What’s on your mind?

[decafjava]

I thought the Mickey Mouse headphones were a joke - then I saw the front page.

Anyway one would hope by the 24th century audio equipment would be super sophisticated.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I thought the Mickey Mouse headphones were a joke - then I saw the front page.

Anyway one would hope by the 24th century audio equipment would be super sophisticated.

I'll be honest; I know that they (Mickey Mouse to a large extent, and Beats to a lesser one) are an American icon, or pair of icons - but, to my jaundiced eye, those headphones (indeed, pretty much anything by Beats) are awful. Tacky. Tasteless.

There are classy, tasteful, elegant, headphones in existence.

I thought Apple had (or used to have) class and a bit of taste. (And no, I refuse to enter the intellectual or mental or imaginative cul-de-sac of what the late Founder might have thought).

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Preparing ingredients for dinner (diced onions, garlic, - both organic - along with Italian spicy sausage, pancetta); cherry tomatoes - organic - will be roasted along with several whole cloves (unpeeled) of garlic.

A tin of Italian cannellini beans awaits, as well.

The remaining debate concerns whether pasta (my preference) or potatoes (Mother's) will be served.

 

[AngerDanger]

Personally, I'd far prefer to see him with a cup of Earl Grey tea in his hand.

And, while Mickey Mouse does little to appeal, (tacky, and Picard was classy), Beats, - come on - Beats have to be the most over-priced, over-rated, over-hyped triumph of marketing ever to enter the audio market.

Jean-Luc Picard deserves better.

Oh, I agree. Due to an Off By One Error in the replicator's databanks, Picard's modest but reliable Audio-Technicas came out a little… flamboyantly.

As it turns out, the replicator's listing for the Technicas had been corrupted during a blast of gamma radiation while the Enterprise was having its shields repaired, and wouldn't you know it, the code had gained some sort of sapience. The replicator couldn't read the file and skipped to the next in the series. (If only Picard had requested an earlier model, it would've shifted to a slightly newer one.)

Ever resourceful and not above trying something new and initially odd, Picard puts on the Mickey Mouse Beats XxX Solo Extreme Whatever and… isn't thrilled. The Beats end up being the least (and most) of his problems; the Audio-Sapicas have taken control of the ship and aren't too pleased with the treatment headphones have received. They want an explanation for the ubiquity of their overpriced and garish brethren.

Picard sets aside his plain black tea (now the OBOE is starting to get to him) and explains that, "Often the human condition is experienced rather than perceived. What feels right to one can—and often does—appear wrong to another, but that doesn't make it any less valuable. We were gifted, whether by deliberation or chance, some of the most powerful biological computers and a curiosity to match. What peripherals we use on our voyages to acquire knowledge, which happens to be the primary goal of Starfleet, are irrelevant so long as they satiate the incompressible neuro-chemical arrays the comprise us as they try their best to learn."

Then Picard apologizes for the uncharacteristic inarticulateness of his explanation, and the Audio-Sapicas return control of the ship. The replicator generates the most bombin' pair of headphones as Picard approaches and the credits roll.

 

[D.T.]

I thought the Mickey Mouse headphones were a joke - then I saw the front page.

Mickey Mouse is pretty iconographic across the globe, heck even as just a "logo" for Disney and all the properties they own, it's hard to dismiss the character's relevance. I saw something about the revenues generated by Disney from Mickey Mouse product sales, including licensing of the trademarks (character, "ears" logo, etc.) and it's astounding.

I'm not a buyer, and not "into Disney" (we don't even like the parks [vs. Universal]), I don't care how headphones look (as some of the most stellar cans on the planet aren't much to look at) but I get it.

Kind of Disney related (grad night ... *snicker*):

https://www.businessinsider.com/canada-legal-marijuana-sales-start-on-october-17-2018-10

 

[Lioness~]

I thought the Mickey Mouse headphones were a joke - then I saw the front page.

Anyway one would hope by the 24th century audio equipment would be super sophisticated.

I'm neither into Disney or anything similar, but I actually found them both fun and sophisticated cute
But I think they could've been done differently and more stylish.
If I needed headphones of that kind I could have bought them. No I don't.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Finally, I managed to write (and send) a report on the election I observed earlier this month.

With my heavy cold, this - normally something I would cheerfully sail through - turned out to be pretty hard work.

Okay: I have opened a robust bottle of French red wine (Vacqueyras - a next door neighbour to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and boasting the same, seductive, smooth, but robust richness, courtesy of the Grenache grape) to breathe happily to itself for the new couple of hours.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Preparing dinner.

