My dad got one of the first 419 scams I know of sent to him and it was very well done. They addressed him by his proper name and position (not hard to find out, but still), the letter was long and well written. I was quite impressed; someone had really tried to make this look as authentic as possible, unlike the ones you usually get now.
I mean, really.
European (well, German anyway) companies have been testing it for ages. You can buy what they call biodiesel at the fuel station around the corner from where I used to live in Munich, Germany. That's an excption though, I admit. But it's easy enough to get. It's cheaper than regular diesel (a matter of taxation I assume), which in turn is way cheaper than petrol. For that reason, in contrast to the US, lots of European cars use diesel.
Many European diesel cars are apparently able to go on biodiesel already, and quite a few farmers use it in their equipment.
The reason you have to be careful about using it is that it's more aggressive and will dissolve your fuel lines and seals if they are made of the wrong stuff. But that's all. So you can basically convert any diesel car to run on biodiesel easy enough by changing everything (which is quite some work),
One real life example of diesel cars: my dad has a new BMW 530d diesel and it kicks ass. Sitting in it you only notice the difference in sound when you can directly compare it to a petrol car, and it drives really excellent. Loads of torque. And the mileage is much better than his former BMW 523i petrol which was only a few years old as well.
In another post on ths topic I described a technique my dad recently used that required transferring 1/5 of the nerves leading to the patient's arm to the other one. According to the results gained so far the patients had no loss in movement or sensitivity.
I don't know what nerves (and how much of them) they used, but if they do it right it shouldn't be a problem.
They probably used cadavers because they don't need treatment afterwards 8) and for legal reasons.
My dad is a plastic surgeon, and he recently did something very interesting: on a woman whose 5 nerve connections to one arm were destroyed in an accident but whose other arm was unhurt, he took one of these five bundles and diverted it from one arm to the other.
He doesn't know the results for this particular patient yet, but experience by Chinese surgeons (who were the only ones to have done it so far) shows that the unhurt arm is still perfectly usable (no change at all except for a numb feeling in two fingers that disappears after a few weeks), and the previously paralyzed one can get up to 80% functionality again.
So the brain relearns that nerves control something *completely different* now. And I presume both arms are controlled by the same hemisphere now.
The brain is amazing, isn't it?
Re:Oh you good Americans, please allow us ur own p
on
FRG on W2K: No CoS
·
· Score: 1
"Anyways German courts have decided Scientology is not a religion. I tend to agree."
"And why should a government or a court (or you) ever be in a position to decide what is a religion? Why do they need government recognition at all? They can get their tax breaks by being a nonprofit organization. Schools and the military can allow time for anyone who wants to pray."
No. In Germany being recognized as a church means big benefits (mainly taxwise), so it's actually useful to try and be recognized.
The courts don't tell you what to believe in, but they have to decide if something fits into society and is actually religion-like to decide whether this cult is worth to be supported by the government.
I remember reading a lot about Echelon (mostly suspicions, though) a while ago in c't magazine (German). If you like, you can try to find it somewhere on http://www.heise.de/ct/
From what I remember, Echelon is believed to have enormous computer systems and electronic spy stations (in England; Germany; Australia; US (obviously) and somewhere else). They said they only spied on the East Bloc and assured the German government they weren't spying on Germans at all, but interestingly enough they had rented the rooms right above the Frankfurt main post (including huge telephone arrays) for decades and only moved out a few years ago.
I think it has also been proved (at least there are strong rumors) that the NSA (which is not mentioned in the US constitution, controlled directly by the President and financed through black accounts) was used to gather information about 10.000s of anti-Vietnam activists in the 70s; this information was then used to sue them.
The French aren't all nice guys either. Remember the Rainbow Warrior? This was the original Greenpeace Ship which was bombed and sunk by French agents. Two people lost their lives. When the US wanted an high-speed train, there were two possibilities: the French TGV or the German ICE. Strangely, the French always offered slightly lower prices than the Germans although in the selectins neither party was supposed to know the other's prices. The US bought the TGV. It has since been discovered that the French secret service found out about the prices.
Also, the CEO and the board of the French government-owned Oil company Elf are traditionally ex-secret service types. If you look at your newspapers, you can find their works now. In Germany, there's a huge scandal at the moment because ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl obviously has ordered important documents about the vending of the East-German Leuna refinery to Elf to be destroyed.
It's the same wherever you look, just that not everybody gets caught.
