I had a nice talk today with the city of Rotterdam about doing my master's thesis there. We discussed some very interesting research topics. If that all works out, I might be able to enjoy this view almost daily:
This week and the next two will be about finishing up a bunch of university courses and projects and I'm honestly tired of it all. Too many hoops to jump through and not enough motivation. Luckily I can count the number of courses I have to do before I can finally start my thesis on one hand.
Our paperwork is at the state. They think they might be done reviewing it (150pp, created out of the aether specifically for their benefit) by Friday. Then they schedule an inspection. Then they come visit. Then they approve us. Then we apply to fifteen insurance companies. Then we're in business.
I'm three drains away from having a plantable green wall. I suspect when it's actually up I'll be too burned out to care.
I have successfully crafted a 24-port CAT5E network. In order for it to do anything Comcast has to come trench through the parking lot to install half-inch hardline. Because apparently a 6,000sqft office building was never going to need more than 4 drops of RG6. Amazingly enough we tried to go with Frontier but they were unable to verify that they served the address. The wifi I'm using? Frontier. in the building. Our landlord has offered to let us plug into his router if I feel like running the CAT5. Since I have a Netgear router I can flash, I may install something called "advanced tomato" and run the thing load balancing/failover between Comcast and Frontier. Because both of them tend to fail a lot. By the way, business internet? 25Mb for $90 a month if you get the right discounts and sign up for 3 years. Which hey. If they've got to roll a ditch witch and scurf out 50 yards of parking lot to trench heliax, I guess they've got recoupable expenses. Their inspector told me "yeah I was out here about eight years ago trying to convince them to trench but the building was empty. Now it's got fourteen offices in it."
And we're going to have vaccines. Which means welcome to fucking thunderdome. Which means your thermometer now comes with bluetooth, a glycol bottle, a datalogger you have to download every week (at least) and an "audible alarm" if temperature wanders outside of range. But what do if you aren't there? Silly human. You're a hospital. Someone is always there. What's that? You're not a hospital? Well fuck you then we're the CDC.
Which means fucking fun'n'games. you need a fridge failure sensor from a company called "minotaur engineering" whose first product was apparently an X-10 controller for the Timex Sinclair 1000 (zx81 to you limeys). Then you need to run mic wire through the tegular grid to your cyberpower envirosensor which plugs into your UPS remote management card (thanks bfv) which plugs into your $400 rackmount UPS that you already own so that you get 90 minutes of backup paging when the power fails. So now you literally have a fridge that emails you when it's out of range because you're vaccinating kids.
Never mind the fact that your chosen demographic? Statistically the least likely group to vaccinate their kids. Thank god we're not in Eugene or Topanga.
I have a victory, though.
This is the Hubble.
This is also the hubble, made out of a single sheet of stainless steel by a Seattle company called Fascinations.
Long have we known that the KH-11 shares many components with the Hubble. The mirror is the same diameter, for example. We know that it has a similar (or identical) solar array. We know that it lacks the giant instrument bay of the Hubble because KH-11s are not interested in the deep sky stuff the Hubble is; they are primarily electro-optical. And when the NRO donated what might be KH-11s, might be FIA birds to NASA it was effectively confirmed that KH-11s are essentially "stubby Hubbles", the phrase that's been used for twenty years or more.
The donor NRO birds have a mirror with a different focal length than the Hubble. With francopoli's help I set out to do some tinsmithing.
On the left, a "stubby hubble." It lacks the instrumentation bay, scope shield and horizontal mount bosses of the Hubble (on the assumption that since the KH-11 has only ever been launched by rocket, while the HST had to sit the stupid way in the Shuttle payload bay). Its focal length has also been shortened to approximate the best guess of myself and francopoli.
So yeah. On the one hand I'm almost done with a quarter million dollar construction project that's been consuming between 20 and 80 hours a week since early 2014. But about what I can get stoked about is a carefully modified silver lipstick hanging from my ceiling.
That's my life.
Currently spending a lot of time in the right half of this diagram, so I tried to put some of that anxious energy to use, mostly for nerdy things that probably aren't terribly interesting in general:
- I wrote a program to let you pipe stuff into IRC.
- I wrote two articles on C++ first-class (ish) functions.
- I read Brave New World, since one of my friends gave me it for Christmas. I should have read it a long while ago. One thing that's interesting to notice is what Huxley imagined would be automated and what he imagined would still be done manually (e.g., adding various fluids to bottles and helicopter piloting). Ultimately, though, it feels like Huxley is presenting a false dilemma between hardcore moralism and hardcore hedonism(?), which was somewhat disappointing.
