Questions you need the answer to.

Oh, and the answer is all above.

NEW question, should I buy a cheap two-piece stick and a little cheap soft case for it?


That seems a little excessive for a shitty pool player for me, but hell if I'm going to pay $40 USD for a damned parking ticket and spend a shitload of time testing out the tips of the house cues and sighting them down(no, I don't roll them on the table like a fag, I just test them by rotating carefully).

Hell, if I'm going to spend forty fucking bucks on a goddamned parking ticket --

only thing is if I walk into some random bar with my own stick....

well, hell,

Papa don't take no mess.

I don't go out except after work at like 0930 1000, so no wrrries.

Should I fuck this bitch in the ass?

Yeah, I think so.

That was the one who punished me for holding my dying father's hand at the ICU for two days -- which I immediately provided the correct notification according to Amazon, within an hour of learning of the condition.

That cunt deserves to die.

Didn't even respond when I offered to give any documentation.

She deserves to commit suicide by sitting on a knife, standing up, and repeating as many times as necessary.

I am going to fuck that bitch in the ass. She does not deserve to live.

CAR QUESTION

I've been driving both standard and automatics pretty much a long fucking time.

To descend....vertically, maybe 300m...down to my place -- the speed limit is 15mph (it's technically a public street, but nobody drives down it unless they're condo communitarians. But I cannot have people driving like .... 99% of jackasses ... where people have the RIGHT to walk. Car drivers don't have the right -- that's a privilege.

For this automatic, I usually just wind it down to 1st gear, which puts me at about 15 mph.

You know, just engine braking, like you'd do on any kind of transmission.

Now, I know how to replace pads and rotors, and these are a disc brakes, all four wheels -- not my favorite way to spend an afternoon.

However, I don't have the tools or the knowledge to deal with a faulty auto transm.

Thoughts? The RPMs do get up there when engine braking for the .... total distance...I don't know, maybe 600m.

However, IMHO that's what the transm is designed for.

I know FO SHO that I'll wear out my pads, and possibly the rotors will get grooved, braking, which is why I minimize unnnecessary braking even on regular road/highways (plus, it's annoying people slamming on their brakes when they should have been looking ahead and letting momentum take control).

However, I can't afford a tranny rebuild (you can still say that, right?).

So, is my way good or defective?

ETA and no I don't slam it into 1st from 30 mph -- I try to match the speed to the gears. I'm not a complete...............numbnuts.

Actually, that's kind of a good secondary question on the same point:

I wonder if I can maximize the life of the tranny (fuck you, I'm allowed to say that -- that's got nothing to do with LGBQT....or whatever) by not matching speed, but by using neutral and trying to match the RPM when shifting to the lower gear.

I mean, that's how you do it on a standard tranny (OK, now I'm just saying that word because I can) if you have a bad synchro or can't use the clutch.

That sounds like an accident waiting to happen, though, putting the auto tranny in neutral on a public street, giving the gas to get the revs up, then taking it down to the first.

Could be a James Brown song, though.

"Give me the juice! Hunh! Good god! Bring on the juice! Hunh! Should we give the tranny some? Yeah! One, two, three, four! Hit me!"

@Rube E. Tuesday

WTF IS A "JAZZ SNOB" anyway?

I picture like a Thurston and Eunice Howell sipping a rare wine and clucking about some bullshit aspect of the music they just heard someone else say.

"Mahhhvelous, dear -- such modal interchange is novel, but combined with the contrapunctal savoir-faire of The Modern Jazz Quartet, I dare say it's heavenly!"

"No, no dear, you must only snap your fingers on the upbeats!"

Yeah, kinda like that. As an example, some years ago in Toronto, the last jazz club in town shut down. This was after the owner, who was not making any money because the jazzheads would nurse a glass of water all night while listening for every sign of untightness, was sitting in the club with a friend and had the audacity to say something to the friend. One of the jazzheads came over and told him off.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

One of the jazzheads came over and told him off.

---

Funny thing is, I think there are people like that in all walks of life and niche areas.

I can't fucking stand it, but I have a good strategy: just look at them directly in the eyes for 7/4 of a second, then say something. Assholes like that probably deserve a beating, but I prefer the civilized approach.

Yeah, go ahead, you're King of fucking Siam and lord of all knowledge. Let them say their business, then, while I pretend to consider what they say, while looking at them in the eyes, say a response. They can't handle a polite interchange, even one which ends in their antagonist (from their POV) admitting the snob might possibly be correct. Not when it involves human interaction like eye contact and zero defensive, squirrely emotion.

Nerds.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

the owner, <snip> was sitting in the club with a friend and had the audacity to say something to the friend. One of the jazzheads came over and told him off.

---

One of those times I think it's good to be the boss.

I hope he told that jackass to GTFO my club and don't ever come back.

Probably did just that, based on the club/bar owners I've known -- those people have their backs to the wall and aren't taking any shit. They don't own shit, anyway, they're usually leasing their spots, owning various licenses, and have contracts with all kinds of vendors.

QUESTION: Has anyone ever known a small business owner who will take any shit from some piss-ant shit-stirrer? I have not.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

jazzheads would nurse a glass of water all night while listening for every sign of untightness

---

That deserves a quote.

Just noticed "untightness" -- yeah.

I'm mean, hell, I'm a jazzhead if anyone is, but whatever happened to just having a good time? You know relax.

Some of these people, yeah, they're like at an air show or a NASCAR thing, they're just waiting for somebody to screw up.

Or for some chance, like a lot of sports fans, to reveal some obscure bit of trivia they've hoarded away.

Untightness.

That is quite a word. I like it.

QUESTION what is the deal with neckbeards, anyway?

Like, pick one: beard OR clean.

Sure, occasionally everyone can have a long/lost weekend and let the facial hair go a little bit, but to make that a regular thing?

The dude was lazy, if anyone was, but that is kind of ridiculous to just regularly go around in public like you just stepped out of a cave.

I don't get it.

And, FTR, that fashion fancyboy "permastubble" thing -- fuck you.

QUESTION: I don't think it's the least bit unfair to ask of men to be the "chaser" of fine women.

Women are generally more vulnerable physically, and perhaps in cases in a sociological sense.

That's just being a lazy MRA to be like "eh, whine, how come I got to do all the work???"

Cause you're the damn man, you have a lot of built-in advantages, so grow a pair, or just be cool with lettings evolve naturally.

Any problems with my little "opinion" I'm not thinking.

Yeah, it's not one of the great questions of all ages, but still, that's what I've concluded.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Erictelevision

In an 8 game schedule, how many different ways can a team play its 4 home and road games?

---

I asked on a math tutorial website. The answer is 70 (8!/4!*4!)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Erictelevision

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Erictelevision

In an 8 game schedule, how many different ways can a team play its 4 home and road games?

---

I asked on a math tutorial website. The answer is 70 (8!/4!*4!)

---

Forgot about that one.

So, I'll say that's probably right -- why not?

Straight binomial theorem, nCr ("n choose r"), where n=8 and r=4, so (8*7*6*5/4*3*2*1) after some cancellation (or n!/r!(n-r)! if you want to be official).

ETA Actually, that should have been cancelled down to 2*7*3*5 == 210 / (3) ==>70.

So, you know, no calculators or savant math needed.

I think I need to buy some work boots.

QUESTION can one still wear the old-fashioned Dr Martens, or did the little kid Nazis ruin that?

I have a brown loafer Doc Ms that I've gotten at least 500 miles on, and although they could use a new insole insert, like a Dr Scholls or whatever, they've been remarkably resilient to mostly walk on paved surfaces (i.e., the outer soles have held up, with only an acceptable amount of erosion, given the rough character of asphalt or concrete).

OTOH for the same price I could get a nice pair of low-cut hiking shoes, but IME even the good ones crap out after about 800 miles, with all the various "complications" gradually becoming unglued or deteriorating.

I think the original Martens were designed for factory/warehouse work, so that may be a better option.

And I don't think I can be mistaken for some little kid nazi asshole, just maybe an overgrown punk who'd probably kick your ass if you said something about my shoes.

ETA NEW QUESTION: Should I write on the "employee suggestions" whiteboard "DOUBLE ELIMINATION ARM-WRESTLING!!!!!" in caps, and sign it w/ my RL name?

Answers:

1. Ruined.

2. No.

Response:

1. I didn't realize Herr Doktor Martens was a WWII damned Nazi. Fuck him and his damned shoes. Also I hate that goddamned yellow stitching.

2. Already did it. Trust me, it's hilarious. Not a speck of offensive content. I did not sign my employee ID, though, just because....what's the point? Just spamming an employee whiteboard.

LANG QUEST

My Latin is getting rusty, but I wanted no one to poach this empty cart I was saving while I wheeled the full one down to its spot.

I think I wrote: "Tolleque moriturandi" above the Route# and Staging# on the placard, using the dry-erase markers.

I admit WareGirl was nearby so maybe I was trying to impress upon her that I have broke-dick Latin skills, but mostly to amuse myself.

But that's completely a fucked-up, wrong phrase, and it's been bugging me for the last few hours.

Yes, I know "murder" is, like fecio, IIRC, but the past passive participle....meh....I'm getting soft in areas I was hard, and hard in areas I was soft.

FIX IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHY CAN THE PARROT TALK????????

OK, so I think everyone's Latin's as rusty as mine here.

I'll still ask, though.

I like Tolleque as a compact way of saying "Take and" what's the best way of saying in subjunctive future "you shall die?" Apparently moritur is a defective verb which doesn't have a future, nor a subjunctive.

Of course, my go-to in French is just like "Prends-le et périr," sort of short and sweet.

I never tried a German one, but that should be straightforward, except there are more choices and I don't feel like wasting time thinking up a good one.

Besides, the only German language is "Schiessen-Sie nicht, ich bin Amerikanische! Ve haf alliance unter treaty, und unseren unterseebooten sind alle decomissioned! Ich bin ein Feldkommandant! Offizier! Ich habe keine weapons, Yankee friends! I luff the Yankees and Babe Ruth! Schiessen nicht, bitte!"

QUESTION Is it a good idea to yell out your house/condo/apt window at an unacceptable dog owner:

"Shut that god damned dog up or I'm going to blow your brains out!"

"Shut the fuck that damned dog up!"

"The shotgun's coming off the rack!"

I contend those are all reasonable responses.

Or else I wouldn't have said them.

Besides, the 300W PA speaker is too heavy to move, plus the mixer and SM57, so sometimes the old ways are the best.

ALT QUESTION People who can't silence their beasts should have their vocal cords cut -- I'd take up a collection.

Fucking white people.

Nobody in a real city would put up with this shit.

New ones:

"Shut that fucking dog up, you white n******, or I'm going to shoot you in the face."

"Hey! You! Shut that dog up or you're going to die!"

"Hey, n*******. I'm going to find you, I'm going to rape you, kill your dog, and ram it up your ass!"

All in good fun!

I think I should buy a Remington 870 shotgun instead of buying a non-bullshit donut spare tiire for my car.

Or a cheap-ass Hi-Point 9mm (those really suck, bulky and unbalanced), with some good leather, and a CCW permit. A 1911 is my handgun, but the cartridges are too expensive. The H&K 9 is nice, a beautiful handgun, but I share it with pops and even though he's bsically bedridden-- and I'm not crazy about 9mm. 0,40 s the way to go, but again, ammo gets dear.

I'd rather have the shotgun, b/c I can't be carrying concealed, I just want to open the door to some douche watch 'em run. Leave one empty in the chamber and rack that mofo.

Yeah, a scattergun is about right, just rack it up, cheap, TCB.

Oh, ETA I'll mount a gun rack in the back of my 1998 Camry XLE.

I'm going full redneck.

QUESTION

If, hypothetically, one accidentally smashed the shit out of one's car side mirrors, one would fix with:

(i) Black gorilla tape

(ii) a shitload of crazy glue (and, obviously, huff the rest)

(iii)some PC-7 epoxy

(iv) forget about it.

QUESTION

Is this not one of the highest purposes of a high-lumen tactical LED flashlight?

Some jackass is riding your ass on the highway, so you just click it on and point it straight back.

On the narrowest possible beam.

And hope they die in a miserable fashion.

I think there's articulable plausible deniability.

ANOTHER QUESTION

Is this normal for automatic tranny cars? Everytime I try to do a "brake check" (lift up the E-brake with the button depressed), some leakage occurs and my car actually slows down a bit.

Yes, I'm aware that's horribly unsafe, even on a stick, because of possible mechanical irregularities.

But the only other auto-transmsissions I've driven have had the e-brake as a pedal IIRC -- this one is a regular standard-style lever at your right hand.

BOXING QUESTION

Asking the 65-year-old work-friend who fought, he says about forty-three boxing fights during his days in the Navy, before work, to "try out his stuff," is probably not a good idea.

I still want to see what stuff he's got, though.

I bet I could convince him if I brought a pint of whiskey, but I'm convinced we both want to keep our jobs, instead of fist-fighting for whiskey in the parking lot barely after midnight.

Still, it would be fun spar a little.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

BOXING QUESTION

Asking the 65-year-old work-friend who fought, he says about forty-three boxing fights during his days in the Navy, before work, to "try out his stuff," is probably not a good idea.

I still want to see what stuff he's got, though.

I bet I could convince him if I brought a pint of whiskey, but I'm convinced we both want to keep our jobs, instead of fist-fighting for whiskey in the parking lot barely after midnight.

Still, it would be fun spar a little.

---

I got the solution - see who can give biggest bruise. My record is recieving about a 5"x5" bruise on my arm that took months to heal -- hell, most days at the warehiouse I get bruses that look lie I been in streetighht.

Maybe I'm a degenerate but some people like painting watercolors. I like fighgingg with fists. Not any good at it, but it's so fun as no one gets hurt. Just trade hard HARD punhes fpr fiun..

Besdies, I'd enjoy trading blows with somembody who actuaoy know wo Floyd Mayweather is/was and who /was his family was.

Believe it or not, thee are people who enjoy"mixing it up,?

It can be fu, so long as it's all in fubm

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

BOXING QUESTION

Asking the 65-year-old work-friend who fought, he says about forty-three boxing fights during his days in the Navy, before work, to "try out his stuff," is probably not a good idea.

I still want to see what stuff he's got, though.

I bet I could convince him if I brought a pint of whiskey, but I'm convinced we both want to keep our jobs, instead of fist-fighting for whiskey in the parking lot barely after midnight.

Still, it would be fun spar a little.

---

I got the solution - see who can give biggest bruise. My record is recieving about a 5"x5" bruise on my arm that took months to heal -- hell, most days at the warehiouse I get bruses that look lie I been in streetighht.

Maybe I'm a degenerate but some people like painting watercolors. I like fighgingg with fists. Not any good at it, but it's so fun as no one gets hurt. Just trade hard HARD punhes fpr fiun..

Besdies, I'd enjoy trading blows with somembody who actuaoy know wo Floyd Mayweather is/was and who /was his family was.

Believe it or not, thee are people who enjoy"mixing it up,?

It can be fu, so long as it's all in fubm

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

I think the original Martens were designed for factory/warehouse work, so that may be a better option.

---

SOLVED: (sort of)

Better idea, see if this Army Surplus store is still in business in this town, and pick up some GI jungle boots.

Probably better and cheaper than wasting good hiking shoes on this warehouse bullshit.

Although, I've heard the Vietnam-era boots were actually pretty uncomfortable. But, hell, if they could run and walk untold miles in them, then there's no reason I can't.

Reason: PUMICE STONE!

ETA Sorry about the 2x post and the poor spelling in that last -- I have no explanation for that, sir.

DOG QUESTION

WHY do people allow their pet dogs to bark?

And WHY is it not mandated that all non-hunting or attack dogs have their vocal cords snipped?

It is completely unacceptable to have a non-working beast violate noise restrictions in most municipalities in states of the U.S.

It is the exact equivalent of me randomly turning on my car security alarm, whenever I feel like it.

These animals should be destroyed, or their owners fined according to a graduated escalating schedule, or, as I suggest, the vocal cords should be humanely clipped.

There is one reason for a dog to bark: if it is trying to deter a predator.

So.

That's solved.

Oh, also, any barking dog should be able to be destroyed by anyone, at any time, for any reason except valid reasons for barking.

ETA

Also, saying over your PA speaker+amp+mic "Shut that goddamned dog up or I'm going to put a bullet in your brain" is just fine. Not a question, just a statement of fact.

In case anyone was curious.

QUESTION:

"Is it hilarious and smart to answer the door to someone claiming to be a county sheriff, and ask them for identification, and when they refuse by pointing to their uniform. respond, 'Oh, I had a gay stripper cousin who dressed like that.'"


Yes, I know the answer.

I think it's an amusing scenario.

Usually I turn on the channel of the mixer connected to the microphone and say, "We require warrants to be searched. Leave my property, stranger." Repeat, verbatim.

And by "usually," I mean a few times.

PHONE question

Interesting, so I come back today and find that my phone charger (phone unplugged, carried with me), had apparently sometime last night grown hot enough to not only melt some of the plastic housing surrounding the micro-USB port on the phone, but even while unplugged, melted a giant hole over the day in my plastic EE stencil/ruler (it's got little stencils for drawing logic gates and diodes and all that. Not very useful, but it was a good surfboard and I liked it. Much like this one girlfriend I had.

Huh.

I don't know what the question could be except (ii) WTF and (I) the circuit it draws power from has exactly one chromebook charger (device disconnected from charger overnight and for today), and one other tablet charger plugged in.

