Notices by Emily Velasco (mle_online@social.afront.org), page 5

I just encountered the word "calcifuge," which refers to a plant that doesn't tolerate alkaline soils -- meaning literally fleeing or flying away (fuge) from chalk (calci).

And then I realized centrifuge and centrifugal mean "flying away from the center."

For more on fuge, see the phrase, "tempus fugit" and the term fugitive.

I should have gone to the library before it got hot. Now it's 99 degrees out and I am dreading the ride over there

This new "Editor" feature that Microsoft jammed into Outlook is literally so stupid. Every grammar suggestion is something inane and incorrect like this.

People give unsolicited advice all the time in person and it's rarely as annoying as when the same thing happens online.

Sometimes (often, if I'm being honest), I will post about something here, and the post garners suggestions from people that I immediately find irritating. But if I step back and think about it, the suggestions are things that wouldn't bother me if a friend said them to me in real life

I've been pondering lately about why that is, and I think I have some answers.

1. Parasociality: Social media creates an asymmetry in person-to-person interactions that shows up as parasocial relationships. The result is that people might feel like they're giving advice to a friend, but to the recipient, it's like getting advice from a stranger. I think it's usually easier to accept advice from a friend because there's a sense that they know you and understand your situation.

2. Communication: Online communications are stripped of all the non-verbal cues that help lubricate person-to-person interactions. If your real-life friend makes a suggestion that you don't care for, you might sigh heavily or roll your eyes -- behaviors that communicate that you aren't receptive to the idea. I think those kinds of cues can carry more weight than a verbal explanation. Online, all a person gets is a verbal explanation, and those lend themselves to parsing and debate. And no one wants to debate something like that, especially if they are a stranger (see point 1)

3. Volume: If you're with a group of friends and complain about something, one of them might chime in with some advice, but everyone else is privy to that interaction. If you reject it, your other friends will know not to keep suggesting the same thing. If you accept it, everyone else hears that and you can move on to a new topic. Online, people don't always see and often don't bother to read other replies, so you end up with several people suggesting the same thing, even after you've already told someone else it won't work.

In short, social media sucks for socializing!

If someone who calls the earthquake hotline starts off by saying, "Please don't think I'm crazy, but ..." you're about to hear the craziest shit you've ever heard.

Today's call was from someone who said whenever she gets upset, she gets a headache, and when she gets a headache, it causes earthquakes and other natural disasters.

This is what I'm going with

I have to go to the office today to deal with the terrible rich people referenced in a previous post, so I'm considering just how ridiculous and unprofessional I can dress without getting in trouble.

@botvolution Hey, I made you a shoe in class because you've got a lot of sole"

@botvolution i do like the kind of creative problem solving that comes with restrictions and prompts, but i just didn't like any of the assignments i saw her give to the other class last year. I don't want to make a shoe. What am i doing do do with a ceramic shoe after class is over?

Fall semester is 20 days away, and I'm debating what I want to do about ceramics class.

The instructor I've been with for three classes now is only teaching on Fridays and Saturdays -- all day each day. I did that last semester and it was kind of a drag having every Saturday tied up from 8:45 am to 4 pm. But, I can get into her class just by showing up on the first day, even though it's already full.

Two other instructors are teaching weekday classes. Those are easier to deal with because they're two days a week, for only four hours each day.

One instructor is great and I would love to take class with him, but he's a very popular choice. The other instructor is strict and assigns projects with very prescribed bounds. Other instructors might give you an assignment like, "using the coil-built method, create something on the topic of rebirth." This instructor will say, "you will make a shoe for this assignment." I'm not into working that way.

Much to ponder.

Albino seedlings have sprouted in my garden. I have no idea what these will l are or why they're lacking chlorophyll

(There's nothing obviously wrong with the soil. Everything else in the planter is normal.)

@steter yeah they do! I wasn't really optimistic that this would work but the steel is so hard compared to the aluminum I think I would have had to really try to mess up those threads

I broke a spoke on the one of my bike wheels but I couldn't replace it because it was on the freewheel side, and freewheel was stuck on way too tightly to be removed.

I really wanted to save the freewheel and the spoke protector, so I thought, why not see if the lathe can help?

I started by turning off the flanges so that the spoke protector could come off. That was the easy part. Separating the remains of the hub from the freewheel would end up being a lot more involved.

The freewheel is steel and was threaded onto the aluminum hub. If I could machine away the aluminum, the freewheel would be free. However, the aluminum was sandwiched in between the hardened steel of the freewheel and the hardened steel of the bearing cup.

To get the bearing cup out and give me access to the rest of the aluminum, I dug out this very skinny little trepanning tool, and cut away enough material to push the bearing cup out with an arbor press.

With the bearing cup out, I could reach inside the remaining hub material and bore it out, little by little, until i reached the hardened steel threads of the freewheel.

When I had cut deep enough the tops of those threads started to show. That was so little aluminum left at that point that I was able to grab one and with pliers and peel it out, revealing clean freewheel threads. Now i can mount this on new hub and rebuild the wheel

Rent went up 9 percent again

I need some new art projects. I've only been doing handy projects. Those are fun, but they have little whimsy

@spetku yes, i do need a robot of some sort. Maybe something solar powered that lives on the eaves of my roof

@JohnS_AZ One intensely bright LED spotlight. It points randomly around the neighborhood