This scene is great for many reasons. They originally filmed the scene with the cameras away from the actors, and shot it like candid camera. Apparently, they hired an actual police officer (in the scene) to double as a bodyguard for the actors.

And this quoted information below comes from:
http://mario.lapam.mo.it/films/st4.htm

William Shatner: "Look closely at the scenes in which Chekov grills random passers-by as to how he might find the nearest 'nuclear wessels,' and you'll notice that he's most often soliciting that advice from real-life, unrehearsed, slightly shocked pedestrians. Their resultant looks of incredulity are quote genuine, as most of them just assumed that Walter was simply out of his mind."

Leonard Nimoy: "Up walked this woman with long, dark hair, whom none of us had ever seen before. She paused to listen to Walter, then said helpfully, 'I think they're across the Bay, in Alameda.' Her reaction was so ingenuous and perfect that we included her in the shot, and wound up negotiating a contract with her, so that we could pay her for talking. It was a wonderful accident, from our perspective as well as hers."

This kind of creativeness and ingenuity should not go unrecognized,
Upvote!

He just needs a good set of paints to put the final touches on the cardboard.

upvote for the rolling tire, even mobs can show ingenuity sometimes

Love the rake holding up the roof.
Pure ingenuity.

States and local governments can run schools without any federal help, and they did in the past. Most public schools get only a small percentage of their funding from the federal government. Local boards of education are elected locally without much interference by the federal government.

As soon as any school takes so much as a penny from the federal mafia, they are forced to play by the feds' rules. And even if they don't, they are weighted down by edicts from on high, including the NCLB baloney. Local schools boards with electable positions? Sounds like more of the same-o. Compulsory state education means no ingenuity or merit for finding better ways to teach and learn; making sure everyone is doing the exact same thing even when it doesn't work. Schools should be like restaurants...with many trying to make it and the most successful doing so by offering something of measurable quality.

Show me competitive private services that can deliver your letters anywhere in the USA for 41 cents and I'll support your plan to scrap the USPS. There's nothing preventing Fedex and UPS from trying that right now, except that they can't do it that cheap.

Actually, the post office monopoly prevents FedEx and UPS from delivering any letter-sized envelope for the present rate or less; one of postal inspectors' major tasks is to make sure their monopoly is protected by spying on UPS and FedEx. You wouldn't have to disband the post office, just by ridding its artificial barrier I think it would die out on its own.

Your argument against the infrastructure and such has some merit, I'm sure it was used when FedEx got started. Yet here they are, competing with one of the world's largest government boondoggles. FedEx and UPS either turn a profit or die. The USPS, without any incentive to do better, loses BILLIONS of dollars every year. They would not last a year without the law.

This is the same congress that pays a chaplain tens of thousands of dollars a year to lead a prayer every time Congress is called in to session. This is the same congress that almost unanimously passed a condemnation of Newdow's legal attempt to restore the Pledge of Allegiance to its pre-1954 version (the Pledge didn't say "under God" before 1954). This is the same congress that funds Bush's OFBCI. The supreme court has been very clear that students can pray by themselves as much as they want on their own lunch break but official prayer-times when taxpayer-funded teachers entice students to pray are unconstitutional.

And these are things that truly offend you and depreciate the quality of your life? Freedom FROM religion is a gross distortion of the Founders' intent. Tyranny of the minority. I hate to say it like this, but atheism does not represent something "better" than religion. It doesn't offer any moral foundation or transmit societal values. That's why IMAO, there's never been a successful majority atheist society (I'm aware of). I write this as a former atheist. I know what is to be gained by being free of superstition, but I also know society is extremely fragile, and will die without its delusions. If atheists succeed in "getting rid" of religion, life will be worse for them as well.

We're in far more danger of becoming a socialist state than a theocracy. It may happen peacefully and even "legally" if enough people are convinced (to their detriment) that socialism is the way to go.

Those aren't even mutually exclusive. Jesus Christ was a socialist. Jesus Christ gave all kinds of handouts to the poor and asked something in return. He asked people to give all they could to the church and the poor. That's a taxing-and-spending entitlement system. Huckabee, the Christian fundamentalist, was also in agreement with the Democrats on most economic issues. Iran, which is officially a Theocracy ruled by the Ayatollah, also heavily subsidizes the cost of food, which you might call Socialist.

Jesus gave handouts but did not take them from others by force beforehand. He asked people to give, but did not threaten or curse them for not doing so. Most importantly, Jesus did not ever say that government's role is providing the means to help the poor.

