Humodour

It's not too late to leave and renew the Commonwealth. You know you want to.

I say it is finally time for Australia to join the EU.

It's not 'like' walking through a furnace at all. It is walking through a furnace.

You know that for a fact? Full-scale UN sanctions (the works - complete trade halt like South Korea has recently done) would be pretty potent. Not even Iran has this. All you really need is China and South Korea to sanction NK. That's enough to make what little is left of NK's economy collapse completely. I'm not sure how the NK government would get by then. As it is the impact of SK's unilateral sanctions will be interesting.

I hate wearing clothes, though. Maybe because 75% of the year it's not necessary. :D Your entire country is boiling all the time, there's a reason nobody wears shoes half the time. Hehe. I wish I was on the coast though. You'd be unlucky if the temperature drops below 15 degrees there in Winter. Cold is great too, though. Fire up a nice heater with some mates and just laze in front of it on beanbags watching TV or drinking or similar. Crisp morning jogs after a frost are also great because you know the day will be bright and sunny. Everything I said above excludes Tasmania, aka mini New Zealand.

Quit your ****ing winging. 30 Celsius isn't hot. It's perfect. Good beer and swimming weather.

Whilst there is a relation between genes and metabolism, IIRC there is no direct relation between genes and beer belly. Causes are most likely a combination of a slowdown of metabolism after age 40 and alcohol causing more consumption of food. Fat levels tend to be as much about epigenetics in childhood as they are genetics. In fact probably even more-so.

Damn you. The max temp here today was 12.3 Celsius. Right now it's midnight and 9 Celsius. Uhg. My toes are freezing and my housemates complain about heating bills when I turn the gas heater on.

Actually, that link goes on to state that China supports NK because it fears a flood of refugees, Dagon.

You right, but since we are talking about immortality here simply elongating the sequence won't do. We are speculating here about the ultimate consequences of this technology, in case that the whole sci fi dystopia wasn't a big clue I don't necessarily think that genetic modification will cause mutations but we have no research whatsoever on adverse effects. Genetic modification may not cause mutations, but ultraviolet light and oxygen sure will! To truly have immortality you need either: a cure for cancer, or true AI (or to be specific, the ability to download a human brain and optionally and ideally transfer it into a new living host e.g. clone) Otherwise no amount of senescence prevention will prevent death.

I'm in Aus and AP is $70 American on Steam but It'll probably be $80 or something in retail stores... ****ers.

Removing telomeres (whatever that means - telomeres are important to protect against the imperfect replication of DNA polymerases, you can't just remove them... maybe replenish them?) may prevent ageing but it won't prevent cancer caused by DNA mutations built up over a lifetime.

You can tell they are still TRAINING to become ninjas. Real ninjas would've been able to outrun the muggers and give 'em what for. Still cool. And the muggers got arrested by the coppers anyway.

More on how badly the situation portrays China, from an Asian perspective (SK, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia): http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2920816 Basically, it looks like China was banking on SK not being able to prove any NK involvement. Oops. Totalitarian idiots. And a Reuters article on the same issue: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64J29T20100520 And CNN covers some of Lee's speech: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/....ship/?hpt=Sbin

Here's an insightful article which points out that the biggest loser in this event is China, because they're stuck between a rock and a hrd place (SK and NK being either the rock or the hard place). This event galvanises and brings together a renewed SK, America, and Japan, while pitting them against a China unwilling to chastise NK. It weakens China's political image whilst strengthening the American sphere of influence. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0052304212.html

I'd say North Korea is just about the smartest country in the world. Without any real economy to speak of, armed with outdated WWII era military hardware and despised by just about every nation on this planet, it managed to make the world greatest powers (U.S, China, Japan, Russia) dance to its crazy tune. Had any other country in human history been able to pull off such feat? North Korea has essentially gone nowhere for 50 years. I wouldn't call that dancing to its every tune unless every tune it plays is "you guys advance while we **** ourselves over".

Hmm. Game's download service is UK only, isn't it? Steam's price is still 20usd more than d2d or Gamersgate for we antipodal types. This is an outrage. That's not sarcasm. I'm just tripping. And don't know how to emotions.

The removal of capitalism is not a problem if it's not necessary - e.g. in a post-scarcity civilisation.

**** the media. http://gawker.com/5540166/vodka-eyeballing...rend-piece-ever

Next stop: creating not just artificial DNA, but artificial cells (also known as artificial life) http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/201...ife_nh_sl.shtml

If NK sunk a SK ship every couple of months, what would SK do? Objectively it's supreme grounds for war, but...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0052005278.html Discuss. Personally I'm a big fan of the EU. But the Eurozone seems like an economically ludicrous idea, especially for such a big and diverse array of nations.

Assassin's Creed 2 was one of the best games of 2009 (IMO). Considering you're a libertarian, I hope you didn't buy the PC version.

That IS rather weird.