It's from encyclopedia dramatica. I just though i was hilarious.
>> ^longde:

From the 4Chan site>> ^gwiz665:
In the video, a small, ratty child was squaring up to a much larger chubster (but to call him a chubster is very deceiving, as he is a being of muscle) while his fellow vermin stood to the left with the camera. The ratty child, known as Ritchard, threw a punch, connecting with the chubster, Casey Heynes. Casey Heynes moved with the punch, but didn't back away or show any sign of pain. This was to be the Rat's first warning, which he failed to heed.
The Rat then began bouncing on his heels, taunting Casey Heynes by feigning punches to his stomach. Casey is seen moving his arm at speeds not yet achieved by mortal men. This was to be the Rat's second warning.
And then, following another feigned punch from Richard, Casey Heynes acted. But it is not right to call him Casey anymore, because he is much, much more. He is the Beast. Channeling the power of the Immortal Ones, the Beast threw himself at the Rat and subdued him. He then proceeded to hoist the Rat up in to the air, pausing briefly to savor the smell of fear, before slamming the Rat down with enough force to destroy the other half of Japan.
Contemplating a kick to the head, the Beast, wise and merciful in victory, decided against it, knowing the Rat was already humiliated and broken. One of the Rat's cronies came up with the intention of getting revenge, but when the Beast looked him square in the eyes he became paralyzed with fear. The Beast, satisfied with his work, turned and strode off to his lair.
Casey Heynes current whereabouts are unknown, but it is very likely he slumbers in an underwater cave in the Bermuda Triangle. Because he's the hero St. Mary's North deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.

From the 4Chan site>> ^gwiz665:

In the video, a small, ratty child was squaring up to a much larger chubster (but to call him a chubster is very deceiving, as he is a being of muscle) while his fellow vermin stood to the left with the camera. The ratty child, known as Ritchard, threw a punch, connecting with the chubster, Casey Heynes. Casey Heynes moved with the punch, but didn't back away or show any sign of pain. This was to be the Rat's first warning, which he failed to heed.
The Rat then began bouncing on his heels, taunting Casey Heynes by feigning punches to his stomach. Casey is seen moving his arm at speeds not yet achieved by mortal men. This was to be the Rat's second warning.
And then, following another feigned punch from Richard, Casey Heynes acted. But it is not right to call him Casey anymore, because he is much, much more. He is the Beast. Channeling the power of the Immortal Ones, the Beast threw himself at the Rat and subdued him. He then proceeded to hoist the Rat up in to the air, pausing briefly to savor the smell of fear, before slamming the Rat down with enough force to destroy the other half of Japan.
Contemplating a kick to the head, the Beast, wise and merciful in victory, decided against it, knowing the Rat was already humiliated and broken. One of the Rat's cronies came up with the intention of getting revenge, but when the Beast looked him square in the eyes he became paralyzed with fear. The Beast, satisfied with his work, turned and strode off to his lair.
Casey Heynes current whereabouts are unknown, but it is very likely he slumbers in an underwater cave in the Bermuda Triangle. Because he's the hero St. Mary's North deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.

In the video, a small, ratty child was squaring up to a much larger chubster (but to call him a chubster is very deceiving, as he is a being of muscle) while his fellow vermin stood to the left with the camera. The ratty child, known as Ritchard, threw a punch, connecting with the chubster, Casey Heynes. Casey Heynes moved with the punch, but didn't back away or show any sign of pain. This was to be the Rat's first warning, which he failed to heed.

The Rat then began bouncing on his heels, taunting Casey Heynes by feigning punches to his stomach. Casey is seen moving his arm at speeds not yet achieved by mortal men. This was to be the Rat's second warning.
And then, following another feigned punch from Richard, Casey Heynes acted. But it is not right to call him Casey anymore, because he is much, much more. He is the Beast. Channeling the power of the Immortal Ones, the Beast threw himself at the Rat and subdued him. He then proceeded to hoist the Rat up in to the air, pausing briefly to savor the smell of fear, before slamming the Rat down with enough force to destroy the other half of Japan.

Contemplating a kick to the head, the Beast, wise and merciful in victory, decided against it, knowing the Rat was already humiliated and broken. One of the Rat's cronies came up with the intention of getting revenge, but when the Beast looked him square in the eyes he became paralyzed with fear. The Beast, satisfied with his work, turned and strode off to his lair.

Casey Heynes current whereabouts are unknown, but it is very likely he slumbers in an underwater cave in the Bermuda Triangle. Because he's the hero St. Mary's North deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.

