Hope I'm not too late for the show.

I'm currently getting my MA in English Lit and working full-time for the MAN at the same time. So that's been more than a bit hectic. My family is mostly from the Philippines but I was born in Boston and raised all over the place. Like the stereotypical Asian girl, I have been trained in playing the piano since I was 8 years old. I am trying to teach myself guitar and would luurve to learn the drums, if only to annoy our insane neighbors and fulfill my lifelong pipe dream of total rock star status.

I'm a real cinephile and book and music lover, to the point where I have been known to read a book while watching a movie with music playing in the background. I love all things chocolate, most sweets in general, and if you're eating french fries I am likely to make friends with you just so I can steal one.

My wonderful hubby Zombieater just created an account on the sift (long-time listener, first-time caller) so upvote his stuff if you please - he's Canadian so you all be super duper nice.

In other news, I just got my 100 star points. Yay me!!!

This is off topic, but I started a strand of this discussion so I feel the need to explain myself...
1. Militant Atheism.
As an agnostic, my position is not that I don't know, but that I can't know whether God or gods exist. This includes anything that could be described as a universal power that cannot be understood by man and science and which might conceivably be considered 'God' (I am not professing to believe in such a force, but mere possibility of such a 'higher power'). Friends of mine that I consider militant atheists are those who profess to 'know' that there is no God, and believe that anyone who feels otherwise is an idiot. I do not believe that one can 'know' that there is no God, rejecting even the slightest possibility that there are unknowable powers at work in the universe that could be considered 'God' is a lie on par with those who claim to know God exists (not on par with those who believe Noah built an Ark). Similar to christian evangelists, militant atheists campaign for atheism. I am happy to let people know what I believe, but I don't have much interest in converting lost Christian souls and prefer it when they leave me alone as well.

2. 3 days.
It is amusing to me that some thought I actually believed Barack promised to accomplish all of what he plans to do in three days. What is most amusing was that the entire passage before was also exaggerated beyond comprehension, and no one seemed to notice. Barack is not going to personally drag Obama from a cave, or turn back a century of global warming. To believe that all of the promises listed could be accomplished in 30 years is a pipe dream, and I thought the exaggeration was apparent.

I will be voting in this election FOR a candidate rather than against a candidate for the first time and I am strong a supporter of Barack as you will find. I have never agreed so strongly on so many issues with a candidate in my lifetime. I speak to lots of very intelligent people, however, who are not as certain about Barack and I can understand many of their reservations. You cannot possibly like everything about a candidate, any candidate! I didn't vote FOR Kerry or Gore, I voted against Bush. I am, however, voting FOR Obama. What I loved most about the convention speech were the lines about finding common ground on gun-control, abortion, immigration, and gay marriage. He took a common-sense stance on each issue. These are not black-and-white issues, but we paint them as such, and there are fools on both sides who would not vote for a candidate on the 'wrong side' of many of these issues for that reason alone. I do wish, however, that he provided a more common-sense view of what can and must be accomplished, and what sacrifices must be made to achieve these things. These sacrifices are not easy to stomach for the common voter, however, and I know that accepting things like religious pandering and over-reaching rhetoric are necessary in an election as important as this one.

lol, Kucinich makes Hillary and Obama look tough on foreign policy, and that's saying something

health care for all and no nuclear weapons is a pipe dream, maybe Dennis has been partaking in the "wacky tabacky"

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Speaking of pipe dreams ... What have I said about the crack smoking while Sifting Choggie?

Sorry to keep pissing on your delusional fan-wagon Dag ol' boy....that nasty Aussie sun may be the culprit for the fan-tas-tic pipe dream.....There are no candidates worth watching, the emperor wears no clothes, and needs killin'....

What was that moron with the jack thinking? Was he having a pipe-dream? Was he exhausted? Or just tired? Either way, I think a suspension is in order.

[I never understood why or how a troll wields so much power and fame within this community, he maybe an internet artist and an icon to some of you, but he's driven many away from the sift (myself included) with his two faced comments (loves you one minute, insults you the next) he is likely responsible for more people leaving the sift then staying. But I'm just another random user, I could be wrong.]

