This is an example of the genius of NYC public works' engineers who don't want you feeling too comfortable. It's a warning to all who live there to stay alert and vigilant and take nothing for granted.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

@GenjiKilpatrick, you forgot rule #427,362: If Danny can't think of a way to improve a technology that he was just introduced to, off-hand, via information he learned in a two-minute video, then further innovation is clearly impossible.
>> ^dannym3141:
The only way i can imagine to get more visible light out of this, other than actually increasing the intensity of the light emitted per cell by the stuff...


@dannym3141: I too assumed that the cells were emitting the light, but if you read/watch it again, the cells are merely producing energy (via carbon somehow) that is stored in batteries. The light source is still just a light.


Perhaps you've forgotten rule #427,362 ammendment A which suggests you read things carefully to ensure you're not over reacting, for example when someone uses the phrase "genuine question" and then tries to explain their point more clearly and asks for clarification from the other.

I'm afraid i don't have time to read up on every technology that i see cool videos of, but lucky for me some other people do and if i ask nicely and sound interested i tend to find they're happy to explain it to me.

If you'd read my first post which actually started the matter i think you'd have understood my confusion and maybe not needed to be rude? Earlier i asked "why don't they shine the weak light onto a solar panel?" Well, it seems that kinda is what they do, thanks for letting me know

I'm surprised that someone as apparently vigilant to information as yourself (what with you knowing rule #427,362 so well) didn't even bother to read the original question. So when genji tells me "it would get better", i think the method of operation has been confirmed and then i try and use my understanding of how something like that might work to try and understand how it might be improved. Then, i try and discuss it.

I'm not going to apologise for trying to figure out and find out how something works.

If you had a little more empathy, you would see why people are so upset and angry. Anyone with a darker skinned kid is upset and concerned that murder can be so easy to commit and get away with.

And you're completely wrong when you say noone is looking at Zimmerman's side. For god's sake the guy killed a kid and he's walking free. The police and state attorneys were on his side from the start. They already said: "We can find no reason to arrest or charge Zimmerman".That's the problem. If they had arrested Zimmerman from the start none of the protest would have happened.>> ^Darkhand:

>> ^NetRunner:
I think this is part of the issue. The left's position isn't "off with Zimmerman's head!" it's "we demand a real criminal investigation!"
The people we're most mad at are the Florida police for looking the other way. I don't know if Zimmerman is guilty of a crime or not, but I'm pretty fucking sure that him shooting and killing an unarmed kid warranted more action from the police than what happened.
I don't understand why that isn't everyone's reaction. Why is the right fighting that...at all? Why has this turned into another partisan political spat?
Do you guys think killing people isn't a big deal?
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But you've all tried Zimmerman, convicted him, and are demanding his head on a platter based on jack-squat except a bunch of what can only be described as OPINION PIECES.

I'm not a birther but I feel the same way Winstonfield does too. Until the police say "We can find no reason to arrest or charge Zimmerman" everyone needs to be patient. Have Rallys and Prayer Vigils for the family but being so angry about it doesn't solve anything.
Killing people is a big deal and if Zimmerman wasn't defending himself then he needs to be tried and convicted as a criminal.
Let the prosecutor do her job and if she doesn't THEN hold her accountable. I feel like we've hit the "fast forwarded button" skip a year and George Zimmerman was released and the mayor presented him with a key to the and gave a speech about how Zimmerman is a great citizen for "stopping a dangerous negro".
People act like I'm defending Zimmerman when it will always seem that way because nobody else is looking at the other side of the case. Until this video came out we had no reason to NOT believe Zimmerman over what was in our individual hearts.
Now Zimmerman needs to pray that the hospital took photos of him or something looking really beat up or can explain away why in that video he looks perfectly fine.

>> ^NetRunner:

I think this is part of the issue. The left's position isn't "off with Zimmerman's head!" it's "we demand a real criminal investigation!"
The people we're most mad at are the Florida police for looking the other way. I don't know if Zimmerman is guilty of a crime or not, but I'm pretty fucking sure that him shooting and killing an unarmed kid warranted more action from the police than what happened.
I don't understand why that isn't everyone's reaction. Why is the right fighting that...at all? Why has this turned into another partisan political spat?
Do you guys think killing people isn't a big deal?
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But you've all tried Zimmerman, convicted him, and are demanding his head on a platter based on jack-squat except a bunch of what can only be described as OPINION PIECES.


