On 04/01/2014 10:01 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 04 Jan 2014 10:23:20 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>>> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding is a good summary.
>>>
>>>
>> Similar to what I understand it to mean.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_triviality
>
> Yep.
>
> The explanation I initially had been given was something along the lines
> that people contribute to the discussion of the colour because they can -
> they may not know anything about construction, building codes, etc - but
> they can have an opinion on the colour, so they provide it so they're
> "participating."
>
>

My understanding is that people will accept the big picture as described 
by the "experts" because they don't feel competent to question it. But 
for smaller projects they will talk it to death. As anyone can build a 
"bikeshed".

Just like cooking. Everyone will tell you how to cook and may feal that 
they could open a restaurant because they can cook for a dinner party.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 04/01/2014 10:03 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> The only royal I'm somewhat interested in hearing news of is Theresa, the
> Crown Princess of Lichtenstein.;)

Into a bit of Necro, are we> ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Sun, 05 Jan 2014 23:59:23 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> My understanding is that people will accept the big picture as described
> by the "experts" because they don't feel competent to question it. But
> for smaller projects they will talk it to death. As anyone can build a
> "bikeshed".

Ultimately, the two explanations aren't that different.  It's about 
peoples' feeling of competence, and that they need to contribute 
something, so they do when there's something they feel they can 
legitimately have an opinion about.  I may not have an opinion on the 
merits of using fir vs. pine, but I can have an opinion about what colour 
it is, and since I can have one, I should so I can be seen to be 
participating in the discussion.

The things that require a lower amount (or no) expertise on tend to draw 
more discussion than the things that require a higher degree of 
expertise, so you end up with a larger discussion about what colour the 
hypothetical bikeshed should be than about whether (say) the ground is 
solid enough to support the weight of the shed and its contents.

Or indeed about the structure of a house vs. the shed in the back yard.

> Just like cooking. Everyone will tell you how to cook and may feal that
> they could open a restaurant because they can cook for a dinner party.

Yep.

Which is why so many restaurants fail - cooking is a small portion of 
running that kind of business.  Obviously you have to be competent at 
purchasing, pricing, marketing, portion sizing, and a ton of other things.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On Mon, 06 Jan 2014 00:01:41 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 04/01/2014 10:03 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> The only royal I'm somewhat interested in hearing news of is Theresa,
>> the Crown Princess of Lichtenstein.;)
> 
> Into a bit of Necro, are we> ;-)

No, I just want to know how Martin gets on. :)

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 4-1-2014 11:32, Stephen wrote:
> On 03/01/2014 6:43 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 03 Jan 2014 06:09:07 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> On 03/01/2014 12:20 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 02 Jan 2014 20:47:00 +0100, andrel wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RDlUlTR1xXc/UYBH7JMnrxI/AAAAAAAACFA/
>>>> mEZ4NH6UbYg/s1600/tumblr_mm2mx0hnmy1qzjmo0o1_1280.jpg
>>>>>
>>>>> orange dressed in blue.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not understanding the reference...
>>>>
>>> She is of the House of Orange. The same way our Queen is of the House of
>>> Windsor. Previously the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
>>
>> Ah, I see.  I don't tend to notice stuff like that. :)
>>

<sorry guys, been not so much on-line lately because some physician was 
trying to modify my nose>
> No reason that you should.

It is the same house that also gave rise to the orangemen, so I though 
that it might be clear from context.

> I have worked with the Lowlanders quite a bit recently and it shows a
> certain awareness to know who your co-workers monarch is. I would sell
> our lot for a mess of pottage but not everyone is like that.
> BTW Did you know that Belgium has a new king?

I did, but Belgium is very near. I might be wrong but I think our 
succession was much better prepared and orchestrated. (And we had the 
better dress for the Queen).



-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 1/5/2014 2:39 AM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> A campus is not the rest of the world, and the statistics "do" differ
>> between there and other places. That tends to happen, when you cram a
>> lot of people, in a specific age group, many of which seem to presume
>> that one purpose of college is to party and get laid, in one place. And,
>> I never said "all", advice was bad advice. What I objected to was most
>> of the stuff you came up with as "advice".
>
> Firstly, if such a study shows that actions can be taken to reduce the
> risk of rape in one community, and that they have a significant effect,
> then it's not unreasonable to deduce that actions can be taken in other
> communities as well. Or do you have actual credible sources that say
> otherwise?
>
And.. if this was true in all cases, there would, I presume, be a) other 
studies, and/or b) it wouldn't contradict prior facts?

