Sarah, I thought of you when I read something in a book about real estate-- that we shouldn't think of it as being "for sale" or "not for sale" but that you should always think of it as being somewhere inbetween. Agents don't want anyone coordinating sales without them and so they make it seem "unconventional" to not work through them, but they can go pound sand. Finding a house on the market is seriously limiting.
Just got back from Scituate MA where I toured the neighborhood that was hammered during the snowstorm. Mostly lots of sand that'd washed up on the road, ice covering everything. I didn't see any homes with major damage, but hard to tell with the amount of ice and snow everywhere. Lots of contractors out though, so it'll be a boon to the local industry, LOL. Here's a choice picture:
Miles, have you created a thread on Jaffe's Rules of Order? I think I'd like to read that.
So my department head is on his way out (meaning he's been black listed, and won't be back next year.). Many of our other career/tech teachers have been tainted as well, but I've managed to stay relatively safe. The question is, should I look at the dept head position as a positive possibility? If they tapped me for it, should I take it? I'm almost half the age of the other teachers, and I'm a woman, which might not matter to you guys, but it might matter here. Then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Betsky was a professor of mine back in the day. He's certainly a great schmoozer, intelligent and VERY well connected. Kinda a world traveler in terms of his job, so that'd be my main concern - that he may not stick around.
Sarah, I'd go for it if I was you - UNLESS you see the writing on the wall in terms of politics. You'd need a champion further up the food chain too, and of course have to double the things you already probably do in terms of age & women in the workplace stuff.
You'll need to get an idea if who will try to undermine you, and make their departure part of your agreement, if necessary.
Hey Thread Central regulars (especially those who read but don't post): Go on over to iTunes and review our podcast, please? We need more reviews so we show up higher in search results, or something like that. This newfangled internet thing still confuses me.
that's right, it's a series of tubes. it is not a big truck
brought to you by the leaders of our nation, who we have chosen to be responsible for developing the policies and regulations governing the internet along with many other aspects of our lives.
Much more prosaically, I have to grocery shop today, and with 10" of snow forecast to start tonight the store promises to be an insane madhouse of prepper-like survival-of-the-fittest attitudes banging their grocery carts into one another. <sigh>
My sister has all her groceries delivered, maybe I should look into that.
I have to get groceries today, too. We are in the process of switching to organic/pesticide free food. Since I'm on a pretty tight budget, it means a lot of research. Strange that I can't find an easy to read/understand resource about what MUST be organic and what doesn't. I'm thinking all grains, meat, oils, and dairy must be organic, but that kool aid mix doesn't, as long as I use organic sugar. But what about veggies and fruits? Its so murky.
Good for you Sarah. GMOs (including all corn syrup) and pesticides are poison. You wouldn't eat them without food, so why would you eat them with food? Noting murky about it. EVERYTHING should be organic.
A lot of clothing is treated with nasty stuff - flame retardant PJs, nanosilver for whitening, etc., all of which ends up back in the environment as pollutants after they've contaminated us directly.
It gets a little murky when you remember that the dose makes the poison, though. I'm more likely to buy local than organic, because the distinction of being shipped a shorter distance is a bigger priority for me.
There are lists out there that show which fruits and veggies are worth the extra money for organic vs. conventional, in terms of how easy it is to rinse off the pesticides. Bananas, for example, are rarely treated with pesticide anyway, IIRC.
Trace amounts over time add up. And some of the stuff is really nasty. The industry-controlled FDA hasn't tested GMO foods and finds no reason to even label them.
But allowable limits are set based in part on how long the trace amounts stick around in your system. The preservatives in vaccines, for example, are shed by the body within a couple days.
I actually *do* think GMO foods should be labelled so people know what they're getting, but there no evidence that the GMO foods currently on the market pose any danger to humans who ingest them.
As with my preference for local over organic, it's my understanding that enormous monoculture crops, be they GMO or not, are a bigger threat to the environment and food supply than are GMOs, in general.
GMOs have other effects too like increased pesticide use and spreading altered / contaminated DNA through the biosphere. Everything is connected. While some materials may be "shed" by the body that doesn't mean there aren't lasting effects on the organism.
