My favorite of the list is Greatbatch, and his story really gets to the value of inspiration and curiousity as an inventor. He was just making a device to record heart beats, and put in an incorrect resistor for his circuit, resulting in a oscillating blip in his recordings. Instead of going 'fuck! I made the goddamn thing wrong! So I threw it on the grooooound!' No he said, 'Woah, thats neat, I have sort-of a built-in time guage that is very regular in my recordings, and can see how irregular the heart beat is ... wait a minute...', and then proceeded to work on the completely crazy idea of an implantable, miniature device to electrically stimulating the heart to keep it beating evenly as people just walked around.

I'd argue that its basically impossible to accidentally invent something. You have to be bright enough to recognize something interesting, and curious enough to follow it off in the direction it leads.

My previous boss/supervisor let us play with toy circuits.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I find Hi-Def to be jarring when watching old beloved films. It loses that dreamy painted quality and looks more like closed circuit television. Filmmakers put a lot of effort into creating a beautiful celluloid pallor, which HD Blu-Ray usually just rudely brushes aside. I have a sneaking suspicion that QT feels the same way, because he is a student of classic cinema. I'll be curious to see if QT finds a way to keep the old school warmth. Either way, this looks awesome. Take my money, please.


Are you sure you don't have some kind of motion smoothing on, or some similar effect? Because it sure sounds like it. A good Blu-ray transfer of a classic film looks far, far more film-like than any DVD is able to muster. Modern TVs default to the closed circuit television, or soap opera look, which absolutely baffles me.

I read an article that said that a good rule of thumb is that any video setting that can be turned off on a TV should be turned off. Modern TVs look like garbage by default. Though I suspect that you know how to calibrate your TV, and in that case I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Blu-rays are awesome.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

I find Hi-Def to be jarring when watching old beloved films. It loses that dreamy painted quality and looks more like closed circuit television. Filmmakers put a lot of effort into creating a beautiful celluloid pallor, which HD Blu-Ray usually just rudely brushes aside. I have a sneaking suspicion that QT feels the same way, because he is a student of classic cinema. I'll be curious to see if QT finds a way to keep the old school warmth. Either way, this looks awesome. Take my money, please.


I could not disagree with you more sir after watching Blade Runner on Blu Ray on a large screen. It was like watching it at the movies.

I find Hi-Def to be jarring when watching old beloved films. It loses that dreamy painted quality and looks more like closed circuit television. Filmmakers put a lot of effort into creating a beautiful celluloid pallor, which HD Blu-Ray usually just rudely brushes aside. I have a sneaking suspicion that QT feels the same way, because he is a student of classic cinema. I'll be curious to see if QT finds a way to keep the old school warmth. Either way, this looks awesome. Take my money, please.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

This is an email submission request by the creator - very cool video. More details:

The Ancestor is a collaboration between Chinese Takeout and Crazy Lake Pictures, both young production companies forged in the fires of speed-filmmaking challenges. Chinese Takeout members Timothy Hahn – Pixar employee by day, ruthless preditor (producer/editor) by night – and Abraham Dieckman, writer-director of the upcoming sci-fi feature Trash and Progress – recently made a splash on the festival circuit with the animated short film Cadaver, featuring the voices of Christopher Lloyd, Kathy Bates, and Tavi Gevinson. Crazy Lake Pictures accomplices Mike Lavoie, co-executive producer of the acclaimed film Sleepwalk with Me, and Keith Boynton, whose feature film Chasing Home was chosen as the opening-night premiere of the 2012 Gotham Screen International Film Festival, also collaborated on the well-received "Here We Go" music video for Brooklyn-based band The Spring Standards.

The Ancestor is Crazy Lake's second video for Darlingside (after the jaunty parable "Terrible Things"), and the first meeting of the minds between Crazy Lake and Chinese Takeout, though Hahn and Boynton have enjoyed the texture of each other's brains since their days doing improv comedy together at Amherst College. All four men are sensitive film nerds who look forward to many future collaborations.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

As I'm getting older, I'm understanding the platform wars less and less. I don't understand why we deride others for their enthusiasm in a product. Then again, I don't understand why our brain is short-circuited into feeling enthusiasm for a brand or product. I'm as guilty as the next guy.

In my case, it's wrapped up in a lot of nostalgia for days gone by. It's also hope for the future- but I have to agree with this guy that everything is broken and nobody is upset.

