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Cake day: July 19th, 2023

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  • I once had a female coworker who was complaining about how she had walked in on a male coworker using the single-occupancy bathroom (peeing, his back was turned to the door), that him not locking the door was somehow inappropriate of him.

    Somebody put a poll up on a white board with the scenario, with question “who behaved inappropriately” with the choices “the person entering the bathroom without knocking” “the person using the bathroom without locking it” “they are both wrong” and “we’re all adults here, get the fuck over it.”

    The tallies were overwhelmingly in the “get the fuck over it” column. But I feel the poll was missing something important: the door had a tendency when locked to stick and leave the person locked inside. We were in a quick-response duty status (as in running to the aircraft), so the person already in should absolutely not have locked it (he was the runner).

    You see a closed door to a room (of relative privacy) that might be occupied, you knock. Simple as.


  • How to Train Your Dragon Trilogy.

    I watched the first one on a ferry, and just hearing the title made me think it was going to be some nonsense. And then it was amazing.

    Then they announced a second, and I was thinking what do they expect to do with this and then they gave something intensely heartwarming and heart wrenching. I found it better and deeper than the first.

    And then the third. I don’t think it was as clean as the other two, but it closed it off so beautifully I was bawling at the end. Absolutely perfect.









  • I didn’t like Chandelier by Sia, was annoyed when it came on the radio all the time, didn’t really pay close attention to the lyrics.

    And then a TV show I was watching, Selfie, with Karen Gillan and John Cho, and the whole plot of the show was this attractive, vain, party girl becoming someone that other people could take seriously, and at the end after taking a… well, without spoilers, a confidence hit, she sings a slowed down version of Chandelier, and I not only heard and understood the lyrics, but had spent a series watching and caring about someone who was the posterchild for the song… and it just immediately changed my outlook on the song. It was deep, and painful, and far more meaningful than a song about swinging from a chandelier.

    Also that show was surprisingly good and didn’t get nearly the recognition it deserved.


  • I was shocked how easy it was to do my taxes when I was poor (back before the online services even). Just went to the library and spent half an hour filling out a 1040EZ form and dropping it in a mailbox.

    It’s harder now that I actually have contributions to retirement, back when I owned a house, make considerably more, have two kids and a wife that’s going to school, etc. But still took me less than an hour.

    And I would argue that if it takes you more than an hour to do taxes, you both should and can afford someone to do taxes for you.







  • I think you are confused about the source of the deficiency.

    When we make an exception for a particular gender, race, religion, etc, we imply that an exception is necessary for this class. Which is to imply that there is a deficiency, but not that it is inherent to that class.

    The deficiency being corrected is in society. How society has treated that class is a failing in society itself, and an exception needs to be made to correct (and fix) that deficiency. To take an example you made of handing a crutch, the crutch is going to society to help get their leg (that class) healthy again after what they had done to it, so it can be whole. Ideally, the crutch would be a temporary thing until the body can heal its leg, but the crutch isn’t the solution in itself.

    Broadening that out, society has a deficiency as it mistreats, say, trans people. Trans people exist and should be an accepted part of society treated the same as everyone else, but bathrooms, sports, etc, have excluded them or mistreated them. That may not be able to be fixed immediately, but while we work toward a society where bathrooms, sports, etc, are inherently inclusive of trans people (I can’t sat for certain how that would look), exceptions must be made to keep society functioning reasonably while it heals its deficiency (like a crutch for a person who broke their leg).

    I hope that clarifies things for you. Your assumption that the deficiency is inherent to the marginalized group is what is faulty.