Well, I have a pretty good opinion of the guys that do the translations, they don't just translate from language to language, they translate from the original language, though they can make mistakes when some statement is ambiguous. I don't think they have anything to gain from mis-translations. I'm thinking of the guys that translate bibles like the NIV and KJV and such. I believe the Roman Catholic church may try to be more controlling, but reformed evangelical churches have genuine preachers who are Christians and believe what they preach. It's crazy but some churches have ministers who admit that they aren't even Christians? I don't get that. Personally I have been going through doubts recently, which haven't been helped much by some discussions on/. over the last couple of days. I can defend against a lot of accusations brought up against the bible, since I've read it myself a couple of times, but there are still some things that make me unsure myself. Revelation is quite an interesting book, likewise Daniel has some stuff supposedly to do with the end of the world, you should maybe read that too if you're interested. It's better not to get too hung up on it like you say though:) I keep on keeping on myself, I just wish I knew what I was meant to be aiming for!
I guess I'd better explain what I meant about it being more of a problem in manual cars. If you try to change gear while holding a phone then you're either going to have to stop your conversation for a while and find somewhere safe for the phone to go, or you're going to have to try to change gear with the phone in your hand and possibly lose grip of the gearstick or drop the phone, causing further issues as you miss a gear and lose engine braking and acceleration, or possibly take your eyes off the road as you try to find the phone. I didn't mean that manual cars were inherently unsafe (if they were then car related death tolls in Europe compared to the US would be massive and manual cars would be made illegal, but that isn't the case), just that they work best if you have two hands free. If anything the fact that you have to use two hands is good as it discourages you from other distractions like holding a cup or food, though then as I say if you do try those activities, you're just creating problems for yourself if you then find that you are needing to quickly change gear.
Trying to turn corners with one hand while fiddling with the gear shifter is easily as dangerous as a phone. lol.. uh.. no. Sure, I was taught that you should avoid changing gear on a corner if possible so that you can keep both hands on the wheel for maximum control - if you do have to change gear you're meant to lock the steering wheel in place with your other hand - but for when you're not on corners, changing gear is a very simple and quick process. It's not at all like trying to hold a phone to your ear in the right position for minutes at a time so that you can hear while also making sure the other person can hear you - and definitely nothing like fiddling with buttons on a phone or trying to read a text message. I'd say that holding a phone to your head probably discourages you from moving your head too, which will restrict your observations.
Changing gear isn't much different from using your indicators once you are used to it - really. You don't have to look at the gearstick or even take your hand off of the wheel for more than half a second to a second. Sometimes I do rest my hand on the gearstick rather than keep both on the wheel, though that's just a bad habit, and I'm sure drivers of automatic cars don't keep both hands on the wheel at all times either.
If you had to answer general knowledge questions asked by your gearstick to get it to change gear then I could see it being a bit of a distraction, but in reality I, and probably most other drivers in the UK who have passed their test, move up through the gears literally without even thinking about it. If you're used to an automatic then obviously it will take quite an adjustment to drive 'stick', but in that case you just need practice. Don't forget that you have to use the clutch pedal at the same time as doing all this. But just the same as you don't have to think about where your feet are when accelerating and braking (at least I hope you don't otherwise your reactions in an emergency are going to be severely impaired), you don't think about the clutch or gear shift when changing a gear, so it isn't a distraction. There is a period of adjustment for using a different gearshift as the gating on each one can be pretty different, and some cars have a 6th gear where other cars would have reverse and stuff like that, but again that quickly just becomes second nature, like someone learning how to touch type in Dvorak instead of Qwerty, only a lot quicker and simpler!;)
I will however admit that I often change the volume on my stereo, though again I don't need to look at that, and most of the time I'd do it while stopped at lights anyway. There was one time about a year ago I was trying to find a track on a CD and realised I hadn't noticed a car coming over the ridge ahead of me - that was enough to scare me into being more sensible when it comes to in depth stereo fiddling (if I have a passenger I'd ask them to do it)
Yep, I've done a lot of drifting in computer games, and I want my next car to be RWD so that I can use it to have a little fun now and then;) There isn't much potential for drift on UK roads apart from perhaps on roundabouts (and obviously it's not a good idea if there are other cars nearby, especially if they're police cars;) ). FWD is boring because the only thing you're going to achieve by spinning the tires is going straight off the road, so you have to drive 'sensibly' round corners (my current car can 'spin really easily in 1st and 2nd, and has even spun in 3rd with the traction control switched off, got a lot of torque as it's a diesel:P ).
