Rule number one is true only to a certain extent. There comes a point in time when the gun is empty and 100% safe. This has to be the case otherwise you can't clean it and you can't store it empty (as it has to legally be in NZ and Aus).

The way the rule works is, always assume the gun is loaded until everyone in the room is satisfied that it is not. Then it can be safely handled among the people in the room (i.e. inspected, dry fired, cleaned, or stored). Even though everyone knows it is empty you still don't point it at anyone - this is to reinforce the habit of the rule and for ultimate safety (say everyone got it wrong somehow that the gun was empty or not - very unlikely but possible).

"As it is, Not as we would like it to be"

When we have a desire or expectation on what we want or how things should go, but it does not turn out the way we 'hoped' or 'wanted' (desire), then we loose the balance of our mind.
Desire is based on illusion, we desire (hope) something that has yet to happen and we think about how perfect it would be 'if', yet when that 'if' turns out to be something we did not expect, intend or desire, then we become agitated, sad or depressed that it did not transpire the way we thought it would be. We then take that agitation and we try to share it with others. We don't like to feel the way we are feeling, so we express it to others, spreading the drama. Most people take on the agitation of the one with agitation and become emotional in some way to either commiserate with them or it brings up our own internal agitations about so many things, that we then become embattled with the one that is agitated. Then the fire that is inside is being spread to each other and sometimes it gets bigger and keeps spreading to those around the ones that are agitated. Then it keeps growing and we have a tendency to hold on to that agitation from moments past or days, weeks or years past and it keeps building. It becomes a habit pattern and we keep repeating the same process because we are consumed with it.
But we all know that the only thing that puts out a fire is water. Water is the cooling substance to quench the fires lust to consume. It is the same way with human beings, water (calm cool words or actions) can help diffuse oneself or others.
When we are agitated we lose our self-awareness and travel down the path that our sensations or emotions are taking us. We in essence lose control, we allow ourselves or others to guide us down a path that is never helpful to any situation.
But there are many paths to change that habit pattern within ourselves and gain mastery over our minds and change the habit of allowing ourselves to lose our equanimity.
Science has proven that no one can make you feel a certain way, or make you do anything. Yet we still have a habit of blaming others for our agitation or sadness, or even praise others for making ourselves happy. Yet we are the only ones that can make ourselves happy or sad. We have the ability to accept things as they truly are be it 'bad' or 'good' and be OK with it. Why do we cry when the milk has spilt? It has spilt, crying or any other emotion over that reality is not going to make the milk un-spill. Cleaning it up and learning or teaching on not to have the milk spill again and moving on from that moment is the most important thing.
We are incredible beings with so much power and beauty. To be with ourselves and learn from within our own beings is so important and the key to dealing with the world around us.
So yes, hope can be a very dangerous thing when that hope consumes us to the point of anger and depression when that hope it not fulfilled.
We do not have any control over how things transpire outside of ourselves, but we do have the ability to master ourselves so we can be mindful to the ever changing world when our hopes are not fulfilled. As we grow we learn not to have so many expectations (hopes), but allow life to unfold around us and 'Act' to any situation instead of 'React' with emotion. When we Act, we start to become aware instead of becoming blurred when we are reacting with unawareness.

'Be well on your journey, May Truth and Awareness be your guide'

And here we are, just about 2017, and 'freethinkers' are still convincing themselves that sending 100 million tons of carbon up into the sky every day does nothing to the air, water and soil carbon sinks. And to suggest it does and also own a car or fly in a plane? You're a degenerate hypocrite.

Very glad you pointed this out, as the international cabal of hundreds of thousands of researchers (people who literally earn their livings by questioning established norms and developing new ideas and solutions, and are therefor pretty hard to keep toeing the line in this cabal) will certainly be angry at Neil deGrasse Tyson for owning that nice car, and flying in airplanes, and no doubt eating burgers while wearing clothes made in China. We, the cabal, definitely need to chat with Neil, as that luxory sedan only get 19 city/29 highway,... with such hypocritical actions, he may as well be handing out pamphlets telling people about our secret anthropogenic global warming cabal, and its goals to, um, regulate the human contributions to the warming of our one habitable planet.

