Ineffective != Terrible

If it costs 1200 Euros (on average) to clear one mine, releasing 24 of these things to detonate ONE mine is still cheaper than other option. If one of these things detonates one landmine, perhaps one seven-year-old gets to keep her leg. Money well spent. Until the local population can afford Million-dollar landmine-clearing tanks these can make a small difference for relatively modest costs.

You are correct that the whirlygigs are more expensive than many landmines. Mines are cheap. Getting to the root of the problem and banning use and production of landmines is a greater issue.

This video may help to *promote attention to an ongoing global problem. Presently, Russia, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan have still not signed up to the the Ottawa Treaty. A further issue is that many manufacturers of munitions, including mines, are heavily invested in by stock-brokers and pension funds. The BC Investment Management Corporation, for example, which manages investments for teachers' and public servants' pensions plans has in the past had as much as "$4.6 billion worth of stock in 251 corporations producing war materiel." There is money in war. People get paid to build landmines.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Terrible idea. It's not systematic enough to clear any given area with certainty, and people may think of zones where these have been operating as 'clear' instead of as potential landmine areas. I think this invention has a great potential to increase the number of accidental landmine detonations, lost limbs and deaths.
Maybe it will explode a few, but when some of it's 'legs' get blown off it stops moving. Does someone go out there, risking his life and limbs in what is now a known minefield to fix it, or do you just leave it there? Because they may seem cheap, but 1 whirlydoohickey blown up per 1 landmine disarmed is hardly 'cheap', when some landmines cost under a dollar, and they may be spread out in the thousands in a given area.

A lot of misconceptions here:
>> ^Drachen_Jager:

and people may think of zones where these have been operating as 'clear' instead of as potential landmine areas. I think this invention has a great potential to increase the number of accidental landmine detonations, lost limbs and deaths.
Generally, people don't whimsically choose to walk through an area that is covered in land mines. Most Westerners tend to discount the power of local knowledge, and to assume that everyone else in the world is just running around from unknown place to unknown place like we do. Fact is, in places like Afghanistan, the people are hyper-aware of the local situation, particularly when it relates to their personal security and they tend to stay in a small geographical area (no weekend trips to the lake or across country to see Grandma). Landmine deaths occur most often in places that are not marked as dangerous and alongside roads (which tend to be the only path between one location and another.
>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Maybe it will explode a few, but when some of it's 'legs' get blown off it stops moving. Does someone go out there, risking his life and limbs in what is now a known minefield to fix it, or do you just leave it there?

Ummm.... how do you think landmines are removed now? With hi-tech robots and a smartphone? Plenty of lives and limbs at risk in this world cleaning up the messes of violent conflict.
>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Because they may seem cheap, but 1 whirlydoohickey blown up per 1 landmine disarmed is hardly 'cheap', when some landmines cost under a dollar, and they may be spread out in the thousands in a given area.

IF the current cost is §1200 per landmine removal, then, yes, §40 per landmine is cheap.

Terrible idea. It's not systematic enough to clear any given area with certainty, and people may think of zones where these have been operating as 'clear' instead of as potential landmine areas. I think this invention has a great potential to increase the number of accidental landmine detonations, lost limbs and deaths.

Maybe it will explode a few, but when some of it's 'legs' get blown off it stops moving. Does someone go out there, risking his life and limbs in what is now a known minefield to fix it, or do you just leave it there? Because they may seem cheap, but 1 whirlydoohickey blown up per 1 landmine disarmed is hardly 'cheap', when some landmines cost under a dollar, and they may be spread out in the thousands in a given area.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I get the impression that these true believers would love nothing better than to be killed, martyred and sent off to their father in heaven. I think the only chance you might have at discouraging them for being douchenozzles would be complete indifference. Throwing a tantrum is no fun if no one cares. >> ^Yogi:
You know, the reason these people feel that they are invincible is that no one has bothered to murder any of them yet. People say that's not the way to deal with them, but I can guarantee if they worried about their safety they wouldn't protest as much at all. The heads of that church are just barely keeping those people enthrall, if you make their adventures personally too costly, they will no longer protest and we will be free of them. Take one of these guys into an alley, and blow their brains out of the back of their head, and you will see a dramatic change in behavior.



Then lets be very kind and give them what they want. This isn't a movement with thousands of people behind them, they aren't fighting an injustice or standing for something people can get behind. They're annoying, they're just stupid and annoying and they can be shut up easily and no one will care.

Just kill them. Do what we do around the world. Kill them in a horrific way. This reminds me of the Jokers speech in the Dark Knight about everything going according to plan. If some Palestinians and Israelis get blown up or a Drone takes out a few children, it's not a problem because it's all according to plan. Let's bring that terror home.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Katy seems like a fidgeter, that comes from one that is also


Cocaine!

