Cheers for the promote

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote. he might as well be on coke but at least he's honest about the financial situtation in eu right now

I remember it vividly. I was at home in the UK, watching day time soap opera "Neighbours" on the BBC. As soon as it finished there was an announcement saying they were breaking away from regularly programming to join BBC News. As soon as they joined, it was live footage of one of the towers burning. Then while live, the second plane hit. That sent a huge shiver down my spine. I then sat in front of that TV for about 4 hours until my father came home from work.

Throughout those hours, the Pentagon got hit, the plane crashed in Pennsylvania, and both WTC towers came crashing down. There was footage of fighter jets patrolling over the cities, panic in the newsreaders, their interviewees and the public. Confusion, shock and disbelief everywhere.

It was a declaration of war, and it changed the world we live in today in an instant.

>> ^jwray:

"Lying cunt" in what way?


look here! :-)

>> ^DerHasisttot:

>> ^Gallowflak:
>> ^DerHasisttot:
Ahh the British and the Nazis. i had a course last semester analysing Britain's ongoing fascination with the Nazis. Conclusions: 1. British school history-courses are a catastrophe of american magnitude.
2. Empire? What Empire? We defeated the Nazis! What? Britain had concentration camps, torture and cultural genocides? ... erm ... But we defeated the nazis, and they were way worse than us! Hooray Britain!

Britain, in my experience, is aware of its own miserable history to the point of being self-flagellating. There's a massive emphasis in culture and education on the tudors and WW2, and it's almost ridiculous, but I really doubt it has anything to do with soothing the social discomfort to be had by reflecting on the crimes of the empire.
I don't know. WW2 seems pretty fucking important when it comes to modern history, considering how much that conflict defined the shape of the future world.


Of course WW2 and Nazis should be studied. But there is the difference between study and obsession. We had to do projects for the course, and one group knew a bunch of Bachelor of Education- students being teacher's assistants in the UK at the time. So the group created a survey to look at british student's perceptions of Germany. One question concerned, for example, the number of years the students had WWII as a subject. Out of 4 or 5 classes (all over the UK), all had had WWII in more than 2 years, focussed mostly on Britain vs. Germany. When asked to name something "bad" the British Empire had done, most of only one class could name the enormous slave-trade. When asked to name the things they most associated with Germany, Nazis came before the cars and the soccer team. (And if you look at the tabloids and even proper papers when a match is on, you'll see an abundance of Nazi-refernces.) A friend of mine got cursed out of a London cab for being German. Nick Clegg wrote an article about the obsession. Edit: Moar. I can't find the article I'm searching for. I'll look again tomorrow.


"Having world war 2 in more than 2 years" does not mean that you have studied it for the entire duration of that teaching year - i have covered 3 or 4 different topics 3 or 4 different times during the course of my secondary education (11-16). The word "in" is a big clue there. We also covered native americans, the tudors and stewarts, and the rest i forget because i've never been interested in studying history.

The rest of my points i'll list in brief list form;
1) I don't believe that's true, at all, that 4 out of 5 classrooms full of students had no person who knew about the slave trade during colonial britain. That's covered plenty.
2) I am wholly unsurprised that a bunch of SCHOOL CHILDREN who have spent the last few years covering nazi germany on and off associate germany with nazis over cars (which they can't drive and who cares where cars are made?) and a football team (which we probably play on average once in a 2 year period, mostly in friendlies). If you're older than about 18, your grandad was probably in the war, and your grandma lived during those times. The war was a tough time and we're proud of standing alone for a time.
3) You're reading the sun or the news of the world - tip for you, stop reading the sun or the news of the world.
and 4) I've been cursed out of a london cab for being northern.

PS. Two world wars and one world cup, doodahhhh doodahhhh! .... it's a joke.

Come on lad, get a grip. This questionnaire sounds like bollocks to me - i've experienced 3 student exchanges with german students, and everyone got on really well with no war/nazi/anything comments or insinuations. I could ask 10 strangers what they thought of germany and i'd probably get 7 saying they like em. I got along better with german kids on holidays to spain than i did with the english kids, hung out with them, learned german better, and still love the language now.

