Sandy! Come back! I didn't mean what I said! I can't do it without you, Sandy! We can make it if we try, you and me...
Is Sandy a girl Sandy or a boy Sandy? Are they only giving hurricanes androgynous names now?
If the eye passes over you, you can see its genitals.
4. Don't they alternate naming genders by years? If the previous hurricanes this year have been girls, I think she's another one; if boys, then it's a he.
If the eye passes over you, you can see its genitals.
Mama always told me not to look into the eyes of the storm. But Mama...That's where the fun is...
And Sandy, the aurora is rising behind us
This pier lights our carnival life forever
Oh, love me tonight, for I may never see you again
Hey, Sandy girl
My, my, baby
6: well, each year has a list, and the list alternates boy-girl-boy-girl. So this year it started with Alberto and Beryl, and now we're at Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie and William.
In actual fact, the boardwalk has been shredded at least twice in my lifetime that I can remember (both by Nor'easters). Now, though, the boardwalk is covered with hipster bars and restaurants rather than factory girls who all promise to unsnap their jeans.
So, that whole World Series thing didn't last as long as I expected.
Sandy my darlin', you hurt me real bad
You know it's true
But baby you gotta believe me when I say
I'm helpless without you
12: Am I a bad American for finding it a snooze?
I didn't watch any of it, but now I can blame the sudden end.
The corner of the park in front of my apartment is under water. The piers have got another two feet. High tide is in about an hour.
Here in Maryland we're seeing steady, moderately hard but not torrential rain. No wind yet, but we'll see...
Electricity is already out at my mother's house. Whee!
The sooner it goes out, the faster it comes back on.
Like the jeans of the factory girls who used to work on the boardwalk.
Last night I got a robocall saying "haha you still have to come to work chump" but this morning I got an email saying "stay home, enjoy this our last day on earth". My simulated dawn alarm clock was glowing and chirping, but outside the wind and sirens were howling. I'm so confused. I think I'll go see if the store still has some batteries.
16: This evening's high tide is probably the one to really watch. This is the (relatively) dry run. Interactive NWS map showing % chance of surge greater than x feet where you can choose x.
You know where is in trouble with a big storm surge? Fresh Salt -- it's on sixteenth century landfill a block from the water.
16: the one tonight is supposed to be the bad one, right?
It's only had four hundred years to settle.
And when I say sixteenth, I mean seventeenth.
It's been taunting nature with its name.
Even a broken tide is high twice a day.
27: I thought that was pretty ambitious for six Dutch guys and whatever natives didn't die of small pox.
You know where is in trouble with a big storm surge? Fresh Salt
Meetup! Wear waders!
24: sixteenth century? Is it Algonquian landfill?
The tide is high but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one
I'm not the kind of bar who gives up just like that
I am just a dreamer but you are just a dream.
Dang. Battery Park under (a little) water and the big surge isn't for twelve hours.
G'mrn! Here to cheer Gothamites
The water and electric and communications cables and connections are underground as well. Telephone punch downs and fiber terminations would all be exposed to salt water which would begin to corrode them. All of these would have to be replaced before they could be judged usable again. Though the cables themselves are usually packed with grease, the terminations themselves are exposed. And it would not take long for the salt water to corrode them. Even after the water is drained, the remaining salt and moisture - combined with air exposure - would damage these connection. The distribution transformers and high voltage connections and even cable would need to be replaced.So Dr. Masters and others estimates of damage into the billions of dollars is likely on the mark. Not to mention the lengthy disruption this would cause. Possibly months.
And in comments, 26 nucular power plants in the path, all dependent on electric power, and spent fuel pod pools with no backups. Just saying, ya know, to be sure.
I had an appointment this morning, but I'm on my way to work. I'm considered "essential," because we are supposed to have coverage 365 days a year. This totally makes sense for the 24-hour group homes, but it's less clear why the rest of us have to.
I'll probably leave early, since they are threatening to shut down the mbta this morning.
Hey, bob, do you think we could solve our weather problems by nuking the hurricane?
If we fail to nuke NJ we are immoral monsters.
If the eye passes over you, you can see its genitals.
Long Island in '85 the eye passed over and I looked up and oh, she looked so good, oh she looked so fine.
It was pouring cats and dogs here for a while, but it's let up a little bit, though the wind is still blowing pretty steadily.
My special is outside checking the rain barrel (which he has carefully positioned next to the most problematic gutter). The basement is a bit damp. Not much else to report at present.
Twitter will be right at home here:
GrrlScientist @GrrlScientist
ellis island partially submerged, governor island "looks like a naval base" cuz of all the water covering it
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1:43 PM - 29 Oct 12 · Details
40, 41: Don't distract him. He's building up to climax, and after he blows his load, he'll calm down and leave everyone alone.
42: That's unfortunate. One of my Brooklyn friends just moved back to Red Hook -- a 1st floor apartment!
And as somebody points out on the tweeter, the storm is still 300 miles offshore.
"What we're seeing now is just the beginning of what we're going to be seeing worse, later," said David Stark, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Upton, N.Y.At the Battery at the bottom of Manhattan, the water level was 8 and a half feet at Monday morning's high tide, considered moderate flooding. Tonight at the Battery, Mr. Stark said, "We may see water level of 10 or 12 feet which is a major flooding category."
Four feet higher than what was there seems pretty deep. What were the meetup options besides Fresh Salt Water that you guys were considering?
40, 41: There are no stupid questions.
Well all of you in NYC are doomed, nice knowing you, you may still have time to flee for your life.
Did everybody lose power?
Only the Democrats.
They're all gone, Moby. We have to dedicate the rest of our lives to their memory. That's what they would want.
Nothing here so far. I'm sure we'll hear whining about how people should have been allowed to go to work.
MBTA shutting down at 2pm.
I should really get cracking on this midterm in case we lose power at some point.
(My mother got power back. FEMA apparently called at 6am to tell her not to go outside today. 6am phone calls are always super reassuring. Also, it was probably not Federal, I am guessing.)
I left an interesting book on the history of attempts to control the weather in my office. I'm thinking about going to pick it up and spending the day reading it, because it seems appropriate.
I am a stakhanovite. Give me my medal!
(I may be a complete idiot too. No one else from my office is here. They are all emailing like mad from home.)
Does anyone else remember Mikkos Casadine and his eeevil weather machine? No?
md, take your medal and go home, or anyplace built solid on a high elevation. with your family.
I am doing data analysis on a project for which I have an un-moveable deadline. Bonus: the analysis is pretty interesting.
Not such a bonus: I think I'm getting laryngitis. I hope we don't lose power (or heat).
My mother and my brother's gf are sitting in their pjs drinking mimosas. I've become so storm-focused that I feel like I am entitled some kind of exceptional nesting day? But of course I am not!
64: No, but if you hum a few millibars, I'm sure I can fake it.
49 First floor or 'garden' apartment? I was just thinking how much the latter would suck right now in a low lying area.
I've become so storm-focused that I feel like I am entitled some kind of exceptional nesting day? But of course I am not!
I know, right? And I am totally behind on this paper and I CANNOT CONCENTRATE ON IT AT ALL. Gnash!
The Philadelphia report: just raining, not excessive wind yet, no flooding in my region. With school cancelled and a fourth grader cooped up indoors, I felt it sensible to flee to my office. I'm the only one here. Commute much quicker than usual because of no traffic. If that big tree falls onto my driveway, one car will be safe.
I am a stakhanovite. Give me my medal!
Do you live on a houseboat? If not, go home.
I have so much work to do on a couple of papers and a group project but since work is closed today I got up late and made a big breakfast and now I don't feel so motivated - other than to watch the storm.
Because sometimes I can't tell, was 50 a serious question?
68, 71: Me too, dudes. I *have* to grade like 16 more papers in the next few hours, and I *have* to write two conference papers in the next two days, and I *have* to prep for class and go to choir and blah blah blah. And yet.
I'm also nesting at my parent's house out on LI. Don't move in to the new place till Friday.
Everything will be OK as long as I can keep them from talking electoral politics with me.
I decided to force myself to stay home and do work by the inverted boat-burning strategy of not showing up for work even though the winds aren't going to reach over 20 mph until the afternoon. Therefore I need to actually get some work done on this manuscript to avoid being shamed and humiliated.
I've got an old Army poncho and a pair of Wellies lying around somewhere. Who wants to sex Mutumbo meetup at Fresh Salt?
Planning on swimming to Manhattan?
This is still about 10 hrs out from the actual "bad" high tide.
80 I think my brother still has his surfboard in the garage.
As long as my folks keep the radio on storm coverage and don't turn on Fox news I should be able to keep from going completely stir crazy.
Latest Jeff Masters with a lot of links
Do you live on a houseboat? If not, go home.
No. Oddly enough my father does live aboard a boat that is at a marina in Boston Harbor. Last I checked, he was fairly sanguine about the storm. He had rigged some more lines and put out the BIG fenders.
16th-c fill is not improbable. The Namu shellmound is more than 10,000 years old, and the Emeryville shellmound was built on in the 1800s.
I've become so storm-focused that I feel like I am entitled some kind of exceptional nesting day? But of course I am not!
Me three!
Does anyone else remember Mikkos Casadine and his eeevil weather machine? No?
Yes! (Awesomely, in later years, the characters would talk about it while winking at the camera.)
I'm trying to decide whether turning the heat up to make the house as warm as possible prior to anticipated loss of power is a completely stupid idea. (I'm cold.)
My other stupid idea this morning was to pre-grind coffee, because you know you can't use the electric coffee grinder without any power ... I was halfway through grinding up a second batch before it dawned on me that I won't be able to heat water anyway if the power goes out. Now I'm thinking maybe I should pre-make a pot of coffee.
The wind gusts are getting strong enough here that I'll be astonished if the power stays on.
NYT webcam for the high level Manhattan view.
89: A thermos full of coffee seems like a great standby in a storm.
Fuck, lights just flickered.
Look on the bright side, it would preclude Fox.
Alarmingly specific book.
I would love it if there were research into how to control the weather in my office. I certainly don't know how to do it, and apparently the Buildings and Maintenance guys don't either.
There's a thermostat on the wall, but I think it is just decorative.
Hey Barry -- the Holland Tunnel is open til 2. Start walking to Fresh Salt! (No, please do not.)
89: If you use a radiator system, then yeah, crank those things up. They have inertia.
The more timid local suburbs are moving trick or treating to Saturday. I guess many costumes aren't water resistant.
@89
Aren't you in Baltimore? I'm near downtown and there doesn't seem to be much wind at all.
Also, I stocked up on Starbuck's instant iced coffee. Disgusting, but I won't be caffeine deprived.
This is not quite how I envisioned spending this vacation.
93 Yes! I like the way you think. Also it would give me an excuse not to get any work done.
OTOH, they have a radio with a large supply of batteries so that means Limbaugh, O'Reilly, John Batchelor and the rest of that ilk. And AM fuzz is already so annoying no matter the content.
70: Not sure. We haven't been very close since he moved to NYC. "Garden" would definitely suck -- I know people here in MPLS who've been flooded out of their basement apartments during fairly minor thunderstorms.
Alarmingly specific book.
Well, it's kind of short. The weather in my office is controlled by: windows and a thermostat.
While there I bumped into a hardworking Russian grad student who seems intent on pretending this is a completely ordinary day at work, despite being the only person in the building.
98: I'm just north of the beltway, near Towson, so about 15 miles north of downtown. The wind is in the form of gusts, so it's calmish for 5 minutes (aside from rain), then a big blow, then calmish again. The trees probably make it look/feel more dramatic.
Huh. Apparently a friend of another Brooklyn friend lives in the apt. from which the photo in 40 was taken.
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to drain it!
In related news, what an epic scale asshole this guy is.
Wouldn't it be freaky if that quote swung the election for Obama? That would definitively settle the whole "Is Obama the anti-Christ?" question.
That would definitively settle the whole "Is Obama the anti-Christ?" question.
Which way?
The weather in my office is controlled by: windows and a thermostat.
You people at the fancy research schools get all the amenities.
Apparently the HMS Bounty has been sunk. Two crew didn't make it.
Satan is the god of this world, that's what I always so.
Maybe he's making a point about global warming, saying how if storms like this become too common we really won't be able to afford to deal with the damage, so we need to address carbon emissions now.
'So' should be 'say' and the whole thing shouldn't have gone after a death report.
Is Sandy a girl Sandy or a boy Sandy?
WE'RE NOT SAYING
Hipster Provocateur Hurricane Parent, is this you?
Heavy rain here in northern DE, and that's about it so far. Totes nesting.
Only a little rain and some gusts of wind here in upper Manhattan, though it's been grey for three days.
Work's canceled and the MTA isn't running. Since I have no work ethic and have a marooned visitor, I can't muster much displeasure.
I would like to point out that 114 is pwned by the OP title.
Lights flickered again.
I'm feeling very judgmental about that parent in 115.
Also that water must be filthy gross.
110 The Bounty doesn't even rate. She had no business being anywhere near Sandy. (OK, maybe just feeling judgmental in general).
Wind seriously picking up.
From my 10th floor perch in Crown Heights, I can say that the wind gusts are impressive and that it's raining (and leaking a bit into my bedroom) already.
Sir Kraab, I can't remember if your old home town is the R-n one or the M-n one, but the R-n one is a-floodin' as we speak.
Holy crap. Long Branch is already underwater. (Though half the photos out there seem to be fakes or recycled from past storms so who knows.)
118: I am just never quick enough for this blog.
Well, I graded and uploaded some reading quizzes. That's work, I suppose.
104: Bethesda. We were supposed to take the train to NYC tomorrow, but I got an e-mail earlier saying that it was canceled and there were no alternative routes. Not sure when we're going to get out of here at this point.
121: We weren't fancy enough for the R-n one. Hope Bruce is ok, though.
125: Yeah, I'd plan to settle in for a while.
122: That's where brother #2's house is. Nnng.But it looks like maybe that house is on Ocean Ave.
126: He's in Colts Neck these days!
Useful twitter feed of government offices, utilities, news stations, rather than B-list celebrities announcing their intention to pray for everyone to stay safe.
128.2: Phew.
I'm also worried about R-d B-k.
OMG YOU GUYS, look at this photo from SEPTA's Trenton station!
I have mentally written off my family's Fire Island beach house. Sic transit, etc.
132 Which community?
Hearing many sirens in the distance.
130.2: Too many rivers and bays and inlets. Fucked!
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I know this is small potatoes right now but I really need to bitch somewhere that someone hung a sign outside my classroom cancelling [Dept Course #], of which I teach another section two hours later, so rumor spread that I cancelled class and fucking no one showed up. OK, three people showed up, and then another three came back to check and stayed but I am really really pissed off, and can't express that at anyone because it was a simple error on the part of the department assistant not to include the professor's name but JEEZ.
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Which community?
Point O' Woods
131,133,137: Why would someone fake something like that? What would be their motivation?
138 Oh nice. And too bad.
Wind is really picking up.
139: It's just a side effect of the development of the cerebral cortex that occurred as an evolutionary response to an explosion of the Toba volcano.
I like that people report that they've lost power on facebook. That is just the right kind of baffling.
Your mom is just a side effect of the development of the cerebral cortex that occurred as an evolutionary response to an explosion of the Toba volcano.
144: Everyone has Star Trek tricorders now. Each one has its own little dilithium crystal inside.
I'm already sick of seeing the photo of Marines guarding the Tomb of the Unknown in the rain that everyone is tweeting. "Gosh, what devotion. This is what makes America great!"
It turns out that the photo's not even current (though AFAIK they are standing out there). "Gosh, what empty symbolism. Imagine if they were doing something to help living people!"
144: I've got two monster UPS boxes and a few smaller ones around. If I lost mains power I could still connect to the internet via the cable or LTE for several days if I wanted to. I can't be the only one with too much electronic crap around.
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The NYT has changed "In a woman's ovary" to "in a woman's body." Saying "ovary" when you meant "body" is an even more reasonable mistake than "ovary" for "uterus," although "every fertilized egg in a woman's body" still leaves you with the image of little embryos scattered around your insides. "Ooh, look, there's one in my thigh!"
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150: They get dislodged when the uterus floats around.
"Ooh, look, there's one in my thigh!"
Oh, hi, Zeus. Your pseud had me well baffled. Look after that kid, though, she's got a great future.
If it weren't for that meddlesome EPA we could've taken care of Sandy with a few unlicensed particle accelerators.
149: I have an emergency radio powered by hand-cranking that you can allegedly plug a phone into for a charge.
Marines guarding the Tomb of the Unknown
Not Marines. 3rd US Infantry.
Power actually went out here for about twenty seconds. Cable went out with it so I'd lose internet too.
Definitely hurricane force gusts out there now.
156: So now you wanna bring facts into the conversation?
Duly noted.
Say a fellow was looking for somewhere to take a vaguely indy/film/creative arts type girl (a NY resident) out to dinner in the general area south of 14th Street. Assuming that the floods recede, where would he go?
157: Internet connection least likely to cut out during a storm: Dial-up. All those old people on AOL should be in good shape.
157: Internet connection least likely to cut out during a storm: Dial-up.
