English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Captain Bohemian

01:00

do you like to read medical articles?

I think reading physical scientific articles is of more fun than it.

M.A.R.

@CaptainBohemian I really enjoy them. To each their own

Well, maybe enjoy is the wrong word, unless you read reviews

Captain Bohemian

01:22

Your eyes are weak. The viewing concentration needs energy in the firm of blood flow. The eyes are not able to get the required blood flow. The cells connected with eyes may be weak. This weakness may create a strain. Your system wants you to take rest by creating the headache. Is this true?

M.A.R.

01:34

@CaptainBohemian don't take medical advice from random posts on the internet

If determining health was this easy, doctors wouldn't have needed to actually visit patients.

This mustache Indian guy might well be a doctor, and if so, they would agree that you can't indicate anything with one sometimes perceived and very common symptom

Captain Bohemian

@M.A.R. but I kind of feel that is a possibility. reading on phone incurs eyestrain or headache or nausea quite easily.

M.A.R.

@CaptainBohemian it's one of many possibilities, and these possibilities would require different treatments

Captain Bohemian

I think being a doctor requires that kind of personality which can bear drudgery.

M.A.R.

That's true for some doctors

Captain Bohemian

I don't like repetitive tests to find out a result. I prefer to make derivation to get a result.

M.A.R.

01:45

It's like people are idiots everywhere but it's much more visible there for some reason.

And it's mind boggling that anywhere from one third to half of the population believes some of these things to the extent as to vote Trump

@CaptainBohemian I'm sure everyone would have liked a single function to explain disease and health

Captain Bohemian

if there is way to derive how to make an effective coronavirus vaccine, it would cater to my interest better.

but I would say I still like fundamental science more than that kind of applied science.

CowperKettle

02:12

I love reading neuropsychiatry articles, the research ones

Captain Bohemian

I think doctors can be good chefs.

CowperKettle

For thousands of years these things remained a mystery and we are living amidst a revolution, and anyone can read it as it happens.

^ A little poem I translated two years ago, but I still don't like the translation very much.

For some reason after I started on an antidepressant this reduced my poetic output. A known side effect of SSRI is "flattening" of emotion.

Captain Bohemian

cooking good food requires great patience and bearing drudgery and constant tests to find how to make food tasty.

CowperKettle

I'm listening to a long set of lectures on the history of Russia from Peter the Great to Gorbachev

The lector is quite enchanted with Russia

A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev [Professor Mark Steinberg]

Mark D. Steinberg

Mark D. Steinberg is a history professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. == Early life and education == He was born in San Francisco, California, on June 8, 1953. He received a B.A. (1978) from the University of California, Santa Cruz, followed by M.A (1982) and Ph.D. (1987) degrees in history from the University of California, Berkeley. At Illinois, he holds the position of Professor, Department of History at University of Illinois. He is also Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures there (since 2005) and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory...

Oh, he even has a Wikipedia page

Captain Bohemian

I would never have patience to test how to make food tasty and I feel very few foods really tasty.

CowperKettle

02:24

I had too much food 3 days ago and spent a whole day with nausea and bouts of vomiting, and heavy stomach

I still cannot eat much, I get a heavy feel in the stomach

Cerberus

02:50

@M.A.R. Let's say it's a not a place super full of Bildung.

CowperKettle

03:54

> An AI Just Beat a Human F-16 Pilot In a Dogfight — Again. In five rounds, an artificially-intelligent agent showed that it could outshoot other AI’s, and a human.

defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/…

> Ben Bell, the senior machine learning engineer at Heron Systems, said that their agent had been through at least 4 billion simulations and had acquired at least “12 years of experiences.”

Captain Bohemian

04:15

I think dealing with food is a big drudgery.

cleaning is also a hassle and unpleasant.

so sentencing criminals committing obscene offense to do cleaning is a good idea.

Færd

06:48

In theory, Europe's trade surplus from intra-European trade should be zero, but it's not. It actually accounts for 2.5% of Europe's GDP! Guess why.

Hint:

And it has no meaningful correlation with the size of the host economy:

It has a correlation with something else!

CowperKettle

07:42

13 km run, +15 C

Captain Bohemian

08:49

So hot

Xanne

@CaptainBohemian Where is it so hot, or is it just you?

