Comments

  3. says

    @dianne

    Good afternoon, Jadzia. If it helps any, I’ll be in Europe in August and saying good morning to the thread at midnight or so eastern US time then.

    I’ve spent almost 5 weeks in the US this year and noticed how much easier it was to interact with the ‘mericans and how much harder it was to interact with the ‘peans.

    Nice change when you’re bored with all the Swedes and Brits :)

    @Giliell

    Hey Jadzis
    Didn’t we tell all about the super-secret CET-ish timezone parties we’Re having when the ‘Meiricans are in bed ;)

    O,o parties!

  5. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Time zones:

    Gah, said parties would be in the morning. I’m not a morning person.

  6. says

    I have pointed out the scientific inaccuracy in labeling a picture of a skull of unknown origins “African American” (you may be able to identify certain racial markers, but that’s still only a matter of probability and country of origin can’t be determined that way [and identifying all of those racial markers from a photograph alone is pretty inaccurate as it is]). I have been informed that, teehee, that’s because African wouldn’t be PC. ^_^

    …

    There is so much wrong. So much fail. I’m not sure where to begin. I’m going to choose to blame Bones for making clueless people think they know things they don’t. Or maybe they looked at an osteologist’s blog and picked up jargon without context.

    Whatever the case, for the love of science: argh.

  7. Beatrice says

    Yay, CET parties!
    Can we have martinis at those parties? I haven’t had a good martini for ages.

  8. drbunsen le savant en colère dans une robe d'été belle (la robe est aussi en colère) says

    Threadrupt! Just a driveby to say hi, and hand out hugs, commiserations, USB cookies and booze, and asskickings, as appropriate (one per customer, orderly queue to the left please)

    And:

    ‘The uploader has not made this video available in your country.’ :(

    https://proxtube.com/

  9. says

    @Beatrice

    Yay, CET parties!
    Can we have martinis at those parties? I haven’t had a good martini for ages.

    Gin and tonic!

    Nah, wine or beer for me.

  10. says

    Voter suppression laws have been examined, actual research has been done. The result: yes, poor people, minorities, people who don’t drive cars, the elderly, students …. these are people who will be disproportionately disenfranchised by the new voter I.D. laws passed by Republicans.

    Oh, and that Republican explanation that voted identification meant to substitute for a driver’s license is FREE? A fucking lie.

    Here’s an excerpt from coverage that includes a few paragraphs from recent research findings. It also covers reaction to Eric Holder identifying the new laws as a “poll tax”:

    …It’s a fascinating perspective. When white Republican policymakers disenfranchise African Americans in an election year, based on trumped up allegations of “fraud,” that doesn’t “incite racial tension.” But when the Attorney General notices white Republican policymakers disenfranchising African Americans in an election year, based on trumped up allegations of “fraud,” that does “incite racial tension.” Good to know.

    In the meantime, while most of the recent talk about voter-ID laws has focused on who’ll be blocked from casting a ballot, the Brennan Center for Justice has a new report looking at a different angle: those who’ll struggle to get the mandatory ID in the first place.

    New laws in 10 states requiring voters to show IDs could present serious challenges to voters without financial resources and transportation, according to a report released Wednesday.

    The study by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, which opposes the new laws, found several obstacles that could keep voters from being able to cast ballots, including limited access to offices that issue the IDs required under the new measures.

    “The advocates of these laws kept saying we’re going to provide these IDs for free and that’s going to eliminate all of the problems,” said Keesha Gaskins, co-author of the report. “We found the ability to get documents isn’t that simple.”

    This is clearly important. It’s obviously a problem to create new barriers between Americans and their democracy, but this new study shines a light on the hurdle before the barrier: not only do many low-income voters not have the ID Republicans demand, they’ll also struggle to get the ID.

    “In some areas, the offices that issue IDs maintain limited business hours. Rural areas in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas are served by part-time ID offices. And in an extreme example, the researchers found the office in Sauk City, Wis., is open only on the fifth Wednesday of any month. That would limit the office to being open just four days this year.”

    It is, as Eugene Robinson recently put it, “an unconscionable crime.”

    Source.

    Link to Brennan Center for Justice report.

  12. Beatrice says

    Wine is good too.
    I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to wines, but I’ve always liked the merlot my Slovenian relatives made.

  13. drbunsen le savant en colère dans une robe d'été belle (la robe est aussi en colère) says

    ps, don’t get the Swarm annoyed.

  14. says

    @Beatrice

    I’m not a big Merlot fan, but I did like the ones I brought from Geneva on my CERN trips back in 2010. Finished the last one on Saturday :)

  16. says

    Argh, I keep getting portcullissed.

    @Tony (last thread):

    It is exciting to me. I’ve literally been writing this story since I was 13. It’s been started and stopped so many times that I just haven’t ever finished anything, but this is truly something I feel not only comfortable writing, but at the same time is something I need to finish. This is the story I will publish, there’s nothing I don’t like about it.

    As for why I wrote this story, I explained that about a month ago. When my brother graduated from college, I got separated from my family – my mother and father went one way with my sister and my grandparents went another way. I ended up behind one of the auditoriums where there was a group of security guards. I watched them and listened to them and realized they all had these interesting kinds of personalities. I wanted to write them into a book.

    Of course, since my genre is fantasy, writing a cop drama wouldn’t work so well – but for someone’s comment on TET and also just having finished reading “Guards! Guards!” I realized I could do it. So I expanded the ‘cop drama’ idea to a ‘city guard drama’ one. It works perfectly!

  17. harbo says

    if that is all HAL has to offer why should we worry AI is as far away as UPLOAD
    Singularity Schmararility

  19. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I have made a discovery!

    It is an important one.

    ImageJ cannot open files that are larger than 30 MB.

    At least, ImageJ as running on my cranky 2007 MacBook cannot.

    Aggravating.

    I think I need a new computer.

    *scuttles off to Apple*

    Jebus! $2000?!

    *sigh*

  20. mythbri says

    @Katherine Lorraine

    Another lovely take on “cop drama” in fantasy is the Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce. It’s a trilogy, and one that I really enjoyed. Also, all of Pratchett’s other City Watch books are awesome.

  21. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    *scuttles off to Apple*

    Other options might be worth considering if you’re on a budget…

  22. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    Then there’s Simon Green’s Haven series. (I think that is what it was, or at least where it was set)

  25. says

    So, I just got a text from my asshole sister. She’s having a girl and she said “Won’t this be fun? They’ll* be just like sisters”.

    *headdesk headdesk headdesk*

    I mean, I’m happy for her, but I just don’t fucking know what to do anymore.

    *Her spawn and DarkFetus.

  26. Richard Austin says

    I’ve had dreams where I’ve died. Not the “you wake up as your dying” kind of dream, but actually “your awareness fades out to nothing and you don’t wake up until it’s all gone” kind of dream. It wasn’t scary at all, at least to me.

    I’ve also had dreams where I was blind, which also wasn’t scary but was very odd.

    However, I *only* do lucid dreaming – I’m always aware, in however small a sense, that I’m dreaming, so I can wake myself up or change the dream at any point if it starts to bother me. I haven’t had a nightmare that I can remember in 30 years.

  27. says

    #19: Don’t skimp. Get ALL THE MEMORY you can. I went for the newest 16Gb MacBook Pro, and this thing sings. Photoshop opens instantly, even if I’m simultaneously running Firefox and Mail and Pages.

  28. Matt Penfold says

    #19: Don’t skimp. Get ALL THE MEMORY you can. I went for the newest 16Gb MacBook Pro, and this thing sings. Photoshop opens instantly, even if I’m simultaneously running Firefox and Mail and Pages.

    But check how much Apple want to charge you for more memory, and check online as it is very likely you could save a fortune by buying from another supplier and fitting it yourself.

  30. Paul says

    But check how much Apple want to charge you for more memory, and check online as it is very likely you could save a fortune by buying from another supplier and fitting it yourself.

    If you’re doing this, check reviews of the product you’re buying to make sure they come with the expected RAM slots if you’re not having them populated by the factory. This may not be a problem with Apple products with the amount of markup they do, but a lot of manufacturers will spec out motherboards to be ONLY AS GOOD as you pay for, with little to no ability to upgrade.

  31. Richard Austin says

    PZ:

    #19: Don’t skimp. Get ALL THE MEMORY you can. I went for the newest 16Gb MacBook Pro, and this thing sings. Photoshop opens instantly, even if I’m simultaneously running Firefox and Mail and Pages.

    My desktop has 32 GB of RAM. Between that and the SSD for the OS, it’s amazing. I certainly recommend people get as much RAM as they can in a computer, but as Matt pointed out it’s often cheaper to get it third-party than from the manufacturer.

  32. says

    Koshka, eeee!! Adorable kittehz.

    Criminy, here in Russia there are rows and rows of monkeys in Le’Murr stores.

    Are they as camera-friendly as this one?

    Carlie:

    Audley, you shouldn’t have to have that much upheaval just to deal with your sister. Tell her your pregnancy is off-limits for conversation, and every time she says something you’ll just walk away. Or something like that.

    Yeah, I agree… it doesn’t sound like moving is workable right now.

    Dogs on stairs: Friends of mine used to have a greyhound adopted from a racetrack. She lived to a ripe old age but never figured out stairs.

    Tony and Ing, pugs are awesome dogs in terms of personality, and they’re wicked cute. The respiratory problems they suffer are sad, though.

    I present to y’all: The tiniest kitty with the biggest eyes.

  33. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    I present to y’all: The tiniest kitty with the biggest eyes.

    Oooooh!

  34. cicely says

    Aha! Caine fell downstairs on TZT. That’s how I missed it.

    All is now made less murky.
    –

    I’ve found a new, fun way to indulge in masochism. Just read forum discussions about the race of ancient Egyptians.

    Oh, yes indeedy! All the way from, “The Ancient Egyptians were white, dammit!!!” to “Cleopatra was black. And the Ancient Greeks pirated Egyptian knowledge and culture, filed off the serial numbers, and claimed it for their own!!!, all with great vehemence and massive emotional investment.
    –

    Anyone else have tornado dreams? I’ve had them for 25 years at least. Last night’s were particularly vivid and frightening. Technicolor high resolution—like I was actually there. Moving in molasses, just slow enough that I couldn’t quite get to the cellar in time.

    Ohhellyes. Tornado nightmares are some of my very favoritest nightmares. And when I say “favoritest”, I mean that my brainz just can’t leave ’em alone.

    Generally, my dream-tornadoes travel in packs, move at an estimated 300 mph, and are on fire. You’d think that the heat would thaw out the molasses, making for improved speed; but not so much.

    And there are no cellars.

    Dreaming about using Daniel Ratcliff as a trap-tripper in a raid on the Easter Bunny’s over-decorated house is much more entertaining.
    –

    According to this episode of Radiolab, the key is to figure out something that is entirely ludicrous and wouldn’t happen in real life, and then think about it often enough that hopefully it makes its way into your dream.

    But my dreaming brain has problems with this whole “entirely ludicrous and wouldn’t happen in real life” concept….
    –

  36. separatethread says

    That’s it. We’re fucked.
    What if that had been a copy of “Going Rogue”?

  37. David Marjanović says

    I think I need a new computer.

    *scuttles off to Apple*

    Jebus! $2000?!

    *sigh*

    “Made in China
    Designed by Apple in California”

    That’s what you pay for.

  38. Pteryxx says

    (expose of ragey stuff)

    Cracked takes on racist stereotyping in videogames, along with sexism, homophobia and more:

    Even the Mass Effect franchise, which is usually considered smarter and more progressive than most other games, has only one possible black romance option — and if you pursue it, he cheats on you and gets another woman pregnant.

    Also, he’s in charge of weapons on your ship and his father is a criminal. Also, he constantly says “dyno-mite!” like Jimmie Walker and kills aliens by slam-dunking over them. (We only made two of those things up.)

    …

    Take Infamous 2, which has two relationship options: the sassy black woman (if you’re evil) and the bookish Asian woman (if you’re heroic). In addition to starting out at the “Haha, like, really?” level of racism right from the jump, the outcome of both options is the same: Cole MacGrath, the hero, gets their powers, doesn’t have to share his own and then kills both of the women.

    Warning – some of the *examples* they cite are horrible… I haven’t been able to finish it yet. Also, it IS Cracked.

    http://www.cracked.com/article_19922_5-prejudices-that-video-games-cant-seem-to-get-over.html

  40. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Listening to the 14/7 SGU, and Steve managed to talk over Rebecca, saying exactly what she was just explaining.

    Fun fun fun.

  42. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    carlie (last thread):

    LOVE pork cracklins, Tony. But almost never eat them. Early-onset heart disease and all.

    I found out on vacation that the midwest has now invented microwave pork rinds. Just like microwave popcorn, only all fat! And salt.

    Blasphemy!

    There can be only one: Bake N Ets hot & Spicy pork cracklins. There are no other.

    ~~
    Ms. Daisy:
    That cat is so lovable.
    Those are the eyes that can peer at you with that really pathetic, longing, needy look and you just can’t stop yourself from helping out (like the cartoons with the cats with beady eyes that are this close to crying).

  43. David Marjanović says

    I’ve been to a museum once or twice in my life, and both times it was at a point where I didn’t care about art or history.

    Did your parents never take you to a big city to see dinosaurs?

    (Incidentally, I fully agree on the difficulty of motivating myself to do stuff just for myself. I’m really bad at living alone.)

    Time for a musical interlude: Song of the Volga Boatmen

    Scarily misogynistic.

    committee (why the fuck does that word have so many double-letters!?)

    First, French comité was somehow misunderstood as feminine, so it got an extra e at the end. Or perhaps it somehow came via German, where ee is used to get the pronunciation of é across. Or perhaps, though that strikes me as quite unlikely, that was Middle English, not German.

    Then, everything in front of the é was reverse-engineered into Latin: committere = con-mittere = send together.

    Lots of English spellings were created by incompetent etymologists.

    It asks me for a resume. I’ve never written a resume.

    *minor panic attack*

    I’m pathetic :-p

    I’ve improved the resumes of my brother and my sister plenty of times; send me yours, and I promise I won’t make it worse.

    (I’ve also written two or three for myself, but science is a specialized field…)

    We are having a bit of trouble on TZT working out whether we have to contend with Boltzmann Brontosauruses or Boltzmann Megalodons. Your professional opinion will be much appreciated.

    Too tired to click on that link. I’ll just say that Brontosaurus still hasn’t been split from Apatosaurus.

    “evaporated cane juice crystals”

    :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

    I’ll be in Europe in August

    !!! When? Where?

  45. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    David:

    Did your parents never take you to a big city to see dinosaurs?

    For my first 6 or 7 years on this planet, my parents were poor (even after my father joined the military). We lived in mobile homes from the time I left NYC (birthplace, but only there for 6 months or so) until we moved to San Antonio, TX. Both my parents worked at the time (father full time+school; mom part time) so taking trips was pretty much out (for instance, I didn’t go to 6 Flags or DisneyWorld until I was an adult, and paid for it myself). After my sister was born (8 years after me), there was less money to go around, so vacations were pretty much out. When we moved to El Paso, TX, there wasn’t really much to do (from what I remember my parents telling me). It wasn’t until we moved to Huntsville, AL, that I got to go somewhere: The Space & Rocket Center. However, I had zero interest in that (I was 15 or 16, and just started puberty, so there were other things more interesting than rockets-even though I’d always been fascinated by space).
    Now that I’m an adult with an interest in history and science, I want to explore museums, and would, but for the ‘not doing it solo’ thing.

  46. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Esteleth:

    Jebus! $2000?!

    *sigh*

    I hear if you pray to him, he’ll grant you whatever you desire. Matthew told me that :)

  47. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    take it to Coyne’s

    Learn to use your scroll button, asshole.

    Get that stick out of your arse.

  48. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Hmpth.

    A new 13″ MBP with all the bells and whistles that I want (with the Education discount and the current back-to-school sale) comes to $1700.

    Alternatively, I could bring my 2010 iMac to work and chain it to my desk, and get an iPad for at-home use. Or get my old laptop refurbished.

    *thinking*

    But yes, my intention is to get every damn slot filled with memory. I don’t need a huge hard drive, I have a 1 terabit portable. What I cannot decide is how fast a processor I want.

  49. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Esteleth:

    Alternatively, I could bring my 2010 iMac to work and chain it to my desk, and get an iPad for at-home use.

    Are you strictly an Apple person? Or would you purchase a different type of tablet if it had everything you need?

  50. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Tony,
    I am not strictly an Apple person. But I like the iPads. But I could be persuaded to go with something else.

  51. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    1 terabit

    Doesn’t seem like that much, but my stuff could fit in 125 GB.

    More seriously, I’m not really a Mac person. If you’re concerned about cost, go for a PC. It may be more variable, but usually not as expensive.

    Take my words with a grain of salt though.

  52. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    A poster called lv57lurker in the Voice of Reason thread is asking for examples of feminists dealing specifically with men’s issues. I know that there’s “No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz?” and Manboobz, but for some reason I have this vague sense that there’s something wrong with one of those sites and no idea what or if it’s even true. We have a couple of examples of resources for male rape survivors in the Links roundup, but we haven’t done much with toxic masculinity and such right now. I know Jadehawk also has a series on toxic masculinity.

  54. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Cipher, No Seriously What about the Menz is sliding a bit into MRA territory. Manboobz is not.

    Also, Manboobz is more of a “MRAs are stupid. I mock them!” than a serious analysis site.

  55. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Hey, Chick-Fil-A is being open and honest about their bigotry

    Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy — the son of company founder S. Truett Cathy — addresses what the publication describes as his franchise’s “support of the traditional family.”

    Hey Dan, what traditional family are you talking about?

    He went on to note, “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that…we know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

    1- supportive of a narrow definition of family
    2- which Biblical definition? I mean there’s the guy with a wife and a fuckton of concubines; there’s the guy who marries the girl he raped; there’s the guy who was ready to bash in his child’s head for god; there’s the god that thought human sacrifice and filicide/suicide were the best way to redeem his creation; there’s the jesus guy who told people to cast aside their family if they want to follow him; there’s the jesus guy who told people he was here to pit families against one another
    3- who is this we he’s speaking of that are married to their first wives? He and any siblings? The PTB at Chick Fil A? Their upper management? The General Managers of every store? The employees of every store (somehow I doubt that)?
    4- Thanks goodness we live in a country where we can be bigots who discriminate against others and hide behind the armor of religion.

    Gosh, what a NICE guy.

    F
    U
    C
    K

    Y
    O
    U

    Dan Cathy.

  56. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    *smashes ImageJ and old cranky laptop*

    GRR OUT OF MEMORY ERROR GRR

  57. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to recover the information on corrupted hard drives? I have an old desktop and my last laptop that both have that problem. They both have information on the hard drives that I want, but if it’s not possible to recover them, I’ll just get new ones.
    Oh, and what’s one of the best malware/virus programs to have on a computer? I currently have NORTON for my new laptop and I’d like to not have to deal with this crap again in a few years.

  58. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard:

    My desktop has 32 GB of RAM. Between that and the SSD for the OS, it’s amazing.

    Is there a way to upgrade the RAM for a computer? I have only 3 GB on my laptop.

  59. rrede says

    Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy

    Well, one of the problems with that request is that they assume feminists=women!

    In terms of the two sites, Manboobz is for mocking misogyny: it’s not about “feminists dealing with men’s issues” (though in fact a number of the posters work in various social services related jobs and volunteer with groups that help men and boys!)–recent posts are about Tom Martin (the British MRA who sued the London School of Economics for being sexist toward men in their gender program–judge threw the case out of court so hard it bounced) who is now going around claiming that ten year olds can consent to sex, and thus, prostitution, and should be punished (as prostitutes) because of tempting those poor mentally ill pedophiles into bad behaviors. It’s hard to mock that!

    No, Seriously What About the Men, was started by a regular at Manboobz (Ozymandias 42). The purpose was to provide a feminist informed analysis of some of the issues men face in kyriarchical society–I was turned off by some of the anti-woman rhetoric early on, so don’t read over there, and I think it’s getting worse now that they’re affiliated with the Good Men Project (which seems to have a shitload of anti-feminist rhetoric).

    But that might be a place to start.

    From my perspective (I teach gender theories), the “men’s issues” that are most serious are more directly correlated with race, class, sexuality, etc. — the cis straight white men of the MRA who want to co-opt such issues as % of men sent to prison vs. women, educational issues (“men” as a whole are not that behind women, the boys and young men who are poor and or in ethnic minority groups are), GBT men are harassed for not conforming to the macho mentality that the MRA seems to promote (and the MRA blogs and sites are pretty clear about slurs concerning “thugs” that (white) women prefer, and attacks on “manginas” and “sissy boys” and such).

    The other problem with the MRAs seems to be their attempt to blame all their victimization on women/feminists–as opposed to the kyriarchy.

  60. rrede says

    Cipher OM Fighting Fuckboy

    The link leads to results for a Google search on “intersectional analysis” and “masculinities”:

    http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=male+feminists+dealing+with+men's+issues#hl=en&rlz=1C1ARAB_enUS452US452&sclient=psy-ab&q=intersectional+analysis+masculinities&oq=intersectional+analysis+masculinities&gs_l=serp.3…19047.20396.1.20484.14.7.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0…0.0…1c.FD2DItCSqpg&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=5999ea2cf20f1d2b&biw=1024&bih=475

    The problem with the term “men’s issues” is that by trying to focus solely on gender, the default is to white/straight/cis men.

    Therefore, intersectional analysis (intersectionality is a sociological feminist theory) is needed to really deal with masculinities and with the different issues that different groups of men deal with.

    But it’s not going to give anybody support for the “Misandry is totally the same as misogyny” junk that keeps being promoted by MRA trolls at Manboobz.

  61. Pteryxx says

    Cipher: if this lurker wants *examples* and not just resources (which are much more likely all-inclusive than ‘men’s issues’) I suggest the Ms campaign that got the FBI’s definition of rape updated to include male victims, among other things.

    http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/04/20/rape-is-rape-no-more-excuses/

    http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2012/01/06/finally-finally-fbis-forcible-rape-definition-is-officially-history/

    See also Jason Thibeault’s coverage of standards to address prison rape:

    http://freethoughtblogs.com/lousycanuck/2012/06/22/doj-releases-new-standards-to-combat-prison-rape-right-wingers-fight-it-mras-yawn/

  63. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I agree with most of what you’ve said, rrede (and the rest of it is outside my area so I don’t have an opinion). lv57lurker finds validity in the MRA claim that feminists don’t take domestic violence against men seriously. There’d be a reason for that, if it were true, but since the difficulty in male domestic abuse victims being heard comes from patriarchal rhetoric and is an example of PHMT, I figured it’s a legitimate area of feminist study. I do masculinities (but mine are ancient, so not much help for lurker there) so I know they’re studied.

  64. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    @Tony Whether you’re data is recoverable depends on what’s wrong with the drive and how much money you’re willing to spend. If it’s worth shelling out a little cash I’d suggest SpinRite(I think it’s about $80 with a money back guarantee.) It can really work wonders for data recovery and when run regularly can seriously extend the life of your drive. There are a number of free (or cheap) tools out there but I don’t have a lot of first hand experience with any of them. If you have something really important you can send your drive to a data recovery company but those services are not at all cheap.