Some other posts Ive read so far said that women are usually looked down upon by men when it comes to technical things. For that reason, in Munich, where I live, there is a computer school for women only, and its growing rapidly. My mother teaches there as well as at other places with mixed groups, and she says the atmosphere in the women-only groups is far better. She says the reasons are that in the presence of men women often get too unsure, and that OTOH many men tend to push themselves to the front for the sole reason of being men.
Personally, Im usually annoyed by women who think they dont understand technical stuff for 2 reasons: first they usually want me to do something for them and second of course they arent. This view is generally accepted at my school among teachers and students, where no teacher would counsel a girl not to take advanced maths or physics (or whatever else) classes for the single reason that she is a girl. This seems to be different in the US (and in some european countries too, I suppose).
But as a matter of fact I dont know any female geeks or even only computer-interested girls. I dont know the reason for this - maybe they dont see computers as much as a toy as men often do. No, wait, I know one woman the Munich Linux users group who is very much accepted by all others.
I disagree with a lot of what has been said in the comment, although some of the views are close to my own. Ill pick at all that has been said so we can maybe find some interesting discussion. The education system has to be changed.
At first it is probably important to say that I am European and was taught in German schools for my whole school life. In the text I usually speak of European schools, but I only have insight into the German situation of course. I think that most of my opinions are valid for all of Europe, though.
Re 1.: Its right: kids really enjoy learning. And I believe theyll happily learn *anything*, including subjects you perceived as boring. The point is, as you said, that they are put behind desks and told to shut up. By bad teachers. By your description it seems that all US teachers are authoritarian pitbulls who force-feed their students unwanted information. From my experience I must say that all the teachers who were respected and liked by the students were those who started a discussion and got the students to cooperate with him. My history teacher, for example, used to give us some facts and then discuss them and all she did was guide us to the right conclusions. Her lessons were fun. If teachers successfully do this, their students will use their full creativity and learn things without any real effort.
Re 2.: Giving students ID tags or even serial numbers would be unthinkable in Europe, but then, schools in Europe and the USA are very different in their security problems, for example. Giving students second priority to the class is a normal thing- you cant have a productive environment if 30 children can all do what they like. Teachers who dont accept citicism are usually bad teachers, though, because good teachers only seldomly make mistakes and can usually accept them or counter criticism with good arguments of their own. This is not only true for teachers, of course. Wasting those hours is a question of point of view. And in subjects I took to be completely useless I read books under my desk, anyway.
Re 3.: You are right to criticize this. Its hard to find a good system for advancement though. The problem is less grave in Europe anyway because there are different types of schools for people of different abilities.
Re 4.: Forcing children to learn the same things is a good thing. Even if somebody is bad at a subject, he might still have to take it because he simply needs it. General culture (I looked this up; it sounds strange but my dictionary says its the right word) is an important thing. I know that most people will never have to do trigonometry in their job, but I think it is important to know it exists, how it is used and what for. I *hate* most poetry, but at least my opinion is based on the experience of having had to read and analyze them for years. Giving people general knowledge isnt ridiculous - its important and its actually interesting. You learn things you never intended to learn or didnt even know existed but maybe you eventually start to like them or you simply need them all of a sudden. An English major might need trigonometry, after all.
Re 5.: Acepted.
Re 6.: Luckily intelligent people arent usually discriminated in Europe. I cant remember any fellow students who were disregarded for *intelligence*. Some of these annoying people who only learn for school and parrot the teachers although they werent really all that intelligent were not accepted by everybody, but the almost never (that is to say, only in rare incidents) faced physical or psychical violence, and all of them had at least some friends. The most intelligent students were much respected by everyone. As for homework, about 80% of the students (including me) stopped doing them completely, and almost nobody did them reliably.
Your third-last paragraph is too idealistic. In all big companies discipline is enforced by faceless authority. The government isnt much else. Kids being deprieved of freedom and learning ability may be true for America (I dont know) and is partially true for Europe.
The second-last one provides interesting ideas, but making people choose their subjects in freedom can only work with grown-up persons who *know* their interests and wisely choose their subjects. This much freedom is also not useful because people wont learn the same things, but universities or companies will expect a certain minimum of general culture. Thus your idea is not bad, but in its proposed pure form too radical and thus not reasonable. What Id like to add to your proposals is strong promotion of teamwork.
