aeroguy

And not "Stalingrad"? In my opinion the best war movie ever made, and with Germans speaking German and Russians speaking Russian. Speaking of war movies, I also loved "A Midnight Clear". Let's just say I'm not a big fan of action movies with happy endings...

Only in mathematics then... I suppose you could come up with ways to prove just about anything... Why do you put that _ below the last 9?

I don't know what Zeno's paradox is, but I do know that 0.999 of the fuel load needed to fly the full distance will make you drop in the drink... Still convinced that 1 and 0.999 is the same thing?

Top 3: The Right Stuff http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/ Life of Brian http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/ Lawrence of Arabia http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/

People in general. You yourself stated that you haven't bought the package straight off. But some people do. The accept an entire dogma, hook, line and sinker! They're then right, in their own minds, and everything that differs from the main line is wrong. I suppose they feel comfort in numbers, in that the views they've adopted are shared (however falsely) by a large number of people. At the same time, they feel they don't have to accept personal responsibility for what they believe or how they act following their beliefs, since the views aren't really their own... My own principle is that you should learn as much as is reasonably possible about something before you form a firm opinion. And even then should you be open-minded and prepared to reject your previous stand on an issue if you're presented with new information and evidence. When I was younger, someone said to me that "you're NOT entitled to your opinion, you're only entitled to your INFORMED opinion". I was so sure of everything back then, so that statement had me fuming. Today, I know it's true. Too many people are too certain of too many things, when they really don't have a clue. Now, I don't mean that people don't have the right to say what they want, but when they claim that they're right, when they really don't know anything, that's something I can't stand.

I've always had a hard time understanding how people are able to simply adopt an entire belief system (and I'm not talking about religion here) without question. Personally, I don't fit in at all well in any of our political parties in Sweden. Although I'm generally left wing, I share many views with right-wing parties where those aren't held by the left. Our leftist parties tend to be extremely anti-globalisation, anti-internationalism and quite isolationistic. There's a very clear "we're better than everyone else, so we'll stick to ours" sentiment amongst that lot. I'm very much for the EU project and the Euro currency project within it, but those are other major issues that the leftist parties fight and oppose loudly. The environmental issues are extremely important to me, but only one party here seems to understand the whole deal, and that's our green party. Except for the fact that they don't see that, for now, our best option is to KEEP our nuclear power plants, until we have decent alternatives. They're bent on shutting them all down as soon as possible. With nuclear power supplying around half of our nation's electricity, we simply can't be without it. Yet, one reactor (out of twelve) has been permanently shut down, and as a consequence, we're forced to import electricity during peak loads (winter), and that imported electricity is mostly being generated in dirty coal or oil power plants in Central Europe. So, we've shut down a working, safe (by international standards) and fairly economical power supply, only to import from a polluting, and more radioactive (during normal operation), source... Well done, greens... Here, again, two right-wing parties see the advantage of nuclear power (in our case - it's not applicable everywhere). Many right-wing parties also see the need for individualism on a personal level where the left see the need for more of a form of misguided equality. People with special needs (especially children) tend to be stuck in a system that's supposed to treat everyone equal. However, the problem is that very little flexibility is allowed for to cater for those who don't fit the mould. Bright and gifted children are often left languishing when the order of the day is to assume that every child has the same potential, and should be treated accordingly. The result? Only a middle-of-the-road minority get an education that's just right. Everyone else is stuck in a system where they don't quite fit. Ideals can sometimes get in the way of reality. The dogma is more important than accepting that it can't always be right... That's enough for now, I think...

What about the genetic differences? The top athletes have advantages giving similar results. I know of one guy here in Sweden who got caught in a doping test, but claimed he was innocent. His testosteron levels were above the legal limit. Of his free will, he locked himself up and had doctors take tests when he had no access to any drugs, and his levels were still just as high. He was cleared. I remember taking a "blood count" a few years back. I was very close to the limit for that test value. It's not difficult to imagine some people exceeding it naturally.

An American man held a pilot's licence and flew until he was 102 years old. He died recently, aged 104!

