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Aaaaaargh. This is going to be news to precisely no one who knows a woman or is one, but I'm gonna say it again anyway: womens' clothing SUCKS.

First, and biggest problem: they all assume that if you're a given size in one measurement, the rest of you matches up too. This couldn't be further from the truth. According to a standard size chart, I have the waist of a 12, the hips of a 14 or 16, and the bust of a 16. This makes finding anything with a proper fit basically impossible. You *have* to go with the larger measurements, which means 1) high-rise and mid-rise jeans are too big around the middle and 2) there is simply no way I can wear a dress or other one-piece clothing item without alterations.

Second: why the bloody hell do sizes *differ* from manufacturer to manufacturer?! In some brands I'm a 12 waist, in some a 10, in one a 14 (wtf), and of course everything else varies as well. This varies brand by brand, even if you're shopping in the same store. If you wonder why we take eleventy hojillion items to the dressing room and spend so much time trying stuff on, THIS is why.

Third: pockets. Full stop. Yes, this is getting better, but it's hard to find pants that have the number and size pockets mens' pants do. I know, I know, we're supposed to splash out several hundred dollars on some ruinously expensive branded handbag. Screw that. I don't have the money, and even if I did it wouldn't be spent on a handbag. And good grief are they ugly, with their diamond patterns or repeated monograms or whatever. No, my messenger bag does fine for all my carry-stuff-around needs, and you can't fit a laptop in a $400 Gucci handbag. I may be femme but I'm not stupid, or lipstick for that matter.

In my opinion, the lack of pockets is something more cynical and sinister than just a ploy to get women to buy handbags: it's a deliberate removal of our agency. And false pockets, the ones that are just sewn-on seams with no actual depth, can DIAF.

Fourth: Quality and price. Mens' clothing seems a lot more substantial and I wear what pieces of it I can for that reason. It's also cheaper, aside from suits and formalwear. I can get a men's size L t-shirt (flaps on me like a tent but the M won't fit my chest...) for something like $5 at Shopko. I have *never* seen a womens' shirt for that price outside a very low-end thrift store, and the equivalents are smaller, thinner, made of less-durable materials, and MORE expensive.

Fifth: too much of our clothing is basically candy wrappers. What I mean by this is it exists mostly to imply what's under it, either by showing a lot of skin or, less greasily, indicating by color or pattern that "the person wearing this is demure, defenseless, meek, quiet, and perfectly happy to be basically an object." I really think sometimes that all the pink and floral pattern stuff is some sort of salve to mens' fragile egos, or at the very least a way of firmly separating the two sexes by clothing and letting all concerned know who stands where in the power dynamic.

Now yes, I'm aware 2/3 of the time men are not looking at our clothes specifically. And yes, I am very much aware most of this stuff is done to compete with *other women,* which is another game I flat-out refuse to play. It still pisses me off, and many a time I've been standing in the changing room thinking to myself "Madokami have mercy, WHAT does a girl need to do to get something functional, well-fitting, and decently-priced that *doesn't* tell the world I'm a simpering moron with no aims in life other than to lasso a guy?!"

There's way too much politics surrounding clothing, is what this boils down to. Politics, and something a level or two under it, also. I'm very aware that by not "playing the game" I'm shut out of many social interactions, and for interviews I do the "pretend to be perfectly normal" game with light makeup and the "appropriate" clothes, but what a crock. Do men worry about this stuff? It doesn't seem like it.

• Battle Ground
• Vancouver
• Corporate Headquarters

Both in Washington State.

My Cafe section is only a prototype. I'm going to build out Clark and King - Seattle and Redmond - Counties, Washington, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington Counties, Oregon and Alameda County, California (for Peets).

Then I'm going to ask Peets' and Starbucks' MIS people to work with me to set up automated data feeds. That way when a new cafe starts hiring, it will appear on Soggy Jobs that very same day. In the unfortunate event that one goes Tits Up, it will disappear into the ether. Fall off the edge of the Earth. Stop phoning home.

It's common for cafes not to have websites, but many of them have either Facebook or Twitter. I could link those but then my table rows would be two wide to fit on smartphones.

