Leaving kids in front of screens unsupervised for hours may have unpleasant consequences, parents learn

Come on, pass me the spoon, will you? https://youtu.be/JBV9Hdroh70

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I give you… the Trump presidency.

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You are right I am partial to an eton mess or a sticky toffee pudding myself, even got the hang of home made minced pies although you could drive me out of the country with a christmas pudding. What is that about?

As to, too sweet sweets, try a gesztenyepüré, which is a maroon cream paste with creme presented in spaghetti shapes, probably the least sweet Hungarian dessert and a absolute must for gourmets.

or we can just all sing toot sweets and leave the eating to someone else

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::sigh:: Minnesota is where I first ate Indian food, Mexican food, and Italian food. Alas, that was in the Twin Cities. St. Cloud is…not…Minneapolis on so many levels.

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Also, Susie did not break up Game Grumps.

Or, if she did, I suspect it was because she saw what Jon Tron was like off-camera and had some words to Aren about it.

Again, baseless speculation, but the comment about Susie up there reads a lot like all the comments when she appeared on Game Grumps and people seemed to freak out that there was suddenly a girl involved and that Aren seemed to actually respect her! OMG!

(And yeah, her early videos on Game Grumps aren’t the best, but she fits in just fine now and her own channel is generally enjoyable too.)

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It was somewhat diverse. With your red herring, may I suggest a slice of 'umble pie. It goes down a treat.

Prices worked differently and certain things were a lot more expensive and others, oddly cheap. Fish, for instance, was staggeringly dear, but spices were not so bad. A pig would set you back 2s and a pound of saffron (a.k.a. more saffron than anyone needs) was 10s[1]. A pound of pepper, whole was about 20d, and a pound of licorice, only 1p. Orange preserve, however, was quite dear, at 3s per pound. That would have been far more of a luxury than some spices, especially if prepared by a spice merchant as a mixture such as the well attested ‘powder douce’ and ‘powder forte.’[2]

Spices would have been a luxury but one well within reach of a yeoman. And people back then, if they could, would absolutely go for luxury despite their lowly status. In clothing this got to such a point that sumptuary laws got extended in 1363[3] to re-impose class delineations.

Villeins, of course, were screwed. But when weren’t they?

What I’m trying to put forth is that the class structure of medieval England was odd and that the prices of the period were odder still, and that there was a local tradition of the use of spices and, especially, garden herbs among the more prosperous peasantry before dramatic shifts in the distribution of wealth forced them to change the patterns of their life drastically, i.e. their former land was, in great numbers, turned to the cultivation of sheep, and they themselves became laborers in the industrial revolution. And yes, the privatization laws were a big part of it, though of course what really did it is, y’know. History. This is not something I made up. It’s a completely mild and non-controversial point of history.

Oh! And you wanted a recipe!

Take hares and flay them; pick the bones clean; hew them into pieces and put them into a pot with the blood, and seeth them. Then put them into cold water. Put the broth with other good stock, almond milk, and parboiled minced onions. Let it boil on the fire. Add powder of cloves, cinnamon and mace, and a little vinegar. Take the well-washed flesh, and the bones, and set them all to boil in the broth, and then serve.

(It’s a royal cookbook, but I am told that the recipe itself is meant to be a peasanty dish though the peasants in question would have poached the rabbit and probably gone light on the spices and the almond milk)

[1] In 1391, according to the accounts of Henry IV.
[2] Lucy Toulmin Smith (ed.), Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land made by Henry Early of Derby in the years 1390-1 and 1392-3, Camden Society, New Series 52 pp. 5-34, 1894.
[3] C. Given-Wilson (ed.) The Parliamentary Rolls of Medieval England 1275-1504, October 1363, vols. 25-32, Statutes I, pp. 315-16, 2005.

With respect, that’s not a citation. That’s a citation that the situation is bad (well obviously, if the problem is systemic, and it is, it’s going to be bad everywhere pretty much constantly because that’s what ‘systemic’ means) and that it is talked about. It is not, however, a citation that the situation there is any worse than anywhere else. I note with interest that this sexist industry is spending untold millions trying everything to fix the situation. That’s not quite the behavior you’d expect from the very worst.

I’m not saying you don’t. I’m saying that it doesn’t get reported on nearly enough. Because if the badness in Silicon Valley is X then Hollywood is, what? 10X? 50X? It’s terrible. This is not whataboutism. Talking about both is fine. But the disparity in coverage is telling. Funny, how the people pretty much everyone already hates are the very worst, isn’t it?

And what did they accomplish? If memory serves the Sad/Rabid Puppy slates (I cannot imagine what emotional need you fulfill by mangling names, but so be it) got smacked down by other Hugo voters who are, by definition geeks.

Not strictly a geek thing, for one. For another, again, the person most involved is a geek and the person that got dinged the most (Dawkins) isn’t.

/tg/ is ‘geek’ sure, but the bit you are thinking of isn’t noticeably geeky at all.

