I'd have to agree with this. I dropped my BMI from 24.6 to 19.8 in the last year, solely by:
- Replacing my (considerable) soda intake with diet soda; and
- A 30 minute run, 4 times a week.
Not a huge effort really and the weight fell off fairly quickly. It's plateaued now though... despite still keeping up my regime, it's flatlined at around BMI 19.7 - 20.0 depending how much I've eaten in the last few days. Which is fine since that's somewhat on the lower side of ideal (18.5 - 24.9).
Now I am sure the running did an order of magnitude more than the diet soda. But it certainly helped. The amount of soda I drink means I'm saving at least 3000 kJ a day (which is basically a full meal's worth). But the soda alone wouldn't have done it.
So yeah, you need a lifestyle change to lose weight. BUT the diet soda isn't entirely a placebo - that's real 'empty' calories that you used to consume, that you now aren't.
Oh God... such awful colours. Seriously, the CGA cyan and magenta (awful bright pink used to generally render the ground in most games) are headache inducing.
I understand the technical reasons why those 4 colours are used in CGA, but wouldn't it have been nicer if they used some... less garish colours;)
Wow! Thanks for reminding me about UniVBE. I used that a lot back in the day but had completely forgotten about its existence;)
Pretty sure I used it on my 486 DX4/100 to get all manner of games running at 800x600 (which was the preferred resolution on the 15" monitor I had at the time).
Yeah in my city there is a network of footpaths and bike paths almost as extensive as the road network, and it is rarely alongside a road. It tends to snake between houses etc, cutting through suburbs in spaces where a road wouldn't fit. It's sorta fun exploring them actually since they always take you to some deep dark area of the city you haven't been to before;)
Well to be fair, if it's a freeway (i.e. divided/multilane) rather than a highway, the limit is 110 km/h (and everyone does ~120). I set the cruise on 119 usually... cops won't pull you over for that.
I drive a V6 Camry and at constant high speed highway cruise, its fuel efficiency is the same as, if not slightly better than, the equivalent 4-cyl Camry (less revs required to maintain speed). Admittedly it's significantly worse than the 4-cyl in the city, but 90% of my km are highway... so it works out OK for me.
But yeah it does infuriate me when you see people driving around in suburban Sydney with giant 4WDs that have clearly never been used for the intended purpose of off-roading.
Ah the Hilux. Utterly ubiquitous in my home country of Australia. Seriously, they outnumber every other light utility vehicle on the road put together.
And as Top Gear showed us, virtually indestructible;)
1. You could just raise income/sales taxes in general to cover the shortfall. However that is quite a radical depature from the 'user pays' system of fuel tax --> roads (those that drive more on the roads, pay more to maintain them... makes sense). So this would be an unpopular move.
2. Add the tax to the cost of other driving-related expenses. The most obvious one is your car registration/licence plate fee. Now admittedly registering your car doesn't cost a different amount depending on how much you drive it. But you could adjust the tax depending on vehicle weight, which would, on average, end up somewhat like a user pays system (heavier vehicles damage roads quicker, and pay more tax). So your annual registration fee might be ten times higher or so (dunno the exact numbers). Americans would initially find this unpalatable but some other countries already do this (including my own... I pay close to $700/year to register my vehicle, whereas in the US I understand the fee is much, much, much less).
Ah but I believe what you guys call a small vehicle is not what I call a small vehicle. For instance, the Mazda 121 is a very common car here, but I heard it can't even be sold in the US because it was too small to pass the very safety standards you mentioned.
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Smaller, lighter cars are fine in a crash with other smaller, lighter cars. But in the US the average vehicle is so heavy that the minority of people in the small cars would get squished like a pancake. Plus US drivers seem to spend proportionately more time going at higher (highway) speeds (commutes in most other countries generally involve less highway).
In Europe and Japan and other places where smaller cars are the norm, I don't think they are perceived as unsafe at all. Particularly when they are generally used for city driving at speeds = 60 km/h anyway, you simply aren't likely to have any massively high energy impacts. As the parent said, they are also a lot more agile on the road and stop a lot quicker so can avoid accidents in more cases.
