Weird! I wonder how that happened.
This is a really passive-aggressive way of breaking up with me.
As someone in drug discovery, every time I see a story like this, I kill a cute little mouse. No, wait, we do that anyway, regardless of stupid media ideas.
Evolutionary biologists tell us that we owe the singular bundle of feelings we call "love" to natural selection.
Well, that's enough to convince me!
What would the alternative theory be?
At his console he hesitated between dialing for a thalamic suppressant (which would abolish his mood of rage) or a thalamic stimulant (which would make him irked enough to win the argument).
"If you dial," Iran said, eyes open and watching, "for greater venom, then I'll dial the same. I'll dial the maximum and you'll see a fight that makes every argument we've had up to now seem like nothing. Dial and see; just try me." She rose swiftly, loped to the console of her own mood organ, stood glaring at him, waiting.
That they bear the same sort of relationship to natural selection that the rules of chess do? That is, that they're constrained by the evolved capacities and characteristics of our brains, but not tightly controlled by them?
I mean, we also owe love and chess to the precise interbalance of subatomic forces, but it doesn't tell you much about either.
So nobody feels love until they've learned how?
As someone in drug discovery, every time I see a story like this, I kill a cute little mouse. No, wait, we do that anyway, regardless of stupid media ideas.
SP: my grandfather did the same. He was a chronic toxicology expert early on.
So nobody feels love until they've learned how?
Learned ... from our Lord.
I am going to name my pop ev-psych book "Who Teaches The Puppy To Love?"
The Candy Man, Sifu. The Candy Man.
I don't personally kill them (my mom used to do some herself in her research) but I pay other people to do it for me.
I don't personally kill them (my mom used to do some herself in her research) but I pay other people to do it for me.
...
Go on.
So nobody feels love until they've learned how?
Foreigner certainly thought so.
If no one had ever learned to read, very few people would have fallen in love.
19: are you waiting for the story to get sexy or something?
I mean, love is probably hooked more tightly into our evolutionary heritage than chess is, but that doesn't mean it's not very difficult to tease apart the bits that are constrained by evolution from the bits that are culturally contingent.
Love for chess, for instance, may be more culturally contingent than love for one's children. But it is very difficult to say.
I love playing chess with mice.
Like, dressed up as the pieces, Queen-of-Hearts-style.
"Look at me! I'm a tiny live mouse with a bar running through me, connecting me to other mice!" I just squee.
Anyhow there are (at brief skimming of the first couple paragraphs of that articles) lots of stupid things in that article, but the idea that love as an emotion -- separate from its expression -- is (meaningfully!) a product of natural selection isn't one of them.
"Love" even for one's children, is a complicated set of thoughts and reactions. Part of it looks like it's obviously constrained by evolution, but not all of it, and teasing that apart isn't trivial.
[A]re you waiting for the story to get sexy or something?
No? No! Of course not. I've never even been to Disney World.
teasing that apart isn't trivial
Maybe present parents with wire children and see if they treat them as their own.
I mean, part of the number of arms people have is obviously constrained by evolution, but not all, and teasing that apart isn't trivial, either.
I've never felt it necessary to say this sort of thing to someone before, but:
Sifu? When you have your own children, you'll understand this all much better.
I'll understand natural selection much better?
Or, more explicitly, are you seriously saying that love for your children is as simple and easily understood as counting the number of limbs you have? Really?
Even if the theory behind it is sound, what could possibly go wrong in its application?
I mean, part of the number of arms people have is obviously constrained by evolution, but not all, and teasing that apart isn't trivial, either.
You know, with all the advances in prosthetics and neural interfaces, I'm certain we'll be able to give people four arms fairly soon.
I dunno, I can reasonably expect another 30 years in this vale of tears. I want to see this in my lifetime.
37: I know! I've actually never been in an argument where that seemed like a legitimate card to pull before.
You actually still aren't, but anyhow.
Through introspection, I have determined that yes, it did seem like a legitimate card to pull. If you can contradict that, your researches have a truly unsettling capacity for insight into my internal mental states.
39: I'm not talking about counting the number of limbs. I'm talking about determining the effect of natural selection on how many limbs somebody has.
Like, love, yes, many-splendored, complex, fickle, impossibly multifarious in its particulars, sure, fine. But the fact that, to a first approximation, human (and many other mammal, at least) parents feel love (which is a specific emotion with specific biological correlates) for their (immature) children and will do things like try to protect them from harm? That's really not such a deep scientific mystery.
44: I can't speak to your inner mental state without a more sophisticated cognitive model than I have extant, obviously. It just wasn't a very good argument, looking at it objectively.
The moment you behold your beautiful baby, you'll see how devoid of meaning all your limb-counting has been up to that point.
(As opposed to LB's outer mental state? Good point, Sifu.)
What about a man's love for a fine steak?
Replace "fine steak" with "food" and we're definitely in the same ballpark, explanatory-satisfactoriness-wise.
49: You want to eat shitty meat and have the experience enhanced with luv-drugs?
We could get you some bung-hole.
I thought the point was that saying "the love one bears for one's children is a product of evolution" really isn't all that informative, at least as it's being used in the article. I.e., the point is just that some of what we experience as loving or bonding feelings can be traced in part to easily isolated chemical compounds that we could maybe put in pills.
Is there an evolutionary argument lying around for my undying love for Doctor Octopus's arms in Sam Raimi's second Spider-Man movie? Or is it just that they were the best thing in any super-hero movie ever?
Bunghole Calamari is the name of my new band.
Oh look, a friend from highschool is facebooking his wife's labor.
Loving a baby is evolutionary.
Loving my baby like I do is a cultural/evolutionary combo.
Loving Baby Got Back is cultural.
Ergo, Baby Back Ribs.
love (which is a specific emotion with specific biological correlates)
I think what we're arguing about here is that, IMO, you're hijacking the English word 'love' to use it in a limited, tightly defined, technical sense. Which is okay, that's how technical fields work, but it doesn't change the common language broader meaning.
I agree with you that there are evolved commonalities among how all parents (in the absence of something unusual going wrong) feel and act toward their immature children, and that those commonalities are part of what we talk about when we talk about parental love. But they're not all of it at all -- there's a lot of culturally contingent stuff in there that's still a very important part of what parental love is about when we use the words in their natural language sense.
And once we move away from parental love into love generally, things get more and more culturally contingent. Is someone who loves their country using language wrong, or did that evolve?
But look with emotions specifically a lot of the other stuff that attaches is being led by the actual, you know, feelings, which are these specific biological things. When you feel love, that's not really culturally contingent. That feeling, that emotion, is a specific neurobiological response. Which is why you can take drugs and have them give you feelings. That could come to seem cheap, or insufficient, or tawdry or whatever, but the feelings are real enough. And I hardly think it's a misuse of emotional words to use them to describe the emotions, even if I'm talking about the emotions in a fundemantally somewhat reductive way.
56: ew.
(Is it wrong to be entertained for hours by my abdomen changing shape as the kid rolls over and over?)
