Oh I'd hate to be a cop nowadays. I mean the ones that aren't drawn to the profession to provide a outlet for their psychopathic tendencies, the ones that really do believe the "to protect and serve" mantra. They really do actually exist, contrary to growing popular opinion.

I guess my frustration on this topic is really no different than with news in general. It's not an accurate representation of the norm. It's news _because_ it's out of the norm. News is not reality TV.

YES we should be outraged when cops do this, they should be stripped of their job and punished accordingly, the culture and practices of the force they serve should be scrutinized and corrected if found to be supportive of or responsible for their criminal behavior. If there's a culture on the force where whistle blowers don't feel comfortable reporting abuses, the force needs to FIX that. I feel apparent overall opinion against cops in general is unfair, but it is the case. If they are ever to dig themselves out of the abyss of negative opinion they will have to take on more responsibility for the problem than may be deserved.

It should be a felony to pretend to be a scientist without a degree in the field you purport to be involved in, with added special circumstances if you do it publicly.
Each of these fake scientists should be drawn and quartered for crimes against humanity. As I see it, they've already confused and delayed the issue of climate change (and others) so long that it's no longer a solvable problem, and barely one we can even mitigate, and they still shout from their bully pulpits that it's not happening, just don't worry about it, and even if it is happening, it's not a problem and will actually make things better....and some poor fools actually believe them.
Fake scientists really get my goat. If I run into the "I'm not a scientist, but I play one on TV" guy, I'll have to tell him "I'm not an eco-soldier, but I'm going to play one right now with this knife...but don't panic, there's no scientific consensus that my putting this knife into your skull is harmful."

Canadian (white - maybe important to mention these days sadly) here. I visited a friend in New Hampshire a few years ago.
After arriving and unpacking, friend (who has lived there in that neighborhood all her life) takes me on a tour of the small neighborhood. Walking down the street, within 15 minutes, a man comes out of his house pointing a rifle at me demanding to know "who the fuck" I am and "what the fuck" I am doing there. They don't get many new people in the area I guess. Turns out this person was known as "Crazy Larry" in the area, an ex police officer and known to have mental problems. He still has his license to carry for firearms, despite complaints, and to do whatever the hell he wants to do with them on his property.

FWIW, I actually agree with a lot of what the Pro Gun guy said. There has to be a line drawn somewhere though.


tdlr: within 15 mins of a New Hampshire town walking tour on public ground, gun pointed at me and threatened by a person with known mental problems and valid license demanding to know why I was there. Line needs to be drawn.

Thanks! I will definitely take a look! Sorry it took a while to reply, NR took last week off, so we were on a staycation, and I barely checked my emails. Barely meaning I checked, and then forgot.. But this sounds very interesting!

This week has been kinda busy too, since NR was also off on Monday (Memorial Day), yesterday just went, and I was 'oh, I was gonna do this and this and this.. And I didn't do anything since I was fretting over the upcoming blood tests.. today I did have a doctors' appointment to have a check-up (which I really, really, REALLY don't wanna go to! But we have to, for stupid insurance....), anyway.. blood was drawn, I did not black out (yay for me..), but I still need to get over it.. get healthier and stuff.. Try to sleep better and get my blood pressure down..

I have started to write a blog in Finnish, about my life in the US, and I have a few readers, and it makes me VERY happy. So, right now, I don't think I am going to sift, I just wanna blog.. We'll see how long this lasts!

Again, thanks, I will check the article! Take care, I don't know when I am gonna be sifting again, might be a bit... might be soonish.. probably not.. Right now blogging is making me happy! NR is fine too, he says Hi!

He probably would have had a stern word with you about all the assumptions you're making too.

You've said the guy was unarmed as if it was an established fact when he was shot when it wasn't. You have said he was non-violent but his movement and demeanour certainly weren't submissive, and one really has to wonder what he was planning to do when he got close enough to the officer, kiss him?

My position in all this is that as a Brit I think it's madness that police have to go around with guns all the time. This simply couldn't happen in the UK so as far as I'm concerned it's a fully avoidable situation, just put all the fucking guns down.

However, it's really not that easy. Guns are everywhere in America so the police have to act accordingly. It's really easy with hindsight to say all the things you're saying but in the heat of the moment that cop has to assume the guy is armed and dangerous. That's the effect of having guns everywhere.

They're on the edge of a highway at night, the guy is lit with flashing lights and car headlights going past. This makes seeing bulges or anything like that that might indicate a weapon very difficult and yet you think the officer should have been able to tell this and be happy to risk his life on it? Bullshit.

People are suggesting that under the same circumstances it's a simple job to aim for an extremity and it's a guaranteed hit. Really? It's that easy? So easy you'd stake your life on it?

The guy committed suicide by cop. Plain and simple. He wasn't a compliant victim, he was a threat to the officer. His shuffling was strange and that in isolation isn't threatening, but shuffling closer and closer to an armed officer is a different story.

