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

Jo Walton said: I wish there was a way to just see new messages, other than remembering where I was last time, or what the date was last time, in long threads.

I have a fix for that. Use to the "[See last 400 comments]" page.

When you read the last message in a thread, click on the time stamp for that comment (the January 28, 2005, 11:39 AM: part) Then you can use the back button to go back to the list. The last message in the thread should now have changed color in the "Last 400 Comments" page.

Now, to find the next comment in the thread, just click on the next unread comment.

In my browser, read comments are brownish, unread comments are greenish.

The only problem I have with this system is that it doesn't work when I use multiple computers throughout a day or week. But that's a personal problem.

Larry said: I had to fight with her doctor who wanted to reduce her dosage of pain medication.

Unfortunately I think that's a more common problem than you'd think. I've read where doctors have refused adequate pain killers to terminal patients because of fear of addiction.

If anyone else finds themselves in such circumstance (though we can hope not), I'd recommend finding a local hospice. They should be able to help you fight for adequate pain treatment (and for what it's worth, hospice is now well covered by Medicare and by more and more private insurance companies.)

Teresa,

Please feel better soon. The flu always feels more like punishment than illness.

David,

The thing about 'home remedies' is that they often have basis for working.

Garlic is an immune system booster; vitamin c the same. Soups and juices contain garlic or vitamin c AND are liquids, which are always recommended. Exercise is also a good immune booster, but is more helpful before the fact, than after.

As far as painkillers, which are helpful because they reduce fever and joint ache, when I was really, really sick, the doctor had me alternating tylenol and advil (or their generic formulas) as a wya to get around the max daily dosage for each individual medicine. HOWEVER I would not recommend such a course of action without a consulting a doctor.

And for anyone else who has so far managed to avoid the flu, what I recommend most is near and dear to my OCD heart: Wash your hands. Frequently. I've gotten good at unobtrusively using my shirt tail or sleeve to open doors, but then I already have so many other quirks, people hardly notice.

If you feel silly about it, think about all those people who cough into their plams and wipe their noses on the backs of their fingers, grabbing door handles and touching surfaces.

Mitch Wagner said:
So that's what the world would look like if some mysterious, superhuman force caused human beings to be whisked away instantaneously. Hundreds or thousands of years from now, aliens would land on Earth, and find the Internet running on autopilot, spam and viruses being distributed over the Internet, some of it being blocked by firewalls and other defensive software, others, not. Spambots would be attacking weblogs, and Google would be indexing it all.

If you decide to write that book, please let me know.

My mom also shares a birthday with Beethoven. And she's a 5th grade teacher, so she's way cooler to kids (and, incidentally, more influential)

Tracina,
If not, can someone with more experience than I in psychology tell me if this is a common belief?

These aren't the droids you're looking for...

Teresa--

With your interest in hoarding, you might want to read this article (and presumably the original article as well):
Brain region identified that controls collecting behavior

Tom Whitmore said:
Then there's the Angel/Diskworld crossover short story featuring Nanny Ogg's cat....

(boggle)

You're kidding? You have to be kidding. I can't even comprehend, no less imagine.

I use Mozilla, and I have no problems with the text size or the colors. And I LOVE the fact that the columns/sections are wide and so the words per line are long. I dislike pages where there's a tiny column in the middle of the page, and you have to scroll constantly to keep reading.

That said, I should mention that I have 15/20 eyesight, although I do much of my reading on a laptop monitor, which might offset that advantage.

I am curious as to whether reversing the columns where the ads/misc versus the text are would solve the problems that I have where halfway through loading that page freaks out and I get nothing but ads on the screen, and have to go back to get the text back.

If there is an issue with the left side of the page, is it possible that switching the columns so that text side showed up first (since it would be on the right side of the screen) would solve that? Since the text would load before the hyperlinks.

I'm wondering if that would also increase the load time for those of us reading along at home over a modem. I usually have to click on a comment, and then go read something else for awhile while all the text loads.

