disease research should be funded with progressive taxation. i mean, people are dying and you've gotta get people to do a stunt to raise money to fight it. it's barbaric.

\

information is very scarce, as far as i can tell.

and there's little doubt that russia is arming and orchestrating the militants in the east...

...but it's hard to come up with motives as to why they might invade, and the stories of russian tanks flattening villages really don't seem likely.

the one caveat i'll point out is this: germany has recently announced a large amount of funding to rebuild the area. this may have triggered something in the kremlin, concerned that they're moving in.

it's been really clear from the start that the russians don't want control of the region because they don't want the headaches. they want a puppet state that gets it's welfare checks from a floundering kiev.

however, if forced to choose between a puppet state that gets it's checks from berlin and invasion, the invasion may all of a sudden become the preferable option.

and it goes back to what i was saying about how this can't be stopped.

"mr. barak, mr. barak....you're full of shit and you know it...mr. barak...just...everybody realizes you're lying, doesn't that upset you....mr. barak...."

this isn't a binary discussion of choice v. biology, both of which appear to be wrong. at the very most, there may be a set of genes that can be triggered to produce homosexuality under certain environmental conditions but there aren't any convincing findings at this time.

the "i don't have a choice" thing began as a legal defence in certain backwards areas of the deep south (i think it was an area of texas) that were enforcing sodomy laws. the judge allowed the defence, the person avoided a sentence and it's become this thing ever since.

a large amount of biologists will tell you something like "homosexuality is probably genetic". what that actually means is "there may not be direct evidence of a genetic cause but, if it's not genetic, then i don't understand it. genetic is therefore my best guess.".

every little once in a while you'll see some headline that claims they found the gay gene, but the research is never solid. it tends to actually usually cycle around hormones, which probably does have a genetic basis, as it's something that's physiological. but finding a genetic cause for less masculine behaviour in cis-men (and less feminine behaviour in cis-women) has absolutely nothing to do with sexual orientation. those hormonal reactions may place people into social niches, and that may have something to do with it, but it's not direct - it does nothing to explain the gay jock or the femme lesbian. worse, these studies are often inapplicable to women altogether.

it's entirely possible that it is neither genetic nor a conscious choice.

by analogy, consider somebody that is very shy. that shyness is not genetic, it's a reaction to various life experiences - something traumatic, over parenting, social isolation and etc. but the shy person generally does not choose to be shy, it becomes deeply embedded within their nature. further, a shy person can overcome their shyness - if they want to, which some shy people might not.

i have a bit of an unusual anecdote that i usually avoid when i have this discussion. i'm transgendered - born a male and transitioned to being female. now, orientation and gender aren't the same thing. in fact, statistically speaking, most male-to-female transgendered people are attracted to people that define themselves effeminately, and often to cis-women. when i was first going through treatment, i was asked questions about orientation and while the truth was that i wasn't really interested in either gender, i did find myself more attracted to women. i had a lot of questions about how i was going to react to both men and women as a result of hormonal changes, so i decided to experiment with some pornography to try and determine if i had any real attraction to men - or if i would develop one over time. what i noticed was that, the more gay porn i watched, the more i responded to it - and i realized at that point how fluid orientation is.

now, i'm not suggesting this kid was brainwashed with gay porn, but there are other social cues that could lead somebody to homosexuality as a culmination of experiences within their environment. it's such a complex thing with so many variables that it would be virtually impossible to test for - as a hypothesis, this is really not falsifiable. but, that doesn't mean that it's wrong, it just means it would be virtually impossible to demonstrate.

now, i'll be honest with you - i'd rather see society accept it as a choice. i want to walk into a church and see a pastor stand on the pulpit and say "homosexuality is a choice, and we respect and welcome people who have made this decision because we respect the personal autonomy of individuals". but, in most cases i don't think it's that clear cut. the choice is in not rejecting the stimulus that's developed. i don't think god has much to do with it, but if you locked this kid in a room and made him watch and masturbate to heterosexual porn for a month, he's likely to come out fully bisexual. but, that approach wouldn't respect his rights as an individual - that is, it wouldn't respect his choice not to conform and we should be supporting choices not to conform when they are real...

ultimately, what this kid has to come to terms with is that he has to find his own path from his parents. it's something a lot of people go through due to disagreements over lifestyle, career choices and a thousand other things. sucks, but he's gotta move on and leave them behind.

i just want to weigh in with an update on the iraq/syria thing. i've been focusing on recording and paying minimal attention, i'm more just updating the narrative.

it remains clear that isis is a saudi-backed group that is destabilizing the region for strategic purposes. so, why is america bombing them, then? it's a way into syria, and maybe you've already seen somebody suggest this.

the state narrative is hard to actually believe. first, the iraqi army abandons it's positions, conveniently allowing isis to take all the weapons. then, they turn the weapons on the heavily american-aligned kurds, which makes no sense at all. now the americans can intervene to save the kurds yet again...

i have no idea what the extent of the actual damage on the ground actually is, but i suspect it's probably fairly restricted. for the americans to actively bomb a group that is this close to the saudis would signal a historic severing of ties with a nation that has enormous leverage over them. if this were the actual truth, obama would be insane - and he is not insane, he is the public face of a very carefully planned military strategy that's had to make some adjustments due to failing to remove assad from office.

the americans continue to push for maliki's ouster, and i would expect instability with this group in iraq to continue until that goal is met. when this happens, the fighting will spill over the border into syria. it may also conveniently find it's way into iran. this is the pretext they're constructing to reverse public backlash.

this is the same narrative i've been explaining for a year, with the difference being that i did not think that obama would attack isis; i'm not at all convinced that he actually did....

so, what's obvious is that the orca pulled the trainer down and brought him back up before he drowned. i'm not buying that it's an accident. but, if the orca wanted to kill him, he'd be dead - he was brought back up to save his life. so, the orca's trying to get something across.

it's interesting to contemplate what the orca may have been thinking. it could be punishment, for some other behaviour - but it's clear that it was meant to teach a lesson, not to create actual harm. is it possible that he may have accidentally blocked the orca's breathing hole and the orca is responding tit-for-tat?

maybe it's more likely that it's a display of dominance, with the orca trying to show the trainer who the boss is and produce a level of submission. cetaceans are often friendly towards humans, but they're very dominant animals.

a more intriguing possibility is that the orca may have been doing an experiment. does the orca understand it's being studied? might it be curious as to just how long a human can hold it's breath or what happens when it gets submerged?

it may also have cetaceanomorphized the human. could it have dragged the human under wanting to interact in the water, thinking the human can hold it's breath for long periods, and at the last minute realized the human is struggling and needs to breathe, and so brought him back up?

all interesting questions.

but it's quite obvious that the orca very consciously pulled this guy down, and very carefully brought him back up so he wouldn't drown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhqM7Q82sw

well, why do humans save lions?

it's not that hard to understand, you just need to drop the arrogance.

sharks have existed for a long time with very few predators, but cetaceans have been evolving to steal their niche for millions of years and will most likely eventually drive them to extinction - or at least into much smaller sizes. it's a bit of a reminder that, while we're naming eras after ourselves, we're actually still in the ongoing phase of continuing mammal diversification and dominance and that we will continue to see them replace other life forms for some time into the future. i'm looking at you, birds.

there's some consequences to derive from this in terms of how we understand cetaceans or how we may be able to build relationships with them in the future. is intelligence selected? relatively. that is, cetaceans are smarter than sharks, and it's going to give them an advantage in the fight over that niche that sharks will be unlikely to overcome.

but, as the cetaceans move further and further into this niche, and become more and more vicious, they become further removed from us as possible allies. it's hard to consider bridging a gap with a species that is evolving into an apex predator that will only ever see us as food.

i really think we ought to focus on elephants.

evolution doesn't work in one direction. there's no reason to think an intelligent species wouldn't evolve into a less intelligent one, if other traits end up being more selected. it's not a process of arriving at a point of perfection, but largely driven by chaotic forces. it's about pure survival and reproduction, not some lofty human ideals. evolution often happens in ways that humans would readily perceive of as "backwards".

what is going to drive the direction that evolution takes is going to be the niche the animals move into. the environment shapes the organism more than the organism shapes the environment (and this is true of humans, too). sharks are not sharks because they decide to be sharks, or because something created them as sharks, but because the environment they live in will produce a shark out of any creature that attempts to be apex predator. cetaceans are not somehow immune to this, due to their intelligence.

i'd like to tell you to wait for it but neither of us will be alive to have this discussion in the future.

zyklon brad
Why the fuck would you have a name like deathtokoalas? They are nice!

deathtokoalas
the ever sickening koala cuteness cannot be allowed to survive, lest it perpetuate in the future. it is of the prime importance in the future of humanity that their cuteness be annihilated.

zyklon brad
Negative... let them be. Their cuteness is appreciated greatly by sappy people

deathtokoalas
the perverse influence that koalas produce is the reason they need to be annihilated. this simply cannot continue. no civilized society could permit it.

zyklon brad 
Geez you speak of them as if they are ISIS or something... or..even worse, Justin Trudeau.

deathtokoalas
there is no greater evil in this world than the cuteness of koalas, brad. it can only produce immeasurable harm. i plead with you not to trivialize the concern and take steps to eradicate it.

zyklon brad
I will try my absolute best. This is serious business.

deathtokoalas
i feel that you're merely humouring me. we are all at peril. we must declare a war against koalas.

