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Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is the lounge. You can discuss anything you want, but you will do it kindly.
Status: Heavily Moderated; Previous thread
Page 2?
YES.
Good night.
Good luck Tony!
Crossing all my tentacles for you.
I’m afraid I’m not exactly genned up on CVs/resumés, but I do remember seeing that there are a zillion websites; this is the trouble, there are too many! Hopefully somebody might have seen one they personally thought was worth a look.
Otherwise I’d suggest looking very very briefly at a handful of websites with free examples, and picking any one you think looks nice and clear and straightforward to download and fill in with your own details.
I think a lot of sites have things like generic-resume-template-for-office, one for retail, one for job type X, one for job type Y … so you might find pointers specifically for a resumé aimed at bars/restaurants??? My tentacles shall remain crossed, anyway.
PZ, I’m sorry you’re in pain. I really hope you have some decent drugs on hand and that they kick in soon!
Tony,
From Googling “resume for bartenders” (423,000 hits) first four hits:
http://coverlettersandresume.com/bartender/bartender-resume-sample/
http://www.dayjob.com/content/bartender-resume-1377.htm
http://www.snagajob.com/resumes/bartenders/
http://www.livecareer.com/resume-examples/restaurant-bar/bartender
Find one that seems right to you.
Tony! #496
First of all, best of luck!
Secondly, I agree with ajb47 #500 – resumes are about getting you to the interview. The requirements for resumes are different depending on the job and country – so usually it’s best to ask someone you know who had to apply to similar jobs as you.
That said, the rules are: one page, personal details, skills/characteristics/abilities (car and any license you may have also go in here), previous jobs (it’s important to show the years you’ve worked at each one – the reviewer wants to see consistency and loyalty – that you don’t switch jobs regularly, but only once in a few years) and education. When describing yourself and your skills it’s best to use all the buzzwords you hear on TED talks and the like since they tend to make a good impression and since HR people come from the kind of circles that use them. Don’t hesitate to put in anything that you think makes you stand out, even if you’re not entirely sure how good you are at it or if it really makes you unique. Chances are, someone somewhere will be impressed. Skills that seem basic (like being a people’s person or “excited about being part of a proactive team”) are never a given.
Remember that you don’t have to put everything in – if there are jobs you’d rather not mention, don’t mention them. If you had several jobs in a single year just mention one next to the year. Education might not even be important for some job so in certain cases it can be safely removed (it doesn’t appear on mine, but then I have none worth talking about).
Finally, make sure your CV isn’t overcrowded (no walls of text!) and it’s design is somewhat original. Adding a header/footer logo, or placing the entire CV within a frame or having some basic background (but no actual pictures – stick with geometry) can be a good touch.
Also, for the future, it’s important not to be attached to a single CV. I have one “master” CV and a whole bunch of derivative CVs which I change and amend depending on the job I want.
Again, I don’t have your experience and we don’t live in the same country or speak the same language. You may find that your world is very much different than mine (probably is) and you need a different strategy.
Anyway, hope that helps and good luck!
Tony! how is your internet access and computer situation these days? Can you search for resume examples and advice pages, or do you need us to give you direct links? Mostly I remember these days to make it one page with key phrases for scanning (including possibly automated scanning). Do you have a document program to create it on?
Interview went well, I think. I was asked to return for a second interview with a different manager on Monday. Thanks for the well wishes all.
Interesting thing about the interview-the manager asked me if *I* had any questions about the place. It took me a while to come up with something bc I’ve never been asked that question. One of the things I asked him is if employees have any recourse if they feel they’ve been sexually harassed (or have faced forms of workplace bigotry like homophobia or racism). I asked him this bc I’ve worked in several places where-on paper-employees have recourse if they have an issue, but so often it’s not taken seriously. Initially, I think he thought I was asking if the establishment was free of such problems, to which I clarified myself. I don’t believe any place is free of such problems. I just wanted to know if management would take such concerns seriously. I think I threw him off asking the question, bc he didn’t have a ready answer at hand. In the end, he did say that if an employee has a problem, they will be listened to by management.
Btw, ajb47 @500 (last thread), Nerd @4, and AlexanderZ @5-thank you both.
****
Pteryxx @6:
Internet access is good. I’m still working on a laptop that only functions in safe mode. I don’t have a printer of any sort, and I’m sure I have a document program on my computer, but I’m pretty ignorant about such programs. I figured that many people around here had created resumes in the past, and would have helpful hints and/or links to assist me in creating one. Turns out both are true :)
Tony, if you have a Windoze system, you probably have Notebook, a bare bones word processor. You might even have the Works version of Word, which is a step up in formatting capability. If you can save your resume to a zip (thumb) drive, you could probably print it at a copy/photo shop/kiosk.
Good luck with your second interview.
Tony! then one of the tricky parts might be tweaking the resume into the neat margin’ed and border’d format that’s recommended as looking professional. Several of us could probably help with the formatting in doc or pdf, or using Google Docs collaboratively through a browser. For a start, you might try downloading a sample resume and just replacing the text with your own without changing the formatting.
Sorry about your computer… not sure I can suggest fixes without being there.
Oh, yes, Tony! – what Alexander Z said about tweaking and adapting slightly differently for each different place you’re applying to – that would seem to be a good idea. My daughter was using the same basic template for everyone, but just changing one or two lines in the mini-mini-summary at the top (a sort of little “who am I, in a nutshell” paragraph) every time she submitted an application.
Good luck with the second interview!
Tony!
If you wish to pass through a harsh round of reviews for resume and application letter, we (partner and I) can do it. The advantages for you is that we’ll make it to pass “à la mode française”, which may bring about a touch of originality in your own context (this is the most difficult aim for resume and app letter, looking outstanding without looking excentrically so). Your duty will thus be to make sure that we are not turning it down from an American perspective, but I think rules might not differ that much.
Note that I’ve taught a class on these two exercises for two years, without being an expert on these matters, but I’ve graded a full bunch of these as an exam, and I’ve really seen what makes a difference and how important some details are from the hiring perspective.
Tony!
Best of luck with the second interview. hope you get it. I can’t really offer any advice on resumes; I’ve written a few, but I don’t know that they’ve done me much good overall, so I wouldn’t use them as an example. If you have a working CD drive, I can send you a liveCD (a copy of the OS that you can boot from) of Ubuntu, which would come with a better word processor than Notes, (also volume control, and a video editor, in case you wanted to try your hand at vlogging (I suppose that the laptop has got a camera and mic in, I understand they come standard nowadays)).
Knock ’em dead, Tony. If I lived a tad closer to you (approx. 3000 miles) I’d just come over to your place and sit down with you and we would produce a beaut in short order. Unfortunately we are geographically compromised. However, the horde comes through again. There are some very good suggestions offered. Good luck. Holding thumbs for you.
Good luck, Tony!
I can’t really help with the CV stuff but I’m pretty darn good with pc’s. Give me a ring sometime when you have a few minutes and I would be happy to attempt to walk you through getting your machine out of safe-mode and updated. My contact info can be found via my nym. I’m in North Texas, so the Central Timezone, and i work from home so pretty much any time would be fine with me.
Pteryxx,
I hope things are going well for you. When you have a few minutes, could you ping me via email (sadly, I can’t find your address in my contacts.)
Running ahead of schedule getting the Redhead ready so I can get some sleep. But then, she had some tasty watermelon one of her caregivers brought. Augh, she will probably will call early for her change tonight. Not a problem, unless I get a second call at 5 am. That’s a sleep killer.
Hey all. A homeopathic company somehow got hold of my email, so I’ve got a poll that is in desperate need of Pharyngulation.
Dalillama, Tony::
I’d second that, it would get your laptop out of safe mode, from what I know. Good luck with the resume. You can do it!
jy3 @18:
Done.
****
Man, gundamentalists are delusional fools. There’s a post over at Raw Story about an Open Carry group in Texas. In the comments section, one guy disagreed that guns are designed for killing and gave a S&W model 41 as an example of a gun not designed for killing. Given that guns shoot high velocity projectiles that will eventually hit a living or non-living target, I’m having a very difficult time understanding what non-killing (or destructive) function guns are designed for.
Maybe this guy thinks guns fire soap bubbles?
Dalillama:
I do have a working CD drive, come to think of it.
****
YOB @15:
I may take you up on that soon. Thank you!
I drive! But at the moment I am not working.
:sad face:
Is that a company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company owned by another company …
..and so on, until there’s no trace of actual humanity left?
They’re all so serene… Women in 500 years of art, a rather need compilation. And no, none of them are smiling (some have the bare vestiges of a smile), none of them are showing emotion. Serene. Almost like they were works of art or something… :)
need = neat previous comment
7 teeny tiny frog species discovered in Brazil.
New dinosaur discovered! New horned dino rocked crown-shaped frill.
Best of luck with the job search, Tony!
Good luck, Tony.
Activist Punks Saudi Arabia With Gay Rights Party http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-mael/activist-punks-saudi-arab_b_7489636.html
— — — —
Teaching pro tip http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3751
Koala gravity well???
— — — —
Study suggests that dinosaurs were warm-blooded http://phys.org/news/2015-05-dinosaurs-warm-blooded.html
As in, really warm-blooded. Jurassic park style.
The best of luck with your job hunting Tony! . Getting a second interview is a really good sign.
I’m in a grumpy mood. It started with an uncooperative three year old first things. Then lots of minor irritations since then. At least the sun is shining. I’ll be out the back with the remains of the piano. Can I borrow your sledge hammer rq?
Have I not said it yet?
Tony!, I’m always wishing you the best, but between now and tuesday, I’m sending an extra large percentage of my magnet quantum-vibrational prayer energy your way. I’m also magnifying it’s power by sending it diluted in one (1) Atlantic Ocean-volume of water. I figure that should do the trick.
But if it doesn’t, I’ll still be wishing you the best. Good luck, my friend!
bassmike
Definitely. I’m taking it out on the weeds in among the rose bushes, so the sledgehammer’s standing idle over by the shed. Help yourself!
Me, to Child 1, practically every day for the last week: “You need to make sure you know where your registration form is for the SAT in case we need to print it out again. And you need to check it and tell me when we have to be there.” Child 1: “YES I KNOW WHERE IT IS.”
Me, today: “It’s tomorrow. I have to know now when we need to be there. Please go look it up NOW.”
Child 1, a few minutes later: “I thought it was right here in this folder, but it isn’t.”
Me: “So you’re saying that all this time, you never actually looked to see if it was there, you were only thinking about it?”
Child 1: ….
….
…
“Yes”
Female “Viagra” could be approved today: what you need to know http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27653-female-viagra-could-be-approved-today-what-you-need-to-know.html
.
Artificial DNA can evolve to expertly pick out cancer cells http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630244.400-artificial-dna-can-evolve-to-expertly-pick-out-cancer-cells.html “It seems that DNA that includes two artificial bases can be coaxed to selectively pick out cancer cells.”
— — — — — — —
-Don’t miss out! Comment £ 535 coming soon!!!
carlie,
how did you come to have my child over at your house????????? Or are they like entangled photons????!?!?!?!?!?!?
Hey! I’m deaf in one ear today! I’m hoping this is temporary and that the antibiotics kick in soon.
Unfortunately, it’s the left ear, so I can only hear right wing commentary.
According to Right Wing Watch:
Phew! Thanks, UK and Scottish Parliaments! But unfortunately, now I think of it, Northern Ireland remains as a chink in our defences!
Worth a giggle because otherwise it’s not funny and yet it is: I Have Been Sitting on Manspreaders For the Last Month and I Have Never Felt More Free.
