mkporwit
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Posts posted by mkporwit
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MK, are you for real?
Yep.
Wow.
You don't see how reporting an article about France is an act of "intellectual laziness?"
Nope. Both France and the US are first-world, developed, stable nations, so comparisons across those two societies are valid. There's nothing intellectually lazy about this.
And in any case, this was just an example. Want numbers for California in the late 1990's instead? They're not that far off. Higher percentage of marijuana use and a lot more crack than the French numbers, but the cost per person per year in 2001 dollars was ~ $1000
The French abstract was text, which made for easy copy/paste into the forum. The california numbers were in a PDF which did not allow for copying. So there was laziness on my part, but it wasn't intellectual...
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MK, are you for real?
Yep.
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DO you guys jumping on me for "making up" a statistic where I clearly acknowledged it was just a guess have any different numbers? Do you believe the number of drug addicts is comparable to that of alcoholics, or that the social costs compare?
Hey, I didn't argue that the cost of drug addicts is comparable to the cost of alcoholics. It is clearly greater. I'm just bashing the intelectual laziness that comes from pulling numbers out of thin air and then couching them in bullshit acknowledgements when 30 seconds with a search engine would produce whole pages of numbers such as these here from France, 1997:
Findings: The use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs cost more than 200 billion francs (FF) in France in 1997, representing 3,714 FF per capita or 2.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Alcohol is the drug that gives rise to the greatest cost in France, i.e. 115,420.91 million FF (1.42% of GDP) or an expenditure per capita of 1,966 FF in 1997. Alcohol takes more than half of the social cost of drugs to society. The greatest share of the social cost of alcohol comes from the loss of productivity (57,555.66 million FF), due to premature death (53,168.60 million FF), morbidity (3,884.0 million FF) and imprisonment (503.06 million FF). Tobacco leads to a social cost of 89,256.90 million FF, that is an expenditure per capita of 1,520.56 FF or 1.1% of GDP. Productivity losses amount to 50,446.70 million FF, with losses of 42,765.80 million FF as a result of premature death and 7,680.90 million FF linked to morbidity. Health care costs for tobacco occupy second place at 26,973.70 million FF. Illicit drugs generate a social cost of 13,350.28 million FF, that is an expenditure per capita of 227.43 FF or 0.16% of GDP. Productivity losses reach 6,099.19 million FF, with 5,246.92 million FF linked to imprisonment and 852.27 million FF to premature death. The cost of enforcing the law for illicit drugs occupies second place at 3,911.46 million FF, followed by health care costs of 1,524.51 million FF.
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Now if someone would come up with aftershave containing blood coagulant.
And why the hell would you need aftershave? Last time I saw you you were as fuzzy as an Ewok...
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Well, actually if you follow the link they claim that the reaction causes no thermal damage to the surrounding tissues.
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And hey, sitting down to pee means you don't have to open your eyes, makes it easier to go back to sleep. Hmmm, maybe that answer's Bug's question.
Hell, if the whole point is not to open your eyes so you can go back to sleep you can just pee in your depends...
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In two years of emergency response, I never went to any emergency caused by meth, heroin, marijuana, LSD, or any other illegal drug...but each and every shift had anywhere from a few to continuous hours of alcohol-related calls. And every one of the most gruesome was alcohol-related.
Mike, meth or heroin were probably not nearly as prevalent when you were an EMT. My time as an EMT had me attend to quite a few drug cases, mainly heroin overdoses. Probably on the same order of magnitude as alcohol... (about 4x less -- this is in Palo Alto in 2002/2003). Most of those heroin cases were not yuppie recreational users, but rather hard-core addicts.
Also, you miss the real cost of alcoholism, one greatly exceeding the 3am on a Saturday night perspective that an EMT would be most familiar with. There's a lot of reasonably well functioning alcoholics that never get caught in the DUI checkpoints that simply make life a living hell for their families, bringing up another generation of dysfunctional members of society...
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I bet there are a lot more alcoholics (x 100? 10,000?) than meth addicts in this country and the real costs are almost certainly vastly greater. (I use the "hedge" words "I think" and "almost certainly" to acknowledge I don't have a factual basis, but I'm pretty sure this is correct.)
Mmmm, I hear the faint popping sound of facts being pulled out of the ass...
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Well, hexes are tapered on the ends, so endwise placements could be used to protect slightly flaring, not-quite vertical cracks... maybe...
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And what stores carry it? So far I'm 0 for 3 in trying to find it (Redmond REI, Marmot, PMS). None knew that a new edition was even available...
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They also have a sweet deal on cosmetically blemished BD Neutrinos, if you need them a dozen at a time:
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Looking at the product description:
"Product Description
The QuickWire pack from Black Diamond provides smooth clipping performance with straight gate and wire gate biners to get you out on the routes in style without breaking the bank With an impressively strong Dynex dogbone, you'll be able to rely on these Quickdraws season after season Features: 10 mm Dynex dogbone is incredibly strong and extremely durable Contains 6 Quickdraws Specifications: Weight: 1 lb 6 oz -set Closed strength: 25 kN Open strength: 9 kN Minor Axis Strength: 7 kN"
So I'd say this has 6 draws...