And, really, hijacking the word love? This is a word that can refer to everything from excitement over a comic book to a scoreless tennis match. To my mind, talking about the actual emotional response that underlies (some? many? an important, small subset?) of the definitions is one of the least confusing uses.
I mean, shit, I'm using "feeling" quite reductively, as well, but you know what I mean, right?
(I should say, because I don't think that it was apparent, that 36 was meant completely as a joke. I expect Sifu to remain just as wrong even after he has looked deep within the eyes of his own child.)
Eternal truths Evolutionary biologists tell us that we owe the singular bundle of feelings we call "love" to natural selection the beneficence of Almighty God and His Plan.
61: I didn't mean to say (and in fact didn't say) that you were wrong to use love in a constrained sense, just that you shouldn't use that constrained sense to override the existence of a broader usage.
So nobody feels love until they've learned how?
That actually doesn't seem all that implausible to me.
feelings, which are these specific biological things.
I don't think feelings are these specific biological things.
On the other hand, saying that love is a "specific emotion" does strike me as implausible.
(Both because of "specific" and because of "emotion".)
Seems like a good occasion for this:
I missed her. Missing her reminded me of my one night in the House of Blue Lights, because I'd gone there out of missing someone else. I'd gotten drunk to begin with, then I'd started hitting Vasopressin inhalers. If your main squeeze has just decided to walk out on you, booze and Vasopressin are the ultimate in masochistic pharmacology; the juice makes you maudlin and the Vasopressin makes you remember, I mean really remember. Clinically they use the stuff to counter senile amnesia, but the street finds its own uses for things. So I'd bought myself an ultraintense replay of a bad affair; trouble is, you get the bad with the good. Go gunning for transports of animal ecstasy and you get what you said, too, and what she said to that, how she walked away and never looked back.
from Burning Chrome
Is there an evolutionary argument lying around for my undying love for Doctor Octopus's arms in Sam Raimi's second Spider-Man movie? Or is it just that they were the best thing in any super-hero movie ever?
You shut your filthy Marvel zombie mouth. Obviously the best thing in any superhero movie ever is when Batman rescues senior U.S. senator from Vermont Patrick Leahy from the Joker Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent defeats his evil unshaved super-doppelganger in the junkyard in Superman III and, restored to himself, he opens his shirt to reveal the pristine S-shield and then gets back to superin'.
I kill cute little mice at least once a week. What do you want to know?
They don't seem to luv each other very much. They don't form pairs or anything.
Does any of this discussion have any but the most remote bearing on the stupid fucking point of the article?
To put what I'm thinking in another way, I'm reading this:
But look with emotions specifically a lot of the other stuff that attaches is being led by the actual, you know, feelings, which are these specific biological things.
As saying that the evolved response is the actual feeling, whereas the fact that it's set off by tiny baby clothes with little rosebuds on the collar isn't meaningfully a part of it, given that tiny little embroidered rosebuds or itsy-bitsy turtle prints weren't an available stimulus on the veldt. The way I'm thinking about it, though, is that whole thing, reactions to itsy-bitsy turtle prints and all, is a biological fact. I see a little pair of footie-pajamas with giraffes on them, and biological stuff (which Sifu, I'm certain, knows more about in detail than I do) happens in my brain that's part of what I'm calling love, but that is stimulated by something that's not evolved.
Because I love my immature children, when they were four I kept sharp objects away from them. Because the parents I knew in Samoa loved their immature children, when they were four they handed them machetes and told them to cut grass. The evolved part of parental love is the same, but the full complexity of the emotion and its expression varies greatly.
77: I don't think so.
Seriously, or I guess not seriously, what the article made me think of was every silly fairy tale I've ever read about love potions. What happens if you start taking love drugs to revitalize your marriage and instead you find yourself head over heels for the cute clerk at the corner store?
I approve of advancements in the science of using drugs to substitute for emotional fulfillment.
79: I'm pretty sure synthetic oxytocin is pitocin, isn't it? So you take your bonding drug and experience uterine cramps?
That seems wrong, or the dosage is way off, or something, given that we're not all doubling over in agony every time we make meaningful eye contact with the men we love.
The sort of thing I was thinking of re: love potions.
82.1: Think its more a dosage thing.
82.2: Or slightly broader than just "love", Vonnegut's "The Euphio Question."
21: Love is a chemical interaction best served cold.
given that we're not all doubling over in agony every time we make meaningful eye contact with the men we love.
Not ALL of you, anyway.
Of course, if it were true love, we would.
Men -- if your sweetie can look at you without grimacing in pain, the relationship is in terrible, terrible trouble, and she's probably sleeping with the mailman.
Isn't alcohol already the break up drug? Not that I'd know, I've been with my wife since I was 19.
Also the love drug, depending on dosage and circumstances.
Wait, are we now calling beer goggles a form of love?
Because if I get all loaded and blow Teo I don't want him thinking that makes us a couple.
Hey, so I guess this is probably the best thread to tell about the weird thing that happened to me this morning.
It depends -- are you likely to say "I love you, man" at any point leading up to the oral sex? Because I think that plus a blowjob means you're going steady.
92: You'd better not just be teasing us.
Well, the short version is that language professors hate me.
Well, the short version is that language professors hate me.
You can't make it longer just by posting it twice.
This story isn't lurid at all yet.
Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent defeats his evil unshaved super-doppelganger
While Gonerill's getting started, I'm just going to say that I remember one thing and one thing only from Superman III, which was Superman defeating a piece of coal into a diamond and giving it to Richard Pryor. I believe it was the very last shot.
98 -> 97: Something That's something what she something said.
So diamonds are coal defeated by pressure and heat?
100: He gives the diamond to Annette O'Toole's Lana Lang! Sweet merciful Rao, sometimes I don't know how you reprobates sleep at night without the tedious burden of this exceptional recall.
Does anyone else find him/herself unable to see the term "love potion" without hearing Michael Keaton's voice, per Night Shift, saying "Loooooooooove brokers!" in response to Henry Winkler's "Pimps? Are you suggesting we become pimps?"
They caught you teaching Gaelic without a license? Turf Peat battles are the worst.
If Gonerill doesn't post that story soon we're going to have to break ope our iron-slabbed cask of wintry even tales and get bardic in its place.
Could you throw in something about Ossian at least?
Only kineseis can happen to a body, and being hated be a language professor is not kinetic. Consequently, that cannot be what happened to you this morning.
Being hated is energetic, not kinetic.
There once was a hero named Ossian
Whose forgeries made people Crossian
Exposing these tales
Roused strong scholarly gaels
But Macpherson did not give a Tossian
Weren't they, in fact, Macpherson's forgeries?
Being hated is energetic, not kinetic.
Anyone else want to take this? Anyone? Moby?
Ok, here's a bogus theory about kinds of love. I don't think anyone beyond the virginity-worshippers think that you have a finite amount of romantic love potential and if you blow it on your first love, you won't have any left if you need to try again. There are probably generally different allowances made for people who are widowed, but the assumption is that after a breakup you'll want and deserve a relationship where you can love and be loved better. (Assuming this is all very relationship-centric, obvs, but I think our culture is.)
