There will be cheerfulness! And light-heartedness! Don’t argue with me!
(Episode CCCXXXIX: Steampunk time!.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
There will be cheerfulness! And light-heartedness! Don’t argue with me!
(Episode CCCXXXIX: Steampunk time!.)
Doesn’t dancing just look so silly?
The world’s going to hell in a handbasket while the bank tries to repossess the handbasket and you want cheerfulness and lightheartedness? Bah, humbug!
So does sex, John. But both feel good.
Sorry, Sili, didn’t check the link before posting. :-/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zalman-Notebook-Cooler-Ventilateur-ZM-NC3000U/dp/B003OXC2ZQ
^ That thing.
*checks link* *link works* *hits submit*
Partially caught up.
.
FossilFishy, sounds like you could be on to a good thing with this new principal. There’s definitely fertile ground for critical thinking as a means to question sexism (though I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it never occurred to the teachers). Difficult to get at something so ingrained, but has to be a step in the right direction!
.
keenacat, great to read that you are starting to get more on top of things. Go you.
NEW FUTURAMA TONIGHT!
*dance dance dance!*
*watches video*
Okay, I guess nuking the planet from orbit isn’t the only way to be sure.
Doodle Music.
Vi Hart also has an entertaining video on Pythagoras. Apparently he was terrified of beans because they resemble vaginas. I had read somewhere that he believed farts were bits of your soul escaping out your ass, and bean consumption therefore accelerated the loss of your soul.
Thanks OP. I have no idea if I’m on to something or not. I came to that idea because I noticed that the idiots in the feminist threads use all the same tactics as the creationists do.
To reiterate from the previous TET:
I’m going to talk to the principle of my local P-12 school about critical thinking. In a presentation about the school there was a slide that said that critical thinking was one of their core goals. When I asked for a definition of it he fumbled a bit and it was clear that he didn’t really know what that meant.
My plan is to go over the basics of the cognitive biases and logical fallacies and the need for the scientific method to mitigate against those human faults. The only on the ground practical ideas I can come up with is to encourage him to encourage his science teachers to teach the methodology in addition to the facts. And to maybe start a skeptic club of some sort. I suspect it’s too much to ask for a full on class in critical thinking, but I’ll bring it up.
Any suggestions? Seriously, I’m out of my depth here. Anything that might be useful in convincing him to take the concept more seriously and any suggestions as how it might be conveyed to the students in a practical way would be much appreciated.
BTW, I checked out the new web site of David Frum (one of the last 3-4 intelligent and honest Republicans).
While I disagree with much of Frum’s ideas, it is Swedish-style disagreement (“I think some of your assumptions are flawed”) rather than Merkun-style political disagreements (“NO, for the thousandth time, we cannot make the greenhouse heat escape through the ozone hole!”).
And when I browsed the comments section, I was shocked to find several rational commenters! At a Republican political site!
.
No wonder Frum was thrown out of the conservative think tank where he worked.
— — — — — — — — —
.
“he believed farts were bits of your soul escaping out your ass”
Thank Zod I do not have a soul.
“terrified of beans because they resemble vaginas”
The ancient Greeks did not have glasses for those with poor eyesight.
Fishy-
You could point the director to Annenberg classroom’s critical thinking lesson plans. I can’t provide a link because i am on my Nook, but they use Monty Python in thr search for the perfect fallacy.
Ms. Daisy Cutter @3, :)
True, as far as that goes.
But then, it’s not often done in synchrony by groups for the purported pleasuring of not just themselves but rather of others, is it?
(Wholesome family entertainment!)
Fuck me but it’s HOT AND HUMID. And like a good frugal Yankee and environmentally aware White Suburban Lady I left the AC off at home today when I went to work. Stupid, stupid White Lady.
FossilFishy, perhaps check out QualiaSoup.
Josh @13, doesn’t it have a timer?
made the mistake of reading what Kazez had to say about the Grothe thing. Won’t be making that mistake again soon.
Anyway,
Since FtB is snatching up a lot of awesome youtubers. Any chance QualiaSoup and Theramin Trees might make a debut?
John:
Maybe in your home it’s not.
Josh:
I feel your pain. The A/C in our bedroom has been on all day, but (as I’ve lamented before), window units are useless in the rest of the apartment. Long story short, I’m sweatin’ my tits off over here.
(No TV in bedroom = no Futurama in bedroom. We can’t have that now, can we?)
PS: I love ice-packs.
PPS: I also love this new built-in shelf that I’ve grown over the past few months. It’s perfect for balancing an ice-pack on!
Oh yes the tone makes it all right
That made my day!
How does one get into Gaza, let alone a North Korean wedding?
I finally have some information worth posting to an Eternal Thread instance!
At least two Burger King outlets in my general neighborhood (that being San jose, California, USofA) are now offering Bacon Sundaes. Having tried one, I find it’s about as good as any sundae you normally find on the BK menu; if you like BK sundaes, you’ll probably like their bacon sundae.
It does, but I can’t be arsed to figure it out. Wouldn’t make much diff. anyway—it’s so hot that the house’s thermal mass has soaked it all up and is radiating heat still after dark. Probably wouldn’t use any more energy to leave it on low and keep the place from becoming a heat sink during the day.
Speaking of arse, it’s so hot that we do, in fact, have to take our clothes off to have a good time, cherry wine or no. I’ve been walking around starkers since I got home.
Thanks John, Qualia Soup and Theremin Trees are definitely on my list of resources.
ImaginesABeach: Excellent! The material’s US centered but that’s a pretty easy fix. If I end up running some kind of club, as seems most likely, lesson plans are a gift from the FSM, ramen. And because I’m not a teacher I never thought to google “critical thinking lesson plans” so thanks for that too.
Wonderful. I’m sure there’s no suffering involved in that product.
It’s a sundae!
Josh, so, you’ve made virtue out of necessity. :)
Hehehe, hate to say it but he makes the stereotype “white people can’t dance” hard to argue with.
Then again, there is JayKay from Jamiroquai. And I suppose by some stretch (a huge one, actually) Michael Jackson qualifies as white too. Well, grey area…
Interesting experiment, for me the idea was better than the execution.
But it is possible I am just not happy with dancing unless it is done by Minji/Minzy from 2NE1. The way she could dance at 16 was phenomenal, and has only improved since.
@quentinlong
Does bacon really fit with ice cream? Bacon is really salty, and ice cream is sweet. Plus, meaty flavor with vanilla? It would seem like their flavor would clash.
OK, I don’t know anything about site programming. But seriously, why:
1. Is this site, FtB (and many others), constructed in such a way that all the disparate little widgets and feeds that it relies on are allowed to bottleneck the loading of the page ?
Latest example: Apparently secularstudents.org has to load something every time I click on an FtB blog. For the past two days the page just hangs while it says “waiting for http://www.secularstudents.org,”. Meanwhile, the actual content of Pharyngula, Butterflies and Wheels, etc. will not load. I have to refresh several times, and even then I can only *sometimes* get the page up.
2. Is the site built in such a way that peripheral widgets/advertisements have loading priority over components that are native to the site? For example, why does Pharyngula (and many other FtB blogs) refuse to load its own “recent comments” before whatever bullshit http://www.secularstudents.org has on offer decides to load?
This makes no sense to me, and it’s infuriating. It seems logical that a site should be built such that its own content and functionality takes precedence-of-loading over gee-gaws, feeds, and tertiary crap from other sites or advertisers. Why is that not the case?
And while I’m complaining (I know I’m an ingrate), PZ, Pharyngula has become so loaded down with sidebar content about this that and the other thing that it takes FOREVER to load. Would you please consider pruning down all the various “and look at this thing too!!” promos and lists so that your own, virtuous, pure content loads up more consistently? When one has a site for many years it’s easy to overlook how creaky it becomes as it accretes so much ancillary junk.
I have a reasonably fast laptop and a top-notch Internet connection, so I don’t think it’s a user issue, though other people may not experience what I do.
Thanks for tolerating my whiny demands for improvements on something I don’t really pay for! :) I’d be eager to be a beta tester for any revisions to the FtB platform—I spend a lot of time here and you know I’m a Professional Criticizer.
@Josh
While we’re bitching about it, the mobile version loads all comments and THEN collapses them into a tab.
Oh yeah, Ing. The mobile version is pure shit.
And the mobile front page is completely borked.
Threadrupt again/still, and I stroll in to see Josh complaining in his nudes and rumors of bacon sundaes just an hour’s drive away. Feels like home, except for the heat. We have balmy sunshine and sea breezes here, over the last few weeks. Neener neener.
Memorial Day weekend we were in the mountains above Fresno and getting snowed on.
Week after that, my college roommate and sometime alleged alter-ego came for a 10-day visit. We hadn’t seen or talked to each other for 40-odd years, and she found me on Facebook. Since we wuz good Catholic schoolgirls together, well, y’all know how I’ve turned out, and she’s converted to Sufi Islam and married a (clerical, not ruler-type) sheikh (who she sprung IMO approximately singlehanded from a Turkish prison) and is battling teabaggers and frackers in upstate New York.
It was as if we’d never been apart. We ran around and got geeky in the Bay Area and sat up till the wee hours talking. I had such a good time I’m still reverberating. Oh yeah, and she’s developed a fondness for eggplant* that rivals Joe’s and mine. Makes me smile just remembering.
Aloha trumps everything.
Meanwhile, here’s FtB ricocheting changes into small neglected corners of my life… Well. Onward.
*As some here may remember, we named our first imaginary child “Aubergine.”
Auntie Ron!!!!!! POUNCE. Miss seeing you.
Fossilfishy:
Very true, it’s quite borked.
and TS Chris has strengthened slightly.
None of you need to worry, it’s a fish storm.
And PZ:
It’s CCCXL, not “CCCXXXX”
So, Evader … what’s up with all of this cryptic racist shit?
</soothing lounge singer voice>
Ron Sullivan!
I’m afraid I have to disagree with this assessment, and not just because “intelligent and honest Rebublican” is an oxymoron. Frum specifically came p with the “axis of evil” idea and continues to push it, AFAICT continues to claim that Iraq had WMDs, fearmongers about the evils of unions, partictularly teacher’s unions, and continues to push the supply side economics that have devastated the U.S. and every other country that’s implemented them. Thus, he’s either misinformed to a degree that seems incompatible with claims of intelligence, deliberately lying (making him dishonest), or, most likely in my personal opinion, both.
News from DaughterSpawn at Boy Scout camp:
Meanwhile, I’m dealing with an 8 year old dealing with the klunkiness, heat exhaustion risks, and othering effects of wearing full 2-piece hijab, long sleeve shirts and pants in heat advisory weather. I’m going to make some fabric recommendation to mom, who has the things made for Camper (we had a discussion about how to make it easier for Camper today, and I realized that Mom doesn’t know anything about either sewing or fabric). The Lycra swimwear fabric ones are too hot, but easy to keep on, while the cotton gauze ones are cooler, but require way too much care and fussing to keep on. I figure I can at least help the kid be comfortable…
Ron Sullivan!
I’ve heard several stories like this just in the past week. I love the sense of possibility…
Mattir:
Augh…
Hard to deal with those types that put religion over a kid’s safety or comfort.
And to the DaughterSpawn:
Oh, lol.
Hate! HAAATTTEEE!
(and please pass her a hello from me)
From the last thread:
Second.
My mom is sleeping like fifteen feet away from the only computer in the house with an internet connection. I just learned that sometimes, holding back a laugh can be painful.
—
Speaking of which, I’m home. On one hand, I’m extremely pleased that I no longer live with my asshole landlady and I do get to see my family and my dogs. On the other hand, the only person outside of my family I feel comfortable around doesn’t live here anymore. And I was supposed to stop and see him on the way here and at the last minute it turned out I didn’t get to. It’s… not good. I’ve only been here for a day, though – I’m sure it’ll get better. There are people here I should be friends with, and I get to go back to my great job soon, and I get to have time to relax. I even played my XBox today and ate in my room just because I could. So I’m sure it’ll get better soon.
AND! We have a vegetable garden!
I’m really excited about that :)
Hey, Cipher
Hang in there. I’m sure it will get better, just as you say. But I know it can be hard to get through the meantime. So be good to yourself.
virtual bacon, chocolate and hugs, if you’d like some.
FD
Ooooh, vegetable garden!
Some vegetables go very well with bacon!
@Mattir
Yeah, because religious people never hate anyone else. /snark
God, the hypocrisy.
All of which are features, not bugs, to those who invented the thing. Bah.
87yh ikm4ed87yhb9ol€65rg ikm bol9€65rgikm4edVVVVVVVVV
Josh, Pikachu, SC, all: Hugs back!
And that will be my Ave Atque Vale for the evening, cuz it’s been a long one. Appropriate for Solstice, I guess.
Hot tip by way of gift: Like abstract art? Google on Wosene and/or Wosene Worke Khosrof. (Not perfectly certain of spelling on the last name there.) Dude can cook, too.
@SallyStrange
Wut?
Woot! Australian Bureau of Statistics finally is releasing last year’s census data.
Top 5 responses to ‘Religous Affiliation’:
Catholic : 25.3% of population (down .5% from 2006 census)
Anglican : 17.1% of pop. (down 1.6% from 2006)
Uniting Church : 5% of pop. (down .7% from 2006)
Presbyterian and Reformed : 2.8% of pop. (down .2% from 2006)
and (drumroll)
No religion : 22.3% of pop. (UP 3.6% from 2006)
Not the stomping I was hoping for, but definitely the trend I was hoping for :)
birgerjohanssen:
::he sits there, stunned. In disbelief. Blinking intermittently. ::
They exist?
I thought they were like Nessie, Santa and god…
ImaginesABeach:
“I can’t provide a link because i am on my Nook,”
I’ve been battling back and forth between a Nook, Kindle, IPad (or similar tablet) for reading books and subscribing to magazines. I want it in color, because I want to start reading comic books again and I don’t need to add physical copies to my 20,000+ collection (plus I believe it’s cheaper than buying them at 3.99 a pop). I also want to be able to stream music (maybe movies too) as well as browse the ‘net (so I guess the Nook is out?) I’m on a budget, so I’m leaning away from the IPad (although the first generation or the second might be relatively cheap enough at this point, no?).
Does anyone have recommendations or anecdotes about their experiences with one of the e-readers?
(and boy, I didn’t know there were so many of them) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_readers
Does anyone have any spare caffeine tolerance? Maybe your morning coffee doesn’t give you the buzz it used to? I’ll gladly take some of that caffeine tolerance off your hands, and I’ll even trade you some of my extreme sensitivity to any substance with a mental effect.
I had ONE Excedrin, containing a grand total of 60mg of caffeine, at 8:30am. That’s the equivalent of half a cup of coffee. It’s now almost 1:00am, and I am wide fucking awake. If my folks weren’t sleeping, I’d probably be vacuuming energetically while singing along to my iPod. I could even learn how to put the baseboards back on in my room. Maybe I could go for a run! (NB: I hate running, and it’s dark out. And probably raining.) Or start a chapter of my thesis. There are so many things to do when you’re not sleeping!
(The above may contain traces of angry sarcasm and false enthusiasm. As well, I’ve been informed that when I have caffeine, I behave similarly to people who are drunk. So maybe everyone should just treat this as a drunk post?)
Oh well. Since I’m not sleeping, I have nerdy TV to catch up on. I finished off season 6 of the new Doctor Who last week, and I’m just getting started on Torchwood. Maybe I’ll be tired after another episode.
Somebody say something funny.
Somebody cheer me up.
@nutmeg
Trust me, the only Torchwood worth watching is Children of Earth, which by the way, is five fantastic episodes.
Godsfuckingdamnit my keyboard is totally busted. Got just a tidbit of soapy water on it last night while I was washing dishes and watching True Blood.
…Writing on my sister’s computer… I must fix it somehow. Intolerable not to.
Hai Nutmeg. I’m a bit drunk and more than a bit high so we can be altered together if you like. It’s always more amusing when it’s a shared experience.
@chigau
1+1=11
John Morales:
Re: Qualia Soup
I second that recommendation. I’d forgotten about those videos when I saw FossilFishy’s post.
~
quentinlong @23:
I finally have some information worth posting to an Eternal Thread instance!
At least two Burger King outlets in my general neighborhood (that being San jose, California, USofA) are now offering Bacon Sundaes. Having tried one, I find it’s about as good as any sundae you normally find on the BK menu; if you like BK sundaes, you’ll probably like their bacon sundae.
Feel free to post whatever the heck you feel like here. That’s part of the appeal of the thread. GIven the diverse nature of people the come here, you’re bound to hit off some discussion with a few.
As for *bacon sundaes”, uh, I want to *almost* file that under no, but I’m rather curious. Of course I don’t like whipped cream, so that might not be a sundae in the strictest definition.
~
ibyea @30:
Does bacon really fit with ice cream? Bacon is really salty, and ice cream is sweet. Plus, meaty flavor with vanilla? It would seem like their flavor would clash.
You’d be amazed. I still haven’t tried ice cream with bacon, but I think the sweet/salty mixture might be pretty good. Not certain how much the flavors work when you add in sundae toppings though.
I’m rather curious to try a peppered bacon/ice cream mashup…
~
thunk @39:
but when does it become CCCCoooooXXXX?
(sorry, six months of no sex, I’m getting antsy. I’m ready to cheat on Rosie Palm)
~
Cipher:
ate in my room just because I could
Did you do a happy dance too? It must have been frustrating dealing with a landlady that wouldn’t even let you eat in your room.
ibyea
Ha! Good one!
Everyone knows that 1+1=10!
Sally:
Have you been enjoying True Blood thus far?
I’ve watched every season thus far except this one (since the cable is jacked up and my regular laptop has joined everyone else’s in the “doesn’t want to work right” line; using a friend’s spare mac, which has a smaller screen, and I’m sooooooo not used to mac’s).
True Blood is as weird as it ever is, plus you get a glimpse of Pam’s backstory this last episode, so I guess I’m happy. Sookie is so selfish. She’s an awful heroine, really.
YES!
I read the books and towards the end I was dreading dealing with her at all. It’s so cliche, so done to death, I don’t even know if I’m going to read the latest book of the series. It’s like the Stephanie Plum series. Loved it at first as a fun, easy, enjoyable read but too much of the same old same old now.
