Halford and othershave mentioned there was some kind of holiday today, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
I don't like the trend of holding up the Constitution as a magical, flawless document that has all the answers. I'd be a lot happier celebrating Bill of Rights day on December 10. Or even just First Amendment Day.
Around here, we celebrate Constitution Day in the traditional way.
You guys have a strange definition of "holiday".
Well, you just use it as a synonym for "vacation", so not much value-added there.
So what's a civil libertarian to do?
Fuck knows. The UK (like most other places) seems on an inexorable downward slide. I hold out no hope.
The UK (like most other places) seems on an inexorable downward slide. I hold out no hope.
That's kind of a matter of perspective. I don't think you'll get many black Londoners saying "you know, my civil liberties were so much better protected back in the good old early 80s." Not that they're perfect now. And things like the ECHR have had a positive impact in blocking things like detention without charge...
Well, yeah. It's not a universal downward slide, but the things that are improvements are less about legislation and more about a shift in general social attitudes.
Yes, the ECHR is a forward step, but our current government are very keen to get rid of it.
You're just upset because you can't have a wild party for the signing of an unwritten constitution.
8
Well, yeah. It's not a universal downward slide, but the things that are improvements are less about legislation and more about a shift in general social attitudes.
Perhaps this means you need to work on general social attitudes rather than expecting the constitution to outweigh them.
We could have a wild party on 16th December for the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1689, but even that's no good to ttaM and ajay.
I should add that I'm not quite as bleak as the post may sound.
Recently I had the chance to show my collection of protest posters to a visiting international journalist, and while it's frustrating to still need to protest, it's heartening to remember how much better things are here than in his (repressive, Communist) country.
the ECHR is a forward step, but our current government are very keen to get rid of it.
Well, they say they are. But it strikes me that
a) making a lot of noise about it is an easy way to mollify the right wing, but they haven't actually made any moves in that direction, and
b) if they did, the Lib Dems would surely block it.
I've not seen much sign of the Lib Dems attempting to block anything so far. Lots of bullshit, and bluster. Then again, I suppose they haven't been strongly tested on civil liberties yet, and on economic issues the Lib Dem front bench might as well be fucking Tories.
I'm not sure how donating to CCR is going to help, unless you think that more renditions of "Fortunate Son" are a positive step in socializing people towards hating the Bush dynasty even more.
But seriously, we had a pretty good anarchist bookfair this weekend. Lots of new faces, and tablers from a wider range of tendencies. The son of a friend of mine, who usually dresses fairly plainly came with his girlfriend and they were both punked out hard -- all in black, big back patches, badges -- which was heartening to see. As horrible an annus as this has been, I definitely felt reinvigorated for the book fair next year and more activism in the interim. The final workshop of the day was an "anti-repression assembly", mostly focusing on our fellow travelers who've been raided and subpoenaed based on their travels to Colombia and Occupied Palestine, as well as the recent Pacific Northwest raids & subpoenas. I think there is a lot of good, solid, shoe-leather organizing to be done on those issues (i.e. grand jury abuses, conspiracy prosecutions, etc.) that can all be completely legal and above-ground.
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/
http://nopoliticalrepression.wordpress.com/
We could have a wild party on 16th December for the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1689, but even that's no good to ttaM and ajay.
Maybe they could celebrate the passage of the Acts of Union. *runs and hides*
if they did, the Lib Dems would surely block it.
Haha. Good one.
I've not seen much sign of the Lib Dems attempting to block anything so far.
They've marginally dented (as far as I an see) Archie Andrews' plan to return to 'O' Levels and CSEs. Still downgrading course work though.
Are 'O' Levels the ones that make you a fully qualified wizard or the earlier one.
I've not seen much sign of the Lib Dems attempting to block anything so far.
Boundary reform.
20. The earlier one. So much earlier that they were abolished by a previous Tory government 25 years ago. But this shower wants to bring them back.
re: 20
Earlier one. 'O' levels, then 'A' levels, then University. Under the older scheme that the Gove wants to return to, that is.
I rely on young adult fiction for my knowledge of British secondary education.
All I know about Michael Gove is his wise statement that "street parties, although excellent, are transient".
Chris Y is not wrong in 24.
Gove himself wouldn't have done A levels, of course. What with being educated at a posh Scottish school.
Then you have E-Levels at the age of 20, and those determine which side of the Wire you end up on.
(Best line in that book: "If she can't stand the sight of blood, why was she watching pinball?")
What with being educated at a posh Scottish school.
I was talking about a Scottish school so posh it has its own train tracks and private lake.
re: 29
I don't know if Hogwarts strictly follows the Scottish curriculum, though?*
* not having read the books.
Harry Potter and the Philiophy Highers
The thing that especially bothers me is that I really did think that voting for Obama over Clinton was genuinely going to make a difference on these kinds of issues. Obama did make some tentative efforts in the early days. The optimistic read is that I was wrong about Obama. The pessimistic read is that I was right about Obama, and that no matter who becomes president they'll only have a few months before they get beaten down on these issues.
