1. I have a student who is unable to ever pass a math class, and probably has a legitimate learning disorder when it comes to math. All of the math professors (small school) have explicitly told him that he will be unable to get his degree and that he should change majors. There is no mechanism (for good reason) for barring someone from pursuing a major. He has registered for two of my classes this semester and I'm dreading this.
Have you considered suggesting he hire a tutor?
We have personally arranged one. There's also free tutoring that he makes some use of. A big problem is that other students avoid him like the plague, because his retention is nonexistent, and so he's never actually dealing with the math in a given class, because he's constantly re-learning basic algebra.
The money quote, more than anything, is this one:
Trump's advantage over the Republican field is thorough. He leads with Tea Party voters (44%), men (39%), independents (36%), conservatives (36%), voters who are most concerned about electability (35%), both younger voters and seniors (at 34% with each), evangelicals (32%), women (30%), and moderates (29%). Trump has a 56/32 favorability rating and he also leads when you match him with the other Republican hopefuls head to head- it's 47/39 over Ben Carson, 53/35 over Scott Walker, 53/34 over Marco Rubio, and 56/33 over Jeb Bush.
There is no mechanism (for good reason) for barring someone from pursuing a major.
That seems ... not wise. I can understand letting people choose whatever subjects they want, but surely if they want to progress past the introductory class, they have to pass it?
At least in most schools I don't think that prevents you from making that your major. It just prevents you from graduating.
I know at least one person who, in college, nearly didn't graduate because they hadn't fulfilled all the requirements for their major as a last-term senior. (Working in the registrar's office made this easy.) They had just forgotten to turn in their change-of-major forms and once they did that they were fine.
6.1: At my school, I think you had to pass a certain set of classes to get a major in the engineering school, but not arts and sciences.
The only solution is to just go ahead and give him his diploma.
Somehow that ended up not working so well for Mrs. Puff, though, as I recall.
Guns and gun nuts. This will never change. Holy fucking shit America.
Ooh, I tutored a student like that once! It was amazing. He couldn't retain info even within a single tutoring session. It took him three tries to pass the course I tutored for. He had low hearing in one ear, which changed each semester (left/right/left). The craziest part was that on the third try, he showed up a different kid. Putting together gossip, I think he stopped self-medicating and started taking a prescribed drug for ADD. He showed up organized, wanting to work steadily every week (rather than the three-hour marathon "review" sessions two days before an exam), and remembered things week to week. He didn't do very well, but he managed to pass with a C. He probably found more than $5 for what he saved in tutoring money.
The Scottish universities I'm familiar with, you'd have to pass the first year classes in a subject in order to do the second year classes in that subject, and so on until honours (3rd and 4th years). So someone who was failing the first year classes, after resits, would basically be encouraged to change subjects or have to leave.
I know, because I was in exactly that position, at my first university. I chose to leave.
but surely if they want to progress past the introductory class, they have to pass it?
This is true. He's managed to re-take classes and memorize a whole lot and get the necessary D to move on to the upper level classes.
I mean if 20 six and seven year old children can get massacred by a rampaging gun nut why is this special? Because this time it was on camera? That's just so 2015.
There are also GPA cut-offs - you have to have a 2.0 in your major classes. But that prevents graduation, not declaring a major.
If you're actually failing, they will kick you out. At least from the state schools. There's just some space (for the first year or so) between failing and doing good enough to graduate.
All the good Trump puns have been taken: trump l'oeil, trumpenproletariat, mein trumpf, etc.
So what's keeping the student from changing? Stubbornness? A belief that they will end up passing maths? And is maths fundamental to the major or just an ancillary requirement, ie are they likely to fail other required courses?
The Scottish universities I'm familiar with, you'd have to pass the first year classes in a subject in order to do the second year classes in that subject, and so on until honours (3rd and 4th years). So someone who was failing the first year classes, after resits, would basically be encouraged to change subjects or have to leave.
Same for Oxbridge, though at least in English it was just Mods at the end of the first year before Finals. If you actually fail, you're out (though my Mods were pretty horrific, now that I think about it).
So this dude in Virginia shot the reporter live on air, but also filmed himself doing it and live tweeted it. He also claims he did it because the reporter was racist. If only he had a Trump tie-in.
So what's keeping the student from changing? Stubbornness? A belief that they will end up passing maths? And is maths fundamental to the major or just an ancillary requirement, ie are they likely to fail other required courses?
He wants to be a math major, but basically I don't know. He's done okay in his other gen ed courses.
First you get the math credits, then you get the money, then you get the women.
Probably his mom wants to him to be math major.
Ladybird, has this student been evaluated for ADHD/tried medication?
Every other Friday, by direct deposit.
26 to 25? Never heard of that medication strategy before.
25: No idea. I've been in close contact with the disabilities coordinator, but she's not allowed to share something like that. My impression is that he's not willing to be tested. My suspicion is that it's legitimate dysgraphia and not something that there is a test for.
19: this story prompted me to look up the etymology of "disgruntled" and discover that it does not derive from "dis" meaning "not" and "gruntled" meaning "happy, satisfied"; it comes from grunt, meaning, well, grunt, plus a frequentive -le ending implying a habitual action (cf. sparkle is spark plus -le, if you sparkle you produce lots of sparks habitually; grumble is grunt plus -le, if you grumble then you habitually make complaining noises), plus an obscure and obsolete dis- prefix in which dis- is an intensifier, cf "dissever" meaning "to separate completely".
So if someone is disgruntled, they make strong, continuous complaining noises.
Which doesn't explain why we say "a disgruntled employee" rather than "a disgruntling employee". Disgruntling is not something that happens to the employee, it's something they do.
Russian politician's wedding snapshot:
https://twitter.com/Anna_Veduta/status/628190012841041920
Maria Gaydar, Yegor Gaydar's daughter and one of the close colleagues of recently assassinated Boris Nemtsov, has chosen to live and stay politically active in Ukraine rather than London or the US, which I think is pretty interesting-- she's one of the Russian opposition politicians I try to keep track of.