Truth Seeker
While that's true Orcas rarely or rather never attack humans in the wild (there is just like 1 known case). They recognise as as top predators apparently. It's different when they are in captivity those have killed several humans, weather playing or angry, upset, whatever, but not in the wild.

deathtokoalas
you know, i don't really think there's any significant evidence that orcas tend to refrain from eating us out of some kind of level of respect or something. that sounds like human arrogance: putting ourselves at the top of the hierarchy and declaring all the other animals our companions. aristotle strikes again....the bastard....

the reality is that it's not like we're in contact with orcas on a day-to-day basis, and it's consequently reasonable for them to be curious and cautious about us. the reality may be as simple as that they don't know how to eat us.

i mean, a shark is going to eat just about anything, including rusty cans it can't even digest. you see this with, like, pelicans and stuff, too. they'll eat fucking razorblades out of the dump, then die of the complications as it rips through their stomach. they're just too fucking stupid to transcend their mechanics. orcas, as more advanced creatures, have more of a defined dinner menu. you really wouldn't expect them to just start munching. after all, they don't know if we're poisonous, or if the scuba gear is edible or whatever. and, maybe more important than that, they don't know how to hunt us.

the statistic is a little misleading. there have actually been plenty of circumstances where it seems like orcas are trying to get us, but then back off or give up. there are multiple documented reports where it seems like they're trying to tip over ice floes, or even flip over boats.

see, if you ask the experts, they'll tell you they've confused us for seals. which is blatantly just apologist bullshit. i mean, you're going to tell me that this creature that we think has a defined language is going to confuse a human for a seal? get real. these are situations where the orcas are experimenting with tactics to get us by using tactics they already know, not situations where they're confusing us for something else.

this is the scenario that we don't want to happen: suppose a pod of orcas flips a boat over, gets a bunch of us in the water and eats us. at that point, they've determined a successful tactic and will pass it on to their offspring. we'd have to slaughter the whole pod, really. but, even that would be delaying the inevitable.

i acknowledge i'm doing a lot of thinking, here, but i don't buy this idea that they see us as alpha. i think they just don't yet know how to approach us.

but, that's not really what i'm saying, here. what i'm saying is that once the orcas take over the niche sharks are in, they will become sharks. and when that happens, you'll probably see them start eating rusty cans, too.

seafood ad is brilliant.

dr. lori marino (it must be hard studying dolphins with that surname) has already pointed out the obvious, so i won't bother, i just want to point out two things.

1) if you look closely, you can see the kids were making faces at it - opening their mouths specifically. now, i do this on a lot of videos: to understand how a whale or dolphin may react to that kind of gesture in humans, you need to understand how they might react to another whale or dolphin making the gesture, because the whale or dolphin will cetaceanomorphize your behaviour - that is, it will assign your behaviour cetacean traits, just as so many of you are assigning "play" behaviour to a clear act of aggression. the kids might not have been meaning to be aggressive, but if that behaviour is thought of as aggressive in the cetacean universe then it will interpret it as aggressive and respond accordingly. as the more intelligent species, this is something humans need to get a proper grasp on to better facilitate inter-species communication with those species that may have the ability to communicate back.

2) cetaceans are sketchy. if you're mean to an elephant or a gorilla, it might very well kill you in response but it won't ever prey on you. with cetaceans, it's less clear because they're predatory species. we might not be their normal or usual diet, but predators are generally opportunistic and it's consequently somewhat foolish to suggest you're not on the menu. it's going to depend on a wide variety of factors.

i think most of us get this with dogs and cats. most people know not to stare in a dog's eye, because it might interpret it as a sign of extreme aggression. i think most of us know not to turn our backs to our cats, because they'll think you're rejecting them. with dolphins, you don't open your mouth like that....

if you look at the path of cetacean evolution, they seem to be evolving into - and competing with - sharks.
i'm just not convinced they're the best choice to get somewhere with a viable inter-species relationship. my money's on elephants...

deathtokoalas
see, i don't think this is an argument to ban guns. rather, i think it's a demonstration of natural selection. so, stop pretending that banning weapons is going to make any difference (i hate guns. but i know better.) and give this man the darwin award that he earned fair and square through his astonishing stupidity.

but, no, you shouldn't give guns to children.

you shouldn't give them alcohol, let them operate a motor vehicle, administer a nuclear power plant or run for president, either.

youpumpertube
LOLOLOL - Awesome!

geddoe316
and what of the parents?

deathtokoalas
i don't think they made a smart choice, and it's going to badly affect her for probably the rest of her life, but i don't think they ought to face legal consequences. buddy put the gun in her hands and stood there entirely out of his own free will. he had every right to refuse.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i'd love to be rid of guns, but in order to be rid of guns what we need to be rid of is gun culture. a lot of people are asking how the fuck a 9 year-old ended up holding a loaded uzi, and i think that's a valid question but it leads to questions about the place that americans hold weapons in their culture, not to laws restricting behaviour.

banning things just doesn't work. if i thought it would work, i'd be all for it. and i do recognize that the tool has some valid uses. i mean, i'd like to get rid of religion, too - that didn't work out so well in the soviet union, where the church is now basically running the country. how's the ban on drugs working out? prostitution?

it's just a really dumb approach to dealing with social issues. you need to get to the root of the various problems, not ban the consequences of those problems. with religion, there's some evidence it may actually be something worked into our dna that may be impossible to eliminate without changing our species designation. with drugs, the solution is probably legalizing less harmful drugs and treating more harmful ones as a health problem. with prostitution, you need to separate into prostitution that's done out of free will and prostitution that's done out of social inequalities, let the prostitution that is free happen and deal with the social inequalities underlying the stuff that's done out of necessity. and, with guns there needs to be a shift in culture.

so, it's a part of a general worldview that stands with the anti-gun activists in intent but rejects their solutions as ineffective.

Mckessa
You don't see this in civilized countries, truly astounding.

Derek
oh no its the the guns fault at all, im sure that little girl could kill that soldier/di with her fists or a knife by accident, fucking moron.

deathtokoalas
but, who gave her the gun, derek?

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i'm not going to suggest you're psychotic, but you've gotta keep in mind that part of the problem of having guns lying around is that you don't really know where they're going to end up or who's going to use them. another thing you've got to keep in mind is that humans are very emotional creatures that are very easily driven over tipping points - it doesn't take a lot to temporarily tip an otherwise rational human into madness, and it only takes a few seconds to pick one up and pull the trigger.

my understanding is that most of the gun deaths you see from otherwise law abiding gun owners are either accidents or the result of being lost in a moment that evaporates as soon as the trigger is pulled, and then it's "oh my god, what have i done".

what i would advocate is aggressively marketing a shift in social attitudes that shifts the dominant cultural narrative from "owning guns is our constitutional right" to "having one in the house is not worth the risk". that's a gigantic shift in culture that would fundamentally alter what america is. it's maybe a little presumptuous for me to sit up in canada and say it, but i'm rooting for that side of the debate to win out...

it has to be a debate, though, and it has to be done consensually in a process of mass understanding.

a full ban on guns would create a black market. you'd have gun buyers going to neighbourhood gun pushers that would buy from gun cartels connected to organized crime (and quietly getting supplies from the big corporations). it would not reduce gun ownership or gun violence, it would just restrict oversight and ultimately result in easier access and less regulation.