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Least sympathetic special pleading since alameida's "my multiple orgasms are down to single digits" post?
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I can't believe this thread is being dominated by UK commenters. This neo-colonialism will not stand!
What's unsympathetic about that? Weird-size bras are terribly expensive and hard to find, and walking around with a bra that doesn't fit is continuous discomfort every day of your life. This is an area where I'm dead center of the American bell curve, so not a personal problem for me, but it makes people miserable.
And what Unfoggetarian said about Obama.
28G (the bra size the author of that article) does indeed seem like it could be difficult, but I'm calling bullshit on the idea that Sofia Vergara can't find 32F bras and has to settle for ill-fitting 34DDs.
Let's all do lots of lots of research by looking for pics of Sofia Vergara.
34. You can have the thread bak when Obama decides to completely re-design your school leaving qualifications apparently for the hell of it.
We don't need qualifications to leave school, in fact people usually do so because they've given up hope of accomplishing anything.
39: whatever. I'll have you know that I just dumped a cup of tea -- nearly an entire cup! -- down the drain in protest of your behavior.
41. No wonder your economy is fucked. Anybody who hopes to accomplish anything stays in school till they die.
37: that's my size. It's no problem if you just want a t shirt bra but a bit harder for something I can wear with anything remotely resembling a low cut shirt or dress. For that you're looking at $60 or $70. For a t shirt bra I can get a Wacoal for about $45.
When I try to advocate on civil liberties, people talk to me with the same attitude we have toward libertarians. It's like I just don't understand the world and the vital security consequences of not watching x, y or z.
Nobody tries that with me, thankfully.
For that you're looking at $60 or $70.
Yes, but one imagines Sofia Vergara can handle that.
49 to something really inappropriate.
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Grrr. I run a course which is basically Book Club, involving lots of different instructors who each meet with a small group of students for about 4 weeks. The first meeting time is fixed. Apparently it conflicts with Choir practice, which is also a for-credit class.
The two instructors are emailing me saying things like "What, I should rearrange FOUR people's schedule to accommodate a meeting that the student has known about for MONTHS?" and "This is an OFFICIAL CLASS MEETING and she can miss, if she wants and UNEXCUSED ABSENCE which would dock her grade."
The thing that is driving me crazy is that they are taking the most uncharitable, manipulative readings possible of this poor student's emails. When I finally emailed them jointly, they both basically said "Oh, you're the other faculty member? I should have just talked to you directly! How easy!" but they both still believe the student is trying to scam them and shirk her responsibilities, etc. A student who, a full week ahead of time, emailed both of them to ask for help in this schedule conflict.
They're both rapidly losing brownie points with me. Jerks.
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49: Of course *she* can, but it's not a trivial expense for me. And even at a store like Nordstrom the sales people frequently struggle to find more than one option.
walking around with a bra that doesn't fit is continuous discomfort every day of your life.
You know, there's an elegant, costless solution to thi...
Oh, wait, heebie's back. Never mind!
34: you see, all you have to do is stop talking about education and start talking about bras and the Yanks come back in their droves.
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Also I got filmed discussing as part of a promotional for an upcoming event, and the guy said "You could put an elbow on that table, and sit relaxed." I also thought it was a bad sign that the video camera was about two feet below my head.
Then it's been edited to show only my upper arms and up, and I've got no-neck-four-chins syndrome. Which is FINE, whatever. I know no one else will glance at the boring video twice.
Anyway, I'm just annoyed by today for lots of reasons.
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Like my brother saying "Do you want this painting that our mom painted and gave to our grandfather, and then I inherited it when he died? Otherwise I'm going to stick it in the garage."
Yes, I'll take the goddamn painting off your hands. No, I'm not going to hang it up either, because there are hundreds of paintings, but I don't really want it to gradually rot in your garage.
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even at a store like Nordstrom the sales people frequently struggle to find more than one option
I know I've preached the eBay religion here before, but seriously. Get fitted at one of those fancy bra specialty stores so you can figure out your size in certain brands and styles (the one in Brookline is staffed by hilariously gruff old Russian women, who have no patience for your modesty), and then set up an eBay search for that. You can have it send you an email daily or weekly with all the Wacoal / Freya / Chantelle offerings in your size. (Tip: include the style number in the search as well.) Voila! New bras for half the price.
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Or having to stay on campus until 9 pm tonight because of various extracurricular shit that I find myself sponsoring.
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60: That violates Kant's Categorical Imperative, which seems especially a problem when dealing with foundation garmets.
If everybody used the bra store as a place to get sizing and then did their actual shopping elsewhere, the bra store wouldn't make enough money to stay open.
