Those laser guards don't make sense. They don't protect all the way to the blade. There is an exposed, vulnerable corner on each side of the blade. The design should have had the metal portion extending out then making a 135 degree (or more) angle back towards the main blade, so that the mini energy blade guards would provide full protection for the weilder's hand.

I thought the solution was rather obvious, actually.

You fix things by making games where people are portrayed as... people. Not trophies to be acquired, not sexual objects to be drooled over, and not stereotypes.

You couple that with continued criticism of games that continue to rely on sexist, racist, or homophobic tropes.

And guess what? That's already happening. People have been saying that games need to change for a while before Sarkeesian showed up. Bioware acknowledged the issues and started trying to include more realistic characters in its RPGs years ago--and caught flak for it even back then.

To address your other... points?

My daughter asked me the other day why she can't play as the princess in Super Mario Galaxy 2 (or any of the other Mario games we own). And I had to tell her it's because the Princess got kidnapped. Her response was to ask if she could play as the Princess once we freed her from Bowser. And I had to tell her no.

There is something wrong with that!

After having that conversation with my daughter I fired up Torchlight, where I'm currently playing as a Vanquisher. Vanquisher's are rogue-like ranged characters and can only be female. If you want to be a warrior ("Destroyer" in game terms) or magic user ("Alchemist" in game terms), sorry--it's a men's only club. And not only that, but Vanquisher's--regardless of the armor they wear, must bare their midriff and wearing a mini-skirt showing lots of leg and cleavage (do a google image search for Torchlight Vanquisher to see what I'm talking about). Apparently you can't be a Vanquisher without being a sex pot too.

There is something wrong with that! (To be fair, they got better with Torchlight II and allowed any class to be any gender and allowed the women to cover up with armor OR choose to be sexy).

Society doesn't just change by itself. You're right, society is becoming more accepting of diversity--because people are fighting very hard for it.

Take America's attitude towards homosexuality. Look at the strides made in the last 20 years. That didn't just magically happen. There were TV shows that portrayed homosexuals as human beings worthy of respect. There were lawsuits. There were marches and protests. There were speeches. There were YouTube campaigns like "It gets better." A lot of people worked fucking hard to get the message out that bigotry is not okay.

Look, I'm sorry people pointing out to you how fucked up it is how women are sometimes portrayed in games is somehow ruining your ability to enjoy games. But there are serious problems here. Maybe not problems for you, but problems for people like my daughter.

The solution to these problems is not to lambast the people pointing them out. Nor is the solution to sit back and do nothing and hope it all works out for the best. One solution, as I've already stated, is to be openly critical of the messages contained in ALL media (including games). Another solution is to be vocal about the need for more realistic and diverse portrayals of people in ALL media (including games).

You can still have your Damsel/Dude in Distress trope, by the way. I have no doubt lazy developers will continue to use it as a substitute for meaningful story. Just don't expect people not to call out the utter absurdity of it, is all I'm saying.

So in a movie where they have shuttles the size of mini-buses that can achieve orbit, his problem is the economics?

Fuck actual physics, an arbitrary human convention that describes the behaviour of other humans is depicted in a manner that is kinda implausible! Oh teh noes!

The subject of innovation vs jobs is an interesting one, but poorly addressed in this video.

Here's a much better take on it
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Humans-Need-Not-Apply

Hey, about the mini quadcopter, here's a thumb.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51693497/crazflie.png

@AeroMechanical, actually I'm with you. I seriously doubt the Foundation stories would work on film or even in a long form mini series.

The problem with a lot of sci-fi literature is that it doesn't conform to the standard 3 act movie structure. There's often an ambiguous ending which doesn't neatly resolve (like real life!). Asimov, Clarke, Banks, Reynolds, Morgan (to name a few of my favourites) fit this pattern.

There are two things happening, IMO:
1. The journey really is more important than the destination. It's about the story, not the outcome.
2. In some cases, story above character (Asimov and Clarke in particular). The idea is more important than the puny humans caught up in it.

Both of these are hard for studio execs (and to be fair, mainstream audiences) to grasp.

Really? What stories did they do?

There's been a rumour floating around the Foundation books becoming a mini series, but I don't think they'd work.