Also hoping that something is going to come along to sweep all of this crap under the rug- in the same way that the telephone destroyed the telegraph. My bet is on a true AI assistant that we just talk to - to do everything. Something that Siri, most definitely isn't - Closer to Watson, but with the ability to take action on our behalf. A real, C3PO type robot, just without the body - at first.

>> ^WaterDweller:

2:50 - Four hour exposure? Seriously? Surely, ten minutes in the darkest of nights would overexpose any image unless you used a really narrow aperture (and possibly even then)?


I wish. Night time photography would be a hell of a lot easier if this were true.

It's not. Four hours on a dark night seems reasonable to me. Depends on the camera settings used, of course, but if you keep the ISO low and use a reasonable aperture for good depth of field four hours sounds reasonable. The main problem with this is sensor bloom from the heat of the batteries and circuit boards in the camera itself.

There should definitely be a way to kill the ignition if there isn't, and it should not be connected to a microcontroller or anything, but an actual physical interlock breaking the circuit to the spark plugs. I'd guess that the modern security systems make this difficult though. I'd still want it though.

I think it's more of a statement on the nature of intelligence. Many of the behaviors we view to be intelligence are really just emergent properties of iterative algorithms implemented by simple machines. We shouldn't assume intelligence holds some privileged status.

There was a fun paper a while back on how this could be explained by the use of memristors in a dynamically stable circuit. >> ^Sagemind:

So, does that prove intelligence or just the will to survive?!

>> ^vaire2ube:

Aye but the guy did say the Progressive lawyer in the courtroom did more than give a little assistance:
>> ^entr0py:
The good news is the Fisher family won the case regardless. There were also a few factual errors in TYTs reporting, as porksandwich mentioned the other driver had insurance which had already paid out to it's maximum, and progressive didn't represent him legally. But what they actually did do was bad enough to deserve the condemnation; a progressive lawyer contacted the defendant's lawyer and gave him assistance, so they could ultimately avoid liability.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-progressive-campaign-
20120816,0,5322264.story



The front page of Fisher's blog has a screen cap, and a link to the official case record.

Aside from being listed as: "Interested party, type: Mediator." The record also contains this gem:

"It is this 19th day of May, 2011, by the Circuit Court For Baltimore City, hereby ORDERED1. That Progressive Advance Insurance Company be and is hereby allowed to intervene as a party Defendant.2. That Progressive Insurance Company is GRANTED all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case."

>> ^shinyblurry:

The parameters of marriage was determined by God at the beginning of His creation. We have turned away from God in these United States, and so we have turned away from the biblical standard, however, not as much as gay marriage proponents have stated. Even with the media saturation and the constant infiltration of gay special interest groups into the national discourse, we have these realities:
1. A gay marriage amendment has never passed at the ballot box. It has failed everywhere it has been tried, with the voters rejecting it 32 times since 1998.
2. Constitutional bans on gay marriage have been successful 100 percent of time at the ballot box, passing in 31 states, typically with wide margins. This includes liberal strongholds like California and Hawaii. 38 states ban it to some degree.
The people don't appear to want gay marriage, and they are strongly in favor of the biblical definition of marriage. If you don't want to accept the reality that God has defined marriage, then accept the reality that most people are not that hot for this, and they don't want to take the country in this direction.
>> ^petpeeved:
>> ^shinyblurry:
If polygamy were legal, would it be a civil rights issue if he refused to bake one for a polygamous wedding? How about a cake for someone wanted to marry their dog, or their car? He believes marriage is between a man and a woman and refuses to make a cake for any other kind of wedding. This has nothing to do with their sexual orientation, it has to do with his moral opposition to the corruption of the institution of marriage.
>> ^petpeeved:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Don't try that shit, it's discrimination, you know exactly why he was refusing to make a gay wedding cake that type of lying isn't going to help your argument. 2nd it's not a double-standard to hand someone their ass when they say something stupid. You do something counter to the way a society has been going you get shouted down in the public square. We're moving towards legalizing gay marriage and giving equal rights to all americans, you go counter to that you're gonna get yelled at.
Sorry but you're wrong, it isn't discrimination. They were still able to do business there if they wanted another kind of cake, and I'm sure they're still welcome to do so. The man doesn't want to make a gay wedding cake because he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, and that gay marriage is immoral.
Also filth posted on message boards? Is this your first day on the internet? I'm pretty sure Justin Beiber hasn't done anything to anyone on the internet and still he's talked about worse than Hitler. You're in hyperbole country mother fucker, deal with it.
Now you want to continue discriminating against people and not doing your job to make cakes or hand out birth control pills than yeah your life is gonna be made harder. Too bad because you're lives are already way too easy as it is. Complaining about christian discrimination, bitch there's children dying in Africa, shut the fuck up.
So discrimination against Christians is okay, because people talk trash all the time and children are dying in Africa? In other words, you just wave your hand and make excuses..proving that you don't really think discrimination is wrong, so long as its against people you disagree with. It's clear you want equal rights for everyone except Christians.
>> ^Yogi

