a year in the life. We had our first class in there last night. Coats were hung on coat hooks I had hung five minutes previously. The person running the class had my phone number for two days to coordinate everything she might need; instead she showed up half an hour after she said she would and expected I could make it all work. And I did. But it's galling - "Yeah, I've never been here before, or met you before, and the last time my organization stopped by the sheetrock had just gone up I'm sure you can make my three hours of powerpoint and Youtube videos work just fine, especially if I give you half an hour, despite the fact that I've been forewarned the internet is spotty I'm sure you can work it out." And then my wife showed up and then I took the kid home and then she got home at eleven. I'm on my 3rd or 4th 10-11-12 hour day on this fucker. Monday night was two hours naked knee-deep in lukewarm water scraping blue protectant off a tub. Yesterday, on the other, was easier... but I discovered that the tub they were 3 weeks late in delivering (thereby setting us back 3 weeks) is a factory 2nd with a massive chip in it that will spread if I can't get it fixed. So that made me happy. The difficulty is the minute that class got there, it was abundantly clear that I don't belong. Nobody in the birth community says "husband" because it's offensive. We're all "partners." And we're all "supportive" and we're all expected to get out of the way so they can focus on women's mysteries. Except during the birth where the philosophy is basically "thou art thy partner's bitch who is suffering more than you can ever know to bring about the miracle of life you're lucky we let you in the room worm now help your master breathe!" So what I'm left with is I've spent like three years building a business in an industry actively hostile to my gender, that will never have anything to do with me, and which resents my participation. I am a fish building an airplane. It's a fuckin' P-51 Mustang to be sure but I still got gills, you know? The only thing I get out of it is gratitude from my wife, and despite spending the better part of two days cleaning and tidying and polishing that place I was denied any reaction from her last night because god forbid we speak too loudly to interrupt the class. I realized yesterday that while I've been maintaining social media channels for two years and organizing ad campaigns and infographics and all the rest, I've never once mentioned the birth center on my own Facebook page. This is really the only place I talk about it. That probably says something.
It's got 7x 350 lumen daylight LEDs hitting it. My father in law, the master gardener, thinks it won't get enough light. It's getting 50 foot candles, or 538 lumens/m^2, out of 2450 lumens. On eBay right now there are fixtures that will fit the track that take 250W quartz lamps. 5700 lumens each. I could fit three easy. That should get me about 350 foot candles. So the question is: do I let go of the low-energy utopia of LED MR16s and hang three torchiere lamps? I think yes.
Seems like the light is a bit low for what you need. The problem is that if you hit them with the amount they need for good growth its too bright and blinds you and/or you end up with a weird color spectrum (pink/blue lights). In living areas you almost need to have them setup as inverse proximity sensors where they turn on when nobody is there to be annoyed by the bring lights. One trick I've seem for places that do plant walls but dont have enough lights is that they rotate the plants in and out every week or two. You have a place setup off-site that has brighter lights and you grow the plants there for a bit and then move them back into your decorative locations. Its a pain in the ass but it can be done effectively. My favorite lights are Metal halide, they aren't as efficient as HPS for plant growth but you get one with a wide natural color spectrum. When I had one setup for the indoor Tomatoes I'd just sit under it on rainy days and it would genuinely make me feel happier. You get around 75-100 Lumens/Watt which is close to what you get in high end LEDs (CREE, Philips) and better than Chinese LED's. The problem is how you incorporate them into you design at this point.
I've always loved MH for aquariums. They're the only way to get the scintillation on the gravel. But they're pigs. They put out a shit-ton of heat. they're fragile. They're short-lived. And they're definitely not sitting on Gemini track. The pink/blue thing is a problem too because none of the grow lights have any kind of throw. They expect you to be growing tomatoes with a light hanging horizontally six inches from above. And nobody who does grow lights expects you to do any flagging - it's gonna be hella bright, it's gonna have a 360 degree pattern, and there will be zero facility to control the spread. Believe it or not, I threw a PAR meter on the thing. With 14 hours of on-time the wall gets more than 2 and less than 50 PAR. I actually did just fine with some exemplar plants over a year ago: The nice thing about having it on the wall 4' up is I can hit it obliquely and never hit anyone in the eyes.
Id love to see how you experiment turns out. Ive wanted to do something similar with built in plants but always thought it would be too impractical given the lighting thats currently available. There isnt a lot of documentation online about low light plants like the ones you have so it will be interesting to see if that you give them is enough
The moss is already spreading. The prayer plants are popping out leaves. The pothos are shooting out leaves, too, with some white to them. Even the Ludisias seem to be doing okay... the Spiders, though, are unmoved. We'll see. The water is on a tap under the sink, which goes to a drip irrigation line along the top. The intent is to slap a solenoid on there, and then put a timer on the solenoid. Bonus points if I can get a doser in there too for some liquid fertilizer because otherwise, fertilizing the thing is gonna be tricky. I wish I could call it an experiment. 80% of the installed green walls in the world use that system or the outdoor version.
this attitude blows my mind - Always has. I mean, as feminists aren't we supposed to be encouraging men to be more involved with their children? Doesn't that means bringing men into spaces like these and saying yes, you do in fact belong here? Fuck man, idunno. People often have blinders on to their own actions, especially when they are in opposition to their purported beliefs. One of the benefits of how my depression manifests is that I can usually see when I'm not practicing what I preach - because I'll flagellate myself about it.The difficulty is the minute that class got there, it was abundantly clear that I don't belong. Nobody in the birth community says "husband" because it's offensive. We're all "partners." And we're all "supportive" and we're all expected to get out of the way so they can focus on women's mysteries. Except during the birth where the philosophy is basically "thou art thy partner's bitch who is suffering more than you can ever know to bring about the miracle of life you're lucky we let you in the room worm now help your master breathe!"
Here's the problem: Left to their own devices, women will do births without any men around. There's no fucking reason for men to be involved. They have none of the plumbing. They have none of the pain. They have none of the experience. Most people aren't inured to hearing about "boggy uteruses" while you're eating dinner but I'm here to tell ya, there's a whole constellation of biology that men seldom come into contact with and that's pretty much fine. The problem is, once we blew through the tribe/hamlet/village paradigm we took it out of womens' hands. Thus the big holy hospital where the anointed ones confer the miracle of childbirth on you, rather than with you. Men's roles in it all didn't change - the handing-out-of-cigars is a traditional thing. But we splintered the village, we splintered the hamlet, and we flung families far and wide. So most young professionals of childbearing age? Their sole support is their partner. They're going to go through this process with their partner. They're going to do childbirth ed classes with their partner. And the guy who traditionally provides support and gets the hell out of the way when things get bloody and technical and vaginal suddenly has a contraction timer on his iPhone. And really? The women want another woman there to do this shit with but we can't leave the husband out. So we make him participate. Awkwardly. In a role he has no experience doing and no interest in. Next time you're out in a public space, look for a pregnant woman. Now look for the dude with her. Look closely into his eyes. Notice he looks an awful lot like he was having a drink in Portland and woke up in the hold of a ship bound for Shanghai but he's learned not to speak up so he doesn't get beaten. It's this peculiar haunted despair look that communicates pretty clearly that he doesn't know what he's doing but he knows his future depends on doing it right.
First off, that album is amazing. That place looks so homey, cozy, and WARM. I don't sense any of the hang-ups that people might perceive when looking at a hospital room, so if that was part of the mission, mission accomplished. And your little secretary is such a cutie pie. I don't think I have anything very helpful to say as to the birth center's clientele. That is a bit of a conundrum. But let me be the first to say that, for the past two years, I have loved reading your updates. You sure do love your wife.
It is what it is. I mean, we're talking about people who aren't phased by the question "so are you going to eat your placenta?" because that's a thing (because of course it's a thing). When you're dealing with a full-fledged womyns mysteries clan of the cave bear mystic circle crew you know that the husbands are either whipped or divorced. Gross generalization, not always true, but home birth clients are alpha females full stop.