Maybe the cop should have pulled a tazer first? That wouldn't help much if the guy came out of the car with a gun. Or would it? I don't know. If a tazer would have worked in that situation please put me right, I'm no expert. To me it seems if a guy comes out of the car with a gun and points it at the officer then a gun would be more use in defence than a tazer. Same with pepper spray.

So maybe the officer should put the gun away as soon as he's established that the guy isn't armed? That's fine, I'm all in agreement there. But nowhere in the video is he able to establish that as fact. So if he started with a gun he sure as hell should still have it drawn all the way through this video.

I'm really fucking glad I don't have to deal with anything like this in the UK. It's shit that this happens. But given the prevalence of guns in the US I can't see any way this could have gone differently without risking the situation becoming like the videos reiwan posted.

I agree with lucky760 here. This guy was not a compliant person shot for no reason.

I'm someone who thinks cops should be held to extremely high standards and I've commented such on other cop videos on videosift. But in this case I'm not really sure what else the cop could have done. He needed to engage the guy physically. He was walking toward him. That might sound innocent enough but the closer he got to the cop the more dangerous he became.

Even if there was a real language barrier and the guy didn't understand what he was being told this is just obviously not OK. He wasn't behaving right, maybe he was high or whatever but he was a physical threat to the officer.

Portraying him as just a person shuffling around being shot for no reason ignores the fact that he was shuffling right up to an officer who had his weapon drawn. If the officer allowed him to get too close he could have attacked the officer. Even if the officer got a clean shot adrenaline could have driven the guy on a step or two and he could have stabbed or shot the officer. That distance separating them is important. Moving toward the officer in this situation is a threatening act, regardless of where your hands are.

The officer did not shoot on numerous occasions when the guy put his hands down, an act which under the circumstances could legitimately be seen as a threat to his safety. He waited until the guy had gone way too far and got way too close. This wasn't a trigger happy cop out to back a Mexican, it was an unlucky cop in the wrong place.

Thank god racism is over...right?

Fucking cowards in blue. Get a grip, asshats. 10 cops, 5+ cars, dogs, weapons drawn, aimed, and cocked...for what?!? Legal open carrying while black, which is just fine if you're white?

Every day I'm more surprised there isn't a racial uprising against police and reciprocation of this behavior, ending in numerous cops shot dead by 57 bullets in self defense because they had a pen and pad in their hand. If 'well trained' officers can make that mistake constantly, why not citizens? Maybe that's why they are so pant-pissingly terrified of a black man with a gun, they know it would be reasonable for it to be used against them in self defense?

If I were black, I would be dead or in jail today. No question.
Totally disappointed in cops every-single-time lately. This shit boils my blood.
*promote

I contend that common experiences rules most people's feelings, not racism.

A carpenter will eat his lunch with another carpenter. Someone who works in a lab will eat their lunch with a co-worker from the same lab, not the lab two doors down.

Two firefighters will be drawn to one another due to common experience.

My friend actually filed a patent for this exact system back in 2004, right down to the OLED visors: http://goo.gl/LfDDos

However, the cost of retaining a lawyer and the patent office's recurring fees and drawn out review process bled him dry. Just as he was getting close to finally registering it he fell on hard times and had to put the process on hold. As a result, his patent went into the public domain after 18 months. He was heartbroken and still is, especially now that this video is being shared everywhere.

As much as I love this idea and want to see it become a reality, I can't help but feel like this company got at least some of the details they needed from my friend's patent. It pisses me off that our copyright system screws over small inventors and gives those with plenty of money a free pool of research and hard work.

UPDATE below also see new video description and original video

The caption is in Thai and describes the creature as a Nemertea, or a ribbon worm, which shoots a proboscis (elongated nose) out of a hole above its mouth to capture prey.

Presumably, that is what is going on here.

When not stretched out like an alien life form, the proboscis normally sits in “a fluid-filled chamber above the gut,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

And here’s a description of how it works from NCSU:

"When the animal senses a prey organism nearby, a circular muscle layer around the proboscis sheath rapidly and vigorously contracts. This contraction forces the fluid from the proboscis sheath into the proboscis and, in the process, literally turns it inside out, blowing it out of the proboscis sheath. The proboscis will rapidly (within a second or so) wrap itself around the prey, which is then drawn to the mouth and eaten."

from http://thedailywh.at/2015/05/nope-day-internet-disgusted-mystified-ribbon-worm/

I use slightly less than that myself on average, but we have solar water heating (supplemented with gas), so that's a good savings (especially since it also heats the hot tub), and we replaced all our light bulbs with led bulbs when they became feasible last year. Now, we usually read between 400 and 1000 watts during the day (depending on how many lights I have on, and if the refrigerator is cycled on or not.) That's running a big screen TV, computer, and often ps4 almost all day, every day. We also have electric stove and oven...and I weld, adding somewhat to our total.

