h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd be afraid to visit for fear of catching that mosquito-borne microcephalic Zika virus. Or is that being small-minded?

But the chikungunya is so tasty this time of year.

'small-minded'

<BB<

I suppose I can't reprimand Icy for making tasteless jokes in his own journal.

Speaking of tasteless, I've discovered that chocolate is just as toxic to cats as it is to dogs, but we're never warned not to feed chocolate to cats, because cats don't like chocolate. Cats can't taste sweetness, so chocolate is unrelentingly bitter to them and they don't eat it and kill themselves.

So, there's more Earth south of the Equator, but vastly more of the people are concentrated north of it?

That makes little sense. Of course, much of the extra bulge material consists of ocean, which may have to house large numbers of floating habitats once the ice caps melt.....

Drifting back to Gnomon's soup...

"At one stage Irish people who dropped the O in their name and became Protestants were given free soup and presumably other benefits. They were known as "soupers". So there are many Irish names where the version with O is used by Catholics and the one without by Protestants"

This is not the case. One of the ironies of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland is that the Unionist (Protestant) Prime Minister at the end of the sixties was Terence O'Neill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_O%27Neill,_Baron_O%27Neill_of_the_Maine

Conversely the current leader of Sinn Féin, by definition Catholic and Nationalist, has the very English surname Adams.

Our cat used to love chocolate. We would sometimes spend 1d of our pocket money on a penny bar of Cadbury's for him.

I've never known a dog that wouldn't help itself to chocolate given a chance.

Wouldn't have done the cat much harm, as there is very little chocolate in Cadbury's (23% in Dairy Milk).

TD: topic drift issues, when I've put my foot in it, its usually been a case of (sleepy)or(online2long) and especially failing to read the heading and enough continuity, responding reflexively mere to the most recent post(s).

Some how it is only logical that a thread about topic drift should remain more on topic more than any other thread on the board

Look a Squirrel! Or was it a ?

F S

I'd much rather have a topic drift than a snow drift.

I was reading a comic strip today that featured snow men. http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2016/03/08

I happened to peruse the comments and there was one that mentioned "snow clones". But I don't know if the person commenting knew there actually is something called "snowclones"; maybe they were just making a pun of "snowcones".

Not everyone is familiar with the term, even though they probably are familiar with the meme.

A "snowclone" is a reference to the widely held belief that Inuits, or maybe Aleuts or other arctic tribal people have many names for snow. Specifically a snowclone is a meme that follows that idea, that some group would have a reason to have more words for something that deeply affects them. Even though it may not be based in reality. (Eskimos do not necessarily have more words for snow than people in other cultures).

For more info, (and a U42 reference I wasn't expecting) see the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone

Eskimos probably have words for 'floor', 'walls', bricks', etc which we find indistinguishable from 'snow'.

And yes, I know I should have call them 'a loose collective of indiginous arctic and boreal-dwelling races', or something.

They need something snappier - any suggestions?

In you, it sounds reasonable.

Inuit-Yupik.

Here's a 'how-to' on igloos. I learned a word: Panak, a special machete for cutting blocks of snow.

And apparently, they probably don't have a word for 'thermometer'. At least, they don't seem to use them.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/design/a7371/arctic-engineering-we-learn-to-build-like-the-inuit-do/

I hear that they are having to adjust to a rapidly changing climate. Imagine robins in the Arctic <

They're popular in snowy scenes on Christmas cards, so I'm sure they'll be fine.

I'm sure ptarmigan would be popular too if they were more brightly coloured.

Blue jays are brightly coloured. They are also extremely noisy.

And they're in my backyard.

Do you feed the birds? I like nothing better than seeing a great spotted woodpecker hanging from the nuts.