Comments on: TMI… seriously!

By: JoB

JoB — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:37:06 +0000

Maria, it’s unfair! You put an elephant (ro be precise: two elephants) in the room (to be precise: during an earthquake) and then you disallow discussion of it (them). I’m happily married to my straight-A partner (wouldn’t women more closely approximating the modern-day beauty ideal not be a liitle offended by this suggestion that they are less probable to approximate a modern-day intelligence ideal?) and I am well aware that the big-breasted needle ideal can be – to say the least – annoying. But does it merit even the mildest form of cultural pessimism?

It is one thing to read a magazine, surf the internet or watch TV, and quite another to physically interact with another person. I see no reason why the physical (or other) aspects of the subjects preferred in these two activities should correspond (in fact, they can’t correspond: the first has a minimal aspect of averaging and the other not). Sure there are men that will coerce partners to approximate with their bodies the ‘entertainment’ ideal – many men are stupid in many different ways, the issue is their stupidity not the divergence of the ideal from reality. Sure there are a lot of women that can’t withstand the pressure of conforming to the ideal – but this can be as well an issue of undue pressure as an issue of lack of knowledge to withstand pressure. The latter can be solved, I think, but I don’t see how you can tackle the first without inventing a ‘bad taste’ police.

No issue to criticize it as bad taste or as inconvenient, I just shudder at the concept of ‘problems of pornification’ and such.

Don’t shoot me, please.

By: Zamfir

Zamfir — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:04:29 +0000

Phil, if both the tourist and the commuter agree on the risk of the bag and on the cost of getting of the train, then both should make the same decision. That the commuter has to travel more often doesn’t change it at all, it’s the same trade off every time.

The difference is that commuters are not as random a group as tourists: people whose estimate of the risk tells them to get off the train, are less likely to become commuters. If there is a bag in the subway every few rides, than surely only people commute who don’t consider left bags a risk worth leaving the train for.

By: belle le triste

belle le triste — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:08:18 +0000

we have earthquakes in the uk—my parents’ house is still unrepaired from the effects of the last one it experienced (units falling of the wall, significant cracks in plaster, doors no longer closing properly)

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:33:03 +0000

Salient – I grant you that the risk of Maria coming through the window intending to steal your canned beans, fully armed with unwanted padded bras, may be a major concern if there’s a vast natural disaster or complete civil breakdown. But I can’t see how it can be a more major concern than not having an ample supply of food and water in the first place.

By: Kenny Easwaran

Kenny Easwaran — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:26:56 +0000

I failed to feel this one as well – and this time I was down at USC and not crossing streets in Silverlake. It’s possible I was still in the gym at the time, but I think I was just sitting in my office – no excuse. I guess all I have to say is that I can apparently feel earthquakes when I’m in the Bay Area (mostly around the 3.0 range, but even one as small as 2.3, when it was actually in Berkeley), but not in LA (even when they’re above 4.0).

By: novakant

novakant — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:21:25 +0000

since I live in SoCal, I automatically attributed this to the fact that so many women here have had boob jobs. We’re talking stripper boobs.

I never understood this – do all men in SoCal like big boobs? Would they not consider, say, Nastassja Kinski, Vanessa Paradis or Kate Moss attractive? Or do the women get some kind of ego boost through boob jobs?

By: Maria

Maria — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:23:34 +0000

Looks like a 4.1 and is said to be an aftershock to Sunday’s: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Quakes/ci10411545.php

By: lindsey

lindsey — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:58:13 +0000

I felt it too! This time I went to the door….

By: Maria

Maria — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:54:34 +0000

wow, we just had another! bout 5 miles away and measuring a 4.1. Not that the models seem to show much association between foreshocks and The Big One, but I am reconsidering the purchase of bottled water…

By: Freshly Squeezed Cynic

Freshly Squeezed Cynic — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:49:15 +0000

Sod it. Here.

By: Freshly Squeezed Cynic

Freshly Squeezed Cynic — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:47:10 +0000

Part of me obviously realised that we don’t have earthquakes in the UK

Really?

By: Juliette

Juliette — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:58:57 +0000

I had nearly the reverse. When Buncefield Oil Depot exploded a few years ago, I woke up and the only thought that went through my head for several minutes was ‘there’s been an earthquake’. Part of me obviously realised that we don’t have earthquakes in the UK, and so I was certain that it must have been in Italy and been very big…

By: Donald Johnson

Donald Johnson — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:11:12 +0000

Thanks, Richard, for answers to 3 and 4.

I thought there was a fair to middling chance someone around here would be a geophysicist who understood earthquake wave energetics, but maybe not. At least the ship in the bottle mystery is solved. (“Real Housewives in X” too, but I cared less about that one.)

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:27:20 +0000

So it’s a death scene, but it’s not clear she’s actually dead yet…

Oh orlright, forgiven then. We’ve just got up to the diagnosis bit, and it wouldn’t be Grey’s Anatomy without an overwrought death scene, so that, I suppose, is predictable.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:22:51 +0000

If you want to calculate the total amount of inconvenience for 10,000 rides

I guess that would be the fallacy – short time horizons & discounting of future risks.