[Malankazooie]

Going to be the fifth straight day of temps into the 90s. It's Bamboo sheet time.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Amazon and Google Shopping have both removed the option to exclude words from a search, making it a tremendous slog to find what I want. There's a partial workaround using Google's advanced search with site:Amazon.com but that requires clicking on a link to see the associated photo.

[Edit: doesn't work in Bing Shopping either. Ugh.]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 09 June 2021 - 08:30 PM

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

All search engines should support boolean operators.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Gwynn ap Nudd, on 10 June 2021 - 01:45 AM, said:

All search engines should support boolean operators.

Amazon and Google Shopping used to support '-' but now neither '-' nor 'NOT' work. See the comments here:

https://webapps.stac...rator-on-amazon

'It used to work, but as a few have said here, this method is broken, and there seems to be no current way to exclude keywords in Amazon search.'

I asked Google support directly, and they claimed there's no way to do it (I didn't bother pointing out the workaround).

Another significant drawback of using Google's general search engine instead is the inability to list them in order of price or filter by price range.

Seems like it shouldn't be too hard for a secondary website or app to do an Amazon or Google Shopping search then filter out pages including excluded terms, and display the main photo and price alongside the search results.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 10 June 2021 - 02:16 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Seems I'm having an allergic reaction to the vaccine.

[Mentalist]

played badminton in our backyard with my mom for about an hour last evening, to get her mind off all the crap she's dealing with while her parents are living with us.

Today my elbow is acting up. Probably arthritis from that dislocation I had 5 years ago.
It's only a 4/10 type pain, but it's annoying AF. especially when I'm trying to get something finished for a work deadline.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 10 June 2021 - 04:26 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Was thinking of walking down to a free music festival mainly to help desensitize myself to seeing/being around people in person again, but checked the route against a map of shootings and... first thought maybe it will be fine if it's not at night. Then I looked at when the shootings happened... plenty from 10 AM - 8 PM. In other shootings lots of random bystanders have been shot... sometimes people flee into shops, and the shooters follow them inside... shooting.

Too hot for my bulletproof hoodie unfortunately. Plate might hurt my back if I'm going to be standing for hours. Though I guess I could sit on the ground, maybe lay a large trash bag down on the grass.

Some of the music does seem interesting but I doubt they'll do anything too surprising relative to what I can hear online. If they're depending on amplification to be heard then my studio monitors should be as good or better, especially since it's not the sort of body-shaking bass music that would massively benefit from gigantic speakers.

Contemplating whether to go or not while chewing goji berries in my coffee, I bit my tongue pretty badly. Tbh I wanted to go to the festival partly as an excuse to show off my six pack and jacked legs. But I'd rather not get AIDS from a kiss. Since less than 50% of people under 44 in Philadelphia have been vaccinated I probably shouldn't be letting anyone kiss me anyway, even though I'm fully vaccinated---no long Covid for me (hopefully...).

[Edit: on reflection it might not be too hot for my bulletproof hoodie... only 76 degrees.]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 June 2021 - 02:46 PM

[Aptorian]

Are you okay mentally, Azath? You appear to be unusually worried about what should be fairly ordinary interaction with other people, pandemic or not.

Or do you just have a weird stats based sense of humour?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 12 June 2021 - 02:47 PM, said:

Are you okay mentally, Azath? You appear to be unusually worried about what should be fairly ordinary interaction with other people, pandemic or not.

Or do you just have a weird stats based sense of humour?

It's the getting shot I'm worried about in this case. But I do have pretty bad social anxiety / mild autism. Most people apparently have lots of anxiety about public speaking but minimal anxiety about 'ordinary' social interactions, but for me that's basically reversed. Plus the convulsions, blurred vision, aphasia and loss of motor control, etc. I have effective ways to handle it but gradual desensitization and practice should help. Tbh I have minimal to negative intrinsic interest in most ordinary social interactions, small talk, being part of a crowd, etc.

[Aptorian]

I can be terribly introverted outside of necessary service related social interactions, so I can relate some of the way. Just remember that statistics are just numbers and news headlines paint a blacker picture of urban life than is reality.

You can always talk to us about it if your anxiety gets the better of you.

