Posts by JackElder
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I have a wee collection of Sarracenia also - do you know of any carnivorous plant that is other than a passive trapper?
The obvious one is the venus flytrap ( Dionea muscipula ), which is an active trapper. Insect walks across the leaf, hits the trigger hairs, and the trap snaps shut.
After that: bladderworts ( Utricularia species) are pretty active. They're aquatic (or semi-aquatic), and are active trappers. Insect goes past the bladder, hits the trigger hairs at the entrance, the bladder suddenly expands, suction created pulls the insect into the bladder, then the bladder door swings shut, trapping the insect.
Some sundews ( Drosera species) are semi-active trappers. Once an insect gets stuck somewhere on a leaf, the leaf starts to curl around the insect so it gets more and more stuck.
Mind you, some plants reactions to catching prey are more subtle. Nepenthes (hanging pitcher plants - what most people think of immediately when they hear the term "pitcher plant") have a very interesting mechanism where the Ph of the fluid in the pitcher drops suddenly when the pitcher is shaken (as when a prey item is caught); the fluid in the pitcher is also formulated to help attract and retain prey.
See Sarracenia.com for more details.
Can't recall if I've already mentioned it, but NZ does have several native species of carnivorous plant (sundews and bladderworts). Fascinating and lovely beasties.
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Watched the first episode of Spartacus last night. Very much the OTT campy fun strand of things. I found the stylisation a bit annoying at times, but I guess it's how you get away with all the gore. Plus, lots of attractive people wandering around naked, which quite frankly I think we need more of on telly.
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My local bookshop has this issue of Investigage on the shelf next to High Times.
Presumably because they both have a big marijuana leaf on the cover.
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or he is busy elsewhere.
Sorry, I was busy elsewhere.
Recovering Apple fanboy. I'll do the same thing I did with the iMac: buy the 2nd rev once the bugs are worked out. Though I doubt I'll be able to buy one of these in transparent orange (I loved that computer).
Perhaps people who have huge music libraries and a desire to carry them everywhere will find this a put-off. They would, most likely, already have an iPod or equivalent so it's rather irrelevant.
One of my coworkers is loudly outspoken about the iPod Nano, as it only allows you to carry a fraction of your music collection around. He plumped for the 60Gb iPod. My take on this was that I have a 4Gb iPod because that's far more music than I actually listen to day-to-day, and when I'm choosing a device to carry around in my pocket, size, weight, and relative expense of replacement after impact are serious considerations.
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I watch a moderate amount of broadcast TV. But we don't have any way of recording it (I'm too cheap to shell out for a PVR), so if we miss the episode of something that we actually care about I end up employing the services of Friends Overseas. Indeed, we got a DVD player with a USB connector specifically for this purpose. But for anything more than the occasional episode, we very definitely acquire the DVDs and work our way through. That's how we ended up watching all of the West Wing and Battlestar Galactica.
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The 1981 triffids were beautiful, malevolent, vicious, giant-tropical orchid looking things.
The primary design influence in the 1981 triffids was real, actual carnivorous plants - the "trumpet pitchers" of North American ( Sarracenia species, particularly S. flava and S. alata). So there's even a touch of realism there in them, though the real thing is a passive trapper rather than an active hunter.
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The Flying Scotsman is a goody
Worth watching. And one of the advantages of having track cycling as the sport is that in several disciplines, there is no other team. Obree specialised in the hour record, so they have to get the drama out of watching him ride around the velodrome very fast by himself. It's also fairly harrowing, as it's based on Obree's own autobiog, which he freely admits he wrote as part of his therapy to try to get over the serious depression that's lead him to two suicide attempts. They take a few liberties to make it fit more nicely as a film, but it's still heavy going in places.
We watched American Flyers as part of our pre-race psyching up process for Taupo a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it, but several people I was with had grown up with it and had a deep and abiding affection for it. Apparantly it got a lot of kids on racing bikes in the 80s.
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Crumpler here I come.
To pick up on a comment about handbags - Crumpler are notable for having bright coloured linings to their bags. My wife has an old messenger bag of theirs; the lining is bright orange. It's surprising what a difference that makes to being able to find stuff inside it.
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I will forever imagine you as a satchel kind of guy now.
Personally, I've been a satchel kind of guy for the last decade and a half.
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And also would not work, on account of how carnivorous plants are one of the most grossly inefficient ways to produce fuel ever.
But I'm sure we can all agree: carnivorous plants are awesome. How many of you know that New Zealand has around a dozen native species of carnivorous plant, eh?
As you may guess, I have some very specific botanical obsessions.