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Say Something Completely Random And Off Topic

sunnylea57sunnylea57Member
Dear ADD Millennial sitting next to me at the concert last night,

We're only half way through the second song and you're already so distracted you're pulling your phone out and texting? Why are you even here? Put the effing phone away and BE IN THE MOMENT. There are five incredibly talented musicians on stage who you presumably paid top dollar to see (since you're sitting in 6th row centre floor seats), but your phone is more interesting? If that's the case, GO HOME. I don't want to have your phone's blue light in my face.

And to all the others who insist on videoing the concert so you can post your sh*tty, fuzzy videos with echoey, distorted audio to your social feeds just so you can prove you were there... NO ONE CARES. If you're doing it to capture the memory for eternity, there are likely professionally shot videos that you can watch instead that will give you more lasting enjoyment. Watch the actual effing concert instead of watching it through the sh•tty little screen on your phone.
W winedrmikeMember
My theory on why silent farts smell the worst:

When gas is expelled by the body via the anus, it tends to pick up the scent of the stool(aka turd, poop, doodoo) that is sitting in the rectum. When stool sits high up in the rectum, away from the anus, the odor that is picked up is not as pungent as the odor that is picked up by stool closer to the anus. Stool that is closer to the anus tends to act as a noise baffle, not allowing the butt cheeks to resonate during the act of farting. Therefore, farts produced when stool is close to anus tend to be more silent and foul smelling.

Thank you for your attention.
Future lectures: "Creative uses for Ear Wax" and "Phlegm; A Rainbow of Color"
robsutherlandrobsutherlandMember
I found out being told something actually can make you spontaneously vomit.

My three year old broke one of his front teeth almost flush with his gum a year ago and the dentist said that it would probably eventually fall out by itself (it would anyways as it’s a baby tooth but he meant prematurely fall out). It didn’t and on Monday the gum above it turned dark and started to swell (though he didn’t complain of any pain). They didn’t think they could get into his mouth twice as he was hysterical and didn’t want to put him under so the dentist removed the tooth without freezing while my wife held him. Thank god I grabbed my waste basket in time and that there is a shower in my office to rinse it out.
board-oboard-oMember
quote:
Originally posted by Rob_Sutherland:
I found out being told something actually can make you spontaneously vomit.

My three year old broke one of his front teeth almost flush with his gum a year ago and the dentist said that it would probably eventually fall out by itself (it would anyways as it’s a baby tooth but he meant prematurely fall out). It didn’t and on Monday the gum above it turned dark and started to swell (though he didn’t complain of any pain). They didn’t think they could get into his mouth twice as he was hysterical and didn’t want to put him under so the dentist removed the tooth without freezing while my wife held him. Thank god I grabbed my waste basket in time and that there is a shower in my office to rinse it out.


That's horrible! When the tooth fractured near the gum line, the nerve and bloodvessel were exposed and infection was inevitable. At age 3, the pulp could have been removed and the canal medicated.
V vincentricMember
quote:
Originally posted by winetarelli:
If I say that it is 117 degrees outside and your response is that that isn't the "real" temperature because it is over concrete in the sun and the "real" temperature -- over grass in the shade -- is only 108, fuck you.


The weather pussies in Toronto would say the temperature is 117, but feels like 128. Conversely, a few months from now they'll be saying 'its minus 2 but feels like minus 25, don't go outside'.
mimikmimikMember
Sometimes whenever I eat M&Ms, I like to hold two M&Ms in between my fingers and squeeze as hard as I can until one M&M cracks, I eat the cracked one, and the one that didn't crack becomes the champion. Then I grab another M&M and force it to compete with the champion in this deadly game of M&M gladiators. I do this until I run out of M&Ms and when there is only one M&M left standing, I send a letter to M&Ms brand with the champion M&M in it with a note attached that reads: "please use this M&M for breeding purposes."
R RothkoMember
quote:
Originally posted by Mimik:
Sometimes whenever I eat M&Ms, I like to hold two M&Ms in between my fingers and squeeze as hard as I can until one M&M cracks, I eat the cracked one, and the one that didn't crack becomes the champion. Then I grab another M&M and force it to compete with the champion in this deadly game of M&M gladiators. I do this until I run out of M&Ms and when there is only one M&M left standing, I send a letter to M&Ms brand with the champion M&M in it with a note attached that reads: "please use this M&M for breeding purposes."