You are correct that I don't have a study I can quote. The problem is 
that one study, by itself, may as well be annecdotal, for all its worth 
until properly replicated, there are at least some psychologist who are 
putting such studies under fire **precisely** because so much of them 
tend to be done on campuses, in the same environment, and often using 
subjects who "volunteer", which they can't say for certain isn't already 
a biased group, and finally, you can't explain away decades of 
statistics, which suggest that some behaviors seem to have no impact, at 
all, on such cases, based on one study, of things in one specialized 
environment.

> Secondly, I didn't say "they should do this or that". What I said was
> that it's a good thing to try to figure out what could be done to reduce
> the risks, and listed some things that could be studied to see if there
> is some correlation.
>
> What really irks me is when someone comes up and calls the act of actually
> trying to do something with names like "slut shaming".  Trying to *help*
> prevent rapes is not victim blaming. Insulting people who do so is
> disgusting.
>
Using the same arguments for what they "should have done", or "didn't 
do", or how, "next time you can be more careful by doing these things, 
so is partly your fault it happened", however **is**, and that is 
precisely what you see, in every news report, every blog post, every 
discussion by arm chair experts on what someone did wrong, even if they 
don't have the facts, and for all they know, did every single thing on 
the list. Its not about what ***you*** intended, or tried to do, its 
about how the that "advice" get missed used, the moment someone actually 
becomes victim, and how, maybe, some of it isn't a sound as one study 
might imply.

I don't think that is wrong to try to help. I wasn't calling the attempt 
slut shaming, or victim blaming, things like clothing choice, and the 
like ***are*** used for both, all the damn time, which makes binging 
them up, as part of a list of options, problematic, even if, in some 
specific cases, and/or ways, they may be meaningful. The problem being 
precisely that a) they are not specific, b) they may differ, greatly, 
depending on the community and its own standards, and c) may not be 
meaningful at all, in other contexts.

Basic logic would imply, to use "clothing choice" as the best example of 
this problem, that if dressing "provocatively" was the issue, not the 
perception, locally to the rape case, of what the hell that even means, 
then the prevalence of bikinis and European nude beaches would "both" 
show some sort of drastic increases, due to the "provocative" nature of 
the dress, or lack there of, compared to "normal" clothing. You might 
even find a "statistical connection", by doing your "study" at a bunch 
of beaches during Spring Break. After all, its where you can find a huge 
number of people in both states, even in the US, and.. well, the 
specific conditions, context and environment can't possibly be a factor, 
right?

That is precisely why, that specific "advice" is itself possibly way 
less useful that it seems. Its purely arbitrary to the local conditions. 
Provocative, in Iran, vs. 50 years ago in the US, vs. 99% of the beaches 
today, vs. a nudist colony, are **all different**. Are campuses, never 
mind communities, supposed to post big signs everyplace, which say, 
"This will keep you safe from the nuts, while this other picture will 
get you attacked"? Are they supposed to just "know", or do you set some 
arbitrary standard of "safe", and tell them all to stick to that, while 
calling all the ones that get raped anyway, "anomalous statistics".

That is the problem with some of the "advice". Its only meaningful, if 
at all, in context, and even then, no one has a damn clue what the 
context is in any given place. Even when the context is, "Women can only 
be protected by wearing a sack, which doesn't even let you see their 
eyes.", it happens anyway, too often, and, if anything, the excuses for 
why they did something wrong, and the men didn't, just get worse and 
worse, the closer you get to that.

It also doesn't help when you have polar opposite statistics - like the 
one person posting on one of those blogs, or maybe someplace else where 
the subject came up, who stated that they had been to many parties, 
gotten drunk enough to pass out at a few of them, but never been raped, 
**ever** despite horrible choices, over drinking, and doing every single 
thing wrong, but she knew a guy who had been raped (the definition here 
being without consent, or even, in his case, awareness), several times, 
by woman, at some of the same parties, because *he* passed out on the couch.

No, what gives women the idea that they are helpless victims is doing 
everything "right" according to these lists, not being believed, having 
people try to claim that they made it up, having the cops treat them 
like shit, then their friends, and other people around them, then, if 
they do get to court, going through it all over again, and, all the 
time, being asked, "Did you say no?", "Who where you with?", "What did 
you do?", "How long was your dress?", "What else where you wearing?", 
and on, and on.