Looks amazingly awesome but fuck man.... I don't see any Klein Blue. :)
Welcome to kleinbl00, where imgur albums show off the adorable daughter and the landline setup.
Dude that landline setup, tho. It's got 90 minutes of battery backup. It's got 16 lines of VoIP. It'll handle a hundred extensions. It's got a fax line and music-on-hold and the ability to kick normal old POTS out to the 3 client phones. And if you call after hours it'll record a voicemail that it emails that hits my wife's Android on T-mobile AND Sprint AND US Cellular AND wifi and punches through any do-not-disturb that's been set. All that for under a grand out the door. And I only had to read this fucking book to understand it.
"if a dude as dumb as steve can figure it out.... I can do this" Sounds like you've got some advanced features. Well done. I haven't done phones in years... what you've built far exceeds any of the requirements (or even available features) I had to deal with. Well done... and not just the phones - the whole place looks fan-damn-tastic.It was a real confidence builder
Yes. Well, we're trying not to make our customers feel hated. The worst part about most IP-based hold music is it fucking starts at the beginning every time you move in the queue. Apple was the worst for this, especially as their call centers were all wired together using coat hangers and baling wire. Crackle crackle fizz fizz distorted guitar fizz crackle "hi, I'm representing the world's largest tech company can you hear me sir?"
From experience, making a large phone system that doesn't suck is a pain in the ass and not enough of a priority to the powers that be, so you can either have a humorless phone system that makes your customers feel hated or a humorous phone system that makes your customers feel hated. I'll grant that you probably have more room to approach not-infuriating than most of us.
Okay, this is one of the things that hasn't been culturally translated to Sweden. What is it you run exactly? In Sweden when parents are having a baby they (except in a few exceptions) have it in the hospital with a midwife and a doctor sometimes. Now I've understood that the profession of midwifery has died out in the US, and that it is either epidural or hippy-ish stuff. (I'm generalizing, but in Sweden it is very common with laughing gas for the pain during childbirth for example which (as I have understood) is very uncommon in the US so to me it seems like there is less of a middle way) Classes in like, breathing techniques and such are usually offered by the state healthcare system, and I think are a bit more gender equal in terms of eh... A partners role in childbirth. But having a baby in the US seems very different.
I have built (love the past tense on that) a freestanding birth center, which is a place low-risk families can come to deliver babies out-of-hospital. It is understood by all parties that the minute things are looking unsafe momma is delivering in-hospital. In the United States, 98.64% of all babies are born in hospitals supervised by doctors. Midwives are witches to be burned at the stake. In our state, however, out-of-hospital births are more than 3%. In our county, out-of-hospital births are 6% and climbing. so much hippy-ish stuff. However, up here it's covered by insurance which means there's a higher percentage of normals. But yeah. There's a reason I know way too much about vaccine skepticism. We're allowed to run nitrous. We probably will. It's becoming a thing you can get at birth centers that you can't get at hospitals. (because you can't bill nearly as much as you can for an epidural) Around here it's 100% pure hippie. And that's why my wife ceased to be a software architect.What is it you run exactly?
In Sweden when parents are having a baby they (except in a few exceptions) have it in the hospital with a midwife and a doctor sometimes.
Now I've understood that the profession of midwifery has died out in the US, and that it is either epidural or hippy-ish stuff.
(I'm generalizing, but in Sweden it is very common with laughing gas for the pain during childbirth for example which (as I have understood) is very uncommon in the US so to me it seems like there is less of a middle way)
Classes in like, breathing techniques and such are usually offered by the state healthcare system, and I think are a bit more gender equal in terms of eh... A partners role in childbirth.
But having a baby in the US seems very different.
North enough for Snohomish County taxes and regulations, south enough that people in Ballard love how close we are. We are 1.0 miles north of the county line and 1.6 miles from the nearest off-ramp. And the nearest bus station is literally our parking lot.
I went to a yoga class the other day and I forgot about the whole " be totally silent as soon as you walk in so you don't disturb other peoples silence" thing which led to that very weird first class feeling of wtf do I do now. Also, this whole time I thought that blue stuff on the tub peeled off and I'm really disappointed to hear otherwise.
Half of it did. Half of it totally didn't. Probably comes down to "this one sat out in the sun for an afternoon so now it's like chewing gum." The chipped one peeled off like fruit leather... mostly. Except where plaster landed on it, because the plaster keeps it from bending, which keeps it from peeling, which means you have to very gently tap a plastic spudger under the plaster to get the shit off, and then rub it down hard with a wet washcloth. The unchipped one was fucking awful. I literally filled four garbage cans with blue crud, then another two with the protective film on the fridge.
This last week has been overwhelmingly positive. I've come to terms with demons that are years old through coming to accept my limits, had nothing but desire to learn about and have fun with people, had a sober mind to help a friend go through a break-up with her girl friend (of which I'm particularly proud) and found some awesome music. I've also survived chickenpox (which wasn't as bad as people think: just a flu) and had to come home - a place that used to loathe - for treatment, which may have given space to all of the great transformative experience I've had lately. It's the same city steve had so much fun exploring today/yesterday in the IRC, which fills me with joy. Dude, go ahead and drive around Tomsk and Novosibirsk, too! Let me know what you think! Tomsk is much calmer and more narrow than Kemerovo, with a lot of history on its streets, while Novosibirsk is bigger, more urban and modern (though the latter might be my own perception of it: I do love that city). One of the biggest changes was in how I see other people. Some of you may know a friend used to have, Sveta; we've been friends for two years before breaking up badly: our flaws collided hard and I couldn't take it. This year, I wrote her a message saying how grateful I was for the time we had, given that I've never said it at the time. She responded with the same. Something clicked in my head: that maybe the person I've been demonizing all this while isn't evil at all and it was me who projected my problems onto her, which is what led us to all the trouble we've had. Suddenly, things became clear: she was no longer the demon - just a person trying her best to stay afloat in life, like the rest of us. Made me realize I still wanted to be friends with her because she treated me with kindness and care. She said she wasn't sure she can let me into her life again - I was, after all, a major source of emotional pain in her life before. It's okay. What matters is that I've finally recognized my own feelings and expressed them openly; whether we become friends again, I'm just glad it happened to me and, hopefully, I was able to mend a couple of bricks of her bridge of life. Which is another thing I came to realize: the past isn't merely gone - it builds a bridge that we walk on. Conflicts, when left unresolved, crumble and corrode the bricks of which it's built. We affect each others' bridges when we enter people's lives, and by leaving anger in their lives, we corrode the bricks. An apology, then, is mending another person's bridge - and, perhaps, your own; to mend another's bridge is an achievement, and if you are the source of the damage - a duty. One of the biggest challenges lately has been losing weight. I took up this rather extreme meal plan to get rid of the belly. It was fun the first couple of days because of the challenge of not eating, and I also tried to do "cardio trim" alongside, but soon my strength, both of body and mind, deteriorated to the point where I could no longer sustain the exercise or have any will to do anything, in obvious contrast with the week prior. I guess the effect's supposed to be drastic, otherwise nothing would happen, but this is a lot; I took a day off it today, to figure out how to proceed. My motivation is that I can't wear my usual white shirt until I trim the fat - and, given how damn good I look in it, it's a strong motivator for me. Moving to Tomsk tomorrow, partly for uni, mostly because I'm full with what this house has to give me. And to finish with some awesome music... Zvenit Yanvarskaya Viuga is a cover of a classic Soviet film soundtrack by the Italian pop-rock band Vanilla Sky. It hit the Italian charts a couple of years ago like a hurricane, and I'm so glad to finally find it myself, because it sounds awesome. There's a snippet of the original in the beginning of the clip. Prisencolinensinaincuisol is a song from another Italian artist, Adriano Celentano. He may not be as known in the rest of Europe or in the US, but he was popular as an actor in Russia during my childhood. The song is a nonsense verse that means to imitate the sound of American English to an Italian ear; if you turn off your language recognition, you can hear something distinctly American there sometimes. The second video is the modern remix by Benny Benassi, featuring old Celentano in a background role.