That is true. But I think they do okay, due to people who don't mind spending the money or are for whatever other reason unmotivated to do something like stalking the bras on eBay, and people like me who feel bad about using them and buy at least one bra there after being fitted anyway, even if I'm mostly after the fitting information in order to buy more elsewhere.
I'm still not sure how to apply Kant to urinating off the end of my patio. Do I need to figure what happens if everybody urinated from their own patio or if everybody came to my yard to pee?
Nope, just if everyone peed off your patio.
Are you a fully qualified philosopher?
I'm not a phloyer, I just pee a lot.
What about people who don't have patios?
I need to do the eBay thing. I am no longer a 28G but that was my measurement the first time I got a proper fitting and they only had one in the store.
Unrelated to bras, I'm reading a long book about lesbian separatism and one of the themes that's been resonating with me is the question of whether to spend your energy on people who you can't convince of your truth. I've been mostly leaning on the "no" side of that and I think that's why ttaM's I hold out no hope originally sounded like something I should cosign, but clearly I have some hope somehow and I'm just not sure what I'm doing with it.
Let's all list our bra size/level of hope for the U.K.
one of the themes that's been resonating with me is the question of whether to spend your energy on people who you can't convince of your truth.
Look, Thorn, you can argue until you're blue in the face, but you're never going to convince me that the last slot in the Big 12 Conference expansion should have gone to the University of Louisville.
It's weird to look at that "The World Clock" website and see the minute click over for all of the cities around the world. Like, all those people just got one minute older, did one more minute of work, read one more minute of internet comments. Totally freaks me out, man.
As I was just looking at bras yesterday, I can say it's not much fun for those of us at the other end of the alphabet either. Few bra makers make As and Bs and/or only in a limited number of styles (e.g. Vic Secret has limited styles including NO strapless ones last time I looked) and/or they're sold out before I get to the store. Then there's some weird fit issues where you're supposed to have a lot of flesh to fill things out but since they're small it just ends up with fabric bagging out in weird places. Or the top edge creates this huge, noticeable crease when you put your shirt on.
I hate it so much.
And on preview - Moby! Now you know! UK probably will be fine.
76: A friend with this complaint had a revelatory experience shopping in a high-end lingerie store in Tokyo. So next time you're in Tokyo!
74: I'm assuming that means it did? I really don't understand conferences, why they matter so much and why there's so much shifting and why the founders were stupid enough to give them names based on the number of members at that time but not at any time in the future.
Anyway, Moby, that isn't my bra size anymore, so my privacy is ensured. Also, I tried to order a rusty nail and they had no Drambuie at the bar. Foiled again!
BareNecessities is the place you want to go for hard-to-find sizes, including your 28Gs and your AAAs and whatever. Once you know a brand and size and style that you like, then look to eBay.
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It's probably a good thing that I did not discover the stimulant and appetite-suppressant effects of pseudoephedrine in high school or college. It may not be a good thing that I've discovered it now.
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Ironic naming since JFK was taking straight-up methamphetamines.
You know, I've been thinking for the past several days that Sept. 17 had some sort of historic significance, but I couldn't come up with it. I knew it wasn't the first flight, which IIRC was Dec. 17.
So, thanks, Witt!
My daughter is a pain in the ass about bras. I buy nice new ones, but noooooooo she wants the ratty old ones.
(the one in Brookline is staffed by hilariously gruff old Russian women, who have no patience for your modesty)
We have one just like this that is, hilariously, named The Pussycat Bout/que.
a revelatory experience shopping in a high-end lingerie store in Tokyo
AB was very unhappy (on this front) during her 2 years in Japan, because she could only find padded bras (she was in the sticks, not Tokyo), which she didn't and doesn't need. What seemed especially bizarre was that they would even sell padded bras above a B cup, let alone that they would be ubiquitous.
I'm also surprised to hear that B-cup bras are hard to find, as IMO that's certainly a size that can use some support, but perhaps it's at particular band sizes and/or at the smaller end of the spectrum?
60: If it's the store, I'm thinking of, they're kind of hilarious. I used to get their catalogue.
82: some sort of historic significance
Battle of Antietam, 1862
I think what I've learned from these discussions is that it is actually hard to find bras in any size whatsoever. For any given combination of letters and numbers, I believe I have read a comment from someone saying that they are that size, and it is impossible to find bras.
a pain in the ass about bras
UR WEARIN IT WRONG.
82: The SIXteenth was Mexican independence day.
90: You try locating a 15 N sometime.
Or as they now call it, Southern Half of Mexico Independence Day.
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News? Pwnd? Off-topic of Swingeing England and Undergarments?
Chris Hedges at Truthdig. 9/17/12, today
In January I sued President Barack Obama over Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the military to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely, strip them of due process and hold them in military facilities, including offshore penal colonies. Last week, round one in the battle to strike down the onerous provision, one that saw me joined by six other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, ended in an unqualified victory for the public. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who accepted every one of our challenges to the law, made her temporary injunction of the section permanent. In short, she declared the law unconstitutional.