@37 Nick gotts
I hear Antarctica has loads of open, uninhabited land, plus they keep saying their god will provide so there’s no reason to fear the leopard seals and the cold. And even if the orca get a few of them, i’m sure it builds spiritual strength or some shit, so everybody wins, really…
It’s at least good to know that we are safe from them here in Spain, though.
Clarifying my comments #12: of course I’m by no way implying French résumés are better, only that you* might expect some differences between norms with what should be ‘classical’ within USA. If these differences become almost noticeable, then it’s good, because all that matters is being _noticed_ within the pile of other applicants’ résumés. You* can and should ‘game’ perception, for it accounts for a significant amount of variability in hiring success. For e.g., using a font that’s slightly (but not completely awkwardly) different from the most common in use.
So I was saying something more along the lines of “Tony! you should go for friends outside of the USA fishing for their advices, keeping in mind that you’d have to try things that make your résumé look different enough (keeping the odd but cutting out anything that’s downing).
Dalillama, Schmott Guy # 13
Actually, the whole issue is that when everyone is doing it, they’re doing it the same way, and this is exactly what one should not be doing. The result is that applications are quite boring. I’ve been boring to extra levels and I am still today, because thinking outside the box is so hard. And I only realised it too late, when I had to grade the students, because it was the first time I had to play from the other side. Almost everyone is boring. Fortunately, since the trick is to do differently, any other example is still good enough as the scheme to avoid. It’s still easy to game it without too much of an effort.
Men, why are you so often assholes?
So, I’m on my vacation which means I’m a lazy ass in the mornings. But work needs to be done ,so I was clipping the hedge at the hight of day and heat. Why yes, I am an idiot. Thank you for noticing..
Anyway, two guys pass by while I’m working, ask for directions to a neighbor.
..
I’m now done with the hedge so I’m cleaning up the clippings. Same two assholes going by.
First asshole: “I wish I had a wife willing to work in this sun. Mine is affraid of the sun. Ha ha. ”
Me: [inaudible growl, otherwise quiet. I suppose he was giving me a compliment]
Second asshole: “Oh no, she’s only doing that to work on her tan. Aren’t you?”
Me: [Grrrr.] “If I wanted a tan I’d be laying about not working!”
Assholes : “HA HAHAHA”
I hate everyone.
So it’s like: if we [women] don’t work enough then we are hangers on, who just want money and comfort while poor men work their asses off for us. If we do work there is always some shallow or stupid reason for it.
Man working in the sun – dedication, hard work
Woman working in the sun – oh, she just wants a tan
Grrr
Beatrice, #41
She just tells him that. She’s probably just embarrassed to be seen out with him.
I think a lot of men do such things because they feel there’s an expectation from their peers and society to make sexist jokes like this. Like it wins them some points or something.
Beatrice #41
Were you still holding the clippers?
PZ
It’ll proably hurt when that ear ‘pops’.
Be prepared.
Beatrice
Or a deferent, obedient wife.
“Grrr” is about the best response. :(
Sadly no, otherewise I could have made the hedge trimmer go GRRRR.
rq,
While I don’t sit on people, I do get a bit careless with my elbows when people are blocking the exit from the tram or bus, or when they wave their umbrellas and bags regardless of people around them. It might even look like I sometimes deliberately bump into people who are blocking the exit. All accidents, I assure you.
Beatrice
Yeah, I sometimes accidentally move in the way of people trying to cut a line. It’s not like I mean to.
I’m prepared. The greatest pain I have ever experienced was a case of bullous myringitis — I was feeling every fluctuation in air pressure. I was living on the fifth floor, and had to get to the ground floor to get to a clinic — I took the stairs, slowly, and it was like talking a walk to hell, with every landing a brand new landmark in agony.
It did finally pop when I was in the doctor’s office — he actually heard it as a thin shrill whistle as the pressure was finally relieved. He heard it briefly before my moans and screams left him deaf, I think.
I’m hoping this one isn’t that bad.
rq #48
:)
Last time I had to, I went in the most polite tone “Boy, is that the way your parents told you to behave in a line?”. It worked so well that I was probably most ashame to push ‘shaming’ so far.
Now here, mislinelycut mostly happens at the marketplace, that is, with really messy lines (so with often genuine mishaps). Though non-bothering merchants soon realise they lose a customer if they are way too unfair in processing transactions.
Which correlatively makes me think about this old nice guy trying to improve his pension with a very small selling table at farmers’ market. He’s selling things that are considered ‘not markettable’ here (half wild fruits), so this is almost the only place I can find these -and that I greatly appreciate-, even more so that it is helpful to both of us. But then, he certainly always feels guilty to sell “things that shall not be sold, only given” so he’s giving away more of these, to a point where I turn guilty of reaching a so low unwanted bargain treshold that I am compelled to buy him more. At the end he often doesn’t have anything more to sell, and I’m terribly disappointed that his gains so greatly underreach his labour time picking, caring, conserving and transporting all the stuff. And I become so heavily bagged on that it is a pain to walk back to the parking.
Best of luck with the interview (Tony) and the ear (PZ)!
Okidemia
For various reasons, I choose not to say anything, but rather signal with accidental body language. Though I do sometimes descend to Evil Looks. :)
I learned a new word today: ikebana.
Middle Child is a budding practicant of the art. It’s going to be a challenge to keep him away from the roses long enough for them to bloom to their fullest.
Various links about applied machine intelligence:
-Video: Parallel computing speeds the way to scientific advancements http://phys.org/news/2015-06-video-parallel-scientific-advancements.html
.
Planarian [a kind of flatworm] regeneration model discovered by artificial intelligence http://phys.org/news/2015-06-planarian-regeneration-artificial-intelligence.html
.
Helping robots handle uncertainty http://phys.org/news/2015-06-robots-uncertainty.html
.
Why we fell out of love with algorithms inspired by nature http://phys.org/news/2015-06-fell-algorithms-nature.html
rq,
We call the wreath you put on graves ikebana. I wonder how that kind of bastardisation of the term happened, it’s not like we have many words from Japanese in our language.
birgirjohansson@54,
It’s amusing that one of your linked articles is “Why we fell out of love with algorithms inspired by nature”, while another reports the use of algorithms based on evolutionary processes (recombination, mutation and selection) to produce a promising theory in developmental biology!
awakeinmo @488 in the older comments:
I have the same problem. It’s very difficult to get away from work long enough to stand in line and then vote. And the lines in my partially rural area are fairly short.
The cuts to early voting have been matched with reduced hours that polls are open in many states. So, fuck the poor or low-income people who can’t afford the lost time from work, or who have trouble arranging transportation to polling venues that close early. Single parents may have trouble arranging childcare. The elderly just need help all round. Republicans are trying every trick in the book to restrict voting.
Some university students have also said that they need the early voting days, and the hours that polls are open, extended.
So glad to see Hillary Clinton making a big fuss about voting rights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/hillary-clinton-voting-rights-and-the-2016-election.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/politics/hillary-clinton-voting-rights-texas/
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-early-voting-nationwide
Beatrice #55
I can hardly wait to tell the Ikebana club at the community centre that little bit of information.
Oh, my. I am so, so wishing all goes well with fixing PZ’s ears. I often have ear trouble myself. It’s terrible. Luckily, it sounds like PZ’s internal gyroscope is still working. He can stand up and he can walk.
If he gets swimmer’s ear from taking showers, maybe he should just become a dirty old man.
rq #52
:)
Well, something that I’ve always wondered was actually why “white people” have this tendency to almost never catch up with body language since it is often a path used to resolve fast shifting interactions. Here when such line issues may arise, you* quickly negociate with finger and head signs. Freezing down and not looking at people is the best way to get cut out, and this is because you* are not polite, not the reverse.
Yessssssss.
Well, yes. Men peer-pressure each other into being assholes.
Simply all flatworms that aren’t parasitic.
*like*
The culture in my corner of the world goes like this: you don’t interact with strangers unless you absolutely have to – and in that case you start by apologizing. Therefore people treat each other as moving obstacles.
Okidemia
Interesting. This corner of the world, it’s not accepted though tolerated if you do engage in some form of communication with those around you. It’s generally understood that everyone understands the cultural norms that you must adhere to while out in public (such as standing in line and waiting your turn), that such communication should be unnecessary.
Alas, people are not so rule-abiding in real life! It is accepted, if you must, to ask who’s next/last – as witnesed, usually, in the post offices without a numbering system (you know those paper numbers you take from a machine), where waiting can be long and thus seating is random. Newest person walking in yells out “Who’s last in line?” and then keeps an eye on that person to know when they’ll be ‘allowed’ to go next. And then it is their responsibility to identify themselves as Last when the next person walks in.
So, in short form, interaction as little as possible, but tolerated when necessary. :)
But Okidemia in defense of this country I blame 50 years of Soviet occupation and the resulting suspicious mindset about interacting with strangers. So. It may change, as the younger generations get more and more globally involved and resist certain socio-cultural barriers and traditions.
Wow. There’s a petition to revoke Caitlyn Jenner’s Olympic gold medal? World, you just SUCK.
re: Olympic medal
I wanted to ask on what basis (other than bigotry) but you know what, I don’t actually give a fuck what sorry excuse they came up with.
Damned haters
Discussion rages over at The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/05/women-abortion-act-1967
All the usual anti-choice arguments are being bandied about, and a fair few folk are in there countering them and demanding better. Here’s to bodily autonomy.
Beatrice
They’re haters, period, and now it turns out a bunch of men was beaten by a woman. I sense the distinct odour of Hurt Feelings For Men, by Bruised Ego.
Just haters, really.
Why David, I didn’t know we were compatriots! ;-)
Speaking of churches, it’s Church Night (modelled after Museum Night) here in Latvia tonight. Anyone want to know how many churches I’ll be going to?
(And here, I love a good church as much as the next person – for architectural reasons, maybe, or perhaps artistic and musical ones (akyooooosticks and organs), but a component of this PR stunt is the ‘spiritual’ aspect of praying and late-night liturgies, so – no thanks. Some other time.)
Way too many tabs open again! I need to dump them on you.
Erdoğan is out there campaigning for the AKP. Being president, he’s not allowed to belong to a party or to campaign for one; he doesn’t care. A reason may be that if the AKP gets 60 % of the seats in parliament, it’ll introduce a referendum change the constitution to a more presidential system so Erdoğan can be caliph instead of the caliph. Whether this will happen is thought to depend on whether the Kurdish party HDP will get into parliament (for which it needs at least 10 % of the votes). So, Erdoğan went to İgdir at the (eastern) ass-end of Turkey, a stronghold of the HDP. A group of women turned their backs and made the victory sign. Erdoğan is pissed: “If you had just an inkling of politeness, honor and competence* you’d know that the place for politics is the parliament”… pictures of #SırtımızıDönüyoruz (“we turn our backs”) at the link: women, men, pigeons… for a while it was the 3rd-largest hashtag in the world.
What exactly the presidential system would look like – would there, to pick the most glaring question, still be a separate head of government like in France or Russia, or not, like in the US? – is unknown beyond Erdoğan’s statement that such a system would allow much faster decisions. Anyway, when President Erdoğan and Minister-President Davutoğlu opened the new airport Yüksekova, the public-owned TV channel TRT wrote “President Erdoğan and Minister-President Erdoğan are performing the opening” in the news ticker. (I’m reminded of “when Gaius and Julius were consuls”.)
Erdoğan’s attitude to the blatantly illegal campaigning is: 1) as the elected head of state he has the right to speak up whenever he wants; 2) those aren’t campaign events, they’re opening ceremonies and whatever else is handy; 3) the Armenian lobby and teh ghey and journalists who want a coup.