That's not logical. The first M&M's will always suffer from some injury, which allows later M&M's to easily defeat it.

You should have a March Madness style competition, with champions from the first round competing against each other, moving up the brackets, etc. Then you would truly have a master M&M champion.
V vincentricMember
quote:
Originally posted by Mimik:
quote:
Originally posted by VinT:
You know what happens around here when people post without attribution! Prepare yourself for a stern lecture from PurpleHaze.
Big Grin


I ain't fazed by PurpleHaze!

(that's mine)


Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again....Shakespeare, the tempest
winetarelliwinetarelliMember
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
How would you like to be a bondholder when Trump says Puerto Rico's debt should be wiped out?

Trump is truly dangerously stupid.

In Trump’s defense, he has no idea what he is about to say, what he is saying, what the words he says mean when presented in the order he presents them, no idea how his “sentences” will be interpreted by others and no sense of how anything in the world works at all. And he’s too busy golfing and watching “Fox and Friends” to find out. And he is a true idiot, anyway. So you really can’t blame him.
sd-wineauxsd-wineauxMember
quote:
Originally posted by winetarelli:
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
How would you like to be a bondholder when Trump says Puerto Rico's debt should be wiped out?

Trump is truly dangerously stupid.

In Trump’s defense, he has no idea what he is about to say, what he is saying, what the words he says mean when presented in the order he presents them, no idea how his “sentences” will be interpreted by others and no sense of how anything in the world works at all. And he’s too busy golfing and watching “Fox and Friends” to find out. And he is a true idiot, anyway. So you really can’t blame him.

You know, given the general wealth of the folks who post on this site I would expect that a higher percentage of the WS Forum population would support our Commander in Chief. Shame on you for not stepping up and supporting your values, whomever you are. Smile
J jcocktostenMember
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
How would you like to be a bondholder when Trump says Puerto Rico's debt should be wiped out?

Trump is truly dangerously stupid.


Why surprising? Exactly what he did to the shareholders (other then himself) and bondholders in his Casino company(ies) - multiple times with bankruptcies that were largely pre-packaged
flwinoflwinoMember
quote:
Originally posted by Jcocktosten:
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
How would you like to be a bondholder when Trump says Puerto Rico's debt should be wiped out?

Trump is truly dangerously stupid.


Why surprising? Exactly what he did to the shareholders (other then himself) and bondholders in his Casino company(ies) - multiple times with bankruptcies that were largely pre-packaged


As he said "I do it cause its legal"
mimikmimikMember
quote:
Originally posted by Slippery Pete:
Apparently there was an Anonymous yet ominous prophecy on 4Chan 3 weeks ago warning of an immenent "High Accident Project" in that area. Conspiracy theorists points to Chertoff's lobbying firm and manufacturer of full body scanners. A little far fetched, but timing couldn't be more right. Coincidence?


I am waiting to see the 'official story' before jumping to conclusions. What I find odd is that not many TV stations are replaying the video who mentioned a couple tryed to come on stage to warn people they were going to die. Maybe they overheard something?

Anyway, let's wait and see what the investigation brings.
W wine+artMember
Staged publicity stunt. Shameful Mr. VP and your boss that directed this.

Let's see, send VP and all the security required from Vegas to Indy and then back to West Coast when you knew what to expect. Like so many others in this administration, wasting $$$ flying at taxpayers expense.

I'm sure getting tired of all this winning!

Staged. Publicity. Stunt. Shameful.
bmanbmanMember
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
Staged publicity stunt. Shameful Mr. VP and your boss that directed this.