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Title Nine sells both sports and regular bras, mostly pricey, some of them very pretty. In my experience, their sizing runs true.
95:
"At the March hearing, the Court asked whether Hedges' activities could subject him to detention under § 1021; the Government stated that it was not prepared to address that question. When asked a similar question at the August hearing, five months later, the Government remained unwilling to state whether any of plaintiffs' (including Hedges's) protected First Amendment future activities could subject him or her to detention under § 1021. This Court finds that Hedges has a reasonable fear of detention pursuant to § 1021(b)(2)."
I think what I've learned from these discussions is that it is actually hard to find bras/jeans/pants/swimsuits in any size whatsoever.
Apparently they just don't make women's clothing in sizes.
Since this thread appears to be off topic, I have a bleg. How does one find an out-of-print book these days? Amazon doesn't have it. Abe and Alibris don't have it. Are there still services that will find a book for a buyer willing to pay? I hate it when the Internet and capitalism simultaneously let me down.
I'll look for the book for $1,000. I don't promise to find it, or make any representations about how hard I'll look.
Well, most articles of women's clothing have numbers on them, and for some things, like bras, those numbers even correspond to something. But differences in the style and cut of individual garments (even bras) affect the fit a lot.
Just steal it from a library and atone for it next week.
103: there aren't enough breadcrumbs, Moby.
Hedges piece originally linked from FDL, here's a comment from "lefttown". Wish I could call myself that.
Could Obama, who is actively fighting to turn segments of the military into his own personal, domestic branch Waffen SS, be considered crazy? Evil? What? He's fighting for the ability to command the military to "seize U.S. citizens and control the streets." And not just seize them. Obama wants the right to put them into military prisons and to throw away the key. These are Hitler-like ambitions, and no, I don't think he means us well. I think he means us harm. If people aren't frightened by Obama, they should be. His vision for America seems to be a full-blown Fascist country with Nazi overtones. He has always been a psychotic narcissist, but his sickness is out of control.
It's true. And I ain't voting for that policy, voting for a guy who wants that codified, who has that vision.
That's because I'm bad, and y'all are good. I agree.
Carry on about bras.
This is a totally outside shot and probably an occurrence that will never be repeated, but I found an out-of-print book I was looking for on overstock.com.
107: nope. But they do have a good deal on a refurbished Dyson vacuum.
If it is actually in the library and not available after a reasonable search, you shouldn't feel that bad about making a grad student copy it for you.
Funny how the civil liberties thread went all booby. This to the OP:
Hope you got your things together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Looks like we're in for nasty weather. One eye is taken for an eye.
110: 1. Post on FB asking if anyone you know owns it. 2. Burgle.
I am always way over my head on this stuff, but
Here is an Emptywheel post on the Forrest decision. Down the thread is a comment that pushes back on discouragement.
Secondly, taking refuge in the Feinstein amendment to the NDAA is very close to scurrilous. In essence, this argument is that the Feinstein Amendment "clarified" that the NDAA did not "change" the law under the AUMF and "therefore" that the NDAA does not justify the plaintiffs' assertion of concern over detention. The conclusion does not follow from the premise, to put it mildly. The Feinstein Amendment was a truly Orwellian diversion that was designed and presented to keep murky precisely what the scope of detention rights was/is/would be. Read Senator Levin's comments -- basically, that nobody knows what the law is, but whatever it is, the NDAA doesn't change it. Wholly apart from the stunning admission of legislative malpractice involved in stating you don't know what the law you're legislating about actually is, that's still a very far cry from "the NDAA would not allow the detention of a journalist". To argue now that the Feinstein Amendment "clarifies" anything to a degree negating the claims of the journalist plaintiffs in this case is sophistry at best, "gotcha" argumentation and nothing more and, if accepted at face value ought to invalidate the detention provisions as unconstitutionally vague...."What Constitution"
Is it fairly recent (like, the last couple of decades)? I've heard stories of people (from before the internet got good at finding used books) getting lucky calling the publisher and finding that they had a stash of the desired book in storage.
I've heard stories of people (from before the internet got good at finding used books) getting lucky calling the publisher and finding that they had a stash of the desired book in storage.
Or the author!
113: that would require posting on facebook. I don't know how to do that, except accidentally.
115: yeah, I tried that just now. Alas, no luck. I think I'll send an e-mail to the editor (the books are a person's collected papers). Maybe he'll have an idea about where I might find a copy.
116: yup, I just e-mailed the editor. I think it's possible he's even still alive. We'll see!
Ah, here's another bleg: is there an easy (or even relatively easy) way to hook an iPad or MacBook up to a TV? I'd like to watch stuff from iTunes on my TV, but only if it's going to be easy.
Please strike 119. I should just google this and figure it out on my own. Sorry about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeZm7KQJT1o
Oh, Facebook question. I accidentally clicked on some app to discover my true career, and it uploaded everything to some dating site. I removed the app from Facebook, but it seems to be impossible to unsubscribe easily or to remove my information from their database.