I'm not actually drawing a parallel, but the kind of parenting I do has involved a lot of "breakups" and each time it's gotten a little more difficult to give my heart and be as open as I need to be. I still wish desperately and painfully for updates about Rowan, hope he's doing well, but I don't feel the same intensity about Val and Alex even though they were with us longer. (My sadness in both cases is also a regret that I didn't do more or do better.) But I had a friend who fosters say recently that each child deserves a parent who thinks he hung the moon. I know Lee isn't there (yet?) with Nia and to some extent comparing it to past foster-parent-love makes me think I'm not there either, even though I love her, even though I enjoy her and adore her and care for her and would mourn deeply if she left. Is that enough? How can I know?
I don't think I actually came up with a theory here, though I'd wanted to say something more when I started writing this. I don't think I'd take a love drug to help me get through this better because there's this whole issue of if I need a drug to do it then I don't deserve to do it anyhow. This is not exactly the same as the discussion about what counts as a disability and entirely glossed over in the commentary about morally obligatory love drugs. And I say this as someone who has taken SSRIs for sexual side effects, which also didn't help much and left me more depressed about the rationale for taking them, which I think would be my response to a love drug too. Maybe I'm just romanticizing this all too much.
Weren't they, in fact, Macpherson's forgeries?
They were indeed.
Ecstasy is maybe not exactly a love drug but it sure is fun. People should totally give it a whirl.
I endorse 117. If it isn't exactly a love drug, it's close enough to round up.
If I were the Psychopharmacology Czar, I would make MDMA the standard prescription for anxiety, PTSD, major depression and just about everything else that can go wrong with your brain. Plus a little Vasopressin.
I really do not like travel.
Four hours and counting.
You got far enough south to miss the blizzard, Smearcase.
I could be home on my fucking couch. My apartment is nice in cold weather. The radiator is set to about a million degrees.
Oh neat. They turned the power off. That seems like a good sign for sure.
I almost sent in an ATM about hammering radiators except that I'm sick of reading online about hammering radiators and I know Lee is doing stuff she's not telling me about to fix the problem while I'm at work anyway. But I love our radiators so much! One of the best things in the house!
123: so I take it that was your actual train?
Is, I guess. Could you get out and take a cab to New Orleans?
That was my actual train, yes.
Have you pointed out to the dead guy that it was sort of a dick move on his part?
30 Rock is helping. Sometimes things are extra funny when you're extremely dispirited.
Of course that won't help when my phone goes dead because the power on the train is off.
Total dick move. We've had a few people around here off themselves by stepping in front of a train. Effective as hell but for christ's sakes jump off a high rise parking garage or something so you don't shut down mass transit for hours.
Weren't they, in fact, Macpherson's forgeries?
Yes. A groundbreaking literary hoax, which pretty much set the standard for 'Celtic revival' discoveries of improbably ancient manuscripts.
For those keeping score at home this is the second train I have been on that struck and killed someone. The first was in I think Missouri, someone trying to cross at the last minute. We were already like sixteen hours late. In the end I think I was a day late getting home.
Ordinarily I don't tell these stories because the natural reaction to them is "how on earth can you travel that way?"
I have restraining myself from googling stats for pedestrians struck and killed by passenger jets.
There are seriously guys walking up and down the tracks by the train with flashlights. Oh hey guys I think I found a clue. It's a TRAIN and it's what ran over the guy on the TRAIN TRACKS.
Maybe they have to check that jumping under trains isn't a new terrorist plot to disrupt American transit and thus throw a wrench into the world economy.
"We will strike where they are most vulnerable-- the Amtrak schedule!"
It's also not great for the conductor's emotional well-being. They often see them coming from a good distance away.
For those keeping score at home this is the second train I have been on that struck and killed someone.
?!?
There was a terrible train accident in my town about a year and a half ago, which turned out to be a suicide. And one of my sisters, now a police officer and formerly a paramedic in the Toronto area, tells me that suicide by train (including, most commonly, subway train) is more common than most of us realize. The authorities try to keep it quiet, for fear of encouraging copycats.
So, Mister Smearcase, just out of curiosity: what's your record (number of sudden and violent deaths per miles traversed, or what have you) with car travel? You are more than welcome to passenge with me and J, Robot in May, of course, but I think I'm going to have to insist that you wear a seatbelt. We'll take it slow; and I guess I'll have the airbags checked before we leave.
That could be solved by replacing conductors with robots. No no wait-- giving them drugs that remove the emotion of guilt.
Has anyone seen the xtra crazy manifesto of the LA cop killer? He is strongly pro gun control and uses his own ability to amass a huge arsenal as exhibit one. That is a new lobbying tactic. Also lots of political commentary, pro-Obama, compliments his favorite journalists. Weirdest manifesto ever.
They were indeed.
And so not Ossian's, pace line two, is what I'm saying.
I always wanted to take X but now that I'm married/kids my illegal drug days seem over. Would like to take it with my wife but doubt she'd be up for it.
For those keeping score at home this is the second train I have been on that struck and killed someone.
We're tied!
Effective as hell but for christ's sakes jump off a high rise parking garage or something so you don't shut down mass transit for hours.
In Tokyo (and likely elsewhere), your family gets billed for transit-impeding suicides at rates that make for a powerful disincentive.
Oh hey guys I think I found a clue. It's a TRAIN and it's what ran over the guy on the TRAIN TRACKS.
The search might be for pieces of the guy.
131: jump off a high rise parking garage
Some guy did this at the Mall of America like 15 years ago and they still hadn't figured out who he was, last time I checked.
Ok, we've passed the 7 hour mark.
Would like to take it with my wife but doubt she'd be up for it
Might be worth feeling her out on the subject, especially if you have someone who will take the kids for the night. (And the late morning.) I've had good times and terrible times on Ecstasy, but I cherish the good and don't regret the terrible.
If you're actually doing it with the idea of processing some emotional business that you haven't really got at, you might want a spirit guide. Or at least caution.
I remember reading in the newspaper when I was a kid a story about a guy who tried to commit suicide by standing in front of a train but he was apparently too drunk to stay upright and when he fell between the tracks the train passed over him without killing him.
OK, we've passed the 7 hour mark.
Ugh.
Ah, poor Mister Smearcase. I've been held up by suicides on train tracks at least twice, maybe three times? Never my own train,* and I always end up feeling really selfish for being annoyed by the travel disruption because obviously there is someone who is getting the news and finding their life turned upside down and having a much worse day than I, but dammit, I'm also annoyed.
*LA to Chicago train hit a cow; we were there for four hours.
So nobody feels love until they've learned how?
TEACH ME OF THIS STRANGE PHENOMENON THAT YOU HUMANS CALL 'LOVE', CAPTAIN.
146: or loose change.
Seven hours is a hell of a long time. When they get a one-under on the Tube, they mop it up in about twenty minutes, as far as I can tell. Maybe people splatter more when a real train hits them. Though US trains don't really go that fast either...
