>> ^Ryjkyj:
You know my feelings on the subject Shiny, but there's one thing I appreciate about this video: his rant about how the rich are not getting into heaven. I've heard all sorts of different interpretations and people trying to "translate out" their own beliefs in Matthew 19:24, but I just can't see it in any other way than: "If you have it, give it all away. You can't take it with you and we certainly aren't taking it into account when you get here."

Far from bashing Christians (and I know I'm ignorant where the bible is concerned), I agree with and support this particular idea. It frustrates me to know end when I hear people try to rationalize their selfish excess.

The idea of the rich rarely being saved is well supported by scripture. First, I think Jesus couldn't have been more clear about it in Matthew 19:23:

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven"

However, I do not believe this is a condemnation against having wealth in general. Rather, I think is a condemnation against those who use their riches for selfish gain and not for the greater good. This interpretation supported by James 5:1-6

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.

Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.

It is condemning those rich who have lived in luxury and in self-indulgence, who have gained by cheating more righteous people of their just due. It even rises to the level of murder in Gods eyes, perhaps because of the impact of a poor person losing even a few days wages could be fatal.

This is illustrated even more plainly in the Parable of the Rich Fool

13Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

16And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

God is condemning greed here, and this is something we can see is nigh universal with the rich. Too much is never enough for many of them. But what this is saying is that it is not money itself, it is the love of money that is the issue:

1 Timothy 6:9-10

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows

The love of money is a snare and a temptation to people. It is what you can call a false idol, because those who pursue riches cannot serve God:

Matthew 6:24

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.


It comes down to what you love; God or the world, and whatever you love more, your heart will be in that:

Matthew 6:19-21

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also

That's why Jesus posed these two questions:

Matthew 16:25-26

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Steve Jobs is a good example of this. He had about as much money, power, celebrity and accomplishment as you could desire in this life. Yet, what good did his riches do him when it was his time to go? They couldn't keep him alive, and they couldn't insure his eternal future. In the grand scheme of things, they were nothing but a millstone around his neck.

So yes, I think there is clear evidence that scripture condemns the rich, but only the greedy and self-serving rich. Not those who use their wealth for the greater good and not for themselves.

I've heard all sorts of different interpretations and people trying to "translate out" their own beliefs in Matthew 19:24, but I just can't see it in any other way than: "If you have it, give it all away. You can't take it with you and we certainly aren't taking it into account when you get here."

I'm not sure what other interpretations you're referring to... but there's a very credible interpretation wherein the "eye of a needle" is one of the small, short gates into the city - mostly intended for people. In order for a camel carrying goods to enter in by this kind of gate, they'd have to kind of kneel and shuffle. Thus rich people have to either unload their goods, or be very penitent to get in (and the more goods they're importing into heaven, the lower they have to prostrate themselves).

Makes sense, would have made sense to people at the time, and otherwise the choice of camels and "eyes of needles" seems pretty arbitrary/nonsensical.

>> ^shinyblurry:
It's simply another anti-christian vehicle that atheists will all nod their head and agree with without any thoughtful analysis.


You know my feelings on the subject Shiny, but there's one thing I appreciate about this video: his rant about how the rich are not getting into heaven. I've heard all sorts of different interpretations and people trying to "translate out" their own beliefs in Matthew 19:24, but I just can't see it in any other way than: "If you have it, give it all away. You can't take it with you and we certainly aren't taking it into account when you get here."

Far from bashing Christians (and I know I'm ignorant where the bible is concerned), I agree with and support this particular idea. It frustrates me to know end when I hear people try to rationalize their selfish excess.

Yeah, fuck you people. Only people like Rick Santorum should go to college, for instance to get an MBA and a law degree.

Actually, scratch that. Santorum is the a walking advertisement for how monumentally useless college is. After all, if you can get two degrees and still be a complete moron, something is wrong somewhere.

Words cannot express my distaste for this asshole. At least Palin had the decency to be hilariously stupid, this guy's just a fucking stain on humanity.

Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of crimes shouldn't be, like drugs and the like. But there isn't a first world country of western values (so I am leaving out japan here), close to the size of the US. Things don't always scale how you would suppose (lineally). I still think you are right to suppose we do lock up to many people here, I would agree. But I think to compare fairly, you would need to do so with a comparable sized country, of which there isn't really a suitable one. Entropy is a real thing in many other biological instances (especially population densities), it might also apply to cultures...and the corresponding social/economic factors as a result. Once again, not a justification, just perhaps and explanation that if other countries were as large they would experience the same whoas.

Also, I would tend to expect more people in jails where freedom abounds, ironically. What I mean is, when freedom is cheap, people will tend to push the boundary of what isn't free (moral hazard) moreso than if they were afraid to practice certain freedoms. Moral hazard is a newish word that gets thrown around a lot now, but I think there is merit in the concept. When you are given leeway, you take all that you can get...and perhaps a bit more. Resulting in the ironic position that practicing extreme liberty results in many who have restricted liberty because of violations. Life is funny that way. And once again, I think we go overboard here on what is legal and illegal. (soon, it is going to be illegal for me not to carry health insurance for example, and it is already illegal for me to do certain unapproved drugs. I don't imagine it much time before it is illegal to be fat, or any type of burden on someone else's view of utopia.)


>> ^raverman:

America has some of the highest rates of crime and imprisonment of most developed nations per capita.
I bet most Americans don't even know that... or believe that the freedom and democracy makes the US a safer place to live.
but why?
Culture? Too much sense of individualistic entitlement?
Guns? How might criminality be linked psychologically to arming individuals that suggests a constitutional entitlement to personal violence?
System? Does Imprisonment reduce re-offending? are long jail time sentences better than rehabilitation? Are sentences appropriate to crimes committed?
Everyone's focused on reducing crime and not asking if the cycle of punishment may be part of the problem.

You quote The Blind Watchmaker and The Origin of Species but I highly doubt that you’ve read them yourself. If you haven’t then you’re not better than someone who is contesting the bible without having read it. You quote a LOT of scientists that you say are hostile to your position but again, have you actually read the works that you’re quoting from in their entirety? I doubt it.

Well, I have read them and I think it's fairly obvious that I understand the subject matter.

Here are just two things that I read recently that I think are worth repeating:

...degree of thermodynamic disorder is measured by an entity called "entropy." There is a mathematical correlation between entropy increase and an increase in disorder. The overall entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. However, the entropy of some parts of the system can spontaneously decrease at the expense of an even greater increase of other parts of the system. When heat flows spontaneously from a hot part of a system to a colder part of the system, the entropy of the hot area spontaneously decreases! The ICR (Institute for Creation Research)...

....illustrate a fact, but they are not the fact itself. One thing is certain: metaphors are completely useless when it comes to the thermodynamics of calculating the efficiency of a heat engine, or the entropy change of free expansion of a gas, or the power required to operate a compressor. This can only be done with mathematics, not metaphors. Creationists have created a "voodoo" thermodynamics....

I never made the argument that entropy can never decrease in a system. I made the argument that even if you want to use the energy of the sun to explain why life is becoming more complex, you haven't explained the information that makes that possible. More energy does not equal more order. I also don't know why you keep bringing up articles from the institution of creation research and expect me to defend them. I am more than willing to admit that there are some terrible theories by creationists out there, just as there are terrible theories by secular scientists.

For myself, I am only a materialist because there isn’t any demonstrable, non-anecdotal, reproducible evidence for the existence of anything non-material. I hope you can understand that. There is the appearance of design and there is DNA, and we don’t know how everything got started but that’s not good enough for me to believe that it was designed, I need something more concrete because that is the criteria for which I will justify something as believable. I’d be very interested in some sort of evidence like that but it hasn’t happened yet and conjecture just doesn’t work for me so I’ll reserve judgment but maintain doubt and that’s all there is to it.

I can understand your position as a materialist, having formally been one. I did not see any evidence for God or spirit either, and it really rocked my world to discover that there was more, and that material reality is only a veil to a larger reality. It is mind blowing to discover that everything that you know is in some way, wrong.