    For antivirus I stick with Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s free and very efficient with system resources.

  65. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Tony, recovering data is possible, but it will cost you $$$$

    For PC antivirus, I’ve heard good things about AVG.

  66. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Thanks, rrede and pteryxx!
    *hops around*
    Now I have to add “toxic masculinity” to my to-do list for the Wiki page.

  67. Paul says

    Does anyone know if it’s possible to recover the information on corrupted hard drives? I have an old desktop and my last laptop that both have that problem. They both have information on the hard drives that I want, but if it’s not possible to recover them, I’ll just get new ones.

    Depends on the type of corruption. Short of taking a very high-powered electromagnet to it, you can almost always recover at least some of the data off your drive.

    Here’s a start for software that can be used. I forget which I have used in the past. Have not done enough to become attached to any particular suite. You’ll need to be booting on a different system and mount the ones you are recovering to an enclosure, though, to avoid overwriting data while recovering (and some programs flat won’t even try to work if you’re trying to recover files from a disk that you’re currently booting from).

  68. Pteryxx says

    Thanks so much for doing all this work on the wiki, Cipher.

    Now to make yer life even harder: massive resource on harassment and policy implementation, via Ophelia. (It’s the ombudsman documentation resource for MIT.)

    http://web.mit.edu/ombud/publications/index.html

    Ombuds Publications

    This compilation of publications offers information relevant to establishing and maintaining a professional Ombuds practice which adheres to a common code of ethics and standards of practice. It also includes writings that are useful to those within and outside of MIT who want to better understand and/or establish an Ombuds practice.

  69. says

    Sili:

    Get that stick out of your arse.

    How dare I snarl at someone with a history of complaining about people posting things that don’t interest him, when he complains that I’ve posted something that doesn’t interest him.

    Rrede: Ozy Frantz is so concerned about “zealous young feminists” not getting their priorities straight: catering to menz’ fee-fees. His affiliation with Schwyzer is unsurprising.

  70. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    You’ll need to be booting on a different system and mount the ones you are recovering to an enclosure, though, to avoid overwriting data while recovering

    Um, no. Low level data recovery is just not possible on an external drive. The USB interface doesn’t provide the necessary hardware controls.

  71. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Esteleth, Dysomniak:
    When you’re talking about $$$ to recover material on a hard drive, are we talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars? More? Less?

  72. Beatrice says

    Question about Pharyngula unofficial rules and practices:

    I’m not sure if I’m misremembering this, but I think I read at some point that we don’t ask PZ to ban people. If they deserve it, he’ll generally do it anyway, but we shouldn’t ask for him to swing the banhammer. True/false?

  73. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Tony, your case may be different, but I’m skeptical about companies who claim to recover overwritten data.

    There was the Great Zero Challenge– overwrite a drive once with zeros, then recover the data.

    So far, nobody has stepped forward.

    Now, overwritten names are different.

  74. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Tony:

    I think corrupted drives will be fine though. Ignore what I said.

  76. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Ms Daisy:

    How dare I snarl at someone with a history of complaining about people posting things that don’t interest him, when he complains that I’ve posted something that doesn’t interest him.

    I’m not trying to weigh in on any of the history you’re speaking of, and I do agree with you that such actions are hypocritical.
    In this situation though, having clicked on the link ChasC provided to Coyne, I wonder if xe was simply suggesting you nominate the cute kitty pic at KittenQwest?

    Of course, having now been to the site, and seeing that scrolling down reveals the poll is closed, it’s rather pointless to take it to Coyne’s site.

  77. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Beatrice:

    I’m not sure if I’m misremembering this, but I think I read at some point that we don’t ask PZ to ban people. If they deserve it, he’ll generally do it anyway, but we shouldn’t ask for him to swing the banhammer. True/false?

    I’ve wondered this as well.
    I’ve seen several people request PZ to drop the banhammer in the past (not often) and wondered if that was a good or not.

  78. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Tony, I think that depends on two factors:
    (1) How much data is there?
    (2) How badly damaged is it? I mean, if you got hit by a virus that corrupted the lookup table, then that’s one thing. If you have a virus that overwrote sectors or something else, then that’s something else.

  80. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    How dare I snarl at someone with a history of complaining about people posting things that don’t interest him, when he complains that I’ve posted something that doesn’t interest him.

    I hadn’t noticed you posted the original comment. Sorry.

    But aside from Chas’ arseholery, the idea that Pharyngula is not a kitten friendly blog is perpetuated as a joke by the CEO, so I assumed that was what Chas was getting at. My bad if I gave him too much credit.

    Pity, that that’s not the only difference between Coyne’s and PeeZed’s blogs.

  81. Paul says

    Um, no. Low level data recovery is just not possible on an external drive. The USB interface doesn’t provide the necessary hardware controls.

    Don’t blame me that you’ve never heard of a SATA enclosure.

  82. Beatrice says

    Ms. Daisy Cutter,

    Thanks. I’m sometimes tempted to ask for banning when some particularly obnoxious troll hoggles a thread, but I had that memory somewhere in the back of my mind stopping me.

    I half-succumbed once, but I only mentioned that I hope he’ll restrict reasonable fellow to TZT so I guess that doesn’t count.

  83. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Hmm. I think that if PZ checks his email and sees 30 emails (from 30 different people), all time-stamped in the past five minutes, to the effect of “There is a troll doing X in thread Y” then he responds. Also if he sees it himself because he’s reading a thread.

    However, what does not work (usually) is yelling at someone that PZ is going to drop the banhammer on them because $REASON. Especially if that reason is not a valid one that usually leads PZ to ban people otherwise (spamming, sockpuppeting, being an epic asshat, etc). In fact, PZ gets quite irritable at people who seem to expect that he’s their personal banninator.

  84. Paul says

    Don’t blame me that you’ve never heard of a SATA enclosure.

    Also meant to note that you might not even be talking about low level data recovery. Unless you’re regularly exposing your drives to lightning, the most common “hard drive corruption” a consumer encounters is having their master boot record or a file table corrupted (if it’s bad enough for them to think “my hard drive is corrupted”, and not something the OS can fix itself). This is easily fixed over USB, by simply recovering file by file. Nothing in the original post made me suspect the need for low level data recovery, and I’ve known several people who have had similar problems.

  85. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    BTW, is
    WEIT a good blog to follow?
    (by comparison, I like Greta’s blog, B&W, here obviously, and Dispatches for examples)

  86. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    …I am an odd person. I feel like I wrote that in response to someone, but now I don’t remember who.

    *confused flail*

  87. Beatrice says

    Esteleth,

    If you’re talking about #83, it was an answer to me and Tony.

    Also, it didn’t even cross my mind that someone would send PZ emails about trolls. I was thinking more about posting a comment in the relevant thread or maybe here.

  90. says

    Rachel Maddow pulled no punches. I call this fight in Maddow’s favor, she knocked Limbaugh out cold.

    Dear Mr. Limbaugh:

    Here’s what you said yesterday, for which we made fun of you last night on MSNBC:

    Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is? That’s right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date’s been known, summer 2012, for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?

    Here’s how you responded today to criticism of your remarks :

    Everybody’s out there running around saying I got this giant conspiracy theory that the Batman people, the creators, the comic book creators, created this thing to campaign against Romney. I never said that. I didn’t say there was a conspiracy. I said the Democrats were going to use it. . . .

    Mr. Limbaugh, actually, you did say it was a conspiracy. You did so when you asked your rhetorical question (“Do you think that is is accidental?”) about whether it could conceivably be an accident that this new Batman movie has a villain in it with a name that sounds like Mitt Romney’s former firm.

    Was that not a rhetorical question? When you asked “Do you think it’s accidental?” did you actually mean to imply that you do think it really was an accident, it really was a coincidence?

    I think we were factually accurate when we made fun of you for trafficking in one of the stupidest right-wing conspiracy theories of all time. You are contesting our characterization of your remarks, but we didn’t mischaracterize what you said. And now I think you’re just lying about what you said in order to avoid the embarrassment of having been so wrong.

    We’ll correct the record if we need to, but I don’t think we need to.

    All best wishes,

    Rachel Maddow

    And here’s Maddow making fun of Limbaugh. This the video segment to which Limbaugh objected. I would just like to point out that Limbaugh was quoted in context, with no deceptive editing, but he is still wrong.

  92. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    WEIT a good blog to follow?

    http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/

    If you stick to the biology, food and boots, I guess.

    Coyne does a lot of reading on theology and philosophy, so if that interests you, ok.

    He does not seem to be good on feminism, though. At least he repeatedly makes unprovoked barbs at us.

  93. says

    Good evening all (or whatever time of day it is where you’re at).

    So… I generally don’t read a lot of the Freethought Blogs outside of Pharyngula, but today I decided to explore the network a bit and I came accros Comradde Physioproffe, which I hadn’t really read before… What the hell is that blog? I’m not critizing it or anything, really… I just don’t quite get it. It seems so out of place here on FtB.

  95. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Hmm. I think that if PZ checks his email and sees 30 emails (from 30 different people), all time-stamped in the past five minutes, to the effect of “There is a troll doing X in thread Y” then he responds. Also if he sees it himself because he’s reading a thread.

    This relates to something else I’ve wondered. Does PZ read all the comments from his blog posts? I mean some of these posts have comments in the several hundreds. I would think that would take a *lot* of time.
    The above is the reason I didn’t address this to PZ himself (since he’d be the person who could answer my query). I imagine he’s too busy to read *every* response.

  96. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Interesting Sunday Feature (rerun) on BBC Radio3 about one of the Madrass famine.

    I missed the start, but the use of “Malthusian” rankles me. I’ll try to be generous and assume that it works much like “social Darwinism”. Or like “Machiavellian”, I guess.

  97. Richard Austin says

    Tony:

    Is there a way to upgrade the RAM for a computer? I have only 3 GB on my laptop.

    Sorry, went to lunch with the best friend (who I work with, but we haven’t been able to go to lunch together for over a month).

    Anyway, the total RAM capacity of a computer depends on two things.

    1) Hardware – namely the motherboard. Every board has a specific number of slots, and each slot is designed to only support up to a specific capacity of chip. So, if you have two RAM slots and each slot can only recognize up to 2 GB, you’re capped hardware-wise at 4 GB. My desktop, as an example, has 8 slots with 4 GB max per slot, so that’s where my 32 GB comes from.

    2) Operating System – I won’t go into the details why, but any 32-bit operating system can only address a total of 4 GB of memory; this, however, includes *all* memory for the computer, including on-processor caches and other things, so you usually end up with a maximum amount of “RAM” of about 3.3 GB, even if your mobo will support more. A 64-bit system has a much higher limit (in terabytes, IIRC).

    So, since you say you’ve got 3 GB, I’d assume that either you’ve got 2 slots with a 1 GB chip in one and a 2 GB chip in the other (and can probably bump up to 4 at least; most laptop mobos only have two slots) or you’re running a 32-bit OS and have 4 GB installed but can only address 3-something GB.

    If you want to give me the make/model of your laptop, I can look up what your actual capacity is, but I’ll tell you off the bat that anything older than a couple of years is almost guaranteed to be capped at 4 GB by the motherboard.

  99. says

    Beatrice:

    I’m not sure if I’m misremembering this, but I think I read at some point that we don’t ask PZ to ban people. If they deserve it, he’ll generally do it anyway, but we shouldn’t ask for him to swing the banhammer. True/false?

    True. PZ does not want people predicting bannination or telling someone they’ll be banned or banning requests. However, he doesn’t mind if people request a quarantine to TZT.

  100. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Holy Hell!

    If these people called themselves “Malthusians”, I don’t have much to complain about. I can only assume that Malthus would be as horrified as Darwin.

    I had completely managed to forget about the forced sterilisations.

  101. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Lynna @90:

    This may come as a shock to everyone,so please sit down or stop eating, but I feel the need to share this:

    Rush Limbaugh is a moron.

    :::waits for the looks of shock and gasps to subside before commenting further:::

    Bane was created back in the 1990’s as part of DC Comics’ ‘let’s shake things up dramatically’ phase they were going through (it started in ’92 with the Death of Superman). He first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane in 1993. He did something to Batman that I don’t want to spoil b/c it might be relevant to Dark Knight Rises.

    It was not until February 9, 2010, that it was announced that Nolan had “cracked” the story of a sequel to The Dark Knight and was committed to return to the project.

    Nolan had decided at this point to use Bane.
    I don’t know when the studio decided on the July 20 US release date, but it’s been well over a year.

    Any similarities between Bain capital, and Bane the villain, are purely coincidental.

    So I hate to burst bubbles, but Limbaugh is deeply dumb.

  102. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Sili:

    At least he repeatedly makes unprovoked barbs at us.

    While I may take a look at his blog again, the above tells me pretty much all I needed to know. If he can’t get a full grasp of feminism, his values and mine may not line up that much.

  103. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    pentatomid:

    I came accros Comradde Physioproffe, which I hadn’t really read before… What the hell is that blog? I’m not critizing it or anything, really… I just don’t quite get it. It seems so out of place here on FtB.

    I’ve ventured into that blog all of one time. Most of the time, the blog updates appear to be unrelated to atheism, feminism, freethought, logic, science, or reason. I just avoid the site. I’ve seen other commenters in various FtB threads express dislike for that blog (and call for him to be fired ala Thunderf00t; of course these people forget that TF wasn’t canned solely b/c he didn’t seem to fit in with FtB)

  104. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard:

    If you want to give me the make/model of your laptop, I can look up what your actual capacity is, but I’ll tell you off the bat that anything older than a couple of years is almost guaranteed to be capped at 4 GB by the motherboard.

    It’s Gateway/NE56R10u.
    I just bought it two weeks ago.
    Thanks for your assistance :)

  105. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Apparently, Comrade Physioproffe has really good recipes.
    I dunno because I can’t cook.

  106. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Oh, and I so would love to buy Rachel Maddow a drink or two. She totally rocks.

  107. says

    Does PZ read all the comments from his blog posts?

    He skims. He once called it “flying over in the traffic copter”.

  108. fastlane says

    Lynna @90.

    Do you suppose even the most sycophantic followers of JAQoffs like Limbaugh believe that they’re remotely sincere when they pull the JAQ bs? You would think that they might have at least a shred of integrity somewhere and admit that they are just poisoning the well.
    You’d think that, but you’d be wrong… *sigh*

  109. Paul says

    On Sciblogs, CPP used to write about drug policy and applied issues with pharmaceuticals and the pharmaceutical industry. A glance at his page on FTB and it seems like a place to collect recipes. People on other blogs where he comments have indicated that it’s more like a parody of blogs (probably intentional, but I really don’t know about intent).

  110. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Pteryxx, thanks for the links! As for the Wiki, thanks too :D but I don’t do any of the hard parts. Hooloovoo, Jessa, and especially mouthyb deserve the credit for those.

  111. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    And of course, Jadehawk, Onion girl, and you, since that’s where a ton of the links came from.

  113. Richard Austin says

    Tony:

    It’s Gateway/NE56R10u.
    I just bought it two weeks ago.
    Thanks for your assistance :)

    Here’s your computer.

    Looks like you can get up to 8 GB:

    Dual-channel DDR3 SDRAM supporting up to 4 GB of DDR3 system memory, upgradable to 8 GB using two soDIMM modules

    Two slots, each slot can take 4 GB.

    So, you’ll need to look around for 2 soDIMM Dual-Channel DDR3 chips. Looks like it should run you $40-70 for both chips. Installation can be easy or complex, depending on where the slots are – sometimes they’re under a panel on the back of the laptop (with a single screw removed to expose it), sometimes one or both will be under the keyboard (which gets a little more complex, but not a whole lot). In your case, it looks like there are two screws holding a large, long panel under the front bottom of the laptop; that panel covers the RAM slots/chips and the hard drive, apparently.

    Once you get the chips, it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to upgrade. Just make sure you’re grounded (in the electrical sense).

  114. says

    But check how much Apple want to charge you for more memory

    It’s mainly the SSDs that cost a fortune, it’s 800 dollars between the 128GB and the 512GB version on the Macbooks. I got a Macbook Air the other day because I was curious, I like it, and it was only 1349.-, that’s pretty reasonable actually.

  116. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard:
    Can I buy you a drink along with Rachel Maddow?
    Thank you.

    Once you get the chips, it shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes to upgrade. Just make sure you’re grounded (in the electrical sense).

    What’s the opposite of tech savvy?
    Whatever it is, that’s me.
    I wouldn’t try to do this on my own. “Don’t try this at home” definitely applies to this situation.

  117. Richard Austin says

    (And, just to be pedantic, I know it’s not technically two chips, it’s two modules which each have a bunch of chips. I’ve simply learned over the years that if I refer to them as “modules”, laymen have no clue wtf I’m talking about.)

  118. Beatrice says

    Stuck on Cracked.com

    I may never find a way out again.

    *goes back to cracked tab*

  119. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Richard Austin:

    The theoretical limit for 64 bits is 2^64 bytes (~18 quintillion), but current implementations support no more than 2^48 bytes (~282 trillion)

  120. Richard Austin says

    Tony:

    I wouldn’t try to do this on my own. “Don’t try this at home” definitely applies to this situation.

    Well, you know your capabilities better than anyone else, but it’s really the equivalent of sliding a SIM card into a cell phone or plugging a fuse into a slot. It’s not very complex, but do what you’re comfortable with.

    If you’ve got a semi-competent geek friend, that works too. I wouldn’t recommend the Geek Squad at BestBuy,just because I don’t trust them to even know what RAM looks like.

  122. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    As for me, I have 4*2 GB of RAM. All slots used :(

    Tony:

    Sensitive electronic components don’t like electrical shock. That’s why grounding is necessary.

    *Guilty me doesn’t use those, but you should*

  123. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Hey Beatrice:
    Crack is whack :)

  126. Richard Austin says

    Thunk –
    So, yeah, roughly 256 terabytes. Not that it matters much for desktops – even at $10 a GB, that’s a lot of money :P

  128. Richard Austin says

    … since I’m geeking, how many other techies here are really annoyed that storage volumes mean “billions of bytes” when they say “gigabyte” rather than the formal gigabyte value (which is actually about 7% smaller)?

  129. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Thunk:
    Yours is much cooler.
    And the secret stuff is soooooooooo true!

  130. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard @120:

    If this explains my ineptitude, I haven’t changed out the lightbulb on our front porch b/c the bulb broke off whilst attempting to remove it and I have no idea how to get the twist-in part out.
    And that’s only slightly tech related
    ~~
    in other news, thanks to those who recommended how to peel boiled eggs the other day. I boiled some today and they peeled perfectly!

  134. Richard Austin says

    Tony:

    I haven’t changed out the lightbulb on our front porch b/c the bulb broke off whilst attempting to remove it and I have no idea how to get the twist-in part out.

    Must… resist… “how many Tonys does it take to change a light bulb?”… joke…

  135. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I got a new mouse with a light, replaced my old mouse with a ball, and now the mouse is moving just slightly too fast.

  136. Richard Austin says

    Cipher:
    Uh, in Windows, there’s a “pointer options” setting under mouse controls that allows you to change the speed. I assume there’s something similar in mac (I think you’re on an Apple, yes?).

  137. dogeared, spotted and foxed says

    Tony, my grandfather told me that you could use a turnip to get a broken bulb out. Cut it in half, push it into the glass gently and then unscrew it. (Confession: This is the first time that info has come in handy and I’m delighted.)

  138. says

    fastlane @108

    Lynna @90.
    Do you suppose even the most sycophantic followers of JAQoffs like Limbaugh believe that they’re remotely sincere when they pull the JAQ bs?

    I live amongst ’em. They believe. They are sincere. They believe Rush Dimbulb is not only sincere, but that he is the only brave soul willing to tell them the truth.

  139. carlie says

    I haven’t changed out the lightbulb on our front porch b/c the bulb broke off whilst attempting to remove it and I have no idea how to get the twist-in part out.

    I haven’t tried it, but standard advice is to jab a potato in it and then twist the potato. If you’re lucky, it will catch on the twist part and take it out, rather than cutting through the potato on the way around the twist and leaving you with a stuck-in twist part full of potato.

  140. carlie says

    * turn off the electricity before doing this.

    Also, if that doesn’t work and you’re sure the electricity is off, use needle-nose pliers.

  141. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    dogeared, spotted, and foxed:
    You never thought you’d have to give that advice out I bet.
    Now I wish I had a turnip.
    I think I have a potato in the fridge…
    thanks for the advice folks.

  142. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Richard, I’m on Windows but unfortunately it seems that my brain is set to a mouse sensitivity that isn’t an option. It’s either slightly too fast or too slow. :<

  143. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard @134:
    At least you didn’t go with the “how many gay men does it take to change a lightbulb” joke…
    (if we gathered up all the gay men on Pharyngula that should be sufficient to get the job done…whoever changes my bulb gets to cut to the front of the ghey secks queue)

  144. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    and I dearly hope “changes my bulb” isn’t a euphemism for something sexual…

  145. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Actually, I messed with a setting that I didn’t know what it does (Not recommended!) (I unchecked “Enhance pointer precision”) and I think I fixed it.

  146. says

    Tony @101

    Bane was created back in the 1990′s as part of DC Comics’ ‘let’s shake things up dramatically’ phase …

    Yep. That’s pretty much the fact Maddow used to make fun of Limbaugh and all of his conspiracy theories in which the conspirators time travel, are preternaturally prescient, and are diabolically liberal.

    Limbaugh seems to think that movie makers and Hollywood Democrats, (and possibly President Obama’s current supporters), knew two decades ago that Bain would be Romney’s Bane, and therefore they planted the seeds that gave rise to The Dark Knight Rises.

    The pretzel-like illogic of this particular Limbaugh theory does not daunt Limbaugh believes one whit. (I’m going to have to look up “whit.” I don’t know what one whit is, nor what two whits are.)

  148. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

  150. Vilém Saptar says

    Hello all!

    Threadrupt. Commiserations to all who need them and congratulations on any happinesses!

    *Recalls Tony‘s long animation geek post, realizes himself to be a puny dilettante, backs away after generic “Yay”ing and seconding*

    Proximally,
    Caine, you and Pteryxx were about the hooded ones! Magrat, Amelia and Agnes are much much prettier than their uniformly furred siblings :)

    Popping out now, have a lot of work :|

  151. Richard Austin says

    Tony:

    At least you didn’t go with the “how many gay men does it take to change a lightbulb” joke…

    No, if I do a joke like that, it’s about *me*, not you :)

    and I dearly hope “changes my bulb” isn’t a euphemism for something sexual…

    Well, it does involve screwing…

  152. says

    Flip the appropriate breaker so that the electricity being fed to the porch light is completely off. Use needle nose pliers, as was suggested up-thread to grasp what’s left of the lightbulb base. Twist it out.

    If you are Lynna, you will have to stand on a ladder to do this.

  154. Vilém Saptar says

    Oops, that was “proximal” before my last refresh.

    GTG anyway, sorry.

