I’m a Pacific Northwest boy at heart, so how could I not enjoy these gorgeous timelapse scenes from Oregon? Although I have to protest that there aren’t enough scenes from the coast or the green valleys of the Willamette — but then, it’s got an astronomy bias and the skies are not clear as often. I suppose a timelapse of winter skies like seething gray oatmeal is just not as photogenic.
Dec 01 2011
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rorschach
1 December 2011 at 8:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, I’ll try this again then !
Has this been discussed here yet ? Siri Fail
PZ, are you going to any of the 2 conferences in May in Germany next year ? I’m trying to make travel plans atm.
SQB
1 December 2011 at 8:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Re: Siri, Alethea had this to say about it:
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
1 December 2011 at 8:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Siri thing has indeed been discussed. I think twice, actually.
Apple released a statement saying that Siri isn’t anti-choice, it’s just “in beta”. Which is major bullshit. Apple doesn’t release anything that’s actually in beta.
carlie
1 December 2011 at 8:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There are also claims that Apple subcontracts out for the actual databases, so perhaps it’s the third party who has restricted the search results and Apple didn’t know about it.
SC (Salty Current), OM
1 December 2011 at 8:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A few chemical-imbalance quotations:
“In 2000, the authors of Essential Psychopharmacology told medical students ‘there is no clear and convincing evidence that monoamine deficiency accounts for depression; that is, there is no ‘real’ monoamine deficit’. Yet, fueled by pharmaceutical advertisements, the belief lived on, and it caused Irish psychiatrist David Healy, who has written a number of books on the history of psychiatry, to quip in 2005 that this theory needed to be put into the medical dustbin, where other such discredited theories can be found. “The serotonin theory of depression,” he wrote, with evident exasperation, ‘is comparable to the masturbatory theory of insanity’.” – Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic (pp. 74-75)
“The field promoted the idea that its drugs fix chemical imbalances in the brain when they do no such thing…” – Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic (p. 304)
“I know of no serious psychiatrist who believes that psychotropic drugs ‘fix chemical imbalances in the brains’ of their patients.” – Abraham Nussbaum, Denver Health and Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine, in a review of Whitaker’s book
“[T]he results of decades of neurotransmitter-depletion studies point to one inescapable conclusion: low levels of serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine do not cause depression. Here is how the authors of the most complete meta-analysis of serotonin-depletion studies summarized the data: ‘Although previously the monoamine systems were considered to be responsible for the development of major depressive disorder (MDD), the available evidence to date does not support a direct causal relationship with MDD. There is no simple direct correlation of serotonin or norepinephrine levels in the brain and mood.’ In other words, after a half-century of research, the chemical-imbalance hypothesis as promulgated by the drug companies that manufacture SSRIs and other antidepressants is not only without clear and consistent support, but has been disproved by experimental evidence.” – Irving Kirsch, The Emperor’s New Drugs (p. 92)
“[T]he main problem with the theory is that after decades of trying to prove [the monoamine hypothesis], researchers have still come up empty-handed.” – Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief, NEJM, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
“Angell uses an outdated and disproven chemical imbalance theory of depression (i.e., serotonin deficiency) as a straw man…” – Richard A. Friedman, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director, Psychopharmacology Clinic, Weill Cornell Medical College; Andrew A. Nierenberg, Director, Bipolar Clinic and Research Program, Associate Director, Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
“For decades, scientists believed the main cause of depression was low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine…. [However, a] depressed brain is not necessarily underproducing something, …it’s doing too much…. Instead of focusing on boosting neurotransmitters (the function of the antidepressants in the popular SSRI category such as Pr*zac and Z*loft), scientists are developing medications that block the production of excess stress chemicals.” – Thomas Insel, Director, NIMH, 2007
“While the neuroscience discoveries are coming fast and furious, one thing we can say already is that earlier notions of mental disorders as chemical imbalances…are beginning to look antiquated.” – Thomas Insel, Director, NIMH, 2011
“Contemporary neuroscience research has failed to confirm any serotonergic lesion in any mental disorder, and has in fact provided significant counterevidence to the explanation of a simple neurotransmitter deficiency. Modern neuroscience has instead shown that the brain is vastly complex and poorly understood. While neuroscience is a rapidly advancing field, to propose that researchers can objectively identify a ‘chemical imbalance’ at the molecular level is not compatible with the extant science. In fact, there is no scientifically established ideal ‘chemical balance’ of serotonin, let alone an identifiable pathological imbalance. To equate the impressive recent achievements of neuroscience with support for the serotonin hypothesis is a mistake. – Leo Lacasse, 2005, “Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature.” PLoS Medicine 2(12): e392
PZ Myers
1 December 2011 at 8:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll be at the AAI convention, 25-27 May, in Köln.
SC (Salty Current), OM
1 December 2011 at 8:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Leo Lacasse, 2005
That should be Lacasse and Leo
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 8:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah ! I was born 30km from there, and my father still lives there. That might be worth considering then !
I note that Rebecca is invited to the Berlin one, still thinking about that one, too, although it has a few too many German speakers for my liking.
Thomas Lawson
1 December 2011 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Goonies never say die!
birgerjohansson
1 December 2011 at 8:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When you go to Köln, ask the natives if rocket entrepreneur Lutz Kayer is going to get any compensation from the new Libyan government for the rocket prototypes Ghaddaffi stole from OTRAG. It would be good if the low-cost launch system could finally be developed into an alternative to the other systems.
— — — — —
Abrupt permafrost thaw increases climate threat http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-permafrost-loss-worse-climate-peril.html
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 8:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have been to Oregon on a couple of fires (up near The Sisters, down near Crater Lake, and in the mountains north of Halfway in the east). Beatiful state. And good beer.
And, apropos of absofuckinglutely nothing: I really do hate dreams (well, nightmares, anyway) that include smell. Smells that hang around long after the dream is over and I am awakened in terror. How the hell does my mind pull out the worst smell I have ever experienced, one that I am trying so very hard to forget, and toss it into a dream? And then the smell hangs around for hours but no one else can smell it because it is the residue festering in my mind?
‘Intelligent design’ my hairy pink arse!
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 8:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dan Barker, “How to talk to a Fundamentalist”. Part1 Part2
Emrysmyrddin
1 December 2011 at 8:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Testing ability to link, but it’ll give you a laugh, especially if you’re in the UK.
Emrysmyrddin
1 December 2011 at 8:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oooh, link success! :D
PZ Myers
1 December 2011 at 8:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rebecca will be in Köln, too.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 8:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So I should make it a double whammy then, is that what you’re saying…:-) I’m meant to be saving for a new mortgage LOL…*sigh*
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 8:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Repost from last tet before portcullis: Maureen Dowd on Gingrich
cayborduin
1 December 2011 at 8:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To make people jealous – I look out at Mt. Hood right here at my computer desk every morning. That is, when it is not cloudy and raining. Ah, Oregon.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 8:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thpppbt!
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
1 December 2011 at 9:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Damn, lost a fairly decent post to the portcullis! Oh, well, it was probably tl;dr anyway. The Executive Summary:
Walton:
“Comrade” shouldn’t have thrown you off, as J. Robert had a glorious past as a lefty, and was later victimized (stripped of his security clearance) for it. If you have time for more than the wiki, read American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
***
ahs:
Your characterizing that quote from me (about the synthesis of community) as articulating an “anti-Thatcher” position made me feel correctly understood in a way that I rarely do around here: I had initially thought about teasing The Walton about Mrs. Thatcher in my original comment, but had edited the line out. Made me feel all tingly inside! ;^)
Also, your byplay with Gilliel (starting @711, IIRC) was illuminating. I think it’s actually fatalism that I find “intolerable,” and that I would “spend the rest of my life trying to forget” if it were true; if you hold fatalism to be false, perhaps we disagree less than it seems.
But the no free will conversation always seems to me (no doubt owing to my own poor understanding) to circle back to an assertion that fatalism is true (mind you, now, I’m talking about the whole conversation, not only your arguments). That, I think, is why it sometimes vexes me.
I should read Dennett… but I’m guessing it’s not well suited to 20 minute slices of audio during my commute, and that’s the bulk of my reading time these days.
myeck waters
1 December 2011 at 9:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mt. Hood is on your desk? That’s some sturdy furniture.
Weed Monkey
1 December 2011 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This brouhaha about free will seems quite strange to me – I feel it’s intuitively right to think of myself as a machine that behaves in a way all my earlier experiences have taught (or even programmed) me to behave. And hopefully I’ll learn more and more stuff all the time, that will modify the way I’ll behave in the future.
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 9:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Since I gained “trivium”, I thought I’d give one back!
@theophontes: “micro-biologists – specialising in yeast” = Zymologists
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Weed Monkey
Yes, but it is also important to consider that this can happen in the absence of free will. I can’t say I’ve really thought about this properly before.
@ changeable moniker
ZOMG … Zymologists! Yes, exactly. We need to press-gang more of those.
{and now to catch up with TET}
Weed Monkey
1 December 2011 at 10:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes, indeed! I don’t think free will can exist. Maybe I wasn’t so clear about that before.
Sili
1 December 2011 at 10:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Spinsterhood, a fate worse than death.
Sili
1 December 2011 at 10:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I hope the accommodation is single-floor.
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 10:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah but you’re from Washington. Screw that state to the south, right?
Could certainly have used fewer mountains and more coast and desert. Nice that they got Leslie Gulch in there though.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 10:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chances are that any German misogynists won’t know how to make a proper threatening proposition in English. One can hope.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
1 December 2011 at 10:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am soooooo stupid.
For years (and I mean years) I’ve been avoiding certain college-related tasks (like picking up certificates, or getting in contact again with professors) because I was afraid that I’d get a negative answer, and the longer I pushed it off, the more anxious I became until I’d gotten myself in the mess I’m currently in.
But, well, I started, I wrote those emails, I asked people and surprise, I’m getting nothing but positive replies.
EVEN NOW AFTER ALL THAT TIME
*head->desk*
Ariaflame
1 December 2011 at 10:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yay Giliell! I know how hard that first step can be when you’ve convinced yourself that the response will be negative.
Richard Austin
1 December 2011 at 10:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bleh. One step forward, two steps back.
Kentucky church votes to ban interracial couples
It’s a small church, and apparently most of the members left to avoid the vote, so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds – but it’s still pretty horrible.
SQB
1 December 2011 at 10:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell, are you me?
chigau (本当)
1 December 2011 at 10:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ahs ॐ
last thread @727
I’m not entirely sure what this means but I am putting it on a t-shirt ;)
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 10:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I really don’t know what people see in Skyrim. Having a discussion with Rebecca Watson and err, followers, on FB about it. I’m not into computer games really, maybe that’s my blind spot !
Richard Austin
1 December 2011 at 10:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and not sure if this made it to the horde here:
There’s this nifty little piece of software on most smartphones that “can” (whether it does or not is apparently in question) log everything about the activity of the phone, including apparently making it available to law enforcement. It’s even been found in iOS.
Removing apparently involves “rooting” your phone, which of course violates most contracts (though I seem to recall that being thrown out by a court).
Still waiting to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes…
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 10:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
previous TET
@ Kitty
I should really join toastmasters. It looks like a good way to build confidence when speaking in public. My suggestion, if you are worried about security, switch too Linux but run clamav to keep your passed-on files clean for your microsoft and apple buddies.
@ ahs
That would be too self-referential (one hand clapping). We must consider peers that supply a leadership role and also (people like us) that provide alternative inputs and transform outcomes.
Google the term “Ubuntu”. “We are only human through other humans.” Communities are a fundamental part of what it is too be human. Sadly Maggie failed to understand this. Eg: Bishop Tutu (so frikkin’ sad this guy is a goddist – he makes a pretty good humanist. We easily accept the idea of “no-one left behind” when it comes to school kids and army rangers, why not then for so called “criminals” and any other group of “other” people. ) & Nelson Mandela. (By “traveller”, he obviously means “cyclist”…)
I am quite sure I brought this up in Science Blogs a long time ago. It is something I learned from my sister. I don’t know whether she learned this somewhere or came up with it herself. It is a fairly typical thing for her to have come up with. I use it from time to time.
The other way is to just go with your gut. This is not irrational at all. Our emotions are an important part of what we are, we can also think quite logically about looking after them.
@ Tigger & Alethea
Hugs.
ChasCPeterson
1 December 2011 at 10:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kaffee in mein Zimmer, Fräulein?
a little eyebrow-wiggling, perhaps a suggestive glance down at the lederhosen; no problem.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 10:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I read
as
“I hope the accommodationists is single-floor.”
And my little mind started wondering about three-floor accommodationists. And went downhill from there.
Psych-Oh
1 December 2011 at 10:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell – That’s great! We are our own worst enemies sometimes.
I can’t stop thinking about lunch. I really can’t focus on work until I eat. This is a problem because I can’t leave the office until 12:30. Maybe I have some tictacs in my handbag.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
1 December 2011 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve always wondered how that excuse is supposed to work:
Sorry, but we hired people whom either we didn’t tell clearly what their job is, or we didn’t bother to check whether they were doing what they’re being paid for, so don’t blame us if the result is shitty.
SQB
Hmmm, I don’t think so. None of my many personalities* owns up to being you.
*old roleplayer here, not actually claiming I had different personalities. Giliell disagrees, so does Shihaya. Kurios isn’t decided yet while Lal obviously thinks I’m nuts.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 11:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Bill D.
Or think that you are a “community of memes” or rather a club that must let new meme members in. Is the new idea compatible? We can predict this. But also notice that once let in the general “geist” of the club has changed. Can we really predict what this new “club” is like? Possibly, but it is not as brute a concept as “fatalism”. Things can also turn about for equally logical reasons. (I think a lot of charlatan community leaders realise this. People in the community might sense all is not right and a new inspiration can bring about radical change at the tipping point.)
(I doubt we can ever get a sufficiently meta view to even vaguely predict sufficiently to qualify as fatalistic. I would not fret.)
Ariaflame
1 December 2011 at 11:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Re the siri thing I am not sure that part of it works at all down in Australia. Though it might offer to search the web, but I can’t ask for directions apparently.
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 11:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Meh, you either like running around in a big online world killing stuff or you don’t.
Also, you either have a computer that can run those big new games, or you don’t. I wanted to play Portal a couple years back, but it wouldn’t run on my 2007 Lenovo.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 11:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Chas
Oder: {shoves blob of peanut butter in mouth}:”Wann Ich erdnüssen essen bin ich immer soooooo scharf!”
/eeuw
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 11:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The anecdotal field experiments that I did with the IPhone 4S of some of my work collegues seem to suggest that it’s ok with giving directions.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
See, this is exactly why I have some reservations about attending the 2 conferences in Germany next year ! Just too high a cringe factor.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 11:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ rorschach
Wait till they start smearing it all over themselves…
(Sorry, I am getting groß now.)
@ Josh (or recently pressed ZOMyGologists)
Phoenicia has gone completely crazy! My mix is starting to bubble like a pot of hot stew. Is this normal?
The Sailor
1 December 2011 at 11:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Kentucky church bans interracial couples
Bachmann suggests intelligent design is a ‘scientific fact’
Illuminata, Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Maltist Nuns
1 December 2011 at 11:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
See, I feel exactly the opposite. I’m not much of a gamer. Loved the GOd of War series, but I mainly stick to casual games (like my obssession with Virtual Villagers and Diner Dash).
But Skyrim is the first game to come out that makes me want to buy a new gaming system to play it. I read a cracked article about it recently that has made me seriously consider it.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 11:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Sailor:
She also wants to close our embassy in Iran.
face palm coupled with a head-desk
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 11:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My brother’s HTC led us into the middle of a neighborhood in the far-flug Illinois suburbs of St. Louis when were trying to find a way to I-64 to get to Nashville.
The Rat King
1 December 2011 at 11:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You have dysentery.
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
1 December 2011 at 12:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Better than cholera.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 12:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Biggest thing for me about Bethesda style large world RPG is that I am not on rails, start up and walk away, do something, see what happens. I am enroute to Solitude in SKyrim to learn how to be a bard, but I don’t need to do that, I could be collecting mushrooms, or chasing treasure instead. The open nature attracts in a manner that many other games do not, (although dialogue trees are still a problem and any given idea I may have will still be limited,) it is easier to pretend a connection when your options are so broad.