Now I pretend the new Stephanie Plum books don’t exist and Sookie might be joining that list.
[/little rant]
I’ve never watched True Blood. I generally don’t like movies/TV from books and avoid them.
Yes I saw that. I also got the self-congratulatory email from the Atheist Foundation displaying a certain lack of knowledge about statistics in boasting “it’s all because of our no religion campaign”. These people make me cringe way too often. (Like yesterday, when an email going on about how freedom of religion provision in the constitution had been scrapped was followed an hour later by another email saying “er, now that we actually read the thing, never mind”)
I had ONE Excedrin, containing a grand total of 60mg of caffeine, at 8:30am. That’s the equivalent of half a cup of coffee. It’s now almost 1:00am, and I am wide fucking awake. If my folks weren’t sleeping
I have to be very careful with caffeine, because it accelerates/intensifies whatever I am. if I’m nauseous, I soon start throwing up. If I’m antsy, I start bouncing off walls. And if I’m tired, I sleep like the dead. The sleeping thing isn’t so bad, but then there was that time that I didn’t understand the effect caffeine had on me, and grabbed some coffee when I was tired, but needed to get to Phoenix within X hours. That stretch of no gas–next 50 miles was so much fun after the caffeine kicked in.
Not.
Charlie Foxtrot, isn’t it great! “No religion” is officially the second largest religious grouping in Australia.
Rorschach, yeah, I’m not impressed with the Atheist Foundation emails either.
We Are Ing The Matrimonial Collective;
“Oh yes the tone makes it all right”
English is not my first language, so I can end up making ambigous statements. I wasn’t referring to tone, I meant Frum diverges from the *burning horrible stupidity* that is a norm, but -as Dalillama says at 42-
apparently F. has a luggage of outrageous political positions.
(due to geography, I tend to keep up more with the mismanagement and delusions of European politicans rather than with the Usaians)
.
::he sits there, stunned. In disbelief. Blinking intermittently. ::
Ha ha, yes, that was my reaction.
— — — — — — — —
“True Blood is as weird as it ever is, plus you get a glimpse of Pam’s backstory this last episode, so I guess I’m happy. Sookie is so selfish. She’s an awful heroine, really”
I like True Blood (the TV version of the book series by Charlaine Harris) because it is so different. Also, I often find it better than the books.
— — — — — — — — —
It has occurred to me that Bobby Jindal is a great gift to satire writers. Stand-up comedians talking about Louisiana have their work cut out for them.
It’s like the Stephanie Plum series. Loved it at first as a fun, easy, enjoyable read but too much of the same old same old now.
So disappointed in the series progression. By now, Stephanie should have learned some things. About herself. About the world. About men.
But she’s becoming the new Anita Blake, with every man (or were-man) falling madly in love with her, while the character gets progressively cruder and dumber.
Narcissus in Chains was the first book I ever returned to the store for my money back. Fearless Fourteen was the second (and last). They were both so terrible that I couldn’t justify having them on my bookshelf. And I actually have a trashy romance by Stephanie Laurens still sitting on one. Do you realize how bad a book has to be that a Cynster novel isn’t so bad? Doesn’t matter which one. Once you’ve read any Cynster novel, you’ve read them all. Really, you have. No, really. The author even admits it on her web page:
So the formula is for a historical illiterate to describe a time period that she knows only from reading Jane Austen, and into this milieu portray chest-thumping control freak sadists hooking up with vapid passive-aggressive whining masochists, and they’ll live together forever and ever happy happy joy joy? Well, thank goodness you have them commit to each other, Steph! Nobody else would have them!
If you don’t believe me, try picking up one of these wastes of perfectly good trees and see if I haven’t described the “hero” and “heroine” accurately. Or you can take my word for it, this one time.
Anyway, that is on my bookshelf. Not F14 or NiC. They’re that bad.
Or maybe I just expect the average romance novel to be unbelievably stupid. I don’t expect it of authors who have done better, and know better.
FossilFishy, I see you’ve got some resources going there – yay Horde! – but anyway (sorry about the delay – time zones …) I’m not sure how useful this might be (if at all) but when I was helping one of the Spawn revise for exams I found this UK-based website for teachers; it’s aimed at being by and for teachers but you don’t HAVE to be a teacher to sign up, just declare that you are “interested in teaching”.
http://www.tes.co.uk/home.aspx
The quality of resources probably varies enormously, but the site includes what is basically a huge collection of lesson plan suggestions, curriculum help and powerpoints etc. focusing on the UK curriculum. I searched for “critical thinking” and got 693 matches, 128 of which are “whole school” (the others are aimed at secondary school, keystage 3 (about age 13/14), keystage 4 (about age 15/16) and post 16). At a quick glance, the “whole school” ones include some puzzles and games (brainteaser type stuff) that might be suitable for any age including very young kids. As I said, no idea – but it might be worth a browse?
Oh, and you have to check out the Philosophy Gym books (3 of ’em I think) by Stephen Law!
Pharyngulites, behold: the official site of the British Columbia Conservative Youth Association.
Looks like they hired a professional designer, then three days later realized their credit was running out and decided to cut the web design budget rather than miss Jezebel June at the gun club.
“But she’s becoming the new Anita Blake, with every man (or were-man) falling madly in love with her, while the character gets progressively cruder and dumber”
— — — — — — — — — — —
Good USAian urban gothic; try the Rachel Morgan books by Kim Harrison.
If you want something that is different to the stereotypical urban gothic, I would recommend the gospel by Kate Griffin instead of Lovecraft, Stephen King or Buffy the vampire hunter.
.
My favourite urban gothic is about a cockney-speaking bloke in London: The Matthew Swift novels by Kate Griffin: Very different. The books get in the stride by the second one, The Midnight Mayor.
No Nazguls, but the bloke sitting at the bus stop with a hood over his face might -if you are very unfortunate- turn out to have no face at all. Magic swords are useless, but an empty can of beer just might save you, if you are good at improvising entrapment/binding spells.
As you travel the boroughs of London with Swift, you are in for a much more satisfying ride than with 99.9% of the wannabees.
Strong female characters (and Swift’s trainee sourcerer is the most foul-mouthed woman of literary history).
Exactly. This is exactly the problem. Sookie hasn’t learned a fucking thing it feels like and it’s hinting at bringing back the love triangle. That love triangle was dead for a book or two, which is good. I hate when stupid love triangles go on forever, usually because the “heroine” is too fucking stupid to pick one! Nothing happens, just a bunch of webble-wobbling sexual tension. Sookie is on, I think, book 14 or 13 as well now.
Such a problem.
Gah.
Ah, I do already have that series marked as to read.
The Mercedez Thompson by Patricia Briggs is the stereotypial urban fantasy but it doesn’t have the same issues as Sookie and Stephanie Plum at least. There is character progression and it doesn’t stay the forever love triangle.
.
I have that one marked down as well.
JAL and others in the Sookie discussion;
Glad to see my views are shared tbh.
1) I have compulsive story finishing tendency. It physically hurts not to know the end of a story. I HATE not knowing. I’m like that about nearly everything, I just have to get under the bonnet and tinker with the engine to see how it works.
Two Feynman quotes sum this up for me:
“I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough”
“What I cannot create, I do not understand.”
There’s simply not enough time to do everything, obviously, but to me no topic or story is uninteresting, I just have to give up on some things because of practical concerns.
The same goes for stories. I “accidentally” started watching two TV series recently (Grimm and Alcatraz) and to say they are {ahem} “not the best” is an understatement. They’re typical televisual ocular chewing gum IMO. YMMV. But I HAVE TO KNOW HOW THEY END DAMMIT!!!!!! Much to the amusement of my wife who takes the complete piss out of me for this. She currently has the moral high ground after having given up Eastenders a couple of years ago.
2) I bought the first 10 or so Sookie books as a cheapo boxed set. I’m not claiming to be able to do an better but in places the writing is execrable. It causes me nearly as much physical pain as the thought of not finishing the series does.
I remember people expressing annoyance at George R R Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series for bum aching tedium and going nowhere, but I can cope with that series for some reason, probably because I’m more invested in it. But the Sookie novels have been abandoned, I’m just watching the TV series when they are available.
Why a decent, honest to goodness poly relationship never works for Sookie I’ll never know. That woman’s mind should have been blown wide open by now with all the supernatural crapola, loving more than one person is hardly a super intellectual hurdle after confronting the fact that you are part fairy and in love with a series of vampires and a werewolf. Frankly if I were Sookie and Bill or Eric turned up at my door, I’d get them locked up and myself to a shelter for abused women asap. These are not good life partners! Some of the themes in those stories are not what I would call {ahem} fully feminist aware. ;-)
Don’t get me wrong, I loves me a strong female lead character, but does she have to be such a….I don’t even have the word!
Louis
OMFG. I have the same issue! That’s why I have such a short, utterly short, list of series/books unfinished. It’s just that the pain from not finishing them was less painful than continuing to read them like the Stephanie Plum books. I actually read up to book 16 of those. >.< (and all the nonsensical side books too.)
Trope?
Honestly, I don’t see how Sookie is a strong female lead character. She may be the main character but I don’t see her as a strong female lead.
I think of characters like Sookie and Stephanie Plum as Weeble-Wobbles. They appear to be strong since you’re focused on knocking them down and can’t, but they can’t take control of their lives and make their own decisions, deemed to sway every which way til the end.
(This is ignoring the fact that the real life Weeble-Wobbles could be knocked down. Or maybe it makes the name fit them better because of it. I dunno. )
Louis:
1) I have compulsive story finishing tendency. It physically hurts not to know the end of a story. I HATE not knowing. I’m like that about nearly everything, I just have to get under the bonnet and tinker with the engine to see how it works.
I think I have compulsive story NOT finishing tendency. It takes me so long to finish a book. I’ll get excited to read it and do so for days on end. But it always tapers off. I currently have 4 or 5 books that I’ve started, but stopped reading. Not from lack of interest, but lack of desire to read them at this point.
Granted one of the books is the bible, so I guess that’s understandable.
Louis:
2) I bought the first 10 or so Sookie books as a cheapo boxed set. I’m not claiming to be able to do an better but in places the writing is execrable. It causes me nearly as much physical pain as the thought of not finishing the series does.
If you felt that way from the Stackhouse series, I’m guessing you should stay away from the TWILIGHT books.
JAL:
If Sookie is a Weeble Wobble, what does that make Bella Swan?
Good morning everyone!
Slightly threadrupt, so here: *distributes hugs!*
“Swedish bees board flight to Greenland” http://www.thelocal.se/41578/20120621/
Odd, moving to an even colder climate. But if you can hibernate during winter, the place has advantages (“Pollen! Give us your pollen!”).
Tony –
I have the Nook Color, and I really like it. I still buy lots of Real Books (no Real Book fallacy?) but it’s often cheaper to get e-books. I recently got one for GirlChild because she likes manga and she wanted a reader on which to read manga. Because I’m familiar with the Nook, I didn’t look at Kindle (I’m resistant to change). The Nook Color only cost $150 (US) when I bought it for GirlChild. I see that they now have a Nook Tablet, but it’s more expensive and I really don’t need a faster processor to read on. The only time I use it for the internet is when everyone else in the house is using a computer.
Another series I couldn’t finish was the Marcus Falco Series- Set in Ancient Rome, main character is a detective. This was just a drag. The mysteries were often lame and just found it painful to read. Stuck it out til book 11 because I wanted to know how the relationships tied up but gave up. It was just too bad.
Then there’s the Meg Lanslow series by Donna Andrews. It dragged. I suffered through 6 books and quit. It got a bit better after the first book but now it’s all gimmicks. I don’t see real progression or any reason to keep going. I don’t even care about the characters. I hate them with their fakeness and shallowness. It had such hope because the female lead was a blacksmith! A real blacksmith. It was just a background thing to fight over with the mother until book 4 when we got to learn more about it. It was brought to the forefront finally and was able to learn about Meg more. Meg does actually make her own decisions as well. Oh, damnit, it doesn’t sound so bad now. I may have just trapped myself into going back. >.<
The main reason I give up on books/series is because I end up hating or not caring about the characters. Badly done characters just ruin even the best thought out plots and worlds. I also rage at shit the just doesn't fit or make sense.
This contrast to the Sano Ichiro series by Laura Joh Rowland with a detective lead set in Fedual Japan. I love it so much and it's still going strong for me at book 15. Can't wait for book 16.
Life’s too short to read bad books.
Once I realize that I’m having to force myself to keep going, I STOP.
Tony, one downside to an e-reader: It is really easy to buy books, and therefore to spend too much money on books. If I hear or read about a book that sounds good and I have my Nook and WiFi, I often buy the book right away. If I didn’t have the Nook, I would write the book down and by the time I get to the bookstore, I might have decided I didn’t really need it. Plus, at the bookstore, I have to prioritize books so I don’t spend a ton of money, but $10 here and $10 there is easier to do.
echidna: Yeah, nice to have some hard numbers to back what is pretty obviously the prevailing trend in Aus.
Looking forward to hearing the various church’s take on the figures. I’m hoping to hear some desperation ;)
Not that I’m expecting any major shifts in policy or privileged treatment any time soon :/
Rorschach: They’re a bit excitable, eh?
She’s a blow up doll full of blood. She’s not a character. She’s not even a caricature. She’s on the level of strawmen.
Her features aren’t even described in the book! Seriously, if don’t believe me look it up. You just know she has brown hair, eye color and she’s “average” looking. Whatever the fuck that means. There’s no point in describing her since she has no personality or point. She’s been sucked dry and propped up like an abuser does to his victims before she even meets her predator.
I should know, I suffered through all of those books. The only books I actually wanted to ripe to shreds. I was pressured into reading it since I’m the same age group as young women going crazy for it. My friends wouldn’t listen to criticisms of it before I read it.
Then I read it.
Then I hated them.
I saw where it was going. I called out what would happen and couldn’t fucking believe everyone else was all “OMFG I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING”. It was terrible writing. The holier than thou don’t have sex was fucking frustrating. (I’m a single mother and so were all of my friends, how they bought into this, I dunno). Edward is a fucking stalker and he’s grooming Bella. Bella was a perfect target for an abuser. My friends didn’t believe me at all about Edward, saying I was just jaded because of my abusive ex. Then Edward flips and becomes lifeless in the 4th book with Bella’s pregnancy. Bella clings to her child’s life in the face of death, nice little anti-abortion tool there. Then the very ending where I’m cheering for the author to do something right and slaughter them all. I wanted them all fucking dead. Even the perfect miracle child. Especially the child. But NOOOOOOOOOOOO the author actually had more shit to pull out of their ass and made it happily fucking ever. No, seriously, happily fucking ever. No dying, best ever hours for hours sex, perfect child, no money worries, nothing. Horrible, horrible Mormon absentee porn bullshit.
I’m no longer friends with those women.
Fuck Twilight.
The dance should be more modern
Or, if not more modern at least more mysterious
Soooo …. we went to the studio recording of an ep of QI yesterday. DaughterSpawn got tickets (yay for DaughterSpawn) and it was a beautiful warm day so queueing up to get in was no hardship … and of course by the time we got there to join her she’d met some friends-of-friends in the queue and they played cards and did puzzles in the sun while we waited, and we were all really really looking forward to it so much … and it was only OK. David Mitchell was great, as always, and Sarah Millican was OK, and Alan Davis was good. But the other bloke was a vicar, ffs. All right he was a gay ex-Communards vicar, but … Stephen Fry was being so uncharacteristically polite – ARGH! And how the fuck does a gay Communard become a vicar. I know the CoE contains some thoroughly nice chaps, but dammit that’s just not good enough.
I have no idea if this ep will ever make it to air – it was a bit on the lacklustre side all round, though there were some good laughs – and if it does of course it will be edited to half the length, as per standard – but if it does, there’s a moment when Alan Davis says something like “Star Wars will outlast the established religions by two thousand years”. There’s an isolated nanosecond of applause from the audience (me) and he only went and misunderstood – thought the applause was pro-Star Wars, when it was intended as applause for the demise of the established religions. Sigh. Still, I got referred to as an “ewok” by Alan Davis. Oh well, I shall have to be content with small things … as it were.
JAL:
Have I ever mentioned that I ♥ you?
AWWW. It’s always nice to hear it. Thank you.
I actually liked my rant so much I updated my review of Twilight series with it.
You dare to complain about the site layout? OK, we’ve got a major redesign coming down the road, the SSA widget should be removed soon since that campaign is over, and I can see if I can pare down some of the other stuff.
I’m a bit of a fan of Gail Carriger’s fantasy series, the Parasol Protectorate — it’s a Victorian science fiction/fantasy story with strong characters and a heroine who doesn’t fall into the usual gorgeous chick with superpowers stereotype (her superpower: she’s an atheist who doesn’t have a soul in a world full of supernatural creatures). She’s sort of anti-Sookie.
I love it.
I shall go a hunting for it now. It will have to wait til end of Song of Fire and Ice though. If I stop reading that for too long, I’m going to forget who’s who and what’s what.
JAL:
I’m with you. That sounds too cool. Victorian+science fiction+fantasy+strong characters…Sweet!
_______
What, no love for boxer briefs? What about commando?
Tony,
I will not read the Twilight books, I saw one of the films and homicidal urges rose within me. I fear for the region around me if I ever read one of the books.
JAL,
Sure Sookie is not the strongest of female leads, I get that, in fact that’s part of my complaint. She has all these awesome powers and survives cataclysms left and right, and yet is dumber than a bag of bricks far too often and needs helping out of a hole when convenient for the man-folk to rush in. It’s all a bit “Oh Mr Darcy!” for me. Everyone’s MMV. If she were a GRRM character, she’d be very dead by now. And there would be much rejoicing.
I can only think of one other series I have encountered that I have all the books of and haven’t finished, and it’s Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books. I have been repeatedly told they are superb, and try as I might, since I was about 14 when I first bought one, I can’t make it all the way through the series without boredom so intense I have to go out and kill. Which annoys me, I feel like I’m missing out!
I don’t like having tastes, it’s so exclusionary! I don’t like having finite abilities and time either. I have written to my MP but she didn’t get back to me. Some people don’t take a heartfelt complaint seriously I feel.
Louis
Opposablethumbs.
