vibrators. Humanoid shape is overrated. Heck, the other day I saw some news about some air blowers built specifically for a woman's clit, and the reviews basically said it was super amazing.

Oh, and I found the Arcaboard released last year. For just 14500 bucks, you can hover for a whooping 6 minutes! That's the "long endurance" version BTW. And looks corny as hell.

They should make 'em with wheels so you can just roll along the road or something.

So I just found out that in Indiana if you don't want a breathing baby anymore you can just throw them in a specialized box.

W.T.F.

I read about that. I mean, it makes sense. If you've got mothers abandoning newborns at fire stations or hospitals, you at least want them doing it safely? I'm seriously not interested in actively discouraging people from safely abandoning responsibilities they're not prepared for.

Though I don't really understand why it happens. Abortions are expensive, I guess, but it seems like it'd be a small overlap between "people that couldn't afford/conscience an abortion" and "people who want to give up their newborn, but for some reason aren't able to go through the normal process of giving it up for adoption".

The article I read implies it's a secrecy thing, but how can you go through a whole nine month pregnancy without anyone noticing, and then decide that the dealbreaker would be seen talking to a social worker or whatever? Is it shame? I'd think I'd be more ashamed of leaving a baby at a fire station than I would by telling someone in authority that I think someone else would do better at raising my baby.

Actually, this sort of thing isn't really new. A few years back, a korean priest set one of these up, and the internet heard about it. It's a safe place, protected from the elements, where the child can be left and someone is alerted and comes and picks up the baby within a few minutes. It's not like a library dropbox for babies (as much as that idea amuses the part of my mind that likes dead baby jokes).

Apparently there's even a pretty long history and widespread use of these.

Baby Boxes. One more reason every other first world country is probably better than America.

Ancient History wrote:http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... n-be-fatal

Thanks. That might explain some weirdness with my grandmother.

SlyJohnny wrote: Though I don't really understand why it happens. Abortions are expensive, I guess, but it seems like it'd be a small overlap between "people that couldn't afford/conscience an abortion" and "people who want to give up their newborn, but for some reason aren't able to go through the normal process of giving it up for adoption".

Infantacide is generally done by panicky teens who hid their pregnancies until a baby popped out in the bathroom on prom night or whatever. That's their target demographic, the has no freaking clue what to do and is terrified of being discovered crowd.

Ancient History wrote:http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... n-be-fatal

Wait, let's make a list of "stops you shitting so much" things:

• Strong black tea
• Opioids
• Imodium
• Cheese
• Chocolate

Now let's make a list of substances that can cause euphoria:

• Strong black tea
• Opioids
• Imodium
• Cheese
• Chocolate

I think they've stumbled onto some kind of weird link.

That's probably better than the other moral to the story, of "Just take heroin, it's healthier than the alternatives"

Come to think of it, "taking a really excellent and complete shit" could go on those lists, too. Arguably as the principle entry.

Perhaps all human joy is, itself, ultimately just a derivation of the sensation of shitting. We are deuterostomes, after all; a breed of hyperdeveloped buttholes. So what could be more fundamental?

hyzmarca wrote:Infantacide is generally done by panicky teens who hid their pregnancies until a baby popped out in the bathroom on prom night or whatever. That's their target demographic, the has no freaking clue what to do and is terrified of being discovered crowd.

Is that actually a demographic, though? Pregnant bellies are huge. Even if your parents are distant or disinterested, how does someone get pregnant for nine months and nobody notices?

Pregnancies aren't always obvious, particularly if the woman in question is already heavy enough that the weight gain doesn't show, and baggy clothing can cover a lot of sins.

Take a look at a number of television programs dedicated to just women giving birth who had no idea they were pregnant until they were practically going into labor.

From personal experience, we saw it happen. Good friend of mine rang me up to tell us his wife was pregnant. When I asked when they were expecting, he said 2 weeks.
They literally had not known until just that day when she had gone in for a checkup.
She had always been slightly overweight, but was still having her periods which had always been very light.

This service is also important to women stuck in relationships that are seriously abusive or controlling that make it difficult if not impossible to go through abortion procedures (which in many US states is now a cumbersome multi-appointment process involving multi-hours drives each way) or the normal adoption procedures.

SlyJohnny wrote:

hyzmarca wrote:Infantacide is generally done by panicky teens who hid their pregnancies until a baby popped out in the bathroom on prom night or whatever. That's their target demographic, the has no freaking clue what to do and is terrified of being discovered crowd.

Is that actually a demographic, though? Pregnant bellies are huge. Even if your parents are distant or disinterested, how does someone get pregnant for nine months and nobody notices?

[Anecdote]
My mother was in her mid teens and a high school athlete running track on the reg. She hid her pregnancy until she was nearly 7 months pregnant, and only had to admit it because my grandmother noticed her morning sickness and took her to the doctor to find out why she was yakking.

She still didn't look pregnant until bout two weeks before I hatched, and played 2 on 2 basketball (her team lost, in the interest of full disclosure) less than a week before I was born.
[/Anecdote]

So what you are saying is that your mom is a scrub who couldn't even win a basketball game 8 and a half months pregnant?

That's the tl;dr, yes.

Game On,
fbmf

Prak wrote:Actually, this sort of thing isn't really new. A few years back, a korean priest set one of these up, and the internet heard about it. It's a safe place, protected from the elements, where the child can be left and someone is alerted and comes and picks up the baby within a few minutes. It's not like a library dropbox for babies (as much as that idea amuses the part of my mind that likes dead baby jokes).

Apparently there's even a pretty long history and widespread use of these.

Baby Boxes. One more reason every other first world country is probably better than America.

I knew that it was done before, I even rememeber an history that some old greeks had a tradition where a couple that didn't want a baby would put them inside a jar and left in a hill where then chidless couples that did want a kid would pick them up.

What I didn't know it's that it's still so widespread. Picking up a kid from adoption is hard yes, but giving a kid for adoption is drastically easier.

Seemingly several of the modern baby boxes across the world aren't exactly legal. But the alternative is literally dead babies. So the governments turn a blind eye.

Are there really so many parents out there that would rather abandon their own child to die than admit to somebody else "I don't want this kid, here they are mister hospital/orphanage/police officer"?

I don't know about the specifics anywhere else, but I do know a couple who adopted a baby given up at a hospital under the safe haven laws. The mom still had to sign paperwork saying she was the mother and that she was giving the baby up for adoption. They still had to have a waiting period of 30 days in case the father came forward to claim the baby. And the mother really didn't want to deal with it. She didn't want anyone to know she'd had a baby. She didn't want to sign anything. There are lots of legalities that happen when you admit to someone that you're giving away your baby.