  155. Part-Time Insomniac, Zombie Porcupine Nox Arcana Fan says

    OMG go away humidity! I’ll take the rain, but you’re just annoying!
    —————————————————-

    *makes note of suggested ways to extract a stuck and broken lightbulb*
    —————————————————

    Rearranging and cleaning stuff. Now if I can figure out how to get my dad’s recliner out of my room and to the curb without breaking my back or anything else, I’ll finally have room for that other chair, plus a place to put my exercise equipment.
    —————————————————–

    Caine – Heh, Mom swears up and down that one day Joey will be the reason she has to go around with a back brace. Silly dog just can’t wait for her to finish going down the stairs, so eh ends up bumping into her. Apparently he’s too dumb to realize that he doesn’t HAVE to follow behind her if he wants to get downstairs ASAP.

    Feel better soon!
    —————————————————-

    Also, ratties!!!

  156. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Richard:

    No, if I do a joke like that, it’s about *me*, not you :)

    Ah, touche :)

    ~~

    Vilem Saptar:

    *Recalls Tony‘s long animation geek post, realizes himself to be a puny dilettante, backs away after generic “Yay”ing and seconding*

    I think we’re both puny dilettante’s. My animation knowledge isn’t much more advanced than what I’ve already mentioned.

  157. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Sili:

    How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?

    That’s offensive! Also, it is the patriarchy that made the bulb burn out.

    …

    The best lightbulb jokes I know are about students of the Five Colleges. Which is to say that if you are not familiar with them – and the stereotypes of the students – then they make no sense.

    Also, they’re a bit dated. A reference to the Jolt now means squat. :(

  158. says

    As a side note to the Bane thing I honestly do dispise Dixon.

    One of those assholes who defends homophobia with his religion and not wanting it exposed to his children.

    Maybe I’m too knee jerk but I honestly do hate a lot of conservative comic shit. A lot.

  159. chigau (女性) says

    Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
    A: One. And it’s not funny.
    (I heard this one in about 1970)

  160. says

    Sorry I just had to spread this comment from a friend about Chuck Dixon

    Somehow not surprised that a Conservative Catholics biggest contributation to the DCU was a big, sweaty beefy man in S&M gear.

  162. rrede says

    Ms. Daisy Cutter:

    I completely disagree with Ozy’s theories of feminism/inclusion, but to clarify a couple of things:

    Ozy’s preferred pronoun is zie.

    The blog zie and Noah co-host joined THE GOOD MEN PROJECT after Hugo left (I’d never read anything at GMP and had been boycotting Hugo for years after a few early run-ins with him on his first blog–but looking at this “roundtable” on men and feminism solidified my dislike/distrust of GMP: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/men-and-feminism-the-good-men-project-roundtable/).

    Since I’m new around here, I’m mid-fifties, my partner is a woman, and we live and work in rural Texas–I teach the women and gender and critical race courses at a small university. I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism (now, the racism in a lot of feminist spaces is a whole other matter).

  164. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    cm:
    What I was trying to do was open 3 30 Mb images and them merge them. Because each image was a single channel, and it is useful to be able to tell if the DAPI and Ki-67 are co-localizing or not.

    But in any case, ImageJ gave me an “out of memory” error.

  165. says

    I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    So, does that mean you’ve got a problem with me, a male, identifying as a feminist?

  167. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Ing:
    I wondered how much of a comic book fan you were. Your Chuck Dixon comment clarifies that for me. I learned about his homophobia years ago, and was saddened, b/c I like his style of writing. He usually begins his stories in medias res and almost always with some type of action, which I like (it draws the reader into the story from the jump). I applaud the creation of Birds of Prey, and he is a big fan of Barbara Gordon as Oracle. He wrote her excellently.

  168. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Fuck Arizona. Fuck politics. Such bullshit going on.
    Senator Crandal proposed a bill, SB 1061, which waives a mandate that kindergarten through eighth grade public school districts participate in the National School Lunch Program. Bunch of republican bull to give the schools “local control” like charter schools in the area. I’m sorry but schools don’t have an option not to feed their students. Then left a message for another senator, Barton, saying he’d kill all bills put Barton put forth because Barton saw Crandal’s kid and a friend tearing down Filmore’s (another running politician) campaign signs. They are trying to get Crandal before an ethics committee for this threatening voice mail.

    Crandal “a Republican from Mesa, is the chairman of the Senate Education Committee. That gives him the power to effectively kill legislation in his committee by refusing to give it a hearing.” Seriously. This fucking asshole is running education bills? WTF were people thinking? Oh, right stupid republicans.

    My child starts kindergarten soon and I’m scared shitless of whats going to happen. I hate this fucking state.

    Source

    (That source site is ugly but the author is the founder and leader of The Tequila Party movement and is where I got all the links for information on the story.)

  169. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    I second pentatomid’s question @165

  170. says

    Vilém:

    Caine, you and Pteryxx were about the hooded ones! Magrat, Amelia and Agnes are much much prettier than their uniformly furred siblings :)

    Aha, biased already! :D Thank you.

    Ing:

    How many rats does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

    At minimum two but the tough part is getting them inside

    Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

    PTI:

    Heh, Mom swears up and down that one day Joey will be the reason she has to go around with a back brace. Silly dog just can’t wait for her to finish going down the stairs, so eh ends up bumping into her. Apparently he’s too dumb to realize that he doesn’t HAVE to follow behind her if he wants to get downstairs ASAP.

    Yikes! Yes, the not-so-smart dogs can be a right pain in more than one way. Thanks. :)

  172. says

    rrede:

    I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    Then you can kindly fuck off. I’ve been a feminist since the early 70s, an active one. The fact that you wish to exclude men from feminism tells me all I need to know about you. You aren’t a feminist, you’re just an asshole.

  173. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    Then you can kindly fuck off. I’ve been a feminist since the early 70s, an active one. The fact that you wish to exclude men from feminism tells me all I need to know about you. You aren’t a feminist, you’re just an asshole

    And/or the MRA holy grail.

  174. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Does a site have to have an RSS feed to get updates sent to email?
    I wanted to do that for xkcd, but it doesn’t appear to work like I thought (of course this could be my ‘inep-tech-titude’ on display again).

  175. says

    I wondered how much of a comic book fan you were. Your Chuck Dixon comment clarifies that for me. I learned about his homophobia years ago, and was saddened, b/c I like his style of writing. He usually begins his stories in medias res and almost always with some type of action, which I like (it draws the reader into the story from the jump). I applaud the creation of Birds of Prey, and he is a big fan of Barbara Gordon as Oracle. He wrote her excellently.

    I won’t say he’s a bad writer, just a bad person.

    Frank Miller I will say is both

  176. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    Errr – I’m just a bit to tired and should go to bed.

    You can’t of course be the MRA holy grail or an asshole. What I meant to say was “and quite possibly the MRA holy grail”.

  177. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    –I teach the women and gender and critical race courses at a small university.[…] see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    Woohoo!

    I can stop teaching maths to girls!

  178. cm's changeable moniker says

    Esteleth:

    What I was trying to do was open 3 30 Mb images

    With the caveats that I neither use a Mac, nor ImageJ, I’d say this (unless you’ve tweaked it) is probably a limiting factor:

    By default, ImageJ is configured to use around 256 MB maximum

    Java (depending on your OS and JRE version) is notoriously inefficient profligate in its use of memory. 100Mb of raw graphic plus overhead is likely going to blow through that limit.

    Try increasing available memory for the application in stages (512Mb, 768Mb, …) and see how it goes?

  179. cm's changeable moniker says

    I teach the women and gender and critical race courses at a small university. I became a feminist in 1982, and [have since then seen?] absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    How very critical of you.

    Thanks!

    (That was sarcastic, by the way.)

  181. John Morales says

    Esteleth,

    What I was trying to do was open 3 30 Mb images and them merge them.

    3 × 30 = 90 MB.

    1 GB = 1024 MB.

    So your images require less than 9% of 1 GB.

    So the problem ain’t memory (assuming your box has at least 1 GB), but rather the program you’re using.

  182. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    What does that even mean? Men can’t talk about it or do any discussion?

    I assume from what was said above that rrede probably just doesn’t think feminism needs to focus on men’s problems per se.

  184. says

    rrede: It’s completely possible to be critical of gender relations and the pervasiveness of patriarchy AND include men.

  185. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I’ve been looking for atheists sites/groups/blogs that are writing by and focus on things like working poor and homeless issues. Pharyngula is the only blog I really read. I have links for other places, like feminist blogs, but I’m too often triggered so I don’t often go there. Anyways, I figured it would help me to read more from people on my level, so I don’t feel so isolated.

    I was wondering if anyone had any leads to find blogs or know of blogs like this?

    I’m searching and flailing around mostly.

  186. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    I assume from what was said above that rrede probably just doesn’t think feminism needs to focus on men’s problems per se.

    So, we do not solve issues with men/childcare/homemaking while trying to attain equality in worklife/politics/etc?

    How does that work?
    Without domestic slaves or spartan-esque childcare…

  187. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Holy shit in my searching I wound up here.

    That was just linked in the last TET and in my search for poor atheists I wound up with it on the second page.

    o.O

  188. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    In my search The Atheist Experience blog, which is now here at FTB, was also on my second page.

    I’m seriously going in a circle.

  189. says

    For instance, you can include the men who marched along on suffragette and Civil Rights protests. The Freedom Riders, for instance, had a lot of male participants (for instance, Jim Zwerg, John Lewis and James Peck, all of whom were savagely beaten for their efforts.)

    Margaret Sanger was helped along by her partner, who served jail time for distributing her work and the work of others pioneering birth control.

    You could mention the gay men of ActUP, or the men and women who were arrested and beaten during the Stonewall riot.

    You could mention the White Night riots, after Dan White (who killed Harvey Milk) was given a lenient sentence for Milk’s murder.

    You could mention John Stewart Mills’ presentation to the British Parliament of the essay “The Subjection of Women.”

    I understand the urge to ‘counter-balance’ the academy’s investment in the man as agent of change, but making a place for men in the history is vital to the continued life of feminism.

  190. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    On my fourth page, I have the Weird Atheist Girl again, and Greta Christina. More and more Pathos coming up as well.

    Okay then. I give up. I either I suck at googling or everything I need for atheist blogging can be found here. (Or both)

  191. cm's changeable moniker says

    JAL, more to the point, why are you looking for that?

    If you have a specific need, maybe ask?

    We won’t bite. Well, I won’t; can’t speak for the Horde. ;)

    Or if you just need to unload, here’s fine too …

  193. says

    @rrede

    I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    *popcorn*

    Also, I sort of assumed, when I first read this, that you didn’t mean there was no room for men as feminists. This being PZ Myers blog and all …

    But even if you only meant equality only goes one way, you’re not gonna do well here. MRAs are pretty much, if not always, full of shit. But no one her supports misandry to my knowledge.

    I’m also curious what you think of trans people. Especially those of us who are feminists.

    *more popcorn*

  195. cicely says

    Ratlets slideshow.

    *squeeee!*
    –

    Rush Limbaugh is a moron.

    Aaaaand…?
    –

    Stuck on Cracked.com
    I may never find a way out again.
    *goes back to cracked tab*

    Not a problem! Just follow any link to TV Tropes!
    Maybe…maybe…this one. Or this one, right here.
    *evil grin*
    –

    Tony, my grandfather told me that you could use a turnip to get a broken bulb out. Cut it in half, push it into the glass gently and then unscrew it. (Confession: This is the first time that info has come in handy and I’m delighted.)

    1) I’ve heard that you can also do this with a potato.
    2) At last! A reason for turnips to exist!
    3) …that lets you avoid wasting a perfectly good potato.
    –

    and I dearly hope “changes my bulb” isn’t a euphemism for something sexual…

    I don’t see how it can avoid it. Hot screwing…exploding….
    –

    How many rats does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    At minimum two but the tough part is getting them inside

    *ta-boom tsssh!*
    –

    Now if I can figure out how to get my dad’s recliner out of my room and to the curb without breaking my back or anything else,

    Chainsaw. Maybe some matches.
    –

    I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    Because that’s a really bad tactical choice? Because as long as Teh Menz are the default role models for their sons, we can look forward to nothing but Teh Menz, as far as the eye can see, now and forever, worldwithoutendamen? Because every vote counts, even if it has a penis?

    –

  196. carlie says

    I became a feminist in 1982, and see absolutely no need for including men in feminism

    I have heard this before. How does excluding men from feminism help change society at large faster?

  197. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I don’t have a need for anything, just wanting to read about the problems with religious shelters and other issues poor atheists face to not feel so isolated. To know someone one out there is talking about it.

    I’ve vented here before on being poor. I’m just looking to see if there’s a spot where being poor, homeless, struggling and being an atheist is the main focus. You know how there’s feminist blog that deal mainly with feminist issues. I’m looking for one that deals with being a poor atheist.

    I’m really hoping it’s just because I’m inept at searching. It’s discomforting to think I can’t find one place. I already deal with feeling isolated. I don’t like taking up so much of the thread. It’s just feels like I live in such a different world when people talk about 1300 laptop being reasonably priced. It’d be nice to have a place to talk to people about this one specific issue, instead of my terribly written vents every so often clogging up the thread.

    I’ve used different terms to try and find something. Like homeless, atheist, blog, group, working poor. I’ve tried getting more specific and including Arizona, thinking maybe it’s small and focused, but haven’t turned up much either.

  199. carlie says

    I’m really hoping it’s just because I’m inept at searching. It’s discomforting to think I can’t find one place.

    I don’t know of any, but I bet if someone started one, there would be a lot of people who would congregate around it. (meaning just because nobody’s done it yet doesn’t mean there’s nobody else out there)

  201. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    I don’t know of any, but I bet if someone started one, there would be a lot of people who would congregate around it. (meaning just because nobody’s done it yet doesn’t mean there’s nobody else out there)

    True. I know there are others out there, that’s why I’m searching. Knowing there are other people out there though without having a place to congregate around, doesn’t make me feel any better. Especially imaging the crap they have to deal with. =/

  202. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I am be-groceried! Woo!

    *sips beer*

    Mmm beer

    John Morales: I am not sure, but I think that merging 3 30 MB files, while possibly yielding a 90 MB file, may require more memory in the transition. Not sure though.

    I shall try playing with the Java settings.

  205. says

    Meh, out of virtual popcorn and it’s 3am here.

    I will have to catch up on this tomorrow when y’all are sleepin’ …

    Aside from the EU party people :)

  206. rrede says

    All:

    Let me qualify a bit since I see my mistake in being too quick, and stating too general a position. I screwed up–both in the use of “men” (as opposed to cis, white, straight men), and “feminism” as too broad a term–feminisms are huge, and not every feminist can work on every issue.

    I don’t spend much or any time trying to reach out to the men that Ozy’s blog seems trying to reach (from my very limited reading over there).

    In response to various comments:

    Ing:

    *shrugs* I am one feminist, in the Bible Belt, much more concerned with issues relating to sexism at my university, and GLBT-phobia (for example, I am one of the founders of our two-year old safe spaces movement, and after 18 years, am hoping we can finally get a gender minor started here. Cis white straight men in administration and the faculty, for the most part, here are not in the least interested in feminism (and most, not interested in the Safe Spaces program).

    However, they’re really really big on the xtian stuff. This town is under 8000, and has over 40 churches. I’m more out about being queer than I am about being non-Christian.

    So are many of the white women, of course–did I mention, rural Texas? Bible Belt?

    pentatomid, Tony

    I have no problem with men identifying as feminists; I also do not believe that women are automatically feminists (most of the women I see in my classes and around me are not feminists). Feminisms are ideologies, not genetics.

    But I, personally, in the work I do, and have done, am not interested in working to “include” men in feminism: the kyriarchy does oppress many men–straight, white, cis, men least of all. The few men on my campus who work with me in the various things I do tend to be some of the few men or color and out gay men on campus (I am the only out queer woman at my university so far).

    I get lots of nice emails telling me I will burn in eternity–mostly from men. (NOt saying the women aren’t as prejudiced, but they are much less likely to confront a professor–I have race and class privilege here, which makes it possible for me to be out, and to do the work I do–if men on my campus want to work with me on a social justice issue, I’d consider it, depending on who it was and what they were aiming for, but after 19 years here i’m not holding my breath).

    I am happy when men identify and work as feminists: I am not going to be responsible for trying to make that happen.

    I wish there were some male feminists on my campus. I wish there were more female feminists on my campus. Hell, I wish there were more out GLBT on my campus.

    Chigau

    Congratulations! I was raised in a small town in Idaho, and didn’t realize I was queer until some time after becoming a feminist–I knew I didn’t want to get married, and didn’t want to have children, but there was nothing in small town Idaho (or the media I had any access to) that gave me any connection to feminism at that time–I went the “I can be the exceptional woman who can bull through on my own” route, and had to learn through a number of extremely unpleasant experiences just how limited and unuseful that approach was. I was reading about the Harriet Hall shirt issue on Butterflies and Wheels and wincing in memory at my earlier self.

    Caine

    I am sorry–I clearly expressed myself badly. My statement was only in response to what Ozy is doing, and how it’s being done. I understand how that too brief statement came off as arrogantly excluding men. The problem of course where I am is not exactly a hotground for feminists–there are very few on my campus, and a great hostility toward any challenge to heternormative and kyriarchical structures.

    See comments to the others above re men who are feminists.

    Gnumann

    *shrugs*

    I didn’t know about the MRA until I started reading Manboobz a year or two ago–and the *only* place I’ve seen men who are feminists is in some academic writing (which I teach in my gender courses), and online–I don’t even consider part of my work “working to include women in feminism” in some specific proselytizing way (i.e. especially as a queer woman who is not a christian in rural Texas). I teach a lot of stuff on intersectionality in all my classes, and work very hard to present it in ways that are not inappropriate, and I still can list a number of hassles I’ve gotten for teaching women writers, for including black and lesbian writers in my women writers course, for including THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK in the multicultural courses, have led to online harassment, an incident of pepper spray or something sprayed into my office, obscene graffitti in the women’s bathroom about me, other obscene commentary on my evaluations, one attempt at spiking my truck’s tires (OK, I cannot prove the pepper spray and spiking was directly due to the stuff I teach, but I think it’s a fairly good bet–the obscene commentary was pretty specific, though!).

    My lack of inclination to spend any time trying to “persuade” or “include” cis white straight men in “feminism” was badly stated–and perhaps even the explanation I’m doing here will not change your mind, but really? MRA holy grail?

    OK! More likely to be an asshole.

    *snorts*

    Sili

    I don’t teach “feminism” in classes. There is no feminist program here. There is no women’s studies program here. There is no women’s center here. There is no Safe Spaces program here (I’m trying to start one). I’ve been here 19 years, and it looks as it one of my few feminist colleagues who has moved into administration MIGHT be able to get a gender studies MINOR started. Nineteen fucking years of dealing with asshole administrators who don’t want girl cooties in their academia.

    I teach one graduate course on gender studies. I teach one women writers course (undergraduate). Mostly women take them, but then the english majors at this small rural university are mostly women. I teach a bunch of other stuff as well–small department, we are much more a generalist degree than anything specialized.

    The work I do outside the classroom includes the Safe Spaces program we’re trying to get off the ground, a queer studies reading group on my own time (four women, one man), and some other stuff which I’m not gonig to post about openly.

    So, I don’t quite see how it’s equivalent to not teaching math to girls (which is mostly done is a fairly sucky way, nationwide, and at my university–if you all had a better record of teaching math to girls, I might be more inclined to take this seriously).

    cm

    When I first became a feminist, I spent a shitload of time discussing the issues with my friends who were almost 95% male and 98% in science fiction fandom.

    It was interesting. Some were ok with the idea of a socially constructed femininity, but whoa, did I get shut down quick if I talked about social constructions of masculinity. I eventually left sf fandom after realizing I was queer, and having to write my dissertation–came back into all female online fandom a few years back and em enjoying it much more. However, I do not exclude male fans from LOTR fanfiction communities, or from feminsm. I just see no need to work with THEM on their issues.

    Not sure of comment length here, so will post and address some other comments in a new one!

  207. says

    Cis white straight men in administration and the faculty, for the most part, here are not in the least interested in feminism

    Did you think that people wouldn’t appreciate you conflating your experience to a universal statement?

  208. says

    However, I do not exclude male fans from LOTR fanfiction communities, or from feminsm. I just see no need to work with THEM on their issues.

    your bigotry is noted.

  209. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    I don’t spend much or any time trying to reach out to the men that Ozy’s blog seems trying to reach (from my very limited reading over there).

    That’s ok. Personal priorities are personal priorities. The next time you communicate them though, you might want to be a bit clearer.

    Especially since there are hordes of anti-feminists out there, ever vigilantly searching for their promised man-hating female supremacist.

  210. rrede says

    mouthy b

    I teach creative writing, technical writing, a research and methods class for English majors, the women writers course (every three or four years), an African-American literature course every two or three years), a gender graduate course (every two or three years), a stylistics graduate course, and in recent years, some courses on Tolkien.

    None of those really have much scope for the list you give which (to my mind) seems to fit an historical context more than literature/writing–I have taught Stonewall in my gender seminar.

    For instance, you can include the men who marched along on suffragette and Civil Rights protests. The Freedom Riders, for instance, had a lot of male participants (for instance, Jim Zwerg, John Lewis and James Peck, all of whom were savagely beaten for their efforts.)

    I don’t teach 19th century, so not so much for suffragettes. The Civil Rights period is one small part of the African American literature survey class I teach.


    Margaret Sanger was helped along by her partner, who served jail time for distributing her work and the work of others pioneering birth control.

    True–but not really in any of my courses–I teach the contemporary theory and literatures, meaning late 20th/21st century–not the earlier periods.


    You could mention the gay men of ActUP, or the men and women who were arrested and beaten during the Stonewall riot.

    See above. Given where I am (read more above if you wish), I tend to teach more women than men (I’m more concerned with breaking up the unbearable whiteness of being, and straightness of being) given the incredible amount of male taught, male focussed courses that my students have had.


    You could mention the White Night riots, after Dan White (who killed Harvey Milk) was given a lenient sentence for Milk’s murder.

    It’s always frustrating to try to give some historical background and context for the stuff I teach. Your comments really do seem to assume history or political science more.


    You could mention John Stewart Mills’ presentation to the British Parliament of the essay “The Subjection of Women.”

    I don’t each British, or that earlier period.


    I understand the urge to ‘counter-balance’ the academy’s investment in the man as agent of change, but making a place for men in the history is vital to the continued life of feminism.

    Probably–but I am not solely responsible for the continued life of feminism–I am one person, working in a very specific environment, and with specific goals. I’m much more interested in bringing works and stories by women of color, women of alternative sexualities and genders, and (in recent years, attempting to work more with disability issues as well). Along the way I sneak in as many different perspectives on religion and spirituality as possible-and wow, has that been educational for both my students and for me. That’s me–I don’t go around lecturing other people in activist or academic circles what they should be teaching or doing.

  212. rrede says

    Jadzia626

    I was careless and wrote badly! Happens even to English teachers.

