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I'll probably be in California from May 18th-25th.  I'm staying with my awesome retired uncle whose town I forget but I'm flying into Oakland so it'll probably be in that vicinity.  I won't have a car, partially because I think you need to be 25 to rent one and partially because I don't feel like paying money.  I have absolutely no plans for doing anything during that time other than arrive and depart from the airport.

Any suggestions for the area would be greatly appreciated.  Anyone in the area would be awesome to meet.  I'm up for anything.

I've never taken a vacation before.  As in taken the time from work, booked the flight, stayed somewhere, etc.  I'm assuming this is how one vacations and such.  Never been to CA either.  I think I might like to see the Pacific Ocean.

I'll be in Canada at that time.  I trust you will be available sometime between June 9-14th, when I am in Providence?

Update on this.  That weekend is the only one EoCGF and I could both get off in order to head down to DC.  Unfortunately, I won't be available the 11th-13th.  The other days I'll be working, but I'm not so far out of Providence that a trip down before work would be out of the question.

Cuba is fascinating.  The way they adapted to survive what could have been a disaster scenario is very, very impressive.  Urban gardening, increased public transportation, it's awesome.  It isn't perfect, and they still struggle, but I'm not certain every nation could have dealt with it so effectively.

For any World War Z fans, Max Brooks had a section about Cuba and their role post-apocalypse that was largely based on this.

Pretty much everyone is watching it creep up to Louisiana's coast in pure horror.  This is a god damn disaster.  You know it's bad when the 11 people missing/dead aren't the headline.  Ordinarily that would be the topic for weeks, and here it's barely mentioned.

So with my contract renewal and other discounts I can get the spankin' new HTC Incredible for $150.  I think thats reasonable, considering I could replace my mp3 player, phone, and get a GPS by doing so.  But the problem I have is the extra $30/mo for data.  With the lowest plan on Verizon that brings my monthly cell phone bill to $70-$80/mo.  I'm not sure I can justify it, never mind afford it.

The Incredible supposedly lives up to its name though.  It's replacing the Nexus One for Verizon release and the reviews I've seen are more positive than Droid and Nexus One.

As far as I can tell, it creates more redundancy in exposure to popular items than an actual increase in diversity of exposure to news topics.

Basically, a whole lot of repost.

Brought to you by a whole lot of cocks.

It's okay Hoopla, in moments of weakness I've been known to be an optimist myself. 

But it's not Borlaugh's farming principles that spurred this argument; it was a combination of the risks of monoculture and a discussion on overpopulation, neither of which actually have jack shit to do with Borlaugh.

Well, I believe monoculture was brought up after I mentioned Borlaug, and I think he does have something to do with the problem of overpopulation, since the problem with overpopulation is rarely space.  Its mostly food.

I will admit I don't know enough about monoculture to argue it well, I'm no expert in agriculture.  But I think there is enough reason at the present to be optimistic about the food problem.  If you think I am wrong, that's fine.

Until I learn more about monoculture I really can't present anything else useful to this conversation, consider me beaten, and I believe I will withdraw provided there are no objections and nobody will decide to claim Ayn Rand compelled me to opt out.

Hoopla, I wan't specifically talking about monoculture as a result of Borlaug.  It was a side effect of the Green Revolution that he helped jump start.  Other results of the Green Revolution have led us to farming practices that were immediately successful but the long term consequences of which we are just now learning about and dealing with.  You're absolutely right about him stopping widespread starvation.  What I intended with my response was that like many things, it came at a price, and one that we have yet to discover how to appropriately deal with.

Monoculture was a bit of a leap, so here's how my thinking went.  He crossbred wheat plants that are more resistant to diseases because of their combined immunities.  Now we've taken that, and massively planted wheat and corn with those immunities.  But if bacteria or pests adapt to overcome said immunities, here we have enormous fields of crops that will succumb to the same disease - creating famine, examples of which were given by Nigel.

