TheVat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology) And there's a clade where 8 is even better (especially if you never know when you're going to lose a couple in a fight or accident). https://www.livescience.com/animals/spiders/why-do-spiders-have-8-legs "Those legs are actually part of their mouth," Nipam Patel, a developmental biologist and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory, which is affiliated with the University of Chicago, told Live Science. Because spiders, insects, crustaceans and millipedes all evolved from an ancestor that likely had a segmented body with a set of appendages on each segment, these species are just highly modified riffs on that basic plan. According to Patel, all arthropod appendages — including legs, antennae and even mandibles (the jaws) — can be traced back to a stubby lobopod appendage. Take a mantis shrimp. It swims with a bunch of little legs on a segmented abdomen. On the cephalothorax (a fused head and thorax) are its walking legs, and then near its mouth are little appendages that not only make up its jaws but also sweep food into its mouth to help it eat.... Then, there are spiders. "If you look at a spider embryo, it looks exactly like an insect embryo," Patel said. "Except it only grows the legs on its head. But instead of using those as mouthparts, it uses them to walk." The reason spiders walk with appendages from their faces goes back to lobopods and the original chelicerate body plan. While modern arthropods are spoiled for specialized appendages, the lobopods were wormlike creatures with many sets of roughly similar appendages. Initially, all of the legs were the same," Heather Bruce, a research associate at the Marine Biological Laboratory, told Live Science. "But then the first appendages became differentiated for being a sensory appendage, like for sensing and grabbing food." From that point, the spider's chelicerate ancestors began to diverge from the other groups. In the ancestors of insects and crustaceans, the lobopod's multitasking front appendages lost their grabbing and feeding ability and became specialized sensory structures called antennae. But for chelicerates, those same appendages lost their sensory capabilities and became fangs.

TIL that rainforests do not provide 20% of our atmospheric oxygen, as is popularly believed. They are important ecosystems but they are not "the lungs of the world." https://newportbay.org/ask-a-naturalist-do-phytoplankton-produce-more-oxygen-than-a-rainforest-if-so-does-the-oxygen-they-produce-go-into-the-atmosphere-or-does-it-just-remain-dissolved-in-the-ocean/ So where does most of it come from? 50-80% (depending on the season) from phytoplankton. And 20% of ocean oxygen is from one species, prochlorococcus. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2025/september/climate-change-threatens-major-oxygen-producing-bacteria.html Belated happy Earth Day! And take care of your oceans, puny humans!

Look, a squirrel!! It's remarkable how many people can believe the median lifespan is somehow the allotted lifespan. Take any group of thousands of people (like nuclear and aerospace researchers), and you will most certainly get some disappearances (in the US, 500-600,000 people disappear every year, and tens of thousands of those stay disappeared) and some early deaths. I notice several of the disappeared were hikers or joggers, and lived in sparsely populated areas (like New Mexico) where one could have a heart attack and have one's remains consumed and bones scattered by scavenger species.

Don't forget the General who had a Steinway Grand purchased for his house. Our national security depends on generals whose brains don't turn to MaltoMeal from exposure to mediocre keyboards or Ikea furniture. One dimly remembers the use it or lose it buying spree that DoD goes on every September was supposed to be the kind of waste that Turnip and the Musk Ox were going to trim. All budget money leftovers at FY end were going to be shoveled back into the Treasury - that, combined with tariffs and gifts from Qatar and other caring friends, plus the promised policy of stringent isolationism and no free rides for those creepy parasitic starving children in Africa would buy down the national debt in a few years!

I think a post of mine three days ago, in which I directed some fulsome praise at Skinners Union (briefly owned a 1971 Datsun with an SU carb) for their VV carbs, never posted. A couple other members have mentioned this disappearing posts effect, so I will exercise caution. The fuel efficiency (in addition to its fuel flexibility) and ease of tuning made them simply elegant. My retro dream car has an SU carb(s). If it's an old VW bug, then it's added on aftermarket. And works with E10.

The ally thing could work, though it's hard to imagine a nuke capability from any of them that would really counter the US with a MAD. Maybe Russia, though I can't see the present Putin admin wanting to commit to a binding defense pact like that. This is the sort of fraught nuclear geopolitics I haven't given enough thought or research. (ETA: now seeing a whole page of posts around this matter, which will now read; some days I'm in the wrong time zone...) Not sure how much press the story got in Europe or UK, but one theory for Turnip's animus is that, rather than being racially based, it's owing to Obama roasting Turnip at the 2011 WH Correspondents Dinner. Many who know the Turnip say he was deeply stung, found none of it funny, and was pretty much determined to exact revenge from that point on. Undoing all things Obama became the focus of that spite. One can fault Obama only to the extent that he may not have realized quite the depths of Turnip's sociopathy and humorless vindictiveness (and ability to grift his way to the WH). But really, few people outside of New York social circles and real estate biz did.

Thanks, yes my vague reference to "foul the engine" - you have the specific problem pinpointed. I would guess it would need preheating and then much higher injection pressure to vaporize properly. Carb wouldn't do it. Enjoying a thread where we seem to have a couple members like you who have some pro knowledge in this area. All I have, like @StringJunky , is a grandfather who really knew engines. But that was something.

Really, the best reason for Iran to give up nuke aspirations is Israel's belligerence and hyperreactive posture. The RW coalition throws fits of rage at the sight of its own shadow. Iran showing any sign of building a nuke wouid give them leverage to do God knows what.

Urkh! If so, the heavy end traces would foul the engine.

