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So due to planning reasons I had to reschedule leg day to monday. Figured I'd try something different for a change and went with time-volume training ("Zero brains required"? Sold!) for deadlifts and squats, 15 minute blocks each. It definitely allowed for a volume increase in the DL, but I had to lower the squat load to roughly 85% of the weight I would have worked with otherwise after a close call in the second set. "Central" fatigue was way more noticeable, but peripheral fatigue was more manageable throughout than with straight sets. Then did a 3-lap fitball hamstring circuit. Finished with some quad/hamstring machine work to hammer the point home, but in hindsight I'm not sure it was such a good idea. I feel small and weak, and I have a feeling that the day after tomorrow taking a dump will be a task deserving of a medal of honor.

Heh, brings back memories. I tend to prefer in-game cutscenes (even if they sometimes tend to substract from the interactivity aspect...), but some pre-rendered are still pretty cool. After digging through YT for a bit, I've come to the conclusion that it's more a combination of pacing, music and voice acting that makes a cutscene stick to my memory than the graphics themselves... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMvBwqSRZc4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAPSs5XrSQ Honorable mention to BG2 ending clip.

SWTOR. After capping a Guardian, Sorc and Mara, I think I'm starting to feel the burnout... time to cancel the sub, most likely. The fact that every pug raid requires full 72 gear and advance knowledge of tactics doesn't help either. Now, when's that sweet Wasteland 2 come out...

Huh, I hadn't heard that one. But yeah, setting realistic and sensible goals is probably my #1 priority when I'm working to get somebody in shape. Dispelling myths shouldn't really be part of the job in a healthcare environment, but what are you gonna do... *Thanks! It's good to be back. (fun times trying to recover a password, turns out MS deletes Live accounts if they go unused for a year...) If you think you need this kind of gear for anything that goes beyond just doing some workout to stay healthy and fit you have no idea of fitness or the human body. There is natural bodybuilding and its getting really popular. That was in the context of the original picture... don't get your panties all in a bunch this early in the discussion.

All you need for serious strength training is some weights and a couple of dumbbell bars and one barbell / sz bar. I think I didn't spend more than 200 bucks on all the stuff I've been using for eight years now. Minus the optional bench. The other kind of gear.

Like I said before: So being fit is not about being anal with floss, its about not neglecting your self. This is nothing more than a standard advice that you would give any kid about self hygiene and seeing this as being yelled at speaks to some insecurity more than anything else. It's way more than that—and the understatement showcases why obesity and generally poor health are so prevalent in the west today. Moderate, regular physical activity has been proven to have a dramatic effect on obesity, risk of suffering cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and other modern day plagues of the developed world. This just can't be stressed enough. The only reason there isn't a stronger drive to tackle the lack of physical activity in the general population is that it's not a problem that can be medicalized—the medical-industrial complex cannot produce and profit from a "cure" in the traditional sense. http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/prevention/ http://healthyamericans.org/reports/prevention08/ In addition, I estimate that's at least eleventy gajillion less dollars in the pockets of pharma fat cats (pun not intended), so fat chance (ahem) of actually ever seeing a serious push for widespread adoption of healthy physical activity practices. ...or without some serious gear. Bodybuilding is fine, but it has done more harm than good to the public perception of what gyms are (or should be) about. And then there's Michael Bay, too.

Right, and your examples work because there are lots of countries with populations of 10. You give a reason why cultural impact should be evaluated from a relative standpoint as opposed to the actual size of the immigrant communities forming within a given country. Your argument would have some merit if there were countries where the native population was being turned into a minority or close to it by immigrants, but in Europe that hasn't happened for centuries. In reality, strictly both approaches are likely flawed, but who cares? Discounting other factors such as geographic and chronological dispersion, population density, ethnicity compositions, etc is what makes this fun, right? Sigh. The comparison worked just the same because the orders of magnitude considered are the same for both countries. You know that, I know that, and it's clear that the errata is the only way you'll worm your way out of the corner you got into by suggesting that immigration in Sweden is greater than in Spain - an argument that a dream team composed of Cicero, Plato and Gautama wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole. But whatever, I didn't know what I was talking about etc. Address the points now and quit squirming. Uh, a population increase of ~14% in nine years that is attributable to immigration "does not change anything"? We are talking several millions, here, not tens or hundreds of thousands as in Sweden, remember. Forget physics, with such hand-waving skills you should be a prestidigitator! Oh, and I did specifically write increases for 2000-2008. Increase for the year 2000 takes into consideration pop figures for Jan 1st, 2000 and 2001. It's clear it's nine years' worth of increases, and I also made a reference to the economic downturn which in Europe was felt in late 2008-early 2009. Don't be afraid to count on your fingers if you have to. Apparently "will do" doesn't mean what you think it means. Re-read the part where I specifically mention immigrants, not Latin Americans as a whole. Immigration is not homogeneous, and obviously, those less well-off are more likely to migrate.

