And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).
Here in Germany, the "cheap" petrol (95 octane or whatever it is) is currently around €1.35 to €1.45 per litre. There's 3.785 litres per gallon, so that's $7.21 to $7.74 per gallon. However, there's no way I'd stick that in my sports car, so I tend to tank up with 100 octane fuel, currently at around €1.70 to €1.80 per litre. Conversion tells us that's $9.08 to $9.61 per gallon. "$6-$8 a gallon" would be cheap from my point of view!
It doesn't matter where their offices are, it matters where they are incorporated. Google is incorporated in the US, and hence is expected to follow US law, even if those laws are idiotic, or a half century out of date.
The thing with many large organisations, including Google, is that they're "incorporated" in many different places. Google Germany is a "GmbH" for example. That means they're a German run company and must follow the laws of Germany. The fact that their parent company happens to be an incorporated entity in the US is totally irrelevant from a legal perspective. In the same way, the company I work for has a Japanese headquarters, but we're a GmbH as well. We follow German laws, rules and regulations and the Japanese government has NO say over what we do.
And that applies especially to the optical industry in America, where you not only need a prescription to buy a pair of glasses, but it has to be a recent prescription. I need glasses and my "prescription" for glasses hasn't changed in nearly twenty years, yet if I want a new pair of glasses and haven't seen an eye-doctor in the past year I have to go pony up just to get a piece of paper. No wonder our health care is more expensive than anywhere in the world.
Ouch... that does indeed sound ridiculous and not something I was aware of. In most places I've lived (5 countries and counting), getting glasses means going to the appropriate place that sells them, where they'll give you an eye test (usually free), inform you of the prescription and then sell you the glasses.
I only wear glasses for driving and that means I have a habit of sticking them in my top pocket and subsequently losing them when they fall out. If I had to visit an optometrist and pay for it every time I lost my glasses, I'd be a very poor man!
Most of these campaigns are probably exclusively run in the US.
Sadly no... even living in Germany, I still see these ads for "Canadian Pharmacies" via Google's ads. Utterly pointless since I tend to get meds either for free or incredibly cheap (well below cost) due to the healthcare system here.
Recently, I've been having this same "discussion" with my wife. We have a newborn daughter and while I'm firmly in the camp of "watch to make sure she doesn't kill or seriously injure herself, but otherwise give her free reign", my wife is more in the "shield her from the world" camp.
At least I won one small victory recently. A friend of my wife told her that a particular medicine must be okay for kids since it's "from plants"... my wife recalled a conversation I'd had with her a little before that and responded sarcastically, "oh yeah totally safe, like deadly nightshade!".
*Gory math: take a car that gets 28mpg at 65 but 25 at 70. Over 100 miles, this saves 0.43 gallons at the cost of 5.4 minutes (which costs more - the oil or the time? Apparently people still feel that time is worth more than oil).
While I don't disagree with you, it's worth to consider however that some vehicles tend to have better fuel efficiency at above the local highest posted speed limit. My own testing shows that my current car is most efficient at around 130kph (81mph) (of course, living in Germany and driving on the autobahns a lot, I do tend to "cruise" at around 160kph (99mph) and "get somewhere in a hurry" at around 200kph (124mph) but that's not really the point); however if I visit many of the neighbouring countries, driving at my "most fuel efficient" is going to be illegal.
And birth control can cause heart attack or stroke.
So can finding out your girlfriend is pregnant...
Heh, tell me about it... about 7 months ago, my girlfriend (who WAS on the pill) started getting morning sickness. Quick home test, followed by trip to the doctor confirmed she was in fact 2 months pregnant already.
On the plus side, she's now my wife and sometime within the next week, our daughter should be born:)
Absolutely agree... it also depends where in the world you are. Having travelled quite a lot, I find that some countries are a bit further along this road than others (the vast majority are moving that way; and nowhere is there "completely" yet; but there is definitely a difference between say, the USA and the Netherlands).
Seems like learning to handle confusion between what your eyes see and your inner ear experiences would be good training for space travel and free fall...maybe even for boating on the rollickin' ocean waves.
Or for traveling via lysergic acid diethylamide.
Space travel, free fall, maybe boating... sure. LSD - nope. While I do sometimes feel slightly disoriented when tripping very hard (upwards of 4 moderate to strong tabs at once), it's nowhere near the level of bad I feel when I'm sea-sick, or watching something in fake-3D (which for me are sadly similar experiences). The thing with LSD is that while yes, your brain will be getting conflicting signals from your inner ear and what you see, the "what you see" part isn't coming from your eyes, but from your brain itself. I think that tends to remove a lot of the potential for sea-sickness type feelings.
However, all else held equal, better graphics DO make a game better.
"all else" is generally never equal though. I recently started playing through StarCraft II since my wife bought it for me when I told her I liked the original StarCraft. While the graphics are MUCH better, I find them distracting and it isn't as easy to "very very quickly" distinguish the enemies on the battlefield as it is in the original. I'm still playing through it since the storyline really interests me, but once I'm done, I'll probably go back to original StarCraft.
