Conquer Club

thegreekdog wrote:I've always wondered about the second one when it comes to various products.

Pharmaceuticals, for example, are man-made, but the components exist naturally. Anyway, I thought - "Aren't all products natural or organic?" I think of weird stuff sometimes.

I think about stuff like that often, except I usually take it to far more ridiculous lengths.

For instance, based on the idea you mention I then thought about people's tendency to associated "not natural" with unhealthy. Of course this is bullshit, you can find many things as natural as they come (ie. growing out of the ground) that'll kill you and many thinks as artificial as they come (eg: most modern drugs) that'll save your life.

Then I though, if it's a bullshit and potentially harmful idea (especially when taken to extremes, such as not vaccinating your kids cause they'll get autism), then why does it persist? Is it just an unfortunate side-effect of some larger evolutionary system that provides enough benefit to overcome the disadvantage of that particular neurosis?

But, then I remembered about the many people who followed premature scientific advice, such as taking ridiculously high doses of certain vitamins or taking 2 aspirins a day and lately suffered because it turned out that taking that shit in such high quantitied causes more problems than it solves. (one example of this taken to extremes is futurist Ray Kurzweil, who is, to quote wikipedia, taking "250 supplements, eight to 10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea every day and drinking several glasses of red wine a week in an effort to 'reprogram' his biochemistry").
So maybe this irrational and ultimately bullshit belief is actually useful as some kind of a heuristic that incentivises you to stick with the stuff you've consumed from childhood(and which you therefore probably consider "natural")

I have no idea why I wrote all that out, but f*ck it, not gonna delete it now. Anywho:







@ 3rd one. My feelings exactly. God do I hate those fuckin commercials.

Edit:
Also, 50th page. Not bad.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:I think about stuff like that often, except I usually take it to far more ridiculous lengths.

For instance, based on the idea you mention I then thought about people's tendency to associated "not natural" with unhealthy. Of course this is bullshit, you can find many things as natural as they come (ie. growing out of the ground) that'll kill you and many thinks as artificial as they come (eg: most modern drugs) that'll save your life.

Then I though, if it's a bullshit and potentially harmful idea (especially when taken to extremes, such as not vaccinating your kids cause they'll get autism), then why does it persist? Is it just an unfortunate side-effect of some larger evolutionary system that provides enough benefit to overcome the disadvantage of that particular neurosis?

That's precisely why I think of things like that.

My dad, my brother, and I once had a 4 hour debate (on a drive home from college) on math... not of a math concept but math generally. I think we were arguing about the arbitrary nature of the language and it's application to math. That movie Stargate (or one of those 1990s science fiction movies) talked about how aliens would be able to communicate with us through math, which generated the conversation.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:the link I'm posting.

I laughed then showed it to my wife still laughing. I told her, "It would have to be pizza or something but I get it."

When I told my first wife I was leaving she said "Eat all the bananas before you go, and take the pickled onions with you."

I would have followed those orders provided there were not too many bananas.

I am really liking the heavenly strips.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

Click image to enlarge.

In the last year, after decades of working in C and wishing I were working in C++, my company finally sent me for C++ training. So I was way past panel 4 (in C at least), went back to panel 2 for four days, then skipped ahead to panel 4 again. By the time I get to panel 5, I may not give a damn (I'll be pushing retirement). However this plan can be modified to "Teach Yourself Anything In 21 Days", so, there's that. It might be best just to start at panel 5 and keep your options open for panel ten.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

Click image to enlarge.

Yeah, I hear dat. "I'm gonna pop some tags, got twenty dollars in my pocket..."

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

Click image to enlarge.

My library is just as bad. It is very disappointing to find the old atom/rocket sticker on the spine of a vampire book. It is also annoying to find a dragon sticker on something by Robinson (Kim Stanley or Spider, take your pick).

ender516 wrote:In the last year, after decades of working in C and wishing I were working in C++, my company finally sent me for C++ training. So I was way past panel 4 (in C at least), went back to panel 2 for four days, then skipped ahead to panel 4 again. By the time I get to panel 5, I may not give a damn (I'll be pushing retirement). However this plan can be modified to "Teach Yourself Anything In 21 Days", so, there's that. It might be best just to start at panel 5 and keep your options open for panel ten.

How do you like C++? I've heard horror stories about what happens to code bases when people switch to C++ and are just itching to try on all the "features".

Also:

This comic illustrates (pun intended) my second biggest problem with the United States.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

ender516 wrote:In the last year, after decades of working in C and wishing I were working in C++, my company finally sent me for C++ training. So I was way past panel 4 (in C at least), went back to panel 2 for four days, then skipped ahead to panel 4 again. By the time I get to panel 5, I may not give a damn (I'll be pushing retirement). However this plan can be modified to "Teach Yourself Anything In 21 Days", so, there's that. It might be best just to start at panel 5 and keep your options open for panel ten.

How do you like C++? I've heard horror stories about what happens to code bases when people switch to C++ and are just itching to try on all the "features".

Well, generally, we are not converting C code to C++ code. If it ain't broke,...
We are doing some new development in C++ and I did get wound around the axle a bit trying to use templates when apparently inheritance would do the job. (I am not yet entirely convinced that templates weren't the way to go, but budget and schedule trump all.)

Haggis_McMutton wrote:Also:

Click image to enlarge.

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These are good, as always. I should probably go directly to http://abstrusegoose.com myself.

thegreekdog wrote:This comic illustrates (pun intended) my second biggest problem with the United States.

Okay, I'll bite: what is your biggest problem with the United States?

ender516 wrote:Okay, I'll bite: what is your biggest problem with the United States?

Our perpetual state of war or readiness for war.

re: 2nd comic. There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm that deals with the same thing and it's pretty hilarious.

-TG

thegreekdog wrote:[bigimg]http://abstrusegoose.com/strips/work_hard_and_you_too_can_become_a_second_class_citizen.pngbigimg]

This comic illustrates (pun intended) my second biggest problem with the United States.

Having the option of getting in debt in order to purchase bad "investments" (e.g. a cool car)?

As a regular visitor of this thread for the comics, I'd be delighted to not have another America-debate in this topic. I hope ya'll agree. Thanks in advance.

JBlombier wrote:As a regular visitor of this thread for the comics, I'd be delighted to not have another America-debate in this topic. I hope ya'll agree. Thanks in advance.

Agreed. I will stop.

I'll throw in a comic then, only seems fair. One of the newest smbc, I've really come to like those comics.

Liked the first two, disagreed with the last. Not even a chuckle on that last one.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Liked the first two, disagreed with the last. Not even a chuckle on that last one.

Yeah, but I have to diversify my target audience. Gotta post something for the commies to enjoy.

Haggis_McMutton wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:Liked the first two, disagreed with the last. Not even a chuckle on that last one.

Yeah, but I have to diversify my target audience. Gotta post something for the commies to enjoy.

Well, people that know me in real life might say I am closer to the "commies" than most on this site, but I agree with BBS. You don't obtain a random sequence of bits and build a machine that use it as an operating system. You design a general purpose computing machine, then craft a sequence of bits to be the operating system. I'll grant, however, that sometimes it seems like Microsoft has almost gone the former route, assembling a sequence of bits and gradually converting it into an operating system.