138: It's also not great for the conductor's emotional well-being
Google translate of an interview with the head of Deutsche Bahn AG from several years back.
BamS. . . and as many drivers who have to deal with, without being involved in the death of a man's own fault.
MEHDORN: A very serious matter. We maintain a sanatorium exclusively for the treatment of these traumas. There must always be treated many employees.Apparently 3 train suicides per day in Germany. On the order of one per day in the US (which initially surprised me, but then, d'oh freight trains).
A friend of my wife's committed suicide by train a few years back. It was rendered somewhat more horrific by the victim surviving for a few days, and sadder (to me anyway) by the insistence of many of her friends (and family too, I believe) that it could not possibly have been a suicide despite her well-known bipolarism and its occurrence at a place where one was unlikely to be a pedestrian.
133
For those keeping score at home this is the second train I have been on that struck and killed someone. ...
This is fairly common. I was on an Amtrak train which hit a flatbed truck which had got hung up on the tracks, not killing anyone but putting the train out of commission so they bussed us the rest of the way. Out of curiosity I did some googling and apparently if you are an Amtrak engineer you can expect to be driving a train which kills someone during your career. Mostly accidental deaths as I recall. Amtrak trains are particularly dangerous as they go faster than the freight trains using the same tracks so people can misjudge. A few days later 4 young people were killed in a car trying to beat an Amtrak train on the same line (as I was on) a few miles away.
138
It's also not great for the conductor's emotional well-being. They often see them coming from a good distance away.
Yes, trains don't exactly stop on a dime.
141: Weirdest manifesto ever.
Indeed. A few points that touch on items that come up here or are otherwise of interest:
It's kind of sad I won't be around to view and enjoy The Hangover III. What an awesome trilogy. Todd Phillips, don't make anymore Hangovers after the third, takes away the originality of its foundation. World War Z looks good and The Walking Dead season 3 (second half) looked intriguing.
Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" is the greatest piece of music ever, period. Hanz Zimmer, William Bell, Eric Clapton, BB King, Bob Marley, Sam Cooke, Metallica, Rob Zombie, Nora Jones, Marvin Gaye, Jay-Z, and the King (Louis Armstrong) are musical prodigies.
Larry David, I agree. 72-82 degrees is way to hot in a residence. 68 , degrees is perfect.
Cyclist, I have no problem sharing the road with you. But, at least go the fucking speed limit posted or get off the road!!! That is a feasible request. Livestrong you fraudulent assholes.
[I'm not sure if that last is directed at Livestrong/Armstrong or the slow cyclists.]
159: And he mentions that he did suffer several concussions in the 90s from playing football. That might get some attention (whether warranted or not).
re: 154
There are regular person-in-front-train incidents at Southall and Hayes. For some reason that stretch attracts a lot of suicides. It usually disrupts the trains a fair bit, but not by hours.
159.last: if I didn't already dislike that for being an insane, murdering cop I totally would now.
162: So you like to keep the temperature in your place in the 70s?
It's okay, Stormcrow, not everybody knows what "last" means.
Fuck. I continue to be off my game.
I blame actually doing stuff at work overtiredness.
I did some work for a company that makes the platform screens for passenger stations, and I was privy to the sales pitch they made to ... um ... a major European transit authority. There was a very clear business case based on suicide prevention. Something like a third of the delay minutes on the system were attributable to "unauthorized human incursion" (i.e. platform jumpers). Also, a fairly substantial number of driver hours were lost to post-traumatic disability. You had to squint just right to make it a positive NPV investment, but it was surprisingly close on plausible assumptions.
My abruptly-planned and tightly-scheduled trip to my grandfather's funeral was punctuated by an MTA suicide in the Brooklyn. I was in the front car, felt the imact, saw the expression on the conductor's face as he left the train. No taxis in that part of Brooklyn.
My experience with MDMA is colored by spending a significant part of an LSD trip helping a friend who'd taken some along with some medicine for his flu that apparently didn't mix with the MDMA well. He spent several hours puking in a toilet while I tried to figure out whether or not to call an ambulance. On reflection it was probably more like half an hour, but I was tripping balls and freaking the fuck out so it seemed like a lot more.
The moral of the story is to do a little background research before taking anything. Erowid is a decent place to start and wikipedia has some helpful information and links, and the book From Chocolate to Morphine was helpful to me in deciding what if anything I was willing to try.
169: wait, that's not your own experience, though. Wouldn't that color your experience with LSD?
For a considerable stretch sometime back I fantasized every day of my commute about jumping in front of the train. The thought of that screeching thud, followed by silent nothingness, was delicious. The inconvenience to a bunch of anonymous strangers who might be made late for work never really factored into the fantasy.
The first time I did MDMA (1987) was in a hot tub with a beautiful boy. A+++
I'm with John Adams above. Seems like it would be fun, but the logistics at this point don't seem feasable.
You just need to find good babysitting for a night. Totally doable.
||
These are odd.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/8/3966678/hacker-reveals-george-w-bush-self-portraits
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170: Indirect experience, then. It's the reason I've never tried it despite access at one point in my life to a very reliable and trustworthy source. At this point I'm on drugs that may have nasty interactions with MDMA, but if I ever have access to trustworthy sources once I'm off the bloody things I'd be willing to give it a shot in the right company (I gather it's a little pointless to do alone).
My experiences with LSD have been mostly good, but I exercise extreme care controlling the setting. I know people who've been careless about it and had horrific experiences that continued to haunt them long after the trip was over.
Yeah I mean I'm not saying an e trip can't go all weird, but it's not at all the same deal as acid in terms of the potential for freakiness and bad memories.
I was thinking of taking some in the near future for the first time in years, and you guys have convinced me. I can only hope I don't think to comment here.
A friend of mine in college liked to take LSD and hang out with people that had no idea he was tripping. I guess he enjoyed the challenge of behaving normally, and also the thrill of having a really big secret.
My experiences with LSD have been mostly good, but I exercise extreme care controlling the setting.
Me too. Except only fantastically good and it's something I vaguely miss.
As for ecstasy, I get the most horrible hangovers and they last for days, and have zero interest in ever taking it again. Although good times were had.
179: My brother, too. I found out that sometimes when my mom would haul us to the ballet, he'd drop acid first. WEIRD.
I don't miss LSD, but shrooms were amazing and had lasting emotional benefits.
179: I've known several people like this. I have a theory that this quality is correlated with the loser/non-loser distinction among drug users -- people who take drug use as a challenge in that way tend to be more manipulative / domineering / ambitious and therefore more successful in whatever path they choose. (Although if that path is being a drug dealer they may get in trouble down the road). People who just like to zone out, giggle, watch TV, and hallucinate patterns in the carpet are less likely to rule the world.
Am I the only one who can't tell the difference between being on shrooms and acid?
people who take drug use as a challenge in that way tend to be more manipulative / domineering / ambitious and therefore more successful in whatever path they choose.