Yup. The US and Germany are actually good examples of the effects of immigration. France, too. But those don't factor into our argument, because you aren't German, French or a US citizen. Your "thought experiments" are useless in the face of actual evidence of the impact of sizable immigrant communities on the countries that harbor them. Interestingly, while you can find lots of stuff on Indians in the UK and Latinos in the US, it's a bit harder to find anything on Pakistanis in Sweden, for instance. Plato failing you, bro? No, the yearly percent rate is an order of magnitude less. I added one percent symbol too many. That's because the eurostat site handles crude yearly rates and those are not percentages. If you bothered to dig up the numbers from the site and do the math, you'd see that the numbers given don't add up for Sweden either if you take it at face value (upping Sweden's pop to a hefty 13,5M), but you chose not to note that. Of course that would be a good indicator that you aren't following the comparison, don't know where the figures come from -despite having provided the source yourself- or are simply attempting to equivocate. Which one is it? So I'm going to rephrase it so you don't get confused again. A mean yearly rate of 13 (per 1000), or a 14,4 percent increase for the years 2000-2008 (that's nine years' worth of increases to consider, not eight, btw. You want pop figures for Jan 1st, 2000 and 2009), versus a 4,8 (per 1000) average yearly or 4,4 percent increase in the same period, for Spain and Sweden, respectively. Discuss that instead of making a petulant rebuttal based on errata. They speak the official language, but are mostly not descended from people of my country. Read up a bit more on that. Latin American immigrants are overwhelmingly of amerind descent, not Spanish. This is caused by the unequal wealth distribution and pervasive racism that drives people with few resources to leave their native countries. And the "former parts of my country" remark is pretty rich, too. I recommend you read up on the conquest of those countries by Spanish expeditions, and how an empire was carved by dismantling the existing societies and replacing them with an oppressive caste system that became the seed of the eventual revolutions. In short, no, they don't feel Spanish at all. But keep applying POWERFUL THINKING ™ to all these matters, in absence of actual experience dealing with people, it's all you have. Again, your insistence that I "quantify" cultural differences in a short forum post is all the indication anyone should need of actually how little you understand cultural diversity. We were, until you decided to mischaracterize me as a xenophobe because you didn't appreciate my disagreeing with your naïve and arrogant dismissal of cultural distinctiveness and proposal that it should be replaced with "niceness". And I'm the one with issues?

Yep. I'm inclined to believe Turkey's claims. Nope, they would never play dirty.

Well, the problem is your links aren't supposed to prove my arguments, they are supposed to reinforce yours, but they are failing rather miserably at that. All I have to do is point a flaw in your analysis or how you only consider the part of the data that suits your purposes. No matter how you try to spin it, a larger relative amount of refugees or refugee applications does not equal a larger (or even comparable) actual immigration. Asylum applications are not a good measurement of actual immigration, as people fleeing from their countries of origin comprise only a portion of migration movements. From this point on I'm going to snip your posts and remove all chaff. I'm used to seeing verbal diarrhea and empty flourish used to obfuscate and divert attention, so don't bother, I'm just skimming over it and editing it out. The bottom line is that you have failed to produce evidence that demonstrates that the number of asylum requests is proportional and therefore representative of the number of total immigrants. In essence, you haven't established how your refugee argument is relevant. So that's a lot of words to prove... nothing. Irrelevant. Comparing based on percentages is misleading in this context. With a population roughly five times greater, those percentages mean that non EU-residents in Spain account for more than three times the amount of total immigrants in Sweden. Total immigrants in Spain are close to 2/3 of Sweden's total population. But since, clearly, numbers are not your forte, take a look at the pretty colors: http://epp.eurostat....gions,_2008.PNG Play around with the charts generator a bit, between 2000-2008 (before the economic downturn started to discourage immigration), the mean yearly population increase for Spain was around 13%. The corresponding rate for Sweden is about 4,8%. Again, with a much smaller population. The natural growth rate in the same time period is 1,18 for Spain and 0,8 for Sweden which means the increase is squarely a result of mass immigration. That's the actual impact of what we're discussing. Hang on, those aren't "real" immigrants, then? Pretty inelegant how you dismiss them. Not really surprising though, and pretty much in line with the lack of real world knowledge of immigrants and other cultures displayed in the rest of your posts. Those are specifically naturalization figures. Again, a subset of the total immigrant population. Meaningless data is meaningless. I already rebutted this cherry picking fallacy above, it's not worth discussing further. This is the first thing you've written that isn't total bollocks. But then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh? Glad you liked it. It's just a reference to my time eating dirt in an airborne infantry unit, comprised of about 30% immigrants, a few of which I still consider my friends. Figured you'd fix on that, but it's not something worth explaining to a weekend social engineer with newly dropped balls. Next. Oh, no, you don't. You don't get to decide whether I deserve to be labelled a xenophobe. Your presumption that you do, by virtue of evaluating whether a certain amount of immigrant acquaintances is above an arbitrary threshold made up on the fly is sufficient proof that I'm not one is both laughable and pathetic. Funny thing is that, I, by definition, could not simultaneously be a xenophobe and have > 0 immigrant friends. Because your approval means so much to me. This is merely a pastime to me and all I care about is setting the record straight. So far I've only attacked your favorite care bear ideology of happy-times, not immigrants or immigration itself. This subtle nuance is just something else to add to the long list of Things Rostere Does Not Understand. Get cracking.