Or we could just do what normally gets done when threads get derailed ALL THE FUCKING TIME and split the irrelevant parts.  Derailment happens, that's why splitting is so handy.  I don't think the conversation that resulted from the overpopulation/farming tangent was worthless, it just wasn't on topic.  I actually learned a few things about farming with Hoopla's Norman Burlaug example.  Maybe if there wasn't so much crying about the monkey argument both sides might have continued.  You'll notice Hoopla and Dok's original conversation about overpopulation was not only informative, but downright civil.

So can we split the derail and move on with the topic, or should we, well, FLING POOP LIKE MONKEYS OOK OOK MOTHERFUCKERS.

I believe it was brought up after you said planting a monoculture crop wouldn't be very scientific, at which point it was given as an explanation as to why we might implement a less than perfect farming system.

Hoopla, you were asking why farming practices have been or could be implemented anything less than ideally or scientifically.  So yeah, the fact that we can make mistakes comes into effect in the answer to such a question.  Farming is fucked up right now, and it's because we have a limited understanding of what works and what doesn't furthered by it being driven for profit and also genuine error.

So my question is, since it seems to be floating between the two, are you asking whether or not you think it's possible to successfully implement proper farming techniques in the future, or are you asking if we've done it already?  Because obviously the former is possible, if we have the means to do it (which I'm not sure we do), and the latter is just plain false.

Sorry of this is all over the place, this is the third goddamn time I've responded in half an hour and I keep getting it deleted and an error.

My only point was that I haven't seen credible proof that overpopulation is a problem, as simple as that.  Obviously there are places that are overpopulated now, but I don't see why its useless to think its possible that that might be able to be worked out in the future.  Despite what a lot of people want to believe, for whatever reason, the world has been generally getting better for a long time, not worse.  Which I think flies in the face of the "people are monkeys" argument, which is why I think its lazy and stupid.  

I would say this is where it got off track.  Dok gave you farmland as an example of overpopulation issues, and you came back with Norman Burlaug, both of which brought farming into the issue.  We have fucked up a lot of farming, and it has caused a lot of issues, and the "people are monkeys" was being given as a reason to why we fucked that up and how it's possible to continue to do so.  I don't really see it as an argument that it will absolutely prevent us from averting overpopulation issues.

Oh, for a second there it looked like you were trying to prove the point that we can get beyond drama by, well, creating more of it.

Hoopla, you were asking why farming practices have been or could be implemented anything less than ideally or scientifically.  So yeah, the fact that we can make mistakes comes into effect in the answer to such a question.  Farming is fucked up right now, and it's because we have a limited understanding of what works and what doesn't furthered by it being driven for profit and also genuine error.

So my question is, since it seems to be floating between the two, are you asking whether or not you think it's possible to successfully implement proper farming techniques in the future, or are you asking if we've done it already?  Because obviously the former is possible, if we have the means to do it (which I'm not sure we do), and the latter is just plain false.

Sorry of this is all over the place, this is the third goddamn time I've responded in half an hour and I keep getting it deleted and an error.

It is somewhat comforting to know that the monkeys here have an unending supply of drama.

Fixed.

Unless you're perfect.

I cannot argue with this.

It's true.  Monkeys have an unending supply of drama, and always will.  Don't try to change.  Carry on. 

Is this intended to be ironic?

While it doesn't need to be applied to every argument, I still don't see why it needs to be some trigger for no longer participating in an active and interesting discussion.  So much for a good thread.

Planting with only one breed wouldn't be very scientific, would it?

No, it's incredibly short sighted and stupid.

Farming science is pretty limited.  There are too many variables and not enough time to accurately test them (once per year - the planting season).  Taking into account soil loss, soil nutrients, weather patterns, pest activity, etc, all of which is only predictable on a limited basis.  This isn't even mentioning previous patterns of weather that are now changing due to global warming/climate change/global weirding whatever you want to call it.  What works once isn't guaranteed to work again.

Farming is also a business.  What makes sense and is responsible is disregarded in favor of what's profitable - vast monocultures of corn in the US, etc.