Those crazy Swedes, bustin’ into song over the weirdest things…like “it’s all the gays’ fault”.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Those crazy Swedes, bustin’ into song over the weirdest things…like “it’s all the gays’ fault”.
You know it’s a bad wedding when I’m not even drunk. *sigh*
New thead! /obligatory!
That’s cute, PZ. A little heavy-handed, but still cute.
Odd… new thread forced me to log in again.
Woooooo new thread
I’m almost done with crocheted cephalopod #3. My only problem is I can’t find my stash of stuffed animal eyes.
I keep getting logged out,so much that I’ve just decided screw it. Lo and behold, it seems to like me just fine all of the sudden after I typed a stupid and frustrated (but sincere) complaint as my username.
I guess at some point I should try to put that back though.
Where’s Chas? I’d like to ask if that was the slowest episode of TET ever.
Portcullis! Tis, you’re quite right I hadn’t provided an answer to your question (actually Jadehawk’s question too), but the reason for that was that it was delayed until #681 (just before the drawbridge was pulled up) and you got in ahead.
Yes, we most certainly still have to struggle on pointing out sexism and misogyny when it occurs, honestly and unflinchingly. But I still view it as depressing that it will invariably involve most of the targets of criticism erecting the defensive barricades I noted in #669, rather than honest reflection that they might be wrong.
I notice a particular breed of obsessive commenters who are so convinced that they are right (despite their claims to “skepticism”), there would probably be no possible means of presenting a piece of evidence or reasoning to them which would make them challenge their own views. The struggle against these guys is going to be unending, but hopefully there will be some bystanders along the way who are willing to be challenged. (We’re not trying to sway the die-hard naysayers, but influence the middle ground.)
Stuffed with what?
No, on second thought I don’t want to know.
<There are some weird people around here. One of them keeps a collection of animal eyes.>
been to 4 weddings, only got to drink at one, and I was the officiant.
Catchy little tune — fully expect to cringe from the same sentiment in the ads for the 2012 election.
WOO-HOO!!! Thank you Owlmirror! I’ve got the friendly octopus, NUMBERS!, and avatars back on the left hand side.
Woo-hoo! Free 30 minute old grog for everyone.
In short, no pulling punches either. (That’s in case my argument is still being viewed as essentially an accomodationist one – I try not to be, but I’m not very good at outright aggression. :-)
I apologize, Philip. Now that I’ve read all your comments, I realize I was a bit snarky. You do bring up a legitimate problem and it should be properly considered.
Unfortunately, it’s after 2200* here and I have to be to work all too early in the morning. And all too early in the morning comes all too early in the morning.
*That’s 10PM for those who have problems subtracting 12s.
Hold on. is there a way to get numbers to display? I only get names.
Sandiseattle – What flavor of wedding were you the officiant at? With the spelling of your name you are a woman, so it couldn’t be a proper christian wedding.
@Patricia
I am a ULC ordained minister. I’ve performed 3 (2?) weddings, one single, and one double (two couples). The weddings were basic affairs, I guess you’d call them non-denominational. All that was half a lifetime ago tho. I would not do it now. (Not to mention the fact that in washington you have to have a license and I’m broke.)
No worries Tis. My follow-up #672 wasn’t my most insightful post by a very long stretch. I’m also very amused Nerd also had a hair-trigger reaction of “yawn, another dictionary fuckwit” – well yes, but I think the denialism is out there and occasionally taking this form; and Jadehawk did note the similarity to the homophobia meme that takes the form, “it’s not because I’m afraid of gays that I don’t like them”, which is just as obtuse.
That was so bögarna.
I must have missed the NEW THREAD post. /whine
The old Thread looks like it’s still accepting comments.
Ignore my #6. I’ve realized this is the 3rd iteration of TET on FtB, not the 2nd.
Weirdness – once I’ve loaded the main page, any time I reload it in the same browser session it goes back to whatever cached version was there from the first time. So, for instance, new posts don’t show up, new comments aren’t listed in the comment number totals. But if I go to a specific post all the comments are there, and if I close the browser and reopen it then the page shows up with all updates.
You should all check out this version (6 days old, was performed in a traditionally famous Singalong that goes on Swedish tv, at the same time Stockholm Pride was going on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7X1qTEfYwY&feature=aso
No subs sadly but still hilarious, and you could use the subs from the video on this page to understand it.
Carlie
I’m having weird reloads, too.
In the old thread I saw nothing after post #669 8:05 PM ThreadTime until just now.
Sandiseattle – Yes, I am ULC ordained too, as well as druid & wiccan…the leader of my old Grove suggested we do that for the sake of the pagans families that were christian it made sense at the time . Now I see it as more gullible bullshit, piled on bullshit on MY part.
Well, OK, I also did it to spite my former fundy church fathers. *smirk*
It has been a while.
Open My Eyes-The Nazz
Marlene On The Wall-Suzanne Vega with Richard Thompson
Bobby Brown-Frank Zappa
Pirate Jenny-Ute Lemper
They’ve arrested a 17 yr old in regards to the brutal murder (beaten to death with a machete & baseball bat) that happened outside where I live.
Still looking for an accomplice…
I’m not going near riotact – as I think I may scream.
I’m so tired of all this hypocritical crap against the gays (and atheists) the fuckwit christians will quote the old testament every time and howl how jebus and Poofdaddy hate the gays, but when you say OK, then stone your sassy mouthed brat, your adulterous father, and grandma for gathering faggots on Sunday…oh hell NO. The old testament doesn’t count they’ll say, with a mouth full of shrimp.
*snort*
I wonder why PZ hasn’t shown any interest in the debunking of M. Gandhi. In Canada are making this natural size statue about him and he was just another religious loon: http://bit.ly/r13coP
This letter was convincing enough for a school board to rethink it’s curriculum because of it.
Highlights “They teach children how to use condoms and have sex”
“They used their condoms to have sex”
Going out on a limb, but I think it’s pretty much agreed that Gandhi existed.
Sandi is a male I believe. And not nearly cool as the ambiguous gender thing as I am.
Ing –
Meesa thinks, my wicked darling, that I have already acknowledged your coolness, by giving you three nomination nods for a Molly.
Sandi doesn’t really care if anyone is confused. It’s always been Sandi with an i. So maybe it should be said I’m cool with it, but I’ll give Ing the step above for being ambiguously cool. :-)
With that I’m outie, the old man is watching war crap again and I’ve gotta escape.
I’m out too, it’s almost dark here, and tonight is the great turn over of the Pullet Patrol. All of the old hens are sold, and the new chicks arrive on Tuesday.
Good night sweethearts!
Tried to think of a witty remark about the Gandhi comment, but Ing pretty much already summed it up with:
I think its pretty much agreed that Gandhi existed.
*snicker
Three questions occur to me
1) Who is this sinister In Canada organization
2) Why make a statue about Gandhi instead of one of him?
3) By natural size I imagine that means the statue will be of pre-implant Gandhi?
I’m having a stupid night. I had a fight with my friend about one of those issues that’s very emotionally painful for both of us in the first place (so not an overblown fight about something trivial, a fight about something actually hard), then, still sniffling and puffy, went to dinner and attempted to get some comfort food, burned my mouth on it, waited, thought, started crying again, was interrupted by one of my floormates I barely know asking if he could sit with me, and proceeded to not be able to eat my food before it went cold because there was a person nearby. Now my tummy hurts, I’m angry at myself because I ate very unhealthily and I didn’t even enjoy it, and my friend is not talking to me. And I think my frustrating inconsiderate roommate is back. And I’m out of chocolate. :(
Bwahahahahahahahahahahhahahaaahahahahahahha!
Oh Cipher, honey, I know those days well. They’re just shit. Throw yourself a good old fashioned pity party (really, I mean it) by indulging in whatever form of “I’m doing this thing I like now instead of the thing I should be doing” and tomorrow will be better.
I attempted my first music dump at this shiny new digs. But four links has it being held for moderation. I know what that means. I will now try three links.
Here is one of the few YouTube recommendations that I found interesting. Marc Ribot & Laurie Anderson
Why Did We Have To Part?-Marianne Faithfull
Caravan-John Cale
Third attempt at a music dump. Four and three links were too many. I am not liking this.
Map Of The World (Part II)-Jane Siberry
Debris-The Faces
Miss Chatelaine-k d lang
Here, There and Everywhere-Emmylou Harris
Am I Too Blue-Lucinda Williams
I Feel Alright-Steve Earle
Oh, I love “Miss Chatelaine.” But then, I love anything sung by KD Lang. Her voice is angelic.
I love “If I Needed You” by Emmylou Harris. If I could figure out how the tags worked I would post a link.
If I Needed You Emmylou Harris and Don Williams.
Written by Townes van Zandt, crazy genius.
Sometimes It Happens-Linda Thompson
Strong Simple Silences-The Golden Palominos
Deep Red Bells Neko Case
Furnace Room Lullaby Neko Case
And she sounds even better live!
And two by a new LA band named Milo Green 1957, not the best quality recording.
And Autumn Tree which has hauntingly beautiful harmony.
Ugh. Some of the commenters on FSTDT are douchenuggets.
“If anyone ever deserved to get raped, it’s Sandy Rios1. I hope she gets knocked up so she’ll have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say; no way does a child deserve to have that cunt Sandy Rios as a mother.”
1 The “birth control = mani/pedi” moron.
Dammit. Hey, Poopyhead… can we get <sup> and >sub> please?
Slipping (Into Something)-The Feelies
Club Mekon-The Mekons
@tis from the previous thread.
You could try the following as a poor man’s killfile
.comment-author-xxxx p { display: none !important; }
It’ll hide the posted comment but still show the comment author and posted date etc.
Full up on my douchnugget quota for the day Benjamin.
How did writing script on your photographs work out?
Tethys, when Neko was living in Chicago in the mid to late ninties, I used to go to her shows on a regular basis. Usually, Kelly Hogan was part of her backing band. (Ecstasy!) Neko would return the favor and back up Kelly for her shows.
One of my all time favorite shows was when Sally Timms, from the Mekons, and Neko preformed together. (reduced to a puddle)
Janine
I am so jealous! Neko comes through regularly and I caught her at First Ave a couple years ago. I marvel at her voice, and the amazing versatility of her band. I’ve never seen a steel banjo quite like the instrument he played. (currently grooving to The Feelies, I had forgotten them)
I hear they’re also to blame for extended fasting at altitude:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14437334
I like the priests’ excuses for the extended fasting, including “the ancients did it”.
(Britain is a) Car Park-Eliza Carthy
Eliza is a fucking goddess!
Mister Blue Sky-The Electric Light Orchestra
I curse Dr Who for reminding me how much I love this song. I am deeply embarrassed.
Teehee, it’s funny because some people are actually that stupid.
Tethys, the Feelies reformed in 2008 and have a new album out. Who knows, it might be an other twenty years before they release an other one.
For now you can use these:
¹ = ¹
² = ²
³ = ³
¿µ want m°a® §¥mbo£s?
Hmmm…I wonder if a gets round the banned words. :)
Joining in the music dump – I saw this band play live last night, awesome and unique sound, complex rock with jazzy vocals
Moetar – Butchers of Baghdad
I thought I’d point out that the reason that such primitive CSS killfiling can work is because each comment in the thread has a place in the list with html coding prefacing it, that in part looks like this:
<li class="comment byuser comment-author-phi1ip even thread-even depth-1" id="comment-4134">Now that’s the coding you’ll find if you inspect the html source of this page and go examining my first post in this thread, currently sitting at #7.
It’s worth noting that “comment-author-phi1ip” is referring directly to my WordPress login name on this site – phi1ip – and not to whatever name I choose to appear under using the “nickname” option (or the simpler option to use just “Firstname Lastname”, however these are defined).
So a word to the wise – if privacy is a concern for you, and the username you chose when you registered here is one you would not like publicly known – then it might be time to consider retiring that account and re-registering with a different account name, since they cannot be altered, once created. (I think most Pharyngulites are cluey enough where this is concerned, but in the spirit of Internet paranoia one can’t be too careful.)
I don’t think there are any banned words here, unless the ECO has put up filters for spammers selling Viagra and such. I don’t think he has yet. To get past that, you can insert a pair of tags like “<i></i>” in the middle of a word. The filter won’t pick it up, unless it becomes sentient….
Janine
Wondrous is our great blue ship that sails around the mighty sun and joy to everyone that rides along.
One footnote: if you haven’t logged in to the site in order to post, then obviously no WordPress username will be recorded against your comment – which will frustrate the primitive killfiling attempt. (Mandatory logging-in is not currently enabled, at the blog owner’s discretion, because it’s still well within the breaking-in period for the new digs. I gather when all is ship-shape, logging-in will become compulsory.)
And orangutan, I gather there are multiple ways around the moderation: using HTML entities may be one of them; creatively using tags to break a search pattern is another (e.g. the word Nostradamus has a pair of <i></i> tags embedded in it, which have no purpose other than to prevent a direct match on the whole word.)
What will happen if I put in a ?
@theophontes
lowercase a
It took really long to load the new site this morning (China time). Now it seems to be working again. I am always concerned that one day Pharyngula will be interwoven with a banned site like facebook or youtube and go byebyez … :'(
(I would probably resign and leave the country if this happened.)
@ Orangeutan
Aaah mingbai. Like Viagra … er, … Viagra
Theophontes
It seems to be having a few hiccups. Sometimes it loads normally, but at times refreshing the page takes forever!
And no youtube? Darn communists and their control issues!
These auto-play video ads are making me want to rip out my own spleen with my teeth.
Here I am, enjoying a nice bit of My Morning Jacket, in particular the point where Jim’s voice transcends reality, and these irritating bastard of a weasel with a cheepy, cheery english accent starts cozying up to me about some kind of razor thing beneath it.
On second thought, I want to eat that bastard’s spleen…
@ CR #61
Kif ‘k sê … now I can start posting in Afrikaans. :)
@ Tethys #73
It is really frustrating. Also google is often incredibly slow here. And I need to google stuff for work, so it is very counterproductive.
A lot of the social media don’t function or do so improperly. Teh Great Cyber-wall means I can’t get to see any of the Phyrangula music video postings.
(I can get music via Chante France, so not all is lost.)
A newspaper that I’m reading ran this article today quoting HuffPo (okay, so that’s one possible BS indicator there) on whether consumption of porn increases the risk of sexual violence or not. It in its turn sent to this Scientific American article: The Sunny Side of Smut.
I don’t have access to the full article or the studies mentioned, but thought someone here might be interested. I don’t really see a case for much beyond “backward/religious environments foster toxic cultures along with visual abstinence/a lack of internet access”.
Classical Cipher, sorry to hear about your rough day. Here’s some virtual chocolate if the real one is missing.
And if it makes you feel any better, a random person on the internet who never got beyond learning the alphabet admires you for studying Greek (and envies your determination just a little :)
Church Hospital
via Bug
I’m having no luck with this css business, even if I create a chrome folder. I guess I’ll have to wait until PZ implements it server-side…-(
You join a nice clan on Starcraft. One that seems like it’s going to be good, teaching and practicing and having tounraments and contests. Fun, neh?
Oh but then the first admin you have the opportunity to meet asks “are you a fag” and tells a joke about black people.
I’m done with that clan, if that’s the sort of person they have to lead it.
It’s the gays who did that? Damn, now it ALL makes sense and I thought all the time the Jews did it wow.
Caine, tried a cache refresh?
Ctrl-F5@Katherine Lorraine:
I definitely think that some quarters of the gaming community have a long way to go.
I’d love to see that song become the theme music to the 700 Club.
<blush>
That last was to Carlie.
Interesting article about the recent credit downgrading in the US, S&P and Wall Street :
Standard and Poor’s: Just More Corrupt Wall Street Insiders Waging Class War on America
@Le Havre en Chêne:
Yep. They seem like such a nice group of people, too. Just a shame upper management consists of people like that. What’ll happen if there’s transphobic members of the administration? Will I have to suffer trans jokes or being called out on my gender identity?
Not saying that they have to be saints, but a little bit of respect goes a long way. The admin had no idea what sexual orientation or race I was, and yet he pulls out this whole smug straight / white privileged attitude?
It’s that kind of situation that makes me realize I’m perhaps a bit too old to be in any real gaming “crew” anymore. I need to find an older crowd for a Dungeons and Dragons group, I think.
—
Set: 1 min, 46
Getting an email saying that your manuscript is invited for revision and resubmission is a nice way to start the day. Having it accepted outright is an even nicer one.
The filter won’t pick it up, unless it becomes sentient….
At which point we should…
Run screaming
Welcome our new cloud based overlord
Give it a voter registration card and a social security number
Not worry about it until it demands one of the above?
@Dianne:
Awesome news :D
“Going out on a limb, but I think it’s pretty much agreed that Gandhi existed”
Quoting time-travelling guy from Irregular Webcomic: “I’m pretty sure World War II happened”
http://www.Irregularwebcomic.net
— — — — —
Obviously, everything is the fault of gay jewish freemason Opus Dei blokes. With a bit of telepathic input from the extra-terrestrials.