Well my question to this is, is the bandwidth actually as advertised at all hours of the day and do they guarantee it will be available at that rate at all times in the future under the terms of the agreement?

For instance, Time Warner in my area was consistently fast at all hours of the day when I first got it....much better than the DSL I had prior. And it slowly got a little slower...a few more outages a year...more "massive outages"... plus other problems unrelated to speed like them cutting off my net connection because they can't read a street address properly so they killed my net access when they installed my neighbors "business class"...that took me 2 days of calling to straighten out and total of 5 days to fix.

So the conclusion I can draw there is, his business class plus the other subscribers signing up in my loop drastically affected my bandwidth. Yet they claim higher bandwidth offerings with "Roadrunner Boost"...and I've got that...it's almost as fast as my connection was back when I first got it maybe a little better late at night.

So their claim of higher speeds is technically true, only because they've gotten slower. And the minimum speed they offer is pretty appalling although I don't remember it off the top of my head...I think it was like 125 or 250 kbps down.

Killing off non-digital television was supposed to give more bandwidth on the line for better internet speeds and better digital programming, except you have to pay for both...and the internet speeds aren't guaranteed until you step into business class. And for them to guarantee those speeds on a loop they would have to throttle residential users on the same loop.


I am not aware of DSL being improved upon. I know they offer the Fios and what not offerings through some of the phone companies, but they are not offering in this area. And you have to research them to see if they have hidden download caps or other nasty little things in the works to stick on their network to create artificial speed bumps to their own offerings.

Beyond that you'll have to direct to me to the information you speak of.

As for cell phones, I don't use data plans on them, but my parents have a property that has cell towers located on them...and I've been able to catch a couple of the guys and ask them some questions. Even without asking them...there's a screwed up little story related to these towers.

About 10 years back they got hot and heavy about putting in towers, for 3-5 years they were renting lots of land off people and installing these towers. My dad did some work for them paving the roadways, got to know one of the head guys in charge of the project. And while my information is not going to be perfect I know a few things affected their installation and their coverage.

Many of the cities and burbs wouldn't allow them to install towers that would be consider eyesores, in some cases they decorated the towers or put something on them to mask them being a tower...maybe the city name or some kind of design. Many of the "perfect" spots for towers people would not rent the land, so they had to pick imperfect places as close as they could get. So this led to problems with the coverage areas and causes some towers to bear more burden than they should, which Im taking a stab here and saying this really affects big cities network speeds. Within the last 3 years they upgraded the tower on my parents property by installing fiber landlines to the towers, presumably to speed up their network and alleviate some of the congestion.....however....the tower on the property has 2 "boxes" (equipment rooms with racks of network gear and the like) it feeds signals into...and I believe each ring or triangle of receivers transmitters is another cell phone companies signal range...so it services at least 3 networks. Meaning all 3 of those networks shares that one fiber line they installed to the tower unless they have multiple lines in the cable to be split, not very familiar with fiber cable.

Now the weird thing here is...Verizon did the majority of the tower installs I'm familiar with..as soon as they finished all of the towers were taken over by a company called "American Tower". They service the towers, you call them when you see a problem... I called them once about their air conditioner unit running all the time (it has 2 and one was running morning noon and night every time I got close enough to hear it). Two or three months later I thought I'd check to see if they fixed it, I could hear it running as I approached it...and when I got to where I could see it..it was frozen solid. This was in the Fall a year or two back, like 50 degrees or so outside with Winter coming. So they obviously don't pay very close attention to their equipment. AC failing in the summer means their shit cooks, and engineer said stuff in there is easily 100 grand worth of equipment.

So what I gather is, Verizon sold the towers, and rents from them....and now the other carriers rent from them. American Tower is in charge of maintaining the property and the building, but probably not the equipment since I see the various company engineers show up from time to time. They also provide power generators, there's a diesel powered unit that sits near these buildings and turns on from time to time.

I was also told the height of a tower limits it's usefulness. The tall towers can host more companies various signals versus the short towers. So For some reason they put in a bunch of short towers but they have limited utility and are just as ugly as the tall ones...so I dunno why in the hell they did that.


But for them to offer less congestion and higher speeds in high population areas they need more towers so they can break the area up in smaller coverage areas to limit the number of devices hitting any one tower. I have not see them put in a new tower since American Tower took over. I have seen them remove tower locations, probably due to cost of operation/replacement being high due to people hitting them with vehicles or breaking in.

