kjl
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Posts posted by kjl
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For the super nerdy out there, you can simulate something kind of sort of like fractal coral growth / diffusion limited aggregation by dumping a bunch of sand (or salt) and water on a single plant pixel, which is kind of cool:
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Recon, I have listened to and read some of O'Reilly, and that guy is a partisan attack dog. I don't disagree with everything he says, but he is a prime example of somebody who picks and chooses or fabricates facts to support his position, and a prime example of somebody who demonizes his opponents instead of arguing from a logical position.
Your challenge, in return, is to watch anything by Michael Moore, and then understand that the way you feel about the guy personally, the skepticism you apply to every sentence, the distain you feel for the hate he has for things he doesn't agree with, and the giant gaps of logic you see in his arguments, are exactly what liberals see when they watch or read O'Reilly, and neither the lefties watching O'Reilly or the righties watching Moore are wrong, in my opinion. Where they are wrong is in not seeing the hate, and not applying the skepticism when they see the guy on their own side.
See:
The study was carried out during the pre-electoral period of the 2004 presidential election on 30 men, half who described themselves as strong Republicans and half as strong Democrats. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, the subjects were asked to assess contradictory statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry. The scans showed that the part of the brain associated with reasoning, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, was not involved when assessing the statements. Conversely, the most active regions of the brain were those involved in processing emotions (orbitofrontal cortex), conflict resolution (anterior cingulate cortex) and making judgment about moral accountability (posterior cingulate cortex).[3]Dr. Westen summarised the work:
“ None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged. Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.... Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts'.[4]
Also scroll down to "Polarization Effect":
In 1979, Lord, Ross and Lepper conducted an experiment to explore what would happen if they presented subjects harboring divergent opinions with the same body of mixed evidence. They hypothesized that each opposing group would use the same pieces of evidence to further support their opinions. The subjects chosen were 24 proponents and 24 opponents of the death penalty. They were given an article about the effectiveness of capital punishment and were asked to evaluate it. Then, the subjects were given detailed research descriptions of the study they had just read, but this time it included procedure, results, prominent criticisms and results shown in a table or graph. They were then asked to evaluate the study, stating how well it was conducted and how convincing the evidence was overall.The results were congruous with the hypothesis. Students found that studies which supported their pre-existing view were superior to those which contradicted it, in a number of detailed and specific ways. In fact, the studies all described the same experimental procedure but with only the purported result changed.[9]
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Just want to make sure you all don't make generalizations about liberals in the same way that Howard Dean makes generalizations about Republicans.
Yeah, I've met my fair share of "open minded" liberals who immediately hate anybody that doesn't agree with them, but I've also met my fair share of conservatives who think all the liberals are terrorist-loving America-hating defeatocrats bent on destroying the fabric of the American family.
Just remember that there are reasonable people on both sides of the aisle.
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SEE Even really left thinkers want the right to protect themselves
Not all gays are "really left", in my opinion. They tend not to vote Republican these days with the wedge issue of homosexuality being "morally wrong" and all of that, but their views on the whole "personal-responsibility -> governmental-control" sliding scale are probably just as diverse as any other group of people.
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Waitaminute!
You just put Moore on the same level as Coulter? That's just plain wrong.
I wasn't equating them - I was saying they both do their respective sides a disservice by being logically fallacious, and while being mildly energetic to some of those on their sides of the political spectrum, are in reality hurting the country as a whole by bringing the level of discourse down from logical reasoning to straight out hate or repetitive soundbites/talking-points that sound good but mean nothing.
I would agree that Coulter is way worse than Moore, in terms of what level of Hell she'll end up in. Moore is manipulative and directs people to hate what he hates. Coulter is that and more. She is legitimately bigoted and hateful on a whole different level.
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Agreed
you must have missed the part where I prefaced the post with the fact that it was an email forward going around. I didn't author it! I just threw it out for comment.
I know! That's why I gave you a winky wink smily instead of the burny burn smiley :D
The truth always lies in the middle somewhere and we only hear from the 10% on either extreme of a given subject.Yeah, I really hate both sides of the extreme 10%. It makes it so easy for both sides to make really crappy straw man arguments and generally bring down the level of discourse to where everybody is just screaming at each other because they assume that the other side is wholly as freakin nutso loony as Moore/Coulter/whoever-your-most-hated-opponent-is.
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I am comfortable with the assumption that the complete erradication of guns would only lead to a knife problem or a baseball bat problem.
I don't think the gun-control side with argue with that. I think they would argue that a knife problem or a baseball bat problem would be preferable to a gun problem. Like a crazed lunatic rampaging through VT with a knife or a baseball bat probably wouldn't end up being able to kill 33 people.
Blaming cultural problems on innanimate objects is silly.Blaming one sociopath's problems on the lack of corporal punishment, Clinton's affair, child porn, and that new fangled rock n' roll (your "Dear God" post) is equally silly ;)
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http://dict.die.net/comeuppance/
that's what I meant.
