Hi, and welcome to TNET. The Prime Directive applies, even more so here: don’t be an asshole. Peas are optional. This is a place which is safe. You can be serious, silly, supportive and all things in between. You can argue too, but keep arguments about the subject, not those arguing. If there’s a problem, holler in thread or email me (there’s a link on the sidebar.) Have fun. The tentacles in a tea cup design is available at Urban Threads.
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Because Youtube’s Algorythm isn’t always useless: Very cool stuff: Black Violin
I always wanted an electric violin like that.
I just need a place to vent. So trigger warning: I’ll try to minimize the descriptions of death/violence, but skip over this if you don’t want to hear about bad shit.
I watched a man die yesterday. It sucked. It sucked so hard there are not words in the english language I can think of to even begin to describe the complex mix of emotions that I’m feeling. He was a complete stranger. I only found out his name through the news story, but I was there. I tried to help. And even though I know I did everything I could, it still is fucking ripping me apart right now.
I was one of three people who arrived first on scene at a really bad single vehicle auto accident. The feeling of dread I got when I realized the driver was thrown more than 100 feet from the vehicle (wasn’t wearing a seat belt) is….indescribable.
We stabilized him as much as possible until paramedics arrived, and he still was breathing (very raggedly, I’ll be remembering that sound for a long time) and had a weak pulse. He coded as I was writing the witness report for the police and the paramedics had to do chest compressions.
He made it to the hospital, but that was about it.
Fuck. this. year.
Oh, and PSA: Wear your fucking seat belts people!
Not saying he would have lived, the accident was quite violent, but he would have had a chance if he had his seat belt on. =(
Black Violin will be featured in the morning.
CC:
Oh Christ, I am so sorry. Happened to me once, but a better outcome. It’s a lousy thing to see a person die and be unable to do anything to change that. Try to remember you were there, you provided help and comfort, and that person knew they were not alone before they walked on. That matters.
Thanks. It’s rough.
I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been lucky, if that’s the right word. Although I worked for many years as a lifeguard, I never had to act as a lifeguard while ‘on duty’. I have, however, pulled two people out of the water, one unconscious, helped stabilize a lady who had fallen off a 12 foot high deck, and stabilized another lady who had a seizure and hit her head in a grocery store (she was bleeding badly, and no one wanted to get close to her). So, I’m 4/5…yay me?
I wonder sometimes if there’s something about my luck, because I know many people who have never once even been close to an emergency situation. I know, because of who I am, and that I have the minimum amount of training, that I’m one of those people that go running towards trouble like that when others just try to get away (and that’s good, if you don’t have training, get outta the way!), but it’s odd that I’ve seen even this many incidents like this.
Crimson Culpidae
HUgs? Or supportive gesture of your choice. I’m sorry you had to witness this. Take care of yourself, ‘kay?
CC:
Think of it in a spiritual way. Perhaps it’s the spirit in you which feels the need to stand between people and death. There’s a word, Iyéska:
It has three meanings:
1. Mixed blood (a person who is mixed blood, it has also been used for halfbreed.)
2. Translator
3. A ghost which stands at the crossroads of the visible and invisible worlds.
Seems to me you are one who stands at the crossroads, yes? Because you can help.
Thanks, I think I like that.
Also, RIP Julian Zepeda, 29, of Tucson. I never knew you or met you, but rest in peace brother.
Crimson Clupeidae
I’m sorry. You’ve tried your best, on many occasions, and saved lives. That is what a good person does. I’ve only called the emergency number, never had to apply the sessions with the “Anne” doll, with and without an AED, in real life.
Giliell @ 2
Those guys know their stuff.
And yes, supportive gestures and thoughts from here as well.
Crimson Clupeidae
Well done.
You did make a difference and you probably will again.
I think (hope) this article is a good one when it comes to Lakota astronomy? :
http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/247597781/for-lakota-traditional-astronomy-is-key-to-their-culture-past-and-future
Excerpt :
I also think its worth noting last nights episode of Aussie news program Lateline had a couple of excellent interviews first with Charlotte civil rights leader Corine Mack :
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2016/s4548070.htm
and then with Shen Narayanasamy, the founder of No Business in Abuse, the campaign against investment in companies involved with Australia’s offshore detention centres.