    The two biggest gaps in my self-education (since none of the universities I attended in the 1970s and 1980s had anything on feminist or gender studies) was the racism and and transphobia.

    When I started reading/studying feminism on my own in 1982, it was mostly the white radical feminists.

    When I finally returned to academia in 1987, at a university in a city rather than in small towns, I was challenged by learning about my own racism and transphobia–it took time, as it always does.

    The real education came when I volunteered to serve as the advisor for the GLBT student group on campus when they could not find out–transphobia, like racism, is something that is a major problem in feminism, and I try to be an ally. If feminist movements can integrate critical race/intersectionality and trans feminism, it may be possible to achieve greater changes–I’m just afraid that too much feminist discourse stalls out at the individualist level.

  213. says

    rrede: I teach sociology, and teach the history as a part of modern problems, in order to make the case that discrimination is a long-standing problem (not just one, the way my students seem to think, which was made up in the last ten years.) If you don’t want to teach history, fine, and I understand the urge to get away from the all white, all-straight parade.

    I also understand being harassed by your students. When I taught Creative Writing and Composition, I got a god-awful lot of harassing emails and/or in class behavior from students, including one which kept scheduling his mandatory conference at 9 pm so he could try to get in my pants, let alone the ones which threatened me.

    I just don’t think it’s possible to consciousness raise among groups without acknowledging the contributions of various group members.

  214. rrede says

    Gnumann

    here are hordes of anti-feminists out there, ever vigilantly searching for their promised man-hating female supremacist.

    I’ve been in the Manboobz readership for quite a while–those guys NEED NO FRAKKING EVIDENCE whatsoever to declare that all womynfemynists are man hating supremacists.

    I was sloppy in my writing and got (appropriately) challenged on it, with some good points made.

  215. Therrin says

    how many other techies here are really annoyed that storage volumes mean “billions of bytes” when they say “gigabyte” rather than the formal gigabyte value (which is actually about 7% smaller)?

    Wasn’t there a lawsuit about this?

    (…)

    Ahh, looks like there were a few. Here’s one that just taught me a new word: gibibyte. I think I was happier not knowing it existed.
    —
    I’d like to start a petition for a new HTML tag: <blockqutoe>

  216. rrede says

    mouthyb

    When a colleague of mine in Political Science taught Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead, she found written death threats at her home (she lives out in the country, as do I). I only got a whole set of evaluations claiming how terrible it was to teach this depraved book in a university course that should be dedicated to the “great” literature.

    In the women writers, African American literature, and gender courses, I do include historical materials (more and more with the internet, primary sources instead of sanitized reference works); in the multicultural graduate course I’ve taught (which I tried, and failed, to get my department to change to intersectional), I’ve taught a number of historical works (James Loewen’s being the most admired by students). And in the African American and gender classes, I assign male authors assigned (NOT in the women writers class, though!)–but the ratio tends to be more 60% women, 40% men.

    And I get regular complaints about assigning African American women and lesbians in my women writers course–in fact, I got so burned out, I haven’t taught it for a few years (another colleague who has a specialization in women’s literature happily took over.

    The fact that a huge percentage of my students in both undergrad and grad courses is not because I’m an evil bigot driving men away–but because women tend to take the English (teaching) degrees (my partner who teaches in history has the exact opposite gender break in her courses–men, men, men, men, and only a few women).

  217. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    I’ve been in the Manboobz readership for quite a while–those guys NEED NO FRAKKING EVIDENCE whatsoever to declare that all womynfemynists are man hating supremacists.

    The core might not, but there’s always a more reasonable fringe*. Read my nym. It means something, it’s not just adopted to taunt them. I don’t dwell on my past on this issue much. Frankly because it’s fucking embarrassing, but I might know a bit more about that movement than you can pick up by reading manboobz…

    (*relatively speaking. Should not be read as “reasonable fringe” under any circumstances)

  219. rrede says

    Ing:

    Did you think that people wouldn’t appreciate you conflating your experience to a universal statement

    Obviously, I didn’t think. I was focused on the context/issue of one blog, and one person’s stance, and my recent reading with great disgust of the Good Men’s project Feminist Roundtable, and I shorthanded.

    It was a screw up, and I’ll be more careful in future!

  220. says

    I got distracted by a forum and am still here … must … sleep … soon …

    @rrede

    Trans feminism is an interesting beast. Most of the issues affecting trans women – for being women, are already covered by feminism. The additional issues which are trans* specific falls under the LGBT umbrella (medical, legals, *phobia etc). Although these intersect in many ways with similar issues in feminism, I have no problem being involved in both alongside each other.

    I interact with a number of cis feminists online, and it may be a form of selection on my part, but generally they are very trans inclusive and often actively trans supportive.

    I don’t get the impression, aside from a very loud subgroup, that feminism has that much transphobia among its ranks, but again, I may have been sheltered from it by networking with the right people in the first place.

  221. cm's changeable moniker says

    cm

    When I first became a feminist, I spent a shitload of time discussing the issues with my friends who were almost 95% male and 98% in science fiction fandom.

    It was interesting. Some were ok with the idea of a socially constructed femininity, but whoa, did I get shut down quick if I talked about social constructions of masculinity. I eventually left sf fandom after realizing I was queer, and having to write my dissertation–came back into all female online fandom a few years back and em enjoying it much more. However, I do not exclude male fans from LOTR fanfiction communities, or from feminsm. I just see no need to work with THEM on their issues.

    As a mostly-apathetic-about-sci-fi person, I find this passage bewildering.

    If it wasn’t aimed at me, then, *shrug* whatever.

  223. Therrin says

    dysomniak (last thread),

    Louis CK on The Daily Show last night, talking about Tosh. While I hardly agree with everything he says I appreciate that he’s able to actually take criticism and process new points of view.

    That’s not really how I saw the interview. This article (the first half, about CK) is similar to what I was thinking after watching him (better written than I could have done) (ht. Setar). It was pretty cool that some of the audience booed him, until they got squelched by the rest.

  224. cm's changeable moniker says

    JAL?

    I’m really hoping it’s just because I’m inept at searching.

    I fear it’s because people in that situation aren’t good at founding internet communities. :-/

    That’s why we need you to keep posting here.

  225. rrede says

    Gnumann:

    Then I have all the best wishes for you and others who wish to deal with that reasonable fringe. Go for it.

    When and where I grew up, and where I live, and what I deal with lead me in this case to not really care about those specific men: I have my own focus, and my own goals, and given where I live and who I live with, I have very little experience with men(and many women) being reasonable about anything in my life during the past five decades.

    There’s a reason we live in the country, have a po box, and an unlisted phone number, after a couple of years in the small town with 45 churches I mentioned above.

  226. rrede says

    CM

    I don’t know who the sf people are here!

    My point was that when I first became a feminist, in the early 1980s, I was hanging out almost exclusively with male fans (in the spaces I was then, a local Star Trek club, and an apa, there were very few women). So I talked feminism to THE MEN.

    It didn’t work out very well, for many reasons, and not just because of THE MEN.

    I gave up talking about feminism to men in the late 1980–and now that I’m back in fandom, it’s in mostly or primarily women only spaces involving slash fiction.

    Those experiences are one of the reasons I don’t choose to spend time talking about feminism to men.

  228. says

    Oh, re my last post. I am here talking about the activism aspect of feminism and LGBT, not feminist and queer theory. I have learned a lot about these theories over the last couple of years, but I have much reading left to do.

  229. cm's changeable moniker says

    P.S. It’s John Stuart Mill

    (of his own free will, after half a pint of shandy was particularly ill)

  230. carlie says

    Oh lord, people, this is hilarious.

    For those of a certain age and part of the world to have watched Mr. Wizard, someone has put together a video called Mr. Wizard’s a dick. I do not approve of the gendered insult, but holy crap, is that some funny editing.

  231. says

    @Caine

    Jadzia, radical feminists have a great deal of transphobia and they are very vocal about it. Jadehawk has a couple of excellent posts about it:

    Oh yes, I’m well aware of them. I have been targeted by some of them before. Mostly mild twitter harassment only.

    In danger of invoking the No True Scotsman Fallacy™, I sort of do like Julia Serano and classify those as pseudo-feminists as hatespeech and oppression is pretty much counter to the core values of feminism.

  232. rrede says

    Jadzia 626

    I *think* from what I see online that more feminists (I’m always nervous about the idea of feminist as a singular movement, as opposed to bell hooks’ claim of feminist movements) are opposed to the transphobia that is still found in some of the major second wave feminists (ex: Germaine Greer), and are opposing things like the “woman born woman” stance at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival (women’s festival?).

    I hope that support and acceptance grows — and that coalitions and alliances are possible!

    Where I am–eh, there are so damned few GLBT who are out (and for good reason–Texas does not have GLBT as a protected category in its anti-discrimination law–I didn’t come out until after getting tenure, and it was quite a fight) and so few feminists that we sort of cling to each other. Students who want to be teachers here (and we’re a huge teaching university) are especially frightened.

    Seven years to retirement……

  234. says

    I saw someone describing this type of radical feminism as being to 2nd wave feminism what the prequels were to Star Wars.

  235. says

    rrede: That is why I’m on my way out of teaching. It’s the constant arguing with students and faculty, the constant fucking fighting over whether or not people have to learn things they don’t like and administrative overcrowding of classrooms and delegation of duties to graduate students. (No brand new grad student should be alone, teaching 250 students at a time without help writing the course material. No brand new graduate student should ever be in a position where they’re expected to know how to write their own material without help.)

    I meant the original as suggestions, in case it had not been something you’d run into before (I’m finding, increasingly, that my colleagues, students and professors are amazingly ignorant of history and famous law cases, as well as the context for the current movements toward equity.) It seems you do know the history.

    I still have personal doubts, because teaching is a public activity, about the ability to reach diverse populations without mentioning the other half (by general numbers). And yes, I know we can’t reach them all and it’s fucking exhausting fighting.

    The other reason I’d like to phase out teaching is the inability to provide for my family, since I’m the breadwinner.

  236. says

    @Caine

    Oh, and thanks for those links. Very good. Need to read them more closely later, and I am already giggling at Cathy Brennan’s incoherent ramblings in the comments :)

  237. chigau (女性) says

    Gnumann
    Sorry about the “retard” remark on the pox thread.
    grog?

  238. Gnumann, quisling of the MRA nation says

    Chigau: No apologies necessary. Though some grog might help me collapse so I can finally sleep. Damn cold makes all kind of other bodily malfunctions manifest.

  240. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    cm

    I fear it’s because people in that situation aren’t good at founding internet communities. :-/

    That’s why we need you to keep posting here.

    That’s what I’m afraid of too. I feel so… responsible. It’s uncomfortable when I think about it and makes me very sad.

  241. rrede says

    mouthyb

    I shall restrain myself from epic rant on the destruction of teaching at all levels in this country (I got to Texas not long after GOVERNOR Bush’s implemented his first version of NCLB), and what I’ve seen since is scary as hell (even before Arizonia went into blatant F451 censorship).

    One of the recent entrants to our graduate program left high school teaching when his work load went from 130 to 250 (and the school refused to hire more teachers while hire more administrators).

    The Goldwater report covers increases in administrative hires in higher education–and the increasing reliance upon and exploitation of adjuncts (disproportionately women in the humanities) and graduate students (we’re fighting to keep our comp courses which are taught mostly by doctoral students capped at 25, but I know that the social sciences departments have been pushed much more to increase numbers). But even here, it’s only up to 75 a class–250 on a graduate student with no help, training, materials–that’s horrifying, unethical, and unprofessional–but sadly, not surprising.

    Good luck with leaving–and best wishes for finding a better paying job.

  243. says

    Ing:

    So status quo is going to be a constant slew of cackling shit heads from Slime Pit. Fan-Fuck-Tastic

    Eh, they’re easy enough to spot. I knew from reasonabel‘s first post it was a pitter or wannabe pitter. They hardly try to disguise the fact. His/her first post was an obvious troll.

    If people wouldn’t take them seriously, they wouldn’t get any mileage out of it.

  244. Jessa says

    Threadrupt. I fully admit to using Ctrl-F see if Caine had posted new baby rat pictures.

    Caine, they are adorable beyond words. Since I’ve been reading the “I don’t want to deal with this any more” thread, I needed a pick-me-up. That slide show did the trick.

  245. Owlmirror says

    @Jadzia

    I wouldn’t want to presume the gender of your current host

    No, no, no! SIWOTI!

    Jadzia was the name of the (female) Trill host, of the Dax symbiont. Prior to her, the host was the (male) Trill Curzon.

    ☆The more you know . . .☆

  246. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I have discovered a new singer!

    She is responsible for this glorious song.

    Also, a 13 minute long jig about how she wishes the plot of Peter Pan had gone. Namely, that Wendy becomes a pirate, defeats Captain Hook, and then spends her days as Queen of the Pirates (an equal opportunity employer) busily schooling Peter and the Lost Boys.

    Did I mention that it is a jig?

    *swoon*

  247. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    So status quo is going to be a constant slew of cackling shit heads from Slime Pit. Fan-Fuck-Tastic

    Right?
    Sigh.

  249. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Huh! I apparently used to have night terrors. Twenty-five minutes of inconsolable howling, during which I did not know where I was or recognize my mother.
    I… don’t remember that.

  250. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    @Therrin Can’t really disagree with any of the criticism. I found his flippancy annoying but I guess I was just glad that he wasn’t completely doubling down like a lot of other comics. In the end, my respect for Louis has still dropped but on the plus side my mancrush on Jamie Kilstein continues to grow.

  251. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    In the end, my respect for Louis has still dropped

    O.O *gasp*
    But you’re still in the Queueueue, right?
    Right?

  252. says

    Jessa:

    Caine, they are adorable beyond words.

    Aaw, thank you. :) We’ve undergone complete brain melt. From the looks of things, Rubin’s crew is going to be every bit as gorgeous and adorable. We’ve already been freaking over her two with the white nose blazes and it looks like two of them may be pure white. They are barely getting furred and we can’t stand the cute.

    Esme is keeping us in check – she is seriously unhappy about us interacting with her baybeez and she’s not too thrilled about them climbing in and out of the box and encroaching other parts of the Condo. Motherhood, it ain’t easy. Havelock did get to visit his ratlets today and he was so excited he was frenetic, running about, nosing all of them, picking a couple up and all that.

  253. says

    No, no, no! SIWOTI!

    Jadzia was the name of the (female) Trill host, of the Dax symbiont. Prior to her, the host was the (male) Trill Curzon.

    ☆The more you know . . .☆

    Yes but the joke worked better that way.

  254. dysomniak, darwinian socialist says

    Caine, not only are the ratlets adorable but the photography is excellent as well.

  255. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Also: guess who has tickets to the midnight showing of Dark Knight Rises?! ^_^

  258. Jessa says

    Caine:

    Havelock did get to visit his ratlets today and he was so excited he was frenetic, running about, nosing all of them, picking a couple up and all that.

    I am ded from teh cyoot just picturing that.

  259. Pteryxx says

    heee… more evidence for rats being good daddies to their pups. (Mice could NOT care less, ugh.)

  260. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Sorry for dropping my last post and running. Time and health are not my friends at the moment. Assorted thanks and blushes to all who were so kind.

    Warning: teel deer crossing ahead! Though there is a point to it, I hope.

    I am not the most graceful of people. I’ve got scars and whatnot that the more body-aware might shake their heads at. But put me on a bicycle and I can dance.

    That grace comes from choosing to use a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation. I don’t have any special aptitude, it’s just that a great many hours in the saddle teaches one how to handle a bike. Especially when the environment one lives in dearly loves to hand out precipitation in its solid form.

    Mind you, there are a few notable exceptions in my proficiency, perhaps lapses would be a better word. My usual morning commute back in the Mother-country featured a couple of K of river valley multi-use trail. At that time in the morning I saw few people with any regularity. But there was one other cyclist I saw every couple of weeks.

    He was perhaps a little younger than me, perhaps not, it was hard to tell. But his level of fitness, equipment and technique were all on par with mine. This meant that if I saw him ahead of me on the trail I could catch but not pass or drop him, and the same was true for him.

    Why did we have this little pissing contest every time we encountered each other? For my part it was a surrender to culture, or biology, or both. The imp in my head would say, “You can beat this guy.” and my legs would respond even while the rest of my brain shook its head in embarrassment and pretended not to know me.

    On this particular morning the imp must of been up before the rest of me and was in an over-caffeinated cantankerous state. Looking left as I came off the the North Saskatchewan ped bridge it saw my nemesis. “Not today, fucker!” it said and up I jumped out of the saddle. My legs were hammering hard and all the rest of my brain could do was hunker down and plan its I-told-you-so speech.

    I can do 50km/h on a flat road for a very short period of time if I’m willing to suffer for it. This time I don’t think I quite reached that velocity, but it was close. I hit the short, wood decked bridge flying way above my usual pace. A flick to the right to set up the hard swing left just off the end of it, and…now!

    Unfortunately, the bridge deck was just a little wet and when I laid the bike over for the left the front tyre began to skid rather than digging in and swinging the bike around. The wheel was still turned in that fraction of second before it hit the pavement at the end of the bridge. And down I went, hard.

    I’ve hurt myself enough to know the difference between “Ouch, this is going to be embarrassing.” and “Fuck, this is going to require professional attention.” I knew instantly that my immediate future would involve imposing on those whose skill set would be better used helping people who were in need through no fault of their own. The “I told you so.” brain region started to wind up its clockwork even before I’d untangle myself from the bike.

    That bastard who had the gall to be as fit as me, road right by me as I lay there bleeding. He was moving fast enough that I don’t blame him for not seeing how bad I was, but I like to think were the situation reversed I would have gone back to see if he was alright. Of course, that might be my permanently damaged ego talking, it’s always been a little off what with all those knocks to the head.

    I honestly don’t remember how I got the bike back up and turned facing back towards home. I couldn’t use my left hand at all. There was a very disturbing grinding feeling every time I tried. A wrongity wrongness that still sets my teeth on edge when I think about it.

    My next clear memory was wheeling the bike with my right elbow as I clutched my left forearm with the other hand. I remember being annoyed that the blood dripping from that elbow was going to mean I’d have to re-tape my handlebars. I hate wrapping bars. But such petty thoughts slowly got squeezed out by the growing pain.

    Soon all I could think was:

    ‘Get home, get home before Claire goes to work.”

    I was 2k or so from that refuge. Shock was setting in. I felt cold and began to cry behind my oh-so-cool wrap-around sunnies.

    “Get home. Get home.”

    The ped bridge across the river is long, a couple of hundred meters at least. And it’s rough. The wooden slats the make the deck have twisted and buckled over the years of exposure to the summer sun and winter freezing. I had to stop repeatedly to put my elbow back on the bars.

    “Fuck I’m cold. God Claire, please be late for work.”

    Off the bridge and up the little hill. On my ride home I never geared down for it. Just stood off the saddle, four or five hard strokes and I fly over it. Now it looked like a fucking mountain.

    “One step. Another. Another. Don’t stop. Rest at the top.”

    And down the other side. Holding back the bike without being able to grip the bars or grab a brake almost did me in. If I fell now it would be a long time before I could get up again.

    Out onto the street and uphill again. There, there’s the house!

    “Get home. Get home before she leaves.”

    I haven’t a fucking clue how I got the bike up the front steps. I must have tucked my broken arm in my jacket or something. The next clear memory was dropping the bike inside the front door. Hearing Claire call out “Steve?”.

    “I made, I made it, fuck…”

    Crying in earnest now because that was it, I could surrender some of the burden now. Help was here, there was strength to hand beyond my own. I had made it. Fuck, I can’t believe I made it….

    You know, every time the douchtouques menz and chillgirls come out to play here on Pharyngula I am reminded of that day.

    I see the regulars fighting the good fight and getting ground down by it. I see them carrying on despite the overwhelming, sapping difficulty of having to fight this fight again and again again. I see people who come to the limit of that strength and still they continue because this is a fight that cannot be lost, not if believing in a better world is to have any real meaning. And I marvel at that strength, because unlike my fight to get home, this one has no clear end.

    I am in awe of you people. Dragging the Overton window to a place where the view is no longer horrifying is a monumental task, literally. You deserve a statue, in a park, on a fucking private island where only those who fought so fucking hard to make this a better place for all of us can sit on the benches in the sun and lay down their burdens for a spell.

    Thank you. Thank you all.

  261. Nutmeg says

    Caine, your ratlets are adorable as always. I can’t believe how quickly they grow!

    JAL, I’d be interested to read anything you have to say about being an atheist and poor. It’s too bad that no one is writing about that yet. I wonder if there are any other atheist blogs that might attract readers in similar situations, even if there’s no focus on issues affecting poor atheists.

    Ooh, Owlmirror haz *stars*. I can haz stars? What’s the code for those?

    ***

    It’s Wednesday, which means that I’m launching into my regularly scheduled dread of weekend activities. My friend’s bachelorette party is on Saturday, and it’s going to be a marathon event. The schedule:

    1. Attend matinee showing of Magic Mike.
    2. Go out for dinner.
    3. House party at a bridesmaid’s place. This is apparently the part that will feature penis-shaped cookies and games such as “Pin the Junk on the Hunk”.
    4. Go out dancing at a club.

    I would be dreading this even under ordinary circumstances. But for added fun, I have to pretend to be straight the whole time! Since this friend is Mennonite and her husband-to-be is Catholic, coming out to them may produce *drama*, and the last thing a wedding needs is more drama. (I’m doing it after the wedding fuss is over, screw the consequences. )

    Would you believe that Google has no relevant hits for “surviving bachelorette party while pretending to be straight”? I am the world’s worst fake, so hopefully no one expects me to be enthusiastic about penises.

    I’m reminding myself that this is going to be a very funny story someday. Right now it just seems like it’s one ridiculous idea away from a bad sitcom plot.

  262. mythbri says

    @Nutmeg

    Would it help possibly if you pretend more to be a prude instead of straight? I’ve never liked the concept of bachelor/bachelorette parties, and every one I’ve been to, I’ve been the shy quiet person in the corner, taking it all in. Now, this is more because I’m an introvert and not because I’m a prude, but that’s how I come across. Honestly the schedule you described seems like hell to me.

  263. Pteryxx says

    …I’m just saying that “Could you pretend to be a prude instead of straight?” is going into my quote-catchphrase file.

  264. mythbri says

    @Caine

    I searched the entire thread because I saw so many people talking about ratlets. SO CUTE!

    Can I guess about the names?

    Magrat = Magrat Garlick, from Discworld?

    Amelia = Amelia Peabody?

  265. Nutmeg says

    mythbri: That might actually work, and it’s my plan for the moment. I am a major introvert and seriously shy around people I don’t know well, so I think it will be believable. And yes, this party would be hell even if I didn’t have to pretend to be straight.

    Google is Not Helping:

    You will probably play games that you didn’t know were worth playing. (Probably because they’re not.) I once attended a party where the first activity was inflating a balloon and giving it a blow job.

    *shudders in shy gay girl horror*

    Anyone have bachelorette party stories?

  266. Jessa says

    FossilFishy @260:

    Damn. I wish I had half your eloquence and ability to get your audience involved in your writing. Thanks for sharing. *makes note for July Molly thread*.