In my opinion, cell phone pricing is a little better than it was but I am not happy with how Verizon handles their plans. For instance, if you want just a voice plan..no data no text. Your phone selection is terrible, I mean basic basic phones...most generally being flip phones with poor external screens and OK internal screens. If you want a better phone, you have to buy a text or data plan. Because if you buy specific types of phones, Verizon assumes you will be using that phone for what they specify that phone is. Take the EnV line of phones, I hate texting, but I like having the keyboard for typing in contacts and just general moderate to heavy usage it's easier to use than a flip phone keying in alternative. If I wanted that phone, I need a texting plan. If you get into smart phones you need a data plan...you can't activate one on your account without the plan. I don't know if the phones need the data plan to even function or not, but texting phones don't need texting plans to function...that's Verizon's plan offerings to maximize their earnings.

And texting in general is cheaper to the phone company than any voice call will ever be. Except texting is almost universally in ADDITION to voice packages....yet texting costs them very little in transfer costs compared to transmitting voice.

I hope some company out there is actually trying to implement new technologies and improve transfer speeds and push down prices. But if they are, they are taking their sweet time doing so...because if it was a big push...the other companies would have to react to that. Right now the only thing I see them all doing is trying to push through contract changes, shutting down government implement ISPs, and influencing laws that help keep us in the stone age.


>> ^deathcow:

> Everything except their networks seems to increase in size and capability, which is an odd thing.
All the ISP's I'm aware of have RADICALLY increased bandwidth and package offerings. It's called survival.

"Thinking of God and not staring in the mirror"? Cunt, your god is a mirror. If triangles had gods they'd have three sides.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

“What I think is different about things like what Angle and Bachmann said is that are incitement of violence”
This claim has been made several times and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond personal opinion and interpretation. Obama, Frank, Ried, Pelosi, Grayson, Franken, or other liberals make outrageous statements that imply violence on a routine basis.

This claim has been made several times, and I have yet to see any substance to it beyond the mere assertion of your conclusion.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Every major point here is based on interpretation and opinion. “I see… Big lie… Armed insurrection”… There is even a statement of agreement that Bachman DIDN’T mean it ‘that way’. But the comment is held to a different standard than Obama’s. HIS rhetoric is ‘not a lie’, ‘traditional electioneering’, and a ‘transparent metaphor’. Bachman bad; Obama good; Motivation – bias.

Stating your subjective view of my motivation isn't proof that my claims of objective qualitative differences are false.

This is another of my frustrations with the way you conduct yourself here. I'm trying to depersonalize this, and not question your motives, while still making the case that my viewpoint (which obviously differs from yours) is based on things that are supported by objective facts.

The burden of proof here is not entirely on me -- you're the one who provided the Obama quote as equivalent to Bachmann's. I think the strongest objection to it is the first one I listed, namely that it's out of context. How do we know whether Obama's meaning was "overwhelm the Republicans with volunteers and ads" and not literally "I want you to bring guns to kill Republicans with" without the context surrounding it?

My point here is that not all gun metaphors are created equal. "We're going to stick to our guns on health care" is pretty different from "If ballots don't work, bullets will".

Obama's quote was a tick more inciteful than the first, Bachmann's was only a couple ticks less inciteful than the latter. I'm saying the bounds of civil conversation lies inbetween.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I see… So – just to make this clear – calling Obamacare’s rationing a ‘death panel’ where Grandma takes a pain pill and gets end-of-life counseling instead of medicine (Obama said this) is over the top.

Yep. Part of your issue here is that you're not talking about anything in legislation, but something Obama said.

The other issue is, you're quoting him waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of context:

But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that
exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is
loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence
shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let
doctors know and your mom know that, you know what? Maybe this isn't
going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but
taking the painkiller.

And those kinds of decisions between doctors and patients, and
making sure that our incentives are not preventing those good decision,
and that -- that doctors and hospitals all are aligned for patient care,
that's something we can achieve.

It takes removing the context to make what Obama said sound even remotely sinister. Even then, it's clear he's not saying "I reserve the right to compel doctors to pull the plug on your grandma if she doesn't meet my subjective standards on her value to society".

