Tannhauser

I can relate to that. It's so hard to leave alone, even though debating it is completely fruitless.

This is a bit of a hypocritical post, because I think that youtube clips have been a major cause of propagating nonsensical ideas about 9/11, and here I am posting a link to the same medium. However, I thought it was good that someone took the trouble to spend 90 minutes looking at the science behind some of the conspiracy theory claims. I think it's pretty telling about the quality of the 9/11 'debate' that the first episode has had just 90 views . Unless it's because of the worst theme song ever. Personally, I'm not that interested in the physics behind the WTC event, because there are plenty of other factors that convince me that alternative accounts of 9/11 are untrue without even getting into the science. But it's good to see an engineer putting the other point of view when there seem to be a gazillion youtube clips claiming buildings can't collapse like that, etc, etc.

I really like the look of that. Very nice.

But they are using it, unless they're just sitting in it on the drive. They are just using it in a different way to you. Or maybe they're the type who don't race at all. Not everyone has the urge to measure themselves against other drivers. My guess is that very few Aston Martin divers have got the slightest interest in whether an old Toyota can go faster than they can.

Is that 'werth' a typo or deliberate, Pete? Because if I was going to write it down in a Midlands accent (like mine), that's what I'd write. Werth, serf board, etc.

Most people seem to think there's a good chance of life occurring elsewhere, and while I agree with that general conclusion, there are a couple of things I think are either wrong or overstating the case. Firstly, the idea that life has already been discovered elsewhere is not correct. If there was definitive proof of even microbial life elsewhere, this would be colossal news. What we have instead are some claims of evidence of life elsewhere in the solar system by some scientists. These claims are disputed by others in the scientific community. This has been going on since the 1970s when Viking landed on Mars. It may well be that we get stronger evidence, but we are a way away from that yet - there's certainly no consensus. Secondly, the idea that there is certainly life and anyone who doesn't think so is naive. Well, no, that's not right. I think someone said that the universe is infinite. If the universe was truly infinite (by which I mean that was a limitless number of stars) then there would be life on an infinite number of plants, since a very small proportion of infinity is also infinity. But the universe is very large, not infinite, and therefore we can't be certain of life elsewhere. We can only make a statement about probabilities, so someone who denies the certainty of extra-terrestrial life is not being naive, but accurate. Thirdly, equations like the Drake equation - which try to establish the likely number of extra-terrestrial civilizations - well, they really aren't much more than guessing games. After all, we're extrapolating from our understanding of one planet with life on it. Self-awareness in particular might be a response to a peculiar and incredibly rare combination of circumstances. I think the great age of the universe - and the possibly limited lifespan of species and civilizations - lowers the odds of our ever making contact. Personally, my own hunches are: Probability of life elsewhere: very high Probability of intelligent life elsewhere: a lot lower, but still high Probability of intelligent life still being around whilst we are: much lower, but still good Probability of making contact during the lifespan of our civilization/race: very low Probability of making contact during our personal lifespan: almost zero Probability that 'they' have already made contact: see Rob's post. Almost zero.

Must have been incredibly frustrating trying to add size with a metabolism like that.

Was it really that low? 3% is extreme pro-bodybuilder territory, hard to sustain for any length of time, usually attained with substantial chemical assistance, and desperately unhealthy. A genuine 5-6% bodyfat looks shockingly ripped. I'm sure you did some measurements to arrive at that figure, but when you get very lean, it gets increasingly difficult to get accurate estimates. Edit to add: these estimates of various levels of bodyfat look pretty reasonable to me: http://www.play-musculation.com/t668-bf-body-fat-masse-grasse-estimation-visuelle

I can't add anything useful to the thread - I don't have a dog - but just wanted to say 'lucky you'. You can't go wrong in Scotland, imo. Perthshire is fantastic - Abernathy and round there. Skye, Harris - likewise. North of Ullapool, the scenery gets really wild. Sandwood Bay is a trek and a half, but that's beautiful. I've done a lot of travelling, but Scotland remains one of my favourite places. I can't get enough of it.

I just tried the same thing. £1 doesn't return any ranking at all, inputted as £1.00 places me in the top 96.16%. With regard to overestimations of poverty, the website says figures are taken from the World Bank's research.

You typed prefectly rather than perfectly, so I tried to think of a piece of classic fiction that has been filmed and has prefects in it. It was very feeble really, and doubly so now I've explained it. But good on you for mentioning Forbidden Planet, one of the coolest film ever. 'Monsters from the id!'

Like Tom Brown's Schooldays, for example? My pet hate is the rewriting of female characters to fit the modern idiom. Every lead female character in film drama has to be 'feisty', regardless of the source material. Billie Piper in Mansfield Park a few years ago was an egregious example.

