ITT: Pictures and Stories that make you think (srs)(9.4k reps) - Part III

[Swolebraahh]

we had some really amazing stuff posted in parts I & parts II so now its time for part III


Contribute what you can, whatever makes YOU think. keep the posts srs i'll be repping all good posts

BURNABY, B.C. (CUP) — On Sept. 18, Mitchell Heisman blew his brains out with a revolver on the steps of Harvard Memorial Church in front of a tour group of 30 people.

While not noteworthy in and of itself, suicides on college campuses not being totally unheard of, what is noteworthy about Mitchell Heisman is the 1,905-page suicide note he emailed to over 400 people in the hours before his exit.

When I first found out about Heisman and his epic suicide note, my reaction was probably the same as the one you are feeling write now: A knee-jerk desire to write off the situation as a depressing example of an attention seeking blowhard attempting to chisel a place in history by releasing a diatribe against injustices both perceived and real that the world had foisted upon him. Then I started reading it.

Suicide Note is a masterpiece of modern philosophy and a brilliant application of socio-biological theory to politics. I have read 400 pages of it so far, and have been unable to put it down.

The book is a magnificently written, unbelievably well researched, poignant and thought-provoking work that confirms that philosophy is still alive in the 21st century. Chapters of the book have intriguing titles like "God is Technology" and "The Seditious Genius of the Spiritual Penis of Jesus."

I do not agree with his final thesis regarding the embrace of nihilism and the rejection of hope. However, the work contains what is probably the most brilliant synthesis of the technological singularity theory, a scathing critique of modern liberalism, and what is probably the most original theory regarding the roots of the American Civil War.

Written in a mood that ranges from the sardonic to the whimsical, the spirit and personality of the author, made inscrutable by the fashion in which he publicized the work, shines through on every page.

One must admire his sense of humor when he writes: “It is highly unlikely that I will have the opportunity to defend this work.” As a work of modern philosophy, its importance and value should not be understated. Yet the book has, as the author predicted, been repressed. Not by the censor of the mainstream media, but by that supposed paragon of liberal exercise, Wikipedia.

If one types Mitchell Heisman’s name into Wikipedia, you will be unable to find a page dealing with him. The page has been deleted. Digging a little further, one can find the talk page housing the debate over the article’s notability and appropriateness.

The debate, such as it is, focuses on whether or not Wikipedia is a “news service.” Oddly enough, the majority of people on the talk page all argue for the article to be kept up, as an event notable enough to be covered by The Huffington Post and The New York Post is obviously notable enough for Wikipedia.

Though there are reams of information available on Wikipedia dealing with someone like Budd Dwyer, who killed himself in a similarly public manner, there is not one word dealing with a man who may well have written one of the most important books of the 21st century.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “So what? The guy blew his brains out, wanted his book to get out, and now you’re proving his freedom of speech hypothesis wrong by writing about him in a public forum.” And you’d be right.

What I find most interesting about the response to the work is that no one appears to have actually read it, and that people have been only so eager to post links to the downloadable version and say, “There, Mitch, up yours you arrogant bastard! Your book isn’t being repressed!”

But the very act of implying that anyone who would give air to this work would be a fool is in itself an act of repression, a confirmation of the initial freedom of speech hypothesis. Interestingly enough, Heisman’s story confirms Friedrich Nietchze’s prediction that at some time in the future, a philosophy of nihilism would come about which would be required before what Nietchze called the “Revaluation of All Values.”

At the very least, Mitchell Heisman makes for an interesting and curious case. While it's not exactly the lost work of David Foster Wallace, Suicide Note is a compelling masterwork that deserves scrutiny and voice.

‘Ningen’ humanoid sea creatures of the Antarctic

Over the past few years, rumors have circulated in Japan about the existence of gigantic humanoid life-forms inhabiting the icy waters of the Antarctic.