John – ah, that did it! Thanks. That’s a lot more convenient way to do it.
I saw EG described as an “intoxicated Irish guy” in various places, and I just went through the list of people who might fit that description on that fateful night in Dublin…OMG, hahahaha !!! Say it isn’t so, Stephen !!!
Had a quick look at the stockmarket:
Aaaaaaacccckkkkk!!!
–o–
Ooooh – Vincent Fleury is back.
I’m up. :grumbles: Gotta go shower now.
I saw that. One crank must support another. I think they are using monkeys and typewriters concept, where one of them is bound to come up with the next great work of fiction.
Imma wearing jeans! My lovely Aeropostale’s. Happiness.
@Caine:
You suck. I’m wearing slacks cause I’m at work… I’ve also got one of the business nooses.
Oh Katherine Lorraine, I’m sorry! I’m still happy though, ’cause this is the first time I’ve been able to wear jeans since the pancreatitis.
@Caine:
Well, that’s fine. You’re free to wear jeans and I’m glad you’re happy. I, on the other hand, will be happy to get out of this suit and put on a skirt in… 6 hours.
Kat Lorraine:
And you will look lovely and be feelin’ fine!
@Caine:
Heck yes!
The poll over at American
FamilyPatriarchy News is still up, amazingly, even though it’s been extensively no-voted – but now it’s started to slip back again just a tad. They must have some very dedicated godbotters over there.Be nice to see it squished altogether … (work? what work …)
@opposablethumbs:
Tch… who needs to work.
Oh right, me. Eh, I got nothing doing this month except a briefing and training so I don’t have any problems.
A mutation for absence of fingerprints.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/science/09obprint.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
I am sooo including this mutation into the DNA for my army of clones. (I will also include some genetic markers so my GM anthrax will spare the Me replicas)
@Birger:
Ooh, can we add any mutation to our clones?
I wanna add a prehensile tail, cause goddamn that would be a useful thing. How many times have you needed an extra hand opening the door while carrying a lot of stuff?
You all remember the current teabaggernorth mayor of Toronto who wants to privatise the Toronto Public Library. Now he says he wants to sell advertising in school gyms and hallways. I still don’t get why Torontonians elected this asshat.
@Ibis:
Math class, brought to you by Pepsi:
“Everyone get out your Pepsi-brand calculators and your Dr. Pepper-brand notebooks and we’ll begin on chapter 3. If the Pepsi bottling plant fills fourteen bottles of delicious, refreshing cola a second and ten bottles of the amazing flavors of Dr. Pepper a second, and five percent of those bottles are rejected for not having the proper level of that thirst-quenching goodness. How many bottles will be filled by the end of an eight hour day? Show your work while I drink this delicious, thirst-quenching bottle of Pepsi.”
@Katherine:
Any interest in the Old Republic? My best friend’s gay, and she’s found us an LGBT-friendly guild to join when it’s finally released.
@MartinM:
Meh… not really interested in MMOs. Too much time as it is to play them.
@Katherine:
Yeah, I know what you mean. If it wasn’t BioWare, I wouldn’t be touching it with a barge pole.
@MartinM:
The fact it’s Bioware is the only thing that’s marginally pushing me towards the likelihood of joining, but still it’s a big money / time sink.
Good morning everyone!
I feel like shit. :(
@Audley:
*hug*
Awe, thanks Kat!
(Is Kat okay? Or do you prefer Katherine?)
On the plus side, ZOMG Tim Horton’s iced coffee. If we had a Timmy’s in my area, I would never go to Dunkin’ Donuts again.
Set 2 mins 9 secs… it’s that last obvious one that takes all the time :D
Weird ad to get on this blog:
Still can’t tell what it is peddling and there’s no way I’m clicking to find out.
Still haven’t managed to see final Harry Potter; latest attempt on Friday ended with me waiting a couple of hours for a tow truck because my 25 year old engine management unit quit :( Oh well, at least the EMU that is now fitted is less than 25 years old, if somewhat expensive.
Maybe this week will be my lucky week.
This new CSS really is the bee’s knees, cat’s pyjamas, etc.
Thanks to all who did the work (though I did copy paste it from Caine’s post in previous thread.)
One strange bit of behaviour: at home, the avatars provide a link and expand the pic whereas at the office, they depress once on roll over while showing a link and that’s that… no click is possible and no further display of their URL happens. Weird Voodoo Shit. I use FF here and at home and both are exactly the same AFAIK.
Hey Ho, back to work :D
No, it is not. When I use my phone, I see ads for Liberty University, Right Wing T-shirts and other assorted nastiness. I wish I could set up an ad block on my phone.
Katherine Lorraine, if you are serious about finding a group for tabletop RPGs, My sister and brother in law live near Quantico, and game fairly regularly.
They are not AFAIK transphobic, but unfortunately the topic hasn’t come up either, so I can’t be sure.
I can send a friend recommendation through FB though if you are interested?
serendipitydawg:
The quilty-looking ones will do that, because they’re auto-generated and not “real”. Any person who has actually registered with an avatar should still get the rollover and clicky stuff (like me).
Well. Last night certainly sucked on toast.
:(
–
And I immediately visualised a den/study with wood-mounted eyeballs hanging on the walls.
–
*hugs*, *boozes*, and *chocolate* for Classical Cipher. Last night was indeed a bad and stupid night, and I’m thinking of lobbying for its recall.
–
But you don’t know where it’s been….
–
Janine,
Those appear on the old site all the time. I still see Bachmann’s presidential ad campaign from time to time.
Oh, and, good morning peeps. Slow day at work, but tonight (and tomorrow night) I have to drive 90 miles round trip to go to a 2-hour meeting with the people for whom I’m consulting. I think they want to go to dinner afterwards.
Funny part is that the meeting is near where I used to live; I moved explicitly so I wouldn’t have to do this drive any more. There’s no winning, I swear.
Katherine: I love SC (well, SC2 right now) but adamantly avoid the community for it. And this is from someone who goes to Blizzcon every year and played WoW from release up until last year. The e-sports crowd seems to be the worst of the gaming crowd.
Fear not, for I waded into that cess-pit. It is the website of the United Church of God and is your normal American right-wing fundamentalist evangelical operation. For example, did you know the financial crisis facing the US (they are not bothered about the rest of the world it seems) can be solved by reading your bible ?
@Audley:
Kat, Katherine, Kitty – any of those is fine.
@MFHeadcase:
If they’re okay driving for an hour or so up I-95, then I wouldn’t see a problem with it. I don’t typically go TG when in the company of others, so it’s not going to be that big an issue. Go ahead and recommend them and I’ll see.
—
I’m sending a sympathy gift to a colleague here at work whose mother died, and am having a hell of a time coming up with a good message for the card on the flowers (they’re very pretty creme roses, blue hydrangeas, and white lilies and carnations.) I don’t want to sound like a heartless sympathy card. It’s so hard…
Well I would just say something along the lines that they (the colleague) are in my thoughts.
@Richard Austin:
It’s perfectly fine when I’m in charge, cause I cut off all BM (bad manner) when it comes out in the chat channel. When it’s others in charge of me I don’t have that luxury and it’s hard being a TG female in that kind of social group. The whole TG aspect is hard on its own, but the female aspect is almost worse. I think my reputation for instant silence of sexist speech precedes me, though, and don’t have to worry about the “pix” or “show me ur tits.”
Either I missed something, or I don’t see (from the article, anyway) why being without fingerprints is described as a “disease”. Unless it’s to do with having fewer sweat glands on hands and feet?
–
Katherine Lorraine: maybe something like “Thinking of you in your time of grief”?
–
Kat,
I always go with “deepest sympathies” or something alsong those lines.
Can I tell you how much I haaaaaaate sympathy cards? I had to send one to a customer of mine a couple of weeks ago and Jesus Christ, it was damned near impossible to find one that wasn’t religious in nature. Even if I wasn’t an atheist, sending my customer a Jesusy card would have been incredibly unprofessional. Gah!
@Katherine Lorraine,
Yeah, I got “weaponized” with the raids I ran in WoW: I had zero tolerance for gay, sexist, racist, etc. jokes and came down hard on anyone, including raid leaders, who pulled them (I had a friend who brought me into raids -explicitly- to have me shut down jerks). I got away with it because I had a reputation as a good player and the fact that most of the people I ran with were actually nice people – it was just a few bad apples here and there, or someone who didn’t think about what they were saying. But that was an RP server and the “high end” crowds; the normal groups were pretty bad.
E-sports people seem even worse, from what I’ve seen, though I imagine there are still “clean” areas. As a whole, though, it seems to be the worst of sports and gaming communities put together.
Just taking this new site out for a test spin. Don’t mind me.
For the photographic/arty Pharyngulartists you might like this site: thisiscollosal
Scroll down for the colour changing ants. Our clones will need a feature like this too.
@ Katherine Lorraine
Nicknyms: Katherine + Lorraine =”Kaylo”? It combines both of your names into one. (My niece’s name is Kayla, incidentally.)
Sympathy cards. Mm…
(Clears throat…)
‘In your time of loss, I’d just like to send you this proselytizing, pandering, incredibly pointless paean to a rather transparently cartoony, alleged all-knowing sky guy who, apparently, is actually pretty cool with your loved one dying slowly and incredibly painfully of a truly horrific cancer…
‘And yes, that’s a Kincaid ripoff on the front. Classy, huh? Paid five bucks for that, I did. Ya, no expense is too great, toots…
‘Anyway. Remember: it’s all in his hands*…
‘Yes, also your prostate. He’s kinda annoyingly handsy that way.’
(Hallmark, call me. I’ve got more.)
(*/No, not Kincaid’s. Those of that other way-too fucking ubiquitous insult to your taste and intelligence. But either way, really…)
AJ Milne, that was brilliant. Hallmark is missing a sure thing, by not hiring you. :)
–
I’m going to bed, but I’ll leave you with this :
Thin Lizzy – Whiskey in the Jar, live at Cork 1980
Sympathy cards are really hard. Because culturally people prefer the lie that there is some sort of happy-Jesus-afterlife, simple condolence messages are difficult to find. I decided against one when my Grandma Alice’s spouse died; we just made sure to spend time with her and show up with dinner last Sunday.
Speaking of my grandma, I have a grumble about getting her into assisted care (for health reasons). Family finally got her into a place that’s financially viable but nice this last Saturday. There’s normally a decent waiting list, but with the depression following her husband’s death, they were able to accept her through one of the psychiatric channels as bypassing the longer waiting list. The first place they tried to take her literally tried to extort thousands of dollars when they arrived as scheduled! They had gone through all the procedures and had the quoted/listed price to get her settled ~$4500 I think, but when they arrived, someone at the facility demanded $18,000 now that they’d liquidated her life, basically. Scum.
We also helped my brother and sister in law move out this weekend. I seem to have strained something in my upper arm, but that’s starting to recede. I’m really looking forward to a weekend that actually feels like one, because it’s been almost a month since I’ve had a relaxing weekend that actually was restful.
On a positive note, I actually heard something happy while driving boxes around this weekend. It was on one of many geeky/gaming podcasts that spouse tends to listen to while driving. While discussing marriage proposals, one of the speakers talked about how he and his wife decided to get married because they saw how happy their gay friends were as they were finally allowed to get married. It was one of those wonderfully cheering anecdotes that pisses all over homophobes who preach that marriage equality will destroy “traditional marriage.”
Richard Austin @119,
Strangely, it is the real ones that are exhibiting this behaviour! It isn’t an issue, I just found it odd that it does it (and I was going to click one of them to get a better look at what it is :D)
Went with the simple – somewhat cliché “thinking of you in your time of grief.”
—
@Richard Austin:
Yep. It seems to be based on the person to whom they owe their interest. Though these names may be foreign to you, I’ve noticed a few things about the e-sports fans:
IdrA fans seem to be hooting, hollering jerks – reminiscent of Frat Boys.
Trump fans are a bit mellower than usual.
Destiny fans are angry at life, like emo kids.
People who watch iCCup and GLHF are polite (mostly cause I’m moderator there.)
People who watch RageQuit are rude to the caster despite my warnings to quit with the jokes about his voice (he’s a great caster, knows a lot about the game, but has rhotacism (which is just cruel, what kinda jerk puts an ‘r’ in rhotacism (probably the same guy who put an ‘s’ in lisp (oh noes, nested parens I can’t get out of them (that is to say at this point I’m just being a smart ass and purposefully doing this (should probably close them (yea, good idea))))))
@Theophontes:
Ick, sorry, Kaylo makes my skin crawl.
cicely:
(Bows…)
But they are gonna hire me this time. The times are right for this stuff. I can feel it!
(/’Kay, so last time I applied they had me escorted out by the cops. That’s just their way of saying they take your work seriously, I’m sure.)
Good afternoon, peeps! This is crossing over from TET on FB, but Sally Strange popped upon a hilarious meme idea: a Pharyngula Personals in which NONE of us write our own personals.
Have at it.
TEST
is this thing on?
I’m honestly getting more and more frightened of a Republican president… The more I hear about Bachmann and Perry, the more it seems like they’re going to be rabidly anti-gay.
Kitty,
Not only are they anti-gay, they’re also anti-woman on a fundamental level. They, and their political/religious allies, frighten me too.
@slignot:
I doubt they’ll ever do things to bring us back to the days of anti-sodomy laws, but I’m sure they would gladly raise anti-abortionists and anti-gay judges to the SCotUS. Who knows what could happen under that sort of thing?
(Heck, the only thing holding Roe v. Wade up now is that it hasn’t fallen on the ears of SCotUS – I’m sure it’d be overturned now.)
slignot and Katherine, seems to me that with the current composition of the court, our best hope is for the older of the Right wing hurry up and die, with the younger of them to go in two wetsuit situations.
Kitty, I think they’d love to bring back anti-sodomy laws. Given the way that individual Republican party platforms of states have placed recriminalizing sodomy laws (e.g. Montana) and Bachmann and her ilk are trying to push laws that emphasize a states’ rights, they’ll try if they can. They’re all for state’s rights so long as that means keeping gay people from openly existing and allowing women to have any decision power over their bodies.
In all seriousness, what’s the difference between having a scary repub president, and having a non-repub president who lacks the spine to stand up to them?
Kat
You have heard about the Bachmanns “counseling center”? I think the question of them being anti-gay is irrefutable.
On a happier note. Bachmanns district is getting redistricted, and many of her former supporters are quite upset with her pandering and hypocritical religious beliefs.
She is not a credible candidate in her home state! :)
(hmmm, remember what happened to that other cray-cray flag and religion waving women who ran for Pres?)
Actively supporting measures to prod, measure and regulate my uterus and vagina while dictating my options on what I can do with them. Actively attacking the glimmers of equality we have in places like the District of Columbia where gay people have some hope of being considered human beings.
The difference is basically malice.
Classical Cipher,
I am sorry to hear about your evening. Hugs if you want ’em.
___
Caine,
Standing! Huzzah!
___
Cicely,
More MRSA? Not good. Hugs for you too.
___
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
Now that is just horrible. Piss on the church and anyone who would support that kind thinking.
___
Ing,
We can’t have our children learning about what can happen while growing up. Far better to have them stumble upon it by accident, that way we can feel sorry for ourselves.
___
Consciousness Razor,
I had three comments eaten because Picolax was in a linked url.
___
Katherine,
Ughh. Not worth it at all.
Testing, testing…must run back to work, but I just wanted to see if I can get this damn thing to post. Over a week, and I’m going into TET withdrawal.
That wasn’t my idea exactly, but I was the inspiration. I’d rather write my own personals ad, because of the FB conversation about Fox’s “Hah! Feminists!” report on dating: I really like babies, high heels, and the color pink, but I’m still a radical feminist.
Okay, I totally lost access to TET here for a while, but it looks like y’all were still posting.
Weird.
a non-repub president who lacks the spine to stand-up to them
Why should one stand-up to bullies by acting like the bullies?
I much prefer Obama’s method of discrediting the bullies by allowing them to “hang themselves with their own rope” so to speak.
Tethys:
The problem comes when you’re one of the people that gets caught in the rope as they hang themselves.
Obama didn’t elect them. Americans elected them.
Now he has to try and do his job AND force congress to do theirs?
I think Obama clearly sees the threat that the tea-party represents to our country, and is doing the only logical thing that he has the power to do. He plays a loooong game, and he is a master of strategy. He is letting the tea-partiers reveal their true intentions in the sphere of public opinion.
As an example of what happens when the tea-partiers true motivations are revealed, check out what’s happening in Wisconsin. 5 out of 6 tea partiers have been recalled so far. I hope they go gunning for their governor next.
I wish I wasn’t caught in the ropes, but I will not blame the president for trying to solve the problem and not the symptom.
Janine, The Little Top Of Venom –
Ooh, thanks for that John Cale. Love it. I don’t spend any time on youtube searching for things – since I would be up around the clock if I ever started – and that one was new to me.
TET: recipes, music, and occasional Mormon Madness, what could be better.
If you’re still trying to write a sympathy card, try finding a blank card (with a picture of flowers or a nice bit of scenery, or something abstract) and just put “I’m sorry for your loss” on the inside, then sign it.