What an idiot. Yes, the temps have been up for a while. Just like we've had mini-ice ages and mini-bumps throughout history. Look at geology reports (oh, wait, he's only a mechanical engineer.) Nothing new here, folks. Yes, we're pumping out carbon dioxide. So did volcanos in the distant past. So what? We've got a lot of buffer called the ocean. Lastly, Dr. Nye, two coincident facts don't show causality. Oh, you wear a bow-tie, you must be smart. See? Classic example of two facts that are coincident but not related. Except for the you're being smart part. That part isn't true. Michael Crichton had it right in State of Fear.

Imagine the components that could be made though.

From Cameras to speakers. this style of device could be the next wave towards a true tri-corder device.
One device that transforms to the niche of every user. fully customizable hardware.

The best part is the consumer can upgrade the parts they care about the most. One person may remove the camera, the next will insert a 50megapixel zoom lens camera. It's up to the developing community to devise the components but the entire concept is sound!
Think of a musician, maybe they could snap in a mini keyboard, or an advanced Mic, or maybe some Bose speakers.
A doctor could snap in a mini scanner or blood testing device.
An engineer could have tools that he may need or there could be tools aimed at any job or hohby out there.

Fully customizable.....

The only thing that gives me hope is that sometimes people see the light:

Absolutely Uncertain (You Tube video by “Irina”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgvMGLdc908&list=PLC2A32D103123C08E#t=73
18-minute mini-documentary follows the journey of Irina, a 23-year-old liberal, Jewish New Yorker who voted for Obama in 2008

Why I'm burning my last bridge with Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIMnIh10po0
Join me as I wreck my last artifact of support for the war criminal-in-chief!! *I figured out the fraud a while back, but recently found this shirt in my closet

The problem with this country is it doesn't read. It doesn't inform itself on the issues. I'd probably still be a major nigger hating racist if it wasn't for books. If you want the skinny on that go to my Facebook Notes and read my "Racism Speech" which really isn't a speech so much as it is part of my memoirs to my two boys.

I wasn't really into this Islam thing until I happened to read The Haj by Leon Uris and Because They Hate by Brigitte Gabrielle almost back to back. I'll submit the following to give you an idea of what happened.

“we may describe it, (jihad), as a surgeon's lancet and not a butcher's knife.” Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (I'm sure there are about 200 million dead people that would disagree with him. And this from the guy who's been called the Mahatma Ghandi of Islam.)

About two years ago I ordered some reading material, including Taha's "Second Message", and a “study” Koran to find out what this "Islam thing" was all about. When I was sixteen I was chanting nam yo ho renge kyo to a piece of paper, (gahonzen?), having NO idea what I was doing. A few years later, hair down to my ass and a knapsack on my back, I hitchhiked cross country, got saved in Nashville Tenn. and went to live on a Christian farm in Mansfield Ohio. (Not the prison.) My gra'mom called me a "seeker". As I said, there came a time when I wanted to understand this "religion of peace". It was Humaid's article on jihad I found in my Summarized Bukhari that decided “things” for me.

If Islam is the “religion of peace”, where in Sheikh Abdullah bin Humaid's article on jihad can I find the equivalent of “Love Thy Neighbor” and “good will toward men”? And explain its prominence, and significance almost as an “Introduction”, in a book that's described as “the most authentic and true among the books of the Prophet”: My Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari. Also address “jihad” as it's defined in Reliance of the Traveller and answer the same question. (Chapter O-9.0: Jihad O: “Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion.” And explain why the “greater” jihad is only mentioned once here and never seen again in this “Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law”.)

Compare Humaid's “jihad” and Emmet Fox' Sermon on the Mount and tell me which one best represents a spirit of Love and “compassion”.

Lastly; would you pick Sheikh bin Humaid to sit on a Human Rights Commission? (That's a trick question by the way.)

Maybe you can throw in an explanation of the Jews are “monkeys, pigs and rats” on page 656 and the part where Mo says, “if somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him” on page 613 in the chapter on Jihad.

Also, explain why Humaid's “jihad” shouldn't be “Exhibit A” in refuting the “religion of peace” claim.