What? Nuh uh. Why?
Telephone central offices have their own power, so even if the electricity is off, so as long as the telephone lines are up, so is dial-up. (And that's why I have not just a landline, but an old-fashioned, plug-in-the-wall phone in addition to a cordless.)
So? The kind that uses wires that run above ground and generally attach to houses at an exposed network interface?
Ahh, I see. I should know this, but cell towers don't have any kind of UPS backup? That surprises me.
Do phone company COs still have basements full of big ol' lead acid batteries? I bet they do, don't they.
125: Mussel Bar in Bethesda has a large selection of beers, if you feel like meeting up drunk-commenting
165 I know but when I was a kid growing up on LI while the power went out many times I don't recall the phone ever going out.
Wouldn't the modem still have to be plugged into a power source though?
It suddenly got a lot colder here about an hour ago and the rain started to pick up. Any minute now I am going to finish an abstract so I can submit it ahead of the power going out. Any minute. Just after I look at a few more pictures of the ocean.
Any minute now I am going to finish an abstract so I can submit it ahead of the power going out
Oh fuck, that's the fourth thing due soon I have to work on.
I've been able to use a cell phone when the power was out.
Left work. It is breezy out there Walked to my car and one side of my clothes stayed dry.
I see TLL caught the Tomb Guards thing.
TJ: the weigh and pay, the CVS, and one of the snack stores were the only retail open at work.
I read on Weather Underground that the storm is moving faster than had been expected and that it might make landfall earlier, like at around 4-5 pm. That would be very good news for the subway system--the earlier estimate had the storm reaching land AT high tide (around 9 pm).
In a stand-alone house, yes, mostly above ground between you and your neighborhood box, then underground to the C.O. In an apartment building, the line might be entirely underground, esp. in a city.
I'm not claiming all the phone lines are guaranteed to stay up, but it's very possible to lose power but not telephone -- it's certainly happened to me. (I don't think the fact that the NID is generally on the outside of the house means much; that's not the mostly likely thing to fail.)
My abstract? Awesome, let me know when you're done.
Every hurricane photo on Twitter is wrong.
And, yes, cell towers generally have back up, but your phone charge will last only so long.
168: Was going to say the same thing about Miami, where losing power was roughly as remarkable as humidity in summer.
Actually, one of my really extraordinary HS experiences was an hours-long phone call with a girl* during a power outage. We still have one semi-primitive phone down in the basement for such exigencies, although we almost never lose power here (and don't use the phone much anyways).
* whom I was convinced to chat up at her job at the 1-hour photo** by my best friend, who lied by telling me she had earlier looked at me at the pizza place, as white a lie as ever was told
** well you see, kids...
175 Sorry, yours would be the fifth thing I have to do. (In addition to a lot of laundry and packing to move which means it's time for a nap).
174: yeah, gotcha.
169.1: not if you have one of those spiffy ancient laptops with a built-in modem; then you can run that off battery power.
I see TLL caught the Tomb Guards thing.
For the record, if our enemies ever get to the Tomb with an armed force, I doubt those last 3 guys are going to be much help.
I see TLL caught the Tomb Guards thing.
For the record, if our enemies ever get to the Tomb with an armed force, I doubt those last 3 guys are going to be much help.
Wouldn't the modem still have to be plugged into a power source though?
Well, um, yeah. You got me there -- it's been so long since I've laid eyes on a dial-up modem that I sort of forgot about that point. (If you had an internal dial-up modem in a laptop, you could use it as long as the laptop battery lasted, but that only gets you a few hours.)
Still! You could talk on the phone like all day long.
Do TTY/TDDs use an external power source?
The neighbor's house has some minor but distressing problems - a couple of downspouts are about to fall off. There are some tree limbs down in the back yard, but not on anything important. I brought in our portable jump-starting battery with its 12v outlet; I figure ten pounds of sealed lead-acid can run our phones for quite a while if necessary.
The news about the Bounty replica is sad.
I do want to know why Bounty didn't duck in at Norfolk. But that's just armchair sailing.
FSM bless the Coasties. You have to go out. You don't have to come back.
Wouldn't the modem still have to be plugged into a power source though?
I'd think so. Our inet is supplied by the same people as our landline and splits when it enters the house, so it's fairly robust*, but when we have a power cut the router goes down like any other device. A modem needs juice like anything else.
*Except when they did a major upgrade last Tuesday night and we had negligible comms until today
I just plugged in my portable jump-starting battery with its 12 volt outlet, but it doesn't seem to be working any more. I could charge my phone in the car, I suppose.
172: That isn't surprising. I was supposed to have a dental appointment, too.
The Tomb Guards thing has now shown up on my Facebook feed. So fucking sanctimonious.
Do TTY/TDDs use an external power source?
Mine does. I think it might also have a spot for batteries as backup, but (a) it's in a box somewhere because I only use webcams nowadays and (b) I am sure I don't have whatever type of batteries it would use.
Odd, I'd have expected a report from LB by now.
194 Was thinking the same thing.
Good luck to everyone involved. The pictures from the Jersey Shore/Eastern Shore are appalling.
LB's neighbourhood is about as safe from storm surge as it's possible to get.
Here the sustained winds are fairly mild; there are some fairly bad gusts but so far not any worse than you get a couple times a year.
LB's general neighborhood is doing well. Windy and kinda rainy, but lots of businesses are open and life goes on.
Nothing interesting to report. Home from work, and making pie. There was some dramatic flooding in a park downhill from me, but that soccer field is swampy all the time. Other than that, it's windy, but not even raining all that hard.
(The dumb thing is that I'm not home for the hurricane, this is a planned day off. I keep on failing to take enough vacation, and I have to burn the excess before I accumulate so much that they stop letting me accumulate. I figure I'd probably have stayed home on account of the no subways (biking to work in a hurricane? Probably a poor idea), but the weather here isn't such that it would have spontaneously occurred to me to stay home because of it.)
It is weird having a dog, though. Whatever the weather's like four or five hours from now, someone's going out for a couple of minutes.
One of our neighbors just lost part of her deck railing. Trim on the building across the street continues to flutter around in the wind. I think it might actually be the shitty brick-print contact paper they put on the wiring for the cell antennas attached to the roof. Point for Kraab!
6000 without power here in Durham due to winds and we're way out of Sandy's firing line.
Biking in a hurricane is pretty fun but not, like, practical.
Yeah, tons of people with lost power in MA. 10,000 as of like 9:30 this morning, somehow.
203: House might land on you? Or is that just in a tornado?
50,000 without power in Mass., apparently. Good thing our power lines are made out of foil and canning wax.
Concord grape. It's a little fussy to make, what with getting the seeds out, but it's delicious. More like blueberry pie than anything else, except grapier.
167: Our hotel bar has Yuengling on tap, which I haven't had in years, so I'm good on the beer front. Plus, no car.
I just saw a large, wooden roof-deck get blown off the top of a high-rise apartment building.
156: Is it still the case that soldiers are not allowed the use of umbrellas? Lots of squelching at the Pentagon today, I'll bet.
159: That's not my neighborhood enough anymore to have specific recommendations, but maybe just wander south on First or A and walk in the first place that looks appealing? The East Village is crawling with restaurants.
Who uses an umbrella in a hurricane, other than Mary Poppins?
(And that's why I have not just a landline, but an old-fashioned, plug-in-the-wall phone in addition to a cordless.)
Sir Kraab is my secret sister!
Mission Chinese is delicious, if you like blisteringly hot.
The abstract submission page includes this line:
Note: leave first name blank if you do not have one.
Huh.
The Arts and Humanities office has a leaky ceiling, and we aren't even dealing with Sandy. I think this is all still the storm front that was coming the other way.
Is a flight into Philadelphia on Friday going to be impacted by all this?
215: If we actually make it to NYC, it would amuse me greatly to go there before I get a chance to eat at the original.
217: Maybe you're competing against SpearIt?
204 and 207: That's when I miss living in a part of the city with underground power lines. In DC in 2003 there was a big storm where power was out for several days, but Georgetown was unaffected.
219: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say yes.
Half of a neighbor's large tree fell on other neighbor's newly renovated garage, shook our house in the process. Took out some phone and cable lines but power still on (so take that, 160.)
Went out to look at it and retrieve some tomatoes that blew off the vines.
We've got leaks, right here in !River City. Leaks with a capital L, and that rhymes with Hell, and that stands for Hooooooray homeownership.
I can kind-of see the crane that snapped off at the construction site in midtown.
225- I know, it sucks, the tomatoes were almost ripe, and in late October too!
226: shutupshutupshutup (we're now awaiting the completion of a loan to join the benighted ranks of homeowners). The last thing I want to think about is leaks.
Very windy and rainy here. So far (knock wood) the gutter-to-rain barrel-to-garden hose-to-storm-sewer jury-rigged setup seems to be working.
I started making tzatzki the other night and then realized I didn't have cucumbers. So I made it with my green tomatoes instead. I used oregano and a little red onion and it made a DELICIOUS dip, even if not exactly tzatziki. Mmmmmmmm.
(I don't even want to think about the potentially expensive home repairs this could cause -- though my insurance agent has bombarded me with multiple e-mails AND a robo-call. Enough already! I get it! I should call you if I have to make a claim!)
210 is genuinely alarming.
My MIL's umbrella was partially crushed when the wind blew over our (ineffectual) front porch dog gate. Oh, the humanity!
I should call you if I have to make a claim!
As opposed to some other method? What's going on there?
Just went for a walk to get more Cheetos. Tons of trees/branches down around here, with crews out working on them.
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They released the full MIT Gangham video- I heard about them filming various bits of this over the last few weeks. Includes Eric Lander, and NOAM! with a funny bit. Actually pretty impressive.
|>
PSTN systems provide power down the wire, and the local exchanges have backup power for the zombie apocalypse (redundant feeds, banks of huge batteries, redundant generators).
Most DSL, fibre, and cable systems need local power; even though the optical terminal in something like Verizon FiOS is a passive device, whatever you plug into it needs power (so their ONTs have batteries in them).
Cell sites usually have about 8 hours' battery, unless they also have generators. Typically you have diesel power at the big macrocell sites where the RNCs are co-located. The theory is that the macros provide coverage (including for your official/blue light customers) and small cells provide capacity, and anyway there's no point in powering the cell sites if the backhaul network is down.
If you want to tweet or whatever, do it via SMS - the last thing a mobile network needs in a pinch is lots of short data sessions, as the setup and teardown of the data call is quite resource-hoggy.
But then, your top priority shouldn't really be tweeting LOLSandys...
I started making tzatzki the other night and then realized I didn't have cucumbers. So I made it with my green tomatoes instead. I used oregano and a little red onion and it made a DELICIOUS dip, even if not exactly tzatziki. Mmmmmmmm.
(I don't even want to think about the potentially expensive home repairs this could cause -- though my insurance agent has bombarded me with multiple e-mails AND a robo-call. Enough already! I get it! I should call you if I have to make a claim!)
This dip was so delicious that even your insurance agent was worried about people trampling your lawn and breaking down the door to get it?
(The juxtaposition of the paragraphs just amused me)
233: All I can figure out is that it's a marketing pitch ("See, we're here looking out for your in this scary time!"). Because I can't really imagine that anybody who thinks they may have a claim DOESN'T call their insurance company.
Its low tide right now, but the water level on the East River appears to be at what I would normally describe as a particularly high tide.
Dude, I filed a claim for the theft last year and this year they dropped my home insurance. I don't think I'd file another claim for less three or four thousand dollars.
210: Spike, I hope you've got your windows taped and blocked with furniture or something. Flying roof decks are generally a bad sign.
237: Yeah, I thought about that after I posted.
Lights just flickered here....
Spike, where are you?
And be careful.
Liked that Oppa Chomsky style bit.
Someone* just e-mailed to ask me the mailing address of a public official. I'm going to sit on my hands and not answer for a while, because I'm overwhelmingly tempted to say Perhaps you should try the city's official phone directory.
*Who really, really should know better.
159: If the requirement for below 14th is because she's one of those New Yorkers who says "I never go above 14th Street," my recommendation is take her to Burger King. Otherwise there are about a million restaurants and it depends on how much you want to spend and stuff.
Mister Smearcase. Sullivan's Travels was on TMC yesterday. The dime dropped.
Is there no Burger King above 14th Street?
243: I'm in Long Island City, across from midtown.
234: Tweety, get the f*** inside, please.
As opposed to some other method? What's going on there?
Consumers can now file insurance claims with mobile apps, Minivet. It's like you haven't even seen those annoying ads that were running during the baseball postseason!
248: I'm about four miles on the other side of Midtown, in the Jersey Meadowlands, and the storm so far has been pleasingly boring. Knock wood.
Who uses an umbrella in a hurricane, other than Mary Poppins?
Last year when the hurricane (or former hurricane at that point) hit DC in August, as I was leaving the Library of Congress* I saw a guy at a street corner open his umbrella, watch it turn inside out and break, and then angrily dump it in a trash bin.
I had an umbrella too and it was fine for keeping direct rain out of my face, but I was totally soaked by the end of the 20 minute walk back to where I was staying.
*which in a great bit of scheduling had no internet whatsoever that day because they were doing a major system overhaul so there was no way to get weather updates while I was doing research, though it was pretty clear when I checked in the morning that things would be fine where I was.
I saw a guy at a street corner open his umbrella, watch it turn inside out and break, and then angrily dump it in a trash bin.
Trash bin probably wasn't big enough to dump himself in.
229: You do want to hear about leaks just *before* closing and get the seller to knock a lump off the price. The Dwarf Lord and I managed this and it paid for a proper sump pump and a bit.
Which was, alas, installed by lunatics who believe more ellbends are better. Works so far though.
The landline and internet went out here a couple of days ago when the connection broke right where the line comes into the house. Probably the result of the Santa Ana winds, though there was apparently so much tension in the way the lines had been installed that it could have just been a gradual pulling apart.
I can't complain too much - when there's no major fires, the Santa Ana winds are pretty pleasant.
I wonder if LB's pie is going to take longer than usual to bake.
I love the absurdity of TV news during something like this. "Let's go to Al Roker who is currently barely alive because we're making him stand in the fucking ocean." "Now let's talk to a random person in the street about how wet they are."
Oh, and I've definitely had a working wired internet connection during a power failure. For the fifteen minutes until the battery the modem was connected to died.
Tweety, don't listen to 249. Climb a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and shout, "Here I am, motherfuckers! Give it your best shot!"
Holding a one-iron over your head.
Now they're saying the DC Metro will be shut down through Tuesday.
Somewhere around here I have a couple of battery-powered modems used in early modem-less laptops while traveling. Laptops don't come with serial ports now tho'. Or do they?
Philadelphia follow up: The roof of my office is leaking. Time to go home.
258: It's all footnotes to Dan Rather (Carla/Galveston/1961).
"I wonder if you could explain this business about the eye of the hurricane," Rather asked, knowing that people watching on television had never before seen such a thing. (He pronounced it not "HER-uh-cane" but "HER-uh-cun.")...
Government officials were wary of showing radar pictures on television, especially superimposed over a map of the coastline that emphasized the mammoth storm's size. But Rather helped persuade them it would save lives.
It also propelled Rather into the national eye, catching the attention of Walter Cronkite, who's reputed to recommend CBS News hire his fellow Houston reporter who was "up to his ass in water moccasins."
265: I vaguely remember that. Fuck, I'm like some geezer talking about being a kid in the background of a Babe Ruth newsreel. Or "That's me at the Armistice Day Parade. They let us out of school.
The link in 265 is fascinating. I had no idea.
Wind definitely up here. Rain still coming down hard.
Nearly 6 hours since the last mcmanus post. I'm getting concerned about his refractory period.
You'd think he'd at least respond to 222 with more chortling about rusting and corrosion of underground wires.
I kind of miss the old paint-speckled red rotary phone my dad used to have hooked up to a modem for working at home.
|| The Nate Silver Twitter War is worth a chuckle or two.|>
254: don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want toe find out about *actual* leaks *after* closing. I just don't want to think too much about the *potential* ruin that *future* leaks could wreak.
This head of emergency services in Atlantic City is kind of wonderful, in a Jersey sort of way:
"The city is under siege," said Thomas Foley, the chief of emergency services. "Sandy is pretty furious at Atlantic City. She must have lost a bet or something. As we say in our slogan, 'Do A.C.' She's doing A.C., all right."
271: One of my favorite's so far from David Roberts: "Pundits are saying if Nate Silver's projection is wrong, he'll be discredited. POLITICAL PUNDITS are saying this. With no irony."
274: Definitional chutzpah, there.
274 -- Right. It's even worse than that. They're saying that because he's giving Romney a 26% chance, if Romney wins he'll be discredited. That's not even "if Nate Silver's projection is wrong."
276: Also amusing is the scorn with which that ultimate panicky innumerate, Andrew Sullivan, is treating his critics.
Yeah, the innumeracy on display is incredible. I also love how some people are accusing him of just looking at other people's polls and then making predictions from that. Yeah, pretty much!