70, yikes. That would knock like a stormtrooper at normal compression ratio, and I can picture it dieseling for minutes after shutting off. Heck, if the octane were much lower it would be halfway to being diesel. At least in the sense of little resistance to spontaneous combustion.

Ah yes, the symbol designed for CND (based on semaphore flag code), which spread to other countries eventually as the peace symbol. Mercedes was similar. I remember my org chem professor drawing its three point star mounted on a benzene ring, creating the visual pun Mercedes Benzene.

Makes sense, I guess, to go ahead and put in gearing for a hand crank, as a backup. What I am grappling with is that you Brits seem to have named an Austin after breakfast porridge. Perhaps it is just as well we may be withdrawing from NATO. 😎 Several things here I don't grasp. What is a ban-the-bomb Cortina? And how could one put diesel mix in a gas engine and not ruin it? Does the right blend help if there's a weak spark? I am happy to report I figured out a saloon model is what we call a sedan, so I'm now understanding the style isn't quite as fun as it initially landed on American ears. What really capped that video nicely were the end credits - the cranking man is Fat Bloke, played by George Clooney.

Do you mean by hand? I thought the Minors had electric starters from their beginning in the twenties. (Or was there an optional crank attachment for low battery situations?) Don't think I've seen anything besides a Model T be hand-cranked, and that was done as a feat of daring at an antique auto show. I remember them saying "don't wrap your thumb around," as @OldTony mentioned above. This chat takes me back to my earliest automotive memories when our family had a 1958 Renault Dauphine. The 845 cc engine produced a dizzying 0-60 in 30 seconds, and you had to use a tire pressure differential in order to prevent oversteer. I think my Dad grew disenchanted with the steering issue and had traded it in by the time I reached kindergarten. But it was cute as a button. Family joke from this era: I like the Renault, but I Constantinople. (sorry)

They were called Ford Fractures here. America was still largely rural then and most would not have cared for "chauffeur." My grandparents also spoke of "gaslight branding" in evening drives, where you lit the headlamps, and then if you absentmindedly rested your left hand on a headlamp while bracing to crank, the raised company logo could be burned onto your palm.

Emily was shocked to read in the news of a gang of circus workers attacking a killer whale. "Acrobats stab orca." In other equally shocking news, marsupials near Melbourne attacked lawn equipment. As the groundskeeper noted, "Here, wombats stab mower, eh?"

This had to be said. Thanks. Our ship of state is rudderless. I'm getting tired of people trying to rationalize the POTUS actions, as if he's actually cleverly playing four dimensional chess and merely feigning dementia. Turnip is tossing wrenches into the global machinery and giggling insanely. What's the old saying in politics...."Elect a clown, expect a circus."

Excellent (and nicely low tech) feature. Now to check today's tariff report to see if the UK can affordably send one over... 😃

The example I was about to mention. I tried to fix one, had the tape spring burst out into a giant snarl that seemed to cover the entire workshop area. I wound up (haha) just screwing a cleat on the side of the vacuum to wrap the loose cable onto. My general experience with vacs is that auto-rewinds are built to fail within the first year.

Yes. I remember the video - the last years Randy Quaid was still partially sane. That song, and Industrial Disease, were underrated in my neck of the woods, never got enough airplay. Har! Yep, a concept beyond Sgt. Bone Spurs.

I was playing Dire Straits songs on the piano last night, wife walked by and said, "Is that political commentary?" (Hormuz as dire strait, har har) This got me thinking how many of their song titles could apply to current events.... Money for Nothing - what Turnp always is looking for in geopolitics. Walk of Life - as fuel prices soar, more of us will be doing the walk. Sultans of Swing - Turnp is continually swinging from one position to another. So Far Away - Turnip is now so far away from the principles of his party. And cognitively, so far away from reality. Industrial Disease - the military industrial complex grows more diseased, and its products are proving fatal for non combatants. Twisting by the Pool - foreign policy continually twisting by the Persian Gulf pool.

If you're on land and the water level rises dangerously, which group would drown first, ordinary people or Calamita Cosmica people, who are around 28 meters in height? I implied no gender with the term supermodel. Knowing virtually nothing about supermodels, I assume there can be male supermodels and that they too are long legged. My present operating hypothesis is that the supermodels are likely descended from the race of giants which partially survived the great flood, as well as a horrific string of gardening accidents. Their thinness is actually owing to the inadequate portion sizes of all the catered food at fashion shoots. Prove me wrong!!!

It's a cautionary exhibit for the Milan Fashion Week, reminding models what happens when they diet too strenuously. Look how long those legs are: clearly an ex supermodel.

TIL that today is World Quantum Day. https://worldquantumday.org/ Our cats, Eliza "do little" Vat and Louisa May Allcat, may or not be attending the nearby events.

Won senile dismissal, class - I'm sidelines now. 😜

I don't think it would be waving a white flag in the conventional sense. As @exchemist said, they can weather some of this. And have a theocracy (so far) which can muster a fair amount of stoicism for a longer siege. Where my knowledge of Iran is lacking is what percent of citizens would, under the rigors of a blockade (everything or just oil?), come together to end theocracy and set up something more willing to take vows of nuclear chastity. The problem with all this MAGA fantasizing is it makes it hard to tell what's real and what's delusional. And does Iran have workarounds we don't know about? Would Russia help them out? Send a convoy of tanker trucks through Turkmenistan to pick up some of the oil, then resell it elsewhere? What sort of intelligence reports is the Turnip administration getting these days? Is it all filtered through maga lackeys who turn it into baby talk, or do they just throw it in a wastebasket because it's all really about the circus?