h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Whenever I am in a new bed for the first time I sleepwalk, look round the room then go back to bed

I sometimes hear the doorbell ring in my sleep. I wake up, trudge around to check the doors and then go back to bed, relieved that no one is disturbing me in the middle of the night.

There is a lot known on sleep patterns - the sleep cycle, consisting of a cycle of stages approximately every 90 minutes. It is quite common for people to wake during a sleep cycle .. do something such as eat a marshmallow, look around the room ... then go back to sleep. When they wake they have no stored memory of what they did during the waking period.

The body/brain has various levels of alertness during sleep - but the key is that our observations/consciousness while "asleep" are not moved into the brains memory store for later recall. People tend to move around in bed, while asleep, needed to prevent "pressure sores" but rarely fall out of bed - indicating a level of alertness/consciousness.

I notice that giraffes only sleep for less than two hours.
I guess nodding off is a serious problem with those necks.

I hate that feeling of falling out of bed, especially when sleeping on the floor

Some claim that the feeling of falling as one is about to sleep, is a remnant, in our own brains, of the brain structure of our tree dwelling ancestors, millions of years ago.

But I think there are many other plausible alternate explanations for it.

I don't feel like I am falling when I just fall asleep

Sometimes I do jerk, I would like another word for that...

I meant the whole loop that results in the jerk motor reflex . It is called a hypnic or hypnagogic jerk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

<>

Mastur.....?

well some times I would find that an aid to sleep swl

other times I just likes it

still back to the feeling of falling, is not something that I assocaite with 'going to sleep'

I'm sure there are other stories, can someone change the subject now

Cadburys has developed a new chocolate that
stays hard above 34C. Should prove popular
in Brazil:

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=Cadbury_invents_non-melting_chocolate_28_11_2012?ref=ccbox_weather_topstories


~jwf~

I must say I'm always pleasantly surprised to see how big a stake the UK has in the space industry - even more so since by the estimates that I know, any pound put into commerical space investment by the UK comes back as 12 in a decade

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20510112

A record of ethnic cleansing, cultural and physical genocide - on a continental scale
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20351012

Kim Jong-Un sexiest man alive, says Chinese "People's Daily" newspaper.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20518929

Ok, so , the title was awarded by The Onion, but still...

First day in New York without a violent crime in "living memory"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20536201

Does appear that they're doing it under a sus-like law however

Yes, but it appears to have worked...

Police notice that 'most' crimes are committed by black and latino youths/people.

Police start a stop and search policy on black and latino people.

Various 'civil right' bleatings...why not stop white youths as well...how racist.

Police ignore comments and carry on.

After sometime since stop and search policy on black and latino people began crime 'becomes zero'.

A link?

Some innocent black and latino get stopped...they feel a bit put out.

However, as over 300 people have died in New York due to violent crime this year then a few people inconvienced has saved lives...

Kind of assumes policing is in a vacuum though. As I understand it the evidence is pretty conclusive that "policing by consent" is very effective in reducing crime.

Where you get a situation where whole communities come to totally distrust the police then the ability of the police to both reactively, and proactively deal with crime from that area gets reduced.

So it can very much be a case of short term gain causing long term pain.

FB

I was debating it myself - if it were say 50-50 it might be justifiable but figure range from only 6-11% of people stopped arrested

The law specifies that they are supposed to be stopped with reasonable suspicion, and provided with reasons for being stopped - If I did something with only a 6% chance of being right and claimed I had a reasonable chance of succeeding I would be laughed at

<>

That's an accusation that's often levelled at the police here in the UK but it's mostly without foundation. "Whole" communities don't distrust the police - but criminals and the politically active associating with them do and as the activists are quite vocal it can appear that opposition to the police is widespread.

Communities expect and want to be policed. Where one demographic is statistically over-represented in criminality, the people who know about it and suffer most from it are the ones who don't mind the police taking action.

New York's transformation isn't a short-term flash in the pan. It started decades ago with one Mayor's "Zero Tolerance" approach and it has been followed up with intelligent and effective policing since then. To have a day without any violent crime in New York is a tremendous achievement and we should be applauding them and looking to learn from their success.

IMHO

"That's an accusation that's often levelled at the police here in the UK but it's mostly without foundation. "Whole" communities don't distrust the police -"

Based on what exactly?

At work so can't really do a whole load of research but I am pretty sure that there have been loads of opinion surveys done which show that trust in the police varys massively based on people backgrounds.

And that those areas where it is highest are also the kinds of people who rarely get stoppped and searched. Middle class white folks say.

Without exception every single friend of mine who is man and from an ethnic background has a poor perception of the police. Coming from a pretty lilywhite part of the country I guess I don't have a massive sample size.

FB