Captain Bohemian

I think humams are not born to do menial work

I think everyone outdoors around feels so hot

I think all brainless works should be delegated to robots or criminals

Xanne

09:22

@CaptainBohemian Why would this work where you are?

Captain Bohemian

Nothing works here

Xanne

In Indonesia?

Xanne

10:05

Or Bohemia.

M.A.R.

10:36

@CaptainBohemian Have you watched Shaun of the Dead?

CowperKettle

12:02

Volkswagen 1-litre car

The Volkswagen XL1 (VW 1-litre) is a two-person limited production diesel-powered plug-in hybrid produced by Volkswagen. The XL1 car was designed to be able to travel 100 km on 1 litre of diesel (280 mpg‑imp; 240 mpg‑US), while being both roadworthy and practical. To achieve such economy, it was produced with lightweight materials, a streamlined body and an engine and transmission designed and tuned for economy. The concept car was modified first in 2009 as the L1 and again in 2011 as the XL1.A limited production of 250 units began by mid 2013 and pricing started at €111,000 (~ GB£119,000). The...

Wow.

Country Club - Kingston Trio - Oh Miss Mary

►

I wonder who wrote this song. Must be a modern faux folk song but it's nice.

Cerberus

13:04

@Færd I...don't see how this is technically possible.

I do know that my country is a terrible tax haven.

M.A.R.

13:40

> As I handed my dad his 50th birthday card, he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said "Y'know, one would have been enough"

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Yeah, should have used a hyphen.

And why would you hand someone a card? Cards are for posting.

M.A.R.

> My wife threatened to divorce me when I said I was going to give our daughter a silly name... So I called her Bluff

2

CowperKettle

SmokeDetector

13:57

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad ip for hostname in answer, bad keyword in answer, blacklisted website in answer, potentially bad ip for hostname in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer (279): Why are "bath" and "bathe" pronounced differently? by pal patil on english.SE

Knight

14:22

To let you know, I still haven’t found the hidden meaning behind the Ezra Pound’s poem “A Girl”

Robusto

14:46

@Knight Maybe it's not hidden. Maybe it is what it is.

Try reading John Ciardi's How Does a Poem Mean?

Knight

@Robusto Yes, that’s a good point. But I thought same about “Burnt Norton”, but it came out that it was really a very deep poem.

Robusto

Some poems can go as deep as you can. Others can't.

Knight

I agree. Some poems are written just for poetic beauty.

Robusto

Well, let's not minimize that. Poetic beauty is a function of many things, not just pretty words.

Knight

imagery and background

too

Robusto

15:00

> So for poetry. The concern is not to arrive at a definition and to close the book, but to arrive at
an experience. There will never be a complete system for “understanding” or for “judging”
poetry. Understanding and critical judgment are admirable goals, but neither can take place until
the poem has been experienced, and even then there is always some part of every good work of
art that can never be fully explained or categorized. It still remains true that the reader who has
experienced most fully will finally be the best judge.

That's from "How Does a Poem Mean?"

Knight

Okay

Robusto

Poetry is the closest literature ever gets to music (lyrics notwithstanding), and music must be experienced through the senses; the senses tell you whether a piece of music invokes a response in you before you ever try to analyze why this must be so. In fact, you can judge music without any extra-musical analysis. The same is true for poetry.

Knight

What I thought was that it was unusual for a Pound’s poem not to have some deep meaning.

Robusto

15:18

What do you mean by "deep"? Something that may be explained analytically? That's not the point of a poem. If you could sum up the poem 100% in a critical exegesis, it's probably not a very good poem.

CowperKettle

A Burnt Ship by John Donne - Poetry Reading

►

Here's some good poetry

Jonathan Welstead: "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

►

Robusto

I can't listen to poetry. I have to read it. My interior voice is the only one I trust.

For example, read this poem (Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock) and then listen to the reading. What a travesty!

CowperKettle

Most of poetry readings on YouTube are horrible. Way overwrought, especially when read by some famous actor

Robusto

I can't even listen to poets reading their own poetry. My inner voice finds so much more nuance.

CowperKettle

I have a "selected readings" stashed on YouTube where poems read in a more or less normal way

"I wake and feel the fell of dark" by Gerard Manley Hopkins (poetry reading)

►

How do you like to go up in a swing? poem put to music by Brad Sondahl

►

And I loved the way this old man turned a great poem into a song

Robusto

15:30

You're a fan of Hopkins? I like a lot of his imagery, but his religion gets in the way for me.