Brevity is good in these things, especially if you didn’t know the recently deceased person (so can’t put in anything about how you will miss them/their sense of humor/their kindness/etc.).
(I also like blank cards for birthdays and other occasions.)
As a side note, the gravatar login/image I set up for here last week popped up on Butterflies and Wheels this morning, which makes sense but I hadn’t thought about.
Interesting quote from the 5 August S&P report on why they downgraded the U.S. This comes from the bottom of page 4 (emphasis mine):
Went from feeling fine today to feeling uncomfortable and rather sad. Last week my mom asked if she could give my phone number to the girl who was my next door neighbor 20 years ago, who tracked her down on Facebook. I said okay, mostly just puzzled what the hell I would have to say to someone I last talked to when I was 8 and she was 7. Shortly thereafter, her dad moved the family up to very, very rural Southern Idaho.
Today she got a hold of me for the first time in 20 years. Hearing from my mom that she was a stay at home mom and still lived in Idaho, at first I wondered if she was just bored out of her damned mind. She said she’d thought about me a lot over the years, wondering if I was happy and what had happened to me.
Now I’m pretty sure she was thinking back to a time when she was happy and felt like she had options in her life. We traded some incredibly awkward (for me, anyway) texts catching up on major life events. I wasn’t sure how to cover being a feminist, or skeptic or atheist since she is probably not any of those things and she just tried to reach out to me.
Since I knew she had kids, I conversationally asked for verification of what my mom had said: that she had two kids. She has three kids, but more importantly, she had her first child when she was still one herself. She’s a little younger than me (I think it’s by a year) and her eldest child, Justice, is 12. Which means that she was pregnant at 14 or 15; I know enough of her father to know that she was only given one option. Terminating the pregnancy would have been unthinkable, and also, unavailable. Between this and being told that she wished she had more education, that she had often wondered what had happened to me over the years, that she was “just” a stay at home mom, that she didn’t respond about her current marriage (she has two much younger children that were wanted) after I told her about my happy marriage, I feel angry that she has been denied life opportunities and I have no idea how to help. I feel like she emotionally or psychologically needs something from me, but I have no idea what to do about it.
I feel almost certain that she wouldn’t have tried to reach out to me if she wasn’t looking for some kind of memory and solace from when we were girls together. I don’t have or want a facebook account, but I let her know where to find me on Twitter.
That’s familiar. When I was in college, I ran into a girl who’d known me in high school, and she told me a similar sort of wistful story — she’d liked me and wished she’d gotten to know me better, but had been whisked out of school when she got pregnant and dropped off the face of the earth as far as her old friends knew. I got the impression that she could imagine a better life for herself, and it didn’t involve a teenage pregnancy.
This is precisely the feeling I got. I would love to help in some way, but I have no idea how. I’m also rather concerned that if she stayed a devout Mormon who is now in a small town that pretty much everything I feel about justice and reality will drive her away. Hopefully she won’t take one look at my visible history on Twitter (gay rights, feminism, atheism, skepticism, science based medicine) and run screaming.
Could someone repost the CSS for “Creationist”? I’ve got the Gumby, but the quotes are in Ariel rather than Comic Sans. I’d like to see where mine is messed up.
I tried looking back through previous threads, but couldn’t find anything different from what I have already. Maybe all these codes need to find their way to the wiki, too…
Most of the ASB (associated student body) at my school, including the president and directors, were girls. Almost all of them were in AP classes, qualified for scholarships, etc. Almost all of them graduated, got immediately married, and had kids. The few I’m still in contact with generally regret this, usually with the “I love my husband and my son/daughter/children, but…” qualification.
This is why I don’t do high school reunions.
test.
hello? Is this thing on?
I’ve been to one HS reunion, our 35th. I wasn’t technically supposed to go since I’m a HS dropout. But it was a casual affair held in a bar in my hometown which is only about 40 miles away.
I only went because my HS friends from FB invited me. All 3 of them. (Venn overlap of 100%.) I had a good time, spent the night at a HS friend parent’s house. In the morning the parental units asked my how I liked it. I told them it was fun, and I’d be ready to do it again in another 35 years.
+++++++++++++++++
If there was a theme song for such events at that age, I would have chosen “We Got To Get Out Of This Place”. I did.
+++++++++++++++++
There was also a sad moment for me. One of the FB friends has apparently had a crush on me since then. She’s been married now for years, said she loves her husband, but was putting out major vibes.
I think I ignored them w/o being unfriendly. She’s pretty sharp, she probably got the message, I hope I didn’t make her sad.
Hugs back to everybody! Sadly, things haven’t been getting better yet – I had trouble sleeping, messed up my quiz this morning, and then found out that one of my friends (the new one I started making right before having to leave) is going to be moving away semi-permanently before I will be able to get back for a visit. So… that isn’t awesome at all. Nurr. Hopefully I’ll be able to stay on track studying and get to bed early tonight.
Hello again – Ftb has finally let me back on :)
My city is rapidly burning, which came as rather a surprise after having turned on the news when I got back from work. I’m just glad I don’t have to live there at the moment…these riots bring out 2 very different sides to me which start fighting for my affection.
Hooray, it’s alive again! Hello, TET!
CC, it’s all greek to me so I can’t help there. Hugs for working so hard and having stupid sleep deprivation mess it up. Are you sure you messed it up? I’ve thought I messed up before due to stupid sleep deprivation and it turned out OK.
Stupid sleep deprivation made me doubt I did OK.
[stupid sleep deprivation, stupid sleep deprivation! Fuck I hate you!!!]
T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I’d assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.
The Great Feathered One.
Coming soon, within minutes: Popcorn, Virgil’s Root Beer, Pie In The Sky
slignot
Perhaps she just wants a friend? It sounds like she is very isolated and unhappy.
Note, that palindrome wasn’t invented by me. W. H. Auden would trot it out at the drop of a hat, as will I, but as I stole it from W. H. Auden, he stole it from somebody.
Blazing Saddles in on AMC.
I extend to you all a laurel and hearty handshake.
“It’s twue, it’s twue!”
Le Havre en Chêne, are you a Londoner? Did you catch Livingstone’s comments, by any chance? He’s actually the only person so far (who I’ve heard, that is, of course) who’s been saying anything worthwhile – basically putting destructive actions into context; showing that understanding what might be involved in triggering something =!= (is that the right sign for does not equal?) condoning it.
Everyone else is just saying “how awful” (which it is) but not interested in why, as if people just did this out of thin air for no reason.
(if you happen to comment and I don’t say anything, my apologies – just realised it’s 2:00 am, am just about to shut down over here!)
The Sailor:
Or you could watch the whole thing in 5 seconds.
“What did you expect? “Welcome, sonny”? “Make yourself at home”? “Marry my daughter”? You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
Oh crap. Forgot to include the “IF YOU WATCH THIS AT WORK YOU WILL BE FIRED” warning on that link.
According to ‘Story Notes’, Mel Brooks says “I’m Tired” is the dirtiest song he ever wrote. I think he’s Khan-ing us.
Praise tpyos, Khan = Kahn.
“Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, “Reach for it, mister!” I spun around… and there I was, face-to-face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away.
“… little bastard shot me in the ass!”
Benjamin, we’ll “head them off at the pass”!
testing “quoted text” testing.
testing "quoted text inside code" testing.Hm.
Something to watch out for: It looks like wordpress uses automagic “smart quotes” for non-code text, but does not perform any substitution on text inside the
<code>tags.Useful to keep in mind, and potentially important, when copying and pasting text that must use normal quote marks, and not the “smart” quotes.
PZ’s CSS was pasted in without using
<code>, and as a result, some of the quotes in the CSS were converted to “smart” quotes, which would probably bollix things up.@Katrina: Here are the CSS lines I’m using to get the gumby+Comic Sans in PZ’s posts:
.entry blockquote.creationist {min-height: 64px; margin-left: 5px !important; padding: 0px 10px 0px 50px !important; background:#fff url(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.creationist {font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}
.entry blockquote.creationist p {font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
The Sailor:
“Head them off at the pass”? I hate that cliché! *bang*
Test
No, putting Owlmirror’s code in the .css file doesn’t give me the class=”creationist” gumby and Comic Sans. I guess I’ll just wait until PZ puts it in the site .css.
The I Get E-mail post by PZ is the test for gumby and comic sans.
Try viewing this thread. I don’t think PZ’s enabled it for commenters yet (unless I’ve done something wrong), but you should be able to see Comic Sans and the much-beloved Gumby in PZ’s posts whenever he uses it.
The CSS lets you see it, if it’s there. And it is there, in PZ’s posts.
However, that does not mean that we mere commentators are allowed to post comments using “class” attributes — which is what would be necessary for that to show up in the comments.
The allowed tags and attributes are all that are allowed — all others are, as best I can tell, forbidden.
I couldn’t even use <br>.
=====
Testing forcing “smart quotes” inside <code> tag...I understand now. I thought the gumby would be turned on for us. I didn’t realize it just turned it on for PZ and let us see it in his posts. I’ve seen the gumby in his posts, particularly the Why does schadenfreude feel so good? post.
Hm.
Testing how code works with line-draw characters:
Animalia
├─Ecdysozoa
└──Deuterostomia
├─Echinodermata
└──Vertebrata
└──Osteichthyes
├─Actinopterygii
└──Sarcopterygii
└──Tetrapoda
Tethys @ 148 – I don’t think you can safely say that Bachmann is not a viable candidate in her own state. I live in her district, and keep thinking that she has finally crossed the very fine line between right wing and lunatic, and won’t get reelected. I keep being wrong. Also, she isn’t being redistricted enough – that would require putting her home in a district in the middle of Lake Superior.
My day – getting better and better! [/sarcasm] My financial aid packet got returned for being incomplete. Apparently my tax return wasn’t in it. Except it was. In it. Both when I turned it in and when my mom received it being returned. It was the only thing in there that didn’t have a datestamp on it. Apparently they overlooked it and decided to send the whole thing back to my house in North Dakota rather than, you know, making sure it wasn’t actually in there, or emailing me, or anything. So after this tearful phone conversation with the woman at the financial aid office who kept insisting that it must not be in there, something must be missing… my mom calls and manages to get across to them that yes, it really was in there. Because I so have time for this shit. Not like I need my financial aid to, you know, pay my fees or get housing or anything. So my mom’s shipping it back as quickly as possible, which costs money we don’t need to be spending on other people’s mistakes, because I can’t afford to drag out the processing time any further.
Oh, and Netflix is down. Not the biggest deal in the world, obviously, but just… really? Stop it. Listening to Joss Whedon shows while I study is how I keep calm. Apparently that’s not in the cards this evening either. Gah. *explodes*
*
Collects the
Hundreds of thousands
Of pieces of
Classical Cipher,
Organizes them,
Layers them appropriately,
Assembles them together with a
Tasty treat added to the
Ensemble
*
Hey Owlmirror: Don’t go breaking the new site!
You remember how much trouble we got in last time?
CC,
:( Hugs and chocolates are on their way.
Apropos of nothing:
Wedding ceremonies on the edge of a lake (any lake) are the worst idea ever. Wedding planners, stop doing this. It will rain the morning of and the ground will be a muddy mess*. The weather will be unbearably hot and muggy. The mosquitoes and chiggers will make a buffet of the guests. And, oh yeah, it will stink like low tide. It’s not classy or fun or unique. It is terrible.
There’s AC and fewer bugs inside. Just sayin’.
*Not fun in four inch heels, believe me.
˙sɯɹɐ ʎɯ ƃuıddɐlɟ ʎq uooɯ ǝɥʇ oʇ ʎlɟ uɐɔ ı uɐɥʇ ǝʇıs ʍǝu ǝɥʇ ʞɐǝɹq ǝɹoɯ ou uɐɔ ı
Not on my usual computer, so I’m not logged in, but I wanted to thank Owlmirror for the help. I had copy/pasted PZ’s code from the previous thread, and gotten gumbys but no comic sans.
On this computer, I copied PZ’s code, fixed all the quotation marks, and copied your creationist code over his. Your code was slightly different from his, though I don’t know enough about CSS to know whether the difference was significant or not.
But something worked. Now I’ll just have to do-over my main computer.
Sorry I’ve been absent through illmess for a while; I just had enough energy to keep up with the front page stuff, not the comments. :-(
Still poorly, but thought I’d like to make a small comment. I know I hate change, so I knew I would probably have a little difficulty with the new site, but…
Am I the only one who finds it hard to follow the thread without numbered comments? Or am I the only one who cannot see numbers beside the comments?
You’re not the only one, but the problem can be remedied.
Are you using Firefox as a browser?
*squee*
Go here. Choose “Tampa” as your campus, and enter “81211” for the Course Reference Number.
Then hit “search” and feel the awesome.
*boing*boing*boing*boing*boing*boing*boing*boing*
I think Owlmirror needs a “V” for “Valor” added to his OM for service above and beyond the call of duty when helping us all with our CSS woes.
[Raises a mug of Grog in Owlmirror’s general direction.]
@ Katherine Lorraine
Oops, sorry. I shall just stick to your suggestions.
……………………..
I shall be hopping on the bus to Hong Kong in a few hours to watch teh Red Hot Chillie Peppers live in concert. Just had to share that, Mwahahahahaha…
Sorry, dozed off! I’m using Safari; version 4.1.3
Well, this was a wake-up call. Mom and I get to Penn station after an 11-hour train ride from Montreal to NYC…and she gets ripped off by a bogus cabbie and his buddy. Juts glad it was 20 bucks he took and not her whole wallet. I think we got a little to comfy in Canada, where crime is almost nonexistent (that we could figure out, anyway).
I’ll have to catch up later today. I’m tired, just wanted to let people know we got back to the Us safely. And I kind of want to live in Canada, even if the taxes are high.
Huh. A browser I don’t have access to. Hm.
I would have to dig a bit to find the instructions to change that one.
@ Benjamin “van Driessen” Geiger
Waaay cool. Congratulations on your new job.
(Unfortunately I have other commitments … did I mention I was going to see teh RHCP’s? *squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…*)
Tigger, it isn’t just you. The lack of numbering, the sans serif font, and the lack of alternate comment shading is horrible. But if you follow the directions posted by our intrepid code monkeys you can muddle through until FtB implements a nicer looking site.
Pro-tip: You don’t need a coffee grinder. Really. It’s just another middle-class consumption scam. Your blender will work a treat. Pour your coffee beans into the blender and grind to your satisfaction. Works just as well as a purpose-made coffee grinder without the extra expenditure and counter space.
Can you navigate to the folder called
home:Library:Safari?
DNS problems, CSS problems… If we get ISS problems and the damned thing falls out of the sky, I’m gonna complain to someone.
Pro-tip: You don’t need a blender. Really. It’s just another middle-class consumption scam. Your coffee grinder will work a treat. Put pineapple chunks, blended rum and ice into the coffee grinder and blend to your satisfaction. Works just as well as a purpose-made blender without the extra expenditure and counter space.
[/snarky-devil]
[sup]*kekekekekekeke* XDDDD [/sup]
I don’t know whether to hit you or kiss you, theophontes. I bet you get a lot of that. :)
Owlmirror:
Can you navigate to the folder called
home:Library:Safari
?
Found it! Now what?
@Tigger_the_Wing: OK, can you create a new text file there, and rename it “
userContent.css” (I think the case is significant, there — lowercase “u”, capital “C”).Hi Josh
I can has hugz?
I have been accused of being facetious… ;)
Can’t catch up right now, I’ll try tomorrow. Obviously, home from the hospital, the whole day was a clusterfuck.
Bottom line, I don’t know anything. Had blood drawn for yet another anemia test, which, as it now seems, I may or may not have and managed to get the cat scan, which wasn’t fucking scheduled, even though it should have been, so I will find out if I have cancer (or don’t) whenever someone decides to tell me.
I have absolutely no reason to think I have cancer, at this point, it’s just checkin’, because there’s no particular reason I should have had the pancreatitis. So, I’m back to waiting.
It really was an epic clusterfuck of a day, so by the time we got home (after 6 p.m.) and snapping at each other for a good 40 minutes, we decided to chill out and watch a movie (Peyton Place [1957]) and now we’re both heading off to bed.
More tomorrow, loveses and hugses and kisses to everyone, especially Cicely, who I know is going through her own medical hell right now.
theophontes:
Hugz? You can haz. :)
Caine-
I’m so damned glad to hear from you! Been worrying about you all day honey.
Owlmirror, which programme should I use to create a text file with .css on the end?
I have TextEdit, AppleWorks 6 and OpenOffice (plus a load of other stuff which may or may not make text files)
Oh, absolutely TextEdit. Nothing more complex than basic text to be edited.
TextEdit insists I use .css.rtf or .css.html
It won’t let me just use .css
:-(
Or .css.doc or .css.xml
@Tigger_the_Wing
Once you’ve saved the CSS file you’re creating with Owlmirror, go to Safari preferences, click on Advanced, and then from the Style sheet popup, select Other and then pick the one you’ve just created.
