BTW, for those of you that want to have MORE fun with the math aspect of all of this (if you want to try to figure out for example what equation you'll be using here...) go here: Wikiversity's link for Rigid Body States O' Fun! <---WARNING: LOTS of MATH!

Angular momentum, torque, and a strange geometrical shape with different areas of "spin" make for great WTF moments. I like torque the most though, it always provides the most fun through its various breakdowns in Physics...

I can defiantly see a college professor turning that little video into an impromptu test, "Watch this video: Now, assume that this thing has these dimensions and has this mass, also here are the independent velocities for the different areas (if it's a hard class will add in extra stuff like resistance, etc...)... Go ahead and tell me x, y, and, z...? You have twenty-five minutes.".

I really do like this video though. If I was a High School physics teacher my kids would understand what is happening here before they left my class. Screw honors programs and AP crap. All students deserve a chance to be great at something not just the ones that scored good on their tests in elementary (which in UTAH, this IS THE TRUTH!). Off-topic a bit, but I couldn't help it.

If our government was truely interested in generating income,the simplest way would be to tax the profits of stock transactions to start,and tarrifs for all these imported goods we no longer generate to make sending manufacturing overseas less attractive. Taxing the rich at a comparable rate to the working class will help tremendously as well. Taxes are on PROFITS-that's what is left over once the expenses of creating that profit are paid-so no whining how the poor billionaire is getting robbed. The difference can be made up in volume...more people capeable of spending money because they have jobs means more profits in any case...China may have super cheap labour,but they pay their taxes to China,not America. Eroding the middle class tax base seems as clever to me as Wile E Cyote sawing away at the cliff holding him up,and pointing this out to him makes him saw defiantly faster. Until he falls.

Capitalism could work if our government's corporate masters realize they have a vested interest in providing livings for their workforces. A worker who appreciates a good job will go that extra mile to promote that company willingly,to the benifit of all. This short term nonsense of using bailout money to reward the top tier of executives with incentive money is rank madness,high treachery and ultimately self destructive. A pity whatever puppet we elect will just continue the sad dance whomever gets in.

Its why I'm voting for Goldman Sachs in November. They are already running the place,and they may value me as an exploitable resource even after I cast my vote. They can't be worse than these clowns running about now.

SREDNI VASHTAR

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dulness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.

Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him ``for his good'' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out---an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.

In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.

The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.

After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice of his guardian. ``It is not good for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,'' she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it ``gave trouble,'' a deadly offence in the middle-class feminine eye.

``I thought you liked toast,'' she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that he did not touch it.

``Sometimes,'' said Conradin.

In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin went back to the world he so hated.

And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up: ``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she made a further journey of inspection.

``What are you keeping in that locked hutch?'' she asked. ``I believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.''

Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:

Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pæan of victory and devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.

``Tea is ready,'' said the sour-faced maid; ``where is the mistress?'' ``She went down to the shed some time ago,'' said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.

``Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!'' exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of toast.

Well, this seems to have turned into a public forum....

I, too, miss the QUALITY contributions of blankfist, @RhesusMonk. The QUALITY contributions have been stellar. Some of the funniest things on the Sift came from his observations. Funny and smart. What's not to like?

Let me tell you.

It wasn't just the obvious trolling.

I don't miss the personal attacks, and the thin-skinned whining that followed when blankie was told off by fellow Sifters and then ultimately dag. Talk about being able to dish it out but not being able to take it!

If anyone has received preferential treatment, it has been blankie. Blankie has been responsible for driving many folks away from the sift, but because he did make QUALITY contributions, he was allowed to come back again and again.

Besides, I think this is a perfect way to flameout on the Sift, and is an absolutely PERFECT final troll on the Sift. A mere 90 or so vids away from Galaxy, and to walk away from that glory? That is classy, funny, in-your-face proud and defiant. Listed on the Top Ten with the Circle Line logo as a Galaxy symbol, as @Fusionaut noted?

The Perfect Troll. Absolutely Perfect Troll.

>> ^Kofi:

My favorite philosopher. His books Outside ethics and Politics and the real are fantastic. I can't wait to watch this later tonight.
BTW Westy, he's a philosopher. Being overly verbose is what they do


lol I know but its just stupid , any intelligent person will evaluate an argument or what is being said by the core information facts and logic , not the poetry and colourful use of language , in this context especially where he is presenting to university students it makes little sense for him to be so verbose and shouting.

If his books are more concise then id defiantly reed them.

>> ^SDGundamX:

Hey, thanks for the links... every single one of which refutes your original point that:
"it was an act of defiance, not pacifism..."
I think you're a bit confused about what "pacifism" means. Pacifism is not against defiance; pacifism is against the use of violence to achieve political or personal aims. For example, Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was both defiant and pacifist in nature--she used non-violent means to protest the unjust laws of that time. Turning the other cheek--in the historical sense you described--therefore is indeed both an act of defiance and pacifist in nature.
So @ChaosEngine 's original point stands--people who are Christian and support the death penalty would seem to indeed be ignoring Christ's teachings (in addition to the mounds of evidence that show the death penalty is neither cost effective nor a strong deterrent to crime).