I'm also considering a motorbike again - I'm a much better driver than rider, but since I'm a bit more sensible than I was a couple of years ago, I think I might be able to ride a motorbike and not kill myself now:p I know motorbikes are stupid because I'm likely to get killed by an inattentive car driver even if I don't kill myself, but I have more confidence in my observational skills now obviously (just hope I don't get too rusty while I'm banned:( ). One thing to remember is that people are actually statistically more likely to have accidents for a little while after receiving any driver training, because they tend to be overconfident in their abilities*. So be careful out there;)
*a funny statistic is that 98% of guys think they are 'above average' drivers anway! I happen to know|I am above average though, because I was told so by my instructor, he said I was better than most police drivers are after their first week of tuition - though the lucky bastards in the police get 3 more weeks, and they have to be breaking the speed limit whenever it's safe to do so in the last couple of weeks, as well as learning to do handbrake turns at 80mph - apparently you go into it in 3rd gear then come out of it in 2nd:P I saw they had a nice modified Impreza in the car park, marked as a driver training car. Almost enough to make me want to be a policeman if it weren't for the pay, paperwork, and the fact that I prefer Evos;)
Nobody is going to be walking around with freakin' defibrillator pads on their chest and a Microsoft Guardian Angel in their pocket. Probably not, but at least your loved ones are going to get a nice ad for tombstones on the nearest billboard when you kick the bucket.
Your country sounds a lot more sensible than mine. I just finished ranting on another post about how if people were actually taught how to drive properly then we wouldn't need such low speed limits, and there would be less accidents too. I've never done more than about 120mph myself - I recently got stopped by the police for doing 114mph on a quiet motorway (speed limit 70mph). The police car chasing me was doing 140mph and the driver even said how he didn't think I was driving dangerously, but they had to do me for speeding. It makes me sad that I'm going to be a criminal for doing something that was perfectly safe (which is after all the whole point in speed limits, to try and make people 'safe').. I can't do much about it by myself though. Even though countries like yours demonstrate how safe roads can be, the government is making a LOT of money out of speeding fines over here.. I expect I'll have to pay at least £300. I heard of one single speed camera in the UK which 'earns' £80000 a year.. when you dd all the cameras up that quickly builds up into a useful sum even for the government:P
Yeah I don't mean driving especially badly, just more urgently. Like I'd do the speed limit as much as possible even if there isn't other traffic around. I tend to break quite early so that I can bring the car to a smooth halt. At other times though I just won't brake at all in situations where most drivers would be braking a lot due to nervousness or because they were travelling too fast in the first place. Sometimes if you're going slower you end up going faster, because going slowly lets you watch for gaps at a junction for example, so you can just look for a gap and slip in rather than rushing to the junction and having to stop completely before starting off again. Stuff like that means I get about 6 more mpg on average around town than I did before my 'advanced driver' training:)
Some people I've been passengers with brake really late and it does freak me out, it's leaving no room for the unexpected. People who drive like that all the time are just asking to lose control of their car when poor weather rolls around, since sudden acceleration, braking or steering is a big no no for slippery conditions. I'll admit I do enjoy the feeling of acceleration, and I tend to accelerate up to the limit as quick as I can on almost every occasion, but for braking I do slow down well in advance:)
I'd say the only 'performance' driver training I've had has been in computer games and reading about racing lines, though my driver training course did include collision avoidance training, how to properly counter oversteer and understeer, and I learned a technique to better judge the severity of corners on unfamiliar roads (sure wish I'd known that before when I had my motorbike! which got stolen..). The main bulk of the course was about observation though, which is far more important to safety than knowing how to correct a skid.. if you are keeping aware of what it happening around you then you shouldn't have to do any type of driving that would induce a skid in the first place, even in poor weather.
Obviously computer games are totally different from real life in that you can't feel the car reacting around you, although they are good for learning about certain elements of driving physics - RWD vs FWD vs 4WD and such. I used to be rubbish with RWD, but after learning basic stuff like braking before corners rather than on them and that kind of thing, I improved muchly. I've had a fair bit of practice at higher speeds irl too, though only in FWD vehicles (unless you include the Landrover Defender which only maxed out at about 90mph down hills! as well as having pretty chronic understeer).
My instructor noted that I had a good smooth driving style out on country roads (which will be because for my first few months of driving, most of it was out in the country, and as my dad used to be a police officer himself he showed me how to steer properly), which I was pretty happy about. The guy teaching my course has been a police driving instructor for over 30 years - we were in a Police Training car that was sponsored by the company I work for, and he was doing 110mph out in the countryside, pointing out that that is perfectly safe when the conditions are suitable (no traffic around, no pedestrians, good weather..) and you are observing ahead of yourself properly. There's a police driver training centre in the south of Scotland and apparently they have to be going as fast as is safe for the conditions all the time, which sometimes entails driving at 160mph on the motorways! So I've been feeling less guilty for travelling at high speed in certain situations since then, and stupidly ended up getting done for doing speeding on the motorway recently (at 10PM in the evening, there were no other cars around, although it was a bit damp). The only people that seem to judge me for the speeding are people who don't drive! I was feeling like a bit of a criminal for a while, but I told my instructor about it and he says "we've all done it before, just we didn't get caught", heh. I
Aye, I'd noticed the same of pebbles, they look better at the beach:P I got some nice polished marble stones so that I don't have to keep them wet all the time.. thanks for the info about under the sea. I remember the green being especially vivid for some reason though.