Despite its failures due to humans being imperfect, (moderately regulated) free market capitalism has done more to lift the poor out of poverty than any other system. And I'm speaking from near the bottom of the ladder, my friend. I know times is tight for you too right now...

In reply to this comment by jwray:

that was was, indeed, very fuckin' cool.
fran's non-portable-bagpipe-soundin' ingenuity gets a big thumbs up.

i'd have promoted, but carlin got the twofer.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
Engineering geeks should be proud of this fellow's ingenuity.

despite the huge waste of resources. "Do it because we can" is the engineering motto.

*Engineering *geeks should be proud of this fellow's ingenuity.

>> ^Raigen:
The standard response for seeing such a waste of ingenuity, resources and money should be:
Still no cure for Cancer.
No stem cell treatment.
No interstellar travel and interplanetary colonisation.
No end to poverty.
No end to hunger.
Oh yeah, and no end to poor, deluded, low-brows that sit at home watching this tripe going "heh, ehehehe, hehehehe, hehehe, it went 'bang' and blowded something up".
I won't downvote, but I certainly won't upvote.


Oh, right. I forgot that NASA'a Jet Propulsion Laboratory doesn't exist. And for someone who thinks we need to focus on Humanity's problems (hunger, cancer, poverty) What the fuck do we need intersteller travel for?

>> ^Raigen:
The standard response for seeing such a waste of ingenuity, resources and money should be:
Still no cure for Cancer.
No stem cell treatment.
No interstellar travel and interplanetary colonisation.
No end to poverty.
No end to hunger.
Oh yeah, and no end to poor, deluded, low-brows that sit at home watching this tripe going "heh, ehehehe, hehehehe, hehehe, it went 'bang' and blowded something up".
I won't downvote, but I certainly won't upvote.

Well excuse us for being so beneath your mighty solutions to world problems. Perhaps when you live in an ideal world your ideal wishes will be granted.

The standard response for seeing such a waste of ingenuity, resources and money should be:

Still no cure for Cancer.
No stem cell treatment.
No interstellar travel and interplanetary colonisation.
No end to poverty.
No end to hunger.

Oh yeah, and no end to poor, deluded, low-brows that sit at home watching this tripe going "heh, ehehehe, hehehehe, hehehe, it went 'bang' and blowded something up".

I won't downvote, but I certainly won't upvote.

Noyce! If you think this is clever you should check out the Crab Canon from my most favourite book in the world Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadetr.

Crab Canon
----------

Achilles and the Tortoise happen upon each other
in the park one day while strolling.

Tortoise: Good day, Mr. A.
Achilles: Why, same to you.
Tortoise: So nice to run into you.
Achilles: That echoes my thoughts.
Tortoise: And it's a perfect day for a walk. I think I'll be walking home
soon.
Achilles: Oh, really? I guess there's nothing better for you than walking.
Tortoise: Incidentally, you're looking in fine fettle these days, I must
say.
Achilles: Thank you very much.
Tortoise: Not at all. Here, care for one of my cigars?
Achilles: Oh, you are such a philistine. In this area, the Dutch contribu-
tions are of markedly inferior taste, don't you think?
Tortoise: I disagree, in this case. But speaking of taste, I finally saw that
Crab Canon by your favorite artist, M.C. Escher, in a gallery the other
day, and I fully appreciate the beauty and ingenuity with which he
made one single theme mesh with itself going both backwards and
forwards. But I am afraid I will always feel Bach is superior to Escher.
Achilles: I don't know. But one thing for certain is that I don't worry about
arguments of taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.
Tortoise: Tell me, what's it like to be your age? Is it true that one has no
worries at all?
Achilles: To be precise one has no frets.
Tortoise: Oh, well, it's all the same to me.
Achilles: Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.
Tortoise: Say, don't you play the guitar?
Achilles: That's my good friend. He often plays, the fool. But I myself
wouldn't touch a guitar with a ten-foot pole.
(Suddenly the Crab, appearing from out of nowhere, wanders up ex-
citedly, pointing to a rather prominent black eye.)

Crab: Hallo! Hullo! What's up? What's new? You see this bump, this
from Warsaw - a collosal bear of a man - playing a lute. He was three
meters tall, if I'm a day. I mosey on up to the chap, reach skyward and
manage to tap him on the knee, saying, "Pardon me, sir, but you are
Pole-luting our park with your mazurkas." But WOW! he had no sense
of humor - not a bit, not a wit - and POW! - he lets loose and belts me
one, smack in the eye! Were it in my nature, I would crab up a storm,
but in the time-honored tradition of my species, I backed off. After all,
when we walk forwards, we move backwards. It's in our genes, you
know, turning round and round. That reminds me - I've always
wondered, "which came first - the Crab or the Gene?" That
is to say, "Which came last - the Gene, or the Crab?" I'm always
turning things round and round, you know. It's in our genes, after
all. When we walk backwards we move forwards. Ah me, oh my!
I must lope along on my merry way - so off I go on such a fine day.
Sing "ho!" for the life of a Crab! TATA! Ole!

