EleCivil

99% of the cacao beans belong to 1% of the population. #OccupyMars

So, I had this idea for a Halloween costume: I'd grow a goatee, and go as my own evil twin from a mirror dimension. But here's the thing - not that many people are nerdy enough to get it. (Blue, help me out. I know you've got my back on this one.) What I've noticed is that people seem to interpret my "costume" differently based on their own backgrounds. As a man with a shaved head and a goatee dressed all in black, people have mistaken my costume for the following: Wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin: Actor Brian Cranston: Comic book character Wee Hughie: And of course, the Satanist, Anton LaVey: Simply from their guesses as to what my goatee-costume was, I can tell which of them reads comics, which of them watches wrestling, which of them likes Breaking Bad, and which of them has a secret shrine to the demon Baphomet in her basement. Pretty cool, yeah?

That's pretty awesome, but I don't relish the thought of the thousands of Kirk/Spock fanfics being written RIGHT NOW because of this announcement. If you listen close, you can hear all the keys tapping. And if you listen even closer, you can hear all the editors cringing. Now if you'll excuse me, I just heard a comma splice being typed three apartments down. There's work to be done!

The world is ridiculous, and that's just awesome.

Only if the crack whore isn't sharing needles with a man who has had sex with a man in the last twelve months. That'd be risky.

I think that's a zen koan. "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" "If a tree falls in the woods, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" "If you look at two dudes having sex, which one is gayer - the bottom, the top, or you, for looking at them?" And, yes, we have now discussed systems of measurement, the scientific method, syllable stressing, and zen koans in a thread about wangs. You're welcome.

Of course! They were measuring in "Gay Inches." It's like Dog Years, only sexier. 'Course, this is scientific measurement, so they may have been in metric "Homometers."

Hahaha. This article was actually forwarded by a colleague of mine, and I figured you guys would get a kick out of it. We have sort of an unofficial "who can find the strangest research abstract in a professional journal" contest going on. Yes, this is what science teachers do for fun. Haha, truth. I thought the funniest thing about this study wasn't the study itself, but the method. It seems faulty right from the start - sorting all of the subjects into a strict binary of "gay" or "straight"? Is there a way, scientifically, to prove that the men who claimed to be straight were actually straight? Did they take race/ethnicity into consideration? What about bisexuals? Etc. But, no, the funniest thing is that they mailed tape measures to five thousand guys and said "Be honest, fellas."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10410197 ...Just sayin'. Thanks again, science. Note: Shortly after this study, all the scientists involved looked at each other uncomfortably and then started shouting "I'm gay!" "Well, I'm gayer than you!" "I'm the gayest man in this room!"

I got my first teaching job two years ago, right out of college. At the time, I posted this: "The school has no art, music, gym, recess, or extra-curriculars. These were all shut down because of low test scores. The school itself is on the verge of being shut down by the government (depending on this year's test scores)." Bruin Fisher replied with this: "Cool. You will hit the school like a tornado. Its grades will shoot through the roof, the kids will become well-motivated, the arts courses will be re-established." I have my suspicions that Mr. Fisher might be a psychic. Or a witch. Here's what's happened: The incompetent teachers and abusive administrators were kicked to the curb. We now have art, music, gym, and an after school program. We put on school plays every six weeks. Our test scores have shot up, making us one of the best performing public schools in the area. I don't have the data from other teachers, but my kids went up an average of two and a half grade levels in the last year. I'm happy about the test scores. But seriously, who cares about test scores? Any educator you ask will tell you how ridiculous standardized tests are. Until kids have standardized lives, standardized parental support, standardized health, and standardized neighborhoods, standardized tests will always be BS. Yeah, I teach my kids to read. But you'll know which ones are mine because they'll be smiling. They'll be the ones juggling and performing slight-of-hand tricks. They'll be the ones wearing goofy hats and reciting poems while standing on one foot. They'll be standing on tables and role-playing characters from fiction and history. They'll be singing their answers and reading aloud in different accents every day. Officially, I'm going against the curriculum. The administration and the government say that I'm supposed to take kids who can't read and teach them how to fake it well enough to bluff their way through a standardized test. But when no one's looking, I close the door and teach them to read. Screw the tests. Screw the standards. Let's teach.

