I enjoyed the film. And I thought this sequence was absolutely breathtaking.

the new stormwind for cataclysm is just breathtaking. Wonder how many takes it took them to get it right, nicely done.

I agree completely with Patrick Stewart. My mother was beaten to within an inch of her life by a man who was so governed by jealousy that if she said hello to the milkman he assumed she was having an affair and would beat her for it. She told me once in passing that she left when she did because she was afraid that he was going to be as vicious with me as he was with her. I asked her why she wasn't as important as me, but she never answered.

I spent most of my childhood hungry and alone - mom had to work more than full-time hours to feed and house and clothe me. (This was in the mid to late 60s; back than only sluts got divorced and women certainly weren't paid anything like equal wages. They still aren't, but that's another topic.) I saw her literally once or twice a week. I grew up certain that the abuse, the subsequent divorce, poverty and societal rejection were all my fault. Not because it was proven to me, but because that's the way children think. Developing minds cannot think some things through. Spend some time reading the research about developmental stages of cognition and that will become crystal clear.

My father's abuse showed me a) those you trust most will hurt you, and badly, and that if they haven't yet you should do something so that it happens now and not just sit around, tense as shit waiting for something that you know is inevitably going to happen; b) that love is just a word and fists and feet are the real power; c) men in power are hurtful and therefore are not to be trusted and d) that women in power are not to be trusted because they're never around.

So. Lots of violence and self-destructive behaviour as a young man because of the impossibility of trusting anyone or anything. I couldn't trust the people around me who were more powerful (emotionally, physically or politically) and I couldn't trust those around me who were less powerful because I'd seen what happens to the weak. Even better, I couldn't trust myself because I'd been the one who had done whatever it was that had started the whole thing off. What fun!

Eventually, being an essentially thinking person I figured out that it wasn't my fault, that mom left because dad was a breathtaking asshole and not because I'd done something so horrible that they had to split up. However, understanding something and having it be an essential part of your personality are two very different things. It's roughly akin to the difference between learning a second language as a child and learning one as an adult. The language(s) you learn as a child are part and parcel of your cognition and strongly inform your worldview. Learning a language as an adult means that you need to remember how to speak that language. With practice, you might get to the point that you can think in that language, and you might even be able to carry on a good conversation, but you're never going to fool a native speaker of that language. Fluency comes with practice and intent.

It may seem like I'm whining a bit here, but after reading the comments above, I have to let you folks know something. Abuse fucks up your children for life. The lessons you learn as a kid don't just go away because you want them to. It's like trying to forget a language when it's the only one you know how to speak.

Beating the shit out of an abuser doesn't do anyone any good. Except that the abuser isn't abusing right there and then. Sitting back and saying 'oh where are the cops when you need them' without doing anything is cowardice and doesn't do anyone any good. Stopping it before it happens by teaching children that it is never acceptable is what will prevent it from being the illness that pervades our world. The best way to teach children is to lead by example.

Stopping those who do abuse their partners is no mean feat. I mean, what if they're fine with the language they speak? What if they don't want to learn another language? Do you force them? Put them in institutions or some such crap?

Only those willing to be sufficiently self-aware are going to get past it, and that doesn't happen when there's no overarching societal pressure to stop it. Talking about it is what exposes it, and stops it.

Here we are, having a conversation.

Bye now.

>> ^dag:

Stunning. The only thing that detracts a little is the music.


I agree. It almost looks as if it could be as good as Koyaanisqatsi (trailer), only the music really doesn't fit. If only this video could have music composed by Philip Glass.

Hells yeah. I hope that's 90% of it. The "Gnarled Tree Spaceship" was wearing thin.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I enjoyed the part where there were bewbs...

Your video, TimeScapes: Rapture (This looks breathtaking!), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I'm guessing that he isn't using daylight but rather either moonlight(when available) or another very low power light source. The long exposure times for the star trails mean that foreground objects can appear very bright. Sort of the opposite of why stars are absent in photos from the moon. The moon is so bright that the exposure times are too short to capture enough starlight.

>> ^Kalle:

So how does he get the stars to light up in bright daylight??
Or is this some sort of rotoscoping thingy???

Tags for this video have been changed from 'mimes, black women, performance art, breathtaking, hah' to 'mimes, black women, performance art, breathtaking, hah, supershort' - edited by Kevlar

Homeworld was a breathtakingly stunning game every way you looked at it. Graphics, music, gameplay and storyline, all perfectly intertwined to immerse you in an emotional rollercoaster of a gaming experience.

Can't find anything concrete on HW3, only hopes and allusions.

http://homeworld.wikia.com/wiki/Homeworld_3

About three weeks ago, I was taking photos and video in Yosemite National Park.

Truly majestic and breathtaking.

It's an experience that can change your life.

Again. This is why I have WP on ignore.

The ignorance is so entrenched it is breathtaking. Listening to some war-mongering, western white dude pontificate about the destruction of innocent peoples countries and calls for mass slaughter is inhuman and disgusting. It makes me sad to be a human.