A lot of families I know have two cars. A city car (e.g. a Mazda 121 or other ultra-small vehicle), and a normal sedan. The city car gets used every day. The larger car is used for the weekend roadtrip (since it's undeniable that large vehicles are nicer for long trips, and larger engines are better for highway cruising... and not that bad efficiency-wise if you put the cruise control on 110 km/h and leave it there).
Er... that third sentence (ending in 'adequate') is not supposed to be a question. Why do I never see these things when I hit Preview, but always spot them immediately after I submit...
Honestly? I'm slightly over 6 ft and drive a standard Toyota Camry. With the drivers seat in the furthest back position, I find the leg room adequate? Admittedly I'm not American but I'm pretty sure the Camry is sold in the US market and I doubt the size is any different?
I'm not doubting you, but I'm just a bit confused since I always thought American cars were huge (bigger than anything you can buy in my country).
Of course, if you are ~substantially~ over 6 ft, and not just slightly over, like me, then yeah, I can understand the problem;)
Fair enough, to each their own. Qas just pointing out that that's not practical or even possible in many places (even in the US - inner Chicago/NYC etc).
Actually, most of the younger generation (in my country at least) PREFER to buy and own a townhouse/apartment rather than a house with a yard, because maintenance is a lot less:
- No need to maintain exterior of house (painting it every x years, clearing gutters of leaves, repairing windows etc) - No need to mow/weed/water/etc the lawn and/or garden - Typically much cheaper land tax (since it's based on the area of the land you own) - Generally more energy efficient, so lower electricity and natural gas bills - Generally better Internet connectivity (at least here... suburbs get DSL up to 8 Mbit (or ADSL2+ up to 24 Mbit) but apartments often have 50/80/100 Mbit fiber) - And most importantly (for the youngins at least), the excitement of inner city living with shops, restaurants, cafes and nightclubs all within a few blocks walk
With regards to fire risk... yes that is one negative aspect. That's what insurance is for though. And frankly I can't remember the last time there was any form of apartment fire in my city of 350,000 people. They are pretty rare.
My (American) wife thinks that (I'm Australian, she's from WI in the US but now lives in Australia too). It pisses me off to no end. Apparently an entire nation of people are elitists. Any attempt to convince her that words or phrases that sound "elitist" to her are just words in regular usage in the UK (and most other English speaking countries) falls on deaf ears, it seems.
What's worse is that my (Australian) accent apparently sounds English to Americans! When I visit the US, EVERYONE thinks I'm English for some reason, until I tell them otherwise. I suppose the Australian accent is fairly close to standard English Received Pronounciation, but there are a few big differences that should give it away. I think Americans just hear 'cahn't instead of caant' or 'tomahto' instead of 'toe-mate-o' and instantly just think 'English'. So I guess I get lumped in with the 'elitists' too, in their mind.
The verb 'twig', used express a situation where something previously not understood has ~suddenly~ become understood (an "ahh, of course!" moment), is stupidly common. Maybe not in the US apparently? But for me (I'm Australian), that sentence was perfectly understandable. Didn't even trigger the "there's a word you don't see very often" alarm;)
On a serious note, I paid a visit recently to the actual site (Honeysuckle Creek) where the Apollo 11 moon landing images (including the famous 'one small step' transmission) were actually received (no, it wasn't at Parkes, contrary to what the movie 'The Dish' might have you believe). All it is now is a concrete slab and a couple of small memorials with some pictures of what it used to look like and some stories of how difficult it was to get there back in the day (it's in pretty inaccessible and rugged terrain in the Australian Capital Territory, just a couple of dozen km south of Canberra).
Sorta sad that it's all gone, considering the historical importance of that place (and Australia's logistical/communications support for the Apollo program in general). It's in a national park though so I guess that's why they aren't allowed to develop anything substantial on the site these days.
Try: Indonesia. A few miles off our north coast. 300 million people compared to our 22 million. Overcrowded and politically not that stable (although by no means that bad either).
Besides, physical proximity doesn't really matter in modern war. Potential threats to Australia are basically just the same potential threats as the US or any other country could face...
We're mostly pretty low lying yes (the vast bulk of the continent sits at around 1000 ft above sea level), but there are substantial regions at higher altitude (4000-7000 ft). The problem is they are all in the south.
