Bikerman

Belonging to a group seems to be a fundamental human need. On the smallest level we have the family and on a large level we have our country, but we evolved in groups bigger than family and much smaller than nations, so we have a need to belong to groups of size around 150 people. This was proposed back in the 1920s by a biologist who analysed many primate groups comparing the neocortex -- the "thinking" part of the mammalian brain -- volume with the size of primate social groups. Looking at the data from 38 primate genera and extrapolating to the human neocortex size, he predicted a human "mean group size" of approximately 150. Interestingly this number seems to occur frequently in society - it is the approx size of a Neolithic farming village, the size of Hittite settlements, and the basic unit in professional armies from Roman times to the present. Larger groups are unstable, since members do not know each other well enough to develop close loyalty bonds - we don't think of members as 'people' but rather as groups of people. For these larger groups to function requires a formal organisation structure with some heirarchy. There are actually several 'natural' group sizes for humans. The smallest (3-5) is a "clique": the number of people from whom you would seek help in times of severe emotional distress. The 12-20 group is the "sympathy group": people with which you have special ties. 30-50 is the typical size of hunter-gatherer overnight camps, generally drawn from the same pool of 150 people. No matter what size firm you work for, there will be only about 150 people you consider to be "co-workers." So in small companies accounting is done by Fred and Jane. In larger companies it is the 'accounts dept'. The 500-person group is the "megaband," and the 1,500-person group is the "tribe." Fifteen hundred is roughly the number of faces we can put names to, and the typical size of a hunter-gatherer society. Check a typical military structure out and you will find: squads of 10 to 15 (sympathy group) organized into platoons of three to four squads (hunter-gatherer camping group), organized into companies of three to four platoons (co-worker group), organized into battalions of three to four companies (megaband) organized into regiments of three to four battalions (tribe).

Yes - we had a Great Dane when I was a kid - Major, he was my Dad's dog. I remember I used to ride him like a pony (it is one of my earliest memories). I don't remember too many details but I do remember he was well trained. As with all dogs - particularly big and powerful ones - socialisation is vital. They need to be in regular contact with lots of people and other dogs from a very early age. They then get used to the little social rules, as well as getting accustomed to crowds. We have 2 at the club and both are well balanced and well behaved. Their training was just like you would for any dog.

The only advice I would give is to avoid Sheps that are highly pedigree (ie inbred). Hip displacia is common - the breed standards for the dog over the last decade stupidly emphasised the sloping back which means a lot of 'high pedigree' sheps have useless back legs.

To train? Again there is a quick answer but it is dangerous. The quick answer is the border collie. Probably the smartest dog around (using a variety of different measures) and can be trained quickly to an extremely high level. BUT the border collie needs careful handling. They are bright, for sure, which means they quickly get bored, and when they are bored they often destroy things or hurt themselves. Maddie, ours, is extremely nervous. She is lightening fast at agility but will never make it to grade 8 where she belongs because she is so easily put-off her round. Even the judge moving towards her can stop her. The club we and the dogs belong to has 4 of her brothers, 2 or more sisters, various parents, cousins, uncles and assorted family - down to great-grandparents - so we know the family traits very well, and all the females of this generation are excessively shy - just genetic luck of the draw (the dogs come from a working farm on the borders - real border collies, not pets :-) ) My advice would be - don't start with a bc. Get yourself a lab or an allie if you like bigger dogs. Alsations make great pets - we had one called Aslan (he was long haired and we got him as students when our lodger was doing the Christmas Play with the drama department - the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - the name just seemed perfect :-) Aslan was steady-eddy on the course. Would never get close to a bc time, but wouldn't drop any poles either. Regularly in the rosettes from sheer consistency. More importantly he was gentleness personified with kids. My wife works for a charity in her spare time and they take a bunch of 13-15 year olds away every summer for a camping holiday in wales (most of these kids would not get a holiday otherwise). I have seen Aslan being dragged by his fur by a tiny 12 yr old girl, at 5.00am down to the beach where he was buried, sunglasses placed on his nose, and generally giggled, laughed at and poked. He sat and took it with not a whine or growl. Smashing dog (lost him to cancer at the age of 11, 20-odd years ago now and I still miss him sometimes Think of the bc as a highly tuned motorbike. If you can ride it then nothing on the road is going to beat you. However, one slip and you end up in a bad mess. Best left to the serious handlers or those with a lot of time on their hands and not a good choice for a normal family pet.

