This video, or one like it was sifted about 5 years ago to much fanfare and many votes....Fast-forward to the now, and animal cruelty comments....The world is either becoming a kinder, gentler, peaceful place or worse, people are more concerned about the well-being of a resilient, mite-infested tree-rat (able to absorb shocks like a fall from great heights, hello??) than that of the human race being fist-fucked by a small minority of the same...Maybe this one's more you speed:

http://videosift.com/video/Squirrel-Takes-a-Seat-to-Eat or this one
http://videosift.com/video/Squirrel-Go-Round

Kinna cruel but I'm guessing the squirrels' no worse for the wear and they do invariably, come back for more. Personally, I prefer this one:
http://videosift.com/video/Homemade-Squirrel-Catapult
and the water-sprinkler squirrel thingy, which I can't find here.

"Steam Pressure Catapult" MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'hank green, sci show, vlogbrothers, pumpkin, catpult, trebuchet' to 'hank green, sci show, vlogbrothers, pumpkin, catapult, trebuchet' - edited by PlayhousePals

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@spawnflagger and @bmacs27
This wiki is one of the things I consult often.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Common_energy_densities


Regardless of how effective you make burning wood, it will NEVER be as energetic as the same volume of gas or petrol. And if gas/petrol/coal engines are out of reach financially, burning wood for electricity most likely will be as well. Though, spawn pointed out perhaps it supplying a regular stream of electricity of very little energy makes up for the lack of conductivity of poor communities. I don't tend to share that opinion and think that their standard of living will only be greatly improved with access to very large amounts of cheap energy; the difference between starting up a camp fire and an actual power plant. Helping a poor society charge connected devices isn't what catapults counties into the first world, having an infrastructure of energy is.
And ya, they are using a TEGs for electrical generation. It provides the lion share of energy to the fan that is helping aid complete combustion for the smoke reduction. This is why it is such a poor electrical device, TEGs are horrible in the efficiency department. You could get far more electrical output via some type of steam device burning wood than this; which would more than likely benefit an entire town via its considerable electrical output (for the third world). But it should be known before hand that wood burning is dirty business. Even if you engaged in catalytic conversion of carbon monoxide, burning wood on a large scale for electrical generation would have similar effects to the health of a community as a coal fire plant; perhaps worse because it would be located much closer to the population than coal fire plants usually are.
And to be fair to this thing, I think it is pretty cool...but for the first world. Unless they are literally handing these out in the third world, it will do them no benefit, and the money they spend handing these out...they could be installing a power distribution system with an actual power plant and improve their well being by orders of magnitude.


Now this I disagree with. They are right that most third world countries are using wood cooking fires anyway. So simply the smoke and emission savings over that are worthwhile. The electrical generation is a nice side benefit, and many of those countries are seeing the proliferation of small electrical devices, e.g. cell phones and leds. I think it's a device that could greatly improve the lives of people in less developed communities (especially the home stove version).

@spawnflagger and @bmacs27

This wiki is one of the things I consult often.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Common_energy_densities

Regardless of how effective you make burning wood, it will NEVER be as energetic as the same volume of gas or petrol. And if gas/petrol/coal engines are out of reach financially, burning wood for electricity most likely will be as well. Though, spawn pointed out perhaps it supplying a regular stream of electricity of very little energy makes up for the lack of conductivity of poor communities. I don't tend to share that opinion and think that their standard of living will only be greatly improved with access to very large amounts of cheap energy; the difference between starting up a camp fire and an actual power plant. Helping a poor society charge connected devices isn't what catapults counties into the first world, having an infrastructure of energy is.

And ya, they are using a TEGs for electrical generation. It provides the lion share of energy to the fan that is helping aid complete combustion for the smoke reduction. This is why it is such a poor electrical device, TEGs are horrible in the efficiency department. You could get far more electrical output via some type of steam device burning wood than this; which would more than likely benefit an entire town via its considerable electrical output (for the third world). But it should be known before hand that wood burning is dirty business. Even if you engaged in catalytic conversion of carbon monoxide, burning wood on a large scale for electrical generation would have similar effects to the health of a community as a coal fire plant; perhaps worse because it would be located much closer to the population than coal fire plants usually are.

