>> ^quantumushroom:

The deliberate Uncertainty created by this corrupt regime is fking everything up. There's two trillion dollars in the hands of the people that is parked (you read that right, two TRILLION) waiting for two events: the Supreme Court's decision on obamacare and the election.

For the sake of argument, let's say your basic point is right and uncertainty about government is the only reason that $2 trillion is "parked," and the people who actually control what's done with that money bear zero responsibility for the damage their choices are wreaking on the economy.

Even if I, for the sake of argument only, stipulate all that as true, why does only Obama bear responsibility for that uncertainty? Using your own logic, if Republicans put the well-being of the country before their own ambition, they would restore certainty by a) dropping their suit against the ACA, and b) letting Obama run unopposed in the 2012 election.

Certainly that would restore "certainty" to the markets.

Now, if what you really meant was that the so-called "job creators" are intentionally fucking over the economy in order to a) put pressure on the SCOTUS to rule against the ACA, and b) try to get a Republican into the White House, why is Obama the villain in your story? Clearly if that's the case, then these people formerly known as job creators are actually terrorists who deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
>> ^quantumushroom:
It's certainly true that certain companies legally pay no taxes, and they grease the palms of BOTH parties. But why do these companies (as well as everyone else) NEED lobbyists? Because the government is too big and too powerful.

Right, if it weren't for the government, corporations would be free to collect their own taxes from people, and make their own laws directly without any need to go through the pretense of democratic process.

You know, Utopia!

Again, even if I accept your basic premise, your logic is still flawed. If I bribe a bank security guard to look the other way while I rob his bank, the right response to that is to say "that bank should be more careful about who it hires" not "the entire practice of banking should be abolished."

Same for you and government -- if you don't like corporations buying influence in our government, you should be trying to find a way to limit their opportunities to do so (like campaign finance reform), or voting for people who are a lot less cozy with business than the people you like to vote for.

As for "make government smaller," that's no solution. All that does is create a power vacuum, one corporations step in to fill themselves. It doesn't level the playing field, it tilts it even more towards the people who already run things now.

If you're interested in getting out from under the thumb of people with too much power, you need to focus your sights on trying to reduce income and wealth disparity, and help try to return us to a more egalitarian society, rather than going out and trying to help the rich and powerful fuck us all over.

True - that lazy work. The model with her eyes closed and looking down is made into something entirely different. Someones head tilt is entirely shifted.

In reply to this comment by FlowersInHisHair:
If anything, this video makes me consider how photo-editing software is used to cover up for bad and/or lazy photography (particularly lighting, which is most of the "before" shots is generally very poorly thought-out), not just to modify the appearance of the subject.

Well... Their diagram is a little funny. I think you could do it if the car or track was a superconductor, but I don't see the reason to make both superconducting.

Superconductors levitate by generating an equal and opposite magnetic field outside the superconductor to expel the magnetic flux inside (think Lenz's Law). The Meissner Effect is naively perfect diamagnetism.

I look at this and think it is totally doable. If you want I can send the video to guy I know that studies superconductors. I think most physicists would probably say that you could make this.

>> ^dannym3141:

Pretty sure that's possible, i don't care to speculate how in an engineering fashion, but sure, you can get them to follow a track and even suspend them upside down if you like, i don't how well they can stick to the track during fast turns, perhaps you'd need to tilt the surface gradually.
I assume it'd be easier to cool the track rather than the cars, otherwise you're gonna have to wire up the cars to deliver coolant which would destroy the point. The idea of nitrogen gas coming out of the tiny cars for the whole video is a bit of a suggestion it's not real. That's assuming he was putting nitrogen in the car in that weird pipe.
Shit, they do stuff similar to this with trains full of people in some places. Probably a bit of a tamer ride because of the much higher masses involved.
(I study physics, but maybe someone knows more than me about the current progress on all that)

It's not toodifficult to be upside down like that with a dry suit. When you're first learning to dive with a dry suit it's actually a bit difficult to master NOT doing that. Any excess air within the suit will tend to bubble up to the highest point of the suit, so if you just tilt a little, the air will go to your feet, and turn you vertical.