"But...but...but...if we EDUCATE kids, they'll make the WRONG decisions! The only way to keep them safe is to make sure they're completely ignorant!"

Politicians with mental disorders are not an American phenomenon. Nassir Ghaemi's book, "A First Rate Madness" is about how our most successful politicians have had some sort of mental disorder - Lincoln, Churchill, Ghandi, MLK, etc. - and how they were better leaders because of it. Depression makes one more empathetic and reflective, manic tendencies produce charismatic leaders, it takes a narcissist to stand up and say "I know a better way than everyone else," etc. People whose brains work differently are the only ones who can change the world, because everyone else keeps doing things the same way - staying the course is normal, change is "weird." “In the storm of crisis, complete sanity can steer us astray, while some insanity brings us to port.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/11/books/a-...emi-review.html Right-wingers and teabaggers strike me as being too sane for their own good. They believe in an unbending, black and white moral code. They believe that the world works in a logical way - cause and effect. The market is down? Must be because of the tax code. Murder rate is up? We'll institute the death penalty. A natural disaster wiped out a city? Somebody must have made God mad. In all honesty, that's pretty sane - "Everything happens for a reason." To believe such is to defend one's sanity against the myriad injustices of random chance. Five minutes from now, the Earth might explode, eradicating all human life from the universe. Some people would read that sentence and think "No way, that can't be God's plan" and take comfort in it. Others would read that sentence and think "...So it goes." Which is crazier? To me, the world is too chaotic and humans are too irrational for sanity to work. To attempt to enforce sanity on an insane universe is, in itself, rather crazy. Discordians call it The Law of Eristic Escalation: "Imposition of order = Escalation of chaos." I'd find O'Donnell more credible if she WAS a witch. Hail Discordia.

This is the only thing I know about my Welsh heritage. Dammit, ancestors. Edit: I do think sheep are pretty awesome, though.

As a teacher, I don't accept friend requests from students on Facebook. It just doesn't seem professional to me. First, there's the matter of the teachers' privacy. While I don't post anything too personal myself, I can't control what other people post on my wall. Also, I'm friends with several co-workers, and becoming friends with students would allow them access to OTHER teachers' posts. Second, there's a line of familiarity that you don't cross with students. I teach in a high-poverty inner-city school. A lot of my students don't have their parents around, leading to a lot of abandonment issues (and, not uncommonly, attachment disorder). For their sake, I need to make it clear that I love them, I care about them, but I'm their teacher - not their parent, not their friend. It may seem cold, but I think it's important. If your teacher gives you a detention, or fails you on an assignment, or refers you to the office, it's their job - you may not like it, but it's not personal. If your FRIEND does it, it's a betrayal, and it hurts. We've had some issues with teachers and students on Facebook, as well. Nothing inappropriate from the teacher's side, but we've had students forget that they've added teachers, only to post pictures of their drug stash, guns, condoms, inappropriate pictures of themselves, or messages about what sexual adventures they've had with other students. That puts the school in a position where we're legally obligated to report the kids and their parents to the police, which is always dangerous considering how many of the parents have gang ties. It's not a good position to be in. As for the educational uses of social networking, there's a website I was introduced to at an Educational Tech convention - www.edmodo.com - that is basically Facebook for students, teachers, and parents. It's open to parents, so they know that nothing inappropriate is going on, and it's separate from the teachers' and students' personal sites, so it doesn't run the risk of sharing private information.

Zzzzzzzzing.