I'm in agreement with you about monocultures, local commerce and transport.
bill nye seems to be concerned about unintended ecological consequences, but in the context of generations of various sorts of genetic selection, i'm not sure that makes a difference.
Miles, that website is deeply biased and the one study from your list with which I'm familiar, by Stephanie Seneff, has been totally debunked. She's basically confusing correlation with causation, which one would think an MIT scientist - albeit one with a degree in Computer Science not Biology - would not fall for.
Here's a basic roundup of why the "toxic vaccines" rumor is bullshit (and it's from 2008! This is not news...).
RoundUp *production* causes severe environmental pollution, so that's a decent enough reason not to use it. That said, I do use it, on my gravel.
Miles. I'm not a scientist, but skimming that article it's full of issues:
1. In vitro effects of a raw chemical on raw kidney cells are not the same as clinical results of the ingested form of the commerically-used chemical on actual kidneys in humans. Put salt on a slug, it shrivels up and dies. Ingest salt into your body, it does not cause one to shrivel up and die.
2. Rats fed enormous amounts - amounts far above the safety levels set for amounts one would typically ingest - of *any* chemical will see adverse affects. Feed those rats similar amounts of the chemical to what a human would get over their lifetime and the affects are statistically insignificant.
The typical ploy is this: something is a "chemical" therefore it's bad in ANY amount. Example: Formaldehyde is toxic at high levels, yes. But every time you eat a pear you get a dose of formaldehyde - it's just that it's a *totally safe* dose, far below any toxicity level. So saying "I won't eat Subway's bread because it has formaldehyde in it!" is illogical - the dose makes the poison.
What I've learned from listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and talking to my sister the doctor, and reading other science blogs and magazines, is that you can't just look at study's results, you have to look at how the results were formulated. Many of the natural news websites cite studies in which no clinical work was done; they are torturing data from previously published studies to support a result they want to find. It's gerrymandering data.
Example: You can't use in vitro results to prove conclusively what the effect in actual human bodies is. You use the in vitro results to decide whether it's necessary to pursue clinical studies or not. Making the leap from "glyphosate kills kidney cells in vitro" to "glyphosate kills people" is an enormous and unscientific leap.
And again, all that said: enormous monocuture agribusiness is generally accepted to not be a completely safe or healthy way to feed the population, so continuing to study ways to have less damage to the planet and more healthy food is a valuable use of resources. We just have to be smart and fair in the research.
Economics, Donna. Huge forces at play with tech that is clearly not fully tested, or even tested at all, and delivered without warning or choice to billions of people, solely for profit.
Corn is the perfect example. Subsidized by the taxpayer in the form of government subsidies to farmers, which results in a market so flooded with corn that it is used to make every thing from sweetener to fuel to cattle food (they are ruminants) to global trade agreements that allow it to be dumped in foreign countries tax free.
Up to 20% or more of crop yield is lost to insects. This is about maximizing profit, not providing healthy or environmentally sound food. Our health is not a relevant concern to anyone except ourselves.
This is about maximizing profit, not providing healthy or environmentally sound food. I totally agree with this. This is why large scale monoculture, which tends to be associated with GMOs, does scare me: if we have 80% of our corn crop being one strain of GMO corn that is then attacked by an unpredicted pathogen, whelp, there goes our economy, and many people will have a hard time finding food.
The whole thrust of my argument is to try to lessen the panic many people have over pseudo-science fearmongering.
Sarah, if you are trying to eat organically, great. Good for you, and do consider buying local as well, to keep that money in your own community. But we all know that a paycheck only goes so far, and spending additional money for organics isn't always necessary.
Well, the reason we're switching is because I've read/heard that the glyphosates can kill gut bacteria, which in turn can cause problems with the brain and such. Abram is already such a tornado, that if ANY of his behavior can be curbed/helped through going organic, then I'm for it. That, and I heard the gut bacteria connection could be connected to Celiacs. I love bread and pasta too much, so I'm erring on the side of caution.
That said, I don't think I'll be buying organic bananas or onions, or tea, or coffee, although I did mistakenly purchase some of that Trader Joe's Pinnon coffee (it was the only one already ground), and Husband loves it. He isn't even using creamer any more! Yay for happy accidents!