This would fit my brother, although I call it "charismatic" as a more positive spin. But he enjoys a social challenge, especially if armed with Dyer Maker.
Although I guess the last sentence in 183 would be generally true even outside the context of drug use.
I semi-seriously think everyone should be encouraged to take shrooms or LSD at least once in their life, in a controlled setting. Spiritual benefits!
People who just like to zone out, giggle, watch TV, and hallucinate patterns in the carpet are less likely to rule the world.
My very, very favorite thing to do is to set out for an epic walk.
178: You should! It's amazing.
179, 181: I had a college apartmentmate who used to do that all the time.
180: I never got the hangovers that other people report, but I'm told by very knowledgeable people that tryptophan and 5-HTP (both available in GNC-type stores) for a couple days afterward are pretty effective at knocking that out. I know other people who swear by St. John's wort.
183: That makes sense to me, but my friend doesn't really fit with that. He became a computer programmer and he's doing fine, but he's not manipulative or domineering and was never particularly ambitious.
They're pretty similar, but LSD seemed to inspire more pseudo-intellectual enlightenment, whereas shrooms was all about emotional introspection. I left the latter with real insight. Not so much the former.
184: Nope. The just that shroom trip is shorter, which I prefer, TBH. An acid trip takes so long it leaves me feeling weak the next day. The ideal combination is shrooms during the afternoon and then a nice mellow cool down in the evening smoking pot and listening to music.
I never felt out of control on LSD, but got higher than I wanted to be on mushrooms a couple of times.
187: Yes, all walks are epic on LSD. I like to tell the story about the time I walked down the hall of my Dorm (Markey) on LSD. The hall went on forever! It had no end! Then there was an emergency meeting of the Dormitory Counsel! They voted that the hall had to have an end. And just we reached the end of the hall.
192: It's harder to know the dose.
191: Ah, the >12 hour trip. Who has the time?
187: I like a little nature hike kind of walk with friends. I really enjoy the interaction with other people who are experiencing the same thing. Also the constant getting a little bit lost and having to figure out WTF you were doing all over again.
Apparently 3 train suicides per day in Germany
A former colleague of mine studied this issue for Deutsche Bahn, with the goal of preventing incidents and finding ways to help the drivers return to work sooner after an incident. One of the things she found was that the incidents are contagious - people are more likely to do it if an incident has been recently reported in the area. So Die Bahn managed to convince media outlets to enforce a news blackout on train suicides. She also had some interesting conclusions about what factors correlate with an early return to work, but I don't remember the details well enough to recount them.
175.--Those strike me as deeply, deeply depressed paintings.
200: Weren't you the one who said that you'd been told that all women learning to paint eventually do a self-portrait in the bathtub? Apparently it's a universal tendency.
201: Or Dubya's got an interesting secret. Maybe that's why he drank so much.
179: In a previous life I experimented with nearly continuous LSD use for a while (i.e. re-tab when you wake up, and at something like 4 hour intervals). It's not difficult to interact reasonably in daily situation unless your really pushing it (1000+ mics). Your brain focuses where and when it needs.
Er, 203 written before seeing 183.
201.--Yes, a friend who'd taught at the Art Institute of Chicago told me that.
Still, there are different ways of painting a person in the bathroom, and these strike me as pretty damn bleak.
205.1: Not sure what the significance of this fact is in this context, but George W. Bush is not a woman.
207: but gender dysphoria would explain so many things...
Masturbating in the shower is just really meaningful for W.
there are different ways of painting a person in the bathroom
Paging neb or someone to pen "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Person in the Bathroom." I have too much work today.
206: Exactly. George W. as Dr. Gonzo (also merging the subthreads).
But my attorney, it seemed, had not made it. He wanted more. "Back the tape up!" he yelled. "I need it again!" His eyes were full of craziness now, unable to focus. He seemed on the verge of some awful psychic orgasm ...
"Let it roll!" he screamed. "Just as high as the fucker can go! And when it comes to that fantastic note where the rabbit bites its own head off, I want you to throw that fuckin radio into the tub with me."
205. Or maybe technically limited-- those legs are too long, and a misshapen back is less striking than a misshapen front and monkey face.
He's definitely also technically limited.
213: That was apparent long before these paintings showed up.
I do agree with JM, if a friend or family member showed me those, I'd be concerned.
There is probably a great American novel in the life of George W. Bush. Something Flem Snopesian, but it would be more that he's the empty "respectable family" vessel that Flem Snopes hires to be his front man. And now the gig is done. So now it's watercolors and exercise equipment in the sunroom, and the occasional speech to Cayman Islands' bankers to enhance the flow of Benjamins. A modern Tolstoy would get it right.
He's definitely also technically limited.
It could be an artistic choice!
No way is GWB up to watercolors, neither his fingers nor his heart. He was a figurehead while he was in charge, Cheney made the decisions.
Look maybe Jeff Fort or Mao had complex inner lives-- there's a certain level of public action completely consistent with malevolent selfishness that basically erases any relevance of an inner life. This is just ugly voyeurism, which I'll cop to. Preferable would be evidence that GWB is again drinking, and is fighting ineffectually with his minders for acess, so is buying a lot of mouthwash at the CVS with cash from pawned mementos. Does he live in a dry county?
It could be an artistic choice!
Or folk art.
"It's folk art!" is my current excuse whenever I get caught doing something really half-assed and lazy, and no one thinks this is as funny as I do. So I should probably stop making the joke.
All I ever tried (other than my waspy favorites, gin and tranquilizers) was pot and, once, mushrooms I think we're no good because I just felt mildly stoned and that may have been psychosomatic. LSD seemed like a bad match for my brain (I think about jumping on the subway track extremely often, but not because I have any suicidal intent; rather because my mind throws out lots of noise, often whatever would be most ego-dystonic and disturbing in the moment, given my surroundings, if I didn't just think "ok, that's a thought. Fortunately not one I'm going to act on." So I figure I don't really need any enhanced access to my unconscious.)
I'd have liked to try e but am too averse to feeling bad and have heard plenty about the hangovers Heebie mentions.
Now 9 hours off schedule but at least we're moving.
219: So I should probably stop making the joke.
Nah, it's folk humor, so you can do whatever you want..
219: I like to say "That's just my way." But maybe you're in a place where people say that for real.
I think about jumping on the subway track extremely often, but not because I have any suicidal intent; rather because my mind throws out lots of noise, often whatever would be most ego-dystonic and disturbing in the moment, given my surroundings, if I didn't just think "ok, that's a thought. Fortunately not one I'm going to act on."
Smearcase's brain is often the one here that most closely resembles my own.
And now Folk Joke! is going to be catchphrase-stuck in my head all day.
Similar phrases I've heard, "Good enough for government work" and "Close enough for jazz".
Oar Folkjokeopus!
Now I'm feeling all nostalgic.
Neil Young and John Adams have convinced me that Nixon is actually a tragic figure, whose destructive actions are the product of inner torment and conflict.
I am not ready to believe that W has any inner life. He's just a dick. Same with Reagan.