Derek
Well because, from your perspective it had nothing to do with the fact that it was a gun. How was it not the guns fault? Do you think a 9 year old could accidentally kill someone participating in a legal activity any other way? You think while she is eating breakfast her spoon is going to fly out of her hand and kill someone? Its because it was a gun that this little girls life is turned upside down and she will probably have psychological issues now, maybe depression who knows? If that little girl never held a GUN, not a spoon, knife, toy sword, toothbrush.. a GUN she would have never murdered a human being. That's why it was the gun, yes it was a culmination of negligence on the instructors part, her parents part... etc. But whoever s fault it was doesn't change the fact that it was because she was holding a gun that he is dead. I happen to think it was completely his fault for letting her shoot once then goin OH HOT DAMN FULL AUTO FIRE AWAY. But it doesn't change what caused this mans death at the end of the day. He could have been negligent as fuck if she was holding a spoon, her parents wouldn't even have to watch but she was holding a gun and the bullet from the chamber of that gun killed the man. She didn't attempt to kill him intentionally aim it at him he died because it was a gun... fucking moron.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
irresponsible or not, i don't think most gun owners have their guns locked in a safe. i mean, i agree that if you must have one, that's where it ought to be - i just don't think that's where they usually actually are. they're hiding under beds, in cabinets, in drawers, etc.

i don't have a desire to shoot a gun. my stepmother's father was a retired military officer and had a shooting range in his basement. i was over a few times when i was around ten, and refused to even enter the basement. that's the closest i've ever been to a firearm, and the closest i'd like to get to a firearm.

what i'm expressing is a fairly common attitude in canada, and this is the reason our per capita deaths from guns are so much lower, not authoritarian laws.

MACK DRE.
we start banning guns its going to be the same as banning beer.  ppl find ways to get it. right Now guns are in our streets,from gang-banging kids, to drug-dealers. and non of those are licensed guns nor licensed ppl to owen a gun. and  .. blaming it on untrained, being the reason of that mans death is point less. him as an instructor should have been behind the gun not in front.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i'm glad you're a responsible gun owner, zachary. but i think the logic running through most people's heads is "it's of no use to me in case of break-in if it's locked in a safe". bluntly - there's clearly an issue, which means people aren't following these precautions. but that's just another example of a law that isn't working.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
i need to comment that i feel your comment is somewhat sexist, but there's a kernel of truth to it as it applies specifically to petite women. however, that logic would also apply to men of smaller stature, and not apply to muscular women.

it's the muscle strength that is important, not the gender.

Plethman Channel
They have laws to say how old you must be to drive a car, funny there are no laws on how old you can operate a gun.  That little girl could hardly hold that weapon.  That weapon weighs 10 pounds with a full clip. The instructor did not worn her what was about to happen. Your argument has zero merit.

(deleted response)

deathtokoalas
natural selection isn't guided or logical, it's a mostly random process and i'm fully aware that i'm not using it entirely correctly. i'm getting a point across.

the darwin awards themselves have been (correctly) criticized for this, but there's a certain amount of artistic interpretation in the process.

ApEaZed
bullshit. You can't expect everyone to be cautious. Americans are humans and humans make mistake. Ban guns and this won't happen. Period.

deathtokoalas
which is exactly why banning drugs took all the heroin off the streets, right?

LilGreenBuddy
you have a good mind and will be great wisdom to your peer group

deathtokoalas
nah, nobody listens to me.

MyQueen1994
If it makes you feel better I wouldn't listen to you either because I'm a Murican. Our only job is be lazy and ignorant. We don't understand resson and if you think differently then instead of having possible benefits we well politely ask you to leave in the most rude way possible. Muricah, bitches!

deathtokoalas
canadians are a little bit more polite about it, and maybe a bit more idealistic - they tend to just ignore me as a sort of a buzzkill, smashing through their idealizations with realism.

Jose Roman
I  hope the young girl understands that this is100% the "instructors" fault. He stands in front of a kid with a loaded Uzi, let's her fire once, switches to auto, then tries to adjust her stance and show her how to stand while she holds a loaded gun and then he let's her go to town. He didn't let her load the weapon or teach her how to safe the weapon and then stands right next to her, literally by the barrel while she shoots.

MyQueen1994
Whoa. You said about five to ten words I can't read or understand but I have a bigger pickup truck than you so I instantly win any argument. Muricah!

Wait, there are heroin instructors? Why was I not informed of this?

deathtokoalas
most people call them "musicians".

MyQueen1994
I don't understand metaphors and if you're asking why I would give that statement I'm response to your reply then. ....ummm...uhhhh... Muricah! My jeans are blue and my guns are big.

deathtokoalas
don't forget about your bible...

MyQueen1994
I'm a Murican I don't read it but I will quote and enforce it.

deathtokoalas
*misquote

MyQueen1994
Is it misquoting if I only get specific lines and rearrange them in any order to benefit myself?

====

dmac
That's it! I'm moving to Canada!

cowtipper99
canada has its fare share of idiots too, ever heard of this idiot named rob ford?

Solid Snek
Nice try but Canada has a shitload of guns too.

America
ill drive

purplemutantas
Some types of guns are easier to own legally in Canada than in the US. Short barrelled shotguns don't have any special restrictions in Canada like they do here. They have the same rules and regulations as any other shotgun.

Denise Dspain
Do you think one less whiner will hurt anyone?  LOL  Please do go by all means!!!

Solid Snek
Yeah people from here seem to be suprised at the sort of firepower you can own here. Most shotguns and rifles are perfectly legal here including the AR-15, M-14, Bushmaster ACR, IWI Tavor and the XCR to name a few. Hell even .50 cal rifles and armor plates are legal. That's better than Kommiefornia in some ways.

deathtokoalas
the reason canada has less gun violence per capita is not a consequence of our laws but a consequence of our culture. i wish you luck in escaping the wild west, i'd just request that you please be polite when you get here.

deathtokoalas
i don't think this is staged; i do think what you're seeing here is occurring all over the world.

this kid was cut off, probably because he was failing school.

"school is for losers. video games are cool."

there's millions of kids trapped in this industry, which turns them into consumerist slaves getting shots of dopamine from the technology.

we need to start holding them back in school.

if we do that then, in a few years, parents will get the hint.

Gizmo Gaming
Then again, it more or less depends on the person and the parents. The parents shouldn't be letting them play for 5 hours straight. >.<

deathtokoalas
when you're dealing with this kind of dopamine-driven addiction, it's not as easy as asking your kid to stop playing. and, that's what the problem is. i might find the idea of killing things distasteful, but i don't think it's really problematic in any kind of social way. it's the addiction that ruins them...

prague
I'm 27 and pretty much a video game addict.  The way you describe it as a "dopamine addiction" is pretty much spot on.  Although, as an adult I completely accept myself as an addict.  I was once an opiate addict and to get off of the pills I began playing video games.  I basically stopped one thing and picked up another.  I'd say that I'd rather be addicted to video games than hard drugs, but it still does take a lot out of my life and my bank account.  I barely want to do anything else.  I have lost friends because of my addiction.  It's funny too because I didn't become this until I was about 22-23.  The only thing I can say is that I'm glad I'm not a child going through this.  A child would not admit or even know what it means to be an addict.  When they hear that word, they think "drugs", not "technology".  Everyone, I believe, has an addiction though.  We all find something in our lives that we can't seem to go too long without.  Most people I know are either addicted to drinking, shopping, eating, sex, etc.  The ONLY thing I can say about video game addiction is that if one plays the right games it CAN be a good thing in many ways as long as that person does not become dependent on the games to feel complete as a person.  Let's take "Computer Chess" for example.  Chess can be a very strong stimulant for brain development.  It can teach problem solving skills, critical thinking, etc.  But the problem lies in the moment that person playing the game cannot go without it.  The kids in the video are playing Call of Duty.  I'm not going to say "Oh, Call of Duty is a POS game".  Looking closely, it CAN help develop the exact same things as Chess, but it's the socialization and culture behind it that is completely 180 degrees from something like Chess.  I strongly believe that all games in general, not just video games, can prevent certain diseases in some people's future.  Take Alzheimer disease.  I believe that playing games regularly can stimulate a part of the brain that keeps the gamer healthy in the mind which in turn MAY help prevent such a disease.  I'm not a scientist, nor a doctor, so this is all speculation, but the point of this is that there is a large portion of people out there that when they hear the words "video games" they think "nerd" or "loser" or something of that variety.  It may be the case for some, but there are video game players out there that AREN'T addicted and can maintain a healthy relationship with others AND themselves.  Me personally, I'm what I call a "mild-video game addict".  My house is clean.  I maintain a full time job.  I have a dog.  But I haven't had a relationship since I started playing games religiously.  I wake up in the morning and that's the first thing I want to do.  I make up stories and lie to get out of social situations like get-togethers and even just going to see my parents.  Stuff like that.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that video games get a bad rep because people think that it's the root of all evil and can transform people into doing things they wouldn't normally do, like for example killing people in real life because they played some game.  I have to say that that's not even close to the truth and has probably only happened a few times, but those people were already on that path and just happened to be playing certain games.  I play everything.  War games.  Puzzle games.  Adventure games.  To me it's like watching a movie, but you get to be the actor or at least control the actor.  In regards to your last comment, I think it IS more problematic in the social arena than anything else.  Look at the kid in the video.  He just lost two friends most likely because of his addiction.  He probably talks to his parents like he does to someone who isn't "playing the game right".  He ONLY wants to play games and not socialize, therefore it IS a social problem FOR HIM.  It's not for everyone, nor is it socially threatening for all game addicts.  In fact, it's HELPED my social confidence, but in turn it's KILLED my social desires.  I just don't ever want to go out on weekends, go to bars, etc.  In regards to your first comment, about the "consumerist slaves"...  I think that that's a bit lofty.  EVERYONE is a consumerist slave if you look at the big picture.  If you're not growing your own food on a farm; creating your own electricity from natural sources;  making your own clothes;  etc. etc. you are a consumerist slave to the system.  It's what our government wants.  They want us hopelessly dependent on their support.  It's NOT just video games.  It's EVERYTHING.  I agree with you on everything though, but it all has to be seen in perspective.  Have a nice day :D

