Sayonara

Well, there are a lot of people who like explosions, and a chemistry forum is a good place to get the requisite information. We do have a clause on dangerous information in the forum policy, which we introduced after a flaming great row about telling school children how to make rocket fuel.

I assume you mean the "Samaritans spokeswoman said..." part is bollocks? I don't see why there would be a noticeable difference in the number of calls to the Samaritans due to the link that was researched.

Strangeness: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/820241.stm I'm going to have to go with mermaids not existing, unless you count manatees. I only believe in werewolves in the sense that lycanthropy is an actual condition.

I really don't see how. The people who are killed in war are usually representative of the population at large, not just "all violent" or "all non-violent". We don't really know that for sure (the first bit, not the last bit). I certainly can't think of any striking examples off the top of my head. I don't see why they should be any more arrogant than the current lot.

Not exactly. The civilian population (and particularly those on the smaller islands) were told by the Japanese military that the approaching US troops would rape and murder women, kill or enslave children and execute the men, burning villages as they left. When the US troops arrived to secure these islands, they often found entire villages had killed themselves (often with the father killing his own family) rather than face the horror of the evil invaders. The stories about the evil of the opposing side were greatly exagerated - you have to remember this was essentially a grudge match. If you have seen any film of the horrifying ground weapons the USA deployed during their invasion you'd think twice before painting the Japanese as child exploders.

Well no. It was just a round-about way of illustrating my last point, "Evolutionary changes aren't necessarily phenotypically obvious". You don't. That's part of my point. No matter the source of the pressure, you can only find out (and be confident of your conclusions) after the event. That's not quite how it works though. You're missing out whole swathes of genetics like recessivity and so forth, and also ignoring the "genetically bad" effects of medicine, such as the increased resistance of pathogens to antibiotics, and the reduced expression of defences that were previously strongly favoured by the selective pressure of not having medial intervention. This is true. Fun, isn't it? That's the chap. Picking out an example of a situation where X does not happen does not demonstrate that X never happens. The effects of intraspecific competition on humans reach into every part of our lives, in a very literal sense. I'm not sure why we need to concern ourselves with the nobility element if we are discussing selection. Is it because that while violence is (in this instance) selectively favoured, it is not necessarily socially desirable? We do that already, every single day. Even if you ignore the fact that abating people's violent tendencies and then expecting the genetic basis of violence to fade away is Lamarckism, the problem is that a few hundred diplomats in meetings with other diplomats don't directly impact the population of the country they are acting in. This is essentially the thrust of the Social Forethought concept I was discussing in the eugenics thread. For the Future!

I really wouldn't know where to start

It's fairly arcane. There are some other bizarre and apparently meaningless ones but they escape me at the minute.

Seriously, one of the weird old vampire "rules" has something to do with them being unable to cross running water. Apparently.

Is "cannot pass by free-running water" a disease?

I would say that they have. The environments they occupy have varied massively over the years, as have the species they share them with. Not to mention whatever pathogens affect sharks. Evolutionary changes aren't necessarily phenotypically obvious. I suppose "habitat" was the wrong aspect to focus on there. There are several pressures that affect evolutionary change: pathogenic influences (as with the sharks), social effects (which can include changing dietary trends, changing family unit models and so on), abiotic effects such as natural disasters and our own influence on the environment, competition from other species (often gets overlooked with humans), and of course the big one - intraspecific competition, which will never go away.

What are you basing that on? I think you'd find that tricky to back up. You can't reduce genetic diversity to the level of "mediocre, average, superior" without masses of supporting evidence. That involves studying vast samples of the population at a genetic level, and will eventually require someone to decide which genetically-mediated traits are "good" and which are not. No, the sharks have most certainly not stopped evolving. Staying in a niche is not the same as failing to evolve. I would say we occupy multiple niches, given the biological definition. Granted, that still makes us different to most species. It would, but you have to understand that "we still have some evolving to do" makes no sense whatsoever as a phrase. There's no goal here - evolution is the population reacting to a changing habitat, nothing more. The fact that we are not animals is also irrelevant: selection doesn't discriminate between the two states of being, and neither does drift. What were we talking about again?

mwaaa

Errr... the Axis surrended before the bombs dropped. Essentially, only Japan and America were still fighting.

I voted "no", on the assumption you mean a perpetual motion machine that (a) works, and (b) puts out usable energy.

What does "[we] will be nothing but average" mean? Compared to what? You could argue that sharks have been stagnant for millions of years, but they are still as effective now as they were when they first began to diversify.

