Useless Conversation

[Paelos]

Proving yet again that kids are getting lazier. I would trick or treat in a 5x5 block area and hit every damn house, and we had to compete with the Mexican kids whose parents would drive them into our neighborhood. It was all-out candy gang warfare!

[Yegolev]

That's funny, we have found a surrogate neighborhood since I don't actually live in one.  The boy started complaining that his arm was hurting from the weight of his loot-bag, so we left.  My wife pointed out that we need to make friends with someone in there so we know when they are doing it, otherwise we might be unhappy people one year.

[JWIV]

Had about 300 kids, ran out of candy, turned off the lights, and still had a few groups knock on the door. 

Holy SHIT! Do you live in a giant apartment complex or something? I thought our 45 was a lot.

It's more sad than anything.  I'm in one of the better parts of Baltimore City, so the poorer kids all come down from the neighboring areas since 1)it's safer and 2)people can afford to buy better candy.

[Merusk]

I miss having kids come to the door.  I grew-up in a subdivision of 600+ houses, so there were always tons and it was a lot of fun.  We've spent the last 4 years going up to my sister's 300 unit place instead of our little 52 person subdivision.  You get a lot of teens, but making them jump or yell when they have shitty costumes like their football uniform is half the fun.

[Yegolev]

On the other hand, I don't have to put up with those assholes during the rest of the year.

Unrelated, I'm bothered a bit by the general lack of drama which isn't suited to my growing library of reaction pictures.  I mean, where would I ever use the following?

[Trippy]

Halloween when I was a kid was epic. I grew up in a neighborhood where it was highly unusual for a home not to have at least 2 kids so every house gave out candy and everybody knew everybody else so parents were only needed to carry the really young ones home after walking so much and the older kids roamed around freely. I still vividly remember one time the group I was in was so tired and thirsty from walking door to door that we asked at one house for some water to drink instead of candy and he gave us club soda (this was before there was such a thing as bottled water...).

[Fraeg]

kinda bummed I have not had trick or treaters once in the two halloweens I have been here in New Mexico. 

[Yegolev]

You get "trick-or-stingers" and "trick-or-heat-stroke".

[Paelos]

Some people in seminars need to learn the difference between a question and a comment.

[Selby]

Some people in seminars need to learn the difference between a question and a comment.

Don't even get me started.  We had a site-wide mandatory meeting and under the "questions?" sections people were asking retarded shit like "what's a cookie?" and "how can hackers steal my identity?" rather than commenting on the contents of the presentation at hand.

[Yegolev]

To me, mandatory meetings invite that sort of comedy.  Or idiots.

In other news, women are nuts.

[ghost]

I love it when the person giving the lecture says, "there is no such thing as a stupid question.".  That remark is rapidly disproven in every instance. 

[Cyrrex]

A better saying would be "approximately 95% of all questions are really fucking stupid.  The question you're about to ask is probably completely retarded."

[rattran]

I've found that starting with "If you have any questions that aren't mind-numbingly stupid, please ask. Be aware I will make fun of you for stupid questions." Means there's a lot of looking around at each other, and very few questions from the crowd.

[Paelos]

My main quip stemmed from people who, when asked if they have any questions about the presentation, proceed to give rambling details about the procedures they have implemented in their offices. Nobody gives a fuck. If we did, we would have asked you to host the semiar, jackass. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake because you're going against commonly accepted best practices.

[NowhereMan]

My favourite example of that was a seminar presentation on how emotions are a heuristic mechanism for consciousness allowing us to focus attention on relevant aspects of a situation and thus emotions form part of our rationality rather than being inherently irrational. One guy there stood up to ask his question, started rambling about the theories of some Austrian guy noone had heard of that posited a 'digital' and 'analogue' nervous system (I think in the form of nerves and hormones) and started drawing diagrams on the blackboard. After about 7 minutes of this weird monologue he finished and the chair had to get him to clarify what the question was, which amounted to, "I guess I'm asking is where do you see your position fitting into this system?" It was a moment of real beauty.

[Minvaren]

It was a moment of real neckbearding.

 

Your anecdote also reminds me of people pimping Socionics for some reason.

