So this is relevant because of a recent surge in support for "radical left" (i.e. democratic socialist, centre-left) Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who has had a huge surge in popularity in recent weeks in a general election campaign he was expected to catastrophically lose by all mainstream sources.

Since winning two Labour party leadership elections in 2015, voted in by historic margins by ordinary members having their say for the first time, he has faced hostile criticism from all mainstream media sources and most politicians including his own party.

The grass roots, which helped drive his earlier victories, appears to be doing the same thing for him in this general election campaign. The grass roots involvement has included youth musicians, artists and activists coming together from multiple campaigns (Save The NHS, WASPI, most unions, including teachers, fire, police and transport, and far too many other interest groups to mention, including multiple disability campaigners). As well as individuals, parents, elderly, and Momentum - a group formed in the afterglow of his leadership win.

On the other hand, Theresa May's and the Tory party's campaign has gone from disaster to disaster. After claiming to be the party of economic security, they released an entirely uncosted manifesto (Labour's was fully costed, other party's included some costings). After trying to make it a match of personalities, she has gone from robotic gaffe to robotic gaffe, dodging questions whilst Corbyn's easy charm and honesty has gone quite a way to show those weaknesses up. She has claimed to be stable and strong, and the best hand to negotiate Brexit, but performed u-turn after u-turn and is now avoiding all but mandatory press contact because her and her brand have become toxic, thanks to things like the "Dementia Tax" and a promise to vote again on allowing barbaric fox hunting. She has been caught out, and regardless of the results of the general election, Theresa May is finished as Conservative leader. Potentially, the back of austerity has been broken and exposed. A movement has been started and even if the Tory's win, watch out for a mass people power'd intervention over their heinous plans.

God i could go on, this has been amazing to watch. Obviously i'm biased towards Labour, and whilst a centre-right opponent might describe things differently, the facts are the same.

Significant things are happening in the UK right now, not wholly dissimilar from the rise of Sanders, only this time it's for the actual prime minister position - Corbyn managed to outmaneuver the corruption of his party. If the election was 2 weeks longer i would predict a huge Labour landslide. After being so ridiculed by a hostile media for so long, election bias rules have forced the press into giving Corbyn a fair hearing and the more people see, the more they appear to like. The question is, have people already cast their vote by post? Will people turn up and vote? A big turnout is expected to favour Labour. A strong youth turnout will be hugely beneficial to Labour.

I think Milkman's angle on things is relevant in a different way.

We don't need to form our morality to coddle, consider or otherwise care in the least about cultural or other reasons for doing stuff. However, when it comes to affecting change in a groups behaviour, those cultural traditions are a factor, whether we agree with it or like it or not. Bull fighting is really pretty small in that picture. Women's rights in a country like Saudi Arabia is a much bigger deal.

When we want to help out those we believe are negatively affected by what we see as immoral, we can't ignore the weight of cultural momentum holding it in place. We can easily say women should have equality and that it is morally the right position. When it comes to lobbying for changes or protections for human rights in those places though, identifying how to be least disruptive to existing culture is helpful. No, it's not our job to adapt their culture for them. However, if we want to see the change, we might have put in some of that work anyway when those we see as behaving immorally show no interest in doing it.

Very good points.

My "cultural momentum" argument isn't so much an attempt to justify this stuff as a pragmatic take on who good counter arguments like yours (and the video itself) need to be directed at. "If all the tradition were stripped away" is easy for us "internet observers"; perhaps less so for the people that actually go to these events. But your approach is still a very good and persuasive one; much better than screaming PETA-like protests and confrontation that I think are more likely to just entrench the tendency to cling to tradition.


Your "having to realize that parents and grandparents were assholes" comment is apropos and truly is a very difficult thing to do. But I think the next step is ever harder -- realizing that our kids and grandkids will look back on things that we do and take for granted as normal behavior today, and come to the same conclusion about us that we have with regards to our parents and grandparents...

I've been to bull fights in Spain (when I was very young) and Mexico. Also cock fights in Mexico and Thailand, and water buffalo fighting in Thailand. Water buffalo fights are very different than bullfighting though: two buffalo bulls lock horns and push each other around to establish dominance until one tires out and runs away. Injuries / deaths to the "losing" buffalo are possible but pretty rare. Actually, it ends up being pretty similar to fights that males would do to establish dominance in nature without any human intervention.

Basically, I'm not strongly opposed to or in favor of any of those. Cruel and unnecessary? Sure. But nature itself is frequently pretty cruel also. I don't feel the need to support any of these activities by paying to watch or betting on outcomes, but I don't really begrudge those that do. Often a lot of cultural momentum to overcome if you want to put these things in the past (where they belong?).