271, 274: the thing I love about that is if they'll just wait a week they'll have the actual results in hand. But no, a decision on Silver's model must be rendered RIGHT NOW.
279 -- Well, yeah, because the result is going to driven by intensity. Also because they're trying to sell soap.
Sully's latest about Mormons is fucking annoying.
The trouble is, theologically speaking, and with all due respect for the sincerity of Romney's faith, we are not all children of Romney's version of God. The Christian Trinity is not the Mormon Godhead. Many evangelicals understand this. But despite their fervent belief that religion should be indistinguishable from politics, most will ignore it. And that is why they will vote for Romney not as Christians as such, but as Christianists, willing to overlook the bizarre theology of Mormonism in order to promote the policies most fundamentalists of all types favor: re-criminalizing abortion, stripping gay people of the rights heterosexuals have, and a new war to protect Israel.
So Sully wants people to vote their religion? OK, their religion as he defines it for them?
"Pundits are saying if Nate Silver's projection is wrong, he'll be discredited. POLITICAL PUNDITS are saying this. With no irony."
I read part of Silver's book the other day. At one point he discusses tabulating all the predictions on some pundity TV show and finding that almost exactly half of them were wrong.
the bizarre theology of Mormonism
As opposed to the totally normal theology of mainstream Christianity?
276: ,i>They're saying that because he's giving Romney a 26% chance, if Romney wins he'll be discredited. That's not even "if Nate Silver's projection is wrong."
Actually, I think they might understand probability quite well*. They see a 26% chance that they can gloat that Silver was "wrong" safe in their knowledge that they themselves will face no such accounting for anything they have ever said or written. Pretty good odds.
246: Oh, yay! Only one person has ever gotten it immediately, that being our own K-sky. It's just a little throwaway reference that I was charmed by long ago.
283. Yup.
I should have done a shorter: Sully is annoying.
...bizarre theology...
There is non-bizarre theology? Cut skin off dicks? Chop off labia? Ritual scarification? Blood & flesh? Rise from tombs? I really do not see how Mormons are nuttier then the rest no matter what they believe.
There are no formatting errors or extraneous asterisks in 284.
These are not the droids we're looking for.
285. It is a great scene. Lake does her part very well there. Lake is more interesting in this flick (especially the gamine parts) than her usual roles.
Christie just said on CNN that the mayor of Atlantic City told people not to evacuate. Is this true? Why?
People on Facebook are saying the mail got through today. Yay USPS.
My power went out for 30 seconds. I'm so happy that it came back on.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Budget cuts will do the trick nicely.
So this is worrisome. 8.64 feet at 5:18.
287: Sorry. I'm majorly cranky this time of year.
The NYT webcam is getting some nice spooky views right now, as the lights come on.
Huh, the latest news says that Sandy is "just off the Jersey shore" but from Weather Underground's satellite it looks like the system is right on top of us in the Wash/Baltimore area.
Hopefully if we can make through the next ~8 hours without losing power we'll be out of danger.
Not so much for you folks up North, unfortunately.
296: Yeah, high tide at The Battery at 8:53 PM. And although it is making landfall earlier than first predicted (basically right now) that puts NY Harbor directly in NE Quad with winds piling the water in from the SE.
Wind speeds here are more or less at their peak and are supposed to start dropping soon, if I understand correctly.
What looks bad to me is the storm surge, especially in the NYC area, at high tide tonight. There are going to be a few more feet of water depth before it peaks.
299: Given how it is interacting with the prior low, the rain field is more asymmetrical than usual.
297: I mean, it probably is all bizarre, and I'm a Christian. I will say that I *personally* find a lot of stuff in Christianity --even as metaphor --quite beautiful, but I'm creeped out by a lot of the Mormon stuff. It's not entirely rational, but I don't like the bits about people becoming god and the way heaven is portrayed as a reunion with the nuclear family. Maybe in a couple of centuries there will be a Mormon strain that I like.
Many Mormons find a lot of the Mormon stuff quite beautiful, often as metaphor, and are creeped out by orthodox Christian stuff like transsubstantiation, original sin, and salvation as merger-with-God. It's often a question of what you're raised with.
303: I think the bit about it being personal prejudice should have been included. Of course, that's so.
A lot of Christians don't care --or believe in-- transubstantiation or see it in purely metaphorical terms.
Ditto to 304. I was appalled by the idea of original sin as a kid.
Anyway, who has an idea of what the back half of Sandy is supposed to look like? Is it more of the same high winds and rain until it dies out, or does it change somehow once it gets on land?
Many orthodox Christians are creeped out by transsubstantiation and salvation-as-merger-with-God.
I was appalled by the idea of original sin as a kid. Sort of along the lines of "mutually assured destruction," I couldn't believe that adults actually believed in it. Still can't.
Winds getting very strong here.
creeped out by orthodox Christian stuff
They told me to keep the Latin, but did I listen?
Absolute depravity, I must say, is about the only bit of Calvinism I really really believe in.
Power out. Turns out you can keep a network running on one of those car battery chargers plus a power inverter. Probably not the best use of limited electricity though. Have a fun storm, gang!
294: we've now had three brief outages, two more or less back to back around 4 and another about half an hour ago. There's been an extended outage in the apartment complex just east of us. I think our outages have been the result of them trying to get the apartment complex back online and them switching us back when that failed.
291: Unfortunately, it was the first Veronica Lake flick I ever saw, so I assumed she was always that wonderful. As you note, she's not. I have watched several others in which she is an extremely pretty cipher.
We haven't yet had any outages.
Flickers possibly. Getting windy.
Power out at my mom's. My brother brought a zillion lanterns and everybody their own headlamp, so it's festive there if nothing else.
For a couple hours now I've been at the point where I'm thoroughly tired of reading storm-related things and yet I just keep refreshing the same set of webpages instead of doing something more interesting.
Looking at the FAA's airport status site is odd. The major airports in the Northeast are all listed as open. That is technically correct. Controllers are on duty. But there are no flights. I did see that the Atlantic City airport is closed until 0200. I guess they evacuated the tower.
Some power flickers here in Arlington VA.
My dad, on his boat in Boston Harbor, says that he has had to unlock the gimbals on the stove to make supper. He has never had to do that in a marina.
318: I got tired of reading the same storm-related things and then remembered that I have about 300 pages of reading to do for tomorrow. I miss reading the same storm-related things.
Don't people use candles anymore?
It hurts when the burning wax drips on your forehead.
Hence the expression "festive as a coal mine."
"Like a canary in a hurricane."
I'm taking my 15-year-old to go see Aesop Rock at Cat's Cradle tonight. Nobody get swept out to sea while we're getting down, boyeee.
And it seems like she was born only a few years ago.
As far as Brooks and Nate Silver, it should be obvious that the groundwork is being laid for the theft of the election.
I seriously doubt it, but I hope this time time Silver has the confidence in his data, models, work to come out next Wednesday and publicly say "This election was stolen!"
Ruy Teixera and I think Charlie Crist (?) folded like accordions in 2004.
The she-kid is 5 and got Michael Franti live a couple weeks ago. But believe me, urple: it's twice as weird to me as it is to you.
The wind just kicked up to remarkable sounding here.
159: "Lyon - Bouchon Moderne", Greenwich Ave at 13th St., if you like hearty French bistro style.
I think Charlie Crist
The governor of Florida?
334: It seemed like a fairly ordinary bob comment to me.
334: did the pie take extra long to bake?
In my experience, hurricanes really do sound like freight trains. After a few hours, it's maddening.
Around the corner from Fresh Salt, South Street is under water. Fuck.
Sure like that TPM Senate map: http://core.talkingpointsmemo.com/election/scoreboard/senate
344: do you happen to know what happened in WI? When last I looked, Baldwin was up by seven or eights points.
339:Right
But hey, sciency types, you will be willing to your faith in Silver all the way from Wednesday to the Certification in Congress, won't you? If Romney wins, he cheated = fact?
Silver will need a ton of backup
Stay safe, New Yorkers. If you're not the type for water, don't chance it.
334: Hmm, it just went extra-tropical (but just a tad weaker). I guess the actual center of circulation still a bot offshore (it is getting hard to pinpont it).
Update my 314 to "Less rain, but more wind for a while."
347: Non-water types shouldn't chance what? Swimming the East River? If you're the Wicked Witch you might melt if you go out?
Katrina was the first time after the 2000 election that I turned on cable news. Well, I think I'm ready to dip my toe back in the water. Wish me luck. If I'm not back in a few hours, I'm probably trapped in Wolf Blitzer's beard.
345 -- I don't know. It's probably turnout models, or some other intensity thing.
Otters swim through Wolf Blitzer's beard without hindrance.
Wow, the wind is REALLY strong.
(And by "really strong" I mean "by Philadelphia standards," not New Orleans.)
I got tired of waiting for the power to go out, and refreshing the same storm pages at home, so now I'm doing it at the bar.
The wind has been pretty bad here for the past two hours or so and little pieces of something keep hitting my windows. Not sure about the freight train thing, it's too irregular. (Do they sound any different from passenger trains?)
TWC with captioning and sound off. No way cable news channels. No way in hell.
salvation as merger-with-God
Did I sleep through some of CCD? This does not sound like an accurate description to me. Maybe I'm being over-influenced by pop-culture depictions of heaven, but I paid attention when I was Catholic, and this is ringing no bells.
Transsubstantiation, obviously, is optional for non-Mormon Christians.
Anyway, I don't see what's so obviously stupid about what Sullivan wrote. He's basically saying, "For 200 years, we've all agreed that those guys are out of the club. Now all the sudden they're in, just so you can vote for one of them?" I mean, that's acknowledging a certain shitty deal, but it's hardly dependent on precisely whose theology is more freaky. If German-Americans suddenly, en masse, decided that parliamentarianism was the way to go, wouldn't that elicit a giant WTF from the rest of us (you)?
I suppose that's an analogy, but I don't care. Analogy bans matter not in the face of Frankenstorm.
356 shows great wisdom.
The bad news is that school is cancelled tomorrow and so my MIL will surely invite herself to stay over tonight (she lives less than 1 mile away, no intervening creeks).
The good news is that this is probably means that I can talk AB into a late night, windy dog walk, which could be fun.
Well, the power can back after 50 minutes, and just afterward, I heard a loud sound. Then the police came. Two doors down there is a power pole leaning ominously. But my power isn't even flickering.
And someone just yelled Oh! Oh! Oh!
Meanwhile, my kids are playing a board game they started during the outage.
11.62 feet at the Battery. This might be bad; high tide isn't for more than an hour, I think.
345
344: do you happen to know what happened in WI? When last I looked, Baldwin was up by seven or eights points.
Silver has Baldwin up by 2.8 with an 83% chance of winning.
362: they're talking about that very thing on CNN right now, Bave. You should tune in, even though you just missed two awesome commercials: the first about how China is drinking America's milkshake because of the national debt, and the second for an American gun manufacturer. I feel like a columnist riding in a cab on my way to the buffet at Applebee's.
Sometimes I don't like the fact that there's a transformer on a power pole right outside our apartment.
a late night, windy dog walk
Maybe a different type of food would help?
363: Silver is a falsetto-voiced faggot and a probably a Jew. I prefer real American pollsters like John Zogby.
365: if it's Optimus Prime, I'd be pretty reassured.
(We are banging up against the limits of my Transformers knowledge.)
Christ, this is fucked. Fucking storm surge went exactly the wrong place. I have to turn this off.
Weather Channel guy having to pack up and leave Battery Park before it gets another 2+ feet of storm surge.
Whoa, the gun commercial is on MSNBC now.
I'm watching Phineas and Ferb on Netflix now. It will never find me!
372: It's coming from *inside* the computer.
If German-Americans suddenly, en masse, decided that parliamentarianism was the way to go
What?
Good luck to everyone. Terrifying.
364: We do not so much have CNN here. Are they talking about it on CSPAN or that shopping channel? Actually I guess there's NY1.
11.62 feet at the Battery. This might be bad; high tide isn't for more than an hour, I think.
Last I saw the Stony Brook site was predicting a maximum of 4 meters (13 feet) at about 10 PM, and the actual numbers were consistently a foot or so higher than their prediction. (They were also changing their prediction over the course of the day, I think, which I don't really understand?) Now their website is down.
Sullivan is just freaking because he was sure that the evangelicals would never vote for a Mormon. Well guess what, Andy, you were wrong. Turns out Jeebus isn't the only thing those folks care about.
Betting on bigotry might seem like the default position in 'Murca, but I wouldn't be too sure.
If its wrong to be drinking a manhattan right now, I am wrong.
376: you can stream the weather channel on wunderground's Sandy page.
I am selfishly hoping for a check-in from Spike.
From experience: If you are subject to evacuation or any other emergency activity resist the urge to get drunk. Your mom asked me to tell you that.
I think Candace is finally going to bust them this time.
We've got water in the street here, and I expect it will rise another foot or two. That may or may not be enough to flood my kid's school.
Maine is too far north for evacuations, and I live on a high point, on the seventh floor.
377: Yeah, that Stony Brook site was freaky. And now it's down, which is obviously preparing us for a stolen election.
So parts of NYC will be fresh and clean, and other parts will have East River or NYH gunk all over them. Ew.
378 -- Or maybe anti-Mormon bigotry isn't the only kind.
388.1 -- Although I think beating the goddam hippies (and the communists, but I repeat myself) trumps absolutely everything else.
Power just flickered. Hoping it doesn't go. THe damn building is occasionally shaking with the stronger gusts.
1st Avenue, I think? And another one from Stuyvesant town.
We appear to be in the fresh and clean camp so far. The boy and I are hunkered down appropriately on the UWS. He is sleeping in a tent in the living room tonight. Not for any storm-related reason, other than I'm trying to keep things interesting during our extended captivity.
Or maybe anti-Mormon bigotry isn't the only kind.
Of course, but I think Sully had opined that the evangelicals would stay home rather than vote for the Mormon. I don't read him anymore after his morbid fascination with the ex Governor of Alaska and her amazing uterus.
Power has been flickering here a bit. Holy crap to 389 -- it looks unreal.
And in other news, the confusion what to do about the governor candidate who accepted a big contribution during a brief period between when limits were stricken and reinstated continues. http://missoulian.com/news/local/hill-campaign-cancels-ads-polling-travel-in-wake-of-judge/article_6ee56406-21fa-11e2-989f-001a4bcf887a.html
389: I realize there are bigger issues, but people in the Northeast should remember than the next several weeks are not a good time to buy a used car.
For completeness, DUMBO an hour and change ago.
385: There's seventh floors in Maine? (Kidding! I'm on a first floor in Portland, and I think I can see one from here)
My DSL has been flickering some too.
389 I wonder how all those people deciding to stick it out in low apartments in Red Hook are doing.
386 And now it's down, which is obviously preparing us for a stolen election.
I think I need Standpipe's blog here.
I'm also in Portland, I think we have 2 7+ story residential buildings. If you're looking towards Longfellow square, wave.
I'm also in Portland, I think we have 2 7+ story residential buildings. If you're looking towards Longfellow square, wave.
404: there better not be MATH or STATS on standpipe's blog. That wizard.
I'm not saying everything needs to be focused on the storm, but it would seem to be about time for the NY Times to remove "Room for Debate: Monsters vs. Sexy Nurses" from its front page.
402.last: Fiddling while Rome floods?
The community of Red Hook falls almost entirely within Zone A, for which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuations Sunday afternoon. But even as water surged up the streets of the neighborhood on Monday, some residents lingered in bars.
This is the entrance to my building as of 15 minutes ago.
Now this is how you mainline terrifyingness.
So why the derisory reaction to the possibility of a stolen election?
Also, those pictures are terrifying. All things considered, I think I'd prefer a nice warm, tropical hurricane to Frankenstorm meets Wericane.
What about this New Jersey shark photo?
Spoke to my kids and mum near Toronto tonight. They decided not to go down to Niagara Falls this week .... The ten year old is a bit worried, but they're miles away from the lake, so am sure everything will be fine.
A huge portion of Manhattan just went dark.
That is crazy. So when stocking up on supplies, what was the guideline of how many days to prepare for?
411: gaah!
The Jersey beach town where my ancestors had their summer home sounds like it is pretty much just gone; just read something about the beach and dunes not existing and the PD suspending emergency services because waves are breaking among the houses.
364: The best was the one by the guy who came from a Socialist country and says that he's voting Republican, because America is going downhill now that we're denigrating success.
mcmanus is the eternal broken clock.
Looks like everything is dark below about 39th street, although some buildings seem to have generator power.
A huge portion of Manhattan just went dark.
Yes, I love living in the future, where my Facebook feed can instantly fill up with people announcing to the world that their power is out.
Oh, I already said that. Well, still true.
"all NYC bridges will be closed as off 7:00 PM"
I thought they left one bridge and one tunnel open, or are we now fully into "Escape from New York" territory?
(I guess that statement doesn't contradict the statement that a tunnel is open.)
We just got into monsoon rain here, and I have to take the garbage out- apparently garbage collection and street cleaning are fully on schedule for the week.
Given what the river has done since I took 411, I'm pretty sure our lobby is flooding right now.
