Space Cadet

Oh my word, oh my word, oh my word. :o HOLY CRAP!!! :mad: I just got a big package from Germany. It's wonderful! So beautiful. Someone put so much work into it. And it has real concert butterflies! :bigcry: I never thought I'd have any of those of my own. OH MY WORD! :flutterby: Someone put together an entire handpainted calendar/scrapbook with pictures and everything. I'm lost for words. I'll post pics when I can, but it will take a lot. Just one problem... they wrote their name on the cover in silver ink and it rubbed off so I can't read it. :( Might be a very smudged aniskywalker perhaps? Can't be sure. :confused: Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you whoever you are. :dance: :dance: :dance: :D

3 pairs of panties

^^:facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: Because you were bellyaching about people not liking you. You wanted to start again. You wanted them all to be your friends. Not caring means no fights. ^What if I want it on the 10th of March? :p

:facepalm: My point is, far too few people know how to say screw it anymore.

And suddenly the reason everyone fights so much more here these days becomes blindingly apparent. :dozey::P

There are thousands of subgenres, and often only subtle differences between them if any. And the classifications and relationships change depending on who you ask. Which is why people just say electronica. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good breakdown of some of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Electronic_music_genres

Yay! :nice:

I've always thought of electronica as a blanket term that covers all the different forms of electronic based music, from dance and house to certain types of electropop to ambient. And I finally remembered who I was forgetting: Imogen Heap! :D

We all are.

^Sometimes Crests posts nearly 2k a day. Never seen anything like it...

I'm sorry. I'm really trying but I can't help it.... :bomb: Are you my mummy? :lol::uhoh: I quite like it. It just needs to be a bit... smaller. Like you should talk mr. easterbunny. :P :smartass:

Mine! :D ...if I ever get some decent equipment and finish anything... :uhoh: :embarassed: Me really? Maps. :nice: I have a slight addiction to the Chemical Brothers... it's my brother's fault. Hmm... Holy F- ... locally Ruby Jean and the Thoughtful Bees are great (but I have yet to get to see them live. :( )... Fatboy Slim... And then most of the stuff already mentioned like Burial Goldfrapp Justice The Knife Ladytron Massive Attack Royksopp Daft Punk Moby Hot Chip Modeselektor AphexTwin/Autechre/Squarepusher/ those guys in small amounts. :dizzy: And I'm sure I'm forgetting someone important.

See? That's what I thought.

*blinks* I'll take that as a 'no' then. I have not insisted a single thing in this thread. I repeated a couple of articles from respected news associations that have come up in the press recently. The comments in the ice articles are a direct response by a scientist to the information in your first post.

Ooh ooh, question! *raises hand* Did you actually read all of what I posted? (About the ice, not the bears I mean.)

Yeah, it does do that well... but it could do that more colourfully...