So blacks weren't being discriminated against on the buses and water fountains, because, hey, they could still ride...just not in the front of the bus and hey, they could get a drink...just not at this particular water fountain.
Sounds like the sequel to separate but equal.


You know what is the main flaw in the argument of Christians who claim that they have the sole right to define what the institution of marriage represents and who is permitted to access it?
Simply this:
Christians don't own, didn't invent, and have no right to control marriage. They don't hold the patent on it. Not the idea of marriage, not the word of marriage, nothing. The concept of marriage belongs to the human race and predates Christianity by millenia and continents. Therefore, they have no special rights or privilege to impose their definition of it upon the rest of the nation.
But don't take my word for it. You have google at your finger tips.



As much as I want to applaud you for shifting to a "fact" based argument with elements of reasoning as opposed to your pure belief based system of thought, I'm greatly confused as to where your statistics are coming from. I'm also a little irked that you forced me to do all the googling by the way. There are mountains of evidence that on every front, from the popular vote to constitutional challenges, that gay marriage is gaining support, not losing it.

Here, let me google it for you.

Just a few rulings on the constitutional level:

November 2003: the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that barring gays and lesbians from marrying violates the state constitution. The Massachusetts Chief Justice concluded that to “deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage” to gay couples was unconstitutional because it denied “the dignity and equality of all individuals” and made them “second-class citizens.” Strong opposition followed the ruling.

August 4, 2010: Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in California, violates the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. "Proposition 8 singles out gays and lesbians and legitimates their unequal treatment," Vaughn wrote in his opinion. "Proposition 8 perpetuates the stereotype that gays and lesbians are incapable of forming long-term loving relationships and that gays and lesbians are not good parents."

February 7, 2012: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled 2–1 that Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that banned same-sex marriage in state, is unconstitutional because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In the ruling, the court said, the law "operates with no apparent purpose but to impose on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority's private disapproval of them and their relationships."

On the popular opinion front:

A June 6 CNN/ORC International poll showed that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage being legalized at 54%, while 42% are opposed.

A May 22 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 54% of Americans would support a law in their state making same-sex marriage legal, with 40% opposed.

A May 17-20 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that 53% believe same-sex marriage should be legal, with only 39% opposed, a low-water mark for opposition in any national poll so far.

A May 10 USA Today/Gallup Poll, taken one day after Barack Obama became the first sitting President to express support for same-sex marriage,[14] showed 51% of Americans agreed with the President's endorsement. A May 8 Gallup Poll showed plurality support for same-sex marriage nationwide, with 50% in favor and 48% opposed.

An April Pew Research Center poll showed support for same-sex marriage at 47%, while opposition fell to an all-time low of 43%.

A March 7-10 ABC News/Washington Post poll found 52% of adults thought it should be legal for same-sex couples to get married, while 42% disagreed and 5% were unsure.[18] A March survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found 52% of Americans supported allowing same-sex couples to marry, while 44% opposed.

A February 29 - March 3 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 49% of adults supported allowing same-sex couples to marry, while 40% opposed.

One last note on a slightly different topic: religious groups funding anti-gay legislation, most notoriously, the Prop. 8 campaign in California. If Christians are going to use their funds as a group, not individuals, why are they being given tax-free exemptions? Why should people, such as myself, who don't share their beliefs, subsidize their political ambitions?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

I don't want the government to curtail the ability of the religious to practice their faith but I don't think the first amendment was intended to give religions the overwhelming competitive advantage of tax-free money at the ballot box.

This could be solved two ways: no more organizational level contributions to political campaigns, i.e. the close to 200k the Mormon Church donated to support Prop. 8, OR remove tax-exempt status from religions.

