AFD News Volume 2 Issue 9

Announcements!!!

Verdulum, Jawz and Lord Cobalt return. Hex plans a party for July 11th. Zon14 and Pyros Sparkweaver pop in momentarily. Starblade Darksquall and Drakis arrive.

Strange Connections

Marayong explains that beings might have Usenet access but no web access if they are using a school or work account. It might have web access blocked, but allow news and email. There are also, or used to be, ISP's which Computer

gave news and email access, but not web, especially those in small and isolated areas where the ISP saves up incoming and outgoing mail and news posts and sends them off in one batch once a day or whenever. This is also the case with those serving on naval ships at sea, at least in some navies, etc.

Hey all! Wertle says time is flying by, and the KY/Midwest Gather is almost here! (August 16-18). If you're planning on attending, know that the discount Con rate ends August 1st, and they're quite busy with registration, so get yours in soon! If anyone still wants to jump on the attendee list, let us know! Information can be found Here!!

Links

Arcaton	Cool Songs
Pyros Rutilicus	Song Lyrics
	Trivia Quiz
Flame Stryke	Trivia Quiz
Mondariloth	Email Server
	LiveJournal
Maxx Pollare	Alt. Browser

Snippets

Quelonzia is dubbed a Lady by Hex. Awellyth didn't make the last issue of the News. Mondariloth is seen attempting to bribe the Editor shortly after hugging Arcaton. Verdulum was able to keep up with posts for more than a day, pandemonium ensued. Mondariloth informs residents that forms stamped in ketchup cannot be accepted.

Main Story

The sun came up this morning, film at 11. Live interview with a nearby cloud tomorrow. In other news, the river is still flowing downhill and fish are still swimming along it happily. One was even spotted shortly after this story broke. And Rai fainted and dreamt happily about being presented with ladies' garters while having one hung on a horn.

Public Service Announcement

*** The Alt.Fan.Dragons Web Ring is into it's FIFTH YEAR of service! ***

Do you have a web lair or a spot on the net that you call home? Would you enjoy visits to your site from fellow scales and furs and humans, too? Do you ever get the feeling no one notices the hard work you have done with your site? Are you a past, current or soon to be resident of the AFD Community? Do you want to find fellow AFDers without stress?

If you answered yes to any or all these questions, you can apply for membership with the AFD Webring! No commitments, no annual fees, no sale dragons will approach your hoard! Sign up today and get piece of mind that you are part of the community and that you and fellow AFDers can find each other with ease!

Short History: The AFD Webring opened April 13, 1997 via webring.org After some problems, Yahoo took over the service. Recently, Webring pulled itself together but the damage was already done. The Webring.org version still exists but is now closed to new applications. The AFD Webring now resides with Ringsurf.com which acts much like webring.org before the influence of Yahoo.

Are you still interested? Visit Our WebRing today!

Editorial
-by Havoc

Everybody in the world uses a measuring system in which the units are based on 12. You use it every day. In fact, it IS the day. Have you noticed a clock lately? Clocks illustrate my point. The problem isn't oddly-related units of measure. Twenty four hours in a day and sixty minutes in an hour works perfectly well, no matter how illogical it is, because everybody in the world uses it and understands it. No, the problem is nonstandard units of measure. Europe went over the the metric system because in places they had a different country or duchy or county and a different set of "standard" weights and measures every twelve miles or so, whether you meant Roman, English, French, or Russian miles. Because the US had a consistent system of weights and measures across an area as large as all of Western Europe, there was less need to change over here. Nevertheless, we did. All our "English" measures are legally based on metric units now. True! We just never changed the road signs. Or the titles of our movies. The Green Kilometer? The Longest Meter? Urgh! FWIW: Beware of making units of measure too logical. The Roman mile was 5000 feet, a nice, logical, even number. but in an effort to produce more logical units of measure Lizzie the First changed it to 5280 feet. That's equal to exactly eight furlongs, you see. Much more logical! :)

Land of the Fruits and the Nuts

Vincent says a coconut is in fact a fruit. The 'nut' germinates from a flower. "Flowers of palms are usually individually inconspicuous but are often borne in great masses, some containing as many as 250,000 flowers. Flower parts are in threes, with three sepals (outer floral whorls) and petals (inner floral whorls) and six stamens (male flower parts). The pistil (female flower part), which usually consists of three separate or fused carpels (egg-bearing structures), matures into a single-seeded fruit that may be either a berry (a seed surrounded by a fleshy covering) or a drupe (a seed with a stony layer surrounded by a fleshy covering). "Palm," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000. © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved."

Wyrm refers us to this site for more details about all the various types of fruit. He also reports that it depends what part of the plant is being referred to as a fruit. If it is the whole coconut fruit (of the Coconut Palm - Cocos nucifera), which includes the (initially) green outer husk, then yes, definitely. If, however, it is the hard brown shell that is broken open to get at the flesh or copra and the milk (these being the endosperm) then no - that is just the stone or 'nut'. Definitively, a 'fruit' is the ripened ovary of a seed-bearing plant.


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