Yes I agree. I would hope to have a dog under basic control (coming to me when called) within a week (training an hour or so a day) - that is the most important of the lot, obviously. Sit & Down - reliably and properly, within a couple of weeks or so. Stay & Wait - that depends on how good you want it. If you are happy that you can keep the dog down whilst you step a few paces away, then that won't take more than a few hours practice. If you want the dog to hold a down until you come back from the pub a few hours later, then that is a bit different (and will also depend more on the breed/temperament of the dog). I think that a good general goal (above and beyond basic come, sit, stay) is to be able to walk the dog, off lead, at a good heel, slowly between 2 lines of other dogs; back and forward - consistently. When you have that level of control then I call your dog (and you) pretty well trained.

Although that sounds plausible it is way too simplistic. Some pedigree dogs are sharp as sixpence and some are very dumb. The street dogs that survive are, almost by definition, not too dumb - real natural selection - but neither are they necessarily good to train. The Schipperke is a good example. If I compare Maddie - border collie, with Minnie - Schipperke, they are both pretty bright. Maddy picks everything up first or second go and will then repeat it anytime (or at least if she doesn't get spooked - she is a very nervous dog). Minnie picks it up quickly but needs constant practice or she will stop doing it. Is Maddie smarter? Well probably yes, but this behaviour doesn't tell you that - what it tells me is that Minnie is more stubborn and Maddie is more anxious to please.

It depends on the dog and the breed. Many dogs will pick up the basics much quicker but I'd still advise going to training classes for a year or more.

I have him blocked so I don't normally see his postings... :-) Yes they need a lot of training. My wife takes most of the credit - she is the secretary of a local dog club and the dogs are at training 3 nights each week, plus competitions at the weekends..

Yes that's max.The welsh collie is not so well known. Truth be told we are not certain that Max is one, but he certainly has some welsh collie somewhere back in his line if appearances and behaviour can be trusted. http://www.welshsheepdogsociety.com/ You got that right. The skip is a big dog in a small body. We have two - Minnie is the pure black. As well as advanced agility she is also a show-dog. She has appeared at Crufts for the last three years and won 2nd in class for the last two years. Last weekend she also qualified for the Crufts agility show, so she will probably be the only dog there who is competing both as an agility dog and a show dog :-) The new schipperke - Skip - is the cream-coloured variety. We took him in when his owner died. It is early days for him yet (he is still at the stage where he will jump half a round then smell a hot-dog and go tearing-off to investigate). You probably know that apart from being bundles of energy, the skip is also a complete greedy-guts :-)

But this is a science forum and scientifically speaking that article is a load of bollox.To be fair to the author he is not saying that aliens actually did visit the earth, but his article is riddled with inaccuracies that a bit of research could easily have sorted out.The whole thing is just one big 'what if...' rather than a proper look at the subject.He also seems to accept the Noah Flood myth as real, which is worrying...

Distance recall is important - the dog is going to be at a distance quite often and may also be in a noisy environment. For this reason a whistle is a good idea and training the dog to the whistle is important. Personally I use an old shepherds whistle - a piece of metal you slip under the tongue - but most people prefer to use a more conventional dog whistle.Gesture is also important. You should train the dog by command and associate a gesture with each command - dogs are very sensitive to body language and position. The actual gestures should be clear and simple. For example, my sit gesture is left arm bent double, hand straight up, moving smartly to a 90 degree angle. Different trainers have their own preferred gestures. Sharp correction is the preferred method for correcting bad leash behaviour such as jumping up or pulling. A sharp tug on the leash to pull the dog back into position is delivered, along with a verbal correction - I use 'heel' - it needs to be a short word delivered with authority at the same time as the correction. If the dog continues to pull then do NOT get into a pulling battle with it. Stop, get the dogs attention and wait until it is in a calm submissive state before continuing. PS - I have 4 dogs, 1 welsh collie, 1 border collie and 2 schipperkes. They are all regular competitors in agility competitions (my wife usually runs them). Maddie (the border collie) will hopefully be running at the Crufts agility demonstration next year. Agility is a good way to exercise the dogs and practice close control and I recommend joining a club to any dog owner. Don't think that agility competitions are only for border collies - they are the fastest and dominate the national and international teams, but ANY dog can benefit from agility training and competitions. We were told many times that schipperkes are too independant and easily distracted to be good agility dogs. Minnie - our black schip - is now Grade 7 advanced and has walls full of rosettes.

No, that was your action, not your goal. The goal is the intended outcome of the action. No that isn't true otherwise you would have to say that everyone has infinite goals all the time (there are an infinite number of possible actions at any point in time and by your definition that means you must decide not to do each action - infinite decisions). Ideology is not idiocy - different words. An ideology is a group of ideas or concepts which define a persons needs and hopes. In simple terms an ideology is a belief or a doctrine.