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 12:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If anyone has a burning interest in the intersection of rape and pro sports culture, I like the cut of this guy’s jib.
Grumps
1 December 2011 at 12:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort and all you other transgender pharyngulovelies
My Transsexual Summer Episode 1
Episode 2 and 3 are also wonderful. Haven’t watched 4 yet.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 12:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Weed Monkey ,
This. That I am interested right now in being better in the future leads me to seek things that will promote that better behaviour. If that is fatalism, damn, I will take it and run with it.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 12:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rey Fox,
Thanks for that link. Well written and at least a level deeper than I had given consideration on the topic. I don’t follow sports, but some of these ideas give me hope for a better conversation the next time someone defends their self centred enthusiasm.
bird.is.the.word
1 December 2011 at 12:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That video fires me up to go snow camping on the rim of Crater Lake this winter. Wahoo!
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
1 December 2011 at 1:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Note to anyone doing a speech in the future:
Big rooms are intimidating. If you mess up don’t apologize cause people won’t notice. Subject verb agreement is good. Take a breath.
Illuminata, Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Maltist Nuns
1 December 2011 at 1:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath – your are baiting my hook! That’s exactly what attracts me to the game – the freestyle format. Its why I liked the Sims. But, the problem with the Sims was that there was no real goals, you just sort of played it. Skyrim does have an actual storyline to accomplish AND you don’t *have* to stick strickly to it.
What system is this game for? Xbox?
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 1:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have the 360 version, and it’s typical Bethesda, starting up a new character sucks, but give it an hour and play is wide open.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 1:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, it’s available for PC and PS3 as well I think.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
1 December 2011 at 2:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine
Sounds like you did a good job.
I often prepare such things by really talking to myself in the mirror to get the sentences rolling
—–
Another piece of trivial information:
In cooking, you usually don’t have to slavishly follow the recipe, but if you want to make cookies, it is a good idea to include sugar or something similar.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 2:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine:
I regularly speak (and sometimes sing) before large groups of people, some of whom know parts of the subject better than I. I have found that forming transitions from one part of a talk to another, to the point of actually memorizing the phrase or sentence that will allow you to move from this point to that point, and then aiming for that transition in the more free-wheeling part of the talk, does wonders. If I can hit my transitions (which are essentially a combination of a conclusion for the segment and an introduction to the next segment) the rest of the talk is a breeze.
Sili
1 December 2011 at 2:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve just been to a lovely little talk on ageing.
So fun to hear professionals agreeing that Aubrey de Gray is nuts.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 2:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell,
If it looks like sugar and it’s in a syrup container do not, do not, assume it is sugar.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 2:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
QFFT!
I once had a bad experience making cookies with some stuff that looked like light brown sugar but was actually some brown Mexican salt.
Sili
1 December 2011 at 2:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fucking parents.
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 2:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ahs, prevthread:
I guess this is WRT “no such thing as society”? If you’re defining society as an epiphenomenon of human interaction, you have support from an unexpected quarter:
Source. ;)
More.
And even more, including prophetic “if”.
[meta: Yes, I’m contrarian moniker this week. It’s fun!]
madbull
1 December 2011 at 3:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067391/Why-DO-young-women-dressed-like-We-meet-nightclubbers-unsettling-answer.html
Can you believe this article ?
wtf is wrong with the world, and this is the UK trying to act like the taliban , :x
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 3:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hey come on. I heard them through the wall once, that’s all the exposure I need to that.
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
1 December 2011 at 3:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Sili
Who’s Aubrey de Gray and why is he nuts?
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sigh. I sank the money on the DLC for new Vegas only for the game to glitch under the weight of data apparently and become unplayable (never got to finish the main story either since it glitched me there too). Is there any point in getting Skyrim or is it going to turn out to be as big a bloody buggy mess as Fallout?
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 3:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can’t have one without the other, y’know.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 3:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Look, no amount of encouragement is going to make me think that swinging a stick at a projectile is a fun and good thing. Just get over it would you.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 3:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis,
I think they figured that one out.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
1 December 2011 at 3:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Won’t happen in this household.
Mr. is pedantic about having potentially dangerous items propperly labelled and stored appropriately.
But dragging out annectdotes: When I was a kid our caravan would be on a campsite all year except for the holidays and we’d spent most weekends there.
One of those summer-weekends in the 1980′s, my uncle came for a visit. He was sweaty, he was thirsty, he went for the fridge, took out a bottle of water and started gulping it down until he strated spitting it out. He’d grabbed dad’s home-made Quetsch schnapps. He spent the night with us.
Oh, and *hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm*
Chocolat, coffee and peppermint combined, the essence of gluttony.
I hear that in the majority of cases this is still a prerequisite.
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
1 December 2011 at 3:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ madbull
Dat article. I’m full of rage now. I’d expect nothing better from the Daily Mail
chigau (本当)
1 December 2011 at 3:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ing
Nice last word on the Forgiveness thread.
(I stand by my belief that it was a coincidence.)
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Chigau
Huh?
slignot
1 December 2011 at 3:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Ing, on Skyrim I think it really depends on what platform you are able to purchase the game. There was a recent patch that has caused a bunch of problems, but even before that there were problems with unoptimized save files on the PS3 that would cause the game to break at some point.
If you have a PC and are thinking of buying it on Steam, it’s worth it. Partially because you can easily prevent the game from automatically updating until they fix what they broke in the recent patch. I’ve really enjoyed the game so far and I haven’t had the same complaints about the inherently screwed up leveling system that Oblivion had.
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Slignot
I have PS3
chigau (本当)
1 December 2011 at 3:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ing
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/11/27/i-do-not-forgive/comment-page-2/#comment-202549
and on the debating creationists thread, do you mean solipsism?
Rey Fox
1 December 2011 at 3:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I call firsties on the “fucking parents” joke.
Who?
slignot
1 December 2011 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Ing, in that case, I can’t recommend it. I’ve been hearing far too many horror stories.
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Chigau
It was irony because I was criticizing the Rat squad’s language that constantly praised the fucker and kept saying he was giving out icecream, either explicitly or implicitly. He then criticizes me by correcting me that Andy never gave away icecream and criticizes my reading comprehension. That is ironic.
Also probably yes.
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ll wait for the game of the year release then
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 3:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rey Fox,
The text at Sili’s link.
chigau (本当)
1 December 2011 at 3:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ing
I really liked the way “IRONY!” ended 2 pages of … whatever that was.
It was good timing, otherwise PZ would probably have been forced to say something pithy.
Sili
1 December 2011 at 3:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that’s why says:
A nutcase who’s afraid of dying. Terribly, terribly afraid.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
1 December 2011 at 3:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Do I need to mention that he looks much older than he is?
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
1 December 2011 at 3:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 4:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
changeable moniker,
I’ve read Charles Moore’s piece before. Your Thatcher quote does not surprise me. She probably was high on burke when she said it.
I don’t think I am. If I do so accidentally, well, that’s precisely what I want to avoid.
A weak version of what I want to say, which I think is contra Thatcher, is that it’s not sufficient to address the needs of individuals and expect that society will work out alright. Humans thrive or stagnate or wither in various types of societies. In order to produce one in which we thrive, it is necessary to manipulate institutions and favor some demographic segments.
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve said it before, but it is unwise to believe (actually, read) the Daily Mail.
http://dailymailoncology.tumblr.com/
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 4:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://sturgotronic.com/2011/11/listening-can-be-cool-too/
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 4:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ahs, I understand; was riffing for fun. But there’s something to be said for examining the other side, at least in terms of trying to understand how to define a utility function to maximise, right?
Case in point:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-01/raise-taxes-on-the-rich-to-reward-job-creators-commentary-by-nick-hanauer.html
(Caution: May cause apoplexy, at “airplane”. Or “Middle East”, which is somewhat wrong. Better answer: Canada.)
Lynna, OM
1 December 2011 at 4:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In reference to the Kentucky church that banned an interracial couple (comment #32), mormons have picked up on this story and featured it in the Deseret News:
Linkage
In the comments below the article, mormons are calling the actions against the interracial couple “shameful” — and they are completely ignoring their own racial prejudices:
Mormons say one thing, and do another. The prevailing mormon culture in Utah is still quite racist. But I will give them credit for being less racist than they used to be.
Weed Monkey
1 December 2011 at 4:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My weapon of choice is bass guitar and holy fuck how awesome Melvin Gibbs makes it sound: Rollins Band – Disconnect
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 4:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And, @ahs, if (vanity) #97 was at me, I didn’t see it until I’d posted #98. That (possibly) made it sweeter.
—
On which subject, @Dhorvath: “If it looks like sugar and it’s in a syrup container do not, do not, assume it is sugar.”
I was fearing the Pulp Fiction outcome. *alarm*
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
CM,
Oh! Yeah, I think that might be alarming.
The Sailor
1 December 2011 at 5:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve read the Siri debacle (can’t find the link at the moment) is due to the meta data contained in the respective web sites (in NYC) of PP and the anti-free choice ‘Pregnancy Crisis Centers’. They concentrate the word ‘abortion’ in the meta-data of their websites and PP, as we know, doesn’t concentrate on that aspect of their services.
This article also mentioned that in Chicago this apparent bias doesn’t happen in the results returned.
I know I didn’t provide a link, but I think we might want to wait for more info before deciding. (p.s. I don’t own a smart phone of any brand.)
slignot
1 December 2011 at 5:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Lynna, I don’t think I give them that much credit. I used to think that people had gotten more subtle in their racist bullshit here in Salt Lake, but I’m now positive that’s entirely my privilege talking.
For background, I’ll relate just one incident from the last month. My cousin is getting married. When someone came by her parents’ house to pick up something they’d listed for sale in the classifieds, she ended up being the only person home at the time. This stranger felt comfortable enough to ask of her fiance, “He’s white, right?”
Yes, anecdata and all that, but I’ve had far too many friends who’ve dated someone of another color tell me stories that track. Hooray for Utah, where we’re still pretty fucking racist!
Grumps
1 December 2011 at 5:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Daily Mail Song
walton
1 December 2011 at 5:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In my recent anecdotal experience from Facebook, it seems that those people characterizing the Siri thing as no big deal, or repeating over and over “it’s a beta version” and “it’s probably just a bug that will be fixed” and so on, are almost invariably men.
(Moral of the story: if you are a man, and you find yourself telling a woman that she is “overreacting” to an issue of sexism, it’s probably time to stop talking and check your privilege. Sometimes I wish some of my well-meaning friends would realize this.)
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 5:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell:
He may not be hetro, he seems to be singularly uninterested. He was more interested in Alfie.
*****
The ongoing free will chat: reminds me of the robot peasant in The Honking – “I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe!”
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@grumps, thank you, that was awesome.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin:
If Victor Stenger is correct, quantum fluctuations are uncaused [Q10].
Thus, there are always events occurring which are not fully determined by what preceded them. There will be events in the future which are not connected to the present or past by a causal chain.
Therefore fatalism is false. (This is one of the easier ways of showing it.)
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
1 December 2011 at 5:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Has anyone here done hobby-type work with silicone rubber? I’m finding the idea of light-up jellyfish ornaments for a holiday tree…disturbingly beguiling. And a fast google for “translucent rubber jellyfish” suggests that the tree-ready jellyfish market is poorly served.
-
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 5:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“it’s probably just a bug that will be fixed”
Heh.
That’s true.
A bug is not defined by whether or not someone meant to do that.
And it probably will be fixed now that the bug reports are so public.
What a very clever equivocation.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 5:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 5:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
:)
A coincidence, as far as I know. I’m not aware of aiming it at anyone.
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
1 December 2011 at 5:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I read it, too. Luckily, there is no way in the Netherworld-of-Your-Choice that 1) my machine could run it, or 2) I could afford the upgrades my machine would require to run it, or I would be in a great deal of very serious trouble, indeed. People could shout “PEAS!” and “HORSES!” all over TET all day long, and wonder at the lack of response.
-
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
1 December 2011 at 5:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Katherine, your points sound good. One thing I was wondering was whether you’d address how to gauge how much information to share on the internet. How to judge whether a site will be responsible and not exploitative with your personal information, should you choose to share it. But perhaps that’s beyond the scope of your talk. Otherwise, it sounds good.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 5:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely, I haven’t worked with silicone rubber, but I do work with Realistic Water and Water Effects. Those might work for what you want to do.
walton
1 December 2011 at 6:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m shocked by this news. How can it be that such a fundamental need of human existence is not being filled?
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
1 December 2011 at 6:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I disagree. Bugs are, by definition, unintended behavior.
Dhorvath, OM
1 December 2011 at 6:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s a conspearacy.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah i may break down this weekend and get Skyrim but I’ve got a shit pile of RL things I want to do so probably not. Plus SWTOR early access is in a couple weeks and I beta tested it and it’s fairly fun. Not as much as i was hoping, but that’s also a good thing for my RL activities.
The Sailor
1 December 2011 at 6:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
cicely -”Has anyone here done hobby-type work with silicone rubber?”
Why, yes, yes I have.
It’s fairly easy. You can make a 2D mold in clay or anything, pour in the glop. It will become floppy upon retrieval. No melting, no breaking of mold. silicone is an inherently ‘mold release’ substance. (Not intended for silicone adhesives.)
+++++++++++++
So everyone is willing from one biased article to attribute evil to Apple IRT Siri?
Sorry, needs more data.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 6:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve never even considered the idea before, but the mental image I’m getting from this is just so awesome that is HAS to be done.
If I knew a glass-blower, I’d get it done in glass myself. But silicone rubber would be less prone to damage, wouldn’t it?
Either way, this is an idea that needs to see reality.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/12/01/bachmann-racial-slurs-fallon/?hpt=hp_t2
dianne
1 December 2011 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, this is charming. Woman ordered to marry her rapist. It’s a good thing we invaded Afghanistan and restored women’s rights isn’t it?
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[Aside, Caine & Gilliel, thank you. The decorative carnage has subsided, but I'll keep that in mind.]
@me, prevprevthread: “D (?)”
Almost as far wrong as it’s possible to be wrong: A# (actually, somewhat flat of that, but not flat enough to be A).
Gah, EVH and his low tuning and his fucking TransTrem. Also, the time it takes between me posting and actually researching what I’m talking about. :-(
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 6:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
How does one heat silicone rubber? I have some experience with glassblowing (fine arts requirement in college) but I cannot imagine doing it in rubber.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well I know one reliable way…
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
1 December 2011 at 6:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, I’m drinking an unfiltered pale ale by UFO. It’s delicious. I’m about to relax with The Twilight Samurai, a long movie for a change, and some pizza. I want to fall asleep early tonight, I’ve been working a lot to get my hours in before the big trip.
This beer is fucking delicious. Tomorrow, more English tutoring, gym, then driving. Wait, I have to pack somewhere in there.
I was reading and wondering, “Is there something I’m missing about the definition of free will that makes it incompatible with being a bag of deterministic chemical reastions?” So I google “free will definition and I hit this the third line down:
I’m about halfway through it. I don’t think I’m going to make it the rest of the way for a while though, I’m about to turn my brain off. So I thought I’d share it to see what anyone interested thought about it.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 6:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hm. If bugs are what are tracked in a bug tracking system, then there are plenty which do not meet specifications but were still intended to be released as good enough.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Going to a friend’s strange 40th B-Day dinner tonight which is at a place I normally think of for teenager’s b-day parties…
Japanese steak house.
Campy, over priced and fairly obnoxious.
Haven’t been to one in years.
Kind of looking forward to it.
The Sake better watch out, cause I’m coming.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well shit. We got Bachmann all wrong. She says of course a gay man can get married.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 6:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I write a program that behaves exactly as I intend and expect it to. There are some rare inputs which, ideally, I could make it handle, but this is prohibitive. This occasionally frustrates and disappoints me, therefore I regard it as a bug.