Sorry I lost the snark there at the end because I forget what reason the conspiracy theorists give for 'AGW shills'... is it somethng to do with a moral argument against Exxon and other energy mega companies? Again, sorry, would appreciate help with that part.

I haven't tried it, but the butt brake lever seems to me to fit the application pretty well. Cyclists needing quick braking develop the habit of shift backwards on the saddle, or over the back of the saddle anyway. This helps to counteract the unweighting of the rear wheel that occurs with heavy brake application.

With the butt brake, an existing reflex is repurposed -- clever.

Depending on how you use batteries, this can be an extremely useful test that doesn't require any additional tools.

I'm generally not in the habit of using a battery a little bit, then removing it from whatever device and putting it back into storage. I put batteries in things and use them until they don't have enough charge to power those things. Sometimes "dead" in a high drain device (digital camera, shaver) can still provide enough juice to power a low-drain device (clock), but the majority of the time I use them until they are ready to be thrown away.

When you've got 8 batteries in a pile, 4 that you know are brand new and 4 that you just took out of some device that has exhausted their charge, the bounce technique works extremely well for figuring out which is which if you weren't paying attention and got them mixed up.

Well, to be fair, we don't have any real idea of the living conditions on planets in nearby systems that are roughly earth sized. We haven't been able to detect them until the last few years, and most of those are orbiting too close to the sun (because those are the easiest to detect), and getting any kind of real idea of their atmospheres is currently unavailable. There could be several systems with habitable planets within 30 ly, we just don't know yet. We are improving our capacity to detect these every year, so perhaps by the time we have colonized Mars, we should have a few viable extra-solar earthlike planetary candidates to send probes. Still would be another 50-100+ years after sending probes to receive back enough data to justify sending colonists. Hopefully by then our tech has matured enough to make it possible, and the war with Mars has settled down enough.

It's good to see someone performing an intervention on Stinky's Coke habit.

That's a good reason to boycott wool. If it's all profit driven they will find other ways to make their product.

For example we've got yeast now which grows dairy milk identical to cows milk, thanks to an increasing market of people who refuse to buy milk from dairy farms.

I'm certain if enough people put pressure on the wool industry then someone innovative will take advantage and make some kind of device that grows wool without the sheep.

So we can have our cakes and eat them too in the long run, just by slightly altering our purchasing habits in the short term.

missed it by that much.
I gotta get out the habit of watching the whole video first.

Is this really worth involving police in? I am with him for a honk or two, a bit of cursing and giving opulent instructions on how to acquire better driving habits. Then get on with your life.

When right brain picks up a Rubik's cube because it was asked to, left brain has no knowledge of that. So when the Rubik's cube is passed into the hand controlled by left brain, how does left brain know to even receive the item? Is it acting on habit - i.e. it's so used to cooperating with left brain and body parts that it accepts things left brain offers? And in that case, is the incorrect explanation from left brain influenced by what it thinks right brain wants? For favourite colour - is each side influenced by what it thinks the other prefers?

I suspect viral marketing techniques like anthropomorphising body parts is taking away slightly from the truth. It's a fun conclusion that captures the imagination to say that there are two entities, one in thrall to the other, but we are talking about a malfunctioning brain so the conclusions need careful consideration. These type of things can be a little economical with the truth to paint a better picture, I know the physics ones are on occasion.

Ok I'll try to divide up my wall text a bit better this time

I totally acknowledge that people in the past, and even in present day, some people have to live a certain way in order to survive, but for the vast majority of people that doesn't apply.


Taste:
Like most of the senses in the human body, the sense of taste is in a constant state re-calibration. It's highly subjective and easily influenced over mere seconds but also long periods of time. They say it takes 3 weeks to acclimatize from things you crave, from salt to heroin. That's why most healthy eating books tell you go to cold tofurkey (see what I did there ) for 3 weeks. It's all about the brain chemistry. After 3 straight weeks you aren't craving it. (The habit might still be there but, the chemically driven cravings are gone).
Try it yourself by eating an apple before and after some soft drink. First the apple will taste sweet, and after it will taste sour. Or try decreasing salt over a 3 week period, it'll taste bland at first, but if you go back after 3 weeks it'll be way too salty.



