The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by jere7my:

C. Wingate, the point is that, apparently, any history professor (like, say, my wife) can nominate anyone they like by writing a letter. Given that, it's inconceivable that Obama wouldn't be nominated. And once he's in the pool, the committee then has to consider everything he's done between the nomination and the voting.

In other words, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping people from nominating a fire hydrant that they hope will do something awesome in the next nine months. If the fire hydrant does do something awesome, the fact that its awesomeness was only potential at the time of nomination doesn't factor into its consideration for the award.

Matt @ 75, I've seen women in full burquas (with hijab and niqab) on the bus here in Boston. Last time was coming home from Inglourious Basterds a couple of weeks ago. Nobody was staring or commenting, at least not overtly.

AndrewM @74 wrote, Certainly I is missing - which suggests that, if this is indeed a test, the maker failed it.

It's a reference to an old Latin team-building proverb: "There's no 'I' in 'ABCDEFGHKLMNOPQRSTVX'."

Marian @ 143:

In the original universe, Romulus was destroyed, but Vulcan lives on.

In the splinter universe, Vulcan was destroyed, but Romulus will presumably be saved, since they have 125 years to evacuate the planet and/or stop the "supernova."

As for Remus, it orbits the same star as Romulus, so I imagine it went kapoof as well. But I expect there would be enough Romulans on ships, on colonies, and otherwise offworld to keep the race going in the original universe, just as 10,000 Vulcans were left alive in the splinter universe.

nerdycellist @89 said, What doesn't happen (unless there is possibly a bit of flirtation going on, I suppose) is any back-arching, or hair shaking, or buttock wiggling.

Oh, come now. James Tiberius Kirk was in that room. It's been firmly established that Kirk emits an electromagnetic field that causes women (of any and every species) to arch their backs, shake their hair, and wiggle their buttocks. It's just science.

Adam-Troy Castro pointed out one of those Schwarzschilds, really the biggest one. Say you're Nero. You've just seen Spock come too late to save Romulus and now you've been dragged 125 years into the past. Do you A: forswear vengeance and go home to Romulus to prevent its destruction or evacuate its people, having more than a century to affect events? Or do you B: Focus solely on attacking Spock, the Federation, and the Klingons?

Presumably he did save this alternate-universe Romulus, just by showing up and giving the galaxy 125 years of warning. In this splinter timeline, Romulus will doubtless be evacuated well before the "supernova", or the supernova properly defused, thanks to Nero showing up — his rampage did the trick just as well as a nicely-worded note. His own planet is still destroyed, of course — nothing to be done there — but Romulus B should be fine.

Also coming late, but: You want the secret to savory burgers? I stumbled upon it through experimentation. In addition to the aforementioned Alton Brown method (no-press, flip once), mix half a teaspoon of dry mustard in with the hamburger. Maybe some basil and black pepper, and possibly a tablespoon or two of A-1, but all of that is secondary to the mustard powder, which will unlock the awesome flavor of delicious burger. Add no salt to the interior, but apply it liberally to the outside. Win.

When I was a projectionist, I used to pilfer movie posters from the stacks that cluttered up the office (with the full knowledge of my boss) and use them for wrapping gifts. The gift recipients were delighted, and nobody ever seemed to care that half a dozen Dr. T and the Women posters disappeared before Christmas.

Ethan @ 297:

Thanks for the clarification. And apologies for boiling down your take on the situation into two words that didn't actually represent what you'd said — I was trying to be shorthanded, not inflammatory.

Ethan @ 290:

Let's be fair — the conversation wasn't really "all very civilized" until C.E. stepped in and ruined everything. Way back at the beginning of the thread you'll find comments like "[Mr. Burt] probably feels he's a Holy Warrior against the Dark Forces Lurking In The Dark Ready To Steal My Loot," and "this latest stunt shifts my opinion [of Mr. Burt] from 'terribly misguided' to 'thuggish and mean-spirited.'" Those seem personal to me. Even if they weren't directed against an actual participant in this thread, I can see how comments like that could get into someone's craw, particularly if the someone knows Mr. Burt socially.

Nifty! I'll have to check that out next time I visit my mom. I saw something similar while looking out my bedroom window at Greenridge Cemetery in Saratoga Springs, where one gravestone among dozens blazed with a bright yellow-orange light. It turned out to have a mundane explanation (hint: the gravestone faced west), but at the time it was quite startling. I took a picture.

Barbara @ 388:

While some men do drop their pants to their ankles — I know I've seen belt-ends lolling at the inter-stall boundary — I think "Pants around your ankles" is largely a colloquialism. I'm not sure it matters here — pants around your knees make it almost as hard to move quickly as pants around your ankles, and will certainly expose all the same things one might not want exposed (unless one is wearing Hello Kitty gaiters).