Source: http://www.suntimes.com/news/6495246-452/m...peared-gay.html --- We all know that guys who have sex with guys can't donate blood. But now the precedent is that guys who look "effeminate" can't give blood, because they might be lying about not having sex with guys. All I can say is "It's about time!" As the National Republican Party and several famous evangelical preachers have taught us, there are tons of gay dudes out there pretending to have normal, straight, non-tainted blood. Now, it's easy to spot someone who LOOKS gay...but what about those that are better at hiding it? They could be sexing dudes every night, and giving blood every day, and we'd never know! My proposed remedy? Government issued ID cards. Like a driver's license, but for sex. That's right, gentlemen - all the excitement of the DMV, but with all the illicit thrills of proving to strangers that you are not a homosexual. "But Civil," I hear you interjecting, "What if those deceitful Homer Sexuals simply LIE to the government to get their Certified Hetero (patent pending) cards?" Simple solution: The cards will only be issued in straight strip clubs. And only to men with prominent erections. But who, you might ask, would be willing to examine all these men's tumescent members in the name of purity? Volunteers? Anyone?

A hundred years ago, we didn't know what ADHD was - we just knew that some kids were "unruly." We didn't know what dyslexia was - we just knew that some kids were "dumb." We didn't know what selective mutism was - we just knew that some kids were "stubborn." The list goes on and on - S.E.D., O.D.D., O.C.D., sensory disorders, the autism spectrum, agoraphobia. All of which, when observed out of context, could lead someone to thinking a person is simply "bad" or "weird" or "crazy." The scary (and fascinating) part is that these are just the ones we know about. A hundred years from now, how many more "brain disorders" will we have discovered? What happens if we discover a "brain disorder" (read: chemical/electrical impulse) that causes, say, generosity, or friendliness? Maybe the only reason those don't have names and medications yet is because we don't look at positive behavior the same way we look at negative behavior. We see someone flip out and throw a punch at a bystander, and we ask "What's wrong with him? How can we fix it?" We see someone giving to charity and we think "There's a good person who made a good choice." Who's to say he isn't simply being led around by, say, Good Samaritan Syndrome, a mental disorder that makes one value the comfort of others more than one's own? And what's love if not a mental disorder that causes one to think and act irrationally? If the (occasionally faulty) probability formula running through our neurological/endocrine system starts telling us that another person can cause greater happiness than our previously targeted obsessions, that could cause us to change our behavior - start being a better person. This would explain people overcoming addictions for someone they love (be it in the familial or romantic sense of the word). Could this also explain religious experiences (love of a god) leading to someone changing their ways? Is "nurture" simply an outgrowth of "nature" - the slight alterations in our mental probability formula based on intellectual (rather than instinctual) discoveries? Living things attempt to adapt to their environments, after all. We've all read about sociopaths who are able to "blend in" because they've learned the scripts that "normal" people are supposed to follow...but isn't that what everyone does? Perhaps there isn't much in the way of true "change," but more along the lines of "practiced adaptation." What if the chemical cocktail we call "love" could override the chemical cocktails that cause hostility, or selfishness? Literally re-wire the nature of a man? That would be a materialist view of redemption through love, yes? But don't mind me, I'm just spitballin'.

Aw, shucks. Thank you! I'm honored to be named in such company.

With you 100% on avoiding similar names. I swear I've read stories about Jase, Jake, Jack, and Jess that have made me bail from sheer confusion as soon as there was a conversation with all four of them in the room. Culture/setting makes a difference, though: the top Social Security names only reflect the majority, and "distractingly off-beat" is in the ears of the listener. For instance, I had a student named John, and the name struck me as downright strange, because the rest of his classmates had names like Undelontz, Jza'Artist, and Takeelah. To my ears, John had become a "distracting" name. In my neighborhood, if you name your boy "Daniel" or your girl "Emily," (two of the top Social Security picks) people start looking at you funny. Ironically, the most common name in my school? "Unique." My general rule of thumb is that if a character's name doesn't mesh with his/her culture, it should make sense within the context of that character's family. Thesaurus Jones was the son of two librarians, Rye Peterson's mom wrote her thesis on Salinger, Qwerty Smith's dad headbutted a keyboard and picked the first few letters he came up with (he was a bit of a drinker, that one). (I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know, Pec - this is mainly for the sake of any rookies who might be reading this looking for naming advice.)