Food science:
One of the major things stopping me from not being vegan, was the health concerns, so I read a number of books about plant-based eating.
There is a new book "How Not To Die" by Dr. Michael Greger. If you want scientific proof of a plant based diet this the one stop shop. 500 pages explaining tens of thousands of studies, some going for decades and involving hundreds of thousands of people. I was blown away at the simple fact that so many studies get done. Most of them are interventional studies also, meaning they are able to show cause and effect (unlike observational or corrolational studies, as he explains in the book). 150 pages of this book alone are lists of references to studies. It's pure unbiased science. (It's not a vegan book either in case you are worried about him being biased).

At the risk of spoiling the book - whole foods like apples and broccoli doesn't give you cancer, in fact they go a long way to preventing it, some bean based foods are as effective as chemotherapy, and without the side effects. I thought it sounded it ridiculous, but the science is valid.
Of course you can visit his website he explains all new research almost daily at nutritionfacts.org in 1 or 2 minute videos.
He also has a checklist phone app called Dr.Greger's Daily Dozen.

There are other authors too, most of these ones have recipes too, such as Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Cadwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr Joel Furhman.
Health-wise it's the best thing you can do for yourself. And if like me you thought eating healthy meant salads, you'd be as wrong as I was I haven't had a salad for years. My blood results and vitamin levels are exactly what the books said they would be.

Try it for 3 weeks, but make sure you do it the right way as explained in the books, and you'll be shouting from roof tops about what a change it's made to your life. The other thing is, you get to eat more, and the more you eat it's healthier. What a weird concept in a world where we are constantly being told to calorie count (it doesn't work btw).

Environmental:
I've read a lot about ethics, reason and evidence based thinking, as well as nutrition and health (as a result of my own skepticism). So I could and I enjoy talking about these all day long. On the environmental side of things, I'm not as aware, but there some documentaries such as Earthlings and Cowspiracy which paint a pretty clear picture.
Anyone can do the maths even at a rough level - there are 56 billion animals bred and slaughtered each year. Feeding 56 billion animals (many of which are bigger than people) takes a lot more food than a mere 7 billion. Therefore it must take more crops and land to feed them, not to mention the land the animals occupy themselves, as well as the land they destroy by dump their waste products (feces are toxic in those concentrations, where as plant waste, is just compost)
The other thing is that many of these crops are grown in countries where people are starving, using up the fertile land to feed our livestock instead of the people. How f'd up is that?
It's reasons like that why countries like the Netherlands are asking their people to not eat meat more than 3 meals a week.

Productivity and economics:
Countries like Finland have government assistance to switch farmers from dairy to berry. Because they got sick of being sick:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/dietary-guidelines-from-dairies-to-berries/

The world won't go vegan overnight, and realistically it will never be 100% vegan (people still smoke after all). There will be more than enough time to transition. And surely you aren't suggesting that we should eat meat and dairy to keep someone employed? I don't want anyone to lose their job, but to do something pointlessly cruel just to keep a person working seems wrong.

Animal industries are also heavily subsidized in many countries, so if they were to stop being subsidized that's money freed up for other projects, such as the ones in Finland.

The last bit:
If you eat a plant based diet, just like the cow you'll never have constipation, thanks to all of the fibre
When it comes to enzymes, humans are lactose intolerant because after the age of 2 the enzyme lactase stops being made by the body (unless you keep drinking it). Humans also don't have another enzyme called uricase (true omnivores, and carnivores do), which is the enzyme used to break down the protein called uric acid. As you might know gout is caused by too much uric acid, forming crystals in your joints.
However humans have a multitude of enzymes for digesting carbohydrate rich foods (plants). And no carbs don't make fat despite what the fitness industry would have you believe (as the books above explain).
Appealing to history as well, when they found fossilized human feces, it contained so much fibre it was obvious that humans ate primarily a plant based diet. (Animal foods don't contain fibre).

