I bonked during the Elephant Rock Century ride in Denver, CO. It was mostly due to muscle fatigue and altitude. We were nutrition and hydration obsessed back then. I don't think it's quite the same thing that you experienced, @Klaus but it was real and it was intense. It was the 10+ mile climb right before the ~75 mile rest area. About 2/3 of the way up the hill, doing switchbacks just to keep the bike moving, I pulled over to the side of the road and fell over. I didn't even have the strength to twist my ankles enough to release my feet from the pedals. I just laid there and laughed and told my BIL Matt, I need to rest a bit. Altitude was messing me as well. Laid there for a couple of minutes to catch my breath and started back up the hill. It was rather interesting getting started on that hill. I actually had to go down a little ways then turn back up continuing to switchback to the top. Coasted down a small hill to the rest area and collapsed in the grass next to a lake. It was all I could do to walk to the porta-potty. Then it was all I could do to remove myself from the porta-potty . I collapsed on the ground with my hamstrings just screaming in pain. A person saw me writhing in pain and approached me. He said, you need to squeeze the lactic acid out of your muscles. Start squeezing your legs like this! And he showed my how to do it. After doing this for about twenty minutes or more, alternating leg to leg, I started to feel like I could get back on the bike. I was told, you have a couple more miles of climbing but then it's a 14+ mile descent, then pretty flat to the finish line. And remember to spin your pedals on the downhill. Don't coast. You want the muscles to keep moving but not strained to help rid them of the residual lactic acid. It seemed to work. So I motored on and finished. At the end of the ride, I was incoherent. I could speak but I could not assemble a proper sentence and everything I said was just absolutely hysterical. I remember nothing I said at the time.

You can pick your friends, And you can pick your nose.. But you can't pick your friend's nose...

@Jolly said in Women can never be adults?: Yes, it paints him as a victim. And to a certain extent, he is. He's also vulgar and crass. The question is whether the punishment fits the offense? I'd say what he said sounded an awful lot like sexual harrassment. I wouldn't want that guy running the works canteen, never mind a lab.

I think if I could query the oracle with any number, not just integers, I could do it with just one query. Just take an arbitrary transcendental number (such as Pi). No two integer-coefficient-polynomials will agree on that number. Enumerate all non-negative-coefficient-polynomials until you get to the one that agrees with the result. (the method is not entirely practical, though, because it depends on comparing numbers that cannot be finitely represented with digits).

Paywall, but presumably you’re referring to the amount of written reportage until skin colors were mentioned.

@taiwan_girl said in Dragging the candidates with them.: Is jungle primary where all candidates from all parties are in the same primary? But you are correct Jolly - primaries often elect candidates that do not do well in the regular election as they are too far one way or the other. Yep. Top two go to a runoff. Unless one candidate gets more than 50%.

Not pee, but using poop is still pretty common in Asia. Called "night soil". In India, especially, there is a large group of people that clean out toilet pits and the collection is used as fertilizer.

@Copper said in Jif Product Recall: @Catseye3 said in Jif Product Recall: @Copper Who's yer friend? My sister the nurse gave me a heads-up yesterday. Creamy Jif is a significant part of my diet. I guess I'll try the Kroger store brand. Nope. Good for cooking. Not as good on a peanut butter and syrup sammich.

@Axtremus said in Abuse at the SBC: @Jolly said in Abuse at the SBC: The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches. Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system? And they do. My wife's first cousin is a SBC pastor and had charges leveled against him by a girl he had taken into his home, after her addict mother tossed her out in the street. He was arrested and found innocent of her charges. Still tore his reputation to shreds for several years and caused him to lose the church he was pastoring at the time. The church just didn't want the controversy. I sometimes prop my feet up in the local cowboy church. Many do not know, but that is a SBC church. About six months ago, they had to ask a deacon to step down over allegations of sexting with an underage girl. I think there was some chasing done on her part, but a fifty-something year-old man ought to know better and should spurn any advances made by a sixteen year-old girl, even if she is built like a brick shithouse and acts like she's twenty. That case got kicked to the sheriff about a week later, and he was arrested. It has not come to trial, yet. But that's the way it should be handled, given the autonomy of the individual churches.

@Horace said in Dudamel Conducts Beethoven: So the graphics serve the same purpose as his hair style. Never understood the hairstyles that some conductors have. Look at James Levine, for example. Dudamel is another, of course. Contrast with Leonard Bernstein and Riccardo Muti (who I'm sure dyes his hair).

@Jolly said in COVID very bad for Trump and Republican Voters: People have. They would rather take a higher risk and live free. Respect those who are honest about willing to take higher risk to live free. Not so much for those who deny that the risk really is higher for refusing vaccination and refusing to observe public health measures such as indoor masking and social-distancing. Also to note that while one is entitled to take on higher risks for oneself, one should be mindful not to transfer or otherwise impose that higher risk onto others, such as the immuno-compromised, the elderly, those who are allergic to or otherwise ineligible to receive the vaccines, etc.

BTW, I was talking with a roofer last week. I'll buy the materials and he'll furnish the crew. Tear off, new felt, flashing, drip rail and 3-tab shingles will run me $100/square. The roof we're looking at is 28 squares. I reckon if I can come in at about $6500 with 25-year shingles, I'll be tickled. Ah, but if I was 35 years younger...heck, 25 years...

@Horace said in 100% Turnout: @Axtremus said in 100% Turnout: @Larry said in 100% Turnout: @Axtremus said in 100% Turnout: @brenda said in 100% Turnout: In 2006, a nursing home staff person told me, with great glee and an insidious smirk, that all the residents had staff help with their ballots. Her message was very clear, and she was quite pleased with herself. I can imagine @MainerMikeBrown starting a thread asking whether it is virtuous to help the elderly exercise their right to vote. The "great glee" and "insidious smirk" are matters of subjective perception and interpretation. But the act of helping the elderly and the infirm exercise their right to vote, a care-giver can indeed be quite pleased and proud of himself for doing so in good faith. They all "voted" republican....... It's well-known that the senior population as a group tend to lean Republican. It's the voter's right to vote for the candidates of his choice. Then a prediction of whether those votes tended to be fraudulent, would boil down to a prediction of whether the votes were largely for Biden. Gee, I wonder. Wonder not, young man....

@Horace said in Puzzle time - Recovering the Polynomial: Right taylor series exactly QED. Somebody was awake in Calculus 101!

It's not that these sorts of anecdotes are particularly meaningful or heart wrenching. It's just that they're not less meaningful or heart wrenching than the anecdotes the left builds narratives out of that make people feel the right feelings to vote the right way.

Sometimes soldiers who lost the war are honored. That’s ok.

I can see it. That was cute.