Perhaps you're looking for it?

>> ^Gallowflak:

>> ^DerHasisttot:
Ahh the British and the Nazis. i had a course last semester analysing Britain's ongoing fascination with the Nazis. Conclusions: 1. British school history-courses are a catastrophe of american magnitude.
2. Empire? What Empire? We defeated the Nazis! What? Britain had concentration camps, torture and cultural genocides? ... erm ... But we defeated the nazis, and they were way worse than us! Hooray Britain!

Britain, in my experience, is aware of its own miserable history to the point of being self-flagellating. There's a massive emphasis in culture and education on the tudors and WW2, and it's almost ridiculous, but I really doubt it has anything to do with soothing the social discomfort to be had by reflecting on the crimes of the empire.
I don't know. WW2 seems pretty fucking important when it comes to modern history, considering how much that conflict defined the shape of the future world.



Of course WW2 and Nazis should be studied. But there is the difference between study and obsession. We had to do projects for the course, and one group knew a bunch of Bachelor of Education- students being teacher's assistants in the UK at the time. So the group created a survey to look at british student's perceptions of Germany. One question concerned, for example, the number of years the students had WWII as a subject. Out of 4 or 5 classes (all over the UK), all had had WWII in more than 2 years, focussed mostly on Britain vs. Germany. When asked to name something "bad" the British Empire had done, most of only one class could name the enormous slave-trade. When asked to name the things they most associated with Germany, Nazis came before the cars and the soccer team. (And if you look at the tabloids and even proper papers when a match is on, you'll see an abundance of Nazi-refernces.) A friend of mine got cursed out of a London cab for being German. Nick Clegg wrote an article about the obsession. Edit: Moar. I can't find the article I'm searching for. I'll look again tomorrow.

>> ^DerHasisttot:

Ahh the British and the Nazis. i had a course last semester analysing Britain's ongoing fascination with the Nazis. Conclusions: 1. British school history-courses are a catastrophe of american magnitude.
2. Empire? What Empire? We defeated the Nazis! What? Britain had concentration camps, torture and cultural genocides? ... erm ... But we defeated the nazis, and they were way worse than us! Hooray Britain!


As a Brit I would like to say that I am well aware (and deeply ashamed) of the atrocities and catastrophes wrought by the British Empire (and other colonial powers besides) and whilst we were on the winning side of the second world war generally I would credit Hitler's foolishness, in opening a second front with Russia, with victory in WW2.
On your first point I have to agree though, as a history student I could not wait to be given the choice over what period I studied, the age of discovery is where it's at.

>> ^DerHasisttot:

Ahh the British and the Nazis. i had a course last semester analysing Britain's ongoing fascination with the Nazis. Conclusions: 1. British school history-courses are a catastrophe of american magnitude.
2. Empire? What Empire? We defeated the Nazis! What? Britain had concentration camps, torture and cultural genocides? ... erm ... But we defeated the nazis, and they were way worse than us! Hooray Britain!


Britain, in my experience, is aware of its own miserable history to the point of being self-flagellating. There's a massive emphasis in culture and education on the tudors and WW2, and it's almost ridiculous, but I really doubt it has anything to do with soothing the social discomfort to be had by reflecting on the crimes of the empire.

I don't know. WW2 seems pretty fucking important when it comes to modern history, considering how much that conflict defined the shape of the future world.

No offence but if you eat meat you aren't vegetarian. There's no classification of "almost vegetarian." Its called being an omnivore. The BBC news article about this spider specifically states "diet is almost completely vegetarian - although occasionally topped up with a little ant larvae at times."

This spider is still cool but the video is a *fail for being misleading and for not showing any actual VIDEO of said spider. If I wasnt a probationary member I'd downvote this.

BTW if anyone wants to see a real video of this spider look here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8302535.stm

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:
Precisely. If god loved unconditionally, why were Adam & Eve thrown out of the garden of Eden?
That's not to say I'm against Ms. O'Connor's purpose...


You make a very good point. The next time my children do something they know is wrong, I will be certain to not punish them out of unconditional love.