I'm guessing you get more benefit from a rocket launch perspective by being closer to the equator than by launching from a mile above sea level? Probably the best launch sites would therefore be somewhere in northern WA (some parts of the tablelands south of the Kimberly reach a reasonable elevation) or NT/QlD (lower, but slightly further north).
One good thing is that virtually anywhere you pick in inland northern Australia is basically the middle of nowhere. So no worries about noise or bits of rockets falling on towns:P
I love Vegemite (disclaimer: I am Australian). Maybe you do have to acquire the taste in childhood but I don't see how it's that bad. It's salty... that's about it.
Biggest mistake people trying it for the first time make is trying to spread it as if it were peanut butter. You only need a very light scraping of it. Think of it more like wasabi or something... you don't go pasting it on half an inch thick. But it adds a nice salty kick to savoury foods.
When I was in America (IL, WI, MN), small Vegemite jars could be obtained in any regular supermarket. So there must be SOME market for it there, otherwise why would it be stocked in standard supermarkets?
American houses are big even by the standards of other huge countries with sprawling suburbs (i.e. my home country of Australia).
Australia has even more space per person than the US, but American houses are bigger on average, and by a fair margin. To clarify, I mean the physical size of suburban houses, not the blocks of land they sit on (I'd say Australian blocks are similar to or larger than US blocks... but the houses sure aren't).
I see it's common for new dwellings in the US to now have three or more bathrooms (I've seen even five or more advertised in what are really just standard family suburban homes). There are almost as many bathrooms as bedrooms, in fact.
That seems rather insane to me. Unless you had a whole family all needing to take a shower at exactly the same time, I can't see how you'd even use them all. By comparison, here in Australia even expensive houses would usually only have two, at most (more typically one 'full' bathroom, and an ensuite containing just a shower, basin and toilet).
Mind you, our smaller houses don't make us particularly environmentally friendly. From memory we are third (behind the US and Canada) when it comes to energy consumption per capita. We'd probably be first if we had cold winters like North America does. And talking of water, Australians actually use the MOST water per capita of ANY country. Which is bad, when one considers Australia is 90% desert and is by far the driest inhabited continent...
Yeah same in Australia. I visited the US for the first time in my life earlier this decade (2001). I could not believe that people still used cheques (well 'checks' as they spell it). I don't think anyone in Australia has used one since the 80s.
Actually I doubt most people younger than 20 even know what they are... most don't even carry cash these days. It's just all "swipe and PIN" for everyday purchases, and for large things, electronic transfer via your bank's internet banking.
Haha yeah. I guess it would have been more complex to render that map on a sphere.
I travel between Australia and the US regularly and I can assure you we do not go over Africa. In fact we don't go over any land at all other than a part of New Caledonia. It's literally Sydney Airport (which juts out into the ocean), to LAX (which is right next to the shore as well).
Yes they need to add search strings from other languages. You can see that the vast majority of flights this thing has picked up are US-based. But Twitter is pretty popular all around the world, and people in most other countries travel as much (probably more, actually) than Americans, so I think what we are seeing is purely due the English-only nature of the search strings used.
And yeah... the data is sorta useless anyway because airports all maintain very accurate statistics of how many people fly into their airport each year, and where from. This data isn't always made public, however.
To be honest... I'm sure we like to make it sound like we are so tough dealing with all these critters in Australia, but most regular people, living in regular cities, don't have to deal with it.
I live in an urban area in Australia. I'm lucky if I see one spider a year. And if I do it's invariably a huntsman which although large and scary looking, are completely harmless.
I've lived in both the US and Australia and frankly, the two countries are pretty similar. I don't find myself dealing with bugs/spiders any more in one than the other. So please do come here at some point. It's a beautiful country, and most parts are warmer than Ohio;) Don't buy into the "omg.au is full of nasty critters" hype that gets perpetuated in the US/UK. Yes we have some. So does everywhere. They are very unlikely to have any impact upon your life in an urban environment.
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I'd have to agree with this. I dropped my BMI from 24.6 to 19.8 in the last year, solely by:
- Replacing my (considerable) soda intake with diet soda; and
- A 30 minute run, 4 times a week.