I can hear the plink-plink-plink of my roof leak into the metal bowl below. We drilled a couple of drain holes to try to prevent pooling but there is going to be some fun and no doubt very affordable replastering in our future. This is basically EXACTLY THE SAME as being in the actual hurricane.
Now this is how you mainline terrifyingness.
Yikes, no shit, man.
Is this going to impact Halloween trick-or-treating in the city?
My stomach is hurty. It's like I'm there, right?
Chris Christie is going to reschedule Halloween. Insert your jokes wherever the fuck you want.
406,407: Sweet, is LKB or whatever it's called still open? Or maybe Local 188. Hope there's at least some people willing to go outside in this.
424 THe last tunnel just closed down.
The best was the one by the guy who came from a Socialist country and says that he's voting Republican, because America is going downhill now that we're denigrating success.
That's the same guy who was the star of that Planet Money episode about how he invented computerized stock trading and now thinks computerized stock trading has gone too far. Kind of odd that he is upset that society is not giving enough respect to the rich, since he thinks today's rich are just shifting money around and skimming rather than whatever he did which was actually beneficial to society. He should be worried that today's oligarchs act with impunity and steal from the common man because they're as far above the law as the Politburo.
427: I'm feeling kind of woozy from too much MSG after eating ramen earlier and have a crapload of reading to do, and I'm waiting in vain for my school to cancel classes tomorrow. This.. actually it kind of is like being in the actual hurricane. Just the lame part.
N.B. the insane rain you are experiencing (some of the heaviest rain anybody's gotten today) is all part of the same system. So, you know, kinda!
We need somebody to check in who's in the middle of a blizzard, just to cover the bases.
"Nate Silver @fivethirtyeight
CAN'T BELIEVE METOROLOGISTS USED MATH AND SCIENCE TO PREDICT THIS STORM. THEY MUST BE MAGIC WIZARDS."
Can I get a heh indeed?
It's sunny and 78 here. But I have a limp.
I'm in Lfk, it seems pretty busy for a monday
Looking at flight radar to see how empty the air space is. There are some flights going to Europe from Atlanta and Charlotte. They are making big hooks through central PA and upstate NY. This is not the usual route.
We need somebody to check in who's in the middle of a blizzard, just to cover the bases.
Most of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and the appalachian parts of NC and VA have gotten snow today. The worst is in the Morgantown area I think.
" MTA announces NYC subways will be closed for remainder of week. All major lines are flooded will require repair."
I don't know which photos look weirder, the underwater streets or the photos of lower Manhattan at night with almost no lights.
The Twitters! But, er, here is WSJ saying something similar.
425: Here it's one-day delay. We're Tuesday recylcers, so we won't have ours picked up until Wednesday.
And the MTA corrects: "Rumors are wrong. The MTA cannot assess damage until Tuesday. It is way too early for a subway reopening timetable." I don't know what that means. Subway will reopen in two weeks!
444: Weirder than both for me is that I'm sitting here quite comfortably on the Upper West Side, listening to howling winds but otherwise in a situation indistinguishable from any other Saturday night. Not as weird an uptown/downtown contrast as the last time Lower Manhattan had a massive infrastructure disaster, of course.
One of my favorite tweets of the day (from the Heritage Foundation): "With #Sandy battering small towns & big cities, Americans must band together to help family, friends & neighbors!"
Why don't you just shut up you dumb fucking fucks; we all know what your fucking vision of preparedness and response would look like. Don't even try to pretend.
If the subway is out but the bridges are open, I guess I could take a bus to work on Wednesday or something.
NO MORE BAIL OUTS FOR WALL STREET.
If only they had thought to put up a tarp.
but otherwise in a situation indistinguishable from any other Saturday night
Saturday night was indeed pretty normal.
My mother lives in Stuy Town and isn't answering her phone. She's on a high floor, she's fine, but I wish she'd answer her phone.
456 Power is out over there, phones might be too.
The PATH doesn't seem like it's going to be working tomorrow
She answered her cell, no power but fine.
451. The NYSE trading floor is under three feet of water, according to the Weather Channel.
If you haven't seen this, it's pretty amazing. Advance to about 2:50.
Or, really :17. I scrolled through too fast.
Looks like water has now started going down a bit at Battery Park (an inch or so--but looks to have crested). About an hour after high tide.
Now I'm thinking the thing in 463 is a fake.
Fortunately, I've been able to soothe myself today with Bob Ross videos, thanks to Google.
Wind map worth a look. Zoom in on the northeast.
The ASL for "storm surge" looks really cool.
Halford, read this. It's really excellent.
470: not that I'd know, but that woman seemed like one dynamic-ass signer.
Seriously, Bob Ross videos? You know that shit is a gateway drug. He shows you how easy it is to make a little squiggle, and you think, "that does seem easy, but maybe I could make something that was less tasteless"--and then you're stuck trying to make art.
I love Bob Ross.
466: Yeah, looks like it topped out just shy of 14 feet, consistent with the "Stony Brook model + 1 foot" that seemed to be holding earlier today.
473: I'm not watching to learn how to paint, just to feel like everything is okay.
471 -- another way of putting that is "poor hitting by Cabrera" which was certainly my response.
457 Creepiest lullaby ever?
Baby, baby, naughty baby,
Hush, you squalling thing, I say.
Peace this moment, peace, or maybe
Bonaparte will pass this way.
Baby, baby, he's a giant,
Tall and black as Rouen steeple,
And he breakfasts, dines, rely on't,
Every day on naughty people.
Baby, baby, if he hears you
As he gallops past the house,
Limb from limb at once he'll tear you,
Just as pussy tears a mouse.
And he'll beat you, beat you, beat you,
And he'll beat you into pap,
And he'll eat you, eat you, eat you,
Every morsel snap, snap, snap.
||
I like this article about the trouble with Jonah Lehrer and, more broadly, the trouble with the popsci lecture circuit.
I hear it's possible to make $50,000 for a single public lecture if you can pull off a popular book.
|>
480--as kids, we had a board-book with that poem in it. Illustrated with a GIANT BABY-EATING NAPOLEON.
GIANT BABY-EATING NAPOLEON
Best thing I have ever heard in my life.
It's Wallace Tripp. I don't remember whether it was "Marguerite, Go Wash Your Feet" or "Granfa Grigg"--both are deathless.
Sadly, my photo of my giant baby eating [a] napoleon would seem to be on my other computer.
A fair bit of "Granfa Grig" online here.
"Mr. Christie said Mr. Obama had called to make sure he had everything needed from the federal government and left a number to call him directly at the White House should any unmet needs arise.
"I appreciate that call from the president," Mr. Christie said. "It was very proactive. I appreciate that kind of leadership." "
I'm still stuck on election fraud. A brief search on 538 didn't turn up anything (my fault, I'm sure). At the Princeton Election Consortium I turned up just two articles from Sam Wang. The power of polls: a protection against fraud? about the 2008 national election, which wasn't really close enough to steal, but perhaps state and local races could yield some more convincing data, and The paranoid style in progressive vote-counting, with a completely unconvincing chart posted as the second comment (while he's right that "it does not support the idea that Kerry should have won Ohio", it doesn't not support that, and if I'm reading it right the two Bush won had results well at the extreme pro-Bush side of the poll distribution), and a rather condescending reference to his neuroscience article used to dismiss another comment. This isn't convincing stuff. Surely better exists.
What do they do about all the horses of the police and the carriage rides and stuff? I hope they are all on the Upper West Side or something.
Oh no - reading on Twitter that NYU Tisch Hospital lost its backup power and ventilated PICU and NICO patients are being evacuated.
The Guardian is getting depressing. They're passing on emergency SOS shouthouts, e.g. 'My friend has only a few hours of generator power left for his ventilator Broadway/Duane. Can anyone help'.
Wrong site, that was on the Atlantic live blog.
A Philly friend on FB says the eye is there.
Nuke station in NJ badly flooded - six feet of water inside. One foot higher and all normal cooling systems top and they need use jury rigged rube goldberg sounding ones involving hoses and special pumps. /Bob
498: here. Not actually that catastrophic.
Links for all of this crap? About NICUs and Nukes and whatnot? Or are these just the sort of rumors that float around the dead of night?
NYT live blog for the storm that performed to expectation
If you scroll down you'll get the stuff on the emergency evac of NYU hospital as well.
Aesop Rock had to cancel the final six shows of the tour due to hurricane issues, so tonight's show at the Cradle closed down the tour. He brought down the fucking house. If I'd seen a show like that at 15, I'd be a different person today. Jesus.
I guess I'll turn on the news now.
MSNBC is telling much the same stories as the NYTimes. Truth or conspiracy? You decide.
Truth or conspiracy?
If MSNBC and the Times are telling the same stories, I think that question answers itself.
I mentioned this upthread, but this is a good Twitter feed to follow for official info from FDNY, Con Ed, mayor's office, etc., to filter out the rumors.
More than a million without power in Jersey.
I just checked, Fred Phelps hasn't isolated the cause of this storm system yet.
There are going to be some beach towns in Jersey that are just totally gone, I think.
The subway in Bay Ridge looks like it's kayak use only
Check out the trash compactor from Star Wars.
Good luck, all of you in NYC and NJ. (What did you do to make Sandy so mad?)
650K Con Ed customers without power. Note that this is in addition to the million in NJ.
The sharks have taken over in Atlantic City.
Wind seems to have died down considerably. There was a long period as my antediluvian windows were shaking and the tree was banging on them that I was more than a little worried. The skylight getting dribbled by the wind wasn't too reassuring as well. Now I'm hoping that all that's over and I'll make it through this just fine, no major structural damage and intact ConEd service.
Also, an Ativan and an Armagnac really keeps the worries away.
Glad to hear you're okay, tkm. The news reports have been pretty scary.
This one has been making the rounds on FB, but it's probably worth posting here too.
More details on the status of the nuclear power plants.
Now more than 2 million without power in New Jersey.
Wow indeed. Where is the storm at this point?
Every time I try to look anything up, it crashes my iPad browser. That Sandy is far reaching.
The eye is a little to the west of Philadelphia at this point.
Insomnia. It seems whether I stare at the ceiling or pull out my iPad, it's going to last about 2 hours.
Well, I'm going to bed now, so maybe you can take over the "link to random hurricane-related stuff" shift for the next two hours or until the Europeans show up.
Hey, me too! I've mostly been on Twitter, going to try to go back to go back to sleep now.
So is the storm far enough inland that its probably no longer picking up vast amounts of ocean water?
Insomnia patrol, special hurricane watch edition reporting for duty.
Next official NWS update will apparently from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center here in a minute or two. From radar, the center looks to be near PA/MD border southwest of Harrisburg (about where I-81 crosses the border). NE quadrant still has some bands coming in off the water over NYC area and NEw England.
Apparently 60 homes involved in the Rockaways fire. Breezy Point.
Advisory out, 65 mph, 960 mb heading WNW@15 mph. But Meteorological Prediction dudes are not giving me a lot of confidence in their precision. The coordinates they give 40.5N 77.0W are about 30 miles north of Harrisburg, their description says 15 miles east of York which is about that far south of Harrisburg, and neither correspond to the radar center of circulation. (But not really an eye now, and they are probably doing circulation aloft as the tracking even during landfall was always east of where I eyeballed the radar circulation center.)
Anyways, South-central PA.
Hope all our East Coasters are alive and well.
Having nothing but hope and prayers to offer on the serious front, I opt for the trivial: ASL experts, was Bloomberg's interpreter as comically over-expressive as she appeared to uneducated eyes? Or was she being restrained under the circumstances?
(Just heard the dreaded words "a levee has broken" on CBC. Yikes.)
Battery Park water level looks to be decent news. Turning up from low tide, bottomed out at 3.68 ft. about .5 ft. higher than yesterday AM low tide and 1.5 ft. lower than yesterday afternoon. A little over 5 ft now, and from poor man's extrapolation, I'd guess it gets a little above yesterday morning unless some unpredictability in remaining surge.
New York MTA statement:
The New York City subway system is 108 years old, but it has never faced a disaster as devastating as what we experienced last night. Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on our entire transportation system, in every borough and county of the region. It has brought down trees, ripped out power and inundated tunnels, rail yards and bus depots. As of last night, seven subway tunnels under the East River flooded. Metro-North Railroad lost power from 59th Street to Croton-Harmon on the Hudson Line and to New Haven on the New Haven Line. The Long Island Rail Road evacuated its West Side Yards and suffered flooding in one East River tunnel. The Hugh L. Carey Tunnel is flooded from end to end and the Queens Midtown Tunnel also took on water and was closed. Six bus garages were disabled by high water. We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery. Our employees have shown remarkable dedication over the past few days, and I thank them on behalf of every New Yorker. In 108 years, our employees have never faced a challenge like the one that confronts us now. All of us at the MTA are committed to restoring the system as quickly as we can to help bring New York back to normal.So looks like it is going to be a slog getting it all back on track.
It appears that gawker, HuffPo and Dailykos are currently collateral damage.
outages-l knows: https://puck.nether.net/pipermail/outages/2012-October/004674.html
(Shorter: 111 8th haz generators! an diesel! an internetz! but the internal wiring between two floors failed! hilarity ensues!)
Battery Park water level graph. "Excess" holding about where it was yesterday AM. But shows how the peak surge was nearly simultaneous with high tide last night. Turns out the secret of comedy and tragedy are one and the same.
Kos seems to be up in stripped down version at DR site. Tide at Battery looks like might not quite reach yesterday AM level.
NYScanner update: "U/D Queens: The 6 alarm fire continues to burn out of control, at least 100 homes have been burnt down to the ground."
....aaaand work's DNS is up and down like a whore's drawers. as the DNS hoster is British, this is either synchronicity or else an example of the attraction of really cheap hosting.
||
Can anyone recommend a good biography of the Gracchi brothers?
|>
Hmm, this guy is an arsehole of the first water: http://buzzfeedpolitics.tumblr.com/post/34623254677/how-one-well-connected-pseudonymous-twitter-spread
Hope all of you Northeasterners are ok. In Richmond, Va, trouble mostly missed us.
Power came back on at 6:15 this morning. I think they had just shut it down for our building when the lobby flooded. I still need to go downstairs to check on damage.
Battery Park tide level topping out a good bit lower than yesterday AM. The "surge" part is down to where it was about 2 days ago.
like Richmond, the worst passed us in Alexandria VA well tO the north. Windy, rainy, probably lost of trees down in our metro are, but no problems for the Jacobians
The main reception number at my office (not far from Battery Park) doesn't answer, and there doesn't seem to be any bus service. I'm guessing that I'm not making it in to work today. I should probably call my boss to check and see if she knows anything.
Probably not going into the financial district would be the most helpful thing you could do for your employer.
On the other hand maybe you could go down later and volunteer to help clean up Fresh Salt.
560. Did you get hold of your mother and is she OK?
She was fine with no power last night; I've left a message this morning, but haven't spoken to her.
560: A good general rule is that no one not in a storm zone is allowed to criticize anyone in the storm zone, but I'm boggling a bit at the fact that there you would have any question on the point.
Maybe I'm mistaking your polite New York indirect way of speaking and you really mean "Are you nuts? Of course there is no work today." in Midwestern-speak
Come to think, her cell is going to be out of power at some point. Con Ed's power outage map is beyond useless -- there's clearly power back on downtown, but I can't figure out how to tell where it's still out.
566: Oh, you're right. I'm just having cognitive dissonance issues. This neighborhood is entirely fine, the sun's coming out, it's still windy but not excitingly so. It seems ridiculous that this should be a disaster that means not showing up for work without explicit confirmation.
569: if it helps, one would imagine that this storm will constitute something of an LB full-employment act when things settle down.
If the subways are messed up for an extended period of time, I can't imagine how I'm going to function. I suppose I'll be biking.
570: Not really -- my specific clients aren't responsible for much that's relevant.
I'm going to predict that you will be able to get down to, say Houston, by Thursday.
Based on advanced rectal analysis (I studied at the Politco school of pontificating on what is likely to happen next).
I wonder if Bloombergo will have the same ASL interpreter this morning. I predict outrage if no.
575: AS IF YOU COULD BE TALKING ABOUT ANY OTHER PLACE?
Big boats have scared me since I was a kid. So this picture completely freaks me out.
Apparently city employees are supposed to head in if the office is open.
578: As far as boats go, that's not especially big.
579: Hmm, so I take back my Midwestern-bred cynicism exhibited in 566.
579: That's the other guys -- I'm state, not city.
But close enough. Almost the same name and everything.
My efforts to complicate LB's day are not going well.
580: Tell me more, boy from the prairies.
I'm just saying, you get much bigger boats these days. Unless that was a really small guy.
Fine, you're right, there are bigger boats in the world. Good point. You're a fucking genius. Do any of them happen to be sitting on the beach in Staten Island?
Do any of them happen to be sitting on the beach in Staten Island?
Too soon to say.
This is reminding me that I should get one of those hand-cranked phone chargers for when the Big One comes. (Even considering that the cell towers may be out too.)
587: He's saying you're a pussy. Let's you and him fight.
Did the sandbags at Goldman's building hold?