The cherry tomatoes (anointed with olive oil, a little sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a soupçon of brown sugar, along with several unpeeled cloves of garlic) have been roasting in the oven for the best part of an hour at a low heat.

On the stove top, in an Italian copper sauté pan, the onions have been sautéing slowly; diced garlic has been added, and just now, the Italian spicy sausage - that will take at least a further half an hour or so.

Diced pancetta is really to be added when necessary.

 

[Apple fanboy]

We had roasted vegetables and chicken.
Red pepper, sweet potatoes and cauliflower.
Served with asparagus, cheese and a tomato based sauce.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Dinner went down well; actually, it was exceedingly tasty.

Mother ate every last morsel on her plate, as did I, and as did the carer.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Dinner went down well; actually, it was exceedingly tasty.

Mother ate every last morsel on her plate, as did I, and as did the carer.

Glad to hear it. I was still a bit hungry after mine, so I had some ambrosias creamed rice for pudding. Yum.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Glad to hear it. I was still a bit hungry after mine, so I had some ambrosias creamed rice for pudding. Yum.

Mother loves ambrosia's creamed rice.

Absolutely adores them.

They are on every weekly shopping list.

 

[Gutwrench]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

 

[chown33]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

If one takes pleasure in reason, then never. Or would that be "always"?

Just watched Chapter 31 of "The Good Place", wherein things both fall apart and come together, so feeling a bit, um, conundrumical at the moment.

 

[Apple fanboy]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

??? I’m obviously different. I’m motivated by a variety of things everyday.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

Possibly as one approaches the sense of ease and comfort (inhabiting your own skin) that you sometimes arrive at in middle age; but then, sometimes the demands of pleasure can ambush you unexpectedly.

 

[D.T.]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

Never? I guess my wife and I are a bit more hedonistic than your average "middle-agers"

 

[AngerDanger]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

I don't think they're mutually exclusive or entirely separate concepts. Reason, the following of logic, is useless without pleasure; my computer is 100% reasonable but does nothing of its own volition. Pleasure, a feeling of satisfaction, is reason contrived over millennia of evolution; it's the best way to get an incredibly intelligent species to not kill itself. In a pre-agrarian society, the desire to gorge endlessly drove nomadic humans to hunt and forage, but what was reasonable then leads to overeating now.

We use reason to get what we want, and we want what we do because our ancestors were able to pass on whatever didn't get them killed (unlike their counterparts).

If anything, we're like computers running programs that halt less, but these programs are so bloated and complex that we've mentally divorced them from reason itself, which the OP and its responses show. What pushed a species forward millions of years ago seems nearly incoherent to an individual member today.

Then there's the colloquial definition of "reason" which, similarly, seems to be "pleasure + time." If someone wants to make a lot of money, they could get a job now at a livable wage. If somebody else wants to make a lot of money, they could invest time into eduction, aspiring to later wealth. Both are pursuing their goals reasonably, but the latter requires more time.

Finally, even seemingly unreasonable people tend to pursue pleasure reasonably. Back to overeating: if somebody is hungry and wants to binge, they're more likely to take a reasonable approach (unless they're @LizKat ) than a dadaist approach (welding a car door to the side of an exposed girder on a dilapidated building sounds sooo delicious).

 

[Lioness~]

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

Think we incline to become more able to take pleasure in life’s different aspects as we mature.
Reason might have a purpose while we are too immature to actually know what pleasure is.

Pleasure in youth can often border to stupidity. Then reasons might have a purpose.
I think the most reasonable thing actually is to find lasting pleasure from life, not the short time pleasure.

 

[LizKat]

Finally, even seemingly unreasonable people tend to pursue pleasure reasonably. Back to overeating: if somebody is hungry and wants to binge, they're more likely to take a reasonable approach than a dadaist approach (welding a car door to the side of an exposed girder on a dilapidated building sounds sooo delicious).

I laughed so hard when I read that. In my unreasonable youth I lived for awhile with a guy who was a East Village sculptor of "found materials": rubble from demolished buildings, stuff put out as trash from little companies in the area, and yes, the odd car door or bumper.

Some stuffy kin of mine from the NYC suburbs had long considered another relative of ours, a jazz musician, who had introduced me to the artist, to be the black sheep of the family. Once they met my soon to be BF, my kin realized the East Village must be full of black sheep and were regretful that they'd ever even introduced me to my distant cousin. But in the grandeur of a reasonable 20-something in the 60s, I of course figured oh yeah, I'll show you a black sheep if you like, and so moved in with the dude to double down on my suburban kin's disapproval.