Not a huge effort really and the weight fell off fairly quickly. It's plateaued now though ... despite still keeping up my regime, it's flatlined at around BMI 19.7 - 20.0 depending how much I've eaten in the last few days. Which is fine since that's somewhat on the lower side of ideal (18.5 - 24.9).
Now I am sure the running did an order of magnitude more than the diet soda. But it certainly helped. The amount of soda I drink means I'm saving at least 3000 kJ a day (which is basically a full meal's worth). But the soda alone wouldn't have done it.
So yeah, you need a lifestyle change to lose weight. BUT the diet soda isn't entirely a placebo - that's real 'empty' calories that you used to consume, that you now aren't.
Oh God ... such awful colours. Seriously, the CGA cyan and magenta (awful bright pink used to generally render the ground in most games) are headache inducing.
I understand the technical reasons why those 4 colours are used in CGA, but wouldn't it have been nicer if they used some ... less garish colours ;)
Wow! Thanks for reminding me about UniVBE. I used that a lot back in the day but had completely forgotten about its existence ;)
Pretty sure I used it on my 486 DX4/100 to get all manner of games running at 800x600 (which was the preferred resolution on the 15" monitor I had at the time).
Yeah in my city there is a network of footpaths and bike paths almost as extensive as the road network, and it is rarely alongside a road. It tends to snake between houses etc, cutting through suburbs in spaces where a road wouldn't fit. It's sorta fun exploring them actually since they always take you to some deep dark area of the city you haven't been to before ;)
So this would be pretty cool.
Well to be fair, if it's a freeway (i.e. divided/multilane) rather than a highway, the limit is 110 km/h (and everyone does ~120). I set the cruise on 119 usually ... cops won't pull you over for that.
I drive a V6 Camry and at constant high speed highway cruise, its fuel efficiency is the same as, if not slightly better than, the equivalent 4-cyl Camry (less revs required to maintain speed). Admittedly it's significantly worse than the 4-cyl in the city, but 90% of my km are highway ... so it works out OK for me.
But yeah it does infuriate me when you see people driving around in suburban Sydney with giant 4WDs that have clearly never been used for the intended purpose of off-roading.
I have to agree. Most people I know can't stand being stuck in the car. I doubt they'd drive much more even if fuel was completely free.
Ah the Hilux. Utterly ubiquitous in my home country of Australia. Seriously, they outnumber every other light utility vehicle on the road put together.
And as Top Gear showed us, virtually indestructible ;)
Hmmm...good question. Some options:
1. You could just raise income/sales taxes in general to cover the shortfall. However that is quite a radical depature from the 'user pays' system of fuel tax --> roads (those that drive more on the roads, pay more to maintain them ... makes sense). So this would be an unpopular move.
2. Add the tax to the cost of other driving-related expenses. The most obvious one is your car registration/licence plate fee. Now admittedly registering your car doesn't cost a different amount depending on how much you drive it. But you could adjust the tax depending on vehicle weight, which would, on average, end up somewhat like a user pays system (heavier vehicles damage roads quicker, and pay more tax). So your annual registration fee might be ten times higher or so (dunno the exact numbers). Americans would initially find this unpalatable but some other countries already do this (including my own ... I pay close to $700/year to register my vehicle, whereas in the US I understand the fee is much, much, much less).
Ah but I believe what you guys call a small vehicle is not what I call a small vehicle. For instance, the Mazda 121 is a very common car here, but I heard it can't even be sold in the US because it was too small to pass the very safety standards you mentioned.
But yes - small cars can be perfectly safe :)
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Smaller, lighter cars are fine in a crash with other smaller, lighter cars. But in the US the average vehicle is so heavy that the minority of people in the small cars would get squished like a pancake. Plus US drivers seem to spend proportionately more time going at higher (highway) speeds (commutes in most other countries generally involve less highway).
In Europe and Japan and other places where smaller cars are the norm, I don't think they are perceived as unsafe at all. Particularly when they are generally used for city driving at speeds = 60 km/h anyway, you simply aren't likely to have any massively high energy impacts. As the parent said, they are also a lot more agile on the road and stop a lot quicker so can avoid accidents in more cases.