Return to the Moon: by 2015 at the earliest. First Mars mission: no earlier than 2030. Moon base: maybe by 2040-2050. Mars settlement: 2060-2080. And I'm a very optimistic person! The main problem is of course, as always, funding. And that problem won't go away anytime soon. I firmly believe we should invest all our "space money" in probes, landers, rovers and orbiters. And telescopes. And Earth sciences satellites. I'd also like to see a probe going out to Pluto. Manned spaced flights should be limited to LEO missions. They're not worth the money. It's nice enough for "glory points", but not much else, yet. It would be pretty cool if I lived to see a high-speed probe going out to where one of the Voyager probes is now. I reckon that with beefed-up RTGs and ion propulsion units, coupled with solar sails (for the inner part - for speed), a probe could reach that far in less than half the time it took Voyager.

ST: TNG for me. I don't like the dark, dystopian stories. Star Trek is very much about exploring, meeting new life forms. Both things that appeal to me a lot! It's not a perfect universe, but they try to uphold nice ideals. Equality. Peace. Non-interference (Prime Directive). It's also quite philosophical compared to most of the other shows. I agree that B5 has many of the same qualities, but it's not quite up there in my book... But I'm also a very visual person. The Star Trek universe, the ships, the uniforms and pretty much everything else, are clean and very nicely designed! I don't believe in the fanciful shapes you find in so many of the other series (the ship in Andromeda being a particularly horrible example!). Lexx is fun and a bit sexy (Wist anyone? Hehe!), so it's in a different league. Humour always wins with me, but it's not ST. ST: VOY is almost up there with TNG, but it didn't have quite as good a cast as TNG. The doctor and Neelix are two of the exceptions. It did look better though. The beautiful visual style of TNG was refined further, and lighting improved as well. It's interesting to see how they've reused the TNG character styles for many of the VOY equivalents. Enterprise is strange. You get the impression that they're in a sub rather than a starship. The cast is not right at all. Again, the medical doctor is the exception, but that's probably just my need for humour shining through once more... ST: DS9... No, not good at all. I really don't understand it. Weak characters and poor stories for the most part. I suppose it's missing that element of exploration and adventure that I like so much. ST: TOS... Funny and somewhat entertaining, but only a very small number of episodes are any good. It's very hard to see past all the 60s stuff... SG1 and X-Files don't qualify as sci-fi in my world, but I guess it's up to anyone to decide that. Of the two, only X-Files is worth watching. X-Files is, in my opinion THE best show ever produced. But that only goes for the first few seasons. I haven't even seen the ones with the new guy. The chemistry between Mulder and Scully was half the fun, so without that, the show's nothing. The scenography, photography, lighting, editing, soundtrack, mood and cast are all absolutely outstanding. But, as I said, not quite sci-fi to me... SG1? - Silly silly stuff. Truly weird. I haven't seen Farscape, Earth: Final Conflict or Firefly, so I can't comment on those. Can't say I've even heard of them!

Programmed death is a consequence of evolution in combination with limited resources.

If you'd actually bother to read my posts properly, you'd see that I mean that consciousness doesn't simply "turn on" by the 24th week. It's a gradual process. And again, the 24th week is not MY choice of limit, it's just what the law says. I don't like abortions! Don't get me wrong there. But as long as we have a society where people are reckless, there has to be a way to correct the mistakes. You could lower the legal limit to, say, the 12th week, but the lower you go, the greater the risk that the mother doesn't even know she's pregnant. Especially if she's young and doesn't have fully regular menstrual cycles yet. And especially not if her only sexual education came from her teenage girl friends or from some teen magazine. With the weight problems many girls have today, a growing stomach wouldn't necessarily be noticed until quite late. I'd advocate the pills you take the day after. I think we can safely say that a day-old embryo isn't conscious.

Elephants get that heavy? I'm all right, but thanks for the concern Phi!

But they only hold the balance of power in a few questions. Most of the time, there simply is no divide they can straddle. Again, the more parties you have in the parliament, the less of an effect the small parties have, because agreement on various issues don't tend to follow party lines, so you rarely have the left-right (for example) split. In other questions, you might have a three- or four-way split even.