Perhaps this is the wrong word?
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 6:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve got to get out and on the road next week, I have the Dec. 13th slot for the Advent Calendar on Moblog. Time to get the winter clothes out.
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 6:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rev BDC, linkbork!
—
Define “intend”. (Am I getting this now?)
—
Several threads ago, I mentioned “the logical necessity of proof”. Turns out it was in relation to these:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RVpG_4sPOc8C&lpg=PR11&ots=D3w4ALGppN&dq=Wright's%20Truth%20and%20Objectivity&lr&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modality-epistemology/
My head hurts.
Cannabinaceae
1 December 2011 at 6:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oregon is the best state. But then, I’m biased. I’m drinking Stone IPA and shlepping through sequence data (in a fun way, with an attitude biased towards discovery, yet experienced with disappointment), with a great sense of relief: almost ready to deliver software to colleagues! Then I’ll really really really start looking for work. Really.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 6:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rev. BDC:
Without looking, I’m gonna bet that it’s “of course a gay man can get married. To a woman.”
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 6:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
bingo
Cannabinaceae
1 December 2011 at 7:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We went camping out at Mosquito Creek on the Olympic Peninsula once, with one of us having quit drinking. However, the rest of us hadn’t and had brought some 100 proof Rumplemintze in water bottles.
Dry Friend got up early the first morning and thought to make some coffee, boiling some of the the transparent fluids available in the various bottles, which ultimately resulted in enraged spitting noises and a bunch of cursing, waking the rest of us up. Well, needless to say, the rest of us felt compelled to start the partying process a bit earlier than previously planned, rather than let a done deed go to waste.
Coffee brewed by filtering boiling Rumplemintze through fine grounds: not so bad! Add a shot of (actual) water to every cup and it’s quite drinkable!
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 7:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Funny ya’ll should mention gay marriage. I had the worst fucking morning….
We have this family friend, been friends with my dad longer than I’ve been alive. And he’s a christian.
This morning he was spouting a bunch of right wing crap about gay marriage undermining heterosexuality.
It wasn’t until he said something along the lines of “If I had my own ideal society, those gays would have the CHOICE of gettingout” that I walked off saying “Well it’s a good thing you have no political power” The word ‘douchebag’ might also have come up.
My family did not like that one bit. When I pointed out to dad that he himself has a gay brother, and our ‘friend’ there was certainly making no exceptions, god you should have seen the fucking explosion.
I’m so depressed about the whole thing. My dad isn’t a homophobe, but it’s like he didn’t want to say anything an wanted to excuse all that crap in his mind because this guy is ‘his friend’.
This guy is not a horrible person. If he was, I could just say “Fuck him forever” and leave it at that. That’s the real horror of it. Perfectly ‘decent’ people driven to believe ridiculously hateful stuff about people who really don’t effect them personally in any way.
He could talk about how greedy rich bankers given themselves fat bonuses even as they destroy the economy undermine society, but fuck that, clearly it’s two grown men having sex with each other that’s the REAL problem.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 7:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cannabinaceae: One thing I’m not following: Wouldn’t all the alcoholic content end up being ‘boiled off’?
Anyways, you’re right, it doesn’t sound bad.
Bad is when you pull an all nighter, and then mix tequila with the blood of a fresh kill at dawn because it sounds so badass in your mind.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 7:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A feature?
The Sailor
1 December 2011 at 7:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cannabinaceae, at 100 proof, he was lucky there wasn’t an unintended fire;-)
++++++++++++++++
I know a RL horror story of not labeling bottles that have been refilled.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 7:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
:) I hope not.
The sticky point is, it meets my expectations, but it does not meet other users’ expectations. They didn’t write it, so they have a totally different way of viewing it: they intuitively expect it to handle all inputs the same way.
They’d think I’m fucking with them if I tell them it’s a feature; I have to say it’s a bug that is not planned to be fixed, and offer a workaround instead.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 7:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
From what I hear, Oregon is a lot like BC.
Also, one of the greatest teachers of my life (an autistic gymnast who I met on IRC and who tried to explain privilege to me years before I came here and got enlightened) comes from Oregon.
I think I wanna visit someday.
Cannabinaceae
1 December 2011 at 7:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Laughing Coyote (Papio cynocephalus) :
Yes, the alcohol would have eventually boiled away, but by the time we got to it it had only just come to a boil and then been poured over ground coffee.
The kicker was that Dry Friend had noticed the viscosity (but not the minty aroma) yet proceeded anyway.
The Sailor: yes, we all had a jolly laugh about that as well. If I recall correctly, the alcohol actually became superfluous long about that afternoon and for about 24 hours thereafter. Did I mention the bioluminescent plankton that sparkle in the sand during black night as you stomp around at low tide? Hint: they also sparkle when you’re not tripping, so they’re both real and unreal, rather than just unreal, and therefore even more awesome!
Father Ogvorbis, OM
1 December 2011 at 7:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just do what most software companies do: supply a link to pdf that has been run through Bad Translator. Any misunderstanding is on their side.
Unless you actually have to work with these people. In which case I withdraw my suggestion.
You could explain the computer program has free will?
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 7:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Belatedly watching the video. Gorgeous scenery. And *there*’s the drop at three-quarters through. How very Hollywood. ;)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 7:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh my glob, Bioluminescence. I lived by the ocean for 11 years, and in that time I never saw a whale in the wild, or the phenomenon of ‘biolumineescence.’.
Needless to say, my life is incomplete.
Sandiseattle
1 December 2011 at 7:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Sili: thx 4 the link to Aubrey de Grey, very interesting
changeable moniker
1 December 2011 at 7:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I take that back, sorry. I think I’ve overdosed on TVTropes or summat.
Sandiseattle
1 December 2011 at 7:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“a gay man can get married. To a woman.” IIRC, the term is ‘lavender marriage.”
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 7:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My gay uncle was married to a woman for a long time. During that time, he was a workaholic unlikeable asshole, always visibly miserable about something, always yelling at us kids (me n the adopted cousins) for inconsequential shit. No fun. Absolutely none.
In other words he was profoundly and deeply unhappy, such that even a little kid could tell. It’s like he became a whole new person when he came out, more fun and friendly, more happy and free. There is no stretch of imagination I can manage where this is a ‘bad thing’.
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
1 December 2011 at 7:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oooh! Thanks, Caine!
*creates new folder: “translucent jellyfishables”*
-
I know! Crazy, isn’t it? My faith in Teh Intarwebs is shaken (though not stirred).
-
The Sailor, do you have a favorite glop-source?
-
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 7:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SallyStrange: your reading selection is, as the author indicates, basically some stomped-on Dennett.
If you want the pure, uncut stuff, here’s this free book chapter from Dennett that might serve as a stand-in for Freedom Evolves, since he has basically been saying the same thing about this over and over for decades.
To that, about two thirds down the page, Thomas W. Clark responds (ctrl-f for Dennett will get you there).
+++++
In your selection from Peter Voss, I find this:
Well, it doesn’t illuminate what a compatibilist wants to illuminate, that’s for sure.
If determinism is true, as Voss supposes it is, then how could his will have been different at that moment? How could he have been less honest? How could he wanted, any more or less than he did, to avoid hurting someone? How could he have thought more about it?
If Voss understands the implications of his own position, then he knows it means these different contexts could not have occurred. If determinism is true, then at every point in history, he necessarily must have faced circumstances identical to the circumstances he faced.
This is why I say compatibilism gets the meaning of “free will” wrong: people want it to mean that we could have chosen to choose differently than we did. Voss appears to understand that we couldn’t have, but he goes ahead and calls this “free will” anyway. I say that’s misleading.
He and Dennett can call that free will if they want to, and I will call my coffee cup the law of identity.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 8:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Laughing Coyote,
I do not see the SpokesGay around here at the moment; in such cases I am authorized to speak on behalf of the Homintern:
Thank you.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 8:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What I really want is civil unions for heteros.
What platform does Skyrim run on ? I’m wondering about making an impulsive lust purchase and get a PS3.
walton
1 December 2011 at 8:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think it’s hard to define what I mean by “free will”, which makes the discussion very confusing. Indeed, the reason everyone on the thread has been disagreeing about it is because each person seems to have a different understanding of what “free will” means, and I’ve done a terrible job of communicating what I mean by that phrase. Indeed, I still can’t explain it concisely in plain unambiguous language; I know what I mean, but the limits of language (and perhaps the limits of my own intellect) don’t permit me to explain it very clearly.
Really, the reason I care so much about it is more emotional than intellectual. I keep thinking about this, and feeling horribly conflicted about it, in discussions about how society should treat people who do terrible things – serial killers, rapists, génocidaires, fascist thugs, and so on. When such discussions happen, I feel very keenly aware, emotionally, that I could have been equally as terrible a person and done equally terrible things, if my brain had happened to be wired differently, if it had happened that my genes and my environment had predisposed me to do evil. Just as I didn’t “choose” to be who I am – it was all determined for me by my genes, my brain chemistry and the environment in which I have lived – so, too, Adolf Eichmann, Ted Bundy and Osama Bin Laden didn’t “choose” to be who they were, or to do as they did. If my personality was shaped by my genes and my environment, so were theirs; if my character traits, good or bad, were produced by my genes and my environment, so were theirs. None of us get to choose our psychologies; the good and the evil alike are, like Jessica Rabbit, just drawn that way. That’s a very powerful, scary and emotionally-overwhelming idea, when one really accepts it and thinks through its moral implications. (That’s a point on which crowepps is absolutely right.)
It puts me in mind of an old maxim: “there but for the grace of God go I.” But it’s even more arbitrary than that: as far as any of us can tell, there is no God, and no “grace”, and no guiding will or purpose behind our fates, just the luck of a directionless lottery.
This is especially powerful for me, because in an earlier chapter of my life I was, at times, a nasty and bigoted person who caused much emotional pain to others, and I can’t escape the memory of that. Of course I can play the free will game and try to make excuses: I can point out that I was a teenager, and that I had and have mental health problems. But what difference does that make? After all, everyone’s personality, however young or old and however disordered or healthy, is shaped deterministically by genes and environment. If I had no choice but to do as I did, then neither does anyone. And I don’t feel as if I’m entitled to sit in judgment on anyone else; because the only difference between me and the world’s greatest evildoer is merely that we have differently-wired brains. Neither of us chose our characters or our fates.
If there are evil people, then I have to face the fact that I’m one of them. It’s a rather more palatable conclusion, to me, to argue that there are no evil people.
(Sorry if this is completely incoherent. I don’t even know what I mean, precisely, so I’ll be very surprised if anyone else completely gets what I’m trying to say. Though ahs might, since he’s always seemed to have something of an intuitive understanding of how I think.)
walton
1 December 2011 at 8:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
(Shorter me: I hate philosophy. But it preys on me, like a small and unpleasant dog snapping at one’s heels.)
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 8:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well I should certainly hope so.
Esteleth
1 December 2011 at 8:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I haz the jitters.
My Ph.D. defense is in 11 hours. Eek!
And how are my jitters manifesting, you ask? I’m searching for “bagpipe” on YouTube and working my way through all 38,000 results for that search.
Some of them are terrible.
carlie
1 December 2011 at 9:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
More on Siri: turns out she can find you all kinds of results related to men and sex; for women, not so much.
carlie
1 December 2011 at 9:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Longer quote on the Siri thing, because it’s really good:
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 9:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Brilliant ! And extremely embarrassing for Apple. That was my impression too, that a bunch of nerdy boys wrote this, and women didn’t really feature in the program design.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 9:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Carlie:
So…vagina is a dirty word. Nothing new there. :sigh:
And it is exactly this ^ that is so difficult to get into so many brains every time we have a thread on sexism. I’m saving that, to repeat in the next thread.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 9:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m off to the shops to have a look at game consoles. Especially since the Aussies are losing wickets quicker than anyone can say “short fine leg”.
walton
1 December 2011 at 9:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Esteleth: Good luck! And I entirely understand the procrastination, since it’s exactly what I do when faced with impending stress.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
1 December 2011 at 9:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
RevBDC:
I’m a proper philistine: I luuuuurrrrv all that campy shit. Flipping the shrimp into the chef’s hat? The onion-ring volcano? Brilliant! And the little cartoon-character squeeze bottle that pees sake in your mouth? Bring that on! ;^)
***
Funny things that happened on an otherwise not-funny day today:
1. At my wife’s Dr.’s office (more about that when we have a real diagnosis, maybe), where she was asked for a sample for blood work we didn’t expect…
Wife: Why do they want so much blood?
Me: [jokingly] Maybe it tastes good?
Wife: [furtively whispering] Hush! My doctor’s from Romania!
2. After the vet told us to buy baby food for our 17-yo cat, who has relatively suddenly mostly stopped eating, we went to the grocery store. Standing in the baby-food aisle talking about what flavors and how much to buy…
Wife: We shouldn’t stock up; we don’t know if she’ll eat it.”
Me: And we don’t know how much longer she’ll be around.
As we walked away, we realized that the young father who’d been in the aisle with us had stopped his cell-phone chat with his wife and gone silent… and then the penny dropped: He didn’t know we were talking about an elderly cat! “Don’t know how much longer she’ll be around,” indeed!
Esteleth
1 December 2011 at 9:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Walton,
Yes, very good, but why bagpipes? I could be procrastinating in my usual manner: the threefold path of Pharyngula, Cracked, and TVTropes.
consciousness razor
1 December 2011 at 9:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think Dennett’s doing anything quite so drastic. I have mixed opinions about it. Everyone’s just desperate to have this vital commodity they’ve heard about called “free will,” despite having no clear idea what it is. Since that doesn’t exist, he redefines it to mean things which do exist, so people will at least have the cheap toy version to play with, hopefully without feeling completely ripped off. He makes it clear that you don’t have libertarian free will or a soul, that you can’t change the future, etc. So, while redefining it adds to the confusion a bit, at least people who have read his take on it aren’t completely misinformed.
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 9:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oppenheimer,
Sounds like big trouble. You’re going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over. As your attorney, I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top. And you’ll need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shirts. Get the hell out of Cambridge for at least 48 hours.
+++++
Remember when I said this? Don’t read the obvious into it; it’s not the obvious which I intend now:
«You ever think of a witty comeback, decades too late?
In early adolescence another kid said to me, “you’re trying too hard. You should just be yourself.”
I did not understand the proposition. Of course I was myself. Who else could I be?
But this kid was popular so I attributed much value to their words, and spent some fruitless time analyzing what they could mean. In retrospect, of course they were also too young to know what they were talking about, and were probably just repeating an insult they’d heard from TV.
Now I have a comeback!
“I am being myself. I am someone who tries too hard.”»
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 9:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Advice: beware of the bats
consciousness razor
1 December 2011 at 9:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bossy kid. Why shouldn’t I do that? What if I put as little effort as possible into being someone else?
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
1 December 2011 at 9:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK, I know the Siri conversation is a serious one, and I don’t want to trivialize anything, but I confess I literally laughed out loud at this (from the Feminste link):
Maybe it just reminded me of the cat food/baby food mixup I mentioned @167?
Seriously, Siri is no doubt sexist, but xe may not be wrong about the relative difficulty of getting one’s pussy eaten (professionally, I mean) versus getting one’s dick sucked: I know it’s only anecdotal, but a female caller to Dan Savage’s podcast a couple episodes ago asked Dan for advice on how to find a male sex worker, and the best he could do was direct her to rentboy.com, and suggest that she might find an escort there willing to book women as clients.
Then on the next episode, somebody who actually works for rentboy (runs the blog/advice column there, IIRC) called in to say even that might not work: Apparently many of the escorts there who list themselves as straight/gay-for-play are really gay, and are employing what this fellow called “marketing spin.”
So it seems that the imbalance of Siri’s responses may reflect the reality that straight women looking for sex workers get the short end of the stick.
Which, of course, is itself a manifestation of sexism.
[Aside: I desperately want an iPhone for other reasons, but couldn't imagine myself actually using Siri, even before this issue came up. OTOH, I couldn't imagine myself using a GPS device, either... until I got one.]