Let's see, send VP and all the security required from Vegas to Indy and then back to West Coast when you knew what to expect. Like so many others in this administration, wasting $$$ flying at taxpayers expense.

I'm sure getting tired of all this winning!

Staged. Publicity. Stunt. Shameful.


Surely anyone with a brain can see through such silliness?? And what about the disrespect Pence showed his hometown team and especially Peyton on his big day? Seems scoring cheap political points counts for more than anything else. Pence is nothing more than a Trump's fartcatcher.
winetarelliwinetarelliMember
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
Adult day care center. Truth.

My favorite thing today.

My second favorite is the first photo VP tweeted out of him at the stadium. Even that was a lie. I mean, he was there, he could have tweeted out a pic of himself there, like, today. The second photo may be from today. But the urge to be disingenuous was too great. That pic was from 2014.
bmanbmanMember
quote:
Originally posted by wine+art:
He knew what he signed up for.

Empathy of a cockroach.


America, it seems is governed by a text book psychopath/sociopath:

What is a psychopath?

First a bit of terminological history, to clear up any confusion about the meanings of “sociopath,” “psychopath,” and related terms. In the early 1800s, doctors who worked with mental patients began to notice that some of their patients who appeared outwardly normal had what they termed a “moral depravity” or “moral insanity,” in that they seemed to possess no sense of ethics or of the rights of other people. The term “psychopath” was first applied to these people around 1900. The term was changed to “sociopath” in the 1930s to emphasize the damage they do to society. Currently researchers have returned to using the term “psychopath.” Some of them use that term to refer to a more serious disorder, linked to genetic traits, producing more dangerous individuals, while continuing to use “sociopath” to refer to less dangerous people who are seen more as products of their environment, including their upbringing. Other researchers make a distinction between “primary psychopaths,” who are thought to be genetically caused, and “secondary psychopaths,” seen as more a product of their environments.


The current approach to defining sociopathy and the related concepts is to use a list of criteria. The first such list was developed by Hervey Cleckley (1941), who is known as the first person to describe the condition in detail. Anyone fitting enough of these criteria counts as a psychopath or sociopath. There are several such lists in use. The most commonly used is called the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), developed by Robert Hare and his colleagues. An alternative version was developed in 1996 by Lilienfeld and Andrews, called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI). The book that psychologists and psychiatrists use to categorize and diagnose mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM IV) contains a category for something called “antisocial personality disorder” (APD), while the World Health Organization delineates a similar category it calls "dissocial personality disorder." These are much broader categories than that of psychopathy. The category of psychopath is seen as included within this category but considerably smaller so that only roughly 1 in 5 people with APD is a psychopath (Kiehl and Buckholtz, 2010).


If we overlay all of these lists of criteria, we can see them coalescing into the following core set:

Uncaring

The PCL describes psychopaths as being callous and showing a lack of empathy, traits which the PPI describes as “coldheartedness.” The criteria for dissocial personality disorder include a “callous unconcern for the feelings of others.” There are now several lines of evidence that point to the biological grounding for the uncaring nature of the psychopath. For us, caring is a largely emotion-driven enterprise. The brains of psycopaths have been found to have weak connections among the components of the brain’s emotional systems. These disconnects are responsible for the psychopath’s inability to feel emotions deeply. Psychopaths are also not good at detecting fear in the faces of other people (Blair et al., 2004). The emotion of disgust also plays an important role on our ethical sense. We find certain types of unethical actions disgusting, and this work to keep us from engaging in them and makes us express disapproval of them. But psychopaths have extremely high thresholds for disgust, as measured by their reactions when shown disgusting photos of mutilated faces and when exposed to foul odors.
One promising new line of research is based on the recent discovery of a brain network responsible for understanding the minds of others. Called the default mode network (because it also performs other tasks and is operating most of the time when we are awake) it involves a cluster of several different areas in the brain’s cortex. The first studies have been done on function of this network in psychopaths and as expected there are problems there. Different studies have noted “aberrant functional connectivity” among the parts of the network, along with reduced volume in some of the networks crucial areas.



