Also, instead of animal or human remains, sometimes he finds piles of manure. The trainers keep telling him, "No shit, Sherlock."
Wouldn't that be "Scheisse Sherlock, nicht!"?
Search (and memory) defeating me, but in a recent thread that got on to vultures, I mentioned that vultures have been used to identify natural gas leaks via the odorant.
C just sent me this link. I think we may have to go. UnfoggedUKNorth meetup?
Talking of meetups, I'm not going to make tonight. Today has been too crap to do anything other than perhaps some food shopping so we can eat later.
re: 5
Ah. See you next time, maybe?
4 looks good.
Yes, next time - we have to get Paren to Oxford? 2 hours of angst-ridden teenager is far too tiring. Sod Go the Fuck to Sleep, I need a Get The Fuck Over Yourself book or something.
Sorry to miss you asilon, see you soon.
The sun never sets on British meet-up discussions.
actually prefers to walk
Pesky animals, won't do what we'd like them to do! Isn't there a (possibly apocryphal) story to the effect that you should never use cats in behavioral studies because they don't or won't operate according to the strict reward/punishment framework you've imposed on the study?
That is, try to see how long it takes cats, as opposed to dogs, to find the treat on the other side of the room, and the cats will appear to be quite stupid, having meandered over the couch, between the chair legs, and rubbed up against the coffee table for a moment before sauntering over to the treat. Dumb cat took two minutes; smart dog 30 seconds!
OT: If I moved to a houseboat, how would I determine my school district and who to pay taxes to taxes and such? Also, are houseboats cold in the winter? Lastly, should I mention this as a case of "for better or worse" or one of "in sickness and health"?
12: Seriously?
I know someone who lives on a houseboat. I can ask. Seriously?
I'm asking for a friend, you know.
should I mention this as a case of "for better or worse" or one of "in sickness and health"
Wait, you know someone who is getting married to a houseboat?
That New York law must be more broadly worded than I had thought.
Children who live on houseboats go to charter schools.
Well, I think you pay taxes based on your address, and your address would be either a P.O. Box, or a mailbox at the marina at which your friend's houseboat is moored. I don't know what's involved in getting a P.O. Box. And actually, since I don't have kids, I don't know how school districts are determined at all; I assume you can't just provide a P.O. Box on the other side of town in order to claim that you belong to that school district.
Since Bruce Willis's character lived on a boat and was a Pittsburgh cop, there must be some way to live on a boat and be a Pittsburgh resident. Police officers have to live in the city and movies have to accurately portray legal issues.
18 was me. I'm talking about Striking Distance when I mention Willis.
17: If you could pick a school district by getting a P.O. Box, somebody would try to buy a high school football team.
As for whether houseboats are cold in the winter -- it depends on the houseboat! Generally, yeah, I'd say so, but not unbearably so if it's well-constructed. Depends on the body of water in which it's floating too, I would think.
So how do you show your proper school district to the relevant authorities (and who are they?) if you live in a permanently moored house?
A permanently anchored house, I mean.
21: Hypothetically, the boat costs $7,000 and would be floating in the Allegheny, the Mon, or the Ohio.
22: I have no idea, but I needed to show a utility bill or something to get even a library card.
24: The question is whether those (or various of their coves, where the boat would be moored) freeze in winter, and how much it snows there.
Or at the confluence of the three. I love the confluence. Confluence confluence confluence.
If your friend is serious about this, he or she should go visit a couple of marinas in the target area and talk to some people. S/he might be able to just stroll down a dock or several on a sunny weekend afternoon and call out in a friendly manner to people on houseboats -- boat people are usually pretty friendly -- and say s/he is thinking about this, and what's up with it?
26: They all freeze around the edges and I think the whole surface Alleghney might freeze in a cold winter. There is a fair bit of snow.
Yo tengo mis flippy floppies, amigos!
28: I'm not sure there are any marinas with houseboats around.
My sister lived on a houseboat in the Bay for a while. Glad she did it, wouldn't do it again. Said it was beautiful, but she came to my house on cold winter weekends and pretty much huddled over the floor heater the whole time.
Said it was isolated out in a marina, unless you want to hang with the boat crowd. But the crowd is mostly alcoholic retirees, so your friend should decide if that's the right crowd for him or her. She also reported a long walk past a scary blue heron to get to the shower.
But the crowd is mostly alcoholic retirees...
Basically, like Christmas except no need to buy anyone a present.
29, 31: That's a problem. The side river off the Chesapeake Bay on which my friend has his houseboat also freezes around the edges, etc.; he mostly moves back in with his girlfriend (it's complicated) in the winter, I think.
If there aren't a lot of marinas there with houseboats, what is your friend thinking to do? The boat would need to be in a marina with a power supply on the dock to which to attach, and which provides arrangements for being charged appropriately for electricity. I'm not sure how water supply works.