Reportedly observed on multiple occasions by crew members of government-operated "whale research" ships, these so-called "Ningen" (lit. "humans") are said to be completely white in color with an estimated length of 20 to 30 meters. Eyewitnesses describe them as having a human-like shape, often with legs, arms, and even five-fingered hands. Sometimes they are described as having fins or a large mermaid-like tail instead of legs. The only visible facial features are the eyes and mouth.

For the most part, the existence of the Ningen is considered an urban legend. Much of the information about this rumored creature can be traced back to a series of posts on the 2channel forums, written by a person describing the experience of a friend employed on a government "whale research" vessel.

In any case, no convincing photographs have been made public, either because they do not exist or because, as some argue, the government does not want to invite undue scrutiny and tarnish the scientific reputation of the whale research program.

Man lifts a 40-pound wheel with one hand and no effort because it’s spinning

In this demonstration from 1983, professor Eric Laithwaite shows how a relatively heavy wheel will become virtually weightless if it’s rotating fast enough.

“It’s not a conjuring trick. It’s a fact of science.”

Swiss Scientists Rewire Injured Spinal Cords, Paralyzed Rats Walk Again

^ there may be hope for lunatic yet...

Here at GeekTech, we've seen lots of contraptions to help the disabled regain some of their mobility. Now, a group of Swiss scientists from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have found a way to rewire the spinal cord of rats after a paralyzing injury.

This rat (pictured above) was just paralyzed a few weeks prior and is now running on a treadmill. The team accomplished this impressive medical feat with an extensive treatment of electro-chemical therapy and training with the help of a robotic harness.

The treatment starts with a round of injections that contain a chemical solution of monoamine agonists to rouse the dormant spinal cord nerves. These chemicals are used to replace the neurotransmitters (dopamine, adrenaline, and serotonin receptors) that normally triggered the brainstem.

Once the chemicals have excited the spinal cord neurons, the scientists start electrically stimulating the spinal cord with implanted electrodes. This is done to retrain the rat’s nervous system to use it lower limbs again--it's much like training “brain control,” but with a physiological component.

Supervolcanoes with power to 'destroy civilisation' explode far more rapidly than scientists had believed - and one could be bubbling under U.S. right now

Most deadly event that can hit Earth short of asteroid
Scientists believed they took 100,000 years to build up
Instead, figure could be just hundreds
Supervolcano believed to be simmering under Yellowstone in U.S.

A 'supervolcano' eruption is the most catastrophic natural disaster that can hit our planet, short of an asteroid impact - and now scientists believe they may build up a deadly head of steam far faster than we thought.
Instead of the process taking hundreds of thousands of years, it could take just hundreds.
The news could be bad for the US, where a supervolcano is said to be simmering beneath Yellowstone National Park. If it erupted, two thirds of the country could be rendered uninhabitable.

Resembling the lid of a cooking pot, the caldera formed when the last super-eruption occurred 600,000 years ago.

The supervolcano has erupted a total of three times in the last 2.1 million years. Scientists believe it could be due to erupt again.

A full scale eruption at Yellowstone would be 1,000 times more powerful than the volcanic blast that tore apart Mount St Helens in 1980.

There is evidence that a similar super-eruption in Indonesia 74,000 years ago came close to wiping out the entire human species.

The new study was based on analysis of a super-eruption that occurred in eastern California 760,000 years ago.

Several independent lines of evidence indicated that the magma pool erupted within a few thousand years, perhaps within a few hundred years, covering half the North American continent with smouldering ash.

The scientists based their estimate on quartz crystallisation rates. Previous studies have relied on the growth of zircon crystals, which is said to be a less accurate method.

The research is published in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.

Lead scientist Dr Guilherme Gualda, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said: ‘Our study suggests that when these exceptionally large magma pools form they are ephemeral and cannot exist very long without erupting.

‘The fact that the process of magma body formation occurs in historical time, instead of geological time, completely changes the nature of the problem.’