He's saying that we can pull the plug on paying doctors for performing treatments that have been shown to be medically ineffective, so that doctors don't have a monetary incentive to try to convince patients to undergo treatments they don't really need.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But Grayson saying the Republican plan of privatization (a system that worked for decades)

What Republican plan of privatization that worked for decades are you talking about? The employer-based insurance system that arose as an "unintended consequence" of FDR's wage controls? The one everyone was happy with, could afford, and never left anyone out?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I’ll be honest. I see this as a classic example of distortion bias. “It’s fine when WE do it because we’re RIGHT, but not when THEY do it because they’re WRONG!”

You say "classic example of distortion bias" as if that's some named phenomena. What you mean to say is that it's a double standard.

But see, you're just asserting that, not making a case for it.

I mention Grayson as an outlier. He's unusually inflammatory for a Democrat, and even what he said wasn't particularly inciteful. He didn't say "Republicans are coming to kill you" the way the right often says of Democrats, he merely said "Republicans will leave you for dead."

That's pushing it in my view, but not because I think it runs the risk of sounding like an endorsement of violence against Republicans, but because it's an exaggeration that I think stretches the truth a bit too much.

I say stretch, because Republicans never put together a fully formed plan of their own, and a lot of the rhetoric was based on the idea that there is no need to address the issue of people not being able to afford medical care.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Second, when have Democrats accused Republicans of starving people?
1990s Contract With America. Democrats accused Newt Gingrich and the GOP congress of starving children because they wanted to make cuts in education that would have had some impact on school lunch programs.

Good on them then.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Similarly in 2010, Alan Grayson accused the GOP of starving children and women, and selling people into slavery for black market organs because they wanted to stop the fourth extension of unemployment.

I demand a source on this one. It's gotta be sifted here as a YouTube clip if that's accurate.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But this is a great teaching moment. This is the origin of your bias. You – Netrunner – AGREE with Grayson. So when he says, “GOP is starving children”, you don’t have a problem with it. You agree with him - so when Grayson is incendiary and egregious in his rhetoric you give it a pass as ‘electioneering’ or ‘metaphor’ or a ‘joke’.

Actually no. Here's an alternative hypothesis: When someone says "So and so is murdering babies", I think it's inciteful. I don't think it's a joke, I don't think it's a metaphor, and I think you better back up your claim.

If you can't, I think you've done something wrong by saying it.

If you can, I think you've probably done something good.

"Cap and trade will be the end of freedom as we know it." Can't be backed up.

"The Republican health care plan is: 'Don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly." This one's debatable for the reasons I said above. But I think that the accuracy of the statement has a lot to do with whether that comment was okay or not. This one's at the edge, either way.

"George W. Bush ordered the torture of Guantanamo detainees" is true, by his own admission.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I can see both sides of the debate. I disagree with liberals, but I can mentally grasp their OPINION (even if I reject it) that the conservative method (smaller government, private solutions) ‘takes away’ from social programs. So when liberals get vociferous, I am willing to cut them a little slack.

I don't think you understand the liberal side of arguments at all. I also don't think you are willing to actually engage in any sort of reasonable discussion about their criticism of the right, either. For example:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Here I personally went one click further and suggested that perhaps this is an intentional strategy to rile up the crazies, so they'll physically intimidate liberals.
So – is leftist rhetoric intentionally done to rile up the crazies so they’d physically intimidate conservatives? You know – stuff like the threats against Ann Coulter that caused a college speech to be cancelled. Or when a liberal man bit off a guy’s finger because he disagreed about healthcare. Or when liberal Amy Bishop killed her co-workers. Liberal Joseph Stack flew a plane into the IRS. Liberals destroyed radio towers in Seattle. Liberals torched Hummer dealerships. Liberals beat up a conservative black man at a Tea Party. A liberal brought bombs to an RNC meeting. Liberals attacked police in Berkley. Liberals threw rocks at animal researchers. Liberals stood outside polling stations with nightsticks. A liberal shot up the Discovery Channel. A liberal said, “You’re dead!” to a Tea party leader. Liberals made death-threats against Palin. Liberals made death threats & assassination movies about Bush. A liberal shot up the war memorial. And let us not overlook the fact that Loughner is a 9/11 truther and that the left is the source for that particular 'rhetoric'.

Litanies like this make it pretty clear that you're you're not interested in examining your own prejudices about liberals.

In case that all by itself wasn't enough:
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
OK – I’ll take one glove off here. I have not accused you of making crap up, and you aren’t providing sourcing either.
[snip]
[Y]ou can find the sources for ALL the examples of liberal violence I listed above. I’ve got the links for EVERY one of them and dozens more, but I don’t go around assuming you're an intellectual cripple that can't find them. Nor do I want to play dueling link banjos here. I extend the courtesy in an online discussion of not forcing the other guy to cite every freaking thing they say because 99 times in 100 the source just gets attacked and ignored anyway.

