Anyone jerking off to this probably still jerks off to the Sears catalog too. Pleasant, but I wouldn't consider it woody material.

>> ^ReverendTed:

I'm not sure I see what all the fuss is about, though that may be because I don't really "use" the channels at all aside from ticking some boxes when I post a new Sift.

You should try it and you'll quickly see why it's a problem. Browse to a channel that sounds like it might be interesting and see how many videos would actually scratch that itch. Results will vary wildly depending on what you choose.

If drugs are your topic of choice, you may find yourself watching teletubbies today.

If human sexuality intrigues you, prepare to watch 2 cats have sex while a third dry humps them.

Does the far east fascinate you? You'll be sorting through every video that contains an Asian person. It could be a video of some guy who's lived in San Diego his entire life watching an NFL game, drinking a Budweiser, and eating a hot dog but if he's got an epicanthus, he's going in #asia.

Lots of people (most, if I had to guess) just don't care. But then why are we spending all this time cataloging videos if nobody gives a shit?

If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Let's either make a good effort to make channels valuable, or get rid of them altogether and just do this because it will be way less work.

>> ^deathcow:

Do they wear lingerie out in the day?


Do you know how long I had to keep sending my extra Victoria Secret Catalogs to Russian Mail Order brides to convince them that American Women dress like that all the time! Don't ruin it by pointing it out!

MAH PLANZ UR RUININ DEM!

Local library here is pretty good, you can do almost everything online and get a fairly good selection of books online. For those not online you can have them transferred to your local library for pick up...along with a lot of other stuff.


Their main branch is kind of a pain to go to because it's downtown and the parking situation sucks at times, with fairly expensive parking lots or meters. And it houses some things you can only get see on those premises such as family trees and rare books/etc.

They updated the online catalog software to suit what people wanted just recently.

They run a whole lot of learn-to classes, speakers, etc. I haven't seen any of those I was particularly interested in, but still cool to see them make the effort. I think their primary crowd on these are more in the older age brackets or kids.

I believe they could offer a more robust online selection, but I have this nagging feeling that the book publishers discourage this via pricing and weird restrictions that they may not be able to comply with or unwilling.

Libraries are a pretty big opponent to restriction of freedoms to the individual granted under fair use. Without fair use they probably wouldn't exist....and we know the copyright groups have been actively pushing for more restrictions on fair use. I wouldn't be too surprised if they were behind library budgets being slashed dramatically in many locations. The budget for libraries is probably paltry compared to a lot of other things that didn't get axed.

I still can see the REACH FORKLIFT.

http://www.ur.com/files/corp/catalog/44-55_forklift.pdf

Isn't Morphex an pain killer?


Yes. http://www.catalog.md/drugs/morphex.html Yes it is.

Fuck that pill is big.

I discovered Rodrigo y Gabriela quite by accident. I got into Metal music while growing up originally due to Metallica, and they remain one of my favorite bands. My favorite Metallica song is Orion -- one of their long instrumental songs from back when Cliff Burton was still alive. Anyway, I also have a love for hearing covers and reinterpretations of songs that I like, so one day I was surfing the web and did a search for "orion cover", finding the Rodrigo y Gabriela version. I love it, and it got me into their whole catalog and original works like this one also.

Thanks for the sift!

@dystopianfuturetoday:

I see what you're going for, so here's your Yes. Where our opinions diverge is a matter of perspective.

Slavery is not unique to the Black race, nor even Black Americans, it's a worldwide institution with ancient origins that is still practiced in parts of Africa TODAY. Every race on earth has at one time been enslaved, just as every race on earth has also enslaved other races. As horrible as it seems to us, for centuries slavery was accepted as necessary and a part of life. For Black Americans to feel singled out is, to me, just silly.

So enter the Civil War, a complex struggle involving myriad factors that became more about slavery about halfway through. Republicans ended slavery. Not that is was all sugar and poetry: Lincoln said it didn't matter if he had to keep slavery or end it, he would do whichever it took to save the Union. Lincoln did the paperwork but the Abolitionists did the real work.

We had a Civil Rights movement and it was just. (Now we have a Special Rights movement that is unjust, but that's another chapter).

I don't buy this crap about psychic injuries from slavery. And yes, here is the part where I provide the transcript of Bill Cosby's "Poundcake speech". I know you're going to have your reasons for not liking what he had to say (and I'm sure Jesse Jackson, who was right beside him was shocked and pissed) but all the same, please READ IT.


