Walking has gone from exotic to downright dangerous in my neighborhood. Not because of the people so much as the (lack of) city planning.

No sidewalks, no verges, no road shoulders. Just you and the speeding traffic fighting for lane space. To get to anywhere worth going from my house on foot, you take your life into your own hands.

Instead, we drive to the Arboretum trails or a nearby rich-people's settlement with a nice lakeside walking trail to get our walking in. Note that said lakeside trail is just about a mile away - easy walking distance, and it'd add a nice punch to our workout - but that mile is via a no verge, no shoulder, no sidewalk, 50 mph highway.

Stupid city planning.

How much you wanna bet there was an epic rock-paper-scissor battle to choose the guy who had to do retrieval duty?

@curtismayfield

Or, say, your mother's horrific attempts at making homemade "McRibs" on a galvanized-rubber, pounded-out-from-whole-wheat-flour gluten base. Urg. The memory itself is enough to make my stomach curdle.

Or the infamous "sauerkraut soup" that even the dog wouldn't go near. Hell, even the ants scattered and never came back where she threw it out onto the lawn.

Or eating nothing but home-canned applesauce for days because being a hippy meant having no money, but at the same time not giving "The Man" the satisfaction of applying for food stamps to feed your kids.

Yeah, growing up as a hippy kid meant a childhood full of nasty, nasty food. Not always, mind you, but more or less regularly.

@Romulusnr

The episode was indeed the one about eelskin wallets. You can read the episode recap here.

Unfortunately, I've had rotten luck trying to find unauthorized Mythbuster vids of any real value, not just teeny clips, but it was Season 1, Ep 3 if you've got access to the DVDs.

The Mythbusters thing seemed to indicate that the real damage is done by moving the magnet over the strip, rather than just setting the magnet against the strip. One imagines that the movement of walking could create enough rubbing action between a magnetic source and the cards in your pocket to create a problem.

Consider my reps (and Rep Berman) suitably, and ever so respectfully, hairy-eyeballed on this issue.

Oh, Internet hairy eyeball - is there anything you can't do?

Erm...do you remember planting any borage?

No probs cleaning them, just drop in a denture tablet (or baking soda and vinegar) and some warm water...shiny!

@9VIADD

I came here to say that! OMFG, even as a stupid, gullible kid I remember being so taken aback by the sheer stupidity of that statement that it almost hurt. :-D

Heh...I just made 2 home made pizzas with home made half (organic) whole wheat, overnight risen crusts, topped with sauted peppers, onions and mushrooms and fresh mozzarella ladled over a home made sauce of long-simmered (canned) organic diced tomatoes seasoned with garlic and cognac. No waste here. Not one single, frakking crumb.

Buy somewhat less of the really, really, seriously good stuff and you won't waste anything.

I remember seeing this in print somewhere, and the designer said he made one to keep and one to display/sell and probably wouldn't make any more because it was a giant pain in the ass. :-D

Damn. There went my last excuse...

Kit is on the way. :-D

It's a streetlight!

Sorry, wrong site...

All your post are belong to me...

For us n00bs, how do you "escape" such a symbol?

I say we're Boinks. Just 'cause I like the sound it makes. :-D

And my book is Stranger in a Strange Land, because it was given to me as an impressionable teen girl living in the boonies and it opened up a whole new world of literature, future potentiality and ideas to me.

Not to mention unleashing a previously unknown tendency toward sciffy/future spec geekocity that's still sweeping my life along with it.

I'm a vegetarian (mostly because of issues with humane animal treatment, and minorly with killing), and not only would I eat vat-meat, I'd eat vat-human. In a frakking heartbeat (yours, mine, whomevers...) In fact, as soon as vat meat becomes reliably producible, of good quality and affordable, I anticipate a whole market of, shall we say, exotic meats.

Why? I'm a foodie. I *love* food. Any and all (good quality) food. I'll try damn near anything once and add it to the bulk buy list if I like it. That goes for meat. Meat is meat, folks - makes no difference if it's Porky Pig or his longer cousin. The only difference is cultural taboos and, in the case of human kibbles and bits, some (easily handled) concerns re: prion disease.

That's one of the moral quibbles that led me to being a veggie in the first place. I wouldn't treat a beloved pet like a factory-farmed cow is treated, and yet I'm willing to overlook the cow's suffering so I can have a steak, even though there were plenty of other ways to get my fill of great food without making Bessie miserable? Well, no, not once you put it like that.

