Blog and Response

Paul Rudnick

feeds@yuku.com (TheGoodLife) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:36:57 GMT

My ex is skinny on all kinds of junk food, she can and does routinely pack away a whole bag of Lay's potato chips at a sitting, hates vegetables, etc. I've seen a FEW ppl like this, a guy I knew in the Army, a guy who works at a fish store in Sunnyvale, etc.

They are not the norm. I suspect a hyperthyroid in these cases, the norm is, high carb junk = fatso.

sprouted grains

feeds@yuku.com (tomcampbell) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:45:16 GMT

Maybe in the future someone will start sprouting and drying large amounts of grain and selling it in bulk, as they do now with rolled, flaked, and puffed grains.

I'm just curious to know if malted grain that is sold for use in brewing beer at home does or doesn't fit the conditions ran is talking about in the above. and if not, why?

Ran's perspective on Upstate New York election

feeds@yuku.com (mtnclimber) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:56:18 GMT

Ran, your blog post covering the upstate NY election in the 23rd district was excellent, which surprised me! A lot of media people miss the facts.

Any election in the North Country (how the region is called in NY) will be local. These are very practical and realistic people. Tell me how my neighbor will make a living, not some grand philosophical position (this time conservative) about the world.

The local people chose someone they knew -- she was in the state...

dropping out

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:01:08 GMT

Not that this topic hasn't already been hashed out thoroughly on this board, but it is one of my favorite topics. I agree with what Ran says about framing the issue in the light of replacing the money economy with the gift economy, also known as community. The particulars don't matter, as anyone can take this idea of community and apply it to the culture of their own life. What's important is that we participate in our own lives as much as possible, build up the things that...

MMO Masochism

feeds@yuku.com (michael) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:48:52 GMT

I can easily see why the MMO style seems abusive to Eskil, but I think a closer analogy is BDSM. An MMO player can quit at any time, and the MMO designers are careful not to make the sort of provocation that would inspire a player to end the scene.

One obvious such provocation is permadeath. In all known MMOs, a player whose avatar has just fallen in battle after a year of play, is considerably better off than a player who has freshly joined the game. Outside observers may...

Maple leaves

feeds@yuku.com (2handband) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:28:12 GMT

Aside from the uses you mentioned you can also make leaf mold which is a fantastic garden supplement. I have two big maple trees in my yard.

Oblivion on older hardware

feeds@yuku.com (datoo) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:28:32 GMT

You might be able to get it running on your new laptop, Ran. Check out this site: http://www.oldblivion.com/

Public Option and Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator!

feeds@yuku.com (ArrowpeakHouse) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:14:59 GMT

In an idiocracy, it's not too surprising that most are "for" the public option, with a mere 37% of Americans able to identify the concept on a multiple guess poll with only 3 choices. Retarded monkeys could score 33%.

Poll: Americans want health reform, but not higher taxes or rates
Denver Post | By Allison Sherry | August 25, 2009

Nearly 8 in 10 Americans support a federal health insurance plan for those who can't afford or...

Recession and runaways

feeds@yuku.com (michael) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:48:06 GMT

The article posted about recession driving runaways was mildly surprising to me. I would have expected recession to, if anything, suppress the runaway phenomenon by making life "outside the nest" scarier. But then, children young enough to be called runaways may not think things through properly....

Of course, the recession does make it more costly for the parents to support their kids. Perhaps some, unconsciously or even consciously, do not work as hard to keep their...

Growing grasses

feeds@yuku.com (TheGoodLife) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:31:06 GMT

Not THOSE kinda grasses!

We just had a GOOD amount of rain, and piles of dry dead grass blades/stalks I'd raked up burned nicely this AM. I'm seriously considering getting one of those little propane torches and doing a sort of "burn off" around my place, turn the dead stuff into ash and thus fertilize the soil, and right now the flames just skip merrily over the green stuff, eating the dead stuff.

I'm wondering, is this a way to encourage grass...