Upvote because this video was well done in technical terms, and because it makes an argument against bullfighting (and arguably other similar practices) to those that support it without being too abrasive about it.

I guess the hint for these is the rotational test that they show at the first.

1) A sticky object that would let go like a wall crawler that climbs down a wall would create this effect. (see below)
2) You can't. As you approach infinite speed it would get very close. (see below)
3) The bike will move forward. (see below)
4) The outside parts of the wheels that overlap the rail. Also if the train has a flywheel that is larger than the wheel size the bottom of the flywheel would also always move backwards faster than the train was moving.

1) He says "what object is inside?" so I'm not sure a liquid would count. Also a viscous liquid would flow a slow rate and would probably not stop and start. You might be able to get a viscous liquid to stop and start if you had fins, but that still might just move slowly or gain enough momentum to roll fast without any flow.

2) A little excel calculation shows that the average velocity approaches twice the initial but will never hit it.

attempted m/s - total time - average m/s
1 100 1
2 50 1.333333333
3 33.33333333 1.5
...
200 0.5 1.990049751
201 0.497512438 1.99009901

3) I'm not sure if the parameters of this experiment are explained sufficiently.

If it is allowed to slip then no matter the mechanical advantage a hard pull should always be able to get the bike to skid back and defeat friction.

If the bike is not allowed to slip on the ground then I don't understand how it could ever move backwards, the only options would be that it doesn't move at all or it moves forward.

If it can't slip then the ratio of the pedal to the wheel is what is in question. Bikes only have gear ratios higher than 1 and the crank is smaller than the tire so the tire will always rotate more than the crank thus the bike should move forward.

This looks like one overconfident sailor who had planned to bring friends with modest sailing experience out for a day on the water and refused to let high, gusting winds hold him back.

They couldn't control the boat enough to keep the mainsail up in gusty winds, and if they had the boat would likely be leaning and flagging soo far over in choppy seas that the passengers would be right to be scared of the boom taking one of them out. It doesn't look like there is an outboard motor, so I guess they somehow got out of the slip and away from docks on just the jib, then hit the real wind gusts.

And now the video starts with mainsail down and getting in the way, jib not fully up but providing some pull, and that pull being lost to waves and poor steering. The sailor is messing with lines up front while the tiller is manned by someone who is waaay out of their element, and who begins to just jack-knife the thing from 0:20 onwards, halting all forward momentum. I don't want to come down on that person too hard, because none of them should have been out there that day, and the sailor should have been manning the till or at least yelling very specific orders at the top of his lungs well before the situation got this bad. No idea why they don't have an outboard motor, maybe they lost it. If its a rental, that rental agency should not have let them go out there.

(grammar edits)

Because the anchor is at the rear of the vehicle, it would normalise any such manouver, ie. a sudden turn that would typically result in a roll over (assume back left wheel is trapped and the suspect turns hard left or right) would be arrested by the trap if they turned left, as the left wheel would want to rise to flip the car, and might actually be exacerbated if they turn right, where the tether would go under the car and anchor the wheel, increasing the momentum of the body of the car over that pivot point.

However, much like the example of weight in the rear of a trailer reducing the chance of loss of control, any turn would be damped by the addition of an entire car attached to the back of the vehicle, such that I think any turning manouver would likely be dulled substantially.

Additionally, as soon as the thing is deployed, the car is going to decelerate rapidly as it's essentially anchored.

On the surface, if you can control the deployment, looks like it would be a winner.

@Mordhaus There are plenty of mentally disturbed people who will "resist" and provide enough fodder for the cellphones to keep the momentum going to clean up this mess we are in.

Don't resist, dude. Don't be a stat.

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/photos/a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784/1383312675076162/?type=3&theater


(That guy lying on the ground wasn't being shot at, it was the other guy. What is so horrible about that particular situation was that the attendant was explaining the situation and he was ignored. You know because he was black. To me, that situation is the worst case of racism ever -- that a working black professional is not believed when he explains the situation.)

@eric3579, I agree with you. Hillary's reputation took a big hit after the DNC Leaks broke during the convention.

@newtboy, here's how I think of the campaign. (Please pardon me for this silly fable. I just kinda got writing and my creative side just sorta took over, and I just kinda had fun with it.)

.. ..

As the primary campaign advanced it was clear that Scissors was the front runner in the Rep's side. Unless something changed drastically, he would be become the nominee.

On the Dem’s side, the race was not yet decided. Rock was behind, but not by much. He was quickly closing in on Paper’s lead. Rock was hoping that his strategy of being consistent over time would prevail and win him votes. In the beginning Paper had taken off an airplane. Laughing at how slow Rock was to gain speed. But now Paper’s once comfortable head start was being called into question. Could Rock’s momentum grow fast enough to overtake her?