FranW @ 337:

You say, "Women have lived with this problem for centuries. And, me, I'd rather the cops worked on making the streets safe from rape than making the gents' toilets safe from suggestive hand gestures."

Would you also prefer that the police ignore a peeping tom who's cut a hole in the wall of the women's changing room in Macy's? That seems to be more on a par with being peered at in a men's room — both are indeed fairly minor incidents, certainly not on a par with an act of violence, but both seem bothersome enough, to me, that I would want the police to have a word with the offender. I'd like the cops to hurry up and arrest all the serial killers and mob bosses, too, but I still want them to show up if someone steals my bike.

I can't speak for you, of course, but I would guess that you'd be unhappy if you caught a peeping tom gawping at you and someone here told you, "I'd rather the cops worked on making the streets safe from rape than making Macy's dressing rooms safe from harmless perverts."

Karen @ 335: I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I answered you @ 308. Nearby sex isn't a problem for me (it certainly may be for others), but being leered at while my pants are down, and without knowing the intentions of the peeper, definitely is. I think that's a pretty widespread attitude. (I would also prefer people not pee on the seats, of course. I'm a bit of a dreamer; I'd like to have my urinal cake and eat it too.)

I've seen some analogies drawn in this thread — comparing bathroom cruising to cruising in bars, for instance — and they seem like the wrong road to go down. There is no precise heterosexual analogy for public restroom sex, simply because there's generally no reason for people of the opposite sex to be in the same bathroom, and bathrooms offer unique social constraints.

Public restrooms, at least men's rooms, are places of isolation — not only do most men not expect to be propositioned there, they don't expect to be acknowledged there. Certainly not in the stall or at the urinals, and usually not at the sinks. Probably this is a remnant of homophobia; I think it's also a relief to have one public place where conversation is never required.

Bathroom stalls are also constrictive — there's not a lot of freedom of movement, and the only exit is easily blocked. That can make unfamiliar activity outside your stall feel threatening.

The best mix of privileged isolation and physical constriction I can come up with outside a men's room is anywhere you're expected to be in your stopped car for an extended period of time — at a drive-in, or on a ferry, or in a traffic jam. I'd be willing to bet that anyone who went from car to car at such a place, knocking on windows, soliciting sex, would be busted, whatever their gender or orientation. It's not that asking someone for sex is necessarily bad — it's that it's unexpected, it's a breaking of a comfortable social barrier, and it can be perceived as a threat if you don't know what's going on.

Now imagine you're partly undressed, and there's nobody else within earshot, and your movement is further hampered by the pants around your ankles.

I found it very unpleasant, to put it mildly, when I was doing my business in a department store stall and glanced down to see an eyeball peering at me through the inch-diameter hole in the stall wall. At the time, I didn't know (and still don't, I guess) that the fellow was seeking sex; I think I thought it was more likely drug-related. But I knew I definitely didn't want to be eyeballed while my pants were down, whoever it was and whatever their reason for it. When I hear about "peering" that's what I think of; I'm not sure it's better if it's done through a crack in the stall.

I imagine that increased familiarity with restroom cruising procedures would decrease miscommunications and misinterpeted non-threats — that may be a legitimate spot where homophobia plays a role, since an awkwardly offered and politely refused proposition is less likely to generate a police complaint than an ominous figure with opaque motivations. But there's still going to be a fundamental incompatibility between "I want bathrooms to be a place I can hook up with people" and "I want bathrooms to be a place of privacy where I don't have to acknowledge other people." Whatever subtle system of codes are in place, someone who's cruising is still attempting to communicate with someone who probably doesn't want to be communicated with, and that seems like an intrusion to me. That's not the case — or less obviously the case, when it is — in a bar or a bookshop, where social commerce is commonplace; I think it's less reasonable to say "I want bookstores to be a place of privacy where I don't have to acknowledge other people," though most of us probably feel like that from time to time.

If it were common practice to come in and whistle eight bars of Jesus Christ Superstar while washing your hands as code for "Hey, want some sex?" I'd find it a lot less objectionable. But in my (very limited) experience it's more intrusive than that, and worthy of police scrutiny.

Oh, good lord. Desktop Tower Defense ate my life for a couple of weeks in July. "Yip-pee! Yip-pee! Doh! Doh! Doh doh dohdohdoh... Yip-pee!"

I posted my maze and strategy for beating Hard here, and then never had to lose sleep over it again, because the bonus challenges do not exist.

Fully-upgraded Splash towers are the bee's knees, assuming a sufficiently large and stompariffic bee. Like Mothra. Only a bee.

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