Additionally, I'm a big Nethack fan, and while I do generally play with "tiles" rather than the classic ASCII mode, I avoid things like Falcon's Eye since I can't see the whole map at once and get a real feel for what's going on.
So, "all else being equal" itself is often a myth, as the improved graphics can be a detriment in unexpected ways.
My third son is growing up "bi-lingual." His mother is Japanese and I am a native English speaker.
I'm about to become a father (next month) and we also plan on raising our daughter bi-lingual. My wife is German and I'm a native English speaker (and we live in Germany).
I've been reading a great deal on the subject of bi-lingual children, and the most common theme I keep coming across is that around age 3, they're likely to be less skilled than their peers at both languages (so, my daughter's German won't be as good as 3 year old Germans, and her English won't be as good as a 3 year old native English speaker) and often "mix" the languages by mistake; however by the time they reach 5, they tend to catch up and can communicate in both languages with the expected fluency (or higher) than their peers.
Another point that was stressed in most texts I read is that if the parents divide the languages (as we plan to do and it seems you have done), that when the child asks or says something in the "wrong" language to a parent, that the parent repeat it back in the "right" language. e.g. My daughter comes to me and says, "Wasser!", I'll ask, "Would you like a glass of water?" or vice-versa she says, "Water!" to my wife, my wife's response will be, "Willst du ein Glas Wasser?". This helps to reinforce the differences and avoid language mixing as well as giving the child the comprehension that not everyone will speak every language they know.
Generally the above all seems to make sense, but I'm far from taking anything as absolute truth - every child will of course be different, and so I can only hope things go well for us with our daughter. If she develops a talent and passion for languages like her Dad, I'll also happily teach her French, Dutch and Japanese, but I don't want to force anything on her beyond German and English.
If you haven't experienced this, you presumably can't imagine what I'm talking about; it's not just "visual hallucinations". It's deeper and more complicated/subtle sensations involved.
Don't knock hallucinations off so easily... a strong LSD trip (for example) can provide some incredibly subtle, deep and complicated sensations (in addition to the knock your socks off visual/aural things (or synaesthesia if it's strong enough))
While I've never had the kinds of experiences you're talking about while NOT under the influence of strong hallucinogens, I think I'm quite simply of the wrong mindset for that concept. Self-delusion is something that some (most?) people seem to be very good at, but I just really can't do. You sound like you're aware that the concept of an "aura" (for example) is utter bunk, but nevertheless can act upon it and work on the assumption of it's reality based on the experience that it's likely a manifestation of your own mind's subconscious referring to something that IS really there but you're not consciously aware of. If so, bravo, but I really couldn't do that.
My fiancee is religious, but only "mildly" so. While I probably wouldn't be marrying her if she were "very" religious (as I am a rather outspoken atheist that believes religion to have a generally negative effect on the world), the whole "mildly religious" thing does bother me a bit. She freely admits to disagreeing with many parts of the bible, and doesn't follow the teachings or ideals laid out in it beyond the "be a nice person" part (which in reality is a VERY minor part!). She also freely admits to not really knowing if there's a God or not, but still identifies herself as being Christian and says she "believes" in a God. To me, the definition of belief is basically the same as the definition of "know", however with the foresight that one might be wrong. I have not yet been to Vladivostok. I've not yet met anyone that has (as far as I know). I have not (as far as I know) been influenced by Vladivostok in any way. I do however believe Vladivostok to exist, based on the fact that it seems a simpler explanation than that of some global conspiracy to put it in on maps and have lots of websites written about it. IF someone proves to me that Vladivostok doesn't exist, I'll be very very surprised, however would be mentally okay with accepting it. On the other hand, I have been to Paris on several occasions. If someone somehow proved to me that Paris doesn't exist, that'd be a pretty shaking thing for me, and I'd have a hard time fitting that in to my mental picture of the world and self. So, when someone says they "believe" God exists, I think along the lines of Vladivostok. When someone says they "know" God exists, I think along the lines of Paris. However, I'm becoming convinced that there's a third level which is LESS sure than my concept of "believe" that a lot of people mean when they use the word. Something more like "I guess there maybe is a God and it'd be really good if there is, so I'll behave like there is and hope it works out". This is the system I just can't fathom (and roughly where I think my fiancee falls in to the scheme of things) as from my point of view, it requires a kind of self-delusion where one is mentally aware of something but then leaves it out of rational decision making in daily life (acting on the false item as if it were a stronger factor than you know it to really be (even when that "know" is "know you're not really sure")).
Hmmm... no places I know of unfortunately. It's quite likely you can (almost certain), but I'm not sure where to look. Google for something like "MX-5 Mietwagen" (Mietwagen is German for "rental car") and then take a look through the hits for something in Austria or Southern Germany. Southern Germany is close enough to Austria if you're planning on doing a lot of driving anyway.
If you know a good place where they have a staff that speaks English that would be excellent as my German is pretty bad (horribly bad).