Some “Turkey expert” and Selahattin Demirtaş, head of the HDP, say that every civil servant and even every AKP member is afraid of Erdoğan; when Erdoğan recently called 4G technology a waste of time, the announcement to investors was promptly delayed by 3 months.
1.4 million Turkish voters live in Germany, so the campaign is on. Erdoğan visited to get out the vote, toootally not just for the AKP. The article mentions someone who’s going to vote for the HDP just in order to restrict the power of Erdoğan and the AKP.
You may recall that Erdoğan already has a fresh new suitable palace. The uppermost administrative court has now declared this palace illegal and retroactively denied the building permit; the palace was built on a nature reserve. Photo gallery at the link; it’s really impressive, cost some 400 M€ according to Erdoğan and has more than 1150 rooms. Last sentence: “It remains unclear if the verdict will have consequences.”
Here’s a long, detailed, interesting article on the problems with presidential systems. Basically, once things turn sour, it’s impossible to govern that way. The title is “American democracy is doomed”. Minor quibble: Austria did not get a new constitution in 1945, it simply got the one from 1920 (majorly amended in 1929) back.
* No idea how good the translation is.
Whoa. Unthinkable.
I’m reminded of the story of why Ancient Greek athletes competed naked.
The attitude is widespread in the urban West.
Hahaha!
@rq, #64:
Does it suck a little less knowing that the IOC had already denied the petition before you posted about it here?
Note that the fucked up passive-aggressive letter that they quote in the Salon article contained this additional beautiful ignorance:
It might be only fair that women receive credit as champions of the Decathlon, but there are no women’s decathlon world championship events, nor is there a women’s decathlon event in the Olympics.
Technically speaking, then, the only woman who has ever been a “champion”*1 in the Decathlon is Jenner.
Further, the rules on crossing gender lines in the post WW2 era are not at all coherent in a manner we might like. These difficulties in intelligibility have been infamous and have led to quite a number of revisions between 1976 and the present. However, it was clear that despite calling events “men’s” and “women’s” the rules focussed on prohibiting males from competing in female only events and females from competing in male only events.
The letter writer clearly has no understanding of the rules under which the competition was held, nor of the distinction between being a woman and being female.
This is a perfect example of why I insist that we keep sex and gender separate. It is perfectly reasonable to call Jenner circa 1976 a male woman. Jenner respected the rules, kicked ass, and then stared out at my sisters and me from various boxes of Wheaties. These are the facts. And they are not in dispute.
===========================
*1 rather than simply the winner of a particular meet/event, said non-coordinated into a championship events for women’s decathlon having only started in very recent years
Crip Dyke
I admit I did not know the IOC has already denied the petition, as I had not yet conducted my research that far. I was stoked by a local headline about the petition itself, which did not include any information on the IOC’s reponse, just the (rather dismal, it appears) number of signatures.
So, thank you for the additional information!
Oh, also, if you really want to cry:
Oh, fuck you Washington Post.
Their justification for that statement?
Oh, I should translate the captions under the photos of the “White Palace”:
1: 210,000 m²; bigger than Buckingham Palace.
2: Much bigger also than the “Pink Palace” (not shown) that all previous Turkish presidents have inhabited.
3: Architecture reminiscent of “classical Turkish buildings”; there are administrative buildings in addition to the president’s living quarters.
4: There’s a mosque, a kindergarten, a nuke-proof bunker, a botanical garden and a spy-proof office for Erdoğan. Also space for over 1000 employees.
5, 6: Outdated by a year; about the illegality and Erdoğan’s grandstanding about it.
7: There’s also (not shown) a new plane for the use of the president that cost 78 M€, a new mosque in İstanbul for 37,000 people, and plans for a canal parallel to the Bosphorus.
8: “Erdoğan awaits 4,000 guests to the official opening. However, after the massive criticism not all invitees will attend the celebration.”
9: Apparently there’s a pun on “White Palace” and “Illegal Palace”. Critics and the opposition say the palace should not be used as a residence; for example, the biggest opposition party, CHP, announced last year it would donate the palace to a university if it’ll win the currently ongoing parliamentary election – which isn’t gonna happen.
On to other topics! There are now 204 known extant species of caecilians. “AmphibiaWeb team member David Blackburn, California Academy of Sciences curator, and digital artists at Ex’pression College (Emeryville, CA) produced an animated music video for Caecilian Cotillion. The Wiggly Tendrils wrote this lovely song last year to commemorate the 200th species of caecilian, those legless amphibians with secretive lives.” Permalink to the video.
16 twitpics of #parkingfail. One looks photoshopped.
IS member posts selfie from unidentified command center on unidentified social network. 22 hours later three US missiles destroy that building, and an Air Force general mocks the people responsible for the post. There may have been GPS information or something in the metadata of the photo.
The decision to hold last year’s world soccer championship in Brazil is allegedly being investigated. Also, there’s a corruption scandal involving “the provision of a control and surveillance system” for that event by a German construction company. Former German minister of the interior asserts there were “no irregularities” when Germany hosted the championship in 2006.
@42 Saad
That is absolutely real. I got a megadosis of that last weekend. I’ve seen it turn very nice people, people whose views i know well and like, turned into vomit inducing douchebags over that kind of peer pressure. I think it affects all of us to various degrees. It also has to be noted that since it plays on what is still considered default for men, participating of it is generally rewarded and opposing it or merely not participating is grounds for retaliation.
“Daily Kos Elections presents the best map ever of United States congressional districts” – “Our map’s key feature is that all 435 congressional districts are shown in equal size, represented by five hexagons each”; “inspired in part by the Guardian‘s U.K. election results map“.
“When Red States Turn Blue: An Anticipatory History of the Next Twenty Years” – plenty of statistics and demography; predicts that Texas, Georgia and Arizona will come into play and North Carolina will stay there. Ends on a very optimistic note:
“But here’s the thing. I don’t actually think it will look like this. Or if it does, it won’t continue to look like this in 2040. Because it would just be unsustainable for the Republican Party to do so poorly in presidential elections. Eventually they’ll have to adapt and compete with Democrats for some of the same voters, rather than depend on their old/white/dying base. In other words, they’re going to have to moderate. And that’s the real good news in all this – because it means American politics is poised to turn to the left. Maybe Republicans adapt by appealing to more people of color, or maybe they become more competitive with moderate whites. Either way, our politics will be better off, and our country will be, too.”
…before adding: “You know, unless American democracy collapses in the mean time.” Link to the article on the problems with a presidential system.
Anyway, I’m not at all sure the Republican Party will bend to “the normative force of the factual” instead of dying out altogether, but we’ll see.
I see that, am appalled at the silly requirement for SRS which is completely inconsequential to sports, and raise you:
“Shocking new video shows unarmed Utah man was listening to headphones when killed by police”
“On August 11, 2014, Dillon Taylor walked out of a local Salt Lake City, Utah, convenience store minding his own business. He wasn’t armed. He wasn’t committing a crime. He was listening to music on his headphones, probably in his own world.
Just two days after Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed an unarmed Mike Brown in Ferguson, Taylor would soon face a similar fate at the hands of a local officer. And on October 1, the district attorney in Salt Lake City, Sim Gill, ruled that the killing of 20-year-old Taylor was justified. Even in his determination, though, he stated that “Taylor’s shooting was justified not because he posed an actual threat, but because (Officer) Cruz reasonably perceived a threat.”
Now that the full video has been released, it’s disturbingly clear that nothing about this police shooting was justified. Nothing at all.”
The video is embedded in the article, interestingly twice. I haven’t watched it. I have… no particular need to watch someone die on camera, I’ll take your word for it, thankyouverymuch. :-S Anyway, there’s a still at the top; it shows the corpse with headphones on, no ambiguity about it.
David
That last link @78? Old news (see comment 361, third link). Not the only one. And, sadly, not shocking anymore. Just dismally, atrociously, horrid.
test ®
I’m really coming to dislike AT&T U-Verse. My wi-fi connection has been wonky for the last several days. Multiple times a day I’ll be reading something, or working on a blog post, or simply trying to listen to Pandora on my phone and BAM! I lose my internet connection. So. Aggravating.
****
I would love to see this-
Republican nightmare, science group demands 2016 presidential science debate.
rq @67:
♥ ♥ ♥
The Thunderdome is open.
Tony, best of luck on your job-hunting efforts. Someone will be lucky to have you as an employee.
In other news, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia demonstrated his willingness to court the good opinion of people who revel in ignorance. Scalia gave a commencement address at Stone Ridge High School (one of his grandchildren was graduating), and he said, among other things:
Not technically wrong, but still an obvious reference to a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis.
Ann Coulter recently advised the US government to turn away female immigrants who were overweight. Now she wants to expand denial of citizenship to people with disabilities, especially people in wheelchairs and people who are blind. “We’re not running an international charity here,” Coulter said.
Right Wing Watch link
Coulter is promoting her new book. Don’t buy it.
Bad news for Rush Limbaugh is good news for the human race.
Media Matters link
The news out of Indianapolis is only the latest in a long string of embarrassing failures for Limbaugh. It is so good to see this doofus speaking to a smaller and smaller audience.
Dancers in motion. And my goodness, the man in the long dark skirt…!
@Lynna, #85:
You know I’ve told you before I appreciate your aggregation, and you’re so wonderfully prolific i can’t comment on everything you bring here. So I hope that I bring a criticism here won’t make you think you’re unappreciated, but please:
Don’t do that.
Quoting someone else who does that = a sometimes necessary evil
When doing your own writing, it’s helpful to remember that people actually use wheelchairs. A wheelchair is not a garbage dump for an inert lump of mass that simply exists.
“People in wheelchairs” = image of person shaped lumps carefully nudged onto a funny shaped cart in the hopes that nothing will slump in an unexpected direction, leading to your person-shaped lump slowly slinky-falling to the floor. In this image, the wheelchair is actually more meaningful than the person.
“Wheelchair users” = image of someone with the skill to use puffs of air or strong arms counter-rotating wheels as a navigation tool, who has desires and places to go and has a very specialized vehicle they’ve learned to drive to get them there.
There’s not at all comparable. Further, it gives the idea that we spend 525,600 minutes a year in the damn things. i probably spend, what? 2000 minutes a year using a wheelchair, maybe less? Others, of course, use wheelchairs much more often than I do, having different abilities, different needs, different goals, different resources, etc. When you stop thinking of wheelchairs as things that someone is just placed in, never to move again, and start thinking of things that I and others choose to use when it’s the right tool for the job at hand, your writing will not only be more accurate, but a hell of a lot more respectful.
As a related note for anyone paying attention:
While being wheelchair bound is a hella fun way to have sex, it is not, in fact, a real thing other than that. Wheelchairs are actually liberatory vehicles. The bindings you have to get from a sex toy shop.
Crip Dyke, and others who may have been rightly offended by my wording, I’m sorry.
I meant to be sarcastic about Ann Coulter’s obvious disdain for “the wheelchair section.” (The quote is from the link in comment 85, and is not my wording.) I wasn’t careful to make my sarcasm clear, nor was I careful to word my own comments so that they demonstrated the distance between my views and hers.
I am now partially disabled myself — no doubt I will become a person who uses a wheelchair in the not too distant future. For now, I am a person who uses a cane.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden #88
(I’m stealing your intro, I advocate fair use:)
You know I’ve told you before I appreciate your aggregation, and you’re so wonderfully prolific i can’t comment on everything you bring here. So I hope that I bring a remark here won’t make you think you’re unappreciated, but please:
Is a completely valid point to make, that’d ben’t my point.
If I were “translating” from French, I would use the first while actually meaning the second, only due to translational ambiguity, because the native meaning is in between and strongly leaning to the second meaning. (Using the second expression might convey the idea that you* would use a wheelchair as if it were your car or a public transport or leaning toward weird use).