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My dad got one of the first 419 scams I know of sent to him and it was very well done. They addressed him by his proper name and position (not hard to find out, but still), the letter was long and well written. I was quite impressed; someone had really tried to make this look as authentic as possible, unlike the ones you usually get now.
I mean, really.
European (well, German anyway) companies have been testing it for ages. You can buy what they call biodiesel at the fuel station around the corner from where I used to live in Munich, Germany. That's an excption though, I admit. But it's easy enough to get. It's cheaper than regular diesel (a matter of taxation I assume), which in turn is way cheaper than petrol. For that reason, in contrast to the US, lots of European cars use diesel.
Many European diesel cars are apparently able to go on biodiesel already, and quite a few farmers use it in their equipment.
The reason you have to be careful about using it is that it's more aggressive and will dissolve your fuel lines and seals if they are made of the wrong stuff. But that's all. So you can basically convert any diesel car to run on biodiesel easy enough by changing everything (which is quite some work),
One real life example of diesel cars: my dad has a new BMW 530d diesel and it kicks ass. Sitting in it you only notice the difference in sound when you can directly compare it to a petrol car, and it drives really excellent. Loads of torque. And the mileage is much better than his former BMW 523i petrol which was only a few years old as well.
In another post on ths topic I described a technique my dad recently used that required transferring 1/5 of the nerves leading to the patient's arm to the other one. According to the results gained so far the patients had no loss in movement or sensitivity.
I don't know what nerves (and how much of them) they used, but if they do it right it shouldn't be a problem.
They probably used cadavers because they don't need treatment afterwards 8) and for legal reasons.
My dad is a plastic surgeon, and he recently did something very interesting: on a woman whose 5 nerve connections to one arm were destroyed in an accident but whose other arm was unhurt, he took one of these five bundles and diverted it from one arm to the other.
He doesn't know the results for this particular patient yet, but experience by Chinese surgeons (who were the only ones to have done it so far) shows that the unhurt arm is still perfectly usable (no change at all except for a numb feeling in two fingers that disappears after a few weeks), and the previously paralyzed one can get up to 80% functionality again.
So the brain relearns that nerves control something *completely different* now. And I presume both arms are controlled by the same hemisphere now.
The brain is amazing, isn't it?
"Anyways German courts have decided Scientology is not a religion. I tend to agree."
"And why should a government or a court (or you) ever be in a position to decide what is a religion? Why do they need government recognition at all? They can get their tax breaks by being a nonprofit organization. Schools and the military can allow time for anyone who wants to pray."
No. In Germany being recognized as a church means big benefits (mainly taxwise), so it's actually useful to try and be recognized.
The courts don't tell you what to believe in, but they have to decide if something fits into society and is actually religion-like to decide whether this cult is worth to be supported by the government.
...or rather, half-facts
I remember reading a lot about Echelon (mostly suspicions, though) a while ago in c't magazine (German).
If you like, you can try to find it somewhere on http://www.heise.de/ct/
From what I remember, Echelon is believed to have enormous computer systems and electronic spy stations (in England; Germany; Australia; US (obviously) and somewhere else).
They said they only spied on the East Bloc and assured the German government they weren't spying on Germans at all, but interestingly enough they had rented the rooms right above the Frankfurt main post (including huge telephone arrays) for decades and only moved out a few years ago.
I think it has also been proved (at least there are strong rumors) that the NSA (which is not mentioned in the US constitution, controlled directly by the President and financed through black accounts) was used to gather information about 10.000s of anti-Vietnam activists in the 70s; this information was then used to sue them.
The French aren't all nice guys either. Remember the Rainbow Warrior? This was the original Greenpeace Ship which was bombed and sunk by French agents.
Two people lost their lives.
When the US wanted an high-speed train, there were two possibilities: the French TGV or the German ICE. Strangely, the French always offered slightly lower prices than the Germans although in the selectins neither party was supposed to know the other's prices. The US bought the TGV. It has since been discovered that the French secret service found out about the prices.
Also, the CEO and the board of the French government-owned Oil company Elf are traditionally ex-secret service types. If you look at your newspapers, you can find their works now. In Germany, there's a huge scandal at the moment because ex-chancellor Helmut Kohl obviously has ordered important documents about the vending of the East-German Leuna refinery to Elf to be destroyed.
It's the same wherever you look, just that not everybody gets caught.
It makes me sick.