It's pacifism-compatible because it's not calling for violence. It's not, however, an instruction to let all transgressions slide as so many people believe.

As for @ChaosEngine's point, I do not disagree with it and was not trying to tear it down. I just think the "turn the other cheek" part doesn't support it very well.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^ChaosEngine:
So Christ was just kidding about "turn the other cheek"?
In those days, you would strike someone of lower social standing with the back of your left hand. If they turned their head to the left, exposing the right cheek, it would force the aggressor to punch them, slap them with the palm, or use the right hand. These are actions that would be used to challenge someone of equal standing. By turning the other cheek, you were forcing them to either treat you as an equal or stop assaulting you.
It was an act of defiance, not pacifism, and does not really support your argument.

Uh huh...and where is this documented? Because it could be utter bullshit.

It seems I got the left/right hand part mixed up, but the point stands...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MKY/is_3_29/ai_n11838798/
http://www.voiceofrevolution.com/2009/01/13/what-does-t
urn-the-other-cheek-really-mean/
http://www.zcommunications.org/christian-nonviolence-by-walter-wink
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek


Hey, thanks for the links... every single one of which refutes your original point that:

"it was an act of defiance, not pacifism..."

I think you're a bit confused about what "pacifism" means. Pacifism is not against defiance; pacifism is against the use of violence to achieve political or personal aims. For example, Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus was both defiant and pacifist in nature--she used non-violent means to protest the unjust laws of that time. Turning the other cheek--in the historical sense you described--therefore is indeed both an act of defiance and pacifist in nature.

So @ChaosEngine 's original point stands--people who are Christian and support the death penalty would seem to indeed be ignoring Christ's teachings (in addition to the mounds of evidence that show the death penalty is neither cost effective nor a strong deterrent to crime).

You are a victom of apathetic and almost defiantly inconsiderate dog owners. I have (directly) seen so many people not pick up poop; and abuse the parks in my neighborhood, that I reflexively think the worst when I see behavior that may imply dog shenanigans.

Hey man, she could just work in HR. It's a uniform.>> ^coolhund:

>> ^Januari:
>> ^coolhund:
Well, if someone only knew superficial and spoiled girls (like this one looks like), I really dont wonder why he also only sees the body.

So SHE is superficial and spoiled because based on a handful of pictures you think so... Wow... yeah... SHE is defiantly the superficial one.

I said she looks like one. What she wears, how her makeup is, her poses, etc. Experience, mate.
Of course she might not be someone like that, but thats kinda rare nowadays anyway. And as I said, women like those exist and make many men actually think they could "score" like that. Action and reaction. Simple as that.

>> ^Januari:

>> ^coolhund:
Well, if someone only knew superficial and spoiled girls (like this one looks like), I really dont wonder why he also only sees the body.

So SHE is superficial and spoiled because based on a handful of pictures you think so... Wow... yeah... SHE is defiantly the superficial one.


I said she looks like one. What she wears, how her makeup is, her poses, etc. Experience, mate.
Of course she might not be someone like that, but thats kinda rare nowadays anyway. And as I said, women like those exist and make many men actually think they could "score" like that. Action and reaction. Simple as that.

>> ^coolhund:

Well, if someone only knew superficial and spoiled girls (like this one looks like), I really dont wonder why he also only sees the body.


So SHE is superficial and spoiled because based on a handful of pictures you think so... Wow... yeah... SHE is defiantly the superficial one.

The Big Lie About The Great Depression

Ben Shapiro

In her vital and fascinating new book, "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes tells a story about national icon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Shortly after FDR took office, Shlaes explains, he began arbitrarily tinkering with the price of gold. "One day he would move the price up several cents; another, a few more," writes Shlaes.

One particular morning, Shlaes relates, FDR informed his "brain trust" that he was considering raising the price of gold by 21 cents. His advisers asked why 21 cents was the appropriate figure. "It's a lucky number," stated Roosevelt, "because it's three times seven." Henry Morgenthau, a member of the "brain trust," later wrote: "If anybody knew how we really set the gold price through a combination of lucky numbers, etc., I think they would be frightened."

Ignorance of basic economics — and the concurrent attempt to obfuscate that ignorance by employing class-conscious demagoguery — remains the staple of the Democratic Party. For over 60 years, Democrats and their allies in the media and public school system have taught that the Great Depression was an inevitable result of laissez-faire economic policies, and that only the Keynesian policies of the FDR government allowed America to emerge from the ashes. The Great Depression, for the left, provides conclusive proof that when it comes to economics, government works better than business.

This point of view has a sterling reputation. That reputation, unsurprisingly, was created by FDR himself. FDR turned the Great Depression into a morality play — a morality play in which those in favor of individual initiative were the sinners, while those who relied on government were the saints. "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," Roosevelt intoned in 1937. "We know now that it is bad economics."