Indeed, thanks for the debate - there has been a dearth of such discussions around these parts recently. I think your reply #38 would probably be the best place to resume the original discussion from.

Also, (100 - 99.99999999) % of British women is about equal to one and a half hands, or maybe a small liver. What peculiar taste yourdad| has.

Oh come on.

I'm still not certain how that relates to his poor performance on Enterprise. Are you suggesting I should overlook this massive detraction from my enjoyment of the series, just because he can do voice-over on bonus discs or because the studio-enslaved back-slappers he works with like to be seen to be pleased with their employment decisions? No, but it does detract from your credibility as a "Bakula expert" considering you just said you have watched him for over 15 years of your life. One might reasonably expect his outstanding performances to stick out in your mind, seeing as you are such a long-time watcher. But no... even with the IMDB's help you bring us a film in which he was a tertiary character (and essentially a plot device, if you remember), which happened to win "Best Picture" at the Oscars - a feat that is somehow [as you suggested offline] attributable to everyone who worked on the film - and therefore makes Bakula super-great; and Lord of Illusions. Whether or not I can recite an actor's performances rather depends on the actor, not that that is anything to do with this discussion. Malcolm and Mayweather don't make me cringe with every line, and they display range. Mayweather's character had virtually no lines in season 2 & 3 combined, which is really unfair considering he played the "fresh faced boomer" part very convincingly in S1. Rather than the "worst actor" I think it would be more fair if I were to accuse Bakula of giving the most consistently poor performance. Well quite. But it would help a great deal if he actually gave the character some character.

I don't think you can call him a "sound workhouse" just because you looked at his profile on IMDB. Come on, I am sat right next to you. The fact that American Beauty won Best Picture has little to do with Bakula's talent, and even less to do with the way he presents his lines on Enterprise. I haven't seen Lord of Illusions but while I accept he may have had presence I don't believe for a moment that Bakula managed to deliver lines in a non-schlocky fashion. "Better than most" is fairly subjective. He's only better than most because of the vast number of appalling actors on the screen. I think you might be interpreting "...in the Alpha Quadrant" literally, whereas I meant it in the sense that he is the worst actor on the show. One has to wonder why, if he's a good actor, he doesn't bother to act well in his role on one of the most widely recognised shows ever made, considering it is both his source of income and what he has chosen to be known for. No, not in the least.

That'd be really expensive. I'd favour a reinforced concrete barrier.

Whooooooooooooooooooooosh. Watch out for low-flying points.

So what? You would actually put a relatively minor dollar value up as a reason not to make your security service workable? What sort of a plan is that? Don't you think the prospect of defending against future criminal and/or terrorist activity is worth a small investment? You think protecting Bush's ego or reputation is more important? You think no organisation ever changes its structure just in case there's a mistake somewhere? Maybe it's the lack of careful consideration in the USA that is the problem, and not the people who point out the problems. When somebody raises an issue, it needs to be looked into. It's not a magic cue for everyone to form up two camps and start arguing about why the other camp is anti-patriotic. Moreover, you can never "kill all the terrorists". That kind of thing tends to make more people a bit angry with you.

I think Enterprise is awful too, but I still watch it. For all their weaknesses, it has to be noted that Berman and Braga have avoiding messing too much with the pre-history of Trek that was established in the other series and films (assuming they don't cock up the end of the Temporal Cold War). You asked what's wrong with it: - It has pushed zero (count 'em, zero) boundaries since it began (which is the point of sci fi, and the Star Trek tradition) - It has had few interesting stories, and the majority of the plots are recycled - Every character except for Phlox has been pulled out of the standard 2D ensemble bin - Despite the constant complaints from Voy fans that "devoting" an episode to a character is not a substitute for developing the characters properly, they continued the trend - Characters frequently do things that make no sense whatsoever or are contrary to their training - The structures of the scripts are not of a consistent quality, which is amateurish - The dialogue is appalling - The technobabble - which should have become more realistic - has got worse - The stories and dialogue frequently incorporate really basic scientific errors - There are too many TOS pastiche episodes. Are they aiming at the old skool fans, or a new generation? They need to decide - The sophistication of the Enterprise's weapons and defences seems to be highly variable - Scott Bakula is the hammiest actor in the Alpha Quadrant - Still, the costume and props people insist on giving every alien goon and planet-side civilian clothes that are brand new and shiny, equipment that has obviously never been used, spotless quarters etc etc. It's just not realistic.