np NP: Wednesday, May 25, 2016

[Howitzer 32]

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=464

And now a return to not returning to form.

[partner555 170]

Clarification received!

[Arcanimus 31]

Abby!Dan is adorable.

[Pizzaboy10 6]

I feel like trigger warnings are kind of dumb nowadays, as people use them to describe things they don't like (Which I'm fine with), but then try to pass it off as something that'll send them into a PTSD attack (Which I'm not). That's an actual serious condition that you're trivialising, and makes those with the actual condition look bad. 

[ijuin 572]

Abby? I don't get the reference . . .

As for trigger warnings, people are using them the same way that they say that they are "allergic" to something when they just strongly dislike it. I'm sorry, but unless it makes you physically ill, it's not an allergy.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

...dan's new look reminds me of a teenage partially furry pandora...

Atleast i think it's new. i don't think any of the previous appearances have had me on edge until i realized it wasn't one of the villans on pannel...

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

How long has it been since Minion's last appearance?

I keep expecting that guy to throw Dan out the window and take over the comic himself.

[Scotty 1,061]

6 hours ago, Arcanimus said:

Abby!Dan is adorable.

Oh carp! I totally forgot about Dan's tweets about preferring to be compared to Abby instead of McGee. I was like "is this some cross between scientist and goth that Dan's going for?"

 

54 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

How long has it been since Minion's last appearance?

I keep expecting that guy to throw Dan out the window and take over the comic himself.

Last October in the "Tea/remote" series. So, 7 months.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

6 hours ago, Arcanimus said:

Abby!Dan is adorable.

Isn't she?  Abby is already adorable, so it's hard to cross anyone with her and not get an adorable result.

6 hours ago, Pizzaboy10 said:

I feel like trigger warnings are kind of dumb nowadays, as people use them to describe things they don't like (Which I'm fine with), but then try to pass it off as something that'll send them into a PTSD attack (Which I'm not). That's an actual serious condition that you're trivialising, and makes those with the actual condition look bad. 

I'm just wondering on what basis you make that conclusion.  How do *you* know whether a given person is actually prone to genuine psychological harm?  Must you actually *see* them have an externally visible panic attack before you'll believe them?  If so, that seems like a rather harsh requirement; if not, then how do you decide who you believe and who you don't?  Because frankly, I see an awful lot of people whose criteria seems to be either whether they like or dislike the person in question, or whether they themselves are bothered by the thing that the other person is triggered by.  And if you are disbelieving people who have genuine psychological harm, that's probably causing them even more harm.

5 hours ago, ijuin said:

As for trigger warnings, people are using them the same way that they say that they are "allergic" to something when they just strongly dislike it. I'm sorry, but unless it makes you physically ill, it's not an allergy.

Again, how do *you* know whether someone is actually allergic to something or they "just strongly dislike it"?  Do you only count people who have an *immediate*, visible, life-threatening anaphylaxis to have "real" allergies?  Or would someone who is, oh, just for an example, allergic to tobacco smoke but suffers scratchy throat, itchy eyes, and clogged sinuses for a couple of *days* after exposure but doesn't actually collapse in front of you turning blue, count as an "allergy" in your book?

23 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Oh carp! I totally forgot about Dan's tweets about preferring to be compared to Abby instead of McGee. I was like "is this some cross between scientist and goth that Dan's going for?"

I missed those tweets!  I had to avoid Twitter for a bit until I could catch up with GoT, and even at the best of times I'm a sporadic tweet-reader.  It's a pity no one seems to be keeping up the Word Of Dan thread, which was designed to collect stuff he says elsewhere....

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

I missed those tweets!  I had to avoid Twitter for a bit until I could catch up with GoT, and even at the best of times I'm a sporadic tweet-reader.  It's a pity no one seems to be keeping up the Word Of Dan thread, which was designed to collect stuff he says elsewhere....

I had figured that the Word of Dan thread was more for stuff pertaining to either EGS itself, or something that gives insight into Dan's personality. Most of the stuff he tweets is usually banter about games or movies, or his back/shoulder. So we don't need to put all that in the thread.