Then, last night my wife swerved to miss someone who blew a stop sign and hit a curb at 35 MPH in the Rabbit. She's fine, but the car ain't. The lower control arm failed where the ball joint bolts to it, and physics took care of finishing off that CV joint and the quarterpanel as well. There's also a new dent in the roof, which says 'bent frame' to me.
Naturally, insurance wants to total it out (seeing as I paid $1400 for it, I don't blame them). I'm getting it towed back to my place; I'm going to fix the mechanicals myself (since it doesn't look like any of the suspension attachment points on the body are damaged) and then see what it'll cost me to get a body shop to straighten out the rest.
I'm just hoping that the tow truck can get it into my basement garage; otherwise I'm going to be laying in some very cold gravel in my barn instead.
I was going to try to get that information theory math explainer written this week but that is probably going to be put on hold until I have more than one functioning car again.
EDIT: Cold gravel it is for me. Fortunately a more thorough investigation of the damage showed it's not much worse than I already thought. No damage to the door, and nothing in the strut tower or underbody appears out of place. The wheel is cracked, but the tire appears OK?
- Ultimately, though, it feels like Huxley is presenting a false dilemma between hardcore moralism and hardcore hedonism(?), which was somewhat disappointing.
I really never got this impression. I'm much more convinced by this interpretation, basically that Huxley was worried about how bad a seeming-utopia would really be.
If you haven't read it, I cannot recommend Brave New World Revisited enough. Written in the late '50s, it's a non-fiction work where Huxley examines the primary themes of Brave New World and examines the degree to which they've been borne out by societal changes since 1931 (when he wrote the first one), and discusses "the subject of freedom and its enemies." It's nothing short of brilliant, and thankfully is online.
I am going to present Forever Labs to about 200 people in a couple of weeks, and that makes me a bit anxious, but then I was told today that I am going to do a live local television interview next week.
I am less anxious about the presentation.
Our new office is almost done. I think I might be able to buy furniture tomorrow. Today I installed a new light fixture with live wires out of courtesy. The common fuse box is labeled, but I was a bit worried that I would click off 'suite 205', but then turn off everyone's computer in the startup across the hall. The landlord wasn't in his office, so I did it live. I shocked myself a bit. It's been a while.
Good work. It's important to touch live 110v wires every once in a while, just to remember what it feels like to be alive.
I had a really weird stereo amplifier rig I played with for years, and getting the ground switches on the two amps synched with the ground for the PA that my microphone was connect to, was ... well ... I got 110v through the lips quite often.
That sounds really painful. I never minded getting 110 across a hand, like thumb to finger. Hand to hand, though, always kind of hurt.
My life is in the process of becoming a lot more public. This is likely a good thing for me on many different levels. It does seem like everything is happening at the same time, building a relationship, joining the board and a committee of an area nonprofit (and have a retreat next month, whoa!), and starting to volunteer at a DIY space. All within a month of each other. Plus I'm starting to get tinker-y again...
This is a thing I own now, by the way. Going to check the worm gear this weekend to see if there's any cracking, and clean up what I can clean up.
!!!
Where did you get that? And if you don't mind my asking, how much was it?
There are some benefits to seeing someone who owns their own thrift store.
On eBay they seem to go for $50 - $100 depending on the condition. Bell & Howell Autoload 1545 is the model shown in the picture.
We are going to do some TV stuff. The rule is that if you don't show for a meeting, you get volunteered to be on the idiot box. The good news is that board meetings have record attendance.
- joining the board and a committee of an area nonprofit
You poor bastard. As a fellow poor bastard serving on a board, remember, its a not for profit, you are trying to do good, and choking everyone in the room would be bad PR.
- You poor bastard. As a fellow poor bastard serving on a board, remember, its a not for profit, you are trying to do good, and choking everyone in the room would be bad PR.
So far I haven't wanted to choke anyone. A very interesting question was raised at the first meeting I attended after volunteering at their big event on New Years Eve. In a nonprofit there are types of organizations, would we rather be an efficient organization, or a community driven organization? How much of one are we willing to sacrifice for the benefit of the other.
When I was dragged back into not-for-profit boards and politics, there were under 50 paying members of the society. I came up with a number of members that we needed to keep the lights on- property taxes, fees, upkeep, IRS fees, etc- and we were less than 1/6 that number. We've increased our visibility and are dragging more people into doing outreach and posting online, so my hope is that I hit my number this year.
- would we rather be an efficient organization, or a community driven organization?
Had the same issue here. Pick one, then hit that hard. Then, work slowly on the second, building the organization. Which one you pick will depend on the human and financial capital at your disposal. We needed bodies, so we went there first, and are slowly working on the efficiencies in the background as they come up. The more people we get the more we can talk about making things run better. Everything is a long process. Everything gets frustrating. But I'm starting to see some of the good happening.