For what it's worth, I'll bet you five dollars that you won't get shot if you go to that festival.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 12 June 2021 - 03:28 PM, said:

I can be terribly introverted outside of necessary service related social interactions, so I can relate some of the way. Just remember that statistics are just numbers and news headlines paint a blacker picture of urban life than is reality.

You can always talk to us about it if your anxiety gets the better of you.

For what it's worth, I'll bet you five dollars that you won't get shot if you go to that festival.

Probably not, but there have been multiple recent shootings in broad daylight on the exact streets I was planning on walking through. Doesn't seem worth the risk. Could try to take public transport or Uber though. I'd like to think people wouldn't shoot into a crowded festival, especially with children present, even though shootings have been happening near there... but there are multiple stories from this year of parks and parties being shot into in Philadelphia, children randomly getting shot in the crossfire. There have even been recent instances of shootings in the subway. If I can get similar densensitization practice in a less dangerous area, that seems like the rational thing to do, even though I'd almost certainly prefer the musical performances at the festival over those at the safer location I might walk to (slightly longer walk).

[Malankazooie]

Fuck man. Christian Eriksen (Denmark) collapsing on the field in match against Finland.

[Aptorian]

Yeah, the Danish commentators are very subdued. I think they're worried he's had a heart attack or something similar.

Silver lining is that the Stadium is a couple hundred meters from the biggest national hospital.

Edit: They just reported that he's conscious. That's a relief.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 12 June 2021 - 05:31 PM

[Malankazooie]

That's encouraging. The way he just went down was terrible to see.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Hadn't bothered looking up shootings at my 'safe' alternative event location (basically next to City Hall)... until I was reading an article on gun violence and noticed this photo:



Turns out there have been three shootings there so far this year... 5 PM, 8 PM, 11:30 PM. That's not too terrible. There were plenty of police there too, which on a visceral level made me feel a little more uncomfortable because my symptoms can make me look 'sketchy' and 'suspicious' if they're too obvious, and I have been harassed and beaten by the police (couldn't walk for days after the first time), but they rarely stop me (if I were Black they'd have been after me much more I'm sure), and the police presence almost certainly helps dissuade potential shooters (passionate and reckless as they may be... and aside from the police themselves).

On the route I had planned on walking it looks like there have been about 20 reported shootings this year. (About a 12.35% chance of a reported shooting on any given day.) However, with my bulletproof hoodie it doesn't seem extremely dangerous---the odds of a stray bullet hitting me in the face (or the crotch) seem vanishingly small. Getting shot in the leg / arm / butt would be pretty inconvenient though....

And that's only counting cases where someone was actually hit and it was reported to the police:

'Deemika Brown doesn't need a stat sheet to tell her gun violence is surging in the city.

The streets in her section of West Philadelphia are all the evidence she needs.

"The gunshots are daily," she said. "It's totally different from before."'

https://whyy.org/articles/philly-shootings-more-than-doubled-in-2020-experts-dont-see-easy-changes-ahead/#:~:text=Deemika%20Brown%20doesn't%20need,It's%20totally%20different%20from%20before.%E2%80%9D

There's an interactive map, updated daily:

https://controller.p...violence/#/2021

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 12 June 2021 - 11:21 PM

[Morgoth]

Aptorian, on 12 June 2021 - 05:27 PM, said:

Yeah, the Danish commentators are very subdued. I think they're worried he's had a heart attack or something similar.

Silver lining is that the Stadium is a couple hundred meters from the biggest national hospital.

Edit: They just reported that he's conscious. That's a relief.

That was intense and deeply sad, it felt like wathcing someone die on direct tv. The whole pub exploded in applause and relief when we got the news he'd survived. We were all thinking he was dead at that point.

[Maark Abbott]

Board down for a few days?

[Vengeance]

Nope. Nothing to see citizen. Move along

[Tapper]

Vengeance, on 17 June 2021 - 11:42 AM, said:

Nope. Nothing to see citizen. Move along

Glad to see the authorities are firmly in control.

[Malankazooie]

Supposed to hit the century mark again today. Oppressive oven at night when trying to sleep. Have been a week into this now. We are only at the mid-point of June. Has to be the earliest this level of heat has taken hold during summer months. Concerned about the next couple of months. Hoping there is a break in the pattern.