Stormcrow's just mad he underplayed the surge risk.
I admit it; if he brings an ore boat or a tanker to the fight he will win. I'm just cranky because a confederacy of dunces, goobers, bigots and greedheads are making this election closer than it has any right to be.
Power outages in Pennsylvania have been way rarer than expected, with the exception of the Allentown area. I was sure our power would go out last night as the storm went just south of us, then stopped, then moved north. It still hasn't moved n orth!
592: The storm certainly was more intense than I predicted--and I am feeling properly chastened about that--but although it was a really big surge it wan't quite the "anomalous monster" storm surge that I was thinking of in that comment. About 3 more feet.
594: Yeah, it is still goobering away down along the southern border, circ center close to Bedford Pa.
Our power didn't even flicker last night. That's pretty rare for any storm.
To be depressed, if we live in a world where this sort of thing happens regularly now, I don't know what happens to NYC. This place can't function without the subways, and I don't know if there's a way to make the subways tolerant of a yearly immersion in salt water. It's probably not as bad as I'm thinking, but I'm really freaked out about making it in to work once my office is open but the subways aren't.
I'm feeling better about the election because of the Bob Kerrey surge.
Philadelphia and nearby New Jersey doing fine. One streetlight down on my block, but it missed the power lines. Leak in the roof at the office not so bad.
Floodgate on the Delaware River closest to my home, built around 1700 and finaly upgraded in APRIL 2012, held. Probably wouldn't have last year. Thank you, stimulus funds!
598: your bike path probably isn't still underwater, right?
Probably has trees down across it.
You mean, like, rebuild the Third Avenue El? I don't think there's enough money in the world.
if we live in a world where this sort of thing happens regularly now
Is this referring to global-warming/climate change?
Netherlands-like flood gates across NY harbor. That's the global warming message from the storm, not that the storm itself was a result but that 1-3 meter increases in sea level mean that this kind of flooding becomes a regular event.
This is the thing I saw fly off the top of a high-rise , as mentioned in 210. Turns out it was the top of a water tank, not a roof deck.
This is what happened to my kid's playground, which had been known for its fine shade trees. At least 6 trees down.
The playground photo is the first one I've seen that made me exclaim out loud. That tree in the middle looks like it was amazing.
Those trees were all amazing. Its going to be a very different park now.
607: It is a bit sobering that at the Battery this was "only" about 8 feet above HAT (Highest Astronomical Tide)--about 2.5 meters above.
If I were a god of creatures who built various important cities with key infrastructure at or below sea level, and who then chose to not address their own actions which clearly were leading to a rise in sea level, I'd fuck with them big time.
But the goobers and Romneys of the world don't give a fuck.
607 is why I say we don't have ten years, let alone twenty.
With Sandy and the agricultural drought global warming is starting to cost real fucking money, hundreds of billions, and with the deficit hawks and the taxophobics the current political economy is not going to bear the weight.
Socialism or barbarism. Now.
AFAICT Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, and coastal Connecticut (? Maybe? Not sure about this) took the worst of it, but there don't seem to be reporters there.
620: I'm not sure anybody can really get back there yet. Atlantic City sounds like it's actually better than people feared, damage-wise.
Well, I just I should go for a walk and look at the damage. (Get the hell out of teh house.) We had lights flicker last night, but kept power.
It was odd how the rain just stopped dead after the center made landfall.
We had been planning to do a family reunion/vacation on the Jersey shore next summer. I'm guessing not so much now.
Local damage report- I mentioned earlier a neighbor's tree falling on another neighbor's garage. Biking in to work, there was a big pine down on the sidewalk near the kids bus stop that crushed two cars. On the parkway there was a tree down that had been cleared, but had clearly fallen through the roof of a house (big tarp covering the roof.) Another guy at work showed me a picture of a tree that fell and crushed his neighbor's car.
I'm shocked we didn't lose power, we've lost it in storms a lot lighter than this, but maybe the falls from those outages mean all the weak branches were already cleared.
There's* got to be a morning after.
*Could be fake (or from some other time).
AFAICT Atlantic City, the Jersey Shore, and coastal Connecticut (? Maybe? Not sure about this) took the worst of it, but there don't seem to be reporters there.
CNN seemed to spend 25% of its time last night in Atlantic City.
Atlantic City sounds like it's actually better than people feared, damage-wise.
Not just Atlantic City--it sounds like the damage generally is much less than had been feared.
I am definitely not willing to go that far just yet.
In my neighborhood, I can say the damage is no more or no less than what I had been lead to expect.
Although the people who parked in the underground parking garage next door must be pretty pissed off at the flooding right now. Not a good time to buy used cars, folks.
627: damage (measured in terms of insurance losses) looks likely to be at least an order of magnitude lower than Katrina. Basically comparable to Irene.
was Bloomberg's interpreter as comically over-expressive as she appeared to uneducated eyes? Or was she being restrained under the circumstances?
She was awesome! (I subscribe to the 'interpretive dance' theory of ASL).
There are parallels (at a reduced intensity) with Katrina where the landfall and "standard" hurricane damage was on a barrier island coast some distance from the flooding impacted metropolitan area. A different kind of aftermath in each case. Roberto reveals himself as a half-assed contrarian with his inclusion of the Connecticut coast and his gratuitous mention of reporters. Aligns him with Haley Barbour's political posturing after Katrina.
629: And urple tries to out-asshole Roberto.
633 to 632, but also 631. I can't follow 631 at all.
I'm perfectly open to the possibility that damage might be worse than intial estimates. All I was saying is that based on initial estimates it sounds like the damage generally is much less than had been feared. Which is good! Not sure how that warrants an "asshole". (Is the problem measuring "damage" in terms of insurance loss? Problematic, for sure, but it seems to be the most widely used proxy.)
I'll allow LB one week of bemoaning the fate of her city, and then I'll start spamming pictures of Haiti, or maybe India in monsoon season.
Is the problem measuring "damage" in terms of insurance loss?
How much is the MTA insured for?
Some other loon beat Fred to the Sandy + gay link:
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/29/pastor_blame_gays_for_hurricane_sandy/
Sure, my "asshole" threshold is a bit low today but directionally correct. Think about it.
Off to do some work.
I haven't checked yet this morning, but as of 3:30 AM local time that Rockaway fire wasn't described as contained, and it had destroyed something like sixty houses. Any news?
I don't know if there's a way to make the subways tolerant of a yearly immersion in salt water.
Gondolas. Or little electric boats like in Disneyland's "It's A Small World After All".
Are you just pouting because your weather nerd-dom proved spectacular bad at predictions? Anything else you'd like to pretend to know about, old man?
I think Stormcrow is calling it an asshole move to minimize the damage to an audience of people whose cities have just been devastated by that damage.
Or perhaps he's calling you pussies. Let's you and him fight.
... make the subways tolerant of a yearly immersion in salt water.
Replace all of it with stuff made from titanium alloys. Some of Mitt's buddies can do that for the right price, can't they?
645: A three-way fight. Where's that guy with the limp? Chicken.
Where and how did I minimize the damage? I think Stormcrow is just being a pouty ass because he wants us all to respect his weather neredery. OK, assmunch, you know something about weather. Enjoy your basement in Pittsburgh.
Ooh, the age plus "your location sucks" gambits; the Tigre's on his game today.
647: I'm here for you! For my part, I think it's time to have serious discussions about depopulating New York City and relocating its residents to, I don't know, maybe Albany. No, I'm not being punitive at all. I'm only concerned about their safety in the future. Or maybe, if we want to be really generous, we should just remove everyone from the low-lying areas of the city. Wait, what's that you say? That would mean gutting Manhattan'ss economic center. Oh well. That's the only just and reasonable course. Right, Beefo Meaty?
I'm not even supposed to be posting here today. Is there a debate tonight?
Also, I'm not calling the people who thought that New Orleans should be returned to marshland after Katrina racists. Because that would be rude. And I wouldn't want to be rude.
Justin Wolfers:"Asking what a hurricane does to GDP is about as pointless as asking what a war does. Tells you more about problems with GDP than anything".
Whoa, like the uneven distribution or unquantifiable aspects of "damage" is the fault or problem of economists. They do aggregates.
All kidding aside, the storm surge did exactly what I hoped it wouldn't do, and this is a massive calamity. Seeing the pictures from the Jersey shore, from lower Manhattan, and from Red Hook actually makes me feel physically sick. So to ameliorate my suffering -- and let's be clear that I'm suffering -- I screamed at a reporter from the Times for about fifteen minutes this morning and then told an editor at another place that wanted me to write something to go fuck himself.
Oh my God, this is better than I imagined. This could be like the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
Everyone's a bit pissy this afternoon? I suppose it's because we were all waiting for Bob to propose some sort of radical nuclear-bomb based solution to the hurricane.
Alex just called everyone a pussy! Get him!
I'm be in the back, sipping this piña colada.
Battery-cranked cell phones: once you start thinking about this seriously, you will find yourself looking into the equivalent ham radios (which are not made for customer convenience, but do exist). And then you need a ham license; I've let mine expire, but Tech No-Code was an easy morning's cram. And *then* there's the practical thing that the Aged Rabbits Relay League are some of the people who have something helpful to do in disasters, though that's because they plan ahead.
If there's any interest in an Unfogged Bay Area ham-license-getting practice team, I'll try to organize it.
tl:dr; hlepy planning.
was Bloomberg's interpreter as comically over-expressive as she appeared to uneducated eyes? Or was she being restrained under the circumstances?
Is there video anywhere, or was it all just live press conferences?
(so far, I can tell that the internet's response to her is really irritating. but not whether or not she was doing a good job)
656: I'm not pissy. I'm facing up to environmental realities, social consequences be damned. Someone has to tell the hard truths to the people of New York: it's time to move on. Leave Manolo Blahnik middens so archeologists will know you were once there.
For reals, how long before someone starts saying what I'm saying here? Hours? Days? Or has it already happened?
Walt sure seems to like using sexist language.
Important news! Levi Johnston, ex-boyfriend of one of the Palins, has named his most recent daughter Breeze Beretta. I am impressed.
Also, minimal damage to report from Crown Heights. Some trees down in the little park above the Botanical Gardens. A couple of shoddy construction fences down in spectacular fashion. A cop broadcasting tetchily from his car that all the joggers should get out of Prospect Park. Lots of people out taking pictures of damage. Almost ALL of my local cafes, stores, and restaurants are open for business. (Really, 99-cent store guy?)
662:When the bills come due for the harbor floodgates and the Wall Streeters start moving to Dallas rather than pay more taxes.
depopulating New York City and relocating its residents to, I don't know
If you moved a few hundred thousand or so to North Carolina, you'd turn the state permanently Democratic.
664: neighborhoods that have "Heights" in them might be allowed to stand. We'll leave the details to the death panels. Remember, we're doing this for your safety.
Also, minimal damage to report from Crown Heights.
You asshole!
That your comment was number 666, apo, shouldn't be misread by any onlookers. Your ideas are fresh and reasonable. You're the voice of second wave environmentalism.
I'm feeling pretty good this morning, though a little worried about a friend's house in coastal CT. I'm sure they're fine though, so let's start this. Walt, you think you can sit on the sidelines like a smug little bitch? Nice sensitivity to people living in evacuation centers, dickface.
Just saw a picture on the Daily News: Fresh Salt has about a foot of water in front it. The entrance is sandbagged, though.
One calamity and you all turn on each other. You'd think this was a libertarian blog.
587: He's saying you're a pussy. Let's you and him fight.
Clearly he's saying you're going to need a bigger boat.
I bet if the storm had happened in, say, 1975 (or any time when lower Manhattan and Red Hook were very poor, as they were for most of the 20th century) you'd have more talk of relocating people.
If you moved a few hundred thousand or so to North Carolina
That only works in the short term. In the long term, its going to be too fucking hot.
There are a number of depopulated industrial cities in the interior of New England that I think will be seeing a population boom in 20-30 years.
676 gets its 100% right. Though even then: Wall Street.
671: That's life as a Romney voter, my friend. I'm just sitting here in my private helicopter, surveying the damage.
If you have to make explicit that your helicopter is private, you're not really a Romney voter.
My online fantasy life destroyed by a single slip-up. I'm actually posting from JP Stormcrow's basement.
672 is the best news I've heard in a couple of days.
Toronto would be a great place to put all that master of the universe financial stuff (which no longer has to be convenient to Atlantic shipping).
676
I bet if the storm had happened in, say, 1975 (or any time when lower Manhattan and Red Hook were very poor, as they were for most of the 20th century) you'd have more talk of relocating people.
Not much more. The comparison to Katrina is silly. From the wikipedia article:
Levee breaches in New Orleans also caused a significant amount of deaths, with over 700 bodies recovered in New Orleans by October 23, 2005.[56] Some survivors and evacuees reported seeing dead bodies lying in city streets and floating in still-flooded sections, especially in the east of the city. The advanced state of decomposition of many corpses, some of which were left in the water or sun for days before being collected, hindered efforts by coroners to identify many of the dead
There are lots of inhabited areas in the US at greater risk from storms than NYC.
The real fat cats have corporate helicopters. Always make someone else pay even if you can afford it yourself.
And they could send all the fashion stuff (which doesn't have to be in the same place as the master of the universe financial stuff or readily available Atlantic shipping) to Montreal.
Toronto would be a great place to put all that master of the universe financial stuff
Alternately, we could just get rid of that shit.
all the fashion stuff (which doesn't have to be in the same place as the master of the universe financial stuff
The fashion stuff needs to be in the same place as the financial stuff in order to dress the trophy wives. Sheesh, guys, it's like none of you have even read Krugman.
I'll just be sniffling quietly in a corner over here.
(Silly yes. But sillier than folks suggesting realigning states that other people live in the other day? I don't think so.)
689: No, the plutocrats I know fly their trophy wives to wherever the fashion stuff is.
Are these relocations after the implementation of War Plan Red ?
Guys, let's focus our anger on Carp and his bizarre Canadophilia.
I realize this is a crisis in many places, but I can't even begin to understand the thinking of whoever said the liquor stores in Pittsburgh had to close. Bastards.
New Orleans is mostly below sea level, the low lying areas of NYC are at about the same height as the safest parts of New Orleans. If we were to build the same kind of protection that NOLA has, we'd be in pretty good shape for the next half century or so.
KATHARINE
Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?
KING HENRY V
No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of
France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love
the friend of France; for I love France so well that
I will not part with a village of it; I will have it
all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am
yours, then yours is France and you are mine.
Changing boundaries is very different than moving people. For example, Hudson County should be part of New York City.
I'm only interested in realigning states in which no one else but me lives. Just have to move a few people before I can get started.
Glad LB is okay. Hope your commute woes are solved soon. Not sure who else lives there. . .do we have a head count of okays?
No one is going to move NYC but I wouldn't be surprised to see places like Washington Heights and parts of Harlem get a big boost in popularity/real estate prices. (They are already in a gentrification boom but this should add to it).
Fireisland.com Facebook page has some amazing pictures. Haven't heard about the family house yet, but at this point I assume no news is good news.
Maybe the financial district will move to Queens, where the subways have the sense to be elevated.
702- A lot of flooded bikes in those pictures, someone warn Sifu to sit down before he looks.
Look on the bright side, New York City, you're like Venice now!
Battery-cranked cell phones
Also, bicycle-powered generators!
My guess about the subways is that if they're closed for a long time, they'll work out some kind of busing alternative (maybe temporarily dedicate lanes to bus traffic, if that's possible).
660: There must be video somewhere on the net, but my home computer's being a bitch right now so I can't tell you where exactly.
Baltimore, at least downtown, got off pretty light. I never even lost power although the lights flickered once or twice.
I don't know how the suburbs fared.
Has Pars commented since the storm hit?
There's a link to video of Bloomberg's post-storm press conference here but I didn't see yesterday's so I don't know if the interpreter's the same. Also, you have to download a 200 MB file to view it.
706- I'm guessing there will be a private car ban on a significant fraction of Manhattan for at least a few weeks.
@710
I don't think so. I think she said earlier that she was in the Towson-ish area. Towson is in Baltimore County and BC apparently still has a lot of folks without power.
I sent a harrassing "where are the draft documents?" email to opposing counsel this morning. He sent a professional "fuck you" in response. ("Our office has been closed yesterday and today due to the hurricane. Most of us don't have power and it may be awhile before it's restored. We'll review and respond as soon as we are able.") Hey, ever heard of a generator, asshole? (In my defense, I'd forgotten about the hurricane when I sent my harrassing email.)
I called Fresh Salt to check their status. The call did not go through. Twice!
In the oudemia family, we have one house lost, one town lost, one house as yet unknown (could go either way, fingers crossed!), and one house fine. I probably shouldn't read this thread.
Hoboken got slammed.
Broadest photo collection I've seen so far. (Scroll down toward the bottom. Seems to work only in IE.)
Horrible. I hope all the people are unhurt.
Sorry to hear that oudemia. I hope your people are at least all safe. Same to anyone else with people in the region!
All people and their fuzzy companions are fine! Everyone is dry and well and housed somewhere, so it's fine basically.