>> ^Payback:

>> ^spoco2:
We just bought a 2 year old Kia Grand Carnival (the Sedona in America), replacing our old 2002 Carnival that had it's engine die after a tiny bloody plastic T joint snapped causing the radiator water to spew onto the road instead of around the engine to cool it. This resulted in an engine that overheated very quickly and a system that was de-pressurised, and apparently not really able to be re-pressurised (don't tell me it could, I don't want to know that it was actually a cheap fix when we're told the engine was cactus... don't want to know we needlessly just paid out a chunk of money on a new car that we didn't need to).
Aaaanyway.
When I was looking into whether the engines in the new Carnivals are any good (apparently they are, Hyundai Lambda engines made in the US of A), I noticed they made a big deal on the wikipedia page about it having a timing CHAIN rather than belt, and wondered why this was a big thing.
Now I know <img class="smiley" src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/tongue.gif">

Here is me, NOT telling you it was a cheap fix, even if the engine seized from overheating after you ignored the "check engine" warning light. I also won't tell you that if it didn't come to a screeching, banging, violent halt, you probably could have "nursed" it home/to mechanic by waiting until it cooled down.
No sir, I REFUSE to tell you any of that.
I will tell you that if the reason it couldn't be pressurized was "a warped cylinder head" then ya, the engine is boned, but I'll avoid saying it would be about $2500 for a motor out of a auto wrecker (junk yard, used parts lot, etc) or even around $300 for a new cylinder head.


Well that's good to know (sort of). My wife was driving it at the time, and the check engine didn't come on, but it did come to a screeching, banging halt, with steam pouring out of the engine bay. To get an engine from one of these old ones rebuilt is around $4K (Australian), and that's about all the 2002 carnival is worth now, no-one wants to touch them. There's no point getting a 2nd hand engine from anywhere as there's not many to begin with, and they're just not reliable enough to spend the money on anyway.

So it was either a scrap yard for $500, or a trade in for $600. We had to be able to drive it in. Limped it in (still no check engine light on), handed it over, bid them good luck with it. We had told them the engine had blown up, but they were 'well, if you can drive it in, we'll give you $600 for it'. So it's not like we lied to them about the condition of the car. They'll scrap it for parts anyway.

Possibly not, he'd have to get more scars to hide it. When I say "an unrecognisable mess", I mean his swastika, not his whole face. He's not going to win any beauty contests but it's better than what would have happened to him if the Basterds hadn't intervened, getting blown up in a theatre or if he's lucky, spending his life running from Nazi hunters.

(What's up with quotes? Videosift seems to be mucking them up.)

>> ^alien_concept:

Were skin grafts that great back in the 40s? If he had to scar his whole face up, that'd still be terrible for a character like him

>> ^Quboid:
>> ^alien_concept:
>> ^Quboid:
>> ^kymbos:
I watched this film again recently, having absolutely loved it the first time, and found myself enjoying it less than I expected. Mainly because of the excessive use of the 'person is dead / no they're not not they're really just pretending' trick, which I thought was a bit cheap. It happens at least twice at key points in the film (the woman in the bar fight scene, and then the German war hero in the cinema scene).
Don't get me wrong - Tarantino is a God, and the suspense he creates in scenes is brilliant, and the Jew Hunter was pure awesome - but there were a few bits that I found a bit cheap on second viewing. I don't think it hangs together as a film as well as Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.
So there.

Spoilers
This bugged me but what really annoyed me is this: what did the Basterds actually achieve? The only difference they made to the big ending is that they helped the main baddie! Landa (Christoph Waltz, in a superb performance) to survived, and got a nice life in the U.S. because of them screwing up the assassination attempt, at the cost of some plastic surgery. They were counter productive!

Survive with a fat swastika on his head

That could be fixed with plastic surgery, or if that wasn't available, he could get more slices in his face to change it into an unrecognisable mess. Claim he was hit by shrapnel while saving children from Nazis.
.

I was in the elementary main office calling to have my dad come to pick me up as I was sick at school. They happened to have the launch on the TV in the waiting room. While I was standing at the counter (I was probably in fourth or fifth grade) I saw it blow up on the television. I turned to the secretary and immediately told her that I thought the shuttle had just blown up; she of course didn't believe me at first. I knew quite a bit about the shuttle even at that age and knew something horrible had just happened, although I was still too young to fully grasp the full implications of that moment in history.

>> ^criticalthud:

i'd honestly really like to see a first person shooter where you play the nazis, or the iraq'is, or the japenese.
Yeah, playing the Iraqi troops during the first Gulf war would be a blast, mission one: surrender, mission two: surrender again, mission three: get blown up while fleeing Kuwait on the highway of death.

from stranger blog....

"How dare these liberal movies attack the oil industry, and promote sharing? This afternoon, the Twitter hashtag #GOPMuppethearings has blown up, with Twitter users imagining what a Republican-run congressional committee would ask of the Muppets. "

1. "...no, 'C' is actually for 'communist,' sir. And I assure you that's not good enough for this committee."

2. "Mr. Gonzo, please produce your birth certificate."

3. "Mr. Bert what *is* your relationship with Mr. Ernie?"

4. "Well, the Rainbow Connection certainly sounds like a part of the radical homosexual agenda to me."

