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Oblivion newbie stuff
Topic Started: Jun 24 2017, 07:34 PM (597 Views)
glargg
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Jarl
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Quote:
 
These tales spring up from times before flashlights of course....



...and before brains, apparently

...who knew that someone could fall into a bog? ;)
Edited by glargg, Sep 25 2017, 01:19 PM.
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glargg
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I think it's more complicated than spontaneous combustion, since methane doesn't readily self-ignite.

If you look it up in Wikipedia, you'll find that they attribute it to the oxidation of phosphine and diphosphane, from rotten vegetation, which emit photons, and which are capable of spontaneously reacting with oxygen. That could then set methane on fire, but the methane isn't needed to produce the light.

The other possibility is so-called "fox fire," which is a bioluminescent fungus.
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Areial
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Y'all are just taking the fun outa Fantasy... it's a fairy lighting her way with a wee little lamp...
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glargg
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That, too. :)
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neildarkstar
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glargg
Sep 25 2017, 01:18 PM
Quote:
 
These tales spring up from times before flashlights of course....



...and before brains, apparently

...who knew that someone could fall into a bog? ;)
Oh, I don't think we've grown any appreciable amount of gray matter on average since those days. Okay, so they they just found that viking who fell into a bog several hundred years ago, and that's cool, but how many people nowadays get themselves killed trying to take "selfies"?

We got better technology. Better brains? Eh... not so much... ;)
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Serethil
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Yeah.... I keep having these issues with how STUPID people are today.
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glargg
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People are the same as they always were. Human brains get lazy and self-satisfied when they haven't got anything challenging to do. Mobile pocket computer/camera/phones are about the last thing that our world needed, and now they're driving "stupid" to new levels of insipid pointlessness.

The great bulk of humanity just goes along with whatever is going on. That's why we have flocks of mindless sheep following whoever makes the right noises at them. And now we have a way to make those noises at them 24 hours a day, wherever they go. Yay! :meh:
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Serethil
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Yup. Bingo, glargg.

*SIGH* Not to mention Twitter and Donald Trump.
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Areial
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gotta have someone to hate right.. .me it's this little dude on the other side of the world... has kinda a girly name... The only twitter I do is <giggling>

But I happen to like my pocket computer.. it allow's me to totally screw up the English language as I try to write at work... ( I loooooove auto correct ...) I can set my GPS on bad days when I am traveling and can't remember if it was a left on cty rd 821 or a right on cty rd 218. My old Note 2 has every single pick up and delivery Michael made when I was with him OTR, including BOL's, dates, places etc...

It is not the phone's fault that the people using it are idiots. They don't teach many of the thing's that we learned as a matter of course in school, they don't teach the thing's that some of our parents's taught us, but now don't have the time for.. Mom isn't staying at home and Dad work's more than an 8.5 hr shift every day.

College students are getting to college and given free reign with fund's and have no clue on how to budget them. Many don't know how to cook, use a washing machine, write a check.. balance a checkbook.. read an F'ing Map for crying out loud!

They don't know their American History let alone world history..

So no, it isn't the pocket-sized computer, its parent's and teachers and the community that has allowed our children to become ignorant of some of the basic things.


OK.. sorry.. rant over!
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Serethil
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They don't know how to read a map - because their cars come with GPS.... and their phones ditto. Some of it is parenting. More of it is.... laziness and the availability of tech.

Do I use tech? Yes. Not "smart phone" tech though. But regardless, I can still use a real - paper - map. Good thing too, since GPS usually tries to send people to my house by a trail over the mountain that only a mountain goat could navigate.
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neildarkstar
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Well, I have a perfectly good rant, but... I won't do it. I won't give in to the urge, because this isn't the thread for it. On the other hand, I might take that rant to a different thread, but as of this moment, I haven't the fortitude. ;)
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Rick
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As Neil says.
How'd this start...er' oh yeah, Oblivion's Wisps.

A remembered thing from Obs wisps.....they'd cross water to get to you and as they did so, made a little vee shaped bow wave even though the wisp was invisible. So you run across the river...turn and watch the water...then see this vee wave coming at you....made me shiver...
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glargg
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I disagree, Areial. But I'm not really singling out the phone.

Technology affects society, but social change is on a slower scale, so the results of our tech adaptations are not immediately visible.

The phone is a tool (actually a collection of tools), so the problem is actually with the tool user. There's really nothing "wrong" with any of the functions it provides, but collectively it drives people literally to distraction. People are absent from one another, while sitting in the same room, because they are occupied with their screens. (And we shouldn't forget to add the TV, video game console, or PC to that group of "screens.")

The last time I was driving, I was almost hit by two different people who were clearly fiddling with "screens" as they drove.

My grocery store clerk can't do her job without her "screen" doing her "thinking" for her. I buy a couple of items, and the total is $5.10, so I hand the cashier a ten and then fiddle in my pocket for a dime. Meanwhile she has entered the $10.00 as cash tendered, and now she doesn't know what to do with the dime I just handed her.

This isn't a failure of education. Any fool can subtract 5 from 10. It's a failure of common sense, the actual ability to reason, and it's caused by over-reliance on machines to "think" for us.
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neildarkstar
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It's a strange thing alright. Yesterday (or the day before) I went to the store and bought about $11.00 worth of items. I handed him a fifty dollar bill, and watch as the clerk digs my change out of the till. I noticed that he shorted me a dollar, and didn't count out my change, just stacked it nice and neat and handed it to me.