His constant need to somehow keep cracking about Obama shows just how much prejudice and hatred he has for humans. If only people like him would step away from their keyboards, gun-up, and go kill those innocent people they hate for no reason other than American dominance, would still not be a step in the right direction.

To people like this, only wholesale slaughter of innocent people, will ever be good enough. To watch their blood run in the gutters of their already decimated lives, is the only thing that will ever be able to bring a smile to their ugly faces.

This is the worst of human nature. Neverending war for no reason at all.


And AGAIN: WP shows he has no fucking knowledge whatsoever of Afghanistan. To ask him what the difference is between a Pashtun or a Tajik is would send him scrambling to Wikipedia. But only to momentarily pontificate on how glorious it is to kill one or the other. But in his mind, just kill them all. Their blood all spills the same, and his doesn't.

I actually want to see this movie, it is probably up there with the Star Wars Christmas Special which I have seen to the chagrin of my braincells, because it looks so breathtakingly bad.

Recommendation:

Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics
by Bruce A. Schumm. Johns Hopkins Press.

Thanks for this very long response! I think this was my favorite line: Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for.

I will remember that line, because I think you are absolutely right.



Thanks.

In reply to this comment by kagenin:
>> ^Avokineok:
I live in The Netherlands. Everytime I'm on Videosift, I get a sense of how bad it must be to be an American.
I see some great entertaiment with all the late night shows, but I feel bad for all of you who have to live in a country that has so many people taking everything said at Fox "News" ("Gossip" might be more appropriate) so seriously..
It seriously makes me said and makes me believe Amerika is not the land of opportunities; it's a land where people with a lot of money tell other people what think.


Who do you think were those first pilgrims from Europe were? Puritans - People who wanted nothing more than to lecture others on the poor choices they made. (If you've ever been to a good Renaissance Faire, they're the street actors wearing almost all black, and almost always carrying their bibles with them. Hang around one long enough and you'll want to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier too, if they're in good character. That's basically how they made everyone else living at the time feel. Look at modern day puritanicals such as Pat Robertson.) The ones who colonized America had enough money to sail half-way around the world, which isn't terribly cheap.

Paying for the sins of our forefathers is something every culture does. Just look at television and video games. Here in the States, you can put some pretty violent imagery on TV and maybe even some drug use in your video games, but holy hell if you show a nipple, or touch on ANYTHING of a sexual nature. Releasing a game in the three major English speaking markets (US, UK, and AU) means subjecting your content to three different review boards, with differing notions about what is good and decent for the consumers of their country. Sex, violence, drug use - the disparity between opinions on what is acceptable for only adults to see, even among countries with common language, can mean what get's a Teen rating by the US's ESRB can get an "Adult Only" in the UK, and even be banned outright unless edited for an Australian market.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because of the fact that those like ol' Noun-Verb-9/11 Rudy are in the minority. The fact that he's so focused on using terms like "Islamic terrorist," or "islamist" displays a blunt ignorance, and could be interpreted as flat out racism. Let's remember that he put the NYC Emergency Command Center, setup after a failed World Trade Center fertilizer bombing in the 90's, was picked by Rudy to be put in the World Trade Center, a place that had recently been the target of a terrorist attack (by attackers who were brought to justice within the same judicial system that handles our parking tickets - we didn't need the post-9/11 military tribunals then, and we don't really need them now, despite certain anti-American Right-Wingers who lack requisite faith in the system they serve). It's like he refuses to learn from history or something, and unfortunately it's not an uncommon condition among modern conservative talking heads here in the states.

The fact that our president didn't use words like "islamist" or "islamic terrorist" or any permutation thereof is because he understands that the greater threat to our nation is a foreign policy that takes away everything from poor young brown-skinned people living in the cradle of civilization and gives them nowhere to turn to but bombed out countries, crumbling infrastructure, and eager suicide bomber recruiters. Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for. Dealing with the symptoms is one thing. End the root cause, and then you have the potential for peace.

Take the issue with rampant piracy around the waters of Somalia. Sure, everyone's talking about the latest tanker to be overtaken, but how many stories have delved into the root cause? The polluted waters that have killed off all the fish in the region? The fish who fed the people on the land? The fish that drove the local economy? All dead. The Indonesian Tsunami caused a tidal wave of wretched filth to wash up ashore, tainting the land and water supplies, causing pestilential illnesses. If you're a poor Somali 20-something with your family boat, and you can't make an honest living with it, what are you going to do? Grab some weapons, recruit a crew of close friends in the same situation you're in, and take your chances on the shipping lanes within striking distance... yeah, that would seem like something someone EXTREMELY desperate would do. It's happening right now. The Somali Government can't do jack, they can barely govern an area the size of my rural hometown. Sure we can bust out the snipers when someone important gets kidnapped, and we can applaud the heroes who put their lives on the life to ensure the safety of others. But that won't stop the next motley crew of fishermen with nowhere else to turn but terrorizing the high seas.