Although English is my native language, I'm comfortable enough in German that I wouldn't know which places speak English or not sorry. I can say that pretty much any rental place is going to have at least some English though to deal with tourists, and especially so in the larger cities (where you're more likely to find rental cars of interesting types like the MX-5).
Although most websites in your search will of course be in German, Google Translate can take care of that for you for the most part, and car rental sites tend to be pretty easy to navigate even when you don't understand a word of the language. It's worth looking at the site for an English link though - lots of sites catering to tourists (such as car rental places) are likely to have one.
I'm heading there after I get married, and while I'll settle for (anything really), I wouldn't mind climbing the Alps in any revision of an MX-5.
The Alps are definitely fun driving. If you're not too fussy on the type of car, you can expand the search to "cabriolet mietwagen" or "sportscar mietwagen" and you'll likely find something fun even if it's not an MX-5.
Ah, wasn't aware they dropped the Miata name in the US... good - makes it easier to explain without clarification in the future.
A few weeks after I got my car (early 2010 - it's a late 2009 NC), I took a drive from here in Hannover to Salzburg in Austria and back. Technically should've been only about 1600km, but I deliberately took a LOT of detours on to smaller country roads instead of using the Autobahn the whole way and ended up adding a bit over 2000km to the odometer. I have to say that the hilly areas of southern Germany (around Bavaria) are PERFECT for MX-5 driving. Here in north-western Germany, there's some fun places, but not as many as I'd like.
Couldn't agree more. I'm the proud owner of a 2009 Mazda MX-5, which I love dearly for its handling ability. Sure, my top speed isn't so impressive at around 210kph (note that I live in Germany and thus actual top-speed is something that is regularly used on the Autobahn), but I can out-corner cars that cost twice or thrice what mine does.
Sometime in the next few months, I'm getting married (probably March) and becoming a father (early April). Lots of my acquaintances have been pushing me to get a more "sensible family car". As my fiancee owns a perfectly functional (if not incredibly dull) Honda Jazz that will happily fit her, me and baby plus a load of groceries, I see absolutely no need to give up my MX-5.
Indeed... I'm also a fan of light cars in general, and drive an MX-5 as well (I live in Europe, so that's the same as the parent poster's "Miata" to anyone who didn't realise), however I've got the 160PS (approx 157HP) 2009 model and can do 0-100kph (roughly 0-60mph) in just a tad under 6 seconds.
Your concern about the acceleration is definitely justified, and even more so here in Germany where highway (Autobahn) speeds can be pretty daunting. The slowest lane tends to be between 80kph and 120kph depending on the amount of trucks around, and while MOST merging lanes are nice and long to allow you to get up to speed, not all are.
Further testing however... it's definitely NOT full Unicode... Pasting some Japanese text in from google translate just appears blank when hitting preview:
Nope. Just hitting preview shows that it removes all non-ASCII characters regardless of how many or where they are.
So it looks great, but still has terrible flaws.
Not sure that's true... Testing here with my German keyboard, the standard characters all show up in Preview - let's see if they appear when I post it (should be an unordered list here, with accented characters, and then the degree symbol)...
In school the child born in march are a half year older then thos born in august, but are put in the same class (at the age of 5 that is is a huge difference. ) and will affect their behaviour.
Only true in countries that have that particular configuration of school year... Some countries go with a "calendar year == school year" concept, whereas others go with a "school year ends/begins around the middle of calendar year" (generally northern hemisphere countries giving a summer holiday between the school years). Some school systems (regardless of their year configuration) allow the "border-line month" school children to be placed in either class from the start so that the parents can choose if their child is significantly older or significantly younger than the majority of the class.
All of these factors would seriously throw off the behavioural differences that one could associate with month of birth, thus rendering ANY possible zodiac meanings null and void.
I'm not sure what kind of "alarmism" over Eugenics you're referring to. It's generally considered a "bad thing" and is not widely practiced anywhere, nor has it ever been (several countries "talked" about the concept for a bit around the latter part of the start of last century, but nothing serious ever came of it)
Hole in the ozone
Try moving to Southern New Zealand and telling me it was all just alarmism... I grew up hearing "burn time" reports on the news weather report that were measured in only a few minutes of sun exposure when it really wasn't a hot day outside (it's never a "hot" day outside in Southern NZ!). Things have drastically improved over the last 10 to 15 years or so, but you'll get burned there significantly faster than you would vacationing in Hawaii.
DDT
I don't know what kind of alarmism there might have been over this either. DDT is a toxic and dangerous substance that had some limited use against malaria and then later as an insecticide. After it was determined it was dangerous, it got banned. End of story...
