Maybe the dialogue between the Exes is not the "wait for the end" surprise. Rather it's the movement of the camera & the heavy breathing at the last seconds. Meaning somebody else video-recorded the whole thing at a high vantage point and THAT can be used as evidence?

You don't know what he was hired for!
When you "assume" things like that you make ass out of yourself.
If this demolition company hired him to have a useful structural analysts video then they are fucking idiots for not properly doing research in who they are hiring and for not giving him proper permission to fly more than 1 aircraft! He's a fucking famous drone racer and it's all over his CV! Why the fuck would they hire him to take steadyshot video?! What kind of analysis can you make from a single vantage point?! Competent demolition companies use dozens if not hundreds of camera setup in critical locations, not a single done.

He was hired to create a cool marketing shot for the company and that's what he did!

Why would it need to fly to loiter? A few seconds flight to a roof top or other vantage point, then wait in low power mode.

Thanks dag & transmopher.

Oh yeah, this 3rd Testament you advocate would be most useful. There are external references throughout the centuries that helps people understand it in better context. Matthew Henry for example - not perfect, but useful. But I'm afraid human nature would just twist and corrupt anything. Pretty soon a 4th Testament will be needed.

The big problem with religion is the defensiveness of its practitioners. When people outside of their religion points out the weird crap in their holy text (weird in the present, not so much during the time it was written), they go all up in arms and goes on the attack. Yet so many withing their rank uses bits and pieces of the text out of context to justify horrendous behavior. Where is the self-criticism? Where's the self-reflection? Where's the self-correction?

It's no wonder atheist wants religion out. But realistically, religion is not going out the door anytime soon. I can understand that want too, really, I want the bad crap out of religion just as much.

But I do see the goodness within and just trying my best to achieve the same goal from an opposite (?) vantage point. If we're all here fighting evil, I don't care in what name you do it for, I'm going to support you.

Today's terrorism problems have no better authority than Muslim leaders coming out and condemn and explain their religion to the world. Christians needs to preach compassion towards their neighbors rather than fear & loathing, it's what Jesus commands. That's peaceful, cross-faith discussions the religious leaders of all faiths lack so much of. But I just don't see much of that up top...

From another vantage point https://videosift.com/video/Huge-wave-breaks-window-at-restaurant-on-pier

Absolutely. It's a mistake to make assumptions about what AI will be like. The doomsayers too often attribute human qualities to it. It's like speculating about alien intelligence. It will come in bits an pieces as we understand it more. My own guess is that, not weighed down by long obsolete genetic imperatives and human psychological pathologies, it will most likely be (in its higher form) an extraordinarily capable problem solver and prognosticator. It will lack the human flaws that typically motivate the killer AIs of science fiction. Of course, it will probably have it's own unique flaws. I do think it's wise to be wary of software that has developed beyond our capability to understand it (much as we don't understand the workings of our own consciousness).

Probably my primary concern about robotic weapons comes from a DARPA proposal I read about some time in the past. What they wanted was an autonomous, bird sized UAV. It would contain surveillance equipment and sensors, and be able to share the data it collects through a mesh network established with it's fellows and the commanders as well as receive orders. It would be intelligent enough to find a suitable strategic vantage point and hide itself. From there it would simply observe. With a large enough swarm of these, perhaps many thousands, you could send them into a city at night. They would each also potentially carry a small warhead allowing them to launch themselves at and destroy threats. Once these robots were entrenched, which might only take an hour or two, whoever controls them would effectively rule the city. Even if they were cut off from their command structure, they might still retain enough intelligence to recognize a particular individual, someone in a forbidden area, someone holding a weapon, or someone not brodcasting the right IFF signal, or any number of things. There might be no defense against such a thing (though there probably will be).

To me, that concept is terrifying. It's not huge hulking terminator-like war machines that could be the greatest threat, just flying, self-guiding, intelligent hand grenades. All someone would need is the capability to manufacture them. No raising an army, no speeches or threats, just a factory and a design. It's also not too far fetched to believe this capability might be available in just a matter of a few decades. They'll be easier to build than nuclear weapons, and oh so convenient and easy to deploy.