  267. mythbri says

    @Pteryxx

    No offense meant. I haven’t ever been in Nutmeg’s position – it sounds like a really rough time, with extra on top. Just a suggestion.

  268. says

    Mythbri:

    Can I guess about the names?

    Magrat = Magrat Garlick, from Discworld?

    Amelia = Amelia Peabody?

    Magrat is after Magrat Garlick, yes. Their mum, Esme is named after Esme Weatherwax. There’s also Gytha, named after Gytha Ogg. The others who have been named so far: Amelia (after Earhart, major explorer, that one), Agnes, after Agnes Nitt of Lancre, Vasco, after Vasco de Gama (another explorer) and Giles, after Giles de Mer the selkie Knight in the Dragon Knight series by Gordon R. Dickson.

    The other grown rats, besides Esme are Havelock (after Vetinari), Sam (after Vimes) and Rubin (because she’s odd-eyed and has one ruby eye.) *Whew*

  271. Nutmeg says

    Pteryxx: I’m not entirely certain what you meant, but it made me laugh and feel a lot better anyway. Thanks!

    mythbri: It’s not actually that rough a situation (although I certainly appreciate your thoughts and advice!). Mostly it’s ridiculousness on top of my ordinary shyness. At least half of the time, I find it funny.

    If I had any creative writing ability, I might try to make this situation into a skit or something. I could play up the ridiculousness – set it in Texas, make one of the bridesmaids my secret girlfriend, add copious amounts of alcohol. The possibilities are endless!

  272. Part-Time Insomniac, Zombie Porcupine Nox Arcana Fan says

    Anyone have bachelorette party stories?

    *flashbacks to SIL’s bacherlorette party and the preceding “OMFG what the hell do I get for a gift??” days*

    Er . . . I guess the party itself wasn’t so bad. Although it turned out that while SIL had been opening gifts (lingerie mostly, IIRC, what else could you expect?), her best friend had been writing down her reactions. The end result was a list of things she’d say on her wedding night. No, I don’t understand how that works; I suppose the game depends on randomness to make it fun/funny? Anyway, that was a bit hard to sit through, and the laughter didn’t quite help.

    There also was no hope of escape because we were on the West Coast visiting at the time. Also, I have no friends in that area whom I could have escaped to, had the party turned into a sleazefest. Besides, I don’t drive, it’s not like I could have run all the way even if I’d wanted to.

    BUT! To their credit, NO penis shaped cookies or other such treats! Whew . . .

    I think the worst part for me was the aforementioned days I spent trying to figure out a proper gift. All I could see was me walking/inching into Victoria’s Secret and saying to an employee, “Hi, I need help finding a gift for my future SIL” before shooting myself in the head. I learned just how wonderful gift cards are when absolutely nothing else in the world seems like it will do.

    I have already told my best friend that I do not want a bachelorette party if I ever get married. I think a decent backup plan would be to elope to Canada for a nice honeymoon after stopping by the courthouse for the actual tying of the knot, IF anyone suddenly thinks such a party would be a great idea.

  273. says

    FossilFishy #260:

    I am in awe of you people. Dragging the Overton window to a place where the view is no longer horrifying is a monumental task, literally.

    And think about this, too: what we’re seeing in here, in this specific debacle, is just how hard it is to drag the Overton window leftwards — where the non-horrifying views lie, contrary to all the conservative and centrist bullshit you’ll hear about how that’s all just an assumption — within our tiny little community.

    Of course, a lot of it seems to be simply having the fucking gumption to suck it up, deal with the whining and excise the loud raging assholes. Something that society at large seemingly refuses to do, which is a huge factor in why the assholes tend to win.

    Such assholery takes advantage of so many cognitive foibles that I have to remind myself that they didn’t design their argument that way, they’re just falling into those foibles themselves.

  274. Owlmirror says

    Ooh, Owlmirror haz *stars*. I can haz stars? What’s the code for those?

    Well, Character Map sez : &#x2606; ☆. But really, I just searched for “star” in Character map, and copied and pasted.

    /LazyNerdIsLazy

    Look! More stuff!

    ☀☁☂☃☄★☇☈☉☊☋☌☍☎☏☐☑☒☓☔☕☖☗☘
    ☙☚☛☜☝☞☟☠☡☢☣☤☥☦☧☨☩☪☫☬☭☮☯☰☱☲☳

    /MiscellaneousUnicodeIsMiscellaneous

  275. Wowbagger, Deputy Vice-President (Silencing) says

    This whole business has certainly taught me that being a skeptic regarding the existence of gods is no guarantee of not being a five-star, flaming fucking idiot on issues of social justice.

    In a way, it’s almost made the situation worse; so many of these miserable assholes are simply denying what’s in front of them and crying ‘skepticism’ as a kind of magic word for rejecting things they don’t like, e.g. that the number of women saying they don’t feel that cons are safe spaces and they don’t want to go actually means there’s something that needs changing.

  276. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Jessa: Thanks for that.

    Fuck yes Setar. Sometimes you have to just keep pushing while you wait for the regressives to die out before substantial change can happen. Of course the nice thing about on-line communities is the relative ease with which the idiots can be cast out. I think the reluctance with which the mighty Poopyhead swings the banhammer is a credit to him, and the fact that in the end he does swing it is no less worthy of praise.

    For all the whinging and raging about Ftb’s and how “Teh Feminisimisms is ruining evrehthing!!11!!!” it’s precisely this unwillingness to pitch women under the bus that makes me glad to be a tiny part of this community. I just wish I had the time, energy and education to be more than a cheerleader in this fight.

  277. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Oh indeed Wowbagger. Every time one of them decides that being “skeptical” is reason enough to dismiss what is clearly a progressive social change a little part of me flops over, waves its tiny legs in the air briefly, and then lies still to await the dustpan of death.

  281. chigau (女性) says

    semi-serious drunken question:
    how many Edmontonian Pharyngulites are there?
    I count 5.
    (wanna go for pizza?)

  285. drbunsen le savant en colère dans une robe d'été belle (la robe est aussi en colère) says

    But check how much Apple want to charge you for more memory

    Also check whether aftermarket memory upgrades are even an option. On some models (the Air for instance) the RAM is soldered down at the factory, and not upgradeable.

  286. drbunsen le savant en colère dans une robe d'été belle (la robe est aussi en colère) says

    *sigh*

    Look, Firefox, it’s great that you autoload all my tabs from the last session on startup – but why do you load them from cache instead of fresh from the web, thus fooling me as to where Teh Thred™ is up to?

  287. drbunsen le savant en colère dans une robe d'été belle (la robe est aussi en colère) says

    Esteleth – on the other hand, the Air is more like $1k than $2k

  288. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Jadzia:

    *more popcorn*

    Can you pass the popcorn (preferably the bag without the kerosene)?
    I’m reclining my chair for a more comfy view.
    ~~
    By the by, does anyone else get some kind of mental picture when we refer to TET as the lounge? I picture a decked out studio writ large. 3500 sq. ft studio on PZ’s ranch property-no idea if he has one, but it’s part of my mental picture-which is surrounded by a gate, which keeps the zombie masses from overwhelming us. Occasionally one or two will slip through the gate, and venture into the lounge where they’re greeted not-so-warmly. If they stay and pester us long enough, they’re kicked out to TZT, which is decked out in state of the art technology and encompasses -below ground-all of PZ’s property. You need that of course, as the dungeon is one level below TZT (kinda like the Initiative’s study pit in Buffy S4), which is where the zombies go if they succeed in becoming annoying fuckwits.
    I’ve thought about this waaaaaaaaay too much :)

    ~~

    cicely:

    How many rats does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    At minimum two but the tough part is getting them inside

    *ta-boom tsssh!*

    I don’t always pick up on things the quickest. I read the joke earlier and it didn’t process until now…hours later. Sheesh!

    ~~
    rrede:

    Probably–but I am not solely responsible for the continued life of feminism–I am one person, working in a very specific environment, and with specific goals. I’m much more interested in bringing works and stories by women of color, women of alternative sexualities and genders, and (in recent years, attempting to work more with disability issues as well).

    I think you run the risk of alienating allies. Both men and women. I don’t think you need to specifically cater to any men’s issues at all. Nor do I think you need to create an outreach program so that men who want to assist in feminism can do so, but it seems you only want to deal with women, to the exclusion of men. If I’m wrong, I apologize. However, there are many men out there who are more than willing and able to help combat patriarchy and can be extremely helpful. I wonder how the men in your classes feel about your perspective on this issue. I also wonder how your opinion informs your teaching style.

    ~~

    Caine:

    Oh, thank you! They’ve completely melted our hearts.

    I’m insanely jealous that you get to pet the little critters. I can just imagine laying down on the floor or couch and having a few of them on my stomach running around and playing :)
    Do they make any sounds, or are rats relatively quiet?
    Oh, and when’s the next litter?
    ::ducks::
    ~~

    mouthyb:

    the constant fucking fighting over whether or not people have to learn things they don’t like

    This is just seven shades of stupid. Why do people argue over learning stuff they don’t like? I mean I don’t like the MRA ‘movement’, but I’ve learned about it. I don’t like Rush Limbaugh, but I’ve learned about him. I don’t like child rape, but I’ve read up on the Catholic Church and Jerry Sandusky. Sure, all of that is in my spare FREE time. If I had to pay for learning, it might be different, but even then, how reasonable would it be to expect *everything* I learn in a particular course to be stuff I like?
    That’s definitely deeply dumb.

    ~~

    Jessa:

    Threadrupt. I fully admit to using Ctrl-F see if Caine had posted new baby rat pictures.

    What does Ctrl-F do?

    ~~

    Cipher:

    Huh! I apparently used to have night terrors. Twenty-five minutes of inconsolable howling, during which I did not know where I was or recognize my mother.

    I’ve heard those are horrible to have. I’m glad you don’t have them any more.
    Now that I think about it, I wonder if M had them. Our rooms are adjoining and our headboads were against the same wall. I would frequently here him sobbing or talking or other somewhat unintelligible sounds (but they always sounded fear fraught) in his sleep. He often slept poorly. I sometimes wondered if he was afraid to go to sleep.

    ~~

    FossilFishy:

    I am in awe of you people. Dragging the Overton window to a place where the view is no longer horrifying is a monumental task, literally. You deserve a statue, in a park, on a fucking private island where only those who fought so fucking hard to make this a better place for all of us can sit on the benches in the sun and lay down their burdens for a spell.

    Emphasis mine.
    After everything you just told us (I’m so glad you came out of that ok) I’m in *awe* of YOU.
    You really should be a writer. Your way with words fits perfectly with my mind’s tendency to form images when reading.

    ~~

    Nutmeg:
    ARRRGHH!!!
    I’m sorry you have to be NOT yourself for this bachelorette party. It sucks beyond the telling of it that you have to minimize an aspect of yourself so that others can feel comfortable.
    Rest assured that you can unwind and relax here whenever things get too hairy.
    Have some grog before you go.

    I am the world’s worst fake, so hopefully no one expects me to be enthusiastic about penises.

    Can you put yourself into a scientist mode? Y’know look at the penii from a clinical standpoint? ::Story time::

    Years ago, 3 coworkers and I (2 girls, one guy) were house sitting for a shared friend. After a while in the hot tub, we got to talking about me never being with a girl. All present were shocked to learn that I’d never seen a woman naked (outside of adult videos). Once we got out of the tub, one of the girls, clad in nothing but a really tiny bikini, pulled the bottom part down, spread her legs and showed me her vagina (complete with a piercing). I wasn’t grossed out. I wasn’t turned on either. It was more of a “hmmm, so that’s what it looks like in person”. I think I just looked at it from some sort of detached clinical perspective.
    Maybe that would work for you.

    Re: shyness around strangers-
    I completely feel you. When I’ve ventured places with only one person I know, if they start talking among friends they know, I get really quiet and introverted. I just don’t feel comfortable. If I have had enough liquor, it can be a different story, but that takes time to settle into my system.

    ~~

    Caine:

    Giles, after Giles de Mer the selkie Knight in the Dragon Knight series by Gordon R. Dickson.

    I’ve only ever heard the name Giles on Buffy, so even though you’ve explained that’s *not* where the name comes from, every time I see it, I flash back to my favorite tv show ever.
    (and I’m trying to imagine a rat with the nickname Ripper, dressed in tweed and wearing glasses)

  289. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Thank you dysomniak.

    Chigau, if you’re counting me, alas* and alack**, I no longer live in that jewel of the north.

    *The lass being of course my lovely Australian wife who had the poor sense to hang around Edmonton long enough to meet me. Mind you, her time there did result in good things such as The Ribbon of Steel bike path off the north end of the High Level and the LRT rail with trail running parallel to the tracks from downtown up to the north-east. (The dapper, and oh so well equipped (Thank you MEC) cyclist in that first picture is me.)

    **The lack being any sort of skeptic/rationalist/atheistic community in the tiny, tiny town where I now live. :(

  290. Owlmirror says

    Threadrupt. I fully admit to using Ctrl-F see if Caine had posted new baby rat pictures.

    What does Ctrl-F do?

    Find (a word or phrase), within the page, in this case, presumably “Caine” (or maybe “rat”, but that finds too many false hits (the first one above is “inaccurate”)).

  291. says

    Enough with the fucking antifeminist fuck fuck arrrrgh whaaargarble. Fuck. Argh.

    Change of pace:
    Oh you crazy English! I’ve been working on an English crossword where the answer to one clue was Cholmondeley. Someone in the comments contributed this limerick in response, which I’m afraid I simply must share!

    There was a young curate from Salisbury,
    whose manners were quite halisbury-scalisbury.
    He rode about Hampshire
    without any pampshire,
    till his vicar compelled him to walisbury.

    Solution, if you must: Pubyzbaqryrl vf cebabhaprq Puhzyrl, juvpu yrnqf bar gb pbafvqre bgure jrveq Ratyvfuarffrf. Fnyvfohel vf cebabhaprq Fnehz. (Yvxr Fnenu.) Unzcfuver vf Unagf.

  292. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    Thank you Tony. After recovering from the surgery, a year’s worth of physio, and getting over the disappointment that fridge magnets won’t stick to a stainless steel plate or four titanium screws, I’m fine. It was definitely the hardest physical thing I’ve ever done.

    Funny you should mention forming images when reading. I do the same thing. I’ve described it as cinematic reading in which all I’m seeing in the movie in my head rather than the words on the page. It makes me a poor audience for the types of literature that are all about language and word choice.

    Our predilections for that type of reading is no doubt why you find my writing effective. Not everyone does and that’s fine, if everyone enjoyed the same writing style the world would be a much less interesting place. That said, it’s nice to know that what I do moves some folks in the way it moves me to write it. Cheers.

  293. John Morales says

    Tony:

    What does Ctrl-F do?

    Whilst having your browser holding focus, press down on the ‘Ctrl’ key.

    Then, without releasing that, press the ‘F’ key.

    Look at the result.

    (Tricky, very tricky!)

  294. John Morales says

    Owlmirror:

    Find (a word or phrase), within the page, in this case, presumably “Caine” (or maybe “rat”, but that finds too many false hits (the first one above is “inaccurate”)).

    Easy enough to search for ‘ rat ’ or ‘rat ’ if that’s what one wants to do.

    (duh)

  295. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Tolkien fans, take note:

    A 21-year-old student from Gothenburg has drawn the adulation of Lord of the Rings fans across the world by plotting the entirety of the books’ family tree, most recently adding a timeline and map to the “eternal” project.
    …
    On top of this, he just added a timeline and map to the online project last week, giving viewers what he deems to be a more “complete experience”.

    These functions, which are also available on the Android App that was released in March, allow Tolkien enthusiasts a clearer insight into character movements and event settings.

    http://www.thelocal.se/42100/20120718/

  296. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Well, I will say this about being poor at least by the time I can get my hands on some technology it’s been well tested and improved. Just found out about the Nook Simple Touch with Glow Light. It’s having issues like every Nook has had issues when released (and for awhile after). A light is the one thing my now ancient Nook is sorely lacking. Book lights are such a pain. At least I know by the time I can get my hands on one it will be cheaper and better tested.

    /silver lining.

    I seriously love my Nook. Steal has many books as possible when possible and horde them so when shit goes down I can save my sanity with a book.

  297. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    °°John:
    I think I s e e the sarcasm dripping in your comment :)
    In my world, I pressed Ctrl-F and nothing happened that I could discern, therefore I needed the assistance of the Horde.
    My story.
    I’m sticking to it.
    ^__^

  298. John Morales says

    Tony quotes:

    These functions, which are also available on the Android App that was released in March, allow Tolkien enthusiasts a clearer insight into character movements and event settings.

    Lazy or incompetent Tolkien enthusiasts might need such, I grant.

  299. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Fossilfishy

    You jus’ gotta forward this linky to your wife: Bath-to-Bristol Cycletrack (linky). It is built on top of a redundant railway between the two places. Stunning countryside, easy grades, lots of history etc etc. I have had the joy of cycling it.

  300. John Morales says

    Tony:

    In my world, I pressed Ctrl-F and nothing happened that I could discern […]

    Works on most MS products, as well as many others.

    […] therefore I needed the assistance of the Horde.

    Google is too difficult to use for you?

  303. FossilFishy (Νεοπτόλεμος's spellchecker) says

    In that case Alethea, you’ve ridden right by my shop and within 10 meters of my home. Small world, isn’t it? :)

  304. says

    Cool! I haven’t actually done the whole thing (some of it wasn’t even built 5 years ago), so whether I went by your shop or not is debatable. But I enjoyed puttering around the region. Are you there, or in Canada now?

  305. John Morales says

    Alethea, keyboard jockey that I am, I note the following (which work on most browsers):

    Ctrl-W to close the current tab (Shift-Ctrl-T to reopen the last closed tab).

    Ctrl-Tab to move to the next tab, Shift-Ctrl-Tab to move to the previous tab.

    (And I run my apps in full-screen mode when the app allows such — easy enough to move between apps as required)

  306. John Morales says

    PS And F3 does a ‘find next’, while Shift-F3 does a ‘find previous’.

    (etc)

  308. says

    I run full screen on the mac lappie, which is quite small, but windowed on the work PC where I have a wide monitor (>2xA4 pages). I hate it when I’m looking at someone else’s code and they haven’t bothered to keep their lines below 150 damn characters. So hard to read.

    I note that ctrl-F opens a toolbar in internet exploder as well as mozilla these days; and also a navigation sidebar in word. Popups are apparently old hat. (I have to have exploder a bit at work, the horrible HR payroll/leave system is IE only.)

  309. says

    #174 Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB]

    Does a site have to have an RSS feed to get updates sent to email?
    I wanted to do that for xkcd, but it doesn’t appear to work like I thought (of course this could be my ‘inep-tech-titude’ on display again).

    xkcd has both rss and atom feeds
    http://xkcd.com/rss.xml
    http://xkcd.com/atom.xml

    If you want to get the entries via email, you can always create a Feedburner custom feed and activate the email subscription option, add your email to the recipient list et voila.

    There’s got to be a simpler way than that, but I don’t know it.

  310. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Alethea

    Thanks for linky. I am currently designing a walking trail in Longnan in the south of China. (Scratch that, I am currently lurking about on FTB. I should be designing a trail.)

  311. Beatrice says

    I’m such a fucking idiot.

    I was expecting a call for testing for a job I applied to. Apparently , they weren’t calling, they just put names of people who should come to testing on their web page. Which I didn’t check because I was expecting a call. No wonder I can’t find a job when I’m that much of a freaking failure.

  312. theophontes (坏蛋) says

    @ Setár

    Also a cool linky. I have heard about the crew in Mozambique and the incredible work the ratties do. My own experiences with landmines have been awful. I get angry just thinking that people could even consider deploying such horrible things. *aaaarg*

  313. John Morales says

    [old fart musings]

    I remember the internet before browsers were around; back in the day, Alta Vista was the search engine that could and Netscape Navigator the browser of choice.

    (Before browsers, one navigated gopherspace and suchlike — pure textual interface!)

    Then MS came out with IE3 which was as good, and I changed to that (and Google came along and I changed to that).

    These days, IE is a bloated, slow feeble thing that only fools use willingly, and FireFox is my choice in browsers (Chrome ain’t too bad); also, (so far) Google is at least as good as anything else (if not better) out there.

  315. birgerjohansson says

    “Astronomers discover exoplanet neighbor smaller than Earth”
    -alas, it is deep-fried http://phys.org/news/2012-07-astronomers-exoplanet-neighbor-smaller-earth.html
    — — — —
    You are what you scrape: “Unique Neandertal arm morphology due to scraping, not spearing: study” http://phys.org/news/2012-07-unique-neandertal-arm-morphology-due.html
    — — — —
    “people have to learn things they don’t like”

    Not many kids like reading about history, or math, but it is universally accepted* it is good for them to learn. Grown-ups also need to keep learning. I don’t particularly like learning new computer apps, but I bloody well need to.

    *Outside Texas.

  317. AndrewD says

    Tony, re Data recovery
    I don’t know if anyone has suggested this (ctl-f didn’t reveal it) but if you can get a Live CD/DVD version of Linux it will run in Ram and does not need the hard drive. You can then use the Linux system to interrogate the hard drive. If it sees your data copy it to a USB stick and it is recovered. You will need to be able to boot from the optical drive (check the BIOS settings(you get to the BIOS by pressing a function key(F2?) on start up.)) This worked when one of my computers died on me and I couldn’t load the operating system.
    Live CD’s can be found on the covers of some Linux magazines, I read Linux Format here in the UK, and I know this is available in the USA

  318. The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa) says

    Caine: I had to scroll back a bit to find it… but CUTE ratlets!

    The little brown-headed guy looks exactly like my first rat… except youthful!

  319. says

    Tony: One of the unfortunate side-effects of the ‘business-ization’ of academia is the student who believes they are a customer, and that anyone who doesn’t allow them to only learn what they want is a snob.

  321. Matt Penfold says

    I don’t know if anyone has suggested this (ctl-f didn’t reveal it) but if you can get a Live CD/DVD version of Linux it will run in Ram and does not need the hard drive. You can then use the Linux system to interrogate the hard drive. If it sees your data copy it to a USB stick and it is recovered. You will need to be able to boot from the optical drive (check the BIOS settings(you get to the BIOS by pressing a function key(F2?) on start up.)) This worked when one of my computers died on me and I couldn’t load the operating system.
    Live CD’s can be found on the covers of some Linux magazines, I read Linux Format here in the UK, and I know this is available in the USA

    You can also create a Windows boot disk if you have a Windows install disk. BartPE is probably the best option to do it. The website is here.

  322. says

    @Ing & Owlmirror

    @Jadzia

    I wouldn’t want to presume the gender of your current host

    No, no, no! SIWOTI!

    Jadzia was the name of the (female) Trill host, of the Dax symbiont. Prior to her, the host was the (male) Trill Curzon.