Global Cooling
Please find me ONE reputable source from the last century that talks about global cooling... Global "dimming" that may lead to cooling I do recall reading about, but never a direct cooling process itself. The dimming is indeed real and measurable - it has a minor impact in the opposite direction to the factors that cause warming, but has several other negative aspects as well. This dimming is generally considered a part of and factor in "Climate Change"
Acid Rain
When I was a young lad, you could drink rainwater... 'nuff said? Acid Rain is one of those nasty things we've somehow all just learned to "live with" and accept. It's pretty nasty right now, and should it get worse, I do expect there could be serious consequences on many different systems (not the least of which being crop farming)
Alar
Sorry, never heard of it... Just checked Wikipedia for a brief overview, but there's not enough info there to give me a real insight.
Global Warming
Yep, a problem - tied in under the general umbrella of "Climate Change". Has minor noticable effects right now, and may have larger effects in the future if not somehow controlled.
All these things have one thing in common - they were pushed as a political and social agenda by the liberal/scientific elite.
I'd love to know where this term - "Scientific Elite" - comes from... as someone with many friends working in scientific fields, I've yet to meet anyone that could put under this descriptor. The "elite" of this world are the corporates, the big-business, the politicians and the rock-star-famous-types. They're the ones setting the minds of the people - sometimes with information from the sciences, oft without, but I've never seen a scientist directly influence the people at all. All of the items you listed are things the people never would have heard about until someone from the real "elite" started talking about it. (and if you did happen across it without it being all through the media, you'd be likely to cry conspiracy theory...)
I rather doubt that would have made much of a difference. Everyone already knew that the Nazis were "bad". They were involved in a war against half the world, remember?
Had the average German citizen been given that kind of information it might have made a difference. They of course knew that Jews were being rounded up (they were encouraged by the govt to help), but in general they had no idea what was happening to them after that. The German people were lied to by the German govt as much, if not more, than the rest of the world were. Had such a "leak" been possible back then, I think the German people may have done something about it (at the very least, there would've been significantly less interest in joining the army and many more defectors and traitors within the conscripted ranks)
There are serious questions as to whether it improves efficiency. In spite of the love of all things euro, there seems to be no real world real traffic tests of this in cold weather environments with frequent heavy start-stop traffic.
The suggested reason why US car makers haven't implemented it was simply someone's opinion. Auto makers have never actually stated this.
In US driving, with US distances, this would save nothing, because there are very few stops on freeways.
In US urban centers with frequent stops saving may be illusionary because depleted batteries in bumper to bumper stop start traffic have to be recharged by running the engine higher or longer.
In short, I suspect the Euro tests are a just-so story, where it works for them in a very narrow test case, but has never been actually measured in real world situations on their roads by typical drivers.
There is no inherent reason to trust the Euro test track mileage measures and more than the US measures. There is every reason to believe their measures are as flawed as our own, even for their own streets, but certainly for ours.
You seem to be assuming that it's just been "tested" here in Europe but hasn't yet had much real world exposure. I assure you that that's totally incorrect. The vast majority of new vehicles here have this feature implemented and there's been plenty of real-world exposure.
Also, your assumptions about "driving distances" are a common misconception. While it's true that US drivers do drive longer distances on average than Europeans and also the occasional "much longer" drive, it's not as dramatic as you might think. You're right that these longer "non-stop" trips tend to reduce the usefulness of this measure, but you can't tell me ALL your driving is highway/freeway - you've got to get TO the highway and then FROM it afterwards - during these times, it'll be giving benefits.
I live in North-Western Germany (Lower Saxony) and a good number of my work colleagues live a significant distance from the office and do drive every day. Due to a company merger about 7 years ago, many of them still live in the region of where one of the old companies was located and travel close to 90km to the office each day. That is admittedly a more extreme case, but MANY people live in smaller towns around major centres and travel around 30km to the office each day, it's really not uncommon (I personally hate the idea and always try to live within 15km at maximum, but that's just my preference).
Also, as for the "longer" drives, I'm not averse to jumping in my car and heading to the Czech Republic every now and then, which is a good 500km or so. Again, not a "multi day" trip, but hardly a really short trip.
Addressing your first point of "cold environments with frequent heavy start-stop traffic: clearly you've never seen what the Autobahn can look like in mid-winter when a large truck has caused an accident and blocked a couple of lanes!
Correct... it seems a lot of people here are ignoring TFA where it specifically says that this technology is already widespread in Europe. We get the occasional horribly hot summer here (although often very short lived) and defintely get some nastily cold winters, so the concepts of needing both cooling and heating are certainly not foreign to us! The auto-makers have indeed thought about these things and it is a solved problem. It remains to be seen if Ford will follow the wisdom of the others or do something brain-dead, but there's no point in all these posters saying, "aha, but clearly it can't work because of xyz" - it already DOES work.
Personally, I use "euro" as the plural form in all cases except for when referring to individual coins. So, "I saw 3 euro on the ground outside" would be unspecified as to which coinage made up that value; but "I saw 3 euros on the ground outside" would be specifically referring to 3 individual 1 euro coins.
(for reference only: I'm a native English speaker living in the Eurozone)
Slashdot Mirror
And for those who don't think gas prices will go that high, they already are in many parts of the world (and you can bet that cash-strapped state and federal governments are going to need to raise more taxes).
