Topic Drift Game

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I guess they are lucky that there is a fairly recent point in time back which beyond they cannot go, film being film. And that it can be pinpointed reasonably tightly. I wonder when the first word was spoken? I mean a real word, not a grunt. Given animals make consistent noises to indicate certain things, how was the first real word differentiated from a meaningful grunt?

I strongly suspect the ability to speak pre-dates the actual speaking.  That is, the brain and throat had already been adapted for complex speech, but the meme had not yet taken root.

Then, someone or other started the idea of complex words, and it likely spread like fire on a dry prairie.

My personal theory, was that it was a mother, yelling at her wayward son, who was wandering too close to the water-with-crocodiles-in.   For the Nth time that day....

....and the meaning of what she was saying just kinda sunk in, and the kid stopped just short of being eaten.

Why not?

I've a theory of the first use of fire, too-- and it involves women, not men. A man would've been content to use the "found" fire, sure, but it takes a really thoughtful person to say, "why don't we keep the fire going, for tomorrow?  That way, we don't need to go out and find it each and every time...."  This line of thought is especally hard for men with overly-full stomachs to accomplish.  Not enough blood to furnish both brain and distended stomach.  But, women have that extra capacity built-in, for future pregnancies and such, so are still sometimes able to reason, even WITH a stomach full of woolly mammoth meat.

Which, it's now pretty much agreed, that humans were the largest reason why there're no more wolly mammoths left.

Our legacy as a race continues to grow, extinction after extinction of creature after creature.

Someday, dogs and cats will only exist in special cages in a futuristic zoo, along with what other small animals might remain.

But, cockroaches will be with us forever-- likely long after humans vanish from the Universe, the cockroach will be around to experience the Sun's next phase-- when it becomes a Red Giant, and swells up and engulfs the inner planets, including earth.

I wonder if the cockroach's will survive immersion in a cooler red giant's atmosphere?  They seem nearly indestructible.

That brings me to my Idea:  make car bumpers out of cockroaches!   

[Griffin NoName]

My personal theory, was that it was a mother, yelling at her wayward son, who was wandering too close to the water-with-crocodiles-in.   For the Nth time that day....

....and the meaning of what she was saying just kinda sunk in, and the kid stopped just short of being eaten.
 

So the first word would have been something like "get-the-f**k-out-of-there" ?

But that's a sentence. Maybe sentences were invented first.

I see an inherent problem with making car bumpers out of cockraoches. The cars decay and there'll be millions of waste cockroaches. Where would we put them all. Landfill sites will be full. Everyone knows you can't destroy or decay a cockroach. They would probably need to be sent off into some space refuge dump. I can't see NASA funding that.

As it is NASA spends billions on stuff that IMO would be better spent getting things right here on earth. If we abolished wars and space exploration and taxed the rich we might have a chance of saving our planet.

[Aphos]

Well, saving the Earth is definitely a worth while goal.  Particularly considering the problem of global warming.  I mean they say the seas are going to rise about 200 feet.

That is why I think all of us should get together and buy some property in the Yukon.  Make sure that it is about 200 feet above current sea level.  This way it will be beach front property when global warming really kicks in.  Then we would be all set to put in a seaside resort.  With global warming, the temperatures should be just about right.  We would make a fortune.

[Swatopluk]

People in Berlin should be happy about sea levels rising. Some towns on the Baltic Sea are considered inofficial outskirts during holiday season. Bringing the sea closer to home would save a lot of time (and gas). Berlinians are also known for building their own mountains, so if the rise turns out to be unexpectedly high, there can still be a Berlin archipelago. We have the city with the highest number of bridges in Europe anyway, so turning a wee bit Venetian will come easily.

[Griffin NoName]

It has been suggested that this forum be reduced to one board, one topic thread.

This will make it easier to migrate to the new server and new design.

It will also save space on the internet

[goat starer]

space on the internet is an interesting thing. With the amount of guff posted every day it must be at a premium and it can only be a matter of time before the costs of bandwidth and server space undergo massive inflation.

It seems like everything is getting more expensive these days. Only the other day I brought an onion in my local tescos. A few weeks ago it would have been 16p (about $32.16 to our american friends) but this time it was 18p. It is only a matter of time before price rises such as these prevent the poor from buying fruit and vegetables with obvious public health issues.

[Alpaca]

Space on the internet is, fortunately, unlimited. Bandwidth is theoretically limited, but there are so many cables being put down all the time that it'll doubtless keep up.

The costs of putting stuff on the internet are basically determined by the profit margins of various huge companies. You can get yourself a trillion-byte hard drive for a couple hundred bucks, and the amount of power it uses is negligible. Then you arbitrarily decide that you can offer your users a measly 500 million of those bytes at a rate of $4,99 per month for no apparent reason, and you're set. Rinse and repeat a few times.

Bandwidth is more complicated since the data center has to pay something to the telecommunications companies for use of the big cables, which cost billions to put underground or on the ocean floor and keep running, but I'm pretty certain that by the time you get to the individual user's bandwidth cost, the price is pretty arbitrarily set, too.

Unlike food, internet is a pretty unlimited resource, and the pricing reflects that.

[Griffin NoName]

I'm not so sure. Food uses land and sea, so do cables and servers and such like. Ultimately we will run out of land and sea space to plant cables and servers and such like. Especially if more of it is given over to food production.

I think Goat has a point.

Growth of the internet may well cause food costs to spiral out of control.

Perhaps the answer is government issue indoor cress farms. I used to have one in the bottom of my parents airing cupboard.

[Swatopluk]

What kind of spiral? Archimedean, logarithmic, circle evolvent?
Before we do not know everything about the type of spiral involved we can't do anything that could threaten our economy.
I propse a no-bid contract to Spy-Rally Inc. (subsidiary of Blackwater) to conduct an in depth study. And if I say in-depth, I mean that preliminary results cannot be expected before 2013.

[goat starer]

13 minutes past 8? that sounds like a quick turnaround to me whn you think about the reasearch involved.

personally i never let research get in the way of action. The only solution to everything is direct action about all of it... imediately. The problem is where to start.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

OTOH don't you regret all the stuff you do on impulse? What's the point of being a '(wo)man of action' if you have to deal with its reaction?

[Sibling Chatty]

Reaction, Schmeaction, I just wanna blow somethin' up...

[Swatopluk]

Don't you knoaw that you could get impeached* for a blowjob?

*is that stoning with rotten peaches?

[pieces o nine]

One of the nice things about summer is fresh, ripe peaches.

[Swatopluk]

I wish the summer was a bit more fresh. I am not a heat-dweller.