Shallow emotions

Psychopaths, and to a degree, sociopaths, show a lack of emotion, especially the social emotions, such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Cleckley said that the psychopaths he came into contact with showed a “general poverty in major affective reactions,” and a “lack of remorse or shame.” The PCL describes psychopaths as “emotionally shallow” and showing a lack of guilt. Psychopaths are notorious for their lack of fear. When normal people are put into an experimental situation where they anticipate that something painful will happen, such as a mild electric shock, or a mildly aversive pressure applied to a limb, a brain network activates. Normal people will also show a clear skin conductance response produced by sweat gland activity. In psychopathic subjects, however, this brain network showed no activity and no skin conductance responses were emitted (Birbaumer et al., 2012).

Irresponsibility

According to Cleckley psychopaths show unreliability, while the PCL mentions “irresponsibility” and the PPI describes psychopaths as showing “blame externalization,” i.e. they blame others for events that are actually their fault. They may admit blame when forced into a corner, but these admissions are not accompanied by a sense of shame or remorse, and they have no power to change the sociopath’s future behavior.

Insincere speech

Ranging from what the PCL describes as “glibness” and “superficial charm” to Cleckley’s “untruthfulness” and “insincerity,” to outright “pathological lying,” there is a trend toward devaluing speech among psychopaths by inflating and distorting it toward selfish ends. The criteria for APD include “conning others for personal profit or pleasure.” One concerned father of a young sociopathic woman said, “I can't understand the girl, no matter how hard I try. “It's not that she seems bad or exactly that she means to do wrong. She can lie with the straightest face, and after she's found in the most outlandish lies she still seems perfectly easy in her own mind” (Cleckley, 1941, p. 47). This casual use of words may be attributable to what some researchers call a shallow sense of word meaning. Psychopaths do not show a differential brain response to emotional terms over neutral terms that normal people do (Williamson et al., 1991). They also have trouble understanding metaphors and abstract words.



Overconfidence

The PCL describes sociopaths as possessing a “grandiose sense of self worth.” Cleckley speaks frequently of the boastfulness of his patients. Hare (1993) describes an imprisoned sociopath who believed he was a world class swimmer.

Narrowing of attention

According to Newman and his colleagues the core deficit in psychopathy is a failure of what they call response modulation (Hiatt and Newman, 2006). When normal people engage in a task we are able to alter our activity, or modulate our responses, depending on relevant peripheral information that appears after the task has begun. Psychopaths are specifically deficient in this ability, and according to Newman, this explains the impulsivity of psychopaths, a trait which shows up in several of the lists of criteria, as well as their problems with passive avoidance and with processing emotions.

Top-down attention tends to be under voluntary control, whereas bottom-up attention happens involuntarily. But bottom-up attention can temporarily capture top-down attention, as when movement in the periphery of our visual field attracts our attention. Psychopaths have trouble using top-down attention to accomodate information that activates bottom-up attention during a task. In normal people, this process tends to happen automatically. When the hunter is scanning for deer, a rabbit hopping into the periphery of his visual field automatically attracts his attention. Top-down attentional processes monitor the field of attention for conflicts and resolve them. The standard task for assessing this is called the Stroop task, in which the subject must state which color words are printed in. The problem is that the words themselves are conflicting color words, such as “red” printed in blue ink, so the subjects must suppress a strong inclination to read the words. There are now several studies indicating that psychopaths actually perform better than normal people on these tasks perhaps because they are not distracted by the discrepant color (Hiatt et al., 2004; Newman et al., 1997).


Selfishness

Cleckley spoke of his psychopaths showing a “pathologic egocentricity [and incapacity for love],” which is affirmed in the PPI by its inclusion of egocentricity among its criteria. The PCL also mentions a “parasitic lifestyle.”


Violence


The criteria for dissocial personality include, a “very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.” The criteria for antisocial personality disorder include, "irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.”

