Stuff That Really 'Grinds My Gears...'

Actually I approve of programmers who don’t waste bandwidth for people who don’t want to see the comments.

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I don’t think that’s the issue.

I think the issue being described is that you have to click once to spend the bandwidth, and then a second time to display what has been downloaded.

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Is that so? I thought it was selectable by the page designer. I just checked one site (GWS) and it definitely doesn’t download until you click on its button.

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PAIN.

Traffic pain and construction pain are bad enough, but too many people seem too determined to fill every other space with unneeded pain.

Can’t find a quiet space without pain, or pain-screens, or besickening fumes.

PAIN!

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It feels really crappy to post my annoyance after that. I hope you’re feeling better today.

I didn’t realize I’d knocked down my Kindle Fire until I’d already stepped on it. Oddly enough, the screen protector held, but the glass under it cracked. The display’s still functional, but there’s an ugly crack across the width of the screen, with a few smaller fractures off the point of impact.

I don’t know whether or not to use it as is, since it still works, but just seeing that crack grinds my gears at my own stupidity. I could take it to a repair shop, but the one I checked says it will cost around $60-70… which is the cost of a new one. Spending that money grinds my gears too. In theory I could try ordering the parts and doing it myself… but I don’t feel up to it at the moment. And that’s discouraging. I’ve worked on computers, this little gadget shouldn’t intimidate me.

And it’s such a stupid thing to be upset over, with all the other :poop: going on (which is why it’s in Grind My Gears and not Fuck Today.) Dad’s got tests and doctors visits over the next couple days, I’ve got Jury Duty looming next week (and since I goofed and missed the last one I’m expecting to have to go, and while I don’t mind doing my duty, I’m the caregiver for my dad so I’m praying I won’t be asked to sit a trial.) And here I am grousing over a cracked-yet-functional Kindle. Really, Jen? :rage:

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If you get to the point where it seems you might be asked to sit on a multi-day trial, you absolutely have the right to tell the judge you are your father’s primary caregiver and his medical issues require daily attendance.

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I’ve actually considered taking along the folder I’ve got with all the paperwork from his miscellaneous hospital stays and procedures to show the judge if it comes up. I’m not comfortable with asking to get out of it completely. I can sit for the day and wait to be called and get it over with (especially since once you show up you’re automatically excused for a full year.) But a multi-day trial just isn’t good. Despite what he claims, I know very well Dad won’t take his meds on time or feed himself properly. So while at any other time I’d be okay with being on a jury (I’ve done it before) now just isn’t good. If I hadn’t missed my last summons… but I got it mixed up with doctor’s visits and didn’t realize until the date passed. So if I don’t show, it’s bad news.

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Obviously not as bad as any of this.

The human and general catarrhine dental formula is 2-1-2-3/2-1-2-3 with occasional 2-1-2-2/2-1-2-2.

(That’s counting incisors, canines, premolars, and molars on each side of the upper and lower jaws.)

There is a lot of vampire artwork with inhuman dental formulae. For example, 1-1-?-?/1-1-?-? or 1-2-?-?/2-1-?-?.

Thing is if they’re supposed to be human vampires, shouldn’t they have human dental formulae? 1-1-?-? could be some other mammalian or therapsid vampires, but 1-2-?-? suggests gorgonopsid or pelycosaurian vampires, and… remarkable convergence with humans.

Plot twist: character is older than we think, is actually a Dimetrodon.

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That would make a really cool story!

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Right. And they’ve had hundreds of millions of years manipulating others’ perceptions.

Clue 1: Extra canines.

Clue 2: Never goes in tight spaces, coffins, etc.

Clue 3: Uses all the bedsheets.

Clue 4: Basks in the sun. Most vampires don’t. Basks on belly, never on back.

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I guess with all those ancient castles and mad servitors they can afford implants. Vampire equivalent of piercings and tattoos. Also note those hunter-gatherers who file their front teeth into points so they can be fed through straws when they get tetanus.

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Which would be archaeologically visible… I wonder if any societies resorted to that before iron-working.

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Hiccups grind my gears; especially when I haven’t eaten or drunk anything in over an hour.

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I feel your pain! (Fortunately not chronically.)

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I have a laptop that the power cord slipped in between the keyboard and screen as I closed it and cracked the digitizer.

~$100 for a new assembly but then all the fiddly work of pulling it apart and putting it back together.

I wouldn’t even care, but it is only a couple years old so it still has life. But I exist in an excess of computing devices, so it sits on my desk mocking me.

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A number of news sites are posting that the “oldest human fossils outside Africa” have been discovered, and are reporting dates between 175,000 and 200,000 years old.

But the oldest Javan and Georgian finds of Homo erectus are about 1,800,000 years old.

I don’t know about you, but where I come from, the Fighting Mongooses, 1,800,000 years old is older than 200,000 years old, and even older than 175,000 years old.

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Depends, I suppose, on your definition of “human.”

At what point did we earn that appellation? When we diverged from the chimpanzees? When we first started walking upright? When we started using stone tools?

Using “human” to refer only to anatomically modern humans (h. sapiens) is not an uncontroversial choice, but it’s also not an uncommon one, so that’s probably the definition they’re using here.

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I can see 5 possibilities:

  • Self-Awareness. Probably after the split with Gibbons and before the split with Orangutans.

  • Extensive tool use. Probably after the split with Gorillas and before the split with Bonobos and Chimpanzees. Probably in Africa.

  • Increase in cranial capacity. Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis-- if valid taxa-- seem to occur during this transition. Homo erectus in certainly after.

  • Extensive fire use. Robert Broom put this early, explaining the shift from an ape-like jaw to a human-like jaw by the time of Australopithecus africanus. But undisputed evidence is late, with Homo erectus zhoukoudiensis.

  • Language, etc.-- but first, these don’t fossilize until abstract and representational art, and these aren’t individual traits…

And anatomical modernity doesn’t match up with any of these things. I don’t know what to make of common usage here-- but I immediately think of either ignorance or prejudice.

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As I said, there is controversy about what “human” means. But one common definition is just to use it as a shorthand for homo sapiens, the anatomically modern human.

My guess is that the original paper uses “oldest h. sapiens” and the writers of the news pieces translated that to “oldest human” without giving it a second thought.

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!

The genetic evidence is in. Neanderthals and Denisovans, at least, were the same species as anatomically modern humans. Probably other populations were too.

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