Congratulations on the breakthrough with Sveta, and your own perception of the situation! That's huge, man. And something that will benefit you more than you know. Letting go of shit, and getting a handle on the role you played in it... that's powerful. Those are skills that will serve you for the rest of your life. Good work!
Oo, first one here. My mom bought me this big scented candle thing and it's been a college game changer. Stinky roommates? Nope, they smell like eucalyptus now.
Pro-tip: A nice smelling candle is nice. A nice smelling candle is no replacement for keeping your living space clean and also opening all of the windows from time to time to let the whole place air out. Personal Comment: I've fallen in love with pine scented candles myself. In fact, I have a pine scented air freshener in my car right now.
We have room inspections every morning so our room is absurdly clean for 3 freshmen living together. The freshmen themselves, however, are another issue. Fresh air and daily showers are but a band-aid on the great stench of Room 647.
Yea. Young dudes are the worst. My record was a little over two weeks without a shower, in the height of summer. I smelled so rank and disgusting that I broke through to a side where I smelled pleasant again (to myself). Have you ever had a bag of funyuns? That fake onion ring chip? I smelled just like 'em. Fifteen year old me thought I was the shit.
Pro-tip #2: Stick with one scent for your candle, especially if you have carpet floors. Experimented too much with those myself, then had the bright idea of masking those smells with burning incense.... I took advantage of my apartment's changing out the flooring this summer and got a new carpet installed after that whole mess.
https://imgur.com/a/OVf5l Got this little bundle of cuteness and energy on Saturday, his name is Gunnar. He's definitely forcing a lifestyle adjustment but I think it's well worth it.
So i really fit in in my new class, and it is wonderful. It is 80% girls and one of the 4 boys chose this school/program precisely because of this. It's a really supportive atmosphere and people are really honest and open. It is also a certified "nice class" ( nice class is in my experience a term used by teachers to denote a class that wont use every speck of personal information they give out to hurt them) And like, this class deserves this distinction. I'm probably pathologically secretive about stuff and I have been quite open about stuff with this class. And like, I like this. I don't mind being in this state at all, school no longer feels like a thing to power through to get away from everything here. I feel like my life is in quite a fixed state, so that's fun for someone who has spent a large part of their life trying to fix it.
It's an... interesting definition for something people normally don't even think of doing.( nice class is in my experience a term used by teachers to denote a class that wont use every speck of personal information they give out to hurt them)
Well, eh... teenagers can be horrible to not only each other but to their teachers to.
The coldest, most wintery winter I have experienced in Seattle in 30 years, seems to have come to an end. We actually had snow that stayed for more than a day. Ice that didn't melt during the day and re-form at night, but stayed for WEEKS. It was refreshing to have an actual winter season, and not just an extended wet autumn! That changed yesterday. And I am glad to see the rain again. We Seattleites do love our rain, and hearing it on the roof, seeing it outside, and watching the last of the ice succumb under the delicate and persistent fall of rain, made me love my city even more. In other news I am finally getting my various art framed. I've collected original art for decades. Bought from street vendors and artist friends all around the world, most of it has been pinned on the wall, or sitting in flat storage for ... well ... some of it for decades. Now, with a little extra money in savings, I have decided to finally frame much of it, and get it up on the walls in my home so I can enjoy it. This feels surprisingly good! Nesting. Settling in. I'm also in the process of planning my garden workshop/writer's shed that I will build in the coming months. A place where I can work, whether that's on home projects or writing, a space away from the house... my man cave thing. I'm patiently excited about this project...
Kids in Portland have had 8 or 9 snow days so far this winter. Someone told me that they have only had 17 days of school since Thanksgiving. My kid was out sick for a few days before Christmas break. The rain started yesterday but it's pouring down on roads that have more than an inch of ice. Thawed ruts with lakes in-between. I'm over it. Dropping the kid off for a late start in about an hour.
It's kind of shocking to me that a major city at the base of a mountain seems to have no game plan for more than an inch of snow. I've been applying for jobs all over the place this past week, and I've had to walk to all of them because the buses were running so late. Never thought I'd be so happy to see freezing rain
I can't speak for Portland, but Seattle has crowned roads in order to improve runoff from all the rain. A crowned road gets super-exciting with ice. And since ice happens so rarely, and there's so little that can be done about it, most people just call in a snow day. For a while Seattle had this awesome relationship with a surplus dude. Seattle would have a snowstorm and the rabble would rouse about the lack of snowplows. So Seattle would buy snowplows and it wouldn't snow for two years and the rabble would rouse about the money we're wasting on snowplows so they'd sell them. To the surplus dude. Who would sell them right back the next time the rabble roused. I can't find it online but I swear he sold Seattle their used snowplows back to them like three times, profiting each time.
In my 16 years of living here I've never seen weather like this. In my wife's forty years of living here she last saw weather like this in 1980. You've arrived on the tail end of the most ineffective mayor that I've seen misgovern this town. Charlie Hales can't make or implement a plan for more than five minutes that he doesn't abandon and make a committee to come up with a new plan for six month only to abandon it five minutes after it goes into effect. But yea, it's kind of stunning. I know a guy who works on the crews that do street cleanup and they are mismanaged and unprepared. Every one in his department from the people with the shovels to the guys who drive the trucks knows this but management has no idea. Welcome to the "City That Works!" What do you do for work? Every once in a while I have a line on something. Mostly I'm not helpful but I've gotten at least one person a dope job in the last year.
Shameless plug: my wife runs a frame shop. Really small operation, just her and a single part-time employee but she does great work. Not sure what your budget is, custom isn't cheap. I too am glad to have the rain back. The cold was fun at first but so many days in a row at or below freezing is rough. Definitely nice to pull the raincoat back out of the closet.
Oh yes? Tell me more! Anywhere near Burien? I have one triptych that I need to frame, but that's the only "fancy" one. The others just need simple matte and frame. I'm paying a local Burien shop about $150/ea to frame a couple of others. my wife runs a frame shop
She's over in Columbia City. About to move her shop up the street to Hillman City.
I kept waking up last night because my building would start shaking right before some big chunks of ice/snow came sliding past my window. For the last few days it was overcast but still warm which generally means snow is coming and it came right on que this morning to replace those chunks. I can't imagine living somewhere everything melts over night.
You have rain in winter? That's very unusual for me as a Siberian. I was talking to johnnyFive about it in IRC; it was suprising to hear him complaining about ice on the roads. In my head: "Well, of course there's ice on the road! It's winter, innit?". The season of minus 30 centigrade seems to have just come to an end; they say Tomsk had -43 at one point, which is something I'm completely used to. Seattle sounds a lot nicer. Maybe I'll visit someday.
Well, we are sitting directly on the Pacific Ocean. So our climate is incredibly mild. Freezing temperatures are rare here at sea level. But 45 minutes away, they have 10 feet of snow at the ski resorts, which are 4k feet above sea level. It really is a heavenly place. I love it here.
The high today was 62 F, which is ~17 C. It rained some late last week, and is expected to do so again later on. In my state in particular, it's not unusual for us to have snow on the weekend, and then it'll be 17+ C by the end of the following week. Of course, we pay for the (relatively) mild winters by having to deal with 38+ C in the summer, with the humidity hanging out above 90%. That's why we all have guns.
been baking my feelings. trying an alton brown brownie recipe tonight. call it a dirty bulk cuz i've been lifting weights as much as i can manage lulz.