As a conscience-driven vegetarian, it's frustrating as hell to be living through the resurgence of artisanal meats and gourmet preparation that we're going through right now. Gah. But since I can't trust others to care for animals the way I would if I had the means to raise my own (happy life, honored position in family, quick death), I choose not to abuse. So, yeah, vat meat (assuming it can be made worth eating) would soooo be on my list of groceries faster than you could say, "Pasteur raised."

Oh, and what's wrong with seitan? It's not bacon, that's what. (Passing by the sandwich counter downtown has me chewing my fist and walking fast almost every time, because someone has always just ordered a BLT.)

Stupid conscience.

@10 - "If it's already been in something else's digestive system, it isn't going in mine."

No honey for you, then? Can I have your share?

I'm with @47 philentropist, in that getting completed notes pre- or post-class is often the best bet for some people with different learning styles.

I'm one of those people who can either write or listen to what's going on, but not both. If I'm taking notes, I'm missing what's being said now as I'm writing down what was said earlier. Therefore, my notes tend to be spotty at best and incoherent at worst, and more or less useless to me in general, as I'm struggling to write what I'm hearing without missing the next thing, and usually failing at both.

OTOH, if I have a completed outline in front of me to follow along with as the lecture proceeds, I learn the material twice as well as if I just sit there and listen. The effect is similar, but somewhat less effective, if I just sit there and listen, then read completed notes after.

There are some people for whom writing notes cements their learning. But for me, it prevents it. Ergo, my case is one in which buying the notes would be a legitimate purchase.

Since I'm paying good money to get an education, I fully expect to be allowed to do what it takes to get that education (short of cheating, of course), be that hiring a tutor, reviewing previous tests for study material or buying lecture notes.

The comments thread sounds remarkably like the discussions that went on surrounding a similar "meteor strike" in North Caroline, back in 2005, covered by a news photog friend of mine:

http://viewfinderblues.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html

Homosexuality isn't "adaptive" either. In fact, it's less adaptive than autism, since autism doesn't affect reproductive ability (or at least, not consistently), whereas a strictly homosexual lifestyle negates the possibility of reproduction except by virtue of medical intervention.

And yet, few people these days view it as being a maladaptive handicap. Just not one that is reproductively adaptive for those specific people (although there is some speculation that it's the result of reproductive adaptations in either the mother or the entire female genetic line that produces it).

Yes, I realize that some autistic people have issues which cause far greater problems than homosexuality does. But then again, I know some perfectly "normal" people that I wouldn't trust to shower or cook for themselves without messing it up, either.

Perhaps if we knew more about how autistics thought and responded, we could find ways to teach them to take care of themselves in ways they can understand. As it stands, we try to teach them in a language that's impenetrable to some of them. If you try to teach a Chinese speaker how to use a piece of technology by instructing them in English, they're going to need help, too. Nothing to do with their intelligence or learning capacity.

@8

You think that's bad...have you seen the Kirk/Spock mashup to Closer by NIN?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PwpcUawjK0

Enough manlust to set Elton John's sunglasses aflame.

[So verrry NSFW]

@4

It's that second magnet that does you in (or, I imagine, a magnet plus any ferrous metal bit, such as your ball bearing). As they pass through the twisty turns of the intestines, they can connect and pinch tissue together, causing blockages, tissue death and all sorts of internal mayhem.

Citation:

Child's Death Prompts Replacement Program of Magnetic Building Sets
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml06/06127.html

That pirate is seriously loaded for bear. He(She?)'s got a carving knife, a handgun and a sword. Dunno who pissed him or her off, but boy are they in some serious shit.

"iPod cloud trapped on tube"

Now that I'd pay to see.

Ooo Ooo Ooo!!!

Nominated the Westerfeld/Larbalesiter Dynamic Duo for Guests of Honor. Not only are they amazing teen and young adult writers in their own right (and their books read just as well for adults as they do the younger set), but they're married to each other and yet write in completely different styles that seem to defy the inevitable marital brain meld syndrome most of us hitched folks seem to wind up with. And they're both just as cool as hell.

It's two, two, two great tastes in one!

I used to be an exotic dancer, and while I agree that over the long term they can be hard on the joints, I quickly learned to walk, dance, run, climb stairs, climb on and off of tall bar stools, jump, spin and otherwise function at a relatively athletic level in up to 6" pumps without much more than a sore back and tired tootsies.

OTOH, I was on my feet for up to 8 hours a day and I can't imagine not having tired feet and back after a shift like that no matter what shoes I wore (and indeed, when I injured an ankle one time I created some costumes that could be worn with sneakers, and was just as tired and sore by the end of the day as always.)