There goes an hour of my day, a glorious glorious hour. I wish it had a sequencer in it so I could compose some structure!

>> ^Deano:

The clip deconstructing the Dark Knight chase sequence is really good. Sifted?


I am not sure, but go for it!

The clip deconstructing the Dark Knight chase sequence is really good. Sifted?

And fake...There are number of occasions where one ball touches the keys and a chord is played. Also sustain pedal is being pressed/released all the time. He has three octaves and is playing at least four, listen to the bass notes on that most complex part and compare to the end where he goes to the bottom key.

He could have it on step play mode where any key press advances the sequence forward.. It's still a fake but that's how i would do it.

@BicycleRepairMan

That scientist gave his reason for the impossibility this way: "Paabo said because the Neanderthal DNA was scattered in imperfect fossils, the notion of cloning a Neanderthal was far-fetched." (Source.)


It sounds like he's talking about cloning one individual Neanderthal, rather than synthesizing a Neanderthal genome from many incomplete fossils.

Genomes are just a series of 4 letters... so future tech will only need the complete sequence of those 4 letters. Degradation like a video recorded in low quality doesn't apply... you either can determine which of the 4 letters is in that spot, or you have to get another fossil sample that has that location intact.


Yeah, Naku's value seems to be that he's a nice guy that the public can relate to.

>> ^Velocity5:

@BicycleRepairMan
Science isn't 100% or nothing. Creating someone who is 95% neanderthal would still be scientifically useful.


Well, thats not really how genes, genomes and sequencing works. You can sequence a genome 100% , but the accuracy might not be perfect, then you can sequence bits and peices to determine familiarity etc and that might be close to 100% in accuracy. The point is that just because someone says "we have sequenced the Neanderthal genome" that doesnt have to mean that that sequencing is even remotely useable as a cloning template or whatever.

And you cant just make a "95% neanderthal" and expect it to be "almost neanderthal".

The devil, or neanderthal in this case, is in the details, and what we have to work with, regardless of future technology is degraded bits of DNA thats tens of thousands of years old. Again, think about it like a video in recorded in low quality, its not going to be HD just because you have a fancy computer.

I googled this stuff to see if my skepticism was warranted: Here is a quote from one of the people who actually did the sequencing (taken from Wikipedia):

In February 2009, the Max Planck Institute's team, led by geneticist Svante Pääbo, announced that they had completed the first draft of the Neanderthal genome[3] An early analysis of the data suggested in "the genome of Neanderthals, a human species driven to extinction" "no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans".[17] New results suggested that some adult Neanderthals were lactose intolerant.[14] On the question of potentially cloning a Neanderthal, Pääbo commented, "Starting from the DNA extracted from a fossil, it is and will remain impossible."

So there you have it. Naku is, once again, talking shit, and should stick to his own field of study.

I have a bit of an issue with Dr.Naku and his musings about biology, especially after seeing him butcher and mangle the theory of evolution and say that humans have "by-and-large" stopped evolving. Which is bullshit. (http://bigthink.com/ideas/26647)

I'm sure Dr.Naku is an excellent theoretical physicist, but he has shown that he doesnt really master biology all that well. I have a feeling he does the same thing here. There are all sorts of problems that might not be solvable here. Animals are more, biologically speaking, than a DNA "recipe" that you can simply "put into an egg", there are all sorts of evo-devo that comes in to complicate this tremendously. It is not at all clear that simply sequencing a genome (assumming its a complete and 100% accurate sequencing, which I'm pretty sure it isnt for the neanderthal and mammoth) that comes into play here. In other words, the limitation might not be our technology. Its a bit like the zoom-in-and-enhance-it problem you have in Hollywood movies. it doesnt matter if you have a billion-dollar computer from the year 4350 if the original recording is an old VHS tape of a CCTV recording.

http://science.discovery.com/videos/how-its-made-fine-leather-shoes.html
Virtually exactly the same process. Same tools, same methods, same sequence.

*promote

This is most likely the most AMAZING filament eruption to be caught on video. It is caused by a little process called magnetic reconnection. It's a little process that gives us our solar flares, these filaments, CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections), auroras, and the possible potential for very dangerous radiation storms every few millennium--give or take a few. Basically, plasma flows along these field lines of magnetism. When things get out of hand, then those field lines distort and change and all of a sudden things get very dangerous (AND sometimes beautiful). The faster the magnetic field changes the faster the particles will travel making them more and more dangerous as the events unfold fast enough giving them more energy (kinetic & heat), which in turn if directed at us means it penetrates much further into our protective field and anything outside of the field, crispy--in the shredded DNA, cells, you name it sense.

Occasionally, Earth's magnetic field breaks down a bit (if I remember why correctly it was a certain "sequence" within our magnetic shield and it reacts badly with the Sun's--don't quote me though, I really need to look it back up again it was a very long time ago I remember this from), if a large solar flare directed towards Earth ever happened before Earth had enough time to fully build back it's strength we would be FAR more in trouble than usual, but this would be a rare event. Usually what happens is that the charged particles follow Earth's magnetic lines and go to the poles, which is the one place on Earth where you do suffer the most radiation from the Sun (basically wherever the poles are as the plasma follows the polarity or "field lines" of Earth's magnetic field). It's also why the closer you are to the poles the better your view is of the aurora as the particles streaming in, if there is a sufficient quantity moving very fast (the more energy, especially kinetic--speed, the farther the penetration into the atmosphere and the lower the aurora becomes visible), will enter the atmosphere and begin to be absorbed by various elements that our atmosphere is compromised of like Nitrogen.