Um.... anyways, I dunno where I was going with that. Just lots of random pontificating, but because it's technology, it's silly to try to stop it with legislation. It will happen, as ChaosEngine rightly points out, the best course of action is to be on top of it and to understand it.

Was anyone else disturbed when they zoomed in to be able to see into people's houses from vantage points miles and miles away? To me, this means if you can see anything out your window, someone can be looking in, no matter how far away the mountain/building might be.
Thanks a lot PhaseOne, for ending privacy in our own homes. This will definitely be abused....to me it already has been here. I doubt they have releases from those people they zoomed in on.
Nice pictures though!

BTW, I wanted to add a small comment at the end of this. Something I didn't add back then (but, looking back upon it, I think I should have).

It is regarding the little comment I mad e about feeling a connection to "something" bigger than me, then describing what this "feeling" was like.

I wanted to make it clear that the human mind, our testimony, and our eye-witness accounts are very, very undependable... A sad, but absolute truth.

Most cases that have been thrown out of court later on--once new evidence is brought to light; like DNA evidence--has shown over and over again that in many of these cases, the "victims" or prisoners sent to jail--for doing nothing--were sent there almost entirely on eye-witness testimony and accounts. Then the DNA shows that their entire "story" (because that IS exactly what it should be called), merely served as a way to put an innocent man in jail, and to keep that DA/prosecutor's record as close to "awesome" as possible (because we really DO care FAR too much about a DA's record than whether the person being prosecuted should actually be here, let alone if they are guilty or not). The defense attorney has the same problem; I'm not really sure WE should care about these things (only so much as to whether the state IS actually bringing cases to court that SHOULD be there...).

I have severe sleep apnea and also narcolepsy. With this I get sleep paralysis (basically every night) and an extreme amount of hypnagogic hallucinations (more than powerful enough that i fully understand why many believe in both ghosts and aliens--amongst other creatures). The "feeling" and situation I described above can very easily be traced back into this little issue of mine. It creates everything you could imagine--I even had a hypnagogic hallucination powerful enough that it felt as though someone or something was trying to yank me "through" my bed (hello, Nightmare On Elm Street"--I was actually more intrigued by the event than anything else, akin to a researcher). While most people would have run yelling from there house, or at the least gone to get comfort and forgone sleeping in that room AND bed for quite sometime...I went right back to sleep.

This is why KNOWING what you are up against, what it can do to you, and how powerful it really can be (especially on your psyche and even your physical state is very important...). I knew all of this before it ever happened AND I had also noticed the hypnagogic hallucinations doing A LOT of very small auditory based things--all the time--to me, but they sounded realistic (like dogs barking off in the distance, people whispering outside your window...across the street, telephones ringing upstairs, people you know talking or saying things--like your name--sometimes to the point that you have to ask them if they called for you...and YES you do feel like an idiot, but if everyone knows your physical problems, due to the sleep disorders, they understand what it going on, and can laugh with you when it happens--EVEN the scary ones).

Sleep paralysis happens to be when your body tries to wake up, but it doesn't quite get there. hence you end up in a state were you are both awake and asleep at the same time (dreaming to be accurate). These events have a tendency to be a bit like the hypnagogic hallucinations, in that they can seem real, since you are half-awake. History has a great many examples of SP--the ones that don't seem that scary, like visiting angels. To those that can create bone-chilling "ghost stories", like demons and succubi. There is a very famous painting of a "breath-stealing" demon, depicting a SP event (many people did in fact DIE in their sleep from "lack of breathing", this is where SP fiction AND the reality of many of the SP sufferers having severe sleep apnea--something fully unknown in that day and age--were not taken into account, and instead it was a demon! Many people that DO have sleep paralysis events have dreams and dream like events that are close to and resemble each other, so there must be a basic psychological connection in the formation of many of these dreams--even space alien abductions seem to have this same thing in common...