Yes, there was a time in America where lynchings were common, racism was institutional and opportunities for Blacks were severely limited. That time has passed. Yes, there are remnants of the klan out there, but they're not the ones forcing Blacks to drop out of school, disparage reading books and getting an education as "the White Man's Game" or impregnating young girls like it's nothing.

We've had generation after generation of immigrants now, from Vietnam, India, the failed soviet bloc. They came here with nothing and in a generation or two have risen. And if the excuse is, 'Well, they're not Black," here come Blacks from the Caribbean, working hard and doing just as well. All of these immigrant groups have one HUGE advantage: they haven't suffered decades of this American victim mentality.

I trust your sincerity and the sincerity of all the liberals who want to see Black Americans improve their lot (and they have, most are middle class). But there are forces that demand the dependency of Black Americans and use a victim mentality to get their votes. I don't see why anyone would heed voices that say, 'You Can't Do It'.


RE: the "science" article bashing conservatives. In Japan there are "scientists" whose entire output is exceptionalist-nationalist philosophy (nihonjinron) that is to be taken very seriously. This article is on the same level as, "liberals are better lovers".








>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

qm - Imagine if you and the rest of your ethnic heritage were brought to this country as prisoners, to be sold as property to other people. You are bought and sold and expected to do hard labor without protest. Any resistance could mean your life, or your foot, so you quickly learn to submit yourself to the authority of the ruling racial class. Your ethnic heritage, as a whole, is kept in poverty and ignorance for many generations. Old proud traditions are beaten out of you, and new ones are created in secret, out of the watchful eye of your master. You cannot sing your music, but you can sing in the church choir, so you create your own new culture under the restrictions imposed by your masters.
Then a century down the road, it is decided that slavery is wrong and you are set free. Unfortunately for you, you are in your middle age with no money or education in a culture where you are thought of as subhuman. In this hostile environment, you are expected to compete with people who have been free all their lives, and more sinisterly, people who loathe you and are actively against your progress. They even create organizations to make life worse for you and to form lynch mobs to murder you and your kind.
This new generation continues to pass along the legacy of poverty, lack of education, self doubt, fear and shame to further generations. For the next few generations, laws are set up to discriminate against your people, and it is publicly acceptable to insult, attack and even kill your underclass with minimal consequences. There are new freedoms and a desire to rise above, but there are so very many cultural barriers.
Eventually society decides this underclass should have the same rights as everyone else, but at this point, the legacy of slavery has been imprinted on an entire culture for many generations - Hundreds of years of negative cultural conditioning. Although free in law, there is still much animosity aimed at your group. Not only are ou different in color and culture, but you also carry the stigma of being poor and not having access to the same level of education of the ruling racial class.
Eventually steps are taken to reverse this legacy of hate, poverty and slavery through government assistance programs, and while costly, they do yield success as your underclass rises in wealth and social acceptance. The fact that we, the racial ruling class, see them as equal and expect them to do as well as we do speaks greatly to the change in culture over the last half century. But, just are the legacy of slavery lives on in black culture, so does the legacy of hate live on in white culture. Groups of neo-confederate whites are angry that there is an effort to help remedy a problem created by our forefathers. They don't care whether or not these programs have been successful, they just hate the idea of this long hated underclass getting some help.
Just as the legacy of poverty has made it's way from generation to generation, so has the legacy of hate.
Perhaps the neo-confederates should take the log out of their own eye, before cataloging the failings of others. Or at least, they could attempt some understanding of why these stats are the way they are, how much progress has been made, and what could be done to stop these destructive legacies in the future.

Do you see what I'm going for here, qm? I'd love a yes, even if it comes with heavy reservations.

qm - Imagine if you and the rest of your ethnic heritage were brought to this country as prisoners, to be sold as property to other people. You are bought and sold and expected to do hard labor without protest. Any resistance could mean your life, or your foot, so you quickly learn to submit yourself to the authority of the ruling racial class. Your ethnic heritage, as a whole, is kept in poverty and ignorance for many generations. Old proud traditions are beaten out of you, and new ones are created in secret, out of the watchful eye of your master. You cannot sing your music, but you can sing in the church choir, so you create your own new culture under the restrictions imposed by your masters.

