Totally random thoughts

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:09 am

frigidmagi wrote:We only use the good names for places we happen to live on.

For example, Neptune?

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 8:17 am

Compare that to the names used for human cities. On one hand you got a name stolen from old mythology. On the other hand you got names like

Baton Rogue.
Ottawa
Tulsa
Edo
Beijing.

General Havoc · Post by **General Havoc** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:41 pm

Yeah, but there's also places like Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Ciudad Bolivar, Washington, Athens, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Xi'an, Mumbai, Abu Dhabi, Jerusalem, or Vladivostok, whose names are either mythologically-based, or based around historical or other non-literal meanings.

It takes all kinds

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:56 am

So a truck drives by the guard post, takes the turn too quickly and pops it's side door. Out fall 8 chickens.
Now, a lesser group of individuals than my fellow brave soldiers would have panicked and shot them. No, we checked whether we can cook them.
Obviously not, so a few days later some security dude goes to pick them up, but misses the two chickens that got tangled up in the barbed wire.
Yes, chickens are stupid.
So we were left with two chickens.
For a day and so we decided we're taking care of them. One of them was a cannibalistic alpha chicken, tearing and eating the other chickens feathers. It was also as dumb as a rock, and stepped in the water we left it all the time.
A thai foreign worker came to pick up the chickens. He had this grin on his face that he was going to eat them. That was quite disturbing.
He forgot to pick up the eggs they laid.

speaker-to-trolls · Post by **speaker-to-trolls** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:16 pm

Actually as it turns out at least two extrasolar planets do have names, Osiris and Bellerophon. I'd just not that Icarus would arguably be more appropriate as a name for the first one.

I've been thinking, dinner is usually the biggest meal we have in the day, this is absurd. Unless you work a nightshift or for some other reason need to be awake and active for a long time after dark dinner is by far the least important meal of the day, you've already done all the work you're going to do, you're about to go to sleep, the state in which you use the least energy it is possible for a healthy human to use, and yet this is usually the biggest, most energetic meal of the day. Madness.
I'll concede it might make sense for it to have the most protein, though, since I've heard the digestive system may work better while you're asleep.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:42 am

speaker-to-trolls wrote:Do you know how males came to exist?
According to some theories, in earlier times all sexually reproducing organisms would have produced complete egg cells, or cells would have budded off and exchanged DNA in the way some protozoa do now. But some animals started producing smaller sex cells, because one can produce more of these smaller cells for the same amount of resources as you can produce a few larger cells. But, obviously, a reduction in the size of one cell means less nutrients, fewer organelles, and so on, so other sex cells had to compensate. Thus the egg and sperm were born!
This is only the outline of the theory which I've been taught(and it's confusing because it doesn't really explain hermaphrodites), but still, it does not cast us males in a good light.

An unrelated thought: There are over 200 extrasolar planets which we have discovered, and all of them have dry alphanumeric names. Someone should get to work on naming them properly.

We have over 300 extrasolar planets, actually. We might want to learn more about the individual ones before we start finding appropriate names for them.

The one found around Epsilon Eridani was actually called "Vulcan" by its discoverers for some reason, though I don't know whether it is official.

It won't be habitable due to its orbit, though, so perhaps we should wait until we find habitable ones before we start breaking out the good names (especially since the planets in the galaxy probably number in the hundreds of billions the way stars do).

BTW, I hear that the first sexual reproduction probably occurred between single celled organisms fusing prior to cell division, such that when they finally split, the DNA of the "daughter" cells was a mixture of the two original parents. Everything else that was added later, including distinct genders, distinct gonads in multi-cellular organisms, mating behavior patterns, etc. is just gravy. Perhaps Comrade Tortoise can enlighten us more about it.

LadyTevar · Post by **LadyTevar** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:02 pm

You know a guy really had a bad day when you see the Death Certificate say : Motor Vehicle Collision: Hit deer, then Tracter-Trailer, then Pickup

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » Mon May 11, 2009 9:20 pm

You know those people who go to McDonalds as a treat? McDonalds, with all the crappiness that entails? What the hell do those people eat on a normal basis that McDonalds is a treat?