On another note, this has been the most civil Archinect controversial discussion in a while. Congrats to all players!
Sarah, Angus was a total tornado too, but getting him into swimming 3-4 days a week REALLY helped. And, just maturing. Boys are SO full of energy when young! And these days school is never about letting them exercise that energy via play.
We have him in Taikwando and Boy Scouts. I was voting for kung fu and acting, cause Kung fu is more spiritual/calm/thoughtful, and he's a natural character.
Busy taking care of this storm with Sierra Nevada Beer Camp India Pale Lager. Enough of this and I can shovel the whole east coast.
How about those 'Hawks vs Pats' last night? What an amazing game. Given that the Pats are my new hometown team and the Seahawks are the old one, I couldn't lose. I found myself rooting for the Patriots though. An amazing set of plays at the end, by both teams. I even enjoyed the little fight that broke out, just like a hockey game LOL.
Anyone want to come help me with this snowblower? We can do a bonfire after.
Woke up to pouring rain on top of now-compacted 24" of snow. After lunch it started snowing and the doors to the cars froze shut. At dark waited an hour for a tow truck to unblock the road and haul away a BMW that some genius had blown the motor in attempting to ford a frozen river that had formerly been a street. Temp around 10F and wind chill forecast well below 0F tonight.
Sarah i would totally go for the job! Also, i was in NOLA this weekend and it is amazing, in spite of all the talk of recovery, how much damage from storm is still visible... That is all.
We're reinstalling an exhaust hood that was removed when the space was converted from classroom to offices, now it's going back to a classroom again:
Me: the duct coming out of the hood is round and that's a rectangular duct; I don't think that's the exhaust duct.
Facilities Guys: No, it is, there's just a transition piece in the soffit you can't see (implied: with your lady eyes)
Me: That rectangular duct has two outlets; the exhaust vent wouldn't have a second outlet.
FG: Yeah, they probably accidentally put the outlet in the wrong place and had to cap that second one.
Me: The outlets in that rectangular duct align exactly with the locations of two diffusers in the hallway on the other side of the wall.
FG: No, that hallway is served from a VAV somewhere else in the building. Just coincidence.
Me: That doesn't make any sense. Why would the other classrooms all have round duct and this one have rectangular?
FG: That doesn't matter. We'll just cut a hole in the rectangular duct and add a transition piece to exhaust into it.
Me (on ladder with my head stuck up above the ACT into the plenum space): Look! There's an abandoned, capped round duct exactly the same size as the hood outlet with the damper turned off just 30" to the other side of where the hood is located.
FG: Oh.
-fin-
So if the architect wasn't around we would have had an exhaust hood from a classroom, where they paint and spray glue and whatnot, ducted to the supply air for the adjacent hallway. I mean, these guys are smart about what they're doing, they just don't ask the same questions as I ask!
Thread Central
http://youtu.be/qbh3llweLAA
Oh man look at that thing go! I totally want one.
Sarah, I thought of you when I read something in a book about real estate-- that we shouldn't think of it as being "for sale" or "not for sale" but that you should always think of it as being somewhere inbetween. Agents don't want anyone coordinating sales without them and so they make it seem "unconventional" to not work through them, but they can go pound sand. Finding a house on the market is seriously limiting.
HERE u go:
Just got back from Scituate MA where I toured the neighborhood that was hammered during the snowstorm. Mostly lots of sand that'd washed up on the road, ice covering everything. I didn't see any homes with major damage, but hard to tell with the amount of ice and snow everywhere. Lots of contractors out though, so it'll be a boon to the local industry, LOL. Here's a choice picture:
Oh man you guys I'm now a true believer in Dean Aaron Betsky for Taliesin!! It's going to be awesome. Trust.
So my department head is on his way out (meaning he's been black listed, and won't be back next year.). Many of our other career/tech teachers have been tainted as well, but I've managed to stay relatively safe. The question is, should I look at the dept head position as a positive possibility? If they tapped me for it, should I take it? I'm almost half the age of the other teachers, and I'm a woman, which might not matter to you guys, but it might matter here. Then again, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
What would you do?
