[Gorefest]

I had a kidney stone 6 years ago. Worst pain of my life. Great anekdote from it, though. So swings and roundabouts. Pain for a day, fun for a lifetime.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 18 July 2023 - 12:23 PM, said:

...
New messing with groove.....yesterday on the subway on the way home I was non-verbally threatened. ...
I stil ride the TTC, but my head is on a swivel constantly and when I see anyone who looks even remotely off...I willl get off and get on the next one. The only reason I didn't notice this guy and avoid him when he got on was I was into my audio book and wasn't paying attention. That's it for my AirPods in the immediate future...I'm not going to be distracted again.

Less of an issue in Ottawa but still an issue, definitely a thing in Mtl tho i suspect TO is still worse.
Public transport shouldn't be an exercise in self-defence and conflict management. Mental health and drug addiction are problems that need to be addressed, but a few more transit cops would go a long way to letting the rest of the public move from A to B without being threatened, intimidated, etc. I take the point made by the 'more cops are never the answer' people, but it seems like those people don't take public transit much (and neither do i - i ack my privileges - but almost every time i do i see some version of this). I'm less concerned w the rights of some methhead than the person he's targeting.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 18 July 2023 - 04:35 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 18 July 2023 - 12:23 PM, said:

...
New messing with groove.....yesterday on the subway on the way home I was non-verbally threatened. ...
I stil ride the TTC, but my head is on a swivel constantly and when I see anyone who looks even remotely off...I willl get off and get on the next one. The only reason I didn't notice this guy and avoid him when he got on was I was into my audio book and wasn't paying attention. That's it for my AirPods in the immediate future...I'm not going to be distracted again.

Less of an issue in Ottawa but still an issue, definitely a thing in Mtl tho i suspect TO is still worse.
Public transport shouldn't be an exercise in self-defence and conflict management. Mental health and drug addiction are problems that need to be addressed, but a few more transit cops would go a long way to letting the rest of the public move from A to B without being threatened, intimidated, etc. I take the point made by the 'more cops are never the answer' people, but it seems like those people don't take public transit much (and neither do i - i ack my privileges - but almost every time i do i see some version of this). I'm less concerned w the rights of some methhead than the person he's targeting.

I would say that the problem would lessen if we pulled an NYC and put a cop-booth at each station on the lines, and staffed them with an officer or at the very least a security agent...these people are doing this with such reckless abandon because they KNOW their chances of getting caught and charged are vanishingly small. Hell, even when you pull the yellow strip the train will stop but the doors won't open so if you are in there with a crazy person, you have to wait till the cops show.

I have an example from this morning (why yes, this IS a daily occurrence on the TTC, why do you ask?)...outside my station as I approached it to get on the subway I saw a clearly homeless and unhinged (probably tweaking) dude accosting a TTC worker who had seemingly kicked him out of the station....the crazy dude was leaning into the guys personal space and the TTC operator had to keep pushing him in the chest to keep him off him....he was ranting....and as I passed by (within about 15feet of them) to go down into the station proper the crazy guy lunged after me, so I jogged down the stairs and through the gates in case he skirted around the TTC worker trying to keep him corralled. My adrenaline pumps at LEAST once a day from these occurrences. It's like a little game of "keep yourself alive and uninjured" just to get to work. This station is in one of the most affluent parts of Toronto to boot.

Hell, my street is pretty well to do for a Toronto street.....but my gods, the tweaked out people on that "next level" meth....they care about nothing and no-one....like if they see you walking up the opposite side of the street they will cross that street to come harangue you, traffic be damned...they could give a fuck. Right before I saw the above guy and the TTC operate tussling, I saw a methhead at the corner before the station stamping on the road and yelling at pasebye...they clumped around me at the stop light begging for the light to change to get away from him.

These people are so random and chaotic....you can think "I'll be fine if I just go by them, or past them"....but they will follow you.

I saw a TikTok video of a girl taping her time on the TTC as a homeless methhead (known to people) verbally accosted her for the whole trip and he kept saying "If you get up and move seats, or get off the train I'm fucking following you"....Again, it's that Next Level meth that makes these people feel like invicible berserkers.

[RealGatekeeper1]

I met a Malazan fan on Twitter. & he’s super MAGA. His @ is something to do with “KarsaOrlong69” & I’m sad.

[amphibian]

RealGatekeeper1, on 18 July 2023 - 11:18 PM, said:

I met a Malazan fan on Twitter. & he’s super MAGA. His @ is something to do with “KarsaOrlong69” & I’m sad.