Also on Global Overheating (“Warming” is too misleadingly mild a word), this now slightly old news :
Source : http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37351271 BBC World News
strikes me as something which hasn’t been given enough notice -- this year’s second lowest Arctic sea ice minimum and its consequences are really quite worrying.
Earth is at least in a few years time going to be missing its northern icecap seen from space (& ground and sea)
least for periods of time in summer which will likely get longer as the ongoing overheating continues. I find this pretty staggering and something it’d be good if a lot more people knew about. 315
*cautiously climbing out of the Maelstrom*
Hey.
--
*acceptable gestures of comfort and support* for Crimson Clupeidae
That sounds…beyond awful.
:( :( :(
--
First and more importantly, Another well done for Crimson Clupeidae!
Secondly, it works! I’m typing this from my new computer, a modern multicore laptop albeit currently running off a 32-bit Linux LiveDVD as a test, and it looks good to go, and is noticeably faster than my older desktop. Most amusing problem is it has a French AZERTY keyboard, which I’ve configured as an English QWERTY — that plus its unfamiliarity means loads of Tpyos offerings…
Giliell@2, Thanks for that Black Violin link! Another group to check out is Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra who also use electric violins, albeit (at least when I last saw them) of a small closed-body style. (My link was picked more or less at random.)
State-Commissioned Archaeological Study Denies Standing Rock Experts a Voice
--
aaaarrrrggghhh
sssssss
nnnnnnn
oooooo
wwwww
Bakery that refused to bake cake for gay couple closes
These pictures are worth looking / giggling at, The Comedy Wildlife Photography awards: “A selection from the shortlist of 40, with images from around the world including a forgetful meerkat, a waving hare and a frog with a smile”.
I rather liked the two-headed rhino, but the mildly deranged penguin insists she stopped making them quite awhile ago (lacking any exit for the residue from the consumed cheese, they tended to explode).
Another set of good pictures, Thumper crop: rabbits and their owners — in pictures:
At least one of the creatures has an strong resemblance to me, at least when I’m not covered by feathers and cheese. This confused myself, the mildly deranged penguin, and, or so we assume, the Lord of the Rabbits, albeit we’ve no idea what’s happened to the Carrot to Rule All of Something.
blf, your links made me smile.
I needed that.
Thanks!
--
Fun pictures, blf!
__
The Yayoi Kusama retrospective exhibition is now at Helsinki Art Museum (which shares the building, Tennispalatsi, with a movie theater multiplex). I went there yesterday. Looking at and being inside her works was an experience. Going alone, without much thought or effort, just absorbing what I saw and heard was so much that the other exhibitions felt a bit “meh”, even though there were great works in them. Only a few works, such as Venematka (Boat trip) by Ellen Thesleff broke through after that.
A piece of life: Three computers with screen readers on (also, all three have some services others can use). I shut down one WiFi network and bring up another. For the next minute or so, a storm of technobabble in robot voices as the three react to what happens. Also, two tired dudes laughing at the machines.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=PYFl7yrr_NY
I was tidying some old bookmarks and found the above.
A very nice little video about deep rifts.
Chigau @ 27
A good summary of the evolution of the movement.
What the feck is going on? First, some jackhammer was jackhammering away for several hours this morning; then, at what seemed to be coordinated for 11am, all (or so it seems) the boat horns in the harbour started bellowing for several minutes; then, the world’s loudest moped decide to idle just outside the lair; and now, at c.11:15, the sodding boat horns are bellowing again, joined by the local church bells. The church bell chiming happens most days, but the bellowing bloody boats is unusual.
On the other hand, the mildly deranged penguin does not seem to be in the lair, and she does like LOUD. Screams for preference, but most anything will do, including a concert of jackhammers, board horns, unmuffled mopeds, church chimes, and me yelling in frustration at all the excessive noise…
(It’s gone quiet for the moment. I assume this means that racket was just practicing.)
blf @ 29
Do kids in France tune up their mopeds? Here, I’m not up with the recent trends, but most 15-year-old boys in Finland who had mopeds (legally 40 or 45 km/h and a 50 cc engine) would tune them up in some way, anything from changing the final drive ratio to bigger carbs, cylinders and performance exhaust, making the things illegal and more noisy (and they’d go something like 60 -- 70 km/h). Nowadays, the tuning will become quite costly as the kids will have to pay vehicle taxes for the “motorcycle” resulting from tuning the moped.