I've posted this many times to many Muslims and have yet to get a single response. Well, I did receive a response from some goofball named “Dr.” Mohsen El-Guindy asking me to read his books. Instead I downloaded a bunch of his articles. Which were pure rants. An Imam, sidestepped it by telling me I had to “study Islam” to gain a greater understanding.

Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah by 'Sheikh Abdullâh bin Muhammad bin Humaid
ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?233460-Jihad-in-the-Qur-an-and-Sunnah&s=4df3fc2e4e0596eb3b38115ef4b8f506 ),

Subscribe to Jihad/Campus Watch and the Middle East Forum/Quarterly, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Gatestone Institue, FrontPage Magazine, American Thinker,The Clarion Project, Cross Muslims: Muhammad unveiled, Religion of Peace (dot com) and read Raymond Ibrahim, Efraim Karsh, Patrick Poole, Caroline Glick, Bat Ye'or and others.

“She's Buried Chest High”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXdy5Fwwfzg

“An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Victory will never be found by taking the line of least resistance.” Winston Churchill

“What the horn is to the rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp, the Mohammedan faith is to the Arabs of the Sudan-a faculty of offence. All the warlike operations of Mohammedan peoples are characterised by fanatacism” Winston Churchill

“While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam.” Mahatma Gandhi

This situation is sad and ironic.

The area known as Judea was renamed Palestine during the time of Roman emperor Hadrian.
The residents of Judea/Palestine were forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity around 400 ad by the Romans, and later in the 700's ad were forced to convert to Islam.
They never left. They just changed religions. The children of the Jews of the new testament, are the Palestinians of today (now practicing Islam).

Many years passed, the Eastern Roman empire resided over much of the area, ruled out of Turkey, and the region was more or less all-right. Along the way it changed names to the Ottoman empire.

After WW1, the Ottoman empire shrank dramatically, and renamed itself to simply Turkey. However it still held some lands that were not actually Turkish (eg. ~Syria), and was still a mini-empire.
Around this general time period, Palestine became a British colony.

During WW2, there were many displaced Europeans of Jewish faith that had nowhere to go.
(*Britain didn't want them either, most places didn't. Anti-Semitism was rather common at the time. Even the Nazi eugenics policy wasn't much criticized at the time. re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critics. Actually, the Nazi's strong association with anti-semitism + all the anti-Nazi propaganda during WW2, helped cure a lot of anti-semitism in Europe.).
In the late 1940's Britain split occupied Palestine into smaller-Palestine+Israel, and assisted in relocating WW2 displaced Europeans of Jewish faith to Israel. Which at face value made sense, because "the bible says Jews are from Judea". However the area from which was established Israel was more or less ~devoid of followers of the Jewish faith in the 1940's.
And that's the irony! The British creation of Israel involved taking land from Palestinians (i.e. The children of the original Jews of Judea), and giving it to Europeans of Jewish faith (foreign immigrants).

That then resulted in middle-eastern resentment and backlash over western invasion/occupation/seisure-of-land. This resentment against immigrating European Jews caused 'Jews at large' to be discriminated against throughout the middle-east, and that in turn led to a migration wave of regional-Jews from the surrounding areas into Israel.
This resulted in a concentration of Jewish-faithed immigrants of European and middle-eastern ethnicity, all in Israel - further displacing the original residents.

Basically, in the end, the original people of Judea were kicked out of their homes and their lands given to immigrants... and they really resent it. While in the mean time the immigrants acclaim to have a god given right to be there because there is some old paper that says that people of their faith are from the area.

Ta-da.

Britain could have just sent Europeans of Jewish faith to Palestine, and made it an integrated nation.
But nope, they had to displace people and create a bunch more problems.
Gee, thanks Britain.
I pretty much face-palm when I hear "this conflict is thousands of years old" (when it's only been ~66 years).


Note :
I make the distinction between ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish.
I use the phrase "Europeans of Jewish faith" to clarify that these were displaced Europeans, who may have had an ancestor or two way way way up the family tree that was from Judea - but were otherwise European and of Jewish faith - who may have lived in an area with little mingling with outsiders, and hence a visually distinct appearance (i.e. what made it possible to make visual caricatures of their people, such as : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Jew_%281940_film%29)
You can also play semantics with "what is ethnically Jewish, when the ethnicity is labelled after the faith", etc.

