>> ^KnivesOut:
>> ^ponceleon:
So Bill is walking down the highway with his sandwich in one hand... and the severed hand in the other!

Bill Parker?


Hah! I knew a sifter would get the reference!!!

No, not that motherscrather!

>> ^ponceleon:
So Bill is walking down the highway with his sandwich in one hand... and the severed hand in the other!


Bill Parker?

Your video, 1Girl1Powerhammer - Lann Working On Steel Tapers, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

What're you making? Are you just beating up those poor tapers for no reason? Is this taper-snuff...?

"Since you downvoted my apology, I'll add this."

I downvoted the comment that it was "just a few seconds". My post including ~40 seconds where Robertson calls the earthquake a blessing your original did not. I did not see your video until SP declared *dupeof, and I was annoyed because they were not the same video, as mine was ~50% longer and had additional content. I was more bothered by the fact that this has happened before and it still isn't fixed.

"You decided to passively aggressively scoop my video with 36 seconds of immaterial content."

This is crazy talk. I think you think I care way more about my sifts way more than I actually do. I have been on this site long enough that people know I have never done that, if you don't know me it is because my usage has tapered off lately. Irrespective of your conspiracy theory bullshit, SlipperyPete declared dupeof incorrectly. As per the definition of "dupe", it means a copy. If there was black screen or credits something of that degree padding my video, then I would agree it would be a dupe. But it contained ~50% more content and a completely different segment. You know that.

"My sift must have come up as a dupe; the titles are too similar."

The dupe checking function doesn't work that way. My impression is that it takes time to for he database to load the videos. If two videos are posted close together and have similar titles the dupe checker will not see the first one.

Ask Lucky or Dag I am sure he will say the same thing.

"Since you downvoted my apology, I'll add this."

I downvoted the comment that it was "just a few seconds". My post including ~40 seconds where Robertson calls the earthquake a blessing your original did not. I did not see your video until SP declared *dupeof, and I was annoyed because they were not the same video, as mine was ~50% longer and had additional content. I was more bothered by the fact that this has happened before and it still isn't fixed.

"Your video appeared almost 2 hours later. My sift must have come up as a dupe; the titles are too similar. You decided to passively aggressively scoop my video with 36 seconds of immaterial content."

This is crazy talk. I think you think I care way more about my sifts way more than I actually do. I have been on this sight long enough that people know I have never done that, if you don't know me it is because my usage has tapered off lately. Irrespective of your conspiracy theory bullshit, SlipperyPete declared dupeof incorrectly. As per the definition of "dupe", it means a copy. If there was black screen or credits something of that degree padding my video, then I would agree it would be a dupe. But it contained ~50% more content and a completely different segment. You know that.

Bird Aerodynamics
or why Herons, Cranes and Egrets don't extend their necks when flying.


There is a point where the length of the neck is no longer aerodynamic and the sharply pointed beak is better kept right in front of the body. They would not get any "lift" from their narrow, pointed beaks but, that shape does pierce the air quite nicely. Just like the nose of a jet aircraft.

Ducks and geese fly with their necks outstretched.
The flat bills of ducks and geese aid in acquiring "lift". I'm willing to bet that they can actually rest their "chins" on the wind as they fly. They now design highly efficient aircraft that utilize the canard (fr. duck) profile that features a small wing way out in front.

All flying birds also get lift from the way air flows easily over their straight backs but, pushes their rounder undersides upward as they propel themselves through the air with their wings.

Want more? lol
The pointed, elongated cone shape of the Heron's beak pierces the air and makes a cone shaped vacuum that is widened even further by the shape of the front of the bird. As the air is forced around the bird, frontal drag is reduced. If the neck was extended, this effect would be lost and the vacuum would collapse right behind it's head, in front of the bird's body, and the air would rush back in, the bird's body would fly into turbulence.

The wide, flat bills of ducks and geese create a wedge shaped vacuum as the birds propel themselves through the air. If you have ever noticed, their wings beats have a very short up and down travel distance, staying just on the edge of the vacuum wedge that their bills have created. Even the geese flock formations are based on creating an even larger wedge shaped vacuum for all of them to travel within.

The vacuums that birds create not only reduce drag, they create thrust. That is how the shape of a Peregrine Falcon enables it to exceed the pull of gravity ("freefall or "terminal velocity") without flapping it's wings. In a dive, the Peregrine's form, past it's head, becomes a very long cone shape. The vacuum that it's head creates while moving through the air, collapses behind it's head and the air starts rushing back in around the contoured shape of the bird, from front to back, propelling the bird forward. Same design as fish. If you've ever tried to tighten your grip on the tapered back end of a fish, you know that it shoots forward out of your grasp. And, the tighter you try to squeeze, the faster it goes. Lost a couple of good ones that way.

