She tries very hard. Usually the dog runs away trailing blood, or is rescued by the owner, who also gets pretty badly attacked when they take the dog away. Bayda is a cat with serious attitude and elite fighting skills.

I disagree. One of our cats can open sliding doors, and can undo the latch if it's locked. This animal also knows when my kids should be home from school, and waits outside the gate. She gets upset when the kids try to cross the road when there's traffic about. To me this suggests that she has a reasonable grasp of cause and effect and can conjecture about the future.

She also eats dogs by the way, and acts as a guard cat - often the first sign of a visitor is Bayda going into guard mode. She watches visitors and has been known to try to keep guests away from our kids.

Aye. Even though we sit on very opposite sides ideologically, I've noticed the same thing. People should moderate based on the quality of the post, and not because they disagree. There are arguments for and against socialised medicine, and which is better depends on varying factors for the individual, and the culture he or she abides in.

I have to point out that to The Rest Of The World (i.e. the vast majority of people on the planet) the word "Freedom" does not mean what Americans say it means. Frankly, over the last 50 years we've seen American "freedom" in action in Vietnam, Somalia, Central America, Waco, Utah, Iraq etc., and we don't want it thank you.

Most likely the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria_library ) in the late 4th century. Consider the things that were there - Heron's plans for the first car, complete works of Aristotle and Archimedes - and in order to show how pron is not new, the works of Sappho.

In other words, you recommend Smalltalk. But seriously, for the very young, Squeak with EToys is a great first language. But when you need to get close to the metal, other languages are better learning tools. And for 15 year olds, I don't know that the simplicity of Smalltalk would be doing them favours.

From what I've seen given my limited experience (as I don't think weed is a good answer when you've got teenaged kids):

1) Great weed is less effective for pain reduction than many other things, although you may not care if sufficiently stoned. Or it might make it WORSE - just depends if the senses are numbed or heightened. Not worth it in my experience.

2) Oral preparations can work, but it's really hard to get the right dose and not turn into a blob stuck to the couch.

3) Nasty old weed that's a bit moldy, and that you wouldn't smoke a lot of because it will give you a headache does work, but you become quite lethargic.

This leads me to believe that's it's not the THC in weed that helps. It's not a really spectacular effect. And I'm not convinced that it's not a bit like narcotics - rather than reducing the pain, you just don't care about it any more.

A capacitor that big is not very different from a bomb. Every home should have one.

The person I responded to was making the point that the immediate return from this procedure was possibly more than they would earn. My point was that the economic return to society is greater because of a flow-on effect. I also made the point that in my case, the returns would be greater due to people being inspired to greatness if I could return to my profession full-time (and not be drug-affected). Furthermore I made the point that to a chronic pain sufferer, relief from pain is not measured in purely economic terms.

The return from such a procedure has to be measured in many ways, not all of which are purely numeric. But the return to society via taxes is in many cases the most easily measured, and the least subjective. Even those who don't have professions that have identifiable subjective returns (like mine) will still contribute via taxes, whereas they probably don't if they can no longer work.

As someone who lives with chronic pain, let me say you are so far off the mark.

I do respond to medication, but the only pain-killers that work are very heavy - Fentanyl.

I haven't had a full time job for many years. I never will without advances in the treatment of pain. If a procedure like this may mean I can work again, and pay taxes. Then I can afford expensive medical insurance.

More importantly, my kids then have a Dad who works full-time. They see that working leads to reward. They see that working hard at school can lead to a better life. At the moment my 16 y.o. sees no point in trying, as life can throw a curve ball and fuck you over. So if I could get something closer to a "normal" life, my kids will see me modelling better work-ethics and will be more likely to emulate my success. They see there's a point to trying to achieve their level of personal excellence, earn more money, pay more taxes and have more productive and potentially happier lives.

That's 6 people now pay more taxes.

Now I'm a maths teacher by vocation. If I was able to teach full-time I would be able to show several hundred kids a year that maths is easy, maths is fun, and that they can use it to solve real problems in everyday life. A few of these kids will go on to do amazing things, just because I can do what I am good at doing, and I can do it well. Over say 20 years there would be a significant number of people who have happier lives, earn more money and pay more taxes.

That's say 300 people now pay more taxes.

It's been shown in the literature that children of professionals are significantly more likely to undergo tertiary study and become professionals. So the children of the kids that were inspired to greatness by having a great teacher are more likely to have happier, more productive lives with higher paying jobs.

So there are potentially thousands of people who are paying more taxes, who are making great discoveries, and are generally happier, just because my pain is better managed without putting knives inside my head.

Look past the short-term benefits to the individual, and look at the potential returns to society and humanity as a whole, and the pay-off of a (admittedly) expensive procedure becomes enormous. And the return to the individual who suffers otherwise incurable chronic pain is not something measured in $$. To not wake up crying because I didn't die in my sleep would bloody marvellous. It's the possibility that there will be advances that help me that has kept me from suicide, and I'm not Robinson Crusoe.

The definition is that different species will not mate under natural conditions and produce viable and fertile progeny. The 2 new species of Eastern Rosella do not recognise each other as potential mates, and so will not mate under natural conditions. Put them a pair of the two colours in a cage and feed them hormones they will mate and produce young that can (and will) mate with the other two kinds. But in nature this intermediate form is extinct.

If the definition was "can't not won't" then Sally and her Donkey would be the same species! j/k

The birds from either side no longer recognise each other as potential mates. Those from Eastern New South Wales are mostly green, those from South Australia are mostly red. The region where habitat was destroyed is over 800 km wide by the way, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme is, like most things Australian and agricultural, very large.

This was observed with the Eastern Rosella several decades ago, when the Murrumbidgee Irrigation scheme split the population in two. There are now two distinct species, that will not mate to produce fertile and viable offspring under natural conditions.

I beg to differ on your first point. I have CRPS, and as a result know a bit about physical pain. Over the years I have been on prescription Tramadol, Morphine, Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Gabapentin, Lyrica and Ketamine. I also get periodic blocks, which are injections of Lignocaine to ganglia. And thats not counting injections of Phenol to destroy nerves, Botox and steroids.

Only the anaesthetics actually stop pain (Ketamine and Lignocaine), and have other sides effects. Nerve destruction doesnt last. The AEDs reduce pain by reducing the firing of every nerve in the body, including the CNS, so there are no orgasms and your memory suffers.

Narcotics don't actually stop or reduce the pain. What they do is you don't have to care about it any more. And they have their own side effects, not the least being that you no longer care about the things you should care about. Even if smacked off my gourd on Fentanyl (which is a horrible drug), if I focus on my pain it's still there, but I just don't care about it. Narcotics reduce or eliminate the affect, not the effect.

Pain is not "easily" overcome chemically. There is a price to be paid. Mind tricks only work to a partial extent, and you can't keep your attention fixed on something else all the time without tripping over things and having accidents.

I find it interesting that swearing is shown to be efficacious, as it shows that the emotional release works. I have to wonder if swearing releases encephalins.

Alan Turing was well known for his genius both before and after Bletchley, especially for his work on computation and biological mathematics. It was at one of his guest lectures at a school where he made his famous remark "the brain is much like a bowl of cold porridge". Although the exact nature of his wartime work was secret, it was no secret that he was Britain's answer to Einstein and Von Neumann, and was widely paraded as an example of British excellence at a time when the country was still ravaged by war and stricken with debt.

The story I was told was from an Engineer who worked under Flowers, and built Turing's contradiction identifying components. He has passed away, but I have no reason to disregard his interpretation of events in favour of those of people who were not there.