@newtboy
while appreciate the sentiment and ideology behind your commentary,i just do not see it play out in reality.

i was going to post links to convey just how broken our democracy is,and those links are legion.the data is incontrovertible and to be quite honest...depressing.

i tire of people making this about libs/repubs.
that is NOT the argument,though it IS the argument that is presented to all of us.
no.
the REAL argument is about POWER and POWERLESSNESS.

the only true power the people have is they,themselves and the ability to form associations,to group up and put pressure on those who wield power.to create institutions which force..by sheer numbers..those in the ivory tower to hear the voices of the common folk.

but those institutions and associations have been dismantled and the people marginalized.

would you like scumbag A or dirtbag B?
and maybe a possible third party candidate,which leads to the inevitable "lesser of two evils" argument you are alluding to.

all of that does not change the fact we are getting our clock cleaned by the elites who only seek to further their own interests.

we lost.plain and simple.

but i cannot ignore the optimism in your post.
i just wished i shared it.
in my opinion the only path we have left is mass uprising.
to grind the gears of the machine to a halt and force those in the ivory tower to come to the bargaining table.

i do not share you enthusiasm and trust in a totally (in my opinion) broken political system that threw us all overboard 40 years ago.

that is playing THEIR game by THEIR rules.
and that game is rigged and in their favor.

i think the evidence of that has become abundantly clear to anybody who has been paying attention.

its like gambling in vegas.
yes..there are a few who win big but the majority lose their shirts but the illusion that maybe...juuust maybe..you too might win big keeps people coming back to the table.

they have stacked the odds in their favor and to play the political system is no different.
either way..the house always wins.

so why play a rigged game?
why play by rules that have been instituted to benefit the elites and fuck us all over?

the time has come to change the game and create new rules.

i apologize for the lengthy rant.
i truly wish i could share in your optimism newt.
i do realize there are those who are doing their best to fight this inequity and corruption.
so there is hope....a tiny..slim..sliver of hope.

and on that note i hope right along with them.

Tonight I'm picking up new cardboard boxes for my storage stuff.
Everything is already in boxes, but I was thinking how much it bothered me how, the boxes are of varying sizes and shapes. So much easier to have every single box exactly the same. You know, so they stack better....

....and to interject here for clarity and general edification and enlightenment, that the OVERUSE of the words 'just', 'actually', and my personally-peevish pet-polemic, 'CLEEEARLY' -(God, I fucking detest the abuse of this particular word esp. when used to begin a sentence/statement with a view to arguing some complete and utter bullshit with very telling emotionally-fueled, idiotic prattle), should sound as a warning to all that what you are about to read is a load of self-delusional horseshit.

Please smarty-pants, argue and defend MORE bullshit and reveal to all your lifetime extant of dysfunctional programming with these flaccid idioms designed to abuse logic, reason, and common-sense and experience the warm sensation of having your fuck-shit-stack of words inserted gently into and up your own ass.

Ahem. That said, any psychoactive drugs (some are better than others) combined with proper navigation through a qualified proctor, set, and setting can be utilized to re-write or substantially inhibit or reverse the ill-effects of traumatic imprinting and programming.

Well, the issue is that the only way we measure contribution is with video posts and "quality comments". Both of those two tend to be very binary, in that either they give you a point or they don't.

I would like to see a more gradual approach to putting a value on a user - stack overflow uses an interesting system, which I'm sure videosift is also inspired by.

I think, for instance, comments should give more, but not if they're negative or 0 votes - as soon as they've been upvotes, they should give something - maybe even on a increasing scale: 1 vote, 1 point, 2 votes 3 points, 3 votes 6.5 points etc something in that vein. Yes, this would mean that each person would get many more points, but the star thresholds should be adjusted accordingly.

Same with videos - a video with 4 votes, should still give you something in the form of value; lets say it gives 10 times the amount as a comment. Then the video posters are still the most valuable players, but commenters aren't completely powerless.