Is there a way to make table rows take up two lines without embeddeding a two-row table in a table row?

Some have neither website, Facebook nor Twitter. If there's just one location I plan to provide their street addresses.

I'll be going to breakfast at the Portland Rescue Mission soon.

In other news, late tomorrow morning I'll be setting out QR codes for BitCoin, Ether and LiteCoin so I can accept crypto tips when I sing on the street.

Just yesterday I added Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" to my Set List. Please to be suggesting folk songs, show tunes and American patriotic songs that I could sing. I do it A Capella, so whatever I sing can't have long instrumental sections.

Have we just seen ghosts of black holes from another universe?

Evidence that Universe has infinite cycle of Big Bangs from very early black holes

Separately:

Physicists Say They've Come Up With a Mathematical Model For a Viable Time Machine

All you need is the same exotic matter that powers your Alcubierre drive. What? You don't have one of those?

1. First book posted on Main Page (Community Reviews nexus) on the first of the month. Let's just pick Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem for the inaugural book, unless you have any better ideas.

That thread will contain discussion of the book throughout the month, as well as any suggestions you might have for the next book (you have two weeks to make them).

2. On the 15th of the month, we'll have a front page poll to choose the next book. An editor will pick suggestions from the discussion thread. It looks like we can have a maximum of 8 poll options, which is probably sufficient.

3. Finally, a new thread on the first of the next month, announcing the new pick, containing discussion for the new pick, calling for suggestions, and also as a place to write any closing thoughts you had about the previous month's book.

Guidelines

A. You are encouraged to use the <spoiler></spoiler> tag in the discussions. You don't have to wrap your entire comment with the spoiler tag, just use your best judgment.

B. The book should be written primarily in the English language, or the American language.

C. The suggestions could be from any genre, not just "hard sci-fi". Even those ess-jay-dubya Hugo Award #winning books are welcome.

D. The book should be obtainable from a variety of sources, including BitTorrent, Library Genesis, etc. The thread will link to official places to buy the book, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the author's website. Bezos haters, feel free to add to this list.

Is a 1 month cycle long enough? Do you want a 2 month cycle instead?

What say you?

The Dipole Drive: A New Concept for Space Propulsion

Why bring your propellant?

So, uhhh, fat soldiers and sailors? Yeah, it's always been a thing. One service or another gets a little lax, and suddenly, you got a bunch of fatties waddling around the base, or wherever. This isn't much of a problem in wartime, but peacetime can be terrible. Dude's 5 ft 9 inches, and weighs 320 pounds, and just can't keep up. Life is like that. But, the military can't afford to ignore the problem.

So, my Navy has always had problems with weight. A guy could eventually be discharged for medical reasons if he was too heavy, but it would take awhile. I understand that in the early 90's, a lot of housecleaning was done in the Navy, and they got pretty serious about lard asses. You might have 18 years in, and less than two years from retirement - but if you didn't lose the weight, you got booted.

The Air Force probably has a worse history with overweight than the Navy. Coasties probably about the same as the Navy. Army? REMF's might get away with having a pair of asses in tow, not so much Rangers and such.

Today? FFS, the USMC is having weight problems!

PDF addressing the problem here: https://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/Publications/MCO%206110.3A.pdf?ver=2017-01-04-071352-610

Russian Times article covers it: https://www.rt.com/usa/436525-marine-corps-obesity-diet/

No more burgers or beer? The fitness-obsessed US Marine Corps is rolling out a color-coded food labeling scheme in a bid to trim the fat and fight the growing problem of its members being classified as overweight or obese.

Obesity is widespread in the US, and not even the military elite is safe. A 2017 Army report classified 17 percent of soldiers as ‘obese,’ and the problem is rearing its ugly head even in the USMC, which has the strictest physical fitness requirements of all military branches.

Keen to avoid the Devil Dogs from becoming unfit and blubbery, USMC leadership is starting the fight against obesity at the chow halls, reported Military.com.

