Unbelievably *terrible idea.

Never in a million years, and it shouldn’t happen, and wouldn’t help. Trump would show for the money and do nothing but bash Obama as a foreigner Muslim illegitimate “so called president” (who won two more presidential elections than Trump), would blame all his failures on either Obama or Biden, and would interrupt Obama’s every thoughtful point with rambling, self congratulatory nonsense. Trump has no interest in unification unless that means everyone unify behind him and he’s emperor. Trump is a divider, his entire platform is “blame the libs for everything wrong, take credit for anything that’s working, even if he opposed it”. He has nothing to offer but hateful lies.

Trump is incapable of having a nice discussion. If the other people speaking aren’t just praising him, he thinks they should just shut up and let him praise himself. It’s an impossibility for him to sit and have a productive conversation with a non sycophant, especially one as intelligent and knowledgeable as Obama that would outshine him like a supernova beside a black hole of ignorance. He wouldn’t make it 5 minutes before his first temper tantrum.

Obama doesn’t need the money, he’s a real, successful, happy, self made multi millionaire...no doubt he would donate any payments to the needy ….Trump does need the money, he’s an unhappy failed businessman and broke trust fund baby with dozens of criminal court cases pending and hundreds of millions in unpaid bills...no doubt he would pocket every penny...and Trump is considered by most Americans as personally responsible for the worst attack on Washington since 1812 as an attempted coup....and the idea is to give him another high profile platform from which he can try again to make his baseless and highly divisive case that he's not a loser, like he does at his shrinking rallies and random paid events at his properties.

If you want to unify America, you need to remove Trump from the equation, he divided America more than slavery. Division is his only real accomplishment….how does this guy think he’s the one to help unify?

It's like saying Jim Jones or David Koresh should be publicly debating the Dalai Lama to unify people around religion in positive ways, they both just had that one little slip up and their remaining people still believe in them for the most part.

duplicate of https://videosift.com/video/1812-Overture-played-on-melodicas-1

*duplicate of https://videosift.com/video/1812-Overture-played-on-melodicas-1

"Maps" doesn't adequately describe the extent of information that things like these convey. They are more like "animated visualizations".

I took a computer graphics class in college where we learned about data visualization. One of the most famous examples in that field is Charles Joseph Minard's map/visualization of Napolean's march into Russia in 1812. On the surface, it is a 2D map. However, the width of the line showing the path of advancement conveys troop numbers, the color denotes whether they were advancing or retreating, and a connected chart below shows the air temperatures that the soldiers were exposed to, etc.

Basically, at a glance you can easily see the broad strokes of the advance and retreat, and you can get much more depth of information if you look a little closer. These kinds of animated visualizations are definitely continuing on in that same vein -- packing a lot of information into a presentation method that is easy to pick up and also very deep with some more inspection.

Wikipedia article about Minard showing that famous Napolean march visualization if anyone is interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard

from the source @ youtube:

The animated film, “#Justino,” features a security guard at a mannequin factory. Since Justino works the graveyard shift, he has very few chances to interact with his coworkers. With a little bit of creativity, Justino devises ways to connect with his colleagues by using the factory’s mannequins to create situations both amusing and moving. His coworkers appreciate his playfulness each morning, and find a way to repay his generous spirit in kind.

One new feature this year is social media activation. The factory, “Fábrica de Maniquíes El Pilar,” has its own Facebook profile reporting on its day-to-day activities. And we can follow Justino’s nights in real time via his Instagram account @justino_vigilante.

On Nov. 16, #Justino, from the animated short, became the No. 1 trending topic in Spain and No. 5 in the world on Twitter. The film exceeded 1 million views on YouTube within a day.

A national tradition since 1812, Spaniards look forward to the annual Christmas lottery even if it means standing in line for hours to purchase the tickets. Nicknamed El Gordo, which means “the fat one,” prizes are valued up to more than €2.2 billion, making it the biggest lottery prize in the world.

It’s common to “share” the lottery by buying “participaciones,” or “shared tickets” at offices, with friends and family, and at bars. The belief is that the Christmas lottery is unique because it’s one that Spaniards participate in together, and if they win, they win together.

That's the most ridiculous, jingoistic thing I've read in quite a while. Americans are 99% angry cowards who panic at the drop of a hat and flee from car backfires and fireworks.

Society is collectivist. Pure individualism is Thunderdome.

Exceedingly few individualists have ever stood up and fought for it, even fewer are willing to die for it. If you assume Americans will stand up and fight for their rights and freedom, I'll assume you haven't ever paid attention to many Americans.

The word "refugee" DOES exist in the US, because it's descriptive OF the US. A large part of our population are refugees, arguably including many of the founders.

That rifle behind every blade of grass didn't help much in 1812, nor did it scare the Moonies (the only group to ever commit a biological attack on America). Don't be fooled that we intimidate anyone with our armed populace. We are more dangerous to ourselves than to others.

I'm surprised these young ones don't know about the Pax Americana. This video made it sound like they don't teach any modern American history at all in school. What, do they stop at the war of 1812?

Ahem.

John Sedgwick, Union Army general was warned by his men to keep his head down while surveying Confederate lines in 1864.