I guess comeuppance usually has a negative connotation, in a karmic payback kind of way. Like, "guy makes fun of handicapped people, gets in car accident on way to football game, ends up handicapped", or "bully picks on kids smaller than himself till he runs across the little kid with the black belt and gets pwned".
Anyways, it sounded like from your post that that section of Bowling for Columbine was a "ha ha, serves you right, Michael Moore" moment for you, whereas for me that section was more like a "holy crap, maybe Moore isn't 100% jerk" moment.
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Michael Moore sets out to make a "documentary" (purposefully in quotes there) about how we need more gun control, but has a huge comeuppance in the end when he discovers that Canadians own more guns per capita than we do and have less crime and less gun crime.
It's interesting you use the word "comeuppance". Do you view it as a failure or a weakness on Moore's part that he admits in his own movie that it's not the ownership of guns that's the problem, but that it is our culture? It seems that admitting that one's preheld beliefs were wrong based on closer examination of the facts would be a good thing, not a bad thing.
Personally, I think the guy is obnoxious, and hurts his side more than helps, but I think that part of the movie casts him in a better light than, say, his harrassment of Charleton Heston after Heston actually invites him into his house.
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edit: deleted. I don't want to get involved. Stupid politics invading my hobby forum.
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This is not a gun control comment, but just a reality check. When 200,000,000 or so people have easy access to guns, this is going to happen.
..{snip}..
We also need to find a way to reduce the desensitising effects of video games, TV and movies.
Heya, I don't want to turn this into a political debate either; this thread is supposed to be showing grief and support.
But I just want to say that I don't think it's guns, violent videogames, or TV. I think some people are just nuts, and then they snap and do bad things. In this particular case, apparently the police search has found that this guy didn't play any videogames - no first person shooters, no wargames, no tetris. He was always on his laptop, but he was just writing. Writing nonsense manifestos and really bizarre plays, apparently.
I bring it up for two reasons:
1) I really like my videogames and my movies, as do hundreds of millions of other Americans who don't turn into mass murderers and
2) I think the energy that people put into trying to find a cause for one man to snap where perhaps one doesn't exist (remember the media frenzies about Marilyn Manson, Dungeons and Dragons, Doom, etc?) is energy wasted...
But I definitely feel sorry for the parents and loved ones of those hurt and killed at VT, and I also feel sorry for the parents of the shooter; in addition to the guilt they must be already feeling, I'm sure they will immediately be judged by many to be the cause of everything. Maybe they will turn out to have been horrible parents, but maybe not, and media circuses are not known for showing due process in character assassination...
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I'd still rather have one of these:
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Heh, I just clicked on "pricey homes". Ouch.
Except for #2 and #8, all the top 20 are California, and 11 of those are within ~50 miles of me :(. Stupid Bay Area. Spend half a million dollars on a house and you still end up with a tiny dump.
edit:
Oops, sorry for the threadjack.
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I set my width at the point where I am actually physically capable of decambering the board in the middle of a turn. As a light guy (~145 lbs) that means a narrow stance (16.5" on my 173 F2 Speedster).
I haven't tried narrower, because that's as narrow as the inserts went on that board, my Swoard, my Donek, etc., etc.. When I set it wider the edge between the bindings will engage and disengage and generally chatter and bounce in a carve. That was with 18", which I think is on the narrower side for most people.
So for me I would assume that you would place your stance width as wide as it would go before you can no longer bend the board correctly, and that would depend on the flex/length of the board and your weight.
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Ultimate frisbee: (knee): torn PCL, torn MCL, torn MCL again, torn other MCL, (shoulder): torn labrum, torn labrum again, torn other labrum, (ankles): too many severe sprains to count.
Hardbooting: strained my back once. Knock on wood.
I find that I fall pretty infrequently on hardboots and when I do, It's almost always a pretty gentle slide (edge slips out, but I'm already only 5-10 inches from the ground, so the impact is minimal, so really the worst thing is a bruised ego from supermanning while gathering snow in my pants). On the very rare occasions that I fall in hardboots in another way it feels worse. Folding the nose is bad, as is putting so much energy into the board in a carve that it launches you unexpectedly airborne: both of them send you into tumbles, which are worse in hardboots that softboots for sure.
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1. Powder
2. Powder
3. Powder
4. Groom.
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There is great food at some of the high end places in Colorado (Beaver Creek and A$$pen)
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I tried the $24 burger at the base of Highlands during the SES. It turned out to be the best burger I've ever had in my life. Holy $#!+. Totally worth it.
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All he needs to do is add is 20 or 30 more mph and more lean for the carvey carvey and then he's got the perfect summer toy ;)
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Back before I started carving I used to regularly do ~54000 at Northstar (30 laps on the Backside Express which I believe is ~1800). Get there before the lift opened and leave when the lift shut down, no stopping for lunch, and if I had to pee I would use a tree.