Digging out of a hole, on top of feeling great, also looks amazing on a resume. Good luck out there.
So I've switched from the demanding and exausting IB to a much nicer national program. I've also shifted my focus from natural sience to social science wich fits me much better.
I recently learned that the social science class at my school is called the "communist-class" by some and thati he kinda true stereotype about the social science class at our school. I mean, it's truer to say that a lot of people are socialists, but to an american that might sound just as bad.
But my ideologi fits quite nicely in that box so I feel very much at home.
A lot of people here cared a lot about the US election. And for us there was a very obvious choice. That more americans actually voted for.
We we're supposed to study economics at the moment, starting the ninth, but eh... Our teacher realised in her infinte wisdom that we would probably not talk about anything else than Trump so as she found out the results she wrote an assignement (the turnaround between getting results and us getting the assignement was less then a day, and I think she finished it during the morning which would have been like 3 hours.)
Anyway, the assignement was about 1. a summary of Trumps and Clintons policies 2. a description of the american electoral system and most important 3. choosing an area and evaluationg how trumps policies will affect this area.
And this is one depressing assignement, really fun though but also... Yeah. I choose how Trumps policies would affect the media (or not really policie, just.. how he has acted and how that will effect media) since I am addicted to shows like Full Frontal (I actually managed to include THIS segment from full frontal as a source and my teacher said it was fine. I also managed to include the line "considering Trumps feelings for Putin". Yes I am way to proud abou that.) Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show etc.
And like, this was a very easy assignement to write for very sad reasons.
Also, she gave us this assignement on the 9th and we ere to turn it in on the 20th. So she's good at setting thematical due dates.
And when we had the class discussing HOW and TRUMP and WHY on the 9th she wrote "A day of sorow" on the board.
So yeah, that's a Swedish perspective on the president-elect.
You might find this site helpful as you are writing your paper: https://www.justsecurity.org/36303/normalization-watch/
Went on two (casual) dates with the girl. They were awesome.
#1 was supposed to be getting dinner, but we caved and ordered a pizza, then cuddled on the couch watching How I Met Your Mother and/or talking.
#2 was just hanging out at a park for a few hours. Mostly just us talking while climbing on random shit before she had to go pick up her sister.
We both seemed to have a great time with both. We continue to text for at least a few hours every day.
She doesn't want to do long distance because that was how her last relationship ended and apparently it was ugly. I think it could work because we're only long distance from now until spring break, and from then until the summer, and we spend most of our time texting even when we're in the same city (she lives like 45 minutes away. Or, more accurately, I live 45 minutes from anything). Debating whether to try and convince her.
Got an interview with a theatre in small-town Maine that's looking for a lighting/sound intern. It'd be cool, but I don't think I want to live in small-town Maine for a summer in exchange for $300 and "experience." So probably fuck that.
Have you two smooched? That was always my Achilles heel, that first kiss. There is the point of no return, when you wait too long and end up in eternal "friend zone." -I've been there before. It's no Bueno.
But you sound like you're 1000 times more emotionally mature than I was at your age. Sounds like a fun time Galen. Young romance is the best. Hell.... all romance is the best. Enjoy!
- Have you two smooched? That was always my Achilles heel, that first kiss. There is the point of no return, when you wait too long and end up in eternal "friend zone." -I've been there before. It's no Bueno.
Indeed we have. We even did the classic teen-movie "make out until she finally pulls away and says 'I really have to go, my parents want me home by 11'" :)
New years eve, I bit a huge chunk out of my lip while eating lunch. New years morning, I bit it again making it even bigger. Since then, I've had a canker sore the size of a dime on my lip that has been driving me crazy. It's just now starting to heal. Thank God.
I'm looking at changing my goals a bit for 2017. I'm gonna focus less on job hunting and try to focus more on developing a meaningful social network where I can try and be a more positive member in my local community.
The wife and I are at the point where we need a sixth bookcase. I've given away pretty much all of the comics I'm comfortable with giving away and try as I might, I still can't seem to get around to.selling my antique books. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty certain this is how hoarding starts. Except, you know, we're organized. :P
TL;DR zilactin. It's basically crazy glue with a base in it to piss off the pH of canker sores. Covers 'em up, heals 'em up, best stuff there is.
longer:
I started getting what my parents called "herpes sores" when I was about eight. My parents set me aside and told me the tragedy of how they'd contracted oral herpes while in the Peace Corps in Brazil, likely from a shady dentist, and that it was truly unfortunate, but it could be treated and I was a big boy now so I had to be tough.