A word of warning on Alton Brown recipes: they're bland as fuck. I have yet to make an Alton Brown recipe twice. Everything he does is micromanaged, ultra-precise and utterly devoid of pleasure. Nothing he does is bad per se; it's just underwhelming for the effort involved (and he's all about effort). The approach I've settled on for new recipes is to look it up on allrecipes and make the one with the most reviews. That way, at least, I know I'm making something utterly bomb-proof. I then modify it until it suits. They've got a turkey soup recipe, for example, that I've tripled the veggies, halved the veggies, left out the turkey, made it with vegetable or chicken broth, halved the butter, halved the cream, substituted milk for cream, substituted skim milk for cream, and accidentally forgotten the cream entirely and it still comes out good. these look pretty bomb-proof. You could skip the honey and substitute bourbon or amaretto for the vanilla and have it turn out all right. It's really going to come down to how good your cocoa powder is. Alton Brown, on the other hand, is firmly convinced it's all about sifting this and sifting that and whipping this and whipping that and fuck the ingredients, by the way. You can literally buy a box of Duncan Hines, stir some eggs into it with a fork, spray a pan with Pam and bake for 5 minutes too long and be fine. "Proof positive that technique is just as important as ingredients." Jesus fucking christ. thirteen "ounces" of sugar... or like 1.92 cups or some shit. I mean... okay, if your deity requires self-flagellation before the triple-beam balance, fuckin' go that way. But the weight of your brown sugar is going to drop by half based on how packed it is and how long it's been sitting in the pantry so I'd maybe save the effort.
I liked "Good Eats." I liked how he spent more time explaining how processes change the ingredients than any other show I'd seen or cookbook I had used at the time. But the guy is nothing if not obsessive. In an interview he described a painstaking quest of making biscuits exactly the same as his grandmother's. He took notes, he did experiments, he watched her make them, he mage her watch him make them, he used her own ingredients in her own kitchen, but they were never quite right. It wasn't until much later and after his grandmother died that the key came to him - he was kneading the dough the right number of times at the right speed, but he had young hands his grandmother had stiff arthritic hands. So he kneaded his biscuits with stuff hands and finally made his grandmother's biscuits. If he can tell the difference between stiff and flexible fingers for his biscuits, good for him. But he's got some issues - no clue where good enough is.
I, too, enjoyed Good Eats. He writes columns for Garden & Gun now and I enjoy them, too. But he is process-oriented, not results-oriented. This is why he loses his shit over "unitaskers" but measures his fucking ingredients with syringes. bitch do you know how many things you can do with a measuring cup My father loves to tell the story of my grandpa's grandma's cornbread. My grandma threw shit together in a pan and lobbed it in the oven. When my grandpa's union was on strike but my grandma was working as a telephone operator, it fell to my grandpa to make the cornbread so he asked for the recipe. Frustrated that none existed, he forced my grandma to throw shit in measuring cups for a week, averaged the results, and cooked it. According to my father, my grandmother's cornbread was occasionally great and occasionally shit but my grandfather's cornbread was consistently good, which is kind of the point of baking. It's certainly my recipe. Sometimes I even throw it together by handfuls. So I get the process-orientation. But not everything is a souffle. It's like audiophilia - just because he thinks he can tell the difference between stiff and flexible fingers doesn't mean he can.
From my experience a very robust process will always yield good results while a weak process will yield good results for some people some of the time much like you describe in grandmas recipe. What Alton does really well is show you a number of different cooking process/tricks that can be used from one recipe to the next. Even if you never cook the Alton recipe ever again you can borrow the process that Alton used and make a different or poorly documented recipe better. Between Kenji and Alton they have really come up with some great time saving/simplifications tricks that I used beyond their original recipes. But he is process-oriented, not results-oriented
My complaint about Alton Brown and "process" is that he overemphasizes how fragile that process is, not how robust it is. Like, he smash-zooms in and leers at you and says "DON'T. overstir" as if it'll cause Mogwai to turn into Gremlins or some shit. Compare to the guys at ATK - they make the recipe a dozen times and vary it and tell you what you need to worry about and don't and lo and behold, most of it you don't. Make no mistake - I think Alton Brown did a real service to cooks everywhere by demistifying a lot of the chemical and physical processes involved. But he's also got people convinced that unless you perform a religious amount of tweaking your food will suck. It amuses me to no end that if you ask the internet, the perfect roast chicken is Thomas Keller's, which is literally salt, pepper and trussing. But if you ask the internet, the perfect roast turkey is Alton Brown's, which takes two fuckin' days and $30 in brine. There's adoration, there's emulation, but there's no synthesis. Julia Child took on a roast chicken Season 1 Episode 1. Compared to Thomas Keller, she fuckin' mauls that thing. But you know what? You do it Julia's way, it cooks more evenly. I guess you don't get to charge $67 for it, though.
I didn't see this until this morning. You're right. Bland is a good way to put this recipe. The comments talked about it being like a flourless cake so I was expecting it to be dense which was fine but there wasn't any nuance really. it was also surprisingly bitter for having 13 ounces of sugar...
Would highly recommend these:
God, this week's chaotic. In no particular order, the last days I: - gave a talk to my department at work about all the cool shit I've been up to so far - lost a big chunk of one of my molars - designed a traffic model to capture rerouting behaviour in case Amsterdam Airport is in a lockdown - had a great dinner with some friends at a hipsterish place where you're supposed to throw your peanut shells on the floor - tried to study, but ran out of time - had a seminar at the Dept. of Transportation where my half-improvised talk on how to make roadworks more fun was apparently impressive enough to warrant an invitation by said department - was seconds away from my bike being towed away by the city, even though putting my bike there is the least obstructive place to put it in the entire street - decided to visit Ghent in two weeks to visit a good friend - found out that there is a makerspace a short walk away where I wanna do a workshop and when I went there to sign up I found out they had a full-size Strandbeest in front of the entrance - came up with the idea to go to Lisbon in three weeks with another good friend
Theo actually got his fascination for creating with PVC while lecturing physics at my university. The makerspace is in the same building as this museum which has an exhibition by Theo now until March. I'm fairly positive they have some books or models for sale in the museum gift shop.
DC is at DEFCON 2 security level, with riot fencing lining blocks adjacent to Pennsylvania Avenue. There is a thin blue line leading to the White House, and scores of uniformed officers milling around talking about the Friday weather forecast. The kid is curious about the spectacle, but with the chance of rain and certainty of crowds and pat-downs I am suggesting the view will be better on TV. I made another idiotic bet ($6.50 for 15 shares of NO) on the speech, still trying to recover from the November upset. Or maybe we should finish watching Game 3 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. YouTube says there is a brawl.
How'd you do? The thing happened, I think, although I was on a plane. A plane, incidentally, which had to be rebalanced by the trustworthy method of moving a couple of people toward the back. I was thinking of demanding compensation for playing the role of counterweight in addition to that of passenger.
Yeah, as veen pointed out I didn't have to watch very long to find out that another bet went bust. I left it on though, and NBC News cut back and forth to downtown protesters. One guy with an "antiestablishment slant" took questions as an ad hoc spokesperson for the vandals and gawkers and hardly flinched as flashbang grenades and tear gas bombs went off just behind him. Periscope has been entertaining as well. Norman Borlaug got a long mention before the victory luncheon, and the new president did not close his eyes during the prayer. A Starbucks on I Street got its windows smashed, possibly the one I patronized on Thursday morning. I asked the manager why all the furniture was missing; he said they were expecting record crowds and they wanted to maximize flow; he said nothing about projectiles.
I watched his speech (for some reason, Dutch public broadcasting thought it was important enough to broadcast live) and he did name previous presidents in his first line.