Your friend might start by asking the seller of this very $7000 houseboat these kinds of questions (about marinas etc.).
girlfriend (it's complicated)
Look, it can't be both. He has to choose: one or the other.
Oh, and of course the marina would need to have bubblers to keep the ice at bay: not all marinas are set up to accommodate houseboats. Some have basically all regular boats out of the water come winter. It would need to be a big enough marina that it has a winch-like doohickey that can pick up boats and put them in and out of the water. Not just a dinky marina with just little road-things whereby people back their boats into the water via boat-trailer.
34: He certainly wasn't thinking of pirating electricity from a shopping center near the river.
36: Why can't the boat just freeze into the water, like those polar explorers, many of whom lived?
38: I think that is dispreferred.
I'm getting a little out of my depth here.
If I had a boat, I've have a floating thing to throw you.
11: Isn't there a (possibly apocryphal) story to the effect that you should never use cats in behavioral studies because they don't or won't operate according to the strict reward/punishment framework you've imposed on the study?
Possibly apocryphal.
Not to mention, a pony on that boat.
42: Explicitness is a virtue in a front-page poster.
44: If I knew it was going to be that kind of blog...
Living on a houseboat is not undoable! You just have to try to know what you're doing. Not like the permanently anchored housepeople who make things up as they go along. Pshaw.
19: I'm talking about Striking Distance.
Those of us in the know who remotely know someone who worked on the set still refer to it as Three Rivers.
27: Confluence confluence confluence.
A nice somewhat remote little town in PA upstream from Ohiopyle. A jumping off point for paddling. And *three* rivers/large streams converge there to form one river (actually the one keeps its name).
Living on a houseboat is not undoable! You just have to try to know what you're doing.
Right, like what if your boat becomes untethered and your engine loses power. You're drifting away from the dock. Have you studied constitutional law? Because this is a clear-cut instance of Row versus Wade.
Stanley, do we need an intervention here?
49: On the river right below my house, a boat became untethered and went over the small dam beneath the Highland Park Bridge and two people *died*. And you joke about it. Nice.
7: I should know more about potential meet up times in about a week; I'll be in England from the 5th to the 20th and Oxford is plenty accessible, but there have been some parties and such scheduled that I don't know the dates of.
51: I remember that. Maybe there is something I don't understand about big rivers being more dangerous than small rivers or maybe they were really drunk, but that dam seems way too small to have lead to a death.
Hypothetically, the boat costs $7,000 and would be floating in the Allegheny, the Mon, or the Ohio.
It can be helpful, when considering such matters, to return to first principles: to wit, did Travis McGee moor the Busted Flush in the mid-Atlantic or Rust Belt states?
I'm talking about Striking Distance
I was just noticing that it was on Netflix for streaming yesterday. Ah, SJP back when she was still watchable.
Speaking of crime fighting, I know he's your son and all but come on, "just let him shoot at you until he runs out of bullets" is a bit unreasonable. Me and some other guys stormed the dead guy's place after this incident earlier in the week but he wasn't there. A let down at the time but in restropect maybe not so bad. One of the guys hit in that shootout took a .45 sideways that zipped through both thighs, which sounds really unpleasant.
Me and some other guys stormed the dead guy's place after this incident earlier in the week but he wasn't
See, if you had a vulture you wouldn't make this kind of mistake.
Maybe there is something I don't understand about big rivers being more dangerous than small rivers or maybe they were really drunk, but that dam seems way too small to have lead to a death.
Man-made obstacles are frequently more dangerous than their natural counterparts. A dam is more likely to trap and drown a person than a similarly sized natural rock or ledge, because the very regularity of the struture prevents cross-currents from interfering with the recirculation. Kayakers who nonchalantly plunge over high waterfalls will avoid low spillover dams for that reason.
When I cut-and-pasted for 57 there was a there there. I swear.
53, 58: It was some kind of high-speed boat (maybe even a Cigarette, although why you'd have one of those on the Allegheny I don't know). I think they went over it backwards (without power of course) and they and the boat got caught in the backwash in the plunge pool at the base (KR's point is a good one). And it appears that the drop is on the order of 10 feet (seems high, but you usually see it from the bridge or far away).
NOT IN OAKLAND THERE WASN'T
Oakland is miles from the Allegheny. Much closer to the Mon.
FWIW, people live year-round on house boats in the marina across the Mississippi from downtown St. Paul. I believe they are elevated out of the water in some fashion in winter.
53.last: but that dam seems way too small to have lead to a death.
This evening we happened to eat at a place on the bank of the river not too far below the dam. Down at the level (rather than on the high bridge you usually see it from) it looks all of 10-feet high and not to be trifled with.
Why can't the boat just freeze into the water, like those polar explorers, many of whom lived?
Not all that many of them. See: Jeanette, Terror, Erebus, Endurance, Fury, Karluk, Resolute, Victory, Investigator.
This is a list of ships, not a law firm.
Lawyers are regularly chastised for going on fishing expeditions, if Law & Order is to be taken as veridical.
