sundries

[rm]

Patty is home, and it's been super New York-y already: the other people in Terminal 8 were so excited to see their loved-ones they were blocking folks from getting out; the cab said his credit card thing was broken; the sound of the heating pipes woke us up; and there was some seriously creepy bird action this morning. Thumbs up.

Zuckerberg is Time's person of the year. How pissed do you think Assange is?

Meanwhile, the US Air Force has blocked access to news sites that have published the leaks. can someone explain this to me? Is it anything other than "these secret things aren't secret anymore, but we're going to pretend they are, even if it means you're working from a deficit of what is now common information?"

Someone is stealing New York's junked appliances.

On splitting the check. I understand the complaint. I don't understand why it's necessary. I've almost NEVER run into this, though. We all figure out what we owe, chuck it in, and since I've been over the age of about 25, we've usually had too much money, not too little.

A bill has been introduced in California to add historical contributions of LGBT people to school textbooks. A similar legislation passed four years ago, but was vetoed by the governor.

The academics I know keep posting this, but I still love it every time I see it: The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense.

Comments

[amberite.livejournal.com]

I am often the one who refuses to split evenly when it comes up, because (a) I order less than everyone else (b) I have less money than everyone else and (c) being non-neurotypical makes me blunt.

(As an aside, it's often been an issue, but I'm learning to appreciate that standing up for myself and for other people who are feeling too shy is an asset and has been an invisible asset all my life, and it probably works out against the disadvantages, though it's not really something I can "call" for good until I have specifically failed to die in a detested and homeless condition.)

[naath.livejournal.com]

Very nearly EVERY Monday for the last 5 years (more?) now I have gone to pizza with a bunch of friends. Some weeks there are 2 of us, some weeks 20 and when we're done each one of us puts in what we think we owe; we are almost always correct to within a few pounds. If we are incorrect we are more often over than under (the group-money-holder keeps this over-payment so in case of later under-payment we just use the slush fund rather than fighting over who failed to add up right today; it has twice gotten so big we bought port-to-share instead). We are in fact MORE accurate THAN THE PIZZA PLACE (who sometimes accidentally leave entire pizzas off the bill).

I get cross when other people do the "just split it equally" thing. People are differently hungry after all, and veggy food is often much cheaper. I guess if you buy food that all gets shared out then splitting it might be easier than arguing about who had more of it, but food ordered individually is easy enough to split.