A lot of families I know have two cars. A city car (e.g. a Mazda 121 or other ultra-small vehicle), and a normal sedan. The city car gets used every day. The larger car is used for the weekend roadtrip (since it's undeniable that large vehicles are nicer for long trips, and larger engines are better for highway cruising ... and not that bad efficiency-wise if you put the cruise control on 110 km/h and leave it there).
Er ... that third sentence (ending in 'adequate') is not supposed to be a question. Why do I never see these things when I hit Preview, but always spot them immediately after I submit...
Honestly? I'm slightly over 6 ft and drive a standard Toyota Camry. With the drivers seat in the furthest back position, I find the leg room adequate? Admittedly I'm not American but I'm pretty sure the Camry is sold in the US market and I doubt the size is any different?
I'm not doubting you, but I'm just a bit confused since I always thought American cars were huge (bigger than anything you can buy in my country).
Of course, if you are ~substantially~ over 6 ft, and not just slightly over, like me, then yeah, I can understand the problem ;)
Fair enough, to each their own. Qas just pointing out that that's not practical or even possible in many places (even in the US - inner Chicago/NYC etc).
Actually, most of the younger generation (in my country at least) PREFER to buy and own a townhouse/apartment rather than a house with a yard, because maintenance is a lot less:
- No need to maintain exterior of house (painting it every x years, clearing gutters of leaves, repairing windows etc) ... suburbs get DSL up to 8 Mbit (or ADSL2+ up to 24 Mbit) but apartments often have 50/80/100 Mbit fiber)
- No need to mow/weed/water/etc the lawn and/or garden
- Typically much cheaper land tax (since it's based on the area of the land you own)
- Generally more energy efficient, so lower electricity and natural gas bills
- Generally better Internet connectivity (at least here
- And most importantly (for the youngins at least), the excitement of inner city living with shops, restaurants, cafes and nightclubs all within a few blocks walk
With regards to fire risk ... yes that is one negative aspect. That's what insurance is for though. And frankly I can't remember the last time there was any form of apartment fire in my city of 350,000 people. They are pretty rare.
My (American) wife thinks that (I'm Australian, she's from WI in the US but now lives in Australia too). It pisses me off to no end. Apparently an entire nation of people are elitists. Any attempt to convince her that words or phrases that sound "elitist" to her are just words in regular usage in the UK (and most other English speaking countries) falls on deaf ears, it seems.
What's worse is that my (Australian) accent apparently sounds English to Americans! When I visit the US, EVERYONE thinks I'm English for some reason, until I tell them otherwise. I suppose the Australian accent is fairly close to standard English Received Pronounciation, but there are a few big differences that should give it away. I think Americans just hear 'cahn't instead of caant' or 'tomahto' instead of 'toe-mate-o' and instantly just think 'English'. So I guess I get lumped in with the 'elitists' too, in their mind.
The verb 'twig', used express a situation where something previously not understood has ~suddenly~ become understood (an "ahh, of course!" moment), is stupidly common. Maybe not in the US apparently? But for me (I'm Australian), that sentence was perfectly understandable. Didn't even trigger the "there's a word you don't see very often" alarm ;)
On a serious note, I paid a visit recently to the actual site (Honeysuckle Creek) where the Apollo 11 moon landing images (including the famous 'one small step' transmission) were actually received (no, it wasn't at Parkes, contrary to what the movie 'The Dish' might have you believe). All it is now is a concrete slab and a couple of small memorials with some pictures of what it used to look like and some stories of how difficult it was to get there back in the day (it's in pretty inaccessible and rugged terrain in the Australian Capital Territory, just a couple of dozen km south of Canberra).
Sorta sad that it's all gone, considering the historical importance of that place (and Australia's logistical/communications support for the Apollo program in general). It's in a national park though so I guess that's why they aren't allowed to develop anything substantial on the site these days.
http://www.honeysucklecreek.net/
Try: Indonesia. A few miles off our north coast. 300 million people compared to our 22 million. Overcrowded and politically not that stable (although by no means that bad either).
Besides, physical proximity doesn't really matter in modern war. Potential threats to Australia are basically just the same potential threats as the US or any other country could face...