[Arcanimus 31]

For those who don't know who Abby is, she's a character on NCIS (the original) played by Pauley Perette. She's an adorable goth forensic scientist who loves loud music and "Caf-Pow" (a kind of caffienated drink).

[Stature 96]

I always felt like statements can be understood using mathematical logical expressions.

I digress. Are they actually arguing over the same thing, opposing each other out?

[Solarn 2]

11 hours ago, Pizzaboy10 said:

I feel like trigger warnings are kind of dumb nowadays, as people use them to describe things they don't like (Which I'm fine with), but then try to pass it off as something that'll send them into a PTSD attack (Which I'm not). That's an actual serious condition that you're trivialising, and makes those with the actual condition look bad. 

Do they though? Granted, I'm not super active on tumblr and twitter, but from what I see, there are maybe a handful of assholes and/or idiots who misuse trigger warnings, a handful more who whine about wanting trigger warnings for things that annoy them, and the vast majority of users use trigger warnings responsibly.

[Vorlonagent 442]

Trigger warnings can be overdone.

Anytime someone thinks, "maybe I should put a trigger warning on that", their heart and mind are in the right place.

Anytime someone yells "You should put a trigger warning on that!", they aren't...

[The Old Hack 2,448]

Trigger warnings and content notes are there to protect readers and users who may suffer from trauma related to the topic. The fact that certain people mock them or deliberately misuse them in an attempt to discredit them does not change that. I have friends who benefit from and appreciate properly applied content notes and I am convinced that if properly used, they add to the safety and comfort of vulnerable users.

[Matoyak 51]

11 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I'm just wondering on what basis you make that conclusion.  How do *you* know whether a given person is actually prone to genuine psychological harm?  Must you actually *see* them have an externally visible panic attack before you'll believe them?  If so, that seems like a rather harsh requirement; if not, then how do you decide who you believe and who you don't?  Because frankly, I see an awful lot of people whose criteria seems to be either whether they like or dislike the person in question, or whether they themselves are bothered by the thing that the other person is triggered by.  And if you are disbelieving people who have genuine psychological harm, that's probably causing them even more harm.

Again, how do *you* know whether someone is actually allergic to something or they "just strongly dislike it"?  Do you only count people who have an *immediate*, visible, life-threatening anaphylaxis to have "real" allergies?  Or would someone who is, oh, just for an example, allergic to tobacco smoke but suffers scratchy throat, itchy eyes, and clogged sinuses for a couple of *days* after exposure but doesn't actually collapse in front of you turning blue, count as an "allergy" in your book?

Yeah, both of these. I give benefit of the doubt on this stuff, especially for allergies. I am allergic to shellfish in an unusual way: my body can't handle the iodine contained in the sea bugs and it rejects it. Violently. (I basically end up vomiting for hours). One of my relatives decided this couldn't possibly be a real allergy (because shellfish allergy results in anaphylactic shock, nothing else, y'see), and that I merely had only ever had shrimp that'd gone bad. So in a meal they didn't inform me that it contained shellfish, thinking they'd prove their point about me not knowing what I was talking about. Hours later I was still vomiting every few minutes.

[hkmaly 490]

12 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

19 hours ago, Pizzaboy10 said:

I feel like trigger warnings are kind of dumb nowadays, as people use them to describe things they don't like (Which I'm fine with), but then try to pass it off as something that'll send them into a PTSD attack (Which I'm not). That's an actual serious condition that you're trivialising, and makes those with the actual condition look bad. 

I'm just wondering on what basis you make that conclusion.  How do *you* know whether a given person is actually prone to genuine psychological harm?  Must you actually *see* them have an externally visible panic attack before you'll believe them?  If so, that seems like a rather harsh requirement; if not, then how do you decide who you believe and who you don't?  Because frankly, I see an awful lot of people whose criteria seems to be either whether they like or dislike the person in question, or whether they themselves are bothered by the thing that the other person is triggered by.  And if you are disbelieving people who have genuine psychological harm, that's probably causing them even more harm.

18 hours ago, ijuin said:

As for trigger warnings, people are using them the same way that they say that they are "allergic" to something when they just strongly dislike it. I'm sorry, but unless it makes you physically ill, it's not an allergy.

