Dusty Chalk

I'm reading Chasm City, and the main character has a condition (induced night vision) that leads to glowing eyes. I giggle and think of the cat/lasers meme every time they mention it, and at this pic, too.

No they do not have the right to feel safe -- do you feel safe? Ah, but you're an adult with experience and know better, that makes it okay? A little background: I was raised with -- what's the expression? -- an over-protective mother. She told me not to go near the window without a shirt on because I could tempt someone to rape me. I hadn't even figured out what sleeping together meant yet. Seriously. Thanks mom. Ignorance is ... out the window. EDIT #1: My point being -- I didn't feel any safer. On the contrary, I felt less safe, because my mom felt that situational awareness would make me safer. I should also point out that "feeling safer" and 'being safer" are two different things. Do I have another solution? Yes -- live. Be normal. Be exemplary. Shun the fear-mongers. Be able to take care of yourself with the small fraction of bullies who are bigger/more violent/more successful at being bullies than you, with whom diplomatic solutions don't work. Use sunscreen. 99.9% of the time, everything will be alright. It's a chance you have to take. The alternative is to be raised home-schooled by hippies, as fucked up as the children in Dogtooth. Good luck with that. Over-protective doesn't work -- not just because of the psychological ramifications, but because it does not prevent anything -- do you know what? My chances of getting raped changed from almost nothing to that same quantum of almost nothing. Same goes for the over-protected -- your chances of being a victim of violence are exactly the same -- and I don't mean number, I mean conceptually -- small, trivial, non-probable, but possible. You can live in fear, or you can get over it. EDIT #2 -- I agree with everything grawk said, not because he's grawk, but because he's right.

Huzzah.

It's got nothing to do with hobbyism, it's got to do with self-defense. I realize most of us don't consider home invasion on that scale as worthy of consideration outside of the movies, but if I were that rich, I would want my bodyguards to have that kind of caliber weapons. At home, not in a gun club. I think Expanding Man's statistics say more about the mental health of his country than it does about gun control. Sorry, Al, but I gotta disagree completely. My argument is not that I'm throwing up my hands on the efficacy of gun control, but that it will only affect the law-abiding citizens, which tilts things into the "makes things worse" direction. If a homicidal and potentially suicidal nut job wants access, he will get it. And I'm not saying having bigger guns will make the nut job stop, I'm saying it won't make any difference -- the real solution is knowledge -- educate the masses on mental health, and continued efforts by undercover police to find the terrorists before they attack. That sort of thing. There have been many success stories of FBI agents stopping murder sprees before they happen -- that is the solution. More like this.

There are others who disagree whole-heartedly with gun control, please let's not make this personal and call anyone out on anything.

I don't know what all those are -- what is that sphere in the upper left? Also, what is that blue and yellow thing next to Da Terminator? Also -- do you know what is cool about that pic? It's mostly black and white. I've wanted to do that -- not with photoshop, mind you, but with a judicious choice of props -- all of which were in black, white, or various shades of grey.

No, put it here. I'd be more than happy to see a gun control/pro gun argument thread deteriorate into a condolences thread instead of the other way around for a change.

According to at least one bystander, it was supposed to be a particularly safe area. If you need to go to that sort of extreme in the safe areas, you're basically suggesting that we need to do this everywhere. We do not need to do this everywhere. It's a statistical thing -- you take a chance leaving your home, going to school, going to work, heck, you take a chance breathing. Heck, you take a chance living as a hermit in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Nothing is safe, and we can't protect against every possible contingency. It's just not financially feasible. One thing we can do is educate. It would have been nice if there was a plan, and if the teachers knew what to do besides lock their doors and cower, although I'm not sure what else they could have done. In terms of snapping, this will always happen. I heard a psychologist on the radio discuss how the best thing we can do for nutjobs like this is to ignore them, because they do it for the attention. But in a free society with such an aggressive journalist force, that will never happen. I'm not talking sensationalization -- this sort of story is self-sensationalizing. Reporting this story in the most understated matter will still have a sensationalizing effect. It's unavoidable. So the best thing we can do is tut-tut over the losses, start with the man in the mirror and try to lead a normal healthy life both physically and mentally, do your best not to be that guy, and move on, because otherwise the terrorists win.

Blue Stahli DJing 2am Drive to Nowhere, Vols. 1 & 2

Seriously.

no, teh purp rules

I probably should have punctuated it thusly:

A fucking outstanding megamix made up entirely of Kraftwerk samples (free download) (Knucks -- it's over 23 minutes long, so it's crap-worthy) EDIT: And now the Depeche Mode one (I recommend listening to this one first, actually).

Yes, I know, but phone-blat is so much more phun to say.

...which I shall henceforth pronounce, phoneblet (fōn-blat) <3_____<3 Nom nom nom quad core nom nom nom real estate

Pfff.

We lost the ability to post under Infinite Dark. And I did delete mah cookies from head-case, and didn't find any to delete under ipscdn.com.

What? There was only one season of Dresden Files? I was just getting into the chemistry between Dresden and Murph. And there's only 2.5 seasons of Torchwood? Just finished season two, going to switch over to another season of the doctor (yay! Kylie Minogue!), then will go back and finish Torchwood.

http://meetattheairport.com/ So the concept is, you are seated next to the person next to you for longer than some dates, might as well make it a date. You get a movie, food, drink...who knows where it will lead? Well, alright, you know exactly where it will lead, but...you get my meaning. Oh, and I just heard this on a news story on mainstream radio.

If the kid isn't spoiled by used to SSD computer yet, then she'll be fine. Besides, it's hers, she'll be happy just to have one of her own. For the record -- I'm not an SSD guy, and I kind of don't want to become one, because they don't last as long as regular hard drives. The technology for all those reads and writes aren't completely worked out yet.

Agreed. That's terrible, Jacob. Chris -- I hope your machine is up to the task. Samich -- congrats! Stretch -- Please tell me one of those names is not Wolfram, Lovecraft, nor Hart...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=538986142779369&set=a.511276265550357.118088.508674659143851&type=1&ref=nf'>Facebook link for those that are going to repost it there.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the other good one.

It's got nothing to do with the motor -- it has to emulate human wrist movement, how good does it need to be? -- but rather the proximity to the watch and lack of shielding. I think. Feel free to obtain second opinions.