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Tue May 12, 2009 3:35 am

Steamed Veggies.

fgalkin · Post by **fgalkin** » Wed May 13, 2009 6:30 pm

Mayabird wrote:You know those people who go to McDonalds as a treat? McDonalds, with all the crappiness that entails? What the hell do those people eat on a normal basis that McDonalds is a treat?

When my family first came to the US in the early 90s (we went back to Russia once the worst of the post-Soviet collapse passed), we could not afford McDonalds on a regular basis, and so it was something we'd do once every few months as "eating out". The only birthday party I ever had outside my home then was one of those crappy McDonalds ones. It was awesomest thing ever, I thought then.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » Thu May 14, 2009 7:31 pm

Didn't answer the question.

fgalkin · Post by **fgalkin** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:37 pm

Potatoes, really cheap franks, some veggies. Noodles. That sort of things.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Tue May 19, 2009 11:59 pm

We have to clean our rooms before we go back home for the summer and you know what a room mate of my threw out? "Adventures of Huckaberry Finn"! People these days. :sad:

Squidgey · Post by **Squidgey** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:02 am

So, with a random conversation to my genetics tutor at uni, I am now unsuccessfully trying to recall the name of the guy that wrote a paper that apparently has successfully argued that Cows are Tool Users based off of the fact that some cows rub their arses up against fence poles in their paddocks.

That all said, I've had a whole host of random calls asking how I managed to get to Africa suddenly and whether the email they had recieved from our biological society (I'm the president of it) at uni was legit or as it appeared a scam. Great scam, almost believeable as I intend to go to Africa at some point and preferrably for most of my life study the elephants there in some capacity, but wholly annoying in any case because I now can't log into that account and thus can't recover email addresses not found elsewhere nor change the password - whoever cracked it changed the password and I cannot recall how to get in touch with Hotmail Support to try and rectify the issue.

Cheers all,

Squidgey.

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Wed May 27, 2009 10:34 am

Holy shit, Anton Yelchin played both Kyle Reese and Chekov! I didn't realize it until I was looking through IMDB moments ago!

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 8:19 am

I suppose one good thing about the networks censoring curse words is that you get to fill it in yourself. I watched Gabriel Iglesia's latest comedy first censored and then not and when I heard the way he said a curse word, the joke lost its appeal. :eek:

Post by **B4UTRUST** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 10:41 am

If Lucky Charms are magically delicious, are Unlucky Charms magically malicious?

LadyTevar · Post by **LadyTevar** » Sat Jun 13, 2009 9:30 pm

C(18)N(24)O(2) + CH(3)N(4)O(2) = C(11)H(15)NO(2)

Estrogen + Chocolate (Theobromine) = Ecstasy

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:32 am

Ah chewing gum, a great way to prevent continuous eating and yet get the impression it is still happening.

Batman · Post by **Batman** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:31 pm

So what exactly does Timmverse Solomon Grundy want money for? He CAN'T pay cash for anything because wherever he goes people are bound to call in the National Guard and he doesn't have the brains to use direct deposit or credit cards, leave alone the steps he'd need to go through to ALLOW him to use his money via direct deposit/credit cards.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:34 pm

I think it's just force of habit from his previous life. He doesn't even know why he still wants money or what he can do with it and doesn't have the brains to question any part of it.

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:17 pm

I love the three public libraries New York City has. The Queens Library stocks many multi-cultural items. The New York Public Library (serves the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island) is more reliable to get British Television (Cadfael, Doctor Who, etc) and television series in general. Lastly, the Brooklyn Library has items that are out of print.

I can get anything.

Post by **B4UTRUST** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 3:51 pm

Soontir948 wrote:I can get anything.

And Lo the Bird by Nelson Bond...

and go!

Soontir948 · Post by **Soontir948** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:38 pm

It's a short story so it took me a little while to find an anthology that included it; "The Best Animal Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy" edited by Donald J. Sobol 1979 - Queens Library

Woodside is where I live so I'll visit them tomorrow and see if they actually still have a copy on the shelf.

Post by **B4UTRUST** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:17 am

Alright. I'm impressed. Suitably so...

Only ever found one anthology that included that story and only ever found it in the dollar bin of a bulk warehouse bookstore type thing... so never actually seen a library carry it anywhere...

LibriumArcana.Games

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