deathtokoalas
what i meant is that i don't think the violence in the games is promoting violence in society, i think it's the other way around. i don't really get what attracts people to killing things, but i don't think it's causing school shootings. i do think it's preventing kids from living up to their potential.

the dopamine thing has been studied. cocaine temporarily boosts your dopamine level through chemistry, causing the high - as well as the crash and subsequent addiction. video games are constantly setting off your reward centers, making it more of a "natural high". but you get hooked on the same chemical basis - the more you play, the more dopamine your body releases. the result is something similar to how a monkey or even a rat gets addicted to pushing a button to get rewards. and, they'll sit there for hours. that's a little bit of a stronger level of slavery than we see in the general consumer culture because it's driven by that chemical response rather than pressure or status - although it's certainly a consequence of it.

what that also means, though, is that the games that integrate the most frequent "rewards" trigger the most dopamine and get you the most hooked. some of the simple strategy-type games on your phone are probably worse for this than shooter games, as they give you a shot every few seconds rather than when you kill something. chess? well, how many kids do you see playing chess? when a kid says "chess is boring. i'd rather play something else." what they mean is "chess isn't designed for constant rewards, and isn't getting me my fix.".

i played a lot of chess with my dad when i was young, but could never get into it over a computer (i tried) because there wasn't that human element to it. it's a battle of wits, not a dopamine release. well, i guess the dopamine release would get through after a good move, but it's too infrequent for the reinforcement - and not the aim of the struggle. it's a different thing altogether. i have no argument against kids playing chess...

i used to play civ2 when i was a kid, which is probably still the best example of a middle point between strategy-based and reward-based. but i couldn't get my friends into it. they'd be bored within twenty minutes. i suspect it just wasn't getting them that rush, because they'd built up a much stronger tolerance that i didn't have, from not playing more violent games.

you talked about moving from opiates to video games. i think that any kind of addiction is ultimately beaten by moving to a different habit. i was never a heavy gamer, but i haven't really played much of anything at all since the end of 1997, when i got a synthesizer and a 4-track recorder around christmas (i was 16). that's where all my excess energy went after that - into something creative.

at that age, the big problem is that it's arresting their development and preventing them from developing the skills necessary to succeed. i have friends in their early thirties that haven't migrated more than a foot from where they existed when they were eight years old - in their parent's basement, pushing those buttons for that hit. they have the same job they had when they were sixteen and the same life goals they had when they were seven - find money to buy games. it would be really remarkable to see a time lapse of them sitting on that floor, playing different controllers over the last few decades but ultimately occupying the exact same physical space.

Bradley 
No.. This is patrick

MyFutureDream
Imstopped being like that, i used to always play games ignore school, be popular, but now it's different, straight A's! In 7th grade. Thanks to my brother took my xbox one away. (Good thing) I started realizing I played too much.

HopeDoesGaming Second Channel
I agree, the addiction to games are hard to get rid of, but they aren't easy getting into either. People say they played the game for 6 hours when they honestly hated it, we should NOT stop video games and tech for good! People NEED breaks every once in a while, but do you think playing it 24/7 (Without taking 1 little movement) is healthy for your brain, eventually a kid is going to smash his ps3d tv because it look so real. Who would think that the ring of fire on the xbox360, when your dad says the ring of fire, you STICK A HOSE IN THE CONSOLE, that's crazy talk! All of those who don't want to get off the game the games when yo mom tells you to, I FEEL YOU! The game messes with your brain, especially violent ones, the violent games have inappropriate crap that makes your brain think it's the right thing to do in life, ITS FAKE! So take 5 minutes right now after reading this and put down the mouse, or controller, step outside, and breath! I am a huge gamer myself, but do NOT stay on it 24/7 or you will pick up bad habits, play sports, study for a school test, run around! Idc what you do as long as you make the right choice which is taking a break from technology! Please like if you agree with me! Also, make sure to check out me youtube. There is not many videos lately because I'm punished but thanks for your time :)

YourCasualNintendoPlayer
I definitely agree.

ZombiecoHQ
I'm 13, most likely addicted to PC haha. Play all day :P I'm not like the idiot in the video though. I do homework, go to school, get good grades etc. I can also control anger unlike the fatass in the video. Idk is this even considered an addiction?

deathtokoalas
when i was 13, i got perfect grades without studying. the little bit of "homework" that was assigned was mostly finished at school during busy work periods. in fact, i often had time to do my friends' homework, too (which i regret, it didn't help them in the long run). they don't really expect a lot out of young kids in north america (as compared to some other places in the world); you're given a lot of time to "be a kid", and if you happen to be a relatively smart and lucky one it could result in what seems like total freedom. i'm going to guess the kid in the video is more like 15 or 16, and there is a pretty big difference in terms of what the school system expects of you jumping from grade 6 or 7 to grade 10 or 11. i'm sure you've been informed of that by teachers and older friends or siblings.

you're going to have a choice regarding how you spend your time in the next few years.

like anything else that's addictive, it's going to affect people differently. you might stop playing to spend more time doing other things, or you might find it's increasingly eating into your productivity.

but, yes, it's an addiction, in terms of how it chemically affects your brain.

try this experiment: stop playing for a week and tell me how you feel.

ZombiecoHQ
I've stopped for weeks in the past (being grounded, going on vacation, etc.) and I just have to forget about it and focus on something else. When I'm really bored though, I can't stop thinking about the glorious thing that CSGO is :D

Andrew Conti
i may not play video games a lot,  but fuck school, its fucking useless ESPECIALLY  history

deathtokoalas
history class is very important in understanding how things came to be. i know they may test you on silly things like dates, but if you understand the way things work together then the dates fit in naturally.

for example, there's war in syria and iraq right now. if you want to understand that, you need to understand the history. and if you want to understand america's reaction, you have to understand it's history, too.

the future frightens me.

deathtokoalas
bad acting.

good idea, though.

and it is a good idea. he can buy his games back with the money he makes working... in the mean time, hopefully he finds something better to do.

Владимир Путин 
Yeah,and the way to make him do that,is to destroy something he has a psychological connection with. All the people in this video would make great parents,apparently

deathtokoalas
awww. he has a psychological connection with de video games and mean daddy took them away. awww.

maybe he could try building a connection with something that doesn't involve murdering people?

Gergely
what if the guy streams gaming, plays competitively or makes gameplay videos earning money? nowadays lots of people make a living gaming and entertainment connected to gaming

deathtokoalas
that would be a job, which he clearly does not have.

DamnPanda
well not anymore hahaha...

Ivory11
tough love. kids like that when they get WAAAAAYY too into their games, the only things that can break them out of it is some tough love.

and that's what this dad did, he loves his son too much to let him waste his life away sitting on the couch playing games 24/7, he's clearly tried everything but nothing else has worked, so the only thing he can do is to take the thing that his son has wasted months and years away on, and outright destroy them.

at least then the son would have motivation to go out and get a job, even if it's just to get enough money to buy back those games.

karatekid
As you say kids i assume you are an adult. Have you ever played a good game or read a good book or watched a good movie? You like some characters in them I am sure and if you spent more time with that character (from you favourite book for example) you get attached. My point is that's not a phenomenon restricted on games. And as long as it's not a unhealthy relationship I don't think it's something you have to "break out" someone.