Just note that the -moz domain stuff does’t work in Safari from memory so the CSS in the file you make will be used on all sites.
If you can upgrade to Safari 5 which supports extensions, you can use http://code.grid.in.th/.
@Tigger
Under the Format menu, choose Make Plain Text.
The website was just putting too much strain on my poor old eyes. It was too much. I had to nuke the site from orbit. So, I ad-blocked the fuck out of all that blue and white shit from the WP theme, leaving me with a fairly blank canvas. Then I changed a bunch of background colors to make everything nice and dark. Shades of gray, with blue hither and thither. Simple, with no ill side-effects. I will now die a happy razor.
Submitted without comment.
Thank you, I now have a blank document called userContent.css in my Library Safari folder.
This is turning into quite an adventure (when I was first learning how to use computers, we used Fortran or Pascal. This feels strange)
Now what?
Sorry, I should have said “Thank you, orangeutan…”
For others having trouble with text editors on Windose try gedit: Download- gedit for Win
It is important not to carry strange format/text into the file. Gedit is perfect for keeping things clean.
Now, you put some lines in that file.
Try this one first:
.commentlist li { list-style: decimal outside none !important }And refresh the page. (Or do you have to restart Safari? I forget.)
Do you see line numbers now?
Girl of my Dreams – Mingus Ah Um
Invisible Lady – Tonight at Noon
Oh, and you have to save the file before refreshing/quitting.
@ CR #229
I’ll show you my .CSS if you show me yours.
[/leers]
For those having made the .css run on Ubuntu:
I’ve had no chrome folder in my FF profile and so I created one. After this, I created the userContend.css file and posted Caine’s code into it. Unfortunately it doesn’t work.
Can anybody tell me, how the chrome folder is supposed to be named exactly? Is it chrome, Chrome, .chrome or .Chrome?
Thank you, Owlmirror and orangeutan! ^_^
I now have comment numbers!
You are clever!
I am now a happy Tigger. =^_^=
Testing, testing.
I was amazed – the numbers appeared as soon as I did the preferences/style sheet thingy; I didn’t even have to refresh, let alone restart Safari!
Hmmm. Now I have numbers, perhaps I shall be able to find all the other posts where Owlmirror (and others?) created clever stuff to prettify the pages.
Going on a code hunt… brb.
userContent.csschrome@ Bjarne
On ubuntu in FF:
Click “help”, then “Troubleshooting information”, then “Open containing folder”.
You should see a file there called “chrome” (you might otherwise need to add it (“sudo nautilus” in a terminal”).
Copy Caine’s instructions from the previous TET #23.
Good luck. (I will have to leave soon, have RHCP concert tonight. (I might have forgotten to mention this. *squeeeeeeeee*))
heophontes , heophontes , flambeau du communisme,
Thank you :)
I tried to do so, but it doesn’t work. This is why I wonder, if I got the name of the chrome-folder (had to create one) wrong.
Have fun at the concert.
@Tigger: Try these. (includes the one for line numbers, so you can just replace it)
.entry blockquote { color:black !important; font-style:normal !important }
.entry { font-family: serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; text-align:left !important; }
.comment { font-family: serif !important; font-size: 16px !important; text-align:left !important; }
.entry p {font-size: 14px !important; font-family: Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif !important; line-height: 1.75 !important;}
.entry p.profile {font-size: 12px !important; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif !important}
.entry p.lead:first-letter {
font-size: 250%;
text-shadow: #aaa 4px 4px;
line-height: 1.0;
margin: 2px 3px 0px -2px;
float: left;
}
.comment { background-color: #f2f2f2 }
.odd { background-color: #ffffff; }
.avatar { float: right; }
.comment-author { font-weight:bold !important; background: #eef; }
.comment-meta { border-bottom: 1px solid #bbbbbb !important }
.commentlist li { list-style: decimal outside none !important }
.commentlist blockquote { color:black !important; font-style:normal !important }
.entry blockquote.creationist {min-height: 64px; margin-left: 5px !important; padding: 0px 10px 0px 50px !important; background:#fff url(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.creationist {font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important;}
.entry blockquote.creationist p {font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.comment blockquote.creationist {min-height: 64px; margin-left: 5px !important; padding: 0px 10px 0px 50px !important; background:#fff url(http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide; }
.bypostauthor {background: #DBD9D9; border-top: 1px solid #999; border-bottom: 1px solid #999;}
h2.title {
font-weight: bold !important;
font-size: 18px !important;
text-shadow: #ddd 3px 3px !important;
padding: 0.5em 2px 0.5em 2px !important;
}
Owlmirror says:
Typo *blush* I’ve called it userContent.css.
Thank you :)
When you click on
“Help” → “Troubleshooting Information” → “Open Containing Folder”
What happens?
@ Bjarne
Ok, then try this :
Goto your “home” directory (“bjarne”?),
“ctrl” + “h” to show hidden files
click “.mozilla”
click “firefox”
click “ffcsmcw1.default” (or similar)
click “chrome” (or add as required)
When did you last run update manager?
Owlmirror, I love you!
Fetch a tankard!
I’m pouring some liquid into my USB port which, I am assured, will shortly come out of yours as the tipple of your choice.
Great big granny-hug also coming your way (if you want it; if not, it has its usual instructions to divert to one of the grandkids).
I can now read the text without squinting, can see the separate comments and numbers and the commenters’ names… it’s perfect! =^_^=
Owlmirror
My FF profile folder opens.
theophontes , flambeau du communisme,
I did so (adding the folder as none existed in my FF profile folder).
I also created a userContent.css file with kate (I got Kubuntu, but this shouldn’t make much of a difference in this respect) and checked if it is really a .css-file via the Terminal.
Yesterday or the day before.
Anyway, thanks for the help :)
I have to leave for uni now.
@ Bjarne
Use a very simple text processor like gedit (kedit) so as not to have formatting issues.
I wish I could help you further right now but I’ve got to go to Hong Kong now. I shall leave you in Owlmirrors very capable hands.
Wiedersehen…
theophontes, 237:
Well, okay. I hate to post the whole thing again, but it’ll probably complicate matters too much if I only gave you the changes I made.
First, note I blocked several images with Firefox’s Ad-Block Plus:
– PZ’s big ugly avatar in the top-left corner
– /uploads/wrapper-772.png
– /themes/BluePress/images/content.png
– /themes/BluePress/images/menu.png
– /themes/BluePress/images/footer.png
The color scheme is fairly dark grayscale, low-contrast, with a blue background for authors’ names. (I recommend saving your other settings under a different filename, so it’s easy to revert if you like.)
Here it is:
@-moz-document domain(freethoughtblogs.com) {body { background-color: #E0E0e0 !important; }
div.postcont { font-size: 14px !important; font-family: Georgia !important; line-height: 1.75 !important; }
div.postmeta { font-size: 14px !important; font-family: Georgia !important; line-height: 1.75 !important; height: 60px !important; background: url (http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/brcorner.gif) 100% 100% no-repeat;}
div.readmorecontent { font-size: 14px; font-family: Georgia !important; line-height: 1.75 !important; height: 60px; background: url (http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/brcorner.gif) 100% 100% no-repeat; text-shadow: #fff 3px 3px; }
div.sidebar h2 { background: #eee !important; color: #333 !important; text-shadow: #ddd 3px 3px; }
img.post_thumbnail { background: #fff !important; border: thin solid #fff; float: right !important }
.captionedfigure { font-size: 11px; text-align: center; margin: 8px 8px 8px 8px; padding: 4px; border: 1px solid #ccc; }
p { font-size: 14px !important; font-family: Georgia, “Times New Roman”, Times, serif !important; line-height: 1.75 !important; }
p.lead:first-letter { font-size: 250%; text-shadow: #aaa 4px 4px; line-height: 1.0; margin: 2px 3px 0px -2px; float: left; }
p.profile { font-size: 12px !important; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,Sans-serif !important }
.entry { font-family: Georgia !important; font-size: 16px !important; text-align:left !important; }
h2.title { font-weight: bold !important; font-size: 18px !important; text-shadow: #ddd 3px 3px !important; padding: 0.5em 2px 0.5em 2px !important; }
.commentlist li { list-style: decimal outside none !important }
.comment-author { font-weight:bold !important; background: #B6CAEE !important; }
.comment-meta { border-bottom: 1px solid #bbbbbb !important }
div.comment-meta { text-align: right !important; }
div.commentNumber { float: right; font-size: 15px; padding: 6px; margin-left: 8px; border: thin solid #999; color: #555; }
.comment { font-family: Georgia !important; font-size: 16px !important; text-align:left !important; }
.comment { background-color: #D8D8D8 !important; }
.odd { background-color: #C8C8C8 !important; }
.bypostauthor { background: #B0B0B0 !important; border-top: 1px solid #999 !important; border-bottom: 1px solid #999 !important; }
.avatar { float: right; }
blockquote { margin: 0 12px 18px; padding-left: 12px !important; padding-right: 12px !important; color: #111 !important; border-left: 3px solid #ddd; font-size: 13px; font-family: Georgia !important; line-height: 1.5 !important; font-style: normal !important; color: #000; }
blockquote.creationist p { font-family: "Comic Sans MS" !important}
blockquote.creationist { background: url(http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2011/08/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: "Comic Sans MS" !important; }
.entry blockquote.creationist { min-height: 64px; margin-left: 5px !important; padding: 0px 10px 0px 50px !important; background:#eee url (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.creationist { font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.entry blockquote.creationist p { font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide !important; }
.comment blockquote.creationist { min-height: 64px; margin-left: 5px !important; padding: 0px 10px 0px 50px !important; background:#eee url (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/tiny_gumby_trans.gif) 0 0 no-repeat; font-family: Comic Sans MS, MarkerFelt, MarkerFelt-Wide; }
blockquote.jerk { margin: 0 12px 18px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; border-left: 1px solid #fff; background: #eee url (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/jerk.gif) 0 0 no-repeat scroll; }
}
@Tigger: You’re welcome.
And…
*hic!*
So yeah, that css thingie does not work for me, chrome folder or not.,..
You’re using Firefox? (gotta ask)…
The filename is
userContent.css(case sensitive)?Yep, all that….FF 5, created a chrome folder, put the file in it. Not eventuating…
opposablethumbs
I live about 20 minutes from London, though am currently living in Germany so am a little behind on local affairs (hence why hearing about the riots came as such a shock). I’m not Ken’s biggest fan, but from what I’ve heard, he’s certainly been the only one I’ve seen who’s talking any sense. Quite where he managed to find his nuance is beyond me, seeing as he’s been lacking it for the majority of his political career.
The one problem I have with it, however, is that many people who are rioting are not doing so for legitimate social/political reasons, but are simply “casseurs” (I don’t know the English equivalent, but it basically means people who join in riots to cause even more trouble, as were seen during the student protests). Small businesses are being destroyed and lives threatened in the process and the police seem to be completely impotent. I understand the causes behind it, but any legitimate claim to discontent that they had is going to be swallowed up by public outrage about the acts of destruction – this is not how things are done in a democracy.
Apropos of very little whatsoever, Ken once held a tube door open for me as I was running to get on. Nice bloke.
File contains only plain ASCII text?
. . .
Can’t brane anymoar. I haz teh sleepy.
The antipodean contingent will have to carry on without me.
consciousness razor, I’m using the CSS you posted.
Nice!
Whoa ! I figured it out ! Comment numbers, yay ! Now let me go and tinker with it a little…:-)
Thanks everyone !
Picture of the year :
http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thecutline/michele-bachmann-newsweek.jpg
Rorschach, ack!
(Pod-person, if I ever saw one)
Glad you like it.
I still haven’t figured out how to stop the comment authors’ names from being italicized. Also, if I could make “says:” smaller or get rid of it altogether, I would.
O hai! I shall catch up sometime!
Meanwhile, science has figured out my secret.
Katherine Lorraine,
I have been sort-of following some of what you have written (not in a stalkerish way!), just because it kept tickling a memory; then I realised what it was.
Back in the ‘Nineties, hubby was working for a big private health insurance company in the South-East of England. One of his transgendered colleagues successfully argued that preventing him (as she was officially at the time) from wearing female clothing at work was (a) discrimination on grounds of gender (as official females could wear female clothing and/or male-type suits without comment) and (b) making the transition to female take longer than necessary. It was a requirement at the time that before gender-reassignment surgery could take place there had to be a period of time spent living as the desired gender.
I thought then that it was discriminatory to allow women to wear the same as the men, should they so wish, but the reverse was not the case.
I find it outrageous that, nearly two decades later, people are still fighting that battle.
It is just another example among many that show that being female is still regarded as being less than fully human; that a female imitating a male is only to be expected (‘bettering’ herself?) but should the reverse happen… Shock! Horror! A member of the ruling elite lowering themselves might make people wonder if there really is a God-given separation, and we can’t have that, can we? [/snark]
So the DMFM chews his food instead of swallowing it whole. That’s hardly a secret.
I’ve been a gobbler of food, a very fast eater, for around thirty years now.
I was seriously underweight for half of that time, only putting on enough weight to get into the ideal BMI range when diagnosed with gluten enteropathy and put on a gluten-free diet.
I am also a wriggler. I cannot sit still and never have been able to. Even when confined to bed I do not stay in the same position for more than a few seconds at a time unless I’m asleep; even then, I move frequently.
There are many more things that affect weight than chewing.
Hello!
I couldn’t check in today from work, as this specific thread is blocked “adult”. For a moment I thought all FTB was blocked, but no. I wonder what the filter was picking up?
In other news, I have filled in my census form (online!) and marked “No Religion”.
LOL, someone on tumblr posted this caption to the Bachmann pic:
Also, another set of virtual hugs and cups of hot chocolate for whoever needs them.
Back when I used to fish I noticed that aspect in worms on hooks.
Just to gripe a bit, I’m not liking the posts being dual-posted in both places. I thought one blog would have the science posts, and the other would have the “Everything else” posts. I don’t like two comment sections on the same thing!
Clavd:
Such sincerity, such magnanimity!
(I sneer at your unwanted offer)
I forgot to thank Caine for the WordPress advice: Caine, thank you!
I had begun to suspect that I needed to Add Another Account To My Life, just to Get An Avatar On Pharyngula, but I didn’t want it to be true, but Caine confirmed it, and now I’m feeling Ducky!
In other news, someday when the guests stop coming and the job application packets are all sent out, I will have to try to read through some TET or other Pharyngula threads. At least I’m preparated now.
Bleagh! (I pronounce this blee-ogg, BTW).
So I have a speech on Thursday for Toastmasters, all about myself. I’m going with the fact I’m a geek. Gonna bring in a few things for illustration; my letter from Brian Jacques which prompted me to become a writer, my dog-eared recipe for jambalaya, and probably my favorite picture of outer space related things – a galaxy cluster.
Rohrschach,
How did you solve it?
Yeah, I don’t think this can or should be kept up for much longer. Make a decision one way or the other, PZ, but don’t post threads on both sites. One has only so much time in any given day !
Btw, Carlie, thanks for the work on my thread trying to get something decent out of the ERV crowd, or a word of dissent with Abbie’s hate juggernaut from Coyne or Russell. I might actually close comments there, as I have said before, I prefer no comments at all to those by the likes of Justicar or bluharmony, and the silence of Jerry Coyne and Russell Blackford on this is still deafening.
@ Le Havre en Chêne #258
Very much agree. Livingstone has been sounding refreshingly sane and aware in this particular instance so far – and also agree w you re the prevalence of casseurs (I’m not sure what the best BrE equivalent would be – maybe thug or hooligan?); there have apparently been some Egyptian bloggers commenting on just that. For the most part, those most directly harmed or endangered (so far) are the self-same neighbours in the self-same relatively impoverished neighbourhoods. Unemployment and absence of prospects are fertile ground for vandalism (a bit like imo things like faith schools are fertile ground for race-hatred and ghettoism), and KL seems to be the only one around here putting it in context at the moment.
I was so pissed off at one much repeated bit of BBC coverage that talked to a local pub landlord who was blaming “anarchism”, as if any of this had anything to do w anarchism FFS.
The devil is in the detail, as always ! This machine runs Ubuntu Linux 11.04, with FF 5 as main browser. There is no chrome folder present by default, so you have to create one. Make sure you name it “chrome”, not “Chrome”, that was my mistake. Make the userContent.css file ASCI text only, which is not an issue if you use gedit or notepad, but might be a problem in MS Word or OOwriter. Then place this file and folder into .mozilla/firefox/XXX.default, restart, and Bob should be your uncle. I’m using consciousness razor’s css file posted @ 253.
While looking for something else I found a picture of Owlmirror.
Bruhahahahahahahahahahaha…….
This also goes to show that there are plenty of people in exactly the same situation who have not decided to act in such a way. I don’t know whether you’ve seen it, but there’s a great video of a West Indian lady on youtube giving a rather wonderful short speech about the rioting.
The clean-up operation that’s happening this morning shows that there is hope, however. It just goes to show that Britain doesn’t need a Bit Societyesque government initiative to come together as a community to stand up to these yobs.
Rohrschach, Owlmirror and Theophontes thanks!
