Shouldn't this problem be hugely mitigated by putting rubber or any non-slippery material on the shower floor?
That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
231–240 of 251 posts
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought Diamond's comparison of Europe and China was especially weak. He wrote it off as that China had an emperor, and thus a single point of failure. He didn't do enough to explain why Europe did not become an empire, or to explain why China's immense bureaucracy did not avoid such a single point of failure.
I remembered he did explain why Europe failed to become a united empire - geography. According to the book, the reason China has a large stable empire was because of China's geography, which was mostly flat and well-connected by the Yangtze and the Yellow river. With few geographical segments, this led to the people being less likely to form 'tribes' and more likely to be united culturally. This is in contrast to Eur…
But Europe has at one point been a united empire. Doesn't that imply that pure geography is not the cause?
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be single blind (edit: actually, now I see what you mean, double WRT location), but yes, the locations can be tested - and they have been. The needle action itself is what can't be properly tested.
No it has been tested. It's only placebo.
Yeah I actually agree with that in theory because the needles would be mimicking the same side effect, the sensation of needle in skin, to a good effect.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#234A handy technique for evaluating situations is this: how many mistakes am I away from death/injury? If I drive without a seatbelt, I've put myself 1 accident away in many cases. My Scouts are young, and love to climb things. I tell them, I know you're strong and skilled. But a loose rock or slippery foothold puts you at risk anyway. So wear the harness - now it takes two mistakes to kill you (e.g. loose rock + badly…
Sometimes you hear things that instantly change your views on the world. I have to say that this above post, in about 10 seconds of reading it, has completely changed my views on assessing risk. The idea of quantifying risk by counting the number of mistakes you are away from catastrophic failure is an excellent way to visualize risk. It's a simple way to calculate risk, and an even easier way to teach my kids. Thank…
It's a good way to design software too.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#235A handy technique for evaluating situations is this: how many mistakes am I away from death/injury? If I drive without a seatbelt, I've put myself 1 accident away in many cases. My Scouts are young, and love to climb things. I tell them, I know you're strong and skilled. But a loose rock or slippery foothold puts you at risk anyway. So wear the harness - now it takes two mistakes to kill you (e.g. loose rock + badly…
That's a good metric. You can make it slightly more involved by not only counting mistakes, but also when those mistakes would have to occur.
For the climbing: The loose rock can occur while you are distracted. But you can tie up the harness at your leisure and with friends checking.
From a software development perspective, that's also why automated testing is better than manual testing. You can write the automated tests when you have time, and they will work even when you are under stress.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yoga, perhaps, but it's on par with other low impact physical activity and stretching. The other two are just pseudoscience.
Chiropractic is often very effective for manipulating bones and muscles into a correct alignment. While there is a part of chiropractic that is, imo, alchemy, don't disregard the rest.
No, it's not. Reasearch shows chiropratic is, at best, approximately equal to physical therapy for your back but with a much higher risk of injury. Your spine doesn't get out of alignment as they claim.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Or, take less showers. Would that be showers taken with reduced water pressure? Or do you perhaps mean fewer showers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less
Yes, I meant fewer. Corrected in the post above, thanks. (I'm not a native speaker but this is no excuse, I should have known that! ;-)
It's been my experience that non-native speakers do a better job of paying attention to issues of structure and coherence than native speakers. And I can't count the number of times I've met someone whose excellent English composition abilities were completely at odds with their place of birth.
Some might say that my going on about "less/fewer" and other similar grammatical arcana is unfair or irrelevant. There is some merit to that argument, but we're comfortable tearing people's computer code apart, and this is a similar activity -- except in an emotional sense. Most people who eagerly welcome computer code corrections bristle at grammatical corrections.
So thanks for taking my comment in good humor.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lynn Hill: amazing profession climber. Mis-tied her knot (figure 8 with a follow - she forgot to finish the follow so it was useless) and fell 60 feet into trees to live and keep on climbing. Her advice at a talk a few years ago was "always tie a stopper knot". A stopper knot is an extra "useless" knot that takes seconds to tie and will secure your figure 8 if you threaded it wrong. While climbing at the Gunks in NY…
Lynn Hill actually failed to tie any knot. She got distracted just as she was starting to tie in: http://books.google.com/books?id=-vp31fS0OvoC&lpg=PA4... There's good and bad news on the figure 8 itself. The good news is that they're visually easy to check -- any screw up will make the knot look very different. The bad news is that they invert at relatively low loads. That's mitigated with a long tail. However, I…
Thanks for the correction -- i was completely wrong! I heard the story 2nd hand from my friend who heard her talk at Rock and Snow in New Paltz.
I oversimplified my knots explanation so i wouldn't bore anyone. Isn't the fisherman's knot supposed to jam up the knot if you missed a loop of the figure 8?
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a similarly great passage in 'The Great Gatsby': It was on that same house party that we had a curious conversation about driving a car. It started because she passed so close to some workmen that our fender flicked a button on one man's coat. "You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all." "I am careful." "No, you're not." "Well, other people are,…
You have convinced me I should re-read that book. I was young and foolish the first time, and not looking to learn lessons.
As a classic it's usually taught to teenagers... but I think you need to be out of school (probably late 20's), having seen some of the rhythm and trajectory of adult relationships/careers, to appreciate the characters.
Re: That Daily Shower Can Be a Killer
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remembered he did explain why Europe failed to become a united empire - geography. According to the book, the reason China has a large stable empire was because of China's geography, which was mostly flat and well-connected by the Yangtze and the Yellow river. With few geographical segments, this led to the people being less likely to form 'tribes' and more likely to be united culturally. This is in contrast to Eur…
But Europe has at one point been a united empire. Doesn't that imply that pure geography is not the cause?
Geography is the reason why Europe did not remain united long.