"Good enough for government work"
I've spent the last five years trying to root this one out of my vocabulary.
179. I used to do that. Also I'd listen to Roy Harper.
Neil Young and John Adams have convinced me that Nixon is actually a tragic figure, whose destructive actions are the product of inner torment and conflict.
This is a pernicious lie perpetrated by Baby Boomers who wish, by proxy, to excuse themselves for not loving their parents.
"Close enough for jazz".
That one's particularly ironic, given the usual disparity between jazz musicians and all the rest.
The family gave me Neil Young's autobiography-ish-thing for my birthday. I'm alarmed at how much Neil is like my dad. They are both into cars and model trains to the extent that their relationship with their toys eclipses the actual people in their lives.
134: I have restraining myself from googling stats for pedestrians struck and killed by passenger jets.
Last night I half-watched Chronicle which features a mid-air near miss between a jet and the moral equivalent of a pedestrian.
||
One of these responses to a storm is not like the others.
|>
And yet the best response is running a poor third.
Eskimos have 50 words for plow.
I'm a gazetted boomer but I just don't get the point of Neil Young. Clunky lyrics, trite tunes and guitar playing like, well like a man who's higher than he can handle going dweeble-eeble-eeble-eeble.
Speaking of 'good enough for government work', I've been working all week with a representative of an agency located in an unnamed state capital halfway up the Hudson on a document that needs to be served today, and that she needs to approve. Today, she's out of work and hasn't contacted me.
Now, I know there's a big storm coming, but the interwebs say that where she is, they've got flurries right now,which really shouldn't keep you out of work. I don't feel even a little bad about going to her supervisor to get the approval I need.
236: Per Urban Dictionary definitions, it's not that different.
Regarding "close enough for jazz" why does almost only count in horseshoes and hand grenades? Hand grenades I guess because if you almost hit something it's still going to blow up, but horseshoes? Are we talking about the game? Because you still have to get the horseshoe around the thingy, don't you? Or is this about actual shoes to be put on horses? Because precision seems probably important there.
244: I think nearness to post counts in the game of horseshoes. If you're actually asking!
244: helpful guide to scoring on horseshoes.
Because I'm hilarious I always say "almost only counts in death and taxes" and "there are two certain things in this world: horseshoes and hand grenades".
Almost doesn't count in pwning, urps.
The Bush paintings analyzed.
Paintings That Creep the Rude Pundit the Fuck Out.
When I was growing up my next door neighbor had a well-tended horseshoe pit. On many an evening there'd be a small gathering of kids and wives sitting on the small grassy embankment that overlooked it while the neighborhood men played horseshoes (the kids would generally be running around, but it was sort of the home base). It is now sometimes hard for me to really process such Norman Rockwell bits of my childhood.
Wow, 236 made me laugh really, really hard.
"It's snowing! Quick! Plow me!"
some interesting conclusions about what factors correlate with an early return to work
Conductors who really despise suicidal types often ask for extra shifts.
technically limited
I actually thought that the end of the tub itself was nicely done, catching the way that apparently smooth porcelain actually mottles the light. Or maybe he can't even paint a uniformly white surface.
Obviously many other flaws.
the moral equivalent of a pedestrian.
Icarus?
257: Basically, yes. See :20 seconds into this video.
228: Treehouse is still going strong, last time I checked. There's really hardly any difference once you're inside. The French Meadow did buy the CC Club though -- for its parking lot!
but got higher than I wanted to be on mushrooms a couple of times.
Ooh, that reminds me that it might be time to re-watch the Family Guy episode where Brian does shrooms.
This isn't really interesting to anyone else, but since I seem to be procrastinating that proposal into the evening:
I've never consumed any mood-altering drug* other than alcohol, and at this point seem pretty clearly destined not to. LCD/shrooms is the only thing that ever interested me, but I am/was too freaked out about downside to try it. I don't know if I was being in any way correct about my possible reaction (I doubt it, since I seem to be a pretty damn sunny person), and the fact that I didn't drink until college was almost over probably led to an inaccurate assessment of what I'd be like in an altered state (drunk me is more or less indistinguishable from overenthused 20-y.o. me), but anyway, I don't really have that kind of time.
*really hardly any drugs at all. I take maybe 4 Advil a year, and that's pretty much it. I've never had a prescription pain killer. Antibiotics once.
I have a half serious theory that a lot of current British libertarian-style Tories did too much E back in the late 80s/early 90s heyday and permanently burned out their serotonin receptors, thus going from you're-my-bezzie-mates-all-of-you to I WANT NOW WANT TAX CUT NOW WANT WAAHHH.
Can we have a separate thread on MurderCop's manifesto? I'm a little late on reading this but holy fucking shit.
He is a strong gun control advocate, and after asking us to "think of the children," calling for an assault weapons ban, and praising Diane Feinstein and Mia Farrow, he has decided to show the world the need for gun control by . . . going on a murderous gun crazed rampage. Thanks dude, nice counterintuitive strategy!
Also he writes "I'm kind of sad I won't be around to enjoy Hangover III. What an awesome trilogy. Todd Phillips, don't make any more Hangovers after the third, takes away from the originality of its foundation."
Also, "Ellen Degeneres, continue your excellent contribution to entertaining America." Thanks MurderCop!
263.2: Sometimes it's like I (159) and PGD (141) don't even exist at this school blog.
See 141 for a non-censored copy of the manifesto. It's totally surreal. Tiny sample --
Tebow, I really wanted to see you take charge of an offense again and the game. You are not a good QB by todays standards, but you are a great football player who knows how to lead a team and WIN. You will be "Tebowing" when you reach your next team. I have faith in you. Get out of that circus they call the Jets and away from the reality TV star, Rex Ryan, and Mark Rapist Sanchez.
His political views (likes Colin Powell, the first Bush, Clinton, and Obama) and entertainment tastes are all solidly centrist. He even praises David Gergen! He's like the first middlebrow moderate crazed killer.
Dude I was too busy admiring myself in the mirror to scroll UP in a thread. What can I say.
N/b despite using the phrase "What can I say?" I am not MurderCop.
265: thank you! I took the passive-aggressive route to claiming the pwn.
263:Guy watched way way too much talking-head television. It will fuck you up. And he had no taste at all, which is another effect.
....
I always found mushrooms and mescaline to have static, predictable effects once I was going on a given batch. Comfortable but boring. LSD could still surprise the fuck out of me midway through the night.
And I can't say I was in control or responsible, but I always felt shrooms and Mesc were drugs doing stuff to me, while I was doing-feeling with LSD. Part of the better edge.
I didn't even notice all the social and cultural commentary in the manifesto. It seemed like a whistleblowing screed against corrupt cops. Which is exactly what the hero of a gritty action movie would write, followed by either exposing corrupt cops and forcing them to retire, or just killing the REALLY corrupt cops. However what he actually seems to be doing is killing innocent non-cop people.
I was thinking it might be a good weekend to drive up to Big Bear, since there's been snow up there and MurderCop seems to have scared everyone away.