Do kids in France tune up their mopeds?
I have no idea, but it would not surprise me.
One fad, still ongoing I think, is to buy physically big mopeds — e.g., size of a Harley-Davidson — which is actually quite hilarious as whilst they sortof look like a powerful motorcycle, underneath you hear the putt-putt-putt of a low power “lawnmower” engine.
TRIGGER WARNING : Really confronting, torture, sexual abuse, massive injustice, self-harm.
This :
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2016/s4558233.htm
makes me ashamed of my country. Torture, false imprisonment in horrific conditions, sexual abuse and all inflicted on refugees fleeing well, so much horror and hell and torment.
We should bring them here. Process them quickly and fairly and with compassion and reason. Like we did with the refugees from Vietnam War back in the 1970’s even under a Liberal (Fraser) govt and have done throughout so much of our history to our mutual benefit. Give them the old Aussie Fair Go and remember they are just people like the rest of us -- we just don’t know them individually yet.
Because we often haven’t been allowed to know them or hear their stories or see their tears. Or imagine how much good, yes, good, they can and will contribute to our nation like all the other waves of immigrants and refugees before them. Given that Fair Go. The Americans have a saying about this in Latin ‘E pluribus unem’ or “From many, one.” We put it in plain English & song* -- “We are one but we are many and from all the lands on Earth we come.” And we do.
When did this nation of immigrants (Australia,my home nation which I am also, usually fiercely proud of ) become so terribly scared of immigrants?
Yes. Looking around the world now it is all too easy to be worried and fearful and hateful. But those last two emotions lead us nowhere good. Didn’t we declare a war on fear in its superlative “terror” form? And who the hell wants their life let alone their nation to be dominated by an atmosphere of hatred?
Bring them here. They are people like us, fleeing the same horrors that we are fighting, bleeding, laughing, crying, loving complicated but mostly harmless individuals like us and I do not fear them. Bring them here. Think and be kind.
***
NB. Since there’s at least one other South Aussie here :
Bring Them Here Weekly Vigil
Meeting at 5:00pm to 7:30pm
Every Friday
Parliament House
North Terrace, Adelaide
Come when you can
Leave when you must
Feel free to bring banners and battery operated candles
FWIW I have nothing to do with this beyond sharing it. I may or may not not be able to attend work &family committments depending but I certainly support & agree with it. (& yes, I know I was an arsewipe in the past too.)
* This song sums my nation up so well and I think it is our real national anthem :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjkrjYitgeA
^PS. Blockquote fail, sorry. The bit between the bolded “Bring Them Here Weekly Vigil” and the FWIW part was meant to be in quotes and originates from an eponymous facebook page. Probably other grammatical and typographical errors there too.
I expect but do not know for sure that there are similar events in other Australian cities. I hope this helps.
Man involved in road rage shooting incident with George Zimmerman sentenced to 20 years
LOL, America.
Also via facebook & on this weekend on Sat October 22nd in Adelaide, South Oz ‘The Walk Together’ event :
Again, for other South Aussies here & expect similar events are also happening in other cities here.
Saad:
I saw that this morning. I’m not laughing. I couldn’t even, so fucking outraged. That smug motherfucker.
*waves*
Hi, Teejaykay! *hugs* I’m so glad to see you. How have things been?
Hi, Caine!
I’ve been… dealing with a K-1 Visa application (I’m getting married to an American, and it’s really complex as a procedure) and helping out at the farm. So I’ve been living in two different timezones ever since February, running with moocows, and been a bit harried. I also turned three years old! (I kid).
I’m glad to see you too! How are things for your household and your wonderful mind?
I should also probably point out that if you ask a Finn a question, they’ll figure out it’s a request for a literal answer and thus…
…well, you should’ve seen this one guy in Oregon once when I went to buy cigarettes stare at me when he asked me: “How are you?”
I proceeded to tell him that I’m okay, but the drive was a little iffy because there was a lot of mist along the mountains and I hadn’t slept much.
Similar situation here, but, heh, I guess I’ll be excused this once?