I am happy to hear that a heartier soul and spirit than my own*cough was driven to such a state through my stalwart efforts...Confrontations' a bitch to most folks who lack critical thinking skills-Hardly a random user fedro, you have helped shape this place-and a fucking troll???....Lives under a bridge and exacts tolls from unsuspecting passers by for no reason other than their own nastiness......Fuck your internet terminologies created to compartmentalize "types" of users. Choggie does not fit conveniently into limiting or defective categories created by folks with ass-flatening, adjustable chair-warming skills-

Once again, you are wrong, like others here, comfortable to wallow in similar illusory whims of lazy minds and perception-bound processeeees...Head-in-ass disease is something one must work years to cultivate-Passive-Aggression walks hand in hand with this sick bitch as well-All about the evolution of the site, and the dissolution, of deleterious aspects of this community, when a pattern begins to emerge......

Clever motherfuckers have clever going for them,(how's that working for ya??) but it takes more than smug and snappy and a trivial pursuit knowledge of the world witha thousand dollar vocabulary to make a lasting impression, and communicate or transmit knowledge.....

I am so glad to be back!! thank all of you who made my vacation possible, who supported me while dealing with assholes, idgits, and imbeciles from the bottom of a clouded ocean-I have learned a valuable lesson.....Perhaps next time I break the rules, they won't be written ones, and the next time I step on some fat fuck's toes, I'll make sure I do it heal-first with a stamping and twisting motion, with full weight and force directed at point of contact....

That's what a crazy person would do, innit?? A meeeean person??? A Haaaateful person???
Fuck yer labels people, fuck your symbol-addiction, and fuck marching lockstep to some idyllic, "nice" to everyone pipe-dream of a future based on worn-out, defective, and limiting models.....yer all meatbots to me!!!

from the thumbnail, it looks to be a dupe: http://www.videosift.com/video/Animusic-Pipe-Dreams

>> ^Jinx:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:Words.
Hey, nice post.
I read a thing a year or so ago about a new technology that enabled production of much cheaper and more efficient solar panels, but I can't seem to find any information on it now, so I wonder if it was just a pipe dream or something.
If I remember correctly the panels were paper thin and flexible, like laminated card, were durable to weather but eventually required replacing after 6 months or so of use. They were also supposed to be vastly superior in efficiency and their production allowed them to be "printed" en masse, and sold at approximately one dollar per metre square.
Obviously I was very excited about this. People could turn every south facing wall into a solar panel relatively cheaply and if the efficiency was as high as the article boasted you'd probably be able to light, heat and power most of the appliances in your house on your own energy. Alas, no cheap solar power yet.
Anyway, if all of Earths energy (with the exception of Geothermal, Nuclear and The Tides?) comes from the sun, be it stored in ancient pressurised plant matter or firewood, it would seem to make sense to find a good of way of tapping energy straight from the source.


Ya, little blurbs like that are usually kinda PR moves by certain solar research foundations to generate a flow of funds to their particular areas. Not saying thats a bad thing mind you, but its kinda a red herring. I say that because paper thin sheets of silica are not going to generate that much electrical power.

That said, it isn't unimportant. I think all of us have seen the caution signs and help phones on the road sides with the solar pannel coming off the top...very useful in that kind of aplication where low amparage is needed.

The problem is...well, at least with my house of nerds, is we use....a cubic butt ton of power (standard SI unit, look it up!). Mutiple computers, projector, game systems...a cornicopia of electronic wonders suck up a lot of juice. There is no way a paper thin PV cell is going to generate enough power to do all the work required of it...even if I coated my whole house with them.

Like I mentioned before, the energy generated is from the amount of "work" the photon has to do as it travles through the substrate. Unless they are doing some magic that I haven't become aware of (like nano tube redirection which was still theoretical last I heard) those paper thing sheets have a limited applications. Movement is good, so being able to cheaply produce those things is good, and my lead to further discoveries down the line, but it is mainly a red herring it seems.

Like I said before, I have the highest hopes for PV cells than anything else I have seen. And combining it with more effective means of electrolysis is very smart indeed. Hats off to them for all their work. Hopefully, PV technology is blessed with "bright" ideas. But I really think its got a long long road ahead of it...think of it this way, it is THE most researched green tech of the past 40 years, and yet, we are still only as far as we are...which is bare minimum public use this make solar panda sad indeed, but hopefully, he will be basking in the glow of nearly infinite energy!

/rant!

(there most likely a mass typoes here as its 1am...clean those up in the morrow)

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:Words.

