TheMikeness

Haven't heard anything about this in a while, has there been any noteworthy progress on this lately? Has it primarily run into a funding constraint or a time constraint?

This whole topic started because the context of Stefan's conversation was not properly grasped. It should be obvious to anyone who has watched Stefs stuff over the years that he does not truly think that selling loose cigarettes is initiating force against store owners or anything like that. All that Stefan was saying was that someone called the cops on him because they FELT victimized by him. Given that we all currently live in a statist system where selling cigarettes without paying the usual taxes and licensing, at least according to the letter of the law, there is a victim. All this arguing over a simple misunderstanding...this is a good example of why I never come to this forum anymore. Too much inability to "see the forest for the trees".

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-smartest-thing-a-child-has-ever-said Some of this is just amazing! I particularly enjoyed this one: "Friend's child watched the kitchen clock second hand ticking away for a few moments, thought about it, then announced her conclusion: "There is no biggest number, is there Mum?" (Not bad for 3 years old...)"

Thanks for the link I'll check it out. I've never panned or prospected before myself, basically I just got the idea to do some brief "YouTube research" on gold panning on the weekend, and since it was so informative and interesting I ended up spending half the weekend on it. I think I'll probably buy a beginner panning set off Amazon and dip into the Bow River and see what's up though, but of course I'll have to look into the regulations first. I've always wanted to do some metalworking so if I ended up getting into this somewhat, it somewhat meshes with that, which is good. Who knows, my parents have a cabin in the middle of a large swath of largely pristine area surrounded by tons of lakes and streams in north western Ontario, so if I go out there on vacation for 2 weeks this year I might just take some panning gear there and try it out there too.

Less practically, here is a video that describes the geology behind why gold can be found where it is today in the Earth's crust: (part 2 segment 2), (part 2 segment 3) (part 1 and part 2 segment 1 talk about that it comes from red giant supernovas out in space which is not all that relevant, so I didn't link them here)

Hello all! I've heard a few mentions before that Stefan used to do gold panning, but when I searched on this forum for gold panning info, I found very few actual references to this. I was wondering if maybe considering the price of gold going through the roof, people wanting to be their own boss, people wanting something to mine after Bitcoin hits its maximum number of coins, people driven out of a job due to the state being lousy, or maybe just wanting to have a cool hobby to talk about at social gatherings less cerebral to talk about than deep philosophical topics, maybe it might make sense to either cover this a bit in its own podcast, or perhaps link to some suggested resources for this sort of thing. If not, I have in the last few days spent significant time making a short playlist on YouTube of gold panning/mining/prospecting related videos that I found helpful and plan to try out some time, but as I have no actual experience in any of this, I have no sense of what might be practical and what might not, etc. Incase someone might find these useful at least, here they are: Videos so far that I've found interesting: Basic intro of panning equipment, process involved, and tips: Crushing quartz to check for gold: Panning technique: What a chunk of rock containing gold ore looks like, for reference: What gold ore looks like in rock formations, for reference: Illustrations of how to locate gold rich locations in creeks/streams: How to locate gold rich locations in creeks/streams for panning: How to locate gold rich deposits in red dirt in arid climates: Cool custom sluicebox, might be the ultimate equipment for rapid high volume gold panning: Gold extraction with Borax instead of mercury/lead: Melting fine gold into "miners' buttons" (using furnace and lead): Happy hunting!

Yeah. It's simple to make a checklist of specific actions that if you do, or specific types of abuse you use, you're a failure as a parent, but it is also easier to justify away for the person reading it. My goal with this is to have a thing I can post to various places like Facebook, etc, where people will read it without seeing it as a personal attack, as that will cause them to shut down immediately. The goal is to get people to read the whole thing, so as to slip in these ideas of what things they should make sure do NOT happen if they want to be able to think of themselves as good parents, without telling them how to do their job or risk offending them, as that I believe is what people are going to be more responsive to. Some may see this as taking a sort of apologist stance towards child abuse, etc, but the way I see it is that the people who are open to having things spelled out for them such as "do not spank or emotionally bully your kids" already have plenty of opportunity to hear such things, whereas there's a much bigger market in my opinion for ideas which do not provide the readers with an easy excuse to dismiss it and justify their actions. With that all in mind, I realize that each point is going to have to be DRASTICALLY shortened in the final version, due to the realities of the "sound-byte" culture around us.

