You know, you'd think since they are making the sequel they would have the original on Netflix, but no. Time to fire up the torrent client.

I hate these vids that make me fire up my vpn. *blocked

IT'S FIRING UP ITS LAZ0RS!

Not that I think shooting into the air for minor reasons is a *good* idea, but the chances of it being dangerous to the point of killing (or even injuring) someone are really really low. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire

First of all, even in a densely populated city, the ratio of square meters of human-occupied space to unoccupied space is really low. So, you gotta be quite unlucky to have a bullet fired up land on a human instead of house / dirt / concrete / whatever.

Second, when the bullet comes down it won't be traveling at its muzzle velocity, but at its terminal falling velocity. Mythbusters did a test on that, as have various other sources, and most find that a bullet falling at terminal velocity isn't fast enough to kill unless you're outstandingly unlucky. Deaths have been recorded, but at a lower rate than, say, Hippos, pulling a Carradine, or having an icicle fall on your head.


I guess it is sorta like hailstones, which could potentially have relatively comparable mass, aerodynamic properties, and terminal velocities as bullets in some cases. I've been caught in a hailstorm before, and while it was enough to sting and be rather painful, it wasn't near strong enough to break the skin.


So, given all of that, IF it came down to a situation where a policeman has to show a dangerous assailant that they mean business and are willing to fire their weapon to resolve it, firing straight up into the air might potentially be a good way to accomplish that without immediately shooting to kill / injure the assailant. In some scenarios, possibly. NOT that a stopped car trying to dump drugs (via balloon or whatever else) is an example of such a scenario.

I always love the sounds of war vehicles firing up. She's a grand old dame.

Gonna haveta fire up HL2 and play through again, I don't remember this scene AT ALL.

I'm grateful and thankful every single morning i fire up my computer and begin my day on the sift. Thanks everyone for making it so enjoyable.

Nine years! Way to go @dag, @lucky760 and even you @siftbot

Has Rage Man ever considered running for office? I think he could really fire up a Tea Party rally!

@Trancecoach

I don't comment much at all for years, but I did just want to say that people complaining about politicians acting like elitists apparently don't recognize some very key facts about voters:

Most people want the government to spend more (take your pick whether it's favoring increased spending on social programs, or it's more spending on defense, etc.), yet want to be taxed less. Just that fact alone proves how stupid the general electorate is. An alarming portion of voters can't tell you accurately the difference between a Republican and a Democrat, don't understand how market forces are supposed to work, or even be able to recognize what is and isn't a socialist idea at its core.

I don't mean this as an attack on Democratic voting blocs specifically, nor Republican voting blocs. I mean this as an attack against the intellectual ability of most American voters. And when the voting public is that ignorant, ideologically blind, or just plain stupid, what do you think some people are going to do, regardless of their party's affiliation? They're gonna try to take advantage of it.

And doing things to hide key aspects of legislation in order to get support is hardly new, and hardly unique to either side. Explain to me how doing those things is any different than making ridiculous claims about Obamacare that have no bearing on reality different?

Remember those? They're gonna kill grandma! DEATH PANELS!

"Obamacare is a complete socialist takeover of the healthcare system!" That one just proves my point. The conservative right spent decades programming the American voting population to equate socialism as bad, when so many people don't even know what socialism actually is, and they did this despite numerous examples of when largely socialist policies have been resounding successes. Then they make a completely false claim that Obamacare is a complete socialist take over of the US health care system, when it isn't to fire up their voting blocs to oppose it, along with anyone else who is too stupid to know what "complete socialism" would actually look like in the health care system (hint: single payer), and who are stupid or ideologically blind enough to recognize successful largely socialist policies (like institutionalizing compulsory public education as a DUH example).

Where the hell was your outrage then? You think those (we'll call them) criticisms were coming out of voters spontaneously? No, they were thrown into the ring by GOP and conservative leaders as tools to manipulate public opinion into opposing Obamacare when they were flaming piles of bullcrap.

So either you're one of the idiots, or you're one of many partisans trying to spread your BS incredulity at the other side.

And to be clear, I'm not attacking you because you're a conservative. I'm attacking you because this is either hypocrisy or ideological blindness at its worst.

I thought the solution was rather obvious, actually.

You fix things by making games where people are portrayed as... people. Not trophies to be acquired, not sexual objects to be drooled over, and not stereotypes.

You couple that with continued criticism of games that continue to rely on sexist, racist, or homophobic tropes.

And guess what? That's already happening. People have been saying that games need to change for a while before Sarkeesian showed up. Bioware acknowledged the issues and started trying to include more realistic characters in its RPGs years ago--and caught flak for it even back then.

To address your other... points?