Or perhaps I should call it his "religiosity" ...

CowperKettle

Hopkins is the best poet in the last several hundred years, in my view.

Some distance after him, Keats.

Robusto

Meh.

CowperKettle

Hopkins is just way above all other poets.

Robusto

In what respect?

CowperKettle

And a long distance after the best poets, the non-rhythic dread poetry of the 20 century.

@Robusto Passion and imagery, the only thing that counts in poetry.

Robusto

15:32

You and I shall have to agree to disagree.

CowperKettle

My Papa's Waltz - Theodore Roethke

►

The best rendition of my fav. poem by Roethke

Roethke and Millay are the best poets of the 20 century, along with Wilfred Owen

Robusto

@CowperKettle Read Wallace Stevens's "Sunday Morning" ... it's also about religion and contains a lot of imagery.

And remember that poetry is personal.

CowperKettle

@Robusto Oh, it's without a rhythm.

Robusto

Wrong. It has rhythm.

CowperKettle

I don't know what the correct term is. It does not have it.

Robusto

15:34

Its rhythms are not as obvious as some other poems, but the rhythms are there.

Read Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill"

1 min ago, by Robusto

And remember that poetry is personal.

CowperKettle

I am certain that the worst thing is poetry is an attempt to push a Dostoyevsky into there. Poetry has its limits. When you are drawing a comic book and trying to push a lot of philosophy and so forth into there, it comes out ridiculous. For each genre its own limits.

I love some poems by Dylan Thomas

poemhunter.com/poem/in-my-craft-or-sullen-art

This one is great

Robusto

Read "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines" by Thomas.

CowperKettle

And there is a great rendition of GM Hopkins's poem in music

At 17:10 here, "Spring and Fall to a Young Child"

ted.com/talks/natalie_merchant_singing_old_poems_to_life

@Robusto Thank you! I'll read it!

Robusto

And definitely read "Fern Hill" if you haven't already.

And this:

Feb 15 '15 at 19:23, by Robusto

THE SNOW MAN

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds

Knight

What about Cantos I of Pound? Is it just a translation of Odyssey by Homer?

Robusto

15:41

I don't care for Pound, as I've said, so I don't think it would be appropriate for me to weigh in on his poetry.

Knight

For fascism and anti-semitism?

or any other thing?

Robusto

Suffice to say I don't care for his poetry. That I don't care for his politics is irrelevant to the subject of his poetry.

Chick Corea may be a Scientologist, but I don't let that get in the way of enjoying his music.

Knight

Yes, the same way Roger Waters is doing all kinds of politics these days

But we shouldn’t let it stop us from enjoying “Shine on you ...”

CowperKettle

15:57

@Robusto Thank you!

I've memorized all poems of Keats that seemed memorizable to me. I wish someone cloned him. I'm joking.

I recall this one every time the first snow falls.

It's by Wilbur .. lemme see

Richard Wilbur

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer (77): How do you pronounce 'frappé'? by user396501 on english.SE

CowperKettle

@Robusto Fern Hill seems great, I have the feeling that I did read it.

I first learned about Dylan Thomas in the 1990s when I first read about Bob Dylan, who took his stage name from Dylan Thomas.

I thought it must have been a good poet, but I did not have the chance to read his poems until I properly learned English and had an access to the Internet.

CowperKettle

17:50

> Previous studies have shown people eat and breathe in at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and that microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers, with London, UK, having the highest level of four cities analysed last year.

theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/17/…

The Romans with their supposedly toxic pipes were way behind us.

> Other work has shown different kinds of nanoparticles from air pollution are present in human hearts and brains, and have been linked to brain cancer.

CowperKettle

18:11

> Neurons sometimes eliminate damaged mitochondria by passing them to astrocytes, and astrocytes send them healthy mitochondria. If

Wow.

And it turns out that there are live mitochondria in our blood, swimming freely outside of any cells.

And nobody knew this until recently, because nobody even looked to check.

tchrist

18:43

@CowperKettle !!!

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Wha

HOLY SHT

tchrist

Blood contains circulating cell‐free respiratory competent mitochondria

M.A.R.

This changes everything! And I can even sense that with my primitive knowledge

tchrist

Only 27 citations in Google Scholar since the paper came out on 2020-01-19.