Here's a quick explanation. Basically, the particles collide with atoms of molecules/elements or anything in the higher atmosphere, exciting their electrons into higher energy levels, which is known fundamentally in science as quantum leap/atomic transition/electron transition it's one of the atom's most fundamental abilities dealing with "extra energy" being pushed into a system that wants balance (this is a very common process that happens ALL DAY long, EVERYWHERE around you; it transfers photons essentially--pure energy--BUT, what is the energy in the form of as it's energy level makes it do very many different things; you could see things, what you consider the normal range of light--it's EXACTLY how light goes THROUGH a window--it doesn't go through the window it is transferred via the atoms from one side to the next, this is ALSO why people are trying to get invisibility to work as it just might; HEAT is another one that is transferred all the time--it literally radiates outwards from our bodies and then we are surrounded by excited electrons and the infrared range of light we are putting out, the heat of a human body...or any animal; this goes on and on, it happens everywhere and as I said ALL-THE-TIME, it's perhaps one of the most critical processes and abilities of the atom and how photons also transfer their energy between areas in a direction; a little off-topic information for those that don't realize how much is going on, everywhere, all the time, at any given second...it's a complicated, but beautiful world)), and making them give off light that we see when the charge they've taken on finally returns the molecule/element's electrons to their normal orbits in the electron shell; the color depends on what molecule/element was being bombarded and how much energy was involved from the particle that hit it). This of course transfers all the energy that those particles had and we get a nice light show.

/I thought I'd fill my promote with something useful; ...on why these happen...
//edit-For a little more clarity, grammar and a bit more information that I hope some will appreciate if it helps anyone learn something or atleast go look up some of this and learn some on their own; taking an interest in science, it's one of the most important things in the world that we have.
///Spreading science is just as important; it's the one literal thing we do/use that has ever allowed us to deal with the worst problems we have: fear, pain, death, disease, sorrow, despair, ignorance, etc... Science IS the light in the dark. It is our best hope for mankind's continued existence and a good life. It is the single most important activity we now do as a group; it's our savior from us and what's out there...

Best action sequence I've seen lately. Hope there's more where it came from.

Hi Osama, i believe those photos were longer exposures, hence the lighting of the clouds and mountains by small amounts of light from either the near-by city or possibly the moon behind the camera. I think many of those shots are possible and only possible with constant long exposure shots put together into a sequence clip. With a good enough camera and lens, these shots can be achieved with 1+ sec exposure time, although with so much detail, I would expect longer exposures whilst the diaphragm can be less open so as to avoid overexposure.

On another note, doesn't the sequence of scenes seem like a modern version of the qatsi series?


>> ^osama1234:

I do like this video, but could someone with photography knowledge explain/verify to me that the kind of timelapse he's done is in many scenes impossible to see with the naked eye, or even a time-lapse consisting of (not two images meshed together) long exposure photos, without mixing together multiple pictures, and possibly pictures from different times (day vs night). (I find it impossible to imagine how he shot stars in daytime in between clouds (1:50), or the scene where the stars are visible in broad daylight while the mountain is also visible in daylight).

Sorely missing HHOF!

http://videosift.com/video/Hilarious-House-of-Frightenstein-opening-sequence

>> ^SFOGuy:

Sometimes I admit to wondering: do these people have parents? I mean, people who have the normal level of fear response to seeing someone they care about finding new and interesting ways to potentially hurt themselves? I wonder that about the Russian high tower/building videos too...
Not to say it isn't impressive and artful; just wonder.


There was a short series of programs here in the UK about Danny Macaskill, looking at how he deals with the fear/adrenaline of these type of stunts. They took him to meet other daredevil types and looked at his response to the risks. They also interviewed his parents. His dad is very risk averse, he doesn't like anything his son does, but his mother encouraged him to take risks from a very early age. The result is a mature person with a huge understanding of risk. He really knows his limits and what is and isn't possible.

If you bring up a child without exposing them to risk they never learn how to deal with or understand risk. When presented with a situation which is risky they don't know which decisions to make and that's when it all goes really badly wrong.

One of the other people they interviewed in the series was a specialist action sequence director. He works all the time with stunt men and women, people who do things that look really dangerous to normal people. He said they're the least likely of anyone to do anything dangerous. These things look dangerous to us because we don't know how we would deal with the situation. But to a trained stunt person, it's not that dangerous at all. He said they were the most likely people to back away from a danger. They don't look to do dangerous things, but rather they enjoy mastering the risks, so it's not dangerous.

They talked about a sequence where Danny rode down some steps in an underground station (I say rode down, what I mean is hurled himself and the bike down in unimaginably hectic ways!). They asked him what he was thinking when they were planing the shoot and he talked about all the potential risks he could see. Would his bike fit through the gap between the handrails if he did a twist in the jump? Would he hit his head on a step in the ceiling? Would he have enough space to slow down and so on. You'd think seeing the end shots that he went along looking for dangerous things to do where as he actually did the exact opposite.

As for the Russian crane climbers, I suspect there's a little more vodka involved than perhaps there should be...

The images speed by too damn quickly, I hate that shit. When will video noobs learn that one of the fundamental things to remember in video editing is that even though the editor has seen the footage/text/pictures dozens of times the audience has not. So the editor noob is overfamiliar with the content and is then mainly concerned with the sequencing, rather than the pacing. Drives me nuts.

Kurt Cobain died?

Speaking of "Tony Jaa the protector" (at 2:50), look here for the original scene.