And to be fair to this thing, I think it is pretty cool...but for the first world. Unless they are literally handing these out in the third world, it will do them no benefit, and the money they spend handing these out...they could be installing a power distribution system with an actual power plant and improve their well being by orders of magnitude.

The funniest thing is the dude laughing. He's even laughing at the guy at the height of the first catapult. ROFL!

>> ^NetRunner:

I actually feel bad about posting something like this. The scandalous part of this is how Newt treated his wife, not the concept of "open marriage" itself, and I know that's not how the ensuing media coverage will talk about it.
There's nothing here that disqualifies Newt from the Presidency. What he's openly proclaiming in order to win support from the GOP base is what should disqualify him from elected office of any sort, let alone the Presidency.
But this, this will probably kill his chances of winning the South Carolina primary.
It's a mad, mad world.


Boy did I get that one wrong. Who knew playing the victim of the eeeevil liberal media would catapult him to a landslide victory in SC?

I need to remember that this is the Confederate party, not the Republican one.

4 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

>> ^oritteropo:

dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Unlucky-Kangaroo-vs-Race-Car


*isdupe

Nope. Sometimes they hop away after being struck by a car, but almost invariably die later from internal injuries... this one wasn't even going to get up again.
>> ^ant:

DId it live?

20 seconds later http://videosift.com/video/Race-car-catapults-kangaroo-into-spinning-frenzy

>> ^Barbar:

Dystopianfuturetoday:
I'm not looking to debate anything here, I'm just curious as to your reasoning for considering Hitchens as an (at least) one time neo-con. What information led you to this opinion? As it seems distinctly opposed to what I've read in his memoirs and other writings.


ill answer for ya @Barber
hitchens was all for the iraq war and went even as far as to say waterboarding was not only NOT torture but necessary.
in his defense he did step down from both those positions.it should also be noted that hitchens actually allowed himself to be waterboarded and immediately (and i do mean immediately) changed his position that waterboarding was most certainly torture.which to me was a tribute to this mans intelligence.a true believer would never change his ideology but the intelligent person,when confronted with incontrovertible evidence,will change.

one final note @Enzoblue
neo-conservatism was anything BUT conservative.the neo-conservative philosophy began in the 1940's by leon strauss from the university of chicago.the basic premise is to use america's military might to secure american interests globally.this small fringe group of intellectuals had very little influence until the late 70's when they co-opted the christian right for their cause.

and so began the conflation of the christian right and american nationalism in the form of the republican party.
oh the delicious irony.

so when you say "old school neoconservative" what you are really referring to is the time the neo-cons had minimal influence (still there though) rumsfeld and cheney being big players during the reagan administration.which of course was made possible by the christian rights entering the political sphere (up till then most churches stayed out of politics).these same players brought in their fellow neo-cons during the bush administration and that administration read like a who's-who of prominent neocons:rumsfeld,cheny,pearl,wolfowitz,amratige,addington,woo.the list is massive.
so it wasnt so much about a change in philosophy but rather this fringe group (catapulted by the naive christian right) as having come into their own in terms of power and influence.

and all i have to say to that merry bunch of fucks is: THANKS DICKHEADS.

I don't mind if a game is simular to another game or only a slight tweak , I just find it annoying when one is fincaily rewarded massively over another one when the other game accentually put the ground work down.

In the case of notch at least he admitted it was largely taken from fotress craft but the same would apply I would hope that the origonaters of an IP get rewarded fincaily to a fair extent.

my piont about changing the art work over is that focuses things on the game play and physics , if you were to come up with a bullshit % chart of how close one game is to another , I think angry birds would be very close to crush the castle be like 5% difference in game mechanics and that being only the launcher , its a bit like me taking doom replacing the guns and all the textures but keeping all the other mechanics and level designs exactly the same , where as a game that innovates properly would change the guns the ai the levels and the textures.