I HAS AN ENVY!!!!!!
Louis
I’d say that 50 Shades of Gray is the mirror Anita Blake. Where Blake started as pulp literature and spiraled into blatent pornography and 50 Shades started as blatant pornography and um changed the names? Ok so it doesn’t really work but my point still stands: the Anita Blake series is a marvelous train wreck
Who wants something to laugh at?
Fantasy/urban gothic /mystery:
Glen Cook’s Garrett, P.I. !!!!!
.
Stephen Donaldson wrote some SF that was much better than his fantasy. BTW, mixing character living in “our” world and crossing over into a fantasy world: FAIL!
(Even St. Tolkien condemned the practise)
@Birgerjohansson
I don’t follow you. The journey through the looking glass is a staple of speculative fiction story set ups. We see it in Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Farscape, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Futurama, Wizard of Oz etc
Gooooood morning everyone.
I will be working today for 11 hours. Yea, that’s right, 11 hours. I had a briefing I had to do early in the morning, and training to last until 6 PM today, so I’m gonna be sitting in an office until dinner time. Ah well, can head out to go to somewhere in town for dinner rather than eat boring leftovers.
Also, I’m getting overtime. Yay!
For all those wondering about my novel.
Yes, I’m working on it. Yes, it’s awesome. Yes, I am excited to write it. No, I don’t expect it to be done anytime soon.
@birger:
Garrett PI almost sounds like sort of what I’m doing with my novel – a kind of cop fantasy novel (I call it a cross between CSI and Lord of the Rings.)
By all means, lets bring discussions of faith out into the open. Its far easier to blast them to smithereens when you put it out there for all to see.
(I question how comfortable Americans are with talking about any of the other topics, at least not to any great depth, btw).
Hey Louis. (yes I am procrastinating just a little today, why do you ask. No, my deadline is not until tomorrow morning …. ages away yet)
It was fun, I’m glad we went – but in all honesty it wasn’t quite up to (admittedly unrealistically high) expectations – i.e. only good fun rather than great. And I kept having to bite my tongue and remember this was live in the studio, not at home watching the screen SO DO NOT SHOUT OUT IF BY SOME MIRACLE YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW AN ANSWER !!!11!!!
I did get to meet Jo Brand once, though – and was promptly struck almost entirely dumb by the whole OMG-OMG-I’m-actually-talking-to-a-QI-regular-and-comedian-I-like-brain-meltdown thing.
Was this supposed to make sense? Did he not understand Stein’s question?
And why does Ron Paul need social security benefits?
Slowly poking my
beakmuzzle back into things. Wow, y’all are awesome.—
Sweet/salty foods: dunno about bacon sundaes (eww?) but salty and sweet CAN go together very well once you get over the initial WTF reaction. such as, chocolate-covered pretzels, or just mix salted nuts with chocolate chips or dried fruit. Harder core, hot cocoa with cheddar or string cheese.
—
These book/series recommendation threads happen frequently. Would some of y’all consider making a Pharyngula recommendation page on the wiki?
There is one, it’s just very short. Doesn’t look like it’s been updated for awhile.
I thought about reading it. Then I found several reviews about the rape(s?) that occur, one at least by the protagonist. I don’t thin I could handle it. The way it was used/portrayed and how the characters reacted was not good at all.
I’m going to have to track down those reviews now.
BRB
This article has quotes from Donaldson himself about rape. He can go fuck himself. Stupid asshole. [HUGE TRIGGER WARNING for that link]
That’s all I need to know. Never reading his shit.
John:
Pft, you just don’t get invited to the right parties.
Evader, CR beat me to it. You really have no clue what not to say when it comes to the topic of race.
Hello, Ron!
Aquaria:
Not all romance novels are awful. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books is a good site for winnowing the wheat from the chaff.
Louis:
To echo JAL, I’d heard they’re misogynist and rapey as hell.
Birger and Ing:
Don’t forget that Neverwhere, American Gods (to an extent), Stardust, Coraline, etc etc used the “through the looking glass” trope very effectively.
JAL and Ms Daisy Cutter,
I’d never heard/read that. Well that’s yet another good excuse not to read them.
Mind you, and I am ashamed to say this, at 14 I doubt I would have noticed that. I’m not saying the rapey stuff would have gone unnoticed, it wouldn’t, but misogyny, yeah, I was a year out of an all boys boarding school at that point…
Don’t even ask.
Louis
(more harassment stuff, b/c not sure where else to link it)
Commenter Trikeabout at Ophelia’s linked to this great follow-up blog post by the same author who talked about sexism at E3. Re the demands that she name and shame, emphasis mine:
http://alivetinyworld.com/2012/06/20/standing-up-for-myself/
…That makes so much sense. I’d figured the bad-faith demands that women name-and-shame were about forcing the victim to expose themselves for handy victim-blaming and retaliation, but ALSO it plays into the few-bad-apples trope.
o.O
It does. I never thought of it that way. Wow.
Here is a fun new term for you, pre-violent.
Seems to me that it is like the term, pre-pregnant.
Fuck, yes.
Did someone say one bad apple?
Yes, I am evil. And, yes, I have issues.
Apologies to those who have already read this on facebook, but I thought it might be appreciated by a wider audience:
And please, no jokes about the electricity being sluggish. That one has already been done and the culprit is still being made to stand in the corner of shame.
Matt, you have to be careful with the Slurm.
Janine:
Speaking of, was anyone else disappointed with the first new episode of Futurama last night?
Oh, book recommendations?
Well, let me start with the only two books I have ever actually set on fire.
(For context: my mother is an English teacher. I was raised to revere the written word, and “book-burner” was a slur in my childhood home).
The first: To Train Up a Child by the Pearls.
It is a how-to guide on how to abuse children. It advocates breaking their sprits as a good thing. The Pearls (a married couple) comment about how if a breastfeeding baby bites, you should smack it or pull its hair. If you whip a child and it doesn’t leave a mark, you’re not hitting them hard enough. If you whip a child and they don’t collapse into hysterical sobbing, you’re not hitting them hard enough or enough times. It advocates something called “blanket training.”
Blanket training: take a newly-mobile baby (like, in the scooting stage) and a standard-sized blanket. Roll the blanket out on the floor. Place baby in middle of blanket. Do not face them towards a window or towards something stimulating. Do not give them a toy or something to do. Sit nearby. Ignore them unless they move off the blanket. If they do, pick them up, spank them and set them back down in the middle. Repeat until they learn to sit still with no stimulation.
The second: The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon.
This is science fiction. Reasonably well-written, set in a future maybe 50-100 years from today. PoV character is a man with autism. He’s well characterized and internally consistent as a character. He has friends, he has a job, he has hobbies. He needs some help navigating society, but with the help of those who care about him and some reasonable accommodations, he manages. People who crap on him are presented as bad people and bigots, full stop.
As part of the plot, he’s offered a place in a clinical trial to “cure” autism via fancy *handwave* brain surgery. After much thought (which includes weighing of the pros and cons, including the possibility of irreparable brain damage), he initially decides against it, but then makes the snap decision to when he sees a happy couple laughing together. The surgery works and – *confetti* he’s not autistic anymore. He also decides that his former friends are now beneath him, his hobbies were stupid, and the woman he loved – and who loved him – is now not worthy of his affections. An epilogue presents him as a successful professional who hasn’t spoken to any of these people for years, and mentions how he just can’t understand how he ever lived like that. It also bashes other people with autism who haven’t had the surgery as behind the times and unnecessarily fearful.
Oh: this change of personality is presented as a good thing and 100% necessary.
I found this horrifying as a person with an ASD.
Then I found out that Moon’s son has an ASD. *shudder*
Sorry, I’m done ranting. Books that are good reading will come later.
I did like the arms floating in space.
Being called a dumbass by a dyke.
Pity the poor oppressed white idiot.
Do Karmakin and his mealy-mouthed “Well, let’s be fair here and try to see it from everybody’s side” nonsense drive anyone else up the fucking wall?
See also this and other comments in the same thread, in which he wanks on about how “social privilege” is a bigger issue in TAMgate than male privilege. Sethra tries to yank him back into reality until Stephanie intervenes at #83 with the excuse that because Karmakin suffers from social anxiety, his faulty perceptions are excusable and he should be permitted to blither about them.
Yeah, sorry, as someone who suffers from the same thing, I say no.
(I probably can’t find it, but Karmakin is the same dumbass who said once on Pandagon that everybody should happily let other people’s kids walk across and play on their lawns, because that’s part of “it takes a village.” I guess teaching kids to respect the property of other, ordinary people is oppressive or somesuch.)
Esteleth, I have to say, as someone with autism in the family and as someone who may have an ASD herself, I am emphatically not on board with the whole “neurodivergence” movement or, more widely, with the social model of disability. My cousin with autism screamed all night for years as a small child, and that couldn’t have been easy on his parents. I myself have had a rough time of it both having probable neurological deficits and having been raised by a mother who likely has worse ones.
I’m fine with adults with ASDs deciding for themselves how they want to live. I’m not okay with parents who subject their autistic kids to all sorts of barbarities in order to “cure” them, or refuse to get them vaccinated because they think Jenny McCarthy is right. That said, I honestly do not blame parents, either, for wishing their children didn’t have the condition. And I am really, really not okay with the idea that it’s horribly wrong and “ableist” for scientists to be searching for a cure for autistic spectrum disorders.
Janine,
And the tiny violin!
I also like the father/son bonding montage. Who knew that larceny could be so wholesome?
I keep my Typo Monster very well fed.
On the whole I agree, at least intellectually, with those who (like Walton) oppose all forms of punishment (I mean punishment as opposed to measures designed purely to ensure the criminal doesn’t repeat the crime).
The Pearls are among those who make it very, very hard – maybe impossible – to stick to that. What they do is almost beyond-belief evil, so fucking evil I have no words. I know this is no solution, but there’s a part of me that wants them to suffer just as they themselves advocate.
This would require that they be resurrected over and over again so that they might be beaten and starved to death.
Also, I do not want to be so degraded that I would be willing to beat and starve a person to death.
Looking for a squeaky toy? Luna’s over at Skepchick playing Polly Prissypants:
I’ve already started boopin’ her Betty.
http://skepchick.org/2012/06/moderate-theists-the-destructive-kind/#comment-153006
Just finished the Parasol Protectorate myself. Fun series, and includes some LG and possibly B characters that are not treated badly.
For Science fiction I’ve got a fondness for a series that kind of falls under space opera, though some of the stories aren’t as epic as all that, so some more romance… And since I don’t mind it in fiction, there are psychic powers and interplanetary travel and cats and a giant sentient tree and choc full of fun characters. As well as spies, mercenaries, traders, and lots and lots of space pilots. And scholars.
Liaden series by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee. Place to start probably either Balance of Trade, Agent of Change, or maybe Local Custom.
I am now caught up with TET, and am thus about to go to bed and fall further behind.
Daisy Cutter:
What you say (second part) makes sense.
I used to be one of those “neurodivergence” (as you say) freaks, but later I realized that’s *way* too extreme.
Yes, the types who are lower-functioning (insert appropriate term) may need quite a bit of help, and it’s *very* hard on the parents. They’re sorta desperate, so cure away, I guess.
And on the opposite end (me included) those high-functioning/Asperger’s types should decide for themselves. I’m opposed to parents unilaterally deciding to cure children like this, and think that they should make their own decisions.
That said, develop a cure, but don’t force it (as above).
I have no desire to see this movie but I am highly amused that Carl from The Aqua Teen Hunger Force is in the background.
Well, it does provide a musical backdrop for the rifle shots, so I guess you could dance to it. (Trying hard to follow PZ’s dictum to “Dance, dammit!) You can certainly laugh to it. Looks like Poe, but, oh woe, it’s real.
Joe the Plumber is running for office. He made a campaign ad that features him blasting fruit to smithereens while explaining to the viewers that gun control led to the Holocaust.
[Linkage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-4i7_bcsU ]
And it looks like she is going to go all in when it comes to being prissy. She is already doubling-down.
FSM no. I don’t want to either, and in reality I wouldn’t. The Pearls just make me very aware of my own violent initial impulse.
I just want to point out, opposablethumbs, that I was not trying to imply that you would. Also, that I understand the feeling of wanting vengeance. But acting that that impulse could have dire consequences.
(Damn! Most Hollywood movie would have their plot invalidated if the makers would stop to think of what they were advocating.)
Last night we were treated to an excellent rant from Rachel Maddow. Her subject was the fact-free Fox News zone and how it leads to fucking strange politics.
Hang in there, she starts with generalities, but she gets to the meat, to the facts. And The Maddow Show is the only news outlet I’ve seen that provides background for the Republican view of the Fast and Furious screw up. And it’s the best presentation of the twisted path from conspiracy-burdened bugnuts blogger to the current attack on Eric Holder.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47898261
This is one of Maddow’s finer performances. It builds to a high dudgeon while never letting go of the facts, and of her ability to analyze the issues.
The segment gives us an up close and personal view of Republican anti-logic and violence, from literally throwing bricks at health reform to folks cleaning their rifles.
And here’s the followup segment. It provides more details on the goofy gun conspiracy that we can tell Obama is trying to take our guns away by the fact that he has not taken our guns away yet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47898272
Yes, ALL the Republicans in the House and Senate are buying the conspiracy theories. And they have voted based on these faux facts. It’s not a lone nutter, or even a few fringe nutters.
Josh, that wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen Luna being dim. But that’s some extraordinary prissiness there. “Cut the crap” is out of bounds for a discussion? Christ. Also note that Hedgehog is whining too.
It’s a shame Rebecca decided to blow the ref whistle.
Guys who get friendzoned are such nice guys. TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD
Gyeong Hwa, what the fuck is that supposed to be?
Somehow I doubt it.
Janine, it’s stupid dudes on 9gag complaining about being on friendzone. They post shit like that. Honestly they’re lucky to be on friendzone and not on court-ordered-restraint-zone.
Oh god, 9gag. I remember that place.
It seriously creeps me out that you have to use Facebook to comment on there. You can use fake names on FB but still…
That place is just plain creepy to me. I can’t stand it.
That got that off a site called STFU9gag which is dedicated to documenting the misogyny, racism, and general assholery of people who post on 9gag.
Never heard of 9gag and this is enough to convince me that I never will check it out.
But, hey, Audley hurt all men by referring to pee-pee earlier today. So, by using MRA logic, that poster is justified.
Janine,
9gag is like memebase. It was originally some fun stuff, but then the Nice Guys™ crowd came in and pissed all over the place. Story of the internet, really.
Funny because there is a Nice Guy™ on FSTDT right now complaining how women are bitches for rejecting him.
Uganda, already in deep shit when it comes to gay rights, is still digging:
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/21/uganda_to_ban_pro_gay_rights_ngos_for_promotion_of_homosexuality_salpart/singleton/
http://skepchick.org/2012/06/moderate-theists-the-destructive-kind/
I knew there was a reason I didn’t like that guy.
Funny how fuckers call for Watson to be fired, but not that Jay.
Daisy, I’ve got no problem with a parent/caregiver/relative of a person with ASD who wishes that the suffering would stop. It is a very human reaction. I’ve also got no problem with the idea of research into causes and possible treatments.
I guess what my negative reaction is rooted in is how dogmatic the message of the book to the effect of a person with “untreated” (within the paradigm of this treatment) ASD is a worthless person, and how the PoV character’s personality completely changes and this is presented as an unalloyed good thing. I mean, it totally could have been done well. It was just done really badly.
Also, the 200 pages of “I’m a person who has value, ASD or not, and I deserve to be treated as such” ending suddenly with “no, actually, ASDs are BAD, no nuance needed, and you’re a fool to think otherwise” was jarring. I dunno, it felt eliminationist.
Aha! A position on which Watson is wrong!
Those should have been baby ferrets.
Fucking stupid statement. Most atheists are agnostics. Oh, wait. A True Agnostic™ is always open to taking seriously any god hypothesis.
Bah… and Esteleth makes good points too;
It’s a very negative portrayal in the media; While it does have some negative effects (especially looking through the eyes of society), it is not a uniform negative AT ALL. Or that the non-ASD status is a uniform positive.
My mind when reading pharyngula:
Argument X presented, mind suddenly switches to agree mode
Argument notX presented, same thing happens.
etc.
I hear it’s the artifact of a non-mature brain. Bah.
Esteleth, I haven’t read Elizabeth Moon’s books, but I’m not surprised to hear that there is any eliminationist thought therein.
I saw the original shitshow go down when it happened. She got hundreds of comments before she deleted all of them and referred to people criticizing her as “slag.”
Thunk, we all go through that. After a while, your brain does set (like cement) and that cause a whole new set of problems.
I will shut up now because I do not want to sound like the old person lecturing the young. I hated that when I was young.
Thunk, you’re weighing different points of view, which is more admirable than not considering them at all. Not everybody, old or young, is capable of doing that. Or, rather, many are capable but choose not to.
Yeah, media portrayals of people with various disabilities are, to be charitable, very uneven.
Janine,
*sigh* And I continue to mock men and their pee-pees every time I post.
You guys can handle it, right?
For me, I find it incredibly important to remember that the second word in ASD is spectrum. A person at one end of the scale is, indeed, hard to care for and this tends to be hard for their family, who may well be struggling a great deal. I sympathize with their caregivers and the desire that they be fixed/cured.
On the other end, talking about “cures” is as offensive as talking about talking about a “cure” for being gay. At the one end (the “mildy affected” end, if you will), ASD isn’t necessarily an impairment but a difference. Conflating the two sets – and those in between – into a single group is nonsensical.
AZD,
My mind didn’t picture that right for some reason.
Hells yeah. You saw my response in the podcast thread.
Esteleth:
I strongly disagree with this, insofar as we are talking about people at the severely affected end of the spectrum. Severe autism seriously curtails the autistic person’s quality of life and that of their caretaker(s). Social stigma can compound the problem, but it does not create it. Social services can mitigate it somewhat, but it cannot solve it entirely. The situation is not comparable to being gay.
I think the argument is more convincing with regard to high-functioning people with ASDs.
Daisy, the comparison to gay conversion was specifically about people on the mildly affected end of the spectrum.
Dharun Ravi released after serving 20 days in jail.
