I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

partyguinness

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Trying to keep it on topic so did you know that hamsters only live about 3 years and spending 2k on one is insane?

Hold on. It wasn't me- I didn't spend £2k on a hamster. Well, yes we knew that they only live for a few years. But the guy was inconsolable- we genuinely thought he was pulling the piss to begin with but no he was distraught- even took time off work.

It was a guy who used to work here. The same guy who took his wife's surname to double barrel it up.

The English can be very weird when it comes to their pets.

Capt'n Midnight

Redneck Reject wrote: »

That the two species of venomous lizards are from Mexico. The Gila Monster Lizard and the Mexican Beaded Lizard.

Komodo dragons are venomous too.

Wibbs

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Komodo dragons are venomous too.

Well the jury is still up in teh air about that Cap't. They have glands that among other things contain proteins that appear to cause toxic effects, but they're very mild and wouldn't be deadly nearly quick enough to be useful as a venom. Iguanas and other related speices have the same thing going on and aren't considered venomous. The idea that Komodo dragons saliva is so full of dangerous bacteria that it causes rapid shock on death to victims has also been disproved. It seems their primary method of hunting and killing prey is to use their incredibly powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth to lunge and bite down and tear open veins and arteries causing blood loss, enough to cause a slow death in the prey they're after. Now some of the proteins found in their saliva appears to be an anti coagulant so this might be in play too. They simply follow the injured prey and wait for it to be incapacitated. They can track prey over great distances because of incredibly acute senses of smell and taste.

Paddy Cow

partyguinness wrote: »

Hold on. It wasn't me- I didn't spend £2k on a hamster. Well, yes we knew that they only live for a few years. But the guy was inconsolable- we genuinely thought he was pulling the piss to begin with but no he was distraught- even took time off work.

Don't worry, I know it wasn't you I was trying to word my post so that it agreed with you without turning this into a discussion about how your former colleague is clearly overly attached to his hamster, which would derail the thread.

partyguinness wrote: »

It was a guy who used to work here. The same guy who took his wife's surname to double barrel it up.

The English and their class system! If he lived in the past that would make sense. They started hyphenating last names because traditionally a woman took her husbands name but if the woman was of a higher social standing and didn't want the family name to die out, they hyphenated it. Prestigious back then but pretentious now. Ask any kid who has a double name and nine times out of ten they will tell you they wish their parents had chosen one and not left it up to them to chose when they are older.

partyguinness wrote: »

The English can be very weird when it comes to their pets.

It's not just an English thing. I knew someone who told me that if her cat died she would need a week off work to mourn.

cdeb

Paddy Cow wrote: »

The English and their class system! If he lived in the past that would make sense. They started hyphenating last names because traditionally a woman took her husbands name but if the woman was of a higher social standing and didn't want the family name to die out, they hyphenated it. Prestigious back then but pretentious now. Ask any kid who has a double name and nine times out of ten they will tell you they wish their parents had chosen one and not left it up to them to chose when they are older.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the youngest of Scott's party to visit the Antarctic in 1910-13, which of course ended in Scott's death (as well as others - Oates being the most infamous; "I'm just going out and may be some time")

Anyways, he was born Apsley Cherry, but when his grand-aunt died and left her estate to Apsley's father, one of the conditions of the inheritance was that Cherry Sr had to add "Garrard" to his name, hence the new family, the Apsley-Garrards.

Chancer3001

We all know trees can't fend for themselves...

Except of course the Mexican fighting tree.

Redneck Reject

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Komodo dragons are venomous too.

But their not Mexican so I am biased heh .Forgive me.

Capt'n Midnight

Chancer3001 wrote: »

We all know trees can't fend for themselves...

Except of course the Mexican fighting tree.

Is not a fighting tree , is a ham bush.

KevRossi

Blue is the most common colour on a country's flag, then red. There are only 10 countries that have neither blue nor red in their flag, Ireland is one of them.

Of those 10, 9 have green, leaving Bhutan as the only country that has neither blue, red nor green in its flag.

The list:

Republic of Ireland
Jamaica
Bhutan
Mauritania
Ivory Coast
Niger
Nigeria
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan



And the very cool flag of Bhutan...