I was thinking about the subject of national achievements the other day. One hundred years ago, people were for the most part not using internal combustion for transportation. In the fifty years hence, amazing advances took place. However, it seems at first glance to have tapered off since the late 60s.

My two cents: First off, we can thank the Cold War for the space race and our landing on the Moon. Second, Mars rovers anyone? That was a pretty fucking amazing feat! Third, IMO, most national (and global) achievements haven't been as outwardly observable as past achievements. For example: the internet. Personal computing. Nanotechnology. Miniaturization of every conceivable electronic device. They are all amazing achievements, but they aren't as sensational as a trip to the moon.

people ought to know
train
*wheels
are tapered to keep the train on the track
...to become full-fledged members of the fraternity.

Oh come on. Nader makes a huge difference, ok sure. Let's look at some numbers, shall we?

2004 Election: Nader Popular vote is 463,655 (0.38%). Seriously, if you think a third of a percent made any difference in that war, than we can talk.

Now, 2000 was a different story, but maybe not as much as you might think. Nader had 2,883,105 votes (2.73%). If ALL of Nader's supporters had voted Democrat instead of Green, Gore would have won New Hampshire and Florida. New Hampshire is only worth 4 electoral votes. Florida? Who know what really happened there....Ron Paul probably won and the vote counters had heart attacks and died.

My point here is not that 2000 would have been the same w/o Nader. My point is his support tapered off DRASTICALLY by almost 2% of all Americans. I would expect to see the same decline in 2008.

source

bulbous also tapered...

Actually the location you pointed out Ajkido, it has a few examples. But if you look closely that blur spot follows a vertical line on both sides all the way down. It's part of the film strip where they line them up side by side, with the part you pointed out being tapered. Most of the film probably overlapped photos, with some parts of the film possibly not exposing properly or optics issues, or even just sucky trimming and merging of all the photo strips. You have to remember since the moon is a sphere and all photos were of a 35mm type rectangle, it's going to have to be trimmed at some point to avoid overlapped and duplicate imaging. And if there was a gap between photos, it had to be filler with some form of filler. And photo editting as it is known today did no exist. But nonetheless, it is still very fascinating.

“He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me” -- Thomas Jefferson.

That's the idea behind this video.

I like to think of it as a story much like cable TV. At first you paid for Cable because it had exclusive programs (or in our example websites.) Not only were cable programs free of advertisements, but had a much wider channel base. Eventually some channels became exclusive to specific providers and commercials began to creep back in.

Since the massive liftoff of the internet cable tv subscriptions are tapering off. And now to adjust to the market ISP companys are trying to grab a hold on the internet to make a profit.

I really don't know what they think they can control but sites that are massive (i.e. You Tube, MySpace, Facebook, etc.) Could be bought by said companys and come exclusively to the highest bidder.

This won't work for several reasons: 1. You can't smash the internet into bite size meals for the American consumer. 2. The massive and large website that sell exclusive rights will eventually begin to dissipate as they begin to exclude a large part of the populous. 3. Because if you want to make money you have to have something people have a hard time doing without or feel a strong need to have. If you have 3 sites out of 30 Billion others... Well your not cornering too much of a market.

I dread the day it comes to that. I think most peoples fears about this are not sound or reasonable. But that's just my opinion.

P.S. On a side note, too many people make money from a free internet and anyone who would regulate that would be bad for business. Google knows this and is one of the major opposer's to what the large telecom companys are attempting.

Bulbous also tapered.

Welcome to the New Third World Order. If we continue in the spiral downward socially, economically and demographically, the dillution of culture will make this place (USA) look like the cheese from space.....No sense of style, class, taste, evrything made from plastic in Taiwan, and the universal language will sound like construction crews at the Tower of Babel........Oh, not to metion a large segment of societies worldwide who are centuries behind the reformation in their sensibilities and cultures.......But of course, we have to be sensitive and caring, and bring countries up to speed slowly, like poor Kim Jong Il, and "wouldawannagettAhmadinejad" mad.......And Folks with some common sense and love for the planet that surpasses carbon emissions, get curt,clever little come-backs from crotch-scatching, cut-and-paste college kids, who think driving a hybrid car will solve the worlds ills.........

But, Chomsky saw this bullshit coming 40 years ago, lotsa folks did

Oh yeah and Bill Maher is a snipeish little twerp, whose irritating tone and timbre is not unlike Nosferatu's fingernails on a chalkboard from Bill's elementary school he never graduated from.......