Here in Germany, the "cheap" petrol (95 octane or whatever it is) is currently around €1.35 to €1.45 per litre. There's 3.785 litres per gallon, so that's $7.21 to $7.74 per gallon. However, there's no way I'd stick that in my sports car, so I tend to tank up with 100 octane fuel, currently at around €1.70 to €1.80 per litre. Conversion tells us that's $9.08 to $9.61 per gallon. "$6-$8 a gallon" would be cheap from my point of view!
It doesn't matter where their offices are, it matters where they are incorporated. Google is incorporated in the US, and hence is expected to follow US law, even if those laws are idiotic, or a half century out of date.
The thing with many large organisations, including Google, is that they're "incorporated" in many different places. Google Germany is a "GmbH" for example. That means they're a German run company and must follow the laws of Germany. The fact that their parent company happens to be an incorporated entity in the US is totally irrelevant from a legal perspective. In the same way, the company I work for has a Japanese headquarters, but we're a GmbH as well. We follow German laws, rules and regulations and the Japanese government has NO say over what we do.
And that applies especially to the optical industry in America, where you not only need a prescription to buy a pair of glasses, but it has to be a recent prescription. I need glasses and my "prescription" for glasses hasn't changed in nearly twenty years, yet if I want a new pair of glasses and haven't seen an eye-doctor in the past year I have to go pony up just to get a piece of paper. No wonder our health care is more expensive than anywhere in the world.
Ouch... that does indeed sound ridiculous and not something I was aware of. In most places I've lived (5 countries and counting), getting glasses means going to the appropriate place that sells them, where they'll give you an eye test (usually free), inform you of the prescription and then sell you the glasses.
I only wear glasses for driving and that means I have a habit of sticking them in my top pocket and subsequently losing them when they fall out. If I had to visit an optometrist and pay for it every time I lost my glasses, I'd be a very poor man!
Most of these campaigns are probably exclusively run in the US.
Sadly no... even living in Germany, I still see these ads for "Canadian Pharmacies" via Google's ads. Utterly pointless since I tend to get meds either for free or incredibly cheap (well below cost) due to the healthcare system here.
Recently, I've been having this same "discussion" with my wife. We have a newborn daughter and while I'm firmly in the camp of "watch to make sure she doesn't kill or seriously injure herself, but otherwise give her free reign", my wife is more in the "shield her from the world" camp.
At least I won one small victory recently. A friend of my wife told her that a particular medicine must be okay for kids since it's "from plants"... my wife recalled a conversation I'd had with her a little before that and responded sarcastically, "oh yeah totally safe, like deadly nightshade!".
*Gory math: take a car that gets 28mpg at 65 but 25 at 70. Over 100 miles, this saves 0.43 gallons at the cost of 5.4 minutes (which costs more - the oil or the time? Apparently people still feel that time is worth more than oil).
While I don't disagree with you, it's worth to consider however that some vehicles tend to have better fuel efficiency at above the local highest posted speed limit. My own testing shows that my current car is most efficient at around 130kph (81mph) (of course, living in Germany and driving on the autobahns a lot, I do tend to "cruise" at around 160kph (99mph) and "get somewhere in a hurry" at around 200kph (124mph) but that's not really the point); however if I visit many of the neighbouring countries, driving at my "most fuel efficient" is going to be illegal.
And birth control can cause heart attack or stroke.
So can finding out your girlfriend is pregnant...
Heh, tell me about it... about 7 months ago, my girlfriend (who WAS on the pill) started getting morning sickness. Quick home test, followed by trip to the doctor confirmed she was in fact 2 months pregnant already.
On the plus side, she's now my wife and sometime within the next week, our daughter should be born :)
Absolutely agree... it also depends where in the world you are. Having travelled quite a lot, I find that some countries are a bit further along this road than others (the vast majority are moving that way; and nowhere is there "completely" yet; but there is definitely a difference between say, the USA and the Netherlands).
Seems like learning to handle confusion between what your eyes see and your inner ear experiences would be good training for space travel and free fall...maybe even for boating on the rollickin' ocean waves.
Or for traveling via lysergic acid diethylamide.
Space travel, free fall, maybe boating... sure. LSD - nope. While I do sometimes feel slightly disoriented when tripping very hard (upwards of 4 moderate to strong tabs at once), it's nowhere near the level of bad I feel when I'm sea-sick, or watching something in fake-3D (which for me are sadly similar experiences). The thing with LSD is that while yes, your brain will be getting conflicting signals from your inner ear and what you see, the "what you see" part isn't coming from your eyes, but from your brain itself. I think that tends to remove a lot of the potential for sea-sickness type feelings.
However, all else held equal, better graphics DO make a game better.
"all else" is generally never equal though. I recently started playing through StarCraft II since my wife bought it for me when I told her I liked the original StarCraft. While the graphics are MUCH better, I find them distracting and it isn't as easy to "very very quickly" distinguish the enemies on the battlefield as it is in the original. I'm still playing through it since the storyline really interests me, but once I'm done, I'll probably go back to original StarCraft.