The treatment they'd learned for "herpes sores" in the Peace Corps in the '60s is to take a bamboo skewer, like what you use for barbecues, and wrap the tip in about a q-tips' worth of cotton. You then dip this in battery acid. Literally, you pop a maintenance cap off an automotive battery, eyedropper out about 50ml of sulfuric acid and keep it in a glass bottle in the medicine cabinet. The pokey, cottony, acidy spear is then lanced into the "herpes sore" until it bleeds. You repeat this until there is no white left, just angry, raw, bleeding-black (because of the acid) flesh. Fortunately, the eradication of the sore coincides with the sensory overload of being stabbed in the gums with a bamboo skewer dipped in battery acid so by the 3rd, 4th 30-second session you no longer feel much pain.
(which is okay the previous treatments are more than enough)
My father proudly told me about the age of 12 about the friend of his he treated who had "a couple hundred" "herpes sores" in his mouth, all of which my father treated, such that the man could again eat a sandwich without pain. I learned that they come out with stress and by the time I was 12 or so I was treating my own "herpes sores" - wrap the spear, dip the acid, bleed black, perhaps repeat the next day, perhaps the next, but eventually it goes away. So life continued until I went off to college.
The first canker sore I got in college was under my tongue. I didn't have a car at the time. I had to ask around in the dorms until I found a guy willing to let me siphon off some of his battery with a soda straw taken from the cafeteria. I kept the acid in a Jack Daniels miniature bottle. I can't recall what i did for the bamboo skewer. It's possible I just bought some, more likely I stole one out of a package at the grocery store (who steals a single bamboo skewer, after all? They keep them in ziploc bags for like a dollar).
A problem with stabbing yourself with an acid-dipped bamboo skewer, of course, is you need something to stab against. Gums are easy; there's bone. You push until you can't push anymore. Under the tongue? Another matter. Suffice it to say that one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, six days the damn thing kept getting bigger. It was like a cancer no chemo could cure. So after about ten days of agony, with this "herpes sore" under my tongue roughly the size of a dime, I capitulated and hoped that Student Health could help me out.
I sit down with the nurse, embarrassedly relate my family history of "herpes" and our "treatment." She looks at me, impressively stone-faced, then asks to see under my tongue. I open my mouth.
"That's the biggest canker sore I've ever seen," she says.
"Canker... sore?"
"Canker sore. Herpes sores are on your lips. They're external. You have a canker sores. Everyone has canker sores. I've never heard of them being treated by stabbing yourself with battery acid."
"Uh..."
"Go to Walgreens and buy this stuff called Zilactin. It's about four bucks."
"Canker...sore?"
"Hurry."
And that is why, dear rd95, I can endorse Zilactin with no hesitation. I have been to hell and back treating canker sores and in LA, you can't get Zilactin. Kanka, anbesol, all the rest of them are glue with anesthetic in it. Zilactin actually has a "battery acid" component (which disturbs the pH of the canker sore, which promotes healilng) without requiring a "battery acid" sacrifice.
Collecting starts when there's a reason for each item and each item is unique. Hoarding starts when you just want more.
... that is some of the craziest shit I have ever heard, up there with Black Salve.
my jaw was definitely on the floor. this is redonkulous
The dude who I linked to ended up dying of stage 4 cancer. As far as I can tell, the black salve didn't help.
People do crazy shit, man, especially when they're facing death. Also when they're not facing death - Look up breatharians
oh i was referring to kb's story sorry. i got about 4 seconds into the black salve video and noped the fuck out when i saw the massive tumors not cured (obviously) in subsequent videos.
When I was living in my car, I learned that battery acid and cotton is a great way to stop gangrene and other bad stuff from infecting wounds. Way cheaper than Hydrogen Peroxide and it is great on cleaning and cauterizing stab wounds.
Typing that out the next thought in my head is OH THANK CAPITALISM I DON'T LIVE LIKE THAT ANY MORE.
I used to get canker sores a lot when I was younger ( big surprise there ) and I remember once having at least 8 at once. Sometimes I gargled salt water but mostly I just wait for them to heal eventually and that pretty much sums up my approach to health care. I had a wart on one of my fingers for years until I realized what it was and that I could just fix it with some cheap stuff from the store.
I'll look into that Zilactin the next time I get a canker sore. If you had said, with a straight face, "What you need is some cotton, a bamboo skewer, and some battery acid" I'd have responded back "Fuck no. I'll just deal with the canker sore."
- Collecting starts when there's a reason for each item and each item is unique. Hoarding starts when you just want more.
Oh, good. I'm not a hoarder yet. Though, incidentally, I have found that I've started to buy books I already own, to give to others on a whim. All of Valiant's #1 TPBs are $10 bucks each, which make them a great deal to get.
Edit: Also, I read some people discussing decompressed vs. compressed story telling in comics and it makes me long for the day when a story was told in a single issue. I think I'm gonna actually write to some editors and let them know I miss that story telling format.