Rofl. So you live in a country of ~9.5M inhabitants, that is 3rd in asylum requests per capita. Never mind that even within the link you posted, over 66% of said requests were rejected. Wow, you guys are so cosmopolite! I bet you have even seen lots of Africans on TV! Seriously, lol. You fail at statistics (which doesn't bode well for your career as a scientist), you fail at reading, and you Google-Fu is weak. Or maybe you just think everyone but you is really dumb and will readily accept your bull**** without a second thought. I live in a country of 47M of which roughly 12% are immigrants, a majority of which weren't born in the EU. I have friends (*SHOCK!!!*) of Middle Eastern, Maghrebi, South American and East European descent. I have shed more sweat and tears (not blood, fortunately) alongside some of them than your pale armchair theorist ass has in your whole life. So do us both a favor, take your insinuations that I'm a xenophobe and kindly go **** yourself.

Agreed. Euro has created a false sense of prosperity and countries have failed to ramp up competitivity. But that's only a facet of a more complex problem. When a fast-food restaurant gets 1.200 job applications in the first week after opening is announced, I'm finding it hard to believe that further austerity is the solution, though. Sure, there's loads of people living off benefits that are dead weight, and more politicians per capita than anywhere else, but with a ~54% youth unemployment rate -engineers and nurses can't find work, not just unqualified labor- investment cutbacks and tax increases are choking an already struggling working class, the middle class being all but extinct. So when I read foreigners commenting that it's now time to pay for the excesses of the past decades and shed some economic fat, so to speak, I can only shake my head and hope they never get to experience what it feels to spend years unemployed, with no prospect of finding a job in the foreseeable future. And Germany. Germany is the good guy here, right? Well, Germans have been reaping the benefits of a huge export market without tariffs for years, while basically dictating economic policy for the rest of the Eurozone alongside France. They have been staunchly resisting taking action to stabilize the debt crisis affecting weaker Eurozone members, because that increases German political leverage as it pushes countries to either quit the Euro or enter into a bailout deal under terms dictated by... Germany. On the other hand, Germany has for years benefitted from the artificially increased purchasing power of her Eurozone neighbors as a result of fixed interest rates that made loans safer and also an extremely favourable artificial exchange rate. Germany hasn't simply managed her economy well... she has also managed other economies to her advantage - with the acquiescence of local politicians more concerned with securing re-election than ensuring sustainable development and growth. So, yeah. It's a tad more complex than "hard-working Germans have to shoulder the burden of the excesses of their lazy southern neighbors". But it's always easier to drink the Washington Consensus kool-aid than spending a few hours a day reading up on the economy, right?

The situation in Europe is different. In the US, you are in control of your own economic and monetary policy, you just have to find someone who knows what he's doing. In Europe it's a bit more complicated - for years now states have been relinquishing their economic -and political- sovereignty to an opaque and undemocratic bureaucracy that answers to no one and whose overall aims and the interests they obey are difficult to discern. This bureaucracy is hellbent on implanting a policy of austerity and cuts that not only is not helping, it's making things worse. Saddled with ever-increasing debt interests, deprived of the economic and political tools to do something about it at the national level (all power to the Troika!), and forced to adopt failed policies that stifle recovery, the outlook is quite bleak. And this isn't just me being pessimist.