He's a nice kid, and I knew he wasn't intentionally ripping me off, so I just stopped before taking the money from his hand, and said "How do I know how much change is in this stack of bills? How do I know it's right?"

He smiles and says "Well, the computer says that's the change you're supposed to get"

"What if the computer is wrong about how much money is there?"

"It can't be wrong, it's a computer..."

"Oh so... in that case, you won't mind counting it out to me as you hand it back, right?"

That got me a grumpy-face look of "this is a waste of time, but I'll do it!"

Guess what? It seems the computer didn't have any idea how much change he'd handed me, eh?
:D
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Serethil
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Yeah. It's - a problem. Around here, it's a REAL problem. None of the people on the registers can add two and two to make four without the machine. Unfortunately, the machine as often as not can't add two and two to get four either. Mostly, it gets three.... or so.
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neildarkstar
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What glargg said about simple reasoning though is also true. children aren't taught to reason anymore. they are taught facts (if they're taught anything) but not how to arrive at a conclusion.

I got a call the other day, one of those ones where they say "to verify your identity, please give me your date of birth and the last four digits of your SS number."

So I said "Wait! You need to verify my identity by having me give you my personal information, but... how do I know who the hell YOU are? When you can verify your identity to me, then go ahead and call me back, okay? Till then... Bye!"
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Serethil
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Heh. I screen every call these days. If it's not a number I recognize (that would be around twenty total) I let it go to the generic male answering machine voice.

If it's a legit call, they'll leave a message.

They never have yet.
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glargg
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neildarkstar
Sep 26 2017, 10:32 PM
I handed him a fifty dollar bill, and watch as the clerk digs my change out of the till. I noticed that he shorted me a dollar, and didn't count out my change, just stacked it nice and neat and handed it to me.
I used to work as a cashier, back in the days when we knew how to count change, and how to handle bills. I'm pretty good at counting by eye as somebody works a cash drawer.

I had a bank teller make a $20 error a while back. It was actually an error in my favor, but it was a case where apparently the teller was in a hurry, and she had two bills stuck together as she counted the bills out from her drawer, and she just reached over to hand me the stack.

I told her, "I think you'd better count that again." She did, and thanked me.

I went out feeling better than I would have if I'd come out $20 ahead. :)
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Serethil
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<3 A twenty isn't much to me, but it could be a LOT to her. It could be her job.

Not to mention.... Christmas lines at the stores? I'm the one who stands there patiently waiting while people all around me go ballistic. I'm also the one who gives the checker a hug and a "hang in there, and happy holidays". I wish I could give them money, but wally world won't go there.
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Areial
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Well ya know.. Retail manager.. I count the change back. I insist that the "kid's" count the change back if I am near the register ( which isn't my primary job ).. Part of that is that I can't see most of what is on the computer screen.. I can see the total, but not the "change" which is in smaller print..or at least I can't see them without my glasses. So I count it out ... 18.59 out of 20... 1 penny= 60 + 40 quarter, dime, nickel, = 19 + $1= 20 Yes it takes longer.. but in the 20 yr's I have done retail.. I have never had a short draw due to my error.. I did have a bosses wife taking money outa the till.


Glargg, about 20 yr's ago, I looked over my son's shoulder and asked what he was doing..
"homework" say's he
"Well what is it" say's I
"We are learning to read a map" say's he..
I looked at it again... and shook my head and said "ok".. figuring maybe it was early day's and I would ask the teacher next I saw her... cause it looked like a tick-tack-toe board made of double lines.. with boxes that had names for places... I'da called it "directions"..

No cell phone in my house.. we did have a pc, he was allowed 1 hr a night, 2 on weekends and more if it was raining and we couldn't get out to the park or beach. His favorite game.. had something to do with building armies and fighting other peoples armies ( or the computer's AI ) I don't remember the name of it.. been awhile and his father vetted it.

But before that.. in 9th grade I took a test... scan sheet.. so all multiple choice.. I passed with something like 98% ( pretty sure they were some of the "higher" math questions) ... In 9th,10th & 11th grades I was in an Alternative English Program.. ie my Dyslexia had me in an Alternative class.

I did very good in Mr. Brown's class, extra book report's made up for my horrible spelling and grammar tests. I can read and write book report's really well. But in 12th Grade they put me in Advanced English Honor's, I did pretty well the 1st quarter: cause that was all about Macbeth, but I failed the next quarter... Mr. Brown got me put in a night school English class, so that I would not fail for the year.

That all the way back in the 80's is where thing's really went wrong with schools ( and parenting to an extent) They decided that relying on a "standardized assessment test", was the way to go.. ie they were teaching FOR that test, not for actual "thinking".. so yes you are right.. Our children are not taught "critical thinking" unless we ourselves teach it to them.

All the way back then.. when I was in my 12th grade History/ political science class.. a Lady came in and asked us all to take a small test ( they told us after we handed it in that is was "extra credit") what that test was was a map of the U.S. on one side and the world on the other.. numbered and a second page with directions.. name all the President's and vice president's, in order if possible.

I missed 3.. two world countries .. whose name's had changed 2 yr's previously.. and one of the Vice Presidents.. but 80% of my class could not even put all the states and capital's in the correct place.. let alone all the countries.. and most of them only got the 5 President's that were on the wall in the classroom.

So no, I won't blame "technology" on how ignorant our children have become.. OUr children are not taught to think.. they are taught to memorize. Shit when the only 'critical thinking" they have to do is in a video game.. we have some issue's huh?
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