I’ve made it run now.
I believe, that my mistake was using kate for creating the userContent.css file. Altering the file with gedit did not yield any positiv result, but deleting the file and making a new one with gedit alone did do the trick.
kate, ewww ! Is anyone still using KDE ?
Yeah, that’s still a bit of a shock to the system, I admit. Phone user surface on the Desktop, well done Shuttleworth, clearly they don’t pay you those millions for nothing.
Nah.
Owlmirror suffers some sorta OCD. He’ll work for free.
The avatar mystery is solved… I registered a wordpress user name so I could set up an avatar but whatever piece of blocking software the office uses blocks gravatar itself (the reason shows as uncharacterized so I have no idea why) and I suspect that the clickyness is being swallowed somehow without a pop-up that shows it being blocked.
Oh well, I will have to wait until I get some time at home to build the ultimate killing avatar (or some random picture, as it is better known.)
I really thought that Set was easy today and I managed 2 mins 36 second with interruptions – curses, today could have been the magic sub minute time.
Any news from Caine? I haven’t had time to catch/keep up lately.
Josh:
I expect I’m just a dupe of Big Appliance, but I always understood that the problem with doing this is that a blender doesn’t provide a uniform grind. That’s probably not a big deal if you’re using a fine filter, such as in an espresso machine, but if you’re using a cafetière (aka French press or coffee plunger), which needs a coarser grind, blender-ground coffee will result in more sediment.
Kitchen shit what I don’t use: a bread maker. It makes really nice bread, but I just can’t be arsed.
Set: 45 seconds
—
Re: Coffee Grinder
I actually grind spices in my coffee grinder.
Rorschach – I tried, but Justicar is so infuriatingly dense. And odd that I see bluharmony is somehow confusing privilege and stereotyping; I don’t see how those have anything to do with each other, much less being possibly mistaken for one another.
fun fact: I have no coffee-making implements anywhere in my house, as none of us drink coffee. I never even thought about the lack of said implements until my parents came to visit once, and the first morning wandered sadly and futilely around the kitchen for a few minutes and then went out to Dunkin’ Donuts for a hit.
I resisted:
but couldn’t resist:
All I need now is an appropriate scripture quote and my greetings card needs will be met :D
Back to work…
moggie,
It also conveniently also makes many kinds of dough.
Couldn’t the science go here with “comments closed”? That way we’d not need two RSS feeds?
I use my breadmaker regularly – using it I can make far superior gluten-free bread, and much cheaper, than the cardboard taste-alikes I can get from my local supermarket on the rare occasions they actually have any on a day I visit.
Serendipitydawg:
Yeah, got an email from her last night. She had another round of tests at the hospital yesterday and she’s home and resting now.
I’ll shoot her a quick email to let her know that peeps are asking about her. ;)
You’re thinking of a proper coffeegrinder. Most cheap ones are just overglorified bad blenders, which does indeed give that inhomogenous crap result.
Pffft to the rescue!
Burr grinder
Conservapædia with proper spelling is iirc banned at the other site, haven’t been curious enought to test it here…
Brilliant idea, Sili! That way, we only have to pop over to the other site to comment when we really, really, want to.
Oh, wait…
I always knew David was an avid masticator.
The advantage of being a tea-drinker is not having to worry about grinding the leaves.
Rick Perry’s Prayer rally did accomplish something
http://i.imgur.com/mymdd.png
Superstitions actually make my coffee cheaper.
I went out for a bagel and coffee, and my colleague asked for me to pick up her coffee as well. Got to the register and my total was $6.66. The guy on the register actually deducted $.50 from the cost so he wouldn’t have to deal with the “three sixes.”
Heck, if your superstition makes my coffee cheaper, I’m totally cool with that.
Yes! The site works again.
“IKEA draws thousands for its grand opening
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/ikea-draws-thousands-for-_n_911363.html
…our bid for Swedish world domination continues according to plan! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
New TV network, with Olbermann: David Bohrman, New Current TV President, Says Network Will ‘Transform Itself’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/08/current-new-president-david-bohrman_n_921237.html
“Gore, in a statement, said that hiring Olbermann showed the network’s intention “to be a truly independent, conflict-free, progressive voice in the news and political commentary arena.” (Maybe USA may finally get a real news TV capable of giving people the uncensored truth in time to prevent total system collapse)
Reactions to Obama’s laterst surrender:
“Obama’s Tipping Point” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/obamas-tipping-point_1_b_921805.html
Progressive Groups Unveil ‘Contract For The American Dream’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/08/progressive-groups-unveil_n_921520.html
When an Ikea store opened in London five people ended up being taken to hospital after customers ran riot.
The BBC report is here.
666 – Number of the beast
668 – Neighbor of the beast
660 – Approximate number of the beast
DCLXVI – Roman numeral of the beast
666.0000 – Number of the high-precision beast
0.666 – Number of the millibeast
1/666 – Common denominator of the beast
1010011010 – Binary number of the beast
29A – Hexidecimal number of the beast
00666 – Zip code of the beast
$665.95 – Retail price of the beast
$333.00 – After-Christmas sale price of the beast
665 – Older brother of the beast
666 lb cap – Weight limit of the beast
666°F – Oven temperature for cooking roast “beast”
666 mg – Recommended minimum daily requirement of the beast
20/666 – Vision of the beast
6″ X 6″ X 6″ – Lumber of the beast
66.6 GHz – Computer processor of the beast
666i – BMW of the beast
6/6/66 – Birth date of the beast
666.AC.com – URL of the beast
IAM 666 – License plate number of the beast
666 calories – Diet of the beast
WD-666 – Spray lubricant of the beast
Audley @297,
Thanks for that, good to know :D
Ted Rall: Cartoonist for sanity
http://cartoonbox.slate.com/tedrall/2011/08/05/ http://cartoonbox.slate.com/tedrall/2011/07/15/
http://cartoonbox.slate.com/tedrall/2011/07/11/
One thing I like about FtB over SciBlogs is that using the text search function in Firefox doesn’t overwhelm it.
@Tis:
ROFL.
Katherine @305,
All the better for 666 being wrong… it’s 616 if I remember correctly… quick check, and yep:
This is from the Pffft of all knowledge, and may not be correct, but I would try for a discount next time 6.16 comes up XD
@serendipitydawg:
Which is funny cause with $.50 removed, it becomes $6.16 XD
@Katherine,
Exactly!
Wowbagger @311,
The downside for me is that find no longer picks up the comment numbers because they don’t exist as text… swings and roundabouts XD
I still prefer the new digs to Sb.
Birger Johansson #307
One of Obama’s major problems is he doesn’t know, or more likely doesn’t care, why people voted for him in 2008. He was elected because a lot of people were disenchanted with conservative policies. Obama talked during the election about rescinding the policies instituted by Bush. Obama became Maximum Leader and most of the Bushite policies and follies were continued. “Illegal combatants” are still in Guantanamo, two costly yet pointless wars are still being fought, tax cuts for the incredibly wealthy are still in place, etc.
Obama is a very charismatic man with the backbone of a sea slug. I’ll vote in the 2012 election. Quite possibly the President line will be left blank.
Apparently, Anthony McCarthy writes about porn. No, I’m not kidding. I nearly ruptured something from laughing so hard at the idea of it. Of course there’s no way in hell I’m reading the actual post; I could think of few things more hideous than what that odious creep might have to say about such things.
wowbagger #317
McCarthy manages to blogwhore and be supercilious simultaneously.
Matt Penfold:
I was at London’s first Ikea (in Wembley) very shortly after it opened. It was weird: strangers in the checkout queues were talking to one another! In London! Fortunately, normality reasserted itself before long, so I could buy mid-range furniture without needing to engage my vestigial smalltalk module.
Last night merely sucked. No toast.
–
No hospital! No surgery! Yay!
The only flies in the MRSA ointment are that 1) The Husband seems to have caught it from me, and 2) the doctor prescribed Clindamycin in addition to the Bactrim, for both of us, but we couldn’t fill it because we don’t have $155. We’ve got a call in, hoping there’s a cheaper generic form. We shall see.
–
Congrats, Benjamin the Instructor. :)
–
It was the MRAs, which are notoriously difficult to differentiate from cancer without testing.
–
Clindamycin is now free of patent, and generic versions are availible.
Is there a reason you were not prescribed it generically in the first place ?
I have avidly avoided any .css shenanigans. And yet …
I have comment numbers!
Cicely – I use Clindamycin for rosacea. I didn’t think it was expensive- I think I have a generic. Sorry the hubby got it, too.
ZOMG!!!
A wild serif font appears!
Yay. The new site is unstuck!
If I could remember which line of css I edited to get rid of the “says” I would post it.
I found it annoyingly facebookish.
Oh, serendipitydawg! I just realized that Caine updated her status upthread here.
I think that counts as a bona fide miracle, in case they ever want to beatify the owner/founder/anyone associated with IKEA
Am I odd for loving the inappropriate ads? Palin, Creationism, Religious Right, Defend Marriage etc? I see it as these twits are inadvertently wasting ad money that might convince other demographics HERE and thus are funding Pharyngula.
I just baked some delicious chocolate choc-chip brownies. Classical Cipher, Audley, cicely, and Caine, Kitty and anyone else who needs ’em: check your USB ports.
Hey, why is Glenn Beck on my sidebar? That’s pretty funny!
Ing: in the case of the Xtian ads, I’m not sure they are all inadvertent – it occurred to me that someone might be buying ads targeting atheists, as it’s their Xtian duty to
fund this blogsave our souls.OOC Mauahahahahaha!
@drbunsen
The ad is intentional, throwing money down a hole is the inadvertent.
Yes, please please, mission to us! Papa PZ needs a new pair of sucker warmers!
PZ: oven fresh brownies are winging their way to your IT slave’s cubicle.
New font is much easier on the eyes.
Audley @327,
Well spotted! I just haven’t had time to catch up and may not fully do so, despite TET moving somewhat slower than usual. I am trying to keep up with the highlights, and I am grateful that I don’t seem to have had any of the DNS woes that have afflicted so many.
I have no idea what the Sb version looks like these days: I picture tumbleweed blowing down main street, the doors hanging off the saloon and the hitching rails falling gently to pieces, though I guess there must be enough people with time to comment in multiple pharyngulae (?)
In other news, I finally have ripe tomatoes to go with the cucumbers!
Only two things that money can’t buy, and that’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.
Not that I’m aware of. We figure that either the doctor failed to check the “generic acceptable?” spot, or the pharmacy was out of/didn’t have the generic.
The doctor’s assistant just now got back to me; she called it in to another pharmacy, where it will cost under $20. I’m assuming that’s the generic, but that totally works for me!
–
drbunsen: Choc-choc brownies! Nom nom nom nom nom!
The day is now looking 100% rosier. :)
–
I just added:
.says {display:none}to my user css file and all the says: become pleasingly blank. Hopefully, nothing important has the says class :D
I have been told by a GP (a friend, not my GP) that there are only two situations in which it makes sense to prescribe a particular brand, and that is for insulin and drugs to treat an under-active thyroid.
Matt Penfold – I’m told that it’s just fine to use a generic levothyroxine as long as your pharmacy consistently dispenses the same manufacturer’s product. If you change manufacturer, it becomes necessary to repeat labs and possibly adjust doses. I’m not a doctor, just a hypothyroidism patient, so YMMV.
Cicely – If the cost of the medication is prohibitive, I’m still willing to contribute to “Save Cicely’s Ass” (or whatever body part is currently in jeopardy).
You’ re right. I can recall my GP friend saying that, but she said the best way to ensure consistency was to name a brand. That way there is less likely to be problems if you use a different pharmacist for some reason.
As if the Fundies didn’t hate Rachel Maddow enough already.
She does look quite fetching with those horns, though.
@remembers a beach
I know several people who until recently liked and voted for Bachmann because she was religious. Those same people are pretty irate now that her religion is resulting in kids killing themselves, and they are REALLY pissed* about the federal funds for the “pray the gay away” clinic.
*Sadly, not because they disagree that you CAN pray the gay away.
Rachel Maddow with horns? link please?
I am finally able to load the FtB again. I come with information on individual states’ anti-gay prosecutions and harassment despite the 8 year old Supreme Court precedent of Lawrence v. Texas. Otherwise known as “we don’t care about the Supreme Court, we can enforce whatever’s on the books, lalala.”
Highlights:
Hell, I live in a state where I’m a criminal under these same codes; Utah’s sodomy statutes outlaw anything that’s not penis-in-vagina sex. Naturally, no one would say a word to me (let alone pursue the 6 month sentence or $1K fine) because I’m at least with someone of the right sex, but FSM help me if I was bi or gay.
(Am posting this from phone because I am BLOCKED FROM PHARYNGULA at work! :( Unless there’s weird DNS things going on again.)
I’ve been buried in grant-writing, (I am completely Thread bankrupt) and am bemoaning my lack of access to decent journals. And the lack of money to buy the damn articles! I’m developing the outcome measurement section, and really, really need research to back up my target goals. If any kind Pharyngulite with access to journals would be able to track any of these down, you would have the eternal gratitude of this poor social worker. And I promise, when I am a rich and famous social worker, I will reward you monetarily.
Any day now. I can feel fame just around the corner.
The first three are the most important because they are exactly the type of program I’m trying to develop, but any of them would be helpful. You can email me at oniongirlsays at google mail dot com.
Parent–child interaction training for parents with a history of mental retardation.
Peterson, Susan L.; Robinson, Elizabeth A.; Littman, Isabelle
Applied Research in Mental Retardation, Vol 4(4), 1983, 329-342. doi: 10.1016/0270-3092(83)90033-4
Education & Treatment of Children
August, 2001 Source Volume: 24 Source Issue: 3
The Effects of a Parent Coach on Parents’ Acquisition and Implementation of Parenting Skills.
Marchant, Michelle, Young, K. Richard
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy With Physically Abusive Parents: Efficacy for Reducing Future Abuse Reports.
Chaffin, Mark; Silovsky, Jane F.; Funderburk, Beverly; Valle, Linda Anne; Brestan, Elizabeth V.; Balachova, Tatiana; Jackson, Shelli; Lensgraf, Jay; Bonner, Barbara L.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol 72(3), Jun 2004, 500-510.
Behavior Therapy
Volume 41, Issue 3, September 2010, Pages 375-387
Early Identification and Intervention for Behavior Problems in Primary Care: A Comparison of Two Abbreviated Versions of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
Michelle D. Berkovits, Kelly A. O’Brienb, Carolyn G. Carterc and Sheila M. Eybergd
Child Abuse & Neglect
Volume 23, Issue 12, December 1999, Pages 1359-1370
Spotlight on Practice
The efficacy of family reunification practices: reentry rates and correlates of reentry for abused and neglected children reunited with their families
Toni Terling
Children and Youth Services Review
Volume 18, Issues 4-5, 1996, Pages 447-462
Impact of child psychosocial functioning on reunification from out-of-home placement
John Landsverk, Inger Davisa, William Gangerb, Rae Newtonb and Ivory Johnsonc
Children and Youth Services Review
Volume 18, Issues 4-5, 1996, Pages 335-361
An experiment in family reunification: Correlates of outcomes at one-year follow-up
Mark W. Fraser, Elaine Waltonb, Robert E. Lewisc, Peter J. Pecorad and Wendel K. Waltone
Money won’t buy you love but it will let you rent it for a while.
*reallybighug* And to see the last of this shit, I would gratefully accept, with tears in my eyes and grovels on my knees; but happily, it won’t be necessary; the doctor’s assistant found it for us elsewhere at a dramatically lower price.
(For this outbreak, the MRSA elected to move somewhat…forward…to right between the leg/torso fold, and those areas that decorum forbids me to mention. *exaggerated blush* Needless to say, this was not exactly a popular choice. What’s wrong with the more accessible, less intrusive, less personal spots, I wanna know?)
–
onion girl – a few are on their way. Couldn’t find the first one or the last two.
I think this Fb changeover has affected the boss:
Respected biologist and prominent atheist finds god in pizza topping.
At least he hasn’t seen the face of jeebus on his rubber ducky tea thing (though it may only be a matter of time…)
Monday’s show. First part. On the market panic.
As you’ll see from that thread as well, we need to take up a collection to get Ophelia Benson on the Skepchick Calendar.
Thanks. I was about to ask after just learning that the polls were today.
Only five? What happened to the sixth?
@Sili,
I think Ophelia summed it up nicely with
though there was a supplementary that may have left the door open…
Well, I seem to recall hearing he’s a rightwing bigot with most of his fortune in taxhavens.
In short, a perfect fit for the Vatican.
As I commented hence, that would just make for an even better picture. I think we just had an infestation of spinners – can’t they teach her poi?
And I did suggest we take up a collection. Nothing like bit of oldfashioned bribery/extortion.
Loving the shill Glen Beck hawking his gold company in the sidebar ads.
Where did we find 5 of 6 Wisconsin tea partiers recalled? The polls don’t close for almost 8 more hours as far as I know. Last I heard, 2 were probably going Democrat, 1 was probably staying Republican and 3 were still too close to call.
