Thinking about this this takes me to some kind of conclusion:
Most civilizations would not expand very quickly at all, probably not much faster than they absolutely have to. Granted, you might imagine a very adventurous species that would send ark ships thousands of light years away just for the hell of it, but for the most part that seems unlikely, perhaps used as a last chance for survival. If any faraway colony is, in essence, as good as a different civilization, it makes little sense to send ships out very far. Moving out of a solar system would be a rare incident, mostly only taken up when the survival of the species is threatened. Just as you can't currently think of colonizing other planets as a solution for overpopulation on the earth - you just can't lift enough people off the planet for it to make a difference - you can't with any reasonably conceivable technology think of colonizing new solar systems as a solution for lack of resources or living space. You can send colonists out, but that's the last you'll see of them, and any problems you have in your own system, you will need to deal with there.
You can't really think of colonizing a galaxy in the way you might think of colonizing a new continent. The distances alone would make sure whatever reaches the far end of the galaxy would be a completely different species than the originator of the "colonization". Barring faster-than-light travel or some kind of extreme (from our point of view) psychology and genetics, I see no way a civilization spanning an entire galaxy could exist. If we colonized Mars now, it wouldn't be very long before they started to go their own way. Hell, the Americas were lost to the parent countries in a few centuries, and that's on the same planet.
It just doesn't make much sense to take an expansionist view of space travel, unless maybe your species is very, very patient and stable. Any colonists you send far out, you will never have meaningful contact with again. At that point you might wonder what the point of "conquering" new systems is, in terms of nationalist-type expansionism.
No, I think humans are still way up there even by that standard, at least as far as large vertebrates are concerned. We survive through co-operation with other members of our species. Sure, you can put an unarmed human against a lion and there's little dispute what the outcome would be, but to say a human must survive without society and technology is like saying a lion must survive without claws.
I think a lot of people have conversations with imaginary personalities in their heads. I know I tend to spontaneously test out ideas that way, and I'm not the only one I know who does that. What language the conversation happens to be in depends mostly on what language I've been using recently. It is handy in terms of learning languages, of course, since you quickly run into things you want to say and don't know how to, so you find out.
Some units collect and use traffic data from GPS users to use for route selection. I know the Nokia Maps app lets you enable such a feature, how well it works I don't know.
I'm pretty sure you are actaully paying to use the bathroom. Someone processes your wastewater, and they don't do it for free. Unless, of course, you just dump all that shit in a river or something. In any case, if the waste facilities could extract the urine and sell it off, maybe the costs to you could be lowered as well. Something tells me there are issues with extracting it from sewage, though.
Perhaps, that depends on the level of activity though. Crossfit, done at proper intensity, is very taxing. I've never heard of anyone say they needed less sleep after starting, I do know a lot of people, myself included, who sleep like logs for 9-10 hours thanks to the exertion.
No-one's saying her actions weren't reprehensible. Punishing her, however, must be done with proper application of law. Whatever the wrong done, corrupting the rule of law in order to punish someone will bring consequences far worse than failure to "get" a wrongdoer.
Re-reading your post, I think I didn't pay enough attention to just how little time you have for anything except work. You will not get fit, or even stay healthy, on that schedule. If you start exercising, you will need more rest than you're getting now. With a schedule like that, I'm guessing your eating habits aren't the best either, another thing that will really break you down if you start doing any real exercise. So the best thing you can do for your health is to get a different job or find a way to cut your hours. Maybe you'll have some time to live a little as well.
