Randomness thread, part two.

[bikes]

ONE DAY LEO ONE DAY

[a500lbgorilla]

Man, I ain't even seen Mathew McConiheys movie. This is bullshit!

[Lukie]

ONE DAY LEO ONE DAY

R.I.P.

[boost]

I haven't seen Wolf of Wallstreet, but did people actually think it had a chance? Why? Because Scorsese and DiCaprio? Did you see what it was up against?

[bikes]

I haven't seen Wolf of Wallstreet, but did people actually think it had a chance? Why? Because Scorsese and DiCaprio? Did you see what it was up against?

nah no chance but just poor leo

[a500lbgorilla]

I don't think anyone cared about his actual chances. The fake spoiler that he was going to win put everyone in the mindset that he wants it and deserves it and so this is a let down.

[aubreymcfate]

Thoughts:

WTF @ Bette Midler taking a gigantic, cheesy-ass synthesized 90s dump on the memoriam. We were forced to sing that song constantly in elementary school during assemblies for our parents. That says a lot about that song.

Lol forever and ever at Ellen Degeneres, particularly her brilliant bullying of Jennifer Lawrence.

So much plastic surgery evident in the myriad upper lips that just refused to move.

"Adele Vazine." And Idina's ensuing wide and teary-eyed performance, which, for my own sadistic pleasure, I assumed was her disappointment at having her name butchered during one of the most defining moments of her career.


I have no real thoughts because the only relevant movie I watched this year was American Hustle, and that was not an Oscar-worthy movie (although it was pretty great).

I barely ever watch award shows, let alone from start to finish, but we had people over last night, so.. it was fun. That's my fish-out-of-water opinion on the whole thing.

[jackvance]

I think Wolf of Wall Street couldn't win because that would be glorifying the greedy lifestyle and wallstreet abuse that people are already very allergic to. It was the most entertaining film I've seen in a long time though. It added another layer when I saw an interview with the guy who this is based on and found out how much stuff from the movie is genuine, like the sex in the elevator baptizing, goldfish swallowing etc.

[aubreymcfate]

omfg if you watched Breaking Bad, watch this video. I'm in tears.

[rong]

So does anyone own any music by lost peophets?

And if so, now the lead singer has been convicted of raping babies can you still listen to their music?

I was in a barber shop the other day and the barber was playing music on his iPad which was on shuffle, a lost prophets song came on and he stopped mid hair cut and ran over to change track saying "whoops, better delete that one" which I guess I found weird.

Not sure where I stand on this.

[Savy]

Yes because you can't like something if you dislike one of the people who made it. Obviously though you'd never choose to play it as people are stupid and would genuinely think you liked to fuck children too because you were listening to it.

Yet everyone loves Michael Jackson, isn't that strange.

[rong]

I really like fake sound of progress. I don't much care for anything else they did.

[Galapogos]

Every hockey game I've been to still plays that song made by that one guy busted of multiple child molestations. I can't get more specific than that, no clue what the guy's name is unless I heard it, and no clue what the song's name is. It has no words though except for some "hey's" thrown in there.

[aubreymcfate]

I think it's definitely unsettling to listen to music (or consume any kind of media) by someone whose transgressions are a recent thing. It's like, still in the air or something. That's how it feels, anyway.

One obvious point of comparison would be Wagner, who pretty much no one minds listening to now (unless you're that crazy dude from that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm).

[jackvance]

Never ever stick your dick in crazy. I can fucking strangle that bitch.

[rong]

I guess you nailed it there Aubrey. For now hearing their tracks just brings his actions to the front of your mind.

Gala, if it's not Gary glitter or mj I don't know who it is.

[rong]

As you get older you get better at spotting crazy.

[rong]

While you're feeling the rage, post naked pics.

[MadMojoMonkey]

rong asking JV for naked pics?

what just happened?

[rong]

My secret is out.

[bikes]

I still love Kanye's music. So there's that. Musical genius, social moron.

[bikes]

Never ever stick your dick in crazy. I can fucking strangle that bitch.

WAS THIS THE HOT CHICK YOU WERE SO PROUD OF? OR AM I THINKING OF SOMEONE ELSE?

I AM GIDDY WITH LAUGHTER REGARDLESS

[bikes]

LIE TO ME IF ITS SOMEONE ELSE JV

[bikes]

BEHOLD

[jackvance]

It was a belgian girl i met around that time too, we spent a fun few days together but I didn't want a relationship because I had the Cech girl in my head. I didn't know this sort of psychopath existed outside the movies, fuck. Think Hannibal Lector minus the intelligence. She had made this delusion that I had been obsessing over her and had made thousands of websites to taunt her - which was just all the random stuff that shows up when you google your own name and nothing is even remotely about you. I hadn't contacted her anymore in two or three months until she called me again, asking me to come over.