Counting heads is tough. The park service used to make an eyeball guesstimate, but stopped after the Nation of Islam threatened to sue after NPS said the Million Man March wasn't. The biggest crowd appears to have been around 1.4 to 1.8 million eight years ago. Of course, it's not obvious whose side anyone is on in a satellite photo. There are several other silly prediction markets: PEOTUS tweet count for the week ending today (99¢ on 45-49) A post-speech victory stroll (84¢ on YES) Clinton mentioned in speech (81¢ on YES) Obama mentioned (91¢ YES) Putin mentioned (79¢ NO) China mentioned (52¢ NO) Hacking mentioned (75¢ NO)
"You know, comrades," says Stalin, "that I think in regard to this: I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how." still true I guessUpdate: A historical source has been found for one version of this quote. The source is Boris Bazhanov's Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary, published in 1992 and only available, so far as I know, in Russian. The pertinent passage, which appears near the end of chapter five, reads as follows (loosely translated with the help of Google):
Life: Made Paella last night with a couple friends. Really tasty but we couldn't get the rice to cook evenly and ended up with mixture of well cooked and undercooked rice. This was our first shot at it im sure next time it will be better. Been doing a bit of woodworking with hand tools. Not very fast or productive but quite fulfilling. Spent the last couple days learning how to sharpen a hand. Harder than it looks but seems to work ok now. My Hydroponic lettuce is growing well, maybe ill post some pictures as soon as I figure out how to strip the XIF data off the iphone photos without using GIMP so I don’t DOX myself. Skiing once a week, snow has been great bit cold but otherwise excellent. Shopping for a BIFL pair of boots. Looking at Danners, Whites, Wesco, Dayton and some other high end brands. Hard to tell if spending 300-400 on boots is actually worthwhile or if they will fall apart like the rest of my shoes after 6-12 months. I keep telling myself that the reason the last pair fell apart was because it was cheap Chinese shit and I need to pay more to get the good stuff. That’s lead me to go from $30 dollar to $70 to $130 to $230 shoes with relatively little to show for it. The $230 redwings degraded just as quickly as the $130 timberland, even faster actually. Perhaps I'm not buying the "Right" shoe in the brands but damn its really frustrating. T-10 weeks until baby and my life gets turned upside down, gonna enjoy the ride till then. Work: Working with a group of people who are pretty crappy engineers and trying to solve problems using a structured problem solving model. Our group was in charge of the initial troubleshooting and containment operation but where not budgeted to run the long term root cause investigations so were handing off all our data and knowledge to a bunch of bumbling idiots. Its pretty aggravating watching them stumble though some of the most basic troubleshooting and problem solving steps and attempting to document everything irrelevant while ignoring all the relevant details. The sad part is that we have already basically found the root cause and we just need a bit of money to prove it, but instead these guys are going to throw everything away and start anew, and there is no guarantee they will come up with the correct conclusion.
I am now wearing these I have ankles made of glass and roll them if I do not wear a high top shoe. Even when I was exercising regularly I could not get any strength in the ankles. I was buying Timberlands, but the last two pair were not good shoes. There was a noted drop in quality of materials, and the eyelets broke within a month on the last pair. I also were a size 14 so I am a special case. Redwings hurt my feet. Every pair I've been fitted with has not worked with my feet.
I've become a fan of Thorogood for welted workboots. The suede they use to reinforce where the back of your heel contacts doesn't hold up, but otherwise mine are doing surprisingly well after having a year's worth of boxes and crates dropped on 'em. I have the soles with the foam since I'm standing/hopping on hard surfaces all day, those can get a bit slippy. If you wait it out on Amazon, they sometimes get caught up in their seasonal fashion sales. If you're not a union member, that's probably the way to get 'em. If you are union, it's pretty easy to find them for additional discounts online. 'Course, construction and package handling probably tax boots in different ways.
1) I would give paella advice but I've never even succeeded at risotto. You are made of sterner stuff than I. 2) Imgur strips the shit out of EXIF data. 3) Carolina. American made, leather and rubber. I bought my first pair of Carolina 116s in 1991. I resoled them twice and probably hiked 100 miles in them. I replaced them in 2005 because I hadn't been keeping up on the leather cream and they cracked and when I patched the hole with shoe goo it made an annoying bump that rubbed my foot too much. I've resoled the 2nd pair once so far. It's been through three misadventures on motorcycles. 4) Your friends and family keep telling you that your life will be turned upside down but no, not really. You'll have a dependent. The impact of children on lives is greatly exaggerated. Congrats!
1) Recipe stolen from Modernist Cuisine at home (overly complicated process book you will hate): Fry Some shallots Bacon other filling in oil at the bottom of a pressure cooker pan. add 200 Gram Arborio rice 200 G (ml) stock 200 Tomato Juice (Leftovers from canned Tomatoes) 50G Dry wine Pressure cook for 6-10 minutes at pressure. Depressurize quickly, cook off excess moisture and and mix with lots of grated Smoked Guda. 2) Adding photos I don't trust imgur not to keep that data somewhere so I make sure to strip it: Paella in progress: Hydroponic Lettuce+Basil 3) Looks like noone sells them within 50 miles of Seattle closest store in ID 4) Hope so
I'm very happy to see someone seriously talk about boot buying. First of all it is definitely worthwhile taking time on this and have criteria. Then if you can't meet all the criteria, try for as many as possible. Here are mine: 1. Made in Italy 2. Be able to put them on. Seriously, some woman's boots are way too hard to put on and take off. 3. They MUST be cobbleable. This means that a shoemaker can put on a new heel if needed. 4. Can you walk as far as you need to wearing them. ? You won't know right away, but if they hurt in the store, they will still hurt after you leave.
So far my list is: 1) Must be made of durable materials 2) Must fit comfortably 3) Manufacturer must have a reputation for good support if the boots need a tuneup (this eliminates 70% of all manufacturers sadly) 4) Should be Goodyearwelt construction 5) Specific model should be in production for a while 6) USA/Canada/Japan made gets priority, German 2nd, UK made 3rd, Indonesia/Italy 4th, China only in the under $100 range. I really don't trust the Italians to make durable items. Seen a lot of shit Italian quality at my job. I think quality is a regional thing but I don't know what parts of Italy do a good job and what parts don't. So my default is that if its made in Italy its shit quality unless there is recent evidence to show otherwise. That's why Whites, WESCO, and Dayton is on the top of my list. Unfortunately all are in the $400 range and difficult to find somewhere to try them on in my size. There is a pretty good subreddit for high end mens shoes https://www.reddit.com/r/goodyearwelt/ that I've been reading and trying to get a good idea on what to buy.
The price made me cry. I'm still crying a bit but these are by far the most comfortable thing I've ever worn. https://divisionroadinc.com/products/russell-moccasin-south-40-huntsman-vibram-olympic-black-cxl-bighorn-bison Looks like I'll be picking up so overtime shifts this month.
Depends what you use the boots for. For casual shoes I wear Vans and Converse but usually sandals. Replace them all the time. For dress, I mostly wear c. $3-500 Oxford or Derby style Boss, Cole Haan, Armani and have one pair of D&G. In my experience it is true for shoes that the more expensive ones are far more BIFL. (I have only had 2 pairs of shoes that turned out to be duds and they were both Armani but have no idea where they were made. Thankfully my shoe guy was nice about returning them.) I only have 2 pairs of "real" winter boots. (I do not wear boots with suits.) I have had both pairs for between 5 and 10 years with no issue. And they were both relatively cheap. For daily wear in messy, snowy weather I wear the 8-eye Doc Marten 1460 Greasy Booty. I cover up the stitching with black marker. :) Super durable. Easy to clean. Goodyear welt. Easy to replace the soles even though I have never had to. Good for slush and wet but I doubt they are good in really cold weather so.... For days when I am snowmobiling or the like I wear Columbia. Not that exact model but something close. If I had one complaint about those it would be that they are too hot. I usually just wear a pair of dress socks with them. And both are very reasonably priced IMO. p.s. That looks like a good reddit. Never heard of it before.
