Katy Kat
Member
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*ϋberhugglessnugglesglomps the zlokness! * How has your day been? I hope you are feeling better now then you were a couple of days ago! (I was really worried about you there for a bit >.<)
Not really, just not suicidal now./Z
I saw in one of the posts above you said you liked Dune music. You mean Dune as in the independent jazz group right? If so what is your favorite song by them (or songs)? Also what style(s) of music do you normally like to listen to?
They make Rave: www.dune.de And mostly techno, psytrance alot recently./Z
And speaking of Dune…have you ever read the sci-fi book series called Dune by Frank Herbert? Or watched the movies (either the sci-fi channel short series version or the bad older version of it)?
Read books, never saw movie./Z
Btw when did you first realize you liked to paint/draw in that style you said you liked to work in (with patterns and what not…meh ya know what I mean ^_^;)When did you take your first art class? Oh and how has college been so far this year?
Uh.... I don't like it, I'm just good at it. *shrugs* I don't know, I'm a natural./Z
Also what languages do you speak besides English and Danish? Which is your favorite to talk/write in and why? Are there any places in the world (other countries) you would someday like to visit?
I want to visit almost everywhere, but for the people, not the place itself. I love most people and if I have someone on IRC i want to visit, I want to visit >_>
As to languages... uh, does programming languages count? I understand German, and alot of other languages. I have a spongebrain some stays the rest just flows through./Z
Going into geek talk; what computer languages do you know/work with? Your non-title hints at one, lol. XD And I know you know PhP/PhPBB and C++ and some others...Any ones you are current learning/self teaching yourself?
Not learning, but I have experience with most, assembler, basic, Python, mIRC pseudocode, C# C++ VB, VB.net ASP.net (using both VB.net and C#.net) a little PHP and ... uh.. just stuff, heck I can even write some lingo./Z
And now for the really random questions! :-P *ebil laugh*
*steals Katy and hughides her* MINE!/Z
What came first; the chicken or the egg?
Depends on if it has to be a chicken egg, per definition there can't be a chicken's egg without there having been a chicken. So the species who evolved into a chicken, would have to reach the denominator for being a chicken, before their eggs reached that for being a chicken's egg. Kindof logical, and a very easy question. But if you just mean eggs in general, then they came first. It's one of nature's most basic inventions./Z
What version of AD&D is your favorite to play?
D&D wasn't very exciting, AD&D was pretty cool but broken. D&D 3.0 is decent but also very broken. D&D 3.5 is the least broken version of D&D but boy it can be screwed over a time or ten./Z
Do you know anything about the engineering/TQM philosophies of Demming? And if so do you think Demming's Fourteen Points work well when used right and no steps are omitted? (Used right…like in Japan’s work place and economy, for instance.)
Engineering, not really, Demming... ??? Demming's whatever of whatever ??? Am I required to know, would you teach me?/Z
What are your views on software cracking/downloading for free? (And music as well I guess)
If you bought your software, it's yours to mangle. Downloading software.... That's a hard one. I don't like the prospect of having to buy what should be free, but I have no qualms about paying for what I think is good. I had ( past sense ) the entire flash mx suite, legally. I have Adobe Photoshop 7.2 Legally And I have InDesign legally and stuff like that. My WinXP is legal, but I also have a bit of illegal stuff... but ssshhhh./Z
Do you get headaches?
It's part of sleep depravation./Z
Any interest in paleontology or archeology; also ever been on a dig before? (you should! They are fun and a good learning experience :-D)?
I need interaction, so unless I get to dig, I don't find them fun./Z
How am I doing tonight punctuation wise? :-P
You're doing fine./Z
What is your current highest score on cyrkam airtös?
Haven't played it since then *giggles*/Z
Do you have any pets?
I have a cat, my mother has a cat, my brother has a cat, and I have a turtle, and my mother has a dog, and.... I could go on for hours, we're basicly a mini zoo./Z
What is your favorite webcomic or comic (if any)?
I once read all of queen of wands. I found 3apd to be quite fun, but I don't usually favorize anything./Z
Had enough questions from me yet? My curiosity can come up with more if you would like! O:) (though I am trying to stay away from asking really personal ones here)
Never, you're my Katy. And you can ask as personal question as you want to, but some might be answered in PMs, since I have no secrets but not everything should be shared with everyone/Z
Do you know any good websites/books I can use to start teaching myself the basics of Danish?
Nope, I don't learn danish very often >_>/Z
Pop quiz on random things/facts I know that I want to see if you know them as well :-P (aka this Kat has nothing to do and is making this horror of questions longer just to pass time  ) ;
Horror is good, KatyHorror is better *snuggles*/Z
Do you know what the KT boundary is? And what time period it is speculated it happened at?
The Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T or KT) extinction event, also known as the KT boundary, was a period of massive extinction of species, about 65.5 million years ago. It corresponds to the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the Tertiary Period. (K is the traditional abbreviation for the Cretaceous period. The K may be from Greek kreta or German Kreide, chalk, or used because the Carboniferous and Cambrian periods also start with C.)
The duration of this extinction event (like others) is unknown. Many forms of life perished (embracing approximately 50% of all genera), the most often mentioned among them being those of all the families of the three orders of dinosaurs. Many explanations for this event have been proposed, the most widely-accepted being the results of an impact on the Earth of an object from space.
Casualties of the extinction
A wide range of organisms became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period. The most conspicuous, of course, were the dinosaurs. While there is evidence that dinosaur diversity declined in the Late Cretaceous of North America, many species are known from the Hell Creek and Lance Formations of the Late Cretaceous. These include six or seven families of theropods and a similar number of ornithischians. Among the Dinosauria, the only survivors were the birds, but birds suffered heavy losses. A number of diverse groups became extinct, including the Enantiornithes and Hesperornithiformes; the last of the pterosaurs also went extinct. A number of mammal groups also became extinct. In the sea, many species of phytoplankton were wiped out. The great sea reptiles of the Cretaceous, the mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, also fell victim to extinction. Among molluscs, the ammonites, a diverse group of coiled cephalopods, were exterminated, as were the specialized rudist and inoceramid clams. Freshwater mussels and snails also suffered heavy losses in North America. Much less is known about how the K-T event affected the rest of the world. It should be emphasized that the survival of a group does not mean that the group was unaffected: a species might have been 99% annihilated by the asteroid strike, yet still manage to survive.
Impact event and iridium
In 1980, a team of researchers led by Nobel-prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez, his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, and a group of colleagues discovered that fossilized sedimentary layers found all over the world at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, 65.5 million years ago, contain a relatively high concentration of iridium, hundreds of times greater than normal. The end of the Cretaceous coincided with the end of the dinosaurs and was in general a period of extraordinary mass extinction, leading to the Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic Era, in which mammals came to dominate on Earth. The paper suggested that the dinosaurs had been killed off by the impact of a ten-kilometer-wide asteroid on Earth (see impact event). Two facts supporting this conclusion are that
* iridium is relatively abundant in asteroids, and
* the isotopic composition of iridium in K-T layers resembles that of asteroids more closely than that of terrestrial iridium.
Iridium is very rare on Earth's surface, but much more common in the Earth's interior as well as in extraterrestrial objects, such as asteroids and comets. Furthermore, chromium isotopic anomalies are found in Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary sediments which strongly supports the impact theory and suggests that the impactor must have been an asteroid or a comet composed of material similar to carbonaceous chondrites.
The resulting blast would have been hundreds of millions of times more devastating than the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, may have created a hurricane of unimaginable fury, and certainly would have thrown massive amounts of dust and vapor into the upper atmosphere and even into space. A global firestorm may have resulted as the incendiary fragments from the blast fell back to Earth. Analyses of fluid inclusions in ancient amber suggest that the oxygen content of the atmosphere was very high (30 - 35%) during the late Cretaceous . This high O2 atmospheric content would have supported massive combustion. The level of atmospheric O2 plummeted in the early Tertiary. In addition the worldwide cloud would have choked off sunlight for years, resulting in a "long winter" that wiped out many existing species, as well as creating "acid rains" that would have inflicted further hardship on the environment.
Although further studies of the "Cretaceous-Tertiary" or "K-T" layer consistently showed the excess of iridium, the idea that the dinosaurs had been exterminated by an asteroid remained a matter of controversy among geologists and paleontologists for over a decade.
Chicxulub crater
One problem was that no known crater matched the event. This was not a lethal blow to the theory. Although the crater resulting from the impact would have been 150 to 200 kilometers in diameter, Earth's geological processes tend to hide or destroy craters over time. Still, finding a crater would have buttressed the "Alvarez hypothesis", as it came to be known. The discovery by Alan K. Hildebrand and Glen Penfield of a crater buried under Chicxulub in the Yucatan as well as various types of debris in North America and Haiti have lent credibility to this theory (see Chicxulub Crater). Most paleontologists now agree that an asteroid did hit the Earth 65 million years ago, but many dispute whether the impact was the sole cause of the extinctions.
Deccan traps
Other scientists think the extensive volcanic activity in India known as the Deccan Traps may have been responsible for, or contributed to, the extinction. However, paleontologists remained skeptical, as their reading of the fossil record suggested that the mass extinctions did not take place over a period as short as a few years, but instead occurred gradually over about ten million years, a time frame more consistent with massive volcanism. There was also a certain general distrust of a group of physicists intruding into their domain of expertise.