LostinBlanch

Lewis Teague, the director of such films as The Jewel of The Nile, Cats Eye and Cujo only graduated from film school in 2016 at the age of 78.

*Scroll down to the bottom of the article.

Conchir

KevRossi wrote: »

Blue is the most common colour on a country's flag, then red. There are only 10 countries that have neither blue nor red in their flag, Ireland is one of them.

Of those 10, 9 have green, leaving Bhutan as the only country that has neither blue, red nor green in its flag.

The list:

Republic of Ireland
Jamaica
Bhutan
Mauritania
Ivory Coast
Niger
Nigeria
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan

Incidentally, the map has incorrectly labelled Bhutan as having red or blue. Bhutan is squeezed between China and India, directly north of Bangladesh (to the east of Nepal, also between China and India).

LostinBlanch

Wibbs wrote: »

Well the jury is still up in teh air about that Cap't. They have glands that among other things contain proteins that appear to cause toxic effects, but they're very mild and wouldn't be deadly nearly quick enough to be useful as a venom. Iguanas and other related speices have the same thing going on and aren't considered venomous. The idea that Komodo dragons saliva is so full of dangerous bacteria that it causes rapid shock on death to victims has also been disproved. It seems their primary method of hunting and killing prey is to use their incredibly powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth to lunge and bite down and tear open veins and arteries causing blood loss, enough to cause a slow death in the prey they're after. Now some of the proteins found in their saliva appears to be an anti coagulant so this might be in play too. They simply follow the injured prey and wait for it to be incapacitated. They can track prey over great distances because of incredibly acute senses of smell and taste.

They're nasty, as this article shows. Apart form the recorded deaths since 2007.
Imagine being in that group of divers shipwrecked in shark infested waters and eventually making it to an island where an estimated 1300 live? :eek: :eek:

partyguinness

KevRossi wrote: »

Blue is the most common colour on a country's flag, then red. There are only 10 countries that have neither blue nor red in their flag, Ireland is one of them.

Of those 10, 9 have green, leaving Bhutan as the only country that has neither blue, red nor green in its flag.

The list:

Republic of Ireland
Jamaica
Bhutan
Mauritania
Ivory Coast
Niger
Nigeria
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan



And the very cool flag of Bhutan...

That is not a great list of countries to be lumped in with.

Gloomtastic!

Ineedaname

KevRossi wrote: »

Blue is the most common colour on a country's flag, then red. There are only 10 countries that have neither blue nor red in their flag, Ireland is one of them.

Of those 10, 9 have green, leaving Bhutan as the only country that has neither blue, red nor green in its flag.

The list:

Republic of Ireland
Jamaica
Bhutan
Mauritania
Ivory Coast
Niger
Nigeria
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan

Slight correction. Mauritania adopted a new flag in 2017 that features red stripes so now there's one less.

Realt Dearg Sec

partyguinness wrote: »

That is not a great list of countries to be lumped in with.

Neither is the other one.

Badly Drunk Boy

cdeb wrote: »

The world's first aviation fatality was also in Offaly, bizarrely

Carry wrote: »

Bizarrely indeed. There must be something in the Offaly air or water or such like...

I looked it up: https://www.thejournal.ie/balloon-crash-tullamore-2463007-Dec2015/

I can't see any mention of a fatality in the link or elsewhere. It was the first aviation-related disaster alright, causing major damage and the town to be rebuilt, but I think the first fatality was in France a month later. (Sorry for being pedantic.:o)

MyStubbleItches

KevRossi wrote: »

Blue is the most common colour on a country's flag, then red. There are only 10 countries that have neither blue nor red in their flag, Ireland is one of them.

Of those 10, 9 have green, leaving Bhutan as the only country that has neither blue, red nor green in its flag.

The list:

Republic of Ireland
Jamaica
Bhutan
Mauritania
Ivory Coast
Niger
Nigeria
Cyprus
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan



And the very cool flag of Bhutan...

Am I the only one that sees red in that flag?

New Home

Yes.

ohnonotgmail

MyStubbleItches wrote: »

Am I the only one that sees red in that flag?

yellow and orange to me

MyStubbleItches

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

yellow and orange to me

Ok, reddy orange.