Can just change your threshold for comments to browse at 0 or above. Personally I browse at -1, but just stop reading when I recognise the sentence (that "let yOUR conscient be yOUR guide!" guy is annoying too:P )
Reminds me of one of the couple of times I went scuba diving in the sea. I don't think I've ever seen colours so bright as some of the plants on the bottom of the sea bed that day (and this was on a dull stormy day in west-coast Scotland, which is hardly very exotic!). When you take stuff like stones and weeds out of the water suddenly they look very dull.. I wonder what the difference is.. maybe something to do with the refraction of the light going from the water to the glass to air into my eyeballs upping the contrast or something?:P
I fail to see how you can say someone complaining about cell phone use in cars is a hypocrite. There is a massive difference between a sensible alert driver and someone driving with one hand. It's less of an issue in America where most people drive automatics, but manual cars are in the majority here in the UK, so anyone driving with one hand is causing a major hazard, and yes I've seen plenty of people doing it. When you drive with due care and attention it's extremely unlikely that you will have an accident. Any accident that is caused by other drivers could affect you just as much as a pedestrian as they would if you were in a car. You'd be more likely to survive in a car than as a pedestrian though. There are places where cars can go that pedestrians don't, but I don't think those areas are any more dangerous than walking around town either. Especially on motorways/freeways with a central reservation blocking off oncoming traffic.
As the summary of the article just said, even talking to someone is still pretty bad for your driving (if any unexpected situation arises at least). Having a bluetooth setup is all nice and dandy for keeping your hands free, but talking to someone who isn't even in the car isn't a bright idea considering they can't see around you. Passengers can stop talking or point out dangers to you if a bad situation crops up, but someone on the phone will just blabber away none the wiser. The best thing to do (unless you spend most of your time on the road and have no choice, like if you're a taxi driver, salesman, or a delivery guy or something) is to make all your phonecalls before your journey, or stop whenever you can. That's simply the safest thing, it may not be necessary in the middle of nowhere travelling down a highway where you can see for miles, but in cities and such, unless you're stuck in traffic then you'd be safer just not using a phone at all. If my phone rings when I'm on the way to work, I just ignore it. Reception can pass on any important messages.
Well, some people are better than others, I remember one psychology test we did where you had sets of different numbers spoken into each ear at once to study auditory memory (you know when you weren't really listening to something someone said, but then you can think back over it and work out what they said). I got every single one right, over several rounds of something like a chain of 6 numbers in each ear. Of course personally I don't see why if you can do it once you can't do it a million times, but the way the people taking the class were talking, and from the results of other people, clearly a lot of people were making mistakes in remembering the numbers - so most people can't really concentrate properly on more than one thing at once..
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of/.ers have better levels of concentration and skill than most, and would do just as well as me on that test. But like you say, even if someone is 'good' at multitasking, when the most dangerous thing that most people do (driving) is involved, it is still better to unclutter your mind as much as possible. Especially if you aren't really in good mental condition at the time - tired or angry for example. It's obviously better just not to even drive at all in those states.
I thought that too, but I think he's made a good point. Perhaps his driving while listen to audio books is less attentive than it would be without for short journeys but on long monotonous journeys, your attention can just as easily wander, or you can get sleepy and your attention will be even worse than if your mind is being stimulated by more than just the driving. Personally, the only accidents (not serious ones, just bumper scuffles, two of which were shortly after I learned to drive, and one of which was about 5 minutes after I woke up..:s ) I've had were when passengers were present. I do tend to rush more if I have passengers too, because I feel a responsibility to get people to their destination quickly, when I'm driving around town by myself I tend to chill out and just enjoy my music.
I do lots of observation while driving - frequent mirror checks at all 'hazards' (you should be checking your rearview mirror every 10 seconds anyway - that sounds like a lot but it isn't once you do it automatically, and it keeps you aware of what's going on around you in case you need to break suddenly or something like that). The checks are all pretty much built in now, I remember a few times that I've just stopped mid sentence while speaking to someone because I'm approaching a 'hazard' and need to concentrate more on my driving: I learned the police 'Roadcraft' System of Car Control on an advanced driving course a few months ago, and I highly recommend any such courses (mine included defensive driving, skid control and a more rigourous driving test than the standard UK driving test) to people to improve their driving and make even those times when you're driving on 'autopilot' safer.. though it's never really a good thing to let yourself drift into that kind of state while controlling over a ton of metal moving at speed!
Again I'll say that I don't think people should die for some of that stuff, but was relating what the bible says. The bible says that God can't abide any sin, no matter how small, and people deserve to die for it (the love comes in where they are given just as much good stuff on this earth as people who are less sinful, etc). Sorry for accusing you of being bigoted then, it's just crazy how angry people get at the whole of Christianity sometimes - which just ends up with me getting all defensive and more affirmed in my beliefs a lot of the time. The truth is that not knowing what is out there really is quite a scary prospect. If I were just to stop existing when I died I'd be fine.. it's quite a plausible idea after all. If I did believe that then I'd probably be dead already though. Anyway, I'm glad we both were able to talk without getting too heated about all this, my apologies for the previous post, it's what happens when I think about stuff too much, someone ends up being on the receiving end of me being a jerk. Being on antidepressants tends to stop it, possibly just because it stops me being able to 'think', and unfortunately I came off my ADs after I met the gf I mentioned, and I'm sure that didn't help our relationship in the slightest. And now the fact that she won't even speak to me is the thing that causes me to think either she isn't a Christian, or there is no such thing as a Christian.
