Misc. comments 66:
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princessofgeeks was thnking about why she dislikes the term "reached out" in news articles, and I said:
It is vague, perhaps deliberately so: in the past they probably would have said either "we contacted them/their office but got no answers to our questions" or "tried to contact them and..." Decades ago, people were objecting to the then-new use of "contact" as a verb there, in part because of the same vagueness.
"Reached out" does sort of imply that there's a standard way they try to reach that person, whether it's trying all of Sen. X's public contact information, or also includes something like a not-generally-publicized phone number or email address for her press secretary. There's probably also a set of steps that journalists and/or their employers take before writing something like "we were unable to reach the suspect or his lawyer, if he has one."
I do assume good faith here, that if (say) the CBC or the Boston Globe says that they left messages for so-and-so's press office which weren't returned, they did leave a message with someone (or something, like voicemail or Twitter DMs). There are news organizations I wouldn't assume that of, and that may be one of the reasons I don't trust the New York Post or the Daily Fail for, well, anything.
Prompted by one of Andrew Ducker's "interesting links" posts:
The article about that "super sewer" talks about how few Londoners ever get close to the River Thames, and remi9nded me that I made a point of doing so, when my mother and I were visiting Greenwich. The tide was low enough that we went down a flight of stairs to a mud flat. We saw a grey heron down there, which I added to my (somewhat lackadaisical) birding life list.
Not a usual tourist stop, I know; we also went to the old Greenwich observatory, and I watched the ball drop announcing noon.
brithistorian was talking about recipes and ingredients, and said
My comment was:
If they specify on the level of "apple cider vinegar" I will either follow that or think about whether/how I can substitute things. If a recipe on a food company's website specifies brands, I tend to ignore it--those are the ones that will say "Hershey's cocoa" or "X brand corn oil."
Sometimes the recipe specifies, say, a particular kind of mayonnaise that I already know I don't like. (I am not a big mayonnaise fan, but also am picky about which brands of mayo I'm willing to eat.) Any apple cider vinegar is fine, and if a recipe specifies a spice blend (like "Goya adobo sin annatto" or "Penzey's Singapore seasoning") I will either use it, or look up what goes into the seasoning blend and then decide. I make black beans mostly according to the instructions I found on a can of Goya beans, but without the adobo, and not trying to copy it closely.
Thinking about ancestors and people tracing their family trees, in response to a comment to somethingcmcmck posted about being descended from John Lackland:
Yes [we are all related], and not as far back as a lot of people think. The most recent common ancestor of all humans alive today lived in the last few thousand years, and everyone with European ancestry is descended from Charlemagne. The "isopoint," the date before which everyone is descended from all of the same people, seems to be less than ten thousand years ago.
It's easier to trace male-line ancestors than female, for fairly widespread cultural reasons, so we don't see a lot of people talking about "my 12-times-great-grandmother" meaning the mother's mothers' .... mother.
Sometimes that ancestral line comes with family stories or traditions, but our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents filtered and told the stories they thought were interesting, or cast them in a good light.
kaberett was talking about not liking most winter squash:
That doesn't seem to be how I respond to food, but it's interesting, and I am going to think about it.
If I was drawing a cucumber-to-melon spectrum, winter squash would be off to one side, relative to both: something like watermelon, cantaloupe, ... cucumber, ...acorn squash. For me, cucumber is in a space that overlaps fruit and vegetables: cucumber ice cream works, but so does putting cucumber in a dinner salad with greens.
I'm not sure where/how Waldorf salad (mostly apples and nuts, in a mayonnaise=based dressing) or my friend Jeanne's tomato-and-nectarine fruit salad fits in here.
laurel posted bout precautions for Thanksgiving gatherings
I read an article recently about the demographics of people who have already gotten the new vaccine, and those who haven't but say they are planning to or might, versus those who say they won't get it. The article gave percentages by geography, age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and being LGBTQ, and also noted that if people are thinking about the limited duration of really good protection, they might be deliberately waiting until closer to either Thanksgiving or Christmas to best protect themselves and/or their loved ones.
