I lived in Turkey for four years, and after a while I noticed that Turks didn't respond well to my smiling. They didn't understand it as a friendly signal, and it actually caused friction. I never asked about it, but I somehow caught on that they thought I was stupid. I thought about it, and it made perfect sense to me that it was stupid to smile at things that shouldn't make you happy.

So I stopped smiling in stores and restaurants, with coworkers, and even with Turkish friends. My interactions with people improved noticeably.

After four years, I moved back to Canada, where I continued not smiling for no reason. I've never been able to get back into the habit. I just feel stupid and unnatural smiling for no reason. People smile at me just because they see me, and they smile politely. I can't smile back. I just raise my eyebrows.

People now tell me constantly that I'm too sad, that I should smile more that I'm not happy. Now, there's some truth to that -- I do suffer from depression -- but that predates living in Turkey and it's only since then that anyone's accused me of being sad, or even noticed that I don't smile as much as I should. I've had to train my friends out of referring to me as grumpy.

My job is teaching English as a Second Language to students from all over the world. My Western students -- particularly the Latinos -- tell me daily (literally) that I don't smile enough. My East Asian and Eastern European students have never said a word in that direction. I just realized the divide now after watching this video.

Counterpunch ran a rant by John Steppling yesterday, titled The Magic Liberal.

As you can deduct from the title, the author takes aim at liberals, with focus on their public reaction to Comey's defenestration and their sudden love affair with institutions (law enforcement/intelligence agencies) that have proven time and time again to be an enemy of the public.

Check out this (admittedly rather long) snippet:

And so we return to the firing of James Comey. And this story has less to do with the Trump’s motivations and the fact that Comey probably needed to be fired (though not because of anything to do with Russia Gate) than it does with the sudden open embracing of throughly corrupt and compromised institutions.

I’ve had people tell me the integrity of the Judiciary in peril. One wonders how such sentences can be uttered with a straight face. I have read people writing of the attack on Democracy signaled by Comey’s firing. What can that possibly mean to anyone who says it? The anti democratic actions of Obama over 8 years seems to pass unnoticed. What was NDAA? Obama expanded surveillance, prosecuted whistleblowers and expanded military tribunals. And this just scratches the surface. What was TTP for that matter?

And yet, if you can find me a liberal willing to actually debate this, I will clean your house for a year, free.

No, the New Victorian, the american white educated liberal is in crises. He or she is in a panic over Trump not because they fear global conflagration or nuclear annihilation, but because their Yoga class might get cancelled. They are forever aggrieved over the violation of feelings — of selected vulnerable groups. This never includes the poor, Arabs, Communists or Africans. Well, ok, on occasion it does include Africans but only in very broad abstract ways (i.e. when George Clooney argues for saving South Sudan or whateverthefuckever it was he was on about).

The adoration of the White Helmets, a proven group of psychopathic jihadist mercenaries is a perfect example. The White Helmets fit the white paternalist narrative. It is a form of colonial logic. The subaltern needs rescue. And its just so wonderful that some clearly teachable Arabs can help themselves with the rescue. Lets give them an Oscar. The style codes are what matters here.

Ahhhh.
That would do it.
"Non-degraded signal"

I assume as a NATO partner...

I think that by standing with Hillary instead of with Bernie, she signaled that she's willing to play ball with the party establishment that Hillary was a product of. That is, a party that would prop up a candidate who would "say anything, and change nothing," and govern for corporations and the wealthy, etc.

The Democratic Party imploding in on itself over Bernie's popularity was a major factor in getting Trump elected. In a way, Trump could never have become president without Hillary....

I really like Warren, but I worry that the DNC would neuter everything they can from what she's stood for and spoken out about during her political career; I worry that they would make her words hollow.

Damn.... they prob my top 5 too, but for the sake of difference

Game design stuff:
Extra Credits https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg
Errant Signal
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4JnxTxtvItQecKUc4zRhQ

Movie stuff
Every Frame a Painting https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjFqcJQXGZ6T6sxyFB-5i6A
Mr Sunday Movies https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkDSAQ_5-yx5hmuvUcsJL7A

Politics:
Vox https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA

It is binary at one stage of processing. when a neuron has enough input it fires an action potential which is a binary one or zero. that then gets "read" by the synaptic terminal and turns back into an analog signal to a "post synaptic" neuron.
As you said, how this signal is then processed by the next neuron depends on a lot of factors including the effects of other neurons. Synaptic strength refers to the amount of electricity the post synaptic neuron sees given this binary 1 or 0 and is often measured at rest. However, if other neurons are firing it can go up or down, amplifying or shrinking it by activating other voltage sensitive ion channels or by increasing the conductance across the lipid bilayer of the cell so that the electricity leaks out of the dendrite of the neuron before it is processed at the soma (the cell body where a new action potential can be generated)

Hey, dubious. I don't know nearly as much about the details as you do, but I was skeptical when he made the claim to the grad student that inter-neuron transmission was binary. My layman's understanding is that there's a sort of "signal strength" between neurons that can decay or be amplified depending on how those pathways get used. Each signal affects others, and so on--it's much more a very complex feedback system utterly different than the binary instruction pathways used by our current computers.

I have to guess that not only is drivers training no longer a requirement, but neither are the written or driving tests.
I can't fathom how people get a license and still not know things like slower traffic must keep right, passing must be on the left only, and lane changes and/or turns must be proceeded by signaling, but clearly they can. I think it's time to make the requirements more stringent.

This needs to run on every TV station in America. But, most of those who don't use their turn signals are just assholes who don't care about their safety or yours.

When you have to explain the obvious (use your fucking turn signals) to the idiots* among us, sarcasm just feels right.

*you can choose whichever descriptive term you think apropriate

I get pissed all the time when people don't signal, but I still want to punch him in the face for being a sarcastic douche.

I prefer listening to Milo's entertaining jibes compared to the tantrums and virtue signalling of the left. If you watch one Milo video, watch the full UMass presentation with Crowder and Hoff-Summers.

ps. Ignoring the right did wonders at the last election. ; )

As if he could hear that over the racket coming from the alien signals announcing the new hyperspace bypass.

I always think those drivers must be master multitaskers to be able to listen, translate, anticipate, and drive balls out all at once. They're rivaled only by jet sprint boat racers, who take all the directional information, speed it up by 3, and make it 100% hand signals....all on water at fighter plane g forces.

I do better driving blind over listening to fast pace notes....I just can't do both at once very well.

Looked into it. LIGO can listen to the whole sky, by design. As a result, we don't know exactly where in the sky the "sound" came from. We just know a general direction "over there somewhere," on account of the signal arrived at Louisiana site about 7 milliseconds before the Washington site. There is a third LIGO site in Italy that could have helped triangulate the origin better, but it wasn't turned on at at the time.