Personally I find the fact that I have to die for any sin, sin that I can't help commit (and God knows that, though of course there is an 'easy' way to be forgiven, but before Jesus people had to work out on their own that God was actually loving and merciful), and sin that was a result of Adam taking an apple which someone was bound to take eventually (which would leave a really weird situation of a group of sinful people and another of 'sinless' people), and why God can't wave a magic wand and save everyone like you say. It does all seem a bit far fetched. I used to talk with my gf about it and we both thought it was still the most 'plausible' out of any possible explanations for everything. I haven't studied eastern philosophy in depth no, it definitely (as opposed to just maybe with some other religions) is the result of human ideas, though studying those ideas and belief systems probably would result in happiness in this life. If I were a gambling man and life was just a game, I'd probably bet on the bible being made up. The risks to that are high, especially when the idea of hell has been drilled into me all my life. I can't even believe that I'm saying all of this. Oh well. I may see you in hell, or maybe we'll all be living in our own personal little heavens a la Terry Pratchett..
Thankyou for that too. Now I'm wondering how you reacted to my anger in the other post. Oops ^^; Yes I'm not sure how much of the bible should be taken as 'God breathed' considering the discrepancies in the gospels (2 angels instead of one angel, that kind of thing). They're things which don't make much difference to the message, but make me think that yes, the bible is not necessarily all infinitely infallible absolute truth. To be honest I find the whole of the fact that life exists in the way it does a bit absurd, and there doesn't seem to be much clue as to whether we are here for a reason or by chance. Maybe there isn't a meaning in it at all.. on the other hand, I do find it very easy to believe that there will be an intelligence and power out there greater than our own, and I don't see why people who believe in evolution for example wouldn't believe that too.. a lot of humans just want to believe that they are in control.
Yep I think copying others' characters from a novel or TV series for example is rather lame. In Harry Potter's case I'm not too bothered, the last few films seem to have been getting worse. I loved all the books though. I doubt most people would be too interested in books on a series that were purposely created without the consent of the original author - not to such a level that they wouldn't buy the originals anyway. If however the copy turned out to be better.. well.. you could say that that is 'progress' of a kind, isn't it? I'm not saying that's how it should be, I just tend to play devil's advocate whether I believe in what I'm talking about or not;)
People always used to 'pay' for their wives back then. See Dower. I'm sure the same kind of thing still goes on in Islamic and Hindu cultures today. You're just showing what an ignorant bigoted fuckwit you are here, with your heavily biased accusations and ignoring of important qualifications to the more extreme sides of dealing with a God who detests sin. Even if I wasn't a Christian I'd think you were an idiot (and like I said, I'm not even too sure I am at the moment, I can just see that you are completely misinformed, or unwilling to tolerate others' beliefs).
Yes, exactly, do whatever the fuck you want as long as you believe in Jesus. Just ignore the fact that by believing in him you have recognised the fact that you are a sinner and you believe he has died for those sins, and that you are thankful that they are forgiven and don't actually want to be sinning anymore. You've really got this logical thinking down to a tee..
How do you expect the bible not to be relevant to the time it was written? When talking about adultery it did talk about men and women yes, not so sure about rape offhand, but from your quality of information so far I wouldn't be surprised if you are again taking things out of context.
Yes, I did say they deserve to die. That is part of Christian belief - everyone deserves to die as soon as they come into existence, because of the fall. There comes the vitriol, thanks for making yourself seem to be a moron so that I don't have to be too bothered about it. I didn't say I'd stone anyone, I wouldn't. And Jesus didn't. He gave his life rather than killing them. Way to understand the whole thing. *shrug* The bible says that's what people will think of Christians anyway. Of course someone could have easily guessed that before writing a counter-cultural book. Still I believe it could be the word of God, but like I said I don't know. I personally don't think believing in another God is any more evil than anything else, but yes it is something worthy of death, the same as extending sentiments such as 'fuck you' to a fellow human being, or lying. When (well, more likely 'if') you one day realise what scum humans are and how basically everyone deserves to die, but in fact we are all granted equal grace, then you will be capable of understanding Christianity. What people deserve, and what people get is a completely separate matter. Nice how you ignore that I include myself in the sinners who deserve to die/be stoned. I wouldn't do it because first I don't want to kill anyone, and second because I am imperfect too, as you said you'd ignore.
You're creating a nice little catch 22 for yourself by saying that if people don't agree with parts of the bible they're hypocrites, but if they happen to agree with all of it, they somehow have lost their humanity even though they retain their integrity. You are, basically, an idiot who doesn't respect other people's beliefs either. I deserve to be 'fucked' for subscribing to a set of beliefs which basically embodies the most loving religions around (not even kidding, but you don't seem to know anything about religions beyond what you read sensationalist pricks posting online, good for you). You just want to be able to get pissed at Christians for some weird reason, ignoring the parts that justify the clearly over the top (in human terms) parts like killing people for worshipping another God.
Posted as AC to avoid being labeled as a recist/bigot. Found you!. Recist must be a fairly uncommon mispelling?:P I don't think you were being racist anyway, maybe a bit unrealistic..