I've been going every week to this creative group, where every month we pick a theme and try to learn about it and come up with a project. That's how I learned how to crochet and made a hat a couple months back. This month, we're doing Gin/Flavoured Vodka. Made 4 different bottles yesterday (0,5L each) and now we let it sit for 48h. For the Gin, apparently all you need is to add juniper berries to vodka for 24h. We'll see how it all tastes in the end!
Here's the photos of what we put in each bottle: http://imgur.com/a/W2HZB
Made it 3 days in my endeavor to quit nicotine. It was a disparate failure. I'm going to find a way to tackle this problem more aggressively within the next week. Apart from a new semester going smoothly, my motivation in terms of willpower is still at a low, otherwise I would've quit cold turkey easily.
Unrelated: one of my instructors is an officer, a Captain, with these schools' badges pinned on his shirt in order of awesomeness:
Sapper
Pathfinder
Airborne
Air Assault
He teaches Physics after a career in the Corps of Engineers. There are tons of people with these qualifications at West Point-- if you're not familiar with these specialized schools just google some videos or something-- but I see this maniac every other day and he teaches me physics. If that's not a role model for me, I don't know what is.
Seriously though, I have to quit nicotine.
Airborne is a super weird thing in Canada. Like, it should be a badge of pride, but instead it's a symbol of a regiment disbanded after repeated dishonourable behaviour - peaking with the Somalia Affair.
The last official US jump was in 2003 on an airstrip in Iraq. This summer I'll be placed in either an Air Assault or Airborne slot, but while an Airborne slot is like 10 times more competitive at West Point, it's considered a lot easier. All you do is jump out of planes like a badass, complete with weekends off and A/C in your barracks, and come back home with minimal broken ankles. It's been 14 years since the last actual jump, but being in an "airborne" division (101st, 82nd to name some famous ones) in the U.S. comes with a dope Airborne tab over your unit patch and a whole lot of history for you to respect.
As far as "scandals" go, I can't name major specifics, especially not to Airborne units, but I don't assume there's a clear record anywhere in the Army. Then again there's D-Day.
Edit: I say official jump because I'm not and will probably never be related to Special Forces and neither I nor you know what the hell they're doing at any time, which means they're doing a good job.
Hey there Hubtender. Gimme two rocks with two fingers of Shelter Point single malt whisky from Vancouver Island, please.
Been off facebook for the most part for about a month now, I guess, and I don't miss it at all.
I'm also in a severely idle phase, right now. Not really engaging with anything. Don't have any interests I am pursuing. Don't want to do much of anything at all. Completely flat and bored and OK with that.
Which is really weird for me.
Much of it comes down to Trump, and the Republican shenanigans. The form of the beast is taking shape, and it's bad. Really bad. Friends of mine are going to die. Another one was diagnosed with breast cancer yesterday, and her Obamacare will be gone in the next 2 months, or so, just as the charges really kick in. She's a stay-at-home recent mother with a part-time job, who was hoping to return to full time work this year. Yeah... the world has other plans for her now.
And it is going to take another 25 years of fighting and wrangling to get America back just to level after the current batch of Republicans die off or get caught in airport bathrooms doing the nasty. Much less, make any gains on our progress over the last 30 years. The hatred is in power now, and humans everywhere will suffer for it. Good people who want nothing more than a job, a place to live, and food on the table, will be denied all of these things because of their gender, sexual orientation, color of their skin, or other equally meaningless physical trait.
I stand on the shore, watching the wave rise, knowing the tsunami is coming and that I am too late to run, hide, or do anything other than watch the destruction wash over me. It's like Jin's last scene in Rogue One up in here...
Hi,
I wanted to share what I consider greatness in today's world.. Something which transcends our narrow perceptions.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/sonali-mukherjee-tiwari-disfigured-acid-attack-5541832
NOT SO GOOD SHIT
Just left a meeting discussing a potential rearrangement of my whole office, just after we got settled into our new arrangement. Somehow, every program in our department is expanding, taking on more patients, hiring more people, but there isn't enough money to put a phone and a laptop charger on a few unused desks. Somehow, the people responsible for making decisions about where people sit are completely uninformed on the responsibilities of the people they assign. Which is why my proposed desk is about a half mile walk from one of my coworkers, and why her desk is still almost another half mile from our genetic counselors, and why my boss's office is in an entirely different building.
I am slowly realizing that not a single person at my workplace trusts anything that management says or does. The pervasiveness of this dissatisfaction is kind of chilling, because lives are on the line here each and every single day, and management doesn't seem to give a rats ass about patient safety. When I started this job, I had to write a sort of 'mission statement' that showed I understood the goals, vision and values of the my workplace. It is increasingly evident that those in management positions have no such requirement upon hiring.