While I am trying to avoid listing specific things as this is supposed to be a sort of symptom checklist as opposed to an action checklist, (which IMO is much simpler but also more likely to be ignored or justified away rather than deeply considered), I should probably add a point specifying that if the child has developed certain traits, they might have failed as a parent as well. One of those would be if other people perceive them to be a bully, another might be if they themselves fail this checklist, etc.

Whoops! I meant to titled this article "Are you or your parents failures at parenting? A bare-minimum checklist". To anyone whom I have just offended with this editing-caused mistake, please accept my humble apology. I meant to say that this is a checklist for determining whether you are a failure as a parent, or whether your parents are failures at being parents. The original reason for this checklist is that while it is known that people will just shut down when told not to spank or do other abusive things, they might give it more credibility if they're told a list of symptoms which indicate that their parents or themselves as parents have done something wrong, at which point it is on them to determine what they might be. This is instead of simply handing them a value judgment about their specific actions, as I believe that guided self reflection is often more useful for figuring out things than to be outright criticized for one's actions.

Here is my modest (and not final) proposal for an easy to follow checklist for determining whether one has passed or failed the bare mimimum requirements of being a parent. It is not to be confused with a checklist for how to be a good parent, but rather as a simple tool for determining whether a given family definitely requires work, and perhaps is usable as one of many criteria for determining whether or not a given person requires therapy in order to resolve some basic issues in their life. "Are you or your parents failures? A bare-minimum checklist" How to interpret this checklist: - This checklist was produced by a son of parents who would not be marked as failures by this checklist, and so it may not be definitive - This checklist is not to be confused with a checklist for determining whether a parent is successful - If your parents are failures according to this checklist, they owe you closure on this at the very least, and likely also therapy for you and themselves as well; conversely if you are a failure as a parent according to this checklist then you also owe the same to your children - If either parent is a failure according to this checklist, then both should be considered to be failures Checklist: 1) The parents' marriage must not end in divorce unless the alternative is for the children to be exposed to a loveless marriage or an abusive environment. In the case of a divorce, the parents must either remarry for love within 5 years, or ensure the children have significantly increased access to non-divorced families, and other family members who love them (Therefore, parents should take the time to acquire the level of self knowledge required to be able to correctly pick someone for a sustainable and loving marriage). 2) The parents must plan, and adjust their plans, such that the children are emotionally and financially able to leave the home permanently before age 25, and never need to come back for more than 6 months, except in exceptional circumstances. This age is flexible only if the parents do not live in a first world country. 3) If the parents become gravely ill, guilt must be no factor in the decision of the child(ren) to either come back to care for them, or at least pay for good care for them. 4) The parents and children must love each other unconditionally until death, unless a physical brain defect prevents this. 5) The children must have never hid a critical fact about themselves (such as their sexuality or if they were raped) from the parents for over a year, whether out of embarrassment or fear of how they might react or otherwise. 6) If by any of the above criteria a parent would be considered a failure, they may be able to redeem themselves by making it their number #1 priority to rectify the issue(s) before their oldest child reaches the age of 30, and only if they eventually succeed in rectifying it. This criteria holds even in the case of premature death. This will only be considered to be completed if all the children read this checklist and concur. Being unaware of being a failure of a parent is also no excuse, and is an additional failure in itself.

I just stumbled on this on YouTube and thought it was rather fascinating. The parents seem like they're quite good and seem to have been from the beginning, but yet their child is having some serious difficulties. Clearly we all know that this is possible, but not that common. The video mentions schizophrenia, but a comment mentions PDD/autism as a possiblity as well