So when a big SP or hypnagogic hallucination comes along, and just by chance it happens to mix with each either (if you suffer both), you can get some truly panic inducing events (go look these up, if you don't understand why they could be so panic inducing--you'll understand pretty quick why they SUCK; luckily, as I've gotten older my mind has created two ways to deal with sleep paralysis events; the first it created, and I don't know how to be honest, is that I realize in these "half-dreams" that if I relax I will gain all of my abilities back...sure enough it works every time, but it can be VERY hard to do this when you have a pure-evil, shadow of fear standing 10 feat from you; then lately...and I think this happened literally due to the shear volume and amount of SP events I've had...I can basically FORCE myself to move again through willpower alone, allowing me to wake up as well--doing this actually feels "odd", it feels uncomfortable, like you are "going against the grain" and then suddenly breaking through a wall that wasn't allowing you to do what you wanted; so I imagine this "ability" forcefully allows me to make my body stop it's "protective" mode that it is in as you sleep and it is ALSO what causes the "paralysis" in all sleep paralysis vents...it is just your body doing what it should)...

Also, from what I've noticed, it seems to me that almost all hallucinations at some level are directly linked with whatever in the mind allows us to dream or create very vivid "imaginations". Both my sleep paralysis events AND especially my hypnagogic hallucinations, accompanied by the fact that I have indeed ran into "run of the mill" hallucinations (caused by adverse effects from medical prescriptions in the past), they ALL seem to be essentially linked together from what I noticed. I'd have to look around and see if there are others that have as many vantage points as I do, and also agree that they seem linked.

Throughout history people have seen these two aspects as something they absolutely are not OR not even close too! Yet FAR too many people don't ask the absolutely obvious question that they ALWAYS should have! Why, do ghost, aliens, demons, angels, you name it, show up at NIGHT (or for those that have odd sleep schedules: when you are TIRED or about to SLEEP--or just have...)?!? The answer should, indeed, be obvious... All of these things have to do WITH our sleep or something with our ability TO sleep (you don't necessarily need to be asleep or need to have just woken up for this stuff to happen to you; my narcolepsy shows this is absolutely true--as I can get hypnagogic hallucinations at ANY time of the day, sometimes without warning). The creatures and gods we have created do indeed exist, but they are located at the border between where our brain can see clearly and when our brain could use some rest--then we all live in our dreams.

So, be careful about how much stock you put into anything you believe is true, especially because you "believe" you have witnessed or experienced something magnificent... Believe it or not, seeing is NOT believing! Science always had the right idea, you MUST allow others to confirm what you found, and if they cannot find it--no matter even IF you "found it"--you might need to be able to accept the harsh reality that somehow you didn't see or experience what you thought you did (but, it can still be amazing)...

Totally agree. 100% tow truck's fault.

I just witnessed the exact same type of accident today from nearly the same vantage point. Little Honda or Acura ran a red and T Boned a little Ranger pickup that had the green.

Oswald's spot WAS the best vantage point-

@bcglorf
thanks for the thoughtful response my friend.

since i wrote my comment i have come across a few more pieces of information that implicate assads regime but not assad himself.it has become apparent that chemical weapons were used but still no conclusive evidence WHO authorized the use.

so right now,in regards to who is to blame for the usage of chemical weapons is still conjecture.

my friend,syria is an awful situation.
two millions people displaced and flooding into neighboring countries.innocent people are dying.the political situation is a hornets nest of privileged power,theocracy and religious dissidents.

but you skipped over (much like the obama administration is doing currently) my questions regarding diplomacy.
why are we not searching with vigor a multi-lateral diplomatic solution?
what would a limited strike on damascus actually produce besides continued violence in which the innocent will pay in blood and only succeed in prolonging a violent civil war?
already the civil war had been prolonged due to outside interference (many countries bear that shame,including the US).

now let us consider if we DO go in to "punish" assad.which i think is likely.
what are the possible consequences?
could it be possible that russia,china and iran react?
what then?

do you see where i am going with this?
a diplomatic resolution may take more time.it may take some..you know..talking and patience,but the final outcome will benefit those innocents both you and i (and pretty much the world) AND the political stability in that region and all outlying players.

while a military resolution will create more casualties and deaths,many of them innocent civilians,and may possibly create a conflaguration of a world powers conflict.where the innocent body bags will begin to be counted in the millions.