Seconded, although the full Crossfit regimen does require a certain amount of equipment and preferably coaching. Most regular gyms won't have climbing ropes and gymnastics rings, and are in general not very optimal for the workouts - all those machines and the people using them get in the way... Perhaps there's a Crossfit affiliate near you, but I get the impression you might prefer not using time to travel there and back. On the Crossfit message boards, or perhaps in the Journal, you should be able to find comprehensive instructions on building a good garage gym, if you're willing to put up the cash and time constructing it. A lot of the exercises, especially where weightlifting is concerned, would be better learned with coaching. Some of them are quite challenging technically. If you don't have time to go to a gym and can't or don't want to get your own equipment, here's a list of bodyweight-only workouts on the Crossfit messageboard. You will not get the full benefit of the method, but they'll still kick your ass into shape: http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=38312
I recommend you visit the site, read the FAQs and the message boards, learn what it's about and why the exercises are done the way they are, especially if you need to do your own programming, as I think you will if you do the bodyweight exercises only. I've been training this way for 9 months or so now, and the results are pretty phenomenal. I was your run-of-the-mill gym rat before, doing bicep curls and other stupid things, in fair shape compared to the general population, but getting nothing like the performance I see now. I've improved in every aspect since I've started training this way - I'm faster, stronger, have better stamina, am more agile, more coordinated etc. etc. The only thing to keep in mind is it's a brutal method. The workouts are supposed to feel bad. If you're not pushing your limits when you do these, you're cutting yourself short.
In World War II, the Japanese would make some of their young, unblooded soldiers bayonet innocent prisoners to death. Their friends would cheer them on. Afterwards, all these soldiers were treated to the best meal they've had in months, sake, and to so-called "comfort girls." The result? They learned to associate violence with pleasure.
There is another explanation for how this would work that isn't about conditioning. The soldier has an inner conflict: murder is reprehensible but his peers and the authorities around him encourage him to commit it. Having commited murder, the soldier has chosen to bend his morals in favour of group loyalty. By accepting a reward for murder, the soldier accepts the act again, deepening their commitment. Now the conflict is not only between the soldier's inner morals and external pressure, but also between his repulsion for murder and the fact that obviously he himself holds other values in higher esteem still, since he already did kill someone, with the extra guilt of having profited from the act providing further pressure. Many will eventually conclude, consciously or not, that what they did was the right thing to do, and will do it again if ordered to, because to refuse at any point would be to accept guilt over all the things they have already done.
You think Helsinki smells? It's downright sterile compared to most European cities. I agree the winters suck, especially in the south where it's just wet and cold all the time, but have you been outside this week?
I don't know if I would classify Finland as a particularly "free" country. It's been fairly open-minded for a long time, but that's mainly because the population has historically been highly homogeneous. Things are changing slowly now, or at least people think they are, and the police-state legislation the OP found unpalatable is making headway into the Finnish system as well. Internet censorship, erosion of the right of journalists to protect their sources, data retention, giving private entities the right to monitor teletraffic data... It may not be as bad as in some other places right now, but I wouldn't bet on it not getting worse.
Theft
1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.
(quoted from dictionary.com)
I've heard it claimed that smoking cannabis makes you absorb information better, but that you also have to be stoned in the tests for it to be of any use...
That may have been the case a while back, I'm not so sure anymore. Internet censorship is being introduced across the board, police are being given the right to covertly install trojans on citizens' computers (germany, france at least, so expect EU-wide plans soon), there's constant pressure to pass three-strikes laws to force ISPs to disconnect users who allegedly download copyrighted material without authorization. In general the trend seems to be for more legislation of increasing complexity in all areas of life. This is not aided by the nature of EU decisionmaking, an obscure process extremely distant from the people it actually affects. The next great totalitarian state will be born not of hatred or passionate mass movements, but as the consequence of a relentless influx of new laws. The legislators have to do something to keep themselves busy, after all.
Slashdot Mirror
Thinking about this this takes me to some kind of conclusion:
Most civilizations would not expand very quickly at all, probably not much faster than they absolutely have to. Granted, you might imagine a very adventurous species that would send ark ships thousands of light years away just for the hell of it, but for the most part that seems unlikely, perhaps used as a last chance for survival. If any faraway colony is, in essence, as good as a different civilization, it makes little sense to send ships out very far. Moving out of a solar system would be a rare incident, mostly only taken up when the survival of the species is threatened. Just as you can't currently think of colonizing other planets as a solution for overpopulation on the earth - you just can't lift enough people off the planet for it to make a difference - you can't with any reasonably conceivable technology think of colonizing new solar systems as a solution for lack of resources or living space. You can send colonists out, but that's the last you'll see of them, and any problems you have in your own system, you will need to deal with there.
