Posts by JackElder
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Mine too - in an interview for my first job, the manager interviewing me basically said "an MA, eh? That means you can write and you can stick with something - just what we're looking for."
Indeed. Though I should say that I've also found out, retrospectively, that in two of my previous jobs I was hired on the basis that "he seems to know what he's talking about, and his appearance is going to make our manager shit bricks."
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There isn't an evolutionary explanation for everything. Sometimes stuff just happens.
We're a very explanation-centric species, though. People like identifying patterns, like "knowing how it works", because if you can understand something you've got a bit of power over it. The notion that sometimes stuff just happens is pretty frightening for a lot of people.
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And after listening to the BBC doucmentaries, it seems utterly predictable that it is sports particularly popular in Europe - athletics and cycling - that are the most utterly compromised ones.
Why is that predictable? I'd expect a pretty simple correlation between sports where you can make a huge amount of money, and the amount of (attempted) doping. I'd be astonished if, say, the NFL and NBA weren't hotbeds of steroid use.
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The world needs more philosophical tech writers.
I got my MA in Philosophy (thesis focussed on meta-ethics) a decade ago, and I've been a tech writer ever since. The clustering of philosophy-degreed TWs around here is interesting: I've never actually met another TW with a philosophy degree (we mainly seem to be disillusioned ex-teachers).
And a philosophy degree doesn't make you unemployable. After about five years in the workforce, who cares what your degree was? And for those first five years, having an odd degree can help you get interviews. Or at least, that was my experience.
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The last experience of non-sexual pain I had that produced that effect was tattooing. Low-level pain over a sustained period of time. I came out of that all bouncy and giggly and I'd have happily stayed in the chair for hours.
Trust me: after the fifth hour, it gets very, very old. Then again, most of my recent sessions were characterised more by intense than "low level" pain. It's interesting feeling the different sensations as the needles hit different parts of you. I've found some areas (outside of the calf, outer bicep) are pretty painless, while the same needle running the same pattern on other parts (shin, inside bicep/tricep, crook of elbow) was agonising.
Though the endorphin high is good fun. My tattooist of choice is a half hour drive away, so I get the fun experience of driving home through rush hour traffic afterwards.
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Heh... I don't know about that -- aim it at the kids, and you'd be surprised what you can get under the radar.
Can I hear an Amen for "Yo Gabba Gabba", the kids TV show that has included musical guests such as Biz Markie, Jack Black, Ladytron, The Ting Tings, and Chromeo? Kids TV: there's more to it than you think.
Confirmed: Bryan Singer to direct a Battlestar movie
I see you that, and raise you Lego - the movie!
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there is good science there the fact that most people seem to be born gay is a neutral fact. You can for eg be born deaf but be taught to speak and lipread.
Um... did you just compare sex with lipreading?
Yeah, I've had sex like that, too.
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Once flatted with a fetishist. There are times it's good to be deaf, what with trying to read while some chick tied to a bed is waiting eight hours to climax next door.
Ha - he's moved in just up the road from us, and I see him waiting for the bus sometimes. Fortunately, he's far enough up the road that the screams don't disturb us. Welcome to the suburbs, folks!
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"And today on Ask a Fag,
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We sooo have to pitch that to NZ On Air. Why should Brown suck up all the glamourSavage Love was originally going to be called "Hey, Faggot!", back when Dan Savage was in his confrontational ACT-UP days. I believe his editor persuaded him to change it, on the basis that he could still do all the filthy stuff, it'd just be more effective if people read past the byline.
The Team America love scene - they actually put a large amount of vile, vile stuff in there (at least one incidence of coprophilia, which was cut from the final version). The explicit (ho ho) reason for this was - as they admitted after the film had been rated - was to give the film classification peeps something to get so upset about (and insist that they cut) that they missed all the subtler stuff that the filmmakers actually cared about.
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Yes but... a "real" leader wouldn't see that as an obstacle.
Indeed. Doesn't the US have a Prime Minister?