Sorry about that. There's plenty of Malazan fans who are far, far away from that ideology.

I hope you're able to bounce back and stay chill.

[Tiste Simeon]

amphibian, on 19 July 2023 - 01:07 PM, said:

RealGatekeeper1, on 18 July 2023 - 11:18 PM, said:

I met a Malazan fan on Twitter. & he’s super MAGA. His @ is something to do with “KarsaOrlong69” & I’m sad.

Sorry about that. There's plenty of Malazan fans who are far, far away from that ideology.

I hope you're able to bounce back and stay chill.

It always baffles me when people on the extreme right seem to like Erikson. It's like, have you read his stuff at all?

But then again a lot of them claim to be Christian and seem to be completely and utterly the opposite of what Jesus taught so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

[Abyss]

Tiste Simeon, on 19 July 2023 - 08:30 PM, said:

amphibian, on 19 July 2023 - 01:07 PM, said:

RealGatekeeper1, on 18 July 2023 - 11:18 PM, said:

I met a Malazan fan on Twitter. & he's super MAGA. His @ is something to do with "KarsaOrlong69" & I'm sad.

Sorry about that. There's plenty of Malazan fans who are far, far away from that ideology.

I hope you're able to bounce back and stay chill.

It always baffles me when people on the extreme right seem to like Erikson. It's like, have you read his stuff at all?

But then again a lot of them claim to be Christian and seem to be completely and utterly the opposite of what Jesus taught so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

These are likely the same people who insist that past Star Trek, Captain America, and Superman, were never political.

[QuickTidal]

A packed theatre for OPPENHEIMER was probably the cause (as I have not been anywhere else with lots of people for a prologued amount of time)...but I've been progressively down with a stomach bug of some kind since Saturday/Sun...I took yesterday off but am back at work today....and still getting waves of nausea though...this shit is going to last the week isn't it? Ugh. I hate that due to some contagious clown who just HAD to go to the movies while sick.. that I'm now down with a virus because of that selfishness...

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 26 July 2023 - 12:53 PM

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 26 July 2023 - 12:52 PM, said:

A packed theatre for OPPENHEIMER was probably the cause (as I have not been anywhere else with lots of people for a prologued amount of time)...but I've been progressively down with a stomach bug of some kind since Saturday/Sun...I took yesterday off but am back at work today....and still getting waves of nausea though...this shit is going to last the week isn't it? Ugh. I hate that due to some contagious clown who just HAD to go to the movies while sick.. that I'm now down with a virus because of that selfishness...

That sucks. Hope you have a fast recovery.

Still avoiding early-in-the-run movies and big crowd events for these reasons. It's not like this wasn't a thing before covid, but with the extra bonus to avoid... meh. I hate that i have to perform this analysis before committing to some things that used to be an automatic yes, but i'm around too many vulnerable people and being taken out for a week would be too much inconvenience to not.

[Slow Ben]

Another sign I’m getting older. I used to LOVE a packed theater.

Now if I go and there’s someone within 5 feet of me I turn into Dwight. “There’s too many people on this earth. We need a new plague”.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 26 July 2023 - 02:29 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 26 July 2023 - 12:52 PM, said:

A packed theatre for OPPENHEIMER was probably the cause (as I have not been anywhere else with lots of people for a prologued amount of time)...but I've been progressively down with a stomach bug of some kind since Saturday/Sun...I took yesterday off but am back at work today....and still getting waves of nausea though...this shit is going to last the week isn't it? Ugh. I hate that due to some contagious clown who just HAD to go to the movies while sick.. that I'm now down with a virus because of that selfishness...

That sucks. Hope you have a fast recovery.

Still avoiding early-in-the-run movies and big crowd events for these reasons. It's not like this wasn't a thing before covid, but with the extra bonus to avoid... meh. I hate that i have to perform this analysis before committing to some things that used to be an automatic yes, but i'm around too many vulnerable people and being taken out for a week would be too much inconvenience to not.

Yeah this is going to be me now for the foreseeable future. It'a simply not worth the downtime.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Slow Ben, on 26 July 2023 - 05:57 PM, said:

Another sign I'm getting older. I used to LOVE a packed theater.

Now if I go and there's someone within 5 feet of me I turn into Dwight. "There's too many people on this earth. We need a new plague".

Never particularly liked crowded places but there were reasons I'd tolerate them. Now they make me incredibly twitchy and I tend towards total avoidance as much as possible.