I would do it every time there was a powder day, and let me tell you, 7 hours
of nonstop tree riding is just killer on the back leg. Back then I had massive, massive quads.
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Why not put the boards in a double ski tube and tie that to the rack? Like a mini-Thule.
I was thinking of doing that, but the SportTube things don't open in a convenient way. You would probably have to take the whole tube off the rack to take the boards out, and it would be cumbersome if you had more than one board in there, or if you had your boots in there as well. Then you'd have to relash it to the car and repeat the process at the end of the day to get the boards back in the tube.
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You can bake the liners yourself easily - when I first got my thermoflex liners however many years ago I just followed the instructions on alpinecarving.com pretty much blindly and ended up with a perfect fit. I've done it probably 3-4 times since and it's pretty easy.
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Yeah, during the SES there was an incredible powder day at Snowmass that I took my 172 Tanker out for its virgin run. Great board; the float was obviously good, but it was possible to carve it on the groom back to the lift a little in softies and it was snappy enough to maneuver it in the trees with ease as well. Wonderful board.
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Maybe I am wrong but I thought it was a story copied from a fictional Hong Kong ---Infernal Affairs
That is correct. Infernal Affairs has significantly lower production values as to be expected, but has a tighter story (the first 40 minutes of The Departed are basically summarized in a quick montage during the opening credits of Infernal Affairs so you get straight into the action).
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To some who like his movies -- John Wayne flicks usually tempered the violence with a little humor to take the edge off. Today the industry tends to over use special effect to get the opposite reaction.. But again it is my opinion and I do not expect others to always agree.
Hi, C5. Also just my opinion, and I don't expect others to agree either ;) but it is always nice to have a civil discussion like this.
I actually dislike it when movies use a little humor to take the edge off of an otherwise realistic violent scene - my opinion is that it probably desensitizes people to violence more to see Arnold say a one-liner before dropping a guy off a cliff because it makes you chuckle while seeing somebody die. Or Commando where you get to see Arnold kill off literally hundreds of faceless brown people in various funny ways. In contrast, would you think a knife fight would be cool after seeing the ear scene in reservoir dogs, or a fistfight after seeing Ed Norton beat the crap out of the blonde guy in Fight Club? By showing it in all its gritty dark realism I think it actually makes violence less attractive (in addition to simply being more effective in the movie).
I know about the stories that some kids started up fight clubs of their own after seeing Fight Club, but, no offense, those kids were all idiots. Anybody who saw the film and actually wanted to fight afterwards already had some issues...
you must have missed the part where I prefaced the post with the fact that it was an email forward going around. I didn't author it! I just threw it out for comment.
$104,655.60 Ad in the Washington Post
in The Lodge
Posted
Just read your post, Dr. D. - I think we probably disagree on a lot of political issues but I think we'd get along in person, which seems not to common is this day and age (I blame O'Reilly and Moore with providing the "worthless soundbites that sound good" ammunition for slinging at and demonizing the other side).
In regards to your "Republicans look more and more like Liberals" and "libs standing up for individual rights now", I have also noticed something like this. I used to think that conservatives were distrustful of the government and wanted more local and individual power over the federal government, and that liberals were trustful of the government. Nowadays I see a complete shift - the republicans trust that the federal government is just "doing the right thing" with its expanded power, and the liberals are constantly worried that personal rights are being encroached upon. Isn't that totally backwards?
Now it seems pretty clear to me that it's not that republicans are distrustful of government and liberals are trusting, but that both groups of people trust the government when their own people are in power, and suspicious when the other side is in power.
In my old age I am (as seems inevitable) changing from a liberal to a conservative (I am still socially liberal, but I want the government to just leave me and everybody else alone - so what does that make me? A socially liberal libertarian?), but strangely enough, being "conservative" in that I want the budget balanced, want a more restricted government, and want a less world-policey military seems to be pushing me in the direction of the democratic party. Again, totally backwards. Actually, it's pushing me in the opposite direction of the republican party, which is not really the same as the democratic party.
I wish John McCain from 6-7 years ago was still around. You know, before he became just another one of those guys.
I don't know if you're insinuating that the Washington Post ripped him off, but I doubt it. Full page ads are expensive.
I don't know where you're getting your percentages from, but that sounds like skin cream that makes your skin "up to 15% more luscious!" ;)
See: Hostile Media Effect... From the article (emphasis mine):
I bring it up because I have liberal friends that believe the media is biased to the right. Personally, I think the media is so terrified of being thought of as biased that they can't even make simple statements of fact without giving equal face time to some looney who disagrees. "Some people think baby bunny rabbits are cute and adorable, while others say bunny rabbits turn into giant robots and shoot plasma cannons at babies at night. We'll hear from these two experts later this evening."