I swear, there’s a thing almost as bad as trolls, and that’s people whose brain only picks up buzzwords: they flit through the internet looking for a word that sets them off, and they drop some post picking nits with the original post—not that they read it. But they found one of their triggers.
Sheesh. Some people need to get a more productive hobby.
Even worse when somebody starts arguing with the drive-by.
Several of them this morning. Not here. Elsewhere. Everyone here is selected to be civilized and sane. 😉 But sheesh! There are times I just run in here and shut the door fast!
Yes, you can have a nice conversation here. I like what you’ve done with the place.
What a novel idea — civilized behavior. Of course, here we File Intent on trolls as soon as their actions becomes apparent. Several authors I follow run well-monitored sites where people who can’t act like grownups get told to toddle off pretty fast, and I appreciate that. Regulars mainly come for intelligent, polite discussion, not flame wars.
In the old BBS days, we had sysops. In the Compuserve fora we had sysops and wizops. On newsgroups we had chaos. And on current fora we have either chaos or several moderators keeping the place clean. But much better to just have a (moderated) logon required to post, and if you don’t behave your logon is suddenly dead and gone.
It’s nice to have a civilized place, especially with others who enjoy good writing. As HRHSpence said “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Thank you all. [Straightens picture on wall, fills coffee/tea/sparkly dispenser.] And I much appreciate the folk here.
And donuts are in the conference room.
May I have two lumps of sugar with my sparkly? 🙂
Ruadhan crawls out from under her rock. “Civilized? Sane? Do I have to?”
GLOOM.
She crawls back under her rock.
No, no, by “civilized” or “sane” we just mean fairly tolerant of others’ obsessions and half-assed polite to one another. The community seems to embrace the full spectrum of geekdom without prejudice. No neurotypical bias is implied.
No need to stay under rock unless you are in the middle of cave art and re-tiling.
Not writing. EDITING. Bah.
The rock emits mild steam.
Hahaha, y’all are really awesome, you know that? 😀
“You may be right. I may be crazy. But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.”
Some equate civilization with city construction (except for the Mongols*). Many Asian investors are building highrise residential towers in the Los Angeles area, opposite the usual LA paradigm of spreading more. I wonder whether the LA market really wants highrise living, though it seems attractive to New Englanders, especially New Yorkers. Could it just be the Asian investors using their own paradigms without checking what the market wants? Will the LA area end up with a large number of very tall white elephants?
Another LA highrise tidbit. Code has required a heliport on the top of every highrise, giving LA its flattop skyline. The requirement has recently been removed. No helicopter rescue has ever happened, but we haven’t had a large LA earthquake recently either. The removal came so LA’s skyline could be prettier (for some definition or “pretty”).
(*See Crash Course History, History 2 is interesting even if you’re fairly well based in History.)
sounds like a recipe for disaster, highrises in a known seismic fault area, and if there is an earthquake, would a heliport on top of a high rise building be safe to use?
High rises are inherently pretty earthquake resistant. Their steel cage structure is flexible, and they’re far bigger than the resonant frequency of earthquakes, three or four stories. Add modern earthquake codes…. Once the earthquake stops, the heliport should be stable; even in the case of an aftershock, it would take some time for the top of the building to start moving.
I was once on the twentieth floor of a forty story building during a moderate earthquake. The earthquake dampers made a lot of noise, but the motion was pretty sedate even though I was in the middle of the “Jello column” as it were.
But say a gas main went at the bottom of that skyscraper and started a fire. If you had 400 people to evacuate, that could be 20 helicopter flights. And it would take something like an hour to scramble the helicopters to LA from San Diego, home of the 1st Marine Division and the Pacific Fleet.
Still, it beats having no evacuation capability.
Now I’m having ‘Towering Inferno’ flashbacks. Terrible 80s disaster movies, anyone?
I’m not sure if Aspies quite come under the umbrella of entirely sane. OTOH, as Walt says, in certain situations (7.3 anyone?), someone who can remain logical and unemotional might be just the person needed.
And on my third hand, or is it just the flipside of the other hand, on Galaxy Zoo I think I had a reputations for remaining calm, unbaitable, and focused on the Science answering a few wackos–one in particular that couldn’t be unconvinced that super-massive Black Holes were sucking galaxies into their maw.
🙂
There’s good-crazy and then there’s bad-crazy and then there’s crazy-stupid.
