See this. Converting 8 hours of work from sitting to standing assuming 50% addition to calories per hour, adds equivalent of about 1.5-2.5 hours of workout a day. In addition to which regular workout can still be done.

99% of first world population and well-off third world population doesn't even do 1.5-2.5 hours of such workout a day. And even most of those that do definitely do not consider 1.5-2.5 hours of workout a day "infinitesimal".

That is ignoring the much heavier semi-voluntary activities that standing induces.

If it doesn't contribute anything to fitness, why would fitness enthusiasts give their right hand to achieve similar effects?

It doesn't preclude exercise, you know.

I don't know what question this Vik Khanna is trying to answer, but if you put that article in this article's context it seems as if you are assuming there is a dichotomy between (standing work + no exercise) and (sitting work + exercise). I.e. it appears you are saying one cannot exercise along with standing work. Which is obviously incorrect. This statement from the article you quote is also highly misleading :

50% higher metabolic cost is huge. Fitness enthusiasts would give their right hand to increase their rest metabolism by 50% - if giving their right hand didn't reduce the rest metabolism that is. Even if workday is considered only of 4 hours - 50% over 4 hours can surely not be called infinitesimal.

It takes much more energy to stand rather than sit. Not only that, the semi-voluntary movements one makes while thinking are much more energy intensive when standing than when sitting. That is because while standing we move much much heavier body parts - e.g. legs+torso, pelvis+torso, whole body on ankle/knee joint etc. While sitting such movements are typically restricted to arm movements, head movements, leg movements not translating to whole body movements because ass is glued to a chair. It is clear which movements consume more energy. And while thinking there is a lot of semi-voluntary body movement going on.

Then there is the consideration of what our ancestors evolved doing. While it is not standing, standing is still much closer to it than sitting on comfy chairs. Invention of chair doesn't go as far back as early man.

1. Instinct is an extremely well understood term in animal behavior. A non-troll could not have searched 2 seconds and not found the correct meaning of this word in this context. I even gave an example.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=instinct

2. I didn't make any leap- I just said another theory can also explain pack hunting without involving mirror neurons. You made the incredible keep in concluding that I made any leap.

3. I would have appreciated less insolent language from you especially since my post was completely polite.

4. There was more evidence in my follow up post about why instinct explains this better than theory of mind.

Forgot to add - a lioness and a leopardess spent a lot of time together and were "friends". They could hunt individually, but could never succeed hunting together. Lions hunt in prides, and leopards rarely but surely do hunt together.

If they had a theory of mind they might have been able to hunt together, but the instinct theory explains their inability. I can't be sure, of course.

Yes, mirror neurons form parts of brain that have this hardware virtualization functionality to run another's brain as a virtual machine in one's own brain. But so far such functionality has primarily been found in primates - with mimicry portion also found in birds.

The non-primate mammal hunting in packs can also be explained by genetic instinct - like a lion brought up in a zoo hunts less efficiently but similarly to a lion of a forest. Similarly the pack hunting behaviour can be explained by instinct - the theory of mind is not necessary to explain pack hunting.

I mostly agree. Females do devote quite a disproportionate effort in reproduction, so that explains it partially. But the questions you put do raise serious doubts on this study.

This could be because this study wasn't published 10 years ago?

Not sure whether you understand how you missed the point by miles. Same is true in Microsoft monopoly case too - for different reasons. New features and old features of Solaris and IRIX don't matter because no one is using Solaris or IRIX (by MS monopoly hypothesis).

Irrelevant that it can. What is relevant is would it?It would be able to hardware emulate yor[sic] PowerPC at twice the speed you're used to, if he obtains the hardware that the runs the latest OS X. Since the if condition may not be true, and it is likely not true otherwise the post would not have been made, your point is completely irrelevant.

No one pretended that. Just you pretended that the GP pretended that.

This line of argument appears to justify violence that is suggested in the book. And there might be some, in at least one interpretation which we can't prove incorrect. Clearly counter productive to your (and mine) goal of reducing violence. What do you think?

I prefer arguing against violence whether or not any book recommends it.

Heh, too much work. All the terrorists should simply be required by law to set a 'terrorist' bit in their network protocols.

While insults and swear words may hurt - it is a self-inflicted injury. There was a time when me, and many of my mates underwent a transformation by being subjected to order of magnitude more insults and swear words - they stopped hurting, within a few weeks of "practice". So much so that some swear words took on the shape of terms of endearment - literally, if only informally.

While martial arts training can make many physical injuries also less painful - there are 2 significant differences. Training required here stretches into years not weeks, and yet it doesn't work against extreme force e.g. bullet from most guns. "Training" against swear words and insults takes only weeks and completely immunizes against extreme forms of swear words and insults.

(Note that threats of injury are not included in insults and swear words for the above 2 paragraphs).

So it can be argued that the constitutional injunction refers to the suffering that is inflicted by the perpetrator, not oneself.

That doesn't make breathing carbon neutral. Breathing itself still puts more CO2 in the atmosphere than it had before breathing. NOT carbon neutral.

Misleadingly meaning breathing+eating+growing food when using the word "breathing" makes it carbon neutral. Which is exactly as misleading as meaning burning+digging+creation of fossil fuels when using the word "burning".

Technological feasibility doesn't matter - both these cycles are carbon neutral, isolation of single step in them is not carbon neutral, and using single step to mean the whole cycle is identically misleading.

Yes, digging fossil fuels and excluding the formation of fossil fuels from the cycle makes it non-carbon-neutral. Eating food, converting into CO2 and excluding formation of food from the cycle makes breathing non-carbon-neutral.

Include the synthesis of fossil fuels and food from atmospheric CO2, and that will make burning fossil fuels and breathing carbon neutral.

This way burning fossil fuels is also carbon neutral - by adding the million year old synthesis into the cycle. Breathing is carbon neutral - only if you add the plant synthesis over last few month.

By adding appropriate reverse chemical reaction, every chemical reaction is carbon neutral. So only nuclear (mostly fusion) reactions which create carbon are non-carbon-neutral.

Plants have already converted CO2 to solid organic matter and O2. After that, breathing is not carbon neutral.