I don’t know about Lynna’s native, but I guess when something happens in one language it often happens in other languages.
Unfortunately this is a situation where genuine mishaps can be brought up without intent to hurt whenever dealing with non-natives. (It’s not an easy fix if you use that wording only once in a while, because the first thing to come in mind will be constrained by your own language independently of whether you can control your spontaneous use in time –i.e. before you speak).
Minor useless point though.
Tony! #7
Never, ever ask anyone that!!!
This marks you as a trouble-maker and will make the interviewer nervous.
Possible answers are:
1. “What challenges, would you say, are unique to your establishment?”
2. “I’d like to know more about working culture here”
3. (if it’s an old establishment) “I’m very interested in the history of this place”
4. (said with an impish smile) “Just one – when can I begin?”
Other interview questions that you must rehearse are “What are your strengths?” (only you know that, but make sure that they are very relevant to the job) and “What are your weaknesses?”. The answers to the latter are things that sound like a weakness, but which are actually a plus in the job you’re seeking. Answers like “I dislike leadership positions and try to avoid workplace politics whenever possible” are always good, but others depend on the place in question. Again, I have no idea what a bartender job entails (haven’t been in a bar for at least a dozen years), but here are some possibilities:
“I’m a stickler to the rules, which may annoy some coworkers” or “I’m very non-confrontational, which some interpret as a sign of weakness”. Feel free to think of something which is more applicable to you, but make sure to practice it before hand in front of a mirror to make sure you always have a gentle smile and are making eye contact (when you’re asked about your weaknesses you can lower your eyes and drop the smile for a short while to show your sincerity).
___________________________
PZ
Get well, get well soon, we want you to get well…
___________________________
chigau #83
Great! Back to the poo-flinging…
Unrelated point:
Women’s World Cup starts tomorrow but in my country it’s a non-event. You wouldn’t even know it’s happening from reading the news, not to mention that no channel is willing to broadcast it.
For some reason, I am pleased to learn that there is an actual Japanese word for ‘wheelchair’.
車椅子, kurumaisu, meaning ‘wheelchair’
The phonetic ウィールチェア doesn’t seem to be a thing.
Lynna:
I thought of you when I read this story (because you keep up with and share with us all manner of news related to U.S. politics)-
Senator whose family was caught with smuggled cocaine on cargo ship says ‘no’ to legalized marijuana
[random associations]
In Latvian, that splits into two words ‘kuru maisu’ which means ‘which bag’ in the accusative case.
[/random]
Also, it must be summer. I can drive home from work at night without using the highbeams, as the remains of sunset behind me slowly fade into the premonitions of dawn.
And then the giant orange moon comes up across the river. So beautiful.
@lynna
Ah, we’re all good then.
Frankly, we were good even so – I was trying to say that anyway. I was just about providing info. Didn’t think you chose the language consciously trying to minimize agency…and didn’t realize that you consciously chose it to mock those who minimize agency.
@Okidemia:
Oh, I agree. I was about giving info, not about condemning anyone.
Mocking Coulter should have been praised though, and I missed the boat on that one.
Got home from work, seriously fatigued after a week of playing the Energizer Bunny. Ready for a relaxing evening. Ring *they washed my hair today, and towels and sheets need to be laundered*. Situation normal. Feeling better after a tankard of grog and some dinner, and the laundry is in the dryer.
School dress code sexism in the U.S. and Canada
Gives examples from different areas. Here are a couple besides the infamous “Keep ‘the girls’ covered” one.
The Redhead, since her infections, hasn’t had much trouble with her blood pressure. The @home doctors recommended she halve her dosage of ACE inhibitor. So I’ve been cutting pills. The vascodialator is only given when her BP goes above a set point, about once a day, at minimum dose. Since we have private insurance, all the pills not given at the nursing home were sent home with us. Still working on that supply, except for the ACE inhibitor. The renewal capabilities were to run out within a week, so I ordered another bottle of 90. Cut in half, 180 days. We have enough pills until the end of the year. Or when we can get her out, whichever comes first. A leg brace and some therapists are supposedly on the way. Tentacles crossed.
Tentacles crossed, Nerd.
Surfing doesn’t get much mention in these parts, but I really think this is worthy of at least a little attention, and I’m not really active anywhere else, so…
The Aussies have all probably seen this on the news or in the sports section, but for everyone else, Sally Fitzgibbons just dominated the Fiji Pro in sizable surf at Cloudbreak, Tavarua. With a perforated eardrum! Balance? Pfft, who needs balance to control a floating object on a constantly moving surface? Head-splitting pain? It’s not like you need to concentrate when navigating a double-overhead wave in a foot of water over razor sharp coral.
Anyway, there’s a slideshow here, and you can use the heat analyzer at the official event site to skip around all the heats (and the sub-par commentary) and just watch the rides. Lots of great performances during the event, not just Sally. Tatiana Weston-Webb (IMHO) really stood out in the early rounds. Not the greatest style, but she just charged. It’s great to see the women in quality waves the last few years, surfing mostly the same spots as the men’s tour. (Demand Teahupoo and Pipeline events, ladies!)
The men’s event waiting period starts tomorrow (today? Damn International Date Line) Swell forecast looks lackluster for the first week. I expect lay days. Might even be like last year, where the women score way better surf than the men. Just google WSL Fiji Pro if interested.
Ok, I’ll stop.
I was in Fiji for four months in 1980.
It was nice.
and Fiji Bitter is a dam’ fine beer.
@ Chigau: Lucky, lucky, lucky. Fiji is at the top of my bucket list of destinations, battling for #1 with Tahiti. 4 Month vacation? Or a lucky job assignment?
BTW, for a glimpse of what kind of waves that break (from my above post) is capable of, skip to 2:30 of this video or just look at this one photo. That board is 8’6″.
And may I just say that a fellow Lithuanian-American, Dane Gudauskas, had the drop of the day on that 2013 swell with an absolutely insane free-fall take-off on a monster. (He got destroyed shortly thereafter and ended up being bounced/dragged across 50 yds of dry reef. They never found his board. But the drop-in was EPIC!)
OK, really, I’m stopping. I swear. I’ll go catch up on Orphan Black and leave you folks alone. Just been out of the water too long and no one else to talk to.
And beer.
Ragutis
Those waves…! I can’t figure out if surfers are brave or stupid, but that’s definitely talent (and a lot of hard work, obviously!). Wow! I don’t mind listening more, if you want to keep talking about it. :D
And… uh hey, we, uh, have… uh, surfing too, you know. ;)
Hello.
Sirens are meant for wars and floods and earthquakes. I hate that so many cities sound the siren at noon , whether just on weekends or every day.
It’s so you don’t miss lunch, Beatrice. :P
Blistering article about the Red Cross. Apparently they received around half a billion dollars in donations to help Haiti rebuild after their earthquake in 2011, but four years later they haven’t accomplished much.
Tony @94, what is it with Republicans and drug lords? Mitt Romney had iffy connections to fundraising from South American drug lords.
Well, I guess I shouldn’t pose the question because it is obvious that the connection between Republicans an Columbia drug lords is money. Lots of money. From Tony’s link and from the text Tony excerpted:
Looks like the Foremost Maritime Corporation has lots of ships hauling cargo and cocaine. That’s good. Mitch McConnell will not lack for funds to back his anti marijuana campaigns. /sarcasm
A hypothetical for you to consider: if there were A Writer with decent academic skills, and that Writer were asked by An Academic to write a couple of articles to get published in decent journals, despite the Writer having no experience or training in that area of academe, it is quite apparent that the Academic is a dodgy character indeed, and is breaking all sorts of rules and ethics codes (and potentially risking their reputation, if the Writer is unable to do the job well enough; for the purposes of this hypothetical, assume the Writer is able, as these will be survey papers, using basic research and stats skills). “Decent journals” being the sort that get at least a B, if not an A, on the sort of journal lists which have become so important in the open access era.
Would the Writer also be behaving unethically?
It’s a grey area, for me, because the Writer isn’t bound by any particular ethics code in this instance, being in no manner an active academic for more than 20 years. But in an overall moral sense, would this be an immoral act by the Writer?
Bonus question: does it matter if the Writer is poor enough to envy those spendthrift snooty bastards, the church mice? Is it at least grey enough for that? Because as you might expect, it’s well remunerated, and my friend could really use having got a bob or two to spare.
I’m asking for (ahem) a friend, you see. *shifty eyes*
CaitieCat
I would suggest that a person should require payment up front.
In cash.
Assume the Writer, who might be a grandparent of some sort, already knows how to suck eggs. :)
;)
If Dodgy Academic is to be the “Author” of the papers, with no credit/blame to the Writer,
it sounds like business as usual in some circles of academia.
CaitieCat,
Ethically and morally grey area, certainly. Well, the action would kinda be a bit immoral, I think. But enough for the Writer to discard the idea? NO. I realize it’s really convenient to have moral principles that go pooof when needed, but principles don’t feed you or pay the phone bill.
I’d advise the Writer to consider whether their conscience would burden them too heavily with guilt. If not, I’d tell them to go for it, all things considered.
The governor of Florida, Rick Scott, gave a bunch of land and a bunch of get-out-of-EPA-regulations-free cards to the Koch brothers. Scott arranged it so that the Koch brothers can freely pollute a river, for example.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/04/1361864/-EXCLUSIVE-Koch-Brothers-Rick-Scott-And-Jeb-Bush-Exposed-In-Florida-Pipeline-Scandal
The petition that this affront prompted is gaining support. If you don’t want to sign the petition, you may want to re-post the information so that the public becomes aware of this collusion-to-pollute agreement between the Koch brothers and state government.
https://www.change.org/p/demand-federal-criminal-investigation-of-rick-scott-s-land-give-away-to-koch-brothers
CaitieCat,
It is difficult to be a moral person in an amoral universe. A universe in which the moral person has to live and with any luck, thrive.
This factor I believe defines the action as strictly a business transaction. If however, Dodgy Academic requires the signing of some sort of confidentiality agreement, that again makes the area a bit more grey. But ghost writers do this every day of the week.
Bottom line, all ethics are situational, unfortunately. If I were The Writer, I’d take the job.
Some good news, and some iffy news, from the state of Virginia. Republicans there have been trying for some time to weaken the effect of votes that come in from districts likely to vote for Democratic candidates; and they’ve been working hard to strengthen the effect of votes that come in from conservative-dominated districts.
The court has been trying to stop them.
Link
Mitch McConnell’s refusal to confirm a lot of Obama’s court appointees may effect these kinds of decisions at the state level. It’s an iffy situation, with Republicans refusing to give up on their voter-restriction tactics, leaving the courts as a last resort for a solution.
Remember when Pakistani officials said that 10 men accused of planning the 2012 shooting of Malala Yousafzai had each been sentenced to 25 years in jail? It turns out that eight of those men had been freed at the time.
Link
The men were released for “lack of evidence” according to a Pakistani police chief.
The trial was secretive, and trial records are mostly secret. This opaque and confusing system means that the public has no way of knowing if the men who are in jail were the only ones involved.
J. Michael Straczynski hopes ‘Sense8’ is sci-fi tvs ‘Hill Street Blues moment’:
He goes on to talk about his long friendship with the Wachowski’s and later, his desire to push sci-fi themed tv shows in a new direction.
Oh dear me. That last paragraph is likely to cause distress to a great many sad, rabid puppies.
Leonard Nimoy has an asteroid named after him.
Yi qi, camera-trap style.
Changing your name is easier and cheaper in the UK than changing an erroneous reservation with Ryanair.