A friend from DC apropos of nothing sent me an email saying it was silly to call what had happened "devastation" (I didn't, he was talking about someone else) because *Hiroshima* is devastation, and then went on to tell me how much worse the derecho that hit DC was than Sandy. I have zero competitive investment in this, but this is weird right? Is this just some DC-related complex? Did anyone see that idiot Jack Sh/a/fer on Twitter last night?
Sympathy to 716. That's truly rotten luck.
719. The range of this storm! There was a picture of damage in Maine. Even into the midwest (as we heard here too).
716: A whole town? So sorry to all.
716 Damn. Glad everyone is ok but that's still going to be a nightmare.
725: people don't realize what happens when a LOT of water rolls through a neighborhood. Honestly, they can't conceptualize the devastation until they see it with their own eyes. But I do agree that the only sane course at this point is to nuke DC from space. That should right the hierarchy of victimization in the Beltway's favor.
Hiroshima was bad, but really nothing compared to the Toba volcano.
Anyone seen the pictures of lake Laguardia?
But I do agree that the only sane course at this point is to nuke DC from space
Why not have that rogue sub from the tv show do it? They already fired a warning shot.
I'm telling you, it's all the fault of the trees. Sure, sounds nice to have shade and conversion of CO2 to O2, but they plan for years, building up potential energy branch by branch, then at the worst possible time they snap and drop all that built up energy on you at once.
I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of people kayaking down 14th street. Those photos were crazy.
Could we please not? We're buying a house in the region and everything.
731: But none of that can really compare to the time I stubbed my toe.
Ah, Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown has weighed in with a very appropriate point ...
"One thing he's gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in...Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?" Brown says. "Why was this so quick?... At some point, somebody's going to ask that question.... This is like the inverse of Benghazi."
Are there going to be rats everywhere in NYC?
I was sure that was an onion headline.
"This is like the inverse of Benghazi."
What does that even mean? People stood around singing kumbaya and resurrected four diplomats? (N.b.: autocorrect for kumbaya is Limbaugh.)
Obama totally should have parachuted into Benghazi during the middle of the firefight.
Oh, oudemia. So many associations. (Also money.)
Your DC friend loses all benefit of my doubt for sending that unprompted. I try to triage triage anyway, but jeez.
Gondolas. Or little electric boats like in Disneyland's "It's A Small World After All".
Jetpacks. Where are all the goddamn jetpacks we were promised?
If there's any interest in an Unfogged Bay Area ham-license-getting practice team, I'll try to organize it.
Can PNW commenters join? Hammers can communicate via satellite, right? When the Cascadia subduction quake happens, we'll have common cause.
On preview, sympathies to oudemia.
739: Wikipedia says they prefer to be called "New Jerseyans" or "New Jerseyites."
716: Holy shit. That's a lot gone missing. I'm sorry.
744: Ha ha. So funny I forgot to laugh.
744: Ha ha. Some of them are probably dead and floating around too!
716 is really terrible, I'm sorry.
714 -- I was in the midst of a discovery harassment call when they ordered the evacuation of my building on 9/11. My 'fuck you' may not have been as professional as the one you got.
That's the only just and reasonable course. Right, Beefo Meaty?
I could be talked into it. Seems like it'd be tricky politically.
743: You bet. The Dwarf Lord keeps his Extra license current, likes risk planning, and will probably be living in Seattle from January on. (sigh)
I thought rats typically abandon a sinking ship.
744: As a New Jerseyan, I thought (mistakenly) that I was permitted that joke. Sorry about that.
753: See Christie, Chris. But of course he is actually doing what he needs to do for actual disaster recovery.
Also 2016, of course. Especially with this just now President Obama will travel to New Jersey tomorrow to view storm damage with Gov. Chris Christie, the White House announced. after rebuffing Romney photo ops.
751: but I have realized that my personal theories of where it isn't a good idea to have large concentrations of people living, no matter how well-considered, are neither consonant with political and historical reality nor generally welcomed as helpful advice.
I am a bad person- I just realized that my parents are not traveling as I thought but were out of town until the 27th then again after the 1st, which means they were home in the northern NY suburbs and I haven't heard from them. Should probably call tonight. My brother is in the FD and lives a couple miles away so I'm sure he'd let me know if any of the numerous trees around their house came down on it.
759: Sifu would have the triathletes get Madagascar.
759: he realized that? Wouldn't have figured.
I like to think at the end he had some regrets.
Hmm, Will Saletan with an interesting point? Could be.
Republican governors order hurricane evacuations so we won't have to bail you out. Then why do they defend your right to skip health insurance?
Republican governors do whatever is most expedient and cheap.
716: Ouch. Sympathies.
725: Living in DC for an extended time does drive some people nuts.
739: Why should today be any different?
Sorry, oudemia.
We are fine on the UWS. The boy and I took a neighborhood tour a bit ago that was reasonably heavy with downed trees and featured a handful of crushed cars, but that's it. Power on, streets unflooded, wine shop open.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20HjI9UNPKA&feature=player_embedded
Lydia Callis, Bloomberg's ASL interpreter. I thought the Internet comments about her were pretty insensitive myself, but I admit that I wouldn't have thought so had e. messily's earlier blog comments not sensitized me to the issue.
Were there internet comments other than to the effect that she's awesome?
And, if not, is that insensitive? How come?
Remnants finally have turned north, heading up towards Dubois.
The comments that I saw seemed to treat Callis like a curiosity, I thought. Maybe "clueless" would have been better than "insensitive."
738: That slimy little fuck still can't conceive of why someone might treat a natural disaster as urgent? Wow, he sure needs to immediately kill himself.
She did seem to me to be unusually expressive. Normally, when there's an ASL interpreter for a speech, I notice they're there, and then end up tuning them out as I would subtitles in a language I don't speak. She, on the other hand, was actively interesting to watch -- I was listening to the speech, but watching her sign.
Now, she was standing next to Mike Bloomberg, who's an easy man to upstage, but I think she's still unusually telegenic.
I took a two hour walk around my area (Clinton Hill, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights) and things seemed remarkably fine. Tons of branches, most already in neat piles on the curb, some downed trees, including one huge one that scored a direct hit on a house, and lots of torn up wooden fencing. But that's about it. No significant damage to cars, a couple broken windows; even the house with the humongous tree lying on top of it seemed ok. Go nineteenth century construction.
773: like, it was curious that she was there, you mean?
775: right. Like I was watching, and I thought "I wouldn't have any way to know this, but I feel like she has the equivalent of a really awesome accent or diction."
777: No, it was turning her into a meme a la NASA's "mohawk guy," when she wasn't doing anything more notable than doing her job and being telegenic (and wearing a very pretty suit). In other words, if I put myself in her shoes, I think I might be more annoyed that flattered by the attention.
As for Lydia Callis, I guessed that it might be offensive that some people are finding her "awesome" in a comical sense and not in a wow-she's-great-at-her-job sense. I know I kind of did, and I know it's also possible that reacting that way is maybe ignorant and dickish. OTOH I've seen ASL interpreters before and she does seem... unusual. And funnier. In a nervous-laughter incongruous kind of way.
774: You don't understand. Obama is deliberately trying to make me look bad.
I just somehow doubt that Deaf people were the ones creating .gifs and tumblrs and so forth dedicated to Ms. Callis, ya know?
Am I the only one who thinks the response was kinda squicky?
779: and so clean!
780: what was mohawk guy doing besides doing his job?
What I think people noticed it that she was doing her job with what seemed -- to non-signers, anyhow -- with an impressive level of dynamism. I'm not sure why that's condescending.
I haven't seen the reaction to her to comment on it (that is, I noticed her, but I hadn't noticed anyone else commenting on her), but I can see that it might be annoying or insensitive, depending on the details.
Okay, if people were reading her as comical and laughing at her that's one thing. I thought she seemed unironically awesome, like if somebody with a really excellent, stentorian radio voice had done the spanish translation instead of El Bloombergo massacring it himself.
All though in the event I called her a "dynamic-ass signer" which, again without knowing really anything about ASL, I stand behind.
From the video in 769, she looks like she's doing a good (but not unusual) job.
The comments that have irritated me have been (a) comments referring to her as "the mayor's signing girl" and (b) comments that appear to be motivated by the general attitude of "OMG Sign Language is so amazing and expressive and this lady is doing such an amazing job". How would you know? It similarly irritates me when people come up to me after a conference presentation to tell the interpreter what a great job she did. You don't know! You don't know if she did a good job or not.
I get that it's fun to listen to new languages and that people say similar stuff about how beautiful French is or whatever. But there's definitely an element of exoticization (and often some underlying mockery at all the "amazingly expressive" faces) that rubs me the wrong way.
What's wrong with having a dynamic ass? that's what crossfit is all about.
Oh, yeah. I have no idea if she was doing a good job, just that she was compelling to watch.
Granted, it's way MORE irritating when people say this kind of thing about interpreters who are not doing an amazing, or even an adequate, job.
Revealed* assholes from the storm, a series.
#1 Mitt Romney: "Relief" rally.
"I have to tell you, I'm proud of you in Dayton to show up in such large numbers..." Romney said.
"It's part of the American Spirit...the American Way to give to those in need," Romney remarked. "You make the difference you can."
He told a story dating back to his high school days where he and a small group of students were told to clean up the football field after a big game. Romney told the crowd that the group formed a strategy to make the biggest impact they couldJoan Walsh got it right: "That was a comedian pretending to be Mitt Romney, right?"
*OK, they were all pre-revealed, but absent prior history their storm/post-storm actions would have sufficed.
791: (a) is crappy, yeah. (b) is crappy, yeah, okay.
But 793 is right, too.
#2 Michael Brown: (see above) Why Prez so quick to respond?
I'm with Sifu on this one. I noticed her immediately and didn't tune her out (?) the way that I would normally. Maybe it was just that the subject matter was more dramatic. It sure looked like she was signing about a huge storm.
It sure looked like she was signing about a huge storm.
Weird.
#3 ComfortablySmug false rumor twitter dude. (see Alex above).
I'm kind of taken aback by the idea that you guys have so many regular experiences where you would see somebody talking and there is an ASL interpreter right next to them, and you're so used to this that you just tune the interpreter out. I think the Bloomberg things are the only times I've ever seen that setup, outside of some events at Gallaudet.
#4 Donald Trump: ""Because of the hurricane, I am extending my $5 million offer for President Obama's favorite charity until noon on Thursday."
an ASL interpreter right next to them, and you're so used to this that you just tune the interpreter out
Ever since Garrett Morris
799: hm. Sooooo maybe our lack of experience with people conveying urgent information about natural disasters in ASL is leading us astray here?
I... could see that, yeah.
Presumably New Yorkers who only know Spanish assumed that there was no important information to be imparted, because otherwise obviously you'd want somebody actually able to produce a coherent sentence.
801: Only things on TV, really, but I see ASL interpreters reasonably often, I think -- again, I sort of tune them out as not-my-problem, so I couldn't quantify it. Reasonably often might be, every month or two, so not a large percentage of the speeches I see, but it's not surprising to see an interpreter.
801: happens at least twice a week to me, dunno about the rest of these fools.
802: I would not have figured even he would keep digging in that particular hole.
I'll second those saying that seeing ASL interpreters is not particularly uncommon. Maybe once every few weeks depending on your TV viewing habits.
More than enough to have a baseline against which this person stood out.
I don't generally watch any speeches on tv, I guess, so I don't know exactly what kind of thing you're talking about. My experience is that televised versions of things almost always use captions instead of interpreters, though, even if there is an interpreter live at the event, because then they can switch cameras, zoom in and out, etc. I don't remember the last time I saw an interpreter on a television show. (other than accidental shots every once in a while, not meant for actual access).
Regardless, the experience of watching somebody talking while there is an interpreter somewhere in the vicinity (in a corner of the screen, at the edge of the stage) is quite different than watching someone talking with an interpreter standing right next to them. I think the former makes it easy to ignore the interpreter in favor of looking at the speaker, while the later makes it difficult.
I've gone many, many years without seeing an ASL intepreter. I have no idea what people are watching on the TV that I'm not.
More than enough to have a baseline against which this person stood out.
Except you all are saying "this person stood out", and I (who actually use ASL interpreters, far more often than every few weeks) am saying that no, she didn't. That is what competent ASL interpreting looks like.
I didn't mean on TV.
I was also sort of being a smartass what with [ SOOBC ].
725: Glad for this aspect, sorry for the other.
812: As someone who understands ASL, you're in a different position with respect to looking at someone speaking ASL than people who don't understand it. I do see ASL interpreters reasonably often, as I said, and they're easy to ignore, because I don't understand what they're saying. Presumably, you don't ignore them, because you're paying attention to the content of what they're saying. Something about this woman's delivery made her interesting to watch, despite the fact that I still didn't understand her -- you might not have picked up on whatever the difference is, because you, again, had the ability to pay attention to what she was saying rather than how she was saying it.
Right. She is a super special signer and only the hearing people who don't know ASL can tell.
Or to put it another way, you can't reasonably say that she objectively didn't stand out. The internet reaction may have been irritating/tacky/exoticising, but it was a reaction, and I don't think it can be attributed to having been the first ASL interpreter the people reacting had ever seen. I had a similar reaction independently, and I've seen ASL interpreters before as well. If people noticed her, that's the definition of standing out.
"Standing out" doesn't mean that she was a better ASL interpreter than someone I would have tuned out as not my problem. All it means was that I found her interesting to watch.
816: That's right! It's sort of like how only people who knew nothing about classical music could appreciate the genius of the guy in Shine.
808: til now, it's seemed obvious that Obama should ignore him. Now, though, I wonder if he should televise a press conference, pull out the relevant documents, and then turn to the camera and call Trump a piece of human garbage and ask him to give his $5 million to the Red Cross by the end of business that day. Celebrity culture really is toxic. Really.
(File this as #4726 in the comment series, "Why Von Wafer sheds a tear, Iron Eyes Cody style, for America.")
I went with til rather than till there, and it felt good. So thanks for all the input earlier, everyone.
You all noticed that signer because she's cute. It's OK, we can admit it, we're adults here. There's nothing wrong with having a dynamic ass.
820 sounds like a good plan.
Also, I am loving the Romney canned goods drive when the Red Cross didn't want canned goods. It's kind of a neat summary of the manifold failings of the conservative response to disaster relief.
820: And let the world see that he got As in Islamic Studies and Marxism? I don't think so.
(b) comments that appear to be motivated by the general attitude of "OMG Sign Language is so amazing and expressive and this lady is doing such an amazing job". How would you know?
This may depress you, but I've been mostly seeing comments to the effect of "Wow what a drama queen! Lady, we just need the gestures, not your crazy embellished facial expressions."
Then someone from the 5-10% of people who have ever seen an ASL interpreter before (not me, I admit; or at least not on TV) try to interject something to the effect that facial expressions are actually part of ASL, not just hands.
Well, I'm guessing the reason you paid attention to her (and not to the other interpreters you've seen) is that she was standing right next to the person talking, and the content of what was being said was a little more compelling to you than most speeches are.
Regardless of why you and everybody else paid attention, the things that are being said about why she "stands out" are all things that get said to me, all of my deaf friends, and every interpreter I know, every random time some new hearing person randomly pays attention to somebody signing for the first time. "It's so expressive!" "It seems a little over the top!" "the facial expressions are a little much" "I could totally tell what you were talking about!" "I couldn't stop watching even though I couldn't tell what you were saying!" The fact that a bunch of hearing people are now saying them about an interpreter who was recently in an unusually high-profile position doesn't convince me that there is anything at all unusual about the way she was signing.
822: it is a well-known fact that I am history's greatest monster. And I don't even have a thing to say about the ASL interpreter. But I feel certain that if I did have something to say about her, it would be monstrous.
So what I noticed is that the signs seemed unusually big but also very crisp. Maybe that's a product of the subject matter.
And the setting, I bet- you're on stage, you want things to be easy to see from a distance and show up okay on camera too.
To defuse this argument, I didn't notice the ASL translator until the Internet did because I don't even have a tv.
I've certainly attended speeches where there was an ASL interpreter, but they were off to the side of the stage and I didn't notice what they were doing because I was looking at the speaker. Never seen a situation before where they have to be in the same camera shot. There was definitely a somewhat comic effect.
Cute, high-profile situation, camera angle, and standing next to Bloomberg get you all the way to highly noticeable. Mode of signing doesn't have to enter into it at all.
(I've only watched the video since after you guys started talking about it).
829: I could imagine that. I've seen people signing in a lecture hall and (on video) doing chants at a march, and it didn't seem quite like either of those; more insistent (or something) than the former and more deliberate than the latter. Which, sure, makes a ton of sense. But adjusting to the situation in such a way as to maximize her ability to communicate urgent information makes her better at (that part of) her job than, for instance, Bloomberg.
832.1.last: it did, though, although your framing is going to make me come off all "I read it for the articles", sexisto.
Or not very good! She's technically supposed to be matching the prosody of the speaker so if he was being all monotone-y and she wasn't, that's kind of going outside the interpreter role and into content creation.
(I have no idea if Bloomberg was or was not speaking in a monotone.)