The wiring at my place has needed some...impromptu fixes...but I don't think I ever did anything to the receptacles in the "office/study/mancave" circuit.

Also, Morgan is not ovulating, otherwise she would have been all over my like white on rice.

ALCOHOL question.

The, you know, drinking kind. Ethanol, fine, whatever.

I wonder how to find out about how long until ethanol reaches "peak plasma concentration." I find it takes about twenty minutes or so for alcohol (don't be pedantic, organic chemistry nerds, you know what I mean) to "take effect."

That seems a bit slow, given how much of the substance is absorbed (don't) through the soft palate, gums, esophagus, and so forth. Maybe.

But, about consistent with other "fast acting" drugs, and some sublingually-applied substances. Setting aside all the deviant cases, like taking LSD into the eyeballs, insufflating cocaine, huffing paint, or whatever else you can think of.

I wonder at what point you'd be able to time the peak concentration of ethanol in blood-plasma, such as taking the substance intravenously. One would have to make this kind of calculation.

No, I'm not planning to make some Hot Cosbys for a dinner party, I just like doing experiments on myself, and haven't got a clue what the best source of information would be. I'm somewhat confident that there have been at least a few studies, of whatever merit, made.

Why am I suddenly seeing so many people with white canes near where I work? There's no institution for the blind around that I know of. It seems to be different people, and there's nobody new with guide dogs, just white canes.

Oh.

I got it figured out.

There's a new MusicCon where everybody wants to pretend to be a good musician, like one of their heroes. Shearing, Charles, Wonder.

Just kids doing cosplay.

/////////////

I want to know, what the fuck kind of asshole HONKS at ME in a goddammed parking lot for going 5mph (yeah, convert it to whatever you need) and stopping for crossing pedestrians trying to get to the grocery store.

The kind who gets brake-checked multiple times as they follow my path home. And fingered. Up their ass. That's who.

NB I managed to avoid a collision by swift reflexes earlier on my commute home, and yet UND DENNOCH!!! I didn't have to use my horn. Just avoid their dumbass shit driving and give them the bras d'honneur.

Or as I prefer it, the "broadener."

Good cure for and cause of perforated colon and constipation.

Assholes.

ETA oh yeah, question: I think the best move in that situation would have been to stop my car, exit the vehicle, and calmly advise the offender that their behavior can be punished by me and the noise ordinances of the city, while taking a photograph of the driver and noting his license plate.

What are they going to do? Beat me up? I work in a fucking warehouse. I'm made of meat. Hard, sanguine meat.

Jizz, people who honk at you by way of demanding that you run over pedestrians are the vilest of scum. There should be undercover cops whose sole job is to pull them over and impale them by the crosswalk by way of warning the others.

Well, they might have shit their pants, that carload of inbred .............inoffensive....think of.......young people, that's ok......when the third time I E-braked them and caused my tires to leave some rubber on the road.

I don't think so, but it's a nice thought. Maybe one of the women passengers might have a miscarriage, though. That amuses me.

I should have just manned up and confronted them, but on private property, I don't think my driving violation citation would have gotten anywhere (yes, that's a thing -- ID the driver from a selection of photographs, provide the license plate, and it is obligate that the violator will be served a summons to appear in court. I've got personal time off, I'd be happy to use if it meant these people waste (i) an entire day at court (ii) pay the nolo fee, which is considerable, for violating noise statutes).

All right, I got a good one, a CAR question.

I've got this fetish in my mind that I want my transmission to do most of the braking power. Part of it is most of commute to->from->to&c has a shit ton of stop signs and weird stop lights.

I don't think it's so hard on an automatic transmission to gear down, even up until you reach about 15mph (or kilowatt-hours, or whatever you people use).

In fact, I take a certain amount of pride in not being one of those nebbishes who's constantly riding the brakes.

However, I understand, it's not a standard/stick drive.

Nonetheless, I think I'm correct.

According to some random chooches on the Cartalk (RIP!) forum, I'm being ridiculous in my down shifting.

Still, I contend that going 30-35 mph coming up to a red light that I know is going to change very soon, shifting to second gear manually, then perhaps to first, allows me to not have to apply the brakes.

Just smoother, in that I can avoid using the brakes, often. However, I do recognize brake signals as a safety measure for those following you. However, IMHO, they should be just as well as conditions above as I am.

I think that's different than the pathological cases where people apparently are constantly shifting a "manual."

Keep in mind this is a twenty-year old Camry XLE -- not the latest and greatest auto transmission.

And I have confirmation, of sorts, that using low gear on a long, steady descent, such as down the hill to my place, is sensible.

Did I mention I hate cars yet? Well, this is one reason why I've never driven unless absolutely necessary, which, unfortunately, it is now for commuting the 6 miles or so to work at 0400.

If I was a super-butch shadetree mechanic, I'd consider replacing the automatic with a manual -- had a friend who did that, who taught me the basics of car repair. No. No fucking way would I ever spend any amount of time doing that.

But I've still probably should find a GOOD mechanic who can check my transmission fluid better than I can.

ETA And, yes, I brake smoothly. As a demonstration of the correct technique from the back pages of some cartoon book (like a Donald Duck or Archie comics) from when I was a little kid, imagine there's a fresh chicken egg between your foot and both the gas and the brake pedal. Well, two eggs, I guess.

QUESTION

I wonder why it is that more US property owners don't have measures to dispatch of unwanted predators on their property, primarily their dwelling.

Yes, we all know you can't have "man-traps" or "booby-traps" and all that. For very good reason.

There is no possible reason that a manually-operated set of devices, ranging from "flash-bangs," to legal materiel, such as TNT, cannot be detonated around, say, one's front door when one is being assaulted by a group of unidentifiable strangers who have no just cause for entry, including defective paperwork.

Intruder?

Without valid warrant?

Death from above.

John Adams would have approved.

And no, I don't know that from that idiot TV show with PigVomit in it, I just intuit from my memory of some of his written opinions that such action would have been praised by him and every other American, although many of them were Huguenots who were partisan to the British villainy of the War of the Conquest.

Who knows.

Maybe I just like to light a large bonfire in my own dwelling sometimes using legal accelerants.

If some pigs get roasted -- well, they're not as tasty as porgs, and they're more expensive, but at least they're more fun to poke with a stick when they're corpses, probably.

HEY!!!!!!!!!!! Jackasses!!!!!!!!!!!

I want some romantic advice.

I'm getting to know WareGirl a bit more.

You want to hear something fucking nuts?

I asked her and she said she liked to hike and to watch birds.

ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?

I moved to this fucking town so I can go walk twenty-five miles within city limits, and while I'm not a bird-watcher, I know what they are, where they are, what kinds they are, all that shit.

Goddamned motherfucker.

Shit goddamned.

I had an initial crush on her,

Then I saw how she was friendly to undesirables.

But NOW.

Jesus fucking Christ, how am I going to play it cool now? I'm about to jizz in my pants just thinking about her -- and she is not a conventional pin-up beauty. She's just good, that's it.

Yeah, so that's my question.

QUESTION COROLLARY:

I think the next move is: "Hey, you and me, we kind of got the same kind of interests, so what say you and me just go out and take a walk? No, I don't mean in the depths of the Forest Park, you don't me that good, but let's say the Arboretum?"

Yeah. question and answered that's about the best pick-up line I ever fucking heard of.

No, I got a refinement on that.

<Point finger at WareGirl>

"Hey! You like to walk. I like to walk. You and me, we go walk."

That is how you do it.

Well, possibly. But that's my next move.

I just saw the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Some jackass morons on some 4chan-type board actually asked, "So, hurr, durr, should I like let my dog eat squirrels and stuff?"

It is your dog you fucking mongoloid.

Same exact question as asking if you should let your child molest neighborhood children sexually, or start fires recklessly.

I think the dog would be happier if it were put down, instead of being untrained.

There is no such thing as a dog barking or chasing anything without an express command.

If you allow it, you are scum, you are an animal abuser, and you deserve to die, together with the defective beast.

And the "owners," well, it would certainly be a good thing if they were killed in a single-vehicle automobile accident. Preferably with all of their defective offspring.

SERIOUS question.

Why would an otherwise non-elaphantine woman shave her eyebrows and paint some fake ones on?

I suppose I could ask her tomorrow, but I suspect of not getting a satisfactory answer.

Anyway, it's not my business -- she's a good bartender, and I'm not that concerned.

Still....why?

What she sees isn't what you see, I guess

Well, I think that's clear.

She's a pretty "put-together" woman -- about thirty or so, I'd guess, always has the right clothes, more traditional hairstyle, some pretty nice-looking arm tattoos.

I just rarely notice things in finer detail, so that was a shocker as a stylistic choice.

I submit a tentative hypothesis that she's trying to advertise to male suitors that she shaves.

Dunno.

QUESTION: Do most people with an MBA flunk out of their one term of calculus that I assume is required? And, why is it that such types seem to not have even an advanced-UG level knowledge of statistics?

Yeah, statistics is a crime, as a discipline, IMHO, but probability theory and combinatorics is not.

Of course, I showed my ass here when trying to answer a basic combinatorics problem, so I don't claim to be any better. I try, but usually I fail.

UND DENNOCH why is it that MBA or BBA types seem to have a combination of innumeracy, mathematical immaturity, and apparent ignorance of algorithm analysis? What exactly do they do? Play Excel all day?

Can't help you on that, I have no idea what MBAs do. Could involve weird rituals before the eldritch gods for all I know.

I'm sure it does. In the ancient times of druids, Stonehenge.

I think I am brewing up a good question about human physiology and the most efficient way to accomplish physical tasks.

In short, there's probably a fuzzy boundary at which height and strength (raw power, like brawn) blah blah blah you know what I mean.

So, that explains why Randy Newman was all wrong.

Short people can, in many cases, be as good or better than larger specimens.

QED.

And by "fuzzy boundary," I mean to impose hard limits of discrete quantities. Like 1, -1, 2^(1/2) and so on. So, a multi-valued logic with some relationship to the continuum, but corrected to the extent it can be. Otherwise, one would only be operating on symbolic representations or not able to compute, or, equally important, verify.

That is about as much as I know about "fuzzy logic," so that's that. ETA And let's keep it simple, function over Z. Only way it will work. Discrete quantities, or otherwise we're back in the continuum. And we're back where we started, using natural constants like pi or e and so forth. Or sqrt(2) and all that. Can't happen.

IS IT TRUE that women don't really mind — in fact relish — the scent of a man, paticularly in estrus?

I find that, à la Joséphine and Napoléon, I don't mind, in fact, relish the smell of a woman.

I therefore conclude that I do not need to shower this morning.

For it will attract the most fertile of the bunch.

There is some, no doubt, horrible, stench possible, but I do not find it possible that a woman would object to a man wearing clean clothes having a certain odor.

The stench about the groin can, no doubt, be objectionable for both men and women.

However, a normal odor I find is not worth bothering about.

Particularly if one abstains from highly-aromatic foods.

Far more important to have outward appearance of hygiene — dental, facial, and so forth.

QED.

Here's a weird one. This older (elderly, really) co-worker — really, I don't know how they manage.

While we were waiting this morning for checking-in, she mentioned out of apparent concern that she noticed I sweat a lot.

Predictably, she gave me the usual advice about "electrolytes" — bunch of shit, if you ask me, I consume a lot of water, but my diet is heavy in salt, and I'm fairly sure a small increase in potassium is not anything.

I suggested I just sweat a lot because I'm fat. She was very quick to dismiss that hypothesis, by insisting on my lean frame. Which is not entirely true, however I am rather tall and carry about ten extra pounds.

Is there anyone on this board who actually thinks that taking a potassium supplement would "cure" my hyperhydrosis?

I rather think that dropping about ten pounds, and working less intensely is a more effective strategy.

ETA Perhaps I could also become black. They seem to do OK.

NEW RELATED QUESTION: I have a suspicion that eating Cocoa Puffs cereal in the morning could be an excellent supplement, as well as being delicious. Assuming I get my shit together and start washing my dishes. Meh, it's probably got potassium in it, as does the milk. Plus, it sounds exciting and new to me.

HERE'S another one about SLEEP.

This is not working out, taking about a three hour nap, then making up for it with five hours of sleep before waking up at 0200.

I think I know the answer to this: basically it sucks.

However the urge to sleep is irresistible, and powering through with coffee or willpower is a terrible idea.

I think my solution is the least worst solution.

ADJACENT FOOD QUESTION I think the best solution is to eat the most dense-in-calories food, so as to make room for water and other liquids in the stomach.

I believe that's the best solution to having a pretty small stomach, and yet requiring the stomach to consume water in copious quantities.

Ah, question solved.

Eat more potatoes. They're loaded with potassium, as well as vitamin C and other nutrients found in vegetables.

IIRC. They're certainly nutrient-laden, and I don't eat very much of them.

It's been a few years since I had some cards (as in, personal "business cards") printed up.

QUESTION: I prefer a simpler design, just because I'm not good at visual stuff. But I think a subtle visual bit of "flair" IME adds a bit. Do you people think it's worth paying fifty or a hundred bucks to some guy or girl to make up a subtle design?

Yeah, I know how to do it in GIMP or one of the Adobe software products, it just would take me a hundred hours to design, and I need something more current-looking than just an old-style "business card" thing with name, contact, and all that.

And, no, I don't mean some cheesy card with piano keys printed on the side (I haven't seen a single music job in my town recently that will even pay gas money for the band, much less the labor for moving equipment), just a generic design.

Recs?

It's been a few years since I had some cards (as in, personal "business cards") printed up.

QUESTION: I prefer a simpler design, just because I'm not good at visual stuff. But I think a subtle visual bit of "flair" IME adds a bit. Do you people think it's worth paying fifty or a hundred bucks to some guy or girl to make up a subtle design?

Yeah, I know how to do it in GIMP or one of the Adobe software products, it just would take me a hundred hours to design, and I need something more current-looking than just an old-style "business card" thing with name, contact, and all that.

And, no, I don't mean some cheesy card with piano keys printed on the side (I haven't seen a single music job in my town recently that will even pay gas money for the band, much less the labor for moving equipment), just a generic design.

Recs?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

QUESTION

Is this not one of the highest purposes of a high-lumen tactical LED flashlight?

Some jackass is riding your ass on the highway, so you just click it on and point it straight back.

On the narrowest possible beam.

And hope they die in a miserable fashion.

I think there's articulable plausible deniability.

ANOTHER QUESTION

Is this normal for automatic tranny cars? Everytime I try to do a "brake check" (lift up the E-brake with the button depressed), some leakage occurs and my car actually slows down a bit.

Yes, I'm aware that's horribly unsafe, even on a stick, because of possible mechanical irregularities.

But the only other auto-transmsissions I've driven have had the e-brake as a pedal IIRC -- this one is a regular standard-style lever at your right hand.

---

Ad (i) this is not correct. There is some significant diffusion of light. Put it down to the curved rear windows and windshields. The optics will not achieve the result desired. ETA Probably annoy the offender, but if they are reasonably competent at operating heavy machinery, it's not worth the effort of raising your hand to employ the flashlight.

Ad (ii) no, the E-brake on any auto-tranny is not going to work like on a standard transmission car. Confirmed. Why? I'm not sure, but it just doesn't work like that. Can you do a "J-turn" in a Ness-style car? Sure, why not. But, IME, you can't "brake-check" a tailgater in an auto transmission. Just my experience.

HOW would I go about trying to create a collective-bargaining corporation, i.e., a union?

I think a lot of workers are getting screwed — not in my particular unit of employment — but, still, solidarity for others who aren't as lucky at the same company.

I think the best way is to ally oneself with an existing union-corporation with collective bargaining power.

It's a problem, though — my particular company has adapted itself to dealing with rapid turnover, so I suspect they'd just as soon say "go screw" and get some rummies off the street.

Not real strategy masters, my company. They just go for bulk. Good for them, bad for workers.

ETA Actually, it is bad for the company. Their pandering to rules-disobeying contract drivers within their distribution centers causes many hundreds of person-hours to be lost every hour. The contract-delivery is fine with me, but it's almost as though nobody considered the consequences.

Rule concluded: don't buy Amazon stock. They have severe difficulties, and labor is the least of it. They don't have the operations people trained in basic algorithm analysis, or even just advanced-UG math: just soft-skilled grocery-store clerk/administators. Not a good buy, assuming one were stupid enough to directly trade hard stock.

WHY is it that my Android-based phone overrides, at points I can't predict, settings like "Volume == SILENT."

Very strange.

Yeah, yeah, I know Android is always trying to phone home to the mothership, for updates, despite my instructions, but I cannot understand the pattern wherein the alerts (Gmail, texts, etc.) suddenly become amplified, when the instruction has been given to silence (or, apparently, "silence") the device.

A tentative guess is that ambient humidity affects the touch screen in unpredictable ways (certainly true, as anyone who's carried such a device in a sweat-soaked pocket will verify).

However, that's not enough.

Although it does remind me how good an idea it was to ditch the iPhone — at least with Android there's the illusion of control. But it is an apparent fiction. An illusion.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

HOW would I go about trying to create a collective-bargaining corporation, i.e., a union?....

---

Start here, or contact an existing union in your field of work: https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-prote...ght-form-union

Thanks for the above, EH. Yeah, I think the only way to go is to form a formal alliance with an existing union. The nice thing is that these days you don't have to go around pasting shit to telephone poles or passing leaflets or clipboard-mounted faldarol around. OTOH, defective anti-social nerds like Bezos or Musk can easily discover "subversive" "red" activity, should they want to. Actually what I struck-through is wrong, I believe. The only way is the old-fashioned petitioning of employees, with pen and paper, AFAICT. That's good, because social media is a terribly "sticky" way of associating people to one cause or another. I'd never sign anything electronically on FB or whatever, and I'd suppose anyone reasonable would do the same. Pen and paper.

