Sayonara

Standard forum etiquette. Mainly that I wish it was on UK television because it stomps on the UFC

Someone emailed me the Hoff PDF but Operation Hoff Bomb is 100% Sayo.

Make sure you have some chest wax at the ready. Also, I do not know where your pants are. Sorry.

"My" PDF? "My" PDF? Oh sure, it locks up your PC so it must belong to the unpleasant totalitarian who works for a shady government agency.

That went down well :/

Well, anyhoo... This thread is for people who do use myspace to whore their profiles, so we can all join together in one big friends list meganetwork of hellish joy. I am /starfedrogue Sayonara was taken, ok?

It sounds like you are saying "Firefox 2 shouldn't have a menu bar because I prefer it to not be there." It takes a while before conventions take time to be adopted, never mind become a de facto standard. Let's not forget Vista is not even on general release yet.

How come "pies and cake" is not on their list of "additional explanations"? It's not like it isn't a factor in any cases ever. Interesting bit of research btw.

Yes, they do - they are simply not visible by default on some programmes.

There are days when I feel the same way. And also "Grrrr, myspace" days, when I am trying to post a bulletin and it says it has posted and the ****er is lying totally. Like today. But like I said, "...people on there who really, really, make all the spam and EMOs worthwhile."

Errr... I think you mean BSc. BS degrees are something else entirely

I thought that at first too. But I have met a couple of people on there who really, really, make all the spam and EMOs worthwhile. The sort of people who make you wonder how you got along without them. And strangers will only look into your personal life as far as you let them. You don't have to post everything about yourself, and you can set your profile to private. Well, he's just an extreme example of people who don't "get it". If he is sitting there spamming that many people with his time, I think we all know how many friends he really has.

Totally unashamed and blatant bump.

Generally speaking, the only reason you would want to use a less energy-efficient, comparatively more expensive, and bulkier technology like a CRT monitor, is because you are a graphical designer who needs a much higher resolution and more realistic colour representation than LCD monitors can supply. Anyone else ought to have stopped buying CRTs by now. He is possibly suffering from a nostalgia attack.

Right, I am back. Sorry for the ludicrous wait. Personally I think we ought to strive not to damage biodiversity where it already exists, but NOT that we ought to artificially and arbitrarily decide that biodiversity needs to be shored up. As you will know, with an ecological background, determining whether or not a species or web is "destined" to collapse is something that is unfortunately beyond the capacities of many of the people who are given that decision. In the case of this pond (which is turning into something of a bug bear for us both), the unpolluted pond with its ecosystem intact and (possibly) no bell frogs is clearly more biodiverse than the polluted pond that has a bell frog population, and not much else. Complex trophic networks are a key indication of biodiversity, and they have vastly more scope for absorbing disruption, even at the species level. That is an entirely anthropocentric attitude that flies in the face of ecological thinking. I have never made such a claim. You say "intrinsic value". I take this to mean it is of value to the inhabitants of the system, and the systems with which it interfaces. In such a case bioproductivity and the complexity of the trophic networks are absolutely vital indicators of that value. The only alternative meaning I can think of for that bit (that makes sense) is that you are talking about the value of these ecosystems to us, which explains a lot if true. True, but the point I am trying to get across here is that our meddling in such extinction events does not magically endow the event with ecological significance, nor does it retrospectively give the species in question any special diversity significance. Despite the ideas that (a) this smashes diversity in that system, and (b) the species you are trying to "save" (for whatever reasons) is probably reliant upon (a) not happening? This supports my over-riding point that meddling ex post facto is not automatically a good thing, ecologically speaking.

Stop that at once.

Join the campaign! It's like 80s terrorism. Operation Hoff Bomb. Everyone needs to do their part to help get the David Hasselhoff Super Fantastic Activity Fun Book out into the wild.

But then muscular strength alone is not the only factor. Believe me, there are plenty of people who could remove an ape's limbs. What you doubt or would bet on is not really relevant - it has to do with the mechanics of joints as well as strength. Apes are not made of stone. What I have been trying to demonstrate is that the claim "apes can rip off your arms, omfg!" doesn't really tell us much about comparative anatomy when it's the only thing being considered. The question in the OP is firstly whether or not we ever could do that, and - if so - whether we sacrificed that ability for precision of movement. Blunt comparisons don't answer that. In fact, I have already stated that they are off-topic.

The only problem we are having in this thread is that the above only holds true if one is using your definition of "human being", and the overwhelming majority in this thread are stating quite flatly that their understanding of the term is different. You have still not answered my earlier question: Do you believe that you (by which I mean mind, body, emotions, consciousness, etc - not just your genetic code) are equivalent to a blastocyst?

Oh good, for a moment there I thought it was going to be something subtle that you have to read the whole thread to appreciate. Phew!

So why can't "too much nutrition in utero" be anything to do with pies and cake?

How did this thread turn from one about inactivity, into one about bitching?

Dammit... I was about to go to bed. Do me a favour and PM me so I don't forget to reply, because I don't know when I will be on again this week

Marijuana field more like

The sea actually split into two it was so badly depleted. The South sea is estimated to disappear within 15 years. The North sea has had some extensive work done on it and looks to be stable now (albeit vastly diminished). Fish stocks have been reintroduced for fishing but it is by no means accurate to say that this is a restoration of the pre-1918 ecosystem. Theoretically we could duplicate the ecosystem with reintroduction, but there are two problems: 1) We do not know the exact composition of the pre-1918 ecosystem, which no longer exists, 2) The structure and mechanisms of the seas have entirely changed (e.g. salinity increases, change in the surface area to volume ratio due to the split, subsequent changes in evaporation rate and therefore further shifts in salinity, the fact that the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya rivers were diverted away, the stonking great dam that has been built through the middle, the massive plains of salt and toxic chemical deposits that surround the shores, ... etc etc). It seems inconsistent of you to mention harming biodiversity in one post, then "side with" saving one species over an ecosystem in the next. Especially since in your last post you picked me up on what you perceived to be an arbitrary value judgement. It is not the only population though, is it? You don't get to say "ahhhhh haaaa, you are wrong because I introduced imaginary elements in to the scenario." If that were the scenario, I might take a different view. But it is not. The bottom line is that one species leaving an ecosystem is less damaging to biodiversity in that system than multiple species leaving the ecosystem. Whether or not the species leave/s the system due to extinction is spurious and irrelevant. It occurs to me that the absence of that one species might have a bigger impact on the trophic network of the habitat than the absence of the multiple species, but that is not the same thing. Species go extinct all the time, but ecosystems have a tendency to work around the holes. Let me ask you something else. What good will it do to preserve that population of bell frogs if the rest of the ecosystem in the polluted pond is going to fail? Before you reply, it might help to have a think about why amphibians are not so fatally affected by the pollutants in the water as are other organisms in the habitat.