New Home

Nope, orange orange. Might be your screen resolution.

lmimmfn

New Home wrote: »

Nope, orange orange. Might be your screen resolution.

not resolution but down to the devices's screen technology used. Crappy screens or TFT( awful viewing angles ) is rubbish at colour reproduction, IPS/OLED are the best at colour reproduction. VA panels are middle of the road between TFT and IPS, better refresh than IPS but worse than TFT and worse colour repreduction than IPS but better than TFT and better viewing angles than TFT.

I have an IPS and the colour on it is sublime as its calibrated and everyone that sees it is shocked at how good it looks. I also have a VA panel for gaming, its good for middle of the road.

Professor Moriarty

MyStubbleItches wrote: »

Ok, reddy orange.

Straight from the horse's dragon's mouth:

The National Flag of Bhutan is divided diagonally into equal yellow and orange halves. The division starts from the lower corner of the flag where it is hoisted and runs along the diagonally opposite corner.

The yellow portion lies on the upper part of the diagonal division and it represents the yellow scarf worn by His Majesty, which in turn represents the being of His Majesty, the King. The orange portion lies on the lower part of the flag and it represents the orange scarf worn by the Je Khenpo, the religious head of the country.

The National Flag has a white dragon which spreads equally along the diagonal division towards the upper end. The dragon holds norbu(jewel) by its claws.

johndaman66

It has to be said. That is one hell of a cool flag.

Mollyb60

johndaman66 wrote: »

It has to be said. That is one hell of a cool flag.

And it mostly follows the rules for a great flag:

1. Keep it simple (the dragon might be a bit too complicated to meet this rule)
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use two to three basic colors
4. No lettering or seals of any kind.
5. Be distinctive

From the excellent podcast 99% Invisible:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/vexillonaire/


Belfast City's flag is a decent one:

Mollyb60

Mollyb60 wrote: »

And it mostly follows the rules for a great flag:

1. Keep it simple (the dragon might be a bit too complicated to meet this rule)
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use two to three basic colors
4. No lettering or seals of any kind.
5. Be distinctive

From the excellent podcast 99% Invisible:
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/vexillonaire/


Belfast City's flag is a decent one:

I don't know about that Belfast flag..

Not simple
What's the symbolism? There's so many objects! Ships, bells, two tone bells, the sea...
5 colours
It's defintely distinctive though, but looks too much like a picture than a flag.

Carry

lmimmfn wrote: »

not resolution but down to the devices's screen technology used. Crappy screens or TFT( awful viewing angles ) is rubbish at colour reproduction, IPS/OLED are the best at colour reproduction. VA panels are middle of the road between TFT and IPS, better refresh than IPS but worse than TFT and worse colour repreduction than IPS but better than TFT and better viewing angles than TFT.

I have an IPS and the colour on it is sublime as its calibrated and everyone that sees it is shocked at how good it looks. I also have a VA panel for gaming, its good for middle of the road.

Now, I certainly didn't know that!
Though I'm not sure if I'm any wiser after reading it. But TFT, IPS/OLED, IPS, VA, their various minglings and awful viewing angles sound interesting - somehow.

Mollyb60

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know about that Belfast flag..

Not simple
What's the symbolism? There's so many objects! Ships, bells, two tone bells, the sea...
5 colours
It's defintely distinctive though, but looks too much like a picture than a flag.

Yeah if it was on a pole flapping in the breeze I think it would actually fail the 'good flag' test.

There's way too many colours on it, I think if they took off the ship, blue V thing and sea it'd be a good one. White and blue with the red bell/ship in the centre. (Not sure what the bell represents though, the maritime heritage maybe? I couldn't find a description online)

Took me 5 minutes to throw this together:

New Home

Mollyb60 wrote: »

Yeah if it was on a pole flapping in the breeze I think it would actually fail the 'good flag' test.

There's way too many colours on it, I think if they took off the ship, blue V thing and sea it'd be a good one. White and blue with the red bell/ship in the centre. (Not sure what the bell represents though, the maritime heritage maybe? I couldn't find a description online)

Took me 5 minutes to throw this together:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=490334&stc=1&d=1568190308

We can tell. :pac:

Now, THIS would make one cool flag.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=111222770&postcount=3023