:t (<3)
(<3) :: (Num a, Ord a) => a -> Bool
neb is never illogical, and therefore always cute. QED.
alameida has a thing for Spock; who'da thunk it? Are you better (fingers crossed)?
al specializes in loving the unlovable. It's rather heroic.
I so have a thing for spock! in the new movie spock is played by the super hott zachary quinto. generally: loving the unlovable--not that this applies to neb himself naturally--yes, pretty much. someone needs to love them, right? and there they are, sending me mopey FB messages or texts or mopily having coffee.
I am improved, scheduled to get a CT scan tomorrow (public holiday today so no dice.) I hope they will give me enough half decent painkillers and that the pain will not be so unbearably bad by then. if they weren't motivated by the first truth that all life is suffering, I submit they'd have more pro-active pain treatment. they won't let you take so much as a single oxycodone out of the hospital. the gov't is very controlling and little bitchy. perhaps if narnia's founding father dies from some painful cancer we will see a reēvaluation in priorities. much political change here is personal.
The wikipedia article on paratyphoid fever makes it sound distinctly unfun. Feel better soon, al.
Also, al, try reminding your caregivers that the Thus Come One taught that life was full of suffering, not that life itself was suffering. Then ask if a little oxycodone might be shorter than the eightfold path to the release from suffering.
OP / 3: Truly adorable, thanks. I'd been conflating her with P!nk, until recently.
Well, "Life is dukkha" is the phrase. Life is apparently 100% dukkha, but suffering is only one of the kinds of dukkha:
The Buddha taught there are three main categories of dukkha. These are:
Suffering or pain (dukkha-dukkha)
Impermanence or change (viparinama-dukkha)
Conditioned states (samkhara-dukkha)
All and all it seems that dukkha-dukkha (suffering suffering) is the basic one, but maybe it's only the most evident or most acute.
Viparinama-dukkha is probably the kind of thing Lacan et al talk about -- the elusive lost object of desire, etc. etc. , where even the good things don't last and the flower fades in your hand.
Conditioned States (Samkhara-dukkha) is the tricky one.
Also, al, try reminding your caregivers ....
Just to be sure, ask them what they think about Mother Teresa and her belief in the redemptive properties of pain.
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There are a few really offensive comments, probably from the ToS, in the Nick S. thread.
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14: Well, this is a tricky metaphysical issue. The focus of discussion is typically on the meaning of dukkha, but there is also an issue in interpreting the "is" and whether it is literally a relation of identify. I was hoping that Rahula would help me here. This is one thing he says on the subject.
The Buddha does not deny happiness in life when he says there is suffering. On the contrary he admits different forms of happiness, both material and spiritual, for laymen as well as for monks. In the Aṅguttara-nikāya, one of the five original Collections in Pāli containing the Buddha's discourses, there is a list of happinesses (sukhāni), such as the happiness of family life and the happiness of the life of a recluse, the happiness of sense pleasures and the happiness of renunciation, the happiness of attachment and the happiness of detachment, physical happiness and mental happiness etc.
I take this to imply straightforwardly that life contains both dukkha and pleasure.
Now I want to argue that the first noble truth asserts that pleasure is always bound up with dukkha, always dependent on it. And I had been hoping Rahula would support me on this. But he actually goes farther, saying of the pleasures Buddha discusses
But all these are included in dukkha.
That is stronger than I wanted to put it, but I don't have the wherewithal to back up my interpretation right now.
Further to 12: Has Pink always been P!nk and I just failed to notice? Or is this some new thing in response to say Ke$ha or something?
Further to 12: Has Pink always been P!nk and I just failed to notice?
I think she's always been P!nk (for a while, at least, based on this album cover) and I maintain that I'm Not Dead is actually a good album.
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Ask the Mineshaft: Facebook Etiquette Edition
A long time ago I accepted a Facebook friend request from my BF's cousin in the midwest. I regretted it soon after, because I can't really make fun of the Plains any more. But even more than that I just decided that friending my BF's family was a bad idea, so I ignored a request from my BF's sister-in-law.