VW, my sainted mother may be able to find it. If you email me the title/ed./ISBN I can ask her about it.
119: Apple TV. Will cost you $99, but it's money well spent.
If you have a new(ish) tv, all you really need is a DVI to HDMI cable. Or at least, that works well for us.
127 is correct. I thought all HDTVs had inputs that you could attach a computer to.
124: yes. Will a PS3 get me to iTunes? Really?
87
I have the problem described in the article, and once bought a bra in China (off an internet discount site, no less) basically because of the novelty of finding a bra even relatively close to my size in China. The thing fits, but it came embellished with dangling plastic crystals and was about 50% padding. Wearing it I look like an anime character or extra-endowed Hooters waitress.
I have found with bras that its worth spending money for quality, and not more expensive in the long run. If you're willing to hand wash them with the special soap, an expensive bra can last at least 5 years, and I have two going on 8. My most expensive bra cost a price I am embarrassed to have paid, and was the result of going to a fancy shop to get a fitting and then feeling like I should buy one and picking the one that fit the best and not looking at the price, hasn't stretched at all in almost 2 years. By contrast, Nordstroms bras I buy on sale for $30 usually last about one year, or maybe 2 until they're completely unwearable.
I wear sports bras because I'm neurotic about skin not touching skin, namely the underside of the breast against my torso. I like to be tightly bound.
I have been told that this isn't an option if you're stacked, because sports bras do the uni-boob thing and it looks weird. I might be willing to look weird if that were my situation.
123: what's your e-mail address these days, neb?
VW, it's hotgrammarbitch4u@escorts.com.
Again I'll promote Title Nine (which has a website and a catalog) and sells sports bras that do not create a uniboob, even for the chesty ladies.
Have people seen this? I mean, actually watched the video? Mitt Romney is not having a very good few weeks.
136: Maybe he's setting himself up for an insanity defense?
sports bras that do not create a uniboob, even for the chesty ladies
They have a lump of padding right in the middle to keep the girls separated.
Is there any reason outside of aesthetics that a sports bra can't create quadboob?
129: Via Vuze it will, yes. (It's free.)
I am in an unbelievably cranky mood right now. I just don't feel like doing a bunch of school shit for the next four hours. I've been here since 7 and I want to go home.
140: I think that solution requires skills that I don't have. Either getting the right cable for one of my devices or getting an Apple TV sounds simpler.
I scheduled two different activities for tonight because even more than staying till 9 tonight, I resent having to stay late on two separate nights.
127 is correct. I thought all HDTVs had inputs that you could attach a computer to.
Modern ones, yes. If it is modern and good, it will probably have DVI input, even. The relevant question is whether Von Wafer's devices can output directly to a TV. For the iPad and Macbook, the answer is yes. Just plug in the appropriate cable. Although, given Apple's proprietary cable pricing, the Apple TV option probably wouldn't be much more expensive.
Although, given Apple's proprietary cable pricing, the Apple TV option probably wouldn't be much more expensive.
You're absolutely right, as I've just learned. Still, I think I'd prefer not to have one more box in the house, so I'll just buy the cables. Oh well.
100: How does one find an out-of-print book these days?
I've just barely looked at the thread so far, so maybe this has been mentioned: Did you try bookfinder.com? It's an umbrella search engine that searches the online inventory of Abe, Alibris, Amazon, but many other smaller bookselling sites as well. No guarantees, of course.
147: There's a lot to be said for a cable-less solution. I understand about the boxes - I have 3 boxes for a TV that we never even watch - but I can tell you that, for our music system, we've gotten to a mostly cable-free system, and it's pretty awesome. Plug the Apple TV into your TV, and you can just make it play whatever from whatever device is in your lap, without handling anything.
Or so I'm given to understand. I'm holding out for the much-hyped, may-not-exist Apple TV that's an actual TV.
123: what's your e-mail address these days, neb?
same as it ever was. My family name at gmail dot com.
Are you in charge of distributing emails to the other nosflows?
The Apple TV is pretty great and certainly cuts down on cables. The Vuze solution requires no savvy whatever; it's just a program that lets you stream your iTunes through your PS3 (your laptop will show up as a media server).
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There's a longer version of this video that popped up on YouTube. It's an anti-texting-while-driving campaign, and the gist is a teen in physical therapy recovering from a brain damage car accident that happened because he was texting.
Anyway, for whatever reason, it has me incredibly agitated. As some of you may know, my mom was brain damaged in a car accident (1991 - no texting) and died ~12 years later (never having significantly recovered), and something about how this is done has me very upset. I've had lots of time to come to terms with the whole thing, and it's basically fine - other than a general susceptibility to dead parent narratives, I don't have any "triggers", but holy shit did this hit me. And since it's nothing to do with my mom's accident, yet pinpointing the car accident-brain injury-painful recovery(?) nexus, it feels exploitative and upsetting. Even though I'm inclined to credit its good intentions.
