not a dupe, but see also: http://videosift.com/video/Skeletons-Having-Sex-on-a-Tin-Roof

Haven't noticed it myself, although all I see are skeletons.

>> ^shveddy:
@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.
@shinyblurry - Give me a non-macroevolutionary reason that junk mutations in Cytochrome C just happen follow a clear developing and branching pattern that just happens to coincide perfectly with those independently developed by scores of other disciplines (such as embryology, paleontology and so on) as well as those based on hundreds of other non-coding markers (such as viral DNA insertions and transposons, to name a few).
If you can give me an answer that can account for these coincidences, does so without macroevolution, and indicates that you actually took the time to understand the concepts I listed above, then I'll take the time to write a much more exhaustive response as to why you're wrong.


Hmm, your statement is littered with all sorts of inaccurate information.

Okay, first of all, this idea of "junk dna" is dying a slow death:

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/28/32C04/

Contrary to your assertion, so-called junk dna is functional. And the idea of viral DNA insertions is completely ruled out when this "random" DNA turns out not to be so random after all, and serving very specific purposes. The idea, created in ignorance, exists mainly as a fudge factor for the evolutionary paradigm. The problem for evolutionists is that natural selection cannot produce enough mutations to account for the millions it needs in the 300,000 generations it took for humans to evolve. It's a lot easier to come up those numbers when 95 percent of the genome is "junk".

Second, molecular and morphological phylogenies are often wildly divergent. This is from an Article in nature magazine subtitled:

"Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology. Can the two ever be reconciled, asks Trisha Gura"

"When biologists talk of the ‘evolution wars’, they usually mean the ongoing battle for supremacy in American schoolrooms between Darwinists and their creationist opponents. But the phrase could also be applied to a debate that is raging within systematics. On one side stand traditionalists who have built evolutionary trees from decades of work on species' morphological characteristics. On the other lie molecular systematists, who are convinced that comparisons of DNA and other biological molecules are the best way to unravel the secrets of evolutionary history. . . .

Battles between molecules and morphology are being fought across the entire tree of life. Perhaps the most intense are in vertebrate systematics, where molecular biologists are challenging a tradition that relies on studies of fossil skeletons and the bones and soft tissue of living species. . . .

So can the disparities between molecular and morphological trees ever be resolved? Some proponents of the molecular approach claim there is no need. The solution, they say, is to throw out morphology, and accept their version of the truth. “Our method provides the final conclusion about phylogeny,” claims Okada. Shared ancestry means a genetic relationship, the molecular camp argues, so it must be better to analyse DNA and the proteins it encodes, rather than morphological characters that can end up looking similar as a result of convergent evolution in unrelated groups, rather than through common descent. But morphologists respond that convergence can also happen at the molecular level, and note there is a long history of systematists making large claims based on one new form of evidence, only to be proved wrong at a later date"

They are so divergent that two camps have emerged in systematics, each claiming their phylogenies are more accurate. So your claim that Cytochrome C matches "scores" of different phylogenies is patently false, since hardly any of them agree. If want to say that isn't true, please provide the evidence. Note that "scores" means at least 40.

Third, creation theory predicts a hierarchical pattern, so finding one isn't going to falsify creationism or prove common descent. Especially in the case of the phylogeny of Cytochrome C, which has no intermediates or transitionals to be found. You do also realize that a common design can be explained by a common designer? It could simply be the case that Cytochrome C was tailored for different groups according to individual specifications, which then diverged futher by mutations. If your response is that Cytochrome C functions the same way in all life, my response is that the differences could be for coding other proteins.

Before I go any further, I would ask you to support your claims. Show me the specific data you're talking about so I can rebut it.

>> ^taranimator:

I never get tired of watching these.
Hey, how come they're always such a sausage-fest?
Why no chix?


Friggin' tragic, I know. Simple muscle-to-mass physics; these guys are at the cutting edge of what strength and speed can do to the human skeleton. If guys had boobs and hips, they couldn't do these moves either.

These guys are probably 4% body fat. A crazy psycho athletic woman or toothpick-like ballet dancer is probably 16% body fat, and experiencing health problems; most really fit women are around 20%. It's not their fault.

I don't get how people can enjoy this when the AI is so terrible and the way they move is totally stupid it brakes all immersion in the game.

The combat system in the game is also terrible ( i know he was playing silly but when playing normaly its still rubish)



Untill AI is decent or they design the levels and spawning of characters around the fact that AI is shit then I have no motivation to play.

Muds and txt adventures play better and are more immersive than this even Doss based old school RPGs where you r in a dingoin and you just click left right forwards and backwards are more immmersive than this. simply because they are consistent and the parts that are gamey are abstract with no reference points in reality keeping the suspension of disbelief going.



I mean look how the tiger rotates on its back legs or how the skeletons are walking into walls or stood behind him doing nothing that shit happens constantly through the game, If the game cannot do real time combat properly then they should abstract it in a way that can work with today's technology.

allso why make a game thats largely bassed on hand to hand combat and then have a combat system that consists litraly of move forwards and click to atack and then move back to avoid getting hit. Granted they tried to put emphasis on a spell system to cover that up and give the player stuff to upgrade but combat using spells is hardly challenging and still mostly consists of simple attack retreat, It really says something when games like thief which came out in 1998 have a far superior core game play . More recently games like Mount & Blade: Warband show how its possable to have realy good hand to hand combat and the Warband mechanics would work especially well in a game like skyrim.

