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Articles by Demon Tree
Mafia game on Giraffe Boards
Straight Dope Message Board May 29, 2026, 11:31pm 1 (I have mod approval for posting this.) I’m going to be running a Mafia game on Giraffe Boards soon, and we could do with one or two more players if anyone is interested. New or experienced players welcome; for anyone who hasn’t played before, I’ve linked an earlier post from @Mahaloth that explains the game: My plan would be to host over on GIraffe Boards, which has a dedicated mafia board and is free to join.
Tony Blair is back
September 30, 2025, 10:44pm 1 Something for UK Dopers: Compact – 12 Nov 24 I once thought of Tony Blair the way I did of Princess Diana: part of my fading childhood memories. We’ve seen Blair’s eschatological revolution before. In the 1990s, critics of Blair and Clinton wrote them off as soppy centrists who didn’t really believe in anything other than staying ahead of opinion polls. They were mistaken. Blair’s revolutionary spirit remade the world.
Inner voice reading technology: dystopian visions
August 15, 2025, 2:41pm 1 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/science/brain-neuroscience-computers-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eU8.FVR5.B15FqIHNdpjr&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare Gift link to NYT. I personally roll eyes most AI dystopian fears but boy. This technology getting to a point to be abused by humans is in my mind a given, but the nightmare visions of our very thoughts harvested by a controlling AI are seeming less crazy sci fi now …
Things I'd like to see when/if this message board says "Buh-bye"
August 14, 2025, 4:40pm 1 Just for fun, folks. I would like to see a list of the top ten posters that have been blocked. I wouldn’t mind seeing if/where I am on the list. Yours?
Future climate where you live
August 13, 2025, 7:29pm 1 Someone at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science has created an interactive map showing what the climate in many cities is expected to be in about 60 years and then gives the closest analog of that future climate. fitzlab.shinyapps.io For instance, Portland’s climate is going to be similar to today’s climate in Shingletown CA.
Ladies with like 1 inch nails - how does that work?
4 My brother plays bango using the scratch or frailing method so he likes a bit of nail on his strumming hand. His fret hand nails are short. As far as personal hygiene goes for longer nailed women. Its called personal for a readon. I assume they learn to do all things, like typing and peeling fruit, or any cooking by trial and error. I’ve had artificial nails at times. (Not very long ones). The biggest problem I had was picking up small items.
Shakespeare Mafia -- Act III
July 26, 2025, 3:30pm 1 Enter Laertes ANGELOFTHENORTH Come, for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me. LAERTES Say you so? Come on.Play. OSRIC Nothing neither way. LAERTES Have at you now! Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned rapier ANGELOFTHENORTH O, I die, Horatio! The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit. I cannot live to hear the news from England.
I suspect my co-worker has dementia
July 23, 2025, 3:37pm 1 Like the title says, i’ve long suspected that an old dude at my work is losing his mind. I watched my mother succumb to alzheimer’s a few years ago. A lot of the signs are there with this guy. My problem: I’m not sure anyone else knows or cares. This guy is a little off, like a little wacky, and to be blunt, kinda dumb. He has a wife at home, but i have to imagine that she’s may be a little wacky too. He’s the weird old foreign guy at work.
Dating Ultimatum
July 3, 2025, 9:39pm 1 This post generated a lot of discussion on TwitteX today: x.com gon pic.x.com/9un6TBK7qk Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of the responses were positive, saying men/people usually know if the other person is ‘the one’ quite quickly, so two years is plenty of time to decide, and saying that it’s sensible to discuss life goals on a first date.
Misogynistic language and its defenders
June 26, 2025, 4:25pm 1 In the warmongers thread the subject of misogynistic language has come up again. Skank is misogynistic and it amazes me how often people feel the need to use these terms, and defend them as not a big deal, not really misogynistic, and how those of us who object need to lighten up, oh, and isn’t at all comparable to racism or antisemitism. You want to use the words I can’t stop you, but I will call you out on it. Skank is a woman specific insult.
Could the US destroy Israel's nuclear weapons capability?
June 22, 2025, 1:50pm 1 This thread made me wonder whether Israel’s nuclear capability could be destroyed similarly to Iran’s: The US has a 30,000 pound bomb named the GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, one or several of which are suppose to be able to destroy Iran’s Fordo nuclear enrichment facility, located under maybe 80 meters of rock and soil. Reports vary. The facility allegedly has 4 entrances.
Smapti, Kabbalah, And Cultural Appropriation
June 16, 2025, 9:26pm 1 He started a thread announcing he would be undertaking a six month long Kabbalah ritual. I’ve made oblique references to this in a few posts over the last few months, but since we’re now less than three weeks away from Easter, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell everyone that I’m more or less taking a six-month hiatus from this board, and from society in general outside of work, so that I can undertake an esoteric rite known as the Abramelin Operation.
