Culture of Fear - This documentary details the epidemic of fear in our society, ranging from child predators to terrorism. It features interviews with Dr. Noam Chomsky, David Kucinish, and many other experts offering an in-depth exploration on various topics of fear.

xylon · 2012-05-26T18:34:08.618525+00:00

The Power of Nightmares was a nice BBC documentary about if I remember correctly, how the usa uses scare tactics to cause fear in the population to justify attacking a country and exploiting it's resources.

KommissarSC · 2012-05-26T17:11:39.293317+00:00

Wow that was a good game. When it was 5 base vs. 2, zerg probably could have won if he started pushing instead of teching up, but it was so close almost anything could have changed the outcome.

MarcoVincenzo · 2012-05-26T13:52:06.435876+00:00

That's a shitty way to die.

blandz87 · 2012-05-26T13:15:19.337163+00:00

I agree and it got me researching a little bit. After they mentioned the simple phrases that appeal to the widest audience, one of the words they said people liked a lot was democracy.

The USA is a federal constitutional republic, but most people call it a Democracy proudly. Federal means that the power is split between the states and the overall nation, even though I would say it is currently very biased toward the nations power over the state's.

Constitutional republic means that an elected official governs the people. But then I saw a line on wikipedia that really caught my eye: "Because the head of the state is elected, it is a republic and not a monarchy."

That means the only difference between the USA and a monarchy, is that the officials are elected. So, if in any point in history you can find a time when the elections seemed strange or unfair (hmm...) then that is a time in our history that we were closer to being in a monarchy.

Also, "Karl Marx claimed that a constitutional republic is a protective legal framework for what he considered to be "capitalist exploitation.""

whoosy · 1 day

Wow, one little mistake lining that thing up and you could damage it and possibly not even be able to berth it. Space sure looks unforgiving, everything pretty much has to go right the first time.

fastparticles · 1 day

I'm studying engineering and while this isn't the biggest misconception in my field, it's once of them.

When talking about the force that results from spinning most people pronounce it as "centrifical" which isn't a word.

If a rock was tied to a string and I was whirling it around in a circle, the string would be exerting centripetal force on the rock pulling it inward. The rock is exerting centrifugal force on the string pulling it outward.

A more interesting misconception is the structure of metals. Metals are very malleable. Metals can sustain large deformations intact. They don't seem crystalline by nature, but in fact they are. The smallest building block of a metal that still retains the property of the element is a crystal cell. Most of the time the cell is cube shaped, but sometimes they are hexagonally shaped like honeycomb. So a large chunk of metal is actually made up of millions of crystal cells, and when metal cracks it's because these cells are being ripped apart along a common line. When all the crystals are perfectly stacked and lined up, once a crack starts, it doesn't take as much force to keep it cracking, just like splitting wood down the grain.

Strong steels have carbon and other elements mixed in specifically to keep cracks from propagating. Once the crack runs into an atom of carbon it stops, like a rock in a log would stop your axe from splitting it once it got to that point, or at least would make it much more difficult.

One of the coolest things about the crystal form of metal though, is how it is taken advantage of to make some of the strongest pieces of metal that we can today. They do it by "growing" one giant crystal of metal until it is big enough to be the entire piece you're making. This way there are no stacking planes, no weaknesses for cracks to follow at all. It's a single crystal. This is how they make the blades in jet engines that have to withstand the hottest and most stressed part of the engine.

Sloi · 1 day

I think the last guy was by far the most impressive because he didn't even use a scope. And he was killing other snipers. With a scope you can aim above your target if it's far away and still see it in the scope. When you aim up to compensate for distance with iron sights, the gun covers your target and you can't even see it.

introvertlovesyou · 1 day

Thank you, I've been wondering about this for a long time. First I was told it was slow because of Java. Then somebody else said that no, it's not java, it's bad programming. I wasn't sure what to believe.

But this makes perfect sense, and I have been looking on google for a reasonable explanation like this on and off for months. Also I like that you referenced go, one of my favorite boardgames that looks so simple, but evolves into this very complex almost lifelike creature that changes before your eyes in ways that you can't predict. I played Go for about a year and was still considered very novice on the KGS Go server.

Slapsilly1 · 2 days

Wow, I must say you are a great storyteller. I would be happy to read another by you.

I am familiar with the rush that you speak of. I used to get it every SC2 ladder game I played when I first got the game. My body would pump tons of adrenaline and each match was a "big deal" to me. After a few hundred games I noticed that the feeling was leaving. Eventually it left, and now it's rare to get when I play.

After you changed morally in the game, I started to think about the Stanford Prison Experiment. It seemed similar to your story somehow. Then I deduced that in the prison experiment and in your game, you are given a position of power, but also you are somewhat anonymous. And you have the mindset of "other people are doing it, it's not that big of a deal, its just a game/ its just an experiment".

I think this also shows us something about human nature. It shows that people actually have the choice between helpful and hurtful actions towards others. When consequences for bad actions are removed (such as having a bad reputation that others can judge you by) they become more fun to choose because all day long in real life you have to be "nice" to people, and you never get the chance to do horrible things without repercussions. Lastly I think it shows that people by default get more satisfaction from doing what they are not supposed to do, than they do from being Mr. Superniceguy who helps everybody at his own expense. And that unless there is incentive to being nice (reputation, reciprocation of gifts and help) people won't be.