So... one of my household duties every week was to stand outside the street entrance to our East Village loft, and to ward off any would-be incoming residents while my BF "took out the garbage", preface to which was throwing leftover 70-pound pieces of I-beams and assorted sheet metal, plastic or lumber over the rail of the backstairs from the fourth floor. This so the stuff could be hauled out to the curb later on by the building's self-appointed porter, who I think may have worked mostly for dope, although all he ever got from us was food and wine, with a wary eye cast by me upon our (plated) silverware while he was at table with us and negotiating the price for special jobs like helping cart other street trash --uh, art supplies-- up to the fourth floor to begin with....

It all seemed eminently reasonable and certainly pleasurable at the time. After all, there's probably a max weight of leftover I-beams and other metal trash that a fourth-floor East Village loft's ancient floor joists could sustain. Plus it was fun hearing the horrendous crash of leftover art supplies as they landed on the concrete of the street level hallway. Another resident used to photograph the ensuing and temporary piles of stuff as "found art" for a book of installations he fancied himself putting together sometime...

"Those Were The Days..."

 

[AngerDanger]

It's been a few months, but I'm still getting used to saying "iPhone" instead of "iPod." Managed to snag an SE for $75, which has resulted in me occasionally dismounting my bike on a class four road just to watch a YouTube video, look up something mundane, or cache a song. It feels surreal to stand flanked by miles of overhanging trees and with an internet connection 3–4 times faster than my home ISP.

…
"Those Were The Days..."

I've modified my OP to accommodate.

 

[LizKat]

I've modified my OP to accommodate.

Duly noted!

At what point in life are we motivated by reason more than pleasure?

Oh, moments like being on a biweekly pay schedule while paying monthly bills and discovering that hey yeah this could be one of those months where the rent is due out next week and the paycheck to foot my half of it isn't due in until the week after that?

Ugh. Yeah. So I was capable of becoming stonily reasonable about putting money into a day-to-day savings account for at least a few pay cycles after one of those occasionally recurring experiences.

But, once the account looked like it could stand a hit for half the rent or better, I'd slack off what I then regarded as "donations" to my savings,,,, and would revert to having people over for dinner in the week before payday even if they were all freeloaders and "bring your own booze" meant they chipped in 40c apiece for a couple liters of the world's worst Chianti.

It took me another ten years to figure out that the best thing for me to do was establish a hidden and permanent reserve in my checking account that represented roughly a month's rent. I did that after a roommate eloped with her BF, leaving me a note about how exciting it was to be off to the wilds of New Mexico and how I should come visit once they got settled. She had left me looking at twice what I always figured was the most I'd ever have to come up with on short notice.

I was a slow learner but that lesson did finally put me into adulthood, where "pleasure" extends to stuff like being able to make the rent.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Duly noted!



Oh, moments like being on a biweekly pay schedule while paying monthly bills and discovering that hey yeah this could be one of those months where the rent is due out next week and the paycheck to foot my half of it isn't due in until the week after that?

Ugh. Yeah. So I was capable of becoming stonily reasonable about putting money into a day-to-day savings account for at least a few pay cycles after one of those occasionally recurring experiences.

But, once the account looked like it could stand a hit for half the rent or better, I'd slack off what I then regarded as "donations" to my savings,,,, and would revert to having people over for dinner in the week before payday even if they were all freeloaders and "bring your own booze" meant they chipped in 40c apiece for a couple liters of the world's worst Chianti.

It took me another ten years to figure out that the best thing for me to do was establish a hidden and permanent reserve in my checking account that represented roughly a month's rent. I did that after a roommate eloped with her BF, leaving me a note about how exciting it was to be off to the wilds of New Mexico and how I should come visit once they got settled. She had left me looking at twice what I always figured was the most I'd ever have to come up with on short notice.

I was a slow learner but that lesson did finally put me into adulthood, where "pleasure" extends to stuff like being able to make the rent.

Savings. The concept that alludes far too much of the population.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Savings. The concept that alludes far too much of the population.

People on zero contracts and part time work generally don't make enough to have any sort of savings. While savings are to be encouraged, they presuppose making some sort of a living wage, that there is a little bit of a surplus after food, rent/mortgage and other key bills have been attended to.

 

[Apple fanboy]

People on zero contracts and part time work generally don't make enough to have any sort of savings. While savings are to be encouraged, they presuppose making some sort of a living wage, that there is a little bit of a surplus after food, rent/mortgage and other key bills have been attended to.

I've earn't next to nothing in my past and have always spent less than I earn. Granted rent was much cheaper back then, but I learnt that if you have to sacrifice going out or the latest tech to save up for a bit, you can deal with most things that happen in life.
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.