Your link doesn't actually say anything about Caligula.. it does however say you can get 666 from Bill Gates' name, so how likely is it that it was an actual reference to Caligula (and above someone says it's a reference to Nero rather than Caligula?) rather than some idiots trying to find secret codes in the bible? You can find special numbers in anything if you look hard enough (23 is a fun movie, despite the tightly stretched plot:) )
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I'm pretty tired of it too, he was just talking about me and him of course! Well - me, him and everyone on slashdot who has been paying attention ;)
Well, I have a pretty good opinion of the guys that do the translations, they don't just translate from language to language, they translate from the original language, though they can make mistakes when some statement is ambiguous. I don't think they have anything to gain from mis-translations. I'm thinking of the guys that translate bibles like the NIV and KJV and such. I believe the Roman Catholic church may try to be more controlling, but reformed evangelical churches have genuine preachers who are Christians and believe what they preach. It's crazy but some churches have ministers who admit that they aren't even Christians? I don't get that. Personally I have been going through doubts recently, which haven't been helped much by some discussions on /. over the last couple of days. I can defend against a lot of accusations brought up against the bible, since I've read it myself a couple of times, but there are still some things that make me unsure myself. Revelation is quite an interesting book, likewise Daniel has some stuff supposedly to do with the end of the world, you should maybe read that too if you're interested. It's better not to get too hung up on it like you say though :) I keep on keeping on myself, I just wish I knew what I was meant to be aiming for!
I guess I'd better explain what I meant about it being more of a problem in manual cars. If you try to change gear while holding a phone then you're either going to have to stop your conversation for a while and find somewhere safe for the phone to go, or you're going to have to try to change gear with the phone in your hand and possibly lose grip of the gearstick or drop the phone, causing further issues as you miss a gear and lose engine braking and acceleration, or possibly take your eyes off the road as you try to find the phone. I didn't mean that manual cars were inherently unsafe (if they were then car related death tolls in Europe compared to the US would be massive and manual cars would be made illegal, but that isn't the case), just that they work best if you have two hands free. If anything the fact that you have to use two hands is good as it discourages you from other distractions like holding a cup or food, though then as I say if you do try those activities, you're just creating problems for yourself if you then find that you are needing to quickly change gear.
Changing gear isn't much different from using your indicators once you are used to it - really. You don't have to look at the gearstick or even take your hand off of the wheel for more than half a second to a second. Sometimes I do rest my hand on the gearstick rather than keep both on the wheel, though that's just a bad habit, and I'm sure drivers of automatic cars don't keep both hands on the wheel at all times either.
If you had to answer general knowledge questions asked by your gearstick to get it to change gear then I could see it being a bit of a distraction, but in reality I, and probably most other drivers in the UK who have passed their test, move up through the gears literally without even thinking about it. If you're used to an automatic then obviously it will take quite an adjustment to drive 'stick', but in that case you just need practice. Don't forget that you have to use the clutch pedal at the same time as doing all this. But just the same as you don't have to think about where your feet are when accelerating and braking (at least I hope you don't otherwise your reactions in an emergency are going to be severely impaired), you don't think about the clutch or gear shift when changing a gear, so it isn't a distraction. There is a period of adjustment for using a different gearshift as the gating on each one can be pretty different, and some cars have a 6th gear where other cars would have reverse and stuff like that, but again that quickly just becomes second nature, like someone learning how to touch type in Dvorak instead of Qwerty, only a lot quicker and simpler!
I will however admit that I often change the volume on my stereo, though again I don't need to look at that, and most of the time I'd do it while stopped at lights anyway. There was one time about a year ago I was trying to find a track on a CD and realised I hadn't noticed a car coming over the ridge ahead of me - that was enough to scare me into being more sensible when it comes to in depth stereo fiddling (if I have a passenger I'd ask them to do it)
Yep, I've done a lot of drifting in computer games, and I want my next car to be RWD so that I can use it to have a little fun now and then ;) There isn't much potential for drift on UK roads apart from perhaps on roundabouts (and obviously it's not a good idea if there are other cars nearby, especially if they're police cars ;) ). FWD is boring because the only thing you're going to achieve by spinning the tires is going straight off the road, so you have to drive 'sensibly' round corners (my current car can 'spin really easily in 1st and 2nd, and has even spun in 3rd with the traction control switched off, got a lot of torque as it's a diesel :P ).
:p I know motorbikes are stupid because I'm likely to get killed by an inattentive car driver even if I don't kill myself, but I have more confidence in my observational skills now obviously (just hope I don't get too rusty while I'm banned :( ). One thing to remember is that people are actually statistically more likely to have accidents for a little while after receiving any driver training, because they tend to be overconfident in their abilities*. So be careful out there ;)
:P I saw they had a nice modified Impreza in the car park, marked as a driver training car. Almost enough to make me want to be a policeman if it weren't for the pay, paperwork, and the fact that I prefer Evos ;)
I'm also considering a motorbike again - I'm a much better driver than rider, but since I'm a bit more sensible than I was a couple of years ago, I think I might be able to ride a motorbike and not kill myself now
*a funny statistic is that 98% of guys think they are 'above average' drivers anway! I happen to know|I am above average though, because I was told so by my instructor, he said I was better than most police drivers are after their first week of tuition - though the lucky bastards in the police get 3 more weeks, and they have to be breaking the speed limit whenever it's safe to do so in the last couple of weeks, as well as learning to do handbrake turns at 80mph - apparently you go into it in 3rd gear then come out of it in 2nd
After the initial chat-up wizard has done its job..
