Random thoughts 1: Just Sayin'

[shadowplay]

The microwave I grew up with in the 80s didn't shut off automatically when the door opened...

 

[The_J]

I'd just recommend not microwaving yourself

^^

I got one from costco for something like $100 - $200 CDN. I can't remember the exact price now, it was a couple years ago.

I remember it being (relatively) cheap though, so I think it was just over $100 or so.

mmhhh...given that my new mattresses were 300€, I think it might be better just to replace them (I mean, if it goes up to 200...).
Let's see, haven't decided yet.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If you don't immediately burn something while it's active, there will be no lasting harm to worry about. If you do immediately burn something while it's active, you shouldn't need anyone on the internet to tell you about it

 

[shadowplay]

Well, we obviously kept the door closed. I don't ever remember anyone hurting themselves. However, it was sometimes an issue because guests who would use it were accustomed to opening the door expecting it to shut off automatically, and were surprised when it didn't.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I was talking to someone online recently, who is a bit "new agey", who refuses to use microwaves because she thinks they give food cancer. And that you can then catch cancer by eating said food. That was fun. She supported this by providing me a link to some American "board of radiation studies" (or something) report, which actually said no such thing at all.

 

[Arakhor]

There's a few of those sorts of people living here in the Cotswolds. There's even a store in town which proudly claims to be "wi-fi free".

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Pretty much it in a nutshell: being able to lift things means you get to do more in the store.

 

[Hygro]

Aluminum foil would drive me insane, plus I can move the curtains when I want light or air. And I can take down to curtains to wash them low hassle.

Aluminum foil is like cords or using plastic bags to store things it makes me die.

The rising sun is a sleep trigger for me.

 

[Arakhor]

Cords? As in corduroy trousers?

Also, the rising sun is a sleep trigger for you? Have you spent far too long doing night work?

Having your windows swathed in tin/aluminium foil would make me think that you've long past "I think radio masts are bad for me" and into full-on crazy territory.

 

[Hygro]

If you look at my posting times going back 14.5 years you will see a lot of posts that are during normal hours... for you ; )

 

[Arakhor]

Not that 1 am should be considered normal hours in the UK, but I take your point.

 

[Takhisis]

Aluminum foil would drive me insane

It is usually meant to do the exact opposite.

 

[Takhisis]

Do they listen to the radio, by any chance? Or speak on cellular phones (or cordless landline phones)? Or go outside and walk in the light? All those cause exposure to Electromagnetic Waves™.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" really is about the "you" of the song. If he thinks it's about him, he's right, I'd say. It uses the word "you" or its derivatives 48 times.

Just sayin'

 

[Camikaze]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/21/health/vaccines-illness-european-court-bn/index.html

This seem weird as hell, or overblown article writing to people who know more? Seems sort of in keeping with how I'm used to Europe treating Ag, but I always just figured that was standard trade policy scuffles. Does that angle work here too? Assuming the article isn't full of crap, of course.

Sounds most likely to be a misinterpretation of the common refrain that legal causation isn't the same as scientific proof. So say someone has worked for two companies dealing with asbestos, and develops mesothelioma. Now, to my understanding, that's not a disease caused by accumulative exposure, but rather it's caused by one errant fibre (the odds of being afflicted by one errant fibre increasing with greater exposure, of course). So we know for a fact that either company A or company B is not scientifically at fault, because the mesothelioma would've come from a fibre at either company A or company B, but not both. But it's scientifically impossible to actually prove whether company A or company B should be liable, because the provenance of the individual fibre is impossible to determine. Yet that doesn't mean they can't each be said to have legally caused the damage, by exposing their worker to the risk that they'd inhale asbestos fibres, from which they might develop mesothelioma. In a similar context, in which a plaintiff had developed lung cancer after being exposed to asbestos, but also being a heavy smoker, the High Court of Australia has said:

The courts' response to uncertainty arising from the absence of knowledge must be different from that of the medical practitioner or scientist. The courts cannot respond to a claim that is made by saying that, because science and medicine are not now able to say what caused Mr Cotton's cancer, the claim is neither allowed nor rejected. The courts must decide the claim and either dismiss it or hold the defendant responsible in damages. As Dixon J rightly said, albeit in a context very different from this:

"There are few, if any, questions of fact that courts cannot undertake to inquire into. In fact it may be said that under the maxim res iudicata pro veritate accipitur [a thing adjudicated is received as the truth] courts have an advantage over other seekers after truth. For by their judgment they can reduce to legal certainty questions to which no other conclusive answer can be given."​

Building off that, it's entirely possible to legally prove on the balance of probabilities that x was the cause of y, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, rather than direct scientific proof - particularly when it's considered that proving something on the balance of probabilities is both a function of the evidence put forth by the plaintiff, and the countering evidence put forth by the defendant. If one party has presented a compelling circumstantial case, and the other party has put forward essentially nothing, then it's not unreasonable for the first party to win, even if their evidence did not include an expert scientific report. Obviously enough as a matter of strategy you'd want such an expert report, but it's not actually a condition of any cause of action (that I know of).

 

[Borachio]

Well, yeah. Who could deny it?

It's David Geffen.

 

[Farm Boy]

Thank you Cami, that helps and make sense, yet that still feels weird and kind of dumb here(even worse than holding somebody partially liable for being in an automobile accident when they were stopped legally at a red light and got run into). It puts 1st rate medical practice, the sort we know is effective on the macro balance of the odds, in the position of trying to prove prove something does not exist in the singular while holding the bar of circumstance over its head. It has a bit of heat stroke in its logic, no? Presuming it isn't malice, of course. All about dat cash.

 

[shadowplay]

The term "celebrity chef." If you have to include "celebrity" in your job description so that people know who you are, you're not really a celebrity.

 

[Traitorfish]

The term "celebrity chef." If you have to include "celebrity" in your job description so that people know who you are, you're not really a celebrity.

My impression is that the word under scrutiny is "chef", rather than "celebrity". The word "celebrity" acts as an apologetic qualifier on "chef", an explanation that the individual is not famous for his sheer culinary powers but because he's on telly and that, rather than "chef" serving to explain "celebrity", which as sundry Hiltons, Kardashians and Jenners have shown, is not a word that requires any particular explanation.

Working as a grocery stocker seems to have given me some insights on gender inequalities in the labor market. The store I work at employs nearly 250 people. There are as many females as males. However, the distribution is skewed. Females mostly work front of house, at cash lanes and service kiosks. Males overwhelmingly predominate in the areas not seen by customers. Upper management consists of the store manager and three assistant managers. All are male. This also seems to the case for the various departments. The potential explanation for this is a difference in accumulated experience. Moving product from the back to the front familiarizes you with the layout, logistics, merchandise, employees, and equipment of the store. You also need to interact with customers who approach you. For the front of house, they generally tend to stay at their service locations, only occasionally going around to return products to shelves. This decreased diversity of experience and contacts would lead to reduced chances for promotion.

Expanding on this, in my experience, back-of-house roles tend to be more heavily staffed by full-timers, while front-of-house leans more towards part-time. When I worked in the produce department, three quarters of the department were full time, but when I worked checkouts, the proportions were reversed. At least part of this was deliberate hiring policy, front-end departments placing a premium on flexibility, so the additional overhead of using more people to make up the same number of man hours was a good trade. It makes sense that there's going to be both greater opportunity and greater incentive to pursue promotion for people spending forty hours a week in the building than those spending ten or twenty.

 

[Borachio]

At least part of this was deliberate hiring policy, front-end departments placing a premium on flexibility, so the additional overhead of using more people to make up the same number of man hours was a good trade.

I'm not sure I follow your logic.

Why would placing a premium on flexibility mean that you'd hire more people to make up the same number of hours?

You mean that the front end have to cover say 8 am to 10 pm while the back end only 8 am to 5 pm?

But I still don't see why that means the average front end person would necessarily work fewer hours.

I can see that they most likely do. But I think that's more to do with front end people being typically women with children and the accompanying commitments, than management placing a premium on flexibility.

These days I see more and more men (both young and not so young) working on the checkouts. (I suspect they're working both back and front end). And I doubt they're going to be working fewer hours.