Rev:
We may be in Charleston for our anniversary again this year. How was Husk? Better than McCrady’s?? Best in town??
Thanks!
Sili
I haven’t checked the latest on how the Wisconsin recall effort was progressing.
But the fact that it is happening gives me hope.
*MRA’s appearing on the Y chromosome thread. Come help bash them with facts?
@Slignot:
Fuck. So what you’re saying is I can’t do anything with my boyfriend in this state because some fucking troglodyte thinks it’s “icky” for me to hold hands with him?
@remembers a beach on 5 out of 6.
It was a link that Lynna posted on a previous TET. I am handicapped in posting links as this new code above the comment box is only useful if you know how to code.
Set 1:37
Tethys – I hope you’re right.
As for posting the links, I am similarly impaired.
Whole foods bows to right wing nut job islamophobia
interesting comparison
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/08/article-2023865-0D5B729800000578-3_634x343.jpg
Nassir Ghaemi had an interesting thesis about madness and leadership on the Colbert Report, but he’s a pretty crap interviewee.
Public service announcement from the FB PET group:
If you are a member of the FB Pharyngula group, please take a moment to ensure you are mentioned in the “Secret of Nym” doc. We need to know what you go by here to ensure that you ought to be there, for everyone’s peace of mind.
We will soon start purging people that we can’t trace back to ‘nyms from here, for the protection of Pharyngulites who are using their real names on PET.
How exactly does a grocery store promote Ramadan?
Sheesh, people can be stupid creatures.
A bit late to comment on the video perhaps, but for those who can understand Swedish I’d like to recommend (by the same crew)- Du skal aldrig runke bulle
No subtitled version available as far as I can see, unfortunately (or fortunately, your mileage might vary)
And not safe for work or most other places with other faint people (who can understand the lyrics)…
Humm…. Can’t find anything linking to the actual Whole Foods emails. Remaining a little skeptical.
But holy sucking shit look what a nutbag Debbie Schlussel is.
Because it’s a month-long food pig-out? Seriously, it’s very common for the adherents to gain weight during Ramadan.
But only after dark of course. Eating is only sinful if the almighty one can see it, and almightyness doesn’t cover 20/20 nightvision, or something like that.
Sili:
They like martyrs. I suggest giving him two lengths of wood, some nails, some screws, and a little hex key.
Kitty, basically you’re going to be penalized despite the supposed protection of Lawrence. Even in the states where police don’t even harass people for public affection (gasp!), the fact that being gay is still technically illegal can lead to horrendous consequences and persecution.
Which is why when official party platforms (e.g. Montana’s, see “Homosexual Acts” section) emphasize that they want to keep their sodomy laws, I get frightened.
Even in states like Utah, that they don’t pursue arrest and prosecution for “crimes against nature” infractions (which I don’t ever recall hearing), the inherent bias in the law remains.
A good example is what has occurred her over the course of years following the horrific beatings and attempted murder of a gay couple in South Salt Lake (link to their site here, but be warned, it’s horrific). This couple was next door to a large party late in the evening/early morning, to which the couple had been invited. 2 children wandered over, and asked for juice, which he gave them on his back steps [not inside, which is important]. Their mother stormed over, hauled her children off while threatening to bring over her family members to kill them for what he had “done” to her kids. He was understandably frightened, and locked the door. The angry group broke in, and beat him nearly to death, as well as his partner, who they pulled out of bed upstairs. Dan, who had been sleeping beforehand, had a television smashed over his head in an attempt to kill him.
DJ, who had given the children juice and tried to block intruders from getting into his home, was pulled through his door, smashed into concrete and brick and was found beaten and left for dead in his driveway. When the police arrived, they failed to investigate the scene or call for any forensic investigation whatsoever. They arrested DJ Bell and he was charge with kidnapping.
It took a over a year for Mr. Bell to be exonerated by a jury, during which time no charges were brought against the attackers and would be murderers. 5 neighbors were later charged in the attack. They pled guilty to lesser charges and have recently been sentenced. Three of those are facing the most penalty: a maximum of 5 years in prison. The crazed mother who incited the entire attack is facing a single year in prison. The last, faces only a year of probation. THIS. IS. NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH.
Moreover, when Mr. Bell tried to get assistance from victim services to help with the medical bills, the counseling, etc. he was denied because he “contributed” to the attack that nearly killed him and his partner. Because they are not REAL victims.
You can bet your ass that sodomy laws still being on the books helped with the way the arrest happened. With the way that no crime scene was established and investigated. With the way that the S. Salt Lake police department sat on the investigation until forced to do something by the DA. By the way that he was prosecuted and acquitted before his attackers faced charges. By the way that gay panic was allowed as a defense strategy. By the way that the convicted attackers will face negligible consequences for the irreparable harm they have done to two good people.
Probably relevant to the lateste BSWATM thread, but I haven’t dared walk in there.
I’m not much of a feminist, I fear, but some things do make me wanna go *JENS SMASH* still.
–o–
No, you’re thinking of . The Almighty has no problem with pigging out at night. It’s only during the day that you need to make sure to dehydrate. This is Islam, not meshuggeneh Orthodow Judaism.
–o–
Nah. It’s impossible to get in that last nail on your own.
Full disclosure: I’m basically living in a poorly assembled, second rate Ikea showroom.
And I’m hitting my knees on a poorly placed cable organiser.
Stupid, stupid Jens.
ctrl-c, then ctrl-v.
G’morning, everyone.
Hey, quick question, do comments “awaiting” moderation vanish into the ether her (due to volume) like they did on SB?
Hey PZ! the mysterious orange goo in remote alaska appears to be crusties!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/08/us-alaska-goo-idUSTRE7775TR20110808 never seen anything like that before when I was up there
I’m trying to figure out how far off of normal I am, because I look at Ikea online and think shit, that stuff is kind of pricey. Imma go to Big Lots.
[I’ve taken out a few links which diverted this to moderation; I’ll add them in a later link.]
@Kitty, basically you’re going to be penalized despite the supposed protection of Lawrence. Even in the states where police don’t even harass people for public affection (gasp!), the fact that being gay is still technically illegal can lead to horrendous consequences and persecution.
Which is why when official party platforms (e.g. Montana’s, see “Homosexual Acts” section) emphasize that they want to keep their sodomy laws, I get frightened.
Even in states like Utah, that they don’t pursue arrest and prosecution for “crimes against nature” infractions (which I don’t ever recall hearing), the inherent bias in the law remains.
A good example is what has occurred her over the course of years following the horrific beatings and attempted murder of a gay couple in South Salt Lake (link to the site here, but be warned, it’s horrific). This couple was next door to a large party late in the evening/early morning, to which the couple had been invited. 2 children wandered over, and asked for juice, which he gave them on his back steps [not inside, which is important]. Their mother stormed over, hauled her children off while threatening to bring over her family members to kill them for what he had “done” to her kids. He was understandably frightened, and locked the door. The angry group broke in, and beat him nearly to death, as well as his partner, who they pulled out of bed upstairs. Dan, who had been sleeping beforehand, had a television smashed over his head in an attempt to kill him.
DJ, who had given the children juice and tried to block intruders from getting into his home, was pulled through his door, smashed into concrete and brick and was found beaten and left for dead in his driveway. When the police arrived, they failed to investigate the scene or call for any forensic investigation whatsoever. They arrested DJ Bell and he was charge with kidnapping.
It took a over a year for Mr. Bell to be exonerated by a jury, during which time no charges were brought against the attackers and would be murderers. 5 neighbors were later charged in the attack. They were allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges and have recently been sentenced. Three of those are facing the most penalty: a maximum of 5 years in prison. The crazed mother who incited the entire attack is facing a single year in prison. The last, faces only a year of probation. THIS. IS. NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH.
Moreover, when Mr. Bell tried to get assistance from victim services to help with the medical bills, the counseling, etc. he was denied because he “contributed” to the attack that nearly killed him and his partner. Because they are not REAL victims.
You can bet your ass that sodomy laws still being on the books helped with the way the arrest happened. With the way that no crime scene was established and investigated. With the way that the S. Salt Lake police department sat on the investigation until forced to do something by the DA. By the way that he was prosecuted and acquitted before his attackers faced charges. By the way that gay panic was allowed as a defense strategy. By the way that the convicted attackers will face negligible consequences for the irreparable harm they have done to two good people.
Link to the article about sentencing.
Link to denial of victim services compensation.
Link to not a “REAL” victim.
[I’ve taken out a few links which diverted this to moderation; I’ll add them in a later links.]
@Kitty, basically you’re going to be penalized despite the supposed protection of Lawrence. Even in the states where police don’t even harass people for public affection (gasp!), the fact that being gay is still technically illegal can lead to horrendous consequences and persecution.
Which is why when official party platforms (e.g. Montana’s, see “Homosexual Acts” section) emphasize that they want to keep their sodomy laws, I get frightened.
Even in states like Utah, that they don’t pursue arrest and prosecution for “crimes against nature” infractions (which I don’t ever recall hearing), the inherent bias in the law remains.
A good example is what has occurred her over the course of years following the horrific beatings and attempted murder of a gay couple in South Salt Lake (link to the site here, but be warned, it’s horrific). This couple was next door to a large party late in the evening/early morning, to which the couple had been invited. 2 children wandered over, and asked for juice, which he gave them on his back steps [not inside, which is important]. Their mother stormed over, hauled her children off while threatening to bring over her family members to kill them for what he had “done” to her kids. He was understandably frightened, and locked the door. The angry group broke in, and beat him nearly to death, as well as his partner, who they pulled out of bed upstairs. Dan, who had been sleeping beforehand, had a television smashed over his head in an attempt to kill him.
DJ, who had given the children juice and tried to block intruders from getting into his home, was pulled through his door, smashed into concrete and brick and was found beaten and left for dead in his driveway. When the police arrived, they failed to investigate the scene or call for any forensic investigation whatsoever. They arrested DJ Bell and he was charge with kidnapping.
It took a over a year for Mr. Bell to be exonerated by a jury, during which time no charges were brought against the attackers and would be murderers. 5 neighbors were later charged in the attack. They were allowed to plead guilty to lesser charges and have recently been sentenced. Three of those are facing the most penalty: a maximum of 5 years in prison. The crazed mother who incited the entire attack is facing a single year in prison. The last, faces only a year of probation. THIS. IS. NOT. GOOD. ENOUGH.
Moreover, when Mr. Bell tried to get assistance from victim services to help with the medical bills, the counseling, etc. he was denied because he “contributed” to the attack that nearly killed him and his partner. Because they are not REAL victims.
You can bet your ass that sodomy laws still being on the books helped with the way the arrest happened. With the way that no crime scene was established and investigated. With the way that the S. Salt Lake police department sat on the investigation until forced to do something by the DA. By the way that he was prosecuted and acquitted before his attackers faced charges. By the way that gay panic was allowed as a defense strategy. By the way that the convicted attackers will face negligible consequences for the irreparable harm they have done to two good people.
Some it is still pricey. But their kitchens are about the cheapest around, while still pretty good quality.
My current binge, though, was fuelled by the ‘rubbish bin’ of discontinued, returned and damaged products.
Good morning Caine!!
You have been missed.
Apropos of nothing (save for the Proms):
I do loves me some Saint-Saëns Third avèc l’orgue.
Link to jury finding not guilty of kidnapping (and being angry for wasting money on his prosecution).
Link to article about attackers’ sentencing.
Caine is here!
Welcome back, dear lady. We missed you. Everyone was saying “where’s what’s-her-name?”
Link to denial of victim services compensation.
Link to not a “REAL” victim.
Benjamin G, 206:
Congrats on landing the TA, I think. . .
So USF is teaching BASIC programming? Srsly? Is there a text for this course? If so, I’m really curious to know what it is.
I taught uni programming courses (FORTRAN 77, Pascal, and BASIC) over a brief, unhappy two-year period in the mid eighties. I’d had a couple of undergrad programming courses in FORTRAN (which were taught by the math department and which I aced) and several years of real-world system development, but I had no clue as to how to go about teaching those courses competently. I think that’s largely because I essentially taught myself to program by studying examples and reading. It took a while before I realized I couldn’t expect my students to be both willing and able to do this. I think the school I taught at was and is roughly comparable to USF; Wikipedia suggests USF may now be somewhat better overall.
It took me only a short time to learn that I hated grading programs.
YMMV, of course. I can’t help thinking you’re bound to have a better experience than I had.
Good morning, Tethys! It’s good to be back. :)
Hi, all. I have a kitty on my feet! I’ve missed like three Threpisodes! Hope your recovery is coming along, Caine!
In the course of erroneously responding to “my” post at Stef McGraw’s blog (not mine, actually, but she’s not one to let the facts get in the way of a rant) and misrepresenting me right and left, Abbie’s taken to calling me “Salty Cu***nt.” Not a word from them.
‘Tis:
Aaaaaw, so sweet!
:wanders off to get a flank steak to marinating:
Glad to see you’re doing okay, Caine!
Now I’m off because my office lost all water (and therefore sanitation); I won’t have internet access at home until next Thursday when the cable installer comes. See everyone tomorrow!
I’m not sure if it’s just because I spent a whole week enjoying Canada, where sanity still appears to have some hold, but the US seems even crazier. The owner/founder of IKEA is like a dream buddy for the Vatican? Someone’s making a big stink about olive oil simply because of where it was produced? Ramadan? Where do these people COME from?
———————
And now, about that trip to Canada (yes, you can skip this part if you want):
Montreal – Almost like NYC, but cleaner and friendlier. Also, very little crime. Love it, would live there if I could. I love that so much is within waling distance, and the bikes-for-all thing? Hell yeah.
Quebec – Once again, clean! Street washing AND sidewalk sweeping? I did find the people to be a bit stiff compared to Montreal, but feh, you’ll find such anywhere in the world. Mom did think they were very rude, and I guess she’s kind of got a point.
She seemed a little surprised that severs don’t constantly check on you while you’re eating, but I kind of like that. Sometimes you just want to sit and enjoy your meal, without someone hovering near you. She seems to forget that waiters who don’t give a shit and make you wait forever also live in the USA.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but the water tasted different than here in CT. Hell, I think even the milk tasted a bit different (better? not sure). Sugar pie? I’d have that again, and gladly, but not too often or it’ll get sickening. Maple syrup on vanilla soft-serve? Sooo good.
We visited a casino about three hours away from Quebec. Nice place. I won the jackpot on one of the penny machines. 500 bucks, another item on my bucket list crossed off. My brother and SIL will be visiting Toronto in a couple of weeks, so what’s left of my winnings after paying for the bed & breakfast will be given to them.
Oh yeah, bed & breakfast – the one in Montreal, Angelica Blue, was just wonderful. The owner works as a court translator, and the B&B is kind of a side job, I guess. Great food every morning, great conversations, and I can thank/blame her for finally turning me on to bran muffins. The room was lovely, the beds very comfy. I actually missed that place while Mom and I were in Quebec for a few days. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a place while staying in Montreal.
The B&B in Quebec, Chateu de Pierre I think is the name, was….well, I think we got spoiled back in Montreal. Breakfast was ready each morning, but it was usually just set out on a table, for you to help yourself. No one to talk to, really. And the room was very small, which wouldn’t have been a problem if it was just me (my dorm room for both junior and senior year of college was small and I managed well enough). Mom, however, is a rather hefty woman. On top of which, we had to share the one bed.
Shower? Probably about the size of a broom closet. Sink was located in the bedroom. A turnaround from Angelica Blue, where the toilet was located in another room. Let’s just say I will never complain about having to climb into a tub that’s set rather high, as long as it has a shower curtain. Even I had trouble getting in and out of the shower in Quebec, never mind moving around inside it.
Still, in spite of the little things, we had a great time. We went on a tour where we got to see places like St. Anne-de-Beaupre, Montmorency Falls, and Island of Orleans. Mom was a little angry because we had only 20 minutes to spend at St. Anne, so we couldn’t really enjoy it; she wanted to get some holy water for someone at work, but with the time limit, and her needing to use the bathroom but not finding anyone who knew where it was, that wasn’t happening. Me, I was just glad to get some pictures.
We both agreed, however, that next time either of us goes to Canada, it’ll be with a car. There’s way too much to see, and you miss a lot just taking tours and sticking with the big attractions. Like, oh, the scenery! I’ve done more landscape pictures on this one trip than I think I ever have. And architecture. I want to go back to Montreal and see the Botanical Gardens and insectarium. I want to drive through the countryside and really take it all in, not rush because the tour bus is on a schedule. Because touring only takes you so far.
————————–
The one downside about the trip: Not being able to get the sexual energy out of my system before bed. Another reason a solo trip might be nice, no having to share the room, especially with your mother.
————————–
Talking of which, Mom also informed me she’s joined an online dating site and has been talking with one guy for a while. Honestly, I can’t think of any advice to give her, other than just be careful and don’t dare meet for the first time in private. My brother will probably take it well when he finds out – because it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.”
—————————
Aaaand now back to the regularly scheduled thread.
Yay Caine is back. Let’s celebrate with some music!
Consider that stolen.
Better salty than vinegary.