Betsky was a professor of mine back in the day. He's certainly a great schmoozer, intelligent and VERY well connected. Kinda a world traveler in terms of his job, so that'd be my main concern - that he may not stick around.
Sarah, I'd go for it if I was you - UNLESS you see the writing on the wall in terms of politics. You'd need a champion further up the food chain too, and of course have to double the things you already probably do in terms of age & women in the workplace stuff.
You'll need to get an idea if who will try to undermine you, and make their departure part of your agreement, if necessary.
sarah - leadership positions in education are very risky unless you entrench yourself somehow.
Miles you hunkering down for the next storm......better go out and stock up on some booze....therma care back pads, milk, bread, and batteries.
Think I'm going to go fire up my generator just to be sure it is in working order.
65 inches of snow in the forecast...
Worse than that my wife's going to nurse her dying father for a week. Sleeping alone sucks - especially when it's cold.
The liquor delivery comes Monday (I hope - 5" to 8" forecast).
Oh MIles that's tough, I'm sorry. I hate sleeping alone. Is she going somewhere away from the storm, I hope?
We're supposed to get 9-10" this weekend. Fine with me.
Farther south, maybe 3".
You can read that any way you want.
LOL
Hey Thread Central regulars (especially those who read but don't post): Go on over to iTunes and review our podcast, please? We need more reviews so we show up higher in search results, or something like that. This newfangled internet thing still confuses me.
It's really very simple Donna, the internets is a series of tubes.
that's right, it's a series of tubes. it is not a big truck
brought to you by the leaders of our nation, who we have chosen to be responsible for developing the policies and regulations governing the internet along with many other aspects of our lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
Much more prosaically, I have to grocery shop today, and with 10" of snow forecast to start tonight the store promises to be an insane madhouse of prepper-like survival-of-the-fittest attitudes banging their grocery carts into one another. <sigh>
My sister has all her groceries delivered, maybe I should look into that.
I have to get groceries today, too. We are in the process of switching to organic/pesticide free food. Since I'm on a pretty tight budget, it means a lot of research. Strange that I can't find an easy to read/understand resource about what MUST be organic and what doesn't. I'm thinking all grains, meat, oils, and dairy must be organic, but that kool aid mix doesn't, as long as I use organic sugar. But what about veggies and fruits? Its so murky.
First trip to whole foods, coming up!
Good for you Sarah. GMOs (including all corn syrup) and pesticides are poison. You wouldn't eat them without food, so why would you eat them with food? Noting murky about it. EVERYTHING should be organic.
A lot of clothing is treated with nasty stuff - flame retardant PJs, nanosilver for whitening, etc., all of which ends up back in the environment as pollutants after they've contaminated us directly.
Don't even get me started on plastics.
It gets a little murky when you remember that the dose makes the poison, though. I'm more likely to buy local than organic, because the distinction of being shipped a shorter distance is a bigger priority for me.
There are lists out there that show which fruits and veggies are worth the extra money for organic vs. conventional, in terms of how easy it is to rinse off the pesticides. Bananas, for example, are rarely treated with pesticide anyway, IIRC.
Trace amounts over time add up. And some of the stuff is really nasty. The industry-controlled FDA hasn't tested GMO foods and finds no reason to even label them.
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/gmo-dangers/65-health-risks/1notes
But allowable limits are set based in part on how long the trace amounts stick around in your system. The preservatives in vaccines, for example, are shed by the body within a couple days.
I actually *do* think GMO foods should be labelled so people know what they're getting, but there no evidence that the GMO foods currently on the market pose any danger to humans who ingest them.
As with my preference for local over organic, it's my understanding that enormous monoculture crops, be they GMO or not, are a bigger threat to the environment and food supply than are GMOs, in general.
10 Scientific Studies Proving GMOs Can Be Harmful To Human Health
GMOs have other effects too like increased pesticide use and spreading altered / contaminated DNA through the biosphere. Everything is connected. While some materials may be "shed" by the body that doesn't mean there aren't lasting effects on the organism.