I think there is some very good evidence pointing towards a Creator, but that isn't going to get you there necessarily. It seems to me though, after talking with you a bit, that if there is a God, you would want to know about it. Maybe you're not terribly interested in pursuing the subject at the moment but you now strike me as someone who is open to the truth. If He does exist, would you want to hear from Him? If He let you know, would you follow Him?

On the scope of evidence, I think the two of the most powerful arguments are the information in DNA and the fine-tuning of physical laws. There is no naturalistic process which can produce a code, and that is what DNA is. It is a digital code which stores information and is vastly superior to anything we have ever designed. It is a genetic language which has its own alphabet, grammar, syntax, and meaning. It has redudancy and error correction, and it is an encoding and decoding mechanism to transmit information about an organism. Biologists actually use linguistic analysis to decode its functions. You also have to realize that the message is not the medium. In that, like all information, you can copy the information in DNA to storage device like a hard drive, and then recode it later with no loss in information. This is a pretty good article on the information in DNA:

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/read-prove-god-exists/language-dna-intelligent-design/

The fine tuning evidence is also very powerfully because it is virtually impossible for the laws to have come about by chance. It's important to understand what fine tuning actually means. I'll quote Dr Craig:

"That the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life is a pretty solidly established fact and ought not to be a subject of controversy. By “fine-tuning” one does not mean “designed” but simply that the fundamental constants and quantities of nature fall into an exquisitely narrow range of values which render our universe life-permitting. Were these constants and quantities to be altered by even a hair’s breadth, the delicate balance would be upset and life could not exist."

So it's not a question whether the Universe itself is finely tuned for life, it is a question of how it got that way. In actuality, the odds of it happening are far worse than winning the powerball lottery over 100 times in a row. Random chance simply cannot account for it because there are dozens of values that must be precisely calibrated, and the odds for some of these values happening by chance is greater than the number of particles in the Universe! For instance, the space-energy density must be fine tuned to one part in 10 to the 120th power, an inconceivably huge number. That's just one value out of dozens. Many scientists understand this.

Here are some quotes from some agnostic scientists, which a couple of Christians thrown in:

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Paul Davies: "The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose".

Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."

John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist): "The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory."

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."
Roger Penrose (mathematician and author): "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance."

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): "When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics." Note: Tipler since has actually converted to Christianity, hence his latest book, The Physics Of Christianity.

Just because the universe and life might have the appearance of design doesn’t mean it was designed. After all, we might all be brains in vats being experimented on by hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings and all of this is simply like the matrix. Maybe Déjà vu is evidence that it’s true but there simply isn’t any reason to believe it just like there isn’t any reason to believe in any gods.

But if that were true then the Universe is designed, and this is simply some kind of computer program. In any case, although we could imagine many scenerios I am talking about something very specific; That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead. Moreover, that you can know Him personally, today.

All of the concepts of god and gods have been moved back every time we discover naturalistic explanations where once those gods were accredited. What makes you think that it’s any different with these things? Just because we don’t know what’s behind the veil doesn’t mean that the idea of someone pulling the levers is a better explanation than a currently unknown natural, non-agency explanation. If we don’t know, then we don’t know and putting a god in the place of “we don’t know” isn't a good way of helping us learn more about our universe

The primary question is whether the Universe has an intelligent causation. You believe that Universes, especially precisely calibrated and well-ordered ones just happen by themselves. I happen to think that this is implausible to say the least. You're acting like it's not a valid question, and because we can describe some of the mechanisms we see that we can rule out an intelligent cause, which is simply untrue. You could describe every single mechanism there is in the Universe, but until you explain how it got here, you haven't explained anything. The real question is not how they work but why they work and that question can only be answered by answering why they exist in the first place.

It is also just a fallacy to say that because some peoples beliefs about God have been proven false, that means all beliefs about God are false. Scientists used to believe that there were only seven planets and that the Earth was flat. Does that mean that all ideas scientists have are false? No, and neither does it mean that all beliefs about God are false because people have had ridiculous beliefs about God.

The God I believe in is not ridiculous, and the belief in His existence has led to ideas that formed western civilization and propelled modern science itself. The idea that we can suss out Universal laws by investigating secondary causes is a Christian one, that came from the belief that God created an orderly Universe based on laws.

