Posts by BenWilson
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I wish I could get the placebo effect more often, it sounds quite wicked.
-
What's with all the bitching about bike helmets?
Kind of obvious really. They're hot, uncomfortable, and they mess your hair up. They make your head stink, and generate sweat which runs into your eyes. They're another thing you have to carry around. They take away the nice feeling of the wind in your hair. There is no denying that they reduce the enjoyment of cycling.
Yup, you're more at risk. I fully accept that. You're also at risk not wearing a helmet in a car, and a lot more people die from head injuries in cars than on pushbikes. Do you wear a helmet in your car?
I'm not saying we shouldn't wear them, but they do take a little something away. They reduce the enjoyment of cycling - that is a fact.
Being as alert as possible won't stop some blind retard from opening their car door just as you go past
That's why I ride very carefully past parked cars. Whizzing by them is the retarded act, much like speeding around corners. Yeah, that also takes the fun out of cycling too, to have to slow down when it's really dangerous, but there you go - if you're into safety, then sorry man, less fun. I also ride on the footpath when going uphill.
Bikes are inherently unsafe. Of course the individual should do what they can to minimize risk. But there's an obvious trade off point that everyone reaches when they realize the safest thing to do with a pushbike is never to ride it at all. I will not cycle wearing body armor. I don't get a WOF check done every 6 months. The helmet I have doesn't protect the face. I don't have carbon fibre brakes. My bike doesn't have a bell, or a light, or indicators, or brake lights, or a bumper, or padding on the bar, or a crumple zone, or a roll cage. It's just a cheap and fun way to dick around in spare time.
-
I don't think anyone who hasn't been there can really understand how shitty and utterly powerless you feel at the very notion of choking down medication.
Yeah, I felt that way when my doctor told me I was asthmatic. It was news to me since I've always been fit. I told him I don't get short of breath when exercising, or have any attacks or any of the other symptoms I've seen in people who are very asthmatic. He told me that it was a simple factor of my response to Ventolin, that it increased my capacity. He then put me on Flixotide. But I don't take it any more since the side effect of a permanent cough was not worth the unobservable-without-a-peak-flow-meter improvement to my already high lung capacity. And, as you say, the feeling of powerlessness and being chained to a medication was simply .... depressing.
-
Bicycles move pretty fast too, and give you all the protection your own skin can provide.
But I personally don't like helmets. I can see the argument for children, and unfortunately modeling is a powerful force so adults really have to wear them as an example. But I don't like them and they do put me off cycling.
I think there's a great deal of discretion in it though. I seldom wear a helmet, and I've driven past lots of traffic police who didn't care. They could see I was an adult riding carefully along with their head up, looking for danger, rather than a kid, or a fitness nut staring at the ground in front with about 90% of their concentration focussed on the pain in their legs. Or worst of all, the selfish kind that ride side by side, or right in the middle of the lane.
-
If I had the 3 remaining viable candidates as applicants for a senior project management role in a business environment, I'd take Hillary.
Me too, but President isn't a project manager. Being inspiring is the major part of the job. It's not like they don't have actual project managers in their employ, any of whom is more qualified than Clinton. That's why I'm always skeptical about the leaders who are presented on account of their other talents, like deep knowledge of economics, or having run successful businesses. Then they start to feel like they're a puppeteer, rather than a spokesperson. They start thinking the whole 'commander in chief' means a lot more than it was intended to.
-
You were lucky!
Yeah, my boss made me use IE, because we were a Microsoft Development Partner (I think that was the title you got if you purchased their development environment and had actually sold some software). That was when I was working for no pay. Ah, the 90s, the best thing about them was that I was still young.
-
I had quite an enjoyable night watching Obama YouTube clips. It's actually the first time any politician has managed to get me enthused. I definitely saw the woman Damian is talking about, or a similar one. She was not only wriggling and stamping, but she also had her hands on a middle aged black guy, and gave him a good yank on every cheer point. He looked like he was getting more enthusiastic to save his arm.
It really reminded me of my one trip to New York, where I took the time to go to an Abyssinian Baptist Church, to see if it really was like all the cliches suggest. I was surprised - it surpassed the cliches in everything except the choral singing, which was just really, really competent, but not amazingly over-the-top. But the minister (or whatever you call it in that brand of christianity) was the Reverend Butts, and he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. On each point there was a group "Yeah?", and similar such conversational pause fillers. I guess you have to do it for a while to get the timing right. There were constant interjections from the audience: "Preach well, brother", "Praise the Lord", "That's it man, preach on", "I seen the light". And there was no chance of sitting there quietly. A small ozzie guy I was with had a huge mama next to him, who shook him by the arm on every point, until he was yelling "Praise be", at every point. I stuck to trying to master the conversational "yeah?" and "NO!", which was embarrassing when I accidentally got it the wrong way round once, but the titters from all around made me realize it was not an uncommon gaffe for a weird sounding white man. The place was packed like I've never seen in a church. It looked to seat about as many people as the St James theatre, in several tiers, and the aisles were full of standing people, going right out the door.
The content of the speech was not especially extensive or deep, but it was delivered in a very powerful way. I thought it was a huge improvement on most of the church services I've been to over the years (which is not many). It was a very effective way of delivering a message that was pretty much just advice about how to invest money. I definitely left the place feeling great, and I'm no Christian.
I think it's unfair to hassle Obama for his apparently Messianic style. It's just a very popular style in the States. It works, and it doesn't really get in the way of the message. It's a huge improvement on dull political speeches which are also soft on content, but like to hide behind being boring. I don't think it says he's aiming to be the Messiah any more than every presidential candidate always has. He's just good at it.
As for what he's going to do, to me the only important thing is Iraq, and he already opposed it way more than any other viable candidate. That speaks volumes to me. I couldn't give a crap about how the Americans are going to manage their economy and internal services, except in so far as they start with not wasting such a large chunk of it on killing foreigners.
-
So far on PAS I've been typing 'draw dropper' instead of 'jaw dropper', 'put' instead of 'bought', 'seaman' instead of 'salesman' and sundry other typos. Am I about to get a heart attack?
No, it's a necessary step on the road to true keyboard fluency. When the hands do their own thing without being told, you're almost there.
-
And to be perfectly blunt, I'm more than a little tired of the media/political assumption that if you don't -- or can't -- have children its wine and roses all the way.
To me the assumption is that having children is very costly and also worthwhile. Both of which are true in my experience. I agree that it might feel that you are undervalued if you don't have them, but there is no doubting that, other things being equal, having children costs a lot. I definitely had a lot more spare cash for wine and roses before.
But strangely, I also had a lot less money, because I was a lot less disciplined, because I didn't have to be.
-
I still use Netscape for my POP mail too. But that's mainly because I don't use mail so I can't be stuffed changing. I basically use Hotmail, with Firefox. Oh, the irony.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 960 961 962 963 964 … 1066 Older→ First