I haven't poked around them to see whether the initial paper's results have been successfully duplicated by other teams.

M.A.R.

@tchrist everyone's focused on COVID

I dunno if I would have expected a higher or lower number

tchrist

18:52

@M.A.R. I'm ok with that.

@M.A.R. I had expected a lower one.

M.A.R.

@tchrist Me too, except I wish they were a little more careful with publishing

tchrist

I can sympathize with that.

M.A.R.

The media has focused its attention on Academia, and retracting papers after a lot of media fuss doesn't look good for the scientific community

In an era of denying climate change and being paranoid about vaccination and Bill Gates and what else

I'm feeling really hypotensive after this exercise session

Færd

So, the scientists should stop giving pandemic advice in real time?

M.A.R.

My BP is always at 110 or less

tchrist

18:56

I can handle papers uploaded to arXiv before peer review is completed. I'm not big on hand-wavy press releases you can't make anything of.

M.A.R.

@Færd I'm not sure how most of the advice needs real-time. Wearing masks and washing hands was always recommended since the beginning

The false hopes of discovering strains or finding certain drugs efficient or inefficient are getting really confusing though.

tchrist

@M.A.R. Maybe in you two's country, but not in mine, alas.

There was a panic on masks at first.

M.A.R.

I know for a fact that a lot of the medical community here hasn't even caught up with all the declarations and retractions. They dunno about Chloroquine or Azithromycin or Favipiravir

tchrist

You really need an N95 mask to go outside in much of the United States today. This is a problem.

Robusto

@tchrist Cold fusion for everyone!

M.A.R.

18:59

My vision is blurry right now, BRB

tchrist

@M.A.R. Antibacterial azithromycin makes for a passing strange prospect for an antiviral therapeutic.

A free-floating mitochondrion is little more than a friendly resident bacterium.

Færd

@M.A.R. There was some confusion about those two tactics. WHO first dismissed masks for citizens and then spun around and said that's a must for everybody. That was disillusioning for some people.

@M.A.R. Put your legs up against a wall...

Hope you're okay

Robusto

I would wait till more studies are in. The thing that is suspicious about it is that M.I.T. isn't trying to take credit for it already.

tchrist

blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/02/03/…

Notice how he says, "if it holds up."

M.A.R.

@tchrist It's not the antibacterial properties, but its effects on the permeability of the cell membrane to the capsid and some other substance I forgot that theoretically should make things more difficult for the virus, IIRC. Experimentally, the studies haven't been all that rigorous AFAICT

The blah receptors being blocked or increasing, I dunno, didn't pay much attention

My main biochem course is this term

Robusto

19:06

I just emailed that to my son, who is a biologist. He'll no doubt have a more informed opinion than my own.

Mitch

@M.A.R. mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell

M.A.R.

@Mitch YES! Finally someone who gets it

Mitch

You'd think that they could get along easier without a cell, than a cell could without mitichondria

tchrist

@M.A.R. I have uncles with doctorates in this stuff, but I've been trying not to bury them in undergraduate questions, or even social-media/trailer-trash questions.

Mitch

To be serious for a moment...

who am I kidding that's impossible

tchrist

19:07

Dog Star?

Mitch

BIRTHDAY CAKE EVERY DAY!

tchrist

STELLA!

M.A.R.

@Færd yeah yeah, it's an all-too-familiar situation :)

Robusto

@Mitch One birthday a year is plenty for me.

M.A.R.

For all my bravado I'm in no way in athletic shape.

tchrist

19:08

@Robusto Thanks. And current, too, which helps.

Mitch

@Robusto as far as accounting goes, sure, but for celebrating, OK maybe that too.

tchrist

@M.A.R. Woodlice are known for the their athletic shape, if that's a soccer ball.

Mitch

Maybe just a modest birthday snack every so often

Robusto

I'm actually trying to cut down on birthdays. But I'm worried if I do that will be the end of me.

2

M.A.R.

Have some extra weight to shed and some muscle mass long lost to regain. Hospitalized patients often suffer muscular atrophy, ditto if it's ESRD and it's dialysis

tchrist

19:09

Funny how much easier it is to get your official name changed than your official age.

M.A.R.

@tchrist YAY Feels perversely proud

Mitch

@M.A.R. As a sworn introvert, all my bravado is kept in a sealed jar at the bottom of a freezer in the basement, underneath all that uneaten birthday cake

@tchrist IRL like at the DMV or just here on SE?

