i used nuke, which isn't designed for generative images. conceptually, this is fairly simple. just a several iterations of the same concept and then a stack of filters.

The American system is stacked toward the wealthy.

He inherited 200 million in NYC condos in the early '80s. If he'd held on to them, they'd be worth an estimated 12 billion today. If he'd sold and put the money in indexed stocks, he'd be worth 10 billion today. By his own most generous estimate he's worth 8 billion today (and less biased estimates have him out of billionaire status entirely).

Trump filed for bankruptcy four (I think, might have been more) times, each time structuring his debt so the shareholders got screwed and he got away clean.

He's accepted hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sweetheart loans from Russian banks. Every American bank has him blacklisted.

He's screwed contractors, employees, and practically everyone he can for years.

He's stiffed debt collectors for decades.

He's paid no taxes for decades.

In spite of all those benefits, he's still managed to lose approximately 90% of the massive wealth he inherited. Yeah, brilliant person.

BTW, every time I hear about the Dunning Kruger effect, I think of you and all the other Trumpites, Bob. It's worth giving some critical thought, if you can manage it.

It took a while but with time Cup Stacking doesn't seem that odd anymore.

Couldn't agree more! The writer is pretty fresh and the director(s) are stunt guys. Beyond that, I don't know much about the production, but both John Wick and John Wick 2 are precise and well choreographed gunfu with elements of the Matrix/Indigo Prophecy, Hitman, Assassin's Creed, Bruce Lee movies, and on and on. Star power, as well.

I have Jack Reacher (same writer as Usual Suspects), John Wick, Collateral (Michael Mann), and Jason Bourne in the same stack.

In 2002, when I was studying film I had a chance to listen to Doug Liman, the director of The Bourne Identity talk about the making of the film. He hadn't really done much at the time, but now he's in the thick of these highly stylized, star powered, accurate (bullet count, stunts, etc.) Action flicks.

No, I didn't confuse anything. Almost every single country benefits from 'illegal' immigrants as well as regular ones. France, for example, has thousands of illegal immigrants from mostly Islamic countries that provide services to it's mostly aging native population. We benefit no more and no less than any other nation from illegal immigration, as @newtboy mentioned, if you import food products or grow them locally you probably are benefiting from illegal immigration.

As far as your evidence, I hope this will suffice as 'some':

Steven A. Camarota, PhD, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, in a Jan. 6, 2015 article, "Unskilled Workers Lose Out to Immigrants," available at nytimes.com, stated:

"There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and we also admit over a million permanent legal immigrants each year, leading to enormous implications for the U.S. labor market. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that there are some 58 million working-age (16 to 65) native-born Americans not working — unemployed or out of the labor market entirely. This is roughly 16 million more than in 2000. Equally troubling, wages have stagnated or declined for most American workers. This is especially true for the least educated, who are most likely to compete with immigrants (legal and illegal).

Anyone who has any doubt about how bad things are can see for themselves at the bureau's website, which shows that, as of November, there were 1.5 million fewer native-born Americans working than in November 2007, while 2 million more immigrants (legal and illegal) were working. Thus, all net employment gains since November 2007 have gone to immigrants."

Jan. 6, 2015 - Steven A. Camarota, PhD

George J. Borjas, PhD, Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University, in a Sep./Oct. 2016 article, "Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers," available at politico.com, stated:

"[A]nyone who tells you that immigration doesn't have any negative effects doesn't understand how it really works. When the supply of workers goes up, the price that firms have to pay to hire workers goes down. Wage trends over the past half-century suggest that a 10 percent increase in the number of workers with a particular set of skills probably lowers the wage of that group by at least 3 percent. Even after the economy has fully adjusted, those skill groups that received the most immigrants will still offer lower pay relative to those that received fewer immigrants.

Both low- and high-skilled natives are affected by the influx of immigrants. But because a disproportionate percentage of immigrants have few skills, it is low-skilled American workers, including many blacks and Hispanics, who have suffered most from this wage dip. The monetary loss is sizable...

We don't need to rely on complex statistical calculations to see the harm being done to some workers. Simply look at how employers have reacted. A decade ago, Crider Inc., a chicken processing plant in Georgia, was raided by immigration agents, and 75 percent of its workforce vanished over a single weekend. Shortly after, Crider placed an ad in the local newspaper announcing job openings at higher wages."

Sep./Oct. 2016 - George J. Borjas, PhD

Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., PhD, Emeritus Professor of Labor Economics at Cornell University, in an Oct. 14, 2010 briefing Report to the US Commission on Civil Rights, "The Impact of Illegal Immigration on the Wages and Employment Opportunities of Black Workers," available at usccr.gov, stated:

"Because most illegal immigrants overwhelmingly seek work in the low skilled labor market and because the black American labor force is so disproportionately concentrated in this same low wage sector, there is little doubt that there is significant overlap in competition for jobs in this sector of the labor market. Given the inordinately high unemployment rates for low skilled black workers (the highest for all racial and ethnic groups for whom data is collected), it is obvious that the major looser [sic] in this competition are low skilled black workers…

It is not just that the availability of massive numbers of illegal immigrants depress wages, it is the fact that their sheer numbers keep wages from rising over time, and that is the real harm experienced by citizen workers in the low skilled labor market."