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 9:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As your attorney I advise you to drive at top speed and it’ll be a goddamn miracle if we get there before you turn into some kind of big dumb chimp. Are you ready for that?
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 9:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So we were there with 20+ people, enough to occupy both sides of the tables. Two grills.
The other side, great performer, sounded like fun.
Our side? The grumpiest chef ever. No extra entertainment, no conversation, no nothing.
I tried to spark something from him but he was worthless.
total experience? fun with friends but sort of solidified my non desire to ever go back to one again.
Or at least a low rent neighborhood one like this again.
The 6 years between this and my last visit was not long enough.
At least the husband of the b-day girl had party “favors”.
Too bad I need to be on my game tomorrow.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 9:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I doubt it.
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 9:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Pig fucker, pig fucker, pig fucker, pig fucker, pig fucker, pig fucker, pig fucker!
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 10:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thompson on free will:
Rev. BigDumbChimp
1 December 2011 at 10:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nice
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
1 December 2011 at 10:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ah, the Threefold Path! The very noblest and best of
time-wastersprocrastination aids!*genuflect*
-
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 10:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Esteleth
Or catch up on some sleep. Try this: Flick through the TV channels until you find one that is out of tune. You’re looking for white noise. Turn up the volume full bore. (It’ll also keep the bats away.)
@ Josh
Spawn of Phoenicia is in the oven right now. Butter, tomato, Branson Pickle and cheddar are at the ready. This is not going to be pretty…
Esteleth
1 December 2011 at 10:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alright, I’m off to bed. Hopefully, I’ll sleep.
Ph.D. defense in 10 hours.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
1 December 2011 at 10:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Turn on lantern.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
1 December 2011 at 10:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
From the previous TET –
Alethea #654
Darn it, darn it, darn it. That’ll teach me to keep skipping TET.
Okay, I disagree with Cicely on the wisdom of using lame in certain contexts, but we do *not* disagree on what is wrong about certain usages and why those usages are to be avoided.
I do not aks people to stop using lame. What I ask is for people to not use it to mean “boring, unintelligent, uninteresting, or worthless” which is, unfortunately, quite a common practice. To be lame or to be crippled (short: “crip”) is not an insult. It’s a fact of life, as it would be to be blue-eyed, bald, left-handed, a sprinter, or 7-fingered. As long as you’re using lame or cripple consistent with that, I have no quarrel with you.
Like most any noun, adjective, or verb, “lame” can also be the foundation of a metaphor. If the metaphor relies on understanding lame to be about difficulty in movement, the metaphor is also fine. Saying that a movie’s editing was “lame” makes perfect sense to me and is about movement, transitions. There is no need to hypothesize that the speaker is making the unfounded assumption that we who are lame are also boring, uninteresting, unintelligent, or worthless. However, it’s quite clear that the majority of time that lame is used in relationship to popular media, it is insisting that lame is inextricably tied to b/u/u/w properties.
Now Alethea used an example where she was talking about popular media using lame in a way that carried no unwarranted assumptions about lame people in her intended meaning. However, there wasn’t enough detail that I saw that would make it clear that she was not intending the b/u/u/w associations. If I were in a room full of cripples & we were talking and someone used lame to describe a show without specifying editing, I would be more willing to assume that the person is not making assumptions about the value of himself, me, and the others in the room (although I still might ask for clarification b/c assuming isn’t much in my nature). On an internet board where no one knows about your perspective on disability, it is unjustified and unwise to trust that no one will hear BUUW when that is, unfortunately, the most common intent when used in description of media. So my small quibble with Alethea would be that in communicative spaces where there is no context allowing the thousands of unknown readers appropriate cues that you mean your word-with-more-than-one-use to be understood in a way unrelated to oppressive assumptions, I think it’s better to stay away from the word. Alethea, on the other hand, wishes to use the word regardless of context (and, presumably, knowing that some will misconstrue her usage). Again, I wouldn’t do it, but I could understand it as another form of activism undermining others’ assumptions that lame and BUUW are related…assuming that along the way she uses other words perhaps in the same or other comments, that cause persons to question, “Did I understand Alethea correctly?”
Her methodology relies on inducing self-questioning. My methodology stresses (without entirely dispensing with self-questioning) a refusal to employ usages likely to reinforce a f*d up and entirely erroneous association.
Again, I am NOT against using the word “lame”. I am against you using the word “lame” as a synonym for b/u/u/w – because, frankly, the implied metaphor is that lame people are BUUW, and so this use carries an implicit insult to cripples every time that metaphor is used.
I am FOR using the word lame to mean what lame actually means. And, if there are qualities that you’ve noticed are common in lame people, you are free to create new metaphors that reference those qualities. However, I warn you in advance: I am not a farmer of organic arugula, so any metaphors relying on the universality of organic arugula farming among cripples is bound to…fall flat.
So, does that make sense?
And as for why I’m fine with “crip” when I’m not fine with “lame”…it’s because I”m actually fine with both – so long as they are used accurately. My discussion 2 TETs ago about the word lame depended on critiquing the BUUW association, not the mere mention of lameness. In fact, rather the opposite is true for me. I prefer to make dis/ability something that we can talk about in public spaces, not something taboo (as it too often is).
So, I expect people to call me out on excessive comma use laming the flow of my sentences and such. Fear not. But be willing to be questioned if your use appears to depend on understanding lame as something other than disfluid motion.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
1 December 2011 at 10:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ooops, darn it: In my post # 184, every reference to Alethea except the quote at the top should actually be to Cicely.
My apologies to Cicely and Alethea, both.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
1 December 2011 at 10:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Josh or Dr Audley or Alethea
The bread is looking good, other than being a little undercooked. Usually the times I use work perfectly. Does one need to cook longer for sourdough? Is there something else that I must change too?
@ Esteleth
“Break a leg!” (And don’t forget your Profs are on your side and are fascinated by what you have to say anyway.)
Ariaflame
1 December 2011 at 10:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@rorschach
In Australia? Using the Australian voice/recognition? I just get a ‘I’m sorry, I can only do that in the USA if you are using the USA voice recognition thing’ effectively.
I can make notes, reminders, call people, schedule appointments, send messages, and check the weather using Siri, but if I’m looking for something specific like directions or businesses I just get redirected to a web search. We don’t have that functionality here yet. Unknown why.
Admittedly I like some of what Siri does, as it means I only have to fix typos/recognition errors rather than tapping in entire notes, but I could easily live without it.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 10:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ahs:
I dunno what to say, I appreciate the appreciation, but I don’t feel particularly heroic about it.
Defending those of alternate sexualities doesn’t feel really much removed from just defending myself. I’m not gay…. but I am wired differently in a way society often frowns upon. Though, there are no specific biblical pronouncements against ‘my kind’. That I can think of at the moment. I’m probably wrong about that last bit.
I hope this doesn’t sound privileged or anything.
rorschach
1 December 2011 at 11:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Skyrim loading on PS3, gotta love capitalism. WHat is everyone smoking in here btw ?
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 11:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Funny you should ask Rorschach. This bag of high grade marijuana I illegally acquired earlier this evening is particularly good. It’s smooth, flavorful, not too heavy on the head, but potent enough to be worth the money. It is probably a variant on ‘Kush’, which seems to be popular these days. I’m pretty good at discerning it by scent.
Weed Monkey
1 December 2011 at 11:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Are the cool kids around here playing Terraria? (I don’t do multiplayer, but I’ve been told it’s fun.)
ahs ॐ
1 December 2011 at 11:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is OK. Homintern directives state that you aren’t required to.
Carry on.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
1 December 2011 at 11:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK, thanks, will do!
Caine, Fleur du Mal
1 December 2011 at 11:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TLC:
Wish I had something to smoke. :Grumbles:
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 12:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Haven’t read Thread, sorry. Must complain.
1. Toilet overflowed. Plunger didn’t work.
2. Water backed up alarmingly.
3. Took toilet out completely and snaked with a 25-foot auger.
4. Did not work. Auger got stuck, would not budge.
5. House is 140 years old and has no “clean-out” trap in basement cast-iron pipes.
6. Problem is worse than initially apparent; washing machine which drains on separate line (but into the same main that meets city sewer) also backed up. This means major clog deep in house’s plumbing bowels.
Now waiting for plumber to call in the morning. With no bathroom. Kill me now.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 12:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
:)
Another anecdote: a few aeons ago I had my last wisdom tooth pulled out. The hole it left got a bit infected, and my dentist gave me a syringe to flush out food scraps out every time after I ate something, with saline water. Well, I boiled some and left the rest of it in the fridge for the next use. My sister thought it were cool fresh water and drank it. She vomited immediately and violently in front of the fridge.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
2 December 2011 at 12:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Holy Shit Josh!
Ok, my emergency can wait (#186). You better get TLC to send some kush over the interwebz STAT.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 12:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Aaaargh, so sorry you’re dealing with this, Josh. Last time we had a major backup, we snaked, did all the stuff we should have, no help at all. We had to call in a plumber, ended up having to take half the carpet off the lower stair landing to get to a specific drain access. Turns out the roots of our juniper tree were getting a little enthusiastic. The plumber broke 6 blades before he could clear the drain, now we have to have him out every two to three years to keep the roots under control.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 12:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Theo:
Since I have naught to do but sit here drinking wine until I go to sleep (perchance to have nightmares of plumbing bills), here is some bread advice:
1. Really the best way to bake this stuff is in a cast-iron dutch oven or similar (a Le Crueset, etc. ). A stainless steel pot with a tight-fitting lid will do in a pinch.
2. Preheat the oven *and the covered pot* to 500 F for at least one half hour.
3. Get your potholders out, take the lid off, then peel the dough out of the bowl and into the pot. Cover and put in oven. Reduce heat to 450 F.
4. Bake 30 mins.
5. Remove cover from pot and bake an additional 15 minutes, plus or minus. You want a deep brown shatteringly-crisp crust.
6. Remove from oven. If the loaf doesn’t easily tip out of the pan, let it sit and cool. The bread should cool for at least an hour and a half anyway. If you slice into it while it’s too hot, it’ll be gluey and unpleasant. You need to give it time to dehumidify and “set.”
The best loaves I’ve ever baked are with the no-knead method. Look up “NY times no knead”, and simply substitute 1/4 cup starter for the yeast. You cannot fuck this bread up-it’s superb. Better, by far, than any bread you’ve ever made. It only requires time to sit and ferment. I don’t knead my bread at all any more, regardless of the type. I just plan a day in advance to give it a long proofing time.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 12:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine:
I shudder to ask, but I must: How much did it cost?
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 12:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as we thought, $125 and that included coming out right away and from Bismarck, too.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 12:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Phew, Caine, thanks. That’s in line with what my local friend S told me when she had to have her line snaked out to the main. Cross your fingers for my budget:)
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 12:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So what is “free will” then, according to you? The idea that, if everything were exactly the same, “I” could have made a different choice?
As Walton points out, it’s emotionally overwhelming to think that what one thinks of one’s positive character traits (“I” don’t kill innocent people with hijacked planes because of my politicized Islamist beliefs) are merely the results of blind luck.
I agree that if “I” were born to a wealthy Saudi family and were male and attended the same schools Osama bin Laden attended, I’d probably be more likely to agree that some collateral damage amongst corrupt Westerners is a price worth paying, in order to advance the cause of Islam. I don’t think there is an essential “I” that would remain unchanged if the circumstances of my life were entirely different. But it’s a meaningless question to me; the circumstances of my life are what they are. The probability that I become SallyStrange as currently manifested is 1. It reminds me of that thread where someone laid out the astronomical odds of “you” ever existing based on a faulty series of concatenated probability calculations, using it to claim that “you” are vanishingly unlikely and therefore “your” existence is something like a miracle. That is misleading.
So how do you account for the fact that we make choices that have predictable effects on our lives and can learn how to make different types of choices if we choose to alter our beliefs or habits? What is that phenomenon? It’s not a dualistic phenomenon, the “I” that’s making choices is a crowdsourced plethora of influences, but there is that experience. What is free will and how is it different from making meaningful choices that affect the trajectory of one’s life? I’m trying to change my basic beliefs so that I make different choices going forward. Of course, given the things I’ve experienced so far, my desire to change the choices I make is determined by what I’ve learned from the past choices I made, wherein I experienced unpleasant results from making certain choices. That’s deterministic, right? Just trying to understand the terminology. So “I” don’t really have a choice, “I” have the desire to avoid unpleasantness because I’m an ape and a bag of chemicals and I have certain patterns of stimulus response that I couldn’t change if I wanted to. On the other hand, there are other ways I could try to avoid the negative experience, thought they would be less successful than actually changing my decision-making algorithm regarding certain things in my life: drink, smoke, and try to ignore the situation. I can and do make the choice to employ one or the other strategy, usually a dozen times a day or more. “My” goal is to have the balance of those decisions come down on the more effective strategy, that is, not ignoring the fact that I want to change my decision-making algorithm. That feels like free will to me. But you seem to be saying that free will is a fictional construct, like god, an inherently dualistic concept whose truth is contradicted by reality.
Consciousness razor seems to back up this interpretation of “free will”. It doesn’t exist. But people feel like they have it; they WANT to feel like the choices they make are meaningful. So they resist the idea that they don’t have free will, because it contradicts their experience of having the capacity to make choices, having the capacity to learn from the choices, and having the capacity to choose differently in roughly similar situations in the future. Like when an alcoholic chooses not to drink even though she really really wants to, because her experience has shown her that the consequences are undesirable. She doesn’t have a choice about possessing the knowledge, and she doesn’t have a choice about wanting to avoid things that are undesirable, but she does have a choice about which set of positives/negatives to emphasize in her decision-making. She can drink, or not, on a daily basis. Even an hourly one. Indeed, people struggling with addiction describe the struggle in exactly those terms: choosing over and over again to emphasize long-term consequences over short-term ones in their decision-making. If free will does not exist, can we please then have a name for what is happening during those moments? Because it is very helpful for people who are trying to be healthy, to feel like they can choose different paths moving forward. And I am interested in maximizing people’s opportunities to become more healthy.
For reals, yo. This is why I rarely read philosophy books, and probably why I find this whole discussion circular, confusing, and a tad irritating.
/middle of the night between dreams rambling
/also in similar situation to Laughing Coyote, wishing I could share with Caine
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 1:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sad news: Martina Davis Correia, the sister of Troy Davis, the man who was probably unjustly executed by the state of Georgia, has died. She had breast cancer. I am especially sad knowing she is survived by a teenage son, who has now lost his uncle (with whom he was apparently quite close) and now his mother in the space of a few months.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden
2 December 2011 at 1:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Bill Dauphin – #173:
I don’t really know about paying for oral sex from the point of view of a client, but I’ve personally known several women who did sex work from a separately-maintained apartment, using an ad with a phone number. Of the 3 of them, 2 only had sex with men when paid and both described being overjoyed the few times they had been solicited by a woman or a couple including a woman in which the woman wasn’t just giving a present or watching, but actively involved in playing with my friend. To be sure, neither of them were people that would have refused to have sex with all men, everywhere if they hadn’t been sex workers. It’s just that, given their day jobs, they had no idea to spend their left over sexual energy and private sexy-times on men (or at least cis-men). The third was a bisexual woman who primarily had relationships with men in her non-professional life, but did have sex with women. We never talked to much about her professional experiences, so I don’t know if she would have been willing to work for cis-woman or not, but knowing what I know about her otherwise, I think she likely would have said yes.
The truth is that when coercion isn’t at play, the people who become sex workers appear to be disproportionately likely to be interested in sex, generally. Thus it may not matter as much as you think, regarding your gender or your body type. If you get ahold of a woman sex worker who is in it by choice because they like sex and think that is a good way to make money, then she has a good chance of being willing to go down on you no matter what is in your pants.
In fact, she might be particularly excited/enthusiastic to go to work for a cis-woman. Obviously, in individual circumstances YMMV, and I’m not taking away from the conclusion that Siri is sexist in its implementation, but trying those numbers given by Siri isn’t necessarily a waste of time…
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 1:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
Tentacles crossed. :)
Sally:
Me too, sounds most enjoyable!