    ☆The more you know . . .☆

    Exactly. That is the whole point of me using that nick in the first place :)

    The “626” refers to the episode in which the Jadzia host died. I never liked Ezri as a Dax, but that’s another topic :)

  326. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    I just got to spend an hour with a very nice gentleman. A biker. Nice guy. Tattoos were very well done. A retired dentist. One of the tattoos had me biting my tongue: A large, full arm tattoo (again, a very well done tattoo — very little bleed, nice and crisp though it was obviously an older tattoo). The tattoo in question: “LEVITCUS! Live God’s Law Forever!”

  328. Pteryxx says

    Beatrice: *offers anklehugs* Anybody could’ve made a mistake that small, especially when stressed. It’s just set up to be massively unforgiving.

  329. says

    Oggie,
    If you check out any of the “ugly tattoo” blogs, you’ll come across a bunch of Leviticus tats. I never know whether I should laugh & point or *headdesk!*.

    (Side note: Mr Darkheart and I both have skulls tattooed over our hearts. He’s thinking of adding tentacles to his! ♥)

    Anyway, super threadrupt this morning. *hugs!* *booze!* &/or *confetti!* to all.

    Last night, I picked up Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith. I kind of feel like I owe him another chance, since I loved Pride & Prejudice & Zombies so much, but was highly disappointed with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Hopefully, this won’t be $25 wasted. :-/

  330. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Maybe he was being ironic?

    I doubt it. The ‘Bikers for Christ’ vest, the five inch gold cross on the heavy gold chain, the gold cross ear rings, the ‘Jesus is Lord’ belt buckle, the belt embossed with the crown of thorns all the way around, the hat with ‘Have You Accepted Jesus?’ embroidered on it, all would, to me, kinda argue against intentional irony.

    For all that, he was a nice gentleman. His one attempt at proselytizing consisted of: “I know you’re at work now, but would you be interested in meeting later for a talk about God?” to which I said, “No thanks,” and he accepted that.

  331. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Audley:

    I’ve seen some of those. The coginitive dissonance is strong.

    Yesterday, I recieved two books from Amazon: Going Postal and Unseen Academicals (I have been getting them in order, but I mucked things up — Thud! and Making Money are already on the shelf). Mmmm. Good reading.

  333. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    “I know you’re at work now, but would you be interested in meeting later for a talk about God?” to which I said, “No thanks,” and he accepted that.

    Good thing it wasn’t me. I might have been tempted to reply “You’re so polite! Are you sure you’re not an atheist?”

  335. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    I loved Going Postal like whoa. Also (if you haven’t read it yet), Making Money is super good. :)

    I’ve read them, but as I buy them for my permanent library, I have been rereading them in order.

    Good thing it wasn’t me. I might have been tempted to reply “You’re so polite! Are you sure you’re not an atheist?”

    The uniform limits what I can get away with. His attitude was refreshing, though.

  336. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    I note that ctrl-F opens a toolbar in internet exploder as well as mozilla these days; and also a navigation sidebar in word. Popups are apparently old hat.

    Opera did the same fucking thing! Why do they insist on taken out all the good stuff and try to look like Firefox(?)? The latest gimmick seems to be to make the search bar twice as thick and black! Fuckers.

    What’s next? Are they gonna remove the mousegestures as well?

  337. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Richard Austin

    … since I’m geeking, how many other techies here are really annoyed that storage volumes mean “billions of bytes” when they say “gigabyte” rather than the formal gigabyte value (which is actually about 7% smaller)?

    On the contrary. I hate it when ‘techies’ abuse “giga” to mean 2^20 rather than 10^6. Get your own vocabulary! (As you have indeed done.)

  339. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    On the subject of Louis CK, I thought he did pretty crappily.

    He kept insisting that bloggers have no humour and that rape-jokes can be funny, completely ignoring:
    1) A blogger did very well illustrating how rape-jokes can be funny
    2) Tosh did not make any rape-jokes. He claimed they were always funny, and instead of defending that thesis with some examples, he instead went on to wish a member of his audience get gangraped.

    Comedians are supposed to
    1) be funny
    2) deal with hecklers by being funny.

  340. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Gah! Thanks, nightjar.

    I was stuck at Mega which is of course similarly abused.

  341. Richard Austin says

    Sili:

    Unfortunately or fortunately, the adoption of kilo/mega/giga/tera/peta/exa by the tech community to refer in multiples of 1024 is older than I am, and isn’t going away.

    My complaint is that, if we’re going to use it in our practice, we use it consistently. This is more a complaint about techies by a techie than about others :)

    How other fields use the labels are up to them (and I’m perfectly fine with, for example, kilowatts and gigawatts being multiples of 1000). It’s the fact that, in every “byte” or “bit” related measurement, they’re 1024 multiples except hard disk size. Even RAM and permanent storage (such as CDs and DVDs) use the 1024 convention, but not spindles. It’s annoying (at least to me).

  342. says

    Scott Walker is another one of those Republican Governors that make you wonder if they have to have someone tie their shoes for them. He has been saying a lot of really dumb stuff lately, but his comments about Noah and the Ark reached new heights (or lows?) of ignorance.

    Here’s an excerpt from Steve Benen’s response:

    To hear the Republican governor put it, Noah’s ark “might have never been built” if the antediluvian patriarch had relied on “help from the government.” And why is that? I suspect some Forest Service officials would have come in pretty handy. The CDC probably could have helped Noah and his family with some worthwhile vaccinations. Maybe FEMA could have helped give Noah some additional time to get the job done. I imagine the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would have been (ahem) a Godsend.

    On the subject of government helping private enterprise, the LA Times posted an article about tax breaks and subsidies from which Mitt Romney benefitted.

  343. says

    rrede, the men who seek out careers for themselves as feminist activists are of course suspect, but actual allies are great, and we have many here. Also, while the MRAs who think that feminism has to shift its priorities to teh menz can go fuck themselves, PHMT is real and examples thereof should highlighted.

    But I understand that you have to marshal your energy, given where you are. And, yes, s/f fandom has historically been lousy about privilege issues, given its domination by straight white cis men. Online fandom is not free of problems, but it’s quite diverse and (sometimes) thoughtful.

    Thanks w/r/t the pronoun correction for Ozy, btw. Also, yes, mainstream feminism still has a serious problem with racism. Transphobia does not seem to be as bad among younger feminists as a whole. However, as Caine notes, there remains a hard core of transphobic radfems, and their echo chamber has amplified their hatefulness.

    I also agree that the hardcore misogynists will just make shit up if they have to. We’ve seen plenty of that over the last year here. (Gnumann, the “more reasonable fringe” lends credibility to the MRALs and the NWOSlaves. I’m not concerned about appeasing them.)

    Mouthyb, #189, I think you’re conflating a bunch of different things. Men in the Civil Rights protests weren’t fighting for feminism. GLBT issues and feminism may be closely linked, but the gay men you mention weren’t all inherently feminist; there is a lot of misogyny among cis gay men in general.

    My sympathies to both you and rrede w/r/t the battles of academe. If you’ll excuse a bit of “get off my lawn” here, I couldn’t have imagined during my college days (late ’80s) arguing wtih professors about what I needed and “didn’t need” to learn. I think, Mouthyb, you are correct to blame universities seeing themselves more and more as selling a product, rather than imparting knowledge. I also blame college once again becoming a privilege for spoiled rich brats and their arrogant progenitors.

    Tony:

    However, there are many men out there who are more than willing and able to help combat patriarchy and can be extremely helpful.

    Tony, if you mean online, sure. In rrede’s geographical location? Not so much.

  344. says

    Sili, #80: No worries.

    Malthus was focused on poverty, not environmental degradation. However, going by the Pfft!, he’d also be horrified at his namesakes because, as “a devout Christian,” he “believed that ‘self-control’ (abstinence) was preferable to artificial birth control.”

    7 Mind-Blowing Ways Jobs Are Being Outsourced to Animals

    Yeah, guess how I misread the title…

    Tony, #85: What Sili said. Jerry Coyne is biffies with Abbie Smith. Draw your own conclusions.

    (Huh. I was googling for the appropriate explanatory URL, and I see that “biffie” is also slang for a toilet. No comment.)

    Rush Limbaugh is a moron.

    Oh, pshaw. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that water is wet.

    and I dearly hope “changes my bulb” isn’t a euphemism for something sexual…

    I dunno, maybe for people with a douche or enema fetish….

    Also, OMG LITTLE PINK KITTY TONGUE EATING YOGURT!!!

    …ahem.

    Caine: OMG IDDY BIDDY WEE RATLETS NIBBLING ON VEGGIES!!!

    …ahem.

    Pentatomid, I don’t care for CPP’s writing quirks, nor for some of the company he keeps (specifically Drug Monkey, a public health expert who thinks that anything unhealthy should be banned outright and its users shamed). I can get my political commentary and recipes elsewhere.

    Carlie:

    I haven’t tried it, but standard advice is to jab a potato in it and then twist the potato.

    Blasphemy!!

    JAL, I wish we could airlift you and your kid to somewhere civilized.

    FossilFishy, you really need your own blog. :)

    Beatrice, hugs.

    Nutmeg/PTI, I don’t think you have to be either gay or a prude to find bachelorette parties uncomfortable. Our culture is so horrendously gender-essentialist (and, of course, heteronormative) that it spoils good old-fashioned lewd fun.

    Ogvorbis:

    the hat with ‘Have You Accepted Jesus?’ embroidered on it

    Blended fibers?

    On a different note, has anyone here any experience with sprained or torn knee ligaments? I’m trying to book a doctor’s appointment, but from a bit of Googling my uneducated guess is that the problem is with either the medial meniscus or MCL of my right knee: moderate to severe stabs of pain, mild instability, and “clicking.” The Ace knee wrap I bought last night isn’t helping and in fact makes things more painful. NSAIDs don’t do much, and I dislike opiates (not that I have any to hand, or can take them during work hours). Fortunately I don’t notice any swelling or bruising, and I’m not feverish.

  345. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Let me just tell you… rrede and mouthyb’s discussion about working in academia have me all looking like The Scream.

  347. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    On a different note, has anyone here any experience with sprained or torn knee ligaments?

    I am not a doctor! so take this with a large grain of NaCl.

    I have a sprained and relocated patellar tendon, stretched and rebuilt medial colateral ligament, 80% tear of anterior cruciate ligament, torn and rebuilt lateral colateral ligament, sprained just about everything multiple times. So, yes.

    I’m trying to book a doctor’s appointment, but from a bit of Googling my uneducated guess is that the problem is with either the medial meniscus or MCL of my right knee: moderate to severe stabs of pain, mild instability, and “clicking.”

    MCL injuries tend to manifest with a pain/instability on the proximal anterior tibia — the inside of your knee, even with the kneecap and right at the joint. If your knee feels like it is trying to hyperextend with every step, that’d be your MCL. One way to find out is to either wear shoes with 3 to 5cm heels, or put some folded cloth or thick cotton batting in your shoe under your heel. This will take pressure off of your MCL, as will bending your foot so your toes are pointing inward (at the ankle, not the hip). The clicking may be your meniscus but it is more likely to be inflamation from a sprain which is creating a ‘rough’ area that a tendon is catching on as you flex or extend your knee. I hope you can find a good orthopaedist. They can tell by the location of the pain whether it is a tendon or your meniscus.

    The Ace knee wrap I bought last night isn’t helping and in fact makes things more painful.

    Knee wraps can be good for adding stability when there is an old injury but they can exacerbate inflamation from sprains.

    NSAIDs don’t do much, and I dislike opiates (not that I have any to hand, or can take them during work hours).

    I have had very good luck with large (800mg) doses of Advil. Please note: that is a prescription strength, so check with your doctor first.

    Fortunately I don’t notice any swelling or bruising, and I’m not feverish.

    Knees can be weird for swelling and bruising. When I destroyed my knee (rotational dislocation) in the Army, there was little bruising and only a little swelling — this despite one tendon torn completely and one tendon torn 90%.

    I hope it is something minor like a sprain and not a tear or meniscal damage.

  348. Pteryxx says

    Our culture is so horrendously gender-essentialist (and, of course, heteronormative) that it spoils good old-fashioned lewd fun.

    This. That’s pretty much what I was thinking with my earlier comment, but I wasn’t clear about it. (And wasn’t awake, either. <_< )

    —

    Re torn knee ligaments… no, NSAIDs don't do a lot *for pain* in poorly vascularized tissue, unfortunately. I don't have much advice that's helpful, because the best treatments are radically different for injuries that present similarly: strengthening rehab vs. rest, encouraging circulation vs. combating inflammation, stretching vs. restricted motion. IMHO, getting some sort of imaging and/or expert appraisal is kinda necessary to confirm exactly the specific injury.

    I forget atm exactly what I tore in my knee, but it was a partial tear (thus, amenable to rest and rehab) instead of a complete tear (which would've needed surgery). It still took a year to rehab. Good luck and hugs going in.

  349. Pteryxx says

    I have had very good luck with large (800mg) doses of Advil. Please note: that is a prescription strength, so check with your doctor first.

    Also this. I was on 800-1200 mg a day (spread over the day) of ibuprofen, which is approaching toxicity levels, so with monitoring.

  351. ChasCPeters☯n says

    the idea that Pharyngula is not a kitten friendly blog is perpetuated as a joke by the CEO, so I assumed that was what Chas was getting at.

    thanks, that was indeed the general idea. It was a backhanded way to link to more kitten pix while stirring the interblogwebsite-rivalry shit.
    (I don’t think I have ever complained about what people choose to post on TET (except, half-jokingly, recipes). I have registered annoyance from time to time at PZ’s more gratuitous offerings though. No apologies.)

    WEIT a good blog to follow?

    If you stick to the biology, food and boots, I guess.

    I’d whittle that all the way down to the biology. Even then he pisses me off sometimes (I actually got banned there under a former nym for rather peevishly collecting the many errors in his post about coelacanths!)

  352. Matt Penfold says

    Also this. I was on 800-1200 mg a day (spread over the day) of ibuprofen, which is approaching toxicity levels, so with monitoring.

    When I broke my wrist last year I was sent home with ibuprofen and paracetamol tablets, with the advice that I stagger taking them. It worked pretty well, in that the pain was bearable and did not stop me sleeping.

  353. Matt Penfold says

    Oh, and try using an ice pack on the knee. Don’t buy one, just get a large cheap bag of peas.

  354. says

    Ogvorbis:

    If your knee feels like it is trying to hyperextend with every step, that’d be your MCL.

    That knee just feels mildly wobbly when I walk, rather than that it’s trying to bend backwards.

    One way to find out is to either wear shoes with 3 to 5cm heels, or put some folded cloth or thick cotton batting in your shoe under your heel.

    Well, I’m still wearing a protective boot over my foot, which hasn’t mended completely. The sole is pretty thick at the heel and thinner at the toes. I can’t really curl my foot while wearing it, although I can do so while seated.

    The clicking may be your meniscus but it is more likely to be inflamation from a sprain which is creating a ‘rough’ area that a tendon is catching on as you flex or extend your knee…. Knee wraps can be good for adding stability when there is an old injury but they can exacerbate inflamation from sprains.

    Taking into account that YANAD, hearing that I’ve likely sprained something > hearing that I’ve likely torn something.

    I’ve got an orthopedist appointment in two weeks. They won’t book me sooner because it’s a first-time appointment and they don’t think it will worsen by then. So that’s good… it’s just hella painful, and the anxiety is sometimes worse than the pain.

    I have had very good luck with large (800mg) doses of Advil. Please note: that is a prescription strength, so check with your doctor first.

    I’ve taken that much for menstrual cramps before. So long as it’s after a meal plus water, and so long as I don’t repeat the dose too often, it’s fine.

    Pteryxx:

    I forget atm exactly what I tore in my knee, but it was a partial tear (thus, amenable to rest and rehab) instead of a complete tear (which would’ve needed surgery). It still took a year to rehab.

    I’m supposed to go up to Toronto to visit Happiestsadist, whom I haven’t seen in five years, in a month. FML. X(

    Thanks to both of you, btw, for the info.

  356. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Well, I’m still wearing a protective boot over my foot, which hasn’t mended completely.

    Well, on the bright side, since you have a healing foot and an injured knee on the same side, you won’t be trying to limp on both sides.

  357. Pteryxx says

    …my brain is slow… I also recall that knee/ligament pain, *unlike other pain such as headaches*, responds very slowly to pain meds. The response curve was measured in days with me, as in, I’d have to take 400-mg doses every eight hours *for a full day* before the pain from inflammation began to damp down. My orthopod specifically told me to take those doses regularly as scheduled, NOT just as needed or when the pain happened to be worst.

    And yeah, the fear that goes with an unpredictable mystery injury is awful. For what it’s worth, this sort of injury doesn’t just randomly get worse, nor heal fast like even broken bones do. It means rehabbing can be slow and frustrating, but leaving it alone for a few weeks won’t make anything worse – it’s safe to wait and spend some time getting the initial inflammation down. Heck, I was told that I could still look at surgical repair *years later* if rehabbing didn’t help sufficiently. (Rehabbing was simple strengthening exercises, gradually increasing activity, and modifying my usual stretching routine so as not to put excessive strain on the damaged knee… not a huge deal, though it did stop me playing hockey.)

  358. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    radical feminists have a great deal of transphobia and they are very vocal about it.

    I wish statements like this would be a little more carefully qualified. I don’t think there’s been any study of just how much transphobia there is among radical feminists, non-radical feminists, and non-feminists.

    Does anyone think that the radical feminist regulars here are transphobes — that Esteleth is a transphobe? or skeptifem? or me? Does anyone think Jadehawk was a transphobe five months ago?

    Of course trans people are going to pay special attention to rhetoric that relegates them to second-class citizenship. And that’s a sensible response to risk. But as far as accurately gauging the extent of transphobia among radical feminists, there’s a selection bias inherent when trans people and trans allies who aren’t also radical feminists have reason to pay special attention to transphobic radical feminists, and transphobic radical feminists also have reason to pay special attention to other transphobic radical feminists, and neither have any similarly compelling reason to notice the radical feminists who speak out against transphobia.

    If anyone’s interested: over in the sidebar here at Pharyngula, there’s a link to I Blame the Patriarchy. The blogger is a radical feminist who is vocal against transphobia.

  359. says

    Pteryxx:

    And yeah, the fear that goes with an unpredictable mystery injury is awful.

    I dealt with that earlier this year when I broke my foot, too. So far it’s been nowhere near as debilitating/limiting as when I hurt my back in 2001, but the initial uncertainty, not to mention pain, are like a one-two punch. And I’m highly prone to anxiety anyway.

  360. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    If anyone’s interested: over in the sidebar here at Pharyngula, there’s a link to I Blame the Patriarchy. The blogger is a radical feminist who is vocal against transphobia.

    And kink.
    :(
    (I had to stop reading her after the post about abuse in BDSM. The post wasn’t as bad as the comments section, but I still can’t deal with that shit.)

  361. says

    Cipher, I’m not that deeply into kink, nor am I triggered by dislike of kink, but I loathe anti-kink radfems. My bud Keori responded a few years ago to a few of them.

    (BTW, why do people take Echidne of the Snakes seriously, considering that she surrounds herself with assholes like Suzie and, no shit, Anthony McCarthy? Her statistical analyses might be sound, but her choices in co-bloggers suggest some serious blind spots.)

    People who want to read thoughtful commentary about abuse in BDSM communities might want to check out Thomas MacAulay Millar’s posts on the subject. Trigger warnings apply.

  362. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I think I know keori from somewhere online! But I don’t know where!
    Also, thanks for the links :) I’ll probably read them sometime today.
    —
    It isn’t just the anti-kink that’s triggering for me – although it does upset and frustrate me – it’s… there were commenters with this attitude of “You are a submissive and you were raped? Well, what the hell did you expect?” It was essentially my actual mindset during the abuse. Not awesome.

  363. Pteryxx says

    for what it’s worth, remembering names and who associates with who is one of those social skills that not everyone has. I appreciate when y’all point this stuff out in the various hater threads, for instance, because there’s no way for me to tell otherwise.

  364. says

    Cipher, no problem.

    Keori has contributed in the past to Pam’s House Blend (I’m not sure if she still does), and she used to be on DailyKos.

    Yeah, the victim-blaming. Ugh. And the femme-shaming. I have seen a few radfems blame victims of sexual harassment who were wearing revealing clothing at the time.

  365. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Cipher, I make no claim that anyone will enjoy reading her.

    Besides this quibble that the set of BDSM is not identical to the set of kink, I see no reason to offer you my thoughts on her post about Kitty Stryker, so I won’t.

  366. David Marjanović says

    I’d like to start a petition for a new HTML tag: <blockqutoe>

    Seconded!

    I prefer <bolckquote> ;)

    Huh. I think that’s the only typo I’ve never made of that word.

    I am the world’s worst fake, so hopefully no one expects me to be enthusiastic about penises.

    Are you enthusiastic about cookies?

  367. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Are you enthusiastic about cookies?

    What kind of cookies? With or without oatmeal? raisins? chocolate? macadamia nuts?

    C’mon, Drdude, you gotta be more specific!

  368. says

    Pteryxx, here’s another data point about Suzie: She wrote a racist post about Trayvon Martin that has been deleted from Echidne’s blog and which I cannot find elsewhere on the web. There’s a discussion of it in this Feministe thread; see especially this comment.

    Let’s just say that white radfems aren’t necessarily the best people to write about performative masculinity among black men — especially when the writing is inspired by a supposedly “thuggish” photo of Martin that even the likes of Michelle Malkin admitted wasn’t genuine.

    Suzie played the victim in her own comment thread, then deleted her OP and replaced it with a fauxpology. Echidne later took down that whole post and apologized. Note Suzie’s comment on that thread:

    I can assure everyone that Echidne is truly, sincerely sorry that I hurt people’s feelings. Me? Well, I’m still angry, upset, crying, depressed, etc., that I got driven out of the feminist blogosphere. I’m sorry that I offended anyone who truly wanted a conversation. Nepenthe, I’ve always thought of you as someone with strong opinions, but who wanted a fair discussion. OMG, Dude, I’d love to hear what you think of what I wrote, and I’m sorry that I missed your birthday.

    Christ, what an asshole.

    Echidne noted in that discussion that she would stop using co-bloggers, as she wasn’t certain how to handle controversies arising from their posts. Well and good, except that she still permits some rather hateful transphobes to comment there, many of whom were vehement in their assertions that Suzie had done nothing wrong. (Caveat: I haven’t looked at Echidne’s blog in months.)

  369. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Let’s just say that white radfems people aren’t necessarily the best people to write about performative masculinity among black men

    FTFY.

  370. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Daisy Cutter:

    I’m supposed to go up to Toronto to visit Happiestsadist, whom I haven’t seen in five years, in a month. FML. X(

    .

    Oh. I’m visiting family friends there today.

  372. Pteryxx says

    …well, while I appreciate the info, *I* am never going to remember any of these strange new names; however, other folks here WILL and if this history needs to come up at some point, someone’ll manage it. (I don’t just hoard all those references for *other folks’* benefit…)

  374. says

    Ms. Daisy Cutter: I’m aware that they weren’t fighting for feminism per se, but I still think it’s important to demonstrate masculine involvement at some point in the discussion about feminism, Civil Rights and/or egalitarianism, for the sake of recruiting.

