New format...

[manitoban]

Just a quick question - I tried to sign up, but I accidently didn't use the same password that I use to log into the forum. So do I need to re-register again?

 

[Nienna]

WOW!!! Great work guys! I've been reading and commenting and voting, but didn't find this topic 'til just now. I can't wait to see what else is up your collective sleeves. Wahoo. It be cool.

 

[Beau]

What does the Article.evil? up and down heart arrows mean? I take it this is some kind of a rating system? Are we rating how interesting we find the article or how 'bad' the things it's writing about, is?

It's like the Shoutwire system of rating articles. You can select the up arrow if you liked the article or a down arrow if you didn't.

 

[Ruth]

It's like the Shoutwire system of rating articles. You can select the up arrow if you liked the article or a down arrow if you didn't.

Oh right, thanks for that! I like all the articles so I don't 'shout' them all. Some I end up thinking are more interesting or bizarre than others.

It would be funny is Shoutwire had the down option too, but it doesn't.... :)

 

[CarpeDiem]

hope i'll be not too far off topic with bees...

I do consider the Bee or Wasp to be indicative of something somewhat STO for lack of a better word. Bees, Wasps and Hornets all fall into a similar category of matriarchal insects that has a certain personality profile that I identify with. For me, the Bee or Wasp is the ultimate warrior, peaceful when left alone, but attacks when disturbed[…]A grown man, many many times the size of a bee or wasp, will flail and run in fear from this tiny insect, even knowing that though it's sting is painful, it is not fatal, for most. He will do this because he knows that the bee will sting him. He knows subconsciously that the bee or wasp knows that it will die to sting him, and that is terrifying. Anything that does not fear death frightens those who do. Furthermore, there is the old Ali saying, Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee..

According to Italian wiki, the level of eusociality of the wasps, even if often complex and enchanting, it is less highly developed than that of bees and of many kinds of ants, which represent the highest evolutionary examples of the eusociality among insects. The eusociality has appeared in the Hymenoptera different times during the evolutionary history of the order. Probably that is due to a fact that all the males are haploid, while the females are diploid. Sisters are genetically similar for 75 % while they share only 50 % of genetic material with their mothers. According to some scholars for such reason females are led to help the mother to generate sisters instead of being devoted to generate own children. Wasps produce little quantities of honey that they use to feed the larvae and for sociable exchange of liquid nutrients to feed each other.

Eusociality is the phenomenon of reproductive specialisation found in some animals. It generally involves the breeding of sterile members of the species, which carry out specialized tasks, effectively caring for the reproductive members. Eusociality with biologically sterile individuals represents the most extreme form of kin altruism.
Evolution of eusocial behavior: There are two causes of eusociality: kin-selected altruism and high inbreeding. Its defining features are: reproductive division of labor; overlap of generations; cooperative care of young and sterile castes (not always present). In spite of the obvious advantages of common foraging and defense, eusocial animals present a seeming paradox, which troubled Darwin: if adaptive evolution unfolds by differential survival of successful species, how can a species succeed in which most individuals don't breed at all? How can individuals incapable of passing on their genes possibly evolve and persist? Since they do not breed, their fitness should be zero and any alleles causing this condition should be eliminated from the population immediately. In Origin of Species, Darwin called this altruistic behavior the "one special difficulty, which at first appeared to me insuperable, and actually fatal to my theory." Darwin anticipated that the resolution to the paradox would lie in the close family relationship, but the complete answer (kin selection or inclusive fitness) had to wait for the discovery of the mechanisms for genetic inheritance.
Eusociality may be easier for species like ants to evolve, due to their haplodiploidy, which increases the significance of kin selection. Sisters are more related to each other than to their offspring. This mechanism of sex determination gives rise to what W. D. Hamilton first termed "supersisters" who share 75 per cent of their genes. Sterile workers are more closely related to their supersisters than to any offspring they might have, if they were to breed themselves. From the "selfish gene's" point-of-view, it is advantageous to raise more sisters. Even though workers cannot reproduce, they are passing on more of their genes by caring for their sisters than they would by having their own offspring (which would only have 50% of their genes). This unusual situation where females have greater fitness when they are sterile has led to the independent evolution of eusociality occurring 11 separate times within the haplodiploid group Hymenoptera - ants, bees and wasps. However, Hymenoptera is a large group and the majority of Hymenopterans are not social.
Superorganism theory explains the evolutionary stability of eusociality by dictating that only reproductive individuals are counted as individuals and sterile individuals are simply independent parts of their reproductive parent. This theory makes sense only when the sterile caste is physically sterile and not simply being repressed. In this way the sterile caste provide for their reproductive parents so that their genes can spread through them. In essence, an animal's own red blood cells can be seen as sterile eusocial members of an animal's body colony.

