The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

Saving this one for future use:

Damn, there must be a lot of emo zombies around.

[garbon]

I've grown. My heels feel tight.

[sbr]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8526086.stm

An amazing image of an ant lifting 100 times its body weight has won first prize in a science photography contest.

The image shows an Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg (0.02oz) weight in its jaws.

It was taken by zoology specialist Dr Thomas Endlein of Cambridge University as he researched insects' sticky feet.

Dr Endlein won £700 in photographic vouchers from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

The research shows how ants change the size and shape of the pads on their feet to enable them to carry heavier loads.

He hopes it could help scientists develop better glues.

"The pads on ants' feet are self-cleaning and can stick to almost any type of surface," he said.

"No man-made glue or adhesive system can match this. Understanding how animals can control their adhesive systems should help us come up with clever adhesives in the future."

[Razgovory]

How much cash did the ant do.  It seems she did all the heavy lifting.

[Josquius]

I return from the USSR!
Damn we chose the worst weekend of the year for this trip. Awful awful weather.
First my train to Stockholm was cancelled due to the weather (Surely Sweden is used to lots of snow? How can they cancel trains due to it? Bah), luckily at the station I ran into a girl I knew with her boyfriend who happens to be a Stockholm native so he knew a way to get into town via mixing local Upplands trains with Stockholm commuter trains- I had utterly the wrong ticket for the journey and was dreading being caught but we made it into town.
We planned to take the metro to the port but just after we'd paid our way in...the metros have been cancelled. Gragh. So we waited an age along with mnay other people for the direct bus which arrived in time and we made it.
The journey itself...It started fair enough, I was drinking with my friends and having fun but then the sea ice began to grow thicker and thiicker and the boat rocked like hell. I pretty much died. Things happened. Not nice. And I missed most of the night.
Riga seemed a pretty town but it was damn cold so there was a lot of scuttling about looking for warm places to look at.

What I found odd is that though apparently 40% of the population are native Russian speakers there's no Russian to be seen anywhere in town. In Finland where you have 3% of the people speaking Swedish you've bi-lingual signs but these Latvians...damn they're nationalists. Pretty prominent just off the main square was an ugly building called 'The museum of the occupation of the nation (1940-1990)'. A pretty shoddy affair really with not much of interest, quite prominent in there was what looked like a segment of a concentration camp- though a sign (one of the few in English) said it was actually a Soviet camp.
The treatment of the Nazis in this museum...well m German friend was pretty uncomfortable. It doesn't outright say they were good guys saving them from the Soviets but...it is a lot more neutral and balanced with them. A token article of a 'Jude' badge and otherwise pictures of Nazis marching into town with girls throwing flowers at them. Only at 1944 do they take a more negative tone with the kidnapping of lots of Latvians.

Things were a hell of a lot cheaper than I expected.
Everyone had told me before hand Riga was a freaky city- eastern Europe technically but with prices more comparable to the west than what you typically assosiate with the east.
Everything was cheap though.
Only trouble is I'd been told that the boat had strict rules about only having food and alcohol bought on the boat on board so I only ended up buying two 40 sek bottles of vodka rather than the half dozen I should have.
It  turned out though I marched straight onto the boat with no trouble at all, they seemed more concerned with searching the bags of Russian speakers.

The trip home...it was better than the trip out for me. I took some sea sickness tablets before hand and steered clear of hard booze and just had fun.
There was one funny incident when a Russian man suddenly marched into my friend's cabin and began stripping and then entered into a bizzare Benny Hill style chase with the ship guards.
The sea though...damn, I've never seen anything like it. It looked more like we were on a train travelling on land, you could just see white all around you. At one point I believe we suffered a delay as the boat got stuck in the ice too.

Once we were back in Stockholm  though it wasn't the end of it as things once more got annoying.
We bought train tickets on the platform and ran to catch the train just in time only to discover it wasn't a normal train, it wasn't owned by SJ as I thought all trains in Sweden bar the Arlanda express were but some other company. Totally odd.
One of my friends' had bought a ticket elsewhere and stayed on this train, we had the option to buy a ticket on the train for a decent price but of course being the cheapskates we are we decided to wait for the next one- its coming in 20 minutes afterall.
Nope. Cancelled.
The one next hour? Cancelled.
Non-stop train cancellations across the board.
And this was a large trip. Though me and my friends had left the boat early and got into town quickly by now the other 200 Uppsala students had caught up with us so there we all were, a teeming throng desperate to get a train. There was a lot of running around (my bag was damn heavy. 3 litres of vodka and a 24-pack of beer in there...) and dissapointments until eventually, 5 hours after arriving in Stockholm, we all piled onto the Borlagne train (no idea who realised that one) and prayed for the best. We survived. We made it. I'm happy. Hopefully next time though the weather will be a bit less arctic.

[Scipio]

Gotta love the BK.

[Razgovory]

I'm feeling gassy.

[Korea]

Gotta love the BK.

Awesome!

[jimmy olsen]

Gotta love the BK.

Wow

[Savonarola]

Last night I dreamt that I applied to a Doctoral Program   
For weapons design 
In the Netherlands 

[Josquius]

I've just bought a book- 'Transit Maps of the the World'.
I'd like to collect my uber anorak card now.

[Ed Anger]

Last night I dreamt that I applied to a Doctoral Program   
For weapons design 
In the Netherlands 

I dreamt I was patrolling Paris with a platoon of soldiers. And I shot Cal for looting a gas station.

Damn Languish in my brain. 

[Ed Anger]

Found a pic of Mart:

[Razgovory]

Last night I dreamt that I applied to a Doctoral Program   
For weapons design 
In the Netherlands 

I dreamt I was patrolling Paris with a platoon of soldiers. And I shot Cal for looting a gas station.

Damn Languish in my brain. 

I hate languish dreams.  You are visualizing people you've never seen.

[katmai]

I hate languish dreams.  You are visualizing people you've never seen.

Oh right