I guess the devs dont have to worry about the core game play becuse players are happy to put up with utter shit so long as there is X task to do and Y reward for it , Game play could be walking around clicking on hedges for all they care , so long as the graphics are nice and the environments are well made.

>> ^Efflixi:

Wait a sec... that thing is from 1993? Almost 20 years ago? What do we have today to rival that?


Where did he find that thing!???! Must have dug it up with some dinosaur skeletons. Fucking Ancient.

That's why I love/miss October, when the chained-up skeleton wearing a cheerleader outfit in my one's trunk once again becomes a "party prop".


>> ^Yogi:

>> ^quantumushroom:
Agreed. Likely fake. I don't think you need to mention a warrant in these situations, simply say, "I do not give consent to a search of my vehicle." If Officer wants to search after that, he better have a damned good reason. Typically, anything he can see by simply looking in the windows does not require permission.
>> ^moodonia:
Sorry to be a party pooper and deploy the f-word but isnt this fake? I read somewhere these two guys are both police officers and got into trouble for making these videos when they should have been working...


Yeah like when they get people together to "search" cars for missing teenagers. Happened when I was down in San Diego...girls just at a gas station handed me a flier of the missing girl and had a look in the window of my car.

Every candidate has to face his or her skeletons once they reach a certain level of prominence. I know many want to believe this is a conspiracy to silence Ron Paul, and that Ron Paul is incapable of doing anything wrong, but this is a legitimate issue. Profiting off a newsletter full of racist rhetoric does not speak well of a person seeking the highest office in the country. I think it's complete bullshit when he says he had no idea what was written in those newsletters. Are we really to believe that no friend, family member or newsletter subscriber ever said, "Oh hey, Ronnie, there was some disturbing racist stuff in your last newsletter. Did you really write that?"?

Its called Skeleton because thats all thats left when you reach the bottom of the course.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Did-helmet-make-a-difference-in-skeleton-win-?urn=oly-221015

The camera definitely is pointing down more than it was. But looking at the photo in the link, the helmet must have been skiding on the ice at the end...

>> ^taranimator:

I dunno... While I appreciate all the flashier leaps and bounds made in robotics as you mention, the most exciting developments can often be more subtle. The little squid-like creature that moves by injecting air into its limbs and can fit under doors, for example, looks like nothing to most people but it actually has huge possibilities for future applications.
http://videosift.com/video/Robot-Without-a-Skeleton-Inspir
ed-by-Squid-Crawls-On-Land
Facial recognition, object recognition, all that jazz will take a long time to develop into something practical. In the meantime I think it's ok just to be amused by something so basic as not knowing how to decipher a mirror image. Remember back when Big Dog's precursors and other walking bots were hilariously inept? They're getting better all the time. The progression is what makes it cool.



yeah the projects you mentioned are all the things that I think are worth while , my point is really that there is no benefit taking this project out of a desktop pc might as well spend the time developing the software rather than arsing around sending it to a small pc in a shit robot.

My guess would be that he is developing some sort of kids toy with it which could work out ok.

the other video title is a perfect example of what annoys me "Robot becoming self aware?" just because its in a case with eyes and it can move around people and the media often think of it as a massive thing , where as certain things like Google are doing with there AI back end or the AI in some games is infinetly more intelligent and "aware" ( although obviously not aware at all) yet that gets ignored because its not in a cute plastic case.

I dunno... While I appreciate all the flashier leaps and bounds made in robotics as you mention, the most exciting developments can often be more subtle. The little squid-like creature that moves by injecting air into its limbs and can fit under doors, for example, looks like nothing to most people but it actually has huge possibilities for future applications.
http://videosift.com/video/Robot-Without-a-Skeleton-Inspired-by-Squid-Crawls-On-Land

Facial recognition, object recognition, all that jazz will take a long time to develop into something practical. In the meantime I think it's ok just to be amused by something so basic as not knowing how to decipher a mirror image. Remember back when Big Dog's precursors and other walking bots were hilariously inept? They're getting better all the time. The progression is what makes it cool.

I read about this the other day:

http://news.yahoo.com/gumby-flexible-robot-crawls-tight-spaces-200129817.html

excerpt:

Harvard scientists have built a new type of flexible robot that is limber enough to wiggle and worm through tight spaces.

It's the latest prototype in the growing field of soft-bodied robots. Researchers are increasingly drawing inspiration from nature to create machines that are more bendable and versatile than those made of metal.

The Harvard team, led by chemist George M. Whitesides, borrowed from squids, starfish and other animals without hard skeletons to fashion a small, four-legged rubber robot that calls to mind the clay animation character Gumby.

I think everybody wants to see a dog dragging a skeleton as it fires randomly in all directions.

I swear, at 1:40, she realizes, "Hey... this guy is full of shit."

Two years of throwing globs of clay at a wire skeleton with fishing net floats... Wow. I thought politics was easy money...