What is on Your Mind?

Hmm, Browsing the forums, bumped into this forum. And unfortunately and pitifully, there was just one thread telling what this forum is for and even more bad, there was another thread which was a technical question.
So you see, it probably only means guys on this forum just can "get away" (as neo describes this forum for) with technology.

This particular forum doesnt appear to be as old as the others but sure is an interesting category, for non-interesting people, I guess

well, but it seems interesting to me, and I am now wondering what kind of non-technical stuff is going to here. Now guys please dont start getting any ideas.

hmm, how about someone putting down some
1. office experiences, some real funny events at workplace
2. Life History of Perderabo (or adolf hitler for that matter )
3. did earth always have 7 continents.

guys, I am going to steal some topics from National Geographic now

My life history would be boring. Hmmm, not sure what to make of seeing myself mentioned in the same breath as Adolf Hitler, but I guess I'll let that one pass. But the Earth having 7 continents? I can't let that one pass.

The Earth does not have 7 continents any more than it has 7 seas. In both cases the number seven was chosen and then folks went looking for the 7 continents and the 7 seas. Lots of folks insist that the Earth has 7 seas, but try to find 2 who give you the same list. Lots of folks insist that the Earth has 7 continents as well. OK, they will usually give you the same list. But now ask them where the division between Asia and Europe is. And ask them why it is necessary to split Asia and Europe. And by the way, when I said "usually" I meant it. The majority name Australia as the seventh continent. But a few authorities lump Australia together with a number of other islands and call the congomeration "The Continent of Oceanland" or something like that. (I promise that I'm not making this up. This is too goofy. I can't make stuff like this up.)

I believe that there are 11 seas and 13 continents. But I don't have either list yet. Give me a few years and I'll get back to you.

Thirteen? That seems to be too many doesn't it? Um... let's see now...
1 & 2. North and South America
3. Africa
4. Europe
5. Asia
6. Australia/Oceania
7. Antarctica

That's it. I've run out. I don't think that the Arctic is a continent on its own... there isn't much land there under all that ice. And Perderabo, my two cents about the border between Europe and Asia - North of the Black Sea it would be the border of Russia and South of the Black Sea, it would be the border of Turkey.

Here is a rather decent map of the world.

Ringing in the oceans! Wikipedia lists five oceans on the oceans page,
1. Pacific
2. Atlantic
3. Indian
4. Southern
5. Arctic

The Southern Ocean is new and has recently been rung in by the International Hydrographic Organisation. It starts at 60 S latitude around the world and goes all the way down south. This is however disputed by other reputed organisations such as National Geographic which show the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian oceans stretching all the way down to the Antarctic.

I suspect though I have done no checking on this that the southern ocean comes about by the fact that although Indean, Pacific and Atlantic oceans strech as a single body of water to the Antartic without major landmasses intervening this is not entirely true shouth of Australia.

That being left aside, North Athlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific and south Pacific are often classified as seperate oceans.

As for continents, then number depends on how you define a continent, and how finely you draw these line. Some possible lines which could be drawn are along geo-political or cultural lines (this could yield far more continents), by tectonic lines in which case the boundary is a tectonic plate boundary, and yet another would be by continuous surface landmass in which case there would be fewer (as Perderderabo said: why is Europe a different from Asia or are North and South America two continents or one)

In fact even as things currently stand there are many that would argue that Indian sub-continent is in fact a full continent. If you were to draw the boundary as a major cultural change or landmass change I think you could easily get the 13 continents Perderabo mentioned with most notably Asia being further subdivided.

Continent comes from the Latin word for contain, which I still see as a requirement to count as a continent. Continent originally meant mainland. To leave a continent, you need a boat. When you can visit a building with a line going down the middle of a room showing the boundary between two continents, there is something very wrong. Anarctica is clearly a continent. America is one continent, not two. Digging a canal doesn't really count. People don't use boats to cross over the canal. Eurasia is clearly a continent and Africa is part of it. Australia seems a bit small. We have to set the bar rather low to count Australia, but ok, Australia is a continent too. That Oceanland thing is just silly. So I will concede 4 continents. But considering that people walked from Eurasia to America, I'm being generous.

This is exactly what my own personal take on things would be. Oceanland or Oceania or any such thing is nonsense, they are a grouping of relatively small islands and do not form a landmass significant enough to meet the requirements. At times I have tried to justify calling Africa a continent, but I always return to the same conclusion...you can walk there from Eurasia.

Agreed, but what is even worse is that people often pay to go into such buildings just to see said line.