... Every weekend of this summer I went down to the Briton Beach area (next to Coney Island in NYC) which has a big Caspian-Russian/Ukrainian populace. Me and my friend try to arrive early in the morning in order to take full advantage of our day, because by lunchtime is when all the non-locals from other parts of the city start pouring in.

The beach is noticeably cleaner and quieter in the morning even when there are several people running about, generally getting a tan or going in for a quick swim. And as soon as 10:30am hits, locals start folding their beach towels and walk off, and you begin to see the non-locals and tourists moving in. You start to hear loud music, you hear vendors selling water and beer, cellphones and loud laughter.

Over the past few months I've noticed a major difference between beach habits of locals and non-locals, which is that non-locals usually brought big coolers filled with food and drinks, while as the locals didn't. Those who were hungry usually had some fruits or a piece of pastry in plastic bags, and left no crumbs on the sand. Meanwhile the non-locals were having a feast, opening bags of chips, fried chicken and what have you, and the seagulls start showing up.

When we arrive at the beach in the morning there were maybe 1 to 0 seagulls to be seen. In the afternoon, packs of seagulls with about 4 or 5 seagulls per pack were roaming around on different areas of the beach. Then you start hearing such complaints from these people as "Omaigawd this beach is so dirty" or "F*cking seagulls, they're everywhere!" This goes to tell you that it isn't just the seagulls that are annoying, it's the people who lack proper beach etiquette that ruin it for the rest of us. Tourists are bad, but it's mostly the non-locals coming in from other parts of the city that are the worst, because they 'think' they know the city. They mouth off the tourists coming outside of NYC, and yet to the locals of Brighton Beach, the non-local New Yorkers are the most annoying rats of all.

Anyways, don't bring food into the sand people. Goto a deli and eat it at the boardwalk or something.

Your entire life is a lie. Your mom lied, your dad lied, and now your damn daughter is lying to everyone on your wedding day. While your lying wife and her lying lover lay in wait to move in and become the new lying couple.

You go to a bar and the lying bartender slips you a mickey. Now the lying police say you killed a man with your lying fists, covered with lying scabs. There are forged cellphone videos made by lying bystanders who put the video into lying Photoshop. So you go to jail, where no one lies to you any more: YOU'RE FUCKED.

Now you get of jail and your lying family doesn't want to talk to you (because they're liars) and a lying song tells you it's easy to kill yourself. But you can't do it, because it isn't easy, just like it wasn't easy for (a man) to get pregnant from prison rape. And now your lying doctor is saying you have full blown AIDS. But he's a liar.

It's your fake deathbed and the lying nurse lies to you about having no visitors. It's all a conspiracy and the internet lies to you while you're looking up supporting evidence for the conspiracy. Message boards filled with liars, just lying their butts out to you about you're a lying troll. And you die and lying God says you believed in lies so you're bound for hell and there are no more lies EVER.

Interesting production. Intro has all the transitions and music of a television quality cooking show with cellphone quality video and awful apartment lighting.

This is sort of what old people think about cellphones.

@bmacs27 Mostly the costs, TEGs aren't cheap, so I would wager the low end on the cost scale is about 50 bucks or so for the stove version give or take about 20 bucks. And indeed you are right, improving the state of being for billions is what the cry of energy is about. Costs are important as it dictates how many people we can help via our limited abilities. If we wanted to help ALL of them RIGHT NOW, it would cost 100 billion or so, which isn't a huge sum. But it is only access to 2 Watt/hours. This is very back of the envelope, so there are many other factors, but lets say we used that money instead to buy power plants. Let's even get something fancy, some high tech CCGT plants. They cost about .6 bucks per Watt hour. For 2 billion people consuming 2W/hs of electricity, that is about 4 gigiwatts/H which on our stoves cost us about 100 billion. Now a .5GW CCGT plan will run you about .3 billion per unit, but you only need 2.4 billion in funds to supply that level of electricity. If you spent the same kind of cash on CCGT plants, you would go from 4GW/H to 166GW/H. Basically, you can help 2 orders of magnitude more people if you invested in other technology, or help that same amount that much more. Now, that isn't completely accurate, power infrastructure costs money, but it is money well spent, even if you burn up an entire order of magnitude. It wouldn't hurt if a few thousand people had one of these, but if you wanted to help 2 billion, it would be a huge mistake. The only reason I keep harping on this is because they marketed themselves so heavily as some wide solution for the third world. A good third world solution doesn't always look like a first world solution, so I am not suggesting there is no merit here, but it would help very few people and to a relatively low level compared to other options. Perhaps small progress, though, is a good way to go about it, I can't say. I would guess they would be better off dropping off some steam system that burns wood and let them power their entire houses instead of a cellphone. There is an older paper about using rice husks in developing world in steam engines to generate electricity, and husks have a bit less energy density than wood fiber. They seemed to think it was pretty viable. There are some technical challenges, but I think those are easier to overcome than spending 100billion for 2W/Hs for 2 billion people. But I digress.