Additionally, I'm a big Nethack fan, and while I do generally play with "tiles" rather than the classic ASCII mode, I avoid things like Falcon's Eye since I can't see the whole map at once and get a real feel for what's going on.
So, "all else being equal" itself is often a myth, as the improved graphics can be a detriment in unexpected ways.
My third son is growing up "bi-lingual." His mother is Japanese and I am a native English speaker.
I'm about to become a father (next month) and we also plan on raising our daughter bi-lingual. My wife is German and I'm a native English speaker (and we live in Germany).
I've been reading a great deal on the subject of bi-lingual children, and the most common theme I keep coming across is that around age 3, they're likely to be less skilled than their peers at both languages (so, my daughter's German won't be as good as 3 year old Germans, and her English won't be as good as a 3 year old native English speaker) and often "mix" the languages by mistake; however by the time they reach 5, they tend to catch up and can communicate in both languages with the expected fluency (or higher) than their peers.
Another point that was stressed in most texts I read is that if the parents divide the languages (as we plan to do and it seems you have done), that when the child asks or says something in the "wrong" language to a parent, that the parent repeat it back in the "right" language. e.g. My daughter comes to me and says, "Wasser!", I'll ask, "Would you like a glass of water?" or vice-versa she says, "Water!" to my wife, my wife's response will be, "Willst du ein Glas Wasser?". This helps to reinforce the differences and avoid language mixing as well as giving the child the comprehension that not everyone will speak every language they know.
Generally the above all seems to make sense, but I'm far from taking anything as absolute truth - every child will of course be different, and so I can only hope things go well for us with our daughter. If she develops a talent and passion for languages like her Dad, I'll also happily teach her French, Dutch and Japanese, but I don't want to force anything on her beyond German and English.
If you haven't experienced this, you presumably can't imagine what I'm talking about; it's not just "visual hallucinations". It's deeper and more complicated/subtle sensations involved.
Don't knock hallucinations off so easily... a strong LSD trip (for example) can provide some incredibly subtle, deep and complicated sensations (in addition to the knock your socks off visual/aural things (or synaesthesia if it's strong enough))
While I've never had the kinds of experiences you're talking about while NOT under the influence of strong hallucinogens, I think I'm quite simply of the wrong mindset for that concept. Self-delusion is something that some (most?) people seem to be very good at, but I just really can't do. You sound like you're aware that the concept of an "aura" (for example) is utter bunk, but nevertheless can act upon it and work on the assumption of it's reality based on the experience that it's likely a manifestation of your own mind's subconscious referring to something that IS really there but you're not consciously aware of. If so, bravo, but I really couldn't do that.
My fiancee is religious, but only "mildly" so. While I probably wouldn't be marrying her if she were "very" religious (as I am a rather outspoken atheist that believes religion to have a generally negative effect on the world), the whole "mildly religious" thing does bother me a bit. She freely admits to disagreeing with many parts of the bible, and doesn't follow the teachings or ideals laid out in it beyond the "be a nice person" part (which in reality is a VERY minor part!). She also freely admits to not really knowing if there's a God or not, but still identifies herself as being Christian and says she "believes" in a God.
To me, the definition of belief is basically the same as the definition of "know", however with the foresight that one might be wrong. I have not yet been to Vladivostok. I've not yet met anyone that has (as far as I know). I have not (as far as I know) been influenced by Vladivostok in any way. I do however believe Vladivostok to exist, based on the fact that it seems a simpler explanation than that of some global conspiracy to put it in on maps and have lots of websites written about it. IF someone proves to me that Vladivostok doesn't exist, I'll be very very surprised, however would be mentally okay with accepting it.
On the other hand, I have been to Paris on several occasions. If someone somehow proved to me that Paris doesn't exist, that'd be a pretty shaking thing for me, and I'd have a hard time fitting that in to my mental picture of the world and self.
So, when someone says they "believe" God exists, I think along the lines of Vladivostok. When someone says they "know" God exists, I think along the lines of Paris. However, I'm becoming convinced that there's a third level which is LESS sure than my concept of "believe" that a lot of people mean when they use the word. Something more like "I guess there maybe is a God and it'd be really good if there is, so I'll behave like there is and hope it works out". This is the system I just can't fathom (and roughly where I think my fiancee falls in to the scheme of things) as from my point of view, it requires a kind of self-delusion where one is mentally aware of something but then leaves it out of rational decision making in daily life (acting on the false item as if it were a stronger factor than you know it to really be (even when that "know" is "know you're not really sure")).
Can you rent an MX-5 in Austria?
Hmmm... no places I know of unfortunately. It's quite likely you can (almost certain), but I'm not sure where to look. Google for something like "MX-5 Mietwagen" (Mietwagen is German for "rental car") and then take a look through the hits for something in Austria or Southern Germany. Southern Germany is close enough to Austria if you're planning on doing a lot of driving anyway.