    People respond to images and/or role models which contain people like them. I want young men to be aware of feminism and feminism’s concerns, so I mention that there are men who have been involved in the fight for Civil Rights, feminism (specifically suffrage and birth control) and LGBTQ rights, so that students realize that feminism is not a concern only for marginalized groups, but a movement toward general equity which necessarily has taken up the rights of a marginalized group.

    On the Pharyngula wiki’s Feminist Link round-up, I posted a study last night on the framing of Civil Rights issues. The tl;dr version is that people respond by reducing prejudice to concerns which reflect the group they are members of much more than the concerns of groups they aren’t members of (the topic was specifically race.)

  376. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Besides this quibble that the set of BDSM is not identical to the set of kink,

    True fact.

    I see no reason to offer you my thoughts on her post about Kitty Stryker, so I won’t.

    Okay.
    :P

  377. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    Daisy Cutter:

    I have seen a few radfems blame victims of sexual harassment who were wearing revealing clothing at the time.

    What the fuck?

    Seriously, I thought this was the domain of MRAs.

    *sad*

  380. says

    No, no, store-bought chocolate cookies are an abomination, as are store-bought butter cookies.

    Seriously, Satan’s crap probably tastes better.

  381. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Audley:

    Cookies with raisins are an abomination.

    I agree.
    I’d go a step further and say raisins are an abomination.
    Ugh, my mother added them to my oatmeal as a child.

  382. thunk, safe behind a toasty heat shield says

    I’m a very picky eater; cinammon, sugar, or chocolate chip for me.

    Nuts are so-so.

  385. says

    Thunk, yeah, in that mindset, performing femininity = gender traitor.

    Sigh.

    I’ll add that many radfems do understand that women have to negotiate their way through a patriarchal society as best we can. But there is definitely a subset of them who are scornful of femme women and do not understand personal adornment as anything but an appeal to the male gaze.

  386. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Oh jeez. Heart palpitations? Really? I have barely had any coffee today. This is some bullshit.

  387. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Thunk:
    what’s wrong with nuts… :)
    Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t :)

    Seriously, I’m with you. I love sugar cookies. Fresh outta the oven chocolate chip cookies are the bestest (followed closely by fresh outta the oven peanut butter cookies).
    One thing I’ve noticed in the last 10-15 years is that it is difficult to find a cookie store that sells oatmeal cookies. They all have oatmeal raisin cookies. I love oatmeal cookies, but I’m a lousy baker, so I don’t even attempt to bake cookies. I *always*, *always*, *always* burn the bottoms of cookies and biscuits. No matter how much PAM spray I use, or how much I drop the temperature.
    So in addition to be tech-inept, I’m bake-inept.

  389. says

    Ixchel/SGBM:

    FTFY.

    That’s true. Although I’d listen to someone like, for example, Tim Wise (keeping in mind that Wise himself is not unproblematic) before I’d listen to a radical feminist who didn’t have much education about racial issues under her belt.

  390. Nutmeg says

    Hmm. I am a pretty big fan of cookies. That’s a good strategy.

    And cookies with raisins are wonderful. Mmmm, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. I don’t care if others don’t like them – more for me!

    Tony, I think that I will put on my biology student hat when confronted with bits that I’m not enthusiastic about. For some reason, it bothers me less if I pretend that the junk belongs to a critter I’m studying.

    (The junk of the critters I actually study looks very very different.)

  391. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    Audley:

    Cookies with raisins are an abomination.

    QFT

    On radfems:
    The radfem community is on the small side, and it is also highly variable. There are radfems who are – as others have said here – virulently transphobic and/or bigoted in other ways (including racist). Because their focus is on (frequently middle-class) white women. Then there are radfems who disagree with this focus and want to talk about racism, transphobia, classism, etc (these radfems tend to be younger, but there are exceptions).

    Fuck, recently a radfem group I’m in descended into a huge fight over whether or not a white woman is capable of being racist against men of color. Like, intersectionality 101.

    And I’m not even touching the LB debate within radfem circles, which ranges from calls for lesbianism (no self-respecting feminist would ever sleep with a man, and if she’s attracted to them that is the patriarchy and she needs to chuck it) to blatant homophobia (including lesbophobia).

    Basically, radfems are not a monolith. Some of the noisy ones are bigots. *shrug* *notes parallel to atheism*

    Daisy, ice! But don’t ice for longer than 20 minutes at a stretch. You risk tissue damage that way. Also, any swelling?

  392. says

    I am not a raisin fan in general, but I like oatmeal cookies with raisins in them.

    Me? Butterscotch chips. Oatmeal scotchies FTW!
    Seriously. I, too, was skeptical until I tried them.

  393. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    I *always*, *always*, *always* burn the bottoms of cookies and biscuits. No matter how much PAM spray I use, or how much I drop the temperature.

    Thr recommendation I’ve seen for very sugary cakes that burn easy, is to use two trays. Presumably that delays the heat transfer to the bottom sufficient that the air on top can catch up.

  394. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Re: blockquote misspelling-
    How does <borkquote< work?

  395. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Sili:
    Thanks for the recommendation.
    Do you have anything for biscuits? Even though I can use a cheese grater to remove the burnt bottoms, I’d like to not *have* to use it.

  396. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Seriously, I thought this was the domain of MRAs.

    ?

    It’s the standard response of everyone who’s been trained to survive living in a patriarchy, and hasn’t learned to let go of that particular bit of conditioning.

    Illusory pattern recognition in general, specifically in this case looking for reasons why “I wouldn’t have gotten raped, because I don’t do X” (and its corollary, “this person got raped because of doing X”), is a way of giving one’s self a false sense of control, which reduces the individual’s fear and makes everyday life more bearable.

    Nothing pleasant about this understanding, but that’s why it happens.

  397. says

    Tony:
    Since oatmeal cookies are probably the easiest cookies to make (none are hard, really), if you get the urge to make them, here are some quick tips:
    -Pam will only prevent sticking, not burning (I prefer Crisco)
    -Check your oven temp with a seperate thermometer. It sounds like it’s too hot
    -If you have a pizza stone, stick it on the bottom rack. This will help moderate the temperature

    Damn, not I want to bake cookies tonight!

  398. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Raisins and oats? Anyone here happen to have a recipe for flapjacks?

    Antivirus: I like Avira. So much even, that I’ve bought the commercial version recently. Nothing wrong with the free version, if you can handle the single popup ad a day.

  399. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    I’d listen to Tim Wise before I listen to any white person who doesn’t have much education about racial issues under their belt.

  401. says

    Tony, sugar cookies are just too sweet for me. Not that I don’t like sweet things per se, but I can’t consume sugar at stereotypically middle-American levels, and that has gotten more true as I’ve gotten older.

    I love me some peanut butter cookies, though.

    Audley:

    Come on, I thought we were friends. Oatmeal cookies with dark chocolate chips are way better than anything concerning raisins.

    LIES. FOUL LIES.

    Esteleth:

    Fuck, recently a radfem group I’m in descended into a huge fight over whether or not a white woman is capable of being racist against men of color. Like, intersectionality 101.

    You know, I want to throw up my hands and yell FFS and so forth, but I think I’ve mentioned here seeing, in just the last year, a couple of different radical second wavers online lecture black women on how they ought to have nothing but gratitude toward the second wave.

    But, yes, younger women tend to be better on both race and trans* issues. And I have to say that the resurgence of radical feminism isn’t without benefit. For example, while I am not anti-porn per se, neither do I think it’s sacred, I dislike the assumption that any critique thereof makes one a prude, and I’m happy to see pushback against porn setting the expectations of young and inexperienced het men.

    And I’m not even touching the LB debate within radfem circles, which ranges from calls for lesbianism (no self-respecting feminist would ever sleep with a man, and if she’s attracted to them that is the patriarchy and she needs to chuck it) to blatant homophobia (including lesbophobia).

    Julie Bindel’s recent column demanding that bi women never sleep with men again was a clusterfuck equaled only by the response thereto among some feminists.

    Daisy, ice! But don’t ice for longer than 20 minutes at a stretch. You risk tissue damage that way. Also, any swelling?

    No swelling, redness, or bruising, thank FSM. I’ve been icing it off and on all day, and it’s not too bad now, but then again I sit all day at work.

    I’m a bit annoyed, too, because after two weekends away plus a heat wave, I desperately need to clean my house, and it’s going to have to be done slowly and gingerly.

  402. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Sorry, I think I meant biscuits as much as cakes.

    I was thinking specifically of marzipan cakes, since that’s where I’ve seen the recommendation, but I don’t see why the physics shouldn’t work on biscuits, too.

  403. says

    I’d listen to Tim Wise before I listen to any white person who doesn’t have much education about racial issues under their belt.

    Sure, but I have higher expectations for white people involved in social justice work than I do for random white people. Expectations that admittedly are often not met but that I think are still important to have.

  405. says

    As far as the burning problem, I agree. It sounds like the oven in question has a defective thermostat, so that even when you set it for the right temp, you’re getting something heinous.

    I like to pull mine out before they’re quite done (a minute or two after I can smell them), and let them finish firming on the pan (residual warmth), but I like mine chewy.

  406. Esteleth, Who Knows How to Use Google says

    I agree, Daisy. The radfem arguments on porn and prostitution need to be heard. Even if you disagree with portions of them (as I do, for the record – that is also an area of variation) – way too much ground has been ceded to the “but it is harmless” and the “you are such a prude” brigade.

  407. says

    I don’t know if anyone has suggested this (ctl-f didn’t reveal it) but if you can get a Live CD/DVD version of Linux it will run in Ram and does not need the hard drive.

    Ah yes. I use Knoppix for this purpose all the time, also to format/wipe old drives that I’m going to throw out.

    Otherwise on night shift and a bit out of the loop.

  408. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Chas:
    what is the icon in place of ‘o’ in your nym?

  409. Menyambal --- Sambal's sockpuppet says

    Cookies?

    Mom used to make snickerdoodles.

    Fresh chocolate chip cookies are GOOD. Provided, and here is my criterion, the cookie part would be worth eating without any chocolate chips in it. Some manufacturers treat the dough as a paste to hold chips, then use only a few artificial chips—that is an abomination, and a sad example of what some folks will accept (kinda like religion).

    Try making oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them. Lawsy mercy.

  410. says

    Setar:

    minesweeper rats!

    I know all about them, I’ve had Herorat.org bookmarked for ages!

    Tony:

    Do they make any sounds, or are rats relatively quiet?

    Rats have a vocabulary of squeaks for when they are scared, distressed, fighting or hurt. Generally, they’re quiet. They do laugh, however, it’s out of the human hearing range. When rats are content, they brux. Bruxing is a form of tooth grinding and it’s considered to be like a cat’s purring. When they are very happy, they boggle.*

    I’ve only ever heard the name Giles on Buffy, so even though you’ve explained that’s *not* where the name comes from, every time I see it, I flash back to my favorite tv show ever.

    Oh, that’s why you were happy! Mystery solved. I’ve never watched Buffy.

    *Sometimes, a rat’s eyes may vibrate rapidly in and out of the eye socket, a phenomenon called eye boggling. This odd eyeball movement often occurs at the same time as bruxing, or tooth grinding. The reason bruxing and eye boggling occur together is anatomical: a part of the muscle that pulls up the rat’s lower jaw passes through the eye socket, behind the eyeball. When a rat grinds its teeth, it moves its lower jaw rapidly up and down, and the contractions of the jaw muscle vibrate the eyeball in and out of the socket in time with the jaw.

    Eye boggling is associated with intense bruxing. Anecdotally, eye boggling occurs at times of great contentment and relaxation.

  411. The Laughing Coyote (Canis Sativa) says

    Plain raisins in cookies are kinda shitty, yeah.

    But raisins AND chocolate chips? I actually like that quite a bit.

    Tony: IME, one should pull the cookies out just before they ‘look done’.

  412. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Audley:
    ::sigh::

    -Pam will only prevent sticking, not burning (I prefer Crisco)

    How I did not know that is beyond me.
    Thanks.

    Seriously, if you’re burning th bottoms of a lot of your baked goods, invest in a cheap pizza stone (or hell, some bricks). It will definitely help

    How does that work?
    Does the stone absorb some of the heat in the oven, so that the baked goods don’t get all of it?
    Also, where do you buy a pizza stone at? Target? Wal-Mart? CVS?

    ~~

    Ms. Daisy:

    I love me some peanut butter cookies, though.

    When I was in high school (early 90s), the lunch room ladies used to bake their own peanut butter cookies. *Every* single day that I bought lunch, on the way out I would buy 2 or 3 peanut butter cookies. They were–hands down–the best I’ve ever had. I haven’t had them since I graduated. I miss them lots. No peanut butter cookie, no matter how good it is, has matched them in quality.

  413. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    I’m not in any way suggesting that it’s okay for white feminists to say racist stuff.

    Stepping over to an analogy: when we talk specifically about misogyny among gay men it’s very easy for people to come away with the impression that gay men are somehow more misogynistic than men generally. This is not the case, although misogyny among gay men can tend to be of a particular flavor.

    Radical feminists live in the same racist patriarchy as everyone else, radical queers learn the same homophobia, and so on. This is not an excuse for anything, but failure to emphasize it will lead to a skewed impression of the extent to which any -ism persists in any particular community.

  414. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Menyambal:

    Provided, and here is my criterion, the cookie part would be worth eating without any chocolate chips in it. Some manufacturers treat the dough as a paste to hold chips, then use only a few artificial chips—that is an abomination, and a sad example of what some folks will accept (kinda like religion).

    This^^^^^ times a thousand.
    I love when the dough part is tasty. I’ve had chocolate chip cookies that were rather sparse with the cc’s, but were still good b/c the dough was ab fab.

  415. Pteryxx says

    The reason bruxing and eye boggling occur together is anatomical: a part of the muscle that pulls up the rat’s lower jaw passes through the eye socket, behind the eyeball.

    Intelligent design!

  416. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Caine:
    re: boggling-
    Kinda gives new meaning to mind boggling…
    (not the same thing, I know)

  417. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Pteryxx:

    The reason bruxing and eye boggling occur together is anatomical: a part of the muscle that pulls up the rat’s lower jaw passes through the eye socket, behind the eyeball.

    Intelligent design!

    Yes, but is it irreducibly complex…?

  418. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I dunno, ixchel. I think where radfems with shitty beliefs don’t get to be written off as “just indoctrinated by the same shit as everyone else” is where they use explicitly feminism-related attempted justifications for their shitty beliefs.

  419. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Ms. Daisy:

    Also, OMG LITTLE PINK KITTY TONGUE EATING YOGURT!!!

    …ahem.

    One of the other truly adorable things she does-
    If I get close to her and pet her gently, then put my nose to her face, she licks my nose. Cat tongues may be like sandpaper, but it’s the equivalent (in my eyes) to her giving me a kiss. It’s the sweetest thing.

  420. says

    Tony,
    You can buy a pizza stone at any store that has a kitchen section– Target probably will have one.

    What it does is slows down how fast your oven heats up and evens out any hot or cold spots. I won’t bake without a stone and a seperate thermometer.

  421. Tethys says

    Tony

    I used to burn the cookie bottoms too, until I bought a double wall cookie sheet. You can also get silicon baking mats to use with the cookie sheets you already have, and eliminate the need to grease them at all.

    I hate PAM cooking spray. It tends to make things burn as it has a lower smoking point than crisco, and it leaves a layer of carmelized grunge on my bakeware.

  422. mythbri says

    @Tony

    I’d suggest, if it seems like you have a tricky oven, an experiment. Double your recipe so that you have plenty of sample material, and do some delicious tests to determine your optimum temperature/bake time combination. I’ll usually add a little more flour to my cookie recipes, to the point where the dough isn’t very sticky, and I bake them for less time than is recommended by the recipe. The residual heat of the pan does fine, and it leaves the cookies soft on the inside and unburnt on the bottom.

    The best baking advice I’ve ever heard is this: Don’t marry the recipe. Find out what works for you, and change things as liberally as you need to. I have a relative who makes terrible cookies, because she follows the recipes like she follows the goddamn Bible. They are crunchy, burnt-ish monstrosities, and no amount of accompanying milk will salvage them.

  423. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    mythbri, tethys, audley:

    Thank you for the advice!

  424. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    I think where radfems with shitty beliefs don’t get to be written off as “just indoctrinated by the same shit as everyone else”

    If you could point to where I’m writing them off I’d appreciate it. I did say “this is not an excuse for anything”.

    My purpose here was to point out that when gauging the extent to which any shitty belief is prevalent in the whole set of radical feminists, there are selection biases to be aware of.

  427. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Butter cookies.

    1 pound butter.
    4 eggs.
    1 cup sugar.
    1 cup flour.
    A little salt.

    Whip the butter and sugar together until the butter is white and fluffy. Add the eggs, flour and salt and mix until the whole mess starts to coagulate. Pull it out of the bowl and knead for a few minutes until the dough is shiney and smooth and a little sticky.

    Divide into four balls. Put it in the fridge.

    Take out one ball of dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface (or a rubber rolling mat will also work) until it is about 3/8 of an inch thick. Cut out with cookie cutters and place on an airslide pan (or nest two jelly roll pans). Decorate with colourful sprinks, chips, whatever. Bake in a 325F oven for about 9 to 12 minutes until the edges begin to brown.

    While the first batch is cooking, gather up the dough, roll it out again and make more. If the dought gets too warm and becomes sticky, trade your balls and keep going.

  428. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    mythbri:

    They are crunchy, burnt-ish monstrosities, and no amount of accompanying milk will salvage them.

    How burnt?
    I like slightly charred bacon (not black, but criiiiiiiiispy), as well as popcorn with charred kernels (I wouldn’t eat a bag of charred popcorn, but mixed together, I find it’s quite tasty–especially the sea salt/black pepper popcorn THAT I CAN’T FIND ANYWHERE ANYMORE arrrggghhh).
    And yes, milk and cookies are a must have. Same with brownies and cake.
    Not water.
    Not tea (yuck anyway).
    Not soda.
    Not beer, liquor or wine.
    MILK. Full stop.

  429. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    If you could point to where I’m writing them off I’d appreciate it. I did say “this is not an excuse for anything”.

    I think there was some bad phrasing on my part there. I know you don’t think it’s an excuse. I just mean to say that our consistent indoctrination isn’t sufficient explanation, and there are other factors at play that should be remembered, when they use feminism-related justifications for these things – sort of because those justifications cause them to hold to, for instance, transphobic beliefs in a more difficult to counter way, that ambient transphobia doesn’t account for by itself. Does that make better sense?

  430. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    No raisins, though. Raisins are an abomination unto whoeverthehell!

  434. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Caine:
    thanks for the link.
    The bruxing and boggling is so cute.
    (I need a new word in place of adorable…synonym dictionary here I come)

  436. says

    If anyone’s interested: over in the sidebar here at Pharyngula, there’s a link to I Blame the Patriarchy. The blogger is a radical feminist who is vocal against transphobia.

    And kink.
    :(
    (I had to stop reading her after the post about abuse in BDSM. The post wasn’t as bad as the comments section, but I still can’t deal with that shit.)

    Amen. I actually adore Twisty’s writing passionately but I skedaddled because I couldn’t stand the sneering, wilfully ignorant, dismissive, erasing attitude towards BDSM (Or as they so maturely call it “bee dee essem”. Yes, because really, acronyms? So laughably bizarre. Nobody uses those!).

    On cookies

    Raisin oatmeal is okay, although sometimes sort of boring from a textural standpoint. Better to go with toasted almond or pecan, chocolate chip, raisin oatmeal cookies. Better yet toasted almond, Craisin, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Even better, toasted almond, Craisin, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with high quality shredded coconut …

  438. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    I remember, as a kid, playing Boggling — a good game for backpacking as it was a plastic tray, a clear plastic lid, 16 cubes with letters on, a pencil for each person, some paper, a sand timer, and a scorepad.

    I wonder if it is still around?

    [Google]

    Okay, it was Boggle and yes it is still around.

    [Emily Latrella Voice]Nevermind.[/Voice]

  439. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Raisins= evil
    (evil like Pat Robertson, not like Yahweh)

    however Grapes , especially concord grapes=much deliciousness

  440. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    I play that online! I would be playing it right now if I weren’t slowly trying to disentangle so I can go on my walk with my brother.

  441. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Oggie:
    Boggling sounds like fun…
    :::imagines a Pharyngula podcast boggling session:::

  442. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    I will go far as to say all dried fruit is an abomination.

    Would you perhaps claim that hating dried fruit is your rainsin date?

  443. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    We’ve had some bottom burning in the oven happen. Looking for a root cause, it appeared to be tied to the design of the oven. The thermostat is near the top of the oven. During preheat, when both the top and bottom elements are on, the thermostat is heated mainly by the top element. The elements shut off once the top element heats the thermostat sufficiently. A thermometer in the main cavity can show 200 only degrees, with the preheat set for 400 degrees. Once the preheat clicks off, the oven is set for bake, which is heating from the bottom element only.

    If you open the door and put in something to bake under these conditions, there is a huge temperature gradient present. The 400 degree air at the top escapes out the oven door, leaving the internal temperature about 200 degrees. The thermostat cycles, but rather than starting with a properly preheated oven, you have one at a much lower temperture. The bottom element must run longer than expected to bring the internal temperature back up, and in doing so, heats up the bottom of the baking sheet more than expected, causing the burning. I prefer letting the bake setting cycle once at the set temperature prior to cooking.

  444. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    kristinc:
    ::recognizing that everyone’s tastes are different::

    Raisin oatmeal is okay, although sometimes sort of boring from a textural standpoint. Better to go with toasted almond or pecan, chocolate chip, raisin oatmeal cookies. Better yet toasted almond, Craisin, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Even better, toasted almond, Craisin, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with high quality shredded coconut …

    None of these appeals to me.
    The last actively gives me the willies. I detest the taste and scent of coconut. As a child, German Chocolate Cake came near my mouth once and it hasn’t again. I’ve accidentally eaten coconut, and I always know it’s there from that distinctive flavor.
    Ick.
    Glad you enjoy all of them though.

  446. Richard Austin says

    This is just… bad.

    [DEFINITE TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE]

    (Insert badly done “Girl from Ipanema” hold music)

    (…)

    (…)

    (Okay, song’s over)

    Utah GOP Fundraiser Accused Of Raping Women At Cabin Where He Hosted Political Events
    (rot13 for your protection)

    Gur Fnyg Ynxr Gevohar ercbegrq ba Guhefqnl gung cebfrphgbef punetrq TBC shaqenvfre Tert Crgrefba jvgu 23 srybal pbhagf, vapyhqvat gur encrf bs sbhe jbzra. Wnvy erpbeqf bayvar fubjrq gung ur jnf fgvyy orvat uryq ba $750,000 obaq.

    Gjb bs gur encrf nyyrtrqyl gbbx cynpr ng n pnova ur bjaf va Urore, Hgnu, n gbja nobhg 40 zvyrf njnl sebz Fnyg Ynxr Pvgl, gur arjfcncre ercbegrq. Gur pnova unf orra gur fvgr bs fbzr ovt anzr shaqenvfref bire gur lrnef.

