Peterkin

What am I to do with Android apps? I need a decent word processor, Photoshop, email and internet connection. At my desk, in my house. Preferably word processor, photoshop, email and internet connection that I've already learned how to use and that don't ask me inane questions about whether i want to do things I have never considered doing. There must be other people like me, who only need their computers to perform a few tasks - well and reliably.

Have you ever tried cooking them in a microwave? In the days when that labour-saving appliance was gaining popularity, many new owners did. Works okay if you have have them in a water bath.... I've never seen one. What is the advantage? Doesn't it take more power to generate enough steam to cook eggs than it would to immerse them? I mean, it's not as if they'll lose nutrients the way spinach does. Is avoiding the risk of an occasional crack - which mine don't, as I lower them into the water tenderly cradled in a slotted spoon - worth $35 and one more appliance cluttering up the counter that has to be washed whenever the blender spits up a smoothie?

Of course - and they believe it. They always believe it. In this instance, however, I was referring to the soldiers' loyalty to the constitution and duly elected Commander in Chief. Each soldier may also have a very particular concept of their own nation, its laws and what that should mean. I am not at all certain of the inclination of most military personnel; I've only heard and read comments by a few. My fervent hope is that more high- and mid-ranking career military are more like Col. Vidman. Otherwise, there will be a very great deal of blood and fire in American streets. Anything can be written. Anything that's written can be obeyed - or not. Like those famous Commandments. Which is unlikely? A coup? (No, it isn't) Or that the army will support a coup? (That depends on who is leading it.) They existed, but were not implemented - partly by design, with forethought, and partly due to blind it-can't-happen-here faith. Unfortunately, only the more paranoid, chink-gauging and ruthless elements could prevent an overthrow by the other side - only, it's they themselves who stage it against the more trusting, optimistic, unguarded side. Oh yes - there are.

It would have been a coup. Only, the army was not ready to step in, short of an invasion by aliens or Aliens. Even though Trump had replaced some of the top brass with his own choices, the majority of army brass are still patriots. Even his appointees, there as elsewhere, were not necessarily loyal. That whole administration was so riddled with distrust and fear, as well as incompetence and corruption, that it was incapable of concerted decisive action. However, a smarter, more aware, more disciplined leader could wreak all the havoc he wanted, by the same methods, better carried out. That's what the red states are preparing for now: sideline the wrong kind of voter, disable their legal and political organizations, keep arming the confederate volunteer militia and wait for the next Goldwater to lead them. Maybe the Trump presidency was a weather balloon... A constitution is only as strong as the people who respect its intent. If only the weak respect it, and pin their hopes on it, while the strong twist its meaning to their own ends and disregard the parts that don't serve them, it's not worth the crumbling parchment it's penned on. In the end, the issue may very well come down to which way the armed forces - not just the top brass; all those officers and enlisted troops who swore their own individual oaths - decide. If they're split down the middle, you know what follows.

You mean that some expert on elections predicted that the UK population would swing back and forth between Conservative and Labour for the last fifty years? They have done that, and if they were reporting it accurately, the BBC was not "doing it wrong". An electorate being offered a very limited choice, election after election, by the same ruling elite does not constitute a political direction or entail even the slightest change in direction. PS I hope Mr. Mckenzie's eternal slumber is not too greatly disturbed by my tactless remarks.

Oh, groan, oh moan, Microsoft is telling me that Windows 11 is ready to download. Another buggy, prematurely released, insufficiently tested program that gloms up my bandwidth (There are six computers at this address!) so I can't watch Silent Witness for a month, that offers five new features that I don't need, don't want, don't know how to turn off and it causes at least one of my essential applications to crash. I'll resist as long as I can, but sometime, I know, in the middle of the night, it'll just break in, disable Bitdefender and download itself anyway. D'you ever feel like you're living in Masada?

In which instance? The OP one and my response: washed the stale water and spittle out of the bottle and off the rim. The other examples were self-explanatory.

second best Drilled well on gravel that's never been farmed is best.

When I refill the hummingbird feeder, I use hot soapy water and brush to wash it, then rinse with 4 or 5 changes of cold water, to remove the soap residue. When I refill my mobile water bottle, from which nobody else ever drinks and which, since its brief commercial stint as a mickey flask for rum, has held nothing but my own tap water, I settle for a quick cold rinse. Wine bottles used to get the full soap, rinse, boil, cool, rinse, rinse, rinse treatment. One reason I stopped making wine was all the damn washing.

approximately 1/4 of the volume. Too much less, and you don't have enough water for a good rinse; more takes a longer time; too much more, and the liquid is too sluggish for a good rinse. 1/4 - 1/3 is sufficient liquid to carry away contaminants, but leaves enough room in the container for vigorous movement. The scientific method trial and trial and trial. There can't be any serious errors - you're just looking for an optimal amount.

I think there may be lacunae in our children's education that have more significance to their adult life than the nomenclature of oval components.

Can I give them a down vote for linguistic transgression? With competent editing, that rant might have been a quite good comic piece.

At least we know now what wants to live forever, even if flopping around the floor in little pieces: this thread.

I wonder how many subjective meanings the word "objective" has.

Nice!

Okay. Thanks.