You can't really think of colonizing a galaxy in the way you might think of colonizing a new continent. The distances alone would make sure whatever reaches the far end of the galaxy would be a completely different species than the originator of the "colonization". Barring faster-than-light travel or some kind of extreme (from our point of view) psychology and genetics, I see no way a civilization spanning an entire galaxy could exist. If we colonized Mars now, it wouldn't be very long before they started to go their own way. Hell, the Americas were lost to the parent countries in a few centuries, and that's on the same planet.
It just doesn't make much sense to take an expansionist view of space travel, unless maybe your species is very, very patient and stable. Any colonists you send far out, you will never have meaningful contact with again. At that point you might wonder what the point of "conquering" new systems is, in terms of nationalist-type expansionism.
No, I think humans are still way up there even by that standard, at least as far as large vertebrates are concerned. We survive through co-operation with other members of our species. Sure, you can put an unarmed human against a lion and there's little dispute what the outcome would be, but to say a human must survive without society and technology is like saying a lion must survive without claws.
That depends on the loudness of your horn. If it displaces enough air to actually move the cars forward, you might be a helpful jerk.
This is a good question, especially since fires and earthquakes tend to go hand-in-hand. I certainly hope they don't use gas in these buildings.
Yea, because they totally couldn't have stuffed boxes full of fake paper ballots.
You jest, but worth pointing out anyway that AFAIK it's generally been thought high intelligence is a risk factor for schizophrenia.
I think a lot of people have conversations with imaginary personalities in their heads. I know I tend to spontaneously test out ideas that way, and I'm not the only one I know who does that. What language the conversation happens to be in depends mostly on what language I've been using recently. It is handy in terms of learning languages, of course, since you quickly run into things you want to say and don't know how to, so you find out.
Last.FM radio also isn't free these days outside the US, UK and Germany. Costs 3 euro/ month.
Some units collect and use traffic data from GPS users to use for route selection. I know the Nokia Maps app lets you enable such a feature, how well it works I don't know.
Oh I can already do that. Just send me a few bars of gold, I'll transform them into lead and send them back to you. Postage is on you.
If men could reproduce on their own, do you think women would just vanish?
I'm pretty sure you are actaully paying to use the bathroom. Someone processes your wastewater, and they don't do it for free. Unless, of course, you just dump all that shit in a river or something. In any case, if the waste facilities could extract the urine and sell it off, maybe the costs to you could be lowered as well. Something tells me there are issues with extracting it from sewage, though.
Perhaps, but try convincing people that sure, they took the vaccine, but they'll still need to be just as careful as before.
Perhaps, that depends on the level of activity though. Crossfit, done at proper intensity, is very taxing. I've never heard of anyone say they needed less sleep after starting, I do know a lot of people, myself included, who sleep like logs for 9-10 hours thanks to the exertion.
No-one's saying her actions weren't reprehensible. Punishing her, however, must be done with proper application of law. Whatever the wrong done, corrupting the rule of law in order to punish someone will bring consequences far worse than failure to "get" a wrongdoer.
Re-reading your post, I think I didn't pay enough attention to just how little time you have for anything except work. You will not get fit, or even stay healthy, on that schedule. If you start exercising, you will need more rest than you're getting now. With a schedule like that, I'm guessing your eating habits aren't the best either, another thing that will really break you down if you start doing any real exercise. So the best thing you can do for your health is to get a different job or find a way to cut your hours. Maybe you'll have some time to live a little as well.
