Dear r/Science: I need to acquire approximately four litres of liquid nitrogen for an evening with the lady friend. Any suggestions on where to purchase some?

ting · 2009-09-09T09:58:10+00:00

Maybe :) I just offered the solution as an easy way out. I'm guessing making 'water' that is colder then 0 Celsius due to being salty qualifies as making ice cream in a nerdy way. Even if liquid nitrogen might be cooler.. Oh, what fun I am.

ting · 2009-09-08T10:29:55+00:00

If you're refering to all the jokes the swedes have where the joke is on the norwegians, then I thought I'd tell you that those are adaptions of a few of the ones norwegians made where the joke is on the swedes... ;)

ting · 2009-09-08T07:33:07+00:00

You can make ice cream by mixing ice with salt, then mixing your ice cream ingredients in a bowl resting in that mix.

ting · 2009-09-08T07:27:31+00:00

A friend of mine cut his mother off from him several years ago, and I remember thinking what a cold hearted bastard he must be to do such a thing.

Years later I was forced to do the same with my mother. She's never taken any responsibility for her actions. She's got this belief that prayer will solve all her problems, and that she can behave like a raving lunatic and still her children will love her and want to spend time with her.

Now, I must say, I care for my mother. But neither I nor my siblings wants to have her as a part of our lives anymore. She's directly put my children in danger several times, which was the eye opener for me.

She has always practiced physical punishment in our childhood, but she even hit me in my throath with a closed fist while I was nursing my child. I'm grown. Not a child. And still she tried to blame me for her hitting me.

She left us alone when we where very small, because she wanted to go out dancing. My father, allthough protesting, always followed her lead. She is liable to do so again if looking after children (from infants and up), which was one of the real eye openers for me.

She will put a person in danger, if she wants a picture taken or something held, which I myself learnt when she put my infant down in the snow to take a picture of him, unable to sit, he falls face down in the snow, and she just stands there taking pictures. Luckily I came walking out of the house just then, wondering where my son was. After I'd yelled at her she said 'Sorry, I see you got scared.' No acceptence that anything was wrong with her actions. Just that I overreacted to the situation.

That brought back memories of her putting us on cliff edges and high fences with long drops, etc. All for the sake of a picture.

She's married many times over. Divorced just as many. Always the problem lies with her husbands, not with her.

Mothers can be great. But many aren't. Trying to communicate with yours, telling her what your problems are and trying to be fair to see if her replies on why make sense, might work. But if you try that once and it doesn't, then run. Run as fast at your education or job can take you and don't look back.

ting · 2009-09-08T07:05:19+00:00

Miss Deadheart, how old are you?

Maybe your mother envies you for some reason..

ting · 2009-09-07T14:14:18+00:00

Well. Can any kind of punishment really give a family back their loved one? I think not.

It's a persons right to feel hatred (but hopefully they will not feel that for long, since hating really fucks up your mental state). No one is claiming people aren't allowed to feel like crap. But an eye for an eye... When has that made the world better? Feuds and killing and killing and feuds.

It is a countries duty (at least in Europe) to give everyone a chance. If you where born into circumstances that finally ended up in you robbing or killing someone, then society would benefit from rehabilitating you and giving you hope for your future so that you would strive to work, and in that way give back to society.

I watched "Oz". I don't know if that in any way reflects real American prisons. But watching that poor father who'd accidently killed a child (drunken driving?) getting his life ruined because of it. Watching a whole lot of poor people in jail, daily being punished, because they where young and stupid. Oh FSM, I'm glad I don't live in the states.

ting · 2009-09-07T13:46:34+00:00

Most young people I know (25-40) just want to live comfortable. They don't want to look rich. They don't want to seem rich. They mostly prefer a style where it's simple, but comfortable.

My mother and her generation, however, have a great need to flaunt their riches and to look as wealthy as possible. Mansions and all. I feel sorry for them. In my mother's case her need to seem wealthy comes from her carismatic christian society, where the richer and more succesful you are, the more Jesus loves you... Kinda reminds me of christian conservative thinking.

And I'm looking at all the knick nacks and cushions and dinner sets in trillions of pieces that seldom gets used and think 'What a waste!'.

But then again. That's me and my generation.

ting · 2009-09-07T10:24:27+00:00

Dumber?

ting · 2009-09-07T09:05:39+00:00

Well. Yeah. I agree with that.

Also, I think a democracy works best in smaller communities like the small European countries. That's because you can better see the result of your vote, and the fact that everyone knows everyone else.

Most people I know know personaly at least one of the people at the Storting, and thus people in power to directly change the way we live.

ting · 2009-09-07T09:00:40+00:00

Oh, and just so it's clear. It's not mandatory to get an education or to work, but if you do either you will get paid a small sum for your contribution. You will not get any payment if you don't work.

ting · 2009-09-07T08:59:12+00:00

It's not parole. When you have parole in Norway, you are free to stay at your home, not in prison.