You guys really have a negative view on the world, it is incredibly unhealthy. It is also terribly inaccurate, your life is much better than it was at any other point in history. Do you really think humanity is the same as it was 2000 year ago? 1000 years ago? 100 years ago? Numbers man, cynicism and negativity does not equal intelligence. Negative how? We are just discussing facts. Facts are neither negative nor positive. Just because I don't believe in pinko lefty coombayah multiculturalism and chocolate-paved streets doesn't mean I'm a pessimist. Humanity has progressed -quite unevenly, too- but humans are largely the same. Been to Pompeii? And I never said I was particularly intelligent, regardless of how cynical I may be. We all have our vices.

You, of all people are accusing me of ignorance? Quick, call an ambulance, I stabbed myself with the irony! United Statian Catholics, perhaps. Please, don't ridicule yourself trying to explain an European how Europeans feel. I live in Spain, bro. It only gets more Catholic than that in some regions of Italy. I know what I'm talking about. You, don't. Old people may feel Catholic, but even for them that takes a back seat to feeling Western any day of the week, except for sundays, maybe. India is a perfect example of the eternal failure of clashing cultures finding an enduring, stable, peaceful coexistance based on egalitarianism. Remember, American Indian-style "integration" is not real multiculturalism. But hey, the government does what it can to keep the lower castes down, you got that right, at least.

That doesn't make any sense. Are you saying there are no longer any protestants and catholics in Europe? Also you don't seem to have a real concept of what the US looks like or how multicultural communities work. The American Indian Nations have also been winning court case after court case against the US for reparations and rights, so you can read up on that if you'd like to learn how they are doing. Is India a perfect example? Of course not, this isn't something that happens quickly, as I've stated. England is a great example, there are still tensions between Ireland and England and even Scotland, but it isn't exactly warfare. Their unique cultures are still predominantly accepted as they are. Do you have a lot of Saxons versus Briton problems anymore? Assimilation doesn't work, accepting diversity does. Lol no. Not even close. I'm saying people in Europe don't consider being Protestant or Catholic a defining trait anymore. People in Europe have -again, after centuries of near-constant war, a fact you conveniently forget- developed a common cultural framework inspired by the ideas of people like Locke, Voltaire, etc. And that didn't exactly come without bloodshed either. So, to sum up, a cultural paradigm was overthrown by means of force. This is, not peacefully. India, either there's peaceful coexistence and mutual acceptance between the different ethnic groups, or there isn't. And presently, there isn't. I just showed clearly that the random example you produced actually works against your argument. Take it like a man and admit it. Dismissing violent religious and ethnic tensions as "not really that violent" in the face of episodes of ethnic cleansing (did you even bother reading the link?) or suggesting that "it'll get better with time" where history actually suggests the opposite is not just disingenuous, it's insulting. And yeah, throwing some money at the Indian "nations" clearly solves everything. Who cares, you can always print more. How about you give them back their land? Didn't think so.

You mean Ireland don't you? Scotland... what?

Oh crap. I don't even know where to start. Let's see... Catholics and Protestants no longer fight across Europe because after centuries of warfare and millions of dead we have finally figured that it's not such a good idea to define ourselves as Catholic/Protestant and make a fuss over that. Eventually we just decided to drop the whole thing, which actually shows how certain ideas can never coexist. And no, India isn't a model either. And read up on the Naxalites, too. Those guys sure know how to have fun. Not exactly a sign of a well-adjusted and peaceful society. Oh, and don't forget the constant reports of discrimination against the Sikhs. And finally, the icing on the cake. I'm honestly flabbergasted that you'd use the US as an example. The US gov't is the perfect model of cultural assimilation, as the MO to be "crush everyone, impose economic slavery on the remains, and build a nice McD's and a parking lot afterwards". If you think that only partially exterminating the original owners of the land and confining them to "reservations" afterwards is an example of successful cultural coexistence... there's not much to say, really. Yeah... And instead you're posting here? FAIL.

This is beautiful, but not very practical. Methinks you haven't actually immersed yourself in a society that has attempted to get "multiculturalism" to work, or any society other than your own, for that matter. I live in a country that has significant (as in, you couldn't imagine how much up there in comfy Scandinavia) immigration, and have had the fortune of coming into contact with many due to jobs I've held. And let me tell you, being nice just doesn't cut it. There's no way to write "being nice" into law, and laws, my friend, are the structure that keeps chaos and anarchy at bay. The are also, by their very nature, a tool and a means to bend wills. There's this little thing called moral minimums where tolerance simply has no place, and as Mes suggests, moral minimums differ from culture to culture. "Democracy" is nice, only there's no true democracy anywhere, and the devil hides in the details. I think it's quite telling that you speak so fondly of "tolerance" but are so quick to dismiss conflicts arising from cultural differences, the solution apparently being simply general niceness. Do you believe people don't love their culture, their customs, their ways? I think your stance is deeply arrogant; those people and their little cultural idiosincrasies should simply drop their generations-old beliefs and customs and "be nice". What if they'd rather continue being who they are instead of conforming to your poorly defined idea of "nice"? Tolerance only goes so far. And, historically, multiculturalism has been proven a failure as a foundation for state-building. Deep down, humans are still deeply tribal. Yes, even iPhone-toting humans. Sad but true.