Nikita Krushchev's granddaughter, also not a fan of Putin's:
http://qz.com/469945/heres-what-happened-when-i-held-up-a-putin-is-a-dick-sign-in-red-square/
People are fleeing from Russia again, unfortunately no problem for Putin as he does not need much population to extract minerals and hydrocarbons. No word on how shipbuilding is going though.
He wants to be a math major, but basically I don't know.
Well, that is odd. He enjoys maths, even though he can't even get a passing grade? Something doesn't add up, so to speak.
Oh yes, ladies, I'm really bein' sincere
In the 69 my Trumpty nose will tickle your rear
I have managed to destroy all my pairs of jeans, and am left with the one pair I never wear because they're hell-bent on exposing my ass to the world. Nothing more enraging than having to pull your jeans up every two seconds.
34: I've tried. Ladies jeans are often too stretchy to make a belt much more than decoration. (Actually, I don't know if that is it. But basically, it doesn't help. Suspenders/braces might?)
I have managed to destroy all my pairs of jeans
I suppose I should offer congratulations on this achievement. What was your approach to this substantial task?
36: By walking while being moderately chubby. Inner thighs wear out every time, woo!
I found this article depressing, if not exactly annoying.
30.1: What does that dress say? I'm not familiar with bridesmaid(?) dresses with writing on them.
Hmmm...clicking on the link in 38 causes FireFox to crash. Annoying, but not depressing!
40: Worked fine for me, in Firefox, now using Windows 10 but not upgraded since.
38: shorter: "Uber gives the middle class some way to get around that isn't a bus, so will lead to the end of public transport because no one with power will care about it any more".
On the other hand, it will also take a load of cars and taxis off the streets, which will be a huge boost to bus services because they'll be able to provide faster and more frequent services with the same number of buses and drivers. The article ignores the extent to which Uber is substituting for taxis and private cars already (and will continue to do so).
Why isn't there a birthday card section for "Cards with very few words"?
The article in 38 is indeed depressing. I think 42 is overly optimistic in response. In the greater scheme of things the impact of uber on traffic volumes will be insignificant.
If you need cheering up, under the heading of The Occasional Usefulness of Radley Balko, he's done a goodish piece in the WP on Campaign Zero, which will be read by people who don't get all their news from boutique blogs.
"Cards for people who can't conceive of using the word 'special' without irony"
Why isn't there a birthday card section for "Cards with very few words"?
There is. It's the artistic card section, with the photographs of birds and landscape paintings and such. They usually are blank or just say Happy Birthday.
The article ignores the extent to which Uber is substituting for taxis and private cars already (and will continue to do so).
I think this is a blinkered perspective. I could be wrong, but I think Uber is a nothingburger in most cities of this country, at least. Pittsburgh has famously bad taxi service in large part because owning/driving a car here is fairly painless, so there's very low demand. This is pretty common. What does Uber offer to create demand? I mean, I get that the system is lower friction than taxis, and so there is some induced demand, but I don't think its remotely enough to be talking about reducing traffic on streets.
Continuing the OP: 2. I have a stack of dishes that I was washing Sunday night when I was told to stop. My wife had the next day off and was going to wash them... but didn't, all day. Yesterday, I was opening a cabinet door and the still stacked high dishes were clipped by the door and went crashing to the floor, shattering a glass mixing bowl.
I suspected when she offered that she wouldn't deliver, but didn't want to ignore her generous (almost unprecedented) offer. Grr.
38/42/44: I'm conflicted about Uber; I hate it for all the usual reasons, but critics really need to take seriously that the limited data that exists seems to show that the service is much, much better than the taxis it's destroying, the owners of which also tend to be super hateable (caveat: that study was comparing Uber to phone-dispatch; not sure why they didn't compare, e.g., Uber to Flywheel, which connects to normal taxis).
Also, I'm largely persuaded by the urbanist case for robot cars. The sticking point, as Nosflow's link says, is how we get from here to there. And, crucially, who owns and operates the robot fleet, when we get to "there".
Link related to guns in the US http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-united-states-mass-shooting-20150824-story.html
I'm annoyed by my procrastination and overall dislike of academic publishing. I got into sciences because I hate writing and now that's all I (should) do. Plus getting reviews back has to be the most soul-crushing part of my life. Why can't people just be nice?
Anyway, academia is not for me and I'm looking to sell out but no one is super interested in an old specialist who doesn't take direction well.
As far as I can tell, the new Uber service is what used to be called the omnibus. I think in the past it has loomed large in libertarian interpretations of economic and urban history, since they argue that unnecessary regulation brought it down. It's been years since I read about it, though.
50.1 Right. My impression is that, to the extent that Uber is succeeding, it's doing because traditional taxi service is terrible to non-existent in most places that aren't either airports or Manhattan.
traditional taxi service is terrible to non-existent in most places that aren't either airports or Manhattan.
The flag-down taxi service is OK here in Not-New-York, as long as you don't venture too far off the main roads. The radio cabs are excellent - usually with you in under 10 minutes except at Eid, Christmas and New Year.
Drunk people say Uber is better at getting them from the bar than a taxi.
4 reminds me of the cards the were printed saying (roughly), "In the event of my being hospitalised after a major disaster, under no circumstances is th Prime Minister to be allowed to pose for a photo opportunity by my bed." These originated under Thatcher, but had a second lease of life under Blair.
In the spirit of 48: indeed, everyday mundane things are annoying me.
1. I have tried three (3) times now to do some basic business at the bank: each time, I'm at least 6th in the line of waiting persons, and there seem to be too few bank personnel on duty. This morning after waiting 15 minutes and observing that there were now still 4 people in front of me, I walked out. Is it too much to expect that I might be able to conduct my business in less than, say, 45 minutes before even being seen? Am I being an impatient person?
2. I can't make enough pickles to deal with the plethora of cucumbers. Now out of white vinegar as well as fridge space.
3. Fridge space! Not enough.
4. My next door neighbors have begun making an outdoor wood fire every evening starting around 7 p.m. While I enjoy the scent of wood smoke, not so much when it wafts in through the windows for hours and hours.
57:
#'s 2, 3 & 4 - You could put the cucumbers on a stick and roast them over the wood fire.