My daughter asked me the other day why she can't play as the princess in Super Mario Galaxy 2 (or any of the other Mario games we own). And I had to tell her it's because the Princess got kidnapped. Her response was to ask if she could play as the Princess once we freed her from Bowser. And I had to tell her no.

There is something wrong with that!

After having that conversation with my daughter I fired up Torchlight, where I'm currently playing as a Vanquisher. Vanquisher's are rogue-like ranged characters and can only be female. If you want to be a warrior ("Destroyer" in game terms) or magic user ("Alchemist" in game terms), sorry--it's a men's only club. And not only that, but Vanquisher's--regardless of the armor they wear, must bare their midriff and wearing a mini-skirt showing lots of leg and cleavage (do a google image search for Torchlight Vanquisher to see what I'm talking about). Apparently you can't be a Vanquisher without being a sex pot too.

There is something wrong with that! (To be fair, they got better with Torchlight II and allowed any class to be any gender and allowed the women to cover up with armor OR choose to be sexy).

Society doesn't just change by itself. You're right, society is becoming more accepting of diversity--because people are fighting very hard for it.

Take America's attitude towards homosexuality. Look at the strides made in the last 20 years. That didn't just magically happen. There were TV shows that portrayed homosexuals as human beings worthy of respect. There were lawsuits. There were marches and protests. There were speeches. There were YouTube campaigns like "It gets better." A lot of people worked fucking hard to get the message out that bigotry is not okay.

Look, I'm sorry people pointing out to you how fucked up it is how women are sometimes portrayed in games is somehow ruining your ability to enjoy games. But there are serious problems here. Maybe not problems for you, but problems for people like my daughter.

The solution to these problems is not to lambast the people pointing them out. Nor is the solution to sit back and do nothing and hope it all works out for the best. One solution, as I've already stated, is to be openly critical of the messages contained in ALL media (including games). Another solution is to be vocal about the need for more realistic and diverse portrayals of people in ALL media (including games).

You can still have your Damsel/Dude in Distress trope, by the way. I have no doubt lazy developers will continue to use it as a substitute for meaningful story. Just don't expect people not to call out the utter absurdity of it, is all I'm saying.

I'm viewing it from the main page (http://videosift.com/video/Beastie-Boys-Vs-The-Muppets). It plays on YouTube directly. I'm in the US.

Edit: I just fired up Tor Browser and it plays on this page from an IP address in Luxembourg. Is YouTube restricting things now to certain states?

@ChaosEngine

If anything, it's an indication of just how polarised view points really are between generally republican and democrat positions.

I'm sure as an industry body, slanting their PR convention towards aligning with conservative values was calculated based on solid data that said that the number of socially liberal supporters they alienate will be vastly outnumbered by the conservative supporters they can fire up.

Hapless birdlies' do it every day somewhere, zor....In turbine terminology it's called BASH (Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard) and on average about 65% of bird strikes cause little or no damage. A whole flock can seriously flock-up an engine though...

Looks like pilot ill-communication with ground crew or careless pilot-Guy on the ground probably didn't know the engine was about to be fired-up-There was after-all a cone in front of the right turbine already. He was cautious not to walk directly into the front of that thing, as entire humans have been sucked-into jet turbines in the history of their use...some have survived even after being spit-out the other side I've heard (though I don't believe it).

Took this from your fb. Thanks to you and to much caffeine im now all fired up.
http://videosift.com/video/Man-Escapes-5-Yr-Sentence-After-Dash-Cam-Footage-Clears-Him

-edit-
while im at it i though you might enjoy a good story about takin a shit.
http://videosift.com/video/Just-talkin-bout-shit-Joe-Rogan

Why would I?? Because after i was banned as choggie I was canned with no recourse but to lurk and read the COMPLETE HORSESHIT the mob talked about me with me having no way to defend myself...I was righteously pissed. You obviously are not a student of history here, i don't forget shit, but I DO FORGIVE.

Plus, the sift needs a douche of all the wholesale crap that got posted during that bogus election, and I'd love to see the AWOL unseated from prominent places.....get some perspective instead of talking more shit perhaps>???

How about cleaning up some tired dead rhetoric on the sift and gang-up on someone who isn't sincere, thoughtful, and full of empathy.\??
TO answer your question directly Sarzy, "Because I CAN and will to do so.

I miss a lotta folk here, especially the ones who slinked-off after they fired-up torches against me and then passive-aggressively bailed when I was allowed to return..Believe me, i extended olive branches to some of the worst of offenders here. ...and they call ME a hater-

NR admitted he was shill....and I have made ammends with his old-lady

Yo u need some context before you startin' with the same program...I love everybody, it simply looks like shit to some.

Can't stand pep-rally mentalities, and won't suffer charlatans with a single program.

That's why-