You are possibly right, but for the wrong reasons. Russian media are overwhelmingly owned by Russian oligarchs, with whom the incumbent president is publicly at odds. So yeah, they may be biased and propaganda filled, but it's mostly anti-regime stuff.

Heh. I work in customer service and sometimes I find myself thinking "everyone (but me) is an idiot". I've realized that's not really a problem, just a sign that I need a 5-min break. It's interesting though, why some attitudes seem to flourish while others spontaneously stifle, on different communities. The BSN is much more over-the-top, to put it that way, than the Obsidz boards (sorry guys), while both cater, in principle, to more or less the same kind of people. Worthy of note is that moderation over there is much more heavy-handed but that doesn't seem to faze the regulars. I've only really been involved with the ME3MP part of the forum, but I remember being perplexed that the threads that contained the most substance invariably drew the most hate. Group dynamics are funny like that. Nice outlook. This sort of thinking makes you feel better if/when you are asterisks yourself or...? I know I've behaved like asterisks myself here sometimes to a point I'd probably have lost some teeth if I wasn't behind a screen in the ass end of Europe. But then again I've had that IRL too, and I can honestly say I never sought to personally hurt anyone with my antics. I try to make no assumptions about people online anymore. Seriously, it's pretty sad that you think so lowly of "most people". Especially when you most definitely don't know "most people".

Flattery will get you nowhere. And come on, no matter how well reasoned and articulate an argument is, it can never beat a pic of someone crapping on a copy of ME3.

Eh. I think rates of piracy are directly related to the demand of said game. I have no numbers to back me up, but would be surprised if crap games are pirated more relatively to sales compared to higher quality games. You are right, of course. Didn't Crysis # break the record for downloaded copies some time ago? Oh well, can't win them all.

Oh, was that what we were arguing about? Next maybe we can argue about whether life is fair or not. I'll take the 'it's not' side The point I was aiming for is piracy is not a good solution for when you do feel ripped off. I'm not sure why you feel the need to jump all over me for that. I've spent the last few pages trying to explain that being ripped off is not a justification for piracy; thatithe comment was in response to something that had been said earlier along the lines of "poor devs, imagine how they'd feel". If you got the impression I was attacking you, I'm sorry. But I'm simply not going to agree that "life is unfair" translates to "you'll be ripped off sometimes and there's nothing you can do about it".

If you've lost track of the arguments, there's this snapback function the boards have. Use it. It started where you insinuated that getting ripped off is a common fact of life and "should get used to it". And it's strictly false that bugs are getting better. Case in point, the original Civ never crashed, ever. The newer iterations... lol. Also, sub-optimal config.sys memory allocations are not related to a particular game in any way, and cannot conceivably be considered "bugs". It's part of the problem, I think. The "fast food" approach to game production fills the market with titles with dismal replayability values, mediocre writing, shallow mechanics, supported by the premise that eye candy overload can make up for that. Market saturation and creative exhaustion mean I'm much less inclined to give my money to someone for a product that's only superficially different from a competitor's or even its own 2-year-old prequel. If I had more time (and a much higher tolerance for crappy games) I'd possibly pirate, while still happily buying the (very) few titles a year that are actually worth their pricetag. Instead, I find myself with a bunch of bargain bin/Steam sale titles that I've barely played for 3-4 hours, and dropped due to a lack of interest and a nagging feeling that playing a game that feels like a chore for the 2-3 hours leisure time that, at best, I have in any given day, is pointless. It's also the reason I cancelled my TOR sub after I hit level thirty-something with my main. Huh, I could play it with mouse flawlessly. Voice Recognition was useless though. Okay, how did you manage that? Could you somehow adjust the weird mouse reverse-acceleration in the settings or just sucked it up? Because I searched high and low for a solution, edited registry entries, etc, and nothing helped. I'd really like to finish that one because the visuals and premise were fairly decent, and the gunplay was at least entertaining. Halp?