“Putin’s bizarre FIFA comments reveal his greatest fear“, which is America bringing democracy to his country.
“Jon Stewart has some questions about the FIFA investigation — like what took so !#&%@ long“. After all, it started Jennifer Lawrence ago.
“The Scariest Trade Deal Nobody’s Talking About Just Suffered a Big Leak”
“The Obama administration’s desire for ‘fast track’ trade authority is not limited to passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In fact, that may be the least important of three deals currently under negotiation by the U.S. Trade Representative. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bind the two biggest economies in the world, the United States and the European Union. And the largest agreement is also the least heralded: the 51-nation Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA).
On Wednesday, WikiLeaks brought this agreement into the spotlight by releasing 17 key TiSA-related documents, including 11 full chapters under negotiation. Though the outline for this agreement has been in place for nearly a year, these documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, an example of the secrecy surrounding the agreement, which outstrips even the TPP.”
Priceless. :-)
Wait, what?
Thought so. :-( I’ve been completely unable to keep up with your enormous documentary effort.
Hi, I’m here, just tired and depressed, and Aged Mum is running me ragged. I’ve filled up the basket of hugs, help yourselves.
I haven’t been able to chew for a few days, so I’m ready to kill for solid food. Soup just isn’t enough.
But I can hear out of my left ear again, even if there is a lot of ringing still.
New evidence emerges on the origins of life http://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html
Caitiecat #110
I’d say only if they were also an author on that manuscript.
If they write for the monney, and since it does not result in someone else’s death.
If they feel compelled that the resulting paper will be so poor, they can agree with the Academic that the contract only involves getting to the first draft, so that Academic be responsible for the results after first draft (manuscript can still be rejected during review if the science is too poorly executed).
If Writer has some reason to suspect that the science behind is actually a fraud at some point (it should be more then feelings, guesses or intuites), they can withdraw. Anyhow the responsability is always on the PI’s shoulder if there is an actual issue in the case discussed. In known fraud cases in science, often most peopple involved in the study are free from any responsability, depending from the share of work implied and how things happened to occur.
Don’t know if that helps. If they write, need monney, and get paid for that I wouldn’t mind if they do it.
Interesting; I’ll have to read the two papers to which this links.
*popcorn*
“Blatter Knew Of Bribery Plan, Dossier Reveals” – “Documents obtained by Sky News reveal evidence given by the FIFA boss to a secret hearing into alleged kickbacks.”
I find this a clear case: neither the Academic nor the Writer would be behaving unethically if the Writer’s contribution is properly acknowledged in the Acknowledgments, name and all.
I’ve read that some very large labs employ Technical Writers who write the papers, so that the people who do the research and the people who turn the research into papers are not the same. This is all fine as long as it’s properly documented in the paper itself who has done what.
50 years ago, incidentally, it was common for scientists to thank their secretaries in the acknowledgments for typing the whole thing.
Jennifer Lopez “tarnished women’s honor and respect”
Thanks for the responses, folks, I’ll pass them on to my friend, and I feel certain my friend will be grateful.
Here’s one for PZ-
Incredible octopus behavior nearly caused scientist to drown from laughing.
I went to a Lithuanian boarding school in Germany back in the 80’s.* We took a trip to Lithuania and when we got to Klaipėda, despite it being early March and with snow lingering in shaded spots, I had been out of the water for just too long and had to jump in the Baltic. In trunks. I jumped out so fast, I’m still not entirely sure how I managed to get wet.** As a Florida boy, with the nice, warm Gulf Stream a mile or so offshore, I just couldn’t imagine they made neoprene thick enough to make that bearable. Apparently wetsuit technology and materials have improved, because there’s now legit surf scenes in places like Iceland, Siberia, Nova Scotia, and Alaska. I’ve got a mag lying around somewhere from a year or two ago, and I don’t remember where the trip was to, but the pictures were insane. Snow covered mountains coming straight down to the water, beach covered in snow and washed up icebergs, and perfect waves that looked like they had just been poured out of a 7-11 Slushie machine.
And since this post is already certain to be stuck in moderation, what’s one more link? Or two.
OK, three. Sorry.
Not as cold, but still not places you’d expect surfers:
Munich!
Wyoming!
Hangzhou!
* There was a Latvian school there somewhere too. They visited us a couple of times. It was cool yet annoying to hear each other talking our respective languages. You could almost but never quite understand what the other was saying.
** Found amber on the beach though. Got a film canister full of peppercorn sized pebbles of it.
*creeps out of hidey-hole*
I offer my apologies to everyone.
*creeps back into hidey-hole*
Ragutis
Surfing in Siberia? Whoa. Yeah, that puts surfing in the Baltic to shame, definitely! How thick is the neoprene over there? :D
This. It’s like listening to someone speaking Flemish – the rhythm is like English, but dangit, they’re using the wrong words! In my case, Lithuanian sounds like Latvian with extra syllables and some really odd pronunciations (vowel shifts and substituted consonants, I guess – I don’t remember the technical terms).
And I haven’t yet managed to find any amber on the beach (I think I go to the wrong beaches). :( One day! (I did find some human teeth at the riverside once, though…)
CaitieCat – if the scientist does the initial writeup (as bad as it may be) for the Writer to start with, then a sentence in the acknowledgments that says “The author would like to thank Writer for substantial assistance in composition and editing”, that to me would do a good job of addressing any ethical issues. Lots of people get assistance in writing papers from a technical perspective, especially if they’re writing in an unfamiliar language or whatnot. It’s only shady if they pretend it was all them.
Hello, all. Truly threadrupt.
I had an upper molar develop and abscess. Which pushed the tooth into greater occlusion. Which shattered the tooth and left an exposed nerve. Tooth will be removed on Wednesday. Not having fun.
On the plus side, the heavy-duty painkillers have pretty much negated remembered dreams, so I guess that is something.
Oggie
I had a molar pulled last year. My first extraction in about 40 years.
Filling out the paperwork took longer than the extraction.
It was soooo easy compared to 40 years ago.
Good luck with yours.
and yay for unremembered dreams
I broke a molar last year and had to have it pulled. The extraction was no big deal, but after the site was all healed, chewing on that side was badly impaired.
So I got an implant to fill the gap. It was a 4-step process that took several (3?) months to put a new, working tooth in place. It’s been almost a year now, and I am happy to report I cannot distinguish the implant from a natural tooth by look or feel. I have to tap each tooth in that area with a tooth brush handle to tell which one it is.
The implant was expensive but worth it. I would do it again without hesitation. Highly recommended.
“Loose Canon“:
“I was idly looking through some junk files on my oldest backup CD one day, and would you believe it turned out to include an archive salvaged from an antique hard drive somebody rescued from a skip in the mid‐nineties? And lost amongst the OS/2 .INI files, an item that looks as if it started out as a scan of a (mostly) typewritten text, a long time ago.”
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away – it’s from 1979, and it’s an unpublished review of the first Star Wars film with modern comments on continuity, retcons and originally unplanned plot twists. Everything drips with sarcasm, starting with the tiny print at the very top of the long, long page.
:-S :-S :-S :-S :-S
I’ll second the implant if you need to cover the gap. I call mine my titanium fang, even though only the post is titanium. The tooth is porcelain like most crowns.
Hello everybody
I’m back from my friends* only weekend, which was wonderful as always.
Although.
Although…
Sometimes…
…when the conversation turns to soemwhat political stuff…
…I notice that I no longer fit with society…
We had the “if I pay for all the things wellfare recipients don’t have, like a car and a decent sized flat anda pension fund, I hardly have 100 bucks more than a wellfare recipent. I am also really ignorant on how much they actually get” conversation and the “The German N-word is not a slur, only the English N-word is” conversation. To the first I supplied some facts, to the second I simply supplied the question how many black people the perso actually knew and how many she’d asked for their opinion on that…
+++
Okidemia
Yes, I think I’m good
+++
Oggie
I had this molar. It was giving me lots of trouble including an emergency visit to the dentist at the weekend. Until it got removed. Then everything was fine…
Crap!
Of all the times for our internet connection to be messed up, it has to be now-when I am job searching. Just found a bartending position available on one of the military installations here. It pays $9.16/hour plus tips *and* benefits. <—–I could really use benefits seeing as I have not had health insurance since I lived with my parents. Problem is, I cant fill out an application on my cell phone!
Fuck!
Not that $9.16 is anything great mind you…
Tony,
Any nice neighbors?
Just so that you can fill in that one application at least.
Ugh, Ogvorbis – much sympathy. Wishing you good drugs, no pain and prompt treatment.
Tony!
Does your public library have internet stations?
Oh, I happily concede that Neger isn’t equivalent to “nigger”, but instead to “negro”.
The trick is that such a term still has Unfortunate Implications. It sounds like you’re talking about another species. I strongly suspect that’s exactly why negro has vanished from mainstream English discourse and been replaced by adjectives (black, African-American).
David
Yes, I agree that the German N-word is not quite as bad as the English one. It’s still a slur. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t had the discussions about removing it from older children’S books and movies for that very reason. The N-word implies less than human, less than us.
David Marjanović @ #140, thanks for the link. I read the Star Wars page and bookmarked the site. :)
Tony!, is there anyone who could fill out that application for you while you coach them by phone? It isn’t fun, but I managed it once.
Thanks for the commiserations on the tooth.
What will most likely happen is that I will, eventually, just have all my uppers removed and get a full upper plate. Then, when I can afford it, I’ll go with implants. All my upper teeth are crap. My lower teeth, though, have had one cavity in my entire life.
*victory lap*
I just scored the holy grail of trash day finds!
We have a weird crappy house wherein everything is a non-standard size, including the doors. Our bathroom door has needed replacement for at least 6 years now because the veneer front piece is separating off and makes it hard to close, and we can’t really nail it back down well. But it’s 23 3/4 inches wide. Yeah. Not going to find those anywhere. So every year we watch for renovation leftovers on the annual “the town will pick up anything” trash day, and finally, found one! I was going to the store and saw someone laying out doors, drove right back home and grabbed Spouse and the big car, drove back, and sure enough one of the doors was the right size. The owner came out and we chatted a bit about how rotten the door situation was (they had just replaced all of the doors in the house), and he said they ended up ripping out the entire door fame and then had just enough room to mount a door without it. (more carpentry than I could deal with) He was happy to see the doors going to good use, and now we have a replacement door for the bathroom for when we get around to it. :) Dropped the door off at home, went right to the store, and on the way noticed that someone else was already there measuring the doors that were left and taking most of them. But we got one! *happy dance*
carlie that’s brilliant :-)
Damnit for an hour or so ago; I was just posting to wish Tony! luck getting online for that application (and wondering if there was a cybercafé anywhere near) when my computer got mild indigestion (and then I got called for supper; it’s evening here).
Hoping you could/can do the application, Tony!
Great scavenging. Our house isn’t the modern dimensions either, so I feel your pain. I would join in the happy dance, but don’t want to cause an earthquake here in Chiwaukee, so will settle for tapping my feet.
LOL, I’ve had days where I’ve done the slinky-fall or just slid right out of my chair. I’ve also had days where I’m so spastic I end up launching myself, sans chair, a good few feet across the room.
I like this image.
THIS. This, this, this, this, this, so much this.
YES! My wheels are my freedom, man. They allow me to get out and do instead of sit here and just be. (Although it’s nice, sometimes, to just sit and be.)
In German you’re a “wheelchair driver”, so you’re the one doing stuff and being in control
Giliell — That gives a whole new meaning to one of my favorite bumper stickers: “If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk!”
I’ve heard (apocryphal) stories of people actually getting a DUI citation for drunken/drugged wheeling. I’ve also heard you can get a DUI for driving while on certain allergy medications.