266: He's like the first middlebrow moderate crazed killer.
Right! I didn't vote in this last election as my choice of candidate, John Huntsman, didn't win the primary candidacy for his party.
Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.
I thank the unnamed women I dated over my lifetime for the great and sometimes not so great sex.
And as far as the dude taking acid and then hanging with straights, well there was a sub-sub-culture of hard and mean tripping, the ultimate maybe being Hunter T at the Vegas cop convention.
Fact is, LSD works better, for some meaning of "better" being intense, when you're scared. Carefully controlled set and setting kinda misses the point. There were safer ways of making nervous, like picture books of Bosch and I suppose death metal music. Whatever.
Anthony Bourdain, you're a modern renaissance man who epitomizes the saying "too cool for school". Larry David, Kevin Hart, the late Patrice Oneal, Lisa Lampanelli, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, Dave Chapelle, Jon Stewart, Wanda Sykes, Dennis Miller, and Jeff Ross are pure geniuses. I'm a big fan of all of your work. As a child my mom caught me watching Def Jam comedy at midnight when I should have been asleep. Instead of scolding me, the next night she let me stay up late and watch George Carlin, Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor comedy specials with her for hours. My sides were sore for days. Larry David, I agree. 72-82 degrees is way to hot in a residence. 68 , degrees is perfect.
And since I find the centrist spree-killer really boring, so far, I vote for a snowpocalypse thread.
My opinion on women in combat MOS', Designators, Rates, and AFSC's. I wish all of you who attempt to pursue combat occupational roles the greatest success in completing, graduating, and qualifying in their respective schools/courses. Many want to see you fail. Remember, everyone of you is a pioneer. There was a time when they didn't allow blacks to fight the good fight. This is your civil rights. Don't quit!!!
Power of positive thinking!
276: You vote? Vote? VOTE? VOTE?YOU VOTE???
278:God what a bore. Maybe crazy cop is a better fit after all.
But I bet snowpocalypse will have a bigger body-count. Just sayin.
re: 241
I like the odd song, the odd album in fact, but yeah, I agree. The solos are interminable, and he's really not that good a player.
I feel the need to defend Neil Young, but I can't actually marshal any arguments. Whenever anyone presents a criticism, I have to admit its true. But he has a huge number of songs that really really get to me, for whatever reason.
||
I'm not sure what I expected when I began following Pee-wee Herman on Twitter, but I don't think it was this which is pretty great. (Protip for shoppers for the babyocalypse around here).
|>
281: I feel no need to defend him to anyone on any specifics. Greatest popular musical resume of my lifetime. One note says it all.
145: Sifu and LB.
(found in a forgotten open tab from this AM)
Sifu and LizardBreath
Well-versed in repartee
A-R-G-U I-N-G
Whence comes love?
Biology or culture?
Back on the veldt
They'd howl at their future.
60+ MPH at Blue Hill and close to that at Logan. Heaviest precip still south & west. But probably pretty snowstormy.
285: I just went and checked for you and it is definitely snowstormy. Evidence in the Flickr pool.
Admit it. That was you on that bike in front of the police car earlier.
Tweety I appreciate that pic.
None of my friends or family have responded to my plea (at the other place) for photos. I keep getting reports (from Springfield to a marina in Eastie) that it is snowing, but no proof.
US sledding championships in Camden, ME postponed due to blizzard ...
Weirdly sticky snow outside. I'm kind of afraid of how much there will be when I wake up.
Going back a bit: The all-time wonkiest, most earnest thing I've ever heard was (then-VP) Al Gore at a Department of the Interior event where he said that he wanted "Good enough for Government work" to be a phrase that people used as a form of praise.
The heaviest snow is apparently still to come.
||Apropos of nothing in particular, but an ex texted me the "I miss you, oh if only I'd been worthy" text today and I had a sazerac and beans with cheese and text-chatted with a friend instead of getting sucked in. I didn't even respond at all. And it may be mostly the cocktail talking, but I feel like I've *grown*. And kidless weekends tend to be kind of rough for this sort of thing so yay fucking me.|>
293: Hooray for not getting sucked back in!
Isn't a twist a more traditional garnish for a sazerac and beans?
Maybe it was a twist of cheese.
There is a lot of fucking snow outside.
Luckily I have half a bag of Fritos, god's own food.
I am kind of weirded out by the drug parts of this thread.
The "yay, drugs!" tone feels kind of grating in the context of a recent interaction I had with a person on drugs.
(I realize the drugs being discussed here are vastly different from whatever drugs were involved in that, but it's still weird.)
I dunno. We will probably continue to talk about sex, too; I don't think "drugs are bad" is the right takeaway any more than "sex is bad" would be. And, yeah, the specific drugs (and the context!) are very important.
297 gets it exactly right. Except now? There's even a lot more snow than there was when Bave wrote that.
We'll probably continue to talk about Alaskan Natives, but I don't think it's right to say they're all bad, always. Context is important.
305: Yeah, you're getting to the phase where it's eastern New England's own special 10 billion snowflakes. Biggest totals so far are a band from northern Long Island northeastward across New Haven up through Worcester with a number of places above 30 inches, but as noted still going strong in E Mass, NH and Maine.
My cousin in Portland, Maine posted some truly impressive pictures of a drift more than halfway up her door. We don't have nearly that much, but it's still enough that our car is 100% invisible.
An invisible car! Go fight crime!
Or terrorize cyclists! Oh wait ...
I did driveway and all the neighbor sidewalks with the new snowblower, but then I shut it off and now it won't start again. I was running it pretty hard through some drifts. Anyone know what could be wrong? I don't know shit about engines. I refilled the tank even though it looked like it was still about half full.
Gas/oil mix? Needs priming? Here, have random internet.
How long after you turned it off? Try removing the gas cap and then putting it back on (or starting with the gas cap loose if that does not work). Also, look for places where snow may have blocked air intakes.
Also sometimes there are very specific known problems for specific makes and models/engines.
311: almost all engine not starting problems are lack of fuel or lack of spark. If the tank is full, then either fuel isn't getting into the cylinder (or not enough) or spark isn't. The former would be a problem with injection or carbueration, if it's injected probably a control connection, if carbureted could be a mechanical problem or connection ( do you smell fuel? Any spillage?). If fuel is getting to the cylinder ok, you aren't igniting it. This is most likely an electrical problem, so check that ou haven't knocked a wire loose.
There are things you can do to diagnose, but many will require some tools, and I'd need a better description of the engine.
314: wasn't thinking. It's probably 2 stroke. Advice still applies but check priming and choke settings first.
I had turned it off for about 3 minutes to talk to someone, it had been running fine before that. Maybe chugging a bit from going through deep snow. Oil is a separate tank, not blended. Maybe I primed too much when it wouldn't restart? Also the choke knob seems a little wiggly- it clicks partway down to full choke then sort of slides even further.
Going to try again- obviously I'm not standing in two feet of blowing snow waiting for the Internet to fix my engine.