But look again at the definition of terrorism I supplied - "in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature". Also look again at the definition of goal you supplied - "the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve and that (when achieved) terminates behavior intended to achieve it" Pushing a fire-alarm isn't much of a plan and how would the person define whether they had achieved their goal? Would it be achieved if a few people screamed? Or would it require mass panic? The non-specific hope of scaring people isn't really a plan in the sense I would use the word... And not everything has a goal. People frequently act impulsively with no thought of the consequence.

No there is no contradiction. If terrorism implies a goal and pulling a firealarm has no goal then pulling a firealarm is not terrorism... Yes, it CAN be used as a terrorist act, I said NORMALLY it isn't - no contradiction, it depends whether the alarm is pulled with a goal in mind or not. Simply aiming to scare people is not really a goal, it is a consequence, so if someone just pulls the alarm to scare people it isn't really terrorism. If, however, they wish to avoid a maths lesson, then there is a goal and technically it could be called terrorism (though it would be arguable, since in most cases the action would not cause terror, mild panic at worst).

This is why it is important to define what is meant by the word. In the everyday use of the word then, yes, it implies unpredictability. Chaotic systems ARE unpredictable. In the scientific/mathematical sense a chaotic system is one which has several elements, all of which are, or can be, known and modelled exactly, but it is still unpredictable. Note that it is NOT random. The simplest example I can give is the logistic/difference equation which I have already mentioned. pn+1 = r*pn(1-pn) This is an equation used by biologists (amongst others) to predict populations. When they use it r is the fecundity (the breeding ability of the species) and p varies from 0 (extinct) to 1 (maximum possible population). In simple terms : pn+1 (the population next year) - is equal to pn (this year's population) multiplied by r (the fecundity) multiplied by (1 minus this year's population). (The last bit (1-pn) is a way of modelling the fact that there are natural limits on a population - food, competition for space and resources etc). Now, if you know the last value of p, and you know the value of r, there is nothing random and you can work out an exact answer for p at any time. Biologists keep feeding the value of p back into the equation hoping that it will settle on a single value eventually. This would be a stable population. Let's run it and see: assume the starting population is 1/2 max (0.5) and the fecundity ® is 1.5. (I'll work to 2 decimal places for this bit to keep it quick and simple) p1 = 1.5*0.5*(1-0.5) = 0.38 That now becomes the value of p for the next run p2 = 1.5*0.38*(1-0.38) = 0.35 p3 = 1.5*0.35*(1-0.35) = 0.34 p4 = 1.5*0.34*(1-0.34) = 0.34 So you see the population settles down, after 3 years, to 34% of maximum possible. Let's run it one more time so you really get the idea. This time we will start with the same population (0.5) but increase the fecundity to 1.75 (ie the creatures breed more rapidly). p1 = 1.75*0.50*(1-0.50) = 0.44 p2 = 1.75*0.44*(1-0.44) = 0.43 p3 = 1.75*0.43*(1-0.43) = 0.43 So this time the population settles down after 2 years to 43% of the maximum possible. Get it? OK, you will agree that there is nothing random here I hope? OK, so what happens if they breed really fast - set r to 2.9 (For speed I'll run the calculations on a spreadsheet) Fecundity®= 2.9 p(1)=0.73, p(2)=0.58, p(3)=0.71, p(4)=0.60, p(5)=0.70, p(6)=0.61, p(7)=0.69, p(8)=0.62, p(9)=0.68, p(10)=0.63, p(11)=0.68, p(12)=0.64, p(13)=0.67, p(14)=0.64, p(15)=0.67, p(16)=0.64, p(17)=0.67, p(18)=0.64, p(19)=0.66, p(20)=0.65, p(21)=0.66, p(22)=0.65....... So now the population jumps around and doesn't finish on one stable value - it alternates between 65% one year and 66% the next. So it is still, eventually, giving a stable predictable output - just 2 instead of 1. (Actually this is a result of limiting the number of decimal places - if we ran it for long enough with more decimal places then it would settle on one value). With r at 3 or more, our population settles to 2 values alternating - like above. But now ramp r up to 3.5 (I'll leave that as an exercise for you to do).. What you should find is that the population becomes chaotic (ie it doesn't settle down to any fixed values). So for one value of r the population is stable and predictable. For a different value we get a chaotic population. We can draw a graph of the results of this equation as follows: Notice that when r hits 3 you get 2 stable values and then when r goes higher you get 4 alternating values, then 8, then 16 and very quickly the system becomes chaotic with no stable values at all. That is what chaos means in the scientific/mathematical sense. This doubling up of values is characteristic of a stable system about to become chaotic (it is called bifurcation - lit. splitting in two). I hope this helps....