The reasons why you wouldn't want a whale to eat krill for you is:
1. Food is a packaged deal - there is nothing harmful in something like a potato. But feed a lot of potatoes to a pig, and eat the pig, you're getting some of the nutrients of a potato, but also heaps of stuff you're body doesn't need from the pig, like cholesterol, saturated fat, sulfur and methionine containing amino acids etc And no fibre. (low fibre means constipation and higher rates of colon cancer).
2. Your body's health is also dependent on the bacteria living inside you. (fun fact, most the weight of your poop is bacteria!) The bacteria inside you needs certain types of food to live. If you eat meat, you're starving your micro-organisms, and the less good bacteria you have, the less they produce certain chemicals and nutrients , and you get a knock on effect. The fewer the good bacteria also makes room for bad bacteria which make chemicals you don't want.
Coincidentally, if you eat 3 potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have all the protein you need - it worked for Matt Damon on Mars right?

1. If not for taste, then you must be doing it because you've been mislead (like I was) to think it's a nutritional requirement. There is zero nutritional reason to eat animals for the majority of people on this planet. Perhaps habit is involved, but nothing that can't be broken if you want to. 99.9% of vegans were not vegan.


2. There is no gene in the human body which specifically makes you eat meat or drink milk. The chemical reaction that makes you crave certain foods is influenced by the foods you eat. In a hypothetical survival situation, eat all of the animals you need to, but we don't live in that situation.


3. I'm a middle-class person just like the majority of the westerners. I wasn't vegan for the first 30 years or so of my life. If I can do it, I know anyone can, they simply must want to. There is no financial, professional, geographical reason for everyone apart from those living in extreme conditions in western society to not become vegan. The reason why I say western society is because not only is western society the biggest cause of this (poor countries are already plant based, using very few animal products comparatively), but because westerners have the opportunity to do it easily.
The only difficult part is finding out correct information, because animal industry groups love to create clouds of doubt by funding misleading research and advertising. But the information is now out there on the internet.


4. It's a nice thought, but until those ideal conditions are reality, we must look at what action we can take now.


5. You don't need to grow your own food, farmers do that for you, and there will be plenty of land free'd up since 70% of all farm land is currently used to feed livestock.


6. There is protein (including the 9 essential amino acids) in almost every edible plant - vegetable, grain, rice, potato, nut and fruit. That simply eating enough to not be hungry means you eat enough protein. You don't need to eat the 3 gluten sources to meet your daily protein requirements. Even if everyone apart from those with celiac disease became vegan, the impact to the planet would be immense, because it's not a common thing. (I'm guessing you must get annoyed with the current trend of hipsters avoiding gluten, when they don't have celiacs or have not had an intestinal biopsy to confirm it).

7. I think it's fair to say that there is very little risk, when the alternative is eating a well documented carcinogen (meat, especially processed meat, see the World Health Organisation). Surely not giving yourself cancer is a good reason to avoid meat?

8. We can philosophize about minute details of sentience, or something like abortion, but really that is say like we shouldn't drive cars because we don't fully understand the laws of physics. We know enough about physics to improve our way life. It's the same about veganism, we know farm animals are mistreated, we know they feel pain and misery, and they have a will to live, so lets fix that first, and then we can philosophize about sentience.


9. It's not about the people that don't have a choice, it's about the people that do, and the majority of people do have a choice, that is the point.


10. Again there is protein in everything you eat - how do you think a chicken or cow get's it's protein? From plants!

I'm not quite sure what is"vegan food" but from experience if you give yourself two to three weeks to adjust to a plant based diet you will do yourself a world of good and salads taste amazing after you make the adjustment.

Personally i base my eating habits on my personal health and thus believe a plant based diet is the best way to go (as personal experience has shown me)

However i eat meat these days cuz its what's prepared around the house. However im in poorer health since (cholesterol shot through the roof and i gained back a ton of weight i had lost) ive went from plant based to animal products and more processed foods.

For me diet is all about my health. A friend said the vegans he knows have the worst most unhealthy diets hes ever seen.

I guess being vegan is all about "animal cruelty". I had been under the delusion it was about ones personal health.