After her wedding SIL got to be close with Cousin, and they discussed the fact that I had friended one and not the other. This was brought to the attention, because SIL thinks that I hate her. This is, of course, true, but I am trying to show it less. I still don't want her as a Facebook friend. SIL brought this up to my BF's mother who desperately wants us all to get along and was nearly in tears when she brought this up with my BF. (To be fair, she is very nervous about her husband's upcoming neurosurgery.)
I am considering unfriending the cousin so that it will all be fair. She's not tagged in any photos that I have. Will cousin get an e-mail if I unfriend her? I don't want to draw too much attention to it? I really regret having accepted the invitation.
P.S. It would be presumptuous of me to think that this might get hoisted to the front page, but I just want to say preemptively that I don't want it lifted. BF dislikes SIL too, but he really doesn't like it when I comment about her online.
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Nobody gets an e-mail at an unfriending, but they will probably notice given all the fuss stirred by the SIL.
I've never refused a friend request from anybody I knew in real life, but I use Facebook so I can keep in touch with relatives and high school friends. I don't put anything on it that I wouldn't want my parents to see as I've friended my parents.
I've only unfriended two people. One for white supremacy and one because my sister asked me to for professional reasons.
It's more work, but if you want to spare BF's mother's feelings, just friend SIL, put her in a People I Dislike group and then set your default for who can see your posts for "friends except for People I Dislike". You can put Cousin in there too and go back to making fun of the midwest. No doubt the midwest will survive.
The Midwest will revert to buffalo-infested grass.
How do you do this "People I dislike" thing?
Like, I want to be able to say how much I hate her, that I think she actively harms women and stop being so fucking condescending about how you only really grow up and have responsibilities once you're married. I'm kind of amazed that I didn't say "Fuck you, bitch." when she said that. My tolerance for this kind of thing is low.
Thanks all.
BG, write a status about how you've decided to pare down your facebook status, and nobody who gets unfriended should take it personally; fb is just taking too much time. Then unfriend the cousin. (While you're at it, is there anybody else you hate? No time like the present!)
I'm tempted to take offense at the 'hating the midwest' thing, but then again over Christmas one of my wife's relatives served us a dish made of slices of snickers bars and apple. She called it a "salad."
I recently learned that way more of my family than I'd realized came from French Canada to the Midwest. I can't decide if it was an upgrade or not.
Sifu's 27 will make life simpler. Email me if you want to do it the list way, and I'll try to help.
I think that the list way is better. Sifu's method won't work once the issue of out there.
Also, the trouble with lists is that facebook keeps changing its privacy settings, and then you have to check to make sure everything is still the way you want it. A nuisance.
Sifu's 27 would have been better if I'd used "presence" instead of "status" for the fourteenth word, but I trust the gist came across.
slices of snickers bars and apple. She called it a "salad."
Diabetes salad.
A long time ago I accepted a Facebook friend request from my BF's cousin in the midwest. I regretted it soon after, because I can't really make fun of the Plains any more.
Just curious, but is it really that important to you to make fun of the Plains states on Facebook? Also, if she is your only FB friend from the Midwest, I'm thinking you don't know that much about things there and maybe shouldn't use it as a metonym for conservative backwardness.
(Don't worry rh-c, we can trade off on taking offense at insults to the midwest!)
35: It's really just Winnipeg that I hate. Plus I don't like the cousin's parents.
And I don't know Winnipeg much, but I hate the accents, and I dislike South Dakota a lot. Manitoba is way to the left of South Dakota but still kind of Plus, all the people I've met from there are kind of racist.
But, really I just want to be able to say that "Marley and Me" is utter crap without offending anybody.
27: The thing is that I'm almost never on Facebook anyway.
39.1: Try not to manufacture too much anti-Americanism.
"socially conservative."
40: I know. I would just avoid them if I could.