Ack.
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The editor of the books just got back to me! Has a set of them and wants me to make him an offer! Hurrah!
Oh, sorry that you're shaken up, JRoth.
155: Oooh. You can say, "My final offer is this: Nothing." It will be completely counterproductive, but we've all wanted to say that, haven't we?
157: I wish I had read that before offering him $250. Which, by the way, might be waaaaaay more than they're worth. Or it might not. I mean, to the best of my ability to figure this out, copies of these books haven't changed hands in quite a long time. Regardless, we'll see what he says. I don't think I'm willing to pay much more than I already bid, so I might call you in to close for me, oudemia.
I have said "My offer is this: nothing" 100% seriously on more than one occasion. It's a great way to defuse the harshness of the fact that you are, indeed, offering nothing, by using a movie quote.
The editor of the books just got back to me! Has a set of them and wants me to make him an offer! Hurrah!
Yay! I feel personally responsible.
159: But have you put a dead prostitute in anyone's bed? Hmmmm?
154: It was very unsettling. I have no idea if productively unsettling so far as the target audience or not.
154: I hate that kind of manipulative/exploitative thing, and am sorry that it got you in your sensitive parts.
154: That ad is too slick, feels overtly manipulative to me. My sympathies, what will be upsetting and the magnitude of the emotions seems to be very unpredictable IMX. I haven't found anything to do about it other than ride them out.
162: Exactly. I'm not at all convinced that the target audience is the one that gets shaken up (all shook up?). To some extent, this is how it is with all PSAs targeting Youth - Youth are horrible sociopaths - but this seemed a more complete example of the phenomenon.
Or maybe not. I dunno. My personal response is idiosyncratic, so I don't resent the producers or anything. I was in some sense mostly unsettled by how unsettling I found it.
150: Apple TV + Logitech Harmony One remote + about a half hour of futzing around with the programming of the remote to get all the boxes to play nicely together without messing with cables for the various iThings.
Sorry to hear about that, JRo.
Plug the Apple TV into your TV, and you can just make it play whatever from whatever Apple-branded device is in your lap.
159: How did that work for you? I feel like my rage at the harshness would not be defused (and would perhaps be enhanced) by a flippant move quote.
In context, it has worked fine. I wouldn't try it in other contexts.
Back on the OP, I've basically given up. It's clear that there's not enough people in Washington who give a damn about civil liberties, or give enough of a damn to stick their neck out on the issue, to make a damn bit of difference. (E.g., the reporting I've read says Obama tried to do the right thing on Guantanamo and got cut off at the knees by Democrats in Congress.) The Democrats are a shade better than the Republicans and it's naive to hope for any more than that.
I feel the same way about climate change, though in that case at least plenty of Democrats are on the right side, it's just there will never be 60 votes in the Senate that aren't beholden to the fossil fuel industries.
I've been able to stream from non-Apple laptops onto an Apple tv. It's really not difficult to set up.
But it's pretty much redundant to have that and a PS3, isn't it, at least with respect to running services like Netflix and Hulu?
I've been able to stream from non-Apple laptops onto an Apple tv. It's really not difficult to set up.
From anything other than iTunes?
But it's pretty much redundant to have that and a PS3, isn't it, at least with respect to running services like Netflix and Hulu?
iTunes has things that Netflix and Hulu don't, right? Like Breaking Bad Season 5.
The point being that none of the big five online video services (Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube*) has everything, and no device can play all of them. Online video is an ongoing shit-show.
* Bet you didn't know you can buy movies on YouTube, did you?
Like Breaking Bad Season 5.
Yawnoc gets me.
I am in an unbelievably cranky mood right now.
My sympathies, heebers. I've been in a similar mood all day, and for several specific reasons I can clearly identify. Still, it sucks and it's totally hard to keep going through the motions once you hit that mood. Hope it's a better day tomorrow.
Finally home, whee! Which did wonders for my mood!
Also, the Apple cable thing totally works with my iPad. Given this rare moment of success, is there a reason that I'd want Apple TV in addition to an iPad that plays nicely with my regular TV?
Is this the tech advice thread now? I need a new laptop. It will be a MacBook Pro, non-Retina division. I work with a lot of biggish data sets (not Big Data (TM), but several tens of GB) and know stupidly little about hardware details. The appeal of impact-resistant drives is going to go up sharply when we have a small chaos generator running around the house, and in any case I bike in with my laptop every day. Solid-state drives are expensive, but on I'm paying out of my grant's pocket rather than my own. So: 750 GB 5400 rpm drive, 750 GB 7200 rpm drive, or wildly expensive 512 GB solid-state drive?
But sorry to hear about your mood, stanster. Hopefully you're home and winding down, too.
180: Yep. Watching Columbo on Netflix is a nice break before bed.