#1 - No suggestions.
Here we have a GPA in subject requirement for both declaring a major and for graduating, but not to stay in a major. They calculate a number which is something like "how many credits at a B would you need to raise your GPA I. Your major to a 2" and if that gets too larfe you have to go get yelled at by a dean who will probably kick you out of school soon. But even then the dean can't make you change major, they can only kick you out of school.
57.2 - Ferment them! Salt pickling is overwhelmingly superior to anything using vinegar. Also afterwards you can drink the brine.
I think vinegar pickling involves some salt.
57.1 has some merit: I could saunter over and declare that I will dump 7 or 8 cucumbers on them if they don't move the fire further back into their back yard.
60: I am not familiar with this. It sounds sort of gross. Are fermented cucumbers to accompany Korean or Vietnamese dishes or something? A kimchi kind of thing?
60: I am not familiar with this. It sounds sort of gross. Are fermented cucumbers to accompany Korean or Vietnamese dishes or something? A kimchi kind of thing?
No, it's how traditional sours and half-sours are made. Pickles in a barrel at the deli kind of thing.
I mean, kimchi too! But it's the standard traditional Western way of pickling cucumbers.
Got it. Mmmmaybe I'll try that: at least they wouldn't have to be refrigerated, like the quick pickles. More likely some will go to compost, which is fine.
Conclusion to avoid a similar annoyance next summer, at any rate: grow fewer cucumbers!
Sauerkraut, dill pickles, it's the ur pickle.
I'm trying to sort out my mom's Social Security situation. They sent her a form to fill out proving she's still alive. She had 30 days to turn it around, so of course they sent it by surface, which takes 45-60 days to get to Gaborone. When I go to the Social Security office they tell me she needs to talk in person to someone at the US embassy, but the person who handles Social Security matters for the embassy in Botswana is in London and my mom can't travel easily due to her age, not to mention the thousands of dollars a trip would require. Telephone and Skype won't cut it, apparently. Tomorrow I go back to the office to try again.
Toilets that flush are better than toilets that don't. I would like more of the former, please.
I just can't stop looking at this Godzilla .gif. I guess that's not something I hate, that's something I love, but I love it because Godzilla hates.
60: It's the same basic process (also sauerkraut and most of the other really old pickling techniques).
Also I don't understand 61. Salt goes in pretty much anything, yeah, but salt pickling is a specific thing where you pickle something by putting it in salt water and then waiting for it to get sour.
And I seriously wasn't joking about drinking the brine, by the way. Tangy, lightly (way less than you'd think) cucumber water with some herbs in it is unbelievably good, especially when you're a little dehydrated.
I'm just quibbling with the utility of the term "salt picking."
When Lee left, she left her dog with me because she thinks it's better for the dog to stay with the girls and because it makes her life on the third floor of a building easier, I'm sure. I'm not a dog person, though I'm plenty fond of this one, and I'd been hoping she'd take her dog. The girls have gotten cat-crazy and I like cats and would totally have gotten some if we had no pets, but I don't need one more thing on top of a dog probably. So I guess it's just as well we're not getting our way, but I'm a little grumpy about it.
71: It's like I always say -- you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your salt.
Two pickles were walking down the street, one was a salted- yeah, doesn't work as well as the original.
69, 76 Fuck, what thread was it in again? I want to tweet that fucker.
67: the person who handles Social Security matters for the embassy in Botswana is in London
Is in London temporarily, or permanently? If the latter, good grief, that strikes me as unacceptable. Is every US citizen in Botswana expected to travel to London for these matters? Can you put up a stink? (I imagine you are doing just that.)
My sympathies.
Got it! (Found it by searching for the thread with ttaM lamenting the relentless beshitting of the world - a sentiment with which I wholly concur - which is where I remembered it being).
The question is "Why does Godzilla hate?"
70.last: I used to drink pickle juice (from, like, Vlasic pickles from the store) when I was a kid. I guess I didn't realize that there was no vinegar in regular, as opposed to quick, pickles. I still occasionally drink olive juice.
I'm annoyed that, while there are plenty of things I'm unhappy/conflicted about, nothing is properly annoying me such that it fits in this thread. Oh, I guess I'm annoyed that my newish roommate, while a drastic improvement over the last two, is a loud, gross sniffer. But at least he's not a high-frequency sniffer (which would be intolerable to me). I really wish I knew how to screen for sniffing without sounding insane.
57. Banks don't have extra tellers in their branches because you are supposed to do everything on-line or on the ATM. If it's something you can't do on-line, you shouldn't be doing it, and usually the tellers don't know how to do it either. Last time I was in this situation they said, "Doing so-and-so requires an appointment with Ms. More Important Person Behind a Desk Rather than a Counter."
Mundane annoyances:
#1. You submit a request for customer support to a Giant Soul-less Online Entity, carefully detailing what didn't work and what you did to try to make it work. No matter to what GSON, the response you eventually get from them just tells you to do what you already told them, in detail, you had tried, and that didn't work.
#2. Maps of airports, festooning the airport walls in an abundance usually reserved for warnings not to take bags from strangers, but lacking the little dots that say "You are here." I know what the airport looks like. I want to know exactly where I am in it.
83: I tried that once after making pickles the first time. It's ... not the same. I mean, really, really not the same. I don't know exactly what the difference is but it's a pretty big one. (I suspect that the brine in the jars isn't the brine the cucumbers are pickled in, for one.)
I don't like, but can barely tolerate, .003 Hz. Anything in the neighborhood of .17 Hz makes me want to kill someone.
Because I think you could put that in a Craigslist ad. "Must sniff at .5 μHz or less."
I am currently a gross sniffler/cougher/nose blower, because I have a cold. Sorry, colleagues with offices near mine!
79: Permanently. The number of Social Security recipients in Botswana is probably less than a dozen. It's not a very big country and they aren't very welcoming of expats who aren't either doing a job no citizen is trained for or employing a bunch of citizens. Tourists excepted, of course.
I meant .017. .17 would be a stunning achievement in sniffing.
88: That's a lot of sniffing indeed.
My advice to Tia is to not choose a dog as a roommate. Dogs sniff a lot!
