>> ^Samaelsmith:

One inconsistency he should have pointed out was if there were only two of each animal, wouldn't that mean the extinction of whatever it was he decided to sacrifice?


He took several family members on board didn't he? Maybe it was a human sacrifice. Either that or he sacrificed a hermaphroditic species such as a flatworm. Also in the picture of the sacrifice it looks like he has a good fire going, I'm wondering how in the hell he managed to light a fire after everything had been underwater for several months. Also, where did the water drain off to? A magical plug-hole in the sky?

>> ^CyberViperDriver:
His assertion that if morality changes then in the future we as different cultures would do things we find offensive and be fine with them makes the case for the absurdity of religious morality.
History CLEARLY shows the evolution by cultural means of morality... there are more then a few examples of things having been considered morally acceptable in the past that are generally considered reprehensible now.
You can even see examples of wide moral divergence in the modern world. The easiest example would be cultures in which it is morally acceptable to cover females from head to foot and remove the clitoris of infant females. so it is clear that morality is much more subjective than theists or deists are willing to admit.
He seems to believe that "moral" acts have always been static, not so. not even two centuries ago it was normal and acceptable even in the western world for a 40 year old man to betroth, marry and copulate with females as young as 12. The notion of a perceived age of consent is a VERY young concept and yet is embraced as a part of this perceived moral constant.
I wont even go into the many acts that are justified in the bible that are rightly viewed as absolutely morally unacceptable in the modern world.


I would argue that religion controls morality less than people think; rather, morality is controlled by finite resources (Which education falls under, because without a university or resources, education withers and dies...etc.)

For example, Spartans slammed deformed babies against cliffs. Nations sacrificed humans to appease volcano deities. People danced to appease farm gods and men had sex with 10 year old girls to ensure the human race procreated. All these "horrors" were caused by survival instincts and lack of education (Resources.)

Now, fast forward. Add vast resources, like technology, to the world. Then examine communities. Nowadays we cannot rely on our own next-door neighbors. Why? Well, technology (a resource) has broken up communities and allowed everyone their distance. We no longer rely on each other because we don't need to. Oh, freedom this, freedom that. Bah. Freedom = antithesis of community.

One example of resources/morality would be an island that had a very advanced culture. When trees ran out, they started eating each other. What changed in less than 100 years? (Hint, resources.)

I will say there are a myriad number of contributing factors--religions, resources, social growth, etc.--that will affect "morality," but then, to blame a natural instinct (Belief a higher power) is to exaggerate cause and effect. Religion is evil, yes... And so are people.

Almost all energy consumed by households is avoidable waste:
* think about the way you fry eggs. 99% of the heat from the burner is going into the air, not into the eggs. This should be solved by using small device that is well insulated on all sides and has an internal heating coil.
* Ovens have a high heat capacity and shitty insulation. More energy is wasted on heating up the oven itself than actually goes into the food. This could be solved by lining the inside of the oven with silica aerogel instead of metal. If an oven is properly insulated it will not feel very warm to the touch on the outside, even after being on for an hour.
* Most of your heating and cooling energy leaks out the windows -- if their inside surface feels significantly above or below ambient during extreme weather, your heating and cooling energy is being wasted and hemorrhaging out the windows. It would literally save energy to have a webcam on the roof and display that image on an LCD inside instead of having windows, if you live in a climate with extreme temperatures (especially in cold climates, as the energy used for the LCD would contribute to heating the house). All ventilation needs can be accomplished through a small portal with a fan (and a heat exchanger, of course).
* Hot water is produced very wastefully by just dumping energy into it instead of using a thermodynamic cycle to transfer heat and produce something cold as a byproduct. Hot water could be co-produced with cold water for AC / Refrigeration much more efficiently than doing them all separately.
* Hot water goes down the drain. This should at least go through a heat exchanger, which would dramatically lessen the amount of work that has to be done to heat up new hot water. A 7 Liter per minute showerhead putting water 30 degrees F above ambient down the drain is wasting over 8135 watts as long as it is running. However, I don't know of any houses yet designed with a heat exchanger between the shower drain water and the intake of the water heater.
* Fluorescent lights. Duh. Incandescent bulbs should be banned.
* Freezers built with the door on the top will waste much less energy to the convection of air when opened, for obvious reasons.