He said regions such as Yellowstone should be monitored regularly to provide advance warning of a catastrophic super-eruption.

[RedZed]

in.

[Swolebraahh]

Murderers have become online broadcasters. And their audience is us

At the start of most murder trials, jurors are told of the horrors they will soon encounter: photographs of blood and dead bodies, or videos of disturbing crime scenes. This raw access to the aftermath of a killing will take months to scrub clean from their minds.

Detectives and prosecutors work to ensure such gory images are never made public. But now the Internet has eroded the judiciary's role as gatekeeper, leaving the door open to a morbidly curious community that seeks out the very kind of filth once considered taboo – some of it produced by the killers themselves.

This perversely voyeuristic subculture is not new, but now it's gone mainstream, making celebrity-seeking killers into broadcasters who use Google and social media to self-promote.

This week, an estimated 300,000 viewers watched a dismemberment video posted on an Edmonton-based website. After the search for suspected killer Luka Rocco Magnotta stretched overseas, even more viewers began seeking out the footage of a man being stabbed with an ice pick and his body ripped apart, with the pieces later sent by post to political parties in Ottawa.

Police have since been able to get the video removed from the site, but the footage has been copied and continues to pop up elsewhere, making it nearly impossible to delete permanently.

Many commentators who viewed the 10-minute snuff film doubted its authenticity, which shows how much fiction and reality become blurred in cyberspace, which often strips away context.

Nonetheless, Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik clearly understood the power of the Internet when he published his 1,500-page manifesto online shortly before embarking upon the killing rampage that took 77 lives last July.

And just imagine what it would have been like if past notorious killers such as Charles Ng or Paul Bernardo, who videotaped the torture and abuse of their captured female victims, had made their videos public – finding an audience for gross-out content at the outer limits of the macabre pop-culture continuum from CSI and Saw.

Have we become so desensitized by fake violence that a disconnect is forming between our fantasy and real-world lives?

This has happened in Canada before. In 2008, Edmonton filmmaker Mark Twitchell amassed an online following while training himself as a wannabe serial killer. Inspired by fictional HBO TV killer Dexter Morgan, he wrote on ******** how he had “way too much in common” with the television character.

He was making a horror movie that police later noticed seemed to mirror the plight of an actual missing man named Johnny Altinger. He also created a ******** account pretending to be Dexter, which detailed his preparations for a killing spree modelled on his script.

Moments before attacking his first real-life victim, Mr. Twitchell wrote, “Dexter is patiently waiting for his next victi … uh, play-date buddy.”

Nobody saw any of this as strange. No one called police. Mr. Twitchell's social-media contacts actually began encouraging him. “Do this well Dex,” one wrote, “and it could be really really cool.”

The reality had been obscured by the fantasy and a person soon lost his life.

While Mr. Twitchell's online followers weren't complicit in the crime, they unwittingly played a part in a killer's hidden agenda – something worth remembering as we wonder about the motives of another social-media killer..

Like Mr. Twitchell, Mr. Magnotta has crafted an online persona that he wants his audience to see – the pretty-boy model fighting accusations that he killed kittens and once dated schoolgirl-killer Karla Homolka. He runs his own website and a handful of ******** profiles, and is believed to have started the nasty rumours he later denied.

There will be an online hailstorm if any of Mr. Magnotta's social-media accounts burst back to life during this international manhunt. He already has doubled his following on Twitter since his arrest warrant was issued, and he hasn't posted a single word on the site in more than two years.

But here we are, captivated and awaiting his potential next moves, likely feeding into what he has always deeply craved: fame.

[Addicted2Boost]

in.

edit: Supervolcanoes??? holy fuark... and I just got over all the 2012 bs. =\

[Lowlander]

I like the Indian chief one. Wish i could live my life like that. Too much of dat der greed these days.

[Swolebraahh]

[Quasimobro]

In. Looking for some to post myself.