"You appear to have a problem achieving wood, press 2 to temporarily unblock vi4gr@ spam filters"
Hopefully they've licensed Nelson from the Simpsons as the "your heart has stopped!" warning
Your country sounds a lot more sensible than mine. I just finished ranting on another post about how if people were actually taught how to drive properly then we wouldn't need such low speed limits, and there would be less accidents too. I've never done more than about 120mph myself - I recently got stopped by the police for doing 114mph on a quiet motorway (speed limit 70mph). The police car chasing me was doing 140mph and the driver even said how he didn't think I was driving dangerously, but they had to do me for speeding. It makes me sad that I'm going to be a criminal for doing something that was perfectly safe (which is after all the whole point in speed limits, to try and make people 'safe').. I can't do much about it by myself though. Even though countries like yours demonstrate how safe roads can be, the government is making a LOT of money out of speeding fines over here.. I expect I'll have to pay at least £300. I heard of one single speed camera in the UK which 'earns' £80000 a year.. when you dd all the cameras up that quickly builds up into a useful sum even for the government :P
Yeah I don't mean driving especially badly, just more urgently. Like I'd do the speed limit as much as possible even if there isn't other traffic around. I tend to break quite early so that I can bring the car to a smooth halt. At other times though I just won't brake at all in situations where most drivers would be braking a lot due to nervousness or because they were travelling too fast in the first place. Sometimes if you're going slower you end up going faster, because going slowly lets you watch for gaps at a junction for example, so you can just look for a gap and slip in rather than rushing to the junction and having to stop completely before starting off again. Stuff like that means I get about 6 more mpg on average around town than I did before my 'advanced driver' training :)
:)
Some people I've been passengers with brake really late and it does freak me out, it's leaving no room for the unexpected. People who drive like that all the time are just asking to lose control of their car when poor weather rolls around, since sudden acceleration, braking or steering is a big no no for slippery conditions. I'll admit I do enjoy the feeling of acceleration, and I tend to accelerate up to the limit as quick as I can on almost every occasion, but for braking I do slow down well in advance
I'd say the only 'performance' driver training I've had has been in computer games and reading about racing lines, though my driver training course did include collision avoidance training, how to properly counter oversteer and understeer, and I learned a technique to better judge the severity of corners on unfamiliar roads (sure wish I'd known that before when I had my motorbike! which got stolen..). The main bulk of the course was about observation though, which is far more important to safety than knowing how to correct a skid.. if you are keeping aware of what it happening around you then you shouldn't have to do any type of driving that would induce a skid in the first place, even in poor weather.
Obviously computer games are totally different from real life in that you can't feel the car reacting around you, although they are good for learning about certain elements of driving physics - RWD vs FWD vs 4WD and such. I used to be rubbish with RWD, but after learning basic stuff like braking before corners rather than on them and that kind of thing, I improved muchly. I've had a fair bit of practice at higher speeds irl too, though only in FWD vehicles (unless you include the Landrover Defender which only maxed out at about 90mph down hills! as well as having pretty chronic understeer).
My instructor noted that I had a good smooth driving style out on country roads (which will be because for my first few months of driving, most of it was out in the country, and as my dad used to be a police officer himself he showed me how to steer properly), which I was pretty happy about. The guy teaching my course has been a police driving instructor for over 30 years - we were in a Police Training car that was sponsored by the company I work for, and he was doing 110mph out in the countryside, pointing out that that is perfectly safe when the conditions are suitable (no traffic around, no pedestrians, good weather..) and you are observing ahead of yourself properly. There's a police driver training centre in the south of Scotland and apparently they have to be going as fast as is safe for the conditions all the time, which sometimes entails driving at 160mph on the motorways! So I've been feeling less guilty for travelling at high speed in certain situations since then, and stupidly ended up getting done for doing speeding on the motorway recently (at 10PM in the evening, there were no other cars around, although it was a bit damp). The only people that seem to judge me for the speeding are people who don't drive! I was feeling like a bit of a criminal for a while, but I told my instructor about it and he says "we've all done it before, just we didn't get caught", heh. I
Aye, I'd noticed the same of pebbles, they look better at the beach :P I got some nice polished marble stones so that I don't have to keep them wet all the time.. thanks for the info about under the sea. I remember the green being especially vivid for some reason though.