Luigi Mangione something something Morality something something Billionaires
June 6, 2025, 8:35pm 1 Here’s a very straightforward example of (almost certain) bad faith posting from DT: He won’t admit there is extremism on the left.
When does pushing for extreme ideas help expand the Overton window?
This essay was published a while ago, but I only read it today and thought it was an interesting idea: slowboring.com Deliberately advancing bad ideas is in fact bad. The summary is that if you support a policy that is not currently politically feasible, working to popularise it with the general public is a good and beneficial thing to do, and can result in moving the Overton Window enough for it to be passed.
Am I Overreacting about /AmIOverreacting? (Reddit about bad behavior in relationships)
May 23, 2025, 4:41pm 1 I’ve been poking around Reddit a little more lately, and found myself gawking at /AmIOverreacting, a Reddit in which people post their scenarios and ask whether things are actually bad or whether they’re just overreacting. The sub seems to be full of very similar posts: mostly women posting screencaps of texts between themselves and their boyfriends in which their boyfriends are next-level shitty to them.
Kids' games to pass the time
Games you can play with little to no equipment, like hide and seek, and on journeys or while waiting for something, like eye spy and 20 questions. Right now my 5 year old daughter likes playing rock paper scissors, and ‘guess the animal’, a more limited version of 20 questions. When she’s older we can play the car number plate game, where you invent phrases to fit the letters as if they were an acronym.
Should accusations of gaslighting be treated as accusations of lying?
May 9, 2025, 12:30pm 1 Here’s a recent example, but I want to talk about the word in general, not simply this example: My issue is that when I bring up an easily observable dynamic, I get blanket denials and accusations that it’s all right-wing propaganda. It feels unpleasantly like being gaslit. Gaslighting isn’t just lying: it’s deliberate, intentional, and cruel deception for the purpose of making the victim doubt their own sanity.
Is there a title for any kind of sports official ending in "-lator?"
This is a memory from my early childhood. I was four years old and in junior kindergarten. There was an outdoor activity day at my public school, and there would have been team games. The one thing I remember of that day was of hearing my teacher - or another one - calling over a loudspeaker all “[team] captains and envalators”. The word I have bolded is obviously a mishearing of something. But I have no clue of what the word might have been originally.
Have you heard of this word? (Second time)
April 24, 2025, 10:30am 1 So I’m still playing Wordle (UK dictionary) and up comes: sepal I got it - but only by luck. Do you know it? Honestly, I was paying attention at school (which was from 1957 - 1971 ) For reference, here’s my previous thread… Have you heard of this word? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
US government may pay living people to donate their kidneys
I saw a story about this on social media, the End Kidney Deaths Act is being reintroduced: Specifically, this legislation will provide a $10,000 refundable tax credit per year for five years ($50,000 total) to living kidney donors who donate kidneys. If enacted, this legislation is expected to save up to 100,000 Americans currently on the waitlist and save taxpayers an estimated $10 to $37 billion.
Lactose intolerance in non-human animals
April 8, 2025, 9:33pm 1 Lactose intolerance causes problems for some folks. AIUI, it’s something that develops as/after one ages into adulthood, the theory being that back in the days of cave men, once you were no longer a nursing infant, there wasn’t a compelling reason for your body to continue producing lactase (the enzyme that helps break down lactose during digestion).
So actually it's just fine to link to hate speech
April 6, 2025, 8:31am 1 After reporting a post for linking to anti-trans hate speech (aka a US government communication, but it really was that bad) in the Pit, @Miller told me that since the poster was not endorsing said hate speech, no mod action was required. AIUI, the rules against hate speech apply even in the Pit, so this should not be a factor.
New Cheap PC for Windows 11 or supporting Discourse discussion {Also obsoleting Browsers & OP systems}
April 3, 2025, 4:26pm 1 Continuing the discussion from Apparently I'm going to be kicked off the boards (Discourse upcoming incompatibility){New cheap PC posts moved out}: I’m moving a lot of posts out. Note: Many of these posts were relevant, but not helpful to the OP and overwhelming the thread. Better to let people discuss it to death in a non-troubleshooting thread.
Not following the 'reciprocal tariff' philosophy
April 3, 2025, 1:47pm 1 I know there is an extensive tariff thread ongoing, but I don’t think I’ve seen a reasoning for why it is ‘ok’ for other countries to tariff US goods, but not ok for US to impose tariffs. First, I recognize that the ‘reciprocal’ part might be a falsehood, as I can’t really trust anything Trump says. (are there REALLY tariffs of the sort he says on US goods?) But what seems to be ‘attractive’ is basically revenge tit-for-tat.