When his dad loves him so much why would he take something that his son loves away? And waste is such a hard word. I mean where is the point in working if you have everything you want? When you have everything you want you would to what you like and in his case it's gaming. (May that be something else for everyone.) I think it is counterproductive destroying games so he gets a job to buy them again. He probably should work for his food and stuff but that money he can do with games.

James
I agree, it's definitely acting. So he wouldn't actually mow the real fkn games hahaha, he's probably mowing over empty discs.

Sir TurtleNipz
no dude i believe it hell my mom through my Xbox down the stairs what the hell do you think my dad would do cause he made me hammer my own lap top

James
yeah but the cameraman's supposed "reaction" to the kid screaming was obviously fake. He knew to look at the whiteboard straight away and see the message. Then the argument between the Dad and the son is just horrificly bad acting.

deathtokoalas
there's a different physical and psychological response with gaming, as it hits different reward centers. if you approach it naively, it might seem like it's like reading a book, but if you study the way your body reacts to it, it's more like smoking crack.

if daddy had mowed his crack pipe, this wouldn't be controversial. the difference is that video game addiction is more socially accepted. but, give it time and society will treat video games the way we now treat smoking - as something that is unhealthy, anti-social and should be avoided.

you'll see video game addicts come up with all kinds of absurd reactions...

but have you ever seen a survey on smokers, asking them to answer the question of if they think smoking causes cancer? the results are consistently astonishing.

Mark
"maybe he could try building a connection with something that doesn't involve murdering people?" Like playing Mario kart? Not every game involves murder...

But without kidding it doesn't look like the dad is a good father either... You should never let it come this far. Even if it is acted.

deathtokoalas
believe it or not, there was actually a time in the 80s and early 90s when the gamers were actually the smart kids. but, they were playing fantasy-based role playing games. it was an extension of dungeons and dragons, really. the industry today is not what it was then.

as for the father, it's hard nowadays, with the strength of the industry stealing your kids' brains and turning them into consumerist slaves of technology. yes, this is staged - but the premise is believable. and there's plenty of videos of actual kids absolutely freaking out when you try and take away their dopamine rush.

when you're dealing with a heroin addict that refuses treatment, one of the tactics is to lock them in a room and destroy the narcotics. this is entirely analogous, and just as justifiable.

i think this is a demonstration of excellent parenting, and i'd like to throw out a call to action for real-life parents to be equally harsh on their addicted children.

whatever their age.

Mark
Being a Nintendo gamer I'm stil kinda stuck in the 90's :P. There are still games that doesn't only involve murder. Zelda is an example. But in my eyes you failed as parent if your children react like this on HIS age. If it was a 5 year old kid I would understand but he should be atleast 18 years old? Atleast I have never saw such an extreme case.

And no I wouldn't call this excellent parenting. You should atleast have a conversation with him first... You know, with words, the old way? Without violence.

deathtokoalas
i'm assuming everything was attempted and this was a last resort, but there's not enough context. i don't think it's fair to think this was the father's first attempt...

i think the point you're trying to make is that he will relapse back into his addiction if he doesn't make the choice to stop. i agree with this. but, some addictions are too strong for reasoning - they require physical restraint for a period of days or weeks to allow the addicted person to clear their heads and come down.

Mark
I agree and sorry for my bad english. It isn't my first language :(. We don't know enough context indeed to make the conclusion this was his first attempt.

karatekid
Your first thesis seems very interesting. But I can not go that far that smoking crack and playing games have the same effects. (I would be happy if you have prove though.) I agree that there are addictions that arn't as socialy accepted as others but that had nothing to do with the video. ^^

deathtokoalas
the information is out there.

i'm ok with providing information if something is obscure, but we have an internet now (and you're on it), thereby shifting the responsibility on to you to look it up, rather than on to me to do it for you.

karatekid
Well normaly i would say yes to that. But thats not how discussions work. If you put an argument you have to support it and not let others do the work for you.

deathtokoalas
that's how things used to work before the internet. i'm making it a principle to enforce the fact that things have changed, now.

here's my source:
google.com

try searching for video games and dopamine.

deathtokoalas
i thought she did acoustic music?

and, surely, she can afford to eat?

this actually could be a fairly interesting pop song, but that hook is just mercilessly drilled in without much development....

i know, i know. i'm asking a lot. i'm just used to my big band pop more in the over-the-top style of peter gabriel or bjork.

no, honestly.

somebody tell taylor to get this into the hands of an over-the-top remixer. fuck, i'll do it.

that's a serious offer.

Lily N
My daughter is as skinny as Taylor and trust me.. she eats.. tons. Not everyone has the same body type. No matter the age, some people are just thin or other sizes.

deathtokoalas
is she keeping it down? i'm extremely thin myself, but there's a point where you're dealing with body types and a point where you're starving yourself.

i'm not really interested in criticizing the woman. that's not my point. the makeup is masking it a bit, but she really looks like she's not getting enough calories or is burning too many off. do i hope she deals with it? sure. but i'm actually more concerned about the messaging...

James M
Ever heard of fast metabolism???

deathtokoalas
sure. i have one myself. i can't go more than an hour after a meal without ejecting a substantial amount of matter.

but that's a level of thin that transcends a fast metabolism.

sportagus3
I'm sorry I didn't realize that you oversee Taylor's diet. How are you going to automatically know what she eats just by looking at her. I'm a thin person too that eats a bunch of food. It's not that uncommon...

deathtokoalas
well, obviously i have no idea what she eats - i'm just pointing out that it's blatantly clear that she's either not eating enough of it or she's spending too much time in the gym.

eating disorders are very common. by denying the obvious, you're not helping.

Janah
Does it really matter what she eats? Should we care? Shouldn't we just pay attention to he music and not her body size?

MrDarcyBabie
I thought she looks a lot skinnier in this..don't want any hate I'm just giving my opinion.

deathtokoalas
well, there's a lot of literature that suggests that these kinds of images are the cause of eating disorders, and they're probably what started them in taylor, herself. i can't think of any way to break the cycle other than to point it out.

loudly. and repeatedly.

it might put her in a bit of an awkward position, but nobody says "think about the heroin addict's feelings". people say "this person needs help". you people have your priorities fucked up.

wait wait wait. i think i get it.

taylor is a celebrity, and you right fucked americans worship your celebrities as superior beings.

so, she can't have an eating disorder. that would suggestion an imperfection within perfection, which is a contradiction in terms. qed.

right?

fools...

it's in front of your faces, and the more you deny it, the more you perpetuate the cycle.

taylor needs help, not denial.

Pandaboy90
So cute you care

Meghan S
its called keeping fit....

deathtokoalas
no. that's beyond a fitness regimen. her bones are jutting out of her neck and shoulders....

(deleted response)

when your bones are sticking out, that means you're emaciated. you could even use that as a working definition of emaciated, although it's not quite technical enough for more general use.

there's a lot of reasons you shouldn't eat burgers. i cheat sometimes, but it's pretty rare. not the burger - that's even more gross.

you shouldn't stand up for your emaciation, you should realize you have a sickness that will likely cut your life short rather substantially and is deeply fucking you up on a hormonal level, which may have very negative effects on your ability to breed, amongst other things.

(deleted response)

emaciation is not "just skinny".

see, this is why we need to have a discussion on the topic. media portrayals of women have created an entire culture of people that think bones sticking out of their skin is a natural consequence of high metabolism, part of being "fit" or "just being skinny". it's been completely normalized.

i also want to point out that informing an obese person of their obesity and trying to convince them to take steps to better their health is in no way rude, it's putting the pressure on them that they need to change their diet and habits.

cassie jenkins
true but don't make fun of her

deathtokoalas
if i'm going to make fun of somebody, it's almost always going to be related to their intelligence and absolutely never going to be connected to their physical appearance.

i actually think this is the first taylor swift song i've ever heard. i don't have the slightest idea of whether she's worth making fun of or not.

i was really attracted to the horns, and think the track needs a remix to make it a bit more interesting. pop music has been so boring for so long now, it was just nice to hear a glimpse of something a bit more developed. but this has a long ways to go before it gets there.

(deleted response)

yes, i realize that obese people know they're obese, but the strongest and most preferable form of group coercion for the common good (which includes minimizing waste of health care resources) is peer pressure. peer pressure is preferable because it is a positive type of coercion and isn't hierarchical (and consequently isn't bullying). this is what is called an anarchist approach to social control.

the other two solutions are the authoritarian approach of refusing them treatment (i don't like that one) and pretending that resources aren't finite (this is the existing status quo of delusional liberal capitalism that you're all taking for granted, the one that assumes unending growth curves and infinite resources and assigns access in a hierarchy based on wealth).

cassie jenkins
that's ok you don't have to i'm just saying i do .

deathtokoalas
well, if it makes you feel better about yourself....

i mean, at the end of the day, making fun of people to make themselves feel better is the only thing that bullies have.

it's sort of cruel to take that away from them.