[NowhereMan]

The first talker was offering an interesting account of how we should think about emotions and reason. The guy asking questions was basically describing the works of some early twentieth century Austrian dude that has been leapt on by faith healers and people who think crystals are more beneficial than penicillin, which was pretty much what he wanted to write a thesis on (how crystals should be a respectable form of modern medicine). It had nothing to do with what was going on and was completely out of left-field for the talk, although I'll admit I probably should have described things better. Or avoided going into too much any detail on niche academic topics.

[Sky]

Ooo, I loves me some pseudo-science.

[Murgos]

The first talker was offering an interesting account of how we should think about emotions and reason. The guy asking questions was basically describing the works of some early twentieth century Austrian dude that has been leapt on by faith healers and people who think crystals are more beneficial than penicillin, which was pretty much what he wanted to write a thesis on (how crystals should be a respectable form of modern medicine). It had nothing to do with what was going on and was completely out of left-field for the talk, although I'll admit I probably should have described things better. Or avoided going into too much any detail on niche academic topics.

You know, I think a solid double blind test on the efficacy of crystals as the treatment of syphilis vs penicillin would be truly award winning.  I mean winning an ignoble award is fairly prestigious, right?

[Nebu]

You know, I think a solid double blind test on the efficacy of crystals as the treatment of syphilis vs penicillin would be truly award winning.  I mean winning an ignoble award is fairly prestigious, right?

Studies like these have been done recently on the effect of prayer, but Americans didn't like the results.

[bhodi]

What, that the placebo effect is substantial, measurable and real, and that prayer happens to have results consistent with a placebo? Including, of course, when your protocol corrects for/eliminates placebo, prayer goes with it?

I remember an interesting TED talk on the placebo effect.

[ghost]

I love seeing the term "money shot" used in articles from CNN. 

[NowhereMan]

What, that the placebo effect is substantial, measurable and real, and that prayer happens to have results consistent with a placebo? Including, of course, when your protocol corrects for/eliminates placebo, prayer goes with it?

I remember an interesting TED talk on the placebo effect.

I believe the argument he wanted to push was the intent to heal was just as strong as the placebo effect and that patients could genuinely benefit from alternative therapy as these therapists had some sort of magically stronger intention than regular doctors. I'm not sure of the details he was worryingly keen on explaining it to anyone that paid attention, I'd distract him by asking questions about what being an officer in the British cavalry was like and hear stories about Kosovo.

[Bunk]

I hate days like this, I really do. I just submitted a report to my Manager analyzing performance statistics for the year. It was sufficient make him change his mind on who we are going to be laying off in the near future. So it's pretty much my fault as to who's going to be gone.

Yay.

[IainC]

I hate days like this, I really do. I just submitted a report to my Manager analyzing performance statistics for the year. It was sufficient make him change his mind on who we are going to be laying off in the near future. So it's pretty much my fault as to who's going to be gone.

Yay.

Look on the positive side, you saved some people who didn't deserve to lose their jobs.

[Cyrrex]

I hate days like this, I really do. I just submitted a report to my Manager analyzing performance statistics for the year. It was sufficient make him change his mind on who we are going to be laying off in the near future. So it's pretty much my fault as to who's going to be gone.

Yay.

I would at least hope that you work in a field where fancy "performance statistics" are the sole relevant factor in determining who the good eggs are?  Assuming that's the case, then it's not your fault.  And if it's not the case, your Manager is a douche.

[Yegolev]

Layoffs for the layoff god.

[Ironwood]

Sigh.  Job market is utterly brutal over here.

I may head over to Canada.

[ghost]

Sigh.  Job market is utterly brutal over here.

I may head over to Canada.

I don't know what you do, but South Texas is booming, for the most part.  It's not quite so cold as where you live and Canada. 

[Sky]

You say that like it's a good thing.

[Lantyssa]

He says it like cold ever enters into weather equation.

[Engels]

Ironwood in Texas. I'd pay good money for a video stream of the first job interview.

[ghost]

Austin is a great city.  I think most people on this board would really like it. 

[Nebu]

Austin is a great city.  I think most people on this board would really like it. 

Austin is a beautiful oasis in the middle of a hell hole.