By the way, it might seem impossible to conceive of a time when tax-exempt status for religion wasn't taken for granted but it's been a controversial issue from the inception of America. For example, even President Grant and Madison were against tax-exemption for religions.

I understand when converting from digital to analog that quality is lost. But I never said anything about converting digital to analog...just analog vs digital.

I was mainly adressing the comment you made that "they were talking about transferring the recording from PC onto the disc" which is not what they said. It's what you assumed...and you could be right and you could be wrong. You also said "would it be stored somewhere first....say....in a digital format?" that is also an assumption...it could be coming from a digital format, it could be coming from an analog format...we don't know...they didn't say.

Believe it or not but it's not unheard of for an artist to provide master analog tapes when they know they will be putting their music to vinyl. It's also very common for reissues of of older recordings to be done using the orginal master analog tapes.>> ^charliem:

Oh dear...
How do you think the artists voice is transferred to the LP in the first place? Do you believe they do it straight from an analogue circuit through the mic to the LP, or would it be stored somewhere first....say....in a digital format?
If the conversion from analogue to digital is what 'ruins' the quality....then how can the quality be possibly restored by putting the digital signal onto an analogue format? Surely the missing information doesn't just appear out of quantum strangeness.....
Think about it for a minute.....and if your argument doesn't change, then perhaps you need to redress the way in which you consider yourself to think critically.
>> ^Grimm:
I missed that bit...the only thing I heard about a computer was when he said "a computer monitors the cuting and adjusts the spacings between the grooves".
Also don't confuse digital audio as being superior sounding to analog audio. It has taken many years for digital audio to compete the the sound quality of analog audio. Some audiophiles argue that it still isn't as good. But just because it's "digital" doesn't automatically make it sound better then analog. The real advantage that digital has over analog is that it does not degrade over time or from copy to copy.
Personally I think if you have a really good system I don't think you can tell the difference between a really good analog recording and a digital one except that over time the analog recording will degrade. I think the reason vinyl is making a comeback is that people who grew up with it miss the ritual, the touch, the smell, of taking a record out and putting it on the turntable and placing the needle on the record.
>> ^charliem:
>> ^schlub:
People "refuse to buy into the digital revolution" by purchasing an analogue medium produced from a digital source. Yeah, good work.

No kidding!!
I got to the bit where they were talking about transferring the recording from PC onto the disc and was thinking....hang on.......your reducing the information by quite a huge amount of the original recording, by going from digital to analogue....what?
WHAT? I dont get it.

Oh dear...

How do you think the artists voice is transferred to the LP in the first place? Do you believe they do it straight from an analogue circuit through the mic to the LP, or would it be stored somewhere first....say....in a digital format?

If the conversion from analogue to digital is what 'ruins' the quality....then how can the quality be possibly restored by putting the digital signal onto an analogue format? Surely the missing information doesn't just appear out of quantum strangeness.....

Think about it for a minute.....and if your argument doesn't change, then perhaps you need to redress the way in which you consider yourself to think critically.

>> ^Grimm:

I missed that bit...the only thing I heard about a computer was when he said "a computer monitors the cuting and adjusts the spacings between the grooves".
Also don't confuse digital audio as being superior sounding to analog audio. It has taken many years for digital audio to compete the the sound quality of analog audio. Some audiophiles argue that it still isn't as good. But just because it's "digital" doesn't automatically make it sound better then analog. The real advantage that digital has over analog is that it does not degrade over time or from copy to copy.
Personally I think if you have a really good system I don't think you can tell the difference between a really good analog recording and a digital one except that over time the analog recording will degrade. I think the reason vinyl is making a comeback is that people who grew up with it miss the ritual, the touch, the smell, of taking a record out and putting it on the turntable and placing the needle on the record.
>> ^charliem:
>> ^schlub:
People "refuse to buy into the digital revolution" by purchasing an analogue medium produced from a digital source. Yeah, good work.

No kidding!!
I got to the bit where they were talking about transferring the recording from PC onto the disc and was thinking....hang on.......your reducing the information by quite a huge amount of the original recording, by going from digital to analogue....what?
WHAT? I dont get it.

The point isn't that porn is bad. It's that feeding the reward circuit in this incredibly efficient way weakens our ability to resist addictive urges in all the other ways.