Jessica;

I would like to clear up a few points in your email.

While your landlord may be correct in that the house may be serviced
by separate storm and sanitary connections (I can't confirm that),
both these connections would outlet to the same combined sewer in the
road. There is only one sewer Cataraqui and one on Marion, and they
are both combined sewers meaning that they accept both rain water and
sewage.

With respect to the Wyandotte project, there is no sewer work being
undertaken as part of that project. Windsor Utilities is replacing
the watermain and services and the City will reconstruct the pavement
following that work. This project would have no impact on the sewers
servicing your property.

You are most likely correct in that there is a correlation between
rainfall and the slow running plumbing in your house. This is due to
the combined nature of the sewer that services your property. During
rain events, combined sewers fill with rainwater and therefore have
limited capacity to accept flows from buildings.

With respect to the apartment building across the street from you, all
rainfall runoff from this property would have entered the sewer system
via foundation drains prior to the fire, so the fact that the basement
may have flooded and the water is now entering the floor drain would
change the drainage pattern very little. In fact, rainwater entering
the sewers from this property would be very small in proportion to
that coming from the catchbasins draining the roads in the area.

With respect to abandonment of the connections servicing the apartment
building, that would be addressed when the building is demolished by
the Building Department. If you have concerns regarding the state of
the building, please contact the Building Department via 311.

Hopefully, this answers some of your questions. Please contact me if
you want to discuss this matter further.

Sincerely;
Name Withheld, P.Eng.
A/Contracts Co-ordinator

the plug was like 50 feet deep in the drain, almost certainly in the city pipes. if i understand correctly, that means the city should have paid to remove it...

i've seen people throw everything you can think of down the drains. it was probably garbage from the street that washed through after the storm.

i want to be clear: i can't complain about my landlord in terms of responsiveness, interest, etc. i mean, he just paid to clear a city drain. on the other hand, it's because he wouldn't listen to what i was saying....

odsp mail for september arrived today. no letter of doom yet.

i'm waiting, patiently, though.

ugh. thugs.

pro-tip: if you don't want somebody to run you over with their car, don't smash their window in while they're in the car. if you do smash their window in, you don't really have a strong argument for generating sympathy.

i continue to find it hard to understand why people develop these absurd tactics to deal with disputes. i can generally at least get my head around it. like, if you're hungry and you can't get food, you might steal food. or if you're addicted to something and you're freaking out, you might go to extreme lengths to find it. certain rules about personal autonomy might be broken in the process, but there's a logic to it.

it's this violence-in-response-to-undesired-social-behaviour thing i don't get, not even as a dominant monkey thing. we're generally more successful when we co-operate and it's well documented in our own species as well as in other species. why do so many people have such a hard time getting their head around this while others grasp it as toddlers?

i guess i get that there's some variation, here. but i don't think that kind of behaviour has a genetic basis, it's an individualistic behavioural response. i often like to explain things in terms of conditioning or reacting to experiences, but i just can't generate a path where this behaviour is understood as rational.

i'm just left arguing that we're quite irrational creatures that often seem to lack an ability to really think through what we're doing.

let's be honest...

if pet were alive, he'd be using exactly the same tactics as harper: he'd be pointing out that his son is intellectually unfit to run the country, calling him an empty suit and a bleeding heart and mercilessly making fun of his hair.

as much as i'd like to see a change in government in this country, the reason he'd be doing that is because it's true.

the liberal party has fallen a long way over the last twenty years. i'm not going to write another retrospective or post another eulogy. but there was a long period of time where, even if you didn't agree with them on every issue, you could count on them to run somebody with a head on their shoulders that wouldn't do anything stupid. those days seem to be over.

what i will say is this: there is no longer a default choice. if they get back in, it's not going to be another dynasty. and there's no clear answer as to how we can get back to that sort of passive comfort level of at least being pretty sure they're not going to fuck anything up.

the weird thing about it is that you know you're voting for the person that replaces trudeau, as odd as that sounds. it's weird how history cycles.

there's a lot of parallels between harper and diefenbaker. and while baby trudeau is no lester pearson, he may very well be a short term, transitional leader who's legacy is primarily connected to who he places in what position.

(yeah, i know that pearson did lots of stuff, just go with it)

call them hobbits if you want, but there seems to have been some insular dwarfism going on in the british isles a few thousand years ago...

i keep pointing out that all of the analysis on iran is done in a vacuum, as though they're not surrounded by russia, china and india - the three biggest powers outside of nato - and as though there aren't any mutual interests in terms of defense and trade.

he's getting the right point, i think, but he's avoiding the context. the realization that's being come to is that the harder they push iran, the more they're going to integrate with america's competitors. as a "regional power"? well, let's not sell out the saudis so quickly, now. how many billions was the last arms purchase? that's a big shift in alliance, and there's really no indication it's occurring.

see, the thing is that the sanctions are an act of war to begin with. the united states is already at war with iran. it's just a different type of war, aimed at trying to influence the government. it's not just empty barbarism. i think everybody knows this. but, if those sanctions are having an opposite effect of increased military co-operation with russia, and china and india circumventing the petrodollar to buy oil, it's no longer playing into american interests. the aim is to dominate them; if the effect is they're losing them, then they're not working.

when something's not working, you don't keep doing it - you recognize as much and adjust. the west pretends to be so concerned about iran developing a bomb, but the faster and easier way to get a deterrent is to rely on russian and/or chinese protection. if the americans keep it up, the russians could act out of principle. and the chinese simply need the oil.

but, iran wants sovereignty. it might be an exaggeration to suggest it wants to be one of the four biggest powers outside of nato, but it certainly wants to be in control of it's own interests. so, becoming a fief of russia or china is no answer. that gives the americans a bit of bargaining power.

which means that what is developing is the same situation that exists in north korea, where a crafty state is finding ways to play the powers off against each other.

i had to leave my browser window open last night, and it's generally a bad idea to try and record with it open due to ram issues. it's done now, mostly. i'll have to wait until after 2 am to get back to downloading the rest of the libraries i'm looking into - i'm looking at about a 50 gb download, and...

there was a court ruling last year that put usage based billing in place, meaning the isps can charge you based on your bandwidth. there's a really bad oligopoly in canada with internet, stemming from the way the infrastructure was built. somebody might correct me (i'm not old enough to remember, first hand) but i believe the telephone and cable companies in canada were previously state operated. honestly? that makes far more sense to me, and the reason is that it doesn't make sense to have multiple lines. you want one cable infrastructure and one phone infrastructure - anything else is just wasteful. but, the result of it moving from public to private ownership was that, in any given area, there's a monopoly on the cable and a monopoly on the phone based around who owns the lines. splitting the lines up to different companies in different areas didn't really have the effect of breaking up monopolistic practices, and why would it? if you live here in windsor, cogeco owns all the cable lines (and bell owns all the phone lines) so you're ultimately forced to go through one of them if you want to use the infrastructure.

so, reacting further to the monopoly, the court ruled that the companies that own the lines have to sell service to smaller isps. so, the way it works is that teksavvy buys bandwidth from cogeco, and i buy bandwidth from teksavvy. the capitalist relation should mean that's more expensive, because there's more managers.

but it isn't. it's less than half the price. but what i like about teksavvy is that they offer very basic rates. i'm on youtube all the time, and i download a bit of music, but i don't game or watch netflix or anything like that - and there's only one of me down here, rather than a family of 5 or 6. my average monthly usage is much less than 30 gb - and usually closer to 20. nor can i download faster than the internet will let me download. so, all i need is about a 5 mbps line with a 50 gb limit. what i have is a 6 mbps line with a 75 gb limit (for $25/month) - and 99 months out of 100, i'm not going to get close to it. even if i were to download 50 gb of libraries in peak hours, i'd still only be something like 73 gb for the month.

i don't want to push it, though.

teksavvy didn't like the ruling. so, what they've done is put the download limit down (and, like i say, 75 gb is usually way more than sufficient for me) and allow unlimited downloads over night, from 2-8 am. it's a good solution for gamers, i guess, who are usually up all night, anyways.

for me, waiting until after 2 to suck this down is an isolated thing to make sure i don't hit the limit...

but, i don't need a browser for that, so i should be able to work overnight. i've got a few things to play with, hopefully one of them gives me what i want right away....