Philosophers can play a valuable role here in discerning the consequences of all of these findings for our attempts to build an ethical society. Several questions need addressing. What does the possibility that psychopathy is genetic say about human nature? What steps can we take to “correct” psychopaths and which of these is the most ethical? If it is true that psychopaths have damaged or abnormal brains, can we hold them responsible for what they do? Are there degrees of psychopathy, so that normal people may possess psychopathic traits?

Birbaumer, N, Veit, R, Lotze, M, Erb, M, Hermann, C., Grodd, W., and Flor, H. 2005. Deficient fear conditioning in psychopath: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Archives of General Psychiatry 62: 799-805.
 Cleckley, Hervey. 1941. The Mask of Sanity. C. V. Mosby Co.
Hiatt KD, Schmitt WA, Newman JP. 2004. Stroop tasks reveal abnormal selective attention among psychopathic offenders. Neuropsychology 18:50–9.
Hare, RD. 1993. Without Conscience. Guilford Press: New York, NY.
Hiatt KD, Newman JP. 2006. Understanding psychopathy: The cognitive side. In: Patrick CJ, editor. Handbook of Psychopathy. Guilford Press; New York, NY, pp. 334–352.
Kiehl, KA., and Buckholtz, JW. 2010. Inside the mind of a psychopath. Scientific American Mind, September/October: 22-29.
Lilienfeld SO, Andrews BP. 1996. Development and preliminary validation of a self-report measure of psychopathic personality traits in noncriminal populations. Journal of Personality Assessment 66:488–524.
Newman JP, Schmitt WA, Voss WD. 1997. The impact of motivationally neutral cues on psychopathic individuals: Assessing the generality of the response modulation hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 106:563–575.
Williamson S, Harpur TJ, Hare RD. 1991. Abnormal processing of affective words by psychopaths. Psychophysiology 28(3): 260-73""
P papeduneufMember
quote:
Originally posted by Board-O:
quote:
Originally posted by pape du neuf:
It's that time of year again when daylight savings hours should have ended, but thanks to our doltish congress, has not.


I agree, but understand that the reason they wait is to give the trick-or-treaters an extra hour of light.


And make them get up and wait for the school bus in the dark for an extra few weeks.
winetarelliwinetarelliMember
quote:
Originally posted by Napacat:
quote:
Originally posted by pape du neuf:
It's that time of year again when daylight savings hours should have ended, but thanks to our doltish congress, has not.


How can we get this turned around. It has bothered me since the change. Starts too early and last too long. I wish it would go away altogether.

I do too but in the other direction. I don’t mind getting up when it is still dark but I hate the sun setting at 4:30pm.
J jcocktostenMember
quote:
Originally posted by winetarelli:
quote:
Originally posted by Napacat:
quote:
Originally posted by pape du neuf:
It's that time of year again when daylight savings hours should have ended, but thanks to our doltish congress, has not.


How can we get this turned around. It has bothered me since the change. Starts too early and last too long. I wish it would go away altogether.

I do too but in the other direction. I don’t mind getting up when it is still dark but I hate the sun setting at 4:30pm.


Me too
G g-manMember
quote:
Originally posted by bomba503:
I heard someone recently use the phrase "as American as mass murder." I hope at some point that phrase ceases to make sense to people who hear it.


in the mean time, I've taken to collecting some preemptive thoughts and prayers for everyone in lieu of hoping for actual gun control laws in this country.
W wine+artMember
Hey, Japan, try building vehicles in the United States.

Hey, most uninformed president ever, they already build nearly 4M vehicles in North America and employee 90,000 doing so. Approximately 75% of all Japanese cars sold plus millions of square feet of manufacturing space. What a true dumbass!

The leaders of the entire world must laugh their asses off when this idiot leaves the room.
W wine+artMember
Latest polling numbers.

Only 1 of 3 Americans think the president is honest and trustworthy. This is a historically low number, ever.

With 2 out of every 3 Americans understanding the president is indeed a lying buffoon devoid of the temperament to lead the nation things will only get worse, much worse.

What does the 1/3 of Americans that think this president is honest and trustworthy look like?