am i being overly-dramatic?
possibly.
my point is the diplomatic resolution keeps innocent death counts low while a military resolution will only raise the death count and create more refugees.

so maybe i was not clear in my commentary because i guess i appeared that i didnt want the united states to do anything.
this is untrue.
i was just pointing to the utter hypocrisy of the political rhetoric.
and whatever moral credit america once possessed,it was spent many years ago.

so the best route to take BEFORE there is even talks of military action is diplomacy.even our staunches allies have refused to engage militarily,and yet what are we seeing?obama traveling the political circles to promote the march to further violence.

syria is no threat to the united states.
the humanitarian argument to fight violence with violence is a canard,its bullshit.
this has nothing to do with saving lives nor preventing further violence.

the international community needs to band together and put pressure to cease and desist.this is the moral path to take.
this is the path that will garner results quickly with far less bloodshed.


i fear this is not what is going to happen.
right now as i wrote this the obama administration is putting political pressure on all fronts.
i fear this is going to end badly.
i fear that this may domino and drag opposing nations to a conflict where the death toll will be catastrophic.

i hope i am wrong.

thanks for responding bc.i know we disagree politically on some issues and its always a pleasure discussing issues with you so i can see things from a different vantage point.

What? Render time? I'd guess minutes at most. C'mon, this is 2013, not 1993.

But you're right: Oculus Rift + This = Star Trek Holodeck in real life. Sports is possibly the best application for this combination, since the area of play is limited and well defined. Let me build upon your vision of the future.

It would require the ability to change your camera angle even when the "video" is playing. They'd also need to thoroughly map all audio sources on the playing feild. Heck, I'm sure there are tons of other massive technical hurdles that I haven't even thought of, but if you will, imagine this:

Go to an empty baseball field (or other large, flat area) during a time when you can be assured you'll be totally alone. You'd need to set up some kind of markers, four in total, non-coplaner. They would track your movement on the field in 3 dimensions. You might also set up a large circle fence around the outter edge of the field with sticks and string, to make sure you don't run into a tree or a building, since you'll be totally blind once you don your Oculus Rift. Then, put on the Rift, and play the video with your vantage point on the field as the camera angle. You'd be holding in your hand a remote control which can pause, rewind, or fast forward.

You could literally be IN THE GAME, AS IT PLAYS, with the ability to run along side your favorite football player as he runs into the end zone, seeing everything he sees, hearing everything he hears. Or stand in the endzone, and watch your favorite plays from every imaginable angle as though you were really there. Rewind the "video" and watch again from the vantage point of the quarterback, or the referee, or the coach.

There is no higher form of sports immersion. It is Nirvana.

Someone asked about the ferris wheel shots on Vimeo:

DAMPDESIGN 1 week ago

thanks chris! In the ferris wheel I placed the camera's on a tripod close to the window. 1 shot per sec.

Wow! All that, and a mind reader too? You're awesome!

It takes a particularly high level of arrogance to tell someone you've never met, and haven't spent any significant amount of time interacting with, what they're actually thinking and how it's different from what they say they're thinking.

But sure...you're right, and everyone who disagrees with you is on the dark side. Whatever...>> ^swedishfriend:

Thinking in such absolutes has never led to anything good. It is a matter of degrees. The serial killer kills because that extreme of a thing is what it takes to feel anything. Without emotions you become passive. I am right about what I wrote. With some introspection on your end you will realize it too. Denying the dark side of yourself will force it to be expressed, which the tone of your comment clearly shows.
>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^swedishfriend:
Yeah that is it exactly. He was telling himself and others that they really aren't bad guys because the workers want to be there. This shows that he does have empathy and does care. If he didn't care he wouldn't need to comfort himself like that. He is just really good at burying his empathetic feelings and making excuses to himself so that he will feel less bad about it. I am sure we can all relate to some degree. Everyone uses these tactics. We simply cannot help all the people in pain that we come across in our everyday lives. He has done it for so long, so much and regarding such serious situations that even desperately unfair conditions like these aren't enough to make him act properly. Not a good choice for a leader of anything.
>> ^enon:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't think there is any way to judge this comment unless we find out what Romney did with the factory after he bought it. I don't think he was bragging, and from what I've heard and read, his description of the fierce competition for jobs in China is accurate.