Here ends the lifestyle-neutral list of suggestions. The following would involve sacrificing something:

* Reduce excessive lighting -- if people wouldn't fuck up their retinas by driving just after sunrise or just before sunset, or seeing specular reflections of the sun on shiny cars and buildings outdoors, they wouldn't need such bright lights indoors. A 1 watt LED is plenty for reading. Sunlight could be used in the daytime instead of artificial lights.

I do believe this is what they call an ass handing.

or was that just something that guy in the park made up..?>> ^Tymbrwulf:

2:12 - Professor Philip Stott:
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change, although he has published books on the subject.
Writes books instead of having his theories subject to peer review.
2:18 - Professor Paul Reiter:
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" - Source
2:33 - Professor Richard Lindzen:
Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, did not accept Lindzen's assessment of the science, and said that Lindzen had "sacrificed his luminosity by taking a stand that most of us feel is scientifically unsound."
3:07 - Professor Patrick Michaels:
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[8] told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."
He also gets money from fossil fuel companies.
7:06 - Patrick Moore:
Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute.[36] Monte Hummel, MScF, President, World Wildlife Fund Canada has claimed that Moore's book, Pacific Spirit, is a collection of "pseudoscience and dubious assumptions."[41] Dr Leonie Jacobs of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands has accused Moore of being paid by the timber industry in order to deliberately mislead the public about logging.
He is accused of having "abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement"
I wish they would source the people on all the other claims. Would be nice to fact check those as well.
What kind of debate are you trying to start here, blankfist?

2:12 - Professor Philip Stott:
He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change, although he has published books on the subject.
Writes books instead of having his theories subject to peer review.

2:18 - Professor Paul Reiter:
The UK government has said that Reiter "does not accurately represent the current scientific debate on the potential impacts of climate change on health in general, or malaria in particular. He appears to have been quite selective in the references and reports that he has criticised, focusing on those that are neither very recent nor reflective of the current state of knowledge, now or when they were published" - Source

2:33 - Professor Richard Lindzen:
Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, did not accept Lindzen's assessment of the science, and said that Lindzen had "sacrificed his luminosity by taking a stand that most of us feel is scientifically unsound."

3:07 - Professor Patrick Michaels:
Office of Science and Technology Policy director, John Holdren,[8] told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of U.S. climate-change contrarians … He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science."
He also gets money from fossil fuel companies.

7:06 - Patrick Moore:
Moore has earned his living since the early 1990s primarily by consulting for, and publicly speaking for a wide variety of corporations and lobby groups such as the Nuclear Energy Institute.[36] Monte Hummel, MScF, President, World Wildlife Fund Canada has claimed that Moore's book, Pacific Spirit, is a collection of "pseudoscience and dubious assumptions."[41] Dr Leonie Jacobs of the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands has accused Moore of being paid by the timber industry in order to deliberately mislead the public about logging.
He is accused of having "abruptly turned his back on the environmental movement"

I wish they would source the people on all the other claims. Would be nice to fact check those as well.

What kind of debate are you trying to start here, blankfist?

Shut your filthy fuckin' mouth. You're a complete and utter asshole, whatever the fuck your actual name is.

Don't assume you know a goddamn thing about me or my friend.

He's probably the most kind-hearted and forgiving person I've met and I WON'T have your sorry ass make a mockery of all his hard work and generosity.

His only wish was to own a small business.

Tho since the no-good lyin' sack of shit that sold the pizzeria to him falsified documents, he was unaware the income was overstated until the first quarter was up.

By then, she had disappeared.

He sacrificed sleep, his performance at his day job, and his sanity to keep his investment afloat.

