[Cough]Courtney Love[/cough]
I have not read the book Everybody Poops, but I can guarantee it isn’t going to be among my list of things I don’t want to know. Beyond being somewhat desensitized from growing up as a sewage* treatment plant operator’s daughter, I just find the topic interesting. If I were more energetic and/or less distractable, I’d have written a book titled “Science with Shit.”
(Disinterest warning - if you don’t want to know, skip down to the next section line.)
Scat gets used a lot in ecology, biology, and animal management research. Want to know what lions eat? You can spend years watching them and hope they don’t do much while you’re asleep or away. Or you can kill a bunch of them and examine their gut contents. Or you can check out their scat.
Scat has the advantage of being easy to grab quickly over a much larger sampling area. Hey, look. Chimpanzee hair (from an actual study). I’ve never seen them chase one of those.
Now that DNA testing is more available, you can sometimes tell if it was a single individual, or if they caught more than one.
Are you wanting a count of mountain goats in an extremely vertical area? Find a well-counted area and start studying the scat. Soon you’ll be able to visit an area, analyze the scat, and estimate the population, including good guesses on the health of the herd and the ratio of adults to children. DNA analysis or pollen analysis could tell you what plants they are eating.
Are you managing an area with wild horse herds? Are you considering putting out salt licks with contraceptives in them? Expensive, aren’t they? The contraceptives degrade with weathering and most of the year they’re useless. Why not test some droppings and track when the mares are about to go into heat? Drop the salt licks then, when they’ll do the most good. (I haven’t checked back to see if this was effective. There are still complaints of overpopulating herds, so maybe not.)
Don’t get me started on microbiome research. It’s hot and sexy and articles are popping up like mushrooms (which, btw, can be grown in composted horse manure). It might, maybe, some day, with further research, cure diabetes, obesity, allergies, and maybe mortality. Guess what they’re sampling? (Other areas, too.)
Well, now I’ve had a good morning babble and should probably stop. Everybody poops and it’s more interesting than you’d think.
TMI/DR
Most of the stuff I don’t want to know is either easy to ignore or is held back by the porn filter. I don’t want to know what friends and relatives need for their Facebook games, but the switch for that has been working for awhile.
Hugs and good thoughts for Red.
Who knew internet shopping could be so hard?
What good is a dutch over that is safe up to only 350 degrees?
I finally found one that is safe up to 500 degrees.
Why does flatware come with 5 pieces per person?
Why do sets of dishes include cups?
I have so many different mugs I don’t need more to come with the dishes.
Why can’t I buy just plates and bowls? The saucers will sit in the cabinet unused, unless I need them to put under house plants.
I do not know the exact answers, Sahirrnee, but I am certain that it has to do with the acquiring of money.
Sari the only way to acquire just plates may be a visit to a for real store. Mayhaps there is an outlet mall with a china and/or Corning Ware sto’ in the area?
Yeller you are the early contender and quite possibly the far away front runner for this week’s most TMI post. 
Sean she’s been on my list for at least five years, thus Courtney Love is immortal. If I remove her from my 2015 list she will probably drop daid in her tracks on January 1, 2015. Which is it you wish me to do?
In other news, irk has this thing called a Site Book. Said book contains info on participants and their trainin’ sites. I got a new one Firday. Today in goin’ over it, I see that not one change I submitted two dang months ago has been made. Thus, it’s still full of old and/or missin’ info. :rolleyes: So, I just re-submitted every one of the changes I submitted two dang months ago with a notation that these were submitted on date two dang months ago but corrections were never made. Please make the necessary changes and send me a new copy of the Site Book with the corrected and up-to-date information. BBBobbio done learnt me good!
Happy Moanday all!
Oh my, so much TMI on the Internet, so little time!! I truly wish that I had never, ever heard about the MUSHES (multi-user shared hallucinations, or whatever), role-playing games on the Internet. It consumed my life for a number of years, I was totally addicted to them. I don’t know how I was able to survive them, I just thank god that my children, so far, seem to have turned out okay. Seriously, that’s how bad it was for me. 
I say prayers for their forgiveness every day. Thank goodness that I was able to escape that addiction.
It is humid in the burque today; hopefully, we’ll get some rain. The temps are in the low 80s though, so there is that.
Good wishes to all, and healing thoughts and prayers to any in need.
sari, if you have an Old Time Pottery in your neck of the woods, they have lots of kitchen stuff a la carte. Target is pretty good with plates and such sold separately too.
They’ll be here shortly to takeme for an ultrasound. Joy. :rolleyes:
Ariel Sharon was on my list since 2006 or 7 and he finally dropped dead this year. Never give up!
I’m really sick of the cherry (?) tree that keeps dropping berries all over my porch and car.