[citation needed]

Some was regressive rubbish, to be certain. More than non-geeky genre fiction of the period? Are you certain?

I am honestly baffled at what would be required to read what I wrote and come up with the interpretation that I didn’t think they were utterly, unforgivably terrible. Did you miss the part with ‘so much evil?’

The fact of the matter is that the KKK were as evil a group of bastards as has ever lived. Fact. Nobody’s disputing this. But it’s also true that they conducted their (horribly evil) acts as if they were a band of LARPers sired by Satan. I found this interesting because it spoke to a connection between a sort of irresponsible fantasist tendency and malignancy which Mark Twain skewered and lampooned in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and in his non-fiction writing where he condemns the South’s obsession with the airy-headed historical romance.

Is making this observation wrong? Out of turn?

Okay. What is the new punk? What causes consternation and chaos by merely existing? I see no other candidates. And you can’t say “punk” because sober, grown women and men can enjoy punk music now and that’s normal. Punk’s normal now. Don’t see this as an endorsement of the alt-right. Who says that counterculture has to be good? Or that youth has some sort of monopoly on good ideas?

No thanks. You guys can keep it.

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I object to calling them goofy. They are terrorists. [quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:108, topic:97189”]
But it’s also true that they conducted their (horribly evil) acts as if they were a band of LARPers sired by Satan.
[/quote]

That’s only seemingly true if you are looking at them through today’s lens. [quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:108, topic:97189”]
What is the new punk?
[/quote]

We don’t need a “new” punk. Punk isn’t a genre of music or a mode of dress, it’s a mode of cultural production, if it’s anything one thing. And yeah, some right wingers fit into that mode. The alt-right doesn’t. They are a bunch of frat boys who want to be cool by coopting all the culture that they aren’t clever enough to make. Not too far from the right wing punk bands who adopted music from the Caribbean and then denied the roots.

I never said that. I rejected the notion that the alt right is punk. There is nothing punk in anything they do. They make nothing new and do nothing interesting. But if we’re being honest, since white supremacy is still in many ways a mainstream value (if not in the same ways as in the past), those embracing a more explicit form of white supremacy aren’t really doing very much that’s countercultural.

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You’d think if they were spending that much money on doing everything they can to fix it, they’d be getting better results…

In 2015, Facebook listed only 145 black employees out of 8,446 in total. That makes it the least black technology company among its peers, falling behind Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple. So for Mark to get up in front of a room of black students and speak favorably about his personal stance on diversity is both absurd and insulting. He can espouse a commitment to inclusion all he wants, but his company’s demographics don’t reflect it.

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Ah! We have different definitions of punk!

In which case, I agree, the alt-right isn’t the new punk. What I meant under that term is a subculture built around shocking and offended the predominant cultural sensibilities[1] pretty much on purpose.

[1] You may say that our culture is supremacist and, yes, that may be the case but the dominant cultural sensibilities are that it mustn’t look it.

Of course they are terrorists. What else would they be?

But… terrorists can’t be goofy? Why? Are we having another definition problem? I would think that ‘goofiness’ is on an axis entirely orthogonal to to ‘soul-shriveling evil.’

And if I use a different lens I won’t find their treehouse-in-the-woods sensibilities grotesque when juxtaposed with the gravity of their actions? I am given to understand that instrumental in beating the bastards down was a campaign of exposure and ridicule that focused precisely on revealing their ha’penny mysticism and misappropriated jargon. Have I misunderstood?

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I would not. It’s a systemic problem. They can throw money at it all they want and maybe they beat back the flood a bit but fundamentally social evil, much like water, finds its level.

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What, exactly, are they doing? Cuz I don’t see them actually doing anything.
Uber has done what exactly? Had a staff meeting? Ok, thanks? I guess…

As to under-reporting… well, gee whillikers, I wonder why issues faced mainly by women and minorities doesn’t get much press?

At this point I feel like I’m just feeding a trolley, so laters, have a blessed day.

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You seem to have missed my point, which is that despite spending millions of dollars and creating “diversity teams” and touting how much they’re aware of their subconscious biases, Facebook is worse at diversity than even its other peers in the valley are. That’s not so much beating back the flood as sandbagging the flood inside the town.

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Yes. And mine’s informed by about 8 years of studying punk as a historian and then 10-15 years before that being around punks ! Not that I’m any kind of expert or anything! :wink: [quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:111, topic:97189”]
a subculture built around shocking and offended the predominant cultural sensibilities
[/quote]

While punks were certainly into shocking, they were also into building institutions for themselves. When punks employed things for the purpose of shocking, it was intended often times (not always of course) as a challenge to mainstream culture. If the alt-right is doing that, it’s not to challenge, but to become the mainstream cultural values again. I think you’re conflating trollies and the core alt-right, which is people like Spencer who have a political agenda of turning back the clock. [quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:111, topic:97189”]
But… terrorists can’t be goofy?
[/quote]

Sure. But it also ignores the very real danger posed by groups like the KKK. And they wouldn’t have appeared goofy in the past at all. [quote=“LapsedPacifist, post:111, topic:97189”]
a campaign of exposure and ridicule
[/quote]

They can be. Ridicule can often also underplay the seriousness that people like this pose. It’s a fine line, honestly that too many people walk along far too clumsily. Calling them goofy is hardly Dave Chappelle’s Frontline parody.

