Only the second one is a true Daddy Longlegs...

Oh, I am. I so am.

Bullshit. The first.

No, no, no, the second. The first doesn't have wings.

On another note, there's an impossibly huge spider chilling in the lamp by my side, and it's starting to make me feel edgy...

I once swatted a cranefly into a harvestman's nest and watched them duke it out. I don't think there were any survivors.

Great idea that, posting pictures of people's phobias. Seriously, did someone drop something on your head when you were a baby?

Sorry, I'll delete it.

I was so certain I'd written a blog on that topic, but I couldn't find it.

Pholcidae are daddy long-legs, although that might have something to do with us not having Crane Flies or Opiliones where I live.

I love daddy long-legs because they prowl around and eat other spiders. I've never killed one.

I wasn't even aware Crane Flies were considered "Daddy Longlegs" until this thread.

Every time I've seen a Daddy Longlegs it was just a tiny spider with long ass legs. Used to play with them all the time as a kid.

The thing is, daddy-long legs is a colloquial term which covers a broad range of insects in different countries. Anything with long legs should die.

But they kill other things with potentially longer legs.

Harvestmen and garden spiders are the only things with longer legs over here. Those things are equally destined to die under my boot so it's all the same to me.

Harvestman are great. I keep finding them at work, and all the arachnophobes recoil in horror. I can just about see what is scary about spiders, their profile stirs a primal aspect in my, weak and small and easily squashed, but I recognise it. The sight of harvestmen does not do that. They just look so different to me. Superficially similar, sure, but the differences stand out like the differences between a scorpion and an amblypygid.

Stop spamming the thread, I want to read about apocaaaaaaaalllyyyypse :(

A huge sun spider devours the universe' DARK ENERGY and so the entire universe collapses in on itself.

I-r-r-a-t-i-o-n-a-l phobia.

Now then, the apocalypse. Who's up for a Fallout themed post-apocalypse?

I am, let's do this!

Hey, hey China! America called you fat...

Pssst, America, I think I'm not allowed to say this, but we do have armed nuclear warheads in Poland... and the politicians were talking about some sort of surprize for you

I keep anticipating a war between China and the US. Maybe I've played too much Fallout, but I can't help but feel as if its a possibility.

By the way things are at the moment, it seems Syria, Turkey and Russia could have a bit of a scuffle. Even Japan and China if things got to heated. Most likely there won't be any large scale conflict for another 40 years.

No one cares about Syria.

Iran and Israel is where the party's at.

Actually, after Turkey grounded a civilian Russian airliner carrying weaponry through Turkish airspace for Asad's regime, a lot of people are starting to care about Syria.

I read an article how microscopic nano-bot factories could possibly escape from whatever facility they were produced in and start to convert regular matter such as rocks, soil, human beings into nano-bots. Within a day, the earth would be one massive ball of nano-bots.

By article you mean novel, right?

By novel you meant shitheap, right?

Nope. :V

Sounds like some shit I read in a graphic novel once.

Sounds like the Doctor Who episode.

i know what you're talking about, but it's just a lot of "if this happens, this could happen, and then this could also possibly happen, and then the world would be consumed etc" which is basically a very pessimistic view on the matter and a pretty unlucky 'problem tree' where EVERYTHING GOES RONG AND ESCALATES.

if, in the distant future, we did get into nanobot mass production we would be fucking unbearably anal about absolutely everything due to the dangers present, the worst case scenario being similar to yours i'd assume. if one small problem has a possibility of occurring, we put precautions in to prevent that small problem ever occurring and evolving into a bigger problem. if it occurred anyway, we would have more chances to stop it as the problem grew worse and more obvious. we would do something if a problem did escalate to world-threatening level, the real question is would we be able to do enough?

personally i think yes. but i find the whole nanobot thing boring anyway, even when i was a kid. if you're going for the end of the world my interest is in cybernetic enhancements.

Nanobots would likely require very specific raw materials to reproduce themselves. One cannot simply make nano-scale robotic components out of any stones and flesh and expensive Scotch encountered.

for the record i wasn't actually agreeing with the whole 'devouring the Earth' thing, i was just talking about nanobot technology in general, the worst case scenario typically being, as it always is, some variation of the world ending.

I think the worst case scenario is developing all this wonderful nanotech and discovering that it is useless at all its applications.

Sounds like that novel Forge of God, 'bout dem wee nanobots that devour the Earth.

Curse you internet, you and your flimsy articles!

Are you sure it wasn't an article about a story arc in a comic book series