NEW question. You know, this wasn't answered in the usual encylopediæ of insects.

I wonder if bedbugs preferentially bite your dick when you get a hard on while asleep.

You'd think they would. And yet it's not been the case for me (yet).


Sleep well!

ETA Also good question for ladies to ask themselves! Sleep tight, sweethearts!

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

ETA Also good question for ladies to ask themselves! Sleep tight, sweethearts!

---

Holy shit.

That might be the worst thing I've ever said or thought.

Because, you know, blood flow.

Shit.

That is a horrible thought.

No wonder women tend to be fastidious about keeping house.

Cause there are goddamned bugs who want to crawl up their snappers!

Actually, IIRC, Camille Paglia said something similar about the desires of women to keep stray matter from entering their wombs. Paglia's a nut, but she's very ... fluent, I would say. At some things.

No, that's the worst thing I've ever said; and yet, it has some explanatory power.

ETA To get that horrifying image of bugs eating your woman from the inside out out of everyone's head, I've concluded that if I have to go out in this "job," I'm going full-on Eugene Debs. At least that's something, and this isn't a real job. This will be like a new hobby for me. Circulating discrete 3x5 cards, collecting them, and trying to reach >30% support. I suspect I'd have to go all Boss Tweed and ply my coworkers with booze or something, but it's possible. I'll get fired, 100%, but at least it won't be for talking lewdly about yoga pants and such on the job.

EETA Ah. I can print on index cards from home, and provide a convenient place for signatures and printed names. I don't think the size of the workforce is available to me, though. I don't think signed approvals from one single distribution center are sufficient for a union, since the company itself is rather large. I'm certainly not going to travel to all the locations within my metropolitan area, much less try to cover a larger area.

Well, it was a good idea, but I don't think the geographical spread allows for even a reasonable attempt.

Oh well.

I'm still going to start "sand-bagging" or working less-intensely during the shifts.

Better for productivity, morale, and self-preservation. I'm tired of being known as "that sweaty guy who curses a lot." Fuck that.

Why would a woman < 5'5" wear shoes without the typical "boot-athletic-style" shoes, especially in a warehouse?

IME wearing flat-soled shoes is painful, after walking more than a few miles.

Does she want to appear short, and just accepts the pain? She's not that short, just like regular woman-sized short. And maybe there's some fashion thing or something. She's kind of got the punk-rock thing going on. Maybe she's trying to do a "lady Ramone" kind of thing.

Or perhaps she has some great insole inserts.

I should probably ask her, but she's not all that socially accessible, except when she seeks me out, I presume, because of my generous and warm vibe.

Oh, let's face it. She wants me. Obviously.

What would you do if an online correspondent whom one believed to be a female college student turned out to not belong to one's cohort of peers in age, roughly?

I'd be extremely cautious.

As in Bourbaki "dangerous bend" cautious. As in Dijkstra, "GOTO Considered Harmful" cautious.

In fact, I'd be changing my trousers from shorts to khaki pants, right now.

I'd also be grateful that narrative fiction, after the Woolsey/Ulysses case, is granted a fair amount of clemency.

Well, this is good, I guess. I can't work six days a week: it's really messing me up not having two days to just not do any physical labor, and allow the muscle tissues time to heal.

What is the deal with observing, as I did yesterday morning, the blue coloration (I forgot if those are veins or arteries, or what color blood turns when it's oxygenated) through the skin of the chest just above the heart. Not healthy, in fact, probably on my way to a cardiac event if I don't modify my intense habits at work, as well as improving my diet.

I'm in to see my regular GP in a few weeks, but I suspect my blood pressure is going to bury the needle. Well, at least we'll have something to talk about. And I can amuse him by showing him the odd callouses the first knuckles of both hands — that's not a concern, but he'd probably find it amusing, as a man of science and curiosities.

I think if I can just abstain from alcohol for a few days prior, a lot of water weight is going to disappear, so at least I'll get a good reading from the balance (which I suspect is not calibrated perfectly, from past experience, but I neither have a working scale at home nor a blood-pressure device, nor even a thermometer to check my body temperature; I do have a glucose meter, but I think my test strips are fouled, so that's no good either. No, I'm not diabetic or even close, but I find it's a good thing to track when calibrating one's diet).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

But, IME, you can't "brake-check" a tailgater in an auto transmission. Just my experience.

---

I emend this statement: not exactly true.

You can depress the e-brake "button" on the lever, but unless you want to lay serious rubber on the pavement, you just can't lift the brake lever all the way up.

That seems to be where severe brake leakage occurs, yes, even with the release button fully depressed.

It's hard for me to check just by myself exactly when the brake lights come on, but I find a partial (I don't remember the rotational omega-notation from physics to measure rotational force [aka "torque," sort of] but maybe 60-70% from "flat" to "fully engaged") engagement does not cause stoppage or even slowage of the vehicle.

Still a terrible practice, but it seems to be somewhat effective against tailgaters on a much-abused major interstate highway (not a freeway, just a pretty major highway in my town).

HOW TO MAKE AN ARITHMETIC MEAN WHEN NOTHING IS KNOWN

I think I'm going to start using my chronometer to measure how many person-seconds are lost each time one of the "Operations" "people" makes one of their usual thrice-hourly mistakes at coordinating contractor-drivers.

Obviously, I'll have to make a meticulous record using pencil and paper.

That's easy enough.

And record all extraordinary incidents, to the best of my purview.

HOWEVER, without access to the raw bulk numbers, my observations can, at best, be of a hobbyist-level of interest.

And, that's not a hobby I'd care to take up.

In addition, without an appropriately simplified recording scheme, any values I record will affect any numbers I record.

CHECK ME IF I'M WRONG, but aren't there supposed to be people who have high-school-level arithmetic "skills" at a supposedly "high-tech" company?

NO. If there are such people, they forgot how to read and write at Hamburger U. or wherever the Amazon Operations "elite team" came from. They probably are good at something, like coaching Warner Football or cleaning up spills, but I haven't seen it.

I think I'm not being unreasonable in being extremely displeased by this regular fixture at my usual after-work watering hole.

I call him "Crazy Larry," but that's an insult to the equally-uncool Peter Fonda.

WTF, dude? You're on the wrong side of fifty, you have a stupid Rip Van Winkel beard, and you're fucking loud. And yet, you're what, like best pals with every bartender there? Obviously insane or demented, so you're not the manager. Head custodian? If so, STFU. Friends with the owners, I guess, is the reason he's tolerated.

Which wouldn't be a problem, except he fucking dares to talk to me in a disrespectful tone.

And I'm there, like, thirty minutes or forty-five most days.

I believe I should kick his ass the next time he opens his stupid mouth.

And he's a shitty pool player who thinks eight-ball with the stupid made-up rules is the end. F____t.

Q: Should I kick his ass?

ALL RIGHT, HERE'S A REAL QUESTION

I find it amazing, illogical, unproductive, and worthy of rebellion that a "management" team from Hamburger U. aka Amazon treats a fifteen-minute break for employees as a perk or a reward, rather than a tool for resource management, or, perhaps more importantly a safety issue, when employees are required to work in an otherwise well-regulated environment which nonetheless has all the hazards and requirements of attention to detail of similar environments.

Therefore, I conclude that the correct procedure is to work no quicker than is required in that to ensure no accumulated fatigue or sweat is expended, in order that the hazards be mitigated.

I am correct.

Do you agree?

Also the manager is fat, half-breed dyke

ALSO:

Why doesn't "management" just use the data from the external door RFID scans to ensure some teenage rascals don't "steal" an extra two minutes or whatever of "break time"?

AND:

Why is the "company clock" keyed to what seems to be a manually-set seed time, rather than a standard NTS calibrated to a similar server used by the timeclocks? The obvious correction when some Hamburger U graduate points out the time to make a polite correction; however, this is clearly a part of the design made by Mayor McCheese, or whatever fuckstain came out of Bezos's shit-stained dick.

AND:

Why am I bothered so much?

Well, I can answer that one: it's stupid, manipulative, cowardly, and should be punished.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO ENCODE by writing in Sharpie on the back of my safety vest:

"Natasha is and has only ass-baby."

I guess UTF-8 or ASCII, printed left to right.

Probably in hexadecimal, because nobody likes reading binary.

I suppose I could just do in attic Greek, and find some way of saying "Natasha."

No. Pretend each letter of ASCII is eight bits (it's really seven, but that doesn't matter), then encode in hexadecimal.

At least people who notice it will be able to understand, probably after looking up the values in a table.

It'll be a long sentence of hex digits, though.

But I think it's worth it.

Much better than scrawling in the men's room "Natasha sucks Mickey Rourke's semen off truck stop heads' floors."

ETA Oh yes, I should also add, if there's room, "And Denise sucks the fetuses out of normal, non-grotesque women."

OK, fine, I'll put it in French, so the n00bs don't crack my code too easily. But still hexadecimal-encoded ASCII or UTF-8 (haven't decided yet).

That's my plan for today.

EETA Fuck UTF-8. ASCII is fine.

BEDBUG Q

I think, since they are apparently ineradicable, the best, most practical solution, is to buy one of those purpose-built mattress covers, and put back my bed and box "spring" back up on a Hollywood-style frame, and forget about it. They can probably climb their disgusting little selves up the legs up the frame, but perhaps some kind of arrangement with some kind of metal cups underneath each "leg" of the bed, perhaps filled with liquid of some kind. I don't know, a small amount of bleach or pesticide of some kind.

Like little "moats" filled with hazardous (to bedbugs) liquid.

At least then one has done what one can. It's out of the question to remove all other items from my bedroom and do a thorough, wall-to-wall vacuuming.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JT

Probably in hexadecimal, because nobody likes reading binary.

---

Yes, well, computers aren't people, not even robot machines. That's why one uses base-16 (hex) generally, except when needed to "go deep."

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

some kind of metal cups underneath each "leg" of the bed, perhaps filled with liquid of some kind. I don't know, a small amount of bleach or pesticide of some kind.

Like little "moats" filled with hazardous (to bedbugs) liquid.

---

Of course not bleach. Because of exposure to light, and, I can't remember the formula, but it basically turns into salt water after a short while.

A Borax solution is a thought, but there's so much crap information on the web about bedbugs. I doubt that would do much. It might slow them down, but I have doubts that Borax is such a miracle "bug cure"

I conclude: pools of human blood within each "cup."

Or, possible simply greasing the poles of each bed post such that the beasts find it impossible to climb.

Yes, that is the only "pole greasing" I shall allow in my bedroom. Or, rather, that seems to be the case.

/////////////

ETA That isn't such a bad idea.

You know how people trap yellowjacket wasps with a kind of sugar water.

Maybe human blood traps could work.

I mean, I don't think more than a few hundred mature bedbugs are likely.

And rinse and repeat for the instars.

I don't think that's such a crazy idea.

QUESTION

Is it possible to buy sealed bags of human blood, for whatever reason?

Failing that, is there a good, safe way to draw at least a pint of one's own blood?

You can understand I'm less than sanguine about the second option — doesn't seem the kind of thing you want to do at home.

ETA OK, acquire a menstruating woman, and have her sit on a bucket for a few days. She'd have to be a good woman to do that, though.

You've gotta be kidding me, though.

I don't believe WareGirl is all that much younger me, but apparently there are people who don't know what ASCII is.

For those who aren't hip, that's the regular seven-bit (padded to 8-bits, aka a "byte," you know, like the Apple logo) which assigns numeric values (up to the limits of the bits) to alpha-numeric characters and some other stuff.

Not knowing about UTF-8 or UTF-16 is understandable.

And kids who only do phones or tablets...well, they probably can be excuse. They're just watching TV on their devices.

It had never occurred to me that someone who presumably knows how to use a computer wouldn't know what ASCII is.

I don't have the table committed to memory, but still.

Question: what do these people been born in a bar?

Question: I've noticed my chub lady friend, after me confiding in her about my loins of fire for Morgan, is a little bit "cooler" in enthusiasm for chatting with me.

However, I enjoy going out after work with some company, rather than stag.

I'm afraid she might get the wrong idea if I asked her out for a game of pool and a beer (or whatever women drink). I don't want to lead her on, but she's pretty cool as a person, and her being a relative newcomer to the warehouse, maybe she'd like to talk about her observations in general.

Not sure if that's a good idea.

Nah. Fuck it, she can come play with me....in a PG-rated sort of way. I can't discriminate.

However, I can't predict if she has some vindictive or passive-aggressive side which would not be happy, even if she comes out with me.

Hell, I invited a gayboy associate out for a beer, so it's not, to me, a big deal to just have a beer and chat.

OTOH, she could be a good ally in my struggle for completion with the other one. All of the other women I chat with have no problem cheering me on.

Viewers at home: What would you do?

Those "cups" surrounding bed-frame legs are apparently called "interceptors" — like the cop cars, I guess.

It would seem diatomaceous earth or a chemical called IIRC "Chimex" or something, or even just talc is OK.

The word seems to be inconclusive about using double-sided carpet tape along the sides of the bed-frame legs, as well as Vaseline.

However, it appears those "in" the "bedbug" community are crazy-ass motherfuckers who seem to be somewhere between outright nutters, professional shills, and paranoid freaks.

Fucking A, just cover your mattress, raise it off the ground, and don't fucking worry about it. Wash your shit when indicated.

Think about it: Uncle Jessie from Full House was a pest exterminator, as well as a guitarist. I wouldn't trust him around my pile of soiled underwear, let alone anything of importance.

Oh. So this nice older woman — geez, she must be like in her mid-70s. I don't know how she stands it, other than working extremely slowly.

Oh yeah, so anyway she says she has an extra plane ticket to Atlanta and asked if I wanted it. We're kind of friendly, but I tried to tell her delicately that there is no fucking way I'd be going to goddamned Atlanta in late August, unless I were forced to.

And then I was reminded of semi-recent debacles about people being held captive in +100 deg F heat for at least an hour on a runway.

It occurs to me that people are fucking stupid if they don't bring about a dozen airline-sized bottles of bourbon, some fresh mint, and some ice in their carry-on.

And also call anyone who questions your regulation (TSA and airline)-abiding carry-on contents a cocksucker.

Meh, I could spend a few hours on a stopped plane sipping mint juleps out of my own supplies and reading a book, while observing the frantic mob.

Bunch of pantywaists.

NO, I REALLY WANT TO KNOW

Do turd commercial sites like cracked.com and others expect people to "contribute" to their shareholders or directly to their individuals?

Yeah, I can see some turd site like wikipedia.com or the guardian UK newspaper or the US NPR holding fundraisers — maybe you get a tote bag or something. Or the pride of whatever.

And, yes, I'm well aware that legitimate publications like, for example, National Geographic, have little annoying cards that fall out every so often into your tomato bisque.

For a web-based "publication" funded and staffed by a corporation which supposedly supports the efforts of their web arm, and monetized by advertising funds, in addition to free or nominally-compensated "contributors" of content, I find it to be amusing.

YOU, the viewer at home, will decide.

THIS IS THE WORST QUESTION NEED ANSWER FAST

I can ask IRL, just in conversation.

But when and where is it appropriate to ask a woman about her hairstyle?

Yeah, there's no doubt I can do the do about the do.

I wonder, however, if it might be getting a bit too personal. For example, there's some girl with a similar thing going on — half-pony-tail, half French-twist.

And, no, don't get started: the pianist in the video might be fourteen years old for all I know. Just an example.

So, I don't think it's odd at all to just, in an idle moment, ask my woman, "Hey, how do you call that kind of thing you do with your hair, sort of half-ponytail,.... etc <deleted obscene content>?"

Seems fine to me — we know each other as coworkers.

However, IIRC women can get a little protective about their hygiene habits and grooming and stuff.

On the one hand, it could bring us closer as people.

On the other hand, it could signal an alert/strike/hiss/avoid response in her, which I don't want.

SO, which is it, you bunch of geniuses?

//////////

ETA OK, I've narrowed it down.

Should I:

(i) Hey, that seems like a cool way to put your hair up so it doesn't get caught in the conveyer belt

(ii) Hey, I kind of like the way you figured out how to do your hair — it looks practical.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE::::!!!!! "I like your hair, can I touch it?"

HEY!!!!

Here's a pretty good question.

I don't feel like putting in an order to a print-shop for new "business" cards — for starters, I'm unhappy with designing such things from scratch (I didn't like my old ones), and for seconders, that's a lot of effort.

WHAT about just putting an un-lined, blank, 3x5 (inches) card in my printer, and just next time I see Morgan say, "Hey, if you feel like going for a short walk sometime, why don't you give me a call?"

On the one hand, that's a little skeevy.

On the other hand, this isn't from some person on the street — I know she likes to walk/hike and birdwatch (shuddup), so it doesn't seem so strange to me. We're friendly IRL.

And it's a little smoother than fumbling around for a pen and paper and a matchbook or a napkin to write somebody's info down.

There's no problem with me asking for her digits, but there isn't a lot of time during work to just fumble around with pencil and paper.

And, anyway, I kind of like giving the woman some control — she doesn't have to deal with some drunken Jizz calling her up, she can just do what she wants.

I think it's excellent.

/////////////

ETA

I've just decided that's creepy and weird.

