The not-so-serious but I want to rant thread.

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Cajungal

Staff member
BOOOOO. My father warned me that the medicine I'm on might make me feel hungry all the time. I've eaten a normal amount of food today, but I feel like I haven't eaten anything. At first it didn't bug me, but now I'm feeling very uncomfortable. :(
 
Guess I'll rant to let off some steam. Our recent 3rd for fun has recently been reclusive and distant. After being really aggressive the last few weeks, she's suddenly withdrawn and shying away. Annoyed cause we were supposed to have a get together last night and came up empty handed. :mad:
 
4 nights, no sleep. Starting to get depressed and my girlfriend is away fro 10 days.I need to find something to lift my spirits fast.

Also, I'm with calleja, chick was fine for her age, and depending on the country also possibly legal. ITS NOT CREEPY TO ADMIRE BEAUTY AT ANY AGE!

Also also, I volunteer to be a 3rd for fun, but I'm afraid I may miss key elements you are looking for.
 
A

Andromache

you wouldn't be the 3rd, you'd be the prop. and eventually part of the set.
 
A

Andromache

or build your own still. Or nearly blow yourself up trying, like my wife's uncle did.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Yesterday, it was a nice day, so as I drove home for lunch, I had my window down. A lot of people did. Including the two people ahead of me at a stoplight. The car on the left was a shiny new nissan full of high school kids, the car on the right was a regular, if dirty, domestic of no distinguishing characteristic other than the overweight man driving it.

For some reason, just as the light turns green, the kid in the nissan's passenger seat decides it'd be funny to scream out the window at the other man, "QUIT EATING, FATASS!"

I wanted to yell back, "He may be fat, but you're ugly and retarded, and at least he can diet. You're stuck with it." But as soon as the kid had yelled, the nissan had floored it.

Punk kids, I tell ya.
 
I never understood why kids do that. Does it win them some cool points, or something, insulting someone in a drive-by so that the person has no possible recourse, even if he could beat the little snot to within an inch of his life?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I never understood why kids do that. Does it win them some cool points, or something, insulting someone in a drive-by so that the person has no possible recourse, even if he could beat the little snot to within an inch of his life?
Our youth are humanity distilled to its purest form, before societal programming hammers them into acceptable shape, and some are shaped better than others. You have to teach a child not to hit, steal, lie. At our most basic, we are all douchebags. That, and contemporary pop culture has been a celebration of the brazen douchebag for the last 20-someodd years.
 

fade

Staff member
On the other hand, that unaffixed thinking pattern is a beautiful thing. So much of our thinking is shaped by our education, sometimes to our detriment. We convince ourselves things are hard or impossible when we don't realize we're just conforming our brains to some learned pattern. Ask Lord Kelvin about it, preferably in an airplane. Or ask a guy who sucked at rigorous university physics, only to have a flash of inspiration while watching a clock tower recede from the rear bus window, partly because he sucked at established physics.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Particularly how some of my students make things hard because they think these things should be. Like quantum mechanics. The only reason it's "weird" is because we tell ourselves it is. Why can't a photon be two places at once?
 
Well, when you go into quantum mechanics it's not JUST indoctrination that makes it weird, I'll agree it does to some extent, but in this case it's also that our brains just aren't wired to naturally understand more than 3 dimensions. You need to really give yourself headaches wrapping your head around the concept of the hypercube or somesuch.

I went through that when I read Flatland. Such a good book.
 

fade

Staff member
Sure, there's math to deal with, but I will argue that I think learned perception has a lot to do with inability to grasp. I don't agree that it's a natural inability to understand more than three dimensions. To give you an example, most of my students have no problem with n-dimensional problems as long as the n dimensions are not tied to physical ones. For example, a one second sample of sound from a CD has 44,100 dimensions, and no one has trouble visualizing it. But if you throw in spatial dimensions, they have brain freeze. I think that's more nurture than nature. Anyway, it's not just about the multidimensionality. It's more the behavior of quanta that people have trouble accepting because it doesn't act like the world they've been introduced to.

Lest ye think I'm alone in this:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/17/2231022.aspx

Oh, and a nice kid-friendly intro to the double slit experiment, that I'm willing to bet a 5 year old will grasp before a 25 year old:
 
Well, maybe it IS indoctrination, but not indoctrination by our culture in this case... but just experience from living in a three dimensional world, exclusively.
 

fade

Staff member
I agree and disagree. Physics programs don't teach quantum mechanics until late in the undergraduate career. Before that, you're filled with classical mechanics, which is fine and dandy. But suddenly, you're expected to supplement all this stuff you've learned one way to the new way of thinking. That's hard because you've spent study and classwork visualizing it one way.
 
The whole "Cameron thought it all up" premise is a little weak for me because if that were the case, you wouldn't really see Ferris if Cameron wasn't around... or at least HE'D be the narrator. Tyler Durden was never seen without norton's character, for instance. But you get PLENTY of Ferris time without Cameron, plenty of secondary characters hating on Ferris, Ferris' family.. etc.. with Cameron nowhere to be seen.
 

fade

Staff member
It's deconstruction at its best.

You know what I loved? The episode of Northern Exposure where Chris defends his thesis, and realizes that sometimes deconstruction fouls the beauty of the straight read. Awesome episode of an awesome show.
 
Frakkin' Nostalgia!

I am not a practicing Catholic, but I still observe Lent. So for lunch I was looking for some Fish. Then I remembered that I have not had a McD's Fillet o Fish sandwich in a long time. I remembered it being one of the most tasty things on their menu. Not so. It was the blandest damn thing I've eaten in years.

I don't know if the Sandwich is worse, or I've spoiled my taste-buds eating all that Mexican, Cajun, and Soul Food.
 

Cajungal

Staff member
Why am I pissed at everything and everyone today? Damnit I'm cranky. A cranky, cranky bitch. *hits head* Bad Seej.
 
Man I went to bed at a decent time (10:00 p.m) and yet I still feel exhausted. Either the comicon really wore me out or I am fighting something. Whatever it may be I hope it goes away soon.
 

Cajungal

Staff member
Man I went to bed at a decent time (10:00 p.m) and yet I still feel exhausted. Either the comicon really wore me out or I am fighting something. Whatever it may be I hope it goes away soon.
Take care of yourself! Make sure you eat well and drink plenty of water. :) Hope you're just a little worn out.
 
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