Real life people are not quite as cruel as the ones in these examples. The main reason I think is because the real consequences you would face wouldn't be worth it. The secondary reason people are nicer in real life though is that many people have had at least one experience so bad that they wouldn't wish it on anybody. Even though somebody may seem happy and is acting perfectly normal, you never know if they are having the worst day of their life and if the next little trouble will push them over the edge and cause them to take dramatic measures. At least that's why I try to be as kind as possible to others even if they are annoying me somehow. And that's not always possible. Sometimes your amygdala causes you to react before your prefrontal cortex can use reason. When that happens regularly it means you have poor impulse control.

TLDR: People are mean and greedy by default, and it takes a lot of willpower at least to overcome this trait.

Mattycore · 2 days

PC games used to be more commonly free to play online when dedicated servers were available and the company didn't have to pay to host anything. Now less and less games offer client side server hosting. Obviously they make more money this way, but is that the only reason? I think it might also help fight against hackers when they don't have server code to look at and figure out how to exploit.

IMABIRD · 2 days

PC's actually snap together sort of like legos. The most difficult part used to be looking up the wire diagram for the power button and system speaker and stuff, but now they have them all labeled as one giant connector so you just plug it in and don't have to look up anything.

First the motherboard must be screwed into the case, along with the power supply, and even though this part isn't hard, it's probably the hardest part because there rest is so easy.

The CPU gets dropped into a slot and depending on the socket you might have a lever to lock it down or screws or something else.

The ram pops right in, just look at the notches and don't put it in backwards. The video card and if you have any other cards pop in and are secured with a single screw. All of the power cables can only fit in the correct place. Connect the CD and Hard drives with data cables and that is almost everything. After that plug in your peripherals and install an OS and that's it.

Totemhead · 2 days

Do any laptops exist with proper GPU cooling, combined with reliable charger connection, screen and hinge, and keyboard that won't break and last at least 3 years of every day use?

It seems like almost every laptop has some sort of charger breaking issue. The next most common problem is overheating. Then after that most laptops I have used won't last for more than few years of regular use.

Who can give me a brand that delivers? I think toughbooks are a little pricey, I don't need an armored laptop, just one that doesn't break from being used a lot.

Gatzfield · 2 days

Ah, the game where I would swim around the same area for hours never figuring out what to do, but I kept playing because it was serene and mysterious and stuff.

i-just-cant · 2 days

Wait a minute... Are you trying to say that people are judged based on appearance alone, without taking into account any consideration of their actions or intents?

gbromios · 3 days

It depends on what your eating. We have a spoon like this also, and it works well for soup and iced cream and anything that you scoop out of a bowl. When you scoop you can press the front edge of the spoon against the bowl and the two work together to get you a bigger scoop and not much content falls out. If you press the traditional pointy ended spoon against the bowl to aid in your scooping, it won't really help and stuff will just fall out.

BorntoHula · 3 days

How long does something like that take to do? 6 hours maybe? I have no idea.

ChicagoMike · 3 days

Does anybody know what the "kapwing" sound effect is called? I've heard it usually when a sword is unsheathed and sun is glinting down the blade as it is slowly pointed upward. Or maybe if a bullet is reflected off of something.

ChicagoMike · 3 days

I'm glad you mentioned this. I heard the health recharging station sound from Half-Life in a CGI video that was on Eyedops back when G3 was whatever it was then, when it was good. That combined with the academy scream in starcraft had my suspicions aroused and I did some reaserch and found out about sound effects packs that were popular in the industry. If two companies use the same sound pack they use the same sounds.

Noedel · 3 days

Very interesting. I always said that baseball was a game of pitching and whoever had the best one generally won the game. To me this is not much of a team sport, or a sport with much planning or strategy, its just whoever has the best pitcher, and the rest of the team can just be average.

The game you describe sounds like it overcomes all of these parts of baseball that I don't like.

LifeofaLorax · 6 days

Yeah I really want to know now if they are still together or what happened between them after it was all over. That was really cruel to play with a girl's emotions so much. She thinks shes getting married, says yes, then gets told it was a prank?! That could be devastating.

rojath · 6 days

Blooper of the above clip

Oh god so funny. That laugh.

darkreef2 · 6 days

Was she, in fact, a schoolgirl?

TheLittleClayroo · 9 days

When I saw the ninja baby I thought: perfect album cover.

TheLittleClayroo · 9 days

I thought the same thing, they are very interesting to say the least.

I was thinking it would be neat to have an artists remake a few of them. You know a talented artist could use these as a template but draw them in much better quality with shading and everything. That would be neat.

schradernater · 9 days

It may be dehydration but it's probably also due to diet. Dry dog food usually doesn't have the fat content that dogs need for a healthy shiny coat and not-dry skin. I started adding vegetable oil (which is the cheapest you can buy but also the healthiest in terms of omega-3) to his dry food and he loves it and his dry flaky skin went away over a few months.

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