I'll just jot down my info on a post-it note (pink, preferably) and give her my line, spur of the moment.

SO forget I said anything.

EETA And of course pink is the best color. Ladies love it, the men crave it. There's no downside.

QUESTION

It's pretty cool to make a clicking noise with your mouth and say "Hey, kiddo!" to a woman you've propositioned.

I vote yes, it's fine.

For the reason that its how one addresses other coworkers, male or female.

Therefore, deviation from the norm is unacceptable.

If it's just the same as with everybody else, sure.

Not everyone can get away with "Hey, kiddo" to anyone, of course.

Perhaps not. I guess the phrase is kind of burned into my brain, along with "Thank you, darling!" or "Sounds good, honey!" to random people.

This is not so much a question as an observation: I think I sort of screwed myself by writing out my name and digits and giving it to Morgan.

Now, I have no option to push for the hard-sell. I mean, I could, but that would be too much jiggery-pokery.

So now I just wait around the phone like a teenage girl.

Oh well. It was the right tactic, including to make her feel not pressured and for me to come off as a cool, Fonzie-esque dude, but I didn't consider the side effect.

And it's only been one day.

I bet she's observing me more closely and considering things, and also not wanting to seem uncool by immediately texting me.

ETA FASHION QUESTION. Provided it's allowed per the dress code, wearing a black wifebeater (sorry, wives — I didn't invent the name) is better than wearing a .... what do they call them? Those like sleeveless T-shirt things. The five pounds of sweat I extract in a few hours of hard labor is getting to be an embarrassment. Natch I use a pit stick and don't have much unsightly growths on my upper body. And going shirtless is, I'm 100% sure, prohibited.

Although, I'd be all in favor of skins vs. sportsbras in the battle of the warehouse goons. Women should have their modesty preserved!

tank top.

That's what the non-undershirt kind of sleeveless shirt is called.

I don't see why HR would disallow a ribbed (for her pleasure) wifebeater and allow the similar tank top. Well, that'll be a question for the bosses.

If I have to go with tank top, it'd have to be one with the logo from Kurt Russell's from Big Trouble in Little China, or that guy from Revenge of the Nerds, á la "Stress Kills."

But, still the thicker cotton of a T-shirt isn't so good for me. I prefer lighter-weight shirts, whether hiking-specific "sportswear" or just repurposed "dress shirts," just roll the sleeves up mid-bicep and badabing you're in like Flynn.

Just to prove I only have a kindergarten-level of language.

ETA And, yes, "hey kiddo" should not be said to the octogenarian in any circumstance. They want like respect or some shit.

Oh, can SOMEONE please explain to me why groping a woman's ass is "sexual" assault?

Last time I checked, you don't have sex with your buttocks.

I'm not defending the practice — clearly an assault.

Just not a sexual assault.

Oh, HERE'S a good one: what is the deal with women over fifty wearing hideous eye makeup or whatever it's called?

Maybe it's just a fashion thing.

I suppose if I start "going gray" I'll seem the same way having jet-black Herbie Hancock hair color.

I suppose some people just ease into their late middle-age, and some people just have terrible taste.

Long, fake eyelashes with plenty of mascara?

Well, maybe it's a girl thing — especially divorcées. I'll never know, but these seem to be reasonable people. '

Henh. Dunno.

ETA No, I'm not talking about WareGirl, just people I chat with at work. It could be that WareGirl dyes her hair, but she's no older than me, IMO. Hell, my paternal grandfather went gray before he was thirty.

ANOTHER question: what's up with the new-ish style of women in their twenties dying their hair gray or platinum? It doesn't bother me, but I think it's a peculiar fad.

Here's a question someone might actually be able to answer, about BBS/BOARD/VBB software.

I suspect there's a way to hack together some kind of python-->javascript (my preferred order, since nobody who isn't insane would waste time writing extensions directly in js) "solution," but, I often enjoy trading PMs and having conversations on the back-channel.

However, while one can export certain data, like text content and all that, in, say, just XML, and, probably, with enough digging, find the appropriate style sheet, I really don't enjoy web programming, nor, obviously, have any special knowledge of "it."

So, short question is, is there a way to display or offload private conversations in a "threaded" format, like you might see at slashdot or even just gmail or the generic text message "app" on your average phone?

I'm not complaining: really just curious if this is some option I've ignored, or if there's an easy hack, like some JS greasemonkey script somebody already put together.

I'd look into it more myself, but it's just way down the list of things to figure out re the applied sciences of computation.

Question about beer cans:

So, the keg or something "went out" at my usual after-work place this morning, and unbidden the bartender gave me a tallboy (16 oz.) of PBR, poured most of it in a pint glass and asked if that was acceptable.

Shit yeah!

Am I the only person in the world who knew that "pint" (US) glasses are, apparently about a few ounces short of 16 oz? I swear I was able to fit about three or four extra ounces into the same pint glass, and that's with me pouring it carefully, getting almost no head of foam.

Apparently they weren't teaching this in bartending school when I was doing that during college.

What a Tony Roma.

I'm considering just asking for tall-boy cans and a pint glass from now on. I mean, hell, if I wanted to drink beer from a can I'd just do it at home. OTOH, I don't really like pouring my own beer.

"Pint" glass seems to have no particular meaning, but I thought they were at least 16 U.S. oz. Huh.

And then there's the whole thing that, in the US, a "pint" of liquor measures like a bit more than 12 oz. A "pint" of 80 proof liquor contains 8.5 units of alcohol/ethanol, so it's not so surprising a reasonably adept drinker can put one of those down the hatch pretty quickly and not feel much impaired. A little over a bottle and a half of wine, say.

Still, I think it's worth getting shorted a few ounces to have a friendly bartender pour the beer from the tap and serve it to me. Especially if she's a good woman and fills it to the brim with no head — sorry, Pabst Blue Ribbon does not improve with the amount of nasty-smelling foam on top.

It makes me feel like a little lord, or a captain of a merchant vessel, or ... I don't know ... it's just better. Plus cleavage.

Weird things from the spirit world.

ETA

Quote:

---

Originally posted by JT

or that guy from Revenge of the Nerds, á la "Stress Kills."

---

That's been bothering me. I don't have a copy of the movie, but I'm pretty sure .... what was his name? Booger? Something like that. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that shirt said "High on Stress!" in some 1980s-style angular graphics, like an Ibanez electric guitar. Anyway, I looked into it a few years ago and indeed replicas of the shirt are on sale at your friendly neighborhood online place. That's the kind of shirt worth breaking my subdued "fashion" sense" for. That and the Kurt Russell Big Trouble/Little China shirt worn in the movie. Still more a fan of using XOR encryption to write my own extremely offensive messages on my safety vest. ALTHOUGH, I did see a T-shirt I liked with just "hjkl" on the front — those are the old-school "arrow keys" on computers from the 1970s and still today, since I use them every day.

Draft beer is just more fun. It is known.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

QUESTION

It's pretty cool to make a clicking noise with your mouth and say "Hey, kiddo!" to a woman you've propositioned.

I vote yes, it's fine.

---

I change my vote.

That is a negative, ghost rider.

Now that I've grown a pair and asked her on a real date, and asked for her digits, that's not a phrase I can use for "her."

I can still say "Hello," or "Good Morning," which I've done today, but anything more is going to either (i) confuse or (ii) enrage or (iii) ragefuse her.

Meh, that's her problem. We're both adults, therefore I conclude there shouldn't be any problem.

What does she think I'm going to cry myself to sleep?

Possibly: she may not have that much experience with non-neckbeards.

Yeah, yeah. I know I talk a lot here, but IRL I'm just an average guy who doesn't much care.

Of course I care, but she's neither some notch on my belt, or some idealized woman. It's not a problem.

But QUESTION, how come when I said "Morning!" (in a regular, just same as everybody else whose names I know or recognize) to her she seemed shy.

I infer she was (i) scared of me (ii) fearful of unintended consequences (iii) I don't know, PMSing or something.

ETA And, yes, it is known that draft beer is more fun. It does attract some "interesting" people, with whom one probably should avoid socializing, but a good bar/tavern and a pint from the tap is much better than opening a can or bottle of supermarket beer at home. Plus, pool tables, and occasionally some mediocre conversation.

Kind of like a message board. :)

EETA Oh, durr. "Morning!" idiomatic German "Morgen!" Hmmm. Not sure about that. Certainly not "Good day,madam," but her name invites confusion.

NB I don't really speak German except for simple conversations and reading a lot in German.

Hmmm.

I'd like to know her parentage, viz., if she is a Mischlinge.

Hmmmm.

HEY here's a question about music performance: raised by this coworker during a "down-time." I like her, she's nice, we get along.

BUT, her first question is "So you been playing any gigs lately?"

First of all, lady (she's not even thirty, so not really a person), people don't call them "gigs" unless you're a total square.

Second of all, lady, have you noticed that there are basically zero jobs for musicians that will pay cash even for gas for me, and the one or two of my bandmates.

Sorry, hon.

I don't play for scrip in exchange for beer.

Goddamned civilians.

HEY!!!!!

I'm trying to use my search-fu (I even went bi, and used both Bing and Google) to find citations from a US Roman Catholic bishop or archbishop (same thing), who apparently inveighed some harsh criticism against the Amazon of "Jeff" Bezos.

It's difficult to strip out references to the rainforests of central-South America, and, obviously, all the stuff about fucking and stuff.

Where can I find this shit?

VERY recently.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

HEY!!!!!

I'm trying to use my search-fu (I even went bi, and used both Bing and Google) to find citations from a US Roman Catholic bishop or archbishop (same thing), who apparently inveighed some harsh criticism against the Amazon of "Jeff" Bezos.

It's difficult to strip out references to the rainforests of central-South America, and, obviously, all the stuff about fucking and stuff.

Where can I find this shit?

VERY recently.

---

Like this? Archbishop of Canterbury, not U.S, but still...

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/...n-ancient-evil

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

HEY!!!!!

I'm trying to use my search-fu (I even went bi, and used both Bing and Google) to find citations from a US Roman Catholic bishop or archbishop (same thing), who apparently inveighed some harsh criticism against the Amazon of "Jeff" Bezos.

It's difficult to strip out references to the rainforests of central-South America, and, obviously, all the stuff about fucking and stuff.

Where can I find this shit?

VERY recently.

---

Like this? Archbishop of Canterbury, not U.S, but still...

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/...n-ancient-evil

---

THANK YOU!!!

I think my RL source might have been confused, but certainly one doesn't get much more "vested" in the bishopric (?) as that guy.

Well, I'll have to read his statement, but in advance, I sort of approve.

A shit ton of WTF is going on at Amazon.

Says the guy who just today placed orders from both Amazon and Walmart online.

THANK YOU!!!!

It was a goddamned Methodist-raised person who related that info to me originally.....CoE != RCC! Bleh!

Still, the CoE/Episc are kind of a little on the leading edge.

I just didn't realize they had a history of political statements similar to what comes out of the Vatican.

Not that it matters where it comes from, but I approve. Without having read the statement. I still approve.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

"Pint" glass seems to have no particular meaning, but I thought they were at least 16 U.S. oz. Huh.

---

I was wrong. Same deal, the tap was "out," and you can actually fit a 16 oz. can of beer into a pint glass if you pour it into a pint glass with NO foam, and that sort of surface tension on the top making a slightly convex shape. There's a word for the that, like the opposite of a meniscus, but I don't know that.

So, all is well in the world of beer.

That's good to hear, anyway.

Yeah, it is good. Although very few bartenders actually give you the full amount. They either think (i) Everybody likes a little head or (ii) I'll save the bar-owner a nickel for every draft beer by shorting the chump "patron" a tiny bit.

To be fair, there's kind of an art to pouring a draft beer, and it takes time that a busy bartender may not have.

/////////

QUESTION: do you people in far-flung cities or wherever have a multitude of these odd little electric scooter devices around town? They almost look like those Razor (sp?) "skateboard-with-a-handle," but definitely powered probably by battery.

Actually, if I were wearing dress shoes and business-type clothes, it's not a bad idea — walking a few miles in leather shoes (non-sneakers) I find is kind of rough on the feet.

Nah, not here. They seemed to be huge in San Diego if we're talking about the same thing.

Probably is the same thing — not the kind of scooters that, like, delivery people or other people who navigate city traffic use, but use a dinky little skateboard-esque scooter.

And now everyone knows why I do not like being called "Scooter," even as a joke from elders.

NEW question: its a bit out of season, but I bought some Carharrt shorts. Seem to be of very high quality, durable, all that. HOWEVER, honestly, I could have gone a waist-size up. I think they use the actual waist size, rather than the vanity-sizing a lot of pants-makers use.

I think I'm going to keep them, rather than return/exchange. I'm getting a bit too much in the gut to be healthy, so it's a good incentive.

OR is that a ridiculous idea, and I should just exchange for a size up? I'm not too disciplined about eating/drinking with these weird hours at work, but I certainly could be — in fact, it's kind of a hobby of mine, trying to exercise discipline in most areas of day-to-day life.

I’d keep them and try to lose the weight. Anything that gives focus will help with that.

well, I appreciate the advice.

Yes, I happen to agree with you.

It gets to be a multivariate computation — such as, working within a budget, as probably most households do, I have to compare against other purchases.

I think I may end up returning them today for something I'm a little happier with.

The "slate gray" (? I guess that's a color) doesn't really suit me for shorts.

And also, I don't really like wearing shorts around town/work — strictly for at home, for me.

No, I don't know why.

It's complicated.

I don't think this merits a whole thread, but I was just remembering a short conversation IRL a while ago.

This should probably be a poll or something, but unlike that other board, we're mostly (?) regular people here.

So, QUESTION: how much do you actually use calculus (that's a broad term, but let's say from the basics through differential equations, and stop at analysis of C or R)?

If you'd asked me before I was twenty-five or so, I'd have said, "Fuck you, nerd-head!" But as tools and techniques become more mainstreamed and require more mental computation (just like using a slide rule), I find optimization, and even household problems like electrical and plumbing issues, it's an indispensable tool.

At least the basic concepts: many computations involving functions over R are tractable, and nobody does it by hand like in school.

As an aside, I think high schools or whatever they're called in your countries should collapse trig/"pre-calc"/first-two-trimesters of Calc into a single year-long unit. None of it makes sense, at least for me, unless you see the big picture.

ALSO!!!!! Why are "people" calling various machine learning techniques, or minor fun toys like stuff in video games "Artificial Intelligence."

These are tiny parts of the broader field.

I'm going to shit the next time somebody says "AI" when they're talking about some toy cars or some fucktard robots.

Fucking idiots.

ETA OK, so the equivalent is like, somebody saying "biology" when what they mean is some tranny growing a dick out of their forehead. Modest gains in unimportant, but related areas.

QUESTION: I tend to, when I smile, involve the eyes in the whole thing.

Not something I think about, but as one ex-girlfriend said, "You smile with your eyes!" (She wasn't trying to flatter me, probably, since we'd been together at least a few months).

Oh, so my question is, how can one one actually (i) learn to "wink" with one eye (ii) is this just a salesman trick?

I've only known one of my mother's cousins to be able to do this, and it's extremely effective.

Don't want to sound like a dick, but it's pretty effective.

Can't be done with the mirror, though.

So, back to the question: has anyone here mastered the subtle wink of one eye?

I think it's a very effective technique, but I only have two eye "shapes": viz., "paying close attention" and "scrutinizing."

I can wink with one eye, but I don't do it much. I don't think it really works that well anymore.

Lucille Bluth!

No, I think the idea is it's not supposed to "work," it's just some kind of trick to play on other people.

Generate empathy and such.

Actually, QUESTION: Such tricks are pretty much the same as when we "mirror" others' behaviors or patterns of speech. Sort of let "them" suspect we're all on the same team. Yes?

And adjunct question: meh, not really anything wrong with that.

UNRELATED QUESTION SIR!!!

I've come to think that, even though I'm not in a leadership position now, the best way to get best results is look a person straight in the eye and give a firm handshake.

Nothing more than that is needed, except a good sense of humor, and lead with a decent bit of camaraderie.

ETA and the "edit" was for the "camaraderie" bit. Honesty. Seriously, they should teach this shit in schools and stuff.

Is there no more finger-banging Mary Jane Rottencrotch, through her purty pink panties?

Is this true there is no more of that?

That's really important to know.

Here's one: I've noticed over the past year or so that I don't strictly need to shave if I miss a day. I mean, I don't look like a street urchin if I decide not to shave after a 24-hour period.

Of course, I do the clean-shaven thing, but what is that?

Maybe poor lighting in my bathroom, but while I still get the Nixon look after more than, say, 36 hours without shaving.

Low-"T"?

And an unrelated observation, since working with my hands in rougher environments, my fingernails grow like crazy.

I theorize that my musculature is sapping the facial-hair-growth energy and putting it into different anatomical places.

However, I do not think hormones work like that. Or I suspect not.

The follicles are still there and productive — I could certainly grow a beard (yet again) if I wanted to, based on observation of succession of days off (perhaps even a long weekend) but I prefer not to these days.

Gradual decay of testosterone or other androgens? Perhaps.

What is the best (dark-chocolate/khaki)-colored (well, something like that) pair of pants with a few extra pockets that could double with a navy or black sportcoat, in addition to doing some light duty? I.e., that doesn't look like "army man/tough guy" cargo pants, but can still have at least one extra pocket?

I've been scouring Amazon, but it's like drinking through a firehose.

Don't know, but check out Orvis. They often have pretty good manly stuff.