So yeah, awesome deal
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What, you're getting out of the game and want to get rid of your gear?
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So Mike, did you get out to Index on Sunday? Henry Leap and I played on GNS and on the first pitch of Lizard on Friday afternoon/evening. We had beautiful weather, except the bugs were kind of bad as the evening wore on.
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I'll second that recommendation for the phoenix. Just be sure to have a belay device that works well with 8mm ropes.
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Looks like a nice trip. Sounds like great conditions up there right now... hmmm, my weekend is free...
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I'd venture that the icon and the "poo-bah" are probably both the results of the most recent software upgrade...
The smiley face shows up when you're logged in to the forum and browsing. Otherwise it shows you as having a gray "sleeping" face.
And the new software probably also trashed the custom title settings... I see for example that mattp is no longer an Alpine Buddy but merely a sprayer...
Of course one of the forum admins can probably give a more definite answer.
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It's a good thing I didn't dress up like a naked gay simoan named frank for our halloween party at work. Sounds like I could have gotten in trouble.
Rob,
Could have been that your CIO beat you to the punch...
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work like you don't need the money?
I prefer an alternate version:
Work like no one is watching
Love like you don't need the money
Dance like you've never been hurt
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Others have mentioned Kirkwood, and I'd strongly back that idea. There's a decent amount of XC terrain nearby... not as much as Royal Gorge, but solid.
The downside to Kirkwood is that it is ~20-30 minutes from South Lake Tahoe and most lodging.
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Had fun leading all of R&D on Saturday under perfect skies. After the incident on the NF of Concord earlier this year, it was a little odd to be on something with this much exposure again...
Drank a bunch of beer and enjoyed the "sausage fest".
Great meeting all y'all.
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I had some prusik material in my pack, but it would have been difficult to get.
So get hands-free on the rappel (leg wrap/autoblock/mule hitch on the device/whatever), clip your pack loop, and get at the contents of your pack. Problem solved.
Is there a place to get an inexpensive drill kit somewhere that I can hang off my harness. I sort of want to be able to rappel anything and not to have to choose my descent routes.Try drilling a 3/8" bolt hole with a hand drill in granite sometime. Just be sure to clear your calendar for the afternoon.
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Looks like your route up pitch 5 and mine join up right above where I'm standing.
All y'all can disregard my comment about the crack needing gardening then -- I thought the open book was above my stance in the photo, not below it...
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Trip: Le Petit Cheval - Spontaneity Arete
Date: 9/1/2007
Trip Report:
Last Saturday, Larry Rafferty and I did the Spontaneity Arete on Le Petit Cheval. We got to the TH at 9:30am, and by 10:45 we were at the top of the first static hand line. We were unable to locate the second hand line, so we headed left and up, eventually having to do a "pitch 0" to get over the rock band.
The Spontaneity Arete
Once above the rock band, we spotted the overhanging roof marking the start of the second pitch, and made our way to the base of the climb, getting there around noon. I led the first pitch up a nice crack, but the pitch quickly flattened out. Larry led the second pitch, placing a couple of #1 cams and then scrambling the rest of the way.
We got to the start of the 3rd pitch, and as a consolation prize for the lack of quality climbing on the second pitch, Larry led that one as well, combining it with the fourth. The quality of climbing greatly improved.
I combined the fifth and sixth pitches into one lead. Rather than going directly up the corner crack of the left-facing dihedral on pitch 5, I took a crack to the right and then did a slightly spicy (for me) traverse at the top to a sawed-off tree. The crack in the dihedral looked like it needs some serious gardening to clean it out.
Me on the fifth pitch
There was a party of three ahead of us on the route. As I was leading pitch 6, they were waiting to rap down. Pitch 7 is a scramble, and we topped out at 6:30.
Larry scrambling to the summit on the seventh pitch
We spend a few minutes at the summit, then rapped down to the gully and scrambled down to the base of the climb. Larry caught up with the three climbers, who had just finished rapping the entire route. Seems like the gully is the faster descent, even if there is no snow.
Me on the summit
We made it out to the cars by headlamp a little before 9pm. We lost the trail a little before crossing Early Winters Creek, and had to bushwhack from the creek back to the TH.
Seems like you'd do fine to skip the first two pitches, hiking up the gully instead and picking up the route at the base of pitch 3. There's a lot of black lichen on the rock, and a few portable hand holds.
Gear Notes:
Cams up to #0.5-4, doubles in #1 and #2, nuts, hexes including the #11 BD cowbell.
Approach Notes:
The start of the second hand line is almost straight up from the end of the first hand line, above some steep blocks. Otherwise, the trail is pretty easy to spot and well marked with cairns.
Val d' Aosta / Chamonix
in Spray
Posted
Them's going to be some lucky kids