I don't know if it counts as sniffing, but whatever noise pugs make when they breath would be very hard to me to live with.
Sniffing is tolerable. You know what's not, in roommates? Leaving kitchen cabinet doors wide open. Not doing dishes.
My annoyance #5: Somehow I've become the designated cook in this household. I understand various reasons for it: I'm a better cook, I have more creative ideas, and my housemate is mostly in charge of the garden, so it's my job to make things from the garden stuff. I enjoy the ingredients, but not very much that I'm the one who has to put the plan together, procure missing ingredients, and execute the plan.
I'm uncomfortable -- one might say, annoyed with myself -- at the division of labor, along traditional gender roles, around here. In order to correct it, though, I'd have to, like, clean the gutters and, um, other shit I'd really prefer not to do. I've begun to think there's no answer unless I really am willing to learn how to fix the plumbing and whatnot. I find myself confused about myself on this.
Last night I yelled at a dog. It would bark in spells of about 1 cHz to 1mHz. After the first hour, I walked around until I found him and then told him to shut up.
99: I'm sure he shut right up and apologized.
97: If you got a sex change operation, you could continue to be the designated cook without reinforcing traditional gender roles.
100: I didn't knock on the door because the house was completely unlit and I though I would try the door only if the problem persisted. It did work the first time. I suppose it's most likely that the owners were awakened by my yelling and they shut him up.
That's a lot of sniffing indeed.
MIL has had a near-perpetual sniff for about a year now, but what's really annoying is the complaining/apologizing, which is at nearly the same frequency. I can tune out the sniffing (somewhat), but I can't tune out, "Ugh, this runny nose just won't go away." Especially at dinner.
JUST SHUT UP!
Dick Nixon brings the thread together.
Heebie never started the thread, did she?
Holy shit, I didn't tell y'all the latest update on the MIL situation. She managed not to completely collapse at our house, and proactively arranged to get stuff out of her old place*. She even left our place roughly as scheduled.
AND THEN she casually drops at dinner Sunday night (she was over because her niece was in town) that she's been sleeping not in her new apt, but in her old place. The one from which she was evicted by a constable. The one with signs on all the doors warning against trespass. The one with no utilities.
AB & I nearly lost our shit.
*lots of passivity and patheticness, but not completely useless, and left us out of it
Try to be less uptight about UMC norms on things like trespassing and pooping in buckets.
On the floor? somehow evading the changed locks?
Are you sure she's not confused?
True story: I sometimes sleep on the floor in my own house. We have a thick rug in one room and sometimes I sleep better there than on any of the beds or the cough or the recliner. I haven't tried anywhere else.
105 and 110, taken as a combined pair, are probably not something that should be here.
108: She's slept on the floor--basically in a nest of bedding and candy wrappers--for 9 years, so that's not a change. Landlord had actually screwed the doors shut, but unscrewed one to let her in to get her stuff, and didn't both to rescue it. One possibility we mentioned to her, aside from arrest for defiant trespass, was him coming by while she was asleep and shutting her in.
> "Ugh, this runny nose just won't go away."
It's not great for the dinner table, but if you just stuff a plug of kleenex up your nose you will not have to blow, sniff, wipe, or anything until it becomes saturated and you have to change it out. It doesn't block the flow, just absorbs it, so I've never had a sinus problem from it.
Unfortunately people like this never seem to be interested in solving their problems which are also other people's problems.
97: I feel much the same, except that we reversed gender roles and patted ourselves on the back.
You know that rumor that guys get away with doing way less? I'm a guy who'll testify to that.
I'll testify that shoving a kleenex up your nose is almost certainly more disgusting that whatever you were trying to solve by shoving a kleenex up your nose.
97: A wise person once said in my presence that it was better to consider total work-hours than job categories - so if you do the cooking all the time, that's probably way more work hours than the garden (I mean, even if he puts in a bunch of hours on the weekend in the summer, you're cooking all year) , and your housemate owes you. I think that what tends to happen is that women take on the every-day-all-year/every-week-all-year/constant-vigilance tasks and men take on the once weekly/once monthly/as needed tasks and it's just assume that because they are different job categories somehow the work is being split fairly.
115.2: 48 gave the opposite impression.
119
I woke up really early a few days ago because my sinuses were so irritated. I blame smoke and Washington.
togolosh: Call your congressman! Seriously. Call the district office, not the DC office, and ask to speak to a social security caseworker. This is what they're for.
There are people who work for congressmen whose job is to help people? Why don't they advertise that?
Idaho fires 100+ miles away set off my smoke alarms. We've had a lot of smoke from those Okanagan fires, but never enough for that.
Anyway, I'm driving to Moscow tomorrow. Yuck.
I fairly often read that rubbing brine pickle water on your face nightly will give you a beautiful ageless Hungarian complexion into old age, at the price of always smelling faintly like pickles. I am too dubious even to rub brine on half my face and check.
My other half and I did house chores wearing stopwatches for a while because we couldn't decide what was coming out fair. This oy worked (massive hassle) because we were neither of us trying to cheat, and we had an agreed list of chores and due-by dates, and whoever got badly behind in hours worked ended up with the ickier chores. We were working the same hours out of the house, though.
I knew a group house that had a similar economy for chores- everyone got little plastic pigs at the beginning of the week, and every weekly chore had an agreed price, and you had to work off your pigs. Eventually they let the prices float and introduced bidding but it got complicated. Probably there's an app now.
The pickle juice anti-wrinkle tip is great. I would have figured the Hungarians for lard, but I guess you could combine the two.
So, how risky is it to have car sex in an airport parking lot? Are there ways to minimize risk of getting caught?
126: The best way, surely, is to not have sex in an airport parking lot. Speaking solely with a view to risk management: no judgement!
The thing that annoyed me most today was seeing a man with a Chri/sti/an I/den/ti/ty symbol tattoo. Fuck you, white supremacist guy. Fuck you.
Sorry! Airport parking lot sex, go for it, I guess.
