>> ^rougy:
It just enrages me that we still have to submit to so much scrutiny for something that is so benign.
The media insists on emphasizing a stigma of guilt, of "doing something wrong" with smoking marijuana unless you're doing it for "medicinal reasons."
That stigma is for the most part non-existent. Most people don't really care. The only people who care are the people who are gaining from pot's illegal status, i.e. the DEA, law enforcement agencies, drug companies, and all of the business interests associated with those institutions.
It's a charade of hypocrisy posing as morality, and it's "high time" our country grew up and moved on to more important things.


Well said. We're only allowed to take the drugs they can sell us!

"One of the great promises of America, one which we have yet to fully live up to, is the promise of freedom, the promise that we can explore our creativity and push the limits of human potential. America's founders invented a constitution that granted new freedoms, but now we lead the world in oppressing people's freedom to alter consciousness.

For us, it has been a religious issue. Religious freedom shouldn't be limited to established religions. Marijuana can certainly be a means to a qualitative religious experience. It helps you appreciate the complexity and beauty of the universe. If we really believed in religious freedom we'd say that there are millions of people who derive something spiritual and meaningful from this marijuana. They should have the right to enjoy what they consider sacred. Smoking marijuana can be an aperture to a deep appreciation of what is holy, beautiful and sacred. We should encourage people to do this wisely, instead of persecuting them." - Ann Druyan

One of the great promises of America, one which we have yet to fully live up to, is the promise of freedom, the promise that we can explore our creativity and push the limits of human potential. America's founders invented a constitution that granted new freedoms, but now we lead the world in oppressing people's freedom to alter consciousness.

For us, it has been a religious issue. Religious freedom shouldn't be limited to established religions. Marijuana can certainly be a means to a qualitative religious experience. It helps you appreciate the complexity and beauty of the universe. If we really believed in religious freedom we'd say that there are millions of people who derive something spiritual and meaningful from this marijuana. They should have the right to enjoy what they consider sacred. Smoking marijuana can be an aperture to a deep appreciation of what is holy, beautiful and sacred. We should encourage people to do this wisely, instead of persecuting them. - Ann Druyan

Messenger,
1) The narrow depth of field makes the scenes look like realistic miniatures (because when imaging small things up close, it's hard to make the aperture small enough to create a large depth of field). There's no circularity or degeneracy.
2) The point is that when you change the perceived scale of a scene (both spatial and temporal in this case), it creates a drastically different perception of the scene (even though it's really the same photons for the most part).

^It helps if you can close your aperture tighter than a nun's puckered asshole - and have a really fast shutter speed. That means you need a lot of light.

And I had a written paragraph before the C-17 pictures... but it's not coming up....

Yeah. 0.7. That aperture alone is deserving of a post database crash *beg.

You can see solar flares, spots, and surface convection in a backyard telescope. Though you NEED proper equipment and knowledge how to do it properly!!!

NEVER POINT A TELESCOPE AT THE SUN. Unless you know exactly what you are doing. Ever burn a leaf with a magnifying glass as a kid. Imagine that 100x plus in strength on your eyeball. You will be instantly and permanently blinded.

A scope with a solar filter (Baader Solarfilm or properly filtered glass elements) for very low cost, shows sunspots. Not real solar surface detail, no corona. No flares.

Unfortunately the best visuals is with some rather pricey Hydrogen Alpha filtering equipment. But a few grand invested gives beautiful flare/surface detail. Coronado was one company that manufactured those things, but I haven't looked them up in a long while. Not sure if they are still around.

As you might imagine, you don't need a large aperture telescope. A small refractor sized scope is plenty big. Your goal isn't to collect more light, which is what larger scopes do. You want to get enough light, but you will be blocking out most of it with the specialized filters so you don't fry your eyeballs.

If you are interested and don't know where to start. Contact your local Astronomy club. Every nation has clubs somewhere. Not sure? Contact your local university's astronomy dept. They will know for sure. Heck, someone at the club or university likely owns one of these things so you can see one in person. Even better, search the internet.

Aperture Science Presents:

The Large Hardon Collider.

Proposal: Smash a Cake and a Pie together at nearly the speed of light!