Two hours I was locked in the house with her and her enormous dog, her with the hammer, as she kept explaining how she would slowly enact her revenge on me. How she would feed me fruit pie when I was in a wheel chair. And after a struggle where I took the hammer from her (not easy she is strong) she had taken my wallet and hid it somewhere. After I had finally managed to get out of her house and called the cops, she simply claimed she didn't have it. Even her parents showed up after a while but she just kept behaving, sometimes empathically for sympathy sometimes hysterically screaming I was cyber harassing her and she kept throwing the most hurtful she could think of at me with this insane mix of hate and despair I had never seen before in my life. I had to take a day off work yesterday to get all my cards blocked, get a temporary id and driver's license from the cops and all the other crap I had to do to restore my identity. And the only thing I had done to her was.. nothing. Or ignored her I guess.

If this sounds surreal, imagine how I am feeling. Seriously disgusted and pissed off.

[jackvance]

I need something to restore my faith in humanity. How can people be this fucked up?

[rong]

Wow! That really is crazy. I've been attacked with a hair brush but never a hammer.

[rong]

Please tell me that when the police turned up and her mum and dad were there and you knew you were safe that you asked her if she was on the rag.

[jackvance]

She did tell me she had been on her rags for two weeks, that it was really hurtful and abnormal.

[jackvance]

And what pissed me off too was how the cops took her side more than mine. She's pretty much a regular with the police (with her drunken behavior and what else I wonder now?) and she's super flirty and used to twisting guys around her finger. Two of my friends were madly in love with her. I don't think I'm going to be hanging out with those two again any time soon either, just need to distance myself from that kind of crowd.

[aubreymcfate]

She did tell me she had been on her rags for two weeks, that it was really hurtful and abnormal.

Whoa. That is seriously not normal.

Also, I'm really happy you're alive and well JV - she sounds like she has serious, serious issues. Please tell me her family is putting her in some kind of in-patient care facility. And maybe they should know about the period thing? She sounds like she has a bunch of health issues that may be interacting.

[jackvance]

She's been in a rehab clinic many times (alcohol and drugs), I expect her to end up there again soon enough. She was also taking anti-depressants for bipolar in the mix. But this wasn't a spur of the moment thing, she had been plotting this for days or even a few weeks based on all the things she said.

[Galapogos]

Gala, if it's not Gary glitter or mj I don't know who it is.

Gary Glitter!

[Luco]

JV, have you ever read the Stephen King book 'Misery'?

[Lukie]

JV, how long had you been with her for? Have you posted on FTR about her before? For some reason, this sounds strangely familiar but I'm not sure if it was you relaying the story or someone else.

[oskar]

pew pew pew pew pew

http://arstechnica.com/information-t...n-this-summer/

[jackvance]

JV, have you ever read the Stephen King book 'Misery'?

I haven't read it but I just checked out wikipedia on it. Creepy familiar.

JV, how long had you been with her for? Have you posted on FTR about her before? For some reason, this sounds strangely familiar but I'm not sure if it was you relaying the story or someone else.

I don't remember mentioning her here. It is possible though.

[boost]

Woah.. That is a whole other level of crazy. Like, part of you has to be scared shitless to be involved in such a surreal event, and another part has to be wondering when the hidden cameras and prank show host are going to be revealed.

[MadMojoMonkey]

... and now for something completely different:

Anybody else as utterly fascinated by this as I am?

Gobleki Tepe

[jackvance]

Woah.. That is a whole other level of crazy. Like, part of you has to be scared shitless to be involved in such a surreal event, and another part has to be wondering when the hidden cameras and prank show host are going to be revealed.

That is probably the best explanation I have heard of how I felt during the whole thing. Complete disbelief, this couldn't actually be happening right? If current me was in the same situation again I'd probably act way differently.

[a500lbgorilla]

... and now for something completely different:

Anybody else as utterly fascinated by this as I am?

Gobleki Tepe

Prehistory into ancient history is thick with stories to let your imagination run circles with.

Check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. He does a theatre of the mind, fanboy presentation of military history. He's got amazing pieces on so many bits of ancient history. He covers the collapse of the bronze age, the Akkadian empire, the Assyrian empire... plus he does unreal multipart series on the fall of the Roman Republic (and the rise of Caesar) and Genghis Khan.

The Akkadians are as far back as you can get these days and they had some wonderful cities. The movie The Warriors was based on the story Anabasis about mercenary Greeks running through modern day Turkey heading home in which they talk about coming across the ruins of cities greater than any their contemporary Greece had to offer.

