Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Thank you for explaining the chip paper thing, because I read that article this morning and was *highly* confused by that particular quote.
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I've retained much more of the French I started learning at about seven than the extra French from high school and uni, and almost none of the Russian I learned at varsity
What Emma said. In fact *exactly* what Emma said. That's a little creepy.
I will note that I find basic grammar tends to remain where vocab goes down the tubes; this is definitely the case for my high-school only Maori and Latin, where I can puzzle almost anything out given a dictionary but struggle otherwise, unless it's quite basic vocab.
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You mean the way that in England rabbits (which were imported for their fur and meat) are still slowly displacing the native hares?
I look upon this as the slow, pre-emptive, and really long-term revenge of the Spanish ("five centuries from now you may win in the battle of colonial empires, but our furry minions will have their revenge upon you! MUAHAHAHA!")
...it's Friday, okay?
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The thing about Outlook is it is not just an eMail client. It is also a calender/Organiser, with reminders for appointments etc. task lists and a fully fledged contacts database with all the bells and whistles you could imagine IIRC Lotus was similar but Evolution is Open Source.
Doesn't Gmail have pretty much all these functions now? Not sure about the contacts functions but I wouldn't be surprised if they were there, and I use Gmail & Google Calendar to manage all my task lists and appointments. I did use Thunderbird, but it's I've dialed it back to an email reader/storage system now.
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What we need is a cohort of identical twins to experiment on - and of course some summer students to sacrifice :).
I am glad to see you know your priorities. *g*
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She was made head librarian there last week (school, not the couch) and she's very proud of that, even though it appears to be because she's 'detail oriented' and doesn't mind telling other kids off.
It has been my experience that these qualities serve you very well in later life. The ability to tell people to shove it, especially, becomes very handy.
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T20 is Everybody Loves Raymond.
I'm going to assume you have a very big grudge against 20/20.
Can I just take this opportunity to recommend that everyone begin regularly listening to the Friday Night Newsquiz, if you're not already? It's very, very funny and only takes half an hour out of your life. Kind of like a much more intellectual version of the Daily Show. If John Stewart was a witty female radio presenter. Or, um, something.
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As in, the prevalence of certain forms of life in Europe may have a lot more to do with the number of humans than the particular geographical location.
Start with nearly everything humans cultivate (largely middle eastern), add in quite a few of the fruit crops...as Islander says, Britain in particular is an almost *completely* artificial environment; even the rabbits are introduced. Those cute grey squirrels you see in Hyde Park? Introduced. The major native predators? Wiped out centuries ago. Humans have really created their own ecosystem and exported it everywhere possible. And it can have long-term effects; we think of climate change as related to big industry, but you can have a not-insignificant impact with stone axes and goats, over a long enough period.
Bee-wise, I did a quick search of the literature and it looks like the main areas of research and concern are whether native bees are being out-competed on native flora by honeybees and bumblebees, and whether introduced bees are mainly responsible for spreading weeds or not. There also seems to be a lot of "er, well, if someone gets around to researching them, we'll know." As of a 2003 paper, there was no evidence in New Zealand of introduced bee parasites affecting native populations, but there was some for the other way around. The author also seemed fairly certain that transmission of parasites was likely to happen, but just hadn't been studied well enough yet.
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You're totally right about the importation of Euro crop/eco system thing - but it is interesting that some native bees are wandering outside norms, eh?
I'd be really interested to know if the varroa problem has at all affected this, or maybe even encouraged it. I might ask around the bio department and see if anyone's doing research in the area.
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Thanks for that post, Emma; it was extremely moving as well as being an interesting look at a problem I've never had to think very much about, not know anyone hearing-impaired or deaf. I've seen interpreters in classes a few times, but that's it.
In regards to Sign, I remember being taught the alphabet in Brownies, these many years ago (I don't remember why.) It seems to me that this could be a simple step to opening communication up more; yes, it's laborious, but at least it allows something, and I still remember at least some of it, which implies it's easy to remember. Add that to a few basic greetings and questions, and it wouldn't take too long while providing people with an opening.
That, and I totally agree about the bar.