Færd

@tchrist Look at it this way to ease your conscience: they could use a conversation with somebody thinking out of their box.

@M.A.R. you shouldn't have to engage in athletics to remedy that

M.A.R.

@Færd Yeah, false security and all

tchrist

Færd

19:12

😍

What are they? Snails? Some kind of gastropod?

Mitch

Anyway, mitochondria are actually symbiotes, evolved from extracellular prokaryotes that 'invaded' other single celled life, and reproducing in synch with the host cell.

M.A.R.

@Færd I have no idea about most of my shoulds and shouldnts. I dug into some studies and all I know is all sorts of exercise except the most strenuous are supposed to be good for me. I dunno if I can push as much as a healthy person, and the doctors stay in the safe and tell me not to do anything except walking, and not even brisk walking

And I can't just walk for hours a day, so that can't help me

Mitch

That's why they have their own DNA. I figured that they work out some deal with the bigger cells so that they wouldn't survive on their own outside, but I guess the news is that they can.

tchrist

@Færd Woodlice.

@Færd Which are a type of terrestrial crustacean.

Mitch

@tchrist those are some big woods

tchrist

19:15

Woodlouse

A woodlouse (plural woodlice) is a crustacean from the monophyletic suborder Oniscidea within the isopods. They are called that from being found in old wood.The first woodlice were marine isopods which are presumed to have colonised land in the Carboniferous. They have many common names and although often referred to as 'terrestrial Isopods' some species live semiterrestrially or have recolonised aquatic environments. Woodlice in the families Armadillidae, Armadillidiidae, Eubelidae, Tylidae and some other genera can roll up into a roughly spherical shape as a defensive mechanism; others have partial...

Færd

@M.A.R. If strenuous exercise is too much for you, you could do mellow stretches and make your long walks worthwhile by listening to podcasts and audiobooks and stuff.

Maybe.

@tchrist Ewww

tchrist

Normally, they're the size of your fingernail. But not always.

Færd

My guess was too far off.

@Mitch So you're saying it's only natural for them to be found at large since they were not cell-bound in the first place?

tchrist

Gastropod is not so far off from crustacean, at least, not in the grand scheme of things.

The "giant" ones regularly exceed a foot in length. The verified and validated record is twenty inches, but there are many reports of ones larger still, up to thirty inches.

But mostly you find the little ones under logs in moist, warm forests.

Little kids call them a pill bug more often than they call them a wood louse.

Færd

Right, I remember I used to play with the gray ones and they'd ball up at the slightest touch.

tchrist

19:19

In the Deep South they call them "roly poly bugs".

@Færd Yup! Those are the ones! Did you know then that they were crustaceans?

Færd

Nope! They were just another kind of insect to me.

tchrist

Yeah, exactly. Some sort of "bug".

But a pill bug is no more a bug than a horseshoe crab is a crab.

Naming is hard. I blame Adam.

Færd

Or a catfish a feline.

tchrist

A horseshoe crab isn't even a crustacean, but a woodlouse is.

Massive 'Darth Vader' isopod found lurking in the Indian Ocean. The father of all giant sea bugs was recently discovered off the coast of Java.

Færd

Man I'm going to be haunted by the worst of nightmares tonight.

tchrist

19:24

Don't let the bed bugs bite!

> According to LiveScience, the Bathynomus genus is sometimes referred to as "Darth Vader of the Seas" because the crustaceans are shaped like the character's menacing helmet. Deemed Bathynomus raksasa ("raksasa" meaning "giant" in Indonesian), this cockroach-like creature can grow to over 30 cm (12 inches). It is one of several known species of giant ocean-going isopod. Like other members of its order, it has compound eyes, seven body segments, two pairs of antennae, and four sets of jaws.

Færd

Bed bugs I can deal with. Brain bugs are another matter.

Mitch

@Færd Yeah sorta. Or that they had the ability once, about a billion (maybe 2 billion) years ago, so maybe it's not too farfetched that in mitochobdrial DNA, there's enough programming there to survive on it's own (but as general symbiote theory goes, that's usually not how it works...you move in, you stay).

Robusto

Hey, the Pilgrims hated having to eat lobster. I think over time you get used to eating crustaceans.

Woodlice may be a delicacy some day. You never know.

tchrist

Seems to be plenty of "meat" on those Darth Vader bugs.

