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[Arx]

This isn't exactly surprising, but this kind of thing is rarely not disconcerting: my lecturer in chaos theory is definitely extremely qualified for the job. What with having authored or co-authored... most of the leading papers in chaos detection, as far as I can tell.

[Akura]

Thank you for making that part of my internet history.

ya dick

And that is why, every single time I open a link someone posts on this forum, I right click and "Open link in incognito mode".

[Frumple]

This isn't exactly surprising, but this kind of thing is rarely not disconcerting: my lecturer in chaos theory is definitely extremely qualified for the job. What with having authored or co-authored... most of the leading papers in chaos detection, as far as I can tell.

... wait, why is that disconcerting? Are they a terrible lecturer or something? Usually finding out something like that is pretty awesome, not off-putting or summat.

[Kagus]

It can come as a bit of a shock when discovering that someone we know personally has as wide-reaching an impact or history as that, as it breaks the barrier between "inner world" and "outer world" in our perceptions. The "inner world" being our personal relations and individual experiences of life, which are frequently categorized as "insignificant" because our experiencing it makes us think that it only affects us; and the "outer world" being things like large news stories, popular actors/musicians, important scientific breakthroughs and the researchers involved, etc.

Learning that, for example, your buddy you go out for drinks with happened to manage a politician's campaign can be somewhat unsettling, because you'd never considered them as being "significant" outside of your own perceptions before. Or, in the case of my mom, learning that the dude who sat behind you in junior high making weird croaking noises in the back of his throat ended up touring the world while singing for Van Halen.

[Arx]

Yeah, it's not bad or anything, it's just a little strange to realise that the guy lecturing you on the current methods in chaos also happens to be the guy who invented them. Similarly with my project this year - it looks like I'll be doing work that comes surprisingly close to cutting-edge research. It's not bad, but I'm barely a postgrad - so it's unexpected.

[JoshuaFH]

It can come as a bit of a shock when discovering that someone we know personally has as wide-reaching an impact or history as that, as it breaks the barrier between "inner world" and "outer world" in our perceptions. The "inner world" being our personal relations and individual experiences of life, which are frequently categorized as "insignificant" because our experiencing it makes us think that it only affects us; and the "outer world" being things like large news stories, popular actors/musicians, important scientific breakthroughs and the researchers involved, etc.

Learning that, for example, your buddy you go out for drinks with happened to manage a politician's campaign can be somewhat unsettling, because you'd never considered them as being "significant" outside of your own perceptions before. Or, in the case of my mom, learning that the dude who sat behind you in junior high making weird croaking noises in the back of his throat ended up touring the world while singing for Van Halen.

I like dis post Kagus, it gives another contextualization to something I think about often.  Though my line of thinking was perhaps a bit more cynical, in thinking that globalization has atomized the importance of the individual so much, that believing that anyone can be important seems more and more outlandish; atleast according to my subjective "sense of importance", which is more often wrong than it is right, since the baseline question is "Why does anyone care about X?" which often seems unanswerable to me.

[Trekkin]

the baseline question is "Why does anyone care about X?" which often seems unanswerable to me.

The usual answer has some component of "because they can't affect or understand Y, so they found something else within their notional capacity to change." It's like bikeshedding, but applied to someone's whole life.

There's a similar thing that happens when the public gets wind of some new technological development and the comments are full of conspiratorial yammering about the ethical implications. Silence goes unnoticed and people aren't capable of admitting a lack of expertise, so they latch on to the thing they feel they can understand just so they have something to say.

That's behind more of politics than we like to admit, too. Tribalism is easier than policy and you don't need to learn new things to chant.

[Mephisto]

Another day, another instance of Randy Pitchford waking up wondering what his foot tastes like and then playing the victim.

[TamerVirus]

Randy Pitchford

The less said about this insufferable jackass, the better

[Teneb]

Another day, another instance of Randy Pitchford waking up wondering what his foot tastes like and then playing the victim.

> Deliberately says something that wasn't true
> Journalists point out this means he was lying
> Throws tantrum about how journalists are personally sabotaging him

Remember, my friends, always of Aliens: Colonial Marines and how he reacted then.

[scriver]

Who is this?

[Teneb]

Who is this?

He's the big honcho of Gearbox (of Borderlands fame) and is a thorough cretin. Also he lost a pendrive that had game design documents AND barely-legal pornography in it, which should say something about his moral character.

[Mephisto]

Also he lost a pendrive that had game design documents AND barely-legal pornography in it

I believe you mean "barely-legal magician".

[Iduno]

actually your will can't have weird stuff to do with your body in it you get the normal options and "donate to science" where it might be weird but you don't know and anything else is probably illegal

Your will can have literally anything in it, but your family/whoever you're leaving stuff to isn't sueably obligated to do anything in it unless they signed a contract before your death.

So the proper method would be something like setting up a little organization that you leave everything to, including your skeleton and orders on what to do with it, and to only give the rest of the estate to your family once they're done.

You know that. I know that. Would the surviving family know that, is the question. _{Secondary question being if you can hire a lawyer good enough and dedicated enough to bamboozle them into not knowing :V}

It'd be easier to use the "uncle's haunted mansion" part of the law, where anyone posting the creation of a sex doll using your remains gets the money. The part you need to hide from your family is that "the money" is mid double-digits.

[Bumber]

Putting the "romance" in "necromancy".