Most months he was lucky to break even.

He took out a second mortgage on his house.
Sunk in $300,000 in additional loans over 4 years.
Exhausted all his resources and back ups.
Yet never saw a goddamn cent in return.

Despite ALL of this, he still paid me well over minimum wage for a year and a half.
Right out of his own pocket essentially

So next time, before you go mount your sure-as-shit high horse of righteousness.

Make certain you know what the FUCK you're talkin' about, alright.


>> ^joedirt:

Your pizzaria guy is just a jerk. Yes minimum wage did go up, do he is paying more.. But in reality he was paying way too little for like 10 years. So, yes minimum wage goes up in step functions while cost of living and inflation go up linearly. So for like 5 years min wage employees are getting screwed and for like 2 or 3 years employers are paying more than "usual". But no, jerkoff pizza guy didn't magically have to shell out extra thousands of dollars. (which is probably like 1/2 the profit from a few weeks)

Shut your filthy fuckin' mouth. You're a complete and utter asshole, whatever the fuck your actual name is.

Don't assume you know a goddamn thing about me or my friend.

He's probably the most kind-hearted and forgiving person I've met and I WON'T have your sorry ass make a mockery of all his hard work and generosity.

His only wish was to own a small business.

Tho since the no-good lyin' sack of shit that sold the pizzeria to him falsified documents, he was unaware the income was overstated until the first quarter was up.

By then, she had disappeared.

He sacrificed sleep, his performance at his day job, and his sanity to keep his investment afloat.

Most months he was lucky to break even.

He took out a second mortgage on his house.
Sunk in $300,000 in additional loans over 4 years.
Exhausted all his resources and back ups.
Yet never saw a goddamn cent in return.

Despite ALL of this, he still paid me well over minimum wage for a year and a half.
Right out of his own pocket essentially

So next time, before you go mount your sure-as-shit high horse of righteousness.

Make certain you know what the FUCK you're talkin' about, alright.





In reply to this comment by joedirt:

Your pizzaria guy is just a jerk. Yes minimum wage did go up, do he is paying more.. But in reality he was paying way too little for like 10 years. So, yes minimum wage goes up in step functions while cost of living and inflation go up linearly. So for like 5 years min wage employees are getting screwed and for like 2 or 3 years employers are paying more than "usual". But no, jerkoff pizza guy didn't magically have to shell out extra thousands of dollars. (which is probably like 1/2 the profit from a few weeks)

>> ^jwray:

>> ^eventualentropy:
>> ^jwray:
Those "concerned citizens" are retarded busybodies who should mind their own business. The amateur photographer didn't respond well to criticism either. If the girl being filmed had actually objected it would have been different, but it looks like she only left because of the confrontation that the "concerned citizens" started. Plus, the commercial photographer is doing the same thing as the amateur photographer.

No, the model was objecting to it, she asked him to go somewhere else. The girl may have been asking for it by posing but the guy shouldn't be surprised when people get uncomfortable with him walking around filming underage girls against their wishes (she said she was 17)


He sacrificed the high ground by being a total asshole when confronted, but at what point in the video did the model say anything except "I'm 17"? Besides, "I'm 17" isn't a definite statement against either party of the conflict, just something on which you can project your biases. 17 is above the age of consent in about half the states of the USA, including New York (it looks like they're in Manhattan). She doesn't even look younger than an average fashion model on an average fashion magazine in an average supermarket.


Around the :57 mark she can be heard saying "Please, just go that way" (easy to miss), not to mention all the obvious disapproving looks she gives him. I do admit that the underage argument is pretty weak. But anyway, as other people have pointed out, neither party was in the right. This video makes me never want to go to New York if this is what the people are like to each other.

>> ^eventualentropy:

>> ^jwray:
Those "concerned citizens" are retarded busybodies who should mind their own business. The amateur photographer didn't respond well to criticism either. If the girl being filmed had actually objected it would have been different, but it looks like she only left because of the confrontation that the "concerned citizens" started. Plus, the commercial photographer is doing the same thing as the amateur photographer.