@WMDKitty:
Motor Vehicle is statutorily defined. Usually it’s written a way that unambiguously excludes wheelchairs, but jurisdictions vary in the competence of the lawyer who happened to be employed to write such definitions the day the state needed one. It’s likely that even if such a mistake were made in your jurisdiction, the definition has since been fixed. Not guaranteed, of course, because it’s the law, but very likely.
If I had to look into such issues as a defense lawyer (or assistant to the defense) for someone actually arrested for driving a wheelchair while impaired, AND if there were precedent acknowledging the interpretation that makes a wheelchair (or some wheelchairs, for instance self-powered but not muscle-powered wheelchairs) a motor vehicle in that jurisdiction, me I’d go right to reasonable accommodation case law and then to 14th amendment case law.
The same people that are most likely to need self-powered wheelchairs are vastly more likely to need to use drugs as a normal part of medical treatment that have intoxicating, mind-influencing side-effects. That would be just **ripe** for challenge under various state and federal laws and under at least the 14th’s equal protection provision, if not other state and federal constitutional bases.
Speaking of classifying motor vehicles, there’s actually a famous* case arising in the US midwest about the definition of a motor vehicle. This was the 1920s or 1930s, I forget, but quite a long time ago. A small airplane was stolen (originally in Illinois? I think?) and transported across state lines. Federal prosecutors attempted to charge the villain with a statute that prohibited a motor vehicle from being transported across state lines without the knowledge and permission of the owner. It had another clause that applied the same prohibition to a class of vehicles whose name in the statute I’m going to forget, but it was something like “blue water vessel”.
The upshot is that the feds argued that the plane was actually a car, and that when it wasn’t a car, it was actually a boat.
The lesson my professor intended for me as a law student was that you can’t use outside-of-law thinking when examining statutes. “Motor vehicle” may have intended only to define “cars” but if the definition applies to a plane, then it applies to a plane. Likewise with the definition of a boat. A plane can be a boat in the law, even when it can’t be one in everyday usage.
I don’t know why I’m talking about this. I just half-remember the case and find it very funny. Wasn’t so funny for the villain, though. On appeal, IIRC, the plane **was** found to be a car, and the villain was thus potentially liable under the statute. I never bothered to find out what actually happened to the villain though.
==================================
*for certain law-school values of “famous”
Damn. Raif Badawis conviction has been upheld.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33039815?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central&post_id=10206814370498811_10206814370458810
Hello Horde! I’m so ‘rupt I don’t even know when the last time I caught up was. I just wanted to pop in and say thanks again to your collective awesomeness for helping me with some tough shit when I really needed it. I wouldn’t be where I was, or doing what I am doing if it weren’t for the encouragement, advice and empathy that you all gave me in a time of need. I hope everyone is well, and if you aren’t, I’d love to know how I can help. Proceed with you awesomeness.
*your
your awesomeness
@Tony!, 161:
That’s fucking terrible.
Mayflies don’t live to see the sunset and other melancholy animal problems.
MOrning!
I haz daycare. I can work two “shifts*” on my thesis!
*I don’t know how you roll, but after 3 hours of writing or so I need a break and until now after that break I had to pick up the kiddies again.
A glimpse into history! (1917 schools, to be precise.)
I know! What’s next, surfing in Wales?
No, seriously, they’re building a surf park in Snowdonia. Opens in August.
The pros seem pretty keen on it. Here’s a bunch of the guys from the world tour, mixed with some kids (seriously, how cute are those kids? And Kai rips!)
The ladies seem pretty stoked.
And that’s the prototype. The one they’re building should offer head-high/slightly overhead waves. Supposedly there’s plans for one in Texas. (Those poor wave-starved bastards deserve it, and that’s coming from someone stuck in Tampa. They surf oil tanker wakes, FFS.)
I have to admit to mixed emotions about the concept of man-made waves, but I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t be fiddling and scrimping to find $50 or $75 for a couple of hours session every weekend if they built one of those here. Ramen and some fruit? I’m good. Got some peppers growing out front, too. Fuck Publix, I wanna surf.
Surfing in Siberia?
Sweet! Hadn’t heard of them before. Thanks!
What is up with airlines lately?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/07/wheelchair-bound-woman-sues-american-airlines-after-she-was-forced-to-crawl-onto-plane-video/
That is so humiliating. And AA wont compensate her either!
Good thing Gandalf and Aragorn never tried this when climbing Mt Carhadras
”Tourist’s naked photo shoot atop Malaysian peak blamed for major earthquake as locals claim nudity angered ‘mountain spirits’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3112288/Tourists-naked-photo-shoot-atop-Malaysian-peak-blamed-major-earthquake-locals-claim-nudity-angered-mountain-spirits.html
— — — — — —
The Conservative Attack on Big Business http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/the_conservative_attack_on_big_business_republican_presidential_candidates.single.html
They really have to twist themselves into pretzels.
— — — — —
Here are 10 things I learned about the world from Ayn Rand’s insane ‘Atlas Shrugged’ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/here-are-10-things-i-learned-about-the-world-from-ayn-rands-insane-atlas-shrugged/ Yeah, smoking is good for you.
Bad guys are always evil-looking. sexual relationships with assholes are great.
Source of Antarcticas ‘Blood Falls’ discovered .
Whoa. Check out this snail.
FTA
Lazy bastard has strong opinions about women’s football http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/sport/sport-headlines/lazy-bastard-has-strong-opinions-about-womens-football-2015060899013
Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk- #143
Oops, sorry. I’ve lost track of the current discussions (that would include RL ones) and I am terribly confused (actually for all the meanings of the word).
.
Else how are germinaties doing?
(Same applies to CD: did you receive the seeds yet?)
.
I hate it when burnout feelings start before the storm has even begun.
I’m sorry, Okidemia, I’ve not yet gotten the seeds.
Canadian customs can actually be pretty slow, so I assume that’s the issue.
I will let you know how things are going as soon as I have news.
[YouTube video] oh my goodness…
He’s making it look easy but I bet it would be incredibly hard to get right for an untrained person. But I so want to make that!
Okidemia
I understood your encription
Infodump:
Mercury sole survivor of close orbiting planets http://phys.org/news/2015-06-mercury-sole-survivor-orbiting-planets.html
Bad memes are dangerous: “ Anti-vaccine moms may not be reachable or teachable: researchers”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/anti-vaxx-moms-may-not-be-reachable-or-teachable-researchers/
-Life tip: Anything can be charming with the right choice of words http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3760
Should I know you? http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/3375.html
Before I have cake, I have to eat my lasagna. Now, this may sound like cruel and unusual punishment, but I made that lasagna and it has mushrooms and spinach and five different cheeses and the red pasta sauce is homemade, too, with fresh tomatoes. So I think the cake can wait.
rq, that lasagna might be better than cake (although it depends on the cake, of course). Mushrooms and spinach and cheese, oh yum!
I was terribly disappointed in being unable to have lasagna when I went vegan.
What, after all, can you possibly use to replace ricotta?
This:
Tofu, 3 parts firm 1 part soft, or just use “medium” if you can get it.
Garlic
Nutmeg
Salt
Black pepper
Small amount of dried & roasted sea vegetable, like nori.
Your favorite fake cheese.
The firmer tofu crumbles, but the softer bits and fake cheese melt all together. use the nutmeg sparingly and the garlic generously. The nori is to add just a bit of umami flavor that natural cheese has but tofu cheese doesn’t. It sounds weird, but your crushing up and adding a relatively small amount (I usually add 1 thin sheet, cut down to about as much as would cover 1/2 a package of tofu for each package of tofu (about 350 grams/12 oz) used. The nori will entirely disappear into the ricotta as if melting.
Nutmeg is optional. I didn’t used to use it, then one day got inspired and threw it in. Used sparingly it adds something delicious, but you shouldn’t taste the ricotta and say, “oh, nutmeg!”
Salt and black pepper are to taste. More salt and very minimal black pepper creates a more traditional taste for the ricotta, but if you’re having a meatless lasagna more black pepper and less salt will create a better balance and a better over all flavor of the entire dish **after** the ricotta is integrated into the lasagna and baked. As a stand-alone, it tastes less like ricotta to have less salt and more pepper. But don’t worry about that if you like the final lasagna product.
Husband’s in hospital recovering after mild heart attack. Stable and alert and all that. I really would prefer if in the future he had his health crises in the day, though, and not covering ten o’clock pm to five o’clock am. Hospitals are kind of spooky in the wee hours. Took him his laptop, change of socks and small emergency teddy bear this morning.
ledasmom
Glad everything is relatively OK.
ledasmom
Ouch!
Here’S to a speedy recovery
+++
re: tofu
I get headaches from tofu. No joke.
ledasmom
Oy, hope recovery goes swiftly and smoothly!! *hugs* if wanted!
Giliell
Allergic to soy?
Also, shape-shifting frog. Except it’s not really shape-shifting, it’s just altering the texture of its skin. Which is still pretty darn cool.
Watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Germany looks awesome, no surprise there. Canada squeaked a win in their first game against China, and should get through the group, but they’ll have to raise their game drastically against the likes of Germany, Japan, France, USA, etc. in later knockout play. The defensive lapses look fixable, but the midfield was sloppy and lethargic. Go Canada Go!
Guess what?
I haz a job!!!!
Just had my second interview and it went swimmingly. I knew the manager who interviewed me. She and I actually met a decade ago when I was dating a former roommate of hers. This prior bond broke so much ice between us that she said ‘You’re hired.’ Followed by ‘I want you to be the head bartender’.
Tony!
*happy dance*
Tony!,
Happy dance!!! Congrats on new job. Yea!
Tony
Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
I’m so glad.
I hope that this place will really be the place for you.
Yay! Tony!
Wow, great news Tony. Hope you get to stay there for a while.
Tony!, I’m relieved and happy.
@ledasmom:
Good luck and health to you & the spouse-being.
Thanks for putting a big smile on my face, Tony, I’m so glad for you!
YAY TONY!!! No, I’m not sorry for yelling, I think I’m entitled to some YELLING ON TONY’S BEHALF!!! :D :D :D :D :D
Tony! That’s great!
ledasmom, hugs for you and crossed tentacles for the speedy recovery of your spouse.
All good wishes for a speedy spouse-recovery, ledasmom – hope he’s comfortable and getting excellent care (as well as the teddybear, of course).
And YAY Tony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s such great news! :-)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
I return triumphant from a long weekend away, bearing witness to the union of two lovely people. It was a delightful low-key affair. We played games (Cards Against Humanity, Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, and a few others), had a grilled cheese bar (this is a thing, and it is amazing), watched Jupiter Ascending (with lots of snark) and Eurovision (with lots of snark), and ate dim sum. At some point, we also stood around and applauded.
So, um, what have I missed in the past few days? Apparently Thunderdome exploded?
Thanks for all the well wishes folks. It means a lot.
****
Esteleth @201:
Glad you had a wonderful time!
And yeah, Tdome exploded. So bad that PZ shut it down for a little while.
The woodwork in the T-dome will never bt the same.
teCongratulations on the job, Tony. I wish you the best.
Tony!, maybe you will get full-time hours. And a regular shift. And maybe it is closer to your home. I hope.
Tony!
Conga-Rats, Shoop! I am so very happy and relieved for you.
*Kermit Arms* YAAAAAAAAYYY!!!
Morgan:
I am definitely getting full time hours. Their head bartender is leaving soon and the manager told me she is giving me his shifts (in fact, I think he will be training me). Which are the best ones according to her.