From anything other than iTunes?
No, but I thought we were talking about streaming from iTunes. I just plug the laptop into the tv if I want to run other stuff,* but I can run HDMI to HDMI without a problem.
*Actually, I pretty much stopped using iTunes altogether a couple years ago, so I don't know what it's like now. I have little interest in music and not enough interest in other content to make me turn to iTunes for anything.
181: The one with Shatner was weird.
Anyway, my point about redundancy was that if you can get iTunes to your tv without Apple TV, there isn't much reason to get an Apple TV if you have a PS3. Unlike with an xbox, where you have to pay to get the xbox live stuff.
179:
It's hard to say without knowing more precisely what kind of work you're going to be doing with the data, but I'd guess (drawing on your description in the query and my lurker's impression that you're a lab scientist) that your workload would be of the sort for which the performance gap between solid state and hard disk is actually smallest (that is, I'm guessing that sequentially reading of large amounts of data will dominate your I/O workload). It's entirely possible, if the work is computationally intensive enough, that you wouldn't see a performance gain from solid-state. But there's no reason for you to prefer a hard disk unless the extra 200GB is important, and you shouldn't underestimate the added utility of a machine that's generally snappier, which the sdd option will be (e.g., applications will load noticeably faster).
For your purposes it's at least as important that you not stint on RAM (you'll probably want at least 4GB in a MacBook).
Thanks, bizzah, that's helpful. The work is fairly computationally intensive; my laptop doesn't have to do the real heavy lifting, but even so. (There's no question but that I'll get 8 GB of RAM. More or less the only thing I know about hardware choice is MOAR RAM.)
I have an SSD in my iMac [work, not home] and it makes a significant difference for the sort of computationally intense work I do. But that's work that requires a fair bit of data reading and writing [I'm doing either image processing, or working with umpty-zillion XML files] so the SSD is likely to show a bigger speed improvement for me than for some other tasks. Having a machine that boots in a few seconds and loads applications instantly is very nice, too.
re: 179
Congratulations on the impending addition, too.
Also, by way of a surreptitious announcement, Mrs nattarGcM and I are also expecting a small addition.
re: 190
March. So we are just a week or two into the 2nd trimester now.
Nice one. Hope everything goes well. When you start commenting at 2 in the morning next spring, we'll know why.
Wait Robert Westall studied Sculpture at the Slade? I think I read Futuretrack Five far too many times as a child. (Also the time travelling/sex/aren't-Parliamentarians-shit one.)
189: Congratulations! I forget if your wife grew up in England or in [Eastern European country I'm embarrassingly forgetting]. If the latter, the offspring's accent could be an interesting linguistic experiment. ("Linguistic" is probably not the right term.)
Grew up in Central* European country, yeah. As far as I can tell, kids' accents are largely peer-derived. We have two sets of friends who live locally, both parents in each couple are Irish. Their kids [toddlers] all have English accents. Not a trace of Irish.
We are discussing what we do about bilingualism, though. It's possible Mrs nattarGcM will speak Czech all the time, and I'll speak English.
* she's fussy, it's not _Eastern_ Europe, apparently.
Funnily enough, my wife does sometimes get asked if she's Scottish at work. I don't think she has a Scottish accent, and my own isn't super-strong these days, but she's clearly picked up some intonation patterns from me which people are registering.
the offspring's accent could be an interesting linguistic experiment.
I was at school with a girl who had lived in Newcastle until the age of 11, when her family moved to South Africa. She had invented a completely novel English dialect.
Funnily enough, my wife does sometimes get asked if she's Scottish at work.
"No, in my home country we chib people who get in our way as well."
re: 202
Heh. Not quite the style at my wife's place of work [although I expect she'd quite like to chib the odd person]. She has, in the recent past, been phoned by a certain public figure currently suing various European publications for long-lens photographs. Iykwimaittyd.
201. Mrs y is a bit like that (1st generation Irish American in various far flung states until 15, then here and there in England). People look at her suspiciously and say, "Where did you say you were from, exactly?" I don't hear anything odd any more, but apparently her accent is pretty unique.
203 She should probably resist the temptation to chib that person. I hear accommodation in the Tower is not what it was.
Oh, hell, that probably breaks blog confidentiality. Could someone with the keys googleproof it?
re: 205
Afaik said person is fine (as a customer) and not chib-worthy. She does have the odd difficult one, though. I hear stories that are pretty shocking, in terms of basic lack of human decency from people with more money than manners.
I can't imagine it's particularly googleable but yes, to 207.
Congratulations! With the characteristic Czech cheekbones and Scottish belligerence, the kid should be unstoppable.
198: my kiddo is a good example of that - his German accent was much better than mine when we were there, and now that we're in Oz he's lecturing me on the proper pronunciation of "been" and "new".
re: 212
Heh. Judging by both of our childhood photos, we are assuming very blonde, too, unless genetics throws up a little quirk.*
* my Mum and sister are both very dark.
