*related=http://videosift.com/video/The-Fifth-Element-Diva-Plavalaguna-scene

Armenian girl sing "Fifth Element" Opera live on The Voice. has been added as a related post - related requested by notarobot on that post.

Congratulations! Your video, Armenian girl sing "Fifth Element" Opera live on The Voice., has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

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http://videosift.com/video/A-girl-sings-the-Diva-Dance-from-the-Fifth-Element

...just noting that particular video is on the sift already.

Armenian girl sing "Fifth Element" Opera live on The Voice. has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash on that post.

A girl sings the "Diva Dance" from the Fifth Element has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/A-girl-sings-the-Diva-Dance-from-the-Fifth-Element

Your video, Armenian girl sing "Fifth Element" Opera live on The Voice., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, The Fifth Estate: The Silence of the Labs, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Here is list of reasons that have me excited for this game when I originally did not give two shits because the two that came before it I did not enjoy. On the killed dupe I mentioned that there are no load screens, this is huge!

Second, it's supposedly the most detailed and largest open-world created, bigger than Skyrim. And then remember that in Skyrim, there were load screens when entering buildings... in Witcher 3 there won't be load screens, it's all fluid.

Third, in all of the reviews people say that your choices actually do change the game world.

Fourth, NPCs have day/night scripts that make sense and make them believable.

Fifth, the atmosphere - trees bend as you hear the wind come in. That's the sort of attention to world building this Polish developer has brought us.

Sixth, every encounter of the supposed 200+ hour gameplay is voice acted/cinematic, the voice acting is supposed to be great as well I've heard the quests themselves are a lot of fun.

I really think this was 'faked' by dad, trying to let his little girls reel in a big (pre-caught) fish....here's my reasoning.

First, that looks like a huge fish for what looks like a small pond (but the pond may be larger than it looks).
Second, we don't see her hook it, just reel it in.
Third, that fish is totally exhausted, not putting up the fight a fresh caught bass would give.
Fourth, pops doesn't grab the pole and reel it in for her...like a normal fisherman would do...he lets his little girl reel in what is a huge catch and takes his time reaching to grab it as if he knew she wouldn't lose it (and like he was not really excited by the 'catch').
Fifth, and most telling, his other daughter asks him to 'put that on my fishing pole'...like he had just put it on the first girls pole and now it's her turn.
Sixth....I noticed that the fish is double hooked, one in each side of it's mouth. That rarely if ever happens, you would expect one to be deep in it's mouth, not both in the corners.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure seemed like a set up to me.

I think truck's fault because....
First, the truck should not be in the fast lane, it's being passed by traffic, not passing traffic. He's too impatient.
Second, the truck intentionally speeds up to block the car. When it started the lane change, there was room. When you change lanes, you look sideways to be sure there's room, then you move over while looking forward. If someone speeds into the space and hits you from behind after you start the lane change, it's THEIR fault unless you slam on your brakes to make them hit you.
Third, the truck, trying to block the car, moves WAY too close to the next car, tailgating insanely. Watch the black car speed away terrified.
Fourth, the truck passes the car on the shoulder, them moves back into the lane slightly squashing it. The truck knew the car was there the whole time but just refused to brake.
Fifth, the truck was speeding. The truck speed limit is 10mph below the car speed limit on freeways, and the truck was going faster than the speeding cars, so almost certainly speeding by over 10mph.
Sixth, and indisputable, the trucker was on the phone, making him at fault as much as if he was drunk, no matter what he did driving.

As I see it, the car was less than safe, but the truck was an intentional dickhead that STARTED the film by driving badly, and ended with an accident he'll pay for. It's on film, he saw the car changing lanes and sped up to block it refusing to let her merge, passed it on the shoulder after it had passed him and entered the lane, and hit the car on purpose because he refused to hit his brakes/didn't want to be passed again. If I was on the jury, I would put it (EDIT)98% on the truck. He had every opportunity to avoid the accident by hitting the middle pedal just a little, but instead stood on the little pedal and seemingly thought to himself "Ramming speed!".

In those still shots, it looked like the first of the 5 signs was "Down". The second and fifth weren't visible.

I wonder if they said "Down with white power now" or something, because they knew that if they walked to the game with only 2 signs saying "white power" that they likely wouldn't get let in the building, or would get kicked out quickly.

In the current situation, "structural reforms" is used to subsume two entirely different sets of measures.

The first is meant to remove what you previously mentioned: corruption in all the shapes and forms it takes in Greece, from a (intentionally) broken tax system formed over decades of nepotism to a bankrupt national media in the hands of oligarchs. The institutions of the Greek state are precisely what you expect when a country has been run by four families (Papandreou, Samaras, Mitsotakis, Karamanlis) for basically five decades.

This kind of structural reform is part of Syriza's program. Like you said, it'll be hard work and they might very well fail. They'll have only weeks, maybe a few months to undo significant parts of what has grown over half a century. It's not fair, but that's what it is.

The second kind of "structural reform" is meant to increase competitiveness, generally speaking, and a reduction of the public sector. In case of Greece, this included the slashing of wages, pensions, benefits, public employment. The economic and social results are part of just about every article these days, so I won't mention them again. A Great Depression, as predicted.

That's the sort of "structural reforms" Syriza wants to undo. And it's the sort that is expected of Spain, Italy and France as well, which, if done, would probably throw the entire continent into a Great Depression.

