Useless Conversation

[Sky]

There is a got damn squirrel who has a taste for my honeycrisps. If he didn't die out last winter, it may be time to get a bow (I live right next to a school, so gunpowder-based solutions are out). Squirrels are also the reason I can't grow bell peppers. They'll knock 'em off, take 2 bites and leave them. But the garden had been safe from deer!

Ironically, my old birdfeeder had been completely squirrel-proofed (high crook with a collar on a bungie)...but the deer would empty it.

Too many neighbors feeding wildlife in their yards, they see anything I do as a feeder. Now we have raccoons, so it still may be time for a bow...animal services won't do anything about the coyotes and raccoons. "Circle of life" is literally what they respond with. 

[Samwise]

Drug the bell peppers and let the coyotes pick off the doped-up squirrels.

[Khaldun]

I find if I intermix bell peppers with hot peppers and strong aromatic herbs, the squirrels aren't as likely to take a couple of bites.

I tried buying fox piss one year and the egg-and-chili-pepper mix the year after and neither of those did anything to keep squirrels and groundhogs away.

[Sky]

I just saw a picture of Paul Bearer and realized he might secretly have created mypillow.

[calapine]

I am pretty surprised Nate Silver doesn't understand that whatever system you grow up with is the one that feels most intuitive for you.

[Trippy]

I think he means that a expression like “walk a mile in my/his/her/their shoes” doesn’t have the same level of burden if you say it as “walk a kilometer in my shoes”. You would have to say “1.609 kilometers” to express the same level of difficulty / time / distance which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Even rounding up to “two kilometers” loses some of the poeticism of the original.

[Samwise]

A mile is only a twenty minute walk.  That's exactly as trivial as a twelve minute walk or however long a kilometer takes IMO.

Maybe Nate Silver is in terrible shape and gets winded after walking for exactly fifteen minutes?

[Trippy]

Presumably back when that expression first become popular “walking a mile” meant uphill, in the snow, barefoot.

[Chimpy]

Presumably back when that expression first become popular “walking a mile” meant uphill, in the snow, barefoot.

You forgot both ways.

[Trippy]

Only applies to schools.

[HaemishM]

Or Nate Silver is just a spergy dumbass. 

[Sky]

People still pay attention to people saying stupid shit on the Internet?
 
C'mon, now.

[Trippy]

That’s social media’s raison d'etre.

[Hawkbit]

So hot the dang joints buckled on I-5 here in Seattle. When I left Bellevue it was 111.

[RhyssaFireheart]

So hot the dang joints buckled on I-5 here in Seattle. When I left Bellevue it was 111.

 

[Samwise]

Those Chinese hoaxsters are really going all out.

[Khaldun]

They must be using Jewish space lasers to supplement.

[Engels]

I'm vaguely still upset about Nate Silver. I mean, the whole notion of what's intuitive is born from upbringing. That he doesn't see that the only reason a mile is intuitive is because he wasn't raised with kilometers is mind boggling to me. Even if Trippy is right, that Nate's native land's folksy sayings don't jibe well with the metric system, isn't that just a product of his native land, not some objective statement on the origin of folksy sayings? I mean we still collectively use the expression 'league' in a colloquial manner. "It was leagues away!" is an expression that could just as easily be understood in Spain as it is in the US, but no one runs about saying Leagues are intuitive!

It should throw some suspicion on his prior and future pronouncements.

[Khaldun]

Dude has always been about trying to pretend that his quantitative analysis gives him the right to share his intuitions as if they're not intuitions.

[Cyrrex]

Miles are, objectively, less intuitive.  Any fool who has any ability with numbers should understand this as a fact, especially Nate Fucking Silver.

[Sky]

Learn when it's time to shut down the computer, kids.

[Chimpy]

Learn when it's time to shut down the computer, kids.

Tell that to Nate Silver!

[01101010]

The imperial system if you grew up with it makes sense, but it is not intuitive like the metric.

That said, I think of distance as a factor of time, not space... so when someone references say a football field, I have no clue what that actually is. Same with a mile or even kilometer. I hate the directions in the car say in 2 miles, merge left. In my head I am telling myself I have about 1 minute 30 sec to merge left at my current speed... or less/more depending. I get that the GPS doesn't take velocity/speed into account it, but it never makes sense in my head... especially when it starts giving me directions in feet. In 750ft, turn left... ugh.

[Sky]

I still plan my routes on paper maps and memorize landmarks, so....

[Reg]

I don't know from metric or imperial but when someone tells me they made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs I intuitively know exactly what they mean.

[Sky]

Uhh

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=cat+shower+net+bag

The pics tho

[Samwise]

spoiler links to furry bondage pics kthx

[HaemishM]

Yeah, that looks about the correct level of "I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU" on my cat's face when she realizes she's about to get put under the water.

[calapine]

Guys, did you know that overpass is a valid synonym for surpass?

Just saw it used by a native French speaker, thought "Aha! Frenglish!" but looking at Oxfords Dictionary...it's correct.

Just dropping that as info, might be helpful in some situation future situation. 

[Rendakor]

I have only heard overpass used to refer to type or section of road that goes over another road.

[Cyrrex]

I have only heard overpass used to refer to type or section of road that goes over another road.

You're obviously referring to a surpass.

[Trippy]

Dunno about British English but in American English these days you would say "overtake" instead of "overpass". I do see it listed as a synonym verb for surpass in some dictionaries so maybe it's an archaic form?

[Sky]

Dunno about British English but in American English these days you would say "overtake" instead of "overpass". I do see it listed as a synonym verb for surpass in some dictionaries so maybe it's an archaic form?

Such is the fluid nature of language, I'm sure some new term will come along to fuckpass them.

[Teleku]

Dunno about British English but in American English these days you would say "overtake" instead of "overpass". I do see it listed as a synonym verb for surpass in some dictionaries so maybe it's an archaic form?

Wait, really?  I've honestly never even heard the term overtake till this moment.  Every human I've ever heard has called them an overpass.

[Chimpy]

I think everyone is confusing different pseudosynonyms.

Overtake as in surpass or pass by
Overpass as in viaduct or bridge