I'm in agreement with you about monocultures, local commerce and transport.
here's what neil degrasse tyson says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ecT2CaL7NA
or his facebook response to responses to that video. i think.
https://www.facebook.com/neildegrassetyson/posts/10152652892786613
bill nye seems to be concerned about unintended ecological consequences, but in the context of generations of various sorts of genetic selection, i'm not sure that makes a difference.
guess all that gmo grain used in making backwash budweiser is catching up with me....da..
Miles, that website is deeply biased and the one study from your list with which I'm familiar, by Stephanie Seneff, has been totally debunked. She's basically confusing correlation with causation, which one would think an MIT scientist - albeit one with a degree in Computer Science not Biology - would not fall for.
Here's a basic roundup of why the "toxic vaccines" rumor is bullshit (and it's from 2008! This is not news...).
RoundUp *production* causes severe environmental pollution, so that's a decent enough reason not to use it. That said, I do use it, on my gravel.
Widely Used Herbicide Commonly Found in Rain and Streams in the Mississippi River Basin
In rain!
Lemmings are smarter than humans.
Balkins lives! I sent him a note and he responded that he was OK, just busy. Maybe that's a polite way to tell us all to fuck off?
Eat up, kids!
Monsanto’s RoundUp Found in Kellogg’s Froot Loops
Miles. I'm not a scientist, but skimming that article it's full of issues:
1. In vitro effects of a raw chemical on raw kidney cells are not the same as clinical results of the ingested form of the commerically-used chemical on actual kidneys in humans. Put salt on a slug, it shrivels up and dies. Ingest salt into your body, it does not cause one to shrivel up and die.
2. Rats fed enormous amounts - amounts far above the safety levels set for amounts one would typically ingest - of *any* chemical will see adverse affects. Feed those rats similar amounts of the chemical to what a human would get over their lifetime and the affects are statistically insignificant.
The typical ploy is this: something is a "chemical" therefore it's bad in ANY amount. Example: Formaldehyde is toxic at high levels, yes. But every time you eat a pear you get a dose of formaldehyde - it's just that it's a *totally safe* dose, far below any toxicity level. So saying "I won't eat Subway's bread because it has formaldehyde in it!" is illogical - the dose makes the poison.
What I've learned from listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and talking to my sister the doctor, and reading other science blogs and magazines, is that you can't just look at study's results, you have to look at how the results were formulated. Many of the natural news websites cite studies in which no clinical work was done; they are torturing data from previously published studies to support a result they want to find. It's gerrymandering data.
Example: You can't use in vitro results to prove conclusively what the effect in actual human bodies is. You use the in vitro results to decide whether it's necessary to pursue clinical studies or not. Making the leap from "glyphosate kills kidney cells in vitro" to "glyphosate kills people" is an enormous and unscientific leap.
And again, all that said: enormous monocuture agribusiness is generally accepted to not be a completely safe or healthy way to feed the population, so continuing to study ways to have less damage to the planet and more healthy food is a valuable use of resources. We just have to be smart and fair in the research.
gerrymandering data work both ways.
Smart and fair in research
Economics, Donna. Huge forces at play with tech that is clearly not fully tested, or even tested at all, and delivered without warning or choice to billions of people, solely for profit.
Corn is the perfect example. Subsidized by the taxpayer in the form of government subsidies to farmers, which results in a market so flooded with corn that it is used to make every thing from sweetener to fuel to cattle food (they are ruminants) to global trade agreements that allow it to be dumped in foreign countries tax free.
Up to 20% or more of crop yield is lost to insects. This is about maximizing profit, not providing healthy or environmentally sound food. Our health is not a relevant concern to anyone except ourselves.
Subway's Bread Burns Like Cardboard.... that is reason enough to not eat it.
This is about maximizing profit, not providing healthy or environmentally sound food. I totally agree with this. This is why large scale monoculture, which tends to be associated with GMOs, does scare me: if we have 80% of our corn crop being one strain of GMO corn that is then attacked by an unpredicted pathogen, whelp, there goes our economy, and many people will have a hard time finding food.
The whole thrust of my argument is to try to lessen the panic many people have over pseudo-science fearmongering.