Marines eating on base will now tuck into a menu designed to provide clean energy and better fuel their mental and physical needs. The offerings were inspired by the food served to elite college athletes, Force Fitness Division director Colonel Stephen Armes told Military.com.

Lean protein like bison meatloaf and mahi-mahi steaks will be offered at mealtimes, and grab-and go snacks will consist of yogurts, cheese, eggs, trail mix, and vegetarian options. Marines looking to grab a quick and dirty snack will now have to walk further: junk food options will be placed at the back of the chow hall, past all the healthier offerings.

If that walk of shame doesn’t discourage Private Pudge from unhealthy snacking, the Corps hopes that its new color coding system will. The healthiest foods will be labeled green, or “eat as much as you want,” while yellow labels will advise troops to “eat with caution.” Red labels will be attached to the worst junk food, with Marines advised to “go minimal.”

Similar changes are being made in other branches. The Army operates its own labeling system to help soldiers make informed choices, while the Navy cut out all fried foods and soda on its ships in 2014.

The Marine Corps still holds the honor of being the fittest branch of the military. Yet, according to a 2016 report, over 4,800 Marines are technically overweight. However, Marines who tip the scales can opt to be measured by their body fat percentage instead, as the standard Body Mass Index (BMI) scale unfairly considers some muscular marines ‘overweight.’

As small as the Corps’ obesity problem may be, for a force that calls itself the home of “The Few, the Proud, the Brave,” it is still a problem, and one that leadership hopes they can head off in the kitchen.

"Incorporating the basic nutrition principles will build a foundation for mission readiness, cognitive performance as well as endurance performance," college nutritionist Nikki Jupe told MIlitary.com. "Using different nutritional strategies [can also help] prepare for deployment."

What amazes me is, our entire nation pretty much eats trash. Why doesn't the military just take unilateral action, and ban junk food? Ban processed foods containing sugars and salts. Ban all those chips. Then, the rest of us should follow suit.

A few generations ago, there were people who led sedentary lives, but didn't blow up to blimp size. They ate less, of course, but they ate HEALTHY!!

Walk through your local grocery, and look at what is on offer. All processed stuff. The food I grew up on is simply no longer available. Need an example? Beef liver. A couple months ago, I decided that I wanted liver and onions when I got home. Stopped at a store - no liver. Stopped at another, no liver. Stopped at a THIRD grocery store. Hmmm. Liver, sort of. It wasn't in the butcher section, where I expected it. I found some liver vacuum packed, already processed by some industrial farm.

It gets harder and harder to find "real food" without added sugar, added salt, dairy products contaminated with antibiotics and growth hormones. And, chicken. Blechh.

So, today, we have lardass leathernecks.

We're doing something seriously wrong in this country.

Asia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own Accuser (archive)

The Italian actress and director Asia Argento was among the first women in the movie business to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. She became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight.

But in the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.

That claim and the subsequent arrangement for payments are laid out in documents between lawyers for Ms. Argento and Mr. Bennett, a former child actor who once played her son in a movie.

The documents, which were sent to The New York Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party, include a selfie dated May 9, 2013, of the two lying in bed. As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett, who is now 22, gave the photograph and its copyright to Ms. Argento, now 42. Three people familiar with the case said the documents were authentic.

And here are the gruesome details:

[...] The fallout from “a sexual battery” was so traumatic that it hindered Mr. Bennett’s work and income and threatened his mental health, according to a notice of intent to sue that his lawyer sent in November to Richard Hofstetter, Mr. Bourdain’s longtime lawyer, who was also representing Ms. Argento at the time.

[...] Mr. Bennett, who has an eye condition that prevents him from driving, arrived at Ms. Argento’s hotel room that morning with a family member, according to his notice of intent. The document lays out Mr. Bennett’s account: Ms. Argento asked the family member to leave so she could be alone with the actor. She gave him alcohol to drink and showed him a series of notes she had written to him on hotel stationery. Then she kissed him, pushed him back on the bed, removed his pants and performed oral sex. She climbed on top of him and the two had intercourse, the document says. She then asked him to take a number of photos.