Good-crazy can be both productive and entertaining, and provide a much-needed fresh perspective, or so I would maintain.
—–
Paul, you aren’t any less sane than anyone else I’ve ever run into. And considerably more sane and nicer than some. (Also, I still regret how I acted in our disagreement on the forum. Not my best moments ever.)
Hope you get a chance to read that file I sent you… 😉
Well, it seems people often define certain highly emotional types of decision making as “insane”. That I’m not prone to. But in terms of being able to respond to a vast middle-ground of associative human reactions, well, I don’t do that so well either. I rather think the atevi would call me insane.
To civilized and sane, add “sy/empathetic.”
My little grey kitty girl was helped across the Rainbow Bridge yesterday morning and I’ve been navigating an emotional mine field ever since. She was only 10. She had kidney failure, was spilling protein to the point that what should have been a 10-11 pound cat weighed just over 5 pounds. Her BUN and creatinine were climbing. She was such a sweet baby girl. I miss her so much.
I’ve had cats in my life for eighteen years, and this is the first time I’ve only had just one.
:hugs: WOL. — It was a few months after my previous li’l guy passed before I took in another kitty, Goober, and then a second, four years lateer was given to me. It may take you a while, but there’s no shortage of cats needing good homes.
My sympathy for your loss, WOL.
After going through this with my first cat, who I had trouble letting go, I try to think that from the point of view of the kitty she’s probably glad to have peace and an end to the deterioration. It doesn’t fill the hole in one’s life, but it helps me to come to peace with the loss.
Oh, WOL, I’m so sorry. I’m sure you gave her lots of love and the very best care until the end.
WOL, so sorry. I’ve had 7 cats, I’ve lost 4 of them, and it doesn’t get easier, it gets much, much harder with each one that I have to help across. The hardest one so far has been Birdie, who is shown in my gravatar, she was roughly 10, had cancer, and there was no way we could help her out of pain, nor extend her life much past a couple more months.
One hopes for a replacement kitty to help fill your voids.
I’m so sorry, WOL. Been there way too many times, and it hurts. A lot. When we lost Jane’s Efanor, and my own Ysabel just a few months later—that was really hard, because they’d been there through some real hard days, and absorbed a lot of the crises we’d been through. At least we had gotten Shu by the time we lost Ysabel, but when she followed her soulmate, one kitty—just wasn’t the household the way it had been. We ended up driving from Spokane to Montana to get Sei.
They aren’t the previous two. They’re their own thing. Rowdy. To say the least. But they have to be here.
I am also very sorry for your loss! I believe that the reason our pets die so young is to teach us how to grieve and move forward anyway. I’ve had all kinds of pets since birth and every single one I’ve lost was so so painful. And still my boys haven’t come home – but there aren’t any dead cats in the neighborhood so at least I have hope! They were only 2 years old. My 19 year old is starting to have kidney problems. We are changing her food for the KD kind recommended by the vet. But other than that, she is very healthy. I am so glad. She is my special one, descended from her tortoise shell Siamese mama that we lost so young. Some you lose before their time – but then some hang around for a good long while. So sorry for your loss.
Oh, WOL, it hurts so to lose a beloved pet. All I can say is that I, like so many others here, have lost mine too. The grief gets less raw with time although you don’t stop missing them, even if and when new pets come into your life (I’m watching our new bunnies Basho and Zumi chew on some sticks here in the living room but still miss our Petros Bun, not to mention our old cats Mackie and Froggie).
Your’re not alone and you are understood and supported.
Yes and I welcome it. Though I am not near your colleagues. I think I am similar in age. I have lots to say and different. You with the sailing ship! I have sailed all my life – a lot in ignorance- going backwards into the stall. Good thing we didn’t wreck the boat! That time I only fell off. I have always been open to experience, probably because mama taught I could be anything. I want to write. And I have a lot to say. Not at all sure who cares. Or really who Should care. Here’s what I know. Cj is the best author I respect. She has always been true and clear. And sci-fi is the only hope for humanity. I love that I have found this blog. I feel, well, in a community.
If you listen hard enough, you may hear your new owner/employer calling. When you find that particular feline, it may give you that ‘Well? What took you so long?’ look. I think that they may have an employment bulletin board out there somewhere.
I am so glad to hear you! I have been thinking about you. Is all sorta well?
Mircea?