Oh man, this was entertaining! The universe has existed for a bit more than a dozen billion years. Our planet has been here for around a third of that. Life on Earth appeared maybe 3.5-4 billion years ago. Humans have been around for a few hundred thousand years. A million years from now, it's possible that human beings, or at least descendants of the human race, still live here, perhaps not a lot unlike how we live today. But given a another few million years, I really don't think any human civilisation remains. The human race has become extinct. Ants will still build their mounds and wage their microwars. Birds will still sing when the sun rises in the morning. The cherry tree will still blossom as beautifully as ever every year. But there will be no human beings left to witness it all. For the moment, we think we're the rulers of the world. And we are, in a sense, but I don't think we have much say in our future destiny. Not on a time scale of hundreds of thousands of years. In the same sense, civilisations elsewhere in the universe, if any indeed have existed, exist today or will exist in the future, will almost certainly have a limited life span. Be it hundreds of thousands of years, or millions. In a billion years, we can fit a thousand million-year civilisations. In 10 billion years, we can fit a hundred thousand hundred-thousand-year civilisations. If we aren't perfectly matched both in evolutionary pace and timing, as well as technologically, neither will ever be aware of the other's existence. Even if two civilisations happen to be perfectly matched on a sort of absolute time scale, if we're too far apart, the speed of light will make any percieved simultaneity impossible. Outside a few hundred light years, communication will be pretty much limited to one way.

I have never claimed that! I said: "it's not really a fully conscious human being by the 24th week" There's obviously a sliding scale. Now, I mentioned the 24th week since that's the legal limit, at least where I live. If it's arbitrary, it's not my fault! And you have to consider that someone who's irresponsible enough to get pregnant when they didn't want to, maybe won't make a great parent. If the child is born into an abusive and unloving environment, is it really better off? And adoption isn't a good option, since there's an abundance of babies available for adoption from developing and poor countries.

The fewer parties you have in a such a system, the more power a small party can wield. But here, they only have a major influence when it comes to special-interest questions.

In fact, it's not that uncommon for people to be freed after many years because of new evidence or re-examination of existing evidence with new or improved methods. DNA is one such method that's recently made this possible. Yes, the prison sentence is harsher, but it's not final! An innocent person has the chance to be freed later on, but that will never be true for someone who's been executed! I can't see why you have such a hard time grasping that? I suppose it's hard to accept another reality when you're living inside a system that practices it, but look at most of the rest of the world. The death penalty is definitely on its way out!

Ehhh?

If you're boarding an airliner going across an ocean and you're given the choice between the one with fuel to go 1 * the way there or 0.999 * the way there, which aircraft would you pick? I rest my case! Hehehe...

I voted 50+ years, as we don't have the technology to go cheaply into orbit, which is what we're really talking about here. The difference in energy required and complexity between a short up-and-down flight to 100k and a true orbit is massive. Energy-wise, it's something like 35:1... A small number of wealthy individuals will no doubt go into space using a concept similar to that of the WK/SS1 combo. But I don't think well see more than a few hundred people going into space like that. Any real space tourism will only take off once we have an established, safe and cheap ride into orbit. And by cheap, I mean for about the same cost as a luxury ocean cruise today.

When I checked the dates of the last 3-4 posts, I was amazed to find that they were posted months apart, but on the same day of every month... ...until I realised the board dates are American! Anyway... I'm from Sweden, first of all. Turning 25 in August. I'm really a bit too "balanced" to excel at anything in particular. I tend to be pretty good at most things, but not great at anything. A "jack of all trades, master of none" if you will... My weak point is math. It just don't think it's that fun. I'm a very practical person. My strong point is my ability to visualise things. I can "see" forces and flows and things like that. Although I'll study mechanical engineering next year and onwards, I don't plan to work in the field once I'm done. I guess I'm a bit odd in that regard. I really want a job where I make just enough money to get by, and instead have plenty of free time to pursue my own diverse interests. An engineering job would probably require me to take problems home with me after work, and I wouldn't want my free time wasted like that. And I could and would never sign any confidentiality agreement (except when it comes to personal security such as not telling people where how the alarm system works in the store I work, or for personal integrity, say in medical professions), so most or all engineering jobs are out of the question on the basis of that alone. I like teaching, so that's an option. That's also something I know I'm good at - making people understand more complicated things than they thought themselves capable of. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction! My dream for the future is to have a nice big wooden house in the country, with a few acres of farmland to grow my own potatoes, carrots, cabbage and things like that. Maybe strawberries. Then another piece of land where I'd build a huge greenhouse for cucumbers, tomatoes and spices. In addition to that, I'd want a small piece of forest adjacent to the rest of the land I own. A flat grass field of an acre or two would also be nice, for any future kids to play around on. Finally, a huge garden with trees, bushes, hedges, flowers and "water features", and gravel walking paths. Maybe another smaller walk-in greenhouse in the garden. That place would serve as my recharger! My home is where i regain any strength lost in the daily grind. My free time is extremely valuable to me. I'm an atheist, and generally opposed to any beliefs in the supernatural. I'm also a socialist with a passion for equality in all areas. Now, I've had many a political discussion with US citizens, and they generally have very distorted opinions on what socialism is. Most equate it to the falsely self-labelled socialist and communist dictatorships of the Soviet Union in the past and China (sorry hierarch - I have nothing against the people!) and North Korea (for example) in the present. I love etymology! I don't know why, but I do. I'm also both too lazy and too honest for my own good. Well, that's enough for now... I've probably typed three times as much as anyone else...

