I haven't translated it to English yet :S
Random Thoughts XI: Listen to the Whispers
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I haven't translated it to English yet :S
EgonSpengler
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I received a promotional email from ULine today for "Flammable storage cabinets for combustible liquids." 
You should forward this to @Bootstoots ^^
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I wonder if a water based civilization (which for example evolved on a planet with no landmasses) would have to deal with diseases like the flu and covid the way human civilization has to? Are there similar viruses that spread via the water and not the air? What sort of viruses or pathogens do whales have to deal with here on earth?
EgonSpengler
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I don't know about communicable diseases, but marine animals have to deal with pervasive environmental toxins more than animals that exist in a gaseous medium (e.g. air). For example, a few weeks ago, I read that sharks were getting into canals in Florida because they were trying to get away from "Red Tide" algae blooms. I don't think there's a direct equivalent for land animals. The closest thing would be plant spores that cause allergic reactions, like "Hay fever." Imagine if animals needed to literally run for their lives from a ground-level cloud of deadly toxins every Spring, or every time there's a storm.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
That does make sense. I was trying to figure out if it's possible for viruses (or something similar) to spread via a liquid, resulting in somewhat similar dynamics to our flu season for a marine based civilization. Cause.. it seems to me that a virus doesn't care if it's surrounded by Oxygen and Nitrogen molecules or H2O molecules.... but water is a lot more dense than our atmosphere, so that might limit the way a virus could traverse that?
Wikipedia has a page on fish pathogens, and another on marine viruses. The big number of viruses are bacteriophages: "A teaspoon of seawater typically contains about fifty million viruses". I am no expert, but it seems to me that bacteriophages are somewhere on the line between pathogens and bacterial sex.
Apparently they play a crucial role in the nutrient cycle, and are indirectly responsible for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by approximately 3 gigatonnes of carbon per year.
Apparently they play a crucial role in the nutrient cycle, and are indirectly responsible for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by approximately 3 gigatonnes of carbon per year.
EgonSpengler
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Yeah, if you're looking for something directly transmissible between animals, an environmental toxin like an algae bloom wouldn't do it. Parasites and bacteria might, though.
There is a good part which will inevitably kill the bacteria at the end of its life cycle. In that case they've clearly pathogens.
For the ones which don't... you're not wrong on that, although that's simplified and only one possible version of bacterial "sex" (along with plasmids, virus-like particles, competence, and others).
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Ha ha, sharks, not so tough now are ya? Oooh look some green stuff in the water.
Anyway, that’s not what I came here to say. I came here to say that there are parts of my body (external) that I’ve never seen without the assistance of a reflective surface.
If a day comes whenever reflections stop working, I’ll be fine. I’m pretty set in my routine, so fixing my hair, shaving, I could do all of it by touch and be fine.
I think it’s about dinner time here!
How would reflections stop working?
There are a few scenarios where that can happen, but in all of them you'd have far bigger problems.
Like suddenly becoming a vampire, but being too absorbed in computer games and forum posting to notice it?How would reflections stop working?
There are a few scenarios where that can happen, but in all of them you'd have far bigger problems.
I knew a guy in the SCA who had an iron deficiency, was deathly allergic to garlic (like some people are allergic to peanuts/peanut butter or shellfish), but got high as a kite on cinnamon.
No, he did not go around drinking blood. But he was on a somewhat restricted diet to make sure he got enough iron and whatever other minerals he was lacking.
Did you ever see him reflected in a mirror? Most vampires do not drink blood in public.Like suddenly becoming a vampire, but being too absorbed in computer games and forum posting to notice it?
I knew a guy in the SCA who had an iron deficiency, was deathly allergic to garlic (like some people are allergic to peanuts/peanut butter or shellfish), but got high as a kite on cinnamon.
No, he did not go around drinking blood. But he was on a somewhat restricted diet to make sure he got enough iron and whatever other minerals he was lacking.
EDIT: I do recall that he and his wife and I were in the room I used as my office, back when I was living in the house and still active in my home businesses. We were trying to get my new computer set up, and there was a dresser with a large mirror in the room. It never occurred to me to check for reflections, though.
He's one of the people who taught me Civ I, btw.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
You wouldn’t see anything in them!How would reflections stop working?
EgonSpengler
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fwiw, "Red Tide" really is red. And, I guess, comes in with the tide.
I'm not sure what it does to people, but since I was a kid I've known that you aren't supposed to eat seafood during a Red Tide outbreak, especially shellfish. Fishermen have to throw out their catches of lobsters and clams.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Various red-tide toxin(s) tend to have neurotoxic/ paralytic effects.
Not usually quite as serious as, say, botulism, but still you really don't want to be ingesting them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide#Harmful_toxins_produced_by_the_red_tide
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Walls (my translation, original by Konstantin Cavafy)
Without caution, without shame or regret
they built extensive and high walls around me.
And now I lay here in despair.
Reflecting on this misfortune. It’s all I think about;
because I did have many things to do outside the walls.
Ah, how could I be oblivious, when they were still being built.
And yet, I never heard builders clanking or making any other noise.
I was shut out of this world all too subtly.
(I want to ask if this sounds like english at all, or is too rigid )
Without caution, without shame or regret
they built extensive and high walls around me.
And now I lay here in despair.
Reflecting on this misfortune. It’s all I think about;
because I did have many things to do outside the walls.
Ah, how could I be oblivious, when they were still being built.
And yet, I never heard builders clanking or making any other noise.
I was shut out of this world all too subtly.
(I want to ask if this sounds like english at all, or is too rigid
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