Can just change your threshold for comments to browse at 0 or above. Personally I browse at -1, but just stop reading when I recognise the sentence (that "let yOUR conscient be yOUR guide!" guy is annoying too :P )
Reminds me of one of the couple of times I went scuba diving in the sea. I don't think I've ever seen colours so bright as some of the plants on the bottom of the sea bed that day (and this was on a dull stormy day in west-coast Scotland, which is hardly very exotic!). When you take stuff like stones and weeds out of the water suddenly they look very dull.. I wonder what the difference is.. maybe something to do with the refraction of the light going from the water to the glass to air into my eyeballs upping the contrast or something? :P
I fail to see how you can say someone complaining about cell phone use in cars is a hypocrite. There is a massive difference between a sensible alert driver and someone driving with one hand. It's less of an issue in America where most people drive automatics, but manual cars are in the majority here in the UK, so anyone driving with one hand is causing a major hazard, and yes I've seen plenty of people doing it. When you drive with due care and attention it's extremely unlikely that you will have an accident. Any accident that is caused by other drivers could affect you just as much as a pedestrian as they would if you were in a car. You'd be more likely to survive in a car than as a pedestrian though. There are places where cars can go that pedestrians don't, but I don't think those areas are any more dangerous than walking around town either. Especially on motorways/freeways with a central reservation blocking off oncoming traffic.
As the summary of the article just said, even talking to someone is still pretty bad for your driving (if any unexpected situation arises at least). Having a bluetooth setup is all nice and dandy for keeping your hands free, but talking to someone who isn't even in the car isn't a bright idea considering they can't see around you. Passengers can stop talking or point out dangers to you if a bad situation crops up, but someone on the phone will just blabber away none the wiser. The best thing to do (unless you spend most of your time on the road and have no choice, like if you're a taxi driver, salesman, or a delivery guy or something) is to make all your phonecalls before your journey, or stop whenever you can. That's simply the safest thing, it may not be necessary in the middle of nowhere travelling down a highway where you can see for miles, but in cities and such, unless you're stuck in traffic then you'd be safer just not using a phone at all. If my phone rings when I'm on the way to work, I just ignore it. Reception can pass on any important messages.
Well, some people are better than others, I remember one psychology test we did where you had sets of different numbers spoken into each ear at once to study auditory memory (you know when you weren't really listening to something someone said, but then you can think back over it and work out what they said). I got every single one right, over several rounds of something like a chain of 6 numbers in each ear. Of course personally I don't see why if you can do it once you can't do it a million times, but the way the people taking the class were talking, and from the results of other people, clearly a lot of people were making mistakes in remembering the numbers - so most people can't really concentrate properly on more than one thing at once..
/.ers have better levels of concentration and skill than most, and would do just as well as me on that test. But like you say, even if someone is 'good' at multitasking, when the most dangerous thing that most people do (driving) is involved, it is still better to unclutter your mind as much as possible. Especially if you aren't really in good mental condition at the time - tired or angry for example. It's obviously better just not to even drive at all in those states.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of
I thought that too, but I think he's made a good point. Perhaps his driving while listen to audio books is less attentive than it would be without for short journeys but on long monotonous journeys, your attention can just as easily wander, or you can get sleepy and your attention will be even worse than if your mind is being stimulated by more than just the driving. Personally, the only accidents (not serious ones, just bumper scuffles, two of which were shortly after I learned to drive, and one of which was about 5 minutes after I woke up.. :s ) I've had were when passengers were present. I do tend to rush more if I have passengers too, because I feel a responsibility to get people to their destination quickly, when I'm driving around town by myself I tend to chill out and just enjoy my music.
I do lots of observation while driving - frequent mirror checks at all 'hazards' (you should be checking your rearview mirror every 10 seconds anyway - that sounds like a lot but it isn't once you do it automatically, and it keeps you aware of what's going on around you in case you need to break suddenly or something like that). The checks are all pretty much built in now, I remember a few times that I've just stopped mid sentence while speaking to someone because I'm approaching a 'hazard' and need to concentrate more on my driving: I learned the police 'Roadcraft' System of Car Control on an advanced driving course a few months ago, and I highly recommend any such courses (mine included defensive driving, skid control and a more rigourous driving test than the standard UK driving test) to people to improve their driving and make even those times when you're driving on 'autopilot' safer.. though it's never really a good thing to let yourself drift into that kind of state while controlling over a ton of metal moving at speed!
Again I'll say that I don't think people should die for some of that stuff, but was relating what the bible says. The bible says that God can't abide any sin, no matter how small, and people deserve to die for it (the love comes in where they are given just as much good stuff on this earth as people who are less sinful, etc). Sorry for accusing you of being bigoted then, it's just crazy how angry people get at the whole of Christianity sometimes - which just ends up with me getting all defensive and more affirmed in my beliefs a lot of the time. The truth is that not knowing what is out there really is quite a scary prospect. If I were just to stop existing when I died I'd be fine.. it's quite a plausible idea after all. If I did believe that then I'd probably be dead already though. Anyway, I'm glad we both were able to talk without getting too heated about all this, my apologies for the previous post, it's what happens when I think about stuff too much, someone ends up being on the receiving end of me being a jerk. Being on antidepressants tends to stop it, possibly just because it stops me being able to 'think', and unfortunately I came off my ADs after I met the gf I mentioned, and I'm sure that didn't help our relationship in the slightest. And now the fact that she won't even speak to me is the thing that causes me to think either she isn't a Christian, or there is no such thing as a Christian.