I'm going into engineering studies next year. I have some other unfinished business to attend to first. People have told me that here, the first year is by far the hardest. Almost all the math is crammed into the first year, with some left to the second. I guess I'll know in two years!

I do realise I'm a bit late to post here, but hey! It seems that everone forgets the most important reason why the death penalty should never be allowed. People who are wrongly convicted of a crime and are subsequently executed have been done an irrevocable injustice! The same person stuck in a prison cell could've been released and at least have some of his/her life back. No justice system is perfect, and as long as they're not, you WILL end up killing innocent people if you have the death penalty. And if someone's guilty of the crime, they shouldn't get away with the time up until the execution - they should suffer for the rest of their lives. THAT'S a punishment! My country abolished the death penalty in 1921 (although in wartime, the death penalty was still a reality until 1973). - - - Abortion is another matter entirely. True, it's some form of life you're killing, but it's not really a fully conscious human being by the 24th week (which is probably the latest you'll ever see). Eliminate many of the reasons behind unwanted pregnancies to begin with, and you'll see far fewer abortions. It's a well-known fact that the more taboo sex is in a culture, the less young people learn about how to have safe sex. Instead, they tend to come up with their own methods to protect themselves. The use of candy wrappings is common in several western nations, and nowhere is it worse than where religion and traditions hold sex as something dirty, shameful or secret. Couple ignorance with alcohol, and I think you have the cause for 90% of all unwanted pregnancies leading to abortion...

We have seven parties in our parliament, and five of those have formed the government at various times in the past. There's one left-wing socialist party, one centre-left-wing socialist party (the largest of the seven) one green centre-left party, one christian conservative right-wing party, one liberal right-wing party, one green centre-right-wing party and one conservative right-wing party (second largest). Anyone over 18 can register a party, and there's no fee or any other requirement involved. I'm pretty sure you only have to have a legal permanent residence in the country. Citizenship is most likely not required. I believe we have around 1800 registered parties at the moment. And I'd say 99% of them are one-member parties... Not only do we have a system where different parties fairly easily can gain power, we also have a huge diversity. The two main US parties would both be far to the right of our most conservative party, though, and would both end up quite close together on an absolute, global political scale. Another thing to factor in is that although some of the smaller parties only make it into parliament, they still have a powerful position, often as a balance when votes are tied between the left and the right, or along any other political dividing line. They also get seats in various commitees. Both the number of seats in the parliament and the commitees are handed out relative to the percentage of the total votes the party got in the general election. The threshold to get in is 4% of the votes. And politicians are not elected as individuals. You vote for a party, although you have the option to "bump" a candidate up by ticking a box next to his or her name on the ballot. Also, most politicans here come from "normal" backgrounds. Teachers are in a clear majority, followed (in no particular order) by lawyers, social workers, medical staff, and farmers. A growing number have never had more than odd jobs for a few years. These are generally the younger (<25 years or so) of the members. There are 349 seats in total. The number was 350 until there was a 175-175 tie once, and they had to change it... Our system works well, in my opinion, but if I could change things, I'd triple the number of seats and lower the entry threshold to 1% or so. I'd also allow two votes per person, so that smaller special-interest parties had a chance. Such a system could be made to work, and would increase diversity. It would, I regret to say, allow a racist party to enter, but I am a firm advocate of freedom of speech, so I'd allow it without the slightest hesitation. Anyway, that's my rant for now. Nice first post, eh?