@bmacs27 Cell phones don't launch you to a higher standard of living more than a fully integrated energy system. Refrigeration, transportation, fertilizer, steel production, manufacturing, iron ore reprocessing, food production, water purification, medicine distribution/production/manufacture ect. These things require TONS of energy, something a cellphone charger stove is not. A phone charging stove, IMO, will confer very little improvement to the standard of living to the their world. "Worthwhile" is a pretty arbitrary idea, though, so there isn't a "right" answer per say. But I would wager greater quality of life would be had if you used all the money from these stove thingies into an energy infrastructure; having access to clean water and a electrical grid might be better than a marginally cleaner stove.

Particulate matter is usually the risk associated with burning coals and woods from coal and wood ash. Greenhouse isn't the issue (the CO2 in plants will go back into the air via decomposition), it is the junk that goes into your lungs. Less is good, but electric stoves (or gas) would be better as you can move the source of smoke to some distant place. I don't know the economics of small village towns, so perhaps this has a place as a stopgap until there is serious economic development, but it isn't a very big step...so I am trying some googlefu to see how much they plan to spend over there on these. If it is like 10k bucks or something, then ya, those 200 people or so you help is niceish, if they plan to spend millions, or they are charging them instead of handing them out, then other developments would be far better. As someone who has burned wood to heat a house as the primary source, it isn't fun, even if it was 50% better, using money to buy a better stove would of been silly compared to just using gas or electric provided there was an system for doing so. I think money would be better spent developing those systems instead of vesting money in a dead end technology (burning wood). One might liken it to fixing up that old car that keeps breaking down, it is a money trap...best to go get a better car if you could.

Even so, I think I might get one in the future for camping. Could be fun to mess with the TEG and main container to perhaps tweak some higher power levels out of it!

If it weren't for the cellphone shakey-cam at the end I wouldn't know what the damn thing actually looked like.

Many mobile phone service providers are generally corrupt and greedy. This came out of Canada this week:

"Canadians have been misled by the carriers into thinking the access fee — typically between $6.95 and $8.95 a month — was a tax by the government or the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, when in fact it was simply extra revenue for cellphone companies.

The suit was filed on behalf of more than 14 million monthly cellphone subscribers, or nearly half the country's population."

This is a $19-billion class-action lawsuit.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/06/28/cellphone-class-action-lawsuit.html

Your right fire makes people stupid and panic for no reason most of the time. Funny story I was working as a fry cook at a Buffalo Wild Wings in my home town in Texas when one night one of the guys pulled the fryer out to clean behind it well he yanked on it too hard and it ripped the gas hose off the connection to the wall. I swear to god 6 guys saw fire spurt out of the valve and immediate dropped everything and ran for the hills. I saw that the valve wasn't damaged in anyway so I calmly walked over and turned off the valve the fire went out and the disaster was averted. I couldn't believe how everyone else just panicked instead of taking the logical easiest path to put out the fire. I'm just glad no one pulled the Ansul fire foam system that would have cost the store 20k and we would have spent two days cleaning the inside of the kitchen out.