I've only spent about 4 days total in the Netherlands. What I saw was beautiful. Amsterdam was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally - man, those canals can really wreak in the summer . I hope to visit again soon. Didn't get to check out much of the television, but what brief moments I was allowed rest in front of a TV on that trip was pretty cool. A lot of stuff just wouldn't get past the FCC here without some serious fines being levied for sexual content, and that's a damn shame...

But, like I said, I'm still hopeful. Wow, that was long If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

>> ^Avokineok:
I live in The Netherlands. Everytime I'm on Videosift, I get a sense of how bad it must be to be an American.
I see some great entertaiment with all the late night shows, but I feel bad for all of you who have to live in a country that has so many people taking everything said at Fox "News" ("Gossip" might be more appropriate) so seriously..
It seriously makes me said and makes me believe Amerika is not the land of opportunities; it's a land where people with a lot of money tell other people what think.


Who do you think were those first pilgrims from Europe were? Puritans - People who wanted nothing more than to lecture others on the poor choices they made. (If you've ever been to a good Renaissance Faire, they're the street actors wearing almost all black, and almost always carrying their bibles with them. Hang around one long enough and you'll want to tell them to go take a long walk off a short pier too, if they're in good character. That's basically how they made everyone else living at the time feel. Look at modern day puritanicals such as Pat Robertson.) The ones who colonized America had enough money to sail half-way around the world, which isn't terribly cheap.

Paying for the sins of our forefathers is something every culture does. Just look at television and video games. Here in the States, you can put some pretty violent imagery on TV and maybe even some drug use in your video games, but holy hell if you show a nipple, or touch on ANYTHING of a sexual nature. Releasing a game in the three major English speaking markets (US, UK, and AU) means subjecting your content to three different review boards, with differing notions about what is good and decent for the consumers of their country. Sex, violence, drug use - the disparity between opinions on what is acceptable for only adults to see, even among countries with common language, can mean what get's a Teen rating by the US's ESRB can get an "Adult Only" in the UK, and even be banned outright unless edited for an Australian market.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because of the fact that those like ol' Noun-Verb-9/11 Rudy are in the minority. The fact that he's so focused on using terms like "Islamic terrorist," or "islamist" displays a blunt ignorance, and could be interpreted as flat out racism. Let's remember that he put the NYC Emergency Command Center, setup after a failed World Trade Center fertilizer bombing in the 90's, was picked by Rudy to be put in the World Trade Center, a place that had recently been the target of a terrorist attack (by attackers who were brought to justice within the same judicial system that handles our parking tickets - we didn't need the post-9/11 military tribunals then, and we don't really need them now, despite certain anti-American Right-Wingers who lack requisite faith in the system they serve). It's like he refuses to learn from history or something, and unfortunately it's not an uncommon condition among modern conservative talking heads here in the states.

The fact that our president didn't use words like "islamist" or "islamic terrorist" or any permutation thereof is because he understands that the greater threat to our nation is a foreign policy that takes away everything from poor young brown-skinned people living in the cradle of civilization and gives them nowhere to turn to but bombed out countries, crumbling infrastructure, and eager suicide bomber recruiters. Take away everything someone has to live for, and he'll find a cause to die for. Dealing with the symptoms is one thing. End the root cause, and then you have the potential for peace.

Take the issue with rampant piracy around the waters of Somalia. Sure, everyone's talking about the latest tanker to be overtaken, but how many stories have delved into the root cause? The polluted waters that have killed off all the fish in the region? The fish who fed the people on the land? The fish that drove the local economy? All dead. The Indonesian Tsunami caused a tidal wave of wretched filth to wash up ashore, tainting the land and water supplies, causing pestilential illnesses. If you're a poor Somali 20-something with your family boat, and you can't make an honest living with it, what are you going to do? Grab some weapons, recruit a crew of close friends in the same situation you're in, and take your chances on the shipping lanes within striking distance... yeah, that would seem like something someone EXTREMELY desperate would do. It's happening right now. The Somali Government can't do jack, they can barely govern an area the size of my rural hometown. Sure we can bust out the snipers when someone important gets kidnapped, and we can applaud the heroes who put their lives on the life to ensure the safety of others. But that won't stop the next motley crew of fishermen with nowhere else to turn but terrorizing the high seas.

I've only spent about 4 days total in the Netherlands. What I saw was beautiful. Amsterdam was breathtaking, both figuratively and literally - man, those canals can really wreak in the summer . I hope to visit again soon. Didn't get to check out much of the television, but what brief moments I was allowed rest in front of a TV on that trip was pretty cool. A lot of stuff just wouldn't get past the FCC here without some serious fines being levied for sexual content, and that's a damn shame...

But, like I said, I'm still hopeful. Wow, that was long If you made it this far, thanks for reading.