For the annoyance thread: last week, someone who might be my neighbor's kid, or one of his friends, put toilet paper in the tree in front of my house. Not a festooning, just a roll of TP placed on one of the branches. Annoying, but on the other hand, it gives me a feeling of confidence that nothing, not even helicopter parenting, can overcome basic human laziness.
If the van is a rockin', contact the authorities
Seems pretty safe to me, they're usually giant lots so the odds of someone seeing you are pretty low.
Or possibly someone is planning to poop on you from above.
136 is to 133, isn't it? That makes more sense than my first though.
1, etc: He is fixed on a maths major because of his lifelong dream of being a maths teacher or Wall St finance guy. So it will go well either way.
I'm not saying there isn't somebody wandering around airport parking lots waiting for a chance to poop on someone having sex in a car. I'm just saying it doesn't seem very likely there are enough of them to make it a live concern for any individual act of sex.
Awfully specific denial there, Moby.
It's just statistical interpretation.
I can't believe I missed this thread made for me.
I have one to the OP: I just read the worst review of one of our grant submissions ever. Worst both in terms of the score we received and in terms of how clueless the one reviewer was (other two reviewers gave good and mediocre scores.) Can we submit reviews of reviewers? I.e., Reviewer 1 has no fucking clue about the science I'm describing, so don't pretend like you do and give the worst score possible just because you're so insecure.
Airport parking lot sex seems less risky than most other types of car sex. The lots are generally big and at some distance from the terminal, so it's unlikely anyone outside the lot itself can see you, and within the lot cars come and go less frequently than in other types of parking lot and the drivers are often very focused on their own logistical issues and unlikely to pay much attention to the other cars. So yeah, I say go for it. Have fun!
Thankfully, I work in the stock market, so I've had a blissful and tranquil week of it.
Annoyance: Planned a beach vacation. Had misty/rainy weather the whole time. Did manage to get to the beach once; swimsuits were still not dry 48 hours later. We had an OK time with other amusements but very much touch and go.
Here's an annoyance, having to get up at 5:20 AM everyday for work. And actually waking up around 4:30 AM each morning instead even when I get to sleep well past 1 AM (like last night).
I was relieved when I saw a grant application put forward by my organization (over a year before I started) had been rejected because it was unworkable garbage and the reviewers had positive things to say even in rejection that made it clear they lacked the knowledge to see what crap the "plan" was.
Tired . Going to work. Having to arrange things, talk to people, and make decisions while I'm at work. Annoying sore at back right corner of tongue making it hurt to swallow, Lingering hard-to-describe foot pain located beneath the outside of my ankle. Squandered life,
Bright side for P'burghers: Television playing Fri, Sept. 25th at Carnegie in Oakland, sponsored by Warhol/WYEP. Come and join me for an event/meetup.
Or don't.
Annoying sore at back right corner of tongue
This is the kind of minor irritation that winds up killing you. Been to a doctor?
Airport parking lot sex is significantly riskier if you don't use a barrier method, like making sure you're enclosed within a vehicle.
149 Of courses that's a minor annoyance compared to long term unemployment but if I can't complain here...
155 courses s/b course. Stupid phone.
Ugh, Barry. I did that schedule got no good reason last night, though I eventually got done cleaning done after 4 or so. And now tonight I'm up stupidly late, so we'll see what my wakes looks like. None of it has any positive impact on my employment or employability.
Tho thread has been a valuable reminder that Isabelle Huppert movies aren't the sort of movies to casually watch because you're at lose ends and she's a good actress etc.
Do you have to coordinate your work with other timezones, Barry? That seems kind of early for most work in your field.
159 Fortunately I dont have to and coworkers who do have to are usually dealing with the UK which is only 2 hours behind.
The work day begins at 7:30 AM here and traffic being what it is I leave at 6:45.
Huh. Sometimes I forget that I'm of the rarely eat breakfast or spend much time getting ready for work type. I'm unlikely to get up before 6 to leave at 6:45. On the other hand, sometimes I think to myself "I should leave at 6:45" and then wake up too late to do that.
This is a long absence for Knecht, isn't it? I'm annoyed that I might have to worry about being the creepiest guy in any given thread.
This is a long absence for Knecht, isn't it?
He did recently refer to himself as a "former commenter" in a brief reappearance, so.
162: Because you're worried about tongue ulcers???
Apo, you'll always be charmingly skeezy. True creepy is something else.
He did recently refer to himself as a "former commenter" in a brief reappearance, so.
Ah, missed this.
But who will go out of their way to ogle woman's sports teams in comments now?
Viz., one might worry:
Apo will try to make out with my wife.
Knecht will keep my head in his freezer.
Knecht will keep my head in his freezer.
While he tries to make out with your wife, surely.
We've had a horrific drought and heatwave and forest fires of the apocalypse all summer, and now the only three fun outdoor events that I had planned for weeks are probably going to be moved indoors because we're supposed to get rain. I know I should be happy for rain, but does it have to be on the one weekend I have separate outdoorsy things planned for Fri, Sat, and Sun?
158 We watched In Another Country last night. I'd probably watch IH read a phone book. In silence.
I said it before and I will say it again: it isn't, as is said, that the problem with kittens is that they grow up to be cats. Rather the problem with cats is that are grown up to be beed by kittens. It's 1 am you miserable fluffy little wretch. Calm the goddamn fuck down.
I really like the kitten. I just AGH.
I have a lot to grumble about. But the most annoying at the moment is I am literally doing 3 people's jobs.
My job, my former bosses job (her post is currently vacant), and the job of one of the developers who is supposed to work for me. I'm doing the developer job because we haven't been able to fill the post, and I won't have a consultant starting for a few more weeks, and in the meantime, there's project deadlines to be met.
This sucks. I've been quasi-promised my former bosses job, when it does get advertised, but I've had a fair bit of recent experience working on recruitment with my new boss, who is more senior, and I have a suspicious feeling that if someone posher, and more female than me comes along, they'll get it, even if they are less qualified and less able.*
That's not a general MRA-arsehole type complaint. Our department has a pretty equal gender balance, and the management committee (which I am on) is near exactly 50/50 male/female. Slightly more women, but it's broadly equally. Which is all good.