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
2 December 2011 at 1:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Josh
Thanks for the advice.
*drools* I’ve seen these beautiful things a lot here. Unfortunately I can’t bring myself to fork out the cold hard cash, as much as I appreciate how brilliant their stuff is. (A lot of people are “one cheque away from disaster”, I am one cheque away from a cascade of disasters. I will spoil myself mercilessly when I get more work.)
I think this could be the biggest problem. I got a bit to carried away in wanting to try it immediately. (Don’t get me wrong, it is still delicious.) I am using a pizza stone, and am sure I’ll find a way to get this to work.
Complete aside: There is a special type of South African pot called a potjie (“little pot”). It is made of cast iron and has three legs and a heavy lid. I will get Spawn to bring me one when she returns from SA. You get it and the lid really hot on a fire and then drop the dough in and let the coals do their work. Omnomnomnom…
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 1:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Umm. . err. . yes. I believe that’s properly tentacles entwined. Or knotted. Or. . .oh no. I will not think of hagfish.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SallyStrange,
I believe this is what everyone intuitively expects from “free will” before the compatibilists talk them out of it.
For your most recent meal, you had available to you Food X and Food Y. You ate Food X.
The idea that if everything were exactly the same you could have made a different choice is equivalent to saying that you could have chosen to choose Food Y instead.
And so on, throughout your life. No matter how important or trivial the consequences, it has never been possible for you to have chosen to choose differently than you did.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 1:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Theo:
Yes. This is precisely the sort of thing you want. Whether it has three little legs or not is irrelevant. The point is that it’s heavy iron with a heavy lid. Any old pot will do — here in the states you can often pick up such old pots at garage/yard/house sales. With a little TLC and seasoning they work brilliantly.
A baking stone won’t cut it. I’ve tried. There is no substitute for baking the bread in a blisteringly hot and covered pot. Whether it’s iron or crockery is not important. I can’t afford a Le Creuset either, so I make do with a cast-iron “Dutch oven” of one-gallon capacity. It’s old as hell, but it works.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It is as you describe it. There is nothing odd here for the incompatibilist to account for. If you have an issue with the word “choice” you can rephrase it:
“We take actions that have predictable effects on our lives and can learn how to alter our beliefs or habits to take different types of actions in the future.”
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 1:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Theophontes:
I am *ever so slowly* acquiring the basic set of Le Crueset. The doufeu, which was the first piece I bought, has paid for itself at least three times over. It’s lovely stuff.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That last clause is incorrect. You have the ability to change your habits in the future, and your desire or lack of desire to change will affect this ability. But if, 10 years from now, you’ve changed your habits, then it will be the case that you could not have chosen to choose otherwise. Likewise if you have not changed your habits.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 1:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This seems trivially true. Like, the probability I exist is 1. The probability I made the choices I have already made is 1. Free will is a concept only meaningful when applied to choices made in the past then? Seems pretty useless. Where are you drawing your definition of free will from? It seems to my unschooled eyes that the concept of “free will” is weighed down by the baggage of centuries’ worth of dualistic philosophizing. My layman’s understanding of “free will” did not, when I first encountered the concept, differ substantially from what you term “choice,” or the capacity to “take actions that have predictable effects on our lives and… learn how to alter our beliefs or habits to take different types of actions in the future.”
If I’d been more of a philosophy reader then I would have realized that most philosophers mean something different than that when they talk about free will.
I don’t feel like I’ve been missing out on much.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Do you mean “meaningful choice” like the ability to have chosen to choose Food Y instead?
Or do you mean an action which is meaningful, like cheering up a friend or winning a land war in Asia?
We do have the latter; our actions have meaningful consequences, because humans assign meaning to pleasure and pain and whatnot.
I’m not so sure about this. Check how Weed Monkey and Dhorvath phrased it:
I don’t see how this is functionally different from what you described, yet these two do not believe in free will. The lack of free will apparently does not contradict their intuitions.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 1:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That wasn’t true of me. Nobody talked me out of it. The compatibilists’ interpretation was congruent with the layperson’s understanding of “free will” that I had already begun to formulate. I was following the conversation, not understanding why it’s taken as a given that “free will” means to ability to theoretically make different choices even if everything else, including one’s own knowledge and circumstances, are the same. Why is that taken as a given? It seems a silly and pointless thought exercise. The only reason to make different decisions are a.) different knowledge or b.) different circumstances.
If you’re saying that free will is an inherently dualist concept, then I must agree that it’s false, illusory, and useless, because dualist is false. However, I would like to understand why it is that “free will” is an inherently dualist concept. Does it have to do with the history of the idea?
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 1:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Whoops! Of course I meant, “dualism is false,” not “dualist is false.”
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Free will is a useless concept because of the reasons that Thomas W. Clark describes (sufficient excerpt here). It couldn’t give a person anything they want; this is ostensibly why Dennett tries to redefine it as some things we do want and already have.
But the lack of free will applies to the present and future as well. At any moment in time, you do not have the ability to choose otherwise than you are at that moment choosing. Didn’t a moment ago, and won’t a moment later.
Libertarian free will is the free will I’m talking about; you’ll find it defined much the same anywhere you go.
Compatibilist free will is not worth calling free will, because in any case, we never have the ability to choose to choose otherwise, and this breaks many people’s intuition of what free will ought to have meant: see Coyote’s, Bill’s and crowepps’ reactions. It is understandable that they get upset when they realize they’ve misunderstood reality.
My definition of free will, then, is the natural and common one, what people typically mean before they’ve been conditioned by compatibilist jargon to redefine it.
It is.
You’re lucky! :)
You haven’t been. On this, incompatibilists like Clark and compatibilists like Dennett agree: libertarian free will is not worth having.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 1:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because it’s the traditional view.
Why it’s the traditional view is quite another matter. Some say it’s because this is how people typically justify their enjoyment of punishing another person, or at least watching or hearing about such punishment.
Dennett:
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 1:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ahs’ “you could never have chosen to choose differently from what you chose” to me is one big glorified affirmation of the consequent argument. Which is why I’m not buying it.
And playing Skyrim for the last hour reminds me of why I don’t like computer games. Been running around some courtyard aimlessly, and nothing is ever happening. What a waste of time !
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Okay, so basically, other people have taken a two-word phrase “free will” and assigned it to a concept that differs dramatically from what I think of on hearing the two-word phrase “free will,” therefore I don’t believe in “free will,” but in “choice,” or “the capacity to take actions that have predictable effects on our lives and learn how to alter our beliefs or habits to take different types of actions in the future.”
How annoying.
I don’t like philosophy.
crowepps
2 December 2011 at 2:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I remember a discussion here when the suit was filed of the case of Nikki Iacono and her claim to be exempt from her school in Johnston County’s dress code because of her membership in the Church of Body Modification. Happened to run across the July settlement today, which I don’t remember ever appearing here, so thought I would share:
http://www.onpointnews.com/docs/nose-stud.pdf
I think the most important part is the school surrendering on the issue of allowing “the principal or other administrator to determine whether a student’s religious practices are central to the religion in question” and agreeing that “the principal or designee shall not attempt to determine whether the religious beliefs are valid but only whether they are sincerely held.”
IMO government agents have no constitutional role in determining the validity of religious beliefs. I am not inclined to allow them to judge “sincrely held” either but they didn’t ask me.
Must say, I find the creative ability of people encouraging — it is a marvelous subversion of the cant by conservatives who assert “freedom of religion” entitles them to tell everyone what to do to invent new ‘religions’ that protect minorities’ rights to be/express themselves.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 2:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The philosophical answer: because monism doesn’t allow the self to act as an uncaused causer.
The real answer: because humans just tend to be natural dualists. Dualism is a good-enough heuristic most of the time, and it often requires less cognitive effort to predict others’ intentions by assuming they have some essential self which explains their dispositions, than to think about the circumstances which caused them to act the way they did in a particular situation.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 2:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SallyStrange: you’re the one going against tradition. ;)
So it’s rather you who’s taken a two-word phrase “free will” and assigned it to a concept that differs dramatically from what I think of on hearing the two-word phrase “free will.”
(If Dennett gets his way, my use will be archaic in a few hundred years. If I get my way, we’ll all forget about free will soon after we forget about God.)
+++++
rorschach:
I’m not sure what the consequent argument is.
I’m pretty sure we’ve already established that you’re not buying it because somebody had a stroke, and conservatives tell lies.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes. Tradition, in this case, is a bunch of annoying bullshit.
So? I came at it with fresh eyes, unencumbered by all that fancy-schmancy philomosophical hoo-ha. The fact that my initial response to the two-word phrase was to think of what you term “choice” is simply illustrative that the philosophy and the history behind the phrase “free will” is more hindrance than help to people who are looking for philosophy to be something useful to them. Take a person who hasn’t been trained into even more dualism than humans are naturally prone to, don’t teach them about the traditional ideas of philosophy, give them some basic education about neurobiology, cognitive biases and how consciousness is an emergent property of life, and you will get a person who does not intuitively assume that free will requires dualism.
I’ve never been much of a dualist, and I’ve never been a big fan of punishment. Maybe it’s because I’ve done so much babysitting over the course of my like. Philosophers should be baby-sitters before they’re allowed to write books.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FIFM.
Okay, back to bed for me.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 2:31 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SallyStrange,
I’m trying to think of something not typically disputed on the front lines of philosophy (it would be a pain to have to pick again in a few decades), which emphasizes inner strength.
How about inner strength? Willpower? Self-efficacy? Constitution?
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But why can’t we just tell the philosophers to take a number for their porcupine and shut up? Why?
/whine
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 2:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not complaining.
Your reaction is not so common. Reactions like Coyote’s, Bill’s and crowepps’ are much more typical. Flailing desperation like rorschach’s is unusual, but I’ve seen it before.
Honestly I’ve never seen someone so quickly shrug this off. Lots of people do learn to shrug it off, but it usually takes practice.
Ah, but you did say you were Strange.
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 2:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
hahaha, you’re funny man. Should I ever be desperate, it won’t be because of philosophical problems discussed on the internet.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I really do think it’s all the baby-sitting.
And that too, I suppose.
theophontes, Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane Wielding Tardigrade
2 December 2011 at 2:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@ Josh
I hear you, even if it gives me a mini-sad. I am just going to have to bite the bullet on this one, or start scouring the markets. On the plus side of cast iron, IIRC, they are extremely healthy and dose the food with small amounts of iron while you are cooking. There is a straight edged potjie without legs and a sunken lid (see Caines comment) which holds extra coals on top. If I can get one small enough that it fits in the oven, I can dual purpose it for the braai (barbeque) too.
@ Caine
*googles*
Hai Caine , why did you not warn “NSFW!”? That is real foodieporn. ;)
@ ahs
Wish I could comment more, but am at work. I will bookmark and lurk moar for a while. This thread has been enlightening.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 2:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually, Sallystrange’s take on it made it seem clearer to me.
Especially this part. Philosophy. Bah. *farts*
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 2:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Aussie poll to pharyngulate, for those so inclined : Do you believe same sex couples should have the right to marry?
Currently 55-45 in favor. We can do better.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 2:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bah.
I have free will under most definitions, and I don’t under a particularly esoteric one. I really don’t know why this bothers people.
(Big deal. I still make choices according to my nature, I still have preferences yet can act against them, I still can distinguish between coerced and uncoerced choices)
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 2:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bah.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 3:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, it’s like when someone who’s totally not racist tells a racist joke in front of a listener who takes this proudly as support for their own racism.
It’s probable that when the addiction groups are talking about free will, there are members among them who understand this in entirely the wrong way, and spread it to others who understand it wrong. Someone along the way gets a letter saying they have to sit for jury selection; they take their wrong ideas about free will into the courtroom, and use this to justify harsh retribution.
The law journals are lately talking about how the law will have to change to account for the lack of free will, although they’re not getting much right, still stuck on neuroscience. The philosophers and legal scholars are going to have to keep arguing about free will for a long time; my hope is that we’ll see a reduction in retributive sentencing.
consciousness razor
2 December 2011 at 3:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Basically, yes. Although it depends on what one means by “everything,” since substance dualists would contend that what causes a freely willed action is some mental substance (a soul). They think souls exist, so they’d include those in “everything.” Since you don’t think souls exist, are there any other options?
If you aren’t anything other than a physical body, and if everything were exactly the same, then that means you were exactly the same. You can’t be exactly the same and make different choices. How could you? There would have to be something different about you for you to make a different choice, because everything you are, do, think, feel, etc., happens as a result of physical interactions. Your choice can’t just pop out of thin air; something has to cause you to have that choice or some other choice. Indeed, if you think about why you make some choice or another, you’ll notice that you actually want to have reasons which cause you to make those choices — probably good reasons rather than bad ones — not to have them come out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever. The alternative (not counting dualism or solipsism) would be horrific: if we believed we made these choices, but that they were in fact utterly arbitrary and happened for no reason at all. Being caused is nothing at all to be afraid of.
Err, it’s certainly not just luck. Sort of like how evolution isn’t just blind luck, but whatever…
You’re still a great person. You’re still a smart, funny, good person, who can plan and make decisions. I don’t know much about you, but that much at least is true. It’s just that you can’t break the laws of physics and you aren’t anything supernatural. You didn’t think that anyway, right? Then nothing much has changed for you, except maybe you’ve learned something about a new idea.
The problem for most people (who aren’t dualists) is that they think they phrase “free will” more or less means “making a choice,” but that’s not what the philosophical argument is about and not how many philosophers or theologians use it. That’s why it’s often qualified as “libertarian free will” or “contra-causal free will.” Dennett and compatibilists like him reject this kind of free will, but try to use something closer to the ordinary sense of the term because (as you can hopefully see) the libertarian version is utterly useless anyway.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 3:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sally:
I’d dearly like to do so. I’d also dearly like to see all the free will peoples get a room, so a second TET doesn’t get eaten alive with all this yet again, although I’m not hopeful of getting that wish granted.
Theophontes:
Sorry, sorry! Mine is red, too. :) The price of the doufeu is ridiculous, but it is so worth it. It’s worth shopping around for one, because you can get a decent, if still absurdly high, price.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 3:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
consciousness razor:
But you (your physical body) change from instant to instant, as does your environment — and nothing can ever be the same.
(Let’s do the time-warp again)
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 3:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Talk about War on Christmas !
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 3:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ha, I’m so glad I (mostly) ‘stuck the flounce’ regarding the free will thing.
It makes more sense to me now that I see it better explained. Which is still utterly indistinguishable from my understanding of ‘free will’ as it was. I like to ‘believe in the soul’ as a useful metaphor, but I didn’t believe there was anything about my brain that was somehow above physics to begin with.
Somehow, the perfectly natural physical processes of my brain give me the ability to make choices about how I interact with the world around me. That’s free will to me.
All the philosophical jibberjabber did was confuse me. :/
Having stated that, I reiterate my dismissive fart.
Caine: I wish I could either send you some of this stuff, or find you a local weed guy as professional as mine is. Though what I’d really like is to smoke a few with you some day in the future, I have a feeling you’d give me a lot to think about.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 3:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
[meta]
Caine, dunno if you’ll be amused or dismayed, but you were being dissed in the TR thread to which the troll BWE linked in the last page of the “I do not forgive” thread (page 34 IIRC).
(Was an amusing read, particularly the way they congratulated themselves on their trolling)
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 3:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TLC:
Oh, I can get it. Mister is subject to random drug testing, so I just don’t think it’s fair to have it in the house, ’cause he loves a good toke. However, since I can no longer drink, I’m leaning towards having a stash again, for the days I’m on my own (Thursday through Sunday).
I’d love to smoke a few with you, that would be a delightful time.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 3:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John:
Ah, I had no idea. Can’t say I’m surprised, I’m sure they weren’t pleased about me giving away their raiding party. What did surprise me is that they haven’t come up with a new shtick in all this time. :D
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 3:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I just killed a bear. FWIW.
consciousness razor
2 December 2011 at 3:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Right, but what’s the point? Do you think that contradicts anything I said?