There’s an excellent comment here “look[ing] at this story through the politics of Pride.” It’s in response to certain people in that community trying their hardest to make excuses for Ravi.
Esteleth, my bad. I misread “On the other end” to say “On the other hand.”
Dance You Fuckers
Why didn’t I pull out this song earlier in response to PZ’s title of this segment of the undead thread?
I figured as such, Daisy.
An hour ago, I spent 10 minutes staring at a shelf trying to find something. A person walking by asked me what I was looking for.
I said, “I’m looking for the multichannel troughs.”
She then pointed at the box labeled in several inch-high letters “Multichannel troughs.”
It was literally right in front of my face.
Jesus. I do that all the time. Like, open the fridge and look for the jar of [whatever] for five minutes when it’s sitting at the front of the fridge a couple of inches from my nose.
Audley,
It being my peepee? Sure. I can handle that like a BEAST!
Oh you meant…
Louis
P.S. OKAY! I GET IT! I HAVE A PROBLEM! DO YOU THINK THIS COMPULSION FOR BAD JOKES IS EASY?
Link to Rapture Ready ahead
RR believes that bath salts secretly allow demons to possess you. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from them.
Esteleth, while I will not use this as a diagnosis of any mental disorder, I do see it as an example of setting items in concrete categories. I was in my room, looking for my frisbee. After a while, I realized that it was right in front of me. I was using the frisbee to hold words that I cut out of magazines and only saw the frisbee as a container.
Anyway, the PoV character in the book is very soundly on the “mildly affected” end of the scale. Maybe not all the way down, but pretty far, seeing how he lives alone in a normal apartment complex, has a decent job (IIRC, he’s a software debugger), and has a decent social life. His biggest problems are dealing with his shrink (who thinks he has violence issues because he fences as a hobby) and a jerk at his workplace. He also struggles a bit navigating unfamiliar social situations and has a touch of claustrophobia.
But yes, the flap over Moon and her racism came later. I read this book in ’06.
Shit! I thought that being a homosexual allows demons to possess you.
The real question is this: what does not lead to demon possession?
Saddlebacking.
What’s a “multichannel trough”? And does not knowing mean I have to hand in my peepee license?
–o–
Something completely different: This rum is really rather nice. Expensive (by my standards), but nice.
Sili, a multichannel trough is a trough that you pour your solution into when you’re using a multichannel pipette.
At the one end (the “mildy affected” end, if you will), ASD isn’t necessarily an impairment but a difference.
Being a bit ASD myself, I’d have to say that having Asperger’s (mild autism) does carry an impairment. Sorting out people’s emotions is very difficult to me and I often end up using secondary clues (i.e. people’s eyes dilate when they’re scared so dilated eyes might suggest fear) or flat out memorization. Not to mention jumping in and asking how people feel.
That having been said, there are things that are probably easier for people with mild end ASDs. Some tasks are easier if you’re not distracted by social cues or for differently wired brains.
The idea of a cure makes little sense to me since a cure would involve radically changing brain/mind function to the point where it seems like the original person would likely be gone. But ameliorating the problems associated with ASD? Why not? The general processing equipment of the brain can be used to replace defective mirror cells and allow Aspies to pick up on a lot of social cues. Not to mention flat out overt instruction for things that are supposed to be “instinctive”. That sort of thing is helpful. I’m not sure fixing the defect or “defect” would be. Certainly not in adults.
Recursive definitions FTW.
You were thinking outside the box. Too bad it was the box you were actually looking for.
I’ve long been fascinated by the various forms of blindness like inattention blindness, change blindness, etc. I once walked right past a 12-foot boat in my driveway (college roommate had borrowed it) without ever seeing it.
I learned not to trust my sensory apparatus. Or anybody else’s, for that matter.
I agree with you, dianne.
At the mild end of the spectrum (where I sit), “curing” makes little to no sense. Something to make (for example) social situations easier, sure. But not a “cure.”
At the severe end, talking about a “cure” makes much more sense.
Sili,
I really wish you wouldn’t jizz everywhere.
Audley:
I think ‘pee-pee’ is funny. Mocking approved.
O
Sorry about the hanging “O”, everyone. Myh phone took it upon itself to write a post for me!
P
P isn’t a blood type.
I don’t.
It pretty much stays in my pants.
(And Brownian’s shower.)
((Ssssh))
But Gyeong Hwa, we’re talking about P P here!
Or, at least, Louis is.
Depends how bad your kidneys are.
Esteleth,
Pee pee, PayPal, or Planned Parenthood?
Also, have awesome response to internalized misogyny. There is another awesome response but it’s NSFW.
Party In My Pants
I am so sorry.
Fuck me but it’s HOT AND HUMID.
Do you live somewhere on the US eastern seaboard? Because that’s where I am and I feel like I’m going to melt. The owners of the building I work in decided to be frugal and turn off the AC overnight. It was HOT this morning and I’m pretty sure the amount of work the AC did to cool the place down negated the savings of it not running overnight. I keep thinking that I’m a Texan by upbringing and shouldn’t be phased by a mean 93 degrees (farenheit), but, as they say, it’s not (just) the heat, it’s the humidity. One hundred in Stanton, TX is somehow not as intense as 93 in NYC or Philadelphia.
Gyeong Hwa, Pee pee, duh
Esteleth, I was being facetious.
That’s somewhere were the fact that I work in science is to my advantage.
When you do an experiment and the protocol says to do it at 25C, you damn well do it at 25C.
So the buildings have fancy-pancy thermostats. When the HVAC system breaks enough that the temperature goes above 30 or below 20, people just leave. The bosses lead the way.
I’ve long been fascinated by the various forms of blindness like inattention blindness, change blindness, etc. I once walked right past a 12-foot boat in my driveway (college roommate had borrowed it) without ever seeing it.
I will ignore any writing that is in a font larger than about 24 point. Maybe 20. Odd example: When my sister was getting married, her mother-in-law to be sent me and her fiance out shopping for things she wanted for the reception. She gave me the list of things to get because you don’t expect a person who’s going to get married in the next 24 hours to have the ability to parse written language. We came back with everything except for film. This was because she wanted to make absolutely sure we got film so she wrote it in huge letters at the top of the list with arrows pointed to it. I ignored that because it was clearly some scribbles that were on the scrap of paper she recycled for a list. To this day, if she writes something to me, she makes sure that her printing is extremely even in size.
Dianne,
Ack! The A/C in my office crapped out at about noon today. No one will be here to fix it until tomorrow morning.
(We hit 105 about an hour ago. (On the ground reading, not official.))
I haz a sad.
*cold drinks* and *ice packs* and *frozen treats* for Audley!
A week after I started graduate school (in July of that year) the electrical system of the entirety of campus went down.
The building I worked in had one of those modern fancy glass roofs.
Hello, greenhouse! It was miserable.
One perk: an email went out, from the kitchens. Seems that they had 300 tubs of ice cream, 200 lbs of meat and cheese that was thawing, plus about 5000 bottles of beer getting warm. They were going to fire up the gas grill and set it all out at [location]. Would those people on campus (grad students, post-docs, faculty, and staff, as this was July) please come and help out?
It was awesome.
Ah!
I’ve never really worked with wellplates for srs.
Should really have learned more about protein crystallisation.
Derek Lowe just reported on a group managing to do catalytic screening in 96-well plates as well.
I feel old and stupid.
Protein crystallization?
bah.
*handwave*
We hit 105 about an hour ago.
May I suggest going home? Pregnancy and 105 degree heat don’t play nice together. Alternately, hit the beach/swimming pool. Swimming and pregnancy do play very nice together.
Rather than try to key individual posters (I’m trying to keep up w/ the thread, but I’m easily distracted),
@books
I tried to read the Sookie books, but I couldn’t make it through the first one; the character just annoyed the living hell out of me. As far as good books, I recently read a series called The Necromancer Chronicles, by Amanda Downum, which I quite recommend. I also quite enjoy the Harry Dresden books, and the Codex Alera, also by Butcher, and if Eric Flint’s writing style appeals to you, I’d also recommend the 1632 books.
@hot and humid
Here in PDX, it’s been fluctuating between warm and massively humid and mildly chilly with rain, no apparent rhyme or reason.
@ASD
What would people’s thoughts be on a potential method of predicting and preventing ASD? i.e. if the causative factors were identified and could be eliminated.
@Science
That’s more sciency than I’ve managed, and I tip my hat to y’alls science chops.
Dalillama,
I’d want to know if what is being eliminated are ASDs across the board, or just the severe manifestations.
Also, I’d caution remembering the overlap between Asperger’s/mild ASD and STEM proficiency. It is not anywhere near 100%, but it is also greater than random statistical variance.
What would people’s thoughts be on a potential method of predicting and preventing ASD? i.e. if the causative factors were identified and could be eliminated.
Prenatal or preconception diagnosis? Because most of the known causes of ASD are genetic. I’d be for it. Frankly, even mild ASD is not so wonderful that I think it simply must continue to be part of the human genome. As for the infamous “but what if your parents had done that” argument, well, if my parents had had a neurotypical child instead of me, it wouldn’t matter to me at all since I would never have existed and they might be happier. Assuming, of course, that they had it in them to produce a neurotypical child since they had two aspie girls.
Thank you, E!
Dianne,
I’m okay. It’s not pleasant in here by any stretch (but it’s also cooler than outside temps), but I’m out in 10 minutes or so. I have also been working very diligently to keep myself hydrated.
Feh. I would never ruin the worthwhile and noble pursuit of hating religion in such a way.
It can’t be Carl, he doesn’t have his hands on his hips.
My pee-pee? Sure.
@Esteleth
Good question, and not one that I have an answer for, nor am I honestly sure I’m qualified to have a firm opinion on that point. I say this as I do not myself nor any of my family have any type of ASD. My default position would lean towards only defaulting to removing conditions that cause a significant impairment of function, which many of the milder ASD’s really don’t AFAIK.
@Dianne
In that case, I suppose that I am hypothesizing gene therapy that would either alter, replace, or suppress the relevant genes, as appropriate. This may be total science fiction, I’m again not the most qualified on that topic. If it is theoretically possible, and developed, then I’d want to correct every new conceptus’ Vitamin C pseudogene before I worried about autism though.
@all
If I’m being too nosy/pushy on this topic please let me know and I’ll drop it.
@213: Gene therapy isn’t totally science fiction, but the current state of the art for a simple replacement of a gene that isn’t working properly (i.e. hemophilia B) produces a good 2-3% expression of the transgene. Not exactly overwhelming. Actually, in the case of hemophilia, moving from <1% factor IX to 2-3% is worth something since it allows people to live without expensive and inconvenient prophylactic factor infusion, but it's hardly a cure. Yet. Further research is needed, as they say.
Andrew Sullivan makes the case that one of the major American political parties is “unhinged.”
Oh, those stats are depressing. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/one-party-is-unhinged.html
More here, including a handy graph:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/21/12343123-still-flunking-the-wmd-test
How do you define “significant impairment”?
I’d argue that the parents would be the ones who get to decide whether they want to deal with an impairment and to what degree. People’s reasoning on this point can differ wildly. A couple who has had IVF or ICSI and a history of failed pregnancies might be more willing to handle an impaired child than a young couple who is pregnant for the first time and has less pressure to have a child right now.
Some people have made me think of this song:
Carly Simon – You’re So Vain
I dedicate this song to Spanish Inquisitor and andrewryan… because everything is about them, poor misunderstood darlings.
@keenacat: It might also depend on the parents’ personalities. A parent with his or her own aspie tendencies might be less freaked out by an ASDish child than one who is more social and possibly dependent on social ability to survive.
Good point, thus QFT.
It’s such a personal decision for the people involved (that is primarily the parents).
Ugh, I can stand heat. DRY heat feels wonderful to me. This? I do not LIKE it when my clothes stick to me and I’m not even exercising!
Oh look, foot tattoos are fading already. Just redid them a couple of days ago, dammit! And I wasn’t even wearing socks and sneakers today . . .
—————————————————
That makes no sense. Is this an variant of “Well, no, they just hate god, they don’t actually think he doesn’t exist”?
For me it’s both. God doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely despise the fucker. The thought of taking an axe to God’s face makes me happier than the idea of axing anyone’s face reasonably should. And even as a fictional construct, God is still a pretty powerful ally to the wealthy, smug, and privileged. The fact that god doesn’t exist doesn’t seem to stop him from fucking with people’s lives.
That’s why I kinda wanna name one of my weapons ‘Godbreaker’ or ‘Christkiller’. Tis a metaphor.
It’s possible to dislike a fictional character after all
@TLC
Godbreaker has to be a hammer and Christkiller a spear
Ing: Can I cheat and use an axe with a hammer poll on it?
O hai!
Enjoying the conference, except for the lack of sleep.
Sign this petition right now!
kthxbai
Horde wimminz,
you have all been found to be lesbians.
Please leave the Louis Groop Secks Line and join the new Lesbian Secks Pit. There is no line. Washing hands and brushing teeth beforehand strongly recommended.
(Brownian secks is allowed, however, since we still get to be gay.)
Ah fuck, that showed up right in preview. Well, you are still taken to the links destination.
As if I could lose any more respect for the United States Olympic Committee, they’ve decided that knitters holding a friendly contest in which one begins a project during the opening ceremonies and then works on it WHILE WATCHING THE OLYMPICS belittles the manly manliness of athletes in the games. (Manly manliness not stated as such, but strongly strongly implied, along with some quite odious characterization of traditionally female-gendered crafts…)
From their cease and desist letter to Ravelry (a social networking site for fibercrafts):
Needless to say, this sort of backfired.
To make it even better, in their apology (which, I should note, was NOT a withdrawal of the original cease and desist letter, but merely an apology for tone) they actually REQUESTED HANDKNIT ITEMS FROM THE OFFENDED KNITTERS.
Sorry for shouting, but seriously, fuck you, USOC.
Speaking strictly for myself, I am enjoying the discussion.
__
Dianne
I am wondering what exactly the genetic basis for Autism/Aspergers
is? I know that there does seem to be a link, but is it known whether it is due to recessive genes, or damaged genes?
I have two nephews who display traits on the spectrum, but IMO their difficulties are just as likely to be caused by parental drug (methamphetamine) use and the ensuing family drama.
I am also curious about diet based mitigation*. It looks like there is actually some solid research that supports the idea that food coloring, preservatives such as BHT, and salicylates make autism symptoms worse.
Empirically speaking, the diet does seem to really help.
Nephews langauge skills have leaped (sentences!), his behavior is much better, and he has grown and gained weight since beginning the diet.
I would be very appreciative if you have time to educate me.
There is so much woo on the subject that it is hard for the non-professional to find good information.
*I refer to the diet developed by Dr. _____? (cannot remember) for children with asthma , not to the woo-filled dairy/wheat avoidance diet.
SonSpawn was fairly spectrum-ish when he was younger – the diet intervention, a fairly relaxed version of Feingold (avoiding BHA/BHT, salicylates, and food dyes, especially tartrazine) was astonishingly helpful in reducing irritability and improving mood regulation. What I’ve heard from child psychiatrists is that Feingold either helps amazingly or doesn’t do anything, and one can see the impact immediately if it is going to be helpful. That was certainly the case with SonSpawn – if he drank a large glass of purple grape juice (very very high in salicylates) at school, we could tell by the way his face flushed, and the temper tantrum followed over the most trivial disappointment (the “wrong” spoon for his yogurt was my favorite one).
Keenacat, #225,
Ahem. Point of order!
1) The Groop Secks With Louis Pile is omnisexual. You do what you want to who you want, I do not have to be involved. Remember the LouisCorp Motto: The only meaningful consent is enthusiastic consent. You no wanna, you no haveta.
2) Schisms will not be tolerated. Black helicopters have been dispatched to your location. You and your heretic scum allies will be eliminated via the medium of Death By Snoo-Snoo. And not the good kind, no chocolate syrup will be employed. We are ruthless.
3) There is no three.
4) Please don’t abandon me, I’m so alone.
Louis
Okay, I am confuzzled.
I tweeted something to the effect that in the past week I have eaten bagels, cream cheese, potato chips, dip, beer, ham sandwiches, and tea.
Within 5 minutes I got a reply:
“You are like a little old British lady.”
Am confused. Is this what elderly British women eat?! Is this a stereotype that I am unaware of?!
*piles slobby makeouts on Louis*
Esteleth,
Tea, sandwiches, yes. The rest, no. Kill whoever tweeted you, they are Wrong On The Internet. A most heinous crime.
Louis
Louis, so you are telling me that elderly doubly-x’d Britons do not have Ruffles and onion dip for dinner, washed down with Belgian-style ales?
All the more for me then!
*gleefully stuffs face*
Keenacat,
You are forgiven. I am easy.*
Louis
* As the graffiti in the ladies’ toilet establishes beyond reasonable doubt.
Fuck, it’s Thursday and I’m drunk again. I am not an alcoholic, I don’t have a drinking problem, everyone else is just twelve drinks behind me. I prefer the term “recreational inebriate”. CATCH UP MOTHERFUCKERS! Saturday is going to hurt. It’s haircut time, and party time, an all dayer round a friend’s house where I am making the guacamole. I blame morons. If morons didn’t exist I wouldn’t have to drink to make the stupid people go away.
BOY!!!!! BRING ME RUM!!!!!
Feingold! Thank you Mattir, I do hate it when my brain returns a 404 error.
Your post describes the same effect I have observed in nephew.
Has sonspawn become less sensitive as he has matured?
Esteleth,
I could not, and would not dare to, speak for all elderly members of the distaff, however I would put a reasonable sum of money on the fact that no, Belgian ales and ridged crisps do not form a staple part of their diet.
With the one caveat that in Glasgow, obviously such a diet is prevalent. Although I believe the choice is Bucky and cheese and onion Walkers.
Louis
Haha, fair enough.
(did you have to ask Teh Googleplex what “Ruffles” were?)
Esteleth,
Sadly, no. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad! ;-)
Louis
Hahaha.
I told her that I am a (recovering) American graduate student, not a superannuated UKer.
In other news, I ♥ my friends from undergraduate. Especially the Five Under Five, a group of five people all under five feet tall.
Oh, and their honorary member, who is 6’3″.