Seconded, although the full Crossfit regimen does require a certain amount of equipment and preferably coaching. Most regular gyms won't have climbing ropes and gymnastics rings, and are in general not very optimal for the workouts - all those machines and the people using them get in the way... Perhaps there's a Crossfit affiliate near you, but I get the impression you might prefer not using time to travel there and back. On the Crossfit message boards, or perhaps in the Journal, you should be able to find comprehensive instructions on building a good garage gym, if you're willing to put up the cash and time constructing it. A lot of the exercises, especially where weightlifting is concerned, would be better learned with coaching. Some of them are quite challenging technically. If you don't have time to go to a gym and can't or don't want to get your own equipment, here's a list of bodyweight-only workouts on the Crossfit messageboard. You will not get the full benefit of the method, but they'll still kick your ass into shape:
http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=38312
I recommend you visit the site, read the FAQs and the message boards, learn what it's about and why the exercises are done the way they are, especially if you need to do your own programming, as I think you will if you do the bodyweight exercises only. I've been training this way for 9 months or so now, and the results are pretty phenomenal. I was your run-of-the-mill gym rat before, doing bicep curls and other stupid things, in fair shape compared to the general population, but getting nothing like the performance I see now. I've improved in every aspect since I've started training this way - I'm faster, stronger, have better stamina, am more agile, more coordinated etc. etc. The only thing to keep in mind is it's a brutal method. The workouts are supposed to feel bad. If you're not pushing your limits when you do these, you're cutting yourself short.
In World War II, the Japanese would make some of their young, unblooded soldiers bayonet innocent prisoners to death. Their friends would cheer them on. Afterwards, all these soldiers were treated to the best meal they've had in months, sake, and to so-called "comfort girls." The result? They learned to associate violence with pleasure.
There is another explanation for how this would work that isn't about conditioning. The soldier has an inner conflict: murder is reprehensible but his peers and the authorities around him encourage him to commit it. Having commited murder, the soldier has chosen to bend his morals in favour of group loyalty. By accepting a reward for murder, the soldier accepts the act again, deepening their commitment. Now the conflict is not only between the soldier's inner morals and external pressure, but also between his repulsion for murder and the fact that obviously he himself holds other values in higher esteem still, since he already did kill someone, with the extra guilt of having profited from the act providing further pressure. Many will eventually conclude, consciously or not, that what they did was the right thing to do, and will do it again if ordered to, because to refuse at any point would be to accept guilt over all the things they have already done.
1% of the surface of the earth as top-secret military installations?
You think Helsinki smells? It's downright sterile compared to most European cities. I agree the winters suck, especially in the south where it's just wet and cold all the time, but have you been outside this week?
I don't know if I would classify Finland as a particularly "free" country. It's been fairly open-minded for a long time, but that's mainly because the population has historically been highly homogeneous. Things are changing slowly now, or at least people think they are, and the police-state legislation the OP found unpalatable is making headway into the Finnish system as well. Internet censorship, erosion of the right of journalists to protect their sources, data retention, giving private entities the right to monitor teletraffic data... It may not be as bad as in some other places right now, but I wouldn't bet on it not getting worse.
Theft 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny. Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. (quoted from dictionary.com)
I've heard it claimed that smoking cannabis makes you absorb information better, but that you also have to be stoned in the tests for it to be of any use...
That may have been the case a while back, I'm not so sure anymore. Internet censorship is being introduced across the board, police are being given the right to covertly install trojans on citizens' computers (germany, france at least, so expect EU-wide plans soon), there's constant pressure to pass three-strikes laws to force ISPs to disconnect users who allegedly download copyrighted material without authorization. In general the trend seems to be for more legislation of increasing complexity in all areas of life. This is not aided by the nature of EU decisionmaking, an obscure process extremely distant from the people it actually affects. The next great totalitarian state will be born not of hatred or passionate mass movements, but as the consequence of a relentless influx of new laws. The legislators have to do something to keep themselves busy, after all.