All right I will. I'm not looking for "manly" stuff, just a good pair of khakis. Surprisingly hard to find, when one doesn't have a personal shopper or just get lucky.

Orvis...........what's that name........yeah, the guy in the pool hall from The Color of Money.

Good name, I guess.

And, yes, the extra pocket is for some pages of printed music/text or a small metronome, or maybe a pipe in a small tobacco pouch.

No, I'm not being coy about "tobacco pipe": that's really what it is and is used for. Normally that's a sportcoat's right-hand pocket, but sometimes you have to forgo that luxury.

Because apparently people don't wear sportcoats regularly in NA unless they're fancy, because people are idiots.

Question: if one's employer screws up on recording hours worked (obviously, for hourly workers), one's (US) State Attorney General would probably be interested to know.

Moreso if one's state AG is not Eliot Spitzer (God, I hated that guy when he was NYS AG, even before the whole scandal and stuff — he should never have been "promoted" or "elected" to governor).

Do you think that this girl I was somewhat interested in — mind you, just first as a friend. I'm not a complete sex fiend, although I do think she has the appropriate parts.

Anyway.

I wonder if she thinks that me picking up extra shifts that she works at (used to be my old shift), what, she thinks I'm stalking her or something?

True, I like being around her, generally, but the same is true for a number of other people on that shift.

Mainly, they needed extra help during that hour, so I volunteered to pick up an extra fifty bucks or whatever.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Do you think that this girl I was somewhat interested in — mind you, just first as a friend. I'm not a complete sex fiend, although I do think she has the appropriate parts.

Anyway.

I wonder if she thinks that me picking up extra shifts that she works at (used to be my old shift), what, she thinks I'm stalking her or something?

True, I like being around her, generally, but the same is true for a number of other people on that shift.

Mainly, they needed extra help during that hour, so I volunteered to pick up an extra fifty bucks or whatever.

---

Not really enough information, but picking up overtime shouldn't be looked at as stalking.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by What Exit?

Not really enough information, but picking up overtime shouldn't be looked at as stalking.

---

I quite agree, good chap. I shall not lose my rag about it.

However, I observe her cool behavior towards me during those several overtime periods, as it were, to be uncharacteristic, and, were I a man of suspicious nature, I should have taken the slightest bit of concern.

That is well, good sir: your counsel is taken and I shall not concern myself with these peasant girls of poor breeding any longer.

Good day.

I'm kind of confused about the pronuncation of an "r" in one particular Indian woman's name.

Yeah, I know.

She seems to insist on pronunciation of the "r" as more a tongue-flap.

Yeah, I was obliged to learn the basics of the IPA and methods of teaching accents, in core UG classes, but also for teaching university/college students.

So, obviously I learned how to do trilled "r"s.

This woman is very friendly, and a good worker.

I suspect that she thinks that substituting a "d" (dental?) sound for the "r" is good enough.

Yes, she does have a dot on her forehead — clearly, that's part of her identity, but no, I don't know where she comes from.

Question: I should probably just ask her, since we talk a lot during the day, but she seems of the attitude, "Well, I told you twice!" IME people get tired of talking about their ethnicities,

OTOH, asking her if that's an "alveolar tongue flap" (no, I don't remember much beyond the phonetics I was told to repeat and draw on a chalkboard), (i) she doesn't know (ii) she doesn't dissociate her name from her culture.

I don't know.

[eta Yes, she's happier with pronounce like "pud-nee-ma" than "purr-neema" And no, I'm not trying to bang her. I just like to be a good neighbor, since we're going to be working together for a while.

Better Question:

I think I've reverted to a middle-schooler.

Once one has lured a woman into one's (admittedly awesome place with lots of musical instruments and CDs and LPs), the best way to get vertical is to say "Let's get more comfortable — just the tip, honey." Or, "sugar, let's just lie down and have a nap."

Sexbot Old Man Version 2020.

QUESTION about tricking a "magician."

Here's the problem: I can't remember if this person who claimed to be "into" magic at work is the person I despise, or just a harmless nerd.

I don't have any skills at "magic" — even as a young kid I wasn't a very good card mechanic (not for want of trying ... and, yeah, I guess I was good at handling cards), except for some flourishes and a few passable tricks at dealing seconds or the usual false cuts and stuff.

However, I do have some shaved "Svengali" decks and some variations.

I'm sort of wondering if it wouldn't be kind of fun to do a cheap trick on this big shot.

No, I don't have any skills as a card manipulator (except I can beat your ass at gin rummy, punk), but it is kind of fun using a shaved deck of cards of various kinds.

Ethical?

Or Fun?

Neither?

Or both?

ETA And, no, don't even think about those little "peeking" tricks in gin rummy — I learned that before I could read music, and even then I knew it was a punk move. Flash that piece on the lane and me and Liam going to stick it up you ass! EETA However, reading how a person arranges his or her cards is valid. But I don't play gin rummy for money.

Heh. Here's a question that probably can't be answered, but I'm sure some of you have opinions or perhaps experience in these things. Which sharing would be of interest to me, and, one hopes, perhaps others.

Since I'm doing a more "daylight" hour shift, and since I've managed to compensate for my mediocre eyesight without the use of glasses, I'm thinking about sniffing around a local pool "tournament league," which happens to be hosted at my regular after-work hang-out.

It's still a bit much for me to go out in the evenings — the "bar scene" is not anymore for me. Yes, I was young once: I know all about it, but the constant shrieking and so forth are not so much for me.

OTOH, every man should have a hobby. For me, playing/studying music and literature are more than hobbies — they aren't exactly fun, but pretty hard work.

Electronics question: I'm really peeved that, at times I cannot predict, my Android phone removes of its own accord the "silent" mode, and vibrates for some stupid crap.

I'm very tempted to try to create a little manual jumper cable between the speaker and whatever part of whatever bus it connects to. Probably just go from the bus to ground some place on the housing. I guess.

To be reasonably safe, I think a little resistor (of unknown R) would be needed.

However, while I have a bunch of ceramic resistors with the traditional color codes (yes, I'd have to look up the codes to refresh my memory, but that's easy enough), they're comparatively huge.

And there's the problem of easily connecting/disconnecting the jumper from ground to speaker: clearly, alligator clips aren't going to do it, nor is using a soldering pencil and that little siphon for removing solder.

This is quite a little problem.

Emphasis on little.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

ETA And, no, don't even think about those little "peeking" tricks in gin rummy — I learned that before I could read music, and even then I knew it was a punk move. Flash that piece on the lane and me and Liam going to stick it up you ass! EETA However, reading how a person arranges his or her cards is valid. But I don't play gin rummy for money.

---

That needs some explanation. The "peeking tricks" for Gin — the big ones are turning up the first two cards on the "draw" stack, while drawing one card seemingly from the top. Very cheap, no-skill trick, but still totally cheating. And, of course, if you know the bottom card on the draw stack — whether from just observing an incompetent shuffler or by some subterfuge "sneak peek" if one is dealing — gives a good advantage.

HOWEVER, "reading" how people arrange their cards is nothing about using a marked deck or crimping some cards while shuffling. It's more noticing how your opponent arranges the cards in his or her hand and making some deductions based on their discards. Not cheating, just observation.

How long until Amazon gets in big trouble for allowing "verified purchase" reviews for various products to cover obvious shill "reviews"?

I don't know, obviously, and I'm not sure what kind of "trouble" or liability The Company has at stake.

I think it's obvious that a great many reviews certified by Amazon.com as by "verified" purchasers are incredible.

I'm unsure of what consumer protection statutes have been violated, but I am sure that a civil lawsuit would be incredible without some extraordinary proof, which I doubt is accessible to anyone outside of The Company.

WHY? would some acquaintance (her name is Sh___by), deliberately taunt me by saying (M____ doesn't like you! She doesn't like you!)

I have a new coworker who is acquainted with this Sh__by who is constantly complaining about Sh__by, for some reasons.

He suggested when we were talking that she was just jealous or something.

Yeah, I'm familiar with women being jealous.

But why?

I think it's a case of a sabotage.

She may be right — clearly, it's not that M______ is jumping on my rod 24/7 — but what does she get out of deriding my, IMHO, perfectly reasonable desire to get to know M_____?

I suspect Sh__by is just being a pisser.

WHY? would someone get off on that?

It'd be like me ranting about jews or something — no possible reason except RL trolling.

At what point do you just write off a possible friendship/romantic interest?

I still think it would not be inappropriate to give one very light-hearted little putsch to M_____, saying "hey, the weather's not so bad these days: sure I can't interest you in taking a little walk through the rose gardens [or whatever] after work this weekend?"

On the one hand, if she were interested, she might have found a way to seek me out.

On the other hand, that might not have been her style.

Reasons for, are that she's friendly to me, and that I know how to pull this last-ditch approach off verbally without being creepy or demanding, and also that my feelings wouldn't be hurt if she says whatever.

Reasons against are that ... well, I can't think of a reason why not. It's very far from any type of harassment, in my understanding of the term.

More importantly I'm confident I can shape my final salvo ad hoc into a few different forms, based on how she responds at the moment.

OTOH, there is kind of a "sunken costs" fallacy, maybe, and maybe I should just forget about it.

But that would sadden me, not least that it's pretty rare to find someone who could be a good friend — never mind the sex or romance, that's not the most important to me right now.

I'm never going to understand why guitar players love using pedals so much.

Yes, I used wah pedals on the Rhodes piano, and distortion and chorus pedals.

But what's exactly the problem with using a free hand to control an effect?

Look at your average Hammond organ player: one hand is always moving drawbars, switching the Leslie speaker speed, and one foot is always on the one or several volume pedals, while the left foot is doing some other things.

Goddamned children.

"Stomp box" my ass.

If you have an extra foot, you're not playing it right.

QUESTION: I signed up for some extra hours at 0500 on 2-jan.

That is, the day after the day after New Years Eve Day.

Hmmm.

I'm no predator, nor am I a stalker, but I think it might be a good chance

Oh, forget it.

It's the first of January that is the holiday, and the midnight and stuff.

Well, I still think it would be a good idea to wish whatserface a bonne année, and offer a brief embrace.

Bah. Humbug.

QUESTION: I've been putting this off for a long time, and I'm diligent about sometimes checking the oil dipstick and the transmission fluid dipstick, and I still have about eight-hundred miles until the next "regular" recommended oil change (I drive about seventy miles per week, but it's all city driving, so,pretty hard miles).

Is Jiffy Lube (or similar?) really so bad for an oil change? I've actually never had to change the oil in a car, despite having done other stuff like brakes and stuff myself. BUT, previously, I never lived in a town where I'd be totally fucked without a car. Except here, but I grew up here during high-school, and I just knew about as much about cars as girls back then. Enough to work the dipstick, but that's it.

I know they hire kids right out of high school, and everyone's heard stories about them not replacing the oil cap on the underside of the chassis and the usual clip-joint upselling, which isn't a problem for me, just a minor annoyance.

Dealer's not an option: for one, I didn't buy this from a dealership (although I'm sure they would take my money), for second, I'm sure they're way too beaucoup for me.

Meh, I guess I'll just ask some random people at work or maybe a bartender or something.

IS IT WRONG to resist the Jiffy Lube? I contend it is not wrong, but probably overly cautious and skeptical.

FWIW, my wife's been taking our car to a Canadian equivalent of JiffyLube for years, with no problems.

Well, thank you for that. It does seem as though many people agree. And, it isn't that hard to change some oil (except for changing the filter, even on an older car, really needs that little two or three dollar oil filter tool, and may be next-to-impossible on newer cars without significant disassembly). I mean, I've had friends park in some parking lots where I rented, and it took them like two minutes.

Yeah, that's silly — if I owned human chattel I'd trust them to change the oil. I just don't feel like doing it myself.

I'm super annoyed at getting at the driver-side front headlamp bulb, though (the one behind the battery) and undoing this tiny little plastic clip. Annoying. But, not as annoying as getting pulled over and having to do the field sobriety test (which I would and have passed with flying colors).

NOT EVERYONE HAS FINGERNAILS! SOME OF US KEEP THEM SHORT!

OKAY.

Pretend you had a modest tax refund coming, and by some stroke of luck it weren't garnished by private creditors prior to receipt. And pretend you weren't the "judge" who rules in absentia that a judgment of such garnish....never mind. Why are these law firms based in CO? Fuck. Well, whatever.

(i) Nylon-string fully acoustic guitar

(ii) Semi-hollow Epiphone guitar, with maximum acoustic resonance, with a low action on the strings

(iii) Remington 870 shotgun, plus assorted slugs and cartridges

(iv) Ventilator II outboard Leslie speaker simulator for Hammond organ

ETA and of course (v) 401K, which is disadvantageous on the terms my employer offers, but boosting my Vanguard is OK. Not great. Vanguard as I have it is just great, but The Company does not make it much worthwhile to max out my contribution compared to my other options.

and (vi) if my so-called "premium" dental insurance continues to fuck me, pay out of pocket for another hygienist session.

EETA

No. If ungarnished, refund withdrawn in cash, and reserved for future fees for keeping my professional certifications current. I have enough coming in to cover insurance, food, mortgage, so long as I keep showing up to work and drawing my small wages.

Finished.

BUT, as an exercise, I wonder what you, the viewer at home, would do, among, say, the first four options.

Just for fun.

Here's sort of a QUESTION:

Not an important question, but one that makes me a bit curious: at least enough to want to speculate.

So, everyone's probably met at least one person who seems to have outrageous stories from their past. That are obviously pure bullshit. It's fine with me: often they're entertaining to chat with, especially if you realize they're full of shit most of the time.

What's the idea behind that?

I'd say pathological liar, but that doesn't capture the idea. After all, when faced with an authority figure, I'll often lie just for fun or to fuck with them.

These people seem to have entire fantasy worlds constructed in their pasts. And they don't always present outwardly as eccentric or "interesting."

There must be some theories out there among psychologists, but I'd rather just ask the question here.

I wish I knew. I once knew a lawyer who told me about being counsel on a pretty well-known case. I was impressed, and looked up the case in the law books. His name didn't appear as counsel. I found out later that this wasn't the only thing he had been known to make up. I truly don't get it, especially in cases like this where it took pretty much no work to find out something was wrong.

Yeah, that type of thing.

Like this guy at work claims he sold a song to Glen Campbell in the early 1970s. Yeah, uh-huh.

And also claims to have "run the numbers" in some unspecified town in Rhode Island where he was known as "Tough Tony." Yeah, uh, when's the last time people ran numbers (as in, basically a low-grade lottery)? 1934?

I mean, it's all entertaining and everything, but some of it is just so absurd.

I for one would like to hear more stories about these folks: I wouldn't say there are a lot of them out there "in the wild," but every so often you meet one who just buries the needle on ridiculousness.

I understand that maybe some people get a bit older and maybe....I don't know...they just like to talk.

But there's the difference between the guy who claims he lost two out of seventy-two boxing matches in the Navy and never got a scratch on him — you know, just fish stories for fun.

No real comment, I just find it completely fascinating as a phenomenon.

//////////

ETA just to salt the pot a bit more, there is this guy in his mid-late seventies in my neighborhood known for embellishment. "Back when I was lecturing at Harvard...yadda blah" (which isn't entirely unreasonable, except when combined with all sorts of other "high society" claims.

He's an interesting case in that he knows an extraordinary amount about literary figures that are relatively obscure to the average "well-read" person, and also in music.

In his case, I think it was his way of breaking the ice for a conversation or trying to establish that he wants to connect with someone. Once I got to know him, he dropped all that bragging and we could just talk about Thomas Bernhard or Fürtwangler or movies from the 1930s.

So, that's a different case, and not as interesting as the really funny characters.

ETA just to salt the pot a bit more, there is this guy in his mid-late seventies in my neighborhood known for embellishment. "Back when I was lecturing at Harvard...yadda blah" (which isn't entirely unreasonable, except when combined with all sorts of other "high society" claims — pure bullshit).

But he's an interesting case in that he knows an extraordinary amount about literary figures that are relatively obscure to the average "well-read" person, and also in music.

In his case, I think it was his way of breaking the ice for a conversation or trying to establish that he wants to connect with someone. Once I got to know him, he dropped all that bragging and we could just talk about Thomas Bernhard or Furtwängler or movies from the 1930s, often with him offering genuine insight.

So, that's a different case, and not as interesting as the really funny characters.

Like I was saying before, I'm not above manipulating people like authority figures or such, sort of like a con-man, but for some reason I just couldn't outright make up stuff to anybody and be able to look them in the eye afterward.

Maybe these people missed their calling and should have gone into high-stakes poker or tried hustling people at pool.

That's my best guess.

Oh yeah, the same guy who was a brilliant songwriter, street tough, and so forth claimed to have on multiple occasions fought off assailants in Los Angeles, one time running an ad hoc bamboo spear through one of the would-be assailants.

And invariably when the cops came, they always seemed to tell him the same thing: "Don't call us, just do what you're doing."

I can't remember exactly what his rap was on those spurious incidents verbatim, but things like that.

On the other hand, I guess I could see the appeal of making up some little war stories. Probably involving a crossbow and a poison-tipped bolt, and how my great-grandfather, a freed slave in New Orleans, inspired the song "Stagger Lee."

Aw, I'm not trying to pick on these people — clearly they have an odd combination of imagination and balls.

The generous part of my nature wants to say, "Hey, if it makes them happy, I'll play along."

You know what? I have a few questions and I think some of you have some good answers.