Ing;
“I don’t follow you. The journey through the looking glass is a staple of speculative fiction story set ups. We see it in Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, Farscape, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Futurama, Wizard of Oz etc”
.
There are good examples, but maybe I have managed to stumble over the bad novels. Stephen Donaldson, Guy Gavriel Key and some others failed to create a “wilful suspension of disbelief” when using the plot device. That has left me suspicious about stories with the device.
— — — — — — — — —
Ing
“the Anita Blake series is a marvelous train wreck”
Word. A bit like Patricia Cornwell’s decline as a crime author, only worse.
— — — — — — — — — —
dianne,
Regarding humidity plus heat: Can you please explain to me why people would want to go to Florida in summer? I freak out when the temperature indoors go above 25 C.
— — — — — —
“sluggish electricity”
-The Matthew Swift novels have what he calls the “blue electric angels”, created by all the emotions and passion poured into the telephone lines of London for over a century and achieving a kind of sentience. Swift’s mind fuses with them during a rather traumatic event (if getting killed by your mentor’s shadow qualifies as “traumatic”) and when he refers to himself, the first person alternates between singular and plural. That is one of the least weird aspects of his life.
Ruffles ™ work very well as spoons with which to consume chocolate ice cream.
I like sweet/salty.
Hey, wait, I wasn’t even in line for the Great Louis Love-athon! or the Gay Secks with Brownian line.
I love how these idiotic strangers think only gay men and gay women frequent this blog.
Aha! My friend is saying that her (British) grandmother ate like that.
Adds the comment that she (British granny) decided that if you put sufficient mayonnaise on it, a ham sandwich becomes kosher.
I would approve of this logic, except mayonnaise. EWWW.
I know this will probably earn me a well deserved arse kicking, but I rarely google. Not out of slackness, but just because it is not habit. I have to think to google, if that makes sense.
When I did my undergrad degree, the Chemical Abstracts stuff was in the library. If you wanted to know if a chemical compound had been made before you had to walk to the library, start at the ten year summary books, work back to the five year, then the annual, then the individual books to find specific compounds. It was pretty damned laborious. By the time I got my first industry job, Scifinder and Beilstein were available on computers, a week’s training (which was massive overkill IMO, although I can do things with Beilstein and Scifinder etc my colleagues cannot because of that investment) and BOOM. A week’s work became an hour’s work and the old chemistry saying of “a week in the library saves you six months in the lab” became “an hour in the library saves you six months in the lab”. With the advent of Chemspider and dozens of other things, it’s never been easier.
But I still had to learn those habits after having the dead-tree method so heavily hardwired into me. It’s still there to a degree I confess. I am very old school in some respects, as I am relative late comer to The Webs. (I started in the 90’s).
Google/Wiki etc are not second nature to me, I think first, google later, which is bad. I admit it, it really is. I know I’m going to sound like an old codger and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay wrong here, but back in the old days we used to have this thing called knowledge. I realise it’s a shitty thing to have, because it’s so fallible and what is more useful is not knowing a thing, but knowing how to find things. But both was my approach, and weirdly it’s the habit I stuck with. So, for example, I know the atomic masses of every element on the periodic table to 4 decimal places at least, I can recite the lot, and atomic numbers, and electronegativities, and…. Not because I’m clever, I’m not, but because of exposure, practise and that’s just what I had to do. That’s how I was taught.
I remember using a calculator in front of an old maths teacher of mine who’d grown up with slide rules. She could do logarithms in her head, etc etc etc and there was me, tapping like a monkey at a keypad. She knew this stuff. She understood it. It was air she breathed to her. Me? It was just something I had learned for an exam. I understood it as far as I needed to. But she made sure that we all chucked our calculators and learned this stuff like she had BEFORE we got those calculators back. And I am eternally grateful. So now, my mental arithmetic is reasonable because of her. And great people like my physics teacher who taught us to ignore most of an equation, do dimensional analysis beforehand, make sure we had the dimensions right, guesstimate an answer and then calculate the right answer if all three bits agreed, you were likely to be golden. And whaddya know, that advice got me everywhere!
Sorry, sorry, self indulgent I know. But meh. Sue me.
Louis
Pro lifers think my people are fetuses. >.<
Louis, you Old Codger
Only a WEEK in the li-berry? BAH! When I was an undergrad we had an entire 10-week course called Chemical Literature. Which was exactly that: to to the li-berry and learn how to look stuff up.
Unlike you, I never got to be any good at it! But I was a Biochem major (which was part of the Chemistry Department), so I didn’t have to “get it” I just had to “get through it”.
By the time I got to Grad School in ’92, Medline and its ilk were coming into their own.
Anyway…I seem not to be unduly suffering by not doing _everything_ the hard way!
PS, Louis, you Old Codger
You crack me the hell up.
This must have really gotten their goat then.
And may the odds be ever in your favor.
Funny Diva,
Oh no the course was much longer than a week. I meant if you wanted to know X, get your booty to the library for a week.
And of course, you still had to do lab work that week, a full compliment. Of course we had it rough.
When I were doin’ my PhD we used to have to walk uphill both ways t’lab. Work 28 hours a day and pay supervisor for permission t’come t’work and when we wanted to see him, he used to slice us in two wi’bread knife and dance on our graves singing hallelujah.
And if you told that to the grad students of today, they’d believe you ‘cos it’s fucking identical now.
Louis
FUCKBALLS!!!!! It’s 1 am, I’m drunk and I have to be at work and functional in the morning.
Hmmm. I’ll put the coffee on to brew now.
Louis
Louis, I used to hate calculators. I trusted myself more than them, because it was a reasonable possibility that I would key a number wrong, especially once I started smoking ganja. Soon after, the Merck Index became my favorite book – it had every chemical I was interested in, and the reactions, melting points, etc.
My first year organic chem we had an evaluation exam the first class so the prof could get a grip on our grip of cooking for dollars. I wanted to know where the glassware was at, I already had the reactions I needed to know.
So, skip ahead two years, needless to say, I couldn’t afford anything more than a set of 500ml beakers to drink beer out of, and had been ‘asked’ to take a year off, and repeat Chem 250.
Same test on the first day, but for some reason I couldn’t remember what used to be second nature, and I got 25% less on the exam the second time around!
Then, we discovered 150 proof rum, I dreamt of a triple band vacuum distiller. And now, earlier today I caught myself counting on my fingers to find out what month it will be in eight months! (Except I counted four backwards, and the guy counting eight forward didn’t understand what I was doing. I still got it, baby!)
Tethys,
I think of it this way: if someone has an issue with digestion as well as autism, the autism may well be exacerbated. Reactions to additives will do the same thing. That’s why the woo-meisters can promote the dairy/gluten-free diet: there will be some kids who are helped. I’m not sure that diet does anything for the underlying autism.
If there really are digestion issues involved, the low FODMAP (Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, Mono-saccharides And Polyols) diet, developed by Susan Shepherd at Monash University has some serious research behind it. In a nutshell, it’s a diet that works on about 80% of IBS sufferers by cutting back the foods that typically cause trouble. Then you add things back if you can, not if you can’t.
You could look at the diet as cutting back on difficult-to-digest foods.
I can relate :)
Drinking some water and maybe some gaterade would probably help more than coffee.
Just so you all know, we’ll start recording the Pharyngula podcast in about a half hour — you will be able to watch it live on Google+, and it will appear here once we’re done.
Where on G+? On the Pharyngula page? Or is it going to be a hangout?
@ Esteleth #240
Not named “Carrot” by any chance?
I knew without looking that it was going to be the Osmonds. I clicked anyway, and was instantly transported back to the sixth grade. Ah, 1971. Our teacher, later revealed to be a child molester, allowed kids to bring records (yes, RECORDS) from home to play during our little study periods. Someone brought “One Bad Apple.” Donny shrieking that “Oh!” repeatedly was terribly, terribly cringeworthy.
Someone else had a record that seems to have been lost in the mists of obscurity. It had a song called “Kites Are Fun” and another called “Rhonda-Go-Round.” If anyone has a clue what I’m talking about, let me know.
I have always stored my memories inside songs. They invariably bring back memories, not of facts, but of feelings.
Anyway, thanks, Janine. I still cringe when little Donny shrieks.
I never brought a record from home, myself, in the sixth grade. However, in 1972 I introduced my seventh-grade music appreciation class to Frank Zappa. Specifically, My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama, which I suspect worried my teacher somewhat.
I was probably the last person she ever expected to attend music school and study classical composition and theory.
opposablethumbs:
Negatory, seeing as how (1) this was a women’s college, (2) we are all Americans and (3) the woman in question has brown hair.
But then, she now lives in Scotland. Somewhere Oop North.
@tethys
Yes, SonSpawn did get much better at tolerating salicylates/phenols as he got bigger. Presumably it was partly because his liver got bigger, but it also helped that he knew that eating or drinking such things made him very highly irritable and could talk himself through frustrations accordingly. It’s not so much that he was made angry by what he ate as that his resilience in the face of normal frustration or change was totally shot. He was also in some fairly intensive occupational therapy at the time, to address some motor delays and low tone. The OT folks included some Brain Gym stuff, which is woo as written, but which is useful if presented as “helpful and relaxing stretching exercises.”
It’s not much of an issue at all now, but we still shy away from neon colored foods and purple grape juice…
During Women in Secularism, I woke DaughterSpawn up with this song, which was my favorite song when I was eight. I then chased her around the hotel room with the video on my ipad.
When DaughterSpawn was eight, her favorite song was Warren Zevon’s Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. Who says things don’t get better from generation to generation?
As holder of the number one slot in the Brownian Ghey Secks™ line, I invite all my fellow lesbians to come (as it were) to a Lesbian Secks and Intelligent Conversation gathering at my spot in the line. I’m hoping this will allow all the lesbians to cut in front of the Louis Groop.
Every year, GirlChild’s school holds a “Dork Olympics.” It’s a math and science charter school, and the kids embrace the labels Dork, Geek and Nerd. This year, apparently the school received a cease and desist letter from the US Olympic Committee, possibly because a local news station did a story about the Dork Olympics. Next year, they will be calling it something else.
ImaginesABeach: Seriously? Damn, I understand how institutions want to protect their brand but come on, at what point does being humourless killjoys hurt your brand more?
By chance, did the author’s name of the Anita Blake series become progressively larger on the book’s cover as the series went along?
Boss’s WTFness has reached critical levels and the union now has to be informed again. Changing sick days to vacation days and forcing me to take a half a day to meet with HR is illustrating their just petty lashing out in this last week.
@Ing
Honestly, I am at this point wondering why your boss isn’t out of a job.
Tenure. On multiple advice from people upset at being dragged into it talking to Union about it….again.
Oh man, I am moving tomorrow. Not having internet for the day is going to be torture. But at least I won’t have to work. I work every freaking day, and I hate my job, so I will be glad to not be there.
Seriously does the Olympics serve any point anymore than basically being yet another diversion for the hyper rich?
Ing:
MONEY. It makes a SHIT-TON of money.
Ing: It allows folks like me to just occasionally see sports we’re actually interested in on TV, for instance fencing and sailing. Mind you, it’ll be at most a half hour at 3am, but I’ll take what I can get.
For who?
Ing:
Saber fencing. It’s the only Olympic sport worth watching.
Mattir:
Ah, you went to WiS.
A while ago, I was discussing with my friends (wistfully) about the low student prices for that, when one said “Hey, we could go”.
I was a bit dumbfounded…
But it was too crazy to work, sadly. And on short notice, it’d never happen.
But then I realized that FTF was more nearby.
And we went.
And there was much rejoicing.
It allows a few who work their ass off to compete for an award for their hard work?
May not be something you or I give a shit about, but they do.
The hapless Other Mr. Mattir represented a small non-profit in a dispute with the USOC concerning proceeds from the SLC games. He said this evening (and said that I could attribute this to him) that the USOC was every bit as unpleasantly disturbing as Kw0k and Sch!afly.
From my recollections of the encounters, they also had fewer ethics than rabid lampreys.
I may be channelling an Inner Walton, but I think the Olympic movement is a corrupt promoter of nationalism and corporate ownership and exists primarily to enable the hyper-rich to amass money off of the hard work of individual athletes. It does not promote athletics, virtue, patriotism* (other than the useless jingoistic rah-rah-we’re-number-one variety), or anything else useful.
* I do think that patriotism can take the form of appreciating the ideals of one’s community/country and seeking to support and expand those, but this is a view that is harder and harder to hold in our current flag-waving USAnian culture. Anyone have a better word than patriotism?
Rev –
The USOC also screws athletes rather considerably, IIRC. Will exercise my google-fu tomorrow on this point, after summer camp is over. If I remember to do it…
Tony, I DID do a happydance! I also watched Dollhouse. With the sound not in my ear buds. So there.
Funny Diva, thanks for the hugs and stuff.
—
My cousin used to throw screaming tantrums and bite when he had apple juice. I don’t even know.
—
Things were a little better today. I’m very tired and my body hurts, and I’m still having a rough time with my friend not being here, but it was okay. I forgot, though, that here I am much less invisible than I am in LA. A guy was pinging some alarms in a gas station earlier, but fortunately the gas station was in a different town, so I’m not too worried about it.
I start work again on Monday and I’m very excited for it.
For now I’m going to go upstairs and play my XBox some more.
Yay, Pixar’s ‘brave’ is now available online! I’ll have to see how good the upload is.
Shit. The upload quality is awful, looks like I’ve been smacked across the snout with a baseball bat or something in some shots, but it’s so good already at 8 minutes in I can’t turn it off.
oh lol.
My attention is focused on Invest 96L in the Gulf of Mexico…
Is that blob hurricane material?
Okay, I have a question for anyone knowledgeable in anatomy, exercising, or both. I recently started an exercise plan, I’ve been doing it about two weeks, and I’ve noticed my biceps getting larger/stronger. However, my left bicep feels smaller. That made me wonder, can one muscle grow bigger than the same muscle on the other side? I always heard that it can’t. Also, I’m right-handed, so does handedness have anything to do with it? Is your “dominant side” going to naturally be a bit bigger/stronger?
@Rah Xephon
When arm wrestling, my right arm has always been stronger because I am a righty. Although not bigger in any noticeable way. Hmm…
RahXephon~
Despite appearances to the contrary, we are not perfectly symetrical. One bicep will always be larger than the other and hand preference plays a role as well. I can see (to me) an obvious difference in the size of my calf muscles, yet I work them both out the same.
Keep up the good work!
StarsEnd42
RahXephon – also, folks tend to use their dominant arm (or leg) more when exercising to their maximum strength. It’s natural to let the stronger side take more of the load; but this can exaggerate the original asymmetry. I suggest double-checking that your exercises are balanced, possibly with a spotter, or count separate reps on each arm for a baseline.
RahXephon
Did you measure everything before you started your plan?
RahXephon~
Injury can also cause the difference. You just made me realize the difference in my calf muscle size (left bigger than right) MAY be becuase I have a chronic right ankle injury and I may favor it. Another possibility to consider..
thunk I’m pretty sure my mother told me: “A watched low never blows.” Or something like that.
I don’t mind the mild asymmetry. It doesn’t impede my function, so I don’t really care too much.
In other news… ‘Brave’ was awesome despite the shitty upload quality.
@keenacat
I’d prefer to let judgements about how much impairment is too much to be made by some combination of appropriate medical specialists, persons experiencing ASD, and people who might be raising persons with ASD. Since I’m none of those people, I don’t really have a dog in that fight. It’s not like e.g. hemophilia or MS where having the condition at all in any form is pretty much going to fuck up big chunks of your life no matter what you do.
@birgerjohansson 241
To be perfectly honest, I have yet to understand why anyone voluntarily visits Florida in any season.
@Tethys, Echidna, and MAttir
I’m led to understand that similar dietary changes can alleviate ADD/ADHD in some (but not all) cases as well.
@RahXephon
That’s not at all unusual, as a few others hve noted. In fact, in many people the wristbone itself is slightly thicker and the hand larger on the dominant side. Bone growth is partially triggered by muscular exertion (ensuring that the bones remain strong enough to properly anchor the muscles), so the side that’s used more over a lifetime ets slightly thicker bones. People who use steroids to bulk up can in extreme cases break their own bones because the muscles grow faster than bone can be laid down.
Dalillama,
fair enough, but my point is that introducing ill-defined concepts like “severe impairment of function” to discern ethical from unethical is often unhelpful and can be downright harmful when discussing the ethics of avoiding/treating disabilities. Other examples include beloved gems like “acceptable quality of life”, “fair chance at survival” or “ample therapy options”.
(Caveat: There are systems out there who try to define and measure function, but none of them work for fetuses or can predict future impairment.)
Using ill-defined concepts to assess the ethics of an intervention often only serves to shame and alienate the people who have to make that call, because just maybe their offspring/patient was not impaired quite enough.
I’m not saying that impairment of fuction, quality of life etc. are useless as assessment tools (quite the contrary), but we must be very clear on who gets to make these assessments and we need to avoid biased and arguable qualifiers like “severe” or “fair” in conjunction.
This is even more important in a legal context.
Okay, I just started watching a new anime Eureka 7 AO. It is a sequel series to the original Eureka 7, which I loved. 2 episodes in, and man, it is fantastic. I hope they can keep the quality up for the rest of the season.
Mattir, #261,
I believe at some time in the past the Ghey Secks With Brownian Queue merged with the Groop Secks With Louis Queue to become the Whole Sort Of Indterminate Sweaty Pre Orgy Pile or “Queueueue” for short.
I think no one has actually exited the Queueueueue yet, I’m pretty sure Brownian hasn’t had Teh Ghey Secks with anyone, and I’m still at the Groop Secks Bar and Barbecue having the pulled pork (also available as pulled tofu) and beer of choice.
I’m beginning to the various queues and the merged multidimensional Queueueueue are the real party. After all the orgy’s been going on for a while in my queue and I’m not even there. Probably for the best actually.
Louis
Really?
We’re just getting warmed up. You can’t let us down now. We’d have to punish you for that.
Well I’m not in the Queueueueueueue, I guess I could be, but the pulled pork is really good. I’m just waiting for you lot to slither out of the pile of sweaty writhing bodies and pleasurable wickedness and pounce on me. Brownian’s the one that’s playing hard to get, I have reams of graffiti proving the fact that I am a filthy, filthy slut. Which I happen to be remarkably proud of.