By all means, give advice. But, make sure its advice that actually means 
something. As am sure I said in the prior post, your "intent" isn't as 
important as whether or not it was good advice. And.. there are 
thousands of victims, decades of statistics, whole websites dedicated to 
the facts, and myths, or rape and what, if anything, increases, and 
decreases the risks, and you have... one study, done on a campus, a 
practice even psychologists are questioning the value of, as something 
you can extrapolate real data, about any other environment, from.

If I somehow unintentionally implied that you where either slut shaming, 
or victim blaming.. then, I definitely apologize for the former, but.. 
the latter can be done "accidentally" by simply failing to recognize 
that what is "advice" to someone trying to "help", is victim blaming to 
people who are only hearing, "Well, here goes the usual list 'advice' 
everyone gives, after the fact.", or even an attempt at making excuses 
for the perpetrator, if its, in fact, given in the context of someone 
who "has" had it happen to them.

Given that this is precisely how it gets used.. out of the context of 
saying, "Such and such study says...", and still risking getting ripped 
to shreds by women who have heard it all before, and have good reason to 
think its bull, isn't it just "possibly" detrimental to give advice that 
the victims themselves are likely to turn around and say, "Great, yet 
another one that has no clue what they are talking about!"?

I really suggest you actually read the accounts of the people that have 
gone through it, what they got told, what they did, or didn't do, what 
advice did, or didn't work, and what they, not some study, think the 
problem(s) really are. That would be a good way to do something useful. 
Using one single study, whose advice is practically a bumper sticker for 
everything people say anyway, and never helps... *that*, I tend to 
suspect, is way less helpful that you hope.

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On 1/4/2014 8:13 PM, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-04 17:28, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> You have no clue a) how uncommon that really is, and b) how much shit
>> women go through, even when it is legitimate, which might result in them
>> "wanting" to recant it, even if it did happen. So.. Don't go there. I
>> refer you to the same thing I posted in the other comment:
>
> While it is important to understand the significance of item b), it's
> also important to understand that
>
>> http://skepchick.org  [snip]
>
> is in fact a particular subset of the larger population of women.
> Despite the overall message of some of the posts on that site, not every
> moment of every woman's life is a living hell, forever, even if you're a
> non-white transgendered woman.
>
> Not saying that life doesn't suck, but...if it sucked /that/ much?
> People would be killing themselves a /lot more often/ than they are.
>
> (Though I will say that, for myself, the greatest gift I can give my
> hypothetical children is to never have them, because The World.)

I posted that site because its the one I could remember how to find an 
article on. Its not the **only** place I have read the same things from. 
And.. you are seriously suggesting that only a certain "sort" of women 
post there, or in the comment threads, and that somehow their experience 
is therefore atypical of what goes on? Based on what exactly?

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On 1/5/2014 3:24 AM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> On Sun, 05 Jan 2014 01:28:13 +0200, Patrick Elliott <kag### [at] gmailcom>
> wrote:
>
>> On 1/3/2014 1:55 PM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>>> Another problem concerning this is fake rape claims where a girl claims
>>> some-one has raped them only later to recant and say they just didn't
>>> like his attitude or something or wanted to pat him back for something
>>> silly.
>>
>> You have no clue a) how uncommon that really is,
> I do. I just thought it was worth mentioning since I haven't seen it
> mentioned in this post.
>
> and b) how much shit
>> women go through, even when it is legitimate, which might result in
>> them "wanting" to recant it, even if it did happen. So.. Don't go
>> there. I refer you to the same thing I posted in the other comment:
>>
>
> True. I should have mentioned that as well.
>
Ah, well. Sorry then. Its almost par for the course in such discussions 
that when someone says, "Oh, and then there are the ones making it up.", 
it ends up devolving, at some point, into them trying to claim "all of 
them" make it up. Heck, its practically a urban myth, truism, and 
"obvious fact" in the minds of some parts of the population, especially 
among men younger than, maybe 30, that it *is* an undisputed fact, and 
way too many of the ones older than that.