GOOD SHIT
I have dinner plans on Friday with a fun group of people. A friend from undergrad is getting married later this year and this evening is the unofficial 'combining of friend groups' to form the wedding party, and I'm really looking forward to it. I really REALLY enjoy being at the phase where my friends and I can host dinners, eat what we like, drink what we like, sleep where we like, but nobody is worrying about kids. I am aware that this phase is really brief, given the spat of upcoming weddings, and I'm enjoying it while I can.
I did 12 miles on my exercise bike last night in about an hour. Played through the first few levels of HALO: Combat Evolved while I was doing it and just let the nostalgia wash over me. The voice acting and graphics make me feel like I'm in 4th grade again, discovering this ancient mystery for the first time, experiencing the horror of the Flood for the first time. I'm going to finish it tonight or tomorrow night, but I think I'm going to do another playthrough for nostalgia's sake before starting on HALO 2.
Intersections in Normal Space.
(we still doing the headings?) I spent two weeks with the family. Two weeks with minimal internet culture and more of what we can call "normal 'Murican" 'culture.' I had a whole rant on how bad shit is out there in the world, but it just makes me angry, pissed off and sad. So, that is done. Now, to focus on the Eclipse next year with at least five events at the local library, over a dozen scouting events and who the hell knows what else is going on.
2017 is going to be crazy nuts busy.
I abide.
Some good news: I will hopefully be starting to take my own kung fu students soon. We're still working on the specifics, so I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch. But this takes a lot of the sting out of job woes, and sets me on a much better path. My hope is to get this off the ground soon, and then I've got time to build up enough students that I can hopefully strike out on my own once my loans are forgiven.
Oddly, in spite of the good news, I've found myself being unusually irritable lately, and with a lower-than-usual frustration tolerance. I'm not entirely sure why. There's certainly a lot of uncertainty in our country right now, and I'm sure that's part of it. I will admit to being more than a little pissed off too at this attack from our corrupt "representatives" on the civil service, who do a lot for disproportionate pay. Cutting federal employees has proven time and again not to save money, and we're not the ones using our positions to make ourselves rich. We're just trying to do a job, man. It may be a personal thing too, but I'm not sure what that might be, really.
The beer in the pubski picture is taunting me.
Hey congrats on winning tournament and making the machine wholly automated!
It's Okay to have a one low week..probably next one will be more encouraging..!
Be prepared well, in advance for exams and research..
I used to read daily and consistently during college days ( Gosh,how badly i remember those!), while others waited till exams neared.. nevertheless i was the topper! :)
All the Best!
I've been working out again - my wife and I made a new year's resolution to. We have been running and a small amount of free weight stuff. I'm excited about it - I enjoy running. My wife is only glad we're doing this on rest days.
She found a bunch of old books she had in middlegle school, we've been reading some of them for nostalgia's sake. In the middle of the not lighthearted murder-mystery I've ever read.
Been listening and reading some on both sides of news, but been avoiding sharing my own Donald-related opinions. Hyperbole and unconfirmed claims on the fringes of the Left, and spreading steadily. The right of either busy contradicting itself in favor of Donald or rabidly accusing the left of every evil thing the right has ever been accused of.
Which is why I've been spending all my personal time on a solo playthrough of Terraria. It brings the fight between obsessive order and just-do-anything-and-see-what-happens to the front and center. I'm about to fight the WoF and trigger hardmode.
So this time around I am perturbed by reading news of sexual assault, molestation, rapes and even murder in some cases! I ponder when this dehumanizing crime will stop? Such reduction in value of one's life and personality with no fault of hers, has to be stopped or lets say reduced?
What it needs to be done to fight misogyny, objectification of women?
Well few questions I want to ask:
1. The root causes of such acts=> Lack of political will or lack in enforcement of law or something else?
2. Do these cases relate to people from lower economic groups and education ,or there is no class differentiation?
3. What is condition in west in this regard? ( Yes I am an Orient, living in a world where patriarchy prevails)
4. What needs to be done to stop the wrongdoing?
I was just thinking for women and their right to life, freedom and to live with dignity..
Inviting ideas of hubskians..
Thanks!
Here's the deal: young men with poor employment prospects have little to no power over their lives.
So they take power over someone else to feel like they are in control of something.
This has nothing at all to do with the victim. Most serial offenders don't have a "type"... they just want to take control over something, so they grab whoever is handy. (Which also plays into the "a sexual molester is more likely to be someone who knows the victim well", because the people spend more time together/near one another, it is more likely the victim will be around when the assailant's aggression comes out.)
For centuries there have been ways for young men to asset themselves and gain control over some part of their life. From gladiatorial combat, to after school basketball programs, to garage bands, young men have usually been able to find some sort of outlet for their competitive / alpha / dominant / assertive tendencies.