Driving....

feeds@yuku.com (TheGoodLife) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:06:58 GMT

Ran you'd better not get dependent on driving ..... car insurance seems to be being raised 3X-9X, you may have to pay each year, what your truck cost you.

Is complexity the problem, or is it the way of the universe?

feeds@yuku.com (leander37) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:06:44 GMT

The overall complexity of a broadly defined, no-boundaries system such as a "society," is unmeasurable because it is not discrete. Any fair measure of complexity must be of a discrete event or phenomenon. Defining the complexity of a society, broadly defined, is like defining the number of ideas in a library. You could count the books. You could count the pages. Then you could start counting the letters. Then you could start counting the categorized themes, then move to interrelated...

Hipster PDA - Organization and Paperwork

feeds@yuku.com (ArrowpeakHouse) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:23:03 GMT

Great post on the Hipster PDA, Ran.

Some random thoughts:

1. I bought a manual typewriter this spring off eBay. I love it. It's easier to type envelopes than the damn confuser.

2. At the place I used to work, we had 2 pieces of paper front and back for a total of 4 pages of records filed in one place that had space for 10 days. We went to "paperless records," which then required printing computer 7 computer sheets each day, filed in 3 places....

Global Warming is Hell

feeds@yuku.com (ArrowpeakHouse) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:42:05 GMT

Secular global warming is to the fundamentalist left what religious hell is to the fundamentalist right.

I think global warming is just meant to be another faith-based behavior modification belief system. It's designed to put fear into the serfs so their money is more easily liberated from their pocket for elite uses.

Sure, many scientists, in thrall to the establishment...

Church gets stronger as safety net weakens

feeds@yuku.com (michael) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:11:53 GMT

This actually gives an explanation for why libertarians and bible thumpers so often work together politically, despite the fact that they would appear to differ from each other more than either differs from the liberals.

Usually, we think of the religious right as yokels who have been driven into the arms of the right wing, since we liberals are too smart to accept Young Earth Creationism, or to think restricting abortion on an overpopulated planet is wise.

But perhaps...

Jesus Christ was a parasite.....

feeds@yuku.com (TheGoodLife) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:05:28 GMT

And Bernie Madoff is God!

Thanks Ran for finally posting a mini-rant about our money-centric values.

I'm NOT a Christian, but I esteem Christ highly. Let's not forget that Jesus was trained as a carpenter and for all we know carpentered here and there in his travels to make ends meet. As far as I know he never begged, his discipled just fed him, or not, that was that. No need to pay rent way back when, just curl up and sleep under a tree if you liked.

In other...

PTSD, Trauma Theory

feeds@yuku.com (lionelej) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:33:55 GMT

Ran said:

"I've also noticed that people who have suffered trauma, and not come to terms with it, are intensely envious and even hostile toward people who have suffered less trauma, and they seek to drag everyone else down in a psychological version of the crab mentality."

Yes, I've noticed that, too. Not all, though... people who are in the process of really coming to terms with it and are being supported seem to be more empathic.

...

Small is beautiful

feeds@yuku.com (PlatonicPimp) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:51:31 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk...uardiansocietysupplement

Here's a fun little article about the old book "small is beautiful." I think it's interesting primarily for one quote from a detractor:

"It comes down to whether or not you believe in technological progress and growth," says Philip Stott, professor emeritus in bio-geography at the University...

Happiness and metaphysics

feeds@yuku.com (canetoad) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:55:39 GMT

"Now, I admit that my own happiness depends on metaphysics."

I would love to hear more about this. I am genuinely interested to hear this thought expanded upon.

America shouldn't get its act together

feeds@yuku.com (ArrowpeakHouse) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:22:39 GMT

Ran said: I also blame Ronald Reagan, Walt Disney, Ayn Rand, fundamentalist churches, right wing think tanks...

Ran's rant appears as ideologically contrived as an Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin rant.

America can't get its act together, because being forced by a hierarchical system to collectively act together is the problem.

It's difficult to believe that I once learned of Jason Godesky's Thirty Theses from this website. I think...