Sarah, if you are trying to eat organically, great. Good for you, and do consider buying local as well, to keep that money in your own community. But we all know that a paycheck only goes so far, and spending additional money for organics isn't always necessary.
Well, the reason we're switching is because I've read/heard that the glyphosates can kill gut bacteria, which in turn can cause problems with the brain and such. Abram is already such a tornado, that if ANY of his behavior can be curbed/helped through going organic, then I'm for it. That, and I heard the gut bacteria connection could be connected to Celiacs. I love bread and pasta too much, so I'm erring on the side of caution.
That said, I don't think I'll be buying organic bananas or onions, or tea, or coffee, although I did mistakenly purchase some of that Trader Joe's Pinnon coffee (it was the only one already ground), and Husband loves it. He isn't even using creamer any more! Yay for happy accidents!
On another note, this has been the most civil Archinect controversial discussion in a while. Congrats to all players!
Sarah, Angus was a total tornado too, but getting him into swimming 3-4 days a week REALLY helped. And, just maturing. Boys are SO full of energy when young! And these days school is never about letting them exercise that energy via play.
Last Weeks Storm is giving us a visit today......Yikes were going to get everything the weatherman said Plus! Miles might have to borrow your shovel.
got a snow blower just in time for +12" of snow, can't believe I went so long without one!
...and there's another storm coming this Thursday. I'm thinking about investing in a pair of snowshoes.
Toaster.....I must have missed that weather report.. Thinking I don't need to go to the gym this month....with all the shoveling.
Busy taking care of this storm with Sierra Nevada Beer Camp India Pale Lager. Enough of this and I can shovel the whole east coast.
How about those 'Hawks vs Pats' last night? What an amazing game. Given that the Pats are my new hometown team and the Seahawks are the old one, I couldn't lose. I found myself rooting for the Patriots though. An amazing set of plays at the end, by both teams. I even enjoyed the little fight that broke out, just like a hockey game LOL.
Anyone want to come help me with this snowblower? We can do a bonfire after.
i think instead of a snowblower, you could invest in a nice crockpot, look up the wendy's chili recipie, and just not go out for a few days :)
Woke up to pouring rain on top of now-compacted 24" of snow. After lunch it started snowing and the doors to the cars froze shut. At dark waited an hour for a tow truck to unblock the road and haul away a BMW that some genius had blown the motor in attempting to ford a frozen river that had formerly been a street. Temp around 10F and wind chill forecast well below 0F tonight.
Good thing the hootch arrived on schedule.
Sarah i would totally go for the job! Also, i was in NOLA this weekend and it is amazing, in spite of all the talk of recovery, how much damage from storm is still visible... That is all.
I would rather have a foot of snow instead of a inch of ice on top of snow.
Rant of the day (which happens regularly):
We're reinstalling an exhaust hood that was removed when the space was converted from classroom to offices, now it's going back to a classroom again:
Me: the duct coming out of the hood is round and that's a rectangular duct; I don't think that's the exhaust duct.
Facilities Guys: No, it is, there's just a transition piece in the soffit you can't see (implied: with your lady eyes)
Me: That rectangular duct has two outlets; the exhaust vent wouldn't have a second outlet.
FG: Yeah, they probably accidentally put the outlet in the wrong place and had to cap that second one.
Me: The outlets in that rectangular duct align exactly with the locations of two diffusers in the hallway on the other side of the wall.
FG: No, that hallway is served from a VAV somewhere else in the building. Just coincidence.
Me: That doesn't make any sense. Why would the other classrooms all have round duct and this one have rectangular?
FG: That doesn't matter. We'll just cut a hole in the rectangular duct and add a transition piece to exhaust into it.
Me (on ladder with my head stuck up above the ACT into the plenum space): Look! There's an abandoned, capped round duct exactly the same size as the hood outlet with the damper turned off just 30" to the other side of where the hood is located.
FG: Oh.
-fin-
So if the architect wasn't around we would have had an exhaust hood from a classroom, where they paint and spray glue and whatnot, ducted to the supply air for the adjacent hallway. I mean, these guys are smart about what they're doing, they just don't ask the same questions as I ask!
Have always said it would be a perfect world if there was no one else in it.
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