No, the model was objecting to it, she asked him to go somewhere else. The girl may have been asking for it by posing but the guy shouldn't be surprised when people get uncomfortable with him walking around filming underage girls against their wishes (she said she was 17)



He sacrificed the high ground by being a total asshole when confronted, but at what point in the video did the model say anything except "I'm 17"? Besides, "I'm 17" isn't a definite statement against either party of the conflict, just something on which you can project your biases. 17 is above the age of consent in about half the states of the USA, including New York (it looks like they're in Manhattan). She doesn't even look younger than an average fashion model on an average fashion magazine in an average supermarket.

>> ^bobknight33:

Religious freedom yes but for a the most murderous religion on the planet who is responsible for 911 to build a mosque near ground zero is a big slap in the face. Americans are so against this but the friendly left wants to have warm fuzzes in their harts.
Thanks netrunner - funny clip


You don't have the right to not be insulted.

If you're afraid of what might happen as a result of this community center, then you're a coward.

Having freedoms means sacrificing some safety. If you'd rather have safety, go to another country.

>> ^steroidg:

Neat! However, it's a shame that some of the broken pieces (especially from dinner plates) continues to move where as in real life they would have stopped.


Im guessing this is a precision problem sacrificing accuracy for speed. Either way this is an improvement from the first CGI physics articles I read in the early 90s where just having objects bounce off a curved surface was a difficult problem at the time.

To be fair, the Soviets had many chances and a lot of time to stop Chernobyl from melting down by dropping the core into a giant lead and graphite plug that would seal it and stop the reaction. That is what they were supposed to do if a melt down started. However doing this ruins the plant and turns it into a giant paper weight. The engineers at Chernobyl repeatedly asked permission to drop the core and were denied by the government. In America, if a melt down was immanent, the plant engineers would drop the core because they wouldn't have to ask permission from the president to do so. The Soviets could have averted disaster by sacrificing their plant, but chose to try and stop the reaction AND save the plant so they didn't look foolish to the rest of the world. Uninformed, uneducated politicians were responsible for the Chernobyl disaster, not poor technology or incompetent engineers.


>> ^dingens:

As opposed to ... hmm, let's say, BPs incompetence? Sure, they don't run nuclear plants, but modern technology _can_ fail, especially when run by greedy bastards.

>> ^rgroom1:

I always thought "no atheists in a foxhole" meant no atheist would be stupid enough to fight/risk their only life in a war...


hard to call someone brave if they believe sacrificing themselves "honorably" would lead them to an eternal afterlife of pleasure and happiness... takes the consequence away doesn't it...

isn't there a term for people that believe this sort of thing?

...

oh yeah,
suicide bombers

Date: April 27th, 2010

The Forgotten Man

By Robert Ringer

Why have the combined mudslinging voices of the media (so called), Congressional Democrats, and the thin-skinned boy wonder who occupies the Oval Office not been able to turn the tide against the tea partiers? If you look at the poll numbers, the answer is obvious: Most Americans are tea partiers.

However, most of them are not yet in enough pain to skip a day at the ball park and stand in a crowd of thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) and listen to tea-party speakers. That’s a shame, but it doesn’t change the fact that they identify with the tea-party movement.

So, what is the common bond with which they identify? Taxes? Healthcare? Financial regulation? I thought about this question as I was rereading Amity Shlaes’ landmark book, The Forgotten Man. In it, she quotes Yale philosopher William Graham Sumner, who, clear back in 1883, explained the crux of the moral problem with progressivism as follows:

”As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine … what A, B, and C shall do for X.”

Shlaes goes on to add: ”But what about C? There was nothing wrong with A and B helping X. What was wrong was the law, and the indenturing of C to the cause. C was the forgotten man, the man who paid, ‘the man who never is thought of.”’