Yes, my battery bank is only useful for power outages. It's enough to keep the lights on and the fridge from thawing, but not much else. We get about 3-4 hours out of it if I don't notice the power went out, but can make it all night if we conserve. Our system is grid tied, and first powers the home, then tops off the batteries, then sells any excess to PG&E. To date, I've never drawn the batteries down to zero...but we do have a small generator to supplement it when the power's out for days. The average home would certainly need more, but a 10kwh battery should be plenty to make it through an average night without AC (we don't have AC here).

My current system could not produce that much, but close. I live in N California, one of the foggiest areas in the US. Because we have a renter, an electric hot tub, dishwasher, and electric washer and drier, we use slightly more than we generate at this point, but my system is upgradeable to 6500 watts of generation (I have less than 1/3 of that now) when panels get cheaper...and when I can find space for more.

My system is not flat to my roof, and I have 2 strings of 8 panels. With the solar water tubes, it takes up most of the south 1/2 of my roof (1200 sq ft home). I could maybe fit 4 more panels up there and still be able to walk around them to clean them, but any more and I'll need some mounting structure. I really want to add a small wind turbine to generate at night or when there's a storm...solar doesn't work in the dark.

In America, we still have some rebates for people adding solar to their homes, but they are drying up fast. 15-20 years ago, you could almost do it for free if you got every rebate available.

We used to have about 1-2 weeks of power outage where I live per year, and that was part of why we did they system. We hated having no power and losing food every year, and also hated paying the ever rising cost of electricity. Before adding our system, we had $4-500 a month electric bills, now we have <$100 in winter and sometimes a negative bill in summer...we pay our bill once a year now, lump sum at the end of 12 months.
On to your second post....
I often think...electric cars were popular and the norm in cities before Ford came along. It's still astonishing to me that it was basically dropped for a century as a technology (with minor exceptions). I'm glad someone had finally gone back to it and is trying to fix it's issues. If I could afford a Tesla, I would have one.

I also agree, people won't adopt the technology as long as they have to sacrifice lifestyle for it. I said the same thing, but I found that I don't change my lifestyle at all with my solar system, I just pay lower bills. I determined that buying a system would pay for itself in under 10 years, with the lifespan of a system being about 20 years, that's 10 years of free electricity! That all assumes electric rates didn't go up, and they certainly have gone up...but not for me. You just need to be sure you install enough panels to supply all your power, and you're there.

The battery thing is really mostly for non-grid tied systems, or emergencies. Most people don't use batteries at night, it's simpler and cheaper to just sell power to the grid during the day and buy it back at night if you can, using them as your battery. Perhaps this battery will change that, but with lead acid, it's hard to make them worth the cost.

Panels aren't that expensive, really. In many areas, with rebates, they can be near free. (some companies will even give them to you and split the power generated off your roof). It's a myth that solar is expensive...when compared to non-solar. Mine are paid for by bill savings already (8 years + in) so I'm saving money with them now, and my lifestyle has not suffered in the least. I have lights on if its dark, I watch TV all day, and use the computer all day, have tons of electric devices I use, and soon will power a pond, etc. I often think that my life is a much better example of how you can be 'green' without much change than Gore's. He really doesn't seem to walk the walk, but he can sure talk the talk.

Breaking News: Cop does NOT shoot suspect.

While I think its a good thing that he didnt shoot, I'd go even further and complain that he did DRAW a gun. That might have been warranted in this situation, but it seems to be standard practice to draw the gun (accompanied by loud, aggressive shouting) as soon as possible. It seems to me that this tactic is inherently unhelpful on several levels, firstly it makes it much easier to end the situation by trigger-pulling, secondly, but perhaps more importantly, it heightens the tensions and the stakes. Someone who has a gun drawn on them will intutively react with a form of panic. This combination is a recipe for a lethal ending.

Naturally, I understand the fact that the police has a dangerous job, and sometimes the threat of lethal force is warranted, but the bar should be high. Very, very high.

Obviously I wasn't very clear, but I wasn't referring to the video. I was just imagining doing the animation myself and it offends my sensibilities for wasted time.

It makes me anxious thinking about how much time I'd waste in the day working on this video making each of those tiny, tiny movements. I don't know why the idea of doing this bothers me more than claymation or legonimation or normal drawn animation, but I guess it seems like more work, more trivial, and less worthwhile.

The only thing wrong with me is that I can read and parse a sentence, which inevitably puts me at odds with people like you. The comparison that is drawn is not between the severity of the crimes, but the insanity of putting expectations on an entirely inappropriate party to take responsibility. Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist critic and speaker, not a women's shelter. Just because she tries to speak out against the treatment of women in games and gaming media doesn't somehow put her on call to try to help every rape victim.

She flirted shamelessly with me throughout the rest of the show - and yes, she's all that.

As a side note - the vignetting effect in the video must be understated - I can't seem to recall noticing anyone (or anything) else during that song.

And - she's not bad. She's just - drawn that way.