So what do you think you've done with the combination of these paragraphs?

I see someone essentially saying "I'm right, you're evil, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise".

That's not winning an argument, that's refusing to present one because you're so prejudiced you don't think you need to when dealing with people like me.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I typically don’t jump in a thread until intolerant liberal rhetoric has already reared its ugly face. Liberal intolerance is there before I say a single word. So I don’t care a fig about the leftist vitriol I get, because it is generally only a continuance of the intolerance that was there before I showed up. They don't hate 'me'. They hate the fact that I have dared to hold a mirror up on own intolerance. What they really want to be doing is feeling self-righteous as they spew intolerance at things they hate. Ol' Winstonfield popping up and spoiling the fun wasn't in their plan, and they react badly. Boo hoo.
But you are specifically accusing ME of being vitriolic. I stridently reject that position. I do no more than calmly, fairly, and accurately present an opposing point of view. I may do it sarcastically. I may point out hypocrisy. But I attack philosophies and public figures – not Sifters. Therefore the personal vitriol against myself is unwarranted and unjustified. I bring no vitriol or intolerance to the table here. The only vitriol and intolerance that exists is directed towards me.


To be frank, you're delusional about why people get mad at you. People would respond differently if you tried to actually make an argument for what you believe, instead of just telling people they're wrong and/or evil, that it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, and there's no point in trying to deny it. You just did that to me here with your litany of supposed liberal crimes against humanity, with the follow-up that sources don't matter because any questioning of the veracity of your sources is proof of the dread liberal bias.

Another example: I gave 4 different reasons why I think the Bachmann and Obama quotes aren't equal. 4 distinct reasons that could all be examined and definitively addressed without making this about me personally. Instead you chose to ignore them, and accuse me of using a double standard.

If you want to show that I am engaged in a double standard, you need to make that case. You need me to define exactly what my standard is, and then show that I'm inconsistently applying it. To prove an overall bias, you need many examples where I've done so. You didn't even try to do any of that. You just leveled it as a personal attack.

My sense is that you don't know (or don't care) about the way legitimate arguments get made. Think Geometry proofs, or science papers. Do they just say "The sum of the internal angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees, and anyone who disagrees with me is just doing so because they hate mathematicians!" or do they lay out a proof that clearly states the assumptions and the deductive steps they followed to reach their conclusion?

The topic of what rhetoric is worthy of condemnation is going to be a little more slippery, but it's not impossible to have a civil discussion about what the important factors are in deciding whether a comment is appropriate or not.

He did it intentionally and clearly identifies it as a Batman symbol in the video (see the link I provided). On BlogTV he does "Batman Pushups."

http://www.blogtv.com/People/jacksfilms

He's milking the whole Batman thing as long as he can - now that he's moved to L.A.
>> ^bareboards2:

This guy is too young to do this intentionally, but it sure looks like the classic upside down triangle of a grown woman's pubic area. I don't think anyone his age has ever seen such a thing.

>> ^dotdude:
jacksfilms introduction of the BATMAN CHEST HAIR in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R-vDejxMr8

This guy is too young to do this intentionally, but it sure looks like the classic upside down triangle of a grown woman's pubic area. I don't think anyone his age has ever seen such a thing.



>> ^dotdude:

jacksfilms introduction of the BATMAN CHEST HAIR in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R-vDejxMr8

triangle eh?

I prefer the term "Triforce", now and forever.

I forgot to mention - it seems to be a viral for "Integrity Windows". That's their red triangle sticker on the windows in the background.

To McBoinkens:
The 4th dimension didn't play into what they are saying directly but it is inseparable from the physics. I was merely pointing out that you were taking their language regarding 'shape' and 'flatness' too literally. Your point regarding reworking of our understanding of gravity is a perfect example. The real question addressed by this video is what is the overall curvature of the universe? The local behavior will be dominated by the local distribution of mass, but what shape does it take asymptotically as you move away from local sources? It doesn't require a re-working of our current theory of gravity and is, in fact, inextricably tied to it. If gravity is related to a bending in the manifold of spacetime than what is the background geometry of the universe? Is it flat or something else? Their analysis did involve the fourth dimension (time) because you can't separate it from any discussin of gravity (or physics in general for that matter). The microwave radiation they measured travelled through both space and time to arrive at the satellite acquiring the data. In that way, it is a measure of the spacetime that it travelled through along the way and they use it to determine the basic geometry of the universe.