Louis
Well, all right.
I suppose I must take some responsibility. Was this the beginning of the queue being spoken of publically?
–
–
Now this,
Now dearest, you do know it doesn’t really count if you wrote it yourself, don’t you.
–
Anyhow, we ride at dawn! On the morrow, I point my small-but-powerful* car north, toward Hamilton to see the final All Blacks v. Ireland test. All those manly thighs. I can scarcely contain my effervescent fervour.
–
*No, it isn’t. That’s a lie. Sounded good, though.
Amblebury,
Oh no, the Queueueueue is far older, I am flattered to say. Also, I promise I didn’t write that graffiti myself. Honest. No really. I didn’t pay anyone else to do that either, that’s right out and a total slanderous evil lie! Sort of.
As for the All Blacks vs Ireland, I HAS ANOTHER ENVY! Have fun watching that, it should be an awesome game now Ireland have decided to turn up.
My wife and I were watching the 2003 semi final between England and France, lo those many years ago, and a certain number of the French team’s tight shirts got torn. I seem to remember my wife paying much more attention to that part. She seemed remarkably enthusiastic.
I never understood why.
;-)
Louis
Ah well, great minds and all that.
–
Perhaps, like me, your wife has Sporadic Interest In Rent Garments Syndrome. I was unaware that I was afflicted with this until the recent World Cup when Sonny Bill Williams’ jersey had to be taken right off and changed, on the field.
It is difficult to understand. Patience and support is what’s required. And talking about it afterwards. And looking at the photos.
Oh I understand entirely. I remember the SBW shirt removal. So does my wife.
Louis
Wasn’t it the French national rugby team who all posed for a (reputedly) rather attractive nude calendar (or was it a book?).
Yes it was. Dieux du Stade.
Goodness, they do a new nude photoshoot every year …
… I’ll just check that …
… to make sure.
This blog needs more get-togethers. Just not in that funny country where the customs officers are grumpy from being underpaid and can lock you up for a week without access to a lawyer.
Rorschach,
Seconded.
Also Dieux du Stade. Ah yes. I defy anyone to remain 100% straight hetero male after seeing that. It’s….I….I mean the….
I just need to erm….
Louis
Also, fun fact, Stade Francais, the rugby team that do that calendar, used to/possibly still have rather garish pink rugby shirts.
I’ve always rather liked the fact that large, well muscled, gentlemen who roll around in the mud together in intimate contact then have a shower together afterwards* wear pink shirts. This is like that peacock’s tail manliness thing I am thinking. {Nods sagely}
I mean, it’s one thing to wear that sort of thing, which is fine obviously, but wearing that sort of thing in an environment where the other rugby players will just take the everloving piss out of you for all eternity, THAT takes courage. I mean, this is rugby it’s not like they don’t make dick jokes every now and again.
Louis
* WHICH IS NOT HOMOEROTIC EVER!!!!!1111!!!!!
Louis:
I defy any convinced life-long vegetarian to remain 100% vegetarian after seeing a nice glistening pork sausage.
Geez! I think it’s time for a break. The morons crawling out of the woodwork to criticize people for questioning Leah for converting to catholicism feel like they’re everywhere. The stupidity and questionable morality of some of them is scary.
~~
ImaginesABeach:
thanks for your perspective on E-readers!
~~
Katherine @107:
For all those wondering about my novel.
Raises hand :)
When it comes to the dialogue for the characters, did you have some process for figuring out their individual “voices”?
~~
TLC:
The thought of taking an axe to God’s face makes me happier than the idea of axing anyone’s face reasonably should.
Opening of the next Pharyngula Podcast…?
~~
Ing:
Damn. I’m sorry.
It’s frustrating to see some people in positions of management consistently treat others so badly.
~~
Cipher:
I also watched Dollhouse.
How was that show?
I’m a huge Eliza Dushku fan (especially after she played Faith playing Buffy in Faith’s body), but I feel like I let her down by never watching Dollhouse or Tru Calling (though in the case of the latter, it was just too soon after Buffy ended. I wasn’t ready to see Eliza play someone else. She fucking rocks it as Faith)
Louis:
if you thought Dieux du Stade was hot, I have a lot of other links for you that aren’t so G rated :)
Tony,
Like I need help with my deviant interests! Oy! ;-)
And Eliza Dushku. Eliza Dushku and Dieux du Stade. Eliza Dushku and Dieux du Stade and the Bolivian National Women’s Gymnastics team in a swimming pool of chocolate blancmange. And me on a diving board…
Ok. I need to calm down, I have a reaction to work up not an erection to work off. Back to the lab, away from the paper work and the Procrastinatonet™.
Louis
Must sleep. Need to get up in 6 hours to watch us fuck over Greece. You know, like normal. Then we get to play the English in a few days, Jebus don’t let it be a penalty shootout, you’d see those lads wearing a boner walking to the spot from the ISS.
(Crossposted from the Pharyngula Podcast thread.)
While driving into work today, I had An Idea™.
If anyone wants to get in on one of these here podcasts, but doesn’t have a headset, I would be happy to mail you mine. I just ask that after you’re done, you send them along to someone else who wants to do the podcast.
Just FYI:
*It’s a cheap Logitech plug ‘n play headset. According to the package, it is compatible with “most sound cards” and Windows XP and up.
*Not compatible with Macs! (Sorry!)
*Only worn once and I was only moderately sweaty. :p (What are you gonna do? It was 100°+ yesterday.)
You can email me via the address on my blog. Really, the only catch here is that you have to be comfortable giving an internet stranger you name and address, but I promise to use that knowledge only for the power of good!
(I am assuming that the sound quality wasn’t godawful– I still haven’t watched the vid, so if the headset should just be tossed, please let me know!)
John,
“Glistening pork sausage” made me literally lol.
How many times do I have to say it? My bladder control ain’t what it used to be. Stop making me laugh, guys!
Ok. That’s it. I’ve come to the end of the internet and it’s not a pretty place.
Warning, there’s got to be some sort of trigger here, but more of a 12 year old type of humor trigger.
What the hey, Greta’s blog is missing? Site hiccups or should I be concerned?
For lack of a better place to ask: anyone else have problems reaching Greta Christina’s blog? I’m getting an error that says “No site by that name on this system.” Any idea where I can report that?
@Pteryxx in #316: well, that answers my first question… And I’m wondering the same thing. Hope it’s just a glitch.
Also, the list of FTB blogs in the sidebar seems to be missing. I haven’t had a problem reaching any other blog, YET – but I haven’t checked them all…
Can you please explain to me why people would want to go to Florida in summer?
I’m not terribly clear on why people go to Florida any time of the year, but my best guess as to the summer tourists is that they go to hang out on beaches and see and be seen. Further conundrum: all or almost all hotels in Florida are air conditioned. Why go to Florida to experience the heat and then sit in A/C?
Every other blog is up except Greta’s. (Also, wow that’s a long list and who are some of these people? *peeks*)
Every year, GirlChild’s school holds a “Dork Olympics.” It’s a math and science charter school, and the kids embrace the labels Dork, Geek and Nerd. This year, apparently the school received a cease and desist letter from the US Olympic Committee, possibly because a local news station did a story about the Dork Olympics.
FSM, but the Olympics committee has a porcupine up their butt about their brand. Call it the Dork Games after the Gay Games (name also changed due to conflict with USOC).
Heh, another consciousness raised… Hank Fox weighs in about realizing that sexual harassment really is worth fighting.
https://proxy.freethought.online/bluecollaratheist/2012/06/22/the-funny-thing-about-sexual-harassment-and-then-the-unfunny-thing/
Need to get up in 6 hours to watch us fuck over Greece. You know, like normal.
Maybe. If you don’t get all superstitious over an octopus again.
Then we get to play the English in a few days
Maybe. If they win. You might be playing the Italians.
Hi, Pteryxx.
My first thought was that I missed some news on the debt crisis. My second was that I should never trust my first thoughts. My third was that I better not eat any more cheese* this close to bed time and my fourth was a worry that some day they’ll add a parsing checker to my browser software.
*The three year aged cheddar, it calls to me in a voice so zesty and crumbly. How can I resist when I am so weak and it? It is so strong.
Re Dieux du Stade: They’re ok looking, but can any of them carry on an intelligent conversation about atheism, sexism, or the finer points of iron metabolism*? Yawn! I want a real man to fantasize about! One with well connected cortical neurons!
*The answer is almost certainly “yes”. I shouldn’t stereotype them as stupid any more than female actors or models are always stupid. But they’re probably spending more time honing their bodies than their minds so their intellectual achievements are likely to be less impressive than their physical.
Ahhhh… I want to wriiiite but I can’t cause I’m work.
I just introduced the female main character in my story – the elf Mara Kirrowe. She’s bitter about her family, and has a kind of jerky attitude which doesn’t translate itself well as an officer of the peace. Fortunately for her, the commander is willing to give her another shot at potential promotion – by giving her command of the next case that comes around.
Oh hey, look a new case. A murder in a back alley, should be easy shouldn’t it? (yea, no. Said murder is related to a cult in the city that takes orders from the mega-evil guy who by the way, wants to take over the world by killing the entirety of the ruling class of Tavsere.)
I am wondering what exactly the genetic basis for Autism/Aspergers
is? I know that there does seem to be a link, but is it known whether it is due to recessive genes, or damaged genes?
Not so much threadrupt as threadrandom and just saw this one.
There are several genes that are definitely associated with autism and autism-like conditions (i.e. Rett syndrome has a specific associated mutation). As far as I know, not every case of autism has been associated with a specific gene and most of the known genes are associated with particularly nasty forms of autism. It’s probably going to turn out that autism is multiple conditions with multiple causes. Some may be related to in utero exposures and maybe even early infancy exposures. The one thing we know for certain doesn’t cause autism is vaccines.
I don’t know why I’m imagining the Cheif as a hard drinking hard smoking grizzled troll.
“This is your last chance, Kirrowe. Play this by the book or so help me I’ll have your badge!”
@Ing:
He’s a bit of a sad case. His life’s dream was utterly crushed, and in reaction, although he’s now the commander of the investigative unit, he’s got really no heart in it. He’s become consumed by work to the point where he drove a huge wedge between himself and the only woman he’s ever really cared for, he doesn’t drink much, but can be found at bars often. He’s very by-the-book, indeed, and he’s an extremely good officer, but he hates his job since it’s changed from one where he goes out and meets with people and is now one where he basically files paperwork all day and makes public appearances.
Katherine, there’s no easy way to put this so I’ll just come out with it: I’m now on page 223 of a 350 page novel AND my family will be away for the neoptolemus next couple of days AND the library will be closed at any time I’m off work. Now is not the time to be taunting me with teh awesome that I cannot have! I shall be cursing your name as I ration myself to 42 pages a day. :p
Oh I left in that Neoptolemus because that’s what my spell check threw up when I tried to spell next. Awesome.
@FossilFishy:
Sorry… but if it’s any consolation I want to write. I’m just at work. Stupid work. If I was independently wealthy I could write all the time I could!
Thanks for the replies, everyone. As far as the exercises I do, I don’t own weights and don’t have access to my school gym at the moment, so I only do pushups.
Also, measuring my arms before I started would’ve been pointless because, well…I’m fat and have chubby upper arms. If I’d measured before I started, then my arms have probably shrunk a bit since then. One frustrating thing about my diet-and-exercise plan is that I’m sure I’m losing weight, but my arm-flap water-wing droopy flab things aren’t going away yet, and they’re my biggest (aesthetic) concern.
No worries Katherine, I was just whinging for the hopefully humourous sake of it. Besides, [becons Katherine closer, drops voice to a whisper] shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I managed a use book store for almost 20 years, I’ve got a stash of thousands of books that I could, in the direst of circumstances, re-read.
RahXephon: y’know you can bodge weights by lifting water jugs, books or a cloth bag filled with stuff? One decent way to judge left-right balance is to lift the same weight in the same way as many times as possible with each arm, and see if the number of reps match.
RahXephon, if you think you may be inadvertently favouring one side more than the other when you do pushups and don’t have weights handy – you’ve probably already considered this but just in case you haven’t – what about suitably-sized household items/groceries of known weight? Bags of sugar or rice or some such (triple-bagged or wrapped in cling-film to avoid the inevitable split with rice all over the floor …).
That way you could make sure you do the same no. of reps with the same weight on both sides.
I guess you know plenty of different variations to do? Probably available on line if not. (I’m lucky in that I have an off-peak concession rate at a public gym nearby. I use machines rather than free weights, to make sure my positioning is right as I found it was easy to get it wrong without noticing).
Oh, snap! Treading on your heels there, Pteryxx!
Go to the bottom of the blog entry.
That is supposed to be funny?
Why is that strip still around?
hee, opposablethumbs, I didn’t even think about “known weight”. When I make weights I just go “Hm, that seems about right” but good point – it’s better to lift matching weights on both sides simultaneously if possible.
Rule of thumb I was told – the correct weight is one you can lift for fifteen to twenty reps before you have to take a break. If you can only make ten reps, it’s too heavy; if you can do thirty or more, it’s too light.
@FossilFishy:
Lucky.
This book is really exciting me, I’m looking forward to completing it.
I do have tons of those reusable grocery bags they sell at grocery stores. It’d be pretty easy to put rice in them and increase the weight if I need to. Only thing I’d need to do is go get some rice.
I was just coming here with that same issue! The error I’m getting says:
Warning: Attempt to assign property of non-object in /home/newfreet/public_html/wp-includes/ms-settings.php on line 111
No site by that name on this system.
That makes me wonder, though, if I start lifting weights at home, do I stop doing pushups or what? I usually do pushups every other day.
RahXephon
Are you doing only arm exercises?
You shouldn’t neglect the other parts.
RahXephon, heck no! Do a bunch of different exercises for different muscle groups. My slate’s push-ups, abdominal curls, side crunches, a few different arm and leg lifts with weights, random stuff that seems interesting to change it up (wind sprints in place, toe lifts, squats, whatever) and stretching before and after. The whole slate takes 30-45 minutes. (This is modified from the recommendations of my hockey coach way back when, hence the leg and core emphasis.)
Well, pushups aren’t just an arm exercise, and I walk for 30 minutes every day (like actual sweaty/breathless walking, not a leisurely stroll) so my legs get a workout too.
Just finished a “cultural competence” course for work. Is it wrong that I found the course a bit culturally insensitive? It seemed to me to be recommending talking down to people from other cultures and assuming that they were likely to be superstitious and/or completely inflexible in their thinking.
@Pteryxx
That sounds pretty…strenuous. My fitness level is pretty low. For reference, I’m 6 feet tall and about 250 pounds, which is a guess since I haven’t been near a scale in at least six months. It’s also what’s on my driver’s license, so it must be true. Also, my fitness history prior to starting this plan is “did two situps, said ‘fuck this noise’ and spent the next 8 years reading during gym class”.
my fitness history prior to starting this plan is “did two situps, said ‘fuck this noise’ and spent the next 8 years reading during gym class”.
So don’t do sit ups. Do something fun and active. Hike somewhere with pretty scenery, bike tour same, rock climb, ski, etc. That will also motivate you to get to the gym in the off season to keep in shape. Also useful for gym type exercise: cell phones, ipods, etc. You’re much more likely to go back if you enjoy the exercise than if you do it out of grim duty.
That’s Mitt Romney speaking. The same Mitt Romney who specialized in relocating jobs done in America to China and India.
Link.
You mean that red circle from roughly the southern point of Florida to half-way across the Yucatan? It has a name? Where do you find out if it’s got a name?
70% chance, and looking good to spin up. I think it’ll make the grade.
–
I think that the point of the peacock’s tail is not so much about the cost (in terms of coercive facial rearrangements and the like) of sporting something so cumbersomely large and pink, but the eye spots. You can possibly convince a predator that you’re never alone, that you’ve got a whole gang of birds on your side, if your tail has enough eye spots, and you habitually run with a gang of other sweaty, muscular dudes also wearing pink shirts.
–
RahXephon, I guess you may be right; mine is a pretty light workout *for a beer-league hockey player* so I just assumed that baseline.. This is what I do for maintenance and rehab after the last several years of poor conditions. (For comparison, game-season workouts were a couple hours of laps, wind sprints, scrimmaging and push-ups *on the ice in full gear* twice a week.) Also for what it’s worth, I’m shorter and weigh more than you, and I always have, even while actually playing. *shrug* Weight’s weird and not a great measurement of either fitness or strength.
Still, half an hour’s quick walking is roughly equivalent to a half hour doing strength training exercises. Walking’s aerobic training, to build endurance and general metabolism, instead of power-building which push-ups and similar repetitive motions are. Seconding Dianne – it’s most important to find something interesting and enjoyable that keeps you coming back. To me, the repetition and counting is calming, like meditation; if it drives you up the wall, do something else. (It’s also independent of weather or car access. ~;> )
also Ophelia’s blog is back. *whew*
You know, I’m honestly starting to think that being an idiot is a fucking requirement to be a landlord.
If I have to answer one more question about what’s wrong with my office’s A/C, I’m gonna throttle someone. It’s on and blowing warm air! It’s wall mounted! No, it’s not a breaker, the damned thing is on! No, I don’t actually know what isn’t working on it, if I knew that, I’d fix the fucking thing myself!
*headdesk!*
*headdesk!*
*headdesk!*
Yeah, your muscle/fat ratio is probably way different than mine.
I listen to podcasts on my phone with an exercise app running that tracks everything (CardioTrainer for Android, shoutout!) while I walk so I usually just zone out and wait for the “training complete” message. I don’t know if you’d call that “meditation”, but while my body is exercising I let my mind mull over other things.
RahXeophon, is CardioTrainer good? I use MFP as a calorie tracker, but is CT useful?
Yep, I’m no expert but that’s exactly what I mean. Sort of zoning out and calming of mental chatter. (Music for me; listening to words takes too much effort.)
I’m currently reading the (uber trendy I know) Momofuku cookbook and went up to this gigantic Asian supermarket to pick up some ingredients.
Let’s just say I left very confused and slightly exhausted but managed to get most everything I went for.
I had an idea, but the vast number of styles and brands of noodles alone sent me into a mild vertio head spin.
