Right fucking on!! My new hero, too.
The big, conceptual breakthroughs come from basic research, where no one is expecting them. Applied research is for improving the stuff we already have conceived.
Never tell a scientist what he can and can't look in to.

ya... i'm left feeling sad too.

i've watched his stuff before... he a great conceptual artist, but he needs help w/ story to really succeed in this medium.

>> ^mkknyr:
some interesting visual textures... but not very sophisticated animation conceptualization, intermediate After Effects usage, and undercooked content.
C+


So what you're saying is that I'm still a shallow twat. Damn it!

Heee heehhhehe.....made you look!!!
Dunno why wees onna thematic romp into all things skeery-theery lately, perhaps it's to point out the robotic action/reaction response from most monkeys, who like to place, again, convenient labels on concepts too difficult or upsetting to wrap one's head around-"She must be crazy", then a few other monkeys in the group agree, and "Voila!" We have a denial party!!!

Read of the exploits of one, Jasper Maskelyne, the guy who during WW2 who was employed by British Intelligence to create elaborate illusions (literally, smoke n' mirrors)designed to fool the perceptive apparatus of the Axis bombers, and otherwise tweak the mind of the enemy, to bend to the will of Svengali.....

choggie sees no conspiracy, hears no conspiracy, speaks of none (though it would appear that he does) but has a whole lotta fun watching what simpletons do when the flag pops up....some folks go to great lengths to discredit that which they have difficulty conceptualizing, some go get in the closet, others begin to see a pattern....Thank's dystop, for your version of finger-pointing, hope you spent the week pouring through all manner of bizzarro shit, in an attempt perhaps, to block datum disruptive to your comfortable regimen of static, synaptic habit....Got a new nick-name for ya......Dana

Ya did it to yerself, Scully......Now, roll over and get rid of that thigh holster, we got two days before we have to be back in DC, baby!!!

some interesting visual textures... but not very sophisticated animation conceptualization, intermediate After Effects usage, and undercooked content.

C+

Yeah, great post.

The science on the sift is great, I'm new and it's what attracted me here, plus the cat videos .

You may find this interesting:

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/h2homesystem.pdf

It's the same set-up...

Electrolysis powered by the excess energy from photo-voltaic cells, where hydrogen and oxygen are stored as a gas and then used in hydrogen fuel cell to create electric current as required.

To me the revelation here isn't so much the solar power; the increase in efficiency of photo-voltaic cells is exciting, but not new conceptually.

Storing the fuel locally as gas, then using a hydrogen fuel cell to generate the electric current is however very nice as domestic scale systems go.

Big though, isn't it?

I'm still trying to understand precisely how the energy in the system works from a physics point of view; if they're using an electrolyte, and why noble metal components are used. Any help?

For all those who feel the disorder is just an excuse to behave badly, do you also think the same thing about autism?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Michael-Savage-says-Children-with-Autism-are-Faking-It

From the DSM-IV-TR: "Manic speech is typically pressured loud, rapid, and difficult to interrupt. Individuals may talk nonstop, sometimes for hours on end, and without regard for others' wishes to communicate. Speech is sometimes characterized by joking, punning, and amusing irrelevancies. The individual may become theatrical, with dramatic mannerisms and singing. Sounds rather than meaningful conceptual relationships may govern word choice. If the person's mood is more irritable than expansive, speech may be marked by complaints, hostile comments, or angry tirades."

i watched this documentary, La Constellation Jodorowsky, where he speaks about how he was suppose to film Herbert's "Dune". famous comic artist Moebius did a wonderful conceptual script for the movie and the soundtrack would feature Pink Floyd and Magma. the project was abandoned by the producers after the other Dune flick hit the screens.
more here: http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/moebius.asp
http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.asp

>> ^MarineGunrock:

First, let me say I appreciate your honest attempt at "tearing me a new one". Compared to other replies, yours is a gem (a diamond with 250 written on it). You asked me some non-rhetorical questions, and I will gladly answer those that my two previous replies haven't, as they were not specifically aimed at your criticisms.