If you know a good place where they have a staff that speaks English that would be excellent as my German is pretty bad (horribly bad).
Although English is my native language, I'm comfortable enough in German that I wouldn't know which places speak English or not sorry. I can say that pretty much any rental place is going to have at least some English though to deal with tourists, and especially so in the larger cities (where you're more likely to find rental cars of interesting types like the MX-5).
Although most websites in your search will of course be in German, Google Translate can take care of that for you for the most part, and car rental sites tend to be pretty easy to navigate even when you don't understand a word of the language. It's worth looking at the site for an English link though - lots of sites catering to tourists (such as car rental places) are likely to have one.
I'm heading there after I get married, and while I'll settle for (anything really), I wouldn't mind climbing the Alps in any revision of an MX-5.
The Alps are definitely fun driving. If you're not too fussy on the type of car, you can expand the search to "cabriolet mietwagen" or "sportscar mietwagen" and you'll likely find something fun even if it's not an MX-5.
Ah, wasn't aware they dropped the Miata name in the US... good - makes it easier to explain without clarification in the future.
A few weeks after I got my car (early 2010 - it's a late 2009 NC), I took a drive from here in Hannover to Salzburg in Austria and back. Technically should've been only about 1600km, but I deliberately took a LOT of detours on to smaller country roads instead of using the Autobahn the whole way and ended up adding a bit over 2000km to the odometer. I have to say that the hilly areas of southern Germany (around Bavaria) are PERFECT for MX-5 driving. Here in north-western Germany, there's some fun places, but not as many as I'd like.
Couldn't agree more. I'm the proud owner of a 2009 Mazda MX-5, which I love dearly for its handling ability. Sure, my top speed isn't so impressive at around 210kph (note that I live in Germany and thus actual top-speed is something that is regularly used on the Autobahn), but I can out-corner cars that cost twice or thrice what mine does.
Sometime in the next few months, I'm getting married (probably March) and becoming a father (early April). Lots of my acquaintances have been pushing me to get a more "sensible family car". As my fiancee owns a perfectly functional (if not incredibly dull) Honda Jazz that will happily fit her, me and baby plus a load of groceries, I see absolutely no need to give up my MX-5.
Indeed... I'm also a fan of light cars in general, and drive an MX-5 as well (I live in Europe, so that's the same as the parent poster's "Miata" to anyone who didn't realise), however I've got the 160PS (approx 157HP) 2009 model and can do 0-100kph (roughly 0-60mph) in just a tad under 6 seconds.
Your concern about the acceleration is definitely justified, and even more so here in Germany where highway (Autobahn) speeds can be pretty daunting. The slowest lane tends to be between 80kph and 120kph depending on the amount of trucks around, and while MOST merging lanes are nice and long to allow you to get up to speed, not all are.
Further testing however... it's definitely NOT full Unicode... Pasting some Japanese text in from google translate just appears blank when hitting preview:
Nope. Just hitting preview shows that it removes all non-ASCII characters regardless of how many or where they are.
So it looks great, but still has terrible flaws.
Not sure that's true... Testing here with my German keyboard, the standard characters all show up in Preview - let's see if they appear when I post it (should be an unordered list here, with accented characters, and then the degree symbol)...
In school the child born in march are a half year older then thos born in august, but are put in the same class (at the age of 5 that is is a huge difference. ) and will affect their behaviour.
Only true in countries that have that particular configuration of school year... Some countries go with a "calendar year == school year" concept, whereas others go with a "school year ends/begins around the middle of calendar year" (generally northern hemisphere countries giving a summer holiday between the school years). Some school systems (regardless of their year configuration) allow the "border-line month" school children to be placed in either class from the start so that the parents can choose if their child is significantly older or significantly younger than the majority of the class.
All of these factors would seriously throw off the behavioural differences that one could associate with month of birth, thus rendering ANY possible zodiac meanings null and void.
Eugenics
I'm not sure what kind of "alarmism" over Eugenics you're referring to. It's generally considered a "bad thing" and is not widely practiced anywhere, nor has it ever been (several countries "talked" about the concept for a bit around the latter part of the start of last century, but nothing serious ever came of it)
Hole in the ozone
Try moving to Southern New Zealand and telling me it was all just alarmism... I grew up hearing "burn time" reports on the news weather report that were measured in only a few minutes of sun exposure when it really wasn't a hot day outside (it's never a "hot" day outside in Southern NZ!). Things have drastically improved over the last 10 to 15 years or so, but you'll get burned there significantly faster than you would vacationing in Hawaii.
DDT
I don't know what kind of alarmism there might have been over this either. DDT is a toxic and dangerous substance that had some limited use against malaria and then later as an insecticide. After it was determined it was dangerous, it got banned. End of story...