The idea of a human eusocial group was investigated in-depth in Stephen Baxter's novel Coalescent:
The Order called the "Puissant Order of Holy Mary Queen of Virgins", Christian-adapted faction of the Vestal Virgins located on the Appian Way [apes, again!] is a family of eusocial humans that evolved from the intense pressures to survive the various conquering of Rome over the centuries. Author cites naked mole rats as an example of eusocial behaviour in mammals. He explains how Regina's three rules result in a "genetic mandate for eusociality." Author calls the Order a "human hive" and labels them "Coalescents" — a new kind of human. A novel’s protagonist, Peter, suddenly leaves after receiving a text message. Days later, George learns that Peter has invaded the Crypt and is threatening to set off Semtex plastic explosives in order to expose the Order. Peter and the Slan(t)ers are responsible for the recent bombing of a San Jose research facility investigating quantum gravity technology — under the belief that a higher intelligence would notice the manipulation of space-time and eradicate a possible threat to their superiority. Peter's reasoning in exposing the Crypt is that the Order does not exist for any purpose except for itself. It threatens to destroy humanity as individuals and replace it with mindless drones.
The xenomorphs featured in the Alien movies have a eusocial hierarchy, with the Alien Queen breeding the other types.

This brief account of Baxter's Coalescent gave me goosebumps about ruling deviant 6%. Didn't read the novel.

There is a Tatsunoko cartoon on Bee-Magi, a bee-shaman fighting against giant preying mantids http://www.cartonionline.com/personaggi/ape_mag%E0.htm

Probably the most famous bees are these ones:

from historic Fountain of the Bees, realized by Gian Lorenzo Bernini on request by Maffeo Barberini (Pope Urban VIII).

Three feeding apes is symbol of Barberini family (feeding, digesting is sts).

Fountain originally served to give water to horses. Romans re-nominated Barberini Fountain of the Bees into Fountain of the Insects to connotate that water was descending in powerful stream from the Bees basin, but was extremely scarce, running in drops in nearby households of Romans, thus alluding to exuberant papal taxes that asked for much and didn’t give anything in return to people of Rome.

Pope Barberini (Maffeo, Pope Urbano VIII) is famous for a popular frase about him “Quod non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini

 

[Nienna]

Hey, I like the new look here, too. Great job!

 

[Mark]

Hey, I like the new look here, too. Great job!

Ya the new logo looks awesome!

 

[atreides]

Last, but not least: i think the intent is what makes a difference when one uses this or that symbol.

Trees, meet the forest. You are jumping around a bit and flailing at the surface things and not looking at the broader strokes. Remember the devil is in the details, the bible says that serpent is the most "subtil" of all creatures. Everytime something good happens, the bad guys come along and detail it to death. We get so caught up in detailing things that we miss the broader strokes at hand.

 

[Vulcan59]

I like the new layout and the logo. However my only bugbear is that, at times, the pages seem slower to load. I assume that it is still work in progress and the bugs should eventually be ironed out. Great job atreides.

 

[Laura]

We are little by little working out the bugs and getting used to it ourselves. Now, what we would like to do is to get some group participation in producing the page - additional editors who can find and add stories and comments, etc. I'm not sure that the software will support different font/characters, but if it does, it will also be possible to post stories in other languages with quick translation/summaries into English and vice versa.

 

[Jacques]

Great job. I like it very much.

We are little by little working out the bugs and getting used to it ourselves. Now, what we would like to do is to get some group participation in producing the page - additional editors who can find and add stories and comments, etc. I'm not sure that the software will support different font/characters, but if it does, it will also be possible to post stories in other languages with quick translation/summaries into English and vice versa.

Very interesting and i like the idea to post stories in other languages.

 

[CarpeDiem]

Trees, meet the forest. You are jumping around a bit and flailing at the surface things and not looking at the broader strokes.

Have to hammer somehow green language of advice into something practical I can implement and work on … When in a forest, there is a latin-italian proverb La mala erba cresce in fretta what would be Bad weeds are growing in a hurry. If there will be N lifetimes to enter enchanted forest, let this round be the first step. It’s not a vehicle that matters. Patience.

 

[Z...]

The truth is only bees die after stinging, wasp can sting many times
http://www.amonline.net.au/factsheets/e … _wasps.htm

But I wanted to say very well done for the design, it is totally cool, and whats more important still minimalistic and simple.

Also thumbs up for the logo and the explanation of the symbolism

Float like a buterfly sting like a bee

maybe that should be the credo of the Work

 

[Scottie]

I like the new layout and the logo. However my only bugbear is that, at times, the pages seem slower to load. I assume that it is still work in progress and the bugs should eventually be ironed out. Great job atreides.

It MAY load slower from time to time depending on what else the server is doing, but overall it should be pretty zippy. Most people have reported fast load times - at least after we took the new page down for a few days and finished the performance enhancements. Most of the content of the site is now cached. If an update is made to the page, the first person to access it will have a longer load time as chunks of the page are regenerated and recached. But even when I've tested this out at peak usage times, it still loads really quickly from here, and our internet connection is, shall we say, not the fastest in the world. =]

So I'm not sure what the problem is...

Scott

 

[Scottie]

It's not explorer (IE) friendly ;)

One could consider this a "feature" not a "bug"...

:O

I know..I know :) But it's still the most popular browser, and if the goal is to be accesible to many (and user friendly), this should be taken into account.

It loads okay in IE6 from here, although the PNG images have a grey background (darn IE6!). In IE7, I have no problems at all and everything works fine. *SHRUGS!*

Scott