as I say I don't think things should be automaticly blocked or copping something largely is inherently a bad thing , the aspect I dislike is the lack of fair reinbursment and the lack of things being attributed properly , its like when you write an essay if you incoperate someone else's work into your work you attribute them.

saying that I bet ethical Developers probably don't attribute because if they did they would probably get sued for copyright infringement.

there are plenty of Games where I have enjoyed copying unreal toruniment - from quake 3 , mashed - from micro machines , worms from - original tank game. peggel from pachinko , plants v zombies form desctop tower defense.

in most of those examples sugnificant changes were made , more so than crush the castle to angry birds.

looking at plants v zombies as a good example of what I dislike you can have a very large company that has the resources to exploit a game more than the small developer and then they accentually steal the potential for that small developer to develop an IP to fruition. unlike back in the 80s when developers could come up with a new IP or mechanic typ and then gradualy develop it and build in size whalst coming up with new IP.

oh well i will stop blathering on , we probably agree on most things anyway.

>> ^Fletch:

>> ^westy:
Put it this way , if you replaced all the art work in crush the castle with angry birds most people would think it was angry birds.
... with catapults.

I'm just saying that if you put them side by side, the gameplay is different enough for me that I can prefer one over the other, as the catapult adds a timing aspect. The graphics are secondary for me, and not the core of what makes a particular game.
Yes, the targets were a rip-off. Would you be satisfied if the makers of Angry Birds recognized Crush the Castle in the same way Notch recognized Infiniminer, which he totally ripped off and made a mint? What about Fortresscraft, which is a huge ripoff of Minecraft? Who's at fault if one's game isn't popular enough to make lots of money? Gameplay, marketing, luck, timing and just the intent of the developer all play a part, and any one of them can sink an otherwise quality title. Crush the Castle is free to play online and only 99￠ on Android. How much money have you given the developers?

>> ^westy:

Put it this way , if you replaced all the art work in crush the castle with angry birds most people would think it was angry birds.
... with catapults.


I'm just saying that if you put them side by side, the gameplay is different enough for me that I can prefer one over the other, as the catapult adds a timing aspect. The graphics are secondary for me, and not the core of what makes a particular game.

Yes, the targets were a rip-off. Would you be satisfied if the makers of Angry Birds recognized Crush the Castle in the same way Notch recognized Infiniminer, which he totally ripped off and made a mint? What about Fortresscraft, which is a huge ripoff of Minecraft? Who's at fault if one's game isn't popular enough to make lots of money? Gameplay, marketing, luck, timing and just the intent of the developer all play a part, and any one of them can sink an otherwise quality title. Crush the Castle is free to play online and only 99￠ on Android. How much money have you given the developers?

Put it this way , if you replaced all the art work in crush the castle with angry birds most people would think it was angry birds.

I don't mind people taking concepts and only changing a small part but the issue with angry birds is that angry birds is so little of a change and yet they capitalized fincaily on it so much more and gets all the recognisoin.

Good Flash games consistently gets ripped off / coppied / used as fundimentals of game play , but not attributed . then as a result popular consensus is that flash games are the ass of the games industry when in reality some amazing products addictive/fun games have come from it.



>> ^Fletch:

>> ^Ryjkyj:

No, no, no... Scorched earth and worms are totally different games from Angry Birds and Crush the Castle. Yes, they use physics. So do a million other games. Yes, you shoot things, just like a hundred million other games. But Westy's right. Angry Birds and Crush the Castle are set up in almost exactly the same way. Total ripoff. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
The target being physics-based (cages, boards, bricks falling and breaking things below it) is different, but the physics-based shooting is the same. Angle, power, type of ammo, possible interference of map structures; some games made you consider wind strength and direction. That's the core of the game (for me), and I've seen it hundreds... well, lots of times.

We may be talking about two slightly different things. I'm addressing the gameplay aspect, and I think you and Westy are talking more about IP copycatting. Like if RoTT had large floating pumpkins that shot fireballs similar to Doom's Cacodemons. The catapults in Crush the Castle are different than the slingshots in Angry Birds, but the targets are set up the same. I can see why that part looks like a rip-off.