@Diogenes

Thank you for your detailed answer. I do agree with you that context matters and that words are neither inherently good or bad by themselves. However, I think you’re looking at the situation from a more microscopic point of view as a simple joke between two people. I prefer to take a more macroscopic view of the situation. Allow me to explain.

Going back to my hypothetical example, it’s true that I didn't mean any harm when I used the term "retard" towards my brother. I think all people like to think of themselves as "good" people. For example, I would never in my life point at person with Down Syndrome and scream "Retard!" at the top of my lungs or attempt to belittle someone with an actual mental disability. The problem, however, is that by using the word in the way I did in the example I am tacitly--and quite publicly (remember this is happening in a parking lot)--endorsing the equating of people with mental disabilities to stupidity. I may be making a joke towards my brother but it isn’t just my brother that winds up being the butt of the joke.

Now maybe from your perspective, it’s just one person saying a joke. Look at the context, you might say. It’s a distasteful joke but no big deal, right? And I could agree with that if it was just some off-color joke limited to a single individual. Unfortunately, and I think we can both agree on this, the use of “retard” to mean “stupid” is a relatively common occurrence in American vernacular. You couple that with the stigma against mental illness and mental disability and I think it becomes fairly plain to see that on the macroscopic level (i.e. society) we have a problem: a group that is socially disadvantaged and historically discriminated against is even further marginalized by the language people use in their everyday lives. Now, if you don’t agree this is a problem, I’m afraid the conversation has to end here since the logical conclusion of such a stance is that people should be free to say whatever they want and be immune to criticism, damn the consequences.

But if you do agree it is a problem, how are we going to solve it? My take on the situation is that doing absolutely nothing when witnessing a situation like the one I've described is unlikely to improve society in any way. The status quo will be maintained if people are not confronted about their language use.

That being said, people often say things without fully comprehending the implications of what they are saying. They often talk the way they were raised and never once questioned whether what they were saying was actually harmful or not. I don’t think people should be pilloried for that, but in the event that they are unaware of how they are contributing to the discrimination and oppression of others they certainly need to be educated.

This necessarily entails confrontation, although that confrontation might be very low key. Continuing the example above, I think a good way for the woman in the example to “enlighten” me about my misguided use of the word “retard” would be something along the lines of this:

“Excuse me. I really wish you wouldn’t equate having a mental handicap with stupidity. My nephew has Down Syndrome and even though, yes, he can’t do everything that a person without an intellectual handicap can do he is most certainly not stupid.”

Now, all of that said, I see nothing wrong with publicly shaming those who clearly understand the implications of what they are saying and out of either stubbornness, a need for attention, or actual spite willfully continue to use language that is degrading or oppressive. A white person frequently using the N-word in public to describe black people, for instance, is a situation where I’d be completely fine with them getting verbally eviscerated. We don't always have to be polite, even when being politically correct.

As a final note, I want to make it clear that I believe in free speech in the sense that everyone should be free to say whatever they wish. However, as a caveat to that I also believe that free speech comes with the responsibility that people must own everything they say. If someone wishes to use offensive, degrading, or oppressive language that is their choice. Free speech in no way gives them a free pass from criticism of that choice, however.

I want to like these, as I enjoy the concept, but find the guy's presentations are always both deceptive and entirely superficial.

'Microscope from Scratch! Watch as I stumble through making a glass-like substance again in a way that is so incredibly ass-backwards its surprising I don't burn down my garage, then watch me copy a paper microscope with paper I technically made using a bunch of equipment other people let me use, then finally watch me use glass (which I purchased and nearly failed at making into simple beads) in that microscope to eventually show you a ridiculously fuzzy image of a stained microscope slide I also purchased. Thanks patreons!'

Thanks The teensy microscope is an old idea too, looking back to the very earliest microscopes.

I don't care about the timing, political motivation, etc. etc. of this discovery of new emails. I think only 2 things matter:

1) Are they real / legitimate. But with all of the previous leaks, I never saw the Clinton camp trying to suggest that anything was fabricated. Taking stuff out of context to make it appear worse than what it arguably is doesn't count count as "fabricated". As much as I dislike Clinton, I have to give her credit for dealing with the out of context stuff so far in the proper way -- fill in the context so that people can make up their own minds (like some of the Wall Street speech excerpts, "public and private position", etc.).

2) Do they show anything actually criminal, even it is relatively minor. Capone went down for tax evasion, because that was the only thing they could successfully and concretely pin on him. And yet justice was served by going forward with that.

IF (and it remains a big if) these new emails end up meeting both of those criteria, I have absolutely zero sympathy for the whining that already has and will continue to erupt from the Democrat party.

Being a candidate in a presidential election paints a giant target on you and guarantees that your past is going to be under the microscope. If you've got skeletons in your closet, there is a very high chance for them to be discovered. Trump has had a well-deserved taste of that already -- maybe it is Clinton's turn now.

