Grimthane

There is some slightly controversial evidence for adaptive mutation in bacteria. The idea being that bacteria that are given a particular stress (ie only given a food source that they are defective in metabolising) are more likely to come up with a mutation that repairs the defect than identical bacteria that were not given the stress. The evidence is controversial because it looks like bacteria under stress mutate everything more than usual, so the fact that they come up with apparently "directed" mutations is not necessarily surprising. As far as I am aware, this is the extent of environment-directed changes in DNA. Changes in DNA are the gold standard for heredity, so Lamarckism, though an excellent idea, seems not to be widely used. One reason seems to be that it is tricky for your giraffe's stretching neck cells to know which bit of DNA to screw with to make them longer, and if they did know, how they could then change the sperm cells' DNA. And if they get it wrong... Having said that, there are other things that we inherit by various means, so it is possible to pass on some traits without DNA changes. These are the focus of most interest in Lamarckism. Amusingly, Darwin was a Lamarckist, at least for a period, as well as believing in blending inheritance, which doesn't really happen either.

"Like, derrr....everything is inter-related because it was all created by God!" Another popular attitude, but the data does not just suggest things are related like Ferarris are related, it suggests they are related by descent. Of course some will hold the slightly more sophisticated attitude that God arranged the geological strata and apparent lineages of animals to test our faith in his word, but this leaves them in the uncomfortable position of trusting in a deliberate and wholesale deceiver (for whom the bible has another name!) "macro evolution of sea gulls... " Regrettably, ring species like gulls do not show macroevolution - they are another example of incipient speciation that many creationists would not dispute. Yes you can see animals that have trouble breeding together, but, they say, show me a gull turning into a lizard.

FWIW the evolution objectors who know anything will protest that they do not dispute that sufficient variation and selection can lead to animals that can no longer interbreed (microevolution). What they deny is that this process could have led to the extraordinary range of creature types that are found in the world given the time and starting materials. Perfectly rational non-religious types of my acquaintance find this hard to swallow. Sadly, examples of currently speciating populations are not going to convince most sceptics that the process is sufficiently powerful to explain all of nature. I think rightly so. The evidence for macro-evolution does not come from looking at mating patterns in birds. These days the best evidence is from the DNA, which knocks you over the head to hammer in the point that everything is related by descent (of course Darwin had evidence too, though perhaps less unequivocal).

Syrians and Grogs Wait - brickbats and bouquets poised The dust will settle soon

An easy mistake to make. Particularly about Matt. No, they're from all over, but they have a distribution warehouse in Ireland for those ordering in Europe.

What I want to know is, how they got away with making the M4 manage a whole 2 gallons/mile! Didn't they know there's a war on? I eagerly await the appropriate data to prove that a KT has mileage so bad that it cannot be expected to traverse a 2km x 2km map...

Look up. Megakill says they're working on it.

Oo! Oo! Can I be a an alpha beta demo tester? Or is it a beta demo alpha tester? Beta alpha demo tester? Oh sod it. I can wait.

This game looks like a winner to me. Who needs buildings? We can hide behind tanks! And fire through smoke! And zoom about in crazy ski-planes! Life is good. Now we just want a demo by next week

Is there any chance that you can hide behind AFVs in ToW? Not that I don't love CM, but it is an unfortunate feature that vehicles are transparent. I'd be delighted if ToW had 'solid' vehicles, if for no other reason than to test the often aired assertion that is it madness to hide behind tanks!

Yes, mrpwase, that's exactly what happens. The problem is how do you get around it if your map happens to be N/S and your theatre is Africa or Eastern Europe? Pyewacket's map converter can flip maps vertically or horizontally, but a 90 degree turn is harder because you have a lot of oriented tiles that need to be swapped as well as the columns for rows switch. I might have a go at it, but I thought there might be someone out there who could save me some hair-pulling.

My understanding is that as a QB the friendly edges are automatically E/W for a North African battle. You can do what you like in the editor, but they still run away E/W. This means routed troops run sideways instead of away if your map happens to be N/S. Run-away problems are a 'feature' of several otherwise excellent scenarios including Highlanders in Hell, St Edouard's and St Nazaire. Whether these could be fixed in the editor I don't know, but it's certainly no good for QB maps.