3 minutes I would probably not choke at all (or at least initially try it that way). Not helpful, but what I assume is translation fun from Briggs & Stratton on how to have a better relationship with your tool.
Persons that keep these factors in mind when regulating a manual choke control engine during cold starting and re-starting generally have easier starting and better relationship with their engine and tool as a result.
Got it going- I'm the most popular person on the block, I did everyone's driveways. Some young guys down the street gave me various containers of alcohol in thanks. The problem was leaving it on choke too long (or doing choke at all) when warm starting- it was puttering out, once I flipped back to run while puttering and it picked right up.
303: Yeah, no, I definitely realize that (and realize that people are probably sick of me going on and on about this). It was just a weird thing that stood out to me when I was reading the thread last night given my mindset at the time.
Still wondering what Gonerill's story was.
Bhas it dait iú bheir tíetinn Airis?
My cousin in Portland, Maine posted some truly impressive pictures of a drift more than halfway up her door. We don't have nearly that much, but it's still enough that our car is 100% invisible.
Their door is more than twice the height of your car?
323: no, but it is shaped differently.
No, their car is less than half the height of their door.
Mainesnow = ((0.5)Door) + x
Sifusnow
Car
∴
Car
x = "more than"
The question is: how big is the fudge factor designated by "more than"?
Now I'll try to do it again after figuring out how to get "less than" signs to appear.
Mainesnow = ((0.5)Door) + x
Sifusnow < Mainesnow
Car < Sifusnow
∴
Car < ((0.5)Door) + x
x = "more than"
The question is: how big is the fudge factor designated by "more than"?
I am baffled by this conversation. Snow accumulates around and atop cars in a different fashion than it accumulates at a door; the snow was on the car such that no portion of the car was actually visible, but the depth of the snow measured from the ground at a level point was far less than the height of the car. The depth of the snow at my cousin's door more closely approximated the depth of snow measured etc. because doors are flat, vertical surfaces, and thus do not hold snow.
The conversation is thoroughly footnoted at Standpipe's blog, Sifu.
Sometimes a door is a jar. That's probably why Sifu got confused.
Question related to 311/314:
My car's battery has been a little slow all winter*, and yesterday morning it wouldn't turn over. Jump, fine, drive around for 15 minutes, and it started twice more, with drives of ~10 minutes. This morning, dead again, jumped again, multiple starts again, with longer run times. Advance Auto Parts was crazy expensive, so I didn't just buy a new one.
Anyhoo, here's the question: tomorrow am, AB has to drive to a town about 50 minutes away for work. I"m assuming that this will "top up" the charge better than the in-town driving of the last 2 days, and that she will have no issues during the day. Is this folk mechanics, or actually how car batteries work?
* or, on occasion throughout the winter - it mostly starts fine
329 is eerily reminiscent of all the emails I've been writing to respond to my frustrating collaborator's questions about the draft of our paper. Which were not in the form of, like, actual questions posed in conversation or in email, but in "???????" added throughout our tex file.
332
I am not an expert but it sounds to me like the issue may be more how long the car engine has had to get cold than how charged the battery is. Personally I would get a new battery.
332- The times that similar things have happened to me, the problem was (once) a messed-up alternator and (3 times) battery needed replacing. In all of those situations, I would have expected the battery to be dead after leaving it for a few hours, regardless of how long it was running ahead of time.
So she should probably take some jumper cables with her.
332: That's pretty similar to one of the many problems I've had with my car. (Ultimately I had to get a new battery.) I think the answer to your question depends on what exactly is wrong, especially whether it's the alternator, the battery itself, or something else in the ignition system. She should definitely have jumper cables on hand just in case.
It's the battery or possibly a short draining the battery. The car won't continue to run if the alternator's dead.
It does sometimes help batteries to run them longer if they're not holding charges well, but it's still usually a sign that you need a new battery (or that there's a short draining it somewhere.) Still, she'll want jumper cables.
What every one else said. Also, if the battery in more than give years old, you may as well just get a new one. It's almost certainly a bad battery and if it was something else, whatever it was has probably taken whatever spark that battery had left.
I'll have to give her a tutorial on jumper cables tonight.
Based on the last 2 days, it seems that, once it fires up in the morning, it should be good all day. What I'm mostly hoping is that mild weather tonight will help.
Have you considered jumper cables?
I hired the babysitter to get here at 4, and headed to the library, opened my bag, and realized I left all my work at my office on Friday. So now I just have an hour to kill online before I need to leave for this dinner. Suddenly I'm incredibly sleepy and just want to curl up on the floor.
I sound like I'm complaining but I'm actually very content.
The library my mom worked at had a guy whose job it was to make sure nobody was sleeping. That was how they kept the homeless from camping out. Apparently, to convince the courts that it wasn't discriminatory, they had to wake up every one.
Nothing depressing about that.
It might have helped. The homeless people who wanted to stay warm had to read all day. If they weren't illiterate to start with, they probably learned something.
Is the name of the guy supposed to mean something?
It all means something, heebie. Have you watched the video? It is suffused with meaning.
I can't watch the video, I'm at the library. Do try to keep up.
353: oh no it is totally soothing. If anything the people around you will be able to concentrate even better than before.
The music in the video is definitely soothing, but the dude really has a voice for blogging.
My friend made me watch that and I just... was it a joke? Does he really want twelve grand to, uh, make a new website and go to Austin? He definitely still lives with his parents, right? What the hell? And then I burned kickstarter to the ground.
Yeah, I dunno. I guess the idea is that people who like his blog will want to give him money just on account of that rather than because he has any particularly interesting ideas for what he's going to do with it. This is I think what actually has driven the success of a lot of Kickstarter campaigns, but at least they do in fact have well-defined projects they're financing even if that's not the main reason people give them money. This is like an attempt to do that but stripping away the "well-defined project" part.
Who wouldn't like his blog? Indie music and bikes and beer? It's a triple threat! It is totally important that he get twelve grand to go to Austin.
Can I have a kickstarter as consolation for having toe arthritis?
Who wouldn't like his blog?
I suspect he's about to find out.
I hope it is toe arthritis, not gout.
I have recently had random foot pain. Two (three?) nights ago it was enough to keep me awake. We should start a band!
"Random Foot Pain" would actually be a pretty good band name.
362: Not really, in terms of causality.
Doesn't "arthritis" describe a bunch of things with pretty widely varying causality?
Or when people say "arthritis" should I assume it means osteoarthritis and not say stupid things?
No. Really I should have specified osteoarthritis. I haven't dealt with the other kind at all time three years and it was always less of a focus.
Also, I can't be in a band because I don't music well.
Don't be silly, Moby. Lots of people in bands don't music well.
"Worse Than Garfunkel" would also be a good band name.
"Foot Pain Worse Than Garfunkel", maybe? Do torch songs, occasional freestyling?
"Foot Pain Worse Than Garfunkel", maybe?
That sounds more like a tabloid headline, although I'm not sure what the accompanying article would be about.
I would imagine that Art had some pretty significant foot pain.