Sounds delicious. Am I right in guessing you're cooking the rice in a pot or pan instead of a rice cooker?Made Paella last night with a couple friends. Really tasty but we couldn't get the rice to cook evenly and ended up with mixture of well cooked and undercooked rice. This was our first shot at it im sure next time it will be better.
In a Paella pan, over a propane burner. One of these https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Cuban-Carbon-Paella-15-Inch/dp/B01D57QC5G/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1484764773&sr=1-1&keywords=paellapan on one of these. https://www.amazon.com/Bayou-Classic-KAB4-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B0009JXYQY/ref=sr_1_6?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1484764809&sr=8-6&keywords=bayouclassic The propane burner was the only thing wide enough to accommodate a 15" pan
I see. Without a stove-top, I'd like to imagine gentle stirring over time will produce the better, even rice. I gave up, went for a rice cooker, and began adding the cooked rice into the pan after it's done (adding the spices/seasoning in the cooker first).
FLAC'S GOT THE FLU, Y'ALL And it sucks. Things I have done to kill time: knit some scarves (pictured below), painted a kitchen, read 10 discworld books, aaaand that's about it. Luckily, I seem to be at the tail end of it. Having the flu, coupled with Portland's general lack of functionality in the recent snow storm has made me feel a little helpless the past week or so, but things are getting better. I am starting a job at a local pizza place in a few weeks, and hoping to make a bit of money on the side from shirts etc. Shirts etc. Wrinkled as all hell, but here it is. I've been toying around with Mandarin collars recently (here's an interesting article about them), as they save a bit of time and feel modern to me. A silly scarf for the dog: Fun fact, this type of thing sells for like $10 around here, so I may try and get some of that fancy pup cash. Also, scarves: Not my finest work, but I had a lot of riding in cars to do, so I figure I'd take up knitting again. In an exciting turn, I may start selling clothes at a local shop in exchange for working there once a week. Will give updates once things solidify.
- We're all moved and settled in to the new place: living in a building that has ADA floor plans is amazing for lugging bicycles about. My inlaws bought us a washer and drier, which was super nice of them. - In light of the fact that this place is 2x as big as the one we came from, I'm pretty sure I can squeeze in a hammock-stand (looking at a turtle dog design) in here somewhere. I've thrown together the plans I'm going off of in blender to get a rough idea of the space I need, now I just need to see which room it'll fit in to. I'm waffling between buying a cheap hammock from the local hiking store, or trying to sew up my own. I know I could do a simple one sewing my own, but if I try it I'd probably want to add in a bugnet too since there is a free walk-in public use area with in biking distance of here. - I'm learning to juggle!
My wife is getting to the point where she can keep it going. The best I've managed is 4 throws and 3 catches. I've only been at it a week, but I'm already ready for it to be warm enough that I can take practice to the park and stop having to hover over the sofa to avoid annoying the lady downstairs. BONUS JUGGLING VIDEO
Took Dala to a museum yesterday. It was one of those massive ones, where we were literally there for over four hours and didn't even see half of what's there. Both of us can't wait to go back and next time we're dragging friends along and we're definitely gonna do it on a weekday again. As it turns out, museums are much less busy on a weekday, which is great. It's so much easier to look at a painting or a piece of pottery at your leisure when there's no one around you waiting for you to hurry up so they can look at it too. Though, that might be part of the reason we were only there for four hours and just saw a fraction of what they had. :P
During my time in Sacramento (this past November) we were within walking distance of the Crocker Art Museum. At the end of our self-directed tour of downtown we had stumbled upon entrance an hour or two before sundown. Little did we know the mansion next door was the original Crocker home, and now the retrofitted expansion to the already-expanded museum where we entered. Our group of 6 split up following our own whims, unbeknownst to the sheer size. Dying cell batteries, hunger, and the notification for closing time ended up stringing us back together 30 minutes after agreeing to reconvene at the entrance. It was a blast and I have some pictures of amazing artwork... most of the place I have yet to explore still. Not much like getting lost in a museum of interest. Some of the main exhibits we happened to all cross, we had different mental notes of - always fun to compare. Enjoy yourselves, next round! May I ask whathat type of museum?
Sometimes the best museum visits are the ones that are on a whim. :) This time around, we just went to a traditional art museum. That said, I'm game for almost any kind of museum big or small and so is the wife. On the way there, we were talking about how easy it is for people to actually start museums and how that's a good thing. I was telling her that sometimes when I used to watch American Pickers, I wish I was there so I could tell people "Uh, you know you have enough here to easily start your own museum. Have you ever considered it?"
Have y'all ever gone on free museum days, or partook in something like First Friday? No idea if anything like that exists where you live, but they are a lot of fun and you meet some very interesting people.
I'm buckling up. I don't think I've ever embarked upon so many colossal living adjustments, taken up so many responsibilities, and added as much to plate as I'm about to. I'm exhilarated. I really wouldn't have it any other way. But damn. I'm about to start up college again after having taken a four year break. I was accepted into the honors college at my university, which entails more challenging but more interesting classes, like the Changing Face of Masculinity course I'm taking, or the honors variant of macroeconomic principles. The professors are world class (here's a NYTimes piece by my Masculinity professor). I'm also taking Calculus and an Economic Statistics course. And ballroom dancing : ) so the schedule is loaded. And I'll be commuting. I'm also buying a house as part of a subsidy program in an up and coming neighborhood. The other parties involved are dragging their feet in the extreme, and I'm learning a lot through the process. Like how much an agent from the get-go would've helped to keep up a good pace. But it seems all but assured that it'll happen, and that I'll move in--and start paying a fucking mortgage, jesus--sometime in March. I'm really eager to put my budgeting skills to good use, but sometimes I have trouble falling asleep at night because of the worry. Thankfully the PITI is very small, the house is in excellent shape (brand new everything, roof, plumbing, appliances) and there's a lot of demand for rental spaces in the area due to the proximity to Johns Hopkins Hospital. I've been accruing a small nut to cover a few months of expenses. But still. Holy fucking shit. And on top of that, I hope to be exercising regularly (gym and weekly soccer practices) and working a (blessedly flexible) part-time job. I'm reminded of a Homer Simpson quote when he takes on another job to pay for Lisa's new pony:Homer: I work from midnight to eight, come home, sleep for five minutes, eat breakfast, sleep six more minutes, shower, then I have ten minutes to bask in Lisa's love, then I'm off to the power plant, fresh as a daisy.
Taking Calc II after two years of not being in a math course, so I can relate to an extent. How far did you get in math courses before now? I may have some good pages of trig identities and derivative/integral rules I can send your way (for making flashcards or flat memorization) alongside a cool trick for knowing your unit circle. All of which I'm currently using to brush up myself, hehe. FYI, I was just notified that khan academy expanded their math section to cover college level maths and calculus (and higher) if you're able to learn by that method. They also provide practice problems. Dusting off cobwebs using baby steps (reviewing one sheet of identities per day) has been most helpful for me.I'm about to start up college again after having taken a four year break. . . . I'm also taking Calculus and an Economic Statistics course.
I just took a precalculus course in a local community college, which was enormously helpful. I actually loved the class, as basic as it was. It has me jazzed for the upcoming semester. The only downside is that ratemyprofessor has the calculus professor I'm slated for as apocalyptically bad. I'd appreciate any help I can get. I love learning with Khan Academy, as well as Mathway and WolframAlpha. Invaluable.
Awesome! I'll scan some of the materials after class today. Smart move finishing that course off so soon to going into Calc. Finding I've still been needing refreshers 2 weeks in. For better or worse, Calc 1 and 2 tend to be the weed-out courses for the math areas. Most professors I come across while searching for professors happen to have abysmal ratings and happen in massive auditoriums.
Thanks! Im trying to acquire every leg up. I started a video lecture series on calculus, but I've been so busy that I haven't devoted as much time to it as I'd like. But I'm really happy with the timing of my precalculus as well. I also am reading Calculus Better Explained and it's interesting! I'm happy to learn the math in a way that I understand it, and not have a "fragile knowledge" as R. Feynman puts it.