Howdy all and Happy Moanday
{{{{{red}}}}}}}
I gotta be productive and stuff
Jim
Howdy from da cave! An early dindin has been consumed. OYKW had to eat and leave as he’s dealin’ with changes in his billin’ system at irk, poor thing. So I am alone without adult supervision. Ok, I’m alone a fair amount like that. I went wild. I called ATT and got the forty bucks they charged for an upgrade fee taken off the bill. I do this everytime I upgrade and every time the fee gets taken off the bill. It’d save us a whole lot of trouble if’n ATT would just not charge that fee. I wonder how many calls they get a day for that because folks upgrade their mobile devices right frequently.
'Tis cloudy and dreary out but not much rain. I want big rain and tboomers tonight.
There are lots of places to buy open stock dishes. Crate and Barrel is an old (but no longer particularly inexpensive!) standard, but young upstarts like Amazon, Target and IKEA have a handful of options. If you want a big bunch of dishes, look at restaurant supply, but you may need to buy a case of 48.
[QUOTE=swampbear]
I called ATT and got the forty bucks they charged for an upgrade fee taken off the bill. I do this everytime I upgrade and every time the fee gets taken off the bill. It’d save us a whole lot of trouble if’n ATT would just not charge that fee. I wonder how many calls they get a day for that because folks upgrade their mobile devices right frequently.
[/QUOTE]
You mean it would save trouble if AT&T could flag your account as someone who’s on to their upgrade fee-charging ways. Like banks, I’m sure a substantial part of their income is from people who cant be bothered to look at the bill before the monthly auto-debit happens.
The road constructors have been active today. Sounds like this is Drag Huge Pieces Of Steel Day, judging by the bangs, clangs and howls.
Oh, if you want big rain, go to Arizona. In Chandler, they had five and a half inches fall in eight hours this morning. Some of my team is close to being flooded. I asked them to ship some of the wetness to me.
gotti you mean ATT might one day figure out that I have called and gotten the upgrade fee removed every single time I’ve upgraded? Unthinkable!
Yes, paying makes the ads go away…
Another of those delightfully weird tech billboards in the SF area:
CTRL + F
PYTHON BADASS
I think it’s actually for a job search outfit, but at 70 MPH, the small text is hard to read.
I don’t know if it will enjoy the same legendary enigmatic popularity as STOP CASTING POROSITY did across the Bay.
I’ll second that (I’m within a few hours of you). We could REALLY use it.
Apparently they’re getting a lot of snow (:eek: ) in Calgary.
That, Sir is The Secret to Life.
Worked, laundered, came home. made spicy lime catfish with tequila cilantro rice.
{{{{Red}}}}} hope they stop the leak quick.
Yeller, I found that interesting. But I grew up reading Mom’s(N.O.M.) nursing books, so I have a high tolerance for TMI.
Not have matching cups and plates? Why I bet you don’t own an olive fork, baby food pusher, or a waffle server, either!
swampy, I’ve had monsoons all day. Feel free to take one or two.
Well it is 2 weeks till hockey camp. Bout time!
You know – me and the Old Wench were just talking about stuff like this. We’re lucky compared to most – the things we don’t want to know, we don’t for the most part. Let me give you an example.
Last Friday we went to a bikerfest with several thousand of the happiest and friendliest inebriates you would ever find. Several people were treating it as a clothing optional event and as long as they stayed away from the main road that was OK. The couple riding around on their Sporties in boots and helmets but nothing else were interesting but there was this other guy --------- all he had was a string of Christmas lights hanging from and around his naughty bits. Strictly decoration and not for concealment. We both had the same question – we don’t know the answer and really don’t want to know.
Considering they worked as well walking around as on the bike ----- where did he hide the battery pack?
missred - it was in Bean Blossom so we got to visit Nashville IN and them swung through Bloomington on the way to Tipton and the Pork Festival. We thought of you; prayers and best wishes your way.
I live in Pittsburgh where they have their biggest annual convention. And I’ve helped design and build several mascot costumes. I could tell you stories like the Euro-Disney orgy but ---------
You and me both. I swear, if I accidently listed Elvis, he would be found alive and live another 4 years.
Linked from last week’s thread:
This year marks the 300th anniversary of The Day Barcelona Almost Got Destroyed in the aftermath of the Spanish War of Succession. I’m definitely not planning on being there on September 11th, the anniversary and the date chosen by the Catalan government as their regional holiday; it’s a day that usually goes unnoticed by most but which is always feared to involve violence. Or on November 9th, the day the illegal referendum on independence is being held.
The 500th anniversary of the invasion of Navarre by Castillian troops working for Aragon went almost unnoticed. There had been some initial attempts at a “celebration”, but other than requests to change the name to something that doesn’t sound like we’re happy we got invaded (we’re not), and some emphasizing of the fact that the invasion was not by Castille as so many of us had been mistold in school, most people in the region didn’t even notice.