And I'm in a foul mood right now, because I'm in a Rust Belt city with no decent transportation without access to a car that either my BF or I can drive. It doesn't help that there's nothing within walking distance, so I've spent more than a day or so over the past week in the house without getting out at all.
I spent a few hours in Toronto on my way here. I enjoyed that.
It's OK BG, I have an equally irrational and offensive hatred for Boston and its residents, so there's balance on this website.
43: NO. It's what rubs me the wrong way.
I also really resent being expected to be friends or even friendly. I don't think that anything more than civility should be expected. And I don't want to keep BF from his brother. I think that they should go on a ski trip or something, but SIL seems to believe that married people should spend all of their time outside of work together.
And I don't know Winnipeg much, but I hate the accents, Plus, all the people I've met from there are kind of racist.
That's kind of rich, coming from a Bostonian.
44: and we're largely indifferent to you in return.
Winnipeg, probably the coldest big city outside of Mongolia and Siberia, has a substantial Filipino community. The first Filipinos came in the 60s and some of them are still alive. I hope that someone interviews them about their first impressions when they got there, and especially their first -30 degree day.
48: I had a colleague whose ex-husband moved directly from Nigeria to Lincoln, Nebraska, in January of 1950 something. Apparently, he had a great time of it.
46: Fair enough.
I just feel incredibly uncomfortable, because I have nothing in common with the Winnipeg bunch, and I got asked, once I said that I had studied Classics, after answering their question about what that was, whether I had ever read the Iliad or the Odyssey. You know, the really long poem?
They're not bad people. It's just best if I don't interact much with them.
And then I have to put a huge amount of effort into not looking bored out of my mind or offended by a garter belt toss or the advice for a successful marriage.
But, meh. As I said, I'm in a foul mood and need to smell salt water again.
51.last: You didn't pack a neti pot?
Ask them if they've ever ridden a buffalo.
I'm not sure the population who could ask informed questions of a classics major is terribly large, really.
56: Maybe so, but that's my point. I don't fit in there. I know plenty of people who know what Classics means, and if they don't they know that someone who has studied Ancient Greek will have read those texts and maybe even their high school required them to read it in English.
And I'd think that a teacher should know
I'd be somewhat impressed if either of my parents could call to mind the Iliad by name, and pretty much gobsmacked if any of my aunts or uncles could.
As far as the expectation that you are going to be friendly, I have to ask, are you planning on staying with your boyfriend for the long haul? Because if there's any chance you are, being more than just civil to his family seems like a really worthwhile goal. And the SIL is an official part of that family.
Also, how much does reading the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek have to do with your everyday life?
I'm not sure the population who could ask informed questions of a classics major is terribly large, really.
I'm sure it's trivially small. But the art, as Jennifer Ouelette points out here (how did she keep smiling at that shithead?) in relation to how an English major learns to be a science writer, is to ask the dumb questions. They get you better answers.
58: I don't know. I think that polite is enough. I get along fine with the parents. And my BF really finds the SIL kind of insufferable too, and sometimes I have to get him not to lash out at her too.
58: Are they teachers?
And I am really not as bad as it sounds, but, for example, we only have a one bedroom apartment. There are friends that I would let crash there (and even then it's hard for more than one night), but it would be very trying to have the brother and sister-in-law on our floor, so I'd probably try to find an inexpensive motel or something if they wanted to come to Boston.
I don't see what's wrong with this. My aunt and uncle went to visit their son in DC and stayed in a hotel. I would, however, probably be seen as committing a mortal sin if I suggested that.
I've spent quite a lot of time picking out thoughtful gifts for them and never spent money or time on my sister or my own friends, because we all *have* to exchange gifts. I think that cards ought to be plenty.
59: Cousin's Dad asked me whether I had been to university and what I had studied.
Th general thing that people say is, "Why on earth would you do that?" My parents' friends from Cambridge say, "Oh that's wonderful."
how an English major learns to be a science writer
Write engaging but not terribly accurate things about science you don't particularly understand? That seems to be the general strategy I've observed.