Oh, so having a college degree automatically exempts you from being lowlife scum

Sigh. Obviously not. You quoted me as saying "Not to say there aren't lowlifes in corporate America,". Did you not read the full quote or are you ignoring it on purpose? In the latter case, at least don't quote the embarrassing contradictory bit.

I'd rather have my blue-collar job over sitting in a tiny fucking cubicle any day.

Maybe so, and you may well hold a moral "relatively high" ground by doing so as far as I am concerned, but in light of america's global pursuit of economical happiness, I consider pretty much all jobs inside the U.S.A and some parts of Canada as "corporate". My usage of "corporate America" here was both a rhetorical and a conceptual synecdoche that played on the ambiguity of adjective-noun compound nouns in English (out of context, "corporate America" could mean both "the corporations of America as a whole" or "the whole of America as a corporation"). Sorry for the misunderstanding here, as usage should have required quotation marks to show I didn't use the idiomatic expression "corporate America" in its commonly accepted technical sense.

So now you're calling America's greatest generation lowlife scum? I would think that the veterans of WWII deserve nothing but honor and respect for their actions, and you should too.

I do respect them, and tried to make sure that what I said could not be construed as showing disrespect towards veterans of the two World Wars. Yet you have done so with a comment that is taken completely out of context as I implied it applied only to an ENLISTED army, specifically this one that is stationed in Iraq. As I pointed out, conscripts (and other time-of-war enlistees) are a different matter altogether. If you think they're not, may I just point out that officially, the United States has not been at war with anyone since WWII? Not in Korea, not in Vietnam and certainly not in both Iraqi "operations". The Congress may have voted funds and whatnot, but that is not War according to any international definition. Thus, only WWI and WWII will stand as examples of real modern wars with conscripts and ethically justified enlistment. Also, see my second post.

If it wasn't for them, you'd all be speaking German and saluting the Swastika right now.

Overused red herring. Please think of the Nazis and their children!

How can someone that honestly doesn't know of back-room politics and abuse of fellow humans be low life scum?

It is called guilt by ignorance (in christian terms, "Vincible Ignorance". Ask a theologian near you) You can be condemned in court as a consequence of it, if it can be shown that while you could have known the law, you didn't make the effort to for whatever reason (normally, you're suppose to know all law, but let's say you try to argue that it was somehow absolutely impossible for you to know it and that this should somehow absolve you of any wrongdoing). See also the concepts of "pluralistic ignorance" and of the bystander effect.

What if he did know about it?

Then that makes him guilty by association if he could prevent wrongdoing or if he refused to denounce it.

Maybe he would fucking want to join just to show that there ARE people in the military that don't beat on prisoners?

Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that people in the military did beat up prisoners. If he joins the army without denouncing those actions, how are we to know that he doesn't intend to perpetuate them?

Someone that honestly loves his country so much he is willing to put his life on the line is stupid?

If he is doing so blindly then yes, whether or not the thing he does thereby is wrong or not. Of course, that is only my (and I reckon most of the educated world, except some parts of the United States and some other really religious educated regions) ethical standpoint, and you may stand elsewhere on this issue.

O RLY? Care to actually back asinine claims like that up with actual fucking data?

Well, I haven't heard of any prisoners being tortured or beaten during the invasion per se, nor in the immediate aftermath, and my educated guess would be that the advent of such actions would indeed be sudden, but following a gradual increase in emotional detachment from the guards (refer to the Stanford prison experiment that I quoted two sentences later, which is more data than you'll ever need on this matter, I'd think). But what I wrote was not a scientific article. If I were to cite every paper I've ever read (most of which you probably couldn't understand right away anyway) to satisfy your misplaced need for "data", I would not be finished writing that first post yet. Relishing that thought may well please you; if so you are misguided indeed (misguided about how "science" works and also about the internets).