In other words, C is the guy who isn’t bothering anyone, but is forced to supply the funds to help the X’s of the world, those whom power holders unilaterally decide have been treated unfairly and must be compensated.

FDR, however, did a switcheroo on Sumner’s point by removing the moniker of ”the forgotten man” from C and giving it to X – ”the poor man, the old man, labor, or any other recipient of government help.” Very clever … very Obamanistic. As I recall, FDR originally used the phrase the forgotten man to refer to the victims of the dust bowl in the 1930s. Zap! Just like that, Sumner’s forgotten man was transformed into the opposite of what he was meant to be.

Today, I believe it is the tea-party people who represent Sumner’s Forgotten Man. They are taxed and told what they must do and what they must give up in the way of freedom and personal wealth every time a new law is passed. I believe it is this reality that bonds the tea-party people together.

Put another way, it is not healthcare or any other single issue the tea-party people are most angry about. It is all of the issues combined that have to do with impinging on their individual liberty. Above all, they are outraged by the fact that immoral politicians and bureaucrats not only violate their God-given right to live their lives as they please, they dismiss them as ”extremists.” Collectively, the tea-party people are today’s Forgotten Man.

In his essay (http://mises.org/books/forgottenman.pdf), Sumner went on to say:

”All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others. It is true that, until this time, the proletariat, the mass of mankind, have rarely had the power and they have not made such a record as kings and nobles and priests have made of the abuses they would perpetrate against their fellow-men when they could and dared.

”But what folly it is to think that vice and passion are limited by classes, that liberty consists only in taking power away from nobles and priests and giving it to artisans and peasants and that these latter will never abuse it! They will abuse it just as all others have done unless they are put under checks and guarantees, and there can be no civil liberty anywhere unless rights are guaranteed against all abuses, as well from proletarians as from generals, aristocrats, and ecclesiastics.”

Sumner was a man of great insight. He saw the absurdity of assuming that the poor man is morally superior to the rich man. This is where I believe that sincere revolutionaries go wrong. While their initial intentions (to help ”the poor”) may, at least in their own minds, be well-meant, they begin with a false premise (that the misfortunes of those at the bottom of the economic ladder are a result of the evil actions of those who are more successful) and, from there, leap from one false conclusion to another.

Which is why politicians who pose as conservatives to get elected so often take the Mush McCain-Lindsey Graham-Charlie Crist route and continually rush to the aid of their progressive Democratic pals. I believe that these philosophically lost souls do the bidding of the intimidating left because they have never given any serious thought to the possibility that the very premise of progressivism is morally wrong.

As a result, they have no feeling for the (perceived) rich man. In plotting their do-gooder schemes, he is easy to forget. They see nothing whatsoever wrong with society’s sacrificing his liberty for the ”public good.” Bring out the guillotine! As Montaigne said, ”Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.”

What gave birth to the tea parties is that the Forgotten Man syndrome is like a metastasizing disease. As politicians long ago realized, there aren’t enough rich people to support all of the X’s. As the number of X’s (i.e., those who live off the surpluses of others) increases, a lot of A’s and B’s must, by necessity, be reclassified as C’s. And that is when they become candidates for joining the tea-party movement.

Put simply: When A’s and B’s are transformed into C’s, they mysteriously lose their enthusiasm for new laws to help out X. Put even more simply, they suddenly realize that they are now the Forgotten Man. And that realization is what automatically qualifies them as tea-party people. No recruitment necessary, thank you.

It's the inexpensive ($120.00) Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Great workhorse lens, really use it most of the time I shoot video on the 7D.

I shoot on the 7D with a preset called "superflat" that folks who love tweaking such stuff shared on the 7D channel @ Vimeo. It gives you a very low contrast slightly washed out looking video, which gives the user latitude to color grade, add effects and so on with out sacrificing picture quality.

Many of the shots I just adjusted brightness and contrast to my liking and on a few shots I adjusted color tone and added vignetting to the frame. The shots of the alligator and the hippos are the two I added vignetting to if memory serves.

Cool, thanks for sifting!