First-off, I completely agree, but mostly because of your first point about assault and the generalisation that it's currently something that would freak a lot of people out.

I think it will be great when society comes to a point where it's acceptable that someone might have transitioned. At (or approaching) that time I think it's something that a partner should generally know. Having said that, I certainly don't think it should be an obligation.

My present-day analogy is divorce... it's now acceptable to most people to be involved with someone who's divorced, but it's not something that's always discussed as a relationship blooms. However, it is an important part of a person's past that says something about them, and if it comes out far later in the relationship that says something too.

The mirror of this is that someone's reaction to the revelation of divorce/transition says something about them, and their acceptance of your past.

BTW, I'm saying this as someone who's divorced. Y'know, just in case it matters to you. In the long term. If we have a 'long term'. Damn, I'm ruining the moment, amn't I.

There are a lot of parallels between advertising and copyright. Buy wholeheartedly in to either, and you end up sort of failing to accept the reality of their flaws.

Advertisers think they have a big problem whenever someone circumvents their ads. They panicked when VCRs came around and allowed people to record shows and fast-forward through ads. They panicked when DVRs came out and let people digitally skip through ads. And they are panicking now, with more and more people getting fed up and putting ad-blocking software on their computers or devices.

Copyright holders think they have a big problem when someone tries to circumvent their system, too. They worried about libraries giving people free access to books; but at least a physical book is pretty much limited to one person at a time. They freaked out about cassette tapes being easily copied with a dual cassette deck. They freaked out about people sharing MP3 music over the internet. They freaked out when DVDs came out with CSS protection which was circumvented almost immediately. They continue to freak out by pushing for ever more and more drastic DRM schemes, that are generally circumvented quite rapidly.

The general theme in both advertising and copyright is escalation; a sort of arms race. The problem is that that solution doesn't actually improve things for anyone, in either case. Ads get more and more offensive and annoying, more and more people block/skip them. Copyright gets more and more locked-down, more and more people circumvent it. In both cases, as the "legitimate" side squeezes harder, it ends up making the user experience better for those who circumvent it "illegitimately". See, for example, this good old comic from The Oatmeal:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones

The web with adblock software is a massively better experience than the web without it. A pirated 1080p movie or TV show lets you skip the previews/commercials that are often unskippable on a DVD. And on and on.

This arms race doesn't have a good future. Creators and distributors must start wracking their brains to come up with whole new ideas, or at least variants of the old ones, that break that cycle and ensure that "illegitimate" users/viewers don't have a better experience than legitimate ones. I'm sure not holding my breath though.

I dunno, I think I'd freak out, too, if I saw a rat that big!

"The Freak's Balls Big Adventure" would be a very different story.

You call THAT freaking out? You should see ME! *promote shimmy shimmy shake shake

Only if their entire weight is suspended by the water. If they're walking in the bottom (like here) it will add weight.

Having said that, I'd be pretty confident that it could take the negligible extra, even if it went above the max recommended occupancy.

Having said that, maybe for 30 seconds just to freak myself out, then nope nope nope nope nope.

Pulling them out from that elevator was the stupidest part of this whole festival of idiocy. If it had started moving (as, you know, elevators are meant to do), one or more of the people involved could easily have lost a limb or been cut in half. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

All this for 10 minutes of moderate inconvenience? It isn't as though they were running out of air or being swarmed by bees or something. That little kid was likely only crying at the end due to how much the so-called adults were freaking out.

Plymptoons used to freak me the f out. They're still super creepy, as is his animation of the Simpsons couch intro.

First time I ever saw one of his animations was featured in a Spike & Mike animation festival collection (VHS), his shorts about how to kiss LOL. I'm pretty sure they're here on the Sift but I'm lazy. Submit, Ctrl+W, Next.

Wait... my wife sent me this video -- fucking biiii... I mean -- freaking biscuits. Those darned biscuits and stuff. I'm sorry, honey bunny. Please don't murder me in my sleep, kthanx. You know, you been watching all that NCIS and CSI and Bones and Poirot and Midsomer Murders and old reruns of Columbo and Perry Mason and Murder Sheee -- OH MY GOD, MY WIFE IS GOING TO KILL ME

@vil Perhaps. It is also a standard exercise in acting classes.

Instead of the teacher calling things out, it is the participants who say something true about themselves. It is to teach students to be honest, and brave, and to see that they are not freaks. Much like this video. (Although how do you know this isn't real, this "ad"? People could have volunteered to do this. Although the single bisexual didn't ring true to me -- either folks were lying or it is indeed scripted.)

Anyway, in the acting exercise, instead of boxes on the floor, it is just people standing around. Someone calls out something true about themselves, and people who have done that join them, those who haven't move away and cluster together, so you end up with two groups. Constantly moving, constantly changing, the power shifting, the emotions shifting. It is great fun and can be scary as hell as you decide how honest you want to be. How honest you CAN be.

Two favorite memories of this exercise in classes I took:

1. A guy calls out -- "everyone who has ever peed in a sink". Every guy in the class joins him -- and one woman. We all about lost it.

2. Here in PT, small town, had a class with about 25 people in it. One brave man, Jim P, I'll never forget -- he had the bravery to call out -- "everyone who has ever had a restraining order placed against them." And everyone moved away from him and he stood there alone. Only time I have ever seen that happen, someone standing alone.

Whatever Russia has or hasn't done it pales in comparison to what the democratic leadership did. They got in to bed with the big corporations at the expense of the everyday American people they are supposed to represent. Bernie could have pulled them back from the brink but they didn't want to hear it. It had to be their woman Hilary, and so they went and lost against Donald freaking Trump.

This guy is right, the whole hacking thing is a convenient distraction so the Democratic leadership doesn't have to face up to what they have done.

oh god this song was part of the years-long fever dream disco medley soundtrack that ran from 1975-1980.
Do the Hustle-Hijack your love-Disco Lady-Night fever-I Will Survive-Disco Inferno-YMCA-Good Times-Le Freak, blah blah.
I'm glad The Clash and The Pretenders came along when they did, even The Knack was a welcome relief.

You can look up 1,184 ft or look ahead 1,184 feet and it has no effect what so ever. But to trust myself to stand the edge and look even 2 stories down freaks me out. If I was up there that high you could be damn sure I'd plummet to my death because of a bee.

I think the Tesla must've been watching the back-end of the SUV through the windows of the car behind and detected the distance between them was closing too quickly. And maybe it also took into account that the brake lights were firing.

In any case, freaking awesome safety technology. Wish I had it.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm half a world away and it freaks me out.

Here in Ireland we had a 'similar' fire nightclub fire when I turned 8 and I remember hearing about it so clearly. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have a connection to it. At least that led to far stricter fire standards here, which I know have saved lives. Given that the Station fire is being used as a teaching tool on another continent, hopefully some good can come of that too.