The restaurant is in downtown Pensacola on the water right next to a marina. It has lovely outdoor seating and a great atmosphere. Here is their site for anyone curious-
http://www.jacosbayfrontbarandgrille.com/
ledasmom
Thinking of a speedy recovery for your hubby. And you get some rest, too.
Tony!
Hooray!!
Thank you for making my day with your good news.
Tony!
YAY!
ledasmom
*hugs* and best wishes.
Congrats, Tony!
ledasmom – Hope everything works out alright.
ledasmom — Oh, no! Here’s to a speedy recovery for your husband!
A little weirdness here at Casa la Pelirroja. Got home from work, and heard a strange rumbling noise. It was coming from the dinning room window fan. Investigated. All the vanes had broken off the two little fans in the unit. We had severe weather move through this afternoon, and a gust must have done the deed, or set off the cascade. Had a replacement bidirectional fan upstairs, which was moved downstairs, and it is to be replaced by a unidirectional one in the garage.
ledasmom:
I hope your husband recovers swiftly.
****
Australian fathers hilarious responses to public school religious indoctrination. His sons school had put on an Easter play which barely hid their indoctrination attempts. The school sent a permission slip home & the father, being a comedian, responded to the schools chaplain. Quite entertaining.
Just as entertaining (in a different way)- Uwe Boll has a meltdown following multiple failed crowd funding attempts. For those that do not know Boll, he is often considered one of the-if not THE-worst film director.
Ledasmom, good to hear your husband is recovering. It’s always terrifying when your spouse has such health problems. A positive outlook and mutual laughing is very good.
Remember Ariel from Disney’s Little Mermaid? Ever wonder what she would look like if she were depicted more realistically (as real as a mermaid can be that is)?
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/heres-what-disney-princess-ariel-would-look-if-she-evolved-different-ocean
Tony!
I categorically disagree; merpeople only make any sense at all if they’re mammals, a contention supported by the universal depiction of a transverse tail, like cetaceans and pinnipeds, rather than a vertically oriented one as fish universally have. This is consistent with their mythic origins as well, given that the cultures that gave us the concept considered whales and dolphins to be a type of fish and would hence describe a humanoid cetacean as being part fish or fishlike. Given that, none of the depictions work at all, as they’re based on fish that are found in those regions. Look at what types of seals, dolphins, etc. an area supports instead.
Do mermaids gestate or lay eggs?
chigau — If we’re assuming mermaids have mammalian anatomy, I’d imagine they reproduce the same way every other mammal does. Though, uh, they’re no longer maids by that point, if you catch my drift.
chigau
Mermaids do neither, under normal circumstances. That said, gestation is the normal mode for mammals, even aquatic ones (I see no reason that Tsuriops Maunsi Sapiens* would be monotremes).
* Yes, I know my Latin’s atrocious.
WMDKitty
Yeah. Ariel does appear to have mammary … equipment.
But that may not preclude using other strategies for the actual … you know …
winkwinknudgenudge
.
I really ♥ the deep-sea Ariel at Tony!’s link.
Dalillama
Well done.
Tsuriops Maunsi Sapiens
completely stumped google, in all it’s manifestations.
chigau,
I just made it up about 30 seconds before I posted. I meant to write Tursiops Manusi Sapiens, though. Tursiops is from Pliny’s name for dolphins (apparently; it’s the name of the bottlenose genus), Manusi indicates hands (Manus in Latin. No idea what the right declension is,or if that’s even what I’m looking for ), and Sapiens, of course, implies sapience.
Dalillama
not to worry.
We are on the Internet.
Someone will be along shortly to point out all of our errors and provide corrections.
Dalillama
Actually, Arctic Ariel is based on the Beluga whale and open ocean Arial looks based on dolphins, so it’s not all fish.
That’s great Tony! Ledasmom, best wishes to you and spouse.
Words, intent, magic, absence thereof.
So kids being kids and me feeling frustrated, I wrote the following text message to Husband: “For your birthday [because it is], I’m gifting you three live kids.” With the intended meaning that, haha, I won’t be strangling anyone today, thank you, figuring he’d get the joke since it’s a mutually shared feeling from time-to-time.
About 20 minutes later he calls me: “WHAT HAPPENED?”
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“I JUST READ YOUR TEXT MESSAGE, WHAT HAPPENED?”
“…” *small voice* “It was a joke? [explanation]”
“OOooooooooooooooooooooooohhhh. I thought you guys got into an accident or something. You freaked me out.”
“Umm, sorry? Happy birthday?”
We’re going to make an awesome cake later. It’ll be good.
Jokes via text are always a minefield :-)
Wishing all concerned a very wonderful cake.
Congrats Tony!
@Okidemia:
I HAZ SEEDS! MANY SEEDS! U MAY NAO CALL ME SEEDY!!!!!!!!!!
This is great, Tony!
— — — — — — — — — —
Earth-like planets are more likely to orbit Sun-like stars than lower-mass stars
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-earth-like-planets-orbit-sun-like-stars.html
Excerpt: “ The simulations by Ida and Tian indicated that for 1000 stars of 0.3 solar masses there might be 69,000 orbiting planetary bodies, of which 5,000 had a similar mass to the Earth and 55 were in the habitable zone. Those in the habitable zone included 31 ocean planets. 23 dune planets and just 1 with Earth-like water content.
-For 1000 stars with half the mass of the Sun the simulation produced 75,000 planetary bodies, of which more than 9000 had Earth-like masses, and 292 were in the habitable zone: 60 ocean planets; 220 dune planets and 12 with Earth-like water content.
-Finally for 1000 simulated stars with a similar mass to the Sun, there were 38,000 planetary bodies, 8,000 with Earth-like masses and 407 in the inhabitable zone. Those in the habitable zone included 91 ocean planets and 45 dune planets, but 271 – the vast majority – had Earth-like water content.”
Crip Dyke, you are Hot Stuff Seedy!
Sorry, sorry, we’ve gone tropical* today, and I think my brain is melted.
*Remnants of the late hurricane Blanca. 70°, 74% rh, light rain, and it isn’t even 8AM.
I’ve found a thing that makes poverty trivially worse, temporarily: knowing you’re about to not be in as deep shit, but not knowing when. The anticipation of things like being able to get my phone working again, and being able to go see a movie or eat some fast food if I want to…I’ve literally had an entertainment budget of zero for two years, and it’s crazy boring AGONY to now have to wait an unspecified time to get the ball rolling. I’ve already done my work for the day, the crappy grey day’s light is rotten for painting what I’m working on, and I’m too broke to go anywhere, even a free place, because bus tickets are few and need to be saved for emergencies.
Gods, I’m probably going to be reduced to reading Salon soon.
@CaitieCat:
Dpeaking of money, you were going to put together some e-books?
Last I heard, you were going to contact me, so I’ve held off, but I need to get that going.
Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden #230
Very good!
Please Gilliel and Seedy, I know I’ve told you already, actually I’m a bit scared of what I did, for the Scotch Bonnet strains are potentially really really hot stuff. Please try them “cook” cautiously and what’s more please ensure no kid can assess them nor have teenager be doing an idiotic joke to their friends.
The first time I tried one, I could still drink seawater as if it was regular water thirty minutes after I ate it. And afterwards, I’ve never been able to feel slightly spicy pepper sauces so that my kids don’t trust me anymore as a “food spice control guard”.
(I really don’t want to be belittling, please just take it as me being overly cautious over mishaps, I would feel sorta responsible for bad happenstance).
CD:
While I’ve been providing Gilliel with each seed from a different “mother” plant, I’ve been organising your samples differently, with the aim of providing enough that you can share with other friends/acquaintances. Each sample has thus actually a single mother plant in a line (they are half brood), so that you may start germinations by chosing a single seed in each sample to increase potential genetic diversity.
I wish both of you a good time gardening and cooking soon, you’ll tell us how things are going. The peppers are also locally used with rhum as I remember telling Tony!, though I don’t know to what effect (probably quite cough-like thunder-storm, I used to have a special bottle that I kept for rooster friends and it lasted for years).
As for Hibiscus, I hope you will yield enough calyces to get that wonder drink. To learn about the different recipes available, google “karkadé”, “hibiscus tea”, or “bissap”. I lean toward a strong sweet cold prep, personally.
Please read “I hope you will harvest” instead of “you will yield“. I don’t know whether you would object to being compared to flowers, but this is a mistake of mine and it’s completely unintentional. I often change sentence constructs while I’m writing and sometimes this results in bad conflates as demonstrated in the previous comment.
And I’m too quick to hit the submit button. Of course, I apologise for the mistake.
First case of diphtheria in Spain in 28 years. Good work, anti-vaxxers!
@Okidemia:
Oh, I don’t mind the warning. My first exposure to Scotch Bonnets was at a hippie food store. They said “hot peppers”. I said, “yay”.
Because they were hot, I only put one (1) in my omelet.
Ouch.
=====
It would be fun to yield flowers and fruits, but, a lass! So I think I will have to settle for harvesting.
Congratulations, Tony!
Congratulations Tony!
If you have any spare fortune I could use it in my continuing employment problems.
I’m going to brag a bit.
My daughter’s 6th grade Move-Up Day was today. She got an award certificate for getting a 4.0 Grade Point Average for the 4th marking period. Then she got an award certificate for getting a 4.0 GPA in science for the whole year. Then one for 4.0 in social studies. Then one for 4.0 in communications. Then one for a 4.0 in math. In the school district’s Gifted program. For the whole year. Straight A’s while doing work above (or maybe it is more accurate to say more in depth at) her grade level.
She also got a President’s Education Award complete with a certificate from the Secretary of Education and a letter with stamped autograph from the President.
And she did all this without us having to push her. She wasn’t the only one who got all the good grade awards, and I don’t know how many of the kids in her gifted class did it – at least one got straight A’s for the year in math with her, and another one or two in social studies. There were a dozen to a score of students from the regular? non-gifted? program that also did it.
Now we get to move on the challenge of middle school (7th grade, or 13 year old level so those without knowledge of USAn schools have an idea of what I’m talking about).
ajb47:
That’s not near enough bragging.
Do it again, within your spawn’s earshot.
Then do it the next time you have friends over.
As a parent, we much tell our children “no” daily. We critique behavior constantly. Praise your spawn for other things too, so that they know you care about **them** and not just grades. But never give up an opportunity to praise a kid for good reason.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there is no problem in this world faced by any nation, culture, or society that would be solved if only there were a bit less love in the world.
How to Tell the Difference Between an Open-Carry Patriot and a Deranged Killer
My tomato plants are showing little green orbs, I helped a firefly yesterday, my debit card has money on it, I got an e-mail from a job prospect, and my moniker means “making chili paste – enemy of the people”.
ajb47 – :-)))))))))) That’s one hell of a lot of well-directed effort, that is! Good for her.
Menyambal – враг народа
Sounds like you’re having a good day :)
Did anyone watch and/or have comments on that new ABCFamily show “Becoming Us”, about the two families with transgender parents? I saw it because it was on right after The Fosters last night.
Congratulations Tony!
So, I thought I’d let you all know that my daughter got straight A’s all through her sixth grade year of school. From what they said, she got a 4.0 for the whole year. As far as I can tell, though I never really understood the whole GPA thing, that means that every grade she got for every test, every assignment, every project, was (or is it that they worked out to) an A, or above a 90.
Did I mention that this was in the school district’s Gifted program? Yeah, that’s right. She learned the regular stuff fast enough and well enough that they knew she would need instruction in extra topics to keep her interested, and she showed she was self-motivated enough to handle that during the screening process. There were two or three times where she needed some help with her math homework, so I tried to explain the steps for one and she went and did the rest herself each time.
So, to sum up, my daughter carried a 4.0 all through her 6th grade year.