835.1: could be that's why people noticed. She's totally running for mayor.
(I don't remember him speaking in a monotone. He's just an extremely boring human.)
I also kind of suspect that a lot of the interpreters people see are just not very good. Good interpreters are absolutely more fun to watch than mediocre ones, and there are* a disappointingly large number of mediocre interpreters out there getting hired for stuff.
*is? how does English work?
I have no idea if Bloomberg was or was not speaking in a monotone
Please. He makes my speaking style sound like MLK in comparison.
He's always speaking in an irritatingly nasal monotone -- Bloomberg has the flattest affect I've ever seen on an elected official. Possibly she was, understandably, emotionally revved up because of the storm, and that's what was coming across? Because come to think, from the way she's being described as his regular interpreter, I've probably seen her interpret for him before and never noticed her.
That is, if she usually matches his horrible nasal drone with the ASL equivalent, and last night she was emoting, that would explain why she popped off the screen last night.
837.1: I completely buy that. For one thing, a lot of the people doing the hiring might not be good judges of what they're hiring for.
Or just the contrast, if he sounded blah and she looked emotionally engaged, people would I think automatically pay more attention to her than him.
I still don't think she was being overtly over the top though (other than that she apparently wasn't being accurate about the spoken prosody). And I have definitely complained about interpreters being overemotive- it's a very common failing especially in newer interpreters.
(other than that she apparently wasn't being accurate about the spoken prosody)
Maybe she just has such a finely honed (in) sense of the tiny variations in his prosody that she was matching how he would have been speaking if he had a normal human's expressive range.
This interpreter is not nearly as good.
Sort of like Obama's anger interpreter?
Also her fingernails are too long.
Obama's anger interpreter is sleeping with Michael Bloomberg?
844: that would totally have been my guess!
846 to 843.
844: If she's conveying an irritating-to-listen-to drone that makes you want to kick her in the shins, then she's excellent.
No, you are French with Latin. That's a dead exotic language.
She's just not as fluent. Some vocabulary errors, a lot of weird transitions and minor pronunciation errors. You can understand her but it takes more work and she's clearly less comfortable with the language.
I was thinking, vaguely, that it must be hard to find interpreters -- the population of hearing ASL speakers who are really, solidly, native-speaker-fluent can't be that big.
I think part of the "amusement factor" here is coming from the material. Signs for things like trees falling over and winds blowing are probably more "entertaining" than a randomly chosen sentence, and when you've got lots of instensifiers (e.g. "heavy winds") you end up with more grammatical facial expressions that people may find funny. On the latter point, people might not be used to seeing grammatical ASL facial grammar.
It varies a lot by geographical location. There are tons of really good interpreters in DC. (Although also tons of terrible ones who should be kneecapped for showing up at my doctor's appointments and pretending they know ASL). The town where I am now now has a lot because the state school for the deaf is here, and a correspondingly big adult deaf population. Missoula (MT) is a similar sized town but has just a handful of interpreters because there are barely any deaf people there.
Overall though I think the issues are from hearing people who are willing to hire shitty, uncertified interpreters more than that there aren't enough good ones. There are always plenty of people who don't actually know the language but who will say they do if it gets them a job.
French sounded much better to me when I understood less of it and then sounded better again as I forgot lots of it.
He's always speaking in an irritatingly nasal monotone -- Bloomberg has the flattest affect I've ever seen on an elected official.
Actually, that's my favorite thing about Bloomberg.
I suspected that something like "shitty, non-fluent interpreters are the baseline most people see" would be the explanation. I've seen ASL interpreters before but I have no real idea whether they were properly emotive or not. If in Callis' case I was seeing someone doing it uncommonly right, that explains why it comes off to uneducated eyes like this only with actual signing.
(Of course, if the publicly-known baseline for ASL interpretation is really that rubbish, then the "Callis is awesome" camp is more forgivable. Not that she's awesome awesome or anything, she would just be awesome compared to the shitty standard they're accustomed to and competent in the eyes of someone who actually knows something.)
God, oudemia. That's awful. I don't know whether what I'm about to say qualifies as a comment along the lines of your DC friend's e-mail, but here goes. A family friend had relatives whose house burnt down which is not quite as bad as losing more than one house and having your whole region flooded. They were rich and had a ski cabin to decamp to, but they lost pretty much everything in the house including all of their old photos. What she did was to gather up a bunch of family photos so that they'd have something. That might just get in the way during a large-scale disaster, but I think they appreciated it a lot during a difficult time.
I like to watch ASL interpreters to see how much I can pick up with my tiny ASL vocabulary, sort of like reading the English subtitles when I'm watching a movie in French.
Messily, is the interpreter in 844 using a name sign for Obama around 1:35?
The obvious thing to do is to find someone else signing on a different topic who is comparably fluent and see whether people who don't know any sign find the same sort of entertainment value. There must be plenty of other examples on youtube.
it looks like a variant of 'president' but made with O hands. That's not a sign I've seen anyone else use but maybe it's a New York thing.
Agree with the comments above that the contrast between her and Bloomberg was a big contributing factor.
With the two of them standing right next to each other and Bloomberg being such a drone, the impression was that he couldn't manage any sort of emotional response to the threat of the city being deluged and so hired her to do it instead.
It would be ironic after all the blather about George W Bush cancelling the election of 2008 if the decision were made to postpone this year's due to the storm. Tin foil hats for everyone!
Hm. 870 is much awesomer than 844 but maybe less awesome than the original signer. 870 is similarly good about using a nice generous signing space (right? is that what you call it?) and is nicely fluent but maybe the signing space is not quite as big or well defined as the signer in 844 and the actual content maybe is more repetitive?
I don't fucking know. Anyhow I would rank them in order of fun-ness to an alingual dumbass as: 1. original, 2. 870, 3. 844.
The actual content in 870 is not that interesting (she's talking about the administrative fallout from a situation involving embezzlement and falsified exam scores). So there's no falling trees or flooding to be described.
I think it's funny that you list "bigger signing space" as a positive attribute. It's one of my pet peeves. Keep your elbows in! You're wasting time, making all those signs so big! (this has very little to do with anything, I just think it's funny.)
I don't really know what "well defined" means in this context though.
I don't really know what "well defined" means in this context though.
So like, in the original Bloomberg press conference there was some sign that involved putting either one or both arms with fingers down, palm perpendicular to the plane of her body. It involved this like big movement but you got the sense she ended in a very precise spot. It felt a little like a pitcher hitting the corner of the strike zone, or something.
875: that... is kind of great. Do caps get busted at some point in that story?
No. There's a monster and a chase scene though.
875.--Total hottie. The sign language seems awesome too, but I have no idea.
Not reading the thread before I comment, sorry, and at this point I'm sure it's looong since off topic, but we got through Sandy with no problems but a slightly leaky roof. My fiance got a scrape on her hand because she fell down on wet concrete, but that's more my fault than anything else.
You shouldn't pee on the concrete, even in a hurricane. Now you know.
You can get concrete sinks if you must pee on concrete.
You shouldn't pee on the concrete
You're not the new boss of me.
I don't know what 875 is about, but it looks like great storytelling.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/big-sky-big-money/
So after two days stuck in New York (it was actually delightful, but I had to get home and do work eventually), I got a great deal on a one-way rental and drove back up to Boston. It was too easy -- almost no traffic, the fancy parkways north of NYC all cleared of debris. I have a bit of survivor's guilt now, like I should be driving back and forth to NYC and bringing people out.
Yes! Bring the NYC commenters up here, so they can huddle in a bar in a pathetic imitation of the meetup they could have had at Fresh Salt!
Smearcase declined my invitation; they might want him to go to work one of these days.
Way late to the last few hundred comments, but: sorry about your bad news, oudemia. That really sucks.
Way off-topic: which syllables are stressed when pronouncing "Calvados"? A waiter corrected me tonight and was probably right, since I've been basically pronouncing it as if it was Spanish.
I like to imagine that 891 is a direct result of the hurricane.
"No no, no trees down. No water. Our neighborhood came through pretty much okay. Except... well, I've been pronouncing Calvados wrong. Yeah, we're getting through it."
That said, I just googled and, huh, I was also pronouncing it wrong.
We are too having a meetup, even if we can't do it at Fresh Salt; we don't need your help to huddle pathetically. If absolutely necessary, I will even host, though I should caveat that invitation by noting that we finished off the Calvados last Friday.
I'd like to know the answer to 891 as well.
Apparently I was going back and forth between two more or less incorrect pronunciations.
I just saw some photos of Fresh Salt. Probably not going to be ready for a meetup this week.
It depends on whether you are speaking English or French, and how pompous of an English speaker you are. However in neither English nor French is the middle syllable stressed and it's a short a in both. Also I believe the French do pronounce the S and otherwise it's pronounced about as you'd expect for a French word, with a raised inflection (not sure if this the right term; your voice goes up) on the last syllable.
With the main difference between English and French being whether or not you say it with a comical French accent.
Well, I guess in English the first syllable is more stressed, and the last syllable less stressed.
Sorry to hear about oudemia's losses. It sounds like her part of the state was the hardest hit, maybe in the whole country.
Wikipedia suggests El Tigre is correct about the French pronunciation of "Calvados" (accent on the last syllable), although you have to click through a couple levels to the explanation of French stress to get the full story, on account of the usual Wikipedia purism about IPA transcription.
I pronounce "Tigre" like the name of that animal in the Winnie the Pooh tales.
Huh, by not drinking alcohol, I think I had the French pronunciation of Calvados correct since I only thought of it as a region. I don't think I've ever said it, but I've heard it.
In other liquor-related news, my continuing experimentation with bourbon, now informed by consulting old Unfogged threads on the topic, has led me to Evan Williams. As those threads indicated, it is both cheaper than Beam and astonishingly better, even to my highly unrefined palate.
I'm still not sure I have the temperament (or the tolerance) to be a hard liquor guy, though.
Whenever I see "Tigre" I think of discussing Ethiopian politics with taxi drivers.
Teo, have you tried Bushmills 12?
910: You can take the boy out of DC...
910 takes me back. I used to be good friends with a Tigrean. He was a hotel worker, not a taxi driver, but we did discuss Ethiopian politics, which are (or were at the time) pretty depressing.
There's probably an interesting regional (?) breakdown between those who see "Tigre" and think "Ethiopian" and those who see it and think "tiger."
The Amharic cab drivers in DC didn't have much good to say about Tigreans. But always a good laugh about Rastafarians.
Anyway, the flag of Tigray is striking: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Et_tigray.svg&page=1
The Amharic cab drivers in DC didn't have much good to say about Tigreans
Tigreans seem to be pretty much the same way. Except that they had respect for Amharic monks (my friend used to say "where you've got monks, you've got culture").
I should go to bed. I have to get up at 4:00 to fly to the Arctic. I'll leave you all with a good fuckin' comic.
I would predict that if you put the guy in 875 next to Bloomberg on TV that millions of people are watching, he'd also go viral. The woman in 870 maybe not. For example, her mouth movements are way more subdued, and her body moves less.
A really key role here is played by the fact that there's nothing else vaguely interesting happening. If Bloomberg had a powerpoint presentation or something then there'd be something else for people watching to pay attention to. Or if he weren't Bloomberg.
a good fuckin' comic.
My work here is done.
I realized that I forgot to include Fox's gravitas loss leader, the guy who inspired the "revealed assholes of Sandy" series:
#7 Brit Hume: "The big federal government some say is needed to deal with big problems like Sandy went home early in DC yesterday & is mostly closed today."
And speaking of assholes, Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) told the AP Tuesday that he wasn't speaking as a Mitt Romney surrogate when he told voters in Ohio that Roe v. Wade would be safe in a Romney administration. Thanks for the clarification that it was a completely disingenuous pander, Norm. (He had been speaking to Jewish voters in Cleveland.)
Filming of Noah halted by storm.
Where the snow fell during Sandy (still snowing in some areas). Primarily in the ruprecht ancestral homeland.
This is a completely self-centered reaction, but I do find myself personally depressed by realizing that the state budget is completely hosed for the foreseeable future. This probably means another five years with no cost of living raises, and not enough pens to go around the office.
925: It's probably for the best with the pens. They should get you guys proper desks to sit at.
We're no longer allowed to put pens around the office or to use the disposable cups. We have to bring our own mug.
we finished off the Calvados last Friday.
Spiteful!
I have to get up at 4:00 to fly to the Arctic.
Neat!
Wow, I thought 923 was a joke at first.
I do find myself personally depressed by realizing that the state budget is completely hosed for the foreseeable future.
Would this be the case even if the economy picks up again in the next few years?
889: I should have just tagged along. Work this week seems unlikely. My cow-orker had a phone conversation with my supervisor who said as much.
LB are you back at work today and if so how did you get there because the news says the subways are still flooded and not operating so did you bike or are you still at home?
Meanwhile, the asshole from 714 still has not gotten me any comments on the draft documents.
I was going to say there's no way LB is back at work but state courts in Manhattan are starting to reopen, so who knows. Boy commuting in NYC sounds horrendous today.
Still home, and for the rest of the week. We're starting to coordinate stuff by phone, but I'm not really working.
We are getting some impressively stoical emails from contacts in NY. "We are working to answer your query, but due to the recent hurricane this may prove difficult". Keep those upper lips stiff, New York!
936: I assume no school for the rest of the week, either? You guys are really going to need to come up with some awesome board games, or, again, feel free to take a road trip up here for a meetup. Bring the kids!
awesome board games
Diplomacy. Takes forever to play.
I concur. Mostly because the thought of clan Breath all sitting around playing Diplomacy is awesome.
I. Hate. My. Boss.
Alex, I'll take "Status Reports Not Suitable for Facebook" for $200.
Maybe heebie can set up a game of Unfogged Diplomacy the way she tried to do mafia that one time. Really, playing a game sounds like about all I can manage today. Woke up at an absurdly early hour, spent the morning being confused about obvious things, just tried to go to a talk and found a locked seminar room and couldn't figure out where I was actually supposed to be. It's one of those days.
Also, essear, you're not wearing any pants.
941: well with that level of anonymizing you might as well go into detail.
943 sounds plausible enough that I'm afraid to look down.
944: Today's minor provocation is her lecture about why I should stay an extra night in [other city in my state] to attend a "holiday dinner" after a two-day meeting. It will be tedious and, I'm just guessing here, have limited food options for me. I hate work socializing and I'd rather spend a day at home before I have to fly out again for another 4-day meeting. But it's important that I attend these things to "show unity among the staff." What the fuck ever.
New hurricane damage assessment: We have several long cracks in the plaster walls of my son's room. Not caused by flooding, or rain, or wind, but by the the hurricane keeping my son at home all day Monday and Tuesday. He got very bored and frustrated and decided to spend some time nailing posters to the walls, without seeking parental advice as to which walls were sheetrock and which were not.
If the wall is sheetrock, you just hand him a hammer and say, "Have Fun"?
I actually am slightly confused as to whether it's Lady C, contrasted with Lord C, or L. Crustacea, to be contrasted with Sir Crustacea. I assume the latter, but my first thought was the former.
I am at the office, after handing the boy off to my ex this morning. Pretty quiet: six of twenty people are here. The crosstown bus was super-quick, but it took nearly an hour for the next bus to get from 86th to 44th on 5th Avenue. I think I'll walk home.
949: CRUSTACEANS ÜBER ALLES.
I don't even know what a castock is.
948: We had successfully worked together a while ago on hagning something form a sheetrock wall, involving a small hammer and very small nails. So he extrapolated the results to try with a larger hammer, much larger nails, and a 100 year old plaster wall.
His next project will be learning how to caulk.
I do find myself personally depressed by realizing that the state budget is completely hosed for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, if Obama wins on Tuesday, this will present him with a ton of shovel ready opportunities for job creation. So he won't do that.
They still haven't cancelled the marathon scheduled for Sunday. They need to go ahead and do that.
An obstacle marathon would be awesome.
I've skimmed (some of) this thread very quickly -- very sorry to hear about Oudemia's people's situation. Hopefully they can get FEMA and/or the state's emergency management association (NJEMA?) help in the short and medium term.
I actually tuned in here to see if people in PA were having trouble at the moment. I gather the storm's up there now.
My impression is that effects have been pretty localized in Maryland. 25 miles northwest of here didn't lose electricity at all, shockingly. My housemate and I ventured out into civilization around 5-ish yesterday, in part for a hot meal, and yo, everything was almost entirely normal a mere 10 miles away.
Lotta trees down in this 5-mile radius. My street was blocked off until yesterday afternoon, just numerous trees down. Our basement flooded, an inch or so, which is dealable but had never happened before. A tree has fallen on the shed in the back yard. Anyway, it's been a round of hauling things from the basement to the garage, sopping up water and wringing it out, setting up hurricane lamps (I highly approve of these!), putting fridge food on ice in a cooler. Camping! I remember it!
Anyway, power came back on a couple of hours ago. Which is a huge relief, because it was getting pretty cold.
I actually am slightly confused as to whether it's Lady C, contrasted with Lord C, or L. Crustacea, to be contrasted with Sir Crustacea.