[...] The two had lunch, and Mr. Bennett headed home to Orange County, where he lived with his parents. As he was driven home, according to his claim, he began to feel “extremely confused, mortified, and disgusted.” But a month later, on June 8, he sent Ms. Argento a Twitter message, “Miss you momma!!!!” that included a photograph of an engraved bracelet she had given him to commemorate the movie. (His Twitter account has recently been shut down.)

[...] Mr. Bennett claimed his parents had barred him from the family’s house and kept his possessions, and over the years had cheated him out of at least $1.5 million in earnings. He said he was broke and two months behind on his rent. The case was settled in December 2014, but the terms were not disclosed.

Sounds like a 17-year-old had a good time, but went through some money issues when he turned 18 due to his manipulative stage parents (who clearly didn't care about leaving him in a hotel room with a total MILF, since they drove him to and from there). Argento had been getting a lot more attention due to recounting her involvement with Weinstein, and he had the evidence needed to blackmail her and make the rent. Sound about right? Now switch the genders. Oh no!

Bennett had starred with Argento in The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004) when he was about 8 and she was about 28. She also directed and co-wrote the movie:

That sounds like an interesting picture show!

Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight.

I wonder if Bourdain knew about the Argento-Bennett thing (which did happen before they met AFAIK):

Asia Argento Says Anthony Bourdain’s Suicide 'Obsession' Is 'Heart Wrenching:' 'I Never Knew'

Asia Argento has spoken out about an article compiling a list of times her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain publicly brought up committing suicide before his death, calling it a “heart wrenching read.” “I never knew about this obsession of his. He never told me,” she wrote on social media, sharing a link to the document, which was released earlier this month.

Even if the Bennett incident had nothing to do with him, he did go to bat for her publicly over Weinstein, including describing how he fantasized about Weinstein dying of a stroke in a bathtub while nobody would take his call. And here's a related quote from one of his final interviews:

Acknowledging that Clinton is "f**king magnetic," having met him in person, Bourdain revealed that he does not believe Clinton should have been thrown out of office because of the Lewinsky scandal - calling it "ridiculous." According to Bourdain, the real issue was the way that the Clintons dealt with the scandal - "It was the shaming, discrediting, undermining the women," that followed.

If only the women always discredited and undermined themselves. It would make marginalizing them so much easier!

Well, too little, too late for Weinstein. He was just too greedy.

The documents, which were sent to The New York Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party

Looks like NYT is getting some mileage from its leak submission page.

Also at The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and Vanity Fair.

"If you're not sleeping, it's an emergency."
    -- Psychiatrist Darryl Chagi MD, Soquel, California 1997

• Thread I started when I got to the ER with The Cruel Shoes of a Bluetooth keyboard and a browser that's a Tool Of The Devil

I stayed up quite a lot longer than I really had any reason to be
awake. At ten last night decided to buy some ice cream at the corner
store but didn't check for my keys before I shut my apartment door
behind me. Happily I realized the problem before walking out the door
at the bottom of the stairs, left it unlocked, quickly went to the
store, bought a can of Campbells Chunky Soup then right back.

The landing at the top of the stairs is big enough to stretch out on
so I figured I'd be OK until I could get my apartment manager to help
me climb into my bedroom window this morning. Eventually realized
that I wasn't sleeping because my Happy Pills were inside the
apartment.

Had no cash for a cab, busses not running this late. Dialed 9-1-1, as
I attempted to speak to the dispatcher I realized I wasn't just wide
awake but actually Manic. Another day of that and you'll need
butterfly nets and tranquilizer rifles to stop me from lighting up the
whole town with my contagious enthusiasm.

Ambulance comes, took me to a very small ER in Salmon Creek called
Legacy. I'd been there before, figured they'd get me the right kinds
of meds then have a sort of "Wingnut Limousine" - really a Buick but
with a bulletproof window between the front and the back - to a mental
hospital that I'd been in before, Telecare at the VA Medical Center in
Vancouver in the back of the building immediately opposite the lobby
in front.