>> ^kceaton1:

>> ^PlayhousePals:
>> ^Stingray:
Fire extinguishers: Not just ornaments

It appeared that the guy near the end was using the contents of a gas can to extinguish the flames. A fail all around if that were true =oD

I'll assume this is sarcasm that didn't translate well across the Internet--it was water, the stuff you use to wash off your windows with--which is ALSO found RIGHT NEXT TO all the man-made flames and fuel for cars--BTW did you know fuel vapor is pretty nasty--I swear eia is just not enough sometimes.
Fires (and any other such similar event were an emergency is involved) while active creates apparently, an atmospheric anomaly that causes--from what I've noticed in these situations--a strange and sudden affliction that seems to afflict the human nervous system in roughly 95% of the population (some of you may think I'm being TOO generous) it has these noticeable effects: mass stupidity, mass standing comatose adult/children (like deer in headlights), GRABBING THEIR FUCKING cellphone to video it, calling anyone but 911, calling 911 when the situation could have been averted for atleast a minute (sometimes more, MUCH MORE--it can get ridiculous) by them doing a small innocuous measure--but the measure is: beneath them, might get them dirty, they may get close to "the action", they could injury themselves requiring a band-aid; and so, so, so, so, so, many other things that could be listed, but you really can just go to the Failblog and look around and find one thousand examples I don't have here. But this 95% always does the things I listed above and do similar ridiculous actions OTHER THAN stopping the problem! It really is quite amusing and it's also why we've got the term "hero". Hero really should read:
Hero: The person that finally decided to resolve a problem when everyone else decided it was better to journal about it. You get my drift... Yes, there is the "real" hero out there, but they typically have other things that show that they are, like undying loyalty from their followers or getting the Medal of Honor--that type of thing.
This window washing water can be found in large containers, like the one he was carrying to put the fire out, around EVERY single station (typically, sometimes there are even WATER HOSES in the middle). Atleast ONE person was paying attention and put the fire out on both the fuel hose and the gas tank (it looked like he got them out--with a little bucket of water...well used if I might say). He is a minor hero, but he's one of those people that solves an emergency put before a group of people, and decidedly did not take photos first.
Just felt like the man deserved some credit, so I decided to have someone say something good about him (me ); since it's mostly about the idiot eia douche who RAN to find help from the store manager, running RIGHT PAST the fire extinguisher--fucking poetic and on camera. That guy will NEVER live this down...
I'm ALSO assuming he did panic and run into the store to find the clerk, rather than just running away, BUT people HAVE done that... ((Benefit of doubt for this eia, I guess...)

>> ^PlayhousePals:

>> ^Stingray:
Fire extinguishers: Not just ornaments

It appeared that the guy near the end was using the contents of a gas can to extinguish the flames. A fail all around if that were true =oD


I'll assume this is sarcasm that didn't translate well across the Internet--it was water, the stuff you use to wash off your windows with--which is ALSO found RIGHT NEXT TO all the man-made flames and fuel for cars--BTW did you know fuel vapor is pretty nasty--I swear eia is just not enough sometimes.

Fires (and any other such similar event were an emergency is involved) while active creates apparently, an atmospheric anomaly that causes--from what I've noticed in these situations--a strange and sudden affliction that seems to afflict the human nervous system in roughly 95% of the population (some of you may think I'm being TOO generous) it has these noticeable effects: mass stupidity, mass standing comatose adult/children (like deer in headlights), GRABBING THEIR FUCKING cellphone to video it, calling anyone but 911, calling 911 when the situation could have been averted for atleast a minute (sometimes more, MUCH MORE--it can get ridiculous) by them doing a small innocuous measure--but the measure is: beneath them, might get them dirty, they may get close to "the action", they could injury themselves requiring a band-aid; and so, so, so, so, so, many other things that could be listed, but you really can just go to the Failblog and look around and find one thousand examples I don't have here. But this 95% always does the things I listed above and do similar ridiculous actions OTHER THAN stopping the problem! It really is quite amusing and it's also why we've got the term "hero". Hero really should read:

Hero: The person that finally decided to resolve a problem when everyone else decided it was better to journal about it. You get my drift... Yes, there is the "real" hero out there, but they typically have other things that show that they are, like undying loyalty from their followers or getting the Medal of Honor--that type of thing.