But, I have direct experience of recruiting with this person, and I'm increasingly suspecting that some of the irrational looking hiring decisions she seems to make are basically gender bias.
For example, we've recently lost three of our most competent staff. Two men, one woman. She didn't give a crap about it. But she's been bending over backwards to force us to hire someone borderline unsuitable for a senior post (which will report to me), and trying to force me to give a couple of junior jobs working for me to two of our existing staff (both women) who are also unsuitable for the posts. She's made no efforts whatsoever to agitate on behalf of the male members of staff who've left, or to try to foist some of the male internal candidates on me. And she flat our rejected a very well qualified male candidate for the senior post, over-ruling the decision of the hiring committee (which was two women, and two men).
So, I'm half-convinced that if I apply for my former bosses job, and some unqualified, posh-ish, woman applies, what'll happen is all of the bits of my former bosses job that this person is unqualified for, will remain with me, but the higher paying, more senior post will go to them.
I hope I'm wrong.
* and no false modesty, I am pretty fucking able.
174/5. Cats are programmed by evolution to be most active in the half light of dawn and dusk, so if they live in a modern city where it never gets properly dark they'll be getting play/hunt cues all night. Try blackout curtains.
152: Never heard of them. The name makes for a confusing comment.
Anyway, there's now scientific research that says Uber is good for getting people home from bars.
174: The boyfriend thought I was cruel for leaving my then-kitten shut in the bathroom (two doors between him and us) with bed/toys/food/litterbox until the kitten was old enough to go the entire night without being an utter pest. Kittens are such adorable, fluffy nuisances.
179: I have heard of them and I was confused too. I didn't realize they were back together and doing shows. I would go if I was in Pittsburgh, even though they've never been the same since Richard Hell left the band.
Television is a band I missed completely when I was age-appropriate (a friend who was age-appropriate when the band was current turned me on to Gang of Four, but that didn't lead to Television, for whatever reason), and I'm sure I should like them, but when I gave Marquee Moon a good listen a few months ago, it did nothing for me.
184: I missed them too --- my friends in college that were into punk rock listened to the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, Gang of Four, of course, The Clash and many others but I don't remember anyone listening to Television. For years they were a band that I knew rock critics revered but I had never heard. I finally got around to listening to Marquee Moon about five years ago and I liked it. But I still like Richard Hell and the Voidoids better.
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I quote the following (via Charlie Pierce) to echo the congratulations and sympathy to everybody involved, but mostly to commiserate with the Barbour County Schools Superintendent, and to advise him not to travel to the United Kingdom, unless he wants to risk the immigration officer spitting coffee all over his passport.
Without naming the teacher, Barbour County Schools Superintendent Jeffrey Woofter credited her for maintaining control just when classes were about to change. Woofter also praised the local police chief for getting quickly to the scene and talking the suspect into giving up.
Kind of related: Somebody keep naming businesses around here "Fuku". I can't tell if it is just a guy's name, an Asian word, or a hidden obscenity. The sushi isn't bad.
Now they have one selling "bubble tea." It's apparently Asia's revenge for us sending them Coca Cola.
153: This is the kind of minor irritation that winds up killing you. Been to a doctor?
This is following the same pattern as occasional prior occurrences, so despite the danger of Warren Zevoning* myself, I will not do as your shilling for allopathy would have me do.
*"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for twenty years."
I'm sure I should like them
Hell yes you should.
...but when I gave Marquee Moon a good listen a few months ago, it did nothing for me.
we are enemies now.
Now they have one selling "bubble tea." It's apparently Asia's revenge for us sending them Coca Cola.
Watermelon bubble tea is great.
Apparently, the "bubbles" are tapioca. I don't know what that tastes like. I've always been afraid of it.
Because I care about my health, I basically stopped drinking anything that has calories, unless it has alcohol.
And sometimes a bit of milk in coffee.
And orange juice if I'm on a plane. I read somewhere that the nobody has ever cleaned the brewing portion of the coffee pot on an airplane.
Yes Isabelle Huppert is fantastic but when the evening begins with a casual impulse to watch a good movie and via la Huppert ends watching in fascinated horror as the sex and violence spin wildly out of the tight knot of psychotic control lurking just beneath the surface of the first scene for like the 72nd time and the following weeks' slumber is seriously disturbed at some point even I become wary.
My psyche is now primed to have weird disturbing sexy dreams tonight about a torrid affair between Richard Hell and Isabelle Huppert. Thanks Mineshaft!
I like almond bubble tea. The bubbles are tapioca and don't taste like anything. They're weird and seem vaguely like a choking hazard and I'm not sure why I like them.
Please check out my kickstarter for kitten Ray-Bans.
If Kitten Rays are outlawed, only outlaws will have Kitten Rays.
I would apologize for that, but I've learned to never show weakness on anything at all related to puns.
My internet has been so shitty all day. One site loads instantly, the next one not at all. No idea why, just annoying. And, indeed, first attempt to post this failed. Grrr.
Also, MLB has abruptly stopped letting me watch games on their app.
Gripe! FreeCAD apparently has no simple way of finding the coordinates of a point. You can select the point, so for sure the coordinates exist somewhere inside the computer. Super-frustratingly, it appears that when you initially click on a point the coordinates are displayed in the lower left corner of the screen. For about a second. Then they are gone. AFAICT the way to get the coordinates is to click a point, grab a screen snapshot as fast as you can, and pick the points off the snapshot. There's apparently a way to do it using python trickery, but I don't know it.
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Because of widespread admiration for Saul Bellow so typical of this eclectic web magazine, I thought I'd link to Kevin Drum's discovery that his thesis was anticipated in The Dean's December in 1981.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/saul-bellow-was-30-years-ahead-me
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Mentions of Scott Walker in the WI thread made me think of this other gripe. My mother's bf has terrible politics and is a big Walker supporter in the Republican primaries. For years we just avoided politics, but now he's started needling my mother at dinner, asking her about how can she support Hillary knowing she should be in prison, and if she can really be ok with PP selling dead baby parts, and reading horrible unfunny jokes at the table, etc. My mother mostly tries to shut it down, but her bf isn't going for that. It makes dinner totally miserable I want him to return to shutting up about politics. Also, I knew he was conservative (parents are insanely anti USSR), but in the past we'd only ever discussed EU politics, and while he is pro austerity he thought the True Finns were a fascist party, so I figured him for slightly more center right than he's turning out to be.