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 3:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
consciousness razor, it doesn’t contradict it, it merely renders it moot.
(IOW, you made a tautological deepity)
SQB
2 December 2011 at 3:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
NOOO! Pooh!
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 3:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I recall Alton Brown recommended something from a hardware store for a fraction of the price.
consciousness razor
2 December 2011 at 4:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The claim I was arguing against wasn’t that people can travel back in time to be in the same physical state again. The claim was that their choices at a given time aren’t affected by their physical state at that time.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 4:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
consciousness razor,
Tsk.
No — you were arguing against no such claim, you were trying to justify your definition of ‘free will’.
(Else, why quote what you quoted and pretend to be responding to it?)
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 4:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dedicated to TLC: Devil sperm collected in bid to save species
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
2 December 2011 at 4:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bat-radar shows an incoming shitstorm.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
2 December 2011 at 5:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi there
Observation one:
I’m using much more cinnamon than I’d thought
Observation two:
It’s almost impossible to get dried pears to make a traditional fruit loaf. Please remind me to make them myself next autumn
I also got Mr.’s christmas present.
Now I need to get him a dummy present he can open under the tree
Finally: Went to pick up a certificate. Yay. The turtle moves.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 5:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell,
That just leaves Christmas past, and Christmas Yet to Come.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces
2 December 2011 at 5:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Argh, I’m way too late I think – but good luck and entwined tentacles to Esteleth!
Beatrice, anormalement indécente
2 December 2011 at 5:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Something he can’t open under the tree? That sounds… intriguing.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 5:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
opposablethumbs, no worries.
(You ain’t too late; she said it was in 11 hours, and you’re posting only 8 hours 22 minutes later)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 5:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I know, they belong in the wild. I know that the care requirements would be far more than I can even hope to provide right now. I know it’s also probably highly illegal here.
But when I see videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajc6xr6mNeY&feature=related , this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt_wjrdHWzQ&feature=related , or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=EXFlnlrk2zg
I want a pet owl so badly. :(
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
2 December 2011 at 5:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Giliell: I like the “Matryoshka gift” idea. He opens a huge gift… containing a slightly smaller, wrapped gift. Repeat until the box is tiny. For added amusement, the innermost layer is a potato.
carlie
2 December 2011 at 5:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I see pizza stones pretty regularly at garage sales for a couple of bucks. Turns out it’s mostly a pain to store them, and they don’t get used often, so they show up at sales a lot.
Bill – you’re probably right on the availablity of sex workers, but it’s the responses to pregnancy that are more troubling. They seem to have programmed actual responses to “my girlfriend is pregnant, what do I do”, but not “I’m pregnant, what do I do”.
As for the other, sounds like black humor of the best sort. Sounds like you were able to salvage a little bit out of a pretty bad day. For the cat, have you tried syringe feeding? Might give it enough energy to be interested in eating on its own.
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 5:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ok, this is kinda really really bad if you’re not German and drunk. But if you are, you’ll love it. Presumably. There’s a chance anyway.
Ich war noch niemals in New York – Musical
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 6:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
They don’t really need to be stored or used in any special way. Just dump it in the bottom of the oven and forget about it! Until the next time you need it, of course – it’s ready. :)
KG
2 December 2011 at 6:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You’re exactly right – that is free will. This is not just my opinion, but that of Dan Dennett, who explains why in Freedom Evolves.
birgerjohansson
2 December 2011 at 7:05 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
New WikiLeaks ‘spy files’ show global surveillance industry http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-wikileaks-spy-global-surveillance-industry.html
—- —- —- —- —-
Study debunks 6 myths about electricity in the South http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-debunks-myths-electricity-south.html
A novel way to concentrate sun’s heat http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-suns.html
Affordable solar: It’s closer than you think http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-solar-closer.html
New ‘Achilles’ heel’ in breast cancer: tumor cell mitochondria http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-achilles-heel-breast-cancer-tumor.html
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
2 December 2011 at 7:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If you can do with a moment of human greatness:
Follow this link to Token Skeptic and watch the video
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 7:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s a great video. And I posted it 24 hours ago. Just saying lol.
rorschach
2 December 2011 at 7:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And yes, I get frustrated lol….Good night.
Heliantus
2 December 2011 at 7:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In the News this morning
Some French rape apologist decided to defend Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a just released book (Michel Traubman – DSK La Contre-Enquete)
Summary: She asked for it.
In other news, an Afghan woman condemnmed to 12 years of jail for sex outside of wedlock (i.e. she was raped by a relative) has been set free, under the condition to marry her “seducer”.
We are just glorified cavemen.
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
2 December 2011 at 8:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
According to CNN she doesn’t have to marry him and will be taken to a safe place by a US lawyer:
Rev. BigDumbChimp
2 December 2011 at 8:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Breaking news: Jobless rate in the US falls to 8.6% lowest since March 2009.
Soon to be breaking news: Fox and Republicans [same thing] Blame Obama for it not falling more.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 8:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Cicely, we always had commercial silicone around the audio equipment repair shop, but a quick Google showed:
http://www.smooth-on.com/Silicone-Rubber-an/c2/index.html
http://www.makeyourownmolds.com/beginner-mold-making-kit
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 8:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Me: “Happy holidays.” (said to the Convenience Store Clerk)
Cusotmer : “Merry Christmas. It is the reason for the season.”
Me: “No, axial tilt is the reason for the season.”
Customer: “Oh, come on. You celebrate Christmas. Say ‘Merry Christmas.’”
Me: “No, I celebrate Solstice. And New Years. You know, holidays?”
Customer: “Oh. And you just waltz in and steal someone else’s holiday? This is America.”
Me: “You do realize that solstice has been around since before humans existed, and that we were celebrating solstice long before Christianity existed? And a Christmas tree is just a disquised pagan tradition to celebrate solstice?”
Customer: “No. Christmas came long before solstice.”
Me: “You are wrong on so many levels I don’t know where to begin.”
Clerk: “Do you have your rewards card, sir?”
Customer: “Fucking idiot.”
Me: “Happy holidays to you, sir.” And to the clerk: “Here you are.”
Clerk: “Happy holidays to you.”
Customer: “I’m never shopping here again.” Tries to slam swinging door and fails.
Me: “I hope I didn’t just cost you a customer.”
Clerk: “Oh, no. He’s boycotting so many stores that he’ll have to come back here in about four months. After he boycotts all the others. This is sort of like maybe normal.”
So Christmas predates solstice?
I’m so happy. My first “Happy Holidays” insanity of the season.
=====
Happy Wednesday.
SQB
2 December 2011 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Father Ogvorbis, awesome!
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
2 December 2011 at 9:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Only way that could be more awesome is if he bought gift cards making his threat fucking hilariously empty
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
2 December 2011 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh on that note, I accidentally caused a family break down with someone threatening to cut off ties to the entire family because how how mean everyone (me) was to them.
Because I took exception to a post daring people to be courageous and tell people who don’t like Christmas to GTFO of the country.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 9:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ogvorbis:
Tsk. He made baby Jesus cry.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 9:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We have about half-a-ton of cast iron cook wear.
Frying pans, dutch ovens, bread pans, cookie sheets, etc.
None of it is enameled.
All of it can go directly on an open fire.
Rey Fox
2 December 2011 at 9:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Or take sole credit for the fall.
Know also that very few owls tolerate being touched like that.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 9:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
IRT Siri I did a little research of my own. Below are the instances of the word ‘abortion’ noted by frequency in the meta or in a tag in the page source of PP and CPC home pages:
PP meta tag
USA 0 2
NYC 0 1
IN 0 0
LA 0 1
CPC meta tag
USA 0 3
NYC 5 7
IN 0 1
LA 4 8
If you search Siri for abortion, which sites do you think will rank highest?
Siri is nothing more than an algorithm that searches other search engines.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 9:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
formatting failure, it looked so much better in preview:(
carlie
2 December 2011 at 10:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Slightly to the off center of that point (which is that nonchristians aren’t americans) but somewhat related (and nonamericans suck), I just read (maybe here?) that there is a new translation of the Bible where every instance of “foreigner” or “stranger to this land” or “alien” and the like are all replaced with “immigrant”. Heh.
story here
SQB
2 December 2011 at 10:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Would he even have known what solstice is? To him, it probably was just a matter of ‘my
daddy is stronger than your daddyholiday is older than your holiday’, without caring about the facts.I mean, in general, when have people like him ever given a shit about the facts?
SQB
2 December 2011 at 10:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Sailor, try wrapping it in <code>.
carlie
2 December 2011 at 10:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Sailor – I heard a podcast just yesterday where they gave Siri the exact same command “find abortion clinics” that they then used in Google with locations on (find abortion clinics) and got wildly different results (zero v. 7), so something is different about the way its searches work.
carlie
2 December 2011 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…That may be a meta issue that is generalized rather than related to abortion specifically, but it isn’t finding the same breadth of results for searches that an internet search finds, even when place-bound.
SQB
2 December 2011 at 10:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Other than that, I don’t buy that. Remember, one of the responses by Siri to “I’ve been raped” was “Is that so?”, while asking for a specific clinic by name, street and city still got nothing.
Also, people have noted that looking for clinics using Google and the same criteria, got them the desired (and expected) results. So if Siri is using a search engine, it’s using Holy Joe’s Christian Search Engine.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 10:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s snowing.
SQB
2 December 2011 at 10:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hmm… Holy Joe’s Christian Search Engine…
*gets evil glint in eyes*
How about a ‘Christian’ search engine that gives different results based on the (guessed, perceived) age of the searcher, giving the Good Christian™ results to the parents and the subversive ones to the kids?
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 10:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bows. Hits head. Takes aspirin.
He was paying for a fillup for his Cadillac Escallation.
I was buying the gift cards (for Amazon — that way I can get the gas discounts and the solstice gifts).
How dare you be so intolerant as to refuse to tolerate intollerance?
No, that was a wet diaper.
Hmm. Did baby Jesus have to go through potty training? Or was that perfect, too?
Well, there is . . . . Hm. I got nothing. They don’t.
And you are correct. I would bet dollars to donuts that he has no idea what solstice actually means.
Hmm. I think there are three kinds of snow: Nice, light fluffy flurries that are pretty (and good), huge storms that shut down the county (and are good), and the snows that are just heavy enough to be a pain in the ass but not heavy enough to close my work or Wife’s school district.
Which is you snow, chigau?
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 10:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Father Og
The snow is pathetic, tiny-flaked and feeble.
But we do have 90kph winds.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So not even enough to be a pleasant bit of scenery? Too bad. I like big flakes.
Richard Austin
2 December 2011 at 10:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
Bah, come to Pasadena; we were getting 80 mph (uh, 148 kph?) gusts Wednesday night. 90 kph’s for kite-flying :P
(Well, maybe not in the snow)
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 10:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like big, fluffy flakes because it covers the mess I left the garden.
walton
2 December 2011 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m reposting this from the Philip Johnson thread; because this comment by Azkyroth perfectly illustrates why talking about free will is really important, and why it’s not an issue we can just drop or ignore. We need to keep talking about this.
See, this kind of unexamined sentiment is why it’s important to hammer home over and over and over again that there is no free will, and no such thing as “just deserts”.
No one “deserves” misfortune – or good fortune either, come to that. And “justice” has no relevance. There is no free will; we are animals who act in accordance with our genes and our environmental conditioning. Philip Johnson had no choice but to be Philip Johnson, and to do the things that Philip Johnson did; none of us have any choice but to be ourselves, any more than a computer can “choose” not to do what it is programmed to do. The fact that you and I are not creationists is not because we’re “better people” than Philip Johnson; it’s because our brain chemistry and our experiences didn’t predispose us to be creationists. We were just lucky. To purport to take a moral high ground, about this or anything else, is simple conceit.
And even if this were not true, even if people had free will, the idea of “just deserts” would still be incoherent. It comes from pre-rational thinking: the idea that past wrongdoing angers the gods who must be appeased by blood sacrifices, or that wrongdoing can be “atoned” or “expiated” by punishing the wrongdoer. In reality, it’s all pointless bullshit. We can’t do anything to change the past, and taking revenge on people who have caused harm won’t undo the harm.
I make no apology for talking all the time about the non-existence of free will and the incoherence of moral desert. Because it’s not just an abstract philosophical conundrum; it directly affects how we can and can’t conceptualize everyday reality, and how we should treat our fellow humans.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
My wife says that I am a big fluffy flake.
Probably not the way you mean, though.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 11:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine
Me, too.
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
2 December 2011 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I might be getting a job!
More data entry for me :D
walton
2 December 2011 at 11:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
While I have no desire to annoy you, I cannot in good conscience stop talking about it; because it’s something that everyone here, and indeed every single thinking person on the planet, needs to confront. As long as some people who profess to be materialists and rationalists can still say unironically that certain people “deserve” to suffer misfortune as a matter of “justice”, and can make moral arguments on that basis, we need to talk and talk and talk about free will.
A belief in free will hurts people: it leads to the conclusion that some people’s suffering is less important than others, because some people are more “deserving” than others. It is this that directly motivates support for the death penalty, mass imprisonment, and all the other vicious things the state does to people in the name of “punishment”.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 11:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Walton:
No, we really don’t.
You have every desire to annoy me and many others, as well. In case you didn’t notice, pretty much everyone here has confronted the notion of free will and come to terms with it. What everyone has not done is agree with you.
I suggest you get over that, and while you’re at it, get the fuck over yourself. Everyone does not agree with going so fucking overboard with compassion that it moves into whiny hand-wringing territory.
Jesus Fucking Christ, Walton, you and others already ate up one incarnation of TET with this, now you insist on doing it again. It’s always all about Walton, ennit? Amazing how that works. Well, have fun, Cupcake. I won’t be around for more of your sermonizing.
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 11:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
StarStuff:
That’s good news. :)
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
2 December 2011 at 11:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Og:
I’m not fluffy. I’m daaaaaaaamn.
####
Caine, from an earlier subthread:
So, Caine, why is walton not granted the same consideration?
walton
2 December 2011 at 11:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Caine:
Fine. *shrugs* I won’t argue with you. If I’m not welcome here any more, I’ll go away.
(Perhaps that’s for the best, in the long run.)
Richard Austin
2 December 2011 at 11:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I slept really well last night.
Now I’m totally exhausted and can’t wake up.
The universe is cruel (or, “biology – how does it work?!”).
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 11:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There was already a thread with that discussion.
Why bring it here?
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
2 December 2011 at 11:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau:
Assuming that was directed at me, there was also a thread with Ibis3′s discussion. Why bring that here?
Benjamin "F-Bomberman" Geiger
2 December 2011 at 11:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And why am I arguing about it here instead of finishing my lab report?
I find this amusing: This is a bonus assignment (because some of us (… me) bombed the first test so badly). There’s an opportunity for 2 extra points (beyond the 10 the assignment is worth).
That’s right: There’s extra credit on the extra credit.
SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
2 December 2011 at 11:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, thanks for the education. I didn’t previously know that the semi-official definition of “free will” included “just deserts,” dualism, and other silliness. Now I know. In the future, I’ll keep in mind that the two-word phrase “free will” has too much baggage, thanks to stupid philosophers, for it to mean what I think it ought to mean.
Is anybody else unclear on the concept? No? Okay then.
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
2 December 2011 at 12:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sometimes facebook isn’t awful. Someone on my friends list just posted this:
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 12:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Benjamin Geiger
It wasn’t.
PZ Myers
2 December 2011 at 12:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I bring the cure. I have created a free will thread, just for talking about free will, if you want. Or if the automaton in your brain compels you.
Illuminata, Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Maltist Nuns
2 December 2011 at 12:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Laughing Coyote – Re: #190. I’ll be over in 5 minutes, no matter where you live. LOL
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 12:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I spent the entire night dreaming of making molds for silicone jellyfish. :D
-
*hugs* and sympathies for Josh (and his bank account). No bathroom. :( :( :(
I am firm in my belief that plumbing is one of humanity’s finest inventions.
-
Great news, StarStuff! Huzzah!
-
Not by the pics I’ve seen. Methinks you exaggerate just a tad, Benjamin.