Let's start with today. So, yadda yadda, I had to dop off some papers at my place of employment for a manager-type whatever yadda yadda. Since I was just droping off an updated CV and eksetera, but also since is Good Friday, I sort of cut corners and left my shirt untucked, tie undone, and left my jacket in the car.

LO anf fucking behold, I did indeed briefly pass whatse\erface on my way out. Oh, and BTW I got an immediate response for a phone interview for this one .

OH, my question. I'd planned if I'd seen whatserface and she said "Hey, whatcha doing?" My response was going to be "I like to talk about my personal life outside of work." Drops mic.

What other questions do I have? Exactly how many women can one be "interested in" at one time? M____ is still OK, but I'm not losing any sleep over her. But the new girl Nat__ie — she's not conventionally attractive, but I like her because she seems cool and is funny.

I am not a man-whore: but it's nice to meet and converse amicably with several women at once.

So, no, I have no questions.

Oh, same question, but different spin, different girl.

What could possibly go wrong with my saying to Natalie, "Hey, I'm going to breakfast after work, and I think you should probably come with."

I don't have a problem with asking women out, it's just making them say "Yes" that's no so much probably good.

Should probably bring a change of clothes.

Yeah, but my real question is if it would have come to that and M_____ asked me a personal question, I think the best response is 'Well, I prefer to talk about my personal life outside of the workplace: ask me then."

And then just let it hang like a floating biscuit in the air.

And, you know what? I think I'm right.

Let's say someone broke the (fly) zipper on a pair of high-quality jeans.

WTF is the best solution?

Sewing a new ziper on is right out — "we" don't have the tools, and we don't have the technology.

Safety pin (just for cosmetics, so every two seconds some woman isn't pointing at your crotch and saying 'XYZ dork!'). Not that great. Sharp needle, pointed at crotch, I don't like it.

I'm liking just using a big-ass sailcloth needle and (one hopes) permanently sewing the fly shut. However, I doubt it's to be permanent: I don't know about anybody else, but I pretty often urinate or otherwise need access to the downstairs portion of the anatomy.

Yeah, I know, buy another pair, but that offends me as well, since these are brand new blue jeans that have promise to be good work pants for maybe a year. Maybe even more, since the have the gussetted crotch.

Fuck it. My best, laziest idea is just wear a belt like always and either wear an tucked shirt or, since I often prefer to tuck in my shirts, if some woman says something say, "Well, it's a whole thing...do you want to touch it and see?"

No. That's not going to get 'er done.

I specifically bought some hand needles of large size for some other repair uses, but they're still not going to get through this denim to make a strong-enough stitch.

Duck tape? Gorilla tape? No. While the pants fit about the waist, I'm still kind of beer-gutted to trust that.

Very frustrating.

It's a PITA to find sturdy pants that fit, and I really don't want to go through that again. And, although they weren't expensive, I'm frugal and would rather use the money for something else or whatever.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

You can depress the e-brake "button" on the lever, but unless you want to lay serious rubber on the pavement, you just can't lift the brake lever all the way up.

That seems to be where severe brake leakage occurs, yes, even with the release button fully depressed.

---

Actually, that's not true IME. It may have to do with the overall pressure of the system, but I've accelerated or at least kept constant speed with the e-brake fully engaged.

IME people behind you notice when they see your brake lights and no stoppage and slowing. I don't think they like it. At least they change lanes PDQ.

HOWEVER, I have to think that there are some deleterious effects on the braking system of one's "ride." Also, there's increased chance of failure.

So, children everywhere, just don't do like I do. Do like Robert Loggia does in Mulholland Dr. Much safer.

Oh, I got the right answer for the zipper problem.

Just put a big strip of black Duck tape over the zipper.

Fuck it.

If it's a guy and they say something? Easy: "Why you looking at my crotch? What is this, Sodom or Gomorrah?"

If it's a girl: "Yeah, well, say what you want about men, but we know how to improvise!"

Done.

OK, here's one that's always been bugging me and every time I've tried to look it up online, I've never found a real answer. And, I think I own all the main style guides for English usage: to my memory, nothing in those either.

Why is it that the word schism is pronounced "sssss-izm" (rhymes with jizzum, but with a soft 's' as the initial...sybillant, I guess).

At least when referring to the late unpleasantness, you know, Byzantium, Orthodox vs. Roman Catholic and all that. Whatever they call it, "The Great Schism" or whatever.

No, it doesn't bother me to hear the pronunciation "skizzum," it's not an abomination like saying "processeez" which is just a mistake and is wrong on every count, morally and linguistically.

I just want the truth. Just the facts. Ma'am.

Is this such a thing?

I'm pretty sure Nat___ie at work deliberately poised herself to enhance my view of her cleavage. I mean she knew where my vision was pointed before she and I encountered, and she likely knew that I wasn't apt to change my field of vision unless she said or did something (or anyone else) that needed my attention. I also know she knows I have poor eyesight and usually doen't wear glasses unless needed. No I wasn't ogling her, I was just distractedly looking at some unknown spot in the distance, and like a magician "forcing" someone to choose a card, all of a sudden, her...attributes...were right there.

Also, she'd just witnessed me loading a giant trailer attached to a truck with about twenty-six or twenty-eight pallets each weighing up to fifteen hundred pounds using a hand tool, and after earning my break being drenched in sweat, had passed in front of my car in the parking lot where I was sitting with the AC running and gave a slight, satisfied smile.

BUT, yes, in my experience, I'll answer my own question. Yes, this shouldn't have been a question, really. Yes, I have no reason to believe this woman is less aware of her own body than any other.

Whether it was a conscious gesture or not, that's not something I can answer.

Whatever it is, I think she's ready for action, and, unfortunately, my speed is a little bit slower. I'll get there, but my only physical ways of showing interest are, apparently, me sweating gallons of sweat while relentlessly pounding the inside of a semi-trailer.

Bah, she can wait, and she'll like it. Or not. Whatever. Nice jugs, though. Never noticed that, before.

Milky white, but with a pinkish hue, perhaps.

Well, I think the file can be closed for the term "schism" and the origins of its pronunciation. From wikipedia, for some reason Anglos started out spelling it "scism" or "scisme" and pronouncing it accordingly, apparently until some genius figured out that maybe the Gk. origins should be reflected (somewhat) in the spelling. The source is from some part of the American Heritage dictionary. No, I don't feel like reaching the six feet or so to the hardcover (mine's only the "College" version, dwarfed on its shelf by the OED microprint edition, so it may not be in my copy).

I suspect that all this was prior to the understanding of reconstructed Latin pronunciation, and so an Englishman would not have considered "skizm" as a proper pronunciation of "scism(e)." IOW, probably the same reason taxonomical "scientific" pronunciation of names is so fucked up. In addition to general chauvinism regarding linguistic matters among certain nations.

I still want to know if the actor Ray Wise is related to movie director Robert Wise, but it is probably not true: otherwise, I am sure the connection would have been documented or noted somewhere. I vote for coincidence.

WHY is Bud Lite and other light beers the most popular beers in the US?

I understand the appeal of something cold and relatively inoffensive — after all, I drink Pabst Blue Ribbon most days of the week, and if they didn't have it, something else like Miller High Life or Tecate or Hamm's or Rainier or whatever.

So, instead of having a regular beer, apparently most people choose the one that tastes about the same and has less alcohol.

And, no, I very much doubt it's only women who are driving these brands. Nor dainty little soyboys.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

WHY is Bud Lite and other light beers the most popular beers in the US?

I understand the appeal of something cold and relatively inoffensive — after all, I drink Pabst Blue Ribbon most days of the week, and if they didn't have it, something else like Miller High Life or Tecate or Hamm's or Rainier or whatever.

So, instead of having a regular beer, apparently most people choose the one that tastes about the same and has less alcohol.

And, no, I very much doubt it's only women who are driving these brands. Nor dainty little soyboys.

---

Actually the alcohol is about the same, it is the calories that are less.

I've only ever found 1 light beer I could really drink, Yuengling Lite is pretty tasty though not as tasty as Yuengling.

I don't drink a lot of beer at a sitting, most one a night or 3 tops if I'm at a bar. So I don't do light beer, I stick to the full taste and calories.

That may be true, although I'm seeing ranges of 4 to 4.2 % ABV compared to the standard 5% for "regular" (non-microbrew) beer.

I really always thought the only real way they could cut the amount of calories was through alcohol-reduction, but that is probably not the only tool in their arsenal.

Although, I'm enough of a rummy that I'd be apoplectic if I found my favorite wine (Franzia "Crisp White" in a 5L box) had a percent less than advertised.

Also, enough of a rummy that, not only do I have a hydrometer, but perhaps as a result, I'm far too lazy to bother testing each box, not to mention looking up the temperature conversions, not to mention taking the temperature of the wine, not to mention risking wasting any wine due to spillage, not to mention being likely to spill some wine while pouring it into the cylinder.

I really think I could be convinced to throw a pint glass across a crowded bar room if the beer didn't have the right amount of alcohol in it.

Hmmm.

I should really evaluate how strongly I feel about this, and why.

I had a milk stout last weekend that I didn't realize was a 10% ABV. It hit me pretty hard, especially as it was unexpected. Thankfully we were already planning to take a walk after lunch.

You got me curious, the Yuengling Light is actually only 3.8% instead of the 4.7% for the regular Yuengling Lager.

Yeah, 10% is about the highest I like in cheap beer in cans — anything much above and I just get wasted way too quickly.

Although some brewers are able to make beers with rather a lot of alcohol in it that are very delicious; I've found they tend to serve the super-high ABV ones in smaller glasses, and pretty much discourage people from having seven pints of their imperial stout or whatever in a sitting.

Here's an ODD QUESTION: Does anyone know off a good free online source for a basic English translation of the book of Psalms that can be easily formatted to fit onto 3x5 index cards?

I suppose Guttenberg Project is the one that's going to have a text-only format that I'd probably get a chance to write a little script (in Python or just BASH+GNU utilities) to format it for me, but my abuse of technology to create a little set of cribs to help me with the vulgate-latin Liber Psalmorum has so far left me very frustrated by my lack of ability at typesetting things using word processors and so forth.

I'm certain I'm not the only person in history, even recent history, who has had to improvise some ugly-looking-but-functional solution for this.

The whole idea is so that I can keep using my edition of the Liber psalmorum, which is a very handy, thin paperback with easy-to-read text, and sort of intersperse the pages with some of the English text.

The specific translation doesn't really matter very much to me, just for use as a crib when I get stuck on a word or a specific use of a word which I can't quite remember. I just hate the method of pencilling in little translations by hand above each word, like you see in 99.9999% of the Latin texts at any given library.

And no phone apps. That just won't do.

WELL, I don't think that question is really going to have any answerers, but this is a site that puts the Latin verse-by-verse with, I think, the Douay-Rheims English translation. It's not formatted or anything, for my needs, but maybe it would be a good programming challenge to scrape the website, process the text, and come up with an output more-or-less useful to me.

That's an awful lot of programming for such a limited task, but it might come in handy later to have that as a tool I can use for other things later.

Probably just end up copying and pasting in the end, a LOT, but that's OK, I guess.

I've done worse laborious tasks for similar tasks, like cribbing out Horace or Homer, and the Psalms are pretty entertaining to me as literary statements.

HERE'S a REAL QUESTION: What's the best way to measure voltage potential from across a standard .... actually, not standard TRS stereo/balanced 1/8" jacked cabled — the output is from a notebook computer, and it's a combined mic/output 1/8" connector.

So, I have problems with clipping on the small outboard speakers (not anything good — they were about ten dollars us, but still good enough for portability/disposability)

I don't think smplayer as a front-end to mplayer2 or mpv is causing any problems.

Nah, I was just playing some Aretha albums with a lot of dynamic range, and even a a low (to me) volume, when I go the fifteen feet to the keys, there's major clipping and digital artifacts that seem to correspond to when the tune "heats up" and I amble over to my front room.

SO, what I'd like to do is measure the (three-or-four-channel) voltage of this little phone jack, and I wonder if (i) I should bother and (ii) yeah, I guess I'm about an EET level of formal training, and I think I can look up dB and distance and run the numbers, although not easily with so many connections.

I ask the viewer at home: What would you do? Live with it (I have lots of big speakers and amplifiers at my place, it's just a matter of convenience). Fix it/troubleshoot it? Or go live in a cave or whatever.

QUESTION

Now here this, citizens.

I'm dead serious.

So when I ask Nat__ie out this week (if there's a good chance to, which there may not be), let's say on our way out to the parking lot I say "I've only got forty bucks cash until payday — had a bunch of bills this week — and condoms are pretty pricey. Should I get those first, or are you good to go?"

No, I'm not joking. That's something I would say, and she would get the humor in it, being not a nerd.

It would be a better conversation if we were sharing a ride together — that's the only scenario that seems appropriate — but I don't trust her to get me back to the warehouse parking lot, and unless she's an idiot, which I don't think she is, she's likely not riding off in some guy's panel van Toyota Camry to go get liquored up at a dive bar.

I think it's a funny line, and I'm keeping it in reserve. She is cool and has a wicked sense of humor, so IMHO, it's fine. Sort of a joke, but also absolutely true.

IMHO she's cool enough to know that there's a good chance the day/evening might end up that way, but also cool enough to know it's a bit of a spoof on what bullshit square shit dating is.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Oh, same question, but different spin, different girl.

What could possibly go wrong with my saying to Natalie, "Hey, I'm going to breakfast after work, and I think you should probably come with."

I don't have a problem with asking women out, it's just making them say "Yes" that's no so much probably good.

Should probably bring a change of clothes.

---

I'll answer my own question.

The appropriate question to Na___ie is: "you're coming out for some beers and shoot some pool after work, right?"

That bastard shift supervisor keeps us on opposite sides of the warehouse, I know it.

But, still, that is the correct answer.

NEVER MIND ALL THAT SHIT WTF IS WRONG W U PEOPLE ARCHER IS ON!!!!!!

Yeah, so my question WTF is wrong w u people b/c Archer is on...well, it's been on. Or up. We're not doing phrasing.

And it's fucking awesome. Alien and Aliens into one.

Well, the season is young.

So I must defer my questions about tie-rod ends and proper shade-tree sway-bar repairs until...

ARCHER!!!!!!!!!!!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Oh, same question, but different spin, different girl.

What could possibly go wrong with my saying to Natalie, "Hey, I'm going to breakfast after work, and I think you should probably come with."

I don't have a problem with asking women out, it's just making them say "Yes" that's no so much probably good.

Should probably bring a change of clothes.

---

I'll answer my own question.

The appropriate question to Na___ie is: "you're coming out for some beers and shoot some pool after work, right?"

That bastard shift supervisor keeps us on opposite sides of the warehouse, I know it.

But, still, that is the correct answer.

---

Turns out that was the correct answer. I think I said that verbatim. She said, "Hell yeah, sounds like fun!" Me: "It is fun!"

And I'm pretty sure the shift supervisor is a little perceptive, so on her last day, indeed, Na___ie and I worked the same side of the warehouse.

Otherwise it would have been difficult — she didn't really ever "hang out" in the break room with a bunch of the rest of us at the appropriate time, so I might not have had the chance.

Why are the five years till retirement the longest years of your life?

Good question. I'm guessing that it seems like a long time because you're just waiting for an agonizing death of the mind and the body on the wrong side of the finish line?

Maybe not. It could be a slight error in perception on your part, or perhaps some of the milestones of life have been overloaded with a bunch of preconceptions that aren't necessarily accurate, or at the least, sufficiently optimistic.

I wonder why it is that it seems so difficult to stop thinking about texting or calling this girl.

Now, I made my blunder already and I dutifully refrain. But, I feel like a dog reaching the end of its chain, or Dr. Strangelove suppressing his German roots.

Patience.

Patience.

Now it sounds like I'm a damned serial killer just waiting for my prey. Bring out the gimp!

Sorry, Rube if I didn't quite give the definitive answer to your question. To be fair, while it is an interesting observation, I'm not sure a second party could really answer that for you. Short of cracking open your brain pan and running some super-sketchy tests involving electrodes, or some of the other penetrative but less drastic imaging techniques (PET, fMRI) and making a few guesses.

It's a legitimate question, which seems to have many possible interpretations as to possible answers, but clearly I can only offer some best guesses in an off-the-cuff manner.

Here's a fun question which, I suppose will be equally lacking in a definitive answer, but just how far did I screw up my budding relationship with my girl du jour by unloading on her via text with complaints about my gimp leg while pretty toasted on whiskey?

I could try to copy over some of the actual texts, but it just involved a string of profanities and general bitchiness. Nothing about her or anything insulting directed at anyone. Just being a drunken ass venting via text.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course it wasn't, but it seemed OK — you know, none of my friends whom I know better IRL are immune from me occasionally ranting like a foul-mouthed mental case. Not regularly, but once in a great while.

On the one hand, if one observes that during the beginning stages of getting to know somebody, everybody is on his or her best behavior, I'd prefer the brass tacks honesty. There's no surprises for her in the future, and I've made peace with myself that I can just be a little outrageous verbally.

If that's the nail in the coffin of my love life, then that's fine: we wouldn't have had much of a future together anyway.

And I apologized and said it won't happen again. Which is true. I think if she reads very literally my last apologetic text, she'll likely notice that I fully intend to respect her privacy and to be protective of her time and energy, to the extent I'm involved in that aspect of her life and work.

OTOH, while that is a good last impression to make on her, as well as having started off with very good first impressions, that doesn't cancel out, I'm sure, the intermediary phase of a controlled chaos or morass.