However, with deep cuts to public programs, whiny suburban NIMBYs, and ever more prohibitions against everything from skateboarding to all ages music venues, young men don't have the variety of outlets they once had. So that energy and base animal dominant instinct expresses itself in other ways.
In contrast to all of this, though, it is important to remember that the crime rate is basically the lowest it has ever been, and you are less likely to encounter crime today than at any other time in history.
The change is that we have greater visibility into crime outside of our immediate social circle now, due to changes in media appetite and access to information via the internet. We are now aware of the most minor crimes in the most remote places, when previously we would never have known about it.
So here's my suggestion: Every time you hear/hear/see anything about crime of any sort, think about WHERE it happened. Have you ever been there in your life? What were you doing when that crime happened, and where were you? Then ask yourself, does the knowledge that this crime was committed, benefit or enrich your life in any way?
You gotta DIY your own filters nowadays. Because all the Editors and Publishers are gone, and they used to be the dam that held back the meaningless shit you can do nothing about, and only let through the stuff that is pertinent and relative to your life. Build filters. Otherwise you will go crazy.
I do agree that i have to absorb only relevant news, but we,as part of society have a shared Humanity, no? .
And thanks for the concern that I will go crazy, but this is current problem in my country and highlighted by media over recent protests due to a violent crime( victim unrelated to perpetrators..was done by rural to urban migrants), and i believe this is the tip of iceberg and most cases go unreported and case must be worse off in rural areas and suburbs.. Even if itdoesn't impact me... I have every right to feel for people, like the way I do in case of war torn countries..
And one of the biggest mistake that, we often feel that crime happen to others, .. but the truth is we all are prone to certain degree of crime every time..
See, gender subjugation though not in form of violent crimes is present everywhere.. though with varying extent..
And of course,at present I may not be powerful ( For powerful ones economic development seems to be a priority over law and order!, and kind of misogyny which prevails often leads to victim blaming..)enough to make changes..and feeling and raising concern is all I can do!
You are right that such cases are more of type of assertion of authority and control..by someone already known to victims..but some repeat offenders are worse than animals..!
Preventing sexual assault when victim is known or related to perpetrator, in my opinion can be done by:
1. Reporting such cases, most of the cases go unreported and thus further such assaults by making perpetrators fearless, encouraging women to report such cases, as it is a serious offence.
2. Roping in men, in condemning such assaults=>He for She Campaign
3. Educating people morally over someone's right over their bodies
4. Reducing the growing trend of objectification and commodification
- Roping in men, in condemning such assaults=>He for She Campaign
I think it's fairly obvious at this stage of things that nobody is pro-rape, and we're all pretty against the idea of forcing yourself upon someone. In fact, hostility is created by assuming men DON'T condemn these acts. It's like telling women 'Hey, stop throwing newborns in dumpsters.'
Nobody is saying people are pro-rape but there is absolutely an attitude of indifference or sweeping under the rug. Combine that with how many woman rightfully feel that reporting is useless while also likely to just cause more harm for themselves and it's not hard to see why this stuff keeps happening.
Everybody is passionately against something until it's more than just talk, best example being abortion.
There is nothing that I personally can do to prevent sexual assaults from occurring. The group of people who is receptive to the message 'Don't rape' is completely composed of people who never have and never will perpetrate it. The group of people who DO commit such acts isn't listening to talk.
The campaign isn't about that, it's about not being a bystander when you see things. Unless they've changed everything from what I can tell you literally could not be less educated on it.
The posters you are talking about are part of different campaigns.
Rejuvenation: HeForShe is part of the efforts to reduce the incidence of sexual assault
OB: HeForShe will not make any changes in the incidence of sexual assault in global north countries because the people who will listen to the message already aren't raping people. The people who listen to the message are not in positions where they can effect a change in the incidence of sexual assault.
Rejuvenation directly inferred that HeForShe will lead to a reduction in the incidence of sexual assault. I don't believe it will, for the reasons stated above.
Also, the bystander effect is something that everyone, man and woman alike needs to deal with. It's not an explicitly male problem.
You didn't say "the messages" you said "don't rape" as if you thought the posters saying things like don't rape or don't be that guy had anything to do with heforshe. The campaign addresses the bystander effect in everybody not just men. The name is simply a call that men can join in on this as well.
You are not the victim, stop trying to be the victim all the time FFS.
I'm not trying to be a victim. I'm trying to highlight the fact that efforts to recruit men for 'anti-rape' campaigns often end up alienating guys who could be of some help.
'Teach men not to rape' comes across the same way as 'Teach women not to throw newborns in dumpsters.'
- heforshe has nothing to do with that.