It is also not a brake to doing science to believe that God created the Universe. Some of the greatest scientists who have ever lived believed in God. People like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Max Planck, Mendel and Einstein. It certainly didn't stop them from doing great science.

Also, as I have explained, it is not a God of the gaps argument when God is a better explanation for the evidence.

We know that the universe, space-time, matter had a finite beginning but we can’t say anything at all about that beginning with any certainty. We can’t even say that whatever was that caused the universe is spaceless, or timeless. We just don’t know. This is the god of the gaps argument that started this whole thing. You’re putting a god in as the explanation for what is effectively a gap in our knowledge without anything solid to go off of. It would not be a god of the gaps argument if we eventually could know with a high degree of certainty that there is a god there fiddling with the controls but we don’t. That is the crux of this whole debate. That is why “I don’t know” is a better answer than “A god did it” because it’s absolutely verifiably true where as a god is not.

The ultimate cause of the Universe must be timeless because it must be beginningless, according to logic. I'll explain. You cannot get something from nothing, I think we both agree on that. So if the Universe has a cause, it must be an eternal cause, since you cannot have an infinite regress of causes for the Universe. The buck has to stop somewhere. This points to an eternal first cause, which means that cause is timeless. If it is timeless it is also changeless because change is a property of time. If it is changeless it is also spaceless, because anything which exists in space must be temporal, since it is always finitely changing relation to the things around it. It's timelessness and spacelessness makes it immaterial, and this also makes it transcendent. I think it is obvious that whatever created the Universe must be unimaginably powerful. So we have something which already closely describes the God of the bible, and we can deduct these things by using logic alone.

We just don’t know if the universe is entirely regressable into some sort of endless loop which folds in on itself, or something else, or even if there is a god or not. Furthermore, I hope you look into what physicist mean by “out of nothing” because it doesn’t mean what I think you think it means. It took me a while to understand what it meant and to be honest, it is a bit of a deceptive word play but it’s only that way because there isn’t another way to describe it. I don't actually believe that the universe came from "nothing". I don't know how it all started, so therefore, I have no belief. I don't need an answer to the big questions. I can say "I don't know" just fine and leave it at that.

“A proponent of the Big Bang Theory, at least if he is an atheist, must believe that the universe came from nothing and by nothing.” Anthony Kenny

British physicist P.C.W. Davies writes, “The coming-into-being of the universe as discussed in modern science…is not just a matter of imposing some sort of organization or structure upon a previous incoherent state, but literally the coming-into-being of all physical things from nothing.”

Physicist Victor Stenger says “the universe exploded out of nothingness the observable universe could have evolved from an infinitesimal region. its then tempting to go one step further and speculate that the entire universe evolved from literally nothing.

In the realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear, but also space and time. However, physicists theorize that from this state of nothingness, the universe began in a gigantic explosion about 16.5 billion years ago.

HBJ General Science 1983 Page 362

the universe burst into something from absolutely nothing - zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.

discover April 2002

I think we can both agree that it is better to know than not to know. That's been one of your primary arguments against the existence of God, that we simply cannot rest of the laurels of God being the Creator because that will lead to ignorance. I have already demonstrated that there is no actual conflict with belief in God and doing good science, so your argument is invalid, but I think it's ironic that on the other side of it, you are arguing that ignorance is a good thing and leads to better science. That you're even intellectually satisified with not knowing. I hope you can see the contradiction here.

The reason why I personally don’t find the whole god argument all that interesting, and the reason why I don’t actually care about it, is because it makes a heck of a lot of claims regarding the nature of god and it’s properties which just can’t be verified. There is nothing that we can concretely discover about god and no predictions that we can make which could eventually be verified meaningfully. How can we possibly know if creator is timeless, or spaceless, unimaginably powerful, transcendent, unembodied, etc? Is it rational to believe that; do you have an equal ratio of evidence to belief? What predictions can we actually make about this god(s). All we have are books and stories written and passed down throughout history. Everything else is just unjustified belief to me.