We're mostly pretty low lying yes (the vast bulk of the continent sits at around 1000 ft above sea level), but there are substantial regions at higher altitude (4000-7000 ft). The problem is they are all in the south.
I'm guessing you get more benefit from a rocket launch perspective by being closer to the equator than by launching from a mile above sea level? Probably the best launch sites would therefore be somewhere in northern WA (some parts of the tablelands south of the Kimberly reach a reasonable elevation) or NT/QlD (lower, but slightly further north).
One good thing is that virtually anywhere you pick in inland northern Australia is basically the middle of nowhere. So no worries about noise or bits of rockets falling on towns :P
I love Vegemite (disclaimer: I am Australian). Maybe you do have to acquire the taste in childhood but I don't see how it's that bad. It's salty ... that's about it.
Biggest mistake people trying it for the first time make is trying to spread it as if it were peanut butter. You only need a very light scraping of it. Think of it more like wasabi or something ... you don't go pasting it on half an inch thick. But it adds a nice salty kick to savoury foods.
When I was in America (IL, WI, MN), small Vegemite jars could be obtained in any regular supermarket. So there must be SOME market for it there, otherwise why would it be stocked in standard supermarkets?
American houses are big even by the standards of other huge countries with sprawling suburbs (i.e. my home country of Australia).
Australia has even more space per person than the US, but American houses are bigger on average, and by a fair margin. To clarify, I mean the physical size of suburban houses, not the blocks of land they sit on (I'd say Australian blocks are similar to or larger than US blocks ... but the houses sure aren't).
I see it's common for new dwellings in the US to now have three or more bathrooms (I've seen even five or more advertised in what are really just standard family suburban homes). There are almost as many bathrooms as bedrooms, in fact.
That seems rather insane to me. Unless you had a whole family all needing to take a shower at exactly the same time, I can't see how you'd even use them all. By comparison, here in Australia even expensive houses would usually only have two, at most (more typically one 'full' bathroom, and an ensuite containing just a shower, basin and toilet).
Mind you, our smaller houses don't make us particularly environmentally friendly. From memory we are third (behind the US and Canada) when it comes to energy consumption per capita. We'd probably be first if we had cold winters like North America does. And talking of water, Australians actually use the MOST water per capita of ANY country. Which is bad, when one considers Australia is 90% desert and is by far the driest inhabited continent...
Yeah same in Australia. I visited the US for the first time in my life earlier this decade (2001). I could not believe that people still used cheques (well 'checks' as they spell it). I don't think anyone in Australia has used one since the 80s.
Actually I doubt most people younger than 20 even know what they are ... most don't even carry cash these days. It's just all "swipe and PIN" for everyday purchases, and for large things, electronic transfer via your bank's internet banking.
Er ... yes. Every apartment I've ever lived in, in fact (which is quite a few). In two countries (USA and Australia).
Haha yeah. I guess it would have been more complex to render that map on a sphere.
I travel between Australia and the US regularly and I can assure you we do not go over Africa. In fact we don't go over any land at all other than a part of New Caledonia. It's literally Sydney Airport (which juts out into the ocean), to LAX (which is right next to the shore as well).
Yes they need to add search strings from other languages. You can see that the vast majority of flights this thing has picked up are US-based. But Twitter is pretty popular all around the world, and people in most other countries travel as much (probably more, actually) than Americans, so I think what we are seeing is purely due the English-only nature of the search strings used.
And yeah ... the data is sorta useless anyway because airports all maintain very accurate statistics of how many people fly into their airport each year, and where from. This data isn't always made public, however.
To be honest ... I'm sure we like to make it sound like we are so tough dealing with all these critters in Australia, but most regular people, living in regular cities, don't have to deal with it.
I live in an urban area in Australia. I'm lucky if I see one spider a year. And if I do it's invariably a huntsman which although large and scary looking, are completely harmless.
I've lived in both the US and Australia and frankly, the two countries are pretty similar. I don't find myself dealing with bugs/spiders any more in one than the other. So please do come here at some point. It's a beautiful country, and most parts are warmer than Ohio ;) Don't buy into the "omg .au is full of nasty critters" hype that gets perpetuated in the US/UK. Yes we have some. So does everywhere. They are very unlikely to have any impact upon your life in an urban environment.