Again, how do *you* know whether someone is actually allergic to something or they "just strongly dislike it"?  Do you only count people who have an *immediate*, visible, life-threatening anaphylaxis to have "real" allergies?  Or would someone who is, oh, just for an example, allergic to tobacco smoke but suffers scratchy throat, itchy eyes, and clogged sinuses for a couple of *days* after exposure but doesn't actually collapse in front of you turning blue, count as an "allergy" in your book?

You may not be able to determine if specific person is actually needing trigger warning and/or have allergy and still find unlikely how many of them are. On the other hand, I never had an allergic reaction less than hour after exposure to allergen (except on tests) and it doesn't make the allergy less real. (I'm allergic to nature. Well, it can be probably specified more exactly, but I prefer to avoid nature in spring in general, just to be sure.)

1 hour ago, Matoyak said:

my body can't handle the iodine contained in the sea bugs and it rejects it.

How do you react to other sources of iodine? Isn't iodine necessary for survival and for not becoming cretin?

[Matoyak 51]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

How do you react to other sources of iodine? Isn't iodine necessary for survival and for not becoming cretin?

Iodine is totally necessary for survival, yes. And I don't have this reaction to other sources of it. I don't fully understand the issue, merely what I was told by the doctors and my parents when we figured out what the issue was. (I was relatively young). It's something about the amount of Iodine all at once. ~shrug~. It's been a long time, and it's still an issue for me so...whatever.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

 (I'm allergic to nature. Well, it can be probably specified more exactly, but I prefer to avoid nature in spring in general, just to be sure.)

I have a cousin (by marriage, met her at my aunt's wedding) who is basically allergic to all animal protein.  Her family had to do the equivalent of a very strict kosher kitchen, with utensils and pans for her that *never* come into contact with meat, milk, cheese, etc.  When we played a board game, her sister asked me to move her pieces for her, because she'd been eating cheese and she didn't want to risk getting any on a piece and her sister then touching that piece and getting it on her fingers.  It was *that* bad an allergy.

The official photographer for the local Mensa chapter is extremely allergic to wheat.  A few years ago, he had a salad that someone had sprinkled wheat germ on and didn't label as such, and he wound up in the hospital for several days.

I used to bring my little dog to some of the local conventions.  There have been two opposing trends....I've been told twice now that a con couldn't allow him in because of other members who are allergic to dogs.  On the other hand, the last one I went to had three different service dogs attending with their humans.  (One had a mother and daughter with seizures who each had a seizure alert dog.)  I'm not sure what the solution will be to that one.  I'd be jealous, but I don't *want* any of the conditions that would allow me to bring a dog with me wherever I go!

[Public service announcement -- for anyone running a business or event, be aware that you are required to allow service dogs, as long as they behave themselves.  If a dog is jumping on people, or chewing stuff up, or showing that they're not fully housetrained, then you *are* allowed to kick the dog out!  You are *not* required to allow emotional support dogs....a service dog is trained to *do* at least one action related to the disability, and while you aren't allowed to ask for details of someone's medical condition(s), which is private, you are allowed to ask them to tell you at least one specific action the dog is trained to do related to their disability.  These two points can help weed out the people who just bought a vest online because they didn't want to have to board their dog.  ;-) ]

[Don Edwards 548]

We once did a thought experiment of how many ordinary pizza ingredients would make someone we knew sick, limiting ourselves to one ingredient per person.

The sickening ingredients I remember:

• Wheat flour (gluten)
• Tomatoes
• Mozzarella cheese (lactose)
• Ground beef (beef proteins)
• Anchovies, or any salt-water seafood
• Shrimp/shellfish (another person with a more specific sensitivity)
• Mushrooms, or any blue/green cheese
• Onions

I'm pretty sure we were up to at least 10 ingredients but I don't remember what the others were.

[ijuin 572]

7 hours ago, Matoyak said:

Yeah, both of these. I give benefit of the doubt on this stuff, especially for allergies. I am allergic to shellfish in an unusual way: my body can't handle the iodine contained in the sea bugs and it rejects it. Violently. (I basically end up vomiting for hours). One of my relatives decided this couldn't possibly be a real allergy (because shellfish allergy results in anaphylactic shock, nothing else, y'see), and that I merely had only ever had shrimp that'd gone bad. So in a meal they didn't inform me that it contained shellfish, thinking they'd prove their point about me not knowing what I was talking about. Hours later I was still vomiting every few minutes.