As I explained above, we can make several predictions about God based on the evidence. Belief in God is rational and can be justified. However, I understand that until you have a personal experience, it is probably going to be unconvincing to you, since this is way you see the world. You demand evidence, and lucky for you, God provides evidence. If you asked Him to come into your life, He would demonstrate it to you. He provided evidence to me, and I know you He will provide to you, especially if you take a leap of faith ask Him for it.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

This is awesome. There are many ways for your heart to get messed up, but you don't need to be able to cure them all if you can just grow a new, young heart with your own cells.

>> ^budzos:

You sound like a real connoisseur of comedy. Dice is top ten of all time, and not just for that nursery rhyme stuff, which I never liked. (and I'm not talking about top ten most successful... top ten most talented).
>> ^spoco2:
Most people don't like just abusive comedy, we don't.
Sure, there's got to be some market for it, otherwise Andrew Dice Clay, with his complete lack of talent, wouldn't have become famous for just insulting people... but generally? Not going to happen.


You point me to ONE performance of his that is actually funny. Like, is AT ALL clever. AT ALL witty. AT ALL insightful.

You can go blue in the face ranting about the size of the stadium shows he used to do, but none of it is ever good comedy. It's not. He's not top ten of all time in any terms of 'good comedy'. It's all base, all simplistic, none of it is good. He's just not funny.

Now, me not finding him funny doesn't make him not so to many, but he is also not top ten of talent in anything.

>> ^marbles:
I am wrong to "assume" that the only person that has a right to what I produce is myself?


Conservation of M/E means that you can't create, only rearrange. So to even begin to asses such a position it is necessary to clarify what forces are morally relevant, and how much change is "production"? And then, of course, to explain why we should assume that some forces (only human, I'm guessing) moving things makes them "property", when nothing about the physical world implies any such relationship exists at all.

If you can pull matter out of the aether, you might be able to fashion some sort of internally consistent ideology around that, but since you can't, your just banging your head against physics demanding that it is so.

Saying that we accept an absurdity as a social convention is simple enough, but to demand, despite all evidence, that it is true is unbelievable foolishness.

Shush all of you. Can't a man enjoy the great beauties of feminine physique in peace?

Watch, upvote, <font size="1">*fap*</font> and get out.

Holy crap my comment has caused a nice little shitstorm hasn't it?

From my point of view:

* Yes, my second comment (the one that caused the furore) was what I felt when I watched the video, the way the guy was, his demeanour, everything about him just made me think of that type of man. And yeah I have no idea of the backstory of this, and yeah, maybe they all did think it was all in great fun, even her. I just don't think it's that clear cut, I have a feeling she is kinda sad that she let it happen... but again, it's what I FEEL/IMAGINE about the video, it's what I take from it, and I said it in the comment, it reminded me of those types of men. And that type of man doesn't just do it to women, he does it to anyone he thinks he can wield power over. Again, maybe he's not like that... but I have a suspicion he might be. And it was that feeling that the video left with me that made me make the comment and downvote.

* I think all nut hit videos are shithouse, I think Americas/Australias Funniest Home videos is a crapfest of low grade dribble. Yeah, I thought being hit in the nuts was funny up until, I dunno, probably the age of 9 or so, but don't any more. It's fine that other people do of course, but it saddens me that grown people can spend an entire show effectively just watching people hurt themselves... and do so every time it's on TV. And that so many people watch it, but then I feel the same way about UFC, Jackass and any number of things that are hugely popular because people are either beating the shit out of each other or hurting each other in the most extreme ways possible.

* I don't give a flying fuck if you call me boring, straight laced, dull. I know who I am, I know I have an awesome family, job, life. And I know that I don't need to pretend to like violence, sport or sexism just to be popular.

* I like fart jokes

* Those of you who spent SO LONG voicing how important it was that the video was on videosift, and also those who linked to even worse videos, such as the real/fake video of the woman being punched during an argument really need to wonder why you did so. Why is it SO important to you that people see some sort of worth in videos like this? Seriously.

