leicsmac

Yeah, there's a reason around 400 has almost never been chased down, even on roads. It's just too intimidating a target and everything has to go perfectly. That score was always bulletproof. Congrats India.

Nah, too much to do from here. Will be about 30-40 short by the end, I think.

If NZ can (somehow) pull this off, it would be the second highest successful chase in ODI history. Think these two still need to be at the crease after another hour for it to be a chance, though.

Remarkable player.

Yeah, get a dead pitch in knowing you'll outbat the opposition at home. Will expect the same for the final. Smart strategic choice from India. No one should blame them for using such home conditions to their advantage - everyone does and should.

Echo this sentiment. Going to be pretty fun either way though - a proper carnival if India win, or what will look like the biggest fire drill in history if they look like losing.

Again I agree and it should, given the comparable magnitude of both of the problems. I spoke my piece on this one simply because someone else saw fit to start the Dog v Cat debate on here.

Without any doubt, so both of these things need to be focused on with the requisite amount of work to address both.

They've contributed to extinctions in smaller environments before (like on Hawaii). In any case, my take is, and continues to be, that there is at least a possibility that roaming cats pose a threat to fauna and to themselves that is much greater than if they do not roam and addressing that is perhaps something that needs to be at least looked at more. There's clearly no certainty by consensus either way, but there is at least a reasonable risk.

Ha, you're right of course. Should have thought about that. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kill-birds-wildlife-keep-indoors The same Grauniad article that @Finnegan cited for the record (I think), does note that the RSPB considers other factors to be a greater threat to birdlife than cats are. However it does also mention that the debate is far from settled either way and covers both sides pretty well, I think.

Right. We can't be sure about the impact, and there is a pretty lively debate on it from what I can tell (which the RSPB evidently have their take on). Perhaps I'm being overly risk averse, but given we can't be sure yet the better course of action would be to be a little more wary about roaming cats while more research is done, in case there is irreparable damage done?

https://www.mammal.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Domestic-Cat-Predation-on-Wildlife.pdf "Based on the proportion of cats bringing home at least one prey item and the back- transformed means, a British population of approximately 9 million cats was estimated to have brought home in the order of 92 (85-100) million prey items in the period of this survey, including 57 (52-63) million mammals, 27 (25-29) million birds and 5 (4-6) million reptiles and amphibians." Now, from what I can tell there's debates in the UK either way about whether or not these numbers are going to be threatening to wild populations of various animals, but my own take is that we've domesticated these animals, we're supposed to be good stewards of the planet and its life, and so if there's much of a chance of such a threat at all we should be taking action as such responsible stewards.

It is such a terrible and cruel disease - at its worst, it strips away almost all of what makes us human. And given the advances we have made in addressing other diseases that might kill people at a younger age, it is only going to become more prevalent. Here's hoping we can develop ways to treat, or at least mitigate it, as soon as we can.

TBH I think this is an Appeal to Nature fallacy (lots of things that are "natural" are also bad), but yeah, can understand the counterpoint even if I don't agree with it. In their own ways, yeah. I've never understood the need to choose one over the other.

This has come up before. Letting cats roam, apart from for a very specific pest control purpose, likely poses threats not only to potentially endangered local wildlife, but the cats themselves. There's a laundry list of examples proving this. We don't let other pets roam freely even though it might be "better for them", I don't see why it should be the case with cats.

I'm gonna sit on the fence here and think that most common pet animals have something to recommend them and something not.

Another update: now Friday Nov 17th "assuming regulatory approval".

I'm just here for the NZers tbh, everyone else will be too insufferable.

If anyone relied on the match thread alone to gauge our form, they'd think we were in a relegation scrap, rather than top of the division with room to spare. Caught between exasperation and amusement, really.

Still very apparent.

The ESA Euclid telescope has released some of its first images. Amazing.

Ha, true. It appears to be high-end lab work and engineering projects, neither of which I really have much of a chance of getting given lack of experience and requisite specific qualifications.

Well, I like to think communication is an area I'm alright at. Yeah, I'm in the midlands and my degrees are both physics/aerospace and communication related, so I'd be interested. I'll have to get my old LI account out of mothballs then - not used it for a while. That makes sense, even though I've gotta say the idea grates somewhat. Sadly not, health is the other area I've seen a lot of in this area but that's not my area of expertise.

This could easily apply to climate science too...

Ugh, yes. It would be nice if the bureaucratic powers that be would deign to let folks know about such things beforehand, wouldn't it?