This window washing water can be found in large containers, like the one he was carrying to put the fire out, around EVERY single station (typically, sometimes there are even WATER HOSES in the middle). Atleast ONE person was paying attention and put the fire out on both the fuel hose and the gas tank (it looked like he got them out--with a little bucket of water...well used if I might say). He is a minor hero, but he's one of those people that solves an emergency put before a group of people, and decidedly did not take photos first.

Just felt like the man deserved some credit, so I decided to have someone say something good about him (me ); since it's mostly about the idiot eia douche who RAN to find help from the store manager, running RIGHT PAST the fire extinguisher--fucking poetic and on camera. That guy will NEVER live this down...

I'm ALSO assuming he did panic and run into the store to find the clerk, rather than just running away, BUT people HAVE done that... ((Benefit of doubt for this eia, I guess...)

I feel bad for her, and shame on Disney for being such twats, but I couldn't help Laughing at her taking a picture of herself crying with a cellphone camera LOL.

"The illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship" ... And this is bad because?

"We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control" ... You say it like its a bad thing.

"Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved" ... Actually no, I'm fine with alone. It is other people that need stuff that feels like a problem that needs to be solved.

"Constant connection is changing the way people think of themselves" ... Yep that's the way it has always been. I bet there was someone like her when the telephone was invented, and when the radio was invented, and when the TV was invented. The world is changing, and I am cool with it.

And then she ends the talk, talking about learning to be alone with ourselves. Hmm, as someone who never texts, never bring a cellphone anywhere, only talks to people at work because that is what I am paid to do, and does not even have a twitter account, I guess she wasn't talking to me.

though on the flip side..I guess I'm an old man already as I still think it's fucked up that they let kids have cellphones out in class. It's fine that they have them, but they should be out of sight during class. nothing is critical enough to a kid that it can't wait till after class.

>> ^Darkhand:


Pork that's the problem though even your own article says "I have my doubts, I don't see how" but we don't know all the facts.
This law should not be under scrutiny until it's actually used and if it actually gets zimmerman off.
And the problem with your Theory about Martin being able to continuously pummel Zimmerman while he is on the ground is not true. Once Zimmerman is on his back the "Perceived Threat" is neutralized. It works the same way here in jersey with self defense but I can't use a gun. I answer force with equal force. Once my opponent is disabled I can't keep wailing on them.
Being stalked, in my opinion, does not allow you to feel like your life is in danger. Martin used his cellphone to text his girlfriend, why didn't he call the cops and try to get help?
But then again I'm not a lawyer OR a judge and nobody else is. So everything I say here could be wrong. We don't have all the facts so anyone claiming to know EXACTLY what happened is wrong.
It's just funny because it seems to me that liberals are siding with Martin and Conservatives and siding with Zimmerman. Everyone seems to have their own set of "Facts" and nobody is willing to believe that their own side (Liberal Media or Conservative Media) is injecting facts that may or may not be 100% credible into the case.
Everyone seems to be using this case as a means to push their own policy whether it's gun control reform, minority rights, or personal security. Everyone seems to just be ignoring the tragedy that some kid has had the rest of his life taken from him. Because really that's all we do know!


If you don't have any doubts given that the police didn't tox screen Zimmerman, Zimmerman was told not to follow, they had the wrong detective doing the investigation, and witnesses were coming forward weeks AFTER the incident to try to tell their side of it and saying police never investigated. Then I don't think you can call yourself objective.

I personally try to put myself in either person's shoes and decide if I think I would have acted the same way. I can see Trayvon's point of view more easily than I can Zimmerman. If I were a teenager visiting my father and someone in his neighborhood was following me, I would definitely try to run. And if they kept pursuing and had me trapped, you have the choice of letting them do whatever or fighting back. That part is going to vary on what is being said, but I think Zimmerman acted as aggressor there.