HeForShe is in part explicitly committed to the reduction of the incidence of sexual assault.
Quit playing dumb, you know perfectly well I mean heforshe has nothing to do with your slogans "teach men not to rape" those are posters you saw online and felt victimized by so they're clouding how you see other campaigns which have nothing to do with it. Kind of like how when people are actual victims they have a skewed view of anything related to the thing they are a victim of which causes them to be triggered.
Guys ,Though OftenBen is right that Yes, Majority of people do condemn it and perpetrators will never be receptive to it..but as oyester is saying that not transforming it in a movement has some kind of passive bystander effect..
.We need a sustained campaign to pressurise at least the political class in believing that the matter is serious( which in my opinion does not act in absence of such movements),and make and implement pro women policies..=> So, giving voice to the belief, is necessary to show how much "NUMBER" of people are furious due to such acts.
Secondly..it will embolden women to not tolerate such incidents and come out with complaints..this can prevent further victimisation of other girls..So,here OftenBen is also right..sometimes what we lack is also 'SheforShe '. Campaign..as until it doesn't impact one, people have tendency to keep such issues under carpet..
The name of the campaign is misguiding to some extent..because we need support of all people, men+ women ,who stand against it..
But keeping in mind the fact that rape though is a gender neutral crime, victimises women mostly and till recently the women rights campaign was largely driven by women( I think so)=>That's why the need of name=> 'HeForShe'.
Thirdly, though it will not shut up completely some misogynists who are often caught in victim blaming..but will dilute their voices to some extent?
At the end it is not about teaching men about something,rather it is show of their support to a cause.
That's all what I believe.
You are absolutely right about repeat and habitual offenders.. Letting them go makes victim more vulnerable on the first hand and makes society a less safe place on the other..
There must be strict monitoring of such people after they have served their terms.
Other measures I can think of are:
1. More police patrolling in sensitive areas
2. Making registering of police report victim friendly and encouraging women not to cover the cases rather to come out and file complaint
3. More women in police
4. Registered and verified drivers in public transport, women specific vehicles
5.Martial arts training to women
6.More role of men in condemning violence against women..e.g. He for She campaign
7. Making sexual assaults cases gender neutral..cases pertaining to male victims must also be heard.
8. Sustained campaign through media..education to respect one's freedom particularly women.
Go see the Cleveland Orchestra. they are one of the best in the world.
On fridays they often have an earlier show that's sort of focused towards 20-30 somethings.
They're doing Bruckner Symphony # 7 tomorrow and on saturday. Its... long, but good. I will admit that I'm not a huge fan of their programming this year, but they are a fantastic orchestra, and Severance Hall is not only a great sounding hall, it's also gorgeous on its own as an Art Deco masterpiece.
- they are one of the best in the world.
Serious question - not picking a fight... just the other day whilst listening to my local NPR station, they were plugging an upcoming concert for the "World Renowned Colorado Symphony" which made me think back to when I was a kid - it was a big deal to go see the Detroit Symphony play, and they were regarded as some one of the best in the world.... I lived in Utah a while and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Utah Symphony were acclaimed as one of the best in the world...
I'm not questioning any of them - they all are, in my truly humble opinion, nothing short of amazing. I just wonder how much of the "best in the world" stuff is marketing... I mean, is there really a way to compare and judge these things? It feels like at some point, they're all at such a pinnacle of performance... it would be hard to not be one of the best in the world...
or maybe people think so highly of some of these orchestras since they wouldn't expect so much to come from dying cities (Detroit, Cleveland) or cow-town-hickville (Utah, Colorado).
I dunno.. just musing.
Oh for sure, that's a legit question. Lots of groups use "world renowned", or "international caliber" as a marketing tool. In the case of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, it's legit - they are known around the world and often tour abroad. The Utah Symphony? well, they're good, but not exactly of the caliber of "best in the world"
Cleveland, on the other hand, is another matter.
Cleveland was part of the original "Big Five". Unlike some of its original compatriots - Such as Philiadelphia, which went bankrupt back in 2011 and is currently in a downward economic spiral - the CO actually balances their budget, which in the Orchestra world is a pretty big deal. Most large orchestras operate at a loss of some sort. AND Cleveland does it in Cleveland,in the heart of the Rust Belt, a changing city with not a lot of money.
Not just that, the audience for the orchestra is SUPER young by comparison. 20% of its attendees are under 25.
And to top it all off, they're actually world class. Having seen them live and comparing them with other orchestra's I've seen and heard, they're killer, especially their string section. They're also on Gramophone's list of {20 best orchestras](http://www.gramophone.co.uk/editorial/the-world’s-greatest-orchestras) at number 7.
So all that to say - You're right, a lot of ensembles use that language as a marketing tool. Cleveland deserves it, however.