Okay, now not feeling at all like Buttercup's mother. Wow that sounds extremely sucky. Any chance your mother could call nix nay on the I'll advised topics for mealtime discussion?
I mean, what extraordinarily bad manners! Yuck.
I had them around and I figured it wouldn't hurt by this point.
Speaking of lingering foot pain (really, see above), I just bought a pair of trekking poles. I plan to mock myself if they don't make hiking much easier.
And speaking of Hillary, my cousin moves to Iowa last week and already he has a picture of himself with Hillary. People in Iowa are so spoiled that way.
126. I recently researched a similar topic, having spent a few very pleasant hours in a suburban parking lot on a date. Ordinary people who notice will be embarassed and avoid you. I think the problems to consider are packs of kids or security cameras. Go for it.
Update - I used the language of "going on medical leave" in my classes and syllabus, and I did indeed get asked what for, so I was very glad to have Witt's phrase ("it's preventative") at my fingertips. I think the student assumed I was pregnant again, and was excited to find out.
209
He's normally polite, so this seems so out of character. He's really quiet around people until he gets to know them, so maybe part of it is after 6 years he finally feels comfortable around me. He's not going to change my mother's mind though, so I don't know why he's bringing it up. Before they had an 'agree to disagree' policy. It might be anger/frustration that Trump and Bush are the two Republican frontrunners, and if he has to hate his own party, he might as well spread the misery by making us feel annoyed too? If I tell him to knock it off (in nicer terms), he does, and yesterday I told him I supported Bernie Sanders, and (shockingly) he said something nice about Sanders. He has a very abrasive, beyond deadpan sense of humor, so I think he's trying to needle my mother and then does feel bad when I'm caught in the crossfire, so to speak. I find the whole thing irritating and I'm not happy he needles my mother in this way.
Sounds like he needs a hobby. Has he considered wandering through suburban or airport parking lots?
Have you tried doing the same kind of needling to him before he tries to do it to you/your mother?
I don't see any reason that would help the situation beyond maybe being amusing, obviously, but, well, it could be amusing?
Airport parking lot car sex a success. Not many people around, and very little threat of getting caught. Put up the sun shades over the windshield for a little more privacy.
Don't be a tease, what make and model of car? We fulfilled my dream of buying a minivan this summer, which would totally be an option for parking lot lusty times but I'm skeptical that it wouldn't be a PITA to pull off in my other cars.
Nice going Amelia.
Airport long-term parking lots seem just the right place.
Unlike say, LI punk/new wave nightclub parking lots in the late 80s, even if the couple thought they were tucked away in the back of the lot and away from the closest street light. And especially not with the couple doing the deed in the front driver's seat with, ahem, a certain gentleman sitting in the seat with her straddling on top and her bottom making periodic contact with the hub of the steering wheel. When things really got going it caused a most embarrassing scene.
If the back driver's seat also has a steering wheel, that would be just as much of a problem.
218. If you feel that airport car parks are too crowded/risky for an encore, there's this little island in the Pacific...
Sometimes airports have hotels, but usually they want you to pay for the whole night.
I wonder if a by the hour hotel at an airport would pay for itself. I doubt it, because almost no hotels pay for themselves; they're overwhelmingly tax write-offs, but it might have a better chance than most.
Maybe this was only before 9/11, but didn't some airports used to have private offices for rent by the hour. You could join the Desk Chair Club.
Hmm...so there's more to the Admirals Club than I thought?
187: If the businesses are restaurants, fuku is almost certainly the Japanese for "good fortune" (福). It can also mean vice (as in deputy) (副), abdomen (腹), clothes (服), duplicate (複) to blow (吹く) and to wipe (拭く), among others, and I can imagine a complicated and obscene bilingual pun involving several of those meanings, but the likeliest thing is they're "Japanese" restaurants run by Chinese - 福 is far more common in Chinese restaurant names.
That's probably it. I'm reliably informed that only one Japanese restaurant is this end of town is run by somebody of Japanese origin.
Anyway, I'll now think of it as "Duplicate Sushi," because there are two of them near by office.
They put what looks like Big Mac sauce on the sushi. They'll also give you a bowl of lettuce and sushi fillings if you're of the sort that fears big carb.
A colleague of mine designed their new location. Last night I went to a 15th anniversary party at his office and found five dollarscanapés.
I haven't been in the new one yet, but it looks nice from the street.
Unless by "new", you mean the bubble tea place on Forbes. They haven't even started that one.
There are so many new Asian food and beverage places around. It makes me worry about the long term sustainability of bars as I rarely seen anybody Asian in a bar. Maybe the university orientations should mention how great drinking is, but I thought that everybody (or at least the men) in Asian countries was always out drinking for business-related purposes anyway.
I'm not going to vote for Trump or anything, but maybe we could make it easier for bubble tea places to add vodka.
I had a meeting at O'Hare, fly there in the morning, meet, fly out that evening- and there's an entire floor of the airport hotel dedicated to this, meeting rooms of various sizes. Probably not good for hourly usage, though- I think they also make you get their catering, and the waiter coming in all the time would probably interrupt you.
PIT used to do that back when it was a US Air hub. I don't know if they still try it or if they just gave up.
Followup to 203: solution to internet seems to have been rebooting the router and rebooting (most of) the computers. My iPad worked fine post-router reboot, but AB's iPhone and all of the PCs wanted their own special reboots.
Because I care about my health, I basically stopped drinking anything that has calories, unless it has alcohol.
In an effort to keep myself from associating certain foods with impurity and immorality, I bought some shot glasses as portion control to have high-sugar drinks in.
I'd prefer to continue to associate being sober with immorality.
