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The term "global warming" refers to the global average temperature rising, which does not imply that the local temperature everywhere has to rise. The increase over the past century or so is somewhere around 0.7 °C - barely noticable, you'd think if you hadn't bothered to read anything about the subject, but the higher (again, on average across the globe and the year) temperatures have complex effects on the complex system that is our planet's climate and weather (for example, I believe it's not quite as simple as Zooty suggested; although sea levels have been rising (slowly but detectably) and glaciers disappearing (alarmingly quickly in many cases), we're not in NO MORE ICE CAPS IN TEN YEARS mode quite yet and very likely won't be in our lifetimes, but very heavy rainfalls and the like have been getting more frequent and this fits with the predictions of the models). I think you really should bother to actually read about what The Hippies in their scientist disguises are deceitfully claiming is going on instead of just arguing based on what you think the term "global warming" should mean.

I really hate being the one to shove this thread into giant argument land, but... cripes on toast, you'd think that with damn near every real scientist in every relevant field agreeing on the major points (there are of course not 100% Lysenkoanly unified views on the exact numbers and so forth as far as projection into the future is concerned), most people wouldn't still a) be so confused about what global warming means and b) assume it's just some baloney the hippies came up with to frighten people.

You know who the only major scientific association to officially reject anthropogenic warming is? It's our friends of the American Association of, hello hello, Petroleum Geologists. (Of course, I'm sure that's all just because everywhere else the filthy hippies are in control, as can be seen by e.g. the many Green-dominated governments all over the industrial world.)

IIRC Dave's wife knew of the labrador's ability to find him and used it often.

The bus arrived about 45 minutes late; Dave apologized to the passengers, citing elevated security and whatnot after the botched bombings a few days earlier, and pointed out that at least we all got there in one piece, with our brains inside our heads.

I too have returned (last night, actually). It was quite, quite enjoyable. The hills were excellent, as was the rafting incident, even though the river defeated me.

From this room (a fairly terrible dwelling where I sleep during the work week - I'm staying on with my civilian service place for a couple months until I go back to uni because money is convenient), I can see a lawn (with the usual assortment of lawn animalry - blackbirds, rabbits, sometimes cats), elder shrubs, a parking lot, other depressing buildings from the 1970s, clouds of seagulls, and, if I crane my head to the left, a bit of the Baltic.

At home (from my own room), there's sensible trees, the strange shed/stable/garage row some previous owner of the house built back in the GDR days, and - again further to the left - the western end of our garden proper and beyond that the lake. Unlike up here, there are more cats than rabbits.



This looks the way it does because it was taken in the middle of the night with a hilariously long exposure time.

You read it and discover that the file you're asking about is probably an ADRIFT game. Which means that in order to play it you need an ADRIFT interpreter such as the official "runner", or alternatively a third party project like jAsea or SCARE.

Let's begin with obvious text and clumsy hand (well, mouse) lettering.

Whether Pluto is a planet or not isn't really a scientific question - or wasn't, rather. Previously to this, there was no scientific definition of the word "planet". That was the whole point of the exercise. According to the one they decided on, it's not one in the scientific sense, since they couldn't come up with a sane (i.e. not ridiculously gerrymandered) one that limited our solar system to the nine classical planets. Seriously, though, I actually agree it was probably a waste of time and effort (although that's no reason at all to abolish the IAU), because it's so meaningless. It changes exactly nothing about what science knows about Pluto or Ceres or anything else - all it does is potentially help improve clarity in future scientific writing here and there.

No, but it was not quite as frivolous as commonly believed.

Hand of Fate?

It's a dynamic IP. We can't just up and ban everyone in Hawaii (or everybody there using this particular ISP).

I check C&A often enough (though apparently I don't always look closely enough) - I don't know about the others, but my policy is to do no locking before it's clear that the winner has noticed they won (i.e. they've posted in the old thread or started the new thread, the latter being what I mostly look for), which may contribute somewhat to my unfortunate tendency to overlook things.

I agree, it is entirely understandable (although I don't agree with the identification of "most widely known" with "best"), and it would be ridiculous and unreasonable to expect everybody to be familiar with every single part of everything ever written - what bothers me is not so much the absence of familiarity with the rest of it, really, it's the inexplicable synecdoche.

Carmina Burana is a collection of medieval manuscripts containing hundreds of poems and songs found in Benediktbeuern (hence the name). Orff wrote a cantata based on 24 of these poems, not just one - I like O Fortuna, but it somewhat irritates me that so many people seem completely oblivious to the rest of the piece.

3 points: Ghormak.
2 points: Geoffkhan.
1 point: Oz.

Hooray.

Meh. From Rocket Knight Adventures.

Um, read his post again. It doesn't say what you seem to be reading into it.

Ye did tumpe aaya

Urdu? Balderdash! This is clearly Ye Olde Englishe. You should try to remember if you know anyone named Aaya, maybe they could shed some light on this.

Examples are examples. The examples aren't the point. The point is that the law doesn't say "order can't form spontaneously". And I'll just say it a third time, in the hope that maybe this time you'll notice it: YOU AREN'T TALKING ABOUT EVOLUTION. Even if all current ideas about abiogenesis are wrong and the first primitive lifeforms on Earth came about because an advanced civilization of space robots decided they'd allow themselves a little practical joke, that would still say nothing about the validity or invalidity of all the piles and piles of evidence in favour of evolution.

Maybe it did happen this way (but I have other problems with evolution as well)

You are not talking about evolution. As for your arguments, without e.g. clearly stating and evaluating the mechanisms by which things would be torn apart, they're worth nothing as scientific evidence for or against anything.

But I think that the laws of thermodynamics would prohibit, from forming up to the complexity required.

You don't understand thermodynamics.