I'm not a birther but I feel the same way Winstonfield does too. Until the police say "We can find no reason to arrest or charge Zimmerman" everyone needs to be patient. Have Rallys and Prayer Vigils for the family but being so angry about it doesn't solve anything.

Killing people is a big deal and if Zimmerman wasn't defending himself then he needs to be tried and convicted as a criminal.

Let the prosecutor do her job and if she doesn't THEN hold her accountable. I feel like we've hit the "fast forwarded button" skip a year and George Zimmerman was released and the mayor presented him with a key to the and gave a speech about how Zimmerman is a great citizen for "stopping a dangerous negro".

People act like I'm defending Zimmerman when it will always seem that way because nobody else is looking at the other side of the case. Until this video came out we had no reason to NOT believe Zimmerman over what was in our individual hearts.

Now Zimmerman needs to pray that the hospital took photos of him or something looking really beat up or can explain away why in that video he looks perfectly fine.

Political capital is much harder to gain for smaller issues. Law maintenance is a much harder order than terms of service. You can quit youtube anytime you want, you can't quit the FCC, or alcohol prohibition. If you are looking for easy, I suggest a different planet. The only things you get in this life are the things you fight to preserve, no amount of laws or terms of service will keep you safe over time, only vigilance.

Large corporate powers and political capital work by the same basic rules, I am just against a monopoly on the control of that power...I don't think it gets us what we all want. Really, we are arguing about crumbs under the table. All the videos gone from youtube still exist somewhere else. If Google starts acting evil on a wide scale, people can abandon it for some other site (I can name 6 off the top of my head). I would argue the out cropping of lots of different video sites is a safer way to prevent censorship than the FCC, which has a legendary record of censorship in the US...in fact, they are the face of censorship for most everyday Americans.

Once again, I am not proposing perfection, just a good imperfection that has its own very troubling problems. We all choose what failures we are willing to deal with, and for me, the trouble of dealing with a corporate body which I can choose not to partake in is a more agreeable situation (do you have a life after google solution, I do, I have a life after windows as well). I do concede a great threat by those who own nearly everything, undermining that ability to have options, lucky for us, with the internet we don't have to worry about that as much (the internet becomes unfathomable larger everyday).

TL;DR It isn't the ends I am against, it is the means.


</rant>
>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

FYI, governments have bad track records with keeping things open and free, ask Bradly Manning.

Yeah, we should entrust the web and free speech to corporations. Can't see any problems with that....

One you can hold directly accountable, one you have to hold accountable through a myriad of hoops and ladders...I choose the former. Look at what Oprah did to the meat industry back in the day...the consumer wand is a powerful thing. Neither way is perfect, but those looking for perfection need to deal with a different animal.

Right, because raising a popular movement against billion-dollar corporations any time they engage in censorship is much simpler than just maintaining a law on the books that says "communications companies can't limit people's free speech" and enforcing it...

It's like a vigil in here. With penis candles.

I've walked a lot of trails like that.. but I can't imagine biking it. I mean, I didn't see anything hard about the ride and the path's pretty clean. You could do the trail without doing anything physically hard, and without any real mountain bike experience.

But I think you also die or get seriously injured about 1/200 times you try that. I've biked a fair bit, and sometimes stuff happens just going down a road. You misjudge something and catch your arm on a rear-view mirror. Oops, that meant I swerved out a bit while I got my balance.

On this trail, you don't have that margin for error. Whoops, my pedal caught on a rock (on the left side) at an awkward time while I was looking up and I swerved out a bit. Then I died. And the "death by falling" section isn't just a little ways where you can be extra careful. You'd have to have that level of vigilance for a long period.

I mean, lots of activities have risks - but this trail, on a bike, is way above my threshold. This is doubly the case because you could get most of the fun (it is nice scenery) by walking. If I'm going to mountain bike, it's going to be somewhere where the biking is the good part.

Money and sociopaths do us great wonders in every position of power (not to knock all sociopaths, but that is a pretty bad streak...). This is what we have allowed to take control; from the high-rolling with no concern CEO, to the thrice paid for politician, the narcissistic lawbreaking cops, and high throttle hot heads that are military in charge.

