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Woke up in a horrible depression. Worst I've felt for some time now. Can't seem to shake out of it at all. 

Scored 58 of 80. I'm not sure of the value of the test, but I took it. The one done for my IQ was administered privately by a psychiatrist who was the spouse of a councilor of mine. This was when I was about 17 or 18. It put a lot into perspective for me then, now I find myself wondering how I'd do on another 15 years later.

shit.

It's been so long. I'm very different than I was just a few years ago when I dove in here and earned myself this thread. I just looked farther back and remembered how I felt and thought back then. In some ways I'm not the same dude at all anymore.  I've got much more I should add to my personal story thread. I'm not sure I'm ready to go there yet, but I have to try to get it out.

I'll work on it as my weekend project. It's a lot, but probably not as much as it feels like in my head.

I'm sorry to hear that EOC. I know how intense family fights can get around care issues. I never did figure out how to deal well. Hang in there sir!

And a greatly lower chance of suffering a tragic life event or two, possibly just one REALLY final one. Just saying.

Engineers don't think that way.

Point taken. Apparently I do by default and projected. I gotta watch out for that tendency.

I will keep hoping for the best Roger. If her blood sugar was good and she regained consciousness fairly quickly I'd lay strong odds that it wasn't a major issue. Lots of relatively minor things can cause a loss of consciousness, but you still have to go get checked. If they didn't find any major issue fairly quickly the chances are that it was something minor like dehydration or a blood pressure drop.

I'm not a doctor of course, but this guy from the Internet knows a thing or two and sincerely believes that you and yours pull through this. Take care sir.

I did mean greatest in the sense of best and most desirable. It's a weakness, but NOT a flaw. Every design or form has weaknesses, things that can break it. Compassion is one of ours, but it's critical to the survival of our species and expression of our nature.




Edit because I apparently jacked up the quote box code.

So compassion is Humanity's crumple zone? I can live with that analogy.

I don't know if I'd put it that way, really. Compassion is kind of the thing that makes us work as a species; the ability to connect with and care for other people is inherently crucial to everything we consider uniquely human achievements. Only a social species can develop culture and technology, and the biological, developmental condition on which sociability is dependent is compassion.

In my experience, compassion is also the only thing that makes us work as individuals too. Whatever form that may take.

TWJ: It's not a weakness (even when making the distinction of weakness from flaw), it is in the make up of the canvas on which we paint the parts of our inner lives that we feel raise us from 'mere animals'. It's part of what makes us 'other'. It's one of the reasons why even the most evil of people don't believe they're evil.

I'll happily admit my perspective inaccurate. Kinda needed to hear much of this. Thanks guys.

So, just got home from the hospital, after she collapsed last night.

They've poked and prodded her, scanned her brain, all that good stuff.  No results so far.

"Go home until Monday, try not to worry."

WTF? I'm so sorry to hear sir.

The Real Story: Adonis
Section 4

See now I always have had a burning question on my mind about the whole thing. Did old Haphaestius know that Adonis DIDN'T know how to hunt?  Sorry to say it's too late to find out for sure now, and that's a whole 'nuther story.

I still gotta wonder how it coulda been if Adonis had just been tolerated more by the other hunters and taught, had maybe known to wait for the charge, had set that spear and leaned in, could he have maybe killed the motherfucker? The spear couldn't miss. Adonis woulda been a hero lauded for all time if he'd brought that horrible, ball-snatchin' fiend down for his first big kill.

I think that's just possibly exactly what that wiley tinker Haphaestius was hoping to see happen. What actually happened might even have been more than he'd dreamed possible, as it turned out.

I hear all you skeptical smartasses and disbelieving fools already, "But why make it a conspiracy!?" Put your razors down primates; I got no beef with the Occam gang. Haphaestizzle had himself some serious possible motive. See Aphrodite was his wife and Ares pretty much took her from him. He was hateful and bitter as hell towards them both, and for the Olympians that means forever fool. You might have known that if you'd read more.

Seeing the motivation now? If Adonis had become a hero he might have been a more politically acceptable consort for Aphrodite and Ares woulda been fuck outta luck, probably forever if the kid got promoted to immortal. It was probably his destiny or whatever.  He wound up an immortal after the boar accident anyway.

And so it goes. Here's the fallout of the events as things actually played out. Adonis is associated with several seasonal deities by some of your "scolars", but that's just not accurate. Stories get completely jacked around all the time in theology so I'll give you the as rest plainly as I can.

Aphrodite had herself a 5-alarm breakdown when she realized Adonis had died. I have seen some shit in my time, but let me tell you I ain't never seen the like of it again and I've REALLY been around folks. All the drama came to a head when she threatened to burn down ALL the ambrosia stores and herself with them. She had stolen several large flagons of one of her husband's VERY BEST Greek fire recipes, never did say how exactly, and a torch.

Not long afterward she had herself half coated and standing in a pool of that horrible shit well inside the doorway to the bottom level of the ambrosia silos. She was holding out that torch and shrieking like hell for Zeus, RIGHT NOW. She was only finally consoled when Zeus promised, gave his immortal word as King of Olympus, to bring Adonis back to life so he could live with her on Olympus forever. This is where the term "holding a torch for someone" came from by the way. You're welcome.

"Now please slowly, slowly hand daddy that torch baby, okay?"
It was a great moment, really.
Eris sure was smiling widely.
I never want to see it ever again.

