old man emu

More often needle in a haystack.

No insult. It's a statistical term. In populatin statistics, if you plot the data you will often get a curve that looks like this: The graph shows the distribution of results around the "mean" or the value representing the "centre" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. In this diagram 68% of the numbers lie close to the mean value, but a very small percentage lie well away from it. The numbers exist, but the probability of encountering them is low. These numbers are called "outliers". They are the rare ones. If we are looking at those who have contracted chicken pox, then those in the popuolatin who have never contracted it would be make up those numbers whose probability is low.

An immune system seems to be unique to the individual. Theinformation that health care workers depend on to formulate advice is based on population statistics. What happens to the majority of the population determines the advice given. There will always be outliers from the data. Octave seems to be an outlier. However you have to remember the two parts of statistics - the possibility and the probability. Possibility is our recognition of something happening, while probability is the chance of it actually happening. Immunisation is simply a means of reducing the probability of something happening. It is a form of health insurance. If it's free, grab it. Don't forget that on this forum we learn from the experience of our fellows. Listen to what Red and Litespeed said. If we had all our immunisations, we might end up like a wornout pub dart board, but we would not suffer the consequences of the illnesses to the extent that we would if not immunised.

And here'e the fun part. They landed in a pile of manure which softened their landings.

It certainly stirs up the animals. There are horses in the npaddocks around my dwelling, and they get really spooked when earthquakes happen.

Defenestration is the word which describes one particular historical event. In Prague on May 21, 1618, two Catholic deputies to the Bohemian national assembly and a secretary were tossed out the window of the castle of Hradschin by Protestant radicals. Clearly that was a case of these blokes getting the sack, and being informed of it by being thrown out of a window. https://www.britannica.com/event/Defenestration-of-Prague-1618 Its later use is similar to the way we use "Waterloo" to mean a defeat, as in "He met his Waterloo."

Me name's not Rip van Bloody Winkle. But when I fall asleep, I sleep the sleep of the Just. Mag. 3.1 earthquake - Gilgandra, 55 km northeast of Dubbo, Western Plainsal, New South Wales, Australia, on Monday, Jul 7, 2025, at 01:15 am (GMT +10)

We are more aware of all the wars going on around the world becasue of the amount of access we have to them nowadays due to our worldwide communications being so much better than in the past. In the same way, we are more aware of natural disasters and things like earhquakes and erupting volcanoes. The other night I slept through an eathquake whose epicentre was only 50-odd kilometres away. When I made some enquiries on-line, I found that it had been reported on a website originating in the USA.

Net-in-Yahoo has written to the Nobel Peace Prize committee nominated Trump for the Peace award. Was it seconded by Putin?

Having posted what you have done so on this forum, do you think that you would get past US Immigration sceening? You have not been praising the exalted Leader sufficiently. In facvt, sometimes you have commented on his new attire.

Plucked it from the air. My intention was to suggest that the percentage of psychos in a population is very low. I was just operating under the protection of my poetic licence.

I'd like to take a trip to the USA solely for the purpose of viewing some of the magnificent scenery. I'd love to drive Route 66. However, as has been said, it is a dangerous place due to the human inhabitants. One could say that only 0.001% or less of the population is pshcyo, but when you have 300 million people, 0.001% still is a lot. And that's the diagnosable psychos. There are also heaps of people who just don't like strangers.

I've ressurected this thread. It is interesting to see what we were saying in 2020/21 and to compare it to what we are saying in 2025.

Do you realise that if you have participated in this thread, and posted any comment that is not a posite reference to Trump personally, or his policies, you have given US Immigration cause to deny you access to the United States? Also, if you happened to have a few puffs of weed 50+ years ago in your youth, you can't come in. So, if you had thoughts of watching any 2026 FIFA World Cup games in the USA, think about your chances of getting into teh country.

Actor Julian McMahon, son of former Prime Minister Sir William McMahon has passed away from cancer.

I just had a thought! If you compare the US system of government with Canada and Australia which are of similar political age as the USA, you get the feeling that the USA's is stuck with the political concepts of the late 18th Century and has not evolved to deal with the influences acting upon its people. We might think that Australia's Constitution is rigid, but we have, on occasion, been able to update it to meet the desires of the people. It seems that the political evolution of the government of the USA reached an evolutionary dead-end in the early 19th Century. That is probably why emerging Nations don't want anything to do with the type of democracy that the USA espouses.