58: Are they teachers?
My mom, yes. My dad used to work for the IRS, but now is a pastor at two small churches. Not the least Greek-and-Latin-connected of professions, and yet, not so much knowledge of the Classics.
I would have been sort of charmed if Blume's midwestern relatives had asked why I'm studying what I'm studying, I think. A couple of people have asked me (actually, they phrased it more like "so what's the point of that?") but they were a friend of my mom's from around here and a professor in my department, respectively.
64 and 65: Well, the general idea is that anything that doesn't lead to a job is useless, and since those things are very important to me in and of themselves, I stay quiet.
But it's bit hard when SIL demands to know what my favorite part of her wedding was and all that. Or demanding to know when I'm getting married etc. That's common enough, and a lot of people think it's just fine, but it frustrates me a lot, and she really pushed it--even when I said that it's private.
And I have no interest in subscribing to Modern Bride or whatever and I don't like being told by the SIL that what she studies is very complicated (PhD student in biochem) and I couldn't possibly understand it. I'm working on being nice to her, and I'm better than I sound, but I don't want to be friends and talk about the prettiest bow to put on her dog. I'll listen at family gatherings, but it's not my idea of fun.
Write engaging but not terribly accurate things about science you don't particularly understand?
I expect she understands them by now: she's been married to Sean Carrol (the physics one at Caltech) for years.
The SIL bothers me for other reasons. She's not from Manitoba. She did live in Alberta for a while, but she's originally from Poland. She has, however, said that few of her professors are "normal, white Canadians" which I find kind of funny
She'll tell me that biochem is terribly complicated, and I couldn't possibly understand what she's doing her dissertation on. And she'll describe people who care about their work as "not having a life." And she's somewhat aggressively anti-intellectual.
But, why does anybody have to make a big deal about Facebook?
67: in any case, I haven't read anything by that writer in particular. For all I know she's been dead on from the very beginning. That would... not be terribly common.
Anyway, I need to pack.
Sorry for offending you, Blume.
No worries. I'm not exactly offended, more just puzzled.
There's no point in expecting journalists to get the details of anything more than kinda-sorta right in a general sense. Anytime I've ever had inside knowledge of anything newsworthy the reporting has missed major details and generally been pretty inaccurate, rarely affirmatively false but often seriously misleading by omission. I don't see why science journalism would be any different. I've given up even being pissy about it; reporting on things you don't have a great deal of background knowledge about is hard and that's true whether or not the area under discussion is science.*
*Although, it may be particularly true for science. I recall discussions here where even people who were knowledgeable or even beginning-level specialists got (or seemed to get based on further comments, it's not like I'm an independent judge) major details very wrong.
Ouel/ette was a journalist-in-residence at the K/TP for a semester, so she's definitely been immersed in a hardcore physics environment more than most science writers. I haven't read much of her work, though, so I'm not really sure how it's affected the outcome. Frna Pneebyy unf jevggra fbzr erznexnoyl jebat cncref.
Only those immersed in a hardcore physics environment can understand 73.
73.last: funny, but not surprising on balance.
76 cont'd: is there anybody who is a popularizer of whom that isn't true? Feynman?
Znlor. Unjxvat'f ovt zvffgrcf ng yrnfg fcheerq n ybg bs vzcbegnag naq vagrerfgvat jbex. Gurer ner qrterrf bs jebatarff, naq V'z gnyxvat nobhg uvf frpbaq zbfg uvtuyl-pvgrq cncre (rkpyhqvat erivrj negvpyrf) orvat hggre, hggre abafrafr.
78: that wasn't as a popularizer, then, I assume.
No, right. Although the work was discussed on his blog a number of times.
(Anyone mystified, the gibberish is rot13. Google it, and you'll get a decoder.)
I really like "Znlor".
Interesting how rot-13 English resembles, at times, what someone ignorant of Klingon (to wit, me) would imagine Klingon looks like, or maybe a cross between Klingon and Welsh.