Sift talk posts could also give something, using special powers in a positive way could give something.

Maybe a heated discussion in a single thread could trigger something; each award could also result in a certain amount of points.

I would make videosift much more of a game.

@Payback

I pretty much think it's the perfect casual FPS.

Similar to how nades aren't abusive, I think it's one of the few shooters where snipers are not blatantly overpowered. Most characters need several body shots to kill and some need several headshots when Medic buffed.

The class variety is also tremendous, and there's a significant skill ceiling to playing most characters beyond the usual FPS reactions. Knowing how to decloak and approach as spy, or perfecting rocket jumping is something way beyond what most modern shooters like CoD require.

Hats have never really bothered me. What has slightly is that it's become impossible to get access to most weapons without paying because of the sheer quantity.

Having said that, this really only kicks when you have 60-70% and the odds stack against you of finding the rest. It's not really a balance issue either as while there are definitely 'optimal' choices (say gunboats for soldier), none are anywhere near game breaking. Where they are (say, soldier's equalizer), they're usually rebalanced.

I was really looking forward to Brothers In Arms. The cartoony nature of TF2 was very off-putting to me and I never got into it. I tried again right around the time people started showing up with stacks of hats on their heads and I turned around, uninstalled it, and never looked back.

Well, kudos to him for trying.

Whenever I'm snowboarding, it always scares the bejesus out of me to see kids fanging themselves off huge jumps with no helmet. Invariably they stack it, and just dust themselves off and walk back up the line. Meanwhile, I know that fall would be the end of my season.

Getting old is a terrible thing.

http://petapixel.com/2014/03/28/incredible-focus-stacked-time-lapse-video-coral-made-150k-raw-frames/ from http://www.reddit.com/r/timelapse/comments/21nzn8/great_coral_timelapse/cgev0z3

Lived in Ontario (28 years), Brisbane, Australia (5 years), Alberta (7 years), and now Texas (14 years).

Agree with pretty much with Boneremake on Alberta, gets more points than Ontario. My Australian experience was good, in both the city and rural (blew an eardrum due to infection in Longreach QLD at Xmas... the doctor was drunk when they wheeled him into emerg, but he was a gentle, caring drunk).

Small things in Ontario are manageable - anything requiring stuff beyond typical emergency room patching up in more rural locations (my definition - anywhere far enough from Toronto that you can't see the nighttime glow, so north of Newfenmarket sort of) is quite lacking (v. long wait times for things like weekly dialysis, MRI, even open MRI, GI tract scoping, ultrasounds, contrast X-rays etc). Parental unit #1 with diabetes requiring 3 times a week dialysis almost snuffed it as there were only 4 chairs in the unit 14 miles from home, got on the list and had to wait for someone to die before getting on the team. Finally snuffed it when they shut down these 4 chairs and the new unit was now a 90 mile round trip 3 times a week for man who could barely walk or see. Died from exhaustion, not diabetes. 2nd parental unit needs an MRI for some serious GI issues, can't keep food down, losing weight rapidly. Wait 4.5 months and we'll see if we can get you in. I'm having her measured for the box.

Having said that, the situation is easier to describe in Texas, the land of excess (excessive wealth and excessive poverty).

Good health insurance plan, preferably through employer with lots of employees = wait times for advanced procedures measured usually in minutes or hours, sometimes days, but not weeks or months. You get taken care of, and your birthing room at the local maternity ward looks like the Marriott (just Couryard though, so no mini-bar or microwave).