I also, in retrospect, wish I had asked/reminded my mother to mask in the few days before coming to visit us, and especially in the airports. I'm not sure I can make sure she has, and uses, a good mask--the Powecom KN95s fit her well and she's willing to use them when I give her one, but I don't know whether they even have a UK distributor. (Medical masks aren't great to start with, and probably useless given the shape of her face.)
minoanmiss was talking about kids at the place she works trying to get out of math class. amaebi talked about her son's math classes, and I wrote:
Reading this comment, I think part of why I came out of high school still liking math may be the teachers, and another part may be the slightly odd curriculum they were using. It was the "experimental" math track per my high school, and "unified" according to the university that promoted it; we got a lot of the standard material, up to calculus, but also propositional logic (in eighth grade), Cartesian geometry (instead of Euclidean), and combinatorics. The school also had a "regular" math sequence, and students who found experimental too difficult (or, I would guess, whose parents thought it was too weird) could move into those classes, which also led to calculus).
In response tobrithistorian wondering about weird magazine prescription costs:
My guess, beyond late stage capitalism being weird, is that they're somehow still selling advertising to companies based on the number of people who are reading, or at least getting, the print edition.
If so, it benefits them to be sending out more paper copies, even to people who read the digital version and will throw the paper magazines away without opening them. It sounds like the prices of daily newspapers increased when they were selling fewer ads. What I paid at the newsstand in the morning was about enough to cover the paper and printing costs, and the reporters' and editors' salaries, the fees for syndicated comics and columnists, and any profits all were paid for by advertising.
It's not quite "if you aren't the customer, you're the product," but it's a little bit in that direction. At one point, my daily English-language newspaper options in New York included several that cost about 50 cents, plus two free papers given out at subway and railroad station entrances, and the Wall Street Journal and Women's Wear Daily.
finch was talking about "why do I blog anyway?" and I said:
Part of why I post here is for my own later reference, which includes both things I hope will be interesting to others, and minutiae of stuff like starting on new meds. I made a bunch of posts early in the pandemic because I could feel time just slipping away, then.
My posts here are also about talking to people, which is sometimes conversation and sometimes "here is information I think you might find useful.".
There's a pinned post at the top of my Dreamwidth account page, which says this is [partly] an online substitute for a paper journal, and also invites new readers to introduce themselves.
princessofgeeks was thnking about why she dislikes the term "reached out" in news articles, and I said:It is vague, perhaps deliberately so: in the past they probably would have said either "we contacted them/their office but got no answers to our questions" or "tried to contact them and..." Decades ago, people were objecting to the then-new use of "contact" as a verb there, in part because of the same vagueness.
"Reached out" does sort of imply that there's a standard way they try to reach that person, whether it's trying all of Sen. X's public contact information, or also includes something like a not-generally-publicized phone number or email address for her press secretary. There's probably also a set of steps that journalists and/or their employers take before writing something like "we were unable to reach the suspect or his lawyer, if he has one."
I do assume good faith here, that if (say) the CBC or the Boston Globe says that they left messages for so-and-so's press office which weren't returned, they did leave a message with someone (or something, like voicemail or Twitter DMs). There are news organizations I wouldn't assume that of, and that may be one of the reasons I don't trust the New York Post or the Daily Fail for, well, anything.
Prompted by one of Andrew Ducker's "interesting links" posts:
The article about that "super sewer" talks about how few Londoners ever get close to the River Thames, and remi9nded me that I made a point of doing so, when my mother and I were visiting Greenwich. The tide was low enough that we went down a flight of stairs to a mud flat. We saw a grey heron down there, which I added to my (somewhat lackadaisical) birding life list.
Not a usual tourist stop, I know; we also went to the old Greenwich observatory, and I watched the ball drop announcing noon.
brithistorian was talking about recipes and ingredients, and said If the recipe writer goes to the trouble of specifying a brand name or other adjective for any particular ingredient, they probably have a good reason for it. Either follow their instruction or, if you're going to make a substitution, be damn sure you understand why they made the choice they did so you can make an intelligent substitution.
My comment was:
If they specify on the level of "apple cider vinegar" I will either follow that or think about whether/how I can substitute things. If a recipe on a food company's website specifies brands, I tend to ignore it--those are the ones that will say "Hershey's cocoa" or "X brand corn oil."
Sometimes the recipe specifies, say, a particular kind of mayonnaise that I already know I don't like. (I am not a big mayonnaise fan, but also am picky about which brands of mayo I'm willing to eat.) Any apple cider vinegar is fine, and if a recipe specifies a spice blend (like "Goya adobo sin annatto" or "Penzey's Singapore seasoning") I will either use it, or look up what goes into the seasoning blend and then decide. I make black beans mostly according to the instructions I found on a can of Goya beans, but without the adobo, and not trying to copy it closely.