Result: PAKE!

this video, for me, fails to accomplish it's goal. i dislike Wilders instead. his skimming view of an entire culture (much less religion) is on par with anything the american right-wing has thrown at us, only he know how to edit film (sort of). he cherrypicked the darkest of the dark in human behavior and expects us to believe that it's somehow specific to only one religion and people because of the language and clothing. i'm not Muslim, i'm not Christian, i'm not even an Aperture Science employee, but even i can see through this to the self-imposed racism and fear that Wilder must live with every day. he'd have a fine time with Limbaugh or Imus. they should have their people call each other and do lunch.

i can neither upvote or downvote the video. i see the merit in promoting a voice stifled (as an idea), but i cannot be party to the promotion of such xenophobic and hate-filled bile.

and Wilder is, himself, in violation of Godwin's Law (see the text at the end).

necroposting here, but it wasn't much of a spoiler, because Gordon "visiting Aperture Science" doesn't really imply the actual known storyline - SPOILERS FOLLOW!!! - him and Alyx going to the Borealis. and vice versa, as Borealis isn't the same as Aperture Science. they've only said they'd have a CHARACTER from Portal in Ep3 (I am inclined to think it'll be GLadOS rather than Chell; it makes no sense for Chell to be on Borealis, while a backup of GLadOS could be controlling it).

considering the storyline, we also know that Borealis had large-scale, long-range portal tech, which was distinctively distinguished from the Portal gun by Valve. also, as far as gameplay elements go, no news have been released concerning whether they'll just have the Portal gun in Ep3 or make Portal2, but you know, looking from a profit-orientated perspective, it makes a LOT more sense to make 2 games especially cause you know both will be popular and successful.

^yeahh that's so japanese. those people will go through any kind of ridiculously tedious electronic procedure without flinching. witness Gran Turismo on the playstation, asking you if you want a replay about 6 times before you are finally allowed navigate a menu system to try again. Or try changing the aperture on any japanese pocket camera.

Hehe, if you run apply it goes through a humourous Aperture Science application.

1981 - 1985 - Work progresses on the 'Portal' project. Several high ranking Fatah personnel choke to death on lamb chunks despite the intervention of their bodyguards.

1986 - Word reaches Aperture management that another defense contractor called Black Mesa is working on a similar portal technology. In response to this news, Aperture begins developing the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System (GLaDOS), an artificially intelligent research assistant and disk operating system.

1996 - After a decade spent bringing the disk operating parts of GLaDOS to a state of more or less basic functionality, work begins on the Genetic Lifeform component.

Several Years Later - The untested AI is activated for the first time as one of the planned activities on Aperture's first annual bring-your-daughter-to-work day.

In many ways, the initial test goes well...

[END]

1981 - Diligent Aperture engineers complete the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver and the Take-A-Wish Foundation initiatives. the company announces products related to the research in a lavish, televised ceremony. these products become immediately wildly unpopular. After a string of very public choking and despondent sick child disasters, senior company officials are summoned before a Senate investigative committee. During these proceedings, an engineer mentions that some progress has been made on Tier 3, the 'man-sized ad hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain.' The committee is quickly permanently recessed, and Aperture is granted an open-ended contract to secretly continue research on the 'Portal' and Heimlich Counter-Maneuver projects.

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1979 - Both of Cave Johnson's kidneys fail. Brain damaged, dying, and incapable of being convinced that time is not now flowing backwards, Johnson lays out a three tiered R&D program. The results, he says, will 'guarantee the continued success of Aperture Science far into the fast-approaching distant past.'

Tier 1: The Heimlich Counter-Maneuver - A reliable technique for interrupting the life-saving Heimlich Maneuver.

Tier 2: The Take-A-Wish Foundation - A charitable organization that will purchase wishes fromt he parents of terminally ill children and redistribute them to wish-deprived but otherwise healthy adults.

Tier 3: 'Some kind of rip in the fabric of space... That would .. Well, it'd be like, I don't know, something that would help with the shower curtains I guess. I haven't worked this idea out as much as the wish-taking one.'

[MORE]

I did some of that. After logging on, I got what looked like UNIX. I did LS, got two files. One was an application program, and one was notes. These are the notes:

1953 - Aperture Science begins operations as a manufacturer of shower curtains. Early product line provides a very low-tech portal between the inside and outside of your shower. Very little science is actually involved. The name is chosen to make the curtains appear more hygienic.

1956 - Eisenhower administratin awards Aperture a contract to provide shower curtains to all branches of the military except the Navy.

1957 - 1975 - Mostly shower curtains.

1978 - Aperture Founder and CEO, Cave Johnson, is exposed to mercury while secretly developing a dangerous mercury-injected rubber sheeting from which he plans to manufacture seven deadly shower curtains to be given as gifts to each member of the House Naval Appropriations committee.

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