Your video, Stuff under Microscope, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Because then TV producers would try to enact stupid rules and put the entire thing under a microscope. Someone would cry about a bunch of people getting drunk and going camping and beating each other with weapons and broadcasting it on TV. Then some republican would cry about there being to much government and that if elected he would shut it down because government rules should only apply to things he does not like. Then anarchy with dogs and cats joining forces to wipe out humanity. It would just be a downward spiral.

@bobknight33 --

I continue to agree with you on a lot of what you're saying (but not all).

Trump and Sanders are both riding a wave of frustration in the people, as you say. Their current popularity, even if both only go downhill from here, has already partially sent that message to both parties. I don't think Trump would make a good president, but if he wins the election I think that really hammering home that message of frustration could be a significant positive outcome. Same goes for some hypothetical scenario resulting in Sanders getting elected, although I personally feel quite positive about the other stuff that I think Sanders would bring to the table, unlike how I feel about Trump.

If there's one area where I think the government could stand to get *bigger*, it's in oversight, evaluation, and accountability. Being under the microscope and heavily scrutinized perhaps isn't a recipe for optimal efficiency, but I think we desperately need more of it in government AND the private sector.

Early in my lifetime, a large corporation that had a relatively benign monopoly by today's standards was considered a big enough deal for the government to step in and break it up. AT&T / Bell got split into the "Baby Bells". Corporations now are vast juggernauts compared to that, but since they make gigantic profits I guess we collectively see them as bastions of Capitalism. But I think that in reality they are doing much more harm to Capitalism with their monopolies, collusion, and corruption.

I think Sanders is the candidate most likely to even *try* to do something to roll back that shift, and bring back oversight and accountability to government. Hillary sure as hell wouldn't do it. And I don't think Trump would either -- he is the literal face of a gigantic Corporation himself, after all.

I had high hopes for Obama. He didn't live up to them, but to be fair I think the lion's share of that is on the Legislative branch. That taught me to be careful about putting much of any stock into Presidential campaign promises, particularly about things outside the scope of what the Executive branch can actually do.

I think Trump and Clinton both put *themselves* first, ahead of all else. I don't think Clinton gives a flying fuck about any of us plebs, beyond attempting to pander to large demographic blocks of us just enough to secure our votes. Maybe Trump cares more for Joe Average than Clinton, but only incidentally -- as a Capitalist he needs Joe Averages to buy his products, and buy into his image.

I don't get the same read from Sanders. I think he actually does give a shit. A lot of his agenda would require a cooperative Legislature, which he wouldn't get -- just like Obama. So in terms of changing the status quo, perhaps his biggest impact would simply be in sending the establishment a loud and clear message that we are no longer content with business as usual in Washington. A message very similar to what electing Trump would send.

It would/ will take me some soul searching, but assuming that Hillary gets the Democrat nomination over Sanders, a desire to send that message might be enough to get me to vote for Trump. But voting for a reasonably tolerable option from a minor party might serve that end just as well. Say Jesse Ventura running as a Libertarian, or Jill Stein from the Green Party. Stein has the very distinct advantage (from my perspective) of being the only current candidate who has said that she would grant a Presidential pardon to Ed Snowden (although Ventura would too, IF he runs). Pardons are one of the few things that a President can actually *do* unilaterally -- and that makes that a pretty damn good "single issue" prompt for my vote, in my opinion.

Show a dozen different people the same event and you can get a dozen different feelings or reactions. But on the internet you had better make sure you show the right kind of reaction or risk being attacked for it. If they brought these guys in without letting them know what they were really in for then it's ambush TV at it's finest.

The shame responses in these guys were pretty clear and I thought that making them take on the shame and guilt that rightfully belongs to another seems cruel and manipulative to me.

Guys often feel the need to take responsibility, it doesn't matter what it is or even if they really were responsible. And so they drag these guys out in front of millions and proceed to make them feel as responsible as they can. And really , all men are responsible for these things anyhow, right?

This video is meant to instruct? You mean like how you are supposed to react? And if you deviate from this response in any way whatsoever you are not human anymore or something?

Being human means that you are a creature of both thought and feeling, emotional reactions can either be compassionate as in this case or deadly when someone commits a crime of passion. Both our hearts and our heads will be needed if we want to continue as a species.

@eric3579
I don't know any of these men, but I know that were I in this situation I would feel like a bug under someone's microscope. (of course you'd never get me in front of a camera, knowingly at least) For what it's worth, I feel bad for everyone involved in this mess. The women were subjected to things that nobody should have to put up with, told things that were cruel, stupid and pointless. (but humans are so good at all three of those things) The men were tricked into someone's drama fueled media spectacle and suffered for something they had nothing to do with.
Not that any of that matters, in your professional opinion I'm probably just a garden variety psychopath.

