We have 7 rhodies, 4 like partial shade, 3 like full sun. We have climbing roses, which don't give a shit if the daisies completely surround them, oriental roses, which don't like anything growing within a half mile, and wild roses, which will crowd out the daisies all on their own. Then there is all the stuff under the Japanese maple that the cameras couldn't even see, the huge portion of the yard that is blocked from view by the enormous wisteria, and the fig tree and butterfly bushes that shade completely in the summer, and not at all in the winter.

The highest technology in my garden is the pump that drives the waterfall for the fish pond, and I fully intend to keep it that way. I work with technology all day, I go home and play in the dirt to get away from it. Want to test the soil humidity in your garden? Grab a handful of dirt in several different places. What else would an electronic monitor be able to measure? They can't tell if the maple tree is shading the rhododendron too much or if the daisies are infringing on the roses, and there aren't even many children that can tell the difference between a weed an a flower.

Rarely do I see a post that so well matches the username. Bravo!

In my more conspiracy-minded moments I sometimes wonder if the name choice wasn't deliberate, to make the public forget about the original Project Orion. There was no need to name this abortion 'Orion' when that name had already been used for an entirely different concept in manned space flight. This one should have been called Apollo Command Module Version 2, because that's pretty much all it is.

No, Africans south of the Sahara don't have any Neanderthal genes, nor do many (most?) Asian and American populations. Some Asian populations also have Denesovian genes, and another subset has genetic input from a hominid we can only refer to as "unknown" since we don't have any samples of its genetic makeup. The book 'Children Of The Ice Age' has quite a bit of interesting research about Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. Did you know that population density was so low in ice-age Europe that a person would probably meet no more that 30-50 other people during their entire life? Inbreeding is much less of a threat than most people think.

The effect is only temporary, unless you're going to incarcerate them for life or execute all of them. They get out, they commit more crimes unless the cause is addressed first.

My own observations leads me to think that the people with low self-esteem or low self-confidence seem to like cocaine a lot. People without those particular issues don't enjoy it much if at all. I tried it a couple of times and decided it was a real waste of money, but it's really popular in the worlds of arts and politics, two places where people with some real personality issues tend to congregate.

not everything is for profit, sad life if it is.
 
I'm surprised the Libertarians didn't climb all over each other to crucify you for your heresy . . .

Save 45% by joining AAA.

**Off Topic**

If you ever need towing, call AAA, join the club, and then use the towing feature. It's cheaper than calling a wrecker directly (and you're not dealing with some fly-by-night who may just steal and/or wreck your car), and now you've got access to free maps and frequently better travel deals than you can find online. As AAA members we save enough on insurance to pay for the membership every year.

There isn't a viable Left that can be voted for in the Untied States any more. In any other country the Democratic Party would be considered Center-Right, they've managed to stamp out almost all remnants of anti-corporate liberalism in their party.

They're 15-20 million years old. They're not viable organisms any more. Stop watching 'Jurassic Park' and start reading something besides programming manuals.

Anger? I actually wondered, since if it were a troll it was fairly well-done. Looked at your posting history just now, and you instead appear to be a young-earth creationist. You should spend some time investigating the multiple different methods used for dating, they're quite interesting even if they do give results you don't like. There are at least three dozen different methods of varying complexity and accuracy, about ten of which are in common use. If at all possible researchers try to use more than one method to date finds, to cross-check against contamination or other variables that could cause inaccuracy in the first test.

Anyway, as I said, seal a sample away from air and water and most of it will not change composition. There are insects that have been trapped in amber since before the dinosaurs walked the earth, long before this fossil, and the soft tissues are preserved perfectly. An X-ray or MRI of the sample will show the digestive tract, respiratory and circulatory systems, and mouth parts as though it were new.

Back when I was about ten years old (1971) I asked my grandfather, "When you were my age did you imagine computers and men on the moon?"

He replied, "Brian, when I was your age someone told me about radio, with people talking to each other across the ocean without wires. I didn't believe them."

Are you trolling? Hard to tell sometimes. Seal anything off from oxygen exchange and it will degrade very slowly if at all. (There is canned food from the Civil War that is still eatable.) Complex molecules such as DNA that are inherently unstable will fall apart, but simpler organic compounds have no reason to disassociate. There are carbon compounds in meteorites that are ten times that age.

Can't help but think it might well be more deliberate than lazy. The **staff** at MS want to create great products for their customers, it's only the shitheads in management that go out of their way to thwart customers. With Gates and the rest of the actual through-the-ranks programmers being pushed aside by the MBA-types there isn't anyone at the upper levels to speak of who would even know that you could block updates some other way, much less that it's almost trivially easy. And you can pretty much guarantee that none of the programmers want the job of keeping updates out of the wild (although I'm sure they could probably put some H-1B holder to the job if they thought it worthwhile).