M.A.R.

@Færd What I found out was that all form of exercise except strenuous exercise released certain types of Interleukins that defended the body against infections and such but had nothing to do with rejection of transplanted organ. This was really interesting! Strenuous exercise is the opposite, it releases, in general, cytokines that increase transplant rejection

Exercise also reduces these transplant rejection factors in the blood

Robusto

19:28

@M.A.R. Define "strenuous" ...

M.A.R.

@Robusto Perhaps for the sake of that study, there was this 1-10 exercise intensity guide whose name I forgot, and "strenuous" was defined as 7 to 10

But, my whole point is

16 mins ago, by M.A.R.

@Færd I have no idea about most of my shoulds and shouldnts. I dug into some studies and all I know is all sorts of exercise except the most strenuous are supposed to be good for me. I dunno if I can push as much as a healthy person, and the doctors stay in the safe and tell me not to do anything except walking, and not even brisk walking

I have no idea what "strenuous" means for me

tchrist

In the Brisbane area of Queensland you regularly see signs outside casual dining establishments telling you that they've got specials on bugs today.

M.A.R.

That . . . does not look as disturbing as it should

They're probably just crispy or something

tchrist

Thenus

Thenus orientalis is a species of slipper lobster from the Indian and Pacific oceans. T. orientalis is known by a number of common names. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization prefers the name flathead lobster, while the official Australian name is Bay lobster. In Australia, it is more widely known as the Moreton Bay bug after Moreton Bay, near Brisbane, Queensland. In Singapore, both the flathead lobster and true crayfish are called crayfish. They are used in many Singaporean dishes. The species is sometimes confused with the Balmain bug (Ibacus peronii) but it can be distinguished...

M.A.R.

Oh, it's a lobster

tchrist

19:32

"Bay bugs" is what I knew them as.

Robusto

When you're really hungry everything looks like fried chicken.

M.A.R.

Both are exo-y animals but one is more food than the other

tchrist

Dinosaurs have endo- not exoskeletons.

M.A.R.

We were conditioned into avoiding bugs because they're in infectious places, right? Or is it another evolutionary tale?

Robusto

@tchrist Had.

M.A.R.

19:34

That's racist

Uh, avianist

tchrist

Your "fried chicken" is nothing other than an extra crispy dinosaur.

Robusto

@M.A.R. Avianism is for the birds.

M.A.R.

@Robusto That's the joke

Robusto

Check.

tchrist

He's such a baboon he deserves to be in an apiary.

Robusto

19:36

Don't bee like that.

tchrist

Boons are monkeys not apes.

M.A.R.

Dinosaurs also evolved into mammals but I don't see us calling ourselves dinosaurs

tchrist

@M.A.R. This is not true.

M.A.R.

Except old anti-science republicans

Robusto

@M.A.R. You're probably not old enough to be called a dinosaur yet.

M.A.R.

19:37

@tchrist well they had to appear from somewhere, and we had reptiles or more evolutionary primitive species, so

I know for a fact that birds → mammals didn't happen, so I was taught

@Robusto I have some white hair

Not visible much

tchrist

My goodness, you must go to school!

M.A.R.

But you should see my uncle

Færd

@Robusto Looking forward to the little ones. But if I can't hold it in the palm of one hand it gives me the creeps.

@M.A.R. stick with mellow sessions then!

Robusto

Well, it's like sausage. You just don't dwell on what's in it.

M.A.R.

@tchrist well, I know how the hierarchy of sophistication works, but birds → mammals was something I thought happened until, uh, K12? These things don't translate well

Færd

19:40

@Robusto Yeah if you don't have the whole body intact in your plate.

tchrist

Mammals evolved from early therapsids, noted for having a temporal fenestra. That didn't happen in reptiles, let alone in archosaurs.

Robusto

@Færd That's the genius of sausage. It's all in a tube, so you never see what's in it!

Færd

That, and the veiled cruelty of the industry.

M.A.R.

Originally, fish → amphibians → reptiles → some links like that archeopteryx → birds → platypu . . . platypus → kangaroos → primates and hoomans

Færd

I'm open to opting for lower animals (insects, crustaceans, etc) for nutrients instead of mammals and birds.

Robusto

19:42

@Færd That's the dark side of eating meat.

M.A.R.