Crip Dyke – better bragging?
ajb47 @250:
Woo hoo! That is awesome! I am elated for your daughter and you definitely have bragging rights.
****
Why oh why am I wasting my time (on FB) trying to explain the difficulties many women in the US have trying to acquire contraception? A friend of a friend basically said that bc acquiring birth control was easy for her and her daughter that she cannot understand what prevents other women from obtaining birth control. I have not mentioned the dreaded ‘P’ word (privilege) yet, but I am close. As if one womans relative easy access to birth control applies to all other women. And she claimed to read a link I provided which listed various obstacles women face! Head. Desk.
Yay AJB Spawn
Well done, well done indeed
Tony
Some people’s ignorance is only matched by their confidence…
+++
Yesterday , the world tried to fuck with me. I had my one college class, which is always just before I have to work, so I had to organise that my in laws would pick up the kiddies. As I was working at the computer I glanced at the laptop watch and it said 10 past three. I thought “hey, I still got 20 minutes” and kept working. When I looked again about 20 minutes later it still said 10 past three and I said FUCK, because it was 10 to 4 and I had to be in college at quarter past and it’s a 30-40 minutes trip. I made it almost in time to find out that the class was cancelled and I hadn’T gotten the email….
So a couple months ago I got a box turtle. I’m pretty sure I mentioned Beret at least in passing. And because I’m tired, and because I’m happy for him, I am sharing updates on him all over the place. Because. For Reasons.
Basic recap: box turtle abandoned in front of my work with totally jacked up rear leg, pondering amputation due to severe swelling and him unable to use it, but there is possibility of kidney tumor. Turtle is between 50 and 70 years old.
We went to the vet today aaaaand….
The Good: Beret is walking on his affected limb and can completely retract it into his shell now! There is no more edema. This means it’s not a kidney tumor! And there’s a *very* good chance he gets to keep his leg!
The Bad: There’s a decent chunk of dead tissue and muscle on the lateral aspect of his leg. It’s not infected and the tissue around it seems to be attempting to heal/is healing quite well, and the area seems fairly shallow. He may lose a toe however.
The My Turtle Is Now Become Immortal That He May Hate Me For All Eternity: Because I’m trying a conservative treatment (considering how well he’s been healing up to this point) it means that I can no longer keep Beret outside in his enclosure that he loves so much. No, instead of nice damp eco-earth to dig in, and strawberries and ferns to hide under… he gets a dry towel in a glass tank with his soaking dish. We’re going to be soaking his leg daily in saline or epsom salts and applying SSD ointment and I’ll be ‘picking’ at the dead tissue gently to help debride it. I’m sure you can imagine how utterly *thrilled* Beret is with this.
Maybe he’ll forgive me when he finally gets to go outside again and will have new, sturdier ferns to hide under?
No, you’re right. He’ll never forgive me, for he is the Turtle That Hates.
And because it deserves its own reply…
WOOHOO to the Spawn of ajb47! You rock! You’re amazing and I’m quite pleasantly jealous of you!
Congrats to Tony! . When do you start your job? Soon I hope!
Very well done to ajb47’s spawn. I never understand the USA school system, but I can comprehend that she has done excellently!
I’m sure Beret the Box Turtle will appreciate your efforts in the long run Rowan vet-tech . I’m always impressed with the stirling work you do with your animals.
Giliell I feel you pain!
I wanna go to Billy Idol’s concert, but I have no one to go with.
@Beatrice:
Get wild: go dancing with yourself.
:D
Beatrice
I’d go with you. When is it?
ajb47
WOW! And many, many, many congrats to your spawn, and also a leetle bit to you and Spouse for raising such a determined, self-motivating young person!! I hope her success continues into the future, and I. am. impressed. Whew! *confetti*
Giliell
Well, at least you weren’t missing class…………….. :P
Rowan
Do turtles have long memories? I only ask because once it is out amongst the ferns again, and with a little extra bribery of turtle-yummies, Beret might be willing to forgive and forget. Especially since he’ll most likely have a working leg again, and that is too priceless a thing for him to NOT forgive!
Also, I admire your courage and determination in dealing with all these ill animals. It seems to take so much out of you emotionally sometimes, and yet you never seem to hesitate to take on the next one. You, my internet-Lounge-friend, are a champion, and I have great respect for you.
Hullo, bassmike!
rq,
13 July
Scheduling concerts on a Monday is cruel, but there it is.
Hi rq ! I hope hubby had a good birthday and that you didn’t freak him out too much by texting about your kids still being alive! I trust you had lots of yummy cake.
bassmike
Thanks, he came home and we had a laugh about it.
There’s still cake leftover for anyone as wants some. The kids still aren’t big enough for us to finish an entire cake in one sitting, even as a family. :D It certainly is delicious, though. *readies the USB ports*
Beatrice
Well, that is a cruel and horrible date for a concert.
I’m tempted, though. I’m honestly tempted.
rq,
I know, right?
Even the other two local bands performing the same day are really good.
Latvia apparently is going to argue against refugee quotas, as such referencing the national demographic as reason not to do so.
I don’t understand their logic. Because it’s like there will be a few hundred refugees and suddenly they will have such rosy lives on the doorstep of the EU, and of course all of them will be granted Latvian citizenship within weeks of arriving (HAHAHA), so that means even more refugees will want to come here! We’ll be overrun! And yes, there’s not a lot of Latvian left in the world. But honestly, there’s no rule that says new Latvians can’t be of a different skin colour, should they be so inclined to come here and learn the language and work and live and raise children and suffer our education and healthcare systems…
I can understand the country not having the infrastructure to actually care for them or to provide jobs or even appropriate shelter, this is something the country struggles with for citizens as such… but to say ‘no’ to African refugees, and then to waffle suggestively about Ukrainian refugees? I think that says a lot about the attitudes prevalent here… and right beside that article, the former Lithuanian president (Pakss – unsure of the spelling in English?) has remarks about how accepting 20 000 and more refugees into the Baltics will bring in *gasp* all kinds of strange religions and diseases. (a) More religionS is not a bad thing; and (b) this is why we have vaccination programs. And a health care system.
Anyway. I’m disgusted, since this (the NO REFUGEE QUOTAS BECAUSE NATIONALISM) is now the official position of this trailblazingly progressive country re: refugees (esp. those not from Europe). *sigh*
[/ramble]
rq
That’S for the same reason you don’t understand alchemy: it doesn’t work.
Now, I am sure that Latvia is a wonderful country, but I doubt that suddenly all Syrian refugees would flock to your door. Some of them probably have never heard of Latvia and those who have might choose other countries. Also, even if that were the case, quotas would be a perfect safeguard against this.
Here’s an idea:
1. Let’s have quotas in the EU
2. All EU subsidies are linked to the quotas. If you only fulfil yours by 80%, you only get 80% of the money. Brussels sweet money could make poilticians change their mind quick.
rq The whole refugee issue is one that is one that’s being played out all over Europe. What annoys me is that all the European countries are very vocal about what we do with the refugees without any mention of the fact that we’re partly responsible for creating the situations that all these people are fleeing from.
Let’s be honest, you have to be incredibly desperate to sacrifice all the money you have and you home, and risk losing your life for the opportunity to start somewhere new. I know the politics is complicated, but surely it’s in everyone’s interest to try and improve the lives of people in these horrible situations rather then attack them for trying to escape.
/rant off
Also, my USB port is open for any cake that’s going stale!
Type-by comment – just to say YES WHAT RQ AND GILIELL AND BASSMIKE JUST SAID.
I like Giliell’s suggestion and that would deal with the politicians, but I don’t like the way the rest of the citizens are reacting either. There is so much distrust, so much moaning about how we have “our own” problems and can’t afford to deal with others’.
It’s disheartening. Especially when coming from people who know very well how it is to be driven out of their own homes. Like a colleague who escaped from Bosnia and very nearly didn’t make it to Croatia because they had no one to vouch for him and his mother (their own relatives refused!). This same person is telling me that we can’t know what kind of people the refugees are, that we could be inviting criminals to our home.
bassmike
I completely agree with you, just to be clear.
But. Latvia also excuses itself with ‘we didn’t have a part in what made them refugees’. Seriously. They recently held a speech on this in the UN, I think – as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were under Soviet occupation at the time of all kinds of thing happening, we cannot actually be also held collectively responsible for the refugees of today. So, therefore, the refugee quotas should not be applicable to Latvia (among a few others), because it is not our problem and we did not help create it. Plus. we have very few Latvians left in the world!
(On the nationalism question: considering there are a lot of Latvians in other countries who feel not-accepted by their own country, perhaps efforts to extend a friendly hand should be made towards these people – and I’m speaking both of WWII refugees/exiles, and the economic refugees on the recent economic crisis, and many, many others. They’re all very patriotic, diverse people living all over the world who could be provided with incentives to return to Latvia to help build the economy here – instead, they are resoundingly ignored, and yet when it’s time to accept refugees from elsewhere, suddenly it’s ‘There’s too few Latvians in the world!’ So Giliell‘s right, the logic just doesn’t work.
Because when you’re sacrificing everything, you just have to go to Latvia. I mean really.)
Also, Giliell, I was under the impression that the purpose of quotas was to prevent the overrunning of any specific country by refugees.
Because it’s such an actual threat of occurring, right.
But I guess the political definition of ‘quota’ (or the definition as understood by Latvian (among others) politicians) is different.
Anyway.
*CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!*
Beatrice
And that, too.
They cite ‘occupation’ as a reason not to do things to help others, yet during that occupation they counted on other countries accepting their own refugees. The inconsistency is so libertarian – we got our help, but we didn’t cause any problems, so this is not our problem and go away.
rq,
I think you are right and the quotas were introduced to spare Italy and Germany from getting most of the refugees. While the argument that they would be overrun is of course ridiculous, I can see that it would be logistically better to let refugees into more countries.
opposable thumbs at 267, Yes what you said YES WHAT RQ AND GILIELL AND BASSMIKE JUST SAID yes. Looks kinda Joycean, doesn’t it?
As for me, I’ll be sticking close to home the next few days. Husband will be leaving on his annual manly man vision quest directly from work this afternoon. This time, he’s driving north until he gets to Coalinga or thereabouts, then spending a couple days driving back along the faultline.
I am all envy. On the one hand, he can run away from home, and I don’t dare because of Aged Mum, who would track me down and call me on any pretext (which she does anyway when she thinks she can get away with it). On the other, I can’t think of anywhere I’d feel safe driving to by myself, and again, I’d worry the whole time about the husband and daughters and my Aged Mum.
So instead, I signed up for two more online classes from Sondra Holtzman. I have hopes of getting to them sometime this year, if not this summer… But today I shall work on a small shiny thing project, which I’ve got laid out all over my sewing cabinet.
rq,
What was that discussion recently? Non-white or poor people are (im)migrants; white, rich or at least middle class people are ex-pats.
Except that at least those of us from Eastern Europe should be aware that not so long ago (and in some places still) we used to be immigrants too.
NEW THREAD.
Gilliel:
I like that! I will re-use it. Thank you.
—
I am not needing cake, thanks. I was checking the day-old bread rack, and somebody put the wrong sticker on a cherry pie. I got it for $1.55, and since I had picked up a new carton of ice cream, I had to empty out the old carton ….
—
Ow. I had to change to door locks the other day, and put in a different brand of knobs, entirely. The mechanics are different, and just confused the person who took the little dog out for a morning frolic. (The little mutt kept me awake ’til the wee hours, and I just had to get up to let him and a person in pajamas in from a wee.) I should have paid the extra money for the same brand of locks, but somebody else was going by the color of the knobs, for dog’s sake. Now I need to work on preventatives and apologies.