[Jack Sawyer]

For all you physicists out there,Michio Kaku is doing an AMAhttp://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ztgy9/im_dr_michio_kaku_a_physicist_co_founder_of/

[aubreymcfate]

Graham Hancock published a piece about Gobleki Tepe: http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/H...vilization.php

Definitely interesting stuff.

And here's more about it on his site: http://www.grahamhancock.com/news/in...h=gobekli+tepe


I'm putting The Warriors on my list of must-see movies.

[jackvance]

The warriors was one of my favorite movies when I was a teenager. It has great rewatch value too. I didn't know it had such a historic background, that's pretty cool.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Check out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts.

I tried to find them after I saw him on one of Joe Rogan's podcasts. I don't remember why, but I couldn't find them.

I'll try again. Got a link?

[MadMojoMonkey]

For all you physicists out there,Michio Kaku is doing an AMAhttp://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ztgy9/im_dr_michio_kaku_a_physicist_co_founder_of/

Michio Kaku... SHM... yeah...

It's like his credentials are just enough to make his speculative BS sound like it's somehow different than anyone's speculative BS.

I mean... I liked him until I took some physics classes... and I learned that he's just the one guy in the physics community that takes ridiculous questions seriously... and that gets him in trouble, because he's put himself in the realm of assumptions.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Nice. Thanks for the links, Aubrey.

[a500lbgorilla]

I tried to find them after I saw him on one of Joe Rogan's podcasts. I don't remember why, but I couldn't find them.

I'll try again. Got a link?

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

Looks like he took down Death Throes of the Republic.

Listen to Wrath of the Khans, if you like it as much as I did, I'd recommend buying his backlog. I personally torrented them and eventually donated 50 bucks through his website as I valued his podcasts more than any of the money I've spent on GoT/ASOIAF.

[MadMojoMonkey]

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

The page works fine, but none of the download links do.

[Savy]

Michio Kaku... SHM... yeah...

It's like his credentials are just enough to make his speculative BS sound like it's somehow different than anyone's speculative BS.

I mean... I liked him until I took some physics classes... and I learned that he's just the one guy in the physics community that takes ridiculous questions seriously... and that gets him in trouble, because he's put himself in the realm of assumptions.

Yeah what a cunt, inspiring lots of people to get into science by taking their "stupid" questions seriously. I mean wouldn't it be horrible if assumption and wonder where what basically spurred the scientific community onward.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Wow. That's not even close to what I said, and I think you know me well enough to know that the sentiment you accuse me of, through your use of parody, is antithetical to what I actually stand for.

FWIW, I feel a bit insulted that you'd even insinuate such nonsense.

Basically, all I'm saying is that Michio Kaku is no Niel DeGrasse Tyson.

Michio Kaku talks about String Theory like it's accepted scientific theory on the scale of gravitational theory or quantum theory. This is terribly misleading and if people are inspired to open a book and figure that out, then I'm in favor. However, I don't think it's good for the physics community or the scientific community as a whole to use non-specific language when communicating to non-scientific people.

I think that the language Kaku uses is misleading... I think this misleading language makes a lot of things that he says sound like they are facts, when in reality they are merely his own guesses. Sure he's got some education and that allows us to put some weight to his guesses over someone else's.

However, they are guesses, and it is the antithesis of scientific method to purport a unverified guess as an outcome.

[Savy]

Inspiring young teens to study Sciences - Not a bad thing

Helping create a conversation about science - Not a bad thing

I've got a couple of friends who love the guy (tbh I'm not a huge fan myself) who aren't really in any way scientific or academic. What it does do though is spur them to ask questions and look things up. Every now and then they'll come out with some bullshit they've misunderstood or make strange leaps from one thing to another but the fact they are talking about this stuff and questioning things is brilliant and they talk about it with their friends and it snowballs.

You have to remember although a lot of people interested in this may never go on to do anything major in science and as a result some of them may have slightly wrong ideas about theories which may or may not be true in the first place (which does the world no harm really) they do vote. And when the political party you vote for can have quite a big effect on the funding the science community gets having people who are aware of all the cool and useful stuff science can do is of huge benefit for society.

[wufwugy]

It's possible to have a similar popularizing effect without all the inaccuracy. See: Tyson

In line with that one great Dawkins line: religion is a problem because it teaches people to be okay with being wrong. I'm not sure I'd say Kaku encourages people to get into science who otherwise wouldn't, but he probably does make it easier for people to believe things that aren't true

[oskar]

I got his Physics Of The Impossible years ago as a gift when I had no idea who he was, and thought it was pretty shit. I'm still getting his next book because I like the subject. Maybe he's overhyping it. Idk, I like it for the story not the truth. It's a pretty good alternative to religion. We all need to work on our immortality projects. This is definitely one of the healthier plans.