Ouch. My father had a similar allergy, but it applied to fish as well as shellfish.

Personally, I have the typical hay fever, plus I break out in a rash if I wear anything with nickel alloy in it (e.g. stainless steel) against my skin long-term, which means that I have to make sure that wristwatches, jewelry, etc. won't have steel against my skin (e.g. steel watchband buckles or a watch with a steel casing)

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

/* engage slightly off-topic rant mode */

I was born in Austin, ostensibly the Allergy Capitol of the World. I grew up thinking I had a year-round cold, even after my family moved to Greater Houston. At one point one summer during my late elementary school days (I think), I developed dozens of sores on my ankles. A dermatologist said I was "allergic to grass" and couldn't run around barefoot anymore.

I didn't see an allergist for respiratory allergies until many years after I moved back to Austin, in the early '90s. He gave me my test results using a scale of one-to-five stars, five being the worst allergy. He gave me seventeen stars for ragweed and said he'd never seen anyone as allergic to it as I was. He also exceeded the five-star rating on mountain cedar (I think that was eleven stars, but I'm not sure) and on a couple of other tree pollens.

As a result, I spent almost a decade undergoing twice-weekly allergy shots, at one point getting four separate injections at every visit. They didn't help. I finally wound up being assigned (thanks, PPO) to an allergist who was a bloviated assh*le and whom I walked out on, telling his office staff (very loudly, so that everyone waiting for his magic touch could hear) that I did not appreciate being told that my troubles in calling his staff were "bullsh*t" (his exact response). (One of my doctors who knew him agreed that the guy had become "too full of himself.")

I've since relied on my primary physician for a supply of multiple daily allergy medications, with a couple that I take for serious allergic responses. I thank the powers that be that I don't have to use an epi-pen or something similar. I also give thanks that I only have one food allergy (Splenda (a.k.a. sucralose)), whereas my wife has a shellfish allergy (I can't imagine what life would be like without crab, clams, and shrimp).

/* end rant, begin profuse apologies to tOH for going off-topic */

[partner555 170]

44 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

/* engage slightly off-topic rant mode */

I was born in Austin, ostensibly the Allergy Capitol of the World. I grew up thinking I had a year-round cold, even after my family moved to Greater Houston. At one point one summer during my late elementary school days (I think), I developed dozens of sores on my ankles. A dermatologist said I was "allergic to grass" and couldn't run around barefoot anymore.

I didn't see an allergist for respiratory allergies until many years after I moved back to Austin, in the early '90s. He gave me my test results using a scale of one-to-five stars, five being the worst allergy. He gave me seventeen stars for ragweed and said he'd never seen anyone as allergic to it as I was. He also exceeded the five-star rating on mountain cedar (I think that was eleven stars, but I'm not sure) and on a couple of other tree pollens.

As a result, I spent almost a decade undergoing twice-weekly allergy shots, at one point getting four separate injections at every visit. They didn't help. I finally wound up being assigned (thanks, PPO) to an allergist who was a bloviated assh*le and whom I walked out on, telling his office staff (very loudly, so that everyone waiting for his magic touch could hear) that I did not appreciate being told that my troubles in calling his staff were "bullsh*t" (his exact response). (One of my doctors who knew him agreed that the guy had become "too full of himself.")

I've since relied on my primary physician for a supply of multiple daily allergy medications, with a couple that I take for serious allergic responses. I thank the powers that be that I don't have to use an epi-pen or something similar. I also give thanks that I only have one food allergy (Splenda (a.k.a. sucralose)), whereas my wife has a shellfish allergy (I can't imagine what life would be like without crab, clams, and shrimp).

/* end rant, begin profuse apologies to tOH for going off-topic */

Reply in Medications thread.

 

[Matoyak 51]

4 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

(I can't imagine what life would be like without crab, clams, and shrimp)

Turns out it's pretty alright.

[Aura Guardian 57]

Before the next NP, I thought the comic was, itself, a clarification. Huh.