What a great story. Where I come from, we have more hockey than football. I've seen parents swearing at coaches and referees when their 13 year old gets a penalty. It's refreshing to see somebody that understands that sport has little to do with scores and statistics and lots to do with having a good time.

It's called a "game" after all. If it wasn't supposed to be fun we would just call it work.

>> ^robdot:
um. i always thought you just held it to a magnet. if its plated it sticks. gold isnt magnetic.


The metal that has been plated isn't necessarily magnetic.

Well,

d = vi t + 1/2 a t^2
828 = (0)t + 1/2(9.81)t^2
1656 = 9.81t^2
168.80733945 = t^2
t = 12.992587866

So yes, without drag, it would take about 13 seconds to fall that distance. (http://xkcd.com/669/)

However, BASE jumpers deal with a lot of drag. From http://www.stealingaltitude.com/BASE_JumpingFAQ.htm#13 :

"On average, a normally clothed average-weighted BASE jumper freefalling from a 500 foot building will impact in about 6 seconds. In this scenario most jumpers I knew would take a "delay" of two or three seconds before opening the parachute.

According to BASEjumper.com the current unofficial record is a two minute freefall made by Yuri Kuznetsov in the summer of 2005. He used a wingsuit to achieve this incredible feat, I don't know where the jump was or how high the jump started.

The development of the wingsuit (originally intended for skydiving) in the 1990s brought a freefall revolution in BASE jumping. The wingsuit allows jumpers to make incredibly long freefall descents along sloping mountains and cliffs, soaring like birds of prey, falling at half the normal terminal velocity. For reference, consider this: prior to the wingsuit, jumpers making outlaw leaps off of Half Dome could freefall for just under ten seconds before opening very low, near impact, over the rocky, sloping talos. Today, an experienced wingsuit flyer leaping from Half Dome can soar over 50 seconds, maneuvering over the talos and down mountainside itself until reaching the valley below. NOTE: parachuting in Yosemite National Park is strictly illegal and heavily enforced."

This is from a Japanese tv show called "Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!".
I've been watching so much of this show recently.

Their best shows are called Batsu (punishment) games. Generally, the comedians make a bet about a game or a race or something and the losers have to participate in a batsu game. Every new year's eve there is a big batsu game usually involving 4 or 5 of the comedians.

Just this year it was a 24 hour no laughing game. They acted as bellboys and were directed through a fake hotel for 24 hours. Any time they laugh, hangmen come out and smack them on the ass with a stick. In one previous incarnation they used blowdarts.

If you want more, check out http://www.gaki-no-tsukai.com/ or search gaki no tsukai on veoh. There are quite a few with English subs.

I can't even imagine phoning the police about this.

"Hello, this is your local police dept. How can I help?"
"Hi, yes, my neighbor has a statue of Jesus shooting Santa and I want you to force him to take it down."
"..."

Whatever man, I would much rather have my "Crappy old dumb-phone" + "iPod touch" combo over an iPhone anyday.

I would be curious to hear what Richard Dawkins had to say about this talk, in particular, the part where he compares his connection to the universe with religion. Also, it would be interesting to see the experiment Neil proposes actually fulfilled.

Not that it's likely to pass, but at least they've got the right idea. I'm tired of lame attempts toward legalization that want to treat marijuana like a prescription (don't get me wrong here, medicinal marijuana is great, but if you treat it like oxycontin druglords will still thrive.).
Treat it like alcohol and sell it in liquor stores.
At least then I could go to the liquor store and buy something legitimately good for me.

A lot of "cheaper" furniture is also made of MDF, which can weigh considerably more than solid wood. Know what you buy, and consider what it will take to move it, should you ever have to. Solid oak tables are beautiful, but if you move it once, you'll never want to again.

I work at a coffee shop here in Vancouver. It's called Caffe Artigiano. Great coffee, but some idiot decided we should use the Starbucks sizing scheme.
So we have 3 sizes, but not tall, grande, and venti. That would be too easy, probably also copyright infringement. So we have a traditional size (the same as a Starbucks' short), a tall size, and a grande, which are equivalent to their Starbucks counterparts.
It would make sense if "Tall" meant something in Italian like Grande and Venti do, but I digress.
Besides, Starbucks makes some of the shittiest coffee in the world. It also explains why people come into my work and complain the coffee isn't dark enough. It's plenty dark enough, it's just not burnt to shit like Starbucks coffee.

This was pretty good. I was cracking up the whole time. I love the mother. "There's nothing satanic about their music" and then she went and spelt hatred with an "i".

I've recently done a lot of reading about post cultural revolution China and I think I would find it hard to believe that China entering the capitalist stage was running on the heels of the 1989 Tienanmen Square incident. Some of these examples are better founded, like the 9/11/Iraq war link which I could reasonably believe was implemented while the nation was in shock. I can't fact-check all of the examples, but I'm reasonably suspicious that this video isn't as factual as it appears on it's surface.

*discard
It's a dupe.

Made my day, thank you.

Well, that's 5 minutes of stuff I'll never be able to do.