1. Name 4 cars with animal names.....Jaguar, Ford Cougar, Ford Puma, VW Fox 2. In a fight this car is the winner....Vauxhall Victor 3. 4 cars with names of swords....Reliant Scimitar, Ford Sabre, Sunbeam Rapier, Ford Cutlass 4. 4 cars with ‘noble blood’....Leyland Princess, Ford Crown Victoria 5. Models with a musical theme?...Nissan Note, Honda Jazz, Hyundai Sonata 6. 4 more with animal names?....Starrion, Ford Mustang,Dodge Ram, Triumph Stag 7. 3 reptilian models?....AC Cobra, Dodge Viper 8. Short male?....MG Midget 9. 4 named after insects?....Bond Bug, various Spiders, VW Beetle 10. 4 named after cities....Lincoln, Ferrari California, Ferrari Daytona, Ford Escort Cosworth Monte Carlo 11. 4 Greek lettered....Vauxhall Omega, Lancia Beta, Alfa, Lancia Gamma, Lancia Delta. 12. 2 Mythical creatures?....TVR Chimera, TVR Griffith 13. Birds of a feather perhaps?.....Nissan Bluebird, Suzuki Swift, Swallow, Humber Hawk, 14. Odd one out? 100, 200, 400, 600, 800, 900...900, Rover 15. Sporty cars?... 16. More cities?... 17. Underground transport?....MG Metro 18. Lemonade soft drink?....Frogeye Sprite 19. Real ‘bad boy’? Vauxhall Psychopath 20. Rugged Adventure?...Subaru Outback 21. The Wild, Wild West?....Dodge, Colt 22. 2 Famous British cities?....Morris Oxford and Austin Cambridge 23. Or 6 British regions uses as model names? 24. No Directions Necessary?....Lincoln Navigator 25. Aristocratic?....Something Royale? 26. Aristocratic and French?...Chrysler Le Baron 27. Secret Agents?....Bond, 28. Yet more animal names? 29. Name three models that use the numbers 300....Nissan 300zx, Peugeot 3008, 30. Finally one oddball! We all know that TRD stands for Toyota Racing Development but what of STI, HFP, FPV or SVT?....Subaru Technica International, SVT is Ford but I have no idea.

Fantastic.

Just walk up to the nest and give it a full-on CW rant. Nothing can withstand that withering scorn for long You could berate them for being parasites* and living in a commune for a start. *Alright, they're actually parasitoids, but it's close enough.

There's a negative correlation between the IQ of the participant and how much he/she trusts the results of an online IQ test.

Urdu, surely?

Presumably companies started a scramble for the bottom. Once one company cuts pension schemes to make themselves more competitive, the others follow suit. Perhaps if all private sector workers had withdrawn their labour, nobody would have been able to do it, so they're back on a level playing field. Not that I'm seriously suggesting that the private sector could do that. You may well be right that companies would have gone to the wall without making those cuts - the recession has been deep this time. But don't forget also that competitveness is always the excuse to erode the benefits and pay that workers receive. I bet that those pension cuts didn't fall equitably across the staff. As for taking more out of taxes, see earlier post based on the government's own report.

Actually, the Hutton Report into pension reform dismisses straight away the idea of 'gold plated pensions'. The average public service pension = £7,800 a year. According to Hutton, that's a ‘ modest level of retirement income.' Secondly, the assumption that the current level of pensions can't be afforded by the country is highly debatable. The independent reviews have largely rejected the 'unaffordable' claim. The public purse contributions to the fund are actually expected to fall. This is an interesting listen - Evan Davis talking to Francis Maude -around 8-9 minutes in: here If I understand it correctly, the public contributions to pensions seem to have peaked already. I think the fact that the ATL are striking speaks volumes. They are the least toothless, least militant of the teaching unions. They haven't taken any industrial action since 1979, yet they are out on this one. Some of the proposed cuts are massive. For people who chose public service careers on the basis of pensions, have been paying into the pot for 20 years plus (when they might have got higher wages in the private sector), it doesn't feel like a reasonable adjustment. Especially given the points raised above. T

I think your point that the public sector isn;t one entity is a good one. The trouble is that most people don't have any experience of both sectors, so there's an awful lot of assumptions about the other side. I know people in the private sector who share many of the opinions about public sector workers seen on here. But I've seen the converse - a lot of public sector workers think they are the only ones with stressful jobs or who work long hours. Even when the two groups socialise they don't really get what the other group does. It's one of those cases of "before criticizing a man, walk a mile in his shoes."

What makes working for one employer part of 'the real world'? What is this real world and why are certain jobs excluded from it? These are weighty existential matters. I think they need answering before this reasoned, objective and thoughtful debate can progress.

The dentist just told me I have gingivitis, and that it's caused by laziness, and that I had better learn to love soup, because that's my future. Then he charged me £47.50. Other than that, fine, thank you.

On strike, no. On form, yes.

A reasonable grasp of grammar?

Me too, I'm a total Columbo nerd. I love the scripts, and the atonal incidental music through a lot of the early episodes. I'd been following the stories about his decline for some time. Alzheimer's is ghastly. He was due to do one more anniversary show, but by the time they were ready to shoot he wasn't capable of doing it. Then about a year ago, it was reported that he could no longer remember making the series. He couldn;t remember he was Columbo! There'salso been a really nasty dispute between his wife and daughter over his care. He was a very bright and talented guy. He had a degree in a weirdly specialised subject like administration, public administration, public health administration - something like that. There used to be a lot of his paintings on his website that were really pretty good.