Oct. 14, 2010 - Vernon M. Briggs Jr., PhD

There are more educated people than I that hold the same opinion, but let me give you an easier to understand, and absolutely true, example. How do I know it is true? When I was a much younger man, I worked for a roofing company. So I lived it.

The company I worked for was owned by a family friend, who had worked for most of his life in the field and had an excellent reputation. However, in the 90's around the time NAFTA was passed and (not related, I hope) illegal immigration spiked in Texas, he began to lose out to other companies. He did some snooping around and found out they were often charging hundreds of dollars less in their estimates than he could possibly offer, at least while still making a profit. He also found out that the two companies that were taking most of his business were staffed with illegal workers, being paid much lower wages than he could give to his legal employees.

Fast forward a year and he was close to declaring bankruptcy. Just like any type of labor where you pay your employees little to nothing comparatively to their compatriots in the same field, you cannot compete fairly. Net result, he was forced to let us go one by one, replacing us with illegals.

Obviously, I moved on, learned a different skill and began to make far more than I would have as a simple laborer. But the fact remains that an entire industry was undermined and radically changed by the inclusion of cheap illegal labor. This will not change if we simply ignore illegal immigration because it is the 'nice' thing to do. What it will accomplish is that young people will slowly find that certain jobs are out of their selection. It also will get worse the more accepted and commonplace illegal immigration becomes. I know for a fact that while I worked at Apple there were entry level support techs that were illegally here. Perhaps you will say that it is a benefit because it would prevent offshoring, but I disagree. What it does is make the working class poorer and doesn't solve the other issues brought about by illegal immigration, such as Emergency Rooms being flooded by people who can't afford insurance. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that it is common to go to the ER and see people stacked like cordwood because they can't refuse patients unless they are a private hospital.

As far as The Jungle, and my statement about it and it's author, I was merely pointing out that as much as you try to put forth that illegal immigrants have a bad life here in the USA, the fact is that we used to treat legal immigrants far worse. Perhaps it was a reach on my part, but it seemed logical at the time.

I doubt we will agree on any of this, but I respect your opinion. I live in a state that has a very large proportion of illegal immigrants, and while you are correct that they are generally not a criminal negative to society, they do have severe effects which I think you are overlooking. I do think that legal immigration policy needs massive change and businesses that exploit the almost slave like labor of illegals to make more profit should be punished severely. In the meantime, when we do catch illegals, they should be deported, not protected by a sympathetic politically motivated law enforcement group.

For reference, race relations in Canada between white and aboriginal populations is if anything more strained than black and white is in the US. As a white guy, the only context in which I can observe the incarceration rate is if I specifically blame the incarceration rate on the police and judicial system being at fault for disproportionately targeting aboriginals. To observe that aboriginals are in fact responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes will get me labelled a racist. No amount of explanation about systemic disadvantages stacking the deck against aboriginal youth will cover that mark up here. To be sure there are circles where you can have that discussion, but you have to really know each other before you aren't going to worry about being classed as a racist straight away before any discussion can occur.

Well, when you consider the House cards were stacked against him, I'm not sure what kind of pink-rabbit miracle people expected.

Damn bouncy *kids! When I stacked my first attempt at a decent sized jump, I was nearly 30 and it pretty much ended my day.

Flat-pack? That means all the components can come easily stacked in a box, huh. Including the engine???

A lot of people don't know that hay may spontaneously combust if it's stacked when wet, but that guy should have.

Yep, that puzzled me too. Note that the pipes are covered with ice and snow, and the tie downs are cutting grooves (circumferential) into the pipe you reference but not the lower one on the right hand side, so something "soft" there - I ascribed the marks to perhaps lifting or handling cut into the snow and ice that seems to be stuck fairly well on that joint. Perhaps different cladding, though looking end on before things start to move shows fairly clearly that there is some form of coating on the pipes (why can't everybody just use the same 323 Scotchkote color and keep things simple). If you have a look after the first big shift at 1:05, you can find a clear frame where the end on view of the same pipe doesn't appear to have any layer beyond the assumed coating (ie. no 2x4's) and much of the snow / ice has been shaken off (another clear frame around 1:09). Normally if they're stacking coated pipe, even a full joint, two or three bands of heavy polypropylene rope (1" - 2" diam) with the ends hot melted together to make a single hoop keeps the pipes from scuffing one another in transport. But then again, there's nothing normal about how this load was built, so anything's possible I guess. Cheers.

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.

I'm a laptop serial killer...

*gazes over stacks of dead laptops and random computer parts*

Sometimes I masturbate all over these carcasses. I mean, no. I don't. Ever.

Do that...

If only I had been born with the simple desire to learn electronics...

-- Instead, I was born a luddite into an era of technocracy that my feeble, easily offended, confused and aggressive mind cannot comprehend.

Now I am destined to commit predatory electronic abuse on a daily abuse.

*punches monitor, tears it from the computer, screams into the night and throws it crushed and dying into the heap*

ELECTRONICS!!! AGHHHHH..! The pure and total ANGUISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*runs screaming out of the house, operates overheating vehicle 100,000 miles over the recommended oil change sticker reminder to the nearest best buy; purchases something using money like its arcade credits; drives home and plugs the heathen VGI cable into its oozing port*

Please... kill me.