Now in Zimmerman's shoes, I don't own a gun, in fact I've never even held one or fired one. However, if I did have a gun, I certainly would not get so close to someone as for them to take my gun from me or prevent me from using my gun if I felt they were "suspicious". I also would not have gotten out of my vehicle to make that even more likely to occur. As for following a teenager, if they looked like a teen in physical appearance I wouldn't push the issue. If it were an adult acting like that, I might be concerned enough to try to keep them in view from a block away or something. I certainly would never have gotten out of my vehicle in either case of a non-injured teen or adult...they obviously don't want you to be near them if they RUN.

The SYG law, which I have quoted the relevant portions in a previous quote does not say that someone is neutralized when they are on their back. Reposting a portion of it:

2011 Florida Statutes CHAPTER 776 JUSTIFIABLE USE OF FORCE[14]

776.012 Use of force in defense of person.—A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or
(2) Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.

If Trayvon could reasonably believe he was in imminent threat of death or great bodily harm the law clearly says he could use lethal force against Zimmerman. Given that Zimmerman was awake throughout and had the ability to draw a gun and shoot, he was not neutralized. Trayvon was within his rights to defend himself by beating Zimmerman to death if he reasonably felt his life was in danger. If Zimmerman said he had a gun, or the gun was detectable through clothing, or brandishing it, that's a clear indicator that Zimmerman had the ability to use lethal force against him.

Martin wasn't texting his girlfriend, he was speaking to her according to her testimony. She says the line went dead after she HEARD them ask questions and then shoving began.

As for stalking, people get restraining orders against stalkers all the time. If it wasn't a presentation of danger, the courts would not hand out these restraining orders against people who do such things.

I don't like labeling myself as liberal or conservative. Perhaps my life experience makes me favor Martin, but I think the presentation of information thus far indicates that in the moment Zimmerman was beyond the "norm" for behavior for an adult non-LEO against another civilian who was young if not underage. That's not even counting the confrontation, he went beyond the scope a normal citizen would prior to it. Whether that was because he "on something", "pissed", "racist", or had some other agenda.....we can't know. I think it's clear evidence of him not thinking acting reasonably or thinking clearly.

And I don't feel that I'm pushing an agenda. I'm applying the language of the law to the scenario, and I feel that Zimmerman violated Martin's rights and was let go because of the law that should have applied first and foremost to Martin who was actively trying to escape Zimmerman by Zimmerman's own admissions on the 911 tapes. The rest of the police screw ups is just fuel to the fire. It doesn't even matter if Zimmerman hated blacks at this point, although it will be important once they finally apply the law in some kind of rational way. To determine if this was a hate crime on his part, which will be left up to a jury.

Again, I can absolutely see why people would be upset on this case for a lot of reasons. But by far the most troubling is that it seems like you can put someone on the defensive, and straight up murder them as soon as they have lost all other options of flight and turn to fight. Not seeing that aspect of it, is by far the most troubling "blindness"/willful ignorance of the people coming out on the side of Zimmerman. Without evidence to show that Trayvon had a chance for escape, Zimmerman is 100% wrong in the wording of the law under 776.041 as the aggressor. If we can't apply the law by it's language, it's a useless law.

>> ^Porksandwich:

>> ^Darkhand:
>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
@Darkhand.
Did you even listen to Cenk's point?
A heavy adult male with a gun stalks an unarmed teen, then claim self-defense..
What logic are you using to conclude Zimmerman is somehow not guilt of murder?
What if Zimmerman had stalked a 17 year old white girl, then shot her dead after she fought back?
What you need to see more evidence then?

Someone stalking you, whether anyone likes it or not, is not a just cause for you to turn around and beat the crap out of them.
If Martin turned around and punched him and knocked him on his ass I think that would have been a justifiable amount of force. But continuing to beat on him as some people suggesting to "knock him out" you don't understand how the body works. You can't tell the difference between "Oh yeah I knocked him out" and "Awesome! Internal bleeding and his brain is swelling now I can get away".
Does everyone here really believe because Zimmerman was being over zealous they feel he deserves to get knocked down and have someone sit on top of him and continuously punch him in the head?