Pulling a firealarm isn't normally terrorism. Terrorism has a goal - pulling fire alarms is generally just vandelism/mischief. A good general definition of terrorism is:

But you are still mixing up chaos with indeterminacy. Chaotic systems are determinate - there are no random factors in a properly chaotic system.

The only way to beat terrorism is to not be terrorised. Terrorism is a very effective strategy - which is why most of the world powers have used it repeatedly. The notion that it is largely carried out by small groups of extremists is quite wrong. It is mostly carried out by nation states. The whole idea is to terrorise a population to win political advantage. When the US talked of 'shock and awe' in Iraq, what do you think they were trying to do? When Kissinger authorised the carpet bombing of Cambodia, or Reagan launched his covert killings in Nicaragua, then that was terrorism plain and simple - the aim being to shock and terrify the population into submission. Where do you think the Taliban and Al Queda originate? They were 'freedom fighters' paid and trained by the US to launch terrorist attacks on the Soviets in Afghanistan. As Noam Chomsky once said, the best way for states like the UK and US to reduce terrorism is to stop sponsoring it.

LOL...it's not so bad :-)Actually I teach at the other end of the age range (secondary and FE/HE) and I don't think I would be very good with the younger kids. I did 12 weeks of teaching 7 yr olds during my teacher training many years ago, and found it exhausting. My mum was a primary school teacher - the really young ones in reception class - and I have no doubt that she worked harder than me for less money. Unfortunately teaching tends to be perceived by the public as having a heirarchy from primary teachers at the bottom to University lecturers at the top. In fact this is entirely wrong. People see it that way, I suspect, because they tend to think that teaching reading and writing must be much easier than teaching quantum physics (because everyone reads and writes, but very few understand QM). In fact I think it is the other way around. I think it is much harder to teach 5-10 year olds than it is to teach 18+ yr olds. At college/uni the students are generally motivated and reaonably behaved so the only real issues revolve around preparing your subject material properly and doing the marking. Having taught for a fair time in both secondary and FE/HE I can say that secondary was MUCH harder work than the higher level stuff.... C.

If you want a controllable delay then you could use a 555 t=0.69RC where R = VR1 and C=E capacitance.

Co-incidence is simply two or more unrelated happenings. There are several unrelated happenings in the scenario which result in a person being killed. But this is sheer nonsense, as well as being untrue. The last sentence in my quoted passage clearly refers to EXACTLY environmental change producing biological change. "In such cases, slight modifications, which in any way favoured the individuals of any species, by better adapting them to their altered conditions, would tend to be preserved; and natural selection would have free scope for the work of improvement." It couldn't be more explicit. The whole thesis of 'On the origin' is concerned with environment affecting phenotype. Chapter 3 begins with an introduction to this idea: The word 'adaption' means exactly change in relation to the environment. He hammers this home explicitly in the following paragraphs: You want sources? Nothing easier:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/320/5883/1629.abstract http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/4/627.short http://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/ http://iai.asm.org/content/72/5/2457.full http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/1/3/362 I can supply thousands if you have the time to read them.... Alternatively you could use the dictionary:

Yes, I pretty much agree with all of that.We (me and Indi, my fellow writer) set the site up to challenge religious intolerance of free speech - particularly at the moment from Muslims but certainly not exclusively. Indi has also written two excellent essays comparing the proposals of this loony pastor with the actions of the The American Atheists (who remove Gideon bibles from Hotel rooms - something I also do).The AA got themselves in a knot because they could not articulate why the two actions are different, so Indi and I decided to help them out and explain why they were doing what they are doing and explain the clear difference.

There is no such thing as an air molecule. There are molecules of Nitrogen, Oxygen, CO2 etc. I know you probably meant that, but let's try to avoid confusing other readers... We can measure gravity very accurately. We can also calculate it, given the mass. That doesn't mean we can block or reverse it. It isn't that we don't have a theory of gravity. The problem is that we don't have a good quantum theory of gravity (ie one which described it in terms of particles).

Well, first come the dinosaurs. Then comes a particular dinosaur called Archaeopteryx. Then this evolves and one generation is getting close to what we call a chicken. Where you draw the line is moot...

I coauthor a site on this which might interest you. It contains some interesting essays. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/