Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Robert Ketchum]

Lmgtfy? What does that mean?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@Robert Ketchum Let me Google that for you.

At my school, they say that if you're absent on the day of a test, you have to do it the next day.

 

[Robert Ketchum]

Which is why trying to call in sick for a trip would seem to be just as pointless. They may just plan a trip for when you recover.

 

[Misfit Angel]

The average human body is unable to process a gallon of milk within an hour's time. More specifically, it's unable to process all of the lactose present inside that milk, so it tries to get rid of it in any way possible. Usually with explosively gross results.

Though with the price of dairy milk rising at a steady rate, it's often more cost effective to just suffer through whatever meeting or appointment you have, rather than try to get out of it that way.

 

[Ambyssin]

So, my region of the country is about to get hit with its third major snowstorm (we call 'em Nor'easters) this month. The Day After Tomorrow is real, guys.

 

[Beth Pavell]

There's no way the training would be rescheduled, since it's like, a nationwide meet-up. But it would be stupid anyway since I asked for it. I'll just have to try and keep a lid on my giggles

 

[diamondpearl876]

So, my region of the country is about to get hit with its third major snowstorm (we call 'em Nor'easters) this month. The Day After Tomorrow is real, guys.

You know it's real when even where I am, which has missed all the snow so far, is getting hail and tornado-like winds RIP

 

[Misfit Angel]

Oh. I guess that means more snow is coming for me. God damn it, every time the last of it from the previous snowfall melts, we get a couple more feet. :|||

 

[TRNatalie]

It snowed for about an hour at my school last Tuesday. Right now, there's a rainstorm going on over here. It's going to be difficult sleeping tonight. :[

 

[BackSet]

So, my region of the country is about to get hit with its third major snowstorm (we call 'em Nor'easters) this month. The Day After Tomorrow is real, guys.

Dammit! The snows mostly missed me but since we both call em nor'easters we must be in the same general area of the states meaning I am so getting hit. By the snow.

 

[lucarioknight56]

The snow hasn't been too bad for me this year, but last year...yeesh. The snow nearly lasted until April, and I live in the northwest! We usually get a few inches every year and that's it. Last year, we got more snow than had ever been recorded for the past seventy! No one saw it coming, and we were all expecting it to be that bad this year. Then, well...it was business as usual, so all those snowblowers went relatively unused.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Well. It seems like the storm has hit for the most part. No snow for me, even though I was in the forecasted area. For once, I'm glad the weatherman was wrong. The only snow on my lawn is two weeks old and steadily melting. Looking at next week's forecast, it'll be gone by Monday.

Considering my emotions have been tied to snowfall this season (for some reason), life is definitely improving.

 

[Ambyssin]

I'd say climates are shifting toward more extreme weather more frequently. Folks in the northeastern United States basically need to start treating future winters like hurricane season down south. I mean, the folks at the National Weather Service are, they're even naming these winter storms using the hurricane naming system.

And, not to sound obnoxious or anything, but I find it a bit sad that tons of northern states are willing to spring to action and send resources to states hit by hurricanes. But when blizzards and winter storms roll through the north, nobody is rushing to help the people most affected.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It seems like we're getting more storms on this side of the Atlantic. Snow is now a regular Winter occurrence (Though you wouldn't know it by the way the English react to it), and it never used to be.

 

[canisaries]

for a few weeks now, the weather forecast has been "ok this week is cold and windy and bad but the next one will be warm and the start of spring i swear guys for real"

 

[kintsugi]

And, not to sound obnoxious or anything, but I find it a bit sad that tons of northern states are willing to spring to action and send resources to states hit by hurricanes. But when blizzards and winter storms roll through the north, nobody is rushing to help the people most affected.

I also don’t mean to sound obnoxious when I write this. I legitimately think this is a good learning opportunity for anyone who doesn’t live in a region where the sky can decide to dump 33 trillion gallons of water on you with only a few days’ notice.

On average the sheer cost of hurricane-related infrastructure repair vs blizzard-related infrastructure is so, so vast that they’re hardly comparable. Here’s a comparison from this article on the 2016 superstorm that battered the northeast:

This weekend's $3 billion loss estimate is peanuts compared to the $26 billion in lost business and wages caused by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, according to Moody's Analytics. And Sandy caused an additional $45 billion in physical damage.

The most expensive storm on record was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which cost businesses and individuals $28 billion in lost sales and wages, in addition to the $129 billion in physical damage.

Also of note is that the primary “loss” from the 2016 blizzard was in the form of businesses closing due to inclement weather and extra cost to hire state-paid snow shovelers and equipment. The infrastructure damage wasn’t significant enough to be noted in this article, but Wikipedia estimates it at $500 million. Million with an m. Hurricane damage consistently clocks in at billion with a b.

The most recent hurricane that you’ve probably heard of asking for aid was Harvey, which decimated the Texas coast (and several Central American countries too, but infrastructure damage across national lines gets tricky to calculate, so let’s call it just Texas and some Louisiana). It caused $120 billion dollars in infrastructure damage and yet is only tied for most expensive Atlantic storm to affect the US. This $120 billion figure represents more money than the GDP of 131 countries.

To me this apathy isn’t because people inherently hate each other. It’s because people are uninformed and don’t understand the sheer level of help needed after a hurricane rolls through your town and fucks you and your home up. We see it all the time, and this lack of information has tangible, painful impact on those affected by the storms. Trump made derogatory tweets about how Puerto Rico wasn’t doing enough to recover from hurricane Maria (landfall October 2 2017). Of note was that this was the fourth hurricane to hit PR in as many weeks and that PR is an island—meaning damage is worse because water comes from all sides, and recovery is harder because water from all sides. Puerto Rico still has 400,000 homes without power as of last month, representing approximately 1/6 of the island’s population. Five months. Five months of your fellow citizens living without electricity in a first world country because people assume that hurricanes aren’t bad and people should try harder, and because, when polled, a shocking number of Americans classified sending help to PR as “foreign aid”. It’s not malevolence; it’s ignorance, but we should fight it whenever we can.

 

[Robert Ketchum]

Ohhh. Humans can't process a gallon of milk at once. That explains that bit. So now we're taking about bad weather right?

 

[kintsugi]

Ohhh. Humans can't process a gallon of milk at once. That explains that bit. So now we're taking about bad weather right?

yup, here's a graph of 1 gallon of milk vs 33,000,000,000 gallons of water. it has numbers so you know it's legitimate and not just ripped from the first site that came up when I shoved "create a graph" into google

 

[Robert Ketchum]

All to make you have serious diaria(not sure how to spell that.)? Milk is something alright. And are you sure you didn't just put the first thing in create a graph? Because that part is clickable and brings up a site.

 

[Beth Pavell]

diaria(not sure how to spell that

Diarrhoea

The biology behind it is interesting. Not all humans have the gene that allows them to process milk as adults - we all have the ability as babies, but some of us lose it in childhood