@Audley: My wild guess is that something’s wrong with the compressor of your AC. Maybe it’s out of the ozone hole stuff that it needs. Maybe telling the landlord and/or repair person that you think the compressor isn’t working would be helpful. Otherwise, sorry if this is kind of mansplainingish.
yeah that was close to me for a while. When i lived out west in jackson hole and telluride I had a built in exercise plan with all the skiing biking climbing etc.. Once I moved south I kind of lost all fitness until about a year and half ago or so.
Took a friend’s recommendation and a some commitment and tried out a particular over advertised workout program. I fucking LOATHE going to the gym. Period. And that was a big mental barrier and excuse for me for a good 8 or 9 years. Now this program is real popular but for me it wasn’t that it was a particular program but that it was some program I could rely on to tell me what the fuck to do. And most importantly I could do it all from home and as a bonus without a huge expenditure of cash. Well worth it. I’ve still got a few lbs. to lose but I’m in the best cardio shape i’ve been in a more than a decade and I actually have some crazy strange for me muscle definition.
Having the ability to do it from home was the big get over the hill moment for me.
I really like CardioTrainer. It has loads of functions, like it tracks your route through GPS and counts the distance, counts your steps, calculates calories burned based on your weight (how accurate it is, I don’t really know, and I guess it doesn’t really matter). It also has loads of different exercise types, like walking, running, jogging, cycling. Plus it’s free.
They apparently have a different weight-loss app called Zoom. I haven’t tried it, and don’t really think I need to; calorie counting isn’t my issue at the moment, or if it is it’s in the other direction.
[Possible trigger warning]
I had (or I guess have) an eating disorder, because I chronically overate. I’m talking eating a giant bag of chips in one sitting, at least 1 2-liter bottle of soda would be gone in a day, I frequently went to buffets. I decided that since I didn’t have access to some kind of treatment, I had to “treat” myself, so I cut out a lot of the bad foods and started restricting portion sizes. I’ve gotten used to it now and it’s gotten rid of it almost completely. Now I have to remind myself to eat and try to make sure I eat enough every day, not too much. It’s been a big relief for me.
Also, CardioTrainer tells you how many calories you burned via fruit. “You burned 4 oranges!” is a funny message to get when you’re done.
Dianne,
No problem– I think you’re right, anyway.
But, good news! They’re going to replace the unit on Monday morning and if it gets too hot in here today, I can just go home.
I am looking forward to Katherine’s novel.
(I wish I had the talent to write novels. I write poetry, badly, but the Muse has never favoured me very much.)
Thirding (or fourthing etc.) Dianne! It’s very much about finding what works for you, imo. I find that in practice I fail badly at sticking to something at home (where I live at a desk, in front of a screen … for work, I mean, as well as fun, which is why it’s so hard to resist dropping in here from time to time to time :-D ) So I’m extremely grateful to be able to use a gym (it’s run by the council, and since I meet a combination of criteria for them I can go extremely cheaply). I do a bit of resistance, a bit of core and an hour of cardiovascular and am quite sure that if I didn’t I’d be far, far more decrepit! And I hate the idea of running out-doors. But a friend of mine loves it, and gets up at the crack of dog-knows-how-bloody-early to run before work, which I could never EVER do. And someone else I know finally found that what got her going was competition dancing! So who cares what you pick, as long as you find what you actually like!
Wishing you plenty of as-enjoyable-as-possible exercise, RahXephon (and all exercising Hoarders).
As for exercise, I’ve been trying to get back into shape after a year of too little exercise; I’m currently aiming to work my way back up to regular 5k runs, like I used to do last summer. (I did run 4.5k on the treadmill the other day, in 20 minutes, which wasn’t too bad.)
(Running is by far my favourite form of exercise. I used to weight-train, but I’ve got out of the habit, and my upper body strength has never been very good; I’ve got a naturally skinny and weedy build.)
@ OP
But on the video site: “The dancers in Syria are blurred for their safety.” :'(
@ Audley
It is too hot, you best go home and relax.
My early-morning-running friend finds that she often works out the plots of stories while she runs. Do you maybe mull over poetry or political/legal arguments and the like while you run, Walton?
Who linked to http://jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.com and her review of Fifty Shades of Grey? It’s hilarious. Thank you for the link!
See, now I can’t stand running, between the hypervigilance and a naturally cockeyed stance. Walking’s tolerable. For me it’s weights/reps on any carpeted floor, and swimming if such is accessible; but my absolute favorite physical activity is engaging in violent play-combat with other people. Hockey, football, wrestling, tug of war, pillow fights, whacking each other with padded sticks. I won’t know I’m tired until the following morning – then, ouch!
I also might really like wall-climbing, but that requires access to a facility and usually a paid membership. Someday.
No, not while running… I find that I have to concentrate, since I tend to push myself to my physical limits. I often think about those things while recovering after a run, though.
Closest thing I do to exercise is belly dance. Also walking. I sometimes wish that I could get myself to do other exercises to be in better shape for dance, but right now, seems not likely. (Maybe after I’ve settled in I’ll find something else.) On the bright side, dance has successfully pulled me out of being all agitated and walking around my house not being able to focus before, so that’s a good thing. I liked rock climbing last time I tried it, but it was a long time ago and I’m more anxious since then.
—
Dollhouse is fantastic as far as I’m concerned. Part of it is that the themes of the show are psychologically important to me, and the show got me through a rough time, with a great deal of inconsolable Joss-induced sobbing. So I love it. There are people who don’t, even among Joss fans. Eliza Dushku is awesome but… I’ll put it this way – the acting demands of her role are very high, and there are better actors on the series. Enver Gjokaj for ALL THE AWARDS (V jngpurq gur barf jurer ur’f Ivpgbe nf Gbcure ntnva gur bgure qnl. Eeeeeee!), and of course Amy Acker is pretty much my favorite of all humans.
For exercise, I do yoga.
Lately, I have started riding my bike to work (about a mile and a half). But other than that I’m pretty sedentary.
But Walton – I favor you. I think you’re spiffy!
Bah. I don’t exercise nearly enough.
And on circumcision:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18549968
The old HIV trick again, though i think it’d be more effective to just raise awareness of safe sex and other practices.
Not a partially effective, pushed by religion procedure.
All of the safe-sex lectures aren’t going to mean squat unless the weaker party in a relationship (usually the woman) is sufficiently empowered to negotiate for safe-sex techniques and items.
I’d just like to express my gratitude to Patricia (and others) for their ideas for steampunking my narrow boat.. I’ve been on a bit of a binge I’m afraid and haven’t really been up to responding properly. Drinking again now, but thought I’d get this said before I become incapable/incoherrent.
Exercise: It definitely has to be something you enjoy. My favourite form of exercise is swimming. Since the university pool isn’t very accessible during the summer, and I can’t seem to get rid of my golfer’s elbow, I’m not swimming. Most other forms of exercise are a chore for me. So I’m not getting very much exercise, and I am therefore a nervous, sleep-deprived mess half of the time.
However, I’m really enjoying my weekly Pilates class. I had terrible core strength and balance before, and it’s very rewarding to see improvements. It’s also relaxing to spend an hour focusing on movement and breathing.
I thought recently that I should get into rock climbing, but I think I just figured out why I don’t: You need a partner.
Many of my fitness/health problems can be laid at the feet of two things:
1) When I was an undergraduate, I was a competitive athlete (I was a butterflyer). After that ended, I realized that I didn’t really know how to stay fit, just how to get into peak form. And peak form is not something that I can be maintained for very long.
2) In graduate school, I got very sick. I had cancer, specifically. I lost a ton of weight, then gained it all back, plus some.
But my metabolism has changed! I don’t know how to eat for my new metabolic state.
The Guardian ponders Mitt Romney’s extraordinary penchant for lying. So much for the mormon reputation for honesty (which was always a load of bollocks anyway).
Excerpts from the Guardian article below:
…Granted, presidential candidates are no strangers to disingenuous or overstated claims; it’s pretty much endemic to the business. But Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious. Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.
Now, in general, those of us in the pundit class are really not supposed to accuse politicians of lying – they mislead, they embellish, they mischaracterize, etc. Indeed, there is natural tendency for nominally objective reporters, in particular, to stay away from loaded terms such as lying. Which is precisely why Romney’s repeated lies are so effective. In fact, lying is really the only appropriate word to use here, because, well, Romney lies a lot. But that’s a criticism you’re only likely to hear from partisans….
This is perhaps the most interesting and disturbing element of Romney’s tireless obfuscation: that even when corrected, it has little impact on the presumptive GOP nominee’s behavior. This is happening at a time when fact-checking operations in major media outlets have increased significantly, yet that appears to have no effect on the Romney campaign.
What is the proper response when, even after it’s pointed out that the candidate is not telling the truth, he keeps doing it? Romney actually has a telling rejoinder for this. When a reporter challenged his oft-stated assertion that President Obama had made the economy worse (factually, not correct), he denied ever saying it in the first place. It’s a lie on top of a lie….
Romney is charting new and untraveled waters in American politics. In the process, he is cynically eroding the fragile sense of trust that exists between voters and politicians. It’s almost enough to make one pine for the days when Sarah Palin lied about “the Bridge to Nowhere”.
*blushes* Why, thank you! But I was thinking of your namesake Calliope, who rarely seems to grace me with her presence when I’m attempting to write works of fiction.
Esteleth.
yeah, disregard what I said last.
*runs and hides*
TLC: Was “Brave” really that good? I’ve been all but dancing around in anticipation for it to come out.
Oh wait, possibility of bratty kids and assorted idiots in the crowd. . . I wonder if mantinee showings are still a good way to avoid that situation.
4-1 at 86 minutes in.
Walton
See, there’s your problem, I’m much more fond of Clio.
Now, I demand Germany and Greece play the Mesoamerican ball game.
Victor gets to decide economic policy.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19280_why-youve-never-heard-greatest-sport-ever-invented.html
From what I could see of it, yeah. I liked how they avoided typical disney tropes, and it’s a very ‘celtic’ tale overall (but you all already knew that I assume)
Remember, the upload quality WAS shit. I can’t wait to watch it in a better quality version.
Hey, hordchen, anyone out there a lawyer?
Finally! Thank FSM! A priest is convicted:
I hope this is the start of some semblance of justice for victims of priestly sexual abuse worldwide.
thunk @390:
From your cracked link:
That’s right: In many cases, if you lost, you were decapitated and had your head stuck on a pole and displayed like a flag.
If you win the game, you may die. If you lose the game, you will die. What are the perks of playing this?
I get my exercise through a combination of being cheap and being broke: I’m not willing, or usually able, to shell out for a car or a bus pass, so I ride my bike everywhere.
Clueless and cluelessier:
.
UFO Group Rallies To Repair The Image Of The Swastika http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/swastika-rehabilitation-day_n_1610551.html
.
Yes, Iraq Definitely Had WMD, Vast Majority Of Polled Republicans Insist http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/iraq-wmd-poll-clueless-vast-majority-republicans_n_1616012.html
.
Idiots both, but at least the Raelians do not actively harm others. Maybe they should donate the swastika to the other bunch?
— — — — — — — —
Wow. Our country was founded by Hagar the Horrible!
“Colbert dares Sweden: ‘Take a chance on me!'” http://www.thelocal.se/41604/20120622/
thunk:
thanks btw, now I’m addicted to crack(ed):
Ah, The Matrix.
Such promise you showed in your first outing.
You even showed a glimmer of hope by the end of Reloaded.
Then you went down the toilet in Revolution.
Apropos of nothing I am watching Miriam Margolis on telly with Greg Davies. Two of my favourite comedy humans. Lovely people.
If you don’t know who they are, get thee to google.
Louis
Well, it’s 10am here in Middle Earth, and The Child for whom we’d made arrangements so we could head north and see the All Blacks v. Ireland match, is sick. Genuinely sick. We have a couple of hours before we have to leave to get there in time, so, we’ll see. I’m feeling a little queasy myself. *Sob* I booked those tickets months ago!
–
I third Rorschach’s proposition that get-togethers happen. How about the next GAC in Aussie in roughly 18 months’ time? I had the pleasure of meeting the good Doctor at the last GAC. He is every inch the strapping man-beast you’d imagine him to be.
–
Books? I’m a compulsive have-to-finish. Especially the bad ones. A kind of need to kill it so I don’t have to worry about it any more feeling.
I recommend over and over Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy. Sci-fi that deals with fundie xtianity, feminism, racism, extremism of every stripe. Please read these. I can’t seem to convince anyone to, and I’d love to have someone to talk to about them. One of my colleagues read the first two, loved them, but was too invested in the characters to be able to read the third straight away.
I’m the librarian, and this pince-nez is in fact a nunchuck. So do as you’re told children.
Today was a holiday, Midsummer eve.
Also, the last day of the trial of the mass murderer Breivik.
Swedish television was actually broadcasting Norwegian TV live, from the closing arguments (the languages are close enough that you can go without subtitles or voiceovers). The judgement will be made August 22nd.
I fell asleep in front of the TV and woke up in the afternoon, buried myself in a Brit crime novel set in the Penine hills. Ordinary criminals, not ideologically motivated exterminators, thank Wodin.
I’m another compelled-to-finish reader and yet I, too, will NOT be making myself read the next Sookie book. Seriously, this last one was plot by numbers drivel without any actual writing going on whatsoever.
This is why series should end at one point! A series is supposed to adhere to a story arc that actually finishes at some point!, not just drift on infinitely in a desperate attempt to squeeze out one more bestseller based on $Featured $Character until no one is interested enough in buying the books anymore! That’s inhuman abuse of fictional characters!
[/book nerd rant]
Warning: Rant to follow:
So I live and work in an uber conservative part of Texas. I’ve made my peace with this, mostly by knowing that I’ll get to leave someday soon.
One of my both sanity and safety precautions is that I am only “Out” to a handful of people who I know are sympathetic or themselves closet atheists at work.
I am also out to one of my close coworkers, lets call him “A” as a result of us having to travel together for about 7 months, and when you spend that much time with a person, you get to know each other pretty well. He is a fundie, and could probably star in his own episode of “Fundies Say the Darnedest Things.”
And then. Today. Toward the end of a conversation he’s telling me, in front of a mutual friend, let’s call him “B” that the reason I can trust B is because he’s A’s “Brother in Christ.” (Yes, he said it in caps, don’t ask me how.)
I just kind of shrug off A’s comment which had become our standard way for me to say I wasn’t going to comment on one of his religious moments.
So instead of letting it drop, A, starts telling B about how his been “Witnessing” to me for the last two years. Then he starts pussyfooting around actually saying “She’s an Atheist.”
To the point I finally just go, “A is trying to say that I’m an atheist.”
B, out of earshot of A, “Wow, you can put up with him witnessing to you, you must be incredibly patient.”
Me “No, I just smile and nod. He’s a good guy otherwise, so I just ignore it.”
B “But you’re not really an Atheist are you?”
Me “Yes. I do not believe in a god.”
B “But atheists don’t believe in anything. There is no such thing as an atheist.”
Me “Yes there is. I have plenty of opinions and beliefs. But I simply don’t believe in a god. Hence a-theist.”
B “Blarble garble no such thing as theists or atheists, xtians only exists blarglagajiweaoijfr;oijafwoije”
Me “FML”
———————
So now I’ve been outed without my permission to someone at work with enough power to cause me trouble.
B doesn’t seem like he will cause trouble, but the potential is there.
*headdesk*
Fuck. Fuck…Fuck…
Tony:
Unmarked snark, sorry.
But it’s good (aside from occasional problematic stuff)
Rawnaeris: Ah gods. Christians and their lack of boundaries.
Am I the only person here who plays Skyrim and has an ever-growing pile of abandoned playthroughs? I just cannot seem to commit to a single character. I end up not liking their name or I pick the wrong perks or I decide I wanna be a man instead of a woman so I can gay marry one of the guys from the Companions or I make a mage and remember that mages in Elder Scrolls games are total garbage.
@Rah
I have exactly one character. Ninja wizard.
You might want to pick your favorite character to build and wait for the DLC where they’re including a plastic surgeon (also mounted combat and a skill tree for vampires and werewolves)
In other video game news: one of the game reviewers on TGWTG self destructed in a Mel Gibson esq explosion of slurs and rape “jokes”
Ing: Which one was this? I’m a bit of a TGWTG fan, though I kinda ignore the game stuff.
@TLC
Spoony/Noah Antwiler
I…kinda tried that, I guess? I tried taking some of the Thief skills and mixing them with Illusion magic, but I ended up cheating and then got Cheater’s Guilt and started over. I count doing things like running around spamming Courage on people to up my Illusion skill to be cheating too, even though it’s allowed by the game rules.
Also, I tried making an archer character and I thought I was an awesome shot, and then I found out the game’s bows have AUTO-TARGETING. And they don’t even tell you! Ugh. What a letdown.
I commit too easily to one character. I mess something up, I just keep playing with it messed up. But I think I chose well anyhow. Sneaky archer dark elf woman named Cipher. Suits me.
@Rah
Nah that’s not cheating. Cheating is casting Soul Trap on corpses to up Conjuring.
i can’t talk though, I maxed Smith by making stuff rather than getting the magic pickax
as a side note, they really need to give more uses for poisons in a DLC.
What I haven’t committed to is any side in the Civil War. The Emperire’s Mages are dicks and Stormcloak is an asshole, who had the nerve to treat me like crap after we escaped together.
I havn’t even really expanded the main quest too far yet.
I am Threadrupt, so, I’m just going to hop in on the Skyrim conversation.
Ing, I can’t stand either side in the civil war either, although I’ve made it further in the Imperial side than the Stormcloak.
I have a tendency to start new toons because the damn save screen on PC is so hard to navigate between characters that I just don’t even try. I wish you could skip cutscenes at the beginning.
My Imperial toon is a Theif/Archer-ness. Sneak may be the best move in the game (imho)
I usually play Dark Elf guys because I think they’re hot, and they’re good at most things in the game. However, my current failcharacter is a Nord warrior woman.
I just wish the opening of the game wasn’t so damn long and scripted. It makes trying out new builds even more time-consuming and annoying. At least in Morrowind you got a text box with some backstory, picked all your crap and got thrown off the boat.