-
Now, you stop that right now, young man! :(
-
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 12:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Walton:
Oh for pity’s sake, this is not about you not being welcome. It’s about your insistence that everyone adopt your point of view, and if they don’t, you’ll obsess over it to the point of swallowing one incarnation of TET after another.
You now have two threads to talk about free will to your content. Count your blessings, so to speak.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 1:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve tried but I cannot find a decent version of
“Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m gonna go eat worms”
Caine, Fleur du Mal
2 December 2011 at 1:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau:
Think we’ll go eat worms.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 1:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Somehow Gojira manages to sound nasty, filthy and extremely technical at the same time. Gojira – Lizard Skin
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
2 December 2011 at 1:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Whew, looks like I can take off my philosophical environmental suit and get back to normal.
janine
2 December 2011 at 1:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not the song you were asking for, chigau, but, hey, it is the bloody Pogues.
Worms
Concerning a comment in an other thread, you do not need to wait for three comments to rip into someone like pokealot. Remember, three comments is a suggestion, not a rule.
pelamun
2 December 2011 at 1:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In other continent shattering news,*) the Eurocup groups were drawn today, and this is the “death group”:
Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal
YIKES.
The predictions by German experts are like this: Portugal have been on the decline, the Netherlands are seen as on a par with the German team, and Denmark are seen as slightly stronger.
*) can’t all it world shattering now, can we
pelamun
2 December 2011 at 1:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“can’t call it world shattering…”
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 1:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A bit of local news: chairman of Sysmä’s True Finns wrote such anti-gay biblical diatribe no paper is willing to publish it, and even his own conservative populist party is disowning him.
And this is news and important exactly how, you might ask? Well, it’s really not. It’s just that I got Teh Kitteh from this dudebro.
Sili
2 December 2011 at 1:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This seems relavant (I don’t want to give away the punchline.
slignot
2 December 2011 at 1:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Have a funeral and wake to go to today (parent of old high school friends, closer to spouse than me). I’m not looking forward the super-duper-extra-Catholicism that will be involved, but since it’s about the life and surviving family who are all very Catholic, it’s not my place to open my mouth.
Super religious weddings and funerals always weird me out, though.
Sili
2 December 2011 at 1:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Did David say something about a new job?
Sili
2 December 2011 at 1:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*relevant
onion girl, OM; imaginary lesbian
2 December 2011 at 1:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, I am definitely not back in any true sense of the word, since it appears my current juggling of two positions and working every weekend will be continuing till at least January, since we haven’t found a replacement for the staff I had to fire.
I have managed to sneak on today for just a little, so consider this a drive-by hello/adieu/*hugs*/glitter/and chocolate/egg nog/festivus greetings/happy monkey…what have you.
I was swamped with work pretty much the whole of November, sick for more than two weeks and still recovering (note: it really sucks to have a sinus infection & migraine, be throwing up repeatedly and have bronchitis all at the same time), and will likely be swamped with work for December as well. Please forgive me if I owe anyone anything–email me to remind me? (oniongirlsays at gmail dot com).
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
2 December 2011 at 1:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Did somebody say worms?
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 1:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I opened tabs with three youtubes at the same time.
I’m pretty sure that I opened a wormhole.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 1:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’ve always like Linda Ronstadt.
pitiful me
circe
2 December 2011 at 1:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I just got this email from Amnesty. I am pretty sure most people here would already be aware of the contents, but here goes for those that might not be:
Giliell, the woman who said Good-bye to Kitty
2 December 2011 at 1:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Good evening
Well, well, today was rather nice (except for my bank account). Some shopping, picking up a certificate I failed to pick up since 2004(!), wrote some mails I failed to write since about the same time and in the end a sale at Urban Threads.
Just what my bank account didn’t need.
Three cheers for Starstuff!
Brother Ogvorbis
You’re meaaaaaaan.
I’m slightly in love with you ;)
Fun fact: I think most atheists in secular Europe have zilch problems wishing people a Merry Christmas. Those submarine christians aren’t mostly able to get the main events of the christmas story in the right order, so it becomes just a thing to say.
pelamun
Shouls I put you in contact with Mr? I guess he’s been itching all night to talk about it with somebody whi doesn’t ask “what sport?”
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 2:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*grumble*
First, no Holiday Jellyfish; and now I find that apparently no one…no…one…has ever drawn a cartoon of the Diet of Worms, featuring worms, ideally in full ecclesiastic equipage; or if someone has, then Google admits it not.
I am losing my faith in humanity.
-
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 2:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
THANK You.
Walton:
Oh come on, you know TET, the Hoarde, and pharyngula as a whole better than to say something like that.
ringtailedlemurian
2 December 2011 at 3:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not anywhere!
… not in strong winds
… not on the water
… in fact, stay away from kites completely.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 3:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ringtailedlemurian
You seem to have Cicely/Pea Syndrome about kites.
How do you feel about your mother?
/freud
(the preceding was a Joke™, for some values of Joke™.)
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 3:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Quick bits:
First, Giliell, I apologize for spelling your nym Gilliel way up at the beginning of the thread. I blame the old elementary-school mnemonic for spelling parallel, which hardwired me to believe “the parallel lines go in the middle.” Note to self: As Sportin’ Life would put it, “it ain’t necessarily so.”
***
Weed Monkey:
Indeed. Not only did AB point that out in the linked video, but the book Cooking for Geeks actually recommends keeping a pizza stone (or, I presume, AB’s hardware-store generic version) in the oven at all times (even if you never use it for pizza), to promote thermal stability and shield the bottom of dishes from direct radiation from the coil (in electric ovens, of course).
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 3:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, kites are really quite vicious avian threropods. So keeping your distance from a freakin’ carniverous dinosaur would make sense.
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 3:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hmmm…I’ve never heard of peas flying kites….but I wouldn’t put it past ‘em, either, as an alternative means of propagating their vile Seed, air-lifting them over and past the moats full of defoliants and fields of burning napalm.
-
KG
2 December 2011 at 3:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
After my health scare of last week, I’m exercising my free will by taking next week off and going away, first for a short holiday in the Netherlands, then to visit a brother in Wales (I have freely chosen to visit this brother rather than the other one or my sister, I should perhaps add). When I come back, I earnestly hope the tedious topic of free will will have vanished from Pharyngula!
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 3:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
cicely:
Be nice to peas. Without them, we wouldn’t have pea soup. And without pea soup, how would you know how thick the fog is?
KG
2 December 2011 at 3:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Grateful thanks, PZ! I’ll be avoiding it like the plague.
walton
2 December 2011 at 3:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So apparently “all protestors and activists should be shot”, according to an acquaintance of mine on FB. Judging by his past idiotic statements, I can’t even tell if he was joking. Sometimes I despair of the future of humanity. Between this, and tying myself in philosophical knots until I’m no longer sure whether reality is real or my self exists or my moral opinions mean anything, I… just wish I could concentrate on preparing for finals. I can’t. My brain is broken.
Illuminata, Mother Superior of the Holy Order of Maltist Nuns
2 December 2011 at 3:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Apropos Of nothing:
I finally got caught up on this season of The Walking Dead and . . . uh. . . .what the fuck happened to this show? It was excellent last season. This season is so painfully boring, watching paint dry would be an Olympic event by comparison.
The writers have reduced all the women to domestic servants, except Andrea who they reduced from bad ass (in the graphic novels) to a simpering moron who can’t do anything unless a man supports her.
And what the fuck is with the anti-choice diatribes? It’s the fucking zombie apocalypse and we’re seriously questioning a pregnant woman’s concerns about how the fuck that’s going to work while their living in the skeletal remains of civilization? And p.s. morning after pills don’t come in packages labeled “morning after pill” – which are not “abortion pills” as your characters describe them and, dear writers, you actually meant RU-486. Not the same thing. And likely not going to be in a pharmacy in Georgia anyway.
And all the fucking JEBUS talk.
Another good show bites the dust.
P.S. American Horror Show gives me nightmares. Which makes no damn sense, but I love that show. So far.
changeable moniker
2 December 2011 at 3:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Red Kites? Only vicious if you’re a small mammal. Or dead.
—
Tonight’s dinner is in the Le Creuset 20cm casserole (Volcano, since you ask). I think it’s 15 years old but doesn’t look a day over “bought yesterday”.
I wish I’d been made by Le Creuset.
Beatrice, anormalement indécente
2 December 2011 at 4:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
re: The Walking Dead
I have only watched two episodes of the first season and skipped to the second. I liked it, but it did strike me as weaker than what little I have seen of the first season. I’m guessing the whole pregnancy bit isn’t going to improve.
Aha! So I wasn’t the only one noticing that.
Hm. Maybe I’ll try to watch at least one episode. I fear and at the same time delight in the possibility that it’s truly scary.
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 4:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Or, indeed, how green .
I concede the necessity of maintaining a minimum number of peas for purposes of metaphorisation, but see no reason why they should be allowed free run of the place. It all comes down to Public Safety. Once you let slip the Peas of War, the Equine Apocalypse becomes inevitable.
-
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 4:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
We will always have pee soup. Peas want to be missed, that way they can continue their nefarious plot.
___
Weed Monkey,
I guess I know what I am listening to today.
Father Ogvorbis, OM
2 December 2011 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Peas roll, they do not run.
Well, thin pea soup can run.
For a given definition of run.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Illuminata
It’s probably faithful to the original comic. It turned into the Bold and the Beautiful real soon.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 4:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Walton:
I don’t want to dive back into the free will argument, and wouldn’t undercut PZ’s attempt to segregate that into another thread even if I did… but this requires a response:
I share your ire at the political factions (the vast majority, but perhaps not all, of them on the right) and social systems that justify continuing to tread on the downtrodden by asserting that the misfortunate deserve their state in life.[1] But the issue here is that human rights and civil rights inhere simply in being human and a member of a civil society: Rights are rights; they are not earned. And that’s independent of one’s philosophical position on free will. Plutocrats don’t believe the poor deserve to be poor because they haven’t read Schopenhauer or Dennett; instead, they believe that because they’re ignorant and/or selfish and self-righteous.
Besides, it’s bad social activism: If you want a more just society (and yes, I realize you dissed the very concept of justice right after the part I quoted, but years of reading your posts has me convinced you do, in fact, want a more just society just the same) and you want to hold people accountable for their behavior (again, rail as you will against the concepts of guilt and punishment, you nevertheless post every day in ways that presume the existence and desirability of personal accountability), then you have to meet people (e.g., candidates, legislators, advocates, grass roots activists, etc.) in the real, intuitive, emotional world they actually inhabit. An esoteric, counterintuitive philosophical argument that has managed to put snakes in the heads of even some of the smartest people here is unlikely to get many bills written or laws changed… no matter how true it may be. Eyes on the prize, eh?
***
[1] Any discussion of asshats who think the poor (for just one example) “deserve” their fate always puts me in mind of Alfred P. Doolittle’s riff on the “undeserving poor” from Pygmalion (also found, essentially unchanged from the original IIRC, in My Fair Lady).
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 4:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hurrah, the endless navel gazing philosophy of free will discussion has been moved to it’s own thread. I’ve never been much for dualism. It seems to me a very limited way of perceiving the world. I prefer pragmatism and efficacy, but I too have always been rather strange.
I think I will ask for Andy Clark’s book Supersizing the Mind for christmas.
Thanks To Salty Current for the recommendation.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 4:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath, I’m glad every time someone understands the greatness that is Gojira. :D
Sandiseattle
2 December 2011 at 4:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh OSG, sorry to hear about your plumbing probs. Its a pain I know. Live in an old house too. (about 110 y.o.) Hope you’re on your way to fixed by now.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrel
2 December 2011 at 4:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
theophontes:
I can’t be arsed to check if anyone else answered your question, so here’s my response:
I have no freaking clue. I’ve only made sourdough.
However, I’ve been baking my loaves at 425° F for about half an hour. (Each loaf contains roughly 2 1/2 cups flour and a half cup of starter.) It comes out dense and chewy, but I’ve never had a problem with it being undercooked.
I’ve found that the King Arthur flour site to be the best place for basic sourdough recipes. My next project: sourdough pretzels!
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart OM, liar and scoundrel
2 December 2011 at 4:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…. And I see that Josh has helped theopontes out already. Ah well.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 4:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Walton
Your acquaintance said something very stupid, possibly just to feed his ego by getting lots of attention.
You are real, reality probably isn’t exactly as you perceive it, and your opinions won’t effect either of those facts.
People have been despairing of the future of humanity for all of recorded history. We seem to be muddling along though, so you could put the need to get good grades ahead of the need to correct a trolling acquaintance.
janine
2 December 2011 at 4:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“Women For Herman Cain”
I guess there are the vindictive women who paid to bring him down and then there are the real women.
(I am not linking to it. If you must, google the title.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 4:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thank you for the Free Willy thread PZ!!!
++++++++++++
cicely, did you see my glop links up thread?
++++++++++++
Walton, IMHO, you’re stressing over the small shit, you’ll do just fine. (p.s. No one agrees with each other here all the time, it’s OK.)
++++++++++++
I’m currently decompressing from a tough week ***reaches for a helping of grog & swill (just put it on my tab Nerd or Patricia, whoever is bartending tonight)*** and I’m taking a slightly evil pleasure in the fact that all my colleagues are still at work.
They are trying to submit their abstracts before the deadline for a conference and the ARVO main and abstract submission websites have crashed due to the fact that vision scientists all over the world have procrastinated as much as they have.
Tee hee.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 5:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Shining was on TV. The Kubrick one. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, it’s always impressive.
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All work and now play make Jack a dull boy.
ChasCPeterson
2 December 2011 at 5:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
red rum
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
W is creeping around on me.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 5:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Shining was horror like Hitchcock was horror, except with added grossness. Lots of things scared me in that movie, but my true AAAiiiiieee moment came when ‘All work and no play’ was discovered by his wife. Just thinking about it now gives me the creeps.
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 5:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s a non-Kubrick Shining?
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Do we have a winner? I think so: The Way of All Flesh What an intro and the rhythm carries through.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
2 December 2011 at 5:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau: Stephen King is a fool – he didn’t like Kubrick’s movie (he complained about it being a domestic violence allegory, which he said his book was not, IIRC) so he made a TV miniseries of it in the 90s. Kubrick’s picture is the highest example of horror as a piece of art, and it’s scary as hell. It’s the standard against which all horror films are measured (possibly along with The Exorcist).
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 5:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
chigau, unfortunately there is. A miniseries King endorsed because it was more faithful to his book.
I wouldn’t say it’s completely shitty, but… yeah. Quite shitty.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This is the oddest thing I have encountered today on the internet.
Cremation as a power source
I now mull over the reasons why Europeans opt for cremation, but Americans opt for burial. It seems to be partly for religious reasons, and partly because of land use policies. The closing sentence is amusing.
myeck waters
2 December 2011 at 5:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, the Kubrick Shining is a wonderful film. I can’t imagine what King thought he was doing with the TV remake project.
Of course, this trailer for it is as good as watching the whole damn thing.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 5:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Crip Dyke (@205):
Thanks for the interesting response. It doesn’t surprise me that female sex workers are happy to book women (or couples in which the woman is an active participant) as clients: I admittedly have no data on the point, but my observation and experience has been that women’s sexuality is generally more fluid than men’s. That’s a dangerous generalization, of course, and even if true, it’s no doubt yet another artifact of a patriarchy-driven gender asymmetry in socialization.
But the case that came up on the Savage Lovecast was specifically that of a straight woman looking for a male sex worker… and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that straight and gay men and lesbian women all have a significantly easier time finding the commercial sex they crave than does a straight woman looking for dick.
I agree with that, and I certainly don’t assume that being interested in sex is a gender-specific trait (indeed, I assume it is not). But I sense the (unquestionably sexist) societal presumption is that only men pay for sex, and I think that perception drives what is — and isn’t — available on the market.