I made plain to the entire ER staff that I could not _possibly_ sleep
until they gave me Elavil but it was only around 3:30 that I realized
they'd overlooked it. They did gave me a fast-acting Zyprexa tablet
that I dissolved under my tongue. While that stopped the onrushing
Mania, without the Elavil I would have no hope whatsoever of sleeping
so it would not be long at all before I was Manic again.

Elavil (amitryptiline) is an antidepressant which I no longer need but
it's _highly_ sedating so one must gradually increase one's dose at
first to build up a tolerance to the sedation, then after one is sure
the depression won't return, taper back off of it over a period of two
or three weeks. To stop suddenly and I simply _cannot_ sleep until I
can take some again. Three days awake and I'm hallucinating. Five
days awake I'm hallucinating so hard I can't see where I'm going when
I try to walk.

They discharged me with a taxi voucher. In the lobby waiting my cab
to arrive, realize I was having vivid visual hallucinations, got
readmitted to the ER, apologized for not having been more clear I need
_Elavil_ too.

The ER doc who gave me the Zyprexa had just gone home so they assigned
me a new doc. Waited a couple hours, he went home too. Third doc
shows up while generally friendly he was quite argumentative. I was
unable to make him understand that I really _did_ need to be in a
mental hospital. _Nothing_ the ER could possibly do would make enough
of a difference.

He agreed to prescribe my Elavil.

I was able to listen to YouTube for another three hours but still
unable to sleep. At 9:30 finally got my Elavil but they never gave me
any food when I asked for it. To take Elavil on a totally empty
stomach is quite painful.

Five minutes later, nurse tells me my cab is here and I head home.

I Was A Piece Of Work when I got home but at least Bob agreed to park
his pickup under the awning over the front of the first floor.
Climbed on cab, onto awning, very easy to get into bedroom window.

I'm no longer Manic but also no longer sleepy. Many psychiatric meds
are toxic to your liver or your kidney so it's not safe to take
another dose of Elavil yet.

I'll make some pancakes, shower, shave then hang out at Taco Bell -
not for the food, rather the air conditioning, Internet, a restroom
and they'll be cool with just giving me a cup of ice water - until
5:00 or so then will take more Elavil and...

... Sleep The Sleep Of The Dead.

This gets really old sometimes. I Mean It Really Does.

Lucidly,

Michael David Crawford

I'm off for another week of lake visiting tomorrow afternoon Central. Camping with female companionship this time. I expect there to be more sex but less fishing than the last trip. So, mixed bag.

Start picking your interim targets of blame now to avoid the rush. If all else fails, try the ~blame command on IRC.

Expanding on this comment.

What should be done with the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) or another brand-new low-Earth orbit space station? Alternatively, can the ISS be rebuilt piece-by-piece to allay concerns about aging components? Or should it be burnt in the atmosphere or split up to form new stations?

LOP-G is a boondoggle by design, but it could be built much more cheaply using Falcon Heavy launches, and it could be given some worthwhile missions and experiments. Here are a few ideas:

Space telescopes

Space telescopes could be assembled and repaired at a space station. JWST's cost overruns and delays are going to cast a shadow over future flagship space telescopes. One way to reduce costs massively while continuing to provide larger apertures would be to assemble a telescope in orbit. In the future, robots or automated docking systems ought to be able to accomplish this, but if you already have humans staying at a space station, why not have them service telescopes while they're there?

JWST has to ride a single rocket into space and follow a number of steps for successful deployment. A telescope built at a space station could accept many components flown on multiple Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, BFR, New Glenn, or Vulcan rockets. If one rocket explodes, the loss is relatively minor. The size of a space telescope flown on a single rocket is limited by the width and volume of the payload fairing. JWST can unfold its mirror segments to fit a greater aperture into the payload fairing, but this mechanical mechanism could fail, and if it does, it would render the telescope completely inoperable. The planned JWST successor LUVOIR has different configurations depending on whether or not SLS (8.4-10 meters) or BFR (9 meters) will be available to fly the telescope. While you could fly as many smaller mirror segments as you wanted to if you kept adding new launches to your manifest, the largest mirror segments ever cast are coincidentally 8.4 meters in diameter:

There is a technological limit for primary mirrors made of a single rigid piece of glass. Such non-segmented, or monolithic mirrors can not be constructed larger than about eight meters in diameter. The largest monolithic mirror in use are currently the two primary mirrors of the Large Binocular Telescope, each with a diameter of 8.4 meters. The use of segmented mirrors is therefore a key component for large-aperture telescopes. Using a monolithic mirror much larger than 5 meters is prohibitively expensive due to the cost of both the mirror, and the massive structure needed to support it. A mirror beyond that size would also sag slightly under its own weight as the telescope was rotated to different positions, changing the precision shape of the surface. Segments are also easier to fabricate, transport, install, and maintain over very large monolithic mirrors.

Segmented mirrors do have the drawback that each segment may require some precise asymmetrical shape, and rely on a complicated computer-controlled mounting system. All of the segments also cause diffraction effects in the final image.

Finally, JWST requires lots of testing and retesting in order to ensure that the hundreds of potential failures that could kill the mission do not occur. With a space-assembled telescope, you could launch without doing nearly as much testing, since you would have humans capable of fixing most of the problems that could happen, multiple launches instead of a single launch, and you could more readily tolerate the vibrations shaking up each component of the telescope, since it is not assembled and ready to deploy yet. You could also pack the payload fairing with padding that could be removed by the astronauts.

While there could be space telescopes operating directly at the site of the space station (such as in lunar orbit alongside the LOP-G) or close nearby (loosely tethered to the station or in a different but easy-to-reach orbit), we could also use orbital (re)fueling to send completed space telescopes to their final destinations. Since most of the energy expenditure comes from entering or leaving Earth orbit, this could end up being very efficient.

By exploiting all of these advantages, we could assemble space telescopes that dwarf the JWST and LUVOIR in size and capabilities.

Artificial gravity modules

We already know that prolonged exposure to microgravity is bad news for astronauts, but at least one of our ACs is very skeptical of the health effects of lunar or Martian gravity on the human body. What better way to test this than in a rotating artificial gravity module? While it is not directly comparable to the gravity of a planetoid, and you can experience a difference in acceleration between your head and toes, it could be used for exercise, sleep, animal and plant experiments, etc.

The lower the gravity you want to simulate, the smaller and slower the module can be. So simulating 0.165g or 0.376g will be cheaper than 1g anyway.

The Nautilus-X was a proposed spacecraft that would have used a centrifuge to provide artificial gravity. A demonstration module for the ISS would have cost only an estimated $83 million to $143 million, not counting launch costs.

Inflatable modules

Speaking of modules, Nautilus-X planned to make extensive use of Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable modules. Inflatable modules are a partially-proven concept, in that we actually managed to get one version, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, to the ISS. Plans to remove it have been delayed as it provides useful storage space and appears to resist radiation and micrometeorites as well as other parts of the ISS.

The B330 and BA 2100 modules would provide a much greater volume for a space station, with the BA 2100 providing more than double the current volume of the ISS inside of a single module. As for protection:

• Some designs offer higher resistance to space debris. For example, the B330 provides ballistic protection superior to traditional aluminum shell designs.
• Some designs provide higher levels of shielding against radiation. For example, the B330 provides radiation protection equivalent to or better than the International Space Station, "and substantially reduces the dangerous impact of secondary radiation."

I imagine that if you had further concerns about module durability, you could inflate it and then install plates or other coverings on the outside to provide additional layers of protection from radiation and micrometeorites.

Propellant depot

I haven't done the math™ on this one at all, but perhaps this could make sense, particularly in the LOP-G scenario. If you want LOP-G to be more than a useless ISS clone, it would make sense to have the station facilitate trips to the surface, by storing propellant, refueling craft that reach the station, or delivering it to the surface for use by people who are already there. How would it get there? A BFR tanker would be a good choice. Where would it come from? Presumably from Earth or sources of water on the Moon itself, if the economics work out.

Perhaps the U.S. could sell China some propellant to help them build their Moon base.

Depending on the orbit, LOP-G could also facilitate communications for anybody or anything on the far side of the Moon.