Luis Alvarez, who died in 1988, replied that paleontologists were being misled by sparse data. His assertion did not go over well at first, but later intensive field studies of fossil beds lent weight to his claim. Eventually, most paleontologists began to accept the idea that the mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous were largely or at least partly due to a massive Earth impact. However, even Walter Alvarez has acknowledged that there were other major changes on Earth even before the impact, such as a drop in sea level and massive volcanic eruptions in India (Deccan Traps sequence), and these may have contributed to the extinctions.
A very large impact crater has been recently reported in the sea floor off the west coast of India 2. This, the Shiva crater (450/600 km diam.), has also been dated at about 65 million years at the K-T boundary. The researchers suggest that the impact may have been the triggering event for the Deccan Traps. However, this feature has not yet been accepted by the geologic community as an impact crater .
Multiple impact event
Several other craters also appear to have been formed at the K-T boundary. This suggests the possibility of near simultaneous multiple impacts from perhaps a fragmented asteroidal object, such as the Shoemaker-Levy 9 cometary impact with Jupiter.
* Boltysh crater (24 km diam., 65.17 ± 0.64 My old) in Ukraine
* Silverpit crater (20 km diam., 60-65 My old) in the North Sea
* Eagle Butte crater (10 km diam., < 65 My old) in Alberta, Canada
* Vista Alegre crater (9.5 km diam., < 65 My old) in Paraná State, Brazil
Supernova hypothesis
Another proposed cause for the K-T extinction event was cosmic radiation from a relatively nearby supernova explosion. The iridium anomaly at the boundary could support this hypothesis. The radiation from a supernova explosion should contain the plutonium isotope Pu-244, a relatively short lived isotope (half-life 81 myr) that is not found in earth rocks. However, analysis of the boundary layer sediments revealed the absence of Pu-244, thus essentially disproving this hypothesis.
Further skepticism
Skeptics remain. Although there is now general agreement that there was at least one huge impact at the end of the Cretaceous that led to the iridium enrichment of the K-T boundary layer, it is difficult to directly connect this to mass extinction, and in fact there is no clear linkage between an impact and any other incident of mass extinction, although research on other events also implicates impacts.
One interesting note about the K-T Event is that most of the larger animals that survived were to some degree aquatic, implying that aquatic habitats may have remained more hospitable than land habitats.
The impact and volcanic theories can be labeled "fast extinction" theories. There are also a number of slow extinction theories. Studies of the diversity and population of species have shown that the dinosaurs were in decline for a period of about 10 million years before the asteroid hit. Slower mechanisms are needed to explain such extinctions. Climatic change, a change in Earth's magnetic field, and disease have all been suggested as possible slow extinction theories. As mentioned above, extensive volcanism such as the Deccan Traps could have been a long term event lasting millions of years although short in geologic terms.
Other mass extinctions
It is worth noting that the Cretaceous extinction is neither the only mass extinction in Earth's history, nor even the worst. Previous extinction events have included the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event and the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which is the largest extinction event ever recorded.
/Z
Did you know that astronomers now think/have proof that most, if not all, galaxies have a black hole at the center (that most likely has been there since the start of the galaxy)?
It's quite logical, a black hole is a supercompressed gravitational centre. Think of a gas giant that was so big, it compressed it self. A black hole must be very very hot. But of course the graviton emission would hinder any heat, or light fro escaping. They proved black holes by seeing where Radiowaves didn't travel in empty space./Z
What form of government did Native American Hau de no sau nee (aka The Six Nations) have?
No clue, takes an american./Z
What was the ‘Trail of tears’? What Native American tribe did it involve; from where to where did they travel?
Uh...../Z
What are some of the many disorders/sicknesses Hitler had? Who was his personal doctor and did this doctor give him conventional medicines (yes or no)?
Medicine? Heck, lots of medicine for everything he didn't have. But medicine that helped what he had? No way./Z
Oki I think I will stop torturing you now! (and you don’t have to answer the pop quiz, lol; Or any question up there you don't want to actually. ^^;)
Aww can't you torture me some more?/Z
Tak for lån nemlig indtagelse den gang hen til besvare mig! / Danke für der Zeit macht mich zu beantworten! /Thank you for taking the time to answer me! ^_~
"Thank you for letting me borrow exact consumption this time to to answer me" Maybe you would want someone to look at your danish? Or you might not want to try to use online translators, they're wrong, so very wrong. There are too many exeptions to make an online translator to danish./Z
< Message edited by ZLOK -- 7/7/2005 21:43:15 >
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