Paper had gone through extensive planning (on paper) long before the election. Paper wanted to keep news of Rock from reaching the voters. The idea as was to keep Rock "covered over" to the point that many of voters just didn't know about him. They just saw the old familiar name of "Paper" on the ballot and went with that. They had little or no exposure to Rock.

Rock was on a roll, and it was clear that it was gathering no moss.

Since so many voters relied on “traditional” media for information, it wasn’t too difficult to keep pro-Paper ads on the radio, and television, and in newspapers. It was expensive, but Paper seemed to have an unlimited supply of money to fund the campaign. It was almost like Paper had bought the press...

Though Rock started to break through into the areas that Paper had been dominant, the Strategy worked. Rocks downhill momentum wasn’t able to fully catch Paper’s airplane—head-start.

Paper would win the primary and go on to face Scissors in the general.

But at the Democratic Candidate Coronation Ceremony, something terrible happened!

It turns out that someone was keeping a paper-trail on Paper’s dealings. Paper had written many correspondences, and many of those letters had reached the hands of Wikileaks, which had finally chosen to publish the secrets!

The strategies Paper had used to ensure victory over Rock—the Cover-Up Campaign—were revealed. The fundraising done by The Paper Foundation to keep money flowing around laws were becoming clear.

And each week and new secret seemed to drip onto Paper’s hat…

What happens next? We don’t know. There are so many questions! Could a boat float if made of Panama Papers? How deep will the leaks get? What other secrets will be revealed before the final election? Will Paper win over former Rock supporters now that the reality of the Cover-Up-Campaign had been uncovered? Who will win the final election? Can Paper beat Scissors?

Could Scissors have been secretly helping Paper out behind the scenes out of a fear of facing Rock? Could Paper have been helping Scissors in the early parts of his primary campaign out of a fear of facing Ben Carson?

Tune in again for out next episode of House of Cards I mean Rock-Paper-Scissors to find out!

//

//

Okay, I hope you read that with in the lighthearted voice it was intended. And I’m not hiding my bias. This story was mostly about Paper—who (at first) I thought would be a fine second choice.

(I was rooting for Rock the whole time! I liked they way he rolled!)

Trump was Scissors: Wouldn't hesitate to cut his opponents with his uh.. 'wit.'
Sanders was Rock: Consistent over time. (Not blown around by the wind)
Hillary was like Paper: Thin, like her integrity.

They aren't wrapped in wood, but if this is uncoated pipe, some will lightly tack weld a ridge or piece of scrap barstock to the OD of the pipe to keep it from rolling when building the stack; they aren't there to prevent this type of major rolling action. At around 1:33 you can see one of these going over the edge. Just guessing, but these look to be in the 20" to 30" diameter range with plenty of length, so they're just really small ships with the ends cut off and will float for a bit until well flooded - lots of surface area there for some buoyancy, and I've seen 40 foot joints of 20" diameter casing float near the surface for 30 seconds or so when a bubble gets trapped temporarily inside before burping out and sinking to the bottom. At around 2:15 you can see the big reddish block with the vertical groove right on the corner of the load platform about 1/4 of the way up the frame. That's where normal humans stab the stake or pipe to help contain the load (so, the vertical pipe or solid stake goes in the hole, the load is built, and no rolling can occur - momentum is the killer here, so if you keep things from rolling, life is good. This was an excellent example of how not to load pipe on a barge / ship.

Well, at least it's not quite as desaturated as the rest of the DCU (yo, Synder! Colour is not a four letter word!)

Could be interesting, butI guess we'll have to wait and see. Has a lot of bad momentum to overcome.

I've got a confession to make, I voted for Nader in 2000. Gore seemed to be moving more towards the center, and I thought helping a 3rd party gain momentum was more important than choosing the lesser evil.

I was so wrong. After the horrors of the Bush years I don't have any doubt about how destructive an ill-qualified president can be. My only defense is that I live in the reddest state in the nation, and my vote didn't count anyway. But if I had lived in Florida that decision would have haunted me.

I particularly enjoy how the momentum builds through the entire thing. Just when you think things couldn't get any more ... uh, zany? Like it crescendo's to hilarity

The survival rate for cats falling from 2 stories or higher is 90%. The peak death rate is actually at 2 stories, then goes down to about the 5th and flattens off because they're at terminal velocity and have achieved optimal landing position by that point.

Squirrels should do even better, as the smaller a creature is, the less momentum it has and the higher the drag-mass ratio (thus lowering the speed of terminal velocity). Pretty easy to believe it survived, whether it hit a tree or not on the way down.

It's weird how he locks the front wheel in place and says "so angular momentum isn't the cause", then goes on to explain that angular momentum helps to prevent the front wheel turning too sharply and so is actually critical in keeping the bike upright.