Some other posts Ive read so far said that women are usually looked down upon by men when it comes to technical things. For that reason, in Munich, where I live, there is a computer school for women only, and its growing rapidly. My mother teaches there as well as at other places with mixed groups, and she says the atmosphere in the women-only groups is far better.
She says the reasons are that in the presence of men women often get too unsure, and that OTOH many men tend to push themselves to the front for the sole reason of being men.
Personally, Im usually annoyed by women who think they dont understand technical stuff for 2 reasons: first they usually want me to do something for them and second of course they arent. This view is generally accepted at my school among teachers and students, where no teacher would counsel a girl not to take advanced maths or physics (or whatever else) classes for the single reason that she is a girl.
This seems to be different in the US (and in some european countries too, I suppose).
But as a matter of fact I dont know any female geeks or even only computer-interested girls. I dont know the reason for this - maybe they dont see computers as much as a toy as men often do.
No, wait, I know one woman the Munich Linux users group who is very much accepted by all others.
I disagree with a lot of what has been said in the comment, although some of
the views are close to my own. Ill pick at all that has been said so we can
maybe find some interesting discussion. The education system has to be changed.
At first it is probably important to say that I am European and was taught in
German schools for my whole school life. In the text I usually speak of
European schools, but I only have insight into the German situation of course.
I think that most of my opinions are valid for all of Europe, though.
Re 1.: Its right: kids really enjoy learning. And I believe theyll
happily learn *anything*, including subjects you perceived as boring. The
point is, as you said, that they are put behind desks and told to shut up. By
bad teachers. By your description it seems that all US teachers are
authoritarian pitbulls who force-feed their students unwanted information.
From my experience I must say that all the teachers who were respected and
liked by the students were those who started a discussion and got the students
to cooperate with him. My history teacher, for example, used to give us some
facts and then discuss them and all she did was guide us to the right
conclusions. Her lessons were fun. If teachers successfully do this, their
students will use their full creativity and learn things without any real
effort.
Re 2.: Giving students ID tags or even serial numbers would be unthinkable in
Europe, but then, schools in Europe and the USA are very different in their
security problems, for example. Giving students second priority to the class
is a normal thing- you cant have a productive environment if 30 children can
all do what they like. Teachers who dont accept citicism are usually bad
teachers, though, because good teachers only seldomly make mistakes
and can usually accept them or counter criticism with good arguments of their
own. This is not only true for teachers, of course. Wasting those hours is a
question of point of view. And in subjects I took to be completely useless I
read books under my desk, anyway.
Re 3.: You are right to criticize this. Its hard to find a good system
for advancement though. The problem is less grave in Europe anyway because
there are different types of schools for people of different abilities.
Re 4.: Forcing children to learn the same things is a good thing. Even if
somebody is bad at a subject, he might still have to take it because he simply
needs it. General culture (I looked this up; it sounds strange but my
dictionary says its the right word) is an important thing. I know that most
people will never have to do trigonometry in their job, but I think it is
important to know it exists, how it is used and what for. I *hate* most
poetry, but at least my opinion is based on the experience of having had to
read and analyze them for years. Giving people general knowledge isnt
ridiculous - its important and its actually interesting. You learn things
you never intended to learn or didnt even know existed but maybe you
eventually start to like them or you simply need them all of a sudden. An
English major might need trigonometry, after all.
Re 5.: Acepted.
Re 6.: Luckily intelligent people arent usually discriminated in Europe. I
cant remember any fellow students who were disregarded for *intelligence*.
Some of these annoying people who only learn for school and parrot the
teachers although they werent really all that intelligent were not accepted by
everybody, but the almost never (that is to say, only in rare incidents) faced
physical or psychical violence, and all of them had at least some friends. The
most intelligent students were much respected by everyone. As for homework,
about 80% of the students (including me) stopped doing them completely, and
almost nobody did them reliably.
Your third-last paragraph is too idealistic. In all big companies discipline
is enforced by faceless authority. The government isnt much else. Kids being
deprieved of freedom and learning ability may be true for America (I dont
know) and is partially true for Europe.
The second-last one provides interesting ideas, but making people choose their
subjects in freedom can only work with grown-up persons who *know* their
interests and wisely choose their subjects. This much freedom is also not
useful because people wont learn the same things, but universities or
companies will expect a certain minimum of general culture. Thus your idea is
not bad, but in its proposed pure form too radical and thus not reasonable.
What Id like to add to your proposals is strong promotion of teamwork.