We have to be more proactive and more vigilant. Hopefully, we aren't so far gone that a civil war will be needed to undo the damage done.

/posted it once, but it's just as fitting here...

Money and sociopaths do us great wonders in every position of power (not to knock all sociopaths, but that is a pretty bad streak...). This is what we have allowed to take control; from the high-rolling with no concern CEO, to the thrice paid for politician, the narcissistic lawbreaking cops, and high throttle hot heads that are military in charge.

We have to be more proactive and more vigilant. Hopefully, we aren't so far gone that a civil war will be needed to undo the damage done.

oh, I totally get it.
..this is about remaining vigilant for animals crossing the road, right?

From www.washingtonsblog.com:

... Dick Cheney was in charge of all counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. See this Department of State announcement; this CNN article; and this essay.

In fact, 5 war games were scheduled for 9/11, including games that included the insertion of false radar blips onto air traffic contollers’ screens. Specifically, on the very morning of September 11th, five war games and terror drills were being conducted by several U.S. defense agencies, including one “live fly” exercise using REAL planes.

Then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers, admitted to 4 of the war games in congressional testimony — see transcript here or http://www.spiegltech.com/media/McKinney2.rm">video here (6 minutes and 12 seconds into the video).

Norad had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and “numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft”. In other words, drills using REAL AIRCRAFT simulating terrorist attacks crashing jets into buildings, including the twin towers, were run. See also http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/news_photos/Contingency_Planning_Photos.html">official military website showing 2000 military drill, using miniatures, involving a plane crashing into the Pentagon.

Indeed, a former Los Angeles police department investigator, whose newsletter is read by 45 members of congress, both the house and senate intelligence committees, and professors at more than 40 universities around the world, claims that he obtained an on-the-record confirmation from NORAD that on 9/11, NORAD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack exercise which involved government-operated aircraft posing as hijacked airliners.

On September 11th, the government also happened to be running a simulation of a plane crashing into a building.

In addition, a December 9, 2001 Toronto Star article (pay-per-view; reprinted here), stated that “Operation Northern Vigilance is called off. Any simulated information, what’s known as an ‘inject,’ is purged from the screens”. This indicates that there were false radar blips inserted onto air traffic controllers’ screens as part of the war game exercises.

Moreover, there are indications that some of the major war games previously scheduled for October 2001 were moved up to September 11th by persons unknown.

Now here’s where it gets interesting … Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified to the 9/11 Commission:

“During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President … the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y]

(this testimony is confirmed here and here).

So even if 9/11 wasn’t foreseeable before 9/11, it was foreseeable to Dick Cheney – who had been attacking democracy for nearly 40 years – as the plane was still 50 miles away from the Pentagon.

the weird drama is kinda silly,... and then all the sudden we're visiting cemeteries and candle-light vigils. Wow.

>> ^Contagion21:

>> ^hpqp:
@ponceleon
The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.

To clarify, he rejected random evolution. That is, that it could have occured naturally and without guidance. (See Dawkins writings on why evolution should never be considered "random" to begin with, but that's another issue entirely.) So, based on what I'm reading in that link, he's not saying we don't have a shared ancestry with other primates, just that IF we do, it's not a random occurance.
So catholics are still allowed to believe that evolution has occured, even for humans, they just have to accept that God is the driving force behind it.


Thanks for pointing this out and also thanks for actually reading the article, unlike (I suspect) the other 7 people who upvoted the original comment.

>> ^hpqp:

@ponceleon
The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.


To clarify, he rejected random evolution. That is, that it could have occured naturally and without guidance. (See Dawkins writings on why evolution should never be considered "random" to begin with, but that's another issue entirely.) So, based on what I'm reading in that link, he's not saying we don't have a shared ancestry with other primates, just that IF we do, it's not a random occurance.

So catholics are still allowed to believe that evolution has occured, even for humans, they just have to accept that God is the driving force behind it.

@ponceleon

The pope did recently reject human evolution though... I guess science really doesn't deal kindly with the whole anthropocentric human-worshipping that is at the basis of monotheism, which created god in man's image.