Don't forget Cesar Romero

Then there was the Findus bolog-neighs.

We don't hear much about how our Bushmasters are doing in the Ukraine. Here's an interesting video about them there.

So true as it applies to Federation, and maybe 1st January should be our National Day. However, we simplistically say that Australia began on 26th January 1788. That was the date of conception of the first colony of several that were eventually to come together as one under a Federal Constitution.

I agree with you both. I was taking a shot at the poor choice of word. If an "authority" is going to make a statement that is important, then care must be taken to vet the words used to avoid confusion.

Whoa! That's a bit incomprehensible. We are told that there is a finite amount of everything on this planet. Therefore it is a falsehood to say "there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history". It is simply that our digging up and refining has accumulated more copper. In other words. if we piled up all the pure copper that has been by mankind over time, the pile is now higher than it was yearfs ago.

As the 26th January is for many Austrlians, both Non-Indigenous and Indigenous, the 4th of July is a big thing for the United States. For the US, it is a celebration of the formal declaration of the 13 Colonies' independence from the British Crown on that day in 1776. However, the 13 Colonies actually had been independent since the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 3rd September 1783. As with all Treaties, it contained a number of Articles stating what was being agreed to. Articles included fishing rights and restoration of property and prisoners of war, and set the boundaries between British North America, later called Canada, and the United States. Only Article 1 of the treaty, which acknowledges the United States' existence as free, sovereign, and independent states, remains in force. One could claim that Australia was concieved on that date, since the myth is that by granting independence to the American colonies, Britain lost a place to dump its convicts. That is not fully correct that the Americas were a dumping ground for British felons. It is commonly maintained that the vast majority of felons taken to America were political criminals, not those guilty of social crimes such as theft; for example. It is estimated that between 1718 and 1776 about 30,000 convicts were transported to at least nine of the continental colonies, whereas between 1700 and 1775 about 250,000 to 300,000 white immigrants came to mainland North America as a whole. It was noted of Virginia that "the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political, and the number transported for social crimes was never considerable." The colony of Georgia, by contrast, was planned specifically to take in debtors and other social criminals, "the worthy poor" in a philanthropic effort to create a rehabilitative colony where prisoners could earn a second chance at life, learning trades and working off their debts. Between 1776 and 1783, Britain could no longer transport felons to the American colonmies. Leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British government must have been looking for new places to send felons. Expeditions examined the west coast of Africa, but they were unsuitale due to disease and their inability to support European agricultural methods. As well, the geo-political situation in Asia, the East Indies and Southwest Pacific demanded that the British get a foothold before other arising European powers snapped up what there was to snap up. Based on the reports of James Cook, and the prompting by Sir Joseph Banks, the British decided that the east coast of Terra Australis would be worth an attempt to establish a colony.Under Banks's guidance, the American Loyalist James Matra, who had also travelled with Cook, produced a new plan for colonising New South Wales in 1783. Matra argued that the country was suitable for plantations of sugar, cotton and tobacco; New Zealand timber and hemp or flax could prove valuable commodities; it could form a base for Pacific trade; and it could be a suitable compensation for displaced American Loyalists. American Loyalists were those living in the 13 Colonies who did not want to break with British rule during the American Revolution. It should be noted that Cook only made landfall in two places on the east coast - Botany Bay, in a Temperate climatic area and Cape York in a Tropical climatic area. The British already knew from their expeditions to tropical West Africa that such places were not suitable for colonisation by Europeans. It seems to me that the Americans have forgotten the chronology of their country's evolution. Instead of celebrating the day on which a declaration of why the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states no longer subject to British colonial rule, perhaps they should celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 3rd September 1783 which granted the Colonies their freedom and sovereignty. Why should the 4th of July be recognised in Australia? Although I maintain it is the inaccurate date for the Americans to celebrate, they will continue to do so as part of their culture. If we accept their mistake, then we can apply that date as the date of conception of Australia without rocking the boat.

Is a dendochronology lab a tree-ring circus?

I agree with Onetrack's suggestion that it is the change in velocity over time (acceleration) that acts on the vestibular systyem of the inner ear. Octave mentions being ill on winding roads. That indicates sideways movement affected the vestibular system. If you are a passenger in car, the bad driving rechnique of the driver can create acceleration effects. (I'm using "accleration" as a term for inceasing and decreasing velocity so I don have to write "deceleration")