Good luck! It's interesting, seems like a few people are going back to college. It seems like you have a lot of amazing opportunities, though, between that, the house, job, etc. I've become a big believe that chosen business is a good thing, and that seems to be what you're doing. Hope the house deal doesn't become too big of a hassle.
Man, that sounds like a good heap of changes! Congratulations on moving up the imaginary ladder! That sounds very interesting. Any interesting facts from the course you could share? That's awesome, man! Congratulations! Owning a house is damn great, and I'm happy for you having that opportunity. It's a big responsibility to take, but I'm sure it'll be worth it for you, if only because you went to so much trouble to have it well before.Changing Face of Masculinity course
I'm also buying a house
I'd recommend starting with that NYTimes article Dr. Reiner wrote, and then moving on to his muse, Dr. Kimmel -- A Master’s Degree in ... Masculinity?. In the academic sense, I'm ignorant of the field of masculinities studies. But my father is a hard-nosed Soviet (born Moscow 1970). The second-most formative adult male in my life is a Baltimore black man, former-US Marine, 25-year correctional facility veteran with 19 years experience quelling prison riots as my high school lacrosse coach (think insane Drill Sergeant). I am myself a total softie, yet at ease in a locker room. I embrace vulnerability and human frailty, and strive to be as good a listener as possible (though lord knows there is always progress to make). I've also coached poor groups of Baltimore high school-aged boys. I basically can't wait for the course.
So,this year I have suddenly turned atheist, earlier was a staunch believer and now believe in none of the religions ( born as a hindu though). Now for me Humanity and Science are God,and I believe in myself first and what is visible, rather than some non visible superior force. But in my life earlier i think i had some occasions of premonitions and telepathy( like i was thinking of some friend and she suddenly responded), which i believe can be explained by science. And I hate rituals like hell now.
Some personal unexplained situation came in my life,i was having immense faith, but due to disastrous end result, you may say i am sounding like having grudge against The Superior being. But after considering the viewpoints of many rational persons, and analysing my self that, look, if God was there, he would have prevented some of the most painful and inhumane conditions which some people do suffer, but no! Now what I believe is in yes there is some sort of energy,which helps when we pray deeply ,may be in form of waves, but no superior being as such. At the end I acknowledge power of institution of a human being over anything else. And honestly telling I was much happier earlier, when i meditated and it helped me getting stress free and optimistic.So if some one is believer, it will be good for him to remain so. Now that sort of divinity gone out of my life, it has become somewhat lustre less, but reality is always non glamorous, no? And hard to accept in contrast to beautiful world of fantasy. My personal opinion is all moral values in religions are worth abiding, and at least, the name of God is necessary to enforce conformity to those values. But,painfully some people on earth are killing their fellow beings(who are obvious) in the name of God(who is not obvious).
That's an interesting point of view. So, you don't believe that God has a plan for everything? that maybe he's giving people nothing they can't handle? You no longer meditate? Why? (side note: I gotta make that #talkreligion post about prayer. I'll ping you when that happens so that you could take part in the conversation. In case you don't know, #talkreligion started as a dialogue between the religious person in the face of rd95 and an atheist in the face of myself, as we keep the topic of correspondence of those two points of view while inviting everyone to join the conversation) A thought that helps me is that the Universe is under no obligation to do well onto people. Jean-Paul Sartre has said it best in his writing on existentialism, and I'll rephrase it for the sake of brevity: Human beings are capable of making choices, and not making a choice is, itself, a choice. Recognizing that and acting according to one's agency is what brings one happiness. While we may act as if bad things happen to us, it's in our power to act differently - better - towards the same circumstance. You can weep, or you can work to get out of it. You can complain, or you can change it. The world isn't pretty, but it isn't supposed to be. Accepting things the way they are is the first step to doing better. Do you believe that, without God and his followers enforcing His laws/commandments/moral rules, human being would be uncaring, selfish and otherwise immoral? I like how you point that out, and it's a good point. Thank you for replying in such a detailed way.And honestly telling I was much happier earlier, when i meditated and it helped me getting stress free and optimistic.
but reality is always non glamorous, no?
and at least, the name of God is necessary to enforce conformity to those values.
some people on earth are killing their fellow beings(who are obvious) in the name of God(who is not obvious).
1. No, I don't believe in any plan. I believe in action and through it we can build our future. 2. May be due to sudden change in belief in stopped meditating, but meditation can be done without need of believing in God, such as focussing on breath, Yoga, and it has benefits mental and physical. 4. Thanks for letting me know about #talkreligion, i would love to be part of that :) 5. You have very nicely quoted Sartre,Thanks for that. Reminds me Nietzsche; "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." and “The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph” by Ryan Holiday, summarized as it is our choice on how to act. 6. You have well questioned me on whether without God world will be selfish, in short you have questioned my faith on Humanity,Thanks, so I partially take back my words back, and quoting Gandhi here: "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty." And Atheists can be wonderful people too=> Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawkings. So, for minority fear of God will be required, and for major section I uphold morality of Humanity.
That's what I've been thinking. There's a lot of talk about meditation in the secular context, and a lot of atheists have told me how helpful meditation is and that I should try it, to deal with stress and to explore myself deeper. I'd like to point out that I didn't question your faith in humanity: I was merely asking you about your beliefs. That is to say, I didn't mean to criticize you in any way: I was curious about your views on this subject. Stephen Fry - and I can't for the life of me find the source again - once said that it is appalling that the Christian teaching is that there must be God for people to behave in a morally positive way. He said that if we are to go by this religion's line of thought that people prior to Christianity's birth were all rapists and burglars who suddenly came to realize "Oh, well, that is wrong", which, Fry argues, is not true. I will try looking for the source later, because it's a fascinating thought and I can't just let it go. It also implies that atheistic human beings can not act moral without some sort of a supervision, which isn't true, an example being myself having a civilized, polite and overall decent conversation about belief on a forum filled with such people, each of different beliefs. Stephen Fry has long been an opponent of Catholic church in particular and, it seems, Christianity in general, so you might want to be careful listening to him talk about those subjects. He calls himself a humanist, which sounds like something exactly down your lane, so you might want to research that further. I wonder how you see that working. Whom does this minority consist of, and why do they require fear of God to put them into their senses?but meditation can be done without need of believing in God
You have well questioned me on whether without God world will be selfish, in short you have questioned my faith on Humanity
So, for minority fear of God will be required
In the eyes of a benevolent God, no? After the golden calf in the Torah, God commanded Levi's to slay their kin. Even those who are "Children of the Book" according to Islam ended up in painful and inhumane conditions to this day at the hands of Muslim rulers (unfortunately, in a worse light modern day); those who weren't, worse so. Contrary, we can look to Akbar's reign in India, but that's a different matter. Ultimately, I guess I'm teasing your brain with regard to one's own definition of who, what and why is God, but with this I couldn't agree more.But after considering the viewpoints of many rational persons, and analysing my self that, look, if God was there, he would have prevented some of the most painful and inhumane conditions which some people do suffer, but no!
My personal opinion is all moral values in religions are worth abiding, and at least, the name of God is necessary to enforce conformity to those values.
Semester started yesterday, so the past couple of days have been a lot of last-minute rushing about getting everything ready to go. I'm TAing a senior/grad level class and I am excited to be able to have expectations of my students. Teaching intro classes is fun, but it's nice to expect people to know the basics & thus be able to spend time talking about the more interesting stuff. Some of my students this semester have been my students in the past, so I know I've got some sharp cookies. It's going to be fun & also too much C. I'm sitting in on a modern physics class this semester since I have approximate knowledge of how that stuff works but little formal/mathematical understanding. I'm used to graduate classes: the professor was discussing an example, and said, "we'll do the math for this on Friday" and I thought to myself, "but I want the math NOW!"