(And he disappears as suddenly as he arrived.)

Tortoise: That's my good friend. He often plays, the fool. But I myself
wouldn't touch a ten-foot Pole with a guitar.
Achilles: Say, don't you play the guitar?
Tortoise: Fiddle. It makes a big difference, you know.
Achilles: Oh, well, it's all the same to me.
Tortoise: To be precise one has no frets.
Achilles: Tell me, what's it like to be your age? Is it true that one has no
worries at all?
Tortoise: I don't know. But one thing for certain is that I don't worry about
arguments of taste. Disputandum non est de gustibus.
Achilles: I disagree, in this case. But speaking of taste, I finally heard that
Crab Canon by your favorite composer, J.S. Bach, in a concert the
other day, and I fully appreciate the beauty and ingenuity with which
he made one single theme mesh with itself going both backwards and
forwards. But I am afraid I will always feel Escher is superior to Bach.
Tortoise: Oh, you are such a philistine. In this area, the Dutch contribu-
tions are of markedly inferior taste, don't you think?
Achilles: Not at all. Here, care for one of my cigars?
Tortoise: Thank you very much.
Achilles: Incidentally, you're looking in fine fettle these days, I must
say.
Tortoise: Oh, really? I guess there's nothing better for you than walking.
Achilles: And it's a perfect day for a walk. I think I'll be walking home
soon.
Tortoise: That echoes my thoughts.
Achilles: So nice to run into you.
Tortoise: Why, same to you.
Achilles: Good day, Mr. A.

Upvote for the historical educational value, and because it's a classical story of individual ingenuity triumphing over corporate bureaucracy. Vive la black speck!

Very interesting video, and I think it brings up points that are agreeably logical. There are some things I tend to disagree with, especially the idea of space babies being born once they land. Um...birth control? That knocks that idea out of the water, as the idea of impregnating an astronaut 10,000,000 miles from Earth is only slightly more irresponsible (and preventable when proper relations are had) than doing so whilst on terra firma. The cost projections are also assumed on the 1970's missions, and I wouldn't want to see any human attempting to go to Mars for at least 50-100 years when the technology (and decreased costs) may literally pushes us to do so. There are possible propulsion systems that can cut the travel time to less than a month (unlikely but I discourage pessimism in technology), and the money would be better spent working on the holy grail of rapid transit- and most important of all a Moon base to stage these missions. Taking inflation into account can cut down the costs, and seeing a U.S. population of 700 million in the near future could make it much more feasible. And that's assuming the U.S. is doing this alone just to drop a flag on the surface. 5 trillion isn't too bad for the entire community of Earth to scrounge up if there is a collective will and incentive to do so. The Moon could become a capitalist's dream land and that would open up the possibility of traveling to Mars for pure exploratory purposes. I am optimistic about the future and think that the restraints we are bound to now can be lifted if human ingenuity has anything to say about it. It still takes that first step and the risk-taking Colombus to plant the seeds of exploration (thankfully only rocks can be raped and diseased this time), and the rest falls into place (travel time between the continents went from months to hours, an infeasible feat according to the greatest minds and technology of the 15th century). I foresee exponential growth in humanity (if the past 100 years have taught us anything) and it will just take time to do the rest. So long as we don't all kill each other, we are destined for great things.

Whether Americans are truly interested in world events or whether they would say yes to a blanket question about it are two different matters entirely. If you looking comparatively to test marketing, consumers usually do not appreciate ingenuity before it becomes a status quo. Take the walkman, test marketers said they would have no use for it. Now, moreso than ever, you are given a plentiful smorgasbord of world news providers via the internet, to the extent that what big networks provide is virtually irrelevant as a proportion of total media coverage. This is huge change from 50, even 20 years ago.

TV media companies are simply providing what the average television is interested in, what catches their attention and keeps them tuned in. Sure, you could argue they perpetuate ignorance, but they are simply following the basic forces of capitalism and profit maximisation.

Whether they are the chicken or the egg is irrelevant. As I see it, the very expectation that a corporation will make an about turn and pursue an altruistic and presumably unprofitable market catering to a niche interest is no better than blaming MCD for making you fat.