    Va bar pnfr, gur arjfcncre ercbegrq, ur nyyrtrqyl gbyq n jbzna ur zrg ng n puhepu shapgvba gung ur unq n tha naq sbeprq ure gb tb gb uvf pnova. Gurer, ur nyyrtrqyl encrq ure naq uvg ure vs fur ershfrq gb qb jung ur jnagrq.

  447. mythbri says

    @Tony

    The burnt level is usually brown all around the edge of the cookie, dark brown on the bottom. Detracts from what the flavor of the cookie should be, and instead makes you want to discreetly hide the rest in your napkin to be thrown away covertly.

    I’m very much on the soft cookie side of the fence. There are some styles of cookies that demand a certain light crunch, but for right-out-of-the-oven chocolate chipity goodness, soft is where it’s at.

    True story: While working backstage at a summer rep theatre, I made chocolate chip cookies for the stagehands and actors to eat at intermission. I came back from my intermission-tasks to find the plate empty, nothing but a napkin with a hastily-scribbled note that read: “These cookies made a man out of me. Better than sex.”

    I choose to believe that I make really good cookies, instead of the note-writer having really bad sex.

  448. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Boo.
    We got outside and immediately came back in because the heat was horrendous. It is 97.2 degrees out.

  450. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    Tried it.

    Fun.

    Didn’t do that well:

    Here’s How You Scored:

    1 six-letter word, score 3
    (BLIMPS)

    11 five-letter words, score 22
    (BINTS, BLIMP, BLINK, KILTS, LIMPS, PINTS, SKINS, SLINK, SLIPS, SNIPS, WILTS)

    21 four-letter words, score 21
    (BINS, BINT, KILT, LIMP, LINK, LINT, LION, LIPS, LIST, LOST, MILT, NIPS, PINS, PINT, SINK, SKIN, SLOB, SNIP, WILT, WINK, WINS)

    9 three-letter words, score 9
    (BIN, KIN, KIP, LIP, LOB, NAB, NIP, PIN, WIN)

    Your Total Score is 55

    I’d go back but that would be dangerous.

    Once a day.

    Once a day.

    Once a day.

  451. Owlmirror says

    for i in 1 2 3 4 ; do cat /dev/urandom |tr -dc A-Z |dd bs=1 count=4 2> /dev/null ;echo ; done


    H L O W
    R G S G
    C X A N
    X D R B

    </BoggleNerdSniping>

  453. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Ogvorbis:

    I’d go back but that would be dangerous.

    Once a day.

    Once a day.

    Once a day.

    That’s how it starts.

    6 months from now, you’re going to found your own online boggling site and go on to be the boggling champ of the world.
    It will be mind boggling.

  454. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Ban, bang, bangs, bag, bags, gab, gas, bar, barn, barns, bard, arb, you are really mean.

  456. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Does that make better sense?

    It makes your point clearer.

    I just mean to say that our consistent indoctrination isn’t sufficient explanation

    Agreed, at least regarding proximate causes.

    The flavors of misogyny prevalent among non-gay men also are not sufficient for explaining the differing flavors of misogyny prevalent among gay men.

    Ultimately though, if we ask why do feminist flavors of transphobia exist at all, I expect the answer is that patriarchy already existed. I see no reason to think that feminists would have independently invented transphobia in a world where it didn’t already exist.

    sort of because those justifications cause them to hold to, for instance, transphobic beliefs in a more difficult to counter way, that ambient transphobia doesn’t account for by itself.

    Thinking aloud here.

    Transphobic people who aren’t radical feminists see transwomen as men. This would be ambient transphobia.

    Transphobic radical feminists see transwomen as men.

    Radical feminists see the expectation that men should always have access to women’s spaces as a function of patriarchy. (This bit is correct.)

    Transphobic radical feminists, since they see transwomen as men, therefore see transwomen’s access to women’s spaces as a function of patriarchy. This is a feminist flavor of transphobia. And it can be more difficult to counter because the stakes seem higher: opposing patriarchy is important, when X is actually a function of patriarchy.

    But what accounts for transphobic radical feminists seeing transwomen as men in the first place? That can be accounted for by the ambient transphobia.

  457. Ogvorbis: Dogmaticus sycophantus says

    For the BoggleNerSniping:

    Slow, slog, logs, gas, gag, gags, rag, rags, gar, nag, nags, low, lows, glow, glows, bran, brang, bag, bags, rax, dang, drag, drags, sax, bang, bangs, rang, drab, gab, garb,

    Sorry, thats it.

    6 months from now, you’re going to found your own online boggling site and go on to be the boggling champ of the world.
    It will be mind boggling.

    Naw. I’d have to be good at it for that.

  458. Tethys says

    Your welcome Tony!

    Not tea (yuck anyway).

    BLASPHEMY!!
    Peppermint tea and thin mints are delicious.
    Stash ™ creme caramel tea is also good for cookie dunking purposes.

    MILK. Full stop.

    Can’t drink it at all. :(
    Casein is evil.

    Audley

    Can we trade sisters? Mine is currently driving me buggy over what food I am allowed to bring to Mom’s 70th birthday party. Sis follows the gluten-woo diet, and thinks Jenny McCarthy is teh awesome. It’s all I can do to not roll my eyes and laugh at her. I would correct her, but that only results in family drama and me being labeled mean. (further eyerolls)

    I am now going to be slightly evil, and bring some delicious chocolate baked goods just out of spite*. I will also bring Napa Cabbage Slaw and gluten-free chips to appease her.
    On the plus side, I have finally convinced her that all opinions are Not equally valid.

    *In Minnesota, passive-aggressive behavior is an art. I try to at least get some humor out of it.

    Caine

    Oh, the ratlings are getting so cute. The grooming pictures make Me squeek. We can haz more pics of Rubin’s litter?
    I think some are black and some are brown, and I am excited to see how their coats are coming in. I am 90% sure that rat litters can have multiple daddies. (cats too…100% sure about that one)

  459. Tony aka The Psychic Octopus [safe and welcome at FtB] says

    Our government isn’t *all* evil.
    Just came across this:

    Nearly twenty-two years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and thirty-nine years after the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 – two of the most significant disability employment-related pieces legislation in American history – people with disabilities continue to be employed at much lower levels than people without disabilities/the general population…
    …
    DOL is challenging entrepreneurs and developers to use the information ODEP already produces for the public to create apps that package those data for job seekers and employers. The goal of the challenge is to improve access to job training and transportation resources for those with disabilities. At the same time, the challenge aims to support employers with the recruitment, accommodation, and retention of workers while educating them on the value these individuals can bring to their businesses.
    http://disability.challenge.gov/forum_topics/1118

  461. says

    Moments of Mormon Madness in Norway.

    Tip of the hat to ex-mormon, Nick Humphrey, for pointing to this latest news. We’ve seen coverage of mormon necrodunking habits in Norwegian newspapers before, but this is a new batch of articles.

    http://www.bt.no/nyheter/utenriks/–Kirken-skjuler-dap-av-dode-kjendiser-2736437.html (“the church is hiding baptisms of famous dead people”)

    http://www.bt.no/nyheter/lokalt/De-ble-mormonere-etter-sin-dod-2736370.html (“they became mormons after their death”)

    http://www.dagbladet.no/2012/07/18/nyheter/innenriks/religion/mormonere/22584187/

    Kong Olav ble døpt som mormoner tre år etter sin død

    As another ex-mormon noted, “I see in the article that Harald Hårfagre was included in the LDS dead-dunking. He was a Viking king who lived in ca. 850 to 935, long before Christianity was imposed in Norway by Olaf Tryggvason. I wonder if the LDS Corp missionaries had to travel to Valhalla to meet with Harald, in order to give him the missionary discussions. Maybe we’ll find out later if Odin and Thor have also been dead-dunked by LDS Corp.”

  462. says

    Tethys:

    We can haz more pics of Rubin’s litter?

    There will be more. :)

    I think some are black and some are brown, and I am excited to see how their coats are coming in. I am 90% sure that rat litters can have multiple daddies. (cats too…100% sure about that one)

    There are definitely a couple of black ones in Rubin’s crew. Rubin is a soft gray and white with a distinctly agouti undercoat. The pregnancy seems to have brought out the pale brown tones in her coat.

    I just checked with AFRMA and it seems rats can do the multiple daddy scenario, that puts it firmly up in the air. Havelock is the only black rat in da house, so we at least know which ones are definitely his. :D

  463. Matt Penfold says

    My favourite cookie recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and can be found here.

    It is the combination of the sugars that I think makes them so good. And try using white chocolate, very delish!

  465. says

    Tethys,
    Hey, if you want a sister who will criticize you for every little thing (whether or not these things are in your control), feel free to have mine. Woo in general I can deal with (my inlaws are super into food woo, and my mom is all about the “alternative medicine” woo).

  466. says

    Here’s a Moment of Mormon Madness wed to GOP madness, Tea Party madness, misogyny, an anti-immigrant stance and possibly financial fraud.
    Link.

    A man who prosecutors say kidnapped and raped women he met online and at church functions was arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Wednesday night.

    Gregory Nathan Peterson, 37, of Orem, was charged in 3rd District Court with 23 felonies and two misdemeanors, including nine counts of forcible sexual abuse, seven counts of rape, three counts of object rape, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, forcible sodomy, assault, burglary and sexual battery.

    Peterson is also a GOP fundraiser …

    Peterson allegedly held the girl hostage at his cabin overnight and sexually assaulted her. The next day, he took her to his mother’s house in Lewiston, Cache County, where she was held hostage for two days and repeatedly assaulted, according to court documents. He also is accused of verbally assaulting the woman, at times yelling, “When I’m talking to you, look at me!”…

    Investigators say if there are any other potential victims, they should contact police.

    According to Peterson’s Facebook page, he is the owner and a certified financial planner at Peterson Wealth Management in Orem.

    … On March 26, 2011, a woman told police she met Peterson at a church function in Draper and agreed to go to a movie with him.

    During the drive up, Peterson forced the woman to commit lewd acts and “smacked her across the face” for not doing one correctly, the charges state. He again allegedly “smacked her in the face with his backhand” at the cabin. The woman later told police at that point “she did not want to get hit again and did anything the defendant told her to do.”

    Peterson pointed out loaded weapons in the room and raped the woman and held her in the cabin overnight, according to the charges.

    On July 1, 2011, Peterson hosted about 300 Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Gov. Gary Herbert, at his Heber cabin in 2011 for the Rocky Mountain Conservatives annual convention and BBQ. It’s an event Peterson has hosted before.

    On July 2, 2011, prosecutors say Peterson arranged to go to a movie and dinner with another woman he met online….Peterson displayed a handgun in his car and threatened to have the woman deported because of an expired visa if she did not cooperate, the charges state.

    Coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune identifies Peterson as a “Utah tea party activist” and displays pics of him with Mitt Romney. Peterson bills himself as a “close personal friend of the Romney family.”

    It took 16 months for police to arrest Peterson after the first victim filed a report.

    Peterson holds an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Brigham Young University.

  467. carlie says

    Does the stone absorb some of the heat in the oven, so that the baked goods don’t get all of it?

    Yes. We put one in, and spouse was instantly incensed that nothing turned out right any more. It definitely changes the way the baking happens.

    Also, where do you buy a pizza stone at? Target? Wal-Mart? CVS?

    Yard sale. It takes longer that way, but there was a huge fad of pizza stones in the late 80s-early 90s, and then everyone got sick of them. I still see them not uncommonly, usually for a buck or two.

  468. says

    Tony, my cat likes to nuzzle my face, but I have to be quick to pull away from her if she’s about to nip my nose. She’s quite bitey even when she’s happy and relaxed.

    ***

    Oh, shut up, Karmakin.

    Trigger warnings trigger me. I wish I was being sarcastic. They make me extremely self-conscious (which in some circumstances is a good thing, but in others, like myself, I’m overboard self-conscious anyway…) and they’re sometimes inherently overtly into “social politics” (a phobia of mine).

    You’re not the only one on FTB with social anxiety, but for someone who “supports feminism” you seem to use yours a lot to derail the topic at hand.

  469. Tethys says

    Audley

    Hey, if you want a sister who will criticize you for every little thing (whether or not these things are in your control), feel free to have mine.

    Yes, she sounds exactly like my sister. I am so glad we did not go through pregnancy at the same time. I got criticized for not doing menopause right, with a side-order of unvoiced “You are so thin that you must be anorexic”. Newsflash sis, 4 out of 5 women in our immediately family are genetically thin ectomorph types, including you.

    I figured if we trade we get the same personality, but the bullying behavior will be less hurtful.

    I loved Pride & Prejudice & Zombies!

    As guests fled in every direction, Mr Bennett’s voice cut through the crowd. “Girls! Pentagram of Death!”

    Elizabeth immediately joined her four sisters, Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia in the center of the dance floor. Each girl produced a dagger from her ankle and stood at the tip of an imaginary five pointed star. From the center of the room, they began stepping outward in unison, each thrusting a razor sharp dagger with one hand, the other hand modestly tucked into the small of her back.

  470. Cipher, OM, Fighting Fucktoy says

    Daisy, that irritated me too. Mostly because “extremely self-conscious” isn’t the same as “triggered.” Like, there are plenty of things that upset me and make me anxious that aren’t trauma triggers.

  472. says

    So I was checking on an eBay item that I was watching that’s ending soon and I was like fuckit, some asshole bid on my stuff! Just great! The nerve of these people bidding on my stuff, amirite. Jerks.

    And then I remembered it was my bid. XD

  473. Sili (I have no penis and I must jizz) says

    Erm, apparently Hillary Clinton’s convoy was shot at in Israel…? Do we have anyone who can do better than Google Translate?

    At least it wasn’t the terrible Egyptian terrorist throwing tomatoes and shoes.

  474. says

    Okay, the book I decided to download to my tablet is Spice: The History of A Temptation by Jack Turner. I have the book in paper form, however, I decided to put it at the bottom of the reading pile because it’s the sort of book I want to immediately start highlighting, scribble notes in, look stuff up, etc. That sort of book works *beautifully* for me in electronic form and I’m enjoying it immensely.

    If I remember right, it was ‘Tis who recommended it, so thank you!

  475. says

    Lynna #10:

    …It’s a fascinating perspective. When white Republican policymakers disenfranchise African Americans in an election year, based on trumped up allegations of “fraud,” that doesn’t “incite racial tension.” But when the Attorney General notices white Republican policymakers disenfranchising African Americans in an election year, based on trumped up allegations of “fraud,” that does “incite racial tension.” Good to know.

    Can we start talking about chilly climates yet?

  476. says

    MDC #468:

    You’re not the only one on FTB with social anxiety …

    -raises hand- and I don’t complain about trigger warnings. Hell, I’m overly careful about them; I slap TWs on stuff I find generally creepy just in case the creepiness vibe itself sets off triggers (I have sometimes found myself reading some particularly creepy accounts of, say, harassment, and remembering the awful ways that my mother treated me in trying to make me fit into her pre-defined little box).

  477. says

    Tethys:
    Yup, I know I’ll be in for it come menopause.

    It seems to me that my sister has been lashing out because she’s been so worried about her own pregnancy– she’s 35, so at that at that age were doctors want to test you for every goddamn thing under the sun and her doctor has really made her scared about her chances for having a healthy child. It is almost as if she’s jealous of me because I have just had the standard testing, no scary visits with genetic councilors, and I’ve got very few worries and good health. I’m not excusing her behavior (I’m still pissed as all hell), but I think I’m starting to understand the underlying causes of her immature assholishness.

    Also, she’s very much a perfectionist, so it must be hard to see me just kind of floating along all whatever when she’s Doing. Everything. Right. and having a more difficult time than I am.

    Anyway, I don’t know if I could deal with that level of criticism and food woo. :)

  479. says

    Setár, I also try to warn wherever I think appropriate. Triggers in relation to rape, for example, are so common that it’s just good manners to warn. I don’t warn for things that would not be considered triggery by most people, although if I know that person X has such a trigger I might warn them by email or PM.

    Sympathies on the abuse from your mother. :(

  480. birgerjohansson says

    Jadzia626 :

    “Watching old Doctor Who episodes …
    Keep the women hidden and safe while the men go out and fix things!
    *mumble* *mumble* ”

    One way to interpret this is “send the expendable suckers to do the dangerous stuff”
    — — — — — —
    “Boggle” is also the name of a saurian monster species in the Cal Leandros series of urban gothic.
    — — — — — —
    Tomorrow is the anniversary of Stauffenberg’s assasination attempt. It would be nice if somebody celebrated it by whacking Assad or Mugabe.
    — — — — — —
    Sunday is the anniversary of the massacre at Utöya. Swedish TV will be broadcasting live Norwegian television covering the ceremonies of rememberance.
    — — — — — —
    I forgot to mention it; Warren Ellis´ “Supergod” is about how governments create superheropes with divine powers to serve their countries, with catastrophic consequences.

  481. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Cipher,

    That makes sense, ixchel. *nods*

    Glad to hear it; now I hope I can move it into my long-term memory.

    +++++
    Hey Walton,

    Did you see? Ing wants us to talk about free will.

    ;)

  483. says

    MDC #479:

    I don’t warn for things that would not be considered triggery by most people …

    See, my brain likes to run away on its own making connections without telling me until it drops bad stuff on me like a ton of bricks. I go by that for non-obvious things; if it creeped me out to the point of flashback, it will probably be able to creep someone else out that badly too.

    Sympathies on the abuse from your mother. :(

    -sigh- thank you. Part of my head still refuses to grok the abuse part because there was almost nothing concrete, just years and years of undermining and reinforcing bullshit. Even the time where my memory blacks out and I apparently hit her once, then my memory comes back with me curling up on the ground as she’s hitting me, followed by her telling me she “had to punish me” even after I’d apologized and was in tears over all that happened just gets dismissed as a single event, never mind the sheer implications of repeatedly striking your child when they are defenseless.

    It’s fucking harsh to untangle, too, because one of the reinforcements was particularly horrible: my apologies didn’t count for shit. Mistakes weren’t mistakes, they were failures, indicative that I wasn’t thinking enough, or didn’t care about how important this or that was if I was doing substandard. Even if I apologized for something, I never knew whether my mother would trot it out at some later time as an example of what I’d done before. The effect of that has really been to make it really hard for me to accept mistakes, with a higher chance than I would like of me making idiotic contests, going for “gotcha” points or worst of all tone-trolling.

    I have to tolerate her, though, because I have to tolerate my family. Because despite how my family is allowed to get mad at me and yell at me because of how they’re “disappointed” or “worried”, I’m not allowed to get mad at or yell at them. Or even tell them where they’re being abusive or counterproductive*.

    (* – Epitome story 2: I’m late for school, try to sneak out so my mom doesn’t get mad. While I’m getting dressed, mom wakes up, then when she finds me still home she starts berating me; when she does so she has always demanded that I give her my full attention so I stop what I’m doing to do so. When I calmly toldl her that she was making me even more late by berating me, she banned me from the internet for a week. Then, when I got pissed at her, she made me FLIP ALL THE SHITS by fucking saying that I wasn’t mad at her but mad at myself. No. Fuck you. You fucking silenced me.)

  484. ChasCPeters☯n says

    what do people take “excluding men from feminism” to mean?

    boncentration bamps.
    bastration.

  485. says

    Now if I can figure out how to get my dad’s recliner out of my room and to the curb without breaking my back or anything else…

    Turn it over. You might find some large bolts holding the arms on or the mechanism in. Loosen them and you can take it apart.

  486. ImaginesABeach says

    Tethys @ 458 –

    I think the really, truly Minnesotan thing to do would be to bring a hotdish that includes chocolate.

  489. Tethys says

    ImaginesaBeach

    Hmm, I would if I had a recipe for a chocolate hotdish that also had lots of wheat in it.

    Making the baked goods chocolate will make them even more tempting for woo-sister. *evil atheist laugh* I’m sure the other 20 people at the party will appreciate having cake at a birthday party.

    Woo-sister is also an obnoxious christian, in addition to being Mom’s favorite and a life-long bully. So since I can’t win, I register my disdain via more subtle methods.

  490. says

    The “women are incompetent and scared” theme of Doctor Who got a little tiresome. I watched some Chuck instead. At least the women there can kick ass even if they wear heels a little too often for what’s practical.

    —————————

    Anyway, interesting discussion of radfem. I’m well aware of the fact that not all radfems are transphobic. Even Julie Bindel has come around somewhat on the issue.

    What I find most strange with the transphobes is how hung up they are in binary labels, genitals and a lot of other things when defending their bigotry while at the same time dismissing all such arguments when they are directed at them.

    They also seem to be very conspiratorial in their thinking and argumentation.

  491. says

    Jadzia626 #490:

    What I find most strange with the transphobes is how hung up they are in binary labels, genitals and a lot of other things when defending their bigotry while at the same time dismissing all such arguments when they are directed at them.

    They also seem to be very conspiratorial in their thinking and argumentation.

    That goes for all regressives, not just transphobes. Just look at the Slimepit, or the Republican Party.

  492. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    Before we get all hot under the collar, what do people take “excluding men from feminism” to mean?

    Or rather, “no need for including men in feminism”, since that’s what was actually said.

  495. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    I note that it is essentially the Pharyngula approach.

    We have never made a point of doing outreach to men for the sake of teaching Feminism 101.

    Indeed we consistently berate those who show up here and insist upon being taught, like they are incapable of using a search engine.

    Frequently we teach anyway, but it’s because SIWOTI, and we aren’t nice about it, and we always emphasize that we’re only bothering for the sake of the lurkers.

  496. says

    @Ixchel

    If it’s for the sake of the lurkers than that doesn’t mesh with what you said.

    That is infact doing an outreach for men for the sake of teaching Feminism 101.

  497. Josh, Official SpokesGay says

    It is time once again to make the won tons. This time with shrimp.

  498. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Looks like some medical bills from the Redhead’s stroke may be catching up with us. Confusion, as April is the month in question, and May and half of June was allegedly paid for. Better talk to the bank about a home equity loan.

  499. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    *sigh*

    I look like a Meth head with my teeth and covered in scabs from bed bugs. Have shit to do like update Little One’s shot and get her in school. Not fucking fun. =(

    The furniture is going to be thrown out today. Tired of the little fuckers. Even if it only decreases the bed bugs for a little bit, it’s worth it. Infested chairs, the bed, the couch all going out. Then lots of cleaning. Then being extremely uncomfortable.

    So much fun.

    *sigh*

  500. ixchel, the jaguar goddess of midwifery and war ॐ says

    If it’s for the sake of the lurkers than that doesn’t mesh with what you said.

    A big if.

    I know in my case “it’s for the lurkers” is always a rationalization for indulging SIWOTI syndrome.

    That is infact doing an outreach for men for the sake of teaching Feminism 101.

    Only if the lurkers the writer is imagining are men.

    There’s a bit more to separate here. I will attempt to distract male trolls and make them spend their time responding to me, because expecting women to do the work of educating men on feminism is oppression in itself. But it’s not because I ever have any particular hope that any particular man will get it. I just want them to get out of the way.