Global Cooling
Please find me ONE reputable source from the last century that talks about global cooling... Global "dimming" that may lead to cooling I do recall reading about, but never a direct cooling process itself. The dimming is indeed real and measurable - it has a minor impact in the opposite direction to the factors that cause warming, but has several other negative aspects as well. This dimming is generally considered a part of and factor in "Climate Change"
Acid Rain
When I was a young lad, you could drink rainwater... 'nuff said? Acid Rain is one of those nasty things we've somehow all just learned to "live with" and accept. It's pretty nasty right now, and should it get worse, I do expect there could be serious consequences on many different systems (not the least of which being crop farming)
Alar
Sorry, never heard of it... Just checked Wikipedia for a brief overview, but there's not enough info there to give me a real insight.
Global Warming
Yep, a problem - tied in under the general umbrella of "Climate Change". Has minor noticable effects right now, and may have larger effects in the future if not somehow controlled.
All these things have one thing in common - they were pushed as a political and social agenda by the liberal/scientific elite.
I'd love to know where this term - "Scientific Elite" - comes from... as someone with many friends working in scientific fields, I've yet to meet anyone that could put under this descriptor. The "elite" of this world are the corporates, the big-business, the politicians and the rock-star-famous-types. They're the ones setting the minds of the people - sometimes with information from the sciences, oft without, but I've never seen a scientist directly influence the people at all. All of the items you listed are things the people never would have heard about until someone from the real "elite" started talking about it. (and if you did happen across it without it being all through the media, you'd be likely to cry conspiracy theory...)
"As Pure as the driven snow" Does that mean that it is as pure and untampered as the snow somebody has driven on?
Nope...
I rather doubt that would have made much of a difference. Everyone already knew that the Nazis were "bad". They were involved in a war against half the world, remember?
Had the average German citizen been given that kind of information it might have made a difference. They of course knew that Jews were being rounded up (they were encouraged by the govt to help), but in general they had no idea what was happening to them after that. The German people were lied to by the German govt as much, if not more, than the rest of the world were. Had such a "leak" been possible back then, I think the German people may have done something about it (at the very least, there would've been significantly less interest in joining the army and many more defectors and traitors within the conscripted ranks)
There are serious questions as to whether it improves efficiency. In spite of the love of all things euro, there seems to be no real world real traffic tests of this in cold weather environments with frequent heavy start-stop traffic.
The suggested reason why US car makers haven't implemented it was simply someone's opinion. Auto makers have never actually stated this.
In US driving, with US distances, this would save nothing, because there are very few stops on freeways.
In US urban centers with frequent stops saving may be illusionary because depleted batteries in bumper to bumper stop start traffic have to be recharged by running the engine higher or longer.
In short, I suspect the Euro tests are a just-so story, where it works for them in a very narrow test case, but has never been actually measured in real world situations on their roads by typical drivers.
There is no inherent reason to trust the Euro test track mileage measures and more than the US measures. There is every reason to believe their measures are as flawed as our own, even for their own streets, but certainly for ours.
You seem to be assuming that it's just been "tested" here in Europe but hasn't yet had much real world exposure. I assure you that that's totally incorrect. The vast majority of new vehicles here have this feature implemented and there's been plenty of real-world exposure.
Also, your assumptions about "driving distances" are a common misconception. While it's true that US drivers do drive longer distances on average than Europeans and also the occasional "much longer" drive, it's not as dramatic as you might think. You're right that these longer "non-stop" trips tend to reduce the usefulness of this measure, but you can't tell me ALL your driving is highway/freeway - you've got to get TO the highway and then FROM it afterwards - during these times, it'll be giving benefits.
I live in North-Western Germany (Lower Saxony) and a good number of my work colleagues live a significant distance from the office and do drive every day. Due to a company merger about 7 years ago, many of them still live in the region of where one of the old companies was located and travel close to 90km to the office each day. That is admittedly a more extreme case, but MANY people live in smaller towns around major centres and travel around 30km to the office each day, it's really not uncommon (I personally hate the idea and always try to live within 15km at maximum, but that's just my preference).
Also, as for the "longer" drives, I'm not averse to jumping in my car and heading to the Czech Republic every now and then, which is a good 500km or so. Again, not a "multi day" trip, but hardly a really short trip.
Addressing your first point of "cold environments with frequent heavy start-stop traffic: clearly you've never seen what the Autobahn can look like in mid-winter when a large truck has caused an accident and blocked a couple of lanes!
Correct... it seems a lot of people here are ignoring TFA where it specifically says that this technology is already widespread in Europe. We get the occasional horribly hot summer here (although often very short lived) and defintely get some nastily cold winters, so the concepts of needing both cooling and heating are certainly not foreign to us! The auto-makers have indeed thought about these things and it is a solved problem. It remains to be seen if Ford will follow the wisdom of the others or do something brain-dead, but there's no point in all these posters saying, "aha, but clearly it can't work because of xyz" - it already DOES work.
Personally, I use "euro" as the plural form in all cases except for when referring to individual coins. So, "I saw 3 euro on the ground outside" would be unspecified as to which coinage made up that value; but "I saw 3 euros on the ground outside" would be specifically referring to 3 individual 1 euro coins.
(for reference only: I'm a native English speaker living in the Eurozone)