I’ve occasionally glanced at the “Back Page” ads (commercial escorts’ ads, I mean, not adult personal ads) in the local weekly alternative paper (don’t look at me like that; the ads are printed on the page opposite Savage’s column!), and I note that the vast majority of them are women (or transwomen) advertising to male customers, and the majority of the remainder are men advertising to male customers. Only rarely is there an ad that’s explicitly addressed to female customers.
Of course, I’m not looking for ads in specialty publications, nor on the web, but at the level of broad popular culture… well, notwithstanding what you see on HBO’s Hung (a really well written and acted show, BTW), I’m not so sure a good man isn’t hard to find, after all.
FWIW, I assume Siri’s algorithm is probably not only sexist but heteronormative. That is, even if Siri were perfectly happy to answer women’s sexual requests, my bet is it’d supply references to only male escorts. That may be fair enough on a purely statistical basis — presumably the majority of men who ask their phones how to get laid are looking for women, and vice versa — but I’m sure it would be annoying to no small number of folks.
[Aside: Recently we (well, y'all) quite correctly trounced a troll for using gay as a noun to refer to gay men. Any idiot (except, apparently, that one) can see why calling a man "a gay" is obnoxious. Why, then, is it (AFAIK) perfectly acceptable to call a woman "a lesbian," rather than "a lesbian woman" or "a gay woman"? I'm not trying make any point here, or to stir anything up: I'm really just curious about what strikes me as an odd little bit of linguistic asymmetry. Enquiring minds want to know!]
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
King thought he was making more money.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 5:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m a huge Stephen King fan, but he seems not to understand making movies quite the same as writing.
Stephen King movies have a high failure rate. They’re never quite as awesome as the books. Even the good ones.
I think the only ones that really come close are CUJO and Pet Sematary, in that they follow the book faithfully and end up looking pretty good onscreen.*
IT and The Stand are decent, but much of the scary stuff from the books has a hard time translating to the screen.
I’m a huge Dark Tower fan, and being that the DT series is kind of like King’s version of Lord of the Rings, I’m looking forward to the 2013 movies/miniseries with some trepidation. Will it be as awesome as the books? Or will they flub it and make it a disappointment?
*I’m leaving Kubrick’s The Shining out of this. It WAS every bit as awesome as the book. But it was awesome because it deviated from the source material. The book version contains a lot of psychological stuff in it that has a hard time translating to a visual medium.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 5:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I like the bun-o-vision, 30 second version of The Shining
changeable moniker
2 December 2011 at 5:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Tethys, almost a year earlier than your link, and more tangible (shudder):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/24/crematorium-heat-swimming-pool-redditch
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TLC,
No. Roland of Gilead does not do moving pictures.
Weed Monkey
2 December 2011 at 5:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath, it’s like something Sepultura did in the 90′s with their tribal influence – only better :D
chigau (本当)
2 December 2011 at 5:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
re TV Shining
Somehow I managed to miss this.
After looking at the Pfft article, I’m not sad.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 5:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tethys:
Re #370, have you read Mary Roach’s Stiff? There’s a whole section about cremation, burial, and other funerary technologies and traditions. Highly recommended… as is anything else by Roach that you haven’t already read yet.
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 5:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am, to say the least, impressed. And I hear you on Sepultura, Roots is one of my favourite albums. The obligatory ref: Ratamahatta
changeable moniker
2 December 2011 at 5:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Bill Dauphin, my Concise OED says:
lesbian n & adj –n. a homosexual woman, –adj.[...]
gay adj & n –adj.[1, 2, 3, ...] 4. colloq. (a) homosexual [...]
i.e., noun vs. adjective.
Is it different in US English?
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
other good Stephen King movies:
The Green Mile
Stand By Me
The Shawshank Redemption
Apt Pupil
The Mist
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 6:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill: I think it’s because of the way homophobes use the phrase “the gays”. They are not similarly consistent in talking about “the lesbians”.
But I’m just guessing.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_series_film_adaptation
When I read the books, an awesome movie plays out in my head. If the movies and miniseries are just close to as awesome as the movie in my head, it’ll become the one fandom in the universe I actually flock to.,
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 6:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ahs: I forgot about those, but some I haven’t seen, or haven’t seen fully. I mostly stick to the ‘raw horror’ side of things.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 6:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin
I have all of Mary Roach’s books on my wish list. I find death to be fascinating and not at all frightening.
Changeable Moniker
Why the shudder? Harvesting the heat energy seems preferable to wasting it, the cremation will happen regardless. But, I freely admit to being strange as regards most things people consider icky.
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 6:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TLC,
Roland and his journey are distinctly literary to my mind, funny how different people can read, eh? In any event, that article indicates that this is pretty vapourish as far as projects go.
ahs ॐ
2 December 2011 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Try the Mist. It’s got folks holed up in a grocery store fighting monsters.
Abbot nigelTheBold of the Hoppist Monks
2 December 2011 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Okay. I’m stuck at the office for another 15 minutes, and what do I do? Get on TET.
There is a wonderful documentary about home funerals called A Family Undertaking.
I only mention it because of death, and the lack of fear thereof, and cool things like Mary Roach’s books.
changeable moniker
2 December 2011 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Tethys, I just don’t like swimming pools (shudder).
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. ;)
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 6:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ahs: The Mist I have seen, it was one of the ones that completely slipped my mind for some reason.
My favorite creature was the four-winged pterosaur creature. Creature/monster design is something I definitely enjoy, one of the reasons I’m a Jim Henson fan.
Abbot nigelTheBold of the Hoppist Monks
2 December 2011 at 6:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Coyote:
Sadly, my wife does not understand my love of Farscape.
SC (Salty Current), OM
2 December 2011 at 6:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, you’d say someone’s gay or straight, but probably not that someone’s lesbian. So it’s consistent with that. But I don’t know why that is, either.
***
You’re welcome! Let me know what you think.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 6:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I love the little old lady who uses bug spray as her weapon.
Changeable
Ah. Death doesn’t bother me, but swimming around in a small chlorinated pool of water with lots of children is rather squicky.
SC (Salty Current), OM
2 December 2011 at 6:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, yeah. It’s because it came from the island, Lesbos. So that makes sense, though I don’t know why it’s not really used the other way, too – like Canadian.
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 6:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tethys,
Have you seen how much kids pee? It’s nothing compared to any community pool’s volume even if every kid was peeing in it, which I assure you they are not.
pelamun
2 December 2011 at 6:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Language isn’t always logical…. But I do have a hypothesis.
It might have to do with the way adjectives are used in the English language. Nominalisation of adjectives is quite restricted, and usually limited to collectives only, like “the rich don’t like to share with the poor”. You don’t say “Sometimes a rich pays less taxes than a poor”. You need to use use a head noun such as “one” or “man/woman/person”… So “gay” or “homosexual” would fall into this category.
For demonyms, this is a normal usage pattern, especially for those ending in -ese or -ian. (for demonyms in -ish, there are often alternative forms, such as “Englishman/woman, Swede, Spaniard etc.)
A Lesbian is a resident of the island Lesbos, so that fits the pattern.
But what ahs says makes sense too, the way terms are used probably play into this too.
Giliell,
Hehe, I’d like that..
Alethea H. Claw
2 December 2011 at 7:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Theophontes, thanks. I’m on the mend, even if it is just frustratingly slow at times. I’m a lot less disabled than I was 2 months ago. Also, denser breads usually take longer than fluffier ones, so that’s plausible. And the no-knead method is awesome, even with regular boring old yeast. Le Creuset is expensive, but you can often get plain cast iron quite cheaply; season it and it will be just as good for bread. More maintenance work, is all.
@The Sailor: just no. That is a totally lame excuse. It has no legs, it won’t go. Metadata my arse! It’s not just abortion – follow the links and read.
1. http://amaditalks.tumblr.com/post/13513981784/siri
2. http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/12/01/siri-total-misogynist/
What makes you think they are biased? One has screen shots. The other is direct reporting.
Siri “couldn’t find” a women’s health centre when given the exact name and address, and the place was number one in the google search, and it was just about next door. But it could find those fake fundy pregancy “counselling” places. It couldn’t find a specific morning-after pill by name, although Viagra was no problem.
If it’s just “an algorithm that searches other search engines” then it’s truly astonishing how much it downweights google for certain quite specific things. I’m not as kind as the feministe article. That’s no accidental oversight, that’s a deliberate exception to the usual search strategy, which would have to be programmed in. It could, of course, be an Apple QA fail and a contractor or programmer sneaking things in. But somebody somewhere did that deliberately.
@CripDyke, that really helps clarify the language question. I’m grateful that you’re taking the effort to go into so much detail. Did I do it rite just up there? I hope so. BTW, I search for my nym up from the bottom to find where I was up to, so I saw your apology before the post. Good, since it meant I was not distracted when I read the post.
@Gilliell – you can’t get dried pears? How strange. They’re common supermarket stock here. I am very interested in your “traditional fruit loaf” recipe, because where I am a traditional fruit loaf would never include dried pears.
@John Morales, I’m not sure, but possibly the etymology? A “Lesbian” is a noun in the same way that “an Australian” is a noun. Sapphic was the related adjective . It does seem inconsistent in modern usage, and to the the less classically educated, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it changes.
pelamun
2 December 2011 at 7:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
re “lesbian” as an adjective:
it became an adjective in the 80s, and got more frequent in the 90s. The nominal use still is more frequent.
Have a look here at this graph
StarStuff! Because f**k you, that's why
2 December 2011 at 7:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I experienced a great disappointment today. My local Occupy group mic-checked Glenn Beck today while he was signing books. I didn’t find out about it until two hours later. I am so disappoint.
The Sailor
2 December 2011 at 7:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alethea, I always assume incompetence before malice. Not that they’re mutually exclusive.
Rey Fox
2 December 2011 at 7:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I remember reading this article about the five best and five worst King adaptations, and they noted how King had no creative role on any of the top five, whereas he was involved with four of the bottom five. Funny that.
(Unfortunately, I can’t remember if King’s “dramatic” turn as Jordy Verrell in Creepshow was on either list.)
Well, last I heard that project is pretty much dead in the water. And even if it was adapted, I’d probably only be interested in the first three books.
I don’t know if it’s as literary as King seems to think, but enough so that any big screen treatment would probably just trample all over the tone of the story to fit its parts into three-act big-budget Hollywood stuff. It’d be much more at home on HBO, especially seeing as how the first book in particular was more of a mini-series than a novel.
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 7:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Missed it earlier, but picked it up on a second pass, and thanks! I’m a bit confused, though—the clear-as-water stuff that looks interesting (with strategic addition of coloring) looks as if it’s meant to be shattered, which is exactly not the point; and the other things look as if they are opaque. I’ll have to check ‘em out more thoroughly.
-
I’ve never seen The Shining, though I’ve read the book.
-
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Alethea @399, Bill, not me.
Tethys
2 December 2011 at 7:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath
I have, I’ve raised several of them. It’s not just the pee. It’s the pee+ all the other body fluids+ the public showers.
Rationality just doesn’t stand a chance against crowd-sourced germ sharing in my world. I don’t care if it’s been disinfected, I don’t want to swim around in any amount of other peoples body fluids.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The first “Dark Tower” series book by King bored me shitless; I’m not about to seek others — I read to be entertained or informed, not to be bored.
(Same as “The Dancers at the End of Time” series by Moorcock)
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 8:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John M, that’s kinda funny. I loved the first and felt that the series kinda lost something thereafter, although it did have some high points and at least for me was well worth reading as a whole.
On that note, Rey Fox, I don’t think it’s amazing or anything, but my great delights in reading that centre on words, sentences and rhythms. I guess with careful narration one could encompass some of those passages while still telling the basic tale.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 8:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dhorvath, maybe it’s a failing of mine, but I’ve never had much luck with enjoying ‘literature’.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 8:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Part of what I love about the Dark Tower series is the world presented therein. Just as some people wish they could live in Pandora from ‘Avatar’, I, for my own fucked up reasons, kinda wish I could live in the world(s) presented in the Dark Tower.
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 8:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
John M,
I don’t read particularly well and find that most ‘literature’ obfuscates me, but every once in a while something clicks about language rather than plot or characters.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 8:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
TLC, nothing wrong with that.
(I wish I could be a citizen of the Culture)
Dhorvath, OM
2 December 2011 at 8:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Unless the alt world has bikes it’s hard for me to want to stay, but a visit might interest. Say, Seven Cities or Darujistan.
chigau (違う)
2 December 2011 at 8:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
グーゲル翻訳は吸う。
See what I mean?
changeable moniker
2 December 2011 at 9:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
(Not for everybody, but.)
Michele Bachmann’s imaginary embassy may not have been stormed.
This one was.
Somewhat scary.
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 9:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
changeable moniker, scary indeed, that.
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 10:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This much is empirically certain: Our kitty no longer has free will, if she ever did.
She was a sweet old girl.
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 10:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin: My condolences.
janine
2 December 2011 at 10:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bodhisattva-Steely Dan
Josie-Steely Dan
Green Earring-Steely Dan
janine
2 December 2011 at 10:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janie Jones-The Clash
Armagideon Time-The Clash
Capital Radio-The Clash
chigau (違う)
2 December 2011 at 10:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin
*hugs*
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 10:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, TLC. It’s really OK: She had a long, healthy, happy (insofar as we humans can judge these things) life, and her leaving of it was quick and peaceful.
Odd: At age 51, tomorrow will be the first time in my life I’ve buried a pet.
janine
2 December 2011 at 10:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Small Blue Thing (2010)-Suzanne Vega
Blood Makes Noise (2011)-Suzanne Vega
Left Of Center-Suzanne Vega
John Morales
2 December 2011 at 10:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill, condolences.
We cried as we stroked our last kitty while she expired of old age and systemic failure. We knew this was it.
Buried her in the garden, in a ‘shroud’ made from a pillow-case.
(Loved pets are like family)
Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
2 December 2011 at 10:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, chigau.
John, that sounds incredibly familiar right now; thanks for the good thoughts.
I think I’m going to sign off for the evening now; see y’all later….
The Laughing Coyote (Papio Cynocephalus)
2 December 2011 at 10:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Our old Golden Retriever is still hale and hearty at 13. Few goldens these days are still hale and hearty even at 8.
But always there’s the awareness that the good luck can’t last forever, because nothing is immortal.
janine
2 December 2011 at 10:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song)-Richard & Linda Thompson
Withered And Died-Richard & Linda Thompson
Richard & Linda Thompson
janine
2 December 2011 at 10:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I rather borked that one. It is Just The Motion.
janine
2 December 2011 at 11:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
La Grange-Crazy Backwards Alphabet
Communication Breakdown-D.O.A.
Black Diamond-The Replacements
cicely, unheeded prophetess of the Equine Apocalypse
2 December 2011 at 11:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill Dauphin, condolences for the loss of your kitty. *hugs*
-
janine
2 December 2011 at 11:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
About once a year, this video must be posted. Call it the pinnacle of mormon culture. Marvel at the what the fuckness of it.
Alethea H. Claw
2 December 2011 at 11:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry to hear that, Bill. My condolences also.
(Also, John, sorry for the mixup.)
janine
2 December 2011 at 11:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wild Horses-The Sundays
Doctor Wu-The Minutemen
Jump-Aztec Camera
janine
2 December 2011 at 11:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Mr DNA-Didjits
Louie Louie-Black Flag
I Wanna Be Your Dog-Uncle Tupelo
Abbot nigelTheBold of the Hoppist Monks
2 December 2011 at 11:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bill: thinking of you. Our oldest cat Seamus died last year. First time I’d had to bury a pet. He had a life worth telling, though, so I guess it was all worth it.
May the same be said about all of us.
janine
3 December 2011 at 12:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Substistute-Richard Thompson
I Put A Spell On You-Diamanda Galás
Mule Skinner Blues-The Cramps
janine
3 December 2011 at 12:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The Wind Cries Mary-Marc Ribot
I’m Not Lisa-Killdozer
Bring The Noise-The Unholy Trio
janine
3 December 2011 at 12:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Telling Me Lies-Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt
After The Gold Rush-Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt
Mr Sandman-Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt
Good night.
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
3 December 2011 at 1:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No one listed Carie on list of good King movies?
The Sailor