To return to irritations: I was dealing with the BT broadband robot -- the computer that asks you to explain in siomple terms what your problem is, so it can route you to the right specialist. I only now realise that the correct answer to this is "My problem is you, or the sadistic incompetent bastards who programmed you" -- so I say, in tones suitable for a retarded three-year-old, "I'm trying to get my broadband moved to a new address", and the robot simply repeats its request that I explain my problem, so I do, again, and it says "You're trying to pay your broadband bill. Is that right?" and I yell at the top of my lungs "FUCK YOU!" and only then realise that the window of my new (terraced) house is wide open and the street is very quiet normally.
Just as well that the neighbours learn early who they'll be dealing with, says Ume when I tell her.
A pile of skulls would be a bit much.
I'm still annoyed about smoke, but the friendly reception my argument got from the supreme court has just about redeemed Idaho.
Now for a quick finger steak, if I can find one, and the long smoky drive home.
Never heard of that before but it looks good on googling.
Or some fries, if there's no googling left.
243: Sometimes either silence or "help" gets you routed to a human.
My minor irritation: I'm starting to plan for moving in early October. Well, I'm trying to, anyway. I can't even seem to decide the basics like "in what sort of home should I (subsequently we) live?" I'm better at logistics of scheduling and paperwork than big picture. This weekend's goal: generate a budget that consists of less wishful thinking than previous iterations. I sort of want to ignore it all until I arrive and stumble into solutions.
243. Sometimes "associate" works, though maybe that as a synonym for "low-paid employee" hasn't made it to the UK yet.
I've yet to encounter one of those "not here to help you but just to allow us to have fewer people answering phones" systems that was worth the powder to ....
So, listened to KWIS radio for a chunk of the drive home. Idaho is redeemed.
This just popped up in my FB feed. I really had no idea.
Not all those charming details! Will have to try and see the exhibit, the local AF cell is very near us.
SF remained a prime destination for French immigrants at least through the 60s and 70s, particularly among Basque. The kid's school was started by immigrant parents at least partly I not predominantly from Basque villages. I think this strongly contributed to its unusual governance structure (membership nonprofit) and ongoing issues with the central government administration. Basque identifying families are in a very small minority now (although I know at least three families with the second generation of kids now in the school), but the basically ungovernable suspicious tetu culture persists.
I've had success getting a real person on the phone by telling the automated system: "I want to talk to a real person."
That doesn't even work for me at a staffed counter.
Emma Donoghue's crossdresser/exotic dancer historical novel, Frog Music, has a lot about the early SF French community.
My little brother and I somehow ended up at a big Basque picnic on the flanks of Mount Diablo in the mid-70s. A distinct migration from the Basque community of Boise, I suppose?
They run (still!) a Basque camp for kids each summer that draws from ID and perhaps further!
When I went to summer camp, it was all about the superego.
(The internet tells me that this was the San Francisco Basque Club's annual June picnic, now [2006?] moved to Petaluma from Walnut Creek. The internet has no idea how I ended up there.)
The Basque camp is very cool, it moves around the west and the kids are hosted by local Basque families so one year your kids stay with a family in say WY and the next in So Cal.
The older waves if Basque immigration to the west were about shepherding work, and the Basque restaurant tradition (communal tables, heroic quantities of food and wine) was still a thing in the San Joaquin valley in the 70s.
Fabulous story bringing it all back for someone whose family came from the SJ valley and I can barely remember the tail end of this whole scene: https://read.atavist.com/a-thousand-pounds-of-dynamite-podcast
Highly recommended!
When did the Basques become French?
Starting in 1620 or so, but the transition is not yet complete.
219
2002 Toyota Camry. Parked in the short term parking garage. The level we were on was half filled, but it wasn't very trafficked.
Turn of the century Toyota sedans, so reliable no matter what abuse you throw at them.
Good for you, I guess. Despite immersion in mid-century car culture, I've never experienced even the mildest sex act in any vehicle.
How could you have sex in a 2002 Camry? The ultimate turnoff. "Here, welcome to my beige mediocrity. Come sex me."
The airport longterm parking here is unshaded and you might easily die of heatstroke mid-coitus.
I suppose you could leave the car running.
"This reliable, bland compact is steaming with desire"
Hawaii got a little inflatable dolphin pool toy recently that she named Desire.
"Here, welcome to my beige mediocrity. Come sex me."
Unfogged!
(pace the AVClub comment section)
you might easily die of heatstroke mid-coitusstroke.
So, how does Halford know the color?
Aren't all 90s-00s Camrys that color?
Wait, when you're having sex in a car, the car itself is supposed to be the exciting bit? I had no idea.
Something something dinosaur something.
281: [Insert automotive variation on "The ceiling need painting" here.]
the car itself is supposed to be the exciting bit?
Part of the total experience, certainly. Talking to Mrs. Robinson in bed, Benjamin Braddock asks her, on learning she'd had sex with her husband, and quite possibly conceived her daughter, in a car, wants to know what make. She's exasperated, but guesses it was a Plymouth. Everyman speaking for us all.
There was an old old model tiny triumph the front seats of which reclined all the way back - practical!
I don't recall our '59 TR 3 doing that ; maybe Biohazard knows.
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Would any NYCers like to meetup sometime between Wednesday 9/2 and Tuesday 9/8?
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Did Biohazard have a TR3? Awesome car, my dad had a TR3A which was kind of my first car and I still consider it as such but he sold it before I really started driving regularly "because it needed some alignment work," he said. I was so pissed. Still am, I'll probably bring it up when he's on his deathbed. Black with a red interior, we called it the "putt putt" on account of the noise it made. He's still got a spare radiator for it in the garage.
That car would be silver now.
This explains so much.
For real, Jammies' family called their silver Honda "gold" for years and years, and I thought it was ridiculous and they had mass colorblindness.
The only thing annoying me at the moment is the 12 year old who won't ever fucking shut up. And who then looks all hurt when after three hours of listening to her talk about bands and YouTube and her annoying friends, I ask her to please stop or I will die.
176 - that sounds shit; is there anyone higher (directly or diagonally) that you can talk to informally about it?
Wouldn't it be weird if, on Star Trek, they went to a planet where the inhabitants had built a world-civilization based on a copy of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds carelessly left there by an exploratory mission several generations previously?
"Which do you prefer, a hard or soft option? I'm waiting for an answer, Kirk."