I don't know what-all else he has said, or what he's called people, except for what I heard in the stage appearances that I watched. I question this: because that one tiny segment of one video clip was offered as proof that my understanding of Peterson's position is wrong. My impression from the other videos is that he's prepared to do everything within his power to resist ever having to use what he considers to be the pronoun of preference for a person who identifies differently from the way he identifies them by sight. His saying that he would address someone - which is why I asked whether it was the feminine-looking person on the panel - as 'she' does not invalidate that impression. It also, incidentally, contradicts this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9TwrXRUa_I

That's okay; it was about parental intervention, anyway, not siblings taking sides. However, it is quite natural for a brother or sister to defend younger siblings, especially if they're outclassed in a fight, regardless of whether the little brother or sister was in the right. You stop the fight first, ask questions later. When you do talk to the kid, it's also quite natural and common for the older sibling to give the younger one advice on how to avoid, handle, survive, and if possible win a conflict with peers. It's bias, but it's one most people can't (and don't want to) get over. Loyalty begets loyalty: you want siblings to be on your side, as you are on theirs, no matter what.

Some forms of corporal punishment was generally accepted in boys' schools in those days, but in girls' schools, even at the elementary level, they did no more than a light rap on the hand with a pointer. Even if a female teacher had been empowered to hit students, a man certainly would not have been. That priest made the Protestant students kneel outside in the unheated hall during religious studies - in a public school, where he was a guest teacher. (My two older aunts were Catholic.)

Of course they are not better than you in any sense of which we can make sense in modern common parlance. That is not what "I" said of "them"; those [commoners and betters] are the terms that were used in societies where class structure was less artfully concealed than it is in modern western advanced industrial etc. The world works that way. Stalins don't just descend from the sky, fully armed with thunderbolts and photon cannons. People dying under the Romanoffs fought back successfully and that struggle threw up a Stalin from among their ranks, who became the new emperor.

As I said, the value humans assign to life - their own, the lives of other humans, the lives of other species - is arbitrary. Some people have always risked much worse than incarceration to get the necessities that the greedy took for granted, and took from the poor. But the risk-takers were always a small minority compared to the willing enforcers of whatever status quo. There was always an inquisitor or sheriff, with plenty of men-at-arms to deal with the trouble-makers. The rich have always lived longer, as well as better. They had, and they still have, the power to send people to the gallows, battlefields and gaschambers - and the people go. When Bezos and Musk get the youth pill, most people will hear about it late, in snatches, as rumours. They won't believe it. Then they'll see pictures of youthful billionnaires and wonder. Then start believing it. Many conspiracy theories will arise. Many executives and other minions will try to cozy up to one of the privileged; there will be a frenzy of trading, market bubbles, buyouts, bankruptcies and recessions, in an attempt for more of millinnaires to become billionaires. There will be illicit trade in cheaper knock-offs, some of which may even be partly effective. There will be some attampts to break into the labs and vaults where the stuff is kept. If any are actually acquired, there will be shootouts at the access and distribution points. The least competent and ruthless perpetrators will be caught and made an example of. But no global revolution.

History is not about you or me. And there are still those in position to take our lives any time they chose to. Yes, it is. If they all wanted to "fight back", they could. There have only ever been a handful of people who give orders and millions who obey orders.

I'm not sure. Common people have always accepted that their betters have the power of life and death over them. Historically, however egregious the injustices and cruelties imposed upon them by the ruling elite, people have not revolted except when they were literally starving and when their religious or national identity was at stake. Even then, it takes at least one charismatic leader, a lot of agitation and a lot more repression, for a showdown to take place. (Mostly, the rebels lose anyway.) Under capitalism, we have long learned to accept the parties on the yacht, the gold toilets, the joyrides in space, even while people freeze to death in the street. We already know that some people can buy vital organs, as well as cosmetic surgery and high-tech implants, while many can't afford emergency care when they've been in an accident. We have raised the super-rich up to Olympus; we expect them to take advantage of all its amenities.

Protection of one's own genetic investment from outsiders is a far older instinct than humans. OTOH, the same parent, as soon as the other child is gone, may take their own child to task for his part in the conflict, and very possibly impose some penalty. When arbitrating a dispute between two of their own offspring, parents can be impartial, fair, biased toward one or the other child, punitive or lenient, micro-managing or hands-off. Generally, their aim is to teach their children values and social skills that will serve them well in adult life. The philosophies, cultural norms, styles and levels of competence vary widely, but the intent is generally the same as for an elephant or stoat. Maybe so, but I don't believe this is happening in the same way in all societies. In the example of the child being sent home from school, there are very many factors, which have also changed over the decades: school policy, the reasons a child might be sent home, the parents' level of confidence in the system and in the teacher - and how much upheaval this kind of incident causes in a household. Your example would certainly have been true of the majority of people in European-derived cultures up to the middle of the last century or slightly beyond: trust in the system was high; there was an expectation of permanence, so that children were required to conform to existing norms. (Even so, my grandfather, in 1930, had a teacher removed from his children's school for cruelty - not to them, but to their classmates of a different religion. He listened to his kids, believed them and investigated the situation. He also never, on principle, hit a woman, a subordinate, a child, a dog or a horse. What's usual is not universal; it's the exceptions that inspire change.) An atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust began to manifest (in North America; I think Europe was already on a different path) in the 1970's. There followed a drawing-in, a circling of wagons around kin, congregation, community, world-view and growing suspicion of - if not outright hostility toward - outsiders. For most people, that's far too self-reflexive a question ever to ask. I do not see such a world on any horizon.

And it was worth the wait! This theme of extreme longevity is far from unexplored. It's a constant preoccupation of a species intensely aware of its mortality - and yet so arbitrary in assigning value to life. One of the older races in Babylon 5 threw a collective tantrum when one of their number was killed: they were so unused to death - as applied to themselves. They were happy to apply it with a lavish hand to the the younger races. It's partly a question of numbers: few are precious; many are expendable. A very human concept.