George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
The fact that he was. A brilliant chess player. When we both worked at a hotel he could do the night audit practically in his head. Widely read in esoteric literature. He once diagnosed accurately the cause of an electrical problem at my house by looking at a couple of wires. Fluent in Russian. Also a really good poker player. A talented writer. Many varied high level skills, a kind of generalized aptitude of subjects that didn't seem to go together in one person.
I notice you don't ask about the ivy league guy. I suppose that's reasonable, but I really do think class issues kept the other guy from thriving in certain areas.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
As far as I understand it any vitamin C in raw meat is substantially reduced by cooking, regardless of the freshness of the meat. Maybe he eats extremely rare steak?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
The phenomenon you describe is pretty illegible to the salaryman on the street, at least if you're suggesting--as you seem to be--that the Japanese look at China and Korea and think "Wow they're advancing but we're old" and are therefore "embarrassed."
While I can't speak for Japan or Japanese, let me do so anyway. Chinese are largely seen as uncouth, unprincipled vulgarians who scrawl graffiti on venerated shrines and stab honest citizenry for baubles and wristwatches. Koreans get more slack for being somewhat more represented by pop culture (music, dramas, etc.) but there are certainly anti-Korean elements here as well.
Never underestimate the ability of superficial prejudice to cloud the big picture.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I know many smart people, but in my life I think I've met two truly exceptionally intelligent people that I knew when dealing with them that they were somehow just different, set apart. Both men, as it happens.
One currently teaches at a very prestigious West coast university after getting his Masters in an ivy league university in the 90s. The other was from a poor white family in Nowhere, Alabama, and ended up 1) being imprisoned for about a year, 2) driving a truck for another few years, and 3) owning a bar in a coastal city The last one may have turned him into a functional alcoholic though last I heard he had sold the place (which is still thriving) and I am not sure what he's doing now.
They were/are different in terms of social class and all the various baggage that entails. I could go into details but it would be fairly easy to work out their identities by anyone who wanted to take the time so I won't.
I also know a family of extremely smart women (all daughters) one of whom is fairly high up in the mainstream press of the US, and the other sister puts me to shame in language learning and can talk circles around me in Japanese (and is even more fluent in Chinese) despite having spent a fraction of the time I've spent in Asia. She's married to some tech genius and their daughter is probably just as brilliant and is stunningly beautiful.
Of the two men, they are both missing something emotionally. I can't put my finger on it, but they don't have a certain set of responses that most people have. The women I don't know as well and therefore I have little insight into their private selves.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
How was Obama connected to the CIA? Serious question.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Japan
Although I am not particularly educated in seismology, I have long assumed that it was somewhat like climate science: One can model it, one can draw conclusions from the past, but it is difficult to precisely make predictions with current technology--and predictions necessarily involve changes or events that occur over vast periods of time, not in days or weeks. With these assumptions I am not sure how to take the now month-something old predictions that Japan is due for a massive quake.
The term Nankai Trough you are starting to see a lot now. This trough is a subduction zone, a deep underwater trench off the southern coast of Japan, where the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting (or being pushed beneath) the Eurasian Plate. Seismologists have (somehow) made enough of a determination that there is an impending event in this area that they apparently prompted the Japanese government to make public statements about it, namely that the population should be aware and take precautions in the event of a major quake, or "mega-quake" as you are sometimes now seeing written.
All this has had predictable consequences. There is a rice shortage due to various factors (including considerably more tourism than the last few years), but exacerbated when people have begun buying up essentials (of which rice, yes, is one in Japan.) Bottled water and bread are also thinner on the shelves. The sections of hardware stores that normally carry emergency goods such as solar radios/lanterns, MRE-type pouches, mylar blankets, etc. are also bare. It's not as bad as it might be, but it's noticeable.
As in the COVID years, it's difficult in the middle of such a frenzy to know whether to take it more seriously than usual, or just shrug it off as probable fearmongering for some tedious purpose unknown to me. After the last biggish earthquake near my home (the street up from my house cracked open in places--nothing like the bad earthquake of 95 or even the one I felt in 2011 that caused the tsunami, but pretty jarring) we stockpiled quite a bit, but that was a few years ago and much of the foodstuffs were near expiration so we ate them.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I appreciate your writing this post.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Beat me to it but I agree.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Just as an editorial comment, one of your sentences contains 274 words, including 5 parenthetical comments nested within. That's a lot.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
There's a phrase Onna gokoro wa wakaranai. (女心はわからない) which roughly translates to "(You) don't understand a woman's heart." Usually used as a retort when behavior causes a feeling of feminine revulsion but the reasons why are either too obvious or too vague to explain.
(You may know this phrase of course; I routinely underestimate people's knowledge of Japanese.)
In this case it might be said to the Japanese government, to no one's surprise.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
This isn't my idea, I don't think it's a particularly good idea, and I have serious doubts that it will work to do much of anything, but the big brains in Japan have a plan to actually pay single women cash to leave Tokyo and marry men in rural areas. Presumably this will also get the lusty fires burning as these gals subsequently produce offspring.
This seems like the bizarre idea of a bunch of old men in a conference room, yes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
From the article you linked:
Our vaccine is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys.