When a presenter can't even have a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, 
after speaking, and gets followed into the elevator, and propositioned 
by some idiot that won't take no for an answer, but thankfully didn't go 
farther than that, and a) the convention showed near disbelief, and a 
lack of intent to do anything about it, and b) it got tagged "elevator 
gate" by a stupid number of people.. its kind of obvious there is a 
bigger problem, and maybe how she was dressing, or where she was, or how 
many beers she had, etc... wasn't the issue. There are whole "women 
only" conferences that have cropped up due to this BS, in the last 2-3 
years, because the real ones went, "Well, I am sure there is a slight 
problem, but.. we just can't quite see it right now, and don't see any 
point in making people 'uncomfortable' by adding unnecessary rules, or 
taking reports seriously." Extrapolate from that sort of harrassment in 
supposed "professional" situations, and the cases where sexual assaults 
have even happened, not just verbal, or being propositioned, to the rest 
of the world, which **isn't** professional.. and, the picture starts 
looking damned ugly.

Some places a women "could" walk down the street, naked, and not be 
harassed (well not much more than just walking down the street, which 
isn't exact right either, really), but, here in the US, you can't even 
be a speaker at a convention, trying to get back to your room, without 
worrying about some ass assaulting you, when female. And.. forget "not 
going alone to your room", at least one of the full on rapes that I have 
read about was "by" the supposed escort, who promised to keep them from 
being attacked by some other person.

One of them called the whole mess, "Schrodinger's Rapist", its 
impossible to know which, if any, man might do it, until it either 
happens, or doesn't happen. Its that bad, sometimes, and.. what do they 
get, "Don't go alone, dress the wrong way, drink, have a social life, or 
do anything that might let the cat out of the box." Everyone, for some 
reason, always thinks they have "never" heard any of that advice, or 
thought about the absurd lengths you would have to go to follow it, and 
have it actually work, given the mental state, the privilege, and the 
sense of entitlement that always seems, on some level to exist in the 
heads of the people that do this sort thing. None of which is, since 
even the sane guys often joke about it, visible on the surface.

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On 1/2/2014 4:38 AM, Warp wrote:> John VanSickle 
<evi### [at] kosherhotmailcom> wrote:
 >> Well as a Christian I can tell you that the reason that I do not kill
 >> witches or homosexuals or Sabbath-breakers is not because I have let the
 >> commandments be trumped, but rather because those commandments were not
 >> given to me in he first place.
 >
 > I know that excuse, but it misses the point.
 >
 > It doesn't matter if God gave those commandments to everybody or only
 > to the hebrews, and it doesn't matter if the judiciary system to enact
 > those commandments is nowadays in place or not. The point is that God
 > did give those commandments, which means that God thinks they are good
 > and just.

He gave them in order to accomplish a number of purposes which He 
regards as good and just.  However, now that those purposes have been 
served, the commandments are no longer good and just; therefore they are 
no longer in effect.

 > And if you are completely honest (as you should be, if you
 > are a Christian), then you would agree that you do *not* think those
 > commandments are good and just.

I am glad that the commandments were not given to me, but whether 
something is right or wrong does not depend on how I feel about it.

 > The very fact that you would never
 > stone someone to death in any circumstance (much less for such a
 > "heinous" crime as breaking the sabbath or being rude to your parents)
 > shows that you do not think it's just punishment. If you are honest
 > to yourself, you will agree with this.

"Any circumstance"?  Sir, you do not know me.  There are some crimes for 
which I regard stoning as too merciful a punishment.  But in this era 
God has reserved those things for the secular authorities.

 > In other words, you disagree with your God.

I certainly do disagree with God (and as a result have wronged Him on 
numerous occasions).  There are a number of commandments, which apply to 
me, that I would have left out if I had written the Bible, and it is 
only with careful consideration that I recognize that they really are 
better than what I would have come up with on my own.  And thus I 
recognize that my disagreement with God is proof of a flaw in me and not 
in God.

Regards,
John

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On 12/19/2013 4:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> I'm really wondering if Hollywood screenwriters have to sign a contract
> where they make an oath that in any story where there are multiple
> characters, if one of them is wounded, sick or otherwise not completely
> right, they always, and I mean always, have to hide it from the others,
> even in situations where there's literally zero reasons to do that, it
> makes absolutely no sense, it has no purpose whatsoever, and it only
> makes things worse for everybody, and even if telling the others would
> actually be beneficial.
>
> I'm sick of seeing this again and again and again. It's like a holy rule
> of screenwriting. It has been seen in like a million movies, and there's
> no sign of it ever stopping.
>

I think people IRL do this, hoping someone will notice and make a movie 
about them. ;)

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