–o–
Congrats, Benjamin!
I once taught myself basic BASIC. Since then I’ve been put through Turbopascal, Python and Java.
Only now am I regretting not paying more attention … sorta like with biology.
I can see a reluctance to masturbate in the same room as your mother.
Sounds like you had a good trip.
Holy shit!!!! This is Charles Dickens al over again!
“The Criminalization of Poverty” http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2011/08/barbara_ehrenreich_on_the_crim.php
Something is wrong. When I include headlines like “The Criminalization of poverty” above, the space between the words in the headline is maximised so the headline covers the whole line.
Birger Johansson #398
Unfortunately, more and more people are believing the myth that poverty is the result of conscious choices the poor make.
“Unfortunately, more and more people are believing the myth that poverty is the result of conscious choices the poor make.”
Myths like these serve the purpose of justifying an evil status quo, like “the n*ggers are better off as slaves since they cannot take care of themselves” or the evil meme system that make up Herbert Spencer’s “social darwinism”.
This is why I hope the new TV network might reverse the trend of ignorance http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/08/current-new-president-david-bohrman_n_921237.html
… Not caught up yet, just skimmed a bit. But…
OnionGirl @ 348:
I just tossed off an email to you with 5 of the 6 articles you requested. I’m hoping it goes through. I couldn’t get the first one, but I think you can request a copy from the author (I saw a few references with addresses).
Let me know (here or on FB if you’re there) if the email didn’t go through.
(At last! I can use my working-at-a-research-hospital-powers for something useful. Other than, you know, trying to help people feel better/not be as stressed and such. That doesn’t count.)
Holy. Everloving. Fuck. Is she trying to race to the bottom just to prove how rotten she can be?
Adding to the chorus of yay Caine is back. :)
How the Original Storm Trooper Helmet was Created [Video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09CmSZVBIj0&feature=player_embedded
(From Geeksaresexy.com. I had to either check some more up-beat stories or top up on the prozac)
That seems to be a race she has already won.
Carlie:
The messing with SC’s nym came fairly early on in the first slimepit thread, I imagine Abbie finds it to be clever and ‘proving a point’, a la Twatson.
I’ve been checking there now and then, but I must have skimmed over that.
Now she’s doing victory laps, I guess.
Is anyone else still having problems getting here?
or is it just me?
Hi Caine!
Caine! Glad you are back, and steak, (even flank steak), sounds like you are doing much better.
++++++++++++++++++++++
PTI, IRT Montreal, I had a friend who worked on a film crew up there doing a cop drama. They spent all morning making an alley look like a gritty NYC alley. He said when they came back from lunch it had been cleaned up.
p.s. “within waling distance” – All hail Tpyos!
p.p.s. “Not being able to get the sexual energy out of my system before bed.” – Oh yeah. I hate double occupancy, and I can’t imagine sharing a bed w/ another person != lover.
++++++++++++++++++++++
My boss goes on vacation tomorrow and the temp is supposed to drop, for the 1st time in weeks, to not only below 90F but be balmy 80F. WooHoo!
I’m taking a few vacation days off to FINALLY ship my rudder. Maybe even sail, perchance to dream.
Katrina @370:
I don’t see anything of the sort on the Pharyngula group page. I’m probably just being blind, but could you tell me where to find it?
Le Havre en Chêne – socialiste rapide @410:
It should be in the right-hand column, under “View Photos” and “Leave Group”
I can try “bumping” it to the top of the news feed again, if that doesn’t work for you.
Sailor,
“They spent all morning making an alley look like a gritty NYC alley. He said when they came back from lunch it had been cleaned up.”
Seriously? Wow, that was quick.
And yeah, I made my offering to Tpyos for the day.
Double occupancy – SO much easier to deal with before my sex drive got a tune-up.
————————————
Caine is back? And she can eat steak (flank steak, but hey, close enough)? Glad things are going just fine!
The Sailor #409
A landsman’s life is all his own,
He can go or he can stay,
But if the sea gets in your blood,
When she calls you must obey.
-Tommy Makem, “Farewell to Carlingford”
The Dubliners singing “Farewell to Carlingford”:
I wanted to post some more silly fluff about Ikea (don’t think we’ve ever bought anything there without getting a saw out and fairly comprehensively re-arranging it to fit in somewhere it was never meant to fit and/or serve a purpose it was never meant to serve). But then I saw the fuck-awful gay-bashing story up thread, and then I saw that shit-for-brains frothing-at-the-mouth sensationalist fuckwit Kelvin MacKenzie spewing putrid crap all over the screen about the rioting and just wanted to shoot the computer. And MacKenzie, and the presenter for letting him vomit his rancid bile. Ah, it’s no wonder he gets to expectorate his venom on TV, he’s a master of shit-stirring soundbite oratory and I fucking hate him.
With any luck McKenzie will soon have a Metropolitan Police Officer turn up on his doorstep to ask him what he knows about listening to messages left on mobile phones.
Sorry, that was a bit Brit-centric without explanations: MacKenzie (::spits::) is a former editor of The Sun, one of our nastiest, most jingoistic, chauvinistic, right-wing rags ever to disgrace the name of newspaper. He’s a clever bastard who knows just how to appeal to anyone who wants their racist and sexist prejudices pandered to.
@ Matt # 416
I hope so.
Thanks ‘Tis @ 5:08 pm (my .css file isn’t providing comment #s anymore, but the rest of the formatting is in place. !?)
Lovely poem. I’m called by the lakes and the sea. As long as I can sail. I’ve been so long without it. It keeps me fit & it gives me perspective.
++++++++++++++++++
I read and thought about wading into the YXome thread, but it seems like it was very well handled by threadizens (at least on Freethoughts blog) and I felt my BP rising, (I can feel it in my flushed face) and need to keep my BP low for tomorrow’s work on my boat.
Hi Chigau! Hi PTI & The Sailor! Yes, flank steak, but not until tomorrow. It needs to marinate overnight. Zinful Steak is delicious. :)
Eeeeeeeeeeee! It came up! It’s back! Golly, I’m too flustered to think of anything sensible to post. Be back after I catch up on what you were doing while I was locked out —
Greetings threadizens.
I almost never comment, except on the last iteration of TET to say thanks to all the css wizards who made everything readable again. (Thanks again!)
Even so, I’ve been around for a while and read the comments frequently. I know and have great respect for a number of the people here even though none of you know me.
So obviously I figured the best way to introduce myself is to impose on all of you for a few opinions if you have the time and/or inclination to offer them. And since this has nothing to do with anything I figured TET was the appropriate place.
I’ve felt the need to “do” something for a while now. Creationists piss me off. As do most other anti-science types. Anti-vaxers and “alternative” medicine (read, “blame the victim while conning them out of all their money”) quacks really, really annoy me. But what to do?
Well I think I’ve got a potential answer to that question but it might be a total dud of an idea and I’m too close to it to know if it’s a good idea or a really stupid one. Actually it’s kind of two ideas but they’re related.
As you might guess from the nym I’m a magician. Just a hobbiest these days really and I haven’t performed for a long time but I’ve been at it for 20 years or so (even though I’m only 31).
So the idea is this: To teach kids (I’m not sure what ages, suggestions welcome) about the scientific method (or skepticism more generally) using magic.
More specifically the idea is to create short manuscripts for teachers/parents/whatever to teach them a simple magic trick. They perform the trick and challenge the kids to figure it out by forming hypotheses and testing them. They can ask to have the trick performed again, have access to props to try things out themselves, watch from different angles etc. etc.
So the kids are presented with a, “here’s a guy who says he can read your mind,” type scenario and asked to figure out what’s really going on. They design experiments and ultimately produce their own papers about how the trick works effectively “publishing” their results. The other kids (assuming there are any) can try their method out to see if it works. Kind of a peer review/replication type of thing. And as a bonus they get to learn some neat magic tricks…
If done in groups, each group could have a different trick to figure out and the tricks could have elements in common. So group A figuring out their trick would give group B some hints towards how theirs works. And vice versa.
The second, related, idea is to just put together a show that I would perform in school assemblies with an overall skeptical theme. Admittedly performing a magic show – that will be enjoyed as a magic show – while still promoting a skeptical point of view is a problem I haven’t solved yet. I have no doubt it’s solvable, I just haven’t spent a whole lot of time on it yet.
Both projects, including scripts, instuctions and other pertinent information, would be released under a Creative Common license so people would be able to share the stuff around, modify it, perform it or whatever they want. Even the show, which would be about an hour I think, could be performed by anyone with the requisite time and skills to pull it off if they wanted to.
Certainly there are more obvious thing I could do. Supporting various skeptical organizations and so on and so forth. And I intend to do that as well but this is really a much more personal, much more “me” kind of project. But it might be a great big, huge, steaming pile of shit. And that’s okay. Gotta get past the shitty ideas if you’re ever going to get to the good ones. But, as I’ve said, I’m too close to it to tell which this is.
Mrs. Sleight (but not really) who’s a teacher, thinks it’s a cool idea. The few colleagues she’s mentioned it to think it’s a neat idea. But maybe they’re just being nice.
So, dear phabulous pharyngulites (sorry…) what do you think? I know I can count on all of you not to pull any punches. Should I (continue) to sink my time into one, or both, of these projects?
Sorry for the long post, and I hope it’s not inappropriate, but I could really use some unbiased opinions.
Also Part-Time Insomniac:
I hope you weren’t here in Montreal when the tunnel collapsed. That’s the kind of thing that can turn people off about a place. Happily, no one was hurt.
So, instead of going to bed, I’m catching up with the subthread before the previous one.
Very good! :-)
I’m not that easy to bore :-)
:-D :-D :-D
Meanwhile, my other WordPress placeholer avatar is back (the quilt one). I actually like that one. :-)
And I don’t actually like the DDMFM symbol all that much. But if you like it, I’ll have to give it another thought… :-)
(…sometime after I finish the next postdoc application. Deadline in 5 days.)
Grmpf.I just looked again. Still can’t find it in IE8.See below.As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome!!!
Just teach the Greek to us. Or to me anyway. :-) If you can teach it, you have understood it.
BTW, your life sounds a bit like the one I had in Paris, except there was no roommate.
It is immoral to complain about Wikipedia. Just click on “Edit”.
(…I have been strenuously avoiding complaining about Wikipedia for years now. :-( )
Would surprise me. Western culture is like me in this respect — “beautiful” isn’t supposed to apply to “man”, while beauty, ugliness, and/or lack thereof are the first thing that comes to mind at the sight of a (not too old) woman. By both men and women, interestingly. :-|
:-)
I suppose erinaceus is Latin and echinos is Greek. And Antechinus is the anti-hedgehog…
…
*blush*
Oh, wait. Such an option exists in IE8. From German, it retranslates as “View — Format — no format [unchecked] / default format [checked]”.
Aaaaaaand… it works!!! It looks exactly like in the screenshot. :-) :-) :-)
Only 42? My grandma recently casually mentioned in earshot (in the same room, on the phone with someone else) that she had been on the pill till she was 51 and the doctor said she didn’t need it anymore. My mom appears to have been on it till a similar age. (Oh, BTW, both are Catholic and go to church almost every Sunday, even though both have come to despise the hierarchy pretty much top-to-bottom-and-back.)
From the same context: the more children you have, the less painful your (female) climactery. Sample size = 3.
Reminds me of what an analyst on today’s late-evening TV news said… The US is in a classical debt situation: its debts are all in its own currency, it can simply print $ to pay its own debt. The southern EU countries are in a completely new debt situation: their debts are all in €, and none of them can print €! Only the European Central Bank in Frankfurt can, and the ECB is obligated to maintain price stability at all costs, so they won’t do anything that increases inflation any further. It’s not under much control by the other EU institutions; its great independence was considered very important when it was founded.
Speaking of printing money, many countries have their money printed abroad because that’s cheaper. Syria’s money was printed by the Austrian National Bank. That was stopped a day or two ago because Assad is just too extreme an asshole.
LOL @ Castorocauda.
Subthread won, week saved.
Off to bed, next subthread “tomorrow”, free round of hugs & chocolate. Jadehawk, I forgot if the gooseberries are ripe, and I’m back in Vienna, but the cross of gooseberry and blackcurrant was ripe several weeks ago; we brought Grandma a little bucket that we topped with raspberries. I’ll visit the garden this weekend.
Four links, moderation was triggered. (PZ, why did you set the limit at 3? In ScienceBlogs it’s 4!)
Part 1 of 2 (much longer than part 2)…
So, instead of going to bed, I’m catching up with the subthread before the previous one.
Very good! :-)
I’m not that easy to bore :-)
:-D :-D :-D
Meanwhile, my other WordPress placeholer avatar is back (the quilt one). I actually like that one. :-)
And I don’t actually like the DDMFM symbol all that much. But if you like it, I’ll have to give it another thought… :-)
(…sometime after I finish the next postdoc application. Deadline in 5 days.)
Grmpf.I just looked again. Still can’t find it in IE8.See below.As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome!!!
Just teach the Greek to us. Or to me anyway. :-) If you can teach it, you have understood it.
BTW, your life sounds a bit like the one I had in Paris, except there was no roommate.
It is immoral to complain about Wikipedia. Just click on “Edit”.
(…I have been strenuously avoiding complaining about Wikipedia for years now. :-( )
Would surprise me. Western culture is like me in this respect — “beautiful” isn’t supposed to apply to “man”, while beauty, ugliness, and/or lack thereof are the first thing that comes to mind at the sight of a (not too old) woman. By both men and women, interestingly. :-|
:-)
I suppose erinaceus is Latin and echinos is Greek. And Antechinus is the anti-hedgehog…
…
*blush*
Oh, wait. Such an option exists in IE8. From German, it retranslates as “View — Format — no format [unchecked] / default format [checked]”.
Aaaaaaand… it works!!! It looks exactly like in the screenshot. :-) :-) :-)
Only 42? My grandma recently casually mentioned in earshot (in the same room, on the phone with someone else) that she had been on the pill till she was 51 and the doctor said she didn’t need it anymore. My mom appears to have been on it till a similar age. (Oh, BTW, both are Catholic and go to church almost every Sunday, even though both have come to despise the hierarchy pretty much top-to-bottom-and-back.)
From the same context: the more children you have, the less painful your (female) climactery. Sample size = 3.
Reminds me of what an analyst on today’s late-evening TV news said… The US is in a classical debt situation: its debts are all in its own currency, it can simply print $ to pay its own debt. The southern EU countries are in a completely new debt situation: their debts are all in €, and none of them can print €! Only the European Central Bank in Frankfurt can, and the ECB is obligated to maintain price stability at all costs, so they won’t do anything that increases inflation any further. It’s not under much control by the other EU institutions; its great independence was considered very important when it was founded.
Speaking of printing money, many countries have their money printed abroad because that’s cheaper. Syria’s money was printed by the Austrian National Bank. That was stopped a day or two ago because Assad is just too extreme an asshole.
Part 2 of 2.
Apparently, the
titleattribute doesn’t work withawhen a single word is a link. Don’t worry, I just wrote “Pffft of All Knowledge” for each.LOL @ Castorocauda.
Subthread won, week saved.
Off to bed, next subthread “tomorrow”, free round of hugs & chocolate. Jadehawk, I forgot if the gooseberries are ripe, and I’m back in Vienna, but the cross of gooseberry and blackcurrant was ripe several weeks ago; we brought Grandma a little bucket that we topped with raspberries. I’ll visit the garden this weekend.
Nope, 3 links still trigger moderation. WTF.
Part 2 of 3:
LOL @ Castorocauda.
2 links are allowed.
Part 3 of 3…
Subthread won, week saved.
Off to bed, next subthread “tomorrow”, free round of hugs & chocolate. Jadehawk, I forgot if the gooseberries are ripe, and I’m back in Vienna, but the cross of gooseberry and blackcurrant was ripe several weeks ago; we brought Grandma a little bucket that we topped with raspberries. I’ll visit the garden this weekend and check out the gooseberries.
And just to prove Shaker’s Law…
The kind of e-mail that gets posted to the Dinosaur Mailing List (emphasis added):
================================
New in PLoS ONE (free pdf, of course):
Dececchi, T.A. & Larsson, H.C.E. (2011)
Assessing Arboreal Adaptations of Bird Antecedents: Testing the Ecological Setting of the Origin of the Avian Flight Stroke.
PLoS ONE 6(8): e22292.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022292
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022292
The origin of avian flight is a classic macroevolutionary transition with research spanning over a century. Two competing models explaining this locomotory transition have been discussed for decades: ground up versus trees down. Although it is impossible to directly test either of these theories, it is possible to test one of the requirements for the trees-down model, that of an arboreal paravian. We test for arboreality in non-avian theropods and early birds with comparisons to extant avian, mammalian, and reptilian scansors and climbers using a comprehensive set of morphological characters. Non-avian theropods, including the small, feathered deinonychosaurs, and Archaeopteryx, consistently and significantly cluster with fully terrestrial extant mammals and ground-based birds, such as ratites. Basal birds, more advanced than Archaeopteryx, cluster with extant perching ground-foraging birds. Evolutionary trends immediately prior to the origin of birds indicate skeletal adaptations opposite that expected for arboreal climbers. Results reject an arboreal capacity for the avian stem lineage, thus lending no support for the trees-down model. Support for a fully terrestrial ecology and origin of the avian flight stroke has broad implications for the origin of powered flight for this clade. A terrestrial origin for the avian flight stroke challenges the need for an intermediate gliding phase, presents the best resolved series of the evolution of vertebrate powered flight, and may differ fundamentally from the origin of bat and pterosaur flight, whose antecedents have been postulated to have been arboreal and gliding.