This seems to be blocking the fentanyl crossing the blood-brain barrier. I haven't read much about this specific process but there's something called antibody conjugation that does this. From the article human clinical trials have not been done, suggesting this might not even work on people. (lots of things happen in rats that don't in humans.)
As for the second question, yes, lots of other problems, but that's not anything new. No one pill sorts out everything about one's life. Except Ozempic TM.
(This post brought to you by Novo Nordisk!)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
In speech it would take the or as in "Whatever he or she would like to do." I've used this phrase as long as I've been speaking in such contexts, but admittedly I'm probably older than you, my ways are likely not your ways, etc. I've never had any pushback. They I'd of course use if there were more than one person, and that's a legitimate strategy.
"If one member of your group wants a single room, he or she should reserve ahead."
" If people want individual rooms, they should reserve ahead."
I just made that scenario up; I am not in hospitality.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
What happened to he/she?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
When Force Awakens came out I liked it. Looking back, if I could watch it alone without the ones after, I'd still like it okay--because it was basically of the same film family as the original trilogy, down to the exact same tropes. Rey was feisty and headstrong, but that was a combination in a way of Luke and Han. She showed weakness, at least one time, until she suddenly didn't, but there were unanswered questions that might have been answered in a way later that could have explained this. The film ended with a cliff hanger--you knew Luke was going to be awesome in the next film.
He wasn't. The Last Jedi on first watch was like a spice you've never had at a restaurant you're trying for the first time that serves food you thought you knew how to eat. The spice wreaks havoc on your digestive system and you think "God damn what did I eat? What was in that burrito?" I wanted to like it. I even refrained from piling on when people complained about it. And I still feel like Rise of Skywalker at least tried to undo some of TLJ's damage. But the trauma was too great. It was like taking an overdose of painkillers for a really bad headache. The cure made things worse.
The only thing positive I can say is that the acting as a whole was pretty good in the sequels. Every lead role actor and actress gave convincing performances. The soundtracks were quite good, as to be expected. And now I'm out of praise.
Tellingly, my sons, who I showed the original series to, and then the prequels, and who rewatched these films many times, never wanted to re-watch any of the sequels after seeing them once. Once!
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
He says many stupid-sounding things. In the recent event where the guy was grabbed by cops going over the rail I heard Trump in the background (well technically he was the main event but the video footage was of the climbing guy), expounding on how at some point in the recent past (maybe his shooting day) a couple of US flags were flying in just the right way as to resemble, in a photograph, angel's wings. Which is Sunday School for toddlers enough of an image, but then he kept on about it, like he wouldn't drop it. Now I'm not irreligious and I can even be moved by certain religious iconography but this seemed like the kind of hamfisted shitty politicking you'd hear in a Hollywood film penned by someone trying to satire a populist politician.
Anyway. I am trying very hard to see Trump in the best possible light. I find not listening to him speak useful. God help me.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I expect probably both bitchy and sassy are undesirable adjectives here. Confident and aggressive, maybe.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
@naraburns said pretty much everything I would say, only he said it more eloquently and in more detail. My sons are 13 and 15. My wife was 26 when she had our first, and I was a few years shy of forty. I have heard guys say they'd never have kids if they were too old for fear they couldn't throw the ball around with their sons. To that, I say pick up some goddam weights or go for a jog. It's fine. I also noted, as did nara, that your wife may lean toward No but at the same time extenuating circumstances may be what's contributing to that. Not some fundamental unwillingness to be a mother. Though of course you know best.
I would also suggest the timing is never perfect (true of most anything.)
Many women and girls get pregnant by "accident" and don't want the child, or the dad bails, etc. etc. Of the universe of couples who could have children perhaps you two are of the lot who should be having them.
My children are the absolute best thing I've ever done (with help). I can't tell you what to do, but I can say that.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
No self-respecting writer will stick around for this kind of treatment.
I would say many, many writers would stick around for that kind of treatment if they're getting paid. Whether they're self-respecting or whether the best writers are self-respecting is of course another issue.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
In that amount I don't see a problem but I'm very much not an expert.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I am not sure what you're asking. I know they may smell nice but beyond that don't have that strong a therapeutic benefit except maybe in aromatherapy. Possibly some help ease inflammation if applied topically. Peppermint oil is supposed to help headaches Tea tree oil has mild antimicrobial properties and is an irritant, but can be used to treat things like warts for this reason if used with a carrier oil.
Also most essential oils are toxic even in small amounts to cats. As you suggest, they can also toxic to humans because they can interact with liver enzymes or thin the blood if you swallow them, and that's apart from the irritant properties of some of them. They're pretty much unregulated so adulterants (solvents, other oils, added fragrance, etc.) added to oils of "poorer quality" can be an issue.
What are you considering using an essential oil for?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
They do indeed. TIL.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Micromanaging is I believe a way, along with car costs, driving school costs, and periodic car check-ups (called shahken) to thin out the road herd. It's already pretty congested even though public transportation is excellent.
I don't actually know all the fine points but I know I wasn't supposed to keep my hand on the gear shift as much as I did.
We lost touch, though he was married and had a son, so maybe he's just raising his family but I don't know doing what. Emails go unreturned but that might be because he's changed it.
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