If anything, that's one more reason for her to approach with caution: and, she is, quite rightly, a little cautious about revealing too much about her personal details besides what is normal for casual conversation. Very wise of her: after all, she doesn't know me that well, and she knows from work that I am plenty strong and capable of doing some serious physical damage, if I were inclined to.

I'd hope she would know that could never happen, but it's still a reason to be circumspect and, at a minimum, see me again a time or two more in public, just to observe for any red flags. You know, being rude to wait-staff or getting shit-faced and then getting behind the wheel, or saying unkind things about others in general.

In that respect, I'd pass any of those metrics with flying colors, being not a complete asshole. Just a part-time one. A friendly ass! A talking ass! A regular Baal's donkey!

All signs are "go," as in green-light, when she's done with some horrific long days taking care of some short-term projects.

And, she did reply to me via text, concerned that I would think she was "ghosting" me, or just giving me the hi-hat.

At least when we last met, she was not giving me the old "Yeah, we should totally hang out again sometime." It was a genuine, "Yes, I had fun and I'd like to see you again." Lots of eye contact. She could have been lying, but I don't think so.

But, tying this back to the perception of time: you know, I'm not so sure if next week or the week after she's going to remember that we had a good time just talking for three solid hours, and that it wasn't a one-sided conversation at all.

Well, I'm just going to have to chill out and wait. Pretty much it's her move, since I think I abused my texting privileges (according to my standards).

Oh well, at least we had a good first date, and it's certainly her prerogative to continue with me or not. Wouldn't make me happy if the latter, but it's certainly not my decision to make, and that would be the end of that. Without any prejudice or ill-will directed at her at all. I mean, in many respects, I can be mature and emotionally aware, as well as empathetic.

WHAT in the motherfucking shit is THIS motherfucking bullshit?

I shlep out to Walmart to buy a new 2TB HDD, using Microsoft Rewards gift cards, and I think...hmmm, this "bicycle" pump looks better than that shit at Target and is the same price.

Excuse me.

What fucking arcane trick am I missing, when trying to pump up my Marine Air Horn to 100 psi, using a bog-standard Schrader valve (same as on a car tire or a bike tire and so forth).

This shit is fucking ridiculous.

Seriously. Am I missing something here?

Hey! Here's a good fucking question: whatever happened to Froody Blue Gem?

I was kind of proud that she might have found an alternate spot for her unique contributions.

And, no, I didn't creep on her or anything: I took her at her word that she was a college student in her twenties, but, still, I valued her contributions and she and I traded a shit load of PMs (not of a salacious nature).

What did you people do to her, anyway?

I blame you!

Well, I'm sure she's just moved on from MBTI to enneagrams or something, but it was nice having someone new to play with.

Feh, now I'll have to subdue and coerce some others to join this coven.

Here's a real QUESTION:

I know nobody will know for sure, but somebody must have a gut intuition about this.

So, obviously, on the job, I've developed severe tendonitis of one of the tendons holding my right foot together, basically.

Swelling, internal inflammation, nearly constant pain.

Yet, I still come into work, thanks to a massive dose of ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant in the morning.

I bought some athletic tape at the drug-store today, and asked for a separate receipt.

And I am seeing my internist doctor next week for recommendations and treatment — perhaps a prescription for high-dosage ibuprofen, or a different muscle relaxant. Whatever he suggests.

I want my company to pay my doctor, and to pay for associated equipment.

What do you think the chances of that are?

I'll sue them if necessary: they certainly have a team of lawyers, but they'd be foolish to think I do not have access through family connections to excellent counsel.

If they say "fuck off," I can certainly suggest to a few people I know who still have their hand in local journalism that the general manager of my location will be named in the local press, and given an opportunity to repeat his dismissal for the press.

Basically my attitude is: "Fuck you, pay my health care costs, and I don't want any bullshit about it, you fucking white stain pieces of innumerate, illiterate shit."

Of course, language will be moderated, and I insist on every promise made in writing, preferably with a notarized signature.

Good idea?

Likely to work?

Likely to get me accidentally "disappeared" from employment?

N.B., I am not asking for any legal advice — I'm just polling here and among some RL friends and coworkers for their opinions.

I'm pretty well fixed on what's what with an employer's WC insurance, and all that, and what I'd have to do, I'm just unsure if it's worth the effort, the red-tape, and being put on "this guy better not shit sideways on the job or we're going to fuck him on the sidewalk in broad daylight" list.

A couple hundred bucks for a doctor's visit, some athletic tape — if they're not stupid (which they are), they'll just pay the bills I send them.

So, tomorrow, I'll file an incident report, and, since it's been a few weeks, note the progressive nature of the tendonitis and the date it began.

And they'd better fucking sign it and give me a copy, or else...or else....well, they'd just better do it, because I said so.

So, I found what I was looking for at Walmart today.

Part of my genius plan to avoid depending on the false security of a so-called slip-proof mat for use in the shower.

Namely, some "flip-flop" style sandals, constructed of some kind of rubber and with a hard plastic thong that secures the sole to the spot between the largest toe and the one adjacent to.

Feeling frisky, I decided to triage my mailbox outside and grab something from the car.

REMIND ME AGAIN how in the fuck is a human being supposed to walk in these horrors?

They are fucking awful.

I suppose if it were a choice between burning coals barefoot and these, they could be helpful.

Otherwise, no.

Bad shoes.

Well, this is a weird synchronous event: I've been thinking for the past few days about what a PITA it is to deal with the dust from Flamin' Hot Cheetos (or perhps other vairieties) that gets stuck on one's fingers. I usually rinse my hands in water.

HOWEVER, on some other board apparently certain deviants want to know what the

residue should be called. I don't care about that — it's just crumbs in quantity.

HOWEVER I submit as a QUESTION to you: several days ago I came up with the ultimate solution. The Vernichtung, if you will, of sticky fingers.

Put the bunch of stuff in a bowl, and use a spoon and perhaps another utensil.

I'm not a super genius, but QUESTION that is still the geniusest idea. Ne serait-il pas?

Simple, but brilliant. Yes indeed.

I agree! However, now I wonder if this is not the sort of food for which one designed chopsticks.

Think about it, won't you?

Yes, indeed. Roland Barthes and others mainstreamed nipponophilia, and yet, the Caustic Empire only seems to have fans among certain Western groups — linguists, historians, nerds, historians, gamers, historians.

It would be very good to use Chinese chopsticks to daintily manfully grasp each Cheeto and bring it to one's mouth.

Spoon and other spoon seems not as delicate....er....manly....er....correct.

When an old girlfriend sends you, via Facebook Messenger, a video of Blood, Sweat and Tears performing "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" at Woodstock, that probably means something, right?

Yeah. Assuming you want an answer, yes.

It is possible that her FB account was compromised — an old childhood friend sent me an odd link to something strange, and it was indeed a misdirect.

You know, sometimes people get lucky and do a bit of surf-and-turf on low-stakes accounts like on FB and stuff.

I'd probably do like I usually do and give her a PM and say, "Cool link, man, WTH's up, anyway!"

That's the surefire test.

I use fucking crazy-ass passwords for all my shit, and yet some asshole got one of my Reddit accounts: how? I don't know, but it must have taken days of brute-forcing for some unknown reason.

So, yeah it means something if she was the sender: it means she was either drunk or horny or both. OR, it was a mistake.

If she wasn't the sender, then it's a perfectly pedestrian reason: just some random person testing out his or her coding skills.

ETA And, no, it wasn't me. I am indeed a "random coder," but that's not a thing I would even consider a worthwhile activity.

OK, here's a question that actually has an answer:

Q: Who are those animal abusers who allow their dogs to run amok and inspire similar responses among their fellow canides (or whatever the term is)?
A: The same people who are fucking dickheads when driving.

I really do think it's a perfect bijection.

ACTUALLY, I think for once I came up with a real question.

RET's question was good, but I think the answer has been given.

Rubs nails against his lapel. And I think I answered it. It was a good question.

SO...it's difficult to state exactly. But one of the bartenders at a place I spend maybe six or seven hours at per week is, obviously known-to-her, an attractive young woman.

Equally obvious should be that (i) she knows exactly who I am, where I live, what music I like, etc., just like all the other regulars (ii) I'm not secretly lusting to penetrate her.

This is the problem: she's given no indication that she thinks I think (ii), and has always treated me like a good regular customer.

I got a weird vibe from her today: I'm pretty sure she knows my regular schedule just like all the others, I just came down to use the cabbies' gas station before I ran out of money this week and wanted to practice some pool.

Yes, she's an attractive enough woman, but she knows me well enough to know that we don't have anything much in common, and that I've been a bit shnockered enough in there that I probably would have tried to do something about it.

No. There's no possible latent interest from me to her, other than that I like her company as a bartender.

She knows this, she knows me well enough to know exactly what car repairs I had done last week, and she can read my mind well enough to say, "You want some quarters for the pool table, John?" And she knows exactly what I do for a living, what kind of car I drive, and more importantly my various strikes and attempts with women recently, from my current job or even various women I converse with at the bar.

She certainly knows if there's one thing I don't do is fail to act, and pretend to be some troubadour of unrequited lust.

QUESTION: is this common to have such a fear of a "accidentally on-purpose" showing up at a business just for some company?

This sounds terrible, I don't if she was on her monthlies or what, but I just got such a weird vibe from her today.

And this month, speaking of, until the fourth calendar quarter, is really going to be a difficult time for me to get through.

So, she knows that I know that she's working tomorrow, because we chatted a bit about the football games (and she was kind of snippy about me asking, even though she knows that I know).

But if I wake up tomorrow and feel like having some breakfast and maybe a beer or just coffee, since I don't start until 0930, is she going to keep giving off these weird vibes like I'm some creeper?

CONCLUSION it's been many, many times where I show up at like 0700 or soon thereafter and she and I are the only people in the place, except for the drunk cook in the kitchen, maybe. So, no, obviously it's nothing innate. Well, not "many, many" times, but occasionally, and it's never been a problem, and we never had anything but just polite, friendly chit-chat, if at all.

QUESTION So what was different about today? She almost treated like a stranger, or somebody who was trying to upskirt her dress! And, no, I'm not interested in her that way, and I've never done anything to suggest otherwise.

TENTATIVE CONCLUSION She's got some added stress in her life, and maybe the shaving wounds on my face were a little off-putting, or she's on the rag, or she had a fight with her boyfriend. How the fuck should I know.

QUESTION So, should I NOT go in before work tomorrow to get some breakfast and a coffee, given that I really would prefer to be in a familiar place than just sitting at home chain-smoking cigarettes and waiting until I decide it's the correct hour to leave given the traffic conditions?

Yeah, I say, why not. It's what I'd do anyway, given the circumstances, and she's not exactly a friend of mine or nothing.

ETA Well, that was a not much a very good question. It's hard to describe: yeah, me none of us are friends, at the bar, but over a year plus I know lots about them and they know lots about me.

It's sort of like an online forum, except IRL and with libations.

So, you understand, it's easy to confuse emotions or responses with something more personal.

My short conclusion is that it's nothing personal on her part, and she just was having one of those days.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Here's a fun question which, I suppose will be equally lacking in a definitive answer, but just how far did I screw up my budding relationship with my girl du jour by unloading on her via text with complaints about my gimp leg while pretty toasted on whiskey?

I could try to copy over some of the actual texts, but it just involved a string of profanities and general bitchiness. Nothing about her or anything insulting directed at anyone. Just being a drunken ass venting via text.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course it wasn't, but it seemed OK — you know, none of my friends whom I know better IRL are immune from me occasionally ranting like a foul-mouthed mental case. Not regularly, but once in a great while.

On the one hand, if one observes that during the beginning stages of getting to know somebody, everybody is on his or her best behavior, I'd prefer the brass tacks honesty. There's no surprises for her in the future, and I've made peace with myself that I can just be a little outrageous verbally.

If that's the nail in the coffin of my love life, then that's fine: we wouldn't have had much of a future together anyway.

---

Oh, and the answer is "yes, definitively."

Yeah, she did respond with this whole unasked-for, unwanted "explanatory" text, which is good for her, I guess, but I'm not going to run her reputation down just for a thrill.

Wasn't a good match: some voodoo-queen complaining about texts and hoodoo and some wanna-be hard-boiled cat who just was looking for some kicks.

What'd I say?

Better sooner than later, find that out.

Anyway, that was months ago and I don't remember her much at all.

All right here is a stupid and NSFW question.

So, I've been paired with....I wouldn't say "good" in all cases, but they were much like Hank Quinlan.

Some kinds of women.

And, yes, it is true.

I'm going to spoiler-box (eh...) the real question just because, well, just because I feel like it.

OTOH, fuck it.

WTH are all these women wanting me to penetrate them when I know for damned sure they don't get their big "O" off it.

Trust me, most women I've been with don't care so much about their private pleasure: they're with you because they want to be there.

There've been exceptions, irrelavant details, but that's just in the past.

ANSWER: No, I don't think I understand women as much as I thought I did.

And I'm not a young man anymore.

I really thought I was a woman-whisperer, up until now.

No.

That's just one thing I'm never going to be able to understand.

I guess my question is, women actually like men digging tunnels in their vajay-jay?

Yeah, in my experience, they are super into it.

Why?

Hell if I know.

WHY do I smell rotting garbage at home, at my desk, where my wife lives, and where my children go to sleep?

There are not any decaying animals in my office, AFAIK, and no visible or otherwise signs of an infestation.

Well, the HOA did .... fuck. Those shitheads. Yeah, so I had a goddamned tarp over the roofing for quite a few months last year.

Shit. Motherfuck, shit.

There could well be a decaying animal up in the fucking crawlspace.

Fuck.

This is more shit I don't want to deal with right now: work is fucking awful, I'm barely coherent most of the time, even in private life, and now I got to investigate and fix somebody else's goddamned mistake. Yet again. I do this every fucking day, fix other peoples' shit.

I swear to fucking christ I should just live out of an RV or finagle a way to buy a houseboat and just do that.

Fuck.

ETA But in brighter news, one of my bartenders and I had a fun (you know, brief, just chit-chat) conversation about Spanish language.

Which I don't know shit about. I mean, except for a few phrases and just enough to get by.

Neither does she.

I missed an opportunity to demonstrate how come that old tale about "they speak so fast" is all bullshit. I would have done in French, not being good enough in Italian or Spanish, but that was a missed opportunity to fight ignorance.

And, no, she's recently married, and it's not for me trying to get something off her.

Just, would have been a good chance for me to talk about something I know about, for low-to-no-stakes, to a person who knows me reasonably well, and ditto.

What should I do about this lone mouse I found in my bathroom? No, there's nothing I'd consider edible in there: maybe some dried vomit around the toilet.

Yes, I have no problem killing the damned thing, considering I almost caught it under a toilet plunger a few times and the plan was to smash it against the floor if I trapped it until it was smashed to bits.

I can borrow a bag of cat litter from either my parents or my sister, full of cat shit and urine, and just stash it someplace for a while. That's a decent strategy, and I'll definitely do that when it's convenient.

There's rat poison.

Also, of course, a series of spring-loaded traps.

Also, I like glue traps.

There are no empty beer cans, no food scraps anywhere except in the kitchen and at my desk (well, the floor beneath my desk).

No signs of droppings, no marks that might indicate anything in kitchen cabinets has been disturbed.

I suspect it was a lone adventurer.

I suppose I could clean up some loose papers and books, but I'm not going to do that, unless I find evidence that they've been molested by a nest-builder.

The place absolutely cannot be "sealed off" — not only does the front door open to the outside, with no way I can see to hermetically seal it. There's a fireplace with the flue shut. And there's an attic-like crawl-space/storage space over a lofted storage space in my office. The tiny door to that could, I suppose, be taped up with some kind of close wire mesh.

I say set a shitload of traps, both glue and metal-snappers, lay down rat poison, and do the cat odor thing. And, no, I'm absolutely not into owning a pet of any kind, so that's right out.

That's all I can think of.

And, no, I apologize if anyone is offended by the cruelty, but, honestly, I have no concern whatsoever about the manner in which the mouse/rat perishes, just that it does. And any companions it may have. Even the babies, if any. Sorry, but I just don't care about that kind of thing.

Fucking A.

Please explain this to me.

Riddle me this.

The hot-rodder jackasses who are total cunts weaving in and out of traffic.

Total tools.

And yet, they seem to use their turn signals. I guess because they think they're like l33t drivers or something. Whatever.

WHY do people on ordinary streets, or even parking lots, not religiously use the turn signals?

It fucking takes zero brain cycles, and, yes, who the fuck pulls up to a four-way stop and not signal their intent? Are they high? Stupid?

And, yes, they should do that in parking lots as well.

There should be no reason to doubt what another driver's intention is.

Why?

Why would you not use your signal?

You forgot? You don't know where you're going? You're flicking your bean or jacking off?

It's rigoddamneddiculous.

Well, I think I've made my peace with the mouse, since just now I saw a second one near the pile of file folders, loose papers, etc., near the fireplace.

In the middle of the day. I was burning off some shit off a cast-iron skillet in the kitchen, and just stepped into my front room to ... I can't remember...whatever. Little bastard mouse.

IN A STRANGE COINCIDENCE I went up to the grocery store not long thereafter to buy some Mucinex and some beer, and I could have sworn I saw my father walking in. I know they use my grocery store because its pharmacy is pretty good, low volume, home-town smiles, just like at Wendy's, and rewards points transfer between stores owned by the same company. So, not wanting to yell "Hey, Big John! Think fast, gimp!" I scanned around the parking lot and found my mother sitting in their car. So, anyway, we just chatted for a bit and whatever....