A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

[Swolebraahh]

[LethalThrusts]

A baby girl is mysteriously dropped off at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945. "Jane" grows up lonely and dejected, not knowing who her parents are, until one day in 1963 she is strangely attracted to a drifter. She falls in love with him, but just when things are looking up for Jane a series of disasters strikes: First, she becomes pregnant by the drifter, who then disappears. Second, during the complicated delivery doctors discover that Jane has both sets of sex organs, and to save her life, they most surgically convert "her" to a "him." Finally, a mysterious stranger kidnaps her baby from the delivery room.

Reeling from these disasters, rejected from society, scorned by fate, "he" becomes a drunkard and a drifter. Not only has Jane lost her parents and her lover, but he has lost his only child as well. Years later, in 1970, he stumbles into a lonely bar, called Pop's Place, and spills out his pathetic story to an elderly bartender. The sympathetic bartender offers the drifter the chance to avenge the stranger who left her pregnant and abandoned, on the condition that he join the "time traveller corps." Both of them enter a time machine and the bartender drops the drifter off in 1963. The drifter is strangely attracted to a young orphan girl, who subsequently becomes pregnant.

The bartender then goes forward 9 months, kidnaps the baby girl from the hospital, and drops the baby off in an orphanage back in 1945. Then the bartender drops off the thoroughly confused drifter in 1985, to enlist in the time traveller corps. The drifter eventually gets his life together and becomes respected and elderly member of the time traveller corps, and then disguises himself as a bartender and has his most difficult mission: a date with destiny, meeting a certain drifter at Pop's Place in 1970.

[DrPhatBalls]

In July 1975, newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic went nuts over the death of 17-year-old Erskine Lawrence Ebbin, the poor kid having been knocked off his moped by a taxi in Hamilton, Bermuda.
You see, the previous year his brother was killed ... on the same street. Also by a taxi. Both kids were 17, and they were hit almost one year apart. Oh, and they happened to be driving the same moped.
.
.
.

The following clipping appeared on page nine, column three of The S****horpe Evening Telegraph on July 21, 1975:




That's right.
The two brothers were killed by the same taxi.
With the same driver.
Carrying the same passenger.
Almost exactly one year later.

irl final destination

will post more if i find them.

[Swolebraahh]

Some pictures you may not have seen...

[drum_muscle]

use to be an old insane asylum. place is super creepy.








Grafton State Hospital was established in its present location in 1901 (Chapter 434) as a farm colony for "chronic insane patients" of the 'Insane Hospital' in Worcester. In 1912 it was administratively separated from Worcester (Chapter 679). By 1945 the number of patients had risen to 1,730, with a total staff of 250 with 241 vacancies. By this time the institution had grown to 1,200 acres with buildings scattered widely over an area covering three towns. After 72 years of operation Grafton State Hospital was closed in 1973 as the first of a series of institutions to close in Massachusetts. The campus is now occupied by the Tufts University Veterinary School, the Federal Job Corps Program, and various state agencies. Most structures have been renovated and altered for re-use, some have been demolished.A graveyard remains on a nearby hilltop with 1,041 numbered, nameless graves of persons who died in this institution.

[Swolebraahh]

Because of the crystal-clear water, Flathead Lake in Montana seems shallow, but in reality is 370 feet in depth

[Shoester]

In for later...epic thread

[Swolebraahh]

1994's MOST BIZARRE SUICIDE

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story.
"On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten- story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this." >>"Ordinarily," Dr. Mills continued, "a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. "The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.

"When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her - therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

"The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son's financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. "Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

"The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide."

[Swolebraahh]

"The World As I See It" - An essay by Albert Einstein

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."


"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

[DerekJeter]

That wheel one is fawkin mindblowing

[Lowlander]

Did Eminem even lift? Strong bulge on Churchill aswell.