5. “Is it your contention, Mr Elmo, that your Communist Red fur is purely coincidental?"

According to the Child Development Institute, children go through what's known as an intuitive phase (part of the broader preoperational phase) from around ages 4-7.

Here is a description of that phase from the Institute website, copied word for word:

Speech becomes more social, less egocentric. The child has an intuitive grasp of logical concepts in some areas. However, there is still a tendency to focus attention on one aspect of an object while ignoring others. Concepts formed are crude and irreversible. Easy to believe in magical increase, decrease, disappearance. Reality not firm. Perceptions dominate judgment.In moral-ethical realm, the child is not able to show principles underlying best behavior. Rules of a game not develop, only uses simple do’s and don’ts imposed by authority.

Assuming these are Israeli's watching Palestinians getting blown up while they entertain themselves with beverages, while using the argument they started it as their justification, one can only assume they failed to develop intellectually past the age of around 7.

Exactly. Proportionally, he's running about 30% faster if the real guy is 6.5 feet tall, and the video is blown up 30%. No wonder the real guy can't keep up. There was a similar exhibit of a 10m sprint at the Ontario Science Centre (maybe still is) where you had to run against a pro sprinter and beat her time of 2s. It was from the blocks to the finish line with electric timers. That was a fair race.>> ^MonkeySpank:

The man on the video is about 8.5 feet tall; there lies your problem folks.

I just manually back up my data weekly. Once in a while, I back up my whole HDD with Norton Ghost (not in Windows). I use multiple sources too including offline. If L.A. gets blown up, oh well.

I wonder what VS does with its backups.

>> ^NetRunner:
Well, prices are set by market forces. You know, supply and demand. It's not necessarily the case that the Fed expanding the monetary base will lead to inflation.

Again, look at the last few years. Bernanke expanded the monetary base radically, but inflation has stayed low, and is on a declining trend.

And price changes from an increased "supply" of currency is called inflation.

Bernanke expanded the monetary base of the US dollar (ie world reserve currency) and people all over the world are in the streets rioting over the increased cost of living. PPI in the US has gone up 7.2% the last 12 months. And if you're referring to QE, most of that money is either parked at a bank or was used to buy toxic debt (to counter deflation). But when those TRILLIONS do reach the marketplace, inflation will be realized. That's why precious metal prices have blown up. The US dollar has lost 98% of it's purchasing power against gold the last 40 years.
>> ^NetRunner:
Oy. Okay, so here's how a bank works. People like you and me have some money. The bank offers to "hold" that money for us in an account, and at least used to pay us some small amount of interest on that money as incentive for us to keep our money with them.

But the bank doesn't just take our money and stick it in some vault for safekeeping, they lend that money out to other people, at a higher rate of interest than they offered us.

Problem is, we're allowed to withdraw our money from the bank whenever we want, so the bank has to keep some cash on hand (aka in reserve). However it will only keep a fraction of the total deposits in reserve, because otherwise it wouldn't be able to loan out money. That's what fractional reserve banking means.

That's what one would presume fractional reserve banking means, but it's not.




>> ^NetRunner:
I agree. Provided by "our system" you mean laissez-faire capitalism.

The banks take our savings and gamble them on risky, potentially profitable investments. That's sorta key to the functioning of capitalism though. Without that, the whole system crashes almost instantly.
LOL. The state stepping in to reward and cover up fraud is not laissez-faire capitalism. I don't get it. You defend the system, then you try to shift blame on free market capitalism?

>> ^NetRunner:
Artificially. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Prices are set by market forces, and according to free market advocates this is perfect/moral/only way they can or could ever be set, or else we'll go to hell be socialists.

There are plenty of unnatural "market forces" in our current system. Even inflation itself. Hence, prices are artificially set.


>> ^NetRunner:
Different economic models hypothesize different answers. I tend to think the Keynesian story is right -- it's aggregate supply and aggregate demand. When you have a shift in either one that would lead to a higher equilibrium price, then you see "aggregate price" (aka the CPI) rise.
Which is to say, you can get both inflation and deflation without the Fed doing anything. To stabilize inflation, you actually need the Fed constantly adjusting the monetary base so neither inflation or deflation get out of kilter. Look at pre-1913 interest rates if you don't believe me.

John Maynard Keynes on inflation: "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft."

What you're talking about makes no sense. Prices in a market with sound money still go up and down. That's the way a market works. Calling it inflation and deflation doesn't make it so.

>> ^NetRunner:
I agree, if by "the ones that...extract value from that actually worked and earned their wealth" you mean any and all business owners, investors, and so on who have done nothing but collect interest on wealth they already own.

Maybe before you start going after people who are collecting interest on the wealth they presumably earned honestly, you will stop defending those who collect interest on money they created from nothing. Deal?

Oh please tell me that no one actually believes that one round alone from that rifle could cause those explosions.
Possibly an incendiary round could trigger an explosion if a bomb was already in the crapper and in the truck.
But more likely they were just blown up by someone off camera.
Nice rifle and he appears to be a great marksman but it's mostly hype.