Teejaykay:
Oh, I don’t envy you. I’ve had friends in the past who have done the same, and they all moaned about what a constant snarl of red tape it all was. The farm sounds fun though! (hard work, too.)
Rick and I are on two different time zones, he’s mountain and I’m central, and for three days, we meet in the middle. Silliness.
Everything is well here, the rats are running the asylum, as usual. :D
Teejaykay:
Yep. :D Depends on where you are in uStates, that kind of answer and chattiness is expected and the norm in a lot places. It is in Ndakota, where I am. If you don’t want to know, or hear, you don’t be asking how someone is.
All the fun and hard work! So much happening that it’s just life as usual, from keeping the furnace lit to herding cows, feeding cows, skinning rabbits and making sure the younger generation is okay.
Oh, and yes, I figured it might be different in other States. We’ve actually got to at one point compare cultural notes. I think I’ve once mentioned Findians to you? Native Americans and Finns who move to the States going “…well, you think we do, so let’s mix it up.”
teejaykay
The ritualised version of that conversation where I live is
-“and?”
*”Yes, and you?”
-“too”
Depending on familiarity the question “and?” can also trigger a whole lot of information.
Heh. I’m also one of those who, when asked “How are you?” or similar, tends to give an very short synopsis. I’ve learned to generally answer with something like “Vertical, which is probably a good sign”, or “Awake, but I’d rather not be”, or, on occasion, “Oook!”
Heee, Giliell.
Over here it’s just factual matter of everything. At least, in farm environments. Finns aren’t aware of it these days, but we’re tribal. There’s a long-running joke about two Tavastians heading out in the morning to spend the entire day chopping wood. One says, in the morning when passing a specific tree:
“Lost a knife here.”
After ten hours when they’re walking back, the other guys says, passing the same tree:
“Lost a knife, huh.”
And they go to sleep in their separate cabins.
@blf
I’ve got to try that. Especially ’cause you reminded me of how much we all should miss Pterry and be nice to orangutangs.
teejaykay @ 46
Yes.
Ice Swimmer @48
That made me giggle.
teejaykay
Reminds me of my favourite joke about Estonians.
Which one? I personally don’t know a single one about them.
teejaykay
Three Estonians are on a fishing trip, sitting in the middle of a glass-smooth lake in the middle of a vast wilderness in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but the peaceful sounds of nature. Now, being good friends who haven’t seen each other in a while, Estonian Number One, in calm, deliberate tones, asks Estonian Number Two sitting next to him, “So how’s it going?” An hour, two, go by, filled with birdsong and the quiet sounds of water against the boat, when Estonian Number Two replies, “Not too bad.” Another two, three hours go by, the sun is slowly descending towards evening, when Estonian Number Three, with an angry expression, whispers, “Will you two shut up? You’re scaring the fish away.”
Heh! Oh, yes! It’s along the same veins! I’m somehow not surprised, considering the linguistic and cultural connections.
I visited Estonian for the first time in ten years with my fiancee in July, and wasn’t quite prepared for how much Estonian I could understand, or how much more history and culture they have when compared to the agrarian nutters that Finns were until some while ago.
I’m a bit annoyed… This time each year for some time now, there is a festival here in the centre of the village inspired by local events & traditions. It’s rather fun, and also quite LOUD, with replicas of 17th / 18th C muskets and canons being fired at times, assorted animals (typically geese and young thises-and-thats) being herded though the main street (which is covered in a woodchip / dirt(?) mix to simulate actual streets of the time), wandering street minstrels, and so on. A sort-of Renaissance Faire, albeit in a medieval village centre / fishing port.
Preparations usually start about now; e.g., covering up, removing, or hiding street signs, trucking in the temporary street covering, building the pens, setting up the extra loos, and so on. So I was a bit surprised I haven’t noticed any such activity, nor, as I thought about it, seen any posters or received the usual warnings about street closures and the like.
Turns out that during the burkini scare in the summer the mayor also canceled this year’s festival, citing the on-going and other similar horseshite.
Idiotic over-reaction. I can sort-of understand the caution, and the firing of (obviously blank) muskets and canonsm open fires, et al, would add an extra complications, yet… At least it’s not as idiotic as banning burkinis.
Well, fun is clearly haram. Really, they’re doing much more to freedom, liberty and “our way of life” than Daesh will ever be able to achieve.
