Spike: Taking up smoking, are you? Harmony: I am a villain, Spike. Hello!

Spike/Harm ,'Help'


Natter 31 But Looks 29  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Nilly - Jan 05, 2005 6:59:07 am PST #3095 of 10002
Swouncing

Y'all must have discussed his theories at some point, right?

He keeps being mentioned, but we never actually read a text by him alone. The lecturer (who is excellent) is a self-declared lapsed Popper-ian, so we get to hear quite a lot about him, as well.

The other week, after talking about Rationalists and Empiricists (and their responses to Newton, and how math developed after that), he went on to describe how "Gulliver's Travels" were an answer to all these philosophies, both in criticizing and in offering a new way (experiments of the mind).

Are you enjoying the class?

See the paragraph above. I can't not enjoy such a class, even though it takes so much time to prepare for each week, and I still feel like I'm not fluent with the language all the others speak. But it's fascinating stuff, and I absolutely love the opportunity to think in a different way than the physics way, to try to enrich my vocabulary.

How is your wife doing, by the way?


Consuela - Jan 05, 2005 7:05:20 am PST #3096 of 10002
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

I have to say, the first time I got licked electronically, I was a little startled.

Oh, me too. Esp. since it was someone I didn't know (Nos'). I don't get a lot of it anyway, since I don't reciprocate. Although I do throw around a fair amount of *wants to eat X's spicy brains* and that sort of thing. It seems less stalkery, somehow.

I've been having trouble with LJ for the last few days. Which probably is the cosmos telling me to stop reading it and get back to work, dammit.

So in two weeks my brother's girlfriend, whom none of the family has met, is coming to SF for a month (or more) to study English. She's Chinese. My sister is incredibly stressed by this, especially since I get the distinct impression my brother never actually *asked* if it would be okay for his girlfriend to live here for six weeks. While he stays in Beijing, because he's working. Did I mention we've never met her?

Argh. This is going to be... interesting. I hope we're able to communicate.


Hayden - Jan 05, 2005 7:13:14 am PST #3097 of 10002
aka "The artist formerly known as Corwood Industries."

Excellent, Nilly! The class sound absolutely great. Kuhn is a pretty dry read, but his philosophies are endlessly fascinating. I think I originally read him in an epistemology class, in which he mostly killed the very idea of a hierarchy of knowledge. Rorty has taken Kuhn's philosophy (which boils down to saying that even the scientific method is not an objective tool) as proof that pragmatic relativism (which Rorty calls "anti-essentialism") is the appropriate stance towards views of the world. Things are not true because truth exists in a God's-eye view of the world; things are true because they are generally accepted to be true by this or that consensual authority.

How is your wife doing, by the way?

She's great. And by "great," I mean she's healthy and carrying around a big ol' baby in her belly. We're only 6 weeks out from the due date! Jeez, I feel like I'm never going to get everything ready in time. But we took a class on the Bradley method of natural birthing, and we feel fairly confident that we can handle whatever we face.


sarameg - Jan 05, 2005 7:17:00 am PST #3098 of 10002

She's using the immersion approach, huh? Good luck. To me, that sounds neat, but my family is all about unexpected guests we've never met before but are friends of some relative, but if you aren't used to it, I imagine it could be rather uncomfortable. Or if you are me and the idea of houseguests has you hiding under the couch. I'm the odd one in the family.

So we started our annual survey and are getting in results already. They make me laugh. Especially when many of the "complaints" can be characterized as user error. Hahaha! You suck, we're so cool. Luckily, they can't read my mind and think me a whole lot nicer than I really am.


Consuela - Jan 05, 2005 7:19:06 am PST #3099 of 10002
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

She's using the immersion approach, huh? Good luck.

Well, she's been studying English for a while, it's just she's never left China. She must be nervous: I certainly would be. It'll just be weird, because my sister's family is busy-busy-busy and highly verbal. I don't know how much time they'll have for her.

As it is, she'll have to take public transportation into the city for her classes, and won't that be fun the first few times.


Sue - Jan 05, 2005 7:20:09 am PST #3100 of 10002
hip deep in pie

A four song streaming concert of the Magnetic Fields:

[link]

ETA:Fixed link


shrift - Jan 05, 2005 7:22:40 am PST #3101 of 10002
"You can't put a price on the joy of not giving a shit." -Zenkitty

All those damp pixels are kind of funky...

And it leaves streaks on the monitor.

I don't get a lot of it anyway, since I don't reciprocate.

Yeah, I don't get it terribly often, but it keeps happening, despite the fact that people seem to expect me to be a six foot tall terror in black leather, and I don't pepper my online conversation with hugs and pounces and smoochies.

But personal space bubbles don't really exist on the Internets.

There ought to be a personal space bubble emoticon!


tommyrot - Jan 05, 2005 7:23:30 am PST #3102 of 10002
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

As it is, she'll have to take public transportation into the city for her classes, and won't that be fun the first few times.

The first time I ever took public transportation (a bus) by myself, I was pretty nervous. I was a Junior in college.

Yes, I've been known to suffer from excessive anxiety.


§ ita § - Jan 05, 2005 7:34:34 am PST #3103 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Livejournal to sell?


msbelle - Jan 05, 2005 7:36:42 am PST #3104 of 10002
I remember the crazy days. 500 posts an hour. Nubmer! Natgbsb

as long as they don't muck things up, a sale doesn't bother me, but I have bad memories of the sidewalk/citysearch merger and several others.

people changing my interface makes me grumpy.

oh. I forgot lunch.