The course is called "Modern Physics"--I think it covers relativity and maybe some QM. I'm planning to sit in on some QM classes in the future, but I haven't taken a proper physics class since...2010? so I figured I'd start here. The example is the moving light clock one that demonstrates special relativity since the light must travel further as compared to the light in a stationary clock.
Those diagrams sure do look like a nice formalization of the stuff we were talking about, so I'll bet you're right. Susskind looks awesome! I'll let you know if I run into anything I want to know more on. Actually, there is one thing: do we have any more motivation for Einstein's special relativity postulates other than "it makes sense and, seriously, what other way would you try to formalize reality?"
Two nights ago I spent the night in a gated mansion overlooking the Puget Sound, drinking the night away and making a couple of new friends. It was easily the most irresponsible work-night I've had since starting full-time, and I was well late to work yesterday with a massive hangover. But that's okay, to have indulged in a great, incredibly interesting night. Life is mostly great right now, outside of being fairly certain I've torn something in a knee. The lack of fitness, which is driving me a bit crazy, is being filled with tinkering with things. Which is fun, but not quite as satisfying as a good run. But that will get better, and so will any other issues. And I think that's the biggest change in my mindset as of late, that everything will be okay. It just takes time.
Hopefully getting back into lifting for fun again. Mom bought me a fit bit, so I figured that was somehow a sign that it's time to get moving on a more regimented schedule again. I go for jogs a few times a week when the weather cooperates, but lifting has been out of my reach until now. My sister recently picked up baking, and has just went to town making some crazy delicious stuff, but this has placed a huge burden on my family who for the most part keeps a healthier diet. It's pretty cool though. What's not cool are these confirmation hearings though. I became pretty sick after watching Betsy DeVos' hearing.
I've been thinking about what motivates people to exercise recently. What makes so you find fun about lifting? What motivates you?Hopefully getting back into lifting for fun again.
It's a pretty meditative deal for me. I find it really helps me put things in perspective. It's just this time of the day where I go to exert a lot of energy, focus on pretty basic movements, and just breathe. With all that goes on day to day, lifting serves as a real way to refocus. It's also pretty cool when I lift a box at work, and it gets easier to pick up hahaha.
Had my first meeting with what will become the Patient Research Council for the Children's Hospital. We're designing a curriculum to teach our patient-advocates about the process of clinical research so that they are able to help investigators design observational and interventional protocols that patients will feel good about and follow to the letter. There's a systemic problem in pediatric clinical research, it's rare for investigators to finish a study with more than 50% of the patients they started with. In general, pediatric research has a tendency to produce spotty, low quality data and patient dissatisfaction is comparatively high. My groups goal is to bring satisfaction up and make the process less stressful for everyone involved by involving educated patient-advocates throughout the process of study design and initiation. Over the course of this meeting I brought up a draft of a system I had been working on to evaluate a clinical trials patient feasibility. How many hours they need to commit to the project at what frequency. What parts of the process are investigator/investigatory site initiated, what parts are patient initiated, travel requirements, possible Adverse Events, possible lasting effects post-protocol, stuff like that, and they LOVED IT. I've been asked to present my 'Patient Feasibility Assessment Tool' to an internal board that funds Research Methods Improvement, the head of the department of Health Sciences Education, and apply for a grant from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute to see if we can get funding to develop this project further. As it stands, we have ~400 'accredited' patient-advocates who are supposed to give feedback on clinical trials design, but at the moment their training and knowledge is nonstandard and spotty at the very best, and PI's don't put much stock in the feedback they get, they just see it as a step in the process of getting their study initiated. Our dream would be that a PA or board of PAs could be consulted when physicians are designing trials, so that the physicians are able to get a better understanding of what kinds of data they are able to get from the patient population, along what timetables, and what the obstacles are to study participation. One of these days I'm going to just accept the workload I have and not keep looking for more things to do. Edit* It's nice to feel wanted. Like your ideas mean something, and have value. This meeting felt like common sense stuff to me but they gobbled it up and asked for more. I must be doing something right.
It's been a year since I've started making videos on YouTube! It seems crazy, I feel like I'm only getting started. Recently, I went to Igloofest, this outside music festival and made a little vlog there: The thing is, Alex's sister got us another set of VIP tickets for this weekend for a better DJ (she works HR at a hotel and gets lots of free tickets for stuff like Cirque du Soleil and all). The evening is going to be a lot more wild - tickets are already sold out. And I'm really racking my brain on how to make the 2nd video more interesting instead of being more of the same... I've never really made the "same" video twice, could be a nice experiment.
So, #scificlub on Friday? I forgot again. So far I'm having a blast at the new job. Suddenly everything is comfortable and the stress is gone. I'm pretty happy about that. I've also been having fun messing around with some mini volca synthesizers that I got recently as a gift. I'll post some videos once I figure out how.
Thanks to the site-that-shall-not-be-named, I came across an awesome YouTube channel. It's from a guy who teaches Scandinavian stuff at UC Berkeley, specializing in Old Norse. He does videos about various aspects of this culture, and also has some lessons on the language itself (you know I've been going through those like it's going out of style). Otherwise, I'm just kind of in a holding pattern. Waiting 'til I can start taking students for reals, which will hopefully be soon, while trying to cope with work. It's about the worst possible job to have for someone of my mental layout, so I don't know if there really is a way to make peace with it other than just doing it less. Time will tell.
There will come a day where i have to make a hiring decision. When that day comes, woe shall be to poor bastards that grovel before me. I'm so fucking tired of hearing people say "I am not a computer person" and "I am not computer literate." We are now 1/8 the way into the 21st century. Technology and computer literacy are critical business processes. Learn, grow, evolve, or die. I got my lasers, started tinkering with them. So I am burning paper and setting matches on fire to sooth my nerves. Finally, I stood in line for 4 hours to get my passport because as a resident of Kenfuckey I can no longer use my driver's license to get into Federal buildings, military bases and at the end of the year, on an airplane. I was going to get my passport last year but ran out of time to do so. At least now i have the card and book so if I get fed up and want to travel I'm set with the paperwork at least. But don't worry everyone, our legislature got right to work on the important issues. Fuck me.
Abortion laws which don't even include exceptions for victims of rape? What kind of vile pieces of shit are in your legislature?
The basket of deplorable vermin would be an improvement. At least we have a sane CCW process. I am anticipating a loss of businesses coming into Kentucky as what happened with North Carolina. Anytime a politician mentions abortion they are either trying to pass truly fucked up shit and trying to get the heat off which is what happened here with the anti union law passed on the same day or that politician is in need of a fresh cash infusion and need to rouse the rabble for the attention and money.
It's been two weeks and I still haven't abandoned the "exercise a lot more this year" plan. My wife and I are doing it together, which helps a bunch, but it isn't without strain. We approach work and misery very differently. My approach is to just act like I enjoy the misery of the workout, because otherwise it's just miserable. And I'm motivated by the feeling of accomplishment that I just completed a good hard workout. She's not at all on board with the "enjoy the misery" approach and I'm not really sure what motivates her about working out. So I've got to be encouraging without being a sadistic ass, which rules out my instinctive approach.
I idly browsed at houses online today. rd95, are you still looking? I'm not in any rush; I currently own my condo and am semi-content with it. But I feel like it's time to look for a house. There's a really small one for sale (less than 900 square feet) a block off the lake for a fair price. The more notable thing is I feel less like leaving town and leaving my company than I have in the past. A few years ago I'd have rejected house shopping because staying here seemed no more likely than moving. Lately I feel more satisfied with where I am.
I wouldn't say we've stopped looking, but we've slowed our search down so much that I haven't talked to our real estate agent in over a month. I think both of us are a bit apprehensive for different reasons, so unless the perfect home falls into our lap for dirt cheap, we will probably hold off for a while.