[DrPhatBalls]

The Bega schoolgirl murders refers to the abduction, rape and murder of New South Wales schoolgirls, 14-year-old Lauren Margaret Barry and 16-year-old Nichole Emma Collins of Bega, New South Wales on 6 October 1997.[1]
The girls were abducted by Leslie Camilleri and Lindsay Beckett, both from the town of Yass on the outskirts of Canberra, ACT. The men subjected the girls to repeated rapes and sexual assaults on five or more separate occasions, while driving them to remote locations throughout rural New South Wales and Victoria.[2] Over a twelve-hour period the girls had been driven several hundred kilometres from Bega, New South Wales, to Fiddler's Green Creek in Victoria, where they were stabbed to death by Beckett under the order of Camilleri.

Leslie Alfred Camilleri

Rather than being returned to the camp site as earlier promised, the girls were driven to a rubbish dump off Old Wallagoot Road, not far from their homes in Kalaru, and raped. They were then driven further south, passing through the town of Merimbula until the car stopped at Ben Boyd National Park and the girls were further assaulted. A black rubber torch belonging to Barry and a tampon were later located at the scene by police.[1]
They continued through the town of Eden, where the men again raped the girls in an area south of Eden. Camilleri then ordered Beckett to drive, while Camilleri continued to force Barry to perform oral sex on him in the back seat. They drove towards Orbost before turning off and eventually stopping at Wingan Point in Victoria, where the girls were again assaulted.

The final stop, at approximately 8am the following morning, was at Fiddler's Green Creek, located just south of the Victorian border with New South Wales. The girls' hands were tied and they were ordered along a remote bush track over rugged terrain to a creek. The group walked alongside the creek for several hundred metres. Camilleri ordered the girls to remove their clothing and wash their vaginas thoroughly to remove any evidence of the prior sexual assaults.
After washing, the girls were then ordered to lie on their stomachs before being retied and gagged. They were then separated by a distance of approximately 30 metres as Camilleri and Beckett discussed what to do next. Camilleri demanded Beckett drown the girls but Beckett protested, saying it was unfair that he had to kill both. Beckett eventually complied when an argument occurred and Camilleri threatened to stab Beckett if he did not do as wanted.

BECKETT -
"I went over to Lauren and dragged her down to the water. I held her head under the water. She was struggling and she knocked me into the water. One of my knees, I think the left went into the water. This pissed me off a little bit and I opened my knife, it was in my left hand and I stabbed Lauren in the left side of the neck. I said in my interview that it was the right side of the neck with my right hand but I am been thinking since. It wasn't my right thumb which was cut but my left. After a couple of seconds after I stabbed her she stopped moving."
"After I stabbed Lauren, I ran up the bank to where I tied Nichole up. She must have heard what I had done to Lauren because when I got to her she said, 'you're going to kill me, aren't you.' I said 'shut up' and walked around to her left side and I cut her throat two or three times. This was across her throat. The knife was in my left hand. Nichole was sitting down when I cut her throat.
After this she was thrashing around on the ground. She was trying to scream but nothing was coming out. I think I kicked her because she wouldn't keep still. And then I put my foot on to her to keep her still. This didn't work so I stabbed her in the throat. I aimed and stabbed at the hard thing in her neck. I pushed the knife all the way in but she still wouldn't keep still so I worked out where her heart would be and I stabbed her on the left side of the chest.
She still didn't stop moving so I stabbed her in the front of the chest. I was aiming for her heart. I needed two hands to get the knife through her chest. She kept moving so I kicked her in the head a couple of times. She still kept moving but she was slowing down. I waited until she stopped moving which didn't take long."

[Swolebraahh]

[Tye15]

That would probably be a good lake to fish...

[Swolebraahh]

[SaintLunatikk]

[QUOTE=Swolebraahh;893237431]Because of the crystal-clear water, Flathead Lake in Montana seems shallow, but in reality is 370 feet in depth

^mind=blown

isn't it impossible to make a completely PERFECT circle, even w a computer? even if ur one trillionth of a millimeter off...it's not perfect nomsayin?