Again, O RLY? Moar data plz. Or should I say ANY data, please.
Again, have you not read what you had just quoted, where I referred you to a well known psychological experiment made in a prestigious school, published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and repeated in countless psychology textbooks which happens to sustain my very point? Or are you just trying to rip off my leg off of my still warm body? Also, see my last answer about your misunderstanding of the process of science, which applies here especially to social sciences.

Maybe because the point of my fucking post wasn't to counter his points. "Troops are low life scum" isn't a point, it's a n opinion, in case that's what you were referring to.

Maybe so, but then so was my remark not a statement about the opinionatedness of the poster you replied to, but about your implicit attempt at refutation through a more or less carefully/consciously constructed exclamation of disbelief. Indeed, as it is difficult to ascertain scientifically that a certain person or type of person is "lowlife scum", such bold statements are to be classified as opinion. It doesn't change the fact though, that some opinions are more educated than others and thus may carry more weight, either subjectively through a shared worldview and knowledge base, or objectively by being shown to be closer to an established truth that the participants in this debate eventually come to recognize as such later.

What the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING said here?

Yes indeed it doesn't directly relate, sorry. It is part of a previous version of my post that I forgot to erase entirely. Though the point it makes is now moot since it is not attached to the post as a whole anymore, the segment can be reconstructed as such: "[Your experience in your squadron may give you a different picture of the lowlifedness of the enlisted troops as a whole, since you generalize from your own, subjectively positive experience, but things may not be such when viewed from outside, and your own squadron may be a statistical anomaly.] Yes, you may have "heard [good] things" [about the rest of the army as whole], but there's a reason hearsay is not allowed as evidence in a trial: it's actually pretty unreliable. Also, keep and bear in mind that no one likes to think that he himself did "bad things" in a conflict. They always blame the other or perversely blame only themselves." For that last bit, see the concept of "pluralistic ignorance" that I quoted earlier.

Have I thrown a stone here?

I would say yes, and my whole post was, in a sense, a way to make this very point.

Basically, next time, if you don't have any data to back up supposed "facts", STFU.

Unfortunately for you, I had data, as I think I have shown here (too) extensively. But it was not to back any facts but to back opinion. I never claimed to have any facts concerning the lowlifedness of enlisted troops and neither did the original poster. The fact that I asserted my opinion as if it were fact is a rhetorical device of which you should be well aware of in "FOX-News America". It is one of the most simple, pervasive, transparent and perversely effective device in the whole of human speech (again, in my and some other people's view). It is also one of the easiest to catch, at least when you and your opponents are on different wavelengths: hence to need to train yourself to detect it even when people you agree with use it. I guarantee you it will save you from trouble in the long run.

I am a big believer in Dunbars number but I dont think it can be used so easily about left or right wing policies. For instance, what would Dunbar have to say about a small group (say a parliament) ruling a much larger group even though they cant conceptualize or care about them? You can make arguments against both extreme left and extreme right and everything in the middle that way.

Lets just say we havent found any political system yet that truly agrees with Dunbars number.

fantastic, what was the "Vaio" at the end there...looks like a conceptual piece

I had a southern dialect dictionary one time. It referred to okra as a "rot-slick vegetable" "Rat-cheer" as in, put that chair rat-cheer. etc. I wish I could locate it. It was great.

Is this instantaneous action stuff still a total hangup for theoreticians? I don't see a graviton as necessary if the local geometry of space is what it is due to concentrated mass in the vicinity. Because space/time is not an electromagnetic force, why does it have to be tied to the velocity of electromagnetic radiation? That's another one I've never really understood. But, as I've pointed out, to practice good medicine you just need a good memory and good common sense. Not many of us can solve a quadratic.
In reply to this comment by jonny:
No, I'm not a physicist either, though occasionally I pretend to be one. I do have some background in it and try to keep current, but I'm definitely no more than a layman when it comes to understanding stuff like quantum mechanics.