@54 & @55
That’s one of the things that bothers me most. People insisting that only one culture is right and selling it in the name of populism. Because something different is obviously verboten, kielletty, haram, not kosher, not Christian. Social constructs. I’d personally just like to celebrate the past to understand the human condition more.
The festival itself was broadly multicultural. Keeping in mind the timeframe (late 16th / early 17th C), there has been a nice acknowledge of the “Moors” (read: Muslims) in the area at that time, and a few nods to other “non-European” traditions. Yes, it was mostly local and most nods were to, “conveniently”, the cultures of the majority of the visitors / tourists, with some fiction thrown in (e.g.. Caribbean pirates, whereas Barbary raiders would be more accurate for the locale).
The cancellation is unlikely to have anything to do with the content, performers and artisans, or visitors; more with an nonsensical fear of an “attack”.
Oops! I meant “late 17th / early 18th C”…
Sure, I get that, but it’S a fact that you can’t prevent terrorist attacks by cancelling all events just in case*. A terrorist who targets masses of innocent people will always have a target because living has lone sages in distant caves just doesn’t go well with 7 billion people in the industrial age.
Therefore, to ban fun events terrorists might target is what is called “in vorauseilendem Gehorsam” in German: You do what they want you to do before they even voice that desire. In this case: the town taking away people’S fun and opportunity to mix and be together is exactly what Daesh wants.
*To go back to the “burkini ban”: If they were so afraid of masses of people, why didn’t they just close all beaches? Because there’s always lots of people on the beach with tons of stuff which will be unattended at times ’cause people go for a swim…
University of Ottawa won’t commit to investigating sexualized pub crawl -- and I could say, yea, I never went there, but I’m not confident similar things don’t happen at other universities.
At any rate, a disturbing event of questionable consent.
I’m sure people would have drunk vin and eaten porc in public, if the harvest festival (?) had been held. The mayor was being more Islamic than the self-appointed Caliphate.
Balancing Fatherhood and the 2016 Campaign
Oh, sorry, I meant motherhood.
rq @ 60
They should investigate it. Here, AFAIK, you only get “degrees”* in drinking at pub crawls, (which are often arranged as events open to all students regardless of their place of study, in no way mandatory). I’ve never participated in an “official” one. There are some other events which have featured competitions where you got points from stripping etc. Not sure about what to think of the stuff. I guess it depends on how great a pressure there is to participate.
__
* = In one popular event the requirements seem to be (male/female) Approbatur 7/5, Cum Laude 9/7, Laudatur 12/10 and Doctor 15/12 drinks, the lower degrees have a time limit of 4 hours or 5 h for Doctor.
For blf and the mildly deranged penguin:
xkcd and mushrooms
jimb@64, The mildly deranged penguin thinks that is a Stationary Saberroom, safe to eat and, as the name suggests, not mobile. Usually. Easy to harvest, she says, the only real problem being it bites your shovel. She recommends wearing gloves, and a three hour artillery bombardment.
Hold your thumbs for the pumpkin buttercream
Due to a weird wind-directional phenomenon, water levels in the Baltic Sea along the Latvian shoreline are unusually low, providing access to locations usually under water. Since the easterly winds responsible for this atrocity (water levels at historic lows, what global warming?) are expected to continue, it might be time to take a trip to the coast.
Also, here’s a thing that makes me cry. (More on the show itself here and here, more on the project and donating here.)
A fine ratty tale from the Guardian
Pretty Produce, a tale of edible flowers
From the Anonymous Art of Revolution facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/362231420471759/photos/a.362269433801291.103621.362231420471759/1438021499559407/?type=3&theater
Thought left hand side was referring Syria at first. Hope the link works.
^ Um, TRIGGER WARNING Confronting possibly upsetting imagery.
This is worrying new but also confirmation of what’s already feared :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-27/leading-scientists-on-state-of-climate-2016/7970360
Also more scientific bad news of possible interest here :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-27/wildlife-populations-plunge-almost-60-percent-since-1970-wwf/7971972?section=environment
Plus :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-22/reaching-for-the-stars-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks/7947188
A much happier story about one very impressive Indigenous Australian woman with a double major in maths and physics.
NEW THREAD!