[Bevs137]

This is a good thread.

[WPIITB]

Because of the crystal-clear water, Flathead Lake in Montana seems shallow, but in reality is 370 feet in depth

Not trying to chit on your parade but that water isn't 370 feet deep in that photo

[Mehilove]

That crystal clear lake..Shirley it cannot be real tea.

In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle.

[Swolebraahh]

Not trying to chit on your parade but that water isn't 370 feet deep in that photo

did u read the caption lol ?

[WPIITB]

did u read the caption lol ?

You mean this one?
"Because of the crystal-clear water, Flathead Lake in Montana seems shallow, but in reality is 370 feet in depth"

Falls somewhere between an urban legend and a meme, simply not true.

[Swolebraahh]

A Veteran of SEAL Team Six Describes His Training

The navy SEALs Team Six is so elite and secretive that its very existence has never been acknowledged by the military—even after its members led the successful assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In this exclusive book excerpt, former Team Six member Howard E. Wasdin describes his progress through SEAL training and its notorious Hell Week, an unthinkably brutal training gauntlet designed to separate the born warriors from the merely mortal.

When I showed up at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, California, I walked over the sand berm and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Huge waves crashed in.

Holy crap. I jumped into the balmy California water. It wasn’t balmy—especially in comparison to the Florida gulf waters I’d trained in.

That’s freezing. I popped out quicker than I’d jumped in. Wonder how much time we’re going to have to spend in that.

During the days leading up to training, SEAL Master Chief Rick Knepper helped prepare us with early-morning swims in the pool and late-afternoon calisthenics on the beach. Master Chief looked like an ordinary guy in his 40s, calmly exercising as we grunted and groaned. He didn’t seem to break a sweat.

Master Chief didn’t tell us about his experiences in Vietnam. We would have to find out about them from others. Master Chief had served with SEAL Team One, Delta Platoon, 2nd Squad. His squad thought they knew about Hon Tai, a large island in Nha Trang Bay. From a distance, the island looked like a big rock sitting in the ocean for birds to take a crap on. Then two Vietcong, tired of fighting and being away from family, defected from the island and told U.S. intelligence about the camp full of VC they left behind.

Under the cover of darkness, Master Chief Knepper’s squad of seven SEALs arrived by boat. Not even the moon shone. His squad free-climbed a 350-foot cliff. After reaching the top, they lowered themselves into the VC camp. The seven-man squad split into two fire teams, taking off their boots and going barefoot to search for a VIP to snatch. Going barefoot didn’t leave behind telltale American boot prints in the dirt. It also made it easier to detect booby traps, and bare feet were easier to pull out of mud than boots. In the camp, though, the VC surprised the SEALs. A grenade landed at Lieutenant (j.g.) Bob Kerrey’s feet. It exploded, slamming him into the rocks and destroying the lower half of his leg. Lieutenant Kerrey managed to radio the other fire team. When the team arrived, they caught the VC in a deadly crossfire. Four VC tried to escape, but the SEALs mowed them down. Three VC stayed to fight, and the SEALs cut them down, too.

A hospital corpsman SEAL lost his eye. One of the SEALs put a tourniquet on Kerrey’s leg.

The SEAL squad snatched several VIPs, along with three large bags of documents (including a list of VC in the city), weapons, and other equipment. Lieutenant Kerrey continued to lead Master Chief Knepper and the others in their squad until they were evacuated. The intel received from the documents and VIPs gave critical information to the allied forces in Vietnam. Lieutenant Kerrey received the Medal of Honor and would go on to become Nebraska’s governor and senator. Our mentors were among the best in the business.

On the first morning of indoctrination into BUD/S, we had to do the physical screening test again. After a cold shower and some push-ups, we began the test. Afraid of failing the swim, I kicked and stroked for all I was worth. Somehow, I completed it in time. Then we did the push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and run. One guy failed; he hung his head as the instructors sent him packing.