According to the SYG law, which they claim let's Zimmerman walk away with no charges. Yes Trayvon had the right to defend himself from a pursuer if he felt that he was in danger. The level of damage he could inflict was dependent on how much danger he thought he was in. The law defines everything as "reasonable" for the level it has to meet. If someone chased you down in a vehicle, you escaped him and he continued looking until he found you again. That to me is reasonable grounds to assume this person means you harm.
Plus, I still have trouble fathoming how Trayvon got within striking distance of Zimmerman in the first place. I find it entirely unlikely that he would approach his stalker. So I believe that Zimmerman cornered him or caught him in a hiding spot. It just never would have happened if Zimmerman would have 1) not followed him 2) not got out of his vehicle.
And I'll just throw this out, carrying a gun carries with it a certain expectation that you will use said gun otherwise carrying it will end up getting you shot if you draw and don't use it. I think Zimmerman felt confident due to his gun and his willingness to use it. Substitute any other rational adult and they would not hunt down a kid and approach him to within striking distance, it's too predatory to continue forward once you've gotten within speaking distance of someone who has tried to evade you once already. Keep in mind that Trayvon had not committed a crime to warrant the amount of attention Zimmerman was giving him, nor the need to approach him beyond the distance a loud speaking or even shouting voice would carry. I certainly would not approach a kid on public property who ran away from me initially. I may be more inclined to hunt them down if they were on my private property or in a dangerous area, but neither of those fit this scenario.
The act of pursuing someone who is trying to get away is by it's nature aggressive. Martin had the right to defend himself from a stranger demonstrating aggressive behavior. The language and frustration Zimmerman expressed on the phone call also suggests he was not pleased to have someone get away on his watch, and perhaps semi-racist in nature.
On the flip side. If Trayvon had chased Zimmerman and still ended up shot to death, would this conversation even be happening? Trayvon would have been provoking the encounter and even if he never laid a finger on Zimmerman, the law states you can use deadly force if you believe someone means to great bodily harm or commit a felony.
It's a joke that Zimmerman has the right to "defend himself" with deadly force, in an encounter he forced upon a teenager against all advice and all material that Zimmerman had presented at a neighborhood watch meeting. The presenter came forward and spoke about it. Under the law he has to meet criteria as the aggressor. I do not believe the police have released information showing he fulfilled those criteria, and his immunity under SYG should be forfeit.
The language on the call "coon", the lack of a tox screen, and the various other screw ups by police. PLUS not holding him until they at least interviewed everyone they could find within a block of the shooting. Now all of those people are potentially tainted by Zimmerman's presence, the media coverage, and the bias of the sources of this information. It's up to the second investigation to hopefully see that they screwed the pooch and see if it was because they are incompetent, racist, or covering up for Zimmerman.
I don't blame anyone for being outrageously pissed and concerned over this. It essentially means you can walk down the street, stalk any lone person, and shoot them dead if they have anything in their hand you can claim looked like a gun or say anything like "I'll kill you...........................if you come any closer." Just the last part won't make it out of their mouth if you have your gun good and ready to blow a hole in them.


Pork that's the problem though even your own article says "I have my doubts, I don't see how" but we don't know all the facts.

This law should not be under scrutiny until it's actually used and if it actually gets zimmerman off.

And the problem with your Theory about Martin being able to continuously pummel Zimmerman while he is on the ground is not true. Once Zimmerman is on his back the "Perceived Threat" is neutralized. It works the same way here in jersey with self defense but I can't use a gun. I answer force with equal force. Once my opponent is disabled I can't keep wailing on them.

Being stalked, in my opinion, does not allow you to feel like your life is in danger. Martin used his cellphone to text his girlfriend, why didn't he call the cops and try to get help?

But then again I'm not a lawyer OR a judge and nobody else is. So everything I say here could be wrong. We don't have all the facts so anyone claiming to know EXACTLY what happened is wrong.

It's just funny because it seems to me that liberals are siding with Martin and Conservatives and siding with Zimmerman. Everyone seems to have their own set of "Facts" and nobody is willing to believe that their own side (Liberal Media or Conservative Media) is injecting facts that may or may not be 100% credible into the case.

Everyone seems to be using this case as a means to push their own policy whether it's gun control reform, minority rights, or personal security. Everyone seems to just be ignoring the tragedy that some kid has had the rest of his life taken from him. Because really that's all we do know!