Then a century down the road, it is decided that slavery is wrong and you are set free. Unfortunately for you, you are in your middle age with no money or education in a culture where you are thought of as subhuman. In this hostile environment, you are expected to compete with people who have been free all their lives, and more sinisterly, people who loathe you and are actively against your progress. They even create organizations to make life worse for you and to form lynch mobs to murder you and your kind.

This new generation continues to pass along the legacy of poverty, lack of education, self doubt, fear and shame to further generations. For the next few generations, laws are set up to discriminate against your people, and it is publicly acceptable to insult, attack and even kill your underclass with minimal consequences. There are new freedoms and a desire to rise above, but there are so very many cultural barriers.

Eventually society decides this underclass should have the same rights as everyone else, but at this point, the legacy of slavery has been imprinted on an entire culture for many generations - Hundreds of years of negative cultural conditioning. Although free in law, there is still much animosity aimed at your group. Not only are ou different in color and culture, but you also carry the stigma of being poor and not having access to the same level of education of the ruling racial class.

Eventually steps are taken to reverse this legacy of hate, poverty and slavery through government assistance programs, and while costly, they do yield success as your underclass rises in wealth and social acceptance. The fact that we, the racial ruling class, see them as equal and expect them to do as well as we do speaks greatly to the change in culture over the last half century. But, just are the legacy of slavery lives on in black culture, so does the legacy of hate live on in white culture. Groups of neo-confederate whites are angry that there is an effort to help remedy a problem created by our forefathers. They don't care whether or not these programs have been successful, they just hate the idea of this long hated underclass getting some help.

Just as the legacy of poverty has made it's way from generation to generation, so has the legacy of hate.

Perhaps the neo-confederates should take the log out of their own eye, before cataloging the failings of others. Or at least, they could attempt some understanding of why these stats are the way they are, how much progress has been made, and what could be done to stop these destructive legacies in the future.


Do you see what I'm going for here, qm? I'd love a yes, even if it comes with heavy reservations.

Cool tune. After some quick research, found out it's "Thick as Thieves" by Kalle Mattson. You can get it free (and legally) from the guy's site here: http://kallemattson.bandcamp.com/album/anchors-lp. His whole catalog is there on a "name your price" model.

>> ^SDGundamX:

@jwray
Thanks for clarifying your use of the terms. I'd just like to point out that the way you use the term is not the way that many others (including myself) define it, which is why I linked to the Wikipedia site in my previous post because I think that site does a good job of both describing the different "meanings" attributed to the word "faith" and also cataloging (in very general terms) how the various religions of the world consider faith in their respective worldviews. It's a good read, so I hope you'll check it out.


If someone has questioned their religion and come to the conclusion that there is a good reason to believe it (=evidence), that is not faith. That is faulty logic.

Believing in something for any reason other than being convinced of its truth is an impossibility for anyone who is honest with himself (you know, one of the many flaws in Pascal's wager is that a man cannot simply will himself to believe something for a wager). Being convinced of the truth of something without having any evidence for it is illogical.

@jwray

Thanks for clarifying your use of the terms. I'd just like to point out that the way you use the term is not the way that many others (including myself) define it, which is why I linked to the Wikipedia site in my previous post because I think that site does a good job of both describing the different "meanings" attributed to the word "faith" and also cataloging (in very general terms) how the various religions of the world consider faith in their respective worldviews. It's a good read, so I hope you'll check it out.

shiny, sounds to me like you need some sleep.
also, great story about the background of the song:
http://ericwhitacre.com/music-catalog/satb-choral/sleep

Cool car, 7.2l V8 and a great sound. Given current fuel prices, hope he had the 4 speed manual... the auto burns 32l/100kms.

This in some way reminds of my own situation. I had a comic book store. From 2007 to 2009 I was the co-owner and co-clerk of the only comic book shop my city ever had. It was a great store. Big area, great decor, but unfortunately we just never sold as much as we hoped, and by early 2009 I turned to my associate and said: "Well.. either we close the store or I keep it going alone (I had invested a lot more money than he had) in a new, smaller, cheaper place and try to make things work". So by the summer of 2009 I was in the new, much cheaper, much smaller location. If I had managed to keep the same volume of sales as in the previous store, I would be fine. Unfortunately, things never go as you plan, and in the summer of 2010, I closed down for good.
Now I basically sell comics from my house, by catalog, to a few of the old clients who still want to. I don't really make any money from it. I get the chance to order a book for myself every now and then, and if I make 70€ of profit every month, it's a lot.
So yeah...