That evening, the SEAL instructors stood before us and introduced themselves. At the end, Lieutenant Moore told us we could quit if we wanted to by walking outside and ringing the bell three times.

“I’ll wait,” Lieutenant Moore said.

I thought the lieutenant was bluffing, but some of my classmates began ringing the bell.

A number of my remaining classmates were impressive: an Iron Man triathlete, a college football player, and others. One evening in the barracks, I looked at myself in the mirror. These guys are like race horses.

What the hell am I doing here?

The next day, Iron Man rang the bell. I couldn’t understand why.

One of our first training evolutions included the obstacle course (O-course). One night a SEAL might have to exit a submerged submarine, hang on for dear life as his Zodiac jumps over waves, scale a cliff, hump through enemy territory to his objective, scale a three-story building, do his deed, and get the hell out. The O-course helps prepare a man for that kind of work. It has also broken more than one trainee’s neck or back—climbing over the top of the 60-foot cargo net is a bad time to lose arm strength. Much of our training was dangerous, and injuries were common.

We lined up in alphabetical order by our last names. I stood near the end, watching everyone take off before me. When my turn came, I took off like a cruise missile. I couldn’t understand why I was passing so many people.

Partway through, I ran to the bottom of a three-story tower. I jumped up and grabbed the ledge to the second floor, then swung my legs up. I jumped up and grabbed the ledge to the third floor, then swung my legs up. Then I came back down. As I moved on to more obstacles, I noticed someone stuck behind on the three-story tower.

There stood Mike W., who had played football at the University of Alabama, tears of frustration streaming down his face because he couldn’t make it to the third floor.

With a hint of Georgia in his accent, Instructor Stoneclam yelled, “You can run up and down a college football field, but you can’t get up to the top of one obstacle. You sissy!”

I wondered what the hell was wrong with Mike W. He was in way better shape than I was. Wasn’t he? (Mike would severely injure his back, but Captain Bailey kept him around doing therapy for almost a year. Later, he became an outstanding SEAL officer.)

A number of the race horses were the biggest crybabies. They’d probably been No. 1 much of their lives, and now when they had their first taste of adversity—BUD/S style—they couldn’t handle it.

What the hell is wrong with these prima donnas?

Although running and swimming came hard for me, the obstacle course turned out to be one of my favorite events. Bobby H. and I were always pushing each other out of the No. 1 ranking. Instructor Stoneclam advised a student, “Look how Wasdin attacks the obstacles.”

I’d rather be doing this than picking watermelons.

Danger had become a constant companion. Danger or no danger, one of our instructors always spoke in the same monotone. In a classroom at the Naval Special Warfare Center, Instructor Blah’s jungle boot stepped on a 13-foot-long black rubber boat resting on the floor in front of my class. “Today, I’m going to brief you on surf passage. This is the IBS. Some people call it the Itty-Bitty Ship, and you’ll probably have your own pet names to give it, but the navy calls it the Inflatable Boat, Small. You will man it with six to eight men who are about the same height. These men will be your boat crew.”

He drew a primitive picture on the board of the beach, ocean, and stick men scattered around the IBS. He pointed to the stick men scattered in the ocean. “This is you guys after a wave has just wiped you out.”

He drew a stick man on the beach. “This is one of you after the ocean spit you out. And guess what? The next thing the ocean is going to spit out is the boat.”

Instructor Blah used his eraser like a boat. “Now the hundred-and-seventy-pound IBS is full of water and weighs about as much as a small car, and it’s coming right at you here on the beach. What are you going to do? If you’re standing in the road, and a small car comes speeding at you, what are you going to do? Try to outrun it? Of course not. You’re going to get out of the road. Same thing when the boat comes speeding at you. You’re going to get out of the path it’s traveling. Run parallel to the beach.

[DarkskinBrah]

strong thread.