Mediocre or no health insurance plan = pray you never get sick enough to require more than what you can buy at the CVS or splint up by watching do-it-yourself first aid videos on youtube, because an unplanned night in the hospital or a trip to emerg in the short bus with swirly lights followed by admission can, for many, wipe them out or sure eat up Bobby's college fund. No exaggeration. I have insurance, but for a reference point, one night in hospital (elective) for a turbinectomy (google it people) including jello and ice cream came in at $14,635. Yes, one night. 24 hours. Do the math. An emergency room visit for a forearm cut requiring 13 stitches (and I didn't even bleed on their white sheets - just cut through the skin to the fat tissue) was billed at $2,300 bucks. Our new baby tried to exit the meatbag as a footling breach, so emergency C-sectioned him out, and one extra night in hospital (2 in total) - all up, billed at just shy of $24K. We now have 3 full service hospitals within 5 miles of our house, and a full service children's hospital in the same radius. And they just started building another. Somebody's making money. If you don't have insurance, or your insurance is shitty (huge deductibles, huge copays) you will eat much of these types of costs. Rule: cheaper to die than get sick.

Ontario and AB might have longer wait times, but even an 83 year old woman in a rural Ontario village with no pension, insurance, income or large stacks of cash can (eventually) get the health care she needs without spending unjustifiable amounts of money. Happy birthday mom.

My 2¢

Follow the money for the magnitude of reaction. Santa Monica, Westwood, populated by rich folks-one reason. Also, the location of the epicenter and recent infrequency in the same area, factors stack-up for worry when this could evidence a pre-trem for more to follow. Let it happen in bumfuck and see how little news it makes. PAC-Rim may go in your lifetimes naysayers, pack a go-baggy.

Told Baristan to check out a guitar I fell in love with the second I picked it up and played it- Tom Anderson Guitarworks-Small-batch luthier, he cut his teeth on his process with Gibson and Fender I believe, incredible axe, but you wait and pay for it.
http://www.andersonguitars.com/

Lifetime instrument though, really really want one eventually. That and an SG-(with a triple-stack of 57' Classic Plus Humbuckers)

Similar to this one...even has a tremolo
http://www.zzounds.com/item--GIBSGDX
Hmm, kinna dig the lime as well, and that Bigsby Tremolo adds a retro feel to it....Really like the look of that Bigsby now....

FUCK man, why did you guys get me all wanting guitars I gotta save-up big bucks for??

*edit>>Dude!!...check with a family member? Consult one who has bothered to do the work on your own genealogy? You've got a racist past my friend and if not, you're from some other, fucking planet. I would be willing to guess that it's a certainty you yourself have a bitch somewhere in your immediate family. (better?)

WOW! < Sarcasm intended
chides user on spelling
follows with insult
rewinds history of user's past input to hold them accountable when argument fails to satisfy ego

Who's the troll whose shit don't stank? *edit (your bullshit is stacked just as high as anyone else)

I always discriminate against asshole, especially when i recognize the asshole in myself....It's called daily self-correction, and it's a full-time fucking job.

Daaaaaamn, kitteh!? WTF?? (That cat is so bad-ASSSS!)

...roommate's black lab Harley used to perforate the stack of mail with one CHOMP if you didn't beat him to the front door..traumatized by a mail carrier as a pup with the pepper-spray.

Yeah, she's not real. What she's doing has no bearing on anything tangible. Even her name is some fake, made-up confabulatory ruse. Why does anyone even bother with twisting their body into different positions that all look the same? Practice never does anything for the body, mind, or soul. Meh, meh, meh, phooey and stack sushi on that place in the small of her back.

Yeah, I was surprised at how ignorant Bill was on this too, although it wouldn't be the first time Maher ignored the facts to suit his own preconceptions (vaccines, anyone?)

At this point, it becomes increasingly difficult from a technological standpoint to put the genie back in the bottle. The internet, as a technology stack from browser to OS to network layer to hardware to comms protocols is now a hugely complex device. There are multiple attack points where malicious entities can insert "back doors" to access supposedly private communications. And governments are just one group of spies. There's also criminals and even scarier, corporations.

The only way I can possibly imagine it ever being truly secure is an end to end open technology stack that is peer-reviewed for potential issues constantly, but that would essentially mean tearing down all existing infrastructure, so it's just not going to happen.