Trying to connect behavior to evolution
April 3, 2025, 1:02pm 1 I have started a few threads on this in the past that did not go over too well. This is a slightly different angle. I am more interested in genetic changes as opposed to genetic expression. However I would like to draw a possible link between genetic expression and modification. From what I understand every sensory experience involves neurotransmitters. All of these neurotransmitters have specific half-lives to them before they break down into amino acids and proteins.
Thoughts on chronic insomnia?
March 27, 2025, 12:43pm 1 I have a colleague, a 49 yo woman, who has been suffering from chronic insomnia for the last 12 months. She says she has never been a good sleeper, but since this time she has seldom gotten more than three hours of sleep a night. She somehow manages to get through the day more or less normally, but I am worried about the long-term toll of insufficient sleep. She has seen several doctors who have suggested relaxation techniques, exercise, etc, but nothing is helping.
True Randomness
March 26, 2025, 8:10pm 1 There’s an announcement by JPMorgan today that they used a quantum computer to generate true randomness and that it was a big step forward. Has it always been possible to generate true randomness by sampling the decay of some atoms or radio static? I feel like I’m missing something. Is the step forward that they generated true randomness using a computer (without sampling some external natural random source)?
Sea Horses - did anyone ordered them?
March 25, 2025, 3:20pm 1 I remember ads for sea horses in many comics and magazines. Right next to the X-ray glasses and fake dog poop. I never ordered them. I’m curious if sea horses arrived alive? Back then it took a couple weeks to get orders by mail. Unless they shipped by air mail. I’ve heard sea horses are actually tiny. Did they make interesting pets? Did they live long?
Movies where three (or more) actors play the same character
March 24, 2025, 1:27pm 1 We watched “Interstellar” over the weekend. “Murph”, the daughter of Matthew McConaughey’s character, is portrayed by three different actresses: Mackenzie Foy as a young girl, Jessica Chastain as a young woman, and Ellen Burstyn as an old woman.
If we have canine, feline, equine, etc
March 12, 2025, 6:19pm 1 … then why isn’t it pronounced “mah-RYNE”?
Are you any good at guessing peoples' ages?
March 12, 2025, 3:09pm 1 I’m 71 and I try to guess how old someone is by looking at them and comparing them to me. But it’s difficult. I have no gray yet and I’m not too wrinkled. But we all age according to out genetics and life experiences, right? So if I see someone with gray or white hair, I assume they’re at least in their 80s, even tho my mom was gray in her 40s. This came to mind because yesterday, for the first time, I was given a senior discount without asking.
Let us assume that Victor Frankenstein was real, and it all worked
March 12, 2025, 2:49pm 1 We are assuming that the MOVIE VERSION of Frankenstein actually happened. And a Human-like being could be assembled from parts of the dead, and re-animated by electrical & chemical means. This would have happened in the late 19th Century, as per the films. So–what effect does this have on Society? On Business? On the Military?
Notification Of Posts To Watched Threads Coming In Very Late
I still get dots by my watched threads showing new replies and the number of replies. I do not get the usual large yellow dot with numbers up by my avatar in the upper right hand corner. I do occasionally get a notification in the yellow dot, but they come in very late. Is anybody else having this issue? My notifications for regular replies have been very late today. A couple of hours late in one case, according to posting time. Haven’t had a problem until now though.
A murmuration of starlings
This winter, a flock of starlings decided to roost in our hedge. There are a lot of them. A LOT. Every evening, the starlings form murmurations directly above our house. They are majestic and mesmerising: streaming across the sky, swirling to form strange shapes, forming clouds that gather and pull in tightly together and then pulse out again more loosely, flocks splitting and recombining. The noise from thousands of wings flapping is very audible.
The Ziz cult
February 9, 2025, 10:42pm 1 This weird saga was first noted here in the Pit thread Evil MFers in the News. A shootout in Vermont turned out to be connected to a radically vegan cult of trans women that splintered from a rationalist movement and is linked to a series of murders. The founder of the cult is one Ziz, wanted by the cops and currently at large, having unsuccessfully faked her own death.
I need a root canal treatment
Got a filling redone 3 weeks ago, which I was worried about because the original filling was already very deep and close to the nerve, but my new dentist seemed blasé about it. A couple of days later the tooth started hurting if I ate/drank anything hot or cold, or bit down on it. Google said this can be normal after a filling and should resolve in a couple of weeks. But it didn’t resolve. On Friday (of course) the pain became continuous, and got worse and worse.
Mod communication/biased modding
I was recently suspended for two days by @What_Exit for linking to a site that’s against board rules (and I’m still pretty unclear what those rules are). I’ve got two complaints about this: a) Lack of communication. I had no idea I had done anything wrong, was suspended without warning, and had to find this out from a thread in ATMB which the OP hadn’t bothered to tag me in.