There's also the geopolitical aspect. Israel is the only "Western" nation in the middle-east. Given that the area is globally significant in terms of resources, that makes Israel a critically important ally. So the rhetoric will always lean.

Personally, I wonder if the things that European Jews suffered during WW2, didn't create some mental/emotional baggage that today plays itself out with how they treat Palestinians. Sort of a "I don't care about your suffering, because I've been through worse" kind of situation.

However, I understand how Israel does not want an open integrated society with Palestinians. The Jewish population is rather small, and in an integrated society they would be such a small proportion that they would essentially be bred out of existence within a few generations. For those who wish to preserve their culture, that's 'kind of a big deal'.

-scheherazade

Your video, Mini Pig Vs. Pit Bull - Battle Of Epic Proportions, 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 always love a healthy sense of competition, especially against a car maker who refused to race a Mini John S Cooper Works . . . :-p

http://videosift.com/video/MINI-President-Jim-McDowell-Challenges-Porsche-CEO-to-Race

[Hook]
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over (bend over)
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over (bend over)
Party’s over, it ain’t over
Try to make a bad memory over and over
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over (bend over)
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over (bend over)
Party’s over, it ain’t over
Care to find a single piece of me, game over
Hangover
Hangover
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over (bend over)
Hangover, hangover, hangover, hangover-over-over
Care to find a single piece of me, game over

[Verse 1: Snoop Dogg]
Drink ‘till you’re drunk
Smoke like a broke stove
Don’t quit, take flight
I can’t remember last night
It’s aight, this the life of a superstar
Sci-fi with that boy trooping hard, couping cars
Snoop be hard in the paint
Drink another cup until I fall flat
All lead and then some
1-5-1, done dilly
Really for sure that
I’m throw back intoxicated
Change over, game over, hangover, faded
Body shed, miss

[Verse 2: PSY]
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe catch a lady by the toe

[Pre-hook]
(Take a shot!)
Drink it up and get sick
Bottom’s up, get wasted
Pour it up, drink it up, live it up, give it up
Oh my God, dammit, there’s the fucking limit
Pour it up, drink it up, live it up, give it up

But I can’t stop
Making bottles pop until the wheels fall off

And I can't quit
I wake up in the morning do the same shit
Wake up in the morning do the same shit

[Hook]

[Bridge: Snoop Dogg]
Waking and baking, shaking the flees
Caking and baking, raking the cheese
Early in the morning in the bathroom on my knees
Tipping and dripping, flipping the flow
Whipping and dripping a drink on the floor
This is the only way that I was taught a long time ago
Seoul, Korea, you’ll see a G-a like me-a
Never would there ever be another like he-a
G-A-N-G-S-T-A, nothing left to say
I done smoked my whole day

[Verse 3: Psy]

[Pre-hook] + [Hook]

[Bridge]

[Hook] + [Pre-hook] + [Hook]

Interestingly, in this video at least, he was firing a .22lr Ruger MkII, about as low powered a pistol as you can get. .22lr has a hard time going through inch thick plywood (when fired from a pistol). This is different than the alleged .357 magnum, .38 special, and .380 ACP the random lady was calling out.

The gun range guy is incorrect. Some people always get on target with static shooting. Those destroyed walls in his range will (in my experience) be from beginners. Even then, there are degrees of off target. You can miss significantly to the sides of most targets and still safely hit the backstop. You have to be shooting incredibly wide or high to miss the backstop.

Noise is a big issue here. Suppressors are legal in Florida with the right permit - he should get them for all his firearms.

Safety is an issue as well, if the entire wall area he firing into is not thick enough to stop his strongest firearm then there is serious risk of injuring someone else. He should build a mini steel and concrete reinforced range.

Fuel tanks don't automatically explode. MythBusters did this in two episodes, and you need a tracer round fired from a long distance to ignite a tank's fuel.

Regardless of the legalities or not, if his neighbours are scared and annoyed, (and regardless of whether or not it is a rational fear), he should be considerate of his neighbours and their concerns and do more to alleviate their concerns.