Hungry polar bears resorting to cannibalism But Inuit leader disputes starvation is cause Last Updated: Thursday, December 3, 2009 | 5:49 PM CT The late formation of Arctic sea ice may be forcing some hungry and desperate polar bears in northern Manitoba to resort to cannibalism. Eight cases of mature male polar bears eating bear cubs have been reported this year among the animals around Churchill, according to scientists. Four cases were reported to Manitoba Conservation and four to Environment Canada. Some tourists on a tundra buggy tour of the Churchill wildlife management area on Nov. 20 were shaken and started crying after witnessing a male bear eating a cub, said John Gunter, general manager for Frontiers North Adventures, an area tour operator. "A big male polar bear separated a young cub from its mother and had its way with the cub," he said. "But the whole time, while that mother polar bear watched and witnessed, and actually after the big bears left, she still tried to take care of it. "It was difficult for our guests to witness and it was difficult for me to hear about and learn about. It was a sombre day on the buggy that's for sure." 'It's a normal normal occurrence. '—Jose Kusugak,Kivalliq Inuit Association In recent years, Manitoba Conservation has received one to two reports each year about bear cannibalism. Retired Environment Canada biologist Ian Stirling, who has studied bears all over the arctic, said evidence suggests the cubs are being killed for food, not just so the male can mate with the sow. The Hudson Bay sea ice, which the bears use to get at the seals they need to fatten up for winter, isn't appearing until weeks later than it used to, he said. However, an Inuit leader in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut said the incidents are non-events and that it's wrong to connect the bear's behaviour with starvation. "It makes the south — southern people — look so ignorant," said Kivalliq Inuit Association president Jose Kusugak. "A male polar bear eating a cub becomes a big story and they try to marry it with climate change and so on, it becomes absurd when it's a normal normal occurrence," Kusugak said. Kusugak admitted some communities are having polar bear problems because warmer than average temperatures means sea ice hasn't yet formed properly. But he disagrees that their numbers are dwindling or that polar bears are in other danger because of climate change. Bears trying to survive longer on fat reserves, conservationists say Infanticide occurs among all species of bears but can become accentuated among polar bears when they run low on fat reserves and become hungry enough to resort to cannibalism, according to Polar Bears International, a non-profit organization dedicated to the worldwide conservation of polar bears and their Arctic habitat. Scientists predict that with later formation of ice in the fall and earlier breakup in the spring because of climate warming, polar bears in places like western Hudson Bay will have to survive on land for longer on their diminishing fat reserves instead of hunting seals. "At this time of year, polar bears are hungry because they have been surviving on their stored fat reserves since the ice cover of Hudson Bay broke up a few months ago. Thus, days they spend waiting for the sea ice to return, they are losing weight and eventually get quite hungry," said Stirling, who has studied the western Hudson Bay polar bear population for over 35 years. 'Days they spend waiting for the sea ice to return, they are losing weight and eventually get quite hungry.'—John Gunter, Frontiers North Adventures "During the summer and autumn, polar bears lose up to 30 per cent of their body mass because they burn up to one kilogram of stored body fat every day while they are waiting for the ice to freeze. "We have observed that the average body condition of the western Hudson Bay polar bears has been declining for almost 30 years. By mid-to-late November, if they can't get on the sea ice to feed on seals, males may seek out alternate food sources." Killing of a cub for food by an adult male has also been recorded in Svalbard, in the Norwegian Arctic, said Stirling. And in the southern Beaufort Sea, where the body condition of polar bears has also declined apparently because of deteriorating ice conditions, there have been four cases of cannibalism by adult male bears in the last few years. In those four cases, the victims were three adult females and one yearling, according to Stirling. Ice breaking up earlier than ever The average date of breakup of the sea ice in western Hudson Bay is about three weeks earlier than it was 30 years ago, although there is a lot of variation between years, said Robert Buchanan, president of Polar Bears International. 'While these images are very difficult to look at, we need to remind people that there is hope and each of us can help save polar bears and their habitat.'—Robert Buchanan, Polar Bears International In 2008, the breakup was later, in early August, so the bears came ashore in better condition than in most recent years. But that advantage has been lost due to the current delay in freeze-up, Buchanan said. This year may be an even longer wait for the bears to return to the sea ice to hunt as the current long range forecast calls for above average temperatures in the region until the second week of December. Twenty years ago, the average date the bears returned to the ice was Nov. 8, Buchanan noted. "While these images are very difficult to look at, we need to remind people that there is hope and each of us can help save polar bears and their habitat," he said about the photos provided by the organization of the Nov. 20 incident of cannibalism. With files from The Canadian Press http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/12/03/mb-polar-bear-cannibalism-churchill-manitoba.html

Goodness... I'm useless with avi ideas... :thinking: Hmm. Something that will frighten the n00bs? :cheesy: Actually I'm planning on changing mine once Tennant has completely bowed out.... I just don't have a clue what to change it to yet... :uhoh:

Year-round Arctic ice nearly gone, expert says Thin 'rotten' ice replacing multi-year floes that are home to polar bears WINNIPEG – An Arctic researcher says the permanent northern sea ice that usually survives the summer has all but disappeared. David Barber, who just returned from a research trip to the Beaufort Sea, says his team was shocked by the state of the sea ice. He says the thick, multi-year ice that is home to polar bears has been replaced by "rotten" ice, which is thin and flimsy. Barber says researchers on the expedition watched a multi-year ice floe the size of Winnipeg break up before their eyes. He says experts around the world believed Arctic sea ice was recovering because satellite images showed it was expanding. But he says the satellites were misleading because the rotten ice looked sturdy on the surface. Published On Fri Nov 27 2009 http://www.thestar.com/news/article/731776--year-round-arctic-ice-nearly-gone-expert-says Arctic ice meltdown remains severe: report By Randy BoswellNovember 27, 2009 Studies suggesting the Arctic sea ice has made a modest recovery following its record-setting retreat in 2007 are misleading and underestimate the severity of the polar meltdown, says one of Canada’s top ice scientists. David Barber, Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, says satellite images used to track the overall extent of Arctic ice don’t adequately perceive how weak and “rotten” the region’s older, thicker, multi-year ice cover has become. His findings, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest a transformative change in Arctic ecosystems is accelerating and that safe shipping in polar waters during the summer and fall will begin much sooner than many experts predict. “These are very significant findings since the scientists and public all thought that sea ice was recovering since the minimum extent in 2007,” says Mr. Barber, an environment and geography professor with the university’s Centre for Earth Observation Science. “In 2008 and 2009 satellite data showed a growth in Arctic sea ice extension leaving some to reckon global warming was reversing,” states a summary of the research. “Contrary to what satellites recently suggested, we are actually speeding up the loss of the remaining, healthy, multi-year sea ice.” The replacement of older, thicker ice with weak first-year ice has been noted by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, one of the leading trackers of the annual ebb and flow of Arctic ice cover. The Colorado-based centre was instrumental in alerting the world in 2007 to the unprecedented meltdown in Arctic sea ice, from 14 million square kilometres that winter to about 4.3 million square kilometres by September 2007. The past two summers have shown the late-summer minimum at about 4.7 million square kilometres (2008) and 5.4 million square kilometres (2009), still the second- and third-lowest extents since satellite measurements began in 1979. The NSIDC did note in its October summary of sea ice conditions that “the ice cover remained thin, leaving the ice cover vulnerable to melt in coming summers.” But Mr. Barber’s study appears to drive home that point and raise new questions about the health of even the thickest Arctic ice. The research highlights the limitations of satellites in assessing the rapid and widespread degradation of the region’s older ice cover. Using data gathered in September, during a voyage in the Beaufort Sea aboard the Canadian Coast Guard research vessel Amundsen, Mr. Barber observed that even relatively thick multi-year ice was so “heavily decayed” by warming temperatures that the ship “easily broke through floes six to eight metres thick.” He said: “Ship navigation across the pole is imminent as the type of ice which resides there is no longer a barrier to ships in the late summer and fall.” Satellite readings of ice age and thickness are limited, he notes, because they can’t fully distinguish between rock-hard, super-thick floes and degraded ones vulnerable to rapid breakdown after decades or even centuries of remaining intact. He said that healthy multi-year ice and “the ‘rotten’ ice have similar near-surface temperatures, similar near-surface salinities” and that “when satellites try to identify who’s who, the microwaves behave similar enough that cases of mistaken identity abound.” Mr. Barber’s findings emerge at a time when federal MPs are debating a bill to rename Canada’s northern sea route the “Canadian Northwest Passage” to symbolically bolster the country’s claims to the disputed waterway. The study also coincides with rising concern about Canada’s long-term environmental strategy — including mitigation of climate change impacts in the North — ahead of the international Copenhagen conference aimed at curbing global carbon emissions http://www.canada.com/technology/Arctic+meltdown+remains+severe+report/2276659/story.html

Heya Reilly. Good to see a familiar face (avi?) around. :D

Yes, please! :D

Well I definitely can't do it this week... but I'm pretty much done with school after that and always love a good art project.

Number 6 cracked me up. :lol:

Hooray! :nice: If you want any help with the banner feel free to ask.

Exactly. Good luck finishing up school stuff. As long as you keep the time blocked off, we can work out the details once you get your brain back. (4pm here would be 8 and 9pm in Europe, just for reference...) And if that time won't work, I am pretty flexible time-wise, at least after this coming Thursday.