@Robusto Getting Snowpiercer vibes

tchrist

@M.A.R. They taught you that, or that was the common wisdom in the small desert herding village where you grew up?

Birds are absolutely dinosaurs.

M.A.R.

@tchrist It's just a thought process, but yeah, that's how it goes until you hear weird shit like chordata and protista

tchrist

Archaea.

M.A.R.

@tchrist That's like the crazy uncle you mostly ignore

Robusto

19:46

@M.A.R. One is a phylum and the other is a kingdom. Not a good pairing.

tchrist

You phylum I cookum.

Robusto

Although with the right wine ...

M.A.R.

I'm still dealing with the fact that mitochondria are roaming freely in the blood. This is the sort of thing that explains mysterious known correlations

Drug side effects

Færd

@Cerberus I mentioned two types of tax evasion under the impression that they were interrelated. But they aren't, apparently.

This is what makes Europe's self-trade surplus possible:

M.A.R.

@Robusto I didn't pair them, but they are the first things you hear to question your worldviews

Færd

19:48

> Exports to fellow EU countries are exempt from VAT [value-added tax]. However, if companies have improperly declared the transactions, and they are in fact domestic, they are not recorded as imports by the partner country and go untaxed...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-07/here-s-how-the-european-union-runs-a-trade-surplus-with-itself

M.A.R.

Along with "Santa isn't real"

tchrist

Midichloria.

M.A.R.

Ewoks

tchrist

Midichloria

Midichloria is a genus of Gram-negative, nonspore-forming bacteria, with a bacillus shape around 0.45 µm in diameter and 1.2 µm in length. First described in 2004 with the temporary name IricES1, Midichloria species are symbionts of several species of hard ticks (e.g., Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes uriae of the Ixodidae family). They live in the cells of the ovary of the females of this tick species. These bacteria have been observed in the mitochondria of the host cells, a trait that has never been described in any other symbiont of animals. Midichloria bacteria seem to consume the mitochondria they...

M.A.R.

@tchrist Yeah heard about them

tchrist

19:50

@M.A.R. Wokeness.

M.A.R.

Which means I can't even write a paragraph about them, just that they're these mysterious things in the corner of your mind if you ever want to feel like the world is whimsical or something

@tchrist It's funny that I'm now playing the angsty ignorant teenager's role but there you have it

Robusto

@tchrist Isn't that a suburb in Sussex?

M.A.R.

I mean, those molds that were like a jillion cells moving together sharing their everything, that was much more interesting

tchrist

No Norfux.

M.A.R.

Also horror movie material, if anyone takes the hint

tchrist

19:52

@M.A.R. slime molds!

Robusto

I'm The Slime

►

M.A.R.

@tchrist I literally remember a nightmare where there was this huge slimy cell with all the organelles visible

Robusto

There's a song for everything.

M.A.R.

Actually, I dunno if it classifies as a nightmare. I haven't had really scary dreams since I was six or something. The horror feels more like the popcorny horror movie type than waking me up at the middle of the night type

tchrist

@M.A.R. Gelatinous cube!

M.A.R.

19:55

@tchrist How do you mess that up, ugh.

What genius thought cubes are scary.

tchrist

This is so ugly ^^^^^^^^

Robusto

@tchrist Yeah, I didn't ride again today.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

tchrist

It's worse than ever.

M.A.R.

I dreamt it was like those schematic diagrams of animal cells though. It was almost round and shapeless

@tchrist What are the green peas for? Air quality?

tchrist

@M.A.R. Yes, that's right.

@M.A.R. fire.airnow.gov/…

M.A.R.

19:57

Weren't there huge fires in January? 2020 is getting uncreative

Robusto

@tchrist The giant redwoods are burning now.

tchrist

@Robusto They may survive.

M.A.R.

@Robusto Oh :(

tchrist

Robusto

Let's just squander everything that's wonderful in the name of profit.

tchrist

19:58

I heard that Big Basin is getting whalloped.

> One very important adaptation for the coast redwood is its thick bark with deep grooves running vertically along the tree. It is this bark that gives the redwoods their fire-resistant characteristic. Older trees are able to survive fires because their bark is so thick and acts as a fireproof shell.

Robusto

Deteriorata

►

M.A.R.

Are they simply caused by heat and unlucky but natural sparks or was it some idiot who didn't put out their fire well?

A lot of idiots, according to that graph

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