Quote of the week!

[Cody]

Yep! Some of the muppets at Westminster aren't much better!

[Disembodied]

Yep! Some of the muppets at Westminster aren't much better!

True. None of them have suggested moving the moon yet, but I suspect that's just because they lack ambition.

[RockDoctor]

Words fail me!

I was somewhat amused by the witness (from BLM, or Forestry service, or whoever) who managed to grab for a pre-scripted "I'll have to get back to you on that" instead of the entirely reasonable "Are you trumbling out of your tree, you edible arts graduate?"

Actually, that is being unfair to arts graduates - it takes decades of filtered stupidity to get to this depth.

[RockDoctor]

yet,

A small word, but doing some heavy lifting there.

[Cody]

None of them have suggested moving the moon yet...

One wonders if the Earth moved for Carrie?

[Disembodied]

One wonders if the Earth moved for Carrie?

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with several wives and an indeterminate number of children

[Cody]

... time looking at the clouds is time never wasted!

Thus spake Squadron Leader Ken Horn MBE (of the RAF's Mobile Met Unit).

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

[hiran]

... time looking at the clouds is time never wasted!

Thus spake Squadron Leader Ken Horn MBE (of the RAF's Mobile Met Unit).

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all

Clouds are really difficult to grasp.

Some of them - from the outside - look like someone else's computer
From the inside however they are buildings filled with racks of metal hardware, wires, power and cooling units and more. You hear the multitude of fans roaring and craftsmen inbetween doing their maintenance work.
And now look at the desktop computer and imagine the same in small-scale...

BTW, this cloud was grounded not too long ago:
https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp- ... 20x800.jpg

[Cody]

Major Australian brewers are reporting an "explosion" in the popularity of non-alcoholic beer.

Bonzer! Next, they'll be telling me that sales of Buckfast in Scotland are falling!

[Cholmondely]

BTW, this cloud was grounded not too long ago:
https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp- ... 20x800.jpg

That's Erding? You weren't inside, I hope?

[hiran]

BTW, this cloud was grounded not too long ago:
https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp- ... 20x800.jpg

That's Erding? You weren't inside, I hope?

No, that is not Erding. Not my company, not my country. I have not been inside a data center in years...
But it is a data center that that burnt pretty much down and had to be fighted with water. Water and electronics are not the best combination...

[Cody]

It will enshrine in law that animals have the capacity to feel hunger and pain, and are aware of what is happening to them. It will apply to vertebrates, but not to animals such as octopus and squid.

I'm outraged! A smart critter, is the octopus!

When you think of an octopus or lobster, what comes to mind? Seafood or intelligent marine life? A group of Conservative MPs think it's the latter and argue they should be included in a law to protect animals.

Colour me impressed! CAWF briefing here.

[Redspear]

animals have the capacity to feel hunger and pain

Don't we learn at school that all living things experience irritabilty?
What's pain but irritability responding to an unadvantageous stimulus? (Maybe there is a difference, I don't know...)

As for hunger, er, isn't that what makes them eat and (if they're lucky) once sated inclines them to stop eating?
From a biological perspective, we're animals too of course.

A smart critter, is the octopus!

Indeed.

[RockDoctor]

At one point you're talking about animals, and at another you're talking about "living things". Do non-animal living things - autotrophs versus heterotrophs - actually experience a thing like "hunger"? Probably, if they have options for chemotaxis (movement according to a chemical gradient), or drifting in the current. But if they are sessile (fixed in one place) like a plant, then probably the only response they have in their repertiore is to breed like it's going out of fashion.

Might explain a lot. Pesky squirrel-oids, breeding like rodents.

[Redspear]

At one point you're talking about animals, and at another you're talking about "living things"

True. However it was in response to the quote concerning animals - I admit, I wasn't clear. Even sessile animals exibit feeding behaviour of a sort.
I think there's a partly philosophical argument around the nature of pain and predictability of response that I'm not fully up to speed with.

Pesky squirrel-oids, breeding like rodents.

Or indeed like barnacles.