>> ^Opus_Moderandi:

>> ^RadHazG:
As much as I want to respect her statements her God comes from her bible, and unfortunately her God doesn't love anywhere near unconditionally. The entire thing is riddled with some very explicit conditions.

Precisely. If god loved unconditionally, why were Adam & Eve thrown out of the garden of Eden?
That's not to say I'm against Ms. O'Connor's purpose...


I think for me the point is, she's got a healthy attitude towards her faith. She recognises that you can cut through all the bullshit and still have the same values. And I love that she's spent years trying to bring them down, without losing sight of that, she's wonderful.

>> ^RadHazG:

As much as I want to respect her statements her God comes from her bible, and unfortunately her God doesn't love anywhere near unconditionally. The entire thing is riddled with some very explicit conditions.


Precisely. If god loved unconditionally, why were Adam & Eve thrown out of the garden of Eden?
That's not to say I'm against Ms. O'Connor's purpose...

This is just a combination of issues IMO:

1. The sift needs the social networking links to attract people to the site via tweets, likes etc.
2. VideoSift, in terms of design, was not (I'm assuming not anyway ) designed in a way that anticipated all the current social networking sites people belong to... and certainly you couldn't have predicted Facebook wanting a "like" button on every web page on the planet for example.
3. The adverts, well, they are essential, but you're right that the t-shirts could be better targeted somehow.

Myself, I don't really find any of this clutter "annoying" as such, but as I do website design in my spare time I do see the issues here and the lack of consistency/cleanliness. But like I say, I think a lot of these up and coming features have been shoe-horned into the existing design. It's a necessary evil to put these social networking features into the site somehow. However, all I believe needs to happen is that the next redesign of the Sift bears in mind that social networks come and go, so make it something that can be altered quickly. Alternatively, they could all be hidden at first and placed behind a pop-up/drop-down menu that appears from a single "Share this" button on each video etc. Or you can simply make them unobtrusive i.e. notice the 5 "social" icons at the top and bottom of each BBC News story - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11151777.

There's loads of options here anyway.

... related side note, I've always thought doing a Sift redesign would make an excellent little project for working on at home. There's so many little features and things that make up the Sift, yet ultimately the function is simple - share and talk about videos. Hmmm... *ponders*

She's not been arrested, as she has not committed a criminal offense. I'm not sure if the RSPCA can bring a civil case against her however. (BBC News)

Hey, person with one of the coolest profile pics on the sift.
This is a non-automated message informing you that your video was a dupe:

http://www.videosift.com/video/BBC-News-Presenter-on-Air-Confession-I-killed-someone-once -> http://www.videosift.com/video/BBC-Presenter-Confesses-to-Compassion-Killing-On-Air

Have a nice day

On BBC News today (10/19/09) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8310420.stm

The theory: Going from here to somewhere else without passing through anywhere in between.

The science fiction: Beam me up, Scotty.

In practice: Take two particles of light and entangle them - now you can teleport quantum information - such as what their spin is - from one to the other, instantaneously.

The layman's explanation: Photons, particles of light, have a property called "spin". This can be up, down, or a mixture of the two. Alice has a photon, and she wants Bob to have one with the same spin. She can't send him hers because the Post Office is on strike, and she can't measure her spin and phone him, because the measurement can change the spin.

Fortunately, the last time she met Bob she gave him one photon from an entangled pair, and kept the other. "Entangled" means that the two photons were prepared so that their states were related in a special way. Alice lets her photon interact with her other photon from the entangled pair. This instantly teleports information about the spin to Bob's half. However, he can't "read" that information until a message arrives by more conventional means. A quick call on Alice's mobile, telling him some measurements she has made, now puts his entangled photon into the desired state.

Quantum "teleportation" destroys the original state and can't be used to send messages faster than light. It doesn't actually teleport matter - just quantum information.

Coming to a store near you?: In 1998, the quantum optics group at Caltech used "squeezed light" to teleport the state of a photon in a laboratory. It's now been done with atoms, too. In 2004 Austrian physicists teleported the state of a photon across the Danube river. Within another century it will be an amoeba. But be warned: when you are teleported, your body will be ripped to shreds and rebuilt at the other end.