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 27 July 2023 - 04:22 AM, said:

Slow Ben, on 26 July 2023 - 05:57 PM, said:

Another sign I'm getting older. I used to LOVE a packed theater.

Now if I go and there's someone within 5 feet of me I turn into Dwight. "There's too many people on this earth. We need a new plague".

Never particularly liked crowded places but there were reasons I'd tolerate them. Now they make me incredibly twitchy and I tend towards total avoidance as much as possible.

I'm the same as both of you normally. In fact if we are somewhere and it starts to get too busy my wife will look over at me with concern knowing I'll react to it with anxiety, and she'll ask if we should bail.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 26 July 2023 - 12:52 PM, said:

A packed theatre for OPPENHEIMER was probably the cause (as I have not been anywhere else with lots of people for a prologued amount of time)...but I've been progressively down with a stomach bug of some kind since Saturday/Sun...I took yesterday off but am back at work today....and still getting waves of nausea though...this shit is going to last the week isn't it? Ugh. I hate that due to some contagious clown who just HAD to go to the movies while sick.. that I'm now down with a virus because of that selfishness...

Yeah, best to avoid crowded indoor spaces, and of course wear a P100 mask or effective equivalent (people who might be affected by wildfire smoke should have P100 masks or fit-tested N95 masks anyway). I also try to always avoid touching public surfaces with my hands (open doors with my sleeve, etc.), avoid touching my face/eyes (glasses or goggles are good for this, even if you don't need glasses---they'll also help protect you against infected spittle (and ocular transmission more generally)), and wash my hands.

Overcrowding at Oppenheimer is almost certainly exacerbated by:

Quote

'Croppenheimer': Only 30 theaters in the world to show Oppenheimer the way Christopher Nolan intended

IMAX 70mm [...] Seven of them are in California, one of which is in San Francisco, while there are two in both Michigan and Texas. Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Georgia and Florida also each have an IMAX 70mm location. Providence, Rhode Island, is the nearest location to Boston.

The rest of the cinemas are in Canada, the UK, Australia and the Czech Republic

'Croppenheimer': Only 30 theaters in the world to show Oppenheimer the way Christopher Nolan intended (msn.com)

So if you live in Central or Eastern Europe--Czech Republic it is then?... They're going to get so sick.... (Kidding---partly.)

There are three in the UK---one in Manchester, two in London. So I imagine lots of people from Western Europe will be importing their germs to the London theaters.


Of course in virtual reality the screen can be any size you want.

And your spouse can look and sound like anyone you want (well, once they sort out the legal kinks and port over the existing technology, at least)....

[Gust Hubb]

The whole UFO thing is really fucking with my head. I feel like everything just keeps getting weirder and more unhinged. UFOs, like ghosts, were always a fringe interest to my mind, something I wished was real but that seemed too sketch to be more than a prank or deranged elements in the population. And now we seem to have hard evidence that aliens exist? I mean, at this point I am so mentally exhausted, I am relatively non-plussed. Just another day as a xennial, another world breaking event popping up on the tiktok feed. Moving onto the failure of the Atlantic Conveyor Belt.

I think about preparing for the future, saving, maybe (if the market crashes) buying a home if the billionaires get eaten as a rich meal, etc. But I feel like day-to-day living makes more sense because, fuck, is that Ukrainian nuclear plant gonna be blown up and Europe become a no-go zone? Is the next round of super-hurricanes going to finally lead to the Southerner diaspora up north? Is the UPS strike going to bring the economy down yet? And can Elon fucking turn off that stupid X logo on his building?

I don't know if the rest of you feel this, but I swear I live with two mindsets simultaneously: in one, I do my job, watch a few horrible things happen to the world, work into old age, and hope my kids aren't hurt too much by the future they inherited. In the other mindset, the world as we know it ends tomorrow, and I expect to survive a Walking Dead world (certain not to last long myself) where any semblance of consistency no longer exists. And I genuinely think both seem equally likely. And stupid, motherfucking UFOs just make me feel like this duality isn't inconsistent with the world with which I am presented. Some days I wonder how we just go to work, come home, make dinner, and get 7-8 hours of sleep before rinsing and repeating again. But what else are we to do really?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Gust Hubb, on 30 July 2023 - 06:30 AM, said:

The whole UFO thing is really fucking with my head. I feel like everything just keeps getting weirder and more unhinged. UFOs, like ghosts, were always a fringe interest to my mind, something I wished was real but that seemed too sketch to be more than a prank or deranged elements in the population. And now we seem to have hard evidence that aliens exist? I mean, at this point I am so mentally exhausted, I am relatively non-plussed. Just another day as a xennial, another world breaking event popping up on the tiktok feed. Moving onto the failure of the Atlantic Conveyor Belt.