That would USUALLY be fairly bad technique unless you were intentially trying to keep your fins away from the bottom while you were looking at something or gathering something, etc. It's more difficult to control your buoyancy and assecnt/descent rate, but since they're just bumping against the ice, that's a non-factor.

All that said, it's probably pretty difficult to make it LOOK normal while upside down performing all those actions.

Pretty sure that's possible, i don't care to speculate how in an engineering fashion, but sure, you can get them to follow a track and even suspend them upside down if you like, i don't how well they can stick to the track during fast turns, perhaps you'd need to tilt the surface gradually.

I assume it'd be easier to cool the track rather than the cars, otherwise you're gonna have to wire up the cars to deliver coolant which would destroy the point. The idea of nitrogen gas coming out of the tiny cars for the whole video is a bit of a suggestion it's not real. That's assuming he was putting nitrogen in the car in that weird pipe.

Shit, they do stuff similar to this with trains full of people in some places. Probably a bit of a tamer ride because of the much higher masses involved.

(I study physics, but maybe someone knows more than me about the current progress on all that)

*fake depth-of-field/tilt-shift photoshop-filter fail.

One more for your playlist: http://videosift.com/video/How-to-Photograph-with-Shallow-Depth-of-Field

Maybe we could use a *photography channel.

In reply to this comment by notarobot:
Thanks, @lucky760, this is a great addition to my photography playlist. :

@ponceleon, yes this is a real effect that you see with real lenses. The tilt shift lenses made by Nikon and Canon like the one above mimic the motions possible using a large format view camera. By allowing both the film and lens plane to be manipulated by the photographer, it is possible to do some really interesting things like having an apparent infinite focus and perfect parallels.

I had to use a 4x5 camera (like this one) for an assignment back when I was doing my photography program. I can tell you that the image quality you get with a big sheet of film is unparalleled among digital cameras. Plus big 4x5 view cameras are a lot of fun to use.

@sixshot, yes, PC (perspective control) lenses that allow tilt/shift movements are incredibly expensive, buy not really much more than any other high-end 35mm lenses these days. (The last lens I bought for my system retails for about $2400.) It's true that photoshop can imitate some of what is possible with these leses, but digital imitation is never as good as the real thing.

It might be interesting to note that it's possible to pick up 4x5 view camera system (on ebay) capable of these motions AND a professional film scanner (new) to digitize your images for less money than the PC lens shown in this infomercial.

Nice video, didn't know that 'actual' uses of a tilt shift, only the cool model effect.

The voice over lady is terrible though, sounds like an infomercial for sanitary pads.

>> ^notarobot:

Thanks, @lucky760, this is a great addition to my photography playlist.


Excellent. Here's another for your playlist:
http://videosift.com/video/Sun-Backlit-Portrait-Photography-Proper-Exposure-with-Flash

if I recall correctly, these tilt-shift lens are hella expensive. So I think that for the most of us who can't get an actual tilt-shift lens that we end up photoshopping some of the pics to get the same effect.

Pulls a Neo? She tilted her head slightly...

I figure they had to have laid it down and got all the air out, then tilted it upwards and put it on underwater blocks/feet.

Pumping air out wouldn't work that well, pumping water in would not work very well.

>> ^BoneyD:

How much load can be exerted on a mass that is 'locked' in place like that?
i.e. Could this be a way to make super sweet hover bikes and cars a reality??


For the demonstration, not much imo. The guy had no difficulty adjust the 'locked' item with his hand, which can't be exerting a terrible amount of force.

Scaling up in size is another matter (and totally outside my area of simple deductive logic ; ), I would imagine as your super conductor blocks get bigger you could indeed support much higher weights.

It's interesting though, I wonder how a train, for example, would go around corners? Would the track need to be curved, as the superconductor is locked in a certain aspect to the track ie. like a toboggan? At the serious speeds an air friction only train could travel at, not tilting in to relative shallow corners might cause some serious in cabin 'passenger migration' issues if the train didn't lean in to the corner. *grin*

But yeah, that is some cool (no bad pun intended) shit right there.

His head tilts as the Call of the Wild instinct is rewritten for more cultured future generations.