Mister Sleight of Hand, welcome etc.
Your concept sounds feasible to me.
Your wish is granted. I just set it to allow six (6) links in a comment. Go to town.
David,
English As She Is Spoke.
Thank you.
And now here’s a comment that simply doesn’t go through at all, with no reason given, at several attempts. Maybe if I hack it apart rather brutally…
=================
Thank you, PZ!
=================
The wall of text was of course the abstract.
Also mentioned on the DML less than an hour ago:
So, is it forbidden to link to Scientific American Blogs? Part 2 of 3:
Darren Naish and colleagues have reinterpreted a toothless lower jaw from the middle Late Cretaceous of Kazakhstan as belonging not to a large oviraptorosaur but (small difference) to a giant bird.
Huh. Apparently that was it.
Good news releases (pun intended): long, short.
So, now that everything else has finally gone through, I’ll try the link to Tet Zoo again.
This worked at the second attempt. I don’t understand why. Bonne soirée, les AméricainEs.
In Abby’s defense, she has in the past written eloquently on the Congo Virus.
I have, for your approval, a poll that needs some love. Fear the comments, though. They are filled with much ignorance and praise-gawd-ness.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/are-some-evangelicals-beginning-to-question-the-existence-of-adam-and-eve/
JPS, FCD:
“So USF is teaching BASIC programming? Srsly?”
Yes and no. The course is still officially a BASIC course. However, here are the five lines of BASIC I intend to write in class:
10 PRINT "BASIC SUCKS."20 GOTO 10
Public Sub Main()
MessageBox.Show("Yes, even the Visual kind.")
End Sub
However, we’ve done a bit of an untruthful-but-not-dishonest swapperoo and substituted Python. The rationale is that they’re pretty much the same thing at the level we’re teaching.
“Is there a text for this course? If so, I’m really curious to know what it is.”
Here it is. I would rather have used a different book (something like this) but it’ll do.
Mister Sleight of Hand I think your concept(s) sound feasible and awesome. Go for it!
Cath, another five ‘No religion’s added here! :-D
One quibble I would have with the census in its electronic form – it decides for you which questions you are to fill in based on previous answers.
So, for instance, a man who was previously a woman and who gave birth cannot record that fact; the question is simply unavailable to anyone who clicked the ‘male’ button at the start.
Oh, yes. There are only two options for gender. *shakes fist at census designers*
I wonder if it is going to upset the census takers when people who had opted for the electronic version start ringing up for paper versions so that they can answer the unavailable questions?
Mister Sleight of Hand, your proposals both sound interesting. The obvious advantage to the individual “skits” is that homeschoolers could also use them.
–
Monty Python—Dirty Hungarian Phrase Book
and this.
–
Mr. Magic, it’s a good idea, but you might want to search around first before you jump in. There might be things like that already out there, and you don’t want to duplicate what’s already been written up. Seeing some other similar things might help you figure out how best to carve out your niche as well.
PZ:
Woohoo! Thank you.
Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid they were going to blame Canada.
I’m still having blueshit borking when I try to sign in!!
.
.
so this is an all David Marjanović thread!!! :-)
.
.
How do I underline???
Mister Sleight of Hand,
“I hope you weren’t here in Montreal when the tunnel collapsed. That’s the kind of thing that can turn people off about a place. Happily, no one was hurt.”
Yeah actually we were there when it happened. Not in the tunnel, but we were in the city when we heard the news. Neither of us were turned to thinking it wasn’t a good idea to go to Canada, we just figured it was like back home: another instance where something went wrong and now’s time to figure out what and how to keep it from happening again.
(How do you quotes on here? The tags list confuses me a bit.)
chigau
Try deleting any bookmarks, hitting ctrl+f5. Then click on this link. http://64.150.191.229/pharyngula)
Tethys
Thank. I’ll try that, too.
I have so many bookmarks, of so many vintages.
What has worked (so far) for me:
when I hit an old bookmark and it starts to go for a bluecrap, I stop it. If my desired target is in the address box, I do a refresh.
So far that gets me to Pharyngula Mark II.
At least, I think that is what is happening.
After a couple of days of screwing around with this, I’m thinking of killing a goat.
Mister Sleight of Hand, here’s a wicked cool and sciency suggestion in answer to your worthy question. (And welcome! :) )
Back in the eighties, at a technology conference in Houston, there was a flashy demonstration/presentation involving liquid nitrogen. You’ve no doubt seen a fresh carnation shattered after being frozen. There was also a piece of frozen surgical tubing used as a nail and driven through a two-by-four with a frozen banana as a hammer.
Best of all was when a goldfish (or some common aquarium denizen) was frozen stiff enough to bounce off the table top. The payoff was when the fish was placed back into room temperature water and, after thirty or so seconds, wriggled, shimmied, turned upright and began to swim about.
It’s not magic if you know how it’s done. That in no way makes it seem less magical. That’s the value of your approach to education. You have the ability to amaze your audience and thereby focus their attention. Precisely the right moment to slip in the zinger.
Good luck and have fun and thanks.
Mister Sleight of Hand
Your education plan sounds like a great idea.
Is it only me, or are comment numbers down a fair bit ? Seems we’ve had this TET forever !
First post was 7 August 2011 at 9:00 pm
recentest post was 10 August 2011 at 12:41 am
yeah, I’d say slow.
.
my spellcheck allowed “recentest” but not “spellcheck”.
I haven’t seen this mentioned here yet. There is a petition underway through G+ for the Montreal police to take Mabus death threats seriously.
That’s 10 comments across the whole site in the last hour, I counted ! Where is everyone ??
Some are sleepy or enjoying a summer night. Others have bookmarks that don’t work anymore and are not aware that it is night. Well, in these parts it’s night. [grin]
A less frantic pace of posting is kind of a nice change; makes keeping up easier and, do my senses deceive me? the troll frequency seems to be nicely attenuated. For now anyhow.
I imagine bookmarks are being updated even now all over the world.
Shall we enjoy the peace and quiet while we can?
Must-see rant! :
Dylan Ratigan’s Epic Rant On Political Corruption http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAdsdlq42nE
Dylan Ratigan Rant: Debt Negotiations ‘Reckless, Irresponsible And Stupid’ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/dylan-ratigan-rant-debt-negotiations_n_922855.html
PS -Have the technical problems with the switch permanently lost Pharyngula a lot of posters? This thread is taking forever to fill up. Perhaps a better measure is the number of readers who log in, but i cannot find the information about that.
Jeremy Irons has spoken against “PC legislation”, since he believes that you don’t need laws to deal with situations like when a man places his hand on a woman’s butt.
Yes, he is an asshole in this particular matter, but to his defence he has spoken out against more deregulation for companies. From a Republican point of view I suppose he is still a commie.
Morning TET.
Just finished a week of late shifts so am catching up on some much-needed sleep for the next couple of days.
UK rioting has now spread to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol. 3 deaths, countless cars and buildings burned down, a police station firebombed and people attacking police left, right and centre. It’s all gone a bit mad – I’m used to my country being considerably more reasonable than this.
Oh well, it’s nothing that watching Malcolm Tucker shouting can’t cure :)
John Morales, Tigger_the_Wing, cicely, chigau ()
Thanks for the welcome and the words of encouragement. Yay!
Carlie:
Definitely. I’m familiar with damn near everything (obvious overstatement alert!) on the magic side of things. Apart from doing it since I was little I’ve worked in magic shops and most of my friends are magicians and jugglers. I know way more magic then is good for anyone. But on the, “use in education” end I’m not really sure what’s out there.
If anyone has ever come across anything like this, I’ll love you forever if you can toss me some links to make my own search just a wee bit easier.
Crudely Wrott:
Yeah I remember there being a group – they were called weird science or something – that went around to primary schools doing that type of thing when I was a kid. They probably still do and it might be worth contacting them…
It was stuff like that which prompted my idea in the first place. And, yeah, the liquid nitrogen demonstrations definitely stand out in my mind the best!
Off to work now, so won’t be back till this afternoon, but thanks for all the feedback so far everyone, I really appreciate it.
Well, it wasn’t so much rioting as mainly youths and young teenagers trying to break into shops to steal stock. There was relatively little sense of danger here, and not much by way of confrontations between gangs and the police.
Every time the police turned up, it seemed that the gangs dispersed.
I saw that. “Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman’s bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can’t we be friendly?”
“It is communication.”???? What is he, the ass whisperer?
Bernard:
Fair enough – I was just going by what the Grauniad was saying. It seems Salford and the city centre were the places most affected, but I know the press sometimes have a way of making things seem worse than they actually are.
Set: 1 min, 56 seconds.
On the same note, a kick in the groin is communication and any man worth his salt should deal with it.
Perhaps he subscribes to the notion that a kiss with a fist is better than none
It’s all a big ruse for Mabus to get everyone’s home address.
or not
I wonder if the police will even notice?
@Le Havre en Chêne
Yes. It certainly was rampant criminality, but it doesn’t really compare to the arson attacks in the recent London riots, or to the violence in Birmingham and Nottingham.
I heard an interview on the BBC where a young looter described stealing red Converse shoes, only to realise that both were right feet. Apparently, he wore them for a while but they made his feet hurt, so he took them off!
Although a BBC cameraman was attacked in Salford whilst filming looters, in general reporters were mixing with the trouble-makers and interviewing many of them. Not exactly an overwhelming atmosphere of hostility.
The 24 hour rolling news needs to ramp up the drama, and actually I think that such coverage of the Tottenham riots has done a lot to inspire this copy-cat criminality.
There is still a fair amount of traffic at the SB site, especially since so many items are cross posted, resulting in parallel discussions in response to the same topics. I’ve been flipping back and forth between SB and FTB,and commenting on both sites, for the topics of particular interest to me. It was interesting yesterday when there was a popcorn party going on in each of the “Y chromosome-PhD” threads. Often, I wished it had all been together in one thread, but OTOH, with the multiple threads, there were more opportunities to do battle with the stupid.
blogwhoring by proxy
http://urschleim.blogspot.com/2011/08/karma-is-bitch-is-it-not.html
Carlie:
ZOMG! If I could nominate you for double Molly, I would. XD
Rorschach:
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was blitzed out of my mind on allergy meds.
BUG BITES! THEY ITCH SO MUCH!
Got my first error warning on FtB! It didn’t allow a double post, which is pretty sweet.
Poor Audley!
*Pours calamine lotion into the USB*
@ Mister Sleight of Hand
Using magic to teach science… Brilliant!
Apropos your idea to have young scientist/magicians share parts of the challenges to resolve the problems, this is also very good for teaching how to work in groups. My sister used to teach professional communications at UCT. One of the workshops she ran had an exercise where different groups and people were given different and incomplete versions of a problem. They could literally not solve the problems without communicating what they each new to the others. Not surprisingly all manner of foolishness ensued when people insisted they could solve the problems from their own information only. When things start dawning on people the message is transformative. Unfortunately I do not have access to the workshop material, though I do think it could help with what you are trying to set up. (The only professional communications person I know of now (not personally) is Rebecca Watson.)
……………………………….
Great concert last night – Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
And for video buffs, someone was so kind as to post: Can’t stop Live in Hong Kong (09-08-2011) “This life is more than just a read through…” (And yes I do have a hangover.)
Awe thanks, Tigger. At this point, I just want to bathe in the stuff.
As a side note, I picked up something called the Itch Eraser, which is pretty much a small tube of ammonia. It seems to work, but that could just be my desperation.
And I kind of smell like a kitty litter box. :(
Audley, I hope the smell isn’t overwhelming! O.o
Or you’ll be spraying yourself with one of those smell-killing sprays next…
Here’s to a rapid recovery!
Isn’t the thread quiet? I’ve never been able to keep up before.
P.S. For some reason, the virus I had for the last few days has made me itch randomly all over, sometimes waking me up, so you have my empathy (although I’m heartily glad it wasn’t anything like as bad or as continuous as yours).
Owlmirror: “silly cack-headed chundering sophists”!
That made my day.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but is this “KWK” fellow the same as one distinguished J. Kw*k, from the distinguished Stuyvesant High School, close personal friend and valiant defender of distinguished Brown University Professor Kenneth Miller?
I have no idea if it is available where you live, but after I had the cast removed from my wrist the itching drove me mad until I used a cream called E45 Itch Reliever. The main active ingredient is urea, so it might not be that much different from what you have got. The E45 smells better though I think.
The wingnuts are going to run with this
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303627104576411850666582080.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#articleTabs%3Darticle
Tigger,
I’m stuck in my office all day, so being a little stinky isn’t a big deal.
I got these bites at a wedding I attended on Sunday and I’m freaking out a little ‘cos I’m so itchy. Every time something brushes against my skin I’m all OMG! THERE’S BUGS CRAWLING ALL OVER ME! even though there isn’t anything on me.
So, yeah. I’m just trying to break the freak out cycle and calm myself down.
Audley, what on earth bit you to have such a lasting effect? Sounds horrible, whatever it was.
Matt,
The stuff I have is a clear liquid that’s just ammonia and skin conditioners. It’s supposed to be used sparingly, I think. But, yeah, similar idea.
It looks like I can order the E45 Itch Cream– I’ll have to see if one of the pharmacies near me carries it.
By the way, the Game, Set, Match trilogy finally shipped. I should have it by the time I finish with The Materese Circle :)
Audley,
Also have you tried taking an anti-histamine ?
Rev BDC the wsj ariicle is behind a paywall. What are the combo meds in question?
Also in the comments found an interesting link
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/signs.html
except for #6 it is reasonable.
I’m here! *jumps up and down*
Okay now I’m leaving! *goes to class*
Tigger,
Mosquitoes and chiggers. I react badly to bug bites, so having several days of itchiness isn’t unusual. I just don’t usually have this many at one time. :(
Matt,
Yup, taking one now. It’s helping quite a bit. But now I’m starting to space out.
I’d never heard of ‘chiggers’ so I looked them up. Nasty-sounding little brutes!
I so rarely (once every two-three years) got bitten by mosquitos in the British Isles (they loved to bite hubby, though) that people thought I was being bitten and wasn’t reacting. Not true. I get huge itchy lumps from mozzie bites as hubby discovered when we moved to Australia and I started getting attacked nearly as often as him. Tough blighters, Ozzie Mozzies! They can obviously tolerate whatever it is in my skin that repelled their Northern Hemisphere relations.
If anti-histamine tablets make you ‘space out’, would anti-histamine cream applied topically be a better option?
Tigger,
In my experience, the pills have a longer lasting effect than the topical creams. I don’t mind being a little spacey (I’m not driving anywhere today) if it means I can go six hours without feeling like an itchy, freaked out mess. :)
In the M*b*s (aka ‘da Wanker’) thread, the sidebar ad I got was ‘Would you be interested in an exciting career as a police officer?’
… shall I respond with ‘… sure… looks like a pretty quiet job. Ignoring email, ignoring calls… Hey, that’s pretty much what I do now…’?
(/Lawls at context-sensitive ads.)
Audley – worst case, can you get something that numbs your skin? A sunburn cream/spray with lidocaine (like Solarcaine) or first-aid cream with painkillers, that kind of thing?
Carlie,
That sounds like a good idea. If I’m still an itchy itchy mess tomorrow, I’ll pick some up.
Audley, sorry about the itchies…
My daughter is horribly reactive to mosquito bites. She carries AfterBite with her, which is ammonia in a tube with a nice roll-on applicator. If you apply it immediately after being bitten, the base neutralizes the acid in the bite that causes the irritation. (I am not a scientist and have forgotten all my HS chemistry, but I think I have that right.) Anyway, it really works, on all sorts of bites and stings, especially if it is used ASAP after the bite occurs, which means it’s good to take it with you. We also keep one in the car, in the backpack, in the camper, in the travel kit.
A paste of baking soda and water can soothe the itching at this point, though it will make you look funny.
An ibuprofen tablet can also help ease the discomfort.
Sending you cooling thoughts.
At the risk of sounding repetitive:
Public service announcement from the FB PET group:
If you are a member of the FB Pharyngula group, please take a moment to ensure you are mentioned in the “Secret of Nym” doc. We need to know what you go by here to ensure that you ought to be there, for everyone’s peace of mind.
We will soon start purging people that we can’t trace back to ‘nyms from here, for the protection of Pharyngulites who are using their real names on PET.
Audley has kindly posted a list on PET of individuals who, as of yesterday, were unaccounted for. Please take a moment to see if your Facebook name is on the list. If you are a lurker without a ‘nym, that’s OK, we’d like you to at least note that on the “Secret of Nym” doc.