There are some schools like this in Germany as well. Usually children that have issues like attention deficit disorder or do not fit into a normal school (problem child) will attend to such a "Forest school" (Waldschule). There are studies that it benefits development as the change in scenery from the busy city life helps the children adjust. It is definitely not very common and children still need to attend regular classes.

To say it has a flair of "anti science" is a bit far fetched as these schools often teach a lot about the local flora and fauna, do stuff like looking at water samples under a microscope or take earth probes. Sure it is not super scientific, it probably compares to what most kids would do as boy scouts - except it's part of the school's education program. For some kids this approach is better at fueling their scientific curiosity than in a regular school environment where they have many other issues to deal with.

It almost sounds like he is suggesting to keep an open mind and learn about other cultures, religions & mythology in order to understand those perspectives; and overall to be humble to the mystery: that we do not know.

In my opinion some of his opinions were a little contradictory - he doesn't believe in any sort of god or gods, but it seems that a wiser statement would be that he doesn't know, which would correspond with the "I don't believe in atheists" theme.

Furthermore, I honestly don't think that those who (in Hedges' words), "do not explore the religious impulse" are inhuman. Even if someone never explores it in their lifetime. In my opinion - the late bloomers who have disconnected themselves from all inclination of organized religion or spirituality, to find it on their own later in life might have a few more advantages than those that did not disconnect themselves from it at some point.

My personal preference is that I do believe in god because I want to believe in god. Whether it's a metaphor, completely abstract energy, a point in spacetime, a massive intelligent energy field that existed long before the big-bang, a life-force found only on Earth or the Milky Way or a fucking super mega alien technological consciousness program experiment or even a microscopic white dude flying on a microscopic magic carpet or all of the above and none of the above. I just believe even though my version of whatever creation/god is, is completely unidentifiable, it's everything and it's nothing.

Pretty cool!

One thing I personally dislike in very modern game CG is a tendency to overuse depth of field. For film, *some* use of depth of field can establish the important elements of the view by having them in focus, but in gameplay that is a dangerous thing to do because what the player considers to be important can shift rapidly and is in no way universal or predictable.

But if you play modern games or load up a custom ENB-like shader, they all tend to heavily implement a pretty narrow depth of field by default in what I assume is an effort to "look cool". Very true here, with the settings locking the female character into the focused range and starting in with the blur immediately beyond that. That's fine for a cutscene, but if I'm controlling things in any way or expecting to be able to react to visual information (by, you know, playing the game), the narrow focus really just detracts from the experience. It's like we're looking at the world through a microscope or a camera in macro mode ... just let me see a realistic (often infinite) range of depth in focus!

Diseasecausing , fecal and other bacteria are literally EVERYWHERE. They get on to everything we eat and drink, the stuff we touch.. everywhere. They are however pretty harmless in small quantities.

For instance, I'd probably worry more about using an Iphone, and then touching the rim of the glass afterwards. If you wanna get paranoid about it, try microscoping a swab from the glass of your phone touchscreen. thats the dirtiest place on earth.

Our bodies have evolved to live in dirty environments, so dont worry too much about it. wash your hands and do the normal hygiene stuff, and you probably wont die from fecal bacteria.. Just order a strong drink and wait for the alcohol to kill it

Lol. Right. I was curious and tried to Google the price of one and didn't have much success... admittedly I spent like less than 2 minutes before giving up (aka I scanned the first page and first page of shopping), but near as I can see, a good optical microscope will cost $2-4k, with most high end hobby ones around $3-500 range. I doubt there's a hobby range in SEMs. The only one I saw during that minute and a half search was a used one for $25k another for $27k and an auction listing that went for $2k (which compared to others seems out of price). Anyhow, between the auction price and the used listings, I figure roughly you are looking at $5-25k if you know where to look... Who knows what actually spending more time would have given me, but either way, I'm fairly sure a SEM is beyond most people's budgets.

Neither, they've stimulated an oscillation of the free surface electrons in a wire and taken a diffraction pattern of that standing wave of electrons, using an electron microscope. It's sensationalism.

@deathcow-yes...the super hydrophilic surface should act that way in most fluids. Not sure about scratching, but it makes sense it would lose its property with enough scratches, but bending/dents should be fine.
@Kalle-yes, and also easier cleaning, and fewer barnacles. I must add, this is not a material, it's a surface preparation/etching done with lasers, but could be made into a plastic sticker/wrap. That's what they did with the near microscopic "shark skin" surface pattern, which is designed to stop barnacles/microscopic sea life from attaching, but it is also fairly new and not in wide use yet. The thing that makes this better in my eyes is it can be applied directly to the metal, and should be easy to repair in dry dock.
I wonder which is better for repelling sea life.