Hey, nice post.

I read a thing a year or so ago about a new technology that enabled production of much cheaper and more efficient solar panels, but I can't seem to find any information on it now, so I wonder if it was just a pipe dream or something.

If I remember correctly the panels were paper thin and flexible, like laminated card, were durable to weather but eventually required replacing after 6 months or so of use. They were also supposed to be vastly superior in efficiency and their production allowed them to be "printed" en masse, and sold at approximately one dollar per metre square.

Obviously I was very excited about this. People could turn every south facing wall into a solar panel relatively cheaply and if the efficiency was as high as the article boasted you'd probably be able to light, heat and power most of the appliances in your house on your own energy. Alas, no cheap solar power yet.

Anyway, if all of Earths energy (with the exception of Geothermal, Nuclear and The Tides?) comes from the sun, be it stored in ancient pressurised plant matter or firewood, it would seem to make sense to find a good of way of tapping energy straight from the source.

Anarchy will never work as a system of government. Its a ideological pipe dream of the uninformed and the disaffected.

Sup. I'm Jim. I'm a lifelong New Yorker (26 full years) and just finished my undergrad at Hunter College, majoring in Latin and minoring in Physical Anthropology. My battle with college raged for eight years, and I have to say to all doubters and those living in fear: fuck what your parents (and others) say and do it your way. I got into the grad school of my dreams (in Biological Anthropology), and have enough perspective now on what's important that I'm deferring admission for a year so I can go live and teach English as a second language in Taipei, Taiwan.

I travel a lot. It started with a month-long humanitarian trip to rural Kenya when I was 14, digging irrigation trenches in Kondo, Kenya (near Thika) with the Ridgewood, New Jersey, YWCA. That experience affected me deeply, organically engendering in me the staunch idea that race is total bullshit, and I am addicted to constantly proving myself right (also, it might be noted that I was raised by a Jamaican woman whom I loved more than my own mother--I'm of mixed European descent). My latest jaunt was last summer to coastal Ecuador, where I attended an archaeological field school, and where I met my girlfriend. We're going to Peru at the end of this month (I hear they're finally closing Machu Picchu pretty soon due to foot traffic erosion of the ruins), and we'll have less than ten days state-side before we go off together to Taiwan.

VideoSift and science mags are pretty much the only things that I use these here intertubes for. I am a pretty staunch atheist, but my particular brand of atheism has many facets, as I believe every individual's brand of religiousness/spirituality has.

I'm not sure what's going to happen when I get back from Taiwan; I might go to grad school and support myself by teaching high school biology, or I might get my finances in order and check right out of this crazy-ass America hotel. My girl and I are researching what it would take to open a hostel in South America and all the costs associated. But that's just the latest pipe-dream.

K, that's enough about me. Catch y'all on the sift waves!

>> ^waxxx:
Inflation in Germany was one of the prime factors of the fall of the national socialism party. Hitler had many pipe dreams, spoke a lot empty phrases and often held gatherings that were tailored to be energized by packing small venues. I often wonder why he didn't attack other English countries such as Britain?


Um, dude, you wanna, I dunno, study history a bit?

If not for British kickass fighting in the air, a full sea/land invasion would've occured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain
"Had it been successful, the planned amphibious and airborne landings in Britain of Operation Sealion would have followed. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign attempted up until that date. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air defence or to break British morale is considered its first major defeat.[7]

Neither Hitler nor the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) believed it possible to carry out a successful amphibious assault on the British Isles until the RAF had been neutralised. Secondary objectives were to destroy aircraft production and ground infrastructure, to attack areas of political significance, and to terrorise the British people into seeking an armistice or surrender. Some historians, such as Derek Robinson, have argued an invasion could not have succeeded; the massive superiority of the Royal Navy over the Kriegsmarine would have made Sealion a disaster and the Luftwaffe would have been unable to prevent decisive intervention by British cruisers and destroyers, even with air superiority"

Inflation in Germany was one of the prime factors of the fall of the national socialism party. Hitler had many pipe dreams, spoke a lot empty phrases and often held gatherings that were tailored to be energized by packing small venues. I often wonder why he didn't attack other English countries such as Britain?

>> ^curiousity:
Drug-Free America - now that's a pipe dream. :-P
Treating drugs as a medical problem instead of a legal problem - that's an upvote.


x2