What was I talking about?

Oh, right, so, the mouse and shit.

I swear I did have a question.

All right, I'll cut my losses and go with a still-legitimate question, which is, if you found a few mice in your place, and had no evidence that your food stores were contaminated, it probably is a lot of effort to try to exterminate. They're still going to get in. And the traps with the "kill bar" (the old "snap traps") are fun, and my homemade recipe of broken bits of fortune cookies coated in bacon grease is nonpareil (yes, that is my contribution to pest extermination!) is pretty good, it's just not worth the effort.

Point?

Or Counterpoint?

You decide.

WHY did "Dexter Morgan" from that TV show (he was a supposedly expert serial killer nominally "with a heart of gold" and an unimpeachable code) not wear something like this? The link is to a DuPont disposable coverall made from Tyvek — waterproof, disposable, whatever.

That's what I would have done, anyway.

Oh. Well, it was just a TV show. I guess that's why.

But he should have.

OH YEAH, NEW QUESTION: WTH are "hand-pulled noodles," and why are they so good? Sounds familiar, but I've never had them.

OH YEAH, NEW QUESTION: WTH are "hand-pulled noodles," and why are they so good? Sounds familiar, but I've never had them.[/QUOTE]

Asian noodles made by taking dough and creating noodles through a beautiful process of folding and drawing. Probably best if you looked up a YouTube video, which I can't link to on my work computer.

Here's a bit of a philosophical-type question.

It seems there are a few math-phobic types on this board.

It seems to me that the royal road to becoming adept at manipulating functions, and working with matrices and transformations, and going up to ... I'd say all the way, at least through abstract algebra, reading and writing proofs of various kinds, which is where I sort of get off the boat.

Anyway, it seems to me the only barrier to entry is the willingness to do hundreds and hundreds of examples, by hand. Good tutelage was indispensable for me when I came to it in my mid-thirties, by sheer luck, really, to have been at the right place at the right time.

I still don't have much real intuition about much, but I can run the numbers by hand. Only a glimmer of an intuition about my favorite logics — various stripes of modal logics, whether you call them temporal or description logics.

Which is all I really care about, which isn't math. It's just that the style of presentation, presenting proofs, and actually doing stuff with these logical tools requires not just facility with the language of "mathematics" but in applicatio, there are quite a few areas of mathematics that one must know. Or at least understand how to manipulate, solve, and so forth. And at a higher level there are canonical algebraizations of logical structures.

So, anyway,my question is, does one agree with me that not being mathematically mature, as one says, is not a moral failing, but simply a product of not having the need to acquire the techniques, hard-won a struggle as it might be?

Oh, totally. We make decisions about what's important to us, and we have to live with the consequences.

QUESTION/POLL

Most people in the world think statistics is pretty rad (you know, probably, because it does stuff and shit), but most people on this board think statistics totally sucks ass (well, I do, anyway, I can't speak for anyone else: it's ugly, stupid, and uses a bunch of jargon which is not cool).

As in, the meat of the discipline is from probability theory which is cool, but the actual discipline, with those fucking Z tables and shit, just sucks.

Thumbs up or thumbs down to statistics, as a discipline separate from mathematics.

Hmm, never really thought about it that way. I guess thumbs up as a separate discipline, in much the same way as physics is separate from mathematics, even though you can't do physics without maths.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday

even though you can't do physics without maths.

---

New question. I don't know. You can make things easier by taking like the second derivative of some polynomial function or whatever.

Meh.

Still got the right-hand rule, and all these fancy drawings of vectors and shit. Like magnets and stuff, or whatever.

I'll take a wild guess and say that most physicsts don't really give a crap about mathematics.

They're all like into atoms and forces and molecules and shit.

Probably a similar relationship between statisticians and mathematicians. A statistician is like, "Wha? That fucking arrows and shit makes my pussy dry," and the mathematician is like "Fuck off, let me go deal with Platonic forms and shit, nerd."

QUESTION: do people who like fucking around with like language and shit, even at an amateur level, experience more hostility online than in the real world?

I'll say my answer: I think so. IRL, there's a very bright line between clever and stupid. I don't know about anyone else, but I can tell the difference, I like to think. Online, on the other hand, I doubt many people who might seem otherwise reasonable (it's a compound adjective, it doesn't take a hyphen) have an ability to engage.

I'm not sure the latter can be taught. Or learned.

All right, let me ask a personal question.

Am I the only person alive who fucking hates doing laundry?

I mean, think about it.

One second, you're chilling in your crib, and then eight hours later or some shit, after hefting multiple large parcels and operating heavy machinery, blammo.

Yeah, that's great.

Now I got to figure out which sheet is the fitted sheet, hang every single shirt and T-shirt up, I've got a fucking mound of mismatched socks, and an admittedly good pile of fresh shorts, which will probably mildew before I get around to sorting and folding them.

Fuck. No.

It takes all fucking day, and everything is more screwed-up than when I began. Yeah, OK, I mean, it's nice to wear clean shorts and socks, but is it really worth it?

There should be like robots to do this kind of shit. Some people really enjoy "laundry day, nice and clean, blah-di-blah!" Maybe just capture some of those people and have them figure out which direction the fitted sheet goes or whatever.

Women. That's who likes this stuff. I got to get my shit together and get me some more of them.

ETA NEW QUESTION I think it's probably a good idea to have exactly eight articles of clothing. You know, a week, plus an extra if something comes up. I don't fucking need twenty pairs of shorts and socks.

I think it's a brilliant idea.

The only flaw is that, to accomodate wear and tear, one would need spare supplies socked away, I guess, in reserve. No, I still don't know how random holes keep appearing in shorts. Nobody knows. It's a universal, unisex mystery. So, the flaw is that one would become undisciplined and dip into the reserves and all of a sudden it's no good again.

That's where the robots come in.

You wear a little device around, I don't know, like your wrist or wang or neck or whatever. And it shocks you into submission every, like Sunday or whatever.

Good idea?

Exactly. It's like holy days of obligation, like All Saints' Day.

But for laundry.

Probably how the monks do it, just saying.

QUESTION Can I and should I have a custom T-shirt printed that says "It's Advent, not Xmas, so STFU until the 25th"

Pretty sure that's OK with my company's dress code.

And, I'd probably do a fancy capital Chi for the "X" in Xmas. I don't know why.

Yes, I know it's not Advent yet, but I'm thinking ahead. There are already fucking Santa Claus hats and shit in the RiteAid and such drugstores in town.

It will do me good to not empty a clip into the nearest loudspeaker playing a Christmas song before Christmas. It's a season, you know. There are rules.

Well, I don't need to tell you people I'm not a model Christian nor a model anything, but I obviously feel pretty strongly about respect for traditions. And, walk the walk, sort of, mostly.

And, as a bonus, yeah, I'd probably wear the shirt every day during Advent. So, I'd have a few printed up.

Do I have a good slogan for the shirt, before I go make some child laborer do my bidding and produce this frivolous product for me?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by some jerk

∀x(Sx ≥ 2.5h ⊃10m ≤ B ≤ 15m)

---

Oh, shit.

I just realized the best way to express this, using the semantics of possible worlds.

No, that is not some science-fiction or physics thing, it's just the standard way to have a coherent logic which includes some (or all) modalities we see in regular life. Let's just say necessity (box) and contingency (diamond).

So.

What?

Why am I saying this in this thread?

I don't know.

Never mind, but I will have to get back to you once I've figured out an unambiguous statement in quantified modal logic. Hint: that's not really something that's done, really, because...reasons. But, as a teaser, it will be a short statement, and I'll probably just use the box operator (box is the dual of diamond, so it doesn't matter much, it's just easier for me to draw a box than a diamond on a whiteboard). It just adds a layer of meaning that is ... well, it would be intuitively sort of meaningful, but likely not stand up to scrutiny. And for such a simple statement, it wouldn't really matter.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by some jerk

∀x(Sx ≥ 2.5h ⊃10m ≤ B ≤ 15m)

---

Oh, shit.

I just realized the best way to express this, using the semantics of possible worlds.

No, that is not some science-fiction or physics thing, it's just the standard way to have a coherent logic which includes some (or all) modalities we see in regular life. Let's just say necessity (box) and contingency (diamond).

So.

What?

Why am I saying this in this thread?

I don't know.

Never mind, but I will have to get back to you once I've figured out an unambiguous statement in quantified modal logic. Hint: that's not really something that's done, really, because...reasons. But, as a teaser, it will be a short statement, and I'll probably just use the box operator (box is the dual of diamond, so it doesn't matter much, it's just easier for me to draw a box than a diamond on a whiteboard). It just adds a layer of meaning that is ... well, it would be intuitively sort of meaningful, but likely not stand up to scrutiny. And for such a simple statement, it wouldn't really matter.

No, there is no possible reason to quantify over variables for simple statements. Yeah, I can use the diamond operator (or box), for more nuance, but I'd have to strain myself to think of a sentence which needs distinguishing different variables whose evaluations are constrained by operators, in this context. So, yeah, I could well have chosen to amplify my statement with modal operators, but only PL, not FOPL is needed. IOW, simpler is better. Trust me, it gets plenty complicated.

QUESTION: some people from my crew are getting together next weekend for a short hangout. Apparently I'm in the cool group, because I got the personal invite. Not everyone did, believe me.

Problem, though. It's at seven pm on a Saturday night all the way across town. Which is, probably OK. But while it's not that far geographically, most of the distance is done on a large interstate, and I fucking hate driving at night. I mean, at my best, with glasses, and turning the stereo down, and not having any passengers chittering at me, I'm an OK driver. But, local traffic here is an abomination: it tests my patience daily under better optical conditons.

OTOH, I wouldn't mind meeting again some of the former employees who will be there. It's also, I find, good to keep one's hat in the ring for people who are in a position to do one favors when it comes to future employment. So, there is a little bit of that, even if it sounds cynical.

OTOOH, I don't really socialize in odd places, and when I do socialize, I always have some beer. Yeah, I know, that's not ideal, but that's the way it is. So, best case, I'll show up, order a pitcher or two of beer for the table, and, obviously, pay for it, cash, probably just toss twenty or thirty bucks cash into the kitty, or however much it costs plus tip. Probably fill my glass three or so times, and duck out. Yeah, I know, but driving while impaired doesn't seem to be a problem for me. I'm sort of always impaired. However, combined with my discomfort at driving, I wouldn't trust myself to do much more than keep the tires out of the ditches. There's a bit of paranoia involved there, granted, but probably no more than is warranted.

Eh, fuck it, I'll just go and show my face, have a couple or three beers, and have a wonderful time spending about forty minutes total driving time to get to the meat of about the same amount of actual enjoyable time.

All right, there must be an answer to this one: who smokes cigarettes in the "100s" size?

I'd say "well, somebody must, or else they wouldn't stock them in every single store," but I think that's not much of an indication: the distributors probably just throw them in and ask for the shelf space as some kind of strongarm-ish tactic. Or, maybe people do smoke them. Pretty sure people still smoke Virginia Slims, and Camel straights and Pall Mall unfiltereds, but those are niche products.

For non-smokers, the 100s are the same amount of tobacco, but with a longer filter and possibly slightly slimmer in diameter. Also for non-smokers, cigarettes are typically cylindrical in shape and are not tapered or flared along the length of the unit.

Riddle me this: WHY is it that my local electric company sucks so much ass?

Well, they seem more or less fair — I'm not complaining so much about the price-gouging in an area which is supposed to have the cheapest electrical power around, or we would if we didn't ship it down to those California cholo hippies. Big hydro-electric dam. Kills a bunch of salmon, but other than that, it's pretty clean and massive.

Also not complaining so much about their crappy website: it sucks, but it gets the job done, more or less.

What I am complaining about is why they take four or five days to post a payment to my bank.

It's not so much a big deal as it is an annoyance: when I pay the bill, I just want to cross it off my list of things to do, and be done with it.

Why? It's a fricking ACH transaction, it should be fricking immediate for chrissakes.

New question: since our good forum is doing good so far, and I think we all chip in to our abilities via Patreon, who would be interested in as a backup doing an IRC channel?

I can set it up, and AFAIC, everyone our small group would get maximum permissions.

IOW, everybody would have maximum permissions, just purely as equals.

No, not really as "chate," but just as a backup if and/or when Melloph. goes down.

I suppose I'd volunteer as owner as the channel, but we're pretty self-moderating, so everyone would get maximum permissions. Maybe there'd be spam or, as Roger Clemens might say, "and what not,"

I don't know, just trying to stay one step ahead.

I'm not even sure what that means, but it sounds like a good idea.

Yeah, I suppose it's not a terrible idea. I was just doing some drinking (Old Crow! Works every time!) while thinking about nerd shit. I don't know if I'll ever get around to deciding what a good IRC client is for my own computer, much less figuring out how to create a channel and set permissions, but obviously you'll all be the first to know. I might even import some people from my own sanctum, which would certainly be an option for anyone else, since I envision a pretty democratic, free-wheeling channel.

It might be amusing for about ten minutes, and then quickly forgetten about, but who knows.

Hey someone should do me a favor ans try from scratch to do a test message to IRC channel jizzelbin. It's hosted on freenode, but that shouldn't make much a difference.

To some extent I'm pentesting the channel, also trying out the limits of using Linux tools on Android, as well as for the primary use of the channel, just as an independent, backchannel.

Now there is no security, just a public channel.

Can one play soggy biscuit with a woman?

I believe so, and I think it would be an excellent game!

I'd play it, and I'm not afraid to say I wouldn't mind losing!

Ah. Parlor games: the gentleman's sport.

WHY???????

The bottoms of my feet hurt, such that I often hobble or limp after spending a mere work day pounding them on the warehouse floor. I don't mean a little "tender," I mean they hurt like a mofo, such that it's painful to walk at home on my carpeted surface. I ust elevate them at home and try to not rely too much on presciption-strength ibuprofen. Doesn't bother my stomach, and I've been taking it for many months, but it's probably not good for you in such doses every day.

The posterior tibial tendonitis, which was severe, but cured after Ibuprofen, therapeutic stretching, etc., and, AFAIK, no other tendons have been afflicted.

Yes, I rotate good quality sneakers regularly, and all that. At most I'm guilty of "heel-striking" when I'm moving fast.

I realize a concrete floor is quite a bit different than a woodland trail thatched with loam, as is its wont, and even worse than asphalt, but WTF? My feet hurt every fucking day, morning to noon. 800mg doses of Ibuprofen help, but I try to limit myself to 800-1600mg quod diem.

Just getting old, I guess. I'm pretty sure I can walk 25-30 miles no sweat, without stopping. But the concrete is very debiitating.

////////////

Oh, speaking of getting old: yeah, I'm lucky in that I probably never have male-pattern baldness, but chrissakes, my hair is thinning and receding quite a bit on the top-front bit. It looks ridiculous!

And a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous!

Oh, I shan't be growing more than the usual two-week beard (that just means I get lazy and use my nice double-edged safety razor to trim it up. until I get around to doing a real shave). Fucking grey hairs, my ass. Shows up in the beard, salt-and-pepperish, the eyebrows, and the sideburns.

Can't have it.

So, like "Grecian Formula" is pretty good, right?

I mean, nothing wrong with grey hairs, but I'm constantly trying to trap women, and I'm not a distinguished person IRL, so I haven't really earned my grey hairs yet.

In this account,

Quote:

---

Originally posted by me

This seems to be a continuing theme. Some cockbiting prick was up my ass on a rainy night on what should be a hassle-free highway.

I turn into the grocery store where I was headed after going to my bank before they closed.

Of course Mr. Cockbiting Prick Dickless Shithead pulled in after me.

I was able, through correct use of turn signals through the small parking lot, to end up within fifty meters of his car.

Even though it was misting gently with rain, I had the satisfaction of having a cigarette while sitting on the hood of my car (N.B., my car, not his or anybody else's), and conspicuously using my cell phone to photograph his vehicle.

I hope that little prick shit himself and continues to do so. And his child bride or whoever the fuck was in the passenger seat.

I could see he was considering coming up to me and starting some shit, but apparently nobody fucks with the Jesus. That'd be me.

Stupid fucking pricks, driving like animals. Where do the fuck do you think you're going, shithead? Ain't nothing up that road except my foot in your ass, you peckerwood.

---

Did I actually do anything wrong?

Morally or legally.

I think there are some bullshit criminal charges like menacing or something, but I wouldn't be worried about that, since I preceded shithead Dr. fucknuts into the lot, and neither approached nor confronted anyone.

Yeah, probably, menacing or harassing or some bullshit like that.

Morally, though, am I wrong?

I don't think so, but I'd welcome some potentially differing views.

QUESTION: Is there some definitive guide to what those emojis on, say, an Android phone are supposed to mean?

Some of them look ridiculous, and unfortunately some people I text with just go nuts with them.

Fortunately, most people in my peer group go with the standards that even I can get, like "hilarious laughing" or whatever.

Some of those damned things are just incomprehensible to me, though, even after zooming in many times on the screen.

QUESTION: To express one's discontent with slackers on the job, one should probably wear an ascot, and leather-soled shoes.

Yep.

And not a sweat spilled.

I am really fucking pissed off.

I punched out tomorrow, but Tuesday, you bet your ass I'm wearing a crisp white shirt, a tied ascot, and my safety vest.

I'm done taking any more of these assholes' slack.

Not one more drop of sweat.