The only workaround I’ve come up with is saving right before the guy asks you who you are (which I just realized is a bit of a plot hole; if they don’t even know who you are, why were you arrested?)
Whoa, that works? I’ve never tried that. The way I cheated was to cast Bound Sword over and over near a pond full of those Skyrim piranhas.
I hate leveling up Smithing. I think it sucks so much leveling up Smithing that cheating is legit. What is this magic pickax of which you speak?
Also, I agree about the no-good-side-in-the-Civil-War thing. At first I wanted to go with Ulfric and the Stormcloaks, but then I went to Windhelm, saw he was a racist and an asshole, and left. I’d rather be ordered around by Colonel Tigh, even if he did almost murder me.
Just keep making iron daggers in Windhold(helm?). That blacksmiths iron back-stock respwans every two game days, and all you have to do it wait it.
Also, you make most of the money from buying the iron back in selling her the iron daggers.
Rawnaeris, that’s scary. *hugs*
–
Yeah, I’m favoring the Empire because it seemed more than a little mascoty to help the Stormcloaks considering their racism against dark elves. I actually really appreciate the grey and grey morality deal.
Biggest problem I have right now is an overabundance of magical shit I need to sell and insufficient people to sell to.
Won’t work. Patch made Smith level by value of product not quantity of them.
Atop the biggest mountain there’s a pickax that improves Smith each time it’s used as a weapon.
You were arrested for sneaking past a checkpoint. They don’t care WHo you are.
Due to conjuring also being necromancing you can target conjuring spells on corpses. Any corpse you can reanimate you can cast on…and your skill goes up the more badass the thing was in life.
I feel rather silly because I realized that (due to my long periods of time not being able to play Skyrim) I keep forgetting things I already know. Like, that I can break down magical stuff and learn their enchantments. And that this would be more worth it to me than selling the stuff in the long run, considering I have more gold than I know what to do with.
Cheating is using console commands like tgm or player.addperk. Casting courage on an NPC is totally in bounds. It even makes game sense. Think about, if you were able to cast magic spells that filled people with bravado and rashness, wouldn’t your friends save a fortune on liquor?
Same but the mess up just adds to the character story for me so I never get too bothered. Had a Khajit I nicknamed Reuben The Mediocre because, fool that I was back in Morrowind, I never specialized my characters. So I tried to do everything at once and just ended up with a character who couldn’t handle himself out of weak enemy encounters.
Well, Ing, sorry. Proves how long it’s been since I’ve had any time to play.
>.< My bad.
——
@cicely, it's not scary, exactly, but it is damned inconvenient.
Thanks for the *hugs* :)
@Laughing Coyote, that really sums it up well. I had something clever I was going to say, but I seem to have forgotten it already.
—-
[Meta] I really need to stop only commenting here when something crap has happened.
That explains a lot. I remember using the spamdagger trick when the game first came out, but I tried it again yesterday. After making 50 iron daggers I had only gone up a level.
Do you mean the biggest mountain besides the one that the shouting monks are on, or do you mean that one?
Oh, that explains it. I guess the Empire has finally discovered how ineffectual cobblestone prisons are since Oblivion and just straight-up kill people for committing crimes now.
Finally!
Except the only character I play with already has smithing 89…
Still, yay!
Wow. I’m extremely territorial. That’s not actually new, but I feel like it might be more pronounced than before.
I know, I guess by cheating I just meant it doesn’t feel like it’s how it’s “intended” to be done.
That said I am at max smith and still need potions and enchanted gear to improve my stuff to good levels.
Though good levels at this point is “kills gods”
Ninja duels Dagger of Woe and Dagger of Paralysis.
I hope a DLC allows you to take down the theive’s guild and improve that city’s poverty problem. I was annoyed you couldn’t do that like you could the Brotherhood.
HI everybody!
So, update as to the internship: I haven’t gotten paid yet… except in beer. :)
Apparently these folks are big on beer.
My people!
I’ve been keeping up somewhat, but I can’t post as much since I broke the keyboard on my laptop. Definitely soliciting either suggestions as to how to deal with it (cause: a teeny bit of water with dish detergent in it) or spare keyboards anyone has lying around.
Off to a party! Yay! Have a great night!
A DLC I’d like to see is an overhaul of the magic system. I understand the point that “magic is more powerful than a sword so let’s limit how much you can use it” or whatever, but the thing is, the spells aren’t more powerful than a sword, and are frequently less powerful. Running out of Magicka after killing 2 Draugr while 8 more show up has sent my mage ass scampering like a frightened jackrabbit more times than I can recall.
Also, since enemies love to move around the the Firebolt is the size of a golf ball, I miss most of the time. Someone with a sword can miss for free; I miss a few times and I’m dead.
Oh, except the upgraded Fireball spell, it does area damage, yay! Except area damage will frequently hit your followers, and for some design logic I still cannot fathom, you’re the only one capable of killing your followers.
I think with magic you’re supposed to pimp yourself up with enchanted cloths and artifacts to up your MP and regeneration rate…and use perks to reduce the costs.
THIIIIIIS. I have inadvertently killed my Lydia so many times. SO FRUSTRATING.
@RahXephon
If you play on PC you can download the Midas Magic mod. It adds a lot very useful spells that actually make playing a pure mage viable (and not just a fighter with restoration or conjuration as a supplement) The only downside is you need to track down ingredients to craft each spell before you can learn it and it gets pretty annoying at upper tiers.
by it’s Lydia so nothing of value was lost!
((Seriously here attitude grated on me so much.))
I am sworn to carry your burdens…
You can HEAR her rolling her eyes. It’s ridiculous.
Unfortunately, I get attached to followers just as quickly and unreasonably as I do to my characters, so I can’t get rid of my Lydia.
“I am SWORN to carry your burdens”
GAHHHH *beats to death with Shovel*
You have too if you want any sustainability. And even then you need some sort of tank to draw attention away from you because you don’t have nearly enough perks to master every branch of magic and pick up the helpful side boosts (like atronarch) that would make it possible to really solo some of the more challenging areas.
Mind you getting there is the most frustrating thing on the planet on Master mode. So much easier playing a sneaky archer/assassin.
I replaced her with a companion, because at least they don’t back sass me.
God damn it. Comment went into auto-moderation. Trying again:
Attention Tethys and smokers interested in the e-cigarette! Tethys asked for my recommendations on another thread. Since many of you have too I’m posting my buyer’s guide here. Thanks for your indulgence with my wall-o-text.
YES LYDIA I AM BEATING YOU TO DEATH WITH A MAGIC SHOVEL A SHOVEL I ENCHANTED JUST TO BEAT YOU WITH IT!!! GAAAAAH!!!
On less psychotic notes: DLC needs a way to break down items for ingredients like New Vegas…make all those vender trash useful. And possibly to melt down weapons back into metal
“What do you wish of me, My Thane.”
“Well I was gonna give you this decked out suit of Plate Armor I slaved over, cuz you, it’s been 2 game months since we started adventuring together and all… but now I think I’ll just sell it.”
BTW, Cipher–I didn’t get to say so before, but CONGRATULATIONS!! on a successful semester.
I am so happy for you. I don’t know if you got all your results but I saw your post about the last one and I just wanted to offer you good vibes and celebratory booze/sweets/hugs of a non-intrusive sort.
Also, this conversation is making me want to become a gamer.
Why thanks!
:D
Also congratulations to YOU on a beerful internship!
I haven’t gotten the last of my results yet, but I’m hopeful. A little dampened by the fact that the professor grading my terrifying term paper had to email the whole class to tell us to stop putting “the” in front of play titles which I recall doing like fifty times in my paper, but hopeful.
Mod for it on the PC version if you have it.
I do not
I actually like Lydia. I always saw her as someone who took the job of Housecarl, maybe against her will, and she’s forced to work and die for someone because of what is essentially a feudalist system that is pretty fucking unfair to just about everyone.
That being said, that eye-rolling line reading does get on my nerves. I’ve been using Faendal a lot recently. He’s not all that good but he has a better personality.
Because bacon is just so last year, I give you “porkitos”: crispy prosciutto chips.
And all you smokers! Listen to Teh Spokesgay. Mr Darkheart couldn’t quit smoking when I did. Josh helped him with buying an ecig and it’s worked out really well!
Josh
Thank you! It is much appreciated.
Don’t play skyrim and don’t smoke, so
RANDOM SQRRAWK!!!
Whatever floats your boat…
Up tp 80% on that possible spin-up.
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And don’t moralize. Trust me, you don’t want to start this. You won’t win.
Cicely;
Yes, that’s a dangerous low.
Model output: http://moe.met.fsu.edu/tcgengifs/
Josh;
Sorry, didn’t mean to moralize.
What I meant is that *I* don’t smoke, not that you shouldn’t smoke.
My wording was ambiguous, sorry.
Thanks Thunk. Now I don’t have to punish you. :)))
It’s been four weeks, but I got my poor minivan back! $9,500 in repairs ($500 was mine, the insurance paid the rest) and it looks better than it did before the crash. I haz joy!
Josh;
Yes, I’m sometimes bad with words. Gah.
…and I’m starting to understand grammatical prescriptivism.
Ah, so it begins. Come sit next to me, grasshopper, and we shall while away the day snarking at those who verb nouns.
You are altogether too fair and reasonable :P
Faendal? I don’t remember him. I feel like I should get someone suitably evil to be my friend. Lydia also gets very irritated with me when I trespass. “You’re not supposed to BE in here.” But googling around, it looks like all the followers do that *sulk*
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I had upsetting dreams last night that I’m still trying to process. They were about my ex, and seemed to sort of come out of nowhere. They were not the usual sort of nightmares but a whole different kind of upsetting. It’s already getting close to another bedtime. I hate feeling nervous to go to sleep.
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Icky warning? I dunno?
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I have not been able to eat prosciutto since the day I watched the Queens of the Stone Age video for “Sick Sick Sick” (Advice: don’t do that if you get queasy easily, especially if you already have a weird/bad relationship with food like I do. It was on the High Octane Nightmare Fuel page (which I used to make a point of reading/watching everything on), which is why I was that silly.) and right afterward went downstairs to find prosciutto in the sandwich bar.
Since then I have tried to eat prosciutto, IIRC, three times. Every single time, I have gagged instantly. Nope. Ruined forever.
My new favorite time waster: What I Found At Work Today.
NSFW! Nudity, VHS pron covers, sex toys, etc.
That’s an interesting site, thunk; thanks!
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Joy indeed, ImaginesABeach! :)
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He’s the elf archer in Riverwood. I’m pretty sure he’s the very first follower you can get.
I thought you could eventually get a follower from the thieve’s guild. Do even they do that?
I had a bad dream the other night. I met this guy, and he stalked me, but despite that he somehow got me to fall in love with him, and then he revealed that it was somehow all a deception like he was some kinda sociopath. My subconscious loves to play with me based on my crappy love life and lack of trust for people I date.
Today’s Google Doodle is an honest-to-Pete tape-driven Turing machine.
Gloria in excelsis Tureo.
From the Wiki, looks like none from Thieves’ Guild, but two from Dark Brotherhood. The internet thinks that at least one of them does that.
I guess the Brotherhood runs on Discworld rules
“Assassins don’t steal and thieves don’t kill”
Sandusky is found guilty!
*happy dance and off to search for a link*
That sounds familiar… Heh.
Yeah. In the first of mine, my hated ex died, horribly and unexpectedly, with me and his girlfriend both there. Which is something I have sometimes felt like I wanted. In my dream, it was nothing to want. His girlfriend and I were trying to comfort each other and to figure out whether we were supposed to call the hospital if we knew he was already dead.
The second one, it turned out he wasn’t. I was friends with my friends again, and together with him again. It was an extremely pleasant and calm and happy and safe-feeling dream. Sort of idyllic. And then I woke up and realized I had just had a pleasant, calm, lovely dream about being together with my abuser. I didn’t react well.
Sandusky convicted
He was found guilty on 45 counts.
The article also gives a little information on the culpable Penn State admin.
Cipher
*hugs* if you want them.
I would think that moving back home and worrying about your friend would tend to bring up emotions that are related to your abusive relationship.
I occasionally dream of my former abuser too, and it is always disorienting to wake up and have to relive emotions that I had hoped were long dead.
Interesting Question was just raised
Does the Bible actually state Jesus was a carpenter or is that a later tradition?
Google says just Mark 6:3, and that that’s iffy because there are different manuscripts that say “carpenter’s son.”
I Goggled it (funny typo, so it stays) and it said that it mentions it in Mark 6:3, I think. Some other people also said that Joseph was a carpenter so one can infer that Jesus would’ve gone into his dad’s profession.
Cipher ninja-wizarded me.
Wait that’s also the verse that talks about siblings…so people accept this ONE line to give his profession, but ignore the more shocking part?
RahXephon,
Hehe :D
*hugs back to Tethys* That’s probably it. I also had a seriously bad reaction involving my other ex (the nice one) the first night I was back, so I think my brain’s just trying to settle. It’s just really… unnerving. I have done an awful lot of psychological work convincing myself that no, it still wouldn’t be a good idea to contact my ex, no, things still didn’t have any chance of getting better, no, he still does not, deep down, really love me, nor would it matter if he did… Dreaming about him in this way makes it pretty clear to me that I still haven’t really accepted that. I don’t know.
I think the narrative around Jesus has gotten a lot bigger than what the Bible actually says. I think the Bible could say his savior powers only applied to goats and no one would notice (well, other than us).
Just read Russell Blackford’s comment over at Kazez. Apparently this is a den of anti-sex pseudo feminist (that’s be news to Greta) bullies and we should never listen to someone when they claim they were subjected to inappropriate behavior. Miller was obviously lying and Watson made the elevator thing up. Also the email Ophelia got was totally friendly advice.
And by this I mean FtB. Not pharyngula.
Kazez is bound to applaud such clear and brilliant thinking. Never mind he doesn’t even try to substantiate any of his accusations. He’s Russel Blackford. Everything he says is golden logical thinking. Even the part where the non bullies (no doubt like Sturgess) should abandon ship and no longer be associated with us evil bullies and thugs.
Yes, RahX, quite a bit of stuff’s been added (afaik).
Make it more convenient for the doctrine du jour of the church.
I was all ready to go to bed, then the pro-rape piece of shit in the Sandusky thread pulls a fucking “think of the subbies.”
GAH.
Blackford on FtB :
How very very nasty.
I’m sorry, CC. Hope you can still manage a good night’s sleep.
@rorschach
Ha! SC and Josh Slocum are vicious thugs. They should get that tattooed somewhere.
@Rorschach
I think Blackford might have led a somewhat sheltered life.
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Classical C Seconding Julian.
I don’t know him well enough to comment on that. Wowbagger and I had what we thought was a fairly decent chat with him during the recent GAC, so I’m really angry that he would say things like this about people he knows nothing about, and whose only qualification for the label “vicious thug” seems to be that they disagree with him.
SC and Josh Slocum can definitely get nasty but it’s never thug like behavior. Does he mean they’re self righteous or annoying moralizers? Because that you can at least make a case for. Thugs? Does he know what a thug is? Have he ever met or been assaulted by one and his friends?
Jebus Rorschach, were you referring to this, also?
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Also this:
is an expression meant to convey the speaker’s or writer’s belief that the person being referred to is being naïve, perhaps deliberately so.
Blargh, why did I go read Blackford’s comments in that thread.
Great idea… discount all witness reports of “bad behavior” unless they get cross-examined. Way to ensure victims stay underground, jackass.
And nao! The All blacks v. Ireland match I didn’t get to go to commences on the tele.
The child whose sickness prevented me from going is tucked up on the sofa, eating a brandy-snap basket with ice-cream and 100s and 1000s*
She really was sick last night and this morning though. I’m glad we stayed.
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Go the Irish!
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*AKA Sprinkles. I’ve no idea what else those sugary,colourful, tiny spheres that decorate confectionery and pastries are called in foreign climes.
Happy 100th birthday, Alan Turing.
“Those delicious little balls that end up half in your lap and half in your mouth.”
Happy Alan Turning Day!
Alan *Turing
*hangs head in shame, exits stage left*
Oi!
My balls ain’t small.
Mark calls him a carpenter (like Odysseus). You’ll notice that “other people” is likely Matthew who’s trying to his damndest to make Jesus more God-like.
Audley @447:
What’s next, chocolate proscuitto chips crumbled atop creme brulee?
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ImaginesABeach:
I did a double take when I saw the $9500. The damage was pretty significant I take it?
~~
Tethys:
I was at work when I looked up at a tv and saw the headline on ESPN. I stopped in my tracks. Partly out of shock that it actually happened. Mostly because I was really hoping he would be convicted.
~~
Pteryxx:
I’m sorry your eyes suffered through that madness. Just the bit you quoted made me mad. What a fucking tool.
~~
Setar:
“Those delicious little balls that end up half in your lap and half in your mouth.”
That sounds like a huge scrotum…
Are there any lawyers/legal experts here (besides Walton lol but I’d love to hear his take) is cross-examination really so helpful a tool in evaluating the reliability of a witness?
Not very. It’s known that juries, in particular, often subscribe to myths when it comes to judging the credibility of witnesses’ evidence. For instance, jurors will often assume that a witness who seems more confident in his or her recollections, and who recounts a lot of detail, is more likely to be accurate and trustworthy – but neither of these assumptions are borne out by empirical psychological research.
Generally, eyewitness evidence is the least reliable type of evidence. People are often wrongly convicted on the basis of witness testimony. For instance, in 35 out of 41 cases in Texas in which people have been exonerated after conviction by DNA evidence, the person was originally convicted on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.
Tony – the front right tire was parallel to the ground. And flat. Apparently if the repair estimate had been $500 more they would have considered it totaled.
Julian- i am not a real lawyer but i think it is a mixed bag. Lots of studies lately have shown eyewitness testimony to be unreliable but i think cross examination is useful for consistency
Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!
Midsummer cottage guests are mightily hung over, but none drowned, so I consider this a successful party.
Saving the Pharyngula Podcast for later, when I can watch it in peace and quiet. It will definitely be a treat; thank you all in advance!
Also, neon green spiders in our outhouse. Largish ones (nearly an inch long). No, we haven’t dropped any acid (I’ll try to get a picture of one later).
You’re on your own there, pal.