Posts made by BetterJudgment

@Luna Have you thought about New Mexico? From what you're saying, Las Cruces sounds like a possibility.

@Sunny Damn. I don't have anything profound to say other than while these situation are awful, people do get through them. You're absolutely right that you don't need anyone else's permission to feel whatever you feel, and you should also give yourself credit for recognizing that the rest of the family are reacting to grief in different ways (with the possible exception of your sister-in-law, who sounds like she should have enough decency to shut up right now).

@Admiral said:

I always thought MOOs were the transition game between MUDs and MUSHes.

The MOO I've played is far more elaborately coded than any MUD.

@ThugHeaven - I've been casually following this and the other (original?) Burning Post game for a while now just through advertisements on Mudconnector. Something I've wondered is what has led to at least one (or more?) spin-offs from the original game. Is there a difference in story, or is it more a difference in the approach to playing the game? I made a character on the original game (I think) during the time when I was transitioning from ROM/Diku-based "RPI/RP Enforced" games to MUSHes, and at the time I found the game to be a little too heavily coded and underpopulated for me.

@Insomnia said:

Pretty sure Whirlwind is here. Or someone claiming to be Whirlwind. Last I looked they were following me.

Maybe just lurking now?

Yeah, you're right. I didn't feel like trying to figure out how to search for profiles (which I don't readily remember because I always go straight to Unread and never look at the stuff on the front page).

One thing that WORA had that MU* Soapbox sadly seems to lack is Doc Beard.

(ETA: Two things, since I don't remember seeing Whirlwind either. Considering that they were both pretty firmly in the "likely to have lives" category, however, that's only right.)

My partner and I have lived together for over 26 years. I love him and am connected with him more than I have been with anyone else in my adult life. But when he goes away for a week or so, leaving me and the cat to our own devices, it's awfully damn nice.

@tragedyjones said:

@BetterJudgment said:

@tragedyjones said:

Man, so the United States solved racism and homophobia.

Of course not. Now, however, among many other things, my spouse can be on my employer-paid health insurance. So, I'm going to feel happy, and you can go sit in a corner and eat a box of prunes.

I don't get the prune thing at all, but if it is because I offended you with my joke I do apologize. I have nothing but support for this decision, I was just feeling saucy.

You're not the only one who gets to joke. I'll let someone else explain the prunes, however.

@tragedyjones said:

Man, so the United States solved racism and homophobia.

Of course not. Now, however, among many other things, my spouse can be on my employer-paid health insurance. So, I'm going to feel happy, and you can go sit in a corner and eat a box of prunes.

@TNP said:

5 Supreme Court Justices.

Adding to that: now, everywhere I go in the U.S., I'm still married.

@Usekh said:

Well despite my body trolling me with headaches, increased fatigue and some loss of function on the left side my scan came in good. Not clear of course but the main tumor has shrunk very slightly and the other two are still doing nothing.

Also I have reached the point where further treatments will be subsidised. Thus saving me a buttload of money. Also My blood sugar has stabilised so no more insulin shots or testing 4 times a day.

That's all good news. Earlier this year, my sister's cancer was found to have metastasized, and she has been on a lower does of chemo since that time. Her numbers have all come down, however, and she says that the chemo has been much less debilitating.

@Jeshin, I strenuously avoid metaposing; I've walked out of a scene when someone started off with a passive-aggressive metapose insulting my character's heritage (which could only have been known OOC) and appearance.. Even with that, the only changes I'd make to your pose are these:

It's dawn, and Jeshin is walking down the road from the direction of the taverns. He has a faint sheen of sweat on his face and cannot walk straight, as is shown by his slowly weaving route.

@Shebakoby said:

@BetterJudgment said:

I had never had Swad amba haldi pickle (fresh turmeric pickle) before buying a jar as an experiment a few days ago. It is great.

Is it whole pickled turmeric root?

It is pickled slices of turmeric root, which is like very crisp carrot but more flavorful.

I had never had Swad amba haldi pickle (fresh turmeric pickle) before buying a jar as an experiment a few days ago. It is great.

@VulgarKitten said:

Re: Durkheim; most of the data captured in "The Division of Labor in Society," is empirical. Have you read this particular work, to know why I referenced it? In fact, Durkheim was a pioneer of empirical (quantitative) measures, though granted he is not current by any means. However, neither is Marx current and we can still apply his theories broadly to society today.

I haven't read that work by Durkheim, although I have read Weber, who is of his generation and in my discipline (history) is even more widely cited as an empiricist, and whose Protestant Ethic I think doesn't hold up. Maybe Durkheim had access to better quantitative data than Weber did. It's likely, though, that my skepticism of nomothetic approaches in the social sciences is showing, along with my stupidly and wrongly jumping to the conclusion that you were saying that population growth is the only necessity for enhanced capitalism. I do think that the negative results of population growth outweigh any possible advantages, but that's a different conversation (and one I've been thinking about since reading the newly published article "Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction.)

@VulgarKitten I use Durkheim all the time for his insights on the sociology of religion. However, for population growth and capitalism, I'd use someone far more current and with some quantitative chops. Also, my brief look at the grab bag of sources your listed indicates that while many of them say that population growth was necessary for the foundation of capitalism, none of them say that it is necessary for the continuance of capitalism or even talk much about it at all in terms of current growth. Perhaps you could post some specific links? (I know you quoted Faris, but that's 1975 and, really, someone who makes so basic and Marxist an error as to call feudalism a "mode of production" when production was an epiphenomenon of the social institution of feudalism is pretty suspect.)

@Luna, I nearly read that as:

I had great sex. Ed in high school.

(No, I've never stopped being 14 years old.)

@Sammi said:

@BetterJudgment All of those fall under "attempting to educate" except for the wealth-sharing measures, and making these people better-off without also educating them would probably just encourage more kids. Thus, education is the only truly effective way forward.

Too often, "education" means, "Here's how your could pull yourself up by your own bootstraps by being a good consumer and respectful corporate citizen. That is, if you had boots." Yes, real education is necessary (which is probably why college dropout Scott Walker and the plutocrats who have their collective hand in his colon pulling the strings that make his mouth move are crowing about decimating education in Wisconsin), but it is all necessary.

@Sammi said:

Unfortunately, there's nothing anybody can do to stop people from having kids aside from attempting to educate potential parents.

Well, aside from assuring living wages, housing, and health care, having decent public transportation, funding public schools rather than lowering standards for teachers and funneling money away to private (and frequently religious) schools, stop treating birth control as a sign of moral depravity, and a whole bunch of other things that in the long run would do more to "grow the economy" than the latest round of corporate welfare provisions.

When a day seems bleak, and this one has, I pull up The Raincoats first record and end up grinning so hard it hurts by the end of the first song. And that's before they do the best cover of the Kink's "Lola" ever.