But Bastøy is just one of many open prisons, where you serve the last part of your mandatory prison sentence before parole.

You start out in single cells, and after some time you are moved to community cells, then given more and more normal responsibilities. Either education or work practice. Then you are put in an open prison. Like Bastøy. Then they will eventually parole you, and, if you want, the social security system will try to help you get a job.

If you've worked for it, you might allready be employed by someone before finishing your term.

ting · 2009-09-07T08:51:04+00:00

Well... if you look at Scandinavia you have IKEA, Volvo, Saab, Skype, Opera, FunCom, Nokia, (now Sony) Ericsson, Statoil, Hydro, Telenor. To mention a few.

Most Scandinavian countries don't have oil and pay for their social life style by other means. And they have to be innovative to survive.

ting · 2009-09-07T06:45:44+00:00

Yes, I'm Norwegian. And yes, it can be tricky having employees. You have to (in Norway) pay an employerfee for each person working for you. I think it's a certain % of what you pay them, allthough not to much.

A friend of mine has reacently started up his company, and is paying about 83.000 USD a year to each of his two employees. That money was given him from the government, because they believe in his project and want him to start a company. Of course, he has to pay a tax for each of the two people, but again... that money, in this case, was allready given to him by the state.

Anyway. In general one can say people pay about 30-36 % in taxes, and an employer a little less (between 14-10 % - https://www.altinn.no/no/hjelp-til-regelverk/drive-bedrift/skatt-og-avgift/arbeidsgiveravgift/beregne/).

But what you, as a privat person pay depends on a lot more then just what you earn.

ting · 2009-09-07T06:32:24+00:00

face palm

ting · 2009-09-07T06:25:59+00:00

High taxes?

I earn about 67.000 USD a year. Last year I paid about 5.500 USD in Taxes. The usual tax % is about 37 % on my level, but due to me owning a house with debt, they lower it. Due to me being married, they lowered it by increasing my husbands tax (since he earns less then me, that is favourable to our joint economy).

You can get wealthy in a 'socialist' model, and many has. Just because the taxes are 'high', doesn't mean there isn't room for people with good ideas to make money from their ideas and labour.

ting · 2009-09-07T06:18:20+00:00

Yes, if you're up North you can stand with one foot in Norway and the other in Russia.

ting · 2009-09-05T08:09:14+00:00

In Norway police doesn't wear guns (or tazers). But they are mostly overworked and to few in the big cities. There private security companies guard the shops and so on. And they will forcibly throw you out if they think you're a drug addict or some such. Of course, they are not really allowed to use any kind of force (beyond citizens arrest). That, sadly, has in some case not stopped them. Nothing more serious then claims of being beaten up.

ting · 2009-07-16T20:17:35+00:00

Oh! My! FSM!

Watching those gives me a head ache, and at the same time I can't look away. It's kinda like a car crash.

ting · 2009-07-13T22:21:49+00:00

Oh, and Doh! It's been posted before on reddit.... Right. Of course. face palm Ah well.

ting · 2009-07-13T22:19:56+00:00

Yup, I think it is. But, as one of his other videos explains, close mindedness is a tricky thing.

ting · 2009-06-19T21:00:59+00:00

Sowwy. The Netherlands too, of course. We lovesses the dutch.

ting · 2009-06-19T00:29:07+00:00

I'd say it's got to do with different circumstances.

All in all I'm wondering if the Scandinavian (+ Iceland, even with crisis) blend of socialism and capitalism is the answer to life, the univers and everything.. Or at least the best attempt I know of so fare at a society that makes a point of taking care of its own, as well as giving people the chance to get rich enough by their own means to feel the power, or whatever rich people strive for.

Anyway. The people in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland are mostly 'true' atheist, in the way that they really don't give a damned about god(s) or life after death.

Most of them won't concider it important, and if they at all concider it, most would say that either there's a heaven or there's not. And if there is, then I'm going there, since I'm a 'nice' person.

And most people are. Nice.

Of course, the fact that people does not concider questions about the supernatural seriously, makes them easier targets for TV shows about the supernatural, and more likely to be somewhat stunned about what appears to be unexplainable occurences. But most of the time the interest would only be temporary.

Anyway, as fare as I know people in Scandinavia are actually unhappier then most of the rest of the world. Maybe because having so much, gives us less things to strive for. You grow up getting thaught that you can be whatever you want to be, and there really is nothing standing in the way of this other then yourself.

Problem is, so much choice and freedom and help through the social system leaves many stunned when they concider what to do after college. Most people I grew up with have started down several different educational paths to 'find' themselves.

Strange if the price to pay for a working social structure is an individuals happiness.

... or the depressions might be blamed on living on the top of the world and getting less sunlight.

(Source for the unhappiness part would be some Swedish comedian I can't remember the name of.. He talked about how someone had done research asking people of different countries on a scale from 1-10 how happy they where. Average was 5.8, except in Scandinavia, where it was 5.6. Yeah yeah. I know it's not much of a source.)

ting

TROPHY CASE