First off, you're previous comment, minus all the godly stuff, was quite beautiful and is how I strive to live my life - minus the godly stuff
In regards to Romney's comment -- from my vantage point it sounds more like he was expressing surprised relief that the slave labor factor he had just purchased was actually staffed by willing slave laborers rather than forced slave laborers and this somehow alleviates what ever remote feeling of guilt he might have had. It gave the appearance that either way he was going to work these poor women to the bone, it just made it easier on him now that he knew they were semi willing participants. Obviously this is all conjecture but I'm hard pressed to hear and sympathy or remorse in his voice, it was much more akin to "Did you know these mother fuckers actually WANT to work like this? So in reality we're doing good and turning a profit!" His voice has far more interest in that fact than disgust which is kinda the tipping point for me.
I try to remind myself that this can potentially happen to anyone. He was raised and has lived far away from what would be considered a working mans life and it is hard to feel empathy for someone if you are not able to relate to them or have never been taught it. I think it's pretty evident from his lifestyle that this holds true for him. He's not a bad person because he's evil, but because he's incredibly ignorant.


Seriously? You think his attempts to paint himself in a better light shows he has empathy?
No. It shows he realizes just how fucking sociopathic his behavior is, and he's trying to sell a "nicer, warmer" image of himself to his audience. He flat out does not care...he'd be just as willing to bleed those women dry, and profit from their blood. Because he's better than they are...they're just peons, and don't count for a thing, just like all of us. We're not him, so we don't count.

Thinking in such absolutes has never led to anything good. It is a matter of degrees. The serial killer kills because that extreme of a thing is what it takes to feel anything. Without emotions you become passive. I am right about what I wrote. With some introspection on your end you will realize it too. Denying the dark side of yourself will force it to be expressed, which the tone of your comment clearly shows.

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^swedishfriend:
Yeah that is it exactly. He was telling himself and others that they really aren't bad guys because the workers want to be there. This shows that he does have empathy and does care. If he didn't care he wouldn't need to comfort himself like that. He is just really good at burying his empathetic feelings and making excuses to himself so that he will feel less bad about it. I am sure we can all relate to some degree. Everyone uses these tactics. We simply cannot help all the people in pain that we come across in our everyday lives. He has done it for so long, so much and regarding such serious situations that even desperately unfair conditions like these aren't enough to make him act properly. Not a good choice for a leader of anything.
>> ^enon:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't think there is any way to judge this comment unless we find out what Romney did with the factory after he bought it. I don't think he was bragging, and from what I've heard and read, his description of the fierce competition for jobs in China is accurate.

First off, you're previous comment, minus all the godly stuff, was quite beautiful and is how I strive to live my life - minus the godly stuff
In regards to Romney's comment -- from my vantage point it sounds more like he was expressing surprised relief that the slave labor factor he had just purchased was actually staffed by willing slave laborers rather than forced slave laborers and this somehow alleviates what ever remote feeling of guilt he might have had. It gave the appearance that either way he was going to work these poor women to the bone, it just made it easier on him now that he knew they were semi willing participants. Obviously this is all conjecture but I'm hard pressed to hear and sympathy or remorse in his voice, it was much more akin to "Did you know these mother fuckers actually WANT to work like this? So in reality we're doing good and turning a profit!" His voice has far more interest in that fact than disgust which is kinda the tipping point for me.
I try to remind myself that this can potentially happen to anyone. He was raised and has lived far away from what would be considered a working mans life and it is hard to feel empathy for someone if you are not able to relate to them or have never been taught it. I think it's pretty evident from his lifestyle that this holds true for him. He's not a bad person because he's evil, but because he's incredibly ignorant.


Seriously? You think his attempts to paint himself in a better light shows he has empathy?
No. It shows he realizes just how fucking sociopathic his behavior is, and he's trying to sell a "nicer, warmer" image of himself to his audience. He flat out does not care...he'd be just as willing to bleed those women dry, and profit from their blood. Because he's better than they are...they're just peons, and don't count for a thing, just like all of us. We're not him, so we don't count.