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I used to be a member several years ago, but couldn't find any other members that I wanted to spend time with...
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And just how many of them are in Mensa? Huh?
I rest my case... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Did your wife put a stop to your browsing ladies pictures?
Nr 6 is apparently a Mensa member
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I got to number 4, and decided "this is just tacky rubbish to pull in the fouteen year old boys" and quit.
And besides, it's what's inside that counts. Herself keeps telling me that.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: I got to number 4, and decided "this is just tacky rubbish to pull in the fouteen year old boys" and quit.
The last one would do just that.
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OriginalGriff wrote: I got to number 4, and decided "this is just tacky rubbish to pull in the fouteen year old boys" and quit.
I kept on going, surely there must be one Mensa member here
And you are right, I think you were meant to look at the pictures, they just added some text so you could make up excuses or something.
OriginalGriff wrote: And besides, it's what's inside that counts. Herself keeps telling me that.
Same with the bottle and the beer etc, but what really makes something thick, is they way you feel and interact with it 
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A couple of them are. Still no coupling with them for you though.
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I enjoy your APODs - thanks!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Great image.
For a moment, I almost thought that the image copyright owner also owned this galaxy
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I'm reading the fantastic (albeit quite long) new biography of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - amazon link[^]
I couldn't wait to get to their first flight. It's such an amazing tale of two brothers who set out to do something, who stayed strong through the failures and implemented the scientific method and home-made engineering skills to overcome a problem that people thought might be impossible.
McCullough is a true historian and although the book is long it really provides a great story and makes you feel like you are with the brothers as they fight to solve this problem.
Inspiring
I found it very inspiring in my work as a software developer.
Have any of you read it?
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Does it mention that they are widely credited for being the inventor of the aeroplane when they weren't actually the first to do so? There have been many people laying claim to this but the first, credible, independently verified instance was a New Zealand farmer called Richard Pearse (in March 1902);
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Just makes you wish this guy[^] had continued his experiments.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Stringfellow is mentioned, at least in passing. McCullough attempts to mention that others did claim powered flight before The Wright Brothers and other forms of flight of course. That's why I like McCullough he represents the subject from numerous angles. Though that is why his books are normally quite long too.
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It does refer to some skepticism and an interesting thing with Langley and the Smithsonian.
The very cool thing is that The Wright Brothers flew above the controversy by never publicly trashing Langley's efforts which were paid for with gov't funds.
Also, keep in mind the real invention is one of "controlled, powered flight". Other flyers did not create a system of controls with powered flight. Not sure about the person you mention. Will check out more. Thanks.
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The most interesting one is May 11th, 1903 where Pearse flew along the side of a river before turning to fly over it and turning again. He achieved a distance of roughly 1KM on this flight. An impressive feat.
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To be fair the wright brothers are not the only USians to claim to have invented things that were already invented are they
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Indeed they are not! A bit like Columbus is not the first person to discover America (that would have been the lookout )
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rubbish the first to discover America would have been Ugg, and not as some people are saying Ugg who got their even later than Ugg and no one says he discovered America
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Or more likely, that would have been the Vikings - there is strong evidence to support their having visited many times.*
*That's discounting the people who already lived there who cannot claim to have discovered America because, as far as they were concerned, it was never lost.
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Oh yawn: do smileys not mean anything any more???
Nobody know who the first people to set foot on North America were but likely to have come across the land bridge connecting Russia with Alaska 40000 odd years ago and then migrated southwards. Just as peoples from Asia were likely to have begun the population of South America.
There are also remains of Viking settlements and extremely old Chinese artifacts get found all the time - well, every other third Sunday in March.
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