[MadMojoMonkey]

For me, I used to find Kaku entertaining. Now I find him to be silly and not entertaining. The difference is that in the intervening time I acquired a degree in physics. Now I know a thing or two about what he's putting out there, and very little of it is rooted in recorded observations or current technologies. All of which I would love to discuss at length with anyone who watched Kaku and wanted to talk about it.

Really, I just think there are much better sources of "getting your science on" to be found.*

I feel like saying I don't 100% think what he's doing is awesome amounts to me saying he should stop what he's doing... that's not fair... but it might be the internet for ya.

I only said that I don't think he represents the physics community or the scientific community at large. I think he's an entertainer and not even on par with Bill Nye or Niel DeGrasse Tyson.

*Cara Santa Maria's Home Page

[oskar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWSCkplHMyk

This guy does fantastic interviews with intersting people. A lot of it is themed speculative science, but he does ask good questions. Again, I don't care much how accurate it is, I'm more interested in the story than the reality.

[a500lbgorilla]

The page works fine, but none of the download links do.

If you click on the show title, you can listen to the episodes streaming.

[MadMojoMonkey]

If you click on the show title, you can listen to the episodes streaming.

Lies... ALL LIES!!!

All I get is this:

" Video can't be played because the file is corrupt. "

[a500lbgorilla]

Try this kid right here: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/2/a/e2a1...113f4e4f6e7bb1

If that doesn't work, some widget or doodad in your firefox might be the culprit.

[d0zer]

http://www.dancarlin.com/disp.php/hharchive

Looks like he took down Death Throes of the Republic.

Listen to Wrath of the Khans, if you like it as much as I did, I'd recommend buying his backlog. I personally torrented them and eventually donated 50 bucks through his website as I valued his podcasts more than any of the money I've spent on GoT/ASOIAF.

Hardcore history is so great that I've been listening to his other podcast "common sense" just to get my dan carlin fix.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Try this kid right here: http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/e/2/a/e2a1...113f4e4f6e7bb1

If that doesn't work, some widget or doodad in your firefox might be the culprit.

OK, that's not working either. Same message.

I'm looking at updating my plugins... looks like Java was out of date... as well as quicktime and acrobat reader... but I'm hoping it's the Java that does it.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yeah... it's a mystery. I can't play the Dan Carlin stuff. I keep getting that same message:

" Video can't be played because the file is corrupt. "

[wufwugy]

are you clicking the download.mp3 button?

[wufwugy]

speaking of dan carlin, i tried like twenty minutes of the first khan one, and just couldnt get into it. i know people here love his stuff, so is there something specific you would recommend for me?

[MadMojoMonkey]

are you clicking the download.mp3 button?

I've clicked all the buttons. Same result on all.

[wufwugy]

different browser? torrent? itunes?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Ahh... IE will play it... if I wait for 90 seconds for it to start.

[BennyLaRue]

Your computer is an idiot. It happens.

[a500lbgorilla]

speaking of dan carlin, i tried like twenty minutes of the first khan one, and just couldnt get into it. i know people here love his stuff, so is there something specific you would recommend for me?

The next 20 minutes. Think of it like The Wire season 1. It'll click.

Or it won't, but who gives a hoot? You'll learn some things cool.

[a500lbgorilla]

[MadMojoMonkey]

The first one does start really slowly. He kind of starts with a defense of his approach to the story he's about to tell. He states some criticisms to his approach and answers those critiques.

It's still a bit slow once he gets going, but it is fascinating. I kind of feel like his tone isn't very inviting, though.

[wufwugy]

Trying out Prophets of Doom

I think my main problem when glancing at his material is that it's so long that it would benefit from the 80/20 rule: 80% of the content is in 20% of the time, and the rest is mostly filler that can be cut. A JRE conversation type works well for lengthy, rabbit-trail chasing podcasts, but when it's one guy telling a story, the job gets done with far fewer words. The crashcourse videos are a fantastic example of this

[MadMojoMonkey]

crashcourse is excellent. Also SciShow.
Vsauce is up there, too.
CGP Grey is nice, but infrequent content.
Veritasium and MinutePhysics should probably get mentioned at this point.


For the excessively nerdy:
Sixty Symbols
Periodic Videos
Numberphile
Computerphile

and a special nod to Vi Hart

[wufwugy]

i dont know why, but i just can't get into carlin. his podcasts are unorganized diatribes that would get a B+ in essay format. i feel like they could be greatly improved if each one was broken into like ten segments that focuses on something specific. im an hour into the martin luther one, and i dont know anything new about martin luther even though i dont know much about martin luther, and i think it's because he's just going all over the place

[d0zer]

so you do know why then