Categories of scat and wind, diamonds and piracy

Then, you start interpreting the high heart rate, and odd feelings, as you being *really* aroused. And lo, people end up with things like zombie fetishes, from masturbating late at night while watching horror movies. Or, your particular kink. Seriously, I wish this was something that was covered in sex-ed. Kids! Don’t masturbate to something unless you are willing to develop a fetish for it!

→ Ask.metafilter, Elysum: Comment on How does one get rid of ones scat fetisch?

The initial scale of thirteen classes (zero to twelve) did not reference wind speed numbers but related qualitative wind conditions to effects on the sails of a man-of-war, then the main ship of the Royal Navy, from “just sufficient to give steerage” to “that which no canvas sails could withstand.”[2] At zero, all his sails would be up; at six, half of his sails would have been taken down; and at twelve, all sails would be stowed away.[3]

→ Wikipedia: Beufort scale

Toward the end of the 1950s, N. W. Ayer reported to De Beers that twenty years of advertisements and publicity had had a pronounced effect on the American psyche. “Since 1939 an entirely new generation of young people has grown to marriageable age,” it said. “To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone.” The message had been so successfully impressed on the minds of this generation that those who could not afford to buy a diamond at the time of their marriage would “defer the purchase” rather than forgo it.

→ The Atlantic, Edward Jay Epstein: Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?

Your piracy is only ultimately ‘costing’ the overall economy anything if you then reduce your working hours and take a pay cut that exactly offsets the money you would otherwise have spent on music. If instead you do the same amount of work and take the money and do something else with it – anything else – then the overall world economy has lost precisely nothing. That money winds up going to someone, somewhere. It stays in the system. It isn’t magically destroyed.

→ Slashdot comment, AdamWill (604569): Swiss Gov’t: Downloading Movies and Music Will Stay Legal

Pratchett progress

I always do this.

I really have taken the Oscar Wilde saying to heart, that too much of something good is wonderful (or words to that sentiment, I can’t be bothered to look it up) and currently that means that I spend all my waking hours with headphones on, listening to Terry Pratchett audiobooks. When I was but a wee lad I used to buy the Discworld novels and read them in the same spirit that I’d read the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, but ever since I started downloading audio versions of the books, I’ve come to realise that Pratchett can have a lot to offer when it comes to plot and character development – or to put it differently, it’s all rather good. (albeit silly at times)

Since I like compiling lists I made one showing the Discworld novels in their chronological order, ticking off the ones I’ve read:

[x]The Colour of Magic
[x]The Light Fantastic
[x]Equal Rites
[x]Mort
[x]Sourcery
[x]Wyrd Sisters
[ ]Pyramids
[x]Guards! Guards!
[ ]Eric
[x]Moving Pictures
[x]Reaper Man
[x]Witches Abroad
[ ]Small Gods
[x]Lords and Ladies
[x]Men at Arms
[ ]Soul Music
[x]Interesting Times
[x]Maskerade
[x]Feet of Clay
[x]Hogfather
[x]Jingo
[x]The Last Continent
[ ]Carpe Jugulum
[x]The Fifth Elephant
[x]The Truth
[x]Thief of Time
[x]The Last Hero
[ ]The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
[x]Night Watch
[ ]The Wee Free Men
[x]Monstrous Regiment
[x]A Hat Full of Sky
[x]Going Postal
[x]Thud!

Some of the uncheked ones I’m quite sure I’ve read already, but that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far away so to speak, so I’m gonna give em a listen and see if that doesn’t jolt my memory. Currently, I’m nearing the end of Moving pictures; Not the best in the lot, there’s too much real-world-influence jokes (popcorn is called banged grains and so on) for my liking, but still. It’s part of whatever disorder I have to go through them all. I just can’t bear the thought of not gobbing it all up in one go; A behaviour that can be readily observed whenever I’m making food and subsequently eating all of it regardless if it’s three helpings or six.

——

Update: I’ve finished two more: Moving pictures and Light fantastic. I’m listening to Carpe jugulum right now, althought I know I’ve read it already – it was a while ago, so the book is sort of new with just occasional anticipation on my part.