Just a thought that basically comes down to: I wonder if switching the side of the page the text is on would fix some problems.

And I LOVE tabbed browsing. It drastically cuts down on the number of programs on the taskbar in Windows. Since I usually am running four to six programs at a time, that's a lovely thing.

And I really do like the gray. I'm not a big fan of lots of color in a webpage.

Hitting the back button, or Alt + left arrow works for the page loading issues I have. (The pages loads fine, then jumps to nothing but ads)

Oh, reagarding reading material for younger readers, no one has mentioned a subscription to Cricket. My parents got me a subscription when I was five, and I think we kept it until I was a teen. I beleive that they now have a magazine for older readers as well (Cicada?)

I *loved* Cricket--everything from getting something in the mail that was just for me, to the new stories to read every month.

Julia,

I second the Hobbit and the Garth Nix "Sabriel" series, although at that age I really had a lot of trouble with the Lord of the Rings, and so didn't reread them until college. (For years I thought something was wrong with me because I didn't love Lord of the Rings)

If she likes mysteries, I think I started reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie around that age (the Miss Marple books were what I was partial to)

I also recommend folktales: Joanna Cole's "Best-loved Folktales of the World" was my favorite. Also good is Jane Yolen's "Favorite Folktales from around the World" and I highly recommend everything I've read from the "Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library"

You might also look for a good collection of Greek and Roman myths, which I have always loved.

Quick note on knives... I strongly recommend lock blades. In the 70s Girl Scout knives were not lock blades, and I almost cut the tip of a finger off. (And the only person I can blame for not teaching us proper knife safety is my mom, who was our troop leader.)

My Kershaw that I always carry is a lock blade, and although it doesn't fit into my pants pocket well (women's pants have ridiculous pockets), I always wear a jacket, and it fits fine in any jacket pocket.

Greg London:

NONONONONO! Not the wed one! Don't ever push the wed one!

James D. Macdonald,

Have you come across this site? http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/photo/archive/default.htm

My dad is a professor in safety and environmental management, and uses pictures like those in his classes all the time.

Claude,

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That's what my Republican in-laws are going to get for Christmas this year--Donations in their name to the Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Services.

Paula,
neither is what the failed suicide did... they are still criminal acts.

If you're in the United States, committing suicide and attempting suicide are NOT criminal acts. Pennsylvania was the first state (well, colony) to decriminalize suicide in 1701. No states in the US consider suicide a criminal act. (See Supreme Court case Washington v. Glucksberg)

I'm writing a term paper on physician assisted suicide, so I just happen to have copies of court opinions and articles on the subject lying around.

FYI, when I did a search, BIG GIANT SCARY LETTERS came up. Okay, they weren't scary as much as startling, but they were rather large.

I thought maybe they'd been eating comment spam and had grown to giant size.

Julia said:
The reason we get spam in email is because it works.

I think that we should find the people who buy things from spam, and take away their computers. Permamently. And ban them from computers at library and internet cafes etc.

Y'know, I thought that I was paranoid to worry about stuff like this (okay, I do live in a REALLY low risk area) but there are lots of little things I do that often get my strange looks: I never wear shoes I can't run in. Ever. I used to always carry a pocket knife with me, although that's iffy now with security checks. And I get worried if the gas tank drops below half a tank.

I'm not sure if I'm reassured or worried that other people think about this stuff as well.

One thing I recommend is keeping *any* kind of blanket in the trunk of your car. If you break down or something (hitting a deer is common in this area) and you're stuck waiting, or have to walk out, it's a good thing to have.

Also, if you're like me and keep a flashlight in the car--CHECK the flashlight regularly. We recently discovered that ours had gone bad--luckily it wasn't an emergency when we discovered it. And I second carrying a pack of cards and a book.

The money is something I never thought about. I tend to write checks or use the credit card for everything (if I don't have cash, I can't spend it) so thank you for that tip.

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