I might have misinterpreted your first comment to mycroft. I thought what you were saying is that while it might be mathematically interesting, it doesn't necessarily have any connection to reality. Afaik, the mathematical framework of String Theory is able to account for everything General Relativity and the Stanard Model predict. But GR is also a mathematical model. The comment about gumbo recipes was a philosophical one. The difference between a recipe for gumbo and a bowl of gumbo is that I can't actually eat the former. The recipe may be an accurate description, but it's not "real" in the sense of being able to fill my belly. So, if I have two recipes for gumbo, my only preference for one over the other is personal taste.

It's not the best analogy. And in some sense, String Theory would be like a recipe that you can't actually cook. String Theory predicts a number of things which apparently can't be tested (currently? or maybe ever?). So, I guess the question is, do you like okra in your gumbo?

In reply to this comment by snoozedoctor:
Jonny,
I'm not a physicist and don't pretend to be one. I worked my ass off to get through introduction to calculus. Conceptually, as I interpreted what I've read about the strings, it seems like trying to squeeze a square peg thru a round hole. If we mathematically cut off the corners we can make it fit. Though, no doubt, theorists scored big last century. But, I'm just skeptical on this one. Are you in physics as well?

There are alternate sources of fuel out there, but the problem is every one uses a combustion engine. Below has some writing on the engine, not just combustion but, also airbreathers, and conceptual pulse propulsion. The longterm plan is to find alternate engine and fuel sources and bring them into mainstream.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine#Modern

Edit: I say every one uses a combustion engine, to mean that the mainstream engine is combustion.

No, I'm not a physicist either, though occasionally I pretend to be one. I do have some background in it and try to keep current, but I'm definitely no more than a layman when it comes to understanding stuff like quantum mechanics.

I might have misinterpreted your first comment to mycroft. I thought what you were saying is that while it might be mathematically interesting, it doesn't necessarily have any connection to reality. Afaik, the mathematical framework of String Theory is able to account for everything General Relativity and the Stanard Model predict. But GR is also a mathematical model. The comment about gumbo recipes was a philosophical one. The difference between a recipe for gumbo and a bowl of gumbo is that I can't actually eat the former. The recipe may be an accurate description, but it's not "real" in the sense of being able to fill my belly. So, if I have two recipes for gumbo, my only preference for one over the other is personal taste.

It's not the best analogy. And in some sense, String Theory would be like a recipe that you can't actually cook. String Theory predicts a number of things which apparently can't be tested (currently? or maybe ever?). So, I guess the question is, do you like okra in your gumbo?

In reply to this comment by snoozedoctor:
Jonny,
I'm not a physicist and don't pretend to be one. I worked my ass off to get through introduction to calculus. Conceptually, as I interpreted what I've read about the strings, it seems like trying to squeeze a square peg thru a round hole. If we mathematically cut off the corners we can make it fit. Though, no doubt, theorists scored big last century. But, I'm just skeptical on this one. Are you in physics as well?

Jonny,
I'm not a physicist and don't pretend to be one. I worked my ass off to get through introduction to calculus. Conceptually, as I interpreted what I've read about the strings, it seems like trying to squeeze a square peg thru a round hole. If we mathematically cut off the corners we can make it fit. Though, no doubt, theorists scored big last century. But, I'm just skeptical on this one. Are you in physics as well?
In reply to this comment by jonny:
Mind if I jump in here? I'm curious what it is that you don't buy. I mean, General Relativity is a mathematical model as well, right? To me, they are both like a recipe for gumbo, but they are not gumbo, if you get my meaning.

[edit] Just noticed mycroft's response. A specific testable prediction would be nice in the mathematical model, and I think it's being worked on, but afaik, it can't be tested with current tech? possibly with any tech? That would make it a bit of mental masturbation ultimately, unless it can be used to predict something.

In reply to this comment by snoozedoctor:
Hey, this has little to do with the sift, but, as a physicist, what do you think of all this string theory business. Is it just mathematic manipulation? I recently read another book about it. So far, I'm not buying it.