So Zeus brings Adonis back to life and makes him immortal of course, but Adonis' mortal junk had long since been processed into devil-boar spoor and some things just can't be undone. Zeus was obliged to follow through as best he could and Adonis was his old, enthusiastic self again in no time, minus a few not so little deets. There had been no mention of Adonis having to be fully intact in the agreement, and Aphrodite had claimed for years now that she saw more than that in him, really!!

They wrapped Adonis up in some nice, new duds and gave him a little cleaning and grooming. Eris absolutely insisted on cutting his hair for some reason. He looked better than ever and Aphrodite was absolutely beaming all into that evening's revelry. It was fuckin' disgusting. They must have loudly declared their mutual love a couple hundred times. This was also the invention of the drinking game. Eris, Zeus, and yours truly started it. Everyone but "AA" was playing it by the end of the night.

As you might have guessed, Aphrodite wasn't able to admit to a problem with her new love at first. Hephaestius was just chipper as can be though. Ares went off to go kill things and hadn't been back for a while. Hades hadn't been seen for ages, but that was normal. Not having to hear about Adonis was all he had really wanted. Then it went all sideways again.

ALL of the gods on Olympus had at last become united in opinion on at least on major issue. Adonis was the most insufferable shithead ever to walk the face of Terra. Hands down. Eventually even Aphrodite was openly sick of him. He was ALWAYS trying to help with things and talk about hunting with the gods. It was always the same conversation or pushy need to help people. It was all he did. Ever. In the end Zeus did what he had to do.

*Image of Hades speaking with barely contained fury from Tartarus to Zeus through a crystal device while Zeus reclines contentedly*
BROTHER WE HAD AN AGREEMENT! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!? YOU HAVE TO TAKE HIM BACK!!
*Background sound of distant but still LOUD Adonis shouting*
Sissyfuss!! I'll help you! I can push too! Aaaadonnis!
*Hades again, looking and sounding uncharacteristically rattled*
HOW ABOUT WE SPLIT CUSTODY? WE EACH GET HIM FOR TWO MONTHS AND HE CAN SPEND THE OTHER EIGHT TRAVELING BACK AND FORTH ON FOOT? PLEASE BROTHER DON'T DO THIS!!!

Zeus always did know when to call a hard deal good enough.
And so Adonis walks himself back and forth from Olympus to the mouth of Tartarus, season after season, to this day.

That's the real story.

Roger... LO has me in a grip. You killed off Michael and set off ancient curses and thankfully kept on through the brief creativity scare! And you're just getting going. 

I did mean greatest in the sense of best and most desirable. It's a weakness, but NOT a flaw. Every design or form has weaknesses, things that can break it. Compassion is one of ours, but it's critical to the survival of our species and expression of our nature.




Edit because I apparently jacked up the quote box code.

Completely unfounded guess: even at its purest, there's no such thing as "100%" any material. So in the process, the non-carbon parts that add to mass get burned off/disposed.


Again, just a guess.

Problem:  Our feedstock was 99.995% pure.  This doesn't allow for that much missing mass.  Of course, you're going to have LOI issues, but there's not that much water involved, either.

That IS a thinker. I'm not sure I have an answer if there's not much dross and waste material that could carry the rest of the alumina. The extra mass HAS to be somewhere. Fuck if I know though.

God is cheating again.

"God does not play dice" they say...

Oh really, so what's with the suspicious dice rolling noises and snickering coming from behind all that Shekhinah Glory? Just a big, ineffable 'effing ST screen so we can't be sure if he's "going fiat" or winging it. He knows how to run a "free will" universe, hedge your bets.

I saw some rough estimates of how many people would have to be involved, at minimum, for this to work.

It makes the CIA look like amateurs.

Thanks to you, that's one of the first things that crossed my mind. How did they do it? Engineers aren't usually known for their allegiance to the corporate hierarchy.

Engineers are, however, known for their allegiance to making a lot of money.

And lifetime job security.

And a greatly lower chance of suffering a tragic life event or two, possibly just one REALLY final one. Just saying.

It would seem to me that the likelihood of a conspiracy staying quiet beyond the "5 people" LMNO mentioned grows exponentially in proportion to the parties' certainty of prosecution, humiliation, torture, or death for themselves and/or their families. Not saying all that was the case here, but prosecution and humiliation are on the table for sure. Wouldn't rule out a real or perceived threat of the others either. I imagine that billions of dollars in "clean" money can lead to justifying some mighty dirty deeds if it's threatened.

Completely unfounded guess: even at its purest, there's no such thing as "100%" any material. So in the process, the non-carbon parts that add to mass get burned off/disposed.


Again, just a guess.

Problem:  Our feedstock was 99.995% pure.  This doesn't allow for that much missing mass.  Of course, you're going to have LOI issues, but there's not that much water involved, either.

That IS a thinker. I'm not sure I have an answer if there's not much dross and waste material that could carry the rest of the alumina. The extra mass HAS to be somewhere. Fuck if I know though.

Watching a dumb action movie, "Lucy".

I'm saddened that the endgame is utilitarianism, and compassion is treated like a weakness.

Compassion is a weakness, the greatest weakness one can have.

Lucy, if it's the one with the Korean super drug, is not the best movie though. Limitless was cool because it was low-action but where it was there it was icily realistic. Lucy is transhumanist propaganda sweetened with high action and gorgeous talent.

That was haunting, beautiful, and true Nast.