Personally I find the fact that I have to die for any sin, sin that I can't help commit (and God knows that, though of course there is an 'easy' way to be forgiven, but before Jesus people had to work out on their own that God was actually loving and merciful), and sin that was a result of Adam taking an apple which someone was bound to take eventually (which would leave a really weird situation of a group of sinful people and another of 'sinless' people), and why God can't wave a magic wand and save everyone like you say. It does all seem a bit far fetched. I used to talk with my gf about it and we both thought it was still the most 'plausible' out of any possible explanations for everything. I haven't studied eastern philosophy in depth no, it definitely (as opposed to just maybe with some other religions) is the result of human ideas, though studying those ideas and belief systems probably would result in happiness in this life. If I were a gambling man and life was just a game, I'd probably bet on the bible being made up. The risks to that are high, especially when the idea of hell has been drilled into me all my life. I can't even believe that I'm saying all of this. Oh well. I may see you in hell, or maybe we'll all be living in our own personal little heavens a la Terry Pratchett..
Thankyou for that too. Now I'm wondering how you reacted to my anger in the other post. Oops ^^; Yes I'm not sure how much of the bible should be taken as 'God breathed' considering the discrepancies in the gospels (2 angels instead of one angel, that kind of thing). They're things which don't make much difference to the message, but make me think that yes, the bible is not necessarily all infinitely infallible absolute truth. To be honest I find the whole of the fact that life exists in the way it does a bit absurd, and there doesn't seem to be much clue as to whether we are here for a reason or by chance. Maybe there isn't a meaning in it at all.. on the other hand, I do find it very easy to believe that there will be an intelligence and power out there greater than our own, and I don't see why people who believe in evolution for example wouldn't believe that too.. a lot of humans just want to believe that they are in control.
Yep I think copying others' characters from a novel or TV series for example is rather lame. In Harry Potter's case I'm not too bothered, the last few films seem to have been getting worse. I loved all the books though. I doubt most people would be too interested in books on a series that were purposely created without the consent of the original author - not to such a level that they wouldn't buy the originals anyway. If however the copy turned out to be better.. well.. you could say that that is 'progress' of a kind, isn't it? I'm not saying that's how it should be, I just tend to play devil's advocate whether I believe in what I'm talking about or not ;)
People always used to 'pay' for their wives back then. See Dower. I'm sure the same kind of thing still goes on in Islamic and Hindu cultures today. You're just showing what an ignorant bigoted fuckwit you are here, with your heavily biased accusations and ignoring of important qualifications to the more extreme sides of dealing with a God who detests sin. Even if I wasn't a Christian I'd think you were an idiot (and like I said, I'm not even too sure I am at the moment, I can just see that you are completely misinformed, or unwilling to tolerate others' beliefs).
Yes, exactly, do whatever the fuck you want as long as you believe in Jesus. Just ignore the fact that by believing in him you have recognised the fact that you are a sinner and you believe he has died for those sins, and that you are thankful that they are forgiven and don't actually want to be sinning anymore. You've really got this logical thinking down to a tee..
How do you expect the bible not to be relevant to the time it was written? When talking about adultery it did talk about men and women yes, not so sure about rape offhand, but from your quality of information so far I wouldn't be surprised if you are again taking things out of context.
Yes, I did say they deserve to die. That is part of Christian belief - everyone deserves to die as soon as they come into existence, because of the fall. There comes the vitriol, thanks for making yourself seem to be a moron so that I don't have to be too bothered about it. I didn't say I'd stone anyone, I wouldn't. And Jesus didn't. He gave his life rather than killing them. Way to understand the whole thing. *shrug* The bible says that's what people will think of Christians anyway. Of course someone could have easily guessed that before writing a counter-cultural book. Still I believe it could be the word of God, but like I said I don't know. I personally don't think believing in another God is any more evil than anything else, but yes it is something worthy of death, the same as extending sentiments such as 'fuck you' to a fellow human being, or lying. When (well, more likely 'if') you one day realise what scum humans are and how basically everyone deserves to die, but in fact we are all granted equal grace, then you will be capable of understanding Christianity. What people deserve, and what people get is a completely separate matter. Nice how you ignore that I include myself in the sinners who deserve to die/be stoned. I wouldn't do it because first I don't want to kill anyone, and second because I am imperfect too, as you said you'd ignore.
You're creating a nice little catch 22 for yourself by saying that if people don't agree with parts of the bible they're hypocrites, but if they happen to agree with all of it, they somehow have lost their humanity even though they retain their integrity. You are, basically, an idiot who doesn't respect other people's beliefs either. I deserve to be 'fucked' for subscribing to a set of beliefs which basically embodies the most loving religions around (not even kidding, but you don't seem to know anything about religions beyond what you read sensationalist pricks posting online, good for you). You just want to be able to get pissed at Christians for some weird reason, ignoring the parts that justify the clearly over the top (in human terms) parts like killing people for worshipping another God.
Have a nice day.
Your link doesn't actually say anything about Caligula.. it does however say you can get 666 from Bill Gates' name, so how likely is it that it was an actual reference to Caligula (and above someone says it's a reference to Nero rather than Caligula?) rather than some idiots trying to find secret codes in the bible? You can find special numbers in anything if you look hard enough (23 is a fun movie, despite the tightly stretched plot :) )
Threescore means sixty, what is your point? If they translated it wrong then it doesn't matter what the translation says