* Gwiz... *sigh* I have gone back and forth thinking you've got real issues with sex and women and that no, you're just misunderstood. But after you posting this video and trying to suggest it has merit, and then promoting the topless one, and the known history of yourself and members here IRL, I'm starting to think your view of women is being seriously affected by a diet entirely too rich in internet porn. Why do you constantly feel the need to bring that shit to the sift? Porn and sexism is EVERYWHERE on the internet, why does it have to be here? Why can this not be a place where women can come without feeling like it's a boy's club? Fuck man, just get your porn fix somewhere else and come here after you've cum...

* Trying to say 'you'd have no issue with the video if it were just men' is avoiding the fact that women are STILL FAR more the victims of male aggression and force and intimidation than the other way around. You can't go on about 'well, women want equality, here it is' bullshit either. Equality doesn't mean everyone should treat everyone like dumb shits, it should be everyone treating everyone with respect.

Look, whatever, people will just continue to say I'm a downer and boring and a killjoy and am trying to impose my beliefs on them, but you know what? There are WAY more places on the net you can indulge your stupid jock, sexist, violent, low brow side, and bugger all where you can come for some pretty interesting discussions about videos. Don't drag the sift to the levels of digg and 4chan and youtube please, it'd really fuck up my day.

Also, it makes me damn sad that you've made women here on the sift feel like this, it really does.

Well my first thought being that driver wouldn't be to call a tow truck to unstick something like that. You usually use something like that to unstick a truck. I can't fathom that they wouldn't contact another clearing vehicle they have probably a couple blocks away to clear a path to the guy if he couldn't wiggle himself out in the meantime. It's not like they wasting much effort if they are clearing roads that need cleared in the process to dig out a stuck machine.

Plus, and maybe Im missing something, but it seems like you'd want to clear a good starting point and work your way from there instead of just blindly driving through the snow in an effort to clear faster.....while not really clearing it at all if you can't drive big ass machinery through it without getting stuck.

I think people understate just how much of a mess the gameplay of of ME1 was. The shooting felt subpar by 3rd person shooter standards. The abilities were either poorly thought out or overpowered. Remember all the floating helplessly and praying not to die? The inventory interface was an atrocity. The game suffered from a Diabloesque overload of randomly generated loot. Fucking omnigel. Endless bouncy rover missions on spiky randomly generated terrain, all so you can slowly horde minerals and literally useless collectibles.

I totally agree that some of that could have been fixed and redeemed rather than scrapped and replaced. I'd like to see weapon mods, armor mods, and implants come back. As well as a fun version of vehicle based planetary exploration.

But over all, ME2 managed to make the combat solid and enjoyable. While keeping the focus on the story and characters, which is really what kept most of us playing.

The video brought a lot of questions to mind, but the link answered most of them for me. Here's a summary:

What exactly am I seeing? Apparently it is a lightweight car chassis with an electric motor, regenerative braking as in hybrid cars, rowing-machine style generator for replenishing battery and/or increasing motor speed, and 2 or 4 seats all with access to the rowing-style power generation.

How fast can it go? It seems that with multiple people actively working the generators plus battery-driven electric power while going downhill, it could approach or exceed 60MPH.

Why not just use a bicycle? The bicycle is 100% powered by the rider. This has an electric motor, and can be driven without using the rowing-action generation at all; or you can supplement speed or battery life by rowing to whatever extent you desire. Safety and stability at moderate to high speed would be much better than a bicycle or motorbike. It also seems to go reasonably faster than a bicycle, on average.

OK, so why not just use an electric bicycle / electric motorbike (very popular item in China)? I would say either could be pretty useful if you buy into the general idea. This car could comfortably transport more passengers and probably go faster, but simply due to weight it would be less efficient in general and particularly on hills. However, an electric bicycle probably wouldn't cost you $15,500.

So, all in all it looks pretty cool but I think it would have to drop in price quite a bit before it would be more practical than either a good ol' gas guzzling car, hybrid car, electric bicycle, or standard bicycle for any particular niche application.

Krull, one of the greatest geek movies of all time. You can find references to it everywhere. Using this clip as an example, in Guild Wars, one of the Gods is 2 women joined together... called Lyssa.