Naming characters has always been one of the most difficult parts of writing, for me. At once point, my method was to open a CD at random and point to a band member's name. Well, this site makes it a bit simpler: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ If you scroll down, it will allow you to enter any birth year to see the most popular baby names from that year. So if your story is set in 2011 and your characters are 18, type in 1993 and see what comes up. These are the records from the US Social Security Administration, so it's a bit more accurate than other "baby names" sites. Granted, you may have names in mind already for your main characters, but this is a quick way to come up with realistic names for extras.

All right, I'm late catching the bus on this one, but I just wanted to swing by and say that Cole is still awesome. I tend to not start reading his stories until they're finished, because I want to read them all in one sitting. That's how I read most good authors, to be honest, whether net-authors or print-authors. I think Cole has carved out a niche for writing about kids with issues learning to accept themselves. I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of authors in this genre do that, but Cole seems to do it consistently RIGHT. And he tends to make the psychological growth and inner turmoil the center of a story, rather than a cheap way to add drama to a romance. I like the format of this one - 50+ quick chapters rather than ~20 long ones. Again, it's something I don't usually see in net serials, and I thought it worked well for the pacing of this story. Also, Cole is the KING of writing asshole school administrators. My god. I think I know where Mr. Johnson went after he left this story. Seriously, this character rang so true with me because I've worked with him in the past. I may have - MAAAAY have - ended up telling him that if he ever made one of my students cry again, I'd have his job and hang his license over my mantle as a trophy* (What I WANTED to say was that I'd kick his ass and have his balls hung over my mantle, but I was trying to be professional). See that? Cole does the love-to-hate villains well enough to make me reminisce about their real-world counterparts. Anyway, if there's any other procrastinators out there who have been putting off this story, get to it. *I did. Well, not the trophy part. The state kind of frowns on that, and I don't really have a mantle.

I like that the Anonymous rep in this video is represented by a picture of Batman fighting a shark with a lightsaber. Aside from being awesome, you can pull some symbolism out of a vigilante using light to take out a natural predator.

Video: Anonymous hacks a WBC site during a live interview with one of the Phelps clan. Abridged version- Phelps: "God is with us! No one can silence us!" Anon: "While you were saying that, I hacked your website." Phelps: "...You're going to hell." EDIT: Just noticed that James posted this in another thread. Jeeeeez.

EXACTLY.Kids know whether or not you care, and if they don't think you do, it's trouble. This is what makes or breaks a teacher, in my opinion. I was a bit surprised to see "learn each of their names" on the list - that seems to be the absolute minimum. Heck, I know the names of every kid in my middle school and a good number of the kids in the elementary school that feeds into it. To not know the names of the kids in your classroom just seems like it would make every day difficult for everyone involved.Man, if I didn't take the time to joke around with the kids, my job would suck. Low pay, high stress, long hours with no overtime, no union...jeez.I overheard a rumor among the younger kids that I'm secretly a space alien in disguise. As such, I've started occasionally letting something slip, like...Kid: "Why were you late, today?"Me: "My shuttle wouldn't start this morning. I had to get a jump."Kid: "...Did you say shuttle?"Me: "No. I said...Chevy. My Chevy wouldn't start."Kid: *suspicious look*Me: Well, have a nice solar cycle, fellow human. *Whistles and walks away*Also, I've overheard (and encouraged) a rumor that I can melt people's faces with my eyes. Now, when a kid is acting like a knucklehead, I can simply give them a hard stare with a finger raised to my temple to make them snap back into line.

I've been procrastinating, too. I finally got around to putting up my Bachelor Tree today.