Except for "fcheerq".
81 -- you're spoiling their fun, but it's amazing how easy it is to use Google to figure out stuff like that.
orvat hggre, hggre abafrafr
New mouseover?
71
No worries. I'm not exactly offended, more just puzzled
Yes, Bostongirl's irritation seems disproportionate to any actual hardship from being in a rural area (she apparently has an internet connection after all) and might more plausibly be attributed to forced association with people she doesn't like.
82: Gingrich Rot13 is a stupid man's non-Klingon speaker's idea of what a smart person Klingon sounds like.
Also to 82: I always liked this sequence from Shannon's "The Redundancy of English". Letters+space equally random/single letter frequencies in English/digram frequencies/trigram frequencies. Looked but could not find an online tool to generate something similar. Easy enough to program.
1. xfoml rxkhrjffjuj zlpwcfwkcyj ffjeyvkcqsghyd
2. ocro hli rgwr nmielwis eu ll nbnesebya th eei
3. on ie antsoutinys are t inctore st be s deamy achin d ilonasive tucoowe at teasonare fuso
4. in no ist lat whey cratict froure birs grocid pondenome of demonstures of the retagin is regiactiona of cre
"I'll show you the regiactiona of the cre!!!"
Looked but could not find an online tool to generate something similar. Easy enough to program.
Something similar was the project for Cosma's class this past semester, no?
I've been looking for someone to write a program to produce Georg Trakl poems. Must know German.
90: I must have skipped class the day that was assigned.
Anytime I've ever had inside knowledge of anything newsworthy the reporting has missed major details and generally been pretty inaccurate, rarely affirmatively false but often seriously misleading by omission.
My Dad told a funny story over Christmas. As a baby lawyer, he was once seated next to a senior lawyer on a long flight. The senior lawyer held up the Wall Street Journal and said "You know, whenever I have first hand knowledge of a story reported here, I see that they get all of the facts wrong. Not just the details, but the most basic facts. And yet for some reason, I keep reading the rest of the paper."
Mon pere then went on to say that his subsequent 40 years in the profession left him in the exact same position. Never has any case had been involved with been reported with any accuracy, yet my parents get no less than three newspapers delivered daily. Dad was particularly amused by the time he walked out of a long negotiation, finally with an agreement for a large stock swap, only to find the Washington Post reporting that his negotiations had broken down without any agreement.
90, 92:But apparently correct: One of the final projects was to build first- and second- order Markov models based on the text of Heart of Darkness.
Now I want to see a pseudo-Unfogged thread. I'm sure neb's up to it.
92: or skipped the archives when he linked to it, indeed.
93: every time I've dealt with a reporter (for hacker-type things) they've gotten major things wrong. Much (most?) of the time they've gotten everything wrong. It's possible to turn this to your advantage, which can be fun, but yeah.
93 -- It's one thing to get the details of something that people are trying to keep secret wrong (I don't really fault reporters for getting things wrong about negotiations that are secret -- if they didn't get things wrong there I'd be worried). But what gets me is that the reporting over even completely public things I've been involved in -- like, say, a trial in open court -- is so amazingly bad. Like, the most basic details about what is at stake and why are not covered, things that are comprehensible to lay jurors but somehow not to reporters.
What I find especially bizarre is that I get the impression that reporters think they're doing a noble job, and in fact think these sorts of negative reaction from "sources" shows that they're doing a great job because unhappy sources show you're really uncovering something.
Now I want to see a pseudo-Unfogged thread. I'm sure neb's up to it.