I'd go so far as to call any demand to increase competitiveness to German levels madness. Germany gained its competitiveness by 15 years of beggar-thy-neighbour economics, undercutting the agreed upon target of ~2% inflation (read: 2% growth of unit labour costs) the entire time. France played by the rules, was on target the entire time, and is now expected to suffer for it. Only Greece was significantly above target, and are now slightly below target. That's only halfway, yet already more than any democratic country can take.

They could have spread the adjustment out over 20 years, with Germany running above average ULC growth, but decided to throw Greece (and to a lesser degree Spain) off a cliff instead.


So where are we now? Debt rose, GDP crashed, debt as percentage of GDP skyrocketed. That's a fail. Social situation is miserable, health care system basically collapsed, reducing Greece to North African standards. That's a fail.

Those are not reforms to allow Greece to function independently. Those are reforms to throw the Greek population into misery, with ever increasing likeliness of radical solutions (eg Golden Dawn, who are eagerly hoping for a failure of Syriza).

So yes, almost every nation in Europe needs reforms of one sort or another. But using austerity as a rod to beat discipline into supposedly sovereign nations is just about the shortest way imaginable to blow up the Eurozone. Inflicting this amount of pain on people against their will does not work in democratic countries, and the rise of Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Féin, the SNP and the Greens as well as the surge of popularity for Front National and Golden Dawn are clear indicators that the current form of politics cannot be sustained.

Force austerity on France and Le Pen wins the election.

Meaningful reforms that are to increase Europe's "prosperity" would have the support of the people. And reforms are definatly needed, given that the Eurozone is in its fifth year of stagnation, with many countries suffering from both a recession and deflation. A European Union without increasing prosperity for the masses will not last long, I'm sure of it. And a European Union that intentionally causes Great Depressions wouldn't be worth having anyway.

Yet after everything is said and done, I believe you are still absolutely correct in saying that the pro-austerity states won't blink.

Which is what makes it interesting, really. Greece might be able to take a default. They run a primary surplus and most (90%+) of the funds went to foreign banks, the ECB and the IMF anyway, or were used to stabilize the banking system. The people got bugger all. But the Greek banking system would collapse without access to the European system.

Which raises the question: would the pro-austerity states risk a collapse of the Greek banking system and everything it entails? Spanish banks would follow in a heartbeat.

As for the morality of it (they elected those governments, they deserved it): I don't believe in collective punishment, especially not the kind that cripples an entire generation, which is what years of 50+% youth unemployment and a failing educational system does.

My own country, Germany, in particular gets no sympathy from me in this case. Parts of our system were intentionally reformed to channel funds into the market, knowing full well that there was nowhere near enough demand for credit to soak up the surplus savings, nowhere near enough reliable debtors to generate a reasonable return of investment without generating bubbles, be it real estate or financial. They were looking for debtors, and if all it took was turning a blind eye to the painfully obvious longterm problems it would create in Southern Europe, they were more than eager to play along.

Kudos, I'd just like to really highlight two of the good points you make.

First, Tesla motors is huge. When I said electric cars, I didn't mention them by name but was thinking specifically of them. They have proven that electric cars are the future and are coming quickly.

The second is as Tyson pointed out, the most important metric is energy coming into the planet compared to energy going out. Temperatures fluctuate to many other variables. Particularly if the oceans are absorbing or releasing energy, temperatures as we experience them will shift on that and muddy the perception of what's actually happening to the overall planet's energy balance and long term change. In the late 80's we started measuring the energy in and out of the atmosphere with satellites. There was an observed increase between late 80's and late 90's in the energy imbalance. That means not only was more energy coming in than going out over that time, but the excess staying in was getting higher. With increasing CO2 emissions, that is exactly what we expect. An increased overall greenhouse effect should see the energy imbalance growing quite steadily as the effect gets stronger and stronger. Now, the IPCC's fifth assessment report has the the longer term data from those same and new satellites. The data shows that since 2001 there is strong agreement that the data shows NO TREND. That doesn't mean the energy in the planet hasn't been increasing. It means the rate of extra energy coming in hasn't gone up or down statistically since 2001. It means the overall greenhouse effect has been entirely stagnant for a little more than the last decade. Things are warming, but no faster than they were ten years ago.

I hope that's not to technical, but it paints a non-catastrophic picture. It also gives a superb metric to measure climate models against going forward. The models universally are projected on a steadily accelerating greenhouse effect as CO2 emissions rise. If the measured results of the last decade continue to not reflect that much longer, we have more reassessing to do. As noted in the IPCC, the effect of water vapor and clouds to increasing temperature is poorly modelled right now. If we are lucky the uncertainty of the sign on it as feedback is resolved to find it is a negative feedback. Meaning, as things warm, more clouds appear and reflect more energy back out. As things cool, less clouds appear and more energy comes in. And yeah, that's my own hope, and it is not the majority opinion within the scientific community as represented by the IPCC. They do acknowledge it as a possibility, but a less likely one. That said, the models they base that opinion on do not match the satellite energy measurements, and that one uncertainty would explain it rather well. My fingers are still crossed. More reasons for my optimism is the IPCC projections through 2100. If you look close, the actual temperature plotted against the projections has the actual following the very coolest of projections so far. Again, that lends hope that something like water vapor is either working for us, or not as badly against us as is currently modelled.