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I don’t know what they are doing—you brought them and that article that says that they are spending millions on it up in the first place. If I had to guess, I’d say diversity training and seminars and consultants, I guess, given how corporations try to solve problems.

And, sorry, if I trolled you by trying to have a conversation with you. After you replied to me.

:confused:

Hey! I haven’t said yours is wrong. Gladly, gladly, I’ll say yours is the better definition and that I applied the term carelessly.

Fair enough. And yeah, there are people who are deadly serious. I just think that they are a tiny number that, absent the joyriding youth, will suddenly find themselves feeling very alone.

We seem to be having a fundamental misunderstanding. To me what I see as the goofiness of the KKK makes them more frightening and disturbing. They do not do evil with some misapprehension of onerous duty and stern necessity which you might expect but do so like daytrippers through a hellscape of misery and injustice. I am not minimizing them, I am, in fact, focusing on one of the reasons they are so terrifying: the violence they did, the pain they inflicted, the terror they had sown seems to not weigh on them at all.

To me, that just indicates how profoundly broken their worldview is and how urgent the fight with them must have been and can be again.

I get all that from the juxtaposition of ‘goofiness’ and ‘evil.’ I guess I could use ‘light-hearted’ or ‘carefree evil.’ Or some such odd combination but I felt taking a swipe at their self-important puffery would be a bonus and hence went with ‘goofy.’

I cannot imagine why you think this diminishes their crimes or how dangerous they are.

I’m not parodying them. I’m describing them. Back then ridicule was important. Today, there’s no firm groundswell of support. They are to be dealt with as any terrorist cell might be, or any criminal group.

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Well, seems like I must be bothered, doesn’t it?

It’s really unfortunate at I really should not take my time to respond in style, since it seems you are up to the task of silly puns. =) I take aa piece of humble shepherd’s pie, and raise you a stew of consciousness.

Society from yeomen upwards aren’t the peer group (pun intended) I would accept as an example on the diversity of a countries cooking. Otherwise, US-american cooking culture is megadiverse due to the stuff people earning several million a year are able to eat.

Cooking books, royal included, are questionable as a reference for the same train of thought (literacy, monetary and social value).

A shilling is a hell lot of money in the first place, see above, but taking into account that some of the spices were used to preserve the meat (or make it edible, again) quantities and use would be different, for sure. That’s the case all over the medieval world, but doesn’t really reflect regional or national cuisine and it’s diversity in my opinion.

Native herbs, but also imported, were also used differently - rather for a health benefit based in folk-lore mixed with “herb knowledge” handed down from the monasteries partly going back to Dioscorides. Thus, it did not really reflect the diversity of the cuisine. Cooking would have included some of those health benefits, reminding of the philosophy one might associate with Asian cuisine. If you build your case on things like adding lesser celandine to your diet in early spring, diversity of the typical regional cuisine certainly was higher than most typical 20th century cuisine in northern Europe.

It still would have been barley soup and suchlike as staple, with not much of a variation, and the strongly spiced meat would be exceptional. It’s the uppermost crust who had that.

Last, not least I wonder what they meant with saffron in your source. A pound of true saffron wouldn’t come at the price, to the best of my knowledge. AFAIR, in the late 14th century, in Cologne, a pound of saffron is documented with a price of five Gulden, that’s 525 Schilling. I don’t know how that compares to 16th century England, and it is further complicated by the fact that the English pound as well as the noble had different equivalent amounts of shillings than German Gulden, and different value. But the difference is extraordinary.

As you correctly say, prices worked differently, and fluctuated even more than the income. But this? I believe they must have meant something else. Where did they import it from? That could give an indication.

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I am always astounded when the racism and misogyny problems of Silicon Valley (or 4chan, or gaming, or some other discrete subset of “geekery”) are globally smeared on the entire tech industry.

Let me see if I can get with the mindset…

Obviously a geek forum like bOINGbOING has a problem with their forum members constantly biting the heads off chickens - since that’s a well-known and documented behavior of “geeks”!

I am ashamed of all you chicken-head-biter-offers. You are clearly horrible, horrible people.

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I cannot identify with these comparisons of rubies to diamonds. I must be very out of touch. Must be me.

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If you think evil is solemn, I have to assume you have probably not experienced much firsthand.

Evil smiles, every. single. time.

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I think it’s a problem that should be addressed specifically because the lack of women and POC indicate that it’s not an isolated problem by any means, that it’s systemic and needs to be addressed at the root. The tech industry right now is incredibly powerful in our society, making it incredibly important to deal with the issue.

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