I think about preparing for the future, saving, maybe (if the market crashes) buying a home if the billionaires get eaten as a rich meal, etc. But I feel like day-to-day living makes more sense because, fuck, is that Ukrainian nuclear plant gonna be blown up and Europe become a no-go zone? Is the next round of super-hurricanes going to finally lead to the Southerner diaspora up north? Is the UPS strike going to bring the economy down yet? And can Elon fucking turn off that stupid X logo on his building?

I don't know if the rest of you feel this, but I swear I live with two mindsets simultaneously: in one, I do my job, watch a few horrible things happen to the world, work into old age, and hope my kids aren't hurt too much by the future they inherited. In the other mindset, the world as we know it ends tomorrow, and I expect to survive a Walking Dead world (certain not to last long myself) where any semblance of consistency no longer exists. And I genuinely think both seem equally likely. And stupid, motherfucking UFOs just make me feel like this duality isn't inconsistent with the world with which I am presented. Some days I wonder how we just go to work, come home, make dinner, and get 7-8 hours of sleep before rinsing and repeating again. But what else are we to do really?

No hard evidence has been presented; only very questionable testimony claiming that such evidence exists but is being covered up. The government denies it.

It's also important to distinguish between unidentified flying objects (or UAPs, 'unidentified anomalous phenomena') and aliens. For example, pilots may have sighted highly classified new drone technologies. Or they may, especially under the influence of fatigue or the effects of flying on our visual system, have mistaken natural phenomena for technology; the brain is much more adept at hallucination, especially under unusual lighting and motion conditions and when fatigued, than most people seem to understand.

From the perspectives of logic, rational ethics, and the empirical study of reality (cross-cultural history, physics, etc.), human existence has always been strange, terrible, and radically contingent. You missed living through WWII and the pervasive fear of imminent nuclear annihilation, but the white swans of doom are gathering brightly on the horizon now. The boiling has been obvious for decades (at least), but now it's accelerating. New distillations may emerge from the spiralling clouds of steam (like engines launching Earth's leaps into the future, and perhaps beyond itself...).

[JPK]

My boss/friend passed away really suddenly this past week and I'm trying to do anything I can to help support his family. I know times are hard right now, and none of you know the people involved but if you have anything you could pitch in on this I would be beyond grateful.

https://www.gofundme...source=customer

[Macros]

in 20 years on sites I have never given less of a fuck about a project than the one I am currently on right now.

Yes I have become frustrated with the background politicing before and all that jazz, but this site takes top level incompetence to a new level.

Coupled with a workforce that is 50% fucking lazy/stupid/I don't fuck know

And I can make probably as much money in Dublin just being an idiot on the tools paid from the neck down

Why the fuck do I bother?

I go on holidays 4th September, so very tempted to hand in my notice and make that a finish date

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Grimes: Elon Isn’t Transphobic, He Just Hates ‘Woke Culture’

[...] she did sit down with him for “a big, long conversation” about “the trans thing” after their breakup [...] also shared that Musk “steals a lot of my memes,” and took credit for the idea of challenging Zuckerberg to a literal dick-measuring contest. “I was like, why don’t you cut to the chase and get out a ruler,” she said. “I didn’t think he was going to tweet it.”

Grimes: Elon Isn’t Transphobic, He Just Hates ‘Woke Culture’ (thedailybeast.com)

Boo... use your swords, not your words, Grimes!

Then again, maybe she shouldn't behead him... until after she slices off some other parts first.

[QuickTidal]

Being waitlisted for T Swift in Toronto when there are 6 shows (that's 300k tickets avail total over those 6 nights)...is irritating and feels shitty. I understand a lottery system for verified presale is probably the best version of a fair system to let people get tickets, but it's still REALLY shitty to be at the whims of such a system that basically locks me out a day before the sale like this. I'd rather take my chances in the wild west of the "queue" of old....which yes, I understand is susceptible to bots...but fuck me then DO something about the bots!

Arg. I am Jacks petulant rage. The only thing keeping me even middle calm is that I saw her on the Reputation tour, so I have at least SEEN her in concert....but still....annoyed.