This, as Shlaes convincingly shows, is hogwash. The Depression lasted nearly a decade longer than it should have, due almost entirely to governmental meddling under both Herbert Hoover and FDR. High tariffs and government-sponsored deflation followed by enormous taxation and unthinkable government expenditures turned a stock market stumble into a decade-long nightmare. Only the devastation of World War II lifted America out of the mire, solving the drastic unemployment problem and providing a legitimate medium for FDR's pre-war wartime policies.

Nonetheless, the myth of a grinning FDR leading America forth from the soup kitchens remains potent.
And today's Democrats rely desperately on that fading falsehood, hoping to bolster their bad economics with worse history. Hillary Clinton routinely hijacks Rooseveltian language, most recently disparaging the "on your own society" in favor of a "we're all in it together society." John Edwards' "two Americas" nonsense drips of FDR's class warfare. Never mind that Keynesian economics does not work. Never mind that it promotes unemployment, discourages investment and quashes entrepreneurship. For Democrats, the image of government-as-friend is more important than a government that actually protects the rights that breed prosperity.

"The impression of recovery — the impression that a President was bending the old rules and, drawing upon his own courage and flamboyance in adversity and illness, stirring things up on behalf of the down-and-out — mattered more than any miscalculations in the moot mathematics of economics," novelist-cum-economist John Updike recently wrote, defending FDR from Shlaes' critique. "Business, of which Shlaes is so solicitous, is basically merciless, geared to maximize profit. Government is ultimately a human transaction, and Roosevelt put a cheerful, defiant, caring face on government at a time when faith in democracy was ebbing throughout the Western world. For this inspirational feat he is the twentieth century's greatest President, to rank with Lincoln and Washington as symbolic figures for a nation to live by."

For Updike and his allies, image trumps reality. The supposed harshness of the business world matters more for Updike than the fact that profit incentives promote economic growth, efficiency and creativity. The "caring face" of government is more important for Updike than creating a framework that produces jobs and affordable commodities. Updike's sporadically employed father liked FDR because FDR made him feel "less alone." No doubt Updike's father would have felt less alone if he had been steadily employed by a private enterprise — the kind of enterprise stifled by Roosevelt.

"We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal," FDR announced in 1937, as unemployment stood at 15 percent, "and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world." Today's Democrats continue to embrace the vision, even at the cost of a prosperous reality.

you can fucking talk about statistics all damn day it still doesnt change the fact that the dude consistently showed a dismissive, cocky, defiant, and at times bullying posture, language, and body language. The escalation has its genesis in the civilians actions not the cops. furthermore the escalation was perpetuated by the civilian not the cop.

this dude was that statistical 1 in the cops eyes and very rightfully so.

>> ^handmethekeysyou:

Asking "what did I do?" is not "begging for it."
I understand why the cop got upset immediately. Guy got out of his car and started walking toward the officer with a hand in his pocket. Totally reasonable to react strongly to that. But by the 50th time when the cop told him to turn around and the guy was just asking what it was about, you'd think the cop would realize the guy isn't a threat.
Just answer the question, "what's this about?" And if you're not going to answer the question, say, "we'll discuss that in a minute, but for now just turn around and put your hands on your head." I'd say, "I pulled you over because of your license plate, but you started out acting like a threat. If you turn around and put your hands on your head, I assure you we'll walk away from this without a ticket or a problem." If the cop can't be expected to be the voice of reason, he shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun.
This was literally (rewatch it, precisely) three minutes of the cop saying "turn around and put your hands on your head" with smatterings of "do it now" and nothing else. That's not communication. That's ordering and tasering when your orders are not met. That's not law enforcement.>> ^smooman:
tasered 6 times for having a crooked license? thats not a misleading title at all!
what i saw was a dude get tasered 6 times for being a jackass
excuse me if i cant sympathize with a man who is practically begging for it



asking, no, demanding "what did i do?" is most assuredly "begging for it" given it's context.

You certainly have a strange reasoning in assuming a man who is utterly uncooperative, suspicious, erratic, and at times irate, is somehow not a perceivable threat.

"just answer the question"? jesus titty fucking christ do some people just have an abject lack of respect for judicial process? i'll let you be the one to leap out of your car on your next traffic stop and act surprised at the rate of escalation. Ya, the "voice of reason" certainly was working with the offender wasnt it? Guy gets pulled over, guy immediately gets out of car and approaches officer, guy is sternly and directly instructed to back the fuck up and at gunpoint even, guy refuses......ya thats a reasonable man right there

the only reason it was three minutes of "turn around and put your hands on your head" is because for three fucking minutes that asshat was overtly defiant and wholly uncooperative.

you know i hated authority too....then i graduated fucking high school

Wow... that was totally not what i was expecting... defiantly not my grand-dad's moon buggy... it think...

Seriously how cool would it be to drive the moon buggy into a lightpost!...