But they did call it Shabbat. Given the title of a pussy like ogged. I could remember where I learned about it? And did he expect?( Or maybe just a bonus. But I think most instances of it. You would have been trolled, I was going to explain to them. My high school period, since you probably wouldn't want to act with an aloe spear. Or Jean-Luc Ponty? Accusations of wankery are standard to level at people with whom I first heard "high Water ". Which means that the guys in a ring to prove himself yet. Surely there's contention as to the bottom, just in the section about Death Church, not manservant precisely... That would be a little sweeter than Sambuca( though Weiner, AMTF. Be honest with us, did you have to be different--and-so ". Then I won't be close to the hospital at all, "because it contains no links. But relative terms are the files that end in "the flow of everyone on the Lower East Side ". Whoops. 5 onions.) My anus retains em dashes. You don't need reminding. Rather, around the bush-was-wired contention. An alternate interpretation would make it into sets according to some criterion. I actually understood full well that Tim was implying that golf isn't a money argument, so there's a volume of the pear in a new salutation for unmarried men.... I'll write your pitch to your audience. That's a lot of onion. Shit. Now, we should all acknowledge and applaud. the eating of babies in religious ceremonies. The crime of eating well? You trust me more than an extended allusion to and riff on that one, and your extreme Right, but you haven't reset the TiVo in so long to pinch one out-- is his own Country, and if that became common practice, people! ". "The whole sentence, there's a kind of overt manneredness of style is to enable procrastination, including this, though.
(Though I wrote that script (in 2006!) without really knowing more than one or two things about markov chains. It is highly likely not to really be an instance of the concept.)
72: IMX (but with a small N so it's anecdata) they get it wrong for general stuff, wrong for science too.
And looking over the source I see a boneheaded mistake!
Oh, but I still have the original data, so I can remedy that.
Apparently I've been trying to understand Haskell off and on since 2005. Wow.
98: Nice. Highlights from a few goes at it. A different time. (On preview, let us know when it is fixed.)
I blame Standpipe
It's much easier to do Things with exploding arrows.
It wouldn't just be configured to send in ASCII art nudes
is a great American-style as opposed to American-style barbecue or NC-style barbecue or NC-style as opposed to mass
it's the straight-laced Nebraskan phenomenologists are hot
You have to touch your breasts would constitute proof that I'm letting Dinosaur Comics have too much self-verifying assertions in this realm
You know, I'm afraid you are a nation of humour amateurs
Yet closer review: there was no error after all, or at least, if there is an error, it wasn't what I thought was an error.
105: remarkably, that was not put together by the script, but was really said by me.
You have to touch your breasts would constitute proof that I'm letting Dinosaur Comics have too much self-verifying assertions in this realm
...laydeez.
Was it in? This movie. In other words, the calamine lotion comment is in quotation marks, ogged, so I'm sure there are no deadlines? I didn't intend it that, too, you have to re-read 85, with pleasantly warm shaving cream. I think it had become? That is what I'm saying popular as opposed to early Wittgenstein? Second point, actually. Do you gain from doing it to go to hell, Tim, "Titles! Hooray! "and get a copper pot and a man who puts the philosophical rigor in rigor mortis, the connotation of "how good it would not look good as clothes, and he, like "sachet "-- but the fucking other people who don't like you just don't know if you're naked it will be delayed. I've been dispensing Glory right and yank you into his office, how could you not be able to tell you what, ogged. Ok.
105: That really is a perfect sentence.
I feel kind of bad about trash-talking someone, even in rot13. There's this weird norm of collegiality that makes it okay for people to talk over lunch about how some bit of research sucks, but one never says it in public.
I guess you can't say more, essear, but I have trouble understanding how you can say so definitively that the research is just wrong. If it's wrong, why doesn't everyone see that it's wrong?
If it was economics, then I could see it -- for example, in the recent econ-blog argument over Ricardian equivalence it seems to be literally true that some prominent economics do not know the meaning of "Ricardian equivalence", but I find it harder to imagine for your field.
111: There are two ways to be wrong. One is to have a theory that doesn't describe the real world, but that in principle could have until it's tested-- most of us are wrong in that way every day. Then there's the case where you say "here is my theory, and here are its implications," but you work out the implications incorrectly; either calculate wrong, or overlook an important consequence while saying lots of things about less important ones. This was the last case.