His reply, literally was, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--"

War of 1812, Battle of Queenston Heights, US forces were planning a major assault and they wanted to be organized, so each type of supply was put in a boat of its own. Unfortunately, the boat with all the oars left first and nobody else could cross.

Stupidity is not generation-specific.

Though I do agree it seems to be getting worse.

I took a computer graphics class when I was going to college that talked about data visualization. Every time I see something on this topic, I am reminded about something the prof showed us in that class -- a visualization of troop losses during Napoleon's march on Russia in 1812-1813 by a French civil engineer named Minard.

Minard's chart gets a whole lot of dimensions and relevant variables displayed in a very simple, easy to read format. The "big picture" is evident at a glance, but details readily emerge when you look closer. It is a map, it shows number of soldiers and losses from cold/fighting, temperature data which contributed to those losses, etc.

I think that using CG including video and animation to expand on the ways that we visualize data is very interesting and exciting, but on the other hand depth and detail of relevant data is sometimes most impressive when it comes in a very simple package, like Minard's map.

Pretty neat stuff!

Al was called aluminum by the English chemist who discovered it, Humphry Davy, in his 1812 book which publicized the metal. It was some anonymous jackass writing a review of Davy's book who decided to change it to aluminium (see 4th paragraph) because he didn't like the sound of Davy's choice.

Nothing to do with Americans... the Brits fucked this one up all on their own and have been living the lie ever since.

I was going to reply to him but you guys covered it pretty well. The crazy storylines, the wild writing, characters that were up, then down.. that was the fun about it. Farscape remains one of my all-time fav shows simply because every time I watched a new episode I left it with a massive grin on my face. It was just one of the most fun shows I've ever watched.

>> ^00Scud00:

Farscape could be really over the top sometimes, but then I think that's at least part of what I liked about it, overall I thought the show was pretty well written and I enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the characters. As for why people tend to deify Firefly so much I think it could be compared to just falling in love with someone and then having them promptly die on you, they weren't around long enough to really disappoint you in any big way so your memory of them will be pretty much be eternally perfect.
>> ^Yogi:
>> ^Reefie:
Farscape is definitely a show that has to be watched from beginning to end in order to follow the threads and feel like you know where you are with it. It's a stark contrast to Firefly where episodes are an entire story unto themselves with only a couple of background story threads being maintained at any one point. IMO Farscape's complex story is second only to Babylon 5's epic-ness when considering the story-arc aspect of sci-fi TV shows.
Also helps to be a little bit crazy to fully appreciate Farscape. A love of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky helps too

That doesn't explain the characters, they were sometimes very poorly written, by any standard.

Farscape could be really over the top sometimes, but then I think that's at least part of what I liked about it, overall I thought the show was pretty well written and I enjoyed the hell out of a lot of the characters. As for why people tend to deify Firefly so much I think it could be compared to just falling in love with someone and then having them promptly die on you, they weren't around long enough to really disappoint you in any big way so your memory of them will be pretty much be eternally perfect.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Reefie:
Farscape is definitely a show that has to be watched from beginning to end in order to follow the threads and feel like you know where you are with it. It's a stark contrast to Firefly where episodes are an entire story unto themselves with only a couple of background story threads being maintained at any one point. IMO Farscape's complex story is second only to Babylon 5's epic-ness when considering the story-arc aspect of sci-fi TV shows.
Also helps to be a little bit crazy to fully appreciate Farscape. A love of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky helps too

That doesn't explain the characters, they were sometimes very poorly written, by any standard.

>> ^Reefie:


Farscape is definitely a show that has to be watched from beginning to end in order to follow the threads and feel like you know where you are with it. It's a stark contrast to Firefly where episodes are an entire story unto themselves with only a couple of background story threads being maintained at any one point. IMO Farscape's complex story is second only to Babylon 5's epic-ness when considering the story-arc aspect of sci-fi TV shows.
Also helps to be a little bit crazy to fully appreciate Farscape. A love of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky helps too


That doesn't explain the characters, they were sometimes very poorly written, by any standard.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Xaielao:
Firefly was very good while it lasted, but I've always been more of a Farscape fan and would much rather see a reunion episode of that.
/runs for the door

I've watched a lot of Farscape. It is sometimes very good. Other times though it's just farcical. I mean I started watching it in the order that you're intended to watch it, and the Characters still had no consistency. You never knew where anyone stood at any particular time, sometimes they were mad, or happy, or friends, or enemies. It made so little fucking sense and the characters would change WAY too much over a very short period of time, and then go back like nothing was gained or learned.
I love their use of puppetry and the costumes for some of the characters, it was amazing. Some of the story lines and ideas were absolutely fun and great. The consistency and character arcs simply didn't exist though, they were chaotic at the best of times.


Farscape is definitely a show that has to be watched from beginning to end in order to follow the threads and feel like you know where you are with it. It's a stark contrast to Firefly where episodes are an entire story unto themselves with only a couple of background story threads being maintained at any one point. IMO Farscape's complex story is second only to Babylon 5's epic-ness when considering the story-arc aspect of sci-fi TV shows.

Also helps to be a little bit crazy to fully appreciate Farscape. A love of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky helps too

Automatically replaced video embed code with backup #1812 (supplied by member kronosposeidon) - video declared dead by member ReverendTed.