Congrats ttaM!
(Also congrats GB! I missed this earlier.)
Yeah, I missed GB's news. Congratulations all around!
The point being that none of the big five online video services (Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, YouTube*) has everything, and no device can play all of them.
My PS3 plays all of them! Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon, and YouTube are built right it. It has to stream iTunes from my laptop.
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Hey, lw asked me for a cite about underground pharma labs creating novel chemicals the other day and I didn't have one then but I do now.
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222. Cool, thanks, interesting, scary.
congrats Ttam.
I basically spoke Czech to my kid when my wife wasn't around, with the end result that at 11 he understands spoken language pretty well, can say simple things, and can read a bit with real effort. There's a book Growing Up With Two Languages that I found helpful. Social context for language matters a lot, and having other kids to communicate with rather than just a parent definitely makes a difference. The main points IMO: for some kids a multi-lingual environment delays speech by a bit, and a mishmash of languages with no social context is confusing
The appeal of impact-resistant drives is going to go up sharply when we have a small chaos generator running around the house
Seriously. I love my SSD.
220: Hm, maybe I need a PS3. Does it play files stolen from the Internets (MKV/x264, mostly)?
I love my SSD.
Me too!
It was weird going through airport security when the MacBook Air first came out, though. The screeners had zero clue what an SSD looked like under x-ray and thought maybe my laptop was holding little bundles of C4.
As far as I can tell, kids' accents are largely peer-derived. We have two sets of friends who live locally, both parents in each couple are Irish.
Depends. I had a friend in high school whose mother was English and father was American, who definitely had a 'not from around here' accent. Individual words were pronounced American, but full sentence delivery sounded English -- something about the pacing and intonation.
I've heard that the 'each parent speaks to the kid in their primary language exclusively' thing works well, but I can't recall what my source is. Something I read somewhere, because I don't know anyone who did that on purpose.
227: Yes! Using Vuze (streaming from your laptop)! (Actually, I'm not 100% sure of file types, but I stream my ingeniously acquired files through Vuze to my PS3.)
re: 223
Yeah. We'll be in the Czech Republic fairly often, and I expect there'll be skypeing with family and so on. My wife doesn't speak Czech at all apart from with her family, though, as we don't have any Czech friends in London. I understand enough to follow simple conversations, so her speaking Czech at home to the baby wouldn't be a problem.
Congratulations, ttaM! And thanks, all, for the advice and good wishes.
232: Are there many Czechs in London? In Chicago, for example, Greeks and Poles and Lithuanians and probably others had Sunday school for their American-born kids to learn language and culture, etc. (CA's nephews in Canada go to "Greek school" every Sunday.)
Congrats to the Czech, the Czechmate, and the scientists!
There is a Czech and Slovak Club in West Hampstead where you can get a very decent pint of any number of national beers. Dates back to the war.
My niece was raised 'parents speaking different languages' bilingually. They lived in Germany until her parents split, and then in France, all the while having plenty of exposure to both. (And to Saarlaendisch). And in her (young) adulthood, Germany again, although Bavaria. It's all worked out very well for her.
We did immersion for my daughter k-12, and weekend school plus passive for my son. Her German is a lot better than his, but he could probably catch up with a year in a German speaking country. (I've been suggesting he take next school year off and work at a ski area in Austria -- improve his German, have some fun, maybe get a little focus.)
Hooray for the new babies and baby-proof computers!
re: 236
Yes, I've been there for a pint. Funnily enough before I met my wife. A friend recommended it as a source of good beer.
Just caught this. Congrats, ttaM!
Congrats, ttaM and GB!
My experience with Mandarin is that the Saturday school was no help without speaking Mandarin at home, although that could have also been related to the Saturday school being more about culture than language and also not being a very good school.
Congrats to ttaM and wife, and to Gabardine! Woo, more babies!
Congrats to you both and good luck.
IME there are two and only two factors that will determine whether a kid picks up the language of his or her parent(s).
Whether the parent(s) insist on speaking that language exclusively with there kid and ignore anything he or she says in the local language. Whether the kid is resistant to growing up bilingual. It would be much, much easier if you were to acquire at least a decent passive understanding of Czech, thus allowing your wife and kid to use the language in your presence. I also don't think you need to worry about your kid's accent in English. Once they're in school they'll be speaking with the same accent as their peers.
It would be much, much easier if you were to acquire at least a decent passive understanding of Czech, thus allowing your wife and kid to use the language in your presence.
I already have an OK passive understanding. Not of sophisticated adult conversations [although I can often glean more than people think of those from context], but ordinary functional stuff -- food, household objects, basic verbs, words for want, have, none, some, many, and so on -- and child-level conversations are fine. So I would be fine with my wife speaking exclusively Czech to the kid, if that was the approach we took.
On the OP, a decent article by Wal/dron expressing skepticism towards the ideology of constitutionalism.