i should point out that i have youtube defaulted to the lowest quality level, though. this isn't for bandwidth reasons, it's because my internet tv is a pIII that shipped with windows 98 on it, so i'm trying not to max it out. well, that and i just use it to watch lectures and news shows...

i don't need noam chomsky's wrinkles or paul jay's bald head beaming at me in crystal clear high definition or who-gives-a-fuck p.

yeah. the pressure knocked the valve off. wrench fixed it. for now, anyways. hey, tearing the pipes up is neither trivial nor cheap. but the idea that it was the pressure got through, at least. this is good.

so, things are back to being idyllic in my little basement hideaway, here...

now that i understand the plumbing a bit better, i'll have to be a bit more aggressive. that (and any pipe damage) could have been prevented by unclogging the clog when i first saw it. but i just didn't understand the system. it was just a basic empirical "if rain, then slow drain. should report issue.". which is what i did and should have done. it was really the "rainwater cannot cause slow drains" response that really cost him his pipes, if there's damage....

there may be an upside to it.

the roaches are in the subfloor somewhere. the only one i've seen since may has been out in the laundry area. it's a good guess that their nest was where the flooding was. if i'm lucky, it drowned the bulk of them and washed away a lot of eggs when it flowed through.

it's ok, i'm used to this.

there was a meme in my group of friends when i was in high school. "fuck. shoulda listened to j.".

as applied seriously:

i failed my french assignment because the teacher said i didn't understand the question. it's actually what j said. fuck. shoulda listened to j.

as applied ironically:

it's raining and i forgot my umbrella. fuck. shoulda listened to j.

(in such ironic usage, j would not have offered an opinion on the umbrella, and would probably not even be present.)

there were other usages. but there's a point. shoulda listened to j!

the question that wasn't asked and makes all the difference in the world...

does the white house control the pentagon, or does the pentagon control the white house?

i know there's some rules on some old piece of paper nobody takes seriously, i'm talking about the actual fact of it. because it's easy to see that if the pentagon controls the whitehouse then the elections don't matter in terms of foreign policy direction. the civil service just keeps plugging from one administration to the next.

consider this: when was the last time a president truly altered foreign policy? through the course of my life time, at least, it's been one after the other with an identical set of policies on every important issue that exists.

i think if they took the whole thing, the lions would respond differently.

what this is demonstrating is that lions know how to share. and that's known.

deathtokoalas
yeah, no. the cat's jealous. that's easy to see.

i suppose the eagle must be able to comprehend that eating your cat would piss you off, and it doesn't seem to want to do that. that's not a game i'd play too long.

Stan “Overlord” Unseld
"the cat's jealous. that's easy to see" is that even possible... its a fucking cat. i seen a few of her videos an it seems the cat an bird gets along it is odd to say the least but cool.

deathtokoalas
as moderately advanced mammals, cats have relatively complex brains and a nervous system that makes use of all kinds of hormones. there's absolutely no question that they feel emotions whatsoever.

i think the mental block is probably in not realizing that "jealousy" is a very concrete and well understood chemical reaction, rather than something abstract that exists in some cloud.

Stan “Overlord” Unseld
or they could just enjoy being around each other... lol whatever the case you seem smart as hell... an why death to koalas?

deathtokoalas
the perverse, revolting cuteness of koalas must be obliterated, before it destroys us all.

Stan “Overlord” Unseld
Well in the words of Obama....: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy the koala terrorist group to protect our great nation.

deathtokoalas
again, i feel that you are belittling a concern of prime importance. we must declare a war against koalas before they smother our freedoms away from us.

i take no pleasure in their destruction, but it is a war that must be waged, a task that must be accomplished.

look at them in their eucalyptus trees, lazy and drunk, while the rest of us toil away. is it their fault? did god them make so? satan, perhaps! it is truly despicable. we cannot tolerate this.

they must be annihilated. but, i fear the collective will to destroy them is not present, and this peril that we face has no end point but our own destruction.

...unless we act quickly, decisively and with minimal compassion.

please heed these words without scorn. the future of our galaxy depends upon it.

Stan “Overlord” Unseld
I am in no way belittling your concerns... or should I say OUR concerns. Koalas are extremely cute hell their irresponsibly cute thus I concur we must wage war on them to remove them from OUR planet because they pollute our planet with intolerable cuteness an this my friend must be stopped. I have known many wars an I believed my time of fighting was over but the overwhelming disgusting cuteness of those koalas had forced me to take up my sword an rage once again. I do not know if I will return but that is the life of a soldier...I do this not because it is easy but because it is hard. 

deathtokoalas
FOOL! do you think that koalas may be destroyed with the blow of your sword, or with the shot of a pistol? such a weak creature would not pose us such a threat. you will be devoured by the minions they control, sacrificed, and used as compost for their sacred eucalyptus. do not waste yourself with such follies.

we require a strategic coming together, an industrial project of great magnitude that will produce a great weapon: renewable energy. it is only through a great mastery of physics that they may be truly abolished.

time is running out.

Stan “Overlord” Unseld
I do indeed understand that me an the brave men that follow me are marching to our death...but the koala are moving to fast and if i do not act now they will overrun us before the "great weapon" is complete..but that's not the only reason i go..yes we will die an in our deaths we shall become martyrs..so that many more shall join our great cause...

deathtokoalas
martyrs shall not save us. i'm not getting through....

Cortanasboyfriend
yeah eating her cat would piss her off probably, but I don't think she would dare hurt a bald eagle, hell I don't think anyone would except for those damn poachers.

TheSFCEmpire415
No its just that cat CANT HANDLE OF THAT MURICAN FREEDOM ! USA USA USA !

releasing inri000 in the alter-reality

time is moving forward in the alternate reality...

at midnight, it will be 17 years and 242 days ago that i finished my first demo recordings, in the basement of an upper middle class suburb of ottawa, canada called "sawmill creek".

my dad had built me a recording studio in the basement, and put a drum kit along with a bass and a 4-track recorder in there. i think he had plans to use it himself, and the idea of building it for me was basically a ploy to get it past the wife. that happened more than once before i turned 20...

...but i also think he was hoping i'd stop sitting in my room by myself with my guitar. i'd been playing for around five years at that point, working on a combination of original songwriting, semi-formal blues training and informally teaching myself how to play the alternative rock of the period. people didn't really interest me. it was a bit of a problem, one that's only gotten worse as i've aged. if he could build a studio with some gears, maybe i'd meet some friends and start a band...

the thing is, that isn't how i interpreted it. my favourite artists at the time were billy corgan and trent reznor, so it just sort of struck me as natural to lay the parts down myself. bass is very intuitive for a guitarist, and keyboards are intuitive for everybody, but a big part of this demo is about me teaching myself how to play drums - and at times it's quite obvious, although i should temper that with an explanation that the drum parts are quite purposefully off-kilter in many places.

what can you say about a 17.5 year old demo written by a 15 year-old? there's a few interesting moments on the disc, which i've pulled out as highlights and uploaded to youtube. the bulk of it, however, is exactly what it is - an exceedingly awkward and mildly ostracized teenager working out various day-to-day issues that only a teenager can really understand, while displaying overwhelming influence from overwhelming influences. hey, at least i wasn't writing "mmmmbop". this isn't as polished as frogstomp, but it's arguably more interesting and certainly more original. if i could go back in time, i'd take the influences off my sleeves just a little.

i've come to understand what i was doing as a part of the then contemporary emo-punk movement, albeit on the fringes of it, as it existed in disconnected basements across north america. i had no understanding of that at the time. i'd guess most people a part of it didn't either. it's been defined in a revisionist manner.

i stopped recording for a little while after this. it's partly because i was naive, and was expecting some kind of response, but it's mostly because i was grounded for a substantial period in early 1997. i've cut out a period of 66 days, and will consequently start pushing tracks from the second tape demo (recorded in the same place) on the 29th of october. over this period, i'll be cycling the 11 tracks from the first demo that i have up on youtube in 6 day periods (with boogeyman consisting of three tracks from this demo, and teenage jesus consisting of two), but i will not be posting those updates here.

so, this is the last youtube switch update for a bit over two months. the song i'm working on has been slow, but i'd be lying if i'd say i wasn't expecting that. in two months, though, i should hopefully have plowed through from the summer of 2001 to sometime in 2003.

http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1

basement toilet fixed, waiting on upstairs toilet

hi.

i learned a lot about plumbing from this exercise. it's not something i'd looked into before...

the eel fixed the drain. but, for future reference, this is what happened:

- your sump pump is connected to outside
- your floor drain is connected to the sanitary.
- there was a partial blockage deep in the sanitary, meaning the floor drain was emptying the basement water very slowly. this caused the sump pump to be running all the time to compensate.
- so, when it rained the basement got full of water and that water blocked the sanitary completely, causing the slow flush, sink gurgles, etc. given enough of a dry spell, it would have come down on it's own through a combination of slow floor drainage and sump pump action, but it's of course better to clear the plug.

so, the systems are not entirely separate. your pump is pumping excess water to the street, but most of the rain water is in fact flowing through the floor drain and into the sanitary, and if you were to block that off your pump probably wouldn't be able to keep up.

so, in the future, if you see a slow toilet after the rain, it means your basement is slowly flooding due to a blocked sanitary.

j

RAW SEWAGE LEAK FROM UPSTAIRS

the toilet from upstairs is leaking brown water from the ceiling in two places.

it's hard to think this is unrelated to recent concerns.