Who Writes Executive Orders
January 21, 2025, 3:24pm 1 So Trump signed like 50 executive orders on his first day as President. But who actually writes the text of these things and who decides what the content should be? Are there committees to plan them? Does anyone other than the President officially get a say in their content, and if not, who is likely to unofficially have an input into each one?
What was Phys Ed/Gym like in your school?
January 13, 2025, 8:02pm 1 I’m assuming we all had to suffer thru this class in high school. For reference, please include when and where you attended. And I’ll start. Baltimore county public schools - high school was '69-'72. PE was mandatory every year. Boys and girls were segregated - no cross contamination allowed! We had uniforms.
How to Stymie a Corp. from Using AI to Read and Answer My Email
January 12, 2025, 11:45pm 1 Is there any way to write a business email (e.g. a letter of complaint to a heath insurance company) such that the receiver of the email can not easily (or hopefully, not at all) use AI to read and compose a reply to it? I forget my search terms now but I did a few searches on Google about this. All the links that came up were about how to disguise that you used AI to write a letter/email/document. They were tips on how to keep people from knowing you used AI.
My definition of woke
December 8, 2024, 11:31am 1 People keep bugging me to define what ‘woke’ means, but that’s not an easy task. Probably the best definition is to say that ‘woke’ refers to the ideas believed by and spread by the Social Justice movement, and to the societal changes and policies pushed by them. But what is the Social Justice movement? Some history: fifty years after the Civil Rights movement, black Americans were still poorer than white Americans, more likely to be in jail, and in general doing worse.
What is 'woke'?
People keep bugging me to define what ‘woke’ means, but that’s not an easy task. Probably the best definition is to say that ‘woke’ refers to the ideas believed by and spread by the Social Justice movement, and to the societal changes and policies pushed by them. But what is the Social Justice movement? Some history: fifty years after the Civil Rights movement, black Americans were still poorer than white Americans, more likely to be in jail, and in general doing worse.
Are bagels popular in England?
November 12, 2024, 7:05pm 1 Given the discussions about what we call cookies, biscuits and English muffins I’m not sure what they are called in England.
Chance China invades Taiwan
November 9, 2024, 12:38am 1 I’m assuming Trump’s election means Ukraine is fucked. But what are the chances it emboldens China to invade Taiwan? How is America likely to respond in that scenario, and is there any chance Taiwan can defend itself without US help?
About wearing a ring with a design on it
November 8, 2024, 11:01pm 1 Suppose you wear a ring that has a design on it, where there is a definite up and down orientation to the design. This design covers about 1/4 of the circumference of the ring, and the rest of the band is plain. Do you pay attention to which way is up on the design when you’re wearing it? When you hold up your hand (palm away from you) to look at the ring, is it facing up to you, or down? When someone else looks at the ring, is it facing up to them, or down?
Cost of death penalty vs life imprisonment in different countries
I was talking to someone on Reddit about the death penalty, and they kept bringing up that it costs more than just imprisoning someone for life. As far as I know that’s true - in the US. But also AFAIK that’s mostly because death penalty cases get special treatment in terms of a more rigorous trial, extra appeals etc, and because it takes so long to execute anyone that there is not much of a saving on imprisoning them.
Would Israel have been a viable country if the Palestinians had accepted the UN partition plan?
According to Wikipedia the UN plan was to split Mandatory Palestine into 3 parts; an Arab state, a Jewish state, and an international regime to administer Jerusalem. Also according to Wikipedia, this would have resulted in a Jewish state with 45% Arab population. This seems like a not-so-stable situation for a democracy; however, there was an expectation of further Jewish immigration.
What should I teach my daughter before school?
I have a 3.5 year old, so I have to start picking out schools to send her to next September (way too young, IMO ). And some stuff I read on social media recently has got me thinking. Obviously I read to her, play with her and talk to her. But then I see people online saying parents are supposed to teach their kids to read before school.
Why not encourage people to move from Gaza to the West Bank
4 This Wiki article covers the very complicated history of Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian movement. en.wikipedia.org Restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories by Israel is an issue in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to B'Tselem, following the 1967 war, the occupied territories were proclaimed closed military zones.
Theory of mind and children's games
1 I started playing hide and seek with my daughter when she was two, and she enjoys the game, but she fundamentally Does Not Get It. She’ll hide right in front of me; she’ll ask me to help her hide when I’m supposed to be seeking; she’ll tell me where to hide when it’s my turn. She doesn’t get that I’m not supposed to know where she is hiding, and she is not supposed to know where I am hiding.
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