To dannym:
I didn't think it was dumbed down that badly. In fact, I thought it was quite well presented. Here again, the curvature they're measuring is the baseline for the universe at large. There are a number of reasons to expect the universe to be flat; not the least of which because it's the most intuitively pleasing. The point is if the universe has a mean curvature to it than that curvature is everywhere including right in front of your face. They aren't measuring the curvature of some incredibly distant point but looking at the most ancient radiation within the universe and the distribution of it to determine the basic geometry of all that is.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

>> ^crotchflame:
It isn't misleading. He's just using the best language available for a popular description of the issue. The universe's mean density determines directly the curvature of the spacetime manifold; so it isn't so much describing shape as geometry. A triangle's still a triangle in a curved spacetime but the geometric properties (sum of the angles) changes. 'Flat' as we think about it doesn't work terribly well in describing a 4-dimensional manifold but still accurately describes the flat spacetime as being one without curvature - or asymptotically Euclidean.
>> ^Mcboinkens:
Misleading. He is saying density is directly related to shape. What exactly qualifies as flat in the view of shapes? That implies that the Earth if flat too. I have a feeling there is quite a bit of debate about the process used here to determine it is flat and not saddled.



I don't se how the 4th dimension even played into their analysis. It's not like they measured time through density. It seemed to me like they were trying to describe the observable 3 dimensional literal space as flat, which is why I thought it was misleading. If they were saying spacetime was flat, I disagree even further because that would completely screw up our current theory of gravity as a function of spacetime. Which is fine in itself, but not without coming up with a replacement for that idea first.


>> ^dannym3141:

I get the feeling this is dumbed down to the point where it can be argued about - maybe the real information is indisputable. But anyway - this might be completely unrelated, but i was shown today by my maths lecturer that if you're "infinitely" far away from a curve, you're equidistant from each point on that curve, so a curve is actually a straight line.
Maybe i didn't follow the video well enough, but it seemed to show a satellite looking out at a section of the sphere we draw around ourself and label "the earliest radiation". How can we look at a surface that is billions of light years away and tell whether or not it has curvature? And if i assume that we CAN see a difference in distance to see whether it's flat or not, surely our error margins are comparatively so large that we couldn't state either way for certain?
I'm going to assume that it's visually extremely hard to demonstrate the principle visually, and that ^ isn't the point.

[redacted]

It isn't misleading. He's just using the best language available for a popular description of the issue. The universe's mean density determines directly the curvature of the spacetime manifold; so it isn't so much describing shape as geometry. A triangle's still a triangle in a curved spacetime but the geometric properties (sum of the angles) changes. 'Flat' as we think about it doesn't work terribly well in describing a 4-dimensional manifold but still accurately describes the flat spacetime as being one without curvature - or asymptotically Euclidean.

>> ^Mcboinkens:

Misleading. He is saying density is directly related to shape. What exactly qualifies as flat in the view of shapes? That implies that the Earth if flat too. I have a feeling there is quite a bit of debate about the process used here to determine it is flat and not saddled.

Hasn't the Sift seen this on QI yet? The big triangle on top is not a triangle.

Actually, if you look at the template for the puzzle, the area is initially perfectly filled - the guy just made bad cuts. The trick is that the L-pieces are slightly longer at their base than the narrower quadrilaterall; they have to be wedged back into the puzzle space for the second configuration which creates the extra space. The triangle at the top is a true triangle as the cut is just a straight line, so it's a slightly different illusion than the missing square puzzle.
>> ^Payback:

>> ^ForgedReality:
>> ^Payback:
Ok, I thought this was going to be an illusion... Kept waiting for the bigger piece to end up the same size as the smaller one.

Exactly my point. People downvoted my comment because they're dumb, I guess.
The angle cut allows the differently sized pieces to swap places, and changing the configuration of the two L-shaped ones creates a gap. OOOH SO MYSTERIOUS.

Well, a bit mysterious. The total area inside the bounding box doesn't change, and the pieces fill it, so the sum of their areas would seem to be the total area of the bounding box. You shouldn't be able to "rearrange" the pieces to create a largish hole, because no matter what you do, the sum of the areas of the pieces remain constant and seemingly equal to the area inside the box. The first arrangement is obviously not perfectly filled, and the second one moves those errors to one square area.