The counterpart of Lady Crustacea would not be Sir Crustacea. A knight is addressed as Sir Gengulphus, or Sir Gengulphus Crustacea; never as Sir Crustacea. His wife would be Lady Crustacea.
If Crustacea is her first name, then she would not be addressed as Lady Crustacea if she were merely the wife of a knight (vide supra). If she were the daughter of a peer, she would be Lady Crustacea Hypocaust - or just Lady Crustacea. If she were a dame in her own right, she would be Dame Crustacea. If, on the other hand, she were the spouse of Lord Crustacea, she would be correctly addressed as Lady Crustacea- unless she were a princess by birth, in which case she would remain Princess Crustacea regardless of the status of her husband.
Hope that helps.
Good to hear you're okay, Parsimon.
960. Well endorsed.
Has anybody else not reported in yet? Barry?
Glad you now have power. That's got to be a mess to deal with, but at least you can be warm and lighted when you do it.
I would play unfogged diplomacy. One move per day, new thread each move. Rules for press are: you can broadcast white press on unfogged using your pseud, broadcast gray press on unfogged by posting presidentially, and you can contact people offline but you *must* preserve the sanctity of off-blog communication.
Thanks - it's fine. I guess I didn't say that the power was out for about 36 hours, and I feel pathetic to even complain. Mostly the cold was becoming an issue; as of bedtime last night (approx. 9 p.m.) it was below 40 degrees F, holding about 50 in the house, but man.
I do have to commend our various utility crews. It was obvious on the drive back from the hot meal last night that they are heroic indeed. At least three major crews grappling with downed trees and power lines at 7 p.m. in the pitch dark.
Is Barry Freed in this area?
I haven't played Diplomacy since high school. IIRC, properly played, Turkey was unbeatable.
That doesn't reflect very well on the people who actually ran Turkey those years.
In a 7 player game no country is unbeatable, because certainly if the other 6 teams combine the 7th will lose. What is true is that the corner powers (England and Turkey) are relatively hard to eliminate though also hard to win solo victory with, while central countries (Germany and Austria-Hungary) can die quickly but also have more opportunity to grow quickly. The only clear fact is that Italy is the worst.
964. Somewhere on Long Island I think. He was muttering about flickering power yesterday and then went quiet. I'd be amazed if he was in serious trouble from what he said, but...
962: Moby or anyone else, how are people in PA doing?
One other thing I report from all this: radio news has been awful, and needs some work. This is a problem.
I had a small portable radio with batteries set up, and I was astonished that I could basically find no news as of 10 a.m. yesterday morning. What, public radio is playing a repeat of the Diane Rehm show on omega-3 fatty acids? That was a good show, true, but seriously?
One of the local television stations here has an AM station which was somewhat on-topic early morning, but switched to a call-in program in which people talked about their property insurance coverage. Seriously? I kind of wanted to know how widespread the power outage was, whether major roadways were flooded, and things like that.wants to hear emergency management information.
Maybe I was just not finding the radio station(s) that were providing this information.
968: Yes, on Long Island, I forgot.
people talked about their property insurance coverage
Extremely important, actually, because millions of people are going to find out they don't have flood insurance.
969.1: Nothing happened at this end. Bunch of people without power at the other end but nothing like New Jersey.
Very little problems here other than wet and chilly and snow in the ridges. In fact the blackout maps showed a much bigger group of blackouts up around Cleveland and the lakeshore than anything down here in Western PA. Been contacted for get-out-the-vote phone pools here for weekend, specifically mentioned they are concerned they will not be able to do anything close to what they wanted in Eastern PA due to ongoing power issues etc.
971: Yes, I'm sure. It seemed premature, that's all. This is a call for more localized radio coverage; I consider radio reporting to be an essential service. It was only via a top-of-the-hour update that I heard that I-95 had been closed.
On a lighter note, the battery-powered portable radio I use was my grandfather's: he used to take it out on his fishing boat. I had forgotten this, but my grandmother had a habit of putting, on the bottom of every new appliance-type thing she acquired, a little piece of tape with the date of acquisition. As I was cleaning the radio up, there it was, in her hand (which I still recognize): April 1974. Oh heavens! Grammy! 1974! Your radio, I think it's still going to work!
It did.
My husband works in Philly, and his office was open again today. Given that he hasn't posted any complaints on Facebook yet, I'm assuming that the commute on SEPTA went smoothly.
because millions of people are going to find out they don't have flood insurance.
I was wondering about this. Do they need flood insurance? Or hurricane insurance? Is the entire east coast going to become somewhere where you'd better have hurricane insurance? Winds weren't that bad in this storm, but Al Gore Big Oil mumble mumble etc.
I don't even know what a castock is.
A Castock is an heir to an ancient and prestigious name in aglet manufacture, dating back to the Royal aglet suppliers known as the "Queen's needlers" of Elizabethan England. As such a Castock is pride, dignity, and an impatience with leaving matters, as it were, at a frayed end.
A Castock is also a romantic, a lover, a fighter, a wise soul in a young body destined to become an obnoxious adolescent soul in a dirty old man's body, and a believer in such Old World values as noblesse oblige, do ut des and ius prima noctis.
A Castock is more than anything else a state of mind, in particular that noble and labile state of mind wherein one thinks: "I like soup. I'd better stop posting on Unfogged and get some work done. Maybe I'll have a cup of coffee. Where did I leave my keys? Oh, shit, another e-mail. Devo did a really great version of this song. Yeah, coffee with a little cream would be really good right now. I'd better stop posting on Unfogged and get some work done."
A cool languagelog post on Bloomberg's signer
It is no wonder that I love castock.
A Castock is also a romantic, a lover, a fighter
...who really loves your peaches and wants to shake your tree.
573: Ok, subways not all the way down to Houston tomorrow, but to 34th.
980: It is a felony in 17 states to try to activate that earworm.
It is a felony in 17 states to try to activate that earworm.
I know, fuck. I was hoping that something would enter my brain to drive out the thought of all those NYC rats driven out of their subterranean lairs, but I really didn't want it to be that.
Castock is a constant soldier, a sometime poet, and he will be king.
976:
Thousands of homeowners in New York, New Jersey and nearby states added flood insurance last year after Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee swamped much of the same area with heavy rains. . . . But many others are likely to find that their flood insurance policies have lapsed or that they wrongly assumed their homeowners' policy would cover the damage.
* * * *
Most mortgage lenders require that buyers in certain property zones have flood insurance before closing on a home purchase. But relatively few monitor compliance with the requirement when the coverage expires, meaning that some homeowners inevitably allow their policies to lapse.
Even those who are current in their federal flood policies could find that all of their losses are not covered. Policies on residences of any type are limited to coverage limits of $250,000 on the structures and $100,000 of contents, and businesses are bound by $500,000 in building coverage and another $500,000 in contents.
From the temporarily paywall-free New York Times.
that earworm
That is one particular earworm? I thought it was a widely used reference in lots of different songs.
986: It's the combination in 980 that makes it specific. And now I have the earworm and the rats in my head. No, the rats can't eat the earworm.
Take it to 1000 before boredom sets in, what say. Some commenters haven't been heard from, and I certainly want to know if Castock has anything further to express of itself.
No one cares about the rats? You know they're out there by the millions, gnawing away with their sharp yellow teeth at whatever foul crud the city belched up during the surge. I wouldn't go out at night without a flamethrower.
I'd be interested in his opinion on my idea of moving Big Capitalism to Canada so it can be strangled in a bathtub.
989 -- I'd like to know why the Internet does not have, readily available for free, the Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra.
NYC rats are puny. The thick Chicago accents are hard to make out in the video, but this agreeable fellow is a cousin to the stalwart owners of the Clark & Division subway station.
990: Big Capitalism already came to Canada and replaced our bathtub with a plutocrat-safe Halliburton model. Sorry.
I actually went and got some work done! Sort of.
990: Big Capitalism
Counter-earworm (for some reason I found it necessary to do the whole song).
Coo coo it's cold outside. Coo coo it's cold outside.
Ooo coo coo. Don't forget your mittens.
Hey Pal! How do I get to town from here?
And he said: Well just take a right where
they're going to build that new shopping mall,
go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway,
take a left at what's going to be the new sports center,
and keep going until you hit the place where
they're thinking of building that drive-in bank.
You can't miss it. And I said: This must be the place.
Ooo coo coo. Golden cities. Golden towns.
Golden cities. Golden towns.
And long cars in long lines and great big signs
and they all say: Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.
Every man for himself. Ooo coo coo.
Golden cities. Golden towns. Thanks for the ride.
Big Capitalism. Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.
You know. I think we should put some mountains here.
Otherwise, what are all the characters going to fall off of?
And what about stairs? Yodellayheehoo. Ooo coo coo.
Here's a man who lives a life of danger.
Everywhere he goes he stays - a stranger.
Howdy stranger. Mind if I smoke? And he said:
Every man, every man for himself.
Every man, every man for himself.
All in favor say aye.
Big Capitalism. Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.
Hey Professor! Could you turn out the lights?
Let's roll the film.
Big Capitalism. Hallelujah.
Every man, every man for himself.
Big Capitalism. Hallelujah. Yodellayheehoo.
991: I'm not going to even search for it, but I bet if you do (a) you'll find it, and (b) it will be porn.
Alright, I am now officially sick the fuck of anti-Chinese racism.
At the rec center the other day, this commercial comes on featuring a man speaking Chinese for an extended period of time. I don't look up to see the subtitles, but I do think it odd that any ad would feature that much uninterrupted Mandarin. Then Mitt Romney's voice comes on and says that if we don't balance the budget or something, the Chinese will drink our milkshake, or something.
Then yesterday on the radio I hear commercials from both sides accusing the other of being soft on the Chinese.
And now today I have a student posting to the course website saying that society is crumbling so you should either buy a gun or start learning Chinese.
Oh yeah, and Marvel has decided to resurrect the character The Mandarin for the new Iron Man movie.
996(b) -- The episode aboard the Frigate Matilda qualifies!
I am now officially sick the fuck of anti-Chinese racism
Are other forms of racism ok?
The Chinese are making a lot of very threatening moves in the South China Sea. Just sayin'
Canada's current government would welcome Big Capitalism's arrival and then try to attribute its move to the victory of 1812. Followed by a celebration of militarism and monarchy.
We haven't had a thread go to 1000 in a long time. Good work, all.
999
Are other forms of racism ok?
Anti-white racism is fine (at least in certain circles).
Oh yeah? You try spewing 1000 comments of crap without some hardy assholes.
"Anti-white racism": that curious meta-phenomenon wherein one mentions the existence of white racism and, in consequently making white racists like Shearer uncomfortable, thereby becomes the Real Racist. This Real Racism is of course several orders of magnitude worse than slavery, the holocaust and the atrocities of the Indian Wars combined. The More You Know.
This Real Racism is of course several orders of magnitude worse than slavery, the holocaust and the atrocities of the Indian Wars combined
Of course it is worse. It is happening right now, to meeeee. That other stuff happened before. To other people.
No, wait, I want to argue about Asian stuff, not the standard black-white racism. 999 was trolling ME.
Look, I'm as excited about a new oil war in the South China Sea as anyone. But really, can we manage to criticize the decisions of the Chinese gerontocracy without demonizing a whole people?
I think it's the East China Sea.
I do find the "better vote for me or learn to speak Mandarin" stuff amusing. The fact is, a lot of upwardly-mobile North Americans are learning to speak Mandarin, on account of China is a massive trading partner. But there's something curiously visceral about being Forced To Speak An AAAAALIEN LANGUAGE that makes it an evergreen subject for propaganda. (Right up there with "they're coming for 'your' women!")
God forbid that anyone would learn Mandarin simply because it's interesting.
I like the idea that it would be terrrrrrrrrible if a country with more than four times our population had half as much money as we did.
Fuck the Chinese, how many Divisions do they have?
...oops never mind.
As we all know, we've been here before, not a few times. I think I've mentioned, there's a bumper sticker I still see around from time to time:
If you can read this, thank a teacher!
If you're reading this in English, thank a Marine!
Back in the day, a lot of upwardly mobile North Americans were learning to speak Russian. I remember that. The bottom fell out of that market for a while; I have no idea what they're doing now. Well, one of them is an organic farmer, but that doesn't have anything to do with the subject at hand.
God forbid that anyone would learn Mandarin simply because it's interesting.
I told the students that even if society isn't collapsing, learning Chinese would be a good idea, because it is a beautiful language and home to some of the greatest philosophy in world history.
The bottom fell out of that market for a while; I have no idea what they're doing now. Well, one of them is an organic farmer, but that doesn't have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Back in the day, a lot of upwardly mobile North Americans were learning to speak Russian. I believe there is a Soviet Studies major, who graduated the year the USSR broke up, who contributes to a lovely eclectic web magazine.
I remember when everyone was learning to speak Japanese. There's a specific joke in Back to the Future 1 about how all the electronics from 1985 are made in Japan.
Fuck the Chinese, how many Divisions do they have?
75 army maneuver divisions.
1017.last: one has moved into occasionally posting on an eclectic web magazine and making dope funk mixes.
There's a specific joke in Back to the Future 1 about how all the electronics from 1985 are made in Japan.
These days, it would be made in China by a robot that was made in Japan.
1022: pwned, but I had formatting problems.
I'm at my in-law's and a little Becks-style. Certainly not btocked, though. It feels a little weird.
Department of low expectations.
I was pleased to see Governor Christie being kind to people who had ignored the orders to evacuate. I figured there were good odds that he'd rip into the 1st people who said they never thought it would affect them. The temptation for him to say I told you so...
A couple of days ago a local daytime news anchor said something along the lines of "I guess they're not working them hard enough in those Chinese factories because the new [something or other - iPad mini?] is already sold out."
1012
Look, I'm as excited about a new oil war in the South China Sea as anyone. But really, can we manage to criticize the decisions of the Chinese gerontocracy without demonizing a whole people?
You ever study WWII?
Screw Chinese, I'm going to take some classes and get my Spanish dialed in (yay city employee tuition reimbursement program). If I have to flee the country I like my odds of blending into Costa Rica or Argentina a lot better than China.
1019, 1022: Someone here was a Soviet Studies major?
As we walked down side streets for Halloween, saw some more significant destruction. Two trees on houses on the side street near the playground we usually go to. That makes 3 housed crushed within a 2-block radius. Added photos to the pool.
Bloomberg start some attention paid to the southern fringe of Queens.
1034: I sort of have this sinking feeling that the places that are in the worst trouble are the ones we haven't heard anything from yet.
1034: +should
Yes, NYSE opening was fine, but there probably needs to be some very basic blocking and tackling in a lot of places.
For instance not canceling the Marathon is very poor judgment. Cancel the fucker you Manhattanite snob. Terrible optics and terrible actual waste of human energy.
997: In fairness to the Iron Man franchise, did he have any other enemies? There was the guy with the whips, the Iron Monger, and maybe some Russian dude?
1015: In fairness to the xenophobes, China's government is much worse than ours, and giving them more power is a bit worrisome.
terrible actual waste of human energy
Could they rig up some kind of large-scale treadmill-based charging device?
1039: I was shocked and appalled to see that it was even still being considered. Don't be a cunt you stupid fucking cunt.
1043: yeah it's pretty hard to fathom.
The interplay between 1043 and 1039 is confusing me. That said, if they run the marathon, the terrorists will finally lose. Any fool can see that. (No kidding, I think NYC's leaders have maybe gone a little overboard with the need to demonstrate backbone and forbearance in the face of tragedy. And maybe, just maybe, that's what's motivating this egregiously stupid dillydallying about cancellation. Or maybe Bloomberg wants to invent a new event: marathonchase or steeplethon.)
I have thus far resisted making a joke about Kenyans and swimming, but only because I can't think of a way to make the cleverness outweigh the racism and tragedy.
Well, now you seem racist and not very funny, so that was well played.
I suppose I do. I should go to bed.
You know I was kidding, right? You're street cred is intact, man.
I think it's maybe antisemitic, actually. But I'm cool with whatever.
No, I've been saying stupid shit all day, not just online. Stupider than normal, I mean.
You're street cred is intact, man.
See, what I should of said was "That's what I'm afraid of.".
So I just flew back from the Arctic, and boy are my arms cold.
1045: The interplay between 1043 and 1039 is confusing me
1043 would have more accurately read "Further to 1039". You know if Bloomberg feels the need to "demonstrate backbone and forbearance in the face of tragedy" maybe concentrate on pulling off the difficult feat of holding an election a week after by hitting hit by a hurricane. But I fear he is making this decision while staring out of his metaphorical airplane window.
I endorse 1055 but disavow its typo.
1056: You'd think I could read what I have written before hitting post, but turns out I can't. Sigh. I actually think it is something of a cognitive disorder that should be named. Maybe yglesiantria (somebody who knows something about language can come up with the right suffix).
I actually read the comments on the NYTimes article*, and they are sane and 95% aligned with the 'don't run the fucking thing' position.
*And left one myself. A first! I wonder what egregious meaning-destroying error I managed to include in that one.
964 Nope, I was on LI which still doesn't have power and now just moving into Astoria which does.