I think this has come up before but I have been unable to find where. Does anyone know whether there exists a way of changing the orientation of a map? We have a great QB map for Italy, with N/S friendly edges, and would like to be able to use the map in a North Africa QB, which requires E/W friendly edges. I understand that Pyewacket's converter does not do this. Is there anything out there that does? Thanks very much. Grim

To expand a little on what Kingfish has pointed out, the ascertainment of facts is certainly part of a trial. But it doesn't end there. There is that odd business of due process, establishing an appropriate punishment, the avoidance of undesirable precedent setting, the exposure to public comment, the sampling of a range of opinion as to guilt and I expect quite a few other matters that lawyers would know best about. At the risk of being bagged for straying off topic, there are a bunch of Aussies who just got sentenced to the firing squad for being caught with heroin strapped to them in Bali airport. This is a killing offence there (like it or not). By your line of reasoning the arresting officer would have been justified in pulling out his sidearm and blowing them away on the spot. There was no dispute about the facts, so why have a trial, right? If even countries like Indonesia think there's something wrong with that, perhaps those representing the forces of truth and justice in the West might do well to consider why. But back to honour in combat. From the report of proceedings at Dachau, I got the impression that there were a couple of officers mentioned who intervened to stop the shootings. Bigduke and others have made much of the red mist, and we all agree that a worse sight can scarcely be imagined. But if it was so bad that any decent man would reach for his gun, how could those officers have stepped in to stop it? Why didn't they join in? I agree with Michael - there is a code, they knew it, and the guys doing the shooting knew they were breaking it. We can sympathise with their lack of self control, but we cannot say it was unavoidable, because people there did avoid it.

Black Jack, I am interested to see a lawyer say that the point of a trial is to ascertain facts. If that were the case, I would like to know why we pay these judge chappies so much? Surely they are superfluous. Then, in some places, there is that strange troublesome group the jury, who certainly do not contribute to the 'ascertainment of facts'. Trials in which 'the facts' are apparent to all are still carried out in most countries I know, despite the time and expense. There are several reasons for this, which I suspect you know perfectly well.

Sorry for my ignorance, but was there ever any Nazi suggestion of setting up a White Russian state? Such as by canning Barbarossa and instead going purely for the 'liberation' of the Ukraine. This would superficially seem a worthwhile objective for them, at least in the short term (though perhaps not in line with party rhetoric). A buffer state from which at least some recruits and resources could be drawn and which would presumably be the focus of counterattack, would potentially be of some actual use (more than just keeping the Heer from demobilization as someone suggested earlier). Anyone know if any fired German staffers suggested this?

No offence meant, but this does seem a bit of the pot calling the kettle black as far as CM relevance goes: Unsurprisingly, I also find this thread unedifying , but not much else is happening, so I say let them talk.

I think the moral of Waldam beach is: you're dead unless/until the pilboxes on the cliff are take out. The briefing is pretty clear about this. I would be interested to know if anyone managed a successful defense after they were taken out quickly - I'm not sure it's possible.

Judging from your member # I guess you have a good appreciation of the limits of CMBO, particularly as you have CMBB. I haven't seen any long threads detailing the differences between CMBO and CMAK - most of that went on when CMBB came out. I don't think you will notice many differences between CMBB and CMAK. About the only things I can think of straight away are dust and dual turrets, neither of which make much difference to the Western Front. And I agree with Jason that you would be eccentric to use CMBO now, unless you particularly wanted the handful of ETO vehicles that CMAK omits.

I'd like to put in my 10c worth here as well. I thought the battle was the best beach assault I have seen - very tense, plenty of room for costly mistakes. My one suggestion from the allied side is: Can you please put a flag on the three pillboxes above the cliffs rather than next to them? I didn't know where the guns would be, having the landmarks turned off, so I assumed they'd be where the flags were, since they are the primary objective for the Rangers. This meant a few minutes of smoke in the wrong spot, costing me men and tanks. This was clearly my error, but I think the flag really should be where the primary objective is.

Well, there's a turn up for the books. 4th in the finals round! I'd like to add my thanks to the organisers and designers for some terrific battles. I totally agree with BigDuke that Moltke and Tiger were the highlights. They were both designed by Richie I think, so much kudos to him. It's interesting to see comments that there was too much variability in setup for St Naz, and not enough for Bear! What a tightrope the designers walk...

No problem - just mail it to me and I'll send you a rough translation With Enigma, I should be getting them all anyway, right?

Dear dear me. I just had a look at my next assignment, the landing at Waldam. Whose idea was it to make these landings in broad daylight? The paratroops at least had the sense to arrive at night. Now it looks like I have to expend vast amounts of ammo to reduce the visibility to what it was naturally a couple of hours earlier! Perhaps some well-informed person can explain why the real landings didn't wait for fog or use darkness? I suspect this may turn out to be an accurate simulation of what would have happened to an attack at the Pas d'Calais...

Please excuse a brief diversion on a technicality. BigDuke, Australia does indeed produce and export oil. About half a million barrels/day, according to the CIA!: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/as.html And I don't think Mr Howard would quibble about bringing our economy to a grinding halt to help out his pal Dubya

I'm enjoying Bridges too - just a little concerned that my wiping is taking too long!