Thinking about ancestors and people tracing their family trees, in response to a comment to something
cmcmck posted about being descended from John Lackland:Yes [we are all related], and not as far back as a lot of people think. The most recent common ancestor of all humans alive today lived in the last few thousand years, and everyone with European ancestry is descended from Charlemagne. The "isopoint," the date before which everyone is descended from all of the same people, seems to be less than ten thousand years ago.
It's easier to trace male-line ancestors than female, for fairly widespread cultural reasons, so we don't see a lot of people talking about "my 12-times-great-grandmother" meaning the mother's mothers' .... mother.
Sometimes that ancestral line comes with family stories or traditions, but our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents filtered and told the stories they thought were interesting, or cast them in a good light.
kaberett was talking about not liking most winter squash:That doesn't seem to be how I respond to food, but it's interesting, and I am going to think about it.
If I was drawing a cucumber-to-melon spectrum, winter squash would be off to one side, relative to both: something like watermelon, cantaloupe, ... cucumber, ...acorn squash. For me, cucumber is in a space that overlaps fruit and vegetables: cucumber ice cream works, but so does putting cucumber in a dinner salad with greens.
I'm not sure where/how Waldorf salad (mostly apples and nuts, in a mayonnaise=based dressing) or my friend Jeanne's tomato-and-nectarine fruit salad fits in here.
laurel posted bout precautions for Thanksgiving gatheringsI read an article recently about the demographics of people who have already gotten the new vaccine, and those who haven't but say they are planning to or might, versus those who say they won't get it. The article gave percentages by geography, age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and being LGBTQ, and also noted that if people are thinking about the limited duration of really good protection, they might be deliberately waiting until closer to either Thanksgiving or Christmas to best protect themselves and/or their loved ones.
I also, in retrospect, wish I had asked/reminded my mother to mask in the few days before coming to visit us, and especially in the airports. I'm not sure I can make sure she has, and uses, a good mask--the Powecom KN95s fit her well and she's willing to use them when I give her one, but I don't know whether they even have a UK distributor. (Medical masks aren't great to start with, and probably useless given the shape of her face.)
minoanmiss was talking about kids at the place she works trying to get out of math class. amaebi talked about her son's math classes, and I wrote:Reading this comment, I think part of why I came out of high school still liking math may be the teachers, and another part may be the slightly odd curriculum they were using. It was the "experimental" math track per my high school, and "unified" according to the university that promoted it; we got a lot of the standard material, up to calculus, but also propositional logic (in eighth grade), Cartesian geometry (instead of Euclidean), and combinatorics. The school also had a "regular" math sequence, and students who found experimental too difficult (or, I would guess, whose parents thought it was too weird) could move into those classes, which also led to calculus).
In response to
brithistorian wondering about weird magazine prescription costs:My guess, beyond late stage capitalism being weird, is that they're somehow still selling advertising to companies based on the number of people who are reading, or at least getting, the print edition.
If so, it benefits them to be sending out more paper copies, even to people who read the digital version and will throw the paper magazines away without opening them. It sounds like the prices of daily newspapers increased when they were selling fewer ads. What I paid at the newsstand in the morning was about enough to cover the paper and printing costs, and the reporters' and editors' salaries, the fees for syndicated comics and columnists, and any profits all were paid for by advertising.
It's not quite "if you aren't the customer, you're the product," but it's a little bit in that direction. At one point, my daily English-language newspaper options in New York included several that cost about 50 cents, plus two free papers given out at subway and railroad station entrances, and the Wall Street Journal and Women's Wear Daily.
finch was talking about "why do I blog anyway?" and I said:Part of why I post here is for my own later reference, which includes both things I hope will be interesting to others, and minutiae of stuff like starting on new meds. I made a bunch of posts early in the pandemic because I could feel time just slipping away, then.
My posts here are also about talking to people, which is sometimes conversation and sometimes "here is information I think you might find useful.".
There's a pinned post at the top of my Dreamwidth account page, which says this is [partly] an online substitute for a paper journal, and also invites new readers to introduce themselves.
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i do love these comment recaps and I was amused all over again o think of the math class conundrum,
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It's also constantly amusing to me that in her oldest cookbooks, Mollie Katzen assumes that tofu comes in little cakes weighing three or four ounces. I've never seen one of those anywhere.
P.