...and the sump pump is still running from thursday's mild rains...

(pause)

i noticed it stopped...

did you get my email and turn a pipe off? if not, it must be flush related because it's not constant.

fuck. just gotta laugh.

i'm pretty sure the high pressure from the rainwater backup/clog issue burst or dislodged something in the toilet upstairs, leading to a leaky pipe. by the end of it, an upstairs toilet flush was making the dishes in my sink rattle. there was clearly a substantial force of air feeding back...

now, the fact that the snake fixed the problem isn't going to help my case. "i told you there was a clog". and i agreed there was probably a clog, but i pointed out that it wasn't the clog causing the backup, it was the rain. and, i was right. had we not got all that rain, the clog wouldn't have been a problem.....until spring. it's good it was found. but, that doesn't change the fact that i was right about the rain. had he not convinced me that the sump pump is more powerful than it is and that the systems are completely separate, i wouldn't have emailed the fire department in a desperate attempt to figure out where the rain was getting in. it makes absolute sense now, but (dammit jim!) i'm a nerd with a creative streak and an ability to think outside the box (i think i proved my worth on that basis with this), not a plumber. leave it to an artist to come up with the most ridiculous way possible to explain water seepage into the system, right?

that's not going to get through. what's going to get through is "i told you there was a clog".

so, i'm going to be told it's the seal on the toilet and they're going to replace the seal. in the end, replacing the seal might make the connection tight again, and it might fix it. but could it be a coincidence? is the leak unrelated to the backup? i can't prove it one way or the other, but i think it's at least likely that the air pressure broke something and hoping it's just the seal is pretty risky...

"a camouflaged pelican of immense girth must be transporting water from the river to the sewer."

so, the fire chief tells me there's no sump pump in the building.

to begin with, how would the fire chief know if there's a sump pump in the building? is there a master list of sump pumps in city records?

well, maybe there is. who knows. but, there was a tenant in the basement - the lights were often on late into the night - and there's a spout on the side of the building. clearly, there was a sump pump.

it may have been an illegal sump pump. an illegal sump pump? well, maybe there was an illegal unit in the basement. it's not uncommon, actually. but, like i'm supposed to get sad about accidentally reporting it. i need the drain fixed, bob the bourgie across the street that fucked off on his property rights responsibilities can fuck off if he doesn't like it...

i mean, if you're just going to sit there and let the drain back up into the neighbourhood's toilets, you deserve what you get.

so, how do you explain cuteness in animals as a biological reaction, anyways? forget the philosophy, that's oldskool. stop thinking like that. start thinking biologically.

like, let's say you see a squirrel bopping about with a nut. awwww. but, you should probably want to eat the thing, really. or should you? squirrels really aren't the safest thing to eat, in terms of carrying parasites. rodents, in general, carry a lot of diseases....

perhaps it's a type of quality reversal. you're allowed to think psychologically, you just have to recognize it's a result of the biology, rather than vice versa. if you ought to want to eat the thing, but the thing is gross, you really, really ought to NOT want to eat the thing. so, because you would want to eat the thing if it wasn't gross, it's actually rather important that your response to a squirrel bopping about is "i don't want to eat that because it could make me sick".

see, but you might be tempted, anyways. the next step up is "well, i can't eat the thing, look how cute it is.".

perhaps cuteness consequently derives from grossness

i just realized the fire chief (yes, i cced it to the fire chief. i'll call the fucking mayor if i have to.) is going to read this and go "what is she, some kind of anarchist or something?".

ordered solutions are preferable. but if nothing happens, i WILL smash through the windows and fix it myself...

cced to pretty much the entire management of the windsor fire department:

hi.

sorry to be aggressive about this, but i know that the response rate on email communication with public employees can be a little slow due to high volume, so i'm hoping you can advise on what is actually a fairly unfortunate situation.

i'm renting an apartment at marion & cataraqui. about a month ago, there was a fire in a large property across the street (also marion & cataraqui, but technically on cataraqui). since then, the rain has been overwhelming the sanitary on the street (several houses are getting slow toilets and backups) and i'm fairly convinced the cause has to be the rainwater draining through the floor drain. the property is abandoned, and the electricity is off, so the sump pump is not working. additionally, this seems to be causing additional stress on neighbouring sump pumps.

it's unfortunate that there was a fire on the street, but there needs to be a drainage solution developed before the spring. this is a large property and it simply can't be left to drain into the sanitary like this.

i've been informed that the fire department probably turned the power off, and i certainly understand the reasons why. but, there needs to be a pump in the property, or the drain needs to be plugged, or something else - otherwise the toilets on the street are going to back up badly in the spring.

so, i really ultimately need to know who deals with this. the city? the fire department? the property owner? neighbours smashing through the windows and doing it themselves?

j

i'll smash the place up with a baseball bat, and then cram the bat right down the floor drain.

yeah? just watch me...

it'll have to overflow through the windows, out to the storm sewer.

gah...

so, a few weeks ago, a heavy rainstorm came through here and the toilet started flushing slowly. at the time, i had no idea what that meant - i didn't even know if i was on city or a septic (i'm on city). but, some back and forth with the landlord and a lot of googling have led me to believe that something is broken with the piping.

the upside is i've learned a bit about how this works. it's something i've never had to think about before. but the way it's supposed to work is that the rain water goes into the storm drain and down a separate pipe to the river, where it dumps in untreated. the toilet water goes into a separate sanitary line and out to the treatment plant. so, rainfall should never back up the toilet.

and, yet it was clear from the beginning that rainwater is in fact slowing down the toilet's drainage. it's not quite backing up. yet.

but, of course the response i'm getting is "that's impossible, it's not how the system works".

there's since been two rainfalls that have caused the toilet to slow down at levels that are proportional to the amount of rain that fell. small rainfalls mean small issue. big rainfalls mean big issue. so, we've got correlation and proportionality. the scientific method tells me we have a causal relationship, here. but science has been less powerful than faith. my scientific reasoning was met with an offer to use the landlord's plunger.

but, what the causal relationship i developed demonstrates is that there's either a break in the local line (which would be expensive for the property owner to fix) or a break on the city line. so, i asked the guy next door...

yup. he's getting backups from the rain, too.

now, i need to convince them that they need to get the city in here to fix something before the snow melts in the spring. as the relationship is proportional, things could get messy down here if nothing happens before then.

there's some construction on the main street a few blocks away to replace old sewer lines.

i'm *hoping* that what's going on is that they have the rainwater temporarily routed to the sanitary, and it will be corrected within a few weeks. but, i have no evidence of this.

my other suspicion is connected to the house across the street. there was a fire there about a month ago, which is about when things started backing up. the property's been completely shut down. if they shut the sump pump off, the rainwater could be pooling in the basement and heading down the floor drain - which is usually connected to the sanitary. that would explain it. the problem is that it's hard to understand how that could be generating *enough* water to back shit up without there being significant blockage somewhere. but, then you need to ask the question: what else has been flowing through the floor drain since then?

i've done all i can do, though. i've proven to them that something is crossed, and it's probably a city issue. now i just have to hope they do something about it...

i'm honestly expecting a more positive response from the main property owner than the guy upstairs. i THINK i've got enough evidence to convince him. he mentioned calling the city a few emails ago, so i think he'll get it.

but i can't risk this backing up in the spring and am going to have to call the city myself if i don't get a good response.

i mean, it's crystal clear that rainwater is flooding the sanitary somewhere, even if it's not supposed to.

what was weird about the rain today, though, is that the sump pump didn't come on until like an hour after it stopped raining, indicating it's draining from somewhere - like the house across the street, maybe.

i've convinced myself it's the abandoned property next door.

so, i've sent an email off to the windsor engineering department, asking them about the sewer replacement (is the storm going through the sanitary?) and what the procedure is for dealing with an abandoned property that's not draining properly...